by Glynn James
Drake bounded down the stairs to the Ops room. “Status!” he bellowed.
One of the duty officers, puffy headphones on, answered, “It’s the Greyhound. She’s coming in on final approach, whether we’re ready or not. Running on fumes, sir.”
“Can you get her down?”
“It would help a lot if we controlled Pri-Fly,” the officer said tightly, referring to Primary Flight Control, on the top level of the island. “But we can do it from here. Especially since we've got no choice…”
Just as Drake felt he was reaching maximum cognitive capacity, Gunnery Sergeant Fick stomped into the room, reeking of cordite, and streaked with soot and droplets of blood. His scarred and scowling face was a mask of frustration. “Goddammit,” he said, striding up. “Sir. Those bastards are dug in like Alabama ticks. I’ve got multiple casualties. And now my men are desperately needed to try and control this zombie outbreak. If we don’t deal with that, we’re all done for.”
Drake remembered to draw breath. “And if we don’t stop the ship from crashing into land, this vessel is done for… And, fuck me, if we don’t refuel this plane to extract the away team, the human race is probably finished…” He felt as if his brain were stewing in its own juices. But he took another breath, mastered himself – and gave orders.
“Gunnery Sergeant Fick – redeploy all your men here to battle the zombies. Get the outbreak under control – whatever that entails. They fight as a team.”
“Sir.” Fick started to turn.
“But they fight without you. You’re going with Martin and Wesley. You get them safely to the reactor room.” Fick knew as well as Drake that this was a heavily armored, heavily restricted area dead in the middle of the ship. But he didn’t seem daunted.
“And you, Commander?” Martin asked.
“I’m going to get that plane down – and, God willing, back up again.” The others looked at him. “We might make it here, and we might not. But if we get that bird in the air, then at least those men in Chicago have a chance. And so does humanity.”
He was already turning away toward the operator at the control station.
* * *
After dashing upstairs, leading his men as they withdrew and broke contact with the Zealots, and retasking them to assault the burgeoning ranks of zombies, Fick returned to the Ops Center and rounded up Martin and Wesley. He’d rearmed out of a weapons locker, 18 full magazines of 5.56 for his M4. He gave four of them to Martin, who still had Drake’s rifle, and who shoved them in his pockets. Nobody had any spare ammo for Wesley’s pistol, so Fick gave him his sidearm, with two spare mags. He squared up and gave orders to his new two-man command.
“Listen up. We’re going to be moving hard and fast – and fluid. Stay on me. Stop for nothing. Your sector will be everything between my eight o’clock and four o’clock – that’s behind me. Okay? If you have to take a shot, take it with authority and move on. You should know whether a headshot is required. If you shoot a loyal sailor by mistake, that will suck for him, and also for you. But it doesn’t matter. We are moving to save the ship. Everything else is secondary – including and in particular us. Understood?”
The two Brits nodded.
Fick paused and seemed to grow thoughtful, then looked to Martin. “Well, not you, actually. You’re the only son of a bitch who knows how to stop this crazy thing. Okay – on me! Go, go, go!”
The three of them spilled down the exterior stairwell of the island and onto the flight deck.
MARSOC marines were already pushing out a perimeter. The dead were mostly down; and any sailors who might have been Zealots were suddenly acting like they weren’t. (One problem with a fucking mutiny, Fick thought. No real way to tell who’s who…) The three crossed a hundred meters of deck in a tight knot, then descended through the same hatch from which Martin and Wesley had so recently been greeted by fire and death.
Fick had his rifle pulled in tight to his shoulder, eye down to his EOTech holo-sight, swiveling at the hips, covering almost 180 degrees. Every marine is a rifleman, they say. The other two did their best to stay close behind him. And to make sure no one else did.
* * *
“You can do this,” Drake uttered into the desk mic, leaning in over it. He was talking to the Greyhound pilot still circling above. “Arresting wires are up. And the deck is mostly clear. You’re just going to have to catch the first wire. It’s the only way you’ll have enough clear deck to stop.”
