by Tom Kratman
Thank my sister, Betania, for the cookies she sent. My whole platoon enjoyed them. (And no, sister, I didn't want to share them, but we are not allowed to keep any kind of food in the barracks.)
To little Eduardo; you tell me you want to be a soldier. I must tell you back, it is hard, little brother, very hard. Never enough sleep, running, marching, harassment all the time. If you are still interested when you turn fourteen in three years, we will talk about it again. In the interim, just keep your grades up in school and obey our parents. That is the best preparation you can do.
Mother and Father, I will be home the week before Christmas until three days after the Intercalary.
Not everyone will be returning to the Academy. Of the eighteen hundred who started here with me, six hundred are already gone. Some of the others remaining will be invited to leave. Do not fear that I will be one of those. My grades are high and my evaluations for leadership also good enough to be retained. I would not fail you, you can be sure."
Acosta stopped writing as the Russian instructor was replaced with a Balboan one, a rather short type. As usual the cadets began to chatter quietly among themselves the moment one class ended. The new speaker was a Cristobalense, Diaz thought. For one thing, he was black. For another, the cuff band on his sleeve said "Barbarossa" which the cadet knew was the local tercio. A silvery cross hung by a ribbon around the instructor's neck.
For a few moments the new man just stood on the podium, looking out over the cadets. Then, turning to the boys with their feet upon the walls, he said, "Take fockin' seats, chicos."
Gradually, the talk died down as the diminutive black instructor continued to glare out over the crowd. As the last whisper died away, the instructor began to speak.
He said, in a hypnotically melodious voice with the accent of the islands of the Shimmering Sea, "Close you eyes, my children. Close you eyes and come with me."
"You in a tank; a big fockin' Jaguar. You out in de desert. De sand be blowin', de rain fallin'. Cuz, yes, my children, even do it never rain in de Legion, even out in de desert it rain on de Legion. You be wet and chilled to de bone. You eyes be full of dust and grit. It be darker dan t'ree foot up a welldigger's ass . . . at midnight. You can'd see notin'. De end of you gun barrel is a misty haze."
Eyes closed, Acosta could see it.
"You try to wipe de sand out of de eyes, but as fast as you wipe you eyes dey fills up again with dat goddamn' sand. So you closes you hatch and you tries to look t'ru de tank sight. You can'd see notin'. Den you looks again. 'Wat de fock be dat?' you asks.
"It a tank, out dere in de desert, you tinks, but you looks again. Oh, shit! No it be t'ree tanks, no six . . . no eleven . . . no, over twenty fockin' raghead tanks and dey all be comin' to kill you little Balboan ass! 'What I goan do?' you asks. 'What de fock I goan do?'
The Cristobalense let the question hang, briefly.
"Open you eyes, children, open dem up and I tells you what you goan do. You goan reach deep inside youself, to where all you little fears and nightmares be. You goan think about callin de white Christ to save you ass. And you calls but you gets de busy signal. So dere you be, one little Balboan boy feelin' all alone in de desert wit' twenty tanks coming to kill you and no God to help.
"And you looks over at de gunner, you eyes wide like saucers in you head, and you asks him, 'What kind of load we be carryin, gunner?'
"And de gunner, he answers, 'Eight ronds HE, t'irty two ronds anti-tank.' And den you knows what you do?"
All the cadets looked up at the instructor with considerable interest. No, they didn't know what to do. And the instructor's face lit up with something that looked like religious devotion. Lifting his arms to the sky as if in prayer, the instructor said, in a voice that thundered across the shed:
"I tell you what you goan do. You goan call on de great Voodoo God: SABOT!" The instructor reached out and deftly pulled the black cloth away to reveal a small glass tray and a brightly polished round of tank ammunition, a sabot round, long alloy penetrating rod surrounded by a plastic sabot, or shoe. When fired, the rod would discard the sabot, cutting down wind resistance greatly, but more importantly putting all its kinetic energy against the very small portion of the target's armor struck by the point of the rod. Penetration of the armor, and death of the crew—a hideous, flesh melting, burning death—usually followed.
To this sabot round, however, anthropomorphic features had been added by a crude hand. The instructor lit a cigar and placed it on the tray in front of the round, pretending to make a small obeisance to it. "Say it wit' me now boys. Sabot!"
