Strands of Sorrow (eARC)

by John Ringo

  Just another bughunt.

  “Abort operation. Return to base using minimum force necessary to successfully extract your personnel. Is that order understood?”

  “Abort, aye,” Faith said, shooting another infected in the face. “Could you define minimum force, over?” It was still moving so she shot it a couple more times just to be sure. Didn’t want an ankle biter. They tended to trip people up.

  “No further and I quote wanton slaughter of afflicted individuals close quote. Pull out using minimum force. Just get back to base. We’re stood down. Alpha, out.”

  “What the fuck?” Faith said, switching frequencies. “Platoon. Mission abort. Pull back to the tracks. No worries, no sweat, we just got an abort from higher. Don’t know why. We’re Romeo Tango Bravo. Rearguard, you’re now point. Let’s plow the road…” She didn’t even bother passing on the “minimum force” thing. What the fuck?

  * * *

  “What the fuck, sir?” Faith said when she got to the forward command post. “We were practically to the fucking bunker!”

  “We’re breaking down and pulling back to Reagan,” Captain Dobbins said, his face tight. “The Secretary of Education is number thirteen in the line of Presidential Succession. Her first order on getting in touch with Command was to stop the clearance. So we’re stopping clearance unless that is clarified. That is an order, Lieutenant. We’re determining fall-back lanes at this time. As soon as we have them figured out, we’re pulling back to Reagan. Is that understood?”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Faith said.

  * * *

  “What the fuck?” Faith said, setting down her tray.

  The combined mess in the Festival Dawn was massive but she could always seem to find Sophia.

  “Sit,” Sophia said quietly, shaking her head. “Just… You haven’t seen the new directive?”

  “No,” Faith said, sitting down. “What new directive?”

  Anna silently slid a folded sheet of paper to her.

  “While the zeel of the United States Military in suporting there nation in this time of difficulty is apreciated, their reminded that the persons aflicted by H7D3 are human beeings and should be treated as such….”

  The photocopied Executive Order went on like that for a full page. Someone had beat her to red-lining it. “Genoside will not be tollerated by this administration…” “Invesigations possibly leading to crimnal charges…” “detaled serch for crtical indiviiduals.”

  There wasn’t one single line which lacked a misspelled word and most had some egregious grammatical error.

  It was signed “Elizabeth Sovrain, Secretary of Education, Acting President.”

  “The positive to that missive is that the issue of American schools is clarified,” Anna said in her most impeccable British accent. “The person in charge is a bloody loon.”

  “So no more clearance?” Faith said. “And did we lose the ability to run spell-check entirely?”

  “No,” Sophia said. “We’re back to tag and bag like before the Fall. Where we’re going to find the tasers and sed-a-gives is fortunately not my concern.”

  “What about vaccine?” Faith asked. “We going to be slitting the throats?”

  “No,” Sophia said. “We’re going to be administering care.”

  “Cutting their throats is administering care,” Faith said. “Or are we supposed to keep them strapped to a bed for the rest of their lives?”

  “I don’t know, okay?” Sophia snapped. “Did you catch the part about ‘child soldiers’?”

  “No,” Faith said. “I think my brain shut down before that point. I’m no grammar Nazi, just ask Captain Dobbins, but my eyes started watering. Who can’t spell ‘genocide’ for God’s sake?”

  “‘There shall be no more use of child soldiers, and all such persons shall be discharged immediately,’” Anna quoted. “I was informed persons who were admitted without regular training standards—‘here’s a gun, go shoot zombies’—are being allowed to voluntarily discharge. And one line hinted at criminal charges for ‘crimes against humanity.’”

  “I heard Da’s on his way up by P8,” Sophia said. “He might be facing charges.”

  “She’d have a mutiny,” Faith said mulishly.

  “What happened to Semper Fidelis?” Sophia asked.

  “Always Faithful to the nation, Sophia,” Faith said. “And this is not faithfully discharging our duty to the nation! There are survivors! What about them? They can’t get out without us clearing?”

