by John Ringo
* * *
“Well, that was boring,” Faith said, reloading her pistols. “Just another bug hunt.”
“Game over, ma’am,” Curran said. “Game over!”
“I say we nuke the site from orbit,” Faith said, finished reloading. “It’s the only way to be sure.” She had an iPod bud in one ear and her comms in the other. She keyed the comm and held up a hand to Curran.
“Alpha Company, Shewolf. Lobby’s clear but this is going to be a bug. . . . Stand by . . .” She drew one of her pistols and fired off to the side, nailing the infected climbing out onto the baggage carousel. “This is going to be a bug hunt. We’re going to have to sweep the whole place. Roger . . . Roger, copy that.”
“Bug hunt time,” Faith said. “We’ve got Terminal A. Second’s got B and so on and so forth. Bravo is getting the gates closed and securing the perimeter. First job, clear up in here. Then find a security station with a really detailed map. Jan, take the port side, I’ll take starboard. Make sure your loads are up. Drink. Then let’s go get some . . .”
* * *
“Wheeee!” Faith said, sliding down the baggage carousel. She had her USP in a two-handed grip and was nailing infected as she slid. She was missing but that was to be expected. The angles were just insane.
She hit the slideway at the bottom on her back, padded by a recent kill, with infected coming from either direction. She dropped the empty USP, drew her chest pistols in each hand and started firing, looking back and forth and firing carefully.
“They need to make this an amusement park ride,” Faith yelled.
The platoon was farther up in the complex snake-maze of the baggage movement area. They were trying to cover their lieutenant but the intervening carousels made it nearly impossible. The up and down carousels twisted through the warehouselike baggage movement area like so many metal strands of spaghetti. There were essentially no clear sight-lines much less clear fire zones.
“Fisher,” Januscheitis said. “Get down there and cover the LT.”
“Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant,” Fisher said, hopping on the slide. “Look out below, ma’am!”
“Take port,” Faith said, getting up on one knee as Fisher slid in beside her. She dropped both empty pistols, switched to M4 and started firing to the right.
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Fisher said, getting up on a knee as well. He tried to ignore that he was in standard combat gear and kneeling in infected blood.
The slideway was nearly two stories up and, with the platoon moving down from above, the only reasonable way to access the two-some was along the slideway. Which was rapidly filling up with bodies.
“Scrummin’ time,” Faith said, letting the M4 pull back on its sling and drawing her kukri. She slid the knife across the first infected’s throat and hip-flipped him to the side to fall into the distance. But there was another infected behind that one. When it charged, she just tripped it and hip-checked it off the slideway. “Don’t fall.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” the PFC said. He was out as well and let the M4 withdraw then took a horse stance. “Fortunately, Staff Sergeant Bumwaldt was a Marine hand-to-hand instructor. It was about the only thing I learned in the warehouse besides that staff sergeants are total pricks, ma’am.”
He blocked the rush of the first infected and knife-handed it on the side of the neck, stunning it. Then he just pushed it off the slideway. He did the same thing with the next but reversed the direction. It was enough of a fall that they weren’t going to survive. Which he kept in mind was equally the case with himself.
Faith was, meantime, doing the same thing but with a knife not a hand. It was much bloodier. However, she could see infected crawling up from every direction. It wasn’t the thousands it looked like but it was too many for two to take on and they were way out in front. Fun as it was, this was getting out of hand.
“Jan, we could use more bodies down here,” Faith yelled. “Live Marine ones!”
“On the way, ma’am!”
“Note for the after action report, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, sharpening her kukri. “Clearance of baggage areas in airports should be done from the bottom, up, not the top down. And all personnel should wear full clearance gear. Should be considered confined space clearance.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. He pulled out his green notebook, wiped some blood off his hands, and made a note.
“Alpha, Shewolf. Unit needs to RTB for a wash down. We’ve got sticky mags. And, well, everything else . . .”
