Port Farrell

Present Day

Healthy?! How healthy do you expect a Gear to be? Years of chronic sleep deprivation. Exposure to more environmental toxins than I've got tests for. Acquired hearing loss. Rustlung. Depressed immune function because they're totally burned out. Brain damage, everything from blast proximity to serious head trauma. And that's without the psychiatric issues. Traumatic stress is a given. In hospital, those boys made more noise asleep than they did awake, because it was one long frigging nightmare. So nearly all our men of fighting age are utterly - and maybe irreparably - damaged.

-Dr. Maryon Haymon, Summarizing Future Health Issues for Chairman Prescott.

I woke the next morning with a pounding headache and a rolling stomach. My skin felt too hot and tight for my body, even though I felt like I was freezing. My tongue felt like a dry roll of sawdust in my mouth that rasped harshly against my lips as I licked them. The general shittiness of my condition was far too advanced for a general hangover.

Shit, I thought to myself, I would get sick

Without ever opening my eyes, I tried to remember everything that had happened after I passed out. After my heart to heart with Baird last night – which the memory of brought forth a strange mixture of nausea and lightness – he had dropped me into Dom's lap.

Last night, it was Dom I had been ready for. I was expecting Dom to jump down my throat when I pushed open the door to the Barracks.

Instead, I got Marcus.

Baird must have radioed ahead after I'd fallen asleep on his shoulder, or maybe Marcus had simply sharpened his "Sergeant ESP" until he had an innate knowledge of where his squad was. Either way, he was waiting for me as soon as I walked in the door.

And he was pissed.

I was still pretty drunk, with the edge of a migraine pulsing at my temples, so it took me a second to recognize the grizzled sergeant. Then it took me another second to hone in on his anger; pissed Marcus looked a little too close to regular Marcus for comfort. Even if I hadn't been able to disconcert his anger from the harsh square of his jaw, I definitely would have heard it in his voice when he growled out: "Where the fuck have you been?"

I froze for a moment, not quite sure how to locate my tongue in order to respond. The 'where' was easy – Stranded Camp. It was everything else – why I was drunk, why I had vanished for the entire day, why I hadn't bothered checking in – that was impossible to explain. So I didn't even bother; instead I stared mutely up at Marcus while I wavered slightly on my feet.

"Marcus," a softer voice called from behind him. I glanced back and recognized the head of dark hair. "It's cool. Let her get some sleep."

Dom's face was hidden by shadows so I couldn't tell if he was pissed off or not. But Marcus was the Sergeant, not Dom – he didn't take orders from his men. So when Dom told him to drop it, Marcus refused.

"Are you drunk?" he hissed. I had the feeling Marcus didn't normally raise his voice when he was angry, but even I could tell that he was having trouble keeping his voice from waking the sleeping Gears mere meters away from us. For the first time that night, guilt flooded my system. Having people waiting on me – wondering where I was when I didn't come home - was new to me. In the same heartbeat, however, anger followed the guilt.

"Screw you, Marcus," I spat at him. "I'm not one of your soldiers. I don't 'report' in to you!"

Marcus glared down at me from his impressive height, but I refused to be intimidated. Let him get ticked off at me like a disapproving nanny. I wasn't here to impress anybody; the only expectations I had to live up to were my own.

Marcus apparently disagreed with my assessment. His nose curled up the slightest bit like he was disgusted with my actions tonight – I probably would be to, once I had sobered up a bit – and opened his mouth to say something. Dom interrupted him, calling Marcus off and pointing me towards a bunk. "It's late guys." His voice sounded more exhausted than emotional. "We'll deal with this in the morning."

At that point things got a little fuzzy. Certain things I could remember – like Dom helping me unravel the puzzle my gun straps had become. I remembered him covering me with a red jacket that was most certainly not COG issued before settling down on the edge of my bunk. I was waiting for him to get up and leave, or at least search out his own bunk for the night. Instead, I remembered waking several times throughout the night to see him seated on the end of my bunk, face covered in shadows too thick to see through.

Apparently his mothering had reached a limit once he was sure I wouldn't vomit and drown in my sleep. This morning the end of my bunk was noticeably empty once I could get my eyes to focus. Groaning slightly, I rolled to my side and froze when I saw someone with blonde hair sitting on the bunk next to me. My excitement noticeably faded when I saw the feminine features below that hair.

"You're awake," Anya said when she saw me looking at her. "Good. We've got some things to talk about."

The barracks – if the abandoned warehouse floor could be called that – was damned near empty. A few Gears down at the end of the building still meandered about, but they largely ignored me. The members of Delta were nowhere to be seen. Rolling to a sitting position, I slowly yanked on the boots that I didn't remember taking off and shivered, pulling closer the ruined shreds of my jacket. "What about?" I asked Anya, my voice coming out in a dry rasp.

Evidently Anya caught attention of my physical state; the harsh line of her mouth had relaxed slightly. "First, drink this. Might help with the hangover." She handed over a bowl of beef broth with a few potatoes swimming in the bottom. "Would have been warm an hour ago, but…"

I nodded my thanks to her. Once I caught scent of the cooled broth my stomach both rolled and growled. For the first time I wondered if I was really sick, or if my body had just been protesting the way I'd been treating it. Fact is, my body's about had it. Lack of sleep, lack of food, but plenty of alcohol and activity. It's like a math problem that I keep doing wrong. I needed the calories within the soup, but I didn't know if I would be able to keep it down. I decided to start easy and took a long sip of the broth. When I didn't feel the overwhelming urge to vomit, I took a deeper drink.

"You said we needed to talk?" I asked her, not really wanting to know what she wanted to discuss. I hardly knew Anya, yet she seemed to keep popping up in my life as of late. She was the absolute last person I wanted a lecture from, but judging from the way she straightened her back I could tell that was exactly what I was in for.

