To Sail a Darkling Sea

by John Ringo

  “Start looking for food storage lockers below the line of the main water tanks,” Steve said, as Faith started pulling out the maps and arranging them around the room. She was having to step over bodies but that was so normal at this point it didn’t even register. She propped one of the maps up on a lieutenant commander whose face had been eaten off.

  “Let’s get started,” Steve said.

  * * *

  “You okay, Hooch?” Faith said.

  They weren’t finding many survivors. The few who had apparently been uninfected in the upper reaches of the ship were dead from starvation, dehydration or suicide in the face of either.

  “I am five by five, Shewolf,” Hooch said, closing the hatch of the compartment.

  “I think I should do it,” Faith said. “Trixie says you shouldn’t look in any more compartments unless we hear survivors.”

  “Tell Trixie I’ll be okay,” Hooch said. “But thanks. Honestly, I didn’t expect anything more on this level. And it looks like a lot of them saved the last round.”

  “So far I will admit to some disappointment,” Steve said. “It looks as if this was the aviation officer’s quarters.”

  “It was, sir,” Hocieniec said.

  “I was hoping to find at least one helo pilot,” Steve said.

  “Having a helo pilot would be cool,” Faith said. “We could, like, drop in on these things instead of climbing. I don’t like heights. Heights over water is better. Except for the whole we’re wearing ten billion pounds of gear and there are always man-eating sharks. So, yeah, helo would be nice.”

  “Thank you, Faith,” Steve said. “I had a broader reason but that’s a good point.”

  “Just here to be helpful,” Faith said, banging on the bulkhead. “Anybody hooome . . . ?”

  * * *

  “No Tan Lines?” Steve said, trying not to snort.

  “Oh, my God,” Faith said gleefully. “That is so you, Soph!”

  After the continuous nightmare of clearing the Voyage, Steve decided that there was only so much any one person could do. Not to mention he rarely got to see his kids who were still growing up. Okay, he probably saw too much of Faith. But the same could not be said of Sophia.

  So while they were around he tried to have a family dinner, just the four of them, at least once a week. They were the only intact family in the squadron. They might as well make the most of it.

  “All it takes to change it is some paint and a good hand,” Stacey pointed out.

  “You know, we talked about it and decided to keep the name,” Sophia said, spooning up the ikan santen. Da’s one real “perk” as the boss was that he had one of the better cooks they’d found. Sari was a real find. She’d had it as hard as anyone, harder than some, but she just sailed along. She didn’t talk much about when the Alpha was in the hands of its “security contingent.” The security, a group called Socorro Security run by a former SF major Fontana knew, and loathed, was one of the last, and worst, decisions Mike Mickerberg ever made. Dad had boiled it down to: If you have to use mercenaries, choose wisely. Socorro Security had not been a wise choice.

  “That was somebody’s pride and joy. It’s a nice boat. Changing the name would be sort of dissing the dead. So we’ll keep it.”

  “I’m sure you’ll . . . overcome it?” her mom said.

  “Actually, Mom,” Sophia said. “Hate to tell you this but I don’t have much in the way of tan lines.”

  “How’s your new security guy?” Steve said, to fill in the gap in the conversation.

  “I think he’ll do,” Sophia said, shrugging. “And if not, I’ll find another. He’s no Fontana. No real training. But he says he grew up with guns. Redneck, you know? I gave him a pistol and he knew which way the magazine went in. I had to explain that on my boat, you had better clear every single time. I’ll make sure he stays safe. Best I can do for now.”

  “We haven’t found any survivors, yet,” Steve said. “But it’s early days and the areas we’re checking we weren’t really expecting any.”

  “I hope they’re in . . .” Stacey said then glanced at Faith.

  “Better condition than the ones we found on the Voyage?” Faith said. “Me too. And when we don’t get any response, I haven’t been checking the compartments. Hooch has, which is sort of—”

  “He’s handling it,” Steve said. “What do you think about the trip south, Soph?”

  “Looking forward to it,” Sophia said. “I want to get back to nautical, you know? Do some fishing, do some rescuing. Clear some boats.”

