Gears of war, p.1
Gears of War, page 1
Contents
Cover
Gears of War novels from Titan Books:
Title Page
Leave us a review
Copyright
Dedication
Act 1
1: Road to the Stroud Estate
2: Stroud Estate
3: Shin Museum of Modern Culture
4: Shin Museum of Modern Culture
5: Shin Museum of Modern Culture
6: Stroud Estate
7: Ministry of Sanitation
8: Stroud Estate
9: People’s Market
10: Water Treatment Plant #101
11: Stroud Estate
12: Stroud Estate
Act 2
1: Stroud Estate
2: Highwater Auditorium
3: Resident Accommodation Camp #2709
4: Cougars’ Stadium
5: Db Industries Water Plant #01
6: Granite Gorge
7: Flores Family Cemetery
8: Ministry of Public Works
9: Harkness Ford
10: Manufacturing Center
Act 3
1: Haven Club
2: The Ministry of Sanitation
3: Razek Industrials
4: Watson Farm
5: The Ministry of Sanitation
6: Westbrook Town Hall, Conference Room 1
7: Ministry of Sanitation
8: Iron Hills Riparian Preserve
9: Stroud Estate
10: Iron Hills Riparian Preserve
11: Iron Hills Riparian Preserve
12: Stroud Estate
13: Resident Accommodation Camp #2709
14: Highwater Auditorium, Ministry of Sanitation
15: Highwater Auditorium, Ministry of Sanitation
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Gears of War novels from Titan Books:
Gears of War: Ascendance by Jason M. Hough
Gears of War: Bloodlines by Jason M. Hough
Gears of War: Ephyra Rising by Michael A. Stackpole
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GEARS OF WAR: EPHYRA RISING
Print edition ISBN: 9781789095807
E-book edition ISBN: 9781789095814
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark St, London, SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First edition: November 2021
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Editorial Consultants:
Bonnie Jean Mah, Matt Searcy
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
© 2021 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Gears of War, The Coalition, Marcus Fenix, and the Crimson Omen logo are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
To the memory of Paul Garabedian, a wise man
and a great friend. Gone much too soon.
ACT 1
1: ROAD TO THE STROUD ESTATE
NEAR EPHYRA, SERA
11 HARVEST 18 A.E. (AFTER EMERGENCE)
“Why, Marcus Fenix, I do believe you are smiling.”
Marcus wasn’t sure what was more unsettling: the note of surprise in Anya’s voice, or the fact that he actually was smiling. He shifted his rucksack, giving himself a couple of seconds to consider her words, then he nodded. “I guess I am at that. Kind of scary, huh?”
Anya Stroud, walking beside him on a thin strip of paved road, reached out and caressed his cheek. “I like it, and will get used to seeing that smile. You’ve definitely earned it.”
“A lot of us did. Earned the right to it.” Marcus fought to keep the smile alive. But so many will never smile again. So many. Too many. Dom. My father… He sought to push aside the darker feelings, and tried to distract himself by looking around, but that did not help overly much. The roadway west from Ephyra had ditches slashed through it as if something giant had raked it with claws. And while some grasses had turned golden with the coming of autumn, black swaths of burned vegetation twisted up and down hillsides. There wasn’t a single spot where his gaze could rest without seeing signs of the war.
No. I am not ruining today. Marcus reached up and took Anya’s hand in his. “Smiling is easier when I’m with you.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Marcus.” Anya returned his smile, her eyes bright. “I can’t tell you how happy I was when you radioed to say you’d reach Ephyra this morning.”
“I was actually in the suburbs when I radioed. There just wasn’t enough left for me to recognize where I was.” In the six months since the Imulsion Countermeasure had wiped out the Locust and the Lambent, the world had tried to heal itself. Grass and weeds grew again. A few trees actually blossomed and some had borne fruit. It wasn’t much of a harvest and never would have been considered bountiful, save that so many people had died that humanity didn’t have the hands necessary to harvest all that had grown wild.
While the natural world could heal, what man had wrought simply could not. The damage meted out to the works of humanity had dealt a near mortal wound to civilization. Marcus had traveled throughout the countryside. In some places, with isolated little farming communities, life that would have seemed normal for his grandparents still existed. In other places refugees clawed out a Stone-Age existence. And then perhaps twenty-five miles on, a single building might stand untouched in a town, complete with electricity and the other amenities that had once been normal.
Back when I was a kid. Even just back before Emergence Day.
He glanced at her. “How bad has it been in Ephyra? I know you’ve been helping Colonel Hoffman get us all squared away, but that can’t have been as easy as you made it sound on the radio.”
She shrugged. “Took a bit of getting used to, becoming an XO again instead of a Gear.”
