The Rising Horde, Volume One (Sequel to The Gathering Dead )

by Stephen Knight

  United States Special Operations Command was the highest-level component command overseeing all of the nation’s special operations forces, and it was based out of MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. Every branch of service had a special operations presence of some type, and they were all tasked through USSOCOM.

  “When this plan was originally established in baseline format thirty hours ago, JSOC was to have operational control. However, all tier one units are currently engaged elsewhere, primarily in protection of high-value individuals, such as members of the executive and legislative branches, as well as other assets of high intrinsic interest to the nation. As such, SOCOM will provide complete adult supervision.

  “SPARTA itself is the designation given to a pharmaceutical facility located just outside of Odessa, Texas. The facility is owned by InTerGen, the corporation started by Wolf Safire. It’s a top-level manufacturer of pharmaceutical supplies, everything from over-the-counter remedies to extremely specific medications used to combat all kinds of diseases. Safire sent his preliminary research to his associates there before New York went dark, so they’ve had time to review the building blocks and are pretty familiar with where he was going. Providing that Jeffries and his people at USAMRIID are able to deliver the full formulations, it’s been decided that whatever medical regimen is required will be developed there. The facility is fully self-supporting. It has an array of solar and geothermal power sources to keep it going even if the local power grid fails, and it’s sufficiently remote enough that we feel it could be defended, with substantial investments in hardening. And as we speak, the Corps of Engineers is constructing additional structures to assist in that defense. On page three of this presentation, you’ll find aerial photos of the facility and several maps of the general area.

  “The facility will be fully militarized, but not to the point to where it is unable to complete its primary mission. Colonel Jaworski will oversee the internal operations of SPARTA and will head up the command element called Leonidas. McDaniels, you will assume operational control of the quick reaction force providing security for SPARTA, call sign Hercules. You’ll also be joint task force executive officer. You are to be promoted by order of the president to lieutenant colonel, and Gartrell will accompany you as JTF sergeant major. Congratulations to both of you because you earned it the hard way.”

  McDaniels was surprised. “A promotion, sir?”

  “It’s not like you aren’t in the zone, Cord. At any rate, I have your new insignia with me, and we’ll go through the official frocking later. Returning to the topic of Hercules, the unit will be composed of three companies of Army Rangers from the 75th Rangers, alpha detachments from 10th Special Forces Group, and one troop of SEALs from Special Warfare Group One. Our vision is that the SEALs will be the long-distance maneuver element and will serve as forward area observers, augmented by the alpha detachments, while the Rangers will provide physical security for SPARTA itself. Additionally, two MH-47s will be made available from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and they have already self-deployed to the area.”

  Gartrell flipped through his documentation. “Sir, it says here the SEAL team slice will come from Team Five, is that still correct?”

  “It is,” Jaworski said. “Is there a problem with that?”

  “Negative, sir. Major McDaniels and I have dealt with them before, in Afghanistan.” Gartrell looked at McDaniels. “Remember Hooks Johnson?”

  McDaniels smiled ruefully. “How could I forget?”

  “Do fill us in on that later,” Abelson said, slamming the brakes on the nostalgia express. “You’ll find the full TO&E under your oversight on page six, McDaniels. The SEALs won’t report to you directly, they’ll go through their own O-4, but you’ll have OPCON of them through him. Not under SPARTA’s direct control will be the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 21st Air Cav Brigade, both out of Hood, which will provide area security and stability. 3ACR will act as the primary warfighting unit between SPARTA and the stenches, should they become a presence in the area. The regiment will in turn be supported by the 21st Cavalry Brigade, an air combat unit full of Apaches. SPARTA will be the regiment’s center of gravity, but both it and the 21st will maneuver independently of Hercules. Colonel Jaworski will be in constant contact with his counterparts in both units.”

  “Is that your dream come true, sir? To be a ground-pounder?” McDaniels asked.

  “At least by extension,” Jaworski said. “And to think I might actually become an honorary cavalryman after this. The Air Force will never be the same.”

