Sabredancing with the dead Ch 13
Tokonosu, April 18 20xx
Day 5.
0745
Kat and Wolf were up with the sun, and whipped together a simple breakfast from ship's stores. The coffee machine was a bust though, no power at the moment so it was tea with a shot or two of rum, sugar and lemon. (Both of them couldn't stand milk in tea, which made it easier to make up a full pot in one go.) Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, and sandwiches made with the remaining fresh meat slices from their first meal aboard. Kat figured on helping Wolf do the systems checks, letting the others get organized with the new cooking arrangements before she headed back up to help them. In the mean time, it was essential that they figure out what systems on Sabre Dance were good and which were bad.
Breakfast concluded, they got going. To that end, the first thing he wanted to do was an electrical check, starting with the diesel. EMP had no effect on items within a Faraday cage, which by definition was a metal box. Being as SD was a steel box, albeit with a few openings, he was praying that his electronics would be OK. He'd always made a point of disconnecting any long leads such as antenna and the mast head units, so maybe he'd be lucky.
"OK babe, here goes nothing!" he said as he climbed into the cockpit and set the throttle. He turned the key and the appropriate lights came on, and after a bit he hit the start button. The engine spun over and then fired, steadying into its normal warm up rhythm
"WOOO HOOOO!" He hollered as Kat gave him the thumbs up. She turned to check the ammeter on the panel and studied it for a moment, then turned to him and gave the thumbs down. It looked like the alternator diodes were gone. He ran the engine until it was warmed up, and then switched it off. Climbing back down into the cabin, he opened a locker up forward and pulled out a couple of battery maintenance solar panels. Taking them topside along with his multimeter, which still worked, he was happy to see that they had both survived. This gave him some hope that the larger panel shoved under the cockpit floor might also have survived. If so, he had the power he needed. Without that big panel, keeping the cooler running would require some fine balancing.
He and Kat then carefully pulled out the big panel, a 200 watt panel that was about 5 foot by 2 and a half. He hadn't got the frame work built yet, having only just purchased the panel in Hawaii, but they took the panel out and laid it on the cabin top forward of the mast on a couple of blocks of wood. Wolf connected his multimeter to it, and was again ecstatic to see it had survived. It didn't take long to connect some heavy wire to the output leads, seal the joint with butyl tape and lead them back to the cockpit. Unscrewing the panel he'd already built in for the purpose, he connected the leads to the terminals within. He took some tape and wrapped the wires where they entered the panel and then screwed it shut again. Kat looked up at him from the companion way, and gave him thumbs up; the panel was feeding into the controller and was charging the battery bank.
Next thing he checked was the depth sounder. Being entirely within the hull, it had survived and showed 37 feet of water beneath the keel. He couldn't try the sumlog without moving the boat but he suspected it was working too. He reached up and grabbed the data cable from the mast head unit that fed wind speed and direction into his instruments and plugged it into the server. No joy there, the mast head unit was packed full of comparators, transistors and ttl chips. It was toast. Now he looked at the VHF radio. He left the power feed on it but always disconnected the antenna. Now he pulled the cable and coupling out of its stowage slot and screwed it onto the connector at the back of the radio, and hit the power switch. All the appropriate lights came on, and he heard static. He fiddled with it for a while, calling on 16 to see if anyone responded. That dog didn't bark. He reached down and opened up a steel locker and pulled out the hand held VHF. He handed Kat the mic and rowed back to the dinghy dock with the hand held and called up Sabre Dance. Kat came right back at him, so both sets appeared to be working fine. He gave Wally a call but got no response.
Last but not least he went back below and plugged the leads and antenna into the stereo system. The lights came, but there was nothing on AM or FM. Then he pulled out a flash drive, popped it in and smiled when Roy Orbison started belting out Pretty Woman. Even Kat was smiling. She had her own collection of flash drives and there were always the earphones. She mouthed the words "old fart" at him as he grooved to the tune. He just kept on grinning.
All things considered, Sabre Dance had weathered the EMP pretty well. Unlike the Tupperware boats (which he suspected would all be fried), most of his systems were protected enough by her steel hull to not burn out. The alternator could probably be repaired if he had the right diodes in his box of solid state bits. That would remain to be seen, if not he did have a spare, along with a spare starter and isolation box. He'd paid the stiff price for duplicates willingly, figuring having one fry in some far away lagoon was a possibility. He had stored them in a completely steel locker, along with some other things of electronic nature like the solid state repair parts. The mast head unit would have to come down and be taken apart but for now he could live without it. He doubted it could be fixed but SD was the first boat he'd had with a wind vane, so it wasn't a critical item. Tell tales always worked, power or not.
