Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant

BY KAREN TRAVISS

STAR WARS:
REPUBLIC COMMANDO

Hard Contact

Triple Zero

True Colors

Order 66

STAR WARS:
501ST: AN IMPERIAL COMMANDO NOVEL

STAR WARS:
LEGACY OF THE FORCE

Bloodlines

Sacrifice

Revelation

STAR WARS:
THE CLONE WARS

The Clone Wars

No Prisoners

GEARS OF WAR

Aspho Fields

Jacinto’s Remnant

WESS’HAR WARS

City of Pearl

Crossing the Line

The World Before

Matriarch

Ally

Judge

For Alasdair Hogg
,

emergency planning chief without equal
,

who would have had Jacinto sorted

and squared away in no time
.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful thanks go to: Mike Capps, Rod Fergusson, Cliff Bleszinski, and everyone at Epic for creating a thing of perfect beauty; editor Tricia Narwani (Del Rey) for providing top cover; super-fixer Sue Moe (Del Rey) for manning the guns; Penny Arcade—Mike “Gabe” Krahulik and Jerry “Tycho” Holkins—for talking me into all this; and Jim Gilmer, for logistics support, above and beyond.

CONFIDENTIAL

FROM: HOFFMAN, COLONEL VICTOR S., 26 RTI

TO: SURVIVING REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COALITION OF

ORDERED GOVERNMENTS

RE: DECISION TO DESTROY JACINTO, 2ND DAY OF FROST, 14 A.E
.

I write this in full knowledge that this record may not survive, but if it does, then I wish our command decisions to be understood by any future generations.

At 1410 today, after the Locust began to mine tunnels beneath Jacinto to sink it, Chairman Richard Prescott authorized a preemptive plan to sink the city ourselves. This was designed not only to flood the Locust tunnels, but also to trap and destroy the Locust army that had infiltrated the center of Jacinto itself. A mass evacuation of citizens via land, air, and sea routes began an hour ago.

We believe there was no alternative. The Landown assault, in which we engaged the enemy within their own tunnels, resulted in major losses and failed to stop the Locust advance. Members of Delta Squad, under the command of Sergeant M. Fenix, E.S., located the Locust queen, and were made aware that the enemy also planned to create a sinkhole to destroy Jacinto. With insufficient forces to prevent this, we took the view that sinking and flooding the city ourselves, to trap the enemy and drown them within their tunnels, was our only option, and justified the destruction of our last stronghold.

We were unaware until Delta Squad penetrated the enemy command center that the Locust Horde is engaged on a second front underground with another faction of their species, which they call the Lambent and regard as a plague. The Locust plan to flood Jacinto themselves would have inundated their own positions, and seems to be as much aimed at destroying the Lambent as wiping out humankind. We do not yet fully understand the nature of that conflict, and may never do so.

We have been left with no option but to try to inflict maximum casualties on Locust forces so that a remnant of humanity can be saved to reconstruct our world. We have some certainty that they will never recover from this blow. Not only do they appear to think flooding will be effective in defeating the Lambent, but records have been found to indicate that the late Professor Adam Fenix believed that flooding would destroy the Locust threat itself. At this stage, we do not know the extent of our own losses; evacuation under these circumstances will inevitably result in high civilian casualties. But the alternative is the extinction of the human race. Chairman Richard Prescott and I are no strangers to this magnitude of decision. Fourteen years ago, we took the decision to deploy the Hammer of Dawn. I cannot speak for his private views, but as a soldier, I am fully aware of the deaths I have on my conscience, and I grieve for every man, woman, and child who has paid the price for my actions. If there had been any alternative, I would have fought to the end to take it. Sometimes you can save what you love most only by destroying it.

Again, we ask: please forgive us. It was the only way.

—Victor Hoffman, E.S.
,

Colonel, Chief of Defense Staff

of the Coalition of Ordered Governments

KING RAVEN KR-471, JACINTO AIRSPACE, MASS

EVACUATION OF THE CITY, WINTER, 14 A.E.

We’re fucked now. That’s for sure.

Just take a look down there. Boats, bodies, sea rushing in. Jacinto’s history, baby. I mean, this is
sick
. I’m standing here looking out the Raven’s door while it’s circling around like I’m on some weird sightseeing trip. That’s the Octus Tower going under—what’s left of it. All that water, but the place is still burning, stinking of smoke and fuel. Shit, it’s sinking. It’s just
sinking
. The whole goddamn city is
gone
. And we sunk it. Fifteen years fighting to save it, and we have to trash it ourselves in the end. But at least the grubs are drowning with it. They’re history, too. That’s
justice
.

