“Hell, who is? You ever killed anyone before?”
“I think I hit a Locust or two when we first reached Port Farrall,” she said. “But never a human.”
Baird just looked at her. “You still haven’t…”
Cole just shook his head. The flames were dying down in one of the junkers, and he ventured in to pull out a body that was half out of the driver’s seat. Dom only saw the movement as he tugged on it.
Cole froze and turned away. “Aww … shit, this one’s … aww, hell.”
Dom wondered what could disgust Cole. Any man who could chainsaw his way through a squad of grubs and laugh his ass off wasn’t the squeamish kind. It took Dom a while to work out what he was looking at, but then the blackened shapes resolved into something recognizable: the body had come apart in two halves when Cole pulled at it.
“Gross,” Dom said, and finished the job for him.
Humans … it was different. People weren’t grubs, not even the really shitty ones.
Baird peered over his shoulder, then went on loading the salvaged weapons into the ’Dill, still whistling. Gears generally despised Stranded—as savages, thieves, cowards, parasites—but Dom had always tried to get on with them because he needed their help. He’d lost count of the number of Stranded he’d stopped in the streets and shown Maria’s picture. Had they seen her? It was always no, until the last day, and then it had been too late.
Why don’t I blame them?
“Why d’you hate ’em so much, Baird?” Cole asked.
Baird counted off on his fingers with a theatrical flourish. “Failure to engage with the implied social compact between citizens and state. And the fact that they stink like shit.” He looked at his gloves, frowning. “Oh, yeah, I forgot—they’re mean to people we like.”
Marcus’s voice cut in on the radio circuit. “Delta, we’re done here. Everyone back to the slipway to clean up the debris. Baird—find some welding equipment and fix Gettner’s bird so that she shuts up.”
Baird drove the ’Dill down the narrow roads back to the shore. Pelruan seemed to have two natural centers, two places where people tended to congregate. One was outside the town hall—not exactly a square, more like a village green—and the other was the row of houses closest to the sea, almost a semicircle looking down the shallow slope into the harbor. Baird parked the ’Dill, headlights angled down onto the shore to illuminate it, and everyone dismounted. A growing crowd of locals had come out to look. Some stood with arms folded, looking shocked, but some were obviously mad as hell, and not just with the Stranded. Dom saw one guy yelling at Marcus while Gavriel and Berenz stood between them, making calm-down gestures with their hands.
“Vernon, nobody got hurt,” Berenz said. “The damage can be repaired. But nobody got hurt.”
Vernon turned on him. “Yeah, and they wouldn’t have come here at all if it hadn’t been for this bunch throwing their weight around—when did we last get raided? They don’t know how we do things here.”
“Vern, Stranded could come back and raid us anytime. But do you seriously think they’ll be back now?”
“Face it, Will—our way of life here is over. In one damn day, everything’s changed.”
Dom listened, resentful. Well, now you know how the rest of the world felt on E-Day, asshole. But we’re not grubs. We’re your own.
Gavriel steered the guy away. Marcus, being Marcus, just stood there in silence and let it roll off him, looking more interested in the bodies that were being laid out. Bernie examined them. They were looking for something. Dom jogged over with Baird to check.
“No Massy yet.” Marcus rubbed his neck as if he’d pulled a muscle. “Twenty-six bodies so far.”
“He might be one of the barbecued ones,” Baird said helpfully. “We’ve got a stack out on the road.”
“Either way,” Marcus said, “we’ve got a shitload of Stranded with a grievance.”
“So? They try it on, and we cap them, too. Not exactly a legal gray area.”
“Why the hell would they even try?” Dom asked. “Last-ditch raid? One for the road?”
Marcus shrugged. “Fifty to a hundred of them, with grenade launchers, assault rifles, and vehicles. Ten of us with two helicopters, reluctant to see collateral damage. We’d have taken those odds, too.”
“Yeah,” Dom said. “But we’d have won.”
