Gears of War: The Slab (Gears of War 5)

by Karen Traviss

  And then there was the sky, which couldn’t possibly be.

  It was blue and clear above, but when he looked out at the ocean, the worst imaginable tropical storm seemed to be rolling in and Prescott didn’t seem troubled by it. The black clouds were sucking up water from the surface, forming a wall that stretched as far as he could see. It was so shocking that his uppermost thoughts—Marcus, Marcus, Marcus—were forgotten for a moment.

  “So you did it,” he said. “You got a Maelstrom operational.”

  “Clever, isn’t it? I suppose I should thank you for helping make it possible.” Prescott parked Adam’s chair and leaned on the rail of the balcony next to him. “A permanent artificial storm. The perfect camouflage and defensive barrier. Welcome to Azura, Adam. The COG’s doomsday bunker.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The Slab was like a septic tank. You tipped the shit in, walked away, and for a while it stank, but then it developed bacteria and became a self-sustaining environment. No sane warder would get within punching distance of a prisoner because the inmates had plenty of reasons to kill us and nothing to lose. So when the Justice Department cut our staffing levels, we started leaving the inmates to run the place themselves while we kept a nice safe distance. Okay, there was a lot of bloodletting. I mean, lots of it. But the guys who survived settled down into a kind of scum ecosystem and started looking after themselves pretty well.

  (Kennith Heugel, former warder at CPSE Hesketh—aka the Slab.)

  HOUSE OF THE SOVEREIGNS, NORTH EPHYRA: BRUME, 10 A.E.

  The only part of Ephyra that the COG hadn’t lost completely to the grubs was the northern borough, the home of government offices and official buildings, and the irony wasn’t lost on Dom.

  They still had somewhere to hold a proper court-martial.

  He hadn’t been allowed to see Marcus since the sortie to Haldane Hall. The last thing he remembered was yelling at him to get down when the Reavers attacked. How the casevac Raven had managed to extract them so fast was close to a miracle. He was still putting the pieces together to work out how he ended up in the hospital, because Tai still swore that neither he or Jace had managed to call for casevac. Right now, though, it was a minor mystery that could wait.

  Marcus was in that room at the end of the corridor arguing for his life. Dom had to keep his mind on that. Marcus hadn’t been making much sense when they dragged him on board, and then he was knocked out when the medic pumped him full of something, so there had been no discussion. When they landed, Marcus had been put under armed guard in the hospital.

  Dom needed to talk to him. He needed to get his story straight, to prepare his defense, but nobody had said a word to him or even to Anya. She was going to be a witness, wasn’t she? That was going to be terrible for her. That was probably why she hadn’t been allowed to see or speak to Marcus either. She said it was killing her. Dom believed it.

  He waited in the wood-paneled corridor, sitting almost on the edge of the bench while he waited to be called to give evidence. He’d already given a written statement about the sortie to Haldane Hall, and he’d asked if he could be a character witness. The last thing he could remember was hearing Marcus yelling for his father and the weird whistling sound as a rotor or something skimmed past his head before he hit the ground hard.

  Why haven’t they called Tai, or Jace?

  Dom had no real idea how court-martials worked. He wasn’t even sure that was the right name for more than one. Courts-martial? Come on, does that shit matter now? He thought they’d be like civilian trials without juries, like a magistrates’ court, except that there’d be officers in place of lawyers for the prosecution and defense. But there was nobody milling around outside the courtroom like in the movies. The corridor was deserted. Occasionally a side door would open and a female Gear or civilian would come out with a sheaf of papers and vanish through another door. Dom had expected to see some media there, too, but maybe they were in the courtroom. They could hear the whole case if there was no classified information in the evidence. Witnesses couldn’t.

  Then he heard footsteps, two pairs, one made by heavy boots, one by high heels. He knew who it was without looking up. He stared down at his clasped hands until the steps got closer and waited until the last second to stand to attention as Hoffman stopped in front of him.

  It was hard to tell who looked worse and more distraught, Hoffman or Anya. Dom saluted. It was a very formal day today.