Shit… I hate flying. I’m going to puke. But I can’t look away from the water. I can just about hear Lieutenant Stroud over the noise of the chopper. “Hey, Cole?”

Look at all the bodies in the water—humans, not grubs. Rescue boats didn’t get to everybody, then. How many folks in Jacinto? A few million. Even if we had a proper navy, we can’t ship out everyone. Glad I wasn’t the one deciding who got to live and who didn’t. Must be shitty for those navy guys. And look at that—a goddamn
yacht
heading out. Who the hell’s kept a big -ass yacht going since E -Day? Well, you better pick up some citizens on the way out, rich boy.

“Cole …” Anya Stroud’s been sitting behind me with a comms set on her lap. She has to yell to make herself heard. We got pretty well all that’s left of Command on board—Chairman Prescott, Colonel Hoffman, and Anya. She can’t raise anyone on the radio, and she’s sweating over it. So am I. “Cole, you think they made it?”

“Say again?”

“Marcus. Dom. Baird.”

“Ma’am, they ain’t the dying kind.” Sometimes I believe that. I want to believe it now, and so does Anya. And I want to believe Bernie made it—damn, Boomer Lady
hates
water. She’ll be real pissed off now. “They’re on another bird. Count on it.”

Anya nods like she heard me okay. Yeah, it’s all bullshit. I’ve lost so many buddies that I can’t sleep some nights for seeing their faces. But I’ve got to
believe
. If I stop believing, it’ll start catching. Soon everyone else stops believing, too. Team morale. That’s what counts, same in war as in thrashball.

“They’ll make it, Lieutenant,” Colonel Hoffman yells. He looks like he’s searching for someone, leaning from the safety rail, watching the city go down the crapper. “They’ll make it.”

Prescott’s sitting in one of the transverse bulkhead seats, head bent like he’s praying—too late for that, man. He looks like he hasn’t got a clue how to get us out of this shit, and Hoffman’s looking at him like he
knows
he don’t know.

Anya’s still going on about Marcus. I don’t catch everything she says. Ravens are real noisy bastards. “I didn’t even … chance … talk about… with Sergeant Fenix,” she says, all formal, like I haven’t guessed about him and her. “Not… properly.”

I can fill in the gaps. Hell, what does it matter now if you
say
it? Most of the world’s dead. Whoever’s left is hurting and mourning. And you and Marcus been edging around each other for sixteen, seventeen years. Is that what sane folks do?

“Okay, make a list of all the things you gonna tell him, ma’am,” I shout. “’Cause you gonna forget again.”

“Say again?”

“Make a list.”

She forces a smile and nods.

I can’t stand staring at the shit below me anymore. So I look up instead. The sky’s full of smoke and King Ravens, every last airframe we can get off the ground, heading for nowhere, just like the boats and whatever got out of Jacinto by road. Funny, it almost looks like we still got an air force when you cram all them Ravens into the same patch of sky.

But this is
all we got left
. The whole fucking Coalition.

The pilot’s in a hurry. We’re cutting through the other Ravens, and I’m looking into every open bay that we pass, searching. And you know what? I swear this believing shit
works
. Most Gears got the sense to wear a helmet, except crazies like Delta and me, of course—and man, can you see Baird’s blond hair a long way off. There he is. He’s seen us. We draw level.

Yeah, there they are, standing in the crew bay opposite now—Baird, Dom, Marcus. Baird’s got a dumb-ass smirk on his face, closest he’s ever come to looking pleased to see me, so I tap my chest plate in respect, ’cause he can’t hear me. Marcus and Dom, though—they nod back at me, but they ain’t smiling. They look like shit. But they’re alive. And that’s all that matters, right?

“Ma’am, port side. Look.”

Anya’s going to shake the guts out of that comms set if someone don’t answer soon. “What?”

“Just look.”

She gets up and stands next to me, and suddenly she looks like she don’t know what to do next. But she does a little wave at Marcus, like she’s embarrassed, and hangs on, staring across at him until the chopper banks away. And he stares back until he’s just a distant blur.

“Okay,” she says to herself, sort of smiling without looking happy. I can lip-read it this time. “See you in Port Farrall.” Then she sits down and begins cycling through the comms frequencies again. We’ll be at the RV point in maybe thirty minutes.

Hoffman’s still looking down at Prescott like he’s a big steaming pile of something real nasty. You never know what goes on between those two, but it ain’t brotherly love, that’s for sure. Hoffman looks like he’s still mad as hell about not being told shit. I catch a few words.