“I’m still not getting this,” Marcus said. “You lure a few gang bosses to a handover. You blow them up. And?”
“You knock out a chunk of their command,” Dom said. “It puts them off balance for a while.”
“And there’ll always be another asshole to take the job.”
“But there won’t be replacement vessels,” Michaelson said. “And knowing there’s an operational submarine around that can take them out will make them think twice about even going fishing.”
Marcus looked dubious. It was pretty clear that Michaelson had penciled in Delta to do some of the work. Dom wondered if Marcus was having a moral moment about all this, because even if he wouldn’t admit it, there was a lot of his father in him, especially the urge to do things right. Right could be very hard to define; lawful didn’t cover it. Dom recalled Hoffman’s barbed comments about Adam Fenix getting edgy over what to do with the civilian scientists in the raid on Aspho Point.
“I’m not used to fighting that kind of war,” Marcus said. “And it sounds like overkill. Torpedoes can sink a destroyer.”
“We don’t have many of those, so we won’t be wasting them until we can replace them,” Michaelson said. “But don’t underestimate the deterrent value of a submarine.”
“Don’t you have to leave someone alive to tell the tale for a deterrent to work?”
“That, or surface in the right places occasionally.”
“I accept it’s a step beyond entrapment,” Garcia said. “But the pirates got used to that. They won’t be expecting this.”
Marcus nodded. Dom couldn’t tell if it was grudging approval. “Sneaky.”
“Submarine. Are you missing something here about the word submerged?”
“I meant double-crossing them over a deal.”
“If they were gray, scaly, and lived underground, would you do it?”
Marcus shrugged. “Sure as shit, sir.”
“Well, there you go,” Garcia said. “We’ve asked Hoffman for your squad for the surface element of the mission. So if you want to feel up front and honest when you kill them, you can.”
Marcus just looked at the chart on the table, nodded a few times, and then gazed around the control room as if he was memorizing the detail. Maybe he was wondering how anyone coped here if the lights failed. It was the kind of thing anyone trained to strip a weapon blindfolded would consider.
“If Hoffman tasks us,” Marcus said, “then we do our jobs.”
Back on the quay, Dom and Marcus put their armor on and stared at each other in silence for a moment.
“Okay, I’ll say it.” Dom sometimes got frustrated with him for not leaving that kind of high-level moral wrangling to his commanders. “The day you start worrying if we’re being fair to fucking pirates is the day I haul you off to Doc Hayman for a brain scan.”
“Fair?” Marcus started walking back to the barracks. Getting him to stand still and talk had always been hard. He always seemed to be on the run from conversations. “They’re assholes. They prey on people who’ve got nothing. I just feel… uneasy. That’s all.”
“Would you feel better if we declared formal war on them first?”
“Probably.”
“Talk to Bernie. Get yourself mad. Then declare your own war. I have. I’m fine with it.”
Marcus never talked about his time in prison. The Slab was a cesspit for the worst of the worst, and Dom had no doubt what those who were let loose when the Locust overran the area ended up doing. They didn’t all go into the army, or even stay in uniform. Maybe Marcus was trying not to let what he’d seen shape what he did as a Gear, a man with rules and standards. It was hard to tell. He didn’t say another word until they were almost at the barracks gate.
“I don’t give a shit about them as human beings,” Marcus said. “I just wonder what kind of society we’ll rebuild every time we bend our own rules.”
Dom decided to drop the subject. It was all what-ifs and exceptions, theoretical shit that might have been a great debate over a beer but didn’t help him deal with the here and now—his job, his task.
And that was to protect the people he cared about, and the civilians who couldn’t protect themselves. That was the deal. He served the COG and defended the way of life he knew.
The pirate gangs had declared war on all that the moment they hit their first target. He was happy to play by their rules now.
CHAPTER 17
We’re willing to meet you. Neutral water, time and coordinates to follow. No more than two vessels each. Nothing bigger than a patrol boat. No tricks. And we want to see that our colleague is alive and unharmed before we do or say anything.
