CHAPTER 7

To think we got this far—survived the Locust, survived sinking Jacinto—and now we’re in danger of falling apart because civilians think they’ll be better off with the Stranded. Why the hell did we bother evacuating them?

(COG NAVAL OFFICER—ANONYMOUS.)

PORT FARRALL, PRESENT DAY: SIX WEEKS AFTER THE EVACUATION OF JACINTO, 14 A.E.

“What did we used to do with dead civvies?” Cole asked, looking back at the city skyline.

“Same thing,” Baird said. “Only we didn’t have to do it.”

“Do we have to do it like this?”

“Disease, man. We’re living in a shantytown. Can’t risk it.”

The engineers had been the funeral detail in Jacinto, but now they were too busy keeping the living alive. Cole watched Baird run the line out from the fuel bowser to the edge of the shallow pit. At least they hadn’t had to drop the bodies in it, which was a blessing. Shit, even using the grindlift rig, that ground was so damn frozen now that it was like excavating solid rock. One of the navy guys said it was the coldest winter for a century.

“Grubs ain’t been around for days, so we got to make ourselves useful somehow.”

“Hey, don’t get me wrong, Cole. Just saying.”

Baird seemed pretty pleased with himself. He had a new spray system for spreading accelerant, he said, and that would get the whole business over with faster and more efficiently. Cole took that as the man’s best shot at a little reverence for the departed. He watched Baird trot back from the pit like he’d laid explosive charges and was putting a safe distance between himself and the moment of reckoning.

“Shit, am I supposed to say something meaningful?” Baird held a remote detonation key in his hand. He stood there for a second, sort of defocused, like he was trying to remember something. “No, that’s all been done. Contact.”

There was a loud whoof like a distant, muffled explosion as flames leaped into the air. Cole thought it was a real shame that folks had survived all that shit back in Jacinto only to die when they were safe—or as safe as life could be now.

I like an enemy I can shoot. Disease, cold, no damn food—how the hell can a man put a round through that?

Baird watched the flames for a while, then looked at his watch. “We’ll come back later. Check that there’s been complete combustion.”

“Still don’t feel right. It ain’t a proper cremation.” Cole didn’t like the idea of cremation, period, but Jacinto ran out of space for burials, and nobody wanted to end up underground now anyway. “Kinda undignified.”

Baird jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the flaming pit. “Hey, that’s civilized. We could stack them somewhere in the open, because they’ll be fine until the thaw. But that’ll upset the relatives. Especially if the local wildlife starts gnawing on them.”

“Damon, baby, you’re all sentiment.”

Baird jumped back into the ’Dill. “We got to think of this shit, man. Or else we’ll end up like the Stranded. A bunch of frigging animals.”

The dead were mainly old folks and small kids, which was really hard for Cole to take. Then there were some Gears and civvies who’d died of injuries after the hospital was cleared. No wonder Doc Hayman was such a badtempered old lady. Shit, it must have ground her down patching up folks year after year, and then seeing them die anyway. Some people got softer with pain, and some got harder. Hayman was about as hard as they came. When the ’Dill got back onto the road into town, Cole saw a small truck coming toward them, loaded with people and baggage. It looked like a whole family. Baird made his ffff noise, sounding seriously unimpressed, and pulled over to let it pass. Cole had other ideas. Maybe these people didn’t understand the risk they were taking, leaving COG protection. Panic did weird things to common sense.

Cole jogged Baird’s elbow. “Hey, c’mon, flag ’em down.”

“Why? Apart from the fact that we should commandeer their goddamn truck. We need vehicles, man.”

“Let me talk to them.”

Baird ffffed again. “Sure. Charm offensive. ‘Hey, ungrateful assholes, we love you really. Was it something we said? Don’t go.’”

“They’re just scared.”

“They weren’t scared enough to run in Jacinto.” Baird’s mouth was set on automatic fire as usual, bitching and cussing, but he slowed down and steered to the center of the road. The oncoming truck slowed as well. “This is natural selection in action. The ones without the balls to stay aren’t the citizens we want anyway.”

