Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant (41 page)

Would I feel any better now if we’d lied and said that we loved each other?

“And how’s Margaret?” Fenix asked.

“Missing,” Hoffman said.

He didn’t mean to hit below the belt. But it was true, and there was no other answer he could give.

“Oh God.” Fenix looked genuinely shocked. “I’m so sorry—I had no idea. Colonel, everything’s in disarray at the moment, I’m sure she’s safe somewhere in Ephyra, but you’ve seen the chaos—”

“She left for Corren after the announcement,” Hoffman said quietly, “and as of this moment…” He checked the bank of clocks on the other wall, each showing local time in every major city. “As of this moment, with nine minutes to go, she has not returned.”

They just looked at each other. On the wall behind them—and Hoffman was sure that Fenix was avoiding looking at it unless he had to, just like Hoffman—hung a backlit chart of Sera’s surface, skinned and pinned like an animal hide into a ragged-edged, flattened shape. Every major city was marked with concentric rings showing blast radii. Many of those rings overlapped, and when Hoffman found the stomach to look at it, he had to search hard to find areas that would be beyond the range of the orbital lasers’ destruction. It was going to take three phases of fire to hit every target, realigning the lasers after each strike. The number of satellite platforms needed for a synchronized apocalypse probably exceeded the COG’s budget, Hoffman thought, but then nobody sane would ever have planned for the almost total destruction of the planet’s surface.
Not
almost.
Ephyra’s a speck compared to Sera. It might as well be the whole damn world
.

“Colonel, I have no idea what to say to you,” Fenix said. “Other than how very sorry I am.”

The room was a blur for Hoffman now. He was aware of everything in it, and he was functioning, competent to do his job, but everything was distorted. The normal focus of his vision, background and foreground, had gone. Everything seemed to be in sharp focus regardless of distance, and as for the sounds—he could hear
everything
, too much, every conversation, without the instinctive filter that told his brain what to concentrate on and what to ignore.

Salaman and Prescott were standing at the Hammer control panel. It needed three separate keys to be inserted and turned simultaneously to remove the failsafe lock. In minutes, Hoffman would have to walk over there and place his key in the slot.

I deserve this, but Margaret doesn’t
.

“Sir?” Anya Stroud edged close to him, as if she wanted Fenix to walk away, but he didn’t. “Sir, just so you know—I’ve tracked down every Gear who’s been on checkpoint duties anywhere within Tyrus, and I’m afraid nobody recorded her outbound, let alone inbound. She must have taken a back -road route to Corren. Every highway and minor road to Ephyra is at a standstill now.”

Anya was a sweet kid, all heart if you knew how to listen to her. “I wondered why you hadn’t rostered off for so long.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, sir.”

“You’ve done more than you’ll ever know, my dear.” It was far too familiar a way to address a junior officer, but he didn’t give a shit right then. Anya was being Anya, so he would just be Victor for a few moments. “Thank you for trying. I won’t forget it.”

And now he had to carry on. Fenix hadn’t moved.

Five minutes
.

We’re going to incinerate Sera, and all I can think about is one woman
.
Maybe that’s all any of us can manage tonight. To grieve on a manageable scale
.

“Victor?” Salaman gestured to him, beckoning almost casually, like he wanted him to join them for a drink, but his face was that awful pasty yellow again. “It’s time. Let’s do it.”

Hoffman had a terrible feeling of walking to his own execution, not crossing the room to be the executioner. Fenix caught his arm.

“If you prefer, Victor—give me the key. I’ll do it. Like you said, it’s my bomb.”

Fenix rarely called him anything but
Colonel
. The damnedest things happened at times like this; you could never really tell with people, not until they were pushed to the limit, and then they could shock you for good or ill.

“Thanks,” Hoffman said, and meant it. His lips were moving, and he could hear himself speaking, but somehow it wasn’t him. It was the Hoffman who had to front up and earn it, the one who had to be seen to be holding it together because so many depended on him doing just that. “I won’t be the only man widowed tonight. I shouldn’t dish it out if I can’t take it.”

Salaman and Prescott waited. Hoffman just got it over with. He placed his key in the slot first, followed by Salaman, then Prescott.

“Three … two
… turn,”
said Salaman.

The command keys had now started the arming process.

It’s as good as over. Where the hell are you, Margaret? Don’t be afraid. Please, don’t be afraid
. It was the duty tactical officer’s job to physically deploy the Hammer. But there were just two switches on the console to press, nothing requiring expertise because the computer system ironed out the timing, and Prescott had decided it was his responsibility alone.

The officer moved aside without being asked. Prescott held his finger above the illuminated plastic buttons, and took one last glance at his watch before looking up at Fenix. The professor nodded.

“Forgive us,” Prescott said, pressing one button, then the other.

Forgive me, Margaret
.

And Sera burned.

I refuse to tolerate no-go areas for COG citizens in COG sovereign territory. We are either Citizens or Stranded—there is no
middle ground. If we start over with a fragmented society, the divisions will only widen, and I will not allow Pelruan to become an
enclave. There will be one community and one law for all
.

(CHAIRMAN RICHARD PRESCOTT, RESPONDING TO THE DISCUSSION ON HOW TO DEAL WITH THE EXISTING POPULATION OF VECTES.)
SMALL VESSELS BASIN, VECTES NAVAL BASE, NINE WEEKS AFTER THE EVACUATION OF JACINTO, 14 A.E.

“Damn, that’s a pretty sunrise,” Cole said.

“Weather’s going to be shitty, then. Red sunsets are what you want.”

“Baird, freezin’ your ass off is shitty. A little bit of rain is good for the fields.”

