Homeward Bound, Chapter 12 by patricia51
(Paul Revere Rides Again)
"Tell us about this ship you mentioned," Claire asked Morganna.
"Not that I know a lot about ships," the Umbrella undercover operative, now pretty much confirmed to be a former Umbrella operative, "but I understand that it's a large ocean going cargo ship. There aren't many of them left. Most were abandoned by their crews or overrun by the infection. From what I have heard the corporation was lucky to get hold of the Arcadia."
"Arcadia?" asked Chris.
"That's its name or at least its call sign."
"Probably doesn't matter," shrugged Carlos.
"Not the name but its existence might mean a lot. As might its course," said Claire thoughtfully.
"What are you thinking Claire?" inquired Alice.
The former convoy leader looked at Morganna. "What would happen to any of those individual boats or floating communities if the Arcadia were to sight any of them?"
"You know Umbrella's motto," replied the injured woman. "What mine is mine and what's yours is mine too. They would almost certainly attempt to capture and loot any vessel they came across. Umbrella still thinks it controls the world and that includes the seas."
"How heavily armed is it?" asked Carlos.
"I know that it does have a couple of cannons and at least one missile launcher for shipboard weapons. It also carries a couple of Umbrella VTOL planes on catapults and carried a heavily armed security force. For specifics I think we'd have to check the computer. I'm sure Tokyo sent Halstead full particulars."
Sue and her husband immediately grasped the implications of what the group was discussing. "We have to warn everyone out there!"
"What do you all think?" Alice looked over the group.
"I think we don't have any choice," her husband was the first to respond Umbrella has always been our enemy and will never stop trying to take you Alice and Angie too for their own purposes. They don't care about the devastation they'd laid on the world and on humanity; they think that's just the cost of doing business. Innocent people will be hurt if we stand by and do nothing."
"And there's fewer and fewer people each year, at least outside of Alaska as far as we know," commented Jill.
"Okay," Sam put in. "I guess trying to hi-jack the ship seems out of the question." he looked at Morganna.
"Pretty much I would think, even for your group. There isn't much on the high seas anymore. Umbrella rules there except in the South Pacific."
"What's there?" asked K-mart, unable to stay out of the conversation.
"There's nuclear aircraft carrier battle group that stayed out to sea as the infection raged. Many of the crew took opportunities to desert but enough remained to continue to man the carrier and two of the escorts. Once the infection had stopped spreading except by actual physical contact with a zombie they started recruiting new crew members. There were already some women on board. Now it's a thriving community."
Morganna sighed. "Of course when the Australian branch of the corporation heard about that they must have started drooling over the idea of seizing three warships. They launched every aircraft available with pretty much every trooper available. Not a good idea."
"Oh?"
A reluctant but also somewhat mischievous grin touched the former operative's lips. "The carrier still had several operation F18 Hornets as well as the escorts' weapons. They blew the attackers out of the sky. That so weakened the Umbrella facility in Australia that several months latter there was no stopping a zombie influx through a failed security door."
"Still though," Morganna went on, "that will probably just make the Arcadia and her crew even more careful. I really think the thing to do is warn everyone to get out of her way. Chairman Wesker isn't going to waste resources that are getting scarcer every day by letting the ship hang around the US West Coast. When they don't find anything he'll probably recall it, especially when he learns the trap set for you has failed."
Within hours the group was on its way. It hard been hard for them to do but the decision had been made to split the party. Sue and her older son were joined by Jill and Chris and of course Angie in manning the sailboat. Their objective was to sail down the coast and warn as many of the individual boats as they could.
"This has to be done using a sailboat," Sue explained. "The people whip stay out by themselves or just with another one or two people will automatically avoid any boat with a mill."
"A mill?" inquired Angie.
"A motor. At least using one as its primary propulsion. A lot of us have an auxiliary engine aboard but a lot of the purists, and most of the single boats fit into that category, won't have any kind of engine on board except perhaps on a lifeboat."
Sue's husband Robert and their younger son would take one of Umbrella's power boats along with Alice, Carlos and K-mart. They would head as fast as possible for the most immediately threatened of the floating communities.
Sue and Morganna had plotted the likely course of the Arcadia and filled in the location of the communities.
"Most likely they'll stick to the old time coastal shipping lanes for deep water vessels," Sue told them. "So you all need to go to this one first," she pointed to a spot on the chart.