“Once a Gear, always a Gear, Anya.” Marcus shook his head. “You were a Gear even before you stepped into the field. That’s why I always trusted you. I could always count on you. We all did.”
“And you always did the heavy lifting.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Well, in the three months since I headed back to Ephyra, Colonel Hoffman and I shifted from trying to help what was left of the COG army to just generally helping people. So many people feel abandoned and want to get back home—just to see if they have a home. We surveyed some blocks in the city, marked off the unsafe buildings, but people are alone and afraid of each other. Some of them seem…”
“Feral?”
“Yeah.”
“I know.” Marcus had been traveling widely in the last six months, helping Gears return home. Some communities welcomed their returning soldiers and began organizing local militias around them. In other places the people feared the Gears, afraid they’d summon the Hammer of Dawn and burn their settlements out of existence. Some people resented the Gears for having survived while their kith and kin had not.
And some people seemed to be ghosts, their spirits slain by the war, and their bodies just waiting to catch up.
“Colonel Hoffman was lucky to have you. Can’t tell you all the times I wished you were still with me.”
“I’m here now, Marcus. We’re here.”
His smile returned. “You sure about this?”
“Us? Completely.” She glanced off toward the west. “Laying claim to my family’s estate, mixed feelings. I never truly felt welcome there before. But with so much destroyed, it’s as if the Locust took a meat cleaver and severed us from our past. I’m hoping that by reestablishing a link to my past, we can remember who we were, and who we ought to be.”
“I get you. I like the thinking.” Marcus had lost so much. So many friends. Men he considered brothers. And my father. Twice.
“Are you okay with it? Coming to my family’s home?”
“For me, it’s your home. My home is any place you are. And you know, after so much tearing down, I like the idea of building something back up.”
They rounded a corner on the road and descended into a ravine through which a small stream ran sluggishly. The bridge over it had lost a chunk of pavement between spans, but local residents had laid planking down so pedestrians and vehicles could still pass. A small group of people were gathered at the bridge’s far end, huddling together and looking off toward a small house further across a field.
The eldest adult—an older woman wearing an apron over a patched and worn dress—eyed the two of them suspiciously. “We didn’t send word for you.”
Anya offered the woman a smile. “We were just walking down the road. My family owns a place a bit further west.”
The older woman looked her up and down. “Lived here all my life and I’ve never seen the likes of you before.”
“I’m Anya Stroud.”
The woman gave her the once-over again. “You Helena’s girl?”
“Yes.”
“I never much liked your mother.” The older woman frowned. “The estate’s still there. No one living in it. We respect the way it was, no matter the changes and trouble.”
Marcus cleared his throat. “What’s the trouble here?”
Another woman, who Marcus took to be the angry woman’s daughter or granddaughter, lifted a hand from a girl’s shoulder and pointed at the distant farmhouse. “We told our Daisy here to stay away from that place, but she didn’t listen. Said she got a fright there, and it’s Locust. I know it is.” The woman began to shake and the little girl started to cry.
The older woman smacked her daughter across the arm with a backhanded slap. “Hush. You don’t know nothing.”
“Ma’am, the fact that Daisy was able to tell you about it means it’s not Locust.” Anya’s voice came calmly and gently. “The Locust are all dead. They’re not a threat anymore.”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Know that for a fact, do you, Anya Stroud? You put a bullet in every one of their skulls?”
Marcus dropped his duffle bag, opened it, and pulled out his armor. “We’ll take a look.”
The younger woman stared at him wide-eyed. “You can’t. It’ll kill you.”
Anya opened her duffle and pulled out a couple of spare clips for the Snub pistol riding high on her right hip. “We’ll look. The Strouds understand their duties.”
They closed up their duffels, shouldered them and started down a narrow footpath that paralleled the stream. Marcus waited until he was pretty sure they were out of earshot of the bridge before he looked back at her. “So what exactly are the duties of being a Stroud?”
Anya laughed lightly. “The estate employed a lot of people and while my grandfather could be an unfeeling tyrant with his own family, he liked to bestow favors on the surrounding folks, when they needed something. Ego-based philanthropy is what my mother used to call it. Kid gets lost, we beat the bushes. A barn burns down, we supply wood and manpower. I guess now that includes hunting down Locust.”
“People afraid of their own shadows.”
“Can’t blame them, can we? Six months of peace doesn’t erase sixteen years of terror.”
“True.” Marcus followed the path as it cut upslope toward the small house. “I see no signs of Locust.”
“No, and the house appears to be in good shape.” They both dropped to a crouch and shed their gear amid the long, golden grasses. “Make a circuit.”
