To Sail a Darkling Sea

by John Ringo

  “And there’s a problem,” Januscheitis said.

  “Which is?” Faith asked, looking over her shoulder. “Oh.”

  The crane on the Alan Garcia was designed for dropping cargo containers onto piers at small ports or onto lighters in small harbors where there weren’t better systems. It was not designed to move them far from the ship. Just get them “on dock.” It had had to be modified just to get them to drop “inline” with the ship for the “mechanical clearance” devices. Getting it to drop them further out was out of the question. It would need an entirely different crane.

  And the outboard container didn’t quite make it to the seawall. Thus there was going to be a gap. There was a pedestrian walkway with lights along it on the seawall side. They’d already checked and the container was going to crush the lights when it landed on them. But it didn’t, in fact, make it. There was a solid four-foot gap. Two sailors were straining at lines to get it to swing out, but it just wasn’t happening.

  “Ground team, Division, you seeing what we’re seeing?” Captain Walker radioed. “And by that I mean the gap not the oncoming football hooligans.”

  “We see it,” Faith replied. “There’s a gap. Drop it and put the next one in place. We’ll figure out the gap later.”

  “Doors,” Januscheitis said.

  “Squirrel,” Faith replied. “Why are we playing word association games?”

  “We open the doors on the container and tie them back, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “The one that’s on the south side will push into the wall so the more they push it the tighter it will get.”

  “That is a brilliant suggestion, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. “Infected are holding from the fire. Let’s make it so. We’re going to need to smash away some of the lights.”

  “Kirby. Hammer!”

  “Yes, Staff Sergeant,” Kirby said.

  “Wait . . .” Januscheitis said. “Squirrel, ma’am . . . ?”

  * * *

  “What the hell is this?” Faith asked when they’d opened the container. The container was filled with pallets of wooden boxes that were narrow, wide and about man sized. A short man, anyway.

  “Dunno, ma’am,” Januscheitis said, firing twice. “But we’re going to need to be on the other side of the door when those infected get here.”

  The fire from the combined gunboats was slowing the tide of infected but a few leakers were getting through. And eventually that would be a lot of leakers.

  Faith pulled one of the shipping manifests off a pallet and looked at it, tipping her head.

  “Yves Saint Laurent . . . Oh, my GOD! It’s DRESSES! We can’t use this! They’re going to get RUINED!”

  “Ma’am . . .” Januscheitis said.

  “I just need to find a size eight!” Faith screamed, pulling out a knife. “Okay, ten . . . twelve is the highest I’ll go . . .”

  “Oh, jeeze,” Januscheitis said. “Derek! Get the 240 and a bunch of ammo! Pag, Kirby . . . Find the LT a dress . . .”

  * * *

  “. . . Roger, Division, we’re . . . uh . . . reconfiguring our plan, here. There’s some high value material in this container so we’re jamming the forward door to keep the infected out rather than tying back the rear . . .”

  “No. God no, that color would look horrible on me . . .”

  “Be about . . . Could be a while, Division . . .”

  “Seriously? That would barely fit my sister . . .”

  “. . . got the door jammed open, reinforcing it, still working the exercise, Division . . .”

  “No, Lance Corporal, I am not going to wear that dress in public . . . I’m not sure I’d wear it in private . . .”

  “. . . Pag, go see if you can get one of those cargo-handlers moving. We’ll jam it up against the door . . . And pick up some more seven six two . . .”

  “Oh, God. Oh, God, yes. YES! YES! YES!”

  “Roger, Division, breaking contact now . . .”

  “Now all I need to find is a container-load of shoes. . . .”

  * * *

  “Good Lord,” Paula said. “That’s gorgeous.”

  The long-sought dress was basically red but the holographic silk changed it to a rippling cascade of different shades from pink to burgundy.

  “Can you alter it for me?” Faith said. “I got it sort of large . . .”

  “Easily,” Paula said. “We’ll need some time to do a fitting.”

  “Annnd we have more,” Januscheitis said, patiently gesturing to PFC Kirby who was more or less invisible under a pile of fabric.

