Chapter 317: Displaced Population - II

By the time Smith went ashore, most of the civilians from the first ships were already off the pier.

The gangway was no longer a line of stretchers. A few Albian sailors stood at its foot while Golden Eagle Army medical personnel led the last of the walking wounded toward the reception area farther back.

Along the berth, Engineers worked on the hull with their drones and yellow cases, and the noise of cutting tools carried across the water.

Smith waited on purpose. Nobody needed an admiral in the way while people were still being carried down.

The pier didn’t move under his boots. After days at sea, it took him a moment to notice.

He walked a few steps along the berth and looked at the first ship from the outside. The temporary plating along its side looked worse from here, and one section of the hull sat visibly lower than the rest.

Two of his officers followed a short distance behind.

Past the warehouses, a Golden Eagle Army officer was already walking toward him along the pier. Two soldiers followed a few steps back with their rifles slung.

The officer didn’t hurry. He passed the Engineers, then the last of the medical teams, and stopped a few steps short of Smith.

"Admiral Smith." The officer gave a short nod. "Company Leader Felix Voss, Sixth Mobile Company. I’m responsible for the city and the harbor."

He was of average height with a lean frame, his uniform dusty from work along the waterfront and a handheld communicator clipped to his chest.

The two soldiers behind him stopped when he did and stayed where they were.

"Zachary Smith, Third Fleet."

Smith looked past him for a moment, at the berth, the Engineers on the hull, the medical teams still working along the pier.

Everything he saw matched what Conrad promised.

Smith still wasn’t ready to trust them. He accepted the escort because Third Fleet was running out of choices, not because he knew who Golden Eagle Army really was.

"I’ll be honest with you, Company Leader. When your Task Force offered to escort us, I took you for Valerian." He kept his voice level. "I was betting a lot that you would help us anyway."

Felix glanced at the Engineers working on the hull behind him, then back at Smith.

"That’s a lot to put on a radio call."

Smith’s brows rose.

Felix took a pack from his pocket, tapped out a cigarette and lit it.

"We’ve had you on Radar for days. You’ve probably dealt with Valerians before, Admiral. You’d know better than I would how they’d have handled you."

Smith lowered his eyes.

Felix had a point. In Smith’s experience, Valeria showed little mercy to anyone, friend or foe.

"Then I apologize. We Albians have been in dire situations lately. Caution is necessary."

"No offense taken. Just don’t hold the name against us any longer than you have to."

Smith nodded.

Felix pinched the cigarette out before they reached the medical teams and put the stub in his pocket.

"Mind if we walk? The Engineers are already on your first ship."

"Please."

They went along the berth with the two soldiers and Smith’s officers trailing behind.

Up close, the Engineers’ work was easier to follow.

Bright paint marks ran along the hull where sections had been checked, yellow cases stood open on the pier, and a small drone drifted out of a breach in the plating before turning back in.

Felix stopped where the hull was badly damaged. The plating there was crushed inward, with deep grooves running through the metal around it. The Engineers left the outer plate alone.

They were working on whatever lay behind it.

"I heard your ships were badly battered," Felix said. He kept his eyes on the grooves. "My Engineers reported in. They said the damage didn’t come from shells, and that it was..."

He stopped, as if he were choosing the word.

"Abominations. Marine ones."

Smith said nothing.

"They also said one of your officers had a hard time talking about it. I told them to leave it alone."

"The Engineer asked what anyone would have asked," Smith said. "He did nothing wrong."

"Still, out of courtesy, they’ll leave it alone."

Smith looked at the grooves again. Whoever had written the report had been careful with his words. That was more than he expected from a stranger’s army.

"You know what they are, then," he said. "The mutated ones."

"Some of them." Felix tilted his head toward the harbor. "We’ve got our own. The small ones we could bait, until they stopped coming. They learn fast, and I didn’t like that part. The biggest one we’ve seen was big enough to shift a freighter at the berth. We pushed it out into deeper water and it stayed out. I wouldn’t say we killed it. The Task Force can say something about it."

"Then you understand what I mean when I say they were not the infected."

Felix turned his head to look at him.

Smith kept his voice even. He had said some of this over the radio, in the careful terms of a man telling a stranger as little as possible.

"I told your naval commander that the infected were not what forced Third Fleet out of Alban waters. We knew the infected. We had fought them since the Event. It was the sea we did not know."

The cutting tools started again farther along the hull. Neither of them spoke until the noise settled.

"What your Engineers saw was one animal," Smith said. "One of many we could not account for, and the only one we were able to drive away."

"How many?"

"I cannot give you a reliable number."

Felix didn’t push. He started walking again, and Smith went with him toward the next berth.

Beyond the warehouses, the port roads were quiet. A truck crossed the far end of the pier and a few workers moved between the buildings, but the streets behind them stayed empty.

Smith noticed it from the bridge. It was now more obvious from the pier. A city this size should have been louder, at least on the memories he had of it.

"How many of your civilians are you looking to put ashore?" Felix asked. "Once the wounded are settled."

"Most of them, in time. Around twenty-thousand or more. The ships were never meant to hold them this long."

"Then we’ll find somewhere for them. Space isn’t the problem." Felix glanced toward the nearest warehouse. "Most of this city’s empty. Almost everyone who lived here died."

He said it flatly, the way a man did after saying it many times.

Smith looked at the dark windows along the warehouse wall and said nothing.

"Patrols are still going through buildings, mostly to check the situation around. The place is already clear so don’t worry about the infected. I’ll have our recovery teams mark the districts nearest the port first. Your wounded won’t be far from the medics, and your Engineers won’t have far to walk."

"And the people who live here now?" Smith asked. "They will not object to a fleet’s worth of strangers?"

"Some might." Felix shrugged. "They’re still sorting out their local government. They’ve kept the argument away from us, and I intend to keep it that way."

"And your army will allow that?"

"It’s their city. We just keep the harbor and the roads open. There’s trade picking up down south, too," Felix added. "Grefort’s got a barter market running again, and the road between us is open. It’s not much yet, but it means Saicine isn’t a dead end."

Smith didn’t expect to hear about trade in a country this damaged.

"I will have my staff coordinate with your Recovery teams."

"Harbor Control can reach me if anything can’t wait."

They walked on toward the gangway, where the first stretcher of the second ship was already being carried down.