by Tom Kratman
"Well, Patricio, I tried," she said.
"What about when you get married?" Carrera asked.
Jimenez snorted. "What sane woman would marry me? Not an issue, Patricio; it's never going to happen. Besides, I'm married to the Fourth and that's bitch enough for me—no offense, Lourdes. No . . . I'll be just fine as a sometime guest here."
Carrera shrugged, thinking, No . . . actually you won't be a sometime guest here, since we're going to be moving the legions to the mainland over the next year. So . . . I suppose . . . why not?
"Yeah . . . okay," he conceded. "Mac and Arti can have Number Two. Now that she's about to be married at least the young signifers and tribunes will stop trying to serenade her under her window."
"Tell me about it," Jimenez said. "I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if they could sing."
Quarters Number One
Lourdes hummed the wedding march softly to herself as she crossed the hundred and twenty meters from her old home, Number Two, to Number One. Having Mac and Arti as next door neighbors was going to be great; she just knew it.
And, better still, when they thump the bed against the wall all night, I won't be able to hear it. Besides, it reminds me of what I am missing when Patricio is away.
Entering by the front door, Lourdes took one look at McNamara and Artemisia—coming down the stairs arm and arm, he looking guilty and she like the cat who fell into the vat of cream—and she started laughing again. She ran to the nearest room, her husband's library, to hide her discomposure. She closed the door behind her and covered her mouth again to try to stifle her laughter.
"What's so funny, Mama?" little Hamilcar asked, looking up from one of his father's books.
"I'll tell you when you're older," Lourdes answered. Curious, she walked over to the desk and picked up the book that her son had been reading. That he was reading was no surprise; the child had been literate for almost two years. The title, however, she found worrisome; The Battle of Kuantan by Tadeo Kurita.
Can it be genetic, somehow? she wondered, suddenly growing utterly serious and seriously worried. Did my son inherit his father's taste for battle? God, please don't take my baby from me. He's not even five yet.
* * *
After his mother had left, Hamilcar returned to his reading. Kurita's dry account of the exchange between his battlecruiser and the Federated States Navy's superdreadnought, Andrew Jackson, soon had the boy quivering with excitement and a wordless longing to be there, to trade shot for shot and blow for blow. Never mind that he was, half ways, from the Federated States, nor that his other half had had little involvement in the Great Global War. It was the battle, itself, that drew him. And, he already knew, it always would.
He knew, too, that he already understood things that were forever barred to most human beings, at any age. He understood, instinctively, without Kurita explaining it, what it meant to cross the Jackson's T and why Kurita had accepted a couple of bad hits to get his own ship in position to do that. Hamilcar understood, without anyone explaining it, the logistic and time-space factors that had dictated why the Battle of Kuantan had happened where it had and when it had.
In short, Hamilcar Carrera-Nuñez already knew, at age four, that he had the knack.
He closed the book, sighing, and thought, Mama and I need to have a long talk.
4/7/468 AC, Main Parade Field, Isla Real
"I've seen you under fire, Sergeant Major, and I've never seen you look nervous like today."
"Sir . . . fuck you, sir," McNamara answered. "T'isn't every day a man gets married. And it's almost never a man marries a woman like Artemisia. If I'm nervous . . . "
"You have a right to be, Mac," Carrera answered, gently. "I just like pulling your leg and needling you. Because, you know, if I didn't know you were watching me, there's a half dozen times, over the years, that I'd have been gibbering. By God, I've a right to needle you. If only for the goddamned bed thumping that's kept me up every night but the last few."
To that McNamara had no answer, but only a sort of a question. "It worries me, sir, you know? I'm pushing sixty. She's less t'an half my age. I've got to, you know . . . get the gettin' while the gettin's good. T'e day's not long off . . . "
"My ass."
* * *
A white tent sat not far from where McNamara and Carrera traded jibes and worries. In the tent Lourdes and a bevy of bridesmaids fussed and fluttered around Artemisia Jimenez, fluffing, primping, and generally polishing. She looked amazing.
"Does my ass look fat in this, Lourdes?" Artemisia asked, worriedly.
Lourdes looked. I should have such an ass, she thought. Then she looked again. "No, Arti, your rear end is not fat. But unless I'm much mistaken you've grown a bra cup size. How many months along are you."
Artemisia smiled wickedly. "Six weeks. I had to, don't you see? He might have backed out."
"Does Mac know?"
"I was going to tell him tonight. Otherwise, he'll be so worried about me . . . hell, this is John McNamara we're talking about; he'd be so embarrassed at our being caught jumping the gun; he'd probably blow his lines. And those, he must get right."
"And besides," Lourdes said, drily, "if he screws this up enough to delay the wedding, you'll need a new dress, won't you?"
Artemisia dimpled. "So you see my point in not upsetting him, right?"
* * *
"You've upset the signifers and some of the tribunes," Carrera said, pointing with his chin at two sets of bleachers filled to overflowing with sixty or more junior officers, all in dress whites and every man wearing a black armband.
"Young punks," McNamara said, when he saw.
