To Sail a Darkling Sea

CHAPTER 20

“Okay,” Sophia said. “Don’t think we’re clearing this one.”

The town of El Chorillo was not at water line. The marina was at the waterline. The town was on top of a two hundred foot bluff. Most of it. The rest was condominiums built into the bluff in racks up the to what was a small mountain. There was a large public park right at the waterline behind a massive rock breakwater.

“Senorita,” Chen radioed. “Drive into the marina and check it out. All I see is sailboats.”

“Roger,” Sophia said, engaging the motor on slow. “Paula. Get up forward and check the water.”

“Roger,” Paula said.

“Check the water?” Olga said. She’d changed into a bathing suit. The girl was about covered in fine scars including one on her chest that didn’t look like a surgery scar. More like a knife. Sophia had decided she wasn’t going to ask.

“There was a sunken boat in the harbor at La Playa,” Sophia said, entering the marina carefully. “Nobody noticed it until the last day and thank goodness nobody hit it. But we’re getting extra careful. There’s no real channel here. That shouldn’t be an issue. Hopefully.”

“All clear so far,” Paula called.

From the entrance, Sophia could make the same determination. There were some off-shore power boats, though. And the usual zombies. Most of them were in shadow, asleep. But she counted at least six in view. When you saw six, you knew there were more like two dozen. Most of the sailboat cabins were open. They’d pop up like fleas if she cranked the radio.

“No really ocean capable yachts,” she radioed. “I mean, thirty-fives, but that’s it. There are some big Bayliner kind of boats. Is that what we’re looking for, over?”

“Do they look hell on wheels fast, over?”

“Negative,” Sophia said. “Thirty maybe thirty-five knots.”

“I’d say this is a bust.”

“Roger,” Sophia said, backing and filling in the turning basin. “Headed back out.”

“Division, Guppy.”

“Go, Gup.”

“We going to shoot ’em up, over?”

“Negative. We’re under time to find boats and such. Only where there’s a good salvage target.”

“Okay, but you see the survivors, over?”

“Survivors?” Olga said, sitting up and shading her eyes.

“Top of the cliff. Set of condos. Waving a sheet. Bunch of ’em. Over.”

“Shit,” Sophia said, looking up. “Son of a bitch.”

The condo had ropes hanging from several of the balconies as well as growing plants. There was exterior piping that looked as if it was used for collecting rainwater. Several groups of people were trying to attract their attention. There were quite a few survivors. At least thirty.

“Boise, you got your periscope up, over?”

“Roger, LitClearOne. We confirm multiple survivors.”

“Can you get up with Squadron and retrans the video? I’m pretty sure this is not a security team objective, over.”

“Stand by.”

“We could do this,” Olga said. “We can’t just leave them!”

“Olga,” Sophia said. “You can shoot. You had to qualify for the position. That’s different than fighting as part of a fire team up to the condos then clearing those. Hang on. Division, going noise hot to demonstrate the issue to my new security people.”

Sophia had been barely puttering along. The Senorita’s exhaust was below the waterline and she didn’t make much noise. Now she turned on the stereo and cranked it.

As piano opening of “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner’ boomed across the marina, zombies started pouring from everywhere. Sure enough, they’d been sleeping in the sailboats. Now they were howling. And their howling started to set off every zombie in the town. It was apparent that there were at least hundreds if not thousands.

“Oh,” Olga said, looking around.

“His comrades fought beside him,” Sophia sang as she puttered over to the public park. There was a line of buoys marking a “no crossing” zone and she puttered right up by it then dropped her anchor. “But of all the Thompson gunners, Roland was the best… ”

“So the CIA decided, they wanted Roland dead… ” Olga sang in harmony. She’d gone below and gotten her M4 while the boat was being repositioned. “Permission to do some target practice, Captain?” she sang in time to the song.

“Division, doing some catenary target practice,” Sophia said.

“Roger, Senorita.”

