Crossbones

by John L. Campbell

  Crescent City had burned. Block after block of charred homes and businesses marched back from the shore, streets choked with abandoned cars and downed power lines, all of it black. As they neared the harbor, the reason became immediately clear. A fuel supertanker had come in from the Pacific and run up onto the narrow stone jetty that framed one side of the town’s little sheltered bay. Its hull and holds had ruptured, dumping millions of gallons of gasoline into the harbor.

  “Probably came in with that storm,” said Chick. “This place got a tanker instead of a cruise ship.”

  “A single lightning strike would have set it off,” said the helicopter pilot.

  The supertanker was burned down to its waterline, and the fire had ripped across the harbor, sinking anything still afloat. From there it spread, consuming the docks, the town, and part of the surrounding forest. Even a month later, sea winds hadn’t completely erased the smell of fire.

  Charlie continued around to where the tiny Coast Guard station was positioned on a knuckle of land framing the other side of the harbor. Neither man needed binoculars to see that the small buildings that made up the station were burned flat; the skeletons of two school buses were parked out front.

  “I’ll be damned,” Charlie said. “It’s been here the whole time.”

  At the pier behind the little station, the bridge windows and antenna array of the USCGC Dorado protruded from the surface of the water. The rest of the eighty-seven-foot cutter was submerged, its keel resting on the bottom.

  “This place has had it,” said Riggs.

  “Let’s go tell the skipper,” Charlie said, turning the launch north.

  • • •

  We’re out of options,” Liz said. She, her two officers, and her brother were gathered in the small working space one deck below the bridge, the door closed. “We can’t stay.”

  Heads nodded around the table.

  “I’ve been working on this for a while,” Liz continued, “anticipating this would happen eventually. I’d hoped we could stay until spring or even beyond, but issues with the cutter’s system are making life aboard next to impossible, and we didn’t expect a ship full of corpses to make it so we can’t scavenge anymore. I have a plan.”

  She unfolded a map covered in red notations and spread it across the table. The others leaned in as Liz put a slender index finger on the page. “There are four other operational Legend Class cutters in service, each identical to Joshua James. The Hamilton is based in Charleston, South Carolina.” She tapped her finger. “But the cutters Bertholf, Waesche, and Stratton are all stationed at Coast Guard Island, Alameda, in the San Francisco Bay.”

  Looks were exchanged as they imagined what such a city must be like now.

  Liz went on. “I’m not naïve enough to think that any of those cutters are still there. Even if they were, they’d probably be in the same condition as the Dorado.” She nodded at Charlie and the lieutenant. “But the base supports three national security cutters, and that means their warehouses and machine shops will have all the parts and equipment we need to get this vessel running properly again. If we’re very lucky, we might find that the armory hasn’t been completely raided, and there could be food stores and fuel as well.”

  Amy and Lt. Riggs were starting to smile. Liz nodded. It was the reaction she was hoping for and the same one she would want to see from the crew; hope, and having a goal upon which they could focus, was a powerful motivator. “This is going to mean a lot of work, and there are still hard decisions to be made.”

  Amy looked at her captain for elaboration, but the other woman went on.

  “San Francisco and the surrounding area is heavily populated, and it’s going to be crawling. Far worse than Seattle, worse than we can imagine. We don’t know if there’s a military presence there, whether refugee clusters—if any—will be hostile, and we don’t know the condition of Coast Guard Island. It could look just like Crescent City.”

  The smiles began to falter at that point, but Liz went on quickly. “That’s why we’re going to make a detailed plan and conduct some reconnaissance.” She looked at the pilot. “Mr. Riggs, you’re going to get the chance to fly.”

  • • •

  This isn’t what I had in mind,” Riggs said. He was seated in front of a console down in the cutter’s combat center, a colorful array of lights and switches before him. At his left and right hands were rubberized joysticks. Mr. Vargas, the operations specialist, sat beside him, and Liz stood behind his chair.

