To Sail a Darkling Sea

CHAPTER 1

Robert “Rusty” Fulmer Bennett III wasn’t a guy to just sit around if he could help out. But he also wasn’t, still, in the best of shape.

When he’d boarded the cruise ship Voyage Under Stars with his buddy, Ted, he’d weighed 337 lbs, nekkid. By the time the rescue teams from Wolf Squadron found him, Ted had long before zombied and Rusty weighed 117 lbs and was naked, covered in bed sores and mostly unconscious on his filth covered bunk. Since he was still 6' 7", and, honestly, big boned, 117 was pretty bad. The one nurse Wolf had found so far, no doctors, said it was a miracle he’d survived.

So he still wasn’t in the best shape of his life when he sat down in the “Wolf Squadron Human Resources” office. In the four weeks since he’d been found he’d put on about twenty pounds but that wasn’t much. And he could barely work out at all. He wasn’t sure that he could hack it as a “clearance specialist” but he was all up for killing zombies.

He filled in his name on the clipboard and took a seat. Then he opened up a packet of sushi and started to munch.

“Still putting on weight, huh?” the guy next to him asked.

“I never thought I’d like sushi,” Bennett said, offering some of the rolls. “Anything is, like, the best food in the world, now. Except hummus. If I never eat hummus again I’ll be so glad.”

“Gotta try fish eyeballs,” the guy said, taking one and nodding. “Mmmm… tuna is sooo much better raw than dolphin. Brad Stevens.”

“Rusty Bennett,” Rusty said. “Actually, it’s Robert Fulmer Bennett Third. But everybody calls me Rusty. Like, you ate a dolphin?”

“Not the Flipper, ark, ark, kind,” Stevens said. “It’s a kind of fish. But, hey, when that’s what you’ve got.” He shrugged. “I’d have eaten a, you know, dolphin, dolphin if I could have caught one. There were a couple of times I’d have eaten the asshole of a dolphin… ”

“I’d have eaten the asshole of an asshole,” Rusty said.

“You’re like a string-bean pole,” Stevens said. “How much did you lose?”

“Two hundred pounds,” Rusty said. “I was kinda big when we got locked down.”

“Oh,” Stevens said, wincing. “In one of the cabins on the Voyage?”

“Yep,” Rusty said. “One of the reasons I want to go do something is every time I walk in the damned cabin I’m afraid the door’s going to close behind me and never open again.”

“I thought I’d lost weight. I can’t believe they cleared you for work.”

“I just walked down here,” Rusty said, shrugging. “The worst they can do is say no… ”

“Stevens…?”

* * *

“You’re still in very poor shape, Mister Bennett,” the lady said. Like most he’d seen, she was pregnant.

“I really want to help out,” Rusty said. “And I’ve got to get out of that fu… forking cabin, ma’am. I keep having nightmares that the door won’t open.”

“I took this job on the Grace because it’s the biggest boat I could get on,” the lady said, smiling. “Try having nightmares that you’re back in a tropical storm in a life raft and you’re suffering from morning sickness and starving.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rusty said. “I’m good with my hands. But I’m not a mechanic or anything. I can shoot. I’ve been shooting my whole life. And I want to fight zombies, ma’am.”

“You’d never make the medical requirements for clearance personnel,” the lady said. “They carry tons of gear when they clear.”

“I heard there’s some thirteen-year-old girl that does it, ma’am,” Rusty argued. “If she can… ”

“Don’t compare Shewolf to your normal thirteen-year-old girl,” the woman said, laughing. “You haven’t seen the video have you?”

“No, ma’am,” Rusty said. “I haven’t gotten out, much.”

“If you go up to the lounge, you can probably find somebody who can show it to you,” the lady said. “Shewolf led the boarding of the Voyage. She wasn’t supposed to, but it happened. The Dallas had used a machine gun to clear some of the zombies but while she was going up more showed up. She went over the side, anyway. There was a Marine in a little bit better shape than you, not much but a little, who was supposed to go right after her and got bogged down climbing. One of the reasons they want people in the best possible shape for clearance. At that point, most of the copies… You know that song, ‘I get knocked down, but I get up again…?’ ”

“Sort of?” Rusty said. “Kinda before my time.”

