“I’m not sure what’s worse,” someone said, “the heat or the damned insects.”
A debate arguing the miserable merits of both ensued. Gabe decided against ordering a stop to the thinly disguised complaints. Sometimes letting people vent was better in the long run. So he tuned the conversation out, and instead moved up and down the column, checking on those who’d been wounded.
Of them, Gian had the most serious injuries. The burns on her arm were extensive, and the gash on her forehead would need stitches, of that Gabe felt sure.
“If you need to stop, just say so,” he told her. “I can have a few of Blue Squad stay with you, and we’ll send someone back once evac arrives.”
She only shook her head, and kept going, as determined as ever not to slow down the march. Graham appeared at Gabe’s side.
“She was with all her fellow engineers when that cave collapsed,” he said. Gabe glanced at him. The man hadn’t been on Knifespire, but Gabe had heard him talking to those who were. He seemed to have a knack for getting stories out of people, and a sincere interest in what they said.
“Your point, sailor?”
The man glanced forward. Gian was twenty paces ahead now, ducking under a vine.
“I’ve been stationed at Vectes for sixteen years,” he said. “Seen just about everything. Been a long time since we had losses like you guys endured on that island, but it’s not unprecedented. Gian’s in shock, which is natural, but that still means you need to keep a close eye on her. How she deals with that shock could go any number of ways.”
“Sounds like you have some experience.”
He shrugged. “Did a stint in Psy-Ops, analyzing the effectiveness of all the fucked-up techniques they use to get intel from Indie prisoners. Trust me, shock is the lowest rung on that ladder.”
“Interesting career path. How’d you end up here?”
Another shrug. “Couldn’t take it anymore, so I just… asked.”
Gabe tried to imagine doing such a thing, and found to his surprise that he could. A clean slate. A new beginning. The idea held definite appeal. Dangerously so. He put the fantasy out of his mind as quickly as it had come to him. There were more pressing matters.
“Thanks, Graham. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
* * *
Blair led them east.
Where Knifespire was a long, thin sliver of an island, Adena was shaped more like a bean. Two roughly circular masses of land that merged in the center. The whole thing was tipped at a forty-five-degree angle when viewed on the map, with the north “bulb” leaning west, and the south to the east. Draw a line through them, Gabe realized, and you’d hit Knifespire in one direction, Vectes in the other.
Graham’s navigator, a burly man called Kabir who wore a perpetual smile, had found the presence of mind to grab his laminated map of the Lesser Islands before sending his boat away. Unfortunately the map was of the entire island chain, of which Adena was such a small part it could be covered up with a thumb. The cartographer had only bothered to note three things on the bean: a marker denoting a maximum elevation of just over two hundred feet, a shallow bay at the southernmost point called—unimaginatively—Shallow Bay, and a single river that flowed in a meandering path from near the highest elevation point down to a spot on the shore which the map named Blind Falls.
“Gotta wonder how bored a mapmaker has to be, when they run out of friends’ names for places on a chart,” Gabe said.
“I don’t mind so much,” Kabir replied, grinning. “It tells me something about the place. ‘Kabir’s Bay’ would mean nothing, but ‘Shallow’? That helps.”
Gabe handed him the map. “I’d guess Kabir’s Bay would be a pretty happy place.”
“Only because you know me,” the man replied. “If it said, ‘Parson’s Cove,’ you’d know nothing but a name.”
“Fair point.”
Kabir folded the map and tucked it into his uniform, then rejoined Graham toward the back of the line.
The path Blair forged was rough at first. Straight through dense jungle. Even from fifty feet back, Gabe could hear her machete scything through the undergrowth, but there was nothing to be done about it. They had to get away from the shore, and her path, he realized, was leading them toward the island’s only river.
He started walking faster, intending to catch up with her. The increased pace wasn’t necessary, though, as just a minute later her efforts to clear branches came to an end. So did her march.
