Coalition's End

by Karen Traviss

  “I’m going to ask for volunteers to relocate,” Hoffman said. “Then when we need to move them—if we need to— we won’t have as many to ship out in a hurry.”

  Hoffman’s ifs and maybes were starting to creep back in again. He knew he was kidding himself. Prescott still seemed distracted by the reports on the table and pored through them, not even looking up. “Excellent idea. Anything else, gentlemen?”

  For once there was an extra item, the political kind that Prescott could toss and gore for hours. It might keep him occupied. Hoffman shoved it into the arena and stepped back.

  “Yes, Chairman,” he said. “We have some disgruntled civilians griping about not being consulted. Keir Ingram waylaid me to bend my ear about it.”

  “He’s keen to start local elections again,” Prescott said, completely unabashed. “I’m aware. He brings it up once a year, regular as clockwork.”

  “Good, then I can leave the civil unrest and coup suppression to you.” Job done. His problem. “Adjourned?”

  “Adjourned,” Prescott said. “Good day, gentlemen.”

  He vanished again with Rivera and Lowe. Hoffman had no idea what he did when he wasn’t in his office, but he’d never been the kind of man to want to chew the fat over a coffee even when coffee still existed. There were just very few private diversions on Vectes and no gentlemen’s clubs in which to do dodgy deals over port.

  As long as he’s not in my face, fine. I don’t care where he goes.

  Sharle steered Trescu away to discuss the imulsion situation. It was a handy moment for Hoffman to peel off to CIC and find out what Mathieson wanted.

  “Wait for me, Quentin, will you?” Hoffman said. “I’ve just got to see what the kid wants.”

  Donneld Mathieson was sitting at his desk, headset in place and fidgeting with a gadget Hoffman couldn’t recognize, opening and closing it one-handed like someone absent-mindedly clicking a pen.

  “Everything okay, son?” Hoffman asked.

  Mathieson jerked out of his trance. “Something’s bothering me, sir.” He put the gadget down and beckoned. “I recorded it this time. Do you want to listen?”

  “Listen to what?”

  “A radio signal. A databurst.” Mathieson pushed back his wheelchair and grabbed a headset from a desk nearby. “Listen to this.”

  He plugged in the headset and indicated the button to press. Hoffman shut his eyes, one hand cupped over his right ear, and listened. It was just electronic noise—two or three seconds at most—like any satellite transmitting or receiving data. It repeated a few times.

  “I looped the recording so you could get a better idea of it,” Mathieson said. “It’s just one burst.”

  “Mind if we share this with Captain Michaelson?” Hoffman asked. Mathieson half shrugged. Hoffman stepped into the hall. “Quentin? Something you might want to hear.”

  Hoffman handed the headset to Michaelson and watched his face while he listened with a deepening frown.

  “How the hell did you catch it?” Hoffman asked. “It’s just a couple of seconds.”

  “It got too regular,” Mathieson said. The gadget on his desk caught Hoffman’s eye and he realized it was a metal ball joint. “It’s always the same time—not every day, but when it happens, you can set your watch by it. No idea what the data is. That’ll be decoded by the receiving station.”

  “One of our former Stranded visitors pinging pirate friends?” Michaelson asked. “A trifle high-tech for them, though.”

  “I don’t think so, sir.” Mathieson tapped the receiver on his desk as if it would make sense to them. “I’ll show you my calculations if you like, but the transmission source is probably on Vectes.”

  Michaelson picked up the metal socket joint from the desk and bent it back and forth. “Is this Baird’s handiwork?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mathieson said. “He’s working on prosthetic legs with some of the Gorasni guys.”

  “Splendid.” Michaelson smiled. “Could that burst be an uplink to the met sat?”

  “Possibly, sir. No idea why anyone would want to do that, though.”

  “You said it got regular.” Hoffman realized he was almost whispering. “When did it start?”

  “I’ve been picking it up on and off for six weeks. But it’s become more frequent.”

  “Just log it,” Hoffman said. No, six weeks didn’t fit known satellite activity at all. “Thanks, Lieutenant. Good work.”

