Coalition's End

by Karen Traviss

  “It’s over, isn’t it, sir?” one of them said.

  “We regroup and move on.” Hoffman patted his back. The man’s hands were completely black and blistered. “The bastards won’t beat us, son.”

  Hayman came out of the washroom in her white lab coat, an image much more reassuring than her bloodstained scrubs. She went outside into the rear courtyard and stood among the shoulder-high waste bins to roll her smoke.

  “Twenty years ago, Colonel, most of the patients who came here alive would have survived,” she said. “Ten years ago, I could have saved half. Today, I’ve lost sixty percent of the traumatic amputations on the table. I’ve got no safe anesthetics, I started with nowhere near enough plasma, and when the infections start setting in, as they surely will, I’ve got no decent antibiotics. The death toll will rise. I just want you to be aware of that.”

  She was disturbingly adept at rolling her smokes. It was a smooth, automatic ritual, from licking the edge of the paper to cramming the tobacco inside and somehow, with just a quick roll of the fingers of one hand, turning it into a tightly packed cylinder. She lit it, took a long drag on it, and closed her eyes.

  She’d had her say. She was a lot less angry than Hoffman had expected, but she was exhausted and she knew Hoffman couldn’t magic up resources for her. There was no point tearing strips off him.

  “We’ve got two hundred and thirty-one dead, including ten Gears,” he said.

  “Is that including the ones who’ve died here?”

  “Up to an hour ago, yes.”

  “How did we lose so many? Confined space?”

  “That’s about the size of it. Large influx of assorted Lambent. People unable to get clear fast enough. We’re too overcrowded now.”

  Hayman just inhaled again and Hoffman didn’t see any smoke curl back down her nose for a long time. She smoked the thing halfway down without pausing.

  “You sure you wouldn’t rather have a coffee?” he asked.

  “I know what keeps me going, thanks,” she said. “So are you moving people onto the ships? Not just those who don’t have homes.”

  “As many as we can.”

  “I can’t see many wanting to sit tight here now. Not now that they’ve seen what a random incursion really means. Grubs—well, there was a kind of logic to them. They had a plan. The Lambent are just animals and plants. It’s as if Sera itself has turned on us now.”

  Hayman had a talent for cutting to the chase. No, it wasn’t like the grubs bursting out of e-holes back in Ephyra, something they’d gotten the measure of; the Lambent couldn’t be kept out by anything, not even granite bedrock, and they were constantly changing into something that seemed worse with each outing. Grubs didn’t poison the land, either. There was an invisibility about the Lambent, something that struck a nerve deep in the human psyche.

  And the grubs have been through this as well. They ran from the Lambent too. That’s why they came out from underground and wanted us out of the way. We can’t hold off the glowies now any more than they could.

  Vectes suddenly felt very small and isolated. Hoffman hadn’t even felt this cornered and hopeless at Anvil Gate.

  “I can’t take the risk that this is an isolated incursion,” he said. “It’s never going to stop. And we just can’t afford to lose this many people each time.”

  “Well, a couple more incursions on this scale, and we’ll run out of every medical consumable and drug anyway, Colonel. You’ll have to shoot people to put them out of their misery. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an abattoir to attend to.”

  Hayman stubbed out her smoke on the wall and put the dog-end carefully in her pocket. Hoffman had never been a man to resort to meetings in a crisis, but he had to make a decision now because waiting and seeing how things panned out wasn’t going to be an option. He went back into the corridor.

  “Come on, Quentin.” He beckoned to Michaelson as he pressed his earpiece and gave Control plenty of time to respond. “Time to look at the contingency plan… Mathieson? Roundup time. Get Trescu, Sharle, Parry, Reid, Ingram and Gavriel. Main meeting room, thirty minutes.”

  Walking from the infirmary to Admiralty House meant crossing the parade ground, running the gauntlet of a community that could now see in detail exactly what kind of threat they faced. It had always been at a distance before, experienced via third-hand stories from the handful who’d fought glowies at close quarters. Hoffman and Michaelson got just fifteen meters from the infirmary doors before someone pounced on them with questions.

