by John Ringo
So far she had only thrown up once. But she had not stopped watching.
"There's no doors to close, ma'am," Januscheitis radioed.
"Say again, over?" Faith said, holding her earbud to try to hear over the continuous fire. She was firing a pistol one-handed while she held it.
The fricking infected were swarming from EVERYWHERE. Every corridor was choked with them and the Marines were literally having to wade through the bodies. They also were clocking out on ammo.
The gunny and Walker were back to back pouring fire in both direction. She'd heard her sister talking about the "civilian shooter" who turned out to have been "someone" but even Sophia had never seen him in a serious battle. The little shrimp was a fucking machine. Every shot was a head shot; he was getting pretty much thirty infected for every magazine. Even the Gunny wasn't that good. 'Course, it was good he was a machine, since there were too many fucking infected. Finally the latest tide receded but they could hear more closing in.
"This building has all glass at the bottom, ma'am," the staff sergeant radioed. You could hear continuous fire from Condrey's Singer in the background. None of this "five-round burst" shit. "We've gained the lobby. Multiple panes are gone, ma'am. They're pouring in. Estimate over one thousand infected in view, street is choked.... We're only holding this balcony 'cause of the two-forty."
"Seahawk," Faith said, thinking about the map. "I need fire on all approaching infected on St. John Street. All teams, this is an abort; hold positions, prepare to extract. Anybody stuck?"
"Team six," Hooch called. "We're on the third floor, east. We've got overwhelming force both ways and we're clocking out."
"All teams, move towards third floor, east to extract team six," Faith said.
"Belay that order, Lieutenant," Hamilton said, cutting in on the command channel. "Pull your teams out and head for the roof."
"Stand by, all teams. Hold current positions," Faith said, switching frequencies and reloading at the same time.
"Sir," Faith said. "Did you just override your ground commander, sir?"
"You need to extract what you can, Lieutenant," Hamilton said. "With the entire ground floor open to infiltration there are approximately six million infected heading to your location and you cannot fight that, Lieutenant. When you're down to fifty Marines, total, 'leave no Marine behind' is not the way to handle it. As your father said, we cannot afford an Iwo Jima. You need to extract while you still can."
"Understood your order, sir," Faith said, scrabbling for a magazine. "Understood the reasoning. Do not concur. We can push to Hooch's position. I'm on fourth floor, central. I can make it. So can Janu and the Dutch Marines. We assemble on his position, cross-load ammo and blow our way to the roof. We can do this, sir. And, sir, if we lose every last Marine in this building, sir, you just got an infusion of seventy Gurkhas, sir. People die, sir. But honor does not. And if we don't have honor, sir, what do we have left? A planet of death and misery and blood and shit. That's all we've got, sir. And if that's all we've got, what's the fucking point? If you want to throw my HONOR on that pile, sir, I respectfully resign my commission, sir. And I will fucking well fight my way through to Hooch BY MYSELF!"
"Lieutenant, I appreciate your passion. The order stands. Gunnery Sergeant Sands, if the lieutenant does not obey the order, you will remove her from the building by force if necessary."
"Like hel--!" Faith started to scream when Walker shut off her radio then caught her arm before she could strike back.
"Belay that," Walker said quietly.
Faith, under the best of circumstances barely capable of discipline, dropped her arm and nodded.
"Yes, sir," Faith said, looking at him curiously.
"Mr. Under Secretary, are you up on this frequency?"
"Yes," Galloway replied.
"Ensign, turn your helmet cam on me," Walker said, just as quietly. His demeanor had changed to anything but laid-back. Despite wearing Army gear, until that moment he'd still been "Mr. Walker," surprisingly good at all sorts of things, especially combat, but in some fashion easy to overlook. Unless you knew him, you hardly noticed him.
Now, he seemed to fill the corridor. Barely five two, he suddenly seemed taller, broader. Without any discernible change, he was suddenly the center of attention.
