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Late Afternoon, Sunday, May 1
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Over Coronado
Andrew calmed his breathing as he carefully followed the yellow-vested man’s directions and aligned the Lightning on the double white lines painted on the deck. The hand signals were similar to those he was used to in the Air Force. The man signaled stop, and a second later he felt a slight lurch as the catapult shuttle made contact with his tow bar. Just to his right, Commander James Young in his own Lightning was already hooked into the catapult. He would launch first, just in case Andrew didn’t succeed.
The deck crew looked confused. The hulking shape of the C-17’s tail was only a few feet in front of them, and its improbable mass blocked the bow of the carrier. The outer set of wheels were only feet from the edge on each side, and its port wingtip overlapped the carrier’s waist catapult flight path. The crew didn’t appear to understand why they were preparing to launch the fighters with the giant transport still in the way.
Andrew called over the radio to Young. “X-Ray Two, X-Ray One.”
“What’s up?” the other pilot asked.
“How long do you think until they get that thing moving?”
“Man, I have no clue.”
“Oh, I was just—” Andrew stopped, mouth open, as the C-17 shot away. It didn’t accelerate, it was just...gone! He saw it now, hundreds of yards off the nose of the carrier, streaking through the sky, as a Boom! echoed and his fighter shuddered. Dozens of deck hands were blown off their feet, sucked forward by the sudden shockwave as air rushed in behind the improbable departure.
“Medical response teams to the flight deck!” a voice over the ship-wide 1MC PA system ordered. Andrew could see a number of injured personnel and hoped no one had been sucked over the side. In a world gone slightly mad, he somehow wasn’t surprised to see something even more impossible than armies of cannibal zombies.
“Camelot X-Ray One, you are cleared to launch!”
They’d been assigned the “Camelot” call sign of the Tophatters of VFA-14, a squadron assigned to the Reagan, and X1 and X2, for Young and Andrew’s Lightnings. “Roger, X-Ray One, cleared to launch,” Young called. Andrew looked over, and Young gave him a wave. The big steel blast deflector raised behind his fighter. Off to the other side of Young’s fighter, a man in a yellow vest, known as the ‘Shooter,’ was pointing at the fighter and giving him the signal to run up his engine. Young’s jet roared as he gave it full throttle. He cycled the controls to ensure they worked and checked his gauges. Happy with what he saw, he saluted the shooter. The man dropped down in a sideways stoop, cleared the area around the aircraft and its flight path, then tapped the deck and pointed forward toward the bow. An instant later, the catapult fired, and Young hurtled off the deck. His Lightning dropped slightly as it raced off the deck, then climbed into the sky. He was away.
“Camelot X-Ray Two, you are cleared to launch!” Oh fuck.
“R-roger. Camelot X-Ray Two, cleared to launch,” Andrew replied. He almost managed not to stutter. The shooter on his side made a whirling motion over his head. Andrew rammed the throttle full forward, and the engine spooled up to a roar. He checked the controls and gauges, turned his head, and gave the shooter a sharp salute. The man grinned; he knew it was Andrew’s first catapult. He cleared the area around and in front of the aircraft, then tapped the deck. Andrew ensured the throttle was full forward and held onto the catapult grip to make sure it didn’t retard on the catapult stroke.
Four G’s of thrust slammed him back against his seat as he went from zero to 180 miles per hour in three hundred feet. It was over before he had time to think about it, then the deck was out from under him, and he was less than seventy feet off the water. In a panic, he started to yank back on the stick—it was the only sane thing to do, his mind insisted—then his training kicked in, he pulled back smoothly, and the jet angled effortlessly into the sky.
“Well done!” Young called over their tactical frequency.
“Yes!” Andrew cheered. “That was fucking incredible!” As they turned, he craned his head to look back at the carrier falling away behind him. A fighter was already hitting the deck. Damn, that was fast.
“Welcome to the Navy,” Young said. “You’ve taken off from a carrier now. Next up, your first trap.”
“My what?”
“Your first arrested landing. Hopefully, it’s more of a controlled crash than your last one.”
“Great,” Andrew replied, not looking forward to throwing himself at the deck again. Luckily, it wouldn’t be for some time. He checked his position, pulling into formation with Young, and they banked to the east and headed for Coronado. The Lightning handled incredibly, and he basked in being back in the cockpit at long last. This was no flying bus; in fact, it even put his F-15 to shame. The future would have been wonderful. Climbing to 20,000 feet, they flew on.
* * *
They came in waves; mass assaults the likes of which hadn’t been seen on American soil since the Civil War. Only these weren’t blue against gray, musket versus musket, bayonet against bayonet. The enemy was armed only with teeth and fingernails, and the Marines had their weapons of war. It was slaughter on an unprecedented scale.
Captain Sharps wiped water from his eyes. The rain was finally tapering off, not that it mattered, because the storm was only just beginning. They’d beaten off two assaults while inflicting unbelievable losses on the enemy. He guessed anywhere from two to five thousand infected were lying in huge piles at every avenue of approach. The infected had to climb 10-foot-high piles of their own numbers, many still screaming and writhing in their death throes, in order to reach the Marines. The problem was, it also shortened the killing field his Marines could fire into before the enemy closed.
In addition to the enemy casualties, he’d suffered 29 of his own. Twenty-one from overruns that were only stopped by the use of the Mk-19 grenade launcher at far closer range than was recommended. The other eight were non-injury losses. Six couldn’t kill anymore, most after having to shoot women and children, and were evacuated. The last two were similar, only they’d put a gun in their own mouths and ended it. Sharps had a hard time blaming them, after what he’d done in the intervening hours.
