Gears of War

by Jason M. Hough

  Then she remembered his attitude toward the civilians he and JD had fired on at Settlement 2, and the way he’d driven a wedge between him and his friends afterward.

  Kait let go of his arm and walked away, before the camaraderie went too far, or in the wrong direction.

  7: THE C.I.B.

  Kait woke the next morning to warm sunlight on her face, birds chirping outside her window, and the smell of coffee and fresh bread drifting in from Sam and Damon’s kitchen.

  She stretched, and for several long moments she simply lay there and watched reflections from Baird’s garden fountain play lazily off the gilded inlays around the coffered ceiling. It was a full minute before she realized that it was the first night in… she couldn’t remember how long, that she’d slept peacefully.

  After a shower and another marvelous breakfast with her hosts, Kait offered once again to somehow repay them for letting her stay there, and was refused once again without any hesitation.

  “Well,” she said, “thank you, both. I better get going. Debriefing is in an hour.”

  To her surprise, Sam stopped her. “There’s something I think you should do first.”

  “Oh?”

  The woman glanced at Baird, who nodded approvingly.

  Sam returned her focus back to Kait, and sighed.

  “It’s JD. He’s awake.”

  Kait blinked.

  “When… no one told me…”

  “Late last night,” Baird said quickly. “After you’d gone to sleep. I, uh… I pulled in a favor from the Doc, and no one else knows about it yet. Thought you might want to talk to him before Jinn finds out.”

  “Or Fahz,” Sam added with a slight shudder.

  Somewhat dazed by the news, Kait thanked them again and returned to her room. She put on her COG armor, tied her braid, slipped her mother’s amulet around her neck, and set off for the hospital.

  * * *

  She’d expected to find him much as she’d left him. Prone on the bed, tubes sticking out of him, machines beeping and whirring as they kept him alive.

  To her surprise, though, the bed was empty. Not only that, the machines had been removed. For one awful second she thought Baird had it wrong. That they’d just moved JD, or worse, that the end to his coma was because he’d lost his battle, not woken from it.

  “Hey, Kait.”

  He was seated by the window, one leg up on a footstool. The bandages on his right arm were gone, but in their place was a stim sleeve—the latest medical tech, and still considered experimental as far as Kait knew. Jinn really was sparing no expense.

  Kait swallowed. Awake and upright, the change in his appearance was no longer something that could be sympathetically ignored.

  “You look like hell,” she said truthfully.

  “Nice to see you, too,” he replied. Perfunctorily he added a smile, then coughed weakly before casting a glance toward the other chair. “Sit?”

  “I don’t really have time.”

  “Oh,” he said, surprised. “Busy day?”

  Kait didn’t take the offered chair, but she did cross the room to stand over him. There was an accusation in his tone that brought the anger part of her roiling emotions forward. He must have seen it in her face, too, because he looked away before she could speak. Almost absentmindedly he tapped the control on his stim sleeve, closing his eyes as it pulsated briefly. Pain relieved, JD’s features relaxed again. He opened his eyes, but kept his gaze on the far wall.

  “Go ahead. Say your piece,” JD muttered. “I deserve it.”

  “Funny, I sort of thought you’d be the one who did the talking.”

  “Happy to, but you’ve got a busy day, so…”

  Kait shook her head. “How dare you make me feel like the asshole in this situation, JD.” Angrily she swept a tear from her cheek, hating that it was even there in the first place. “I wanted to see that you were okay. Awake. Alive.”

  Some part of the man she knew was still in there, it seemed, because he smartly said nothing and simply waited.

  “As for explanations, or whatever else you might wish to say, I think I’m not ready to hear it yet. And from your attitude, you’re not ready to say it.”

  A part of her hoped, then, that he would talk. Maybe that he’d even beg for her understanding, if not forgiveness. But still he remained silent. At least he finally looked at her. Held her gaze. At least he gave her that.

  “I’m going to be gone for a while,” she said.

