Come and Take Them-eARC

by Tom Kratman

  The command post was about half a kilometer away, mostly hidden under a spreading tranzitree, and mostly surrounded by thick reedlike grass with tufts at the end, the technical name for which was Saccharum spontaneum.

  Legate Velasquez was seated on a folding wooden campstool, just outside of the small hexagonal tent that served as the cohort command post. From the look on his face, Cruz was pretty sure what the news was, even if he didn’t have a name to attach to the news.

  “That medevac included Corporal León, Sergeant Major. He didn’t make it. They pronounced him dead on arrival.”

  “Shit!” Cruz exclaimed, stomach lurching and heart sinking. “But how? I mean specifically how, sir.”

  Velasquez shook his head, saying, “That awaits an autopsy. To be sure, it does, anyway. But what difference does it make, really? We know what killed him, one or more fragments from a 120mm mortar.”

  “Do we know what caused the short round?” the sergeant major asked.

  Again Velasquez shook his head. “No. I’ve got the platoon leader counting charges, to see if they took off one too many. But my guess is a bad charge, not a short one.”

  “Most likely,” Cruz agreed. “Does his brother know yet?”

  “No. That’s why I called you.”

  Cruz nodded. “I’ll tell him, sir.”

  “No, you don’t understand. Gonna be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I’ll tell him. I just want you there for morale support.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  Porras said nothing to Campbell; he was far too young and far too shy to initiate a conversation with a foreign officer. That she was an extremely well put together and attractive woman made this worse. Thus, if anyone was going to break the ice, it fell to her.

  “Tribune Porras,” she asked of the boy who wasn’t a lot more than half her age, “aren’t you a little young to be a commissioned officer?”

  Startled at first, but pleased that someone had had the courage to break the ice when he lacked it, Porras answered, “Maybe, ma’am. I’m a month shy of nineteen. It makes me feel pretty young sometimes.”

  Jan was aware of Carrera’s junior military academies. She asked, “And were you commissioned out of one of the new schools?”

  “Ma’am? Oh, no, ma’am. We never commission anyone straight out of school. I graduated at seventeen after almost four years, then enlisted like everyone else. All my classmates who made it through four years did, except for one. No, ma’am, all the schools do for you is give you a little leg up on the others. You know how to march in step, for example.”

  Porras was quibbling here, as he’d been ordered to do with anyone not in the legion, or in the legion but below the rank of Centurion, J.G. Anyone who had been through the academies knew they taught a lot more than just marching in step.

  Porras continued, “You still have to enlist, get picked for the Reserves in basic training, then impress your tercio cadre in your advanced training and utilization tour. Then it’s the basic Noncom Course, Cazador School, and Officer Candidate School. That…or real combat sometimes, though even there you don’t get out of much.”

  Jan, who had risen to senior noncom rank in the Anglian army before being commissioned answered, “I can see merit in that.”

  “Ah, yes…ma’am. So do we. There are also two other advantages to having been a cadet. Some of the time at the junior military schools counts against the time you would normally have to wait for a school. So, while most of the soldiers might have to wait as much as three or four years for Cazador School and OCS, I was able to do them one right after the other…almost. But, no, ma’am. No one gets commissioned in the legion without following the same road as the soldiers must. You do get paid at a slightly higher rate for longevity; the last two years in school count as years of service for pay.”

  Per prior instructions for dealing with inquisitive gringos Porras added, lying outright, “We don’t really get all that much tactical training at the academies.”

  “But what about the university? Don’t you need a degree to become an officer?”

  That gave Porras a laugh, which laugh caused Campbell to wonder, Why do so many of my questions seem so funny to them? Hmmm…think about this possibility, woman, they are even more ignorant of us than we were of them.

  Once recovered, Porras continued, “No, ma’am. About the time you make tribune II—you would say, ‘captain’—the legion will pay for you go to school, at least part time. But civil education is not so important to us. A legion officer is expected to have a baccalaureate by the time he makes legate I, the equivalent of lieutenant colonel. But it is not an absolute requirement. Of course we do read a lot…and both Legates Chin and Suarez have very time consuming programs for Officer Professional Development.

  “But, for those of us in the regulars, since we spend only about a hundred days a year training troops there is a lot of time for OPD. But nobody really cares about having a degree.”

  Porras paused. “There is one exception I can think of. The engineers have to have at least a four year degree in—usually—civil engineering to be commissioned. But that’s it.”

  “But what about doctors, medical doctors, and such?” she asked.

  “They don’t even become officers unless they go through Cazador School and OCS. In any event, we don’t have enough doctors to waste their time making them leaders and commanders. Although that situation is improving, I understand. The force has hired enough Volgan doctors to start a legionary medical school.”

  “Why not just send them to the Federated States for medical school?”

