It was the best he could do in an unfunny situation. He confined himself to a handshake, but he was now at the stage where he wanted to hug everybody. He looked at Marcus, last in the line waiting by the brow, felt unbearably bad about all the shit between them, and simply shook his hand.
Marcus just nodded. But that was a lot for Marcus.
Hoffman didn’t look back. He had a long walk to the front of the convoy, but by the time he couldn’t bear to not look back and had to turn around, the curve of the line meant he could see nothing but tankers, trucks, junkers, trailers, and the huge bulk of Betty. There were even boats on trailers. Kashkur had rivers and lakes, and fishermen still needed to fish.
It was a whole new existence. It sure as shit wasn’t the army any longer. “Well, fuck you, Chairman,” he muttered. “I’m not done yet.”
Bernie was sitting in the passenger seat of the Packhorse fussing with Mac when Hoffman got in and turned the key. He didn’t look at her, and she didn’t look at him.
“You got yours over with, then,” he said.
“Yeah. I’m an old hand at this.” She cleared her throat. Mac stuck his head between the seats and slurped at Hoffman’s ear. “Rossi’s taken a rat-bike and gone on ahead with one of the engineers.”
“Is this damn dog going to dribble on me all the way?”
“Probably.”
“This is your revenge on me for dumping you all those years ago, isn’t it?”
“You bet.”
“Fine by me,” Hoffman said, and drove off.
NORTHERN EDGE OF ANVEGAD PLAIN, KASHKUR: FOUR DAYS LATER.
Bernie got out of the Packhorse and stood staring at a fort straight out Silver Era history. The tiny walled city of Anvegad clung to a rock overlooking a mountain pass, daring all-comers to take a shot at it and see how much good it did them.
“This isn’t anything like the brochure, Vic,” she said. “Can we get our money back?”
Hoffman had a roll of paper in his hands. He unfurled it like an architect checking a building against a blueprint. “I was shipped out on a medevac thirty-odd years ago, babe. Things might have changed a bit.”
He handed her the paper. She’d seen it before. It was a watercolor of Anvil Gate fort, one of dozens painted by his old captain. The man had been killed at the start of the UIR siege, leaving Hoffman to step up and hold the garrison. The watercolor showed a starkly beautiful, barren terrain with an old fort clinging to the rocks, its guns pointing south. Now the landscape was covered with conifers and birch. It was hard to see the fort at all from some angles.
But the twin guns were still there.
“Colonel, you said this place was the pimply ass-end of Sera,” Dizzy said, tipping his battered straw hat back on his head to look up at the crags. “Don’t look too bad to me. Kinda scenic.”
“Well, at least the trees made a comeback.” Hoffman looked around, frowning. “Nobody out here now to deforest the slopes. No goddamn goats grazing it to death, either.”
“And rainfall,” Bernie said. “It’s wetter than it was thirty years ago.” She pulled out her field glasses and took a look. She could hear a fox barking. Predators meant a healthy food supply. “Goat. Delicious. I’ll take a hike up there soon and see what’s for eating.”
Hoffman studied the fort thoughtfully. “That wasn’t there before,” he said at last. “The earthworks. That was a steep drop. There’s another entrance now. Yeah, it was always a bastard to get vehicles in and out.”
Like all old battlefields where nature had healed the land, it was hard to imagine the siege that Hoffman described taking place here. This couldn’t be the Anvegad that kept him awake at nights. It was a new place, a nice place, all forest slopes and birdsong. A lovely sunrise was shaping up behind the trees.
Rossi walked out of the ancient gates with Ormond, one of Parry’s engineers. “Still all clear, sir,” he called. “Check-in time.”
“Okay—wait one.” Hoffman walked back a little way along the row of trucks, adjusting his cap, and stopped at Lewis Gavriel’s pickup. “Lewis? Come with me, please.”
Bernie thought Hoffman was going to do a hearts-and-minds offensive and let Gavriel be the first to enter the town. Sometimes, just sometimes, he was capable of real diplomacy. Gavriel climbed down from the driver’s cab and followed Hoffman to the head of the convoy with that permanent oh-shit-what-now expression that had grown on him in the last year. Hoffman stopped just in front of the gates, came to attention to face Gavriel, and saluted.
