Strands of Sorrow (33 page)
Authors: John Ringo
Tags: #Fiction, #science fiction, #General, #Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic, #Military
“But don’t shoot up the infected. We’ve only got so much ammo. I mean, we got a lot, but only so much, sir, no planned resupply and a big world to clear. We’ll need a secure point, big one, in artillery range of the Mall. Preferably somewhere we can roll on and off with ammo. When you lead in a pied piper, fire it up with artillery. Then bring in the bulldozers, at some point, bulldoze them into the pits and you’re done. Fire up the pits probably in the evening. Fill with more wood in the morning. Do it all over again that night. Keep doing that till the whole area’s clear. Minimum use of bullets, lots of arty, but we’ve got that sitting around. And artillery kills better than bullets, from what I’ve heard.
“Rolling offshore every day will be an issue. We may have to set up some sort of secure area to roll to. Maybe where the artillery is. But it should have the back-door of being able to roll offshore in case shit hits the fan. So, close to the water.
“We’re going to need five times the amtracks you’d normally use for a MEU, one HERCULES and one Abrams for each three to five amtracks and a shitload of speakers. We don’t have to use the psyops ones all the time. Any big ass speaker will do. Drive around doing that until all the infected are toast, sir. Take some time but we can really clear all the way out to . . .”
She looked at the map.
“There’s this ring road, right? 495? We can probably clear everything inside that ring road in, say, four weeks? Not yellow, but low orange. Yellow inside the D.C. city limits. Maybe put up some definite barriers inside there and get it down to greenish in a certain area. By then we’d have moved out from the Mall to other areas to use as mass graves, sir. And probably have the arty sitting in the Mall to support it.
“That’s not so much a plan, sir, as concept, you understand,” Faith said. “I don’t know how many arty troops we got or what it takes to fix their gear up to standard. Don’t know if that’s all doable, sir. Probably the thing about the amtracks and Abrams isn’t. I don’t think we have five times as much or can get that many up and going in that time even if we did. But the more we use, the faster it goes, sir. That’s all I got, sir.”
“So, to dial it down a bit,” Ramos said. “One team of an M88, three to five tracks and an Abrams rolls through D.C. When it has a fair following it heads to an area of the Mall that has been pre-selected. As it passes through that area, it is fired up by one-five-five using variable time fuse. The infected are killed by the VT fire and the unit continues on. End of the day, bulldozers push the infected bodies into pits pre-laid with wood, start the fires and let them burn. Do it again the next day.”
“That’s the general idea, sir,” Faith said. “Probably roll out hot and fast, then slow down on the way back in. We may be able to build up maps that can see where the roads are clear and where they’re not. That’s where the helos are going to come in handy. Also . . . if a team gets totally stuck, they can probably be pulled out by helos direct from their tracks. More Soph’s thing than mine but Gunhawks for cover and Dragons for extract. We could probably STABO out most of the team. Or something. Not my asteroid, sir.
“Then when we come back in, refuel, rearm if we need it, then roll back out. Do that over and over again. When we’ve gotten to the point we’re not getting many takers in the middle, move out to other areas and set up the same sort of central kill and disposal point.
“Big tactical problem is that you get more infected following you at night. Do day runs, then night. Turn the thing about the fires around. Fire them up in the morning and let them cook during the day. Then the tracks roll out again at dusk. In the morning, the tracks make sure the area is cleared for the bulldozer crews, bulldoze them in all at once. That way we can be sure there’s not a friendly-fire incident. Is it going to take a lot of logistics? Yes, sir. Way lot of logistics and support. I mean, if we do it big. We can do it smaller and it will just take more time, sir. I’m not sure what we can really support, sir. Way above my paygrade, sir.”
“Major Sanskeld?” Ramos said.
“Do a thorough air reconnaissance, first, sir,” Sanskeld said. “And build the map to which the lieutenant referred. Possibly some SAR but mostly build the map. Video, where possible, of every road. Even if it is hand-held as long as we can figure out what we’re looking at. Build up a map of which roads are passable and impassable and use that to determine routes that avoid, unless necessary, running over the cars. My objection to that, sir, is less the mess than that you’d have fuel on the streets which combined with weapons and sparks from the passing tracks would cause fires. Which would kill survivors and you can’t actually drive your tracks through it.”
