Gears of War: Anvil Gate Read Free

underneath. Gorasnaya might have been relaxed about arming civvies, but the COG wasn’t. They’d have to deal with that, diplomatically or not. “It’s all about keeping folks fed and busy.”
    “The voice of experience.”
    And you know where I acquired it, don’t you, asshole?
“Nothing’s more trouble than hungry, bored people.”
    “Where
is
Trescu?”
    “With Michaelson, working out tanker rosters.”
    “Good.” Prescott lost interest in the refugees right on cue. He checked his watch and took a couple of steps up the jetty in the direction of his office. “I want a permanent detachment of Gears on that rig. Can’t be too careful.”
    “Already in hand, Chairman. I’m putting Fenix and Santiago on it. They’re heading out shortly to do a security assessment.”
    “Wouldn’t they be better tasked rooting out the Stranded? We can destroy a Locust army, but suddenly we can’t eradicate a few hundred half-starved vagrants.”
    “I know who my best problem-solvers are, Chairman.”
And I’m the frigging chief of staff here
. I
decide how I deploy my men
. Hoffman ignored the sly criticism. “That imulsion platform is going to be a bigger problem than pest control.”
    Prescott gave him a brief frown but didn’t ask for an explanation. It didn’t take a genius to work it out anyway. Gorasnaya couldn’t protect that damn rig—or maintain it—without having to crawlto the COG for help. It was going to tie up COG resources. But the COG needed the imulsion to keep the fleet running, build a city, and drag this damn place out of the last century.
    Prescott gave Hoffman his best statesman’s public relations smile—no display of teeth, just a curl of the lips. “I have absolute faith in you, Colonel. We would never have survived this far without your leadership. I look forward to the report.”
    Prescott had a way of saying things that Hoffman knew were anything from bullshit to barefaced lies, but that were somehow true as well. Not a single word ever escaped Prescott’s mouth by accident or without being cross-checked first. The bastard probably thought Hoffman was an overpromoted grunt who couldn’t grasp the real meaning. He had that slightly amused you-don’t-get-it look.
    Hoffman threw up a perfunctory salute and took a shortcut to CIC on the way to see Michaelson. He was halfway along the next quay before he fully unpicked the words. Prescott was lining up someone to blame if the shit hit the fan.
Leadership
was Prescott-speak for responsibility.
As in—not his. Mine. Crafty asshole
. Even though Prescott had absolute power, his politician’s reflex to duck and dive was as strong as ever.
    Not entirely true. His power comes from my Gears. Always has. And now—even more so
.
    Ah. I get it. He’s testing the water with me. Is he starting to worry what the army will do if things don’t turn out as he’s promised? Is he scared of a coup?
    Hoffman paused to look up at the anchor and cog naval crest that towered above the base, a striking stone column against a glass-clear turquoise sky that made the season look more like Bloom than Storm. Optimism wasn’t his style; but just being in a place where the walls weren’t bullet-pocked, the pavement wasn’t shattered by grub emergence holes, and the horizon wasn’t permanently shrouded in dark smoke made him dare to believe things might be on the upturn.
    He’d never admit to that, of course. Everyone would think he’d finally gone senile. He walked into the ops room, and the duty watch sat bolt upright in their seats.
    “All quiet, Lieutenant?” he asked, leaning over the comms desk to check the incident log for Stranded raids. There were a couple a week, a lot of damage but relatively few serious civilian casualties yet. Any dead civvie was bad news for morale, though. “Are those vermin breeding in the sewers or something? I’m catching hell from the Chairman.”
    “One more enemy contact an hour ago, sir.” Donneld Mathieson edged