The desert night was alarmingly cold. JD remembered this from his survival training, but he had forgotten just how biting the air could be.
The nomads had helped them build a fire near their parked rig, using wood from broken furniture and the dilapidated buildings. It took an hour of careful tending, then it roared and cast dancing shadows into the darkness.
JD, Fahz, and Kait sat around the fire, chewing on their military rations and listening to their quiet surroundings. The crackle of the fire occasionally sounded like faint gunshots, making them eye the broken buildings warily.
Marcus and Cole were still off with Paduk somewhere but every so often they could hear Cole's distant echoing laughter.
JD still didn't like how peaceful the broken city was. The last time they'd been to Vasgar they had been storming through hoards of Swarm, and now there wasn't a single trace of them. Granted that mission had them on the other side of the country, but even still the calm felt wrong.
He tried to ease himself with the knowledge that there was an established perimeter around their temporary base with sentries on watch duty. If the Swarm suddenly decided to make an appearance, they would know in seconds. As a bonus, Baird's 'peace offering' also ensured the nomads were armed to the teeth.
JD crunched into a dry cracker and watched the fire dance, trying to ignore how much the heat and light reminded him of the Hammer of Dawn's blazing laser. His arm itched and he scratched at it absently, making a mental note to reapply his medicinal salve soon before the fragile skin dried out.
"Oi, what'd you get?" Fahz asked, leaning over to root through JD's ration pack. He pulled out a fat shiny pouch and angled it so he could read the label in the fire's light. "Chicken and vegetable stew. Huh. Wanna trade?"
JD gave him a sidelong glance as he swallowed his mouthful of cracker. "That's the best one and you know it. If you want it, you'll have to make it worth my while. What have you got?"
Fahz held up a similar shiny pouch. "Lamb curry. And I'll toss in…" he rummaged around in his ration kit and pulled out a small packet and a foil-wrapped rectangular item. "My hot sauce and this chocolate…thing." He turned the chocolate bar over in his hands, evidently looking for the label, then gave up and held it out to JD.
"I don't know…" JD narrowed his eyes and took another bite of his cracker, pretending to mull over the offering if only to make Fahz squirm.
"Come on, mate. You know I hate this curry shit."
"You're doing a great job of enticing me to it." JD pointed out flatly, then he reached out and took the three items. "Fine, have at it."
Fahz looked delighted and relieved as he tore into the pouch of chicken stew.
"Really? You can handle curry right now? With your stomach?" Kait said from behind her pouch of half-eaten sausage casserole—JD's least favourite MRE option.
"I haven't puked in," JD glanced down at the digital readout on the inside of his wrist. "Six and a half hours. If I'm not better by now, I'm not getting better." He ripped the top off the pouch and tossed the scrap into the fire.
The beef curry was not his favourite, but it wasn't awful. Despite the pungent scent, the mixture was bland and too runny. Squeezing in Fahz's hot sauce didn't improve the texture, but it marginally improved the flavour and made his tongue burn enough to forget what he was eating. JD stirred the mixture with a plastic spoon and ate contentedly, actually feeling hungry for the first time in nearly twenty-six hours.
"So," Fahz started after he'd finished his meal and tossed the empty stew pouch into the fire. "What do you reckon this mystery whats-it is?"
"Let's examine the facts." Kait said. "It's causing seismic disturbances, frigging with our radios, and messing with our nav gear."
"And it's buried under a few thousand tons of demolished city." JD added.
"Please stop reminding me." Fahz groaned, his eyes casting upwards. His sunglasses, ever present, were perched atop his head.
"Del would have had this all figured out." The pain of Del's death still lingered, but time had helped. Now, whenever JD thought of his friend—his brother—the good thoughts outweighed the bad, and he supposed that was a good sign. The hatred and the anger for the Swarm was still there, still burning away in his heart, but it wasn't all-encompassing like it had been those first few weeks after Del's death.
"Oh yeah," Kait agreed with a smile. "He would have had Dave running scans and taking samples already."
It helped, talking about Del with Kait. Grief was so common in their world, death and loss so frequent. Everyone understood what it was to lose someone, whether it was to the Locust decades ago, to the Swarm more recently, or just to the harsh nature of Sera. That had been the only consolation for the longest time, knowing that he never had to explain what he was going through. Eventually, JD knew, Del's absence would fade to a dull ache just like his mother's death had. He would still miss Del but he would have all those great, happy memories to think back on and he would smile.
"I think," Fahz ripped open another ration pouch and dug in with his spoon. He scooped up a mound of preserved fruit and shoved it into his mouth.
"Always a dangerous notion." JD interjected quickly, taking advantage of Fahz's brief pause.
