CHAPTER 4

Sam looked up at the heavily patched Gorasni patrol boat from the jetty. “You a good swimmer, Baird? ’Cos I’m not.”

“Hey, they’ve only lost one warship under completely inexplicable conditions,” Baird said. “It’s just a day trip. Enjoy the bracing air. Learn the strange ways of the sea from these colorful old salts.”

The old salts—a bunch of Gorasni seamen—were leaning on the ship’s gunwale, staring down, surly and silent. One of them was munching something with slow deliberation like a cow chewing the cud. He paused and spat over the side into the water.

Byrne strode up the brow. “What’s the Gorasni for up yours?”

“Just smile. These guys haven’t seen a woman in years. They’ll never know the difference.”

“I just want you to know that Bernie gave me orders to punch you out if you asked me to go find the golden rivet.”

Baird wondered if Sam just mouthed off out of embarrassment. It bothered him more than it should have, because sometimes he caught himself doing the same thing.

“Just maternal affection,” he said. “I’m the wayward, maladjusted son she always wanted to nag to death.”

Baird followed Sam up the brow. He had to admit the bike stunt was a pretty good move, and he didn’t blame her for using the first weapon that came to hand, even if it did have two wheels. But if he told her so, he’d never hear the end of it. And it sounded a bit too close to approving of female Gears. He kept his praise to himself.

Dom came up behind him. “Don’t start any fights you can’t finish,” he said. “Cole Train’s not here to rescue you.”

Baird did feel lost without Cole, and he didn’t need to admit it. But he felt more disoriented by being teamed with Dom. Things worked certain unspoken ways in four-man squads, and it was always Marcus and Dom, or Cole and Baird, or even Cole and Marcus, but rarely Baird and Dom. Baird couldn’t make small talk with Dom even before all the shit with his wife, so he had no idea how the hell he was going to manage now.

Dom wouldn’t expect him to, of course. Baird could retreat into the socially inept smart-ass role he’d built for himself. It solved a lot of problems.

“Dom, just tell me why we get all the job-shadow kids,” he said.

“Because we’re the number-one pirate-slaying team.” Dom was all weary patience. He seemed to have withered into middle age in a matter of months. Life had finally kicked all that perky optimism out of him. “Look, Sam’s been a Gear as long as you have. You went through all this crap with Bernie, too, and now you kiss her ass. Just grow out of it before Sam does some special Kashkuri needlework on you.”

“She’s not going to put any of her frigging tattoos on me.”

“Not talking about ink, Baird …”

“What?”

“Ask Hoffman. A chat we had once, about some of the things he saw in Kashkur during the war. Nasty.”

Baird was instantly consumed by morbid curiosity. “You’re just trying to freak me.”

Dom shrugged and said nothing. One of the Gorasni crewmen diverted the conversation by greeting them with an outstretched grimy hand. Baird hesitated before taking it, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Sam.

“And this is Private Byrne,” he said. “She’s here to cook and swab the decks.”

Sam clenched her jaw. It wasn’t for effect; it was too brief. Baird could see that she didn’t want him to know he could get to her, but it was too late for that. Now he knew the trigger. He’d use it when he had to.

It was just self-defense, nothing more. He wasn’t bullying her.

“Corporal Baird likes hospital food,” she said. The Gorasni looked her over and didn’t make it to eye level. “And you’ll learn to like it if you check me out one more time, Indie boy.”

The guy bowed with a flourish and indicated the foredeck. “Our humble ship is yours, duchashka. I shall keep my unworthy eyes to myself.”

Baird reminded himself to stop assuming the Indies didn’t understand what was being said to them just because they gabbled away in their own language most of the time. Despite himself, he almost liked their attitude. And the trawlers weren’t going to spend weeks away like factory ships. Baird decided it wouldn’t be so bad being stuck in this tub for a couple of days if the Gorasni provided some amusement. It was a run-down boat. There’d be plenty of interesting new Indie stuff to dismantle and fix, and he could lose himself in that for hours. CPO Muller was in charge. He’d let Baird nose around even if the Gorasni crewmen didn’t like it.

Yeah, a bit of diversion. But I’d rather be capping assholes back on the island.

The boat vibrated as it picked up speed and made its way out of the basin into open water. The sun was coming up, the overnight rain had stopped, and the thinning clouds showed all the makings of a nice day. In a couple of hours, they’d be on station in the fishing grounds to keep a watch on the small trawler fleet in case of another pirate attack. All in all, it was a routine day.

