Gears of War Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Gears of War novels from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Leave us a Review

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Act 1: Settlement 2–Jacinto Plateau

  1: Roadblock

  2: Prognosis

  3: The Long Game

  4: Stick to the Path

  5: A Decorated Relic

  6: A True Outsider

  7: Waking Nightmare

  8: One More Sunset

  Act 2: Lesser Islands 79th Year of the Pendulum Wars

  1: No Eighty

  2: Calm Waters and Choppy Seas

  3: Scabbard Cove

  4: Debrief

  5: Candle in the Dark

  6: Cathedral Waltz

  7: Waiting Game

  8: With Dawn Comes the Devils

  9: An Alternative to Thinking

  10: First Impressions

  11: New Information

  12: Hostage Situation

  13: Blood in the Water

  14: Never-Ending Sunset

  15: Meeting of the Minds

  16: Reflection

  Act 3: The Great Seran Rend

  1: Dawn of a New Day

  2: Long Road Home

  3: Shortcut

  4: Nothing More than a Blur

  5: Trick of the Light

  6: Feel for a Pulse

  7: The C.I.B.

  8: No Walk in the Park

  Acknowledgments

  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

  TITAN BOOKS

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  GEARS OF WAR: BLOODLINES

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789094787

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789095210

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First edition: April 2020

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Editorial Consultants: Rod Fergusson, Bonnie Jean Mah

  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.

  © 2020 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Microsoft, The

  Coalition, the Crimson Omen logo, Gears of War, Marcus Fenix, Xbox,

  and the Xbox 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.

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  TITANBOOKS.COM

  For Betty, and for Dez.

  ACT 1

  SETTLEMENT 2—JACINTO PLATEAU

  1: ROADBLOCK

  There was a hole in the clouds, where a beam of white-hot death punched through and tore the world to shreds.

  For a time—how long, exactly, Kait couldn’t say—all she could see was that brilliant glowing spear emblazoned on the inside of her eyelid. A vertical brilliance that almost blotted out all else. Almost.

  For at its base there was a silhouette. A shadow against that radiance, a darkness to provide some counterbalance.

  A shadow that had been her friend.

  A shadow that had been—

  “JD!”

  Del, shouting, running. Toward the carnage and fire. She heard his panicked cry only a second before he shouldered past her and rushed into the inferno. Kait followed instinctively, her brain still numbed by what she’d seen. What she’d learned.

  Settlement 2 was a smoking ruin. Flames engulfed all the buildings around her. Even the fucking pavement was on fire, superheated to a magma-like state by the raw, astonishing power of the Hammer of Dawn.

  “Marcus?” Kait shouted into the smoke and chaos. “Cole?” Neither man responded. They could be anywhere. They could have been vaporized.

  Another beam lanced down from the sky, off to her right. Indiscriminate. Out of control.

  “Baird,” Del barked into his comm. “Shut the damn thing off!”

  “I can’t!”

  “Figure out a way!”

  Damon Baird replied, but his words were lost in an explosion some hundred yards away. Another building that popped like a balloon in the superheated air. Glass and rock rained down all around her. Had Marcus gone that way? Had he been in there?

  She may have lost track of Marcus, but she knew where his son was. Or had been. That had to be her priority now.

  JD had been next to a Minotaur truck, about ten yards away, and it was completely engulfed in flames. Kait caught up to Del and gripped his shoulder, pulling him back from the intense heat. Even at this distance she felt the skin on her cheeks beginning to sear.

  In the flames she could just see the shape of Lizzie Carmine. What was left of her. Kait gritted her teeth and looked away, closed her eyes. The image refused to fade. She caught the smell of burning flesh, and it made her stomach heave.

  “There,” Del said, and he was off again, but sideways now. He ran ten steps and crouched beside a pile of debris. Kait blinked. It wasn’t debris. It was a person. It was him. JD Fenix. Lifeless, sprawled out. Ribbons of smoke curling up from his arm and chest. Face blackened. Eyes closed. Blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. Del had two fingers pressed against his neck.

  He was crying, Kait realized.

  “Is he alive?” she asked.

  “I… I can’t tell. I can’t tell! Am I feeling his pulse, or my own?” He croaked out the words. Even from here she could see him trembling.

  Gunfire erupted behind her. Fahz, shouting insults at an unseen enemy, trying to hold them off with a Tri-Shot rotary cannon he must have picked up from a fallen DR-1. Judging from his tone she knew it was a lost cause.

  “We need to get out of here,” Kait said, aware of how distant and numb her voice sounded. Del didn’t respond. His world had shrunk down to one thing: his best friend. She glanced around. Only one Minotaur remained operational, so far spared the wrath of the Hammer of Dawn, but penned in by its two destroyed counterparts.

