The Final Mission of Specialist Astroga
A BLACK TIDE RISING STORY
MIKE MASSA
The infected human crossed the infrared beam of the motion detector. Instead of arresting the motion of a descending garage door as it was originally intended to, the detector instead ignited one of the eighty Tesla coils that surrounded the periphery of Watts Bar Dam. The eye-searing bright violet streamers of electricity were muted in the dawn’s early light, but the unmistakable snarl that accompanied the discharge, sounding like God’s own bug zapper, caught the attention of the watchstander. Located in a cement bunker several hundred yards away, she placed one finger on the book open in front of her, holding her place, and then glanced at the live video feed for confirmation.
One crispy critter, present and correct.
Then she tallied the location on the kill board, already well covered in hash marks, before returning her attention to her current read, U.S. Army Field Manual Number 3-21.8, The Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad. It never hurt to brush up on her professional military education.
Here sits U.S. Army Specialist Cathe Astroga, Combat Administrator, enjoying a RipIt and killing zombies while maintaining the proper E-4 position of attention; feet up and television on. Hooah.
Specialist Astroga, or Astro to her friends, was putting exactly the right amount of effort into her job, no more and no less. She’d long aspired to become a member of that august echelon, whose ranks were generally considered too senior for really unpleasant menial work and yet too junior for anything really important. Specialists colluded, Mafia-style, to help each other balance this “sweet spot” of responsibility for as long as they could.
Astro was enjoying the ride. It wasn’t bad at all.
Mind you, things weren’t perfect. For one thing, the “televisions,” plural, were only displaying the security feeds that covered the Tesla coil–protected perimeter, the dam itself and other critical bits of the Watts Bar defense. Monotony, thy name is “Security Feed.” Worse, the delicious can of citrus RipIt, though dewy with condensation, was among the very last in the post-Fall world and there wasn’t any renewed supply in sight. At least there were no emergencies highlighted on any of the various security monitors that lined her desk and, best of all, the routine chore of decreasing the local population of zombies was proceeding without requiring any effort, apart from a log entry.
As the sole surviving E-4 of the U.S. Army, she was the de facto chairwoman of the Global E-4 Mafia. Sooner or later, though, she knew more E-4s would be promoted, and her power and influence would spread inexorably.
Mwahahaha!
In the meantime, she let the upper-management types worry about the big picture. Except for a looming shortage of RipIts, all was right with the world. Astro took another meditative sip and sighed. The Army’s version of an energy drink blended powerful stimulants like taurine, inositol, caffeine and L-glutamine, whatever the hell that was, and paired them quite nicely with high-fructose corn syrup and food coloring. Sucking down just one can produced a pleasant buzz and general alertness.
Perfection.
The phone rang, and she answered automatically.
“Powerhouse, Specialist Astroga speaking on a nonsecure line, sir or ma’am.”
“Astro, it’s Worf,” Sergeant James Copley replied. “Call your relief in early, then hustle over to the warehouse. I’ve got some soldiers for you to meet.”
Worf had been her immediate boss ever since the final patrol of New York City had devolved into a nighttime firefight at a goth concert in Washington Square Park. The beleaguered Army team had partnered with an ex-banker, his homicidal nieces and some New Jersey gangsters to fight their way clear of the collapsing city. Several months and a road trip from hell later, a combination of soldiers and small-town folks had fought a bloody three-way battle to hold the only remaining functional hydroelectric plant in the Tennessee River Valley against a genius sociopath and tens of thousands of infected. Worf, as his inner circle was allowed to call him, had remained a stalwart fighting comrade and a much better than average boss throughout the chaotic saga.
He’d probably been a hell of a specialist, back in the day.
“You got it, Worf,” Astro replied, restraining her natural curiosity about “new” soldiers. Unrestrained curiosity led to extra duty of the noncombat sort, as every self-respecting E-4 understood. “See you in thirty.”
Astro knew that the best approach to any meeting with her sergeant was cheerful obedience. If the meeting led to a higher zombie body count, then it would be, as her Aussie boss Smith liked to say, all aces. If it was admin malarkey, she’d keep smiling while assessing how rapidly she could delegate new responsibility to others. Plan in place, she put her feet back up and took another sip.
* * *
“Worf,” Astro whispered emphatically, “those are not soldiers!”
She gestured emphatically at the freshly kitted volunteers, who stood several meters away, forming a neat line outside the warehouse that served as the parts depot for Watts Bar. A couple were watching the exchange curiously, while the remainder stolidly ignored the late January drizzle. They all wore the Army’s ACU gray-ish camouflage uniform, bore a rifle at sling arms and stood behind green duffel bags.
“Well, Astro,” Worf whispered back conspiratorially, “they’re in uniform, they have our basic issue equipment and I personally collected them from the volunteer basic training course at Spring City just an hour ago. I’m pretty sure that they’re soldiers.”
“Sergeant Copley,” Astro said quietly, using his rank in a bid for sympathy, “we both know that the selection criteria for the volunteers was bullshit. Just because they can see well enough to shoot a zombie-sized target at a hundred meters, can stumble a mile in eight minutes and are between fifteen and thirty years old does not make them Army privates! Please don’t do this to me!”
She followed her statement with a glare at the line of men and women awaiting her attention. The two that had been ogling immediately looked elsewhere.
Hell, a couple of them are just a kids.
She looked again.