  “Where is everybody, sir?” He wanted Hoffman to look him in the eye. “Is this all being hushed up?”

  Hoffman gave Anya a sideways glance. She fiddled with her jacket, picking off imaginary lint.

  “Look, you can tell me stuff without … prejudicing the hearing, can’t you?” That was the right phrase, Dom was sure of it. “I mean, I know I can’t talk to Marcus, but this isn’t … Goddamn it, sir, I expected you to level with me, after all this time.”

  Hoffman looked up at the ceiling for a moment. It was his embarrassment gesture, not impatience. He really didn’t know how to deal with this any more than Dom did. Dom could see it. But he still didn’t believe it.

  “I didn’t want this, Dom,” Hoffman said. “But once it happened, it acquired a life of its own. And it isn’t going to end happily. I’m sorry.”

  They were very plain, low-key words, but they shocked Dom to his gut. He’d never heard Hoffman talk like that before, and they’d been in some pretty damn harsh spots over the years. Hoffman walked away in the direction of the men’s washroom, very deliberate, leaving Dom with Anya.

  “Okay, Anya, you tell me, then,” Dom whispered. “No evidence stuff. Just tell me. I know I can’t talk to him yet, but what has he said to you?”

  Anya chewed her lip for a moment, then braced her shoulders.

  “I kept asking, but he refused to see me anyway.”

  “What? Oh, you’re a witness. Yeah. Sorry.”

  “No, he won’t talk to me at all. He won’t even say why.” She reached out and caught Dom’s hand, squeezing it. It felt desperate. “He’s pleading guilty. There’s no evidence to give.”

  Guilty? Shit, that was insane. “But he didn’t do it. Not Marcus.”

  “He did, Dom. He did.” Anya’s brow creased for a second. She looked like she’d run out of tears. “You know he did. I was there. I saw it, and he was someone I didn’t know. Don’t you believe me?”

  Dom realized he’d been clinging to a complete fantasy for weeks, some stupid childlike idea that all this was a misunderstanding and Hoffman or Anya would come up with a sensible explanation that the Judge Advocate would accept, and Marcus would just get busted down to corporal.

  But this was real. Marcus was going to face a firing squad. He’d made sure of that by entering a guilty plea.

  “And we’re just going to let him die?”

  “No, we’re going to think of something, Dom. I swear it.”

  “I’m not taking it. I’m not. And he kept us out of it.”

  “You didn’t know what he was doing, did you?”

  Dom felt guilty for even admitting he didn’t. It felt like he was denying Marcus. “No. But I don’t know if I would have stopped him if I had.”

  They fell silent. It was so quiet in the corridor that Dom heard the toilet flush. Hoffman came out of the washroom a few minutes later. There was nothing they could do but wait, although Dom now had no idea what they were waiting for if all the court had to do was pass the only sentence on the statute books that military law allowed.

  They won’t carry it out right away. I can ask to see Prescott. Dom’s mind was racing. Who are they going to get to volunteer for a firing squad anyway? No Gear would want to shoot Marcus.

  He looked at his palms, wet with sweat. He couldn’t meet Hoffman’s eye and now he couldn’t look at Anya. When the double doors swung open and a woman lieutenant came out, he was expecting Hoffman to be called in, but she beckoned to Dom instead.

  She was a redhead and she had one arm. Dom was completely thrown by
that. Why he was surprised that disabled Gears did admin jobs he had no idea. It was just that she was a woman, and it seemed especially tragic for no sensible reason.

  “Private Santiago?” she said. He was the only grunt there. “The President of the Board’s about to pass sentence. This is when you get to give evidence of character. Come with me. Come to attention at the lectern, salute, repeat the oath, and make your statement when asked to do so.”

  All Dom could see when he walked in was the lectern, the kind everyone used for briefings, nothing special or grand or ceremonial. Then he took in the rest. The room looked like a school gymnasium that needed a coat of paint. The board—the three officers who were judge and jury—were just sitting at a plain table at the end of the room with a civilian clerk almost taking cover behind a pile of blue, leather-bound books. There were two more tables on each side at right angles facing one another. Marcus—no do-rag, no armor, in his number two uniform that really didn’t fall right on him—sat on the left hand side with a pilot officer Dom didn’t even recognize, presumably his appointed counsel. To the right, a captain with an artillery flash was taking a great interest in the surface of his table. If he was the prosecution, he hadn’t had a lot to do.