  Kait hunkered down beside her friend. Her eyes met Del’s as he continued to feel JD’s neck for a pulse. The look lasted only a second, but she could see in his expression an echo of her own warring thoughts. Unfathomable sadness, and a profound disappointme
nt in what JD had done all those months ago, right here in Settlement 2. A truth she had learned only minutes before. JD had fired first. Started that slaughter.

  He had never told Del, or her. Hid it from them.

  The roar of Fahz’s Tri-Shot grew closer. He was backing toward their position, firing at something obscured by smoke. Swarm, of course. Something nasty. Something that would kill them all—if the Hammer of Dawn didn’t do the job first. After seeing Lizzie, and now JD, Kait wasn’t sure which end she preferred.

  Just a few feet away a figure emerged from the smoke. Kait barely had time to draw her pistol before she recognized Marcus Fenix.

  “He alive?” he said. The bayonet on his Lancer dripped with the guts of a fallen enemy.

  “I’m not sure,” Del admitted, sounding on the verge of panic. Whatever feelings that answer might have stirred, Marcus kept them bottled up.

  “Get him into the truck, before Baird fries it, too.” He hiked a thumb toward the remaining Minotaur. Just beyond it, Kait saw the group of civilians JD had managed to get out of Carmine’s truck before it exploded. They were huddled under the awning of what had been a restaurant. Unable to retreat any farther as flames raged within.

  Then she saw a familiar figure. Cole was with them, protecting them and keeping them calm all at once.

  “Help me get him up, Kait,” Del said as he shifted JD into a sitting position. Slinging his weapon, he pulled one of the injured man’s arms over his shoulder. Kait moved to JD’s other side. She grabbed JD’s wrist and was about to lift it over her own shoulder when she paused.

  “C’mon, hurry!” Del said, grunting.

  Marcus jogged off toward the functioning truck.

  “Cole, Fahz!” he shouted. “Get everyone in the truck! We’re leaving!”

  “Del,” Kait said. “Look.”

  Del followed her gaze, and a look of horror crossed his features before he battled it back. JD’s right arm was a ruin of burned tissue and shrapnel wounds. If he was alive, moving him might be the thing that pushed him beyond that threshold. Looking at the arm, she wondered if he might prefer not to survive.

  Marcus bellowed for them to hurry up.

  “His arm—” Kait called back.

  “—isn’t going to matter if we all die out here! Pick him up!” Then he was in the cab of the truck, pulling a dead driver from the seat and climbing in behind the wheel. He gunned the engine.

  She met Del’s eyes. He grimaced, then nodded.

  When she lifted James Fenix’s mangled arm, he screamed.

  * * *

  A mile out of Settlement 2 the Hammer of Dawn finally faltered. Its beam transformed to short, erratic bursts, somehow more terrifying than the long, sustained blasts, as each split-second assault was so random, yet still incredibly destructive.

  Finally it flickered one last time, and fell silent. The sky went dark again, save for the dim glow of the burning settlement that was now mostly hidden under a blanket of thick smoke.

  JD lay on the floor between the two benches, covered in all the burn-pads they had been able to salvage. There were benches on either side of him, crowded with civilians. Most stared numbly ahead, or cowered against one another with their eyes shut. Anything but look at the wounded man who lay between them, or at the ruins of their homes rapidly receding into the hellish distance.

  Unable herself to look at the groaning, burned form of her friend any longer, Kait moved to the back of the vehicle. Marcus sat at the end of one bench, arms folded over his chest. He stared blankly at the floor in front of him, lost in thought.

  Taking the seat opposite him, Kait pulled its canvas cover aside and aimed her Lancer out the narrow opening, even though there wasn’t anything to shoot at, now. The Hammer of Dawn had seen to that.

  “Anyone else feel like we just got a preview of what all of Sera’s gonna look like if we don’t end this soon?” Fahz asked over the comm. He was in the driver’s seat up front, with Del. No one replied. There was no need.

  Kait finally gave up and pulled the canvas closed. She forced herself to check on JD. Despite the horrible injuries, his face looked calm. Peaceful even. They had given him as many painkillers as they dared. In the dim light, and covered in the medical blanket, he reminded Kait of her own father at the end of his life. The memory was one she’d long repressed. To think of it now made her shudder.

  As if her nightmares weren’t bad enough.

  “I said—” Fahz started.

  “Enough, Fahz.” It was Del. “Just focus on the road, okay?”

  “They didn’t follow us, mate. There aren’t any left after… that.”

  “Maybe not behind us,” Del said. “It’s the road ahead I’m worried about. In fact, give me that Tri-Shot. I’ll take it up on the roof.”

  “Stay put,” Kait said. “I’ll do it, just give me a second to climb up.” There was a tear in the thick canvas covering the flatbed, right behind the cab. Beneath the gash was a weapons locker, completely empty. Kait stood atop the box and pushed herself up through the opening. From there it was an easy climb over to the roof of the cab.