"Sod off," Fahz muttered through his mouthful of fruit. "I think if it's causing seismic activity, then it's got to be massive, right? Little things don't cause earthquakes."
"It's not causing earthquakes." Kait corrected. "It's…I dunno, resonating?"
"Well, look who's read the mission briefing." Fahz scoffed mockingly.
"You haven't?" She asked.
Fahz scarfed down another spoonful of fruit. "I skimmed it. Had a lot of boffin-speak that didn't seem relevant, really."
"Did the Vasgari ever have any sort of fancy tech that could resonate like this thing?" JD asked, chewing thoughtfully on a spoonful of curry.
Tilting his head, Fahz pondered the question. "Beats me, mate. We came up with all sorts of gizmos over the years."
"Well I'm guessing it's something old that fell down there when the Riftworm collapsed the city. Probably had a rock fall on it last week and turn it on." JD shrugged. "Mining equipment or something."
"Mining equipment?" Kait repeated, her voice laced with incredulous doubt. "That's the best you can come up with?"
"What?" JD shot her a puzzled look. "Beyond my pay grade."
"Okay, but what about the magnetic interference? The radio signals?" She asked.
JD shrugged again. "Mining equipment."
"Seriously? You think decades-old mining equipment can do this?" Kait held up her small COG-issue survival compass so they could see the needle spin around and around.
"Uh, fancy mining equipment?" The science-based stuff really wasn't JD's specialty. That had always been Del's focus, and since his death Delta's collective IQ had dropped several points. Fahz's addition to the ranks hadn't helped either.
"You don't even get points for creativity with that guess."
"Like I said: beyond my pay grade."
Kait shook her head, that familiar exasperated look on her face.
A minute later, Cole and Marcus appeared from behind the Grindlift rig. Cole had a grin that was noticeably wider than usual, and his eyes were a little glazed. Marcus looked much more sober, though there was a bit more colour to his face.
"You guys had fun," Kait observed as Cole flopped down into the dirt beside their fire.
"Paduk knows how to throw a welcome party for old friends!" The big man exclaimed, laughing a little to himself.
"Let me guess, vodka?" JD asked, gripping Cole's shoulder when he teetered a little too far off to one side.
"Bottle of old Dushin tequila." Marcus said gruffly, taking a seat on a worn ammo crate.
JD had never known his father to be much of a drinker, but he knew Marcus would have a glass of whiskey from time to time. Cole, on the other hand, had never given up the partying behaviour of his younger days. If anything, the old thrashball player had an even larger zest for life and celebration, having lived for years thinking each day might have been his last and eager to make every moment count.
Fahz let out a low whistle. "Where the hell'd he find that out here?"
Marcus grunted dismissively.
"Ration pack?" Kait offered up another MRE, but dropped it back to the ground when Marcus waved it off.
"What'd you guys talk about?" Finished with his beef curry, JD tore open the foil of Fahz's forfeited chocolate bar and snapped a piece off with his teeth. Without looking, he offered the bar to Kait who reached out and broke off a piece for herself.
"I didn't do much talking. Cole," Marcus motioned to the big man beside JD. "And Paduk used to be squad mates in the early days of the Locust war. Spent a few hours catching up." He leaned back to peer behind their fire. "You got the tents set up. Good."
"Fahz is taking first watch if you want to crash." JD offered. He still had his hand on Cole's shoulder and looked down at him. "You should definitely hit the hay if you're running the rig tomorrow."
"Nah, baby! The Cole Train's just getting started!" Before anyone could stop him, Cole had pushed to his feet and started wandering off back the way they came. "Hey Paduk! Where's that second bottle you promised?"
Marcus sighed heavily, then rose to follow. "Wake me when it's my shift. I'll take Cole's too. He's gonna need the sleep." He walked briskly after Cole and managed to corral him towards his small tent.
JD could hear his uncle protesting, but after a few minutes and some complaints, Cole had settled and gone quiet. There were a few moments of rustling as Marcus found his own tent, then the crackling fire and distant crickets became the only sounds.
They sat around the fire for a while, chatting about nothing and everything in the way that off-duty Gears did. JD took some time to clean his Lancer and Boltok, doing it mostly by feel in the harsh shadows cast by the fire. He liked having the new grenade launcher attachment on his rifle, not only because it was an extremely effective weapon in combat, but also because it was much easier to clean than the chainsaw bayonet.
Despite the heat radiating off their fire, his hands grew cold and stiff and his breath was forming small clouds of vapour. The previous night with his ill stomach had left him running on only a few hours of sleep and it was rapidly catching up to him.
"Alright, I'm gonna head in." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, toward the military-green tent he'd set up for himself. JD yawned as he stood and caught Kait immediately yawning after him, his exhaustion evidently contagious.
