Strands of Sorrow

by John Ringo

  “Follow own direction to Building Fourteen,” Hamilton said. “Critical paperwork in main hangar area. Door on the south side marked nine has been breached. Paperwork is Federal Inventories, Special Materials, Top Secret. Ground Force Commander and Ground Force Commander only to observe. Read back, over.”

  “Main hangar area, aye,” Faith said dispiritedly. “Door on south marked nine entry, aye. Ground Force Commander only, aye.”

  “Just get it done,” Hamilton radioed sternly. “A simple errand should not have taken this long, Ground Force. ForceCom, out.”

  “There is one, last, issue, sir,” Gunny Sands said, from over his shoulder. The helo was carefully following the movement of the Marine convoy as it approached the building.

  “How we’re going to keep her from drawing and firing automatically?”

  “Roger, sir.”

  “All personnel!” Hamilton said. “Gather on the far side of the objective from the door and silent running! Thirty seconds . . . twenty . . .” he could hear the amtrack pulling up by the door. “Ten . . . take cover! She’s almost here!”

  * * *

  “Fuck,” Faith said, sliding off the side of the amtrack. “I hope this building isn’t clear. I really need to kill something.”

  She stomped over to the door as the Marines exited the amtracks and took up security. The door, as promised, had already been breached. Probably clear but she jacked a round into her M4 anyway. She might get lucky. She didn’t remember clearance on this building but there had been some missions she couldn’t get involved in ’cause of all the God-damned, motherfucking paperwork and fucking shit God-damned meetings and fuck this SHIT . . .

  She opened the door, weapon on point, and stopped as lights came on all over the building. There was what looked like a brand new M1 Abrams, painted pink with flames along the side, sitting in the middle of the large maintenance building. On the side was written TRIXIE in big, bold, gold letters. A massive banner above the tank read HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHEWOLF.

  “SURPRISE!” about a hundred voices bellowed. Most of them were hiding behind the tank and poked their heads up warily at best.

  “If you think this means I’m not going to kill somebody, you are OH SO VERY WRONG!” Faith screamed. “And I’m going to kill you by RUNNING YOU OVER WITH MY TANK!”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Oops,” Faith said as the M1 banged into the Ford Expedition. The tank didn’t even notice. It was a good thing they had plenty more trucks if they ever needed them. And they made nice traffic cones for a tank so Faith could have a proper driving lesson.

  “Little more care in the steering, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Decker said from the commander’s cupola. “Recommend you take it a bit slower.”

  “Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, grinning as she gunned it. “You said slower, right?”

  * * *

  “There’s no way we’re ever going to need two hundred Kia Sorentos,” Colonel Hamilton radioed. “Go for it.”

  “HEE HEE!” Faith squealed, gunning the Abrams as she drove up on the first of the mid-sized SUVs. It crunched like a tin can under the foot of a giant AND THERE WERE A HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE TO GO. “THIS IS THE GREATEST BIRTHDAY EVERRR . . .”

  * * *

  “Sir!” Faith said to the colonel. “I know I’m not maintaining professional demeanor but this is the greatest birthday EVER!” She threw her arms around him in a hug. “Thank you!” She grabbed the gunny and hugged him. “And thank you, Gunny, ’cause I know that a colonel couldn’t have pulled this off on his own! Us officers aren’t that smart!”

  More than half the Force was gathered at the party in building Fourteen. The Alexandria turned out to have only left a small security and watch detachment onboard. Most of the Naval Landing Force was there, the helo team had landed and, of course, her Marines. Most of them were gathered around the cooling tank, admiring the detail work. Undersecretary Galloway, General Brice, Commodore Montana and Mum and Da had all chimed in via satellite. Turned out they were all in on the surprise party.

  “Frankly, we were stumped, ma’am,” Gunny Sands said. “It took the machinists mates from the Alexandria to get the fuel system working. And we couldn’t have gotten it up without their help all around.”

  “That’s just . . .” She looked at Commander Vancel and shook her head. “I am just having the best birthday ever, everybody. Just . . . the best. But . . .” She paused and shook her head again. “This is not the best use of our scarce available resources, you know?”