By noon, they had checked every system, so they headed up to the clubhouse to see what was going on. Kat went off to assist with lunch while Wolf got with Saeko to see what other useful things could be had from the Takagi warehouse.
Within 10 minutes Kat was back to update him on the kitchen. "Wolf, we already have problems. They got the propane gear set up for breakfast but we are just about out of drinking water. We only have half a dozen cases of bottled water for the vending machines and then we're out completely."
"Saeko, any chance of bottled water in the warehouse?" Wolf asked as he turned to the former warehouse manager.
"No, I don't recollect any water, imported or otherwise. Our city freshwater is taken from the river. Most of our bottled water in the city comes from two or three distributors who bring it down from the hills up north somewhere. Sorry" she replied.
"Ok this is problem number one... Let me get with the others and see about a trip to the base for those water bowsers. Quick like, before someone else gets the same idea." Wolf told Kat as he turned towards where Shinji and Saburo were working on something with Eriko and Tamichi.
Hi guys. What are you up to? He asked them.
"We're debating which is easier. Dig latrines or haul water from the dock to the washrooms. Eriko figures we cant' dig deep enough to make it worth while, and Tamichi figures humping buckets one at a time, as needed by someone will do. We have to get the toilets working again. Some one has already used them and flushed, but never got water to refill the ones they used." Shinji filled him in.
"Well tell everyone to grab a bucket full before using the facilities. Its only about 60 feet from the dinghy dock to the washrooms. Everyone will have to carry their own. Wolf said as he thumped his fist on the picnic table they were sitting at. "That will damn well work. I can't see people wanting to use a latrine, even if we could dig it deep enough. No worries about the water being contaminated by the floating dead, its salt and won't be used for cooking or drinking anyway. I wouldn't even use it for washing. It's not clean enough." Wolf told them. "But we need to stay on top of the sanitation aspects of this for sure."
The others nodded in agreement, debate finished. Eriko and Tamichi went off to get buckets and put them by the dock for everyone to use.
That taken care of, Wolf got to the water issue. "Guys, we have a bigger problem than flush toilets right now. We are almost out of drinking water already. We need to get those bowsers ASAP. What we have won't last more than a day."
"Agreed, lets get some people together for this. While we are at the base I can pick up a couple of radio sets for communications with the force north of us. Plus we can use it as a base radio to communicate with the APCs." Shinji suggested.
"Wait a minute guys, we have to figure out how we're going to do this. We want the bowsers inside the compound which means opening the gate wide and doing it with man power. We need a plan for this." Wolf noted.
"Yeah you're right. We need to keep the deaders away. Sound draws them away well enough as we saw last night but we shut down and went dead silent for a spell. Coming back with 3 or 4 extra vehicles is going to be much harder to orchestrate."Saburo noted
"How about this. When we come back, the column turns left up the second last street and then across to the last street by the gate. This way everybody is lined up on the gate. The APCs swing out of line and point north down the Shore Road facing the crowd of deaders, parking just off to the side of the gate. Everyone shuts down." Wolf paused to think a bit more. Then he continued. "Wally starts the music, and when they are far enough away we crank the gate open and the bowsers start up and immediately enter. Meanwhile if the critters hear the bowsers, and start heading back to the gate, we use the APCs to attract them by starting up and meeting them half way. Once the bowsers are in, the gate closes, and we loop round again. Then we park side by side in front of the gate like we did last night, shut down, let Wally draw them again and we scoot inside humping the gear as we go."
"That sounds like a workable plan." Shinji and Saburo both agreed.
"OK lets get going." Saburo replied.
They walked over to the crowd gathering for lunch and asked for volunteers for the supply run, pointing out that the water was just about gone and they needed to get more or be in deep trouble. Several people stepped up, mostly the same crew from the day before, with a couple new faces. Wally and the gate crew were briefed in as to how this was going to go, asked a couple of questions and they were good to go. Kat in the mean time organized a dozen crossbow armed people to watch from the top of the stairs again when the trucks came back. Just in case.
Saburo also pointed out the new sanitary rules, get water before you flush or end up on KP for a week. A few people grumbled about it, so Shinji asked them how they'd like to dig a latrine pit with shovels and crap outside. That put paid to any grumbling.
