Gears of War: Anvil Gate Read Free Page B

hoses in others. Even in the cabin itself, cables snaked across the deck and vanished under the bunk. The captain sat in one of the timeworn blue leather chairs, chatting to Miran Trescu just like the two of them had been buddies at naval college. It all looked a bit too cozy for Hoffman.
    “Don’t let me interrupt, Quentin,” Hoffman growled. “I can come back when you two are done discussing barnacles. Commander, do I hear you’ve got a ship in trouble?”
    Trescu didn’t turn a hair. “A missile frigate, Colonel.
Nezark
. We have patrol vessels out looking for her.”
    “Do try to keep me up to speed with these things.” Hoffman parked his backside on the edge of Michaelson’s desk and gave him a meaningful look. “We’re all COG now. Your military secrets are our military secrets.”
    “Force of habit, Colonel—my apologies.” Trescu’s mouth smiled but his eyes didn’t. “Probably a major electronics failure. No radio and no radar.”
    “That would explain the collision, then.” Michaelson twitched an eyebrow. So Trescu hadn’t told him
that
. Hoffman didn’t elaborate, because he knew he’d learn more by comparing what he already knew with what Trescu told Michaelson when he was gone. “And I take it you’re happy now for Delta Squad to land at Emerald Spar for a security assessment.”
    Trescu smiled. “We can trust one another. We have kept our bargains, yes?”
    “We have.”
    “Then they may board the platform. I advise caution.”
    “Why? Your guys a little trigger-happy?”
    “Rigs are dangerous places. For anyone.”
    “I’ll be sure to pass that on.”
    Hoffman headed back to his office. Maybe Prescott had started him off on the wrong foot today, but he found himself picking over Trescu’s comments for hidden meaning. There were probably none to find. He always assumed the worst, so the only surprises he ever got were that the situation wasn’t quite as badly screwed as he first thought.
    When Hoffman reached his office, the door was ajar. It was only a midsize storeroom but it had a wonderful view, and that was all he needed, chief of staff or not. When he sat down at the desk, its varnish polished thin by decades of someone else’s elbows resting on it, he found a gray-furred lump sitting on a sheet of old paper. There was a note scribbled on it: THE REST OF THE RABBIT IS IN A STEW. IT’S WAITING FOR YOU IN THE MESS .
    So it was a rabbit’s foot. Yes, he could see the claws now. He thought these things had to be cured and preserved longer than a day or two, but maybe Bernie decided he needed some urgent luck. At least the borrowed dog was earning its keep.
    He had to smile. “Crazy woman,” he said to himself. The severed foot would stink the place out in a few days. “You South Islanders.
Feral
, the lot of you.”
    K ING R AVEN KR-80, INBOUND FOR G ORASNI IMULSION DRILLING PLATFORM E MERALD S PAR , 350 KILOMETERS NORTHWEST OF V ECTES .

    It was a lonely thing marooned in the middle of a vast ocean—the tallest man-made structure left in the world. If Dom Santiago needed reminding how little remained of the old Sera, the pre-Locust Sera, this rig did the job just fine.
    White cascades of bird shit and rust coated its upperworks. Dom scanned it through his binoculars, one hand gripping the Raven’s safety rail. A group of platform workers huddled on the edge of the landing pad. Gray gulls were lined up on one of the crane jibs like an honor guard. Beneath their roost, something equally gray turned and twisted in the wind, but the Ravenbanked too sharply for Dom to work out what it was. It might have been a weather-shredded flag.
    He couldn’t even recall what Gorasnaya’s flag looked like. Stripes? An eagle? The geography lesson was long forgotten. Gorasnaya had never been all that important until now.
    “Man, that’s a long way from home,” Cole said, staring out the crew bay. “Imagine being stuck there and runnin’ out of coffee.”
    Baird seemed riveted by