“How many rounds of five five six, on average, to stop a zombie… PFC Kirby?” she said, reloading her expended magazine from spare rounds in a pouch.
“About five, Miss Faith, ma’am,” the private snapped, standing at attention.
“Staff Sergeant, divide thirty by five.”
“Six,” Januscheitis said then frowned. “Damn.”
“As to only having seven rounds,” Faith said, holding up her pistol. “You only have seven rounds because you use the ancient and renowned, sort of like, say, the Titanic, Colt 1911 whereas I use the modern H amp;K USP with twelve rounds which has been proven capable of killing a hammerhead shark in sixty feet of water. That works out to sixty rounds of five five six in relative killing power in an actual zombie fight. With lighter total weight in ammo, not having to reload and it doesn’t just zip through and go bouncin’ arounnnd like you’ve dropped a frag grenade. Old and busted. New hotness.”
“Yes, Miss Faith.”
* * *
“Oh come onnnn Jannnn, let me throw the grenade. If I can’t throw it, let Trixie. Trixie wants to throw the grenade…!”
* * *
“There is, in fact, a primary storage of twelve-gauge on board, Staff Sergeant,” Gunny Sands said, his voice muffled by the gas mask.
The Gunny was notably unhappy not being able to accompany the clearance parties. It just wasn’t right for a Gunny to be lolling around in the rack when his Marines were fighting zombies. He’d made a foray a day and spent the rest of the time eating, conducting physical therapy and, far too often in his opinion, resting. But the fatigue would just hit him like a hammer whenever he exerted himself.
Today, however, he’d moved forward to the clearance command post set up in the CIC of the Iwo. The bodies had been cleared out but it was still MOPP conditions in the compartment.
“I was unaware of that, Gunnery Sergeant,” Januscheitis said.
“Security and control teams use twelve-gauge,” the Gunny said, pointing to a schematic of the ship. “There should be twenty thousand rounds in Compartment 6 tack 190 tack 1 tack Mike. It should be, if memory serves, port side, aft in the compartment. The rest of the compartment is mainly devoted to M829 DS for the M1s.”
“Check that out on the next sweep forward,” Fontana said. “Which will be after we clear the Central Four and Five levels… ”
* * *
“You told me there wasn’t any twelve-gauge, Jan,” Faith said, pouting. “There’d better be twelve-gauge.”
“So I’m not the Gunny,” Januscheitis said, throwing his hands up in the air. “He’s a Gunny, okay? They, like, know everything!”
“Well, there’d just better be twelve-gauge… ”
* * *
“Oh,” Faith said, panting slightly. “Oh… Oh… ”
“It’s not much,” Januscheitis said.
“Not much?” Faith said, grabbing one of the cases of 12-gauge double-ought. “Not much? It’s… It’s… I’ll be in my bunk… ”
Januscheitis just stood there with his mouth open as she left the compartment.
“Do you think she meant… ” Derek said then paused. “I hope she didn’t mean… ”
The hatch undogged and Faith stuck her head in the compartment.
“Reloading my Saiga mags you PERVERTS!”
CHAPTER 5
I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humor.
“Soph, got something funky,” Patrick said.
“I suppose I should get some clothes on,” Sophia muttered. She was currently adding some reality to the boat’s name up on the flying bridge. “In a bit… ”
She could tell “funky” was not an emergency by Patrick’s tone. Paula was “a good man in a storm.” She just sailed on regardless of the conditions. Patrick had a bit of a tendency to panic. Which was not great in your engineer, but he was fine with the maintenance and stuff.
“Define ‘funky,’” she said over the intercom, readjusting her sunglasses. She picked up a pair of binos to check out something on the horizon but it was just a bit of junk. Her ostensible reason for being on the flying bridge was “visual search for survivors.” Which was pretty much a waste of time. Which was why she was actually catching a tan.
The Atlantic ocean was really, really, really big. And boats, even commercial freighters and such, were really, really, really small in comparison.
Depending on which authority you asked, the North Atlantic Ocean, which they were currently searching for survivors, was about twenty million square miles in area. Their radar had a range of around fifty miles, if the target was radar reflective, while visually they could see between twenty and thirty miles. Realistically, it was possible that one boat might spot a lifeboat within ten miles. Essentially, it was like one microscopic germ trying to find another germ in the area of a standard American living room. That was clean and really germ free.
When they’d first started clearing boats off of Bermuda, there had still been some distress beacons working. Not many, but they were there. And there had been a lot of boats. The waters between the US mainland and Bermuda were some of the most crowded in the world under normal circumstances. With anyone with an ocean capable boat fleeing the Plague, and the east coast of the US having a lot of such people, they were definitely crowded. There were days when they had twenty or more radar contacts or lifeboats and small boats in sight.
The Great Equatorial Current… Not so much. Oh, there were boats down here. And life rafts. And freighters. And, somewhere, God help them, based on some of the lifeboats they’d been finding, some cruise ships including at least one “super-max.” But they were scattered. They were lucky if they found two or three vessels in a day instead of thirty.
They were only there, really, to keep them out of the storm belt in the North Atlantic and tropical storms in the eastern zone, give them something to do and get some people rescued. Unfortunately, as usual, most of the boats they were finding were empty. Of live, sane, people, at least. Bodies they’d found aplenty. People… not so much. Not even live zombies. In the last two weeks the No Tan Lines had only found four survivors. But four was a number greater than zero.
The only reason they were finding most of the life rafts was that they had some modern additions. Back in the 1980s, the USCG pointed out that the material life rafts were made of, plastic, was fairly stealthy. You could pimp them up in any color you’d like, they didn’t turn up on radar. So most modern life rafts and lifeboats included Mylar radar reflectors in their construction. And, fortunately, the No Tan Lines had radar. So Patrick was manning the radar and other gizmos while she scanned “visually.” And caught up on her tan.
“Well, it’s a distress beacon,” Patrick said.
“I probably would have led with that,” Sophia muttered.
“But it’s well inside the range where we should have picked it up. It’s only about twenty miles out.”
“Azimuth?” Sophia said.
“No Tan Lines, Alexandria.”
“Stand by, Patrick,” she said, then switched frequencies and straightened up to start the main engines. “No Tan Lines.”
* * *
“Holy, hell,” Commander Robert “Thunderbear” Vancel, skipper of the USS Alexandria said. Vancel was on his first tour as a sub skipper when the worst disaster in human history hit. It had not been a pleasure cruise. He’d been a bit heavy before this cruise. Now, not so much. “COB: Down periscope. Now! And tell me that’s not being broadcast all over the ship.”