Blair was standing still amid the undergrowth, slightly crouched, a fist held up indicating “stop.” The Gears behind her fanned out, behind cover, their Lancers raised and ready. Gabe worked his way up to her, his eyes scanning the dense foliage ahead.
He saw nothing, though.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Shh…” Then she pointed.
Gabe traced a line from her fingertip into the undergrowth. From the tension in the air, he half expected to see a hidden Gorasni outpost, or even some ancient ruins hidden beneath thick vines.
What he saw instead was the face of a child.
The girl was maybe a hundred feet away, standing stone still beside a flowering plant. Her face was smeared with dirt, her dark eyes wide as saucers. She stared at Gabe, and he stared back.
“What do we do?” Blair asked.
The question surprised Gabe. There seemed only one choice. So he stood, stepped forward, and waved.
“Hello!” he called out, going for friendly but not quite achieving it.
The little girl turned and ran. In barely the span of a second she was gone, vanished into the jungle.
“Nice one,” Blair said. “Do we go after her?”
“What are you going to do, tackle her? She was, what, ten years old?”
Blair shrugged. “She might alert someone. Start shouting. Who knows?”
“It’s a risk we’ll have to take, Sergeant. We’re not going to be able to keep up with her. You saw how quickly she moved.”
“Like a rabbit.”
“Exactly.” He gestured in the direction the girl had gone. “She’ll go find adults, and tell them she saw soldiers in the forest. That one of them waved. I think that’s better than saying she was chased and hunted.”
Blair conceded the point, but still looked ill at ease.
“What she did do,” Gabe added, “was draw us a path to the rest of them. Be it a camp or just a village, we can find them now.”
“Do we want to find them?”
It was a good question. “Avoiding the locals seems like the smart play,” he replied, “especially if they continue their tradition of ignoring the war. On the other hand, they’ve probably never had an incursion onto their shore before. Who knows how they’ll react?”
“If that kid was any indication, scared shitless.”
Gabe chuckled. She was right, of course.
“Well, let’s hope the rest of them aren’t children.”
* * *
The sound of gently burbling water became noticeable just fifteen minutes later, and soon after that Blair found the river. At this point, though, it was more of a stream. Ten feet across and only a few deep. It was crystal clear and flowing steadily, though, and that was all Gabe cared about.
“Ten-minute break,” he told the group. “Fill your canteens and stay in the shade.”
The temperature continued to climb, and any respite provided by the jungle canopy quickly vanished. Instead of providing shade, the trees seemed to hold in the heat and insects.
Everyone had red marks on their arms where mosquitos had been smashed while halfway through a meal. But it was the relentless ants that Gabe wanted to annihilate with every fiber of his being. The slightest hesitation would give them their chance, and in seconds they’d be scurrying up his leg or crawling deep into his combat boots. Any attempt to dissuade them just earned a stinging bite.
“I’d almost rather face the Gorasni than these little shits,” he said, kneeling and moving one off his pant leg with the tip of his Lancer. He deposited the little monster on a leaf, and toyed briefly with the idea of skewering it on his Lancer’s bayonet.
“Smear some palm oil on your skin and they’ll leave you alone,” someone said. Gabe grunted, at first thinking the comment was the beginning of a prank, but he quickly realized it had been made with all seriousness. He realized something else, too.
Whoever had said it wasn’t part of their group.
Everyone went quiet, and stared just over Gabe’s shoulder.
He turned and saw a man standing behind them.
An old man, but not old enough to need the cane he grasped with one hand. His hair was long, black, and almost ridiculously clean given their surroundings. A monkey lay across his shoulders, its keen little eyes staring out from beneath the lustrous hair. What Gabe noticed most was how amazingly calm the man seemed to be, given that he’d just come upon a group of armed soldiers in the middle of his island.
There wasn’t any amusement, though, on the man’s deeply tanned and wizened features. No, Gabe thought the expression was more like apathy.
“Thank you,” he replied finally. “I’ll try that.”
