PROLOGUE

KING RAVEN KR-471, JACINTO AIRSPACE, MASS

EVACUATION OF THE CITY, WINTER, 14 A.E.

We’re fucked now. That’s for sure.

Just take a look down there. Boats, bodies, sea rushing in. Jacinto’s history, baby. I mean, this is sick. I’m standing here looking out the Raven’s door while it’s circling around like I’m on some weird sightseeing trip. That’s the Octus Tower going under—what’s left of it. All that water, but the place is still burning, stinking of smoke and fuel. Shit, it’s sinking. It’s just sinking. The whole goddamn city is gone. And we sunk it. Fifteen years fighting to save it, and we have to trash it ourselves in the end. But at least the grubs are drowning with it. They’re history, too. That’s justice.

Shit… I hate flying. I’m going to puke. But I can’t look away from the water. I can just about hear Lieutenant Stroud over the noise of the chopper. “Hey, Cole?”

Look at all the bodies in the water—humans, not grubs. Rescue boats didn’t get to everybody, then. How many folks in Jacinto? A few million. Even if we had a proper navy, we can’t ship out everyone. Glad I wasn’t the one deciding who got to live and who didn’t. Must be shitty for those navy guys. And look at that—a goddamn yacht heading out. Who the hell’s kept a big -ass yacht going since E -Day? Well, you better pick up some citizens on the way out, rich boy.

“Cole …” Anya Stroud’s been sitting behind me with a comms set on her lap. She has to yell to make herself heard. We got pretty well all that’s left of Command on board—Chairman Prescott, Colonel Hoffman, and Anya. She can’t raise anyone on the radio, and she’s sweating over it. So am I. “Cole, you think they made it?”

“Say again?”

“Marcus. Dom. Baird.”

“Ma’am, they ain’t the dying kind.” Sometimes I believe that. I want to believe it now, and so does Anya. And I want to believe Bernie made it—damn, Boomer Lady hates water. She’ll be real pissed off now. “They’re on another bird. Count on it.”

Anya nods like she heard me okay. Yeah, it’s all bullshit. I’ve lost so many buddies that I can’t sleep some nights for seeing their faces. But I’ve got to believe. If I stop believing, it’ll start catching. Soon everyone else stops believing, too. Team morale. That’s what counts, same in war as in thrashball.

“They’ll make it, Lieutenant,” Colonel Hoffman yells. He looks like he’s searching for someone, leaning from the safety rail, watching the city go down the crapper. “They’ll make it.”

Prescott’s sitting in one of the transverse bulkhead seats, head bent like he’s praying—too late for that, man. He looks like he hasn’t got a clue how to get us out of this shit, and Hoffman’s looking at him like he knows he don’t know.

Anya’s still going on about Marcus. I don’t catch everything she says. Ravens are real noisy bastards. “I didn’t even … chance … talk about… with Sergeant Fenix,” she says, all formal, like I haven’t guessed about him and her. “Not… properly.”

I can fill in the gaps. Hell, what does it matter now if you say it? Most of the world’s dead. Whoever’s left is hurting and mourning. And you and Marcus been edging around each other for sixteen, seventeen years. Is that what sane folks do?

“Okay, make a list of all the things you gonna tell him, ma’am,” I shout. “’Cause you gonna forget again.”

“Say again?”

“Make a list.”

She forces a smile and nods.

I can’t stand staring at the shit below me anymore. So I look up instead. The sky’s full of smoke and King Ravens, every last airframe we can get off the ground, heading for nowhere, just like the boats and whatever got out of Jacinto by road. Funny, it almost looks like we still got an air force when you cram all them Ravens into the same patch of sky.

But this is all we got left. The whole fucking Coalition.

The pilot’s in a hurry. We’re cutting through the other Ravens, and I’m looking into every open bay that we pass, searching. And you know what? I swear this believing shit works. Most Gears got the sense to wear a helmet, except crazies like Delta and me, of course—and man, can you see Baird’s blond hair a long way off. There he is. He’s seen us. We draw level.

Yeah, there they are, standing in the crew bay opposite now—Baird, Dom, Marcus. Baird’s got a dumb-ass smirk on his face, closest he’s ever come to looking pleased to see me, so I tap my chest plate in respect, ’cause he can’t hear me. Marcus and Dom, though—they nod back at me, but they ain’t smiling. They look like shit. But they’re alive. And that’s all that matters, right?

“Ma’am, port side. Look.”

Anya’s going to shake the guts out of that comms set if someone don’t answer soon. “What?”

“Just look.”

She gets up and stands next to me, and suddenly she looks like she don’t know what to do next. But she does a little wave at Marcus, like she’s embarrassed, and hangs on, staring across at him until the chopper banks away. And he stares back until he’s just a distant blur.

“Okay,” she says to herself, sort of smiling without looking happy. I can lip-read it this time. “See you in Port Farrall.” Then she sits down and begins cycling through the comms frequencies again. We’ll be at the RV point in maybe thirty minutes.

Hoffman’s still looking down at Prescott like he’s a big steaming pile of something real nasty. You never know what goes on between those two, but it ain’t brotherly love, that’s for sure. Hoffman looks like he’s still mad as hell about not being told shit. I catch a few words.

“Any other classified information … share … sir? ” Hoffman’s got his fuck -you voice on. I can tell from his face even if I can’t hear it all. “Because right now … any … surprises.”

Prescott pokes around inside his jacket—still wearing all his medals, however the hell he earned ’em—and takes out a small notepad or something. “… going to take days to process the refugees,” he shouts back. Hoffman’s got his jaw clamped tight shut now. He’s pissed off, all right. Just as I think he’s going to dropkick Prescott out the Raven to see if the asshole flies or floats, Anya jumps up.

“Sir, sir—comms are back online again.” She’s got one hand pressed to her ear. Something clicks and my earpiece is working again. No more yelling. “The emergency relay on Sovereign is operational. Very limited range. Hundred klicks, max.”

“Good enough,” says Hoffman. “Everyone knows the RV procedure if they lose contact again.”

I just got to listen in to the voice traffic now. I need to know who’s out there, who else made it. I want to hear Bernie cussing out someone. She’s been missing since the Landown assault.

What the hell. Let’s see where Baird’s bird is.

“Hey, Delta. You receivin’?”

“Yeah, Cole Train,” says Marcus’s voice.

I just want to know they’re all okay. “So, still no sign of Dom’s lady? False lead?”

I don’t get a response. Maybe I’ve lost the damn signal again. But then I realize I can hear Marcus breathing like he can’t get the next word out.

“I found her … yeah. I found her.”

But that’s Dom talking now. It’s Dom. He’s been looking for Maria for ten years, going crazy, but he don’t sound happy he found her. I’m waiting. I don’t know what the hell to ask next, because I can guess what’s coming, but I can’t stop now.

“Dom, she okay? What happened?”

Yeah, I bet I know what’s coming next. Aww, shit…

“She’s dead,” Dom says, all quiet and steady and normal. “I did it. I helped her go. She’s okay now.”

No. That ain’t what I was expecting.

I think I heard wrong. I know I didn’t. There’s a million things in my head right then, and none of ’em look good. What the hell do I say to Dom now?

You think it’s finally over, that the pain’s all stopped, and then you find that the hurt’s just moved on somewhere new.

Aww, shit.