To Sail a Darkling Sea

by John Ringo

  “Okay, what?” Zumwald said. “His daughter . . . I can get that. I suppose I should apologize to him . . .”

  “Might want to back off on that for a bit,” Isham said. “Some more info. First, Faith’s only thirteen . . .”

  “I heard that but I didn’t believe it,” Zumwald said. “Seriously? How’d she get to be a Marine? Oh, her dad of course. Duh.”

  “Sort of,” Isham said, pointing out the window. “You see that ship? What I call the Love Boat. There are thirty Marines, including your buddy Milo, clearing it right now. Slowly. Faith and her dad, one Marine and a Green Beret sergeant cleared one that was a touch larger. Before they found the rest of the Marines. Then they cleared the fucking Iwo Jima, which is the size of a World War Two carrier, to find some Marines to, you know, help.

  “Faith’s like a goddess to the Marines, and she’s actually good at her job, especially given she’d just finished seventh grade. Which is an important job. She does really important shit.

  “Right now, you’re just getting your head together. Like the pamphlet says, maybe you decide to help out. We can use people who know how to get shit done. Not just as military. I only took the lieutenancy they offered ’cause I have to work with the Navy and Marines to get my job done and it helps. But there’s lots of ways a guy with your background and work ethic and general get-it-done attitude could help. Problem being, even if you wanted to, right now the only reason the Marines haven’t gotten together to kick the crap out of you is that they’re too busy. When they get less busy or, for example, this evening when they break from killing zombies, I would not want to be in your shoes.”

  “So what is this?” Zumwald said. “A military dictatorship? Beatings for free?”

  “Yeah,” Isham said, looking at him as if he was nuts. “We’re on ships. And they are all officially U.S. Navy vessels. Even most of the dinky little yachts. The commanders, including this one, are all Navy officers, even if the ink is still wet on the commissions. And even if they weren’t, captains of vessels at sea have a lot of legal control in any circumstances. By the way, I talked Captain Miguel, boss of this boat, out of pressing charges against you for assault. Because you don’t get how badly you fucked up. I get that. She’s another Faith lover, but it’s also you don’t get to just grab any cookie and tell her you want another scotch. You don’t. This isn’t Hollywood, and, sorry, you’re not some big time movie executive anymore. You’re a fucking refugee in a squadron that spends half its time on the ragged edge. Still. You got no clue how tough it is to keep these vessels supplied.”

  “This is bullshit,” Zumwald said, shaking his head.

  “This is a zombie fucking apocalypse, Ernest,” Isham said. “It’s not a movie version, either. It’s the real fucking deal. And right now, the choices are, you help to whatever extent you can and you get some perks. You don’t and we stick you in a hold with a bunch of other losers and you get water and sushi or you can feel free to jump in the fucking harbor or catch a boat to land. Now, Faith and her crew sort of half-ass cleared a couple of towns in this area. You can ask the Canaries if they mind you jumping ship to one of those. No problem. I’ll give you a pistol so you can go scavenge in the ruins.”

  “Very funny,” Zumwald said.

  “I’M NOT FUCKING JOKING, ZUMWALD!” Isham said, leaning forward and banging his desk. “Those are the choices. You got an alternate suggestion?”

  Zumwald thought about it for a second.

  “Hell, I can drive a boat,” he said. “I’ve got my own yacht back in the L.A. marina. Gimme a boat.”

  “Which is what Smith did for me when we had our first little run-in,” Isham said, nodding. “Then I hit the problem that he’d foreseen. Where you going to get fuel? Where you going to get groceries when they run out?”

  “You guys have got ’em,” Zumwald said.

  “You going to whip out the Amex black?” Isham said. “Won’t get you far. I said, it’s a bitch to keep this squadron supplied. Okay, we’ve got a bunch of ships and boats to get stores from at this point. You think we’re going to give you all the coordinates? We need those supplies. Are you going to climb the ladders, board the boats, some of them still with infected onboard, haul the stores off the boats? Ever tried to refuel at sea from a freighter? It is not easy, bub, trust me.”

  “Shit,” Zumwald said, shaking his head.

