CHAPTER 6

Don’t keep things from me, Mr. Chairman. Not even opinions. I can’t do my job if you don’t level with me. There aren’t enough of us left to dick around with this need-to-know bullshit any longer.

(VICTOR HOFFMAN TO RICHARD PRESCOTT, DURING A FRANK DISCUSSION AT PORT FARRALL.) THE HOFFMANS’ APARTMENT, JACINTO, FOURTEEN YEARS AGO, APPROXIMATELY ONE WEEK TO HAMMER DEPLOYMENT.

“Are you awake, Victor?”

Sleep was getting hard to come by since Prescott had penciled in the end of the world. Hoffman knew that lying awake with his eyes open invited conversation, and discussing his troubles with his wife was the very last thing he could do now.

His head buzzed from lack of sleep and his mouth tasted of metal. “What time is it?”

“Five o’clock,” she said. “You told me to make sure you got up.”

“So I did. Thank you.”

Margaret was a meticulous woman, and he respected that. She was also a lawyer. Her capacity for spotting a man evading cross-examination was unrivaled.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” she asked.

Hoffman padded over to the shower, wondering how much longer there’d be running water in the city. “Well, there’s the war, it’s bad, and we’re running out of body bags. That’s about it, really.”

“Don’t patronize me. We’ve been married nearly twenty years, and it’s all been war except for six weeks. Something’s changed.”

Hoffman turned down the water temperature to cool. “We’re going under. But you know that.”

“You’re doing field showering again, Victor.”

“What?”

“You do this every time you’re about to go on frontline duty.”

Margaret knew him far too well. Hoffman cut short his showers and ran the water colder to prepare himself for the basic facilities he’d get in the field—and he’d been lucky to get a shower at all most of the time. But he hadn’t realized he was doing it again now. His subconscious had told him he was going to pick up a rifle and do the job for real again.

Shit.

He switched off the water and wiped the condensation off the shower screen to check the clock on the wall: three and a half minutes. And the fact that I can tell that means I checked the time before I went in. He was more strung out than he thought.

“It’s gone beyond bad, hasn’t it?” Margaret said.

At least he didn’t have to lie about that. Maybe it was time he started getting her used to what was going to happen, and why. “It’s as bad as it gets. They’re going to overrun us sooner or later.”

She stood there looking at him in her bathrobe, arms folded, head slightly on one side as if she was expecting him to break down and confess in front of a jury. How the hell did he tell her that most of Sera would be a smoking wasteland in a week or two? How did he not tell her?

She’d be safe in Jacinto. She’d be fine, so it was okay for him not to tell her. The law said he couldn’t, anyway. He carried the burden of being privy to state secrets.

“Damn,” she said quietly. “Is this a case of saving the proverbial last round for yourself?”

“With luck, it won’t come to that.” Luck, and Adam Fenix. “But they’re a loathsome enemy, and I would not care to be taken prisoner, honey.”

“They don’t take prisoners, you said.”

Hoffman ran the razor over his scalp. “That may be their only virtue.”

“How long?”

“What?”

“How long have we got, do you think?”

Hoffman knew to within a few days when most of urban Sera would probably cease to exist. Operational security was just an excuse for not telling her that he’d be responsible for it. She’d hate him for it.

It’s Prescott’s decision. Why am I assuming responsibility?

And if I wanted to stop the detonation … could I?

They’d do it with him or without him, command key or not. But it needed doing. He could see no other option. Maybe it didn’t matter who killed you in the end, just how quickly it was over.

“I’m thinking in terms of weeks,” he said.

Margaret didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Is there nothing we can use against them? Didn’t we have all those chemical stockpiles? The satellite lasers?”

She was a smart woman. She asked logical questions.

“They’re in our cities,” Hoffman said carefully. “It’s not like they’re behind their own borders.”

Hoffman wasn’t sure if he was hoping she would guess the truth to spare him the eventual revelation, if he was encouraging her to see that weapons of mass destruction and 90 percent casualties made sense, or if he was just lying by omission.

“I’m going to ask you something that might offend you,” she said.

Here we go. No, she couldn’t possibly guess the full plan. Not even Margaret’s razor mind could extrapolate like that. “Ask away.”

“If it comes to it… I wasn’t joking about the last round. If it happens that way, if everything goes to hell, will you do it for me? Shoot me? Because I saw that news report from Bonbourg, and … I refuse to let them do that to me.”

It was one thing knowing that war was brutal, and another actually seeing the detail of an enemy that didn’t seem to want anything else but to cause suffering.

“Good grief, woman, you mustn’t think that way.”

“Victor, I have to know.”

“Okay. Yes. I promise.” Would I? Would I know when the situation was that bad? Would I regret it later? “I wouldn’t let anything like that happen to you.”

She looked relieved. He’d underestimated how much the Locust advance scared her. He thought she was the last person on Sera who’d let herself be intimidated, and that she’d greet those grub bastards at the gates by slapping a subpoena on them. That was why he’d married her: she didn’t take shit from anyone.

“Thank you.” Damn, how many women were happier for knowing their old man could give them instant oblivion with one round ? It wasn’t the best of marriages, but he respected her. “You never pull your punches with me, Victor. That’s what first appealed, you know? No prevarication. No airs and graces. No lies.”

