''Unsafety your rifle,'' Kris whispered. She got a blank look in reply. Kris reached across, flipped the safety off. ''Now it will shoot.''
The spacer recruit glanced down. ''Oh,'' and went back to waving her weapon unsteadily at their prisoners.
''You in the swamp, walk to the road slowly,'' Kris ordered. ''No sudden moves. Those of you on the road, get up here in the middle of it and lie down.'' Kris glanced in the truck. Tom was just getting his rifle out of its holster on the door. The would-be hero and his friend were frozen in place, eyes and weapons covering the left side but doing nothing.
''Are you okay?'' Kris asked. When they didn't respond, she repeated, ''Are you okay back there?'' The hero-to-be blinked twice…and was violently ill.
From the back of the convoy, two marines advanced with their weapons at the ready. At least their boot camp seemed to have taught them to take the safety off their weapons. ''Cover this side,'' she shouted to them. They waved fists in agreement.
Switching around to the left of her convoy, Kris found three marines coming forward, keeping their weapons leveled at the slowly moving prisoners.
''I got that one,'' a marine chortled.
''No, I got him,'' the one beside him disagreed.
''No, I was shooting at that bunch in the tree.'' The marine indicated a clump of trees. One body was flung backward over a low snag.
''So was I, buddy boy. I got him.''
''You both got him.'' Kris cut off further debate. ''Keep the others covered. I don't want any getting away.'' One of the prisoners picked that moment to trip. He went over with a splash. Kris waited for him to get back up, but he didn't. Switching to thermal sights, Kris searched the water, but it was too mixed up to give any kind of target.
''I think one of them is getting away,'' Tom observed as he dismounted the truck.
Kris scowled. ''You prisoners, be careful. The next one of you that trips gets shot on the way down.''
''But they're unarmed,'' the woman spacer behind Kris said.
''They're escaping,'' Kris pointed out ''And until we check them out, we don't know who's unarmed. You spacers in the trucks get out here. I need some hands to pat down the prisoners for weapons.'' The rest of the trucks began to empty.
The recruits brought their weapons, but about half of them still had their safety on. Most of the other guns didn't look like they'd need cleaning. Now Kris realized why the fight had seemed so quiet around her. She and the marines had been the only ones shooting. Them and the bad guys.
Pairs of Navy recruits went down the slowly forming line of prisoners. While one kept a rifle on a prone figure, an unarmed recruit frisked the captive, making sure they were no longer armed. ''Hey, this one's a girl,'' a spacer said, taking two steps back from the muddy figure he had started to pat down. The woman's response was in no way ladylike.
Kris waved a female spacer over to frisk that prisoner and paused to watch as the pile of gear taken from the prisoners slowly grew. No communications gear, no computers; plenty of knives and usually one gun each. Little ammo, though. The prisoners, stripped to their shorts in most cases, showed thin and hungry. Not the starvation level of the farm people, but even the bad guys had been on short rations.
Bad girls, too. Four of the fourteen were women.
Kris turned from the live ones to study the dead. Behind the roadblock, two lay, insects already settling to feast. Kris swallowed hard to keep her own stomach where it belonged. One face was contorted in death. Rage, anger, agony, Kris could not tell, and the dead were not likely to answer her question. The one next to him seemed asleep on his side, quietly drawn up like a child; he provided the only commlink among them. The third rifleman was gone, just a pool of blood showing he'd been shot. Back in the trucks, a medic was caring for his wound. He'd be in fine shape for the hanging.
Kris walked back up the road. Two more bodies lay between the ditch and the roadbed. ''You and you,'' she pointed at two prisoners, the youngest among them, hardly more than boys of fifteen, fourteen. ''Pick up these bodies. Hang them by their feet from those trees,'' she said, pointing to the four standing next to the freshly cut stump.
Tom was at her side in a moment. ''It's not right to dishonor the dead.''
''And leaving them down here to be gnawed by whatever wanders by is better than hanging them up there as a warning to the rest? I am not taking time to dig a hole here and bury them.'' She glanced up and down the road. ''No place to dig, anyway.''
Still, Tom shook his head. ''Kris, this is out of bounds.''
''You two, start doing what I told you. Marine, see that these two do what they're ordered.'' The assigned marine nudged the two boys to their feet with his rifle. They'd been dead-fish-belly pale before. Now they were almost ghostly white. Terrified ghosts.
Kris turned to Tom. ''Tape the live prisoners' hands and load' em on the trucks. Once they're down, tape their feet to something on the truck. I'm not losing any prisoners.''
''Yes ma'am.'' Tom snapped to a caricature of attention, threw her a parody of a salute, and stomped off to comply.
''And send me any wrapping tape or rope you've got free.'' Kris called after him. If it was possible, Tom stomped harder. Half an hour later, the convoy moved slowly past Kris's stark message to the denizens of the swamp. A new team was in town. Get out before you join these.
At least, that was the message Kris wanted them to hear.
The next farm on their list was empty of life. A few bodies still lay where they'd fallen or been cast aside. ''Guess this is what happened to a farm that fought,'' Kris observed dryly to Tom as they slowly drove through the farmyard.
''Maybe she isn't such a bitch?'' someone muttered on a live mike. Kris chose not to hear.
The next farm was a repeat of the first. Kris distributed the food quickly, neither asking how they had come to be in this fix nor offering to listen to the silent screams behind dry eyes. She did refuse to let any of her troopers turn their backs on their prisoners long enough for the farmers to get quick vengeance. ''They are Navy prisoners. I will turn them over to local officials at Port Athens. You can get your justice there,'' she snapped when the knife-wielding wife of the farm owner had to be forcibly hauled from one of the trucks.
''You think you can get them back there?'' her husband asked.
''I captured them. I keep them.''
''Good luck. You know, they're not the only band out here.''
''How many?''
''Couple of hundred.''
''Who are they?'' Tom asked. ''What turned them rogue?''
''Ask them,'' the owner spat.
Two farms later, the trucks were sitting higher on their axles, but Kris was no closer to understanding the dynamics of what made someone a killer and another the starving victim. She didn't like that.
She also was getting a bad feeling about her route back to Port Athens.
The last farm was the smallest on her list, but it had three times the people of the others. They seemed less brutalized; at least, there was no effort to knife her prisoners. Two women even went from prisoner to prisoner, giving them a drink of water, a taste of the rations.
The owner was a lanky, middle-aged man who stood aside and let his people organize themselves to quickly unload the trucks into bunkhouses and several small houses, including one he shared with two other couples and a dozen children. By now, Kris's team had their drill down, so Kris and Tommy joined him watching.
''Much appreciate the food. We've been down to eating grass and leaves.''
''You've got an awful lot of people,'' Kris asked, not quite knowing what the question was.
''Yeah, I didn't let go of my indentured workers when the crop failed. Where would the poor bastards go?''