Coalition's End

by Karen Traviss

  “How else are we gonna defend ourselves?”

  “Put on this uniform—that’s how. Pull your weight and get fed like the rest of us.” She prodded a warning finger at him. “You want to play Stranded martyr, go ahead, but touch my Gears—dead or alive—and I’ll damn well have you. Got it?”

  She jogged back to the APC and it rumbled off down the road. Dizzy could hear artillery in the distance. The Gears were probably on their way to an e-hole and fresh out of patience with anyone who wasn’t one side of the line or the other. But that didn’t change things. Nobody trusted the government now. The Stranded would take their chances out here in case the next official promise of safety ended the same way as the last.

  Yeah, they preferred to be Stranded, even though it was a nice clean name for a dirty, terrible thing. The poor saps outside the wire were the betrayed. The COG was another enemy now, somehow even worse than the grubs. Grubs didn’t kill their own.

  The kids went around retrieving the thrown bricks. Business was business, after all. Dizzy decided it was high time he went back to Rosalyn. He headed for the corrugated iron hut that was now home—a pretty terrible come-down, but it beat sleeping in a burned-out car—to find Rosalyn curled up on the mattress with the babies all wrapped up and peaceful next to her.

  The woman who’d done the midwifing gave him a disapproving glare. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. The hero’s returned. Been out celebrating?”

  “Been out getting something special for my special girl.” Dizzy didn’t like to be rude to a lady but this was his home, and he didn’t need any lectures from her. She flounced out, making him feel like some bum who put drinking above his family. “Hey sweetie, how’s all my princesses?”

  “Sleeping.” Rosalyn took his hand. “Wow, I’ve never been this tired. Where did you go? I heard some ruckus going on.”

  “Usual foolery. Stonin’ APCs. Just went out to see if I could get you somethin’.” Dizzy could have stood there for hours just staring at the twins. “Hello, Teresa. Hello, Maralin.”

  He must have said their names a hundred times in the last ten hours. Every time he did, it gave him that same crazy thrill. I have daughters. Whatever else was going on out there, he had a family who relied on him, and that made him a man again.

  “Anyway, just a little token of a new daddy’s pride.” He took out the brush set and put it on the chair beside the bed. “Sweetie, you don’t know how grateful I am right now. I was a mess. You put me straight again.”

  “And you saved my life. More than once. Just in case you forgot that.” She tried out the brush as best she could without sitting up. “This is lovely. How did you find it?”

  “Ah, I got my secrets. Ain’t we a team?”

  “We’re going to do okay, Dizzy. We’re going to make it.”

  The grubs couldn’t touch him. He felt bulletproof at that moment, a whole world away from what was happening outside.

  “Okay, time I got on with making some currency, sweetie.” He peered at the fermentation lock on the plastic bucket of mash wrapped discreetly in blankets in the corner. The bubbles were still glopping through the water. “I’m a man in demand. My hooch don’t make ya go blind. This is gonna keep all of us fed.”

  Rosalyn propped herself up on one elbow. “Long as you don’t drink the profits.”

  “Just quality control, sweetie. You want anything?”

  “No. Just a little nap.”

  Making moonshine was a nice way to spend a few hours. Dizzy got a kick out of all the tinkering to get the brew just right—smelling the mash, deciding when it was done fermenting, getting the still set up just right, and picking that crucial moment when the distilled liquor hit the right balance of fire and flavor and he could switch off the heat. This batch was apples. It was going to be goddamn nectar.

  He eased the lid off the bucket to sniff for quality. Appetizing. That was the only way to describe it. The mash was a mucky-looking swamp that smelled of heaven. The surface shivered a little.

  Mmm… mmm.

  The shivering went on a bit longer than Dizzy expected. Then it turned into shaking. He stared at it, trying to work out what was vibrating nearby. The shaking became a rhythmic slopping.

  Oh God… “Sweetie, get up!” Dizzy dropped the plastic lid and went to grab the twins. Rosalyn struggled off the mattress and snatched the girls from him. “Get to the shelter! It’s the grubs! Run!”

  Outside, a car horn blared as someone sounded the alarm. Rosalyn stumbled out the door ahead of him but grabbed a kitchen knife from the table as she went.