  “Lieutenant,” Vancel said, frowning. “I’m trying to figure out how to put this . . .”

  “May I, sir?” the COB asked.

  “Of course, Chief,” Vancel said.

  The Abrams had been parked back in the building after Faith’s “driving lessons” so the COB climbed up on it and shouted: “AT EASE!”

  “I got a few words to say,” the chief of boat said, raising his glass of punch. Since everybody was armed, and in honor of the only teetotaler Marine lieutenant in history, the party was dry.

  “We spin words around stuff,” the COB said. “My daily report for the day the Voyage Under Stars was spotted had the notation that ‘Crew Morale Could Use Improvement.’ But what did that mean? We’re a weird bunch, submariners. We’re chosen from people who are functionally insane in the civilian world. Just being in a sub is being under pressure. And the ones that stay in the business just adapt to that. You know you’re in a tin can that can sink any time and be crushed to smithereens. You gotta have a sort of definite sense of either fatalism or invincibility to handle being in the sub service.

  “But we weren’t looking at our own deaths. We were looking at . . . I’ll just leave it at we left people behind on the strand. I’ll just leave it at that. And higher had us looking anywhere and everywhere for signs of . . . well, recovery, hope, anything. And there wasn’t a fucking thing. Not one fucking item. Every base was crawling with infected. Every ship. Every port. Hell, every God-damned beach. Six and a half billion people. Half of ’em were dead, the other half were vicious, insane carnivores. Infected carnivores. Three billion of ’em, maybe. Not a fucking thing you can do about that. We knew the truth. There was no home to return to. And as the days and weeks and months went by, there was no hope. It was that Fifties movie On the Beach. At some point, we were going to have to make the choice, do we go and let ourselves get infected or just . . . take the pill. And some of us already had. Guys had just hung themselves. Stuck their heads in bags . . .

  “That’s what ‘Crew Morale Could Use Improvement’ means.

  “Now, we’d picked up the chatter from a group of civilian boats that were doing some rescue and clearing. But . . . that’s all it was. Chatter. Just a bunch of boats. Not really under discipline, barely getting anything done. Trying, mind you, but not really what we’d call ‘serious.’ It wasn’t really . . . hope. It was just . . . It wasn’t really hope.

  “Then the Voyage got spotted. We’d seen others. We knew what was happening. Crew Morale Could Use Improvement.

  “And that group of boats just said; ‘Screw this, we’re going to save those people.’ But what the fuck could they really do? Huh? Voyage was the second largest liner in the world, people! It was like clearing a fucking supercarrier. Thousands of infected left, probably. What the fuck could they do?

  “And the first shooters to arrive, were these two young ladies,” the COB said, pointing at Faith and Sophia. “We didn’t have their ages, then. But we’d seen ’em. Okay, we’d watched ’em quite a bit. We knew they were young. Teenagers. And what the fuck could they do? Against that? But what they did . . .”

  He shook his head and turned away for a moment.

  “We were all watching. Everybody was, high, slow, radio up and linked in. The boats that were there. The boats that were away in the Atlantic, Pac, Indian. Then this young lady, she called her ‘Da,’” the COB said, nodding at Faith. “And when she answered with her back-up plan . . .” Again he shook hi
s head.

  “There was a pause. Long one. Then you could hear the laughter start all over the boat. Not much at first. I hadn’t heard one single laugh on the boat, not even in black humor, since . . . forever. It was slow at first, as if people had forgotten how. Then it was . . . hysterical. Out of control. It has been duly reported that more than one watch officer fell out of his chair he was laughing so hard. A submarine that shall not be mentioned nearly lost ballast control when the planesman was laughing so hard he took her into a banking dive.

  “Then when she did board? When she just . . . fucked over more infected than God? By herself? Most of it hand-to-hand?

  “You could hear the hope start. Like dawn coming up over a force ten sea. Like spring under the arctic ice. Groaning at first, unsure, then breaking. You could hear the hope. In every voice. And her sister,” he said, pointing at Sophia. “She was just right there, Johnny on the Spot, every moment. They weren’t giving in to the impossibility of the situation. They were just . . . driving the fuck on.