“Copy that,” said the Navy pilot, perfectly poised and professional, as military aviators tend to be even in the most nerve-shredding circumstances. “We’re coming down one way or another. State zero plus zero one to splash.” This meant he had one minute of fuel left. “But negative on deck landing. Seas are choppy – and if I go for the first wire, and the boat rises so much as two feet on a swell, we’ll be eating stern. No, we’re going to punch out and ditch it.”
Drake jammed the transmit button. “Negative, negative. Be advised – you are the only aircraft with the endurance to extract our team in contact. You are going to put that aircraft on the goddamned deck, we are going to tank it, and you are going to go get those men. Acknowledge!”
There was only the shortest pause on the other end.
“Roger that. We are inbound on short final.”
Drake swatted the desk mic away from him, and it tumbled over.
He stepped out onto the balcony to check their position in the water.
North America was coming at them way too fast.
* * *
Fick took a round right between his shoulder blades, luckily in the ceramic plate in the back of his tactical vest. He spun on a dime and snap-fired one into the head of the Zealot behind them. A dead man lurched out of a cabin and fell on the man he’d just shot. Fick drilled it in the head.
He gave Martin and Wesley a look like: What the fuck are you guys doing back there?
But the passageways were narrow and twisting and dim, and very perilous. And despite being responsible for the marine’s back, they couldn’t really keep their gaze turned around behind them. They were simply moving too fast. Fick did a lightning tactical reload and took off again. The other two dashed in pursuit before he got out of sight.
They reached another ladder and descended. And again. This new level looked deserted.
But when they got in the vicinity of the reactor, they quickly determined that it hadn’t been taken by the Zealots.
It had been taken by the dead.
At least they won’t know how to sabotage it, Martin thought mordantly.
The three of them spread out and started trying to clear the area.
Now, this, Wesley thought, almost happily, I know how to do.
Zombie fighting. It was becoming old hat for him now.
* * *
A carrier landing deck has four arresting wires, one of which a pilot must snag with his tailhook in order to bring his aircraft safely down and to a stop – on a strip that would otherwise be far too short for it. There are four wires because they are damned hard to hit, more so in rough seas. And even more so with a three-way mutiny and zombie battle going on all over the ship.
Pilots almost always go for the third wire – because the first two are uncomfortably close to the edge. Undershoot one of those, or have the ship rise on a wave, and you’ll crash into the stern. But a bunch of even worse alternatives were making this one look pretty appealing. The pilot caught the first wire, on his first pass – which was good because he wasn’t going to get another one. The bird screeched to a halt. Deck crew dashed out to assist the pilot, secure the plane to the deck, and to start refueling it.
The two pilots came tumbling out the cabin door, helmets still on, looking in every direction like they were in a fright house – which they were. Fires still burned, shots rang out, and the dead could still be heard to moan, amidst the screams of men. They raced through smoke to the island, just to take shelter until the Greyhound was ready to launch again.
&nb
sp; * * *
Okay, Wesley mentally amended, turning a corner with his pistol held outstretched in both hands. Maybe not old hat. He’d never fought zombies in what was basically a dungeon.
He heard shots ring out periodically – the hard snaps of the 5.56mm assault rifles. He hadn’t fired his pistol yet. He was responsible for clearing the area closest to where they’d come in, on the fore side. Martin was aft. And Fick was right in the reactor center. Wesley thought maybe their shots had drawn them all from the whole deck.
“Wesley!” He jumped three inches at the sound of his name echoing down the deck.
“Yes!” He craned his neck, and peered down the hall.
“Are you clear th—” A gray face resolved out of the darkness, four feet in front of his head, mouth open, arms outstretched, and translucent eyes shining. It was on him in a fraction of a second. Wesley brought his handgun back up and triggered off four rapid rounds. They caught the dead sailor across the chest and midsection and knocked it back a foot – enough room for Wesley to master himself. And make the headshot.
“Wesley! You there?”
