by John Ringo
“Ma’am, I’ve sat through longer briefings than that on how to do a parade mount,” Staff Sergeant Januscheitis said. “It’s part of being in the Corps. You’re going to be doing briefings like that pretty soon, ma’am.”
“I’m not using PowerPoint,” Faith said. “I’m not.”
“With due respect, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “You’re in the Humvee. And not as gunner.”
“I liked the old Corps,” Faith said, frowning. “Board the boat, kill the zombies, get chow.”
“Did we have our apple juice this morning, ma’am?”
“Yes, we did, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, taking a deep breath. “And it’s not even the twenty-sixth unless you were wondering. Looks like the lame and lazy are loaded. Let’s get this wagon train a-rollin’.”
* * *
The “haji hospital” was on the far side of a line of ridges south of the main base. As they crested the ridges, the hospital and “Camp Delta” came into view. Team one, led by Lieutenant Commander Volpe, had cleared the exterior zones of the Camp Delta area yesterday and found a few zombies and no survivors.
Nice view, though. Camp Delta was laid out on the shores of the Caribbean and it was a fairly peaceful day at sea. It basically looked like a sprawling cross between a prison and a Sandals resort. The hospital was on a hill west of the command complex for the Camp.
“This was not exactly the worst place in the world to be in prison,” Faith said.
“No, ma’am,” Kirby said.
“Except in a zombie apocalypse,” Faith said. “In which case, there was nowhere good to be in prison.”
Faith’s Humvee was not leading the parade. The convoy was led by two armed five-tons, then Lieutenant Commander Volpe’s Humvee, then Faith’s team, two more five-tons with gunners up in the cupolas, the command unit led by Captain Wilkes and finally the “Gitmo Marines” led by their surviving lieutenant who were “escorting” the “special salvage teams.” The “escorts” were in five-tons with the team members, including Sophia, in Humvees. If they had more Marine enlisted they’d nearly have a company. As it was, it was more like a reinforced platoon. There was even a corpsman along although he was with the salvage teams as a guide.
“All this parade needs is an elephant,” Faith said.
“Anything you want to talk about, ma’am?” Kirby asked diffidently. “You don’t seem to be your usual sunny self. With due respect.”
“I hate having to work with my sister,” Faith said. “Especially when, whatever Captain Wilkes thinks, she’s in charge. I don’t like being bossed around by Sophia. Pretty much covers it, PFC.”
“I . . . had an older sister, ma’am,” Kirby said. “I know the feeling.”
“I guess the fact that I can actually talk to mine should be a good reason for me to be happy,” Faith said, sighing again. “Message received, PFC.”
“That . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
“No. All good, PFC,” Faith said. “I need to adjust my attitude and get the mission done. Gung ho and all that. All good.”
* * *
Faith’s team had the job of doing entry from the rear of the hospital, which was the support and maintenance area. There was a fairly standard loading dock and roll doors with a personnel door to the west side. There were a couple of dead bodies on the loading dock and in the immediate area, all picked down to skeletons by seabirds and insects.
As soon as the Humvee rolled to a stop Faith unassed and waited as the rest of the team got out of their vehicles.
“Command, Team Two,” Faith radioed as soon as everyone was arrayed. “Personnel door is open. No apparent threats. Prepared for entry. Staff Sergeant, let’s get ready to roll.”
“Weapons on safe, lights on,” Januscheitis said. “Lance Corporal Pagliaro, point.”
“Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant,” Pag said.
“Roger team two,” Wilkes radioed. “Begin entry. Careful on blue on blue.”
“Careful on blue on blue, aye,” Faith replied. “Which I’ll repeat. We’ve got Volpe’s team coming in from the front. Do not shoot Hooch, however much you might want to. Let’s roll.”
“Begin entry.”
* * *
“One-hour briefing,” Faith said, stepping over a rat-chewed corpse. “Nearly a division of Marines . . .”
“Reinforced platoon at most, ma’am,” Janu said, trying not to chuckle.
