Twenty-four hours ago he had been sitting in his small box office expecting just another quiet day, and now here he was drafted and on his way south to God knows where. They hadn’t even told him that much. He had been informed that their experience on the streets of Folkestone during last night’s outbreak would be invaluable to the people they were travelling to meet, but little else.
He looked across at Martin, who was also very deep in thought. The man looked like the shock of the previous night might be catching up with him. These military types, Wesley figured, are not all hard and stoic. They’re just people able to put a grim face on and do what is necessary. Nothing that most folks wouldn’t be able to, given the right conditions. Wesley supposed that the main difference lay in the training. He didn’t think that the training could prepare anyone for losing his entire platoon, though.
Of course, Martin wasn’t the only one to lose his whole team.
The others faces that stared back at him from the seats around him were not much different – quiet, contemplative, all deep in their own troubles.
The truck had come from London, so these were probably men and women leaving their families behind to go, well, wherever they were going. How long would they be away? From what Martin had said during their brief, pre-sleep conversation at the barracks, these postings could be for a few months, years – or forever.
“I was posted in the Outer Hebrides, for over a year, before this. That’s out in the middle of nowhere north of Scotland, if you didn’t know,” Martin had said.
Wesley nodded. He knew the place.
“After Europe fell, the islands became home to any random naval ship that stumbled into port. They have new docks all over the islands now. I’d been there once before when I was a boy, on holiday with my parents. It was so quiet and remote back then. Not so now.”
He’d seemed to pause for a moment, and Wesley could almost see the man’s thoughts drifting back to happier times.
“Two months of fixing APCs out of Hereford before that. And some shore duty up near Yarmouth for six months. No permanent post yet. I guess they need engineers wherever they need them.”
Wesley had thought his job at the tunnel was going to be permanent. But then everything had changed overnight.
“That area is restricted now,” he’d been told that morning by the pimple-faced clerk perhaps half his age. The boy had probably never seen action. Wesley had repeatedly asked if he would be guarding the entrance again, once the Harbour barracks division had cleared the way. Asking anyone he could find.
“Your orders are for a change of station.”
“Orders? I’m not military. I work for the UK Security Services.”
“CentCom, and UKSS, have both already approved this.”
“They can’t do that.”
“Yes, they can.”
“I’m not military,” he had repeated.
“Basically, you’ve been drafted. My instructions are to give you your next assignment, which is to report to the barracks down in the harbor.”
“This is a joke, right?”
“No, sir. Your previous position is null and void. Security at your old station will be performed by military personnel as of this morning. Of course, if you wish to catch a transport to London and go and work in the coalfields, that’s always an option.”
Wesley visibly wilted.
“Your rank in the Security Services will be carried over into your position in the military… Corporal.”
Wesley was fuming. At least that had been his initial reaction, but he’d had the chance to stew over it all in the last few hours, just sitting in the back of the truck, staring blankly at the other distant faces.
Maybe this wasn’t so bad, he thought. But then he shook his head. This was bad, and he knew it full well. He wasn’t going to be sitting behind the lines guarding some quiet post that the military thought was dealt with already. He wasn’t going to spend quiet evenings just watching the night sky, sitting with a cup of coffee and listening to his two young charges babble away about all the weird stuff that the universe might throw at the world.
No. He would never hear their voices again. Not now that their brains were almost certainly washed away into the dirt, and their remains burned, probably only a few yards from the place where they had spent all those nights mulling over the state of the world.
Wesley was going to miss those two boys now. As much as he had groused and been irritated by their constant yabber, he had somehow found it comforting to listen to at the same time. It had reminded him of a world where there were no zombies, except in the movies and comics; a world where you could buy a four-pack of beer on a Friday night and chill out in your living room watching terrible repeat programs. Those programs wouldn’t be repeated again now that the TV stations were all but gone.
The last things Chambers and Addison had talked about were aliens and alien invasions. Wesley shook his head and even laughed a little when he considered the futility of aliens arriving on our planet now. They would get a hell of a surprise, he thought. Maybe some little alien guy on the mothership would get sacked for not researching the planet enough.
His laughter stopped when he heard Addison’s distinctive laugh, and that of Chambers, ring out in his mind. He thought of how alive they had been an hour before the attack, and how they had then changed so quickly. The burning glare in their eyes, the pale skin, the already blackened teeth and bloodshot eyes. How was it that those changes happened so quickly? Was that even humanly possible?
Now it seemed he was in the Army. And he would be going out to face those things, probably every day. Until last night, he had never witnessed the creatures en masse, but only heard tales from soldiers who passed through Folkestone. So many stories that had made his blood chill and his skin feel like something had crawled over him while he slept. Paris was overrun. The Americas were overrun. The tales of massive swarms of the dead all trudging along some insane and unfathomable path. Millions, no, billions of them now.
He’d been so sheltered in Fortress Britain. But the horrible reality outside was going to be part of everyday life for him now.