  “They’re not getting my babies.” The blade would give the average grub a nasty itch, nothing more. “I’ll kill them if they lay a paw on my babies.”

  “You just get in the shelter, okay?” The grubs could pop up anywhere, even inside the makeshift bunker, but the alternative was to freeze like a dumb rabbit waiting to get torn to shreds. “Don’t come out. Not for anything.”

  “Dizzy, you’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll be okay.” He turned back in the direction the rest of the men were heading. Rosalyn was swept up in the rush with the other women and children. “Keep your head down!”

  The camp dogs were barking their heads off. Dizzy was halfway down the road before he realized he might have seen his kids for the last time, but it was too late to run back now. Masonry tumbled into the street ahead, a sign of where the grubs were coming out. A bunch of men, all the ones who had weapons—hunting rifles, COG Lancers, even grub shotguns—formed a line in front of the shelter and opened up on the goddamn things.

  “Where’s your precious Gears now, Dizzy?” one guy yelled. His name was Nicklos and they said he’d been navy chief way back. “Where are they when we need ’em?”

  The grubs charged down the street.

  There weren’t many of them, but holding them off with rifles was a tall order and Dizzy didn’t even have a handgun. I’m crazy. What am I doing? He took out his wrench and looked around for a chunk of pipe or a metal bar, a second weapon he could batter the assholes with. But the guy to his left fell backward with half his head shot away, and a rifle clattered to the ground.

  “Pick it up!” someone yelled. “You know how to use it, don’t ya?”

  No, he didn’t: he’d been drafted into the merchant navy, not the army. He knew how rifles worked, that was all. But he grabbed it, aimed at a gray shape heading his way, and fired. The recoil took him by surprise. He fired again, and kept firing even though he couldn’t tell if he’d hit any of the grubs. It seemed like only a few seconds before the rifle stopped kicking his shoulder and just made dry clicks every time he squeezed the trigger. He didn’t even know how to reload. Someone tossed him a clip and he was still fumbling for it on the ground and trying to work out where to slot it when the firing stopped and he could suddenly smell shit.

  “I hate it when those bastards do that,” Nicklos said. “Come on, we’ve got people bleeding out. Move it! Get ’em to first aid!”

  Dizzy finally clicked the magazine in the right way and stood up to see what everyone was looking at. Dead grubs and men littered the road. One of the grubs was lying in a puddle of his own guts and a couple of the camp dogs were taking a keen interest in them. So that was the smell.

  “I know you’re new in town, buddy, but you’re going to have to shape up fast,” Nicklos said to him. “I want you frigging drill-perfect on that piece next time, okay?”

  Dizzy clutched the rifle in his hands, an unfamiliar and amazing thing. Guns were for Gears. Civilians—and merchant navy—had never had a need for them before. He was going to have to get better at this.

  He’d fought his first real battle and become a father, all on the same day. If that didn’t call for a sip of ’shine, he didn’t know what did.

  FIFTEEN KLICKS SOUTH OF JACINTO, 190 DAYS AFTER THE HAMMER OF DAWN STRIKES.

  “Who said keep going? ’Cause it wasn’t me.” Baird looked like he was being eaten by the en
gine compartment of the ’Dill, leaning into it with just his legs and ass visible outside the inspection hatch. “See, when the big engine thing starts making bad noises, Dickson, it’s saying ‘Ooh, I’m hurt.’ It’s not saying ‘Hey, let’s drive another five klicks and see if I can throw a con-rod!’”

  “I got faith in ya, baby,” Cole said, scanning the rubble for movement. Assholes. They’re out there. “You can raise the dead. Engines, that is. Just do it fast.”

  Cole, Alonzo, and Dickson covered Baird while he worked, sighting up on doorways and shadows on the lookout for grubs. Hammer or no Hammer, the things were back and stronger than ever.

  And they were close. Cole could hear the rubble clicking and tumbling every so often as they edged forward behind cover. They could have attacked by now, but they were probably waiting until Baird had fixed the ’Dill before they moved in. They scavenged every piece of COG kit they could get. They preferred their stuff in good running order.

  But Cole had a new toy that they sure as shit weren’t going to get their paws on. He hadn’t used it on anything live yet, but he’d practiced on a frozen beef carcass in the cold store—man, the names that cook called him—and this baby felt like pure essence.

