Gears of War

by Jason M. Hough

  “One frigate, alone?” he asked, taking off at a sprint in that direction.

  “Can’t say.”

  He was about to ask why, but his senses were starting to wake up, and Gabe saw the problem immediately. At some point since he’d fallen asleep, which he felt sure had been less than an hour ago, a fog had descended over the island. He could still see from one end to the other, but the ocean beyond was heavily shrouded by a shifting light-gray wall. It seemed to be growing thicker, and closer, by the second. They could see the frigate that was shelling them, but within minutes even that would be obscured.

  As he ran toward Blair’s position, he thought back through his assessment of the enemy’s options, specifically an approach from the south. Of course, the fog! He’d put the chances of an attack from the south in the “unlikely” category because the weather had been clear an hour ago. They would have had to pass by the entire island to get down there, or gone so far around that a swift response would be impossible. But under the cover of fog, south was the natural choice. He cursed himself for falling asleep, or he would have been more prepared for this.

  In many ways the island was a long ramp leading up to the spire itself. Gatka Ridge had a gentle incline from north to south, which meant that while you could shield yourself from approaches out of the east, west, or north, a southerly approach provided a view of almost the entirety of Knifespire. Only the tiny outcrop of rock on the north side, around the base of the spire, would be hidden.

  Which meant an enemy frigate could pound every last square foot of Gatka Ridge.

  It struck Gabe that he was locked into a mind game of sorts with the enemy officer. That bald bastard he’d seen twice now. This was a chess match—or, more accurately, a tense round of Fractured Lands. Only this time he was playing in the real world, with real lives at stake.

  The southern approach made sense for another reason, as well. That was traditionally the COG side of the Lesser Islands, and therefore an unlikely direction to watch for UIR vessels. He glanced up at the spire. It remained untouched, despite being the largest and most prominent landmark. Which meant it was where the enemy wanted him and his troops to go.

  “Everyone to the southern tip,” Gabe said into his comm. “Now.” Then he added, “Engineers in the spire, get to work destroying that listening post. Then join us.”

  There were replies. Even some arguments. All were drowned out by the full-scale bombardment from that lone UIR ship. Gabe weaved his way down the ridge at a full sprint, over rocks and through patches of jungle, through small streams and, in the very center, across a long, flat open space dominated by tall grass. Explosions tore up the ground around him. Fireballs that burned his cheeks and threw great gouts of soil and debris into the air. Each blast left a fresh crater.

  There was no point in trying to dodge the enemy fire. Thanks to the fog they couldn’t see him, or anyone else, most likely. This was indiscriminate shelling from an enemy hoping to herd their opponents to a specific place. Given enough time, they could simply reduce the island to rubble. Pulverize the enemy positions before anyone set foot on the ground.

  Either way, they win.

  A nearby blast threw him to the ground. Gabe heard screaming from somewhere nearby. A Gear in agony. Gut wound, most likely. Smoke filled the air, backed ominously by that ever-encroaching fog.

  Lurching to his feet he took a step toward the screaming Gear, but the sound was cut off by another explosion. After a moment’s hesitation, Gabe ran on.

  Near the southern shore he found Blair and several Gears hunkered down in a natural trench. He threw himself into the neck-high muddy crevice and ducked down as another artillery shell whistled overhead and exploded in the palm grove just behind their position.

  “Why the fuck are we down here?” Blair snarled at him, all decorum gone.

  “Because they’re expecting us to take shelter in the spire.”

  “I’m kinda liking that idea right about now.”

  “Good thing I’m the one giving orders, then.” He gripped her upper arm. “Have a little faith, okay? And get ready.”

  “For what?”

  “Them.”

  Blair was about to say something more, but her words were cut off by a new sound. One Gabe had counted on. The buzz of outboard motors and, more to the point, the sudden lack of shelling.

  “They think they’ve got us bottled up inside the cave,” Gabe said into his comm. “We can use that. Wait until they’re wading onto the beach.” His Gears were smart enough to hold back any reply, as Knifespire went very, very quiet.

