Coalition's End Read online

  “Did we get them all?” Dom called.

  “You okay, Dom?”

  “Yeah, fine. I said, did we get them all?”

  “No. Two packs split off.” Marcus turned around, covered in polyp spatter. He wiped his face with the back of his hand before pressing his earpiece. “Eight-Zero, we’re clear here. Can you see the rest?”

  “I’m following one,” Gettner said. “Hard to tell what’s downdraft and what’s actual movement in the grass.”

  “I’ll take the other pack on foot. Fenix out.”

  “Where’s Boomer Lady?” Cole asked.

  “Wherever the dog is. He’s gone after the polyps.” Marcus turned to jog away. “I’ll catch up with her. You stay here and wait for Hoffman.”

  Cole spread his arms in exasperation. He felt obliged to keep an eye on Bernie, even though she really didn’t need it.

  Baird slapped him on the back. “Come on, Granny’s indestructible,” he said. “Look what she’s survived. Two wars. God knows how many fights with grubs and Stranded. Roadside bombs. Oh, and she eats cats, for fuck’s sake. If that hasn’t killed her, nothing will.”

  “She’s sixty,” Cole said defensively. “And it’s startin’ to show, even if she don’t accept it.”

  Baird put on his couldn’t-give-a-damn face, which Dom knew was an act, and knelt on the edge of a crater to inspect it. Dom could hear Gettner’s Raven circling the fields on a search pattern, fading in and out as she changed direction. At least he knew his hearing wasn’t permanently damaged. But if he had a few more close calls like that, he’d be the one they’d scrape up in a bucket, not Bernie.

  “What can you see?” Dom called.

  “Sweet FA.” Baird had his head down the crater. “I can’t tell if this is a hole they came out of, or a hole we made fragging them.”

  Cole ruffled Dom’s hair apologetically with a huge hand. “You sure you’re okay? You look pretty spacey.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “I see that nobody’s asking how I am,” Baird said.

  “Oh, sure. You turned glowie yet, Baird?” Cole had a knack of bursting Baird’s anxiety bubble. “One of those bitches skewered your leg and you ain’t griped about it for days. That ain’t normal for you.”

  Baird was convinced glowies had some kind of infection and that he might have caught it. They’d seen glowie grubs, Brumaks, and leviathans, so the idea of a glowie Baird wasn’t unreasonable, just disturbing. Baird knelt back on his heels and prodded his ankle as if he was testing it.

  “I check, Cole,” he said. “Trust me, I check. Every day. In the dark.”

  Cole chuckled. “Yeah, I wondered what you was doin’ in the closet, all on your own … hey, I can hear another Raven. Now everybody smile and play nice for Prescott, okay?”

  Mel Sorotki’s voice broke into the comms channel. “This is KR-Two-Three-Nine—we have a visual on you. Interesting crop you’ve grown there. Can’t wait to see your roses.”

  “Ooh, thanks for joining us, Lieutenant.” Baird made his usual pfft of contempt. “Did you stop for directions?”

  “All complaints in writing to the Chairman, Baird. And gosh, here he is!”

  A couple of fields away, the sound of a machine gun followed by a firecracker sequence of detonations was loud enough to get Dom’s attention.

  “Gettner’s found her glowies,” Cole said. “See, Dom, there’s always a silver linin’. When you hit those bitches, you know they ain’t gonna come back and fight another day.”

  “And you can see the assholes in the dark.”

  “Didn’t help the Locust much though, did it?” Baird said.

  Sorotki’s Raven dipped low over the pasture and circled the first batch of stalks before setting down. Hoffman jumped out of the Raven and headed Dom’s way with a determined stride.

  Victor Hoffman had been Dom’s CO in his commando days, way back in the Pendulum Wars. Dom still found it hard to think of the old man as the Chief of the Defense Staff. Cities had burned and sunk, most of the world’s population was dead, and the mighty COG was now just a town of refugees with a fancy flag and a few ships, but Colonel Hoffman still remained, the last senior officer left standing. He was a rare fixed point in Dom’s life.

  “Anyone injured?” Hoffman asked. “Goddamn, Dom, you look like hell.”

