Gears of War: Anvil Gate (54 page)

Sometimes you got a Gorasni who was fluent in Tyran, and sometimes you didn’t. “
Zephyr
to
Falconer
, we have firing solution. We fire, yes?”

Dom hung around the wheelhouse door. Cole wandered by and nudged him. “What they doin’, Dom?”

“I think they’re both going for the same one but from different angles.”

“And this is shallow, right? Like twenty meters? ’Cos we can hear ’em on the radio.”

“
Zephyr
here—we fire first, COG, because we are very close. Short track.”

Michaelson opened his mouth for a moment but he never got as far as a response. Dom heard a command in Gorasni, then a snatch of Garcia’s voice: “Fire one …”

Dom shoved Cole out onto the deck. “Come on, when that hits, one of them’s going to—”

“
Impact.
”

Dom was sure he’d lifted clear of the deck for a second. The explosion sounded like it was a couple of kilometers off the starboard bow, and if he’d been fast enough he might have caught the plume of foam even in the dark.
Falconer
shuddered. It had to be a kill.

“Yeah, shallow,” Cole said.

“
Falconer
to
Zephyr, Falconer
to
Clement
—time to thin out unless you’ve got a solution on Number Two right
now.
”

“
Zephyr
to
Falconer—its
friend must have heard that.
Zephyr
to
Clement
, I hear your tanks—you dive?”

Dom didn’t hear whether
Clement
responded. He was focused on what he was sure was going to happen next. That explosion would have rattled even a leviathan’s brain. It would either go after a sub, or surface to go after the noisiest, easiest target to find—
Falconer
.

Dom heard a loud splash like someone slapping the water just as he reached Marcus on the harpoon.

Marcus didn’t always manage to batten down all his reactions. Dom saw the look on his face—frown gradually vanishing, eyes widening, even a very slight drop of the jaw—and turned to see what he was staring at.

Shit, the thing was
big
. Even in the dark, Dom could see that. The patrol boats’s running lights reflected off its wet scales. Even without the points of bluish light, its outline was clear. Marcus fired.

The harpoon went whistling out like a rocket grenade, whipping the line behind it. Dom heard the wet
thwack
on impact. He expected to hear the explosive tip detonate, but there was just a faint, muffled
pomp
, and the leviathan spun around and slapped down onto the sea. Water washed over the deck. The line began paying out at speed.

“Baby, you caught somethin’,” Cole yelled.

“Why the hell hasn’t the thing blown up?”

“No idea,” Marcus said. “Maybe we hit it somewhere that doesn’t detonate.”

Dom grabbed the ax. “Cole Train, you stand clear of that.” He was expecting the creature to dive. If it tried to drag
Falconer
down, he had to sever that cable. “If that line parts, it’ll cut clean through you like a damn blade.”

“It’s holding,” Marcus called. The line went tight. “Cole, take over. Just watch the line.”

He grabbed the targeting laser and went to the bow. Dom couldn’t tell if the leviathan was dragging the boat or not, but either way it was going to be a tough job for the helmsman.

The line paid out to about eight hundred meters. Dom was pretty sure he recalled that the required safety clearance for mine-hunters was one thousand meters. It was all getting a bit too close.

From the slightly elevated bridge, Muller could see more than Dom could from the rising and falling deck.

“It’s coming about,” he said over the radio. “It’s turning to starboard. Still breaking the surface.”

“I need it closer.” Marcus aimed the laser. “Can you get me inside a hundred meters?”

Nobody seemed to want to repeat the obvious. If Marcus held the laser on it long enough, if Baird could align the Hammer, if the leviathan stayed surfaced for those essential seconds—then if it detonated like the Brumak beneath Jacinto had,
Falconer
was going to be an instant shower of rusty shrapnel.

But the Brumak was underground. Directed blast and all that shit. Yeah. This blast’s not confined
.

No, Dom knew zip about explosives on that kind of scale, and he was going to die. At best,
Falconer
was going to be lifted clear by the shock wave and smashed down hard again, hard enough to break her back.

Life rafts. Okay, don’t forget. Rafts
.