Baird leaned on the control panel in the wheelhouse and scanned the horizon through binoculars. The Gorasni helmsman just looked at him, nodded silently, and went back to staring dead ahead at the bow with one hand on the wheel. Sam had taken up position on the gun mounted on the foredeck without being asked. Dom wandered up to chat with her for a while and then came back inside to check the radar.

He leaned on the console next to Baird. “Don’t you think it’s kind of sick that we’re taking care of those Stranded guys until they’re fit enough for Trescu to beat the shit out of them? Because that’s what’s going to happen.”

Baird shrugged. “Yeah. Total waste of medical resources. And are those assholes in the same ward as our guys? Now that is sick.”

“I meant—ah, forget it.”

“What? What did I say?”

The Gorasni helmsman grunted. “Waste, all right. Better to ask them questions while they still hurt.”

If Dom wanted a discussion on rules of engagement, he’d picked the wrong time. “Okay, I’ll leave you and your new buddy to discuss morality,” he said. “I just think it’s wrong.”

“Don’t mind him,” Baird said to the helmsman. “He’s the nice guy. I’m the realist.”

Some things had been a lot easier when the grubs were around. Baird hadn’t had the time—or the option—to think about anything beyond making it through the day alive. He’d been scared shitless. Now he was finding he missed that clarity. What else did he expect? Fighting Locust had taken up nearly half his life. Things were still pretty rough even though the grubs were gone, but in a different, less urgent way.

All I wanted to do was engineering. Join the army or kiss your inheritance good-bye, Dad said. So I gave in. And what did I get? A shitload of grubs while the family fortune went up in smoke.

And now Baird had come full circle. He got what he’d wished for—everyone thought he was God’s gift to engineering. And what did he feel was missing? Pissing himself with fear. He didn’t want to go through all that again. He was just conscious of its absence in a way that made him feel restless. His father would have given him that I-told-you-so smile. His mother would have told him he was congenitally ungrateful.

So what the fuck do I want? And why?

Frank Muller came into the wheelhouse. “Oilfish,” he said flatly. “The trawlers have found shitloads of oilfish. All this fuss for a sandwich filling.” Muller’s buzz-cut hair revealed an old white scar running from his left ear to the crown of his head. “Come on, do the magic shit with the radar, will you? Every time we use the comms, it scrambles. Can’t isolate the fault.”

“Shielding, crappy wiring, corrosion.” This was simple stuff for Baird. He loved it when the dim kids watched him slack-jawed like he was performing a miracle. He took a screwdriver from his belt and began removing the inspection panel. “Okay, switch it off. Might need to cannibalize something else when we get back to replace bits, though.”

The helmsman squatted down to stare Baird in the eye. “Blondie,” he said. “They call you Blondie because you are blond, yes? Well, I am Yanik, Blondie, and they call me that because I will yanik your intestines if you mess with my ship.”

Baird thought an unblinking response would get on Yanik’s best side. “Thanks for the language lesson.” He carried on unscrewing the plate. “I’m improving this wreck. And only Mataki gets to call me Blondie.”

They really didn’t like anyone poking around in their stuff. Muller leaned over and pointed at Baird. “Give him a paper clip and a ball of string and he can turn this wreck into a fucking racing yacht. Let him do his stuff.”

Yeah. Right. That’s me. I can do anything.

Baird was satisfied by that. And it was always good to know who was smart enough to understand what he could do. He poked his way into the tangle of cables and began tracing the wiring harness, working out which cables he could swap over to test where the interference was happening. It wasn’t cutting-edge tech. The hardest part was getting into spaces and rummaging through tool lockers to find parts he could adapt to make new connections. He had to take off his upper body armor to squeeze into gaps, and he realized how naked that made him feel.

When he ran the diagnostics, the radar fired up exactly as he expected. He watched the display as Muller made a test transmission.

“Steady as a rock.” Yanik peered over his shoulder. “So, Blondie-Baird, we let you live. For now.” He winked conspiratorially. “Maybe we even let you mess with our ship again.”

Muller watched the screen for a few moments. “Keep an eye on this while I go below to see if the engineer’s strangled anyone yet. If you see anything that wasn’t there before—give me a shout.”

Muller didn’t give Baird any instructions. Even with the radar controls labeled in another language, Baird could work it out from basics. Any idiot could do that. He could see the five points of yellow light flaring and fading every time the radar swept around, showing returns from the trawlers. He could see the clutter generated by waves. A radar was a radar was a radar.

Dom wandered back in. “Glad we got one of our own Marlins stowed. I wouldn’t send Mataki’s dog out in one of their inflatables.”

