They sat with their coffee and listened, occasionally the two would look at each other. It seemed they had a little something they knew also.
Finally he said, “So what is the plan?”
“I haven’t thought about it much, we want to get the cure spread around. Originally, we were going to just make it back to our camp and then try to spread it around the best we could.” I said; thinking I sounded pretty much a dork.
“And where is your camp?” He asked.
“It is in Western Mass, about 45 miles from Albany,” Asuna told him.
Katzung shifted a little then said, “Does this camp have a name?”
“Yeah, it is Romanica,” Said Asuna.
A moment lapsed, Gaines and the Captain exchanged glances and then he said, “Do a Major Barkley or Lance ring a bell?”
“Yes, YES, you talked to them? Are they okay?”
“We spoke with them about four days ago, just before we started off to find out what you were all about. They were all fine the best I could tell; they had a shit storm back a few months ago but they were hanging in okay.”
*(just a side note: Winston was not able to spell in Southern so well so it is up to the reader of this journal to get the twang, shortened terms like y’all, and other such wording and spelling. I will work on it and have Winston develop the ability. I realized that as I was trying to write about our ideas and it was as the Captain put it….’my idea or your’in’.)
I was pleased to hear it, we expected an occasional problem, but if it seemed they were good that was excellent news.
“Captain, did they mention anyone in particular? Maybe Margo?” I asked.
“No, they did lose some people when the Hunter Drones were active, but we never got names.”
I wanted names, and information about the Hunter things but I couldn’t get any more info, so I dropped it.
It was quiet for a few minutes then the Captain said, “We’re going to head to New London to pick up supplies. I have a plan, if it works for you.”
“Okay, what are you thinking?” I replied.
“Well, we will head back to New London, we set you up for traveling the best we can and you head back up to your people,” he began.
“Okay, that works, but what about the cure?” I asked.
“You take a portion of it with you; say 50,000 doses and we take the rest. We also copy the ‘recipe’ since we are more likely to find someone who can replicate it. You go home and take care of your people, and any others you find. We take care of getting it to the shore line and other countries.”
“I don’t think we need 50,000 doses though, I mean 10,000 would be plenty.” I offered
“Here is the bargaining part of this, with the extra doses you will have to somehow get them to two locations that we can’t get to. The first is Fort Knox, and the second is Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, 20,000 and a copy of the recipe to each.”
I looked at Asuna, and she nodded, I knew she was right. “Okay, seems fair enough. When do we leave for home?”
“We’re already on the way, but first we need to get your park your spaceship and then it is flank speed to New London, should be there on the 21st.”
Compared to the Sky Crystal a submarine is pretty tight quarters, and unlike the Crystal it is not warm. Captain Katzung evicted a couple of junior officers from their room for a few days to accommodate us.
He did ask us of we wanted to try to call Romanica to tell them we were back and coming home. After talking with Asuna about it we decided that it would be better to not do that, just in case we didn’t make it. Asuna was not crazy about the idea, but went along with it. I wanted to know that everyone was okay, but that held the risk of finding out that some weren’t, and I would rather give them the word we’re back in person.
July 27th
At lunch time today Lt. Commander Douglas, the ship’s doctor posed a question to us that was probably on everyone’s mind. What was it like in space, and what were the aliens like.
The question took us off guard, and we both were quiet for a minute or so trying to frame the question and the answer. Up to that point we had not really talked much about our trip, except to the Captain and the XO.
“Doc, I am not sure that it is a fair question to ask these folks, they have been through stuff and maybe they don’t want to share,” said Gaines.
I appreciated the suggestion on our behalf but maybe sharing it would help them, and maybe a little bit of help for us.
“Wow, that is okay Commander, I think that we can talk about it. It is not like the crew doesn’t know we showed up in a weird ship, and I am sure the scuttle butt, that is the term right?, I am sure there is a lot of it about all kinds of things. So maybe it would be good to give some solid information,” I said, Asuna nodded in agreement.
I looked up and down the table and began. “Space is like being in a sub in a lot of ways. You have a lot of space…ah…inhospitable surroundings around you. The big difference for us was that we had windows. It was not pitch black, it was actually kind of lit up, with the stars and galaxies.”
The officers in the ward room were hooked on the story; the stares at us were intense.
“You move along, and the scenery changes slowly, the glowing objects, are so far away that they hardly seem to move, yet over a couple of days they do,” I added.
Asuna jumped in there, “The one thing that I remember more than anything else was that unlike your ship it was warm. The QUalz liked it warm; it suited them, and their bodies I guess.”
One ensign asked what the QUalz were like and when we explained that they were reptilian there was a mix of shock and disbelief at first, but then one or two of the officers remembered the tale that Frenchie had told from his little sailboat. When we described them further as 4 foot high reptilians with tails someone commented that they were like taller versions of the insurance spokes gecko, and that really kind of nailed it. I had forgotten about him.
The lunch ran on, and even after it was over, the eating part, the audience, those who were off duty stayed, and listened as we told them about Krezz, and KHriz, and some of what it was like. There were funny faces made at the description of what we normally ate, the mushed warmed bugs and fungus, and WTFs at the part about KHriz and HYlon’s affinity to cheap wine and college food.
