CHAPTER 8

Healthy? How healthy do you expect a Gear to be? Years of chronic sleep deprivation. Exposure to more environmental toxins than I’ve got tests for. Acquired hearing loss. Rustlung. Depressed immune function because they’re totally burned out. Brain damage, everything from blast proximity to serious head trauma. And that’s without the psychiatric issues. Traumatic stress is a given. In hospital, those boys made more noise asleep than they did awake, because it was one long frigging nightmare. So nearly all our men of fighting age are utterly—and maybe irreparably—damaged. (DR. MARYON HAYMAN, SUMMARIZING FUTURE HEALTH ISSUES FOR CHAIRMAN PRESCOTT.)

OUTSKIRTS OF PORT FARRALL, SIX AND A HALF WEEKS AFTER THE EVACUATION OF JACINTO, 14 A.E.

“Andresen picks his moments.” Baird shuffled from foot to foot in the icy morning air, rubbing his gloved palms together. He had a Hammerburst rifle slung across his back today. Locust weren’t the only ones who looted from their fallen enemy. “Why the hell do we go running after every grub that shows up?”

Sergeant Andreson had blown a big hole in a grub on perimeter patrol last night, he claimed, but it had run off and he’d lost it. Now Delta and Sigma 4 were doing a line search near the woods. That was where the things seemed to keep emerging.

“Because they’re there, Blondie,” Bernie said.

“Or we could be smart and wait for them to come to us. Because they do. We’re just wasting calories.”

Bernie understood the need to go after every contact. It wasn’t just pragmatic; humans would never be able to get on with living again until they knew the last Locust was dead. It didn’t even matter if they weren’t a viable breeding population.

Do they talk about us like that? In animal terms?

She thought of Prescott’s speech. Genocidal monsters. Humans were conducting the genocide now. She was fine with that.

“Look, as long as we leave any alive, even a couple, then the bastards will start breeding again,” she said. “We have to hunt them down.”

“Yeah, but they’d be so inbred they’d look like that nurse in J Sector medical station.”

“That’s cruel. True, but cruel.”

“You like hunting shit, right ? Go back down there and hunt for Berserkers. Kill the females, and it doesn’t matter how many boy grubs are left.”

“So Cole finally sat you down and told you where babies come from. With all the rabbit pictures.”

Baird took it in his stride. “You know I’m right.”

“You volunteering?”

“It’s a better plan than playing hide-and-seek with the assholes.”

“Maybe. But we’re in no shape now for another Landown -style assault. Even if the place wasn’t under water and full of imulsion.”

The weather might have been pure frozen hell, but at least the thaw had set in between her and Baird. There was, as she’d hoped, a trace of regular human behind that thick shield of self -centered cynicism. Nobody had ever cared much about Baird except Baird, she suspected, not until he enlisted and realized that there were people who’d put their life on the line for him for no other reason than being a Gear. Now he’d managed to score a black knitted cap for her, the kind she could pull down over her ears—not exactly flattering, but essential kit for a sniper. She didn’t want to think who he’d outsmarted to get it. He was trying hard, and that was all that mattered.

“So you get to go on the all-expenses-paid Delta trip to Vectes,” he said. “A perk from Hoffman?”

Ouch. “We go back a long way, Blondie. Nearly forty years. Maybe I lent him my pencil in class once, and he never forgot it.”

Baird never really grinned. He just had this smirk— there was no other word for it—that got to her when she was least expecting it. He was near a raw nerve now, and he knew it.

“Whatever.” The smirk got broader as he kicked through the frozen grass. “I like to see old folks happy. If you’re going to croak with a coronary anyway, you might as well go with a smile on your—”

“Now go say that to Hoffman.” Play it cool. It only encourages him. “And I’ll make sure Doc Hayman’s standing by to reattach your balls.”

The smirk took a long time to fade. If she hit him again, it would just be etched there permanently. The turf sloped away gradually into the valley and the Jacinto road. A hundred meters away, Marcus and Dom paced slowly, eyes down, Cole a little way behind.

If Andresen had chased down a drone here, then there should have been traces. Bernie squatted down and searched for blood in the thick layer of frost. There was no point in anyone wandering into the forest at random. They hadn’t even located an emergence hole yet.

