And the plan of God was being accomplished.
—Homer, The Iliad, Book I
Shift gears. Back up. Shift again. Move forward to the left. Feel the restraining straps cut into your body as it's thrown forward when the brakes bite in. Stop at the next covered position. Shift gears. Back up. Shift again. Move right to the next covered position. Right, again. Left. Left. Right. Stop. Incoming! Back up fast! Pop smoke.
Perez's voice shouts in the microphone. "Two o'clock! Gunner! Sabot! Tank!" Buttons are pushed. The autoloader selects a round of kinetic energy ammunition from the carousel, lifting it easily to the breech and feeding it in. The gunner and commander shy away from the autoloader; it has been known to feed in arms, shoulders and heads. From behind Jorge Mendoza's head comes the whine of a 15- ton turret moving smoothly on its bearings. Jorge braces himself.
"Target!"
"Fire!" The crash of the gun ripples Mendoza's internal organs.
"Hit! Hit!"
"Eleven o'clock. Gunner! Sabot! Tank!"
"Miss!"
"Repeat!" The loader recycles with a fresh round. Again the crash sends Jorge's stomach bouncing against his backbone.
"Hit!"
"Driver, move out!"
Shift gears. Back up. Shift again. Forward. Forward. "Ten o'clock! Gunner! Sabot! . . ." An alarm goes off in Mendoza's ears. "Shit!" As always after a failure, red smoke floods Jorge's compartment as soon as he opens his hatch. Shit!
Jungle-covered for the most part, Cerro de Infierno jutted up between the Gallardo Trench of the Transitway and the road that ran generally alongside it. The hill overlooked the relatively open maneuver areas of Imperial Ranges Eight and Ten. From his vantage point above the road, Carrera watched one of the legion's tank sections going through its paces. While the rest of the legion had been going through basic training, the tank and PBM-100 crews, largely composed of long service professionals with Basic far behind them, had been doing their individual and crew training on the Jaguars and Ocelots. They were now working up to section and century level operations.
Through his field glasses Carrera saw the four tanks move by bounds toward Cerro Marieta to the east-southeast. As one group of two moved forward, the other protected them, overwatched in military parlance, by searching for and engaging any targets that presented themselves. As he watched a pair bound forward, Carrera's attention focused on one tank in particular. He couldn't see what had hit it, but the expanding cloud of red smoke told him something had. Perhaps the crew didn't know either, though Carrera could see a red- faced Russian, he assumed it was a Russian, screeching a small four wheel drive vehicle to a stop and getting out. In his glasses Carrera saw the tank crew, already emerging, flinching from the anticipated lesson.
Carrera cursed himself for a fool. I've made a mistake in this training plan. This range is simply too hard. Truth be told, this platoon has already been "killed" more than once over.
The primary problem was that the jungle and the hills and ridges made the range available to let the tanks engage targets far too short. This meant that when targets appeared they were so close to the tanks that the Jaguars had little chance to traverse and engage before, realistically, they would have been hit.
Everything is a trade off in tank design. Engineers trade size against ammunition and fuel capacity, height against ability to depress the gun, armor against speed, and engine and speed against fuel consumption and—sometimes, in peacetime—safety.
Politicians trade off expense against numbers. Sometimes, in the industrialized parts of Terra Nova, they traded safety and combat performance for environmentalist sentiment, too. Politicians on Old Earth had once made similar choices. If they'd never paid for those choices, their soldiers often had.
One of the trade offs the Volgans typically made was slow speed of an electrically powered turret traverse against the complexity of a hydraulic traversing system and the danger of its fluid catching fire if hit. The Jaguar, like all Volgan tanks, was notoriously slow in traversing its turret. There were actually ranges, close ones to be sure, where a fast man on foot could run in a circle around a standing Volgan tank faster than the turret could track him. This sounded like more of a design flaw than it really was. Volgans used tanks in mass and with supporting infantry always close by. Try to run circles around one Volgan tank in combat and the odds were good that a dozen others would perforate you before you had a chance to turn the first corner, if the infantry didn't get you first.
Carrera thought, Once they get to the desert this won't really be a problem. Shots there will usually be so long-range that the typical engagement will require only a small angle of turret movement. On the other hand, if the boys start believing their tanks aren't up to it here, they're likely to carry that attitude over to the desert. This is definitely not good.
Carrera reached a decision and it didn't take him long to do so. He told his driver to call on the radio for Brown, Sitnikov and Kennison.
Brown was the first to arrive, having been the nearest. "Sancho Panzer reports, sir."
