by Jeff Thomson
Guardians of the Apocalypse
Book Three: Pirates and Zombies
a novel by Jeff Thomson
Copyright 2018, Twisted Synapse Books/Jeff Thomson, West Haven, UT
Library of Congress 1-7121665331
All Rights Reserved
Cover Art created by
The idea for this story was suggested by the scenario posited in John Ringo’s Black Tide Rising series; (Baen Books, Wake Forest, NC). As such, there are similarities: both are Military Theme Zombie Fiction, both take place in a marine environment, and both involve a viral outbreak. The plot, characters, locale, branch of service, and focus are all different. Some of the science is the same, but science is science, and you can’t just make stuff up. Having said that, the author believes in giving credit where credit is due, so thank you Mister Ringo. Well done, sir. You can find his books on Baen.com and Amazon.com
Thanks also to Mr Lane Keely, and Ms Lisa Hillman, and Ms Pamela Troupe-Jones for being beta readers, along with an extra special thank you to Mr Jim Barber for his continued support and assistance in my writing efforts. You are all my heroes.
Feel free to contact the author:
This book is dedicated to the nine men I knew personally, who died in service to their country, while saving other people’s lives:
LT Laurence B. Williams (CG Aviator #2887)
LT Mark E. Koteek (CG Aviator #3113)
ASMCS Peter A. Leeman (CG Rescue Swimmer #147)
AM1 Michael R. Gill
LT Jeffrey F. Crane (CG Aviator #3188)
LTJG Charles W. Thigpen IV (CG Aviator #3310)
AD3 Richard L. Hughes
ASM3 James G. Caines (CG Rescue Swimmer #425)
BM2 David Bosley
They were and are and always will be my heroes.
And by the way, every person these men went out to rescue survived.
Any resemblance to anyone living or dead (or a zombie) is purely coincidental - except where it’s not (and those people know who they are and have graciously allowed me this bit of literary identity theft).
And thanks, finally, to the readers. The first tow books in this series, You’re Never Ready for a Zombie Apocalypse, and Zombies in Paradise have performed much better than I expected The reason is simple: You. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading. As for the future, I hope you stay with me on this wild and (hopefully) entertaining ride. Keep supporting Independent writers and publishers. Help us show the self-important and out of touch agents and traditional publishers that their way is outdated, and their days are numbered. Damn the man!
1
USS Paul Hamilton
12.739952N 165.2581586W
“We need a way to fight these bastards,” Lieutenant Commander George Abernathy was saying for the twelve thousandth time. Okay...Bit of an exaggeration, but it certainly felt like that many times to Fire Control Technician - Aegis (FCA), Second Class, Morris Minooka, as he sat on the steel deck in the lower hold, into which he and the survivors of the Hamilton had been thrown by the pirates.
And they were pirates. Morris had no illusions on that score. He’d need to be a drooling idiot to ignore all the people they’d killed. They’d been his shipmates. A few had been his friends. Most he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about, truth be told, but that didn’t matter now. What did, was the constant drone of LCDR Abernathy’s voice.
“We must retake our ship,” the man was saying - again.
“How?” Morris asked.
“What?” Came the reply.
“How are we supposed to retake this ship?” He clarified. “There are thirty-two of us left, out of a crew of two-hundred and eighty,” he said, ticking his answers off on his fingers. The number gave him pause. Thirty-two. Only thirty-two. Most had either caught the virus and turned, or been eaten by those who had. Several more had been killed when the nuke went off. And then there were the pirates...
“We have no weapons,” he continued. “The pirates, as you call them, have automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and they’ve proven that they have no qualms about using them.” A visible shudder ran through the crowd. They were spread throughout the center section of the hold, in a wide area, situated below a large hatch in the deck above, used for lowering cargo into the compartment.