And the cadets answered "SABOT!"
"Sabot!"
"SABOT!"
"But de Voodoo God, he no hear you. And den you knows you needs anudder voice to pray wit' you. So you calls on you gunner to pray, too. You says 'Gunner—'"
"GUNNER!" the boys answered.
"Sabot!"
"SABOT!"
"Tank!"
"TANK!"
"Pray wit' me, boys! Gunner, sabot, tank!"
"GUNNER, SABOT, TANK!"
"Gunner, sabot, tank!"
"GUNNER, SABOT, TANK!"
"Louder so de great Voodoo God hear you!"
"GUNNER, SABOT, TANK! GUNNER, SABOT, TANK! GUNNER, SABOT, TANK!"
As the cadets turned the "prayer" into a chant the instructor stuck his right arm straight out, fist clenched, as if it were the barrel of a tank's main gun, and rotated his upper body like a turret. Between each rendition of the chant he pulled his fist straight back to his shoulder as if it were a recoiling tank cannon. The cadets joined him, sticking their own arms out, rotating them, then pulling them back for recoil, all the time laughing their heads off.
Soon, some of the boys thought, or perhaps merely felt, that a recoil should be accompanied by an explosion. The chant gradually changed to "GUNNER, SABOT, TANK, BOOM!"
"GUNNER, SABOT, TANK, BOOM! GUNNER, SABOT, TANK, BOOM! GUNNER, SABOT, TANK, BOOM!"
The instructor let the chant go on for some minutes before raising his arms to quiet the cadets again. When he was satisfied that he had whipped the boys into enough of a chanting and laughing frenzy to carry them through the unavoidably boring mechanical training to follow, he lowered his arms and said "De great god Sabot be pleased by you devotion. Five minute break. Den fall in on de tanks outside."
On his break Diaz took the time to finish his letter:
"But, as hard as this is sometimes, it can also be a lot of fun—and very funny, too—but I'd still rather be home.
Love, Julio"
1/6/468 AC, Casa Linda, Balboa
One of the peculiarities of Balboan democracy was that elections were set for the most densely miserable part of the wet season. Whether or not it really had been the theory behind this date that fewer of the wretchedly poor would vote if the price for voting were to be standing in a long line in the middle of a deluge, that was clearly the effect. It was, even so, hard to credit Balboa's moneyed class with that kind of foresight.
"And it's going to hurt us," Parilla said, staring out into the downpour from the covered back terrace of the casa, the one that looked north towards the Isla Real. The sun was up, but only just, to his right as he faced. Soon enough the entire country would be a dutch oven, with a combination of about one hundred percent humidity and over one hundred degrees, Fahrenheit, of temperature.
Ruiz sipped at his coffee and shrugged. "It will and it won't. Sure, some of the very poor who might otherwise vote will stay home. But the legionaries could care less about a little rain or heat or sun. And they'll all vote. And if one in a hundred of them votes for someone besides you I'd be very, very surprised."
"A wash then, you think?" Parilla asked.
"About that."
Indistinct in the thickened air, a helicopter—Parilla recognized the sound of a Legion IM-62—churned its way eastward toward Ciudad Cervantes, carrying several hundred legionaries to their home town to vote. On the return trip the chopper would take
a like number of already-voted reservists, with their arms, to guard the island. Still other reservists had assembled at the polls before sunrise, leaving their arms nearby and under guard. These would later march to the borders of the Tauran controlled areas around the Transitway and the pro-Rocaberti enclaves of Ciudad Balboa.
Whether they would be needed remained to be seen. Observation posts in the towns by the Vera Cruz training area, overlooking the old FSAF base at Bruja Point, reported a Tauran Union aircraft landing every forty minutes, not counting combat aircraft. Some carried troops; some carried supplies. One and all, though, they suggested that neither the Tauran Union nor the corrupt government it backed by backing Gaul was going to acquiesce lightly in any election that turned over control to Parilla and his mercenaries.
Both Parilla and Ruiz looked skyward at the sound of what had to have been a very large jet making a leisurely turn to the west. "What's Patricio doing about this over in Pashtia?" Ruiz asked.
