Gears of War

by Jason M. Hough

  “With pleasure,” he replied, and he set off without another word, vanishing among the rest of the group toward the back of the line. Whatever Gabe might think about his wayward little brother, he sure made a hell of a good Ghost.

  “Move out,” Gabe said to no one in particular.

  10: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

  “I’m not sure what’s worse,” someone said, “the heat or the damned insects.”

  A debate arguing the miserable merits of both ensued. Gabe decided against ordering a stop to the thinly disguised complaints. Sometimes letting people vent was better in the long run. So he tuned the conversation out, and instead moved up and down the column, checking on those who’d been wounded.

  Of them, Gian had the most serious injuries. The burns on her arm were extensive, and the gash on her forehead would need stitches, of that Gabe felt sure.

  “If you need to stop, just say so,” he told her. “I can have a few of Blue Squad stay with you, and we’ll send someone back once evac arrives.”

  She only shook her head, and kept going, as determined as ever not to slow down the march. Graham appeared at Gabe’s side.

  “She was with all her fellow engineers when that cave collapsed,” he said. Gabe glanced at him. The man hadn’t been on Knifespire, but Gabe had heard him talking to those who were. He seemed to have a knack for getting stories out of people, and a sincere interest in what they said.

  “Your point, sailor?”

  The man glanced forward. Gian was twenty paces ahead now, ducking under a vine.

  “I’ve been stationed at Vectes for sixteen years,” he said. “Seen just about everything. Been a long time since we had losses like you guys endured on that island, but it’s not unprecedented. Gian’s in shock, which is natural, but that still means you need to keep a close eye on her. How she deals with that shock could go any number of ways.”

  “Sounds like you have some experience.”

  He shrugged. “Did a stint in Psy-Ops, analyzing the effectiveness of all the fucked-up techniques they use to get intel from Indie prisoners. Trust me, shock is the lowest rung on that ladder.”

  “Interesting career path. How’d you end up here?”

  Another shrug. “Couldn’t take it anymore, so I just… asked.”

  Gabe tried to imagine doing such a thing, and found to his surprise that he could. A clean slate. A new beginning. The idea held definite appeal. Dangerously so. He put the fantasy out of his mind as quickly as it had come to him. There were more pressing matters.

  “Thanks, Graham. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  * * *

  Blair led them east.

  Where Knifespire was a long, thin sliver of an island, Adena was shaped more like a bean. Two roughly circular masses of land that merged in the center. The whole thing was tipped at a forty-five-degree angle when viewed on the map, with the north “bulb” leaning west, and the south to the east. Draw a line through them, Gabe realized, and you’d hit Knifespire in one direction, Vectes in the other.

  Graham’s navigator, a burly man called Kabir who wore a perpetual smile, had found the presence of mind to grab his laminated map of the Lesser Islands before sending his boat away. Unfortunately the map was of the entire island chain, of which Adena was such a small part it could be covered up with a thumb. The cartographer had only bothered to note three things on the bean: a marker denoting a maximum elevation of just over two hundred feet, a shallow bay at the southernmost point called—unimaginatively—Shallow Bay, and a single river that flowed in a meandering path from near the highest elevation point down to a spot on the shore which the map named Blind Falls.

  “Gotta wonder how bored a mapmaker has to be, when they run out of friends’ names for places on a chart,” Gabe said.

  “I don’t mind so much,” Kabir replied, grinning. “It tells me something about the place. ‘Kabir’s Bay’ would mean nothing, but ‘Shallow’? That helps.”

  Gabe handed him the map. “I’d guess Kabir’s Bay would be a pretty happy place.”

  “Only because you know me,” the man replied. “If it said, ‘Parson’s Cove,’ you’d know nothing but a name.”

  “Fair point.”

  Kabir folded the map and tucked it into his uniform, then rejoined Graham toward the back of the line.

  The path Blair forged was rough at first. Straight through dense jungle. Even from fifty feet back, Gabe could hear her machete scything through the undergrowth, but there was nothing to be done about it. They had to get away from the shore, and her path, he realized, was leading them toward the island’s only river.