When the other two showed up, a few minutes later, Carrera told them, point blank, "This range sucks. Not your fault; still your problem. The troops aren't getting the chance to engage targets at a realistic distance and they're getting their clocks cleaned by the targets because they can't traverse quickly enough to engage. Here's what I want done by tomorrow morning. Carl, you go get your hands on a dozen small boats with outboards and a dozen, no better make it two, without. Get five hundred feet of tow cable for each powerboat. Brown, find some ballsy fuckers from among your tankers to man the powerboats. Offer a bonus if you have to. Don't be overgenerous . . . say, no more than daily combat pay would be. Fit out the others with tank-sized plywood targets. We'll tow the targets behind the powerboats out in the ocean north of the FS Army's old drop zone at Vera Cruz. Sitnikov, move half the Jaguars you've dedicated to gunnery to Vera Cruz. We'll do long-range firing from there."
With a moment's reflection, Carrera added, "Carl, better get the word to the merchant freighters anchored out there to move. And find me a place to do a tank platoon attack where they can shoot at some distance."
Kennison thought briefly. "No place near the Transitway, Pat. Rio Sombrero, maybe? I'll look tomorrow after we get the Vera Cruz affair set up."
"Fair enough."
The training schedule for Cruz's unit—now reorganized as Second Century, 1st Cohort—called for exercises in city fighting. That put them in this paint-chipped and abandoned, multistory and multilevel building. The building had once been a school. Of the two major sections one stood atop a hill, another at its base. A long, covered and enclosed walkway ran up the side of the hill, connecting the two.
No Volgans, except the five that were attached to the cohort for their equipment training, were present. City fighting was an area in which the BDC had been reasonably well trained prior to the 447 invasion. The cohort's own NCOs, therefore, trained their own troops in the tactics and techniques of defending and attacking buildings. Those NCOs had, themselves, spent the previous three evenings in refresher training run by Abogado's organization while their troops rested.
Cruz's section leader, del Valle, took his men from station to station within the building. He showed them how to clear a room, to watch for booby traps, to use a rope to climb up the side of a blank wall, and all the other usual techniques employed in combat in built- up areas.
The upper part of the school was used to practice offensive operations. In the lower part were set up a number of demonstration areas showing how to prepare to defend a building, from making fighting positions to blocking normal passages to making new passages to setting traps. Cruz's section leader explained each, pretty much as it had been explained to him by FMTG. By supper time the company was finished with the schoolhouse. Eating his supper, a heavy stew over rice, Cruz and his friends had to admit that today's training had been the most fun so far. And it hadn't really been very hard work.
After supper Cruz's squad leader rejoined the rest of the squad. He marched them over to one of the abandoned houses the Federated States military forces had kept for the families of its soldiers once stationed in Balboa. The house was on stilts. It was also in very poor shape, which explained why it was abandoned. Underneath the house were several piles of fortification material, barbed wire, lumber, sandbags, shovels, axes and picks. Just outside the area under the house was a huge pile of dirt.
Del Valle gave a half evil smile just before saying, "Fun's over. Tomorrow morning we will be attacked. We will work all night to prepare this house for defense. You can use those two shovels and that dirt for filling sandbags. Sanchez, you are the acting section leader. The rest of you stay here. Sanchez come with me."
Artillery was a mixed bag. The artillery cohort was organized into five firing centuries of six guns each, though in one case instead of guns the century had multiple rocket launchers. Of the other four, two had Volgan-built 122mm howitzers and two had 160mm Suomi- manufactured mortars. The Volgans, too, had manufactured mortars in the 160mm range but those had been one of the rare cases where Carrera had opted for something besides Volgan equipment. The Suomi guns were lighter, more maneuverable, easier to get into and out of action, had greater range and a more effective shell on target. Nor was the price terribly bad, though it was more than the Volgan guns cost. Still, mortars were so cheap, generally, that the price differential for a mere twelve systems was small change, even for a force trying to squeeze out the last bit of value from every drachma.
Carrera had ordered several hundred Volgan "Daredevil" laser guidance systems to be modified for the Suomi shells. These had actually cost more than the other mortars would have. The Volgans were happy enough with the deal.
While only just enough tanks and other armored vehicles to train on had been delivered, the guns and mortars were light enough to fit on just a portion of a single large cargo aircraft. The Balboans had the full complement of what they would take to war with them.
