by Tom Kratman
“Hate speech. Well, that does sound dangerous. But I guess we should ask to see some identification. You understand. We don’t see too much in the way of UN big shots here at New Bend. Actually I don’t think we’ve ever seen UN big shots.” He paused and eyed them suspiciously. “Are you big shots?” Remi laughed from the back of the station.
Wordlessly, the two agents produced badges from inside black leather coats. He gave them a once over. Bronze, UN logo—Peacekeeping Force. Legit. When Wyatt nodded, the badges vanished back behind the leather coats.
“He’s likely to be released in a couple days if Blake doesn’t press charges. So why don’t you come back then?”
“We’ll take him now, if you please,” said Hue.
“And if I hand over Mr. Geary to you, what happens to him?”
The Russian, Bogin, answered. “That is none of your concern, Mr. Wyatt.” The way she said his name made it sound like a disease.
“That’s Sheriff Wyatt. And it is my concern. He’s my prisoner. I’m not in the habit of just handing people over to the first space cops that come through the door.” He offered them a toothy smile. “I know you think it’s all bush justice here on Terra Nova, but we’ve still got a little bit of process . . . I’m going to need some transfer paperwork.”
“Sheriff Wyatt,” said Bogin. “I can assure you that Mr. Geary will be treated with all due process. But under United Nations Regulation F-403c(32) we are not required to file extradition paperwork for category V, VI, or VII perpetrator. Mr. Geary qualifies as all three.” She stepped in close—close enough that Wyatt could smell the scent of a perfume that cost more than his monthly salary. Close enough that he could identify the Steyr Mannlicher 10mm flechette pistol in her shoulder holster. “That is not going to be problem, is it?”
Wyatt sniffed the air again for her perfume. It was almost too fragrant against the sweaty smell of the sheriff’s office.
“I don’t have a problem,” he said. Wyatt looked back at his deputy. Remi offered him a cool smile. The big man had his own reasons to hate the UN—before his forced deportation he’d had a good life on Old Earth, a career, a woman he’d loved. “I just don’t remember New Bend being part of the UN. We on the Security Council, Steve?” he asked.
Remi called back from his deck. “No, Sheriff, sure don’t recall being on the Security Council.”
“No, me neither,” said Wyatt. He turned back to the agents. “And besides, you haven’t answered my question. What’s going to happen to Mr. Geary if I turn him over to you?”
Her partner’s hand glided towards his holster, but Bogin was placatory. “You are proceduralist. I understand,” she said. “So am I. Mr. Geary will be taken unharmed to our vessel, UNS Robert Mugabe. There he will be tried by judge in special tribunal. If found guilty by judge, he will be sentenced to appropriate psychological re-conditioning and detained in service facility until such time as he has paid his debt to society.”
“So he won’t be tried by a jury?” Wyatt frowned.
She smiled. One proceduralist to another. “Of course not! We are not barbarians, Sheriff Wyatt. Obviously a random assortment of ignorant jurors cannot guarantee society justice any more than unregulated capitalist economy can guarantee society stability.” She waved a hand. The Asian relaxed his grip on his pistol. “Everything will be efficiently handled by trained judicial administrator.”
Wyatt took a deep breath. “I think you mistook my meaning, ma’am. Here at New Bend, we’re very old fashioned. We don’t have many experts. But we reckon jurors—you, know, regular folk—might actually know something.”
Bogin stepped back like his words had shoved her.
“And we reckon that when a man looks to be taken off his home world to get brainwashed at work camp, it deserves a little more than the say-so of some foreign agents,” Wyatt continued. “So I think, with all due respect, that I’ll need a chance to research this myself before I decide to hand him over to you.”
The special agents said nothing, but Hue slipped his hand back on his pistol. Then metal grated on tile—Remi had pushed back his chair and stood up. The deputy walked over to Wyatt. He was a big man. Wyatt felt the balance of power in the room tilt in his favor.
Apparently, so did the special agents. Bogin gave a curt nod. “As you wish, Sheriff Wyatt,” she said. “We will return tomorrow at noon. We will be accompanied by security officers in order to assure that there are no inconvenient disruptions. I assume fifteen hours will afford you sufficient time to familiarize yourself with pertinent regulations?”
