Free Gears of War: Anvil Gate by Karen Traviss Page A

hand.
    “Give me the damn leash,” he said.
    “Leave the dog to me.”
    “You’re going to drop.”
    “I’m not bloody Anya,” Bernie snapped. “Stop nursemaiding me.”
    In the heat of the moment, Gears said all kinds of shit to each other. It was just adrenaline. Bernie regretted it the instant she said it, but she’d have to save her apologies for later. Baird was to her right, jogging about ten meters parallel to her. There’d come a point where she had to let Mac loose, but she needed to be much closer to his quarry first, and nobody knew just how fresh this trail was—except Mac. He was acting as if he could see something she couldn’t. Maybe he could hear it. By the time they reached the river, he was practically walking on his hind legs, and she struggled to hold him. The leash was wound so tight around her hand that her fingers were numb.
    “Sorotki’s on his strafing run,” Baird said. The Raven was getting louder again, heading back toward them. “Listen.”
    “Better not be,” Marcus said. “
Alive
, remember?”
    Then Mac stopped and cast around, throwing his head up from time to time. He edged down to the water—shallow, fast-moving over a pebble bed—and stood with his nose pointing upstream for a moment before lunging forward on the leash. He’d been trained to hunt silently but his excitement was forcing little squeals out of him. Marcus turned his head slowly as if he was scanning the trees, but Bernie got the feeling he was just keeping a cautious eye on Mac. He’d even been wary of the sheepdogs at Jonty’s farm. She found herself filling in gaps again as she caught her breath, wondering where Marcus might have run into a dog that made him mistrust them all that much.
    “Your asshole-hound’s telling us they went in the river
there,
” Baird said, wading across to the other bank. The water was knee high. “Or else we’ve been chasing a frigging aquatic
rabbit.
”
    Marcus gestured to Baird to cross to the other bank and move forward. Bernie was sure she could hear the sporadic revving of a bike. Sound carried for a long way out here. There was a moment of absolute quiet broken only by everyone’s breathing, and then Sorotki’s voice came on the radio.
    “Got a visual,” he said. “Yeah, in the river. Actually
in
the river. Whoa, there they go. Three adult males, moving up the south bank—your
left
, Delta—and armed. I’m coming around again to drop Cole and Dom.”
    Byrne cut in. “I’m on it, Two-Three-Nine.”
    “I see you, Byrne. Head green thirty.”
    The Raven looped and came straight back down the line of the river at full throttle. There was a loud crack, and Mitchell reacted: “Hey, did that bastard fire at us?”
    “Confirmed, they’ve got rifles. Lost them now. They’ve gone under some trees. Okay, stand by—turning again. Then I’m dropping off.”
    Bernie’s focus was cut to an instant, narrow intensity. She’d never done anything like this with the cattle dogs on the farm back home. Whatever they chased didn’t pack a rifle. As Baird splashed across the stream to follow Marcus, Mac scrabbled up the bank and almost pulled her off her feet.
    “Okay, dog
loose,
” she said. “Delta, Two-Three-Nine, Byrne—I’m letting him go, so watch for him.” She fumbled for the clip on his collar, rehearsing the commands Will Berenz had given her. “Fix ’em, Mac. Go on.
Fix.
”
    The dog was gone in a second. He was a big animal with a long stride, and he went off like a rocket. There was no way anything on two legs—not even Cole—was going to keep up with him. She simply jogged along, exhausted, trying to keep Marcus and Baird in sight, and knew she should have stuck to being a sniper. Her adrenaline was already ebbing, replaced by a shaky tearfulness that she’d never finish that card game with Andresen now, and a few mental flash-frames of her husband griping about her never being home on leave when he really needed her help on the farm. She