The Ravens were still hovering over the water, searchlights moving slowly, while a couple of small boats searched for more bodies. Any they hadn’t recovered could have washed out of the harbor by now. Gavriel came back and joined the subdued line looking at the Stranded dead.
“I think it would be a good idea to call a town meeting in the morning and calm everyone down, Marcus.” He indicated the dead bodies with a nod. “People are quick to forget that those individuals there would have cut their throats for the clothes on their backs. And what with the … returning refugees, we’ve got a volatile situation.”
“Yeah. I’ll do that.” Marcus nodded, like it was the most natural thing in the world, no more than a dispute over a parking space. “I’ve had plenty of practice at explaining why things went to ratshit.”
He walked away, and Dom watched him sit down on the front steps of one of the houses, head lowered, finger jammed into one ear. Dom knew who he was trying to raise: Hoffman.
Hoffman, Dom thought, would have done exactly the same.
PELRUAN, KR-239 CREW BAY, LATER THAT MORNING.
Anya sat in the Raven’s crew bay with Delta, waiting for Hoffman to call back and explain just how disappointed he was with their diplomacy.
“You can’t make allowances for Stranded, Marcus,” she said. “One squad can’t search thousands of square kilometers in a day.”
Bernie shook her head. “I should have postponed my feud until the bloody fleet was here.”
“I’m the one who wanted to pay them a visit.” Marcus joined the squad competition to take the blame. Nobody could ever accuse them of sloping shoulders. “But we need to put a lid on any complications in town, and fast.”
Stranded could be anything from a slight nuisance to a full-scale threat. But nobody was used to a blurred line between Stranded and citizens; you were either one or the other. Some of the residents didn’t seem to be too sure about that dividing line, and Anya could see them milling around the slipway, staring at the debris from the skirmish. Some looked stunned, others disapproving. Being isolated from the real war had formed a very different culture, COG banners or not.
“When Lewis is ready, I’ll go in and talk to the council,” Anya said. “We’ll calm things down.”
Marcus did his slow head shake. “I’ll do it.”
“You want to address a meeting?” Anya felt that was her responsibility. She was the officer, and she was the one who’d told Prescott and Hoffman that things were fine, more or less. But a little pang of guilt made her wonder if she thought Marcus was too abrupt and aggressive to be trusted with the task. “Maybe I should do it.”
“A meeting,” Marcus said, “is just a mob that hasn’t started throwing rocks. I’ll be fine.”
Baird obviously couldn’t see what the fuss was about. “Hey, we’ve got the whole COG army coming. This is just a small bunch of seriously underarmed civvies. Why are we wasting energy trying to persuade anyone about anything?”
“Because we’ve got to rebuild society now,” Anya said. “Priorities are changing.”
“But this is the COG. Everyone’s got responsibilities. If they wanted all that flaky free-spirit I’m-an-individual crap, they should have moved to Pelles. Oh, wait—Pelles got creamed by the grubs even before Hammer Day. I rest my case.”
Sorotki stuck his head through the hatch. “The master’s voice. Hoffman on the line for the lucky victim.”
Marcus took a breath and pressed his earpiece, staring up at the deckhead. Anya listened in with her mike switched off, mainly to help her resist the temptation to intervene, and wondered if she should have stuck to CIC. She
knew damn well that her mother would have handled this better. She wasn’t sure how, but Mom had just had a presence that said she knew exactly what she was doing and that she couldn’t lose.
And even when she finally lost for the first and last time, she won the battle.
Miss you, Mom. I really do.
“Colonel,” Marcus said, “we had a minor incident. The situation’s been contained.”
“How minor, Fenix?”
“Stranded raiding party—up to sixty dead, no civvies injured.”
“So what’s your security evaluation now?”
“Can’t be more than seven or eight hundred of them, and at least half are women, kids, or old men.”
“Prescott wants the usual deal—offer them amnesty and ask them to hand over the criminal element. How are the locals taking it?”
Marcus paused. “We need to get a few things straight with them first. Like whose side they’re on.”
“You said they were COG citizens.”
