Faith searched through the buttons.
“Oh,” Faith said, clicking one. “Human geography.”
“Got it,” Sophia said.
“I don’t see Canary Islands…”
“Try Spain,” Sophia said, trying not to sigh.
“Oh, yeah,” Faith said. “Spain…Canary Islands…Gomera…San Sebastian de la Gomera…about eight thousand.”
“How much ammo did we use?” Sophia asked.
She got the look again but Faith flipped over and checked the other sheet.
“Holy cow,” Faith said. “We used thirty-five thousand rounds of fifty-cal in Gomera?”
“And you guys used another nine thousand rounds of seven-six-two and six thousand of five-five-six,” Sophia pointed out. “For about eight thousand residents before the Plague.”
“I start to get Gunny’s whole thing about one shot, one kill,” Faith said, poking around the data. “I thought so. We only use an average of ten rounds to the population of a liner…Some of that, not much, was on the Bo….”
“Most of the ‘inhabitants’ of a liner are, sorry, dead,” Sophia pointed out. “And it’s real short range. But you’re on the right track. To figure out how many rounds we’re going to need for the operation…”
“How many rounds of each caliber per kill?” Faith said.
“Per population of the town before the Plague which is the only hard data we’ve got,” Sophia corrected. “And it’s different, like you said. Liners are different but the towns are different, too.”
“So…averages,” Faith said. “Figure out how many rounds we used per pre-plague citizen of the towns at each town and then figure it out for the towns and islands we’re going to take. Agh. Spreadsheets and spreadsheets…”
“But you’ve figured out what we need in terms of data, right?” Sophia said.
“Yeah,” Faith said.
“Can you write it out as an equation?” Sophia asked.
“I think so,” Faith said. “I’m not sure about the right, you know, notification or whatever. But it’s like rounds used by type versus the pre-Plague populations and then get an average?”
“Okay, what we do is we write that up and we get the subs to do it,” Sophia said.
“Again with the subs,” Faith said.
“One, they’re nukes,” Sophia said. “They’re serious math guys. This is actually too easy for them. Two, they’re bored. Three, they feel like they’re not really contributing. This does help. But you figured out what we needed in terms of information. Which is what officers are for. Okay, other supplies.”
“Seriously, we can probably scavenge for most of it,” Faith said. “We’re going to need ammo and if we’re going to do the liners, probably batteries. Food, water, fuel…there’s boats and stores.”
“Not as much fuel stores as you might think,” Sophia said. “We were having a hard time finding those in the Canaries. The tanks at the marinas were mostly dry ’cause people tanked up and ran.”
“Fuel…we just load up the Grace Tan? What’s it’s max tankage?”
“Which is pretty much the answer we’re going to have to give,” Sophia said. “Fortunately, we do have fuel here at the base. The tanks are almost topped up. Water? These islands don’t have much.”
“They reconfigured Gitmo as a disaster support base,” Faith said, grinning and diving into the server for another file. “I was talking about it with Smitty. There are diesel powered water filtration systems, big ones, big enough to supply a small town. We’ll take some of those along with us on the Grace. That gives us water. There are…five of them in a warehouse over by Grenadillo.”
“Put in a requisition for them,” Sophia said. “Okay, food, yeah, we can probably scavenge. But we need a base supply. Enough for the unit for, say, thirty days…”
CHAPTER 10
“…atoll is zombie free, mates. We’re setting up best we can. Got the gennies running anyway and we’ve got a functioning loo! What a blessing it is to sit on porcelain again! Any bloody ammo is appreciated so we can start clearing…”
“I need to admit something, sir,” Faith said as Colonel Hamilton perused the operations and logistics report.
“You got help?” Hamilton asked.
“Sophia was working on some of the same stuff, sir,” Faith said. “So we put our heads together on it. And some of the number crunching, I… delegated. I could do it, sir, with a computer at least, but I was trying to figure out what numbers had to be crunched, sir. But I figured out most of it myself, sir. And the rest was mostly Sophia asking questions. But I did get help, yes, sir.”
“That’s a lot of ‘buts,’ Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “Which is understandable. If you’d tried to figure this out yourself from first cause it would have taken you a month, I’m sure. It would have taken any second lieutenant a month. Well, most. I agree on your three initial targets. I’d even say the ‘maybes’ like St. Croix are doable if we’re given enough time. You want to take five-tons?”
“I hadn’t worked with them until we got here, sir,” Faith said. “They really are the thing for land clearance. We can probably do it with scrounged transport. But the five-tons are way better, sir. They’ve got the gun mount and ground clearance. I’ve gotten stuck on bodies more than once in the Canaries, sir. It’s not just that you’re stuck with a wave of infected coming at you. It’s… There’s a lot of really raunchy stuff about this job, sir, but spinning out on bodies is high on the list, sir.”
“Duly noted,” Hamilton said. “I’ll put it in consideration. Did you happen to give consideration to how to transport them, Lieutenant?”
“All of these islands have ferry docks, sir,” Faith said. “Some of them are smaller than others. We’d have to find, survey and man a small ferry. But even a small truck ferry could carry at least two five-tons, sir.”
“I’ll take that up with Commander Chen,” Hamilton said. “It has merit. Your estimate for ammunition consumption is, I think, low. What’s it based on?”
“The Canaries, sir,” Faith said. “We compared the population, pre-Plague, of the towns to our ammo usage and then carried it over to the pre-Plague populations of the local towns. That’s the ground combat rounds. Soph and I both worked on that as well. I took all the ammo and batteries and Soph took the other consumables.”
“The point is, we used six times as much ammo in terms of similar conditions in Iraq,” Colonel Hamilton said, looking up. “Are you saying our current forces, undertrained as they are, are that much better?”
“Uh…” Faith said, thinking about it. “Zombies don’t duck, sir?”
Colonel Hamilton regarded her evenly for a moment, looked at the spreadsheet, looked back.
“Point again taken, Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “The ROWPUs?”
“We always need more water, sir,” Faith said. “And I think that’s on the Navy side anyway, sir.”
“I am in the unusual position of being a Marine officer in charge of a Naval expedition,” Hamilton said. “So I have a similar report from, as you put, the Navy side. Did Sophia conceive the idea?”
“I…I sort of said we should take them, sir,” Faith said nervously. “I mean, they’re just sitting there, sir. Sophia asked about water ’cause it’s always a problem for the boats. I don’t really think about it since the boats supply it but she had a point.”