  He admired the shark-tooth profile of his new Lancer’s chainsaw for the fiftieth time that day and carried on looking for grubs to ventilate with it. Lots of them.

  This is the ish, baby. Hope you got a bonus for inventin’ this, whoever you are.

  “So how fucked is it?” Dickson was getting edgy about the sick ’Dill. “Abandon it, or call for roadside assistance?”

  “It’s wait-for-Corporal-Baird-to-finish-the-job. We’re not leaving it.”

  “Oh, yeah, my bad. You got two new stripes. Can you remind us again?”

  “Certainly, Private Dickson.”

  “Don’t say my name like that. I’ve told you.”

  “Nyah nyah nyah… oh shit. Dropped a nut.”

  Cole could hear the rubble noises coming nearer. “Yeah, the grubs are gettin’ impatient too. Busy-busy, Baird…”

  “I say we crank up the cannon while we still can.” Alonzo backed away in the direction of the ’Dill. “Just to show how much we frown on carjacking.”

  It was so quiet that Cole heard the nose hatch rasp open, then the whirr of the turret as Alonzo prepped to fire. Baird’s wrench pinged and clanked against something.

  Come on… come on…

  This was just asking for it. Cole decided to move forward to flush the grubs out so they weren’t close-in when the shooting started. Alonzo needed a little elbow room to do his stuff with the gun.

  “Here, ugly…,” Cole murmured, tiptoeing through the rubble. “Come on out, ’cause I got some real pimped-out shit to show you…”

  Alonzo’s voice hissed in his earpiece. “Don’t push your luck, Cole.”

  “I ain’t waitin’ for ’em anymore.” Oh yeah, they were there, all right. He saw something out of the corner of his eye on the far side of the road, a flash of shiny metal, and he spun around to open fire.

  Rounds struck and sent dust zipping in a line across the stump of a wall. Dickson squeezed off a burst too. Someone yelled.

  “Hey, don’t shoot! For fuck’s sake, man, stop!”

  A head popped up—human, civilian—and Cole nearly took it off by sheer reflex. “Yo, check fire, Dickson! Stranded!”

  The guy came out from behind the wall at a crouch. “You could have killed me.”

  “Baby, you’re damn lucky you still got a face. What the hell are you doin’ here? You’re in a live zone.”

  “Recycling, COG.” The rubble rat was about Cole’s age but half his size and only had a pellet rifle. Yeah, that would come in real handy if he ran into any angry flies. “In case you hadn’t noticed, asshole, we live in a live zone.”

  Cole had been called asshole by Stranded so often that it sounded like Private to him now. He was more focused on the trickling noise he could still hear from the rubble. Judging by Dickson’s reaction, he heard it too. It was either grubs or more Stranded. Dickson never took chances. He aimed.

  “Get goin’, buddy.” Cole waved the rubble rat away. “Grubs are comin’, and we don’t brake for nobody.”

  Another guy surfaced a few meters away, gray-haired and clutching a Locust Boomshot. Then a couple more heads popped up further down the road. If the grubs came out now, this was going to get messy.

  Then the debris in front of Cole flew up in the air and a Boomer rose out of it like a stripper from a cake.

  “Boom!” it said. “Hur—hur—hur!” So the big ugly motherfucker thought it was funny, did it?

  “Everybody—down!” Alonzo yelled.

  Cole had already hit the ground before the turret gun opened up on the Boomer. Alonzo clipped it and Cole felt the wet lumps hit him, but the Boomer kept going. He rolled to get up. But the Boomer stepped across him, and for a moment Cole was looking right up between its legs. As it reached down to rip him apart, he flicked the chainsaw switch.

  The chain’s teeth were a screaming blur. Cole brought the Lancer up into the Boomer’s crotch and it shrieked its head off. He’d expected to slice clean through it, but he hadn’t. He wasn’t sure what splashed on him, blood or piss, but it bought him a second to roll clear as another long burst from the ’Dill threw the Boomer backward.

  “Yeah, you’re singin’ soprano now, bitch!” Cole jumped up to look around, not sure where the Boomer had fallen. Dickson opened fire on his left and the ’Dill’s gun chattered behind him. Grubs burst out of the ruined storefronts. “Baird, you better pull your goddamn finger out now!”