  “That fucker Smith left me to rot on a boat in the Bermuda harbor,” Isham said. “And that was after he’d put a gun to my head. I learned my lesson pretty quick. I’d much rather sit in an office pushing paper than fish for my supper. Or haul stores or fight zombies for them. I leave that shit to crazy fuckers like, well, Faith. So now that we’ve got some background to the situation, I’ll bottomline it for you ’cause I got other shit to do.

  “No, Faith ain’t gonna get charged with assault. I’m not even sure the incident occurred ’cause neither are you. You get three days off on the Alpha to get your head back together. Then you decide if you want to help out or go in a hold. Or, hell, I’ll drop you off at a little town and you can fight zombies for supplies and fish for your supper. If you decide you want to help, God knows we need people who can organize and you should be able to do that. But if so, you’re going to have to climb down. And you sure as shit had better figure out a way to apologize to Lieutenant Smith or at some point you’re going to end up shark bait. Because the Marines, with the exception of Captain Milo ‘I’m scared of zombies’ Wilkes, just absolutely hate your fucking guts. And the one group you do not want pissed off at you in this squadron is the fucking Marines. And of all the Marines, the one you seriously do not want to get on the bad side of is Faith Marie Smith. They call her Shewolf for a reason. . . .”

  * * *

  “If you would knock on the hatch, please, sir,” Faith said.

  Wilkes was lost. He knew he was lost and he didn’t like it. The bowels of the supermax liner were one corridor after another, all of them pitch black. And he didn’t like being ‘instructed’ by a thirteen-year-old girl.

  “Why?” Wilkes said. He’d open the hatch but the little bitch was holding the key.

  “Because the objective, sir, is to determine if there are infected on the far side of the hatch, sir,” Faith said. “That way they can be drawn into our kill zone rather than entering theirs. The objective is, as much as possible, to engage at range, rather than entering melee . . .”

  “If they’re on the other side we can just back off,” Wilkes said.

  “As I was saying, sir,” Faith said, patiently. “Infected often rest. The rest is extremely deep, similar to hibernation. Banging on the hatch gets them up. You can detect them by sound at that point and prepare a plan based on the estimated number. So, sir, if you would be so kind as to bang on the hatch, sir.”

  Wilkes banged on the hatch with his fist.

  “Satisfied, Lieutenant?”

  “Sir . . .” Faith said. “No, sir. Several reasons. One, there are many hatches. At a certain point, you begin to damage your hand, sir. Two, as mentioned, infected tend to sleep. That would be unlikely to wake them, sir.”

  “Just open the hatch, Lieutenant,” Wilkes said.

  “Yes, sir,” Faith said, swiping the card. “The hatch is green, sir. Feel free to proceed.” She waved a hand into the darkness of a large baggage compartment.

  “Enlisted should take point, Lieutenant,” Wilkes said. “That is what they are for.”

  “I would normally agree, sir,” Faith said. “But I was told that you, sir, are here to learn the basics of infected clearance, sir. Not managing or leading, sir. Doing, sir. This compartment needs to be cleared, sir. I will be your wingman, sir. After you, sir.” She swiped it again because it had locked while they were talking.

  Wilkes cracked the compartment and flashed his taclight around the large compartment. It was half filled with bags and pallets. Some of the pallets had been broken open.

  “It looks clear,” he said quietly.

  “It ha
s to be walked, sir,” Faith said. “The point is to ensure it is clear, sir. So that later salvage parties, sir, do not encounter any unpleasant surprises, sir.”

  “So which way?” Wilkes asked quietly.

  “Left, right, center, take your pick,” Faith said. “On compartments like this, I tend to go right and hug the wall at first. That way, if anything springs up out of the darkness, my barrel is pointing in its general direction. Sir.”

  Wilkes went right. Despite what he had thought of as an over-abundance of lights, there were far too many shadows for his liking. And there was no way to “hug the walls.” There were bags and pallets up against the bulkheads. He stayed as far to the right as he could, went down the first bulkhead then turned up the next.

  He was halfway down the bulkhead, tip-toeing past a pallet, when he stepped on something soft. And the zombie came up with a low groan that raised into a howl.

  “Annnd now we’re in the scrum,” Faith said, as infected started popping up in every direction. Including the ones the captain had missed on his way by.

