"So where are those villainous louts, those mercenaries?"—Mohammad Saeed al Sahaf (aka "Baghdad Bob")
Old Earth year 2003
Isla Real, 10/7/467 AC,
The airplane, a legionary Cricket but fitted out with VIP seats, landed in the typical Balboan swelter. Its landing roll was a bit under eleven meters. As soon as the door opened Rivers felt a wilting blast of wet heat. Carrera's AdC, a junior tribune named Miranda, met Rivers at the airfield with apologies from Carrera for not being there personally. The tribune took Rivers' single bag.
"The Duque is in the field with a cohort at the moment, sir," Miranda explained. "He'll be along within the hour and hopes you will understand."
Rivers grunted a noncommittal response, while thinking, He's got to know why I came. Is this his way of saying, "Stuff it; I won't work for the FSC while the Progressives are in charge?" I wonder.
Miranda showed Rivers to a gleaming staff car, a Yamatan job, and then held the door for the general to enter. He then took over the front passenger seat and directed the driver to proceed.
You've got to be impressed, thought Rivers as the staff car took him on the short ride from Punta Cocoli airfield to legion headquarters. Seven years ago a single brigade without a home; now it's grown to a fair-sized corps with a damned nice home.
On the way in, Rivers had counted the ships anchored in the bay from his aircraft porthole. Now, on the ground, Rivers took the trouble to count filled and empty aircraft parking spots as the car eased along the road. What he counted impressed him still more. Over five hundred aircraft. Christ, he's outwinged PanColumbian Airlines and half the Tauran Union. Of course, most of his aircraft are smaller.
And the troops looked fit, well fed and disciplined, he thought, too, as the car passed a company-sized unit. The troops wore helmets and body armor, but had a spring in their step that told of a light and comfortable panoply. I like that camouflage pattern.
The pattern was a pixilated tiger stripe material Carrera had had made up by a company in the FSC that specialized in such things. The material was printed, and the uniforms cut and sewn, by a factory in the City he and Parilla had set up to provide employment to war widows, reservists and their wives, and disabled legionary vets. Those folks put a lot of care into the uniforms they made. They made other clothing, too, which sold rather well in the Republic and had even begun to acquire a small overseas market.
The staff car stopped at an intersection as a column of nineteen Volgan-built tanks rolled across, each preceded by a walking ground guide. And they're pretty professional in other respects, too. Well I suppose I should have expected that.
The car turned left at Miranda's direction and entered into a long, tree-lined thoroughfare before ending at a ring road surrounding an amazingly green parade field with a large, white-painted headquarters building on the other side of the field. It navigated around the parade field, pulled up to the columned front of the building and then stopped. Miranda got out, opened the door for Rivers, and led him between the columns and into the building.
The door opened into a broad interior vestibule, reaching up three floors to a battle-scene mural painted on the ceiling. On the upper floors it was surrounded by a marble rail. The bottom floor, the planta baja, was of a locally cut and polished, golden oak-colored granite. Upon the floor stood a slightly larger-than-life-sized marble statue of a fully equipped legionary holding a bayoneted bronze rifle in "charge bayonets" pose. The walls were mostly bare, though portraits of uniformed men with decorations for valor about their necks hung in places. Officers, a few, plus centurions, noncoms and enlisted men, all in undress khakis, bustled from room to room, across the vestibule and through the corridors. The whole place had an air of elegant efficiency.
If he can afford to build this, Rivers thought, he's not hurting for money. Oh, Lordy, is this going to sting.
Miranda beckoned Rivers on, through a door, up two flights of steps, down a quiet corridor and, finally, into Carrera's office. Rivers noticed the secretary was male and uniformed as well. He also noticed the boy was missing an arm.
Waste not, want not.
"The Duque said to make you comfortable, sir. Is there anything I can order for you? Coffee? A beer? Whiskey or mixed drink from the mess in the basement, if you like."
"Coffee would be fine . . . ah . . . Tribune. Just fine, thank you. Cream and sugar."
"Very good, sir."
Miranda turned and left as Rivers sat on one of the chairs. In a few minutes, the one-armed boy brought in a tray holding a cup of steaming hot coffee. He set it down and left without a word.
The rear wall of the office was mostly a very large window, Rivers noticed. He walked over to it and looked out on the scene of cows and the solar chimney that ran up the island's central massif. The cloud formed and continuously renewed above the chimney was . . . rather soothing to watch, Rivers decided. He was still watching when he sensed a sudden stiffening that seemed to take in the entire building. A few minutes later Carrera entered the office.