Under their Volgan and Zion artillery instructors (for Zion made the same mortar as Suomi and had a fair number of Spanish speakers to boot—for that matter, the Arabic instructors for the intelligence and Civil Affairs/Psychological Operations troops were Zioni), the drivers were learning to operate prime movers for the artillery cohort while the cannoneers drilled on deflection and elevation changes, fuse setting and charge setting. Under a large tent, with the sides raised to let in the breeze, two more Volgan instructors were working with those twenty-two Balboans who had been selected to be FDCs, fire direction computers. The subject for today was setting up an artillery plotting board.
Nearby, another Volgan, along with Carrera's man Mitchell, was showing ten more Balboans how to use a Global Locating System, or GLS. This was a hand-held device that took coordinates on the ground directly from satellites in geosynchronous orbit. The UE Peace Fleet took very careful notice of any Terra Novan ventures into space, but had allowed these satellites without too much fuss.
A large black- and red-painted freighter moved northwest on its way through the Transitway. About a half a mile west of the freighter was the site chosen for the legion's engineers to practice river crossing and some other combat engineer operations.
Like nearly everyone else in the legion, the engineers had only a partial set of equipment with which to work. This was unfortunate but, in an armed force expanding radically and rapidly, it was perhaps unavoidable.
Carrera took it philosophically; other armies in the past had expanded to a greater degree, faster, with less-qualified cadre personnel and less equipment. What the legion had would do.
Touring the place, he thought, with a certain grim satisfaction, Fortunately the area is nearly perfect. The Gamboa River is enough like the one in Sumer at this point, broad and slow, to make a good simulation in case we end up having to force a river crossing.
Even as he watched, some of the engineers, the bridge and ferry troops, practiced ferrying men and equipment across the river to the other side and back again. On the other side was a marginally maintained golf course. The shouts and curses of the engineers reached his ears but faintly. He smiled.
A simulated minefield had been laid out across the golf course itself. Naturally, the greens of the golf course had been chewed up by heavy vehicle treads. Some of the locals were less than pleased at losing their recreation facility. When they had complained, however, Carrera had told the civilians to "go piss up a rope."
From his vantage point Carrera watched as the pioneer century and the pioneer sections of the combat support centuries practiced clearing lanes through the simulated minefields. They showed no more concern for the civilians' feelings than Carrera had.
It will be a long time before the golf course even has a fairway again. Tsk. How very unfortunate.
Once, when the Federated States had maintained a large force in Balboa, the place had been dotted with military facilities. One such was the Cerro Peligroso ammunition dump, located very near the golf course. This consisted of some open areas, a ring road, a fence in absolutely terrible shape, and thirty-three ammunition bunkers made up of very thick concrete. The whole area was badly overgrown. The engineer troops were billeted in some of the bunkers, each of which was large enough to fit forty men comfortably. The bunkers, what with the thick concrete and the jungle vegetation overhead, were cool and pleasant, if a bit damp.
From a demolition range situated at the southeast corner of the long abandoned dump came an irregular concussive thumping. As unhappy as they were over their golf course, the civvies were even less happy about the constant explosions. Carrera had also spoken to them about that, briefly. Go piss up a rope.
Carrera walked by, just to see if the chain of command knew enough to keep the troops busy. Since the bunkers were abandoned but for a guard each, plus the cooks in the mess bunker, Carrera inferred that they did.
Near the bunkers, the ditch and entrenchment excavators chewed lines in the ground wherever they could find an open area. Must insure they know to fill those in. Mosquitoes.
The water purification troops, engineers rather than logistics men, trained on the polluted waters of the Transitway itself. Quality control was easy for these men. The water they purified was all they were allowed to drink.
Amid the hubbub of roaring machinery, sputtering water ferry engines, and explosions, Carrera and the engineer century commander spoke.
"How's it going, Sam? Any major problems?" Carrera left unspoken the and how can I help you? It was possible that he couldn't help. No sense in offering what he couldn't deliver.
The engineer officer was another man from the Federated States. Originally, Sam Cheatham had come as part of Abogado's FMTG. He was tallish and a bit beefy, a graduate of the FS Military Academy at River Watch. Carrera had tapped him one day and asked if he'd be interested in joining the legion and commanding its engineer century. Promised that Carrera would make up the pay differential on the side, Cheatham had jumped at the chance.
Like the Ocelot sections that trained with the mechanized cohort but would eventually return to the infantry cohorts, the engineers of the cohorts' combat support centuries trained with the main engineer century for the nonce.
"Everything's basically going well as far as our own jobs are concerned, sir," the engineer had answered. "One thing does worry me, though. We need to work with the combat cohorts we're going to support. That will happen on its own with the cohorts' own sapper sections. My century is a problem. If we could have even a few days each of working with the cohorts, I'd be a lot happier."