He turned in the brief respite and saw the second C-130 on final, approaching over San Diego because of the prevailing winds. The first was in the grass off the left end of the field. The LCAC was roaring off into the bay, its maximum load tested with three hundred men, women, and children crowded aboard. This was the dangerous time. Both remaining C-130s would be on the deck before the LCAC could return for the load from the second. Six hundred civilians, mostly unarmed and vulnerable, and the ravenous armies of hell beating at their doors.
“Sergeant Buckley,” Sharps called.
“Captain?” the older non-com replied.
“Ammo situation?”
“Down to about 10 magazines per man.”
“Where the hell is that Osprey with resupply?” He’d sent the last one back with his wounded and the last 10 people from the first C-130 that wouldn’t fit on the LCAC.
“They had an engine problem. It’s redlined. They’re going to retask one of the EVAC Osprey—”
“No,” Sharps snapped, “belay that. We’ll hold out. Have the two planned Osprey on the deck ASAP and have one of the Navy helos bring in ammo.”
“I’ll relay that, sir.”
With comms shot to shit, they were already relying on a Navy E-2 Hawkeye to relay the dispatches between the ground forces and the ships. Several of the Navy Seahawks had been harassing the infected coming across the bridge like army ants, but with only M240 machine guns and no permission to blow the bridge, it was like pissing on a wildfire. Oh, and no word from the colonel. He was beginning to fear the old man was gone, and that made him the battalion commander.
“ETA on POTUS?” he asked the sergeant once he’d finished talking to the Hawkeye.
“They have the president’s plane on radar,” he said, “ETA about 60 minutes.” Sharps looked over the situation again. Without the Navy bombers, things were deteriorating fast. A sudden roar made him spin around and gawk for a moment before yelling.
“They’ve breached the tops of the collapsed hangars!” he yelled and pointed. He’d hoped the hangers would be a serviceable obstacle, but somehow they’d begun climbing up the other side. The structures were only 15-feet-tall on this side, and now a stream of them were dropping down inside the perimeter. A few obviously injured themselves on landing, though that didn’t seem to stop them. Those hurt just hobbled, lunged, or crawled toward the nearest Marine. Whatever drove them to attack seemed to be an unstoppable instinct.
Marines who’d rotated off the line and ‘rested’ while moving ammo to those on the line all spun and raised weapons. Their carbines spoke with quick, sure bursts and the infiltration was temporarily stopped. Sharps knew there would be more, and that it wasn’t controllable from that angle.
“Gunny McComb!”
“Captain?”
“Blow the claymores on the roof!”
The gunny nodded and ran to the clackers. The claymore detonation devices were gang-wired in groups 50 yards from the line, to allow for fallback. Gunnery Sergeant McComb reached the line, grabbed the three marked as “Hangar 1, Hangar 2, and Hangar 3” and squeezed the clacker three times. The mines went off as one.
The twenty claymore mines each held a kilogram of C-4 plastic explosive, which propelled 600 tiny steel balls in a 60-degree arc away from it. They were imminently lethal out to 50 meters, and still dangerous at 200 meters. The 20 mines were set on top of the collapsed hangars, half way down their length and across all the buildings, with overlapping patterns. The explosions slaughtered hundreds of infected on the roof. Unfortunately, the explosions also had some residual rearward concussive force, and twenty odd infected were launched away from the blast, flying through the air to land in the middle of the Marines.
“Heads up, sir!” Sergeant Buckley warned as he spied one flying toward Sharps. The captain acquired the airborne infected and moved aside to avoid a collision. The sergeant hadn’t noticed the one coming at him until it collided with him. It was a teenaged male, completely naked. The blast had severed his left arm below the elbow. The impact stunned the sergeant, but not the infected, who instantly sank his teeth into the non-com’s face and tore away half his cheek.
A young Marine private looked up from the smashed remains of an infected who’d splattered at his feet to see the platoon sergeant having his face ripped off and panicked. He leveled his carbine and fired a long five-round burst at the infected. Two of the bullets tore through the infected’s abdomen, one of which then hit Captain Sharps in the left bicep. One of the other bullets hit Sergeant Buckley in the forehead, just below his Kevlar, and nearly took the top of his head off. The last two hit a stack of loaded magazines and destroyed more than a few.
“Check your fire!” Gunny McComb screamed. The young Marine, horrified, raised his rifle toward the sky. The infected, despite a missing arm and gut shot, leapt off the now dead Sgt. Buckley and onto the hapless private, who cried out and desperately tried to fend it off as it clawed at his face. Gunny snatched his Ka-Bar from his belt, flipped it over blade first and, with a practiced overhead throw, stuck it in the teenager’s back, right between the ribs. The blade neatly cleaved the heart in two. The infected jerked and fell over. “You okay, sir?” Gunny asked, looking at the wound.
“Through and through,” Sharps said, already grabbing a field dressing from his belt and wrapping it over his fatigues. The private was sitting on the ground, gun lying in the mud and crying openly. “Get him to the evac.” Whatever else needed saying could wait, if they survived. “Fall back to the second position.” Fifty meters away was a line of officers’ housing. Just past that were a massive parking lot and several large aircraft servicing buildings. The Marines had created fortified positions between the buildings with service equipment trucks, cargo pallets, cars, and whatever else they could find. Behind them was the tarmac and runways. It was the last fallback position before the infected were on the field.
His effective strength was around 700, minus those marshaling the evacuees. Navy FACs, or Forward Air Controllers, were handling the aircraft traffic, at least. Still, he had to cover nearly a mile of territory in all. With some concentrations of his men, it averaged out to around 10 feet per man. Not ideal, considering they were facing a human assault wave.
Even as they began to fall back, more infected were already tumbling off the roof. Some were obviously survivors of the claymores, others were fresh and uninjured. The never-ending supply of flesh-hungry monsters continued. Gunny McComb relieved the dead sergeant of his radio rig and took up that duty too. Two corpsmen took the body and rushed him toward the temporary medivac area. They didn’t leave their dead behind. He listened to the radio, then addressed his commander with a grim expression.
