Coalition's End

by Karen Traviss

  She had to get to Jacinto now. She couldn’t go back to Galangi or pretend there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Okay. There’s a river about ten kilometers from here.” She pointed north. “Follow the coast to the next headland and you’ll see the estuary. The grubs are everywhere, so you’re on your own.”

  “You’ve changed your tune, lady.”

  “I’ll change it again if you don’t move.”

  The man stared at her for a moment as if he was waiting for her to relent and offer to fill his tanks for him. When she didn’t, he shrugged, started the motor, and swung the boat around to head out.

  Hugo gave her a disapproving frown. “Bernie, tell me you’re not thinking stupid thoughts.”

  “You heard him. It’s my regiment. It’s got to be Two-Six RTI.”

  “Bernie, no. You’ll never make it.”

  “If you heard that the Fifth Kaia was still operating somewhere, how would you react? Your mates. What would you do?”

  “Oh, shit, is she starting that again?” Darrel said. “I thought she’d given up on that lost legion bollocks years ago.”

  “Look, you’re a sensible woman.” Hugo gripped her shoulder. He certainly wasn’t the first man to tell her that. “I just don’t know why you can’t drop this. Things are hard here. Why go halfway around the world to find something worse? If you find it, that is. You probably won’t make it to the next island, and I’m not going to divert a few thousand klicks to drop you off on Kaia, not with the fuel situation.”

  I’m getting old. I won’t get another chance to do this. I’m going to die sooner rather than later anyway. So I’ll die fighting with the regiment, or at least trying to get back to them. Not sitting here waiting for the grubs to come and get me.

  “I don’t need you to ferry me around,” she said. “I’ll take the day boat. It’s got a sail, too.”

  “You can just about manage the coastal waters. You’re not fucking navy.”

  “Then I’ll have to learn on the way, won’t I?”

  “Bernie, we’re a squad. We’ve done bloody well here. We protect what we can. We save who we can.”

  She felt something crack silently in her, like a joint popping. She shook his hand off her shoulder. “And I’m fucking Bernie Mataki, Two-Six RTI!” she yelled. “And I will rejoin my fucking regiment!”

  Hugo spread his hands in defeat. She could have sworn his eyes looked glassy. “Okay, mate. Okay. Take it easy.”

  “Sorry.” Her temper faded as fast as it had exploded. It was a stranger she didn’t recognize. “I just have to try.”

  “Never known you lose your rag like that, Bernie.”

  “I think it’s all that’s kept me sane.”

  “Not us?”

  “Well, you too, but—shit, you’re a Gear. How can you not understand it?”

  “Okay,” Hugo said. She’d never seen him look hurt before, but he did now. “Okay.”

  Goodbyes were always difficult. She knew that she couldn’t do them graciously, but now she realized she was afraid of them. It was the one thing in life that she didn’t have the guts to face—that she might never see some people again, and so she had no idea of the right words that would turn it from a painful memory into knowing she’d taken leave of them well.

  It was bloody hard to leave the squad, and even the civilians. But it was a lot harder to ignore the thought that ate at her daily, that her place was back with 26 RTI. She loaded as much food, water, and ammo into the day boat as she was due and left a note for Hugo and the others in the storage hut. It was 0400. A woman called Shula was on guard duty, a refugee from Kaia.

  “We’ll miss you, Bernadette,” she said. “We wouldn’t have survived without you.”

  “Oh, you’ll see me around.” Those kinds of lies were okay. They saved everyone a lot of pain. “And you’ll all be fine on Galangi. They’ve even got a bar. Say hello to them for me.”

  When there was too much to think about, Bernie could make herself think about nothing but the immediate moment. She started the motor and steered the day boat out into an ocean that she had no idea how to navigate.

  But she had a compass, a chart, and she was 26 RTI, the Unvanquished. She’d work it out as she went along.

  STRANDED CAMP, ILIMA, TYRUS: 9 A.E.

  There was just a road’s width between life and death these days, a little bit of concrete, and Dizzy was on the wrong side of it.

