Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant

by Karen Traviss

  “Are we done?” she called.

  “Bernie baby, it’s real messy down there, but we got ’em all. You can come down now.” He beckoned. “I’m impressed you even got up there.”

  “Yeah, but I’m stuck,” she said.

  “How stuck?”

  Baird managed a smile. “Throw some rocks at her. That usually works.”

  “I’ve got a cramp in my leg, dickhead.” She tried to shuffle back down the branch and winced. “And it’s one thing climbing up here … but another getting down again.”

  “Bernie, you shot so many kitties for lunch that the cat god’s passin’ judgment on you.” Cole roared with laughter. “You got stuck up a tree. Ain’t that poetic justice?”

  It was only raw relief. He didn’t think life was funny at all right then, not one bit, but he didn’t have any control over the laughter that shook his whole body all the way from his gut. There were too many dead buddies back there, too many hurt. It’d hit him later, he knew, but right then all the folks he was closest to were in one piece, and this just started him off laughing.

  “You want me to plummet from here, or try climbing halfway and then break my neck?” Bernie called.

  Cole held out his arms. He couldn’t see straight because his eyes had filled up with tears for no particular reason.

  “Come on, Boomer Lady. Trust the Cole Train—I’ll catch you. I never fumbled a catch in a game, ever.”

  “Good.” Bernie’s voice was suddenly small and shaky. “Because I don’t think I’ve got enough adrenaline or energy left to hang on.”

  Baird muttered and shook his head. “Shit, she shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “You tell her.” Cole positioned himself right underneath her, then took one pace back. “Bernie? Just let yourself fall, baby. I swear I won’t drop you.”

  It was like one of those dumb-ass training things where guys had to learn to trust their buddies to save them from a little bit of pain. Cole didn’t want to say it aloud, but if Bernie broke something, she wouldn’t mend as fast as the rest of them.

  “Okay.” She took a loud breath. “Incoming—three, two … go.”

  Twigs snapped, and he caught her in both arms, staggering back a few steps.

  It hurt a lot more than he thought—her elbow caught him in the chin—but it felt pretty good to make the catch. When he set Bernie down on her feet, she limped a few paces.

  “Ow …”

  “Okay, now you’re gonna listen to me.”

  “I only twisted my ankle.” Cole tried to support her arm, but she fended him off. “I can walk. Really, I can.”

  “Now, I always was a good boy,” he said. “But sometimes Momma don’t know best.” He picked her up bodily and threw her over his shoulder. “And I’d carry you nicely, but I know you’d give me hell about that for makin’ you look girly and weak.”

  Gears took care of each other. Cole was going to lock Bernie in her quarters until they were ready to ship out for Vectes if he had to, and not let her out of his sight.

  “Yeah, you really are a good boy,” she said, sounding winded by each stride he took. She started laughing, too. “Thanks, Cole.”

  Baird ambled along behind. “Hey, don’t forget the cleaver.”

  “Thanks, Blondie. Just what I wanted.”

  There were still Gears jogging in the opposite direction toward the trees, because it wasn’t over yet. There were tags to collect, funerals to fix. Cole suddenly realized Baird wasn’t with them anymore, and turned to check.

  “He’s gone back to join the burial detail, I think,” Bernie said, not seeming to mind the undignified lift. “I wish I hadn’t been such a bitch to him before.”

  “Baird’s okay,” Cole said. “He only gives bloodstained cleavers to people he likes.”

  Vectes was sounding like a pretty sweet idea now. Cole could keep the jokes coming as long as people needed him to, but he had the feeling that if they had to go through this many more times, he’d reach the stage where even he might not be able to look on the bright side again.

  CHAPTER 9

  As all of Sera has learned, peace is fragile. This new, ruthless enemy has rendered most of Sera’s leaders either helpless or dead. This enemy believes Sera is finished. Some in the Coalition of Ordered Governments also seem to believe Sera is finished—a sick, feeble animal waiting for slaughter. But today, citizens of Sera, we—Tyrus, the heart of the Coalition—will take back our planet. To ensure your safety and cooperation, we are reinstating the Fortification Act. All of Sera will be under martial law. No one is exempt. Survivors should immediately start evacuating to Ephyra. These unclean creatures, these Locust, are unable to penetrate Jacinto’s granite base. Therefore, in Jacinto, we are safe—for now. We won’t let this rampage go further or surrender power. The Coalition will employ Sera’s entire arsenal of orbital beam weapons to scorch all Locust-infested areas. For those citizens who cannot make it to Jacinto, the Coalition appreciates your sacrifice. Please forgive us. This is the only way.