“A circling Seahawk reports a massive wave inbound,” he said and pointed to the north east, toward the bridge. “With the rain ending, the air assets have a better view.”
“At least our company won’t be a surprise. Hurry up, let’s get the second line manned.” Falling back under each other’s covering fire, the Marines did what they hated to do beyond anything else. They gave up ground. As they did, smoking machine guns and grenade launchers were lugged back as well. The fight continued.
* * *
At 450 knots, the Lighting would reach Coronado in just 10 minutes. Andrew used those minutes to do his best to refamiliarize himself with the controls. The F-35 was immensely complicated yet designed for one pilot to manage everything through a combination of the innovative helmet HUD and configurable all-glass cockpit. He’d logged a few hundred hours in the F-35 simulators, but it was nothing compared to the real thing. Nothing at all.
He pressed a control, calling up the fighter’s stores. As a stealth craft, it was designed to carry a wide variety of loadouts. From just a few bombs in its internal bays, to a veritable shit storm split between bays and external pylons. As they weren’t going to be fighting other planes, ships, or tanks, he carried only bombs. Four Mk-83 bombs in the internal bays, and another four on the external pylons. All eight were fitted with GBU-16 laser bomb guidance systems, giving the two Lightnings 16,000 pounds of high-explosive hell to dispense on the infected besieging the Marines.
Their channel was shared by the Navy E-2 Hawkeye orbiting over Coronado. As Andrew listened to the reports, relayed from the Marines and Navy Seahawks at lower altitude, he was increasingly sure that they were pissing in the wind. They had 16 bombs against what, 10,000 infected, 20,000, or more? If they would all just stand on a couple football fields, he and Young could slaughter the lot of them. That thought didn’t bother him very much. After mowing them down with a KC-130 gunship and holding a day-long running gunfight with them, the infected didn’t feel like humans anymore. They were an enemy. The human race’s enemy.
But were they really the enemy? This plague, Strain Delta as they called it, didn’t come on overnight. It had taken days, maybe weeks to ramp up in intensity. The government had always said they could deal with this sort of thing. There were agencies that consumed billions of dollars a year just for such contingencies. Plans that the military, his military, should have been privy too. Hell, he thought, maybe all this is part of the plan. That thought filled him with more impotent rage than anything else.
San Diego was quickly closing 20,000 feet below. The cloud cover had begun to break up as afternoon approached and the rain moved eastward. Young was feeding him data relayed by the E-2 Hawkeye orbiting Coronado Island 5,000 feet below them. What is this all for, he asked himself. Thousands of Marines are fighting and dying down there. The status indicator for the airbase showed all three C-130s were on the ground. An LCAC was already docking with the Essex, offloading personnel. Ospreys were shuttling massive amounts of munitions to the island so the Marines could hold out. Each trip they carried evacuees and Marine casualties. Return trips took considerably longer because the munitions couldn’t simply be thrown aboard. A shift in cargo could be disastrous for any aircraft, particularly the finicky dual tilt-rotor Osprey. He’d heard two Osprey so far were down for maintenance issues; one barely made it to land on the George Washington due to an engine failure.
“Camelot X-Ray One, we’re ready to begin our descent,” Young announced over the radio.
“Roger that,” the Hawkeye crewman replied. “Be aware, you have six out of gas Hornets landing on runway three-six.” Andrew had forgotten about how many combat aircraft were in the air when Reagan went down. How many air crews are swimming right now, he wondered.
Young rolled into a rapid descent over Coronado and Andrew fell in close behind. Andrew’s radar painted the E-2 as they dropped past its altitude, and the line of Hornets sweeping in. As they pulled up below 5,000 feet and leveled out, the two Lightnings raced over the southern edge of the airbase at just under Mach. Andrew rolled left so he could use his Mk1 eyeball on the situation. The Marine’s line was all the way back, just before the air field. Between them and the town was a solid carpet of bodies.
“Oh my God,” he heard Young gasp. Andrew thought he meant the bodies, until he saw further east. A wave of infected was moving down through the town of Coronado. Formerly a village of highly expensive houses, it was now a scene of bomb-scarred devastation. Here and there houses burned, despite the recent rain, and many more were flattened. To his utter astonishment, the tide of infected was demolishing houses as it moved! At least it looked that way as they shot past. “You’ve got more experience in ground attack,” Young said. “What’s the plan?”
Andrew pulled into a shallow climb and bled off speed as he used the screen to plot bomb drops. “Really wish we had some thermobarics,” he said, to which the other pilot grunted in agreement. “I figure we expend half our stores here,” he said, sharing the data, “I’ll lase while you drop, then reverse and modify as necessary based on BDA.”
“Not much time to do bomb damage assessment,” Young pointed out.
“We’ll try and help with that,” the E-2 crewman radioed.
“Aren’t you guys nearly bingo fuel?” Young asked.
“Negative, we’re fine.”
Andrew had been on enough combat missions to know bullshit when he heard it. However, the hundreds of men fighting for their lives a mile below them convinced him to not give the E-2 any more thought. The crew of the plane could make their own decisions.
“Roger your plan,” Young said. Andrew nodded to himself and brought the Lightning around hard. He felt himself compressed in the seat as the G’s mounted. The plane had a fucking incredible turn rate and could pull more G’s than a pilot could survive. Part of him regretted never getting to match one against a worthy opponent air-to-air.
Now at 8,000 feet and 350 knots, Andrew used the guidance and targeting system to sequentially designate four individual targets. As each bomb hit, Young dropped the next bomb and Andrew changed the laser to mark another target. “Target is lased,” he said.
