Strands of Sorrow (29 page)

CHAPTER 22

“Well, that’s a pisser,” Faith muttered as the doors of the supply warehouse were cracked open. The first person through the door was a two-star general.

She’d learned to just let the gunny handle the senior guys. They couldn’t see past the Barbie and the bars. Unless, like Evan, they’d had a hand-crank radio. Which they never seemed to have in the “official redoubts.”

* * *

“General,” Sands said, saluting. “Gunnery Sergeant Tommy J. Sands, First Marine Battalion.”

“Good to see you, Gunny,” the general said, returning the salute. “Major General Lowell Ramos, deputy post commander. I’m going to hope that there’s a damned good reason Marine vehicles are painted up like ghetto cruisers.”

“That, sir, is my platoon leader,” Sands said, pointing up to Faith. She wasn’t watching the interplay, just keeping an eye out for leakers. “Who holds two Navy crosses for actions against infected, sir, from just the
first six months
of her tour, sir. Lieutenant Smith is fourteen and earned both while
thirteen
, sir. Officers who cannot grasp that a fourteen-year-old girl is the baddest-ass zombie-killer in the post-Plague world, and that that is the
only
criteria right now for how good of an officer you are, have repeatedly broken their careers on Shewolf, sir. There is no actual need for camouflage, sir, and some arguments against it. So it’s a test, sir. Can you adapt, react and overcome to this new world or are you ‘pre-Plague’ and just need a nice quiet desk job, General?”

“Had issues in the past?” the general said.

“Yes, General,” Sands said. “Current standing orders are that rescuees are to be treated with due military courtesy but, as with prisoners of war, until they have passed evaluations and are cleared for duty, they have no actual authority, sir. So we don’t have to break any more careers of officers who don’t get that you’re looking at the Chesty Puller of the post-Plague world, General. And because people who cannot are really not much good to us, sir. Those that cannot . . . There are plenty of desk jobs, generally at lower rank, waiting on them, sir.”

The general thought about that for a long moment.

“Chesty Puller,” the general said.

“Not an exaggeration, sir,” Sands said. “Fourteen. Two Navy Crosses. Really deserves more.”

“This is going to be a very long brief, isn’t it?” the general said.

“You’re getting there, sir,” Sands said, breathing out. “Considering that LantFleet is a directly promoted civilian Navy captain whose previous military service was as an Aussie para, CINCPAC is a commodore who was an Army lieutenant general and took a voluntary demotion and service transfer, the CJCS is an Air Force brigadier, the NCCC is one hundred twenty-
sixth
on the list and we’re finding between zero and five percent survivors world-wide . . . Yes, sir.”

The general took a deep breath and breathed out.

“
Long
brief. Major! Get everyone loaded! Time’s a wastin’.”

* * *

“Come!” Faith said at a tap on her door. She’d just gotten out of the shower and was drying her hair.

“Lieutenant?” the major who had been in the warehouse said, opening the door.

“Sir?” Faith said, startled. She was in shorts and a T-shirt, which wasn’t nude or anything but she wasn’t expecting a major.

“The general and I have been cleared for duty,” the major said. “He was wondering if you could spare him some time. If you’re uncomfortable with that, I’ll tell him you’d already turned in.”

“No, sir,” Faith said. “But my hair’s obviously a wreck and I’ll need to get dressed. Ten minutes?”

“That will do fine, Lieutenant,” the major said. “We weren’t introduced. Major James Skelton.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Major,” Faith said. “And each second is another I’m keeping the general waiting, sir. What compartment?”

“Seventy-two, thirty-three, Empress deck, Lieutenant,” the major said. “I’ll tell the general about ten minutes.”

“No time for make-up,” Faith said, rubbing her hair. “Damnit, I hate being in the Marines!”

* * *

“Have a seat, Lieutenant,” General Ramos said.

The stateroom was one of the better ones on the liner. Since it was a “mega-liner,” that was very nice indeed. An “ocean view” suite was the general luxury of a suite in a five star hotel, if smaller.

