Islands of Rage and Hope

CHAPTER 10

“I need to admit something, sir,” Faith said as Colonel Hamilton perused the operations and logistics report.

“You got help?” Hamilton asked.

“Sophia was working on some of the same stuff, sir,” Faith said. “So we put our heads together on it. And some of the number crunching, I… delegated. I could do it, sir, with a computer at least, but I was trying to figure out what numbers had to be crunched, sir. But I figured out most of it myself, sir. And the rest was mostly Sophia asking questions. But I did get help, yes, sir.”

“That’s a lot of ‘buts,’ Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “Which is understandable. If you’d tried to figure this out yourself from first cause it would have taken you a month, I’m sure. It would have taken any second lieutenant a month. Well, most. I agree on your three initial targets. I’d even say the ‘maybes’ like St. Croix are doable if we’re given enough time. You want to take five-tons?”

“I hadn’t worked with them until we got here, sir,” Faith said. “They really are the thing for land clearance. We can probably do it with scrounged transport. But the five-tons are way better, sir. They’ve got the gun mount and ground clearance. I’ve gotten stuck on bodies more than once in the Canaries, sir. It’s not just that you’re stuck with a wave of infected coming at you. It’s… There’s a lot of really raunchy stuff about this job, sir, but spinning out on bodies is high on the list, sir.”

“Duly noted,” Hamilton said. “I’ll put it in consideration. Did you happen to give consideration to how to transport them, Lieutenant?”

“All of these islands have ferry docks, sir,” Faith said. “Some of them are smaller than others. We’d have to find, survey and man a small ferry. But even a small truck ferry could carry at least two five-tons, sir.”

“I’ll take that up with Commander Chen,” Hamilton said. “It has merit. Your estimate for ammunition consumption is, I think, low. What’s it based on?”

“The Canaries, sir,” Faith said. “We compared the population, pre-Plague, of the towns to our ammo usage and then carried it over to the pre-Plague populations of the local towns. That’s the ground combat rounds. Soph and I both worked on that as well. I took all the ammo and batteries and Soph took the other consumables.”

“The point is, we used six times as much ammo in terms of similar conditions in Iraq,” Colonel Hamilton said, looking up. “Are you saying our current forces, undertrained as they are, are that much better?”

“Uh…” Faith said, thinking about it. “Zombies don’t duck, sir?”

Colonel Hamilton regarded her evenly for a moment, looked at the spreadsheet, looked back.

“Point again taken, Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “The ROWPUs?”

“We always need more water, sir,” Faith said. “And I think that’s on the Navy side anyway, sir.”

“I am in the unusual position of being a Marine officer in charge of a Naval expedition,” Hamilton said. “So I have a similar report from, as you put, the Navy side. Did Sophia conceive the idea?”

“I…I sort of said we should take them, sir,” Faith said nervously. “I mean, they’re just sitting there, sir. Sophia asked about water ’cause it’s always a problem for the boats. I don’t really think about it since the boats supply it but she had a point.”

“And again I’ll take it under consideration,” Hamilton said. “It’s not a bad report. I’m going to tweak some of the numbers based on gut, red-line it and compile it with the Navy side for requisitioning. As I said, I agree with your assessment of the best objectives. Next: the captain wishes us to be able to arm the residents of the islands against the potential of, well, pirates as well as any remaining infected.”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said.

“There are apparently remaining weapons on the Iwo but it’s not worth our time going back to get them,” Hamilton said. “Especially since there’s a source closer to hand, if a bit…unpleasant. So we’re going to scavenge.”

“The weapons of the…fallen on the base, sir?” Faith said.

“Yes,” Hamilton said. “Wellington once said the only thing that could be worse than a battle won must be a battle lost. The truth, I think, is the opposite. The losers don’t see the results whereas we do. I’m not sure it’s the best conditions for you to get to know your new platoon, short as it is. But that is your next mission. Round up your platoon and go scavenge all the weapons and magazines you can find on the base.”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said.