  “We don’t know how long this posting will last,” Abelson said, ignoring the side chatter. “I expect it will be weeks, if not months. All of that depends on how fast we can react to the spread of the zeds, and how effective we are at bottling them up and killing them off. My understanding is that Safire’s wonder drug won’t do anything to help us with the necromorphs; all it will do is possibly prevent those who are bitten from becoming the walking dead.” The general snorted. “I can’t believe I just said that. The walking dead. What a world.”

  “How long will it take to manufacture the drug, General? Any idea?”

  “None. I can only imagine that it will take some time. Colonel Jeffries will likely have that answer once he deciphers Safire’s formulations. He said we’ll know in a few hours.”

  “Can’t the drug be develop at the Rid?” Gartrell asked.

  “Perhaps. But in order to make enough of it to inoculate every person in the United States, we need a real, honest-to-God production facility. And that facility has to stay up and operational during the entire time the drug is being processed and manufactured. We still haven’t figured out all the logistics behind it, mind you. Not only does the drug have to be manufactured, it has to be distributed, and the population has to be inoculated. The Rid can’t do that, not on that scale. And besides…” Abelson pointed toward the electronic map of the United States on the wall. “…the Rid might not be around much longer.”

  McDaniels looked at the map and was shocked to see the number of red pips in the Washington area had grown in a matter of minutes.

  Holy shit!

  He turned back to Abelson. “When do we leave, sir?”

  “Tonight. As soon as we’re done here, you go to Andrews and catch a transport to Texas.” Abelson put his hand on the stack of documents. “Everything you need to know is right here. You’ll have all the resources you need. All the service chiefs are aware of the importance of SPARTA, and the president is going to be briefed on the plan by the SecDef and General Shockley shortly, but we’re not going to wait for his approval. The plan is going forward because it’s the only shot we have. The sooner we get things going, the faster we’ll be able to save a good chunk of the American citizenry. And then, we’ll be able to turn our full attention toward what we need to do. Which is kill every fucking stench in this country, and then on the entire planet.”

  Abelson sighed tiredly, then rose to his feet. He beckoned to one of his aides, who presented him with two small padded envelopes. “This probably won’t be the most prestigious promotion ceremony ever, but at least the two of you will have a lieutenant general pinning on your new ranks, even if it’s just on BDUs. McDaniels, Gartrell, let’s get this done and get back to work.”

  ***

  McDaniels wondered if he would have a chance to fly in every aircraft in the military before the night was over. There was enough time for Gartrell to shower and get a change of uniform—somehow, even at that late hour, he was provided with a full set of BDUs that had his nametape—and then they hopped on a UH-72 Lakota back into Maryland. Colonel Jaworski was along for the ride, and the newly minted Lieutenant Colonel McDaniels felt they would be seeing a lot of each other in the foreseeable future. The Air Force officer was polite, but didn’t seem to be in a very chatty mood, especially over an intercom system while strapped into a loud, noisy utility helicopter. McDaniels didn’t begrudge him that.

  Gartrell was
also hushed. Even though they sat across from each other in the helicopter’s cargo bay, Gartrell didn’t make much eye contact; he simply looked out the Plexiglas window at the Virginia countryside. There was a lot of activity outside; other helicopters shuttled back and forth, and Interstate 95 seemed unusually full of traffic, given the hour. It took McDaniels a moment to notice that most of the traffic was heading out of the DC area and into Maryland; there was comparatively little traffic inbound.

  Less than ten minutes after breaking deck at the Pentagon, the Lakota banked toward Joint Base Andrews, the large military installation shared by the Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard. The aircraft pitched downward as it lost altitude, then flared above its intended landing zone. It vibrated as it passed through its own rotor wash, then landed with barely a bump. The ground crew pulled open the door, and McDaniels unfastened his safety harness and hauled himself out of the aircraft. Behind him, Jaworski and Gartrell did the same.