“I would,” Baird said. The more he saw of Gorasnaya’s remaining fleet—a tanker, a submarine, six patrol boats—the more he realized that the snazzy submarine had been window dressing. All the Indie bastards really had to offer was that imulsion rig. Maybe the frigate had been the jewel of the fleet before the thing sank, but he doubted it. “That animal’s psychotic. They do say dogs take after their handlers.”

The put-down just slipped out, like it always did. It also reopened the topic of the captured Stranded bombers, and where nice civilized people drew the line in how roughly they treated assholes who deserved everything they got.

“I bet Marcus had something to say about it,” Baird said, not needing to specify what it was.

“You know Marcus.” Dom shut his eyes for a second as if he’d remembered something he should have done, frowning slightly. “He likes to do the right thing.”

Yanik the entrail-remover eased the wheel fifteen degrees to starboard. “This Marcus … enemies do not respect you for doing right. They think you a weak fool, and then they kill you.”

Yanik could certainly kill a conversation. It turned into a long morning. Sam stayed on the gun, leaning on it with one arm resting on the guard like she wouldn’t give it up to a mere man without a fight. Amirale Enka was now in the middle of the fishing grounds, and Baird could see a couple of the fifteen-meter trawlers even without binoculars—little toy-like white hulls with bright red and blue wheelhouses. They seemed to be on a winning streak, judging by the radio chatter with Muller.

One of the boats—Trilliant—radioed in. “Jackpot, Enka. We’ll be full to capacity in six hours.”

Muller picked up the mike. “Copy that, Trilliant. How much catch is that?”

“Close to a hundred tonnes.”

“Everyone better like oilfish, then.”

Baird checked through the binoculars. The nearest trawler was drawing her net, a huge writhing ball of silver. Both the radar and the lookout confirmed a complete absence of pirates. Baird wasn’t heartened by that. If it wasn’t about lack of fuel—and they never seemed to be short of it—then they were just biding their time and waiting for a better opportunity to attack.

“Sam’s going to be disappointed.” He put the binoculars down and checked the radar again. “We’ll have to find her some land-based scum to shoot up.”

Muller took the remains of a cigar from behind his ear and lit it. “See, girls fight dirty. My mother warned me.” The radio circuit buzzed with the voices of trawlermen sorting their catch for the freezer, discussing shale eels and commenting on some fish that had to be from the abyssal trench. “I can’t stand oilfish. Have they caught any lobsters?”

“Imagine having this conversation a year ago,” Dom said. “We’d have eaten the net and been grateful.”

“I still don’t get why they shot up Harvest. They need the hulls as much as we do.”

“Do we know how many of the locals have firearms? I know they don’t have—”

Dom was interrupted by a muffled boom like a distant roll of thunder. They all looked around at the same time to see a column of black smoke rising from the sea about five klicks away to the port side. Sam swung the gun around and lined up on it.

“That was more than just a fuel tank,” she yelled. “Trust me on that.”

Muller didn’t give a helm order, but Amirale Enka’s motors roared to life as the Gorasni guy simply pushed the throttle hard forward and aimed for the smoke. The collision alarm sounded. The radio net went crazy as the trawlers tried to raise one another. “It’s Levanto,” a voice kept saying. “Look, she’s gone, it’s Levanto, I saw her damn well go.”

“Shit,” Muller said. Crew appeared on the deck from nowhere. “What the fuck’s happening? Who’s out there?”

“Nothing on radar, nothing on sonar,” said the helmsman. “Nothing.”

“What if it’s bloody mines?” Baird said.

Muller must have thought of that even if the helmsman hadn’t. And here they were, making full speed into what might be a mined area.

“Enka to all trawlers, hold your positions,” he said. “Don’t move until we know what we’re dealing with. We’re on our way.” He turned to Baird and flicked the radio to receive-only. “It’s too deep for bottom mines, and I can’t see a bunch of pirates being able to lay tethered ones.”

“What if it’s a drift mine?” Baird asked. “Some shit left over from the Pendulum Wars? Contact mines. A plastic hull wouldn’t save you from that.”

Muller leaned out of the port-side door. “Hey, Lookout—keep an eye open for surface mines. Nothing on sonar, but that doesn’t mean shit in this tub.”

“So we’re heading into it at fifty knots,” Baird said. “Great.” But there wasn’t a lot of choice. He switched on his radio earpiece and went onto the deck.

Sam gestured imperiously at the wheelhouse. “Dom? Dom, take the gun. I want to go and see this.”

“Leave it to me,” Baird said.

