“If there’s a job for me to do,” Nevil said, “then I’ll go. If there isn’t, just shoot me and get it over with. That job’s my life. I can never do it again, even if you let me walk out of here. I can’t look Adam in the eye.”
Prescott patted his shoulder and nodded. “Azura may be all we have to rebuild from. We need you there.” Nevil didn’t move from the window. “I’ll have your things picked up and your desk cleared after Adam’s left the office. Perhaps you need a few moments alone to think. Let me know what else you need done before you leave.”
Prescott walked out and closed the door behind him. Captain Dury was wandering around the lobby, taking slow paces up and down the Furlin rug as if he was marking out a boundary. He had his finger to his earpiece. Jillian was at her desk, still typing as if she was ignoring the fact that the commanding officer of the Onyx Guard was in her office.
“You heard all that, Paul?” Prescott asked.
Dury raised his eyebrows. He was a solid-looking man in his forties, his gray hair cut so short that it looked like bristles. “Yes, sir. You want me to pick up Fenix now?”
“No, I want twenty-six-hour surveillance on him.” Prescott had to time this carefully. “I need to know if he’s still in contact with the Locust. If he looks as if he’s going to skip town, then you take him, but I want to give him a little space and see what shakes out. He might well make a move when he finds Estrom gone.”
“On it, sir.”
Dury left. Jillian was still typing as if she hadn’t heard a word or seen a thing. Prescott found his anger had now not so much cooled as frozen into an assessment of how much use Adam would be to him now.
But he’s not going to get away with it. Whatever utility he has, he’ll get what’s coming to him.
“I’m going to have Dr. Estrom moved,” he said.
Jillian looked up at him. She knew what that meant. “It was very brave of him.”
“I don’t think he sees it that way.”
“Azura, sir,” she said. “Do I have to go?”
“The situation’s deteriorating. You really should.” Prescott paused a beat. “And of course, you can bring your sister. We have to be discreet, though. We can’t accommodate the whole population. But you understand that, I know.”
Jillian had known about the global Hammer strikes in advance, said nothing, and simply heeded Prescott’s oblique advice to move her sister into Jacinto as soon as possible. But Hoffman had known too, and didn’t even share it with his wife. She died in the strikes; he lived with that.
Loyalty. Honor. Duty. Quite stark, pitiless things when you really apply them and mean it.
“Oh, I understand, sir.” Jillian smiled. Prescott could count on her to stand by him come hell or high water, and both were very likely now. “Thank you.”
Most people’s lives were intricately connected to others. It was hard to take them out of circulation without leaving broken links and ragged edges, questions asked and not answered. But in the fog of a chaotic war, all things were possible.
Prescott wondered how long Marcus Fenix would spend looking for his father if he were to vanish like so many others. He suspected it would be a very long time.
EPHYRA, ONE KILOMETER FROM TREASURY ROW
The inevitable had been postponed for a few years, but the day had finally come just as Dom had always known it would.
He drove the Packhorse down the deserted street, bouncing over potholes and debris. This was the no-man’s land between Ephyra and the rest of Tyrus, a couple of kilometers of ghost towns that separated the relatively safe territory from the grub-infested wastelands. Dom accepted it was all an illusion, a false sense of security. Nowhere was truly safe, and nowhere was completely in grub hands. Ephyra was hit by air raids from Reavers, and sometimes raiding parties made it across the invisible line between granite and sandstone. Outside the wire, Stranded settlements somehow managed to survive. The grubs were closing in a meter at a time and picked off humans only when it suited them.
And it sure as hell seemed to suit them now. He passed boarded-up stores that had been abandoned and re-occupied a couple of times over the last few years and spotted a wisp of smoke above the roofline. He slowed the Packhorse for a better look.
“What is it?” Marcus asked.
He was looking the other way, out toward the grub lines, with his Lancer resting on the open passenger window. Dom checked the rearview mirror. In the back, Jace was fidgeting with his Lancer, flicking the catch on the magazine. Tai looked as calm as a statue.
“Just checking,” Dom said. “Give me a couple of seconds.”