* * *
“The terminals appear to be mostly clear, sir,” Captain Frank Dobbins said. The commander of Alpha Company, First Infantry Battalion, First Marine Regiment, A/1/1, was the former commander of a similar unit at Lejeune and Faith’s company commander. “Chartreuse at least. Probably betas left but there always are. Clearing the bodies out will be . . . problematic.”
“Unless we can get the luggage system working again,” Faith said. “Then we just ship them to Houston to get lost . . .”
“You look like you could use a shower, Lieutenant,” Lieutenant Colonel Grant Dawson, the 1/1 commander, said.
“Had one, sir,” Faith said. “In gear. Could use another. Several. This stuff does not come off easy. It’s like you can never get it out of your hair. Definite item for the AAR: Do not clear baggage areas without full clearance gear.”
“Noted,” Colonel Dawson said. “I’m going to contact higher and declare the area clear for landing. We’ll lay low and hope the infected don’t swarm the fences till the rest of the gear gets here . . .”
* * *
“Remember trying to get the magazine on that Coast Guard cutter open?” Faith said, watching the unloading process.
The Bataan and three LCUs had supported the initial landing. Now the MPF ship USNS 2nd Lt. John P. Bobo, recently returned from the Pacific, was anchored just off the airport unloading over a “floating dock.” Track after track was rolling ashore, most of them towing artillery pieces or trailers loaded with artillery ammo.
The first unload had been seven tons with rolls of wire to “upgrade” the defenses of the airport. Marines were hard at work reinforcing the perimeter fence as well as building Combat Operations Bases scattered around the airport. Each would support a Marine company and one platoon of artillery. It had been decided to do it that way so the different COBs could provide supporting fire if one COB came under attack by massed infected.
The infected were out there, that was for sure. Despite all the fire from the gunboats, which was ongoing, and the fact that operations ceased at dark to avoid attracting them, they were gathering by the airport fences. The first part of the plan was leading them away so they didn’t have more bodies built up in the area.
You could smell the decay from the ones in the terminal despite being nearly eight hundred meters away and more or less upwind. That was one of the things drawing the infected: the smell of carrion. You’d think they’d go for some of the easier to access piles the gunboats had built. But if they were smart they wouldn’t be zombies, would they?
“The hard part is remembering that was less than a year ago,” Sophia said. Her bird was parked on the tarmac getting refueled. One of the first cargoes to go ashore was a forward air support team. That kept the crowding down on the Bataan, which was overloaded with helos. “But at the rate we’re going through ammo, we’re going to need to open every magazine on the planet.”
“That’s about to change,” Faith said, watching the artillery landing. “Let’s hope these things are as good as they’re cracked up to be.”
* * *
“Let me remind everyone that you need to have your hatches closed as soon as we near the golf course . . .”
Just getting there had been a nightmare. “Fast out, slow back” was not an option. Every road was blocked and often by “stuff” the helos had missed. Tracks could not cross whole trees blown down by storms. Or for that matter power poles downed by being hit by a truck. The truck might be off
the road but the power pole wasn’t.
They’d spent half their time driving through yards. Often with infected hammering the sides of the tracks. Fortunately, there was essentially no one who was not a veteran at this point. For green troops that was a bit nerve-wracking.
Tracks had gotten stuck and had to be towed off of hidden obstacles. While the infected were swarming. That had required a lot of rounds and a call to a Gunhawk to fix. Fortunately, they were doing this first run by day. Doing it at night would have meant scrumming. And with the infected density, that would have meant an LRI situation.
But they were finally approaching the golf course with Hell’s own pack of infected on their tail. There were . . . thousands. The last Gunhawk pass had been for video, not fire support. That had been uploaded to the Hole, where it was massaged by a computer and come back with better than fifty thousand infected, trotting along behind trying to get to the tasty treats.
Faith could believe it. She was observing them through her commander’s vision blocks.
