Shadow War

The air exploded in a symphony of war. The Boomers on either side of the square provided the bass drum beat; irregular and intense. Grubs supplied the delicate sounds of bullets flying over head and through concrete at near the speed of sound. The conductors of both sides shouted orders into the cacophony, redirecting the beat and the tempo as they desired. The ear-splitting soprano virtuoso of Wretches filled in the voids left by dying performers, slumping to the ground as bullets tore their bodies to shreds or howling in pain as lancers sliced them open. The beauty of it was lost on those cowering in shadows or behind barricades. Even blocks away the performance drove icy daggers of dread through those not brave enough to take up the conductors call.

Inside, the symphony took on a whole new meaning. Blind fire from both Gears and Grubs was the only thing to be heard apart from the Boomers trying to flush their pray out into the open for the Grubs to tear them into a bloody mess. The whole war seemed to be reflected in this one, small skirmish; a microcosm of the eternal struggle of two races, neither willing to budge an inch but forced to give ground. The dry soil drank both Human and Locust blood with equal gluttony. The sun seemed to beat down on both sides, adding to the chaos of sounds, a smell familiar to any who has fought long and hard on the battlefield among their own fallen. The scent of the dead was a thing unto itself; a creature that curled into their mouth and nose and let them know how strong their proud and mighty bodies really were.

For the Locust, their one and only thought was of their Queen. Her approval was something to be treasured, like the precious stones and metals that adorned the once magnificent statues of this broken and beaten world. Each fought on for the glory of the Horde, the one-mind. The Queen was all, and all were the Queen and her will could not be defied. To do so, would be to invite a fury into their minds the likes of which all the hells in existence would seem a paradise in comparison. To die in service of the All-Mother was an honor above even the privilege to breed. Their seed may live on for several generations, but their names would be remembered forever. The All-Mother never forgot those fallen in loyal service to her.

The Gears returning fire as fiercely as if they were a hundred score more numerous than the Locust army fought for another reason entirely. The glory they fought for was that of survival; the hope that their kind would live to see one more sunrise. Each battle was fought as though it was their last; and for many, it was. Unlike the masses of the Locust, they fought not for those who had come before them, but for those who would come after. They fought to be with their wives or lovers and children one more day. They fought so that one day, their children would not have to know the terror coursing through their veins as their best friend's head disappeared from his shoulders in an explosion of blood, bone and brains. Those who had survived long enough to grow out of their lust for battle had long ago come to the understanding that for all the training and physical modifications and armor, they were, in the end unable to stop that last bullet. The one with their name etched in blood and sweat and fear over its metallic surface. The one that would either take them quickly with a head shot, or let them linger on with a chest or gut wound, bleeding out like a Raven purging the last of its fuel before it crashed. Making the bang into a whimper.

But even though some of their members had been cut down so quickly their fingers still pulled the trigger of their lancers, the Gears fighting had something that the nearly innumerable Locust did not. Not even it's highest ranking General had the one gift that made the fight even possible. They had free will. The ability to assess a situation and deploy their own brand of a solution to a situation. Even though the commander of these Grubs was hunkered down behind the Troika, shouting orders between volleys of 30mm rounds ripping through the air; he was vulnerable. Because even though he had the infinite eyes of his All-Mother watching the battle for him, there were things that even the Locust Queen could not see, could not predict. Could not change.

One of those things sat hunkered down behind the two foot high wall that surrounded the roof of what once was a book store. The sniper rifle, loaded with so many modifications it would qualify as a lancer itself sat balanced on the lip of the roof, small hands gripping the stock and trigger. The small form waited, staying as silent and still as the dead now littering the park square once lush and green with life, now gray and red; the standard garb of death. Eyes the color of corroded copper watched and waited for their prey. The figure kept time by the flashing of the troika as the grub fired at anything that moved whether it be Locust or Human. Her quarry lay behind the troika. She dared not hit the shooter, dared not spoil the element of surprise. She knew that when the Commander's eyes met hers the game would be up. Once one knew of her presence, all would know. And she was not in the mood to die today.