"Sent you back to try to rehire us for Pashtia, didn't they?" were the first words out of the Duque's mouth. "Good to see you, Virg," were the second set, uttered as Carrera stuck out a hand in friendship.
Rivers shook his head, then Carrera's hand. "How do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Predict things like that."
Carrera shrugged, then answered, "I keep up with the news. I also spy on the Army."
Yes, and you have enough friends in the Army—Marines, too, now, for that matter—to keep pretty up to date, too, don't you? Rivers thought.
"I meant what I said back in Sumer," Carrera continued. "The Progressives pissed me off royally. They're going to have to pay through the nose to get back in my good graces and get my troops into the war."
"I think they know that, Pat. That piece of filth undersecretary, O'Meara-Temeroso has been . . . let's say, offered up as a sacrifice."
"Was he? Good. Do they? Do they know how much?"
Carrera went to his desk, bent to a drawer and pulled out a file. From this he took a small spreadsheet and passed it over.
"That's what I need to reestablish something like control over the important parts of Pashtia, if I begin moving in three months. I'll only begin moving in three months if the FS hires me now."
He pulled out another sheet. "This is what it will cost next month." Another. "And the month after." Another. "And the month after that."
He pulled a fifth sheet out and handed it to Rivers. "And that's the penalty for trying to stiff me in Sumer."
"Jesus, Pat," Rivers said, more than half in shock. "We can't pay that. Congress would freak out."
Carrera smiled. "Oh, yes, you can. It will cost you a third of your gold reserves and that's the form I want it in. For that, you don't need congressional approval. The president owns it."
Rivers went from half shocked to fully so. Gold was . . . special. To give away a third of it . . . ? Sure, that asshole, Malcolm, mentioned gold, but I don't think he was serious.
"For that you get a small corps with the equivalent of twenty-six FSA combat battalions, with adequate combat support, service support and aviation, for a year," Carrera continued, "of which I guarantee two hundred and fifty days' of active campaigning. After that, if things work out, I can cut back both the scale and the intensity to the point that you won't have to pay all that much more than what it cost to keep a full legion in Sumer. Tell that orange-faced, windsurfing gigolo, Malcolm, that he can take it or pound sand. It makes no difference to me. Tell him I'll also have a list of various war materials the FSC will let me buy and intelligence and support they will provide or it's no deal.
"In addition, there is the matter of support to my naval forces. . . ."
"Where the hell does this arrogant son of a bitch think he comes from?" asked Malcolm in a fine rhetorical rage. "Who the fuck does he think he is? Doesn't he know who the fuck I am?"
He thinks he's the only one who can save your bacon and the only one who both can and will provide troops willing to fight. He thinks that he has you over a barrel, thought Rivers, back in the SecWar's office. And he's right, too.
Rivers felt guilty—he really did—at the Progressive SecWar's discomfiture. He should be, he knew, more apolitical, even totally apolitical. Oh, well, tough shit; I despise the Progressives and I do enjoy watching the SecWar impotently rage.
In a repeat of Carrera's performance back on the Isla Real, Rivers took a sheet from a folder and passed it over. "This is what it will cost if we don't hire him now. And this," he continued, passing over another sheet, "is how much it will go up in two months. He didn't say so, Mr. Secretary, but I think that if the situation gets worse any faster than he has anticipated, these prices will go up even more."
In the military of most of the world, Class One supply—the most absolutely important class of supply—was food. And it was beginning to run short.
Marciano and his aide, del Collea, stood outside the command bunker watching a heavy lift Taurocopter Civet stagger in under max load. This was no mean accomplishment with food, the chopper's main cargo, as food tended to cube out a carrier—to fill up its interior space—long before weighting it out. In this case, the Civet had another load slung underneath. Moreover, though it was not normal procedure, the Civet also carried a ton and a half of fuel.
Jets circled overhead. This was a futile attempt at intimidation of the guerillas who had Marciano's Tuscan Ligurini Brigade besieged. The pilots of the jet were under strict orders not to bomb lest civilians be hurt. Deep down, Marciano was beginning to wonder if the political masters in the Tauran Union to which his own country's politicians kowtowed weren't really more concerned that the Tauran forces not harm any of the guerillas. Certainly, the effect of not aggressively engaging the guerillas had been civilian deaths an order of magnitude greater than his forces would have inflicted if they'd gone hog-wild.
The chopper began a slow turn to the right, aligning itself with the short airfield. This was not, strictly speaking, necessary as the helicopter could simply hover in. That, however, burned fuel and fuel was becoming scarce, hence the mixed load.
Del Collea, younger and with better eyesight, saw the missiles first.
"Shit," he said, sotto voce.
