by Tom Kratman
“They tried to murder my father,” She said, her hands clenched into fists in her lap. “I will not give you another scrap of information.”
Silence reigned for three full seconds, the only exceptions being Mai’s rapid heartbeat in her ears and the old priest’s breathing. She could see nothing of his expression through the screen and the encompassing darkness of the booth.
“I’m sorry, Mai,” Duc said, breaking the silence. “The operation wasn’t sanctioned by the Committee. An independent cadre commander ordered the assassination attempt without consulting his superiors.”
“I want that commander dead,” Mai said in a low, rage-filled growl. “Or no more intelligence from inside the headquarters. Furthermore, I will tell them that my very own priest tried to recruit me for the resistance. I wonder how long it would take Arcand’s interrogators to break you.”
“Mai, you don’t mean that,” Duc said in the same gentle, understanding tone she usually found so comforting, but which only heightened her anger now.
“If the resistance can’t protect my father, what do I owe them?”
“It’s not about what you owe them, Mai,” Duc said. “It’s about what you owe yourself. You don’t want to live as a quisling.”
“I want my father murdered even less,” Mai said. “And a collaborator is quite comfortable under Arcand’s regime.”
“I understand your anger, but have you considered that it is actually more likely your father will survive to the end of the war now?” Duc said, his voice still maddeningly conciliatory. “His position with Arcand is more secure than ever and the CLF doesn’t have the people for another serious attempt. The Committee knew they’d be sacrificing just about all of their local assets to take the Italian base and get their heavy weapons across the border into Lang Xan. Thang Pho Xahn will be quiet for a long time.”
“I want a protective order put on my father from the Committee,” Mai said.
Duc sighed.
“Think, child,” Duc said, a note of impatience finally creeping into his tone. “If they issue such an order, every operative who hears it is a possible point of discovery for the UN. You’d be putting him in more danger, not less.”
Mai sat wordlessly for several painful seconds, her anger and fear pounding at her ribcage, twisting her stomach, fingernails digging into her sweat-slick palms.
“All right, Father, I’ll still spy for you. But allow me to be clear,” Mai said, finally. “If he dies, we die.”
“I understand, Mai,” Duc said. “And I accept.”
Headquarters, UN Forces-Cochina
Khoi Dau Moi
Cochin Colony, Terra Nova
Three Weeks Later
Arcand’s mood was blacker than the storm clouds that gathered over the colonial capital. The bleak, sodden view out his office window only fed his frustration. He glowered at the sheets of rain pummeling the courtyard, a sheet of paper crumpled in his hand. The drumming of the deluge on the roof was a cadence for his own infuriated pulse.
He kept his working office a simpler affair than most of his peers. Even so, the walls were dominated by full book cases and the flags of his former commands, so much so that the light green paint of the walls was barely visible. Most prominently, the colors of the 2nd Regiment Etranger Parachutiste decorated the wall behind him.
Why the hell am I even bothering with this? He asked himself. If the sonofabitch doesn’t want the stupid medal—
The door opened, interrupting his thoughts. Trung Mai, dressed in a white blouse and blue skirt of western cut, entered.
“Sir, Colonel nDlamini to see you,” the Cochin girl said. Even the lovely sight of Mai and her normally soothing soprano voice did nothing to take the edge off Arcand’s anger.
“Yes, send him in,” Arcand said, placing his hands, fingers interlocked, upon the desk top.
Mai closed the door behind her. A few seconds later three sharp raps sounded on the door.
“Entrez,” Arcand said.
Alexander nDlamini, less-than-resplendent in dirty battle dress uniform, marched into his office. Halting three paces away from Arcand’s desk, he came to rigid attention and saluted crisply.
“Colonel nDlamini reports to the commanding general, as ordered, sir!” he barked.
Arcand returned the salute casually. He was not upset at Alexander’s wet, mud-encrusted uniform or the fact that he smelled like an incontinent goat. He had, after all, summoned the young officer directly from a field training exercise.
