Crossbones

by John L. Campbell

  “Meet me at the armory. If you can find anyone along the way, bring them with you.”

  “Copy that.”

  “And Stone,” Liebs said, “if you see someone you don’t recognize, open fire. No hesitation.”

  “No problem.” Stone clicked off.

  Liebs headed back into the passageway, jogging once more. He keyed the mic again. “Xavier, it’s Liebs.”

  • • •

  Xavier and Calvin faced one another across the officer’s mess; Mercy lay dead on the floor by an entrance, and Big Jerry lay near the galley doors with a butcher’s knife sticking out of his chest. The two men were without words, looking at their lost friends, both consumed by a torrent of grief and guilt. Tommy went to the crying toddler still sitting on the deck, trying to comfort the boy as he watched the other men.

  Xavier spoke first, his voice low. “We have to find them, Cal. We have to stop them before they hurt anyone else.”

  Calvin’s eyes flashed, his face that of a wounded animal. “I’m going to find Michael.”

  “No,” said Xavier, and Calvin took a step toward him, one hand still clenched around the knife he’d used to make sure Mercy didn’t come back.

  “Stop me,” the hippie leader said.

  Xavier walked toward him slowly, meeting his eyes. “Rosa is already looking for him.”

  “I’m taking this little guy to the school,” Tommy said, “and then I’m going after Michael and Rosa.”

  The priest nodded, and the orderly lifted the abandoned toddler into his arms and pushed through the mess hall’s doors, leaving the two men alone. “It’s the best we can do for Michael,” Xavier said. “For now.”

  Calvin said nothing.

  “They’ll find him, they’ll bring him back.” Xavier stood before his friend now. “And telling Maya about Evan will have to wait. If he’s still alive, we’ll find him too, but not right now.”

  “Everything you do gets people killed,” Calvin said.

  The words were a slap. He couldn’t deny it, but there was no time to indulge in self-pity. Neither could his friend. The priest’s expression remained hard, unchanged. “We need to find them,” Xavier said. “Nothing is more important than that right now.”

  “My son—” Calvin started.

  “There are other people who need protecting besides Michael,” Xavier said, his voice sharp. “Your other kids, among them.”

  Tears sprang to Calvin’s eyes. “You’re a bastard,” he whispered.

  I know. The priest stepped close to the man. “I need you to toughen up, Calvin. Yes, I said to let them in and it was a mistake. Hate me later. It doesn’t change the fact that they’re here, and they’re killing people.” Xavier’s eyes were cold. “The only way to save our people is to hunt these murderers down. You have to do this, and right now.” Oh, he was such a poor excuse for a friend and a priest.

  Chief Liebs called him on the Hydra then, and Xavier filled the gunner’s mate in on what had happened with the refugees, and what he wanted from the chief. Then he clicked off and looked back at his friend.

  The hippie stared at the ceiling, tears on his cheeks, thinking of his son wandering lost and afraid; of the young pilot and writer who had become a son to him, missing as well; and of his eldest daughter, who had now lost as much as Calvin. He thought of all the other faces aboard Nimitz, people he’d known for years and new friends he’d made. Other faces looked back at him, the people he’d failed, ever-present spirits haunting him.

  “I’ll go,” Calvin said quietly, but then he pointed a finger at the priest. “But understand something, Father. If you come with me, then it’s a manhunt and nothing less. No negotiating, no forgiveness, no mercy. You leave God behind for this.”

  A silence stretched between them, and then Xavier unslung the shotgun from his shoulder. “Let’s go hunting.”

  • • •

  Sophia padded down the corridor in sock feet, her shoes left behind at the school’s hatch. The shotgun held eight shells, and other than blue sweatpants with NAVY down one leg in yellow letters and a zip-up sweater, it was all she had.

  According to Wind, Doc Rosa had told Denny to go straight down to the classroom from sick bay. That left a lot of space in between; the medical center was on the 03 Gallery Deck just below the flight deck, along the central line of the vessel, just forward of amidships, and the classroom was slightly to starboard of the center line, but located on Second Deck, four levels below. For those who knew the layout, it was really a simple matter of descending the right stairway. Denny knew it as well as any of them, but he was young, and he’d been frightened.

