WWZ fanfic: Operation DRYPOOL and the fall of Britain

You could always exile the Chancellor to Bimrmingham, but that might be a little too harsh even for him.

Great updates as usual the political idiots do not listen to sane good advise.

The huge problem in any out break is who is and who is not affected and no matter what you can not screen every one at the same time. Asking people to stand in line to be checked when they know that zombies are ot and about would work for a couple of hours at most then the fight or flight reflex would kick in.

How to stop it spreading and identifying infected can work if yo drop a fair amount of nerve gas yes you kill almost all the unaffected by at least the odds wold be slightly evened out. Could this happen in the UK yes of course but it would be a very very brave person who says gas the innocent’s.

It’s catch 22 no matter how or what is tried it’s never either going to work or does work the 22 part being who ever is in charge will still be blamed one wayor the other.

One thing that is dammed stupid is sending just two rifle companies into a town that size was never going to work any one cold see that.

Keep up the good work once again we’ll done.

XXXIX


It wasn’t just the British Army involved in BANKSIDE missions. Other elements of the nation’s armed forces were playing their own roles too with a multitude of tasks to keep the Undead away from the UK. The RAF and the Royal Navy had focused on extensive border watching tasks for some time now. Aircraft and ships approaching the country from overseas were – no matter what the reason given for wanting to go elsewhere – intercepted and directed towards where inspection and quarantine measures were in-place. In doing so, there had been a couple of ‘unfortunate incidents’: an aircraft had been shot down and two ships forcibly boarded with blood spilled during this. When the Cornwall Outbreak erupted, one of those Royal Navy ships on border watch was tasked to head to the waters off Bude. The frigate HMS Somerset moved towards that port town. Orders had come from the MOD for the interception of any vessels leaving Bude. They were to be turned back regardless of circumstances or distress. There was no limit on the measure of force to be applied to stop the escape of possibly infected people via the sea though the Somerset’s captain was told that violent action was the last resort.

The warship’s helicopter was active on the search for boats coming out of Bude along with the detection systems aboard the Somerset. There weren’t any ships which were going to get past this line of defence. Several tried though. Boats carrying people came out of the harbour aiming to get away from the cordon through up around the Cornwall town on the outside and the Undead being fought inside there also by the British Army. Each vessel was stopped, using a display of firepower for warning purposes if necessary, and turned back. The people aboard called out pleas for help and told of horrible things happening back on land but that didn’t matter. The Somerset had her RHIB powered launches out with Marine Boarding Parties aboard. The Royal Marines within their fast boats were adorned in protective gear like the soldiers on land and also had their rifles out too. The men had gone through previous training – including the psychological aspects – when it came to how to effective conduct BANKSIDE missions. No chances were taken and everyone was turned back. Thankfully, there were no boats which the Somerset had to turn her weapons on nor the men from 43 Commando had to shoot… that was how they saw it anyway. As to those who couldn’t find an escape, they didn’t share the relief of those on the water because they were forced back to Bude.

In London, the politicians at COBRA had been informed that the now two companies (a second had joined the first) from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers present down in Cornwall were soon to rid this resort town of the Undead. There had been a delay before the alarm had been raised and they were able to grow in numbers as well as infect others with Solanum ready to see them later cause further rises of the Undead elsewhere, but the soldiers had all the advantages. The majority of the town’s residents hadn’t been caught up in what happened and evacuated out of Bude to quarantine areas. Control was kept in these places, far better than had been seen elsewhere when similar things were done. With the town itself, the soldiers went in there on their search-and-destroy missions as well as scouring the nearby countryside too. One of the company commanders was a STONEFERRY veteran, a major now who when a captain last year had been to Brunei with the SAS. He had made sure his men knew how to attract the attention of the Undead. The Undead came to them, stumbling and shuffling about out in the open rather than lurking in the shadows. It only took a little noise and if they were nearby, they would either emerge or desperately try to get out of places where they might be trapped. Therefore, the initial reports back from the commander of 1 RRF – who’d come down to Cornwall to oversee the BANKSIDE mission undertaken by his battalion elements – to his own superior weren’t overblown. However, despite the successes met, along with very few casualties among the soldiers themselves, things were still taking much time. Every building had to be checked, every room in every building too. Then there was everywhere else: the sewers, the riverbank and every bush & hedge in every open space. This kept the majority of the soldiers inside the town. Those outside, forming the cordon, had a lot of ground to cover. They directed people towards the quarantine areas for them to be checked for signs of infection, meeting obstruction and anger each time.

