Chapter One
Afternoon, Wednesday, April 27
The Flotilla, 150 Nautical Miles West of San Diego, CA
When Vice Admiral Lance Tomlinson accepted his 3rd star from the President, he’d known his days sitting in the hot seat of a supercarrier were coming to an end. After 29 years in the Navy, he’d been one of a rare breed to make it into the admiralty after first serving as enlisted. He was a star of the service, beloved by the rank and file, but looked upon by Annapolis’ finest with a mixture of confusion and distaste. His prior service made him nearly a god among the fleet’s complement of chiefs, especially on that rare inspection when he stuck his head into their mess and shared a cup of joe.
Now his plans for a final tour at the Pentagon, maybe a shot at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then retirement spent fishing in Montana had turned into a mountainous pot of steaming shit, in the form of an alien bug named Delta. A few hours ago, he’d been aboard a C-2 Greyhound on approach to Pearl when reality came crashing down. The base was overrun; they had lost Hawaii. Worse, Admiral Jenkins, COMPACFLT, had been lost there, and now he was stuck wearing the damned fancy hat.
He had headed east toward the only significant command element the spotty comms could identify. It was a crazy flotilla of private and military ships, moored roughly 150 nautical miles west of San Diego.
From the moment his Greyhound caught the hook on the deck of the Ronald Reagan, he’d been force-fed bigger and bigger shit sandwiches, until his eyes were brown. No national command authority. No link with any authorized members of the constitutional authority. Scattered and unreliable satellite communications which, after a brief time, had now completely failed. A shitload of Marines on their amphibious assault carriers and 26 US Navy ships were still answering the call, six of which were submarines.
Shortly after his arrival, Los Angeles fell. The Army Guard units couldn’t hold it, and, while attempting to withdraw, were completely overrun minutes before Marine helicopters could come in to relieve them. With nowhere to land, and only a few squads of their own, they’d been forced to watch helplessly as the defenders were swamped and eaten alive.
Only hours later, Lt. General Ross, in command of 3rd Corps, came flying in with C-17s full of equipment, troops, and dependents. What had seemed the bright spot, 3 carriers with their strike groups, turned to yet more shit as he’d been forced to all but wreck 2 of the flattops via the most jacked-up operation he’d ever had the misfortune to run. Amazingly, they’d gotten two of the C-17s down without killing anyone. Well, except for on the carriers. A third C-17 had come in much lighter aboard the Gerald R. Ford. No flight deck damage, but the ship almost destroyed her engines in the effort.
Tomlinson found himself in the Reagan’s main operations conference room, at the head of a big mahogany table, listening to an endless line of disasters—and everyone expected him to put this cockup on line for victory. The damned chair was one of those new thin-backed things, too. His ass had spread a bit in the last 20 years, and he dearly missed the old, wide chairs the Enterprise had sported.
“I’m only going to say this once,” he said, raising his voice over the cross-traffic in the room. “I want this flotilla put into some kind of order so the Navy can be the Navy, without holding the hands of every sailing boat captain.” They all looked like puppies who’d lost their favorite bone. “Capt. Gilchrist?”
“Admiral?” the big captain of the Gerald R. Ford growled.
“Since your ship is currently in shit shape, doesn’t have an air wing, and has a big fucking plane blocking the flight deck …” Several people chuckled. On one of the screens was a view of the incredible sight. Tomlinson made a mental note to shake the hand of the crazy fucking flyboy who’d managed that feat. He understood the pilot was a fighter guy, not even a heavy pilot. “You’re in charge of fleet logistics. Get it all put together. Requisition any staff not already in critical roles to work with the civilians. Start getting lists of any ex-military in the flotilla, their skills sets, and begin reactivation. The more of them in uniform, the better.”
“I’ll do my best, Admiral,” he said and saluted.
Tomlinson grunted and dismissed him. “Now, I understand supplies are the number one consideration. As Dr. Breda explained, this Strain Delta comes from fresh food and living animals, as well as water?” His science expert nodded. “Okay, we need to start getting food, or we’re going to be a ghost fleet in…” he consulted a piece of paper, “jumping Christ, only three days?!” The officer in charge of their supplies nodded grimly. “Fuck me, this just gets better. So this is global, and we’re starting to get distress beacons all over the Pacific. There are, at any one time, about 500 transports between the CONUS and China. A lot of those are container ships, but a lot are bulk transports, too, with wheat and such. I guess we start searching them.”
