by Glynn James
“Nice,” Abrams said. “Real-time.”
“Yeah, and all this might even work,” Campbell said. “I’ll be at my station.”
She saluted and exited.
Twenty-Three Reg
JFK - Alpha Berths
The sun was going down, and night in the south Atlantic began to swallow the gigantic and powerful – but by this point badly battered – warship. She was becoming just a small dark smudge sitting at the seam between sea and sky. Even at her size, the largest vessel ever built by man, she was still totally lost on this vast ocean, just as the Earth itself disappeared in the endless void of the empty, dead cosmos. The world’s last nuclear supercarrier was now no more than an indistinguishable speck on a tiny blue dot, itself floating lonely and silent in a cosmic sunbeam.
But where Juice was now, he had no way of knowing the light was failing, though he was acutely aware of the hour – and of how few of those were left to him. He was sealed up in his sleeping berth, wedged up in the top bunk, with only the narrow cone of his reading light for illumination – and the binder that contained the massive mission planning document lying heavily on his chest.
Pred was still off in the team room, and no one else was in there with him. Still, pointlessly, Juice looked around to see that the coast was clear… then dug out his reading glasses from their indestructible cylindrical case, unfolded them, and perched them on his face.
Time catches up with everyone.
He flipped to the first page of the document.
* * *
Down in the hospital, Sarah, Park, and Close had finished everything they could usefully do to help with the mass influx of casualties, which had finally trickled to a stop, and had all been triaged and assigned beds in the various wards. Now they had retreated back into the lab.
The experience of being in the middle of an unfolding disaster, of witnessing such extreme suffering – not to mention such stoicism and bravery – all of it at such close quarters, had affected them deeply. The heroism of the medical personnel had also been striking.
“I couldn’t do their job,” Park said, throwing away his last pair of bloody surgical gloves.
“Me neither,” Sarah said. “Back in Toronto, I used to work with the EMS teams. There were always a lot of casualties on Friday and Saturday nights, mostly drunk people doing stupid crap. And there was almost always more work than the paramedics could possibly handle. And yet they always tackled it with unfailing good humor and professionalism. Showed up with smiles on their faces – eighteen hours into a ten-hour shift. I honestly have no idea where they found people like that.”
Park nodded in tired agreement.
Sarah cocked her head. “Come to remember it, they were all weirdly attractive, too – the men and women both. Maybe it was the whole angel of mercy thing.”
Professor Close, who looked as if he’d been humbled by the experience of trying to do trauma medicine, perked up, somewhat apologetically. “I know we’re all knackered after that business in there… but there’s still this little matter of—”
“The vaccine,” Park said.
“Back to work,” Sarah said.
* * *
Now Handon unexpectedly found himself with a few minutes to call his own. The bumping of the shore mission to tomorrow had left him with something like a hole in his schedule. With no immediate tasks, he found himself drifting back toward the Alpha team room on 02 Deck. But then he got the crazy idea to take himself out to the fantail deck – just to look at the darkening ocean, and catch his breath. And to be alone.
It would be a rare few minutes in his own company.
But shortly after he changed course and set off down a less familiar companionway, a totally unfamiliar whining and buzzing noise started up, and stopped him in his tracks. He stepped up to the outside of a closed hatch, where he could hear the racket rising and falling behind it. It was actually pretty damned grating, or at least must be to this guy’s unlucky neighbors.
When it finally stopped, Handon knocked.
The man who opened the hatch wore a black turban, a long black beard, some type of baggy pajama bottoms – and no shirt. He was muscular, but by no means lean – solid and functional. He had a lot of jet-black body hair. Incongruously, he also had a drinking straw in his mouth. The straw was stuck in a glass, which was full to the brim with some kind of thick, frozen, colorful liquid.
He let the straw go. “CSM Handon!”
“Noise.”
“At your service.” He bowed over his glass of smoothie.
Handon paused fractionally. “Didn’t know you were billeted here. But since we meet again, you got a minute? I was headed for the fantail deck. Maybe you and I can have a chat.”
Noise bowed again. “Most assuredly. Let me just grab you a glass. And another straw.”
* * *
Park and Close were back into their technical vaccine talk, focused on matters around epigenetics, most of which was going over Sarah’s head. When they briefly lapsed into thoughtful silence, she piped up.
“Hey, I’ve got a question,” she said. Among her many virtues, one was that she’d never been afraid to look stupid.
“Sure,” Park said. “Questions are good.”
“Often,” Professor Close added, “rather better than answers.”
Sarah smiled. “So you’ve designed a prototype vaccine. But is there any chance of a cure?”
“What – a cure for being dead?”
“Ah. I see your point.”
Park straightened up. “Actually, sarcasm aside, there is some possibility of a serum which could, just theoretically, stop the virus – after a victim has been infected, but before he’s turned.”
Sarah nodded. “But what you’ve already designed – the vaccine. Totally different thing?”
“Short answer? Yes.”
“And the longer answer?”
Park and Close turned to look at each other. Park seemed to hesitate. “It’s almost not worth mentioning.”
Sarah squinted. “Isn’t that a line you hear a lot, right before big scientific breakthroughs?”