We didn’t go into the Hive, somehow that seemed like a bad idea, and if anything, we have learned to very much trust our feelings, the little voice as I call it. We would share the info with Katzung, or Gaines, but with the caveat that it remained in Vegas. (Sorry, the old saying about what plays in Vegas stays in Vegas.)
Finally, we had covered about all we could comfortably share and Douglas thanked us for the talk. The officers that remained were now different toward us. We were not weirdos from space anymore, enigmas wrapped in a cloak of mystery. We were people to them again.
July 28th
Pretty much stayed in our room out of the way, did try to talk with the Captain to see what else he could tell us about the state of the world. But he was tied up, as was Gaines.
The Ship Doctor, a Lt. Commander Douglas, gave us a medical going over to make sure we were alright. We were. I told him about the medical issues I had before the end of the world, high blood pressure, cholesterol issues, a touch of the ‘sugar’ (diabetes) but he found none of it.
“I am not sure if it was diet related, or if your little reptilian friends had done something,” I offered.
During the afternoon the Captain sat with us over coffee. Captain Katzung filled us in on the battle that had been going on in the West and Midwest with the Hunters. They sound evil. Why are humans so effective at making killing devices? Of course, I am sitting in one of the top of the line devices right now.
He also told us about the one hunter that was captured and brought to camp when the Burlington Crew was attacked. He said that before they could tell them not to touch it, the thing blew up. He didn’t know who was hurt or killed when it did. I
t was not good, I wanted to know.
I tried to get some more information out of him but there was an alert, a kind of klaxon-buzzer sound and Commander Gaines, the XO paged the Captain to the bridge. I started to follow but a marine guard stopped me. “Sir, it would be better if you both returned to your cabin” was all he said, but I knew, I had better return to the cabin.
The Captain didn’t join us at the evening meal with the officers. XO Gaines told us that the alert had to do with a ship that they had come into contact with. It was a cruise ship, one of the really big ones. It was just floating, no lights, no power, but when they got up close they found that it was loaded with Zoms, my term, he called them ‘undead’.
If I thought that the Captain had a southern accent, well, Gaines’ was even thicker. He was from Baton Rouge and sounded it.
In the end they sank the cruise ship. The thought was that it was safer to send the ‘undead’ to the bottom of the sea rather than to allow for the chance that the ship might run aground and contaminate some place on the coast of who knows where.
“That is what we do mostly, run errands for Naval Base One, or sink the infected ships that we find,” said Gaines.
The meal ended and we headed back to our cabin. I hadn’t noticed it until we had been directed back to our cabin earlier in the day, but there was usually an armed marine somewhere close by, and he was usually keeping an eye on us. I am not sure if it was because they didn’t trust us, or if they were not sure if we might not be infected. Either way it was not a warm fuzzy feeling on our part.
Not sleeping well, worried.
July 29th
Exhausted, not sleeping well, thinking about Margo and the camp. Bored.
Captain came and visited us today. He apologized for missing dinner but explained it was his turn to run the boat.
I asked him about the cruise ship. He bowed his head and said, “Yeah, it’s one of the things we do, sucks really, all those people trapped, it had to be terrible for them as one died, came back and it spread. Better to have gone the way of the President, white flash and lights out.”
“What do you mean?” asked Asuna.
“Ah, that is right, y’all probably didn’t know, how could you? When President Obama deserted the Capital, he and all the top people took off in ships, a whole flotilla, carriers, ocean liners, and support vessels. Well, someone messed up, and left a small nuclear weapon on one of the ships. It was one of the types they used to blow up a bunch of the infected cities. When the automatic detonate signal went off, poof, no more Commander in Chief, just a bunch of burned ships. Some are still afloat, but most are gone, they burned and sank. Some think that it was intentional, that someone high up figured it was a better way to go than to just one by one turn and, but no one will ever know for sure.”
I remembered hearing the rumors, I think Lieutenant Lewis, the Mass Trooper had told us, but never believed it. We all sat quiet for a while, then the Captain excused himself and left. Asuna and I talked about it a little, but there was not much to say. We were all truly starting over, on all levels.
July 30th
According to the XO we would be arriving at New London Sub Base around 6:30 tomorrow morning. I am excited about it because then we can start the final leg of the trip back to camp. I am looking forward to seeing Margo, the family and the others again.
Much of the day was spent in the room. There is not much else to do. A nice surprise tonight was when the cook put together a special dinner (pepperoni pizza from scratch) for us because it was our last night on board.
The way that we were treated still struck me as odd, I was kind of confused. I would have expected different. This was too easy, the whole helping out thing, the way they took care of us, and helped us with what we were trying to do.
After the meal the area cleared out except for XO Gaines and the Captain. I couldn’t stand it anymore and I asked them, “Why?”
“Why what?” the Captain replied
“Why have you been so helpful, why are we not dead or something, why? I don’t get it, just why?”
There was a silence for a minute or so, then the Captain cleared his throat, “Well, I believe you, the aliens, the cure, and I want to believe that you are part of something, bigger.”
