Islands of Rage and Hope

CHAPTER 19

“Ensign Smith, time to open the plastic…”

They’d pulled the contaminated canvas cover off, first, leaving only the plastic covering the back in place. They’d also laid plastic over the tailgate to keep contamination from entering the vehicle.

Decker carefully removed the plastic from the back of the five-ton and Sophia leaned over and looked in the hatch. There was barely any light in the interior but she could see some couches and figures.

“Sir,” she radioed. “Do they have lights in there? We can’t see a thing.”

“Stand by, Seawolf,” a voice said, breaking into the circuit. “Retrans to the Dragon capsule coming up.”

“Hello. I’m the person knocking on your window. Ensign Sophia Smith, United States Navy. You guys ready to get out?”

“Take me to your leader,” Commander Daniels radioed, jokingly. “Yes, we are prepared to exit. We can get the hatch open but we will need assistance exiting the capsule.”

“The United States Naval services have got you covered,” Sophia said. “I’ve got two hulking Marines ready to carry you out. Carefully. You guys got interior lights?”

“Coming on,” Daniels said, turning on the lights.

“Ouch,” Sophia said, blinking. The lights were bright to her dark-adjusted eyes. “Open the hatch. We’ve got plastic up to prevent contamination.”

There was another shot in the distance.

“What is the security situation?” Daniels asked.

“Don’t worry,” Sophia said. “My sister’s got that covered.”

“Sister?” Daniels said as the hatch popped open.

“It’s a long story,” Sophia said, sticking her head in the hatch. “Youngest Marine lieutenant in history and a pain in the ass. But she’s got killing infected down.”

There were seven cuplike blue couches arranged in two layers with aluminum foot rests at the end of each.

“Do these footrests fold down?” Sophia asked, clambering into the chamber.

One of the space-suited figures waved, then tapped his helmet.

“What?” Sophia asked, raising her hands, then realized that the previous conversation had been bounced from one of the subs. The crew could, presumably, retrans through a radio on the capsule. But when she entered, her radio was cut off. “Son of a bitch. Decker, can you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Decker replied.

“You will repeat my words to the subs,” Sophia said. “Repeat this exactly. Retrans sub. This is Seawolf. My commo is cut off in here.”

“Retrans sub, this is Seawolf, my commo is cut off in here,” Decker parroted.

“Staff Sergeant Decker will repeat.”

“Staff Sergeant Decker will repeat.”

She waited a moment for the process to be figured out.

“Is there a way to drop these footrests, over?”

“Roger. There is a latch. Slide the latch upwards while pushing upwards on the footrest,” Decker said after a moment.

She picked one of the lower couches and dropped the footrest. Then she leaned over and undid the straps.

“Decker, repeat: You can all undo your own straps…I’m going to exit the vessel and let Staff Sergeant Decker and PFC Condrey take over. Decker: Do not repeat. Get in here so I can show you how this works…”

They barely had enough room for all the stretchers. And the threesome had to more or less balance over the crew. But they finally had all of them out.

Sophia shut the hatch on the capsule and then she and Decker got the plastic back in place.

“Mr. Walker, we’ve got the plastic up and taped on this side,” Sophia said. “Need you to handle the rest.”

“Roger,” Walker said. “Check to see how much air they have left. And check the connections on their air bottles. See if ours will work.”

“I’m not sure how to even talk to them,” Sophia said. “Their radio was in the capsule.”

“Put the face of your silver suit against their visor and shout,” Walker said.

“Roger,” Sophia replied.

She bent down over one of the figures, she wasn’t sure which was who, and placed her visor on theirs.

“HOW MUCH AIR DO YOU HAVE?”

“TEN MINUTES!” the man replied. It was faint but he had a Slavic accent.

“Ten minutes, sir,” Sophia radioed.

“Roger,” Walker replied. “Since when do you call me ‘sir,’ Seawolf?”

“Since you’re in charge, sir,” Sophia said.

“Roger.”

“WILL OUR AIR BOTTLES WORK?” Sophia asked.

“NO!”

“Might as well open up, then,” Sophia shouted. “We’re as sterile as we’re going to get.”

