“Good plan, Chief,” Bowman said. “Make it so.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Schmidt replied. “You might want to explain it to the captains, though.”
“That wasn’t a bad set-up,” Bowman said, circling in close to the rock.
The buildings were part of a resort perched on a prominence called “Eden Rock.” The nearly circular rock, essentially a mini-island, reared up out of the shallow water surrounding it between ten and fifteen feet on the water side, then sloped down to a short stretch of sand and rock at near water line that connected it to the rest of the island. At that point, the survivors had cobbled together a series of wood and chain-link barriers. The water spouts of the buildings were connected to jury-rigged cisterns for water. Fish and even lobster had been available by fishing off the rock or venturing out in one of the kayaks.
“From what your crews say, one of the better,” Serge Lamar said.
The former chef had worked at the Eden Rock Hotel and had, like most survivors, fallen back on food stores immediately. There hadn’t, apparently, been many visitors at the resort when the Plague broke out or they had gone home while air-travel was available. All the survivors had been workers at the hotel.
“Did you have many turn?” Bowman asked. “Although if you don’t want to talk about it I understand. What happened in the compartment, stays in the compartment.”
“We had some,” Lamar said, shrugging. “We had to put them outside. Most…did not survive long. We tried not to joke about ‘throwing them off the island’ but just before the plague they were filming a Survivor episode here. The joke was too obvious however black, no?”
“I suppose it’s better than most alternatives,” Bowman said. “I was the compartment’s official strangler.”
“Oh,” Lamar said. “I believe the term for that in English is the same as French. A non sequitur.”
“It’s become sort of a…mixed blessing,” Bowman said, turning the Zodiac back out to the channel. “Someone in each compartment or lifeboat had to do it. While nobody liked it… The people who were able tended to also be the ones who ended up running the compartment. Which means most of the captains of these boats were the official stranglers. Because the sort of person who could do that, even if they hated it, are the sort of people who can run a boat. If for no other reason than at a certain point everyone is fully aware that you’re not going to take any more shit.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lamar said. “Would it be giving you shit to ask if we could pick up one of the lobster traps?”
“Not at all,” Bowman said. “I could do with some lobster for supper. Where?”
“You sure you can get this in there, Chief?” Ensign Gary Poole asked as the chief carefully negotiated the Noby Dick through the channel.
“She’s a tight one, that’s for sure, sir,” Chief Schmidt said. “That’s why I chose your boat to go first, sir. Get ready, we’re probably going to grind on the catamaran.”
“Oh, joy,” Poole said as there was a scraping sound from underneath the boat. “You’re going to get me the same reputation as Buckley, Chief!”
“Think of it as a quicky way to clean off your hull, sir,” Chief Schmidt said as they cleared the worst part of the channel. “Your boat, sir. I need to go get the Guppy…”
“Permission to speak, ma’am?” PFC Jesse Summers said as the platoon awaited the go order. There were seven Zodiacs filled with heavily armed Marines idling just off the point of Gustavia peninsula.
Faith was sitting in the front of the lead Zodiac in a full lotus position despite her gear, her eyes closed, and appeared to be meditating. The iPod buds in her ears were emitting a pulsing beat that could be heard over the putter of the idling motor.
“Speak,” Faith said, loudly.
It was finally done. All the op orders had been written, issued, re-written, re-issued, lather, rinse, repeat. The platoon had gone over a map table of the upcoming landing. Everybody had been shown the primary and secondary routes to the objectives. Probable infected routes of attack had been analyzed, spun, folded and mutilated. Fire objectives and primary defense points had been defined, designated and resignated.
Now all that was left was killing zombies. But the final, final, really final, no, seriously, this is the absolutely last, frago had just taken it out of her. She could not even muster interest in rescuing people. They were probably French, after all. And her dad was already having a hard time with the French collective in the squadron. And all the people at the police station looked to be girls. There was no fun to rescuing girls. Cute guys, maybe. Girls not so much.
“May I ask what you’re doing, ma’am?” Summers said.
“Centering my aggression,” Faith said.
The song changed and she glanced at her watch. A few seconds later, the gunboats opened fire. She could hear it even over the pounding music in her earbuds.
“That’s our cue,” she said, holding her finger over her head. She made a circling motion then pointed at the shore. The Zodiac started moving forward, gaining speed quickly. “Once upon a night we’ll wake to the carnival of life…LOCK AND LOAD!”
She slid out her left earbud and slid in her radio bud, seating it hard to ensure it stayed. She knew she should use cans, full headphones that slid under her helmet. But the hell if she was going into battle without her tunes.
“And you keep your muzzle up in a boat, PFC,” Faith said, pointing Summers’s muzzle skywards. “That way you don’t shoot a hooole in the bot-tom.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Summers said.
“First Platoon, do you require fire support, over?”
“Better over than on,” Faith muttered, then keyed the radio. “Negative. Position is currently clear.”
“Ish,” she added as an infected loped into sight from around the corner. She switched frequencies without thinking about it. “Gunny, can you bag that one?”
There was a shot from the gunny’s boat and the infected dropped from a headshot.
“Show-off,” she said as they arrived at the jetty. She stepped off the Zodiac and waved for the rest of the team to pass her. God knew she didn’t want most of them behind her.
She and the gunny were in the lead and center boats. But one of the “revisions” to the op-order had subtly moved the teams that were “Iwo heavy” to the outside of the formation. The flanks were where infected were most likely to leak through and the reality was that the Iwo Marines were just steadier.
Colonel Hamilton had finally come to the conclusion that was the case when the gunny asked him to review comparative combat times. Which Faith should have thought of given her discussion with Staff Sergeant Barnard. When Colonel Hamilton realized that despite eight tours in the Sandbox, three in “combat leadership” positions and nearly twenty years in the Corps, Sergeant Smith had accumulated three times his own combat time in three months, he accepted the disparity.
Of course, their own combat time started from when the units boots hit the ground here in Gustavia. Which wasn’t real combat time in Faith’s opinion. It should start from the first shot at confirmed infected.
’Course, the gunny had shot one on the way in. She wasn’t sure if that counted or not.
“First Squad, get started on finding useable vehicles,” Faith radioed. “Second Squad, let’s roll.”