Coalition's End

by Karen Traviss

  Carlos had been buried with full military honors in the COG’s memorial cemetery to its fallen. Dom remembered it all too well, standing over Marcus as he buried his newly awarded Embry Star in the gravel chippings covering Carlos’s grave.

  “Come on, it was a granite headstone,” Dom said. Had anyone kept their Embry Star? The highest decoration the COG could award, and Marcus had buried his, and Dom had sold his to pay for a legal appeal against Marcus’s sentence. He’d never seen Hoffman wear his. These things could mean everything and nothing. “There wasn’t a plaque. You couldn’t walk off with a slab of granite.”

  “But his name was on a plaque,” Marcus said. “They were all on a plaque in the mausoleum.”

  “We were pretty busy not getting drowned. He’d understand.”

  Marcus looked at him with an expression of utter loss. “I’ve got nothing left of him, Dom.”

  Dom still found facets of Marcus that surprised him even after nearly thirty years. They’d grown up together, the awkward rich kid and the two Santiago brothers, so close since childhood that Marcus was family. But sometimes he gave Dom a glimpse of a troubled, emotional man held tightly under control.

  Yeah, you miss him as much as I do.

  Dom reached inside his chest plate and fished out his pack of precious photographs, wrapped carefully in a plastic bag. He leafed through them—God, all those loved faces, nearly all dead now—and took out the one with Carlos, Marcus, and himself on a rare night out, long before the grubs came. They were laughing at the camera, thumbs up. They were all somebody else back then.

  “Here you go,” Dom said, handing it to him. “Maria took it. Can’t remember which bar it was.”

  Marcus stared at it. His brow creased for a few seconds. “So we knew to laugh.”

  For a moment he looked as if he was going to hand it back and say he couldn’t possibly take it, but he slid it carefully between his chest plate and his shirt. Benten was still engrossed in the medal. Dom was anxious to get out, if only to shake off the ghosts, but it seemed damn rude to rush the old man. He took a step forward.

  Shit…

  For a moment he thought he’d had a giddy turn, like standing on the rolling deck of a ship. It passed instantly. He was a couple of strides from Benten when it hit him again and he saw Benten totter as well. That was when Marcus rushed forward and grabbed the veteran.

  “Get clear!” Marcus yelled. “Run!”

  Every Gear was alert to tremors. But this felt nothing like an emergence hole forming or a stalk pushing its way out of the ground. The solid earth beneath them had turned into something soft and springy like a deep mattress.

  The three of them ran for the Packhorse, but it was like running through sand—wet sand—and then mud. The pungent fuel smell hit Dom as his boots sank into it.

  “Shit, it’s imulsion—”

  Suddenly Dom was half a meter shorter, knee-deep in a soup of grass and mud and looking up at Marcus as he shoved Benten to safety.

  “Hang on, Dom.”

  Dom made a grab for the crumbling edge of the concrete road. “I’m sinking. What the hell is this—”

  Marcus reached out to grab his arm and pulled: Dom’s boots were on something firmer than the mud but he could still feel himself going down. He pitched forward and got a faceful of oily, pungent mud. For a moment he couldn’t see a damn thing and his eyes burned, then he gasped for air and sucked in a mouthful of the stuff. He could hear the Packhorse revving. Marcus was yelling “Back up! Back up!” right above him but it might as well have been a world away. Then something hard and cold hit him full in the face.

  “Come on, Dom, grab it!”

  He couldn’t see, but he could feel a rope now. He grabbed it and wound it around his arm. For a moment he couldn’t work out where Marcus was, and then he felt the rope jerk as the slack was taken up and he was yanked roughly over a sharp edge that skinned his arm. He hit the concrete chest-first.

  The Packhorse engine was still running. “Goddamn, will you look at that?” Benten said.

  Dom scrambled onto all fours and coughed his guts up. It took him a few moments to stand up even with Marcus trying to lift him. When he rubbed his eyes clear of the stinging imulsion mix, he still couldn’t work out what had happened to the landscape. He had a clear view of the ocean, but the walls of the cottages had vanished. He could just about see their roofs.

