Prepared

Six years of fighting and nothing had changed. We'd gained ground, we'd lost it, and more people died every day. I never kept it a secret that I hated war, but Fate was happy to rub its good friend Karma in my face and make me fight in this unending pissing contest.

Assholes.

I sat in the back of a Centaur with Cole while Lieutenant Kemyss drove us through East Timgad, Sergeant Nott riding shotgun. I wasn't sure what ass Kemyss had to kiss for his promotion, but it had to be a good one. The man was incompetent, unlike me. I had a promotion coming my way for two years; I had a feeling Kemyss was the one to swipe it.

Driving through East Timgad was not how I envisioned my day but Control had tasked us with the crappiest job they could find—crawl through Central Stranded Station and offer Prescott's sick joke of amnesty. Personally I believed if they wanted to join civilization, they would have done it by now. They were Stranded for a reason. They couldn't abandon their state only to be welcomed back with open arms and a weapon placed in their hands. It just didn't work that way.

It especially sucked to go through East Timgad. It had become infamous for being a Stranded hotspot; there were more camps here than anywhere else. Maybe they were drawn in by the scenic crumbling buildings or the beautiful yellow haze that was definitely a sign of imulsion pollution. None of that stopped the Stranded. They built fortresses and thrived in this shithole. The past patrols through here were often hassled by idiots on the street or firing from the roofs; today, however, the streets were empty.

Nott had a map spread across his lap as he directed Kemyss down disintegrating roads. He was starting to get restless—as was I. Centaurs didn't exactly have spacious windows to stare out and play I Spy; not unless you wanted a rocket to the face or something. Even if it made me bounce my legs with impatience—a trait I personally hated and was often scolded for—I preferred to keep my skin and, well, life.

"I say ten more minutes before we pack it in," I told Cole, and maybe it was loud enough for Nott to overhear. "The Stranded obviously moved on. Hell, I don't blame them. This place used to be booming with factories and all that pollution has to go somewhere. I'm telling you, this place is toxic."

"The civvies seem to be fine," Cole said with a shrug. "I met a seventy-six year old man from Timgad and he looked healthy as a baby."

"I really don't trust this place. I can't be the only one who thinks it's weird. This far in, they always gave us a warning."

"So why don't you go find our Stranded friends, Private?" Nott asked from the front seat.

"What do I look like—the frigging Bishop of Corren? I don't want anything to do with these assholes. Let's just call Control, tell them no one was home, and go."

Nott took us down another street in the direction of the river. The Centaur bounced and jolted with every hole in the road. It would have been nice if someone marked the maps with Stranded camps. Then we wouldn't have to suffer driving in circles.

"We're supposed to save who we can, Private," Nott continued. "That's our duty."

"In case you haven't noticed, they renounced their citizenship," I replied. "Our 'duty' is to COG civilians, and even that's shaky most days."

"I think we found one, sir," Kemyss interrupted. Curious, I moved to kneel between the front seats to better see the monitor, the only window to the outside.

It was a Stranded camp, alright. They always chose areas they could barricade yet easily escape from; building along the river was terribly smart if they had boats. The front gate was a solid piece of sheet metal covered in graffiti that COG personnel weren't welcome. Watchtowers supported on rotten wooden beams were positioned on both sides. It was hard to tell on the monitor, but they looked empty.

"Something's not right," Nott said.

No shit. It didn't take a genius to figure out they had moved on, but the sergeant was always adamant about doing a job and getting it done right. He'd want to investigate.

"Private Baird, with me. Lieutenant, keep the engine running, and Private Cole, warm up the guns."

Shit. I hate when I'm right. "Whoa, you're not actually going out there, are you?" I asked.

"Yes, and you're coming with me." He grabbed his Lancer and crawled past me to get to the hatch ladder. Cursing, I followed up after him. If I were leading this operation, we would have been done by now, but I decided to keep that bit of info to myself. Nott wasn't afraid to shoot when he was angry—which was often.

If we thought things were wrong from inside the Centaur, we had no idea how abnormal it really was. It was silent, unnaturally still. Stranded, like animals, had that uncanny ability to sense disaster. When birds didn't chirp and Stranded didn't shoot, there was trouble somewhere.

I gripped my Lancer with one hand and covered my mouth with the other. This place smelled like shit. I couldn't tell if it was just the imulsion or real human waste, but I didn't like it. Seemed too much like an omen for my tastes.

