Sabre Dancing with the Dead Ch 41
Tokonosu, North Eastern quadrant. May 05 20xx
Day 21.
13:45
Hearing Kat's exclamation, Wolf looked up from what he was writing, (Sailors keep logs, so it seemed natural that he do the same. He'd continued recording in a ledger pinched from the clubhouse. Call it a history of the new age.)
"What's up?" he asked.
Kat still had the glasses glued to her face, and just pointed as she continued to watch people pop up at the edge of the distant roof line. In front of her, the pig sticker crew were also looking up, totally ignoring the dead for a moment.
"Holy shit!" popped out of his mouth without thinking. He hit the comm button and asked Shinji to stick his head up out of the hatch where he was looking at a map with Rei.
As the Sergeant stuck his head up over the hatch coaming, he saw everybody looking at the nearby stores, and turn to see what the commotion was. He too said the same thing.
Reaching down into the driver's compartment, he picked up the microphone and switched over to loud speaker. He asked how many people there were, their condition, and their food and water status. He noticed that there appeared to be four or five troopers in the mix, and they were the ones who responded with loud shouts.
After a few minutes of this back and forth yelling, the critters were getting riled up, no longer just shuffling about aimlessly or slowly migrating to the distant nixies, so Shinji told them to go silent and he'd get back to them shortly. One trooper, a big burly guy, nodded and the others quieted down.
Shinji looked at the mass of critters, which were still milling around. The compound people had always been intellectually aware that there had to be other survivors, and the jaunts by boat to the JSDF base and the island airport had proven that, given the number of lights they had seen at night. But given the stresses of the day to day struggle to stay alive, no one had ever given much thought as to what to do if they ran into some.
He turned and looked at Wolf and Kat. "Any ideas as to how we get them from over there to one of the bases?"
Wolf thought about it, the answer was quite clear to him. He grinned at both of them, and said two simple words. "Saigon, 1975".
Kat nodded, it really was the only way. Shinji, being a much younger person, knew where Saigon was, and aside from being aware of the Vietnam war as a historical event, had no idea what Wolf was thinking. Especially what had gone down in the capital city in 1975. His interests as a soldier had been the Japanese history of WWII, and the workings of the JSDF.
"Saigon, 1975?" He asked.
"Of course. The helicopter evacuation of the American and Vietnamese civilians in Saigon as the NVA rolled into the city. Haven't you ever seen the iconic photo of the Air America helo on the roof of the elevator shaft, with people climbing up to the rooftop? I remember seeing that on television, as it was reported." Kat nodded, a smile breaking out.
"Ah, I see. Yes, that would work. We certainly can't carry anymore people, so it will have to be by air. The Navy helo should do the job handily." Shinji thought.
"Obviously, they can't go to the island yet, so it'll have to be either the ship yard or our compound. There are what? 23 people up there? Four of them are JSDF and can go back with the chopper and be reassigned. But the 17 civvies are our problem to handle. Let me get on the radio, Shinji. Our compound first, please" Kat said.
"Ok, Kat, you're on the compound frequency." replied the sergeant as he handed her the head set and mic.
"Convoy to Compound, over" she spoke into the mike and released the button.
Wally was on in seconds, "Compound to Convoy, reading you five by five, over." (chatting with the RTO in the shipyard had started to rub off on him and the jargon was getting into more use by all of them).
"Wally, could you get Saburo on the horn? We have had an interesting development. Not to worry, everyone is OK, and we are progressing at a reasonable pace. I'll give the SITREP when he's there. Over."
"Wait one, over." Wally advised as he had a runner head over to the Fishermen's compound where Saburo was working on something with them.
It was a bit more than ten minutes before the Air Force Captain's voice came over the radio.
"Hello Kat, how are things going?" The Captain asked.
"Pretty well so far, we are at the first bridge crossing, its a bit jammed up, and has an abandoned fuel tanker on it. Major Sagawa and some of his troops are clearing a path so they can tow it off the bridge and recover it later. The rest of us are now sitting in a mall parking lot in silent mode while they finish that." She reported.
"That's great. So you think you'll make the library by tonight?"
"Maybe, it depends on the road jams we run into. If not, tonight will be interesting. We may have to secure a house or small apartment building to RON in. But the interesting thing is that we've got some more survivors. Remember Wolf and the others reported seeing many single point light sources as they sailed to and from the Island?" She asked.
"Yes, I remember. We've been kicking that round at breakfast after you guys pulled out. Kenji and Fuki are going over the list of unoccupied boats, to get it up to date so we know how many and how many people will fit on one." Saburo replied.
"You guys are way ahead of us. Make plans to accept about 17-20 new people. Also, get a crew together and pull the sails down in the parking lot, and clear out a 100-125 foot diameter area for a landing place. They'll be coming in by helicopter."
"Helicopter?"
"Yeah, a honkin' big one too. Wolf calls it a Super Stallion. Some US Navy job that joined up with the airport people. It's been supporting us, setting nixies out for us." She grinned as she told the Air Force Captain.
"This should be an interesting day then. We'll be ready. Any idea when?"
"No, I have to talk to the General first, so he can pass on the orders. I doubt the helo crew would accept them from me or the Major." Kat replied.
"OK I'll start getting ready for them. Talk to you later then. Out." as the Captain signed off.
OK Shinji, the Major's frequency if you please." she asked the sergeant.
After a few minutes on with the Major, it was decided that the General would have to be informed. Switching frequencies again, she got General Uchimoto on the line and explained the situation. Without hesitation, the commanding officer agreed and sent one of his staff off to order the Super Stallion to do so, at it's earliest convenience. They talked for a few moments, discussing the mission so far, and then signed off. Uchimoto was left with the distinct feeling that he really had to meet this lady. As they said in the Army, "She had her shit together". He looked forward to having them to a decent dinner one day.
