CHAPTER 7

“I want this kept quiet,” Prescott said. “I want to know what we’re dealing with before we start panicking the civilian population.”

Hoffman pressed the mute button on the radio mike and was glad he was halfway to Pelruan, unable to grab the Chairman and shake the shit out of him. Where the hell did Prescott think he was? He couldn’t even keep the lid on everything back in Jacinto, where he had every line of communication buttoned down and every citizen wholly dependent on the COG for protection, food, and information. Vectes was a much looser, more free-range animal, impossible to rein in. The news was already out. Hoffman was on his way to Pelruan to do his hearts-and-minds act.

Anya’s knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel. “Count to ten, sir,” she whispered.

Ten. That was counting enough. Hoffman released the mute key.

“We know what we’re dealing with.” Hoffman shut his eyes. “Goddamn Lambent. And there’s no keeping that a secret. The fishermen know. They saw it frag their boat. They radio home. They talk. What the hell do you want me to do—shoot them all to shut them up?”

Prescott paused. Maybe he was considering the retort as a viable option. Hoffman wouldn’t have put it past him.

“I’m giving an order to restrict and jam all nonmilitary comms channels,” he said at last. “We don’t know who or what might be out there monitoring us now.”

“Chairman, the people here live in isolated communities. They need their radio net.”

“They can relocate to New Jacinto.”

Even loyal, tolerant Anya rolled her eyes at that. Hoffman decided to pick his battles, and this wasn’t one worth fighting—yet.

“And the farmers? You want to move them in, too?”

“Every farm and settlement has at least a squad of Gears billeted there. They can make supervised use of the secure military net.”

There were a dozen reasons why that was going to make matters worse. Hoffman saved them for later. He could waste time arguing with this asshole, or just get on with his job and beg forgiveness later.

“Very well, Chairman. Hoffman out.”

The Packhorse rattled north. Anya didn’t say anything for a while, but Hoffman could see she was fretting.

“Do you think he realizes how much we depend on locals calling in incidents when they’re out working?” she asked.

“No. Does he know how many radios we can support on the military net?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good. I get the feeling we’ll have a lot.” Hell, nobody in Pelruan would be communicating with Stranded. It was hard enough to get them to mix with the Jacinto population. He’d give them free access to the COG’s channels. “No point pissing off these people any more than we have to. If we stop them talking to each other, they’ll just take to the roads, or bypass us in ways we might not know about.”

Anya smiled. “Good thinking, sir.”

“I don’t disobey orders often.”

“Ah, you’re not disobeying now. I distinctly heard him say, ’supervised use of the secure military net.’ Control routes all, hears all. I think that qualifies as supervision.”

“What is it with you CIC kids? Mathieson’s turned into a politician, and now you.”

“I was thinking,” Anya said, “that I was a frontline Gear now.”

“So you are.”

“I’m fit enough to resume patrols, sir.”

“I need you on civilian liaison right now.”

“Don’t you think you should put Sergeant Mataki on that for a while? She understands rural people. They respect her.” Anya paused. “And she’s been blown up twice in one week. She’s not sixteen anymore.”

In all the years Hoffman had known Anya, she’d never said a word out of line or argued about anything. She never griped, sulked, or criticized. A quiet rebuke from her felt like a hard kick in the ass.

“I know,” he said at last. Pelruan was now visible in the distance, a neatly maintained little fishing town still living in an age the mainland had forgotten a whole war ago. “I know what I ought to do. And you know how she’ll react.”

“If it were me, sir, I’d stop her.”

Even in the privacy of this vehicle, she didn’t spell it out to him. But Hoffman could read a whole extra layer of meaning in there. Don’t let it happen again. Don’t let her end up like Margaret. If only he’d stopped his wife from storming off in the run-up to the Hammer strike, she’d have survived. He didn’t. Margaret was incinerated with all the other millions of unlucky bastards. Anya had spent the final hours before the launch calling around every vehicle checkpoint in Ephyra to try to find her.

Anya knew, and understood.

“Thanks, Anya,” he said. “Good advice.”

Lewis Gavriel was already waiting outside the town’s assembly building when Anya brought the Packhorse to a halt. He was with Will Berenz—his deputy—and a group of about fifty people. Drew Rossi, the sergeant responsible for the town’s Gears detachment, walked forward to intercept Hoffman as he got out of the vehicle.

“Sir, is it true?” he asked. “Is it Lambent?”

“Damn well is, Drew.”

“Shit.”

“How are they taking it?”

“You have to spend fifteen years with grubs for neighbors to grasp it. I don’t think they understand at all.”

“I’m not sure I do, either, Sergeant. Okay, let me talk to them.”

Hoffman was going to level with them whether Prescott liked it or not. There was no reason not to.

“Have you heard from your boats?” he asked, knowing they almost certainly had. “Everyone survived this time. But you can’t go out fishing now.”

Gavriel looked shell-shocked. They all did.

“Is it true?”

“What, that your trawlers were blown up by Lambent? Yes. It is.”

“They’re Locust, then. You know how to deal with them.”

“Lewis, I have no goddamn idea what they are, only what they do. Nobody knows the first thing about them. Except the grubs were at war with them underground, and we never knew until we sank Jacinto.”

It was a hell of a lot for anyone to take in, let alone people who’d been cut off from the rest of Sera since the Hammer strike. Hoffman could see the complete bewilderment on their faces. They couldn’t even manage to be angry. They looked like scared kids waiting for Dad to tell them he’d make everything okay again.

Berenz broke the stunned silence. “I never thought I’d say this, but I wish it had been the Stranded.”