  He started walking faster, intending to catch up with her. The increased pace wasn’t necessary, though, as just a minute later her efforts to clear branches came to an end. So did her march.

  Blair was standing still amid the undergrowth, slightly crouched, a fist held up indicating “stop.” The Gears behind her fanned out, behind cover, their Lancers raised and ready. Gabe worked his way up to her, his eyes scanning the dense foliage ahead.

  He saw nothing, though.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Shh…” Then she pointed.

  Gabe traced a line from her fingertip into the undergrowth. From the tension in the air, he half expected to see a hidden Gorasni outpost, or even some ancient ruins hidden beneath thick vines.

  What he saw instead was the face of a child.

  The girl was maybe a hundred feet away, standing stone still beside a flowering plant. Her face was smeared with dirt, her dark eyes wide as saucers. She stared at Gabe, and he stared back.

  “What do we do?” Blair asked.

  The question surprised Gabe. There seemed only one choice. So he stood, stepped forward, and waved.

  “Hello!” he called out, going for friendly but not quite achieving it.

  The little girl turned and ran. In barely the span of a second she was gone, vanished into the jungle.

  “Nice one,” Blair said. “Do we go after her?”

  “What are you going to do, tackle her? She was, what, ten years old?”

  Blair shrugged. “She might alert someone. Start shouting. Who knows?”

  “It’s a risk we’ll have to take, Sergeant. We’re not going to be able to keep up with her. You saw how quickly she moved.”

  “Like a rabbit.”

  “Exactly.” He gestured in the direction the girl had gone. “She’ll go find adults, and tell them she saw soldiers in the forest. That one of them waved. I think that’s better than saying she was chased and hunted.”

  Blair conceded the point, but still looked ill at ease.

  “What she did do,” Gabe added, “was draw us a path to the rest of them. Be it a camp or just a village, we can find them now.”

  “Do we want to find them?”

  It was a good question. “Avoiding the locals seems like the smart play,” he replied, “especially if they continue their tradition of ignoring the war. On the other hand, they’ve probably never had an incursion onto their shore before. Who knows how they’ll react?”

  “If that kid was any indication, scared shitless.”

  Gabe chuckled. She was right, of course.

  “Well, let’s hope the rest of them aren’t children.”

  * * *

  The sound of gently burbling water became noticeable just fifteen minutes later, and soon after that Blair found the river. At this point, though, it was more of a stream. Ten feet across and only a few deep. It was crystal clear and flowing steadily, though, and that was all Gabe cared about.

  “Ten-minute break,” he told the group. “Fill your canteens and stay in the shade.”

  The temperature continued to climb, and any respite provided by the jungle canopy quickly vanished. Instead of providing shade, the trees seemed to hold in the heat and insects.

  Everyone had red marks on their arms where mosquitos had been smashed while halfway through a meal. But it was the relentless ants that Gabe wanted to annihilate with
every fiber of his being. The slightest hesitation would give them their chance, and in seconds they’d be scurrying up his leg or crawling deep into his combat boots. Any attempt to dissuade them just earned a stinging bite.

  “I’d almost rather face the Gorasni than these little shits,” he said, kneeling and moving one off his pant leg with the tip of his Lancer. He deposited the little monster on a leaf, and toyed briefly with the idea of skewering it on his Lancer’s bayonet.

  “Smear some palm oil on your skin and they’ll leave you alone,” someone said. Gabe grunted, at first thinking the comment was the beginning of a prank, but he quickly realized it had been made with all seriousness. He realized something else, too.

  Whoever had said it wasn’t part of their group.

  Everyone went quiet, and stared just over Gabe’s shoulder.

  He turned and saw a man standing behind them.

  An old man, but not old enough to need the cane he grasped with one hand. His hair was long, black, and almost ridiculously clean given their surroundings. A monkey lay across his shoulders, its keen little eyes staring out from beneath the lustrous hair. What Gabe noticed most was how amazingly calm the man seemed to be, given that he’d just come upon a group of armed soldiers in the middle of his island.