Having blooded platoons, and now a company, they were currently working on fielding a full-strength battalion of Zulus. Alexander was getting closer to a colonel in responsibility as well as title and the Zulu Rifles were rapidly, as far as such things go, becoming an actual regiment.
So his filthy appearance was beside the point, what did piss Arcand off was the defiant anger in Alexander’s eyes. Arcand recognized Alexander’s expression only too well, having directed his own version of it at superior, peer, and subordinate alike over the years.
Oh, I’m wasting your time calling you in out of the field, you little shit? Is that it?
Arcand did not put Alexander at ease, but let him stand at attention. Taking up the itinerary in his hands again, he held it up so Alexander could see it.
“Colonel, would you care to tell me what the fuck this is all about?” Arcand dived right into the crux of the matter.
“Sir, I’ve no issues with the awards ceremony schedule save those already noted,” Alexander kept his voice studiously neutral, his posture rigid and unnaturally still.
“Cut the horseshit,” Arcand said. “Why have you refused acceptance of the Military Medal? Don’t give me false modesty; we both know you deserve the fucking thing as much as anyone.”
Alexander was quiet for a long moment, his eyes fixed on a point several inches above Arcand’s head.
“Sir, I am afraid I can give no answer which wouldn’t constitute insubordination by the terms of our contract,” Alexander said.
Arcand glared a second longer, then shook his head and let out a sharp bark of laughter. He leaned back in his chair and gave Alexander a look that held as much empathy as exasperation.
“It’s about the reprisals, is it not?” Arcand asked.
Alexander exhaled sharply once and swallowed.
“Yes, sir.”
Arcand nodded.
“Oh, at ease, Colonel,” the Frenchman said, with a wave. “In fact, sit down.”
Alexander looked back at the proffered leather-upholstered chair.
“Sir, I would soil it,” he protested.
“Shut up and sit down, Alexander,” Arcand said, rising from his own chair to come around his desk. “I’m going to tell you a story. A true story about a young officer I served with back in Darkest Africa, some thousands of kilometers north of your ancestral home.”
Alexander sank into the chair, looking confused.
“I was then a lowly brigadier general,” Arcand continued, leaning back against the front of his desk. “I commanded seven thousand, ‘peace-keepers,’ in Eastern Africa. In reality we were securing mineral and fuel concerns for the benefit of the European Commonwealth, but we tried to do some good along the way.
“The local insurgents, a hash of Marxists, local animists, and Islamists, were particularly nasty even by the standards of the region. After we cleared them out of a key tritium-producing province, I ordered all commands to execute every adult male relative of the insurgents we could lay our hands on. Just as I ordered you to do.
“One company commander refused. He was my best, so I didn’t slap him down, but feigned ignorance of his disobedience. It was the biggest mistake of my life, and his. When we had to shift his company to another region for a time, it took the insurgency about a month to grow back like the cancer it was. When he returned, he found hundreds of the locals who had supported us raped, murdered, mutilated. Some had been eaten by the insurgents, oh, not by the Muslims, credit where it’s due, t
hey’d have none of that, but some of the animists had no such compunctions.
“So this time, having learned his lesson, he did as I ordered,” Arcand said, and his voice broke just audibly, his eyes flicking to a picture on one of his bookshelves for just a split second. “And allowed himself to be overcome with the guilt of both having failed to do what was necessary the first time, and of having executed men whose guilt was uncertain the second. This distraction proved fatal, as a month later he led a patrol into an ambush he should’ve spotted. But he managed to lead them out again before he died of his wounds.”
Arcand paused and took a deep, steadying breath before continuing.
“That company, previously my most aggressive formation in battle, was fit only for guard duty after that. Not because a popular commander died, though that always hurts, but because they’d seen him broken and wracked by guilt. His doubt and indecision cost me a company of paratroopers, just as it cost my son his life.”
Arcand ground these last words out, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, Alexander was regarding him gravely with wide eyes.