Carrera answered, "Yeah . . . me, too. After Advanced Individual Training is finished we'll have about eighteen days here in Balboa before we go over to major unit exercises under the legion. We can send your men down to work with the cohorts then."
And then we can pray it's enough. I think it will be enough.
Cruz's hands still had not healed from all of the shoveling of dirt he had done at Cocoli the week before. His lungs also still hurt from all of the smoke he had sucked down when his squad was attacked. The defense had not gone well. Cruz's section leader, plainly displeased, had simply selected another building and the whole section had done it all over again the next day. The same had happened to all the other sections in the century. That defense had gone better. Best of all, six of the cohort's twelve sections had to do it all a third time. Not only did this give Cruz's comrades a satisfying opportunity to rub it in to those who still had to train to standard; while they were retraining the members of the sections who had passed were allowed to catch up on sleep. Since nobody had slept more than half an hour in two days, this was a most welcome break.
Now, at Range 12, the men prepared to do a dismounted live fire exercise, a fairly simple trench clearing operation. The section would use its rifles, its three Volgan light machine guns, and a medium machine gun in getting to and clearing the trench. Instead of hand grenades they had been given simulators. In the confined spaces of the trench system these were probably dangerous enough.
The men were set, but hidden by the jungle's foliage. At a signal from Cruz—he was acting as leader for this mission—the medium machine gun began to sweep fire across the top of the objective. Near the machine gun, but spread out to either side, were three men carrying "Draco" sniper rifles, which fired the same, high-powered, round. Between the two types of fire Cruz could reasonably expect the target to be judged "suppressed."
When he, personally, judged that anyone who might have been in the target trench would at this point likely have been on the bottom of it, shitting their pants, Cruz gave the signal—a simple whistle blast, for the machine gun to lift fires off the objective. It did, but only to the extent of firing high so that the sound of the bullets passing would at least continue to frighten anyone who might have been in the trench. The Dracos maintained their slow, aimed, deliberate fire. The assault party would just have to move through it, trusting to the marksmanship of the Draco men.
Most armies would have banned this as being far too unsafe.
Cruz then led the remaining men forward at the double, bayonets fixed, to a shallow linear depression in the earth. The men hastily threw themselves down into it. The machine gun resumed firing only a few feet over their heads.
Under his leaders' watchful eyes, Cruz and the rest threw simulators at the opposing trench. At this signal the machine gun lifted its fire off of the objective completely and began to pound a suspicious- looking position higher up the hill. Making ready to use simulators again, the men crawled forward to within a few feet of the trench. Two of them placed simulators directly into it. That was much less nerve wracking than using real grenades. After the twin explosions the rest rushed the last few feet up to the trench, firing downward from the hip as they ran.
The first two men jumped in, turned to the sides and fired at targets that suddenly appeared on either side of them. Meanwhile, Cruz and the rest crawled forward and entered the position themselves. Cruz ordered the rightmost man to stay put and guard the rear. Then the rest turned left and began bombing their way forward, throwing simulators to clear each section of trench before entering it to make a clean sweep with automatic rifle fire.
Fifty meters up the line the trench branched. Again leaving a man to guard that portion that ran parallel to the crest of the hill, Cruz and the others took the branch that went uphill. Bombing forward the entire way, Cruz reached the final objective, a small command bunker. He threw a green smoke canister to signal for the machine gun to come forward and sent one man to retrieve the two who had been left behind. Then he began placing the section in a hasty defense to repel any counterattack.
Behind Cruz, del Valle and First Centurion Martinez exchanged glances. Oooo, that was nice. Good kid; very calm, very determined. He's done well. There's potential here.
Lying on his belly, waiting for someone to start pulling up the targets that would signal the enemy counterattack, Cruz thought, damn, that was fun. He didn't notice that his hands had started bleeding again.
The window-mounted air conditioner hummed loudly, causing the speaker to have to raise his voice to be heard. It didn't really matter; Carrera listened with only one ear, and absently, to the training status brief being presented. He relied more on his eyes and ears than statistical indicia, anyway.
The briefing officer, Tribune Rocaberti, was River Watch trained, Carrera knew. The briefing reflected that. It was also precisely why Carrera paid it little attention. The briefing was thorough, painstaking, and, inevitably, duller than watching paint dry.
Carrera had always found long meetings to be physically and psychically agonizing. He interrupted Rocaberti and told Johnson to stay and listen to the rest. Then he left the conference tent
"Take me to Imperial Range, Jamey," he told Soult.