It stung, like ironic compliments always did. “As long as it wasn’t my flowing mane of hair.”

Hoffman chewed over the comment all the way to the House of Sovereigns. That had been his opening to tell her, to prove he was the plain-talking man she always thought he was, but he hadn’t. Everything from now on would compound the deceit. And despite a lifetime in the military, where the ability to keep your mouth shut was both demanded and necessary, this was the ultimate deception.

Margaret had family in Corren, in the far south of Tyrus. That was going to become an issue all too soon. Salaman was already in Prescott’s office when the secretary showed Hoffman in, and the number of empty coffee cups on the chart table said he’d been there for a few hours. Prescott was standing at his desk, one hand in his pocket, phone to his ear.

“Sorry, Professor … No, what other data do you need? … Well, that’s the update … No, I’m okay with that…

Yes, we’ll still be here.”

Prescott laid the phone slowly back on its cradle and wandered over to the chart table.

“Fenix is almost ready to go,” he said. “From tomorrow, he says. He’s made allowances for programming new targets on the fly if need be.”

“So when he gives the word, you’re making the announcement, sir.” Salaman looked as bad as Hoffman felt. His face was waxy, very pale, and he kept pressing his fist to his chest as if he had bad heartburn. Everyone’s digestion was suffering now. “Still three days?”

“Yes. The longer the delay, the higher the chance of the Locust working out what’s coming.”

Hoffman traced the main cross-border highways into Tyrus on the chart with his fingertip. There were no civilian flights now; it was too risky for airlines, and they were struggling to keep running anyway. That meant vehicles, trains, and pedestrian traffic only. Maybe some would come into Ephyra via the port of Jacinto. He found himself calculating how far anyone would get in three days.

If they can get a ride. If they can get a ticket. If they find a ship. Oh, shit…

“So when do we start pulling back units?” Hoffman asked. “We can’t expect them to make a run for it with the refugees.”

Salaman didn’t look up from the chart. “That’s going to need some careful handling. If we’re not giving civilians more than three days’ notice, to maintain some element of surprise, then sudden troop withdrawals are going to clue in the grubs even more effectively.”

A man never knew where he drew the line until it was tested. Hoffman discovered his.

“If you’re suggesting that we leave Gears stranded, General, then serious misgivings hardly begins to cover it.”

He wondered if he was looking for an excuse to get out of the general quandary. No, it pissed him off to his very core. “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve sacrificed units for intelligence purposes, but this is an army that’s given more than everything it has.” So Gears are more worthy than civilians? Wrong argument to sway this guy. “And what’s the point of decimating enemy numbers if we reduce our own at the same time? We’re already hopelessly outnumbered. Even if we burn every Seran city to the ground, we won’t kill all the grubs. We need an army to crush what’s left when the smoke clears.”

Prescott and Salaman might as well have been having a conversation that didn’t include Hoffman. He wondered why they’d included him in this tiny inner circle. He was Director of Special Forces, and that no longer had any meaning in a desperate war where mechanics and cooks had to fight in the frontline too.

“Nobody thought this was an easy decision,” Prescott said. “You understand that as well as any man in the COG. Anvil Gate might not have been on the same scale, but the dilemmas were the same, were they not?”

Ah, now I know. Hoffman, the man who’s willing to do the dirty work.

The siege of Anvil Gate had transformed his career, but he wasn’t sure if it was worth the nightmares and the nagging fear that one day he would fail and everyone would die because he couldn’t cut it. Salaman said nothing. Maybe it was his heartburn. He didn’t look too well.

“Chairman,” Hoffman said, “after you deploy the Hammer, you’ll need every Gear you have, and you’ll need them on your side. Think about how you’ll command even a Gear’s loyalty once they know you’ll waste them in their thousands like that.” Hoffman paused for a breath to let that sink in. “Giving your life in combat is one thing. But this is without precedent.”

See, Margaret, I can use fancy words and arguments. I don’t just tell them flat out that they’re assholes now. I’ve learned a lot from you.

Prescott didn’t even nod. He knew damn well what society would be like after the Hammer strike; it would need an army to make sure humans didn’t tear themselves apart. Ephyra would still have refugees pouring in from the rest of Tyrus, if nothing else, and a state that sacrificed its own civilians would have trouble for many years afterward—grubs or no grubs.

“What about the Gears from the rest of the COG states ?” Salaman said. “Not that we have any control over them.”

Hoffman hated himself now, so one more step into the abyss wasn’t going to damn him any worse. “I bet they’d be really happy to start new lives in the state that unilaterally fried their families and neighbors.”

“I may live to regret my double standards, Colonel, but I agree with you,” Prescott said at last. “We’d just be reducing numbers on both sides. Start pulling back all units south of Kinnerlake.”

“Navy too?” Hoffman asked.

“At least we don’t have many ships to assemble these days. Yes, bring them home.”

Salaman sat with his arms folded across his chest, staring at the chart, and shook his head slowly. “And that’ll leave the towns down there exposed to grub attack.”