There was a brief moment when he thought that might be the end to the encounter. That the man would simply turn and walk back into the jungle, never to be seen again. But he stepped forward.
Guns were raised.
“Woah,” Gabe said quickly. “Everyone, relax. We’re guests here. Got that?”
The Gears around him replied by lowering their weapons… marginally.
Gabe stood and regarded the native. He wore threadbare clothes, second or third hand, but of a modern style. No shoes, though. None were needed, given how calloused his feet seemed to be. A stark contrast to the lustrous and well-combed head of hair.
“We’re trespassing,” Gabe said. “I’m sorry about that. Our boats were fired on and—”
“We heard the thunder,” the man replied. Then he glanced around at the rest of the soldiers, as if seeing them for the first time. “Some of you are wounded.”
Gabe nodded.
The man did, too. “We have no doctor,” he said without a hint of apology. “In fact, we have nothing at all. For you,” his eyes then darted north, “or for them.”
“They don’t want to take sides,” Blair muttered from behind him, just loud enough for Gabe to hear. He waved her off.
“We just want to get to Shallow Bay,” Gabe said to the man. “Our boats will pick us up there, and we’ll be off your island.”
Some quick calculations went on behind the man’s eyes. He glanced around, as if adjusting his mental equations, and Gabe couldn’t help but wonder what the parameters were. He hoped the overriding factor would be getting these strangers off the island as quickly as possible, lest the enemy think the islanders had aided them. Helping these Gears might upset a carefully curated neutrality that had been built up over decades. Not helping them might mean they stayed longer—or worse, set up a base.
“I will show you the way,” the man said. Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked off into the trees, his pace casual.
Gabe watched him for a beat. Then he turned to his troops.
“Break’s over, I guess.”
No one complained.
* * *
Through nothing but eye contact, Gabe informed Blair that he’d take point now. After a few minutes he caught up to their guide.
“Name’s Diaz, by the way. Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Diaz.” He held out a hand, not quite sure why he was introducing himself, but somehow feeling it was the right thing to do. Goodwill and all that.
The man glanced at Gabe’s hand, hesitated, then took it.
“Ciprian,” he said, “but everyone calls me Cipi.”
Gabe had met only a few islanders, beyond those that lived around Vectes, and was surprised at how thin the man’s accent was. Many of those with whom he’d spoken were nearly incomprehensible.
“You weren’t born here.”
Cipi took the comment with a sigh. “No, I only arrived about six years ago.”
“What brought you here, of all places?” Gabe realized how that had to sound, but before he could explain, Cipi replied.
“The war did,” he said. There was no malice in it, just a statement of fact. “My island was too close to the fighting. I did not like the sound of the guns. So I went west, and found this place. It’s… peaceful.” This last he couldn’t help but deliver with a heavy note of worry.
“I’m sorry we’ve intruded,” Gabe said. “It is not our intention to bring our conflict here.”
Cipi waved the comment away as if it were a bad smell. “The Serano sometimes washes the world onto our shores, and it would be foolish to let ourselves be surprised by it. Unfortunately, most of the others here feel differently.”
The sentiment surprised Gabe. It was refreshingly pragmatic for an islander, at least amongst those Gabe had met in his time here.
“Come,” Cipi said, gesturing to a break in the trees. They were following the stream, but at a sharp bend that took the river northeast, he pushed a branch aside and started down a trail wide enough for two persons to move side-by-side. It was well worn, with fresh footprints, including those of a child. Perhaps the one they’d seen earlier, Gabe thought. The amount of travel implied that the stream was where they got their fresh water.
After several hundred yards the track widened and small, thatch-roofed buildings came into view. It wasn’t that the area had been cleared first, and then built upon, as Gabe had seen the COG do for dozens of outposts. Rather, the locals had made use of the natural contours and intricacies of the landscape. Homes were single-room structures, often incorporating a large tree trunk into their design. No attempt had been made to build them on level ground, or beside one another. Instead they were scattered like leaves across a low hill, some facing east and others west.
