by Mark Wandrey
“Twenty thousand, minimum, and climbing,” the analyst said. “Continuing to grow.”
“Why didn’t we have a visual before?” Tomlinson demanded. There was a quick discussion. Finally, a lieutenant commander in charge of the intel group ventured a theory.
“It’s possible the infected stay low when they’re not actively hunting.”
Tomlinson grunted; it was as reasonable an explanation as any other.
“Second strike force coming on station,” one of the flight coordinators said.
“How soon to rearm the first?”
“We’re just now beginning launch of the third,” a coordinator announced. Tomlinson ground his teeth in frustration.
“The targets are responding to the bomb strikes,” another analyst said. Twenty thousand infected were heading toward Colonel Alinsky and his single company of Marines.
“Give me Captain Woods on the John Paul Jones.”
* * *
“Fire mission!” the controller in the John Paul Jones’ CIC ordered. On the aft deck, five of the 96 cells on the ship’s VLS, or vertical launch system, exploded as the cruise missiles they contained blasted into the rainy sky.
The rocket-assist lofted each one to an altitude of 200 feet, then the motor dropped away, the cruise missile’s wings extended, and the turbofan engine ignited. The missiles aligned on their targets using GPS and dropped to 50 meters off the water as they raced eastward. The entire launch took less than a minute to send the wave of five missiles on their way. John Paul Jones was slowly cruising five miles off San Diego’s coast. At 550 miles per hour, they were on target in 32 seconds.
* * *
Admiral Tomlinson watched the live feed as the five Tomahawk cruise missiles slammed into the southern edge of the town of Coronado. Their warheads released 250 submunitions to rain down on the town, wreaking havoc. The FLIR didn’t provide a detailed image of people, yet shapes could be discerned. The rain of bomblets blew bodies through the air. Some were in pieces, while others sprayed in brighter white across the concrete before the sum of a thousand explosions whited out the screen.
“My God,” someone said in the CIC.
“Do your jobs,” the combat operations commander barked. On one screen they were replaying high-definition video shot by an orbiting MH-60R Seahawk that was below the cloud deck. Tomlinson just happened to glance over as slow-motion video showed a group of four running infected, two of them obviously children under 10, a boy and a girl. The entire group was naked. An instant later a pair of bomblets detonated in their midst and blew the group apart.
“Second flight of Super Hornets relieving the first.”
“Admiral,” the combat commander said, holding a phone, “the president wishes to talk to you.”
Tomlinson picked up the phone and spoke. “This is Admiral Tomlinson.” He listened for a moment. “Madam President,” Admiral implored, “we don’t have the manpower for any other kind of interdiction. This airfield is the only one we’ve located in our area of operations capable of accommodating the E4 safely.” He listened again. “I’m aware of that, ma’am, which is why we’re prosecuting this operation the way we are. We’ve discussed the other option. Your pilot is certain you can safely parachute—” The sailors closest in the CIC could hear the POTUS screaming into the microphone on the other side. “Is that a direct order, ma’am?” he asked. “I understand.” Tomlinson handed the phone back to the combat commander.
“Controllers,” he said, “we’ve been ordered to cease the use of high explosive ordinance and avoid injuring minors.” The entire room fell deathly silent. “Get the loadmasters aboard Essex to load zip-cuffs on an Osprey and get airborne ASAP. Get me Colonel Alinsky right away.”
* * *
“With all due respect, Admiral, you have got to be fucking kidding me!”
“No, Colonel, I am not. I have a direct order from the Commander-in-Chief to cease the use of high explosives in general, and to avoid injuring any infected who are minors. They are to be detained by non-lethal means and held for treatment.” Major Hartman stared at his commander with open-mouthed astonishment. “They’ve retasked an Osprey to bring us zip-cuffs and tear gas.”
“There are thousands on this island,” Harman said, “maybe tens of thousands.”
“I know, Major. That’s why we’re not going to tell the platoon lieutenants.”
