“It’s not that,” Sophia said. “Just… You think Nevis is clearable?”
“Yes,” Faith said. “The towns aren’t all that big. I’m sort of worried about Zylons infiltrating behind us, but…yeah. Not even tough.”
“Bring up a spreadsheet,” Sophia said, pulling up a chair. “Now, you said St. Croix, maybe. St. Martin?”
“No damned way,” Faith said. “Or…it looks like it would just take a hell of a long time and ammo…”
“Right, you got population and area of those islands…?”
“I hate you, Sis,” Faith said about thirty minutes later. “I really do.”
The answer lay in the combination of population density and area. Even with an intensely populated island, which none of them were, it was possible to clear one if the area of the island wasn’t too great and the building structures weren’t overlarge. Really it was just a matter of finding the population density and maximum population. Which boiled down to “Nevis, yes, St. Martin, no.” Various other islands fell into similar categories with a few in the “maybe” column.
“I hate you, too, Faith,” Sophia said, smiling. “Want the really bad part?”
“What?” Faith asked.
“Hang on…” Sophia said, going to the main menu. A couple of seconds later a video screen came up. “Hi, COB!”
“Hello, Ensign Smith,” the COB of the Alexandria replied. “Am I finally getting a chance to meet your sister?”
“That you are, COB,” Sophia said. “Lieutenant Faith Smith, Chief Petty Officer James LeRoy, Chief of Boat of the Alexandria.”
“Pleasure to meet with you, Chief,” Faith said, nodding at the video screen.
“Same to you, Lieutenant,” the troll-like chief said, his face creaking into what might have been a smile. “You and your sister have been real morale boosters when we needed it. So to what do I owe the pleasure, ma’ams?”
“Your guys got some time on their hands?” Sophia asked.
“Too much,” LeRoy replied.
“Faith has been assigned to determine better and worse targets for possible clearance in Eastern Caribbean. We’ve come up with a matrix of size and population density with known max/mins. Think your guys could refine it down a bit for us?”
“Cheating on your homework, again, Ensign?” LeRoy said, smiling.
“Cross-check, Chief,” Sophia said. “And something for your guys to do. Besides, we’re officers. We’re supposed to buff our nails while enlisted do all the work.”
“Shoot the rough over,” the chief said, clearly trying not to break his expression. “I’ll make sure you’re on the right track, ma’am.”
“Thanks, Chief,” Sophia said, closing the connection.
“You cheat?” Faith asked.
“If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’,” Sophia said. “The point, Sis, is first let computers do as much of the work for you as you can get them to do, and don’t hesitate to reach out to people who a.) have time on their hands and b.) are going to be much better than either of us at doing this. You need to know how to do it, don’t get me wrong. But wasting your time crunching numbers that the sub crews can crunch isn’t, in fact, what an officer is supposed to be doing with her time. You figured out, basically, what is and is not doable. The model. Nevis is doable, St. Martin isn’t. That’s what you know and they don’t and you put it in a form that gives them an outline. Now let them work inside those parameters to pick out possible targets and you refine that down. Because the next step is figuring out how much ammo and materials we’re going to need.”
“Aaagh,” Faith said, clutching her head. “I hate logistics! No, I take it back. If you’ve got enough ammo, you’re good. You just steal the rest.”
“Oh, good God, Sis,” Sophia said. “It’s not that hard.”
“Sophia,” Faith said carefully. “Seriously. First of all, you’ve always been the brain. I admit that, okay. Just like you’d admit I can kick your ass, right?”
“You’ve done it enough times,” Sophia said, frowning.
“Second, you were in high school. I was barely working with fractions and they still give me a headache.”
“You want to be an officer or not?” Sophia asked. “Serious question.”
Faith thought about it for a long few seconds.
“Yes,” Faith said. “I’d sort of like to be a grunt and there’s… Yes. So I guess you’re saying I’ve got to get smarter?”
“Just willing to learn, Faith,” Sophia said. “I know you get headaches with this stuff. Pain is…”
“Weakness leaving the body,” Faith said. “So how do we figure out how much stuff we need?”
“Fortunately, we have the Canaries to draw on as an example,” Sophia said, going into the server and hunting through files. “This is it. This is all the ammo and material we used in the Canaries by operation. Okay, I’m not going to do this for you. How do we use this stuff to figure out how much we’re going to need?”
Faith just looked at her for a second. Sophia hated that look.
“Is this a word problem?” Faith said. “I hate word problems.”
“Yes, this is a word problem,” Sophia said, trying not to sigh. “Life is a word problem. Okay, okay, hint. How big is Charlestown?”
“You mean in Nevis?” Faith said, starting to look it up then pausing. “Oh, Walker knew that. Fifteen hundred or so. How did he know that, you know?”
“Just… Let’s skip the subject of Walker for right now,” Sophia said uncomfortably. “Okay, fifteen hundred. What was the population of, say, San Sebastian de la Gomera?”
“I have no idea,” Faith said.
“Faith, I’m not going to hold your hand the whole time,” Sophia said. “Try to think.”
“I don’t remember ever seeing it,” Faith said.
“So…”
“I don’t have an internet to look it up, Sophia!” Faith snapped. “You know where I can get an atlas that would have it?”
“Oh, good God, Faith!” Sophia said. “Do you mean you haven’t been accessing the Hole?”
“We can access the Hole?” Faith asked.
“They’ve got a massive database which is accessible to all military personnel,” Sophia said, shaking her head. “I mean, a bunch of it’s classified of course… Okay, type in your network password….”
“Don’t look,” Faith said, shifting her shoulder. She slowly typed in a long password.
“Maybe you should go for enlisted,” Sophia said, shaking her head.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Faith snapped.
“‘I love Gregory Januscheitis’ is not what you call the most secure password,” Sophia said. “Not to mention kind of being an issue since you’re an officer and he’s enlisted.”
“Hah, if that’s all you know!” Faith said. “It’s got a 1 for the I and two dashes.”
“How in the hell did we come from the same parents?” Sophia asked. “I swear you have to be adopted. Okay, click on the link that says… What?”
“What?” Faith said, looking at a series of named buttons.
“What are we looking for?” Sophia asked.
“I don’t…Wait…Population of…Gomera.”
“Pre-Plague, mind you, although…I wonder if the secure areas might have infected populations, that would be useful…So, what is population data in terms of those icons?”