“If the grubs are watching us, they’ll know we’re thinking about leaving.” Baird took his earpiece out and fiddled with it, then rubbed his ears. “They’re not stupid. They’ll see stuff being moved to the docks, like the vehicles.”

“Then they’d better give us their best shot, hadn’t they?” She clipped his ear. “Wear a bloody helmet. Or earmuffs. You’ll get frostbite.”

But something wasn’t right today.

She couldn’t hear birds and animals that she’d become used to. The noises were there, but more distant. It sounded like the area had been cleared. Maybe the wounded grub was lying in wait, gathering itself up for a final effort to take one last human with it. She pictured a doting drone dad with a crib full of little newborn grub bastards, a fresh generation of terror, and knew that couldn’t be allowed to happen. She knew how the things bred, too. Hoffman had told her. It was one excess too far, too personal. Any species that bred by rape didn’t deserve to survive. She’d heard horror stories about COG baby farms way out in the country, but fertile women knew their worth to society, and she’d seen some of them since the evacuation, well fed and healthy, not looking like prisoners or victims of abuse. It was different.

We’re different.

Shit, how would I know what a victim looks like? Does anyone think that when they look at me?

No, the COG was different. COG citizens were almost a second-line army. They were used to doing their duty

—whatever that duty might be—for the greater good, and that was why they were citizens. Anyone who couldn’t hack that degree of self-discipline gave up and went with the Stranded.

Fuck them. Parasites.

“Yo, blood trail!” The shout went up from further down the line. “Over here.”

Everyone converged on the Gear who’d found something. She couldn’t recall his name; Collin or something. Squad designations didn’t seem to mean a thing now except as call signs on the day so that CIC had some idea of locations.

Lost my whole squad. Men I’d only known for a week. Cole lost his, too—back with Delta again. Tai gone. Shit, what’s left of us now?

Marcus looked down at the frozen black patch, evidently unimpressed. “Mataki? Pretend you want this asshole for lunch. Track him.”

Bernie set off into the trees, slow and careful, noting damage to vegetation. Everyone else kept behind her line. Blood … broken tree root, white inner fibers not oxidized yet… boot print in one of the remaining pockets of snow … She was now a hundred meters into the woods, and the light was filtered by the evergreen canopy. It was getting hard to see.

Shit, where’s the blood gone?

“Lost the blood,” she called. “Wait one.”

“Over here.” That was a guy to her left, too far to be a continuation of this trail.

“You sure you’re not looking at rabbit shit, sweetheart?”

“I know what shit looks like, Sarge.”

Then another Gear called out, fifty meters to her right. “Blood here, guys.”

This wasn’t funny. She was cold, tired, and she needed to pee. She waited to hear Baird make that little snorting noise of amusement at her expense. But he was right there behind her, dead silent. She looked around. Every Gear looked seriously alert.

“If you’re taking the piss,” she said sourly, “this is the wrong time for pranks, and I’ll—”

Baird nudged her hard in the back. “Granny, how’s your hearing these days?”

“About as good as my right hook, dickhead.”

“I mean it. Listen.” There was a sharp crack as someone stepped on a twig. Baird whipped around. “Hey, I said listen. Hear it?”

Bernie thought it was an animal at first, a distant groaning noise, and then it suddenly became the only ambient sound she could hear. Her brain focused on it and nothing else.

“Shit.” That was Marcus. “Kantus.”

The sound resolved into a steady, continuous droning. It made the back of her throat itch. Kantus.

And where there were Kantus, there were grubs ready to attack. That was the noise, some weird chant or animal call. It rallied grubs, even badly wounded ones. The sound made them fighting mad again. Definitely shit.

She heard the creaking and ripping behind her at the same time as everyone else, and turned.

“Ambush!” Dom yelled.

Grubs erupted from the ground in a semicircle right behind them—Boomers, mainly, around thirty or forty—

and cut them off. Baird opened up with the Hammerburst. Bernie reached for the Lancer slung across her back, cursing herself for walking in here with the Longshot, and heard a rapid beep-beep-beep some meters away. A blast nearly blew her off her feet. Splintered wood flew everywhere like flechettes. The smell hit her instantly: scorched metal, raw meat, scented wood resin.

The Gear to her left, the guy who’d spotted the blood, was already down. Bernie caught a glimpse of a headless body. Something had also sheared off some of the surrounding saplings at head height. Once that registered on her, her conscious brain took a backseat and the primal core that knew how to process information and move her around without thinking took over. She took cover and opened fire. For all the chaos, she could still hear that droning sound.