  “Great,” Marcus said quietly. The quieter he got, the worst things were. “I should’ve taken Sorotki up on his offer. Control? Control, this is Fenix at Pelruan. We’re going to need extraction… soon as you can, please.”

  Dom, still coughing, had to stare at the horizon for a full minute before he worked out what had happened. The land in front of them had swallowed the houses, the whole town for as far as he could see. There was a thick, glossy, light brown mud up to windowsill level. He could see whirlpools in it.

  “What the fuck is that?” he asked. It was the best he could manage.

  “Liquefaction,” Marcus said wearily. “Where a quake churns the soil and groundwater into wet cement. It can’t be more than a few meters deep, though. It’s just topsoil on the granite bedrock. You okay, Mr. Benten?”

  Dom turned just to check where Benten was. The old guy was standing by the Packhorse’s open door, two bronze plaques clutched tight to his chest, staring blankly at the sinking town.

  It just kept happening. It was Jacinto again, the sea rushing in, the buildings toppling into the fissures, vehicles and bodies swept down into whirlpools like garbage flushing down a drain.

  And then Dom looked past Benten, south toward Vectes Naval Base, and realized the town hall had also sunk halfway into the imulsion cement. They were standing on a small island of solid land, surrounded by deep mud.

  Dom sighed, turning back to Marcus. “Is anything ever going to go right for us?”

  Marcus was looking right past him. He checked his Lancer as if he’d seen something. “Sure it will.”

  Dom scraped the mud off his rifle and turned to see what had distracted Marcus. He was staring out over the sea of mud. The air was thick with imulsion fumes.

  “What’s that out there?” Benten said. “Looks like air bubbles.”

  Dom had to strain to see the slight rippling movement on the surface. The only thing that broke the silence now was the distant crash of waves and the creaking and groaning as the currents in the mud tugged at the wooden houses.

  Then his radio popped. “Eight-Zero to Fenix—on our way.”

  “Thanks, Major,” Marcus said. “And watch out for imulsion vapor. We’re stuck in a seep as big as the town.”

  KR-80, EN ROUTE TO PELRUAN.

  “Are those Gorasni lunatics still drilling, Nat?” Gettner took the Raven low over the stalk forest that was creeping meter by meter across the western side of Vectes. Baird was about to tell her to shut her yap and put her foot down, or whatever it was that pilots did. “Holy shit, they are. Look.”

  The helicopter passed over the drilling site and got a wave from the crew. “We’re going to be out of here within a week,” Barber said. “Isn’t it time they packed their bags?”

  “Isn’t it time we pulled our frigging fingers out and got to Pelruan?” Baird asked.

  Cole nudged him. “I think the lady’s going flat out, baby. Gonna be in town in a few minutes.”

  “Yeah, no stick, no vote, Baird,” Gettner said. “Shut it.”

  “I never did get around to takin’ up fishin’.” Cole had a talent for changing the subject whenever he felt things were getting too tense. He crouched down to help Barber lay out the lifting strops on the crew bay deck. “Bernie was gonna teach me. She made all them fly things out of feathers for me, remember? Damn. Ain’t gonna happen now.”

  Baird hung onto the safety rail and looked out over what was left of Vectes. A lot of things weren’t going to happen now and he didn’t see any point thinking about them. He longed for the days when he felt that everyone in the world had crapped
on him and so all he was obliged to care about was the welfare of Baird, D. S.

  Just stay alive. Look out for Cole, too. That’s all you can do.

  “I wonder where Prescott is now,” he said.

  Gettner snorted. “I couldn’t give a damn as long as he’s not out there screwing things up for us.”

  “Oh, you think this shit could get shittier, Major? Do tell.”

  Gettner didn’t bite back with her usual stream of creative vitriol. She went quiet on the radio for a few moments.

  “Hoffman’s been around as long as I can remember,” she said. “And Prescott, for what it’s worth. I just wonder how long we can hold anything together without them. However good Michaelson is.”

  Cole jumped in right away, which told Baird all he needed to know. “The Colonel’s just gonna be a radio call away, ma’am. Like he’s always been. We’ll be fine.”

  Baird resumed his position at the open door, hanging on to the safety rail. He’d done the run to Pelruan so often that he thought he knew every meter of the terrain by now, stalks or no stalks, but he found himself struggling to work out where he was. He called Marcus on the radio.