The incorporation of the natural landscape made the structures very hard to see from the water. Gabe thought maybe Special Forces could learn a thing or two from such a place, or have these people build their next secret listening post. The homes and buildings here were hidden in plain sight.
“Which one of these is yours?” Gabe asked their guide, casually.
The man gestured vaguely toward the west. “Up on the hill there. It’s not much, but it’s mine.”
Gabe glanced in that direction. The small hut was just visible through the trees. It was the only one, in fact, on the western-facing side of the village, and perched up on a hill above the rest. Instantly, Gabe realized it must be the same hut in which he’d spotted a candle burning. It was the only one with a window facing the right way, and high enough.
So it had been Ciprian who’d disregarded the village’s blackout. Why?
“Nice place,” Gabe said finally.
Cipi seemed not to notice, or care, what Gabe thought of his hut, or indeed the village itself. He kept to the outskirts, and other than the occasional glimpse of someone through the trees, Gabe saw no one else.
“We could use some food,” Blair said from behind him. “If they won’t give it to us, maybe they’ll barter for it.”
Gabe glanced back and saw not just her expression, but those of the surviving Gears and sailors spread out in a loose line behind her. Their faces were gaunt, exhausted, but there was still that determination—which he also felt.
“Cipi?” Gabe asked.
The man had walked on, not hearing Blair’s comment, or maybe choosing to ignore it. Now he turned and raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“I know you said you have nothing to share with us,” Gabe said, “but it may be some time before our base can send ships to take us off your island. Perhaps we could trade with you for some food. Is that possible?”
“No!”
It wasn’t Cipi who spoke the sharp word, but an old woman who had emerged from one of the huts. Her skin was so wrinkled Gabe couldn’t see her eyes in the narrow slits they occupied. Her gray hair was wiry and poked out in all directions from beneath a wide, frayed hat.
Cipi demurred instantly to her. Some kind of village elder, or matriarch, Gabe decided. She spoke in rapid, angry bursts aimed at Cipi, using the guttural language of the islands, an offshoot of the Gorasni tongue. He kept his head lowered the entire time, as if he was a child being admonished for neglecting some chore.
After she’d said her piece, Cipi made only a single word reply. She turned and vanished back inside her hut, slamming the door behind her. The whole structure shook with the force of it.
“What did she say?”
Cipi took a breath and let it out, slowly.
“She is angry that I’ve helped you, and wishes you to be gone from here.”
“Because you can’t be seen to help one side over the other?”
To Gabe’s surprise, it took Ciprian some time to answer. The man chose his words carefully.
“That, yes, but something else, too. There was a murder here,” the man said, “about two months ago. A boy was stabbed. Gutted, in fact.”
Gabe frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Cipi nodded. “Someone said they saw a dark figure with glowing green eyes in the forest, that same evening. Holding a knife like the ones you wear at your belts.”
Unable to stop himself, Gabe’s hand went to the hilt of his blade, making sure it was still there. All the Gears carried them, and instantly he realized what the sight of such a display would look like to the matriarch, given what had happened. Then the other part of Cipi’s comment registered.
“Glowing green eyes?”
“We are not as simple and superstitious as you might think,” Cipi said quickly. “This was not some forest demon. It was a soldier, with… night-vision goggles? I believe that is your term.”
“It is.” He didn’t like where this was going. Only the day before he’d borrowed six of the devices from the Ghosts, to aid in his attempt to retake Knifespire. He had no idea which Gears still carried them, if any.
But Cipi had said the incident occurred months ago. Well before the Ghosts had arrived at Vectes. Moreover, the COG’s version of the goggles had a reddish hue, not green. Something else was going on here. “I assure you we had nothing to do with that. Our policy is to keep to the waters, save for our base at Vectes.”
“Yet you are here,” Cipi observed.
“That wasn’t by choice.”
