Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant (37 page)

“You just got to shoot them when they destroy crops or kill livestock,” the farmer said. “They’re a damn nuisance. You from farming stock? You sound like an Islander.”

Bernie nodded. “Galangi. That’s mostly livestock. Grew up on a beef farm.”

“Say
ass.”

“Arse.”

He burst out laughing. “You got that accent.”

His name was Jonty, and he carried an obsolete shotgun broken under one arm. Three black dogs with wild, mistrustful eyes kept close to his heels.

“What about you?” he asked Marcus.

“Strictly urban.” Bernie could tell from Marcus’s slow head turns that he was keeping watch on the dogs in his peripheral vision, avoiding eye contact. “Big garden. Nothing more.”

One of the dogs edged forward and trotted over to Bernie to sniff at the cat -fur lining that was just visible through the straps on her boots. Bernie squatted down and offered a gloved hand for inspection, fingers carefully closed. The dog wagged its tail, apparently satisfied that she had the right canine attitude.

“Probably wants to chase cats with you,” Marcus said.

“No, he’s got a taste for Stranded.” Jonty snapped his fingers and the dog came back to heel. “They killed my other dog, the bastards. That was when I changed to using buckshot. They know the score now. If I catch ’em on my land, I shoot to kill. They got a choice of being civilized like the people up in town, or not, and they chose not, so I treat ’em like any other predator.”

Bernie understood the man perfectly, but Marcus didn’t look comfortable. It might have been the smell of manure, because that was one thing you rarely got in Jacinto. Either way, he wasn’t happy.

“So we could give you security cover,” Bernie said carefully She wasn’t here to do deals, but she’d struck up a rapport with the man, and it seemed a waste of goodwill not to broach the subject. “We’ll be reclaiming a lot of the open land for farming in due course, but in the meantime, we’ll need to find food supplies to top up the rations.”

“I’m finding it hard to work this farm on my own these days,” Jonty said. “Now, if you had some spare hands

…”

“Oh, I’m sure we can find some.”

“I think that would work out nicely, then.” He looked over Sorotki’s Raven with an expression of mild curiosity. “I never been in one of these things, y’know.”

“They’re noisy buggers.” Bernie mimed ear defenders with her hands. “You’ll need a headset just to talk.”

It took Jonty a few moments to convince the dogs that they should stay put and that he wasn’t being taken away. He talked to them like kids, which Bernie found painfully touching. Poor sod: stuck out here on his own, listening for every noise in the night, in case a gang of Stranded decided to cut his throat. Well, that was going to change.

“So you negotiated a food supply,” Marcus muttered, out of earshot. “Nice. But it’s all COG land anyway.”

“I know, but you catch more with honey than you do with vinegar.”

“And if they don’t accept the honey, then you pour on the vinegar.”

“Feel free to do better, Marcus.”

“I’m impressed. Really.”

“We’re going to need one hell of a lot more than a single farm’s output, anyway. One and a half to two hectares per person, preferably.”

“You worked it all out. Now wait and see what happens when we have to offer the Stranded amnesty.”

Marcus had never been sociable, but he was definitely keeping contact with Jonty to a minimum. Bernie knew she was in no position to criticize the farmer for taking potshots at Stranded or talking about them in pest control terms. But Marcus seemed to want to keep his moral high ground. For a man who had no qualms about killing Locust, he was pretty ambivalent about even the worst specimens of humanity.

Easy to be humane if you haven’t been on the receiving end of them. But you must have seen your share in
prison, Marcus. You know I’m right
.

Mitchell stayed in the cockpit with Sorotki as the Raven lifted and circled the farm. Jonty pointed out the boundaries and the routes the Stranded took to get onto his land by following one of the rivers that ran down to their part of the coast. Local intel was precious. Bernie made notes.

“So you’re going to bring all your big guns and troops into harbor,” Jonty said. “No wonder the vermin are getting restless.”

“If they’re that dangerous, why haven’t they wiped you all out?” Marcus asked.

“Animals generally stop eating when they’re full, and predators don’t wipe out their food supply, do they? But now you’ve shown up and upset the food chain.”