"What?" Then Marciano saw them, too.
Two were fired. Only one hit. That one was enough. It impacted on the tail boom, severing the connection of tail rotor and transmission. The tail rotor stopped spinning vertically which caused to Civet to immediately begin a horizontal spin. The pilot apparently tried to fight it but ended by losing all control over the helicopter. Quite possibly vertigo caused him to lose all control over himself, as well. Marciano and del Collea couldn't see that, though. They could, and did, see the helicopter go into a graceless, wavering, spiraling descent that ended in a very impressive—there was that cargo of fuel— fireball.
"Going to be short rations for a bit longer," del Collea muttered.
Ashraf had imagined a long and dangerous trek to get from his guerilla company's area of operations to the school he was to attend. In fact, he'd lain awake for most of two nights, worrying about ambush, air attack, long marches and sleeping rough.
As it happened, Noorzad had simply given Ashraf's escort some money, and the two, plus some other ex-Haarlemers, had hopped a bus, gone to the Pashtian capital, Chabolo, and caught a flight to Kashmir's capital. From there, it was a simple taxi ride—oh, yes, with the usual forceful haggling—to the school. The school operated openly, making no pretense of hiding what it was.
After turning over his charges, Ashraf's escort had departed, leaving behind only some words of encouragement. Ashraf had been taken under the wing of his advisor, Majdy.
Majdy was, like Ashraf, Haarlem-born. They were about of an age. Indeed, most of the school's student body was in their early twenties. Moreover, most of the student body were "reverts," Taurans or Columbians who had accepted Islam, and in particular the Salafi version of Islam, and then joined the jihad. If they shared any language it was typically English. Arabic, so that they could learn to read the Koran in its original sacred language, was a major part of the school's curriculum.
Until that time though, the students and their advisors—and there was an advisor for every student—would communicate in the common tongue or in their native language. Majdy, of course, also spoke Dutch.
"Did they feed you on the flight?" Majdy asked politely.
Ashraf grimaced. That was answer enough.
"Come then, brother," Majdy said. "You must be hungry. There's no sense in going any further while your mind is on food."
With that, the advisor led off out of the dim reception area, through a green and white tiled garden courtyard, and toward a single story building from which came the enticing smell of food, well prepared.
The president was shocked. "He wants two thousand tons of gold? Two-fucking-thousand?"
Malcolm sighed. "He wanted two thousand, seven hundred, but has agreed to settle for two thousand plus the difference in FSD. Oh, and he wants the right to buy some things directly through our channels: radios, night vision equipment, some ordnance. Plus intelligence support."
"What? Not tanks and up-to-date aircraft?"
Again, Malcolm sighed. "When he insisted on the right to buy items that's what I thought he wanted. I offered, as a bargaining chip. But, no, the fucker's very happy with his mix of major equipment now. He only wants the radios for commonality and interoperability, and the ordnance and night vision because ours is incrementally better than what he can buy elsewhere."
The president scowled as if to say, If you had delivered the Taurans as you promised . . .
"Why gold?"
"It seems he's begun raising revenue by selling rights to the stuff to the rest of the world's very wealthy and very nervous. Based on what he's sold, against what we believe he's bought, he is overselling by quite a bit. I'm told that won't matter, as long as the price remains fairly stable and there's no run on his assets. I've got to warn you, Mr. President, that this much gold, if he uses it all to back his certificates, will make him completely independent and fully capable of waging war, or doing anything else he likes, completely on his own."
"How much of this is because we tried to cheat him?" the president asked.
"Maybe fifteen percent. It was a mistake, but with the press howling for blood it was perhaps an unavoidable mistake."
Malcolm's face grew thoughtful. "You know, Mr. President, we could hire a lot more troops from Latin Columbia and even western Taurus for this much money."
The president shrugged. "What would they do then? Insist on not being used for combat? Insist on being deployed someplace we don't need them? No non-Islamic government can stand the prospect of casualties anymore. They can't even stand the prospect of enemy casualties. And noncombatants? No, it's your fucking mercenaries or nobody."
Malcolm refrained from answering, Unfortunately, they're not my mercenaries.
Isla Real, Quarters #1, 19/7/467 AC
With Parilla retired and he and his wife now living in the Casa Linda for the duration of the presidential campaign, Carrera had had a choice: leave the larger Quarters One unoccupied, which struck him as wasteful, move an underling into larger quarters than he had himself, which struck him as preposterous, turn Quarters One into a Bachelor Officers' Quarters, which struck him as altogether too noisy, or move in himself. He'd chosen the latter, and turned his old Quarters Two over to his favorite legion commander, Jimenez. It had been a toss up between Jimenez and Kuralski. The latter, however, had few social obligations while Jimenez had many.
