Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant (54 page)

“You mean we’re the friendly face of the COG ?” Dom laughed. Cole hadn’t heard him laugh in weeks, so maybe the guy was on the mend. “Shit, things are worse than we thought.”

Cole felt sorry for Lewis Gavriel. The poor guy had done his bit for the COG—done his bit for Pelruan, too—

and now he was getting shit from the locals because he was the COG official in town and they didn’t like what was happening. That was just
unfair
. Pelruan had to suck it up like everyone else, not that there was anything to suck up other than knowing that a load of strangers had moved in at the far end of the damn island. It wasn’t like having the water supply cut or rations being halved. It was just that dumb scared panic that human beings were good at, and that turned to something nasty if it wasn’t smacked down and dealt with.

“It would be funny,” Dom said, “if the Indies turned into the loyal COG citizens and Pelruan went rogue.”

Marcus grunted, scanning the fields around them like he was expecting trouble from the cows. “No, it’d be a pain in the ass.”

“I
told
you there’d be some Indies around who still didn’t know the war was over,” Baird said.

“They know it’s over, baby.” Cole could see the sea now, which meant they’d be in Pelruan in ten minutes.

“They just didn’t want the fun to stop.”

“Imagine keeping one submarine going.”

“They got a tanker, a frigate, and some patrol boats, too, Muller says.”

“So when are their people arriving?” Dom asked. “In other words, how long have we got before some civvies start spitting on us for being the bastards who launched the Hammer strike on them?”

“Aren’t they all technically Stranded?” Baird asked.

Dom shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“You saw active service in the Pendulum Wars. I didn’t. Does that make you feel weird about having Indies around?”

“Not half as weird as knowing what the former Indie states looked like after we fried them.”

“We fried COG states too,” Baird said. “Hey, Marcus, did Gorasnaya take a direct Hammer strike?”

Marcus turned his head and gave Baird the real acid blue stare this time, even though Baird’s line of sight was blocked by the ’Dill’s periscope. “You think I was given the complete fucking list?”

Sometimes Cole could work out what was really on Marcus’s mind. The guy didn’t get mad often, but occasionally he got
snappy
, and it was always over stuff that went deep and personal. This was all about his dad. Baird was just asking, Cole knew, but the Hammer was old man Fenix’s baby, and that twanged a raw nerve in Marcus. Cole tried to imagine how he’d feel now if he’d found all kinds of shit recorded by his dead dad in the Locust computers, but with no damn explanation.
And in front of his squad
. Shit, Marcus knew everyone was asking the same questions as him, too scared to talk about it because they knew he didn’t know either. That had to be driving him crazy.

“Baird, you just want to play with another submarine.” Cole went for a diversion. “Admit it. Too many old movies. You’re all
up scope
and
crash dive.”

“Just saying that if human beings run out of enemies, they have to invent new ones. Or get the old ones out of the attic.”

“Hey, if our Indie sailor boy brings a load of fuel with him, I think folks will settle down real fast.”

“Hilarious irony. We all got along when the grubs were around. If we’ve really wiped out those assholes, we’ll need to breed some more so we don’t have to kill each other.”

“Welcome to Dr. Baird’s school of social psychology,” Dom said. “But he’s right. And I
hate
it when that happens.”

Pelruan looked pretty normal when they rolled in. Folks were going about their business, and there was no mumbling discontent going on that Cole could detect. Gears had a sixth sense for trouble brewing. Rossi’s squad was rostered to do the day patrol, and there was Rossi himself, standing around talking with a bunch of locals outside the town hall, helmet under one arm. Baird stopped the ’Dill a few meters away. Civvies around here tended to get nervous when APCs rolled right up behind them in narrow streets. Rossi broke off from the chat and walked over to the ’Dill. “Oh, look—they’ve sent Hoffman’s big boys to check up on us.”

“We’re just here to make the place look prettier, baby,” Cole said.

“Well, we might not be pretty, but at least none of the houses burned down on
our
watch.”

Marcus looked around. “Nobody rioting, I see.”

“Only because they’re confused,” Rossi said. “They don’t know what to riot about first—the fact that we’ve moved in, or that we’ve invited complete strangers to join us for cocktails in our new resort.”

