Sabredancing with the dead Ch 14
Tokonosu, April 19 20xx
Day 6.
0745
Wolf woke up to a gray gloomy April day. Kat lay with her back to him, snoring lightly. After a while her breathing changed as she woke up, and stretched. They lay there for a while, enjoying the closeness of each other. A light rain pattered on the overhead and neither of them really wanted to get out of bed but they had things to do. So, half an hour later both of them were in the dinghy heading to the dock, ready to put in another day at the survival game, here in this land of the walking dead.
His sleep had been uneasy, caused by subconscious worries about food, water and other things they needed to make a go of it in this location. His thoughts dwelt on what Wally had said a couple of days ago, and the more he pondered these questions, the more he came round to Wally's idea of moving. The compound was pretty much critter proof, and they had shelter but food and water were going to be an ongoing battle, especially the water aspect. Tanker trucks of fresh drinking water weren't just laying round to be grabbed. Food might last in the warehouses for a year or more but water was going to be a cast iron bitch to keep in supply. Shelter was another issue. You couldn't live on the boats over the winter. Not without a good power supply for heating. From what he could tell, everyone was living in factory built fiberglass boats, and none of them were insulated. His was, but without a large supply of kerosene he had no way to heat her up. Fortunately it was early spring, so at least they were good for 6 months or so in that respect.
The problem was simple. Where could they go to, and have all the resources they needed? One choice was to head over to where the JSDF had hunkered down in the shipyard area. More people there to spread out the work of surviving but again, they would be relying on scavenging. A second idea was to head out to an island off the coast and clear it. But arable land in this part of Japan was pretty scarce, and most islands were treed to the max with little cleared land. Possibility number 3 was an enclosed farming village or such, which he had no idea of where to find one. It appeared that for the moment they were stuck.
Breakfast was getting to be pretty sparse as the fresh food was almost gone. He finally tried natto, and while the stink was pretty bad, it turned out that the taste wasn't nearly as nasty as he'd thought. It was tolerable. Just barely. Talking with Kat and the other kitchen people, it appeared that they were OK for staples for another week or so. He'd have to see about a scavenging mission to a grocery wholesale outlet or something in the near future.
Water was still the biggest worry. How to get fresh water with no power or filter mechanisms? He had a desalinator unit on board but it drew a lot of power in order to make a few gallons. It wasn't a large unit, as he generally sailed alone and running it once a month for a couple of hours was sufficient to fill his tanks. Even then he used it sparingly, preferring to top up on potable water in the various harbors he visited.
Thinking about his desalinator got him thinking about the two ships over at the Takagi warehouse docks. While diesel powered, all ocean going ships carried a distillation unit on board for crew needs. He got to wondering if it were possible to use one of them to supply water, at least for as long as the fuel held out. He remembered that one of them had the gangway up and appeared to be unoccupied by critters while the other one was seen to be infested. He thought about how to get aboard the one with its gangway up. It was a long climb from dock level to deck level but might be doable. Even better if there was still crew aboard that could lower the gangway for them.
He thought about climbing up onto the tsunami wall to look if there were any signs of life on that ship but then remembered that it was on the opposite side of the warehouse and wouldn't be visible. Still it was worth investigating in the near future. With 25,000 liters on hand they were OK for a while yet. He'd have to bring it up at dinner when everyone gathered for the meal and a discussion on the days events and planning for the next day.
His thinking kept coming back to the moving issue. Suddenly it clicked in his mind. Tokonosu Airport was an island. While a lot of it was paved over for the runways, taxiways and the ramp, there had to be several hundred acres of grassland between and around the concrete. It could do the trick if they could get the critters off of the island, secure it and get farming equipment over there. Yeah right. Nice dream but a tad impractical.
He had to admit it, he was stumped as to where they could move to in order to get the resources and land they needed to survive and expand. As it was their little community had already expanded by some 20 or so, the fisherman that they had seen on their first or second day here. They have come around the breakwater in a row boat and had brought some of their fish along with them to trade. That had been dinner last night. They didn't stay, returning instead to their motor fishing vessels where they were quite comfortable already. They did ask that the club people assist them in clearing out the fishing fleet compound, and that was planned to be done the same way as the club had been cleared with one exception. They would draw the critters out via the gates, and away from the area while the gates were closed. Any stragglers would be taken out by crossbow.
