“Steady as a rock.” Yanik peered over his shoulder. “So, Blondie-Baird, we let you live. For now.” He winked conspiratorially. “Maybe we even let you mess with our ship again.”
Muller watched the screen for a few moments. “Keep an eye on this while I go below to see if the engineer’s strangled anyone yet. If you see anything that wasn’t there before—give me a shout.”
Muller didn’t give Baird any instructions. Even with the radar controls labeled in another language, Baird could work it out from basics. Any idiot could do that. He could see the five points of yellow light flaring and fading every time the radar swept around, showing returns from the trawlers. He could see the clutter generated by waves. A radar was a radar was a radar.
Dom wandered back in. “Glad we got one of our own Marlins stowed. I wouldn’t send Mataki’s dog out in one of their inflatables.”
“I would,” Baird said. The more he saw of Gorasnaya’s remaining fleet—a tanker, a submarine, six patrol boats—the more he realized that the snazzy submarine had been window dressing. All the Indie bastards really had to offer was that imulsion rig. Maybe the frigate had been the jewel of the fleet before the thing sank, but he doubted it. “That animal’s psychotic. They do say dogs take after their handlers.”
The put-down just slipped out, like it always did. It also reopened the topic of the captured Stranded bombers, and where nice civilized people drew the line in how roughly they treated assholes who deserved everything they got.
“I bet Marcus had something to say about it,” Baird said, not needing to specify what it was.
“You know Marcus.” Dom shut his eyes for a second as if he’d remembered something he should have done, frowning slightly. “He likes to do the right thing.”
Yanik the entrail-remover eased the wheel fifteen degrees to starboard. “This Marcus … enemies do not respect you for doing right. They think you a weak fool, and then they kill you.”
Yanik could certainly kill a conversation. It turned into a long morning. Sam stayed on the gun, leaning on it with one arm resting on the guard like she wouldn’t give it up to a mere man without a fight. Amirale Enka was now in the middle of the fishing grounds, and Baird could see a couple of the fifteen-meter trawlers even without binoculars—little toy-like white hulls with bright red and blue wheelhouses. They seemed to be on a winning streak, judging by the radio chatter with Muller.
One of the boats—Trilliant—radioed in. “Jackpot, Enka. We’ll be full to capacity in six hours.”
Muller picked up the mike. “Copy that, Trilliant. How much catch is that?”
“Close to a hundred tonnes.”
“Everyone better like oilfish, then.”
Baird checked through the binoculars. The nearest trawler was drawing her net, a huge writhing ball of silver. Both the radar and the lookout confirmed a complete absence of pirates. Baird wasn’t heartened by that. If it wasn’t about lack of fuel—and they never seemed to be short of it—then they were just biding their time and waiting for a better opportunity to attack.
“Sam’s going to be disappointed.” He put the binoculars down and checked the radar again. “We’ll have to find her some land-based scum to shoot up.”
Muller took the remains of a cigar from behind his ear and lit it. “See, girls fight dirty. My mother warned me.” The radio circuit buzzed with the voices of trawlermen sorting their catch for the freezer, discussing shale eels and commenting on some fish that had to be from the abyssal trench. “I can’t stand oilfish. Have they caught any lobsters?”
“Imagine having this conversation a year ago,” Dom said. “We’d have eaten the net and been grateful.”
“I still don’t get why they shot up Harvest. They need the hulls as much as we do.”
“Do we know how many of the locals have firearms? I know they don’t have—”
Dom was interrupted by a muffled boom like a distant roll of thunder. They all looked around at the same time to see a column of black smoke rising from the sea about five klicks away to the port side. Sam swung the gun around and lined up on it.
“That was more than just a fuel tank,” she yelled. “Trust me on that.”
Muller didn’t give a helm order, but Amirale Enka’s motors roared to life as the Gorasni guy simply pushed the throttle hard forward and aimed for the smoke. The collision alarm sounded. The radio net went crazy as the trawlers tried to raise one another. “It’s Levanto,” a voice kept saying. “Look, she’s gone, it’s Levanto, I saw her damn well go.”