“And there is, like, nada,” Faith said. She stopped and looked in a room. More corpses. Some of them were kids. The hospital was packed with them. What there weren’t were any living infected. No water. “Which is the worst kind of clearance, Staff Sergeant. Trixie doesn’t like this kind of clearance.”
“Sort of have to agree with Trixie, ma’am,” Januscheitis said.
“Wizard, Shewolf,” Faith radioed. “This position was clear six months ago, over.”
“Concur,” Captain Wilkes replied. “Position clear. Survey and Salvage team, begin ops.”
* * *
“I’m an electrician, not a radiological specialist, ma’am . . .”
PO3 Jared Osburn had spent most of his time since exiting the USS Dallas fixing the myriad electrical problems of the squadron. But this was the first time that he’d even seen the power set-up for a cesium X-ray machine. And he knew diddly about what it was actually putting out.
“We’re getting the right output readings, ma’am,” PO1 Shawn Hougo said. The “nuke” machinist mate did know diddly about radiological systems. Quite a bit more than “diddly” in fact. What might be tough for a radiological technician was basically day one of Nuke School. “It appears to be fully operational. This ward was not significantly affected by the results of the Plague.”
“The rest of the hospital sure was,” Faith said, shaking her head. “Can you pick it up and move it?”
“Carefully,” Hougo said. “Yes, ma’am. We’ll have to do it the same way that they got it in here: Take out a wall.”
“Be better if the hallways were clear, ma’am,” Osburn pointed out. “We’re going to have to take it out on a dolly. Really have to have the hallways clear.”
“And we can’t wait for Daddy’s Little Helpers to do their trick,” Faith said with a grimace. “Okay, we’ll call it in. X-ray machine works. Probably should be pulled out. And we gotta clear the halls.”
“Ma’am?” Januscheitis said. “They need the techs upstairs. They found a centrifuge.”
* * *
“Oooo,” Sophia said, her arms wrapped around the centrifuge. “Nice . . .”
“You’re weird, Sis,” Faith said, looking at the device. It just looked like a waist-high white box.
“Six-liter capacity,” Sophia said. “One hundred thousand rpm. This one is better than . . . Anything I’ve ever used.”
“So we’re good?” Faith asked.
“As soon as we find out if it works,” Sophia said. “Ozman! Need power . . . !”
* * *
“How many air maintenance personnel do we have?” Steve asked, looking around the hangar. For once the helos—two CH-53s, three Coastguard Seahawk variants and a CH-46—were not riddled with holes or left out in the elements for months. They’d finally pitched the Lynx off the back of the Social Alpha to reduce weight. “Can we get at least one of these running?”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Bryan Szafranski said. The Coastguardsman was the sole surviving airframe maintenance officer on the base they’d found. “None of my people . . . made it . . .”
“I’m sorry for your loss never covers it,” Steve said. “But . . . ?”
“There are several airframe mechanics among the surviving Marines, mostly from the Iwo Jima,” Szafranski said. “I don’t have specific service records but they should have some familiarity with the CH-46 at the least and probably the Seahawks. And the birds are in good condition given the time they’ve been sitting. They’ll need a thorough inspection, though, before I can certify them to fly.”
“Understood,” Stev
e said. “Parts?”
“Sufficient for now, sir,” Szafranski said. “If you’re intending extended operations, we’ll need more.”
“Eventually, then, yes, we will,” Steve said with a note of satisfaction. “Now if we can just make vaccine . . .”
* * *
“Nope,” Sophia said, shaking her head as she entered her father’s office. “Or, rather, sir, there are insufficient consumables, notably separation gel, to make any significant quantity of vaccine. And by ‘any significant quantity’ I mean so much as ten units of booster or primer. There’s maybe a cup left.”
“Damnit,” Steve said as the rest of the hospital survey leadership filed in.
“We’ve got everything else,” Sophia said, slumping into a chair without asking. “And we turned the hospital upside down looking for more. But it’s a hospital, not a research center. There probably wasn’t much there to start with. It’s not used in treatment at all. There’s some indication that some was used. The one box we found was open and mostly empty. Maybe someone in the hospital was making vaccine on the side. But that appears to be it in inventory and that’s gone.”