“What happened to all the Stranded on the Jacinto perimeter? They must have been flooded, too.”

“Not my problem,” Baird said. “Look, you be nice to them for a few seconds, feel all warm about it, and then we can RTB. Okay?”

“Damon, don’t you ever have no warm feelings?”

“Only when I piss myself. Come on. Do the PR and let’s go.”

The truck wasn’t going anywhere unless it wanted to skirt around the ’Dill and over piles of rubble. Cole dismounted and ambled up to the vehicle, mindful of the expression of fixed terror on the driver’s face as he put his hand on the hood and tapped on the side window with one knuckle. The window lowered.

“How you doin’, sir?” Cole said. “You headin’ out?”

“Yes.”

“Nothin’ but unsavory folk and bad times out there.”

“Really?” The guy had two or three days’ growth of graying stubble and shabby clothing. “Then we’ll take our chances. We can’t keep running. We’re not moving camp again, especially to the islands.”

The rumor was doing the rounds of Port Farrall, an idea that Prescott was thinking of upping camp and moving somewhere offshore where it was warmer and well away from straggler grubs. Some liked the idea and some didn’t.

“Okay, sir.” Cole stepped aside and motioned to Baird to pull over to let the truck pass. “You mind how you go.”

He watched the truck rumble away, venting a cloud of vapor from its tailpipe. Baird revved the ’Dill. “Very persuasive. Come on.”

Cole slumped in his seat. “You’d think folks would all cling together, if only to keep warm.”

“What’s his problem? Coffee too hot?”

“Don’t want to leave Port Farrall.”

“Hang on, he just did that.”

“He means evacuating again.”

“Are they still talking about doing that? Great. I’m up for an island. White sand, balmy seas. Bring it on.”

“Think it through. Either we find an empty island, in which case we’re gonna be worse off than when we started here, ’cause we wouldn’t even have piped water and buildings—”

“Yeah, but we’d be warmer, right?”

“—or we find one that’s got folks livin’ there, and we got to work out how we get along with them.”

“Sorry, I stopped at warmer.” Baird accelerated. “Warmer’s good for me. Oh, and you wouldn’t have to bury so many little old ladies. It’s a win-win.”

Cole didn’t mind either way. He’d do his duty. The COG had played fair by him, and he’d play fair in return. Port Farrall was never the ideal spot for starting over anyway, not with the shitty winters this far north. It was just closest, and safer.

Only it wasn’t safe enough.

“How we gonna do it all by ship?” Cole asked.

“The navy’s really good at moving stuff. Here’s the chance for them to do something useful for a change.”

Well, at least Baird was chipper about it. If there was a flaw in the argument, he was the kind of guy to find it, worry at it like some yappy terrier, and drop it all chewed up at the boss’s feet. He hadn’t.

“You’re happy,” Cole said.

“Why wouldn’t I be ? I’m doing shit I like now. My dad said I had to enlist or I could kiss goodbye to my inheritance—I wanted to go to engineering school.”

“But you didn’t get any inheritance, you said, ’cause the grubs showed up.”

“And the moral of the story is …”

“You’ll do anything for the right amount of bills?”

“No, skills are the new money.”

“And there I was thinkin’ you was just content in your oily-fingered vocation.”

Yeah, Baird was going to be a useful guy in a world that needed rebuilding and repairing. And he knew it. Maybe it was the first time he felt he was worth anything. That was kind of sad, and explained a lot. Back at the barracks, Baird started his daily maintenance on the ’Dill like it was his own personal transport, and Cole left him to it. He had his own maintenance to do—keeping himself on top of his memories. He’d run out of paper to write his routine letter to Momma, and he didn’t want to beg any off Anya or Mathieson. Now he was down to old wrapping paper, smoothed out as best he could. It didn’t matter, because nobody was left to read it; what mattered was just writing it, getting his head straight in the process of telling his mom what he’d been doing. All he had to do was write nice and small and make the most of it. There was no telling when he’d get some more.

He settled down in one of the lavatory stalls and braced his elbow on one knee, writing carefully. A man could get some privacy in here if he didn’t mind the constant traffic.

