Gears of War: The Slab by Karen Traviss;

Author:Karen Traviss;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

THE SLAB: LATE FALL, 11 A.E.

“Did you hear?” Leuchars said. “Campbell’s son’s been killed. Grubs ambushed his patrol.”

He was on his hands and knees on the flagstones next to the boiler room, taking his turn to move the spoil from the tunnel while Vance did some digging below. The distant thump of artillery and the occasional noise of a Raven high overhead penetrated from the outside world.

“Oh, shit.” Vance’s voice wafted up from the hole. “Campbell’s going to be Fenix-hunting to make himself feel better, then.”

Campbell had backed off Marcus since he put him in the infirmary, or at least Reeve hadn’t seen any attempt at physical violence. The verbal abuse was pretty consistent, but words never killed anybody. Maybe it was because Marcus had changed. Reeve wouldn’t have described it as perking up, because Marcus still looked as miserable as sin, but he definitely had something on his mind, and it had all followed Prescott’s visit. Maybe he’d been promised parole. Maybe it was nothing at all. For all Reeve knew, Prescott might have been his dad’s best buddy. Whatever it was, it seemed to have lifted the guy just a little.

“Well, Jarvi’s going to have to keep Campbell on a leash,” Reeve said. “I only signed up to keep you assholes from killing our soldier boy.” He paused. He didn’t want to look like he’d gone sentimental on Marcus. “Smokes available in return for reading material.”

“Does Fenix know something we don’t?” Leuchars knelt back and looked toward the door that led out to the kitchen gardens. That was where Marcus spent his work time when he wasn’t on the cleaning roster. When he couldn’t dig or rake or weed another square centimeter of soil, or when it got too dark to work, he’d quit, take a shower with his back to the wall, and shut himself in his cell until it was time to start all over again. “He’s eating and doing his exercise. What did they do, threaten to shove that half-assed feeding tube up his nose and make him eat?”

Vance nodded absently. “Yeah, maybe he heard what happened to poor old Brendan. Get that tube wrong and those fucking things kill you.”

Edouain kept looking toward the door to the gardens. “So go ask the COG if he’d like to contribute to the effort now.”

Reeve knew the old war hadn’t gone away for Edouain. He still called Gears “COG” like it was their rank. He regarded himself as a political prisoner, as if what was in his mind when he blew the shit out of Dormera made him better than Reeve, who didn’t have his mind on anything at all when he squeezed the trigger except getting paid and not getting caught.

“He doesn’t want to escape,” Reeve said. “He’s doing his penance.”

Edouain watched the debate, calculating something on the back of a piece of cardboard. Reeve loaded the soil and stones into a small bucket and walked them out casually via the latrines and into the lean-to toolshed by the exit to the gardens.

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