Gears of War: Ephyra Rising E-Book

Michael A. Stackpole

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

An original Gears of War novel, exclusively detailing the aftermath of the Locust War written by New York Times bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole.The Locust War has ended with an energy weapon that pulsed across the land, destroying Locust and Lambent alike. The world is in shambles and the few survivors are isolated from one another. Humanity must begin anew. This novel reveals the canonical, never-before-seen events set in the time immediately following the game Gears of War 3.With most of Sera's civilization destroyed, Sergeant Marcus Fenix and Lieutenant Anya Stroud must somehow rebuild on the ruins. For Marcus, his purpose is impossible to grasp. With no clear enemy to fight, there may be no place left for him in this postwar world. Some call him hero, others view him with resentment.As Anya struggles to create alliances to re-form the Coalition of Ordered Governments, she quickly discovers how impossible it is to tell friend from foe. Then whispers of Locust still stalking the land begin to spread. Fearing the worst, Marcus forms a team to assess the potential threat. As he and the other Gears search for Locust survivors, however, they quickly discover that the new enemy may be all-too-human, and utterly ruthless.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Gears of War novels from Titan Books:

Title Page

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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 manand 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.”

“Yep, but that’s okay.” Marcus raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “This is where our tomorrow is. We’ll build it brick by brick, so we can make it exactly what we want it to be.”

2: STROUD ESTATE

NEAR EPHYRA, SERA

11 HARVEST 18 A.E.

Marcus leaned on the shovel and used his left forearm to wipe sweat from his brow. Anya had departed early for Ephyra to tie up a few loose ends of the work she’d been doing with Colonel Hoffman. They’d been poring through lists of equipment caches that the COG military had hidden over the last fifty years, hoping to organize an effort to track them down and salvage any they could find. Anya didn’t expect finalizing the list to take that long and planned to be back by nightfall.

He’d spent the morning making a quick survey of the immediate grounds, happy to have his heavy Gear boots to crunch through rubble. Destruction on the estate appeared more random than systematic, and he didn’t see any signs of squatters or looters in what was left of the main building or the carriage house. I guess the old woman wasn’t lying.

He paid special attention to the greenhouse at the far end of the garden. Slightly more than half of the glass panes had escaped destruction, which struck him as remarkable. In his experience, glass seemed to have a magnetic quality as far as bullets were concerned. He didn’t see any signs of a fight around it, suggesting that a Locust had blundered in and then bashed its way back out again.

The scattered gardening books and little brass plaques on planter beds suggested that the greenhouse had once housed a variety of orchids, which seemed completely in keeping with the people the Strouds had been. Anya hadn’t said much about her mother’s family, other than the fact that they became distant when Helena joined the armed forces, and had not warmed up to Anya when her mother died in the service.

Marcus had seen people like that his entire career. They had no idea what it took to be in the trenches, fighting to keep them safe. They thought soldiers were all dumb grunts or murder-minded individuals who got off on watching others die. Such people had little connection to the practical world.

For them, growing a flower that is only ornamental is an art, while growing something practical, like tomatoes, is beneath them. They don’t understand why we fight, or that they’re just like their orchids.

He’d checked the carriage house to see if the storeroom there had any extra glass panes lying around. It didn’t, but the windows on the ground floor had panes the same size as those in the greenhouse. He also found a dogcart, and a larger one meant to be drawn by a horse. At first glance he thought they were quaint antiques, but they appeared to be sturdy and, if he could find such animals, likely the best way to get around.

That prompted him to check the other outbuildings. To the north lay the stable and barn, at the base of a terraced hillside. The Strouds had raised grapes and made their own wine. Marcus walked straight across fields tangled with waist-high grasses, broken up by gray slashes where Locust had gouged scars through the earth. He saw no animals in the corral as he approached, but the fencing had gone down in a couple of places, so any livestock would have been able to roam free. As he drew closer, everything became preternaturally quiet.

He dropped to a knee about two hundred yards out.

Idiot, are you trying to get yourself killed? In his fatigues he’d made himself a big, beautiful target as he walked down. You don’t have a gun, you don’t have a knife. You’re losing it. Sharpen up, Fenix.

In an instant the bucolic scene of grasses dancing in a light breeze became a battlescape, with enemies lurking in the shadows. He advanced, staying low, moving to put an old tree between him and the stables. Remaining in a crouch, he dashed to the tree, then squatted at its base. He peeked out around the side, but saw nothing. Slowing his breathing, he stood with his back to the trunk, then glanced out from the other side.

