“What is the security situation?” Daniels asked.
“Don’t worry,” Sophia said. “My sister’s got that covered.”
“Sister?” Daniels said as the hatch popped open.
“It’s a long story,” Sophia said, sticking her head in the hatch. “Youngest Marine lieutenant in history and a pain in the ass. But she’s got killing infected down.”
There were seven cuplike blue couches arranged in two layers with aluminum foot rests at the end of each.
“Do these footrests fold down?” Sophia asked, clambering into the chamber.
One of the space-suited figures waved, then tapped his helmet.
“What?” Sophia asked, raising her hands, then realized that the previous conversation had been bounced from one of the subs. The crew could, presumably, retrans through a radio on the capsule. But when she entered, her radio was cut off. “Son of a bitch. Decker, can you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Decker replied.
“You will repeat my words to the subs,” Sophia said. “Repeat this exactly. Retrans sub. This is Seawolf. My commo is cut off in here.”
“Retrans sub, this is Seawolf, my commo is cut off in here,” Decker parroted.
“Staff Sergeant Decker will repeat.”
“Staff Sergeant Decker will repeat.”
She waited a moment for the process to be figured out.
“Is there a way to drop these footrests, over?”
“Roger. There is a latch. Slide the latch upwards while pushing upwards on the footrest,” Decker said after a moment.
She picked one of the lower couches and dropped the footrest. Then she leaned over and undid the straps.
“Decker, repeat: You can all undo your own straps…I’m going to exit the vessel and let Staff Sergeant Decker and PFC Condrey take over. Decker: Do not repeat. Get in here so I can show you how this works…”
They barely had enough room for all the stretchers. And the threesome had to more or less balance over the crew. But they finally had all of them out.
Sophia shut the hatch on the capsule and then she and Decker got the plastic back in place.
“Mr. Walker, we’ve got the plastic up and taped on this side,” Sophia said. “Need you to handle the rest.”
“Roger,” Walker said. “Check to see how much air they have left. And check the connections on their air bottles. See if ours will work.”
“I’m not sure how to even talk to them,” Sophia said. “Their radio was in the capsule.”
“Put the face of your silver suit against their visor and shout,” Walker said.
“Roger,” Sophia replied.
She bent down over one of the figures, she wasn’t sure which was who, and placed her visor on theirs.
“HOW MUCH AIR DO YOU HAVE?”
“TEN MINUTES!” the man replied. It was faint but he had a Slavic accent.
“Ten minutes, sir,” Sophia radioed.
“Roger,” Walker replied. “Since when do you call me ‘sir,’ Seawolf?”
“Since you’re in charge, sir,” Sophia said.
“Roger.”
“WILL OUR AIR BOTTLES WORK?” Sophia asked.
“NO!”
“Might as well open up, then,” Sophia shouted. “We’re as sterile as we’re going to get.”
“Talk to him,” the man said, pointing to one of the other suits.
“Hey,” Sophia shouted to the second suit. “We decontaminated the hell out of this and were careful to keep it sterile. It’s not a hospital room but it’s as good as you’re going to get. And we can’t supply oxygen. So you’re going to have to take your chances. We need you closed for the final transfer.”
“Roger,” the man said, opening his face plate and leaning over. It was apparent he couldn’t sit up. “Time to crack.”
The group tapped each other and slowly each of them opened their face plates.
“Welcome back,” Sophia shouted through her silver suit. “I know you’ve all got questions but if you could hold them until we get you to your temporary home. We fixed up a decontaminated container with as many decontaminated materials as we could find in the time we had. As soon as the canvas cover is back on we’re going to drive there. We’ll be backing onto a ship off a dock. Then you’ll need to close your suits again. We’ll get each of you out and decontaminate the outside of your suits, then get you into the container. Then you can get out of your suits. I don’t know, nobody knows, if it’s going to keep the flu out. All I can say is we’re doing our best and we had the CDC and the Hole looking in on it. We didn’t get much warning about this but, honestly, even if we had we couldn’t have done much more than this.”
The truck started and a moment later lurched into motion.
“Can you tell us what is going on?” the woman said. “How bad is it?”
“Generally people get how bad it is by my telling them I’m a fifteen-year-old ensign,” Sophia said. “My sister is thirteen and she’s a lieutenant in the Marines.”
“A lieutenant?” one of the men said with a Slavic accent. “You are joking?”
“Faith’s a bit of a badass,” Sophia said. “But it’s that bad. This is one of the few land areas that you can walk around with nothing but light arms. During the day. And we’ve been clearing it for about twenty-four hours straight. Total surface mobile manning of the U.S. Navy is less than a thousand. Total Marine Corps is fifty-three. Total known survivors, that is people that we’re actually looking at, is right at six thousand. But several thousand of those are in subs and they’re only survivors ’cause they’re uncontaminated. There are no major land areas that are infected-free. And the ‘Navy’ and ‘Marines’ and all the rest is mostly former civilians or former military who have bootstrapped. I’m an ensign and my sister’s a lieutenant ’cause we’ve been doing this right from the start. My specialty is small boat operations and rescue. Recently I’ve moved to trying to find the materials to make vaccine ’cause…I’ve got some background in bio. I hear one of you is microbiologist?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “I am. Dr. Rizwana Shelley.”
“Glad to meet you,” Sophia said. “I thought I was going to have to do it on my own.”
“You?” the guy who had ordered them to crack their suits said.
“Might as well know now,” Sophia said, grimacing. “Just before the Fall I worked in an illegal corporate lab making attenuated vaccine. In fact, that’s what you’re getting. It’s the same stuff I and my family used. Same lot even. It works. As long as it hasn’t gone bad in six months. And it was stabilized. It was made by a professional. Overseen, anyway. I did most of the work.”
“From what source?” Dr. Shelley asked carefully.
“Human,” Sophia said.
“What a terrible business,” Dr. Shelley said, shaking her head.
“Which is what we’re going to have to produce to save the subs,” Sophia said, shrugging. “If you’ve got qualms about that, well…I guess I’m going to have to do it, still.”
“We’re still adjusting to…reality,” one of the Russians said. “Although, watching every light on the planet go out was…”
“Terrible enough,” one of the men said. He had an English accent. “Truly horrible.”
“Try fighting your way out of New York when those lights went out,” Sophia said. “My family is one of the few that is intact in the world that we know of. That makes us fairly unique. You’re the only people in the world that haven’t really been here for what happened. That makes you unique. Even the sub crews had a closer look at what went down. You don’t wanna know horrible. There’s a video. Watch that and then decide how you’re going to help. Or not. Whatever. I’ve pulled over two thousand survivors over a transom or from the land. It was nearly three months after the Fall that I set foot on land and ninety percent of that time I was in command of a small boat. Which is one of the reasons they made me an ensign. I’m in command of three boats now.