“It’s a plan.” Keeping his head low, Marcus advanced, heading toward the left of the house, between it and the ravine. The grasses showed no obvious signs of anyone passing, including Daisy. Aside from weathering, peeling paint and some dry rot, the house appeared intact. So far, so good.
As they came around the side to the back of the house, Marcus paused. A pair of external doors covered a stairway into the basement. Someone had bent one door back at the corner, but braces appeared to have been set in place from below, holding everything shut up tight. The would-be thieves had given up and he didn’t see any indication that Locust had done the damage.
They approached the stairway and listened. He thought he heard something, but couldn’t make out what it was. Marcus kept his pistol on the opening and signaled for Anya to pass behind him. She got to the furthest corner, glanced around it, then signaled him forward.
The far side of the house had a door that someone had pried open, splintering the doorjamb in the process. The door opened into the kitchen, where lots of the floor tiles had come up because of the rain and snow that had obviously poured in. Marcus saw signs of where modern appliances might once have stood, but they’d all been ripped out for salvage. A few pieces of furniture remained and the living room and area around the fireplace suggested that, at least for a short while, people had squatted there.
Anya found the door to the basement and opened it. She held a fist up for Marcus, then listened at the top of the stairs. She tapped her ear, then pointed down below. Marcus advanced quietly and listened.
He definitely heard something. Something was down in the basement, moving around, jostling things. And a steady, low thrum vibrated below the other sounds, akin to a tiny engine that was somehow muffled. I don’t know what that is, but it isn’t a Locust.
Marcus slid down on his belly and flicked on the light at the shoulder of his armor. He pulled himself to the head of the stairs, his own Snub pistol in his right hand. His mouth went dry and his pulse pounded in his ears. Just because all the Locust are dead doesn’t mean that what’s down there can’t hurt you.
He started down the stairs head-first, descending cautiously one step at a time. The rickety wooden staircase creaked, which increased the sound from below and added a couple of whip cracks and hisses. Marcus looked down between the treads and his light flashed back at him from nearly a dozen golden dots. As he stared, some of the dots winked out, then others glowed to life a couple of feet away.
“What do you see, Marcus?”
He eased himself down about five inches and shifted slightly to redirect the light.
“Not Locust.” Marcus pulled his knees in and twisted around so he sat about a third of the way down the stairs. He looked back at her and laughed. “It’s a family of raccoons. They’re not happy about our invading their homestead.”
Anya slid her pistol back into its holster. “Think they’re going to believe it when we tell them it’s not Locust?”
Marcus tromped back up the stairs to a cacophony of growls and hisses. “The relief on our faces ought to be enough to convince them.” He holstered his pistol, shut off the light, then pulled her into a hug. “I have missed you so much.”
“Oh, Marcus, me, too.” She clung to him and he relished the scent of her, the way her hair brushed against his cheek. “It felt good to be back in the field, even if it was only raccoons.”
He pulled back. “They’re pretty fierce raccoons. They probably killed any Locust that got in there.”
“That was actually a joke. I could come to like this peacetime Marcus Fenix.”
“I sure as hell hope so.” He took her hand in his and led her from the building. He took a deep breath as the pulsing in his ears subsided, and they recovered their gear on the way back to the bridge.
The old woman glared. “Didn’t hear no shooting.”
Anya shook her head. “No Locust.”
The little girl clung to her mother’s leg. “But I heard it.”
“What Daisy heard was a family of raccoons in the basement.” Anya opened her hands. “As I mentioned before, there are no more Locust.”
The older woman’s eyes became slits. “Raccoons, you say.”
Marcus nodded. “Eight to a dozen.”
“Good.” The old woman looked toward the house. “Make good eating if you brine ’em long enough. Winter’s coming, maybe get a cap or two out of the skins.”
“Good hunting, then.” Anya gave them a warm smile. “I enjoyed meeting you.”
The old woman nodded. “I guess you are a Stroud after all, and you do know the old ways. Welcome home, Anya Stroud.”
Anya and Marcus walked away from the bridge in silence, each lost in their thoughts. Marcus couldn’t recall when he’d last met anyone with that sort of hard-bitten attitude and determination. Aaron Griffin, maybe? Most of the people he’d dealt with were terrified or shell-shocked or Gears who understood more about the war than anyone else. Most of the civilians wanted to survive, but that woman had had a plan. That’s how she made it through the last fifteen years.
A couple of miles further on they crested a hill and looked down toward the Stroud Estate. “There it is, Marcus, the family pile.”
He scratched at the back of his head. “It has seen better days, but at least some of it is still standing.”
“Yeah. The wings are gone, but the core building, the heart, it’s still there.” She reached out and took his hand in hers. “Lots to rebuild.”