We approached the gate and Nott banged his fist against the sheet metal. "Anyone in there? This is Oscar-Four with the Coalition of Ordered Governments. We're here on behalf of Chairman Prescott to offer amnesty."

Nah, really? Now they'll never answer the door. 'Hello sirs, have you accepted Prescott's amnesty farce yet? It's a great way for the government to easily control or kill assholes like yourself! Join today!'

Rolling my eyes, I walked away from Nott while he busied himself with yelling. Stranded camps, by default, always looked the same to me. Then again, I never cared to hang around one long enough to notice if one settlement used more wood or metal, or who suspended cars as traps to crush unwelcome guests. I did, however, take notice of something no human settlement should have.

"Hey, Cole," I said, finger pressed briefly against my ear to open the radio channel. "You wanna pan over towards the right, in front of the watchtower there?"

The turret made its distinctive whir as it swiveled behind me. "Sure thing, Baird," Cole replied, jolly as ever. "What's on your mind? Gonna blow their house down like—ah shit."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," I said with a sigh. "Thanks, man." Turning to grab Nott's attention, I called, "Yo, Sarge! Come check this out. Either the Stranded made some changes to their decor or we've got a problem."

Nott joined me to stare up at the fortress. The watchtower had a row of pikes in front of it; on those pikes, human heads. Nott grimaced.

"A warning to other camps or are those our men?" he asked.

"Got me. I can't even make out the details to tell you how long they've been up there."

"Damn savages."

"Does this mean we can go now?"

Suddenly the gate clanged, hidden gears engaging, and began to lift. I pulled up my Lancer, ready for something to shoot, but there was no one; the wide gap was empty. There should have been a nice welcoming committee. This entire situation had FUCKED written all over, and my instincts were honed enough to always be right. Okay, almost always.

Nott switched his Lancer off safety and motioned me to follow. I grabbed his shoulder before he could move.

"Hang on, are we really going to walk into this trap? Sir, something's been off all day. There's no way there are Stranded inside."

"We have a duty to investigate," he replied, shrugging me off. "Move out."

It was always the same thing—duty, duty, duty. Why couldn't Command give me one sergeant that didn't care about the same old crap?

Nott charged ahead as I tried to remember urban op procedures. The compound was a maze of walls and buildings. Stranded could be hiding in any crevice—or on the roofs. I aimed my Lancer high, scanning the rooftops. No reflections from scopes, no little shifts of movement. It was creeping me out.

"I'm telling you, sir, there's something really wrong here," I said. He ignored me.

The Stranded here had created a defensible city. Savages or not, I had to give them credit. It looked like they had claimed two apartment complexes and effectively expanded the top of their wall by covering the gaps between buildings with iron beams and sheets of metal. I could only imagine the weeks and amount of work it took to put it up. So where were the ingenious bastards?

I followed Nott to what looked like the center of town. They had made a nice courtyard where they grew their crops. The tomatoes looked great—cabbages, not so much. They were trampled into the dirt and beside them, we found the Stranded.

Nott cursed; I couldn't bring myself to feel the same. It was disgusting to stack bodies but the killers got the effect they wanted. I didn't feel sorry, just sick. What made it worse was that it was a pile of women and children of different ages.

Well, at least we knew where the smell came from.

Nott crouched beside the pile and bowed his head, crossing himself slowly. I didn't even know he was religious; the gesture made me uncomfortable. What was left to pray for in this world? When he looked up, he asked, "Where are the men?"

"Drawn away and killed?" I guessed. I could see the men going to battle, leaving the women to hold down the fort. What they didn't know was that the battle was a distraction to enter the camp.

"Or lying somewhere else in town." He touched a gory arm, turning it one way then the other with some difficulty. "Claw marks."

My heart began to pound. I didn't give a crap about the tears on her skin—it was the stiffness of it. "Try closing her fingers."

It took some strength but they moved.

I studied her arm more carefully, hoping her head was sticking out somewhere that I could get a better guess. I wasn't good with death but I'd studied some medical texts when I was younger; the signs were still clear in my mind. "Rigor—look, her skin is turning blue. This is fresh, maybe a day? Whoever killed them could still be around here. We gotta go, sir. I don't want to join the pile."