  (CHAIRMAN RICHARD PRESCOTT, 30TH DAY OF BLOOM, 1 A.E.)

  VEHICLE CHECKPOINT, EPHYRA-KINNERLAKE HIGHWAY, 30TH DAY OF BLOOM, 1 A.E., MINUTES AFTER CHAIRMAN PRESCOTT’S ANNOUNCEMENT.

  There was no such thing as a good time or place to hear news like that.

  Dom wished that he hadn’t been among civvies at the time. The squad had walked all night along the side of the highway, loaded with salvaged kit from the dead ’Dill, and now they’d reached the bridge over the Tyra River. It was paved with traffic at a complete standstill.

  Someone had a radio turned up to full volume, the sound spilling from the open door of a car stopped in the traffic. Dom was caught among people who expected Gears to know what was happening.

  They looked at him for answers. He had none to give.

  “Did we hear right?” a woman whispered. She put her hand on his arm and shook it gently, as if she thought his mind was elsewhere “It’s got to be a mistake. Surely? They can’t mean it. They’ll kill people. What happens to our homes?”

  Dom had been leaning on the safety rail of the highway bridge, looking down onto the river, when he heard the broadcast news conference. The words entire arsenal of orbital beam weapons hit him with their full force a minute or so after he heard them. He found himself staring at the glittering reflections of the sun on the water, and every starburst point of light was now etched into his memory. Things were bad, but he’d had no idea how bad.

  I have to call Maria. I have to get to a phone.

  “Ma’am, I don’t know any more than you do.” The woman had her hands cupped over her mouth as she looked up at him, shocked and helpless; how the hell could anyone take in what Prescott had just said? He couldn’t. “It’ll be okay. You’re not far from Ephyra now. You’ll make it.”

  “But I don’t want to go to Ephyra,” she said. “I live in New Sherrith. What am I going to do about my son? He’s in Soteroa.”

  The South Islands were on the other side of Sera. Unless the guy had a private aircraft—and that was a privilege even the richest on Sera had been forced to hand over to the war effort—then the poor bastard was weeks away by boat.

  If he can get passage at all.

  Shit, this is it.

  “Ma’am, it’s going to be fine.” Dom knew he was probably lying, but what the hell else could he say? That her son was screwed? “They know what they’re doing. If they didn’t think people could get to Ephyra, they wouldn’t have given them advance warning, would they?”

  Dom looked around at the mass of people—scared, confused, unable to move. How the hell was everyone going to get to safety? He didn’t even want to think about it. The enormity would paralyze him and take his mind off what he had to do. He had his orders. He also had his mental list—unnumbered, unplanned, but if forced to recite it, he probably could—of people he would protect whatever the cost.

  “Dom? Dom!” Marcus’s voice got his attention. He was on the opposite side of the stationary traffic wi
th Tai and Padrick, talking to a transport sergeant. “Over here. Come on.”

  The bombshell dropped by the broadcast was now spreading ripples. Not everyone had heard it live; not everyone had a radio with them. The news was being spread by word of mouth, car to car, truck to truck, person to person, and Dom had to wade through a sea of rising panic. At one point he looked across the bridge in the direction of the checkpoint and saw the Gears there under siege from pedestrians who had now abandoned their vehicles and were trying to cross on foot. The traffic jam was now becoming a permanent, fifty-meter-thick barricade of buses, trucks, and cars. Fuel rationing hadn’t stopped many from taking to the roads in the almost constant ebb and flow of refugees shifting from city to city after each Locust attack.

  And now that Prescott had announced the decision to smash Sera flat to stop the grubs, the refugee exodus to come would make today look like a minor inconvenience.

  “Marcus! Marcus, you heard the announcement? Have you heard the goddamn announcement?”