“Prescott should have told them in person,” Dom said.

“Yeah, that would have made all the difference. What are you here for, anyway?”

“Reassurance,” said Marcus.

“Ours or theirs?”

Marcus dismounted. “Baird—park up on the shore where they can see you. Everyone else—it’s walkabout time.”

Cole was okay with that. He had a choice of being the Cole Train or a Gear for these folks, and if he played up his thrashball star side for them—shit, he was still a
name
in Pelruan—then maybe he’d get through to them a little better than just being a big guy with a rifle. The squad split up and ambled through the streets, working on being nice. When Cole passed the town’s main store, a couple of guys in trawlermen’s overalls came out, and Cole recognized the older one from the boat that had put in at Vectes when the
Harvest
was lost.

“So is it true?” the man asked. “The Indies are back?”

“Only a few. They sink pirates, though. That’s got to be worth something.”

“Are we going to be safe to fish now? We’ve been stuck in harbor for days.”

They had a point. “Maybe we need to talk to Captain Michaelson about getting you some protection, and then you can fish again.”

“That would help a lot.”

Cole decided to tread on the thin ice. “You mind answerin’ a question for me?”

“Go ahead, Mr. Cole.”

“Do folks think we’re bringing nothing but trouble here?”

The older guy looked embarrassed. “Well, some people are saying that you’re provoking the pirates. But there’s nothing to say they wouldn’t have come here anyway, sooner or later. Tell us the truth—should we be afraid?”

“The folks from Gorasnaya won’t be a problem, if that’s worry-in’ you.” Cole meant it. The COG needed extra help, and a few more boats and extra fuel made a lot of difference. “Hell, they might even look after your trawlers. But they
need
somewhere, sir. They really do. My family had to leave their own country—it ain’t fun, I’m tellin’ you. And we tend to be real grateful for the chance to earn our keep when we get to somewhere that lets us stay.”

Cole could have reminded them that they didn’t have a say in this at all, but he still believed most human beings had a decent streak that he could find if he pressed the right button. These fishermen offered to share that butt-ugly eel thing with him; they were basically nice people, just scared shitless. And he couldn’t blame them. There was so much happening to them after years of relative quiet. Stranded pirates were a known quantity, but Indie submarines were right out of nowhere, and they hadn’t even got used to the idea of having Jacinto folk move in next door.

“Your family still alive, Mr. Cole?”

“No, they got killed. All of ’em.”
Forgive me, Momma—I ain’t using you to persuade ’em to be nice to
refugees. Just happens to be true. But you’d want ’em to welcome folks in need, wouldn’t you?

“Makes you see the world
different.”
Cole began walking away. “I’m gonna ask the Captain about some protection for your boats. I promise.”

Fishery protection.
That
was what they called it. Cole remembered the phrase just as he got to the waterfront and saw the ’Dill. Baird and Gavriel were standing alongside it. Baird had his finger pressed to his ear, talking on the radio, while Gavriel stood with arms folded, occasionally turning to look out to sea. Baird waved Cole over.

“There’s a pall of smoke.” Baird seemed to be talking to CIC or Marcus. “You don’t say … You think they burned their toast ? I said
pall…
No, I’m not looking at it, one of the farmers called it in. I thought there was a Raven patrol checking that shit daily.”

Cole listened in on his earpiece.

“Control to Delta, KR-Eight-Zero is going to check it out. Stand by to hear from Gettner.”

“Roger that, Control.”

“Baird, it’s Marcus. I’m on my way to you. Vigilante action?”

“I’ll check. Wait one.” Baird turned to Gavriel. “You’re
sure
nobody decided to settle a few scores now most of the Stranded have moved in with the COG?”

“It’s not our doing,” Gavriel said. “We let the dogs run loose in case the Stranded tried to disappear inland, but Dilland Jonty is the only one might torch their camp, and he’s the farmer who called this in.”

Now that Cole had seen Stranded waging their own civil war at sea, his first thought was that it was gang-ongang violence. It would be damned hard to keep an eye on everyone who came and went on Vectes. The coastline here had to be at least 250 kilometers, and that was an impossible border for anyone to patrol.
Serves me right for telling ’em they had nothing to worry about. Temptin fate
. Dom showed up, walking fast but definitely not running. That always made civvies nervous. Townspeople still paused to look, though.