“I apologize,” Arcand said. “I did not intend to become emotional, but you must learn from his mistake. Only the truly twisted enjoy being executioners, but it’s a virtual certainty that most of those men were active or tacit supporters of the CLF anyway.”
“It’s nearly as certain that a minority weren’t,” Alexander insisted.
“Statistically, yes,” Arcand said. “It’s also statistically certain that if you fight a war of any duration and intensity, an artillery barrage, a bombing sortie, an ill-placed grenade or machine gun burst is going to kill someone who isn’t an enemy combatant. This is no different, and if you treat it differently, if you act as if a tragic necessity has irrevocably tarnished your honor, you will undercut your men’s morale. Without morale, their discipline will break and you will find yourself ruling over a rabble rather than a formation. Rabble dies on the battlefield, young prince.
“With any luck, our next major operation will be the invasion of Lang Xan. The complexity and ferocity of the battle will dwarf the Green Valley campaign. Your men must enter into the operation assured of themselves and of you.
“So, Colonel nDlamini, you will stand in front of me and accept your personal decoration for valor, just before your company accepts its unit decoration. You will do so regardless of your personal feelings, for the sake of your men and the mission you have contractually agreed to fulfill. Am I clear?”
Alexander frowned, but Arcand could see the wheels turning in the young prince’s eyes. He knew he’d made his points.
“Yes, sir,” Alexander said, at last. “For the sake of my people, and fulfilling our contract, I will comply.”
Officer Club, UN HQ
Khoi Dau Moi
Cochina Colony
Two Days Later
The rain had abated, leaving a clear, lovely view of the night sky. Eris and Hecate, two of Terra Nova’s moons, were up and bathing the headquarters’ central courtyard in silvery light. Alone, leaning on the railing of the O Club patio, Alexander stared up at the stars, completely oblivious to the sounds of music and merriment behind him.
He was clad in the dark blue, red and silver trimmed dress uniform that Arcand had gifted to all the officers of the 1st Zulu Auxiliary Rifles. His pistol was secured in a highly polished black leather shoulder-and-waist belt opposite the Iklwah short spear scabbarded on his left leg. Arcand had commissioned special leaf-bladed bayonets so that the Zulus wouldn’t drop their rifles in melee, but neither Alexander nor his men would fully abandon their ancestral weaponry.
Two freshly acquired accoutrements adorned his uniform tonight: a green-black-blue fouragerres encircled his left shoulder, the symbol of his unit’s Croix de Guerre for an extra-planetary theater, and a golden medal suspended by a green and yellow ribbon gleamed on his breast; his own Military Medal.
Alexander’s nightmares were still littered with crying widows and orphans and the watery eyes of an old man whose lungs were filling with blood. Nevertheless, he’d accepted the damned medal, and smiled, proudly. It wasn’t a sham, per se; he was immeasurably proud. Yet he was simultaneously ridden with shame. He simply chose which emotion he displayed for his men. At least, that’s how he rationalized it. And if war was teaching him anything, it was the fine art of rationalization.
It was with no small amount of self-recrimination that he recalled the council where he’d pushed so damned hard to make this deal, to provide Arcand with troops.
He remembered how King Matthew Credo nDlamini, third regnant sovereign of New Zululand, sat rigidly upon his throne, tension in his shoulders and forearms belying his calm façade. His feet rested on the tawny pelt of a pack-alpha scimitar cat he’d killed himself, his head crowned with the burnished brown antlers of a magnificent buck sivatherium.
To King Matthew’s right stood his sons, Jacob, a thinner reedier version of his older brother, and Alexander. To his left stood Nkosiphindule Mjanwe and Father Piter van Graef, a portly old man with a great white beard, who was New Zululand’s only Catholic priest and one of its few resident white men.
“King Matthew,” Alexander said, formally, “It is clear to me on both moral and practical grounds that we should take his offer. We saw the video and pictures that the Frenchman brought with him. The Cochinese insurgents are raping, torturing, and slaughtering their own people wholesale. It is our Christian duty to oppose such evil. Furthermore, the advantages we stand to gain in industry, medicine and military power are significant.”