Her husband, rapidly improving from his injuries but still stiff and bandaged nodded, "From there we'll follow the possible course to the other two that seem to be at risk."
"Be careful."
Morganna had also revealed how Umbrella had found out the survivors' route and helped find a satellite that Umbrella had not compromised for future communications with Mikey up in Alaska. She would stay behind along with Claire, Sam and to K-Mart and Angie's interest, the three other kids. It seemed there was something in the making there the two teens noted.
The oldest of the three was a boy named Don. In his early teens he was extremely withdrawn and quiet. Sue told the group that Linda and her husband had found him on the shore, wandering aimlessly and barely avoiding a group of zombies. The other two were the young daughters of the deceased couple; Sally and Marian, the former about six and the latter a couple of years older. They also were quiet and shy. Sue explained their parents had been drifters, sailing by themselves and only occasionally touching land or one of the permanent floating communities.
"We'll try to find someone to adopt them once this is all over," the woman concluded.
Judging by the way they were acting with Sam and Claire K-Mart wasn't sure that was going to be necessary; at least in the case of the girls. And the boy, interestingly, seemed fascinated with the computer and Morganna's operation of it. Still, that was all for another time.
"By the way," Claire looked up as the lights flickered, "you never did tell us how these are powered."
"Umbrella brought a diesel generator," Sue answered as preparations hastened for the departure of the two boats. Angie had sent the zombie shark away so they were able to load knee deep in the water safely. The temptation had been to keep it as a guardian of some kind but the teenager's fragile control had slipped once and the decision had been not to try anything like that until her power grew stronger and more reliable.
"But didn't you say you found lights on when you got here?" questioned Chris.
"Yes," Sue pointed to the corner of the sea cave farthest away from the pinnacle of rock where K-mart had crawled to her parents from. "There's a wave-powered generator in there. Not an enormous amount of power but free and continuous."
"Of course Halstead needed much more power than that provided," put in Morganna, "but the wave one still works and in fact is the only thing running right now. Only when the voltage demand rises does the diesel kick in."
"So we'll have lights while you're gone," said Sam.
"And we can monitor the radio," said Sam.
"But only use them when absolutely needed," reminded Morganna. "Umbrella may well be listening."
Silence fell over the group.
"Okay, hey it's not like this is the first time we ve all been apart," Alice said trying to lighten the mood.
"And the sooner we get started the sooner we'll have warned everyone and the sooner we'll be back together and on our way home." added Carlos.
Hugs were exchanged and the boats were launched. Sue directed the sail hoisting and the wind caught the billowing canvas and soon the boat was cutting through the water. The breeze and the salt spray swept Angie's worries away for the moment as the deck heeled under her. She just had enough time to wave once more to K-Mart as the commandeered motor boat's engine roared, taking her best friend and her parents on a diverging course.
The boat sailed on. Sue and her son instructed Angie and her parents on how to handle the sails. It turned out that when Chris had been growing up his best friend's folks had a sailboat. It had been many years but it all came back quickly to him. Watching him handle the tiller with easy confidence on just the second day Angie shook her head. Was there anything her new Dad couldn't do?
By the third day they had crossed paths with several other boats. Once Sue had given the news of the impending intrusion each boat headed in a different direction to pass on the news. Chris and Jill were very satisfied.
"Each time someone else does the Paul Revere thing we increase our chances of everyone knowing the Redcoats are coming," Jill announced happily.
Angie found that she loved the water. She loved it during the day and she loved it even more so at night. She and Sue's son Derrick would take the night watch, although an adult always remained on call. The stars spread out across the night sky and the only sound was the hull slicing through the water. It was so peaceful that Angie could imagine sometimes that the entire world was at peace again and nothing bad had ever happened.
The morning of the fourth day she watched the sun come up over the water. By now they were well out of sight of the land. She stood on the prow, riding easily to the motion of the boat, one hand clutching the rigging. This was incredible she thought. She hoped K-Mart was having as wonderful a time as she was.
Elsewhere her best friend took a head first dive into the boat's cockpit as her Mother shoved her down. Bullets chewed up the railing where she had just been standing. Everyone hit the deck. K-Mart peeked out with one eye.
"Well this is some fine morning. SHIT!"
(To be continued)
(Note: When I first started this fic I listed Alice and Carlos as the main characters. It's become obvious for quite a while that the story is centered around K-Mart and Angie so I've gone back and changed the general information of the story to reflect this.)