Corrie looked at the door through which the two prisoners had left. “It feels so… so unsatisfactory.”
“What would you rather we do?” Tess asked. “What alternative is there? Laws have existed for longer than coppers. The concept of justice has been around since the beginning of recorded history. You don’t need a badge to do what needs to be done. You don’t need a judge to decree what is just.”
“Theoretically, I can see how this is the just thing to do,” Corrie said. “But it still doesn’t feel right.”
“Because you deserve revenge,” Tess said. “You deserve a more specific and personal vengeance from those two than anyone else, but everyone alive today are their victims. Stringing them up won’t bring back the dead. It’ll only further tarnish our souls. They’ll sail back to Australia aboard the Te Taiki. There will be a trial. There probably will be an execution. But everyone at home deserves justice, too. Whether any trial, with its inevitable verdict, can be called just is a question for the philosophers. For us, if we are trying to build a better world, we can say that we began with mercy, not murder. That’s about the only thing that can make your sacrifice, our sacrifices, worthwhile.”
But though there would be no execution, the captain had a different, but as equally old-fashioned, duty to perform on the deck of the icebreaker. Six members of the prize-crew formed an honour guard. The others, and the newly promoted Captain Renton, were busy familiarising themselves with the ship’s controls and engines before the icebreaker and the Te Taiki sailed off in separate directions. Otherwise, of the New Zealand sailors, only Captain Adams and Commander Tusitala were present: the captain to say the words, and the commander to fly her back to the warship at the ceremony’s conclusion.
Tess found a place next to Clyde, at the rear of the small crowd, gathered at the aft of the ship. Nicko and Bruce, Avalon and Smilovitz, Zach and Corrie, forming a ring more than the usual two columns, behind the bride and groom.
“For something new to begin, something old must end,” Adams said. “So a marriage is not a beginning, but an affirmation of intent. A public acknowledgement to the world, as represented by those here present, of the love and devotion that you both have demonstrated to each other, and pledge to continue demonstrating in the years ahead. It is traditional, now, to talk of the future, of the trials and troubles ahead of you. Of the compromises and concessions you’ll have to make. Of the sacrifices. But that tradition is a few months out of date. While each of our futures are uncertain, you two can enjoy the certainty of spending the rest of yours together. So, I’ll ask you, Olivia Preston, do you take Pete Guinn—”
“Parsley,” Corrie called out. “His real name is Parsley.”
“Sis!” Pete said.
“You want to do it properly, don’t you?” Corrie said.
“She’s right, Pete,” Olivia said. “Sorry, Captain.”
“No worries,” Adams said. “Do you, Parsley Guinn, wish you’d legally changed your name before the outbreak?”
“I do,” he said.
“Too late now,” Adams said. “Olivia Preston, do you take Parsley Guinn for your husband.”
“I do.”
“And do you, Parsley Guinn, take Olivia Preston for your wife?”
“I do.”
“Then I pronounce you both married. Congratulations.”
An hour later, Tess was standing in the metal-sided shelter at the ship’s stern. It might originally have been built as a bad-weather observatory, but from the yellow nicotine stains on the walls, the previous crew had mostly used it as a smoking room.
“There you are, Commish,” Clyde said. “I was looking for you.”
“Is there trouble?” Tess asked.
“Not even a hint,” Clyde said. He held up a bottle, and two glasses. “But you missed the toast.”
“I wanted to see the captain off,” Tess said. “She’s a link with home.”
“We’ll be seeing her again in a couple of weeks,” Clyde said.
“I said the exact same thing to Anna back in Australia,” Tess said. “How is Captain Renton?”
“Getting a feel for his new command,” Clyde said. “He’s a good bloke, and the colonel will keep an eye on him. Nicko’s asleep. Zach’s helping Corrie in the galley. The scientists are going through the documents we grabbed from Corn Island. The happy couple are below. The crew are getting familiar with their new home, but I think we’ve earned a few hours rest.” He split the last of the bottle between the two glasses. “What shall we drink to?”