  Dom had to slide on his ass across the hood of a car stopped so close behind a bus that he couldn’t squeeze through. He felt the edge of his holster scrape the paintwork. The driver yelled at him, just a muffled noise with a lot of Fs in it, but scratched paint was going to be the last of anyone’s problems. By the time Dom crossed four lanes of nose-to-tail vehicles, the transport sergeant was fending off pedestrians.

  He was right on the edge, poor bastard, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. The name tab on his shirt said MENDEZ. He seemed to be trying to talk to Marcus in one breath and carry on a radio conversation with Control in the next. And anyone in uniform was now a magnet for terrified, confused, angry civilians who’d heard the world was ending in three days. He was trying to keep a man at bay with one hand, but the guy had a baby in his arms and he wanted answers right now.

  “I have to clear this frigging road, sir,” Mendez kept saying. “We’ve already got a traffic jam ten klicks north because the grubs have trashed Andius. Now the bridge is blocked. You’ll have to wait. Don’t leave your car, okay? Don’t abandon it. I can’t get the traffic moving if you dump cars on the bridge. Do you understand?”

  “What’s going to happen?” The guy kept asking that over and over, not hearing a damn word Mendez said. “Where am I going to go in Ephyra? My wife doesn’t know where I am.”

  “Everyone on this road’s got the same problem, sir.” Mendez looked as if he wanted to manhandle him out of the way, but the guy had a baby, and that made everything awkward and emotional. “Look, go sit in your car. When the traffic starts moving again, you can drive straight into Ephyra.”

  “Sir,” Marcus said, “give me your wife’s name and a number. I promise we’ll get a call through.”

  He held out his hand, and when Marcus made a suggestion, even civvies took it as an order. It was the gravel voice and the steady blue stare, Dom thought, the weird combination of looking like a hard bastard while sounding like a guy you could always rely on.

  The man fumbled for his wallet. Padrick helped him extract a business card and scribble details on it, then escorted him back to his car. Marcus watched, jaw muscle twitching.

  “You’re good at fobbing them off,” Mendez said. “You should do my job. Now, I got to clear this bridge for military traffic, but you—”

  “I meant it.” Marcus read the card, then slipped it inside his armor. “I’ll call her. Now, what do you mean, we have to wait for extraction? We got four pairs of willing hands here. What do you need done?”

  “I got my orders, Fenix. Every crossing and VCP’s been told to hold you for pickup.”

  “We haven’t been tasked for a mission. We’re just heading home. We can shift the abandoned vehicles.”

  “Too late. I’ve flashed CIC and there’s a KR inbound. You’re going home, fast lane, Fenix.”

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “Hey, why ask me?”

  Marcus rocked his head slightly as if he was weighing up something, then shrugged. “We can do something here. We have to clear this route, whether it’s for convoys or refugees. Just tell us what needs doing.”

  “You could start driving vehicles or marshaling further back down the road, diverting vehicles onto the side roads. But you’re not going to have time.”

  Dom could already hear the Raven approaching. They were getting out. He wondered how the people stranded here would feel when they saw Gears leaving right after the Chairman announced they had three days to get to safe ground before he fried the rest of Sera. He wondered if they’d be seriously pissed off at the Gears’ privilege, for once, getting a lift home out of this chaos while they were trapped here.

  And Maria’s stuck on her own right now. She watches the damn news channels all day. She’s heard this shit, and she doesn’t know where I am, and she’ll be going crazy with worry.

  “My father’s fixed this,” Marcus said. “Why the hell doesn’t he leave things alone?”

  “Hey, Marcus, it could be Hoffman. He might have a job for us. Wait and see.”

  The Raven set down on the other side of the checkpoint in a parking area. The crew chief jumped out and called to Mendez. “Where’s Fenix?”

  Mendez pointed; the crew chief beckoned. Pad and Dom squeezed through the gap, followed by Tai and Marcus, then ran at a crouch to avoid the rotors.

  “Whoa, no, we’ve got one space.” The crew chief held up both hands. Dom could see the Raven was loaded to the deckhead with Gears. “Move it, Sergeant. Chairman’s request.”

  “Not without my squad.”

  “Look, I’m running a shuttle here and I’ve got a shitload of trips to cover with zero downtime in the next three days. Make your mind up.”

