Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2) by R.E. McDermott Page B

comes outside on deck, but for sure less than fifty all told.”
    “Shooters?” McComb asked.
    Snaggle shrugged. “Best guess, I’d say max around twenty-five. We know the Coasties have M4s from our previous run-in, but we got no idea if the others are armed, and if so, how well. But it don’t really matter, Spike. With all that open water and that machine gun—”
    McComb silenced him with a look. “I swear, Snaggle, if you don’t shut the hell up about that, I’m gonna cap your ass myself. It’s hard enough to get these morons all movin’ in the right direction without you wringing your hands like a pussy and moanin’ about how tough it is. Keep it up and you WILL regret it. We clear on that?”
    “S-sorry, Spike. It’s just that—”
    “How many troops we got?”
    “Almost a thousand now,” Snaggle said, “but that don’t mean—”
    “And how many shooters they got again? Maybe two dozen, if that? Now doesn’t that seem like the situation is leaning our way pretty heavily? Maybe they shot the hell out of us when we weren’t expecting it, but now we know the score, and we’ll crush ’em like bugs.”
    “But that’s just it, Spike. They’re cut off on that ship, so they can’t bother us. Why don’t we just ignore ’em?”
    “Because shit brain, they ain’t a problem now, but they likely will be. They got guns, and they’ll likely be lookin’ to grow, ’cause they can’t stay on that ship forever. Sooner or later, they’ll be a problem, and I’d rather take ’em out while they’re weak. They kicked our asses last week ’cause we didn’t know who they were or understand what was happenin’, but round two ain’t gonna go like that at all.” McComb paused. “I’ll figure out some way to take ’em out. Leave that to me. Now, how’s everything else going?”
    “Damn good, actually. With the National Guard units tied up in Houston and Dallas and those FEMA assholes all clustered around the nuke plant in Bay City, we’re golden. And pretending to be cops is the icing on the cake. The nigger and beaner gangs have been runnin’ wild, and everybody was happy to see uniforms.” He smiled. “At first anyway. Course, they feel a bit different after we mostly cleaned out the bangers and started collectin’ taxes. But there’s still a lot of guns out there, and people are startin’ to get pissed, but we can handle it ’cause we’re the only ones with any organization.”
    “Which is just my point. We don’t want this friggin’ ship to become the center of any organized push back. We need to take care of them now.”
    M/V Pecos Trader
    Sun Lower Anchorage
    Neches River
    Near Nederland, Texas
     
    Day 26, 1:35 p.m.
    Hughes stood on the flying bridge, struggling to hide his skepticism as he watched the two engineers put the finishing touches on what he’d secretly christened ‘Gowan’s Folly.” He cleared his throat loudly, and Dan Gowan, the chief engineer, turned from what he was doing, his irritation obvious, if unstated.
    “You need something, Cap?”
    “Uhh … are you sure this is completely safe, Dan. I mean, the starting air pressure is, what, three hundred pounds?”
    “Four hundred and fifty pounds,” Gowan corrected, nodding to the first engineer who was working beside him, “but Rich used extra-heavy pipe for it all and ran the new line straight up from the starting air tanks in the engine room. We hydrostatically tested it to over seven hundred pounds; she’s safe. Whether it works is another question.”
    Hughes studied the arrangement. It was simple enough, a two-inch pipe running up the outside of the deckhouse and terminating in a high-pressure ball valve mounted on the top handrail at the edge of the flying bridge. The valve was connected via a short section of hydraulic hose to the closed end of a six-foot-long section of three-inch pipe, with the open end of the pipe pointed at the riverbank in the distance. The three-inch pipe was fastened to the top