He shook his head to clear it. His mouth was almost totally dry, and his voice cracked when he tried to yell back. “Ye— yes. I think I’m clear.”
He stepped over the twice-dead corpse, and ran to the sound of the others. By the time he arrived, Martin was bringing down first one reactor and then the other.
“Starting a nuclear reactor is quite complex,” he narrated, moving from one station to the other. “And running it in production can be demanding, and dangerous. But the designers and manufacturers make shutting them down pretty easy.” He used a key to open up a covered switch. It read “Emergency Shutdown Enable”. He flicked it. Then he pulled a large, conspicuous, two-stemmed red lever on the wall.
“For reasons that might be guessed.”
* * *
Drake was debriefing the two Greyhound pilots when he felt it – the immensely powerful rumble that always seized the ship when she was underway, the thrum of the enormous engines, was now fading away. He stuck his head out the door. The wind was slowing. And the rate of their approach toward the spit of land started to slow.
But he didn’t think it was slowing enough.
Never mind, he thought. He looked to the fuelers out by the plane, with their enormous articulated hoses, and the hazy penumbra of jet fuel vapor around them. He caught one’s eye. The man gave him a thumbs-up. Drake ducked back inside.
“Gentlemen,” he said. (Naval aviators were always, by proclamation, officers and gentlemen.) “You’re good to go.” The two rose in their flight suits and followed him out. Drake stopped up on the second-floor balcony and watched them descend. They hit the flight deck and began to trot out toward the waiting aircraft.
And then something else caught his eye. No, he heard it first.
It was one of the four enormous deck-edge elevators, which were used for moving aircraft from the hangar deck up to the flight deck and back down again. Drake racked his brain for why one of these would be coming up. God knows they weren’t scheduled to move any aircraft.
And then he saw. The elevator was covered with the dead.
Scratch that, there were a few living – mostly being fed on. Those were probably the ones who had actuated the elevator – using it to try and escape. But they hadn’t gotten away quickly enough. Fast these elevators were not, and the dead had followed them on. Now it was a hydraulic charnel house. As it appeared, almost level with the deck, one of the living tried to haul himself over to safety. As it came level, the dead there sensed the living on the flight deck.
And they all flooded out.
Shots began ringing out – from both the loyalists, and the Zealots on the bridge.
Drake turned his gaze to the two pilots. They were very aware of what was going on – and now running flat out toward the (relative) safety of their aircraft. Drake ducked back inside, grabbed a rifle and went back out. All was madness – more mixed up and panicked than it had been before. He made out the aviators – still on their feet. He looked for zombies.
Oh shit, he thought, seeing one that had clocked the pilots. He tried to draw a bead, through the roiling smoke, through the adrenaline, over the rolling deck. He fired – missed. Fired and missed again. Now the zombie reached the co-pilot, and grabbed with both hands and bit. Fuck! Drake fired again. The zombie’s head turned to spray. The co-pilot fell down along with it. The pilot, who had been looking back, turned forward again, put his head down, and reached the plane. He climbed in and slammed the door behind him.
“Thank God,” Drake whispered. And thank God it only took one to fly that thing. And mostly thank God that, with no men or equipment aboard, that plane could get off the deck without the catapult. Both prop engines spun up, and the pilot rolled it out, right over the wheel blocks. He turned, taxied, looking for a clear lane down the deck. He didn’t quite find it and so instead went straight into two zombies, shredding them through the propellers. He accelerated rapidly after that, dropped off the edge of the deck, rose again, and turned his nose inland.
Drake smiled.
The horrifying, cosmic grind of the bottom of the ship smashing and scraping into the sea bottom stopped everyone in their tracks. Drake’s smile melted away.
The John F. Kennedy had floundered.
They were run aground.
CONTACT
Handon re-tasked Juice. Instead of helping Predator take a dump, he went to work with Dr. Park in trying to transmit all of his research data out of there and back to the JFK. The two had disappeared to the trading room, carrying Park’s laptop and the team’s long range radio transmitter. Now they returned to the living area where the others were tabletop-gaming ideas for getting out of the Exchange Center alive. Which they’d actually only need to bother with if they managed to contact the carrier and arrange their air extraction.