Dear Momma, I’m seeing the damndest things in this town …

The main door swung open, banging against the cracked tiles on the wall. “Man, I’ve got to pee just to warm it up.” It was Dom, still making a real effort to be cheerful when nobody expected him to. There was the metallic zzzz of a zipper. “That you, Cole Train?”

“Yeah …”

“I just saw Hoffman and Michaelson looking intense, going into Prescott’s office.”

“Cupboard. It ain’t that big.”

“Well, something’s going down.”

Cole slipped the paper back in his belt pouch and came out. Dom was washing his face, leaning over one of the few basins that was still in one piece, and his COG-tag slipped forward out of his collar. Cole did a double take. No, it was something else; Dom had his tag, all right, but he was wearing an extra chain attached to it, something silver.

Aww, shit. I bet I know whose that is.

It was definitely a lady’s necklace, a thin chain with a ring-shaped pendant. Dom hadn’t worn it before. Cole would have noticed it by now.

Dom straightened up, rubbing his face. “What?”

“Nothin’.”

Dom looked down for a moment and seemed to notice that the chain had slipped out. He pushed it back inside.

“It was Maria’s,” he said, not that he owed anyone an explanation. Cole could usually work out the right moment to tackle the awkward stuff, but this was a tough call even for him. “It’s way too small for my neck. I looped it on my chain instead. We always retrieve tags, right? Whatever it takes.”

Everybody had their own way of coping with shit that was just too much to take in, Cole decided. He wrote letters that nobody else would read; Baird tinkered with that damn ’Dill when it didn’t need it, Anya was busy trying to be her mom, Bernie tried to feed everyone, and Dom hung on to his wife’s necklace like a fallen buddy’s tag. Marcus always looked like he carried on as normal, but Cole was damned sure that he kept something in his head that got him through the day.

“Yeah, we do, baby.” Cole went back into the stall and sat down to unfold his wrapping paper letter again.

“Nobody’s ever really dead unless we forget ’em.”

CIC, PORT FARRALL; OVERNIGHT TEMPERATURE, FIFTEEN DEGREES BELOW FREEZING.

“Humor me, Chairman,” Hoffman said. “We’re not short of fuel, and we only need commit one squad to this, two at most.”

Michaelson pulled a rolled chart out of the pile.

“We have options,” he said.

Anya helped him lay the chart on the table, flattening it out as best she could wearing gloves. The gloves weren’t achieving much. Her fingernails still had a distinct blue tinge when she checked them. Outside the window, the overnight snow was a thin dusting that belied the intensity of the cold. Anya could just about see the old school sports field through a porthole of clear glass that she’d rubbed in the icy condensation. Most of the trees that had taken root after the place was abandoned had already been hacked down for emergency firewood and building repairs. Even a small city’s worth of humans changed a landscape fast. We’re going to strip this area completely. What’s going to be left in the spring?

“Here’s my priority.” Prescott shoved his hands under his folded arms. “Keeping this city—this community—

together. I’m not actively stopping civilians from leaving yet, but we may have to, and I’m going to have to sell this move to people, because simply giving them orders to go isn’t enough.”

“Really?” Hoffman’s only concession to the cold was a scarf just visible under his collar. “Because it always worked fine before.”

“The foundation of the COG’s always been that the citizen is protected by the state, and in exchange the state expects the citizen to make a few sacrifices for the common good.” Prescott seemed to be trying a softer approach, but Anya suspected that there was a good dose of pragmatism behind it. If the exodus was what he considered to be nonessential citizens, then it was a good way of saving their food rations. “So if we can’t keep our end of the deal, what motivates them now?”

“Put it this way,” said Hoffman. “If the cold doesn’t kill us, the last of the grubs will, because they know we’re here and they keep coming. And even if we’ve drowned ninety percent of them, they’ll still be able to finish us off if we stand here like goddamn targets long enough.”

“Every evacuation costs lives, Victor, however efficiently it’s done.”

“It’s damage limitation,” Hoffman said. “Do we lose more people by staying put than by moving? It’s a calculated gamble.”

