Gears of War: Anvil Gate by Karen Traviss

Checking in. Need us to do anything?”
    That gave CIC a breathing space to respond in their own time. Anya came on the link. “Marcus, we’ve got ten incidents ongoing, including one involving Gorasni troops. It looks like a coordinated campaign. If you need air support, you might have a wait on your hands.”
    “No problem, Control. No contact here so far.”
    “Hoffman says to remember to bring back some live prisoners.”
    Marcus suddenly focused on Baird. “I’ll make sure we don’t forget that.” He paused. “Keep us posted on Andresen. Fenix out.”
    Marcus liked Andresen. Bernie did, too. They both drank with him in the sergeants’ mess. Baird suddenly didn’t feel he was wasting time tracking a few assholes through the mud.
    “Shit, I heard.” Bernie walked back toward them. She had Mac on a leash now, straining to hold him. “And that’s how a handful of arse-wipes can screw up a trained army. Come on. Mac’s busting to kill something.”
    “I bet the Gorasni are just ecstatic to find their new home’s a battlefield,” Baird said. “That’ll take their mind off their missing frigate.”
    “Cheapest form of warfare.” Marcus shook his head, that slow side-to-side gesture that was more disgust than anything. “Not a battlefield yet.”
    “Yeah, tell that to Rory,” Bernie said, leaning back on the leash to slow the dog down. “If he survives.”
    They resumed the trail in silence. Baird’s pulse was still thudding in his neck. It didn’t slow down to normal until Mac came to a sudden halt and stood with his ears pricked, staring intently past the trees at the slope of a rocky hillside. He never made a sound.Baird was expecting him to bark like a guard dog, but he just stared, and not even movement around him broke his concentration. The mutt was definitely trained to hunt with a handler.
    Bernie crouched next to him. “What is it, fella? You got something?”
    Marcus gave the dog a wide berth and stood on the other side of Baird with his binoculars in one hand. He didn’t seem comfortable around the animal. Baird squinted at the hillside and tried to imagine what the dog would see from here. Maybe he could smell something, or even hear it. The dog’s senses were much more acute than his own.
    Then he saw it. It was just a fleeting moment, but he was certain; a wisp of smoke or a fragment of ash from the rocks, gone in a couple of seconds on the breeze. Mac’s nostrils twitched.
    “Camp, maybe,” said Baird. He directed Marcus, trying not to blink and lose the point he’d focused on. “Elevation forty degrees, left of the bushes. See the deep shadow?”
    Marcus panned with his field glasses. Bernie cradled her Lancer, catching her breath, and Baird had an unwanted thought about whether he’d have softened toward his mother if she’d lived to be old and gray.
    No, she’d still be a bitch. And this isn’t guilt
.
    “Shit.” Marcus lowered his binoculars. “Caves. Just like old times.”
    Caves were meant for entering. Baird wasn’t afraid of what he’d find inside. He’d already found real monsters under his bed way too many times to fear his own kind.
    “Hey, flea-bag,” he said to Mac, looking for the best route up the hill. “That better not be rabbits in there.”
    V ECTES N AVAL B ASE , N EW J ACINTO .

    Dom had always wondered if Cole had what it took to shoot another human being, but the last few months on Vectes had cleared up that question pretty fast.
    Yeah, he could pull that trigger, all right.
    They were officially off duty, but that didn’t mean a thing now. Medics moved in as KR-33 touched down on the parade ground, and all they carried out of the crew bay was an occupied body bag. Two of Rory Andresen’s squad walked to the infirmary under their own steam, faces covered with blast wounds. It had been an everyday scene in Jacinto, but it sure as shit shouldn’t have been one here, not now. They’d left all that behind.
    Cole walked up and stood beside