The young woman watched as the grub behind the troika was over taken with blood lust, drunk off of the deaths of his own kind and the Gears falling into masses of steaming flesh. Several more young men met their end in blood and pain and still, she waited. She waited, patiently, not daring to wipe the sweat from her eyes should she miss her shot. She was not affiliated with either the Gears or the COG outpost on Jacinto Plateau. She had survived in the open since E-day. As she had watched the nightmare that had overtaken her world, she had descended into the shadows and not come back out. Even now she lay in shadow, the sun arching nearly overhead, her cover shrinking as the day grew long. And still she waited.

Fourteen years ago, she had been a secretary. She had started her position not six months before and she was still excited to be working for one of the top generals of the COG. She was old enough to remember the days before the nations had banded together in a loose knit Coalition of Organized Governments. COG for short. Like the spindles and wheels in a great machine, each nation fit into another. Each had a job and would function for the good of all who were citizens. Crime had disappeared almost overnight. So had hunger and greed as the society marched headlong into unity. Money was no longer an issue, because money was no longer in existence. It had seemed that paradise had descended upon every citizen of the COG. She should have known from the start, that such rapture was never meant to last.

It had been late evening, and she had stepped onto the sidewalk to make her way back to her apartment. It was small, but would serve her needs until an opening came in the larger suites for employees of the top brass. Her name had come up earlier that week, and she was scheduled to move in less than three days time. She was excited and looking forward to not having to walk fourteen blocks to the office. After that, her life would settle into a predictable rhythm and she would finely accept Stephen Young's request for a date. She had been smitten with the young man since she had been interviewed for the position, watching as he spoke with one of the higher ranking women of the Marines. She thought he was beautiful, intelligent, and when their eyes locked, she knew right away that this was it. It had to be. She had never felt the electric tingle race down her spine before his eyes met hers, before he had 'accidentally' brushed past her in the General's office to lay the stack of papers on his desk, touching her shoulder as though to keep his balance and not intrude the space between them.

It was not an accident. There were no accidents in love. Just as there were no accidents in war. Stephen was working late, he was always working late on weekends, putting in hours in exchange for privileges he could use later. Privileges like a bigger apartment, a vehicle and one day, a marriage license. Anyone was allowed to marry, but they had to work for that privilege, and Stephen was nearly a month from getting the necessary hours in to have his employer sign off on his license. Hers would follow soon afterward after she had cleared the necessary security checks. Her shoes clicked as she walked down the quiet streets. Vehicles were not needed this far into the city since all the places she would need to go were within a few minutes walk from her home. It seemed unreal to not have keys in her hands to enter her own apartment. She had the thumb scanner now, though it was not for safety as much as surveillance. Her employer needed to know where she was at all hours of the day and night in case someone might falsely accuse her of a crime, or if she committed one. She still was not entirely comfortable with the device, but she supposed time would help her become accustomed.

She turned the corner in front of a movie theater when she felt the small rumbles beneath her feet. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but she continued on at a much slower pace. She continued to feel the small rumbles first as a tickling in her ear, then vibrations in her feet. Finely she began to see outward signs that she was not just imagining things. Loose pebbles and stones were bouncing along the streets and sidewalks or falling from the roofs of buildings. Windows began to rattle and people started turning out of offices to confirm that it was not just them feeling the rumble. She had never felt an earthquake before, but she imagined that even the longest lasting of them would not go on for two minutes. Each second the rumbling got stronger until she could barely walk up right and had to settle for a modified bear crawl to get out of the street. She sat on a near by park bench to wait the oddity out. But it kept getting stronger.

Soon the bolts holding the benches to the ground began to shake loose of their foundations. Cracks started forming in the marble and granite facades of the buildings and small pieces were already coming loose. People were in the streets in the hundreds by now, wondering what to do. Finely the shelter in place sirens began to wail, forcing the people back into the buildings. She had meant to follow, but as the rumbling reached a crescendo, she felt something deep below her crack. It felt like a two by four was broken against her legs and she fell to the street, struggling just to sit up. Dust and clouds of smoke billowed up from the offices she had come from, and slowly, the rumbling died down to a barely felt tremble. The silence was just as deafening as the rumbling roar.