“Roger that,” Young said from 15,000 feet, “Bombs away.”
The guidance packages attached to their Mark 83 1,000-pound bombs were designed to lay the weapons in from miles away, keeping the fighter well out of anti-aircraft range. Young released his bombs from less than a mile laterally, and three miles up; well within ideal for the laser receiver. Twenty seconds after release, 1,000 pounds of explosives crashed just ahead of the main mass of infected, followed by a second, third, and fourth. Each bomb created a 40-foot-wide, 25-foot-deep crater, and it killed everything within 100 yards. In a word—devastating.
“Good hits!” the Navy FAC called from the ground. “You killed the fuck out of—” the broadcast stopped. “Oh, God,” the man said.
“Report,” Andrew ordered.
“More, lots, lots more!”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Andrew said over the tactical frequency to Young.
“What do you mean?”
“The infected are acting in a coordinated manner.”
“You’re giving them more credit than they deserve.”
“Am I? The approach to the bridge is a quarter mile from the channel. Even with a million infected in San Diego, if they all came toward the explosions, how many could come down the approach to the bridge?” Young didn’t answer, and Andrew knew he was thinking.
“Camelot flight,” the FAC called, “Marines inform a major push across the golf course and along the south beach!”
“That’s what I mean,” Andrew said, “if they were just mindless they would have come straight off the bridge and toward the airfield. These went a half mile south, around the bombing!”
“Later,” Young said, “going low for visual spotting.” Andrew watched him rapidly descend to under 2,000 feet and fly across the naval air station at less than 400 knots. “They’re swarming all over the first bomb zone,” he reported, “a lot of them, but not huge. Wait, I see now. FAC confirming your report. Andrew, I’m lasing across the line of the concentration.”
“Roger that,” Andrew said, and finished a turn to come into line. Andrew pressed the arming button and did a quick survey of the controls, biting his lower lip and hoping he had the sequence programmed properly. The display showed the little dot slide into the target box and he smashed down the pickle. “Bombs away.” The plane shuddered each time one of the bombs fell away. 15,000 feet below, the target zone went up in bright flashes of high-order detonations.
“Nice drops,” the FAC reported.
“Jesus, they’re coming up the middle too!” Young said. “Lasing, drop again, I don’t have time to climb to 15,000.”
“Okay...” Andrew said as he manipulated the stores control. The F-35 had dropped from the wings first to preserve the plane’s stealth rating as much as possible. He’d never flown a fighter with internal bays, though, and his brows knitted as he ran through the selection process. “Uh, G28, selector two?”
“Selector nine,” Young snapped.
“Right, sorry.” Andrew pressed the controls and the internal bays opened. That did it, he said. “Pickle is hot.” He selected the laser targets appearing on his HUD and smashed the button. “Bombs away.” The feeling of ordnance dropping away was different. For a moment he tracked the bomb progress as he flew north to south, then he noticed the indicators on his stores. Two bombs were still there, one in each bay. Damn it, I fucked something up. He was supposed to have dropped them, too, but they hadn’t released when he hit the pickle button for them.
“Good hits,” the FAC said, “but I only got two explosions.”
“That was me,” Andrew admitted, “I screwed up the ordnance selection.”
“I’m up to 15,000,” Young said. “Drop back down to observation level and lase for me.”
“Roger that,” Andrew said and heeled over. As he descended, he checked his fuel. Young would be close to where he was; around 30 minutes of flight time left. They weren’t going to be much more help. The FAC was speaking again.
“If you can hit that middle group, I think we can really wreck their advance.”
“Pretty impressive for mindless zombies,” Andrew said.
“Don’t call them that,” Young said. “I’m at 15,000, give me a target.”
“Wait one,” Andrew said as he leveled out and used his targeting camera. “Got them,” he said. The former bombsites past the demolished hangars looked like pictures of DC during a protest. Untold thousands swarmed toward the narrow line of base housing and the BOQ. Despite being thousands of feet above it, Andrew felt the same terror that had threatened to take him back in Texas as they’d fled onto the oil tanks. The infected never stopped; they just kept coming like the tide rolling in.
Andrew selected the targeting laser and placed it ahead of the approaching horde. Only a hundred yards west lay the Marines. Too close. He hit the radio.
“FAC, put me through to the Marine commander on the ground.”
“Wait one.”
“Make it fast.”
* * *
“Marine 2/1-B,” Gunny McComb spoke into the headset, then listened. “Captain!”
“Gunny?”
“Navy says they need to drop iron 100 yards that way,” he said and gestured toward the line of devastated housing. “Big iron, sir.” Captain Sharps looked at the distant buildings. A few infected where visible. Intermittent small arms fire from the nearby Marines continued to drop any that appeared. He narrowed his eyes and tried to focus closer. When he did, he didn’t see the few infected being shot every couple seconds, he saw crowds moving quickly between collapsed buildings.
“Sector one!” Sharps barked and pointed. “Contact, heavy infiltration.” Both the .50 calibers and the closest grenade launcher spun around and started chugging out death. As soon as the first rounds hit, the horde broke cover and a solid wall of infected a thousand feet across and hundreds deep raced at them. “Tell them to drop!” Captain Sharps ordered. “Fucking do it!”
Gunny McComb nodded and yelled to the men.
“Incoming iron! Close, damned close. Duck and cover.” All the men dropped behind what cover they had, put their hands over ears, and opened their mouths.
* * *
Laser targeting established, Andrew’s targeting computer transmitted the frequency to Young’s fighter thousands of feet above.
