To Sail a Darkling Sea

happens.”

“No life preserver, ma’am?” Chief Schmidt asked.

“No,” Sophia said. “No point. We’ve tested it. You can’t do the job with a Class Three; you can’t access your gear. And we wear Marine ballistic protection, not those Navy flak jackets. With that and the weight of ammo and gear, an inflatable won’t support you. And if you go in the drink, it’s the first thing you’ve got to take off. When there’s a specifal… specfical… really bad maneuver like climbing a boarding ladder, we’ll rig up with floats and a safety line. Floats if we can. But he was just cutting out a fucking inflatable and slipped. And that was that. Rusty and Olga got to watch him get torn to mincemeat on the fucking bottom.”

“Bloody hell,” Barney said, shaking his head.

“Then we had to fish him out with a grapnel,” Sophia said, taking another drink. “What was left. That was, by the way, this afternoon, Chief. Sergeant Major. So you shall forgive us, I hope, if we drown ourselves in really good booze. Now, what do you drink? And if you answer ‘I don’t,’ I swear to God I’ll see if you can outswim the fucking sharks.”

“I’m trying to figure out if I’m still a recovering alcoholic,” Chief Schmidt said. “My wife of forty-three years finally convinced me I had a problem. On the other hand, she is no longer with us. But you go right ahead, Lieutenant.”

“I take it back, Chief,” Sophia said. “I’ll go find some of the tea I usually hold back for my sister. Or we’ve got some coke.”

“Coca-cola would be great, ma’am,” the Chief said. “I would normally say an officer should not get a Chief a coke, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to stand up again without help.”

CHAPTER 24

Now all you recruities what’s drafted to-day,

You shut up your rag-box an’ ’ark to my lay,

An’ I’ll sing you a soldier as far as I may:

A soldier what’s fit for a soldier.

Fit, fit, fit for a soldier

Fit, fit, fit for a soldier

Fit, fit, fit for a soldier

Soldier of the Queen

Kipling, “The Young Recruit”

“Oh,” Sophia croaked, holding her hands over her ears to blot out the sound of the guns. “I have got to either give up drinking or give up early mornings.”

The sun was just rising over the marina of Perto De Gulmar and it was another fine morning in the Canary Islands. Seabirds squawked over the dead bodies of infected as fish jumped to avoid the sharks that were swarming to the flowing blood.

“More water, ma’am,” Sergeant Major Barney said. “When is the rest of the team arriving for the operations meeting, ma’am?”

“After they finish firing and secure, Sergeant Major,” Sophia said. She took a sip of her coffee and grimaced again. “And hopefully after the Tylenol kicks in.”

The chosen target zone was a small beach outside the entrance to the marina. The guns had finished off the infected on the beach and the Golden Guppy raised its three anchors and pulled out to sea. There was another group of infected at the end of the seawall protecting the marina. The problem was, if it fired from its current location, it would be firing into the marina and probably hit some of their target vessels. It moved out to sea, into the rolling combers, and prepared to engage again. This time, it was doing so without anchoring.

The fire was much less on target, with rounds going over the zombies as well as below. The problem with “below” was the large rocks of the jetty. They had various angles to them and tracers went everywhere, including towards the anchored boats.

“Guppy, Division. Check fire, check fire, check fire. Try it again, anchored.”

“I told ’em that wouldn’t work,” Sophia muttered, picking up the radio. “Catenary is a bitch. And we don’t have all day. Division, Senorita, over.”

“Senorita, Division.”

“Recommend pull into the marina entrance, fire from there. Very little wave action, over.”

“The tide is going in, Senorita. They’d have to maintain position to fire against the flow, over.”

“Permission to approach for close rifle fire. There are only ten or fifteen. And I can maintain position against the tide. Over.”

“Roger, stand by. Guppy, clear and lock all weapons and stand off. Senorita approaching for close rifle fire. Confirm.”

“Division, Guppy. We can get this, over.”

“Wasn’t a request, Guppy. Confirm.”

“Clear and lock all weapons then stand off, over.”

“Roger. Division out.”

“And so we’re moving,” Sophia said, raising the anchor. “Sergeant Major, I assume you can still fire a rifle?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the Sergeant Major said. “And I even was given an opportunity to zero.”

“I’m going to back in,” Sophia said, turning the boat around. “Get Olga and you and she fire ’em up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the Sergeant Major said.

* * *

There was a nasty little eddy at the entrance caused by a combination of the wave action and a small metal wall that was probably to prevent silting. But Sophia finally found a stable point.

“Okay, this is as good as you’re going to get,” she shouted.

* * *

“We may have to discuss uniform at some point,” Sergeant Major Barney said.

Olga had turned out in shorts and a bikini top with her LBE thrown over.

“Yes, Sergeant Major,” Olga said.

“How do you normally do this?” he asked.

“The only time I fired from the boat I was up on the flying bridge,” Olga said. “And I didn’t hit many. We were anchored but the boat was rocking.”

“There is a technique for that,” the sergeant major said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t a Marine and I’ve never studied it. We’ll use the deck up front. What’s it called?”

“The sundeck, Sergeant Major.”

The sergeant major followed her up to the sundeck, trying not to pay too much attention to the butt and legs.

“Prone position,” he said, getting down creakily. It had been a bit since he’d done this and he mentally made the note that he was going to have to figure out how they were going to engage in physical training. Not to mention general discipline and uniform standards. “Slow, aimed, fire. We have time.”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.”

“Go ahead and load then open fire,” the Sergeant Major said. He wanted to observe her technique.

“Open fire, aye, Sergeant Major,” Olga said. She charged the weapon then took careful aim. There was a crack and one of the infected stumbled. It didn’t go down, though, so she fired again. That time it went down.

“Bloody five five six,” the Sergeant Major muttered.