CHAPTER 21:

"So, Oskeny. Is it as warm and inviting as the other camps?" Baird had taken the passenger seat while Cole and Jace rode in the back with the cargo. He wasn't thrilled about visiting a Stranded camp, but if Bernie was okay with them, they couldn't be that bad.

Dizzy chuckled. "They're pretty welcoming, seein' as we keep tradin' with 'em. There's only one camp inside Furlin that we don't bother with. The others are usually more worried about what we've got to trade than starting another war."

"Animals always know how to keep their food supply going." Baird said.

Dizzy shot him a look that made him feel like scum. Sometimes he honestly forgot that Dizzy had been Stranded at one point too. "Shit, Diz. You know what I meant."

Dizzy turned his eyes back to the road. "No problem, son. I stopped letting things like that hurt my feelings a long time ago. Sometimes you just gotta realize that words are just words."

Cole rapped his fist on the roof of the Packhorse a moment before his voice came over the radio. "We got movement out in the woods. How long till we hit this camp?"

"Bout fifteen minutes, give or take. There's no other camps along this road, though. Least there weren't last time we were here."

"How long ago was that?" Baird asked.

"About a month," Dizzy said.

"Think we oughta pull off and see what's going on?" Jace asked over the radio.

"That's a great idea. Did you bring a big ass target for your back, or do you wanna just call out and tell them to take a free shot?" The more agitated Baird was, the more sarcastic he became. Jace didn't bother to respond.

Checking over his lancer, Baird switched the safety off. "Just when I thought we'd get a nice peaceful trip. Some steak, and a nice scenic drive. Is that too much to ask for?"

Dizzy had slowed down some and was squinting into the distance. He nodded to himself before pointing out ahead. "There it is. See that tower? It was a water tower back in the day. Now it's just a guard station."

There was some tattered piece of cloth waving from a pole at the top. Baird assumed it was a flag, but for what he had no idea. Stranded didn't really have any allegiance to any flag-worthy places anymore. Between the near constant moving and most of them having an intense hatred for the COG, he couldn't imagine what flag they'd taken to flying. Maybe it was some primitive way of signaling passersby. A code for Stranded on trade runs. Some type of 'yes-we're open' or 'fuck off' signal.

He hoped it wasn't the latter.

Something thunked in the flatbed. Baird figured one of the potatoes had rolled out of its basket but before he could ask Cole's voice exploded in his ear. "Grenade! Dizzy hit the fucking gas!"

Dizzy slammed down hard on the gas pedal and the truck lurched forward, sounding incredibly unhappy about it. Baird had spun around in his seat to see Cole picking up something from in between the baskets and hurling it like the thrashball star he had been. A few long seconds went by before an explosion rattled the truck and a pillar of dust rose up behind them.

"What the fuck was that?" Baird was caught between being worried for Cole and being legitimately angry that some son of a bitch had thrown a grenade in his truck. He figured the anger would be more productive, so he settled on that.

Suddenly the truck's radio crackled to life. "Hey, incoming truck." It was a young guy, by the sound of it. "We've got some nasty new neighbors out in the woods. You may wanna speed it up if you plan on surviving."

Baird grabbed the microphone, ready to spew all that anger at the first target that had presented itself. It was an unlucky day for the bastard on the other end of the radio. "Couldn't you have fucking told us that before they tried to frag us?"

"Watch it. We don't need to let you in the camp." The kid – yeah, Baird decided he must have been a kid, sounded like an arrogant little prick.

I'm gonna hate his guts. I can tell.

"Fine, then you wanna tell us who the hell is trying to kill us?" Baird asked.

Gunfire rang out from the flatbed. Cole came back in their ears. "Shit, I think I hit someone. I can't tell with all the damn trees, though."

The truck's radio buzzed again. "You're COG, right? Gears?"

"Depends; will that earn us gunfire from your direction, too?" Baird was starting to feel trapped. With no visible targets and no way to get into the flat bed to help cover the truck, he was stuck darting his eyes back and forth scanning the trees in front of them.