  The sounds of the small motors dwindled, then died. This was followed seconds later by the rhythmic splashes of soldiers entering the water, and pushing up onto the shore. The beach here, he recalled, was all pebbles and stones. Easier to run quickly on, but also slick, especially in a fog like this.

  That fog had closed in now. The Indies had timed their arrival perfectly. In fact, the whole assault had been meticulous, at least so far. Gabe had to give his opponent that much. Now to see how well the asshole dealt with the unexpected. At the first sound of a UIR boot on rock, Gabe spoke quietly into his comm.

  “Be ready. Soon as you can see ’em, give ’em hell.”

  Five seconds passed with nothing but the sound of the enemy troops wading onto shore. Then ten seconds. Gabe tried to count their number in his head, gave up. A lot, that much was obvious.

  Somewhere to Gabe’s left, a Lancer opened fire.

  And then the guns erupted all along the shoreline, from both sides despite the fact that no one could see anyone. They fired at shadows. They fired at a compass heading, for who else but the enemy could be over there? Gabe couldn’t blame his Gears, but at the same time they were burning through ammo at a terrifying rate.

  “Blue squad!” Blair shouted. “Now!”

  Her Gears moved in unison, propping their rifles along the edge of the trench and firing at the hazy figures coming up from the water. He joined the fray as if he were one of Blair’s own, resting his rifle on the rocks and mud in front of him and squeezing off bursts at anything that moved on the beach before him. Visibility was down to fifty feet now, and still shrinking.

  “Davis?” Gabe said into his comm.

  “Yessir?”

  “Come down off the spire. Not going to be any use to me in this fog.”

  “It’s already burning off,” she replied.

  “Repeat that?”

  “The fog. I’m above it, and I can already see it dissipating from the east.”

  “Give me a rough estimate. How long will it last?”

  “Twenty minutes?”

  He pondered that. Did the enemy know it, too? Were they counting on it, even?

  “Okay, Davis, stay put. You’re our eyes and ears.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A figure emerged from the fog. The UIR guerilla sprinted out of the mist at an astonishing pace, weaving a path with random turns and jukes, as if he could sense the bullets before they came. He leapt at the last second, dodging a shot from Gabe’s own rifle, landing in the trench between him and Blair.

  Gabe sensed the moment when it would all fall apart. He and Blair both turned, trying to get their rifles around in time. The man in their midst had dropped his own weapon, or perhaps he’d never had one in the first place. Instead he carried a long, serrated combat knife. He slashed at Gabe. A savage swing that hissed through the air between them, missing only because Gabe somehow managed to thrust his midsection backward. The man kicked out in response, and Gabe, off balance, went down onto his back.

  His opponent was hit by the butt of Blair’s rifle. Not hard, but enough to distract him. He twisted his knife around and jabbed backward. Blair pivoted, the blade cutting through her shirt sleeve and drawing blood. She ignored it. Rotated her Lancer until the sharp side of the bayonet blade faced upward, then thrust in that direction with all her might.

  The man lost an arm at the shoulder. The stump fountained blood, splashi
ng on Gabe’s boots. But it wasn’t his right arm, it was the left. He still had his knife and he brought it down in a wicked stab straight for Blair’s throat.

  Gabe shot him through the jaw. He dropped the blade, which had punctured Blair’s neck—but only just. A shallow wound, Gabe thought. The UIR guerilla fell to the mud, eyes blank.

  Blair’s hand was at her throat, blood welling in the gaps between her fingers. She glanced down at her palm, then at Gabe.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Save it,” he replied. “We’re still in a world of trouble here.”

  Fighting raged all around them. The Gorasni were among the Gears. No one was shooting, because no one knew if this shadow or that was friend or foe.

  “Squad leaders,” he said into his comm. “Keep your Gears tight. Hold positions, don’t get spread out.”

  Some of them answered, but those who did were barely audible over the sounds of combat coming through their microphones.

  “Screw this,” he said. “Blair? Let’s rush the beach. Hit them as they’re trying to get out of the water.”

