Two important things to remember before you start reading: 1) This story will make absolutely no sense if you haven't read "Dogs of War" first, and 2) The happy ending ends here. Right here. This line.
So if you don't want to read a dark, gritty sequel to "Dogs of War", stop right here and just enjoy Part One as it is. Nobody's going to judge you for not reading something that is a major departure from canon, least of all me. Instead, go check out "Gears in Therapy" by Kade Riggs, "New Tomorrow" by Duchaska, and the short stories by Dv4021, especially "Into Oblivion." They're all excellent Gears fiction.
That being said, if you're ready for Half Dead, Part Two ... buckle up, sugar.
###
E-DAY plus 15 YEARS
Sixth day of Gale
Vectes Naval Base
Philip dropped into step beside Joey as they left Nassar Middle School. "Hey, Joey," he whispered. "Remember that idea you had to take the fireworks outside the base and set them off?"
"Yeah?" Joey's stomach fluttered in excitement.
Like any other twelve-year-olds, Joey and Philip were fascinated by fire and explosions. When Philip had told him last week that he'd found a bunch of old fireworks, he had barely been able to contain himself. He had to know if they still worked. Had to. If they were anything at all like the tracer rounds from Jacinto's anti-Reaver guns, it would be glorious.
"Well, I happen to know somebody who has the perfect spot for it."
"Who? Where?" He skipped sideways alongside the taller boy, trying to watch his best friend's face and keep up at the same time.
Philip grinned. "Wait and see. I don't want to spoil the surprise." He picked up the pace, jogging toward the east gate. Joey followed him with his heart pounding in anticipation.
Finally Philip stopped in front of an inconspicuous tent about three hundred yards from the gate.
"Ta-da!" Philip said triumphantly. He whipped open the tent flap to reveal Daniel Carmine, Private Third Class, in his shiny new battle armor.
Joey gasped in delight. Everybody in Joey's sixth-grade class knew who Daniel Carmine was: the first boy to graduate from Nassar and join the Gears.
Daniel grinned when he saw how pleased Joey was, but not in that cocky way like the boys who'd graduated after him. Daniel was really nice to the younger kids, just like his big brother. He didn't care that Joey and Philip still had three more years of schooling and T-boosters to go before they'd start Gear training. He was friendly to everybody. Now he was smiling like Joey was one of the cool kids about to become a real soldier, not a wimpy sixth-grader who liked history and wasn't responding very well to the T-boosters.
Of course, Joey didn't really have much of a choice about the T-boosters anyway. If he had been born a girl, he would have been allowed to finish school and become a doctor or a teacher or a merchant or something. But he was a boy, whole and healthy, so he'd become a frontline Gear after eighth grade. No two ways about it.
Looking at the epically cool Daniel Carmine in his turquoise armor with the skull-and-cog emblem on the front and a Lancer and shotgun on the back, Joey decided having to become a Gear might not be so bad.
Like most Deltas, Daniel did not wear a helmet. That told Joey that Daniel expected to join the legendary squad soon. His excitement ratcheted up a notch. He was about to sneak off base to blow things up with a Delta!
This day couldn't get any better.
"About fifty yards that way I've stacked some crates up against the wall. You two are going to go over while I distract the gate guard," Daniel said. "I'll meet you on the other side."
"Heck, yeah!" Philip was just as excited as Joey.
"Shhh!" Daniel hushed them, but his face was still friendly. Apparently he loved fireworks, too. "Don't forget to throw those burlap sacks over the razor wire before you climb over the top. That stuff'll cut you to ribbons otherwise."
Daniel had planned it well; he apparently knew the guard because the man barely looked at his papers and they kept talking and laughing long enough for Philip and Joey to make it over the wall unnoticed.
Meeting up again in the hot, sharp-bladed undergrowth of the palm trees, Joey felt a quiver of uncertainty for the first time. "Aren't there Stalks out here? And Polyps?" It had been his idea to do this outside the base, but that had been two weeks ago when they'd first found the fireworks. A lot had changed since then.
"Nah," Daniel reassured him. "Bernie's squad reconned this area yesterday. The Stalks are miles from here, and heading south, not west."
Joey noticed nobody was carrying anything. "Where are the fireworks?"
"I brought them outside yesterday. Stashed them in this old barn I found. C'mon, guys. Double-time. We have to be back before evening mess or people will notice we're gone."
