Gears of War: Anvil Gate (19 page)

Marcus spat out some water. “I’ve never seen
that
before,” he said, “but it’s Lambent. Whatever Lambent are, the grubs were fighting them in their tunnels and
losing.
”

Gullie just tipped his head back, eyes shut, and floated. “And now they’re here. We were safe. The Locust couldn’t tunnel out here. But you never told us they could
swim.
”

“We didn’t know,” Marcus said sourly. “Now we do.”

Bernie’s stomach kept churning. The depth of the shit they were in suddenly hit her. The Stranded were the least of their problems now, and Vectes was no longer an ocean away from the horror of the mainland.

The nightmare had decided to follow them, except it was far worse. This was a life-form even the grubs were scared of.

“Yeah … shit,” Marcus said again, as if he’d heard her thoughts.

Montagnon
came up on them and cut her engines. Bernie grabbed the scrambling net and got halfway up to the gunwale, but Cole had to reach over and haul her the rest of the way by her belt. She flopped onto the deck at Baird’s feet.

“Well, that fits my theory,” he said cheerfully. Bernie decided she’d kick the shit out of him when she stopped shaking. “
Harvest
hauls up a glowie in the nets, they try to shoot it, it blows up—mystery solved. Same for
Levanto.
”

“I’m so happy for you, Professor. Really.”

Baird held out his hand to pull her to her feet. “Could it sink a warship, though?”

Gullie, wringing wet and white with shock, stared at the position in the water where his livelihood had vanished in a ball of smoke and flame. “How big do those things get?”

Marcus took out his earpiece and shook the water from it.

“Brumak size,” he said. “At least. The size of a tank.”

It was the last time anyone was going trawling for a long while.

CHAPTER 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“They can relocate to New Jacinto.”

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

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

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

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

“Very well, Chairman. Hoffman out.”

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

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

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

“I don’t think so.”

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

Anya smiled. “Good thinking, sir.”

“I don’t disobey orders often.”

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

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

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

“So you are.”

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

“I need you on civilian liaison right now.”

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

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

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

“If it were me, sir, I’d stop her.”

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

Anya knew, and understood.

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

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

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

“Damn well is, Drew.”

“Shit.”

“How are they taking it?”

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

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

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

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

Gavriel looked shell-shocked. They all did.

“Is it true?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh God …”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you okay, sir?” she asked.

“Why?”

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

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

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

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

“You can say no.”

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

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

Hoffman let that sink in. Anya just nodded.