Coalition's End

by Karen Traviss

  And then it didn’t stop. The explosions were so close together that it sounded like a drum roll. The Raven kept going flat out.

  “Eight-Zero to Control,” Gettner said. “Control, we’ve detonated an imulsion seep at Pelruan. Hundreds of thousands of polyps on the move. I’m going to evac the drill site just in case. It’s only eighteen klicks away.”

  Mathieson answered. “Control to Eight-Zero, we just heard it. How many?”

  “Call it a million. A carpet of them across a kilometer of land, at least.”

  “What’s your ETA for the drill site? I’ll warn them.”

  “Thr ee minutes.”

  Baird tried to look back at the town. Another massive explosion, the biggest by far, sent a fireball climbing high into the air. The last time he’d seen anything like it was when the Hammer of Dawn had taken out the cities. Black, roiling smoke rose up in a twisted column that looked close enough to touch.

  “Yeah, that worked,” Baird said, feeling shaky. “Holy shit, Marcus.”

  “Lucky,” Marcus said. “In one way, at least.”

  Mathieson came back on the radio almost instantly. “Scrub the evac,” he said. “The Gorasni are driving out.”

  That brought it home to Baird better than anything. The Gorasni rig workers had hung on to Emerald Spar until the drilling platform was glowing red hot and about to sink into the ocean. They had to be dragged away to the lifeboat. The fact that these crazies were ready to run for it now told him just how big that explosion had been, and how scared everyone was—even Stefan and his people.

  Gettner followed the road as far as the drill site. Baird could taste smoke and fuel on the air now. The wind was carrying the debris from the explosion across the whole island.

  “Just making sure,” she said. “In case one of their wrecks breaks down on the way back.”

  The Raven moved off parallel with the road and Baird looked down. A fuel bowser and two trucks were speeding south down the rutted concrete, the lead vehicle belching blue smoke from its exhaust. I could have fixed that for them. They only had to ask. In the back of the open truck, Amelie the flamethrower woman seemed to be leading the other workers in a spirited sing-song that Baird could see but not hear. She looked up at the Raven and gave them a thumbs-up. She yelled something, too, but it was impossible to hear her. Baird just waved back.

  “Hoffman to Delta.” Getting an earful of Hoffman always made Baird jump. “Have we got some kind of goddamn polyp uprising or something?”

  Marcus took a slow look at the vehicles below as the Raven matched speed with them. He pressed his earpiece casually as if nothing much had happened that day. “They’re coming out of nowhere, Colonel. Something’s got them on the move. Had to stop them.”

  “Understood.”

  “I don’t think they were chasing us,” Marcus said. “I think they were trying to get away out of the imulsion.”

  “Well, that’s academic now.” There was a pause as if Hoffman had gone to the window or something. He sounded subdued when he spoke again, a different man in an instant. “We can’t predict the next incident, so we sail on the next high tide. That’s tomorrow morning. Anything that’s not stowed by then—too bad.” He paused again. “I hoped I’d never see that kind of thing again. Hoffman out.”

  Marcus scratched his ear thoughtfully, then looked back at the smoke that seemed to be forming a cloud layer across the sky. Baird couldn’t take his eyes off it. He was back in Jacinto again, one year after E-Day, emerging from the temporary shelter of a storm culvert with Cole, Dickson and Alonzo to stare at a sky from hell while Sera burned from horizon to horizon.

  “Yeah, Colonel,” Baird murmured to himself. “I kind of hoped that, too.”

  CHAPTER 23

  I told the COG our time would come, and it has. The new world order isn’t about who’s got the Hammer of Dawn or the army or the imulsion or the warships, but about who’s fit to survive. And that’s us. So the COG’s finally had the good grace to die, has it? Well, let’s see how they cope with being Stranded. There’s a lot more of us than there are of them. It’s a new world order, and they can’t say we didn’t warn them.

  (Lyle Ollivar, head of the Lesser Islands Free Trade Association, a seagoing Stranded community sometimes referred to as pirates, on hearing of the evacuation)

  DEEPWATER BERTH, VECTES NAVAL BASE: 0725, NEXT MORNING—THE FINAL DAY OF THE COALITION OF ORDERED GOVERNMENTS, 15 A.E.