He led them out of the underbrush and across a set of low, grassy hills. It was at least a mile. Philip and Joey were panting and stumbling by the time they saw the barn on the horizon, but Daniel didn't even seem winded.
"Today is a perfect day for testing fireworks," Daniel announced as he whipped the tarp off the slender explosive sticks like a magician unveiling a caged tiger. Rows of fireworks lay neatly arranged by size and type. A wagon tipped over on its side shielded them out of sight from the open double doors on the north and east sides of the building. Joey had forgotten there were so many. "Too wet for anything to catch fire. And we're far enough from base that they won't hear it."
"But I thought fireworks made a lot of noise and went really high?"
"This kind isn't very powerful. Probably why they got left behind when the COG decommissioned Vectes. And they're older than I am, so I'm pretty sure they won't pack the same punch as when they were new. It'll still be awesome – if they work – but not enough pyrotechnics to be seen or heard from the base. That's a good thing, Joey; we don't want to get caught sneaking out." Daniel clapped his hands together. "All right, boys; let's get this show on the road!"
Philip whooped and scooped up a bunch of yellow-wrapped sticks. "I'm going to set these up on the path!"
"Yeah, but angle them so they don't go straight up; we don't want them being seen above the forest canopy."
"Woo!" Joey hooted like The Cole Train, the Gear who was also his Thrashball coach at Nassar. This was going to be great!
Joey was wrong, though.
It. Was. Fan. Tastic.
There were blue ones, and green ones, and red ones that spiraled as they threw off sparks. Most of them just barked a little and hissed as they arced through the air, but a couple of the white ones made a deep thump when they launched from the paper barrels. Awesome. When he got back to base, Joey was going to look up which gunpowders and other chemicals were combined to make the various types of fireworks. Maybe the military would let him be frontline and invent stuff, like that mean Delta with the goggles.
They set off line after line of them, their smoke forming a light pall over the grassy fields like a low-flying cloud. Thankfully the breeze was blowing it away north and not west into their faces.
Standing next to Daniel was also really cool. His blue lights glowed brightly even in the sunlight, and Joey could actually hear the faint buzz of the armor's magnetic fields. The Gear was having just as much fun as Joey and Philip, exclaiming over the variety of colors and flight paths, suggesting combinations to be set off together, and whooping with laughter along with them.
It was a shame Joey couldn't tell anyone else about today because he'd get in trouble. Even the eighth graders had never done anything this awesome.
Daniel suddenly stood from where he'd been stabbing the support sticks of more fireworks into the dirt path. "Wait a minute."
Joey stood up too. Daniel was peering out over the fields as the smoke cleared, but Joey didn't see anything.
Philip remained kneeling ten yards away where he'd been about to use an ancient cigarette lighter. "What?" he whispered. "Is it my mom?"
"Definitely not your mom," said Daniel. His voice was calm. Too calm. It made Joey's stomach feel as hollow as that time they ran out of food for a couple days.
"Military police?" Philip gasped in horror. "We didn't pull the burlap sacks off the razor wire. They're still there. Crap!"
"Shut up!" Daniel hissed, uncharacteristically short-tempered. The gaze from his large brown eyes was jumping from point to point in the middle distance. "It's not the MPs. COG soldiers wouldn't be crawling through the grass looking for us." Philip jumped to his feet in alarm. Daniel soundlessly removed the Lancer from his back and flicked a piece of metal on the side to show a tiny bit of red paint underneath. The safety latch.
Joey finally saw what Daniel had noticed. The waving field of silvery green grass had five dark emerald streaks leading out from the barn like spokes on a wheel. No, wait. Not leading out. Leading in.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the dark streaks grew longer, creeping toward the barn. Something was coming at them through the grass. Something sneaky.
"Is it Stranded?" Joey's voice was almost inaudible. He didn't really believe the kids who said Stranded ate children when they ran out of animal meat, but he'd rather not stick around to find out.
"Philip. Joey," Daniel whispered. He gently brought the Lancer's blunt end up to his shoulder and looked down the barrel. "Back up. Walk into the barn, slow as you can, and get behind that wagon. Lie down out of sight and don't get up until I tell you, no matter what you hear, all right?"
Joey backed up obediently, trying not to make noise by disturbing the loose gravel.
Philip hadn't moved.
"Philip," Daniel whisper-shouted. "Get your butt over here. Slowly."
The streaks were only ten or fifteen yards away now. In the darkness under the sheltering grass, a soft yellow light pulsed.