“As you’re doing so, see which are still functional, clean them up and when we clear an island issue them to what seem to be trustworthy locals,” Hamilton said. “Any questions?”

“Just one, sir,” Faith said. “It’s…um…fourteen hundred. Should we start today, continue at night or start in the morning, sir?”

“Start this afternoon, at the very least figuring out how,” Hamilton said. “Staff Sergeant Barnard is familiar with the base and it’s always a good idea to listen to input from your NCOs. But I’d like you to at least get started today. Main op tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said.

“Very well, Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “Dismissed.”

He waited until the door had closed to chuckle.

“‘Zombies don’t duck,’” Hamilton said. “Write that on your damn hand, Craig.”

“’Tention on deck!” Smitty boomed as Faith walked into the squad bay. The NCOs were in the bay checking the gear, new and old.

“Whoa, whoa,” Faith said, somewhat nervously, waving both hands. “At ease and all that. Staff Sergeant…Barnard?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cindy said, still standing at parade rest.

“Rest, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, sticking out her hand. “Lieutenant Smith.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Barnard said, shaking her hand. “Good afternoon, ma’am.”

“We caught a mission,” Faith said. “We need to…chat about how we’re going to detail it out.”

“Roger, ma’am,” Barnard said.

“Let’s talk about it in my broom closet,” Faith said, waving at the hatch. “Staff Sergeant Decker.”

“Ma’am,” the staff sergeant boomed. He was still at rigid parade rest.

“You’re in charge while we’re gone,” Faith said. “You will recall our discussion about the importance of reestablishing flexibility.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Decker boomed.

“Oorah, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, gesturing at the hatch. “Staff Sergeant Barnard.”

“I looked at a regular TOE,” Faith said as they walked down the corridor. “We’ve got too many NCOs, don’t we?”

“By TOE, ma’am,” Barnard said. “But I don’t think there’s such a thing as too many NCOs.”

“Not about the mission—but what would you think about trying to set up a mini boot camp?” Faith said. “We need more Marines and unless we find another LHA or take one of the big bases, I’m not sure we’re going to find many more.”

“I think we’re short on hands to do that, ma’am,” Barnard said. “And I think it would be up to Colonel Hamilton and the gunnery sergeant.”

“Agreed,” Faith said, opening the door of her office. “I’m just thinking about the fact that we’ve got three staff sergeants and less than a platoon’s worth of grunts. Besides, I think Decker would be better off as a drill instructor than on active ops.”

Barnard boggled for just a moment at the thought of Decker as a drill instructor.

“With due respect, ma’am,” Barnard said. “I think drills need a bit more flexibility.”

“They need less than is required in field ops,” Faith said, sitting down. “Grab a chair, please, Staff Sergeant. That’s the point. It would be nice if we had some drills with more flexibility but the area where you need the least would seem to be drills. Or maybe just that. That Monty Python sketch, sergeant major marching up and down the square. Decker and Condrey, that’s the only thing they really can do, drills. If it’s not right in a manual they’d read before being castaways, they’re pretty much stuck. When we had a little down time, I’ve had Decker drilling me on marching and commands. He’s as perfect as you can find on all that stuff. Figuring out how to get wheels, how to find power and ammo and food in the ruins, how to interact with the survivors, not so much. And have you ever inspected their gear? I mean, that’s what the basic portion really is, drilling, how to be a Marine and getting your gear shipshape. That Decker and Condrey can teach. And Christ knows we need more Marines.”

“That…does makes some sense, ma’am,” Barnard said.

“If we ever turn up a former Marine who’s too old to run with the young pups, maybe,” Faith said. “Team him up with those two. Let them run the recruits around and drill the hell out of them, have the old guy to keep them from totally flipping out on the recruits. Which is a thought for another time. We’ve actually got two missions, one coming up and one that’s a ‘now’ thing. You’ve probably heard we’re doing a float.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Barnard said. “Medical supplies.”