“Bombs awa—”
The computer link failed between Andrew’s plane and Young’s in the same instant a brilliant flash of light made Andrew look up in surprise. Flaming pieces of debris like little meteors arced through the sky and angled down toward the ground, all that remained of the other F-35. What the hell had just happened? The infected didn’t have surface-to-air weapons. The F-35s were still new, though—perhaps it was a weapon malfunction or a bomb-to-bomb collision caused by the new aircraft’s computer that hadn’t been ironed out yet. It didn’t matter how it happened—Young was gone! Andrew gawked in stunned horror as he watched the pieces of the other plane fall from the sky.
Andrew shook his head and tried to refocus. Only one weapon had dropped, and it homed in on Andrew’s laser designate and exploded seconds later, killing hundreds instantly and mortally wounding several hundred more.
Andrew surveyed the results and cursed. It was like swatting three wasps from a nest—the ones you hit were dead, but the others flew around them and kept coming at you. He briefly considered his two remaining bombs, then discarded the idea. He wasn’t high enough to safely drop unretarded weapons, and it would take time to climb up to where he could use them. There just wasn’t time. Instead he rolled over and dove toward the deck, pulling out just 200 feet above the ground. He opened the speed brakes and approached the island at 190 knots, uncomfortably close to stall speed.
It took all the time he had to arm and ready the fighter’s cannon. The computer said he had 220 rounds of ammunition. He knew the GAU-22/A’s rate of fire was around 2,500 rounds per minute. That meant he had about five seconds of fire. The gun wasn’t meant for ground fire; it was meant as an air-to-air deterrent, or even a last-ditch weapon. The gunsight gave him a view of the swarming infected, and his finger squeezed the trigger.
Andrew let off the pressure on the trigger before the gun fired. Off to his left, about a half a mile off, a line of trucks was struggling through a swarm of infected.
* * *
“Come on, damn it!” Colonel Alinsky screamed helplessly at the lead vehicle, even though he knew it couldn’t hear him. The front LAV was jumping up and down, rocking from side to side as its big armored wheels crushed dozens of infected. Its chassis was painted red with gore from the hundreds of infected they’d crushed. The big 120mm gun mounted on the assault version, the one that had brought him the news of the bridge infected, roared and dozens more were torn apart by the muzzle blast or blown to messy bits by the round’s detonation.
They’d set out to reach the bridge, maybe set off the explosives the trucks carried and blow up the very edge of the southern span and thus cut off the swarms. But they’d been besieged almost from the beginning, when they’d crossed past the amphibious base and collected the squad he’d left behind. The first wave nearly overwhelmed them. He’d lost six men, and every single vehicle was swarmed. Not a single radio set survived, all their antennae were ripped off, and it was impossible to get the word out.
By the time they reached where Silver Strand split into Orange Avenue toward the air field, it was impossible to turn toward the bridge. He’d ordered them to take Orange and try for the base. At least his company could provide more rifle fire. When they reached Ocean Blvd., he’d been again stopped for several minutes. One of the trucks was lost, all the men aboard killed. Hundreds of infected had torn the machine apart.
They’d gotten going again, and now were within blocks of the airbase, and they’d run into the mother of all fucking zombie armies, hell-bent on attacking the airbase. When the gunner on his LAV, second behind the assault version, was torn from the turret, he’d shot his way out with a handgun and manned the smoking .50 himself.
From his vantage point he could see that his command was ravaged. Most of the trucks now carried more infected than Marines. The creatures pounded on the transports’ windows and clawed at the doors trying to get at the men inside. He could see grim determination in their eyes as the convoy struggled on.
The .50 ran dry and Alinsky pulled his pistol again, firing careful shots to keep infected from mounting the side of his LAV. His XO, Major Hartman, handed him up a can of ammo for the Ma Deuce.
“Last one,” the major warned.
“Got it!” Alinsky said as he shot off-handed while hoisting the can into place and began getting the gun reloaded. He managed to get it done without giving himself 3rd degree burns or having an infected climb into the turret with him. He holstered the pistol, grunted as he jerked the charging handle, and put a short burst into a group of twenty-plus infected making a rush at him. Last can—100 rounds before I’m down to small arms. Another of the LAVs had fallen silent a minute ago. They weren’t going to make it.
“What’s the plan, chief?” Hartman asked.
Alinsky wanted to say they were going to make it to the airfield and link up with the rest of the battalion. He wanted to tell him to hang in there, they were going to be all right. He wanted to say he was sorry he’d gotten them into this. The sheer number of infected was unbelievable. What could they do, except buy the men on the airfield some time, if they still stood? Only, they’d never get close enough to make a difference.
“I don’t know, Paul,” he said.
“Fast mover!” the driver yelled over the roar of engine and gunfire.
Harman looked forward and saw the streaking form of a fighter rocket by low overhead. Jesus Christ, it was an F-35! The Navy wasn’t out of the fight yet after all!
The fighter roared away behind them, Alinsky watching it through sideways glances as he milked his last 100 rounds of .50 caliber. The jet passed behind them then shot straight up, flipped over, and came back. Some distance behind them, the fighter’s nose twinkled, and he heard the unmistakable cracks of high caliber hypersonic rounds whizzing just over their heads. In front of the lead LAV, 25mm cannon fire blazed ahead of their path, chewing anything and everything to bloody mash.
“Yes!” he screamed over the blaze of battle. He could see those remaining in the trucks behind him cheering as well. The fucking fighter was plowing the road! The convoy shot ahead through the gap created by the fighter, which came around and did it again a minute later. Suddenly they found themselves in a gap. “Paul,” he yelled down into the LAV, “call a stop so we can move personnel. Fast!”
* * *
Andrew pulled up after his second strafing run, incredibly grateful the Lightning’s gunsight was so intuitive. He knew from practice that the F-15 probably would’ve dropped a few rounds on the Marines, what with firing that close. He didn’t think a single bullet nicked any of the combat vehicles.