"I'm not trying to tell you how to act. You're not a Gear in my command, nor are you my child. But coming home blind drunk to a COG outpost is simply unacceptable."

Fucking Marcus. Or Baird. Or Dom. Whoever opened their mouth. Did they let the whole camp know I was missing yesterday? Not that it was anyone's damn business. "Right," I hedged, fingers flexing over the cool bowl in my hands. "Sorry about that."

"It's not me you need to apologize to. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for a woman your age to get that drunk – out there, alone?"

For a brief moment physical sensations overtook my body, so real it was like it was happening to me all over again. Darvish's unwashed hands pressing inside of me, the taste of his rotted mouth, mixed with alcohol…

"That is none of your fucking business!" I snapped at her, standing up so quickly that the bowl dropped from my lap and shattered on the floor. I shuddered once before letting my anger chase away the memories.

"And how would Dom take it if he found out his-" She paused, her mouth still froze in the shape of her next word. Daughter. So she knew the whole story. I wonder who had told her – Marcus?

"You know what?" I growled, struggling to keep my voice from a yell. "Go fuck yourself. You think you can come in here and presume to know what's best for me? You don't fucking know me. Fucking Dom doesn't even fucking know me. You're just a do-nothing Bitch who sits around all day waiting to answer the phone for people in the field who are risking their lives for that pretty blonde ass of yours. Get the fuck out of my face!"

God damn people who thought they could just step in after fifteen years and run my life for me! You knew me before E-day? Congrat-a-fucking-lations. That person was pretty much dead and buried. They didn't know shit about me now, and it was pissing me off that they assumed they did. I snatched up my lancer and pack from beside the bunk before striding towards the door with quick, angry steps. I rode the high of righteous anger, ignoring whatever Anya called after me as I yanked open the door and let it slam shut behind me.

I froze once I heard a pained yelp behind me. Whirling around, I saw Sam scurry away from the door I had let slam shut upon her tail. Guilt immediately pressed upon me in waves. "Shit, sorry," I knelt down beside her, hands outstretched. She wagged her tail experimentally a few times but ignored my coos and tongue-clicks of apology. She stayed a few feet away from me, staring with disapproval. "Yeah, join the club," I muttered, my voice sounding scratchy and hoarse even to my own ears. Apparently I was picking fights with everyone this morning.

The sun outside was higher than I expected. Not quite noon, but close. Hoping to clear out the thick cotton-like dredges of sleep from my mouth I reached for my canteen, then frowned when I heard the last bit sloshing around. I peered into its dark confines to judge just how much water I had left; a little more than two mouthfuls. Not even close to enough for the day.

The mental calendar that I had begun to work out for myself shifted again. First I needed clean water. That meant either slinking around Port Farrell until I found the COG's source, or going to the river and boiling my own. Then I needed something to eat, no matter how much my stomach might protest the thought. The few mouthfuls of broth I'd had only served to awaken my hunger, not sate it. I didn't feel like arguing with civilians for my share of rations; I decided to head to the river that ran inland around the Port. I could set a small fire, boil some water for Sam and me, and maybe even catch a fish or two for lunch.

I kept my head down as I headed through the town. I had lost the leather strap that I typically used to tie my hair back, so my raven hair hung around my face in black waves. I ran my fingers through the strands, trying in vain to separate some of their tangles and knots. The civilians were rushing from one side of the street to the other, in a hurry to get absolutely nowhere. I kept my head down; loath to run into anyone I knew while anger still pumped through my veins.

When I got to the outer edge of the Port I realized that I would have more company that I thought. A group of civilians were attempting to cast a net across the whole of the river. A man – who had apparently crossed the fast-moving water by leap-frogging the boulders in the river – was trying to catch the edge of the net a woman kept casting towards him. They hadn't weighted down the bottom of the net so every time they would get it almost situated, the net would bubble up with the current and head downriver. The small crowd of onlookers kept offering what they thought was useful advice – 'tie stones to it! Tie the net to the boulders!' – but they ended up just confusing each other and making knots in the net.

I gathered up some dry kindling from underneath a nearby tree and started a small fire while watching the group of fishermen. I scooped up some water out of the river – running white over the rocks, so it was safe to drink – and set it to boil. I slowly added small sticks to the fire until I had a respectable flame. The water had to boil for a few minutes to kill anything living in it. I sat on the frozen ground next to my small fire. The longer I sat, the guiltier I began to feel. Anya wasn't a – what had I called her? A 'Do-Nothing Bitch'. Far from it. Anya probably single-handedly did more to keep the COG army running over the past years. Practically every command decision came through her. When Gears were stuck up shit creek without a paddle, she goaded them out of it. And she probably listened to more than one Gear breath their last, talking them through the death and keeping them comforted. I wondered how many last words she had passed on to grieving families, probably on her own time. Not to mention that anyone who could bare a relationship with Marcus deserved a damn medal. But she had heard the story of my being Dom's kid from someone. Somebody had finally gotten the story out, to Anya at least. I wondered where she had heard it. Her boy-toy Marcus? It didn't seem likely, but I didn't know who else would tell. Were her and Dom even friends?

Thinking too much was giving me a headache, so I returned my attention to the civilians still struggling to set the net across the river. I sighed. A gill net was the absolutely worse way to go about catching fish. It was obvious this group hadn't spent a day outside of the protection of the COG. A much better way would be a hoop net. The civilians had more than enough net to make two or three and stagger them down the river. Hoop nets, like the name implied, were made of decreasing sizes of hoops that lured the fish in with some kind of bait, and then the current and the small entrance prevented them from leaving the net. I sighed, and grabbed my knife. There was a willow tree nearby that miraculously hadn't yet been cut down for firewood yet. I cut off several branches of the flexible branches and headed over towards the group.