“They’ll self-evacuate.” Prescott turned away and poured himself a coffee. “We’re moving Gears all the time, effectively spinning plates. People will just assume they’re plugging another hole that’s opened up.”

“Are we going to issue misinformation to that effect?” Salaman asked.

“No,” Prescott said. “Even a politician has limits.”

There weren’t any right answers in this war, or any other. There were only bad and worse.

“I’ll get things moving,” Hoffman said. At least Gears had transport and route priority. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”

It was a long walk to the ops room through a maze of splendid corridors lined with paintings of the Allfathers and heroic scenes from COG military history. That gave him time to get his head straight. He’d taken a stand—a quiet one, but a stand nonetheless—for his Gears, and somehow that seemed less selfish and partisan than special pleading for individual civilians.

But I’ll still have to lie to the men.

Hoffman walked past the rows of comms officers hunched over consoles in the semidarkened room, occasionally putting a firm hand on shoulders to stop people from sitting bolt upright when they realized the top brass was behind them.

“Get me the COs of all COG naval vessels, Four-Two Logistics, all units in Zone Three-Alpha,” he said. “And I mean all. Down to the last field canteen. Four-Two L first, then I’ll take the calls as they come in. They’re all recalled to base. I need to touch base with all commanders personally.”

One of the comms officers was Anya Stroud, Helena’s daughter, a good-looking girl just like her mother had been. Hoffman was glad she was safe here for the time being, because Helena deserved to live on somehow. Anya looked at him with the faintest of frowns.

Yeah, you’ve got your mom’s radar, haven’t you? You know something’s moving. She didn’t have to worry about her friends in 26 RTI, though. They’d be back in barracks by the time the south of the country was vaporized.

Hoffman struggled to think if there was anything at all that he could tell Margaret so that she wouldn’t think he was a coward and a liar, but there was nothing.

For most of Sera, it was approximately four days to the end of the world.

FIFTEEN KILOMETERS SOUTH OF KINNERLAKE, SOUTHERN TYRUS, SEVEN HOURS AFTER RECALL ORDERS.

“So the grubs have moved north.” Dom stood with his head out of the open hatch of the APC, elbows resting on the roof. The traffic—some military vehicles, some civilian—had ground to a halt just south of the town. “If we don’t get a move on, they’ll be in my backyard.”

“You don’t know that,” Marcus said. He had his eyes shut, Lancer across his lap, arms folded on top. “Get some sleep.”

“Why else would we be heading back to Ephyra at zero notice?”

“We’ll find out when we get back.”

Marcus must have been curious at the very least, but he always sounded as if everything was routine, all in a day’s work. Dom sometimes wondered how much he knew. It was still weird that he seemed as much in the dark about the war as anyone else, given who his father was.

But Adam Fenix didn’t tell his own son any more than he’d tell a stranger. Marcus said as much. That was right, Dom knew, but it sure as hell wasn’t normal.

“Dom,” said a voice from inside the ’Dill. It was the driver, Padrick Salton. “Just be glad we’re getting out, okay?”

Padrick had been a sniper in the last war, but like everyone else, he did whatever he had to do on the day now. In the seat next to him, Tai Kaliso was sound asleep, head resting against the bulkhead, snoring. Dom ducked down into the ’Dill’s cabin again.

“First chance we get,” Marcus said quietly, eyes still shut, “we’ll get a message through to her, okay?”

Yeah, Marcus was a mind reader sometimes. Maria needed the little scraps of hope; just knowing that Dom was heading back would make her feel better. She never wanted him to leave now. Since E-Day, he’d been back home on leave maybe six times, which sounded generous until he added up the actual time spent in his own home—and that was just days. No wonder she was going crazy. She was cooped up in that house on her own with just the empty bedrooms and the TV, which only made things worse. He knew she spent most of the day watching the news channels. If you spent your day digesting all that shit and misery, how could you ever come out of it normal? She expected every dead Gear to be him. And then there was the never-ending stream of dead civvies, dead kids, and she didn’t need reminding about all that.

Why doesn’t she just watch a movie? Well, at least she goes out for a walk every day. Dom had to find someone to keep her company while he was away. She didn’t want to mix with the other Gears’ wives. Most of them had kids. She’d always been one to keep herself to herself, but this wasn’t normal.

“What the hell’s holding us up now ?” Padrick muttered. He looked at his watch. “We could have walked it faster.”

He opened the hatch and got out to walk up the line of vehicles. Dom saw him stop, put his fists on his hips, and roll his head to relax his neck muscles. He came straight back and swung into the seat again.

“Diversion,” he said. “I can see it. Shit, we’re going to have to bypass this somehow.”

“What is it?” Marcus asked.

“Looks like a sewer collapsed. Frigging grubs again.” Padrick shut the hatch, revved the ’Dill, and backed up with a screech of tires, almost rolling over the delivery truck behind him in the line. He’d never been a sunny personality, but since his spotter had been killed, he’d been noticeably surlier. “Sod this, I’m going off-road.”

’Dills could tackle pretty well any terrain. Urban areas were no problem as long as the road was wide enough. With an impatient South Islander driving, though, a ’Dill became a law unto itself. Padrick hit the dash controls to release the bot from its housing on the back of the APC. “Off you go, Baz. Find me a route.”