He reached into a pouch and started pulling out velcro patches, slapping them rapidly onto spots on his armor and uniform. Pathfinder, Master Parachutist's Badge, Scuba Badge. Combat Infantry Badge, two stars. Joint Special Operations patch, left shoulder. An odd and very rare patch that looked a bit like the SAS badge, right shoulder.
Last, he pulled out two strips of cloth and slapped one on his helmet and one on the front of his body armor.
Each strip bore three black stars.
"Activating at this time, Mr. Under Secretary," the lieutenant general said. "Assuming command of this mission."
"General on deck!" Gunnery Sergeant Sands said.
"As you were," the general replied, potting an infected offhand, left-handed, while returning the salute. "That means cover us while we work this plan, Gunnery Sergeant."
"Do I get to know who this general is who just popped up in my command, ma'am?" Steve said. "You said you were aware of him."
"Lieutenant General Carmen Montana," General Brice said, speaking rapidly. "Handle: Skaeling, Translation: 'He who walks as death in the night.'
"Seventeen years enlisted Army Special Operations, mostly Delta, directly promoted captain from sergeant major after Mogadishu. Actions in Mog still classified, awarded Distinguished Service Cross to be considered for upgrade to Medal of Honor after declassification. Additional twenty years officer. Former commands: Delta Force, Fifth Special Forces Group, Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force, Army War College, and Joint Special Operations Command. Turned down SOCOM and retired. More medals than Audie Murphy. Speaks something like thirty languages fluently. Parachuted solo into Dagestan under cover on Nine-Twelve. He was sixty-three at the time. The rest would take hours. Questions?"
"No, ma'am," Steve said. "Not even terribly surprised."
"Bottom line: He outranks everyone but Mr. Galloway. Pre-Plague Joint Chiefs and SecDefs stood up when Night Walker entered the room. I'm not going to argue with him because I know he knows what he's doing."
"You're a vice admiral?" Sophia spluttered. "Sir? I was thinking chief, maybe colonel!"
"Lieutenant general, Ensign," said "Walker," reloading. "My last name is actually Montana. My first name is General. Do you understand that, Colonel?"
"Yes, sir," Hamilton radioed.
"Primary mission abort," General Montana said. "Do need to extract. No one left behind. Shall make it out. All of us. Time to unpack my adjectives. Lieutenant Smith, call the plan: They know your voice."
"Yes, sir!" Faith said, changing back to the platoon frequency. "All teams fifth floor and above, move to the roof and extract by helo. All teams below fifth floor, converge on floor three, east. If you get stuck, don't worry, take open order, lie down and sit tight. We will come for you..."
There wasn't a thing that Steve could do to support his children in the maelstrom. Which he had become as comfortable as any father was ever going to get about long ago. So he picked up the phone and dialed a number.
"Medical Wing, Nurse Black speaking."
"Tina, could you please get me Lieutenant Fontana if he's available?"
"Yes, sir. One moment, please."
"Fontana."
"Turns out Walker's a lieutenant general?"
"Guess he decided to break cover, Captain?"
"Yes. You knew?
"Duh. Everybody in SF knew Night Walker. It's like asking a Marine 'have you ever heard of some guy named Chesty Puller?' Or, you know, Audie Murphy, Alvin York, Patton...Except nobody without a TS was supposed to know his name. It's why he turned down SOCOM. It was a publicly posted position. That and it was all politics."
"And you never even thought to mention this? I mean, the first time you met h
im, you didn't even blink, Falcon."
"Of course not. It was Night Walker, Steve. And under cover. Of course I didn't blow his cover. He'd have killed me. It's an SF thing. You wouldn't understand..."
"This is probably a stupid order, COB," Commander Vancel, skipper of the attack sub Alexandria said. "But I don't want book on this one. Not this one."
"The guys already shut it down, sir," the chief of boat said seriously. "And, with respect, sir, until they get out, or don't, pretty much everything's shut down but reactor watch, sir."
"Approved," Vancel said. "Please God, they make it out. I don't know how we'd keep up morale without the Bobsie twins."
