Up From the Depths Read Free

feeders and spread that way.” His mind wandered in another direction. What if the infected gave off some kind of pheromone that repelled known carrion eaters? If that was the case, then it might be possible to extract and somehow develop a repellant that would keep the infected away from the uninfected.
     
    ***

Chapter 2
    Brooks Mountain Range, Alaska
     
    The MC-130 Combat Talon aircraft that had once carried the joint special operations units from Elmendorf Air Force Base lay broken on the frozen tundra. The remaining fuel that hadn’t been purged from the tanks and lines formed a dark pinkish/red stain on the otherwise white landscape. The left wing of the plane was sheared off from the fuselage and discarded several hundred yards from the rest of the wreckage.
    Captain Declan O’Toole, ODA-141, 1st Special Forces Group formerly stationed at Joint Base Lewis/McChord, unbuckled and stood up from his seat. He looked around the darkened cargo bay. In the dim light coming through the hole in the side of the airframe where the wing had once been, he was able to tell it was night. His inner ear told him that the plane was at an angle. The loose equipment under his boots informed him that several of the mission support pallets had broken loose and spilled their contents all over the converted cargo plane’s hold.
    “Harris! Captain Harris!” O’Toole called out for the Ranger officer.
    “Here!” a voice answered from somewhere.
    “Find out who’s injured,” O’Toole directed as he took a step and kicked loose small arms ammunition across the decking. “And get someone to police up these fucking live rounds!”
    “Hoo-ah!”
    O’Toole climbed over the cargo and up to the cockpit to check on the flight crew. He was met at the door by the flight engineer who was struggling with a large survival pack in one hand and flashlight in the other.
    “Anybody injured or dead up here?”
    “No. We made it without anything serious,” the flight engineer answered as the beam waved crazily around from his struggle to get his pack out of the door. The light illuminated a cut across the bridge of the engineer’s nose, besides that, he looked uninjured.
    “After a landing like that, we’re spending most of our time shoveling out our shorts,” the engineer said as he finally got his pack out the door.
    O’Toole smirked as he tried to see behind the man and into the dim lit flight deck. The smell and bacon crackle of an electrical fire reached him from where he stood. Several overhead panels arced and shot sparks that briefly illuminated scenes of movement as the rest of the flight crew moved to exit the downed aircraft. O’Toole climbed back down into the cargo area to assess the evacuation process. Harris had already opened one of the side doors and started a human chain passing the gear along to be stacked outside. The injured were being assessed inside the aircraft until they could be moved to a makeshift shelter using ponchos and poncho liners and lit by the green glow of chemical lights and the harsh white of flares that had been set up outside at a safe distance from the downed aircraft. They all smelled the rich, heady aroma of aviation fuel.
    O’Toole picked his way through the scattered cargo and towards the rear of the plane. The pallets he was looking for appeared to be undamaged and still strapped in place. Pulling his knife, he quickly cut through the tie down straps and began pushing aside items that had fallen on top of what he was searching for.
    “Need some help there?” Sergeant William Sands, his ODA team sergeant, asked cracking and shaking a chem-light that soon bathed the area in a green glow. The two men cut loose the cargo sleds and worked them free of the rest of the disrupted equipment before handing them off to the human unloading chain.
    O’Toole went back to the pallets and hacked through the remaining straps, sheathed his knife and began handing gear to Sands who passed it along to the