Nothing. Twenty-five yards to the stable. Relatively flat terrain. I can cross that distance in no time. Another glance. Is the grass hiding a mine?

Something thumped inside the stable. Someone jumping down from the loft? He strained his ears, but heard no repeat. His blood pounded in his skull, so he took a moment to slow his breathing, then nodded to himself. To the corner, then the door. Go!

He cut around the tree, head down, arms and legs pumping. Two steps left, then hard right for three, left again, then bursting forward. Boots crunched gravel on a stretch of track the grasses had hidden, then he was into the stable yard. Marcus reached the corner of the stable, glanced down the building’s long side, then cut left and ducked in through the open doors.

The stench hit him immediately. Someone had died in there, and not too long ago. He looked around, then snatched a pitchfork from a wall rack. Holding it out and wishing it was a Lancer, he advanced deeper into the building’s cool interior. He inspected each stall as he worked his way forward and there, on the left side, third one down, he found the bodies.

The child had died first. Couldn’t have been more than six months old. His mom had wrapped him up in a blanket and placed a knitted cap on his head. She’d laid the child in a nest of hay. Then she’d taken a pair of overalls, fashioned a noose, and hanged herself right there beside her child.

Marcus slid to the ground on the other side of the stall, staring at them. He’d seen death a million times in his life. He’d dealt death. It had always seen tragic, but this case… The child, given his age, had to have been born so very close to when Delta put an end to the Lambent Pandemic. The mother had gotten pregnant at a horrible time. She had carried the child to term, and given birth, in what could have been the last days of mankind. And then she had struggled on. She found the stables, and her child had died. Out of grief she killed herself. She had died all alone, her hope having perished with her child.

Anya and I had just returned to the main house. Had she looked out, had she looked up, she could have seen light, couldn’t she? Why didn’t she? Why did she surrender when we would have helped her? Marcus’ hands balled into fists.

We could have saved her. Why didn’t she keep on fighting?

*   *   *

He sat there with them for a while, then walked back up to the main house. Belting on his pistol, he tucked a knife in his boot. He grabbed a shovel from the greenhouse and returned to the stable. Finding a spot at the base of the hill, he began digging. It wasn’t the first grave he’d dug, but seemed to take a lot longer than any of the others.

Returning to the stable he looked for canvas or something he could use to wrap the bodies. His search took him into the loft, and there he found a space where someone had been living. A loose shutter on a loft window had been what made the original thumping sound that attracted him. The half-open window provided enough breeze to rid the loft of the stench of death.

Marcus gathered up a worn blanket, then searched through the other stuff, hoping there might be a photo or letter or something to tell him who they were. He found nothing that would let him pin a name on them, but he got the impression the mother and child had not been alone. The space that had been cleared out was larger than the two of them needed, and the window had been pried open, but Marcus couldn’t find the pry bar that had done the job.

The scenario unfolded in his mind easily enough.

They’d been traveling together as a small family. The baby got sick, but they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t have any medicine. Then the child’s mother, maybe she got sick, too. Their traveling companion said he was going to go find help or medicine. He’d be back real soon. And then he just disappeared.

Her hope turns into despair. Then her child, her reason for living, dies.

He cut the woman down, laid the child in her arms, then dragged them to the grave. He eased them down into it, pulling the blanket up and around them both. He started filling the grave at her feet, working his way up, the whole time hoping she’d make a sound. She’d push the dirt away. She’d find hope again and fight against death.

He dropped the last shovelful of earth on top of the mound and tamped it down with the flat of the shovel. A good winter rain and that will settle. Next spring no one will know it’s here. Green grasses will grow up and the memory of them will evaporate.

Marcus shook the sweat off his forearms. He knew he should say some words, something comforting, but he had nothing. Words like that had gone, same as Dom. His grief, his ability to be of comfort, he’d lost them somewhere out there. These people he’d buried, they’d loved each other. Someone had to love them, would miss them. And Marcus had fought for them. He’d sacrificed for them, sacrificed so they could live and, despite that, they hadn’t.

Marcus bent forward, forearms leaning on the shovel’s handle. His chest tightened and his heart began to pound again.

Is that the joke? We fought so hard, Dom died, my father died, so people could live—and it turns out that they don’t have the will for it? That whoever abandoned her and the child could just walk away and leave them to die. What is wrong with people?

Something crunched behind him. Marcus spun, shovel raised, ready to see some wretch of a man crawling back to where he’d abandoned his wife and child. In a heartbeat Marcus would have happily crushed his skull.

At the sight of a large, angry man, the ground squirrel turned and dashed away through the grasses.