"Stop," I said to the woman who was at this point boot-deep in the water. She was about to again attempt to cast the net to the man on the opposite bank, but paused when she saw me. "First, get out of the water. It's got to be close to freezing." She hesitated a moment, but ultimately followed my directions. I motioned for them to bring me the net as I set up my armful of willow tree branches.

"Gill nets – I mean, the way you're casting the net - isn't a good way of catching fish, unless you want half your catch to be dead and rotted before pulling your net. A better way is a hoop net; it lures the fish into the trap and keeps them stuck there until you pull 'em out of the river." I knelt, and began to flex the wood in large circles. "The trick is the descending sizes of hoops. Now, what you want to do is…"

I began fashioning a hoop net, narrating every step of the way. The crowd of civilians gathered around me, watching closely and occasionally asking questions. When I finished I held it up and completed my impromptu teaching lesson. "You're going to want to place it in a slow-moving portion of the river…try down the hill. Now it's cold out, so most fish will have gone dormant. The key will be in the bait bag. Anyone have some kind of mesh material? And cheese?"

After some debate, a man ended up cutting out the breathable material of his pocket, sacrificing it for the cause. I filled the pocket with some goat cheese a woman had been hoarding since Jacinto – that took some negotiating to get a hold of – before placing the makeshift bait bag into the net and showing them where to place it.

"And be careful," I urged them all. I made slow eye contact with the entire group, especially the woman who I had found knee-deep in the river. "This water is fucking freezing. If you fall in you'll catch hypothermia, pneumonia…whatever. The Doc's would have my head if anyone here gets sick pulling fishing nets."

"Thank you," the woman said earnestly as I set the trap into the water, securing it with a bit of rope to the shore. I dusted my hands off and turned to face her. "We'd been asking for days for someone to utilize that bundle of net. No one we know knows how to fish. The net was cast off from one of the shipping containers. We're sitting there starving, and the COG isn't doing anything!"

Careful… I thought to myself. I didn't need to badmouth the COG in front of the civilians. "I'm sure the COG is doing what it can," I hedged. "But you can't be afraid to get things done on your own. The Government isn't going to provide everything for you. If you don't know how to do something, ask around until you find someone who does. We need to work together to survive."

The group thanked me again, even handing me some dried venison for my efforts. They still had enough net for another trap or two, so they headed back together towards the willow tree to gather more wood while I tended to my fire. I set another cupful of water on to boil as I turned my attention to the salted venison gifted to me by the group. I took a bite, headily ignoring the probability that it had come from Bernie's hunt days ago.

A warm fuzzy muzzle suddenly found a resting place on my forearm. I glanced down to see Sam wagging her tail and staring at me with bright, begging eyes. She had largely ignored me all morning – ever since I accidentally let the door slam on her tail. "Oh, so now you forgive me?" I muttered, my headache still pulsing through my skull. She whimpered deep in her throat and took a few nervous, pacing steps. "Fine. Here."

I took out my knife and sliced the hunk of meat in halves, and then halved one of the pieces again. The larger piece I placed back into my pack for later. I gave one of the pieces to Sam – who immediately hunkered down and began chewing – while I cut slivers off my own piece with my knife and slowly placed them into my mouth.

The meat was smoky, dry, and hard to chew. I still needed the calories it contained, so I stuffed piece after piece into my mouth and forced myself to chew. You have to eat…I told myself sternly. Still, my stomach felt far too full and uncomfortable to continue forcing food into my mouth. If I kept it up, eventually I'd vomit and lose everything I had gained in the last ten minutes. Sighing when I saw that I had only eaten less than half of my portion of jerky, I wrapped the rest of it up and shoved it into my pack.

My water had boiled long enough. I let it cool in a small pile of snow that had yet to sublime before pouring it in my canteen. When my canteen was filled I took a long sip from the metal cup and gave the rest to Sam. I washed out the cup I had used to boil it in, and then continued to sit next to the fire, staring deep down into the center of flame.

A few minutes later I leaned over, gagging, as the small bit of food I'd eaten worked its way back up my throat. When I finished I wiped the taste of vomit from my mouth and then kicked dirt over the small pile at my feet. Sam sniffed at it for a few seconds, but retreated when I barked a sharp "No!" her way.

"You alright there?"

I jumped at the unexpected voice, one hand reaching for my sidearm. Ever since I had been attacked, I was jumpy, on-edge. And people sneaking up behind me when I wasn't expecting it? Yeah, Dom was lucky I recognized him before he got a barrel shoved in his face.

"Hey," I said quietly, letting my hand relax at my side.

It was the first look I had gotten at Dom – in the light, while not drunk – since informing him I was his daughter. It was also the moment I realized how shitty he looked. He had dark rings around his eyes, and new lines had appeared around his mouth and forehead. "Are you…you okay?" I asked hesitantly.

Dom ran a gloved hand down his face like he could wipe away the evidence. "Haven't been sleeping all that great," he confessed. He then gave me a wan smile that looked exhausted.

For a second, guilt poured again for the umpteenth time that morning. It had to be my fault he wasn't sleeping - him worried about me. I almost apologized, but that same irritated part of me thought better of it. Screw feeling guilty; I probably looked just as bad – if not worse – than he did. I had been through another personal version of Hell in the past few days that nobody knew anything about. It wasn't my fault if nobody else could pull themselves up and handle their business.