“Shit,” Muller said. Crew appeared on the deck from nowhere. “What the fuck’s happening? Who’s out there?”
“Nothing on radar, nothing on sonar,” said the helmsman. “Nothing.”
“What if it’s bloody mines?” Baird said.
Muller must have thought of that even if the helmsman hadn’t. And here they were, making full speed into what might be a mined area.
“Enka to all trawlers, hold your positions,” he said. “Don’t move until we know what we’re dealing with. We’re on our way.” He turned to Baird and flicked the radio to receive-only. “It’s too deep for bottom mines, and I can’t see a bunch of pirates being able to lay tethered ones.”
“What if it’s a drift mine?” Baird asked. “Some shit left over from the Pendulum Wars? Contact mines. A plastic hull wouldn’t save you from that.”
Muller leaned out of the port-side door. “Hey, Lookout—keep an eye open for surface mines. Nothing on sonar, but that doesn’t mean shit in this tub.”
“So we’re heading into it at fifty knots,” Baird said. “Great.” But there wasn’t a lot of choice. He switched on his radio earpiece and went onto the deck.
Sam gestured imperiously at the wheelhouse. “Dom? Dom, take the gun. I want to go and see this.”
“Leave it to me,” Baird said.
“Hey, I’m the ordnance expert, genius. I’ve done mines. You just drive the rubber boat and leave the explosives stuff to me.”
“Y’know, I prefer Mataki. She eats cats and she’s still classier than you.”
“Tough shit. You got me.”
Dom came out on deck and took up the gun position. Amirale Enka was almost on top of the trawler fleet now. The boats had taken no notice of the order to stay put. One was chugging steadily toward Levanto’s last position, now marked only by smoke hanging in the air, but Baird could see nothing left to burn. There was something bobbing on the surface. It looked more like a fuel slick.
Muller’s voice came over his earpiece. “All stop … Okay, everything’s clear, Baird. No mines that we can detect—nothing. Not for thirty klicks. You can launch the Marlin now.”
Baird swung the inflatable into the water and held it on the line while Sam climbed in.
“Can’t be a sub, can it?” she said. “Wouldn’t be the first to pop up and surprise us.”
Baird was about to remind her that the sonar had drawn a blank, but seeing how the Indie submarine Zephyr had gone undetected until she was almost up the COG’s ass, he wasn’t so sure.
I’m shit-scared again. Got my wish. Great.
They moved into a thin mat of drifting debris made up of pieces so small that it was hard to identify them as a boat. Sam propped her Lancer on the gunwale one-handed to reach into the water. She scooped up some pieces in her palm and peered at them.
Baird was looking for bodies. He was also watching out for drifting mines, keeping one of the Marlin’s oars within easy reach.
“We should be seeing chunks,” Sam said. “Even if you swallow a grenade, you still get chunks. Not confetti.”
“Shit, maybe they hauled up a mine with the catch.”
“Well, you better tell ’em to ditch their catch and get the hell out,” Sam said. “But I still don’t think this is an old mine.”
Sam was still staring at the contents of her palm. Baird looked around to see Trilliant bearing down on the Marlin, close enough now for him to read the name on the bow.
; Sam looked around at the surface of a vast ocean with no enemy in sight. Then she looked over the side, and Baird knew what she was thinking—that whatever lurked down there could be as deadly as grubs that erupted from solid ground.
“If this is the Stranded,” she said, “we’re in deep shit.”
ISOLATION WING, VECTES NAVAL BASE INFIRMARY.
Doctor Hayman shut the ward door behind her and stared into Hoffman’s face.
“Unless your Gorasni chum has a bunch of flowers and some grapes, I don’t want him in my hospital,” she said. “Those men are patients. Assholes or not.”
Hoffman factored Hayman-wrangling time into his day. The old girl knew her stuff, but she was hard work.
“Those men gave you a ward full of blast injuries,” he said. “I think that entitles us to ask a few questions.”
“If you expect me to put these men back together again when you’ve mangled them, then you’ll damn well abide by my medical decisions.”
