Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant (14 page)

Bernie considered him with her head cocked to one side, then chuckled. “Yeah, Vic, I will.”

She took a metal object from her belt pouch that he first thought was a pocket watch, but she gave it a shake in her hand and it extended into a small cup. She placed it on the desk.

Hoffman examined it, fascinated. It was made of concentric tapering steel rings. “That’s very clever.”

“Collapsible. I travel light.”

“We’re the last of our kind, Bernie.” He poured a generous and gentlemanly measure for her. “To the TwentySixth Royal Tyran Infantry.”

“Two-Six RTI,” she said. “The Unvanquished.”

“We beat the goddamn grubs, anyway.”

“And we’re not the last. There’s Fenix and Santiago.”

“I meant
our
generation.”

“Then we’re definitely the last.” She stared into the cup, then raised it again. “Absent friends.”

There were so many of those now. Hoffman used to be able to recite names, but the best he could do now was remember individuals sporadically. “I heard about Tai Kaliso.”

“Ah, the Baird Broadcasting Service.”

“And Santiago.”

“All of it?”

“Maybe not. I haven’t caught up with him yet. I keep meaning to.”

“It’s grim. He found his wife in some grub cell. Marcus said she was blind, couldn’t speak, couldn’t recognize Dom, looked like a corpse. He didn’t know what the hell to do. She was too far gone.”

Bernie took a pull at the cup, then put her forefinger to her temple, thumb extended, and squeezed an imaginary trigger. Hoffman was about to take another mouthful of steak. He couldn’t.

“Oh God …”

“Bloody hard. Doesn’t matter if it’s the kindest option or not. Been there. Or been close, anyway.”

Hoffman thought of Margaret more these days. It wasn’t that he missed her, not like Dom Santiago would mourn his wife; he just felt worse about her each year. It wasn’t even a tragic love story, just a mediocre, mutual toleration like so many marriages. But even if he hadn’t pulled any trigger, he’d certainly killed Margaret.

“I’ll talk to him,” Hoffman said, and started eating again. “I’m still his CO. Hell, I remember the night his daughter was born.”

“Aspho won’t go away, will it?”

“Do you want it to?”

“Not really.”

So it was Bernie and Vic again for a while, just an hour or so, and one of the few times in his life when he regretted the path he’d taken, not as a soldier but as a man.

“Is it ever too late in life to put things right?” he said.

“If I thought it was, I wouldn’t be here.”

Bernie probably meant that insane journey across Sera to rejoin the COG ranks after so many years. But maybe she didn’t.

He’d find out.

The Coalition of Ordered Governments still exists, the rule of law still exists, and our social covenants still exist. We may no
longer be in a state of war, but we still have a battle ahead to survive and rebuild, and in these difficult days there will be no
tolerance of lawlessness and antisocial behavior. Unity defeated the Locust. But disunity will be the certain end of us all
. (CHAIRMAN RICHARD PRESCOTT, TO THE REMNANT OF JACINTO’S POPULATION, PORT FARRALL.)
CNV
SOVEREIGN
,
MERRENAT NAVAL BASE, TEN DAYS AFTER THE EVACUATION OF JACINTO, 14 A.E
.

“Would you mind stepping in the footbath, sir?”

There was a large metal tray full of purple liquid at the foot of the ship’s brow. A commander—Alisder Fyne, Anya’s list said, the most senior serving officer left in the COG navy—stood sentry at the top, making it clear that not even the chief of defense staff and the chief medical officer would get on board unless they followed procedure.

“What a good boy,” said Dr. Hayman. “Up you go, Colonel.” Anya watched Hoffman carefully. A lesser man would have snarled, but the colonel just paused as if someone had reminded him he’d forgotten his keys. He paddled his boots in the disinfectant, shook off the surplus, and strode up the brow. Dr. Hayman followed.

“Opposed boarding,” Marcus muttered. “Send in the shock troops first.”

