To Sail a Darkling Sea - eARC (10 page)

The saloon had taken a beating in use, no question. But it was still reasonably clean and very very ornate. And huge. If anything it was bigger than the
Alpha’s
. Now that the ship was under power again, it was even pleasantly air conditioned.

“It is very nice,” Olga said. “At first. When you are on here with no power or water and people you really did not like in the first place… It is less nice. I am pleased there is new ownership.”

“Were you one of the ones Lavrenty tried to run off with?” Sophia asked.

“Yes,” Olga said, frowning. “I do not want to go. But they still had guns, you know, pistols. And they are… brutal. Still, all has come out well.”

“I don’t know about well,” Sophia said as they entered the massive dining room. “But better.”

“Lieutenant,” Kuzma said, waving to a chair.

“I’m not late, am I?” Sophia asked.

“No,” Kuzma said. “And we’re still waiting on Captain Sava. Miss Zelenova, if you could see where the captain’s got to?”

“Sava?” Sophia asked when the girl had left the room.

“Skipper of this,” Captain Lloyd A. Behm II said.

“Who is, probably, going to keep on being the skipper,” Kuzma said. “With some security onboard, of course.”

“I am sorry I am late.” The skipper of the ship was medium height with dark black hair and a heavily muscled body. “One of the water pumps is still not working. I was discussing it with the chief engineer.”

“You’re actually right on time,” Kuzma said. “All right, everyone, Captain Vladan Sava, skipper of the… akuba… ?

“Perhaps
‘Money for Nothing’
… ?” Captain Sava said. “It is the rough translation.”

“Skipper of the
Money for Nothing
,” Kuzma said. “From left to right, Captain Behm of the
Sea Hooky
. Captain Poole of the
Noby Dick
.”

“Yo,” Gary Poole said, waving. The skipper of the awkwardly-named 73' Arquela was tall, still quite emaciated, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a broad-brimmed straw hat. “So wish tradition let me change the name… ”

After Sophia had decided it would honor the owners to keep the name “
No Tan Lines,”
the tradition had stuck fast. Captain Poole just happened to draw a very short straw.

“Captain Richard Estep of the
N2 Deep
. Captain Elias Rostad of the
One Toy Two Many
. And Captain Richard Purser of the
Finally Fishin’
.”

“It is good to meet you all and I look forward to helping in this endeavor.”

“Captain Sava,” Kuzma continued, “who is an experienced master mariner, thank God, has agreed to assist the efforts of Wolf Squadron. The
Money
will begin to act, immediately, as the Flotilla One’s flagship. However, all personnel onboard are currently suffering from malnutrition due to lack of stores. We have stores already delivered to the
Pit Stop
which will be transferred, however all excess stores should be moved to the
Money
beginning immediately after this meeting. Anybody going to say they don’t have excess? And, yes, I know you’ve got your little stashes, I’m talking regular excess?”

“Plenty,” Behm said. “We were getting ready to shift some of it to the
Pit Stop
anyway.”

“We will also begin rotation of personnel to the
Money
for crew rest,” Kuzma said. “I know you all could use some time in a bunk that’s not rocking quite so much.”

“All for that,” Sophia said.

“With the exception of the
Lines
which I’ll get to,” Kuzma said. “You’re going to get screwed a bit; sorry, Lieutenant.”

“No worries,” Sophia said.

“The first boat to unload will be the
Lines
. Soph, what’s your fuel status?”

“Not full,” Sophia said. “Close. More than three-quarter’s tank. We unrepped from a sailboat we found that still had onboard.”

“That should be enough for this,” Kuzma said. “
Lines
will then proceed to 30.532,–28.169 where we have report of a small tanker. I’ll send a prize crew and another security officer with you to check it out. If it’s diesel, we’re golden. If not, you’ll need to rendezvous with the
Pit Stop
at another freighter we found. That had plenty of diesel in its bunkers. This ship is going to need way more than the
Pit Stop
had to deliver.”

“What about Squadron?” Behm asked.

“As in getting it from squadron, or their situation?” Kuzma said. “They unrepped to the
Grace
and
Alpha
from the
Iwo
so they’re in good shape. If necessary, we can run the
Pit Stop
up to the
Iwo
to unrep but we should be able to get it from the freighter. Best would be if the tanker has diesel. From the reports, it sounds like it’s one of those small tankers that is used to resupply local ports. Sometimes it’s gas, sometimes its diesel. You never know.