“I need a read back from each track that they are closed up, tight,” Faith said. “Track One . . .”
When all the tracks had confirmed that they were closed up for the night, Faith switched to the fire control frequency.
“Fire Control, Fire Control, Alpha One, over,” Faith said.
“Fire Control.”
“Going to try to lead them down to the ninth tee,” Faith said. “Down by Glebe Road, break. Will call for fire when in the basket. Over.”
“Roger. Have that zeroed and are ready for fire for effect at your call, over.”
“Stand by,” Faith said, checking the GPS. It was hooked up to an external, unarmored, antenna so they were probably going to lose it as soon as the rounds came in. “Roger . . . How long on the time of flight, over?”
“Fifteen seconds, over.”
“Roger. . . .” Faith looked at the group, thought about where they were and shrugged. “Fire control, approximately fifty thousand targets on Target Point Nine, break. Fire for effect, over.”
“Fire for effect, out,” the firing battery called. “Shot, over.”
“Roger,” Faith said.
“Your response is ‘shot, out’ saying you heard that.”
“Shot, out,” Faith said.
“Splash, over.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s a splash,” Faith said as the variable timed artillery exploded over the heads of the infected. It wasn’t centered on the mass but it tore a huge chunk out of one wing. There was no clear reason, just pops of smoke overhead then . . . infected just fell. “Nice. Keep it coming, over.”
“That is what fire for effect means. You have five more stonks on the way, over.”
“I need somebody who actually knows how this works,” Faith muttered. The fire was tearing up the infected but most of them weren’t actually in the basket. About half the group of infected were making it past. Some of them were stopping to feed, the rest were just following the damned music. “Fire control, Alpha One, over.”
“Alpha One, Fire Control.”
“Most of them didn’t get hit, break,” Faith said. “I’m going to go right to Target Point Two, right on top of the point, and just park and let them swarm. Then scratch my back. We’ll see how that works, over.”
“Roger,” Fire Control answered a moment later. “Your call.”
“Maxim Twenty: If you’re not willing to shell your own position, you’re not willing to win,” Faith said. “Should be a lark. Switch to target point two . . .”
* * *
“Fire Control, Alpha One.”
“Fire Control,” Lance Corporal Paula Winters said. She looked over at the battery FDC chief. “Is it just me or did she sound nervous?”
“Nervous,” Staff Sergeant Lefre Delmont said. “She’s about to have fifteen rounds of one-five-five drop on her head.”
“Yeah, are you ready to fire on Target Point two, over?”
“Roger,” Winters replied.
“Now might be a good time, break. They’re sort of all over us. Like banging on my top hatch all over us. Over.”
“You have to call it,” Winters said, rolling her eyes.
“Fire Control, Alpha One. Fire for Effect, five times, stonks, whatever, target point two. Over.”
“Fire for effect, out,” Winters said, sending the command to the guns. There was a distant series of booms. “Shot, over.”
“Shot, out.”
“Splash,” Delmont said a few seconds later.
“Splash, over.”
“Yeah . . . Wow. Sounds like rain on a tin roof . . . Could you pass to support that the tracks are gonna need a wash down? Oh, and, tell your guys they rock. That got the rest of ’em. Over.”
“Any idea on total kills, over?” Winters asked.
“Twenty thousand or so in the two sets or whatever. Still quite a few left. We’ll roll and see if any follow. There’s feeders on the first set at Target Point Nine. I don’t know if you want to fire that up. Or . . . break. We’ll roll back there and park and you can fire us up again. How’s that work?”
“Up to you, over,” Winters said, shaking her head.
“We’ll figure it out. Always do. Oh, I think you blew up my speakers . . .”
* * *
“The main problem, besides the roads, was the artillery,” Faith said. “It worked great where it worked but the area of impact was too small. Fifty thousand people take up room. I don’t know for artillery but they’re either going to have to shift it around as they fire or more guns or something. That’s pretty much all I got. Oh, and if we have to back scratch every time, we’re going to need to armor up the speakers or something. Now that’s all I’ve got.”