  “You’re going to need a better, and bigger, base than the Large eventually,” Steve said. “Keep an eye out for something. If it’s too big for your group to clear, we’ll send down a team. Hopefully, anyway. Assuming there’s anything to find.”

  The problem with distress beacons was that they lasted a far shorter time than humans could. With a solar still, a fishing line or spear gun and some luck, people could survive a long time on rafts or lifeboats. One guy in the ’80s had drifted across almost the entire Atlantic in a life raft. Some lifeboats had solar powered distress beacons. But their range was short. And boats’ and ships’ distress signals stopped when their batteries ran out. It was mostly a matter of “Mark One Eyeball” finding the boats these days.

  “There’ll be stuff,” Sophia said. “There always is. I’m not sure about survivors. I’m sort of going to miss the tuna tower on the Endeavor. It was good for spotting stuff. The new one is lower even though it’s a fishing boat, too.”

  “ ‘Oh, I just get a pleasure yacht.’ ” Faith mimicked. “All I get is a ton of stuff and a Barbie gun!”

  “Faith . . .”

  So maybe a family dinner wasn’t the best idea . . .

  * * *

  Stacey Smith had decided there should be a law against using Volvo marine engines.

  Stacey noticed, quickly, that as Wolf Squadron grew in size her role as the family’s designated mechanic had faded. There were more and more pros who knew what they were doing. On the other hand, there were never enough even half-trained hands and she wasn’t somebody to just sit around, so every day she’d wander over to the mechanic shop on the Grace and ask, “Anybody need a hand?”

  Which kindness led to, for example, being upside down, squeezed into the narrow space between the port engine and bulkhead of the latest yacht brought in for “servicing,” trying to get to the damned oil plug on this—did the designers even think about the fact the oil occasionally needed changing?—Volvo God Damned Marine Diesel. Because instead of putting the oil plug fore or aft on their engines, preferably with enough space for a person to get to the plug, they’d put it to one side. Easy enough to change on the starboard engine: Just reach under, put in a pan, and take off the plug. On the port engine, the only way to get to it was crawl over the engine, and remember to bring the pan, slither down the narrow gap between the engine and the bulkhead, kind of get on your back, more like your neck, then reaaach . . .

  Bad enough that she was dealing with morning sickness. She had gotten over being seasick just in time for that little joy. Try being morning sick, upside down, on a rocking boat, trying to reach a God damned oil plug on a God Damned Volvo Marine Diesel!

  “Mrs. Smith?”

  “Yo,” Stacey said.

  * * *

  Mrs. Sabrina Dunn wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the compartment but there were some minor mechanical noises coming from somewhere under one of the engines.

  She squatted down creakily, then got down on her stomach when it was clear she couldn’t see under the engine that way. By peering under the engine she could just see one eye of, presumably, the commodore’s wife. She appeared to be the source of the mechanical noises.

  “Got you, you little bitch,” the commodore’s wife muttered. There were more mechanical noises.

  This clearly wasn’t the best time, but Mrs. Dunn was not about to be dissuaded from her self-appointed errand. />
  “Mrs. Smith, I request a moment of your time . . .”

  * * *

  The voice was polite but firm. All Stacey could see of the woman was some white hair and one eye.

  “Gimme a sec,” Stacey grunted as the nut surrendered to the ratchet. Whoever put it on the last time must have had forearms like a gorilla. The oil finally started pouring out of the overdue-for-maintenance engine and she began to contemplate how the hell to get out of her current position. “Whatcha got?”

  “Pardon me?” the woman asked.

  “I’ve got a minute here,” Stacey said, then muttered: “Okay, how the hell are you supposed to get the oil out of the damned pan?” She hadn’t gotten that far in her planning. The space between the engine and the bulkhead was too narrow to just pull the pan out even if she could. She’d have to tip it, and the oil, all over the deck. “Pump?”

  “I . . . What?” the woman said.

  “Never mind,” Stacey said. “You had something you wanted to ask about?”

  “Mrs. Smith, I understand that we are in rather difficult conditions . . .” the woman said.

  Stacey snorted.