“Mr. Gavriel,” he said. “I am now handing over Anvegad to civilian control. As commanding officer of Anvil Gate garrison, I am at your disposal.”
Nobody was expecting that, least of all Bernie. Gavriel didn’t manage to say anything for a moment. She couldn’t tell if the look on his face was horror or surprise. He stood with his hands thrust in his jacket pockets, looking as if he was trying to work out if it was a joke. Everyone in earshot was now watching intently.
Eventually, Gavriel found his voice. “But this is your city, Colonel,” he said. “I’m just a dockyard clerk who ended up being mayor of a fishing village by accident.”
“Well, sir, now you’re the mayor of Anvegad. Permission to proceed with the resettlement? I’ll carry on as planned until you tell me to do otherwise.”
“You don’t have to do this, Victor.”
“Yes, I do. I said there wouldn’t be a military administration for a second longer than was needed. I’ll do my job so you can get on with yours.”
Bernie had to hand it to Hoffman. He always kept his word. If anyone thought he wanted to be the warlord of Anvil Gate, they just didn’t understand what drove him. It certainly wasn’t power. He stood back and gestured at Gavriel to enter the ancient gates.
“Oh… very well, Colonel,” Gavriel said, taking a few hesitant steps inside. “I’m sure we’ll work something out.”
“Okay, let’s move, people.” Hoffman waved the trucks forward. “Don’t take the peace and quiet for granted. The Stranded at Corren said there were still crazy assholes up in the mountains.”
Rossi grinned. “That’ll be us from now on.”
Bernie checked her Lancer’s charge and got back into the Packhorse to wait for Hoffman. He jumped into the driver’s seat and said nothing as he started the engine.
“You okay, Vic?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t look okay. “You want to do the tour? I’ve got ghosts to visit.”
“No worries. Take your time.” She patted his hand on the steering wheel. “You know Gavriel’s still going to be running to you for permission every time he wants to have a pee, don’t you?”
“That’s not the point,” he growled. “The army carries out the will of the elected government. And he’s the nearest thing to an elected leader that we’ve had for fifteen years.”
It was still Hoffman’s show, though. Bernie put the same amount of faith in him as everyone else did. He’d drawn up a recovery plan so that everyone knew roughly what they had to do and what had to be stored where. There’d be some changes inside, but he knew the turf.
“Shit, it’s tiny.” She stared ahead into an empty courtyard like a Silver Era museum tableau. It looked like they were the first people to enter Anvegad in years. “Won’t get lost in here, will I?”
“Come on, park up and let’s walk.” Hoffman put his finger to his earpiece. “Hoffman here, people. Watch out for the usual surprises. Booby traps in particular.”
“You’re jumpy.”
“Well, that’s what I did, remember.”
They left the Packhorse by the south wall and walked along the narrow street, keeping close to the gutter. Vehicles streamed past them, each driver with some kind of street plan pressed against the steering wheel by a thumb or stuck to the inside of the windshield. Hoffman appeared to be heading for the center of the town.
“Garrison buildings are that way,” he said, jerking his thumb. “Lots of storage inside the gun emplacement.” He stopped to
point up at the metal gantries that connected the emplacements to other buildings and walkways. “Even if some asshole gets in here, you can take them out from the top.”
Mac sniffed around but didn’t stray far. “Where are we going, Vic?” Bernie asked.
“Just got to pay my respects.” He took off his cap and shook his head. She suddenly saw him as he was thirty-two years ago, a newly commissioned officer making the hard transition after years in the ranks. That was how their lives had diverged. An officer had to have an officer’s lady, not an enlisted Gear. “We burned a lot of the place to the ground and they had to rebuild. Goddamn, it’s even smaller than I remember.”
It was hard to tell where the fort ended and the town itself began. Some of it was still firmly Silver Era, all narrow alleys and picturesque arches, but now Bernie could see the uglier modern reconstruction. Urban fighting was hard and dirty. She didn’t envy anyone trying to take this place—or defend it.