Aww, shit. That was his spotter’s name. He reprogrammed the damn bot’s call sign. Poor bastard. There was a clunk and hiss from the back as Baz the bot eased out of its compartment and hovered away to look for a path out of the jam. The APC bounced off the highway and barreled along the grass verge, snapping branches off overhanging bushes and trees.

Dom opened one of the side hatches to peer out at traffic. It seemed to be mostly civilian cars and small trucks, all packed to bursting with people, suitcases, and plastic bags. As Padrick almost shaved the paint off a battered station wagon’s door, Dom saw kids’ faces pressed to the glass. They looked like they were in a trance, wideeyed and staring. The only thing that Dom could do right then was shut out everyone else’s troubles and concentrate on his own and those of the people he cared about most. There was too much misery in the world to worry about strangers.

“You thought of calling in?” Marcus said.

Padrick glanced at the rear view for a moment. “Yes, Sarge.” He pressed his comms switch. “Kinnerlake Sector Control, this is APC-Two-Eighty, please advise on the current RV point for A Company Two-Six RTI.”

The radio crackled. “Two-Eighty, what’s your position?”

“Approximately fifteen klicks south of the sector line, grid reference eight-three-five-five-one-zero.”

“Two-Eighty, all A Company units are heading north on Designated Route Theta in twenty minutes. You’re two hours adrift.”

“Roger that, control. We’re not going to make the window, then. We’ll make our own way back to base.”

“Watch your ass, Two-Eighty. Grub activity five klicks west of your position a few hours ago. Control out.”

Marcus didn’t comment. Padrick pushed the ’Dill on. Dom wondered if civilians resented Gears for being able to ignore traffic regulations, queues, and obstacles and just roll over everything in their path while everyone else had to wait. If they did, he rarely saw any sign of it. They knew that Gears were having an even worse time than they were.

The next lump the ’Dill bounced over was a burned-out, crushed car that had been pushed off the highway. All four wheels seemed to leave the ground—Dom’s gut felt it—and it smacked down again with enough force to wake Tai.

“We’ll reach our destined place in the world whether you race there or not, Padrick,” he said. Dom still wasn’t sure if Tai’s odd pronouncements were weird mysticism or sly humor. Padrick always reacted the same either way.

“Bugger destiny,” he said. “Believing in that makes you accept all kind of shit as inevitable.”

Tai and Padrick were both from the South Islands, but there the similarity ended. Pad—ginger-haired, freckled, typical of the northerners who’d once emigrated down there—had tribal face tattoos like Tai, but he definitely didn’t share his outlook on life.

Tai gave him a beaming smile and a little bow of the head. “Embrace what you can’t change.”

“What a load of utter toss.” Padrick thundered on, stopping to hit the horn when a truck tried to pull out into his private route home. “Baz, where are you?”

Dom thought it would have been nice if the ’Dills had been fitted with monitors so they could get an aerial bot’s view of the terrain just like Control did. Instead, Padrick had to wait for Baz to come back. The bot appeared as a speck in the sky ahead of them, resolving into a lumpy gray metal egg with extending arms as it got closer, then matched speed with the APC.

“Okay, Baz, lead us out,” Padrick said.

Baz veered left, taking the ’Dill across country into open fields. It couldn’t explain itself, of course, so nobody knew if this was just a shortcut or an indication that it had spotted some serious shit up ahead unless the visual data was relayed to Control and the message was bounced back.

“I’d like to know …” Padrick seemed to have had the same thought. A squad got that way. You lived in each other’s pockets twenty-six hours a day, and sooner or later you ended up feeling that you were transmitting brainwaves or something. “Control, Two-Eighty here. Our bot’s taking us the long route home. Assuming he’s not training to drive taxis, you seen anything in our area?”

Baz was now he, not it, as far as Padrick was concerned. Dom was busy noting all the ways that people coped with bereavement.

“Two-Eighty, there’s just been a grub emergence five klicks north of your previous route.” Control sounded harassed. There was a lot of noise in the background. “Your bot’s saved your asses.”

Marcus cut in. “We got a job to do, Control. Give us a position and we’ll engage.”

“Two-Eighty, is that Fenix?”

“Yeah,” Marcus said.

“Everyone’s got the same orders, Sergeant. Get back to Ephyra.”

Shit, whatever was about to go down in the capital had to be big. Dom was torn between gut-gripping worry about home turf and the urge to put down some more grubs. He thought of the civvies expecting military protection and not getting it. It didn’t help.

“Give us the location to avoid, then,” Padrick said.

It was hard to tell if Pad meant it or not. Control didn’t sound sure, either.

“Jannermont, ten klicks south east of Kinnerlake.”

“Who’s there now?” Marcus asked.

“No Gears units.”

“Roger that, Control.”

Marcus shut off the comms link. Padrick did one of his annoyed grunts.

“You know how I am about orders,” Marcus said.

“We should try,” Tai said.

There was no argument; Dom waited for Padrick to object—and he had every right to argue with a sergeant who was defying orders—but he just hit the console and veered right again. A kerchunk from the rear of the ’Dill told Dom that the bot housing had opened.