“We don’t know where to get them,” Faith said. “There’s no one place that we know there’s a big stockpile of what we need. The critical item is a gel to make the vaccine. But that’s generally where there are other medical supplies. So we’re going to go on a Caribbean cruise. You know, travel to exotic foreign lands, meet interesting zombies and kill them?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Barnard said.

“This time the plan is to do a rough clear on the towns and even islands we hit and probably leave the inhabitants to their own devices,” Faith said. “We did something similar in the Canaries but it was mostly the Navy doing it. Thing is, there are still going to be infected roaming around even after we blast through. So the locals need some guns since they’re generally in short supply on those islands. We’ve still got spares but it makes more sense to clear up the ones here on base. Which is our first mission. We’re supposed to collect up all the weapons ammo and mags of the ‘fallen,’ check ’em out, decide which are still useable and which aren’t, clean ’em up and rack ’em for issue to local ‘militias’ after we’ve cleared the islands.”

“Roger, ma’am,” Barnard said tightly.

“Yeah, great detail,” Faith said. “But somebody’s gotta do it. Thinking about it, I’d put Staff Sergeant Decker and PFC Condrey on inspecting and cleaning detail. That way they’re bound to be perfect.”

“Roger, ma’am,” Barnard said.

“About the only thing I know about being a Marine and being an officer is what I’ve picked up in books and what I’ve learned in the last few months,” Faith said. “I wasn’t one of those kids who grew up wanting to be a Marine and watching Sands of Iwo Jima or something. The way I ran things with Staff Sergeant Januscheitis was something I got in a book. We get missions. We get missions all the freaking time. All I really need is the platoon to be ready to perform the missions. All their gear straight, able to shoot without hitting each other, able to handle the commo and find their way around. We’ve got no time for training and nobody really knows each other now. But this job ain’t actually all that hard. Like I told the colonel, zombies don’t duck. But all that’s on you. Okay?”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Barnard said.

“When we get out on missions, I’ll dump the simple stuff on you,” Faith said, shrugging. “Sorry, best way I can put it. I’m not big on words. I tell you we need wheels, you find the wheels and get ’em running. I say we need a house cleared, you handle it. I’ll be figuring out where we’re going next and which house to clear. You get it done. Okay?”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Barnard said.

“I’m still a green lieutenant,” Faith said. “Killing zombies I got down pat. Running a platoon, that I’m still learning. So I’m going to be asking your opinion on stuff. And hopefully most of the time we’ll agree and I’ll say ‘Yep, sounds good, go for it.’ But if I say we’re doing it another way, we’re doing it my way, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Barnard said.

“Bottom line is if something fucks up, people may get pissed at you,” Faith said. “But it’s really on me.

“So, we got a mission,” Faith said. “We gotta pick up all the weapons on the base, get ’em sorted out and get ’em fixed up and cleaned. How do you think we should detail that out, Staff Sergeant?”

“I see they kept the last bullet for themselves,” Sergeant Douglas said, pulling open the back door of the Humvee. A desiccated and bug-chewed female corpse in NavCam tumbled out at his feet. The skull cracked away from the body and rolled onto his boots. A half-dozen rats followed it and skittered under the Humvee. “I do so love my job.”

“You hear anything about what we’re going to do with the bodies, Sergeant?” Lance Corporal Ken Ferguson asked. “That’s our gunnery sergeant in there.”

“We dumped Captain Carrion’s little helpers on the bodies on the points,” Douglas said. There was a .45 on the floor in the rear compartment and an M4. From the looks of things, they’d all shared the .45 at the end. The M4 was out of rounds. “But other than that, I really don’t know. We haven’t been doing much cleanup, but we hadn’t planned on holding any of the places we hit. Maybe they’ll get the civilians to collect ’em up. But don’t figure on a lot of ceremony. There’s not enough of us left to bury the dead and we’ve got more important missions. And we’re done here…Building seven next…”

“How long to sweep the base?” Steve asked, looking at the operations plan.