  She nodded. Her neck was slick with blood, but there was no panic in her eyes. With a few shouted commands she rallied Blue Squad, and they followed Gabe out of the shallow trench.

  He ran hard, bent over at the waist. The beach was narrow, and in just a few steps the pebbles became a sucking wet mud. He ran until his feet were submerged. Blair and her Gears fanned out to either side, forming a line.

  At that instant another boatload of enemies disgorged into the waves. He heard them long before he saw them. Warriors pushing through the froth, guns held above heads. This was the dreaded moment of a beach landing. Too shallow to duck below the water for cover, but still deep enough to slow progress to a crawl.

  “Retreat!” he yelled in their language. One of the few words he knew. His accent was terrible, but all he needed was a second. Maybe two.

  The enemy heard his cry, saw the soldiers running toward them, and looked to one another for confirmation this was really happening. Retreat, already? We haven’t even made the shore—

  Maybe they were thinking that. Maybe they were thinking, Who is this madman? Gabe didn’t care. He got his two seconds, plus a third. Rammed into the closest man with his bayonet. The blade punched through the poor bastard’s gut and out his back. Gabe heaved upward, slicing him open from belly to neck.

  The one beside him raised her weapon, aimed at Gabe. Too late. One of Blair’s Gears dove at her, and the two went down into the water, vanishing in the white froth. They thrashed like sharks fighting over a slab of meat.

  The stock of a rifle flew into Gabe’s vision. The flat of it took him square in the face. His nose made a crunching sound and he fell, backward, into the water. But it was only six inches deep. The pebbles beneath it like a slap of concrete. He cracked against it and felt the sting as saltwater splashed into his eyes and broken nose.

  The Gorasni stood over him. His eyes were wide and full of blind rage. He lifted his gun over his head, still wielding it like a club. The next blow would do a lot more than break Gabe’s nose.

  There was a thunderclap. The man’s hands vanished in a red mist. The gun dropped straight down on his head. The clunk sound it made when it hit the man’s skull was almost enough to make Gabe laugh. Another thunderclap ripped the air apart, and there was another burst of red mist. This time it was the soldier’s head that vanished.

  “Now we’re even,” Blair said, and she ejected the spent shells from a Gnasher she must have picked up since leaving the trench. She levered in a fresh set of shells, and ran off toward the next enemy.

  Pushing himself to his feet, Gabe touched the tip of his nose and winced. It stung like hell, but he thought maybe it hadn’t broken after all.

  Combat roiled on all sides. Bodies in motion. Shouts and screams. Death, of friend and foe alike.

  “North side! North side!”

  The voice was in Gabe’s ear. It was Davis.

  “Report,” Gabe said, stepping back from the melee, taking a defensive stance.

  “Four enemy frigates approaching from the north. Landing craft already in the water!”

  “Did you say four?!”

  “Yessir!”

  Gabe swore under his breath. The enemy’s approach from the south had been a solid maneuver, given the fog. The idea that it was just a ruse—to clear the north shore of Knifespire for a full-on invasion—was unexpected. The kind of thing Gabe himself would do.

  He glanced around. Only Gears remained around him. Many limping, bleeding. The enemy were all dead, but they were just a distraction, and it had worked.

  “We’ve been played,” Gabe said to Blair, but loud enough for them all to hear. “They’re landing on the north side. A lot of them. No doubt with the equipment needed to clear that collapsed tunnel.” Thinking fast, he tapped his comm. “Davis, retreat. Join us here. Gian, you hear me too? Drop what you’re doing and bring everyone from the Cathedral. Now!”

  “I have eyes on a frigate captain,” Davis replied.

  “Leave it. There’s no time.”

  “I’m already out of time, sir.”

  Somewhere north of them, half a mile away and obscured by fog, came the distinctive report of a Longshot rifle.

  “Davis!” he roared into the comm.

  “Got him, sir!” There was a glee in her voice that he dreaded to hear. Then another blast from the sniper rifle echoed across the island.

