Strands of Sorrow (14 page)

CHAPTER 12

Once a ground crewman had the stairs up on the P-8, the passengers started to debark. Faith didn’t recognize most of them but the gray haired man wearing a brand new Navy uniform was
widely
familiar.

“Is that . . . ?” Commander Sanderson said.

“Harold Chrysler,” Faith said, grinning. He was wearing lieutenant JG rank tabs. “I’d guess that’s the civilian helo pilot.”

“I hope he passed a flight physical,” Commander Sanderson said dubiously. “Do you know what he was rated on civilian?”

“No, sir,” Faith said, walking towards the line of debarking passengers. “But I know he’s a genuinely nice guy. Hey, Harold!”

“Lieutenant,” the former movie star said, smiling. He looked momentarily unsure. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to salute or not.”

“Not me,” Faith said. “Same rank. But you might want to salute your new boss,” she added, thumbing over her shoulder at the lieutenant commander.

“Lieutenant Junior Grade Harold Chrysler, reporting in, sir,” Harold said. He had a good salute, that was for sure. Very parade ground.

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant,” Sanderson said, returning the salute. “I just wondered aloud if you’re going to be able to pass a flight physical, Lieutenant.”

“I did in Guantanamo, sir,” Chrysler said. “Done by Dr. Price who is an astronautic and aeronautic specialist MD, sir. I may be a bit creaky but I’m in excellent health.”

“What were you qualified on civilian?” Sanderson asked.

“Bell Jet Ranger, Lynx, Westland 139, MD 600 and variants, sir,” Chrysler replied. “I owned, at one point or another, each of those. I have over ten thousand hours flight time including mountain rescue and harsh environment landing, sir.”

“Okay,” Sanderson said, surprised. “I’d heard you had a helo, I didn’t realize you were
that
into it.”

“I made
a lot
of money from movies, sir,” Chrysler said, grinning. “And I spent a good bit of it on my one serious hobby. All that being said: I took a look at the grounded Seahawks in Gitmo and I’ve been reading the Dash Ones for those and Sea Dragons. Whoof! I thought
civilian
birds were complicated! Lots to learn, sir. Lots to learn.”

“Good attitude,” Sanderson said. “My attitude is that with that much civilian experience, I’m going to expect you to blast through the course. We need all the pilots we can get.”

“Since being asked if I’d volunteer I’ve been reading, as I said, sir,” Chrysler said. “I’m ready to take the phase one ground test. That was mostly basic helo and virtually the same as civilian. Mostly a matter of nomenclature. Seahawk . . . different kettle of fish, sir.”

“We don’t have the testing facility set up, yet,” Sanderson said, frowning. “But I’ve got some of the tests on my laptop. I’ll try to get that scheduled for tomorrow. How far along are you on the Seahawk and Sea Dragon manuals?”

“I’ve read them, sir.” Chrysler said. “I won’t say my brain shut down at points, but those are far more complicated than civilian. Mostly the peripheral systems, sir. I could probably drive one, now, sir. That’s not . . .”

“No, got that,” Sanderson said. “With that many hours civilian, assuming no emergencies, you could drive one. It’s the emergencies that would catch you.”

“Yes, sir,” Chrysler said. “I’m not sure I’d be ready to command one, sir.”

“We’ll schedule you for the phase one ground test tomorrow,” Sanderson said. “Then a test hop in the Sea Dragon, which is our only functioning platform tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes, sir,” Chrysler said.

“Um . . .” Faith said, gesturing with her chin to another older man wearing NavCam and rank for a full lieutenant. She vaguely recognized him but couldn’t place where.

“Oh, Commander,” Chrysler said, turning to the man. “May I introduce Lieutenant Jeff Malone, sir?”

“Reporting in, sir,” Malone said, saluting. He had a Commonwealth accent.

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant,” Sanderson said.

“Jeff’s from Oz, sir,” Chrysler said. “He was a production manager down there.”