  He watched two COG army trucks and an APC grinding their way along the Ilima–Jacinto highway in the distance. It was a regular patrol at the moment, running every couple of hours. They were heading back to somewhere with medics and clean running water, invisible things he never thought much about until the day came when he needed them and they weren’t there any longer.

  He’d needed them when Rosalyn got sick but they hadn’t been there. Life without her was going to be harder than he ever thought possible. He’d managed three days and he didn’t know how he was going handle the next hour, let alone tomorrow.

  With his back to the camp, all Dizzy could see was a row of pines along the road, clean craggy rocks, and not a cloud in the sky. Somehow that made matters feel a whole lot worse. Everything looked so bright and alive. He wanted the day to look the way things really were: hopeless, cold, and dead.

  He took another gulp of ’shine and worked himself up to turning around to go back to the hut. It was hard facing Maralin and Teresa. He’d let them down. He hadn’t been able to save their mom.

  And God, he missed her. Folks told him he’d be numb for days and there’d be shock and anger and all that stuff, but he’d gone straight to pain and a full minute-by-minute awareness that she was gone. The only thing he was angry with was the COG—not even the grubs.

  Dizzy turned and faced the jumble of corrugated iron huts. Maybe it would be safer in the city. It was hard to know what was for the best. A camp like this on open ground didn’t have big solid buildings and power supplies that could be repaired, but you could get out of it fast if the grubs came. Those assholes liked prowling the cities. It was best to stay small and move fast these days. But then there was sickness, and when folks were all sharing a water pump and living packed together like this, diseases spread fast.

  Folks were coughing as he passed them. Most would live through this epidemic. Some wouldn’t.

  He could hear the sound of a helicopter in the distance. There were a lot more reminders here that the COG was getting on with life inside the wire, because the Gears sent out patrols to keep the grubs away from Jacinto Plateau. They sure as hell weren’t running relief missions and dropping off food.

  The engine noise was getting louder by the second. The chopper was lined up with the main path through the camp and for a minute Dizzy had a crazy thought that it was going to open fire. Maybe that was the hooch thinking for him. It was just that big, black, scary-looking shape bearing down on him with the guns sticking out the sides. It came in pretty low, but then it lifted sharply and something flew out of the crew bay, breaking up into pieces.

  No, not pieces: sheets of paper, for pity’s sake, a load of garbage being dumped on his camp, his home. The stuff whirled everywhere as the chopper’s draft kicked grit and garbage around. As it flew away, the mess of paper fluttered to the ground. Folks wandered out to see what it was.

  One of the guys raised a middle finger in the direction of the helicopter. “Assholes! Go shit up your own town, why don’t ya?”

  Dizzy bent to pick up some of the stuff. It was a pile of leaflets, plain black print on dull white paper with a COG emblem on the top, nothing fancy. But if they had money and paper to waste on leaflets, things couldn’t have been too bad in Jacinto, could they? Dizzy read one carefully.

  OPERATION LIFEBOAT

  STRANDED MEN AGED 18 to 50

  You need not struggle to find food or medical care for your families. Enlist as a Gear, and you and your loved ones will receive the welfare and protection of the COG. You can serve in comba
t or support roles, including driver, mechanic, and construction trades. Life in the camps will only get harder as the Locust overrun more areas. Do your part to defeat the enemy and provide for your family at the same time.

  COG patrols will be visiting camps to recruit. Recruits will also be accepted at the vehicle checkpoint at Timgad Bridge, Jacinto.

  THE COG’S WAR EFFORT IS YOUR WAR EFFORT

  Some folks were scooping up as many leaflets as they could. It wasn’t because they were gung-ho about the goddamn government. It was because waste got mushed up, bleached, and turned into new paper.

  “They know we’re dyin’ out here,” one woman said. “I mean, how rotten is that? They know we got the sickness, so they think we’ll help ’em out just to get some medicine and a few scraps to eat.” She spat on the floor. “Assholes are always comin’ around tryin’ it on, every time.”

  One guy picked up a leaflet and pretended to wipe his ass with it. “That’s about all it’s good for,” he said. “Just wish they’d made it less rough and hard, that’s all.”