  The long walk across the parade ground gave Hoffman and Michaelson a chance to talk unheard. “If it’s been going on for some weeks, then it’s not Prescott uplinking to the weather sat without telling Mathieson,” Hoffman said. “Who made the transmission for him, anyway, and who’s got the kit to do it? Damn, I should have asked, but if I look paranoid he knows he’s got me.”

  “It’s not who’s calling that intrigues me so much as who they’re calling.” Michaelson looked up at the sky rather than out to sea. It was a reflex when it came to satellites. “Who else is still out there?”

  “If it’s not Stranded, and not us, then it’s got to be the Gorasni. I’d be mightily pissed off if Trescu’s precious frigate was still lurking somewhere.”

  “Nezark’s gone. We found her wreck, remember.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Hoffman shook his head. “But it wouldn’t be the first time the Gorasni have gone off and done their own thing. Look, you’re very buddy-buddy with Trescu. Any ideas?”

  “Ah, the fellowship of the sea,” Michaelson said. “I think he’s worried about Prescott. You know, I do detect the first whiff of desperation about the Chairman. All that busy work, trying to analyze the Lambent.”

  Hoffman’s strategic vision was condensing into a modest plan to make it through the next week in one piece. If Prescott was starting to feel out of his depth, that was worrying. Anything that could rattle that man’s sense of divine omnipotence was serious shit.

  Hoffman found himself hoping that the asshole really was just cracking up like a normal man after all. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Go sweet-talk your nautical buddy sometime, Quentin. We need to know.”

  GORASNI CAMP, NEW JACINTO.

  There was an art to being the alpha male, and Trescu had learned it at his father’s knee. He forgot he’d even had to acquire the skill. But there were times lately when it became a conscious thing, something he had to concentrate on using because what he was asking himself and his people to do was so… unnatural, so un-Gorasnayan.

  As he walked down the main track through the camp— he made sure he was seen at least once a day—he spotted a knot of people gathered around one of the water standpipes. There was nothing unusual about that; people had to collect water, and when people paused, they gossiped. But his instincts were still those of a fighting man. He got that whiff of trouble, the signs that the Gears called combat indicators, normal things that were now not quite normal. And he knew the mood of his community like he knew Ilina’s.

  There was no point sidestepping it. Boils had to be lanced. He squared his shoulders and headed for the gathering at a steady pace. They all nodded at him politely as he approached.

  “Where are we going to put all these extra people, Commander?” one of the women asked.

  “It’s temporary,” Trescu said. “And the choice is either taking them into your homes, or erecting more shelters.”

  “But if we have imulsion,” the woman asked, “why don’t we just go home now? Why stay now that the stalks are invading the island?”

  It was the old debate; better to fight and die in Gorasnaya than live an uncertain existence as refugees, especially with an old enemy’s charity. The decision to come to Vectes hadn’t been universally popular. Trescu hadn’t exactly taken a vote on it.

  “Because we stand a better chance of surviving with the COG than without them.” Trescu’s father had always told him never to explain his orders, but this wasn’t the battlefield. “We would have lost Emerald S
par with or without the COG. Now we have fuel and food again. It’s not my first choice either, but the threat we face now has changed and we can’t take it on alone. This isn’t like the Locust or the garayaz Stranded, believe me.”

  He carried on walking, looking for the next sullen group of citizens to challenge to defy him. The camp was like a miniature city, with neighborhoods that supported him and others that were less enamored of his policy. But there was no open revolt. They had the right to carp, but they didn’t have the right to threaten the precarious existence of the Gorasni people.

  Combat indicators. Hah.

  The COG did love its jargon. He found himself strolling now, chewing over the last encounter with Prescott. Something was very wrong there. Something about the man had shifted focus. There were issues that seemed to concern him more than the stalk incursions.

  He wants samples of this contamination. We all know what this base used to be. Am I getting naive?

  Trescu was a naval officer who’d had to become a soldier because his country needed him to be one. He could see that the path ahead of him was suddenly empty—no children playing, no women hanging out washing between the tents, no men hammering planks in the endless repair of the camp. It was unusual, and on the mainland that almost always meant something bad was about to happen.