  Again, Porras laughed out loud. “Because we’d probably never get more than a fraction of them back. There’s just too much money for a doctor in the Federated States. Or the Tauran Union. Or in the Islamic parts of the world, some of them. Carrera won’t even let someone go to medical school who so much as speaks English. Why, did you know—”

  Campbell lifted a gentle finger to silence Porras. As they’d been talking the sun had gradually slipped down the arc of day, and was about to touch the far ends of the earth with fire. Already it seemed to be setting afire the thick stands of Saccharum spontaneum that grew pretty much everywhere not covered by building, road, or thick jungle canopy. With the setting of the sun, the angels’ candlelight vigil in memory of the dying day, a lone piper, unseen but not so distant, had begun to play a soft and sad—painfully sad—melody while standing on a low pile of earth on the range. Even the birds stopped their nighttime calls, as if to listen.

  “Very beautiful,” said Campbell. “I love the pipes.”

  “So do we, ma’am. So do we. Is there a soldier anywhere who does not?”

  “Pity his soul, if so,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I agree. But it also means that I’d better get to sleep now, since I have the evening watch. Good night, ma’am.”

  After Porras left, Campbell stayed awake for a while, waiting for Hendryksen to return from his ventures with the cohort’s scout platoon. She hadn’t been invited to dinner again and so dug through her pack for one of Gaul’s finest canned bits of culinary artistry.

  “Shit. I despise escargot.”

  “Upset that their cuisine didn’t start on a dare?” asked Hendryksen from the shadows.

  “No one can tell me escargot didn’t start on a dare,” she replied, pulling the ring that let her peel back the top of the flattened, squarish can.

  “Well…per—”

  Hendryksen was interrupted by a wail of unspeakable anguish, so profound that neither the jungle nor the thick grass could muffle it.

  “What the hell was that?” she asked.

  “I heard over the radio,” he said; “that mortar accident? It killed somebody.”

  “Dreadful,” she said. The tone of her voice said she meant it, too. “I saw the accident, from a distance. They didn’t even stop training.”

  “No, they wouldn’t, would they?” Hendryksen looked around, then closed
his eyed and seemed to be listening carefully. Finally, apparently satisfied that none of the Balboans were around, he said, “These people have to be stopped.”

  “But I thought you liked them,” Campbell said.

  “Unreservedly,” he admitted. “They’re just the kind of folks I would like on my left or right flank, were we allied, or charging to the rescue if I were in trouble. But they’ve got to be stopped.”

  “I don’t necessarily disagree,” she said. “But why do you say so?”

  “It’s the lack of civilized restraints,” he said. “Nothing civilized, nothing civil, holds them back. We could live without that cowardly whore, Marine Mors du Char, as safety minister for the Tauran Union, yes. But someone like her would not survive a day here. Perhaps literally not survive and certainly politically she would not.

  “I never realized it before we came out here, but this whole country is fucking insane.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a little booklet, indistinguishable from the one Esmeralda had been given, though of course he and Wallenstein’s cabin girl didn’t know of each other’s existence. He opened the book to the first page, then read off, “Hoy tenemos Balboa; mañana el mundo; pasado mañana el universo.”

  “Do you know what that means?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he supplied, “Today we hold Balboa, tomorrow the world, the day after tomorrow the universe.

  “Now tell me, what kind of fucking maniacs, no more than three and a half or—max—four million strong, and not especially wealthy, think they can take a world, or two of them? Or an infinity of them.”

  “This kind, I suppose,” she said, very softly. “Where did you get the book?”

  “Their recon platoon leader loaned it to me. It’s an issue item, apparently, accountable and inspectable, for all ranks. I suppose I’ll have to return it.”

  “Do you really think they think they can take the world?”

  “Not them, exactly. They think their political and social philosophy is unconquerable and, once on the road, will inevitably reach the end of the road in charge of all human beings, everywhere.

  “And the scary part of that,” a highly agitated Hendryksen continued, “is that unless stopped here and soon, it just might.”

  * * *

  “It just might,” Jan Campbell quoted to herself, as she lay awake under her mosquito net and poncho shelter. Outside the net, hordes of ravenous anopheles slammed repeatedly against the mesh. Past that, the antaniae seemed to have cleared out in fear of the presence of so many adult humans.

  Thing is, though, I feel fairly at home here, for all that these people are bloody maniacs. And isn’t it strange that I should feel so much at home in the company of this foreign army? It should not be true that I do, especially considering their arcane rank structure and bizarre organization, to say nothing of the trivial value they seem to assign to human life. And yet I do feel hugely at home among them. I value them. Which is why, I think, I take it badly when they show no value for their own lives.

  And it is no mean thing to be surrounded by men training, and ready to die, to defend their homes.

  Campbell, lying under her poncho shelter reviewed her time with the legion, now drawing fast to a close.

  They have almost no set drills. And yet, based on the way the platoon leaders and maniple commander face, analyze, and overcome very new tactical situations, they seem quite innovative. And their innovativeness is enhanced—or exacerbated, maybe—by their frightful willingness to risk losses in training.

  I mean, really…having the machine guns and antitank weapons fire at the objective from the front, then using the dead ground behind to come upon the “enemy” from almost the exact rear…that was not something we would do; ordinarily. Not in training with live ammunition. And even the militia privates have considerable determination. Witness those two troopies in the other platoon who cleared the objective after every other man in their platoon was declared killed.

