Sabre Dancing with the Dead Ch 34
Note: I put in a revision to Ch 31. In Ch 30 I had them tie up to a mooring and row into the landing. In 31 I forgot that and had the boat tied up at the landing. Consequently, the process for leaving from a dock is different from leaving a mooring. Ergo, the change. To those of you who aren't sailors, it wouldn't be noticeable but it just didn't sit right so I changed it.
Note 2: I just posted a huge file to Deviant Art, which is the map of Tokonosu I use to plan out things. The scale is 1 pixel per meter, so be prepared if you download it. Not much point, it will be updated as the story progresses and I have time and patience to work on it.
sabrekai will get you there.
Tokonosu, April 24 20xx
Day 20.
10:25
The little two seater flew north for a few minutes, and started to orbit over the bridged that crossed the river to the denser city on the other side. There were 3 lanes on either side, the northbound lanes were not too bad, but the southbound lanes were plugged solid and spilled over onto the club side of the river. Saburo sat with his body twisted to the right, camera in hand, taking photos of both sides. He had Wolf fly off to one side of the road as they headed north from the club and he'd been snapping pics all along. He had also taken more than a dozen of the JSDF base they'd salvaged their vehicles and arms from.
Beside him, Wolf sat, fingers light on the controls, head constantly on a swivel. While he'd been told that there was no traffic in the area, he wasn't going to forego keeping an eye open for it. He still remembered vividly the DC-3 that had appeared out of a cloud, about a hundred feet higher, 300 meters ahead and to the right. It scared the hell out of his passenger and he'd never ever forget to keep his eyes open and scanning. Full circle, panel, full circle over and over.
Meanwhile Saburo was now taking video of the first bridge. As he looked down he could see the tiny ant like figures of deaders shuffling about on the bridge, trying to locate the buzzing noise of the Cessna. Looking at the bridge he figured that the northbound side would be fairly easy to clear, the engineering tanks could handle the cars scattered across the 3 lanes. It looked like the deaders had spread out from the city center and got onto both sides, munching their way across. Masses of people had tried to get out of the city, heading south, while only a few were heading north bound into the city.
"Wolf, you said you were at the high school up in the hills on the south east part of the city when the dead guy showed up, right?"
Wolf looked over at the pilot and said "Yeah, Why?"
"Something is not right here. Looking around I am getting the distinct feeling that the spread of the disease was from several points of origin. I wonder if that means anything."
Wolf thought about it. "You know, you may be right. We got hit at the school at the same time as there were fires popping up all over the downtown area that we could see from where we were… But what does that tell us?"
"Damned if I know but I'll mention it to the General when we land." Saburo said as he turned to look out the window again.
"Ok, head north now in a long race track pattern, so I can grab photos of the road to the JSDF encampment." He told Wolf.
The Cessna continued on, steady at 1500 feet above the ground, flying north along the road. When they got to the river further north, they would turn and head south on the opposite side, so Saburo could examine the road from both sides. As they got further north into the down town area, the streets were covered with groups of cars and trucks, some off the road and into buildings, others just stopped dead in the center of the road in masses. Looking down, it was easy to see that most people had left the city center, heading north, south and east. Trying to get home, get away, who knew what thoughts would have been running through their terror stricken minds. Family for most of them. Escape for all of them.
They were too high to make out the masses of blood that had to be spilled down there, but they could make out the deaders staggering about. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them. Traversing this part of the city was going to be interesting, to say the least. Wolf wondered if the engineering vehicles could just roll over them. Probably. The Kubota had had no problems with the ones they'd run across and in most instances, over. The Type 90 recovery vehicles were tall enough that no deader could possibly reach the deck unless they stood on top of a pile of corpses.
The armored tank retrievers should be able to shunt most of the cars and trucks off to one side, leaving a zig zag trail for the rest of the column to follow. His next thought was about the range of those monster tracked beasts. They had looked at the city map last night, and figured the road march would total some 50-60 miles. Add in the amount of backing and filling while they used the dozer blades to push the abandoned cars out of the way, and it could easily work out to the equivalent of three time as much or more. Tracked armored vehicles were not known for their fuel efficiency.
Saburo was taking dozens of photos, and made notes of anything he noticed that might effect their drive through the down town core. Mostly he wondered what they would do with all the walking corpses they could see. Each street heading east from the shore road was covered with wandering groups of animated dead. As he looked down on the animated stiffs, they looked up and tracked the sound of the 100HP engine.
It took them most of an hour to map the road from the bridge to the tsunami wall behind which the JSDF had made their stand. There were 4 large gates through the wall, and each was closed up tight. Walkways had been build along the wall for troops to fight from, and they were manned 24 hours a day.
Behind each gate, there were 3 rows of berms, with a half dozen tanks there to assist if needed. Wolf looked at the land side of the wall and saw that someone had the same idea as he had, to make the ladders and staircases useless. Someone had cut out the bottom 6 feet of steps to the landing at the top. Nothing would be able to pass… at least, not anything dead.