“So do I,” Hoffman said. “Because they’re killable. Last Lambent we killed—well, we think it was Lambent—took a Hammer of Dawn laser to finish it. That’s what sank Jacinto.”

“Oh God …”

“No bullshit, people. Every time we see one, it’s a different shape or size. And don’t ask me why they detonate. I know as much as you do. If it wasn’t for some of the Gears running into them under Jacinto, we’d know even less.”

“Why have they come here?” Gavriel asked. “Or are they everywhere, and we just happened to be unlucky?”

“If I knew that,” Hoffman said, “I’d have a better plan, but I don’t. Not yet.” He looked into their eyes and suddenly felt like an utter bastard. This was an old COG outpost, and these folks had grown up thinking the COG was invincible. The last few months had proved to them what a delusion that was. “But the best I can do is this. Any of you want to take refuge in New Jacinto—I’ll make damn sure there’s room for you. If you want to stay here, I’ll ship in more Gears. And if you need me to do any damn thing at all, you call me direct. Got it? Lieutenant Stroud will make sure of it.”

Anya had her arms folded, feet apart. She didn’t stand like the old Anya now, no casual hand on hip. She stood like a Gear. Damn it, she stood like her mother.

“There’s nothing to suggest they’ll come in close to shore,” she said. “They’ve all been trawled up as far as we can tell. So as long as you don’t put to sea, you’ll be okay.”

“But fish is a big part of the food supply here,” said one of the women. “Our farms are keeping you fed down south. How are we going to make up the shortfall?”

It was just the start of a long chain of consequences that Hoffman could now see unfolding before his eyes. Food shortages. Hoarding. Us and them. He had to nip this in the bud.

“We’ve had a lot of practice at managing food supplies,” he said. Damn, these people needed an officer assigned to them permanently, not just to make things happen but to give them some confidence that they weren’t going to get screwed over any more than they had been already. He needed these people. He needed their cooperation even more than he needed the Gorasni fuel. They were the ones who knew how to live off this island. The Jacinto civilians were all city folk. “You’ll have a member of my staff assigned to you to make sure you get a fair deal.”

It was the kind of thing Anya could handle. Hoffman stopped short of dumping the job on her there and then, but his mind was already made up. This was made for her. She could play frontline Gear, too, but she’d also do what she did best—organize, deploy, and reassure.

“What about the curfew? And the radio blackout?” Gavriel asked. The crowd behind him was gradually growing as more people seemed to notice the COG command had come to town. “Is that because of the Lambent, or the Stranded? The no-go areas were bad enough.”

“I’ll talk to the Chairman,” Hoffman said. Why the hell am I doing this? Why aren’t I just relaying the orders? It went beyond his pragmatic need to keep this town sweet. He knew it. “Leave it with me. You’ll get your radio net.”

Anya gave him a wary look as they got back into the Packhorse. They were four or five klicks down the road before she said anything at all. Maybe she’d worked out that she’d be spending more time in Pelruan than at the naval base, and she’d see even less of Marcus Fenix.

“Are you okay, sir?” she asked.

“Why?”

“I didn’t realize you felt so responsible for Pelruan. You seemed quite agitated.”

So maybe it’s not about Marcus. And maybe I’m the one with the issues.

“We can’t leave this to politicians.” He realized that sounded like he was plotting a coup. “Anya, you’re the right person to take charge of the town. Will you do it?”

“I’ll do whatever you ask me to do, sir.”

“You can say no.”

She hesitated just that fraction of a second too long. “I’ll do it.”

“It’s not a soft girly option. You’ll have command of a couple of squads.”

Hoffman let that sink in. Anya just nodded.

Yes, he was worried about Pelruan. And the worry sprang not just from necessity, but from the last time he’d been responsible for the day-to-day survival of a city.

Not Jacinto. Whatever I felt, I was never alone in Jacinto. Anvegad—that was different. That was desperate. That was all down to me.

“Thank you, sir,” Anya said. “I won’t let you down.”

On the way back to base, they had to stop to let the route-proving vehicle pass them. One of the giant grindlift derricks had been fitted with a chain flail and drove the main roads twice a day to clear any explosives. Dizzy Wallin brought the juggernaut to a stop and stuck his head out of the cab.

“All safe behind, Colonel,” he called. “Trust ol’ Betty. She don’t miss a thing with her new grass skirt.”

“Thanks, Wallin.” The height of the cab gave the man a good view over the countryside. “Anything happening on the ground?”

“Just those Indies out lookin’ for the gang.”

Hoffman bristled. “What Indies?”

“Ol’ piss-and-importance Trescu and his heavies.” Dizzy sounded as if he thought everyone knew, but then his expression changed. “They’re out in the woods with that kid. Nial. He was leadin’ ’em somewhere.”

Trescu hadn’t said a damn word about it. The last thing Hoffman knew was that Trescu was still interrogating the teenager and had agreed to hand over whatever intel he got. The bastard had lied. Surprise. Hoffman wondered what had made the Gorasni extra negative about Stranded, because this went far beyond the COG’s dislike of them. After the sinking of the Trader, his was starting to look like a concerted purge.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Hoffman said. Dizzy saluted, forefinger to the battered rim of his nonregulation hat, and the derrick groaned on its way. “At least someone keeps me in the loop.”

“What are they going to do with that boy when they’re finished with him?” Anya asked.

“I don’t plan to leave that to Trescu,” Hoffman said. “Screw humoring him. He’s not a law unto himself, no matter how many damn imulsion rigs he’s got.”