Polyps.
There had been no Stalk in sight, and Polyps always ran at you as fast as they could instead of crawling, but it was definitely not humans out there.
Philip drew in a sharp breath, his eyes becoming so wide that white showed all the way around.
"Philip, don't," Daniel said, slightly louder. Joey backed up until his heels touched the concrete. "Philip, you can't outrun them." Philip's whole body quivered like he was freezing to death in Port Farrall. He was breathing too fast.
The streaks came closer, faster now, and each of them had a pulsing yellow light or two in their shadows.
"Joey, back up. Keep going. Slowly." Daniel had his feet apart, knees slightly bent in that half-crouch he'd seen soldiers doing when they were getting ready to run-and-gun. Joey obeyed.
"Philip," Joey whispered, no louder than Daniel. "Come on. Walk over here. Let's get behind the wagon."
Daniel said so softly that only Joey could hear, "If he's going to run, he's going to run, and you can't help him. I'll try, but you gotta get behind that wagon and stay absolutely still and quiet, understand?"
"Yeah."
Joey crept backward even as Daniel inched closer to Philip with his rifle still trained on the grassy field. Ten yards from the streaks.
Joey made it to the wagon and knelt behind it, but he couldn't stop himself from peeking around the edge to watch them.
Daniel was still five yards away from the boy when the first creature abandoned concealment. It was a pig. Except it also wasn't a pig. Pigs didn't have jaws that unhinged like a snake, or shark teeth and a glowing mouth.
Philip ran for the barn.
Daniel cut down the pig with a precise rat-a-tat-tat from the Lancer, but it was too late. The others had been attracted by Philip's sudden movement.
A spider-like Polyp leapt, wrapped itself around Philip's face, and turned itself and the boy's head into an expanding cloud of red chunks with splashes of yellow. The neck stump pumped out blood with surprising force, like one of those squeeze bottles.
The headless corpse of Joey's best friend collapsed to the ground.
With an enraged cry of "Bring it, you ugly fraks!" Daniel backed toward the barn and around Philip's body, firing left, right and center at the variety of creatures that sprang out of the grass. They bulged strangely and pulsated as if they couldn't decide which mutated shape they wanted to become. He saw another pig, a dog, a ferret, something that was either a raccoon or a fox, and each was escorted by variously-sized Polyps.
Daniel was an incredible shot, a natural, never wasting a single bullet, but there were many more trails being blazed through the grass now, and Daniel was only one soldier.
There was a click-click-click sound when Daniel was halfway across the concrete floor toward Joey. "Shit!" He threw the Lancer toward Joey's hiding spot and Joey pulled it behind the wagon. Daniel unslung the shotgun and racked the slide over and over again as he blasted the oncoming waves of creatures.
"Joey!" he bellowed. "The fireworks!"
Joey understood immediately. He slid across the concrete to the nearest line of fireworks and scooped them together like bundling wheat. Retying them was easy, and then he used his own ancient lighter to start one of the wicks. Joey stood and flung it like tossing a half-filled backpack. He was only in a standing position for a moment, but it was long enough to see another pig-thing sink its shark-teeth into Philip's back.
Daniel tossed the empty shotgun aside as well and pulled his pistol from the leg holster.
The fireworks began to go off, one by one, spitting and arcing and bouncing off the barn walls while spewing copious amounts of gray smoke. Joey leapt for another bundle as Daniel skidded into cover behind the overturned wagon.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday!" Daniel yelled, pressing something in his ear. He fired the Boltok one-handed over the top without looking. "We need extraction, now!" Joey was feverishly wrapping another bundle of fireworks. "Abandoned barn one mile north of the east gate!" Daniel ducked as some sort of glowing projectile zinged overhead. "I say again: Lambent contact in external grid Echo Two Three Niner! Mayday, mayday, mayday! We have casualties!"
A Polyp arced gracefully over the wagon and landed on Joey's leg. Joey could tell it was looking at him through whatever kind of eyes it had. Daniel shouted wordlessly when he saw it, and the Polyp raised its front two legs. Daniel dropped the Boltok, grabbed the thing and cocked his arm back like a baseball player about to fling the ball to home plate.
The Polyp exploded, taking Daniel's forearm with it.
Daniel lifted the stump to look at the spurting artery with disbelieving eyes. His ear was gone and his right cheek was red and black from the splash of burning Imulsion. He grabbed his arm just above the elbow joint, but it only slowed a fraction of the gushing red tide. His gaze found Joey's.