“In you get, Baz.” Padrick was heading back toward Jannermont. “I take it you’re voting with us, Dom.”

What the hell. “Yeah.”

The ’Dill had to slow to a crawl to cross the blocked highway. Padrick eventually nudged cars out of the way with the APC’s nose fender, scraping metal and getting a stream of abuse from the drivers. The APC bounced down the slope of the shoulder and headed on to Jannermont across an industrial area that looked completely abandoned.

But Padrick didn’t need Baz to navigate. Dom could see the rising column of smoke that marked the grubs’

visit to the town.

“Step on it, Pad.”

“Yeah, okay, Marcus. Tai, stick another belt in the gun. I’ll lay down covering fire from the turret. Hey, you might not even need to dismount.”

Fat chance; as the ’Dill screeched around a corner into the main street, Pad opened the hatch and Dom saw the carnage. There was a general store dead ahead, flames leaping from its roof, the front glass all blown out. Dom could see the grubs ripping through the store. Shoppers ran between the aisles in panic. Grubs never seemed to want supplies—what did those bastards eat, anyway?—but they knew that humans would be there, waiting in line to buy what they could. It was all that people ventured out for in most cities. The grubs were like predators staking out water holes, waiting for prey that had to drink sooner or later. They enjoy this. They could fry that store in a few minutes. But they love hunting us. Look. If Pad thought he was going to hose them with the ’Dill’s machine gun, then he had a problem. There were too many civvies in the way.

“Sod it,” he said. He brought the ’Dill to a shuddering halt twenty meters from the doors, close enough to avoid being caught in the open for too long. Marcus jumped out after Tai and used the APC for cover; Dom made for the front of the store, stood off to one side, and aimed at any grub he could get a clear shot at to draw their attention.

“Get down! On the floor!” Marcus gestured frantically to the people near the shattered windows. “Just get down!”

Some shoppers threw themselves flat; most that Dom could see just crouched with their arms shielding their heads. They weren’t used to dropping prone to the ground. Marcus sprinted into the store and disappeared into the aisles, Tai behind him.

Dom and Padrick followed up, jumping over cowering civilians and kicking up dust that Dom realized was flour scattered from burst bags. There was no food in most of the aisles, just long stretches of mostly empty metal shelves and a few displays of dusty hardware—power tools, paintbrushes, bolts, and nails. Now Dom was between most of the shoppers—the live ones, anyway—and the grubs. Automatic fire rattled into the refrigerated cabinets lining the walls.

“Pad, get ’em out.” He gestured to Padrick, indicating the store front. The fewer civvies around the place, the easier it would be to just let loose with everything he had. “Herd ’em out. Go on.”

Dom dodged from one aisle end to the next, not knowing what was at the next intersection. It was like the worst kind of urban warfare. This was like a city on a small -scale grid, with all the risks at every street corner when he broke cover, hearing fire at very close quarters but not seeing where it was coming from. As he darted past the next break in the aisles, something zipped past at the far end, and he’d already aimed before he identified it as Tai and held fire. The next aisle, though—

He turned, and found himself face-to-face with a grub.

Dom was so close that when he raised his Lancer, the muzzle smacked into the thing’s chest. It was too close even to level its own rifle. His reflex burst of fire knocked it backward, spraying blood on the shelves and tiles. He ran past, surprised at the amount of blood and bone debris underfoot, and skidded in a pool of what he thought was blood. It wasn’t. He could smell it now—some kind of sauce, rich and savory, with fragments of shattered glass studded through it, hard as bone under his boots. When he scrambled to his feet, the staccato bursts of fire stopped. He took a guess at where the grubs were from the sounds.

“Marcus!” That was Tai. “Down there!”

The sound of running made him swing around. With the lights shattered, the far end of the store was in semidarkness. Okay, Tai’s to my left now. Dom started to form a mental map of positions, listening carefully to the thud of boots. Grubs didn’t run like Gears—he was sure he could tell the difference—and he heard another set of boots moving very slowly to his right. Marcus was stalking something.

How many grubs left?

Where the hell are they?

Dom had almost forgotten about the civilians. Padrick should have moved them out by now. When he looked back down the riverbed of debris between the shelves, he caught a glimpse of Pad silhouetted against the light, hauling a woman along the floor by her coat.

Hammering Lancer fire started up again, then stopped abruptly. “Stoppage!” Marcus yelled. “Shit—”

Dom rounded the corner of the aisle to see Marcus standing his ground with a dead Lancer as a grub cannoned into him. All Marcus had now was his bayonet. He stabbed two, three, four times; Dom thought he’d managed to get the blade through the thing’s hide, but on the next thrust the bayonet snapped and the metal tip went flying. The grub grabbed Marcus one-handed by the collar, too close for Dom or Tai to open fire, and for a second Dom saw Marcus’s eyes fixed wide as he went for his knife, as if he knew this was it, the moment he’d finally run out of luck. Dom moved in to take a crack at the grub with his knife. Maybe he could get an eye, an ear, something vulnerable to distract it and move in for a clear shot, and then—

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The instant whine of a power-saw almost deafened him. Tai appeared behind the grub and there was a terrible smell, a scream, and a spatter of wet mist that Dom felt on his face like a sudden squall. It wasn’t until the grub arched its back like a bow and fell to its knees in a spreading pool of blood that he saw Tai with a vibrating saw in his hands and a beatific smile on his face.

