Shadow War

It had taken the convoy nearly three days to make it out of of the city. As soon as they had hit the open freeway, they had not slowed down for anything, not even nightfall. The rough ride had already worn a sore in Marcus' rear end, making it hard to sit on any surface without wincing. Right now he was trying to keep himself from making any kind of contact with the seat below him, grunting in pain as his APC hit another rock, sending the suspension bouncing like a bucking Blood Mount. Dom, in front of him had no such luxury. Their orders were simple; clear the outskirts as fast as possible and not stop until they got to the new headquarters at Phillipe Mesa nearly 150 miles due south of their current position. Apparently Chairman Prescott thought that the salt flats surrounding the mesas of the Corsica Sea Desert would be a sufficient deterrent to a Locust counter-offensive that he chanced splitting up the remaining human populations among the granite and coral islands.

From what Marcus had heard about the desert, he had to agree with the Chairman. The salt flats were once part of a great sea that supplied shipping lanes from one end of the continent to the other. However, after the COG had implemented their 'Scorched Earth' policy, the sea had disappeared. No one knew for sure, but there was speculation that the blast from the Hammer had destroyed one of the main springs that supplied water to the sea, turning the surrounding lands into a swamp, and the sea into a desert. Just one of the many reasons the Stranded held a special place in their hearts for blowing the heads off of Gears.

The other reason Chairman Prescott favored the salt flats was because of the sun. Back when this had been a thriving sea port, it had also been a vacationing spot for many people wanting to take advantage of the sun and balmy climate. It had been a tropical paradise near the southern end of the sea with the sun shining nearly all year long. Any storms to be had came in at night fall and could do nothing to mar the landscape. Now that the water was gone, not a drop of rain had fallen in nearly a decade, cracking the ground and hardening the salt into a mirror like surface that gave the desert its nick name; Blind Flats. Prescott was hoping that the intensity of the sun reflecting off of the flats would protect them at least until they had their defenses up.

Epsilon Squad, all eight men strong, sat on the tops of the derricks, popping shots off at Tickers that were able to get in range of a sniper rifle. At their current rate of speed their efforts seemed futile, perhaps desperate. The convoys were maintaining radio silence with each other in case their transmissions were being listened to with a captured comm, so it was impossible to tell if the others were dealing with the same hardships they were. Pvt. Lei was keeping a running tab with his buddies in Epsilon on who could 'pop' more tickers in a day. The day previous Lt. Cates, a diminutive looking man with stark gray eyes had taken down thirteen tickers in a twelve hour period, though this was nothing compared to the newest Epsilon, Pvt. Rheems, who had 'popped' twenty-three of the ugly 'exploding boogers'.

"Hey, Baird," Rheems got off another shot that splattered a ticker across the dirt in all directions. "I saved one for you." Baird had changed places with Cole as gunner in the rear APC, though he was refusing to keep count of how many Tickers he had splattered, which reinforced his nick name of Mrs. Baird with the others in Epsilon. "What say we give you ten and let you start from there?" Rheems knew this would piss Baird off since he was already sore about it being suggested two nights previous that he had tried to up his 'score' with Lt. Cates' daughter. He and Raine were simply in the rear derrick's main wheel well checking a lube line for leaks when her father had spotted Baird reaching over his baby girl to get the 5/16 wrench. The resulting shouting match had proven difficult for Baird to live down.

"Gee, just what I always wanted, a fully armed snot ball." He snarled as he pulled the trigger and blew the Ticker into a greasy smear across the side of his APC. He was not going to tell those rooks up on the derricks that he had blown twice as many as they had. It only encouraged Rheems and his laugh academy graduates to keep their teasing up. He was not about to tell their commander that he was interested in his daughter and had used her love of machines to 'set the mood'. Raine was being kept securely in the middle derrick and away from Baird, which made him all the more irritable. It seemed that the others didn't mind that Cole was doing the same thing to the other women that he had been doing with the derrick. Baird snorted at that thought, thinking of all the girls swarming Cole and begging to have his child.

"Don't worry, baby," Cole laughed as Baird shot him a nasty look. "Cates' girl gonna soften him up. Ain't like he can watch her all the the time, anyway." Baird smirked, shaking his head. "If it makes you feel any better, he ain't that great a shot at long distances. 'Specially when you're runnin' away from him."

"Fuck you," Baird kicked the back of Cole's seat, thought not hard enough to distract him from driving the APC. Cole only laughed.

"You'll get it right one of these days. Then every one will want to ride the 'Baird-train."

"Ugh. If I ever call myself that, please shoot me!" Baird squeezed off a shot, sending another Ticker tumbling away until it exploded. As the flash faded into the dust cloud left behind the convoy, Baird thought he saw something on the side of the derrick ahead of him. He blinked and what ever it was was gone. Baird shook his head as he picked off another Ticker, thinking that the setting sun must have cast an odd shadow on the derrick and pushed the oddity out of his mind. The Tickers were falling away from their pursuit as the sun fell below the western horizon.

The derricks ahead of him turned on their running lights to keep the kryll away and to illuminate the flat, arid plains around them should anything try to sneak up on them in the dark. With nothing to shoot at, Baird had to sit tight in his seat and try not to hit his head on the ceiling with every bump. Just to occupy his time, he took out a small geo-bot he had been tinkering with for the better part of a week. It was nothing pressing, just something to pass the time until he had something to shoot at again. As he took off the back panel to poke around inside, he thought of Lt. Cates' daughter.

The girl was as much of a tech-head as he was, more than happy to get elbow deep in axle grease to repair the derricks. He had spotted her two days ago with an old set of tools trying to replace a leaky seal on the lube line. She didn't have the strength to keep the tube in place while it was still filled with the lubricant used to keep the brakes from rusting in the wet climate they were running from. She and her father had been on their own since her mother passed away from Rust-lung a few months before. She had taken it in stride, but her father was still beside himself since he had been out running missions for the COG when she had died. He tried to keep her close, knowing that she was all he had left of his wife.

Baird had rushed in to help Raine with the lube line, holding it in as she tightened the lug that held it in place. The two had fallen into light conversation as Baird used the tools to make a few needed repairs to the brake lines. As he had reached over the young woman to grab another wrench, their eyes had met. He didn't know how long he had stayed in that position, staring into her chocolate brown eyes. But when he had lowered his head just the fraction of an inch to bring his lips to hers, her father had chosen that moment to physically pull him out of the wheel well and proceed to chew him a new asshole loud enough to alert every Locust in the vicinity. He hadn't seen Raine since, though that did not mean that she was out of his thoughts.

Baird shifted, shaking his head to clear it. Now was not a good time to be thinking of her, and he knew that Cole would not be very understanding if he took care of his frustration inside the APC. Though it just might entertain the rooks of Epsilon and guarantee that he would never see Raine again if he even so much as breathed the wrong way. So, he bit the inside of his mouth and tried to think of the most disgusting thing he could. A Boomer in pink, Wretches dressed up like babies, even Marcus in a black leotard with pink stockings dancing to some teenager's love song. The only thing the last image got him was a strange look from Cole as he nearly dropped the geo-bot trying to suppress his laughter. Maybe not the best method. So, he concentrated on the mission instead, going over Col. Hoffman's words in his head when he spotted an odd shadow on the derrick in front of him. Again, as soon as he blinked, it disappeared. He wondered if the shadow that had tailed them all through out the city had hitched a ride on the derricks. And if so, who's side was it really on?