Gears of War: The Slab (Gears of War 5) Read online

  By Karen Traviss

  Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact

  Star Wars Republic Commando: Triple Zero

  Star Wars Republic Commando: True Colors

  Gears of War: Aspho Fields

  Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant

  Gears of War: Anvil Gate

  Gears of War: Coalition’s End

  Gears of War: The Slab

  A former defense correspondent and TV and newspaper journalist, KAREN TRAVISS has also worked as a police press officer, an advertising copywriter, and a journalism lecturer. She has served in both the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service and the Territorial Army. Karen currently lives in Devizes, Wiltshire.

  Find out more about Gears of War: The Slab and other Orbit titles by registering for the free monthly newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net

  Copyright

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN: 978-0-7481-3134-1

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Epic Games, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  By Karen Traviss

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Gears Of War Timeline

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  For my father

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks go to Mike Capps, Rod Fergusson, and Cliff Bleszinski at Epic Games, for a wonderful run in their universe; Ed Schlesinger (senior editor, Gallery Books/Pocket Books) and Anthony Ziccardi (VP, Deputy Publisher, Gallery Books/Pocket Books), for making things happen; and Jim Gilmer for always being on hand with a sense of proportion.

  GEARS OF WAR TIMELINE

  (ALL DATES ARE SHOWN IN THE MODERN SERAN CALENDAR—BEFORE EMERGENCE OR AFTER EMERGENCE.)

  80 B.E. (APPROXIMATE)—A long-running global conflict begins to sweep the world of Sera as the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) and the Union of Independent Republics (UIR) fight over imulsion energy resources. This becomes known as the Pendulum Wars.

  17 B.E.—Infantry lieutenant Victor Hoffman holds the besieged Anvil Gate garrison against UIR forces and makes his name. Adam Fenix—a weapons physicist—leaves the army to work on his dream of the ultimate deterrent, an orbital laser weapon to end the Pendulum Wars.

  9 B.E.—Adam’s wife, Elain, a biologist, goes missing in the underground caves of Jacinto, leaving him with a young son to care for—Marcus.

  4 B.E.—Marcus Fenix enlists in the COG army against his father Adam’s wishes, serving alongside his boyhood friend Carlos Santiago.

  3. B.E.—Carlos’s younger brother Dominic—“Dom”—enlists.

  2 B.E.—Intelligence reveals the UIR is close to building its own satellite weapons system. A commando raid headed by Hoffman is staged to sabotage the UIR research station at Aspho and seize its data. Carlos Santiago and Major Helena Stroud (Anya Stroud’s mother) are killed in the battle. Hoffman, Marcus and Dom are decorated for gallantry. The seized data enables Adam Fenix to perfect his Hammer of Dawn orbital laser, which eventually brings the UIR to the negotiating table.

  SIX WEEKS BEFORE EMERGENCE DAY—The UIR surrenders and the Pendulum Wars are finally at an end, although a handful of small UIR states, including Gorasnaya, refuse to accept the armistice and vow to fight on.

  EMERGENCE DAY—With no apparent warning or motive, an unknown species of sentient creatures—the Locust Horde—erupts from underground caverns and attacks cities across Sera simultaneously. A quarter of Sera’s population is slaughtered in the initial attack. E-Day, as it becomes known, is the start of a fifteen-year war for survival.

  1 A.E.—The COG, fighting a losing rearguard action against the Locust, is driven back to Ephyra, the granite plateau where the Locust can’t tunnel. In a desperate bid to stop the Locust advance, new COG Chairman Richard Prescott orders the destruction of all Sera’s major cities using the Hammer of Dawn. Although civilians are urged to take refuge in Ephyra, few can reach the plateau in time and many millions die in the Hammer strikes.

  2 A.E.—The Locust, slowed but not stopped by the global destruction, are back in even greater numbers. The few civilians outside Ephyra who survived the Hammer strikes band together in gangs, living hand to mouth in the ruins. The Stranded, as they call themselves, see the COG as an enemy.

