The Demon Plagues (4 page)

Chief Petty Officer Michael ‘Machinegun’
Kelley: incongruously caf
￩
-au-lait Creole mix. UD, underwater demolition, which
combined with his studies this last year meant he knew how to take
apart and put together just about any system on the submarine, as
well as use scuba and welding gear.

Petty Officer First Class Sean ‘Bitzer’
Bonnagh, ruddy and ginger. Bubblehead, formerly of the Royal Navy.
If the mission didn’t crash and burn first, his task would be vital
- driving the boat. She hoped he’d studied the Ohio class subs well
enough to transfer his knowledge from the UK’s Vanguards.

Lieutenant William Harres, nuclear engineer –
powerplants and weapons both. Slim, tall, black, fine-featured, of
Maasai descent: He didn’t have a nickname with this team, as it was
his first mission.

Ditto Commander Ann Alkina, liaison from the
Free Australian Navy. Wide-set cheekbones and a squashed nose
betrayed her Aboriginal blood, but her eyes and petite build spoke
more of Asia. If the Colonel was spooky, Alkina seemed a dark
spirit. She seldom smiled and her eyes missed nothing. If Doc
hadn’t assured them she was a Plague carrier and had passed all the
psych tests, Repeth would have worried about her being…well,
off
. But the Aussies had insisted on one of their own coming
along, and had assured the Colonel she could keep up. The team’s
four weeks of hard training in Venezuela had proven that.

Finally, herself. Both feet lost to an IED,
now regrown by the blessings of the Plague, contracted aboard a
cruise ship just before Infection Day. With nothing better to do
but think, she cast her mind back ten years.

***

Infection Day Minus One.

Jill Repeth, Sergeant, United States Marine
Corps, stared out over the rail of her upper cabin balcony aboard
the cruise ship
Royal Neptune
. The object of her gaze was
the frigate USS
Ingraham
, keeping station to windward at
about two nautical miles distance. Beyond, hull up on the horizon
at perhaps twelve miles, was a Landing Platform/Dock amphibious
assault ship, probably the USS
Somerset
. It was this ship
that held her frustrated attention.

She lowered herself down from her hold on the
railing; she had been perched there with her hands taking all her
weight. Settling into the comfortable deck chair, she picked up her
small 5X optical binoculars. She cursed herself for not bringing
her 18X electronic monsters, but she hated to carry a month’s pay
around on a Caribbean cruise.

The LPD leaped into view, the angled,
radar-deflecting planes of its superstructure identifying it as one
of the most modern ships of the US Navy. She was familiar with the
type, having served a Fleet Marine Force tour on her sister ship,
the USS
Arlington.

Twelve miles. Just sitting there for the last
two days.

Food aboard the cruise ship was getting low;
Jill had recognized the impending problem as soon as they had been
detained. She had taken pains to smuggle everything that would keep
back to her cabin and stash it in anticipation of making a break,
but her stock would run out shortly, and there was no sign of them
being allowed to land or disembark.

She was hungry all the time.

The announcements aboard ship had said they
were quarantined because of a ‘dangerous disease’; that dangerous
disease had apparently cured cancer, blindness, even old age among
those aboard, and had started to regrow her legs.

She looked down at the strange pink skin down
there, contrasting with the tan that ended just below her knees.
The nubs couldn’t bear her weight without excruciating pain, and
they wouldn’t fit her prosthetics anymore, so she had used the
wheelchair service a lot. Reaching down to scratch the itchy
growth, she pushed aside thoughts of why it had happened, or even
how, and concentrated on what she had to do.

Night was starting to fall over the Atlantic.
Making her final preparations, she wrote a letter to her parents in
Los Angeles, leaving it addressed on the table for the steward to
find. She ate as much as she could hold, and put the rest into the
waterproof bag, along with her combat uniform, her wallet and ID,
and the jury-rigged prostheses. She had ripped the expensive
electronic guts out of them and she now had something that she
could use, if barely. Padded with pillow-stuffing and cut-up
blankets, they strapped onto her stumps and allowed her to stand,
even walk gingerly, as long as she could take the pain, and look
somewhat normal in her uniform.