“They’re mostly COG citizens who’ve never had grubs up their asses. So they aren’t as focused or grateful as Jacinto folk when we have to break a few things to save them.”
“I hear you, Fenix. Prescott wants to address them live via your bot’s video link, but I’ll stall him.”
Marcus did his silent sigh, eyes shut for a moment. “Tell him he’s even more charismatic in person. What’s your ETA?”
The link faded to static for a moment while Hoffman seemed to be consulting someone. “Michaelson estimates four days, but we can start flying in teams in a few hours.”
“We’ll keep a lid on it.”
“You will call for assistance if you run into difficulties, Fenix. This isn’t the war. Policing civilians requires more manpower than shooting troublesome bastards.”
“I’ll make a note so I remember that.”
Marcus jumped down from the Raven and walked toward town. Anya followed with Dom.
“You’re not going alone,” she said.
Marcus didn’t turn around. “I’ll try not to drag my knuckles.”
The main meeting room of the town hall where they’d played cards just hours earlier was now packed with locals, who might have been representatives or just the first ones who managed to cram in to find a space. Anya took it as a positive sign—at least they weren’t rioting in the streets. Lewis Gavriel’s first reaction had been to call a meeting, and the population’s response had been to attend. That wasn’t the behavior of a mob.
Gavriel squeezed through the crowd, clapping his hands to get attention over the hubbub of voices. But it was actually Marcus who silenced them. He walked in behind Gavriel, and the noise level dropped as if someone had turned down a volume control. He cleared a path without even trying. A teenage boy—fifteen, perhaps—turned idly to see what was behind him, and the expression on his face when he saw Marcus was pure animal fear, instant and undisguised. Anya was taken aback by it.
Hey, that’s my Marcus, he’s not like that, he wouldn’t hurt you—
Anya had to remind herself that any Gear was an intimidating sight for civilians not used to them—all that battle-scarred armor, the Lancer that never seemed wholly clean of blood, the impression of bulk and sheer unstoppability—but Marcus projected something beyond that. It wasn’t just dominant body language. It was a kind of angry weariness. It made people shut up and listen.
He reached the front of the meeting room and stepped onto the low dais with a hollow thud of boots. Anya moved off to one side with Dom, looking back at the packed hall and scanning the faces. Most wore similar expressions of confusion and fear.
Gavriel stepped up beside Marcus, all solidarity. “Citizens, I know you’re all worried by what happened earlier, but I really need you to listen to Sergeant Fenix. We’re going to have to get used to some changes. I want you to hear him out.”
Dom was standing so close to Anya that he could whisper in her ear almost without moving. “I’d like to see anyone try to interrupt him.”
Anya kept telling herself that Marcus could handle this. But he wasn’t even the talkative type, let alone an orator. She braced herself to step in if he hit problems.
“I want you to understand how serious our situation is,” he said. “You might think you know what war means, but you don’t. Most of humankind is dead. All the cities are gone, even Jacinto. The only humans left alive, apart from Stranded, are on their way here by ship because they’ve got nowhere left to run. Do you understand the stakes? We’re facing extinction. That’s why we’re moving in. And it’s not a request—it’s going to happen. The people we pulled out of Jacinto survived hell, and they’re COG citizens, too. So here’s the deal, like it’s always been—you do right by your fellow citizen, and the COG does right by you. There’s no other deal on the table.”
Anya never knew Marcus had that many words in him. She almost didn’t dare look at the crowd in case she broke the spell—which seemed to be horrified shock rather than admiration for Marcus’s brutally frank announcement.
It took a few long seconds to sink in, and then the questions erupted. And they weren’t just fired at Marcus; the crowd was arguing, taking sides, shouting. Marcus just folded his arms and waited in silence for them to yell themselves to a standstill.
Okay, that’s not a bad strategy …
“What the hell’s going to happen to us?”
“Are you invading?”
“How many? Come on, how many? This is just an island.”
“You selfish bastards—didn’t you hear what the guy said? They’re all that’s left.”