  10 A.E.—The Locust attack Ephyra. Sergeant Marcus Fenix disobeys Colonel Hoffman’s orders and tries to rescue his father, a decision that leads to the fall of Ephyra. Adam Fenix is buried in the rubble of the Fenix mansion when the Locust attack, and Marcus faces a court-martial. His death sentence is commuted to forty years in Jacinto’s notoriously brutal prison, nicknamed the Slab.

  14 A.E.—The Locust overrun the prison, and the inmates are set free—except Marcus. Dom Santiago rescues him and Marcus rejoins the COG army. Using Adam Fenix’s research notes on the Locust tunnels, the COG detonates a Lightmass bomb underground, but the “grubs” are back in force a few weeks later. The human population of Sera has been reduced from billions to a handful, and the last COG bastion—Jacinto—is now under threat.

  14 A.E.—Chairman Prescott plans a final all-out assault on the Locust warrens by tunneling into their strongholds around Jacinto. The Locust in turn begin their push to take the city. The COG finds that the Locust have been waging an underground war with another aggressive species known as the Lambent, and were forced to the surface by them. Marcus and his fellow Gears find recordings by Adam Fenix in the Locust command center, describing how to flood the tunnels, and the COG makes a final, desperate decision to wipe out the advancing Locust. Evacuating the city, they deploy the Hammer of Dawn to sink Jacinto and drown the Locust forces.

  14 A.E.—The column of refugees moves from place to place evading the few surviving Locust, eventually settling on a remote volcanic island that the Locust never reached—Vectes, a former COG naval base. The local population has never seen a “grub,” but is plagued by Stranded pirate gangs. Forming an unexpected alliance with the last of the UIR’s Gorasnayans, the COG newcomers and the islanders drive off Stranded pirate gangs and begin to rebuild civilization.

  15 A.E.—The brief peace is shattered when Lambent life-forms appear in the seas around Vectes, destroying ships and sinking a Gorasnayan imulsion drilling platform, the last remaining source of imulsion fuel. Chairman Prescott is found to have an encrypted data disc, the contents of which he refuses to reveal to Colonel Hoffman. The remnant of the COG is now effectively besieged on Vectes, fending off Lambent attacks from the sea.

  15 A.E.—Lambent stalks begin to overrun the island. Unknown to Hoffman or anyone else, Prescott has been in touch with a secure COG facility called Azura throughout the Locust and Lambent war, and Adam Fenix—not dead as everyone be
lieves—has been held there since the fall of Ephyra, working on a countermeasure. He’s found that Lambency is a parasitic organism that will eventually destroy all life on Sera. While Prescott secretly updates Adam on the increasing rate of the Lambent mutation, Hoffman and his Gears fight a losing battle to contain the “glowies.” Eventually Prescott decides to take vital biological samples to Adam to continue the research, but refuses to reveal his reasons for abandoning the population of Vectes. He leaves Hoffman, Michaelson, and Trescu to run what’s left of the COG amid bitter recriminations. He isn’t heard from again and is presumed dead.

  15 A.E.—After a few months, the Lambent have all but overrun Vectes and Hoffman is forced to evacuate the island. With no single safe location where society can be rebuilt, the survivors are split into small groups to maximize their chances of survival. The COG ceases to exist. Hoffman takes one band of refugees to Anvil Gate, the Gorasnayans return home, and the rest find shelter in small settlements on the mainland. Captain Michaelson and a core force of Gears remain at sea in the helicopter carrier Sovereign, ready to assist civilians scattered ashore, but by 16 A.E. they’ve lost radio contact with Anvil Gate, and it’s become clear that they’re just another band of refugees trying to survive. Everyone is Stranded now.

  17 A.E.—The Locust, trying to escape the Lambent and survive at any cost, find Azura and capture it, taking Adam prisoner. Prescott escapes and tracks down Sovereign to ask for help in driving off the Locust, bringing Marcus a message from Adam. But the ship comes under immediate attack from Lambent. Prescott is wounded and dies before he can reveal the location of Azura, but he gives Marcus a data key that will decrypt the information on the data disc that Hoffman took with him. Marcus learns that his father is alive and has been a prisoner on Azura since Prescott had him abducted.