"I'll take that as a yes." The kid didn't sound pissed, so Baird took that as a good sign. "Must be why they're shooting at you. Only thing they hate more than us is Gears."

"Friggin' terrific." Baird muttered to himself. He pressed the transmit button again. "Mind opening the gate, then? I don't think stopping outside is a good plan." There was a large chain link gate on wheels across a large opening in a metal fence topped with some serious razor wire. Whoever these folks were, they didn't dick around. Baird would have stopped to admire it if he weren't under fire.

The gate slid open as they neared. One more burst of gunfire rattled from the back as they sped through and the gate slid shut behind them.

"Just making sure no one followed us in and took advantage of the camp hospitality." Cole said in his ear.

The truck slowed to a stop in front of a small stone building. Cole and Jace hopped down as a small crowd gathered around the truck. As Baird and Dizzy came around to the back of the truck to join them, a young man climbed down from the water tower and made his way towards the truck.

By the looks of it, he couldn't have been more than twenty. He was a good bit shorter than Baird, but more muscular than most stranded tended to be. He was clean shaven, including his head, giving him a much more tidy appearance than they expected.

He approached slowly, presumably trying to work out which one of them was in charge before his eyes finally fell on Dizzy.

"Ahh, Dizzy. Good to see you, my friend." He had a hint of an accent, but Baird couldn't quite place it.

Dizzy stuck his hand out and caught the kid's to shake it. "Damn near didn't get to. What the hell's going on out there?"

The kid bowed his head for a moment in apology. "Sorry. I wasn't sure who was speeding down the road at first. And since the radios are down, we couldn't call ahead to warn you off."

Baird stepped forward. "The radios are fixed now. You're welcome."

The kid looked over at him questioningly. "Come again?"

"I said I fixed the radios. As in, they work now. So you could have called ahead. But you friggin' figured that out after we were nearly fragged. By your enemies, right? Not one of your people. Nooooo, that's just not possible. Sorry, but I don't buy it."

"I don't appreciate what you're insinuating." The kid's hand inched closer to his sidearm, but he didn't look afraid.

Cole came up behind Baird and took the opportunity to stop the altercation before it inevitably began. "Let's start over. I'm Cole, this is Jace, and the blonde genius is Baird. He don't always know how to be nice to strangers. Colonel Hoffman sent us along with Dizzy to keep the cargo safe, and we ran into a little trouble along the way. You mind telling us who's out there taking pot shots at our trucks?"

Dizzy gave the kid a nod, and he eyed Baird cautiously before finally speaking.

"Forgive me. With no radio contact we've been a bit more skeptical of anyone traveling through. We've had….incidents." The way a few people in the small crowd flinched when he said it led them to believe he was putting it very mildly. "I'm Alek. This is my camp."

Baird scoffed. "Yours? How old are you, twelve?"

He smirked. "Twenty two, but I don't see how that's relevant." He waved his arm, gesturing to the small crowd. "These are my people, and I do what I have to do to ensure they survive. So far I've done a good job." That earned a few nods from the onlookers. "The last few weeks have been hard on us, so you have to forgive my unwillingness to warn you off the road before I knew who you were. The way I see it, if you were just going to do the same thing they would have, it would have been easier if they had just taken care of you for us." He moved his eyes to Dizzy. "Had you called in yourself we could have avoided that. Anyone would have recognized your voice."

"So now that we've established were not here to raid your camp, can you please tell me who the fuck is out there?" Baird was still agitated from the ride. This long tale of woe had done little to calm his nerves.

Alek was getting annoyed with him. "Baird, right? Ok Baird, I'll tell you what little we do know so you can tell me how stupid we all are for not knowing more." He motioned for the few men in the crowd to start unloading the truck.