I let his comment go with a stiff nod before turning my gaze to the people who followed him – Marcus and Bernie. Neither of whom looked very excited to see me, nor I them. Bernie I was still pissed at for leaving me in the woods, and Marcus I was pissed at for jumping down my throat. Granted, I probably deserved having someone jump down my throat after my behavior, but lately it seemed that anger came quicker and easier than any other emotion. Riding that high of annoyance was easier and more empowering that reminding myself how bitchy I was being, so I picked fights and cursed people out. And I didn't give a damn about how they felt about it – at least for now.

Bernie wasn't watching me, however. Her attention had been caught by the civilians downstream that were setting up a second fishing net. "What are they getting up to?" she mused.

I kicked out my small campfire while answering her. "What's it look like? They're setting up fishing nets. I showed them how. People need to learn how to survive on their own."

I glanced at her for a brief moment, gauging her reaction. She didn't verbally chastise me, but I saw how the lines around her mouth deepened for just a second. Yeah, well…screw her too.

"Hoffman's got us searching out an old naval cache near the old base. Hopefully there are some supplies sitting down there. Want to come along?"

Dom looked cautiously hopeful for a second. My initial reaction was to say no – that spending time with a bitchy Bernie and a disapproving Marcus was the last thing on my mind today – but I hesitated. The only time I had spent with Dom lately had been when I told him who I was, and last night when I came home drunk. I owed him better – okay, no I didn't, but I felt like I did. So against my better judgment I found myself agreeing to accompany him for the day.

I clipped my now full canteen to the strap of my pack and motioned for them to lead the way. Bernie shot one last disapproving look towards the civilians – what was her problem? – before marching off down the river. A few meters down the way was a bridge that crossed the river and headed down towards the abandoned base. There wasn't much left standing there – the Locust taken it during the first few months after E-day – which was why the COG now operated out of the city near the base. We had only been walking for a few minutes before a blue civilian truck starting coming up the road out of the port, heading north.

That was odd. The COG didn't typically use civilian vehicles – Baird driving me last night was an exception – and not many civilians actually had vehicles anymore. And why would they be taking it out of the Port? There wasn't anything North of us, except for a ruined base, Stranded camps, and a classified supply cache.

"Wonder where they're going?" I mused aloud.

Marcus answered. "They're leaving the Port," he said. His voice was carefully schooled as to not sound disapproving.

"What?!" I said, stunned. "Why the hell are they leaving?"

"There was another attack last night. People don't think the COG is safe anymore."

Marcus' voice was matter of fact, but more of that easy-anger pumped into my veins. "So they think leaving the COG is safer? What absolute bullshit."

"It's not just that," Dom corrected us both. "There's still talk that Prescott wants to move to the islands. People don't want to evacuate again."

"Hang on," I snapped at him, "They just did that."

Dom gave me a side-long look, probably ignoring how similar I sounded to Baird when I slipped into sarcasm. He shook his head once, not answering. He gripped his lancer tighter, however, and I remembered what Marcus had said. There had been another attack. Another attack, and Dom hadn't had the slightest idea where I had gone. No wonder Marcus was so pissed when I'd gotten back last night; he'd probably had a front-row seat to the freak-out Dom had.

Guilt, guilt, guilt, I thought again. Lately those were the only two emotions I seemed capable of processing – guilt and anger. The later was again far easier to handle. "Screw this," I hissed, taking off at a medium jog to intercept the blue truck.

I stood in the road, lancer held incitingly by my side. The truck could either hit me or stop thanks to the decade-old concrete bunkers lining either side of the road. The brakes squealed when applied, but the truck drew to a complete stop about four feet from me. I started for the driver's side window, but Marcus intercepted me. "Evening, folks," he greeted them with a slightly-posh sounding accent. "May I ask where you're headed?"

Inside the vehicle was a family of three; the dad driving, mom in the passenger side, and a girl who looked around 14 sitting in the back. It was the dad who answered. "Out. This Port isn't safe anymore; the COG's not doing anything to protect us!"

"Bullshit!" The word was out of my mouth before I consciously composed it. All eyes turned to me, so I steamrolled ahead. "You think the COG isn't protecting you? Stranded life will kill you in days, maybe a week."

It was true. Civilians didn't train with weapons – and as far as I could see they didn't have any in the truck anyway. No survival training, no extra fuel, no nothing except a bright blue "Rob Me!" sign on four wheels.

"We'll be fine," the man said with tight lips. With a look that he probably meant to shut me up.

"Really?" I snapped back at him. "'Cause you keep going this road you'll hit a Stranded gang. I guarantee it, especially in a vehicle like that. You've no weapons to fend them off with, so they take your food, your truck and everything inside it. Then they'll take all your clothes. And, just for kicks, they'll leave you with a bullet in the gut. Then your pretty daughter and wife in there; they'll take them as well. In as many ways as they want to. And if you're very, very lucky…they'll do it in that order. Won't make you watch."

Everything I said was true. I'd seen it happen before. Stranded pirate gangs would kill and steal what they needed to survive instead of fighting for it themselves. They were the ones that COG children told stories of, trying to scare each other before bedtime. They weren't common, but they were out there. And if you were a naïve little shithead with no idea how to survive beyond the wire – like the shithead in the truck – they were the first to greet you to the new world.

It was odd. When somebody asked me about being Stranded, I gave mixed answers. When they laughed in my face and said, "Jeeze, I bet you're glad to be back in the COG," I would fix them with a hard glare and then tell them about the family aspect of Stranded life. When they nodded sympathetically and informed me that they had been thinking about leaving the COG and becoming Stranded, I gravely inform them of the rapists, starvation, disease, and the hundreds of other unsatisfactory things about being Stranded.

The family inside the truck had gone pale; so had Dom, just the slightest. The wife had gripped her husband's arm in a way that meant 'You turn this truck around right now, or I will!'

"Maybe, maybe we'll head back to camp," he mumbled out before throwing the truck in gear and slowly backing away from the bridge.

