Gears of War: Anvil Gate (59 page)

“Sam?” Hoffman still approached it carefully, alert for any lone Indie. “Sam? Come on, man. Where are you, Byrne?”

Byrne hadn’t left his post. He was still half-sitting, half-squatting on a shallow ammo crate with one arm draped over the Stomper and his forehead resting on the optics. Hoffman’s stomach knotted instantly. He knew what he was looking at, but he still wanted to believe that Byrne had paused for a moment, exhausted. But he didn’t move even when Hoffman went right up to him.

“Shit, Sam.” Hoffman felt for a throat pulse, but then he saw the big exit hole in the center of his back. “Shit. I’m sorry. Goddamn it, I’m
sorry.
”

Byrne would still be there when Hoffman had finally got his shit together. He made himself move on, counting off bodies on his fingers, trying to recall who he’d seen alive and who he hadn’t. He decided to go back to the muster point. Pad was already there
with five of the Pesangs and a lot of the gunners. Carlile had bad burns to his hands, but he was alive.

“We did it, sir,” Pad said. “I got a call in to Brigade. They know we’ve held it. Still the Unvanquished.”

“Yeah,” Hoffman said. He could hear automatic fire, just the occasional burst. “So we are.”

His legs wouldn’t support him much longer. He went into the office and tried to sit down, but the chairs were gone so he slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor, eyes shut. He couldn’t get the taste of smoke out of his mouth no matter how much he spat. It was probably all for nothing in the end. But the bastards hadn’t taken Anvil Gate.

That wasn’t going to be much comfort to Sheraya Byrne.

“Sah? Hoffman sah!” Bai Tak was standing over him, shaking him. “You got radio? Listen!”

The Pesang put the headset to Hoffman’s ear. It was a helicopter pilot, some cheery woman with a double-R call sign, one of the new Raven pilots.

“RR-One-Seven to Anvil Gate, are you still receiving?”

Hoffman couldn’t manage an answer. Bai Tak did the talking. “Anvil gate to RR-One-Seven, this is Rifleman Tak. Lieutenant Hoffman, he injured but he says, where the fuck you been, lady?”

The Raven pilot still sounded sunny and charming. “RR-One-Seven to Anvil Gate—there’s a lot of COG traffic heading your way from both sides, ETA one hour, but stand by for air casevac in ten minutes.”

Hoffman wasn’t elated. Hoffman didn’t weep for joy, or give Bai Tak a manly hug, or even come out with an astoundingly apt or funny one-liner to draw a line under the nightmare, as the movies had convinced him he should. Real life was a disappointment. He was just angry. He couldn’t even frame that anger in a stream of curses. The near-unbearable thing was that two kids would now never know their dads. Hoffman couldn’t imagine anything worse than that.

Bai Tak reached above him and took something off the wall. It was one of Sander’s many small watercolors of Anvegad. He
rolled it carefully like a scroll and put it in the empty holster on Hoffman’s webbing.

“There, sah,” Bai said. “For your Missus Hoffman. So she know what you did at Anvil Gate.”

Adam Fenix struggled out of the cab, determined to stand upright and look well for Marcus’s sake.

It was hard to explain to a small child that limping on crutches didn’t mean that his dad was badly hurt. The first impression counted. Adam wanted Marcus to see only that his father had kept his promise and come home. It was probably a memory that would stay with the boy, and it had to be a positive one.

Elain opened the door—no housekeeper, as usual—and just stood there expressionless for a while. Homecomings were always difficult. They had so much to say and get out of their systems, and yet Adam never knew if he wanted to hold her, or cry on her shoulder, or rush to see Marcus, or … damn, he wanted to do it all at once, and his father had never shown him how it was meant to be done, only that it wasn’t. Paralyzed by the overwhelming relief—yes, he really
was
home, he wasn’t dreaming this, and he would still be at home when he next woke—Adam just walked carefully up the steps and buried his face in her hair.

“When the news said that Two-Six was at Anvil Gate,” she said at last, “I thought it was you. I thought you were there. I thought there’d been a mistake and you weren’t wounded.”

“I’m okay,” he said. “It was Connaught Platoon. Poor bastards.”

“Daddy!
Daddy!
”

Marcus came running across the tiled hall. Adam crouched and opened his arms, ready to scoop him up; this time, Adam would damned well
not
be like his own father. He’d do all the spoiling and indulgently emotional things, all the hugs and love and promises never to go away again. But Marcus suddenly
slowed to a dignified walk as if he’d remembered that he had to behave and be the man of the house. He looked Adam in the eye, the same height at that moment, as if he expected the same decorum of him.

“I missed you, Marcus,” Adam said, straightening up. He’d lost the moment completely now and settled for ruffling his son’s hair. “I really did.”

“What’s wrong with your leg?” Marcus asked. “And did you save everyone?”

Adam had lost more than half the Gears in his original company. It was the most painful question he’d ever been asked.

“No, I didn’t save them all,” he said. “But I’m going to change things, and make sure I save everyone else in the future.”

Marcus looked up at him, that I-don’t-believe-you tilt of the head that was probably just bewilderment. Elain took his hand, and Adam’s.

“We can do all this on the doorstep,” she said, “or be like normal people and go sit down in the kitchen. Marcus, go get the drawing you did at school to show Daddy.”

Marcus went upstairs, all sensible sobriety, and disappeared along the landing. Elain squeezed Adam’s hand.

