Islands of Rage and Hope

CHAPTER 11

Thomas Fontana entered the curtained alcove and picked up the chart.

“How’s it going, Tina?” he asked.

“Fine, Lieutenant,” Tina replied, moving the ultrasound wand around.

They were still in the process of stripping both base hospitals. High on the list was anything obstetrical related.

“Hi, Missy,” Fontana said, looking at the chart and the ultrasound. “How’ve you been feeling?”

“Ready to get done,” the girl said. She was nineteen and had been on a cruise with her parents when the plague hit and the captain ordered abandon ship. The inevitable had occurred on the lifeboat which, fortunately, had also managed to contain no infected.

“How’s the morning sickness?” Fontana asked, pulling out a stethoscope.

“Morning, noon and night,” Missy said, dimpling. “But at least I’m not throwing up sushi all the time. It tastes better going down.”

“Lemme listen in on junior,” he added, putting his stethoscope in his ears. He straightened up after a moment. “Nobody, including the doctors in the CDC, have any clue if there’s going to be effects from things like being castaway, okay?”

“Okay,” Missy said unhappily. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard it before.

“That being said, looking at the ultrasound, listening to the heart, this appears to be a nice normal, healthy, active baby,” Fontana said, sort of smiling. His face wasn’t really made for it.

“I hope so,” Missy said. “I just want him…her to be okay, you know?”

“I know,” Fontana said, scribbling in the chart. “We all do. We are so few. Keep up the prenatal vitamins, try to keep them down for that matter, but it’s all looking good…”

“Lieutenant,” one of the nurses said, sticking her head in the cubicle. “We need you in exam six.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Thomas said, smiling and waving as he walked out.

“What’s up?” he asked the nurse.

“Patient is presenting with abdominal pain,” the girl said carefully. She was obviously trying to remember the lingo since “nurse” was a stretch. “She has a fever of one oh one and her BP is lower than her last visit.”

“Okay,” Thomas said, taking the chart and entering the cabin. “Hello…Cathy.”

“I’m sorry to take up your time, Lieutenant,” the woman said unhappily. “I wasn’t supposed to be in until next week. But I think something’s wrong.”

The woman’s pregnancy hadn’t been as easy as Missy’s. She’d had bouts of high blood pressure and the fetus had never been terribly robust. He would have put her on daily checks if he had the time and people.

“Let me do a quick check,” Thomas said, pulling out his stethoscope. He listened for a moment, then said: “I’ll be right back.”

He stepped out into the hallway and down to the nurse’s station.

“Start prepping the OR,” he said.

“Problem?” Lieutenant Fallon said.

“Pretty sure that fetus is dead. Please tell me we have some Keflex left. ’Cause I’m also pretty sure it’s necrotic.”

“You guys look like you could use a drink,” Steve said, waving his tray at the table. “Mind if I?”

“Please,” Walker said.

They’d eventually set up an “officers” area in the dining room. Walker, as one of the “doctors” was automatically included. Steve didn’t always use it; he preferred to strike up conversations with random people to get a feel for what was going on. But tonight it looked as if it was the right place to be.

“Bad day?” Steve asked, taking a bite of fish.

“Two premature deliveries,” Fontana said. “In the U.S., pre-Plague, they’d be in intensive neonatal care. As it is, I just wrote ‘stillborn.’ Which they weren’t, exactly, but they didn’t last long. And one that died in the womb.”

“Ouch,” Steve said.

“I’m not going to ruin your dinner describing taking it out,” Walker said. “We’re now pumping the mother full of some of our precious remaining antibiotics and we’re not sure it’s going to work.”

“I just gave orders to have the ablebodied, by our estimation, among the sick, lame and lazy start clearing the bodies on the base,” Steve said, continuing to eat. He’d told himself at the beginning that he had to eat regular meals no matter what. “At gunpoint if necessary. When I hear things like this, those decisions come easier.”

“The instructors in Q Course stressed over and over again, ‘You are not an MD,’” Fontana said. “I mean, I’ve got no real clue about toxicology, histology, rheumatology…”

“So if I recall correctly,” Steve said to fill in the pause, “we’re anticipating three to four hundred serious complications?”

“When we actually started doing exams and crunching the number, we got it to three hundred forty,” Fontana said. “Probably. Statistically. We’re getting up to about forty that have lost them one way or another. Three late-term abortions based on serious complications. Four if you count today. We don’t have the original studies so we don’t know if early to mid-term miscarriages count. Anyway, at this rate only three hundred to go. Yay.”

“The way things are going, if we could materially and socially, I’d say pull the babies on at least two hundred of the mothers,” Walker said, munching placidly on a tuna roll. “Which we can’t because there’s not enough trained hands and there’s no way you can get them all to agree. Not to mention it would be horrible for morale.”