“Noted,” Ramos said.
“But those are details, sir,” Sanskeld said. “In general . . . I begin to see the logic. Very complex operation that will require a good deal of intelligence and initiative on the part of the team leaders, sir. That is another issue.”
“And they’ll need to be able to figure out where they are and where they’re going,” Sophia said. “Which leaves Faith out.”
“Bite me,” Faith said. “Car GPS saves the day, there.”
“That is a point,” Ramos said. “We can build the map to note blocked routes. And use standard GPS where possible. It’s easier to reprogram that than in BFT.”
Faith nudged the captain next to her.
“BFT?” she whispered.
“Blue Force Tracker,” the captain replied.
“Secure point for artillery and fall back?” Ramos said.
“Pentagon?” Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton said. He had taken over as the MEU S-3. “Fenced and gated. We may need to do some clearance on the Arlington side, first. The infected can swarm the fences if they are in enough density and a camp that size will attract them from miles around. But the artillery would be in easy range of the Mall. Close to the water. No direct access but, well, that’s what bulldozers and C4 is for. Possibly Reagan National. More area. Also fenced and gated. Better over-water access. Issue. We have stood up no artillery
at all
. All artillery MOS personnel were transferred to infantry duties.”
“That’s a matter for the G-1 to unfuck if we decide to do this,” Colonel Ramos said. “I take it Captain Smith will have no objections to the Marines having organic artillery at least. Lieutenant Commander Chen.”
“Sir?” Chen said.
“Gather up all the gunboat squadrons and head up to D.C.,” Ramos said. “Start the music. We’ll bring up the MEU later. Start on the Pentagon side. Try to find a good spot away from what we’re going to use, which means the Pentagon or possibly Reagan. But start the music. Keep going until we get there or until you’re not getting much on the Arlington side of the Potomac. Then switch to D.C. We’ll see about alternate weapons to the fifties on the fly as you said. Clear?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Chen said.
“Colonel Hamilton, I want a more detailed look at this overall plan,” Ramos said. “It sounds like to hold either the Pentagon or Reagan we’ll need to do some ground-level clearance on the Arlington side, first. Look at where to set the kill zone. Arlington National Cemetery is off the list.”
“Absolutely, sir,” Hamilton said. “But, bad news, sir.”
“Which is?” Ramos asked.
“Best alternate impact area and burn pit zone is probably the Army-Navy Club golf course, sir,” Hamilton said.
“Ouch,” Ramos said to a series of grimaces around the table. “That was a damned good course, too. Was. Past tense.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Hamilton said, grinning. “Army’s never going to let us live it down, sir. I mean not in a hundred years, sir.”
“They will if we can get enough free to stand them back up,” Ramos said. “I want the Phase One plan complete by seventeen hundred tomorrow so we can look at what we need for Phase Two and Three planning. Looks like a concept, though. Lieutenant Smith.”
“Sir?” Faith said, looking up from her computer.
“Your idea,” Ramos said. “You are going to have the honor of first landing in the AO. Rack them up, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
* * *
“Jesus,” Sophia breathed as the Seahawk circled over Arlington. “I thought
London
was bad . . .”
The Greater D.C. Metropolitan area had a larger number of wooden based buildings than London and that had been a major issue. Also, during the summer it dried out a good bit and was very arboreal. What had swept across Arlington was as much a forest fire as house fires. The result was that about half of Arlington and D.C. had burned. And while undoubtedly many infected were killed by the fires, anyone trapped in a home or other building by the infected had definitely perished.
It was spotty, though. In this case, spots of unscorched ground were often entirely surrounded by devastation. And there were survivors. She could see them on rooftops, signaling for pick-up. In some of the balcony high-rise buildings the survivors were using ropes on the exterior to move around. In others they’d apparently cleared the interiors or the infected had died off.