“Go watch the video,” the lady said, looking at her screen. “Since you know she made it, it’s a hoot. But… I mean you can go try to track down Nurse Schoenfeld and get her to clear you. But I’d suggest something lighter. At least for now. And I’d guess you don’t like enclosed spaces… ”

“I don’t mind if I know I can open the door, ma’am,” Rusty said.

“Being on a small boat is physically wearing,” the lady said, “but they need people for light clearance. Clearing life rafts and small craft. Not many people want to do it because you get beat up on those little boats. But… ”

“Ma’am,” Rusty said. “Being out in the air on a small boat… That’d be like heaven, ma’am.”

“How strong of a stomach do you have?” the lady asked.

“I… pretty strong?” Rusty said.

“You’re on the assignment board,” the lady said, making a definitive tap on her keyboard. “Since you don’t have a defined skill that anyone is looking for right now, you’ve got a week to find something. After that, you get put on boat cleaning or you can go into the hold with the lame and lazy. People who don’t want to help out.”

“Cleaning?” Rusty said.

“Cleaning up a boat after zombies have trashed it.”

* * *

“I don’t want to have to clean out a new boat,” Sophia said, mulishly. “I’ve seen these boats. And I’ve cleaned them up. Rather get knocked around on a thirty-five.”

Sophia “Seawolf” Smith was one of the founding members of the Wolf Squadron. As such, despite being fifteen, she was a shareholder and not a minor one, as well as being a member of the Captain’s Board as skipper of the thirty-five-foot Worthy Endeavor. The boat had gotten beaten up by nearly six months at sea, not to mention the zombies that took it over, but it was still her boat.

“You won’t,” Fred said. “You, especially, won’t.”

Fred Burnell was the “Vessel Preparation and Assignments Officer” on the Grace Tan. The massive supply ship had an open center and rear deck. On it were, now, four “cabin cruiser” yachts on props in various stages of repair and refitting. Since all of them worked when they were brought alongside it was mostly a matter of cleaning them out.

“Things change,” Burnell said. “We’ve got crews cleaning them up, now. But we’re retiring the thirty-fives. They’re just too small and don’t have enough range.”

“So, what am I looking at?” Sophia said.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” Burnell said, smiling slightly.

“No,” Sophia said, frowning. “Sorry. Should I?”

“No,” Burnell said. “I guess seen one cast-away, seen ’em all. The Endeavor plucked me off a life raft. So let’s just say I owe you one even if you don’t know it. There’s a very nice 65' Hatteras Custom sitting out there. Not too beat up by zombies. The only ones on it were below, and we’re changing out all the below materials. Good engines, low hours… ”

“I appreciate it,” Sophia said. “Sorry for snapping your head off.”

“Not a problem,” Burnell said. “Can’t tell you how happy I was when you blew that foghorn. Oh, you’ll need two light clearance personnel and deck hands. Bigger boat.”

“I guess I need to go do some scrounging,” Sophia said. “What happens in the meantime?”

“Support for the clearance of the Iwo Jima,” Burnell said. “I think you know how that works?”

“Hopefully better than the Voyage,” Sophia said.

* * *

“Okay, okay, seriously?” Faith “Shewolf” Smith said. The thirteen-year-old had gotten her height from her father and it had kicked in young. Nearly six feet, slender and with some of the look of a female body-builder, her fine blonde hair was currently hanging limp and damp on her neck in the heat.

“You say that a lot,” Sergeant Thomas Fontana replied.

The thirty-two-year-old black Special Forces sergeant had become fond of his… well he couldn’t call her “protégé” since she’d taught him the ins and outs of close-quarters battle with infecteds. Partner was the right term but it was hard to apply to a thirteen-year-old girl, no matter how well she fought zombies.