  There wasn’t any amusement, though, on the man’s deeply tanned and wizened features. No, Gabe thought the expression was more like apathy.

  “Thank you,” he replied finally. “I’ll try that.”

  There was a brief moment when he thought that might be the end to the encounter. That the man would simply turn and walk back into the jungle, never to be seen again. But he stepped forward.

  Guns were raised.

  “Woah,” Gabe said quickly. “Everyone, relax. We’re guests here. Got that?”

  The Gears around him replied by lowering their weapons… marginally.

  Gabe stood and regarded the native. He wore threadbare clothes, second or third hand, but of a modern style. No shoes, though. None were needed, given how calloused his feet seemed to be. A stark contrast to the lustrous and well-combed head of hair.

  “We’re trespassing,” Gabe said. “I’m sorry about that. Our boats were fired on and—”

  “We heard the thunder,” the man replied. Then he glanced around at the rest of the soldiers, as if seeing them for the first time. “Some of you are wounded.”

  Gabe nodded.

  The man did, too. “We have no doctor,” he said without a hint of apology. “In fact, we have nothing at all. For you,” his eyes then darted north, “or for them.”

  “They don’t want to take sides,” Blair muttered from behind him, just loud enough for Gabe to hear. He waved her off.

  “We just want to get to Shallow Bay,” Gabe said to the man. “Our boats will pick us up there, and we’ll be off your island.”

  Some quick calculations went on behind the man’s eyes. He glanced around, as if adjusting his mental equations, and Gabe couldn’t help but wonder what the parameters were. He hoped the overriding factor would be getting these strangers off the island as quickly as possible, lest the enemy think the islanders had aided them. Helping these Gears might upset a carefully curated neutrality that had been built up over decades. Not helping them might mean they stayed longer—or worse, set up a base.

  “I will show you the way,” the man said. Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked off into the trees, his pace casual.

  Gabe watched him for a beat. Then he turned to his troops.

  “Break’s over, I guess.”

  No one complained.

  * * *

  Through nothing but eye contact, Gabe informed Blair that he’d take point now. After a few minutes he caught up to their guide.

  “Name’s Diaz, by the way. Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Diaz.” He held out a hand, not quite sure why he was introducing himself, but somehow feeling it was the right thing to do. Goodwill and all that.

  The man glanced at Gabe’s hand, hesitated, then took it.

  “Ciprian,” he said, “but everyone calls me Cipi.”

  Gabe had met only a few islanders, beyond those that lived around Vectes, and was surprised at how thin the man’s accent was. Many of those with whom he’d spoken were nearly incomprehensible.

  “You weren’t born here.”

  Cipi took the comment with a sigh. “No, I only arrived about six years ago.”

  “What brought you here, of all places?” Gabe realized how that had to sound, but before he could explain, Cipi replied.

  “The war did,” he said. There was no malice in it, just a statement of fact. “My island was too close to the fighting. I did not like the sound of the guns. So I went west, and found this place. It’s… peaceful.” This last he couldn’t help but deliver with a heavy note of worry.

  “I’m sorry we’ve intruded,” Gabe said. “It is not our intention to bring our conflict here.”

  Cipi waved the comment away as if it were a bad smell. “The Serano sometimes washes the world onto our shores, and it would be foolish to let ourselves be surprised by it. Unfortunately, most of the others here feel differently.”

  The sentiment surprised Gabe. It was refreshingly pragmatic for an islander, at least amongst those Gabe had met in his time here.

  “Come,” Cipi said, gesturing to a break in the trees. They were following the stream, but at a sharp bend that took the river northeast, he pushed a branch aside and started down a trail wide enough for two persons to move side-by-side. It was well worn, with fresh footprints, including those of a child. Perhaps the one they’d seen earlier, Gabe thought. The amount of travel implied that the stream was where they got their fresh water.

