Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant by Karen Traviss Page A

she spotted four civilians carrying a plastic sheet between them like a battlefield litter. Another dead body? No, whatever was in it was throwing reflections onto the walls. When the
    ’Dill passed, she could see it was bulging with fish, so brilliantly silver that they sparkled in the sun.
    “The boom-and-bust cycle of nature,” she said.
    “You Islanders talk some mystic shit.”
    “Not mystic, Blondie. Humans die off, so other animal populations boom. Especially marine life.”
    “Handy.”
    “In a pie. Lovely.” At least there’d be a reliable source of fat and protein around, even if the diet got monotonous. “You know, I’d rather be on the ships. Got to be warmer and more comfortable.”
    “Put me down for that yacht Cole spotted.”
    Gears patrolled the streets. Civilians were combing the place looking for missing friends and relatives. They’d reached the stage where the shock of displacement was beginning to wear off and they were working out just how wrecked their lives were. People with nothing to do but wait for food and watch others die were a recipe for unrest.
    Even Jacinto’s citizens had limits to their stoicism. “Do we even have a head count yet?”
    Baird shrugged. “No, stragglers are still arriving. Cole says some civvies have left to see if the local Stranded settlements will take them in.”
    “Ungrateful tossers. Anyway, shouldn’t we be assimilating the Stranded if this is all that’s left of us?”
    “Stranded aren’t us , Granny.”
    They were the savages beyond the wire, and it had nothing to do with hygiene. “Hang on, what about the Operation Lifeboat guys?”
    “Come on. You don’t like Stranded either.” Baird paused a beat. “You’re lost, aren’t you?”
    “I know where I am, dickhead.”
    Everything bounced off Baird. He took it in the same way that he dished it out. “I meant that now the fighting’s stopped, you don’t know what to do except harass the local wildlife.”
    “Haven’t noticed you happily taking up knitting, either.”
    “I haven’t gone this long without a firefight in fifteen years. I don’t know what comes next.”
    When Baird wasn’t being mouthy or smug, he could say things that brought her up short. Life had changed out of all recognition again, just as it did on E-Day, but the COG had been at war—one way or another—for the best part of ninety years. Peace was unknown territory.
    Bernie inhaled discreetly. Baird smelled faintly of phenol. “You going on a date ? Where’d you get the disinfectant?”
    “Dr. Hayman’s having the whole place sprayed. Infection control.”
    Gears had banged out of Jacinto in just the armor and kit they stood up in, no personal effects, or even a change of pants for some. “I’ll go scavenging later.”
    “You mean robbing civvies.”
    “I mean seeking redistribution of assets for the good of the wider community.”
    “Yeah. Right.”
    Civvies had been given enough warning of the evacuation to take grab bags. They’d been drilled to keep a bag of essentials by the door, ready to run, because they’d been used to moving from one part of Ephyra to another each time the grubs infiltrated. So now civvies had stuff , and Gears mostly didn’t. It was something of a role reversal.
    “I meant bartering a few steaks for clothing, razors, whatever,” Bernie said.
    “Prescott says we’ll get the basics we need.”
    “Yeah, but he can’t pull supplies out of his arse, and that means taking stuff off civvies. They used to resent us for getting bigger food rations. We don’t need all that aggro fermenting again now. Hearts-and-minds works wonders, Blondie.”
    As the ’Dill wound its way through the streets, Gears stood out like a separate species even in borrowed overalls—tall, muscular, well fed. The civvies were stick-thin. Anyone between the two extremes was probably in a noncombat role, like the sappers and drivers, fed a little less generously than the frontline. We’re getting just