“And the next time your emergency room fills up with my Gears, and they end up like Mathieson, you’ll be fine with that, will you?” It was a cheap shot. He knew how much amputations distressed her. He also knew it would work. “Let me do my job, and maybe you won’t have to do so much of yours.”
“You’re a bastard, Hoffman. You really are.”
Hayman was in her seventies, but age hadn’t mellowed her into a sweet old lady. Hoffman had to think hard to remember her first name; she was just Doc Hayman, and if he hadn’t seen her records, he would never have known she was called Isabel. She definitely didn’t look like an Isabel.
“And I’m a bastard who wants an end to this,” he said. “So are they well enough to talk to Trescu?”
“Depends how he’s going to question them.” Hayman fumbled in the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a half-smoked cheroot. “You’ve got any number of people capable of interrogating them. Why Trescu?”
“Prescott’s orders.”
“Hand-washing, more like. My job still has some ethical demands. I don’t patch people up for others to damage them all over again.”
“That’s all military medicine is, Doc.”
“You know damn well what I mean. I expect you to make sure these patients aren’t tortured. You’re not a brute, Hoffman, for all your bluster.”
Hoffman wasn’t sure if he was a brute or not. He’d done things he regretted, terrible things, some entirely of his own volition. If he made some principled stand and refused to be party to this session, then Trescu would do it anyway, with Prescott’s blessing.
I went through this over the Hammer of Dawn. Same argument. Same excuse. If I didn’t do it, someone else would. Better to be a man and front up.
So the two Stranded would get a good hiding. They’d probably get the same from any of Andresen’s buddies, too. If it meant he never lost another man like Andresen, Hoffman could live with it.
“Fine, wait until they recover,” he said. “You get a clear conscience. But they get the same end result. Except in the meantime, you might see more patients with their goddamn legs blown off or worse.”
Hayman stuck the cheroot in her mouth unlit. It didn’t go with the white coat. However bad things got, she always managed to keep that coat bleached to a pristine whiteness. It was shiny with wear in places, and frayed at the cuffs, but by God it was white, and Hoffman never knew if it was just an act of professional reassurance for the patient in a grubby, primitive world, or some kind of manifestation of her need to erase something. But he didn’t have time to analyze all that shit. He had enough invisible stains of his own to worry about.
“Okay, I’m as bad as Prescott. Salving my conscience. Self-delusion.” Hayman patted her pockets for a light and started walking down the corridor toward the exit. Then she turned. “Oh, and your lady friend—retire the poor bitch or give her a desk job before she gets herself killed. I know these South Islanders are tough native stock, but they die just like the rest of us.”
“Don’t sugarcoat it, Doc,” Hoffman muttered. “Say what you mean.”
Hoffman didn’t like the idea of Bernie risking her neck, but forcing her off the front line would break her heart. Worse, in fact; the idea terrified her, like it was the beginning of the end, and he knew it. He asked himself if he’d have retired a man of her age, or even a woman he wasn’t emotionally attached to, and the answer was—shit, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he couldn’t do it to Bernie and that she deserved better from him.
He waited outside the ward door, reading through the note that one of the medics had left for him. The Stranded bomb makers were Edwin Loris—the one Sam Byrne had given a fractured pelvis, two cracked ribs, and concussion—and Mikail Enador, who was doing pretty well for a man who’d been half-eaten by that rabid mutt. Enador’s son, Nial, was unhurt but terrified. All the medic had been able to get out of the three of them was their names. But Hoffman had already asked Dizzy Wallin to keep an eye on the Stranded community inside the wire to see who their friends or family members might be. It made sense to know who the grudge-bearers were.
I ought to leave you to clear up your own shit, Prescott.
But Hoffman didn’t. He couldn’t walk away from anything. Then his radio crackled in his ear. It was Anya.
“Sir, we’ve lost another fishing vessel. There’s been an explosion—all hands lost. Baird’s reporting no visible signs of attack, but he doesn’t think it’s a stray mine.”