“Ah, I’m not senile yet, then.” Hoffman’s voice changed. “Well. This is it.”
It was just a concrete plinth at the intersection of some narrow cobbled streets. Hoffman stared at it for some time.
“Samuel Byrne,” he said. Bernie only vaguely recalled him, but she knew the story almost too well by now. “We had a Stomper position here. He was still sitting on the gun like he was taking a breather. But he wasn’t.”
The only sign Bernie could see that a Stomper had ever been mounted there was a rust stain in the concrete. History had happened here, a man’s history, a man with a name who lived and then stopped living right there on that very spot. Hoffman looked as if he expected the concrete to show more respect. He squatted to touch it.
“Hi Sam. Your girl’s doing fine.” Hoffman could be a callous and unthinking bastard, but when he spilled his guts, he didn’t hold back. He took out the locket that Sam— Samantha—had given him and held it out as if Samuel Byrne could see it. “She’s called Sam too, you know that? She wanted you to have this. I don’t know exactly where you’re buried, but I’ll find you, buddy. She’s a good Gear. Steady under fire. She’s got Sheraya’s looks, too.” Hoffman straightened up, eyes brimming, and put the locket back in his shirt. “Stand easy, Sam.”
Bernie found that kind of raw connection hard to handle. She had to look away for a moment. But this was Hoffman’s pilgrimage. He just needed quiet support.
“Am I embarrassing you?” he asked.
“Not at all.”
“You’re crying, Bernie.”
“So are you.”
“Well, I’d better get a grip before the evacuees see me, then, or they’ll think I’m senile after all.” A pickup crawled along the road toward them, unused to the narrow streets. Hoffman pointed at the plinth and flagged down the driver. “Off-limits. Get this plinth cordoned.”
Hoffman walked back toward the gun battery, pointing out other landmarks from the siege. That was the gun floor where he’d seen Captain Sander killed by an RPG; this was the council building where he executed a civilian for stealing food, and shot a UIR officer who’d given him water. That alley down there was where the Pesanga detachment sorted out the Indies their own way. Bernie wasn’t sure who found it more harrowing, her or him.
“Everyone’s got a defining moment in their life if they do anything worth a damn,” he said. “Something good or bad that shapes every day of your existence from then on. Mine was here.”
Hoffman always rolled up his sleeves and unloaded trucks with the laborers, but today he just sat down on the carved edge of a dry fountain and watched the activity. Bernie wasn’t sure if he was just tired from days on the road or feeling his age. But when Dizzy came striding up to him with a big grin, he perked up.
“Just testing the generators, Colonel.” Anvegad sat on top of a fast-flowing underground river, giving the city unlimited power and water unless someone decided to blow up the cliffs again and divert the river. “Good choice, sir.”
“Yeah, we’re going be right at home here, Diz.” Hoffman waited for him to walk away and lowered his voice. “Am I still entitled to call myself a goddamn colonel, Bernie? We’re all Stranded now. No COG, no army, no rank.”
“Vic, everyone needs you to be Colonel Hoffman,” she said. “You did the impossible here thirty years ago and people feel safer knowing that. Nobody gives a shit about the technicalities.”
“Is that my pep talk for the day?”
“Yes. Everyone who set out from Vectes got here in one piece. Now go find your office while I take a look around.”
Bernie worked out that she couldn’t get lost in Anvil Gate. It was too small. Wherever she went, she could just look up and navigate by the gun emplacement. The place was crowded and noisy, but by the end of the day they had everyone in some kind of shelter and fed, and Dizzy had mustered a gang of workmen to get the lighting and water pumps working. It was all going to plan, going so well that Bernie didn’t have time to think about people she might never see again.
She decided not to risk walking on the gantries before they’d been checked for corrosion. So she climbed the stairs inside the gun emplacement and looked out over the plain. Mac joined her to contemplate the view, chin resting on the brickwork. There were no stalks, no dead brown areas, and no devastated cities out there, just trees and bushes. The grubs hadn’t ever bothered to come this far. It was Sera as it used to be, when the only creatures kicking the shit out of each other were humans.