  Needle in a haystack.

  Sophia headed up the starboard side toward the berthing compartment the orphans shared with some of the surviving adults, thinking he might have gone to a familiar place. When she turned a corner, her sock feet slid to a halt. The hatchway to the berthing compartment was open, and a man’s arm was protruding from it, limp on the floor. She crept forward, the shotgun held before her and trembling.

  She peered around the edge of the bulkhead. Lying on the floor with his throat cut was one of Calvin’s people, a man called Pablo. She didn’t know if that was his real name. The man’s face wore a wide-eyed, surprised expression, and the blood was still pooling about him. His killers were close.

  Not long dead, and that meant . . .

  Pablo’s eyes clouded over, and his fingers twitched.

  Sophia wanted to scream, and she almost turned to run but then forced herself to stop. She couldn’t let him get up and start roaming, and couldn’t risk the sound a shotgun blast would make in these quiet passageways, alerting the man’s killers. There was nothing nearby she could use, and she had no other weapons.

  Biting her bottom lip and holding back a whimper, Sophia reversed the shotgun, aimed the butt at those cloudy, rolling eyes, and started smashing. Each blow shot a spatter of red across the walls, her sweatpants, and her face, and the thing on the floor grunted, flailing its arms. Three blows, five, six, and it was done. Sophia looked at the damage to make sure Pablo wouldn’t be getting back up—the shotgun butt had done a thorough job—then sagged against a bulkhead and threw up.

  After blotting her mouth on a sleeve and wiping the worst of the gore off the weapon on Pablo’s pants leg, she entered the berthing compartment. Sophia had been here many times, looking in on all her orphans, ensuring that they had clothing and warm bedding and were brushing their teeth. Four adults lived here too, but right now everyone was out doing their jobs on the ship. Denny wasn’t here.

  Neither were any of the weapons the adults kept near their beds.

  Sophia moved back into the corridor, stepping over the man’s remains without looking down, and pressed on.

  With Pablo gone, how many of Calvin’s adults did that leave? Ten? She ran through the names in her head. Yes, ten adults including Calvin and Maya, Mercy, Stone, and Kay. Evan made eleven. How many left from the firehouse? Herself, Big Jerry . . . God, were they the only ones left from there besides the kids? Rosa, Xavier, the four Navy guys . . . Not many people to fight off intruders. There had seemed to be so many of them back at the hangar on Alameda.

  A cough and low voices echoed from somewhere up ahead, and Sophia ducked through a hatch marked SONAR ACCESS 1. She found herself in a compartment crammed with computer towers and walls of electronic circuitry, a single light bar glowing overhead. She eased the hatch until it was nearly closed, leaving a crack of space, and held her breath. The shotgun barrel pointed at the slender opening. If anyone decided to come through the hatch, they would get a surprise.

  Boots thumped past the opening, and through the crack she had an instant’s view of two bearded men in ratty sweaters, one carrying a rifle, the other a fire axe and a handgun. Neither man belonged on the carrier. They went by without slowing, speaking quietly to one another, and Soph
ia counted to thirty before looking out into the passageway once more. They were gone.

  Her sock feet whispered over the steel decking as she continued toward sick bay, feeling as if her entire body were trembling. She kept her finger off the shotgun’s trigger for fear that she might pull it by accident. At another intersection she turned left—checking first to be sure it was empty—and hurried up this new passage.

  Had she been wearing shoes, her footsteps might have masked the faint sound on her right. Instead she slid to a halt and listened. It came again, a soft whimper from inside an enlisted berthing space on her right. Sophia entered slowly, the shotgun ready and her finger now curled around the trigger, advancing between triple stacks of racks, peering around banks of lockers.

  “Denny,” she called in a stage whisper. “Is that you?”

