To Sail a Darkling Sea

“I suppose I should get some clothes on,” Sophia muttered. She was currently adding some reality to the boat’s name up on the flying bridge. “In a bit… ”

She could tell “funky” was not an emergency by Patrick’s tone. Paula was “a good man in a storm.” She just sailed on regardless of the conditions. Patrick had a bit of a tendency to panic. Which was not great in your engineer, but he was fine with the maintenance and stuff.

“Define ‘funky,’” she said over the intercom, readjusting her sunglasses. She picked up a pair of binos to check out something on the horizon but it was just a bit of junk. Her ostensible reason for being on the flying bridge was “visual search for survivors.” Which was pretty much a waste of time. Which was why she was actually catching a tan.

The Atlantic ocean was really, really, really big. And boats, even commercial freighters and such, were really, really, really small in comparison.

Depending on which authority you asked, the North Atlantic Ocean, which they were currently searching for survivors, was about twenty million square miles in area. Their radar had a range of around fifty miles, if the target was radar reflective, while visually they could see between twenty and thirty miles. Realistically, it was possible that one boat might spot a lifeboat within ten miles. Essentially, it was like one microscopic germ trying to find another germ in the area of a standard American living room. That was clean and really germ free.

When they’d first started clearing boats off of Bermuda, there had still been some distress beacons working. Not many, but they were there. And there had been a lot of boats. The waters between the US mainland and Bermuda were some of the most crowded in the world under normal circumstances. With anyone with an ocean capable boat fleeing the Plague, and the east coast of the US having a lot of such people, they were definitely crowded. There were days when they had twenty or more radar contacts or lifeboats and small boats in sight.

The Great Equatorial Current… Not so much. Oh, there were boats down here. And life rafts. And freighters. And, somewhere, God help them, based on some of the lifeboats they’d been finding, some cruise ships including at least one “super-max.” But they were scattered. They were lucky if they found two or three vessels in a day instead of thirty.

They were only there, really, to keep them out of the storm belt in the North Atlantic and tropical storms in the eastern zone, give them something to do and get some people rescued. Unfortunately, as usual, most of the boats they were finding were empty. Of live, sane, people, at least. Bodies they’d found aplenty. People… not so much. Not even live zombies. In the last two weeks the No Tan Lines had only found four survivors. But four was a number greater than zero.

The only reason they were finding most of the life rafts was that they had some modern additions. Back in the 1980s, the USCG pointed out that the material life rafts were made of, plastic, was fairly stealthy. You could pimp them up in any color you’d like, they didn’t turn up on radar. So most modern life rafts and lifeboats included Mylar radar reflectors in their construction. And, fortunately, the No Tan Lines had radar. So Patrick was manning the radar and other gizmos while she scanned “visually.” And caught up on her tan.

“Well, it’s a distress beacon,” Patrick said.

“I probably would have led with that,” Sophia muttered.

“But it’s well inside the range where we should have picked it up. It’s only about twenty miles out.”

“Azimuth?” Sophia said.

“No Tan Lines, Alexandria.”

“Stand by, Patrick,” she said, then switched frequencies and straightened up to start the main engines. “No Tan Lines.”

* * *

“Holy, hell,” Commander Robert “Thunderbear” Vancel, skipper of the USS Alexandria said. Vancel was on his first tour as a sub skipper when the worst disaster in human history hit. It had not been a pleasure cruise. He’d been a bit heavy before this cruise. Now, not so much. “COB: Down periscope. Now! And tell me that’s not being broadcast all over the ship.”

“Looks like she’s just trying to live up to her boat’s name, sir,” the COB said.

“Fifteen, COB,” the skipper snapped. “Fifteen. And, for God’s sakes, a Lieutenant? Remind me to talk to that young lady about the decorum expected of a Naval officer at the first opportunity after we meet.”

“Duly noted, sir.”

* * *

“Alex, No Tan Lines,” Sophia repeated. Usually the Navy was right up on calling back but there had been a distinct pause.

“Lines, Alex. Be advised just picked up an intermittent distress beacon, your bearing, one one four, range: ten point three nautical miles. Be advised, beacon was not there four minutes ago. Signal is intermittent. Our evaluation, persons operating manual generator for intermittent signal. Probable survivors. Proceeding that location at this time.”

“Roger, Alex, keep us advised.” She switched to intercom. “Going full,” she said and put the hammer down. No real reason for it, the Alex was going to be there long before they were…

* * *

“Okay, up periscope,” Commander Vancel said.

“Isn’t that redundant, sir?” the COB asked.

“Again, COB, fifteen! And, sweet Lord Jesus I Can’t Believe They Did This, LANTFLEET’s daughter!”

“As well hanged for a sheep, sir… ”

* * *

“Da, Da!” Julie yelled. “Look!”

Lincoln Lawton stepped out onto the aft deck of the 45' Gentle Breezes and shaded his eyes against the glare. He stopped and his jaw dropped at the sight of a periscope not five hundred meters off the boat.

Lawton, formerly the General Manager for Information Technologies of Wilson Gribley, LLC, Liverpool, UK, had just left port for a month-long trip to the Mediterranean when the news of the Plague had been released. He had, briefly, contemplated putting back into port to return to work. He knew the term “workaholic” was often used to describe him and it seemed that if there was going to be a major influenza outbreak, the Firm, which was in the biomedical technologies field, would need his services.

Susan, his normally accepting and supportive wife, had put her foot down. First of all, it was the first long vacation that he had taken in nearly ten years. During which time his children had grown up with a father who was a virtual stranger. Second, given that the flu bug was described as being particularly nasty and wide-spread, it would be better to just cruise along for a bit without encountering it. Let it burn out and they’d put into port.

As it turned out, Susan was right. A point she tried not to rub in. They were not infected by the “zombie plague.” On the other hand, food and fuel only last so long. They had stocked well but eventually the food ran out. And the fuel. Fortunately, there was an emergency solar still onboard that produced barely enough water for the lot of them. And he had stocked quite a few rods onboard. About the only time he spent with his family was angling on the boat in the Irish Sea.

It was a constant surprise to him that when you were hungry enough, any raw fish was a delicacy. His family had also come as something of a surprise. He wasn’t sure exactly why he hadn’t spent more time with them. Oh, being on a small boat occasionally drove everyone nuts. But he had some great children and, given that he’d had little to do with them, he also had come to have a new appreciation for his wife. An appreciation that, as the tan got darker and they both lost quite a bit of weight, had eventually overcome their desire to avoid certain difficulties.

Which was why Susan was, as far as they could tell, about two months pregnant.

“Help William with the signs if you would, there’s a good lass,” Lincoln said, waving at the periscope. It was clearly looking at them. He hoped the submarine would not surface, however. As far as they could tell, they were uninfected. Raw fish or no, they wished to stay that way.