Strands of Sorrow

by John Ringo

  “Then neither of you have a thing to worry about,” the Vice President said, grinning. “But whoever obeyed the order to stop clearance operations may have a thing or two to answer for.”

  “Semper Fidelis, ma’am,” Faith said. “There were reasons. My da agreed to house arrest to keep her from charging everyone in the world with crimes against humanity, ma’am. Ma’am . . .” Faith frowned for a moment.

  “Rather than pull your party out, I should probably fight my way back to commo. There’s a Gunhawk driven by my sister up top. She can commo to Colonel Ramos that you’re here. That will give him the cover to break out. It’s pretty nasty out there, zombies, rats and nasty, stinking water, and we’ll have to fight our way to the surface. The staff sergeant and I can make it back topside. I’ve done weirder shit.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Staba said. “I barely got a chance to shoot zombies on the way in. But no throwing grenades like popcorn, Lieutenant. Got it?”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  * * *

  There was, unsurprisingly, a helipad on the roof of the FEMA building. Sophia had set down on it gently. Just because it was a helipad didn’t mean it was rated for a Gunhawk. But the building didn’t collapse. And the hatch was, for a change, locked.

  So she’d been sitting there for four hours, occasionally restarting the engine to keep it warm, hoping against hope for word from Faith. She intended to wait until someone flew in and told her to leave at gunpoint. So far, so good.

  “G . . . k . . . G . . . hawk . . . Wolf . . .”

  “This is Gunhawk Nine,” Sophia said. “Broken.”

  “Gunhawk . . . Got the . . . V . . .”

  “Faith, you’re broken and unreadable,” Sophia said, starting the engines. “Olga, Anna . . . I’ve got Faith.”

  “Thank God,” Olga said, test-firing her weapon.

  “Gunhawk, Shewolf, over.”

  “Hear you, Faith, over,” Sophia said.

  “Heading to roof with Vice President,” Faith said. There was a background of fire but that was normal for Faith. “You are going to fly her and her family out. Six packs. You got the lift, right?”

  “Vice President?” Sophia said. “And yes I do, over.”

  “Make that President,” Faith replied. “Already sworn in. Call ops. Order of the President, not, say again, not acting. Need extract for twenty-three, say again, two-three, packs. That is after you pick the President and her family up. Over.”

  “Roger,” Sophia said, grinning and changing frequencies. “Combat Ops, Combat Ops, Navy One. Say again . . . Navy One . . . Over.”

  EPILOGUE

  “But, Madame President,” Steve protested. “I had this great little island in the Mediterranean all picked out! Ponza. Beautiful place. Charming ruins. Blue grottoes. Saltwater pools the sharks can’t get to . . .”

  The White House was surprisingly clear—it had been evacuated and the gates locked during the Fall—but D.C. in general was horrible. So the President had repaired to the Festival Dawn. And for the foreseeable future, the capital was going to be Jacksonville. D.C. was still too rife with infected. Guards would be left at critical points, notably the White House, the Capitol and Arlington, but once their resumed clearance ops were done, they were pulling out.

  “Too bad, Steve,” Rebecca said. “Duty calls. You’re probably right that Project Subedey is too large and complex for your skill sets. Certainly for your interest. So we’ll be handing it off to others. And we’re going to change some titles around. I’ve been reading all the histories as well as the documentaries and who has turned up. So these are my first executive orders.

  “General Montana is coming back east. He will reactivate his lieutenant generalcy and become CINCONUS as well as Commander-in-Chief Joint Forces, none of this ‘chief of staff’ bullshit. We’ll be working closely with him. General Hammond will be CINCARMY, which will be a major general position. Since most of the mission for the Army will involve genocide rather than battle, I’m sure that the former commander of Army Materials Command can run it. If he can’t, I’ll find someone who can. Admiral Soames will take over as CINCPAC, Commodore. Admiral Hiscock will become CINCLANT and CINCNAVY, rear admiral. General Ramos will be Marine Commandant, brigadier.

  “General Brice will take over managing the Subedey construction and management programs. And, yes, we will be proceeding with Subedey. Brilliant, by the way. Air Force will be stood down for the foreseeable future. Key West agreement is out the window. Navy will handle all cargo aircraft. All Naval Aviation continues to be Navy, for the time being at least. Army can have fixed wing if they have a justifiable use for them but transport aircraft are Navy.

  “I’m going to partially forgive Colonel Downing, move him to Navy as a captain, give him a small but reasonably sized task force, about the size of what you had in the Canaries, and send him to the Indian Ocean. We have bases there that need clearing. He’ll be the IO Squadron commander. We have a lot of gear and people between Diego Garcia and all the bases in the Gulf. We need to see if we can get any of that back. Diego will be the permanent base for that.”

  “If I may, ma’am,” Steve said. “Thank you. I know that Faith has felt bad about how that worked out, and Colonel Downing is not that bad an officer. It was just an unfortunate incident.”

  “Which is why I’m doing it,” Staba said. “IO is not by any stretch a great posting but it’s an important one. If for no other reason, we need the pre-po site on Diego. Those are permanent positions. Even if other flag rank officers turn up, we’re not going to keep slotting them in higher. I’ll be appointing appropriate Secretaries who will be acting until we get advice and consent. I’m also going to unofficially go back to the old terms. Screw this ‘Department of Defense’ stuff. We’re back to the Departments of War, Navy and Army. I’ll include the commandant as one of my advisors.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Steve said. “But I don’t see where I fit in there.”