  Dizzy shoved his leaflet in his pocket. He didn’t have anything to thank the COG for, so their war was their own damn business now. Stranded looked out for themselves. The idea of the COG timing their recruitment drive when disease was killing Stranded made him wonder who the hell the savages really were in this world, grubs or humans.

  Goddamn, Rosalyn, it ain’t fair. Sweetie, it just ain’t fair.

  He forgot the helicopter pretty fast. He had hooch to brew and two kids to look after, and there was this sickness still doing the rounds. Over the next couple of days, he did a bit more drinking than he planned. It didn’t change a damn thing. He delivered a few bottles of ’shine to his regular customers and came away with a few pieces of chicken—not a whole one, mind—and a box of six eggs. It was just what his girls needed.

  When he got back to the hut, Maralin and Teresa were sitting at the table cutting up vegetables, really concentrating on slicing them up as if the world depended on it. There was a pot of something simmering on the burner. Maralin slid off the chair and went to him for a hug. They were real quiet today. Sometimes they didn’t speak at all, and he didn’t know if that was just the habit that Stranded kids got into so the grubs didn’t hear them, or if it was because Rosalyn was dead and the girls really understood now that she was never coming back.

  They knew what dead people looked like and that they didn’t get up again. They’d seen too many.

  Dizzy scooped Maralin up in his arms. “Hey sweetie,” he said. “You makin’ dinner?”

  “Yes. We’ve got to take care of you now Mom’s gone.”

  She was only eight years old. His heart broke. “Well, you be real careful with those knives, hear?”

  “Yes, Daddy.” She gave him a fierce hug and clung to his neck. “Daddy … you drinking that stuff again? It smells weird. You know Mom said it was bad for you.”

  Oh God. “I ain’t gonna lie to you, sweetie. Sometimes I need it ’cause I miss your momma so much.” He stopped short of saying that it eased the pain a bit. He didn’t want his girls to grow up thinking liquor was the answer to life’s problems, because he knew it wasn’t, even if he couldn’t do without it. “But I know it’s bad. So I ain’t gonna be a fool and have too much of it. Just trade it to folks who don’t have two smart girls lookin’ after ’em.”

  Teresa put down her knife and ran to him. She clung to his legs. “Daddy, you’ve got to stop drinking it. You’ll die too.”

  “Okay, sweeties. Okay. I ain’t gonna die. Come on, let’s finish makin’ dinner, shall we?” He put his hand on Maralin’s forehead to check her temperature like he’d done a dozen times already today. She felt hot. He was sure of it. “You feelin’ okay?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Just sad.”

  He checked Teresa too. Her forehead felt cooler, but he couldn’t be sure. Maybe he was getting too worried and just imagining stuff, and the last thing his girls needed now was to be scared by a panicky dad. He put on his best we’regonna-make-it face and sat down at the table with them to finish making the meal. Every scrap of peelings got saved for the hooch bucket. When he looked at the pile of stuff that most folks in Jacinto would have dumped as garbage or fed to pigs, and realized that was how he had to make a living to keep his daughters fed, it almost sank him.

  Garbage. That was all Stranded were, garbage living on garbage. Not because they were worthless people—they damn well weren’t—but because they’d been thrown away, not needed, no more damn use to the COG.

  Until now.

  He took the recruitment leaflet out of his pocket and wondered why the hell he picked it up in the first place, except to remind himself that the COG must have been in deep shit to want Stranded back inside the wire.

  No, the COG could rot for all he cared. He spent the rest of the day making more hooch. Alcohol was pretty good for sterilizing stuff, not just wiping away bad memories for a while, so he made a second batch from the peelings that didn’t taste so good. Nothing got wasted.

  And every damn day’s gonna be like this from now on.

  That night he lay awake listening for trouble and misery. Maralin and Teresa slept on cots, one in each corner of the tiny room, while he bedded down on a few blankets right in front of the door with his rifle within reach. Nobody could get past him. And if the grubs came, he was right on the ground where he’d feel the tunnels being gouged out beneath the camp. Nobody would get his girls. Nobody.