  Another Air Force C-21 sat on the ramp. Its left engine was already spun up, howling in the night as the ground crew hustled the three men toward the aircraft. McDaniels allowed Jaworski to board first, then climbed up the short stairway into the waiting jet, dragging his pack behind him. Gartrell brought up the rear, and the ground crew secured the door as the Lear’s number one engine spooled up. As McDaniels took his seat beside Jaworski, he noticed the C-21 was in better shape than the one he’d flown in previously. Gartrell sat all the way in the back, his backpack strapped in beside him. The jet’s pilot informed them that they would make one stop for refueling, but that they could expect to be in Texas in less than four hours.

  “What, you guys can’t do better than that?” Jaworski asked with a smile.

  “We might be able to burn up some time in the air, sir. We’ll see how it goes.” And with that, the pilots turned to their pre-taxi checklists.

  “We’ll be fighting some headwinds for a good portion of the trip,” Jaworski told McDaniels above the mounting engine noise. “I checked out the weather, though; everything’s pretty calm along our intended route. But there’s no potty in this thing, so I hope you guys hit the latrine before we left.”

  “We did. It’s practically Army regulations,” McDaniels said.

  “Then sit back and enjoy the flight, at least as much as you can on one of these things.” Jaworski reclined his seat as far back as it would go, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes as the C-21 began to taxi. McDaniels looked back at Gartrell, who stared out the side window.

  “How you doing, Sarmajor?” he asked.

  Gartrell glanced at him. “Hanging tough, Colonel. Congrats on the promotion.”

  “Same to you, of course.”

  “Thanks.”

  Gartrell obviously wasn’t interested in conversation. McDaniels didn’t know what to make of that, but then, Gartrell had never been the most gregarious of sorts even when they’d liked each other, about a million years ago. He thought the senior NCO would have loosened up a bit after what they’d gone through, but Gartrell wasn’t known for flexibility. It irked McDaniels at some level, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. Gartrell was certainly consistent, if nothing else.

  McDaniels leaned back in his seat and stared out the window while the jet taxied to the runway, powered up, and surged into the sky. As the jet banked away from Andrews, he was treated to a far-ranging vista of Washington, DC. At first, the city looked fairly normal, but then he noticed more and more flashing strobe lights from emergency vehicles, mounting traffic, and every now and then, fires. Even the residential areas looked busier than they should have been. McDaniels knew what was going down, and he was happy to be getting away from it.

  After all, no one wanted to be in DC to begin with. Adding zombies into the mix did nothing to repair its lack of allure.

  ***

  He found he couldn’t sleep during the flight, so he spent the time studying the briefing materials. He paid close attention to the Mission Table of Organization and Equipment, known simply as the M-TOE. He would have a sizeable force arrayed under his command, if not directly, then by extension. It would be his first opportunity to command anything larger than a Special Forces detachment. He had always wondered if he would ever realize his goal of becoming a Special Forces Group commander, and his new mission would bring him one step closer. And it was a composite unit at that: a mix of Rangers, Special Forces detachments, Navy SEALs, and Air Force special operations. It was unusual for an officer with his modest track record to receive such a reward, and he was overwhelmed by it. After all, the stakes were high, and in the back of his mind, McDaniels wondered just how hard the special operations community had been hit by the plague of the dead. For certain, they had been the first units called up when the stenches finally made it to America, and he knew of several encounters between US special operators and the walking dead in Europe. And no doubt, similar scenarios had been encountered in Asia.

  He went through the list of equipment he could expect to have at his command. M1114 Humvees, up-armored and with suppression weapons. Four M1126 Stryker ICVs, wheeled infantry combat vehicles that were similar to the LAVs used by the Marines, which would provide limited external mobility for the Rangers. The Rangers themselves would come equipped with the newly-fielded Special Operations Infantry Combat System, an exoskeleton system that incorporated elements of the HULC and Land Warrior programs of the early 2000s. One hundred twenty millimeter mortars, heavy and light machineguns, mines, and enough spares and munitions to keep the units operating at a fair operational tempo for months. There were also plans to deploy a surgical hospital—under Jaworski’s provisional command, he noted—but that would be a follow-on activity. All in all, SPARTA had some teeth to it.