  Cole had three drones coming right at him. He knew the Stranded were still out there somewhere, but all he could do was keep firing or get shredded. He emptied a clip at the grubs and vaulted over a low wall to reload behind cover. Dickson was crouched there already, doing the same.

  “Well, shit.” Dickson shut his eyes for a second before he bobbed up again to fire. “You think that saw’s going to catch on?”

  “Everybody’s gonna want one, baby.”

  “Cole, stay down! Just stay down!” That was Alonzo. “We’re coming!”

  Cole fired blind over the wall just as the ’Dill coughed and started up. Baird must have been driving because Alonzo was still on top cover, squeezing off short bursts at targets Cole couldn’t see from ground level. The ’Dill bounced over the rubble like a toy and swung around hard left to come at the wall nose first. The hatch slid open.

  “Look, I don’t go south of the river, and the fare doesn’t include tips,” Baird said. “Let’s go.”

  “Nice drivin’.” Cole turned and grabbed Dickson’s arm. “Mount up.”

  They scrambled over the wall and fell into the crew compartment. Baird backed up and swung the ’Dill around again as rounds pinged off the armor plating.

  “Alonzo, get down and shut the damn hatch!” Baird yelled. He didn’t seem to be driving in anything like a straight line. “Now this is what I signed up for. Yes!” Bomp. The ’Dill hit something and Cole realized that Baird was swerving to mow down as many grubs as he could. “Hey, mind my paintwork, asshole …” Thud. Another grub went under the wheels. “So, now we know a chainsaw doesn’t slice right through a Boomer, but it does stop ’em breeding. What kind of girly-toy shit is Procurement sending us?”

  Bomp.

  Cole could see a porthole view of the street through a bulkhead vent. Baird brought the ’Dill to a halt. The hammering noise of rounds striking it had stopped, and there was just the steady burble of the engine idling. Cole got his breath back.

  Damn, we had Stranded out there.

  The poor assholes could have been lying out there wounded with all that stray fire spraying around. He had to check. He couldn’t see much from the vent. ’Dills had a lot of blind spots when all the scuttles were shut, even with the driver’s optics.

  “Baird, you see anything?”

  “Up scope!” He rotated the periscope like a sub co
mmander, clearly having a ball. “Warship… tanker… no, sweet FA. I think there’ll be some grub portions in the wheel arches, though.”

  “No Stranded?”

  “Nope.”

  “I gotta check.”

  “They’re not our problem, Cole.”

  “Okay, I’m goin’ out the top hatch.”

  “Here’s an IQ test. We’re okay. The ’Dill’s running. The grubs are dead. It’s lunchtime. What’s next in the sequence?”

  “I gotta see for myself.”

  Cole unclipped the hatch and left it resting on the coaming for a moment while he balanced on the step. It was a tricky move—one hand to throw back the hatch, one hand full of shiny new Lancer. Baird didn’t mean all that shit. He’d have driven off otherwise.

  “Don’t make me pull rank on you, Cole.”

  “Yeah, yeah… in three—two—go.”

  Cole punched the hatch open, expecting to be met by a burst of fire. But it was all quiet. He squeezed his shoulders out and listened to nothing but silence, his Lancer resting on the hull. If there was anybody still out there then they were either dead or unconscious.

  He ducked his head to climb back down. But as he reached up to grab the handle and pull the hatch closed, a big gray head pushed through and knocked him down. A grub was right in his face, poking through the hatch like some ugly goddamn cork in a bottle. Something clanged on the ’Dill’s hull and rattled down the side.

  “Grenade!” Baird yelled. The ’Dill shuddered. Something exploded, but not in the vehicle. “No, no—he dropped it—it’s outside!”

  The grub landed on top of Cole then somehow sprang back onto its feet. Cole’s reflex was to shove the Lancer in its chest and fire, but that was suicidal in a tight space so he swung the chainsaw into it instead. The moment was all screeching noise, spray, and confusion. His first swipe bit chunks out of the grub’s face. The return swing skidded across its scalp. But the thing was kneeling on the deck now, bellowing and flailing, and Cole had the second he needed to push down past its left ear and slice into bone.