  Hoffman could taste the soot as he inhaled the early morning air.

  A fine layer of gray dust had settled on the jetty. He scuffed his boot in it and hoped it hadn’t clogged up vents and filters on board the ships. It was another good reason to get out sooner rather than later.

  And it was as good a day as any for the past to repeat itself and remind him of the moment he’d walked out of CIC with Prescott and Bardry to look at what the three of them had done to Sera fourteen years ago. He forced himself to look north to Pelruan. A mountain range of smoke still hung in the air. It merged into a layer of black cloud made up of the smoke and debris from the burning imulsion field that in a week or two would travel around Sera. There might even be some spectacular sunsets in the days ahead.

  I’m good at finality. Real good. End of an era, yet again.

  “You ready, Victor?” Michaelson asked.

  “Just about,” he said.

  Hoffman had a long and uneasy relationship with ceremonial. It was, for the most part, to give closure—upon death, withdrawal, or commemoration. Today was probably all three. He decided that the simple ritual of a lone bugler or a silently folded flag sealed an event in the mind far more effectively than hours of speeches. But nobody had ever shut down a country and switched off the lights before. There was no regulation to cover it. He decided to treat the ceremonial like decommissioning a ship. Vectes was a naval base, a shore establishment, and that was good enough.

  And if any asshole disagrees on protocol, they can write to Prescott. Good luck with that. Come on, Bernie. Where are you?

  There was nobody on the quayside now except Michaelson, Trescu, Lewis Gavriel, Anya, and Delta Squad. The last COG standard flying anywhere on Sera hung from a flag-staff on the quay, rippling occasionally in the breeze.

  CNV Timgad now had a Gorasnayan pennant code painted on her hull and GENERALE EGAR TRESCU stenciled on her stack. If anything said that this was the end of an era, then maybe it was that, not the lowering of a flag.

  Hoffman studied the last remaining ships and boats assembled around the docks and realized he was looking at rank upon rank of people standing on the decks, superstructure, and every possible vantage point on every vessel. Damn, he should have asked Mitchell or Barber to take an official photograph for the record. Dissolving a government—a country—was definitely something a man needed to keep a receipt for.

  But someone would take a picture from the decks. And he wasn’t doing this for the history books.

  Michaelson nodded at him. “Here she comes. Hope it’s the right color. Remember Miran’s got some big guns now.”

  Hoffman looked around to see Bernie coming up the steps from the basin below, clutching something in one hand as if it was ordnance in need of urgent disposal.

  “This is the best they could do,” she said, handing him a piece of folded fabric the size of a brick. He could always tell when she’d been crying. “I checked. The Tollen boys have vivid memories.”

  Hoffman studied the flag in his hand and hoped the woman who’d made it in a hurry had got it right.

  “You can still change your mind, Bernie,” he said. “Just say the word.”

  “Don’t be so bloody daft. It’s done.”

  She gave him a quick salute and walked off to stand with Delta. It was 0730 by his watch. The moment that he’d been dreading couldn’t be put off any longer and he turned to Lewis Gavriel.

  “Mr. Gavriel, lower the standard.”

  It was all the more poignant for being silent. If anyone had the right to s
hut down this base, it was the poor bastard who’d kept the island going for fifteen years while it was cut off from the rest of the COG. Everyone saluted. And that was the moment when Hoffman truly felt that the COG was dead.

  Gavriel lowered the standard and fumbled a little while he detached it and folded it. Then he handed it to Michaelson, all very formal and naval.

  What the hell do I say? Does it matter? Will anyone remember?

  He glanced at his watch. “As of oh-seven-thirty-two this morning, the Coalition of Ordered Governments is dissolved.” Then he walked up to Trescu, saluted, and presented him with the Gorasni flag he’d had made. “Commander Trescu, as an independent state, you’ll be needing this.”