One really pleasant side effect of having Jimenez for a neighbor was that the stunning Artemisia Jimenez, Xavier's niece, spent a fair amount of time—all the time she wasn't actively campaigning for Parilla—at Number Two, serving as her bachelor uncle's social host.
For his part, Jimenez was lost in the place. He had no family or, rather, his legion, the fourth, was his family. Still the mansion didn't go completely to waste as a very large number of junior officers tended to come by quite regularly whenever Artemisia was in residence.
"And so I ended up with a BOQ next door anyway," Carrera muttered, watching a half dozen of the horny bastards mowing Jimenez's yard while his niece looked on approvingly.
"What was that, Pat?"
"Nothing," Carrera answered Esterhazy. "Just thinking out loud. So what do you think about the gold?"
"Oh, wow!" Esterhazy answered, enthusiastically. "It's . . . well . . . Do you realize what this means, Pat?"
"Yeah, I do," Carrera answered. "You have enough gold for your precious metal certificate scheme even without invading the legion's existing assets."
Esterhazy rolled his eyes. "Not just that, Pat. You're going to have enough gold to set up your own currency. You can pay your men with your own drachma, pay your bills with your own drachma, buy equipment, bribe, build—whatever the fuck you want to do—in honest-to-God, hard, backed currency. By the way, how much of the two thousand tons will we have to play with?"
"Not all," Carrera answered. "The FSD we're promised won't pay for the full campaign, though it will pay for most of it. We'll need to sell some gold."
"No!" Esterhazy objected. "Sell none of it, except as PMCs. I'm serious about that currency. We can get something designed and a print plant running in a few months."
"Fine. Go back to the FS—or do you think we should go through Taurus or Yamato?—to get it set up."
Esterhazy thought on that for a bit before answering, "I wouldn't trust the Taurans and the FSC's currency technology is . . . substandard, at best. Yamato, then, I think."
"Good. I agree. Denominations?"
"Mmm . . . I think we ought to keep with the drachma-equivalence everyone is used to; peg the value of the Legionary drachma to the Federated States drachma, at least initially."
Carrera thought about that for a moment "I suppose we can always drop equivalency if the FSD starts to drop or increase substantially."
"Whatever's more convenient or profitable," Esterhazy agreed. He was about to say something else when he suddenly stopped and began to laugh.
"What's so funny?" Carrera asked, with irritation.
Esterhazy immediately stopped laughing and explained. "Pat, it just hit me. With this, the Legion del Cid becomes sovereign, as much as any state on Terra Nova. You have your own army. You control your own territory, this island. You have a diplomatic branch, me. Now you're going to be coining your own money. I don't know that there are many, or any, attributes of sovereignty left. Nukes?"
Carrera didn't even think about answering that one honestly. Instead he said, "Well . . . now I have the money to add nuclear power to one of the Suvarov-class cruisers and refit it to support the classis."
Mendoza Apartment, Ciudad Balboa, 21/7/467 AC
Jorge didn't have an answer. He was beginning to wonder if there was an answer. And if there was no answer to the question, then his entire project was false, a fraud.
The question? Simply put, it might be called, "My family or my country?"
"It's a basic question, 'Queli," Mendoza said aloud as he paced in a area in the living room that Marqueli ensured was always kept clear of obstruction for just that purpose. "And one that if I cannot answer it makes my whole thesis nonsense. I am insisting, just like that old book the Duque had translated, that morality must be rooted in the survival instinct or it's just a meaningless platitude. But I keep running into the problem that the survival instinct relates to either the self or to one's personal gene pool and has nothing to do with any artificial construct such as a country or a civilization. Those things only have moral meaning when they enhance the chances of the survival of oneself or one's genes. And both can require the sacrifice of either the self or the gene pool, so where does that leave me?"
"Sit, Jorge," his tiny wife ordered. Obediently, he paced to the couch and plopped himself down.
She patted him on the thigh affectionately, then stood and went to the bookcase. From this, she drew a book of Old Earth poetry that Carrera had had translated and published. She opened it and scanned the index, then broke the book open to a particular page. From that page she read:
"For Romans, in Rome's quarrels, spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, in the brave days of old."
"Sure," Jorge answered. "But so?"