"It's a compliment, Sergeant Major. Take it that way."
"I suppose so," he admitted, with bad grace. "T'ough if t'ey t'tought about it, t'ey'd realize t'eir lives are about to get a lot more pleasant when I have somet'ing to do besides ride t'eir asses."
"That's one way to look at it," Carrera agreed. "They really ought—" He hushed suddenly, even as the crowd did (for ringing the field there were thousands of legionaries, plus their families, who had come to watch).
Artemisia, escorted by her uncle, Xavier, brilliant in his dress whites, had emerged from the tent. Lourdes followed, as did another eleven girls, about half and half Arti's close in-laws and the girls she had competed against for Miss Balboa. In the bleachers, sixty signifers and junior tribunes looked at the procession and suddenly had the same thought: Well . . . there are some other opportunities out there.
"You are such a lucky bastard, Top. I believe that's the only woman I've ever seen to match my Linda."
The band of the Legion del Cid, mercifully sans drums and bagpipes, picked up the wedding march.
* * *
Oh, God, I'm so nervous, thought Artemisia as she led her party forward along the carpets laid to protect her shoes and dress from the grass. What if I'm not a good wife? What if he gets tired of me? What if . . . ?
Stop being an idiot, Arti, you and he are perfect together. It's going to be wonderful.
But what if my tits sag after the baby comes?
Then you get pregnant again and reinflate them.
But what if he get tired of my cooking?
Then you hire a cook. Lourdes already said that Patricio's gift to us is "impressive and of many parts." Besides, John's salary with the Legion, plus his retired pay from the FS Army, is huge by Balboan standards. And I can work, too. And then, too, Uncle Xavier is going to contribute.
But what if—?
* * *
"I'm sooo glad t'at's over, sir," McNamara whispered.
Carrera answered, "Men don't not enjoy the ceremony, generally, Top, but endure it because of the state it formalizes. By the way, did you know you're going to be a daddy?"
Mac sighed, embarrassed. "She hasn't told me, but, yeah . . . I kinda figured it out."
Smiling, Carrera chided, "Bad, wicked, naughty sergeant major. Bad, wicked, evil, naughty, bad, bad, bad sergeant major. You should be
ashamed. Oh . . . and Lourdes and I would like to stand as godparents, if that's okay with you and Arti."
"We'd be honored, sir."
* * *
"You got to be focking shittin' me, sir. I mean . . . well . . . we knew Lourdes had set up the honeymoon but . . . "
Carrera just smiled as there, on the parade field, a smallish airship descended and lowered ropes to half a dozen waiting heavy-duty recovery trucks packed to the brim with sandbags. Chartering the thing had cost a not-inconsiderable fortune but for his sergeant major, no expense was too great.
"Shitting you about what, Top?" Carrera asked. "You and I are just simple soldiers. This kind of thing—an airship honeymoon to tour all of Colombia del Norte—seems too much to us. But she is . . . was Miss Balboa and she will, by God, have a honeymoon to set the continent wild."
McNamara scoffed. "T'at ain't it, you sneaky bastard. I know you. You ain't t'at nice. What you're doing is sending us on a whirlwind recruitin' tour, ain't you?"
Rather than deny it, exactly, Carrera answered, "Siegel's going with you as a sort of aide de camp. You and he and Arti are going to entertain every goddamned General Staff in Colombia Latina on your trip."
"T'at's nonsense, boss, no offense. T'ose arrogant assholes won't even talk to no non-com. Not even one wit' Miss Balboa on his arm."
"Who says you're a non-com?" Carrera asked. He pointed at Siegel, standing not far away. Siegel came running bearing a carved silverwood box about two feet in length and perhaps four inches on a side. Siegel, wearing a huge smirk, stopped, standing at attention and holding the box out. Carrera opened it and drew from it a baton, about eighteen inches in length and an inch in diameter. The baton was gold colored, as were all sergeants major's batons. This one, however, was encircled by harpy eagles spiraling down its length. They looked like, and were, solid gold. There was a jewelry store in Ciudad Balboa that really wanted to keep in the Legion's good graces.
The crowd hushed. Rumors had suggested something like this. At the central reviewing stand Tom Christian announced, "Attention to orders."
"You see, Top," Carrera explained, "there was such a thing as a praetorian prefect. Then, too, the origin of your rank, back on Old Earth, was "Sergeant Major-General . . . "
* * *
What was probably the most finely tuned, spotlessly clean armored vehicle not merely on this world, but on two worlds and in the history of two worlds, pulled up by the gazebo. The band picked up the Wedding March again while Mac and Artemisia, both still in white, walked to it. They were pelted by rice and chorley seed the entire way.
At the tank, McNamara put his hands on Arti's still-narrow waist and lifted her to a cushion thoughtfully placed behind the turret. He then scrambled up to stand atop the tank where he bent to lift his new wife to her feet. Gently—no mean feat given the nature of Volgan-built tanks—the armored vehicle trundled off to just underneath the airship. There, they dismounted in reverse order and began to ascend the gangway the airship had lowered. They stopped twice on the way up, Artemisia with tears in her eyes, to wave to the crowd.
