To Sail a Darkling Sea

“Oh, my,” Faith said, looking through binoculars at the oncoming horde. The away team had landed on the pier as the better way to keep the infected from boarding the supply ship. The Alan Garcia was tied up, stern first, to the pier and was just maneuvering the first container into place. “That’s a bunch, all right.”

“And there’s a problem,” Januscheitis said.

“Which is?” Faith asked, looking over her shoulder. “Oh.”

The crane on the Alan Garcia was designed for dropping cargo containers on piers at small ports or onto lighters in small harbors where there weren’t better systems. It was not designed to move them far from the ship. Just get them “on dock.” It had had to be modified just to get them to drop “inline” with the ship for the “mechanical clearance” devices. Getting it to drop them “further out” was out of the question. It would need an entirely different crane.

And the “outboard” container didn’t quite make it to the seawall. Thus there was going to be a gap. There was a pedestrian walkway with lights along it on the seawall side. They’d already checked and the container was going to crush the lights when it landed on them. But it didn’t, in fact, make it. There was a solid four foot gap. Two sailors were straining at lines to get it to swing out, but it just wasn’t happening.

“Ground team, division, you seeing what we’re seeing?” Captain Walker radioed. “And by that I mean the gap not the oncoming football hooligans.”

“We see it,” Faith replied. “There’s a gap. Drop it and put the next one in place. We’ll figure out the gap later.”

“Doors,” Januscheitis said.

“Squirrel,” Faith replied. “Why are we playing word association games?”

“We open the doors on the container and tie them back, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “The one that’s on the south side will push into the wall so the more they push it the tighter it will get.”

“That is a brilliant suggestion, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. “Infected are holding from the fire. Let’s make it so. We’re going to need to smash away some of the lights.”

“Kirby. Hammer!”

“Yes, Staff Sergeant,” Kirby said.

“Wait… ” Januscheitis said. “Squirrel, ma’am…?”

* * *

“What the hell is this?” Faith asked when they’d opened the container. The container was filled with pallets of wooden boxes that were narrow, wide and about man sized. A short man, anyway.

“Dunno, ma’am,” Januscheitis said, firing twice. “But we’re going to need to be on the other side of the door when those infected get here.”

The fire from the combined gunboats was slowing the tide of infected but a few leakers were getting through. And eventually that would be “a lot” of leakers.

Faith pulled one of the shipping manifests off a pallet and looked at it, tipping her head.

“Yves Saint Laurent… Oh, my GOD! It’s DRESSES! We can’t use this! They’re going to get RUINED!”

“Ma’am… ” Januscheitis said.

“I just need to find a size eight!” Faith screamed, pulling out a knife. “Okay, ten… twelve is the highest I’ll go… ”

“Oh, jeeze,” Januscheitis said. “Derk! Get the 240 and a bunch of ammo! Pag, Kirby… Find the LT a dress… ”

* * *

“. . Roger, Division, we’re… uh… reconfiguring our plan, here. There’s some high value material in this container so we’re jamming the forward door to keep the infected out rather than tying back the rear… ”

“No. God no, that color would look horrible on me… ”

“Be about… Could be a while, Division… ”

“Seriously? That would barely fit my sister… ”

“. . got the door jammed open, reinforcing it, still working the exercise, Division… ”

“No, Lance Corporal, I am not going to wear that dress in public… I’m not sure I’d wear it in private… ”

“. . Pag, go see if you can get one of those cargo-handlers moving. We’ll jam it up against the door… And pick up some more seven six two… ”

“Oh, God. Oh, God, yes. YES! YES! YES!”

“Roger, Division, breaking contact now… ”

“Now all I need to find is a container-load of shoes… ”

* * *

“Good Lord,” Paula said. “That’s gorgeous.”

The long-sought dress was basically red but the holographic silk changed it to rippling cascade of different shades from pink to burgundy.

“Can you alter it for me?” Faith said. “I got it sort of large… ”

“Easily,” Paula said. “We’ll need some time to do a fitting.”

“Annnd we have more,” Januscheitis said, patiently gesturing to PFC Kirby who was more or less invisible under a pile of fabric.

“I figured you were about Sophia’s size,” Faith said, pulling the dresses off the PFC. “There’s a bunch… ”

“Ahem. LT? Now that we’ve got that emergency fixed?”

“Oh, yeah, the liner,” Faith said, grumpily. “Right, where’s that techy? We need to see if we can get the port side embarkation ramp open and the starboard side closed… ”

* * *

“Are you sure that door’s going to hold?” Dougherty asked, nervously, looking around the interior of the cruise liner. He’d puked, again, when he had to walk nearly knee deep in dead bodies just to get to the hatch controls.

“No,” Januscheitis said, sighing. “But we’ve got it chocked, braced and a cargo handler jammed up against it. And the other door is open and tied back. If the first one fails, well, they ain’t getting’ past the second.”

“If the infected get into that cargo container, every woman in the Fleet will tear you apart limb from limb, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said. “You’re not a woman. You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t, LT,” Januscheitis said. “But we were fine giving you cover fire while you found a dress. And it’s damned pretty, ma’am. It will look good on you.”

“Thank you, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, giving his arm a punch. “Sorry I went a little nuts back there.”

“No issues, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “It’s sort of why we follow you around.”

“So… What do you need to get this hatch open,” Faith said, pointing at the offending hatch, “and that hatch closed?”

“Power,” Dougherty said. “And some time and tools. And not having to worry about getting eaten by zombies would help.”

“Get the pierside hatch closed and you’re golden on that one,” Faith said. “But it would be nice if we didn’t have to fight out way out of the ship to get back to the boat so… water side open first, maybe?”

“I’ll go get some tools… ”

* * *

“The pier side embarkation doors are closed all three liners,” Lieutenant Chen said. “And water side are all open. Infected have been cleared from all embarkation areas and the pier has been somewhat secured against infiltration from the city.”

The rest of the Squadron had arrived just before dawn. Captain Smith had called for a “command and staff” meeting at 0800 hours to prepare for clearance of the vessels. Given that getting the embarkation areas of the liners was the most critical step, things seemed to be going well enough.

“Reconnaissance and clearance has been conducted on the supermax up to the level of Deck Five. Ground team commander?”

“It is believed that stores were being prepared for distribution either to passengers in cabins or to secure