Baird took a half step forward to stop them, but Dizzy caught his eye and shook his head. He'd have to get used to this trading without seeing the payment first. Years of experience taught him that was a terrible idea, but he'd have to take Dizzy's word for it on this one. He turned back to Alek who motioned for them all to follow. He was hesitant to leave the truck, but Dizzy gestured for them to go on as he started to help the men unload.

Alek began winding his way through the small camp. The homes were simple; small wooden and stone structures. Some of them were old shells of houses that were probably destroyed during the Pendulum Wars. The town itself was very small, which was probably how it survived the hammer strikes at all.

Alek stopped in front of a large wooden building with open sides functioning as some sort of market. He pointed at a neighboring building that had been reduced to rubble. "That used to be our market. It was hit by mortar fire about two weeks ago. It killed six people, and critically injured four more." Reaching down into a bin of bread, he pulled out biscuits and passed them out before taking his own. "When we awoke the next morning after spending the entire night arranging patrols and trying to save the few who survived the blast there was a man at the gate begging to be let in." He took a bite from the biscuit and gestured for them to follow again.

Baird eyed the biscuit carefully, considering the possibility of it being poisoned.

Alek continued. "We were skeptical, of course. All these years of being together have taught us better than to welcome strangers with open arms. But he was beaten up pretty badly, and my mother raised me better than to send a wounded man out into the wilderness." He shot Baird a smug look. "And he happened to mention he'd have information we'd want to hear."

So he had the measure of Baird, then. He knew Baird wouldn't respect him for letting someone in just because they were bruised up. But the promise of valuable knowledge was a powerful incentive.

"Come to find out he was a bit of a leader himself. 'Was' being the key word."

Baird stiffened up and tried to hide the fact that he snapped his head toward Cole as soon as he'd heard that. He immediately regretted not asking Marcus more about Griffin. At least Jace would be able to identify him. Now he just had to figure out how willing Alek was going to be to let them haul Griffin out of there and take him home for the sake of justice.

Alek had earned his place as a leader. He didn't seem to miss much. "You may know him. According to him he was pretty popular. We hadn't heard of him, but then again we tended to stick to Kashkur. Even when we moved we never really ventured over borders. Never even went back home."

"You aren't from here?" Jace asked. He had devoured the biscuit. Baird made a mental note to have a talk with him about the dangers of taking candy from strangers.

"Furlin. So, close, but not quite."

Ahh. That's the accent. "Wow. Thought we'd found the last of the Indies when we invited Trescu to join the party on Vectes." Baird said.

The name struck Alek. He smiled. "Ahh, Commander Trescu lives? Impressive."

"You know your history, kid." Cole was impressed.

"My mother taught me that as well. But I don't know if you could really consider me an 'Indie'. My mother was raised in Furlin but fled when the battles broke out. After the war ended she sought refuge in Kashkur. My father had been killed and she felt there was nothing but despair for her back home."

During the course of the story they had come up to a small wooden building. Alek thumped his fist against the door. "So our guest needed refuge, and once we confirmed his story, we allowed him to stay. It seemed he was the victim of a sort of hostile takeover. Which, once you can get past the irony, is really very sad."

They could hear footsteps from behind the door. Baird jerked his head to Jace, signaling for him to get around the other side of the door. He flipped the safety off his lancer and made deliberate eye contact with Cole just before the door swung open.

"Holy shit. Baird?" The man standing in the doorway was a little worse for wear; his eye was purple and a little swollen, and his lip was still puffy. But there was no mistaking the man before them was Lyle Ollivar.

Alek cocked his head to the side and looked to Baird, then Ollivar. "You've met, then?"

Baird was staring hard at Ollivar, finger still resting on the trigger of his rifle. "Actually, it's still Corporal Baird."
"Still clinging to the COG illusion?" Ollivar said, all smug amusement.

"Looks like the COG is doing better than you. I'm not the one living in a shack that I had to beg for from strangers." Baird peered past Ollivar. "Nice place, by the way. Did it come with the smell, or is that a special type of odor you can only get from being a pirate?"

