by Tom Kratman
Jimenez's driver, Pedro, pulled up next to where he had let off his commander, sometime prior. "Legate Higgins"—there were a large number of Anglic names among the black denizens of the province—"wants to know if you've any last minute instructions," Pedro said.
Shaking his head, Jimenez answered, "No. I'm only even here because I'm bitter I can't go along. Just . . . go back and tell him I wish him and his boys good luck."
"Roger, sir."
I am bitter, too. I liked being a company commander, way back in the day. Now? Commanding a corps, three hundred times bigger than a company, or a maniple, as we say now, is too much like work, and too little like fun. I haven't even gotten to go out on a training exercise in months.
How much worse it would be, Patricio, if you didn't hate both excess paperwork and meetings, I shudder to think.
"Cara morena, mi chica linda . . ."
Oh, well; could be worse. At least I'll get to visit the boys down there, keep 'em on their toes to the extent the guerillas don't.
Cruz Residence, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Though he wasn't precisely sleepy, having slept on the helicopter that had brought him back from Jaquelina de Coco, Cruz had an inner fatigue no ordinary rest could touch. Wearily he trudged up the concrete path to the door of his house. Wearily he turned the knob and opened the screen door. Wearily he dragged himself, his rifle, and his pack inside. Wearily he set them down, and, with exhaustion in his voice, he called out, "Cara?"
He heard footsteps and then saw her, momentarily frozen in the rectangular corridor that led to the bedrooms. He saw his wife's swollen belly initially with mixed feelings. Let's see . . . last time was . . . ummm . . . match that to girth . . . yeah, it's mine. Well . . . assuming.
For her part, she took one long look at her husband, framed by light streaming in through the front door, and launched into a very rapid waddle to throw herself into Ricardo's arms. She stood that way, wrapped up, for several minutes before she could manage to get out, "You didn't tell me you were coming home, you bastard."
"Secret," Cruz explained, while running his hands gently over her back. " 'Pain of death' secret. They just got another tercio sufficiently trained to take over from the Second. We couldn't say a thing until they had taken over by more than fifty percent. And I couldn't send you our code phrase because there were no computers out in the jungla and my last scrap of writing paper had gone to a 'We deeply regret' letter for one of my privates."
His hand wandered from her back to her belly. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"I wasn't sure until just after you left for La Palma, and I didn't want you to worry about me when you had more immediate things to worry about."
He nodded. The explanation made sense. For Cara, anyway.
"Did we win?" she asked.
"What's a win?" he half answered. "We drove the guerillas and druggies out of La Palma. But they'll be back if we let down our guard."
He grasped her shoulders in his hands and pushed her back far enough to look down into her face. "Hey, I've got some good news. At least I think it's good news."
"And that would be?"
"New assignment for us. We're going back to the island so I can be First Centurion of the tercio training maniple. Promotion, more money, and—since most of the troops have moved back to the mainland—the standard house out there for a senior centurion is what they used to put senior tribunes and junior legates in. Also"—he glanced down at her stomach—"the Legion still has most of its medical capability there."
Cara's eyes lit up at that. "Oooo . . . shiny." And I won't have to worry about you being killed all the time, either. A nice safe training billet would be just the thing.
She immediately got suspicious. She'd learned long since that nothing too very good and nothing too very bad lasted for too very long.
"How long?"
He shrugged, shaking his head. "Til we go to the island? A few weeks. How long will we be there? Sorry, don't know, love. Everything's in flux. But a year, at least, I think I can guarantee. Maybe two or three years."
"Oh, that would be wonderful," she whispered, laying her head against her man's chest.
Individual Combat Training Center, Eighth Legion, Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova
Esteban Escobar, late of the Frente Nacional Liberacion Santandereño, shivered in the early morning fog and the salty sea breeze. His thin physical training uniform was no help at all. And somehow the gravel underfoot was sharp enough to hurt his feet, even through his shoes.