Like every Gear, Cole could sleep anywhere, anytime. Or at least he thought he could. Now he was up at a damn ridiculous hour because he couldn’t, and word had gone around that the Pelruan trawlers were coming into Vectes today. Cole wanted to watch. It sounded interesting.

The naval base was now filling up with warships, fuel tankers, and just about anything that would float. Cole walked along the jetty, noting what had shown up since he last looked, and felt sure that some of these tubs hadn’t been at Merrenat dockyard. He started counting. It looked like Captain Michaelson had found a couple of extra amphib landing ships from somewhere. Some ships were turning right around and heading back to Port Farrall to pick up the last loads of equipment and personnel. It was getting to be a regular taxi service. Actually, it looked like a pretty damn impressive navy under the circumstances. The little boats hanging around made it look a bit colorful and unmilitary in places, but the big ships had some serious guns. The Ravens Nest carriers were lined up in the big deepwater berth, deck to deck, so that you could almost walk from ship to ship if you felt like it. They were an island in their own right.

Imagine when we had hundreds of them. And now we’re down to maybe a tenth of that
.

“They hid those things somewhere,” Baird said. “They were supposed to have turned in a shitload of hulls to the breakers to reclaim the steel. Crafty assholes.”

“Yeah, those crafty assholes sure came in useful, baby.”

Hell, it was only because crazy fish-heads like Michaelson and Fyne hid stuff from the reclaim system that the COG had any navy left at all. Cole wasn’t complaining. A man was entitled to tell a few lies in the paperwork if he knew he could save lives one day. The navy hadn’t had much attention for a long, long time. It obviously got up to all kinds of shit when Prescott’s back was turned.

Cole found himself laughing his head off at the thought.

“What’s so funny ?” Baird still seemed to have his eye on the submarine. He wandered across the caisson to admire it. “Share.”

“The navy’s just a bunch of pirates in uniforms. Gotta love that.”

“Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find all that pirate shit romantic. Stranded are bad enough on land. They’re not any prettier when they float.”

“Go on, make eyes at that sub. You know you want to.”

Anyone who said Baird wasn’t capable of loving much besides himself just hadn’t seen the way he looked at machines. A sailor was working on the sub’s casing, messing around with a hatch, and he looked up at the two of them like he found it funny to see Gears sightseeing at this time of the morning.

“Couldn’t you sleep?” he called to them. “Land crabs don’t usually get up before thirteen hundred, do they?”

Baird didn’t go for the bait. He must have
really
wanted to scramble over that sub. The name plate on the fin said CLEMENT. “Nice boat.”

“We
like
Gears smart enough to call her a
boat.”
The guy went on working. His sleeve badges said he was a petty officer of some sort, all anchors and chevrons. Cole needed to brush up on the navy’s fancy ranks. “In fact, we like you so much we won’t even try to sink you.”

“Never been in a submarine.”

“We can remedy that, for a price … You’re Corporal Baird, right? You repair things.”

“Yeah.” Baird looked on the happy side of smug. Word of his skills got around fast. “I do.”

“We’ve got a lot that needs repairing.”

“Don’t encourage him, baby,” Cole said. “He’ll never hand the keys back.”

“We’re heading out to search for a trawler as soon as I’m done here. Seeing as Gears got nothing to do now except overeat and chat up women, come along for the ride and make yourself useful.”

Sometimes Cole really
did
feel he didn’t have anything worth doing now. It wasn’t that he missed grubs; he just liked winning, and there wasn’t much he did lately that felt like hard work.

“What’s happened to the trawler?” he asked.

“The last radio message was weird. The skipper thought he was on a collision course with another boat, and the others lost contact after that.” The chief bolted down the small hatch. “They go around in flotillas for safety, apparently. No wreckage yet, so we offered to help. Might get a few choice fillets out of it…”

“Okay,” Baird said. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

Man, Baird was pleased with himself. Cole had to laugh about the barter system that seemed to be operating here. The navy did tricks for fish, like some goddamn seal. Still, it was decent of them. Families would be worrying themselves sick about the trawler crew.

“You’re just dyin’ to fire the torpedoes, ain’t you?” Cole said.

“If that trawler’s been hit by Stranded, you bet. They need to find out who’s in charge now.”

Baird squinted, staring out to sea at the inbound fishing boats, all bright colors like oversized bathtub toys. As they drew closer, Cole could see that one still had its catch strung up in nets on the deck. One by one the boats tied up alongside, and a crewman jumped onto the quay.

“Nothing so far,” he said, as if Cole and Baird knew what was going on, and headed for the submarine. Cole peered down from the quay as the rest of the crew started sorting their catch. They pulled a cable and the contents of the net spilled onto the deck, some of it still crawling and flapping. There was a regular party going on there.

Cole called down to the crew, just to be sociable. “Boat’s still missin’, then.”

“Yeah. We searched for a few hours. It’s pretty calm out there. So something’s wrong.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It’s damn Stranded. They want the boats, not the catch.”

“If it is, baby, they’re gonna regret it.”

Baird leaned over the rail and looked at the fish being sorted. “Shit, I don’t think even Bernie would eat
that.”

He tilted his head on one side to get a better look. “That one reminds me of an old girlfriend.”

“The one with the big mouth?”

“The one with the tentacles.”

“You thought the Locust queen was classy. You need help, baby.”

“She didn’t look like the other grubs, man.” Baird pressed his earpiece. “Control, you awake ? … Yeah, we want to go check out that missing trawler … It’s Stranded.”

Cole wasn’t really listening now. He was much more interested in whatever was going down on one of the boats. The fishermen had started to cluster around something
really
big and weird on top of a pile of other fish scattered on the deck. As far as Cole was concerned, most of the things down there looked weird anyway. He sure as hell hadn’t seen them on a plate in any restaurant he’d been in.