  Wilkes let out a yell and fired multiple rounds into the infected with its teeth sunk into his boot.

  “Not into the deck, you idiot!” Faith yelled, dropping two infected coming up behind them with her Saiga. “They go all over the place! With due respect! Sir.”

  “LT?” Januscheitis radioed. “Need a hand?”

  “No worries,” Faith yelled. “Got this . . .”

  Infected poured over the bags and pallets. Wilkes got two, missing far more than he hit, the missed rounds ricocheting all over the compartment, then got dogpiled.

  Faith cleared the infected heading for her, dropping to pistol when she was out of 12-gauge, then reloaded her Saiga and pistol while Wilkes writhed on the deck, covered in seven infected. When she’d put fresh mags in the pistols . . . she reloaded the mags from ammo in her assault ruck. The captain had words to say. They were sort of muffled.

  Finally, when it was clear he wasn’t extracting himself, she pulled her kukri and started chopping necks.

  “The objective of banging on the door, sir,” Faith said, pulling a zombie off the captain, “is to wake the infected who are sleeping so as to bring them into your kill zone, not go into theirs, sir. Zombies are found anywhere there is water. If you had listened to that part of the lecture and maintained situational awareness, sir, you would have noted that there is some sort of leak on the port bulkhead. There is a puddle of water over there. Water equals zombies, sir.”

  “Understood, Lieutenant,” Wilkes said, getting to his feet. “Speaking of water: I guess I need to go decontaminate.”

  “Why, sir?” Faith asked, wiping down her blood-smeared kukri. “Your gear is not penetrated and there are more compartments to clear, sir.”

  “You’re serious?” Wilkes said.

  “Sir, I’ve been in five or six worse scrums in a day, sir,” Faith said, sheathing the kukri without looking. “From which I generally self-extract because, as you noted sarcastically earlier, I am covered in fucking knives and guns, sir. So, yes, sir, with due respect I am serious, sir. There are more compartments to clear, sir. So are we going to continue with this mission or shall you go bunk off to get cleaned up, sir? Would sir care for a lollipop to go with sir’s shower, sir?”

  * * *

  “So, is this normal?” Wilkes said.

  The captain was trying to hold a door closed against what sounded, to him, like about two hundred howling infected. At least five had their arms through the hatch and were scrabbling at his left arm. He had the hatch braced with his foot and was pushing on it with all his might but he was slowly and inexorably being pushed back by the weight of zombies. There were shoulders. It was not looking good.

  “Yes, sir, pretty much,” Faith said. “Zombies are not people as we understand it. No sentience. They are just aggression, hunger and occasionally lust. Sort of Marines without stops, sir.”

  “Would the Lieutenant care to instruct the Captain on what the fuck you’re supposed to do now? Quickly?”

  “It is recommended in a situation like this that the lead request support from his team mates in temporarily reducing movement of the hatch, sir,” Faith said. “Given that this is not a hatch with a coaming, but flush to the deck, that is simply managed, thusly . . .” She pulled out one of her boot knives and jammed it under the door, then kicked it into place. “Better, sir?”

  “Yes,” Wilkes said, leaning back. Between his boot and the knife, the hatch wasn’t going anywhere. “So now what?”

  “Is the Captain familiar with the operation of the M87 fragmentation grenade, sir?” Faith said, holding up one of the little bundles of fury.

  “The Captain has not used an M87 fragmentation grenade since the Captain was in Marine Officer Basic Course, Lieutenant,” Captain Wilkes said. “Where he threw one, once. And please tell me you’re not serious.”

  “The operation of the M87 is so remarkably simple that even, say, a thirteen-year-old girl is capable of figuring it out, sir,” Faith said, pressing the grenade into his somewhat flaccid hand. “I am sure a Marine pilot can do far better, sir. Place the thumb of your strong hand on the lever. You are right-handed, are you not, sir?”

  “Yes,” Wilkes said, weakly. “Seriously?”

  “Hold the M87 hand grenade firmly with your strong hand,” Faith said, keeping her hand wrapped around his. “Straighten the cotter pin, then pull, thusly. Remember that once the pin is pulled, Mr. Hand Grenade is no longer your friend, sir. Now, and this is the one slightly tricky part, sir. Reach o-o-over the estimated heads of the zombies and the flailing arms and toss the grenade through the narrow gap into the other compartment, sir. Very important that it lands in the other compartment, sir. Really, really important, sir.”