“What about the rest?” Steve asked.
“For making vaccine?” Captain Wilkes asked.
“Vaccine first,” Steve said.
“Functional X-ray machine, functional, excellent even, centrifuge,” Sophia said, looking at her list. “General lab equipment, although not as much as I’d like. Bunch of glassware got trashed. Syringes and pipettes. Not as much of those as I’d like but you can make work-arounds. Basically everything we need except gel. And, Captain, Da? The more I think about it, the more I realize what a problem we’re going to have with that.”
“Short explanation?”
“She covered it on the ride back, sir,” Walker said. “The gel is basically the same gel you use in DNA electrophoresis, if you’re more familiar with that.”
“Pretend I’m not,” Steve said, grinning mirthlessly.
“Okay,” Walker said. “It’s a gel that allows molecules to slip through. The smaller molecules slip through faster, the larger slower. Make sense?”
“Yes,” Steve said.
“After you separate the virus bodies you want just certain proteins,” Walker said. “Which are a certain size and thus pass through the gel at a certain rate. To make the vaccine you have to dump the centrifuged material into the gel and then wait a specified time.”
“Which is effing tedious,” Sophia said. “You remember when we’d get bored on the boat and I’d say ‘Better than waiting on a gel’?”
“That’s what you were talking about,” Steve said, nodding.
“You have to have this stuff to make the vaccine, Da,” Sophia said, sighing. “Sorry, sir . . .”
“Not the big issue,” Steve said. “So where do we get it?”
“That’s the problem,” Sophia said. “We . . . the powers that be? They weren’t making infected into vaccine as a regular program, you know? But there were a lot of people who were doing it. By the time we finished with . . . the Program, finding gel was nearly impossible. Everybody was out. And even Dr. Curry said making it was pretty much out of the question. I mean, could somebody make it? Sure. Dr. Dobson may know how. But I guarantee it takes stuff we don’t have. One kind is made from some kind of algae. We need more. And we’re going to need a lot, at least two hundred pounds or so, to make enough vaccine for all the sub crews. And it was already in short supply at the Fall. I’m not sure we’re screwed but . . . I think we’re screwed.”
“Table that for now,” Steve said. “General supplies.”
“Essentially it comes down to anything nonconsumable, plenty, sir,” Walker said. “There were even plenty of OB materials. At least, plenty in any normal situation. Anything consumable except Viagra was shot. Antibiotics, antivirals, disinfectants, pain medications, all the pharmaceuticals, were if not used up, then essentially used up. There wasn’t even a single full bottle of Betadyne in the whole place. The exception is things like anesthetics used in surgery. That we’ve got. Morphine and codeine, not so much. I think they were either stealing the opiates at the end or using them to tranq the infected.”
“So,” Steve said, looking out the window. There was a sub surfaced in the distance. The Boise had suffered a critical failure in their air handling system and was out of action for the foreseeable future. They were keeping well away from any wind-blown source of infection but they had to open up their hatches. “We have to find a source of consumable materials. I’ll toss that to Dobson. Captain Wilkes.”
“Sir,” Wilkes said.
“Thank you for handling what I’m sure was another nightmare,” Steve said.
“Probably the worst part was there wasn’t any resistance, sir,” Wilkes said.
“But we have a Marine colonel now,” Steve said. “And in case you haven’t heard the news, functional helos over at the air base.”
“I get a stick back, sir?” Wilkes said, his eyes lighting.
“You get a stick back,” Steve said, smiling. “That’s the good news. I’m not sure whether to inform certain parties of the bad news personally or let the chain of command handle it. I think the latter. It will be a learning experience.”
“I’m not following, sir,” Wilkes said.
“What MOS is Staff Sergeant Januscheitis, Captain?” Steve said.
* * *
“They’re WHAT?” Faith screamed.
“It’s my MOS, LT,” Janu said, continuing to pack his seabag. “It has been . . . a real pleasure and honor having you as a skipper, Skipper.”
