* * *
“How’s this look?” Olga said. She was wearing a US Navy tank-top and LBE with a bikini bottom and carrying her M4. She posed holding onto the flying bridge’s folded down Bimini top with the weapon stuck upwards.
“Technically, it’s supposed to be Navy Cam,” Sophia said. “They can send me a reply by endorsement… ”
“Divisions, Flotilla Four, Man the Rails! And don’t let anyone fall overboard!”
“Sundeck for pass in review,” Sophia said over the intercom and the Division frequency. “And I want everybody up on deck.”
The end of the cruise liner pier had a nearly four hundred meter gap between the last liner and the tip of the wharf. At the very end there were four photographers and two video cameras recording the passing of the Squadron. But that wasn’t what caught her eye.
Her Da was standing there, at attention, in front of a Marine Flag Party, in Navy dress whites, holding a salute. It had not been an easy “evolution” getting all the boats out of the harbor. Some had, as she had expected, broken down already. There were close calls. It had been an hour since the “pass in review” order.
But her Da had been, she was virtually certain, standing there in the sun at attention, holding that salute, the whole time. And would until the last boat cleared the harbor. And he’d probably personally carry the flag. She was reminded of a certain hike in a thunderstorm. Da was like that sometimes.
“All military personnel, hand or weapons salute… ” flotilla ordered over the loudhailer. “SALUTE!”
Sophia rendered a hand salute but kept one hand on the helm and her eyes forward. Which meant she was also looking at her crew. She had the vague feeling that Olga was regretting her choice of uniform. The Security Specialist was at attention with her rifle held vertical. She was having a hard time maintaining the position of attention, swaying a bit and occasionally having to catch herself. But she was right in there. And she appeared to be crying.
What got Sophia, though, was Walker. He was wearing his Hawaiian shirt with a Lakers ball cap he’d picked up somewhere and a pair of shades. But his back was rigid straight and he was at attention and holding a perfect salute. And he didn’t seem to have an issue with the incoming swells. That was muscle memory. The kind of muscle memory you didn’t get with a guy who had been an enlisted truck driver twenty years ago. That was “Gunny” or “Chief” muscle memory. Fixed that way, there was something about him. She couldn’t put her finger on it but she was suddenly wondering what the hell she was doing in command instead of him.
“Order arms,” Sophia said as they passed the tableau at the end of the wharf. There were swells coming in and she didn’t want anyone going in the drink. “That means stop saluting, Olga. Fall in and secure all weapons.”
“I should have worn my uniform,” Olga said, coming up on the flying bridge. Her mascara had run. She had been crying.
“Yeah, probably,” Sophia said. “But that right there was an Olga moment. And this was about seeing who we are, not who anybody wants us to be.”
She watched as Walker went below.
“The question being, who are we?”
EPILOGUE
“Captain,” General Brice said. “I’m glad to see all your people, if not boats, survived to make it out of Tenerife.”
“The fact that this lash-up works at all is the surprising part, General,” Steve said, shrugging. “The occasional Keystone Kops moments are to be expected. I take it you got that via the subs in living color?”
“Satellite,” Brice said. “Happened to be making a pass. Speaking of which, we’re not terribly busy down here and have been using them to do a bit of diplomacy.”
“Still having issues with General Kazimov?” Steve asked. “I’ll get his subs the vaccine as soon as possible.”
“The general is no longer an issue,” Brice said, frowning. “It seems that he nearly made good on some of his threats and subsequently suffered from lead poisoning. Committed suicide by shooting himself twenty-three times in the back or something similar. Colonel Ushakov is a rather charming rogue who sends his regards to Seaman Apprentice Zelenova. He apparently was an acquaintance, even friend, of her father and is unsurprised she is ‘a little tigress.’
“The diplomacy aspect was mostly targeted on the Chinese. One of the realities of our condition previous to the Plague was that, well, we had much better satellites than anyone else in the world. And with the permission of the NCCC and since we’re not going to be able to make them again in somewhere between fifty years and never, we’ve been sharing rather copiously. If for no other reason than this little video. You might want to dim your compartment lights.”
The picture started with a shot of the earth’s surface, by night, dated the day the Plague was announced. There were more as the plague progressed and the sparkling strands of light slowly began to turn off, portion by portion, Africa went before South America went before Asia went before North America went before Europe until the entire world was cloaked in pre-industrial darkness. Then the shots zoomed down, pre-Plague satellite and file images of New York, Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo, filled with people and life and laughter, the cities bright by day and night with a billion incandescent and fluorescent and neon and LED lights proclaiming to the heavens that Here Was Man.
Then the same cities, in satellite shots, with cars choked with decaying vehicles, and raven picked bodies and infected roaming the deserted streets.
A world cloaked in darkness.
The somber music swelled as a single satellite passed over India then Africa, picking out shots of dead Mumbai, Cairo, Casablanca then paused and seemed to shift, zooming in and in and in… On a single point of light that on further zoom was a hundred ships and boats crowded into a harbor.
In all the world, there was a single point of light.
Wolf Squadron.
“Mind if I borrow this, General?” Steve asked, his eyes misty.
“Of course,” Brice said. “Pass it around. Your people need to see it. They need to understand.”
“It’s easy to curse the dark, ma’am,” Steve said. “We’ll light a candle instead.”
Riding the day, every day into sunset
Finding the way back home