Prescott and Salaman might as well have been having a conversation that didn’t include Hoffman. He wondered why they’d included him in this tiny inner circle. He was Director of Special Forces, and that no longer had any meaning in a desperate war where mechanics and cooks had to fight in the frontline too.
“Nobody thought this was an easy decision,” Prescott said. “You understand that as well as any man in the COG. Anvil Gate might not have been on the same scale, but the dilemmas were the same, were they not?”
Ah, now I know. Hoffman, the man who’s willing to do the dirty work.
The siege of Anvil Gate had transformed his career, but he wasn’t sure if it was worth the nightmares and the nagging fear that one day he would fail and everyone would die because he couldn’t cut it.
Salaman said nothing. Maybe it was his heartburn. He didn’t look too well.
“Chairman,” Hoffman said, “after you deploy the Hammer, you’ll need every Gear you have, and you’ll need them on your side. Think about how you’ll command even a Gear’s loyalty once they know you’ll waste them in their thousands like that.” Hoffman paused for a breath to let that sink in. “Giving your life in combat is one thing. But this is without precedent.”
See, Margaret, I can use fancy words and arguments. I don’t just tell them flat out that they’re assholes now. I’ve learned a lot from you.
Prescott didn’t even nod. He knew damn well what society would be like after the Hammer strike; it would need an army to make sure humans didn’t tear themselves apart. Ephyra would still have refugees pouring in from the rest of Tyrus, if nothing else, and a state that sacrificed its own civilians would have trouble for many years afterward—grubs or no grubs.
“What about the Gears from the rest of the COG states?” Salaman said. “Not that we have any control over them.”
Hoffman hated himself now, so one more step into the abyss wasn’t going to damn him any worse. “I bet they’d be really happy to start new lives in the state that unilaterally fried their families and neighbors.”
“I may live to regret my double standards, Colonel, but I agree with you,” Prescott said at last. “We’d just be reducing numbers on both sides. Start pulling back all units south of Kinnerlake.”
“Navy too?” Hoffman asked.
“At least we don’t have many ships to assemble these days. Yes, bring them home.”
Salaman sat with his arms folded across his chest, staring at the chart, and shook his head slowly. “And that’ll leave the towns down there exposed to grub attack.”
“They’ll self-evacuate.” Prescott turned away and poured himself a coffee. “We’re moving Gears all the time, effectively spinning plates. People will just assume they’re plugging another hole that’s opened up.”
“Are we going to issue misinformation to that effect?” Salaman asked.
“No,” Prescott said. “Even a politician has limits.”
There weren’t any right answers in this war, or any other. There were only bad and worse.
“I’ll get things moving,” Hoffman said. At least Gears had transport and route priority. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”
It was a long walk to the ops room through a maze of splendid corridors lined with paintings of the Allfathers and heroic scenes from COG military history. That gave him time to get his head straight. He’d taken a stand—a quiet one, but a stand nonetheless—for his Gears, and somehow that seemed less selfish and partisan than special pleading for individual civilians.
But I’ll still have to lie to the men.
Hoffman walked past the rows of comms officers hunched over consoles in the semidarkened room, occasionally putting a firm hand on shoulders to stop people from sitting bolt upright when they realized the top brass was behind them.
“Get me the COs of all COG naval vessels, Four-Two Logistics, all units in Zone Three-Alpha,” he said. “And I mean all. Down to the last field canteen. Four-Two L first, then I’ll take the calls as they come in. They’re all recalled to base. I need to touch base with all commanders personally.”
One of the comms officers was Anya Stroud, Helena’s daughter, a good-looking girl just like her mother had been. Hoffman was glad she was safe here for the time being, because Helena deserved to live on somehow. Anya looked at him with the faintest of frowns.
Yeah, you’ve got your mom’s radar, haven’t you? You know something’s moving.
She didn’t have to worry about her friends in 26 RTI, though. They’d be back in barracks by the time the south of the country was vaporized.