As he came around, he saw the convoy had come to a stop. He squinted and could just make out personnel being transferred. Based on how the entire island seemed to be crawling, he doubted they’d had so much as a minute’s break fighting their way north. Still, he wondered what they were doing.
The Marine convoy consisted of five massive MTVRs, Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacements. The Army hadn’t been very creative in naming trucks over the last few decades. They also had three of the big six-wheeled armored cars, though he couldn’t remember what they were called. One had an almost ludicrous looking cannon on its top, making it look like a strange, hybrid Abrams tank. He could see them moving almost everyone in a rush to the armored cars. There weren’t many of them. Small arms fire twinkled from guns as they fought off still more infected.
Andrew looked at his stores screen. It said he had 105 rounds of 25mm cannon left. He cursed and rolled in just along the side of the convoy and gave it several quick trigger pulls. The big rounds shredded dozens of infected, and the counter dropped to 85 rounds.
He pulled up and around again, also checking his fuel. The slow passes were using more fuel than just loitering would. He still had the two bombs, if he could get a chance to use them. After the pass he was high enough to see the air station.
Ospreys were taking off, getting the occupants of the refugee C-130s off the island. He could see the lone surviving LCAC about a mile away. The mission should be accomplished. The Marines should be performing a fighting withdrawal. Instead, they were fighting, and dying, holding the field for one more plane with, what, forty or so people aboard? Forty people and one VIP who, despite having the ability to parachute to safety and avoid making these brave Marines die to hold the base for her, insisted on landing.
Andrew wondered if she’d be upset that a band wouldn’t be playing Hail to the Chief when she landed. What, no red carpet? The anger that began smoldering upon hearing Wade Watts talking about the kill switch, and how she’d probably been the one to throw it, was now a wildfire burning through his brain. Was any one human being worth the deaths of hundreds?
He completed his turn, the plane angled to the right so he could observe the Marine convoy. They were moving again, good! He flew back the direction they’d come from and brought his fighter around for one more pass. His remaining ammo should be just enough to get them through.
The gunsights lined up, and he waited until the last possible second to mash the trigger. The GAU-22/A’s thudding roar was muted through the fighter’s titanium hull. He could feel it throwing death in the vibration of the pedals and his hand on the stick. The ammo counter ground down, fast. He stroked the trigger rhythmically, firing the last few rounds at a huge concentration of the infected.
“AMMO OUT” announced an indicator on his HUD.
“Well,” he said, “that’s it.” He gave it some throttle and came up and to the right. Below him the three armored cars led with a blaze of rounds, tearing through the last of the infected. The Marine line on the airfield split to welcome them back. Then he noticed it was only the three APCs! Where were the trucks? He leaned over hard, almost accidentally sending the nimble fighter into a barrel roll. Nothing. He came back around and this time he did go inverted, craning his neck to look around.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” he screamed through the plexiglass.
* * *
The blood-soaked LAV ground to a halt just inside the defensive perimeter. Captain Sharps looked at the gore-covered machine in amazement. Two of the tires were punctured with human femurs. Everywhere clung bits of bodies, limbs, and a severed head was wedged in one wheel well. It was Dante’s station wagon. The other two stopped nearby and all their ramps came down. The interiors were crammed with ragged and worn out Marines, some looking so tired they could barely stand. Most had no magazines in the web gear, their guns locked open, empty.
“There’s ammo there,” Sharps said, and indicated a pallet of loaded magazines. “Any men who can give a little more, load up! We have to hold another 20 minutes.”
It was a testament to the sheer tenacious will of the US Marines that every man immediately moved to the pallet. They might not have run, but they moved. They had a job to do, they were US Marines, and by God they were going to do it! From out of the command LAV, Major Hartman came. Col Alinsky didn’t follow. The major had a bloody field dressing on his left forearm.
“Where’s the colonel?” Sharps asked.
“We stopped to move uninjured personnel to the LAVs,” the major explained as Gunny McComb passed him a bandolier of magazines. “Thanks Gunny,” he said with a nod before continuing. “That Navy fighter gave us a clear moment. During the transfer, we had infiltration. The colonel got bitten on the hand.”
“Fuck,” Sharps cursed. “Where is he, we’ll put him on the next Osprey. Maybe that mad scientist on the oil rig can help him.”
“Not from what we’ve seen, Captain. We’ve had four men go crazy from bites just since we landed. No, a bite is a death sentence.” Sharps looked at the major’s bandaged arm.
“Oh, this? Bouncer from one of our guns. Fucking Barbie guns.”
“So, where is the colonel?”
The major sighed and shook his head.
* * *
“You doing okay, corporal?” Alinsky asked the driver from the turret.
“I’m a little woozy, sir, but I’m hanging in there.”
“Give it all you can, son,” Alinsky urged, and let a burst from his carbine go into a group running toward the road, “we’re almost there.” The colonel was standing in the roof turret of the lead MTVR. They didn’t have .50 caliber Ma Deuces in them, but it was still a good place to shoot from. He left the lightly-armored windows up, which was a good thing since the fucking infected often made mad jumps onto the trucks. He glanced behind; all five trucks were keeping up.
His arm hurt like it was on fire, but that wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was that his brain was starting to feel foggy. After the infected bit him in that crazed rush, just as they finished transferring personnel, he’d realized there wasn’t any other way to do it. He and all those bitten by the infected piled into the five trucks, taking every extra magazine and grenade the other Marines had with them. The others took the LAVs and, with the help of the angel in the F-35, tore off toward the air station and some semblance of safety.
Alinsky took the lead truck, and they’d turned right and plowed along the leading edge of the unstoppable mass of infected. The truck’s engine roared and labored as it drove into and through a mass of infected humanity like a snowplow. Screams, roars, and crunching bodies were audible over the constant rattle of small arms fire. He’d lost his hearing protection somewhere, and his own rifle’s banging reports felt like icepicks in his ears. There goes my hearing, he thought with a rueful smile.