“Mines!” Marcus backed up toward a larger tree, gesturing. “Watch your asses—proximity mines. Sigma—fire position, there, now. Delta —there. Where’s that fucking Kantus? Mataki! Find the goddamn thing and shut it up.”

The Gears were deep in the tangled gloom, minus vehicles, and if any Centaur or Raven support managed to get to them, how the hell could they open fire? Marcus called for support anyway. Some of the Boomers had huge cleavers, snatched from the Locust kitchens. Others were Maulers with shields and explosive flails. They looked like a random army wielding whatever weapons they could grab, cobbled together from what had survived, but calling them stragglers didn’t do them justice. This was an efficient, intelligent killing machine once again. One Mauler struck out at a large tree, bringing it crashing down at an angle, but it stopped short of crushing Gears in its path when it lodged in the branches of another. It just cut off another exit.

Another explosion cut down trees and Gears, and another.

“Freeze!” Dom yelled. “They’re driving us into more mines!”

Bernie, crouched in the flimsy cover of a pine tree, shut out the muzzle flash, screams, and rattling fire and tried to focus on that single, sickening noise.

The Kantus had to be stopped. The first problem, though, was to find the thing in this maze. Time—it could have been a minute, two minutes, or half an hour.

All Dom knew was that he wasn’t dead yet. He could hear Marcus, and eventually he heard Cole and Baird yelling over the sound of chainsaws. Then he realized he hadn’t heard Bernie in what seemed like a long time. He felt like instant shit for forgetting her.

“Bernie?” He could hear everyone else on the radio net, so she had to be receiving, too. “Hey, Mataki?”

No answer. Shit. Maybe the radio was down. No, that was the dumb and desperate lie he’d often told himself when he didn’t want to think that someone had finally run out of luck. He bobbed up from cover, hitting one of the butcher Boomers with short bursts of fire. Marcus got in a headshot while it was struggling.

“I hate it when they think,” he said.

“So much for stragglers. They’ve sharpened up again.”

“Shut that damn Kantus up, Bernie.” Marcus paused to listen; the droning chant was going strong. Dom was close enough to see a bead of sweat run from his hairline down his neck, subzero temperatures or not. “Shit. Sounds like two of them now. Someone find those assholes and take them out.”

Boomers wouldn’t run if a Kantus was chanting. The droning sounded like plain noise to Dom, weird and irritating, but to the grubs it must have been like a bugle call or something, because they went for broke when they heard it. Stopping the damn thing mattered.

“Delta, Sigma, all squads—this is Control. Bravo Three’s heading your way. Hang in there.”

“Step on it, Mathieson.” Marcus primed a frag grenade and prepared to swing it by its chain. “And I’d really like some ordnance I can roll under those bastards’ shields… aw, shit.” The grenade caught the top of the Mauler’s shield and spun clear. Two seconds later, it exploded, taking out a drone who stepped over it. It didn’t kill the thing, but it lay bleeding and shrieking while its buddies carried on around it. “If we can get them to a clearing, can a KR target them?”

“Delta, KR-Eighty here, what clearing?” That sounded like Gettner. “You want me to make one?”

“Can you see anything below, Gettner?”

“Not enough to be certain I won’t take your guys out, too.”

Dom could hear the helicopters overhead, but the forest canopy was too dense for him to see more than shadows, even in daylight. And the pilots sure as hell couldn’t see enough to confirm targets. Another explosion deafened him for a moment and he felt something stab into his cheek. When he put his hand to his face, his fingers came away wet with blood and sharp, fragrant wood splinters. He was lucky they hadn’t blinded him.

“Man, you okay?” Cole thudded down beside him. Dom could hear via his earpiece, but every other sound—

except the Kantus chant, which seemed to be seeping into his brain via his teeth—was muffled now, his hearing pummeled by the noise. “Where’s Baird? I hear him, but I don’t see him.”

“To your right.” Baird was panting. “And I —shit! Shit, shit, shit—man, that’s it. My frigging goggles. You bastard.”