Life had been one long gamble since E -Day. Anya found herself thinking almost enviously of the Pendulum Wars, when the rules seemed easy to follow: human versus human, motives known, limitations understood. And somewhere, if you traveled far enough, there was always a border that could be crossed to reach places where some aspects of life went on almost normally: restaurants, warm beds, shops, perfume, books, small luxuries, second helpings.

Anya even found herself missing the squalid bars in Jacinto. There was no haven left on Sera now. Port Farrall was as good as it got—a vast refugee camp of derelict buildings. Anya didn’t want to imagine that there were Stranded outposts that had made a better job of things than the COG. It mocked every sacrifice of the past fifteen years.

“Chairman, Captain Michaelson has as good a knowledge of COG naval bases as anyone.” Anya decided she had a voice in this, too, damn it; she was an analyst. She wasn’t just there to answer the phones, she was there to task Gears, which meant she had as much to contribute now as any other officer. She bristled, pitching in to back up her colonel. “But even if none of those places is habitable, then at least we’re seen to be pulling out all the stops, not just sitting on our—”

She wanted to say asses, but stopped short.

“Asses,” Michaelson said obligingly. She could have sworn he stifled a smile. “You’re worried about civilian morale, Chairman? Then this could give it a real boost.”

“So what are our options ? If we’re going to relocate, then I need to stop the engineers wasting resources on facilities we’ll end up abandoning.”

“We need somewhere that hasn’t been destroyed by Locust—which means islands on the far side of the abyssal trench. The Locust couldn’t tunnel that deep. It’s kilometers to the seabed.” Michaelson leaned across the table and dragged his finger down a strip of scattered islands. “Then, somewhere big enough for a small city population. Unless you want to spread the community along a number of islands—good for disease control, bad for governance and logistics—then you’ve got a choice of Erevall or Vectes. Vectes should still have infrastructure, because it was a big naval base in the Pendulum Wars, but it’s off-limits because of contamination. Erevall’s mostly at sea level, so it’s prone to storm inundation, but—”

“Let’s try Vectes.” Prescott stared at the chart, stroking his beard with his forefinger. “It’s within Raven range without refueling, yes?”

Anya knew that fixed expression. Hoffman did, too, because she watched his lips compress into an even tighter line. Prescott had knowledge that they didn’t.

“It’s off-limits,” Michaelson repeated. “It was the old chemical and biological weapons site. We mothballed the base.”

“I think it’ll be safe now.”

Hoffman’s face was a study in suppressed anger. Anya always thought he’d have a heart attack at times like this. “Chairman, I was under the distinct impression that we’d agreed need -to-know meant that we all need to know.”

Prescott looked as if he was embarrassed at forgetting something. If he was acting, then he was at his peak performance today.

“Apologies, Colonel.” He frowned as if he was irritated with himself. “It’s one of a very long list of things that crossed my desk in previous years and seemed irrelevant. Until now. If I recall correctly, the facility was fully decommissioned by the time we started the Hammer of Dawn project. The quarantine was left in place because we had no immediate plans for the base.”

Hoffman took a long, shallow breath that struck Anya as counting to ten.

“Vectes it is, then,” he said. Strained didn’t quite cover his tone. “Captain, can you add reserve tanks to a Raven?”

“I’m sure we can bolt on some extras that Major Gettner will approve of.”

“Very well, Victor, make it happen,” Prescott said. “No doubt you’re tasking Delta again.”

“Fenix gets the job done every time, Chairman.”

“Almost every time.”

Anya had to make an effort not to put Prescott straight. It was hard. No, it was impossible. “We’d all be dead without Delta, sir.”

Prescott looked as if he was about to say something pointed, but thought better of it. “Indeed,” he said. Anya rolled up the charts and made a point of getting Hoffman to open the door to walk out ahead of her. She didn’t want to leave him to have a closed-door argument again. Michaelson gave her a knowing flash of the eyebrows. The three of them headed down the corridor to CIC, saying nothing until they were out of earshot.