An infected leapt at the side door, and Alinsky gunned him down. Another crawled up over the canvas back. No one was in the rear of the truck to stop it, so he held the rifle out by the pistol grip and shot it twice. While he was doing that, six or seven leapt at the front of the truck. Three were run down under the churning wheels, but two made it onto the hood. Alinsky spun back and fired. The weapon banged once, and the bolt locked open. He let the weapon fall away—it had been his last magazine—and drew his sidearm.
Standard issue was the M9, a version of the Beretta 9mm semi-auto handgun. Alinsky had always detested it. A colonel had more leeway than the average soldier; his sidearm was a Glock 29, an Austrian made little wonder in 10mm. The normal magazines were 10 rounds, but he carried four of the optional 15-round mags in his gear. He had two left.
Alinsky went to work with the Glock; the 10mm rounds hammered at the infected and dropped them much more effectively than the 5.56 rifle rounds had. Those were hard hitting, but against unarmored, and often naked, flesh, they just tended to punch neat holes. Especially with the ball or full metal-jacketed rounds they were issued. His 10mm was loaded with Barnes TAC-XPD, a computer-designed hollow point projectile which caused massive trauma on impact. They were strictly forbidden by the Geneva Convention, but he was fresh out of fucks to give.
As both the infected on the hood went down in fountains of blood from a single chest wound each, he made a mental note for if he ever got cured to send an email to Ed Dillon, who knew the company owner. The TAC-XPD wasn’t available to the public in 10mm; he’d gotten several boxes as a personal favor.
He ran down a magazine, dropped it through the turret to land on the cab of the truck, and slid another one in. He stared at the gun for a long second, trying to remember how to finish loading it. An infected grabbed him from behind, a hand wrapping around his helmet and bending his head back to expose his neck. Nails tore at his face. Alinsky’s thumb remembered its job, and the slide smacked a fresh round into the chamber. He bent his arm over his right shoulder and felt the gun hit something. He fired twice.
The muzzle blast hit him in the ear like a baseball bat, causing him to black out. When the lights came back on, he was sitting on the floor of the truck cab, blood running down the side of his face. The corporal driving the truck had the wheel in both hands, tendons standing out, sweat pouring off his face in rivers. How’d I get down into the cab? Alinsky wondered. Amazingly, the gun was still in his hand. Something dripped on his head. He looked up and saw an infected reaching down for him. The Glock went up, almost like a robotically-controlled weapon, and shot the infected. It had once been an attractive redhead; her face was smeared with blood almost the same color as her hair. The 10mm hollow point destroyed her beauty forever.
How far had they gone? He looked out the window and saw that the front of the truck was completely covered in infected. They fought with each other to get at the men inside the cab, smashing fists and even faces against the windshield. It was heavily-armored glass, and yet it was still cracking. He stared at one of them in amazement. He was missing both arms, the meat raw, bone visible. He wasn’t bleeding. How was that possible? Alinsky raised the gun and almost fired before he remembered he was inside the truck.
With a shuddering groan, the truck crashed into a huge group of infected and lurched to a stop. The sliding, squishing, crunching sensation caused by 10 tons of steel coming to a stop on hundreds of human bodies was a sound he’d remember for the rest of his too-short life. He blacked out for a moment again. Pure white-hot pain made him come back as an infected tore his left ear off with its teeth. It was the corporal. Alinsky shot him and kept pulling the trigger until the striker clicked on empty. He dropped the gun and reached for the other thing. What was it called?
A body landed on him, crushing him forward against the dashboard. The controls were steel, and his nose was crushed. His vision swam as a dial ruptured his left eyeball. It didn’t hurt. Something was singing in his mind. A sound, a meaning, a purpose. He resumed reaching with his right hand. You are a US Marine, his slowly ebbing consciousness screamed from the small part of his higher functions it still controlled, Marines do not give up!
His hand groped. He felt teeth sink into the meat of his left bicep, and blood sprayed. Another body landed on him, pushing him sideways, head toward the foot well. Something square hit him in the ribs. A box. What box? What does that mean? More teeth tore at his back, shoulders, and neck. None of it registered as pain. Box. With jerky movements, he bent his arm under his body and felt the box. It was familiar. A key. A button. He pushed the button. No, that’s not right.
Flesh tore away from his neck. A flood of wet washed across his face, running into his working eye and his nose.
Press. Nothing. That’s not right.
The new part of his brain began to take control.
You are a Marine! What do I do? Do your job, finish the mission. His fingers moved fractionally and found the key. It turned. He moved back to the button. Semper fidelis. He pressed the button.
* * *
“Fuck!” Andrew barked as the five big trucks turned into five incandescent explosions. He banked and slammed the throttle against the stop as the shock wave, all too visible, raced out. It slapped the underside of the F-35 and flung it like a child’s toy. Alarms blared across the status board and in his helmet earphones. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He fought the controls, desperately trying to regain control of the spinning plane. The airspeed, climb/sink rate, and RPM readings were all shit. The most advanced jet fighter on the planet, and he was reduced to flying it entirely by feel. It might have been an easier job if he’d had more than one whole hour in the cockpit!
The fact that it was the most advanced fighter in the world saved him. The computers analyzed the spin, modified his control inputs, and brought the plane under control. With enough power and remaining airspeed, he pulled out of the spinning dive and climbed back up. Behind him the five blasts had merged into a rather respectable mushroom cloud of debris, created by the detonation of 35 tons of high explosive originally intended to cut the island off from the mainland.
“Fucking crazy, brave sons of bitches,” Andrew said as he reduced power and executed a turn back toward the base. He had just 15 minutes of flight time remaining.
