OCHO WIPED SOOT from his face. All his boys were a mess. The burning had taken longer than the lieutenant had wanted. Some of the crops had been wet, so setting the villagers to work ripping up their food and then lighting it on fire with cooking fuel and wood that his boys made them gather had taken longer than they’d planned, but Sayle wanted scorched earth and Ocho was going to make damn sure he got it.

There’d been a bit of resistance from the villagers, right at the beginning. Some of them had tried to run for the swamps, just as the lieutenant had planned, and Ocho heard gunfire and screaming as a bullet squad tore them apart with heavy weapons. After that, they had fewer defectors. Ocho ordered an acid squad to round up stragglers, while he limped behind.

His rib splints were hurting him, but he wasn’t going to show anyone how bad it was. He wasn’t showing a bit of weakness, today. The LT had given him a second chance. By the time they finished this operation, he wanted to be back in Sayle’s good graces, solid. Ocho wasn’t drugged on painkillers now. He was ready for war. And by the end of the day everyone would know it: Sayle, soldiers, civvies. Every one of them.

Ocho gritted his teeth through the pain and soldiered on, ordering half-bar patrols up into abandoned buildings, trying to ferret out the last of the people who were still hiding in the ruins. Getting others organized to put the townspeople to work, burning their own town. He was just assigning a new squad when the doctor came back into town.

At first, Ocho couldn’t believe what he was seeing. While half the villagers were scheming to flee, slipping out through the LT’s security nets, or dashing off into the jungle when they got half a chance, here the doctor was, coming out of the jungle with his damn doctor bag.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Van said as he watched the doctor come on. “LT was right. We got ourselves a doctor. Bo-na-fide human-ee-tarian.”

Ocho spat, watching. The doctor was a fool. He’d kind of suspected it, the way he’d stood up to Lieutenant Sayle on their first night in Banyan Town, but here it was again. The doctor, striding across the blackened field like he was the Rust Saint himself, coming to save everyone.

From the jungle, a bunch of gunfire opened up. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.

The doctor spun, and fell.

“Dammit!” Ocho waved his hand. “Make Hoopie stop shooting shit, will you?”

One of the licebiters was dispatched, running back across the sooty, uneven ground. Ocho headed across the fields toward the doctor, moving slowly. The man lay in the soot and muddy soil, facedown, but trying to sit up. He groaned as Ocho arrived.