“Seems like enough time.”
Bogin nodded, and the Asian held out a business card. United Nations Peacekeeping Force—Wellington. Wyatt moved to take the card, but the agent didn’t immediately relinquish it. “I hope we’ll be able to report to headquarters that New Bend is in accord with the UN and supports progress for Terra Nova.”
“We’re all Kiwis here. Very progressive,” Wyatt said, and smiled amiably. After a moment, Agent Hue let him take the card. Wyatt put it in his wallet, then walked with them to the exit. When the agents were gone, he closed the door and leaned on the closed frame.
Cocking his head to one side, folding his arms, Wyatt looked intently at the prisoner. “Okay, Geary,” he said. “You’re going to tell me everything. Starting with why the UN shot you.”
At precisely noon the next day, Agents Hue and Bogin rode into the valley with a troop of blue-helmeted security officers wearing armor and carrying combat rifles. From his desk at the window, Wyatt had a clear line of sight to their posse. He counted their numbers as they approached and dismounted: Four security officers and two special agents. He wondered how bad it was going to be.
The special agents walked in. Wyatt stood up to meet them. “We’re here to collect the prisoner James Geary,” said Hue.
Wyatt tried to look sheepish. “He ain’t here. Little bugger must have had a lock pick hidden up his bum. He cracked the jail gate and did a runner while I was napping.”
“That is unacc—” said Agent Bogin.
Hue interrupted. “Did you pursue?”
“Well, when I woke up and saw he was gone I went after him. But he nicked a horse and I couldn’t find him in the dark. From his tracks it looked like he was making for the mountains.” Wyatt paused. “You think there’s a terrorist base up there or something?”
The two special agents looked at each other, then at him. He made eye contact with both, shrugged, then looked past them. Through the window, Wyatt could see the lunch time crowds moving down Main Street. Office workers on break were mingling with sweaty farmhands pausing from their labors. A wagon with a half-dozen workmen drawn by a team of sleek horses was rolling in from the west. His townsfolk were nodding amiably to each other, but keeping their distance from the security officers outside his station. Please just leave my town in peace, he prayed.
The prayer didn’t work. “You don’t seriously expect me to believe that story, do you?” said Hue.
“What do you mean?”
“I looked you up, Sheriff Wyatt. Twenty years of service. A spotless record. Multiple commendations at every job. But suddenly, when a terrorist falls into your lap, you become a fuck-up?”
Wyatt glowered. “I expect you to believe my story because I’m an officer of twenty years experience with a spotless record. My record should count for something.”
“I’m afraid it does not, Sheriff Wyatt,” said Hue, subtly shaking his head. Somehow the flechette gun was in his hand and pointed at Wyatt. “Your firearm. Your jail keys. Put them on the floor.”
That went south quickly. Wyatt eased his revolver out of its holster and lowered it to the floor gently. Then he fished his keys from his pocket and dropped them, too.
“Now, if you wouldn’t mind.” Hue waved the barrel of his pistol towards the jail cell. “Because I certainly wouldn’t.” Hue’s finger touched the trigger.
Wyatt’s nostrils flared. He held his hands up in surrender, but in
his head the sheriff was already visualizing how it could go. Step forward—lock the pistol down with my left, right elbow to his throat; then use the pistol to dispatch the sheila . . .
Hue must have sensed his anger because he stepped out of arm’s reach. “You dirtside locals are all the same,” he sneered. “Trapped in your primitive paradigms of tribal loyalty and antisocial violence. On Earth, we have a word for people like you. We call you—”
“Assholes? No, wait—that’s the word for people like you.”
“Troglodytes. In the cell, Sheriff.” Wyatt stepped behind the bars. Hue kept his pistol pointed at Wyatt while Bogin collected his revolver and keys from the floor. Wyatt glared at her while she locked him in.
“While you were looking me up, I looked up Geary,” Wyatt said. “He was an anti-UN pundit whose words made you mad. That’s it. You made him a criminal when you went after him and his family.”