  She rapped on the hatch with her fist.

  “Hand me that Tri-Shot, Fahz.”

  “Gladly,” he replied, opening the armored portal and pushing the weapon up through to her. Kait grunted with effort as she pulled the bulky weapon onto the roof. Then she slipped her legs inside and planted her feet on the back of the bench seat between Fahz’s and Del’s shoulders.

  No one spoke for several minutes as the truck rumbled forward. It was Del who broke the silence.

  “Swarm!” he shouted, suddenly. “Dead ahead!”

  Kait had been looking off to the left. She snapped her gaze forward at Del’s warning and scanned the road, hoping against hope he was mistaken.

  But no, he had it right. A Scion loomed at the side of the road, standing behind an old traffic barrier that came up to its waist. Beyond, in the darkness, several Drones rushed up to join it. How many more were out there, hidden by cover or shadow, was anyone’s guess.

  More Swarm, Kait thought. There’ll always be more.

  A sudden wave of fatigue washed over her. Maybe it was the memory of her father in his final days battling rustlung, the disease that had taken him where even the Locust War had not. For an instant she found herself thinking of him again.

  The war he’d fought—

  “Kait!”

  She snapped out of her reverie.

  “Look, I can handle this if you’re not up for it,” Del said, and he started to climb up.

  “No, I’ve got it.” She gestured for him to sit back down.

  The truck was old, and at some point someone had scrawled “Old Gal” on the roof. Kait patted the words with one hand, then rested the Tri-Shot beside them and took aim at the road ahead.

  “Focus on the Scion,” Del said. “We don’t have to take them all on. We just need to get past them.”

  Kait positioned herself as best she could. The Tri-Shot, meant to be used by the robotic DeeBees, had no sighting of any kind—but then it wasn’t exactly a weapon that required accuracy. She grabbed both grips and, as the enemy drew near, pulled on the big trigger that activated the rotary barrels.

  The whole truck seemed to pulsate with the vibration of the cannon. Its three barrels spun more slowly than a typical chain gun, but this deficiency was more than made up for by the high caliber rounds it fired. Muzzle flashes strobed the landscape before her. Tracer rounds flew every so often, but they might as well have been left out. She could see where the shots landed by the carnage they created.

  Kait coaxed the weapon toward the Scion. The drumbeat regularity of its firing suddenly stretched out as the barrels began to overheat, slowing the rate of fire. Shell casings pooled on the roof around her. Some rained down on Fahz, who howled as one burned his ear before bouncing away. He seemed about to complain, but perhaps the thought of JD’s condition made him hold his tongue for once. Kait ignored him anyway and kept firin
g.

  She had a bead on the creature, but it had taken cover behind one of the old traffic barriers. As she watched it started to push the object into the road to block their path.

  Fahz saw it, too. He accelerated. “Hold on to something,” he growled, swerving around a crater in the old, disused highway. It was all Kait could do to keep the Tri-Shot from sliding off the roof, much less pointed at her foe. Still, she fired, overheated weapon or not. The Scion started to stand, then thought better of it. Dust and debris flew into the air as the road barrier he crouched behind began to chip away under the onslaught. If Fahz would just stop, Kait thought, she could bore a hole through the concrete and then through her target.

  That wasn’t the plan, though, so she kept the Scion pinned down.

  Then her bullets ran out.

  “Fahz!” she called. “Ammo!”

  “Bit busy driving, here, in case you hadn’t noticed?” he shouted back, swerving again, back to the right.

  Del had been readying to shoot through the gun slot on his door, but abandoned the effort now. He shoved his Lancer into the narrow space between his seat and the door, then fumbled around on the floor of the cab for the box of ammo. Grasping it, he lifted it toward her.

  “Just pull the chain out and feed it up here!”

  He did so.

  Kait took the belt of bullets and fed it into the weapon, slapped the rack closed and grabbed the handles again. The barrels began to spin.

  They were only fifty yards away now. Several Drones had reached the edge of the road, but Kait ignored them. The Scion had blocked the right lane completely now with the waist-high wall of concrete. He was at one end of it, at the center of the road, peering over the top of his cover and watching them approach. Waiting.

  Fahz saw it, too, and maneuvered the Minotaur into the left lane. Which was, Kait realized, exactly what the enemy hoped.

  “He’s gonna try to jump on,” she said. “Be ready on the gun slot, Del!” She had no idea if he heard her, but there was movement in the cab below.

  Kait poured rounds into the barricade. The Tri-Shot, having cooled during the reload, thudded in her hands with its usual drumbeat pace. Dust filled the air. Sparks flew as rounds ricocheted off the slab of stone and the road all around it. Chunks of shrapnel flew and bounced away, smoking, and in all that, barely visible, she saw the Scion’s hand. It flashed out from behind the barrier, flinging a metallic object into their path.