The truck shuddered and came to a stop, snapping Wesley’s mind back into the now. Voices outside called to the driver and were answered quickly, and then they were moving again, gates clanging shut behind them and the sound of gravel crunching under the tires. A sound just like that from under his feet when he made the circuit around the tunnel yards. The truck swung slowly around a winding road for a few minutes and they passed other trucks, groups of soldiers hurrying about. Finally they came to a stop and the back door fell open.
“Out you get, fellas,” barked the soldier, a man with a bright red beard and piercing green eyes. There was nothing pretty about the man, his face was scarred and weather worn, his insignia suggested… Wesley couldn’t think of it. He’d seen so many, but… wait. Sergeant. He was a staff sergeant and outranked him.
“Get a move on.”
Everyone filed out of the truck and fell into line along the side of the road. Wesley was in awe of what he saw. Everywhere around him was a buzzing mass of movement. Thousands of troops and vehicles came and went while he stood and stared.
“Okay,” said the sergeant with the red beard. “I need Corporal Wesley and Captain Martin. Step forward.”
Didn’t Martin outrank the sergeant? He stepped forward.
“I’m here, sergeant.”
“Ah, good. Sorry about the hurry and informalities, sir. I was told to collect yourself and the corporal and get you to the helipad as soon as you arrived.”
“We’re going flying?” asked Martin, puzzled.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, but I have no further details. Only your immediate priority to get into the air.”
Martin nodded. “Understood.”
And he did, thought Wesley. Martin understood something that Wesley had not been able to figure out yet.
Martin flashed him a look that said, Odd. But he didn’t
question the sergeant further. Wesley wished that he had. He didn’t much like all this foreboding secrecy.
Twenty minutes later and Wesley was soaring through the air, feeling quite sick, the bone-trembling roar of the blades and engines gripping him, as he tried to calm his nerves and keep his stomach straight. He watched the coastline of the British Isles disappear into the distance, and then there was nothing below them but miles upon miles of endless Atlantic sea.
“Where are we going?” he finally asked, looking at Martin.
Martin glanced back, taking his gaze away from the ocean.
“Oh, you don’t look so good. Not used to flying?”
“Not in a helicopter,” replied Wesley, shaking his head.
Martin looked back out to sea.
“We’re going nowhere at the moment,” he said, frowning.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s nothing this way, not for thousands of miles, unless…” Martin’s frown deepened.
“Unless what?” snapped Wesley, unable to suppress the irritation in his voice. Martin turned back, and looked like he was going to snap back in return, but then his eyes softened.
“There must be some sort of sea platform out here. Maybe a rig. Or a ship.”
Wesley absorbed that in silence. He couldn’t decide whether this fact made things better for him, or worse.
BIG JOHN
It came out of the mists, making a low hissing sound as it pushed both air and water before it. Gray and indistinct, its hulking shape slowly resolved through the fog.
“Big son of a bitch,” breathed Predator, standing shoulder to shoulder with the other Alpha operators.
“Only the second of her class,” said Homer, the only sailor in the team. “And the last.”
“Never say never,” said Predator.
The eight commandos stood in a single rank on an ancient pier, at the border between two worlds – the land and the sea. Britain had come to rule the largest empire the world had ever seen mainly by being a very hardy, and very clever, seafaring nation.
But they ruled the sea no longer.
The supercarrier USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) hove into view, dominating the entire horizon like a ocean-going ice shelf, like the God of a hundred thousand sperm whales, and began the elaborate process of docking and tying up.
“Grab your gear,” growled Handon. “Let’s move.”
He knew the Kennedy wasn’t going to risk staying tied up for long. In the ZA, you had to watch your mooring lines, and your anchor lines, like a hawk. One submersible Zulu crawling up them and onto your deck could turn your floating sanctuary into a self-consuming, flesh-rending charnel house. An outbreak belowdecks ain’t pretty.
* * *
The Kennedy was only the second in the new Gerald R. Ford class of nuclear supercarriers to be floated out of Newport News Drydock. She was launched nearly a year ahead of schedule – and so just slightly ahead of the collapse of civilization that halted shipbuilding, and virtually all other kinds of building, for the duration. The Ford class was designed to replace the aging Nimitz-class carriers that went into service in 1975. The John F. Kennedy was the second carrier to bear that name – the original being the first of the Nimitz-class carriers, now long retired.
A nuclear-powered supercarrier with an 85-plane air wing and a full complement of nearly 5,000 crew, the new Kennedy stretched the length of the Empire State Building laid on its end, with five acres of flight deck, and a control tower looming five stories over it all. She was fully electric, with twin A1B nuclear reactors that could power the whole operation for 15-20 years at sea. She also had her own giant, onboard desalination plant, capable of turning 600,000 gallons of salt water into drinkable fresh water every day. She was a nearly totally self-sufficient floating city. And thus did she survive two years afloat after the fall of civilization.
Before the fall, it was truly said that a carrier strike group could single-handedly win a war against any nation on Earth. Unfortunately, aside from Britain, there were no longer any nations on Earth. And unfortunately for those serving in it, this carrier strike group originally also consisted of a bunch of ships not nearly as self-sufficient as the supercarrier – two Aegis guided missile cruisers, four destroyers, a nuclear-powered submarine, and an ammunition, oiler and supply ship. Half of them had not been as lucky at the Kennedy, going down to infection after port calls, or being abandoned and scuttled for lack of fuel and supplies.