* * *
LCAC 20 finished maneuvering away from the basin and turned around at the Amphibious Base to begin the return to Essex. Without the Marines and the four LAVs, the LCAC was able to move a lot faster, and it quickly approached its maximum speed of 47 miles per hour. With no civilian traffic, there was no concern about an accident. The rain had no effect on the air cushion vehicle’s performance, only on visibility. Normally they’d slow down due to the reduced visibility, but in this case, the commander kept it at full speed. The radar showed no other craft, and the spotlights gave decent illumination.
“Approaching the bridge,” the navigator announced.
Zinn nodded. “Understood. Steady as she goes…” The bridge was visible as a hazy line across their path. Before the world had burned down, driving the LCACs under the bridge always caused traffic to back up as civilians slowed and sometimes got out of their cars to watch. The LCACs were loud, running on four huge gas turbine engines, driven forward by two massive four-bladed fans, and steered via two ducts.
He glanced forward at the .50 caliber gunners who maintained their stations. They were just finishing up, reloading the guns and checking their functioning. It was a shitty job in the rain. The air cushion tended to throw a spray over the bow on a good day; the driving rain was making it much worse. But if the guns weren’t oiled, the salt spray could do real damage in hours. As they raced closer, the rain seemed to be getting heavier. A lot heavier. Then one of the forward gunners yelled something unintelligible over the radio. The commander looked through the windscreens, wipers whipping back and forth every second. The gunner was facing the bridge and waving frantically.
“Say again?”
The observer called over the radio, “Falling, they’re falling!”
“What’s falling?” Zinn asked. A second later, the LCAC skimmed into a human waterfall.
The Coronado Bridge was built in 1969 as a way to increase road traffic onto and off the Coronado peninsula. Five lanes wide, the bridge boasted a carrying capacity of 68,000 vehicles per day. It was 11,179 feet long and 200 feet above the water at its center, making it tall enough for the largest military ship to sail under at low tide.
Since the previous afternoon, Navy and Marine helicopters had been almost continuously flying around Coronado, examining the situation on the peninsula in preparation for the coming landing. A week before all civil control was lost, the warehouses in and around the base of the bridge had become the center for FEMA’s efforts to control the virus and provide aid. When that collapsed, over half a million infected were left to wander the area to feed on whatever they could find, including each other.
The helicopter flights were a strong source of interest for the infected. Vehicles of all types seemed to be natural draws for them. Pilots had noticed a fair number of them on the bridge the night before, running under the helicopters, reaching up toward them, and screaming at the sky. One Marine Seahawk had hovered over the center span of the bridge for several minutes, its 500,000 candlepower light illuminating their bloody, insane faces staring up at them before turning south to fly over the island. They never saw the flood that attempted to follow the departing bird up and onto the bridge. Unknown numbers wandered down the other side, and by morning, the bridge was largely empty again.
The arrival of the LCAC drew them back. Thousands found the piers and tried to reach the passing hovercraft. As the rain started, thousands were in the middle span, looking for the source of the noises they’d heard earlier, some drinking the water that pooled on the bridge, others considering which ones would make the weakest and easiest pre
y. Then the LCAC came back.
They couldn’t see it through the rain, but the sound of the four powerful turbines and the drive propellers was clear below them. So many crowded the edge of the bridge that the suspension cables groaned slightly. When the LCAC’s forward spotlights finally cut through the rain, they had a target. One jumped, then another, and another. In seconds, it was a tidal wave.
“They’re jumping off the bridge!” the gunner screamed into his microphone.
“Oh fuck!” the navigator yelled.
“Hard about!” Zinn ordered. The pilot just stared. “I said hard about!”
The pilot came to his senses and spun the control yoke. The LCAC maneuvered through a combination of vanes on the back of the drive propellers which acted like rudders, and a pair of large angled tubes which could direct its jet exhaust 360 degrees. It made the craft maneuverable…at slow speeds. At its top speed, the LCAC required a quarter of a mile to turn about, and nearly that much distance to perform a 90-degree turn. It didn’t turn like a ship; the effect was more like a race car drifting around a corner.