This was how things went to rat shit; a blind eye turned here, a concession made there, and questions not asked. Human civilization was fragile enough as it was. Private armies like Trescu’s were the road to anarchy, and Hoffman had to assert his authority before things got out of control. Prescott had to be made to see that.

Hoffman was still fuming silently, watching the countryside passing by, when Anya started to brake.

“Someone up ahead, sir. Gorasni.”

The Gorasni had set up a roadblock. Hoffman could see it clearly, a token effort of branches and a few strands of razor wire across half the width of the paving. It wouldn’t stop a Packhorse. Who the hell did these needledicks think they were?

“Stop twenty meters back, Anya, just in case.” Hoffman felt for his sidearm. Common sense said he didn’t need it, but instinct said he did. “If they don’t pull that goddamn junk off the road before we get there, that is.”

As the Packhorse slowed, it was clear the three militiamen weren’t going anywhere. Anya brought the vehicle to a halt. Hoffman got out and strode up to the first Gorasni, a square-looking middle-aged man with sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve.

“Get this off the road.” He was so close he could smell the man’s breath—onions, tooth decay, and whatever the hell these people rolled for a smoke. “I’ll tell you where and when to place checkpoints.”

The sergeant didn’t blink. “Commander Trescu said we were to stop traffic entering this area for the next hour.”

“Commander Trescu can kiss my ass. This road remains open.” Hoffman never reminded anyone of his rank. It was the resort of an officer who couldn’t command. A man had to show his authority. “I’m getting back in that vehicle, and if you haven’t pulled that garbage off my goddamn road by the time I start the engine, I’ll be driving over you.”

Hoffman was pretty sure they understood Tyran well enough to get all the nuances. He marched up to the driver’s side and opened the door.

“Move over, Anya. And get ready to duck.”

From that moment on, he couldn’t back down. He started the engine, engaged the clutch, and moved off. The Indies just stood there. Hoffman accelerated.

If he hit them, it was too bad.

The roadblock loomed in the windshield. His instinct was to brake, but he just put his foot down. The last thing he saw seconds before the Packhorse thumped into the barrier and smashed it to one side was the Gorasni jumping to safety.

He almost expected shots from behind. He didn’t bother to look in the mirror.

“Assholes,” he said. “The next man who calls them Indies is on a charge. They’re not a separate state anymore.”

“Well done, sir.” Anya flicked the radio control and held the mike where he could grab it. That girl could read his mind. “You’ll be wanting this.”

Hoffman could hear sustained rifle fire in the distance. It didn’t sound like Lancers. He’d have known if there’d been a contact on that scale anyway, but nobody had given Trescu clearance to deploy men. This had to stop.

“Mathieson? Get Trescu on the radio for me.”

“Wait one.” The link went silent for a few moments. “Sorry, sir, he’s not using the kit we gave him. He’s on his own net. They’ve got a transmitter on board one of their ships.”

Hoffman almost spat. He wasn’t going to tolerate two armies here. If Trescu wanted to play soldiers, he could do it where Hoffman could hear it and see it. Gorasnaya was part of the COG now.

That was the deal.

“Jam it,” he said. “Shut that damn thing down.”

The mood on board Montagnon had shifted through shock, relief, and anger, and had now dried to a shade of shaky, hysterical humor.

Surviving close calls had that effect on everyone except Marcus, Baird noted. He just sat on the tool locker listening to the comms channel. If they ever built a statue of him, that was the way Baird was sure it should look; finger pressed to his earpiece, staring into mid-distance, and frowning. From time to time he made a noise in his throat like a disgruntled dog.

“Told you there was glowies down there, didn’t I?” Cole said to Gullie. They were all sitting on the deck while the crew sorted the catch very, very carefully. “And you laughed your ass off.”

Gullie clutched a mug of hot broth. “I’m sorry. We just never saw these things. How did you live with these monsters coming up under your streets for fifteen years?”

“That was grubs. They don’t explode much.”

Baird joined in. “Unless you make ’em. Then they blow up just great.”

He moved over to Bernie, trying not to look as if he was fussing over her. Without armor and the extra bulk of a rifle and webbing, she looked pathetically thin in her wet fatigues. She reminded him of a waterlogged bird huddled on a branch waiting for the rain to stop. She was just an old woman; he couldn’t believe she’d ever knocked him down with a single punch. Even her Islander coloring had drained out of her. Her skin looked more gray than brown.

“Hey, Granny, you’re not going to die on me, are you? Fishing you out of the water’s getting to be a habit.” He waited, but she didn’t bite back. “Who’s going to bitch at me when you’re gone?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “Hot shower and a night’s kip, and I’ll be fine.”

“I hope kip means sleep. Because you’re in no shape for anything more athletic.”

Cole sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. “Doc Hayman better check you out, Boomer Lady.”

“Look, I promise I’ll stay alive until we hold Andresen’s funeral,” she said. “Okay?”

That shut everyone up like a smack in the mouth. Marcus’s voice suddenly carried across the deck.

“Shit,” he said. “That’s all we need.”

“What?” Bernie asked.

“Some clusterfuck ashore.” Marcus stood up slowly. “A disagreement with our Gorasni citizens.”

“Riot?”

“Hoffman and Trescu. I can only hear one side of it. Michaelson’s blocked the entrance to the tanker berth with Falconer to stop their fuel freighter leaving for the rig.”

“Wow, war on the high seas,” Baird said. “Are they bored or something? Did they miss the message about seagoing Lambent? Maybe we better repeat it in capital letters.”

Marcus got back on the radio. “Let’s see if Hoffman wants us to do anything special.”

“In a trawler? Yeah, let’s bombard them with shrimp and force a surrender.”