  “Lieutenant, when we got word that the Marines were trying to get an M1 up and going for you, and trying to keep it secret which Marines suck at, every machinist on the boat wanted to help. Every crew member wanted to help. We had to tell guys they couldn’t land ’cause they had watch, then listen to their bitching.

  “Everybody in that first Wolf Squadron threw into the Voyage. But you, Lieutenant and you, Ensign, you were what gave us back hope. Not that things would be the same. Not that . . . those we left on the beach were going to be waiting. Just . . . hope. Hope that we could, some day, feel the land under our feet again and do something. Not just rot to death in a tin can until the choice was give up to the infected or take the pill. What you and your da and Sergeant, sorry, Captain Fontana and Sergeant Hocieniec and all the rest of your crews did—what you did in reality, the clearance and the rescue and all the rest—that should have been fucking impossible. But you did something more impossible than that.

  “When the night was darkest. When hell was risen and heaven seemed to have left the building. When everything seemed impossible, when God had abandoned us, when there was no future but the zombie . . .

  “You gave us hope.

  “So if you want a fucking tank, Lieutenant, you get a fucking tank.”

  “Thank you,” Faith said in a very small voice as the applause died down.

  “And the plan was retroactively approved by your chain of command including Undersecretary Galloway and General Brice,” Colonel Hamilton said. “All work was done on-own-time. Well, most. We had to test it initially during the day.”

  “So I was being deliberately kept in the headquarters building,” Faith crowed.

  “And you learned a lot,” Commander Kinsey said. “Which isn’t a bad thing.”

  “I learned not to trust my chain of command,” Faith said, grinning. “Seriously. Thank you. Thank everybody who worked on it. But what are we going to get Sophia?”

  “I’ve already said what I want,” Sophia said. “A working helo repair and support facility.”

  “Then I will clear the fuck out of Mayport for you, Sis,” Faith said. “I’ll sort of be sad I can’t use Trixie, but getting it across the river would be a nightmare.”

  “Lieutenant,” Colonel Hamilton said. “There’s a bridge. The M1A1 has a three hundred mile range.”

  “I can drive it over?” Faith asked.

  “There are about six hundred cars blocking the bridge, sir,” Sophia pointed out.

  “I get to run over six hundred cars!” Faith squealed.

  “Not tomorrow,” Colonel Hamilton said. “But the M1 may be somewhat useful in clearance operations. We’ll see on an ongoing basis. There’s also the issue that the bridge may not support the weight of both the cars and the Abrams.”

  “Yes, sir,” Faith said. “I really love my tank, sir. But what is important is getting the clearance done. With our still-limited personnel, moving the facilities from Mayport to here would be a major logistical hurdle that, if it was due to the security situation would, obviously, be harder. Bottom line, there has to be a way to secure the base.”

  “Half a million infected within ten miles, Lieutenant,” Hamilton said.

  “Which just means half a million targets, sir,” Faith said. “Just need to get the number down. And Lord knows, we’re no longer limited in ammunition or equipment, sir.”

  “The mission is to get the local area up and running, then clear bases north, Lieutenant,” Hamilton said.

  “We’ve looked at the time it would take to get the major components of the support facility from Mayport to here, sir,” Faith said. “Thirty days, minimum, with the personnel we have available. If we take less time getting the infected level down to the point the base is no longer in threat, it’s a net win in terms of time, sir.”

  “That is a point,” Hamilton said.

  “Do it both ways, sir,” Sophia interjected. “Mechanicals.”

  “Mechanicals?” Hamilton said.

  “Mechanical infected . . . eliminators?” Commander Kinsey said. “Removers? I’m not sure what the nomenclature is. They used them in the Canaries as a test. Containers with some sort of cutting blades on the inside and light and sound attractors inside and out. Set exit end over the water, entrance end on land. Lots of lights on top. Zombies go in, they don’t come out. Or, rather, they come out either in pieces or so damaged that they drown. Problem being, the ones in the Canaries only worked for a few days then failed.”

  “I’ve seen the redesign, sir,” the COB said. “It uses the full tranny and cruise control from a light truck to gear down if necessary. I think it will work.”

  “I just wish that my tank was more useful for clearing infected,” Faith said.