And every single one is taller than me. Sonuva . . .
“You are so right, Astro,” Copley replied, before pushing his camouflage cap back on his forehead and following her look to study the group as if seeing them for the first time. “But all those things plus the first four weeks of basic training and indoctrination do make them Recruit Privates in the Provisional Tennessee National Guard. And right now, they need a new squad leader. Where, oh where, can I find one of those?” He subtly mimed looking high and low.
Astro glared at her boss while he continued the show.
“Oh, look!” he said happily, pretending to lay eyes on her in surprise. “A squad leader!”
Astro promised herself that she wouldn’t actually curse. It was unseemly for any member of the Global E-4 Mafia to appear other than relaxed and composed, even in the face of this disaster. However, if she couldn’t turn this around, she might be forced to break one of the most sacred E-4 proscriptions. She might have to actually work. She allowed herself no more than a further narrowing of the eyes.
“Specialist, listen.” Copley ordered in a low tone of voice, heading off the predictable objections. “We are forming the nucleus of the military force that will retake and hold the power generation and distribution for the entire Cumberland Valley, not just this place and the Nickajack plant upstream. Smith’s out of camp, trying to palaver with the remaining Gleaners. Kaplan’s organizing protection for that little jaunt, Risky is running the day-to-day search operations and I’ve got Gunner actually running the bootcamp for the next set of volunteers. That leaves me to cover our defenses here, the nuke plant next door, and Spring City.”
He turned so that his motion shielded their discussion in the direction of the recruits and then lightly tapped the black patch sewn on her left breast. The coveted embroidered flintlock rifle and wreath denoted the wearer as someone who had engaged in ground combat. Since the start of the Fall, Astro had earned hers several times over. “Back in New York, some itty-bitty clerk-typist private argued that I should let her fight, that she was a clerk-typist with the soul of an infantryman. And she was right. I’ve seen you in firefights against rogue cops, Mafia goons and lots of Gleaners. You’ve punched the tickets of hundreds of infected.”
Astro grinned happily. This trip down memory lane wasn’t as good as a warm gun, but it was close.
“So, you’ve proved that you’re a shit-hot fighting soldier.” Worf said, carefully keeping his voice low. “But I need more out of you now. That means training up the privates standing over there. So you get to be the squad leader that takes these privates in hand. I was an E-4 once, back before the dawn of time. I get it. But E-4s do perform work, you know.”
Astro refrained from gasping at this sacrilege.
“Yeah, it’s real work,” Worf repeated. “But you’re not just the head of some imaginary E-4 Mafia, you’re a combat veteran and a survivor. This job means training these kids to survive and win in this shitty world. I need you to get these newbies trained up on our routine. They’ve got the basics, or as much as they can get in a month. Run them on patrols inside the wire and let them get used to seeing the infected as targets and not monsters. You’ve got to give them some practical knowledge. Can I count on you to own this and do it right?”
Astro sneaked a look at “her” squad. Worf had a point. While being a squad leader was definitely going to be extra work, the next generation of E-4s had to come from somewhere. This wouldn’t be so bad.
“Yes, Sergeant,” she said.
“You got this, Astro,” Worf said. “Get them inside, feed ’em, and come up with a training schedule. Remember—nothing outside the fence until I say, right?”
“I’m on it, Worf,” she said, touching the brim of her cap with the easy familiarity of a combat veteran.
He returned the salute before stepping back.
She turned to face the new soldiers, feeling a palpable weight descend on her shoulders. Without thinking, she cracked her neck and shrugged her shoulders. She sensed, rather than saw, Worf heading back to the battered Suburban he’d used to fetch the recruits.
Right. Let’s do this.
“Detail, atten-HUT!” she ordered.
The short line of privates raggedly came to attention.
“My name is Specialist Astroga,” she said loudly. “I will now demonstrate the superior intelligence of the U.S. Army Specialist. Step one is to get your rag-bag asses out of the rain. When I say ‘at-ease,’ fall out, grab your shit and we’ll get better acquainted.”
* * *
Astro realized that she’d become accustomed, heck spoiled, by the professional gun- handling of the other New York survivors. Out of an abundance of caution, and long experience with Army privates, Astro decided to run the initial weapons drills with empty M4s. That had been the right call. Despite the basic weapons safety classes in their shortened basic training, “her” privates swept their rifle muzzles across her or their fellows a number of times, creating a friendly fire risk.
Here lies U.S. Army Specialist Cathe Astroga, Combat Administrator, who accepted command of a bunch of noobs and then got shot by her own boneheaded troops . . .
After a brief verbal tussle with Worf, she’d sent the worst offenders back to be recycled. The next step was to let the remaining recruits shoot, one at a time, at real zombies. Results were mixed, much like the overcast sky that alternately dispensed weak sunshine and light rain. The last to shoot, Recruit Private Phil Booker, was having a rough day.
“Well, Books, while I’m enjoying this brilliant range day that the Almighty has seen fit to gift us,” Astroga said, carefully staying behind the firing line. “I’m not that impressed. I picked you four because you were the most promising of the lot.”
She’d brought her squad out to the fence line overlooking the river bluff and several of the Tesla coils that protected this stretch of perimeter. This little group was performing their seventh morning shooting evolution since she’d been assigned this “important duty” by Worf. Apparently, “important” was synonymous with “aggravating, dangerous and exasperating.” Some of the privates were better than others. The one currently in the spotlight was . . . not.