  “Colonel, we can’t stay here now. Are you going to evacuate?” The man was one of the Raven maintenance crew, a guy called Daventry. “I know it’s going to be tough on the mainland, but at least we can run away from these things there.”

  “We’ll make a decision soon,” Hoffman said, hearing Prescott’s smarmy tone as he said it. What have I become? Is that what happens to everyone in power? Some people caught themselves sounding like their fathers, but he was doomed to hear echoes of the Chairman, taunting him that this government thing wasn’t as simple as it looked. “Just hang in there.”

  “We’re still a few recons short, Victor,” Michaelson said, taking his seat in the meeting room. “This is going to be a literal leap of faith.”

  “You’ve got a vote.” The naval base was a strange and depressing sight from the meeting room window. On the seaward side, the activity in the docks carried on, busier than ever. On the camp side to the north, smoke hung over the huts as Parry’s engineers cleared burned buildings. “If you think we should stay put, say so.”

  “Actually, I don’t think we could hold it together here for more than a few more months, even if there wasn’t another attack like this one,” Michaelson said. “People are going to try to take ships and leave, and Gears are going to have to stop them. That’s the point where everything falls apart.”

  “But I know we’re not ready to go. Not by a long chalk. We’ll fragment anyway.”

  “But as long as we maintain some cohesion between the Gears and the civilians, even if the COG collapses, people can survive.”

  “And if the COG collapses, what have we got?”

  “What have we got now? This is basically Jacinto City Council, Victor, with a couple of parishes nailed on—Pelruan and Gorasnaya. And I’m not so sure about Gorasnaya.”

  How could Michaelson say that, after all he’d been through in the last war? “We’re talking about shrugging our shoulders and effectively dissolving a state that’s existed for—”

  “Just under a century. That’s all.”

  “Why does time matter? Too many people fought and died for it for us to shut it down like it’s some thrashball club that’s gone bust. I believe in the Octus Canon. I believe it’s how we should live as a society.”

  “Then stick to the Octus Canon. But the Allfathers were just an alliance of imulsion-rich states looking after their own interests during a fuel crisis. In the end, the labels don’t matter. Human society does.”

  “Well, you had the fancy education. I just know it’s my flag.”

  “Come on, Victor. You’re smarter and bigger than that.”

  The argument was cut short as Major Reid walked in with Ingram and Gavriel. The last thing they needed to see was two buddies going at each other at a time like this. Trescu, Parry, and Sharle were just behind them. They all took their seats and looked at one another in silence for a while.

  “This is it, then?” Sharle said. They’d had this kind of meeting every week, even back in old Jacinto. For fifteen years there’d always been some crisis or other. “Are you declaring an emergency?”

  “What do you think?” Hoffman asked. “That’s not rhetorical, by the way. I want opinions.”

  “Let’s start with yours.”

  “We’re in pretty deep shit. I think we’ve run out of road, gentlemen. If we call this wrong and wait, we might not be able to leave at all.”

  “Well, it got pretty deep in Jacinto, too, but we still stayed.
On the other hand, the Locust equivalent of what the Lambent can do forced us to sink the city.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Loading the ships and getting everyone embarked is going to take a week or two. I don’t want to try doing that when half the naval base is overrun.”

  Michaelson didn’t look up. He was reading something on the table in front of him. “Count me as a let’s-go.”

  “Commander?” Hoffman said, looking at Trescu.

  “We go.”

  “Put it another way.” Hoffman glanced around the table. Lewis Gavriel looked heartbroken. Everyone else had evacuated from places before, but not him. “Does anyone think we should sit this out?”

  The silence said it all. The Tyran stand-your-ground stoicism did have its limits.

  “So the next step is to agree where we go,” Hoffman said. For a moment he wondered how Prescott would have handled this. “I’d have wanted to send advance parties to prepare sites for habitation, but that’s not going to happen. We have ten locations identified, eight coastal, two inland.”

  Sharle shuffled through his papers. “And I’ve got a scenario for that, too. We stay together as a fleet for a while and live on the ships offshore until we’re ready to disembark. We just retain a rapid response force in Sovereign to provide support for the coastal settlements until they can look after themselves. I mean a defensive force of Gears, medical facilities, and so on.”