“Talk to him,” the man said, pointing to one of the other suits.

“Hey,” Sophia shouted to the second suit. “We decontaminated the hell out of this and were careful to keep it sterile. It’s not a hospital room but it’s as good as you’re going to get. And we can’t supply oxygen. So you’re going to have to take your chances. We need you closed for the final transfer.”

“Roger,” the man said, opening his face plate and leaning over. It was apparent he couldn’t sit up. “Time to crack.”

The group tapped each other and slowly each of them opened their face plates.

“Welcome back,” Sophia shouted through her silver suit. “I know you’ve all got questions but if you could hold them until we get you to your temporary home. We fixed up a decontaminated container with as many decontaminated materials as we could find in the time we had. As soon as the canvas cover is back on we’re going to drive there. We’ll be backing onto a ship off a dock. Then you’ll need to close your suits again. We’ll get each of you out and decontaminate the outside of your suits, then get you into the container. Then you can get out of your suits. I don’t know, nobody knows, if it’s going to keep the flu out. All I can say is we’re doing our best and we had the CDC and the Hole looking in on it. We didn’t get much warning about this but, honestly, even if we had we couldn’t have done much more than this.”

The truck started and a moment later lurched into motion.

“Can you tell us what is going on?” the woman said. “How bad is it?”

“Generally people get how bad it is by my telling them I’m a fifteen-year-old ensign,” Sophia said. “My sister is thirteen and she’s a lieutenant in the Marines.”

“A lieutenant?” one of the men said with a Slavic accent. “You are joking?”

“Faith’s a bit of a badass,” Sophia said. “But it’s that bad. This is one of the few land areas that you can walk around with nothing but light arms. During the day. And we’ve been clearing it for about twenty-four hours straight. Total surface mobile manning of the U.S. Navy is less than a thousand. Total Marine Corps is fifty-three. Total known survivors, that is people that we’re actually looking at, is right at six thousand. But several thousand of those are in subs and they’re only survivors ’cause they’re uncontaminated. There are no major land areas that are infected-free. And the ‘Navy’ and ‘Marines’ and all the rest is mostly former civilians or former military who have bootstrapped. I’m an ensign and my sister’s a lieutenant ’cause we’ve been doing this right from the start. My specialty is small boat operations and rescue. Recently I’ve moved to trying to find the materials to make vaccine ’cause…I’ve got some background in bio. I hear one of you is microbiologist?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “I am. Dr. Rizwana Shelley.”

“Glad to meet you,” Sophia said. “I thought I was going to have to do it on my own.”

“You?” the guy who had ordered them to crack their suits said.

“Might as well know now,” Sophia said, grimacing. “Just before the Fall I worked in an illegal corporate lab making attenuated vaccine. In fact, that’s what you’re getting. It’s the same stuff I and my family used. Same lot even. It works. As long as it hasn’t gone bad in six months. And it was stabilized. It was made by a professional. Overseen, anyway. I did most of the work.”

“From what source?” Dr. Shelley asked carefully.

“Human,” Sophia said.

“What a terrible business,” Dr. Shelley said, shaking her head.

“Which is what we’re going to have to produce to save the subs,” Sophia said, shrugging. “If you’ve got qualms about that, well…I guess I’m going to have to do it, still.”

“We’re still adjusting to…reality,” one of the Russians said. “Although, watching every light on the planet go out was…”

“Terrible enough,” one of the men said. He had an English accent. “Truly horrible.”

“Try fighting your way out of New York when those lights went out,” Sophia said. “My family is one of the few that is intact in the world that we know of. That makes us fairly unique. You’re the only people in the world that haven’t really been here for what happened. That makes you unique. Even the sub crews had a closer look at what went down. You don’t wanna know horrible. There’s a video. Watch that and then decide how you’re going to help. Or not. Whatever. I’ve pulled over two thousand survivors over a transom or from the land. It was nearly three months after the Fall that I set foot on land and ninety percent of that time I was in command of a small boat. Which is one of the reasons they made me an ensign. I’m in command of three boats now.