There was silence once the noise of the truck's engine was far enough to be carried away on the wind. Bernie and Dom both stared at me with a similar expression that I didn't quite know how to read. Were they impressed? Disgusted? Did I care?

"What?" I snapped.

"C'mon," Marcus interrupted, appearing indifferent. "We still need to meet up with Baird and Cole."

The group was still quiet, even after we followed Marcus across the bridge. The bridge had begun to partially collapse in places; chunks of cement had cascaded down into the river below, leaving nothing behind but the bare rebar skeleton. About halfway across Dom came up on my left. I had been trailing behind the three Gears, so he pretended to look over the side of the bridge for a moment so he'd have an excuse to fall behind as well. "Are you alright?" he asked, not even looking at me. "I mean…how are you handling…everything?"

How am I handling it? The angry voice in my mind almost has a chance to answer before I do, but I keep my mouth shut before another scathing comment can sneak out. Well, you saw 'how' last night. When I came home puking on my boots. But then I thought for a moment more, and remember that I had gotten drunk for an entirely different reason. Not to mourn the mother I lost when I was four, but for a different mother. One with shiny grey hair and kind, crinkled eyes. Someone who took me in, gave me a home, and whom Sam liked infinitely more than me. How was I handling that?

"Fine," I lied.

"You know," he said in a strange voice, like he was trying to be comforting without suffocating, "If you ever need to talk about…anything…I'm always gonna be here." He swiped at his brow with one hand, like he was trying to be unconcerned about the conversation but still sincere. The result made him look vaguely constipated.

"I…appreciate that?" My voice rose slightly, making the words sound like a question when in reality I was just unsure. I wanted to be able to lift him up; the rescue in reverse. The woman holding up the man. Daughter to father saying, "It's okay. You're okay. I won't let anything hurt anymore". Unfortunately I was so shit-scared of actually having to deal with a personal problem that I immediately shied away from conversations like this. Besides, who the hell was I to think that I could save anyone? I was so screwed up inside – in so many more ways than one – that I didn't have any business holding out a hand to anyone until I was out of the water myself. If I piled on anyone else's problems atop my own they would wrap around my feet and drag me under water like an anchor.

Evidently Dom was just as exhausted by the prospect of conversation, because he simply nodded once and lapsed into silence. We trudged after Marcus and Bernie – who were muttering to each other so quietly that I couldn't make out any of the words –down the path towards Cole and Baird. 'Road' was a bit too optimistic of a term; the concrete was long gone and saplings as thick as my wrist sprouted up along the straightaway. Eventually the trees opened up into the harbor. Grey waves crashed along the docks and dinghys. With my back turned away from Port Farrall's broken skyline I could almost pretend that the world was normal. The ocean didn't show any scars of war; it all just whispered back into the tide.

The air smelled thickly of brine and seaweed. Against the grey of the sea two figures in Gear armor stood out – Cole and Baird. Marcus walked up to the pair, pulling out a sheet of yellowed paper and five black cylindrical things dangling from straps in one hand.

"Okay, it took fifteen years," I heard Marcus say as Dom and I caught up with him. He held up the five flashlights for everyone to see. "Maybe we can find a way of attaching these so we're hands-free."

Baird immediately grabbed one of the flashlights and began playing with the buttons – low, high, and strobe. I half expected him to shine it in playfully in my direction, and was slightly disappointed when he didn't. "This is so what I wanted," he enthused, "a few frigging years ago."

"We going somewhere dark?" Cole asked, accepting the flashlight Marcus passed his way.

"Tunnels."

"Treasure hunt, Baby!" Cole crowed. Nobody else shared in his enthusiasm. I knew that I personally had had more than enough of being underground in Locust infested territory, and I knew that I could double that feeling for each member of Delta surrounding me. But a hidden cache of supplies was worth the trek into the darkness. At least, that was what I kept trying to tell my suddenly knotted stomach. And I didn't even get a flashlight; there was only enough for Delta. Dom tried to pass his off to me, but I gave him a look that let him know exactly what I thought of that plan.

We spread out into a long line, slowly moving forward while looking for the hidden entrance to the old naval tunnels. Sam sniffed the ground, trying to figure out exactly what it was we were looking for. Our police line slowly ventured into the forest. Cole kept up a constant stream of conversation, but I largely tuned him out. The weather hadn't warmed any, but much of the snow had sublimed into the atmosphere. As a result the ground was hard as a rock, but without ice or snow to grab at ankles or trip someone. The forest still had the sounds of winter birds nesting in bare trees, and very far off was what sounded like a man coughing up a chestful of rust lung, but was actually just a stag warning others to stay out of his territory.

Typically the forest was a place I could relax – or at least be as relaxed as I ever was. Instead, every wide oak tree reminded me of Darvish pressing me against its trunk. I found myself anxiously playing with the safety of my rifle, worried hands clicking the lever back and forth. Safe. Unsafe. Safe. Unsafe…

"Hold up," Dom said, loud enough to bring our entire police line to a halt. "Think I found something," he was kneeling into the dirt on my left, scrapping away debris with his finger. "Yeah, here we go. Give me a hand. Mind your fingers." He jammed his knife under the edge of the cover plate. I stopped dicking around with my rifle – making sure to plant the lever firmly in the 'safe' position – before helping him lift the manhole cover. Once we got it into the air, I sniffed hard to detect any scents emanating from the tunnel – gas, water, mold, or emulsion. All I caught was a dusty musk that told me this tunnel hadn't met fresh air in a long time.

It was also completely dark. At one time the Navy who had built the tunnel had probably equipped it with emergency lights running across the ceilings, but power had long since been cut.