“Does Pelruan know yet?” Hoffman asked. The civvies in the small town—the island’s only town—wouldn’t take the news well. It was the second trawler lost from a tiny fleet in a few months, more trouble brought to their door by the arrival of the COG. “I’m going to have some explaining to do to Lewis Gavriel.”
“Oh, they know,” Anya said. “The trawler fleet always stays in radio contact with Pelruan.”
Shit. “Get hold of Gavriel and tell him I’ll come and see him as soon as I’m done here. Have you told the Chairman?”
“You needed to know first, sir. I’ll get a briefing note together for you.”
What a loyal kid. “Thanks, Anya.”
How the hell are they doing this? What have they got that we don’t know about?
Hoffman’s first thought was another submarine. Nobody who’d been caught with their pants around their ankles when Trescu’s Zephyr popped up would ever rule that out. But boats like that took a lot of maintenance, and if the Stranded gangs could manage to run one, then they were a much bigger problem than he’d imagined.
He paced slowly down the echoing corridor and back again while waiting for Trescu to show, inhaling an institutional smell of carbolic soap, decay, and misery. He could shut out the smells. But the nagging voice getting louder in his head was a tougher irritant to ignore.
Trescu’s testing Prescott, and Prescott knows it. A pissant tribe just a fraction of the size of the COG. If Prescott wanted that imulsion, he could just take it.
But maybe the Chairman knew that nobody had the stomach for another war, however much peace still seemed like a strange and purposeless new country.
Boots suddenly echoed along the tiled corridor. Hoffman was surprised to see Trescu emerge around the corner on his own. He radiated the confidence of a man used to power, much more power than just control of a village-sized population.
A village with control of an imulsion rig. And we’re a town that’s got the Hammer of Dawn. Funny how the world scales down.
Trescu strolled up to Hoffman and nodded politely, then indicated the closed door with the slightest jerk of the head. “Our friends,” he said. “Are they well enough to receive visitors?”
Hoffman pressed the handle and swung the door open. “I’ll leave you to decide. Prescott’s orders—your show.”
“You have a problem with this? Then think of your dead sergeant and his comrades.” Trescu put one boot across the threshold and paused. “Because I shall certainly think of mine.”
Hoffman caught a first glimpse
of Enador and Loris propped up in their beds, looking confused rather than defiant. Hoffman wondered how much painkiller the doctor had pumped into them. They watched him warily as he pulled up a rickety wooden chair and sat down in the corner, probably expecting him to be running the interrogation because he was wearing a colonel’s insignia.
“You don’t look like a medical man, and neither does your bagman,” Enador said, glancing at Trescu. No, he didn’t sound drugged at all. In fact, he seemed pretty chipper for a man whose head was swathed in field dressings. “Where’s my son?”
“Under guard.” Hoffman wasn’t sure what Trescu was going to do. Prescott seemed more keen to make sure the jumped-up little shit felt he’d won rather than get any useful intelligence. “He’s not been harmed.”
“No, you’re the good guys, aren’t you? You don’t beat up kids.” Enador indicated Loris with his thumb. “You’ve got rules about how you treat enemy wounded, right?”
Hoffman wanted to punch the crap out of him. “You’re a waste of medical supplies,” he said. “I’ll leave you to our guest.”
Loris turned his head with difficulty. It was hard to tell that he was in worse shape than his buddy. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on his face. “Ah, nice to see we’ve brought you two together at last.”
Trescu walked across the small room and lifted a tubular metal chair by its frame, then set it down by the side of Loris’s bed. If it hadn’t been for the faded black uniform, he might have passed for a concerned relative.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “I am Commander Miran Trescu. I am Gorasnayan, which should mean something to you. There are very few of us left, so every citizen I lose grieves me very deeply. I thought I would mention that so you understand why I must be insistent in asking you questions.”
Enador watched him with mild interest. “Yeah, we know what Gorasni are like.”
“Good.” Trescu folded his arms and leaned on the edge of the bed. “So this would be a sensible time to tell me where you get your arms and ordnance, and where your camps are.”