Marcus exhaled, his breath ragged, and sank to his knees. He leaned forward and wanted to howl and scream and rage, but choked all of those things down. No! You will hold it together. You’ve been through the worst of it. No more. You didn’t fall apart when the pressure was on, you’re not doing it now.

He slowed his breathing down and closed his eyes. He concentrated on the rustling of the grasses. He felt the breeze drying his sweat and heard the clumsy return of the ground squirrel, the flicking flutter of dragonfly wings as the insect whizzed past and then disappeared as another breeze teased the grasses.

He stayed there—for how long he wasn’t certain—then he levered himself to his feet with the shovel. Marcus stared down at the grave, and exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you in life. I would have helped.”

He shouldered the shovel and began the long walk back up to the main house.

*   *   *

That evening Marcus smiled as Anya alighted from a long, low-slung limousine. She emerged from the back compartment hauling two black garment bags. She spoke with the driver, who tossed her a quick salute. Marcus remained in the doorway while Anya waited for the vehicle to turn around, and she waved as it headed down the long drive to the main road.

Her long legs ate up the distance between them.

Marcus smiled. “I see Colonel Hoffman has some priorities straightened out. New uniforms?”

“Not exactly. It’s been a weird day.”

“You, too, huh?” He enfolded her in his arms and hugged her tightly. “I am so glad you’re here.”

“Oh, Marcus, me, too. I’m sorry I’m so late. We actually finished compiling the list early, then people arrived from the Shin Museum of Modern Culture.”

“Is there actually any Modern Culture left on Sera?”

Anya laughed. “A little, maybe. I have two scraps here.”

“I can’t wait to hear, but first, I’ve actually cooked.”

“Oh my.”

He took her hand in his. “Come on.” He led her inside to the kitchen, where he’d cleared out a small area and set up a table made of a door and legs he’d fashioned out of debris, then nailed on. He’d found mismatched plates and silverware, and two identical wine glasses. “I couldn’t find a corkscrew, so I had to take the neck off the bottle.”

She hung the garment bags on a nail in the wall. “Oh, Marcus. You even found flowers.”

“Nasturtiums. They were growing wild, but I found a book in the greenhouse that identified them.” He crossed to the oven and pulled out two bowls filled with steaming food, then sprinkled some orange nasturtium petals over them. “They’re also edible.”

Anya arched an eyebrow. “But the food looks like you found some old ration packets.”

“Yeah, and these date from the Pendulum Wars. Your grandfather, or his father, stashed a bunch down in the wine cellar.”

“There’s a wine cellar?”

“Two.” Marcus set the bowls on the table. “Over in the west wing, in what was a big dining room, there was access down to one wine cellar. People have gotten in there and pretty much cleaned it out. What’s left is mostly vinegar. But over in the east wing, in what was his study, there was a panel behind bookcases. Someone had found it, but didn’t have the tools to open it. I got curious. It was where your grandfather put the very best wine.”

Anya picked the bottle up and studied the label. “That would be, what, five B.E.?”

“A good year for your vineyard. As for the food, well, when we can grow our own, things will be better. There’s some game out there, too.”

Anya poured wine into the glasses. “Seems as if you had a most productive day.”

“It had its ups and downs.” Marcus stared at the dark wine. “There was a body… two bodies. They died in the stable.”

“Are you hurt?” She reached over and squeezed his hand.

He shook his head. “They weren’t… I didn’t have to kill them. Just folks who had built a home in the loft. Probably just passing through, but they just didn’t make it. I buried them.”

“Do you know who they were?”

“No, no sign. I think they might have been traveling with someone, but he’s long gone.” Marcus forced a smile and looked at her. “But you have to tell me about your day. Remember, today I was the house husband here. I live vicariously through you and your adventures.”

“Believe me, your day was far more exciting than mine.” Anya sighed. “As I said, we were doing accounting work, finished it up, then the museum folks arrived. They hauled me off to the museum and had me going through fashion archives.”

Marcus blinked. “Civilization has pancaked, and you’re being tasked with inventorying fashion archives?”

“Worse, Marcus, not inventory. They had me there for a fitting!”

“Anya, that’s really not making a lot more sense than inventory.”

“I know, and, you’ll love this: one bag is for me, and the other is a uniform for you!”

“I’m going to kill Hoffman.”

“I don’t think this is his doing, Marcus.” Anya quickly drained her glass of wine and reached for the bottle. “In the midst of all this, someone has decided to throw a reception in Ephyra. And, worse yet, they’ve decided that you and I have to attend.”

