The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning Read Online Free Page A

seaworthy. None were up to what he would consider United States Navy standards.
    Not that much of anything was anymore. There was no navy to speak of. He stood on the roof of the reconditioned Atlantic Fleet HQ, looking out over his new “fleet.” If you could call seven ships a fleet, anyway. Jeremiah glanced out toward the mouth of the harbor, past the massive silhouette of the USS Enterprise . Though it still floated, it would be a while before they could get that aircraft carrier moving again. Assuming that they could negotiate a purchase agreement with the tribe of people who inhabited the huge ship… and clear the lower decks of the walkers that had taken up their own brand of residence there.
    As if summoned by his thoughts alone, Commander Jackson O’Reilly joined Graves on the roof.
    “What’s the status on the Enterprise team, Commander?” Graves asked.
    “They’ve tentatively agreed to allow us to take control of it, sir, with one condition. They want us to designate a section of the docks as theirs in perpetuity. Autonomous rule, that sort of thing.”
    “What about the walkers?”
    “They’ve all been secured in the three lowest decks. We can go in and clean them out, but it will take some time and men.”
    “We’ll have to decide if that’s worth it. We could use something that big to transport us, but after twenty years…”
    “That was my thought too, sir. It might be better just to let the tribe have it.”
    Graves grunted. “Maybe so. What’s the status on the Ramage ?”
    “She’s—” O’Reilly broke off as the radio in his hand squawked, and he held it to his ear. “Skipper, Ramage is requesting permission to depart,” his executive officer said.
    “I wish I was going with them,” Graves muttered. “A sailor should be on the sea, not stuck on the shore. I need to feel a deck beneath my feet again.”
    O’Reilly didn’t say anything, and Graves didn’t expect him to. His executive officer knew he was just grousing, and what’s more, he probably agreed with him and wanted to get out there too. They were both men of action, men of the waves and the sea. They weren’t born for deskwork.
    He sighed and turned to the XO. “Permission granted, Jack, and my compliments to Captain Stockhouse.”
    “Yes, sir.” O’Reilly twisted a dial on his radio and waved to the distant figure standing at the rail outside the destroyer’s bridge. “You’re cleared for departure, sir, with the admiral’s compliments.”
    “Aye-aye, sir,” said the tinny voice from the small speaker, and Graves could just make out the man’s wave.
    The Ramage ’s propellers spun and threw up quite a wake as it maneuvered around the remains of the USS Donald Cook . That rusting hulk lay across a great swathe of the entrance to Chesapeake Bay and the naval station. They’d tried several times over the years to clear the wreckage, but it hadn’t been possible, and now Graves saw it as a bonus fortification.
    In any case, they had to get moving if they were going to beat the harsh winter storms across the Atlantic. Though he wanted to go with them, Graves knew that his place as the commander of the new fleet was here at home, not out there on the sea trying to find out why they hadn’t had any contact from Europe or elsewhere in years. Satellites were useless since time had destroyed most transmitting and receiving capabilities. But radios still worked, if not quite as well as before Z-Day, and they’d heard nothing from across the pond.
    Graves had made a promise to David Blake to find out what had happened. He’d promised to send ships to London, Bilbao in Spain—only two hundred miles or so from Madrid—and even to Oslo, Norway. He would’ve promised the man who’d saved his crew from an icy death anything, within reason. Oslo hadn’t been hisfirst choice, but given how cold affected walkers, it was a good suggestion. They were more likely to find survivors there than anywhere.
    USS Ramage was