  “She considers the infected to be survivors, Faith,” Sophia said. “Her daughter apparently broke containment right after the Fall. So she wants us to find her, okay? Well, she wants the ‘military’ to find her. We’re out on our ass. And Da is probably breaking rocks.”

  “There has to be something we can do,” Faith said.

  “We haven’t found anyone higher on the list,” Sophia said. “And since we’re not actively clearing, we’re not going to. If something doesn’t break, we’re looking at that… She could be Acting President For Life.”

  Faith looked at her nearly untouched plate and picked it up.

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’ll see you gals later.”

  * * *

  “One state cannot introduce and ratify a Constitutional Amendment!”

  Jerry Carter was the chief council for the State of Texas Recovery and Reestablishment Committee. Based in Hamlin, the committee was in the process of finding and counting enough citizens to be eligible for reestablishment of statehood.

  So far they’d gotten a hard count, with documentation of citizenship and residency, of forty-five thousand people. Sixty-five was the magic number. Twenty thousand more and they’d be the only state with one congressman and two senators.

  And, technically, the ability to amend the Constitution. Including the twenty-fifth amendment, which was the current sticking point.

  “Show me where it says how many states have to be in the Union,” Acting Governor Brad Thurman said. The former head of the Texas Rangers was nearly eighty and still hard as nails. Ask any of the infected that had had the bad luck to run across him.

  “It doesn’t. When we meet the test for a state, we can have a by-election for Congress, an election for governor—think I’ll be running unopposed there—the governor chooses two of his ‘cronies,’ that’d be Charlie from Amarillo and Bubba from B’ville, then we can introduce an amendment. At which point, only verified states get to vote for ratification. We can introduce and ratify as many as we want. And the quorum of the Senate and Congress will be one congressman and two senators from Texas. Sarah’s a shoe-in for the Congressman’s spot. And Sarah, Charlie and Bubba are already onboard.”

  “This is insane,” Carter said.

  “No,” Thurman said quietly. “What’s insane is what’s going on in Arlington. And we’re going to fix that. Either that or hoist the Lone Star and that’s a can of worms we’ll only crack if we’re forced to…”

  * * *

  “The Secretary is no more nor less insane than any other person previously judged competent to assume an office of authority,” Colonel Hamilton said. “Her insistence that we suspend all ‘wanton slaughter’ of the infected together with performing aggressive search operations for her daughter are forms of obsession that rise to the level of neurosis, not psychosis. The fact that it is a very bad order does not make her insane. ‘Competence’ in regards to the articles and Amendment is a matter of psychological competence not technical competence. There is no medical reason to not swear her in as Acting President.”

  “At which point she supersedes Undersecretary Galloway and her…okay not ‘insane’ but clearly impossible-to-effect orders go into effect,” General Brice pointed out. “There is no way the forces we have can ‘secure and maintain afflicted.’ We’re outnumbered a hundred to one. And you can’t sweep the tunnels for her daughter, who is either dead or infected, without ‘wanton slaughter.’ Ergo, she is not technically competent to be th
e acting President under the current conditions.”

  “The military does not decide technical competence, General,” Steve said. “If it did, half the Presidents we’ve had elected would have been overthrown by a coup. Which is why civilian control of the military is holy writ. What we are currently doing is considering mutiny. I am not onboard. The world does not need America led by a junta. In a year and a half there is a regularly scheduled presidential election. That’s if Texas does not act first. I doubt she will get reelected and we continue from there. Well, someone does. She’s already said she’s charging me with crimes-against-humanity and insists that the military cannot use ‘child soldiers.’ She seems to feel Stacey and my parental rights should be suspended for deliberately ‘traumatizing’ our children. So Sophia and Faith are both going to have their commissions revoked as soon as she is sworn in.

  “I’m resigning. I was a ‘hostilities only’ officer and if we’re not continuing the war there’s no reason for me to be involved. If I need to take the fall to keep our country from being torn apart by a civil war, I’ll do that. My life, my fortune and my sacred honor. I’m shooting for house arrest and leaving everyone else out of it. If she attempts to try the entire upper command or my daughters…then we’ll probably have a mutiny no matter what.”