  “Damn it, Davis, you’re going to—”

  —give your position away. He didn’t say it because it was already too late. The enemy frigates all opened fire at once. A sound like rolling thunder. Even through the fog he could see the fireballs erupt from around the sheer north side of Knifespire. They fired and fired. Explosions boiled over the column of rock. The whole island shook with their force, and still they fired, making sure nothing was left of Davis or her hiding place. Given the narrow, fractured section she’d roosted in, it was something of a miracle that the whole mountain didn’t come down.

  “Davis? Davis, report!” It was useless. He had to do it anyway. “Report, goddamnit!”

  The sniper did not reply.

  A mixture of anger and guilt burned through Gabe’s gut. He’d ordered her to stay put. Her death was his responsibility.

  Blair laid a hand on his shoulder. She said nothing, and when Gabe looked at her he could see the finality in her eyes. They were going to die here. There was nowhere to hide save the Cathedral, and even now the enemy would be swarming in there.

  “The engineers,” someone said. “Did they get out?”

  Gabe had shouted for them to leave, too, but in the chaos he realized no response had come back. They’d been placing charges around the listening post, or finding some other way to destroy it. Perhaps they hadn’t heard him, or the rock had interfered with the signal. He tried again to raise them on the comm, but heard only static in response.

  Dead, or captured.

  “We should get in there,” Blair was saying. “Maybe we can at least take that damned antenna down with us.”

  But he wasn’t listening. Instead, Gabe turned toward the south, and the open sea. A machine gun’s juddering report was echoing across the waves, but it was too distant to be the UIR ship that had deployed the soldiers here. The tone, the pace, was wrong too. That was a rotary cannon.

  “Sir, if we—”

  “Shhh.” He held up a hand. All the Gears around him fell silent. “That’s one of ours. Maybe we still have a chance.”

  The gun fired several long bursts, and another joined it. Then a third. He heard the engines of the UIR ship ramp up to full. It sped off. Hard to tell directions in the fog, even diminished as it was, but he thought they were retreating to the northeast.

  A minute passed. The guns died down, replaced by the familiar tone of the COG patrol boat’s twin diesel engines. Gabe saw the craft just seconds later. They turned sidelong.

  “Oh, hell,” he whispered. />
  The boats were not full of Gears, as he’d hoped. Each carried a three-person crew, and only two or three soldiers instead of the maximum ten. This wasn’t reinforcements, it was an evacuation.

  “Everyone to the south beach, now,” he ordered into his comm. “On the double.” Then, to Blair, “Cover them, then we go.”

  She nodded. “Blue Squad, spread out!”

  The Gears—those still standing—moved apart and knelt in the shin-high waves. Davis’s earlier report had been correct. The fog was clearing, and quickly. Soon it would offer no protection for a retreat.

  “C’mon,” Gabe muttered. “C’mon.”

  Orange Squad arrived first. The half that had survived, anyway. Gabe looked each of them in the eye as they filed past, heading out toward the patrol boats bobbing in the waves. He alone had led them here. He alone bore the responsibility for those who’d fallen. As he met each Gear’s eyes he tried to convey that.

  When the last squad left the beach, he ordered Blair to take her people to the patrol boats.

  “What about you?”

  He slapped his last magazine of ammo into the Lancer, and looked toward the spire.

  “I have to make sure the mission succeeds. Besides, our engineers are still up there.”

  “They’re gone, LC. You know they are.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe they’re captured.”

  “I’m not sure the Gorasni play by those rules.”

  He sighed. “I have to try, Blair. Get to the boat. That’s an order.”

  “We’ll come with you.”

  Gabe glanced at her, now. Then at the Gears behind her. They’d closed ranks again, and were listening. Not a single one of them made any move to leave.

  He shook his head. “Any minute now those frigates will swoop around to cut off our retreat. Our patrol boats won’t stand a chance. You’ve got to go, get the wounded to base, get—”

  Blair wasn’t looking at him, he realized. Her gaze had swiveled past him, and as this realization came she pushed in front of Gabe, bringing her weapon up. Shielding him.