  “You mean what with this being a zombie apocalypse and all?” Stacey said.

  “Yes, that,” the woman said, “as well as being still, essentially, stranded at sea. However, there are issues which I feel are not being properly addressed.”

  “Like making sure the fleet does not have Volvo marine diesels?” Stacey muttered. The good part about Volvos was they were reliable as hell. The bad part was, well . . . Might actually be a wash, come to think of it . . .

  “I . . . what?” the woman said.

  “What issues?” Stacey asked.

  “The most notable is hair products,” the woman said.

  “Hair products?” Stacey said, trying not to snort. The woman was clearly as serious as a banker looking at a questionable investment.

  “You have medium length hair, Mrs. Smith,” the woman said. “Do you wash it with the dishwashing soap currently being issued for showers?”

  Stacey stopped and thought about that for a moment. She’d asked Sophia to scrounge some decent shampoo and conditioner for her on her trip south.

  “No, actually,” Stacey said. “You’ve got a point. But it’s Isham’s department, ma’am.”

  “I attempted to bring the issue to Mr. Isham’s department and they frankly rebuffed me, Mrs. Smith,” the woman said with not quite a sniff.

  “Jack’s a busy guy,” Stacey said with, she knew, massive understatement. “So you want me to bring this up with Steve?” Like he needed that.

  “If you would, Mrs. Smith,” the woman said. “Both your husband, the commodore, and Mr. Isham have short hair. Most of the women in the squadron have medium length to long, and such hair does not respond well to Dawn dishwashing soap.”

  “Okay, point again,” Stacey said. “I’ll bring it up. What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Mrs. Sabrina Dunn,” the woman said. “Widow of the late Mr. James Dunn of the Westland Dunns.”

  “Mrs. Sabrina Dunn, now that I’ve promised to do you a favor—just bring it up, not fix it for you, not sure if we can but I’ll bring it up—can you do me one?”

  “Which is?”

  “Go find one of the regular mechanics. Ask them to come down here. Two reasons: One, I can’t figure out how to get the oil out from under the engine; Two, I think I’m stuck.”

  * * *

  “Hair products?” Steve said over dinner.

  “She had a point,” Stacey said. “Most of us are pregnant and feel like shit. You know how I get about how I look when I’m pregnant.”

  “Lovely in my opinion,” Steve said, grinning.

  “Letch,” Stacey said, shaking her head. “We don’t also need to have crappy hair. I guess the question is, how much do you want to improve female morale?”

  “Point,” Steve said. “Jack will just love to have this thrown at him. Anything else?”

  “I’m getting a lot of this sort of stuff,” Stacey said, shrugging. “That’s just the only one I’ve brought up with you.”

  “Perils of being a commodore’s wife,” Steve said thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought about it before but . . . sorry.”

  “It’s not my strong point, Steve,” Stacey said unhappily. “People keep asking me to fix things. I mean, if it’s an engine, I’ll give it a shot. This kind of stuff . . . not my strong point.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s important,” Steve said. “This kind of back-channeling is the lube a society runs on.”

  “So now I’m the lube?” Stacey said with a snort. “Thanks.”

  “It’s the reason that in the old adage about marriage in the military, ‘Colonels must marry,’” Steve said. “There’s more, necessary, information transfer in a society than just what occurs in meetings. It’s arguably more important than changing the oil on an engine. It’s changing the oil on the squadron.”

  “Great,” Stacey said. “Again, not my strong point, Steve. I don’t do tea and crumpets.”

  “Who brought the hair thing up with you?” Steve asked.

  “‘Mrs. Sabrina Dunn,’” Stacey intoned. “‘Widow of the late . . . Somebody Dunn of the Westland Dunns.’ I was clearly supposed to know who the Westland Dunns were.”

  “There’s your answer,” Steve said.

  “What answer?” Stacey said.

  “I couldn’t run this lash-up without Isham,” Steve said. “Appoint her your chief of staff. She clearly does know how to back-channel. It’s been her whole life. Not necessarily her, you understand, but somebody like her. Just make clear that it can be taken too far. I don’t need your chief of staff constantly bothering my chief of staff, saying ‘I’d hate to have to bring this up with the commodore’ or something. But get an assistant for this sort of stuff. Throw most of it on them. But still figure, especially as we get larger, you’re going to be doing more changing the oil on the squadron than on boats. It really is important, honey.”