Even if he'd been more warmly clothed, or the air had been warmer, the former guerilla might still have shivered. The corporals, sergeants, optios, and centurions he'd met so far might have made any man shiver.
Beasts in human form, was Esteban's learned judgment. Was that ferret-faced bastard, Fernandez, doing me a favor when he pulled a couple of strings to let me enlist?
Well, that's not fair. He did get the judge to dismiss the charges against me, and without even a hearing. That, at least, was a favor. Though, then again, I might have gotten credit for time served while I was being held in Fernandez's headquarters. In which case . . .
The fog was too thick to see the source of the command, "Maniple . . . Atten . . . SHUN."
Thought forgotten, Esteban stiffened to attention, head and eyes locked to the front. He heard the command, "Open ranks . . . MARCH!" and automatically took two steps forward to allow the squad behind to take a single step.
Esteban heard the leaders of the other three squads in his platoon give the command, "Parade . . . REST." His own first squad remained at attention. Keen ears heard the sharp gravel crunching under booted feet, somewhere off the right. He couldn't turn to see, but assumed that was the new first centurion they'd been warned about, inspecting the troops.
Vicious bastard they say he is, too.
Someone, the top of his head being at about the level of Esteban's chin, stepped in front of him and faced sharply to the left.
"I don't fucking believe it."
Esteban looked down, slightly, and his previous blank expression was replaced by a very nervous smile. "Hello," he said, lamely. "Ummm, Centurion."
Ricardo Cruz put the tip of his centurion's stick, his sole badge of rank, under Esteban's chin and pushed upward until his head was back in the proper position.
"I will someday want to know the rest of your story, Private Escobar," Cruz said, sternly. "But it can wait. In the interim, do try"—for punctuation, Cruz tapped his stick twice, hard, against Escobar's chest—"do"—tap—"try"—tap—"to remember how to stand at the position of attention."
"Yes, Centurion. Sorry, Centurion."
"And shut up."
Batería Pedro el Cholo, Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova
The bronze plaque by the rolled-open steel doors proclaimed the battery was named for an indian, a man without surname, who had been a follower of Belisario Carrera in his war of independence from Old Earth. Each of the eight batteries ringing the island was named for a different character from that long ago conflict. Jorge and Marqueli Mendoza had a common ancestor among those so honored, while Marqueli had yet another.
The battery's armament consisted of two triple six inch turrets, themselves removed from one of the cruisers scrapped by Carrera as not needed for naval efforts. The turrets sat atop artificial hills, the sodded and tree-planted dirt surmounting thick hollow cones of concrete. Behind the twin hills for the two turrets, various ammunition bunkers, twelve of them, were situated to either side of a rail line, a spur running from the ring that encircled the island about three kilometers inland from the coast. Eight of those twelve bunkers were on the coast side, with their large steel loading doors facing toward the central massif, Hill 287. Short rail lines ran right from the main spur into the ammunition bunkers. The turrets themselves, while capable of all-round traverse, were oriented primarily to sea. Unseen, underground and connected by tunnels, were concrete headquarters, the fire direction center, and quarte
rs and mess facilities for the battery's troops.
Sig Siegel was there, watching, as a railroad car bearing a shipping container was gently pushed through the doors. With Siegel were the Cochinese girl, Han, now free and his freely employed administrative assistant and translator, as well as a couple of hundred other Cochinese Sig had purchased from the highly corrupt chief of a re-education camp.
"Han?" Siegel said, once the flatcar was inside.
"Right, boss," the tiny girl answered, then walked to the railroad car and scampered up the side. In their own tongue she addressed the workers, daintily.
"All right you dicklessclapriddenpussies, get the cables and shackles on this thing and get it into the air so we can get rid of the railroad car. Once it's been hauled off, and the doors are closed, then you fuckfacedrefugeesfromthevendorsoffatlittleboys are going to lower it, open it, and reassemble the big gun you disassembled back in Prey Nokor. You will then fix the gun on the railway mounting in the big metal box. Don't try to pretend ignorance. You semengarglers took the things apart and packaged them up. Now if you backpassagewhoreswhodon'tevenknowenoughtochargeextraforaswallow can do that before dinnertime, I might, and the operative word is 'might,' tell our gracious and beloved boss"—she turned and gave Sig a blinding smile—"that you deserve to eat real food tonight.