  “Kait—”

  “We can talk when I get back. Maybe by then your conscience will have recovered as well as the rest of you.”

  She didn’t wait for a reply. Kait Diaz turned on her heel, and strode from the room. She waited until she was in the elevator before allowing another tear to fall.

  * * *

  Salvador Pasco met her at the entrance to Government House, embracing her warmly before they went inside and were shown, immediately, to Mina Jinn’s office. He was cleaner than she’d ever seen him. If she hadn’t known who it was, she never would have recognized Pasco.

  To her surprise, Jinn wasn’t the only person there. As she and Sal entered, the First Minister was just stepping in from the balcony. Behind her were Marcus Fenix… and Colonel Hoffman.

  “Thank you both for coming,” Jinn said to them. “I’ll consider your ideas and have an answer for you this evening.” Marcus nodded, then noticed Kait and Salvador. He came over, Hoffman wheeling up beside him and looking, to Kait’s eye, somewhat haggard.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  Marcus inclined his head slightly.

  “Is it ever, around here?”

  “I guess not.” She leaned into him, and lowered her voice. “JD’s awake. I just came from the hospital.”

  Marcus narrowed his gaze, but said nothing.

  Kait added, “I would have told you sooner, but Jinn… I thought you might want to know before she did, so you could talk to him alone.”

  “How is he?”

  “Alert, I guess. Enough to talk,” she admitted. “They put a stim sleeve on his arm. Seems to be helping.”

  “Thanks, Kait.” Marcus glanced at Jinn, who had crossed to the opposite side of the huge office and was pouring some tea.

  “I told her what happened out there,” Marcus said. This was directed to Salvador, Kait realized, and not her. “I’m not entirely sure if she’s pleased or angry.”

  Pasco raised his shoulders indifferently. “If she’s upset, we’ll go home. Simple as that. We’re not the ones who wanted to be here.”

  Kait put a hand on his arm. “Let’s just talk to her before we start saying things that might get us off on the wrong foot.”

  He eyed her. “Careful there, Diaz, you’re sounding more like your father than Reyna might have liked.”

  Marcus gave them one last respectful glance, then left. Hoffman started to wheel himself toward the doors, too, but hesitated.

  “It’s a nice day out,” he said to Marcus, “think I’ll go for a stroll in the park. Meet you later?”

  “Sure.”

  Hoffman did not look in Kait’s direction as he finally departed the room. The double doors clicked softly shut behind him.

  The room became quiet, save the clink of Jinn stirring tea.

  “Is there any news on James Fenix?” the First Minister asked finally. Kait arched an eyebrow. So, she hasn’t heard yet. Thank you, Baird. Kait gestured toward the door.

  “You didn’t ask his dad?”

  “I fear he is getting tired of that question,” Jinn replied, tapping a spoon against one of the mugs with finality. She picked up the tray and brought it to her desk, setting it carefully in the middle. Then she walked across the room to her guests and extended a hand to Sal.

  “First Minister Mina Jinn,” she said, smiling warmly.

  “Salvador Pasco,” the Outsider said, his usual cantankerous persona mollified. For a moment, anyway.

  “May I call you Salvador?” Jinn asked. “Or, p
erhaps, Sal?”

  He cleared his throat. “Only Reyna called me Sal. A privilege I’ve decided Kait can inherit. Everyone else calls me Pasco.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Now, what do I call you? First Minister? That’s more formal than I usually like to be.”

  Jinn tilted her head. “I believe Augustus Cole sometimes refers to me as ‘the CIB’, but other than that, First Minister is it I’m afraid.”

  “CIB?”

  “Cast-Iron Bitch.”

  Sal gave a deep, hearty laugh. “Something tells me you and I just might get along.”

  Kait could only sit there, honored by inheriting the use of “Sal,” yes, but mostly she was stunned at the exchange. Mina Jinn, absolutely in her element, and strangely matched by Sal’s clever tongue and general unwillingness to back down. It was, Kait thought, a bit like watching a duel and a dance simultaneously.