“Losing all two hundred mothers is going to be just as bad,” Fontana said.

“Are we going to?” Steve asked quietly.

“Yes,” Walker replied. “We are. Not necessarily the two hundred I’d pick but we are going to lose two hundred or so to pregnancy related complications. We’ve already lost ten. Lot more to go. Possibly less if we have enough equipment or find some MDs or anyone with enough surgical training to emergency C-section.”

“On the other hand, that means sixteen hundred new children,” Steve said.

“More,” Fontana said. “We have an unusually high number of multiples. Should be two percent, it’s more like five percent. No clue why. Admittedly, more of those mothers are in the ‘at risk’ group. But we’ll have more than one child per mother on average.”

“All to the good,” Steve said. “The truth is, no children, no future. Not for a civilization enshrining the notion of the Rights of Man and all the rest. In which case there is no damned point to any of this.”

“I hate to stick my nose in,” Walker said.

“Mr. ‘Walker,’” Steve said drily, “you can and should any time you’d like. I’ve yet to hear anything come out of your mouth that wasn’t on point.”

“Has any thought be given to the aftermath?” Walker asked, smiling slightly. “Babies require various support materials if they are going to grow properly. Among other things, not all mothers provide adequate milk. And post weaning, they’ll need adequate food and vitamins. Study I read somewhere indicated that high survival rates in the toddler years didn’t really start until we developed lactose tolerance and started milking cows. Then there’s the whole ‘diapers’ issue.”

“The answer is ‘Thought had been given,’” Steve said. “There also was little in the way of answers until you and my daughter saved the day.”

“How did we save the day?” Walker asked.

“The Paul Osted,” Steve said. “It was loaded with supplies for various small ports in Africa. A lot of the stuff is useless to us, of course. But there were, in fact, several containers containing baby ‘stuff.’ At least according to the manifest. Notably dried formula and vitamins. And, glory be, there were even two containers of condensed milk. If all else fails, there’s always wet nurses. Diapers. That’s going to have to be the old-fashioned way. Cloth we have. Pins we have. Rubber pants, not so much. The sewing shop is cutting up a bunch of rain-gear we found to make some. Probably not enough. The big problem is that we have to send out the small boat squadron on this sweep. Which will probably push them up into ‘we’re dropping babies’ time. And a third of the crews are pregnant women.”

“I noticed,” Walker said. “We’ve pulled most of the ones that have been showing signs of at-risk pregnancy off of deployable status. That doesn’t mean we won’t have problems.”

“Understood,” Steve said. “One of the reasons to send you with the sweep.”

“Unfortunately, that means I’ll be working off the Grace Tan,” Walker said. “So I won’t have the pleasure of your daughter’s company.”

“You’re not going to be spread out this time,” Steve said. “Have all your serious kit in the Grace Tan’s sick bay and use the Bella as your moving boat for checking up on the ladies of the float. Think of it as housecalls. Boat calls at least. Did you know that was one of Sophia’s potential careers?”

“Pregnant?” Fontana said.

“She wanted to be a doctor,” Steve said. “I’d gotten quite comfortable teaching school. One of the points, between us, to this whole program is that I sincerely doubt that the bastard who did this died in the Plague. He was going to have a vaccine. He’s probably holed up somewhere laughing at the mess he’s created. Someday, someone will find him.”

“Oh, let it be me,” Fontana said. “Please.”

“I really can’t think of anything that is worth doing to him that is also worth violating the Constitution,” Walker said. “There is literally no sufficient torture ever invented by man on Earth. If we do find him, I’d just put a bullet in his head and go on with trying to repair the damage. Hope there is a hell.”

“More or less my thought as well,” Steve said.

“Lieutenant?” a lady in a nurse’s uniform said, walking up. More like waddling. “Mr. Walker…we’ve got another emergency patient.”

“And I need to get back to work as well,” Steve said. “Good luck.”

“How’s it going, Sergeant Smith?” Faith said, stepping out of the Humvee.

She’d made it a habit to check on the progress of the sweep at least once each day. Colonel Hamilton had counseled her that it was primarily an NCO job and had her working her butt off on plans for the island hopping operation. But they were her people and the colonel agreed that she had to show her face from time to time.

“Just fine, ma’am,” Smitty said, saluting. Faith returned it and he continued setting an M4 in the bed of a civilian pickup truck. It was the best vehicle for their purposes. He tossed the spent magazine that had been in the well into a five gallon bucket. There were others for any remaining ammo.

So far there hadn’t been any complications at all. The gunboats and their sweeps had apparently killed the vast majority of the remaining infected. Occasionally one would turn up but the sweep teams were armed.