"What? What? I could have sworn I told you shiteatingtrollops to get moving . . ."
Oh, Han, Sig thought, smiling broadly, himself, wherever have you been all my life?
Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova
All my life, I suppose, Carrera thought, with a sigh, his eyes glancing back and forth from the printout on his lap to the map on the wall, all my life I've wanted to lead a lot of men in a great, desperate battle. And in this particular case, that battle—the final one, not the one to toss out the Taurans—looks like a losing proposition.
The figures don't lie. On my eastern flank, all those coastal ports along the Mar Furioso—little enough, individually, but collectively enough to support an army—mean I'm going to be facing a corps or two—Zhong or Tauran, but most likely Zhong—and I'll have nothing left to face them with. Everybody else will be committed.
And recruiting is about maxed out. I can finish building the force, and financing it, but that's it. No more. In any case, a regiment of two of men would stand out like a sore thumb in a area full of refugee camps loaded with women and children.
Kuralski's plan of moving the civilians, mostly women and kids, out of Ciudad Balboa to provide a block is a clever one . . . maybe cowardly, but clever. The invaders will have to feed those civilians, and a half million mouths to be fed, at a distance from the ports, makes the logistic problem insurmountable.
For a couple of weeks, until whoever it is forces the civilians to move nearer the ports. Which guerillas could interfere with, maybe even defeat, as long as the guerillas could blend in. Which, being men, they won't be able to.
Women. I've got women troops but no women combatants to speak of. And even if I wanted to raise a tercio of women fighters, who would train them? Who would . . . hmmm.
He put down the print out and stood. Rocking his head from side to side, muttering—thinking out loud, really—he walked up the stairs to his office. There, he used the secure phone to dial Parilla's office.
"Raul? Patricio. I've had a kind of an odd thought. I think it might be useful. See, I want to raise a regiment of women, and, to train those women, a regiment of gays . . . no, I'm not crazy . . . yes, I've thought about it enough . . . trust me . . . yes, I know it might cause a rift with the Church . . ."
Cathedral of Santa Maria, Ciudad Cervantes, Balboa
"Pull over there," Pigna said to the driver of his command vehicle, a mottled green painted, one quarter ton, open top and sides, four wheel drive job made by a factory in Volga. The factory was partly owned by the Legion, with a local subsidiary to make spare parts. Eventually, it was intended that the parts manufactory would begin assembling entire vehicles. The troops called them "mulas," or mules.
"By the church, sir?"
"Yes, right by the church."
The driver shrugged, turned on his directional signal, motioned with his hand for the trucks following to keep on going, and turned the wheel. He eased through traffic, in itself no mean feat in the busy square in the middle of the city, made worse by the passing convoy on its way to Fort Cameron. The square was, in fact, the same square where a gringo, Patrick Hennessey, had once shot a number of Moslem, precipitating the wars that followed.
Once the mule stopped, parallel to the curb, Pigna got out and walked the dozen or so steps across the wide concrete sidewalk to the cathedral's main door. This he pulled open, then entered. Even as the door opened he could hear the choir at practice, singing something he didn't recognize but which sounded vaguely Gregorian.
The interior was dark, lit only by early morning light filtering through stained glass windows. The legate took a few moments to let his eyes adjust. Once he could see well enough, he dipped the three middle fingers of his right hand in the holy water font, used his thumb to spread the liquid out, and crossed himself.
He then walked to a rear pew, genuflected, and knelt. With his hands folded together, Pigna began to pray nervously for the success of the coup he intended to launch in a very few weeks. He began, Thank You, God, that that bastard, Jimenez, will be down in La Palma visiting his troops. Thank You, too, that . . .