He’d carved a slice out of the Locust from ass to waist. Only Tai could smile and do that.

“Shit,” Marcus said, staring. “Nice work.”

“We must improvise.” Tai brandished his saw. “The world is full of weapons waiting to be used.”

Marcus aimed the Lancer at the far wall as if nothing had happened, and waited for a few moments before recocking it manually and firing a test shot.

“Some shit I need to ream out.” He wiped the bayonet clean on the nearest grub, pretty relaxed considering that his weapon had flaked out on him and its bayonet had let him down too. “These blades are fucking useless. We need something that actually cuts these assholes, not just pisses them off. When I see Dad, I’m going to ask him to come up with something that works.”

Dom started checking down each aisle. “Yeah, everyone tells Procurement the bayonets are crap. They keep promising something better.”

“Well, we can’t wait for them to pull their fingers out.” Padrick must have kicked something, because there was a dull, wet thud. It was probably a grub. “Maybe we can bolt Tai’s home improvement kit onto a Lancer. Worked bloody well, I reckon. Anyway, all clear down here. Anything your end?”

The supermarket was now quiet except for the sound of a man crying for help in the empty vegetable section. Dom and Tai carried him out. At the front of the store, there were seven injured civvies lying on the paving.

“Where’s the others?”

“They ran for it. Walking wounded. Not much I could do.”

“Okay, we get these folks some medical assistance.” One of the men looked like he wouldn’t be needing any if they hung around much longer. “How many still alive?”

Marcus studied his Lancer as if working something out. “Seven.”

“Okay, there’s got to be a hospital or something. Let’s move it. Pad, call in our position, will you?”

The time it took them to load the injured into the ’Dill and search the city for a first-aid station meant they’d definitely missed the convoy window by hours. The place was wrecked, burning buildings and bodies everywhere. Dom watched the procession of terrified people heading east out of town with suitcases and couldn’t manage to feel sorry for himself. Where were they going? Did they think it’d be any safer than here? The grubs had ripped through Jannermont and gone. They might never come back.

Nobody knew where to run. Nowhere was safe, except the cities built on granite, and even then the grubs might attack via the surface instead of tunneling their way in.

“Okay, Baz, find us a clear route to Ephyra.” Padrick steered the ’Dill over a carpet of rubble and back onto the highway north, which was now pretty quiet. Everyone was heading south and east again. “Lead on.”

Dom cradled his Lancer more tightly as the dusk fell. They bounced across rutted fields in the darkness, back onto paved roads, and through woods. Tai dozed in the seat behind, and Marcus took top cover, head out of the hatch. It was usually a sign that he was chewing something over and didn’t want to be interrupted.

“We’ve got to start looking after these crates better.” Padrick distracted Dom for a moment, tapping the readouts on the dash. “Can’t keep thrashing them like this and trusting longer maintenance intervals. Look.”

The engine temperature was climbing; Dom noted the red line edging closer to the STOP mark. Everyone drove

’Dills to the limit, and Pad would know when to pull over and let it cool down for a while. That was something you didn’t do if you didn’t absolutely have to. He kept looking at his watch.

“APC Two -Eighty to Control.” The ’Dill was back on the highway now. In some ways that was safer—you could be located easily—but it was also exposed. “Note our location, please. Minor mechanical trouble brewing.”

“Control to Two-Eighty, roger that.”

Marcus dropped down into the cabin again and shut the hatch.

“Can’t think of anything,” he said.

“What?” Dom was used to having to fill in the gaps with him. Carlos always claimed that it was what Marcus didn’t say that usually mattered most.

At least you didn’t live to see all this shit, Carlos. End of the damn world. There were a lot of agonies that Carlos had been spared by dying in the last war. He’d been a devoted uncle. But it would have been nice if he’d known Sylvia, however briefly.

“Can’t think of a reason to recall us to base now,” Marcus said, frowning. “That’s all.”

The ’Dill lasted another thirty minutes before it started making unhealthy noises and Pad had to pull over before something seized. They waited in the dark, suddenly aware of how few lights they could see in the distance, let alone any on the road, and noted every rustle and click they couldn’t identify. Charging a line of grubs was one thing, but sitting helpless in the dark was another.

“Okay,” Padrick said. “Let’s try again.”

He started the engine, but it died on him. After a few more attempts, he opened the engine compartment, but four diagnoses and a lot of tinkering didn’t solve anything. Padrick admitted defeat and called in.

“Two-Eighty to Control, our ’Dill’s fucked.”

“Okay, Two-Eighty, we’re out of engineer units at the moment. Could be ten hours. Are you okay to hold your position?”

Padrick looked at Marcus.

“Start walking,” Marcus said. “Any convoys within ten klicks?”

“Stick on the main highway,” Control said. “We’ll get someone to you as soon as we can.”

Dom checked his compass and did a few calculations. “If they don’t, we’ll be walking for the best part of twenty hours.”

