Karen Traviss - Gears of War: Anvil Gate

MAIN MESS BAR, VECTES NAVAL BASE, NEW JACINTOCAPITAL OF THE COALITION OF ORDERED GOVERNMENTS. DATE: LAST WEEK OF BRUME, 14 A.E.

Im not a people person. But you probably guessed that already. And no, I dont want you to buy me a beer.

If you think theres some nice guy inside me trying to get out if only someone would give me a chanceforget it. But then youre dumb, like 99 percent of human beings. You cant help it.

Come on, Baird. Dont be an antisocial dick al your life. Take a day off. Her names Sam Byrne; al mouth, leather, and tattoos, and about my age

so shes old enough to know better. She slams a brimming shot glass on the bar and shoves it at me. Mul ers teaching us to play navy chess.

Oh, thats so exciting. I think I just wet my pants.

Sam waits a beat and then snatches the glass away. If its Dizzys moonshine, shes doing me a favor. Fuck you, then, she says, and stalks off.

I need to cultivate that Marcus Fenix thing. He can sit at a bar on his own al night and no asshole goes near him. But then hes Fenix. Its not just the Embry Star war-hero vibe. Its something else. Its like the guys got warning buoys around him, even though nobodys ever seen him real y lose his shit with anything except grubs.

Even morons stil have some survival instincts, I suppose.

Shit, I wish someone would turn off that frigging TV behind the bar. Listen to that asshole yakking on about the future and the chance to build something better. What fucking future? We havent got homes or running water for most of the refugees yet, but whoopee, we got a TV channel on air.

Actual y, its just radio with stil shots. Everyones got a radio. Theres a few TVs in the communal areas, and the civvies here think thats terrific. A boon.

An improvement. Wel , hoo-fucking-rah.

Dumb people are lucky. I envy them.

I mean it. Ignorance real y is bliss. The problem with being in the top 1 percentyeah, I am, does it make you squirm because I say it?is that you understand just how badly fucked the world is. And its not getting any better. Its just changing. But any shit looks better to most folk as long as its different.

Nice new media channel for the people. You think? Wel , Chairman Prescott needs a way to feed al the dumb bastards his propaganda. And keep the frigging journos busy so they dont actual y do any real reporting, of course. And you think we should celebrate because the grubs are gone and we can start over? No, we just replaced the Locust with a new kind of two-legged verminStranded crime gangs. Weve bombed the world back to the last century and sunk our own damn city, so now weve got no manufacturing, no infrastructure, and no way to rebuild the rest of Sera.

But Prescott says its al going to be fine because weve got shitloads of fuel thanks to Gorasnaya. Flip that coin, though, and the other side is taking in four thousand ungrateful Indie bastards who were stil technical y at war with us until a couple of months ago.

Look, I could go on forever. But even a dumbass like you gets the idea by now. Right?

A big, heavy hand slaps me on the shoulder and grips it like a vise. Its Cole. Most people would be more use as pet food, but Coles not one of them.

I just dont get why such a smart guy is so happy al the time.

Baby, you want a Cole Train charm lesson? He leans over and whispers loudly in my ear. Youre never gonna get any action if you treat the ladies like that. Not even sheep ladies.

That was Sam. The bitch always wants to arm-wrestle, out-drink you, or out-swear the boys. Not ladies.

Come on. You know Bernie wants you to spawn plenty of blond surly know-al grandkids for her.

Cole can get away with that. For some reason, he never pisses me off. Yeah? She better place her bets on Dom, then.

He sighs under his breath, for real, not his Cole Train act. I think shes gonna have a long wait.

Doms a mess. I dont expect a guy to shrug off having to blow his wifes brains out, but he started mourning and making her into a saint ten years ago when she first went missing. If he didnt move on then, whats going to shift him now? Look, hes not stupid. I stick with Delta Squad because theyve al got opposable thumbs and IQs in the three-figure range. But that doesnt mean theyre al sane.

So me and Cole sit at the bar and drink in silence. Sams enjoying her navy chess at ful volume. I dont want to spend too long looking in case they think I give a shit, but if I just turn a little I can see ful shot glasses on the board instead of chessmenmoonshine for the white pieces, rum for the black ones. Oh, I get it. ThereMul ers taken one of Sams pieces, so he downs the shot in one. So how do they know what kind of piece it is?

See, this is what I mean about dumb people. Thats not chess. Its checkers. But theyl be too shit-faced to care by the time theyve finished.

The mess doors open. Someone cheers. The barracking starts. Its a dog!

Another smart-ass chimes in. Dont talk about Sergeant Mataki like that. The words bitch.

Thats as far as the jeering goes. Bernie Mataki just gives them that look, like she thinks theyre cute little boys of no real importance, which always works better than Sams shot-slamming. Dont think Ive changed my views on letting women serve frontlinebad idea, bad, bad ideabut Bernie can shut the guys up. Maybe its because shes old and eats cats. Maybe its her service record. And it just might be because everyone knows she cut off some guys bal s. But she real y does have a dog on a leash, a big, wild-looking thing with a wiry gray coat, thirty kilos at least.

Isnt he a beaut? She rubs his ears and he looks up at her with big brown puppy eyes, just like frigging Hoffman. The whole bar stops to ooh and ahh like theyve never seen a dog before. Meet Mac. He hunts Stranded. Ive borrowed him for a while.

Does he do tricks? Cole asks.

Bernie walks the mutt over to me. This things head is level with her hip. It looks like a wolf thats had a bad hair day. Mac, this is Blondie. No humping his leg, okay? No, Im talking to you, Baird.

If I react Il only encourage her. Does your pedigree asshole-hound know you eat pets, Granny?

Just cats. Hes fine with that. Arent you, fel a?

Nice doggie, Cole says. Youre gonna save us a lot of time.

Come on. Lets go walkies. Bernie could put a saddle on that damn dog and ride it. I hope its okay around helicopters. If we cant flush out those Stranded bastards, lets see what dogs can do. Time we found out where these tossers are holed up.

Can we cal em gangs or somethin, Boomer Lady? Cole asks. On account of most Stranded bein like Dizzy. Harmless. Nice, even.

Navy chess doesnt do a thing for me. But hunting assholes now thats a sport a guy can take some pride in. Yeah, Coles got a point. This is a whole new species of Stranded. Not the parasitic bum varietythis is organized crime, piracy, rape, murder. Dont give me any of that bleeding-heart crap about how weve al got to stick together now that were trying to rebuild human civilization. Theres never been a better time than this to put out the trash.

Okay, cal em vermin, I say. And I vote that Mac gets to keep the chewy bits.

Anyone outside the curfew zones with no business being there is fair game. Right?

Dont look at me like that. You dont know what its been like for the last fifteen years. I dont regret a damn thing, except not doing some of it sooner.

What are youmy frigging mother?

NAVAL BASE VECTES

NONCITIZEN INCIDENT LOG SUMMARY

THAW 1 TO BRUME 35, 14 A.E., INCLUSIVE.

Attacks on property: 35

Attacks on civilians: 20

Casualties, civilian: 15 injured, 6 dead.

Casualties, COG personnel: 18 injured, no fatalities.