Gears of War: Anvil Gate Read Online Free

it. “Awesome engineering. You know how deep that water is? Three thousand meters. Our submarines can’t go much below three
hundred
. Those tethers had to be sunk via a remote.”
    “Aww, Baird’s in love with another hunk of metal,” Cole teased. “Baby, you gonna end up marryin’ a bot. Maybe we better ask Jack if he got a sister.”
    “Come on. It’s clever shit. Admit it.”
    Cole laughed. Dom didn’t find the rig awesome at all, however impressive it was. He didn’t like the idea of somewhere he couldn’t walk or swim away from if things went to rat shit. He wasn’t even sure where the nearest land was. “You certain that thing isn’t going to fall over? Looks top-heavy to me.”
    “They all look like that,” Marcus said, unmoved.
    Gill Gettner’s voice cut into the radio circuit. “Those things are built to withstand hurricanes. It’s exploding in a fireball that you ought to worry about.”
    “I meant the shitty state of repair, Major,” said Dom.
    “Good point. Jump out and test the helipad for stability.” Gettner never sounded as if she was joking. She probably wasn’t. Her crew chief, Nat Barber, peered out of the hatch as if he wasn’t too sure either. “I’ll just hover.”
    Dom wondered how the hell the battered platform had lasted this long. How did Gorasnaya maintain it, let alone defend it? They had even fewer resources than the COG. When the Raven settled on the pad—Dom never trusted that crazy bitch Gettner not to be literal—he half-expected to hear the creak of buckling metal. But it held. He jumped down after Marcus, and the squad went to meet the Gorasni welcome wagon.
    They were a grim-looking bunch, and Dom couldn’t help but notice all four of them were cradling huge wrenches. Maybe they had a lot of servicing to do today. He didn’t plan to turn his back on them and find out the hard way.
    “So you’ve come for our dowry.” The biggest guy held out his hand to Marcus, but Dom noted he still had a firm grip on that wrench. Marcus shook the man’s hand without a blink. “Remember that looks aren’t everything. I’m Stefan Gradin. This platform is my personal kingdom, so nobody fucks with it, okay?”
    “That’d be why your boss wants us to help you out—when you’re busy,” Baird said, but Cole nudged him in the back.
    Marcus grunted and peered over the side of the helipad. “What’s your capacity?”
    “One hundred and fifty thousand barrels a day at full production.” Gradin had a heavy Gorasni accent but he was perfectly fluent. “In practice, twenty thousand. We don’t need to process more and we haven’t got the bulk tankers anyway.”
    “What else haven’t you got?”
    “I thought you were here to look at our security.”
    “Yeah. So I am.” Marcus glanced at the wrench but didn’t wait to be shown around. He slid down the ladder onto the deck below and paced around, checking out the platform from various angles. Dom could see that he was working out how he’d launch an assault on the rig, noting the vulnerabilities and blind spots. “How many times have you been attacked?”
    Gradin followed him like close personal protection. “Six, maybe seven times this last year. But only the tankers in transit. Never the platform.”
    “Lose any men?”
    “Yes.” Gradin nodded. “And so did they.”
    Dom, Cole, and Baird trailed down the ladder after Marcus. Dom kept the three other wrench-wielders in his peripheral vision. It was a tough job to hijack a structure like this, but that wouldn’t deter the seagoing Stranded. He’d seen them take lethal risks even against the COG.
    But Stranded wouldn’t want to wreck the rig, of course—theimulsion was too precious. And they’d need the crew alive to run the drilling and processing, and that would eat up manpower. Yeah, it made sense to try to hijack the tankers instead. That way they got to keep the fuel
and
a ship.
    Marcus pointed down at the deck. “What’s below here?”
    “Crew