“No dice, boss,” Juice said. “I don’t think anyone’s receiving on the data channel, either. At least, I got no acknowledgement. There’s no way to be sure any of it went out. I’ll keep trying. But right now it’s looking like we’re just going to have to walk this stuff out.”
Handon took this in. He was used to missions where things frequently went from bad to worse to “you’re fucking kidding me.” But now, not only were they buried under a sea of the living dead – but so was the last, best hope for the world, a chance at a cure. And so now the operators’ fates were tied to that of every other living person left. Handon needed to do what he’d done so many times before: dig down deeper.
It just felt like there wasn’t much left down there anymore.
Well, he thought, it’s just one more goddamned thing. And it’s not the end of the world. This last thought amused him and raised his spirits. Also, he remembered, twenty minutes ago they thought they were all dead. Now at least they were safe in this bunker. For a while.
“What’s that smell?” It was Park, looking around, and looking worried.
Then Handon noticed it. “Smells like engine exhaust… C02.”
Juice stepped over to an air vent. “Yep. Coming from here.”
“The diesel generator, out in the hall,” Handon said. “Could it be malfunctioning?”
Juice snorted. “What, after five HE explosions in close quarters, and now with an army of smushed zombies pressed all around it? Yeah, maybe.” He turned to Park. “Where does the exhaust from that thing normally go?”
“I don’t know—”
“Never mind,” Handon said. “Shut it down. Now!”
Park nodded and dashed off. When he returned, he said expectantly, “Done. Better?”
But it wasn’t better. Now they could all smell acrid smoke. And within a few seconds, they could see it visibly drifting in through the vent.
“Too late,” Juice said. “It must have shorted. And maybe sparked something flammable nearby…”
“Zombie clothing?” Ali suggested. “Or Ainsley clothing. What happens when
it hits Ainsley’s ammo, or grenades?”
“Forget the ammo,” Juice said. “There’s a whole depot of diesel fuel out there.”
Handon went to the door and pressed his hand against it. It was stove-top hot. “Where’s the other entrance to this place?”
“On the other side of the bunker,” Park said. “But we can’t get out that way either. It leads up into the Exchange. And the building’s completely enclosed in dead.”
“Fuck,” Handon spat, looking around helplessly.
“Mortem One, this is Grey Goose Zero. How copy? Mortem One, Grey Goose Zero.” This leaked out of the radio earpiece hanging on Handon’s chest. Everyone in the room heard it. Handon jammed the earpiece back in and pressed his transmit bar.
“Grey Goose, this is Mortem One Actual. Interrogative – what is your location and status?”
“Mortem One, Gray Goose. I am inbound for extraction point alpha, Chicago Miegs Airfield. ETA 35 minutes. But be advised – I have just enough fuel to touch and go. After about one minute on the ground at engine idle, I will be at bingo fuel. So you had better be on the spot and ready to get out of Dodge. How copy, over.”
Handon’s expression stayed neutral. “Mortem One copies all.” That was great – their ride was inbound on a totally do-or-die schedule. And there was still no way for them to get through the army of dead outside to the extraction point. Oh, and they also couldn’t stay where they were, because the building was burning down.
“Fuck,” he repeated.
A not-quite-muffled explosion rocked the back door, from out in the hall. Probably one of Ainsley’s grenades. The smoke coming in through the vent grew thicker and darker.
“Fuck.”
Now several people were saying it.
But everyone was thinking it.
* * *
Henno wasn’t given to speechifying. But now he stood, picked up Dr. Park’s laptop, pointed toward the back exit, and spoke.
“The man just outside that door sacrificed himself – and he didn’t do it to save you lot. He did it for the whole world. For his children. So just maybe they’ll have a world to grow up in. And we fucking well will get this vaccine out of here and back to Britain.”