“Once we have this boat fully resupplied and refueled, the squadron will form a rough line perpendicular to the Equatorial Current. The
Large
will take and hold the center point with the
Money
and any other support type vessels we recover in trail. Small boats will spread out on either side, each with a packet to cover. The ones to the center will come in to the
Money
for off-load of recovered personnel and materials. If we can get a supply ship like the
Grace
at some point, they may be taken aboard for repair. Start ripping out any parts you find. We’ll find a place in the support zone to hold and inventory them. Vessels will stay inboard for a few days after recovery doing local support. Including ‘fishing ops.’ Turns out the subs have been using their active to knock out schools of fish. They generally get more than they can use. Most of you have cold fish storage. We’ll scoop up their excess. That is the general outline of the plan until we’re recalled to squadron. Lieutenant Smith, do you have any questions?”

“No, sir,” Sophia said, trying not to sigh. She knew they were planning on rotating people to any big vessel they found, and she’d been looking forward to a few days off. But…

“Get with Gary on your security and prize crew,” Kuzma said. “They’re already detailed off. If you don’t have anything, we need to get cracking on finding some fuel.”

“Will do, sir,” Sophia said, standing up. “Have a nice chat.”

* * *

“Okay,” Sophia said. “Here’s the thing with tankers. You really don’t want to fire onboard.”

The “augmentation” for Rusty was a former Army armor cav sergeant named Cody “Anarchy” Mcgarity. With a nickname like “Anarchy” she wasn’t thrilled to have him as a clearance specialist but he seemed more on the ball than Rusty. It’s possible that Rusty was just fine before his experiences onboard the Voyage but he was not the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe it was drinking too much ammoniacal urine.

She’d already circled the vessel named the
M/V Eric Shivak
and she knew two things. One, it
was
diesel. Two, as usual, there was a leak somewhere. It wasn’t just a tanker, though. There were two ship containers chained down on the deck.

“So… Melee?” Mcgarity asked. “Half-life Two fail: No crowbar.”

“We’ve got about six,” Rusty said.

“And some hammers,” Sophia said. “And Halligan tools. This is more a Faith deal than mine, but you really want to avoid fire and sparks. However, there are no evident infecteds so you may get lucky.”

* * *

“Three KIA
,” Anarchy radioed. “
All appear to be former infecteds. Crew boat is missing. Plenty of supplies left onboard. I think some of them turned and the rest abandoned ship. Ship’s clear. Well, we didn’t check the containers but they’ve got seals on them so they don’t look like they’ve been opened.”

“Roger,” Sophia said. “Sending over the survey and prize crew.”

* * *

“Mixed groceries, general stores, some parts including auto parts,” Captain Hebert said. The “captain” had been a mate on a freighter that had abandoned ship when the crew started to turn. “And the main bunkers are full which is a relief. The spillage was minor. It’s got more pure fuel than the
Grace
. Not as fancy but it’s what we needed.”

“Can we unrep from it?” Sophia asked.

“We can tank you up right now,” Hebert said.

* * *

“You know,” Paula said as the two boats got back underway to rendezvous with the flotilla. “We haven’t known Hebert all that long. We didn’t even leave Rusty and Anarchy aboard. What’s to keep him from just taking off?”

“You think there’s
not
going to be a fast attack following him around?” Sophia said.

“Oh, yeah, those.”

* * *

“Flotilla Ops,
No Tan Lines
,” Sophia radioed.

“
Lines
, Ops, over.”

“One tanker tack islands-support-boat full of goodness delivered,” Sophia said. “Orders?”

“Proceed to 23.274,–27.949. Rendezvous, USS
Santa Fe
for fishing ops.”

“What?” Sophia shouted. They were
supposed
to be the next on schedule to spend a night aboard the luxury yacht. She thought about it for a moment then keyed the radio. “Roger, Ops. Proceeding… ”

“You’re in the Navy, now,” Paula sang. “You’re in the Navy now… How do
I
get out?”