“They’re going to be slugging it out with Stranded and we’ll get caught in the middle.”
“We fended for ourselves when the COG abandoned us—where the hell were you when we needed you?”
“They’re our own, man. They’ve got nowhere else.”
“We don’t have room. Why the hell do we have to take them?”
“Because we’re COG, asshole, you forgotten something? What do you think the flag is? Why do you think we’re here at all?”
“I don’t care, they can’t just walk in—”
Bang.
Anya flinched. She thought for a moment that Marcus had hit the wall behind him with his fist, or maybe Gavriel had, but it was Dom. He’d knocked over a chair.
Dom took three strides into the crowd and grabbed the loudest guy by the collar while he fumbled inside his armor. He pulled out something: his photographs. He’d taken those pictures out so many times over so many years that he could just flick them out like a card trick. He shoved the photographs right in the man’s face.
“See this?” he said. Tears ran down his cheeks. “This is my wife. She’s dead.” He fanned out the photographs one-handed. “And these are my two kids. They’re dead, too. And these are my folks, and her folks. They’re all dead.” He dropped the pictures, the whole pack, and they fluttered across the floor. “You think they all died so you could slam the fucking door in our faces and tell me you don’t have room for the few who didn’t? I’m telling you—you have room.”
Anya held her breath. One wrong word, one move, could set off a fight. The guy just stared into Dom’s face even after Dom let go of his collar, and then squatted down to gather up the photographs with him. Dom, suddenly his normal self again, patted the pictures into a neat pile and slid them back inside his armor. Marcus stepped down off the dais. Anya expected some parting shot from him, but it was clear now that none was needed. He put his hand under Dom’s elbow and gave him a push toward the door.
Anya found herself alone, standing with Gavriel, with nothing to add.
“It’s that simple, people,” Gavriel said. “This is COG sovereign territory, and we’re its citizens. If you don’t want to accept that duty anymore, then this is a big island, and you can go your own way as Stranded. But Jacinto’s remnant is going to settle here. That’s all there is to it.”
Some people got up and stormed out. The rest just stood or sat w
here they were. If any of them were overjoyed at the prospect of ending their isolated existence, they didn’t show it.
“Thank you,” Anya said. “You have no idea what a lifeline this island is for everyone.”
As Marcus had said, Vectes didn’t actually have any choice. The remnant was coming, the COG was asserting its authority, and there was nothing anyone could do about it except develop a streak of self-destructive insanity and try to fight its own government.
But it still never did any harm to say thank you.
An old man with a wonderfully lined face smiled at her as she left the meeting room.
“Didn’t Ephyra effectively shut the door to refugees when Prescott ordered the Hammer strikes?” he said, still smiling.
“Yes, it did.” Anya couldn’t call it a low blow, because it was an inevitable parallel to draw. She wondered what he was going to tell her—and she knew that he would, sooner or later—about the relatives he had lost somewhere on the mainland. “But the people in those ships, they didn’t do anything.”
That wasn’t completely true, of course. There was Prescott and Hoffman. But Victor Hoffman had paid dearly for his part in the decision. She liked the old bastard too much to see him pay any more.
“Perhaps we’d have seen things differently if we’d been overrun by Locust,” said the old man.
“Yes,” Anya said. “I think you would.”
CHAPTER 12
I am responsible for myself and my actions; I shall conduct myself honorably, and live a clean and frugal life. I have responsibilities to my fellow citizens; I shall be loyal to them, and humble, because we are equal elements of a greater whole, and without them I am nothing. I have responsibilities to our society; I shall understand and respect my place in it, defend it, and work to make it prosperous, so that I may receive society’s protection, and that we may hand on safety and prosperity to future generations.
(THE OCTUS CANON, FOUNDING PRINCIPLES OF THE COALITION OF ORDERED GOVERNMENTS, AS HANDED DOWN BY THE ALLFATHERS, AND RECITED BY EVERY CITIZEN.)
PELRUAN LANDING AREA, ONE DAY AFTER THE STRANDED RAID, 14 A.E.
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