  After several hundred yards the track widened and small, thatch-roofed buildings came into view. It wasn’t that the area had been cleared first, and then built upon, as Gabe had seen the COG do for dozens of outposts. Rather, the locals had made use of the natural contours and intricacies of the landscape. Homes were single-room structures, often incorporating a large tree trunk into their design. No attempt had been made to build them on level ground, or beside one another. Instead they were scattered like leaves across a low hill, some facing east and others west.

  The incorporation of the natural landscape made the structures very hard to see from the water. Gabe thought maybe Special Forces could learn a thing or two from such a place, or have these people build their next secret listening post. The homes and buildings here were hidden in plain sight.

  “Which one of these is yours?” Gabe asked their guide, casually.

  The man gestured vaguely toward the west. “Up on the hill there. It’s not much, but it’s mine.”

  Gabe glanced in that direction. The small hut was just visible through the trees. It was the only one, in fact, on the western-facing side of the village, and perched up on a hill above the rest. Instantly, Gabe realized it must be the same hut in which he’d spotted a candle burning. It was the only one with a window facing the right way, and high enough.

  So it had been Ciprian who’d disregarded the village’s blackout. Why?

  “Nice place,” Gabe said finally.

  Cipi seemed not to notice, or care, what Gabe thought of his hut, or indeed the village itself. He kept to the outskirts, and other than the occasional glimpse of someone through the trees, Gabe saw no one else.

  “We could use some food,” Blair said from behind him. “If they won’t give it to us, maybe they’ll barter for it.”

  Gabe glanced back and saw not just her expression, but those of the surviving Gears and sailors spread out in a loose line behind her. Their faces were gaunt, exhausted, but there was still that determination—which he also felt.

  “Cipi?” Gabe asked.

  The man had walked on, not hearing Blair’s comment, or maybe choosing to ignore it. Now he turned and raised his eyebrows, waiting.

  “I know you said you have nothing to share with us,” Gabe said, “but it may be some time before o
ur base can send ships to take us off your island. Perhaps we could trade with you for some food. Is that possible?”

  “No!”

  It wasn’t Cipi who spoke the sharp word, but an old woman who had emerged from one of the huts. Her skin was so wrinkled Gabe couldn’t see her eyes in the narrow slits they occupied. Her gray hair was wiry and poked out in all directions from beneath a wide, frayed hat.

  Cipi demurred instantly to her. Some kind of village elder, or matriarch, Gabe decided. She spoke in rapid, angry bursts aimed at Cipi, using the guttural language of the islands, an offshoot of the Gorasni tongue. He kept his head lowered the entire time, as if he was a child being admonished for neglecting some chore.

  After she’d said her piece, Cipi made only a single word reply. She turned and vanished back inside her hut, slamming the door behind her. The whole structure shook with the force of it.

  “What did she say?”

  Cipi took a breath and let it out, slowly.

  “She is angry that I’ve helped you, and wishes you to be gone from here.”

  “Because you can’t be seen to help one side over the other?”

  To Gabe’s surprise, it took Ciprian some time to answer. The man chose his words carefully.

  “That, yes, but something else, too. There was a murder here,” the man said, “about two months ago. A boy was stabbed. Gutted, in fact.”

  Gabe frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Cipi nodded. “Someone said they saw a dark figure with glowing green eyes in the forest, that same evening. Holding a knife like the ones you wear at your belts.”

  Unable to stop himself, Gabe’s hand went to the hilt of his blade, making sure it was still there. All the Gears carried them, and instantly he realized what the sight of such a display would look like to the matriarch, given what had happened. Then the other part of Cipi’s comment registered.

  “Glowing green eyes?”

  “We are not as simple and superstitious as you might think,” Cipi said quickly. “This was not some forest demon. It was a soldier, with… night-vision goggles? I believe that is your term.”

  “It is.” He didn’t like where this was going. Only the day before he’d borrowed six of the devices from the Ghosts, to aid in his attempt to retake Knifespire. He had no idea which Gears still carried them, if any.