There was another stutter of Hammerburst fire, very close—not a grub, but Baird. Dom tried to look around. All he could see was muzzle flash, smoke, and drifting debris picked out in the shafts of light stabbing down from the canopy. The battle was running in bursts. Every time he dropped behind cover and looked up again, the grubs were somewhere else, waiting, then they started up again. They were pushing the Gears deeper into the forest. Every time they fell back a few meters, another mine detonated. Dom could hear Collin screaming. That was the real nightmare: he was pinned down, he couldn’t even see where the screaming was coming from, and the guy needed help.

“Anyone near Collin?” Marcus yelled. “Where the hell is he?”

“Got him.” Dom didn’t even recognize that voice. “Shit, I can’t move him. I’ll stay with him.”

“This is more than a frigging ambush.”

“You said it.”

Dom still couldn’t see Baird. Cole knelt back on his heels, looking as if he was going to jump up and find him. Dom tried to grab his arm. “Don’t, man.”

“Baird,” Cole yelled. “You okay?”

Baird was there, all right. Dom saw the Boomer with the meat cleaver just before he saw Baird. The Boomer swung, Baird ducked to his knees, and the cleaver skimmed his hair to thud deep into a tree trunk. The Boomer tried to pull it free, but in the heartbeat’s pause Baird shoved the Hammerburst at an angle into its gut and fired—

once, twice, then a third burst. It fell backward, still hanging on to the cleaver’s handle. Cole jumped on it and fired his pistol into its head point-blank.

And it still had a grip on the cleaver. Baird smashed at its knuckles with the butt of his rifle until the blade dropped along with the dead Boomer’s arm.

“Frigging cook,” he snarled, picking up the cleaver. “Now it’s my turn.”

The grubs advancing on them suddenly turned to look behind. Bravo 3 crashed between the trees, spraying fire everywhere. Dom dropped back behind the shattered stump of a tree and found himself nose to nose with Marcus.

“Okay,” Marcus said, finger on his Lancer’s power button. Dom readied his, too. “Steady …” Any grub left standing was being driven toward them. The things were about to get a gutful of chainsaw. “Go!”

Dom jumped up from a crouch and swung his chainsaw into the first gray moving object he saw. He wasn’t even sure where the blades caught it. He just felt the saw bite and travel like it had a life of its own, and the grub slipped down sideways in slow motion—or so it seemed to him. When he pulled the saw clear, he was staring straight at Gears from Bravo 3.

Where are the grubs? All down. Over. All gone.

The Kantus was still droning. It sounded like an echo. There were definitely two.

“Shit, you guys need to check before you—”

Dom saw movement behind the Bravo line. The ground at the edge of the treeline erupted, and another rank of grubs—Boomers and drones—rose from the frozen ground, cutting off every Gear. It was a double ambush. For the first time he could remember, Dom found himself wishing a round would just hit him between the eyes, now, right now, and get the shit over with, let him go home to wherever Maria was. The thought was gone in a breath. Marcus lobbed a frag grenade between the trees, clear of the Bravo line, and the explosion bought two seconds to find cover. The battle revved up again. The Kantus was louder than ever; the Boomers charged.

“You better not be dead, Mataki.” Marcus dropped and sat back against the tree stump while he reloaded. “Kill that noisy bastard. Now.”

If Bernie couldn’t find the Kantus, then Cole decided he had to.

It was just like thrashball. Once he had his mind set on winning and could visualize what he was going to do, the moves came naturally. There were plenty of damn trees, and those things weren’t obstacles—they were an advantage, and he was trained to take it.

All he had to do was find where that bitch-ass voice was coming from.

Every time he shut his eyes and concentrated, it sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once; every time he looked around, straining to see through the smoke and gloom, he saw vertical columns and horizontal movement, trees and troops, no freaky Locust cheerleader in robes and a helmet. Where could a thing like that hide? It was damn big, like any grub.

He needed to get some elevation.

Cole sprinted from tree to tree, zigzagging, doing a dangerous thrashball run away from the battle and in the direction he thought the voice was coming from, deeper into the forest. He was expecting to hit a mine at any moment. He thought he saw movement matching his own, but when he turned his head it was gone. Then he looked back. What he saw now—he saw stairs, baby, stairs. Explosions had torn up the forest and some trees had been ripped clean out, roots hanging in the air, trunks leaning against others at an angle. If he took a run up the trunk, he’d be halfway up a big tree and a few meters higher than everyone else. Speed, baby. Just get some speed up.