“Gettner will be pissed off she didn’t get to set the place on fire herself,” Dom said. They all clustered around the ’Dill, listening for comms traffic. “She took that damage to her bird
personally.”

Marcus caught up with them and all they could do now was wait for Gettner to take a look at the place.

“Have we got any Stranded still pending on amnesty while the locals check them out?” Baird asked. “If any fail the vetting, we’ll have nowhere left to dump them.”

“No. But if we did, we’d find somewhere.” Marcus spread out a map on the ’Dill’s front scoop and squatted down to look at it. “Michaelson’s talking about a radar picket to pick up inbound vessels, but that’s not going to be airtight.”

Cole leaned over Marcus’s shoulder. Yeah, if some gang had slipped through for some retribution, then that really was a lot of coastline to patrol.

Gettner was back on the radio in less than ten minutes. “Control, Delta—this is KR-Eight-Zero. I’m over the site and I’m just seeing burning huts and a few junkers on fire. There’s nothing else down there. Going in for a closer look.”

“Gettner, we’ll follow up and do a search,” Marcus said.

“Roger that, Delta. Okay … confirmed, no boats, no bodies, no live ones, nothing. Nearest I’ve seen to clean. Cleared out, unless they’re all piled up in the huts for some reason. I’ll take a look and see if they’ve just moved inland. That many people leave some kind of visible track, usually.”

“Wouldn’t they take the junkers?” Dom asked.

Marcus climbed into the ’Dill. “Not if they left by sea. Let’s make sure they’re gone. I don’t know how these people share information, but if they know what happened to their buddies, then they’ve got one more grudge with us.”

Baird took the ’Dill down the narrow track that led from the inland cliff and stopped a few hundred meters away from the settlement. Cole thought that was extra-cautious, but they’d been caught out once too often in the last week. Gettner was right. It looked tidy. That was a damn odd thing to say about a burning shantytown, but it was true. The flames had already died down and the place simply smoked and smoldered, stinking of burned plastic and unburned fuel. The houses here had just been flimsy huts and shacks, quick to catch fire and crumble into ash.

Cole realized why it looked so clean when he passed the first charred wooden frame of a house. Fires didn’t always burn every last scrap, and all kinds of lightweight stuff got scattered around in the drafts, sad little bits and pieces that said something about the folks who’d lived there. But there was nothing like that here. The shacks looked like they’d been picked clean of everything the Stranded could carry.

Marcus ducked his head down to look inside one of the buildings that still had a roof.

“Don’t go in, man,” Baird called. “The roof might collapse on you.”

“Just looking.” Marcus walked across to another house where there was no sign of walls, just a big sheet of corrugated metal on the ground—probably the roof, all that was left. He lifted the edge of the sheet and peered underneath. “Nothing. No bodies.”

It was sometimes hard to tell charred bodies from other stuff, but Gears had learned to do that pretty well over the years.

“Looks like they did it themselves,” Cole said, scuffing through a pile of ash. The sky was still clouded with smoke. It was so much like the places he’d had to pick his way through back on the mainland that his gut still said grubs, but he knew it wasn’t. That still didn’t stop the reaction. “Looks too orderly. Not enough burned stuff here.”

Marcus nodded. “These guys just wanted to destroy everything they couldn’t take with them.”

Marcus had said it, so it was true, and Cole felt it was safe to breathe again. “Trouble is, I can never see anything for what it is anymore,” he said. “I see a damn ugly fish and I think it’s grubs. I see a pall of smoke and I think it’s grubs.” He tapped his skull. “The war ain’t over up here.”

Baird snapped his goggles into place. “Peace hasn’t broken out, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

There was something else that bothered Cole now. Most of the Stranded from this camp had taken amnesty. Most of those who hadn’t—the ones who seemed to have made a run for it—were the menfolk. That meant an awful lot of families had broken up, or else there were plenty of women and kids who were expecting to see their old man back again sometime. Either way, that didn’t sound like a happy foundation to become a loyal citizen of the COG.