They passed over a killzone of one of Chen’s gunboats and she shook her head. The pile was . . . huge. Massive. Sick. Piles of twisted and probably rotting bodies, most of them in pieces from .50 caliber fire. By her experienced count, over a thousand, probably over two. She was glad she couldn’t smell it from up here.
And the infected were still swarming on it. The gunboat division, which had backed away from the pile for the day to get some sleep away from the smell, would be back in the morning to make more carrion. Probably half their rounds at this point were just chewing up corpses. If she’d been in charge, she’d have them move.
“That is . . . sick,” Lieutenant Simms said. The former F-18 pilot was still a newbie at helos even compared to Sophia. Despite that, both had already rotated to Mayport as IPs.
“We built up some kills in the Canaries,” Sophia said. “Thought those were something. Was I ever wrong.
“Okay,” she said, looking at the civilian GPS strapped to the flight panel. “What’s next?”
“25th Street South,” Simms said.
“Port. 25th Street South at my order,” Sophia said, bringing the bird around to the target street. “Begin film . . .”
“Starting, aye,” Olga said. “And the answer is: 700 block: blocked and charred and blocked again.”
“Seven Hundred: Bravo comma Charlie, aye,” Simms said, making a note on his iPad.
“Mark it as mostly bypassable,” Sophia said.
“Marked,” Simms said. “You sure?”
“The road’s blocked. The houses are burned flat and mostly slab. The amtracks can move through the rubble.”
“Hell of a thing,” Simms said. “I lived in Aurora when I was stationed here.”
“Sorry for your loss, sir,” Sophia said automatically. “26th Street, south . . .”
CHAPTER 25
“Let the bodies hit the floor,” Faith sang, drawing her USP. “Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies, let the bodies . . .”
Infected had inhabited Reagan National. It was accessible due to busted gates and all the broken glass on the front and it kept them out of the weather. Despite all the gunboat clearance in the area, the place was still fairly populated. Not bad; the platoon wasn’t going to get into a scrum with this density. But quite a few.
Trixie was parked outside baggage claim. Technically, Faith should be
either
an infantry
or
armor platoon leader. But while her specialty was infantry, the very few suggestions that Trixie be taken away had been met with cold, blank stares from not only Wolf Marines but pretty much all the senior officers. So when the infantry unassed, she popped out of the tank and slid down the glacis to go have fun in the sun.
Or the baggage claim as the case may be.
About half the platoon was newbies from PI fleshed out by Wolf Marines and trained jarheads from Lejeune. The boots and Lejeune Marines heard the tales from the “Wolves” as the scattered Wolf Squadron Marines were called. But this was their first experience of fighting with “The Skipper.” Seeing it was a different deal.
* * *
“Does the Skipper ever miss?” Private First Class Bryant Fisher asked as he changed mags. The former PI boot had been fast-tracked to PFC as one of the few who could think beyond direct orders. He wasn’t freaked out by the fight. He’d spent about half the time since being released from the horrors of extended boot camp clearing liners. Clearing liners was a picnic compared to a ten month boot camp at PI.
“Oh,
yeah
,” Curran said as Faith switched to her first pistol. Twelve rounds and twelve infected were on the floor bleeding out. She holstered the pistol and drew another. “Everybody misses a shot
once
in a while. I’ve seen her miss . . . twice, I think? And her sister’s better at over a hundred meters. Just stay on target . . .”
* * *
“Well, that was boring,” Faith said, reloading her pistols. “Just another bug hunt.”
“Game over, ma’am,” Curran said. “Game over!”
“I say we nuke the site from orbit,” Faith said, finished reloading. “It’s the only way to be sure.” She had an iPod bud in one ear and her comms in the other. She keyed the comm and held up a hand to Curran.
“Alpha Company, Shewolf. Lobby’s clear but this is going to be a bug. . . . Stand by . . .” She drew one of her pistols and fired off to the side, nailing the infected climbing out onto the baggage carousel. “This is going to be a bug hunt. We’re going to have to sweep the whole place. Roger . . . Roger, copy that.”