The pilot throwing the yoke over only succeeded in spinning the LCAC so it was skimming sideways over the water as it intersected the rain of human bodies. A 180-pound human being falling from 200 feet up hit with enough force to bend two-inch steel plating. The LCAC’s armor, however, was on the sides; the top was relatively thin metal. Bodies fell and exploded across the hull as the craft passed under the bridge. One hit the starboard .50 caliber gun station, destroying the gun and killing the hapless operator. Another slammed into the starboard aft engine housing, blasting bone and meat through the filter and into the jet intake, which impacted the delicately-balanced compressor blades, causing the engine to explode.
A pair of infected hit the LCAC’s bridge, completely collapsing the superstructure. The collapsing structure killed the pilot, navigator, and slammed Zinn to the deck, breaking his back. In all, 52 infected slammed into the careening LCAC like sacks of wet cement, crushing structures, wrecking equipment, and denting decking designed for M-1A Abrams tanks.
Bereft of navigational control, the LCAC spun wildly, eventually slamming into the stern of a decommissioned Navy tender tied up at Ancon Marine Supply & Salvage’s dock. Gunfire from the surviving .50 caliber made the warehouses’ current residents open the hatches to see what had happened. Moments later hundreds of infected flowed off the tender and docks, and onto the LCAC.
* * *
“Roger that,” Colonel Alinsky said and turned to his XO. “The LCAC is down. They don’t know why. A helo is vectoring in to check on them.”
“There goes reinforcement in force,” Hartman said coolly. “Time to improvise, adapt, and overcome.”
“Yep,” the colonel agreed. Fire from the defensive positions had slackened off slightly as an effective kill zone was established. The pair of MK19 grenade launchers were set on the two avenues of probable attack, one to the northwest, and the other facing southwest. The collapsed warehouse the Vipers had taken out with a Hellfire provided decent cover in the center.
The back of the command LAV had been dropped, and Alinsky was using the fold down table there to coordinate his forces. A map of Naval Amphibious Base Coronado was displayed on a ruggedized laptop. He traced a line on the screen. “We can’t wait for reinforcements.” Once their casualties were evacuated, he’d folded 4th Platoon into the other three. It was a drill they’d practiced before. “Leave 2nd platoon to hold the basin for now. One of the MK19s, two of the 240s.” Hartman followed the colonel’s finger. “You take 3rd Platoon to the truck park here; I’ll take 1st Platoon to the armory there.”
Hartman nodded. “We’re proceeding with primary objective,” Hartman said.
“Yes,” Alinsky said with a smile. We need to cut off the peninsula from possible reinforcement.”
The four LAVs roared to life and moved out of the basin; the bodies of the dead infected smashed and splattered as they went. Marines manned the gun turrets of each LAV as the rest quick-marched behind the armored vehicles. Once on the road past the boat basin, they split into two teams of platoon size. The numbers of infected at the base were greatly reduced, thanks to the bomb runs and helicopter gunship strafing. Even so, the two groups faced constant attacks as they advanced through the pouring rain.
The major reached his destination first. After his platoon breached the perimeter fence, one squad held the gate, another cleared the office, and the final split into fire teams to search for vehicles and provide additional security. All were experienced with the variety of trucks the base had. By the time the squad returned from the office with the keys, the trucks had already been inspected once. Less than five minutes after entering the park, a dozen trucks were roaring out of it, led by a pair of LAVs.
The colonel’s platoon at the armory found stiffer resistance, as the infected seemed to like the cavernous building. At least a hundred had to be killed before the armory was considered secured. A squad held the armored entrance, while the colonel and a squad entered the command center. The generators used solar backup, so they still functioned. He used the codes provided by Admiral Tomlinson on the computer and was quickly granted access to the vaults.
Their small arms ammo was in pretty good shape, so he passed on that. What he wanted was a little more energetic. A door was remotely unlocked, and the platoon secured functioning forklifts to begin moving pallets to the loading docks. As the trucks secured by 3rd Platoon arrived, they backed into the docks to find forklifts idling and huge green pallets on their tines.