Delta and I gathered around the edge of the tunnel, Dom and I still kneeling in the dirt. The heat from my knees was slowly melting the thin layer of frost, so water and mud began staining the cuffs of my pants. I stood and backed away from the edge of the void, using the excuse of brushing off my knees to compensate for my pounding heart.

"Who's going down there first?" Baird asked, leaning over the edge. "Oldest?"

"How about the biggest asshole?" Bernie snapped back with a sharp look.

Marcus looked at his feet, and then picked up a rock the size of his fist. He had to yank a bit to get it to break free from the frozen ground. "Let's try the rock test first." He lobbed it into the shaft and we all fell silent, listening. There was a small thud almost immediately as the rock hit what sounded like brick. "Sound dry and shallow. Let's get a safety line down there. Hey, Control?" this time he laid a finger to his comm. unit and spoke away from us. "Mathieson, we're investigating a possible underground store on the jetty side of the barracks. If we're late reporting in, panic."

Baird pulled away from the tunnel as well, and got to work securing a safety line to the nearest tree. Cole clicked on his flash light and shined it as far down into the tunnel he could. Even from my stance a few feet away I could make out the red brickwork and flagstones, and the rusted steel foothold in the sides of the shaft that had given through because of age, leaving stumps where the rails had hung.

Marcus handed the rolled up map to Bernie, and then squatted down next to the tunnel. The opening was wide enough to take a Gear in full armor – even one Marcus' size – and he let his boots dangle over the edge. "Ah, shit…" he said, hands ready to push himself off the rim. "I've done worse." With that, he tossed himself into the tunnel. I heard a vague, echoing grunt as he winded himself while landing, but no screams or shouts of agony so apparently the tunnel was safe.

"Baird? Stay up top, just in case," Marcus called up the shaft. "Everyone else, down here."

Cole busied himself by attaching himself to the rope, evidently deciding to rappel down rather than leap down into the darkness. I took another step further from the tunnel, internally wondering if I could convince Baird to trade guard duty with me. Visions of Locust torture chamber and lambent armies were still fresh in my mind; the absolute last thing I wanted to do was head underground.

"You go ahead," Bernie said to Dom after Cole lowered himself into the tunnel. "I'm going to take Bri and look for the main access."

The sound of my name coming from Bernie surprised me enough to distract me from my feelings of unease. Up until now I wasn't sure that she even knew my name. Evidently my surprise and uncertainty showed upon my face, as Dom paused in his efforts to attach the line to his belt. "That good with you?" he asked me.

I had a split second to decide: head underground with my father, or spend more time above the surface with someone I was pretty sure hated my guts. "It's good," I answered Dom, nodding my agreement to Bernie. Hell, even if she wanted to leave me out in the woods again, it beat hanging out in possible Locust territory.

Dom gave me one last concerned look before bracing his boots against the brickwork and heading under. Evidently he had no problems trusting Bernie. Easy for him: her loathing looks were pretty much reserved for me. Well, me and Baird. But for now she only looked thoughtful as she unwound the map Marcus had handed to her and took off heading northwest.

Baird grumbled a bit behind me about being left out in the cold as I wandered off after the grizzled Sergeant. Sam trotted after me with her nose sniffing the cold air. At least if Bernie tried to off me in the woods, I'd have backup.

The farther we went into the woods the larger the silence between us grew. Instead of being placated by her silent treatment, I grew even more on edge. However, I was determined to beat her at her own silent treatment game.

"How come you didn't go into the tunnel like Marcus said?"

Okay, I suck at games.

To Bernie's credit, she answered me immediately. "Pah," she scoffed. "I've outranked that tosser longer than you've been alive. I was teaching your father how to field strip a rifle long before you were a twinkle in his eye."

That was either a very pointed comment, or she knew the correlation between Dom and me. Her face was completely innocent and smooth featured, so I couldn't tell if she meant that last comment or not. I stumbled over a tree root in my surprise, so I couldn't keep examining her expression unless I wanted to end up face down in the forest floor.

"You know," she continued in a voice that sounded completely unconcerned, "That was a very stupid thing you did today."

"You're going to have to be more specific," I muttered at her, deftly overstepping an overturned log. "I seem to do a lot of stupid things."

"Letting the civilians cast nets in an ice-cold river, unsupervised. Civvies and thin ice don't mix. If any one of them falls in and freezes to death, that'll be on you."

The tone she picked was cool, but the meaning behind her words cut like a lancer blade. She was basically pre-accusing me of killing civilians! My temper, so close at hand of late, flared again. "Well, fucking excuse me," I snapped. "It beats the hell out of waiting for the COG to hand-feed them, and starving to death! And just because they don't have a bunch of tin decorating their chest doesn't mean they're useless."

"I never said that," she replied with much more heat in her voice. "But sometimes people need to know their place."

That froze me in my tracks. So much anger flashed through my system that I was paralyzed for half a moment. Then, I laughed. "You mean that I need to know my place, right? Because I'm a Stranded piece of nothing, right?"

She could have continued on her path towards the main entrance, but she stopped and turned to face me. Finally, her face reflected the anger she must have felt. Her grey hair was tied up in a long ponytail, but as she whipped around to face me it curled around her neck like a python. "Where'd you get that rifle, then?" she spat.

"What!?"

"The Longshot! That's a rifle for a COG Sniper, and it's strapped to your back. I want to know where the hell you got it from. You pick it off a corpse?"

I flinched from the venom in her words. No Gear was ever okay with Stranded pilfering weapons from dead soldiers, but a sniper was probably less so. Any soldier could pick up any lancer and fight with it, but a sniper rifle was specialized. A true sniper treated their rifle like an extension of themselves, or even like a lover. Bernie would understand that; her own longshot was strapped to her back in the exact same way mine was.