“I’m sure Fyne will see sense …”

Marcus was so close behind Anya that she could smell carbolic soap. Everyone was scrubbing themselves raw these days. It wasn’t just infection control. There was some psychological tic sweeping the ranks, like a need to wash off the past.

At the top of the brow, there was a bucket of soapy, strongly scented water.

“Hands,” said Fyne. “Please.”

“I’m glad to see you’re taking hygiene seriously.” Hoffman washed like a surgeon. “Dr. Hayman’s going to give you a great report.”

“We’re a confined space.” Fyne, definitely wary, beckoned them to follow. “I’ve got more than eight thousand people on board. We don’t need any more problems.”

Once they were off the weather deck, the air inside the ship was blissfully warm. Anya inhaled a heady cocktail of oil, cooking, and bodies—not unpleasant, just a silent reminder that the carrier was crammed to the deckheads. Fyne stood back to usher them into a compartment with CAG BRIEFING T-6 stenciled on the bulkhead next to the door. As Anya stepped over the coaming, she caught Fyne looking past her at Marcus with a wary look on his face. Maybe he thought he was the security detail; it was clear that the community of ships here was starting to see Port Farrall as Anarchy HQ as well as a source of contagion.

“Marcus Fenix?” he said.

“Correct… sir.”

Marcus had subtly different ways of saying
sir
according to whether he had any regard for the officer concerned or not. Anya thought for a moment that Fyne knew him from a previous operation or had known his family.

Then it struck her that some only knew Marcus as the Sergeant Fenix who’d been jailed for abandoning his post. The court-martial of an Embry Star hero tended to stick in people’s minds. Anya felt herself brace instinctively, ready to defend him against whatever sneer or comment followed, but Fyne said nothing more, and they sat down at the table. Flight suits hung against the bulkheads; not enough locker room, then. All the King Raven pilots were now based in
Sovereign
. It had taken just days for the beginning of a divide to emerge between the refugee existence ashore and the relatively comfortable world afloat. The navy had declined to send more medic-trained personnel ashore to support Hayman’s struggling unit. And it claimed it couldn’t accommodate anyone else.

“Commander.” Hoffman rested his elbows on the table. “I’d like to do this by negotiation. But I often have to do things I don’t like. Dr. Hayman’s team is going under, and I’d
really
like you to release some of your corpsmen.”

Fyne nodded at Hoffman, then aimed his reply at the doctor. “When you evacuated Jacinto Medical Center, ma’am, we made
Unity
the infirmary ship. We’ve got a lot of critically injured Gears and civilians who need acute care. I know what my job is, what my orders are—to preserve this crew, this ship, and this fleet. I’m not going to second-guess JMC’s chief of medicine about who we can afford to let die.”

This was the game. Hoffman would growl, Hayman would indulge in some shroud waving, and then Anya would suggest a compromise position.

And if that didn’t work, Marcus had orders to remove Fyne from the ship. He hadn’t been happy with that.
Yes, it’s not going to inspire anyone to pull together. Authority’s fine, but when you impose it in a situation like
this …

“I’m losing a long list of civvies every day, sonny,” Hayman said. Fyne must have been in his forties. “You can’t do much about hypothermia, and we don’t have that many surgical cases because they’ve conveniently
died
, the poor bastards, but you sure as hell can help with the medical ones. Respiratory cases, mainly.”

“Rustlung and viruses. I’m aware of the disease issue.”

“By the way, footbaths are terrific for controlling livestock diseases, but not the ones we’re likely to develop. Five points for trying, though.”

Anya felt sorry for Fyne. Hayman could emasculate any man with a razor-edged word. It was diplomacy time.

“How about pooling our resources?” Anya said. “Trade you a few surgical staff for nursing assistance. Or we can look at making
Unity
into the central COG medical facility and move all our cases on board.”

Anya learned the lines Hayman fed her. It was a threat. Hoffman could have forced anything on Fyne, of course, or shot him for failing to jump when he said so, but there was a time to crack down and a time for restraint. It always surprised her that Hoffman—gruff to the core, not even a veneer—could navigate that psychological maze.