“The middle of this ship is missing,” Faith said, pointing pointedly. “There is a great big gaping hole in the middle of this ship. Below the waterline!”

The foursome were looking, in amazement in Faith’s case, at the USS Iwo Jima, an Amphibious Assault Carrier the size of a WWII “Fleet” carrier. The combination aircraft carrier, troop ship and floating dock, while not as big as the Voyage Under Stars was really, really big. Especially from the waterline looking into its cavernous well-deck.

“It’s not missing,” Fontana said. “It can’t be missing if they never put anything there.”

“That’s the well-deck, Faith,” her father said. Steven John Smith was six foot one, with sandy blond hair and a thin, wiry, frame. Although he was the putative commander of Wolf Squadron, so designated by the US Navy no less, he did clearance as well. They still had only four hard clearance personnel and he was good at it. Besides it burnished the reputation and this “squadron” was all about force of personality. “Obviously, it’s where they pull landing craft in and out.”

“That doesn’t make it not nuts,” Faith said. “I know nuts when I see nuts. Letting water into a ship? That’s nuts.”

“The good news is the well-deck is open,” Smith said. “You don’t have to climb a boarding ladder up to the flight deck.”

“They dropped the stern gate when we abandoned ship, sir,” Lance Corporal Joshua “Hooch” Hocieniec said.

Hocieniec completed the foursome that had only recently completed clearing the cruise liner Voyage Under Stars, listed as the world’s second largest “super cruise liner.” Larger than any passenger liner in history, it was best described as a floating Disneyland and just about as damned large. While the Iwo was big, as large as a WWII aircraft carrier and with much the same look, it wasn’t the Voyage, thank God. The only larger ships on the ocean than the Voyage were supertankers, which had relatively small areas for zombies to inhabit and a supercarrier. God help them, the Hole was sort of hinting they’d like one of those cleared. Steve had flatly told them “Not until we’ve got a lot more Marines.”

Hocieniec was the only survivor of the Iwo they’d picked up so far. There were sure to be more out there but all the life rafts from the amphibious assault ship found so far contained only the dead. And the few people picked up from the Voyage who might be potential reinforcements were still in too bad a condition to assist. With any luck there would be some Marines alive on the boat. They’d found that people were awfully inventive, given the slightest chance, at staying alive.

“And, look,” Faith said, “a welcoming party.”

Zombies, not so inventive. But very tenacious. It seemed like all zombies needed was fresh water. Which would seem in short supply at sea except their concept of “fresh” was about the same as a dog’s. And if one died from the water quality, well, the survivors would just eat him or her.

Which was why there were at least thirty zombies waiting for them on the deck of a hover craft inside the ship. Which was more or less exactly where they were going to have to go. Fortunately, the stern gate was down and conditions were calm. Very calm.

The Iwo Jima had been, deliberately, “parked” in the Horse Latitudes zone of the Sargasso Sea. The Sargasso-the only sea not bounded by land-was surrounded by, but not affected by, the various currents of the North Atlantic. The Horse Latitudes were, in turn, a zone where there was always little to no wind and only very rare storms. They were the bane of early explorers of the Atlantic for the constant calm. They were called “the Horse Latitudes” because those were the latitudes where you had to eat the horses.

The combination, along with the somewhat entrapping sargassum weed that gave the region its name, meant that the assault ship was going to stay there. Except for the minor waves transmitted from distant storms, the area was pretty much flat calm, a nice change from the storm they’d left behind in Bermuda.

Since they’d gotten in contact with the Hole in Omaha, center for the Strategic Armaments Control, Wolf Squadron had found out that most Navy surface ships as well as many major commercial vessels had been similarly “parked” for the duration. The opinion of the “powers that be” prior to the Fall was that that way they’d be more or less impossible, or at least difficult, to find and they wouldn’t be blown away by hurricanes or other storms. The commercial ships had apparently gone into the normally untraveled zone to avoid the Plague and have a place where they could maintain minimal power. As far as anyone knew, none of them had been uninfected.