  “Baird to Marcus. Are you going to be easy to spot?”

  The channel popped loudly in his earpiece. “Yeah, I’ll be wearing a fucking red carnation.”

  “Whoa, pardon me for asking.”

  “Baird, we’re on a sixteen square meter chunk of concrete in a mud-field. I’ve got Benten with me. The Indies couldn’t kill him so I’ll be damned if a flood of shit is going to get him.”

  That explained it. Marcus was being Saint Marcus. He’d never have snarled at Baird just because he was worried about his own ass.

  “Okay, but I’ll want to see some ID. Baird out.”

  Cole joined Baird at the door, slapping the bright orange lifting strop against his thigh like a fly-whisk. Only a big guy with huge hands like Cole could do that. “Okay, good try, but I gotta start givin’ you lessons on morale-boostin’ chit-chat. See, what you gotta remember is—goddamn, take a look at that.”

  Cole gestured with the strop and Baird’s eyes followed it. They’d been closer to Pelruan than he’d thought. It took him a couple of seconds to orientate himself because the landscape wasn’t the one he was used to. The terrain was shiny and light brown, like simmering chocolate sauce, and only the top third of the houses were visible above it. The stalks looked about the same height as before and so did some of the trees. Things had sunk rather than been engulfed by rising mud. A COG eagle emblem, wings outstretched as if it was waving to be saved from drowning, poked out of the slime at an angle, the last part of the war memorial left above the liquefied ground.

  “And that’s all imulsion soup,” he said. “Wow. We didn’t even bring a spare fuel can.”

  Barber interrupted. “Got a visual on them. Marcus and the old guy look okay. Dom’s covered in shit or something. And they’ve still got the Packhorse.”

  “Underslung,” Gettner said. “We’re not leaving that behind. Plan A, ladies. Winch the guys inboard, then drop Barber and Baird to put some strops on the Pack.”

  “Gee, thanks, Major.”

  “I know how emotional you get about nuts and bolts, Baird.” She made a noise that might have been amusement. “Eight-Zero to Fenix. We see you. Get ready. Benten first.”

  The Raven settled in a hover above the patch of solid ground. The more Baird looked at the imulsion-sodden ground, the more he thought it looked like it was cooking. Okay, if the imulsion was coming up through fissures in the rock, then there’d be air pockets glopping to the surface. And vapor. Flammable gas. Shit. Vectes was on one of Sera’s major fault lines, part of a volcanic ridge, so that was probably the layer at which the imulsion circulated. It was that simple. That was why they were awash with it. It was all making more sense.

  But why now?

  He didn’t have an answer. He watched Barber lower the lifting strop and waited while Marcus slipped it under Benten’s armpits to winch him inboard. Dom was squinting out across what was left of the town, frowning. He was caked in mud.

  Baird blipped his radio. “So you fell in.”

  “No, it gave way under me.” Dom looked more interested in something that Baird couldn’t see. “I don’t like the look of those bubbles. You know what methane does to a chopper. Well, that’s going to be—shit! Polyps! Look—they’re coming right up out of the mud.”

  “Come on, people,” Gettner said. “Chop chop. All aboard. Forget the Pack.”

  Barber reached out and grabbed Benten’s blazer to haul him across the deck. The old guy was clutching a couple of metal plaques. “If we shoot one of those little assholes, we might ignite the gas,” Barber said. “Marcus, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, Barber. I know. I know. Move it.”

  “Okay, winch out.”

  Baird and Cole went over to the opposite door and leaned out as far as they could. There were a couple of polyps thrashing their way through the mud. Baird knew from his first encounter with them on Clement’s hull that they weren’t champion swimmers, but they seemed to be able to handle themselves better in something viscous. It was slowing them down, though.

  “They’re struggling, Marcus,” Baird said. “No rush.”

  “On deck… disconnected,” Barber said. Dom thudded into the crew bay. “You reckon.”

  “Hey, I’ll go down and put a sling on the Pack—that’s how much I reckon.”

  “The hell you will,” Gettner said. “Nat, get a move on. Gas, hot engine parts, kaboom. If I go down, I want to go down fighting, not fucked by chemistry.”