3: SHIN MUSEUM OF MODERN CULTURE

EPHYRA, SERA

15 HARVEST 18 A.E.

Marcus Fenix checked his six. The stone wall behind him looked solid enough for cover. The vast chamber had four exits—one at each of the cardinal points on the compass. He’d come in from the west and had a clear line of sight east and south. North would be the issue—people packed that quadrant.

“Do you read me, Marcus?”

The warm tones of Anya Stroud’s voice, the teasing trace of humor in her words, brought him back to reality. A reality.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

She smiled easily and stroked his left arm. “I know, you were drifting.”

“No, no, I’ll get better. I’ll focus.” He frowned, feeling one hundred percent naked without his body armor and the weight of a Mark 2 Lancer assault rifle slung over his back. He felt off-balance, and not only physically. He’d lost the weight of his combat kit, but the gravity of warfare still clung to him. “Seriously. Mission and objective, that’s me.”

“You didn’t toss in an ‘affirmative’ or ‘Roger,’ so we’ll take that as progress.” Anya shook her head, tucking a lock of blonde hair back behind her ear. “No one here is going to be shooting at you, Marcus.”

“You’ve had a little more time to get used to life without your shell.” Marcus rolled his shoulders to ease the tension. In the six months that had passed since they’d deployed his father’s invention to destroy the Lambent and Locust, Anya’s work had acquainted her more completely with the needs of the post-war world. Her communication, organizational and logistics skills, which had been vital during the fighting, counted for far more in the post-invasion world. Worth more than the ability to shoot straight. Which is fine. She’s done enough fighting. Saved my ass more times than I want to count. She’s earned her peace.

Marcus’ wind-down had focused more on getting his people to their homes and helping out where he could. Locating and disarming booby-traps, locating and recovering ordnance, helping the other Gears search for their families and setting up secure communities had filled his days. In some ways that work exhausted him more than the gory grind of blowing through a Locust E-hole.

At least, with the Locust and Lambent, we knew there would be an end, he thought. We had a goal. But now?

Now I guess this is the new world.

As he’d promised Anya, he focused. He looked around the vast room—not a chamber—at the assembled people. A couple hundred, he estimated, all wearing the finest clothes they could find. The kind they’d have worn to weddings or graduations, benefits or balls. Bright colors showed here and there, but more often somber, with many of the outfits ill-fitting, since few still had their wardrobes from a decade and a half previous. Much of the clothing had been salvaged and altered as best as possible.

The room had survived the wars better than Marcus could have imagined. The Shin Museum of Modern Culture had once been a gem of the modern world. They gathered in the main gallery, beneath a high-domed ceiling and checkerboard marble floor, with centuries-old paintings hung on the walls. The gallery had survived, but the museum’s wings had not. In preparation for arrivals that evening, crews had cleared narrow paths through the rubble for the guests.

That was one aspect of the fighting that always astounded Marcus. Whole neighborhoods could have been reduced to smoking rubble, with barely one brick left stacked atop another, yet a random building would stand there, pristine, as if anchoring the past so that men would be forced to acknowledge all the destruction they’d created. Marcus could sense no rhyme or reason for what got spared and what got obliterated.

I did a fair amount of the obliteration myself. That capriciousness of fate had scarred all of Sera, and all those who survived.

When they’d been invited to attend the reception, Jamila Shin—the most senior member of the family that had established the museum—had invited Anya to visit the museum ahead of time, where staff helped pick out a dress she could borrow for the evening. The building’s storage vaults, located deep beneath their feet, had contained the paintings on the walls and other cultural artifacts, including the clothes worn by some of the attendees.

Anya had chosen a green dress from the Pendulum Wars era, before she was born, and appeared radiant in it, despite the big taffeta bow at the small of her back.

Marcus, for his part, wore most of a dress uniform supplied by the museum. He’d added bits he obtained by trading with rag-pickers for the best they had. An older couple recognized his name and gave him a jacket more appropriately sized for him—saying the uniform had belonged to their son, who hadn’t made it back. They told him the son had spoken highly of Marcus, and his heart ached that he couldn’t even remember the young man’s name. The boots and belt—anything leather—required hard bargaining, but in the end he’d outfitted himself respectably, but without ostentation. He wore no medals or ribbons, and since the COG had collapsed, he wasn’t sure if such things still got manufactured, or even existed.

“That’s a new look for you, Fenix. The uniform, not the grim expression.”

Marcus recognized the gruff voice immediately and straightened up. “Yes, sir, Colonel. You, likewise.”