  “This is insane,” Wilkes said, tossing the grenade. Into the other compartment.

  “And duck and cover, sir,” Faith said, pushing his helmet into the hatch and down. “Scrunch your neck down, sir.”

  “Doin’ it,” Wilkes said.

  There was a somewhat muted bang from the next compartment and a lot of shrill screaming over the usual keening and howls.

  “And sometimes it takes more than one,” Faith said, pulling out another frag. “You know what they say about hand grenades, sir?”

  “Close only counts with them and horseshoes?” Wilkes said.

  “The M87, sir,” Faith said, pulling the pin. “When ‘fuck you’ just isn’t enough. And I really like saying ‘fuck you.’ Sir.”

  * * *

  Wilkes was trying not to barf at the carnage in the compartment. Most of the infected were just wounded and they were screaming exactly like, well, people screamed when they were ripped half to death by grenades.

  “What do you do about . . . about the wounded?”

  “We don’t have an infinite amount of .45, sir,” Faith said. “And no idea how much we are going to use in the long term. And no great store of other pistol rounds. Barbie rounds go right through and go bouncin’ around. So no dice there. Sometimes, if we’ve got the time, we cut their throats to put them out of their misery.” She drew her kukri and offered it to him, hilt first. “It’s not a requirement and it’s not a test, sir. It’s an offer. Just that. Otherwise we’ll continue clearance ops, sir. It’s messy as hell and generally we don’t bother, sir. They’ll bleed out in a while.”

  “We’ll continue clearance ops, Lieutenant.”

  * * *

  “Now, sir, in just a moment, the team’s going to let go of the rope . . .”

  This time the infected were on the other side of a hatch that opened away from the team. Which necessitated a different technique involving partially cracking the hatch, then letting the infecteds pull at it while holding it partially closed with a long rope held by most of the team. That way the point could back up and give some distance to engage. The general term was “zombie tug-of-war.”

  “This time we would appreciate it, sir, if you’d get most of the rounds
into the targets,” Faith said.

  “Sorry about the compartment,” Wilkes said. “I really haven’t used an M4 in a while. Not my thing.”

  “I was fully aware of the infected in the compartment, sir,” Faith said. “I also knew that I could handle it without either of us coming to serious harm, sir. But tell me in flight school there’s not a point where the instructors let you screw up, sir?”

  “You’d make a real prick of an IP, Lieutenant,” Wilkes said, shaking his head. “And that was actually a compliment.”

  “You’re the only pilot we’ve got left, sir,” Faith said. “Da told me if I lost you, he’d have me cleaning compartments for a month, sir. And here I would prefer you succeed, sir. Now, sir, this is kinda important. Don’t get focused on the infected as screaming zombies or even people. Just get, well, zen. You’re just on a target range, shooting silhouettes. Shoot through the silhouettes. They don’t fall down like the pop-ups, either, sir. You’re going to have to hit each silhouette several times but don’t worry about that, either. They do eventually become good zombies. We’ll be firing as well. They are not going to reach this point. We are not going to get in the scrum again. Just, please, fire right down the corridor so the through-and-throughs pass through the hatch into the far compartment and engage all targets until they fall. All clear, sir?”

  “Clear, Lieutenant,” Wilkes said, taking an off-hand firing stance. “Ready when you are.”

  “Let the captain initiate,” Faith said. “Let go, Staff Sergeant.”

  “Let the captain initiate, aye, ma’am,” Januscheitis said, nodding to the team. He wasn’t holding a rope. He was aiming his ‘Barbie gun’ as back-up. “Let go, aye, ma’am. Pull!”

  Unfortunately, the first infected through the door was a female. And even for a zombie who’d been stuck in a ship for months, not a bad looking one. With all the light that was patently obvious. The Marine aviator froze.

  “Oh, crap,” Faith said, taking the shot and splattering the still somewhat breasty brunette all over the compartment. The splurt of saline from the chest explained the ‘still breasty’ given the rest of the emaciation. “Fire, sir!”