Sabre Dancing with the Dead Ch 40
Sorry for the delay in getting another chapter up. My life has taken a rather sudden turn in a new direction, and sorting out the details has kept me quite occupied.
I woke up on January 10th, with some difficulty in getting a full breath. It got gradually worse, so I called for an ambulance. By the time I got to the hospital, I was gasping for air, trying to get it into my lungs.
Long story short, pulmonary edema, and a heart attack. They fed me diuretics, (peed like a race horse for 3 days) and hooked me up to a turbo charged CPAP machine. I was able to breath again in less than 5 minutes. Later that evening I had two stents put in. This was my second heart attack.
Another 3 days, and I was released. Several things have now become apparent. 1) I have little strength or stamina yet. 2) The boat was due to be put into the water this year, and I had not got her ready. 3) Climbing up and down ladders, and walking half a mile to the dock she'd be put in is no longer an option. To that end, I'm leaving the club and moving the boat elsewhere to be sold. It was a nice dream and I can't say it wasn't fun working on Sabre Dance but reality has a way of biting you in the arse. The next 5 or 6 weeks will be interesting to say the least.
Anyway, I'm still chugging along and will be working on other things I've been putting off, (Scale models) writing (finish the novel) and continue with Sabre Dancing with the Dead.
Tokonosu, April 27 20xx
Day 22.
07:45
The convoy people had sat with Uchimoto and debriefed for an hour or so, discussing the mission so far, what had worked and what needed more work to be usable. Both Sagawa and Wolf commended the engineers who'd busted their arses to make up the nixies, and come up with a plan to use them. They also thanked them for the compound they'd created in order for the convoy crew to have a place to stay overnight. Debrief complete, they were led off to some higher quality rooms for a nights rest. Who knew that there was a hotel attached to one end of the terminal?
While they slept, the General's people went over the vehicles, refuelling, and resupplying them as needed. They would be ready to roll again by dawn. Uchimoto himself grabbed a few hours of sleep and was up with the sun. He let the convoy crowd sleep for a bit before he had them roused and called to breakfast.
At 07:45, the General had the convoy people rousted out of bed. They'd all gotten at least a solid 8 hours of sleep, and a decent breakfast had been laid on for them. He joined them for breakfast, chatting with the troops and the civvies, getting a feel for their morale. Given the success and relative ease of the first leg, it was excellent. As the meal came to a conclusion, he stood at the front of the dining hall and gave them a pep talk, reiterating the importance of the mission, and reinforcing the concept of watching each others six and not doing anything monumentally stupid.
Literally.
In those words.
No wonder the troopers all cheered. This was an officer they'd gladly follow to AND through the gates of hell itself. Zombie apocalypse? Piece o cake! Even the civvies joined in the cheering. They KNEW that Uchimoto had THEIR six as much as that of his men.
By 08:30, the vehicles were manned and ready. Sentries activated the nixies that had been planted along the sea wall in both directions. They worked as expected and the deaders were drawn away far enough so that the sound of engines didn't attract them. Once warmed up, Major Sagawa gave the order to open the gate, and the convoy rolled out in order, for the second leg of the journey.
Their first objective, the nearest bridge crossing the river over to the land mass the University sat on, was just about dead on 12 kilometers ahead. They would pass the raised highway bridge crossing the river to another area before they got to the second one. Crossing at the first bridge, wouldn't do them any good, as the next bridge that crossed over the smaller feeder river, East towards the target, was miles out of their way and badly blocked to boot. The raised highway in front of them wasn't too badly blocked, the ARVs should make easy work of clearing a path. Their photo recon mission had shown both bridges they needed to cross to be only moderately blocked, and the roads on the other side were also in half decent shape. Given those photos, Major Sagawa chose to cross at the first of the two possible bridges and continue on along the north riverside roads to the University.
The convoy moved ahead, the ARVs bumped cars, trucks and buses out of the way. This created a fair bit of noise, the snorting of the diesels as they backed and moved forward again. The sound of crunching metal was also pretty load. The first few kilometers were outside the built up city area, and the density of deaders was fairly low. Within two kilometers of passing the first bridge, they started to get into the more densely packed built up area, and the congestion increase, as did the number of critters. How the blind things managed to find the ramps leading upwards was something no one had any idea. But still, the numbers increased steadily.
Major Sagawa got on the general comm channel and advised everyone to keep advancing as the ARVs cleared a path. "Lead, keep pushing ahead, but let us know if the going gets too heavy to maintain 5kmph. Once that happens, carry on opening the lane. All other vehicles will start the "Cha Cha" and I'll put in a call for the nixies if the crowds coming out of the city become too massive. All vehicles confirm orders please."
One by one, the various units confirmed and they moved on. The going got slower, but the ARVs managed to keep moving and they were making 5-6 kilometres every hour. They ought to reach their 1st bridge in less than two hours. Their slow advance let some of the deaders get up close to the moving vehicles, but all that got them was to be turned into paste. Again, more than a few people lost their breakfast. The spear crews were in position on the benches, doing what they could to take them out with a swift poke to the head.
Seated in the rear compartment of Shinji's APC, Wolf and Kat went over the seemingly endless list of things they needed to find information on. They had printed out a list for each of their "gophers" (You know the old joke: Gofer this, gofer that), dividing up the search between them all. So far, they'd updated half a dozen items, have determined that still more info was needed, to ensure success of the farming. They had added animal husbandry, thinking that eventually they'd be raising cattle, sheep and chickens.