“Hey, I’m the ordnance expert, genius. I’ve done mines. You just drive the rubber boat and leave the explosives stuff to me.”

“Y’know, I prefer Mataki. She eats cats and she’s still classier than you.”

“Tough shit. You got me.”

Dom came out on deck and took up the gun position. Amirale Enka was almost on top of the trawler fleet now. The boats had taken no notice of the order to stay put. One was chugging steadily toward Levanto’s last position, now marked only by smoke hanging in the air, but Baird could see nothing left to burn. There was something bobbing on the surface. It looked more like a fuel slick.

Muller’s voice came over his earpiece. “All stop … Okay, everything’s clear, Baird. No mines that we can detect—nothing. Not for thirty klicks. You can launch the Marlin now.”

Baird swung the inflatable into the water and held it on the line while Sam climbed in.

“Can’t be a sub, can it?” she said. “Wouldn’t be the first to pop up and surprise us.”

Baird was about to remind her that the sonar had drawn a blank, but seeing how the Indie submarine Zephyr had gone undetected until she was almost up the COG’s ass, he wasn’t so sure.

I’m shit-scared again. Got my wish. Great.

They moved into a thin mat of drifting debris made up of pieces so small that it was hard to identify them as a boat. Sam propped her Lancer on the gunwale one-handed to reach into the water. She scooped up some pieces in her palm and peered at them.

Baird was looking for bodies. He was also watching out for drifting mines, keeping one of the Marlin’s oars within easy reach.

“We should be seeing chunks,” Sam said. “Even if you swallow a grenade, you still get chunks. Not confetti.”

“Shit, maybe they hauled up a mine with the catch.”

“Well, you better tell ’em to ditch their catch and get the hell out,” Sam said. “But I still don’t think this is an old mine.”

Sam was still staring at the contents of her palm. Baird looked around to see Trilliant bearing down on the Marlin, close enough now for him to read the name on the bow.

Sam looked around at the surface of a vast ocean with no enemy in sight. Then she looked over the side, and Baird knew what she was thinking—that whatever lurked down there could be as deadly as grubs that erupted from solid ground.

“If this is the Stranded,” she said, “we’re in deep shit.”

Doctor Hayman shut the ward door behind her and stared into Hoffman’s face.

“Unless your Gorasni chum has a bunch of flowers and some grapes, I don’t want him in my hospital,” she said. “Those men are patients. Assholes or not.”

Hoffman factored Hayman-wrangling time into his day. The old girl knew her stuff, but she was hard work.

“Those men gave you a ward full of blast injuries,” he said. “I think that entitles us to ask a few questions.”

“If you expect me to put these men back together again when you’ve mangled them, then you’ll damn well abide by my medical decisions.”

“And the next time your emergency room fills up with my Gears, and they end up like Mathieson, you’ll be fine with that, will you?” It was a cheap shot. He knew how much amputations distressed her. He also knew it would work. “Let me do my job, and maybe you won’t have to do so much of yours.”

“You’re a bastard, Hoffman. You really are.”

Hayman was in her seventies, but age hadn’t mellowed her into a sweet old lady. Hoffman had to think hard to remember her first name; she was just Doc Hayman, and if he hadn’t seen her records, he would never have known she was called Isabel. She definitely didn’t look like an Isabel.

“And I’m a bastard who wants an end to this,” he said. “So are they well enough to talk to Trescu?”

“Depends how he’s going to question them.” Hayman fumbled in the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a half-smoked cheroot. “You’ve got any number of people capable of interrogating them. Why Trescu?”

“Prescott’s orders.”

“Hand-washing, more like. My job still has some ethical demands. I don’t patch people up for others to damage them all over again.”

“That’s all military medicine is, Doc.”

“You know damn well what I mean. I expect you to make sure these patients aren’t tortured. You’re not a brute, Hoffman, for all your bluster.”

Hoffman wasn’t sure if he was a brute or not. He’d done things he regretted, terrible things, some entirely of his own volition. If he made some principled stand and refused to be party to this session, then Trescu would do it anyway, with Prescott’s blessing.

I went through this over the Hammer of Dawn. Same argument. Same excuse. If I didn’t do it, someone else would. Better to be a man and front up.

So the two Stranded would get a good hiding. They’d probably get the same from any of Andresen’s buddies, too. If it meant he never lost another man like Andresen, Hoffman could live with it.

“Fine, wait until they recover,” he said. “You get a clear conscience. But they get the same end result. Except in the meantime, you might see more patients with their goddamn legs blown off or worse.”