  “Winch out,” Barber said. “Ten meters.”

  Baird trod on Dom on his way back to the other door to take a look at Marcus’s progress. He was dangling from the strop about ten meters below and looking none too happy about it. The winch motor chuntered away to itself, reeling him in at a steady rate.

  “Baby, we got a bubble bath startin’ down there,” Cole called. “And more polyps.”

  Baird did a quick bit of guesswork about gas volumes in the open air. Nah, not a clue. No idea. “I’m still up for grabbing the Pack,” he said.

  Barber didn’t blink. “Five meters—four—three—two— one—on the deck.” Marcus scrambled to his feet and unclipped the strop. Barber gave him a that’s-my-job look. “Disconnected, then. Okay, good to go, Gill.”

  The Raven lifted. Cole was still staring down at the mud. “Y’know, that ain’t gas, baby,” he said.

  “I know.” Gettner circled as if she was sizing up whether to go back for the Packhorse. “We’re still in one piece.”

  The whole area for as far as Baird could see was shivering like a pan of oatmeal. Pelruan was sinking. The Packhorse sat like a lonely toy in the middle of it.

  “It’s polyps,” Gettner said quietly, so matter of fact that Baird almost didn’t take it in. Then he saw spiked front legs poke out of the mud here and there, and within seconds the whole area came alive with the things, hundreds of them.

  No, thousands. Hundreds of thousands.

  The ground was a seething carpet of polyps, so many of them that they were clambering over each other and running across the backs of their unluckier buddies to reach solid ground. In seconds, it became a tidal wave. They reached the paved road and began to merge into a river of dark gray-green crablike backs. It happened so fast that Baird could only gape. They just kept coming up from the mud as if this was Polyp HQ and someone had opened the gates and told them they had a five-day pass.

  Gettner hung on for ten more seconds. “I think we’ve got at least half a million of them. God almighty. Where did they all come from? More to the point—how far do you think they’re going to get?”

  Marcus moved from one door to the other, then back again. “We’ve got to detonate them. If only ten percent make it south, then we’ve got trouble.”

  “They’d have to leg it for seventy klicks, Marcus,” Baird said. “They’d probably all be smoke and shit bef
ore they reached the base.”

  “You want to take that chance? Most of our defenses are stowed in the goddamn ships now.”

  “Fair point.”

  Marcus pushed past Dom and Benten to grab the Longspear grenade launcher. “Major, get us ahead of their column and stand by to bang out fast. I’m going to try to get a chain reaction going.”

  Baird suddenly got the idea. It was an awfully long shot in every sense of the word. “You’re going to use the little shits for a fuse?”

  “It’s all we’ve got, Baird. They set each other off. You’ve seen it. Cole—stand by to reload for me.”

  Gettner sighed over the radio. “You better hope they all stay scrunched up close, then.”

  Baird found himself reaching for a frag. He wasn’t sure if he could lob one far enough, but raw terror stopped him just standing there to watch the wall of polyps surging south. The Raven banked and he had to pull back into the crew bay, and then he lost sight of the polyps as Gettner put some distance between the helicopter and the front of the column. She swung the Raven to port at the last moment and held it sideways on to the road. Marcus had a head-on shot and an open door behind him to vent the backblast. Even so, Baird pressed himself as close to the bulkhead as he could. Everyone took what cover they could find.

  “Do it, Marcus,” she said. “Give the man some space, people.”

  Marcus aimed the Longspear and fired. The round streaked out, filling the crew bay with vapor for a moment, and then hit the polyps about three ranks back from the front. The explosion wasn’t as big as Baird had expected. Cole had already stepped in to reload the Longspear and a second round was away before the firecracker effect began.

  It seemed incredibly slow at first. Maybe that was just the adrenaline doing its thing, Baird decided. The Raven turned away in apparent slow motion just as the whole mass of polyps turned into flashbulbs. The bird seemed to crank up to maximum speed in a split second, and then the whole bay was flooded with brilliant yellow light. Dom flung himself across Benten and Baird ducked, neither of which needed doing, but all their hardwired reactions kicked in. The deafening explosion followed seconds later.