  I’m in my own territory. This is insane.

  But he was in a part of the camp that wouldn’t have elected him if they’d had a vote, which they didn’t. He kept walking, expecting to be intercepted by an angry delegation.

  Then a loud crack rang out and the ground five meters in front of him threw up a plume of dust.

  It was a long second before he realized it was a rifle round. Some bastard was shooting at him.

  It was the most obvious thing in the world, a sound that would have sent him diving for cover out of pure reflex if he’d been anywhere else but this camp, but he was so stunned that he just paused where he stood for a moment. He didn’t even look up to see where the shot had come from.

  And the shooter meant to miss. Any Gorasni with a rifle was a marksman by necessity.

  So this is a show of some kind. Well, I can put on a show too.

  Trescu carried on walking, hating himself for feeling slightly shaken. Nobody would dare assassinate him, not with Teo or Yanik always ready to settle the score and nowhere to hide from them. By now, he could hear the buzz of voices rising around the camp and the sound of people running to see what was happening.

  Crack. A second round struck the path at a shallow angle, once again a safe five or six meters ahead of him. This time there were shouts and cries as people ducked.

  One more shot, just one more, and he would stop and do something educational about it. He had an audience now. He had to show his people what happened to those who tried his patience.

  He had a pretty good idea who it was, anyway.

  “Get down!” a woman yelled. “Commander! Are you crazy?”

  Trescu carried on, not changing his path or his pace. There would be a third shot, he knew. Where were they coming from? It wasn’t from the naval base walls behind him, and there were only a few structures inside the camp with enough height to allow a sniper shot like that—the bathroom blocks. There was one to his right.

  “Commander, what the fuck are you doing?” That was Yanik Laas. Trescu could hear him running down the path after him. “Get down! What if he’s drunk and hits you by accident?”

  Crack.

  The third round struck a little further ahead of Trescu than the last. Now it was time to stop and turn around— deliberate, expressionless, to make it clear that he was angry rather than in fear of his life. He could see the water tanks of the bathroom block set on a wooden platform above the rows of shower stalls. He set off for it at a steady pace, fists balled.

  Everyone had come out of their tents now. If there was anyone taking a shower then it would be unfortunate, but he had an example to set. He ran up the rickety maintenance stairway to the top of the structure and drew his pistol.

  Ianku Nareci was standing there with his rifle broken under one arm, completely relaxed, looking like he needed a smack in the face to teach him a lesson.

  “Well, Commander,” Nareci said. “What are you going to do about it? Get your COG friends to spank me?”

  Trescu glanced over the side at the gathering crowd to make sure what he did next would be seen. Nareci had to learn, but so did everyone else. He walked up to the man, pistol still in one hand, and punched him hard in the face. It hurt: he hoped the pain didn’t show. It probably hurt Nareci a lot more, though, because he fell against the safety rail and took a few moments getting up. Trescu holstered his pistol and grabbed him by the collar before he could regain his balance. He had the crowd’s full attention now.

  “That’s right, save your strength to beat your own people.” Nareci hissed through a mouthful of blood. “Not our enemies.”

  “Shut your mouth, garayaz.”

  It was a struggle to shift a man of Nareci’s weight. But Trescu forced him over the rail headfirst with a tight hold on his belt, keeping him off-balance so that there was a real chance of letting him fall. He took out his pistol again and tapped it against Nareci’s temple.

  “You know why I don’t kill you, Ianku? Do you?” Trescu shook the man and almost let him fall. “Because I can’t afford to lose a single Gorasni citizen. Not even a turd like you. Do you hear me? I’d love to blow your brains out for pure amusement, but we need all the breeding stock we can get.”