Not so much the body recovery teams. There was one of those in the distance walking next to a front-end loader. They were accompanied by a Navy master-at-arms who was armed. Also keeping them in front of him. As she watched, they stopped and picked up the pieces of what had once been a member of the base, tossing them into the bucket of the front-end loader.

“Every day’s a holiday and every meal’s a banquet,” Faith responded.

“Every day I’m not trapped in a compartment is a good day, ma’am,” Smitty said, grinning. “And at least it ain’t August. I hear it gets a bit hot here then. How’ve you been, if I may ask, ma’am?”

“I hear there are people who adore paperwork,” Faith said. “Sophia kind of likes it. Me, not so much. And apparently that’s what officers are for; doing paperwork. Nobody told me that when I took the oath. I’m sort of feeling screwed.” She grinned to show it was a joke.

“We’ve got a float coming up, ma’am,” Sergeant Smith said. “That should take care of some of it.”

“Yep,” Faith said. “Islands to clear, zombies to kill, people to save. My kind of party. You seen Staff Sergeant Barnard?”

“She’s up by Corinaso Point, ma’am,” Smitty said.

“Well, I guess I need to go to Corinaso Point, then,” Faith said. “Take care, Smitty.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Smitty said.

“So that’s the LT?” Lance Corporal Robert “Bubba” Freeman said.

“That is Shewolf,” Smitty said. “I think she got the word she was supposed to act more like an officer or something. Or she’d be down here pitching weapons with the rest of us.”

“No disrespect intended, Sergeant,” LCP Freeman said. “I just have a hard time with…I mean you and the rest of the Iwo Marines have talked about her, but…”

“Do not let Shewolf fool you,” PFC Kirby said. “She is one absolute badass. Forget the video. You gotta see her in action for it to make any sense.”

“She’s not all that hot at long-range,” Smith said. “Zombie gets within fifty meters of her and zap it’s gone. We’re all good. With Shewolf it’s like breathing. None of which matters. She is, yeah, our platoon leader and a Marine officer and you show her that respect. Trust me, when you’ve worked with her for a while you won’t just show her respect. You’ll want to have her babies.”

“Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, getting out of the Humvee. She kept wondering when she was going to get driving lessons. But officers got drivers so, so far, it was all good.

“Ma’am,” Barnard said, saluting.

“We need to get this operation terminated by thirteen hundred,” Faith said, returning the salute. “Which means all vehicles back at the pier? The stuff that hasn’t been sorted and prepped we’re now going to do on the boats. So all that has to be prepped this evening for loading. And I want a one hundred percent inspection of all gear before lights out. Most of our load-out is being handled by Navy: ammo and suchlike, okay? But the teams need to get their gear prepped for the float. If there’s anything that needs to be DXed, better we do it here which means tonight, okay? Load-out starts at zero five tomorrow morning which means first call at zero three. I convinced the colonel we could use the extra couple hours. If it takes all night, well, it’s a sixteen-hour float to Anguilla and we don’t have anything to do the first night, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Barnard said.

“Anything you want to bring up?” Faith said.

“No, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Barnard said. “Back to the piers by thirteen hundred. Evening ops will be prep for float. Is that all, ma’am?”

“Yep,” Faith said. “I guess I’ll see you back at the boat.”

That evening Staff Sergeant Barnard stopped by the colonel’s office.

“Busy as we are, sir,” Barnard said uncomfortably, “moment of your time?”

“Of course, Cindy,” Hamilton said, waving her in. “As long as it’s not a long moment. Issues?”

“I need some counseling on something, sir,” Barnard said, closing the hatch. “It has to do with Lieutenant Smith…”

“Booyah!” Faith said as the Grace Tan cleared the harbor mouth.

She was sooo glad to be back to doing what she knew: Killing zombies. The whole prep thing had been nothing but a nightmare of not knowing what to do and knowing that she was getting it all wrong. This she knew.

“Happy, ma’am?” Corporal Douglas said, grinning.

They were standing by the side rail watching the land slide by since at the moment there was nothing else to do. Everything was stowed and locked down and the preoperations meeting wasn’t for another two hours.

“I can’t believe I was getting sick of the land,” Faith replied, a tad dishonestly.

“Well, we’re going to be on land soon enough, ma’am,” Douglas said.

“It’s different, Derk,” Faith said. “Another zombie killing smash-and-grab. That’s not the same as being stuck on land, or for that matter on the Bo, doing paperwork.”

“Lieutenant Smith to the Colonel’s office,” the tannoy boomed. “Lieutenant Smith to the Colonel’s office.”

Faith started to open her mouth to say something like “What now?” and then checked it.

“Gotta go, Derk,” Faith said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Douglas said, smiling. “Your master’s voice.”