“There’s a little bit of good news, Books. You haven’t shot the fracking Teslas. Again. More importantly, you haven’t shot me or anyone else in the squad.”
“Yes, Specialist!” Private Booker replied nervously, lying prone in the wet grass of the hilltop that overlooked the river. “Thank you, Specialist.”
The muzzle of his rifle, tipped with a scratch-built suppressor, wavered a bit. The lanky recruit was really trying, but Astro had learned that Booker had the unfortunate tendency to twitch under stress. It turned out that zombies stressed him. Missing a shot in front of his squad leader stressed him. Being cold and wet stressed him. There was a lot of twitching going on.
“The bad news is that you haven’t hit a single infected today,” Astro continued. She gestured toward the shoreline two hundred yards away, where the last two ragged-looking infected were pawing weakly at the eight-foot-tall chain-link fence that ran between the Tennessee River and the power plant. Through her binoculars, Astro could make out partially healed wounds and sores, especially on the zombies’ feet. Several other naked bodies lay scattered between the fence and the river.
“Remember, keep your red dot on the center of the zombie’s chest,” she repeated the litany for the umpteenth time. “Take up the slack in your trigger and exhale about halfway. Then just think about squeezing a bit more and let the shot be a surprise.”
Booker missed again.
“And we have to get on with the schedule.” Astro sighed. “Worms, Hickory, one round each, finish them.”
Recruit Privates Kathy Wormsley and Steve Jackson were also prone. Wormsley was a twenty-something transfer from the old Bank of the Americas Site Blue and arguably the most mature of the new soldiers. Jackson had been liberated from a Gleaner’s work gang and had yet to come into his full growth, but his gangly teenage frame still left him the tallest of the group, the little shit.
“I’ve got Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome,” Wormsley announced.
“Bald and Saggy is all mine,” Jackson answered flatly.
In near unison, their rifles coughed, the usual sharp reports reduced to tolerable levels. Astroga watched the naked infected drop limply to the rocky shoreline.
“These zombies looked pretty messed up, Specialist,” Wormsley said without looking up from her sights. “Don’t seem like much of a threat.”
“Well, Worms,” Astro replied, scanning for more targets through her binoculars, “you have the luxury of looking at a few of them through a fence, not in their thousands, sprinting across open ground to beat each other to a tasty soldier-snack. Besides, the average infected isn’t enjoying winter, even in southern Tennessee. No clothing, no heated buildings, no steady three squares a day. With a little luck, a bunch of them will finish dying between now and spring. Alright everyone, no more infected in view. Clear and make safe, and place your weapons on the folding table, muzzles pointed downrange. The line is cold.”
Astro watched carefully as privates dropped their magazines and manually extracted chambered rounds. She watched as they visually inspected each other’s empty rifle—it’s your own ass if your buddy shoots you, see?—and then she checked herself before allowing any of the privates to stand.
“Does that mean clearing all the zombies will be easy later, Specialist Astroga?” asked Wormsley.
“Nope,” Astro replied, squinting at the recruit she was supposed to be teaching. She refrained from making a smart-assed reply while she popped a fresh RipIt from the cooler and swilled a big mouthful. This one was fruit flavored, not her favorite. “The zombies can sort of hibernate, especially when they find shelter. We’ve found nests of them clustered around food sources, waiting for more supplies to come along. General Winter will take his share of the enemy, but he isn’t going to do our job for us.”
“Which general is that, Specialist Astroga?” Jackson asked, shrugging on a previously discarded camo jacket, warding off the breeze that had steadily increased all morning.
“General Winter is the Russian name for harsh climate that helped defeat the Nazis when they invaded in WW2,” Booker replied confidently, causing Astro to pause with her mouth open. “The Germans had such a hard time working in the winter conditions which the Russians were used to that they were easier to defeat. So—General Winter.”
“Was he asking you, Books?” Astro said tartly.
Booker twitched.
“But he’s right,” Astroga went on, taking another swig from her can, while giving Booker a gimlet eye. “A lot of Nazis died in the Russian winter snow, one way or another. Same thing, same place—more or less—happened to the French about a hundred years before that. The lesson is that when you’re defending your territory, you use every advantage you can get. There’s no such thing as fighting too dirty.”
She drained the can of energy drink and dropped it back into the cooler with a rattle.
“Ah,” she said reflectively. “I’m really going to regret it when I finish the last one of those.”
“You’re running out, Specialist?” asked Booker.
“Why, yes I am, Books,” Astro said, eyeing another can before deciding to ration herself. Apart from her lack of resupply, she knew that while she could have a couple without a problem, three or more would make her jittery and lose her temper. Several RipIts in a row could create interesting side effects. Jitteriness and anger were the least of it. There was the potential for . . . explosive digestive issues. Stories of legendary RipIt races, where bored privates vied to solo a complete case of the chemical-laced drinks first, often ended messily. She’d heard Gunner’s tale about being trapped in the upper turret of an armored Humvee during an alert that had interrupted his RipIt race. The soggy officer and his driver, pinned by incoming fire inside the truck with him, had not been amused.
She closed the cooler with a snap. “Nobody is making any more of these delicious cans of liquid rocket fuel, the elixir that powered a thousand patrols in the ’Stan and Iraq. There’s only one other limited source of RipIts in the entire Cumberland Valley, and he’s not sharing. And, in case you haven’t noticed, Private, I can’t swing down to the corner megastore and pick up a case, or any one of a hundred things that we’re used to.”