Nonetheless, the miniature fleet that was the Kennedy strike group was an awesome display when she powered into what was left of the Royal Navy Command Headquarters at Portsmouth. She retained awesome capabilities for ocean-going force projection – and now represented humankind’s last, best hope for salvation from the Hell it had blundered into. She breathed hope into the breasts of everyone who laid eyes on her.
Surely any race that could build such a wonder couldn’t be destroyed by a virus? Surely any life force behind this was too strong to be dragged down by death.
* * *
The eight-man operational Alpha team crossed over 50 meters of gangway – then still had a half-mile walk across and down into the bowels of the gargantuan warship. All around them, exterior bulkheads rose to the sky, yawning hatches descended out of sight into blackness, and enormous, ancient, building-sized stacks of machinery groaned, steamed, and clattered. It was like being welcomed aboard some floating city of the gods.
And throughout all this, the operators carried, or pushed before them on rolling palletes, about three times their mass in weapons, ammo, and other mission-critical kit. By the time they were shown their bunks, they were ready to hit them. Their area consisted of a suite of four-man sleeping berths, a briefing room, a staging area – and even a live-fire range, where they were invited to zero their weapons. Like everyplace on Earth, the JFK was a little depopulated.
“The XO’s on his way down,” said the Marine gunnery sergeant, head of the four-man security detail that brought Alpha aboard. Handon clocked his insignia as that of the Marine Special Operations Regiment. This caused him to raise an eyebrow, but he kept his comments to himself. Ainsley thanked the man, and the Marine team cleared out smartly.
Handon picked out a bunk in a room with Ainsley, Predator, and Juice, tossing his personal gear on a bottom rack, before Ainsley scored it. (In both the British and American militaries, it had long been not so much “rank hath its privileges” as “first in gets dibs.”) When Handon turned toward the hatch again, there was a smart-looking naval officer filling it.
“I’m Commander Drake, ship’s XO.”
Ainsley took his hand. “Captain Ainsley, USOC. This is CSM Handon, my first sergeant.”
Drake, late thirties, angular features, immaculately turned out and squared away in tan service uniform and #1 haircut, squinted at this, and his eyes glinted. “I suppose that’s the advantage of a slimmed down service structure. A lot of guys in jobs they’re overqualified for.”
Handon almost smiled himself. He liked this guy immediately. “What was with the MARSOC security detail?” he asked, referring to the Marine Special Operations Command. “I thought Navy MPs, or at least maybe SEALs, would provide shipboard security.”
Drake nodded. “When the shit started coming down, we had recently disembarked a fifteen-man Marine spec-ops team – Team 1, A Company, 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion. They radioed for pickup, fought their way to the coastline – then swam out to the boat. After a two-week quarantine, we pretty much put them in charge of all security and combat teams throughout the strike group.”
Handon didn’t have to ask why. MARSOC marines were drawn from the Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance community – the very best of what’s already a smart, deadly, elite outfit. They were notoriously bad hombres, as cunning as they were lethal. When you had fighters like that, you let them do your fighting.
“You guys might have cause to particularly appreciate they’re here. They’re the B team for your mission – and
also your QRF if you get in trouble.” Handon made a mental note not to piss them off, in any inter-service drinking contests that erupted. “But that’s getting into material for your first briefing. Which I’m going to give you whenever you get yourselves squared away. You squared away yet?”
Ainsley and Handon shrugged, ducked their heads at the hatch, and followed him to the briefing room. No time like the present.
JUST DON'T USE THE Z WORD
Predator and Juice watched their commanders go, then took advantage of their absence to more advantageously arrange their compartment. Juice took a brass spittoon out of his ruck and placed it carefully in the near corner.
“You brought that?” asked Predator.
“It’s gonna be a long passage. And swabbies get pissy if you spit on their freshly-swabbed decks. It’s either that or sleep up top.” Just as he tossed his head toward the hatch, a shadowy figure glided by. Juice stuck his head out into the passageway. “It’s your girl again. Wait a minute…”
“What?”
“Whoever she’s fooling around with is back at Hereford. Right?”
“Maybe she met a nice naval aviator. Iceman or some shit.”
“In five minutes?” Juice looked disbelieving.
“You said it yourself – she moves fast.”
“Or maybe she’s shtupping anything that lives.”
Pred gave him a very unamused look, then touched his toe to the deck between them. “That’s the line right there, buddy.” Alpha was very much an in-group – as was humanity itself at this point. However, when the shit really came down, loyalty would always be to service and to unit. Predator and Ali were Army – and both Delta. You didn’t fuck with that.
“Sorry, man,” Juice said, taking half a step back. “I’ll change that to ‘killing everything that’s dead’ and I think I’ve got it about right.”
“Much better,” said Predator, punching Juice in the shoulder – a blow that would have knocked most normal men down.
Arisen, Book One - Fortress Britain Page 10