  Marcus was standing right under the crew bay. One of the Gears leaned down and said something Dom didn’t catch, but Marcus shook his head. “Thanks, buddy, but I can’t let you do that.”

  Marcus turned to walk away. Dom had a choice, as everyone did at times like this; he could bleed for strangers whose problems he couldn’t fix, or he could do something solid and real. He shoved Marcus hard so that he fell back on the deck of the Raven, struggling for a moment.

  “Go!” Dom yelled at the crew chief. “Get him out. Now. Or he’ll never go.”

  The crew chief went to slap a safety line onto Marcus’s belt, but he was already scrambling off the chopper, cursing a blue streak.

  “Fuck that,” Marcus said. “I don’t leave my squad.”

  Dom tried to block him. “Go.”

  “You go, you’ve got a wife who needs you.”

  “Just go. We’ll be okay.”

  Marcus looked around and made for the cars, ignoring him completely. Dom could see he was heading for the guy with the baby. The crew chief was yelling not to piss around and waste time, and Dom went after Marcus, grabbing at his arm. Marcus shook him off and hauled the father from the car.

  “Come on, get going.” Marcus reached into the passenger side to grab the bassinet, complete with sleeping baby. “Forget the car, citizen. You got a ride.”

  “Hey, thanks, I—”

  Marcus just marched the man up to the Raven and handed the baby to the crew chief. “One space, one passenger. Kids go free. Right?”

  “My orders are to get you back, Sergeant.”

  “And I’m pulling rank, Corporal. Civilian evac. Send my dad the bill.”

  The crew chief strapped in the shocked, bewildered father. “Hey, buddy, you know who just saved your ass?” he said. “Fenix, the war hero.”

  Marcus ducked out of the Raven’s downdraft and the helicopter lifted clear. If he’d heard the word hero, he didn’t react, but Dom knew he hated the label. It didn’t seem to matter to him that people meant it.

  Padrick just looked at him. “You’re a fucking martyr, Sarge.”

  “No, I’m a Gear.” Marcus leaned into the first empty car in the line and felt around for the key. “Our job is saving civvies. Anyway, I didn’t notice any of you jumping abo
ard, either. Shit. Dom, can you hotwire this wreck?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Dom didn’t feel so bad right then. The test of any man, his dad had told him, wasn’t how he behaved when things were going fine, but how he handled himself when the shit was up to his neck and rising. Marcus passed the Eduardo Santiago test every time. Dom tried to. He felt he had today; they all had.

  You’re right, Dad. And I miss you so much.

  Dom fumbled under the dash and touched wires, and the car rumbled back to life. “Now all we have to do is make some space.”

  “You say that like it’s going to be hard,” Padrick said, sliding into the driver’s seat.

  And Sera was going to be razed to the ground. Every time Dom forgot that, tied up in the physical effort of shunting cars and yelling at drivers who just wouldn’t follow the marshaling signals, it came back and slapped him, demanding attention.

  No, it couldn’t be right. There had to be a mistake, a bluff, some shit even Marcus couldn’t guess at.

  Dom kept telling himself that right up to the time he saw the first of the convoy trucks rumbling down the shoulder that he’d cleared. This time he’d earned that ride home. He climbed over the tailgate and held out his hand to haul Marcus inside.

  VICTOR HOFFMAN’S APARTMENT, EPHYRA, LATER THAT NIGHT.

  Margaret never yelled.

  Hoffman had often wished she would, because then he would have been able to gauge just how far he’d fallen from grace with her. But perhaps her complete silence was his answer. She stood at her desk in the study, phone wedged between ear and shoulder as she rummaged through the drawers. He stood in the doorway and tried to pick his moment.

  “Natalie? Are you still there?” She was talking to her sister. “Damn, it’s taken me all day to get you … No, I don’t care, I know you’ve got casualties … Listen, Nattie … Please, Nattie, I’m serious, I’m coming down to Corren … Yes, I mean it. I’m coming to collect you. Stay at the hospital.”

  Margaret laid the phone down again. She must have known he was behind her. But she just tidied the case folders on her desk, slipped them into the drawers, and locked them away. It took her a full five seconds to turn around and face him.