Dom’s voice emerged from the wheelhouse radio. “This is M-Seventy. Anyone want to tell us what’s happening?”

Montagnon’s skipper, leaning against the open wheelhouse door, picked up the mike. He’d learned all the Gears’ technical terms. “Shit, as usual,” he sighed.

Baird grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked north from the bows. He could now pick out the carved frieze on the signal tower at the naval base, which meant they were less than thirty minutes out. Falconer, the NCOG’s fast patrol boat, was sitting in the entrance to the fueling berth.

“And we were all getting on so well,” Bernie said.

Cole stood up to look. “So do we raise the alert state from damp pants to urgent change of underwear?”

Marcus looked like he’d made contact with Hoffman. He said “Why?” a couple of times and then “Understood.” Everyone turned to see what he had to say next.

“It’s just a pissing contest,” he said, sounding almost disgusted. “Hoffman jammed the Gorasni transmitter to force them to use our net. Michaelson’s stopped their tanker leaving for the imulsion rig until they let us fit an NCOG transceiver in it. He’s citing safety issues.”

“Why’d Hoffman do that?” Cole asked.

“Because Trescu’s not been sharing intel. He went hunting for the bombers on his own.”

“Shit, we never used to be this sensitive,” Baird said. “How come we all got so petty so fast?”

Cole sat down next to Bernie again and nudged her. “Remind me who we’re supposed to be fightin’ today. I get confused.”

“Did he get them, though?” Bernie perked up a bit. “I can see the problem for Hoffman with Indies going off the grid, but did Trescu do us a favor and slot any?”

Marcus shrugged, silent.

“What about the kid?”

“Eight’s a kid,” Baird said. “Fifteen is adult.”

Gullie interrupted. “The Lambent,” he said. “Forget the Stranded. What about the Lambent? What are we going to do about the Lambent?”

Nobody answered for a while. Baird hated displays of ignorance, and thought the man deserved a rational response.

“Treat ’em like stray mines,” he said. “Fishing boats were always catching unexploded mines back on the Tyran coast. It’s a risk you have to set against all the times you don’t find one in your nets.”

That was sensible and honest. It didn’t answer any of the other questions milling around in Baird’s mind, but he’d take this apart and put it back together a piece at a time, like he did when he was a kid dismantling anything he could get his hands on. He’d work out what was going on.

There’s always a reason. There’s always a method. There’s always an explanation.

Montagnon and M70 chugged into the base. The surface of the water was iridescent with a thin layer of fuel, and it hadn’t been that way before the Gorasni imulsion tanker arrived. Filthy Indie slobs; they were flushing their tanks inshore. Chemical hazard regulations had gone down the lavatory a long time ago, but Baird thought the Indies would at least understand that this was a fishing community, and everyone had to eat whatever swam in that shit. Gullie looked over the side and shook his head.

“At least the Stranded didn’t do that,” he said sadly.

Marcus peered over the side and frowned. “I’ll have a word with them.”

Baird was expecting some sign of trouble on the quay, but it was all very quiet when they stepped ashore. Major Reid met them. That in itself said that the big boys were busy elsewhere.

Reid was an asshole. He had the kind of petulant face that Baird could have punched all day without getting bored. If Hoffman dropped dead, this was the guy who’d take command—or else it’d be Major McLintock, another rectum on legs. Baird would almost have taken a bullet for Hoffman to avoid both options.

“Fenix, Mataki—Hoffman wants you in his office for a debrief, seeing as you eyeballed the thing. He says get yourselves checked out by the medic first.” Reid looked them over critically. “Did you recover any parts of the creature?”

Marcus fixed Reid with the cold blue stare. “We were kind of busy not getting our guts scattered everywhere.”

“We don’t have the lab equipment to examine that shit anyway,” Baird said, and walked past Reid. “Did you want souvenirs? I’ll grab some next time.”

“Corporal, where do you think you’re going?”

Baird turned, still walking. “Until the next patrol? Got to be some ’Dill that needs servicing.”

“You, Santiago, Cole, and Byrne—civil order patrol.” Reid was the admin boss, good at organizing food supplies, which was probably why nobody had fragged him when Hoffman wasn’t looking. But he wasn’t the kind of guy you’d die in a ditch for. He never quite got the hang of inspirational orders. “We need boots on the ground at the north perimeter to reassure the civvies.”

Dom appeared as if the mention of his name had conjured him up. “More explosions while we were away?”

“No,” Reid said. “More hassle between the various contingents inside the wire. Keep a lid on it.”

As soon as the Jacinto population had landed, the race had been on to build new housing. People crammed into ships and barracks that were never designed to hold a city’s worth of people, and they had to be decanted fast before disease and overcrowding got the better of them. Baird thought of New Jacinto as an organized shantytown, a growing sea of basic wood-frame houses stretching out from the northern wall of the naval base and pushing the city limits further every week.

But however instant New Jacinto was, however much a fresh start—the first thing it acquired was neighborhoods. Baird found it funny that no amount of encouraging people to mix or taking trouble not to call the former Stranded “Stranded” changed one damn thing. The ghetto lines were drawn by the inhabitants.

The line he walked now was between the few hundred Stranded—ex-Stranded—and a mix of huts and emergency tents that housed Old Jacinto locals. The Gorasni refugees were located on the western edge of the shanty. The main road was a run of trackway laid by the combat engineers, an interesting mix of scavenged wood, metal, and plastic planking. Baird paused to admire the ingenuity.

That’s where I should be. In the Corps of Engineers. As long as I get some frontline action, too, of course. There’s only so many latrine blocks a guy can take.