Mjanwe frowned at Alexander from the king’s left, but it was Alexander’s half-brother, Jacob, who spoke next. They were of a height, but Jacob’s frame was more sparsely muscled, indicating a life focused on negotiation and study rather than hunting and fighting.
“Your Majesty,” Jacob said. “Prince Alexander is right; we cannot afford to pass up this opportunity. What Arcand can grant could leapfrog us generations ahead of our current standard of living, and with modern weapons and ammunition and spare parts to keep them operational, we would be unchallenged, militarily.”
Alexander looked at Jacob in surprise. The half-brothers rarely agreed. But Mjanwe could take no more and spoke before Alexander had a chance.
“We are already militarily dominant,” he snapped. “Would you cut a deal with the devil just for more comfort and some trinkets?”
“The technologies on his list are more than trinkets,” Alexander said, heat in his voice. “Many of them could save hundreds, thousands of lives, and the videos—”
“The videos are likely a digital fiction,” Mjanwe said. “Or Arcand had some of his Asian Foreign Legionnaires dress up in local garb and go on a killing spree.”
“Unlikely,” said Father Piter, wiping sweat from around his collar. “The extent of the evidence defies fabrication. Still, your instincts are good. Beware Frenchmen bearing gifts.”
“Father Piter,” Alexander said. “Surely you can’t countenance such slaughter if it is within our power to stop it?”
The old priest shook his head.
“Nik is right to mistrust them. Under normal circumstances I would advise you to avoid this bargain.”
“Under normal circumstances?” Mjanwe’s eyebrows furrowed in suspicion.
Father Piter sighed.
“Your Majesty,” Piter said, turning to King Matthew. “If you refuse him, Arcand will find another source for his mercenaries. It is possible he will go far afield, and whoever accepts his offer will not be our problem. But what if he picks a rival tribe from over the mountains? Or what if, God forbid, he extends this offer to the Yithrabi?”
For long seconds, King Matthew considered each of them. Then he spoke, his voice carrying the full weight of royal command.
“We will negotiate,” he said. “Assuming we can secure sufficient safeguards, we will make the deal and send our soldiers to fight in return for what has been promised.”
“Exce
llent, Father,” Jacob said. “I would lead this regiment myself, if it is your wish.”
“It is not,” King Matthew said, coldly. “Alexander will command our expeditionary regiment. Nkosiphindule, you will go as his chief advisor.”
“Prince Alexander,” Matthew said, rising and putting a hand on Alexander’s shoulder. “You cannot trust Arcand and you certainly can’t trust his masters. Fulfill our contract, win his war for him, by all means, but never forget that while our goals and his may overlap, they are not identical. Protect your honor, and place your realm first.”
Have I done that? Alexander asked himself, his thoughts returning to the present, staring out at the moonlit courtyard. Have I protected my honor?
“You know,” a Cochin accented, sweetly feminine voice slid through his dark memories like a knife. “It won’t be long until everyone is wondering where the hero of the hour is.”
Alexander turned slowly, unsurprised to see Trung Mai standing on the patio with him. Tall for a Cochin girl at five foot six, her French heels barely raised the crown of her head to Alexander’s shoulder. She was dressed in a conservative but well-fitted green evening gown with amber accents that complimented her dark, almond shaped eyes.
Alexander found Arcand’s personal hostage an achingly beautiful sight on a normal day. In her current state, she was breathtaking. Where his Faith would not quietly accept brutal military necessity, it also prohibited him from taking advantage of the carefully vetted brothels available to his men. Mai’s silk-clad curves drew his imagination off on tortuously pleasant excursions.
“Ms. Mai.” Alexander bowed politely, tamping down on the surge of lust. “You look lovely this evening.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” she said, returning his bow with a smile and a curtsey. “You look quite dashing yourself, despite your obvious perplexity.”