  “I intend to resign as well,” Montana said. “I’ve got a nice little house in Coronado all picked out. Might go down and see about clearing a little town in Mexico since it will be outside her jurisdiction.”

  “I’m thinking Med,” Steve said.

  “We can’t all resign,” Colonel Ramos said.

  “No, but I am, Colonel,” Steve said. “I must. That way, you can put all the blame on me. I’d even go for house arrest since it’s going to be lifted as soon as she’s out of office. But I will not support a mutiny, coup or junta. I guess you can say I’m putting my faith in Texas.”

  “I’m putting my faith in Faith,” Colonel Ramos said.

  “Colonel?” General Brice asked.

  “Sorry,” Ramos said mildly. “Forget I said that. I mean, seriously, forget you ever heard me say that. Having not said it, I need to go make sure all sorts of people are involved in very important meetings…”

  * * *

  Faith didn’t have much use for computers. Didn’t mean she didn’t know how to use them. After a class from Sophia, she’d been putting in more and more time. And she also didn’t do intel. But she’d learned to hum the tune.

  She started by finding out who was superior to the Secretary of Education in the hierarchy. Turned out it was just about everyone in the Cabinet. But to turn this around without a mutiny, she needed someone with some sense. Then there were the known facts. SecDef was dead. He’d been found in the National Military Command Center, aka “The Tank,” which had been lost to “turned” individuals. He was only identifiable by his dog-tags. Turned out in emergencies, the entire cabinet had high-tech dog-tags. Bottomline: Off the list.

  President, who was last reported moving by ground convoy with his family, had never reported in at Mount Weather which had also been lost. Raven Mountain was a question. It had gone off-line but no reason was known. It hadn’t reported being infected. But Raven Mountain was way the hell deep in West Virginia. No way to look there.

  VP: Convoy reported H7 compromised, contact lost. Probably KIA. Speaker of the House was in the same vein as the SecEd. Might have more sense but she’d only get one shot at this. Off the list. Also probably at Mount Weather but not for sure. President of the Senate. She recognized the name from some rants by Da pre-Plague. “Senile idiot” was what she remembered. Oops… Raven Mountain. Off the list. SecState. Mount Weather. SecTreasury… Intel reported him as having been killed in a helo crash on the way to Raven. The reason that the President had been moved by ground. Attorney General… Possible. Nope, Boulder. Off the list… Interior, Agriculture and Commerce she’d all checked. They were either outside DC or location unknown. Off the list… Off the list… Off the list…

  “Fuck,” she muttered. Every “higher” point in DC had been checked and there were either no survivors or the Secretary or whatever was gone.

  Locations unknown or low probability of info were: POTUS, SecState who had not been in State’s “secure facility” and only “reliably” reported at or near Mount Weather, AG, “reliably” reported in Boulder and had not been in the local bunker… VPOTUS, maybe. Compromised convoy sounded like T-O-A-S-T. That was it. The only remaining viable “possible” was the President. And he and his family were last seen leaving the White House headed for Mount Weather in a convoy.

  But…

  They had enough resources these days, there was an intel group. And they’d been questioning survivors about what they’d seen prior to the Fall. Also, all the teams had reported “notable vehicles or other indications of senior officers” during the sweeps. Faith’s platoon had found some LAVs abandoned…

  She dug into the intel using a search for “President” and “POTUS.”

  Survivor: I’m sure it was the President. The convoy had some tanks with it and that big armored limo he uses…

  Survivor: I’m pretty sure it was the President’s convoy. It looked like one, you know? You see it in DC all the time. But it had some tanks with it which just made sense. That was when I tried to run, you know? If the Prez was leaving, so was I…

  Survivor:…it was the president’s car, you know? That one they call “The Beast.” And, like, four tanks…

  There was already a map. There’d been a team tracking the locations. But nobody had seen the Beast. One other indicator that the VPOTUS was toast was that they’d found her armored limo abandoned in downtown DC. No way to tell which of the corpses around it might have been her or her family. Which was a shame since she’d be spar as President in a ZA.