  “Stow your complaints, mister,” she said, poking him in the shoulder. “This beats other duties I could invent.”

  Riggs laughed. “Roger that, Captain.”

  It was late morning on the day after their meeting belowdecks, and Liz had ordered the anchor raised, taking Joshua James several miles offshore and putting the stern into the wind. Riggs, Charlie, and a work party of six had been prepping since daybreak, and now the unmanned drone was ready.

  The MQ-1 Predator was an older, earlier-model UAV, smaller than the MQ-9 Reapers used in Afghanistan, though still capable of carrying the AGM Hellfire missile. No such weapons had been delivered to Joshua James, and in fact the Predators had been aboard only because the cutter was due to test the close-in weapons system mounted aft of the superstructure. They were to have been the subject of target practice, and new drones for regular operations would have been delivered just prior to commissioning. These older birds were still sophisticated units capable of conducting detailed, aerial reconnaissance, sending back real-time digital video. They also carried an infrared camera with digitally enhanced zoom capabilities that could identify the heat signature of a human body from an altitude of ten thousand feet.

  The drone could fly 460 miles to a target, loiter overhead for fourteen hours, and then return. It was just less than 360 miles to the San Francisco Bay, so Riggs would have more than enough time to conduct a detailed recon.

  Normally, the MQ-1 required 125 feet of hard surface runway to take off. The Coast Guard variant, however, was adapted for launch from a rail-and-catapult system that could be assembled across the length of the helicopter flight pad and out over the stern. The drawback to this process was that since the drone needed an equal length of runway in order to land, the cutter could not recover its own drones. Normal procedures called for the Predator, upon completion of a mission, to be flown to a military airfield to await later pickup. In this case, Riggs would bring the drone back to Brookings and attempt to land it on the access road approaching the Coast Guard station.

  “Ready for takeoff,” Riggs said, flexing his hands around the joysticks.

  Mr. Vargas spoke into a microphone. “Drone launch, drone launch. All personnel clear the flight deck.”

  Once video cameras showed the helicopter pad empty except for the drone and its launch rail, Liz said, “Launch when ready, Mr. Riggs.”

  The lieutenant checked the speed and direction of the wind, glanced at a barometer, and looked at the bird’s video feed one last time. It gave him a view directly off the drone’s nose, currently a shot of the rail stretching beyond the stern and out over open water. There were other video angles he could switch to once he was airborne.

  “Firing,” he said, depressing a button on the console. The video image began vibrating slightly as the UAV’s propeller spun up to power. “Launch,” he said, punching another button.

  Assisted by the miniature catapult built into the rail, the Predator shot off the deck with a howl, skimming a few meters above the waves for a moment before climbing. It rose sharply into the morning sky, the hum of its propeller fading. Although it was capable of flying as high as twenty-five thousand feet, the UAV obeyed its pilot’s controls and leveled off at twelve thousand.

  The northern Pacific coast slid beneath it as the Predator headed south.

  • • •

  Coming up in about two minutes,” Ri
ggs said. Liz had taken over the seat beside her pilot while Mr. Vargas made another coffee run to the galley. Flight time so far was just over three hours. Above them on the bridge, Amy Liggett and their quartermaster slowly backed the cutter once more into its anchorage at the mouth of the river.

  On-screen before them, in addition to the pilot’s frontal view, was a color, look-down video from ten thousand feet, the drone flying much slower now than it had been. The Bay Area was overcast, but the Predator was flying just beneath the cloud cover, its gray skin making it almost invisible.

  “Will anyone hear it?” Liz asked.

  “I doubt it,” said Riggs. “And even if someone hears the hum and thinks to look up, they won’t see it.” The bridge and city came into view, and Riggs’s voice dropped to a whisper. “There’s no one left to see it.”

  The Predator passed over the Golden Gate, and then the city itself. Mr. Vargas returned with three cups of coffee to find the two officers leaning into the images on screen. He nearly dropped his tray when he saw what they were looking at.