Falconer
picked up speed. For a moment, it felt as if they were closing the gap on the leviathan too fast. Dom clung to the rail and tried to look ahead. He was sure he could see the steady, undulating movement as the thing rippled along near the surface with its back breaking the water. He definitely felt
Falconer
steering hard to starboard. When he looked back for a moment and the lights caught the water, he could see a U-shaped wake. The boat had turned back toward Vectes.

“I’d take a guess that it’s trying to beach,” Muller said.

“Baird? Are you ready?” Marcus kept changing position, trying to steady his aim. “You got a lock yet?”

The radio crackled. It took a couple of seconds for Baird to respond.

“Okay, the sats have picked up the targeting laser. Can you ask the glowie to slow down?”

“Helm, give us some slack in that line,” Marcus said. “Close the gap. Cole—wind the line back on the winch.”

“How much?”

“Until the line goes taut. Then Muller can cut his speed and slow the thing.”

“That’s going to mean it’ll blow frigging
close
to us,” Muller said. “I mean
sinking
close.”

Michaelson cut in. “Do it, helm.”

The engines roared and the line started to sag. When it draped over the bow rail, Marcus yelled “Now!” and Cole hit the winch control. The line wound back around the capstan and went taut. Dom felt the shudder.

“Never done this on a moving surface,” Marcus said. “Shit.”

“You ready?” Baird asked. “Because correcting this thing manually is a bitch.”

“Yeah, let’s swap places.”

“Come on.”

Marcus just grunted. Dom could see the targeting beam hitting a scaly back, but it was bouncing and drifting all over the place.

“I’m ready,” Baird said. “I mean,
really
ready.”

“I get it, Baird.”

Dom could see the naval base clearly now, its jetties and ships picked out by safety lights. At forty klicks per hour, that six-kilometer distance would be eaten up in minutes. They were getting too close to the island. The leviathan plowed on. Dom heard the engines throttle down and the harpoon line creaked alarmingly.

Nobody really knew what a leviathan could do, let alone a Lambent one. It might just have been holding back before showing them just how puny the boat was by comparison.
Falconer
slowed right down, then her engines roared again and it felt like she was turning.

“Fuck,” Muller said. “That’s full astern. It’s got us. We’re going to burn out a motor at this rate.”

Dom really was ready to part that line. He hefted the ax and
positioned himself clear of the arc that the line would whip through when he cut it.
Falconer
seemed not to be making way at all. Then there was a collective shout—the lookouts, Marcus, Michaelson standing at the bridge door—and the leviathan disappeared. The line plunged down into the sea.

“Shit. Lost the contact.” Marcus still held the laser on the point where he’d last seen the leviathan, but the beam didn’t penetrate far through water, especially water with a lot of deflecting debris in it. “Can we winch that thing up?”

Cole stared at the creaking capstan. “That oversized eel’s doin’ the winchin’, not us.”

“In case you’ve forgotten me, I’m still pretty ready.” Baird sounded irked. “Just give me a call when you’re through pissing around.”

“Cole, jerk its chain,” Marcus said.

The winch whined. Dom waited for the creaking to turn into snaps and pings as the line started to part. He was so fixed on the deck hazards that he found himself forgetting that they were tormenting a life-form that broke destroyers and might even blow up of its own accord.

Shit. What if it lets some polyps loose? Can they climb ropes?

He needn’t have worried about the polyps. That was the least of their problems. The winch started to smoke, the line groaned, and
Falconer
lurched.

“Okay,” Muller said. “Everyone think happy thoughts. Because—oh
fuck
. It’s on the move.”

“Okay, follow,” Marcus said.

“It’s on a course for the base. I’m thinking suicide run here.”

“Follow it,” Marcus said, “but get ready to do a handbrake turn when I say.”

“Hey, Land-crab, the navy doesn’t do handbrakes.”

“Fine.” Marcus sounded strained. “Just find some way of dragging that asshole west of the base at the last minute.”

Dom decided the ax wasn’t going to help much now.
Falconer
picked up speed again. The leviathan was on a collision course with the carrier berth, and
Falconer
was along for the ride whether she wanted to be or not.