"Sure thing, Boss."
Soult put the car in gear and pulled away on the packed gravel road for the hour and a half long drive to Imperial Range. Soult drove quietly for the first half hour, before reaching the paved highway that ran west to the Bridge of the Columbias and on to Imperial Range complex. He did risk a couple of glances over at his chief, noting that Carrera's face seemed troubled.
"What's bothering you, Boss?"
Of the people Carrera had assembled for his staff, only three— Soult, Mitchell and the sergeant major—were actually the kind of friends he would trust with a personal problem. He thought about whether this was the kind that he could . . . or even should.
"I am beginning to feel like a disloyal rat, Jamey."
"Lourdes, right, Boss?"
"Yeah," Carrera admitted. Who said enlisted men were stupid? "I find myself thinking about her at odd times."
"Uhhh . . . Boss . . . we all find you looking at her at odd times, too."
"Everybody's noticed?" Pat asked.
"I think so. I mean . . . well, I'm sure you try not to look and all . . . but, yeah; sometimes you're pretty obvious."
Carrera sighed and turned his face to the right, watching the trees go by. After several minutes he turned back.
"The problem is, Jamey, that my wife and kids are dead less than a year. It just seems wrong for me to be looking at another woman now. It might be wrong ever to look at another woman with . . . any . . . oh . . . significance."
"If you don't mind my saying so, Boss, that's bullshit. A man needs a woman. A soldier needs one more than most."
"Maybe," Carrera half conceded before turning his gaze back to the passing jungle.
The staff car pulled to a stop near the large asphalt parking lot where Sitnikov had once given his introductory presentation on tanks. There was an infantry cohort—the schedule said it would be the 1st Cohort—sitting on the mown grass east of the asphalt, eating lunch from pouches.
"Hey, Cruz, look. It's the Gringo."
By now, everybody knew who the Gringo was. It was also known that he was a former Federated States military officer. It was rumored that he had lost his family during either the terrorist attacks on the Terra Nova Trade Organization in the FSC or during the attacks shortly thereafter in the Republic of Balboa. No one, no one at Cruz's level, at least, knew for sure which it was, though.
Cruz looked up to see Carrera watching another century as they practiced mounting and dismounting from the Ocelots. Each cohort had four, for general support, in the Combat Support Century. Any couple of sections might need to mount them in the coming fight so all had to be at least familiarized beforehand.
Cruz asked a question of common concern. "Why do you suppose he's here with us?"
Not quite understanding, his squad mate answered, "To make sure we're training all the time, not eating properly, and getting little rest. Why else?"
"Don't be more stupid than you absolutely must," Cruz said. "No, I mean what is he doing here in Balboa? It doesn't make sense to me."
"I heard a rumor that he is planning to overthrow the government and establish himself as dictator. I also heard, from an equally reliable source, that he is an agent of the Gringo imperialists to make sure we never rise again."
"Oh, antania shit. He spends way too much time training us to think he's against us. Nothing he's done suggests anything but that he's on our side. He spends all his time out in the field with us, trying to make sure we're ready to fight. That means he is not trying to keep Balboa down. I heard he refused the command of the legion, so it doesn't look like he wants to be dictator. No. He is here for some other reason. If he really did lose his family, like rumor control says, could it really be that he's here just for revenge?"
Sergeant del Valle, who was at a level to know why Carrera was there, interrupted the conversation to say, "Why he's here is none of your goddamned business, Privates. And since you two seem to have all this idle time on your hands to philosophize, you can wash out the Ocelot tonight after we're finished."
Casa Linda, 26/5/460 AC
While the maids puttered and dusted, Lourdes sang, softly but happily, as she busied herself with preparations. Carrera and his boys, most of them, were coming home from Fort Cameron for the first time in weeks.
"Over there, Maria," Lourdes said to a maid. "Put the whiskey out where they can find it first. After all that time in the jungle they'll want a drink. And I want Patricio . . ."
Lourdes stopped with sudden confusion. She steadied herself with one hand on the dining room table while pulling a seat out with the other. She sat down heavily.
I want Patricio? I missed them, sure, but . . . no, girl, be honest with yourself, at least. You missed him; Patricio. It was that name that set your heart to beating fast.
Why? Why should I? He hardly ever even talks to me outside of my job. "Translate this, please, Lourdes." "Is my car ready, Lourdes?" "Lourdes, have you seen the report from Professor Ruiz?" He cares more for his men than he does for me. At least he'll spend time with them when he isn't working.