The two looked down and saw the troops waving, so Wolf waggled the wings a bit, and then turned east to follow the road leading inland and on to the university. Tokonosu was a mid sized city, nestled in a bay. The city was split into three. The road they would follow ran along the south shore of the northern of the two rivers that divided Tokonosu into 3 sections. There was one river, with no branches, that split off the south section from the city center. It ran all the way back into the hills. The second river, split off the northern section from the center. This river had two branches, further subdividing the northern section into three.
The southern river, had 3 river crossings. Fujimi High School was located on the south section at the far eastern outskirts of the city. Driving to the club on the second day, they had noted that all three of the bridges appeared to be heavily clogged.
The northern river, also had 3 bridges. Of these, little was known of the conditions. That was their mission, to find out. The first bridge they would come to crossed over into the north, and was of no use to them, as there was no way to cross over into the sections farther east that led to the university. They would be checking out the 2nd and 3rd bridges, as both crossed to the block of land the university was located on. The university was on mildly sloping land, but the property was up tight to a steep rise in height, some 30 meters higher.
Basically, they would turn east along the river road, bypass the first bridge, and take the first of the two crossings. It would be further to go on the north side to get to the university but if the bridge was passable, they'd use it instead of trying for the further one, which was a lot closer to the university, but might be closed. In that case they'd have to back track, wasting time and fuel. Best to try the first one. If it were blocked beyond what the engineering tracks could deal with, then the second would have to be checked out.
Saburo also took a great deal of photos of the side streets, thinking they might be clearer. All these and the videos would have to be analyzed back at the Airport. They soon arrived over the university, and took particular interest in the library and the medical building. The layout was just as described by several of the people who'd come forward to help draw up the map. The patio on the second level looked to be an easy climb up if you stood on the back of an APC. What was even more interesting was the Help Us message laid out on the roof.
Saburo looked at it and snapped some photos. "It looks like there might have been some survivors down there. At least for a while".
"See any signs of life now?" Wolf replied.
"No, nothing moving on the patio. No bodies either. How about a low pass, just to see if anyone shows?'
"Sure, one low pass coming up." Wolf replied as he came round at the end of the racetrack leg and started to descend.
The little Cessna came down to about 150 feet above the ground, well over the trees, and high enough to clear the buildings if needed. The sound of the engine drew every deaders' attention and they all followed along in the sport plane's path. Saburo kept a sharp eye out for any sign of life but saw nothing.
Turning to Wolf, "I think we have all the photos and video we need. Time to head back to the island. Or do you want to fly around a bit more and see what we can see?" the Captain asked as he put the notes and drawings into the carry all they'd brought along.
Wolf checked his watch. They'd been flying for just over 3 hours now. The fuel gauges read a tad under half full. He figured they could be back to the airport in less than 25 minutes. But the sooner they got the intel back to the General, the sooner they could work out the last details and get this show on the road.
"I think we should get going back to the General. The sooner we get the plan finished, the sooner we can go.
Saburo nodded, "Yeah, lets head back. Besides… I need to have a piss. No pilot relief tubes in this little bird."
Wolf looked over at the Capt who was grinning ear to ear and burst into laughter. "Yeah. Me too. Too much coffee this morning.
With that, the little Cessna turned west, accelerated to maximum cruising speed and headed back to the coast. By the time they got to the next bridge, they'd reached the 1500 feet they'd been flying at. They once more passed over the JSDF compound, waggling their wings as they flew by. Wolf got on the radio to let the Island "tower" know they were coming, gave them an ETA of 10 minutes and confirmed that there was still no traffic in the pattern or the area. 20 minutes later, Wolf taxied up to the terminal, and shut down. He and Saburo both jumped out and made a dash to the nearest Men's room.
Much relieved, the two aviators headed up to the General's Operations room, and handed over the cards from the cameras and video. From somewhere deep in the terminal, they had managed to snag a couple printers and paper. As the photos were printed, various staff officers grabbed handfuls of them, looked at each of them and made note of where the going was clear or not too bad, and marked that on the map, using colored pencils to denote the difficulty they anticipated for that part of the route.
Wolf and Saburo took a break and went over to talk with Shizuka and Rika. They'd been spending the day working with the RTO, passing info back and forth on the progress for setting up the convoy. The extra vehicles had been acquired already, and the resupply mission had gone without incident while they were aviating round the countryside. Things were coming along well and the mission might well be a go within the next couple of days.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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 other than those listed below are (So far) my own.
Komuro Tadashi
Miyamoto Rei
Miyamoto Tadashi
Miyamoto Kiriko
Busujima Saeko
Takagi Saya
Hirano Kouta
Marikawa Shizuka
Marasato Alice
Minami Rika
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. The gods have smiled on me. More like the executive decided that COVID had indeed put a dent into my two year rebuild timetable. They gave me one more year to get it done, and I've been putting in time working on her. Currently welding up the interior furniture framework from 1/8 angle iron.