As the vehicle rumbled slowly past the store, Dom could see jury-rigged cables strung precariously between the building and a pylon. A grimy window flickered with dim light: someone was watching a television. It was a miracle the place hadn’t burned down. Then Dom ducked instinctively even before his conscious brain registered what had spooked him. Rifle. He saw the flash of optics. Suddenly Marcus’s Lancer was aimed past him out the driver’s side window.
A Stranded guy with a hunting rifle was crouched at the side of the road in the cover of a pile of garbage bins. If the grubs had been patrolling, those tin cans wouldn’t have stopped a round.
“Take it easy, buddy,” Dom called. He stopped the Packhorse and stuck his head out. “You need to clear out of here. The grubs are coming. Big push on Ephyra.”
“Like you give a shit.” The guy was maybe Dom’s age but thin and deeply lined. He had a firefighter’s helmet. Maybe he thought it would give him some protection. “You just cruisin’ around lookin’ out for us Stranded, huh? Or you wanna bill me for the electricity?”
Dom was immune to abuse after nearly ten years of stopping at every Stranded camp he found. He couldn’t blame them for seeing the COG as another enemy just as bad as the grubs. He went through the ritual, fishing the photo out from behind his chest-plate and holding it up for the guy to check out.
“You ever seen this woman?”
“What’s she done?”
“Nothing. She’s my wife. She’s missing.”
The guy actually studied it, head slightly cocked on one side. “No. I’d remember her.”
“Thanks.” Dom put the photo away and slipped the Pack into first gear. “You better get moving.”
“Yeah, I’ll get my chauffeur to bring the limo ’round. Tell you what, maybe I’ll just walk out of here because it’s terrific exercise.”
The Packhorse had four seats, four occupied seats, and a space in the back that was full of ammo and supplies. Dom tried not to look at Marcus. He wanted to save everybody even when it was a bad idea.
“It’s cramped in the back,” Marcus said, “but we can drop you inside the city.”
The Stranded guy stared at him like he was considering it, then shrugged. “And then what? I still got nothin’ and nowhere to go. Beat it. Go on. I’d rather deal with the grubs.”
“Suit yourself,” Dom said, and accelerated away, checking the mirror to watch the guy dwindling in the distance. They only got one chance. “Asshole.”
The Packhorse rattled along the cracked pavement toward the Ephyra line. Jace leaned forward and crossed his arms on the back of Dom’s seat.
“You gave him a choice, man. Don’t beat yourself up.”
“Yeah, so I did.” Dom groped along the dashboard and switched the radio to the speaker. Anya’s voice filled the cab. She was talking to the Raven pilots on the comms net and he caught the words Landa Square. “And we’ve got bigger problems.”
They listened to the voice traffic between Anya and the Ravens. “KR-Seven-Five—still awaiting confirmation on Reaver contact … wait one—confirmed visual, range three kilometers, bearing one-three-zero … Roger that, Four-Nine, Seven-Five. Control to all KR units—Reavers inbound, bearing one-three-zero.”
Marcus was getting agitated. He stared dead ahead at the road, jaw muscles twitching. “Come on, Dom. Better not be late to the party.”
“She’ll be okay.” Dom didn’t have to say Anya. “CIC’s in the old bank HQ. Can’t get much safer than that.”
“Yeah.”
The Packhorse crossed the Ephyra boundary and merged into a river of military traffic. Some was streaming in—Centaur tanks, mobile artillery, open trucks full of Gears—and some was moving northeast toward Jacinto carrying civilian refugees. Dom had to stop for a moment to let a transport pull out in front of him and he found himself staring into the back. Civvies, mainly women and kids, were huddled on benches that ran the length of the truck, clutching suitcases or bags. A little girl with braids caught his eye. Once again, he couldn’t really tell the difference between COG citizens and Stranded except by how clean they looked, because the homes inside the wire still had running water. Other than that they all looked much the same. It was just a case of which side of the wire they ended up on.