Some people slipped through, including some of those infected.

The Undead started popping up elsewhere. Those infected died and came back to life. New, smaller outbreaks erupted first in the village of Marhamchurch then Poughill and next in Stratton. At the larger Flexbury, the outbreaks of the Undead there put them between where 1 RRF had its base camp with the quarantine zones and Bude itself. Troops rushed into Flexbury but had to do so in the middle of the night. Then men were unable to contain things there, struggling to kill all of the Undead. Civilians were often in the way too. This brought about momentarily hesitation to open fire which was often too late to save people yet also stop the spread further. One of the Undead reached the quarantine zones, full of people who’d survived their activities in Bude.

Many 1 RRF’s soldiers were overcome. The men were scattered and order lost. It was a disaster! Others on the broken outer cordon were ordered in to save their fellow soldiers but some wouldn’t go forward. These disciplinary problems came at the worst possible time. It allowed for the Undead to grow in numbers once again, quickly replacing their earlier losses. They occupied a large area of ground too: an area previously so professionally swept. Eventually, discipline was regained. The British Army, famous for maintaining such a thing, was under unimaginable strain with men not prepared for this and refusing to follow what many saw as a suicidal mission. Having those who had refused to follow orders taken away to be brought up on charges didn’t solve everything like it appeared to though. Too much time had been lost. While preparations were made to go back into Bude once more, and to keep the soldiers in line while doing this, it wasn’t so much the Undead still in there (plus neighbouring places such as Flexbury) which were the problem, but once more those infected who got away. That Merlin helicopter from the Somerset offshore reported observations of civilians streaming both north and south. Those people were running for their lives and it was going to be impossible to locate, stop and quarantine them all like beforehand.

43rd Infantry Brigade’s commander at the distant Tidworth was informed of what had gone on. There was a lot he needed to take charge of, especially addressing why many soldiers had refused to follow orders, but the first thing to be done was to report this to those at COBRA. The reaction from there was, as expected from those awful people, something rather dramatic.


Combatting the Undead in the Leicestershire Outbreak had similarly been something believed to be under control like Bude had been. A lot of this came from the fact that the Undead were active in the countryside rather than urban area. There were villages but nothing like Bude or even Gravesend. Moreover, the particular strain of Solanum which had come into the country through East Midlands Airport was different from the one which first rose in London to then spread to Cornwall and Kent. As far as the authorities were concerned, there was a longer period of time between when Solanum killed and then reanimated those it had killed. With the latter issue though, further investigation discovered that this might not be the case. A re-examination was done on this matter, all while the Undead were active first in the rural parts of Leicestershire and then all of a sudden inside the county town.

The Undead reached Leicester.

As it always did, Solanum found away to get past efforts to stop its spread. All it took was one infected person and an opportunity to get a head start before detection & subsequent military reaction before the Undead had enough of a presence in Leicester to make sure that they ‘held the town’ for good. The British Army sent troops in and killed many of them, but not all. Infected people dying and then coming back to life allowed for the Undead to keep reinforcing their numbers.

From Chetwynd Barracks outside of Nottingham, Brigadier Andrews, the commander of the 49th Infantry Brigade, whose men had so effectively dealt with the initial outbreak at the airport, went to Leicester himself. He had much of 2 RIFLES engaged across the countryside and now going into Leicester’s outer suburbs to respond to reports of the Undead but he quickly saw that this was all too late. He started pulling his men back as the Undead grew in number as the casualties among the soldiers under his command rose. He informed COBRA afterwards. They at once ordered him to send his men back in there and use reinforcements drawn from across the East Midlands area of units trained in the BANKSIDE role. There were none who had fully completed such training though others had begun it.

The politicians wouldn’t accept that the city of Leicester was going to be lost to the Undead. They’d fight to save the town, all while trying to make sure too that the people who lived there were kept in the dark and not allowed to leave.

Radioactive Undead spreading Solanum and radiation!
Too much. I'm widened the canon of the novel but there will be no use of nukes, nor gas either, in the UK.