  “I understand Corporal—pardon, Ms.—Diaz provided your group with weapons during that final battle?”

  Kait leaned in. “Given the circumstances, I felt it best to—”

  “Nah,” Sal said over her. “One of mine picked the lock on the weapons chest and we helped ourselves.”

  Jinn, to her credit, took the information in stride. “I’m told we’d have suffered a lot more casualties had you not… assisted, in your fashion.”

  He shrugged. “Survival’s all we were thinking about.”

  “And survival is why we brought you here.”

  “You brought us here to protect us,” Sal shot back. “That’s different.”

  “How so?”

  “We prefer to protect ourselves, and do our part. Didn’t come here to stroll in the parks or lounge by the pools. If that’s what you have in mind for us, tell me now, CIB, and we’ll kindly be on our way.”

  There was a part of Kait that wanted to kick the man under the table, and another equal part that wanted to hug him.

  “I’m sure we can find something for you and your villagers to do here.”

  “Something meaningful,” Sal said.

  “Of course.”

  “Kait will be our official liaison,” he continued. “Or sponsor. Whatever you want to call it. We answer to her, work through her, only.”

  Still feeling as if she were watching two martial artists spar, Kait said nothing.

  “Well,” Jinn replied after a moment’s thought, “I can’t order Kait to take that responsibility, I can only ask her.”

  They both looked at her, each expecting the same answer. She surprised both of them.

  “Actually, I thought maybe someone else could handle that duty.”

  “Do you have somewhere else to be, Kait?” Jinn asked. A loaded question if there ever was one. Kait nodded.

  “I do, actually.”

  Mina Jinn eyed her, the disappointment on her face unmasked.

  “Who did you have in mind, then? First Lieutenant Chutani?”

  “Fahz? Oh, God no,” Kait replied. “We want to keep them here, not drive them away.” She meant it, but kept her tone lighthearted. The brief glare Jinn sent in her direction implied the First Minister didn’t appreciate the comment.

  “Lovings would be a fine choice,” Kait added.

  “Or Cole,” Sal offered. “My people would listen to him. Hell, anyone would! The man’s a legend. Still prefer you, though, Kait. Can’t imagine what might take you away from here, after all you just went through to bring us in.”

  “Well, that’s just it,” Kait said. “There’s one more village left to visit.”

  For once Jinn was at a loss for words.

  “Riftworm?” Sal asked. “Good luck with that, Kait. I hear your uncle’s got quite a thing going up there. It’s not just a bunch of huts with a wall around them anymore. That’s a proper village. They’ve got a tavern and everything.”

  “We’ve already sent two expeditions,” Jinn said, “and both were driven off. Violently.”

  “Yep.” Sal laughed. “That sounds like Oscar Diaz.”

  Kait thought about her father, and all she’d learned about him in the last few days. What he’d fought for on Knifespire, and what he’d lost there, all for nothing. She was going to lose her uncle, too, she thought, if he stayed in that bleak place.

  “Well,” Sal said, “if anyone can get through to him, it’s you, Kait. I can go with you if you think it’ll help.”

  “No,” Kait said. “Thanks, Sal, but… no. This is something I need to do. Del will come with me.”

  Jinn steepled her fingers, resting her chin on her fingertips, and stared at the mugs of tea on the desk in front of her. They had gone cold. She was on the verge of voicing her thoughts, but Kait had made her decision.

  “I know what you’re going to say, First Minister. That it sends the wrong message if I go to them yet remain a holdout myself. So, if the offer still stands, I accept. I’ll join the COG. Whatever it takes to get my uncle and the rest of the Outsiders to come here before the Swarm reaches them.”

  Jinn did not move, except her eyes. They locked with Kait’s, and remained there for a long, meaningful moment.

  “You’re sure about this?” she asked.

  Kait sat back, folded her arms across her chest, and nodded. In doing so she felt two things press against her heart. Reyna’s amulet, and Gabe’s memorandum, tightly folded. Both were hidden under her armor.

  Both equally part of her, now.