“Bug hunt time,” Faith said. “We’ve got Terminal A. Second’s got B and so on and so forth. Bravo is getting the gates closed and securing the perimeter. First job, clear up in here. Then find a security station with a really detailed map. Jan, take the port side, I’ll take starboard. Make sure your loads are up. Drink. Then let’s go get some . . .”
* * *
“Wheeee!” Faith said, sliding down the baggage carousel. She had her USP in a two-handed grip and was nailing infected as she slid. She was missing but that was to be expected. The angles were just insane.
She hit the slideway at the bottom on her back, padded by a recent kill, with infected coming from either direction. She dropped the empty USP, drew her chest pistols in each hand and started firing, looking back and forth and firing carefully.
“They need to make this an amusement park ride,” Faith yelled.
The platoon was farther up in the complex snake-maze of the baggage movement area. They were trying to cover their lieutenant but the intervening carousels made it nearly impossible. The up and down carousels twisted through the warehouselike baggage movement area like so many metal strands of spaghetti. There were essentially no clear sight-lines much less clear fire zones.
“Fisher,” Januscheitis said. “Get down there and cover the LT.”
“Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant,” Fisher said, hopping on the slide. “Look out below, ma’am!”
“Take port,” Faith said, getting up on one knee as Fisher slid in beside her. She dropped both empty pistols, switched to M4 and started firing to the right.
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Fisher said, getting up on a knee as well. He tried to ignore that he was in standard combat gear and kneeling in infected blood.
The slideway was nearly two stories up and, with the platoon moving down from above, the only reasonable way to access the two-some was along the slideway. Which was rapidly filling up with bodies.
“Scrummin’ time,” Faith said, letting the M4 pull back on its sling and drawing her kukri. She slid the knife across the first infected’s throat and hip-flipped him to the side to fall into the distance. But there was another infected behind that one. When it charged, she just tripped it and hip-checked it off the slideway. “Don’t fall.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” the PFC said. He was out as well and let the M4 withdraw then took a horse stance. “Fortunately, Staff Sergeant Bumwaldt was a Marine hand-to-hand instructor. It was about the only thing I learned in the warehouse besides that staff sergeants are total pricks, ma’am.”
He blocked the rush of the first infected and knife-handed it on the side of the neck, stunning it. Then he just pushed it off the slideway. He did the same thing with the next but reversed the direction. It was enough of a fall that they weren’t going to survive. Which he kept in mind was equally the case with himself.
Faith was, meantime, doing the same thing but with a knife not a hand. It was much bloodier. However, she could see infected crawling up from every direction. It wasn’t the thousands it looked like but it was too many for two to take on and they were
way
out in front. Fun as it was, this was getting out of hand.
“Jan, we could use more bodies down here,” Faith yelled. “Live Marine ones!”
“On the way, ma’am!”
“Note for the after action report, Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, sharpening her kukri. “Clearance of baggage areas in airports should be done from the bottom, up,
not
the top down. And all personnel should wear full clearance gear. Should be considered confined space clearance.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. He pulled out his green notebook, wiped some blood off his hands, and made a note.
“Alpha, Shewolf. Unit needs to RTB for a wash down. We’ve got sticky mags. And, well, everything else . . .”
* * *
“The terminals appear to be mostly clear, sir,” Captain Frank Dobbins said. The commander of Alpha Company, First Infantry Battalion, First Marine Regiment, A/1/1, was the former commander of a similar unit at Lejeune and Faith’s company commander. “Chartreuse at least. Probably betas left but there always are. Clearing the bodies out will be . . . problematic.”
“Unless we can get the luggage system working again,” Faith said. “Then we just ship them to Houston to get lost . . .”
“You look like you could use a shower, Lieutenant,” Lieutenant Colonel Grant Dawson, the 1/1 commander, said.
“Had one, sir,” Faith said. “In gear. Could use another. Several. This stuff does
not
come off easy. It’s like you can
never
get it out of your hair. Definite item for the AAR: Do not clear baggage areas without full clearance gear.”