  “I look better than the polyps do now, sir.”

  “Where’s everyone?”

  “They went after Mac to get the stragglers,” Dom said. “Don’t worry. Bernie’s okay.”

  Hoffman made an unconvincing attempt to look more interested in the stalks. “She damn well better be.”

  “If you want to go find her, sir, I can stall Prescott.”

  Dom had always been fond of Hoffman, but he really felt for the poor old bastard these days. He was widowed and he blamed himself for it. Dom knew that pain all too well. But Hoffman had eventually taken the risk of another relationship, and Dom knew that was something he’d never do.

  “Thanks, Dom,” Hoffman said at last. “But it’s easier for all of us if I keep an eye on the Chairman.” He clambered over the churned soil to inspect one of the blisters, now just a rock-hard gray bulge with a mark on it like crosswires. “How the hell did these bastards get inland?”

  Dom could still hear the occasional crack of an exploding polyp in the distance as he watched Prescott amble across the field, stopping to prod at the grass around the stalks. In his oilcloth jacket and muddy boots, he looked more like a country squire inspecting his crops.

  It wasn’t a casual inspection, though. Dom felt he knew Prescott well enough by now to spot the difference between Prescott going through the motions and Prescott on a mission, and this was a very focused Prescott indeed. He squatted to pick something up and examine it in his palm. Then he pulled out a scrap of paper and carefully wrapped it.

  “What’s he doing?” Baird asked.

  “You still think he’d tell me?” Hoffman muttered, giving Prescott the hairy eyeball, as Sam called it. It was a look of pure suspicious venom, eyes narrowed and lips pressed into a tight and unforgiving line. “Don’t get me started, Corporal.”

  This was the war within the war—Prescott versus Hoffman. Dom had taken sides and there was never any question that he would stick by his old boss until the bitter end. What kind of head of state still kept secrets from his right-hand man, from the head of his armed forces, when the whole world was going to rat-shit around them?

  Prescott did. And whatever his last remaining secrets were, they were on the data disc that Baird was incubating in his shirt like a demented hen. It was hard to have any conversation with Prescott these days without wanting to grab the asshole’s collar and shake the truth out of him—whatever it was. Only the prospect of more Lambent stalks finding their way ashore distracted Dom from doing exactly that.

  Prescott walked up to them with that look that said he expected their undivided attention. He was clutching something else in his hand now, and he held it up to the light between his thumb and forefinger like a diamond. It looked like a finger-length thorn attached to a chunk of polyp shell.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, but when he looked away from his prize he was staring straight at Baird. “Have you noticed anything new about the polyps?”

  “We’re still cataloging all the nifty new features on the stalks, Chairman,” Baird said. “But stick it on our list and we’ll get around to it.”

  “Spines. The things have grown spines, Corporal.” Prescott handed it to him as if he hadn’t even heard the backchat. Dom peered over Baird’s shoulder and saw it was a sharp spur made of the same stuff as a polyp carapace, thick green-gray shell. “I think they might be evolving.”

  THREE KILOMETERS FROM THE STALK SITE.

  Bernie caught up with Marcus in a field of oilseed and tried not to look old and out of breath.

  The crop was in flower, a hazy carpet of brilliant saffron with a sickly perfume that hung over it like incense. Marcus waded through it waist
-deep, calling for Mac.

  “He’s in there somewhere,” Bernie panted. Her head was starting to ache from the intensity of the smell. “He’ll let us know when he finds something.”

  “Maybe they self-destruct if they don’t find a target in time.”

  “Maybe they don’t,” she said. “Maybe they pair off and start making more bloody polyp babies.”

  Marcus turned around and caught her staring at him. “Okay. We’ll assume the worst.” He searched between the rows of plants, pushing the foliage aside with his Lancer. “Mac? Mac!”

  Bernie took advantage of the brief respite to get her breath back and listened for sounds of movement. “You never had a dog when you were a kid, did you?”

  “No.” Marcus, effortlessly competent in most things, seemed a little put out by failing to master dog training in minutes. “So he’s not too traumatized to chase polyps.”

