I replied, “Its Sa-man-ski sir, I’m the one you’re looking for.”
He replied, “I’m the skipper, Commander Owen. This is Lieutenant Simpson, commander of our Marine detachment,” he gestured towards the tall dark skinned woman in Marine camo to his right, “and this is Command Master Chief Aquia, my senior enlisted man.” He said gesturing to the big, older sailor on his left. “Chief, detail someone to show these men their bunks and the mess deck. Mr. Szimanski, will come with me for the mission briefing.”
I followed him through a quick acting watertight door and down a series of mostly empty corridors, then up some ladders into the superstructure to his cabin. He personally delivered the briefing to the three of us, me the chief, and the marine officer, while we sat on his couch.
“This ship was designed to escort carrier battle groups with missiles and a crew of 400. Today, counting the Marines we have around half that many crew on board, and a fraction of the missiles we should carry. We spent most of our time before the end of the world patrolling the Indian Ocean for pirates. Since the plague hit we have shot it out with the Chinese Navy near the west coast of Panama and sailed around the Horn. Recently we have been patrolling the East Coast on the lookout for anti-American forces, especially ones using watercraft, and supporting littoral operation like this one. The Navy needs a port somewhere on the East Coast for the fleet to use. Your team will scout out port facilities on the Patapsco River as far north as Baltimore to see if a usable facility is available in our sector. The other irregulars will be scouting other facilities. You will receive support from this ship and its embedded Marines.”
He went on to discuss the details of the operation before letting me rejoin my team on the mess deck. Hot food, the thing I was looking forward to most on this mission, next to a hot shower. My only disappointment was that the mess steward didn’t have any pretzels on board. Well, to be perfectly honest the thing I was looking most forward to were the clean, showered, female sailors (female Marines scare me).
The rest of the team was in our berthing compartment. William, my wingman on this “operation,” and I had just sat down next to a group of presumably showered ladysailors and started to introduce ourselves. I had tried using Ethan as my wingman in the past, but on more than one occasion he introduced himself as an amateur gynecologist.
Just then the chief came over to us and said, “We just spotted some survivors on the Eastern Shore, they don’t seem hostile. Skipper wants to know if your team wants to accompany the devil dogs when they make contact.”
“Sure,” I said. “We’ll be on deck in 15 minutes after we are geared up.”
“RHIBs are on the Starboard side,” he said.
“Ribs? I don’t see any barbeque,” William asked.
“It stands for rigid hulled inflatable boats” chief informed him contemptuously. “They’re on the top deck, right hand side you lubber.”
We walked down a passageway to the empty berthing compartment that had been made available exclusively to the Warthogs in order tell the team to grab our gear. The guys were joking among themselves; I was contemplating the upcoming mission and our equipment. I had yet to brief the team; there hadn’t been time for it yet.
The seven of us were not exactly the best equipped unit. Task Force Raven did not have access to the kind of stuff that I heard was available elsewhere, and us irregulars did not have first pick. We mostly scavenged and traded for our stuff rather than wait and pray that we would be issued the good stuff.
I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, a ball cap, and running shoes instead of boots. I had a MOLLE vest that was actually pretty high end compared to most of our gear. Ethan and William, who were animatedly discussing the pros and cons of knee pads, were dressed much the same as me. Each had an AR-15, 9mm pistol, and crowbar where I had a Beretta Storm 9mm carbine, 1911a1 .45 pistol, and a machete. I’m 6ft even, 170lbs and they were each taller and broader than that, but I was faster.
William was a shade of tan no one else in the family could ever achieve, curse our northern European heritage. He was only 16, which may have made him the youngest person fighting for the army. I heard rear echelon positions accepted people younger than him, but I don’t think any combat units did. William was also our designated marksman with his scoped AR. He didn’t always hit the target, but he was more accurate than any of us.
Ethan had a Mohawk like the 101st used to wear, he was the team medic. He had been training to join the Air Force Pararescue Jumpers, but the end of the world prevented him from ever joining up. Even so he had the most medical experience on the team. He didn’t always apply the Band-Aid on the right spot, but he stopped the blood flow better than the rest of us.
In the bunk across from me, quietly checking his gear was Corporal Walls. He had been one of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children once, but when all this had started he was in the Maryland Defense Force. He was one of the few survivors from that group, and quite contrary to the cliché he was happy to have survived when the rest of his unit made their last stand. The gear he had on made him look like he belonged in Nam, an M1 carbine, .45 colt, Kabar, E-tool, web gear, a butt pack, and OD BDUs. He had the stuff from reenacting, who the hell reenacts the Vietnam War? Walls was our communication guy and had to carry the one radio we had. He was the only one who knew enough terminology to reliably get us support on mission.
The only one of us truly at home aboard ship was Baublitz. He was a Damage Controlman in the Coast Guard. Tall and skinny, he was our team’s version of MacGyver. He carried a tool bag in addition to his own AR, and with them he could fix anything we needed. He spoke with a nasally south-Baltimore drawl and almost never stopped talking. At the moment he was talking at Bull, who probably wasn’t paying attention.
Bull was already suited up and was doing a set of pushups between the rows of bunks. He was something of an enigma. He was a big muscular guy, with a little too much paunch for someone who had been surviving the apocalypse. He had just wandered up to the FOB a couple of missions ago and joined up. He didn’t talk much about his past, or anything else for that matter, but he was proficient enough and we were short enough on manpower that we kept him around. Bull was from Canada, but what he was doing this far south I don’t know; I thought Canada was making out okay, not as well as England, but not as bad as most places. I liked to make up back-story for Bull. My current line of thought was that he was a mercenary of some sort, but he did this for fun, not compensation, at least that must be why he hadn’t given me a bill yet. He carried a silenced MP5, fire ax, and 9mm pistol. He was usually on point when we were trying to be stealthy.
The last member of the team was Markus; he was on the other side of the compartment practice trusting his bayonet. Markus was crazy, he had a girl in every blue zone, and attractive ones too, ones who I would have thought were out of his league. He genuinely thought he was a reincarnated Roman Legionary. He carried one of those old trench shotguns that actually had a bayonet lug; complete with an old 2ft. bayonet which he used quite often. His other weapon was an actual gladius. Like I said dude is crazy, great at close quarters stuff, but still crazy. How the hell does he get so many women? I tried to take him as a wingman before, but he always ended up with every girl we hit on, sometimes more than one at once.
Chapter 5
We got in one RHIB, with a couple of navy guys. Lt. Simpson and two squads of Marines were already in the water in the other boat.
Markus scratched his crotch and looked at Baublitz who was talking at Bull about something he had recently made on a lathe. Bull clearly wasn’t interested so Markus interrupted. “Man my dick itches.”