"Those lines were about old Rome's best and bravest days. The lines that follow talk about the days that came, when people watched out for their own and to hell with their country. I am sure they thought . . . or felt, in any event . . . that they were doing right to care for their own, directly. But I want you to imagine, Husband, the descendants of those old Romans, in the days of the Gothic sack. Imagine their sons slaughtered, their wives and daughters enslaved, raped and led off in chains, all the treasure hoarded by their ancestors stolen. Do you not think those later Romans, at that terrible moment, wouldn't have given anything they had if they could only undo the work of their ancestors who put family over country?"
"Perhaps they would have," Jorge conceded. "But it was too late, it is always too late, by the time people realize. And even so, that doesn't invalidate the objection to my thesis."
"Yes, Husband, it does. By your own words, isn't it ultimate survival we're talking about?"
"Yessss," he answered, warily.
"Fine. What does being in a state of nature, without civilization or patria, do to that?"
"It makes it 'nasty, brutal and short,'" Jorge answered, slightly misquoting Hobbes.
"Exactly," Marqueli agreed. And why should she not have recognized it? She'd basically taken Jorge's degree along with him. "And society—patria—enables us to make life something else, something less 'nasty, brutal and short.' In enhances the possibility, for nothing is a certainty, Jorge, that our gene pool will survive, does it not?"
"Sure." Jorge shrugged. "But the optimum is to have someone else sacrifice for the common good while preserving one's own gene pool."
"And then what happens?"
"Oh," he said, suddenly brightening.
"That's right," she said. "Then it becomes obvious, then common, then everyone guards their own and everyone ultimately loses."
"But couldn't one watch out for one's own and hide it?"
"Has that ever happened, Jorge? I mean in the long run? Doesn't it always come out, even if never openly admitted to? Doesn't it always begin with just one or two or a few . . . mmm . . . what was that term Professor Franco used?"
"Amoral familists," Jorge supplied.
"Right. 'Amoral familists.' They begin to look out for themselves and their own, alone, and it spreads like a wildfire. And soon enough—eventually, at any rate—they lose exactly what they were trying to save."
"All right then; I can see that," Jorge conceded. "That doesn't matter though as it will happen anyway. People are shortsighted. They will preserve their own."
"Then that kind of person has to be cut out from society before they have a chance to spread their infection," Marqueli said.
"It's like a plague has descended upon our clan," said the family's chief, Bakr ibn Mohamed ibn Salah, min Sa'ana. "Mahrous in Anglia, Hassan in Gaul, little Ishmael in First Landing, Mohammed Khalifa, here in Hajar, Cousin Rashid to a knife from some woman he was in bed with . . . nineteen others . . . even that thoroughly misnamed little apostate houri in Helvetia, Adara, had her throat cut on the street."
"Well, as for Adara," said the brother, Yeslam, "that job we should have done ourselves."
"Of course," agreed Bakr. "But the point is, we didn't. And someone did. The pattern is too obvious to ignore, someone is trying to make our family extinct."
"And they don't care how many others they kill to do it, either," added Abdullah, also a brother and one of only two of the clan to graduate from a Tauran or Columbian law school, the other being the late Adara. "How many killed along with Mahrous? More than twenty, wasn't it? So there's no protection in more guards, or in hiding behind innocents . . . not that we're not innocent . . . of course."
"Of course," agreed Bakr, very drily. "Of course." Bakr's eyes went up, scanning the ceiling as if expecting a bomb to burst through at any moment. "And you are right, 'of course.' Normal, even abnormal, security measures are fine for normal, or only somewhat abnormal, threats. But this threat—and despite the fact that every murder has been different, I am convinced there is a single agency behind it—this threat will escalate to any conceivable means to make us extinct. He must hate us a great deal."
"Mustafa!" both Abdullah and Yeslam said together. "Who does not hate us after what Mustafa has done?"
"Mustafa is a hero!" insisted Khadijah, stepmother of Mustafa and prouder of him, by far, than she was of her own children. "He fights for the Faith! He does his duty by Allah and the people!" She left out, unlike you sots who work, when you work, for mere money!
"Silence, woman," Bakr commanded. "We allowed you here as proxy for Mustafa. But let me tell you, were he here, himself, I would cut him down like a dog and offer his head and his balls to whoever is trying to extinguish us in the hope they'd stop."
All went silent then, even Khadijah who was known to be something of a shrew.
"We should have more expert assistance with this problem," said Abdullah.
"My eldest boy has a son with the army," offered Bakr. "Perhaps we should invite him. Yes, let us invite him. But let us also begin to set up a secure base, here, and call the clan home from their travels."
"It would cost much gold," observed Yeslam.
Bakr nodded, but said, "Much good the gold of this world will do us if we're killed."