“I started on
Lord of the Rings
as a gaffer, sir,” Malone said. “Later went on to, well, a lot of movies and shows. I’ve been helping out down in Gitmo and they thought you could use a hand up here, sir.”

“He’s good, Commander,” Chrysler said. “Getting production organized on site is a lot like being in the military except with more cat herding.”

“Being able to say ‘Do this’ and know that if they don’t I can hang them from a yardarm is
such
a refreshing experience I don’t know why I didn’t join the military a long time ago, sir,” Malone said, grinning. “But I’d better go report in to S-1, if someone could point the way.”

“You can either scale the fence and steal a boat, sir,” Faith said. “Or you can try to swim the river. Note that the sharks and alligators have added humans to their standard diet, sir. Or you can wait for the rest of us to fly back over. If you take the steal a boat option, with permission of the commander we can provide cover fire, sir.”

“How bad is the infected presence over the wire, Lieutenant?” Malone asked.

“Not bad,” Faith said. “We’ve been clearing for the last two days, sir.”

“I’ll take the boat option, then,” Malone said. “No rest for the wicked, ey? Take it the boats are that way?” he added, pointing towards the river.

“I doubt any of them will start, sir,” Faith said.

“I’m a fair mechanic and there seem to be tools everywhere,” Malone said.

“We’re bringing in the Dragon to lift the whole group over to the Island, Lieutenant,” Sanderson said. “Although I appreciate your enthusiasm. I’ll take it that it includes competence?”

“I was the XO,
love
that term for some reason, of the team that got the P-8 up and running, sir,” Malone said. “I did most of the organization so Lieutenant Szafranski could concentrate on the technical details. I guess you’ll just have to find out, sir.”

“Again,” Sanderson said. “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant. Now I need to go give an ensign a check ride . . .”

* * *

“Comments on the day’s operations,” Colonel Hamilton said. “Faith.”

“We need a better plan for extracting refugees on the ground,” Faith said. “I’m going to work that up with the staff sergeant and the gunny. Getting them out was sort of ‘makee-workee’ and we didn’t take casualties either with the Marines or the survivors. But it was still a bit . . . chaotic. We need to reduce the chaos as much as possible.”

“Plan?” Hamilton asked.

“We’ll take part of tomorrow morning doing rehearsals on various methods, sir,” Faith said. “Using buildings on the base. That would be my suggestion, sir. Then continue clearance ops.”

“From reports, base appears as clear as it’s going to get without night clearance,” Hamilton said.

“Up to you, sir, if we’re going to exit the base to continue, sir,” Faith said. “I’m thinking that we can at least patrol down the beach, sir. We can bypass the pole line with the amtracks and if we get really in the busy we can just head out to sea. Also, we’d be staying together in that case for fire support. It would get some of the clearance going, sir.”

“We’ll bat that around in a bit,” Hamilton said. “Next.”

“On general security, the main opening is on the beach, sir. Suggestion?”

“Go,” Hamilton said.

“There’s a Panamax spilled on the beach, sir,” Faith said. “Deck cargo is in the water. If we can get one of those all-terrain container movers over to the station side, we can just pick those up and plop them down in the water, sir. Out into the surf. Maybe drag some farther out with the amtracks if it comes to that. That will force any infected that want to get around it out into the surf. And I’d guess that the sharks are patrolling for them, sir. At the very least, it’s going to be a heck of a swim.”

“We’ve got a barge ready to get Trixie across the river,” Hamilton said. “The issue has been hoisting on the other side. I suppose testing that out first with a forklift would be useful. We’ll put that on the schedule. Anything else?”

“I’m going to be careful with the last, sir,” Faith said, looking at some notes. “During the first day’s clearance, the platoon found nine survivors during ten hours of clearance. Rounding that’s one survivor an hour.”