“Look,” Fyne said. “Let’s start as we mean to go on. I’m a supply officer. I can’t fight a war, although I’d die trying. For the last fifteen years, we’ve kept a skeleton fleet operational. Maintained ships. Ferried supplies. Managed stockpiles. The COG gave up pretending to have a navy on E-Day, but the navy kept going. Now, I’m not claiming we’ve been through the hell that land forces have, but we were tasked to keep a core navy afloat, just in case, and that’s what we’ve done. You can understand my reluctance to compromise the people we’ve rescued.”

Anya felt bad for Fyne. Yes, she’d have done the same. Hayman went to answer, but Hoffman cut in.

“You did good, son,” he said. “Here’s the problem I’ve got, though—we’re less than a month out of Jacinto and we’re already splitting into haves and have -nots, along location lines. Now, I reckon your citizens put up with as much shit as the land -based ones, but the others won’t see it that way. They’re already asking for transfer.” Hoffman took his cap off and passed his palm over his shaven scalp. “And I’m saying no.”

“I understand your position. And you have complete authority to do whatever you want with these ships.”

“Okay, here’s a plan. We help each other out on the medical side, and I’ll divert more resources to fitting out one of the tankers as accommodation.”

Hayman gave the colonel a sharp look. It wasn’t in the script. Anya stood by for a diversion in case the dissent was visible.

“I’m very grateful, sir,” Fyne said.

“I owe the navy.” Hoffman put his cap back on and his eyes met Anya’s for a moment. She couldn’t imagine this man giving an order for Marcus to be left to die in prison. “Now, have you got any intel on this base? Old stuff, I mean. We’ve got plans going back to the last major construction here, but that’s only seventy years. My men think there’s a lot more underground storage here.”

“Like the imulsion tanks.”

“Merrenat’s been a dockyard since the Era of Silence. There must be a warren under the docks.”

Fyne seemed fully on-side now. A little stroking worked wonders. “Only people who might know would be some of the retired men.”

“The navy
retires?”

“Only to run the merchant fleet.”

“Trawlers and tankers.”

“Not always. Counterpiracy patrol. You think all the Stranded are on land? Try Quentin Michaelson.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Hoffman lit up. He was in an exceptionally good mood today. Some Gears seemed lost without the routine of combat, but some were changing before Anya’s eyes. “Michaelson. I thought he’d be dead by now.”

“Old friend?”

“We go back some. Thank you, Commander.”

Michaelson was a name that also rang a bell for Anya, even though she couldn’t quite place it. Fyne guided them back to the brow through narrow passages and watertight doors. Hoffman strode away down the quay with a definite spring in his step.

“I like that guy,” he said.

Hayman struggled to keep up. She wasn’t impressed. “I don’t know what kind of shit you’re up to, Colonel, but you’re at the age when you’ll have prostate trouble, and that’s no time to piss off your doctor.” She gestured to the waiting ’Dill to collect her. “Make sure Fyne does what he said, or I’ll get that tapeworm Prescott to
make
it happen.”

She stormed off. She hadn’t got what she’d wanted and needed, which was control of the naval medical facilities. Anya allowed herself a brutally pragmatic thought that it was better to end up with 50 percent mortality than 100 percent, and that she was glad that Fyne was an isolationist. Hoffman was now striding ahead of Anya and Marcus, swinging his arms and leaving a trail of vapor as he exhaled. It made him look steam-powered. It was the first thing that had struck Anya as funny since the evacuation.

“Michaelson must be special.” The intense cold burned her face. “The old man’s not normally like that.”

“Former CO,
Pomeroy.”
Marcus always did have a prodigious memory. “Amphib. Special forces.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

Anya remembered now.
Pomeroy
was the support vessel for the assault on Aspho Point. She’d been duty control officer in
Kalona
when her mother was killed. It wasn’t a happy association for Marcus, either.