Hayman stuck the cheroot in her mouth unlit. It didn’t go with the white coat. However bad things got, she always managed to keep that coat bleached to a pristine whiteness. It was shiny with wear in places, and frayed at the cuffs, but by God it was white, and Hoffman never knew if it was just an act of professional reassurance for the patient in a grubby, primitive world, or some kind of manifestation of her need to erase something. But he didn’t have time to analyze all that shit. He had enough invisible stains of his own to worry about.

“Okay, I’m as bad as Prescott. Salving my conscience. Self-delusion.” Hayman patted her pockets for a light and started walking down the corridor toward the exit. Then she turned. “Oh, and your lady friend—retire the poor bitch or give her a desk job before she gets herself killed. I know these South Islanders are tough native stock, but they die just like the rest of us.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it, Doc,” Hoffman muttered. “Say what you mean.”

Hoffman didn’t like the idea of Bernie risking her neck, but forcing her off the front line would break her heart. Worse, in fact; the idea terrified her, like it was the beginning of the end, and he knew it. He asked himself if he’d have retired a man of her age, or even a woman he wasn’t emotionally attached to, and the answer was—shit, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he couldn’t do it to Bernie and that she deserved better from him.

He waited outside the ward door, reading through the note that one of the medics had left for him. The Stranded bomb makers were Edwin Loris—the one Sam Byrne had given a fractured pelvis, two cracked ribs, and concussion—and Mikail Enador, who was doing pretty well for a man who’d been half-eaten by that rabid mutt. Enador’s son, Nial, was unhurt but terrified. All the medic had been able to get out of the three of them was their names. But Hoffman had already asked Dizzy Wallin to keep an eye on the Stranded community inside the wire to see who their friends or family members might be. It made sense to know who the grudge-bearers were.

I ought to leave you to clear up your own shit, Prescott.

But Hoffman didn’t. He couldn’t walk away from anything. Then his radio crackled in his ear. It was Anya.

“Sir, we’ve lost another fishing vessel. There’s been an explosion—all hands lost. Baird’s reporting no visible signs of attack, but he doesn’t think it’s a stray mine.”

“Does Pelruan know yet?” Hoffman asked. The civvies in the small town—the island’s only town—wouldn’t take the news well. It was the second trawler lost from a tiny fleet in a few months, more trouble brought to their door by the arrival of the COG. “I’m going to have some explaining to do to Lewis Gavriel.”

“Oh, they know,” Anya said. “The trawler fleet always stays in radio contact with Pelruan.”

Shit. “Get hold of Gavriel and tell him I’ll come and see him as soon as I’m done here. Have you told the Chairman?”

“You needed to know first, sir. I’ll get a briefing note together for you.”

What a loyal kid. “Thanks, Anya.”

How the hell are they doing this? What have they got that we don’t know about?

Hoffman’s first thought was another submarine. Nobody who’d been caught with their pants around their ankles when Trescu’s Zephyr popped up would ever rule that out. But boats like that took a lot of maintenance, and if the Stranded gangs could manage to run one, then they were a much bigger problem than he’d imagined.

He paced slowly down the echoing corridor and back again while waiting for Trescu to show, inhaling an institutional smell of carbolic soap, decay, and misery. He could shut out the smells. But the nagging voice getting louder in his head was a tougher irritant to ignore.

Trescu’s testing Prescott, and Prescott knows it. A pissant tribe just a fraction of the size of the COG. If Prescott wanted that imulsion, he could just take it.

But maybe the Chairman knew that nobody had the stomach for another war, however much peace still seemed like a strange and purposeless new country.

Boots suddenly echoed along the tiled corridor. Hoffman was surprised to see Trescu emerge around the corner on his own. He radiated the confidence of a man used to power, much more power than just control of a village-sized population.

A village with control of an imulsion rig. And we’re a town that’s got the Hammer of Dawn. Funny how the world scales down.

Trescu strolled up to Hoffman and nodded politely, then indicated the closed door with the slightest jerk of the head. “Our friends,” he said. “Are they well enough to receive visitors?”

Hoffman pressed the handle and swung the door open. “I’ll leave you to decide. Prescott’s orders—your show.”

“You have a problem with this? Then think of your dead sergeant and his comrades.” Trescu put one boot across the threshold and paused. “Because I shall certainly think of mine.”

Hoffman caught a first glimpse of Enador and Loris propped up in their beds, looking confused rather than defiant. Hoffman wondered how much painkiller the doctor had pumped into them. They watched him warily as he pulled up a rickety wooden chair and sat down in the corner, probably expecting him to be running the interrogation because he was wearing a colonel’s insignia.