“No coffee,” Wormsley said. “Just shoot me.”
“Are you kidding?” Recruit Private Bill Ritch interrupted. “We’ve got instant coffee coming out of our ears.”
“Instant. Is. Not. Coffee,” Wormsley replied firmly. She, like many of the survivors, was a frustrated connoisseur.
“What we aren’t going to have much longer is fresh bread,” Ritch countered. “As soon as the grain stocks run out, we’re screwed.”
“Plenty of corn around here,” Booker offered.
“I mean wheat flour,” Ritch replied. “Pie crusts, biscuits and gravy. Pasta!”
“Don’t forget chocolate,” Astro interjected helpfully. “I’d trade a pallet of chocolate for a couple more cases of RipIts.”
“Aah! Why did you have to use the C word, Specialist Astroga?” Wormsley said, raising her voice a bit. “I’m down to my last few bags of Cadbury’s!”
“Specialist, I don’t much care for energy drinks,” Booker said, cutting across the reminiscing. “But there’s an entire barge full of Army drinks just like the ones you have there.”
“Say that again, Books!” Astroga demanded, the range evolution forgotten.
“When I took my folks’ boat out of Chattanooga, you know, when everything came apart, it was crazy. I hid overnight on an island just above Chickamauga dam, Specialist,” he replied diffidently. “There was a couple of CONEXs, you know, those big shipping containers they used to put on ships and barges. They were washed up on the beach. I opened one up and it was chock-a-block with cases of that stuff. I drank some because I didn’t trust the water,” he went on, making a face. “No offense, but they taste awful.”
“You’ve fallen victim to one of the classic Army blunders, Private!” Astro said, trying to tamp down her excitement. “Not the first, which is to never get involved in a land war in Asia, but the second, which is that privates should never, ever volunteer information which might lead to extra duty. However, if you’re telling me you know where there is literally a golden CONEX full of RipIts, I may permit you to survive with only a minor flesh wound. Are you sure of this?”
“Um, I’m sure, Specialist,” Booker said, nervously eyeing his squad leader’s grin and the various gazes of his fellows, which ranged from curiosity to anger.
“Alright everyone, collect your brass and your gear and head up to the warehouse,” Astro ordered. As the group moved into action, she added, “Not you, Books. You and I have a hot date with a map.”
* * *
“Specialist Astroga, didn’t the sergeant say that we shouldn’t patrol outside the fenceline?” Ritch asked, as the four members of the party quietly paddled along the edge of the island, just north of Chattanooga. Astro had “borrowed” an aluminum skiff for proficiency training and they were well downriver, nearly an hour’s drive south of their camp, and that was in pre-Fall time.
“Indeed he did, Retch,” Astro replied confidently. “Which is why this isn’t a patrol, but a reconnaissance in force. We’re not trying to clear infected. We’re just checking the possible location of life-saving supplies.”
“RipIts are life-saving supplies?” Jackson followed up.
“Sure are, Hickory,” Astro replied. “For example, as long as we find some, they’re gonna keep me from tossing you to the zombies and starting over. Hooah?”
“Hooah, Specialist.”
“I think maybe I can see a CONEX!” whispered Booker excitedly as the little group cleared another point of land. “It’s too dark to be sure.”
The quartet paused, straining to make out their surroundings on the brush-covered island. The post-Fall world was so quiet, that all that could be heard was the gentle slap of very small waves against their aluminum boat and the sound of their own breathing.
“I can’t be sure, Specialist,” Booker continued.
The quarter moon was battling cloud cover. Astro had planned for that, and had further cadged the temporary loan of two sets of night observation devices, or NODs, for “troop familiarization,” pledging the pound of flesh nearest her heart as collateral. There wouldn’t be a problem as long as she had them back the next afternoon for scheduled inventory. The irreplaceable little headsets were mounted to rubber head straps and could swivel up and down.
“Flip down your NODs, Books,” Astro said, and immediately regretted it as the unhandy recruit managed to whack Jackson with his oar before dropping it with a clatter. The movement of the two privates caused their flat-bottomed craft to teeter precariously for a moment.
Here lies U.S. Army Specialist Cathe Astroga, Combat Administrator, drowned by her own recruits while making an unauthorized scrounging run in a stolen boat.
She hissed her profanity-laced reproof and the group settled down as the boat drifted. Astro lowered her own monocular. The goggle was fed by a single tube that projected snoutlike from her face. NODs gathered ambient light and amplified it on fuzzy green screens inside each eye piece, restoring human vision even on the darkest night. Pre-Fall, they cost thousands of dollars. Now, they were effectively priceless. Her NODs were filled with the rectangular shapes of tumbled shipping containers, partially obscuring her view of the shoreline. She hadn’t realized just how close they were.
“I see them!” Booker confirmed. “But there are a lot more than I saw the last time I was here.”
After easing the boat up to the muddy bank, Astro scanned again while her little group assembled next to her. As their boots stirred up the mud at the water’s edge, the redolence of rotting vegetation and other less savory things filled her nose. Their path took them past the decomposing carcass of a drowned cow, identifiable by the distinctive horns. Her goggles turned the initial scattering of containers on the island into dozens of units. Up close, the ubiquitous shipping boxes that were used to move goods the length of the Tennessee River were the size of single car garages, much taller than a man and five times as long. Sealed examples were buoyant, nuzzling the shoreline. Some had been deposited high on the island by the flood levels of previous storms. The double doors on others were cracked open, leaving a few partially sunken, extending into the river.