Park’s smile now lit his face, and even Close seemed impressed. Park was thinking: If Alpha pulled just the right man out of Chicago to beat this thing… then perhaps Handon assigned me exactly the right assistant.
“Okay,” Park said. “Again, with the caveat that I’m stretching way into theory here… But because my vaccine happens to be based on an RNA interference technique… there have been some cases in the past, mostly in cancer patients, where administering this type of vaccine after infection had a significant therapeutic effect.”
“As in curing the infection?”
“No. Just in helping the body’s immune system to fight it – slowing it down, helping the body shed, if not totally clear, the virus.”
“That sounds promising,” Sarah said.
“I’m not going to oversell it. It would be a long shot, and also a long way down the road. Plus, to do human trials, you need someone infected but not yet turned – which could get ethically prickly.”
Sarah nodded. “On the other hand, anybody infected but not yet turned isn’t going to be looking at a lot of options. I’d think he or she would be very ha—”
Suddenly Sarah realized that Park wasn’t looking at her, but over her shoulder. She turned and saw an unassuming, slightly sheepish-looking man standing just outside the hatch, looking in. He wore fatigues – the Navy working uniform – along with a side arm, extra magazines in a tactical vest, a radio, and a big flashlight. Despite being tooled up, he looked older than the average combatant around this ship.
And when he spoke, it was with an English accent – and what struck Sarah as characteristic English reticence.
“So sorry to interrupt,” he said, looking as if it genuinely pained him to do so. “Er, I’m Lieutenant Wesley.”
Sarah realized she didn’t know how much of her conversation with Park the man had overheard. She also figured
it didn’t matter. Someone obviously trusted him with guns, as well as the run of the ship. Switching gears smoothly, she said, “Not at all. What we can do for you?”
He took a tentative step inside. “Well, it’s just that I’ve been asked to lead a team down below, to clear the decks where you were attacked. You are the ones who were attacked, aren’t you?”
Sarah and Park nodded.
Wesley smiled back at them. “Okay. Right then, well I was just hoping you could show me yourselves, on this map I’ve got here, exactly where all that went on…”
* * *
Noise and Handon had the fantail deck to themselves. The night-time south Atlantic, stretching out beyond them to forever, was black, nearly silent, and amazingly peaceful, as was the breeze that blew in on them. It was all very unlike the total chaos and lethal hazard they’d been operating their way through – some surviving, some not – across the last few hours.
And in the days, and weeks, and years, before that.
But the peace tasted incredibly sweet, for exactly that reason. Both Handon and the mysterious Sikh were feeling it, and each knew the other was. They were men who had walked through the fire enough times that they didn’t take moments like this for granted.
They knew the next inferno could easily take them.
Handon made a slurping noise as his straw scraped glass bottom. Noise hastened to refill his cup from the blender jug, which sat on the deck between their two chairs.
Handon nodded his thanks. “This is good. Where’d you find fruit?”
“Only tinned stuff, I’m afraid. I’m just happy to be someplace with a proper icemaker. Then again: ‘It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish.’”
Handon looked up over his smoothie. “Who said that?”
“Heraclitus.”
Handon nodded. “Thought it might be some yogi.”
“It might well have been. But I also read classics at Cambridge.”
Handon looked over at the man, having to work to mask his surprise. He belatedly noticed the Sikh had a very prominent nose – one that curved as much as, or possibly more than, his curved sword and dagger. In part just to say something, Handon said, “So. No scimitar tonight?”
Noise shrugged. “Of course, a Sikh is supposed to carry the kirpan at all times. The regulation actually makes a little more sense in the current environment.”
Handon laughed. “Where do those Sikh traditions come from?”
“Mostly from the fifteenth century. There were a few too many Muslim converts to Sikhism, so the Muslim Emperor started executing Sikh gurus. Then there was large-scale persecution. The need for self-protection led to a militarization of the Sikhs, which has lasted to this day. The notion is that we are to be Sant Sipahi – ‘saint soldiers’."
Handon nodded his approval. “I know the British Indian Army was glad of it. Just imagine if they’d had the Auto Assault 12 in the fifteenth century.” He was referring to the Sikh’s full-auto shotgun, the one with the big drum magazine.
Noise smiled. “I can guarantee you that, if they had, all good Sikhs would be carrying them today.”
“It’s also the first time I’ve seen you without that.”
Noise shrugged. “Some nights call for that. Others for this.” He motioned at the pitcher on the deck between them.
“You’ve had good results with it in the field?”
“What – the smoothie maker? Absolutely. It’s never let me down. You can’t argue with a 500-watt motor and a two-liter glass goblet.” He looked wide-eyed at Handon. “Oh, you mean the AA12. Yes, it works for me. I almost never use it on full-auto. On the other hand, if there are a bunch of the blighters right on top of you, you don’t want to have to worry about hitting brainstems. You can just dismantle them with buckshot, and they’ll be in chunks on the ground.”
Handon could just imagine what 32 rounds of twelve-gauge buckshot would do to bodies that were half-rotted already. But that wasn’t what he’d brought the Sikh here to talk about. He opened his mouth to change the subject, but got beaten to the punch.