(RADIO MESSAGE FROM CORMICK ALLAM, CHAIRMAN OF THE LESSER ISLANDS FREE TRADE AREA, TO CAPTAIN MICHAELSON, NCOG.)
CNV FALCONER APPROACHING HANDOVER LOCATION, EARLY MORNING, SOUTHWEST OF VECTES, NEARLY TEN WEEKS AFTER THE ESCAPE FROM JACINTO, 14 A.E.
Anya now understood the insistence on the time and place, and also why few Stranded ever made it to Vectes.
Just to reach this mid-ocean point was a long, rough journey by sea even at patrol boat speeds. Tackling the distance by sail alone would have put anyone off. And now she saw another hazard for herself.
“Fog,” she said.
“Mist,” Franck Muller corrected. He stood with one hand on the helm and the other on the radar console, pressing buttons. “It’s not fog until the visibility is half this, ma’am. This time of year, it’s almost guaranteed around here. It’s two currents meeting.”
Anya stood in the open wheelhouse door, scanning the mist bank through binoculars. There were three vessels in there, bouncing back small profiles on radar, but that didn’t seem to tell Muller everything he wanted to know. The intermittent radio chatter they’d picked up had stopped eight hours ago.
“So much for two vessels,” Muller said. “I’m glad they’re not going soft on us.”
Anya shrugged. “Well, we didn’t tell them one of ours was a submarine, so we’re even.”
Marcus was leaning on Falconer’s starboard machine gun as if he couldn’t find a comfortable firing position. The shoulder braces hadn’t been designed for someone in heavy armor. Michaelson stood to one side of him, watching.
“I didn’t expect them to stick to the rules,” Michaelson said, checking his watch. “I hope you’ll feel better about us blowing them to kingdom come now, Sergeant Fenix.”
It was hard to get a sense of scale with nothing on the water to use for comparison. Anya found that if she lowered the glasses and changed her focus slowly, the cloud layers transformed themselves into distant mountains, and the sea below became a lake, an empty plain, a desert—or even more cloud. It could look like anything you wanted it to be.
And I could make a hell of a lot of mistakes out here if I don’t learn fast.
“Lesser Islands Free Trade Area,” Anya said. “Have you come across them before, sir?”
“Not by name. But gangs often pool resources and intelligence, so they’ll probably have links to my old customers, friendly or otherwise. Some of them operate entirely from ships.”
“A few torpedoes would shut them down for good,” Anya said.
“As if anyone would do such a thing.” Michaelson winked at her. “I just wish I knew where they got their fuel. They certainly get around.”
Marcus peered down the sights of the machine gun, apparently ignoring the conversation beside him. Anya didn’t need telepathy to work out that he thought this wasn’t a safe place for her. It was just as well that Michaelson was rather malleable when it came to women asking favors of him.
I’ve been stuck behind a desk for nearly eighteen years. I’m retraining, Marcus. Give me a break.
The empty vastness was unnerving, but somehow it also made Anya feel safer. There was nothing lurking within derelict buildings, nothing hiding in the dark, nothing that would erupt from the ground. Beneath Falconer, the sea was probably just as dangerous in its own way as the Locust-infested ma
inland had been, but she didn’t feel that constant uneasiness in the same way she had in Jacinto. She was simply aware of safety precautions to be followed.
And who would try to take on Falconer? The boat wasn’t a Raven’s Nest, but she looked twice the size of Chancellor and better armed—several deck-mounted guns and a grenade launcher, just on Anya’s quick inspection—so with Clement skulking around somewhere, Anya felt as safe here as anywhere.
Sergeant Andresen walked around from the foredeck and stood watching Marcus, brow corrugated with intense concentration, taking everything in.
“Enjoying yourself, Rory?” Anya asked.
“Learning plenty, ma’am.” He took out a small notebook and scribbled from time to time. “I’m okay with the guns. We need training to carry out boardings, though.”
