Jace watched as the King Raven passed over the town of Mercy. After the COG declared the town "clean" they had wasted no time in moving people from Azura to the town. Gears and volunteers had been called in to begin building barriers at certain points in town and clearing houses out for families to move in.

Jace sighed and turned back around to look at the three other men in his squad. Corporal Takashi, whose last name or first name never seemed to be revealed, was running a hand through his black Mohawk. Jace had served with him during Operation Midnight; Takashi had nearly died when a torque bolt had severed his rope, luckily he grabbed a portion of bridge and managed to hold on until he received a pick up. He had been promoted since Jace last saw him.

Next was Private Federic Rojas, younger brother and current guardian of Jan Rojas' four-year-old son. Despite having lost two of his brothers and most of the rest of his family he had a rather easy going demeanor, shit rolled off of him and he came up smelling clean and daisy fresh. He stroked his Lancer like it was a pet, a gleam in his eyes reminded Jace of a young child playing with a toy.

The last member of his squad was probably the oddest. Private Dante Aligante was tall and lean, heavily muscled but not noticeable until he flexed his muscles or was lifting something he found heavy. His white hair suggested someone who was in their upper sixties but yet he looked about as old as Jace was. His armor should have gotten him written up but it was so bizarre that his officers just ignored it. Instead of the normal steel gray or light blue armor that Gears normally wore his armor was crimson red. The COG symbol in the upper middle of his armor was colored white; all over his armor were white crosses. When asked what they were for he would shrug the asker off and normally walk off to do some sort of job he had been "assigned" to do earlier.

"Alright guys, we in and then we out. I want this clean and quick, no mess-ups." Jace ordered as the Raven started its descent towards the ground.

"Got it." Takashi told Jace, he always had a way of speaking for the whole squad when need be.

When the Raven touched down the four Gears jumped out and onto the ground. Jace pulled his Lancer off his back and held it in a neutral position, where he could pull his gun out and shoot but in a way that it wouldn't look threatening. He wanted to make sure there wasn't Stranded here that would make his new promotion short lived.

The squad moved up towards the front gate of the Stranded camp. As they grew nearer Jace started to smell smoke, smoke and burning flesh. They came to the front gate to see it had been battered and blown open, several Stranded corpses were scattered all over the front of the base and at the front gate.

"Did somebody ask for a fire and brimstone barbeque?" Dante asked in a tone that Jace couldn't quite pick out as joking or serious.

"What the fuck happened here?" Takashi asked as he raised his Lancer.

"I don't know, keep your heads up and on a swivel. Watch each other's back." Jace ordered as he raised his Lancer and started to enter the burnt remains of the Stranded camp.

The group entered the base and looked back and forth at the carnage. A woman hacked in half by a Lancer chainsaw, children burning. Jace turned to see Takashi throwing up.

"You alright bro?" Rojas asked him.

"I never feel right with dead kids, something so fucked up about that. I couldn't deal with it when we were fighting grubs and glowies."

"Keep it together guys." Jace told him, sounding a little like Marcus. "Alright, this is probably going to come back to haunt me, Takashi and Rojas check out the right side of town. I want check ins every five minutes. Aligante, with me."

"Got it." Takashi told him while wiping his mouth and walking off down a path filled with more burnt shelters and dead bodies.

Jace and Dante went left, Jace was nervous. This place gave off all sorts of bad vibrations.

The two continued to walk through the camp. Jace was starting to get unnerved by how calm everything was, even if the sight was horrifying, it was calm. The chaos that had raged when the events had started had ceased, now the dead were left to rest.

Jace closed his eyes and shuddered, when he opened his eyes he was greeted with the sight of one of the COG soldiers they had been assigned to look for.

"Sarge, this is Takashi. Reporting in, found a pair of COG tags."

"I think I found the source, we're near the kitchens. Regroup."

"Over and out."

Jace walked over to the soldiers, they had been taking cover inside a fountain before being slaughtered. One of the solders leaned over the side of the fountain, his neck blown off where his head barely hung on. Another had been blown in half from the waist. One of the soldiers was missing his head completely. The last one's face had been blown completely off, the only thing keeping it in place was the sides and front of his helmet.

"Where's number five?" Dante asked.

"What?"

"Weren't we supposed to find five warriors?"

After Dante had asked that question a volley of Lancer bullets skirted along their feet. One caught Dante in the ankle and he crashed onto his stomach behind the fountain, his Lancer slid away and out of his reach.

"YOU BASTARDS! KEEP THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY BROTHERS!" someone yelled as they continued to fire bullets at Jace and Dante.