He realized he was partly in shock, and partly in a sustained state of rage. How many more were going to die before this day was over? All of them? “Goddamnit, why?” he yelled into his oxygen mask. He pounded the padded side of the cockpit with his gloved fist and screamed, his voice rebounding off the plexiglass canopy. So few of them left, and this is what they were doing; sacrificing thousands to save one?
Andrew’s flight path took him back over the channel and the Coronado Bridge. It was chewed up, the concrete poked with occasional holes caused by machine gun fire from the pair of Seahawk helicopters. Both birds were continuously strafing 7.62mm gunfire at the never-ending stream of bodies moving toward the island. There must have been hundreds of bodies, most piled near the center of the bridge span. They were like drifts of snow, ebbing and moving as ever more were added and pushed them around.
“All they need is a chance,” Andrew said to himself in the cockpit. Taped to the radio control were several frequencies that Young had believed he might find useful. He selected one and spoke. “Navy helos, this is Camelot X-Ray Two.”
“Go ahead, Camelot,” the female voice replied.
“I’d get clear of the bridge immediately,” he said.
“Camelot, advise why?”
“Because I’m going to blow it the fuck up, that’s why.” Andrew was just south of the island. He banked around and climbed hard, the turbines whining as he pushed into a nearly vertical climb before leveling off at 15,000 feet. His fingers worked on the stores control.
“Camelot X-Ray Two, this is the Ford air boss. Stand down.”
“Beeker,” Andrew replied, “how’s it hanging, Commander?”
“What the fuck are you doing, Lieutenant?”
“Giving those Marines a chance,” he said.
“You know the Commander in Chief has ordered us not to destroy civilian infrastructure.”
“I’m questioning the command authority’s judgement in this situation,” Andrew growled.
“Tobin,” another voice cut in, “this is Captain Gilchrist.”
“I recognize your voice, sir.”
“Then you are ordered to stand down and return to the carrier.”
“I hear you, sir.” He armed his weapons. “I’m going weapons hot, you better tell those helos to move.”
“Tobin, God damn y—” Andrew switched off the radio and lased the bridge. On the radar the two helicopters spun and raced away.
“Fuck orders,” he said and mashed the pickle. The two final Mark 84 bombs fell away. Five seconds later they slammed into the southern span of the bridge. The flashes of the explosion washed out his FLIR for a second. When it cleared, 200 feet of the bridge was tumbling in ruins.
He descended and banked over the island. Less than 10 minutes of fuel remained. He either needed to head for the carrier, land on the air field below, or prepare for a swim. Somehow, he didn’t think his reception on the carrier would be a good one. His career was over, of that there was no doubt. They were under martial law, which could well mean he’d be facing summary execution for disobeying a direct order. Even that failed to generate any real concern. After the last few weeks, he was just about done.
The fighting continued below; the Marines had pulled all the way back to the air field. Several Ospreys had landed and were waiting to evacuate. There were dozens of the Navy inflatable boats as well, enough to evacuate all the Marines. But they weren’t leaving. His radar showed a single aircraft approaching. A big plane, lining up on Runway 11 from the west. The reason all those brave men were wasting their lives.
Andrew orbited the island to the south side, falling in behind the descending E-4. He watched as it lowered its landing gear and the flaps descended. The island was just a mile ahead. The lone surviving LCAC was churning through the surf below, heading west toward the Essex. He was alone in the sky with the modified 747. He glanced down. Five minutes of flight time remained. The E-4 was in his gun sight, dead ahead. His thumb found the afterburner control and he calmly squeezed it as he ran the throttle to the stop. Raw fuel was fed into the rear of the engine, and the fighter leapt ahead.
Alone, he thought as the G forces pushed him back into the pilot’s seat. The E-4, now just a few hundred feet up above the water, was passing over the edge of the island as he rocketed at it. The pilot must have glanced at the radar because he began to turn. Andrew gently moved the stick and tracked the E-4’s turn. Everyone dies alone. Unbidden, the face of his mother came into his mind’s eye. She was standing on the porch waving goodbye as he left from his last visit. The F-35 slammed into the E-4.
* * *
Captain Sharps was tired from the long day of fighting, but he was also having difficulty concentrating. The men had abandoned their defensive positions and fallen back next to the runway, creating a human cordon. Fire was constant, but manageable. They’d all grabbed as many magazines as they could, abandoned the heavy weapons, and fallen back to the field. There was no more room to retreat. If they lost the runway, the President’s plane would land in an army of the infected.
The infected continued to attack in crazy wave after wave. He knew that would stop now, after hearing the bridge had been destroyed. His late colonel had bought him a brief reprieve with his life. At least they were holding out now, though he’d still lost at least a squad’s worth of men since then. They were down more than a company now.
The arm with the bullet wound was a dull agony which he did his best to ignore. A roar of jet engines made him look up. The President’s plane was on final approach, wheels down and flaps out, low and slow. Its engines were winding up, the big plane banking to the side. But it wasn’t that engine noise that made him look. The F-35 that had helped Alinsky’s company make it back was behind the E-4, its engine screaming as it accelerated.
“What the hell?” he wondered, a second before the two planes collided. Hundreds of Marines looked up, eyes wide in shock. The F-35 smashed into the modified 747 midway down the right wing, between the engines, severing the wing completely. The fighter was torn in half, and its engine exploded, igniting the fuel spewing from the E-4’s torn wing tank.
The E-4 rolled and nosed downward, trailing fire all the way. It was only going 180 knots and just 100 feet above the island, but the impact was a thunderous crash that blossomed into a spectacular ball of burning fire and debris. The E-4 and all aboard it were destroyed.
“What do we do now?” Gunny McComb asked. Captain Sharp made a strange sound, causing the gunny to turn and look at him, just as the captain snarled and pounced at the gunny’s throat.
* * * * *