Asuna and I exchanged glances, “How, why?” I asked.
“Y’all aren’t the first people we’ve met that have, how shall I explain this, claimed to have been out there, taken away.”
“You mean taken, like we were?” Asuna said, “Although we weren’t quite taken. But you know what I mean.”
Gaines jumped in here; “We were never sure. About 5 months ago we found a guy in a small sailboat; the boat and he were a mess. The boat was just running in circles. When we tried to help him out he refused us at first. He was nuttier than my gramma’s Christmas fruitcake.”
The Captain stepped in and explained that they had tried to talk him down and after about 45 minutes and we were able to get people on the boat with him. Doc Douglas made a connection with him somehow and Douglas was the only one he would talk to. The man called himself Frenchie. Douglas tried to find out where he, Frenchie had come from and where he was going but all the guy kept on about being taken by little green lizard men, and that there were other humans on board. The other humans had a big job to do, but he was left out. In his ravings he keep saying he had to get to 512, 512. We still have no idea what 512 is.
Asuna and I looked at each other, and I, we knew, we knew what 512 was.
“Captain, I think, no, we know what 512 is.”
Asuna and I went on to explain about the Hive, and the rooms that were there. We told them that we had stayed in room 511 and detailed some of other the rooms we explored and how they were decorated, the historical significance of some of the rooms, the Egyptian Princess, Orwell, the Cro-Magnon and more. We didn’t talk about rooms 474 or 487, those were left hidden to the officers.
I thought about it, Asuna and I had explored room after room but we never considered the possibility that there might have been one taken after we were. We knew there were 512 ‘guests’ taken and we just assumed that 511 was the highest room number because they counted us as 2 people and we thought we were the last to visitors.
“So that was how we kind of knew about you two, Frenchie, kind of told us that there were other humans and then you two show up, with a cure, and on a mission,” explained the Captain.
It explained a lot, the ease with which we had been accepted and helped. I guess to a degree it also explained the uneasiness of the crew, that whole alien thing.
“So what happened to Frenchie?” asked Asuna.
“We couldn’t get him to come with us, he refused, he had to find 512 so finally we had to let him go, left him circling. We have no idea what he did, or what happened to him after that. We all thought he was just batshit, until y’all made contact,” explained Gaines. There was a touch of sadness in his voice.
“So the exam was not so much to see if we were physically okay but to give us a kind of check up from the neck up,” I felt a little testy, but that was foolish on my part. If in the same situation, I would have done exactly the same thing.
“Yes, and to make sure that you were human,” was the Captain’s frank and somewhat startling answer.
“And we passed.”
“Yes”
The conversation kind of deflated from there. I mean, yeah, they helped us out but there is not a warm fuzzy bonding session going on right now.
August 1st
The sun was already up and it was getting hot. The breeze off the ocean helped a little. We were allowed to stand on the top of the conning tower. It has a little area that is sheltered and designed for it. Anyone who ever saw a submarine movie would know what I mean.
We watched as we moved in through the east end of Long Island Sound, around Montauk working our way to the mouth of the Thames River, under the Gold Star Bridge and then slowly moved up the river to the base. I was surprised to see
that there were actually people, navy people at the base. There were just a few, thirty or forty or more to guard and maintain the supplies that had been stored there over the years. I guess that they had not experienced much of an issue with the Zoms. But then with the nuclear bombings I guess the population had been culled.
Once we were moored, the activities of loading and unloading supplies began. Apparently the Pittsburgh had some form of exchange program with other ships and bases so that although they were picking up food supplies they were also unloading some that had been bartered in exchange. The entire operation was a well-orchestrated dance that had been played out many times before. Each crewman, deck hand or yard worker knew the steps.
We stayed out of the way the best we could, waiting for our next move, the start of the journey home. Finally about noon time a surly Marine came and got us. He brought us to the XO and Captain. We had already talked about the plan with them and had decided that the best way to get moving was for us to take a Zodiac and run it from the sub base along the coast to the Connecticut River and then try to get as far north on the river as possible. I remembered that there might be some spots that were tough to get around, but we should make it to Hartford and, hopefully, beyond.
What they had done was set us up with about 5 days of food, a little water, some blankets and the cure (in a watertight container) in a Zodiac to get us started. That should give us a good start.
The XO told us that they had scavenged most of the area so at least until we were north of Hartford we would find little in the food stores and warehouses.
Gaines told us that we should be able to find some fuel along the way, but to remember that we needed to mix the gas with a little oil. We should have enough fuel to probably get to maybe Deep River, so we should keep our eyes open for marinas along the way.
We thanked them and told them that we appreciated what they had, have done for us.
One final thing he mentioned was that they had found that the trucks and cars, the new ones anyway had been fried by the nukes, they won’t run. The electronics, computer stuff had been ruined by the EM blast. But he suggested that we keep an eye out for old trucks or cars, or even a tractor, they would or should, be okay if the batteries were still good and you could get them started.
The Event Trilogy (Book 3): The Archive and Beyond Page 11
