“Roger,
“Any other business?” Steve asked.
“We’ll discuss that when the question comes up,” Steve said. “Anything else?” He looked over as Mike raised his hand. “
“We’re burning an awful lot of diesel,” Mike said over the radio. “I mean, try to refuel from derelicts if you can or tow them in here and we’ll get it out. But we’re going through diesel like crazy.”
“Keep an eye out for small tankers,” Steve said. “Anything else critical?”
The radio tech leaned forward clamping his earphones to his ears.
“What?” Petty Officer Second Class Stan Bundy asked, picking up his own set.
The Los Angeles Class attack boat SSN 900, USS
“
* * *
“Son of a bitch!” Steve swore, then keyed the radio. “Okay,
* * *
“Upload this for priority exam,” Bundy said, hitting a key and backing up the recording…
* * *
“
“Clear the channels,” Steve said as the channel got cluttered with people screaming at each other. “Clear the… Ah, shit.”
* * *
“Christ I want to cut in.”
Commander Rex Bradburn was frustrated, angry and scared. Which described his entire crew. They’d started to sea before the plague was spread and had remained at sea since. Because to make contact meant dying. Like their families on shore.
But a sub could only stay at sea for so long. Sure, the pile would last twenty years, more if you only used low power. But all the other systems? Not to mention food. They had gone on short rations as soon as they found out they were on “extended deployment.” That only lasted so long. And that went for all the surviving boats. Some of them had already dropped off the screen, just lost. Possibly mutinied but more likely something vital broke at the wrong time or the wrong depth. Others had snuck into deserted harbors and put their crews ashore to survive as best they could.
But if they had
“Monitor only, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Joseph Scholz reminded him.
* * *
“
“You’ve got guns,” Steve replied. “I gave you two pistols for light clearance. Which as far as I can tell you haven’t used and, yes, I’ll take those back as well. So it’s up to you and your crew. You’re either in or out. You want to take off, we’ll accept the pistols back, fill your boat and you can take off. But that’s it. Or you can work the problem. Or you can turn over your boat. Or, hell, you can take off right now and I’ll spot you the pistols. What you
“To all, make this clear,” Steve said. “Make it clear to the people you pull in. You’re either working to help, somehow, or you’re not. If you’re not, you get to go hang out on a sort of beat up boat with a lot of other useless people. We’ll feed you. That’s it. How you get along otherwise is up to you. If, like the
Steve leaned back as the voices overlapped.
“Roger,” Steve said. “Come into harbor. One fuel load and one ton of supplies, Victoria’s choice. If you come back for more, you trade your boat and join the lost and useless. This captain’s conference is now closed.”
He leaned back and shook his head.
“That could have gone better,” Steve said.
“He picked a bunch of losers just like him,” Mike said. “I think you were right the first way round. Just because they’re onboard, doesn’t mean they get the boat. I mean…” he said, looking around.
“Your boat, Mike,” Steve said, grinning. “Nobody has an issue with that. Hell, if you want to doss on the
“I don’t think so,” Mike said, shrugging. “Can I have one of those shotguns?”
“How ’bout an AK?” Steve said. “They’re about useless for clearing and people are afraid of them.”
“That’ll work,” Mike said. “I don’t see them getting uppity with an AK staring them in the face.”
“How well do you trust your crew?” Steve asked.
“Fine,” Mike said. “It’s like training cats but they’re learning. I mean, the basics. I wouldn’t trust them running this at sea but until we can find a main transfer coil for it, it’s not going anywhere.”
“I’ll leave you two AKs,” Steve said. “Have the supplies ready to load. Don’t let them board and if they have an issue with that, you’ve got the AKs. Make sure there’s no fuel in this one, either.”
“I’ll do better than that,” Mike said. “I’ll pull the mains breaker.”
* * *
“Do we have any idea where they got vaccine?”
Frank Galloway was the National Constitutional Continuity Coordinator. Prior to that he had been Under Deputy Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Arms Proliferation Control.
The post of National Constitutional Continuity Coordinator had been created in 1947 after it became obvious that the entire upper echelon of government could be taken out by one atomic bomb. There was a chain of civilian control that went deep. This was not the “presidential succession” defined in the Constitution, but a guarantee of