“Man, this is like looking for the Ark of the Covenant in that big warehouse, only on a tiny green window instead of the big screen,” Booker said.
Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a big neon RipIt arrow conveniently pointing at a particular box. There was nothing for it but to look inside a few. Fortunately, there weren’t any zombies in view, either. Astro figured that this made sense since this was an island, and while the infected congregated around water sources, they weren’t known for their swimming prowess.
“Alright . . . Retch, you keep your hand on my shoulder and step where I step,” Astro ordered in a low voice. “Books, you and Hickory pair up the same way. No white light—use your goggles. Remember, we’re looking for the already open container that Books found.”
Astro, Private Ritch in tow, squelched forward toward the closest container and found the doors sealed. And the next, and the one after that.
“Damn, this smells bad!” Ritch said in a low tone.
“Shut it, Retch,” Astro ordered. “This isn’t too bad.”
After months of exposure during their trip out of New York, she’d gotten used to breathing through her mouth, avoiding the worst of the smells. It would take a really awful odor to shock her n—ugh! Okay, this was getting bad. Really bad, like cesspool mixed with rotting corpses bad. Must be another cow.
The CONEX ahead was resting at an angle, partially sunk into the mud of the shore. The unsealed doors were closed, and Astro told her partner to open it. Ritch braced himself in order to swing one open against the slant, fighting gravity. At the halfway point he lost control of the weight and it clanged open, startling everyone. Astro decided to not shoot him. It was close.
“If there were zombies here, Retch, you just rang the dinner bell!” she said angrily.
“Sorry, Specialist.” came the contrite reply.
Keeping one hand on her rifle’s pistol grip, Astro waved distractedly, since the first thing that she noticed was the increased odor. The stench was so thick that it had a taste. Ritch stumbled back a step in olfactory shock. In a world now dominated by putrid odors, this miasma was beyond notable. To her regret, Astro had become an expert in bad odors, and this one was dominated by the smelling of decaying meat, overlaid with a strangely sweet smell. Astro suppressed her gag reflex as she took in the interior. Jumbled cartons lay at all angles, filling the container halfway to the ceiling. Could this be it? The smell was momentarily forgotten. Astro had to take a big step up onto the open lip of the tilted container and she risked a shielded red penlight.
What she’d initially thought were boxes were in fact drink cases shrink-wrapped together. The distinctive shape of aluminum cans under the shrink-wrap made her pulse start to pound. The colors of the packaging were distorted in her red light but the logo wasn’t.
“RipIt - Energy Fusion,” Astro said, pronouncing each syllable name reverently, the stench utterly forgotten. Her excitement continued to grow. This was. The. Mother lode. She might have enough RipIt to last forever. She flashed the light around a bit, excited, trying to count the boxes. She was the RipIt Queen!
“Alright!” she exulted, pumping one fist into the air. “Books, get the other two over here. We can squeeze a lot of this into the boat and retu—ack!”
Even strapped with her plate carrier, rifle, pistol, machete and other miscellaneous tactical kit, Astro’s towering five-foot-two-inch height limited her total mass, with gear, to under one hundred fifty pounds. Well within the strength range, as it turned out, of a liquid rocket–fueled, insensate, cannibalistic infected human. Which was exactly what grabbed Astro’s upraised arm and yanked her up and across the nearly head high stack of energy drink cartons and into the back of the dark CONEX.
This was getting beyond bad, even by Astro’s admittedly jaded standards for the zombie apocalypse. However, the zombie was fighting from the uncertain footing of tumbled cartons and cans. It overbalanced, and fell, pulling Astro on top of itself. The resulting crash dropped them both onto the rear container floor, which was covered with several inches of mostly liquid . . . stuff. Horrible stuff, the vilest stuff, Astro realized in a split second. The stuff that a zombie made when it had been feeding exclusively on RipIt energy drinks for some undefined but extended interval. The zombie struggled with hysterical strength, biting Astro’s combat harness. Stunned by the shock of the sudden encounter, the impact with the floor and the OMIGOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL, Astro was still elbowing the living crap of the zombie behind her. Each impact created a further sloshing of liquid that stirred the . . . stuff even more, releasing still greater waves of putrefaction.
Rocked by the wave action generated by the fighting but invisible in the pitch-black CONEX, what must have been thousands of Astro’s beloved but empty RipIt cans jangled in a rustling metallic soundtrack to her struggle for life.
“Oh you sorry cocksucker!” Astro said furiously, trying to free one hand from her tangled rifle sling. Straining, she reached for the thick-bladed machete at her waist. Even through the surge of adrenaline, she could already feel a cramp coming on from keeping her head cranked forward, protecting her neck and scalp from the zombie’s snapping jaws.
“You did not just ruin the last batch of RipIts in the world all by yourself!” The fighting duo was splashing around and Astro had just got her hand free when another heavy weight landed on her.
“Alright, we’ve just crossed into suckage territory.” She gasped angrily, still working on getting her hand free. “I’m so going to murder you to death!”