“I think they’ve done a good job.” Sam took the other side of the trackway, turning to walk backward a few paces every ten meters or so. “I’ve lived in worse.”

Dom ambled ahead. Baird noticed that he didn’t stop to coo over kids now. He just turned away. “You know what would help? Putting more civvies on food production. Get them out digging and planting. Useful. And makes you feel good.”

“I’m still gonna take up fishin’,” Cole said. A Stranded woman was hanging out washing on a line strung between the huts. A snot-nosed toddler clinging to her legs stared suspiciously at the Gears. Cole waved. “All them streams we got here. Gotta be fishin’.”

“What’s in the center of the island?” Sam asked. “Looks interesting from a distance.”

“The dead volcano,” Baird said. “Forest. Caves. Probably full of undiscovered species that Mataki will shoot and eat before anyone knows they exist. She’s a one-woman extinction machine.”

The patrol was almost at the perimeter gate now and Baird was bored shitless already. It was like doing a square search without anything to look for. When they reached the fence, they’d turn ninety degrees and work back again. When he spotted an old man trying to start a portable generator, Baird leapt on the chance with relief. He didn’t even need to look. He could hear what was wrong with it.

“Hey, here’s how you do it,” he said, whipping a screwdriver out of his belt. He couldn’t bear to see people fumbling around with stuff they obviously didn’t understand. “Look. Take this plate off, and you’ve got this fuel injector. It’s just a car engine. Look.”

The guy was Stranded. Baird didn’t notice or care right then. He caught Dom giving him a you’re-okay-really look, and he squirmed. He wasn’t being noble. He just had to stop and fix shit in the same way that other people couldn’t walk by a crying child or a wounded animal.

Because I can do this. That’s all.

He started dismantling the generator. “This needs a workshop, Granddad,” he said. “See, this is what happens when you let these things idle too much. Cylinder pressure’s too low, the piston seals leak, and then—ah, forget it. Just remember that it leads to smoke and shitty starting.”

“Baird, nobody here’s got a clue what you’re talkin’ about,” Cole said. “But it sure sounds convincin’.” He watched Baird for a while and then jerked his head around to stare back up the trackway to the gates. “We got visitors.”

Baird stopped and looked. It was one of the Gorasni utility vehicles, a cross between a Packhorse and a flatbed truck. Baird could see a Gorasni militia guy in his faded black battledress standing in the back, holding on to the slatted sides of the vehicle as it rumbled slowly down the trackway toward the squad.

“Shit, what are they doing in here?” Dom whispered.

Sam slid her Lancer forward on its sling very slowly as if she was getting ready to aim. “If they start throwing candy to the crowd, I’ll know to lay off Dizzy’s brew.”

But it didn’t look like a goodwill operation. Baird watched the reactions of people who were behind the truck. As it passed, they took a step back as if they’d seen something they weren’t ready for. One or two shook their heads and went back into the tents.

It wasn’t until the truck reached the row of huts that marked the boundary of the Stranded zone that Baird realized why. He worked it out a few seconds after the Stranded women started yelling to one another and pouring out of their homes.

The militia guy on the flatbed unbolted the side slats and let the panel drop. It was Yanik. Baird hadn’t recognized him with his cap on. And he was standing in a pile of bodies. They were laid out neatly, stacked like logs, but there were eight or nine of them, and they weren’t taking a nap.

“Oh, fuck,” said Dom.

One of the Stranded women started screaming. Yanik—a nice guy, a funny guy—touched his cap to Baird.

“Never let it be said that we are savages,” he said, giving one of his buddies a hand up to the truck. “We let them bury their dead. Which is more than they ever did for us.”

Then the driver got out. The three Gorasni started tipping the bodies off the truck and dumping them—still neat and lined up—onto the grass border on the Stranded side of the trackway. Women were sobbing; the old man with the crapped-out generator stumbled across to the pile and sank to his knees next to one of the bodies. They were all youngish men, and when Baird made himself look, most of them had a single shot to the head.

“Should we be doin’ somethin’ about this?” Cole asked. “This ain’t right.”

Nobody knew what the rules were now. Prescott had let the Gorasni clean up the problem, and this was what it looked like up close; rebel Stranded, shot and shipped back to the camp where their families had taken amnesty.

But it was a war, whichever way Baird looked at it. The Stranded wanted to fight the COG. The Gorasni just didn’t fuck around with rules like the COG did.

The Stranded crowd was right on that edge between silent, shocked disbelief, and an eruption into grief and outrage. The old guy was slumped on all fours over the body, like a dog standing guard over its dead master. He looked as if he didn’t have the strength to stand up.

“This is my son,” he said. His voice shook. “This is my son.”

Baird was the corporal here. A riot was a couple of seconds away. All he could think of was to get the Gorasni out of the camp, to remove the focus for a flashpoint.

“Yanik, you better run, man,” Baird said. “Get out of here before this goes to total rat shit.”

Sam and Cole moved instantly to block the Gorasni from the Stranded. Dom went over to the growing crowd and started calming them down.

“Folks, let’s stay cool,” he kept saying. “Stay cool.”

Baird watched for a moment. What did you say to the families and friends of men who’d turned Andresen—and DeMars, and Lester—into frigging ground chuck? Did you say sorry?

No. You fucking didn’t. Because you weren’t.

Baird could hear a weird chorus of disjointed sobs and shouts that was starting to merge into one voice and getting louder, a curse and a scream and a threat at the same time. Yanik slammed the truck door behind his buddy and put one boot on the flatbed to jump on board.