Somewhere nearby, an arty piece opened up with a ground-shaking pom-pom-pom. Dom craned his neck but couldn’t see what the crew was firing at until he slowed and turned the corner. A small cloud of black smoke marked where a Reaver had been taken out, but it might have been a Raven and the Reaver could have fled. Marcus leaned forward to stare, unblinking.
“Come on, Dom, we’re gonna run out of grubs if you don’t pull your finger out …” Jace muttered.
“Hey, where do you expect me to go in this traffic? There’ll be plenty of grubs to go around.”
Dom was heading for Hoffman’s command post at the intersection of Almar and Correll. It was almost like the colonel wouldn’t start the battle without them, his lucky charms. He’d been Dom’s CO one way or another for more than fifteen years, and Marcus’s and Tai’s for almost as long. Even if the regimental structure of the COG army had long since dissolved, the old ties of the 26th Royal Tyran Infantry lived on.
26 RTI. The Unvanquished. Dom could remember how proud he’d been to get that death’s head cap badge when he enlisted. We better live up to that today.
“This is as close as I can get.” Dom couldn’t see a way past the islands of waist-high concrete and rubble that had been dumped in the street as both cover and barriers. They were on South Mercantile Way, a block away from the Treasury and the National Museum of Ephyra, and the side-walk was dotted with Centaurs. An artillery piece sat at the end of the road. “Everybody out.”
“Better to walk into battle,” Tai said, sliding out of the back seat. He was a big, heavy guy these days, quite a few kilos heavier than the lean tribal warrior they’d first run into on Arohma during the Pendulum Wars and persuaded to join the COG. “So that the enemy may see the resolve on your face, and the great number of your victory tattoos, and take the opportunity to run away.”
“Yeah, Tai, you go and do your tattooed resolve thing,” Jace said. “That’ll scare the grubs shitless. Me, I’ll bank on a full clip any day”
Marcus went ahead. “Full house,” he said. “Let’s report in.”
Hoffman was standing at the control post, looking out down Almar Boulevard over a wall of sandbags and makeshift barricades manned by ranks of Gears with every weapon from .50 cal Stompers to Longspear missile launchers. He had his field glasses to his eyes and one boot on an ammo crate. Somehow, though, he was managing to shave with his free hand, raking the razor over his chin as he surveyed the road. Corporal Aigle, the radio operator, tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around to look at Marcus.
“Excuse the mess, Fenix,” Hoffman said. “The help didn’t show.”
“So how are we doing, Colonel?”
Hoffman turned and walked a few paces down the road. “They’ve got to come this way,” he said, pocketing the razor. “That’s the main sewer. Damn Reavers are mopping up a lot of ordnance, though.”
He kept walking and Marcus followed. Marcus hated the hero thing, but he had an effect on morale just by being there, and that was probably why Hoffman was taking the trouble to walk him down to the front line. Dom could hear the comments as guys noticed he’d arrived.
“Hey, look who just rocked up.”
“Kiss your asses goodbye, grubs. The cavalry’s here.”
“Nice of you to fit us into your busy diary, Fenix.”
Marcus didn’t break his stride and settled down behind a barricade right at the front. “Yeah, I had my hair done specially.”
He sounded totally in control, but Dom knew he was embarrassed. It was his telltale gesture with the Lancer that gave it away, playing his fingers on the muzzle like it was the fretboard of a guitar and he was trying to remember a difficult chord—just the slightest movement, something only Dom would spot. Marcus didn’t want to be seen as the savior who could put everything right just by fronting up.
He wanted to save everyone because he thought he had to. If there was a phrase that summed him up, Dom thought, it was I must. He’d been like that as long as Dom could remember, even as a kid—even before his mother disappeared. But Marcus’s father’s take on life was I can. He believed in science and that he could fix everything if he thought about it hard enough. The two men looked alike but thought like strangers.
Nobody could fix this shit, and nobody could save everyone. Dom had decided to save the few he could.
He waited in silence for ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Nobody even coughed. He felt he could hear every breath, every click of metal, every Raven in the air, in that heavy silence. Then his earpiece popped. Anya’s voice, calm and steady, gave them all the bad news.
“Control to all callsigns, we have an alert from NTU,” she said. “Locust ingress into the sewer system. Estimate, now less than one kilometer from Correll Square.”