  He woke a couple of times in the night and grabbed his rifle before he even opened his eyes. The first time turned out to be some drunken assholes yelling and arguing somewhere outside. Damn, Dizzy knew he liked his drink too much, but at least he could hold it and not inconvenience other folks.

  The second time he woke was because Maralin was whimpering in her sleep.

  He went over to her and stroked her hair. Her head felt hot, really hot, and it wasn’t his imagination. He knew he wasn’t going back to sleep tonight.

  “Sweetie, you okay?” He wound up the handle on the mechanical flashlight and shone it on her. “You want a cup of water?”

  She tried to sit up. “I feel sick, Daddy. My head hurts. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t you be sorry. I’m here.” He helped her sip from a cup and tried to make her comfortable. “I’m gonna sit with you until you feel better.”

  Teresa woke up and came across to sit on his lap. “Is Maralin going to die too, Daddy? Are we all going to die?”

  It shocked the shit out of him. Kids got the damnedest ideas into their heads. But she’d just seen her mom take sick and die in a few days, and the illness was going around the camp. She was just working things out for herself.

  “No, she ain’t gonna die, and neither are you,” Dizzy said. “She’s gonna be fine in the morning. I’m gonna stay up and keep an eye on her.”

  Dizzy sat by the cot for the next two hours and Teresa fell asleep on his lap. From time to time he reached out and stroked Maralin’s hair, but after a while she stopped opening her eyes to look at him. He listened to her breathing. It was getting bad, real rough. He could hear a gargling, wet sound every time she took a breath.

  “Okay, sweetie.” He woke Teresa and carried her back to her cot. “I’m gonna get someone to take a look at your sister. You just wait here.”

  It was three in the morning. Mrs. Enszka, the old lady who knew a bit about nursing, wasn’t too pleased to be woken up, but she came back to the hut with Dizzy to check on Maralin.

  “Well, she’s got what everyone else got,” she said. Maralin seemed to wake up but she was just mumbling and not making sense. “And most kids come through it in a couple of days, ’cause they’re tougher than us grown-ups, but some don’t. All you can do is wait. Sorry, Mr. Wallin, but we ain’t got the drugs, so it’s nature takin’ her course.” She got up and patted his arm. “She’ll probably be fine.”

  There was no point giving Mrs. Enszka a hard time, because she was right. There was no treat
ing this, just waiting. There was no medicine and there were no doctors, not for Stranded.

  Probably.

  Probably wasn’t good enough, not so damn soon after he’d lost Rosalyn the same way. He sat there thinking for another hour, looking for some change in Maralin. Teresa clung to him, watching as well. There was only one place he knew for sure had medicine and proper doctors, and that was Jacinto. And here he was, stuck outside Ilima.

  No, he couldn’t take the risk of waiting. There’d be a patrol along the highway in the next few hours like there’d been for the last ten weeks, and that was his best hope.

  “Teresa, sweetie, pack the bag,” he said. “You know how to do that. Like we do when we have to run from the grubs, right?”

  She did as she was told, like she always did. “Where are we going, Daddy?”

  “We’re going to find some Gears and get them to help Maralin,” he said. “You come with me, and we’ll see she’s okay.”

  “But you hate the COG. Everyone hates them. They burned everybody.”

  “Maybe I don’t hate ’em that much,” he said. “Not as much as I love you and Maralin, anyway.”

  This was no way to bring up his kids. They had to have a better life than this. He didn’t know if he was thinking straight so soon after Rosalyn’s death, but he’d learned to trust his gut, and the only clear thought in his head right then was that there were patrols running that main highway, and he had a leaflet in his coat that said his family would be okay if he’d only sign up and join the COG army.

  Operation Lifeboat. Yeah, he needed a lifeboat right now. He needed one more than ever. He’d lost his wife but he wasn’t going to lose his girls. Whatever it cost, he’d pay that price, and leave behind what little he’d built up over the last few years.

  Except my girls.

  He carried Maralin through the camp with Teresa lugging the bag. It wasn’t even daylight yet. They sat at the edge of the road in the gray dawn for more than an hour, waiting, wondering if he’d guessed wrong and the patrols weren’t coming today. Then Teresa looked up.