Hoffman struggled to think if there was anything at all that he could tell Margaret so that she wouldn’t think he was a coward and a liar, but there was nothing.
For most of Sera, it was approximately four days to the end of the world.
FIFTEEN KILOMETERS SOUTH OF KINNERLAKE, SOUTHERN TYRUS, SEVEN HOURS AFTER RECALL ORDERS.
“So the grubs have moved north.” Dom stood with his head out of the open hatch of the APC, elbows resting on the roof. The traffic—some military vehicles, some civilian—had ground to a halt just south of the town. “If we don’t get a move on, they’ll be in my backyard.”
“You don’t know that,” Marcus said. He had his eyes shut, Lancer across his lap, arms folded on top. “Get some sleep.”
“Why else would we be heading back to Ephyra at zero notice?”
“We’ll find out when we get back.”
Marcus must have been curious at the very least, but he always sounded as if everything was routine, all in a day’s work. Dom sometimes wondered how much he knew. It was still weird that he seemed as much in the dark about the war as anyone else, given who his father was.
But Adam Fenix didn’t tell his own son any more than he’d tell a stranger. Marcus said as much. That was right, Dom knew, but it sure as hell wasn’t normal.
“Dom,” said a voice from inside the ’Dill. It was the driver, Padrick Salton. “Just be glad we’re getting out, okay?”
Padrick had been a sniper in the last war, but like everyone else, he did whatever he had to do on the day now. In the seat next to him, Tai Kaliso was sound asleep, head resting against the bulkhead, snoring. Dom ducked down into the ’Dill’s cabin again.
“First chance we get,” Marcus said quietly, eyes still shut, “we’ll get a message through to her, okay?”
Yeah, Marcus was a mind reader sometimes. Maria needed the little scraps of hope; just knowing that Dom was heading back would make her feel better. She never wanted him to leave now. Since E-Day, he’d been back home on leave maybe six times, which sounded generous until he added up the actual time spent in his own home—and that was just days. No wonder she was going crazy. She was cooped up in that house on her own with just the empty bedrooms and the TV, which only made things worse. He knew she spent most of the day watching the news channels. If you spent your day digesting all that shit and misery, how could you ever come out of it normal? She expected every dead Gear to be him. And then there was the never-ending stream of dead civvies, dead kids, and she didn’t need reminding about all that.
Why doesn’t she just watch a movie? Well, at least she goes out for a walk every day.
Dom had to find someone to keep her company while he was away. She didn’t want to mix with the other Gears’ wives. Most of them had kids. She’d always been one to keep herself to herself, but this wasn’t normal.
“What the hell’s holding us up now?” Padrick muttered. He looked at his watch. “We could have walked it faster.”
He opened the hatch and got out to walk up the line of vehicles. Dom saw him stop, put his fists on his hips, and roll his head to relax his neck muscles. He came straight back and swung into the seat again.
“Diversion,” he said. “I can see it. Shit, we’re going to have to bypass this somehow.”
“What is it?” Marcus asked.
“Looks like a sewer collapsed. Frigging grubs again.” Padrick shut the hatch, revved the ’Dill, an
d backed up with a screech of tires, almost rolling over the delivery truck behind him in the line. He’d never been a sunny personality, but since his spotter had been killed, he’d been noticeably surlier. “Sod this, I’m going off-road.”
’Dills could tackle pretty well any terrain. Urban areas were no problem as long as the road was wide enough. With an impatient South Islander driving, though, a ’Dill became a law unto itself.
Padrick hit the dash controls to release the bot from its housing on the back of the APC. “Off you go, Baz. Find me a route.”
Aww, shit. That was his spotter’s name. He reprogrammed the damn bot’s call sign. Poor bastard.
There was a clunk and hiss from the back as Baz the bot eased out of its compartment and hovered away to look for a path out of the jam. The APC bounced off the highway and barreled along the grass verge, snapping branches off overhanging bushes and trees.