  Yes, they are not so intricately trained as we are. But they have a fine grasp of keeping things simple and going for the jugular. Admirable and disturbing, both.

  Casa Presidencial, Aserri, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  Calderón really didn’t trust the Old Earthers for beans. He didn’t trust the Taurans, either. And for all that the high admiral’s no doubt century-old assistant had been both attractive and charming, he didn’t trust that little bitch either.

  But he trusted Blanco, when the latter had informed him the Tauran airships were crossing the shore. He trusted Blanco’s assistant when the latter informed him the Taurans were landing troops just north and south of the highway between El Carman and Rio Clara, the troops fanning out to what looked to the assistant like defensive positions.

  “And very sharply they move, too, Mr. President,” the assistant said. “Real professionals they look like, to me.”

  Marguerite, who didn’t know but might well have guessed that the president had his own people out watching, called. “Satisfied now, Mr. President?”

  “Not entirely,” he answered. It didn’t surprise him that she could call. Everyone knew the Old Earthers had tremendous technology and power. “Why are they taking up positions so far from the border?”

  “I asked the same question,” she said, then proceeded to parrot Janier’s answer.

  “Okay,” said Calderón then, “I shall speak within the hour.”

  Now, seated in his main office, behind the presidential desk, with the flags of his country and of the office of the presidency upright on staffs in stands behind him, he waited for the director of the production to signal, “Ahora, Mr. President.”

  “People of Santa Josefina,” Calderón began, “we are under a grave and growing threat. Before I explain that, a little history. Some of it you will know. Bear with me on that; I am also speaking to the world on your behalf. Some you may not know or, if knowing, may not have thought about.

  “This part you know: Three quarters of a century ago, the people of Santa Josefina forever rejected the prospect of being a normal state, with a normal army. There were sound reasons for this; our old army had never been large enough—we never could have afforded for it to be large enough—to really defend us from a foreign aggressor. Conversely, it was always available to defend the people from such threats as free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly…

  “In short, our army was never anything but a tool of repression at home and a wasteful indulgence as far as foreign affairs went. Add in the costs of the civil wars we fought about every other generation, and…well…good riddance.

  “Was this a form of moral welfare, with us totally dependent on the good will of others and their willingness to defend us? Absolutely. No question about it. Remember that as I continue to speak.”

  Calderón stopped to take a sip from his water glass. Then, glaring into the camera, he continued, “Now is not three quarters of a century ago. Yet still we are not and never shall be capable of defense against a powerful foreigner with a malignant heart.

  “And that foreigner, and those malignant hearts, have grown up right next door. Balboa—they call themselves ‘The Timocratic Republic of Balboa’—has armed itself such that it has become one of the eight or a dozen most powerful armies on this planet.

  “Some may say, ‘Well, of course; the middle of their country and their most precious resource is occupied by thirty thousand or more foreign troops.’ And yet, they should need ten times that many? I think not.

  “And we, to our shame, have helped them raise this force. Fully eight percent of their soldiers are our citizens.

  “I can no longer sleep at night, I can no longer keep silent, about this threat that has grown up on our doorstep. Thus, I have made the following request, I issue the following decree, and I make the following demand.

  “The world cannot sit still. I demand that Balboa lay down its arms or that it be made to lay them down.

  “I request the help of the world community, which assist
ance the peace-loving Tauran Union has already begun providing, to defend us until the Balboan threat is put to rest.

  “And I order our young men, now in Balboan service, to return home or face criminal prosecution.”

  Part III

  Chapter Eighteen

  Discipline can only be obtained when all the officers are imbued with the sense of their awful obligation to their men and to their country that they cannot tolerate negligence. Officers who fail to correct errors or to praise excellence are valueless in peace and dangerous misfits in war.

  —General George S. Patton, Jr.

  Fort Guerrero, Balboa, Terra Nova

  The annual training period was over. Now the cohort stood in a “C” formation, the maniple first centurions out front, and Sergeant Major Cruz, gold tipped stick under his left arm, facing them. They reported to him in sequence.

  The report from the maniples having been taken, Cruz faced about and saluted Legate Velasquez with the right hand, reporting, “Sir, Second Cohort, Second Tercio is formed and ready.”

  The legate returned the salute, then commanded, “Post!”

  Cruz marched off to the left side of the formation, not far from where Campbell and Hendryksen stood. There he came to attention, facing toward the cohort front. The maniple first centurions did likewise, marching off toward the left of their units, while the tribunes commanding strutted out from the right.

  Once Cruz was out of the way, Velasquez ordered, “Soldiers to be recognized, front and center.”

  Two small groups came forward, one each from the left and the right. On the left were two guards, plus Carillo, he who had failed to show up for training, and another boy—Private Salazar, aged seventeen. Salazar marched behind Carillo and apparently without a guard. Carillo wore leg irons and shuffled forward awkwardly. Salazar walked proudly, unrepentant and unrestrained.

  Salazar had violated tercio policy just that very morning by washing his maniple commander’s vehicle at another tercio’s wash rack despite specific orders not to do so. Since that other tercio was “Caesar’s Tenth,” them being assholes about it was only normal.