  “I considered reactivating Wolf Squadron as our goodwill ambassadors to the rest of the world,” Staba said. “Anyone with a radio apparently knows who you are. But right now we’re primarily going to be concentrating on the U.S. I’ll send forces and supplies to our allies, absolutely. But clearing the U.S. has priority. However, I was in a hole for a year and probably will never be caught up on details of who is what and what is important. And you did resign, right? So you’re a civilian, now. Who do you think I want for my Secretary of War, Steve?”

  “Ick, yuck!” Steve said. “I was getting tired of sitting at a desk in Gitmo! And I thought the force size was getting beyond my reach! Now you want me to be in charge of the whole damned thing? What about Secretary Galloway?”

  “Secretary of the Army,” Staba said. “And you’ll be working directly with General Montana. You can feel free to lean on him. It’s not the vast force we once were. You’ll do fine. I don’t have a person in mind for Secretary of the Navy. That is one place where I’ll need your advice.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Steve said. “Anthony Connor, ma’am.”

  “Who?” Staba said.

  “One of the gentlemen we picked up in St. Barts, ma’am,” Steve said. “Like Zumwald and Isham, he was a bit of an arse at first. Former CEO of a large defense contractor after a twenty-year career as a surface warfare officer. He had retired to St. Barts. He’s been running most of the civilian side of the ship refurbishment programs. And doing so extremely well. The only reason the Bataan got up and going as fast as it did was his work. He’s the right guy for the job, in my opinion, ma’am.”

  “I’ll need to meet with him,” Staba said.

  “He’s at Mayport, ma’am,” Steve said. “I’m sure you’ll get along. He’s not the arse that most defense contractors tended to be. Sharp as a whip and very dedicated to the nation, ma’am.”

  “Sounds good,” the President said. “Again, need to meet him, first. Then there’s the really important appointment of Vice President.”

  “I don’t have
the requirements, ma’am,” Steve said. “And I hope you’re not thinking your husband, Madame President. That would be . . . an awful precedent.”

  “Not Dave,” Staba said, grinning. “I agree it’s a bad precedent, and he wouldn’t want the job. And you don’t have the qualifications. But Stacey does. I don’t intend to die but if I do, your wife takes over. We cannot, again, get advice and consent. But I will have each of the upper echelon swear to follow her lead until a regular election. Even if Secretary Sovrain or any other potential ‘acting President’ we may find throws a hissy fit.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” Steve said.

  “You wanted a stout ship and a star to sail her by, Mister Secretary,” the President said. “That’s going to have to wait.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Steve said.

  “And it will allow you some family time,” the President said. “Since you took all the aviators away from the Marines, I’ll have to be flown by the Navy. Guess who one of my pilots is going to be?”

  “She really is not . . . tremendously experienced, ma’am,” Steve said.

  “She’s experienced enough to have pulled me off a roof when everyone else was dutifully following orders,” Staba said. “She’ll do. As a copilot at least. And I need a platoon leader for my Marine Guards. I think Faith needs a little dialing in on certain aspects of being an officer, and that will give her a chance. The Marine dress blues are quite pretty, even the officer ones. They’re even flattering on women.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” Steve said, wincing. “Her deportment and tact are not . . . Faith has no tact, ma’am.”

  “That is what I’m looking for, Steve,” Rebecca said. “This is a world of pain. I’m not even going to vaguely sugar-coat that. This is blood, toil, tears and sweat time. Tomorrow we relight the flame of the Unknown Soldier. We will be burying next to the others a body identified as a Marine from the Pentagon to represent all the servicemen and women we lost to the Plague and the battles with infected. She’s only recognizable as a probable Marine by her tattoos. And she was an infected. We may need to kill them off to save our nation, but they were our people, too.”

  “Absolutely agree, ma’am,” Steve said.

  “There will be an armed guard, Marine for now, marching twenty-one beats at post. The first such being Staff Sergeant Decker who will be the NCOIC for the guards. We will rotate in Marine platoons from combat duties to guard the Flame until we can stand up the Old Guard again.

  “But Decker will only be able to march, unhindered by zombies, due to more guards, not in pretty dress blues but full battle rattle, surrounding him and piling up the infected attracted to The Flame. That has to end. It will take people like yourself and your children to do that. I don’t intend to be stuck in Mayport the whole time. I shall go and visit the other states, no matter how much force that takes. The only way to visit my constituents in Texas will be to roll hot onto an infected held beachhead. And I will be going forward with the Marines whether it is by helo or amphibian. If it is by helo, Seawolf will be a pilot and if it is by amphib Shewolf will be in charge of the Marines. I don’t need the perfectly polished Annapolis grad for that. I need Faith and Sophia. Like Grant, they fight. And so do you and Stacey. Which is why I need you, this nation that you chose over the nation of your birth needs you, still. All of you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Steve said.

  “We are going to retake our nation,” the President said, looking out the window of the cabin. “We are going to save whoever is left. We are going to bring everyone we can find . . . home.”

  The fires were burning again on the Mall. They would burn for years. Incendiary piles of the infected, a light in the darkness, beacons of smoke and flame showing the way back home.

  THE END