Finally a lot of Bernie's hostility towards me made sense. If she truly thought that I was a valor-stealing, grave-robbing piece of shit it was amazing that I hadn't gotten a barrel shoved in my face yet.

The memory of Ace's hand – bloodied, blackened – shoving the longshot into my chest and screaming at me to run passed over me like a bucket of cold water. It cooled the anger in my heart so I could speak rationally. "I used to live in Jacinto," I told her. "I had a friend, who was a sniper. He died. But now let me ask you something.

"I lived in Jacinto for several years without ever seeing or hearing about you. I lived on base without ever hearing about you! Which means you either left the military, or you weren't in Jacinto. You're still wearing your stripes from the Pendulum wars, so I'm assuming the latter. What were you doing that entire time? Sitting on your ass in some apartment? Or were you outside the gates?"

I could tell that I had touched a nerve judging by the flaring of her nostrils. "I was fighting my way back to Jacinto! From the other side of the damn world!"

"And did you even once, in that entire time, consider yourself Stranded?"

"Hell no!"

"THAN NEITHER AM I!" I roared loud enough for a few birds in nearby trees to take flight. In the distance came the sudden, deep-throated baying and barking of dogs who were disturbed by my sudden outburst. Sam stood stock still between the two of us, her head down and eyes up, watching to see if this would dissolve into a fight. Bernie stared at me - eyes wide, speechless - while my shoulders shook with my panting. For a long moment there was quiet between us, as if the world was holding its breath.

"Everything I have done," I say in a much more normal tone once I caught my breath, "everything I have ever done has been to help others and to survive. I don't give a shit about labels and your fucking class systems. If you can't see that, then I have no reason to still be talking to you."

I pushed past Bernie so fast that I almost misted the upward tick of her eyebrows. She looked almost…impressed? No, that had to be wrong. Either way I continued our original path up the hill. It was a small, almost perfectly shaped mound covered with the regular debris of a forest floor, but when I came to the crest of it I noticed how the opposite side had an unnaturally angled slant. Squinting in confusion, I stumbled down the right hand side of the hill, coming around to the front of it to see a wide, moss streaked bunker door.

The main entrance to the cache stash had been built right into the hill – or maybe they had built the hill up around the entrance for camouflage. It worked well; neither Bernie nor I saw the door until we were literally right upon it. In front of the garage-like door I tripped over a bit of pavement not yet crumbled by the environment around it. This was definitely the place.

"This has got to be the main entrance they have marked on the map," Bernie said, echoing my thoughts. "C'mon, let's get it open."

There was a thick chain that was almost rusted through holding the door locked shut, but a lancer's blade made quick work of it. For a moment I was stunned that no Stranded had stumbled upon this treasure, but after thinking it through it made sense that they hadn't found it. Only one out of what, a thousand people still lived after the war? There had to still be little treasures stashed around the world just waiting to be stumbled upon. As time goes on those treasures would become harder and harder to find. We had to figure out a way to replace necessities – ammo, food, and mechanics – and not count on pure luck. Speaking from experience, luck tended to run out pretty damn fast.

We jimmied the entrance open – having to tug pretty damn hard to get it to break free from the thick of dirt cementing it to the ground – and the same decade-old stale air filtered out around us. At least this entrance didn't descend directly into the ground. Instead there was a slight ramp to the ground, wide enough for vehicles to drive in. That must have been how they loaded everything into the bunker in the first place.

I held the door open above my head while Bernie tugged over a branch thicker than my arm with a tall 'Y' near the top. She used it to prop the door open behind us as we descended. Leaving the door open was important for two reasons: late-afternoon light trickled downwards into the bunker, illuminating the path, and in case we didn't find Marcus' second tunnel entrance we didn't need the door sealing shut behind us. Using comms underground was always shoddy, so calling for help wasn't always a guarantee.

Once underground Bernie tried to raise Delta on the radio, only to be rewarded with static. Lowering her arm from her ear she instead reached inside her pocket and pulled out a compass. "Okay, so we headed northwest to find the main entrance, so we need to head back southeast to find the first tunnel. These tunnels probably aren't going to cooperate, so try to keep a sense of direction about you."

I nodded, and then verbally acknowledged her when I realized she couldn't see me. Bernie had clicked on her flashlight and she took point. Every so often – such as when we turned a corner – she marked the path with large 'X's written in white chalk.

We had been walking for a good fifteen minutes in the heady darkness, illuminated only by Bernie's thin flashlight beam, when I heard Sam's low growling behind us. I froze immediately; Sam was my partner. I knew better than to second guess her instincts.

"Bernie!" I hissed, loud enough for her to hear me and stop, but not loud enough to carry. "We need to go. Now."

Bernie evidently knew enough to trust a dog as well. I saw her nod and then take off for a four-way intersection and pause.

"What are you doing?" I asked incredulously, "We need to move!"

"Move where?" she whispered back harshly. "In these tunnels sound echoes. You run off in the wrong direction, you could be heading straight towards them!"

Grudgingly I admitted she was right. There was a low, harsh rumbling that was impossible to pinpoint in the darkness. I almost couldn't hear it over my pounding heartbeat and the constant snarling from my right. "Locusts?" I asked, my lancer heavy in my arms.

"Maybe," Bernie said just as quietly, peering down the dark alleyways. "Listen, and get ready."

The hair on the scruff of Sam's neck was bristling outward. Her lips pulled up high around her teeth, and even in the dim light her canines glinted. Eventually, we heard what she did.

Barking. Not just of one dog, but of a pack. Braying, howling, echoing barks. By the time we could pinpoint exactly where they were coming from, we could already hear the click of toenails on brick. The sound echoed off the tunnels until it sounded like they were coming from every direction. We stood in the middle of the four-way intersection, back to back, ready to run at the first sign of snarling teeth.

