by J. Thorn
That was the whole “working together” part.
And that’s where Homer and others like him really had the advantage. The military brotherhood is well known, going back at least to Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech. But special operators – they were a breed apart. They operated in such severe and austere conditions, and against such appalling odds, that the only way to prevail was through the perfection of their training as a team. It was said that the average officer in the special operations community had more formal education than the average university professor. And so it should be. The training was unending, and relentless, and exacting, because it had to be for them to succeed at the job. Even to survive it.
So the brotherhood of special operators was definitely a family. And one thing that hadn’t changed, Homer figured, was that family was still the most important thing. The whole world had changed, but they hadn’t – not really. And having your brothers around you was how you knew you weren’t a zombie – that you were still one of God’s children, and still made in his image.
Because the first thing you notice about zombies is… that they don’t notice each other. A dead guy could be surrounded by 5,000 others, and wouldn’t pay them any mind. Well, with the possible exception of that one on the cliffs, with his buddy on the cross… Homer thought maybe he’d call him Job from now on. Maybe God was testing him.
Homer figured perhaps these thoughts about family had been prompted by this mission – by sailing, then flying, so close to where his wife and children were last known to be alive. He expected the ship was going to anchor only a few hundred miles, if that, from his home in Virginia Beach, where they’d moved after he joined Team Six. And that was a whole ocean closer than Homer thought he would ever again get to them. Some part of him always believed they were still alive. Some part of him thought he would see them again in this world.
But he did know he would see them in the next.
Also, a big part of him wrestled daily with his duty as a warrior. Every day he got up and thought of reasons why he shouldn’t leave, that second, just take off, to go look for them. What kind of father was he? What kind of husband? His children might be crying out for him now, lost, in pain, afraid. And even if they weren’t, even if Homer died in a futile search for the already departed… well, that would just hasten that day they would all be together again.
Some of the other guys said it was only by sheer, dumb luck that they had all been deployed overseas when it happened. That they were in the one island nation that, also through sheer dumb luck, escaped the implacable armies of the walking dead. But was it luck? Handon would say that it’s an operational principle that Delta makes its own luck. But Homer knew that what looks to us like luck, and what looks to be skill, are all the same thing.
God’s plan for every one of us.
* * *
And this plan had showed itself even today – in Homer’s recon of the ship areas leading to this isolated half-deck. Posted up in a common hallway was a bright yellow flyer for a daily shipboard chapel service. It didn’t mention the denomination, but he didn’t suppose it mattered all that much at this point. The timing was perfect. A half-hour for himself up there, another half-hour for the meeting whose name he dare not speak, then a half-hour for the sermon. And then back to work.
It was always good to meet other believers. It was a shame that those the ZA didn’t kill outright – eaten by the dead, infected and turned, killed by the desperate living, or just starved out by the fall – had a strong tendency to lose their faith over the matter. So the faithful were pretty few and far between these days. But, as the man has said:
Faith isn’t faith until it’s all you’re holding onto.
BEST LAID PLANS
Commander Drake sat across from Handon and Ainsley in the small briefing room. He said, “I’ve asked the MARSOC team leader to join us for this one. You’re going to want to be on good terms with this guy. As I mentioned, it’s him and his men who are going to be on standby to pull your bacon out of the fire when and as necessary.”
“Or, more likely,” said Ainsley, a little dryly, “it’s his men who are going to inherit our mission if and when my team goes down.”
“That, too. CentCom has made it very clear to me this one’s in the too-big-to-fail category.”
“So you must have a C team lined up?” said Handon.
Drake just nodded.
Need to know, Handon figured. Since he wasn’t going to elaborate on that, and since they had a second here, Handon tried on a question that had been vexing him.
“I understand your reactors can provide power for decades.”
“That’s affirmative. Though, when we do need to refuel, that can take a couple of years. You might have seen we have only one support ship sailing with us, to save on fuel. But it’s a hell of a backup – one of the Arleigh-Burke destroyers, and the latest. The Michael Murphy.”
Handon nodded. “And on top of unlimited power, you’ve got all the fresh water you can drink from your desalination plant… but last time I was on a supercarrier, I was told it could only store about 70 days worth of food. How has that worked?”
Drake nodded. “Well, for starters, and as you’ll have already noticed, ship’s complement is massively under strength. We sailed with 4,660. As of today, we’re at 2,132.”
“Killed or infected?” Ainsley asked. “Outbreaks?”
Drake nodded. “We’ve lost people on land. But there have been zero outbreaks on the JFK. Every shore party is quarantined for a week on the Rainier, our oiler, ammo, and supply ship.”
“But max incubation period is only 72 hours.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t know that in the early days. And we couldn’t afford even a single incident shipboard. So we’ve stuck with the policy.”
Ainsley and Handon nodded and waited for him to continue.
“No, our losses were different. Desertions were big, particularly in the first few months. A lot of people jumping ship, some of them too far out to realistically swim to land. They were trying to get home to their families. God preserve them.” Drake took a look off to the corner of the cabin. “And then there were the suicides. It’s a fact of life in any military outfit. But ours have ticked up over time.”