  17 A.E.—Delta Squad leave for Anvil Gate to search for Hoffman, who turns out to be alive and fending off Locust and Lambent attacks on the fort. When decrypted, his disc shows the island of Azura—concealed by a permanent artificial storm, the Maelstrom device—and how it can be accessed from underwater. The squad sets off for Azura, planning to commandeer a submarine from a COG shipyard, but the journey brings them into contact with Lambent-infected humans and Locust at Mercy, Maria Santiago’s hometown. Dom sacrifices himself to hold off the attack and enables Marcus and the others to escape and locate the submarine.

  17 A.E.—The squad reaches Azura and disables the Maelstrom to allow former COG and UIR forces to launch an assault on the Lambent. Adam and Marcus are reunited, and the truth begins to emerge: Adam was in contact with the Locust long before E-Day and knew they would be driven out of their tunnels by the Lambent and forced to colonize the surface, but he mistakenly believed he could talk Myrrah, the Locust Queen, out of the bloodshed of E-Day. Adam reveals a targeted particle device akin to a neutron bomb that will kill every Lambent-infected cell on Sera, and that may also wipe out the Locust. Myrrah makes a final attempt to save her people by stopping Adam from activating it, and her warbeetle is downed as Delta Squad hold off her attack to give Adam time to activate his device.

  17 A.E.—Adam has deliberately injected himself with Lambent cells to test the countermeasure on himself, accelerating its life cycle, and the infection has progressed so much faster in him that he knows he will die when the device is activated. He activates the device and Marcus sees his father die along with the Lambent organisms and the Locust now on the surface. Myrrah survives the attack on her warbeetle and returns to confront Marcus about his father’s arrogance and humanity’s greed. Grief-stricken, Marcus kills her with Dom’s commando knife and withdraws to contemplate the near-destruction of Sera. The first signs of recovery begin, but the survivors now face rebuilding their world from nothing.

  PROLOGUE

  COALITION PRISON SERVICE ESTABLISHMENT HESKETH—JACINTO MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON, EPHYRA, ALSO KNOWN AS “THE SLAB”: TEN YEARS AFTER EMERGENCE DAY.

  I’m just a regular killer. Nothing exceptional, nothing special, nothing weird.

  I’m not one of those sick bastards who do it for a hobby. It’s just a job. Okay, I’ve done a few, more than a few, and that’s how you end up in the Slab. Occupational hazard. I’m not some kind of nutter, although we’ve got those in here too, the serial killers and arsonists and kiddie fiddlers. And even cannibals. We’ve got all sorts.

  But I had a reason for killing, and I was good at it, so don’t look at me like I’m some kind of pervert with a dozen bodies buried under my patio. I had rules. Like it or not, some people get what they deserve and they knew the rules going in.

  Even criminals have them, buddy. Can’t have a world without rules.

  The Slab’s for what they call maximum security prisoners. We’ll never get parole. But that doesn’t matter, because the average life expectancy in here is two years, so they might as well stick us up against the wall and pull the trigger anyway. No idea why they don’t do it. I mean, in a world like Sera, who’s doing a body count? Millions dead on Emergence Day. Millions more dead when Prescott fired the Hammer of Dawn to stop the Locust advance. Ten years since E-Day, and now we’re talking billions dead. The majority of the world’s population. What’s left of humanity is mostly here in Ephyra.

  So why not just cap us and have done with it, Prescott? What are you keeping us alive for?

  Curiosity? Last shreds of the rule of law? Plain bloody-mindedness? God alone knows.

  Like I said, we’ve got all kinds in here, mostly killers. We’ve got people who don’t actually kill but do a whole lot worse. And now we’ve got a war hero. That’s a first.

  Everybody knows who he is. Marcus Fenix. They pinned the Embry Star on him, the highest award for bravery. You know who his dad is, don’t you? Adam Fenix, the hotshot weapons scientist, the man who created the Hammer of Dawn and got the Octus Medal for services to humanity. Hey, never let it be said that the Coalition of Ordered Governments treats the rich differently. Sometimes they’ve got no damn choice.