  “I figured you were about Sophia’s size,” Faith said, pulling the dresses off the PFC. “There’s a bunch . . .”

  “Ahem. LT? Now that we’ve got that emergency fixed?”

  “Oh, yeah, the liner,” Faith said, grumpily. “Right, where’s that techy? We need to see if we can get the port side embarkation ramp open and the starboard side closed . . .”

  * * *

  “Are you sure that door’s going to hold?” Dougherty asked nervously, looking around the interior of the cruise liner. He’d puked, again, when he had to walk nearly knee deep in dead bodies just to get to the hatch controls.

  “No,” Januscheitis said, sighing. “But we’ve got it chocked, braced and a cargo handler jammed up against it. And the other door is open and tied back. If the first one fails, well, they ain’t getting’ past the second.”

  “If the infected get into that cargo container, every woman in the Fleet will tear you apart limb from limb, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. “You’re not a woman. You don’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t, LT,” Januscheitis said. “But we were fine giving you cover fire while you found a dress. And it’s damned pretty, ma’am. It will look good on you.”

  “Thank you, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, giving his arm a punch. “Sorry I went a little nuts back there.”

  “No issues, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “It’s sort of why we follow you around.”

  “So . . . what do you need to get this hatch open,” Faith said, pointing at the offending hatch, “and that hatch closed?”

  “Power,” Dougherty said. “And some time and tools. And not having to worry about getting eaten by zombies would help.”

  “Get the pierside hatch closed and you’re golden on that one,” Faith said. “But it would be nice if we didn’t have to fight our way out of the ship to get back to the boat so . . . water side open first, maybe?”

  “I’ll go get some tools. . . .”

  * * *

  “The pier side embarkation doors are closed all three liners,” Lieutenant Chen said. “And water side are all open. Infected have been cleared from all embarkation areas and the pier has been somewhat secured against infiltration from the city.”

  The rest of the squadron had arrived just before dawn. Captain Smith had called for a “command and staff” meeting at 0800 hours to prepare for clearance of the vessels. Given that getting the embarkation areas of the liners was the most critical step, things seemed to be going well enough.

  “Reconnaissance and clearance has been conducted on the supermax up to the level of deck five. Ground team commander?”

  “It is believed that stores were being prepared for distribution either to passengers in cabins or to secure areas,” Faith said, looking at the notes that Januscheitis had given her. She was really uncomfortable speaking in public and especially to the command and staff meeting. She’d never met half the people there, including the new senior Marine, she was bleary from sleep deprivation and she was terrified she’d look like an idiot. Which led her to read slowly and in a monotone.

  “The stores were stockpiled in the embarkation area. Most of them were in nonmetallic containers so the infected were able to . . . access them. This led to high levels of infected in the embarkation area. The watertight doors between the embarkation area and the atrium on deck five were all open. Continued infiltration of infected into the embarkation area led to a decision to commence clea
rance for the purposes of finding the entries and securing them.

  “Infected subjects were found in all areas up to deck five. There were indications that there is a significant infected presence above and below deck five as well as on deck four, the embarkation level. Primary watertight doors leading to the embarkation area were closed and partially secured. The doors don’t have manual dogs on them, it’s some sort of electronic locking mechanism, so the best we could do was jam them shut.

  “On the other two liners we started by finding and shutting the doors, first, then entering with technical personnel to get the embarkation hatches switched around.” She paused and her lips worked for a second. “By midnight, all embarkation areas were converted to water-side entry. Significant infected levels, in excess of the Boadicea, were found on all vessels. No evidence of survivors. However, penetration was limited to embarkation areas and immediate surroundings.

  “I would like to commend Mr. Gregory Dougherty, engineering mate from the Garcia, on his ex . . . emplary actions in getting the doors switched around, often under conditions of some threat. That concludes my report.”

  She sat down quickly.

  “I know that you have the word ‘exemplary’ in your vocabulary, Lieutenant,” Steve said drily. “But that really didn’t sound like your writing.”