“How do you sail the ship with so few?” Ainsley asked.
“Well, we just picked up a few in Britain – donated by your own CentCom. Filled a few critical roles. But it’s a lesser known fact that most of the crew on a supercarrier is actually in support of the air wing. And we haven’t been flying much. So little fuel, so little point. More on which in a second. Anyway, obviously it wasn’t just air wing people we lost. So we’ve had to do retraining. But, hell, this ship is so automated, in many ways it sails itself. To a great extent, the people are here to look after the other people, and the aircraft.”
Drake seemed now to come out of his dark reverie. “Anyway, half the mouths to feed solved half the food problem. But for much of the first year, we spent most of our time raiding ports and coastlines for supplies. We’d hope to find someplace quiet and abandoned. More often it was a matter of fighting our way in, then holding a perimeter while food was onloaded. The MARSOC guys were invaluable there. Fight like bulldogs on meth.”
Handon well knew. Also, he’d known and worked with enough Marines to know that they’re not just ferocious – but they actually tended to be disconcertingly smart and cagey, as well. God knows how the myth of the knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal jarhead hangs on, he thought to himself. Hmm – maybe it’s because they want it to. Now THAT’s smart…
Drake went on. “Anyway, the shore parties were our biggest risk of infection, of course, and some of our junior officers were already looking ahead. A few months in, we planted huge potato and wheat beds, under sunlamps, down in the hangar. Three levels of them, actually. We’re now about 50% self-sufficient on food, at least as far as calories goes. Since then, shore parties focus on canned fruits and vegetables, spices, and yeast to mak
e bread. That and multivitamins. Meat’s pretty few and far – the frozen stuff went when the power failed, and the fresh stuff you have to hunt and slaughter, all of which burns time on shore. And dairy’s a memory, aside from tinned milk and powdered eggs, when we get lucky.” Drake laughed mirthlessly to himself. “Something I never thought I’d see – a bunch of vegans on a U.S. Navy warship…”
He laughed again, easier. “Anyway, we’ve been a bit like the Battlestar Galactica – guarding our dwindling fleet, wandering the galaxy looking for a new home. Instead of being hounded by the Cylons, it was the dead.”
“And so what did you do with the air wing?” Handon asked. The flight deck couldn’t hold more than a couple dozen aircraft at a time – ordinarily, most of them lived belowdecks in the cavernous – three-story high, 700 feet long – hangar bay.
“We pushed quite a few of them into the ocean.”
“That’s a bit of a shame,” Ainsley said.
“Starving to death’s a shame.” Drake, Ainsley, and Handon turned to see that this was spoken by a newcomer, who’d slipped into the doorway without anyone noticing. He wore a khaki utility uniform, boots, and a sidearm. Two deep furrows of scar tissue ran down the left side of his face. “And in zombie warfare, air superiority is about as useful as nuts on a nun.”
“Captain Ainsley, Sergeant Major Handon,” Drake said, “this is Master Gunnery Sergeant Fick, who commands the MARSOC team, since their LT went down.” It was the same guy who had escorted them onboard.
“We met,” said Handon.
Fick nodded. “Wanted to check out the new hotshots myself. Find your comfy racks okay? Pillows nice and fluffed for you?”
Ainsley looked disconcerted, in that British way of abhorring a scene. Handon just smiled. God love the Marines… Hell, he thought, they’re probably loving life in the ZA.
Another thing about the Marines: used to very austere living conditions.
* * *
Gunnery Sergeant Fick took a seat and put his thick arms on the table.
Commander Drake said, “Truth is, we do have several dozen security personnel, Navy MPs and shore patrolmen. But Fick asked to bring you onboard himself.”
The stocky Marine nodded. “Being as the fate of the world evidently rests in your no-doubt capable hands.” Left unsaid, but pretty obvious to Ainsley and Handon, was that Fick figured his own guys were more than up to the job.
Both Ainsley and Handon felt for the guy. But, then again, neither of them gave that much of a shit. If they went around giving away missions to every SOF or elite force that fancied themselves the best men for the job… well, SOF guys aren’t given to backing down or shrugging with humility. And, in the end, everyone went where they were damn well ordered, and damn well did the jobs assigned to them. Especially in Handon’s Delta, where professionalism was job one.
Ainsley said to Drake, “I gather you’ve gotten the high-level concept from our OC.”
Drake and Fick looked at each other.
“Officer Commanding,” said Handon. “A little Brit-speak for you.”
“Ah, right,” said Fick. “Everything bass-ackwards.”
Ainsley almost smiled. “No, that’s the Frogs, actually – les bâtards morts.” Like many English of his class, Ainsley spoke good French. (Unlike the French, who no longer spoke.)
Drake nodded. “Okay. Yes, we got a three-page mission concept from your Colonel. He’s right in suggesting a helo insertion is too much of a stretch – bird could get there, but not back. Not without refueling. Also too much danger of mechanical failure on a helo. So it’s going to be a fixed-wing aircraft, and a combat jump.”