“Glad to see you made it,” Colonel Alinsky said.
“No problem so far,” Major Hartman waved as he swung down from the first truck. 3rd Platoon’s LAV idled by the gate with one from 1st Platoon. The security detail’s sporadic fire was picking up in tempo.
“Let’s get this ordinance loaded,” Alinsky instructed. “Have a squad relieve the security team in 10 minutes, and once the first six trucks are loaded get another squad to secure extra ammo.” He took a minute to make sure everything was going as planned, then nodded to himself and used the radio. “Marine 2/1-A actual, we’ve secured primary objective. Update on LCAC 20?”
“Marine 2/1-A actual, LCAC 20 is lost.” Alinsky cursed under his breath. How the fuck had that happened? It wasn’t like the infected had guns. “Reinforcements by Osprey are ready to dust off once you’re at Objective Bravo. 2/1-B is secure on site and facing light resistance. Do you want to retask LCAC 19 to your position instead? It just arrived at Essex and is beginning to embark Charlie Company.”
“Negative, negative,” he said. “Main objective remains securing the landing field. Send 3rd platoon and heavy weapons on two Osprey, we’ll hold with that. All other forces to land at Point Kappa. Confirm?”
“Confirmed. Out.” He put the mic away and went help load the trucks.
* * *
The Navy Seahawk helicopter hovered a hundred feet above LCAC 20, its gunners leaning out both sides to look for signs of survivors on the hovercraft or in the water. The landing craft’s rear quarter was crumpled against the old tender, and the whole thing listed to starboard. Hundreds of infected swarmed over every inch of it, their sheer mass threatening to flip the otherwise inherently stable vehicle.
“Can you see any of the crew?” the helo’s commander asked.
“Negative, Commander. Only infected. They’re feeding on each other,” one of the door gunners said, disgust obvious in his voice.
“The fucking bridge is smashed!” the other gunner said.
“What the fuck?” the copilot wondered. “Are there goddamned giant-sized infected or something?”
The pilot’s eyes narrowed as he used the pedals and stick to back away so he could see better. Just as his gunner said, the bridge was smashed flat, like someone had dropped something large onto it. Or…like something fell on it. He glanced to the right where the dim outline of the Coronado Bridge was visible. The massive bridge stood even higher than the 100
feet the helicopter hovered at.
“Oh shit,” he said and brought the nose toward the bridge. He just hovered there for a few seconds looking at the bridge. He thought he saw movement. “Climbing toward the bridge,” he told his copilot.
“What do you think?” his copilot asked.
“I’ll let you know.” He gave it enough collective that the Seahawk climbed quickly, angled slightly forward so they closed on the bridge. Before long, they were roughly the same height as the bridge and closing at just five knots. He slowed their climb so that as they got within a hundred yards of the bridge, the helicopter was 30 or 40 feet above it. The commander narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. It looked like the bridge deck was covered in a mottled level of clumps flowing to his right. His copilot figured it out first.
“Mother fucker!” he yelled.
“What?” the commander asked.
“People, infected, thousands of them. Tens of thousands!” The commander moved the stick a bit further forward, and they jumped forward. He was careful not to hit any of the guy-wires. In a second they were over the center of the bridge deck, the rotor wash blasting the sea of humans moving toward the island.
“Skipper, we weapons free?”
The commander considered his orders as he looked in horror at the flood of infected people. Coronado should have held 30,000 or so people, but San Diego had been home to more than a million! How many an hour were racing across the bridge? They had a thousand or so Marines over there, or soon would. His orders said not to harm minors. But good lord, this was insane.
“Open fire,” he ordered. “Try to get them to stop.” Both M240 machine guns opened up, ripping into the flood below them. Both his gunners were experienced at their jobs, and they used their tracers to walk the fire back and forth across all five lanes. “Navy Six Bravo to Essex, we have a situation!’” As the pilot relayed what he was seeing, the river of infected continued to move, barely slowed, toward Coronado.
