Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant (50 page)

“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 mainland 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?”

The submarine commander came back on the comms net, and Anya started to understand why the submarine was so unnerving, whatever its limitations. She had no idea where it was at any given moment. It was like having grubs tunneling beneath her. It was another monster lurking under the bed.

“Clement
to
Falconer—we
just pinged something, and we thought it was a cetacean, but the acoustics weren’t right.” Garcia paused. “Is Sergeant Fenix there? Ask him about the Locust leviathans.”

Marcus cut in. “No idea what they sound like underwater, Commander.”

Anya took another look at the vessels through her binoculars. The machine guns on the main boat were still secured. “If they’re planning to open fire, they’re going to have to step outside to do that.”

Michaelson nodded. “And we didn’t intend to board, so we’ve lost the advantage of stealth. Massy’s our insurance—if they want him alive, that is.”

“You think they don’t?”

“Perhaps he’s expendable and they’ve got other plans,” he said. “They wouldn’t abandon vessels like these for no good reason. Too valuable. And we need to know what that reason is, for our own security if nothing else.”

Anya kept an eye on the largest boat’s wheelhouse. As the distance between the vessels gradually closed, the lookout’s voice came over the radio again.

“Small arms damage to the main boat, sir—inboard. Just above the wheelhouse door.”

Michaelson raised his binoculars to check. “Might not be recent, but given the debris, let’s assume it is.”

Anya tried to focus on the damage, but something else caught her eye as she adjusted her binoculars. There was suddenly movement on the lead boat. She saw a man come to the wheel, waving slowly and deliberately.

“I see him,” Michaelson said. “Stand by, all guns.”

The radio crackled again.
“Falconer
, nice of you to join us. You’ve got something we’ve been looking for.”

“This is Captain Michaelson. Am I speaking to Cormick Allam?”

“No … Mr. Allam can’t come to the bridge. This is Darrel Jacques, and let’s just say we’ve carried out a company takeover. We’d really like to have Massy, please.”

Anya interpreted that as a mutiny. Michaelson gestured to Muller, then picked up his radio mike again.

“Baird, see if the name Darrel Jacques rings a bell with Massy, will you?”

Anya watched Baird dip his head slightly as he spoke to Massy, and suddenly it was clear that Massy knew the name, and not in a good way. Baird still had hold of his arm, but Massy pulled back as if to make a run for it—