Kuzma knew all this and he had way more experience than she did. Maybe he’d come up with a good answer.
* * *
“… that’s my take on it, sir,” Kuzma said. “If we leave them drifting, even for the time it would take to go up to squadron and get the vaccine, we’ll probably lose them. I’m sort of lost for an answer here, sir… ”
“Roger, Large,” the Alex replied. “We’ve been kicking it around as well. The only solution we see, and we’d have to get permission from higher, is for one of our subs to take them under tow and bring them up to squadron AO. We’re going to discuss that with higher.”
“Roger, Alex,” Kuzma said, his face working. “I’m going to leave this on you and the Tan Lines for now if that’s all right.”
“Under control, Large.”
“Living Large, out,” Kuzma said. He shook his head and looked at the helmsman. “That’s a zammie.”
“Definite zammie, sir… ”
* * *
“Boat, Da,” William said, pointing to the northeast.
“I’m going to assume they’re with the submarine,” Lincoln said, looking at the approaching yacht through his binoculars. “I hope they stay downwind.”
“Leeward, Da,” Julie said, didactically. He had one manual on seamanship and his oldest had studied it assiduously.
“I hope they stay to leeward, then,” Lincoln said, trying not to smile.
* * *
“Good afternoon,” Sophia said over the loudhailer. “We get that you’re uninfected. Which an amazing number of people find tremendously exciting. You’re the first complete boat of survivors we’ve found. Which is why you are about to have a zammie, which is an acronym for a ‘zombie apocalypse moment.’ The pre-Plague term is ‘what the heck?’ ”
* * *
“Da,” William said. He was always the one looking around. “Another submarine!”
Forward of the ship an American attack sub surfaced.
* * *
“The USS Annapolis is going to fire you a line. They are uninfected so there’s no chance of catching the flu. When you get it, hook it up to your forward cleat. We have a small stock of vaccine back at our squadron which is operating about six hundred miles north of here. It’s going to take a few days for you to get there but they’ll tow you up. They will also pass you some water since your still won’t work being towed. No food, sorry, they’re short on rations as well. Anyway, a billion-dollar nuclear submarine is about to act as a tow truck for one forty-five-foot yacht full of vacationers. Welcome to a zombie apocalypse moment. We hope that you consider Wolf Squadron and the US Navy in the future for all your towing needs… ”
* * *
“Hoooh,” Sophia said, adjusting the focus on her binoculars. “Sweet.”
She keyed the intercom, powered up and turned to starboard.
“Rig for fishing ops!” she boomed, then switched to the radio. “Flotilla, Lines, over.”
“Flotilla.”
“Spotted surface activity, probable tuna, moving to target-of-opportunity fishing ops, over.”
“Stand by, Lines.”
“Like I’m going to let these out of my sight,” Sophia muttered.
Tuna moved fast and often the only sign you got was a cluster of birds. When the tuna were done eating whatever was at the surface they’d dive and be gone. That could take hours or bare minutes. You either went for them or you lost them. And since this wasn’t a big migration period in the area, fish had been scarce.
Since the only fresh food the entire squadron got was fish, and tuna was at the top of the menu, fishing ops was right up there were searching for survivors.
“What do we got?” Paula yelled from the transom deck.
“Probably tuna,” Sophia yelled back. “Look big! Three polers.”
“On it!”
“Lines, Flotilla.”
“Lines,” Sophia answered, keeping an eye on the birds.
“Roger fish-ops. We need a cut. Report to Large after taking on fish.”
“Aye, aye,” Sophia said. “Lines, out.”
Then she keyed the intercom again.
“It’s on like Donkey Kong!”
* * *
“What are we doing?” Rusty asked, holding onto a metal bar.
He wasn’t a big fisherman but he sort of knew how you did it with deep-sea fishing. There was a chair and a big reel and you sort of cruised around until you got a bite.
You didn’t go charging across the ocean at full speed with the boat rocking from side to side like it was going to sink.
And there was one big rod with a big reel. Not what Paula and Patrick were rigging which was three really long rods with lines at the end that all led to one big hook. The hook didn’t even really have a lure on it. Just a big plastic bird-feather.
“What we’re doing is rigging the poles,” Paula said. “What you’re doing is waiting til we’re rigged then I’ll explain.”
“Got it,” Rusty said. He couldn’t even figure out what knot she was tying. It was complicated was all he could get.
“Right,” Paula said, standing up easily despite the bouncing of the boat. “First of all, glad you’re here. You’re about to get one hell of a workout. Cause here’s how it works. We stand by the transom, that’s the bulkhead at the back of the boat. Sophia will drive over near the fish. We then all three, together, flip the lure out over our heads and tap our poles on the water. Just follow along with us. When a fish hits the lure, you just hold on tight, lean back and pick it up out of the water and throw it backwards over our heads. We gotta do that together and pretty hard. Then we go back and do it again. We’ll stop from time to time to cut the fish up and store them. We’ve got a big cooler for them. You got it?”
“Got it,” Rusty said. “I think.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Patrick said. “First time we tried it it was a disaster.”
“It wasn’t a disaster,” Paula said.
“You weren’t the one that got hit in the face,” Patrick pointed out.
“You were only knocked out for a minute,” Paula said. “Reminds me, we need to get the helmets and face shields.”
“Or pulled overboard,” Patrick pointed out.
“And the life vests… ”
“Then there’s the smell… ”
“And the chum. Can’t forget the chum… ”
* * *
“You’re supposed to use live fish for this,” Paula said, standing back from where Rusty was tossing chunks of decaying fish over the side. “But we don’t have any. Anything will do, really.”
Rusty had gotten used to not wanting to throw up from the smell. But apparently they were low on respirators or he’d be using one. The “chum” was all the “stuff” they hadn’t used from previous fish. It had been kept cool but it had still started to rot and smelled just awful.
“And we have customers,” Patrick said, looking over the transom.
“Toss a bunch of that crap over the side,” Paula said. “And grab your rod.”
The rods were longer than the aft deck. The thick lines attached to the ends were barely half their length. Rusty still wasn’t sure how this was going to work. But there were fish behind the boat, rolling to the surface feasting on the heads and entrails he’d tossed over the back. They were falling behind quick, though, cause the boat was moving so fast.