The Will To Live✔️

Chapter 22: In For the Night

"Moment of truth," Izzy muttered. She sat in a chair, and Greg and Larsen stood behind her, all three of them bathed in the glow of the primary workstation in the communications control room that sat at the top of the tower, just beneath the giant dish mounted on the roof. A progress bar was almost done filling.

The seconds ticked by, the only sounds that of the wind. Snow had begun to fall since they'd gone inside, and right now it was thin, nothing but tiny flakes, but Greg suspected it was going to get worse. He frowned, staring out the window. The sun was almost completely gone now. It was going to be pitch black out there soon...

The computer chimed softly.

"Okay...and...yes!" Izzy said, reading rapidly over the report the system check had sent back. "It works! It's all fine. I mean, some of this stuff needs maintenance. Okay, a lot of it needs basic maintenance, but it works."

"Perfect. Good work. Um...why don't you go downstairs and start shutting it down. Everything but the comms gear, the galley, the infirmary, and two bedrooms," he suggested.

"Two? Don't we need...oh," Larsen murmured. "You two are, um-okay, yeah. What do you want me to do?"

"Get down to the infirmary, fire up the equipment. I want to scan all three of us. Make sure we're up to snuff," he replied.

"Got it." He turned and hurried out of the room.

"Sorry," Greg said after a few seconds, "I wasn't thinking."

"It's no big deal," Izzy replied. "Though...we're gonna have to be maybe a little more subtle. Eventually we're gonna run into the chain of command again. Fraternization is one of those things...mostly they don't give a crap, but every now and then you run into some asshole or they want to make an example of you."

He sighed heavily. "Yeah. That's true."

"Don't take too long," she said, standing up.

"Trust me, I won't. I'm falling asleep right now," he replied, then shook his head and blinked several times, trying to wake himself up. He took her seat as Izzy left the room and fired up the communications gear. He spent a moment hunting for Becker's signal, and when he finally found it, he got a response almost immediately.

"I hear you Corporal Walker. Over," a new voice said.

"Is Sergeant Becker available? I need to make a report to him. Over," Greg replied, and stifled a yawn.

"Yes. Here he is now. Over." A pause, then Becker's familiar voice came onto the air.

"Greg! You just cleaned up half of our goddamned radio problems by turning that relay on. How are you? Over."

"Dead on my feet, Sergeant, but otherwise intact. I've got good news and bad news. Good news is I found your scout team. Bad news is they're all KIA but one of them. Sole survivor is a kid named PFC Larsen. He's intact and with us. Over."

"Damn...well, at least one of them made it out. Have you encountered anyone else? Over."

"Negative. And from the looks of things, this relay was abandoned. Over."

"Hmm...good chance some of them were called as backup...better chance whoever was left opted to go in search of loved ones. There's a small colony not far from my position, and a lot of the Marines in the area are locals. All right, are you secure? Over."

"Confirmed. We're secure. But I need to report that the local wildlife, at least the drubs, can be infected by the Flood. We had to kill one. Big sucker. Over."