"OK, Wally, get ready to start the racket in about 10 minutes. We need to get ourselves organized at the gate first." Wolf told him, and headed off to get ready.
10 minutes later Wally climbed up the steps and hooked up the horn which immediately started pulling critters to that location. Tamichi had gotten him a set of headphones, so his hearing wasn't taking the pounding it had yesterday. The group by the gate kept an eye on him and he soon signaled them to open the gate and move to the APCs.
This was done in short order, and the gate cranked shut again. The crews manned the APCs and crossed fingers and toes that they would start. Sure enough the hardened vehicles had not suffered any ill effects from the burst and fired up as normal. The radios were checked and also found to be functional, so they turned round and in a column headed north along the shore front road to the JSDF base.
As they moved along, deaders came out from all sides. Some ended up as grease beneath the wheels but most were just too slow to do more than stumble after them until the sound died away in the distance and they lost interest. The trip to the base was without incident, and they followed Shinji's APC to the tank barn which held the water bowsers. He had checked to make sure his crew members were good to go on the trucks, and he parked beside them and shut down. Meanwhile the others drove slowly round and started dragging the deaders away from the area.
Once they had cleared the area of walking corpses, Shinji opened up the rear ramp of his vehicle and the crew disbursed to the water bowsers, climbing in and locking the doors. These were standard heavy duty trucks with a 5000 liter tank mounted on the frame behind the cab. There were 5 of them, but they only had 3 drivers.
Shinji got on the radio and had one of the other APCs swing by and drop two more drivers. In short order the 5 trucks were running and in a line behind the APC. Shinji called the other two APCs and led them all over to the supply depot. Once there he and Wolf parked and shut down, while the rest of them drove round dragging deaders away. The depot wasn't locked or anything so they quietly entered and cleared the building. There were a couple of critters in there, but they had no problem killing off the two and set about gathering radio sets, both base sets and individual hand sets.
It took them just over an hour to get the gear they wanted, load it and get ready to roll. They formed up in a column with the other APC and the bowsers and headed back to the compound. Now came the tricky part. Getting them all inside and closing the gate before they pulled any deaders in with them.
As they came to the end of the Shore road, they pulled up the second last street to the side. One block up they crossed over to the last road which was in line with the gate they used. The APCs took lead, and did as planned, turning back north on the Shore Road and parking side by side. The bowser came up behind and parked nose to tail with the lead truck no more than a foot away from the gate. Looking up at the wall way down at the other end of the compound, they saw Wally waiting and signaled him to plug in the horn. Sure enough the critters they had dragged with them headed over to visit Wally's horn for a while.
Once they had all crowded together under the horn, Wally signaled back to the gate crew and they feverishly cranked it open, just wide enough for the bowsers. Those trucks fired up right away and trundled into the compound as fast as possible. Up on the steps, Kats' crossbow crew stood to, ready in case the critters came back this way. A Nothing doing with that. The horn was so loud they couldn't hear anything at all.
Wally kept the horn going, and signaled the APC crews to unass right then and there, as he had the critters firmly in hand. A few shambled down the last road, cutting the corner and heading to the horn. Others also appeared from the second road and farther afield, being dragged by the horn. By this time Wally had a hundred or so stacked up under his position.
In the mean time, several people came out of the gate to assist in the offloading, which went very quickly. With the APCs buttoned up and all the cargo offloaded, Shinji motioned Wally to cut the horn. He then hopped off the last APC and through the gate. A critter no one had seen lunged at him from behind the last APC and almost got him, but Kat's crew skewered it a half dozen times including two head shots and it went down like a sack of potatoes.
Water problem temporarily solved, Wolf wondered what would happen next. Sanitation was still a big issue, with no showers, and no running water to wash with. The harbor water might do in a pinch but as he'd already noted, he wasn't too impressed with that idea. At least it didn't have a lot of oil or gasoline floating on the surface. Salt water showers were no fun at the best of times, and grungy water just made it worse. The more he thought about it, the more untenable this location was becoming. It sure seemed like Wally had the right idea. No power, no water, no food. Not a situation given to long term survival. He wondered what crisis would pop up next.
-Author's notes: I don't own HOTD, or any of its characters. I just get to play in their universe. All characters in this story (So far) are my own.
Reviews gratefully accepted, as long as they are constructive and non-abusive.
Anyone interested in following the progress on the real life Sabre Dance is welcome to visit my builder's blog. Just search for Sabredancing. You'll find it.