Faith carefully sat at the edge of the indicated chair at attention.

“Would you care for a drink, ma’am?” the major asked solicitously.

“Water, sir?” Faith said, starting to stand up.

“I’ll get it, Lieutenant,” the major said.

“Just water?” the general said.

“I don’t drink alcohol, sir,” Faith said. “It has almost no effect on me and I don’t like the taste of most kinds. If it’s an issue, sir, vodka. It doesn’t taste horrible and it won’t bother me till I’ve had a bottle or so.”

The general started to say something, then just shook his head.

“If you could get the lieutenant some water, please, Major. I’ll take coffee in that case.”

“Yes, sir,” the major said.

“Is my not drinking an issue, sir?” Faith asked. “Vodka is fine, sir.”

“Not at all,” General Ramos said. “Just another . . . I was informed that there is an acronym post-Plague—ZAM.”

“ZAM or zammie, yes, sir,” Faith said. “Zombie apocalypse moment.”

“Just a zammie,” General Ramos said. “I’ve been reviewing the written histories. I was quite surprised by their professional quality given the circumstances. Then I recalled your father’s background pre-Plague. I have also had the various ‘introduction’ videos running. Given your experiences, I had expected you to be a
heavy
drinker.”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said. “Most people do, sir. I think drunk people are stupid and I don’t like looking stupid, sir.”

“You’ve cleared ships like this before,” General Ramos said.

“Yes, sir,” Faith said.

“How?” Ramos said. “I’ve only been through a very small portion. This is an enormous amount of deck space.”

“One compartment at a time, sir,” Faith said. “At this point, all personnel in staterooms like this are assumed to be dead. No food or water. Therefore we concentrate on crew areas, which the crews often stocked, as well as storage points primarily below the main water tanks. The
Voyage
took two weeks, sir. We can rough-clear a liner in a couple of days at this point, sir. That is, one that was in service. This one was rough-cleared in a few hours, sir. Took about a week to get it back in operation, although I understand there are still some issues with the plumbing. Sir.”

“I also reviewed the incident with Colonel Downing,” General Ramos said. “I’m not getting involved. The incident should not have been unexpected, all things considered, both your own combat record and the situation. The original DI violated established procedures, and the colonel was given a chance to redeem himself, which he failed. It’s not specifically stated anywhere, but that would seem to be the rationale for the ‘no authority until cleared.’”

“That and other issues, sir,” Faith said.

“Which are?” General Ramos asked.

“The direct reason given is that these sieges people have been in are similar to being prisoners of war, sir,” Faith said. “Everyone coming out of a compartment is dealing with various stressors, sir. They may think they are ready to just get going, and when we were critical on personnel we
needed
them to get up to speed as fast as possible. But some people have a harder time adjusting than others, sir. Specifically, all of the personnel recovered from Parris Island were . . . not in the best shape, sir. The DIs had had to continue to be DIs night and day for ten months and instead of reorganizing as a combat unit and training for infected combat, they’d essentially kept the trainees in boot mode. They were all
highly
inflexible, even for Marines, sir. The boots required extensive retraining on initiative and combat actions. The DIs had to be retrained for leadership of combat forces and many of them simply could not cut the mustard, not at their pre-Plague rank. So the new approach is to take a wait and see attitude and in the meantime, to keep from having similar incidents or worse, do some evaluation. Sir.”

“Have you been evaluated?” General Ramos asked.

“I took the evaluation after my leave, sir,” Faith said. “I was found to be fit for duty.”

“Clearly you are, Lieutenant,” the general said. “What are your goals, Lieutenant?”

“A zombie-free world, sir,” Faith replied.

“That is a big order,” Ramos said.

“I am young, sir,” Faith said. “I have time, sir.”

“In terms of your career as a Marine officer, Lieutenant,” Ramos said.