"Calm down, Private," he said as he stood. He radioed into Control as if we weren't standing in front of a major threat. "Mahoney, this is Oscar-Four. We're at the Stranded camp in grid two by the river. We might have—"

Movement in the sky caught my attention as a gurgling scream crawled down my spine. Nemacysts, here? Damn it, I told him!

"Say again, Oscar-Four." The CIC officer's voice crackled in my ear. We were rapidly losing comms as seeders threw their spawn into the air. "What happened?"

"It's an ambush!"

We sprinted, retracing our steps through the settlement, to find the gate. Knowing Stranded, there would be another exit somewhere but it'd be hidden. We didn't have time for secret entrances. We had to leave now.

My radio briefly came to life. "The gate's—is every—respond."

"Kemyss, we're coming back," Nott yelled into the radio. "We might have company."

The ground trembled. We couldn't afford to get pinned down now; I wasn't even sure if we were going in the right direction, but our surroundings didn't offer much for protection. We turned another corner and at the end of the alley was my own worst nightmare. They had been named berserkers by the squads lucky enough to survive them.

"What the hell is that?" Nott asked, his voice loud enough in my head to wake the dead—or draw unwanted attention.

The berserker that had been minding her own business snapped her head up at his voice. I quickly searched for a watchtower over the wall, using them as a compass, and shoved him down another alley. The berserker charged past us. Nott's face turned bone white at her scream.

"Introductions later," I said, out of breath and trying to keep a leash on my panic. The tremors hadn't let up. Where were the E-Holes coming up? "She's a real nice lady, just a bit homicidal. Come on, we gotta find the way out."

He closed his eyes for a second and when they opened again, he was back into his sergeant persona. Gears weren't allowed to deal with fear on the field; it compromised the operation. We just had to hold it until later, when we could collapse in our bunk and suffer the nightmares.

The berserker huffed outside our hiding spot, but maybe Nott realized they hunted mostly by sound—oh, she could sniff us out at any moment, but as long as Blind Bessie kept hunting further down the alley, we could make it.

We slipped out behind her and crossed the alley to another small corridor, back toward the gate. I could hear the Centaur's guns booming amidst Locust screams and was grateful to be in the clear. Sandwiched between two buildings, we were prime targets. There was nowhere to hide or take cover. As long as Cole kept up the heat, we would be fine. And if we brought Blind Bessie to the front, the Centaur could punch a hole in her. Maybe.

As we stepped back into the main walkway—strangely deserted of grubs—we ran into a different problem.

The gate was shut.

The Centaur's main cannon fired just outside, the metal sheet trembling with the force. The berserker screamed from behind us as she crashed through walls, but she couldn't yet pinpoint the direction of the noise with the echo. I almost wanted to tell Cole to stop firing until we found our way out. With another shot, the berserker came closer. I glanced behind to see some buildings sag as she carved her path toward us. If she could knock out the foundation of a building, I'd hate to know what she could do to a human. I didn't plan to find out.

"The gate controls. We have to find the controls," I muttered. I knew Nott didn't have a clue. Talking to myself always helped me think better, but damn if I understood Stranded. The controls could be underground for all I knew.

"We don't have time to raise the gate, Baird."

"And what are you going to do? Make smoke signals for Cole to blast it? I'm sure they're in the watchtower—think about it, someone's normally up there, they decide who comes and goes. Just trust me on this."

Blind Bessie punched through the final building and stood ten meters away in the clearing. She didn't stand around, though. She stomped back and forth, every other step bringing her closer. I held up my hand, hoping Nott stayed still and praying my bladder would hold. Today was definitely not a good day to drink half my canteen.

"Alright, Baird," he hissed, eyes trained on the huge grub, "what is that thing and how do we kill it?"

"It's a berserker. I've only seen one other before so I don't really know how to kill it."

"What?"

The berserker edged closer. I glanced behind me, one eye on her and the other on my retreat toward the tower. "Just shut up. I'm going to take my chances and climb the tower, so cover me."

"What the fuck am I supposed to do? You're the self-glorified grub genius."

"And you're the meatbag with an eagle on his chest, Sergeant. Keep her attention."

I moved as Cole fired another shot, scurrying up the ladder as fast as my idiotic boots would let me climb. Shit, who's bright idea was it to put sandbags on a soldier's feet? Below me, the berserker was getting restless. With a scream, she charged and slammed into the gate. I thought she might break through and give us an easy way out, but the Stranded had found some good stuff. She left a hell of a dent.