* * *

“Jeepers,” the skipper of the Boise said. “COB, I’m defining this as a morale boost video. Retrans to the rest of the boats.”

“On that, sir,” the Chief of Boat said. “Bella Senoritas indeed. Damn those are some fine legs.”

“You betcha.”

* * *

“It is hard to hit them with a moving boat,” Olga said. She was laid out in the prone position on the sundeck forward. “Or are they not noticing the 5.56? There is not much rocking.”

“Each,” Sophia said. “Both. Takes a lot of practice.” They’d both put on hearing protection.

One of the group of zombies lined up on the waterfront finally stumbled over and fell. When it did, the group fell on it, ripping at it with their teeth.

“Gross,” Olga said, continuing to fire.

Seagulls clustered around, trying to find a way through the infected. Which drew more infected. Some of them waded out into the water. Then one went under and the water turned red. The others didn’t seem to notice. They just stopped, waving their arms angrily, slapping the water and howling, when they were low-chest deep. Another went under. Then another.

“Swimming is contra indicated,” Paula shouted. She’d put in earplugs.

“Are those two screwing?” Olga asked.

Sophia picked up a pair of binos and looked through them.

“Yup,” she said, lowering the binos. “They do that when there are these feeding frenzies. They stay away from each other till there’s a source of food like this. Then they swarm and tussle over it. Sometimes they start screwing in the middle of the tussle. You’ll see a male run down a female, or sometimes a smaller male, and try to eat it and screw it at the same time. Although usually it’s screw then eat.”

“Gross,” Olga said, taking another shot.

“Don’t get Faith started on it,” Sophia said. “A couple of times when she’s been in scrums, the males realize she’s female. There’s no way to get through on her gear but she still doesn’t like it.”

“What do you do?” Olga asked. “I mean, if you’re in a… what was the word?”

“Scrum,” Sophia said. “Basically, if you’re at the bottom of the dog pile. There’s a reason that Faith carries a lot of knives. Apparently they get less romantic when you cut their parts off.”

“Lots of knives,” Olga said. “Got it.”

“Yes, you did,” Sophia said. “Oh, you meant the knives. But you hit that last one.”

“I was aiming for the one next to him,” Olga said. “This is hard.”

“Senorita, Division.”

“Division, Senorita,” Sophia answered in a Spanish accent. “Aqui, over.”

“Bringing up the gunboats. Squadron is punching down a Marine team. We’re to do the zombie boogie, primary clearance at dawn. Sending DivTwo down to the next cluster to check it out.”

“Roger, Division.”

“I wonder which Marines they’re sending,” Paula said.

“Three guesses,” Sophia said. “And Hope and Charity were unavailable.”

“Zombie boogie?” Olga asked.

“We crank the music all night,” Sophia said. “Have a party. Lots of lights.”

“Flares,” Paula said. “Fireworks if we’ve got ’em.”

“Then in the morning, well, party’s over, we politely ask any zombies who have turned up to lie down, be good zombies and enjoy their afterlife.”

“Now is when I would like to be on the gunboats,” Olga said as the boats began to jockey into position. “If I went over there and asked them nicely, do you think they would let me play with their big guns.”

“I’m sure they’d let you play with anything you’d like,” Sophia said. “You can probably stop by during the party.”

“So you’re talking about a real party,” Olga said, looking over at her.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Sophia said. “Booze, snacks, trying to carry on a conversation over the music cranked up to atomic level. There’s usually not nudity or anything. And since we’re as close as you get to the cops, you don’t have to worry about them breaking it up. But I need to get the boat turned around, now that the gunboats are in position. Have to have the speakers facing the beach, you know?”

Olga watched as the crews got the.50s set up and loaded. Then they opened fire.

The big bullets smashed the crowd of infected into zombie goo in seconds. The seagulls were properly thankful.

So were the people up on the cliff. They were waving fit to die. Olga could see that some of them were crying. Then someone apparently found some spray-paint and started waving a badly painted american flag. The stars were black dots but it was the thought that counted.