  “You’ve seen him in action,” she said. “He’s trained to inflict damage. If something hurts him, it just makes him more aggressive.”

  The distant rumble of a tractor made her look around but she couldn’t tell if it was in the field or not. It could have been a farmer completely oblivious of the morning’s drama and just going about his business, or someone out on the road, heading to find out what all the helicopters and explosions were about. She picked her way between the rows of oilseed, trying not to trample the crop.

  “Mac!” She put her fingers between her lips and whistled. “Mac! Come!”

  Marcus started moving again, taking slow, deliberate paces. The polyps hadn’t run away before. If they’d learned to stalk their prey… no, it didn’t bear thinking about.

  We don’t even know if the bloody stalks are coming up in places where we can’t even see them.

  And nobody knew if this was just an infestation they could live with, or the beginning of the end. It was hard to know how much panic to invest in all this. Bernie could hear Marcus’s breathing in her earpiece, getting more shallow and rapid as he moved deeper into the scented yellow sea. She kept him in her peripheral vision just in case the radio went down.

  The tractor noise was growing louder as if it was heading in their direction, but Bernie still couldn’t see it. The dips in the field were deep enough to hide an approaching vehicle. That meant she probably wouldn’t spot a bunch of polyps until they were right underneath her.

  It was like crossing a minefield. She moved her gaze up and down from the horizon to the ground a few meters ahead of her as she walked, looking for movement in the crops. The best she could do was listen for rustling and hope she got a few seconds’ warning.

  Suddenly Marcus stopped. “Hold it!”

  He aimed his rifle into the oilseed, stepping back out of the crop onto the strip of bare ground at the end of the furrows. The only thing Bernie could hear now was the puttering of the tractor.

  Then the plants shivered. She aimed automatically. A polyp scuttled out of the oilseed and Marcus opened fire, detonating the thing so close to his boots that he almost lost his balance. Bernie swung around to cover him, expecting more polyps to follow. If there was one, the others wouldn’t be far away.

  “We’re going to be doing this every frigging day,” Marcus said, wiping a gobbet of polyp flesh off his chest plate. “That’s going to suck up a lot of resources.”

  The tractor noise sounded like it was heading toward them now, but Bernie was too busy listening for polyp movement to worry about it. There was more rustling. She moved into position to face it head-on.

  You don’t scare me, you little bastards. I’ve killed plenty of your mates. Come on. Come and get it. Come and get it for all the Gears you’ve crippled.

  Marcus spun around. “Goddamn!”

  Bernie almost opened fire. But the gray shape that shot out of cover wasn’t a polyp. Marcus lowered his rifle and stepped back. It was just Mac, panting and excited. He cowered as if he was expecting a good hiding, but Marcus looked as wary of the dog as the dog did of him.

  “You naughty little bugger. Don’t you scare your mum like that again.” Bernie grabbed Mac’s collar with relief and put the leash on, letting him lead her back into the crops. “You don’t like dogs much, do you, Marcus?”

  “Not a matter of liking or not liking,” Marcus said. “Habit.”

  “You going to tell me?”

  Marcus was a few meters ahead with his back to her now. She saw the slight roll of his head as if he was debating whether to answer or not.

  “Prison,” he said at last.

  Bernie didn’t need him to say any more. He was never going to talk about his four years in the Slab, but maybe that was just as well. She had a pretty good imagination when it came to human excesses. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to find that the bottom of the barrel went a lot deeper than she’d thought.

  The tractor sounded close now. “He’s coming to find out what the hell we’re doing to his crop,” she said.

  “I thought they all stayed in touch by radio.”

  “Can’t expect them to monitor all the channels.”

  “Better warn him off before he hits a polyp, then. He won’t know they’re on the loose.”

  Mac was still pulling like a train, following what Bernie hoped was a polyp trail. Marcus jogged toward the crest of the slope to get a better vantage point. He seemed to have forgotten that he could run into a polyp any time, but that was Marcus all over: once he realized someone was in the shit, that reflex to save the world kicked in and he lost all sense of his own vulnerability.

  Just like Mac. Head first, defend the pack, bugger the risk.

  “Marcus, slow down a bit, will you?” Bernie called.