  Trescu didn’t seem to be expecting it. He returned the salute a little awkwardly and opened the flag fold by fold, as if he couldn’t believe what it was. He probably had flags every damn where, but for what it was worth this mattered. He actually looked upset.

  “You may always call on us,” Trescu said at last. “Remember that.”

  “Well, Gorasnaya outlasted the COG. So you kept your promise to your father.”

  Trescu gave him a formal bow of the head. “We have long memories, we Gorasni, and not only for grudges. Safe journey, Colonel.”

  Hoffman didn’t dare look at Michaelson. It was just too fragile and difficult a moment for three grown men. They’d see one another when they were cross decking supplies and vehicles in a few days’ time, and they’d talk on the radio for a long time to come, but this was the moment when everything ended.

  But some things began, too. “Let’s move, Delta,” said Anya. In full armor and with a Lancer on her shoulder, she looked like she’d never been anything else but a frontline Gear. “We’ve got a ship to run.”

  Hoffman looked up, praying that the Tollen veterans weren’t watching and expecting to find they were. But there was no sign of them. His gut began to unknot. He hadn’t expected to be so relieved that this was over.

  But the Lambent aren’t. We’re just catching our breath.

  Michaelson caught up with him on the brow. “That was nicely done, Victor. Very naval. With a little bit of emergency physician thrown in.”

  “May Sergeant Samuel Byrne forgive me, and his poor damn daughter who never knew him.”

  “She’s definitely not going with you, then.”

  “No. Her life’s here now.” It really was time to change the subject. He nudged Bernie in the back. You’re still here, woman. Thank God for that. “Quentin, is it my imagination, or is this floating casino even more crowded than it was when we first came out here?”

  “You know it is. Especially with a zoo embarked.”

  “Goddamn. I’m going to sleep on the flight deck.”

  Baird chipped in, right behind him. “It’s only a short cruise, but I’ll be filing a complaint with the tour company the minute I get ashore, Purser.”

  This was always the way; after the painful and terrifying moments, the necessary black humor kicked in. Everyone tried too hard. Hoffman went up to the bridge to watch the motley fleet leave Vectes for the last time. It was going to be a straggling convoy. By the time Sovereign and Paryk had offloaded all the people, animals, and vehicles that Hoffman needed for the overland convoy to Anvegad, the smaller vessels would still be catching up along with their frigate and destroyer escorts.

  “Where are Clement and Zephyr now?” he asked.

  “Zephyr’s tailing us.” Michaelson tinkered with his radio console. “Clement’s sniffing around up ahead. I think it’ll have to be her last patrol. Ah well. Her spare parts will live on in us. And razor blades.”

  Hoffman thought the next few days would be full of the awkwardness and tearful sentimentality he found hard to handle. But there was a lot of work to do before they went ashore, and it ate the hours mercifully fast. When he finished checking the vehicles on the packed hangar deck that night, he went up to the observation platform next to Flight Control for some fresh air. He could see navigation lights dotted across the ocean as the distance between Sovereign and the other ships gradually increased.

  Looking out over the ship’s wake, he could have sworn it was glowing. He couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  “It’s just bacteria, Colonel.” The voice came out of the darkness and made him start. “Bioluminescent bacteria.”

  Marcus was sitting on an ammo crate at the other end of the platform, Lancer resting on the rail.

  “Damn it, Fenix, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  “Baird’s looking for you.”

  It had to be the data disc. Hoffman hadn’t forgotten about it, but it had taken second place to the main business of evacuation. “Has he cracked that disc?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll go find him later.”

  Marcus didn’t say anything else. Hoffman listened in to the comms traffic on his earpiece for a while, realizing it was probably one of the last chances he’d have for a personal conversation with Marcus but not sure what use to make of it.

  And he was going to lose Delta. He couldn’t imagine life without them.

  Hoffman had a conscience like a life raft. Everything he found floating got piled onto it, weighing it down more every time. He had to jettison something before it was too late.

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last. Marcus would know what he was sorry for. I left you to die in prison. Nothing’s going to change that. “Not the first time I’ve said it, but I’m still sorry.”