“Noted,” Colonel Dawson said. “I’m going to contact higher and declare the area clear for landing. We’ll lay low and hope the infected don’t swarm the fences till the rest of the gear gets here . . .”
* * *
“Remember trying to get the magazine on that Coast Guard cutter open?” Faith said, watching the unloading process.
The
Bataan
and three LCUs had supported the initial landing. Now the MPF ship USNS
2nd Lt. John P. Bobo,
recently returned from the Pacific, was anchored just off the airport unloading over a “floating dock.” Track after track was rolling ashore, most of them towing artillery pieces or trailers loaded with artillery ammo.
The first unload had been seven tons with rolls of wire to “upgrade” the defenses of the airport. Marines were hard at work reinforcing the perimeter fence as well as building Combat Operations Bases scattered around the airport. Each would support a Marine company and one platoon of artillery. It had been decided to do it that way so the different COBs could provide supporting fire if one COB came under attack by massed infected.
The infected were out there, that was for sure. Despite all the fire from the gunboats, which was ongoing, and the fact that operations ceased at dark to avoid attracting them, they were gathering by the airport fences. The first part of the plan was leading them away so they didn’t have more bodies built up in the area.
You could smell the decay from the ones in the terminal despite being nearly eight hundred meters away and more or less upwind. That was one of the things drawing the infected: the smell of carrion. You’d think they’d go for some of the easier to access piles the gunboats had built. But if they were smart they wouldn’t be zombies, would they?
“The hard part is remembering that was less than a year ago,” Sophia said. Her bird was parked on the tarmac getting refueled. One of the first cargoes to go ashore was a forward air support team. That kept the crowding down on the
Bataan,
which was overloaded with helos. “But at the rate we’re going through ammo, we’re going to need to open every magazine on the planet.”
“That’s about to change,” Faith said, watching the artillery landing. “Let’s hope these things are as good as they’re cracked up to be.”
* * *
“Let me remind everyone that you need to have your hatches
closed
as soon as we near the golf course . . .”
Just getting there had been a nightmare. “Fast out, slow back” was not an option. Every road was blocked and often by “stuff” the helos had missed. Tracks could not cross whole trees blown down by storms. Or for that matter power poles downed by being hit by a truck. The truck might be off the road but the power pole wasn’t.
They’d spent half their time driving through yards. Often with infected hammering the sides of the tracks. Fortunately, there was essentially no one who was not a veteran at this point. For green troops that was a bit nerve-wracking.
Tracks had gotten stuck and had to be towed off of hidden obstacles. While the infected were swarming. That had required a lot of rounds and a call to a Gunhawk to fix. Fortunately, they were doing this first run by day. Doing it at night would have meant scrumming. And with the infected density, that would have meant an LRI situation.
But they were finally approaching the golf course with Hell’s own pack of infected on their tail. There were . . . thousands. The last Gunhawk pass had been for video, not fire support. That had been uploaded to the Hole, where it was massaged by a computer and come back with better than fifty thousand infected, trotting along behind trying to get to the tasty treats.
Faith could believe it. She was observing them through her commander’s vision blocks.
“I need a read back from each track that they are closed up, tight,” Faith said. “Track One . . .”
When all the tracks had confirmed that they were closed up for the night, Faith switched to the fire control frequency.
“Fire Control, Fire Control, Alpha One, over,” Faith said.
“Fire Control.”
“Going to try to lead them down to the ninth tee,” Faith said. “Down by Glebe Road, break. Will call for fire when in the basket. Over.”
“Roger. Have that zeroed and are ready for fire for effect at your call, over.”
“Stand by,” Faith said, checking the GPS. It was hooked up to an external, unarmored, antenna so they were probably going to lose it as soon as the rounds came in. “Roger . . . How long on the time of flight, over?”
“Fifteen seconds, over.”
“Roger. . . .” Faith looked at the group, thought about where they were and shrugged. “Fire control, approximately fifty thousand targets on Target Point Nine, break. Fire for effect, over.”
“Fire for effect, out,”
the firing battery called.
“Shot, over.”
