The big bullets smashed the crowd of infected into zombie goo in seconds. The seagulls were properly thankful.
So were the people up on the cliff. They were waving fit to die. Olga could see that some of them were crying. Then someone apparently found some spray-paint and started waving a badly painted american flag. The stars were black dots but it was the thought that counted.
Olga waved to the group then realized she really should have put on some sunscreen.
* * *
“Division One. Captain’s call, Senorita, Nineteen hundred hours.”
“Paula, we’ll need to lay out some of the special stores.”
“On it, Captain.”
* * *
“Why am I not surprised,” Sophia said, drily, as Faith stepped onto the wash deck.
“Shewolf… Arriving… ” Olga intoned over the intercom.
“Oh, good God, sis,” Faith said, laughing. “You’re really going over the top, huh?”
“It’s a captain’s call,” Sophia said. “Should we be less than formal? I didn’t have a bosun’s whistle. I looked for a wave file on my computer, but the closest I could find was something from Star Trek. And it ain’t, actually, a bosun’s whistle. Now get out of the way, Lieutenant, my boss is coming alongside.”
“LitDivOne, Arriving… ”
“Hello Seaman Recruit Zelenova,” Chen said, waving at the girl on the flying bridge. She had at least donned shorts and T-shirt for the “captain’s call.” “Is she shooting for… ”
“Played Starcraft, have you, sir?” Sophia said, laughing. “Hey, Olga, give ’em the Valkyrie thing… ”
“ ‘Valkyrie … prepared,’ ” Olga intoned.
“Oh,” Chen said, bending over as if punched. “That accent. That’s not even Russian. It’s German or Swedish or something.”
“She used to do voice acting,” Sophia said. “And turns out she’s Ukrainian. Sort of. So, now that you’re here, sir… ”
“Let’s get started,” Chen said. “After you, Lieutenant.”
* * *
“One of the reasons to have this here is that Lieutenant Smith has the big plasma,” Chen said. The music was being pumped to the gunboats, which had been refitted with big speakers and was turned down on the Senorita so they could discuss the plan. “And we have actual intel this time.”
He’d already connected a laptop to the port on the TV and now brought up a video file. It showed the complex from a high, sideways angle. He froze it as it showed a group on the roof then zoomed in several times until their faces were clearly visible.
“Is this Predator, sir?” Sophia asked.
“Satellite,” Chen answered, drily. “Turns out it’s pretty detailed. But that’s not all. This is a recent satellite pass. They’re not moving them for stuff but they sweep constantly and they happened to be in the area. You’ve got no idea how big this video file is. Nearly a terabyte.”
He zoomed out until the roof-top was barely visible the pointed with his cursor and zoomed in again.
“There are rooftops, like this one, with plantings on them, here, here, here, here, here and here. Also in this small, unnamed town over to the side, here. There are two there and they have… ” he said, zooming in. “Catwalks between their buildings. This one should be easy. We’ll pull out the people with the security teams from DivTwo. The main town,” he said, zooming back, “is another issue. The Avenue De Colon follows the water line for about a kilometer then bends back up the hill and joins the Calle Juan Sebastien Alcano. Then about another kilometer to the first site. The entrances to the primary building seem to be on top. They are blocked to prevent entry of infected. There are three buildings that have survivors and they are all connected on top. There are two additional buildings nearby and, well, several in the interior. It is the determination of command that those cannot be cleared at this time absent this being an easier clearance than it looks. Lieutenant Smith… Shewolf, any thoughts?”
“I saw the sub video when we got punched down here, sir,” Faith said. “This is bigger but not a lot. All I’ve got is the obvious. Land, grab some wheels, roll hot to the door, extract the survivors and roll back, sir. The one thing I’ve got is… Okay, couple things. You know, sir, and I know that with these screwy, twisty roads… Infected aren’t that smart, sir. Most of them are going to get trapped up on the cliffs trying to go straight for the lights. So we’re not going to get most of them down on the beach, sir.”
“Yes, I do realize that,” Chen said. “It’s one of the reasons that I contacted Squadron and asked for support.”
“And as we move along and engage, it’s going to attract more of them,” Faith said, taking a deep breath in thought. “We’re going to have to create fall-back points, move a team forward, have them attract them, bring them back to the defense points and engage. Then do it again. It’s going to be slow, sir.”
“If I may, sir,” Sophia said.
“Seawolf,” Chen said.
“Go straight, sis,” Sophia said. She took the cursor and went straight from the beach to the first set of survivors.
“That’s a two hundred foot cliff, Lieutenant,” Chen pointed out.
“No, sir,” Sophia said. “With respect. It’s a hundred and fifty feet of condo, a fifty-foot cliff and more condo, sir. The gunboats with security teams cover infiltrators down Avenue De Colon. Marines clear this condo complex,” she said, pointing to one at water level. “Then they send up an assault ladder from the roof, go up and clear that complex, if it has infected internal, then extract the survivors down. It probably has internal infected. Otherwise they wouldn’t be getting around with ropes on the exterior balconies, sir. But going straight means your supply and extraction line has less sides to get hit by the infected. Sir.”
“You just like that one cause you like to climb,” Faith said. “That’s your sort of thing.”
“But does it make sense to you, Shewolf?” Chen asked.
“Unfortunately, yes, sir,” Faith said with a sigh. “We’ll probably need support getting them down the ladders, though. And it doesn’t cover extracting the other refugees. But… Gimme a moment, please.”
She zoomed the image in and out then hunted around on it.
“Okay,” she said, finally. “This is still going to take at least all day. Maybe more. We go up the cliff. Ugh. Then we put in machine-gun points here, and here,” she said, marking two points on one of the condos. “That will give us coverage down this road here. Then we cross, go up this condo, which doesn’t have survivors but is the shortest distance, cut over to this one, which does have survivors, and extract them. Pretty much the same with this one to the left. Sir, we’re going to need all your ground capable security personnel to man these points and help extract survivors, sir. I’d recommend that the extraction in the second village be held until we complete this one, sir.”
“I’d agree with that, sir,” Lieutenant JG Elizabeth Paris said. The instant Lieutenant had been the sole survivor of her family on a sailboat. She’d been into sailing and boating since childhood, knew small boats and the ocean and was still sane despite her experiences. Now she was in charge of three.
“Concur,” Chen said. “I will manage the overall operation. Lieutenant Smith, Shewolf, will be in charge of the Marine force and primary clearance. Lieutenant Smith, Seawolf, will be in charge of the forward security teams and extraction. Lieutenant JG Paris, will be in charge of over the water extraction and the local security teams for that. Hand-off will be at the water. Seawolf will cover Avenue de Colon. Callsigns will be Team Shewolf, Team Seawolf, Team Paris. All clear?”
“Clear, sir,” Sophia said.
“Let’s start figuring out the teams and detailing it out as well as we can,” Chen said. “After all, we’ve only got all night… ”