“Lying asshole,” Hoffman muttered. “Excuse my language, Lieutenant.”

“You normally use worse, sir. And it’s okay.”

Hoffman turned to Michaelson. “Damn, Quentin, we’re going to have to wring every last bit of information out of him.”

“It’s a reflex,” Michaelson said. “They were all like that, if I recall. If you ask him if he knows the time, he’ll just say yes. Assume any politician is only telling you what he wants you to know, until proven otherwise.”

“You think Vectes is safe?”

“Well, I wasn’t kept in that loop back in the day. But one thing I’m certain of, Victor, is that politicians need a critical mass of humans to exercise power over, so he’s hardly likely to be taking risks with his … subjects. Sorry, I almost said electorate. How old-fashioned of me.”

“Okay.” Hoffman put his hand on the CIC door as if testing it. “Better get Sharle in on this, because there’s no point finding somewhere if he’s not ready to evacuate from here. Oh, and I hereby place you back on active service.”

“I never really retired, Victor.”

“No, but much as I admire that lieutenant commander of yours, I’m breaking the news to him that Sovereign is now your ship and you’re going to be in command of all maritime assets.”

Michaelson gave Hoffman a mock salute. “A Raven’s Nest of my very own. How nice to be free of the smell of shrimp.”

“Just make sure those choppers can reach Vectes from here.”

Michaelson strolled away with a spring in his step.

“If only everyone was as happy with their lot,” Anya said. CIC was now noticeably warmer since more personnel had moved into it. The EM manager’s staff were a heat source in their own right. “Don’t let Prescott get to you, sir. The captain’s right—it’s just force of habit.”

“Anya, I have to deal with it, because I can’t afford to hate him. Nothing’s going to destroy this community faster than a feud within its leadership.” Hoffman braced his shoulders in a way that said he hadn’t quite steeled himself to the idea that even now, he would never be told everything. “You were quick enough to put him right about Delta, though.”

“Marcus paid for whatever mistakes he made.”

“He did. And we all make them.”

“Sir, may I go on the recon mission?”

“Why?”

“There are injured male Gears still on combat duty who are physically less able than me. I can do more. I’ve been bringing my fieldcraft and weapons skills up to speed.”

“I know. Mataki’s been giving you individual tuition.”

“We need everyone pulling their weight, sir. Don’t you think I’m capable?”

Hoffman didn’t have much of a veneer. The man she saw was mostly the inner core, only his natural fear and guilt kept in check, and he never seemed bothered to learn to lie. He smiled ruefully.

“You’re your mother’s daughter, Anya. She never took any crap, either. You go right ahead.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the comms desk. “Find me another one like Mathieson, preferably two, because nobody should be working twelve-hour shifts every day, and I’ll seriously consider you for frontline duties. Now let’s get this recon planned. Go find Fenix.”

Hoffman could have called Marcus on the radio, on duty or not. He knew that. He was just being Hoffman, still trying to atone for what he’d done to Marcus, and so—indirectly—to her. Dom might have been convinced that the two men were now locked in some mutual loathing, but all Anya could see was that they both still wanted to admire each other despite their respective lapses: Hoffman bewildered by Marcus abandoning his post, Marcus still shaken by being left to die in the Slab. Neither were the actions of the men they knew they were. You’re all guilt, aren’t you, Colonel? You’d have gone back for Marcus eventually. You know you would. I know you would.

“Will do, sir.”

Marcus was off duty. Anya knew roughly where he was at any given time because she kept the duty rosters, and there weren’t yet any places in Port Farrall where he could hole up and hide. If he wasn’t with Dom, he’d be patrolling the camp’s warehouse block or keeping an eye on a food distribution center on his own time. Nobody wanted any downtime to think.

And nobody with any sense was venturing outside today if they didn’t have to. Anya hunched her shoulders against the cold and tried raising him on her radio.

“Marcus, where are you? It’s Anya. Hoffman’s going for the recon. He wants a planning session right away.”

Her earpiece crackled. “I’m in Sector Alpha-Three. You still in CIC?”