“He’s okay, darling,” she said. “He’s all very grown-up since he started school. But he’s got this thing about making sure he knows where I am and that I’m safe. It’ll pass now that you’re back.” She had that look, the one that said she was about to ask something she’d promised not to raise. “I know this isn’t the time to ask, but how long are you going to be home?”

Adam had made up his mind. He didn’t want anyone to misunderstand his motives. He’d had enough of the fighting, but it was a different kind of disgust, one that would change things instead of just turning his back on them while other men and women couldn’t.

I don’t want anyone to think I’m a coward. I don’t want Marcus to think that, most of all. This is for him, too, because I’m damned if I’ll see him lined up and used as a Gear
.

“I’m not going back,” Adam said. He’d rehearsed how he
would justify his decision, in case Elain thought he was too scared to fight. “I’m going to take that post at the DRA. Weapons research. Because nobody in this day and age should fight wars by walking infantry into battle or firing damn hundred-year-old cannons or starving each other to death in sieges.
There will be deterrents
. There will be weapons that mean politicians stupid enough to carry on this war are going to face the same risk of dying as the men and women they send to fight it. I’m going to
create
those weapons. I’ll make these ghastly little demagogues
think twice.
”

Adam meant that like he’d meant his marriage vows. It was absolute, an oath, and he would live it. He could feel his pulse pounding in his throat. Elain just looked at him, tears in her eyes, and smiled.

“You will,” she said. “Damn right, you will, Doctor Fenix.”

“Just
Major,
” he said. “My promotion came through. But it won’t change my mind.” He took the torn page of newspaper from his pocket and held it up for her. All the promotions were published in the press. “See? Second paragraph.”

Elain read it. “Good grief, so many Royal Tyrans. You have to leave some glory for the other poor regiments, Adam. Oh, look—Helena Stroud,
Captain
. She’s going to make General. Count on it.”

Adam took the page back and smiled. Helena was welcome to as much gold braid as she wanted.

He noted, too, that Lieutenant Victor Hoffman, 26 RTI, had been promoted to Captain and decorated with the Sovereign’s Medal for his defense of the Anvil Gate garrison. Adam wondered just what that unlucky man had endured for so little reward, and if he’d ever meet him to ask that question.

CHAPTER 20

“He’s probably just gone off somewhere,” Anya said. “We’d have found the body if he’d been killed.”

Bernie slowed the Packhorse to ten klicks because that was the speed limit through the camp, but there was nothing to run down anyway. The devastation shocked her. It looked like the Stranded camp on the coast after they’d torched every last hut to stop the COG getting so much as firewood from it.

“Sorry, ma’am.” Bernie tried to concentrate on the mike in her hand. “He’s not a running-away kind of dog, but you’re right–polyps don’t haul off prey and lay up with it. As far as we know.”

“We’ll keep looking. Soon as he shows, I’ll call.”

“Thanks, ma’am. Mataki out.”

The world was going to hell again, and yet the thing that worried her most was a lost dog. She wasn’t sure if that made her insane, insensitive, or smarter than most. But animals were easier to love than humans. The thought of the poor little bugger lying hurt somewhere or just hiding in terror upset her.

But he’s an attack dog. He won’t piss himself and run. He’s been hurt. Killed. I let him down. He trusted me, and I wasn’t there for him
.

“That’s what you get for not securing him yourself, you stupid cow,” she said aloud. “Never trust anyone else to do the important things for you.”

She parked the Packhorse in the compound and noticed that the rat bike was already there. Sam must have burned through the woods, because she hadn’t overtaken Bernie on the way back. There was a sense of urgency everywhere. It was reassuring in some ways, because she’d been certain that another setback like this would kill morale in New Jacinto stone-dead. There were only so many times you could stand looking at ruins and vow to rebuild.

Whatever else the bastards say about us—the COG doesn’t give up easy
.

But there were no bastards left, not unless you counted the Stranded now scattered to the four winds. The world she lived in was now wholly COG. Even Gorasnaya had settled grudgingly into it like some argumentative but ultimately reliable ally.

To the west side of the base, there was a brand-new sea view and a lot less dry land. It was a big, vulnerable gap in the defenses.

Bernie worked her way across the parade ground, skirting the cordoned-off crevasses and subsidence, and tried to take in a new coastline. Bricks from one of the broken buildings clinging to the cliff were still toppling into the sea as she watched. The massive guns were gone. But it was nothing new. Ephyra had been ripped up and demolished on a daily basis too. She’d just started to think that it was all slowly improving.

Should have known better
.

The barracks blocks were heaving with displaced civvies. Her quarters were taken but she couldn’t work up enough energy to be pissed off about it. Everything she owned was in her backpack anyway, so she was suddenly plunged back into the nomadic state she’d existed in for years on her long journey back to Jacinto. There was a vague comfort to it, the knowledge that she could just get up and go if she really had to. She could even sail out of here.

But I can’t do that to Vic. Not now
.

Control had moved to the infirmary wing. She reported in and Mathieson gave her a meaningful jerk of the head to indicate a meeting was taking place in the next room.

“Don’t wander away too far, Sergeant—the Colonel wants to see you.”

“Is he going to be long?” She draped her arm on her slung Lancer. “I was planning on getting my hair done, you see.”

Mathieson wasn’t used to her. The look on his face told her he wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. Her armor was filthy with polyp fluids, her arms were covered in scratches and bruises, and she was sure she stank of smoke, dog, and cordite. Mathieson broke into a smile a fraction at a time.