The Demon Plagues Read Online Free Page B

didn’t crash and burn first, his task would be vital
- driving the boat. She hoped he’d studied the Ohio class subs well
enough to transfer his knowledge from the UK’s Vanguards.
    Lieutenant William Harres, nuclear engineer –
powerplants and weapons both. Slim, tall, black, fine-featured, of
Maasai descent: He didn’t have a nickname with this team, as it was
his first mission.
    Ditto Commander Ann Alkina, liaison from the
Free Australian Navy. Wide-set cheekbones and a squashed nose
betrayed her Aboriginal blood, but her eyes and petite build spoke
more of Asia. If the Colonel was spooky, Alkina seemed a dark
spirit. She seldom smiled and her eyes missed nothing. If Doc
hadn’t assured them she was a Plague carrier and had passed all the
psych tests, Repeth would have worried about her being…well, off . But the Aussies had insisted on one of their own coming
along, and had assured the Colonel she could keep up. The team’s
four weeks of hard training in Venezuela had proven that.
    Finally, herself. Both feet lost to an IED,
now regrown by the blessings of the Plague, contracted aboard a
cruise ship just before Infection Day. With nothing better to do
but think, she cast her mind back ten years.
     
    ***

    Infection Day Minus One.
    Jill Repeth, Sergeant, United States Marine
Corps, stared out over the rail of her upper cabin balcony aboard
the cruise ship Royal Neptune . The object of her gaze was
the frigate USS Ingraham , keeping station to windward at
about two nautical miles distance. Beyond, hull up on the horizon
at perhaps twelve miles, was a Landing Platform/Dock amphibious
assault ship, probably the USS Somerset . It was this ship
that held her frustrated attention.
    She lowered herself down from her hold on the
railing; she had been perched there with her hands taking all her
weight. Settling into the comfortable deck chair, she picked up her
small 5X optical binoculars. She cursed herself for not bringing
her 18X electronic monsters, but she hated to carry a month’s pay
around on a Caribbean cruise.
    The LPD leaped into view, the angled,
radar-deflecting planes of its superstructure identifying it as one
of the most modern ships of the US Navy. She was familiar with the
type, having served a Fleet Marine Force tour on her sister ship,
the USS Arlington.
    Twelve miles. Just sitting there for the last
two days.
    Food aboard the cruise ship was getting low;
Jill had recognized the impending problem as soon as they had been
detained. She had taken pains to smuggle everything that would keep
back to her cabin and stash it in anticipation of making a break,
but her stock would run out shortly, and there was no sign of them
being allowed to land or disembark.
    She was hungry all the time.
    The announcements aboard ship had said they
were quarantined because of a ‘dangerous disease’; that dangerous
disease had apparently cured cancer, blindness, even old age among
those aboard, and had started to regrow her legs.
    She looked down at the strange pink skin down
there, contrasting with the tan that ended just below her knees.
The nubs couldn’t bear her weight without excruciating pain, and
they wouldn’t fit her prosthetics anymore, so she had used the
wheelchair service a lot. Reaching down to scratch the itchy
growth, she pushed aside thoughts of why it had happened, or even
how, and concentrated on what she had to do.
    Night was starting to fall over the Atlantic.
Making her final preparations, she wrote a letter to her parents in
Los Angeles, leaving it addressed on the table for the steward to
find. She ate as much as she could hold, and put the rest into the
waterproof bag, along with her combat uniform, her wallet and ID,
and the jury-rigged prostheses. She had ripped the expensive
electronic guts out of them and she now had something that she
could use, if barely. Padded with pillow-stuffing and cut-up
blankets, they strapped onto her stumps and allowed her to stand,
even walk gingerly, as long as