  “It’s dead,” Vargas said softly.

  Liz and Riggs could only nod. Some of the city had burned, other parts had toppled, and the streets were choked with debris. The lieutenant zoomed the camera, and the dead came into view. They were everywhere.

  The captain shook off a chill. “Let’s take a look at the island,” she said. The lieutenant flew the drone across the bay and quickly reached Alameda, loitering overhead and zooming in once again.

  “It’s infested,” the pilot said.

  “But it looks intact,” Liz countered, taking control of one of the cameras and tracking it slowly across Coast Guard Island. As expected, there were no ships in port—certainly no Legend Class cutters—but it didn’t look as if the place had burned, which was a good sign. Riggs was right, however. The station was swarming with thousands of the walking dead.

  “We’ll work it out,” she said.

  Lt. Riggs kept his face expressionless as he listened to her words and took in what he was seeing. Work it out? That little dustup at Port Angeles had been nothing compared to what awaited them down there. A battalion of Marines with heavy weapons would have trouble taking this place. They were going to seize it with a couple dozen coasties using light arms?

  He saw a blip on a radar scope to his left. “Airborne contact,” the pilot said, tapping the scope. He began tracking the look-down camera on the contact as he steered the drone toward the Bay Bridge. Below them was a slow-moving, haze-gray Navy helicopter.

  “They’re going to pick us up on their air search radar,” Vargas said from behind them.

  “Maybe,” Riggs muttered, keeping the camera on the bird. It was headed for an aircraft carrier sitting motionless off western Oakland, just south of the Bay Bridge. He zoomed in and saw a Black Hawk parked alone on the deck. “No fighter aircraft . . . I got movement on deck.” He zoomed again and saw a few people walking normally, not with the stiff-legged movements of corpses. As he watched, one of the aircraft elevators rose, delivering a low-slung fuel truck that moved across the deck toward the Black Hawk.

  Liz said, “Are they military?”

  “Can’t tell from up here. I can fly lower, but then we run the risk of detection.”

  “Negative,” said Liz. “Hold at this altitude and we’ll watch for a bit.”

  They did just that for the next six hours, Mr. Vargas continuing to shuttle back and forth between the galley and the combat center with fresh coffee. They watched the Navy bird make an awkward landing, saw that the Black Hawk, although fueled, never left the deck, and eventually watched both aircraft ride the elevator to be stored below. The Predator digitally recorded every moment. At the end of those six hours, Liz and her pilot were convinced of several things: the ship was grounded and listing to port, there was a skeleton crew mostly composed of civilians, and the supercarrier—now identified as the Nimitz—was still under nuclear power. As evening fell, the two officers watched lights come on in the bridge and from within the hangar deck.

  “Can you fly one of those birds?” Liz asked.

  Riggs laughed. “You bet your . . . ah, yes, ma’am.”

  She stared at the carrier’s image on the screen. Power, aircraft, fuel, stores, and a desalinization system that no doubt worked. It was a prize the likes of which William Kidd could never even dream.

  “Bring your bird home, Lieutenant,” she said, standing and stretching. “I want you, Miss Liggett, and the senior chief assembled in my quarters at seventeen hundred hours.”

  Riggs did as ordered, and several hours later he brought the Predator in for a landing on the intended access road. A zombie wearing a fast-food uniform blundered into its path as it touched down and was cut in half by the fast-moving UAV. The Predator fragmented into spinning pieces from the impact.

  The surveillance flight was a success.

  • • •

  Liz passed around a photograph showing Nimitz resting at a tilt to the west of Oakland. Blackbeard was crouched under the bed, watching Charlie, tail flicking.

  “This is our new objective,” Liz said. “It has everything we need and poses less risk than the hordes on Coast Guard Island.”

  Amy was jubilant. “This changes everything! There’ll be more than enough room and resources to take on our crew and all the refugees on shore.”