Yeah, Marcus was right again.

Baird wasn’t good just with big oily hardware; he was pretty good with computers, too. He wondered if even Anya could have handled this kind of target on the fly with a satellite network that was failing one satellite at a time. It was going to be all too easy to steam the water either side of the leviathan and not cook it medium-rare.

Mathieson was watching him intently. He could feel the lieutenant’s eyes drilling a hole in him. Baird had to keep resetting the sats’ reference times manually because one of them drifted out of sync every so often. The more sats he could bring to bear, the more accurate the firing; and with a target that didn’t move in a predictable line like a surface ship, that was going to be tough.

Oh, and then there was the whole diving thing. That was really starting to piss Baird off.

“Baird to
Falconer—try
to keep that asshole on the surface, will you? The sats’ laser can’t cope.”

Michaelson sounded strained but still did the gentleman-pirate act. “
Falconer
to Baird, we strive to please. Sergeant Fenix assures me he has your welfare at heart. Stand by.”

And he’s going to think I’m an asshole if I don’t get this right. Just watch Cole’s back. Leave the psycho whale to me
.

It was a kilometer out now, its speed about twenty kph. They must have been burning out some of
Falconer
’s motors trying to put the brakes on that. Baird decided he’d have a lot of repairs to look forward to when this was over. Hoffman came thundering up the stairs again and loomed over him.

“If you can’t stop that thing,” he said, “we’re going to have to burn a hundred thousand liters of fuel cleaning up its polyps.”

“Yeah, I get it, Colonel,” Baird said irritably, not looking away from the display. “I do.”

“
Falconer
’s picked up speed again, sir.” Mathieson’s attention was back on the radar sweep. “She’s maneuvering parallel with it and pulling ahead.”

Hoffman picked up the mike. “Hoffman to
Falconer
. What are you doing?”

“
Falconer
to Hoffman—if we can’t hold it still, we can try to steer it away from the berths.”

Baird struggled to keep synchronizing the satellite feeds.

“Five hundred meters,” Mathieson said. “
Falconer
’s steering wide. It’s going to make landfall to the west of us, sir.”

“Baird, smoke that thing,” Hoffman said. “Even if you haven’t got a lock.
Now.
”

“Okay, okay. Primed for a six-second burn, maximum setting. That should distract it if nothing else.”

It didn’t take much fluctuation to throw a Hammer laser off target when it was dependent on a beam from low orbit finding another one from a handheld gun bouncing along in a ship. This was precision stuff. Baird hit the control and watched the numbers cascade down his display. Then he spun around in his seat to look out the window. It was out of his hands now. The Hammer was locked on. He waited for the spectacular white-hot beams to light up the night sky.

And boy, was it impressive.

It was like a slow-motion moment in the middle of a thunderstorm. Unnaturally straight lines of lightning converged on a point beyond the walls.

Baird got up and took four strides to the window, dumb as that was. But he had to
see
. Hoffman caught his arm. Maybe he had a better idea of what was going to happen; the old bastard had helped grill the whole planet with the Hammer, after all. The next thing Baird knew, Michaelson was yelling “
Brace, brace, brace!
” over the radio and a ball of light blinded him. He put his arms up instinctively to shield his eyes. The sound came a second later.

Baird didn’t hear it; he
felt
it. It was off the scale. He felt like someone had split his head open with a hammer. Then the window shattered and his hands and scalp stung with cold needles.

For a few moments, he wasn’t sure where he was. But he was alive. He knew that because he could taste the blood in his mouth.

Fuck. I think that worked
.

“Mathieson? You okay, son?” That was Hoffman’s voice, filtered through the cotton wool of Baird’s numbed ears. “Shit, what a mess.”

“Still got power to the system, sir. I’m fine. Better take a look at Baird—he was right in front of the window.”

Baird focused on the light above him, but it wasn’t the room’s lighting. The bulbs had blown out along with the windowpanes. He was looking at the glow from a fire.

The radio net went crazy as damage reports flooded in.

“It’s beached. Sir, it’s
beached
. Landslide! Shit, run!”

“Polyps ashore!
Polyps!
”