Olga waved to the group then realized she really should have put on some sunscreen.

* * *

“Division One. Captain’s call, Senorita, Nineteen hundred hours.”

“Paula, we’ll need to lay out some of the special stores.”

“On it, Captain.”

* * *

“Why am I not surprised,” Sophia said, drily, as Faith stepped onto the wash deck.

“Shewolf… Arriving… ” Olga intoned over the intercom.

“Oh, good God, sis,” Faith said, laughing. “You’re really going over the top, huh?”

“It’s a captain’s call,” Sophia said. “Should we be less than formal? I didn’t have a bosun’s whistle. I looked for a wave file on my computer, but the closest I could find was something from Star Trek. And it ain’t, actually, a bosun’s whistle. Now get out of the way, Lieutenant, my boss is coming alongside.”

“LitDivOne, Arriving… ”

“Hello Seaman Recruit Zelenova,” Chen said, waving at the girl on the flying bridge. She had at least donned shorts and T-shirt for the “captain’s call.” “Is she shooting for… ”

“Played Starcraft, have you, sir?” Sophia said, laughing. “Hey, Olga, give ’em the Valkyrie thing… ”

“ ‘Valkyrie … prepared,’ ” Olga intoned.

“Oh,” Chen said, bending over as if punched. “That accent. That’s not even Russian. It’s German or Swedish or something.”

“She used to do voice acting,” Sophia said. “And turns out she’s Ukrainian. Sort of. So, now that you’re here, sir… ”

“Let’s get started,” Chen said. “After you, Lieutenant.”

* * *

“One of the reasons to have this here is that Lieutenant Smith has the big plasma,” Chen said. The music was being pumped to the gunboats, which had been refitted with big speakers and was turned down on the Senorita so they could discuss the plan. “And we have actual intel this time.”

He’d already connected a laptop to the port on the TV and now brought up a video file. It showed the complex from a high, sideways angle. He froze it as it showed a group on the roof then zoomed in several times until their faces were clearly visible.

“Is this Predator, sir?” Sophia asked.

“Satellite,” Chen answered, drily. “Turns out it’s pretty detailed. But that’s not all. This is a recent satellite pass. They’re not moving them for stuff but they sweep constantly and they happened to be in the area. You’ve got no idea how big this video file is. Nearly a terabyte.”

He zoomed out until the roof-top was barely visible the pointed with his cursor and zoomed in again.

“There are rooftops, like this one, with plantings on them, here, here, here, here, here and here. Also in this small, unnamed town over to the side, here. There are two there and they have… ” he said, zooming in. “Catwalks between their buildings. This one should be easy. We’ll pull out the people with the security teams from DivTwo. The main town,” he said, zooming back, “is another issue. The Avenue De Colon follows the water line for about a kilometer then bends back up the hill and joins the Calle Juan Sebastien Alcano. Then about another kilometer to the first site. The entrances to the primary building seem to be on top. They are blocked to prevent entry of infected. There are three buildings that have survivors and they are all connected on top. There are two additional buildings nearby and, well, several in the interior. It is the determination of command that those cannot be cleared at this time absent this being an easier clearance than it looks. Lieutenant Smith… Shewolf, any thoughts?”

“I saw the sub video when we got punched down here, sir,” Faith said. “This is bigger but not a lot. All I’ve got is the obvious. Land, grab some wheels, roll hot to the door, extract the survivors and roll back, sir. The one thing I’ve got is… Okay, couple things. You know, sir, and I know that with these screwy, twisty roads… Infected aren’t that smart, sir. Most of them are going to get trapped up on the cliffs trying to go straight for the lights. So we’re not going to get most of them down on the beach, sir.”

“Yes, I do realize that,” Chen said. “It’s one of the reasons that I contacted Squadron and asked for support.”