“You don’t look like a medical man, and neither does your bagman,” Enador said, glancing at Trescu. No, he didn’t sound drugged at all. In fact, he seemed pretty chipper for a man whose head was swathed in field dressings. “Where’s my son?”

“Under guard.” Hoffman wasn’t sure what Trescu was going to do. Prescott seemed more keen to make sure the jumped-up little shit felt he’d won rather than get any useful intelligence. “He’s not been harmed.”

“No, you’re the good guys, aren’t you? You don’t beat up kids.” Enador indicated Loris with his thumb. “You’ve got rules about how you treat enemy wounded, right?”

Hoffman wanted to punch the crap out of him. “You’re a waste of medical supplies,” he said. “I’ll leave you to our guest.”

Loris turned his head with difficulty. It was hard to tell that he was in worse shape than his buddy. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on his face. “Ah, nice to see we’ve brought you two together at last.”

Trescu walked across the small room and lifted a tubular metal chair by its frame, then set it down by the side of Loris’s bed. If it hadn’t been for the faded black uniform, he might have passed for a concerned relative.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “I am Commander Miran Trescu. I am Gorasnayan, which should mean something to you. There are very few of us left, so every citizen I lose grieves me very deeply. I thought I would mention that so you understand why I must be insistent in asking you questions.”

Enador watched him with mild interest. “Yeah, we know what Gorasni are like.”

“Good.” Trescu folded his arms and leaned on the edge of the bed. “So this would be a sensible time to tell me where you get your arms and ordnance, and where your camps are.”

“I’ll bet,” Loris said. “Ram it up your ass, Commander.”

“And how are your friends sinking our ships?”

Enador paused for a beat, as if he really didn’t understand the question. “We haven’t touched a boat since the last imulsion shipment. We don’t sink them, Indie. We commandeer them.”

“Two trawlers and a frigate.”

“I told you—we’d keep them, not sink them.”

Trescu didn’t bat an eyelid. “I had hoped we could work together.”

“Now what? You going to beat the crap out of me? Break a few teeth?” Loris strained to look past Trescu at Hoffman. He probably hadn’t worked out who was in charge here. Maybe he thought they were pulling some nice-and-nasty double act. “Does he do your dirty work for you, Colonel? We thought you liked to do your own.”

The asshole couldn’t have known how near the mark that comment was.

“Very well.” Trescu glanced at his watch. “My father gave me this. It still keeps good time. Very fine workmanship. I shall count five minutes on it, by which time I would like an answer to my question.”

Hoffman wasn’t sure what effect this was having on the two Stranded, but it was certainly unsettling him. The longer Trescu sat there doing nothing, the less Hoffman knew what was coming next. And that was the idea, of course. Uncertainty—fear—softened up a prisoner more than actual pain. He got the feeling that Trescu would suddenly punch Loris in the guts to make the most of that shattered pelvis.

Is that what I’d do? Why did it even cross my mind?

The fact that he could even imagine it shamed him. He wanted to walk out and not have to watch this, but he stood there, complicit and conflicted. The worst thing was that he believed Enador about the ships. He really did. It wasn’t the gangs’ style not to brag about their kills.

Trescu’s fine gold watch ticked away audibly in the silence. He studied it, distracted, then ran his thumb across the glass as if to clean it.

“I am waiting,” he said.

Hoffman waited, too, expecting that blow to land at any moment. Eventually, Trescu sat back in the chair and sighed theatrically.

“Very well. You had your five minutes.” He took a radio earpiece much like the old COG issue from his breast pocket and pressed it into place. “Burkan? Please come to the isolation ward now.”

Hoffman hadn’t interrogated anyone for more than fifteen years. Nobody took grubs alive, so the COG had a serious case of skills-fade when it came to questioning prisoners. His stomach knotted as Trescu got up and walked over to the window to gaze out as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Loris and Enador had obviously braced themselves for the worst. Enador’s jaw was set in defiance, but one hand gripping the sheet betrayed his anxiety. Maybe Trescu had a point.

The door opened and a burly Gorasni sergeant walked in with Enador’s teenage son in a restraining arm-hold. The kid was red in the face. Enador looked him over.

“Son, what have they done to you?”

“Nothing, Dad.”

I get it, Hoffman thought. This isn’t going to be pretty. Kids could—and would—kill you just as easily as an adult. This one made bombs. Hoffman reminded himself that kids younger than Nial Enador were considered grown men in other cultures.

Burkan said nothing. Hoffman waited for him to start roughing up the boy. Trescu just looked at his watch.

