Strands of Sorrow Read Free

onboard familiar with the Seawolf class, Commander?”
    “The COB served on them, sir,” Halvorson said. “And Petty Officer Gomez.”
    “Take them and a security team,” Montana said. “And put that light out. Take a hammer. Break it if you have to.”
    “That would be tricky, sir,” Halvorson said. “It’s recessed and extremely robust to withstand pressure. I would suggest the lieutenant take a small explosives charge, instead.”
    “Already on my list, sir,” Lyons said.
    “Betraying my lack of knowledge of all things sub-nautical,” Montana said. “What in the hell do you use something like that light for?”
    “Hull shots,” Halvorson and Lyons said simultaneously.
    “And helping lost SEALs find their way back to a submerged boat, sir,” Halvorson added.
    “Quite quite helpful in that regard,” Lyons said. “If somewhat untactical.”
    “Technically it’s a standard navigation light,” Halvorson added. “That’s how it’s listed in the white papers, anyway.”
    “Love to have seen that line item,” Montana said. “‘And we need a navigation light that can light up the moon!’”
    * * *
    A RHIB was duly deployed; the boarding team boarded, carefully, given the reception committee in the water, and headed over to the Jimmy Carter .
    However, before they even began to board, they came to the furious attention of the infected crowding the hangar deck hatches and the flight deck.
    “This might not be good,” Commodore Montana muttered as the first few infected dropped from the flight deck.
    In the case of the increasing shower of infected from the flight deck, it was, as it were, hit or miss. The flight deck loomed out and over the smaller submarine. Thus the infected who were not so much jumping off as being pushed trying to get to the RHIB were aiming at water. It was sixty-six feet, as any Naval aviator knows, from the flight deck to the water line on a Nimitz-class carrier. Sixty-six feet is survivable under some conditions. It is approximately the same height as a twenty meter diving board in the Olympics. However, surviving the impact is one thing. Surviving it conscious is another. Absent careful entry, water at that speed tends to feel somewhat like landing on concrete. Thus the “miss.” The waters of San Diego Bay were home to not just the Humboldt squid but the great white as was immediately apparent. Conscious or not, there were not going to be many infected surviving the fall.
    Some, however, were aimed more or less at the RHIB. Thus the “hit.”
    “Back up!” Lyons said as the first infected landed on Petty Officer Gomez. The infected didn’t survive, not to mention it wasn’t all that great for Gomez. And the impact very nearly tore the bottom out of the RHIB. Which would have made it, very briefly, an “IB.”
    The COB threw the outboard into reverse and backed up as fast as the boat could manage as the water around it started to churn with impacting infected.
    “Zombilanche!” the Michigan ’s chief of boat shouted, then cackled madly. There was essentially a wall of infected falling off the flight deck.
    “Just get us out of here, COB!” Lyons shouted, then, “Incoming!”
    The remaining crew dove to the side as an infected impacted square in the center of the RHIB.
    “I don’t know how many more of those we can take,” Lyons said. “Jefferson, Garcia, toss those over the side.”
    “Aye, aye, sir,” Seaman Jefferson said, grabbing the legs of the infected. Who, as it turned out, was sufficiently cushioned by Gomez and the previously impacted infected to survive. Albeit with two broken legs. “Sir!”
    “Got it,” Lyons said, drawing and giving the infected a “Mozambique tap” to the chest and head. “Now toss it.”
    “Aye, sir,” Jefferson said, gulping. He and Garcia tipped the dead body over the side, then reared back. “JESUS!”
    A particularly greedy great white had not even waited for the body to fully hit the water. Its teeth sunk