  There was a cry and a blur of movement as something shot out from under a bottom rack. Sophia spun, nearly firing. Denny sobbed and ran to her, and Sophia dropped to her knees and took the boy in her arms. “Shh, it’s okay, you’re safe,” she whispered. The boy shuddered, his tears soaking into her sweater. “I’ve got you, Denny, you’re safe.” Needle one, haystack zero.

  “M-M-Michael . . .” he started.

  Sophia stroked his hair. “I know, sweetie, I know. Wind told us.”

  “I’m s-s-sorry,” he cried.

  She hugged him tight. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Then she held him at arm’s length. “We have to hurry back to the school, okay? And I need you to be as quiet as a ninja. Can you do that?”

  Denny nodded, wiping at his eyes.

  “Okay, kick off your shoes. Grab my pocket and don’t let go.” She stood and took the weapon in two hands again. Denny slipped out of his sneakers and clung to her, his other hand clamped over his mouth, body trembling.

  Sophia paused at the entrance to the berthing space, got her bearings, and headed down the passageway, turning left at the next available intersection. She thought they were now in the corridor everyone called Broadway, a main route that ran from bow to stern and traveled almost the length of the ship, passing through wider-than-normal knee knockers every so often. They padded along quickly as Sophia calculated how long it would take to get back to the classroom. Minutes only on a direct route. Denny had made more progress down through the ship than she had a right to expect, and for that she was grateful.

  Another turn and she was headed starboard again, picking up the pace. Denny kept up without protest. Thirty feet to go.

  “Hey!” a voice shouted behind her, and Sophia started to run, grabbing Denny by one hand and pulling him after her. A rifle fired and both woman and child let out a scream, the bullet whining off a nearby bulkhead. The sound of more than one pair of running feet pounded down the passageway behind them, followed by the crack of a pistol. Another bullet pinged off a pipe three feet from Denny’s head, kicking up sparks.

  Sophia reached the hatch to the classroom and started pounding on it with her fist. “Kay! It’s Sophia, open up, hurry!” A glance to the right showed her the two bearded men she had seen before, both running at her.

  “Kay, hurry!” she yelled, as Denny began to cry.

  The man with the pistol stopped and aimed. The weapon barked, and a second later a bullet whispered past Sophia’s head close enough to make her hair move. A metallic rattle from inside then, and the hatch opened, Kay standing there looking afraid and holding her own shotgun. Sophia shoved Denny through and leaped over the knee knocker behind him as another bullet sparked off the hatch frame.

  The two women slammed the steel oval closed, and Sophia held the handle down while Kay jammed a chair leg against it. Most of the kids in the classroom behind them were crying now, huddling together at the far side of the room.

  Fists began banging on the outside of the hatch, accompanied by muffled curses.

  • • •

  Up on Nimitz’s flight deck, Maya walked alone on the port side edge, staring into the misting rain to the north, night falling rapidly. She wore a gray hooded rain poncho and wrapped her arms across her chest for warmth. The earthquake had forced her to crouch and plant both hands on the deck to keep from falling, but it passed quickly. Now, especially since her life was one of sensation, she could feel the carrier moving. It wasn’t much, but it was no longer stationary, and in the mist and gloom she couldn’t really tell how fast the ship was traveling.

  She wanted the diversion, wanted to think about what that would mean, their sanctuary no longer safely rooted to one spot, but she couldn’t focus. All she could think about was that Evan was out there somewhere. Before the shaking started, Banks, the Navy operations specialist, had found her walking the deck. Using a notepad, he told her they’d lost contact with Evan and were trying to find him. He said he was sorry and went back into the superstructure.

  Maya’s face was wet from rain and tears. She wiped at it, then slid her hands to her stomach. Be okay, Evan. We need you to be okay.

  It hadn’t occurred to anyone that Maya would be unable to hear Father Xavier’s warning over the PA.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “That was intense,” Charlie said, grinning and climbing to his feet. He and the six others with him had been moving down a passageway when the tremor struck, and it threw them to the deck.