It was going to be a heavy slog home, with everything they could strip out of the ’Dill and carry. The Locust took every scrap of COG technology they could find. They reused it and even incorporated it into their own equipment. They got more savvy every day.

“They can keep the engine,” Tai said. “It will teach them the value of strength from adversity.”

“You’re fucking nuts,” Pad muttered.

Dom estimated the pack he was now tottering under weighed more than fifty-five kilos. The four of them set off up the side of the highway, moving in the relative cover of hedges, while Baz the bot skimmed in front of them at head height. Its blue power indicators gave Dom some reassurance.

Baz, at least, knew where it was going, and wasn’t afraid of the real monsters that lurked in the dark. CABINET MEETING ROOM, HOUSE OF THE SOVEREIGNS, JACINTO, 2300 HOURS.

“Jillian, you don’t have to wait. Why don’t you go home?”

“It’s all right, sir.” She smiled at Prescott, radiating belief and loyalty. “My sister’s moved in, and I could do with the peace and quiet, to be honest.”

“Ah, the one from Tollen.” Prescott felt a single grain of burden lift from his conscience. “I know it’s tough having family around, but it’s for the best. She’s far safer here.”

And when she finds out why … at least one person won’t loathe me.

He stood in front of the full-length mirror, debating whether to wear a business jacket or the full military tunic. Did it matter? He didn’t have to carry any argument, create the right impression, or win minds in this meeting. He had absolute power over the Hammer of Dawn.

And absolute responsibility, whatever Salaman and Hoffman think. They do so want to shoulder the burden too. The tunic, definitely. Civilian rule and democracy has to be seen to be suspended. We can’t start arguing the toss about this. We don’t have the luxury of time.

“Very well, Jillian,” he said. “Show them in. And I’d like you to sit in on the meeting. It’ll be brief.”

Prescott wondered if he should have left his ministers to find out about the Hammer at the same time as the rest of the world. But how much harm could it do the night before? They didn’t want an unmanaged panic any more than he did. And they wouldn’t want to compromise Ephyra. Their own lives depended on it, if nothing else.

“And Professor Fenix, sir?”

“Yes.”

It was a small cabinet now, just five members: Justice and Security, Health and Welfare, Infrastructure, Industry, and Resources. Elections had been suspended shortly after E-Day. Prescott was fascinated by how few people seemed to crave power since the Locust attacked, but this wasn’t the Pendulum Wars. There was no subconscious belief that life would eventually get back to normal and advantages accrued in the war years could be enjoyed.

“Ladies, gentlemen, thank you for attending such a late meeting,” he said, gesturing to the chairs around the marquetry table. Whatever happened, he needed some cooperation from them in the days to come, and it was easier to impose some degree of collusion on them now than find new ministers afterward. “You’ll realize that this relates to the gravest emergency, and as such, everything that’s said in this room is strictly classified.”

Yes, they’d worked that out. Their faces said so. Fenix sat down next to the Justice Secretary, Janeen Mauris, looking … ashamed.

But you’ll probably save humankind, Adam. You were a soldier. How did you ever cope?

“No General Salaman?” asked Mauris.

“As Chief of Staff, I’ll speak on defense matters.”

Prescott sat down and caught Jillian’s eye. She sat with her notebook open, waiting; poor woman, she thought she was taking notes. He simply wanted her to hear it firsthand, because—

He wasn’t sure, but he knew that he’d need to keep a reliable secretary more than ever now, and taking her into his highest degree of confidence would ensure that.

Damn, he was sure this would have made his throat tighten, his stomach churn, something. But he seemed to have rehearsed all his anxiety into submission.

No going back now.

Prescott took a slow, discreet breath.

“This isn’t a discussion or a vote,” he said. “It’s going to be very brief, but you should hear it now rather than at ten hundred hours tomorrow, which is when I’ll announce it worldwide. Sera has two months at most before the Locust destroy us completely. I’ve sought more coordinated efforts from other COG states, but I’ve failed, and they appear to have given up hope. So I’ve taken a unilateral decision, which is within my powers, to reinstate the Fortification Act and ask all citizens to relocate to Ephyra within three days. This is the only place on Sera that we can defend and have any hope of preserving human life, so the Hammer of Dawn will be deployed

—to destroy everything where there is Locust infestation, to deny assets to the enemy.”

The silence was what he expected; he didn’t know how long it was going to last. But it went on longer than he anticipated, and he started counting. The maroon lacquered doors behind Fenix’s head suddenly seemed much more vivid for concentrating on them.

“Jerome?” he said.

“We can’t accommodate the entire Seran population in Ephyra,” the Infrastructure Minister said at last. “And there’s no way that they could reach us in three days anyway, with the current state of transport.”

Prescott nodded. Thank you, Jerome. Let’s lance the boil. “But if we had room, then we’d still have no time.”

Nobody seemed troubled by the Fortification Act—not immediately, anyway. It was academic in a war like this.

“To say I don’t take this decision lightly is an understatement. And I’ve taken it alone, because it has to be done, and I don’t think it’s … right to ask you to vote on it. If I’m called to account later, then it will be my decision to justify, not yours.”

Good grief. I actually meant that.

And then the arguments started, all at once, a hubbub of voices, shaking, angry, disbelieving —terrified.