“Which is good, Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “Any survivor is good but these were military and dependents. Pardon me for saying that is better.”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said. “Agreed, sir. Today, sir, we spent four hours doing security and FOD walk-down, sir. I am not bitching about that, sir. What I am saying, as an official statement, is that
I
do not think it was the best use of our time, sir. My Marines are specialists at clearance and killing infected, sir. I understand that FOD walk-down has to be meticulous, sir. My professional opinion is that we could have rounded up some refugees and have them overseen by Navy security with back-up of aviation ground personnel and achieved the same objective, sir. While my Marines were clearing zombies and saving people, sir. But I could be wrong. I’d like to . . . look at that, sir.”

“Commander Sanderson?” Hamilton said. “You made that call.”

“You were available, Lieutenant,” Sanderson said. “And the security situation was still questionable. To get refugees over, assuming they’d volunteer, we’d have had to dispatch the Sea Dragon. Also a questionable use of resources.”

“Last point first, sir,” Faith said. “We’ve accessed the basin including the direct access from the field to the main basin. As secure a transfer point as you can ask. We have boats. We kept back two of the Navy light craft from Lieutenant Chen’s flotilla. They could have been used as ferries. The area was secure, obviously, since there were no infected encountered and none had been observed in the area that day or even the previous, sir.

“On volunteering: That’s a really complicated subject. I’m not getting into personnel resource use; over my paygrade. But experience shows that if you ask a group of refugees for help, you get some that respond immediately. And those tend to be your best people, ongoing. So just asking the question, sir, lets you start sorting the sheep from the goats, sir. Not always, of course. Sometimes the people who don’t volunteer end up being very good. But it’s a method, sir.”

“You’re very carefully not looking at me, Faith,” Isham said, grinning. “But the lieutenant has a very valid point. That is the general experience. The counter is that people who have been . . . significant prior to the Fall often are initially resistant to menial tasks while having often high ability at more advanced tasks. I’ll add that Ernest Zumwald’s newsreels and radio shows have had a very positive impact.”

“Well put, sir,” Faith said, smiling thinly. “Very politic.”

“Having a pistol shoved in the back of your neck can
make
you politic, Lieutenant,” Isham said.

“On availability:” Faith continued. “That is the question, sir. And it
is
a
question
, sir.
My
professional opinion is that it was not the best use of resources. But I am very junior, sir. And I may be wrong, sir. I am aware that my professional knowledge base is not perfect, sir. However, sir, I would like to explore whether every time the runway needs to be walked down, are my Marines supposed to divert from their primary tasks? Is that a good idea or should we look at some alternative? ’Cause it will happen again. You gotta walk the line regularly. Is that our job? Or is our job killing infected and saving people?”

“When you put it that way, Lieutenant, the answer seems fairly obvious,” Commander Sanderson said. “I’m man enough to admit it was probably a mistake.”

“I don’t know, sir,” Faith said. “I wasn’t even aware that the order had come from you, sir. I just did what I was told. Do what you’re told and ask questions about it later when the time is right. So now I’m asking, officially, as is my job, if we need to be available on an ongoing basis, sir.”

“No,” Hamilton said. “I’m not going to explore whether it was a right or wrong call in this case. Receiving the P-8 was a snap-kick. Further, it was a snap-kick when the commander was just getting his feet on the ground. My gut is that it was not that big an issue in this case but it is not a primarily ground force Marine job. If there’s a need in the future that cannot be filled by other resources, we’ll address it. But the primary job of the Marines is outer perimeter security and clearance. Secondary is secondary. Subject closed.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Faith said.

“Status of the aviation side of the Station,” Hamilton said.

“One Seahawk will be up and running for testing purposes tomorrow, sir,” Sanderson said. “We’ll have a rate of about one per day thereafter. Working with survey and salvage on getting the training facilities back online. Notably the simulators, which is going to take some work. We could, possibly, do without them but having them will assist in reducing the training time. We’ll have to have a round-the-clock ground training, including simulators if we have them, training schedule. And until we have more qualified pilots and airframe engineers, we’re dying for instructors. It’s going to be a matter of senior and experienced people staying as instructors and newly minted personnel going out in the field, sir. Once they get some field experience, they’ll rotate back as instructors and so on and so forth. Anyone with serious experience will be a senior officer, sir.”