“One last time,” he said. “And that is something I never usually concede. Mr. Loris, tell me where your camps and arms caches are.”

So … he was going to lean on Loris, and the suspense would rattle Enador, who would do anything rather than see his kid harmed, and …

“You’re finished, COG—and you, Indie.” Loris struggled for breath as he sat up a little more. Hoffman preferred enemies who earned his contempt, but these bastards were as tough and committed as any Gear. “Your world order’s gone up in smoke but you won’t accept it. Believe me—you’ll end up just like us Stranded, except we’ve had years of practice, and we’ve weeded out our weaklings. You’ll just fall apart. Natural selection. It’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

“So it is,” Trescu said.

Then he drew his sidearm and put it calmly to Loris’s head. There was no threat, no pistol-whipping, no yelling, none of the plain old-fashioned brutality Hoffman had expected. Trescu just pulled the trigger.

The loud crack filled the room. Blood sprayed the scrubbed wall behind the bed and the yellowing starched sheets.

It was over instantly.

Hoffman was aware of Nial gaping—he was a kid, just a kid—but the next second went on forever, a ringing silence that turned into one thudding beat of Hoffman’s heart.

The second of silence was many things; disbelief, shock, even that weird moment of horrified realization that a thing like that could never be undone, and how very short that terrible, irreversible moment was. Hoffman had seen many men die in far worse ways, men who were his friends, but he’d also pulled a trigger and felt less of a man for doing so. The past rushed after him and stood breathless at his side like someone he’d crossed the road to avoid. It would never leave him alone.

And then that second was gone. His heart hit that second beat, and another, and now it was hammering. Trescu took two unhurried steps to the other bed and put his pistol to Enador’s temple. Nial was screaming abuse and struggling in Burkan’s armlock.

“I will find it just as easy to kill your father.” Trescu reached out and grabbed the kid one-handed by his collar, hauling him up so that they were almost nose to nose. “You’ll come with me now, Nial, and we’ll talk sensibly, yes?”

“Don’t touch my dad!” The boy burst into tears. “Leave him alone! You lay a finger on him and I’ll fucking kill you!”

But he wasn’t going to kill anyone, and he wasn’t going to hold out for long now. Trescu looked like he knew it. It was a neat mind-fuck. Hoffman hadn’t seen it coming.

“Burkan, clear up this mess and see that Mr. Enador is comfortable,” Trescu said. “There’s no need for you to be present, Colonel.” He indicated his earpiece. “Everything Nial and I discuss can be monitored by your splendidly efficient Control personnel.”

Hoffman finally found his voice. But it didn’t sound like the man inside, the man who’d seen one death too many, and sometimes walked the knife-edge between never being able to pull a trigger again and never being able to stop. Trescu probably thought he’d lose his nerve and let the boy go.

“Just remember to record every detail,” Hoffman said. “And leave us to do the rest.”

He had to go. He adjusted his cap, feeling for the metal badge and lining it up with his nose, and grabbed the handle. The clatter of boots at a run outside grew suddenly louder and the door burst open and hit him. Hayman stood in the doorway, white-faced and furious. The old girl must have seen some bad shit in her time, but Hoffman had never seen utter shock on her face before. It took her a few seconds to take in the room and speak.

“Get the fuck out of my hospital, you animal,” she snarled. “And make sure you never end up in my ER. Because I’ll let you bleed out on the goddamn floor.”

She was talking to Trescu, but Hoffman had the feeling he was included. He didn’t need prompting to get out anyway. He paused to look into Hayman’s face just so she knew he didn’t buy all that territorial shit.

“Take it up with the Chairman,” he said. “I’m going to be too busy working out how they managed to blow up another trawler. All hands lost, in case you give a damn.”

Hoffman seized the moment of silence to stalk out to the parade ground. What next? The upside of a continual stream of trouble was that he never had time to dwell on anything, and nobody expected him to. He had the Pelruan locals to worry about. And Michaelson—what the hell was the navy playing at? Couldn’t they even manage to defend a few fishing vessels now?

I’m going to put my boot up your ass, Quentin. We have to do better than this.

Hoffman paused to call Anya on the radio. He could feel his hand shaking as he put it to his ear.

I hope that’s just old age.

“You okay, sir?” One of the Gears on base security duty, Jace Stratton, jogged up to him with his rifle ready. The shot must have been heard halfway across the base. “Negligent discharge?”

“No.” Hoffman needed to get a grip of himself before he walked into Ops. He’d take a few minutes in his quarters. “Just Indies showing us how to deal with prisoners. Stand down. Nothing we can do.”