  “Staff Sergeant Januscheitis has been training me on . . . military report writing, sir,” Faith replied. “But in this case, yes, the staff sergeant pretty much wrote the report, sir. We got the doors configured by midnight. We were still picking out and clearing infected on the pier at one. There were a bunch of the little bastards. The staff sergeant and I worked on the report last night but I think I passed out around four. The staff sergeant shoved the report into my hands on the way to the meeting, sir. I really don’t know what I’d do without the staff sergeant, sir.”

  “So you’re working on, what, two hours sleep?” Steve said. “Remember the thing about no more than twelve hours’ clearance a day, Lieutenant?”

  “That would be on me, sir,” Chen said. “We were trying to prepare for the arrival of the squadron. I wanted things to be in place so you could begin clearance ops without issue.”

  “And it just took longer than we’d thought, sir,” Faith said, shrugging. “I didn’t go into detail on getting the doors configured. We had to have a generator to run them. And every time we cranked the generator, we’d find we’d missed a damn hatch and, hello, here come a bunch of fricking zombies! Then Greg would dive for cover while we fought our way through the infected to the hatch we’d missed and get it closed. Or hatches in one case. So it just took a long time.”

  “You’re off duty until tomorrow morning after this meeting,” Steve said. “As are the rest of the members of your team. We have sufficient Marines for this clearance and I’m not going to have you or your team clearing in your condition.”

  “Yes, sir,” Faith said. “I can still clear, sir. Meetings not so good but I can clear in my sleep. But for my team I thank you. They really busted their . . . butts yesterday. Sir.”

  “Before Lieutenant Smith leaves, any questions? Captain Wilkes.”

  “Any intel on the ships other than ‘there’s lots of infected,’ Lieutenant?” Wilkes asked.

  “We found a security point on the supermax, sir,” Faith said, tapping the report. “There are the usual brochure maps and one detail map that covers the non-passenger areas, sir. We also recovered several key-cards, one of them a senior purser’s. They give access to some areas. We found one door we couldn’t open but . . . that’s as far as we got, sir.”

  “Numbers?” Wilkes said. “Useful intelligence?”

  “I’ll cover that, Captain,” Captain Smith said. “For your general information on clearance of a large ship, you can never determine numbers of survivors or infected until you open a hatch, Captain. Infected only need water. They’ll eat each other if there’s no other food source. If there are reserves of water, you can expect infected. So when you analyze the map, assume infected in any area with fresh water sources. Survivors are generally, not always, found in areas with food storage below the fresh-water tanks. Otherwise, your guess is as good as anyone’s.”

  “Look out for the spa,” Faith said muzzily. “There’s a spa listed. Spas aren’t good. You get in the scrum in spas.”

  “Translated as use a large force for spa clearance, which I and Lieutenant Fontana can cover,” Steve said. “Lieutenant, you’re dismissed until tomorrow morning. Have your team ready for clearance ops by 0800 hours tomorrow. Understood?”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Faith said.

  “Your gear should already have been moved over here. Ask Mrs. Bailey where it is.”

  “Yes, sir,” Faith said.

  “That means you can get up and leave, Faith,” Steve said, shooing her. “Go.”

  “Roger,” Faith said, standing up. “See you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  “As to ‘useful intelligence,’ Captain,” Steve said. “The fact that the lieutenant’s team was able to get us full deck plans is a blessing. We might be able to make a rational guess where survivors are located and we’ll concentrate on that at first.”

  “I was not meaning to imply any lack of confidence in the lieutenant, sir,” Wilkes said, tightly.

  “Captain, your lack of confidence in my daughter is writ large,” Steve said, chuckling. “You don’t care for her being a Marine officer. I get that. For that matter, you don’t like that I’m an instant Navy captain and your boss. Get that as well. When you’ve had some experience clearing a large vessel, you can, as the Gunnery Sergeant did, revisit your calculation. It is experiential. You may retain your opinion or modify it. I really don’t care which as long as it doesn’t interfere with the mission. Now, we’re going to pull out those blueprints the lieutenant’s team found and try to go at this with an actual plan for a change. . . .”