Fully absorbed by the focus of life-or-death combat, Astro hadn’t paid attention to anything else, but her faithful recruits had come to the rescue. Ritch landed first, making some kind of warbling scream. Unfortunately, his knees landed on Astro, driving the breath from her lungs with a gasp. The private had also landed facedown in the filth, abruptly cutting off his war cry. As his knees slithered off her chest, the sound of retching provided a nice counterpoint to the gargling growls of the infected still at her back.
We’ve reached maximum suckage, Astro thought. She managed to roll to one side and kicked backward in the pitch-dark container, driving the frenetic infected off her back for a moment.
A case of her beloved drink fell off the pile between her and the door of the CONEX, clipping her shoulder, just as she was about to swing the machete.
Here lies U.S. Army Specialist Cathe Astroga, Combat Administrator, drowned in RipIt diarrhea, stunned by falling privates and eaten by an over-caffeinated zombie!
“Specialist, do you need help?” Booker yelled from atop the stack. Then he lit the interior with his weapons light.
“Jesus Fuck, Books!” Astro yelled, completely blinded. “Get the light outta my eyes!”
She stumbled in the now well-lit muck, looking for her machete and nearly tripping over Ritch. Astro glanced at him, but quickly dismissed him as a source of aid. He’d found his feet and was fumbling with his M4, but his nearly continuous vomiting was precluding his ability to operate his firearm. That was probably for the best since she didn’t trust the recruit to not shoot the wrong target in this suckage. In the other corner however, was the infected, still combat-effective. The relatively healthy, naked young male held its arms up, shielding itself from the light. Astro could see the infected’s limbs vibrating, powered by a near terminal overdose of taurine, caffeine and L-glutamine. She knew the feeling. Understandably enraged by the interlopers and fueled by the almighty elixir of the U.S. Army, it lunged past her, reaching for Booker, the nearer of the two potential meals that it would then no doubt wash down with another helping of RipIt.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Astro screamed. “No eating my recruits!”
She snap-kicked the infected in the knee, dropping it to the muck. She pinned it in place with one beslimed, thick-soled combat boot and made a quick draw of her sidearm. Ignoring the frenetic scrabbling at her leg and crotch, she carefully placed a single shot. The round slammed the zombie’s jerking head backward, and she watched as its wire-taut muscles relaxed into limp finality. Booker’s light, now aimed at the white-painted CONEX ceiling, scattered enough illumination that the gasping combatants could make out details of the disgusting scene.
Astro looked over at Ritch and then glanced down. They were both coated head to toe in a thin, yellow mustard–like liquid that smelled like soured fruit blended into rotted meat. Ritch’s convulsive, involuntary heaving continued to agitate the small sea of gashed yet still floating RipIt cans. Their red, purple and green highlights shone through the yellow muck as they gently rustled around their feet while the ankle-deep . . . stuff slowly surged back and forth.
“Retch, you alright?” she asked, spitting out some filth.
“Specialist Astr—” Ritch began, before continuing to spew his own contribution across the scene, further dappling Astro’s uniform.
“Jesus, Retch!” Astro inquired, squinting upward. “Yeah, can I name them or what? Books, how about you?”
“Specialist Ast—” Booker began, then twitched and turned his head to the side, joining Team Vomit.
“Right, right. You’re both fine,” Astro replied, carefully holstering her pistol. “Let’s get organized. Books, stop yacking all over my RipIts and tell Hickory to pull security. There could be more of these assholes around, island or no. Retch, enough puking. We’re sure as hell not gonna leave without bringing back as much as we can, so start passing me cartons and we’ll head back to the barn.”
* * *
“You lost what?” Astro sputtered disbelievingly? “When?!”
“Specialist Astroga, I’m sorry, I just found out they were missing a minute ago!” Booker said guiltily. “I ran back to the skiff right away but they weren’t there either.”
“What’s not there?” Wormsley asked, poking her head into the little warehouse classroom that Astro had appropriated as their orderly room. The female recruit immediately wrinkled her nose. “What is that smell?”
“Worms, fetch Hickory and Retch right now! I don’t care if they’re taking a dump. Everybody drops their gear here and we go through it item by item until we find Books’s NODs.”
It didn’t take long for Astro to verify that the goggles were, in fact, missing. In a world where she wasn’t required to immediately return the goggles to the perpetually angry, Tennessee Valley Authority engineer from whom she’d borrowed them, the look of abject terror on Booker’s face would’ve been entertaining, funny even. However, in the real world, Worf was going to have her ass. A glance at her watch confirmed Astro’s guess. Their plunder-laden skiff had been a struggle to get back upriver, and the trip had taken long enough that it would be light in less than an hour. Going back and searching the CONEX during the day was impossible without risking questions and certain discovery.
Maybe if she could reach some kind of understanding with Sarah . . .
* * *
“Tell me why I care, Astro,” Sarah Shikenjanski said flatly, slapping her bench with one palm. The racks behind the TVA engineer were covered with bits and pieces of high-value electronics, and the benchtop in front of her looked like an in-progress autopsy of a heavily damaged tactical radio. “You lose it, you pay. See this? Another of you Army yahoos managed to run over one of my remaining reliable handsets and now I get to fix it with spit and bailing wire. What you people do to electronics is criminal! I used to manage nearly a thousand miles of power lines, and now I’m reduced to being the local Radio Shack. And . . . and what is that smell?”