Gabe said the words though he knew they weren’t exactly true. Hiding on Adena had been the only option left to him, but it was still an option he’d chosen—and besides, none of this would have happened if Wyatt and his team had stayed off Knifespire.
Speaking of Wyatt, is he still with us, or did he decide to slip away? In the heat and the monotony of the hike, Gabe had almost forgotten about him. Almost. With a glance over his shoulder, Gabe quickly scanned the faces of the rest of the group. Wyatt was there, at the rear, just as he’d said he’d be. Behaving, for once. Gabe studied him for a moment.
He wondered if Wyatt, or any member of the group, had looted a pair of UIR goggles. Gabe hoped to hell the answer was no. Now wasn’t the time to ask.
Suddenly the woman emerged again from her small hut. Despite the heat, she’d put on a shawl. Pausing only to give a long, hard glance at Cipi, she turned and marched off down a trail leading east.
“We should keep moving,” their guide said, once she’d gone. “You will have to find your own food.”
“Where’s she going?” Gabe asked, not liking the tone in the man’s voice.
“She wishes you to leave,” he repeated, “and I fear she has gone to gather enough of our people to make sure that happens.”
“Good luck with that,” Blair said, hefting her rifle. Gabe put a hand on her arm and forced the weapon down.
“Everyone stay calm. They don’t want our war on their shores, and that’s their right. We’ll head to Shallow Bay and…”
He trailed off, a feeling growing in him that his plan wasn’t going to work. How long would it take for Phillips to send more boats after them? She’d already be fuming over the three Wyatt took, against her orders, and when those didn’t come back, a very serious situation would be crashing down on her shoulders. Exactly the kind of scenario she dreaded, and worked so hard to avoid.
“Listen,” he said to the group. “One step at a time, okay? The cove, then food, and a way to signal base. That’s what we’ve got to do right now.”
Blair studied him for a long second, then lifted her chin. “You heard the LC. Saddle up, Gears, we’ve got a bit farther to go.”
Cipi turned, then, and walked due south. The trail here was narrow and disused, much of it already reclaimed by the relentless jungle growth. He avoided the village now, Gabe realized, and wondered if he would be in trouble for bringing outsiders there in the first place.
Gabe motioned for his Gears to follow the man, and waited until all but Wyatt had passed.
His brother eyed him. “Something wrong?”
“Yeah,” Gabe said. “I’m just not sure what. Keep an eye on our guide, will you?”
“What, you think he’s going to gather some fishermen and ambush us or something? We can handle—”
“I don’t know, Wyatt. Maybe it’s nothing. I just want you to keep an eye on him.”
The man nodded. “Sure. No problem.”
The march dragged on, a monotonous trudge under foliage, over vines, and through muddy patches where the air itself seemed alive with all the insects. Just when it seemed like the journey would never end, Cipi pushed a branch aside and walked out onto one of the finest beaches Gabe had ever seen. The sand here was nearly white, unmarred by seaweed or even a single pebble. Two-foot-high waves crashed along the shore, save for the semicircular inlet at the center.
“Shallow Bay,” Gabe said.
Cipi nodded. He seemed, in fact, unimpressed. Gabe wondered how long he’d have to be near a paradise like this to think it mundane. The waters were jade green, alive with schools of small colorful fish that darted and swarmed.
“Before you ask,” Cipi said, gesturing toward the water, “the fish are poisonous. You must go out a mile or more to find bass or mothfish.”
“Any chance you have a boat we can borrow?” Blair asked him. “Some poles and bait?” The man shook his head, wrapping his fingers around his cane. He seemed at once both anxious to leave, and hesitant to.
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Gabe said to the sergeant. “We’re still being hunted, remember?”
To prove his point he remained at the edge of the jungle, scanning the horizon for any sign of the UIR frigates. Or better yet, a COG fleet roaring to their rescue. But the line between sea and sky was unbroken, save for another island off to the east.
“I will rest now,” Cipi said, clearly uncomfortable now that they’d reached their destination. He gestured toward a tree back the way they’d come, with a rock beneath it. “If you need anything else, find me there. It’s best if you do not return to the village.”