“And as we move along and engage, it’s going to attract more of them,” Faith said, taking a deep breath in thought. “We’re going to have to create fall-back points, move a team forward, have them attract them, bring them back to the defense points and engage. Then do it again. It’s going to be slow, sir.”

“If I may, sir,” Sophia said.

“Seawolf,” Chen said.

“Go straight, sis,” Sophia said. She took the cursor and went straight from the beach to the first set of survivors.

“That’s a two hundred foot cliff, Lieutenant,” Chen pointed out.

“No, sir,” Sophia said. “With respect. It’s a hundred and fifty feet of condo, a fifty-foot cliff and more condo, sir. The gunboats with security teams cover infiltrators down Avenue De Colon. Marines clear this condo complex,” she said, pointing to one at water level. “Then they send up an assault ladder from the roof, go up and clear that complex, if it has infected internal, then extract the survivors down. It probably has internal infected. Otherwise they wouldn’t be getting around with ropes on the exterior balconies, sir. But going straight means your supply and extraction line has less sides to get hit by the infected. Sir.”

“You just like that one cause you like to climb,” Faith said. “That’s your sort of thing.”

“But does it make sense to you, Shewolf?” Chen asked.

“Unfortunately, yes, sir,” Faith said with a sigh. “We’ll probably need support getting them down the ladders, though. And it doesn’t cover extracting the other refugees. But… Gimme a moment, please.”

She zoomed the image in and out then hunted around on it.

“Okay,” she said, finally. “This is still going to take at least all day. Maybe more. We go up the cliff. Ugh. Then we put in machine-gun points here, and here,” she said, marking two points on one of the condos. “That will give us coverage down this road here. Then we cross, go up this condo, which doesn’t have survivors but is the shortest distance, cut over to this one, which does have survivors, and extract them. Pretty much the same with this one to the left. Sir, we’re going to need all your ground capable security personnel to man these points and help extract survivors, sir. I’d recommend that the extraction in the second village be held until we complete this one, sir.”

“I’d agree with that, sir,” Lieutenant JG Elizabeth Paris said. The instant Lieutenant had been the sole survivor of her family on a sailboat. She’d been into sailing and boating since childhood, knew small boats and the ocean and was still sane despite her experiences. Now she was in charge of three.

“Concur,” Chen said. “I will manage the overall operation. Lieutenant Smith, Shewolf, will be in charge of the Marine force and primary clearance. Lieutenant Smith, Seawolf, will be in charge of the forward security teams and extraction. Lieutenant JG Paris, will be in charge of over the water extraction and the local security teams for that. Hand-off will be at the water. Seawolf will cover Avenue de Colon. Callsigns will be Team Shewolf, Team Seawolf, Team Paris. All clear?”

“Clear, sir,” Sophia said.

“Let’s start figuring out the teams and detailing it out as well as we can,” Chen said. “After all, we’ve only got all night… ”

* * *

“Ahem,” Olga said as the captains were preparing to depart. “Lieutenant Chen, sir?”

“Yes, Seaman Recruit Zelenova?” Chen said, formally.

“Since there is nothing to do for a while, would it be okay if I accompanied you to the Wet Debt? I was wondering if I could play with your big guns. The Marines only gave me little guns and I’m longing for some big guns.”

“We usually fire in the morning… Seaman Recruit,” Chen said, rolling his tongue around in his cheek. He knew he was being played but sometimes being played wasn’t all that bad…

“Can’t I just… stroke the trigger on your guns a little, sir?” Olga said, coquettishly. “I really like to fire off big guns in the dark. Maybe with a little light… ”

“Sir, if I might suggest you just give in on this one?” Sophia said. “She’s really into big… She likes weapons, sir. And there’s no real issue with firing off some of the BMGs at night. The zombies don’t care. Sir.”

“All aboard, Seaman Recruit.”