It felt like the entire populace of the city was holding their breath, waiting for - something, anything. As she finely got to her feet, a new rumble began to grow from deep within the earth. She recalled staring at the cloud of smoke expectantly, wanting something, anything to happen. The screams started then. A few at first, but soon the voices rose to form a tidal wave of primal terror. She had to start running to avoid the thousands of people now filling the streets as they pushed and shoved and screamed and cursed and did everything they could to get out faster than the person beside them. She had ducked into an open doorway, dark as the last of the sun's rays were swept away as night drew the curtain of stars above them. The screams of people were joined by something more now.

As the last of the sun light faded, she began to hear inhuman howls carried in the wind. It was only faint at first, then exploded as the ground shook again, throwing her to the floor. Gun fire erupted, joined by the screams of people running as fast as their legs would carry them away from something she could not imagine. COG soldiers, the first Gears formed up and opened fire. She watched as they held their ground, their faces set in painful concentration as they kept their fingers on their triggers. She was still confused as to what was going on, until the line of Gears was torn apart by something so hideous her mind refused to even acknowledge its existence. She huddled in the shadows of the doorway, as blood flew into her face, staining her suit. The screams of the last Gear finely died as a massive creature crushed his head beneath its boot. The creature roared again, sniffing the air as it turned its hideous head from one direction to another, unable to decide where to go first.

One of the white masses pointed toward the northern part of the city, hissing instructions to the behemoth and following her charge as more explosions rocked the city. She could not move, could not look away from what had become of the Gears. She had never known such savagery existed outside of nightmares. For her, the sun never rose after that day. She always hung in the shadows, covered from head to foot in grime and the blood of slaughtered Locust. Nothing would touch her as long as she was covered in fresh gore, but even hiding no longer became possible. Humanity had begun its slow descent into oblivion, and while picking through what was left of both Locust and Gears, she had found a fully functioning rifle. It was not automatic, but it would suit her needs. She practiced, shooting targets like cinder blocks and boulders until she got good enough to shoot the tops off of beer bottles at four hundred feet.

It no longer became possible to simply pick through the remains of humanity's struggles. She used her one weapon, and she found the weakness of the Horde. There was an old saying among war planners. The enemy they faced, at least in their mind, was like a great snake. If the tail was struck first, it would coil itself and strike from its position of strength. But if it's head was removed, the snake would die with little or no fight. She had found the head of the many snakes that made up the Locust Horde. For all her omniscience, the Locust Queen still needed her Generals and Commanders to convey her wants to the grubs who had a limited or non-existent understanding of tactics. If left to their own devices, they would walk right into a lancer whose chain-saw bayonet was revved at full speed. If their commander was killed, they would fly apart and be picked off by the sweeping arcs of blind fire.

She waited, watching the troika as the shooter swung the gun to its right to pick off the Gears who had entered the building and hoped to use it to take out this annoyance. Her finger stayed until she saw the full roundness of the commander's head. Her finger flexed once, the gun kicking into her shoulder as the bullet hit home. The troika shooter had not yet noticed that his commander was dead and continued to haze the building to his right with bullets. Another twitch of her finger, and what was left of the grub landed heavily on the headless body of its commander. The troika went silent before the square exploded with grenades and lancer fire, taking the rest of the confused grubs out until the last one hit the ground with a hole the size of an ostrich egg in his chest.

The surviving Gears ventured out into the park, their eyes on the building across the square. They checked the dead, and gathered ammo to replenish what they had used. Some started passing around canteens of water and small rations of food as their bodies healed from the bullet wounds. The squad leader stuffed a piece of jerky in his mouth as he brought a pair of binoculars to his face. His eyes fell onto the bookstore roof as the sun drove the last of the shadows away to reveal an empty building. He handed the binoculars back to his second in command as he chewed on the jerky thoughtfully before he turned to his men. "Delta squad! Form up and move out!"