Shinji called to the people on the roof and told them to expect a ride to safety at some point in the day. He didn't tell them it would be a bloody great noisy helicopter that would have to hover over the roof to get them aboard. Given the store roof wasn't built as a landing pad, it might be able to put it's main landing gear lightly on the roof for stability. But landing? Totally out of the question. And he was pretty sure the chopper crew was not going to waste time and fuel winching people up one at a time.
It was about half an hour later that the Major called them up to advise the bridge was cleared, the tanker had been moved to their side of the river, and they could leave the parking lot.
As the convoy started up, the people on the roof started hollering "Don't leave us!", so the sergeant switched on the loud speaker (No point in worrying about the noise now) and told them to relax, their ride would be arriving as soon as the convoy reached the advance group and the helo was free. Seeing how scared they were, he got Kohta on the radio and told him to stay behind, to keep them company. Maybe that would settle them down some. Once they were picked up and on their way to the compound, Saya was to catch up as soon as possible.
So the convoy, less "Tail End Charlie" rolled out of the lot and headed for the bridge. Kohta moved his APC to the front of the store, so conversing would not be a shouting match. At the bridge, the ARVs had done a nice job, and their path was wide and clear. Coming off the bridge, they could see a mass of deaders toddling along behind the advance group. They had made pretty good progress after clearing the bridge and approaches. This was a middle to upper class residential area, sprinkled with shops and gas stations. The road ran along the spine of a long arm of land extending southwards and the houses were set back on either side, well back from the road. Here the density of abandoned cars was not nearly as bad as it had been on the bridge.
They had made it about three kilometers up the river road, heading North when they saw the Super Stallion circling about where the mall was. After a few moments it dropped below their line of sight, and Kohta reported the Helo was hovering, with the ramp down and the two main landing gears lightly touching the roof. Several of the crew had hustled off and were grabbing the people and tossing them up on the ramp if they were too scared.
The four troopers marooned with them had tried to convince them that this was perfectly safe, and they jumped onto and off of the ramp several times before a few tried it. The rest balked and the troopers and crew said to hell with it and manhandled the rest of them up the ramp. Meanwhile the noise was unbelievable, and the downdraft from the big seven bladed rotor was typhoon strength. There were three young children among the survivors and they were terrified. No one could talk and be heard, so there was a lot of arm waving and pointing going on. Two of the troopers and the helo's crew chief, finally bundled the kids up in their arms and jumped aboard, then came back to shepherd the mothers.
Finally, after about ten minutes of playing silly buggers with the civvies, they managed to get all of them aboard and the big chopper pulled pitch and rose straight up, spun on it's axis and headed off to the club compound. As it disappeared over the city, Saya put the APC in to gear and "Tail End Charlie" hustled to rejoin the convoy.
While all this was going on, Major Sagawa was on the radio to Base, reporting that they were making good time but wouldn't likely get to the University until after dark. The debate over whether to push on at night or lager somewhere went on until a staff officer came up with some of the photos take by Capt Sakai. Perhaps another three kilometers, there was a small two story apartment building, with a tall wall around the property and what appeared to be an iron gate.
Given that to RON in the vehicles was going to be very uncomfortable, Major Sagawa was give the OK to check the site out and see if it could be secured without too much trouble. Some 35 minutes later, the lead vehicles pulled up at the building. After some radio discussion with the helo, the rooftop nixies planted this far along the route had been left powered down, accompanied by one or two troopers who would remain there over night.
Major Sagawa drove into the apartment parking lot, and it was indeed surrounded by a high cinder block wall. The remainder of the convoy followed after he'd had a look at the situation. There were a fair number of deaders following them, and getting the gate shut was a bit of an adventure but the 2IC parked his APC along the backside of the gate, and severed the chain that moved the gate. By using gloves to protect their hands, they grabbed the iron rails and pushed the gate shut. Now all they needed to do was deal with whatever dead they had in there with them.
Major Sagawa ordered everyone to shut down, and start picking off the mid range deaders with crossbow shot, while the inquisitive ones, (Even in silent mode, there was still the scrap of gear on steel, hushed whispering and the occasional knock of a pig sticker on the open upper hatches) were to be dealt with by pig sticker.
It took about half an hour to draw and kill all the critters outside the building. A good look with binoculars showed the main door ajar, but no more had come out. It was going to be a slow and steady clearing job, two groups, one for each floor. Major Sagawa's troops would handle this, but Takashi and Saeko both opted to join in with the top floor group. They were a bit annoyed that the troops kept blocking their path forward, seemingly by "accident", all the time. The Major was no dummy, and his people knew there would be hell to pay if one of the civvies was hurt or killed. Thus the quiet order to make sure the kids stayed out of trouble.
Finally, the building and lot were secured, the gate blocked by the 2IC's APC, and they could get out (very carefully to avoid the blood and gore on the vehicles, Shizuka was not at all happy about it either so the rear ramp was left locked and they got down using the ladders), and see what the facilities were like. It was just after 2100, and they were less than 12 kilometers from the University. With sentries posted, everyone found quarters that did not show signs of their resident's demise and crashed for the night. The Major wanted to be on the road by first light.
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RON: Stands for Remain over night, aviation lingo.
Lager: A grouping of Armored vehicles. Munsterlager is a famous one in Germany, fantastic museum
there is you are interested in tanks.
NVA: North Vietnamese Army
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
Found a model kit of the Type 96 APC, in the process of building it and modifying it as per the story. Pics will be posted to Deviant Art when completed.