Astro had thoroughly showered and changed, but the faint ambiance of eau de CONEX persisted. She glanced around for inspiration, but all she saw was Booker swallowing nervously as he looked fixedly at Sarah’s chest. Astro followed his gaze. The engineer was totally stacked. Astro usually appreciated that sort of thing but this wasn’t the time or place. Booker noticed his boss’s angry glance and twitched.
“Sarah, the NODs aren’t lost,” Astro pleaded, returning to the matter at hand. “I know exactly where they are, but I can’t get them till tonight. It’s just one more day. Maybe I could trade you something for some more time?”
“What it is, Specialist Astroga, is inventory day tomorrow,” the now stone-faced woman replied. Clearly, she’d noticed the byplay. Wonderful. “There’s only one thing I need, and I can’t imagine that you have it.”
“Anything, Sarah.” Astro was between a rock and hard place.
“Fine,” Sarah replied firmly. “I need a new sports bra. And not any old bra. As your rude friend noticed, I’m big up top. So if you want one more day, it’s going to cost you a 40F sports bra. Wide straps. And new! None of this ‘lightly used’ crap.”
“Deal.”
* * *
“Hey, Astro!” Warrant Officer Terri Harry, USN (Supply Corps) genially waved her coffee mug at Astro as she approached the window to the storeroom. The front of the very large space was cordoned off by floor-to-ceiling chain link, behind which Astro saw the familiar racks of clothing, medical consumables, canned goods and general supplies retrieved by sweep teams. Harry had been shanghaied from retirement by Astro’s boss’s boss after they’d saved Spring City. The warrant’s background and temperament lent themselves to managing inventory. “How they hanging—wait, what’s that smell?”
“One higher than the other, Warrant,” Astro replied, ignoring the second question. Next to her, the meticulously prebriefed Booker kept his mouth shut. “Got a sec? I need a favor.”
“Spill,” Harry said, before taking a sip from her mug and frowning.
“Seeing as you run the inventory for every last thing that our recovery teams bring in, I wonder if you could check to see if you have a sport bra, size 40F.”
“You need a 40F?” Harry asked, with a quizzical look at Astro’s own sleek frame.
“I owe a favor.”
“Ah, not too many 40Fs in camp, so Shikenjanski must have something you want,” Harry said, green eyes sparkling over her coffee mug. “Well, everybody wants something. A year ago, anyone could have it, too. But here, now? Nope. Sarah’s been in here before, asking, but she already has plenty of bras. She just has designs on that hunky Texan that wandered in last week. If she wants a sexy new bra to impress Fike, she can go look for one on her own.”
“I’m in bit of spot, Warrant,” Astro wheedled gently. “If I were to owe you a favor, would you maybe happen to have one in stock?”
“Well, let’s see.” Harry tapped at her laptop for a few moments, before staring across the brim of her coffee mug with a smile. “Yeah, I might have something. But the answer is still no.”
Astro studied the thick enameled mug, sporting the silver bar and two blue squares of a Navy warrant office.
“You still drinking instant?”
“Does the pope wear a funny hat, Astro?” Harry replied, frowning into her mug. “That’s all there is.”
“What if I could scare up a pound of Jamaica Blue Mountain?” Astro asked. “Whole beans, none of that instant crap. Would that be worth the sports bra?”
“The McCoy?” The warrant sat her mug down, and held very still. “Here, now? We don’t joke about things like that, Specialist.”
“A year ago, anyone could have it,” Astro answered. “But here, now? Yep. Still vacuum sealed in the original foil bag, in fact.”
“I’m listening.”
* * *
“So you caught your ass in a smelly crack, Astro.” Doug Goodall smirked without looking up from his Xbox. “Heard one of your scrubs dropped something important doing Army training.”
He raised one hand to make half of an air-quotes motion while he pronounced “Army training.”
Astro declined to rise to the bait. During her “geeks with glasses are hot” phase, she and Goodall had been a thing briefly. Apart from a love of RipIts, they shared nothing. Eventually, she got bored. He got angry.
“Hi, Doug,” she responded easily, noting a can of sugar-free lime RipIt on the floor.
Poseur.
“Yeah, I kinda did. In fact, I need a favor.”
“What?” Goodall replied, setting down his controller. He picked up the can and swirled it around a little before taking a drink. “The all-go, never-quit, so-important Specialist Astroga needs a favor from little ole’ me?”
Here lies U.S. Army Specialist Cathe Astroga, Combat Administrator, convicted by court-martial for murdering an annoying civilian to death, and then shot by firing squad at dawn, beloved Citrus RipIt can in hand.
Astro bit off the first three responses that suggested themselves. With a little luck, Doug didn’t know the specifics of why and how she’d lost the NODs and she could make her offer before the size and nature of her haul was public knowledge.
“Remember how you made me breakfast a few times?”
“Uh-huh,” he said with a leer.
“Remember that awesome coffee you brewed?”
“The Jamaican,” Doug said. “Single estate. Mild roast.”
“I want to trade you for some,” Astro said. “Five cases of RipIt, all I have left, for a pound of that coffee.”
“Five?” Doug said before recovering his cool. “I mean, I don’t know . . .”
“One-time offer, Doug,” Astro replied confidently. “All those RipIts to go with your gaming. Going, going . . .”
“I’ll take it.”
“I knew you would.”