"Tell my brother," Daniel choked. "And my mom -"
The Gear collapsed face-down in his own blood splatter, eyes still open.
Health class had included basic first aid, so Joey ripped the shoelace out of his boot as fast as he could and wound it around Daniel's arm where he'd been grabbing it, then pulled it as tight as his hands could manage. The Health teacher had said cutting off circulation was the whole idea, so he made the torn- the turni- the shoestring as tight as possible and tied it off. The gushing stopped almost completely, but Daniel had already lost enough blood to make a two-foot-wide pool on the dusty floor. Joey pressed his fingers to Daniel's throat like they'd taught him to, but he didn't feel a pulse. He might be doing it wrong. Or Daniel might be dead.
The creatures were squealing and clicking like no animal he'd ever heard, but he thought they sounded angry about their sight, hearing and smell being confused by the racket the fireworks were making.
Joey lit another bundle and tossed it toward the open doors. He picked up the Boltok. Empty.
He'd only been getting the T-booster shots for two years, and it would be another three before he started actual training like Daniel, so he could barely handle the Lancer. Even an untrained kid like Joey could tell it was jammed by a bright piece of metal pinched in the slot on its side. He put the rifle down carefully. He felt around Daniel's belt quickly, but found no shotgun shells, just more Lancer ammunition.
At the other end of the barn, past the smoke, Joey could hear the Lambent eating Philip.
The radio. Daniel had a radio of some kind in his ear.
Joey turned the Gear's head and pulled the little radio out of his remaining ear. There were a few buttons on it. Joey held down the biggest one and spoke into it as he cupped it in his hands.
"I don't know how this thing works, or if I'm pushing the right button. If you're saying something, I can't hear you. Please be there. Please send someone," he whispered. The screeching and howling of the fireworks and the creatures was starting to slow. He tried not to cry, but he was only twelve and Philip was dead and Daniel was dead and Joey was alone. "Please. Anybody. I don't wanna die." He sobbed. "I don't wanna die."
The fireworks stopped. Joey waited silently. Something big was breathing over there, smacking its lips as it ate. Wait ... no, it was several big somethings.
Joey wept some more, trying to be quiet but knowing he was only seconds from being discovered. Discovered ... and eaten.
He made and threw another bundle as the other one died out, but that would only buy him a few more minutes. There were no more fireworks.
He tried the radio again. "Please, somebody. Don't leave me here with these things." He choked on his next words. "They're gonna … they're gonna eat me. Oh, God ..."
Something large leapt through the thinning smoke and landed at his feet. Joey cried out and dropped the radio.
It was similar to a raccoon, but a wet, hairless red like it had been skinned, and its legs were far too long. Far too long, and skeletal, as if it were walking on stilts. One of the eyes was normal and the other seemed ready to pop, with yellow liquid sloshing around in it like a fishbowl. It had bright golden veins all over, even on the claws, and it looked hungry. Glowing saliva from the creature's mouth dripped onto his boots. It started to unhinge its jaw.
With his last breath Joey screamed in high-pitched terror, "SOMEBODY HELP ME!"
Delta Squad burst through the wall. Not the door: the wall. Not a couple of Deltas: all eight of them.
The first three to break through the splintering wood were The Cole Train, the one with the bandana, and Daniel's big brother. They'd had their left shoulders lowered to smash through the planks and tucked into a synchronized roll, coming up again on one knee among the broken slats and immediately firing their Lancers. Joey heard splattering and the creatures bellowing with anger. The Delta ladies dashed to the side, tossing frag grenades at the Glowies' end of the barn and then swapping to shotguns. He recognized the pretty officer lady and the one with the big boobs. The explosions made dust rain down from the roof and caused ripples in Daniel's pool of blood.
The young guy with the cool braids, the knight from the fairy tale, and the mean blond one were the last through the gap, firing over the heads of the three who were kneeling.
The raccoon-thing had turned to look at Delta Squad, and it hissed at them but hadn't moved. Joey realized Delta couldn't shoot it because the bullets would go right through it and hit him too. He tried to scoot out of the way, but that drew the creature's attention back to him. It opened its needle-fanged jaws impossibly wide, like a snake, and all the way down its throat there was a bright yellow glow with pulsing white streaks. It was actually kind of beautiful.