“My career, sir, is to create a zombie-free world, sir,” Faith said. “Currently, sir, my Marine career enhances a zombie-free world, sir. If that were to change, I would find a career which did so, sir.”

“I don’t see us stopping the fight against the infected any time soon,” Ramos said. “But if we were to do so you are saying that you would find some other job that involved killing zombies?”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said.

“What if the mission was to help people, instead?” Ramos asked.

“The biggest help we can give people right now, sir, is killing zombies, sir,” Faith said.

“Agreed,” Ramos said. “And as noted that is probably not going to change any time soon. I’ve only spoken to your father briefly. And he was . . . reticent on clearance strategy. Are you aware of his plans in that regard on the strategic level?”

“No, sir,” Faith said.

“Never discussed them around you?” Ramos asked.

“Captain Smith is . . . cautious about discussing plans, sir,” Faith said. “That has always been the case, sir. His reference to that is usually the American general Stonewall Jackson who was notorious for keeping his plans close to his vest, sir. He doesn’t like to make promises he can’t keep and he has a staging process for plans, sir. There is an acronym I forget, sir.” Faith thought about it for a moment. “Desires, Intentions, Goals, Concepts, Plans, Actions, sir. Believe that is the series, sir. Each of those up to ‘actions’ may have several forms of equivalent value until they’re evaluated. Some are discarded leading to the next stage, sir. I’m not sure where the captain is in terms of strategic clearance in that series, sir. My father desires a zombie-free world, sir. So far his actions have been to build forces with very little strategic or even operational clearance. Probably because he’s somewhere in the middle of the series, sir.”

“Are you familiar with mechanicals, Lieutenant?” Ramos asked.

“I saw the ones in the Canaries, sir,” Faith said. “I haven’t seen any of the new ones in action, sir. I’ve read the reports, sir.”

“What do you think of them?”

“I think they’re slow and somewhat inefficient, sir,” Faith said. “I discussed that with my father on leave, sir. They do well for the first week, sir. But it takes a fairly stupid zombie to walk into one, sir. After the first week, their clearance rate drops, sir. I did more clearance in one night with an Abrams and a platoon in amtracks than all the mechanicals in Miami. On the other hand, they just keep going, sir. A tank is a high maintenance item, sir. And there is a limited supply of M1028 in this fallen world, sir. There are arguments both ways, sir.”

“And they only work on coastal cities,” General Ramos said.

“Or riverine, sir,” Faith said. “And mechanicals don’t drop a city to low orange. The best they do is high orange. Dropped from red but not even to yellow in most cases. I could clear New York or D.C. with my platoon in three or four days, sir. At least Manhattan, sir. Up to the point we run out of M1028 at which point . . . I can’t crush them all, sir.”

“No,” Ramos said. “And you don’t know if mechanicals are your father’s only plan?”

“No, sir,” Faith said. “At least, I don’t think they are. Again, Da keeps things pretty close to the vest. But he’s said mechanicals are only part of the plan, sir.”

“I’d considered asking you to be my aide,” General Ramos said. “Then I realized that would be a bad idea. Good because you are, unquestionably, the best known and one of the most knowledgeable fighters of the post-Plague environment. Having your experience close would be an asset. Bad because it would be far outside your skill-sets and you would probably hate it. Especially since it would be junior aide, mostly handling the social side. You’ve been a second lieutenant for more than six months, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Faith said. “The general idea, sorry, is that I’ll probably stay a two LT until I’m at least sixteen if not older. Which I’m fine with, sir. I’m really not about rank, sir. Just want to clear zombies, sir.”

“Are you continuing your education?” Ramos asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“How’s that going?”

“I’m up to eleventh grade class-work, sir,” Faith said. “Mostly self-taught through computer classes with some occasional assistance from other officers, sir. I’m not sure I could go back to a classroom, sir. Meetings are bad enough, sir.”

“It will be a while before we stand Annapolis or the Point back up,” General Ramos said. “But you need to get your head around going back to school at some point. You’ll need the professional education as your career advances.”