Lourdes looked into the next room where, over the fireplace mantle hung Linda Hennessey's portrait. How can I compete with that? I'm pretty enough, I guess . . . no gross defects. Not a lot of equipment but it isn't bad, what I do have. But she's dead, so she's a saint. Sometimes I hate that picture so much!
The woman stood again, a trifle unsteadily, and walked into the living room. She looked up at Linda's portrait and asked aloud, "Do you want him to be alone? I could make him happy; I know I could. But he sits and stares and pines and, when he thinks no one is looking, he cries for you. Would you mind so much . . . ?"
The portrait didn't answer. Lourdes turned on her heel and walked up the stairs to Carrera's room, near her own. She stood there quietly, at the foot of his bed, merely sniffing. It smelled right to her, whatever trace of him was left in the bedding and furniture. She went to the clothes hamper, opened it and pulled out a T-shirt left from his last, very brief, visit home. Have to speak to Lucinda about cleaning out the hampers more regularly, she thought.
Scrunching the T-shirt in her hands she pressed it to her face and inhaled through her nose and deeply. Oh, yes, this smells just right. Why are men so stupid that they can't tell a proper match the way women can?
Presidential Palace,
Ciudad Balboa, 13/6/460 AC
"Tio Guillermo, you were badly mistaken."
"Mistaken, Manuel? How?"
"They are going to get this legion finished, and properly. And there's precisely nothing I can do about it. I haven't ever seen anything like this level of . . . oh, efficiency. Certainly not since I left River Watch."
"I assumed you would do your duty and sabotage them, Manuel. Obviously you have failed," the president sneered. "You were born a failure. You remain one, a disgrace to a proud name. I wish the gringos had killed you twelve years ago. Your existence is an embarrassment."
Rocaberti cringed under his uncle's tongue-lashing. "Uncle, whatever I am, I can't do this. Parilla? You know him. He isn't so bad. But that gringo of his? Uncle, he frightens me. And Jimenez, you remember him? Jimenez wants me dead. He blames me that he lost the fight at the Estado Mayor; blames me for losing most of his men. I see it in his eyes. Can't you please, please get me out of this?"
"No. Get back to where you belong and report, at least, if you are too much the coward to do anything else. Go and at least pretend you're someone with balls!"
Casa Linda, 15/6/460 AC
Carrera, Parilla, McNamara, Johnson, Kennison, and Sitnikov sipped cool drinks on the rear deck of the house, overlooking the Gulf of Balboa. The atmosphere was informal but there was business to attend to. The legion was almost finished with the second phase of their training, what would be called ACT—or Advanced Combat Training—for infantry and tankers in the Federated States Army.
Setting down his drink, Carrera began, "Aleksandr, how do you rate our men?"
Sitnikov had been asking himself the same question for weeks. He made his answer honestly.
"On a purely technical level your men have done well, especially with the heavy vehicles. My instructors say that they have learned to drive, shoot, and maintain better and faster than a typical group of Volgan recruits would have. This is unsurprising, to a degree, since both the Civil Force and the new Legion have been able to be very selective in the recruits accepted. However, you have weaknesses in higher-level maintenance. Your NCO's seem as good, or probably, since they are regulars, better than average Volgans. However . . ."
"However?" Carrera prodded.
"However," Sitnikov continued, "I cannot say as much for all of your officers. You have some very good ones, to be sure. Tribune Jimenez, in particular, would be a credit to anyone's army. There are others. Would you like to see what my instructors have to say about the legion's leadership?"
At Carrera's nod Sitnikov turned over a list of the Legio del Cid's commissioned leadership, tactfully without including any of Carrera's hand-picked old friends. Comments were written beside each man's name. Most were in blue, and terse. Carrera quickly gathered that these the Volgans considered good enough. Others, the best, were in black. Jimenez's name appeared in this way. About twenty names were in red. The Volgans viewed these very unfavorably. Carrera noted that Manuel Rocaberti was on that list before he passed the sheets to Parilla without comment.
Parilla noted it too. "We can't dump Tribune Rocaberti, Patricio. Too well connected, he and his family. He's the president's nephew, after all. And the president must have his spy in our ranks. At least with Manuel, we know who the spy is."
"Ummm," Carrera answered doubtfully. "Sitnikov, this about matches my own assessment. Which is why I called you here today. We have a shortage of effective, combat capable officers. I would like to make up some of that shortage from you. Also some of the maintenance deficiency. What do you say?"
Sitnikov sat silent for a long minute. When he answered, it was a deliberate, measured response. "Some of my men, maybe even more than half, would probably like to stay. Many have found girlfriends. Two, to my certain knowledge, are planning on getting married. I do not know how my government would react to that, however. If they say no, the idea of being stateless does not appeal."