  Is this it? They decide on a man’s life in a scruffy place like this, just these guys, nobody to watch or check on them? God Almighty.

  Dom did as ordered and saluted. “Sir, Private Dominic Santiago, 26th Royal Tyran Infantry.”

  The board president, a NCOG commander, looked awkward. It probably wasn’t every day that he got to sentence a Gear with an Embry Star to death, and at least he had the grace to look unhappy about it. It was just a damn formality. Dom was still going to give it everything he had.

  “Private Santiago, do you swear to answer truthfully all questions put to you, to conceal no material facts, and to accept responsibility for the consequences of your intervention?”

  It was the COG tribunal oath. “I so swear, sir,” Dom said.

  “Very well, make your submission in support of Sergeant Marcus Michael Fenix.”

  Dom reached into his jacket for his notes, but stopped. No, he’d have his say. He never had been much good at speeches, but he was just great at explaining why Marcus was the finest human being he knew. What had he got to lose?

  “Sir, you know Sergeant Fenix’s service record,” he said. “He’s been frontline since he was old enough to enlist. He’s never pulled any crap about being rich or from a founding family, if you’ll pardon my language, sir, and he’s put his life on the line for us and for civvies more times than I can count. It suited you and the Chairman to use all the smart weapons Professor Fenix developed, so in a way Marcus was just trying to protect your top asset. Now, my brother Carlos was happy to die to save Marcus’s life, and so am I, in a heartbeat. Recognize what he’s done for the COG. Without him, we wouldn’t have the Hammer of Dawn, and half of us wouldn’t be here now. Maybe none of us. That’s all I’ve got to say, sir.”

  The room was horribly silent. Dom expected the panel to retire to consider the sentence, but they just sat there scribbling notes to one another. He stared straight ahead until he couldn’t take it any longer and had to glance at Marcus. For a second, no more, their eyes locked and Dom couldn’t read his expression at all. Marcus looked old and tired and beaten. He looked like he wanted out. That terrified Dom.

  Maybe he really had cracked up. Traumatic stress was waiting for all of them sooner or later.

  “Thank you, Private,” the commander said. It was almost as if he hadn’t been listening. “Given the evidence and the circumstances, we rule that the death penalty is inappropriate in this case and we sentence Sergeant Fenix to forty years in prison. This court is now adjourned.”

  No, that wasn’t what Dom was expecting at all. He looked at Marcus and for a second, the horror showed on his face. There was only one prison still running in Ephyra: the maximum security jail, Hesketh—the Slab.

  You wanted to die. Forty years in the Slab. That’s the same damn thing.

  I swore to accept responsibility for the consequences of my intervention. Oh God …

  Two military police walked in and escorted Marcus out the back door. He didn’t even look at Dom. The redheaded lieutenant ushered Dom through the main doors, but Hoffman and Anya weren’t waiting outside.

  He couldn’t leave it like this. “Don’t I even get to say goodbye to Sergeant Fenix, ma’am?” Dom asked.

  She gave him an embarrassed nod. That was the tone of the whole procedure: embarrassment. An Embry Star hero had lost it and betrayed the trust his comrades had put in him. There was no anger or disgust, just embarrassment. The COG was a strange, restrained animal in some ways.

  “You got the Embry Star too, didn’t you?” the lieutenant said. “For Aspho Point. Special forces.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Come on, then. This way.”

  Dom didn’t make a big thing of the medal, but right then he was glad it did the job. He followed her down the corridor and through a set of security doors to a door marked DETENTION AREA. She opened the door and gestured at him to go in. He could already see the thin yellow light of an old tungsten bulb and the shadow of bars on the tiled floor.

  “In you go,” she said. “Don’t hang about too long.”