  But…tanks. She’d called every armored vehicle she saw in Blount Island a “tank” until she was gently corrected by Gunny Sands and Staff Sergeant Decker. To a civilian, or a lieutenant who’d been a civilian before the Plague, anything with a gun and armor was a tank.

  She started looking for reported positions of armored vehicles then putting them into the map of the suspected locations of the president. Some of those suspect locations were way off the map in odd areas. Some were reported as “low probability” based on the convoy being headed west. But all those roads were blocked as hell. At a certain point the Secret Service detail would realize there was no way out of DC. To the west there were rivers and bridges. And every single bridge was blocked as shit.

  So they’d turn around. Why not the White House? Who knows. Blocked roads? Where would they head?

  She’d head for Eighth and Eye or the Navy Yard. Pentagon was out of the question; bridges. Did they have commo, still? Probably. Where? Would? They? Head?

  It’s an emergency. You have to save your primary. Getting out is impossible. Helos are compromised. She’d been in the Fall. She knew what the chaos was like. Where do you go?

  It was like that night in NYC. You go to ground. You find the best facility you can that is closest. Period.

  It’s an emergency.

  Three Marine Light Assault Vehicles had been spotted outside the Federal Emergency Management Agency building. They’d been on a recovery list. Why LAVs at FEMA nobody had asked. Because they weren’t tanks. Intel said they were looking for M1s or the Beast as a sign of the President. Faith would have dumped the Beast and gotten in the LAVs.

  And FEMA was bound to have one hell of a “disaster center.” Which the Secret Service would know.

  POTUS was a bit of a fucktard but not as bad as the Acting POTUS. Any port in a storm.

  Time to find Sophia.

  * * *

  “You’re insane,” Sophia said.

  “Yuh think?” Faith said. “I can swing my side, can you swing yours?”

  “We’ll be in a cell next to Da,” Sophia said.

  “The family that does time together, stays together,” Faith said. “Come on. W
hat are they going to do to us? We’re juveniles! And we’ve been traumatized by all the shit we’ve been through! Boo-hoo, it’s been so terrible! We’ll plead temporary insanity. Worse comes to worse, we’ll share a cell. It’ll be like being back on the Mile Seven.”

  “You’re supposed to be arguing in favor of the plan, Faith,” Sophia said.

  “Even if this works, no matter what we’ll be in a heap of trouble,” Faith said seriously. “The Prez was no great shakes. But it’s not about us, Sophia. It’s about our nation. If it works, the nation will be better off. With the SecEd in charge… The U.S. is screwed. Texas will probably secede. Do you want my Marines having to fight Texans instead of zombies?”

  “I can get the gear,” Sophia said, sighing. “Once more unto the breach, dear sister?”

  “Once more,” Faith said, grinning. “Or close up the wall with our American dead.”

  * * *

  Timing was everything.

  Amtracks were still moving around. You fixed one, you gave it a test drive. They might never again be used for any reasonable purpose but they had to be used or they’d go bad. They’d learned that.

  Faith knew which Marines were the PI guys. You could tell. They looked like Decker when he was just off the boat. They still weren’t real good at questioning orders, especially from an officer, especially from Shewolf.

  She found some PI Marines to load an amtrack with seabags. That’s all they were, seabags. Just heavy seabags. And PI Marines followed orders.

  Then she drove the amtrack to the ammo point that also had PI Marines working at it and ordered them to load the track with .50 and 40mm, 5.56, .45 and 12 gauge. Then signed for it with a flourish. Every I dotted, every T crossed.

  All the brass were busy preparing “transformational plans for low-impact assistance of afflicted persons.” Like, all of them were busy. Even the gunnies and master gunnies were in meetings. There was no-one senior to her to say “you can’t do this.” While she was loading ammo one staff sergeant had walked over with an expression of curiosity on his face, stopped, turned around, put his hands behind his back and sauntered away whistling.