To Sail a Darkling Sea

“Division, Shewolf, over.”

Just what he needed. A thirteen-year-old with a question. She probably wanted tips on playing with dolls.

“Go, Ground Clearance Officer.”

“Infected on south jetty breaking up. Request permission to put a couple down by rifle fire. The snacks should keep them around until you can adjust to engage with the Mas. Over.”

Or, he could have the Marines shoot a couple…

“Confirm, Shewolf. Good call.”

“Staff Sergeant Januscheitis’s idea, over. Engaging. Shewolf out.”

And she gave credit where credit was due. Chen shook his head and made a note in his personal log.

“There’s a couple over to the left,” he called over the loudhailer. “Don’t stint the ammo… ”

There was a crackle of rifle fire from the No Tan Lines. It was nice to have proactive and intelligent subordinates…

* * *

“What is with everybody putting holes in the side of boats?” Faith asked.

The current offense to the lieutenant’s sensibilities was the embarkation port on the port side of the cruise ship. The large port had a gangway that led from the wharf, now clear of infecteds, into the dark interior of the cruise ship.

“So… Boadicea?” PFC Kirby said. “Is that Spanish? Sounds like ‘BOHICA’ to me.”

“Are you asking me, PFC?” Januscheitis said. “It at least makes entry easy, ma’am.”

“And I suppose we should do so,” Faith said, sighing. “Lights.”

* * *

“Okay, this is not quite the carnival of carnage I’d expected, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. Most of the watertight doors on the ship were closed, and while they were finding infected, most of them were long dead. Some of them were, yes, children. And there were some well-gnawed bodies of others. But even that was minimal. The ship looked as if it had been cleared before the Plague took hold.

“Feelin’ the same way, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. She was even checking cabins. Most of them had either no human presence or dead infecteds. Some of the lower, interior, “cheap” cabins had infecteds tied to beds. Some of them had gotten lose and fed but most had clearly died there. There were some kids and that was always tough, but not many. It looked as if the cruise leaned more to adults. She could handle dead adults. And none of them had the “death camp” look of the dead passengers on the Voyage. Which just meant they’d died of dehydration instead of starvation. They were finding essentially zero “dead of dehydration or starvation” clothed bodies. “And not complaining.”

* * *

“Okay,” Faith said. “Again, creepy. Where’d the people go?”

The team was on its second day of laboriously clearing the ship. It wasn’t huge but it was complicated. And every compartment had to be checked, cleared and marked. What they were not finding so far were either survivors or even many infected. And all the infected they were finding had been trapped in interior areas without food or water. That spelt death for infecteds just as much as humans.

“Up to eight hundred and eighty passengers according to the brochure we found, ma’am,” PFC Kirby replied. “And three hundred thirty crew. I think we’ve counted, maybe, a hundred dead, ma’am? So, I dunno.”

They’d broken up into two-man teams to spread the wealth. It had been a toss-up between Kirby and Rodas to accompany Faith. Staff Sergeant Januscheitis had suggested Corporal Douglas accompany the LT. Faith had pointed out that the Corporal was one of their leadership personnel, as was she, so he should take one of the Lance Corporals or a PFC. Which on its face was pretty hard to argue. Especially when she added “That is how we’re going to do it, Staff Sergeant.”

Besides, it wasn’t like she couldn’t do this in her sleep. Had done it in her sleep.

“I think this thing is even useable,” Faith said. The ship was in surprisingly good shape. The infecteds hadn’t penetrated into any of the machinery spaces they’d found and except for some minor damage it all looked shipshape. The bridge was in good shape, that was for sure. It had been sealed but they’d found a key-card that would allow access. And there were no infected in it. “Which would be good, since we’re running out of space on the big boats.”

Kirby went to open a watertight door and Faith put her hand on his arm.

“PFC?” She said. “Zombies don’t like…?”

“Impolite people, Skipper,” Kirby said, banging on the hatch with the butt of his M4.

It was only the four hundredth time she’d had to tell him.

There was a distant clanging in response.

“I think we’ve got customers,” Faith said. “Open away, PFC.”

The next corridor would have been pretty darned gross if she hadn’t seen it all before. It was, now, a good sign. Five gallon buckets once full of rations now full of shit and piss. Dead bodies lined up against the bulkhead. The sure sign of survivors. There were four bodies which were still wearing clothing. She knew what that meant. One of a million reasons she hoped she was never stuck in a compartment.

“I’m going to crack the hatch,” she shouted through the watertight door. “I’ll toss in a chem-light so you can adjust your eyes!”

CHAPTER 10

If you weigh well the strength of the armies, and the causes of the war, you will see that in this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman’s resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves

Queen Boadicea of the Iceni, Tacitus

“Bloody hell, I’ve never in my life been this happy to see Yanks.”

Second Officer, Staff, Becky Kyle was the senior survivor they’d found. And they’d found a lot of survivors.

“Feel the love,” Faith said. The survivors had been escorted up to a café on the lounge deck. There were some windows with external light but it was mid-line and thus not brightly lit. They were all still suffering from photosensitivity. The café was getting fairly crowded and even some children had survived, which was a rarity. “But I’ll take that for somebody who managed to keep this many people alive. How did you, anyway?”

“When the plague was announced, the government put us in quarantine,” Third Officer Darren Arras said. “It was already on the island but they locked us down, anyway. We… segregated the infected. We tried to manage them but… ”

“We ended up taking them into some of the empty economy cabins,” Kyle said then shrugged. “There wasn’t much we could… ” she frowned and shook her head.

“We found them,” Faith said. “If it’s any consolation, New York City had warehouses that looked like that.”

“The quarantine wasn’t so much lifted as things just started falling apart,” Kyle continued. “Some of the passengers left the boat to find someplace on land. The ship’s officers left with some friends on a yacht.”

“Gotta love the loyalty,” Januscheitis said.

“Normal,” Faith said. “Same thing happened on the Voyage.”

“Voyage Under Stars?” Arras said. “I’m glad I wasn’t on that bloody floating abattoir.”