“My sister has cleared ten liners, which is about the most horrible thing you can imagine. The first one, the second largest in the world, was with my da, a Marine that was barely out of a lifeboat, and an SF sergeant. They’d come out day after day covered in blood, get washed down, eat, sleep, go back in the next day. When I was working in the lab in New York, I couldn’t do the first step which was, sorry, grinding the spines in a blender. At this point, it’s not even in the top ten of the horrible stuff I’ve seen. Not sure if it’s in the top twenty. Come to think of it, no, not in the top twenty. Probably not the top hundred.”

“Okay,” one of the men said after a moment.

“This is the tricky bit,” Sophia said. “We’re backing down this pier, which is almost exactly the width of the five-ton. So far we’ve done it a few times and not gone in the drink. If we fall over the side, just put your face plates back up. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

“I’m trying to imagine what is more horrible than grinding up human spinal cords to make vaccine,” Rizwana said. “I’m not sure I want to.”

The container was, well, a container. It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t great. The cushions they were lying on, still in their suits, were clearly salvaged from a boat. But there was a large plasma screen and someone had gone to the trouble of putting in two plexiglass windows. The large pile of MREs meant that clearly Troy wasn’t going to get his beloved cheeseburger any time soon. There was a distinct odor of bleach, which was comforting, all things considered.

“And she’s fifteen,” Dr. Price said. “She has to have horrible PTSD.”

“I think that pretty much everyone on the planet has to have PTSD,” Troy said.

A silver suit came through the airlock bearing a large plastic box.

“Tomato soup,” Ensign Smith said, setting it down. “Pretty much the most common first food we give survivors. These are microwave containers. They’ve been decontaminated and the box was sterilized. We’re going to try to prop you up so you can drink it…”

“Sorry about my…discomfort with the vaccine concept,” Dr. Shelley said. Decker and Condrey had gotten the astronauts propped up so they could drink, then left. “It must have truly been terrible.”

“Was,” Sophia said simply. “Is. World’s a pretty messed up place right now. I’m sorry I reacted the way that I did. It has been a very long day. And we usually don’t clear at night. That was fairly tense. We also had a friendly-fire incident today and I was worried that Faith was going to get hit by some of her Marines. All in all…I’ve had better days. But at least we got you guys back.”

“When do you get off shift?” Troy asked.

“God knows,” Sophia said tiredly. “Walker, Decker, Condrey and I are the only ones who are supposed to have contact right now. Walker and I ’cause we understand the protocols. Walker won’t talk about his exact background but he was an SF medic. He’s good. Very good. I think he was actually a colonel or something. Decker and Condrey because, well, the only thing they can really do anymore is very precise protocols.”

“Why?” Commander Daniels asked.

“There are so many stories,” Sophia said, shaking her head. “Short answer. Just before they evacced the Iwo Jima, Decker was ordered by his gunny to ‘take care of the lieutenant.’ He was a newbie LT. And he had the virus and he turned. So Decker and Condrey took care of him. Kept him alive. As a zombie. On a rubber life raft.”

“Holy hell,” Troy said. “Are they nuts?”

“They’re Marines, sir,” Sophia said. “They are sort of looked at as the epitome of Marines these days. But they’re so totally inflexible at this point, they’re only good for stuff that is very simple, very strict, protocols. Like, say, cleaning out the five-ton and sterilizing it thoroughly. So, yes, they’re nuts. Sir, we’re all nuts. I’m nuts. My sister is nuts. Every single survivor, pretty much, is nutty as a fruitcake. But we’re getting the job done.”

“Evacced the Iwo Jima?” Troy said. “The assault carrier?”

“Yes, sir,” Sophia said. “Which we cleared right after the Voyage Under Stars. That’s where we got about half our Marines.”

“What about the other carriers?” Troy asked.

“They’re scattered,” Sophia said, shrugging. “Maybe the Hole knows where they are. But we’re on a priority mission right now. You guys and trying to find materials to make more vaccine. And…when you can sit up you can see a wreck out the window, on the point. That’s just one of…thousands. And more ships floating. Talk about oil slicks? Every tanker on Earth, pretty much, has gone aground or sunk. Seen some bad-ass oil slicks. And there’s about four thousand of us, total. Only about three thousand are helping or any real help. Or sane enough to help. We got plenty of people in rubber rooms. So the rest of the world is going to have to wait. We just do what’s in front of us and push the plan.”