“About five days, sir,” Colonel Hamilton. “To fully sweep it.”

“Two,” Steve said. “Get as many weapons picked up as you can in two. Detail some areas for the Navy ground people to sweep as well. Day three you need to be rolling. Clean them up on the way to Anguilla.”

“Yes, sir,” Hamilton said. “The question has been raised about the dead, sir.”

“Which has already been considered,” Steve said. “Lieutenant Commander Isham is getting teams together to gather them up and get them buried. Mass grave, mind you. We’ll be working on that while you’re on the op. As noted, we’re going to hold this base for the time being and it’s a public health issue. As are the legions of rats and flies. We’ll be getting it cleaned up and habitable while you’re on float, Colonel. So, good news, not your problem. Bad news: ground clearance ops have their own unpleasantries. Two days, Colonel. Any questions?”

“No, sir,” Colonel Hamilton said.

“Base this size I can’t believe they don’t have AT-ATs,” Isham grumped.

The handysized freighter M/V Paul Osted was unloading its cargo onto Pier L. All of it. A team had gone through its computerized manifest and triaged the containers based on “this is definitely useful, this is possibly useful, this is not useful right now.” The plan was to unload all the containers, sort them out, reload the “useful”—pretty much anything in terms of “consumables”—while checking the “possibly useful.” The “this isn’t useful” were going to be stacked and stored.

“AT-ATs?” Steve said. “Like the elephant tank things in Star Wars?”

“Those big gantry cranes,” Isham said. “Like they had, you know, in Tenerife?”

Fortunately, the ship had its own cranes. Unfortunately, as usual, the people using them had limited experience. The answer was “don’t hurry.” On the other hand…

“Well, we couldn’t exactly use the ones in Tenerife, Jack,” Steve said. “Bit of an infected problem. How long?”

“Two weeks, minimum,” Isham said. “You have no clue how much stuff is in there.”

“Alas, most of it useless,” Steve said.

“There are two, count ’em, two containers listed as ‘medical supplies,’” Isham pointed out. “Don’t know what kind until we get to the detailed manifest. But the codes indicated pharmaceuticals and equipment. That should be good.”

The ship had been out of Rotterdam headed to a series of small African ports when the Plague had been announced and it was “stranded” at sea. Shortly after the crew, which had naturally already picked up the virus, had gone zombie. The captain had left a quite detailed log up to a point.

“Anything like that is useful,” Steve said. “The truth is that everything we critically need is sitting on some ship, somewhere. If we had, say, the internet we could probably even figure out which and where.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Isham said. “I know what business I’m getting into when I’m done with this Navy shit.”

“I think it’s the only business there’s going to be for the foreseeable future,” Steve said. “I just hope we can keep civilization functioning in that environment.”

“You worry too much, Steve,” Isham said, turning away from the unloading ship.

“Clearance of the bodies on the base?” Steve asked. The pier had been cleared but he could see the seagulls squawking over the bodies on Radio Point.

“Not a lot of takers,” Isham said. “I’ve got some guys with civilian construction experience digging a pit for a mass grave. You know how big a mass grave you need for about seven thousand bodies?”

“Big is about the best I can do,” Steve said.

“The same guys are willing to go around with front-end loaders to pick them up,” Isham said. “Problem being, you got to have people on the ground, too. And between being afraid of the infected and, well, not being into moving bodies…”

“We’re keeping back some Navy masters-at-arms,” Steve said. “Have them roust out the “lazy” among the SLLs. At gunpoint if necessary. The carrot will be we’re going to be rough clearing some Caribbean islands. If they help out on this, and they will even if we’ve got to break out whips, we’ll put them on a nice Caribbean island with some weapons in case of infected and they can just scavenge and beachcomb the rest of their lives.”

“We might have to get whips,” Isham said. “They’re pretty comfortable with a bed, water and sushi.”