“Oh, hell no!” Faith said. “They are not taking my platoon sergeant!”
“Ma’am,” the staff sergeant said, straightening from his packing. “I’ve kind of shown you the ropes on some stuff along the way, haven’t I?”
“Janu, without you . . .” Faith said, shaking her head. “I mean, I’d never have been able to do this. You do it, really. I’m still trying to figure out how to write reports. And . . . stuff. I’ve still got no clue about operational planning!”
“Well, then, ma’am, let this be my last class, for the time being, on how to be a Marine,” Janu said, going back to packing. “I’ve got a job to do. It’s actually my job, which infantry stuff isn’t, and it’s important. We’ve been needing helos. I fix helos, ma’am. Now, unless you want to try to convince somebody to rebranch a thirteen-year-old without so much as a high-school degree as an aviation maintenance officer, and do nothing for the rest of your Marine career but paperwork, you need to realize, ma’am, that this is how the Marine Corps works. It’s not just that you have to go where they tell you to go and do what they tell you to do. You have to watch other people go and do what they’re told to do. I’ll be around. If you want to get together, on or off the books, if you need me to explain something, ma’am, I will always be there. I’ll always be your first NCOIC and, hell, generals go hunting for them for their sergeant majors and, ma’am, I look forward to being your sergeant major one day. But it’s time to cut the apron strings. For me to go do the job I’m supposed to do and you to go be the crazed zombie-massacring warrior bitch you are, ma’am. And remember no dangling participles.”
“I could talk to . . .”
“Don’t even, Lieutenant,” Januscheitis said, shaking a finger at her. “You’re either a Marine or you’re not. If you’re a Marine, there should only be two words going through your head right now or you’re not really a Marine, LT.”
“Semper Fidelis?” Faith said, tearing up.
“Oh, stop that, Faith,” Januscheitis said, kissing her on the top of her head. “There’s still less than four thousand of us. It’s not like we’re going to lose track of each other. And it’s unbecoming of the fine young officer you’ve become. Now take a deep breath, say ‘Oorah’ and carry on with whatever crazy ass mission your daddy assigns next. Understood, Marine?”
“Understood, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, sniffing and wiping her eyes.
“Gung ho? Sorry, but I cannot quite get an oorah out, yet.”
“Staff Sergeant?” Pagliaro said, tapping on the hatch.
“Come,” Januscheitis said.
“Orders for the LT,” Pag said. “Report to the colonel at earliest opportunity.”
“Which means, Lieutenant?” Januscheitis said.
“Right damned now since I don’t actually have anything more important going on,” Faith said, giving him a hug.
Januscheitis stepped back, came to attention and gave her a salute worthy of a parade ground.
Faith carefully returned it with all due form.
“Carry on, Staff Sergeant,” Faith barked.
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Januscheitis replied.
Faith then turned and left the compartment.
* * *
“Have a seat Faith,” Hamilton said, gesturing to a chair.
The office on the Boadicea had been one of the Staff Side officer’s offices and had a nice view of the base, if a burned-out post-apocalyptic Navy base was your idea of a nice view.
“By now you have heard that Staff Sergeant Januscheitis and some of the other Iwo Marines are being transferred to aviation support?” Hamilton said.
“Yes, sir,” Faith replied.
“Just ‘yes, sir’?” Hamilton asked.
“Marines go where they’re told to go and do what they’re told to do, sir,” Faith said.
Hamilton leaned on one hand and regarded her levelly.
“But you’re not happy about it,” he said after a moment.
“No, sir,” Faith said. “Not going to bitch about it, sir. Stuff happens, sir.”
“Do you know what my job was here at Gitmo, Lieutenant?” Hamilton asked.
“I heard it was interrogator, sir,” Faith said. “I don’t have a problem with that. What with everything that’s gone on . . . I was a kid when 9/11 happened, sir. I’m one of the ones who wondered why we were keeping them alive after we’d gotten all the intel we could from ’em, sir. I’d have thrown them to the sharks like Anarchy, sir.”