“Fire support?” Colonel Dawson said.
“Right now we have one battery in support of our battalion, sir,” the fire support officer said. “We can have them do adjustment in fire. But it would seem we need more tubes in support.”
“All the batteries aren’t firing all the time,” Colonel Dawson said, making a note. “I’d suggest that we have all the batteries fire every time there’s a call rather than the support battery. But that will have to be a decision of higher. And we probably should send in an ANGLICO team to see how the fire is working and make adjustments. Do we have one available?”
“We have a member, sir,” the fire support officer said. “One for the MEU. ANGLICO took a bit of a hit in the plague, sir. But we should be able to send him along to see what’s what.”
“I’ll pass that up the chain, too,” Dawson said.
* * *
“Oooh,” Faith said as the brigade time-on-target hit. They’d gathered up another nice group of infected following them and the fire had hit direct on the mass. And it hit a much larger footprint, covering the entire group. “Splash, out. Good effect. Big mass of bodies. When you’re finished, we’ll finish off the survivors. Out.” She switched to the platoon frequency.
“Turn around and follow me. Use turret guns to clean up. Out.”
* * *
“You gotta hope these guys are okay with this,” Faith said over the intercom as Trixie rumbled through Arlington National Cemetery.
The normally well-kept grounds were overgrown with weeds and a fire had scorched many of the trees. Robert E. Lee’s house had burned to the ground.
Despite all that, they weren’t finding many infected in the area. Should have been prime stomping grounds for them.
“They understand, ma’am,” Decker replied. “Can’t you hear them, ma’am?”
“That is your gift, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said.
“These are not unquiet dead, ma’am,” Decker said. “This is usually a place of great peace. To lie here means that you have cast aside the burden of duty for the feather of honorable death. But they know the turmoil of our nation and have wished to rise to its defense could they again. We quiet them, ma’am, by the rumble and squeal of our treads and the thunder of our artillery, for they know the
nation is protected, still. It was only before our arrival that they were unquiet. I doubt that any infected could nest in these hallowed grounds.”
“Decker,” Faith said, her eyes misty. “Like the rest of us, I don’t know if you’re crazy as a bedbug or gone through crazy to some other side of insane sanity. But I’m glad you’re you.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Decker said. “The nice thing about ghosts is you always have someone to talk to . . .”
* * *
“I’d like to pass to the aviation people the request for an overfly and survey of the course before we go to free-fire tonight,” Faith said, looking at her notes. “I’d like to know which holes are sort of clear. The combination of blood and dirt is making things treacherous. We got an amtrack stuck on the ninth hole last night and that was no fun at all. And we need to figure out a way to tell platoons from Two One that when there’s a check fire on a hole it means that another unit is trying to extract an amtrack or something and to keep driving around in circles till the kill zone is clear. Not, let me repeat, NOT bring fifty thousand howling infected down onto the course while we are deployed hooking up towing cables, however funny this will seem in retrospect, and I quote. If there is a bar fight at the O club sometime this week, I hope you’ll understand why a certain platoon leader from Two One is in the hospital . . .”
* * *
“Time to go full rig,” Faith said, looking up at the Pentagon. There were infected. They’d survived. How many on the interior wasn’t as clear. “This ought to be a lark. And tell the wash point guys to be on standby; we’re gonna need it.”
“How’s it going, Lieutenant?” Colonel Ramos said.
Faith was at her “command post” deep in the bowels of the Pentagon. The mini-base had been set up with ammo, food and water resupply in a secured section of rooms in the Army portion of the massive building. Troops could rotate back from combat and get some rest before continuing clearance.
“Slow, sir,” Faith said. “This place makes a liner seem straightforward, and it’s hard to prevent infiltration. We’re getting constant leakers. Then there’s the damned security doors. Some of ’em you can barely scratch, sir.”