Stratton glanced past Hoffman as if he thought trouble might be coming through that door at any time. He didn’t seem that much older than the kid who’d just seen his father’s buddy shot through the head. But he’d been through a war on the front line, and he’d watched his family killed. That put some years on a man.

“You just say the word, sir,” Stratton said. “They executing them now? Is that how it’s going to be?”

Trescu’s right, the asshole. Think about Andresen and the others.

“It’s academic.” Hoffman carried on walking. All the administrative offices—CIC, the infirmary, Prescott’s office, even some of the barracks buildings—overlooked that space, making it impossible to cross unobserved. “We’d have shot the bastard anyway.” He opened his radio link. “Anya? Tell Prescott that Trescu shot one of the prisoners. And get hold of Gavriel for me.”

“He’s called in, sir. He wants to come down and see you.”

“Send a ’Dill to collect him. I don’t want civvies splattered all over the road.”

“Will do, sir.”

Hoffman’s quarters were a couple of small attic rooms in the roof of the HQ building, nothing fancy. He took the fire escape to avoid conversations he didn’t want to have yet. As soon as he shut the door behind him, he ran cold water into the washbasin and rinsed his face. He wasn’t even sure why. It just made him feel calmer.

They killed our guys. I should have done it myself. Shit, what’s wrong with me?

Hoffman felt like a traitor to Andresen’s memory for wasting even a scrap of conscience on those bastards. The nagging voice started up in his head again, the one that reminded him that he’d once been judge and jury too, dispensing justice with a single round, because it had to be done to save lives.

Okay, yes, I get it. Self-loathing. Transfer. Hypocrisy. All that shit. Trescu and me, cut from the same cloth. But knowing that doesn’t stop it.

He ran his palms over his scalp and sat down on the edge of his bed to stare at the bare floorboards. For a moment, he could have been in his old quarters at Anvegad, right down to the small window with the endless view.

We do the same thing over every day until we die.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. It was probably just minutes. Then the stairs creaked, and he lifted his head just enough to see a pair of boots planted firmly in the doorway.

“Vic?”

Hoffman sat upright, hands on his knees. Bernie leaned against the door frame.

“I just needed to compose myself before I see our glorious leader,” he lied.

“Bullshit.”

“You’ve heard.”

“It’s hard to miss a gunshot in here. Or Hayman in full rant demanding to see Prescott. It’s all over the base now, Vic.”

“Saves me explaining, then.”

Bernie squatted on her heels to look into his face. Her bruises were already yellow and fading. “A few months ago you were ready to blow John Massy’s brains out for what he did to me, and not a second thought about it. Why is this different? Those tossers killed Andresen and crippled half a dozen more Gears. I’ll volunteer to slot the other two personally.”

There was no lying to Bernie. However many years they’d been apart, she still knew him better than anyone alive. And she knew the old Hoffman, the real one, the confident NCO before he became something he should never have been.

“I think it’s Anvil Gate,” he said. “The last few days—every damn thing seems to remind me of it.”

Maybe he’d done too good a job of not talking about the siege. Anyone old enough to remember it knew it had been desperate and didn’t fit the COG’s ideal of honorable combat. But they didn’t know all the details. The only ones who did were dead, except Hoffman himself.

“We make a habit of not telling each other things, don’t we, Vic?” Bernie said.

When Hoffman had told Bernie that they were the last two of their generation left of the 26th Royal Tyran Infantry, he hadn’t been sure how true that was. Since then he’d worked through the battalion list as it appeared on the day before he’d taken up his commission, the NCOs and enlisted men and women, and he realized it was completely accurate. They were the last survivors.

“Where were you thirty-two years ago?” Hoffman asked. “The summer of Anvil Gate? Shit, I can’t even work out the real year. The old calendar. Let’s stick with the new one.”

It was now recorded as 17 B.E., Before Emergence, seventeen years before the Locust erupted out of nowhere and brought mankind to the brink. Bernie shook her head.

“I was in Kashkur too,” she said. “But I was at Shavad. And I hadn’t seen you for some time.”

That was what felt so strange. There were huge gaps in time, years when he hadn’t even known where Bernie was or if she was even alive. Yet he’d first met her forty years ago, and it felt like continuous time, every void filled and closed in his mind.

“I better tell you, then,” Hoffman said. “But let’s clear up this pile of shit first.”

It was time he told her what the official record didn’t say about the siege of Anvil Gate. He was sick of secrets.

He vowed he was never going to keep one again.