  “You’re a fucking traitor.” Nareci’s voice was just a strangled grunt, but he wasn’t giving in. “Now we’re pumping imulsion for those COG bastards and they’re handing a few cans of fuel back to us like charity. Your father—”

  “Don’t you dare use my father’s name, you worthless shit.” Trescu let him slip a little further. That stung. He didn’t need Nareci to remind him how he’d betrayed his father’s dying wish. “He’d have cut your throat as soon as look at you. Yes, I let you live. I let you whine. I do that because if this community splits into factions, we’ll all die. But if you piss me off one more time, I’ll kill you and give your wife to Yanik. Understand?”

  Nareci squirmed around to face him. “Yeah, why don’t you bend over and take it up the ass from the COG again? That’s all you’re good for.”

  That did it. Trescu almost pulled the trigger. But that was something he would only ever do when he was in full control of himself. He was seething, and killing in a fit of pique wasn’t the image he needed to project. He hit Nareci hard across the face with the pistol. Then he turned to the crowd below, all watching in wide-eyed silence.

  “That goes for all of you. I will not tolerate anarchy.” Trescu raised his voice without actually shouting, an art that took some learning. “We’re fighting for our existence and we have a common enemy with the COG. We need to do deals. Honorable death is all very fine, but the other word for that is losing. We have to survive.”

  He left Nareci on the platform between the water tanks and didn’t look back to see if he’d managed to wipe the sneer off the bastard’s face. The important thing now was to walk down the stairs and go about his business as if insects like Nareci were a mere annoyance, never a threat. Gorasni respected disdainful strength.

  But Egar Trescu would have told his son he was soft and had shown his weakness by not executing Nareci on the spot.

  Different times, Papa. But maybe, one day.

  Yanik and Teo were loitering nearby, waiting for him. He didn’t need looking after, whatever they thought.

  “He could have killed you, sir,” Yanik said. “You should gut him to encourage the others. Want me to do it?”

  “I meant what I said.” Trescu straightened his collar again. He didn’t want to look as if he’d been in a bar brawl. “Not one more Gorasni dies while I’m in command. Not even him. And he wouldn’t have killed me. He only gains if he humiliates me.”

  Teo didn’t seem convinced. “Peo
ple are getting very touchy about the fuel, sir.”

  “We’ll get our share,” Trescu said. “I trust Hoffman.”

  It was Prescott he didn’t trust. He wondered for a moment if the COG leader would even think of backhanding his querulous councilman to put him in his place. He doubted it. But the man had pressed a button and wiped out every major city outside Ephyra, even his own countrymen. The personal thresholds of acceptable violence were curious things.

  “Do you trust Old Misery-Guts even if that radio signal is still going?” Teo asked. That was what the COG sailors called Hoffman, albeit with some respect. “We picked it up again.”

  Trescu realized that he didn’t want to think Hoffman was capable of serious deceit. He wasn’t sure if that was pride in his ability to read people or just that he had some regard for the colonel and didn’t want to be disappointed.

  “But who would they be contacting?” he said. “The Stranded? There’s nobody else out there.”

  “Sir, I’ve spent too many years eavesdropping on COG radio traffic. This is different.”

  “Very well. I’ll see what I can find out from Michaelson.” Trescu’s radio bleeped. He pulled his earpiece from his jacket pocket. “Trescu—go ahead.”

  “Everything all right, Commander?” It was Hoffman. “Couldn’t help hearing some small arms fire.”

  “Just a little internal politics,” Trescu said. “No casualties. Thank you for your concern, but everything is under control.”

  Hoffman paused for a breath as if he wasn’t expecting that answer. “Goddamn it, don’t get yourself killed,” he snarled. “I don’t have time to build a new understanding with your replacement.”

  Trescu decided he hadn’t read Hoffman wrong at all. In a situation like this, it was a comfort.

  “Nor do I, Colonel,” he said. “Nor do I.”

  PELRUAN, NORTHERN VECTES: THREE DAYS LATER.

  “Well, there goes our tidy plan.” Rossi squinted into the sun, then checked something scribbled on his notepad. “It slowed down. Then it speeded up. Now it’s slowed again.”

  Dom adjusted his binoculars. He could now see the relentless march of dead trees from the headland. “I’m going to plan for the worst. So will the old man.”