  “It’s okay. I see him.”

  “What, the tractor? Marcus!”

  He reached the top of the slope and raised both arms as if he was flagging someone down. Bernie broke into a trot and tried to steer Mac the same way.

  “Hey! Stay in the cab!” Marcus was yelling to get the driver’s attention. “No, stay in the cab! Polyps!”

  Bernie drew level with him and looked down the slope. A small tractor with a disk harrow had come to a halt on a track through the center of the field. Maybe the driver couldn’t hear, because he leaned out of the cab and shouted a reply that was lost on the breeze. Marcus motioned him to stay put again, holding both palms up.

  “Stay there—we’re coming over.” Marcus started jogging down the slope. The tractor driver settled back in his seat and waited. “Good. He’s got it.”

  Bernie was wondering if the man even knew what a polyp looked like when she saw him look down from the tractor’s high cab. He stared at the ground for a moment. Then he jumped up, or at least he stood up as far as he could inside the vehicle’s plastic canopy. Mac started barking.

  “Polyps!” Marcus took off at a sprint. Bernie followed without thinking. She could see the things now, four or five of them clambering up the tires and onto the hood. “They’re all over the goddamn tractor.”

  The look on the farmer’s face said it all. The poor bastard couldn’t even run for it. He’d stayed put like he’d been told and now he was trapped. He screamed and tried to bat off the polyps with his bare hands, and Bernie couldn’t do a bloody thing for him.

  Marcus squeezed off a burst as he ran and took out two polyps, crazing the windshield, but it was too late. The cab lit up with the blast, rocking the tractor on its suspension. The driver stopped screaming.

  “Shit.” Bernie ran down the slope. Mac pulled free and raced ahead of her, heading for the remaining polyp. “Mac, no! Leave it! Leave!”

  She expected to see him blown to pieces. But he cannoned into the polyp at full speed, head down like a charging bull, and sent it tumbling down the track for a couple of meters before it detonated. It took Bernie twenty long seconds to reach the vehicle. Marcus was already on the radio to Gettner.

  “Fenix to KR-Eight-Zero—we’ve got a fatality.”

  “Eight-Zero here. Mataki’s down?”

 
; “Negative. She’s okay. It’s a civilian.”

  Bernie climbed up on the tractor to check the driver. He was a mess. His legs were so badly shredded she couldn’t actually see their outline, and he wasn’t breathing. But when she touched his shoulder he slumped back and blood spurted over her.

  Arterial blood, under pressure. Oh fuck…

  “He’s still alive,” she called. “Marcus, give me a hand. Quick.”

  “Did you get that, Eight-Zero?” Marcus climbed into the cab from the other side. “We need a casevac. Move it.”

  When Bernie saw that much blood then drill kicked in unbidden, an autopilot that didn’t care how scared or nauseated she was. It simply took control of her hands because she’d done this too many times before. Upper leg wounds were a bastard to deal with. She had a minute to stop the bleeding, maybe only seconds by now because the man was already unconscious. Marcus pressed his fist hard into the driver’s groin to pinch the artery closed, but it didn’t make much difference. The blood seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. The two of them worked in desperate silence, fighting a losing battle against the pumping blood.

  “I can’t stop it,” Marcus said at last. Bernie wondered if he saw Carlos every time he dealt with terrible injuries. “He’s bleeding from too many places.”

  “I’ve seen Gears survive worse.”

  But that was when there’d been field hospitals with proper drugs and the best equipment, and that time was long gone. Bernie was just going through the motions because drill told her not to stop until it was really, completely over. Marcus still had his fist pressed into the artery when the Raven landed. Bernie couldn’t feel a pulse. Barber ran up to them hauling a gurney.

  “I think we’ve lost him.” She looked at Marcus and they seemed to reach a silent agreement to let go. She found she was clutching a bunch of rags heavy with blood. “The locals are going to have our guts for garters.”

  Barber peered into the tractor, then looked away for a second. “Just as well. Even Doc Hayman couldn’t fix that.” He took a breath. “Come on, let’s move him. I bet he didn’t imagine his working day would end like this. Have we got an ID?”