Dom opened one of the side hatches to peer out at traffic. It seemed to be mostly civilian cars and small trucks, all packed to bursting with people, suitcases, and plastic bags. As Padrick almost shaved the paint off a battered station wagon’s door, Dom saw kids’ faces pressed to the glass. They looked like they were in a trance, wide-eyed and staring. The only thing that Dom could do right then was shut out everyone else’s troubles and concentrate on his own and those of the people he cared about most. There was too much misery in the world to worry about strangers.
“You thought of calling in?” Marcus said.
Padrick glanced at the rear view for a moment. “Yes, Sarge.” He pressed his comms switch. “Kinnerlake Sector Control, this is APC-Two-Eighty, please advise on the current RV point for A Company Two-Six RTI.”
The radio crackled. “Two-Eighty, what’s your position?”
“Approximately fifteen klicks south of the sector line, grid reference eight-three-five-five-one-zero.”
“Two-Eighty, all A Company units are heading north on Designated Route Theta in twenty minutes. You’re two hours adrift.”
“Roger that, control. We’re not going to make the window, then. We’ll make our own way back to base.”
“Watch your ass, Two-Eighty. Grub activity five klicks west of your position a few hours ago. Control out.”
Marcus didn’t comment. Padrick pushed the ’Dill on. Dom wondered if civilians resented Gears for being able to ignore traffic regulations, queues, and obstacles and just roll over everything in their path while everyone else had to wait. If they did, he rarely saw any sign of it. They knew that Gears were having an even worse time than they were.
The next lump the ’Dill bounced over was a burned-out, crushed car that had been pushed off the highway. All four wheels seemed to leave the ground—Dom’s gut felt it—and it smacked down again with enough force to wake Tai.
“We’ll reach our destined place in the world whether you race there or not, Padrick,” he said.
Dom still wasn’t sure if Tai’s odd pronouncements were weird mysticism or sly humor. Padrick always reacted the same either way.
“Bugger destiny,” he said. “Believing in that makes you accept all kind of shit as inevitable.”
Tai and Padrick were both from the South Islands, but there the similarity ended. Pad—ginger-haired, freckled, typical of the northerners who’d once emigrated down there—had tribal face tattoos like Tai, but he definitely didn’t share his outlook on life.
Tai gave him a beaming smile and a little bow of the head. “Embrace what you can’t change.”
“What a load of utter toss.” Padrick thundered on, stopping to hit the horn when a truck tried to pull out into his private route home. “Baz, where are you?”
Dom thought it would have been nice if the ’Dills had been fitted with monitors so they could get an aerial bot’s view of the terrain just like Control did. Instead, Padrick had to wait for Baz to come back. The bot appeared as a speck in the sky ahead of them, resolving into a lumpy gray metal egg with extending arms as it got closer, then matched speed with the APC.
“Okay, Baz, lead us out,” Padrick said.
Baz veered left, taking the ’Dill across country into open fields. It couldn’t explain itself, of course, so nobody knew if this was just a shortcut or an indication that it had spotted some serious shit up ahead unless the visual data was relayed to Control and the message was bounced back.
“I’d like to know …” Padrick seemed to have had the same thought. A squad got that way. You lived in each other’s pockets twenty-six hours a day, and sooner or later you ended up feeling that you were transmitting brainwaves or something. “Control, Two-Eighty here. Our bot’s taking us the long route home. Assuming he’s not training to drive taxis, you seen anything in our area?”
Baz was now he, not it, as far as Padrick was concerned. Dom was busy noting all the ways that people coped with bereavement.
“Two-Eighty, there’s just been a grub emergence five klicks north of your previous route.” Control sounded harassed. There was a lot of noise in the background. “Your bot’s saved your asses.”
Marcus cut in. “We got a job to do, Control. Give us a position and we’ll engage.”
“Two-Eighty, is that Fenix?”
“Yeah,” Marcus said.
“Everyone’s got the same orders, Sergeant. Get back to Ephyra.”