“Mr. Geary’s words were calls for violence and subversion. He deserves what he will get. So do you.” Hue glanced at the Russian. “Tell Officer Mirkovitch to bring in the interrogation equipment.” Bogin stepped out the door and signaled to the security offers to come inside.
Then came the crack and flash of gunfire. Screams of pain and terror erupted and the lunch time crowd devolved into bedlam. Bogin ducked back through the door hastily.
The gun shots were coming from the wagon on the street. The workmen had exited on the far side and were using the carriage for cover while they fired hunting rifles at the UN troops. Bolt actions worked frantically. Three of the blue helmeted figures had already toppled.
The fourth had taken cover behind a barrel. His combat rifle blazed. A horse screamed as its flank was riddled with flechettes. It started pulling on its harness, and the wagon rolled forward. Now one of the insurgents was exposed. It was Steve Remi.
Before Remi could find new cover, the security officer fired a second burst. Remi’s blood spattered across Main Street and formed tiny red puddles in the cracks of the cobblestones.
The insurgent closest to Remi stopped shooting and bound over to the downed man. The rest continued to lay down fire. The insurgent had just gotten to Remi when the last security officer went down. The streets of New Bend went quiet.
Inside the jailhouse, the two special agents had taken up a covered position just below the front window. Wyatt, from his cell, could see both them and the wagon outside. And he could hear the familiar voice of Jim Geary.
“We know you have Sheriff Wyatt in there,” Jim yelled. “We want him, and we want your weapons. Hand them over.”
Hue shouted back. “And if we don’t?”
“Then you’ll join your comrades out here in whatever hell God has reserved for bureaucrats and communists.”
Outside, the insurgents were working quickly. One was cutting the harness that bound the horses to the wagon. Several others were saddling up the peacekeeper’s horses by the door. The last was providing first aid to his fallen friend. “He’s in real bad shape, Jim,” the insurgent hollered. “We got to get him back to Doc.”
Wyatt felt ill. Why did you even get involved, you big lunk? He’d told Remi to stay out of it, but the man saw too much of his own suffering in Geary’s story. “I served my country as a medic!” he’d said. “And I had a girl. And the UN deported me. Fuck the UN.” And now you’ve gone and gotten yourself all fucked up.
Hue’s voice broke his reverie. “Looks like you’re going to lose a man,” the agent called out.
Geary shouted back. “You’ve already lost four. We can make this six and two if that’s how you want this to play out. This ends either with both of you dead—or with your guns and your prisoner in our hands. Your choice.”
“What assurance do we have that if we hand over our weapons you won’t kill us on the spot?” Hue’s voice was flat. He could have been discussing quarterly reports.
“We’re the good guys,” Geary answered. “That’s your fucking assurance, you space Nazi.”
Hue looked at Wyatt and then at Bogin. He made a pow-pow sign with his finger at the sheriff. Bogin shook her head and pointed to the sky. He nodded, then yelled out to Geary. “Fine. We’re going to toss our weapons to the floor.”
“Smart man,” Geary called back. “Pop the mags out, put the guns on safety, and kick them to the door.” He paused. “Hey, sheriff, can you hear me?”
“I hear you, Geary,” he rumbled.
“When they’ve disarmed themselves, give us a little shout, okay?”
“Will do.”
Wyatt watched as the special agents popped the magazines out of their guns, pulled the slides to clear the chambers, and dropped them to the floor. Grudgingly they kicked them towards the doorway.
Hue shot a look of hate at Wyatt. “The UN has a long memory. And a long arm. We’ll find you.”
“You better hope you don’t.” Wyatt raised his voice. “They’ve disarmed. Weapons are in the doorway.”
“Okay, we’re coming in.” Geary and the insurgents strode in and took over. In a few moments Wyatt was out of the cell and holstering his revolver at his hip. Hue and Bogin were locked up. Their faces were expressionless, almost placid.