"Stand down! We're Gears, GEARS!" Jace yelled as he crouched behind the fountain.

"Gears?" the person asked as the bullets stopped suddenly.

Jace peeked over the edge of the fountain to see another Gear walking towards them; the barrel was still red and smoking from shooting bullets at them not two seconds earlier. He was clad in typical Gear armor, helmet included. He walked at them with a swagger in his stride that suggested he would start singing zippity-doo-dah and skip down the street.

"Gears? That means you came here to rescue us!" the Unknown Soldier told them.

"Yeah, I guess. You went missing so we sent a rescue team. Sorry about your squad." Jace told him as he stood up and looked around for COG Tags.

"What do you mean?" the Gear asked as he cocked his head and gave him a look that would suggest Jace was insane.

"I believe they have passed on from this life." Dante added as he tried to stand but slipped as soon as he put too much weight on his foot.

"They're fine, they're just under the weather, heh." the chuckle at the end of the Gear's sentence sent a chill up Jace's spine.

"Let's just get them and us out of here."

"What? Are you out of your fucking mind? They can't leave! They're too sick!"

"That one's missing his head, that ain't a fucking flesh wound." Jace yelled and pointed at the Gear whose head was still misplaced.

"HE'S FINE!" the Gear roared before aiming his Lancer at Jace and Dante. Just before he pulled the trigger something seemed to startle him. Panicked he looked behind him and screamed, bringing his Lancer around and firing off random bursts and seemingly nothing. "You won't get me! Not like you got them!" the Gear shouted before tearing off through the town, shooting randomly.

"Sarge this is Rojas, what the hell was that?" Rojas' voice crackled over the TAC/COM.

"We found the Gears, and the last nut job was about to kill us before something spooked him and he ran off. Managed to nick Aligante in in the ankle when he first approached."

"Roger, be there in, hey we can see you guys." Rojas told them causing Jace to turn around and look at Rojas and Takashi who were approaching them.

A couple of seconds later the squad was reunited. Takashi wasted no time in acting upon his role as the squads back up medic when actual medics were nowhere to be found and started to treat Dante's ankle. Jace and Rojas walked off to the side so Rojas could debrief him on anything they found.

"We didn't find much, other than a bunch of bodies. Although one thing doesn't make sense." Rojas told Jace as he cracked his knuckles.

"What?"

"You notice there's no men dead?"

Jace suddenly felt that feeling when one realizes something that will be the cause of their whole life going to hell. That chilling of spine, stomach that drops to their feet, a cold sweat breaking out over their forehead.

"We also noticed the word primas scratched everywhere. No idea what it means."

"Primas?" Jace pondered as his forehead scrunched up in confusion.

"FUCKERS! TIME TO KILL THE FUCKERS!" a horse voice that sounded like someone had swallowed glass roared from behind Jace.

Jace was reaching for his Lancer as he saw Rojas pull his Lancer up and scream, "open fire!"

#####

Baird was in seventh heaven. So many machines all begging for him to pop their hoods open and take a look around at their inner workings. He had already picked up enough pieces to repair half of the vehicles that were wheezing and begging for new parts.

Baird had given Valeria a laundry list of things to search for and she had to find at least eighty percent of them if she wanted to graduate from Baird's engineering school. He always thought the kid could show promise, but she never had really gone out of her way to be the best. Although he noticed that sometimes the kids that did the worst in the classroom turned around and did the best in fieldwork.

Popping open the hood of an APC he started to strip a battery and an engine, which would be loaded up onto an old RIG that Dizzy had found and gotten working. The RIG would then take them back to Anvil Gate, which was only a couple hours away from the graveyard, and there they would unload and prepare for another two days in the graveyard.

Once Baird had gotten enough of the parts he had found secured to a flat board he ran over to a loader that had been lying around collecting rust and picked up the parts. He began to slow walk back to the RIG where Dizzy was waiting with a lift to bring up the parts to the top of the RIG.

"You gots the goods?" Dizzy asked as he spit a thick stream of dark brown liquid.

"Where'd you even find dip Dizzy? The grass?" Baird asked as he put the parts on the lift.

"You know I don't kiss an' tell." Dizzy winked at him as he pressed the up button and he lift started to rise up towards the top deck.

Baird rolled his eyes and grabbed a new flat board and then began to walk the loader back towards the graveyard, about three or four more trips and he would feel confident that they could call a lunch break. Baird passed by Duke and Clay who was wheeling back two motorcycles that looked like they were brand new.