  But it was all so very conventional. If they were going against a human enemy, then the array would be nothing less than formidable. But the dead cared nothing about being shot. They didn’t feel pain, so injuries didn’t matter to them. They didn’t even care about taking a round to the head that would result in complete lights-out. The dead were completely free from fear, the thing that usually kept humans from engaging in all-out combat. Aside from their increasing numbers, lack of fear was perhaps their biggest advantage. Zeds would do absolutely anything in order to feed, risk everything to try to satisfy that never-ending cycle of hunger.

  McDaniels worried that even SPARTA’s defenses wouldn’t be strong enough. Because if they weren’t, and the dead came to visit before Wolf Safire’s wonder drug was developed and distributed, then the game would take an entirely different turn.

  4

  Things were not going well for the lightfighters of the 10th Mountain Division.

  The necromorphs had pushed the entire division—or what remained of it—out of the south Bronx and all the way through the borough until the unit was ordered to reassemble in Yonkers. By that time, the division had been in contact with the zombies for almost twenty-four hours, and the tide of walking dead showed no sign of abating. Despite the heavy barrage the division’s artillery batteries had thrown at the advancing zombie elements, even the punishing neutralization fire—a virtual storm of steel rain that would have reduced a heavy armor division to nothing—failed to do much more than delay the zeds. The first bombardment on Harlem lasted throughout the majority of the previous night, starting at eleven thirty and raging on until dawn at half past five the next morning. The division’s small detachment of unmanned aerial surveillance systems weren’t up yet—there was some sort of engineering glitch that kept the remote-controlled Shadow spy planes on the deck—so the word came down from the commanding general to mount up several infantry squads for movement-to-contact operations. The general just couldn’t wait to discover how bad off the enemy forces were after weathering such an attack. Dozens of soldiers from the 1/87th Infantry battalion entered Harlem, both on foot and mounted on Humvees. For a while, things didn’t go too badly. Fires were everywhere; the arty bombardment had perforated several gas mains, and entire buildings had gon
e up in furious explosions that left nothing behind but charred wreckage and thick clouds of black and gray smoke. The streets were cratered from the shelling; some had even collapsed into the subway tunnels beneath. As they made their advance, the light infantry troops found the remains of dozens, then hundreds, of stenches on the streets of Harlem. Most of them were still moving, even the ones that had massive deboning injuries that should have left them deader than doorposts. The soldiers were horrified to find even ghouls whose limbs had been amputated would come for them at a slow chin-crawl. Only shots to the head could make them stop moving.

  As the smoke cleared and the sun shone brightly, the first elements of the zombie advance caught them out in the open. In the beginning, the lightfighters acquitted themselves well, but as the numbers of the stenches increased and the soldiers’ ammunition began to run out, discipline eroded. Several of the squads fell off the tactical radio net, never be heard from again.

  Others found relative safety in the subway tunnels, where they could use their night vision goggles to their advantage. That had been suggested by a single Army Special Forces soldier who had been trapped behind the lines, a first sergeant named Gartrell who had been successfully evacuated the previous evening. The recommendation had been a good one; it had not only saved Gartrell’s life, but the lives of several lightfighters as well.

  For the next few hours, anyway.

  The dead finally figured it out as well, and they took to the tunnels in force. Perhaps not by design; there were just so damned many of the stenches on the streets that they had no choice. When that had happened, the 10th Mountain Division’s tactical plan had to be changed. Subway tunnels were demolished to prevent the dead from using them, but at a great cost; every demolitions team was lost, and one subway line through Manhattan’s Upper West Side was not completely closed. But by the time that had been discovered, the 10th’s forces were withdrawing.