Cole sprinted. He still had the acceleration, even now. His boots hit the bark and he just let his momentum take him far enough up the slope of the tree to fling his arms around the upright trunk supporting it and hang on. There were two big black pits in the ground thirty meters away—emergence holes. He straightened up, one arm still around the trunk, and scanned a full arc around him.

Shit, fir trees didn’t have blue lights. Did they?

In the gloom, he could see triple bars of faint blue, armor indicators—but vertical ones, like they were lying on their side on a branch up in the damn trees.

It took him a few moments to work out what he was looking at: Bernie Mataki, propped in the fork of a branch with her Longshot aimed. Had she seen him? If he called her on the radio, he might distract her. But she’d seen him, all right. She didn’t even move her head, just her left arm, pointing down into the trees and then indicating one with her forefinger.

The Kantus must have been within meters. She could see it, but Cole couldn’t. Then she moved her arm wider, circling her forefinger—vague direction, yeah, he got it—and then held up two fingers. The second target.

Shit. What did he have to do? If she wanted radio silence, then he couldn’t ask. Thumbs up. Yes.

Yes what?

A single shot rang out. The droning chorus thinned instantly into one voice. Something went thud on the ground close enough for him to hear it.

Now he could hear the other Kantus, and work out roughly where the asshole was. Bernie’s voice whispered in his earpiece.

“He’s just standing absolutely still, right next to a tree. Flush him out for me. Preferably that way.”

“All part of the service, baby.”

“Follow the finger …”

Cole knew he wasn’t one of nature’s stealthy types. They didn’t call him Cole Train for nothing. He decided to sprint for it, and the instant his boots crunched on twigs and gravel, the Kantus stopped droning and bolted. Bernie didn’t fire; the grub went the wrong way, out of her line of sight. Cole dodged the trees and tried to head the Kantus off.

But you can’t run and chant at the same time, can you, asshole?

Cole darted around the next tree, just catching glimpses of the Kantus, trying to drive it back toward the battle

—or so he thought until it whipped around and he saw the muzzle flash as it fired its pistol. The round clipped his collar armor and went wide. By the time the Kantus aimed again—faster than a Boomer, but not fast enough

—Cole emptied a Lancer clip into it, up-down, face to groin. There was no point doing half a job with these guys. They needed shutting up for good.

He reloaded and made sure its chanting days were over. “Tough audience, ain’t I, baby?”

Cole could already hear the tide of battle changing as he headed back to Dom’s fire position, more Lancer fire rattling through the forest than Boomshots and Hammerbursts. The injured drones weren’t bouncing back into the game all fresh and enthusiastic now that their Kantus were gone, and the Boomers were finally getting the idea that the party was over. Two turned and tried to run. But the moment they emerged from the trees and onto open ground, hammering gunfire from a Raven strafed them.

Gettner was a patient lady, for sure, waiting there like some vulture until she got some trade. Cole ducked and dodged as he ran after the last grubs. He almost fell over Baird, who was kneeling by a pile of grub ammo, pouring rounds into another butcher Boomer. It was hard to work out where anyone was until the firing slowed, the noise died down, and Gears started calling in as they cleared positions. Cole pressed his earpiece. “Marcus, that’s two more Kantus who won’t be performin’ again.”

“Nice job, Cole. What happened to Mataki?”

“She don’t like choral music, either. She capped one.”

“She’s okay, then.”

“Yeah.” Shit. She hadn’t caught up with him yet. “I better go find her.”

Baird was admiring a haul of cleavers and Hammerburst ammo. “Hey, we going to come back for all this stuff?

Can’t waste it now.”

“Let’s collect Bernie first. What happened to your goggles?”

“Don’t ask.”

Baird would get another pair somehow. But now that the dust was settling and Cole was feeling the winter chill again, he could see just how high a price they’d paid to put down these grubs. There were too many bodies. They’d lost a lot of Gears. It felt like the killing was never going to stop.

“Bernie?” Damn trees all looked the same. “Boomer Lady, where you gone?”

Baird called for her. “Yo, Granny, where are you?” He still had a cleaver in one hand. “I got you a nice new chopper. For all the dead animals you cut up.”

Cole found what he thought was the right group of trees and scanned the branches. He thought she’d already climbed down and headed back until he heard her voice.

“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.