Kim Bindleman, sitting to his left, an Operations Specialist assigned to the Weapons Department, gave him an encouraging nudge. That this sent a shudder through his own body - for an entirely different reason - was a fact not lost on him. Neither was his slowly growing erection. The young woman gave outstanding handjobs, which she’d been demonstrating since before the world went to shit. But that - also - didn’t matter now (later, maybe, but not now - please not now), because he needed to concentrate.
He focused his mind on the task at hand, internally shook his head to clear it of the mental image the phrase, task at hand, called into Technicolor being within his brain, and carried on with his argument.
“And they claim to be representatives of the acting President of the United States,” he added. “So yes, sir. How?”
“Well...” Abernathy sputtered. He always sputtered, whenever anyone interrupted his perpetual party-line screeds. The Lieutenant Commander was the Weapons Officer, and, therefore, Morris’s Department Head. Before the plague, before the detonation of that nuke, before the pirates arrived and started killing the people who didn’t demonstrate they could be useful, the man had denied Morris a promotion, thanks to a bad eval, in which he claimed Morris was unmilitary, undisciplined, and uncooperative. None of these were true. Okay...Maybe the unmilitary comment hadn’t been entirely off the mark, but so what? Yes sir, aye-aye sir, may I kiss your ass, sir? Giving forced respect to Naval Academy ass-wipes who hadn’t, and didn’t deserve it... Fuck them, and fuck him, he thought, as he listened to the man drone on with his exhortations to the troops, which he’d given more times than Morris could count.
And they were always the same: Blah, blah, blah, America. Blah, blah, blah, the Navy. Blah, blah, blah, the Constitution. Over and over again, ad infinitum - even before the zombie apocalypse. It was like the Naval Academy had surgically implanted military-themed Hallmark platitudes directly into his cerebellum.
“And might I also add - with respect, of course - the question: Why?” Morris added.
“What?” Gunners Mate First Class, Ernie Swoboda asked, incredulous. Morris turned to look at him. The guy (also a member of the Weapons Department - most of the survivors seemed to be from Weps, which should be a clue as to what the pirates had in mind) was a bit of a dick, as befitting his senior-enlisted rank, but otherwise hadn’t been all bad. For the time being, anyway, Morris wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Look at our current situation, Ernie,” he said, blowing off the traditional tone of respect normally required in conversations between junior and senior. Swoboda scowled, but otherwise didn’t say anything. “We’re outnumbered, we’re outgunned, we could very well be fighting against the Controlling Legal Authority, if what they’ve said about the President is true,” he continued, again counting off reasons on his fingers. “And in case you haven’t noticed, the world outside this ship is well and truly fucked. The United States is gone. It no longer exists.” He paused to let the idea sink in - to everybody’s mind. But before he could continue, Abernathy seemed to regain his line of thought.
“That’s sedition!” The Lieutenant Commander declared.
“No,” Kim Bindleman said in reply. “It’s common sense.”
“And given the pirates’ obvious willingness to kill anyone who doesn’t cooperate,” Morris adde
d. “It means we might be risking our lives for something that doesn’t exist any more.” He paused again for dramatic affect. “So I repeat, sir,” the last word dripping with as much contempt as he could muster for the ass-hat. “Why?”
Morris scanned the room, trying not to be too obvious. A few were nodding. More than a few seemed to shine the light of dawning realization in their shocked eyes. This was important. The next move would be crucial.
2
Medical Clinic
Midway Atoll
“Think long and hard about your next move,” Jim Barber said, the Colt 1911, .45 caliber pistol not wavering in his right hand. LTjg Zack Greeley, copilot of the US Coast Guard helicopter 6585, blinked and remained motionless.
“I’d do what he says, Zack,” Stephanie Barber said, in an impassive voice. “He’s sleep-deprived, I’m his daughter, and you sincerely fucked up.” She had the dubious distinction of being the defacto Mad Scientist on Midway, thanks to the forced departure of Professor Christopher Floyd - the real Mad Scientist - to Honolulu. She almost felt sorry for the handsome aviator. Almost.