  “Unfortunately, they’re primarily designed for clearing other tanks, Lieutenant,” Colonel Hamilton said. “Even using the machine guns would tend to be spitting in the wind. But as I said, we may cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Funny, sir,” Faith said, shaking her head.

  “Sir,” Gunny Sands said.

  “Yes, Gunny?” Hamilton asked.

  “M1028, sir.”

  “Oh,” Hamilton said. “I hadn’t thought of . . . Lieutenant Smith’s comment that we officers are not very smart was just proven, wasn’t it, Gunny?”

  “That is why you have gunnery sergeants around, sir,” Gunny Sands said. “And Decker was the first one to bring it up. I checked the magazine inventory, sir.”

  “How many rounds?” Hamilton asked.

  “Sorry,” Faith said, raising her hand. “Clueless lieutenant? M whatsit?”

  “Two thousand, sir,” Gunny Sands said lovingly.

  “Canister rounds,” Januscheitis said to Faith.

  “Canister, canister, canister . . .” Sophia said, frowning. “I know I know that . . . Oh! Really?”

  “I know I’ve heard the name, too,” Faith said, frowning. “Wait . . . Hornblower! Like grapeshot, right?” Her eyes lit up. “For my tank? Really?”

  “Two thousand rounds in the magazine, ma’am,” Gunny Sands said, grinning. “Eleven hundred and fifty rounds of ball bearings, per. Basically a one hundred and twenty millimeter shotgun, ma’am. Way better than a Saiga.”

  “Oooh,” Faith said. “Sweet. We really could have used that in London . . .” She paused and frowned. “But getting a bunch of them in one place . . .”

  “That’s the way to do it,” Sophia said. “Drive around the city. Slowly. We’ll hover the helo in one spot, maybe near a park, draw them in. Needs to be noise.”

  “Should be psy-ops bullhorns in the inventory,” the machinist mate said. “They’re fielded with an ARG.”

  “You know,” Colonel Hamilton said, looking at the overhead and rubbing his chin. “If we start from Mayport and they follow you . . .”

  “Pied piper,” Commander Kinsey said, nodding.

  “We did this as a . . . well, because it was the right thing to do,” Colonel Hamilto
n said. “But maybe refurbing a tank wasn’t the worst use of resources ever. Two thousand rounds?”

  “I’m going to get to shoot zombies with my tank, aren’t I, sir?” Faith said, her eyes lighting.

  “You just might, Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “You just might—”

  “SQUEEEEE . . .”

  CHAPTER 9

  “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day,” Faith sang over the radio as the amtracks churned into the Mayport Naval Station boating basin. “Shooting zombies with my taaank, everything’s going my way . . .” She unkeyed the radio since it was lousy radio discipline.

  “We’re not shooting zombies with your tank, yet, ma’am,” Januscheitis replied. He was in the trail amtrack of the convoy. “And this ramp is narrower.”

  “Target,” Twitchell said over the intercom.

  The landing objective was outside the fence line of the basin and the airfield which is where the helo had concentrated and where it still continued to circle, looking for targets. But there were more infected outside the wire than inside. And some of them were up on the pier, attracted to the sound of the approaching amtracks.

  “Oh what a beautiful morning,” Faith sang again as they approached the ramp. “Oh what a beautiful day. Shooting zombies with my amtracks, everything’s going my way. . . . Forty millimeter. Open Fire!”

  The amtracks were armed with a dual system: 40mm Mk19 grenade launcher and .50 caliber M2 Browning machine guns. All the gunner had to do was choose or, in this case, have the choice made for him.

  The basin where the ramp was located was small but not so small that five amtracks couldn’t squeeze into it. And there was a fairly large welcoming party.

  Mark 19 40mm was designed as an antivehicle round. They hadn’t bothered to load the armor-piercing, discarding sabot, only the high-explosive incendiary. There wasn’t, unfortunately, a canister round. That would have been spar.

  The sealed turrets were controlled entirely internally and really did look like something from Star Wars. At Faith’s words the turrets, which had been tracking the gathering infected, all opened fire. And immediately disproved the statement: there is no such thing as overkill.