The angry snarl of a chainsaw seemed to come from everywhere at once, and the thing's open mouth vibrated violently as Bandana Guy sawed through its head. Glowing drops of whatever-it-was were flung in all directions, including Joey's face. The creature collapsed in a bright puddle of its own goo, head split completely in half. Joey guessed it hadn't had time to make itself explode before it died.
"Get down," barked Bandana, pushing Joey into a slumped position against the wagon. Big Brother dropped his rifle and went down on his knees next to Daniel. He obviously knew first aid better than Joey because he felt Daniel's neck and said in an unsteady voice, "He's alive. He's lost a lot of blood but he's alive." He checked the knots, then slapped a burn bandage on Daniel's blackened cheek. "Frakkin' idiot. I told you to wear a helmet." The knight from the bedtime story also knelt beside Daniel and flipped open a first-aid kit. Big Brother pulled Daniel into a sitting position against his chest, holding Daniel's half arm above the level of the boy's heart. The Knight poured some kind of powder on the severed end and the trickle of blood stopped.
Bandana knelt next to Joey, his huge hand wrapped around Joey's skinny bicep as if he were ready to sling him over his shoulders and run for it. Looking up at that scarred face as Bandana scanned the floor, ceiling, walls, everything, picking off the little Polyps with one-handed bursts from his Lancer, Joey realized he was going to live.
The Gears had come for him. He called for help, and Delta came. The toughest, biggest, best Gears in the COG had run flat-out for over a mile to rescue a couple dumb kids who shouldn't have been out here anyway.
The gunfire died out and Joey watched Bandana give orders to check the perimeter for stray Glowies.
The nice officer lady came over to Joey and Bandana. "Let me see if you're wounded," she said, and pulled him to his feet. She ran her hands gently over his chest, arms and stomach while the Knight did the same for Joey's back and legs. Bandana continued to scan the building and the fields outside.
Joey looked over his shoulder to where The One With The Boobs was inspecting Philip's body. The Cole Train used one of his huge hands to turn Joey's head back around.
"You came," Joey said while Cole Train gently slapped the red Vectes dust off of Joey's clothing. "You all came."
"Of course we did, boy!" boomed The Cole Train. "Delta doesn't leave a future Gear behind."
Bandana scowled, which temporarily made him look even meaner than the blond guy with the goggles was supposed to be.
"You okay, kid?" asked the mean blond as he came back from checking outside. "Hurt anywhere?"
"Philip's dead," Joey said. "Something took his head off and they ate him."
"Shit," the blond guy said. "So that's what they were snacking on. I thought the ribcage seemed a bit small for a Gear."
"Can it, Corporal," said Bandana.
Joey was confused. He'd never spoken to the one with the goggles because all the young Gears said he yelled at people for no reason, but he was being nice now, and he didn't seem so bad, and Joey's head was spinning and he felt a little bit sick and suddenly he needed to sit down.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Goggles, catching Joey's elbow as his knees gave out. "Careful now." The Knight grabbed his other arm, and together they lowered him to a sitting position. Cole Train went down on one knee like he was running out the clock in a Thrashball game, and let Joey lean back against his bent leg.
"Maybe he needs some water?" offered Cool Braids. "Or a first-aid tablet to keep his blood pressure up? Is he going into shock?"
"Not yet," said Bandana. "Give him the tablet anyway." He pressed his ear and said, "Is Riggs on his way yet? We have casualties." He grunted when he got an answer, neither happy nor unhappy from what Joey could tell. He looked down at Joey for a moment and then whistled over his shoulder. One of the big bloodhounds leapt through the broken wall, panting like this was great fun. Bandana flicked his hand in Joey's direction. "Settle," he told it, and the dog came to lie down at his side and put its giant head in his lap. "This is Rookie," Bandana explained. "He'll keep you warm while we wait for the medic."
At first Joey thought the short, pained whimpers he was hearing were the unconscious Daniel. But those muffled sounds turned out to be coming from inside Big Brother's helmet as he cradled the wounded boy, rocking him ever so slightly.
Cool Braids gave Joey some kind of chewable tablet and a canteen of water to wash it down. With Cole Train at his back, the dog at his side and Delta standing in a protective circle around him, Joey finally remembered to wipe the tears off his face.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Officer Lady asked, "Sorry? Sorry for what?"