"I see losing your mother ship hasn't done anything to your piss-poor attitude." Ollivar said. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the door frame. "So tell me why the almighty Gears are knocking on my door. You can't be here to kill me otherwise you probably would have just burnt the whole damn town down."

So he'd heard about Sovereign. Baird wasn't surprised, though. News traveled fast in an ever shrinking world, and a ship of that size getting blown up and left in pieces on the shore would be sure to catch the attention of any looting vultures that hovered around waiting for viable ordnance.

"We aren't here for you. Well, not really. Not unless you're somehow still responsible for the actions of the pirates that have been giving the folks at Anvil Gate a hard time." Baird smirked. "But I've come to understand that your faithful followers have jumped ship, so to speak."

Ollivar glared at him. "For someone who expects my help, you're certainly being an asshole about asking."

Cole laughed. "Damon don't know any other way to be. And I think you have just as much to gain from this as we do."

"Oh yeah? How's that? It's not my ships being blown up, or my people being killed."

"Not yet." Jace said.

"But the way I see it, you help us track down the new king of the scum bags, and you get ships and people back. If they get blown up and killed later, then it can be your problem again." Baird knew he'd go for it before he even finished the sentence. Ollivar was a born leader. It had been written all over him the first time they'd met. He lived for the pirate life, and living in a small shack with a bunch of hospitable strangers probably fell pretty low on the list of things he'd like to be doing. "As long as you stick to the last deal; you stay out of our way and we stay out of yours, I doubt Hoffman would have any problem turning the little pirate fleet back over to you when we get rid of your replacement."

There was a hungry look in Ollivar's eye that was unmistakable. Baird wasn't sure if he missed the power, the people, or was just bitter about losing everything he had built. Either way he figured he could use it to their advantage.

"I mean, unless you'd rather we just keep everything we get for ourselves. You know; war assets." He looked at Cole who just smiled.

Cole knew exactly what he was up to. "Yeah, baby. We could use some nice new shiny boats."

"Alright, forget it. I'll take you to him, but you let me shoot the bastard myself." Ollivar was seething now. Mission accomplished.

"You'll have to take that up with Hoffman. Boy, he'll be thrilled to see you." Baird turned back to Alek. "Better go see if they got the truck loaded. I'll give Hoffman the good news."

Ollivar's jaw dropped. "He came with you?"
"No, dumbass. On the radio."

He still looked surprised. "Radios don't work. Not at that range."

Baird just chuckled as he walked away. "Guess you picked the wrong side after all. Since there was sweet fuck-all you guys could have done for the comm net."

Ollivar went back inside. Baird figured he was packing what little shit he had. He probably wasn't planning to return.

Alek followed behind them on the way to the truck. "I doubt he'll be back."

Cole shook his head. "Damn shame his momma didn't raise him better. No manners."

"If we only do things for others in exchange for gratitude or rewards, than we are not doing it for the right reasons. You do good things because it's right, not because you need something in return." Alek was wise beyond his years. Cole wondered if growing up in a world ravaged by war had done that to him. He felt another pang of sorrow for all the kids that had grown up knowing nothing but running and death. He made a vow to himself, for the thousandth time, to do something good for the kids every chance he got.

Dizzy was leaning against the side of the truck sipping slowly from his flask. Baird had gone around the front of the truck with his finger were pressed to his ear. After a few moments he was shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Cole figured Hoffman was giving him an earful about bringing Ollivar back with them.

Baird waved Dizzy, Jace and Cole over. Cole nodded to Alek, leaving him to check over the supplies in the back of the truck to make sure the trade was even.

Keeping his voice low, Baird spoke. "Hoffman says to make sure we don't tell our new buddies about the fuel problem just yet. They can't drill anyhow, so they only trade for the refined stuff. If we tell them it's going to run out, and soon, we'll have a whole new war on our hands. For now it's need-to-know only. If they ask why there was no fuel on this run, we just tell them we're running low. Period."