Carrera looked to Parilla. Parilla gave a nonverbal assent, a shallow nod.
"What if you men could become citizens of Balboa, Aleksandr, with jobs and ranks in the LdC roughly commensurate with—okay, maybe a bit below—their current ranks in the Volgan Army? Would that sway them, do you think?"
"Some of them have wives, children. They would not leave them behind . . . well . . . most of them wouldn't."
"Do you think the current regime would let the men's families emigrate?" Carrera asked.
Sitnikov couldn't know for sure, but thought it likely. He reminded Carrera that not all of the Volgans were, themselves, first class military material. He had been forced to take some marginal characters, men whose only real qualification was linguistic, to meet the numerical requirements of the training mission.
"Yes, I know," answered Carrera. "I wasn't planning on keeping all of you. Moreover, while I can offer you pay and rank, I must insist that Balboans and my own people fill all combatant command positions. Most of your men will be on staff or in support. Some may be serving in positions either below their grade or below their ability."
Sitnikov laughed. "That, Legate, is no problem. It would help, though, if you could hold out a promise of equal opportunity to command once we've been citizens for a few years."
"I can do that," Carrera agreed readily. "Now find out who will stay and who will go at the end of the training period. Get me a list as soon as you can . . . say, by the end of the week. I expect you to weed out the trash yourself. Give it directly to me as the sergeant major and Tribune Kennison are going over to al Jahara to look things over."
At that moment Carrera spied his slender secretary through a door. Jesus, what a nice rear end. He called, "Lourdes, have you finished making the flight arrangements for Carl and the sergeant major?"
She bridled for a moment. "Have you got the reservations, Lourdes? Where's that personnel file, Lourdes? Why don't you shrink your tits and ass so there's absolutely no possibility I ever notice you are a woman, Lourdes?"
That wasn't fair and she knew it. How would I feel, how would I act, if the person I'd loved most in the world had been murdered? If my children had been murdered? It will take him some time . . . I suppose.
She answered, calmly enough, "Si, Patricio. I have the tickets, visas and the press passes. And I've gotten yours to go to Hamilton, FD, the day after. I will brief them when you are done here." Her voice held not more than a trifle of anger or sarcasm, and the anger may have been directed at herself. If Carrera noticed, he didn't let on.
Carrera didn't wake up screaming as often anymore, nor did he scream as loudly as he once had. Usually. There were exceptions.
There was a low fire burning in the great stone fireplace in the living room. The troops insisted on calling it the "Dayroom" to Lourdes' immense confusion. This was an English word she had never learned and found distinctly odd, since it was almost never used except at night. The fire was unnecessary, as far as warmth went, but the men seemed to find it comforting in ways she only distantly understood. There was, in any case, never a need to designate anyone to cut firewood or build a fire. It just happened whenever any substantial group of them were in the casa.
Sitting across the coffee table from McNamara and Kennison, Lourdes said, "Sergeant Major, Carl, you are accredited to the Estrella de Balboa, our major newspaper. In theory you are going over there to cover preparations for the war. What you will actually do, I do not know and I know you can't or won't tell me. Your accreditation has been passed through the attaché at the FS embassy and is approved by the FSC's War Department."
McNamara smiled broadly and blindingly and was about to thank her when an ear-splitting shriek echoed through the casa. Lourdes looked terribly distressed. Kennison hung his head. The sergeant major muttered something about, "Poor bastard."
"What's wrong? What makes him do that?" Lourdes asked.
"Nightmares," McNamara answered. "I've been next to him twice when it's happened. I think . . . no, I am sure, he is seeing his family die over and over again."
"But he didn't see . . ." Lourdes began before stopping herself. "Oh, I see. That makes it worse, doesn't it?"
McNamara nodded, sadly. Hmmm. I wonder what might make it better. He looked once, intently, into Lourdes' huge brown eyes, measuring her. Then he looked upstairs in the direction of Carrera's quarters and back again at the girl.
She looked back, eyes narrowing inquisitively. Do you really think that would help?
The sergeant major's unspoken answer was, How could it hurt?
Flustered and not a little embarrassed, Lourdes went to the bar and poured herself a stiff drink. This was very rare for her. She then left the "Dayroom" and went to her own room. Undressing and lying down atop the covers with her head propped on pillows, she sipped at her drink and asked herself, How could it hurt?
She lay that way for half an hour, thinking, sipping, wondering, sipping . . . perhaps even daydreaming. Then she arose, pulled a robe around her, and walked to Carrera's room.