Waving back, crying, Lourdes whispered to her husband, "Weddings do something to me. They make me horny. Take me home and fuck me. Now."
"Orders are orders," Carrera answered, reaching over gently to wipe away the tears flowing from Lourdes' huge brown eyes. "And those orders, my lovely wife, are always a joy to obey."
5/7/468 AC, Quarters Number One, Isla Real
Hamilcar had inherited the huge size of his mother's eyes, along with a blend of color from both parents. His were a brilliant green with the same dark circles around the iris that gave his father's such a frighteningly penetrating quality. He turned those big green eyes up at his mother and said, "Mama, can I ask you for something?"
Lourdes, puttering in the kitchen, stopped what she was doing, looked down at her eldest and said, "Yes, of course, baby. What is it?"
"When daddy goes back to the war . . . Mama, I want to go with him."
Christ, no, not my baby, too.
"You're too small," she answered. "You're only four. When you're a grown man of five we'll discuss this again."
"Does that mean I can go when I'm five?"
"No, it means we'll discuss it. Then. Not before."
This was not an entirely satisfactory answer so Hamilcar upped the stakes. "Mama, if you don't tell me I can go when I'm five . . . I'll go over your head." He heard someone or another of his daddy's soldiers use that expression. He was pretty sure he understood what it meant.
Lourdes did understand what it meant. He'd go to his father to ask permission. Which Patricio just might give. And what objections will I have? I kept Hamilcar in the war zone for almost two years when he was a baby, just so I could be with my husband. I can't object to him being there now that's he's past being a baby.
"Do you want to break your mother's heart, Ham?" she asked.
"No."
"Then please don't 'go over my head.' Wait until you're five and we will discuss it."
Five is not so long a wait. "All right, Mama. But if you don't let me go then, I'll go over your head."
Interlude
7/9/49 AC, Balboa Colony, Terra Nova
In the thick Balboan night, with monkeys and antaniae and even the occasional trixie filling the air with sound, with the steady drone of mosquitoes in their ears, the Gurkha Rifles and the Sikh Pioneers bivouacked close together and well away from the ad hoc OAU infantry battalion. Frankly, while the Gurkhas and Sikhs got along just fine, neither could stand the undisciplined rabble from the OAU. Less still could Majors Dhan Singh Pandey and Amita Kaur Bhago stand the . . .
"Overbred, cowardly, stuffed shirt, little boy bunging, limey bastard, Duff-McQueeg," as Amita usually phrased it.
"Please, Amita, be charitable," Dhan chided. "After all, we don't know he's a coward. Personally, I think he only stays with the OAU troops for the little boys they keep for him."
"We'll see about that when the fighting starts," the Kaur answered, automatically killing a mosquito that had landed on her wrist.
"I don't know fighting ever start," said Company Sergeant Major Rambahadur Thapa, of Pandey's company. "We are end of supply trail, sahib. And jungle boys pretty good at keeping away."
That was true enough; Pandey's shrug admitted it. So far into the jungle and so far from any road was the task force that resupply depended on helicopters and shuttles. But the force was literally at the maximum distance the helicopters available could support. Another kilometer and the excess wear would begin to overwhelm the maintenance staff.
"We could drive twice as far or more without the OAU acting as a dead weight," Amita said. "Though in that case the task force commander would have no little boys. Worse, he'd be with us."
Dhan Singh Pandey opened his mouth to speak when the jungle erupted in heavy automatic fire coming from the direction of the OAU bivouac. He was about to call for his radio bearer when Amita held up her hand.
"I didn't hear anything," she said. "Sergeant Major?"
"Not me."
"Sir, call from the OAU," the radioman announced.
Pandey thought about that for half a second and said, "I'm sure you're mistaken, Naik."
* * *
Belisario hadn't rushed it. New weapons were fine. New weapons his men didn't know how to use were just expensive clubs. He'd spent a month just in training with the new rifles and machine guns and another two weeks in feeling out the enemy. In the process, he noticed something interesting. The Gurkhas would come running to help the Sikhs, and vice versa. But when he probed the OAU, or someone sniped at them, both Gurkhas and Sikhs indicated a profound disinterest.
This night, he'd decided to risk an attack. A full attack.
* * *
In the privacy of his tent Duff-McQueeg held a local boy, down on all fours, firmly by the hips while moving his own in a steady, rhythmic stroke. He was suddenly interrupted by the sound of heavy gunfire. He was tempted to ignore it, but then
Warrant Officer Bourguet ripped open the tent flap and announced, breathlessly, "Sir . . . sir . . . the enemy . . . "
A large red stain suddenly blossomed on Bourguet's t-shirt, visible through his unbuttoned uniform jacket. Wordlessly, the warrant officer crumpled to the ground. His hands remained gripped to the material of the tent, which followed the heavyset warrant to the ground. Duff-McQueeg, and the boy, were trapped underneath. By the time Duff-McQueeg could extract himself from both the boy and the tent, he emerged to find a smoking muzzle pressed to the side of his head.