On the horizon there was a supertanker full of Liberian crude. The normally empty zone was, relatively, chock with big ships full of H7D3 infected.

“You know,” Faith said, musingly, “if we get this running we’re going to have to rename it the Galactica, right?”

“Ouch,” Fontana said. “Geek points galore.”

“What?” Hooch said.

“Wait,” Faith said. “Does that make the infected… wait for it… Zylons?”

“Ow!” Fontana said, snorting.

“With due respect, Staff Sergeant… ” Hocieniec said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Shall I shoot the Zylons with my Barbie Gun?” Faith said, hefting a USCG M4.

Faith did not like the M4. Calling it a Barbie Gun was an indictment not a compliment. She also didn’t like Barbie Dolls if for no other reason than her having a passing resemblance to the doll. Her main problem with the M4 came down to its round, the NATO 5.56mm.

It was hoary legend in the military that the 5.56 had been developed to wound the enemy so as to create a greater logistics burden on the enemy. The truth was that it was a light round with a high velocity, giving the M-16, the original of the M4, the ability to, ostensibly, fire accurately on fully automatic. The round also was light, permitting more of them to be carried by an infantry soldier as well as more moved logistically. And it, yes, did not “overkill” as had the previous.308 of the M14 much less the brute force.30–06 of World War II. It did just enough damage in the opinion of the technologist oriented defense department weanies and generals of the Vietnam era.

Faith’s opinion could be summed up in one line, taken from a webcomic she’d enjoyed before the Plague: “There is no overkill. There is only ‘Open fire’ and ‘Reloading.’” The first weapon she’d used for zombie clearance was a variant of the AK47 called a “Saiga” that fired 12-gauge shotgun shells. A zombie hit by a 12-gauge was not getting back up. When she ran out in a magazine and didn’t have time to reload, she would switch to her H amp;K.45 USP. Zombies hit by.45 ACP also rarely stood back up. When they had run low on 12-gauge she had switched to her custom built AK firing the original 7.62X39 round, again a decent zombie killer.

When, desperate and with one of the largest cruise liners in the world still to clear, they had started using M4s and 5.56mm salvaged from a Coast Guard cutter, her normally sunny disposition had taken a downward turn. She disliked that she had to shoot zombies four or five times to get them to lie down and be good.

“Or we could use a, you know, machine gun,” Fontana said.

“Ah,” Faith said. “There’s only like thirty of them. Back the Toy up to this tub and let’s just shoot them off one by one.”

“I thought you liked machine guns?” Fontana said.

“The whole belt fed is so last week,” Faith said. “I still think it’s a design flaw that you have to let up on the trigger.”

“We’re working on some you don’t,” Steve said.

“How?” Fontana said. “I mean, the only way to do that is coolant and… ”

“Coolant,” Steve said, nodding. “I’ve got the shop over on the Grace working on a water-cooled Browning.”

“Doing the sleeve is going to be a bitch, sir,” Hocieniec pointed out. “And that whole pump thing is… ”

“Tech has changed remarkably since World War One, Hooch,” Steve said, drily. “Think coiled copper tube and an electric pump. But that’s for later. Shoot them off with aimed fire or break out the 240? As usual, I’m more worried about bouncers than anything. If we use the 240, even with these light rolls, we’re going to have lots of bouncers.”

“We could ask the Dallas to come up on it for us again,” Faith said.

“That… Is not a bad idea,” Steve said. The subs’ hulls were made of thick, high-tensile steel, which was largely invulnerable to small arms fire. “Dallas? You monitoring as usual?”

“Wolf, Dallas.”

“Got a zombie entry problem again,” Steve said. “You up for some kinetic clearance?”

“We’re out of seven six two, Wolf. Stand by… ”

“Standing by,” Steve said.

