02 Flotilla of the Dead by David Forsyth Read Free Book Online

were hiding in warehouse offices, many dying of thirst by the time they were rescued.  Eight firemen and two paramedics were rescued from Fire Station 6 next door to the Cruise Ship Terminal.  Six truckers were found camped out in the sleeper sections of their truck cabs in the cargo terminals.  Twenty-three survivors had been holed up on another container ship in the cargo ship basin.  The ship was named the Traveling Trader with a home port of Pusan, South Korea.  They had arrived the night before the zombie outbreak and remained in port because they were too low on fuel to consider setting to sea without knowing of another safe harbor close by.  Unfortunately, the containers on her decks were full of manufactured consumer products intended for the USA that had not been unloaded before the outbreak.  Some of them, like a forty foot container of solar powered patio lights and another one full of hand powered flashlights with built-in multi-band radio receivers, might come in very handy.  But the containers full of TVs, microwaves, car accessories, computer parts, video games and cell phones were less likely to be useful to the short term needs of survival.  George Hammer used a crane to remove and stack most of the unwanted containers on the dock.   Then the surviving crewmembers helped move the ship to the empty section of dock space where the Reliable Burden had been moored.  George switched cranes and began loading the rest of the export containers full of food from the dock to the deck of the Traveling Trader.  Her crew were quick to plug in the reefer units and everyone hoped that any perishables inside were still salvageable.  Luckily, the majority of the containers waiting on the dock were non-refrigerated, or less perishable than meat.  Most of these were full of products like rice, soybeans, almonds, and two containers full of California wines.  News of the latter lifted everyone’s spirits.
    Captain Fisher’s patrols, using the Cigarette and Sportfisherman speed boats, had quickly located several fuel barges and tugs used to refuel cargo and passenger ships in the port.  There was also a network of fuel pumps in the ship basin, but they were useless without power.  George recommended bringing a barge to fuel up the Traveling Trader , but Scott had some reservations.
    “Hold on a second, George,” Scott said.  “If we fill up that ship with fuel, what’s to stop the crew from taking off for Korea with all the food we just loaded aboard it?  I suppose that the Stratton or even the Sovereign Spirit could chase her down and force her back, but I’d like a little more commitment to our cause from their crew before we give them the means to abandon us.  That fuel is priceless too, unless we can get a refinery going again someday.”
     “So what do you suggest?” asked George.
    “I think we should give them just enough fuel to navigate around the coast of Southern California, in return for their commitment to transport supplies from here to other safe havens established by the Flotilla.”
    “It makes sense,” agreed Captain Fisher.  “We need to keep the other container ship at the cruise ship terminal to provide power for the Queen Mary and the reefer units that we moved here.  We could carry a couple of containers in the vehicle deck of the Sovereign Spirit , but it would be very difficult for us to resupply all the people on Catalina and the other spots you are looking at for safe havens.   If we tried to do it all on our own, we wouldn’t have time to do anything else.  So the Traveling Trader could be very useful in that role.  And, as her name suggests, she could become a mobile marketplace for all the boatpeople.”
    “What are you thinking?” asked Scott.
    “Well, we should start by giving away food, survival gear and drinking water to help the boat people survive,” explained Captain Fisher.  “But eventually we could transform it into a system of trade and