She didn't knock. She just put her hand on the doorknob and, after a moment's nervous hesitation, turned it and pushed the door open. Enough moonlight entered through the windows to the room that she could make out Carrera lying on his side, his body shaking.
Walking as quietly as possible she moved to stand beside the wide bed. Then she took off her robe, letting it cascade to the floor around her feet. Her undergarments followed quickly. Again she hesitated, but only very briefly, before pulling the bed clothes down and climbing in behind Carrera, sliding between the sheets to mould her body to his back. She slid one arm around the still-shuddering form and whispered, "There . . . there . . . it'll be all right. Sleep . . ."
She felt his body spin inside the grasp of her arm. Suddenly her lips and face were being covered with kisses. Hands reached out, stroking . . . grasping . . . squeezing. Fingers probed, not always gently. She felt herself growing wet and warm. Soon—too soon, perhaps—she found herself on her back with her legs spread and Carrera hovering over. She smelled whiskey strong on his breath.
"Patricio . . . slowly . . . please," she gasped, "I've never . . . ooowww!"
She bit her lip to keep from crying out any louder. And then the strangeness of having someone inside her, thrusting, moving, took over. This was following by a spreading warmth, a sort of glow that seemed to begin between her legs and spread to every distant part of her body. She found herself thrusting back. Hard.
"Lie . . . on . . . me," she grunted. "I want . . . to . . . feel the weight . . . of your . . . body . . . on me."
She felt the strange thing inside her begin to pulse and throb. It grew as the thrusting increased in depth and force. Carrera whispered, "Oh, Linda . . . I . . . love . . . you."
Lourdes stopped pushing back and began to cry even as Carrera's body, spent, slumped onto hers. The snoring that soon followed suggested he had never really been awake.
2 October, 2067, UNSS Kofi Annan, alongside Colonization Ship Cheng Ho
A careful count of the bodies aboard ship revealed that twenty-nine people were missing, all of them either Atheist, Christian, Buddhist or Hindu. They, and the missing shuttle, must have gone below as neither radar nor lidar showed the slightest trace of the shuttle in the solar system. There was no distress signal from the shuttle. The technical manual said that the batteries should have lasted for decades. If the ship had not crashed, someone had deliberately turned the signal off.
The Annan's shuttles began looking. They were few and the planet was not small. It wasn't made any easier by the fact that the survivors had landed the shuttle in a forest glade.
The continent was in the southern hemisphere of the planet. It stretched nearly ten thousand miles, east to west. On the eastern end, several geographic projections made it look something like a bull, lying on its back, with an erection. The crew named this portion of the continent "Taurus" because of that resemblance.
To the west, the continent was mostly flat, open grasslands with occasional forests and marshes, and some impressive mountain ranges near the equator. The grasslands disappeared to the east, giving way to thick virgin woods with some open areas.
Moving west to east on a sweep, Annan's Shuttle Number Three caught a glimpse of a flash that was unlikely to have been natural. It moved closer to investigate, finally coming to a landing a few hundred meters from the crash site.
Major Ridilla happened to be aboard that shuttle and was the first to set his feet on the ground. He wore an environmental suit, but without armor, and carried a modern rifle. Neither, as it turned out, was needed. The people, and they were fewer than the twenty-nine missing names even with the babies and young children, came out wearing badly tanned skins, thin to the point of emaciation, and ever so grateful to be rescued.
"We thought Earth had forgotten about us," their leader said. She might once have been pretty, with her high cheekbones and off-white skin with just the hint of Vedic smokiness lying below the surface. But she was a woman aged far beyond her years. "We thought we'd die here." She looked skyward. "Then again, we thought we'd die up there. I'm Marjorie Billings-Rajamana," she said, putting out her hand.
She had a very nice, upper class British accent. Well, of course if anyone's going to survive and keep people alive that person would have a British accent, Ridilla thought. I mean . . . tradition and all.
"What happened?" he asked, taking the hand and shaking it. "What happened on the Cheng Ho?"
"That's a long story," the woman answered. "And you'd better give me something to drink, something strong to drink, if you want to hear it."
Assuming that the presence of people meant the absence of disease, Ridilla removed the helmet of his enviro-suit. "I'm sorry, I don't have anything like that with me. There's some on the ship. You do want to go home, don't you?"
In answer, the woman laughed. Years fell away from her face, as if she had, perhaps, not laughed in all those years. She asked, "Who do I have to blow? If I never see this miserable place again it will still be too soon."