“Sir?” a Coast Guard junior officer said, raising her hand.
“Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
“Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Grange, sir. I’m currently in command of the Boutwell, sir.” The admiral looked inquiringly at his aide.
“Sir, there just aren’t any other Coastie personnel here, so she’s been left in temporary command.” Tomlinson gave a little shrug and gestured for her to continue.
“Admiral,” she said nervously, “you were mentioning that you want to find shipments of bulk foodstuffs on the ocean?” He nodded. “Well, sir, all that data is kept on AMS, the automated manifest system that Customs and Border Protection maintains.”
“Lieutenant,” Cmdr. Scott Bascom, the admiral’s aide, said, “if you haven’t noticed, the internet is down, so we can’t access any government servers.”
“You don’t have to sir,” she said, looking sheepish. He glared. “Sir, we have copies on the Boutwell. Sure, they’re a few days old, but we still have them. We routinely download that data because we might have to intercept a ship off shore, and our uplink isn’t reliable on those boats.” She turned the laptop she’d had in front of her around, and the eagle logo of Customs was displayed there, with “Automated Manifest System” in big black type.
The admiral leaned a little closer, glancing at the display, then at Bascom, who sputtered for a second then looked chagrined.
“Lieutenant Grange?” the admiral said.
“Sir?!” she gulped.
“Please get your people to start finding us candidate ships, then transmit that information to the Reagan here so the E-2s on patrol can start looking for them.”
“Sir!” she said, beaming. “Right away sir!”
“Good, you’re in charge.”
“Me, sir?”
“Of course you,” he said. “You’re a ship’s commander, and that’s a commander’s job. Unless you don’t think a Coastie is up to the task.”
“No sir!” she bristled.
“Good, then you’re dismissed.”
After she’d bustled off, his aide looked after her with a dark expression on his face. “I can’t believe you’re okay with a kid like that in command of a ship, sir.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a little short on experienced commanders, and a lot short of Coasties.” When his aide didn’t seem to be convinced, he asked, “Can you read manifests or know of any of our people used to boarding boats under potentially hostile conditions?”
“The Marines can handle that,” the commander said.
“If you haven’t noticed, they’re pretty busy here handling intermittent outbreaks.” The admiral looked at the whiteboard that showed the National Continuity Coordinators list, those people who’d be qualified to act as Commander-in-Chief. Under a directive set up by then-President G.W. Bush, there were a series of coordinators whose jobs were to ensure that a Constitutional authority remained intact in the event of a national emergency. The act, called the Continuity of Government Plan, had been created with war or natural disaster in mind, not a fucking zombie apocalypse. Yet, here they were.
Six hours ago, there was a brief flash of traffic via satellite from Air Force One, from somewhere in the Midwest. Aboard, in direct violation of policy, was the President and almost all of her Secretaries. In all, 13 of the 18 in direct succession. The VP had been confirmed dead in an attack in NYC two hours prior. The other five were still unaccounted for. So the Continuity of Government plan had been put into effect, with no results. The country’s communication infrastructure appeared to have been shut down, and the admiral’s cyber warfare specialist suggested it may have been by Presidential authority.
“What a total cockup,” he said, shaking his head. A young ensign came in and laid a dispatch next to him. It was from the communications team on the carrier. They’d confirmed that news agencies all over the country were still trying to uplink to satellites, and civilian HF band traffic continued to be intercepted. Everywhere people were cut off from help. Without the President, or a successor with the access codes, he couldn’t do anything about it.
Another note was placed in front of him. He’d asked the Marine commander, Brigadier General Coleman, to come to the meeting. When he hadn’t shown, the admiral had instructed one of his comm people to call the Essex and find out what was holding him up. According to the note, Coleman had been killed in an altercation with an infected Marine. Colonel Tad Alinsky was now in command. The day went on.
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