Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant (21 page)

“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.

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.”