Shinji and Rei were conversing via the intercom, and seemed to be getting closer. Rei had started asking questions of Shinji, wanting to know more about him and his career as a soldier. Living in the world as it was now, common sense told her that any lessons he could impart would come in useful. He was a good listener too and as she revealed the story of her, Takashi and Hisashi, the hurt of being shunned gradually melted away. She started to smile again as Shinji told her of things he'd experienced.
Back in the "Tail End Charlie" slot, Kohta and Saya also were starting to become more familiar with each other. She realized now that Kohta would always be there for her, he'd saved her life and the lives of other numerous times in the past 3 weeks. By backing off on her insults and actually talking to him, she found that Kohta was actually pretty bright. He too was losing the hesitancy he'd had originally. In his heart, he knew he'd never leave her. Unrequited love sucks, but there it is.
Below in the troop compartment, Shizuka, Takashi and Saeko talked between themselves, and occasionally joined in with the other 5 club people who filled out the dismount team. The 3 of them had their school in common, but barely knew the others, so the interactions was limited. Shizuka took the time to teach each of them the basic first aid methods, and what all the things in their aid kits were for.
Every hour, the people inside would swap with the spear users sitting topside and the numbers of deaders slowly increased, the closer the convoy came to their first objective. It was approaching noon when the leading ARV's reached the south side of the bridge they intended to force. This bridge was about 200 meters long, with another 100 or so of approach ramp that was fitted with guard rails. It wasn't as wide as the elevated freeway, only being two lanes in either direction, with sidewalks on either side.
Looking at the bridge, Major Sagawa could see a large tanker truck, marked with the local supplier's name. Knowing that fuel would at some point become a sticking point, he called up the ARVs to discuss how best to salvage it. With the plows on the front of the ARV's being fixed to directly ahead, and not able to be slanted off to one side like a road grader or regular buldozer, moving things without damaging them was a tedious affair. The driver would have to clip a wreck on a corner and then turn the tank while slowly pushing. This tended to crunch up the cars and small trucks.
After some discussion, they realized they'd have to put some people on the ground to facilitate hooking the ARVs to various wrecks with cables, so they could be pulled away and open a lane to the tanker.
That decided, dealing with the increasing number of walking corpses was the next item. Realizing this, Sagawa put in a call to the General and had him dispatch the Super Stallion and a load of nixies. While they waited, he had the ARVs do what they could, pushing aside as much as possible. He figured that the tanker was about half way across the bridge, so roughly 150 meters, including the access ramp.
Sagawa called up the rest of the convoy and ordered them to back up a couple hundred meters, to give the ARVs room to push the junk off to one side once it was clear of the railed area of the ramps. He kept his 2ICs' APC with him, thinking that this was dicey and he'd not risk any of the civilians on this. His people were better trained in working with the recovery vehicles, and had eyes in the back of their heads from the long retreat from the city core to the ship yard.
He left Shinji in charge of the split off portion of the convoy and left him to carry on as he saw fit. Shinji called up Wolf. Having just taken a turn at the pig sticker benches he had noticed a mall or plaza not far back, and suggested the convoy move back to that area, find a clear space and circle the wagons, so to speak.
Getting the various APCs and trucks turned around was a bit of a tedious procedure, but eventually they were all facing back along the road and moved back to the mall parking lot. The number of deaders seemed to be holding steady, and were not too much of a problem. Half an hour later, they'd pulled into the parking lot, carefully shunted a few cars away and formed a small box around the three supply trucks. The fuel and water tankers were put into place up tight against a row of car, the supply trucks along side them and the APCs blocked off as much as they could. There were a fair number of infected gathering, so Shinji had the crews of the 5 trucks climb out of the cabs and onto the APCs. They were crowded now, with 5 extra bodies on the deck. About all they could do now is go silent and wait. The people manning the benches continued to poke the deaders in the head, doing so as quietly as possible.
A little over 30 minutes after they'd parked and shut down, they heard the Super Stallion approaching. Listening in on the radios, the helo over flew the bridge and dropped a couple of nixies 500 and 1000 meters further along. They were set off and the two ARVs and APCs shut down to wait. The helo then flew back to the parking lot, and deployed a couple more to draw the critters from the area. With all the vehicles shut down, it didn't take long to draw them away and give some clear area around the cluster of trucks and carriers.
Being unable to continue to the university for the moment, Wolf started checking the various stores in the mall. Who knew, they might be able to salvage something. Not able to figure out the names, he handed the glasses over to Kat. Most of the stores appeared to be trashed in one way or another, mostly broken windows. Wonder of wonders, the supermarket appeared to be intact, with shelving pulled up to the glass to prevent it from being breached.
Having looked the shops over, she turned to Wolf and Shinji, to discuss the possiblilites. As they did so, one of the bench people reached behind himself and tapped Kat on the shoulder. As she turned back to him, she found him pointing at the roof of the supermarket. Seeing the dozen or more people now standing on the edge of the flat roof, frantically waving at them, she let out a very unlady like "Holy Shit!" and turned again to poke Wolf and Shinji.
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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.
The map has been updated some, adding things as the story progresses.
sabrekai/art/New-Tokonosu-20km-x-40km-956877662