Under a Graveyard Sky

“I’ll, you know, cut you in on it…?” Mike said.

“That’s what we were looking at anyway,” Steve said, shrugging.

“So…what do I get?” Mike asked.

“You mean besides being rescued?” Faith replied.

“What do you want me to offer?” Steve asked. “Mike, what you get in this world is what you make for yourself. I suppose at some point there will be enough people mobile that you can add ‘what you take from others.’ But right now all there is either running and hiding or doing what we’re doing, trying to save people like, you know, you. If you want some help to try to find a boat… I’m getting stingy with those, really. But I’ll do that. Trade you this for a functioning yacht and as much stores as you can carry. Hell, refuel as often as you’d like until the tanks are dry. But what are you going to do, Mike? Keep running and looking for that one ‘safe’ place? Good luck finding it. I haven’t heard where it might be.”

“I know boats,” Mike said, his brow furrowing. “I mean, I’m not a captain, but, hell, none of you are. But…I know repairs. And we’ve got repair materials. I don’t want to go around scavenging. Being in here… It’s scaring the shit out of me. I want the lights on and the whole thing cleared out. But I can repair boats…”

“Okay, we anchor the hell out of this in a protected part of Bermuda harbor,” Steve said. “And you can act as a base station? If we get a tanker or something, we’ll bring it in for fuel?”

“I’m getting the feeling we need to talk about how to organize this whole thing,” Faith said. “But can we finish clearing the boat first? Or do we let Fly do the rest?” she asked with a feral grin.

“Please, no,” Braito said.

“There,” Steve said, cocking his head. “The reason you’re willing to share the boat, then.”

“Point,” Braito said.

“So, let’s get finished clearing,” Steve said, heading down the corridor. “Then we’ll figure out how this is going to work in more detail. Zombies! Zombies! Any zombies…?”

* * *

“Toy, away team,” Steve said, taking off his respirator. They were running out of filters, which was going to suck pretty soon. It wasn’t bad on the deck but the air was still thick with rot.

“Away team, Toy.”

“Where’s the Cooper, over?”

“About fifty miles northeast.”

“Ask them to vector here,” Steve said. “There’s supplies and we need to have a meeting.”

“Roger.”

CHAPTER 19

“Chris, I swear to God I should have just kept you as a cook,” Steve said, wiping up the spaghetti sauce with garlic bread.

“It’s nearly as good as that place in New York,” Faith said, then grimaced. “Sorry, Chris, but…”

“Nah,” Chris said, taking a bite of green beans. “I know what you mean about those places in New York. Some of those old guys are wizards. And there’s only so much you can do with canned meat. Besides, much of it was Tina.”

“It’s great, Tina,” Sophia said. Stacey had stayed on the boat after talking with Steve and giving him her proxie.

“I didn’t do much,” Tina said, shyly. She’d transferred to the Cooper to get away from the Toy, which still had too many bad associations.

“I think I might transfer,” Patrick said. He’d been acting as assistant helmsman and deck hand on the Toy.

“Which kind of brings up the subject of this meeting,” Steve said. The saloon in the Cooper had enough room for most of the crowd and most people were done with dinner.

“I’d wondered what the agenda was,” Chris said, arching an eyebrow.

“This is Mike Braito,” Steve said, gesturing to Mike. “He’s the only survivor we found on the Victoria. Being a professional seaman he’s been a real help with figuring out how to board without killing ourselves…”

“Here, here,” Faith said.

“And in finding our way around the tug. Which is full of diesel and packed with stores by the way…”

“That’s good to hear,” Chris said. “We could use a refuel.”

“And being a professional seaman he also pointed out that since he was alive it’s not, technically, salvage.”

“I’m not saying I won’t share,” Mike said as heads swiveled towards him. He held up his hands in surrender. “I just wonder what I’m going to get out of it. Okay? Is that so wrong?”

“People didn’t ask what they were going to get out of it when they rescued you,” Paula said, snappishly.

“Yes, actually, we did,” Steve said.

“What?” Paula asked.

“Well, I knew there was a good chance that it would have fuel,” Steve said. “And that it might have supplies. There was an… There was an economic reason to clear it. Call it logistic if you want. But there was a thought beyond ‘might there be survivors.’ Which brings up the point. I am going to go right on clearing as long as it takes. And I’ve got some ideas about how to clear the land…”

“How?” Patrick asked. “I mean… That’s a lot of bullets. We don’t have that many, do we?”

“No,” Faith said. “We’re even getting a little short on shotgun ammo.”

“I said ideas,” Steve said. “I’m not really willing to talk about what they are right now because they change based on what we find. But the point is…I think we need to talk about the…the theory of this whole thing. I’m going to go right on clearing and saving people. But how do we make some of the decisions that need to be made? What right, really, does Mike have to that boat? I’m not saying that he doesn’t have rights. I’m saying that, face it, this is not before the plague. There are laws of the sea. But those have changed over the years. Forget the laws. For one thing, there’s nobody to enforce them. How do we organize ourselves? Example: I said that if he wanted I’d try to find him a decent yacht and he could take as many supplies as he wanted in exchange for the tug…”

“Can we use the tug?” Chris asked. “That’s a lot for a derelict. Does it run?”

“No,” Steve said. “We need to tow it to Bermuda. But we’ll need Mike’s help to do that. But the real point is, do I have the authority to make that promise? That was the thought that crossed my mind after I said it. Chris, when we found the Cooper, you were the obvious choice to take it over…”

“You giving him my boat?” Chris asked.

“No, but the point is I said ‘Chris, this is your boat.’ I said it. And I gave Isham that 45 footer. Is that my decision to make?”

“We’re sort of following your lead, Steve,” Paula said. “I don’t have a problem with that.”

“Uhm…” Patrick said, raising his hand. “I’ve sort of been thinking about that.”

“Go,” Steve said.

“You said you were a history professor,” Patrick said. “One of the groups I was thinking about is the Italian companeres.”

“Okay, not a reference I’d expected,” Steve said with a laugh.

“Companeres?” Chris said, blinking. “What?”

“Simply put, they were mercenary bands during the long wars in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Italy,” Steve said. “They’re where we get the word ‘bravo,’ which was what they were called individually. It just means ‘the courageous ones.’ They basically fought for shares and elected their leaders rather than having them appointed or fighting for lords directly.”

“Ronin,” Paula said.