From the conversations with the fishermen, it appeared that several of their boats were able to start up engines and move. They too had no electronics anymore but the basic DC electrical systems still worked. Apparently they started their diesel with compressed air. As long as they could keep the pressure cylinder full of compressed air, they could start at will. Being all steel, the alternators deep in the belly of the ships had survived while the electronics in the deck houses had fried. So they had power, and lights. Since they could move they agreed to return to fishing every few days and trade fresh fish for rice and other staples. Wolf figured that trip to the wholesaler was going to come about sooner rather than later.
Figuring sooner rather than later, he went over to discuss that mission with Saburo and Shinji. As they talked about it, Saburo asked him why he was looking so bummed out.
"I'm worried about the sustainability of this location. Water is one thing we can't make or find in large quantities. We were lucky with those water bowsers but what do we do when that runs out again?" he replied.
"You have a point, Wolf. The two of us have been thinking along the same lines. Wally mentioned his idea of moving somewhere else a couple of days ago and it's been slowly fermenting in my head. But I'll be damned if I can figure out where we can move to." Shinji commented, scratching his head.
"I had an idea about using the Airport Island as a base. If we could clear out the critters, it is well suited as far as isolation, and arable land goes. There has to be a few hundred acres of grassland between the runways we could plow up and plant, assuming we can get plows over there somehow. But how do we clear off the critters? There must be hundreds over there. I heard something about the undersea access tunnels being full of them, all heading over to the island." Wolf said.
"Well maybe they have the place cleared out by now." Saburo replied.
What do you mean? Wolf asked.
Didn't anyone mention it to you? There were a hell of a lot of explosions and fires over there the afternoon that the EMP burst hit. We didn't notice because most of us were out on the supply mission, and you can't see the island from here because of the wharf between us and the Takagi warehouse. One of the fishermen was out that day and he saw it all. Lots of helos, and Japanese F-15s doing bomb runs at the ends of the island, away from the terminal. According to him, there were a couple of dozen helicopters flitting about over the terminal, setting down, taking off and heading out to sea. He figured that they were heading out to some task force offshore. He also got close enough that he could see hundreds of the dead being herded to the end of the runways, and then hit with napalm from the 15's." Saburo noted.
"Well, no one told me about it. Can one of you get on the radio to the JSDF crowd over at the ship yard? Maybe they know what's going on and can give us more information. Who knows. Maybe moving there might be an idea. We'd still need to get plows and other farm equipment over there and it'd be a long term project, just getting the place livable but worth it. We need to talk to someone about this." Wolf said enthusiastically.
"Wally is still our best commo guy, and he's got the radio gear we brought back from the base up and running now. Let's go ask him to get someone on the line who might know." Shinji replied as they all headed over to the clubhouse where they had installed the radio base station.
All three of them entered the clubhouse, and found Wally working the radio, talking with the JSDF RTO that he'd be in touch with for the last few days. They asked him to get an officer on line to find out what they knew about the airport, and in short order heard that there was a small task force of mixed NATO, SEATO and Japanese Maritime Defense Force ships now anchored off the Tokonosu Airport, and working at clearing the critters from the island so it could be used as an operational base. The JSDF crowd were planning on moving there using ferries and other ships once the area had been secured. Already the tunnels running from the mainland out to the island had been secured, so now it was only a matter of killing off the remaining critters and then setting up the base.
Saburo asked the officer what they could do to help, and was told to stand by. Currently it was a strictly military operation and as such they were not needed. But once the move was on, they were welcome to come over to the island if they wished, but they should understand that for all intents and purposes, they would be drafted for the duration and under military control. There was a civilian government but it was currently located in Okinawa, and this operation was under military jurisdiction only.
Currently, the manpower shortages were severe enough aboard the task force that civilians who had evaced to the various ships were all being press ganged into service to keep the ships running, service the aircraft and act as loaders and working any other task that needed little skill to be handled. The same would apply to any civvie who appeared on the island.
Apparently several of the task force ships had been in port when the emergency started and had to leave with a good 40% - 50% of their crews absent, presumed dead. As the disaster spread, dozens of civil and military helos had escaped and headed out to the task force in a scene reminiscent of the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam conflict. They landed, people got out and the birds were unceremoniously shoved over the side. About the only helos kept were the military birds, ranging from scouts, gunships and transports.
According to the officer they spoke to, the task force been cobbled together from various leftovers as most of the NATO and SEATO ships had headed back to their home nations to assist, while these were home ported in Japan. It also included a number of commercial vessels that had joined up after hearing that the ports they were headed to had fallen to the dead. A partial list was given, these included helicopter carriers JS Kaga, and Ise, along with USS Bonhomme Richard. Two Unrep ships, JS Mashu, and Hamana, along with several frigates, and destroyers. Tagging along were a dozen or so civilian ships of various types, all in all, over 25 ships were now anchored off the airport. The land based F-15s came from one of 2 still secure airbases on Japanese soil. It was hoped that the bases would stay secure long enough to allow complete eradication of the dead on the island airport and allow for a move from the isolated airbases to the Island. As it was, the airbases were untenable once supplies ran out.