  “No problem, Colonel.” Marcus’s voice was almost a whisper. “But it’s only the guys who didn’t make it out of Ephyra who can forgive me.”

  And your father. But you don’t owe him anything, Marcus. You really don’t.

  Knowing that someone you’d wronged had their own burden of guilt sometimes made it easier to live with. Honest men did dumb, crazy, awful things. It didn’t make them bad people. Hoffman knew he’d have to learn to judge himself by the standards he set for others, but it was going to be hard this late in life.

  “You listening in on Clement?” Marcus asked.

  Hoffman changed channels to find the submarine frequency. “I am now.”

  Michaelson was talking to Commander Garcia. He’d picked up some obstructions on sonar that might have been stalks, and whatever it was lay close to their course. Hoffman and Marcus stood in silence, watching the port side. About half an hour later Hoffman thought he could see land very close even in the darkness, and then shapes picked up what little light there was and he realized what he was looking at. Damn, didn’t he know these things well enough by now?

  The glowing wash of the ship flowed into a sparse forest of dead stalks jutting above the surface of the water, swirling around their trunks and giving them an odd, illuminated look. Sovereign slowed. Crew came onto the flight deck to watch. The ghostly blue display lasted for twenty minutes as the ship moved carefully past the stalks, and then vanished astern as she picked up speed again.

  “We’re going to see a lot more of those,” Marcus said.

  Over the next few days, though, they didn’t see any. Hoffman found himself still hoping that the stalks would reach a limit and become a nuisance they could avoid but never eradicate, like icebergs and venomous snakes. But he’d seen Vectes devoured in months. There was nothing special about the place. It was just an early warning for Sera as a whole.

  He just didn’t know how early.

  Michaelson took Sovereign a long way north of Port Farrall into an inlet that would cut a few days off the drive to Anvegad. Port Caval still had a deepwater jetty, but very little else. Every scrap of building material and metal had been stripped out, leaving just a slab-sided dock.

  “Much easier to offload cargo this way, Victor,” Michaelson said to Hoffman. He stood leaning on the bridge console, watching the steady flow of vehicles, people, and animals coming down a ramp straight off the hangar deck. “We’ll be done in a couple of hours.” He paused. “I suppose you’re going to mutter something gruff and stri
de off through the mountain passes and into the pages of history.”

  “Actually, I’m going to take a leak and then go round shaking folks’ hands.”

  “After you’ve washed yours, I trust.”

  Hoffman laughed, not something he did much, and it caught him by surprise. “Don’t make me miss you, you bastard.”

  “Oh, we’ll cross paths again. Give it six months to a year. We’ll be on our feet again by then.”

  Everybody said that. They said it knowing it was anything from fairly likely to impossible. Few people had the balls to say that this was final and they wished they’d spent the time leading up to it in a more fitting way. The final hour evaporated. Hoffman watched the last pickup come off the ramp and steeled himself to go.

  “I’m scared, Quentin,” he said at last. “I am so fucking scared.”

  “So am I, Victor.”

  “Take care of yourself. You’ve got Delta, so that shouldn’t be too hard.” He gave Michaelson a fierce hug and slapped his back. “If you ever find Prescott, give him a kick in the nuts from me.”

  “Ditto, but delete Delta, insert Bernie, old friend.”

  Bernie had told Hoffman that he had to walk away and not look back. He followed the advice. He managed to get down to the brow without making a sentimental asshole of himself, but then he had to run the gauntlet of Delta, and the only way to do that was fast. He worked out who he could hug—Anya, Sam, Cole, Dom—and who got a handshake.

  Baird fumbled in his pocket and pulled out Prescott’s data disc. He handed it back to Hoffman. “I worked on it right up to this morning, Colonel. I even got a Gorasni ex-spook to come up with some ideas, and he was paid to spy on us. But—ah shit, it’s beaten me. The Gorasni think it might even need a physical key—maybe another disk run simultaneously, or even a fingerprint.”

  “Damn,” Hoffman said. “I knew I should have chopped something off that asshole before he ran out on me.”