"We came out here to set off the fireworks. They're supposed to be noisy, so we came really far outside the wall. I'm sorry. It was my idea when I heard Philip found fireworks. I'm sorry." He didn't want to start crying again, not in front of Delta Squad, but it happened anyway. "I'm sorry for Philip being dead. I'm sorry Daniel's dying. It was my idea. It's my fault. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything." He sobbed, and Officer Lady rubbed his back.
"Where is that goddamned chopper?" Bandana snarled into his radio.
Joey heard a helicopter, getting louder and louder as it came close. "Setting down now, Sergeant Phoenix," he heard a woman's voice say through Officer Lady's radio. "Riggs disembarking."
"We're going to need a stretcher. And a bodybag," he heard Phoenix say.
The helicopter lady paused for a second. "Roger that."
The big dog, Rookie, worked his nose under Joey's hand where it lay on his leg. He snuffled, blowing hot air out his nose like a hairdryer.
"Boop," he said, touching Rookie's nose like he'd seen his mother do with their own little dog. Rookie licked Joey's finger with a tongue the size of a handkerchief.
Officer Lady brushed some grimy hair out of Joey's eyes. "That's right, sweetheart. You boop that snoot."
A new guy – Riggs, maybe? – jogged into the barn with a long board under his arm and set it down near Daniel. Braids and Big Brother transferred the wounded Gear to the stretcher and strapped him in to carry him to the chopper.
"How'd you hold them off until we got here?" Braids asked.
"Daniel yelled something about the fireworks so I made a bundle and threw the whole thing at them. There were a lot of them, so they kept going off for a couple of minutes. I did that a few times."
Goggles smiled. "That's clever, kid. Really clever. Nice work."
Boobs came over to look at him. "It is, actually. Most kids wouldn't have thought of it." She had a cool accent like Miss Bernie.
"He's got the spirit, all right," Cole Train said.
Joey felt a little better. The dog bumped his hand with its big wet nose, asking for more boops.
When Joey, Phoenix, Big Brother and Daniel got into the chopper's middle compartment, Goggles and Cole Train put Philip's bodybag into the back. They tried to shield it from Joey's view, but he still saw that the bodybag was lumpy and disjointed, like chunks of ground meat that had thawed and been re-frozen.
Joey rode next to Sergeant Phoenix, who buckled them both in and kept an arm across Joey's chest like an armored seatbelt. The roar of the chopper's engine was hypnotic, and Joey's eyes began to close. He drifted off with the Phoenix's arm holding him to the seat and those pale eyes scanning the ground and sky.
When Joey became a Gear, he was going to ask if he could be in Delta Squad. And for a black bandana just like this one.
###
As Cole passed by Hoffman's office he heard Marcus's raised voice. Having never known the sergeant to shout except in battle, Cole stopped to listen.
"This is what frakking happens when you make children into Gears! They get overconfident! They think the armor makes them invincible! They don't watch for snipers, they don't hold on during emergency liftoff, they take stupid frakking risks because we tell them they're ready to 'go forth and bring back the hope of humanity' and the naïve idiots believe us, Colonel!"
There was a lengthy pause. Cole waited for the sound of a fistfight.
Instead Hoffman said calmly, "How many Gears are there, Sergeant Fenix?"
"What?"
"How many Gears are left, out of the one point two million we started this war with?"
After a moment, Marcus said, "Just over five thousand."
"How many of those are twenty or older?"
"Less than three thousand," was Marcus's reluctant answer.
"And if we subtract the Gears who are too old, injured or sick to be frontline?"
"Twenty-five hundred."
Hoffman repeated, "Twenty-five hundred. That's two and a half thousand adult, able-bodied Gears to protect fifty thousand civilians from the monsters that have eradicated ninety-nine point nine percent of the human race."
The sergeant said nothing.
"We are at the edge of extinction, Fenix. Those two thousand boys could make the difference between the survival or extermination of our entire species. So yes, I will make children into Gears. And yes, I will throw half-trained teenagers into battle. Because if I don't take that chance, there will never be any more children. Do you understand me, Sergeant?"
Silence reigned for a full minute.
Marcus's voice said quietly, "What will happen to him?"
"Discharge. He'll never hold a rifle again, and no one would take orders from him after what he's done."
"Honorable or dishonorable?"
There was another pause.
"Honorable. He nearly gave his life protecting the other kid. And I think it's more than enough punishment to live with the knowledge that he led a child to his death."
Marcus said without inflection, "Isn't that knowledge we both live with, Colonel?"
Hoffman did not reply.
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