The deal had been complex in certain particulars. Malcolm, knowing how annoyed Carrera was with him, didn't fully trust him to go through on the deal once the gold was delivered. Carrera, for his part, absolutely didn't trust Malcolm to deliver the gold once his own troops were committed. It had led to a week-long impasse until Virgil Rivers had suggested a compromise.
"Send it in a carrier," he'd suggested. "Send the carrier with a full battalion of Marines to guard it. Carrera has enough firepower to make sure the carrier can't run off with the gold. The carrier, along with the Marines, has enough firepower to make sure that Carrera can't take the gold and then refuse to deploy. Given that his troops will be expecting to fight, he'll fight."
That had seemed fairly reasonable to both sides, though it had taken another week to hammer out a schedule to transfer the yellow bricks. In that week the nuclear aircraft carrier, FSS Sarah Jay, and its escorts had sailed to First Landing, where the bulk of the FSC's gold was stored, from its base in the state of Dominion.
The gold arrived at portside in something over five hundred trucks escorted by a full motorized infantry brigade. There were possibly even more members of the press there at the dock than there were Soldiers, Sailors and Marines, combined. Along with the press had come a small brigade of protestors. What the protestors wanted was anyone's guess, based on the signs they carried. Perhaps it was fairest to say that what they really wanted was publicity. Since the press was there . . .
There was no press in attendance. Neither Jaquie nor Marta had anyone they wanted to impress back home. Indeed, both had, for very different reasons, excellent cause not to want anyone at all to know where they were or what they were doing.
Fosa had helicoptered over, along with Rodriguez's platoon of Cazadors and most of Chu's boat crew. Some of the men still sported bandages and casts. Jaquie looked for the machine gunner whose face had been burned but didn't see him. Presumably he'd been evacuated for the superior medical care available back home, ashore.
The captain of the von Bremen had had cleared a large open area on the ship's mess deck. Into it had filed the two honorees, the four other girls who'd volunteered to sail aboard the sadly sunken Suzy Q, most of the rest of the hookers, some of the sailors and Cazadors whose turn it was for R&R aboard Fosa's Fornication Frigate, plus Fosa himself and Rodriguez's and Chu's boys. There was room, if barely.
"Attention to orders," ordered the captain of the von Bremen, once everyone was assembled.
The sailors and Cazadors present stiffened to attention. The girls really didn't know what to do, but took their cue from the military men and stood a little straighter. All talk ceased.
Fosa walked forward to where Jaquie and Marta stood, flanked by Chu and Rodriguez. "Publish the orders," Fosa ordered.
Von Bremen's captain read off, "Award is made of the Cruz de Coraje, in Steel, to civilian auxiliaries Jaquelina Gonzalez"—Fosa hung a ribboned cross around Jaquie's neck—" and Marta Bugatti"— he stepped right and did the same with Marta—" for gallantry in action in support of Legion objectives, aboard the auxiliary motor vessel, Suzy Q, on the 9th day of September, 467, off the coast of Xamar. On that day, aboard that vessel, the awardees, noticing that a critical weapon station had been knocked out, of their own accord, and having no duty to do so, moved to restore it to action, manning it until forced to abandon it by the sinking of the ship. In the course of their action, one auxiliary, Jaquelina Gonzalez, suffered grievous bodily wounds but continued to fire until forced away by rising water, while the other, Marta Bugatti, saved both Gonzalez and . . ."
"I didn't do anything," Marta whispered to Fosa.
"You did enough," he answered. "Now shut up."
". . . Cazador Barros, by that point incapacitated by wounds, from drowning—"
"But I . . ."
"Shut up," repeated Fosa. He glanced over at Jaquie and saw she was crying.
"Are you all right, Miss Gonzalez?" he asked.
She just nodded her head, sniffling.
Later, Fosa, Rodriguez and Chu sat with the two girls at a table in an isolated part of the mess deck. Fosa pulled two envelopes from his uniform jacket and placed one in front of each girl. Jaquie was still sniffling and paid no attention.
Marta took hers and opened it. Her eyes flew wide and she said, "This is a mistake. Our bonus for going on that boat was already paid and is in our accounts. This is—"
"It's a gift," Rodriguez said. "We took up a collection among my boys and Chu's. Quite a few of the others in the maniples, boats and ships chipped in, too. The skipper, here, matched half of what we raised from his discretionary funds."
"Besides," added Chu, "we know that Jaquelina wasn't able to work for the last few weeks. And that you lost time nursing her. Think of it, too, as recompense."
"But . . ."
"Shut up, Marta," Fosa said.
"Yes, sir."