Chapter Twenty-seven
But then why just a military test? There are so many things of value to society, so many of which are difficult and even dangerous. And where would we be without mothers and motherhood? How impossible a life without the farmers' produce? Civilized life without dentistry is unimaginable, without entertainment so dull as not to be worth living.
And so what? We wouldn't be here without air, either. Shall it vote? By mass or by volume? Or would by molecule be more fair and just? We need meat and bread. Shall the cows and buds of chorley vote?
People pay taxes. Why should they not have a say? Because if paying taxes is sufficient, and not a cover for some other status, like being a warm body with a temperature around 98.6, then logically those who pay more should vote more. And yet where is the civic virtue in wealth?
—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,
Historia y Filosofia Moral,
Legionary Press, Balboa,
Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468
AC 472 Estado Major, Balboa City, Balboa, Terra Nova
Though the sun was long down, two of the three moons long up, and the antaniae crying mnnbt, mnnbt, mnnbt in the brush that edged the complex walls, a light still shone from the window of Fernandez's administrative office. With his wife long dead and daughter murdered by a terrorist's bomb, Fernandez had no real life outside the Legion. He didn't really feel the lack of that, though he missed his wife and especially his daughter terribly. This was the single best explanation, more than patriotism and more than dedication to the profession, that he worked such long hours, often sleeping on a the couch of the waiting room.
His men and women, likewise, took their cue from their chief. In a sense they had to, given the sheer workload and the relatively small numbers of people able to do the job. The expansion, of late, hadn't helped any. Thus, it was no great surprise when Fernandez's deputy, Legate Barletta, knocked, despite the late hour.
* * *
I don't know how I get into these things, Barletta had thought to himself as he'd walked nervously down the corridor leading to Fernandez's administrative office. He was certain his chief would be there, because he wasn't in his "secure office" down below. Yes I do, I acquired a little too much gambling debt, mostly entertaining my secretary, the bitch. That led to doing a couple of favors for money, which led to some more of each, which led to . . . ah, to hell with it. I'm here, now, and I'm stuck. But shit, Omar's my friend.
Reaching Fernandez's outer door, Barletta turned the knob and walked in to the waiting area. There he removed a pistol from under his un
iform tunic with his right hand, while his left sought out a smallish cylinder contained in the tunic's left hip pocket. The cylinder went smoothly onto the end of the pistol's muzzle, quite despite Barletta's trembling hand.
But then again, friend or not, he'd have me down under that fucking Arab's care in a heartbeat if he knew I'd been turned. So, friend or not, it's him or me.
Barletta walked the couple of steps to the inner door, then knocked with his left hand.
* * *
Fernandez recognized the knock. He said, "Come in," then looked up, nodded a greeting, and turned his attention back to a small metallic or plastic box that sat atop his wooden desk. Barletta's hands were clasped behind his back, but that wasn't anything particularly unusual.
"What's that, Chief," Barletta asked. Since the deputy wasn't cleared for this particular piece of information, Fernandez just shook his head in negation. That could have meant anything from, "you don't need to know" to "I don't know." Barletta was used to that. He waited silently for a few moments until he was certain that the intelligence chief's full attention was back on the box.
"I'm sorry for this, chief," Barletta said, taking aim at Fernandez's chest. The deputy sounded sincerely sorry and also very nervous.
"What?" Fernandez asked, looking up.
Fernandez was short, thus the difference between a pistol aimed at his heart and one aimed at the box was minimal. He didn't think much of his own importance—and there he was quite wrong—but did think the box was important. As Barletta squeezed the trigger, Fernandez grabbed the box and spun around in his chair to his left, placing his body between it and the weapon.
The move was quick, taking Barletta by surprise, enough so that—added to his case of nerves, his first coughing shot went wide of his aim, taking Fernandez in the right side of his back, the bullet passing though the lung on that side, driving blood, phlegm, and tissue out of his chest. The energy transferred set Fernandez to spinning, so that the next two shots went though his spine, in one case, and his gut, in the next. Arms flopping limply back, he was thrown chest forward to the floor, his body falling over the black box.