Shit, whatever was about to go down in the capital had to be big. Dom was torn between gut-gripping worry about home turf and the urge to put down some more grubs. He thought of the civvies expecting military protection and not getting it. It didn’t help.
“Give us the location to avoid, then,” Padrick said.
It was hard to tell if Pad meant it or not. Control didn’t sound sure, either.
“Jannermont, ten klicks south east of Kinnerlake.”
“Who’s there now?” Marcus asked.
“No Gears units.”
“Roger that, Control.”
Marcus shut off the comms link. Padrick did one of his annoyed grunts.
“You know how I am about orders,” Marcus said.
“We should try,” Tai said.
There was no argument; Dom waited for Padrick to object—and he had every right to argue with a sergeant who was defying orders—but he just hit the console and veered right again. A kerchunk from the rear of the ’Dill told Dom that the bot housing had opened.
“In you get, Baz.” Padrick was heading back toward Jannermont. “I take it you’re voting with us, Dom.”
What the hell. “Yeah.”
The ’Dill had to slow to a crawl to cross the blocked highway. Padrick eventually nudged cars out of the way with the APC’s nose fender, scraping metal and getting a stream of abuse from the drivers. The APC bounced down the slope of the shoulder and headed on to Jannermont across an industrial area that looked completely abandoned.
But Padrick didn’t need Baz to navigate. Dom could see the rising column of smoke that marked the grubs’ visit to the town.
“Step on it, Pad.”
“Yeah, okay, Marcus. Tai, stick another belt in the gun. I’ll lay down covering fire from the turret. Hey, you might not even need to dismount.”
Fat chance; as the ’Dill screeched around a corner into the main street, Pad opened the hatch and Dom saw the carnage. There was a general store dead ahead, flames leaping from its roof, the front glass all blown out. Dom could see the grubs ripping through the store. Shoppers ran between the aisles in panic.
Grubs never seemed to want supplies—what did those bastards eat, anyway?—but they knew that humans would be there, waiting in line to buy what they could. It was all that people ventured out for in most cities. The grubs were like predators staking out water holes, waiting for prey that had to drink sooner or later.
They enjoy this. They could fry that store in a few minutes. But they love hunting us. Look.
If Pad thought he was going to hose them with the ’Dill’s machine gun, then he had a problem. There were too many civvies in the way.
“Sod it,” he said. He brought the ’Dill to a shuddering halt twenty meters from the doors, close enough to avoid being caught in the open for too long. Marcus jumped out after Tai and used the APC for cover; Dom made for the front of the store, stood off to one side, and aimed at any grub he could get a clear shot at to draw their attention.
“Get down! On the floor!” Marcus gestured frantically to the people near the shattered windows. “Just get down!”
Some shoppers threw themselves flat; most that Dom could see just crouched with their arms shielding their heads. They weren’t used to dropping prone to the ground. Marcus sprinted into the store and disappeared into the aisles, Tai behind him.
Dom and Padrick followed up, jumping over cowering civilians and kicking up dust that Dom realized was flour scattered from burst bags. There was no food in most of the aisles, just long stretches of mostly empty metal shelves and a few displays of dusty hardware—power tools, paintbrushes, bolts, and nails.
Now Dom was between most of the shoppers—the live ones, anyway—and the grubs. Automatic fire rattled into the refrigerated cabinets lining the walls.
“Pad, get ’em out.” He gestured to Padrick, indicating the store front. The fewer civvies around the place, the easier it would be to just let loose with everything he had. “Herd ’em out. Go on.”
Dom dodged from one aisle end to the next, not knowing what was at the next intersection. It was like the worst kind of urban warfare. This was like a city on a small-scale grid, with all the risks at every street corner when he broke cover, hearing fire at very close quarters but not seeing where it was coming from. As he darted past the next break in the aisles, something zipped past at the far end, and he’d already aimed before he identified it as Tai and held fire. The next aisle, though—
He turned, and found himself face-to-face with a grub.
Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant Page 14