"I made a call back home, to Carrera," Fosa continued. "He said he's got another yacht—this one purpose built—headed our way to replace the Suzy Q. He also agreed that I can form a permanent unit of women to serve as bait and to otherwise help out. It will have room for two corporals. You don't have to give us an answer right away, but if you two want in . . ."
Isla Real, 11/8/467 AC
The Sarah Jay stood in the harbor, surrounded by her escorts. From time to time, an elevator arose onto the flight deck bearing a small chest full of gold. On deck, the container was met by a mixed group of FSN and legionary officers. These jointly opened the chests. The contents were then weighed and inventoried before the chests were resealed with legion-marked seals. The pile stayed under the watchful eyes of both sides as it was loaded aboard one of the Sarah's helicopters. Once loaded, one officer from each service boarded the chopper and accompanied it to a portion of the airstrip that was under guard so tight ants crept between them nervously and on tiptoes.
From the strip, a chest or two at a time, the gold was taken to an old Federated States Army coastal artillery bunker. It was the most secure thing available.
"Screw that," Carrera muttered, watching the gold being trundled off. "We need something a lot more secure." For this, and for the nukes, too.
"Sir?" Sergeant Major McNamara asked.
"It's just not enough, Top," he answered. "We need something like the Federated States Reserve Bank in First Landing."
"Dunno, sir," McNamara answered. "I t'ink wit' maybe t'ree or four divisions worth of troops we got plenty o' security as is."
"Not that many for much longer, Top. Maybe the equivalent of one left after we deploy."
"And t'at's anot'er t'ing," Mac scowled. "It ain't right, you taking off and leavin' me behind."
Carrera nodded, then sighed. "Tell me how many other people I can trust absolutely, Top. Parilla gone to politics. Kuralski back in Volga and he's going to link up with us just before we go into Pashtia. Kennison? Gone. Some of the rest of our original group gone and the rest in critical positions. Most of the first rate Balboans commanding cohorts, tercios and legions. Who have I got left I can trust absolutely, would you tell me that?"
"Miss Lourdes?" McNamara offered. "Oh . . . you meant people you can trust t'at can watch out for t'e legion and Lourdes, didn't you? You one son of a bitch, you know t'at, boss?"
Carrera nodded. He didn't add, And this promises to be one miserable hard fight and I don't want to lose you, too, old timer. I've lost too much already.
McNamara sighed. "Well, t'en, if I can go to t'e fucking war at least I can kick some hiney to get t'e boys out on time."
And with that Mac turned away and began to stride toward what was called "the Green Ramp"—though it wasn't a ramp at all—where a maniple of troops from Third Cohort, Second Tercio was preparing to board an aircraft heading for Thermopolis, just south of Pashtia.
Presidential Palace, Ciudad Balboa, 14/8/467 AC
The meeting was conducted in French as Janier still didn't deign to speak Spanish. In a way, it was comforting to President Rocaberti that the Gauls were so firmly arrogant. It boded well for the prospects of himself and his clan that the new masters he was trying to bring in would be likely to prove much more amenable, and give little more than lip service to concepts popular among the world's progressive circles.
The problem with the FSC, the president thought, is that they really believe their own propaganda. They not only believe it, they honestly expect people to fall in with their program. The Frogs are more practical. Indeed, while claiming to be in the forefront of cosmopolitan progressivism one can't help but note that they gave up their colonies in Uhuru only in name, and still retain control and economic dominance. Moreover, their servants, the presidents and prime ministers in those colonies, manage to do quite well, graft wise. There's no reason the Gauls won't continue that fine tradition here, once they're in charge.
Even the fact that Janier sat at the presidential desk didn't upset Rocaberti, though his nephew Arnulfo was plainly annoyed by it. It just went to prove that the Gauls could be counted on to rule.
Malcoeur conducted the briefing for the very small number of people allowed to attend. These consisted of the president, his nephew, one of his two vice-presidents, the ambassador from the TU, the ambassador from United Earth, the minister of police, and Janier and Malcoeur themselves.
"What the general has in mind," Malcoeur was saying, "is that we shall bring in election monitors from all over that part of the world sympathetic to our aims—our Uhuran colo . . . I mean, allies, the Tauran Union, United Earth, some of the more progressive-minded politicians and ex-politicians from the FSC, and perhaps a few of the more pliable nongovernmental organizations as well."
Janier nodded and said, "I think we can count on these people to reject even the possibility that a party of militaristic fascist beasts could actually be elected, so they'll instinctively insist the election was tampered with, fixed. We can even arrange a few incidents to take place under the eyes of the monitors and the press, if necessary."
"That would be my department," said the minister of police.