  8: NO WALK IN THE PARK

  He was exactly where she’d seen him the last time they’d met.

  Kait took her same seat on the bench, feeling more than a little bit like a spy as she pulled the file from her satchel and handed it across to Colonel Hoffman.

  “Thank you,” Kait said.

  “Interesting reading, I hope?”

  “Very much so.”

  Hoffman lifted the blanket that covered his legs and lap, and slipped the file beneath. For a time he sat there, silently. Long enough that Kait wasn’t sure if their meeting was over. Then he jerked his chin toward the north. The towers and rooftops of New Ephyra, the wall, the ruins of the old city, and the mountains beyond: all lay in that direction.

  “How was it, out there?” he asked.

  Kait winced. “Bad. They get closer all the time.”

  “But your mission, it was a success?”

  She shrugged. “We brought some Outsiders back with us, which was the goal.”

  “I’d say I’m surprised they agreed to it, but then I guess that’s why Jinn sent you.”

  Something about his words triggered a thought she hadn’t had before. A realization, or maybe a parallel. The way her father had stopped Wyatt from meting out a Gear’s justice in that fishing village, allowing the locals to handle their problems themselves. And, in contrast, what JD had done at Settlement 2. Firing first. She wondered, suddenly, if this perspective hadn’t been Hoffman’s reason for giving her the file all along.

  She looked at him.

  He shifted, uncomfortable in his chair and, she thought, under her gaze.

  “About my father,” Kait said after a time. “There’s still something I don’t understand.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Kait hesitated.

  “He demoted himself to the motor pool, rather than leave the COG.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And yet, when I knew him, he had definitely left the COG. Not only that, he became an Outsider, even helping found the village with Reyna.”

  “Also correct.”

  Kait waited, hoping for more, but Hoffman said nothing. He was waiting for her to put the pieces together.

  “This isn’t the whole file,” she said, and saw at once from his expression that she was right. Hoffman’s eyes narrowed, still fixed on the mountains in the far distance.

  “There are things to which even I don’t have access.” That caught her off guard. Kait swallowed.

  She wasn’t sure if she believed him, though.

  “Which isn’t to
say I don’t know things,” he added. “But, I have my limits, Diaz. Lines even I won’t cross. Secrets that… need to die, quite frankly.”

  Kait snorted. “If you think that’s going to put a lid on my curiosity—”

  “On the contrary… but… look, Diaz… Kait, I’ve done what I can. I thought it was important for you to have some perspective on the man your father was, back then.” He paused, finally looking at her. “My advice to you is to move forward, but keep your eyes open. Your mind open. There’s more to learn, but I’m not the right person to learn it from.”

  “Who is, then? Oscar?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? If not him, then who?”

  “I was going to say Richard Prescott.”

  “Prescott?” Kait stammered, surprised. “I thought he died.”

  “He did. Years ago. Doesn’t mean you can’t learn things from him. Just like you learned from your father through that file.”

  “If you’re going to hand me Prescott’s file…”

  “I wish,” Hoffman said, chuckling. “If you can get your hands on it, though, I’d love to have a look.”

  “So, what then? How do I learn about Prescott?”

  What Hoffman did next filled Kait with a sudden unease, as much as any she’d felt in recent memory. The former head of Special Forces, a man with a career that crossed paths with every major COG operation ever undertaken, glanced around to make sure no one was listening.

  “Just keep your eyes open and your ears piqued, Kait. Listen, watch, learn.”

  “For what, though?”

  He looked at her. “There’s a name, and I’m guessing someday you’ll come across it. So pay attention when you do.”

  “What name?”

  “Ukkon.”

  Kait committed the name to memory. In fact, she thought she’d heard it before, when she was a child, but the memory was elusive. Perhaps deliberately sealed away.

  She shivered.

  “Is this goodbye, then?” she asked.

  “Oh, doesn’t have to be. I’ll be around, but busy.”

  “Busy with what?” she asked. Then quickly added, “If you don’t mind me asking.”