  “And what about the inland sites?”

  “They’ll be on their own. Especially Anvil Gate. But it’s the largest single defensible settlement, so we need to use it.”

  Hoffman didn’t look at Michaelson. He’d muddled along pretending there was some permanence to the command structure, and his instinct was to stay based in Sovereign. Damn it, he liked Michaelson. The man was his friend.

  “If everyone from Pelruan went to Anvil Gate,” Gavriel said, “we wouldn’t have to split up our community. It could accommodate us all.”

  That pressed Hoffman’s guilt button. “I can’t imagine what a trauma this has been for your town, Lewis. I’m truly sorry.”

  “Can we go there?”

  “You’re fishermen and farmers. It’s a goddamn mountain fort.”

  “You survived there, I seem to recall.”

  This time, Michaelson caught Hoffman’s eye. He seemed to think Hoffman wanted to return, that he had something to prove to himself. Hoffman was pretty sure that Anvegad didn’t matter to him half as much as staying with the core team in Sovereign, but the moment he accepted that people would have to try to live there, he also knew that he was their best hope for survival.

  I don’t know why I’m drawn to it. But I do know what the chances are of anyone from Vectes making a go of it without me.

  “Would you go, Colonel?” Trescu asked.

  “If all the defense expertise is in Sovereign, that’s as bad as abandoning civvies to their fate and going off with Prescott on his jaunt,” Hoffman said, ignoring his own instinct. “Wherever the hell he wanted me to follow him.”

  “Let’s work out the detail later,” Michaelson said, ever the diplomat. “The bottom line is that we have to use all the identified sites, and we have to clear Vectes and embark. We need to start on that now, and we need to start dividing the population according to where they’ll end up. You have yet another variation on the contingency plan, I expect, Royston?”

  Sharle never looked beaten, not even now. “Yeah, I have the nightmares so you don’t have to. Of course I have a plan. We always have a plan.”

  “One last thing,” Hoffman said. “Which has nothing to do with immediate needs, but which matters to me. When we leave here, the COG no longer has a capital. It no longer has a structure. It isn’t centered in any one location. We may have to accept the fact that it will cease to exist.”

  The look on Major Reid’s face was fascinating. It was almost pity. Hoffman got the feeling he was the last man in the room who thought the COG still existed anyway.

  Jacinto City Council. That’s about right.

  “Do we have a decision, then, gentlemen?” he asked. “We begin evacuation procedures immediately, based on dispersing across ten settlements each with their own garrison of Gears, and head for the southeast Tyran coast in convoy. Are we all agreed?”

  Everyone mumbled “yes” except Trescu.

  “I think this is where I say it’s been a pleasure,” Trescu said. “But we’ll wait to sail with you. In the meantime, I’d better ensure that we keep pumping imulsion until the last moment.”

  Like his mutiny against Prescott, Hoffman found the decision almost a blissful relief. He stood looking out of the window, his back to the room as everyone left, and leaned on the wall. Michaelson stayed behind and put his hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m not pressuring you,” Michaelson said. “But this is a naval operation now. The Gears embarked in Sovereign will be marines, effectively. If you want to go to Anvil Gate, you won’t be abandoning me.”

  Hoffman tried to imagine himself based on the helicopter carrier and what would worry him, and then reversed the picture and tried to visualize what might preoccupy him at Anvil Gate. Pelruan. No experience of grubs. We fucked their little island and ruined their lives in a matter of months. They won’t last on their own at Anvegad. So what do we do, split them up and destroy the last thing they have left, their community? It’s one thing I know I can do. One bunch of people I can save. Because I’ve screwed up everything else.

  He just had to be sure that he wasn’t seduced by his own pride, the belief that only Victor Hoffman could hold Anvil Gate.

  “I’d keep Delta, of course,” Michaelson said. “The rapid reaction force has to have priority.”

  “Sure.” Hoffman tried not to show how much that stung. Delta was his right arm. “I’ll find volunteers for the Anvegad garrison.”