One by one, the helmet cams of the leadership, and then the radios, succumbed to continual scrums with infected. Along the way, however, the viewers got a new appreciation for the word "fury" watching the combination of Night Walker and Shewolf. The helmet cameras of the whole group had to be doused down frequently as the seventy-something general and the "almost fourteen, damnit!" ieutenant cleared corridor after corridor, room after room, again and again.
Night Walker turned out to have a lot of adjectives he hadn't unpacked. No single human could carry the entire battle, but the phrase "freak of nature" was applicable. The general had immense natural talent and nearly forty years experience of bringing death and destruction to America's enemies. Single-handedly, the diminutive septuagenarian added at least the weight of another platoon. And if his age showed at all, no one could tell the difference. Even the gunny couldn't keep up.
If this was to be the last battle of the Night Walker, it was an achievement to equal any in history.
After two hours the last word that higher had was link-up with Sergeant Hocieniec's Team Six. But Sergeant Weisskopf's team in Fourth floor South was cut off by then. When Weisskopf went into a scrum and his radio was ripped off his gear, that was the last transmission.
The helos continued to circle. Infected were being drawn by the sound from all over London and St. James Street and Pentonville Road were piling up with bodies. The Seahawk RTBed once for gas and ammo and to drop the Marines it had picked up, then returned. And still there was no sign of the rest of the party. Just more and more infected crowding in. Many of them were stopping in the street to feast but others seemed drawn to the sound of conflict in the building and were wading through the fire from the helos to close with the embattled unit.
Finally, eight hours after entry and six hours after the last transmission, a sole blood-covered Marine stepped out of the door carrying another Marine on his back.
But he was followed by more.
In ones and twos, bloodied and battered Marines stumbled out onto the roof and took up defensive positions around the door. Most of them didn't have functioning weapons anymore. M4s were bent. Knives were gone. Many of them had pistols in their hands, gripped by the barrels, that had obviously been used as clubs. Some of them were stumbling out and hitting the deck, flaccid in exhaustion. But they were all alive. Helmets were missing. Some of them might have bites. A few were badly wounded. Sophia's team, less General Montana, burst out in a group. Sophia staggered away from the door, took off her respirator and helmet, threw up, then staggered away a few feet and lay flat out on the roof. Olga just hit the deck facedown.
Thirty Marines, four Navy and "The General" had been left below and Hamilton slowly got a head count. There was a steady trickle. Two, ten, twenty, twenty-five...
"Seahawk, prepare to give cover fire," Hamilton said as a burst of Marines blew out of the door. "Try to keep the infected from getting on them when they're boarding."
"Roger," Colonel Kuznetsov radioed. "Standing by."
Finally, Gunny Sands, Januscheitis and General Montana exited the door. Januscheitis was missing his helmet and most of one ear. Sands' gear was definitely not parade ground and a Marine gunnery sergeant had done the unthinkable and left his rifle somewhere in the building. The general was covered in blood but other than that seemed to be unaffected. And still fighting.
General Montana hacked expertly at the arms of infected using a machete he hadn't started with while Gunny Sands and Januscheitis dragged the furious lieutenant out of the stairwell by the back of her combat harness. Faith was missing her helmet, too, her gear was torn and ripped by teeth marks and she had a cut on her cheek. But she was still slashing the infected holding onto her with her kukri. As Hamilton watched, she cut off two of the half dozen hands pawing her gear.
She was the last. That was every single person who had entered the building.
There was a distant cheer and he realized the entire boat must be watching the video.
Marines piled into the door with anything they had left: Halligan tools, machetes, bent M4s, prizing the infected off their lieutenant. Then the entire group, directed by General Montana, managed to push the door closed against the mass of zombies, jamming it with anything to hand.
Faith kicked the door several times, then pushed through the Marines until she found one that had a remaining grenade. She walked back to the door, pulled the pin, pushed the grenade through the gap, cut off another hand to get free, then walked away. There was a brief blast of additional blood and tissue out of the gap.