“Have they ever asked to join you guys?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Would you accept them?”

Jonty snorted derisively. “They think they can make anyone back down, even you, because we’ve been soft on

’em. We ought to go down there, all of us, every man and woman capable of holding a gun or a knife, and deal with them once and for all.”

“So you’ve had your own war for survival.” Marcus’s tone didn’t change. “You get desperate, you throw everything you’ve got at it. Done that. Had to destroy the place.
Twice.”

“I don’t think they realize the size of the force you’re bringing with you, Sergeant Fenix.”

“Time we told them.”

“Hey, Fenix, are we just overflying the farms, or what?” Sorotki asked. “The next one’s ten klicks east.”

“I want to check out the Stranded camp again.”

“Why me every time?”

“Because they shot up Gettner’s bird.”

“They shot up this one, too. Just a recon, or you want another fistfight with them?”

“Let’s see.”

Jonty leaned forward in his seat and pointed at one of the door guns, its ammo belt loaded and secured. “You can stop them anytime you want.
Permanent.”

That was the problem with Stranded. Not the pathetic ones, who just eked out an existence from day to day; Bernie couldn’t get worked up about them like Baird did. He saw them as traitors who could have fought the grubs but left better men—and occasionally women—to do it. No, it was the violent, criminal ones that were the problem, but even the COG balked at wiping them out.

And yet we fried Sera to stop the Locust. We sank Jacinto. Where do we draw the line? Who’s worth
sacrificing, and why? Why only good people, or the anonymous innocent ones? Why not those shit-bags?

She didn’t have an answer.

“See, there’s the sheep farm,” Jonty said. It was all bucolic peace down there, green and white and leafy, a world away from Jacinto and what was in her mind right then. “Up in town, they do like their meat.”

“Shit,” Marcus said to himself.

The comment was too quiet for the mike, but Bernie could lip-read that easily enough. The thought of lavish portions of roast meat was almost shocking. Rationing might finally be over before too long. Bernie let herself feel a little excited.

“So what do you take as barter?” she asked.

“Labor. Entertainment. Beer. Food I don’t grow or raise.”

She could see why people on Vectes had no idea how desperate the rest of humanity had become.
Is that their
fault or ours? Could we have shipped out here sooner?
It was all too easy to tie yourself in knots with the if-only and what-if. Everyone did the best they could with the situation they were saddled with on the day.

“Sorotki, can you take us over the Stranded?” Marcus said. “Come in from the highland side if you can.”

“Ah, the old gunship -rising-over-the-horizon trick,” Sorotki said. “Always a good laxative. And are you sure you want to do it with a civilian passenger embarked?”

Marcus turned to Jonty. “Promise me you won’t use that shotgun, whatever happens.”

“Not if it’s my life on the line.”

Marcus shifted the Lancer on his lap. “It won’t come to that.”

“Leave it to us, Jonty,” Bernie said.

“No
us
, Mataki.” Marcus checked his watch. “You stay well back this time. I’m giving them Prescott’s amnesty offer and telling them where to pick up their dead. After that, they can go to hell. Jonty, if there’s any asshole you can ID as a serious criminal, other than just antisocial, you let me know.”

Jonty didn’t look too pleased with that. “What goddamn amnesty?”

“Standard procedure,” Marcus said. “Chairman’s orders. We remind them they can join the human race, ask them to hand over their criminals, and the rest is up to them. We’re short of humans these days.”

“You won’t find any down there.”

“They never accept anyway.”

“And then what? You kick ’em off the island? You don’t know, do you?”

“Not my call,” Marcus said.

Mitchell manned the gun as Sorotki took the Raven over the cliffs to set down a hundred meters from the Stranded camp. Bernie knew the Stranded here were afraid, all right. It wasn’t just the COG showing up in force and ruining their arrangement. It was the first time they’d realized she was a Gear. They knew retribution was coming—and if not from her, then from the COG itself.

“You wait here until I call you,” Marcus told Jonty, and jumped out.

“What makes you think they won’t kill you?” Jonty called.