“Happiness,” she said. “May it always find us, especially when we’re not looking.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
She took a sip. “Not bad. How was the island off for supplies? That bar was practically empty when we arrived.”
“They were running low. I got the impression one reason they killed off so many locals was so as not to share the food. We’ll need to look for more around Puerto Morelos.”
“I don’t think this ship was being used to trade fuel,” Tess said. “But there’s no way the cartel would let a prize like a fuel-transporter remain unclaimed. I think the captain was correct, the fuel’s aboard a ship, but it was sailing north, and kept on sailing north. We won’t find it off Puerto Morelos.”
“Maybe we’ll find a helicopter. Bruce wants to try flying one.”
“He’s got a licence?”
“Not exactly,” Clyde said. “But he’s done three take-offs and six landings. That’s nearly as many as Captain Renton.”
“Bruce landed twice more than he took off? Now there’s a yarn I want to hear. But finding a helicopter isn’t a priority. Not now, anyway.”
“You’re not sure where we’ll end up, then?” Clyde asked.
“How could anyone be?” Tess said.
“Ah, but if you’re not certain, then you can get in on the pool. We’re taking bets on how far north we’ll get before we turn around. Nicko’s got Cancun. I’ve got Savannah, and Zach took Washington, D.C.”
“Washington? We’re not going that far.”
“It’s not that far from Georgia,” Clyde said. “We might even go a little further, all the way to New York. Captain Renton says it’s a theoretical possibility. The scientists showed him a video of some zom they say died just after infection. They’ve convinced him some samples from that corpse could prove the zoms are dying, and give a timeframe on the rest.”
“I doubt it,” Tess said. “But then I’m not the captain.”
“Renton made it clear he wouldn’t go north of New York, and wouldn’t attempt Savannah unless we can resupply before then. That’s why I placed my bet on us turning around when we reach Savannah.”
“How much is riding on this bet?”
“Twenty dollar-bars,” Clyde said. “Bruce put his money on the big U.S. navy base.”
“Which one?” Tess asked.
“Whichever we reach that hasn’t been destroyed,” Clyde said. “Because if it’s not been destroyed, we’re guaranteed to find some survivors there. When we find more than a few survivors, we’ll have to turn back to organise a rescue fleet. But he overlooked that the biggest U.S. naval base is in Norfolk, Virginia, and it’s not that far from Washington, D.C. Zach might win the bet yet.”
“Where do the scientists think we’ll get to?” she asked.
“New York,” Clyde said. “And if I were allowed to change my bet, that’s where I’d switch it to. That’s why they’re here, isn’t it, rather than being on the warship heading back to Oz to work on their weapon?”
“I don’t know,” Tess said. “They were useful in Colombia, and on Corn Island. Dr Avalon can double up as a ship’s medic, and Leo’s a decent engineer. But this is where they said they needed to be.”
“People like that, you’ve got to trust they know what they’re doing,” Clyde said.
“I keep telling myself that,” Tess said. “I do hope it’s true.” She finished her glass. “We’re not certain we found all the cartel on t
hat island, but I don’t think they had a large ship capable of sinking that flotilla of yachts near French Guiana. If they did, they would have tried sinking us before we reached their island.”
“So maybe there’s some other group of pirates in these waters,” Clyde said. “But don’t worry about them. We’ve got thick armour, and the weapons systems we brought aboard can make any small ship change its mind.”
“And if it’s a large ship?”
“Large ships don’t need to play pirate,” Clyde said.
“I hope that’s true, too,” she said. “Okay, I won’t worry about pirates. I’m still worried about the sisters. I’m not convinced they’re dead. More importantly, nor do their followers. Look at what happened on Corn Island. Those people followed orders even after they must have thought, even hoped, their bosses were dead.”
“I’ve seen that level of devotion before,” Clyde said. “Usually hidden behind a false veneer of religion.”
“It’s more than that,” Tess said. “The sisters organised a trap for Lisa Kempton after the outbreak, and after the bombs fell, and flew a jet plane a quarter-way around the world. With prisoners. They kept those prisoners alive, and healthy, just so their bosses could better enjoy their revenge. These people won’t just give up or fade into the crowd.”