“Thanks for your help,” Gabe said to him, though he doubted the sincerity of the man’s words. This was less about helping and more about keeping an eye on the island’s unwanted guests.
The man nodded and wandered off, sidestepping past the line of Gears and sailors trailing behind Blair. He kept his head down as he passed them, and seemed in no particular hurry.
“Well,” Blair said, “now what?”
Gabe glanced at her. Then the rest of the group.
“Gather ’round,” he said. When they did, he took a knee. “At ease,” he said. Some joined him, others sat or even lay down. A few stood, or leaned against trees. “We wait here as long as we can,” Gabe said. “We’ve got no long-range comms, so no way to signal base. If we start a fire or something to get their attention, we’ll have the UIR on us well before any COG ships can get here. So we wait. We have water. We’ll find some food if we can, but if not… a day or two without eating isn’t the end of the world.”
A whole lot of glum faces stared back at him. He’d expected as much, but took it as his own failing. His job was to keep his troops in line, and to keep them inspired. No easy task in the sideshow of a long-running war. Vectes had become lax, the island too peaceful to instill a sense of grit and determination. Allowing things like “NO80” to go unchecked only allowed them to fester. A cancer, Phillips would call it. The odds that he could suddenly wring out some latent sense of patriotism seemed slim.
Without that, there was only fear.
“Squad leaders,” he said, “organize your Gears into watches. No ship goes by this shore that we don’t spot, understand? Pair up with members of the patrol boat crews, they’re better at identifying ships from a distance.” He took a long sweeping look at everyone. “The rest of you stay in the trees, just in case. But don’t stray too far from the beach. And whatever you do, no going back to the village. Understood?”
“What about shelter?” someone asked. “If we’re going to be here overnight.”
Gabe nodded. “I’m just getting to that. If you’re not on perimeter watch, make yourself useful. We won’t be building any fires, so find some vines and start lashing them together. Hammocks will keep us off the ground and away from these damned ants.” To hammer the point home he slapped one that was crawling up his forearm. The little monster was a smear of red juice and kicking legs when he pulled his hand away.
“Blair?” he said.
She stepped forward from the group.
“I need to know our supplies on hand. Beans, bullets, bandages, you know the drill. We’ll need to stretch what’s left.”
“You got it.” She turned back to her squad.
“Let’s have a proper response, Sergeant,” Gabe said to her back.
She turned back to him, a flare of disobedience behind her eyes. It passed quickly, though.
“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel. I’ll handle it.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
She snapped a salute and went back to her squad.
Gabe knew his second-in-command well enough to have confidence that she’d get over the exchange quickly, and recognize it for what it was: a reminder that discipline was needed to get them out of this mess. Still, he’d talk to her later, make sure the point was clear.
Glancing around, he spotted Wyatt. His brother was helping pull some vines to use for a shelter. The work happened to be within easy sight of where Ciprian was seated. The native had his eyes closed, and seemed to be asleep.
Satisfied, Gabe left the group to their tasks and walked a short distance away. Sitting at the base of a palm tree that seemed relatively free of fire-ants, he took out a notepad and began to make a list of his own.
Chief Mendez MIA
Sergeant Akino KIA
Private Howe KIA
Corporal Davis KIA
He stopped there, thinking about the sniper. Her modified Longshot. Her quiet competence. She’d stayed in that perch knowing full well the enemy guns were turning toward her, all because she had a shot and taking it might sway the battle. An act of bravery and commitment that she would never know the result of.
“I’ll make it matter,” he said to the sand, and sighed. The burden of a Gear’s death while following his orders was exactly the reason the COG had posted him here. A place to heal, and to forget. The irony that trouble had followed him was not lost on Gabe Diaz. The question was whether or not such a turn of events was a coincidence, or if he had been placed here for some other reason.
Such thoughts were banished when a shadow fell across his pad of paper.