  “And I do think we should let Miran have Timgad and let him rename her. As you said, he really does need a frigate if he’s going to hold Branascu.”

  “You’re the boss once we weigh anchor or whatever you sailors call it.”

  “I prefer the Gorasni alive and amenable rather than nursing a grudge. The world runs on the trust between individual men, not on regulations and treaties.”

  “Mind if I take the Hammer equipment? I know it’s screwed, but I’d feel safer stowing it where no other assholes can take it from us and misuse it.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “Damn. Maybe this government shit is easier than I thought.”

  Michaelson had always been the smart one, the political animal, and his time had come. Hoffman’s had, too, but he could see that it would be elsewhere now. The Lambent could come up anywhere, so no place was any more secure from them than another. But he knew he could defend Anvil Gate from other threats like the Stranded who were still out there in their thousands.

  What is it Bernie always says? Don’t look back.

  “I’ll expect a weekly sitrep from you, at the very least,” Hoffman said. If he didn’t break this up now, he’d find himself tearing up. It was old age, he was sure of it. His life had been one long round of sudden, brutal endings, and they’d never caught him short like this. “Did I fail, Quentin? Did I fuck up after all? Have I made all the wrong decisions?”

  “Well, we’re still alive despite everything, so I’d say you made all the right calls,” Michaelson said. “Damn, I’m going to miss you, you old bastard. I insist you help me finish that reserve of rum before we go.”

  “Count on it,” Hoffman said.

  He waited until he heard Michaelson’s footsteps fade on the stairs and took a few deep breaths before he went down to CIC. He could hear a noise, as if someone was already moving heavy furniture out of the building, clonking it down on the floor. When he went into CIC, he only found Mathieson there, but it was a walking, mobile Mathieson.

  Hoffman stared for a few moments. He’d had no idea that Baird’s project had been so successful.

  “Well,
what do you think, sir?” Mathieson clunked across the floorboards on a pair of forearm crutches and flopped into his chair. “Isn’t this something?”

  He was walking again. It looked like it was damn near killing him, but he was walking, after a fashion.

  “You in much pain, son?” Hoffman asked.

  Mathieson grinned. “Oh yeah. Like you wouldn’t believe. But I’m walking, aren’t I? Baird and his Gorasni buddies really did it.”

  “Yeah, they did.” Hoffman patted him on the back. “Goddamn it, Donneld, you’ve just given an old bastard some hope.”

  “So we’re going, then, sir.”

  “We are. I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be a happy relocation, but those assholes aren’t going to finish us off.”

  “Just as well I’m walking, then.”

  Mathieson adjusted his position and smiled to himself, just a flicker while he was distracted from the events outside. It had been a terrible day of high casualties and agonizing decisions. But here was a man who’d reached a personal milestone that Hoffman had thought was impossible, and it had happened because of a strange friendship between the most unlikely allies.

  Just seeing the look on that kid’s face rescued Hoffman on the spot. Everyone could adapt.

  And everyone could survive, with or without him—and with or without the COG.

  CHAPTER 22

  It’s funny how differently we see people. Hoffman couldn’t stand Adam Fenix. Still can’t. He thinks he was an arrogant, ivory-tower boffin who should have stuck to his laboratory and stayed out of military matters. But Major Stroud served alongside him and she told me he was as hard-arsed a Gear as she’d ever seen. And he did manage to stop the Pendulum Wars, didn’t he? If we hadn’t threatened to wipe them out with the Hammer of Dawn, the Indies would never have surrendered.

  (Bernie Mataki, discussing perspectives with Drew Rossi in the sergeants’ mess, VNB)

  CNV SOVEREIGN, VECTES NAVAL BASE: LATE BLOOM, 15 A.E.

  Where there had once been rows of helicopters, rotors folded and wheels chained, there was now a canyon of stacked crates. It ran all the way to the deck lift, long walls of random bricks that somehow managed to look orderly. Bernie picked her way through a gap, praying that the securing strops held and that she didn’t end her combat career crushed to death by a bloody grocery larder.