"This is awesome!" Duke shouted as Clay chuckled while they pushed the bikes to the lift to be secured to the top of the RIG.

Baird walked back to a more obscure part of the graveyard; he had found that little pockets had the best vehicles and the best parts. Almost like they had been purposefully put there.

Baird exited the loader and began to check an old centaur tank to see if they couldn't drive it back to Anvil Gate and attach a few other working vehicles to the back.

There was a skittering behind Baird causing him to turn around to see nothing. That was creepy, he thought as he went back to work on the tank's transmission. There was another skitter behind him, this time Baird pulled out his Snub pistol and glanced back for a minute. Nothing happened and Baird went back to fixing the tank.

About half an hour passed, Baird stood up to stretch his back out. In the process he put his pistol back on his holster. It had been quiet for the last bit so whatever was creeping him out had gone away.

The sound of a gun cocking caused Baird to regret putting his sidearm away. He turned around to see an eleven-year-old kid holding an old Hammerburst right at him.

"Drop your guns to the ground and kick 'em over. Or I'll blow your face in."

#####
Marcus stood on the balcony of his and Anya's room. He had been given one of the biggest rooms on Azura. He would have preferred a shack with three walls and a roof, but since Anya was there he opted for a little more. He still would have preferred a smaller apartment but he couldn't get that if he tried.

Marcus looked down and watched the waves crash onto the beach; the cool, salty breeze blew across his scarred skin. There were light footsteps behind him; he turned around to see if it was whom he was expecting.

The former communications officer was tiny compared to the huge beast of a man that was her lover. Anya hadn't stripped off her armor yet, even though there was no war Gear had had trouble keeping their armor off. Marcus could barely walk down to the Rusty Nail for a drink without his Lancer on his back.

"Hey." Anya said to him. Marcus replied with his trademarked grunt.

She walked over to the bed and began to strip her armor off until she was in nothing but her COG regulated fatigues and tank top.

Marcus couldn't help but admire her beauty, there was something about her when she had just gotten out her armor that made her ever more beautiful to him. Marcus didn't care what she wore; now he could just be with her without worry of being court martialed for dating a superior officer. She could come in in sweats and a big puffy sweater and he would still love her the same. Not that he could ever admit to that out loud.

"I'm going to go take a shower, then do you want to go get something to eat?" Anya asked as she walked towards the bathroom.

"Yeah." Marcus replied as he walked into the room and grabbed a plain white t-shirt from the closet.

Anya slipped off to the bathroom. A moment or two later Marcus could hear running water and the light sound of Anya singing some song from before E-Day. Marcus sighed, sat down on the bed, and put his head in his hands. A wave of nostalgia crashed over him, something that ached for times of long ago.

A knock on the door caused Marcus to snap out of his memories. The bed creaked as he stood up and walked over to the heavy oak door. Bending down he looked through the peephole. It was a Gear, he couldn't quite tell who it was but he had a feeling it would be okay. He opened the door and looked down at the Gear.

"Yeah?" Marcus grumbled as he gave the Gear a look that would make him question if he really needed to ask Marcus anything.

"Are you Sergeant Fenix?" the Gear asked very calmly.

"Yeah?"

"Fall at the hands of the Chimera!" the Gear yelled as he brought a knife up and attempted to stab Marcus in the throat.

Marcus barely managed to grab the arm that the Gear was using to try to sink the knife into his neck. The Gear was strong, but Marcus was stronger. Marcus slowly began to turn his assailant's wrist around until it snapped with a sickening cracking of bone. The Gear dropped the knife and recoiled back in pain. Marcus took the opportunity to smash the Gear's head against the wall, knocking him out cold.

The Gear crumpled to the ground. Marcus picked his attacker up and shoved him into a chair. The sound of a safety clicking off filled resonated through the room, Marcus turned around. Anya stood there with a Snub pistol, and nothing on but her skin. If Marcus smiled he would have, he never did quite understand why those movies always had the female go for a towel first. If someone had to fight naked, they had to fight naked. Helena Stroud would have walked out butt naked in the middle of a fire fight if it meant she had to get up and fight with no prep time at all.

"What the hell was that?" she asked as she held her aim on the man in the chair.

"Assassin. Pass me my TAC/COM and get dressed. A shit storm is about to go down." Marcus told her.

Anya nodded and handed him his TAC/COM as she went to the closet to grab herself a pair of fatigues and a shirt.

"Command this is Fenix," Marcus called in.

"Fenix this is Command."

"I found a little assassin crawling around, he has been subdued. Please advise."

"Gear up and bring him to HQ."

"Over and out."