“Lots to eat out there, Mac,” she said, rubbing his ears. “When we’ve got the place straight, we’ll go exploring. Okay? Let’s go see Dad. Come on.”
She found Hoffman in a small room at the top of the barracks block, staring out at the view through a small window next to a washbasin so old that the ceramic had turned a faint yellowish gray.
“Makes you want to look at it all day, doesn’t it?” she said. “So this is home.”
“It’s going to work,” he said, more to himself than her. “I know it is.”
Home was a bedroll on the bare floorboards but she’d had a lot worse. There was water, and plenty of it. That made all the difference. By the next evening, Lewis Gavriel had got the communal kitchens set up and Will Berenz had started supervising the conversion of derelict buildings. By the end of the week, it felt like a construction site rather than a ghost town. Bernie had to keep moving Mac out of the way of busy boots.
“Come on.” She was still a Gear and her duties hadn’t changed that much. “You want to do some work with Mum? Yeah? Good boy.”
Bernie made good use of the guns, even if they’d never fire again. The staircase inside the gun emplacement was broken in places and she didn’t risk climbing right to the top, but she could see plenty from the gun floor. The metal tracks were still set in the flagstones, polished by centuries of movement. She paused for a minute, trying to remember where Captain Sander had been killed.
It really was one hell of a view.
It wasn’t just beautiful unspoilt scenery. It was designed to be a perfect overwatch position. The road was visible despite the trees’ best efforts, and it was the kind of road you couldn’t drive off easily with steep embankments and thick forest to either side, so if anyone wanted to play silly buggers she could pin them down with a few careful shots.
This was the whole point of Anvegad. It was here because no invading army could approach unseen, and if anyone was stupid enough to try then they had to run the gauntlet of the guns. She felt powerfully safe. Something about this place made her want to dig in and defend it.
And there’s lots of life out there. Goats. Deer. Good hunting. Even fishing.
I think I could get used to this.
She spent half an hour scoping through, more out of habit than anything, until movement on the road caught her eye. Mac pricked up his ears. Five trucks were making their way to the fort. She counted them as they passed between the gaps in the trees, then got on the radio.
Shit, trouble already? She’d just found something to be gratefu
l for and now some wanker was going to muscle in and ruin it.
“Vic, this is Bernie,” she said, as if he needed to be told. “We’ve got visitors. Looks like Stranded inbound. Five vehicles.”
“Assume they’re hostile until proven otherwise.” Hoffman paused. “Where are you?”
“Gun floor.”
“Okay. Stand by.”
The warning siren blipped a couple of times to alert everyone, a noise that could probably be heard twenty klicks away. Bernie settled down with the Longshot resting on the sill of one of the windows and laid out a dozen high-velocity rounds within grabbing range. A round through the engine block of the lead truck would stop the whole convoy.
Mac stared into the distance, frozen. Bernie couldn’t see the machine gun positions to either side of her because she didn’t dare look away, but she heard the shouts and orders as Gears rushed to man them. The lead truck slowed and stopped a hundred meters back from the gates.
She sighted up. She could see the driver in her optics now, or at least the fact that it was a man with a rough brown tunic and very old military webbing.
Stranded looted any COG facility they found. They robbed bodies. Who had he taken that webbing from?
Bastard.
The man opened the door slowly and stepped down from the cab. All she saw at first was a shock of white hair, but then she saw his face. It was the tattoos that made her hold her breath for a moment. His cheeks and chin were covered in intricate Islander tattoos, but he was white—very white indeed. She hit her radio.
“Vic! Hold fire.” She could hardly get her breath. “For fuck’s sake don’t shoot. You’re not going to believe who it is. I’m coming down.”
Bernie grabbed the ammo and ran down the stairs as fast as she could, Mac scrabbling behind her. It was a long sprint from the bottom of the steps to the main entrance and by the time she got there, the gates were wide open and Hoffman was walking slowly toward the trucks. He had his rifle raised. She caught up with him just as the driver held both hands out to the sides to show he was unarmed.
“Dear God.” Hoffman’s voice cracked. He stared at him. “Dear God… Pad? Padrick Salton?”