* * *
The snarling of a Tesla coil caught Astro’s attention. She glanced up from her book to the monitor before confirming the kill on the tally board. She looked down at the cooler resting by her feet, but decided against popping another can of dewy cold RipIt. The door creaked open, and her boss strode into the powerhouse.
“Specialist Astroga, a moment of your time?” he said with unusual formality.
“Sure thing, Boss.” Astro put her feet down, and sat a little straighter.
“How are the recruits shaping?” Worf asked. “Any standouts?”
“They’re actually pretty solid,” she replied. “Booker is a bit smarter than he looks. All four did well on shooting, navigation and communications. We’ve completed the first training sets and we’re ready to move on.”
“Glad to hear that you got in some good training, Astro,” Worf said easily, sitting on the built in desktop. He reached toward the cooler and paused. “You mind?”
“Nah, help yourself,” Astro said, watching Worf select a can of F-Bomb flavor. “Uh, I wanted to give you a heads-up on something, though.”
“Yeah, what’s that, Astro?” Worf said, pulling the tab on his RiptIt and hastily guzzling the soda that began to hiss out too rapidly for comfort.
Astro thought about it one more time and then took a breath.
“The reason that I’m so comfortable with the new privates is that I put them through a bit of a crucible.” Astro went on to sketch out the intel from Booker, her RipIt run, dropping and then finding the NODs. She ran down after a couple minutes and looked at Worf, who’d withdrawn a small notebook from the breast pocket of his ACUs and scribbled notes here and there as she talked.
He meditatively pulled at his can.
“Let me rewind this for a sec,” Worf said. “You traded five cases of RipIts to Goodall, before he learned about the newly discovered supply, just so you could take advantage of Warrant Officer Harry’s coffee dependency, in order to break”—he consulted the notebook—“a size 40F sport bra with wide shoulder straps loose for Ms. Shikenjanski in order to help her get a date with Fike and buy yourself another day to collect the NODs that one of your recruits dropped”—he consulted the notes again—“and I notice that you carefully don’t say which one—while you were on an unauthorized gee-dunk run, outside the wire, specifically against my direction to the contrary? And that during this little adventure, you borrowed mission-essential equipment without logging it and, lastly, the unit under your command engaged in close combat with at least one infected. Is that basically it?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Astro confirmed in a very small voice.
“Well, Astro, I gotta say,” Worf said, standing up, “that’s one of the finest pieces of E-4 Mafia skullduggery I’ve ever heard of.”
“Really?” Astro couldn’t believe her ears. No doubt the ass chewing would start in a moment.
“Yep, except for one thing.”
“Well, I considered holding back the payment for Gooda—” Astro began.
“No, not that,” Worf cut her off, making a chopping motion with one hand. “You told me about it! That violates every tenet that the E-4 Mafia holds dear! Whatever happened to the simple beauty of, ‘Gee, I don’t know Sergeant,’ or ‘First I’ve heard of that, Sergeant’? The E-4 Mafia never spills their guts like that! Why did you break the caper to me?”
“Um, well, it’s like this, Worf.” Astro stayed seated, but she twisted her hands together. “I realized that the job that you gave me was important. The trainees did get some good training, but I took some chances and it could’ve gone pretty bad. People that have fought together and shared risks like you and I, well, they share a certain way of looking at things. That builds trust. I figured that you needed to hear it from me before you gave me another job.”
For a long moment, they looked at each other.
“Astro, what you just said is pretty much the textbook definition of integrity,” he said, sighing and sitting back down. “As much as it pains me, there has to be repercussions, you understand?”
“I understand, Worf,” Astro said quietly. She knew what was coming, and the free-falling elevator sensation in her gut was just an added bonus.
“You can’t keep that specialist’s tab, for one thing,” Worf said, extending one hand, and making little “give it to me” motions with his fingers.
Astro’s hands flew protectively to the specialist insignia on the front of her blouse. Then she reluctantly peeled the little Velcro square bearing the subdued, cone-shaped rank symbol from her uniform. She held her arm out and dropped the hard-won rank tab in Worf’s hand. The elevator was accelerating downward, if anything.
“Here, you’ll need this,” he said, extending his other hand and passing her a cloth object. She accepted it numbly, and then turned it over. She stared blankly at the black-embroidered insignia in her hands and the elevator jerked to a halt.
“What’s this, Worf?” she asked, looking up from the new sergeant’s chevrons that he’d passed her.
“Astro, I know that you thought you were hot stuff as the chairwoman of the E-4 Mafia,” Worf said expansively as he reached down for a second can of RipIt. “But you forgot that I was doing E-4 Mafia shit while you were still peeing down your leg. I just can’t stand seeing it being done so badly. Now, you’re part of the NCO mafia, and you’re going to have another set of problems. Welcome to the club, Sergeant Astroga! Oh, and by the way—I’ll bring by the next batch of recruits this afternoon. Try not to get any of them bit, alright?”
*
MIKE MASSA
Mike Massa’s writing encompasses SF, Mil-SF and Fantasy as well as nonfiction. His most recent novel, with John Ringo, is national bestseller River of Night (July 2019) and is set, in part, just outside Chattanooga, TN. Since 2016 he has written two novels and his work has been included in ten anthologies. Mike received his first novel contract at LibertyCon 29 in front of a packed house inside the Chattanooga Choo Choo’s main auditorium—LibertyCon will always be special for him!