“They floated theirs off for us,” Fontana said. “Remember?”

“If it was during clearing the Voyage, the answer is ‘It’s all a blur,’ ” Steve said.

“Wolf, bringing up the Boise. Be about twenty. You might want to clear your boats.”

“Roger,” Steve said. “Squadron Ops, you monitoring?”

“Roger, Commodore. We’ll send out the word.”

“Get them well back and to the side,” Steve said. “Five miles by preference. Stacey!”

“Moving!” Stacey Smith called. She put the Tina’s Toy under full power and pulled away from the assault ship.

“Okay,” Fontana said. “The Dallas has been in contact all along. Then the Charlotte tows the Coast Guard cutter down. Now it turns out the Boise’s out there. How many fricking fast attacks are around us?”

* * *

“Your continued buildup of nuclear vessels in this region proves that you have access to vaccine!”

General Marshall Sergei Kazimov was the acting commander of Russian Strategic Forces or, as he frequently referred to it, Soviet Strategic Forces. He had bluntly stated that he was Chairman of the Soviet Union. Also that if the “renegade Anglo-Sphere forces” did not immediately “vaccinate all his crews” he would “turn all of America’s cities to ash.”

Every time he used the term “nuclear vessels,” Frank Galloway, National Constitutional Continuity Coordinator, tried not to break into a hysterical giggle. The general had no capacity at all to pronounce the “v.”

“Mister Smith has stated, and our very few naval personnel who have gone through vaccination and quarantine have confirmed, that there are less than forty units of primer and booster in Smith’s control,” Galloway stated, again. It was always this way negotiating with the Russians. You just repeated the truth until they either gave in or the truth changed. “Our nuclear wes… vessels in the area are purely for what support they can provide to Wolf Squadron’s clearance operations… ”

“You lie!” Sergei shouted. “Wolf lies!”

“I wish he did,” Galloway said, sighing. “I wish that he could immediately begin production of the vaccine. But until he has more clearance personnel and can clear a land base with the right facilities, that’s impossible… ”

“You will provide us with the vaccine or I will blow you to hell!”

“And we shall retaliate,” Galloway said, trying not to sigh this time. “With what we have left. Which is, Sergei, far, far more than you have. You will be dead, I might be dead, there will be some radioactive wastelands that used to be infected-filled cities and what’s the point? Oh, yes, there is the point that right now, Wolf is the only chance we have to get the world back in shape…!”

* * *

“Thanks, Boise,” Steve commed.

“You’re welcome, Wolf Squadron,” the Boise’s commander replied. “Please consider us for all your future kinetic clearance needs.”

The team had rigged up while the Boise was potting zombies at long range with their MG240 and they now approached the wash deck of the assault carrier in a center-console inflatable.

Rigged up has a special meaning when zombie fighting. Troops in combat just thought they rigged up. Then there was “extreme hazard close-quarters biological clearance.”

Each of the foursome were wearing multiple layers of clothes, including fire-fighting bunker gear, respirators, helmets and so many weapons and clearance tools it would have been ludicrous if they hadn’t proven, at least once, that all of it was necessary. Not a single square inch of skin was uncovered or was in any way, shape or form “biteable.” It was hot, it was heavy and it was cumbersome. It was especially hot in the Horse Latitudes, which were well inside the tropical zone.

It also meant that, as Faith and Hooch had proven, you could be absolutely dogpiled by zombies and still keep fighting. Faith, in particular, added a knife whenever she found a good one.

“Everyone remember where we parked,” Faith said, stepping off the inflatable.

“Everyone remember to drink,” Fontana said. “And how come you get to make the first landing, again?”

“I’m the cute one,” Faith said. “You coming or not?”

“Faith, we’ve got to explain some language to you,” Fontana said.

“Oops, live one,” Faith said, as a zombie came loping down the catwalk above. She fired, missed and fired again. The second round hit but the zombie just stumbled then resumed running in their direction.

“Fucking Barbie gun…!”