“What is the plan?” one of the Russians asked. “Is there one?”

“Clear the planet,” Sophia said, shrugging. “Find survivors and convince them to help and just keep building until we’re old and gray or we’re done. Da says there’s a plan, sort of. Won’t get into it. Says he needs the sub crews to be able to get to the next step. So we’re sweeping the Caribbean for medical supplies and stuff to make the vaccine. Notably polyacrylide gel.”

“That will be difficult to find, I would think,” Rizwana said, sipping soup. “There was a great deal of research going on at the end and it was being used widely.”

“A lot of it was going into vaccine production as well,” Sophia said. “Speaking of which, when Walker gets here we’ll give you your primer shot. You can turn it down, given that it’s from human spinal cords and has all sorts of other negatives. Various possible side effects include causing the disease, auto-immune reaction against your own nervous system and standard allergic reactions. In which case, we’ll move you to a cabin to see if you turn. Which with your immune systems, you will.”

“That’s cold,” Dr. Price said.

“There used to be seven billion people on this planet,” Sophia said wearily. “Right now we know the condition of about six, seven thousand. Every coast is littered with wrecks. Some of them probably have trapped survivors in them who are running out of food and water and air and time. Every shore is patrolled by infected. Every town we’ve cleared has had about one percent survivors.

“You’re astronauts. That’s cool. You’re all really smart and really capable with lots of degrees and stuff. That’s cooler. God knows we need people like you and don’t want you to turn or die. We can’t keep you in a bubble until hell freezes over. We’re holding here, instead of continuing the mission, to give you time to get vaccinated and have it take hold. Or turn. Which is a possibility. We don’t want that. We need your skills, and who wants more zombies? But we haven’t got all the time in the world.”

“Understood,” Commander Daniels said.

“So if you don’t want the vaccine, the cabins are more comfortable anyway,” Sophia said, shrugging again.

“And we’ll get H7D3 and go insane,” Tom said.

“Probably,” Sophia said. “And we’ll put a bullet in you and in your case probably give you a nice funeral like we did for Anarchy instead of just letting your body be picked by the seagulls. Which is what we’ve done with several thousand other humans who turned. Probably tens of thousands, come to think of it. Beside the wreck, when you can stand up, you can see the pile of bodies my gunboat division created on this pretty beach. The more infected we kill, the more people we can save and maybe save civilization. That’s how we roll. Welcome to Wolf Squadron.”

“That is the most world-weary fifteen-year-old I have ever met,” Tom Shelley said as Walker gave him the vaccine.

Doing so had required getting them out of their suits. All of the astronauts, besides being physically weak as kittens, were skeletally thin. But that was common with survivors. One wag had called the apocalypse “the best diet plan in history.”

“More just weary,” Walker said. “Seawolf is also one of the brightest young ensigns I’ve ever met. Her entire family is quite extraordinary.”

“Is there some more detailed information we can get than ‘it’s really bad’?” Colonel Kuznetsov asked. “For example, is there any continuing Russian government?”

“Fourth Strategic Rocket Command,” Walker said. “Although General Kazimov apparently committed suicide by shooting himself repeatedly in the back when he tried to order a nuclear strike on Washington.”

“The world has gone utterly mad,” Tom said.

“By definition,” Walker said, straightening up after his last shot. “If you define sanity as what is normal for the standard human, then sanity is being an aggressive animal with no higher brain function, Doctor. I was in a pitch-black stores compartment for five months passing the time doing knot work. Besides the three people who succumbed to the virus in the compartment, I had to kill an additional member of the party when he went stark mad and began attacking people at random.

“There was some issue with hooking up the TV. On the outside of the container; they don’t have to come in. When it’s working, we’ll run the basic brochure then the video they show new arrivals. It’s rather good propaganda but it is also truth, which is odd for propaganda. When you view it you will get a new appreciation for that world-weary young lady….”