Then she took off her assault ruck and pulled something out. It was a bright blue plastic package. She held it up to the helos and started dancing as the rest of the teams pulled similar packages out and held them up. Everyone had them. With no ammo in their rucks, there had been plenty of room. A quick estimate was that they were carrying a couple of hundred pounds of what had to be polyacrylamide gel powder. More than enough for all the vaccine they needed for the subs.
"I'll be God-damned," Hamilton breathed.
EPILOGUE
"I hope like hell you can get this stuff started fast," Faith said, stepping out of the decontamination shower on the deck of the Grace Tan. She'd carried a couple of the, fortunately waterproof, packages, and Trixie, in with her to get the blood off them. It had soaked right through their assault rucks. "We've got bites. Janu got bit."
Like rabies, the H7D3 infection could be fought off with continuous injections of vaccine. If you had enough vaccine. Most of the Marines had been exposed and were probably immune. But probably wasn't certainly.
"If I can still stand," Sophia said wearily. "Jesus. Sis, I take back any jokes I've made about you and clearance. You can have it. And if I can remember the process this tired. You need some, obviously."
"H7 doesn't like me, remember?" Faith said. "I'm not so sure about some of the rest of my guys. They might be immune, they might not. And I'm not losing Jan. I'm not, Sophia. I'll help." She wrung Trixie until the water ran red on the deck.
"You may not be able to make it, Ensign," Dr. Rizwana Shelley said, walking up and holding her hand out for a package. "I can. And test it. And make sure it's right. I've already started the lab up. All I needed was the gel. And, of course, the biological material."
"I take it you've decided to assist, Doctor?" Sophia said.
"Yes," Dr. Shelley said. "Entirely."
"What changed your mind?" Sophia asked.
"Your sister's helmet camera," Dr. Shelley said. "Not the fight. Or that as well, perhaps. The destruction. The devastation. It is not necessary to have an additional flight to check on my daughter. Her neighborhood is gone. Everything is gone. It has all been destroyed. Not, truly, by people, even insane people. By this horrid disease. Which must be ended. Forever. Whatever it takes."
"Good thing we brought back some nice fresh spines," Faith said, pulling a plastic bag out of her soaking assault ruck. "You might want to wear gloves."
"I'll grind them for you," Sophia said, taking the ziplock bag. "I've done worse."
"That, right there, is a beautiful sight," Steve said as the crew of the SSGN USS Florida started landing at the pier in Guantanamo. Dr. Shelley had a full lab set up in the Grace Tan, still anchored in the Thames, and was cranking out vaccine like there was no tomorrow. Among other things, if the Marine
s might be a bit squeamish about stripping out the spines of infected Gurkhas had no problems with it. And there was a copious quantity of available infected in London. As well as survivors.
Subs were proceeding to the Thames to pick up their vaccine and then delivering it wherever it was needed. And at "in excess of 20 knots," attack subs could deliver it all over the world in record time. The crew of the Florida had been subsisting on coconut and fish, and not much of either, for most of the last year on a desert island in the Indian Ocean. There was the best meal the cooks in Gitmo could make for them awaiting their arrival. And the Alexandria was alongside taking on stores, the crew as thin as death camp survivors but pitching in with a will. They had more missions to accomplish and now at least they had supplies to do it.
General Montana had declined to take command from either General Brice or Steve. He had taken a voluntary demotion to colonel, "'cause colonel's more fun than being a general," and was slated to move to the Pacific as CINCPAC as soon as all the subs were vaccinated. He and his command team were going to take one of the SSGNs for the voyage.
Nobody was arguing.
"Over a thousand survivors from London alone," Stacey said, holding Steve's hand. "Four thousand sub crewmen. And seventy Gurkhas."
"Survivors self-extracting in the sub-arctic," Steve said, looking out at the rising sun. "About to have a baby boom. All the boat corpsmen are about to be very busy. We're pulling out of the dive, finally. Now we can really get started. Now we can fly..."
"Liiiisten Up, maggots! This is DEVIL DOG RADIO, an official station of the You-nited States Government, transmitting from sunny and zombie-free Guantanamo Bay. To catch all you yardbirds up on what's been going on in the world since the Fall..."
