Grant, K: You can lead them out, Winifred.

McCall, W: If you have access to the cameras, you can find the rest of my squad. We can use them.

Grant, K: I found them already. They’re gone, Winifred.

McCall, W: Jesus …

Grant, K: I’m sorry.

McCall, W: I should have been with them. I should never have quit.

Grant, K: If you hadn’t, you’d have been on call and you’d be dead too. So we’ve got a thousand people here who are about to owe their lives to the fact that you weren’t.

McCall, W: Okay.

McCall, W: All right.

McCall, W: There’s a computer terminal in here. Can you throw up a schematic?

Grant, K: Here it comes.

McCall, W: Where are you? Can we clear a path to your location?

Grant, K: No. I’m staying here.

McCall, W: … If you do that, you die.

Grant, K: You let me worry about that, Winifred.

Grant, K: You worry about the one thousand and ninety-seven people who don’t die today.

Surveillance footage summary,
prepared by Illuminae Group Analyst ID 7213-0089-DN

They should use this footage for training sessions at military school. That anyone survives at all is nothing short of a miracle, and a tribute to Kady Grant and Winifred McCall.

The following is cobbled together from functioning cameras on multiple decks. Accordingly, individual cams haven’t been specified, however a list of sources is appended.

Former First Lieutenant Winifred McCall and her Astro-Princess were faced with a complex task. The situation, vastly simplified, was as follows:

Alexander survivors in hazmat gear: 1,097

Separate groups: 164, spread across 121 different decks

Weapons to hand: 223 (mostly handguns, not useful in dealing with the afflicted)

The goal was to move as many of the 1,097 survivors as possible to the shuttle bay on Deck 32, with hazmat suits intact. The groups needed to support each other as they moved—though psychopathic, the afflicted were still capable of ambush tactics.

Advantages:

Military training and coherent thinking (or at least, more coherent than the enemy)

Audio communication with Kady Grant (though some groups didn’t have headsets, requiring Grant to use public comms—the afflicted could hear and understand this)

Winifred McCall (at this stage, the only surviving UTA marine aboard Alexander)

Disadvantages:

Need to keep hazmat suits intact—hand-to-hand combat had to be avoided

Only about 60 percent of the 1,097surviving personnel had combat training

Emotional attachment to individual enemy combatants

Afflicted pain tolerance and endurance were generally beyond human norms

The plan was simple. Grant provided intel on the various group locations, and worked with McCall to designate the best escape routes and rendezvous points.

This account will track the progress of three of the escaping groups—footage is available for most, however these three have been selected as representative.

Ex–First Lieutenant Winifred McCall’s group start on Deck 128. They have almost the furthest to go. Winifred’s job is to reach Danny Corron’s group on Deck 104, pick up five more groups, then make for the landing bays on 32. McCall has eleven people with her; eight civilians, a plumber, a Combat Air Patrol controller and Private Jessica Venn from maintenance.

Corporal Danny Corron’s group start on Deck 104. Danny is a cook on his third tour of duty. At home on Ares VI he has a husband, Michael, and a daughter, Erin. With him on Deck 104, he has nine other members of the catering staff. They’re all good friends.

Sergeant Anna-Lucia Eletti’s group start on Deck 55. She’s a flight deck crew chief, and was off duty when the ship went into lockdown—if she’d been on shift, she’d have been in Bay 5. Pieces of her probably still would be. She has the shortest journey; just twenty-three levels. She leads a group of fifteen, comprised mostly of deck crew.

It begins. Grant blows a fuse box up the hallway from McCall’s group, and the afflicted outside her door abandon the hunt to investigate the explosion. McCall’s ready—she and her people are out the door and down the hallway like there are demons on their heels, heading for a heavy-weapons cache three levels down. They make it, breathless, as McCall hands out rifles and stun guns—she shouts instructions on how to use them, and her civis fumble for safety catches and voltage meters, trying to put theory into practice.

As they leave the arms locker, a lone hunter—Captain Andrew Cole—appears from the shadows, grabbing McCall’s CAP controller and drawing a knife across her throat before she has the chance to utter a word. Private Venn shoots him in the face without hesitation, and as the noise sets off howls all over the deck, McCall and her group run for the emergency stairwell.

McCall’s group starts with twelve, including herself. Nine reach Deck 104; in addition to the CAP controller, two civis are dead. One had his suit—and then his chest—ripped open. The other fell down the stairwell in her haste and broke her own neck.

Danny Corron has briefed his catering staff over and over again. He has no headset, listening to Grant screaming directions over the intercom. It’s hard for him to tell when she’s talking to him, but when he finally hears his name, he makes the sign of the cross, kisses his wedding ring, and whispers their names under his breath: Mike. Erin. Exchanging glances with the others, he throws open the door, hurtling out into the corridor.

McCall and her remaining crew are running down to meet him, and she tosses him a rifle, which he catches without breaking stride. Some of them are terrified, fumbling, others are crying or praying. Danny—known throughout the ship as the jovial, friendly head of his galley shift—is unyielding. This is a man who’s going home to his family.