“It’s like building clearance with nowhere to run,” Marcus said, gaze still fixed on the water. “For us or them.”
Andresen took no notice. “Ma’am, we’re going to have to do things we never did on land. It’s a whole new game for us now.”
“Yes, we’ll need to cross-train Gears,” Michaelson said. His binoculars hung from a leather strap around his neck. He seemed in his element now, as if this was his war. “It’s going to be about maritime operations now.”
Marcus grunted. “Somebody better tell Cole. He might want a transfer.”
Keeping a constant ear on the radio net, Anya bit back a reflex to plunge in and start directing the operation. Either Clement must have been close to the surface or Baird had repaired her towed antenna, because she heard Garcia report in.
“Clement to Falconer, I’m not picking up any engine noise at the moment, just sporadic sounds I can’t identify. If they’ve got working radar, they must have detected yours by now.”
“I thought submarines could hear pretty well everything over huge distances,” Anya said.
Michaelson looked amused. “They can hear plenty, but sometimes they can’t pinpoint something until they hit it. Omniscience isn’t in their armory. But don’t tell anyone.”
Anya was a little disappointed, but if she believed a submarine could do anything, then pirates probably believed it, too. That was all that mattered in the deterrence game.
Whatever the pirate vessels were doing, it didn’t make sense yet. Anya put it down to missing a few reality checks over the years, in much the same way as the Stranded out here didn’t seem to grasp the size of the COG forces they were provoking. Perhaps Massy’s comrades were too used to targets with the bare minimum of technology, if any, or maybe they thought that NCOG was in an even worse state of repair than it was.
Everyone has a blind spot. Everyone on top of their food chain gets lazy until something goes wrong.
The urge to check everyone’s position was hard to resist; old ops room habits died hard. She needed to keep that three-dimensional plot in her head, visualizing every asset and man, every position and movement. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Falconer’s radar. She simply felt lost without information streaming into her ear. Her perception of the war had almost always been a stream of sound converted in her mind’s eye to an image of the battlefield, rarely the real thing encountered this closely.
Vessels one, two, and three there, Falconer here … and where’s the submarine?
Clement had broken contact now, so she could only imagine the submarine drifting below in a watery twilight. But it was in her head, plotted and visualized, even if her location turned out to be wildly wrong. She was beginning to realize that the navy wasn’t just limping along with obsolete and failing equipment—its crews were below the safety minimum, and they hadn’t had much serious practice for fifteen years, if ever. The most competent COG asset was still the average Gear.
But the armaments work. And the ships float. That’s all that matters. Right?
She pulled her concentration back to the boat when Andresen and Michaelson moved along the deck. Marcus looked over his shoulder at her, a fraction away from actually smiling.
“You look happier,” he said. “Suits you.”
These were the conversations that hurt. They were just the throwaway things that other lovers said without thinking, but they were so rare between her and Marcus that she had to treat them like fragile peace negotiations. One wrong word, and the shutters would come down again.
Seventeen years. And we’re still at the stage where I never know if the relationship’s on or not. And when it is, I’m wondering when he’ll stay the whole night. I must be insane.
She tried to look casual. “As our gallant captain would say, nothing like the prospect of firing a broadside to put roses in a girl’s cheeks.”
Marcus never reached the smile. What little he’d managed faded slowly. “Yeah. He’d say that.”
Anya balanced on the knife-edge of a response but found she wasn’t ready to risk it. She’d settle for the broadside. Firefights seemed less fraught with danger. She was almost relieved when Muller’s voice diverted her.
“Range three kilometers. We should have a visual on them soon.”
“And they’re well within firing range, once I see them,” Marcus muttered.
“Corporal Baird,” Michaelson said. “Bring Massy to the wheelhouse, please.”
Dom and Cole edged along the waist of the boat toward her. “Are we actually going through the motions of transferring Massy?” Dom asked. He was wearing minimum armor, clutching a life jacket in one hand. “I’ll take the Marlin. I can do that.”