On the front wall of the watchtower was a hand crank with a rope attached. It lead off to the left, just inside the wall. Huh, so that's how the grubs did it; I didn't claim they were idiots, there was definitely some sentience there, but now I really hated them. I grabbed the crank and pulled, turning as fast as the rusted thing would go. The gate slowly began to lift.

"Baird!" Nott called. I could see him just over the edge of the platform; he was waving his hands wildly, shouting something, but it was lost over Blind Bessie's shrill cry.

And that's when the situation plummeted into the shit.

A nemacyst exploded on the roof. The force knocked me onto my chest and I covered my head as the tower shook and the top collapsed around me. Then the floor slid out from underneath me. I grabbed for a support plank; another from the roof crushed my right hand. Without so much as a gasp, I plummeted towards the ground—no, straight for the berserker.

My chest plate slapped against her back and she screamed, flailing her meaty arms. When I finally hit the ground at her feet, I was in too much pain to even think about being flattened but adrenaline coursed through my veins and knew what to do. I rolled out of her way as she tore through what remained of the tower.

Nott was suddenly at my side, pulling me to my feet. My legs didn't cooperate for a full three seconds. He was saying something again; my head was too crowded by a persistent buzz to comprehend him. I could have died. If not by the roof, Blind Bessie could have easily stomped me into mush. Oh god. I could have died.

I stumbled after Nott to find the gate was high enough to crawl under. He went first. I took a moment to catch my breath before following; my hand touched something wet on the other side. Shit, we were crawling through blood and grub innards. At least Cole had gotten them all.

The Centaur was where we'd left it and Nott made a mad dash. I wasn't so lucky. Drills and adrenaline told me I was okay, but holy shit, when did the world start shaking like this? I'm not going to collapse. There's a berserker behind me. Come on, Baird, prove your bitch of a mother wrong. You can do better than this.

I rose to my knees. Using my good hand, I pushed to my feet and stayed upright, but the colors of the Centaur began to bleed into the sky and ground. Move your feet, dumbass. You can collapse inside the tank.

It took maybe all of five seconds but time seemed to stretch on as I forced my legs to move the few meters to the Centaur.

"Baird! Come on, baby, gotta move faster than that!" Cole called, his voice slightly fuzzy. "Your ex-girlfriend sounds pissed in there."

"I might've said some less than pleasant things to her," I mumbled as I hobbled up to the Centaur. An arm slipped under both of mine and Nott supported me as I climbed the step. Cole grabbed my bad hand, hoisting me up as I grit my teeth against the daggers racing down my arm. He ducked down into the hatch and I followed after him; Nott came in close behind me.

"Get us out of here, Kemyss!" he said before he even touched the floor. "I don't want to know what a berserker can do to a tank."

I was still on the floor when the Centaur jolted; Cole grabbed my shoulders before I could slam into the far wall as Kemyss hit the gas. When it leveled out, I took my seat beside Cole and pulled off my glove with some difficulty. Shit, it was swelling already. It was hard to see in the dim lights of the tank, but it was obvious my hand would have a hell of a bruise. Just as long as it wasn't broken—sprained, I could handle, but a broken hand wouldn't do a technical man like myself any good.

"You okay, man? You got blood on your face," Cole said.

I was more concerned with my hand. Trying to flex it produced only numbing pain. "I'll be fine. Gotta get a doctor to look at this, though. A plank smashed it pretty good and I might've fallen on it."

"Private, I owe you an apology," Nott said, kneeling between the front seats as the Centaur bounced over the uneven roads. His face was covered in sweat, he was still trying to catch his breath, and all I could wonder was if I looked half as bad.

"What for, sir?" I asked.

"For arguing with Command to take you off my squad. You proved you've got some balls for a rich kid."

I sneered but was in no mood to feel pissed he'd tried to get rid of me. Yeah, it stung. I'd take it out on him later. "You so need me."

He chuckled and finally took his seat. "Even so, I'm stuck with you. Cole, I don't know how you've put up with him for so long."

"He takes some getting used to, but he's the kind of guy you want on your side, sir. He's always prepared for the worst." Cole slapped my back with less strength than usual. Shit, I had to look a mess.

Unfortunately there was no preparing for anything in this war. The best I could do was keep my head above water, let adrenaline sweep me into the action, and pray I didn't get trampled by a berserker. Any day I was still alive was a good day in my books.