“They’ve seen what one squad can do. So they can work out how a whole army would ruin their day.”

“Leave your mike on,” Bernie said. “I want to hear.”

She couldn’t see enough from this distance. Marcus walked slowly to the beachfront shacks and stood there waiting. Eventually a couple of men came out cradling rifles and walked toward him, stopping about five meters away.

“Where’s Massy?” Marcus asked.

“Not here. But you’d know that, seeing as you killed him.”

“Got a message for you from Chairman Prescott, then. If you haven’t committed a capital crime, then he’s offering you amnesty. Citizenship. Just front up at the gates of the naval base a week from today, oh-ninehundred hours.”

“Asshole,” said the taller man of the two. “Don’t try to play fucking civilized with us.”

Marcus had a habit of saying what he had to say regardless of the responses he was getting. It made him seem robotic and implacable. The overall effect was unsettling. “And the locals get to look you over and identify the criminal element.”

“Followed by a fair trial, yeah?”

“You get the same treatment as a citizen. If any of them commit capital crimes, they’re in deep shit, too. Fair’s fair.”

“And how are you planning to enforce this crap?”

“The navy, a couple of brigades of Gears, and the civilian population of Jacinto are going to be here in a couple of days,” Marcus said. He seemed to be working through a list, not really expecting any dialogue, but determined to do it by the book anyway. “Whatever you’ve got going here is over. How you deal with that is your problem. You can collect your casualties from last night’s shit on the southern approach road, about two klicks out. Now, anything you want to say to me?”

“Yeah. Fuck off.”

“Fair enough.” Marcus took a couple of steps backward. “And the guy who recognized Sergeant Mataki better have a good explanation for why and how next time I see him.”

“Oh, there’s going to be a next time?”

“Believe it. Where’s the blue boat?”

“Why can’t you bastards just let us
live?”

“Living’s fine. It’s looting and violence we don’t like.”

“Where the hell are we going to go? There’s nowhere left.”

“Yeah, we found that out, too.” Marcus shrugged and turned to walk back to the Raven. “Try the other islands.”

Sorotki turned over the Raven’s engine. “That was a waste of fuel. Home, Jonty?”

“Only if you’re not going to let me shoot those two.”

Marcus repeated the litany. “Can you identify them as murderers, rapists, traitors, arsonists, looters, profiteers, or sex offenders?”

“You missed theft of war materiel,” Sorotki said.

Jonty pondered a mental list of crimes, frowning. “I don’t think so.”

“Then I’m not,” Marcus said. He turned to Bernie. “I suppose you’ve identified a good observation point.”

She had. It was habit. She couldn’t look at a situation without working out the best place to keep watch and get the drop on someone. “Nice OP on the ridge as we flew in.”

“Okay, we wait there and see who we can see. Give Jonty the binoculars, and he can ID some of them. Take us out of hearing range, Sorotki.”

Sorotki took the Raven a kilometer inland and left them to walk back on the observation point. By the time they reached the ridge, life in the Stranded settlement had reverted to normal and the residents were wandering around outside. Bernie settled down to scope through the faces.

“Damn.” Jonty lowered the binoculars. “There’s one I shot. I thought he was dead when they carried him off.”

“You need a Longshot,” Bernie said. “Reloading’s a pain in the arse, but it’ll stop a truck.”

She thought she recognized some faces. The Stranded were a small community anyway, but in the islands, the toughest individuals were the most mobile, island-hopping in small boats, keeping some sort of loose organization going like landed gentry visiting the peasants’ farms. Some folks turned up everywhere, not that there was much of anywhere left—

Yes
. They did.

Her scalp tightened as realization dawned. It took her a while to be certain, and in the end it was the tosser’s walk that confirmed it. Gait was one of the things you couldn’t cover up with a beard or change of hair color—

not that this one appeared to feel he even needed to.

It was him. The one that got away.
Until now
.

He was younger than she’d remembered, but she
did
remember. Some things were hard to forget. But however hard she’d tried to put it to one side of her mind so that she could go on living, she knew she didn’t want to forget enough to forgo revenge.