  * * *

  “Captain, a moment of your time?” Lieutenant Chen said as the meeting broke up.

  “Sure, Lieutenant,” Steve said. “What’s up.”

  “I . . . I do not have Captain Wilkes’ issues with Lieutenant Smith,” Chen said. “Either Smith. I’ve found them both to be extremely competent especially given their age. They’re . . . I’m not blowing smoke, sir, when I say they’re a real credit to you and your wife, sir.”

  “They’re . . .” Steve said then shrugged. “It’s both a very proud papa and a trying to be dispassionate observer who agrees. Their achievements speak for themselves. I take it, though, that there has been an issue?”

  “There was, sir,” Chen said, reluctantly. “Any good officer knows that there are things to overlook. For example, there are shall we say ‘special stores’ on the boats . . .”

  “Given that there’s no real pay to be seen on the horizon, I’ve ignored the fact that boats like Sophia’s are turning into floating treasure galleons,” Steve said. “And as for the booze . . . I was once told by an officer I admired that there’s no point in giving an order you know won’t be obeyed. But if you want me to discuss it with Sophia . . .”

  “I’m going to do that, sir,” Chen said. “But that’s not the issue, sir. Sir, in the middle of the battle yesterday, Faith went dress shopping.”

  “Excuse me?” Steve said.

  “One of the containers we used to block the quay turned out to contain some formal dresses, sir,” Chen said. “Faith . . . protracted the engagement to sort through them looking for a dress for the Marine Corps Ball, sir.”

  “Seriously?” Steve said. “I mean . . . Seriously?”

  “Yes, sir,” Chen said. “I haven’t formally investigated it, sir, but . . .”

  “I hear what you’re saying, Lieutenant,” Steve said carefully. “And I understand your concern. It . . . it just doesn’t sound like Faith. She’s not normally a shopaholic.”

  “The Marines think it’s funny, sir,” Chen said seriously. “Just another example of, well, ‘Miss Faith.’ But it put th
em in a dangerous position while the lieutenant went, well, dress shopping, sir. I understand she is your daughter, sir, but . . .”

  “That’s . . . Yes,” Steve said. “She is. However, I convinced the gunny she was worthy of a lieutenancy on the basis that she’s not quite as immature as she acts. This is a counter example. Did she give any argument in favor? I mean, I cannot find an argument but . . .”

  “I haven’t brought it up with her, yet, sir,” Chen said. “It’s a touchy subject. The Marines think the world of her and they think it was hilarious. But it was not only putting her Marines in jeopardy to go dress shopping, it was using them for personal privilege, sir. On the other hand, she’s a Marine, not Navy, and she’s your daughter, sir. I’d considered bringing it up with Captain Wilkes but . . . You’re my chain of command, sir. And she’s your daughter.”

  “Well, I’m her chain of command as well,” Steve said. “I’d like to bring her in to discuss it. See if she has any reasonable arguments. If not . . . letter of reprimand?”

  “I . . . wouldn’t go that far, sir,” Chen said. “Possibly a written counseling statement.”

  “Very well,” Steve said. “I’ve got a slot at fourteen-thirty. Bring her by.”

  * * *

  Faith woke from a dream that all the women who’d been raped and murdered on the Alpha were trying to talk to her. She couldn’t understand their words, though. Just that they were warning her of something.

  She really didn’t like being on the Alpha. She’d had to clear it with her Dad and Sergeant Fontana and it was one of the clearances that gave her nightmares. On the other hand, she had a cabin to herself and a private bathroom. She’d put up with the nightmares.

  Someone had kindly laid out a pair of shorts and a Marines T-shirt on her bed before she got there. And all her stuff was not only in the room but unpacked and put in drawers. Her hard-found dress was in the closet and someone had even put it in a plastic bag.

  She’d just dropped her uniform on the deck, pulled off her bra and crawled into the sheets, she was that tired. The brown T-shirt and panties were fresh. Good enough.