Hoffman, pacing up and down behind the obstacle course of concrete blocks, sounded almost relieved. Dom knew he wanted a fight, and he wanted it over and done with. “You heard the lady, Gears. Stand to.”
Jace, squatting next to Tai with his Lancer resting on sandbags, put one hand flat on the pavement.
“Shit …”
“What?” Dom followed suit. “What is it?”
“Feel ’em?”
It started as a faint vibration, like someone was piledriving in soft ground. Then the resonance increased like an earthquake. It was the familiar warning of an e-hole about to erupt, only much stronger. Dom held his breath and sighted up.
There was a manhole cover dead ahead, a big fancy one decorated with ornate, interlocking cog shapes. There were perforations in it. Dom saw something poke up through one of the holes and realized it was brown fur.
A rat popped out like a cork, then another, and another.
“Rats making a run for it, sir!” someone yelled. “This is it!”
“Steady,” Hoffman barked. A steady stream of rats was now frantically squeezing through the perforations and racing for the shelter of the nearest building. It must have been one hell of a climb for them to get out. “Steady …”
The stream of rats vanished. Dom was only vaguely aware of the Ravens circling overhead. His focus narrowed to a tunnel ahead of him, Correll Road, still largely intact except for the old furniture store that had taken a direct hit from a Reaver a year ago and was boarded up and missing its roof. The ground was still trembling.
Oh God.
It wasn’t the first time he’d waited for a grub onslaught to begin, not by a long chalk. But this was somehow different. Nobody moved. There was just the click of Lancers around him as everyone kept checking their weapons.
Come on. Come on. Just do it, you assholes.
The vibration was becoming more sporadic. Suddenly he could hear distant cracking and rumbling. He tried to picture the Corpser—maybe more than one—blundering through the sewer at the head of a grub column, smashing the brick lining and picking the spot to break through. Suddenly the pavement a hundred meters ahead of him seemed to bulge upward. Something burst into the air—another manhole cover—and then he was looking at a shockwave, a single rippling movement traveling fast down the center of the road and flinging paving slabs and chunks of co
ncrete into the air like a zipper being torn open. It took seconds. Gears around him didn’t even have time to swear. He felt the ground lift under him, and dirt, brick, and water fountained into the air from an instant crater.
“Corpser!” someone yelled. “Fucking Corpser!”
As the huge spider-like legs groped over the crater’s edge, a hundred Lancers, RPGs, and grenade launchers opened up at once, grubs poured out of the e-hole—two arms, two legs, but so gray and scaly and monstrously ugly that you’d never mistake them for humans—and hell erupted. From that moment on, Dom was on autopilot. Part of him still had an eye on Marcus, but the rest was doing what it usually did when he was staring into a hail of fire. His body took over and he couldn’t tell where his arm ended and his Lancer began. He squeezed off a long burst, spraying rounds left to right, then ducked behind cover and reloaded. It was one continuous wall of muzzle flash. The noise was so loud he’d stopped hearing it. It was only when a Gear to his left—a guy he knew by sight but couldn’t put a name to—fell to his knees and slumped over the barrier that he snapped back into the wider picture.
There was a lull, a few seconds, nothing more, a moment of bizarre silence. He saw the pile of grubs for the first time, a perfect ramp of bodies to the top of the barricade. He was staring into the next ugly rank of motherfuckers, right into their weird yellow eyes. And then they charged, firing, and then they were over the barricade, crashing through the lines of Gears. One jumped right over him and caught his shoulder with its boot. The impact spun him around. The next thing he saw was Tai lunging at a grub to bring his chainsaw up between its legs. It was impossible to hose the bastards now; they were too close, right among the Gears, and the only option left was hand-to-hand. Dom dived in and revved his Lancer’s saw. The first grub he saw tried to dodge him but he had a moment of pure animal rage—not fear, not reflex this time—and chased it. He caught up with it in just a few seconds and took a swipe at the backs of its legs to bring it down. Then he jumped on it, feet first, and sliced through the top of its skull because that was the only part he could reach right then.