“Plan is to just to parade him on the foredeck while we confirm we have targets that Michaelson wants, and then …”
Then what? It was the unanswered question. It was also still unasked. Exactly what would happen to him? This was too far into the murky territory of COG Intelligence, as she remembered it, and she wasn’t sure if she was cut out to be part of that. Either way, Massy didn’t know the plan. Baird was still guarding him in one of the stores compartments. Bernie was on deck, wandering around as if she didn’t trust the sea if she couldn’t keep an eye on it.
“Confirmed, modified gunboats,” Muller said. “I can see the lead vessel now—twenty-five meters, thirty tops, machine gun mounted. Nobody visible. The other two are twenty meters or thereabouts, and I can’t see any armament. Shall I call them up, sir?”
Michaelson came out. “Anya, you might want to get in the wheelhouse now.”
She took it as an order to keep her head down. The wheelhouse felt rather un-nautical, more like the cab of a grindlift rig, with instruments arranged like an oversized dashboard. Baird had brought Massy up to the wheelhouse, and now the man was sitting on the bench seat behind the helm position with Baird, trying to look out at the boats. Then he saw Anya and stared at her. She stared back. Muller’s voice—repeating Falconer’s call sign and waiting for a response from the pirate vessels—faded into the background.
Anya had never been this close to a rapist and a murderer, as far as she knew. She found herself searching his face for something that would show her how very different he was from the people she knew and trusted, but there was nothing. He was just another man—aggressive, arrogant, and repellent, but that described a lot of men who didn’t do the kinds of things that he did.
“No response, sir,” Muller said. Anya could see the hulls now, just sitting in the water less than two hundred meters away. Falconer slowed.
“Lookout, is anything moving?”
“Can’t see any life, sir.”
For a moment, Anya’s gut tightened and she wondered if the ambush was about to be turned back on the navy. Michaelson looked around, unfazed.
“Mr. Massy,” he said, “any idea what your colleagues might be playing at? Busy taking tea below, perhaps?”
“No idea, asshole.” Massy didn’t seem worried. “But you’re safe as long as I’m aboard.”
“How comforting.” Michaelson flicked switches on the comms panel and picked up a mike. “This is warship Falconer, warship Falconer to Lesser Islands FTA vessels,
are you receiving?”
There was no response. The crewman on lookout gestured over the side, and his voice crackled on the radio. “Sir, there’s drifting debris. Wood … fuel slick … paper, metal drums. Not sure if it’s a vessel that’s broken up, or just old garbage doing the world tour.”
Michaelson definitely wasn’t acting now. “Collision?”
“Possibly.”
Massy went to stand up but Baird shoved him back in his seat.
“You assholes expect me to believe all this shit?” he snarled. “Let me look. Let me see what’s out there.”
“Good idea,” Michaelson said. “Muller, take us in closer. Corporal Baird, walk Massy out on the foredeck. Perhaps they’ll feel better if they eyeball him.”
Anya watched the foredeck as Baird frog-marched Massy onto the deck. Bernie stood off to the port side with Dom, checking her ammo clips and giving Massy an occasional glance. But there was no sign of life on the boats, no movement—nothing at all.
Massy seemed to be getting rattled, though. He stood on the deck with his back to the wheelhouse, head turning right and left as if he was searching for something. However pirates did business, this didn’t appear to be going the way he expected.
“Hey, Cormick!” he yelled, as if he could be heard at that distance. “Cormick? Man, what the hell are you playing at? It’s me! Get me off this frigging ship, will you?”
“Baird, ask him if he recognizes the vessels,” Michaelson asked.
There was a pause while Massy checked. After some discussion, Baird came back on the radio. “He got technical on me. He says he knows the two smaller boats but not the bigger one.”
“Maybe it’s a new acquisition.” Massy couldn’t hear Michaelson anyway, but the captain dropped his voice when responding on the radio. “Okay, let’s assume the worst here. Falconer to Clement, where are you?”
Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant Page 37