Wyatt barely stopped himself from gloating over the change of circumstances. Then he thought about Remi, and his face grew dark. I should shoot them. Geary interrupted his reverie. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Outside, the insurgents had saddled up the three uninjured horses from the wagon team, and rounded up the six that the UN posse had ridden in on. With Wyatt, Geary, four insurgents, and one casualty, that left two horses extra to swap out if anybody’s mount went lame. Wyatt ended up on a Palomino mare. They tied Remi to a large bay gelding. The big man was barely conscious, so Wyatt took the bay’s lead.
“Where to, Geary?” he asked.
“There’s a resistance camp about ten miles up in the mountains. It’s got a doctor. We can get there in an hour if we ride hard.”
He looked at Remi. “Let’s do that.”
Geary extended his hand. “I appreciate you not handing me in.”
“I appreciate you coming back for me.” They shook.
“Welcome to the resistance, Sheriff.”
The resistance fighters rode west, out of the valley and into the lower slopes of the Cloud Mountains. There was heavy forest cover, pine and oak, and the going was slower than Wyatt liked, but the heavy canopy meant they’d be invisible to the implacable eyes of the UN’s overhead satellites.
After an hour of hard riding, Wyatt’s horse was nearly blown. Wyatt had been a horseman all his life, and he felt the horse lover’s anguish at having to push a mount too hard. He had paid a price for the exertion, too, of course. He was covered in sweat and his thighs were chafing through his jeans. But Remi was worse. The big man was slumped over his horse like a corpse and he was exuding a smell that Wyatt didn’t like at all. Remi didn’t have much time left.
At the front of the line, Geary signaled for the band to slow down. The resistance leader trotted off the trail they’d been riding and into the underbrush. Wyatt followed suit, bringing up Remi’s horse just behind. The others formed a queue and followed. After a minute, a voice rang out from the trees: “Desert!”
“Peace!” Geary called back. They’d made it.
The resistance camp was a cluster of low green tents, perhaps a dozen in all, arranged in a semi circle. The main avenue of approach was guarded by a rampart of broken brush reinforced with sandbags.
The riders began to dismount, and Wyatt turned his attention to Remi. The big man’s body was slumped over his horse, only the ropes they’d tied keeping him mounted. Remi was too big for Wyatt to safely handle, but Geary made a signal with his hand and a couple of sturdy-looking camp dwellers were soon hustling to help get the big man off the horse.
They worked together to carry Remi into one of the tents. It was cluttered with medical supplies and smelled of antiseptic. The men deposited Remi on a clean pallet. He barely fit. O
ne of the camp dwellers called out. “Kathleen! Need you!”
A woman entered. She was older than the other insurgents, but her hands had an ageless agility. “What happened to him?” Kathleen began cutting off the bloodied bandages to examine Remi’s wounds.
“He got shot. Burst of UN flechettes to the shoulder,” said Wyatt.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” she said, applying firm pressure to the wound after a quick assessment of the injury. “Bing, get me iodine, forceps, gauze, a unit of O neg, and two units of saline. And bring that light over here, I need to see this up close.” One of the other insurgents—Bing, he assumed—started rummaging through the supplies and gathering what was needed. Wyatt looked on with appreciation as the woman deftly went to work.
“Where’d you get your medical training?”
“On sheep,” she said, without a trace of sheepishness. “I’m a vet. Hold the pressure here, would you . . . Bing, hand me the tourniquet.” Remi’s face was as white as a sheet and he was moaning softly, as if from somewhere far away. The doc found a vein and tapped it with practiced ease, starting an IV line to replace the fluids Remy had lost along the treacherous ride. She then scrubbed the site of the wound, soaking up the excess blood and revealing the mangled flesh beneath. Her forceps navigated the injury with careful precision. Wyatt watched, feeling powerless.
“I think that’s it,” she said finally. Bing pumped a fist. Wyatt let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
“Looks like you know your way around a gun shot, Doc.”
“Learned on the job.” She picked up a half-inch long sliver of plastic she’d dug out of Remi’s shoulder and held it up. “Your friend is lucky none of these fragments hit a major artery.” She dropped the sliver on the table and began to stitch him up.
Wyatt laughed. “You should see him play poker. So he’s going to be okay?”