“You look at me like I am a grub,” he said to Baird. “Like I kill for no reason. One day, Blondie-Baird, I will tell you what the garayaz did to us at Chalitz, and you will see things another way. We are the last Gorasni. The last.”

The truck revved up and shot off in reverse—very nearly in a dead-straight line—to swing around and head out through the gates again. Baird looked over his shoulder for the first time since the truck had stopped. That told him how much he trusted Jacinto folk not to mess with Gears. There was a crowd watching, all right, silent and apparently unshocked.

“We oughta at least help the ladies,” Cole said. “They didn’t blow anything up, did they? Shit, there’s kids lookin’ at all this. Let’s get some tarpaulin or somethin’.”

“Yeah, comforting the widows is really going to go down great with most of the people standing right behind us.”

But Baird went to do it anyway, because it upset Cole. He didn’t get far. A Stranded woman—thirty, maybe, all hate and tight lips—blocked his path.

“And you can fuck off, too,” she snapped. “We don’t want your help.”

Sam herded the Jacinto locals back from the trackway. “I think it’d be a good idea to go inside,” she said. “Help us out here. Move along.”

All Baird could do was call it in and wait with the squad to make sure nothing kicked off while the bodies were carried away. Where were they going to bury them? Maybe it was a cremation. He didn’t ask—he wasn’t designed for this kind of touchy-feely shit, and he knew it. Dom, Mr. Sensitive, didn’t seem to be handling it any better, though. He stepped back to stand with Baird.

“I never heard of Chalitz,” he said quietly. “Must have been bad.”

“Dead’s dead.” Baird put it out of his mind right away. He could do that a lot more easily now. “And we’re not. I’m going to do whatever it takes to stay that way.”

Bernie’s debrief hadn’t taken long. There wasn’t much she could tell Hoffman about the Lambent life-form, and she felt ashamed. She saw the enemy and she didn’t evaluate it. That was sloppy.

“Didn’t see much myself,” Marcus said, arms folded on the bar. “Don’t beat yourself up.”

Bernie couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a drink with Marcus. He wasn’t social. It was more of a brief, disjointed conversation that just happened to be in a place where alcohol was served.

“At least they’re getting smaller. Not Brumak-sized this time.” She checked her watch. There was condensation inside the glass after the morning’s dunking. “Maybe they’ll be a unifying influence and stop the Stranded cutting our throats.”

“Yeah, Trescu’s boys get to the point.”

“Prescott should have shipped the Stranded out right from the start.”

“But he didn’t. So we make it work.”

“You’re a kinder soul than me, Marcus.”

Marcus snorted. It was as near as he ever got to laughing. “I take people on an asshole-by-asshole basis.”

Bernie drained her glass. “Got to go.”

“You on watch?”

“Hoffman.”

“Ah,” Marcus said, not looking away from the Locust cleaver hanging on the wall behind the bar. Andresen had built this bar with Rossi. Baird had taken the cleaver from a grub the hard way, and given it to Bernie. Everything in this mess had cost blood. “Ah.”

“When you’re my age, waiting looks bloody stupid,” she said. “Grab some life, Marcus. You’ll never get those years back.”

He just grunted. He knew what—and who—she meant. “Uh-huh.”

Bernie wasn’t sure who she felt worse for, him or Anya. She headed over to the HQ building, wondering if things would have worked out differently if Helena Stroud or Adam Fenix had still been alive to nag their offspring into common sense. From outside the building, she counted the floors up and windows along, and saw that the light was still on in Hoffman’s office. She’d haul him out.

The back stairs creaked a lot, but it was still more discreet than going via the main staircase. She got to the landing and went to push the door open, but the raised voices stopped her in her tracks.

Shit. He’s got someone with him.

Bernie dithered, wondering whether to come back later. But she hung on. There was a row in progress. The longer she stood there, the less she felt she could leave. She waited, not even sure why, and stepped into one of the alcoves next to the door.

Prescott was in there, letting rip.

“What in the name of God were you thinking?” he snapped. “You can’t just shut down their comms system. You have no authority.”

“I have every damn authority.” Hoffman’s voice had sunk to that strangled growl that said he was close to losing it. “I’m the chief of staff. We have one army and one navy. We do not franchise the defense of this state to a bunch of animals settling their own private vendettas. I don’t care if they’ve got fuel rigs coming out their asses. Either I command all our assets, or I command none. Your call, Chairman.”

“Are you threatening to resign?”

“I can’t do this job if you keep cutting me out of the loop. Stick to policy and objectives. Leave the operational shit to me.”

There was a long silence, about five seconds. Bernie wondered if the next sound she was going to hear was the crunch of bone.

“I hate to be dissident, Chairman, but I’m with my red-faced colleague on this.” It was Michaelson’s voice. Bernie hadn’t even realized he was in there. “It’s simply unacceptable to allow the Gorasni to operate an army within an army. Or a navy, come to that. The deal was refuge in exchange for fuel, and our condition was that they join the COG. This isn’t even about their behavior with the Stranded.”

“They’ve destroyed three explosives caches and killed fifteen gang members in the last twenty-six hours,” Prescott said. “I don’t recall you making that much progress.”

“I don’t torture kids,” Hoffman snarled. “And I don’t dump bodies back on the widows. That slows things down a little, Chairman.”

Michaelson cut in. “We have to bring them into line. If we don’t do it now, it’ll just escalate. You’ll lose control.”

Bernie had to hand it to Michaelson. He knew how to grab Prescott’s attention. He was a much more political animal than Hoffman, more inclined to play that game and enjoy it. Hoffman just lost patience. He wanted to storm the beach and take it.

Too honest, Vic. Prescott’s going to chew you up and spit you out.