  “I get that,” Stacey said, sighing. “Sort of. And you’ve got a point. I’ll go look her up tomorrow.”

  “Now, about that special glow you get when you’re pregnant . . .”

  “Letch . . . ”

  * * *

  “Oh, yes,” Sophia said, pulling away from the cluster of craft around the Iwo Jima. They hadn’t managed to sneak quite all of the Endeavor’s “special stocks” over to the new boat, but they’d gotten a lot of them. And she wasn’t having to ferry stuff back and forth from the Alpha or Grace anymore. “The freedom of the open sea . . .”

  “Kuzma Flotilla, form line astern of Vessel One,” Kuzma called. “And when I say, ‘form line,’ I mean something resembling an actual line.”

  “You were saying?” Paula asked.

  “Son of a bitch . . .”

  * * *

  “Son of a bitch,” the sailor said, covering his eyes.

  “I told you to cover your eyes and not open the hatch all the way up,” Fontana said, tossing a chemlight into the compartment. “That will give your eyes some time to adjust. How many in your compartment?”

  “Four,” the petty officer said. “Left.”

  “Here’s four pairs of sunglasses,” Fontana said. “Put them on when we come back.”

  “You Coast Guard?”

  “No. Nor Navy, Marines or Sea Scouts. Wolf Squadron. I’m Special Forces, she’s some sort of psycho anime chick come to life . . .”

  “Hey!”

  “Long story . . .”

  * * *

  “I’m up for a threesome if anybody’s interested . . . ?”

  When you were so bored and tired of being in a compartment with people you no longer could stand that you couldn’t even get a flicker out of Mister Willy at a suggestion like that, you knew it was bad. And he was out of Copenhagen. Bad on toast.

  Turned out that Gowen had never had group sex. Group sex hadn’t been what Januscheitis had actually suggested but the idea got
floated about two weeks after their little discussion. After the first time, she got really into it. By a couple of weeks after that it had been ongoing. There was flat nothing else to do in the compartment. He’d tried reading by the light of his watch and decided that was a bad idea. And he was out of Copenhagen. The senior NCO in the compartment had not been a happy camper for a few days when the Copenhagen ran out.

  He’d maintained PT every day. Some of the guys thought that a go around with Gowen should count. They’d done PT, even Patel the swabbie. So had Gowen even after it was pretty clear she was preggers. How they were going to explain that, he wasn’t sure.

  They’d checked the corridors to see if the zombies had left. On one end the answer was they’d all died of dehydration. Which meant that the watertight doors on the other side were dogged. They’d checked that and run into more zombies. So their perimeter had expanded but that was about it. They’d knocked on a couple of bulkheads and found out there were other survivors in the area. But nobody they could link up with. The zombies held all the intermediate areas.

  They’d used tap code to get a roster and passed their own on. They’d tried to use it to pass information and converse. That had worked for prisoners of war but there was no real point with this situation.

  One of the compartments had run short of water after a short while. They’d tapped about ways to get some to them but they had nothing that could cut through the steel bulkheads. L-4-638 tapped that they drew lots and were going to “terminate” two to conserve water. It was three dudes and a split and the dudes had agreed that she wasn’t in the lottery.

  Semper Fi, dudes. Both of the Marines had “terminated.”

  Now 638 was just about down to the final male swabbie terminating. They were drinking piss mixed with water and everything that anyone could think of to hold out. L-4-642 had dudes slowly scratching through with a crowbar, trying to cut a hole to the compartment. Like their own, 642 had a tap and was below the main fresh water tanks. So far they’d had a steady stream and they were putting more into every ration can they emptied.

  L-4-649 was low on food. But they figured they had about another two months on short rations, and 642 had reported that when they were through to 638 they’d try to find a way to 649. Eventually you could cut through steel with a crowbar. They weren’t reporting their progress, though, which didn’t bode well for either compartment.