“Right,” Ainsley said. “HAHO.” High-altitude, high-opening – after which the operators would steer their canopies to the target. “I’m told your air wing can support this?”
“Yes, you’re in luck. One of the planes we agonized about, but ultimately decided to keep, was our C-2A Greyhound. It’s a twin-engine cargo aircraft – generally used to move supplies around the strike group, or to shore bases. It’s a big old bastard – about the heaviest thing ever to lumber off a carrier flight deck, and bang back down again – but it was too useful to scupper.”
“Capacity?” Handon asked.
“About 4,500 kilograms, 26 passengers nominal. Should take your team, all your gear, and your chutes no problem.”
“Plus a shitload of ammo,” Fick added. “We assume that since you’re jumping into Zulu Universe, you’re going to want to jump with some big-ass resupply palletes. Set up some kind of local FOB, or at least supply cache.”
“That’s affirmative,” said Ainsley.
“My guys can help you put it together and palletize it. I saw you brought an awful lot of your own hardware. But we’re not too badly fixed for stuff like 5.56 rounds and linked 7.62. When we raided the U.S. Naval Base in Singapore, we emptied their ordnance stores.”
“Top marks,” said Ainsley.
With civilian firearms virtually banned in the UK, there hadn’t been enough of a domestic armaments industry in place when the curtain came down. It had been ramped up as quickly as possible, but it was competing with industrial resources for absolutely everything – everything that Britain used to import. Of course, USOC got priority on ammo – but every time they pulled the trigger, that meant some poor bastard defending his neighborhood had to rely on an axe.
“And about that QRF?” Handon asked, referring to the Quick Reaction Force.
Fick nodded. “Basically, you call, we come running.”
Drake said, “They can insert in the same plane you went out in, as soon as it can be turned around. But probably a low-altitude opening to get in faster.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll pull your bacon out of the fire,” said Fick.
Ainsley let that sink in for a second, then spoke. “No. You’ll pull our bacon out of the fire only if it conduces to mission accomplishment. If we’re too bogged down, or torn up, or hard to get to, then you’re to act precisely as if we’re dead. You raise the banner yourselves and Charlie Mike.” More slang: continue mission.
The Marine officer nodded, sobered. “Roger that.”
Handon nodded himself. He had to give Ainsley credit. The man could be a bit of a tight-ass. But he was a brave son of a bitch and, like all the Brits Handon had served with, he definitely knew what his duty was, and damn well intended to do it.
Born to rule and sacrifice…
Fick cracked a smile again. “Well, if we do have to go in after you, I trust there’ll be a hell of a lot fewer Zulus than when you landed.”
Handon raised his eyebrows. “What, a hell of a lot fewer than three million? That might leave a few.”
Fick kept on smiling. “Well… one nice thing. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. The dead never rise up a second time.”
From the Marine’s slightly demented grin, Handon got the sense he would be perfectly happy to go out and try to personally kill every one of the 7 billion undead abominations that currently ran the world. Like he felt no one was getting any younger, and this was a job that needed doing, and he’d prefer to be getting on with it.
Handon figured he could only respect that. Demented as it was.
“Okay,” Ainsley said. “Let’s get stuck into the mission parameters. At a high level, I want to make sure we’re on the same page with logistics, comms, the air mission, waypoints for infil and exfil, branches and contingencies, ISR, map packs, essential tasks, operational timings. Once we’ve got our command ducks in a row, we’ll bring in both teams and drill down on everything…”
BACK TO HAUNT YOU
Major Grews stood at the top of the slope, shifting impatiently, his mind jittering from one scene to the other. Below, in the yard, the last of the train carriages was being shunted along the track at an excruciatingly slow pace. It had taken the best part of the morning to clear them out in preparation for the tunnel’s excavation. Even though he was weary of waiting, he was still extremely impressed by the s
peed at which the engineering team worked. Impressed would actually be an understatement.
He had witnessed a lot of deployments, a lot of temporary bases being erected in hostile territory, and he was always amazed at how quickly these things came together when they threw a few hundred skilled soldiers at the job. But this, this had been beyond that. He had watched for six hours as just thirty weary-looking soldiers of the Royal Corps of Engineers – arrived just that morning after being woken from their beds in London – systematically shifted nearly forty carriages with little more than a few engines and some forklift trucks.
The area had to be completely clear. A lot of heavy equipment was coming in to haul out the collapsed section of the tunnel – seriously heavy machinery that his bosses only dusted off on special occasions. They were gas guzzlers, these diggers, and meant for leveling an area very quickly. This time they would be digging out fifty cubic meters of rubble. Unfortunately, this would mean opening the tunnel right up, as well as a good chunk of the hill under which it sat.
Grews glanced over at the field, across the train tracks, at the two monstrosities that sat hulking in the blistering sun, waiting to churn the ground. He tracked his vision further over to the field, where pyres burned even now, eight hours after the last zombie had fallen. Nearly a hundred of the damn things had been on the loose in the end, most of them alive and sleeping in the Premier Inn a day ago. Now they were burning. The remainder, about two dozen, had crawled out of the hole that the first had made.