“Three days isn’t enough to prepare for any refugee influx on that scale—”

“I won’t be complicit in the—”

“What if it doesn’t work, Richard? What if it doesn’t work?”

“Now we know why you recalled the army.”

“We’re not just killing other COG citizens, we’ll almost certainly be killing our own countrymen, too.”

Prescott let them argue. He was in no hurry now, and it made no difference to the outcome; he was fairly sure that even after a war that had lasted generations, nobody in this room had any way of grasping what was at stake in this one. It was only when Adam Fenix spoke that they seemed to settle, and grasp the full and necessary horror.

“This is our last resort,” he said. “The absolute last hope we have.”

“It’s easy for you.” Mauris looked close to tears. “I have family in Ostri.”

“My only son’s a Gear,” Fenix said. “And he should have been back at base by now. He isn’t. I know what’s easy and what isn’t, Minister.”

There was nothing more to be said, but the cabinet went on saying it, a wall of repetitive noise that ceased to have meaning. Prescott got up and leaned over Jillian. Nobody else took any notice. Shock among politicians was an odd thing to watch.

“You can go now if you like, Jillian,” he whispered.

Her face was absolutely ashen. “You … warned me, sir.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

He knew that would be one of the very few thanks he’d get in the next few days. Now he wondered how long it would be before one of the people in this room called friends and family—or the media—and the whole thing spilled over into recrimination and panic.

Civil security is standing by.

We have the bulk of the armed forces back in Ephyra, or within three days of it. I can handle this. We have to make this work.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I’m happy to leave you here to come to terms with my decision, but it’s made, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you now.”

“You can’t just walk out,” Mauris snapped. “We’re going to condemn millions to death on the off chance that it might stop the Locust.”

“That’s it,” Prescott said. “Please, do be responsible about this information in the next few hours. It is, as I said, classified. Goodnight.”

He walked out, went to his private office, and closed the doors behind him.

Ten minutes later, Adam Fenix opened them.

“I suppose you can spare a few minutes for me,” he said sourly.

“Well, that went as well as could be expected. Did they give you a hard time? Call you a monster?”

Fenix ignored the question. “There was another way,” he said. “But I thought it was better not to start them off.”

“Oh, now’s not the time to get cold feet.”

“I said was. It’s a much longer shot.”

Prescott surprised himself by how quickly he grasped at Fenix’s straw of hope. “What was it?”

“That we could try to flood the Locust underground, where they live, using Hammer strikes.”

Prescott thought of the scale of the infestation. It seemed odd to use insect words like that when the Locust were so large and so powerful. “But there must be millions of them, and to flood tunnels or whatever they have down there … we would need to breach sea defenses and divert rivers. We would still lose entire cities. And it would take time we don’t have.”

“Yes. Yes, the loss of life would still be huge.” Fenix sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. “And we ran out of time in the end.”

“Besides, how would we know where to flood ? We still know next to nothing about these creatures, nothing about their weaknesses.”

Fenix stood in front of the desk and just looked at him. Prescott wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling the man was holding back.

“If you want to call off the Hammer strike, Professor, I’m going to want better reasons than a long shot that might simply kill half the population of Sera rather than ninety percent and still not finish the Locust.”

Fenix shook his head. “It was always a long shot. The Hammer … we know the Hammer will work. It’s too extreme not to. It can’t penetrate beneath the surface, but there’s nothing else we have that could possibly guarantee complete destruction anyway.”

“So we’re back where we started this evening.”

“Yes.”

“Is this about your son? This hesitation, I mean. I can see it, Professor.”

“I’m worried sick about him. He’s all I’ve got. I need to know he’s safe.”

Of course you do. It’s a very small price for me to pay to keep you on-side. Prescott leaned forward, intimate and conspiratorial. “We’ll get him back here in time, I promise. It’s Marcus, isn’t it? Awarded the Embry Star. An exemplary Gear.”

“Yes. Sergeant Fenix, Twenty-Sixth Royal Tyran Infantry.”

“Leave it to me. We’ll locate him and fly him back if need be.”

“Please—don’t tell him I indulged in any special pleading for him. He’s … he rejects privilege. Prefers to be an enlisted man. Very independent, very proud.”

“I’ll be diplomatic,” Prescott said. “And we’ll need Gears like him more than ever in the days to come.”

Adam Fenix studied his hands, apparently embarrassed, and then straightened up like the Gear officer he’d once been. “Thank you, Chairman.”

Prescott sat alone for a couple of hours after Fenix had left, gazing out the window at the Jacinto night skyline. The lights that made this district of Ephyra visible for miles out to sea were still mostly burning, and reminded him what he had to do. Whatever mistakes had been made in the past, whatever sins he had committed, whatever the Locust were or wanted, the choice was stark now: save Ephyra at a terrible price, or lose the whole world. It was actually a very easy decision in the end.

I think I’ll sleep tonight, at least.

He picked up the phone and dialed the extension for CIC. Someone had to find Marcus Fenix and get him back home for his father’s sake, if nothing else.

Prescott wondered what an independent and principled war hero like Sergeant Fenix would have to say to his father when he heard the announcement in the morning.