“Ground team, Squadron, status, over,” Captain Smith said, calmly a few moments later.
“Embarkation area is clear, Squadron. Going to reammo and continue to check the other two liners. Over.”
“Were you in the dunny, over?”
“Negative, Squadron, never even broke out my kukhri. Honest. Big thanks to the Golden Guppy, though. Over.”
“Continue recon ops. Do not, repeat, do not allow infiltration behind you.”
“Got that covered, Squadron. We’ve got boats standing by. We can always jump it.”
“Clearance Ops will be by the discretion of the local commander. DivOne, understood?”
“Understood, Squadron. Not exactly chomping the bit to clear one of these again.”
“Squadron, out. Lieutenant Isham, ensure that all the shotgun ammo we can find on the Iwo is on the Pit Stop as well as any shotguns we can scrounge. Faith seems to positively enjoy scrums, but I’d like to avoid them if we can.”
“Yes, sir,” Isham said, making a note.
“And ensure we have pistols for all clearance personnel as well as sufficient stocks of forty-five. This is going to be a bloody one.”
CHAPTER 11
The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary’s Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.
“Bloody hell,” Faith said. She had gone through a decon shower in full kit then a “real” shower and now was collapsed in the saloon of the Senorita as were the rest of the clearance team. “I’d started to forget what a real fight was like.”
Night was falling on the port of Santa Cruz De La Tenerife and the last sunlight reflected a brilliant salmon off of snow-capped Teide mountain in the distance. Calling sea birds circled the boats moored in the main channel, squawking over bits of what had been human beings and were now shark torn offal.
There had been infected around the cruise ships. All three. Lots of infected. Stores had been laid in at the embarkation ports and the infected had been feeding on those as well as each other. Water should have been problematic but zombies would drink anything and most of them even survived it. There were puddles of rainwater on the dock. No rational human being would drink from them but zombies weren’t rational.
“You guys used up quite a bit of our fresh water,” Sophia noted. “We’re going to have to find a source of resupply.”
“Get some from the tender,” Faith said. “We’re going to be taking lots of showers.”
“It’s going to need your support getting containers,” Sophia said.
“And that’s for tomorrow,” Faith said. “We didn’t have any real problem with infiltration from the main city, today, but we still need to get the pier blocked off. I’ll get with the captain of the tender. We’ll need to… ” She stopped and held her head. “I know I was going somewhere with that.”
“I’ve got food coming up,” Paula said. “You probably just need blood sugar.”
“As soon as I get food in my stomach, I’m going to collapse,” Faith said. “I know I was going somewhere… ”
“Get with the captain of the tender, ma’am,” Januscheitis said.
“Oh,” Faith said. “We’ll need to try to get any containers that are well down on piers. These piers are so long there isn’t much in the way of infected infiltration from the city. So… ” She stopped again.
“There’s a commercial port on the other side,” Sophia said. “You should be able to get some from there.”
“Right, saw that,” Faith said. “The ship we should look for embarkation ports on the outboard side. If we can get them open we can extract into the harbor rather than onto the pier. I’d like to just get the embarkation ports pierside up and closed. That will prevent the problem of infiltration… Am I making any sense?”
“Plenty, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “We’ll take care of the equipment.”
“Equipment,” Faith said. “I knew I was forgetting something… ”
“That’s what NCO’s are for, ma’am,” Derek said.
“We’ll need to get the Boadicea up here for survivors… ” Faith said.
“And that’s above your paygrade, ma’am,” Januscheitis said.
“It is?” Faith said.
“That would be Lieutenant Chen’s call or Squadron,” Januscheitis said. “You don’t have to worry about that level of support.”
“Oh,” Faith said.
“Think about how we’re going to clear off infected so we can get some containers tomorrow, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “I’ll make sure all the gear and men are ready to rock and roll. And, really, you don’t have to worry about that until tomorrow because we haven’t seen what we’ve got to do, yet. It may be dead simple, it may be nearly impossible. We’ll get it done. But you don’t have to really worry about it until tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Faith said. “Are you sure?”
“At this point, there would normally be an after action report to write,” Januscheitis said. “I’ll write up the draft and you can read it tomorrow morning and correct it as you see fit.”
“No,” Faith said. “I’ll write it up tonight. You’ll be handling the equipment. I’ll get you to check it.”
“I thought you were going to crash,” Sophia said as Paula served dinner.
“Mission, men, me,” Faith said, picking up her fork. “Get some food in me and I’ll be good to go… ”
* * *
“Passed out like a light,” Januscheitis said, quietly.
“I thought she was going to fall asleep in her plate,” Derek said, just as quietly. “We going to try to haul her to her bunk?”
“No,” Januscheitis said. “Just do everything real quiet.”
* * *
“Ugh,” Faith said, sitting up and wiping drool off her chin. “I hate it when I do that. How long was I out?”
“Not long,” Januscheitis said. He had her AK stripped down and was carefully oiling it. Using weapons around salt water meant having to keep them oiled to a fare-thee-well. “About twenty minutes.”
“Power nap,” Faith said. “Okay, Paula, you can stop trying to do the dishes quietly.”
“It’s Patrick,” Patrick called. “Sorry about that. Banged a pot.”
“Okay, some razzleberry tea and I’ll be a report writing machine,” Faith said fuzzily, pushing herself to her feet. “Where’s some razzleberry…?”
* * *
“Yeah, I’m gonna need to write this… ” Januscheitis said, pulling Faith up from where she was passed out on the computer keyboard. “ ‘. . it was, like, awesome. .’ is not going to pass review.”
“Wazzat?” Faith said.
“We’re going to have to talk about report writing language, ma’am,” Januscheitis said, getting the lieutenant to her feet. “Tomorrow. Off to racksies, Skipper… ”