A bottle of ibuprofen went in as well, and a
few other odds and ends. Then she sealed it up and put it in her
rucksack. Wet suit on next, a stylish blue and green never intended
for clandestine work, but it was all she had. Then the scuba gear
she had brought to use – she thought – for recreation, her combat
knife, and a rucksack strapped in reverse to sit over her belly.
Lastly the swim fins, reconfigured to fit her regenerating
stumps.

Levering herself up to the rail, she looked
out between the slats at the two ships, now visible mainly by their
navigation lights. Earlier she had seen hovercraft embarking and
disembarking out of the combat well at the back of the LPD. Now she
could see a strobe and running lights from a helo landing on the
flight deck at the rear, one of a continuous droning above and
around the ships. She had seen Hornet and Lightning naval fighters
high overhead earlier in the day, so there was a supercarrier out
there somewhere too, running combat air patrol.

She took several deep breaths, wondering if
she was making the biggest mistake of her life.
Hell, there’s an
old Corps saying
: ‘The worst plan executed quickly and
violently is better than the best plan not executed at all.’

It was far better to do something than to do
nothing.

Facemask and regulator on, she hoisted
herself up to the railing, looked at the thirty feet to the water,
and launched over the rail like a gymnast. Balling up, she wrapped
herself around the rucksack, holding her hands to her face to
shield the delicate apparatus from the impact. The sea struck her
like a cold wet fist, and she fought to stay out of sight below the
surface, fought to get the mouthpiece settled and clear it of
water. For a moment she just floated beneath the waves, recovering
her breath.

Then she began the long swim.

She navigated by lights from the ships. At
first she steered by the brilliant glare of the bright cruise ship
behind her, easy enough to see through the water above her head.
All she had to do was keep going directly away. A half hour later,
when she couldn’t see it any more, she cautiously broke the surface
to get her bearings and adjust.

Her stomach was already complaining; she
rolled over on her back and pulled a plastic coffee can out of a
rucksack pocket, gulping down the cold spaghetti and meatballs
packed inside, shoving it into her mouth with her fingers. It was
the best she could come up with for eating on the trip; she hoped
she had enough food. A half-liter of water followed.

The surface swim seemed interminable; even
with the fins, she estimated it would take four to six hours. The
critical variable was the hunger, the thing she'd had to learn to
live with and manage for the last few days. How often would she
have to stop, how much would she have to eat – would her food and
water run out? She laughed to herself at the idea of being thirsty
in the ocean.

Eating every thirty minutes, she burned
calories at a prodigious rate.

The answer came after three hours.
Ingraham
was far to her rear; she had bypassed it by a good
mile, having no desire to be spotted and caught. It appeared that
no one had even considered the possibility that someone would
swim
away from their floating prison, particularly not in
the direction of their captors. But now she’d eaten the last of the
food outside the waterproof bag. It looked like about an hour to
the LPD. She wished she could ditch the scuba tank, but she might
need it at the other end.

A half hour later her gut demanded food
again, and she didn’t have anything accessible to give it. If she
opened the waterproof bag, she would flood everything inside with
seawater – the food and her uniform in particular. She clamped down
on the discomfort, bringing the discipline of a lifetime of
triathlon into play.
Pain is just weakness leaving the body. No
pain, no gain – no pain, no brain. Pain is a feeling, and Marines
don’t get issued feelings
.

Two hundred yards from the stern of the LPD,
the starving wolverine in her belly cramped her up completely,
curling her into a fetal ball. She ground her teeth, pushing
through the pain. She put her head under water and screamed. She
pounded her thigh, trying to distract her nervous system.

Looming above her, the ship showed nothing
except for its navigation lights. Uncramping just enough to propel
herself to the stern, she hoped that someone didn’t pick that
moment to look out into the dark water and see her in the
moonlight. She forced her legs to push her closer, finally rounding
the corner.