"I'll wake you at twenty-five hundred for your watch." Fahz confirmed, giving a thumbs up. Having watch wasn't entirely necessary given that they were well inside the nomad perimeter, but it was uncertain if they could trust their hosts given their often vocal hatred for the COG. They couldn't risk going to sleep and waking to find their rig ransacked or stolen.
JD stifled another yawn and gave a small wave to Kait and Fahz, then crawled into his tent. He considered wrestling out of his armour, but the cold air and his stiff hands persuaded him against it. He settled for applying his medical goop to his arm and propping himself against his kit bag in a reclined position.
Sleeping in armour was damn near impossible lying down, but it was perfectly comfortable if partially sitting up. He unzipped his sleeping bag enough that it could serve as a blanket and draped it over himself.
Through the thin tarp walls of his tent, JD could hear the rhythmic snoring of Cole a few dozen feet away. In the quiet, the steady regular sound of his uncle noisily sleeping was strangely comforting, and he felt himself lulling off to sleep in only a few minutes.
To wake him for his watch, Fahz stood at the door to JD's tent and kicked his boot repeatedly until he woke up. Naturally, JD woke immediately upon the first kick, but Fahz kept kicking until JD shooed him away with a groggy grunt.
"Anything to report?" JD asked through a yawn as he crawled out of the tent.
"Couple'a nomads decided to get curious again with the rig, but I scared'em off. Other than that, fuck all happened." Fahz scratched at the side of his head and looked like he was nearly ready to fall asleep on his feet.
"Okay," JD stretched his arms wide and felt his shoulders pop. "Go get your beauty sleep."
Fahz gave some sort of mumbled reply, too tired to equip any of his normal sarcasm, and trudged off to his small army-green tent.
JD's watch was as uneventful as anticipated. He sat by the fire for his allotted two hours, alternating between looking up at the stars and watching the few nomads still awake putter about.
He tried to read through Baird's mission briefing, but his eyes kept losing their focus and he didn't have the energy or the desire to keep up his concentration.
Eventually out of sheer boredom he activated Dave from his sleep cycle and had the bot flutter next to him while he tried to teach it to play Rock-Paper-Scissors.
Unsurprisingly, Dave was a quick learner. He could bob his small manipulators in the air and produce robot approximations of the right hand gestures. With the addition of a killer pokerface and no discernible tells, JD quickly felt discouraged when the bot beat him two out of every three rounds.
When his watch ended JD went to rouse Marcus and found his father already sitting up in his tent, rubbing his hand over his grey hair. When Marcus had taken a seat next to the fire Dave hovered to his side and immediately started another round of Rock-Paper-Scissors. The robot apparently thought he had received a new playmate.
Dave produced a Scissors gesture with his manipulator and waggled it in front of Marcus, who stared at it for a moment then looked up at JD.
"Do I want to know?" The old man grumbled.
"Got bored and taught him to play Rock-Paper-Scissors." JD grinned and motioned to Dave. Marcus looked as unimpressed as always and gave Dave scornful look.
"Don't tell Baird you've been messing with his tin can." Marcus grunted, ignoring Dave's insistent Scissors gesture.
"Give it a shot. He'll kick your ass." JD left it at that and turned to head back to his tent.
Kait slapped the top of his tent to wake him in the morning, which was significantly more polite than Fahz kicking him.
JD sat up and let his sleeping bag fall away and immediately regretted it. The air was still frigid and his breath clouded into puffs of vapour in front of his face.
He rubbed his face with both hands and tried to ignore the cold as he prepared himself for the day. The medical salve had cooled into a thick paste that didn't want to spread until it warmed on his skin, and JD's cold hands didn't help.
Eventually JD emerged from his tent and found that the outside air was even colder than inside his tent, but there was a glow on the horizon that promised the sun's arrival.
The group quickly tore down their tents and packed their supplies into the Grindlift rig, then each of them ate their breakfast ration bars.
Even with his heavy drinking the night before, Cole looked fresh faced and ready for the mission, all smiles and typical happy demeanour. JD was envious of his uncle's constitution and ability sleep his alcohol away so easily.
By the time they were packed up, fed, and ready to head out the sun had risen and was casting early morning warmth on them through the broken buildings.
Paduk appeared around the side of the rig, walking up to them in his heavy, stiff soldiers gait.
"Get aboard your machine. We are leaving in five minutes." There was no 'good morning' or 'how was your sleep', just that unimpressed scowl on the old man's face.
Without complaint Delta piled aboard their rig, Fahz taking up the driver's seat again. Dave buzzed into the cab while a team of nomads prepared themselves to be Delta's escort.
JD stood atop the the rig and watched as the nomads removed the barrier between their camp at the rest of the ruined city, then the engine growled and they moved out.