XLI


The second and third outbreaks of the Undead across the pond occurred in Georgia and New Jersey. They erupted within a day of one another, only a few days after the first outbreak out in California had been so quickly put down. In Atlanta and in Newark, Solanum had for some time been within the bodies of two different people who had long-term, serious illnesses. Both were being treated in hospitals for these when, as if choosing the right time to strike, Solanum did. It killed both patients and then brought them back to life where they began by attacking a people. As had been seen at Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley, there was a quick military response. The Americans had a wealth of experience of already fighting the Undead. Their Operation DEEP DAGGER missions with their A-Teams had been done on a similar but much larger scale than the British STONEFERRY operations; they had the recent experience of the quick engagement in California as well. With haste, significant numbers of special-trained soldiers were dispatched to the scenes of the two infections. They did what the British did and first established a cordon before going through the hospital buildings to kill the Undead and rescue trapped civilians. Quarantine zones where thorough physical checks were made of those who emerged from the hospital were set up and they discovered many infected people who otherwise might have wandered away.

However, from the site of the outbreaks in both cities, there were just a couple of those who’d been infected who hadn’t been contained within the cordon before it was set up. They would go back to their homes to die, reanimate and then begin new outbreaks. Early signs of success were soon met with the realisation that things were fast falling apart.

At the White House, the president’s press secretary was in front of the gathered media within the first hour after the Atlanta Outbreak occurred. The American media were all over the scene there in Georgia and would be again in New Jersey too. As to that spokeswoman for the nation’s leader, when responding to questions about Atlanta, she gave a rather upbeat message to the American public. The military was dealing with the outbreak, she confidently affirmed, and would erase the Undead soon enough. When the next day she was once more before the cameras and the journalists, facing a barrage of questions, there was markedly less confidence in her. She repeated the same message as yesterday yet without the clear confidence. A native of New Jersey herself, maybe some of it was down to that, but more so the issue was that she was aware of many things not being told to the public and was rather frightened. The two performances were both seen around the world. The president himself wasn’t. Many would find that rather ominous.

During the follow-up waves of the Undead attacking people, emerging from homes and not the hospitals, the media were present for this. They had been denied access to what happened at those hospitals – spending their time intruding on families of ‘missing’ people instead – but made up for that with some shocking images of the Undead on the streets of Atlanta and Newark. Soldiers in full Biohazard gear engaged the Undead in battle: an anchor at the CNN studios in Atlanta informed the American public that they were US Army Rangers as well as men from the 82nd Airborne Division. His network also lost a film crew live on air; MSNBC already had a missing team in Newark but the CNN crew (presenter, camera operator, technician and producer) were attacked by one of the Undead while broadcasting live. The actual images the viewers could see were few yet the screams had been quite something. Media teams went into danger and some of them paid for that with their lives. Others broadcast on air the first thing that popped into their head. There were official statements from the authorities but also rumours which got out.

Of the latter, there was some of what had been seen before with the blame for the Undead being placed on immigrants by some – well… wasn’t it African Rabies? – and others were just caught up in the moment and wanted to make a name for themselves by even inventing things. They were right out of control. There was the Fox News issue too concerning that journalist who had been fired after the Van Nuys Outbreak by stating live on air that the anti-Rabies Phalanx vaccine was nothing but a placebo. Many in the media knew about that corporate cover-up and were aghast at such a thing being done. The public had a right to know, they decided. They watched as Phalanx did nothing to stop people being killed in Atlanta and Newark. First one of CNN’s field reporters and then another from ABC repeated the revelations about Phalanx on air. That ABC reporter did so after broadcasting footage of American soldiers dying live on air too.

This is what the American people saw and heard on their television screens. Is it any wonder what happened next did?

From the White House, the president himself made an appearance; his press secretary was nowhere to be seen. He urged the public to stay calm. The Undead would be dealt with. There was no reason to panic. Stay in-place, he said, if you are in Atlanta or Newark rather than trying to flee. The opposite was done instead.

The Great Panic was in full swing. Millions from Georgia and New Jersey left their homes, many not sure where they were going. Among a very small number of them, there were a few infected with Solanum: just a few. As before that was all it would take.

The world was watching too, including many in Britain.

Those Rangers first went to California and before that were all over the globe with the Green Berets in A-Teams so they know are doing.
I chose Atlanta part due to The Walking Dead but also to have the CDC lost. Solanum has been studied immensely but losing such a place will still hurt.
Not yet with the politicians reacting like that. They'll think they are safe for the time being.
Thank you very much. The Great Panic will be covered in the story's Part Three. Newark being the other site of infection in the US was chosen by me for this reason because it is close to New York. The story is focused on the UK but there will be mentions of the US and many other nations too.
The last update of Part Two is below.