Eventually they came, howling and ready to attack. Their flanks heaved with their heavy panting. A pack of a least twenty dogs – big ones, even larger than Sam – came racing down the passage like lightning. They charged at us from the north tunnel, so we sprinted south, firing our Lancers in short burst. Sam charged forward to attack and I called her back: "Sam! Sam, No!" I lowered my gun for half a second so I wouldn't catch her in my arc of fire, and a large, heavy mutt with black wiry hair tackled me. I screamed as I hit the ground – hard, my head cracking painfully against the concrete floor. The mutt snapped its jaws towards my neck. The only thing that stopped the beast from ripping out my throat was my lancer pinned against its chest, holding it back with all the strength I could muster.

"Bri!" I heard someone shout, and the glint of a handgun pressed against the mutt's forehead, blasting its brains and bits of skull outward. I shoved the heavy corpse off my chest as Bernie grabbed my shoulder and yanked me upright, shoving me ahead of her as she shouted "Run!"

I took off, firing behind me. Footsteps echoed off the tunnel walls as we sprinted headlong into the dark. Bernie started falling behind me, and I slowed down to match her speed. "Come one!" I yelled at her. "We need to go!" I reached to grab her just as a black and tan cross-breed tackled her from behind. I kicked at the damn dog, aiming first for its neck, and then again towards its sensitive underbelly. The dog slammed its jaw towards Bernie's neck, but she shoved her heavily armored forearm between the mutt's teeth. She then hooked her fingers in the corner of its mouth and ripped hard. Without hesitating I pulled my knife and slit the dog's throat, drenching Bernie with warm blood.

I yanked Bernie upright as the sound of heavy footsteps came running up behind us. Without even turning I knew they belonged to Gears: for one thing they walked on two legs, not four, and I could hear the clanking of metal plates. Bernie and I retreated in their direction even as the other dogs kept coming. A big grey male with a back like a pony leapt upwards, dodged my blade, and sank its teeth into my forearm. Its sharp canines ripped through the thin cloth of my coat without heavy metal protecting my skin. I screeched in anger and pain, tearing even more flesh as I fought to pull my arm back.

Like a burst of righteous fire, bullet holes appeared alongside the grey animal's flank. It yelped and fell to the ground, surrendering the hold it had on my arm. More light flooded into the tunnel around us as salvation arrived.

Shots rang out around me as someone shoved me to the side. Delta had arrived as backup, evidently drawn in by the gunfire. Someone shoved me off to the side of the tunnel as the Dom, Marcus, and Cole picked off the rest of the pack. The last remaining five turned tail and fled into the darkness the way we had come.

"Are you hurt?" Dom's frantic voice reached me a second before his hands did. I'm leaning against the wall of the tunnel with my arm cradled in my chest, waiting for the ringing in my ears to cease. He gently coaxed my arm into his grasp, gently pulling up my sleeve.

"I'm fine," I said even as I let him wipe dripping blood from my arm. "Bite marks just bleed a lot. How's Bernie?"

Bernie laid on the ground for a moment longer before struggling to her feet. She teetered, and Cole caught her by one arm to steady her. She looked scared – really scared, wide-eyed, chalk white, and breathing hard. Not that I blamed her one bit. Dogs set on killing were absolutely brutal – maybe even more brutal than a horde of Locusts. They weren't scared of humans or weapons; they just kept coming.

"What, did you lot forget you have chainsaws or something?" she snapped at Delta, even as Marcus moved forward to check her over. I noticed she was moving a lot more slowly this time around. Tougher than nails or not, she was still an old lady. She shouldn't have to still be doing this shit.

I brush Dom away and step towards Bernie. "Thanks," I tell her, making sure to catch her eye so she knows I mean it. She had saved my life. She nodded once, accepting everything that I hadn't said. It's hard to go through a firefight with someone and not become closer. Not friends, but perhaps friendly.

"You need to see the doc," Dom insists. "Who the hell knows what kind of diseases those things carry. They had to be rabid, to attack people like that."

"Not necessarily," Bernie says, but her voice still shook just the slightest. "It's cold, there's less for them to hunt in this weather, and we've attracted them. A human settlement is an easy meal for dogs." She tried to unfasten her forearm plate – probably to examine any damage done to it – but her hand was trembling too much. Cole grabbed her arm and took the layers off for her.

I kick at the grey mutt, half expecting it to flinch when the toe of my boot collides with its shoulder. "We eating these or not?" I ask. As unappetizing as it may seem there were a lot of hungry people back at camp. Meat was meat.

"I think I'll pass," Cole says. "Don't dog have worms?"

I press my toe harder into the side of the dead dog, shocked when I hear a whimper. I jerk my foot back, hands reaching blindly for my knife, but the dog doesn't move. The whimper seems to be coming from down the hall, where I had last seen-

Oh…God…

"Sam!" I gasped, numbly stumbling forward around Bernie. "Sam?!" I called as loud as I could with my trembling voice. I scanned the corpses of dogs, hoping against hope not to find hers among them. My boots slipped on the congealing blood staining the floor as I searched piles of fur – black, white, tan, yellow…

"Oh God, Sam! Sam, no! Oh God, Please no!"


Authors Note: Welcome back! I know it's been forever and a half since I've updated this story, but it took me a long while to figure out where I wanted to take this. I think I've got a plan figured out, so stay tuned for more!

A huge thank you to everyone still reading and reviewing this story. So much in my life has changed since I began writing this fic, but it's comforting to alway know I can retreat to the Gears universe. I hope you're all still enjoying it as well!

The next few chapter are already half written. I'll have them up as I get them finished!

Thanks again for all the support!