There were nods all around as Jace gestured behind Baird. "Here comes our buddy."

Ollivar had a small duffel bag with him, but no visible weapons. Baird was skeptical. "No gun?"

Alek came back out from behind the truck, seemingly satisfied with the cargo. "Our new friend didn't come with any weapons, and we didn't think it was necessary to provide him with one."

Ollivar looked pissed. Baird wondered just how much it grated his nerves to be considered undeserving of his own gun here.

"You're going to give me one for the ride back, right?" He was staring at Cole. He must have figured he'd have a better chance of a yes from him.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Cole said.

"Oh, come on man. They're gonna be shooting at us! You know I'm a good shot. Can you honestly tell me you don't want the help?" Ollivar pressed.

"No friggin' way am I handing you a gun until we're all on the same page. You'll be fine. Just keep your head down." Baird nudged Jace's arm. "You get shotgun this time. I'm in the back."

Dizzy climbed into the driver's seat and the engine coughed and sputtered before settling into a steady rumble. Baird made a mental note to check it out when they got back.

Alek looked up from the ground as Cole extended his arm to pull Baird into the flatbed. He repeated the gesture for Ollivar, but it was met with refusal. "So it's true, isn't it? The locust are finally gone?"

Cole smiled his big beaming smile as Ollivar clambered into the back of the truck unassisted. "Sure are, baby. And the glowies. Feel free to get comfortable here. Once we take care of this last problem maybe the world can start gettin' right again."

Alek's eyes closed for a moment and he smiled. He looked up to Cole again with complete sincerity. "Well then I suppose I should say thank you. We all should. After all these years the COG came through after all. Thank you."

Ollivar scoffed from behind them and muttered under his breath. "They told us they were gone after Jacinto, too."

Cole and Baird just ignored him. They refused to let him destroy the moment.

Cole reached his hand out and shook Alek's firmly. "Just doing our job, son. But we appreciate the support and we'll take it where we can get it." He rested his hands on the top of the cab. "When all this shit is over we'll have to come back and set up some steady trade routes. I'm sure you'll hear from us soon."

"I hope I do, Cole. Drive safe." He waved his hand to the guy manning the gate and it slid open slowly. "We've got someone in the tower to signal you if they spot anything, but as of right now it looks like the road's clear."

"Then we better get going." Baird hated long goodbyes. He pounded his hand on the roof of the cab and the truck lurched forward towards the gate.

Ollivar took a seat against the side rail, looking somewhere between bored and completely pissed. Eventually he let his head fall back and his eyes close and Cole found himself wondering how anyone could sleep that way on a route they knew was dangerous.

Checking over his lancer he glued his eyes to the woods, scanning back and forth as fast as he could while making sure he wouldn't miss anything. Occasionally he let his eyes pass over Ollivar when he looped his scan around. Shit, I guess if no one would let me have a gun I'd be doing the same thing. If I was gonna die I'd rather be asleep than wishing I had something to shoot back with.

"Think Hoffman's gonna deck him when we pull up?" Baird asked, keeping his eyes on the woods on his own side of the truck.

Cole laughed a little. "The old guy still has it in him. I wouldn't be surprised if he did."

"Let's just hope we make it back with him in one piece."

"Baby, you can't just hope that for him." Cole said, doing yet another scan of the woods before squinting off into the distance. "We've got a ways to go before we hit clear fields. How about we hope none of us get punched full of holes until we get home?"

Baird snorted. "Sounds like a valid plan to me." Pressing his finger to his ear, he spoke so they'd hear him in the cab. "Can't you get this thing going any faster, Dizzy? There's a steak back here with my name on it."

"Sure thing, son. Just hang on tight. Don't need you bouncing down the road behind us." Dizzy said as the truck sped up. The trees became a blur as the clear fields came up faster. At this rate they'd make it home in time for dinner.

Baird was counting on that.