Greeley, along with Aviation Survival Technician, Second Class, Kyle Rogers, standing motionless nearby, tried to Shanghai her, and bring her to the CG Icebreaker Polar Star, which sat fifty-odd miles off the Atoll. Their crew, by benefit of having been in Antarctica during the initial stages of the Pomona Virus outbreak, were uninfected. They wanted Stephanie to make sure they remained so. At the moment, however, she wasn’t feeling too cooperative.
She held the unique position of being the only person within a thousand miles who could make the vaccine. Without it, odds were real good the one hundred twenty-three people on The Star would turn into zombies.
Not real zombies, of course - no such thing. They weren’t dead, they weren’t undead. They weren’t strictly human, either. The virus attacked the frontal lobe, destroying all higher brain function, while at the same time, hitting the amygdala - the so-called “Lizard Brain” - with what amounted to an overdose of electrochemical hormones, turning the victims into raving, pissed-off, sometimes naked, always hungry, homicidal maniacs. There was no cure.
There was, however, a vaccine, created by extracting virus bodies from the spinal tissue of infected former-humans, spinning them like mad in a centrifuge, filtering the remnant through a separation medium, adding de-ionized water, hitting this with the appropriate dose of radiation for a precise amount of time, and voila: vaccine. Stephanie had the recipe, as it were. No one else did - at least no one within easy range.
She laid her hand on her father’s arm. “Put the gun down, Dad.”
“Like Hell,” he replied.
“They’re not going anywhere,” she soothed, giving Zack her most charming smile. Stronger men have melted under its spell. “Are you?”
“No, Ma’am,” the copilot replied, showing his alarmingly white teeth.
“And if they do, Mister Walton can shoot them,” she added.
“Quite so,” Harvey Walton exclaimed, from his position against the wall nearest the laboratory door. The British ex-pat civilian pulled a pistol from his own shoulder rig, and held it in front of his crotch, pointed downwards, while bouncing on his toes with enthusiasm. He was a decent enough man, in Stephanie’s estimation - in spite of being functionally insane. He was also pilot of the seaplane Wallbanger, which, at the moment, sat in the harbor with a smoking engine, covered in dry CO2, after her father doused it to avoid the unpleasant possibility of it exploding.
“Dad...” she said again, waiting for him to lower the weapon. After a pregnant pause filled with the appropriate degree of menace, he did. She smiled again, and began to walk slowly around the makeshift laboratory, running her fingers along the stainless steel operating table as she passed it, and accidently knocking a plastic-wrapped hypodermic syringe onto the ground. She bent to pick it up, making certain her cutoff jeans-covered backside was pointed in Zack and Kyle’s general direction. She knew what effect it would have, and was, therefore, unsurprised to see the glassy-eyed expressions on their faces when she faced them.
“Tell your Captain that if he wants his crew vaccinated, we have to remain here,” she said.
Zack blinked, shook his head, and started to say: “I don’t think–“
”It doesn’t matter,” she cut him off. “Explain to him that the process is incredibly precise. One mistake can mean the difference between a healthy crew, and a ship full of zombies.” She resumed pacing. “In order to ensure such precision, requires a stable platform, which a ship at sea is not. Particularly not one with a round bottom, like the Polar Star.” She paused to make sure her message got through. The light of understanding in Zack’s eyes confirmed this.
“In addition - and I can’t stress this enough,” she said, laying a gentle pat on her father’s arm. “We don’t have enough spinal tissue to make all the necessary doses, and since there are no longer any infected people on this island, that means it will need to be imported. The nearest...source...of the virus antibodies is Kauai, which your helicopters can’t reach, so you will need the cooperation of Mister Walton and my father.”
“And I sure as fuck ain’t gonna give it if you try kidnaping my daughter,” Jim growled. Walton giggled - actually giggled - and she began to question the wisdom of having the man pull his firearm. Too late, she thought.
She stopped pacing and turned to face the two men. “The choice is yours,” she said.
“Make it wisely,” her father added.