  When Dom walked into the lobby, Marcus was staring at the cell floor, hands behind his back, boots a little way apart. He didn’t look up. Dom waited.

  “Hey, Marcus … I didn’t know they’d do that.”

  Marcus’s eyes were still fixed on the floor.

  “Look at me,” Dom said. He felt like shit. He’d never cope if Marcus turned on him. “Come on, look at me. Please. Don’t you want to see Anya? Goddamn it, Marcus, talk to me. What do I tell Anya? She wanted to see you. You can’t shut her out like that.”

  Marcus finally looked up. Dom had never seen that look on his face before. It was total defeat. His eyes were glassy. “Tell her to forget me and get on with her life.”

  “Oh, that’s bullshit. That’s total bullshit.”

  “I don’t want her to remember me like this. Both of you—just walk away. No visiting, no letters, nothing. Just go.”

  Marcus rarely talked about his feelings. Dom had always had to guess what he was thinking, and he’d gotten pretty good at it over the years. It broke his heart. “You can stop that shit right now, Marcus, because I’m going to get you out. They’ve already given you a lighter sentence. There’s more room for maneuver.”

  “Dom—”

  “I swear it, Marcus. I’ll get a lawyer. I’ll—”

  “Don’t. I’m guilty. I fucked up everything.”

  “Marcus, you can’t just give up.”

  “I can, and you better do the same.” He took a step forward toward the bars. “I’m dead, like I should have been a long time ago. So get out of here and just look after yourself. That’s all I want, Dom. I want you to be okay.”

  “How the hell can I be okay when you’re rotting in that shithole?”

  “Because I’m asking you to. Do it. And take care of Anya. Do it for me.”

  Marcus straightened up for a moment and stared into his face as if it was for the last time and he wanted to remember what Dom looked like. Then he turned his back and rapped on the cell door for the MP to take him away.

  “I’m not done, Marcus.”

  “Goodbye, Dom.”

  “You hear me? I’m going to get you out of there.”

  Keys rattled in the cell door. Marcus stood square on to it, arms held in front like he was waiting to offer them up to be cuffed. He looked back over his shoulder just once.

  “You and Carlos, Dom,” he said. “You were my family. That was the best of me.”

  The door opened just as someone put their hand on Dom’s shoulder. He turned. It was just the JAG lieutenant, the redhead, but by the time he turned around again the cell door was closing and Marcus was gone.

  “Oh, goddamn it, no—”

&nbs
p; “This way, Private,” the lieutenant said, as if he was an asshole for even talking to Marcus.

  “I can’t just leave it like that.”

  “You can, and you will.”

  Dom wanted to make her listen and tell her about every time that Marcus had risked his life for someone, or hadn’t given a shit about his own safety, or had plodded patiently around stinking Stranded camps in what little off-duty time he had to help Dom look for Maria. He wanted to remind her that Marcus had the money and connections to make sure he never had to serve at all, but he’d enlisted gladly and never once used his privilege. He wanted to tell her that he loved Marcus every bit as much as he’d loved his real brother Carlos. But there didn’t seem to be any point, because one fact was clear and concrete and completely inexplicable: Marcus had gone to rescue his father instead of doing his duty, and a lot of Gears had died because of that.

  Dom just started walking down the corridor, conscious of the loud click of unfamiliar leather parade boots on the parquet floor. It sounded a lot like the floors of Haldane Hall, and Haldane Hall was mostly rubble now.

  The cool air hit his face as he stepped outside the main doors and waited at the top of the steps, not even sure what he was doing. He heard footsteps behind him. He didn’t turn this time.

  “Dom,” Hoffman said. “Talk to me.”

  Being numb had its advantages. This was his CO, the man he’d looked up to since he was seventeen or eighteen, not some waste-of-space officer but a real fighting Gear who’d come up from the ranks and knew the score. Dom would have cheerfully died for Hoffman if he’d ordered it. Now he had no idea what to say and decided it didn’t matter what came out of his mouth next.

  What else could he have done? Seriously, what could he do, put Marcus on latrine duty for a month and tell him not to be a naughty boy again?