“Very well,” Prescott said at last. “And what if Trescu denies us fuel?”

Michaelson actually laughed. “Chairman, he has an isolated rig, no air assets, and the whole Gorasni population is living within our borders. Am I missing something?”

“Goddamn it, can’t we concentrate on the urgent issues?” Hoffman interrupted. “Lambent. We have Lambent in the middle of the ocean. Not back on the mainland, on our doorstep. I can put Stranded bombs on hold for a while, and even Trescu, but we have to pay attention to what we’ve found.”

“I’m more interested in what sank Trescu’s frigate,” Michaelson said. “Because exploding luminous eels don’t quite answer the question.”

“You get the intel,” said Prescott, “and come to me with a threat evaluation. By the way, I want a personal security detail—I need to be able to walk around New Jacinto without dodging stones from malcontents. I refuse to give in to hooliganism.”

The floorboards creaked as someone walked toward the door. Bernie pressed herself flat in the alcove and held her breath, feeling a complete fool and wishing she’d just knocked, embarrassed herself for two seconds, and walked away. But she hadn’t.

The door swung open and Prescott breezed past, heading for the stairs. He didn’t see her. Now she had to wait for Michaelson to leave, and he could stay chewing the fat with Hoffman for hours. The door was slightly ajar and the voices clearer.

“Asshole,” Hoffman muttered.

“Don’t worry, we’ll handle him. Give him his personal protection Gears and let him play statesman with Trescu. Keep him busy.”

“Why the hell isn’t he more focused on the Lambent?”

“Politicians. Short-term thinking and feuding tribes—that’s his stuff. Once he smells intrigue and horse-trading, he’s hard and blind. Can’t see anything else.”

“I’m going to waste a shitload of energy butting heads with him. I plan to do as I see fit until he shoots me.”

“Get some sleep.”

“Don’t tell me it’ll all look better in the morning.”

“In the morning,” Michaelson said, “I’ll get Garcia to take Clement out to mooch around. That’s what submarines are for.”

Bernie thought Michaelson would never go, but he swung the door open and trotted down the stairs, whistling. She gave it a few moments before knocking on the open door and walking in.

“Good timing,” Hoffman said. He locked his papers in the ancient safe set in the wall before switching off the desk lamp. Then he reached into the desk drawer and took out an unlabeled bottle of clear, straw-colored liquid. “Wallin’s special vintage. I don’t know who needs a drink more, you or me.”

“I was eavesdropping,” Bernie said. “I thought you ought to know.”

Hoffman steered her back toward the door. “That saves some time.”

“I saw the bloody thing, Vic. Remember the horror movie where the shape-shifting fungus took over Ephyra? Well, it was like that.”

“Think I’m overreacting?”

“No, you’re reacting like Marcus.”

“Being an uncommunicative asshole and neglecting my woman?”

“Very funny.” Now she knew Hoffman was shitting bricks. He never joked. “Look, I don’t know how many billion cubic meters of ocean there are out there, but it’s a lot, and the last place we saw Lambent was under Jacinto, so even I can do the sums. Either they’re on the move and they know where they’re going, or they’ve always been around here. Neither answer cheers me up much.”

“Me too,” he said. “That’s my conclusion. But what’s really keeping me awake is that frigate. And knowing Trescu is a secretive bastard with an agenda just makes me wonder what he’s not telling me.”

They climbed the brick steps to the sentry post on the top of the naval base walls, a sheltered spot built into the stone when the base was constructed centuries before, and settled down for a quiet drink. The post had a great panoramic view of the ocean. It was also impossible to walk past by accident.

Hoffman handed her the bottle for the first swig. “You’re confined to base, by the way. Sorry, Bernie.”

Her gut churned. She took a mouthful of the moonshine and gulped it down. It had a faint hint of aniseed. “How long?”

“Until Doc Hayman passes you combat fit.” He took the bottle back. “Two close calls in a week. They say it comes in threes.”

“Okay.”

“You’re taking it better than I expected.”

“I did a few years in support before they let me serve frontline. I didn’t enjoy it much.” She was on her second gulp of Dizzy’s moonshine now. No, she wasn’t taking it well. She just hadn’t started arguing yet. “I won’t enjoy this, either. But I can always go walkabout again if I get bored.”

“The hell you will.” Hoffman grabbed her arm a little too hard. That wasn’t like him. “You’ll stay put. Shit, woman, you know what happened with Margaret. I can’t go through that again. You’ll damn well stay where I can keep an eye on you.”

“You could have said something like that forty years ago.”

“Okay, I didn’t.” He lowered his head for a second, as if it hurt to be reminded that he’d run out on her. It was water so far under the bridge that she’d all but forgotten it herself. “But I’m saying it now.”

Bernie suddenly found it all very funny, and it wasn’t down to Dizzy’s moonshine. She went to wipe the neck of the bottle on her sleeve before taking her turn with it, and then decided no bacteria could survive that stuff. She’d probably caught every bug that Hoffman had by now.

She wiped the bottle anyway. “As Baird would say, this is so classy.”

“I misplaced the mess crystal.” Hoffman folded his arms and stared out to sea. Like Marcus, he had two accents—his natural one, and the one he’d learned in uniform. Marcus switched from posh kid to grunt. Hoffman went from NCO to officer. “You want to see the wine list?”

The bottle went back and forth a few times in silence. The night was pitch-black, so clear and moonless that Bernie could pick out the navigation lights of the radar picket ship about fifteen kilometers away.

So I’m grounded. But it’s because he cares. Can’t have it both ways. It’s not forever, is it?