Saburo thanked the officer for the information and signed off.
"Well it looks like we might be moving. I for one don't have any problem with the draft, I'm already military. As for the others, who knows? It makes more sense to do it this way than to have to cater to a crowd of civvies with an undermanned force busy trying to establish a base." Saburo commented.
"We'll have to discuss this after dinner once they are ready to accept us. In the mean time I'd say keep it quiet. Let's wait 'til they have cleared out the place." Wolf suggested.
Nods of agreement came from the other two.
"So what do we do in the mean time?" Wolf asked them. "Continue with supply missions? I guess we have to, don't we? We don't know when we are going to make a move, nor do we know how the military is going to feed us. I expect they too will be running missions for resupply. Their supply trains can't last much more than a couple of weeks I would think. Add in a bunch of civvies to be fed and that will make their needs even greater."
"I agree, we need to keep on top of supplies, no matter where we end up. To that end I suggest we start planning our next run." Saburo said.
"Yes, we should start on that now. We will need staples in a week or two at the most and we might as well get started on that problem now. Time to locate a wholesaler or other outlet." Having said that, Shinji headed over to the table where they had put all the Takagi paperwork and the telephone directory. He sat down and started flipping pages searching for the grocery wholesaler listings. In a city of the size of Tokonosu, there were bound to be more than a few. Sure enough he found one reasonably close by. Unfortunately the nearest one was a good distance away from the water front.
This meant that they would again be driving through large masses of critters, and then they'd have to clear them out once they arrived at the warehouse. They each remembered the mission to try and get the medical supplies which had been a bust.
"Got any ideas on how to pull this one off guys?" Wolf asked.
Shinji looked at them. "I think that with the APCs we won't have any problem pushing through a crowd of the infected. Being closed vehicles, the crews will be safe even if completely surrounded. The big question is what to do when we end up stopped on site and surrounded. Movement keeps the numbers down enough not to cause us problems. The question we must answer is this: how do we clear the immediate area, so we can exit the APCs, open doors, get into the building, clear it and secure it. At Takagi we were fortunate to have water on 3 sides, and only one way in via the gate in the fence which limited the number of access points for deaders. Here we don't know what we are going to run into.
Wolf looked at the map and wondered how they would get supplies back, since the APCs were not cargo trucks. They'd have to check the tractor trailer unit that Kuma had brought the stuff back from the Takagi warehouse in, to see if it would still run. Otherwise, they'd need to get trucks that ran from somewhere. He asked the others that question.
Shinji stood up and walked out to the patio and asked Kuma to see if the tractor would start. Fingers crossed, it was an older model used for yard shunting so maybe it would still fire up. He came back to the table to make a suggestion that would take care of the transport problem, even though it meant another mission to the JSDF base. There were still EMP proof trucks to be had there.
The other two agreed with him, the military base and its equipment would once again aid them in surviving. With that in mind, they planned the mission in two parts. Part one was the run to the base, where they would distract the deaders in the same way as before, while a second group would park in the truck barn and commandeer the trucks once the deaders were out of earshot. They figured on a time table of about 2 hours to accomplish this.
The second part of the mission was a run down to the wholesaler. This part might well take the better part of the day. They would first reconn the warehouse to check out doors, ramps and what not, then they'd put the distraction plan into effect. The plan was similar to that used at the base. The main body of APCs and trucks would park in close proximity to the warehouse, with the trucks backed into the loading docks or right up tight to the overhead doors if that was what they ran into. Meanwhile a single APC would drive off a goodly distance and then start up with the car horns to attract the deaders away. Once they were far enough away to put people on the ground, teams would see to the inside of the warehouse, securing it and clearing it.
Once that was done, they could start scavenging supplies. Hopefully they would have use of at least one forklift. If not it would be pump trucks and hand bombing the boxes and sacks. As they continued to plan the mission, Kuma returned. Surprisingly, the tractor had started but as expected the the alternator was toast and the battery wasn't charging. Knowing that they had a tractor trailer, they decided to pass on the JSDF trucks and go straight to the wholesaler. All that remained was to gather the people who would go, and get on with it. The day was still young, and they figured they could accomplish the mission today.
–-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.
Unrep ship: Underway replenishment ship, carries fuel, and supplies needed by a taskforce under way.
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.