  Of the nine people in his boarding party, Charlie had sent two of the men off on their own to wreak havoc, keeping the ship’s defenders moving in different directions without time to organize. At the right moment he would break off another two, who would try to find weapons before starting trouble of their own. The remaining four would stay with him as an assault group, and this smaller team was already armed. The woman whose throat Ava slit provided them with a rifle and handgun, and they’d found their own weapons in a compartment not far from the mess hall. Should have secured those in the armory, Chief, Charlie thought. And of course Ava had her straight razor.

  The woman had no reservations about first using the toddler and then leaving him behind. He wasn’t hers, and she’d confessed to Charlie weeks after he’d found them all hiding in that cannery that she and the big man with the beard had been planning to eat him if supplies ran short.

  Charlie didn’t like that, but he liked the attitude behind it. He could use someone like this, and they’d been sexual as well for some time now. Ava seemed to enjoy their time together.

  “Keep moving,” he ordered once everyone was on their feet, and the group set out once more.

  Walking point and carrying an M4 was the young auxiliary deputy they had picked up in Oregon. He was eager to prove himself, and Charlie liked that. It would make it easier to use him too. The other two were civilians as well, as the decision had been made that trained crew were too valuable to risk on the first assault. Chick was the only coastie in the entire boarding party, as he had to lead the team. The next one would be different.

  Charlie didn’t mind. He’d personally selected his team not only for their potential as boarders, but for their personalities. All were well on their way to disentangling themselves from the morality and restrictions of living in a civilized society, and they were desperate to survive at any cost. Charlie had found that promising to alleviate that desperation was a powerful leadership tool. It hadn’t taken much for Chick to transform these ragged refugees into killers, convincing them that seizing this ship was their only chance at salvation.

  Good pirates, all, he thought.

  They came to a place where corridors intersected near a set of ladderways that climbed up to the Hangar Deck and descended to Third Deck, according to the stenciling on the wall. Chick motioned to two of the women on his team, who moved down the left passageway. They would make their way through the unfamiliar passageways in an attempt to circle back to flank and ambush the pursuers who would surely come after Charlie and his band.

  “Up,” Chick said, and the young deputy started up the ladderwa
y, Ava and the others following, Charlie coming up last. For now only he and the deputy carried rifles, but he was confident that would change soon. The people aboard this ship had grown lazy and careless, confident in the knowledge that they were safe out here on their island, with no reason to secure weapons.

  They emerged in a passage that looked like every other one Chick had seen since coming aboard. He had no schematic, had never been on a carrier in his life, and had seen them only at a distance, moored in various ports he’d visited. The mighty carrier, he thought. The most powerful ship in the fleet, and the most vulnerable.

  Chick didn’t need a map. His mission was one of mayhem, the destruction of every soul he encountered. If they came across a prize like the armory, all the better, but their mission was death. For Chick, that meant one person in particular. And oh, they had been so close! The time hadn’t been right, though. It would be soon.

  They followed the corridor until it led them to an open hatch, and stepped through into the drafty openness of the main hangar.

  • • •

  Another thump on the hatch, and a muffled voice on the other side called, “Open up, we won’t hurt you.”

  Kay stood at the hatch with her shotgun. “You shot at us!”

  “I promise we won’t hurt you,” the voice said.

  Behind Kay, Sophia was moving the children out the hatch at the other side of the room, taking a head count as they passed and whispering to each to take off their shoes. Calvin’s older girl, age thirteen, led them.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Kay shouted, glancing back. Only a few kids left. There was no answer from the other side, and she looked at Sophia, shaking her head. Sophia motioned for Kay to join them, and the woman ran across the classroom.

  “Go to the head of the line,” Sophia whispered. “We need to get to a berthing space. One way in and out, and there’ll be water and a bathroom.”

  Kay nodded and ducked through the hatch, running past the line of frightened children, holding a finger to her lips as she passed. She reached Calvin’s older girl. “Have everyone hold hands,” she whispered, then led off with the shotgun pointed ahead of her. One by one the children linked hands, hurrying after her. At the rear, Sophia closed the classroom hatch and put the shotgun’s stock to her shoulder, aiming it down the passageway as she started walking backward.