Below, the crew of the Peleliu went about their business at a fast but focused pace as they orchestrated destruction.
A Harrier Jump Jet rose vertically from the deck, hovered, then rocketed off to the west with the bombs under its wings glistening in the thinning orange rays of sunset. A pair of SuperCobra attack helicopters followed the same route as the Harrier, albeit at a slightly slower pace and much lower in the sky.
Jupiter knew that he was witnessing the end of what had begun a couple of days ago with a high-altitude parachute drop in the middle of the night. Everything in between — from mobs of reanimated corpses to a man-made volcanic eruption — seemed a blur, as if it might be the fading memory of a bad dream.
Sal Galati joined him at the railing and did something he rarely did: he remained quiet. At least for the moment.
A mile off the starboard bow sailed the USS Stethem, an Arleigh Burke — class destroyer. It too played a role in the final act of the Tioga Island incident.
A flash of yellow and a cloud of smoke preceded a great roar as a Tomahawk cruise missile launched from the destroyer, arched into the sky, and then flew to the west, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake.
"One and a half million dollars," Sal said.
"Huh?"
Galati pointed at the weapon as it disappeared into the distance.
"One and a half million dollars each. Shock and awe, man, comes with a price tag."
"Yeah, well, no shit. I just hope it does the job."
Wells watched as another cruise missile left the Stethem, tracing the path of the first, while the sound of activity — from engines spooling to life to voices shouting commands — echoed around them as the Peleliu's crew did their work.
After a few seconds Sal found something to say.
"Cap said we're probably heading back to Guam to catch a flight home, instead of sailing all the way back to Wake."
Wells did not look at Sal but did answer, "Okay. Sure."
"You haven't been to Guam, have you?"
"No," Wells said, and some subtle tone in Sal's voice shook his attention from the Stethem. "Why? What's up?"
"Oh, well, nothin' man," Sal shook his head. "I was there a couple of years ago, that's all. Passed through on a training run."
Wells drew in a deep breath and let out a long sigh, then asked, "Okay, Sal, what's wrong with Guam? What's the problem?"
As he usually did when he had a really, really good tale to tell, Sal played a little coy. That usually meant his story held more truth than usual. The top-of-the-line bullshit normally came out fast, like a sports car trying to race through a speed trap.
"Tree snakes."
Wells looked to Galati, cocked his head, squinted his eyes, and repeated, "Tree snakes? What the fuck are you talking about now?"
"Brown tree snakes, man, seriously," Sal said and sniffed in a good whiff of the salt water/aviation fuel scent carrying on the breeze. "Lots of them on the island. Not, you know, native to there or anything, but they started showing up a few years ago and sort of overran the place."
"Man, I don't give a shit about tree snakes," Wells dismissed the whole thing and turned back to the horizon.
Sal put his hands on the railing, stood next to his friend to share the view, and said, "Yeah, I know. It's just that they search all the ships and planes leaving Guam to make sure none get on board. They're causing a real mess on Guam. Don't want them to spread and all."
"That's really nice, Sal. Seriously. I'm glad you shared that. The zombies and the volcano didn't bug me, but fucking brown tree snakes are going to ruin my shit."
"They ate all the birds."
"What?" Wells's face twisted again.
"The brown tree snakes ate all the birds. On Guam. That's the problem."
Sarcasm filled Wells’s reply: "Oh, well, I can see where that's a problem and all. Cute little birds—"
Sal cut him off. "Birds eat spiders. You know what happens when there's nothing around to eat the spiders, don't you?"
Jupiter Wells froze, although his mouth remained open.
Sal went on, "Whole fuckin' island is crawling with them. Big ones, little ones. They're everywhere, man. There's like forty times more spiders there than there should be. Webs all around; everywhere. It's some seriously fucked up shit."
Below them on the flight deck another Harrier took to the sky for another sortie.
Dr. Water's secret base sat on a small atoll covered in jungle. Camouflage netting and paint combined with information in regards to satellite movements had kept the building, the air strip, and the docks from drawing attention. But now that the U.S. Navy knew where to look, the place could no longer hide.
AGM-88 HARM missiles from the first pair of Harriers honed in on the facility's radar. Had there been anyone left inside the base to care, they would have been rendered electronically blind.
The second group of jets dropped laser-guided bombs on the facility directly, first puncturing a hole in the roof and then detonating in the belly of the target, knocking over internal walls as well as any containment bulkheads that might have been standing. From the pilots' vantage point it seemed as if they had kicked over a rock, given the tight clusters of writhing and squirming creatures inside the exposed structure.
Next came the Tomahawks, each dropping clusters of submunitions that fried anything moving inside the walls. The rectangular building quickly resembled something like a fire pit, but the assault was not yet over.
Through Campion, Major Gant had called for the leveling and burning of every square meter of the place, and the Navy task force at their command took to the job enthusiastically, even if they did not fully understand the nature of the threat. Given the browbeating the Peleliu's skipper had suffered yesterday from the Pentagon, he complied without protest, although his log clearly noted who bore responsibility for the action.
Two last Harriers swooped in and dropped Mark 77 incendiary bombs, the spiritual successor to Vietnam-era napalm. The kerosene and benzene mix brought an inferno to the jungle.
A few of the facility's security guards had escaped the complex during the zombie breakout. Several more had been on patrol on the grounds or at the airfield when things went to hell. A fraction of these men survived the bombing and were chased from the brush by the raging wildfire.
These were the men for whom the SuperCobras came, as well as a couple dozen infected corpses — in various stages of disembowelment — that had withstood the bombs and missiles long enough to escape through one of the now-crumbling walls.
The choppers' Gatling guns swept the beach and the airfield, blasting to pieces everything that moved. The soldiers either ran or unsuccessfully tried to surrender. The walking dead sort of stood there, staring at the flying machines through ivory-coated pupils until the heavy-caliber rounds ripped through the cadavers and punctured the fungal cores.
A hundred miles away to the east, Major Gant stood on the Peleliu's bridge alongside Campion, monitoring reports from both the targeting teams and the strike forces. Everything proceeded smoothly and — more importantly to Gant — quickly.
He knew the clock ticked, for him and for the entire operation.
As he stared out through the bridge windows he saw his own reflection, and in that reflection he also saw the face of his old friend Dr. Brandon Twiste. It seemed to Thom that Brandon's expression was one of approval in regard to burning the entire place to the ground, although he would probably not have been quite as forgiving of the sadistic streak Thom had found in his heart during the whole episode.
Unfortunately, time ran out.