"He's kept one legion to interdict the border, just as our contract calls for," Parilla answered. "The other two, while on their way home, he's maneuvered into position to crush the Tauran Union forces in Pashtia. The Taurans appear to know it, too."
"They've got to be shitting bricks," Ruiz chuckled. "He's holding their people there hostage for the good behavior of their people here."
Parilla smiled, saying, "Well . . . Patricio learned about taking hostages from the main enemy. And we've all seen how the TU reacts when someone is holding Tauran's hostage. The only problem is that the FSC can see what we're doing and is really pissed about it."
Ruiz disagreed. "I don't think they're pissed so much as they're worried. A war here shuts down the Transitway. That hurts them nearly as much as it hurts us. After all, about seventy percent of the cargo passing through here either starts in the FSC, ends there, or both. And then if fighting breaks out here, they have to know Patricio will hit the enemy wherever he finds him and in the most destructive way he can. That would make a shambles of an already pretty shaky alliance in Pashtia. And then . . . "
"Yes?" Parilla prompted.
"Well . . . emotionally the FSC doesn't really give a shit about us. If anything, the ruling Progressive Party resents us because Wozniak lost his presidency, at least in part, over the Transitway. And their current government just adores the Taurans, and especially the bloody perfidious Gauls. Even though we're much, much more valuable to them, I don't think that emotionally they can do anything but take the Frogs' side of things."
"Idiots to go with their hearts rather than their heads," Parilla said.
"Idiots to set their hearts on the Taurans," Ruiz amended.
Panshir Base, Pashtia
The shell holes were long since filled in. The troops were well fed and had even been able to put on a little fat. All the ruined tents had been replaced. Even so, the Ligurini Brigade of Claudio Marciano was digging in frantically, entrenching, filling sandbags, breaking down ammunition.
They had reason to. Lightly armed as they were, they didn't stand a chance if the legion surrounding them should attack. That it should have come to this, and so quickly . . .
Seating in a canvas folding camp chair, deep in his bunker, Marciano sighed even more deeply. "I don't know what the idiot Gauls' game is, Patricio. They're playing their cards awfully close to their chests this time."
Carrera looked up at the roof of the bunker. Pretty solid. Won't stop a 160mm though. He looked at Marciano's altogether Roman face and asked, "What are your government's instructions if it comes to a fight between us and the Frogs? I mean . . . if you can tell me, that is."
"I can't tell you, exactly, Patricio, buuut, if you think about it . . . "
There are no Tuscan troops in Balboa, Carrera thought. So fighting there need not spread here as far as they're concerned. But, as far as I'm concerned an attack there by the Frogs means general war and I won't be held back from destroying their forces here.
"I'm going after them here, Claudio. If it's war then it's war to the knife and the knife to the hilt . . . wherever they may be. I'd leave your boys out of it, if I could, but I can't leave a strong enough force to guard you here. I'll have to destroy you so that I can redeploy that legion to take on Haarlem, Sachsen, Anglia, Secordia and the rest." He actually had a hard time accepting that "the rest" might include the FSC troops in country.
"And we have mutual defense treaties with them," Marciano said. "Mine is an honorable country, even if not all our allies are honorable."
Carrera thought, "And Romans in Rome's quarrels . . . spared neither land nor gold . . . nor son nor wife nor limb nor life . . . in the brave days of old." And Claudio, here, is a true Roman. I wouldn't insult him or his men by suggesting surrender.
"You've got good troops here, Claudio, but . . . you know it won't take a full legion more than a few hours to overrun this base. Please, tell your government that. Explain to them that the stakes are much higher than the Frogs are suggesting."
"I have. They find it hard to believe."
War Department, Hamilton, FD, FSC
It hurt, deep inside, for Malcolm to admit it. "Okay, Rivers, I'm convinced. I'm a believer. If we don't intervene to keep fighting from breaking out in Balboa then Pashtia is lost." And with it, my chance to become president. "I've got a meeting set up with the President and the secretary of state. I will do what I can to convince them."
"Convince them of what?" Rivers asked.
"Of the danger," Malcolm answered. "Of the need for mediation. Of the need to throw our weight against whoever fires the first shot."