Noise looked over and locked eyes with him. “You want to know about my background.” It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t wait for an answer. “I am an east Londoner, Hackney born and bred. Second generation. Yes, I still have family in London. No, I don’t any longer have family in India – for reasons that may be guessed. Previously, I served in the British Army – twelve years in, including deployments to Op Telic, and Op Herrick.”
Handon nodded. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “What was your regiment?” he asked.
“RMP – then, later, DPS.”
Handon knew this was the Royal Military Police – and the Diplomatic Protection Service. This all started to explain the man’s uncanny reflexes, and excellent tactical skills, in responding to the assassination attempt on the British scientists. It also probably explained why he got the job. That, and being a skilled pilot. Handon looked impressed, which he was.
Noise just shrugged. “And when I at last mustered out, I went to work for my family’s business.”
“Which was?”
“Putting in elaborate and very expensive basements beneath posh London properties.”
“Seriously?”
“Don’t knock it. Very lucrative business. London property prices just kept going up. And there was only so much land. Zoning made it hard to add to existing buildings – above the ground. But people could do what they liked underneath.”
“Sab Gobind hai.”
“Ha!” Noise slapped his thigh. “‘Everything belongs to God’. You know Punjabi?”
Handon shrugged. “I know that phrase.”
“All those basements are no doubt housing refugees now, so maybe they always belonged to God.” He paused. “While doing that, I also continued my service in the Army Reserve.” Noise looked over to gauge Handon’s reaction to the next bit. “Twenty-three Reg.”
Handon’s reaction was measured. He wasn’t surprised. He knew that was the SAS reserve regiment. He slurped up the last of his smoothie, then put his cup down on the deck.
“You want a job?”
Piloting the Couch
JFK - Hospital
Lieutenant Hailey Wells pushed through the double doors into the ship’s hospital – and immediately began to wonder whether this was a good idea after all. She was here to visit two of her fellow pilots who had been injured in the missile attacks. All these poor guys had been doing was taking a few minutes to enjoy themselves for once, standing on deck and watching landfall.
They’d just picked the wrong damned time to stand around in the open like that. And now they were part of what had become a tsunami of casualties – from what Hailey had heard, as many as fifty or sixty of them.
And it looked like that was about right, because she could now see they were overflowing the available beds in the hospital. Cots had been set up in slightly out of the way spots, and IV stands dotted the landscape.
From a cursory look, she guessed a lot of these injuries were minor, and many of these people would be out of here soon. But, right now, it was like hellfire had rained down on the Kennedy. A lot of people had gotten burned. If you didn’t know it had been a thermobaric missile that had hit, you could figure it out here.
The place looked like one big burn unit.
She started to tread gingerly through the cluttered space, still walking stiffly after her mid-air ejection from that F-35 over open water. In the movies, people eject from fighter planes all the time. In real life, it’s an incredibly hazardous operation, involving an ejection gun, solid-fuel rockets, two parachutes, and up to 16Gs of force. About 8% of ejecting pilots are killed outright – but one in three will get a spinal fracture, and most get bruising and abrasions from the air blast or shock of the chute opening. Fractured limbs and smashed chins aren’t uncommon.
Hailey had been lucky.
Luckier than most of these guys.
She nodded solemnly
at those who caught her eye. She’d been in military hospitals before, growing up as a Navy brat – but always the nicer ones. Her father had been an admiral, not to mention scion of a wealthy family, one with a strong military tradition. It had been his example that had driven her, and her two older brothers, into the Navy. But it had also been his high expectations, and the higher achievements and decorations of her brothers, that had always made her feel like the redheaded stepchild of the Wells family.
Why she had survived and – as far as she knew – they had not, was another of the ZA’s perverse mysteries.
It took her a few minutes to find her guys – Summers and Bosler, both fighter jocks like Hailey, though both senior to her. But when she did, it was worth it. They looked damned happy to have the company, not to mention the treats she’d brought them.
“Thunderchild!” Bosler exclaimed, taking the plastic sleeve of Nabisco Oreos from her, and cradling it outside the reach of Summers, who was in the next bed over. “Where the hell did you score Oreos?”
Hailey shrugged. “Had them squirreled away for about a year. Now seemed like a good time. Just make sure and share those, you unscrupulous son of a bitch.”
Bosler didn’t look inclined to share. Hailey ignored this. “How are you feeling?” She could more or less see that both men were singed and scorched and had what looked like moderately serious burns on various parts of their bodies, all wrapped up in some kind of salve and plastic sheets to keep the germs out.
Summers cast his gaze around the wardroom. “Hey, we’re great, compared to a lot of these dudes.”
Hailey could see it was true. A few of the prone forms were wrapped up head to toe. She didn’t want to think about how long they were likely to be down here recovering. Nor their chances of getting a skin graft, stuck in the overcrowded hospital of a Navy warship that was wandering the seas like Odysseus. There simply wasn’t anywhere to casevac them to for better treatment.
“The bitch of it,” Bosler said, sounding like the Brooklynite he was, born and bred, “is that we’ll be grounded for Christ knows how long.”