“Senorita, Division.”
“Recommend pull into the marina entrance, fire from there. Very little wave action, over.”
“The tide is going in, Senorita. They’d have to maintain position to fire against the flow, over.”
“Permission to approach for close rifle fire. There are only ten or fifteen. And I can maintain position against the tide. Over.”
“Roger, stand by. Guppy, clear and lock all weapons and stand off. Senorita approaching for close rifle fire. Confirm.”
“Division, Guppy. We can get this, over.”
“Wasn’t a request, Guppy. Confirm.”
“Clear and lock all weapons then stand off, over.”
“Roger. Division out.”
“And so we’re moving,” Sophia said, raising the anchor. “Sergeant Major, I assume you can still fire a rifle?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Sergeant Major said. “And I even was given an opportunity to zero.”
“I’m going to back in,” Sophia said, turning the boat around. “Get Olga and you and she fire ’em up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Sergeant Major said.
* * *
There was a nasty little eddy at the entrance caused by a combination of the wave action and a small metal wall that was probably to prevent silting. But Sophia finally found a stable point.
“Okay, this is as good as you’re going to get,” she shouted.
* * *
“We may have to discuss uniform at some point,” Sergeant Major Barney said.
Olga had turned out in shorts and a bikini top with her LBE thrown over.
“Yes, Sergeant Major,” Olga said.
“How do you normally do this?” he asked.
“The only time I fired from the boat I was up on the flying bridge,” Olga said. “And I didn’t hit many. We were anchored but the boat was rocking.”
“There is a technique for that,” the sergeant major said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t a Marine and I’ve never studied it. We’ll use the deck up front. What’s it called?”
“The sundeck, Sergeant Major.”
The sergeant major followed her up to the sundeck, trying not to pay too much attention to the butt and legs.
“Prone position,” he said, getting down creakily. It had been a bit since he’d done this and he mentally made the note that he was going to have to figure out how they were going to engage in physical training. Not to mention general discipline and uniform standards. “Slow, aimed, fire. We have time.”
“Yes, Sergeant Major.”
“Go ahead and load then open fire,” the Sergeant Major said. He wanted to observe her technique.
“Open fire, aye, Sergeant Major,” Olga said. She charged the weapon then took careful aim. There was a crack and one of the infected stumbled. It didn’t go down, though, so she fired again. That time it went down.
“Bloody five five six,” the Sergeant Major muttered.
“Lieutenant Smith, Faith that is, calls these things Barbie guns,” Olga said, taking another shot.
The Sergeant Major looked through the Aimpoint scope and considered his shots. He knew he shouldn’t do it, but he went for a headshot. Fortunately, he hit.
“Very nice,” Olga said. “I’m not quite that good.”
“Luck,” Barney said. “And about twenty-four years experience.”
He picked out another that wasn’t moving much and dropped it with another head shot. That seemed to be working, the range was no more than forty meters and Lieutenant Smith was keeping the boat comfortably steady. He fired again.
“Okay, I know I hit that one in the bloody head,” he said, just as the infected dropped.
“Barbie guns,” Olga said. She was just using two or three rounds in the body to drop hers.
“They shouldn’t be able to survive being shot in the bloody head,” Barney said. “Not even for a few seconds.”
In less than ten minutes from when the boat had entered the marina entrance, all the infected were down. More than half of them from headshots from the sergeant major.
“Position is clear, ma’am,” the Sergeant Major called.
“Roger, Sergeant Major,” Sophia said. “I’m going to move into the turning area for the conference. Might as well be comfortable.”
* * *
“We still have infected leaking into the area,” Lieutenant Chen said. “But the presence is down. Sergeant Major, aware that this is your first such operation, would you prefer to suggest an action plan or have Lieutenant Smith present hers?”
“I’d rather the Lieutenant present hers, sir,” Sergeant Major Barney said. “I do have thoughts but it is my first time on such an operation and I would like to have the Lieutenant’s insights.”
“Sophia?” Chen said.
“The primary purpose of this mission is the recovery of the ocean capable yachts,” Sophia said. “Most of those are tied up along the breakwater. As such, I would suggest putting in a primary security team at the base of the breakwater, probably with a 240 and some rifle support, then go through and clear and remove any infected from the yachts. If we place a gunboat alongside one of the yachts, oriented to fire parallel to the breakwater, they can support if there is a heavy response by infected. If there are still too many, have inflatables in place to support the retreat of the security team. I would recommend the Sergeant Major primarily be with that machine-gun and rifle security team. That’s the point that is most likely to have major infected response and Anarchy was our only person fully qualified with the 240. He trained Rusty on it so I’d suggest Rusty as the gunner. I’d suggest the Guppy as the support boat with the Chief onboard to maintain control of the fire from the gunboat. Leave all the Guppy’s gunners aboard, the ground team taken from the Wet Debt and the other boats with security. For the defense team I suggest use most of the Wet Debt crew. For the clearance team… Olga and I can handle that.”
“Sergeant Major?” Lieutenant Chen said. “Comments?”
“I think the overall plan is good, sir,” the Sergeant Major said. “However, the Lieutenant should not be involved in active clearance with respect, ma’am.”
“Light clearance like this isn’t hard, Sergeant Major,” Sophia said. “But it is adrenaline pumping. And when you have adrenaline pumping, you get ADs. It takes a steady nerve. Olga, despite her apparent flightiness, is pretty steady. I’ve done it plenty of times. Rusty has done it some. The rest of them aren’t experienced at it.”
“Choose someone else, Lieutenant,” Lieutenant Chen said.
“Yu?” Sophia said. Then: “To be clear, Seaman Recruit Leo Yu from your boat, sir.”
“Yu is a good steady hand,” Chen said, nodding.
“Better him than Steinholtz, that’s for sure,” Sophia said.
“Two Seaman Recruits,” the Sergeant Major said, frowning.
“What we tend to have is Seaman Recruits, Sergeant Major,” Lieutenant Chen pointed out. “And they haven’t been through recruit training. There hasn’t been time. For an example, our schedule calls for cutting out the vessels, clearing this town, recovering survivors and making it to the next town by no more than twenty-three hundred hours, local, so as to start the next party and attract the infected. And so on and so forth.”
“You have to have some time for training, sir,” the Sergeant Major said.
“Tell that to the Commodore, Sergeant Major,” Chen said. “Who, in fact, agrees. And also notes that if we’d taken time for training, we might never have found you. Or me. Or any of the security specialists, seamen, etcetera. We’re not going to be able to clear the entire Canary Islands before we leave. We know there are more liners tied up alongside in This more or less is training.”
“Understood, sir,” the Sergeant Major said, frowning. “Well, then, we’ll have to hope for the best and plan for the worst I suppose, sir.”