The well ramp was closed.

She groaned, fighting the cramps and
starvation. Pulling out a water bottle she drank, hoping the fluid
would ease the sensations. She cursed herself for not thinking of
putting something with nutrition in the water bottles – protein
shake, orange juice, anything.
Milk would have been ideal. I’m
such an idiot.

Lesson learned, if she lived to remember
it.

The cramping eased for a moment.Looking
around she found a steel rung inset into the stern. More rungs led
up the side, and she measured the climb with her eyes. Fifty feet,
maybe. No way would she make it, especially not with the gear. She
closed her eyes for a moment, hanging on grimly. Ketosis soured her
breath as her body scoured her bloodstream for something to
metabolize.

Only one choice. She had to get to the food
inside the waterproof bag.

Levering herself painfully up on the first
rung, she sat on it and wrapped her left arm into the one above.
Crudely clinging, she forced her right hand’s cold knotted muscles
to open the rucksack strapped to her belly, then the bag inside.
She grabbed the first food packet she encountered. Greedily she
stuffed crackers into her face. A feeling of relief and well-being
spread like a drug; she could almost follow the sugars through her
veins as they reached outward from her insides, quieting her
screaming tissues.

A rumble went through the ship, a vibration
felt rather than heard. Grinding and clanking sounds startled her,
originating from somewhere very near. She hastily sealed up the
waterproof bag and slipped back into the water, just in time.

Light blazed above where she had just rested,
and she slipped the scuba regulator back in her mouth, breathing on
tank air. The great dark slab of the well ramp laid itself rapidly
down onto the surface of the water nearby, forming a smooth
transition for hovercraft inside to leave the ship.

A moment later an enormous dark shape swept
by just feet from her, an LCAC hovercraft shoving her downward with
tremendous force, spinning her like the undertow at a riptide
beach. As quickly as it had come it was gone, off into the Atlantic
night, and the ramp began to rise again.

This was her only chance. Her legs pumped,
driving the fins against the sea with all of her strength, aiming
for the joint at the base of the ramp, from the side. There was no
time to worry about being spotted; she had to get out of the water
and on board.

She rolled over the enormous hinge and into
the wet well. There was only three feet of water inside, and as
soon as the ramp closed it would drain. She swam sidestroke in the
shallow water, pushing herself up against the side rail, and then
wormed her way forward. She was still hidden by the sea water, the
dimness and the looming machines, but soon she might have nowhere
to hide.

It’s good to be good, but sometimes it’s
better to be lucky. She got lucky.

The only person in sight was a sailor
sneaking a smoke, facing into the corner opposite her across the
vast open space. Parked vehicles hid her exit from the water, and
the noise of the starting pumps covered any sound she made as she
dragged herself up the access ramp. She climbed onto a ladder –
nautical terminology for any stairway aboard ship – and upward into
one of the compartments tucked up along the walls. Once out of
sight, she just breathed for a few minutes, resting after her
ordeal.

Dry and safe enough, she ate her fill,
stripped off the wet suit, and changed into her uniform. On a ship
this size, one more Marine would be almost anonymous. The trick
would be when to make herself known, and to whom.

This was as far as her planning had carried
her.

Her MOS, Military Operational Specialty –
until she lost the legs – was 5816-3RT, Military Police Special
Reaction Team member. It was the closest thing to direct combat she
could expect as a female, similar to civilian SWAT. The problem
with such a small specialty was that her circle of contacts was
limited. 3RT people tended to keep to themselves. She hoped to
either find someone on this ship’s 3RT she knew, or just depend on
the tight-knit community to shelter her in the face of her unlawful
actions. Still, there were some violations that could be ignored by
the loyalties and traditions of the service; she hoped that
unofficially rejoining a deployed unit would qualify.

She slipped the prostheses on last, grimacing
as she strapped them tight. Another four pain pills and a gulp of
water, and she was on her feet. She stowed her gear behind a stack
of firefighting equipment and hoped it wouldn’t be noticed.