* * *

“USS
Santa Fe
, USS
Santa Fe
,
No Tan Lines
, over,” Sophia radioed. “Come on, be around here somewhere.” There was no sign of the sub but that was sort of the point. “I know you know where
I
am.”

“
No Tan Lines
, come to heading one-six-niner, range fourteen thousand yards, over.”

“Heading one-six-niner, fourteen klicks, aye,” Sophia said. It was back the way they’d came. “I
know
you had me on sonar. You could have told me to wait up there… ”

* * *

She could see the ECM mast about two klicks out.

“
No Tan Lines
, hold your position. We will intercept and engage the fish, gather ours, submerge, then you get yours.”

“That sounds vaguely wrong for some reason,” Anarchy said. “They get theirs first. And how are they going to ‘engage’ the fish?”

“Not sure,” Sophia said. “Usually when we run across a school we just, you know, fish for them… ”

The Yankee search was so powerful, reverberations of it could be felt through the hull, and her depth finder went nuts. As they watched, a school of yellowfin floated to the surface.

“What the
hell
was
that
?” Paula said, flying up to the flying bridge. “My teeth are rattling.”

“And so we have another zombie apocalypse moment,” Sophia said, shaking her head.

* * *

“Well that’s something you don’t see every day,” Gunny Sands said.

The USS
Annapolis
was towing behind it a small yacht that would, possibly, have made a decent dinghy for the football-field-length submarine.

There was already a medical and resupply team standing by in moonsuits to bring the family vaccine and supplies. The moonsuits weren’t to protect the greeting party but the family onboard the yacht. The MREs had even been decontaminated.

“Welcome a zombie apocalypse moment, Gunnery Sergeant Sands,” Faith said. “Defined as a ‘What the fuck’ moment that could only happen in a zombie apocalypse. We tend to call it a zam or a zammie.”

They were standing on the lead edge of the flight deck of the
Iwo Jima
after completing morning PT. They could use most of the ship for PT, now, running up and down companionways, climbing stairs, running the flight deck, jumping coamings, and generally having a oorah Marines afloat day, because the ship was just about completely clear of infecteds. They still had some areas to check for survivors but that was getting to the point of no returns.

The
Iwo
might even run again, someday—the infected had done a lot of damage, but most of it was repairable—given parts and trained personnel. They had gotten personnel from the boat but it was a grab bag and, for fairly obvious reasons, tended towards store keepers and cooks. They were in the areas which had stores when the abandon ship call went down. They’d found damned few engineering personnel. Alive and uninfected, at least.

“I’ll keep that in mind, young lady,” the gunny said. Two weeks “limited activities” and food and he was starting to look like a gunnery sergeant again. He still didn’t fill out his uniform but he was PTing. Not exactly running the young bucks into the ground but he was getting there. Faith had to admit that, no, she could
not
keep up with most of the Marines, especially since they PTd in gear. So she and the Gunny had been working out together. Turned out the Gunny was, unsurprisingly, an A-Number One coaming jumper, a skill she was still trying to master.

He was, also unsurprisingly, a master of Marine lore and trivia as well as an expert tactician and weapons expert. He’d started off sort of disgruntled at the suggestion that he PT with a guuurl but had taken the opportunity to increase her store of professional knowledge. And while in agreement on “The Wolf Squadron Way” of clearance had put his professional knowledge and acumen to the subject and suggested useful “tweaks” that had been tested then implemented.

“Thank you for increasing my understanding of this brave new world in which we reside and fight, ma’am.”

“That wasn’t meant as a… ” Faith said. She really liked and admired the Gunny and didn’t want to insult him.

“That was not intended ironically, Miss,” Gunny Sands said. “As I have been teaching you a bit about the hallowed lore of the U-S-M-C, the information transfer has not been all one way. That is an example thereof. Just as you previously pointed out that zombies do not retreat and, therefore, small teams can expect at some point to come to melee distance or, as you put it ‘get into the scrum.’ Which has now become Post-Plague Marine slang on the same level of commonality as ‘FUBAR’ and ‘BOHICA.’ And that, therefore, it is useful to keep multiple knives on your person when clearing in case you’re in a ‘scrum’ or even worse ‘in a dunny.’ Rather than it being purely an affectation.”

“Understood, Gunnery Sergeant,” Faith said.