Eventually the pinprick red and green lights in the distance swapped sides, and Bernie thought she could see the mast light. Whichever ship was out there had turned 180 degrees. Then her perspective shifted, and she realized she was looking at something else entirely; it was two ships a long way apart, but almost aligned. The mast light belonged to something else. She couldn’t tell if it was background or foreground.

“Vic, can you see that?”

He squinted. “Don’t worry. It’s a ship.”

“I know that. Don’t ours always run with nav lights?”

Hoffman grunted and fumbled in his pocket for his earpiece. “Control? Hoffman here. Who’s monitoring inshore traffic? I want to know what’s under way due south of the channel buoy.”

The pleasant haze from the moonshine evaporated from Bernie’s head as fast as it had settled. She snapped back to full alert and put in her earpiece.

“The radar picket’s diverted to intercept an unidentified craft, sir. Unarmed cabin cruiser, thirty meters, not responding to challenges. Do you want me to patch you through to the ship? It’s Scepter.”

“Yeah, and check that Captain Michaelson’s aware.” Hoffman grumbled under his breath. “We’re not exactly on a shipping lane here.”

“Refugees?” Bernie asked. She put the stopper back in the bottle. “People do pass by here from time to time even if they don’t land.”

“That’s another complication we don’t need.” Hoffman looked away for a moment. “Control? Thanks … put him through … Lieutenant, what’s that vessel doing?”

Bernie eavesdropped on the channel again. The voice sounded very young. “Sir, we’re coming alongside now. She appears to be drifting. I can hear her engines on idle, but there’s nobody on the bridge. Wait one while we get a searchlight on her.”

“You make damn sure she’s not booby-trapped with a few tonnes of explosive,” Hoffman said. “This isn’t a good week for maritime safety.” He turned to Bernie. “Don’t we ever learn anything about Stranded?”

The CO of Scepter came back on the radio. “Colonel, the vessel’s holed above the waterline—there’s a four-meter chunk out of her bow. The deck’s buckled, too. Can’t see much else until it gets light, but she’s taken a pounding. No visible charring or smoke damage yet.”

Bernie found herself going through a checklist of trouble. Pirate attack? No, they’d take the ship too, if only for scrap and cannibalization. Collision? It was a big, empty ocean, but then people did stupid things in ships. Maybe the screw had fished up another Lambent life-form and blown a hole in their cargo hold. They’d have abandoned ship in a hurry, just like she had. Nobody stopped to shut down the engines when they were trying to get away.

“I think it’s deserted, sir.”

The radio popped slightly as another call sign joined the net. “Michaelson here. We’re scrambling a couple of Ravens—don’t board until they’re on station. Like the Colonel says, it might be another Stranded surprise party.”

“I’m going to armor up,” Bernie said. She could hear the Ravens starting their engines. If there was going to be trouble, there was always the chance that there’d be coordinated attacks from the land side. “We’re never going to have that chat about Anvegad, are we?”

“Oh, we will.” Hoffman got to his feet and dusted down the seat of his pants. “Let’s get this squared away first. I’ll be in CIC.”

By the time Bernie had done the round-trip back to the sergeants’ quarters and put her armor on, more Gears and sailors had emerged from the messes to watch from the jetty, although what the hell they thought they could see in the middle of the night was anyone’s guess. One of the Gorasni men was talking to Baird as if they were old buddies. Bernie headed for the CIC building for no better reason than wanting to know what was going on, and found Hoffman talking via the loudspeaker to Michaelson in Sovereign. He had both hands flat on the chart table and he didn’t look up.

“Might have been caught by the current, of course,” Michaelson said. “It probably wasn’t heading this way.”

“Got light from the Raven, sir.” That was the CO of Scepter. “We’re boarding now.”

Scepter went quiet for a long time. All Bernie could hear was the occasional aside from Michaelson to one of his crew, and the intermittent chatter of helicopters as someone at the incident location switched a mike on and off. CIC was silent. The three junior officers on the night watch sat listening, and that ten minutes—Bernie checked the rusting metal face of the wall clock—felt like it dragged on for days.

When Scepter’s CO suddenly came back on the radio and broke the silence, everyone flinched.

“Sir, there’s nobody on board,” he said. “There’s stuff scattered everywhere, and what looks like blood on the bulkheads, but no bodies. No obvious signs of firearms being used, either. I’m not sure what to make of this, but—well, the rummage team says there’s a tree trunk rammed through one of the transverse bulkheads, at an angle from the main damage.”

“Say again?” Hoffman said.

“A tree.”

“Damn, we should have sent a bot to relay images. What do you mean, a tree?”

“I haven’t seen it, sir, but PO Hollaster says it’s like a gnarled trunk of a creeper, only much thicker, and it’s splintered at the bottom like it was torn off. No roots. And the hole in the bow is caved in, suggesting a shaft punched through it and up through the deck.”

Bernie could see that everyone else was just as bewildered as she was. She couldn’t even begin to imagine a logical explanation for that. She waited for one of the NCOG people to suggest something technical known only to seagoing types that would clear up the whole thing for the landlubbers, but they said nothing.

“Well, we’re rather short of wooden warships these days,” Michaelson said at last. “So there goes the only possible theory for a freak collision. I’m damned if I can explain this at the moment, gentlemen, so let’s get off that ship, tow her to the two-kilometer anchorage, and have another look when it’s light.”

Hoffman scratched his scalp with both hands.

“A goddamn tree?” he said again. “A wooden beam? A battering ram?”

“Am I the only one worrying about the blood and absence of bodies?” Bernie asked.

“A tree,” Scepter’s CO said. “Really. It’s some kind of weird tree.”