“I just love being an Recruit,” Olga said, clapping her hands girlishly. “I like being trained. On the way over, perhaps you can teach me something about Seamen, sir… ”

* * *

“Ooooh,” Olga said, stroking the breach of the Browning machine gun. Her eyes were closed and she was writhing in time to the stroking. “Ooooh, ooooh… ”

“You wanna… ” Mcgarity said, trying to keep some professional demeanor. “You wanna… ” He finally just started laughing.

“I think I need some alone time… ” Olga panted.

“You need some alone time?” Rusty said. “What about us?”

“I dunno big boy,” Olga said in a perfect Mae West voice. “Is that a roll of silver dollars in your pocket or are you just glad to meet me?”

“So… ” Mcgarity said. “You wanna blow off a few rounds on the big gun?”

“I’m not sure I can get my mouth arou… Oh, you mean fire it?” she asked. “That would be swell!”

* * *

“Where’d you find her?” Skipper Poole of the Noby Dick asked.

“She was one of the chicks on the Russian yacht,” Chen said, sipping a beer. They were up on the flying bridge of the fishing boat watching the team prepare to fire. Okay, watching Olga prepare to fire.

“She’s a pistol… ”

* * *

Anarchy went through the procedures for arming and firing an M2A1 BMG Mod1 while Rusty opened up the battle box and got it loaded. The battle box was a customized water proof rounds case produced on the Grace Tan that held ten thousand rounds of linked ball. One of the reasons to use the fishing boats as gunboats, besides hard points, was that they could handle the weight of all the rounds.

When they’d all donned hearing protection and the gun was ready, Olga let loose a five round burst at the dimly visible cluster of infected on the shore. Most of the rounds were high but she didn’t seem to care.

“Oooh!” she said. She fired another, longer, burst. That one was on target. “Mmmm… ” she moaned. She held down the trigger…

“Oh, God! Oh, God! Yes, yes, yes! God YES, YES, YES, OH GOD, OH GOD, OH GAAAAAA… ”

She stopped firing when all the infected were clearly down.

“Oh,” she moaned. “I need a cigarette.”

“Seaman Recruit Zelenova?” Chen called from the bridge. “A moment of your time?”

* * *

When Olga got up there, Chen gestured with his chin for Poole to find business elsewhere and patted the vacated seat.

“Sit, Seaman Recruit,” Chen said. “You said you liked to be trained. Time for some training.”

“Of course, sir,” Olga said, throatily.

“That would be ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ ” Chen said. “I enjoyed, as any heterosexual male would, your little display. But this is not play time. This is professional time. Can you distinguish the difference?”

“Yes, sir,” Olga said. She’d dropped the accent.

“The display was more or less what I expected,” Chen said. “Which I didn’t mind. It was good for morale. All good. But tomorrow, you’re going to be over there,” he said, gesturing with his beer bottle to the shore. “With a bunch of other people. With guns. Surrounded by infected. Trying to do a very demanding and stressful job. People will be barking orders. Some of them conflicting. Things will go wrong. Problems will have to be solved on the fly. Even if things go wrong, people will have to stay focused. They cannot, absolute can not, be focused on Seaman Recruit Olga Zelenova and her shapely ass and legs. Which means that Seaman Recruit Olga Zelenova has to be a non-entity. Just someone to be given orders and obey them to the best of her ability without being Olga the Great and Sexual. The question, SA Zelenova, is can you do that? Because if you cannot, you need to be back on the boats, not on the land.”

“I can dial it down, sir,” Olga said. “I can even turn it off without… turning people off, sir. Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Chen said. “I hope you’re right. Because Petty Officer Mcgarity will be your boss tomorrow. And I need him thinking about the mission, not how he can convince you to get in a little quicky in an unoccupied condo. Cause sure as God made little green apples, the shit will hit the fan right when he’s thinking about it. And, Seaman Recruit, if you actually do bunk off for a little bunk time, or wall time or floor time, I will put both of you off these boats so fast it will make little blue Cherenkov radiation trails.”