“No, I’m about half a klick from you. Just passing the medical station in Alpha-Two.”

“Wait there. I’ll walk back with you.”

It was so quiet that she could hear a Raven’s engine starting up in the dockyard. The whine rose in a crescendo, then the chakka-chakka of the rotors, and she glanced up as she walked to catch a glimpse of it. No, she was wrong: two Ravens. They zipped low overhead at top speed, heading inland. It wasn’t a routine sortie. Nothing was scheduled; she would have known. That either meant some refugees had been spotted, even this long after the evacuation, or there was trouble somewhere.

Anya pressed her earpiece and tried to pick up the comms traffic. One was a pilot she barely knew, a guy called Rorry, but the other was Gill Gettner, and she was going for broke. Anya could hear the two pilots trading targeting data; they’d spotted Locust on the surface.

“Yes, run, you ugly fucker.” That was Gettner. “Corpser, two klicks dead ahead, asking for it… I’m on.”

“Six Boomers, three o’clock, one klick and closing, I’m engaged.”

“Roger that, Three-Three.”

“Targets heading away from Farrall, half a klick west of the highway, repeat, away from Farrall, still on the surface.”

“Control, this could be a decoy. Advise perimeter security.”

“I’m in—engaging now.” Rorry sounded detached. Black smoke from the rocket strikes boiled into the sky; Anya could see it even from the center of town. “Confirming that kill, stand by.”

Anya stood waiting to pick up Gettner again, finger jammed in her ear, and watched the skyline. Another pall of smoke and flame rolled skyward.

“Corpser down,” Gettner said. “Anyone want to dance on it?”

“All targets neutralized. KR-Three-Three returning to ship.”

“Roger that, KRs.” That was Mathieson. “Dispatching a ’Dill to check the area.”

Everybody had scores to settle, comrades in need of avenging. Anya wasn’t sure what Gettner’s individual story might have been, but it was impossible to find anyone now who hadn’t lost family and friends to the Locust or the consequences of living in a city wrecked by war. Like Bernie always said, grieving was a little easier when everyone knew what it felt like.

Marcus ambled up to her, Lancer cradled against his chest. He nodded in the direction of the smoke. “They never give up.”

“At least we know what they’ve got left.” Anya started walking back to CIC with him. It was—by their standards—quality social time. “Some Corpsers are still tunneling away from the Hollow, presumably. Wiping us out still seems to be their priority.”

“Consistent.”

“Yes, you have to give them that.”

“They could sit and wait until we freeze.” Marcus’s mind was definitely on something else. He had that slightly defocused look. “Maybe they’re running from the last of the Lambent. Maybe it’s nothing to do with us at all.”

“Say it.”

He blinked a couple of times but kept his eyes straight ahead. “Say what?”

“Your father. Finding all those recordings of his voice in the Locust computer … don’t tell me it didn’t upset you. If that had been my mother, I’d be pretty upset, too. And angry. And confused.”

“It’s like getting wet. Once you’re soaked to the skin, you can’t get any wetter no matter how much it rains.”

“What was he doing?”

“Damned if I know. And I never will.”

Marcus must have heard the talk about his father being a traitor; like father, like son, some had said. Nobody said that now. But Anya doubted that he’d forget. She waited a few moments in case he was planning to go on, but he wasn’t.

“Anyway, Hoffman’s sending you and Delta to Vectes to evaluate it,” she said. “That’s why I came to find you.”

“A trip to Toxin Town. We get all the perks.”

“Prescott says it’s safe now.”

“Imagine that.”

Marcus didn’t say anything else all the way back, and just kept pace with her. But it was the longest conversation they’d had in a while. Anya settled for quantity over quality.

“Fenix,” Hoffman said, not looking up from the chart on the table. “Did your father ever tell you anything about Vectes Naval Base?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither. We’ll work from Michaelson’s data.” Anya went to sit down and get on with some paperwork, but Hoffman stopped her. “You’ll want to sit in on this, Lieutenant.”

“Something you want me to do, sir?”

“You wanted some hands-on time. Well, you’ve got it. You’re going to Vectes, too.”