3
Sass Two RHIB
Kapalama Basin, Oahu
“Is this shit going to blow up in our faces?” Duke asked, in a stage whisper (a neat trick, given that they were all wearing gas masks and had the intercom radio units turned off), handing Dan McMullen the foul-smelling messenger bag - one of six - he and Gus Perniola spent the better part of the previous day turning into satchel charges.
Dan, himself, swung from a bosun’s chair attached to several jagged pieces of rebar sticking from the underside of Sand Island Bridge. The leather and nylon triangle formed an almost comfortable seat, as Jonesy recalled, though he hadn’t had the extreme displeasure of sitting in one for quite some time. The safety harness, attached to the same metal O-ring as the block and tackle Dan used to raise and lower himself to and from the junction of the concrete abutment upon which the bridge’s roadbed sat, Jonesy knew, had a tendency to strangle a man’s balls till they screamed, so he was doubly glad to be in charge of the current, potentially suicidal mission on which they were embarked, rather than dangling from his nut sack.. Rank really does have its privileges.
The plan was to blow the bridge. Simple enough on paper - even routine, were they using military-grade explosives. Instead, however, Dan and Gus devised a combination of C-4, dynamite, and the sort of diesel fuel and fertilizer bomb Tim McVeigh used in Oklahoma City. So, yes, suicidal was the operative word.
“Probably not,” McMullen replied, shoving the charge into a corner between abutment and beam.
“Probably?” Jonesy snapped, trying to keep his voice down. “Probably?”
Dan looked down at him in silence for a moment, then smiled. “Haven’t blown up yet.” He set the detonator - a small walkie-talkie of the type tourists used to keep track of teen-aged children on vacation, attached to a fuse and battery, attached to a shotgun shell filled with gunpowder - and lowered himself back into the boat.
He flipped the block and tackle hook off the rebar. It fell with a loud CLUNK into he bottom of the Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat.
“Be quiet, you fucking idiot!” Jonesy snapped.
Too late. A howl echoed off the concrete from somewhere above, answered by another howl, and another, and another, as the zombies crossing the bridge between Honolulu and Sand Island - the reason for their little demolition project - took up the chorus.
“Moron,” Duke said, smacking Dan upside his helmeted head.
“What did you want me to do? Drop it in the bay?” he protested.
Jonesy glared at them both, debating whether or not it would be worth adding to the general bitch-fest. Deciding it was not, he turned his attention to Gus.
“You’re less insane that he is,” he said, thumbing toward Dan. “How stable is this shit?”
The older man shrugged. Not the response he sought. “If we don’t die, then we’ll know.”
With one charge in place, there were five more to go. Jonesy watched the slow parade of zombies stumble onto the Honolulu side of the bridge as Duke maneuvered the RHIB to the next location.
Five more charges, he thought. Five more chances to die.
4
M/V Point of Order
12.739952N 165.2581586W
“So we’ve got the wombat, reciting what we think is a launch code,” Blackjack Charlie Carter said, ticking things off on his fingers as Hennessy and McGee sat on the sofa in Charlie’s absurdly luxurious stateroom, which used to belong to the Honorable Henry David Goddard, who may - or may not - be the President of the United States. “A Lieutenant Commander who should know how to access the small arms locker, but probably won’t tell us.”
“He’s an asshole,” McGee said in his dry voice. “Knew fuckers like him when I was in the service. He’s going to be a problem.”
Charlie nodded, knowing the type from his days as a Merchant Mariner. “And, what, thirty others of various ranks? Mostly having to do with the weapons systems?”
“That’s correct,” Hennessy replied, consulting a list he’d made on the back of a torn piece of brown wrapping paper he’d found in one of the holds.
“Does El Presidente know anything yet?” Charlie asked. Goddard could prove to be a real problem - far more so than a stubborn Navy officer. They could just torture the Squid’s ass for the information he needed - enhanced interrogation, as the euphemism went. And if the fucker still didn’t talk...Fish food. The president, however - assuming he was the actual acting Commander in Chief - was another kettle of fish, altogether.