“There was a study done post-Katrina,” Steve said as they walked down the pier. “About how refugees respond. About ten percent have to have something to do to help out and they tend to be the first to jump ship and get out of whatever refugee camp they’re in. At the other end, ten percent will do anything they can to avoid leaving food and a place to sleep. They used cruise ships for some of the refugees and that bottom ten percent had to be physically removed from them. So round up that bottom ten percent and tell them they can either pick up bodies or we will drop them off on the Cuban side, where the infected haven’t been cleared, and they can try to fend for themselves. I am that serious.”

“That’s kind of like murder,” Isham pointed out.

“I’m kind of past caring, Jack,” Steve said. “I’m going to send my daughters out on another ugly mission to help save the world, and I really don’t give two shits about people too lazy to help.”

“You warmed up enough, Lieutenant?” Fontana asked as Faith pounded the bag.

“Warmed up enough to kick your ass, Lieutenant,” she said to the hulking former SF NCO.

“So the student shall defeat the master?” Fontana asked, humorously, putting in a mouth guard.

“What student?” Faith said, directing a light snap-kick in his direction. “You think I’m your student?”

“How’s the new platoon?” Falcon asked.

“Honestly, I can’t really tell,” Faith said, blocking his punch and going for a wrist bar, which he evaded. She feinted a punch and tried another snap-kick. You had to be careful with Fontana; he’d put you on your ass if he caught your kick. “I know I have to let the new staff sergeant handle shaking them down. I know that. And I need to just let her do her job clearing the base. But I want to get out there picking up weapons and stuff. Hell, I want to go beyond the cleared zones and do some zombie hunting.”

“You at least are going zombie hunting,” Fontana said. “I am stuck here playing catch-up on being a baby doctor. I have dealt with more insane women and looked at more vaginas in the last week than I ever wanted to see in my life.”

“TMI, Falcon,” Faith said. She attacked with a blurring combination of kicks and punches, then backed off. As usual, she couldn’t break through his defenses. She’d taken a couple of different styles of martial arts since she was a kid, but Fontana had been a hand-to-hand instructor in the Special Forces. It had been noted almost from 9/12 that occasionally soldiers, especially people like SF who were out on or beyond the front lines, had to actually, you know, fight for their lives and occasionally that got down to hand-to-hand. Which was why, eventually, SF had gotten serious about hand-to-hand training. It was Fontana’s training as much as anything that Faith had used when it got down to “scrums.” Not that it had in a while.

“Two thousand four hundred and eighty-three women in current manning in the squadron,” Fontana said. “More women survived than men. No clue why. Of those, eighteen hundred are pregnant. With most coming to term within a month of each other. And when one woman in a confined group goes into labor, it tends to cause a ripple effect. We’ve already had twenty-six premature births. One looks like he might survive. We’re going to have more and more. God help us if we have a storm or something. Any sort of global stress, even a big weather change, can trigger premature labor.”

“Well, I’ve made up my mind,” Faith said. “Sex, maybe. Babies, never.”

“One does tend to follow from the other, Faith,” Fontana pointed out.

“Every time we do a sweep, I’ve been picking up birth control pills and stashing them,” Faith said. “So there.”

“I wouldn’t place my…trust in birth control pills that are probably out of date and for sure have been overheated,” Fontana said. He managed to get a punch through that rocked her back on her heels.

“Better than the alternative,” Faith said, dropping back. “I’m considering losing my virginity. You up?”

She attacked like lightning as he froze for a second and managed to get in a hard blow on his head that stunned him for a brief moment. One roundhouse kick and he was down.

“Hah,” Faith said, holding up her hands in victory. “Treachery wins again! And, sorry, I wasn’t actually serious. I’m looking for somebody a bit closer to my own age.” She held out her hand to help him up.

“Well, just be careful, okay?” Fontana said, rubbing his jaw. “You realize if you do get pregnant I’m probably going to end up looking at your twat and that would just ruin our relationship. Now prepare to have your ass kicked…”