  Marcus Fenix abandoned his post during the battle for Ephyra.

  Usually, that buys you a firing squad. You have to wonder how he got it commuted to life, but then there’s a lot of questions about this war that I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see answered.

  Somebody must really hate that guy. He’s going to wish they hadn’t commuted his sentence.

  (Millton Reeve, currently serving twelve consecutive life sentences for murder: month of Brume, 10 years after Emergence Day.)

  CHAPTER 1

  We’re surrounded on land and we’ve got our backs to the sea. We might as well be on an island.

  (Lieutenant Meredith, Hammer of Dawn fire support team, assessing the situation in Ephyra, last defended area of the Coalition of Ordered Governments: 10 A.E.)

  KING RAVEN KR-96, ON PATROL OVER CRESSY ESCARPMENT, EPHYRA: END OF REAP, 10 A.E.

  The Coalition of Ordered Governments had bought time. But like time, everything—luck, patience, hope—ran out sooner or later.

  Dom Santiago hung on to hope as tightly as he clung to the Raven’s safety rail. Rothesay banked the helicopter to get a better look at what had been Estana, then let out a long breath. “Shit. Will you look at that …”

  Dom knew what he was going to see. So did everyone else, and nobody said a word—not Marcus, not Tai, and not Jace. Even Castilla, Rothesay’s crew chief, kept her mouth shut and just hunched over the door gun, chewing mechanically. Dom wondered where she’d managed to find some gum. He hadn’t seen any in years.

  Estana had been a nice town a couple of hours down the highway from Jacinto, the kind of place to take the kids for the day. Now black palls of smoke hung over it like skeins of filthy wool and the skyline wasn’t the way Dom remembered it. The place had been burning for two days.

  All he could think right then was that Maria couldn’t possibly have been there when the grubs attacked. She was alive. He knew it. He could feel it. He’d keep looking, like he’d looked every day for the last eight
years, and he’d search every Stranded camp until he found her.

  Jace finally broke the silence. “We’re fucked, man. They’ll be up our asses inside a week.”

  “Been here before,” Marcus said. “Nine years ago. And we’re still here now.”

  “Yeah, because Prescott fried the goddamn planet. But we’ve run out of places to fry now. It’s just us. Just Ephyra. And the grubs keep changin’ the rules.”

  Tai got up from the bench seat and stood at the edge of the crew bay, gazing out. The stiff crest of black hair across his shaven scalp didn’t move as the slipstream hit it, but that summed up the South Islander: the world didn’t touch him. He moved in it, but seemed somehow to be above it all, cocooned in some weird kind of spiritual separateness.

  “Then we must change our ways, too,” he murmured.

  From anyone else, that kind of mystic shit would have got right up Dom’s nose. But Tai made it through the grind of each day by keeping part of his brain in another place, and Dom envied him. Everyone had their talisman, some place or idea they clung to simply to justify trying to stay alive one more day. For Dom, it was looking for Maria. For Tai—well, wherever he went in his mind, it left him serene. There was no other word for it.

  Jace was anything but serene. He was angry. Dom decided it was healthier to let rip like that than bottle it up like Marcus.

  “In case you ain’t noticed, Tai, we’ve tried it all,” Jace said. Rothesay came back on the cockpit radio. “Don’t underestimate the sappers. They’ll do it.”

  “How many cubic meters of sewer have they got to block, though?” Dom asked. “I mean, do the math.”

  Locust tunneled. Beneath the ten-meter layer of rich soil, Ephyra was a granite plateau, a big lump of dead volcano, too hard for even grubs to dig through, and that was part of the reason Ephyra was still largely intact. If the assholes wanted a piece of it, they had to come up to the surface and face the COG on its own terms, or find a fissure. Dom had bought that impregnable Ephyra crap that Prescott peddled right up to the moment when he realized how much tunneling humans had done here over the centuries.