  The captain had no comment and only rubbed slowly at the ugly scar running down one side of her face, now beginning to turn white.

  “They’ll be willing to share it with us, don’t you think?” Amy said. “If we show them we don’t mean them harm.”

  Charlie and Lt. Riggs exchanged glances.

  “Perhaps,” the captain offered. “Amy, I want you to conduct a detailed inventory of all our supplies, including arms and ammunition. Will you do that right away, please?”

  The young woman left smiling. Charlie closed the door behind her and turned to his sister. “You don’t plan on sharing anything, do you?”

  “That is not my intention.”

  Riggs frowned. “Captain, no disrespect, but what about an attempt at negotiations, or perhaps even using our military status to bully our way into control of that ship?”

  “I understand your point, Mr. Riggs,” Liz said. “However, both options leave us exposed. If things didn’t go the way we wanted, we’d be vulnerable and lose the advantage of surprise.” She tapped a finger at the photo of Nimitz. “Better to strike under our terms instead of reacting.”

  “Of course, Captain,” he said.

  She looked at her brother. “We’ll need crew for this. I want you to conduct some discreet screening of the refugees. Look for people who will make good combatants, men or women without families. I don’t want anyone pressed into service, only those who are ready to fight for the right to survive, no deadweight. Do you take my meaning?”

  “I know just the types we need,” said Charlie.

  “And I want to reemphasize the word discreet. The other refugees cannot hear about this, and Miss Liggett is not to be involved.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid she’s grown too close with the civilians, lost her objectivity.”

  Liz looked again at the photo of the aircraft carrier. “Senior Chief, if I gave you an armed team, do you think you could get through the dead, then in and out of those boatyard warehouses on the south end of the marina? Bring back some supplies?”

  “No sweat.”

  “Good.” She slapped a hand against a white metal bulkhead. “Bring back all the paint you can find. I want you to turn this cutter black.”

  • • •

  It took a week with all hands participating to paint Joshua James. When the black ran out, dark blue was used. It wasn’t pretty, but now the frigate-sized ship would no longer stand out like a white beacon. At night, it would be nearly invisible.

  Liz mustered her skeleton
crew and told them they would be heading south, sold them on the promises that Nimitz held for their survival and future. She spoke about hot food, hot showers, fresh water, and working heads. The crew was ecstatic, but their captain cautioned them that if those currently holding the carrier became aggressive, Joshua James would be forced to defend itself. There was no protest. The crew was with her.

  During that same week, Charlie identified eighteen refugees (most of them male, but a few women included) who had neither families nor any reservations about killing in order to stay alive. They were told to stay quiet until summoned.

  Amy was quick to notice that conversations she was not involved with were taking place, which she perceived as an intentional attempt to keep her out of the loop. When she brought her concerns to the captain, she was given a sharp rebuke.

  “I don’t have time to entertain your hurt feelings, Miss Liggett, nor do I care to hear your theories on conspiracy. Follow your orders. I will worry about what is and is not happening aboard my ship. Are we clear, lady?”

  Amy hadn’t brought it up again, and kept her head down. But she watched, and worried. Most of all she worried about the captain’s statement about aggression from the people on Nimitz, and that the crew of the cutter might have to defend themselves. She didn’t want to risk another tongue lashing, however, and remained silent.

  • • •

  On the morning of January 2, Charlie Kidd collected Ava, the little boy she was found with wearing a rope leash, and his would-be pirates from the Coast Guard station, bringing them aboard along with whatever food and water supplies the rest of the refugees had been able to save. The rest of the civilians protested, and one man tried to grab a cardboard tray of bottled water out of the chief’s hands. Charlie shot him in the head, and the rest of the refugees scattered.

  Within twenty minutes of the shooting, Joshua James raised anchor and steamed out of the mouth of the Chetco River, bow pointed at the Pacific. On shore, refugees ran from the station and lined the water’s edge, families and children, the elderly and injured, all crying out and waving their arms, shouting at the departing vessel.