“We’ve done all that we can to stop them.”
“Have we?” she asked. “Are we? Let’s say the sisters’ plan was to seize control of the Panama Canal, and trade access for legitimacy to their empire. The sisters also suspected a betrayal from inside their organisation. What if that was why the canal was destroyed? The Vepr or the Adventure, or someone else, made sure this particular dream of the sisters would never come true. That’s why they never came south. What chance would some misguided billionaire have against those kind of people? The reason they didn’t come south is that they’re building a new empire up north.”
“Do you want to go look for them?” Clyde asked.
“Yes. But we don’t know where to begin,” Tess said. “I’m not being a gloom-monger. I’m thinking of what will happen after we get back to Australia. What people will talk about after my report is published. They will assume the sisters are alive.”
“You can’t change that,” he said.
“We can give them something else to think about,” Tess said. “This really will be the last voyage into the Atlantic for a long time. Nothing we’ve seen gives us a reason to survey the damage to the canal, let alone build the machines needed to repair it. No, this is the last voyage, so we should go to New York. We should find that corpse the scientists think died. Forget a weapon. What use would it be in South America or South Africa? We don’t need hope that the worst is over. We don’t need proof the sisters are dead. We need the certainty that the zombies will die. We should confirm the Northern Hemisphere is as lost as the evidence suggests. We should return to the Pacific with the news that the zombies are dying, that we are the last bastion of the old civilisation, and that our species’ future is entirely in our hands.”
“If not us, then who?” Clyde said.
“No one,” Tess said. “If not us, there is no one else.”
To be continued…
Other Titles
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Other novels:
Surviving The Evacuation & Here We Stand
The outbreak began in New York. Within days, it had spread throughout the world. Nowhere is safe from the living dead. Books 1-3 are the journals of Bill Wright, a political operative trapped in London after the city is evacuated. Books 4-7 follow Nilda, a mother searching the wasteland for her son, and Chester, a criminal in search of repentance. Books 8 onward recount how humanity’s last survivors build a new society out of the ashes of the old world.
Here We Stand is the story of Tom Clemens, Jonas Jeffries, Martha Greene, and the other North American survivors, and the collapse of the United States. The struggles of the survivors in the Pacific are told in Life Goes On, beginning with Outback Outbreak.
1: London, 2: Wasteland, Zombies vs The Living Dead, 3: Family, 4: Unsafe Haven, 5: Reunion, 6: Harvest, 7: Home, Here We Stand 1: Infected, Here We Stand 2: Divided, Book 8: Anglesey, 9: Ireland, 10: The Last Candidate, 11: Search and Rescue, 12: Britain’s End, 13: Future’s Beginning, 14: Mort Vivant, 15: Where There’s Hope 16: Unwanted Visitors, Unwelcome Guests, 17: There We Stood, Life Goes On 1. Outback Outbreak, 1 No More News, & 3. While the Lights Are On, Surviving the Evacuation 17: Rebuilt in a Day, Life Goes On 4: If Not Us
Post-apocalyptic Detective novels:
Strike a Match
In 2019, the AIs went to war. Millions died before a nuclear holocaust brought an end to their brief reign of terror. Billions more succumbed to radiation poisoning, disease, and the chaotic violence of that apocalypse. Some survived. They rebuilt.
Twenty years later, civilization is a dim shadow of its former self. Crime is on the rise, aided by a shadowy conspiracy. It is down to Detectives Mitchell, Riley, and Deering of the Serious Crimes Unit to unmask the conspirators and save their fragile democracy.
1. Serious Crimes, 2. Counterfeit Conspiracy, 3. Endangered Nation
Work Rest Repeat
Sixty years after The Great War, the last survivors of humanity have taken shelter in giant towers. The colony ships that will allow them to leave the diseased Earth are nearing completion when two murders are discovered. For our species to survive, the criminals must be caught, and the launch must go ahead.
Thanks for reading.
Life Goes On | Book 4 | If Not Us [Surviving The Evacuation] Page 39