"Then you had best hurry, Mr. Secretary," Rivers said. "The Frogs"—Oh, how I love saying "Frogs" to this puke who so loves the Frogs—"are flying in major numbers of troops and the Legion's regulars and reservists are falling in on assembly areas on both sides and both ends of the Transitway area. The news is full of enough accusations of violence, corruption and fraud in the election process that either side can claim to have 'won.' If nothing changes, I predict a blood bath starting by midnight."
The Trapezoid, Executive Mansion, Hamilton, FD, Federated States of Columbia,
"Then why not just threaten the stinking mercenaries if trouble breaks out?" thundered the secretary of state, Mary Darkling, a woman short, shrill, and seriously overweight. "We all know they're trying to steal the election down there. Wozniak is convinced of it. The global press insists upon it. Our allies, the Gauls, are certain of it. By taking the side of the mercenaries against our real allies we're undercutting the tradition and understanding of decades. It's absurd!"
Malcolm shook his head. Inside he felt precisely what Darkling openly insisted upon . . . but, "I'm with you in this, morally, Mary. But the practicalities are such that we just can't let this thing spiral out of control. I adore Gaul as much as you do. I want to help them, to induce them to help us. I want to try to overcome the suspicion and hostility that built up under the previous administration. But . . . we're dealing with a maniac here! The leader of the mercenaries is not susceptible to reason. He won't even take bribes at this point. I believe that, were he capable, he'd destroy the entire planet before backing down an inch. He's got an army and he's going to have a country . . . or he's going to fight to take one."
Darkling shot an accusatory glare at the President. It's your fault for keeping us in that utterly illegal war in Pashtia.
Schumann, the President, understood the glare. He smiled and said, "The one thing keeping us from losing the center again and being run out of office, Mary, my dear, is that we promised to win in Pashtia. For that, for reasons largely logistic, we need the mercenaries. For reasons entirely political, we need them to bleed rather than ourselves. When I asked you for a diplomatic solution to Pashtia you gave me a blank stare. I'm a Progressive, Mary; I'm not an idiot. We must win in Pashtia or we must lose here."
Turning to Malcolm, Schumann said, "We need to force a delay until Pashtia is won and we can dispense with the mercenaries. So . . . I want you
ready a major expeditionary force to Balboa. Sail them, post haste." He shifted his attention to Darkling and said, "Here's what I want you to tell our ambassador . . . "
1/6/468 AC, Embassy of the Federated States, Ciudad Balboa
Had it not been for the position of the Legion within Balboa, Ambassador Thomas Wallis would have been most unlikely ever to see the lofty rank he held. Medium height, medium build, nonpatrician, he had none of the connections within the Federated States' diplomatic service that were normally an absolute requirement for admission to the inner circle.
He had had one greatly redeeming feature, as far as the previous, Federalist, administration had been concerned. Wallis had spent many years in the armed forces before retiring and entering the diplomatic corps. He was, thus, a natural for dealing with that part of Balboa most of interest to the Federated States, the Legion. He considered it only a matter of time, though, before the Progressives booted him. The fact that I'm ex-military is enough to make me suspect to the Progs.
Interesting, thought the ambassador, that Muñoz-Infantes is sitting on the Balboan side of the conference table. Very interesting. I wonder what's going on there. Wallis looked at Janier. The Frog looks ready to shit himself.
Is that Castilian bastard trying to tell me something? wondered Janier, for the nonce without his imperial marshal's uniform or laurel wreath.
How far is the Castilian willing to go to support us? wondered Parilla.
"Gentlemen," began the ambassador, softly and genially. With the utterance of the word he was immediately greeted by a storm of swears and accusation from both sides of the conference table. Conspicuously, Muñoz-Infantes kept quiet.
Soft and genial won't cut it, I see.
Wallis injected steel into his voice. "GENTLEMEN! Be quiet!"
Those present shut up, not always with good grace. Wallis continued, "I am advised by the President, speaking through the secretary of state, to inform you that two carrier battle groups are en route here. Moreover, two reinforced regiments of Federated States Marines are, even as we speak, boarding ship to come here. One division of paratroopers is likewise being readied. Their orders are—consistent with Federated States policy with regard to the Transitway, and also consistent with our treaties—to engage whichever side shall first initiate hostilities in or around the Transitway area."