"Even so," agreed Janier, casually stubbing out an awful-smelling cigarette. "It is extremely important that the Tauran Union appear neutral, if the rest of the plan is to work. Is it not possible, Mr. President, for your party to add to the turmoil?"
"Surely, mon General."
Malcoeur waited until his chief seemed satisfied with that answer before continuing, "With the support of an international community outraged at the fraud and violence in the elections, the president will be in a good position to refuse to abide by the results. At that point, the mercenaries are placed in the unenviable position of acquiescing or starting a war. We believe, if the scale of the current deployment is as large as it seems, that they will feel they're in a very poor position to commence a war. Acquiescence, therefore, seems assured."
The minister of police harrumphed and said, "If you're wrong about that, Major Malcoeur, I feel I ought to tell you that my police are heavily infiltrated with ex-legionaries. I can only rely on a few of my units and all of those are in the city. The countryside, to include my own police, is heavily in favor of Parilla."
"The general understands that," Malcoeur reassured the policeman. "Those units of yours which are reliable will be critical to the eventual arrest of the mercenary leadership to break the impasse. We will, of course, back you up in that. And as for the countryside, does it really matter? The Transitway and the two terminal cities do not depend on the countryside nearly so much as the countryside depends on them. With those remaining under our control, the countryside will feel the pain."
"Which is all well and good," the policeman agreed, "except for one thing. Those mercenaries going to Pashtia are not going to stay there. They will return."
Before Malcoeur could answer, Janier said, "I'm counting on it, Mr. Minister."
Girls will sleep with girls. Oftentimes, even most often, sex has nothing to do with it. Instead, they seek only the comfort of a warm body nearby.
For Marta and Jaquie, however, it was about sex, at least in good part. After years of sex with altogether too many men, it wouldn't be too far off to state that neither of the girls cared for men anymore as sexual partners. That didn't eliminate the desire for sex, of course, and like many prostitutes they'd turned to women or, more specifically, turned toward each other.
In the warm aftermath, still entwined in each others' arms, Marta suddenly burst out with, "I think we should do it."
Jaquie smiled and answered, "In case you weren't paying attention, love, I think we just did."
"I meant—"
"Shush. I know what you meant. I talked to Rodriguez about it . . . well, indirectly I talked to him about it. There's one big problem. If the legion caught us in bed together while we were members they'd put us both against a wall and shoot us."
"They'd what? Just for making love? That's insane! Or is it because we're both girls?"
"No . . . the way Rodriguez explained it, it not only isn't insane it's the only sane policy. If we're having sex then there's a dangerously good chance we're in love . . . or will be. If we're in love with each other, personally, there's an also dangerously good chance either one of us would put the welfare of the other ahead of the legion's or the mission's. Rodriguez said he'd never heard of a regulation against girls being with girls or boys being with boys, but there's an expansive rule against mutiny, and we'd fall under it."
"I wouldn't want to give you up," Marta sighed.
"Well, I've been thinking about it, too. Four years and the legion would pay for us to go to school. We could learn business . . . or nursing . . . pretty much anything. We'd never have to sell our asses again. We could be together, free and clear."
Jaquie and Marta both went quiet at that, lying on their backs and thinking hard. After what seemed a long time, Marta rolled over and put her face between Jaquelina's breasts, careful not to press too hard where Jaquie had been wounded. As she slipped one hand down between Jaquie's legs, Marta said, "If we're going to have to stop this, for a while, let's enjoy what we can, now."
Khudenko and Kuralski clashed glasses full of vodka. "Vashe Zdorovie," the Volgan said. Your health.
The glasses were considerably larger than the usual fifty-milliliter jobs. Indeed, it took Kuralski several gulps to empty his, though Khudenko managed with two. Practice tells.
"So your boss got the contract he wanted, did he?" Khudenko asked.
Kuralski grinned. "He did. He always knew he would. It goes well with you, Victor? With the plant?"
The Volgan put down his glass and extended his hand, palm down and fingers slightly spread. These he wriggled. So, so.
In explanation, he said, "We've never managed to acquire a second customer as good as the legion, though we've made some sales to the oil wogs and a few in Uhuru, Colombia del Norte, and western Taurania. Right now we're operating at less than full capacity though, and it hurts."
Dan Kuralski reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a list he'd prepared in Cyrillic. "I think this can keep you fully employed for a while longer."
Khudenko scanned down the list quickly. "We can provide about half the armor from on-hand stocks," he said. "The rest will take . . . say . . . five weeks. Is that soon enough?"
"It is if you can get it to the railhead at Thermopolis within three weeks after that."
"This, I think, we can do. But I'll need to hire a lot of guards for the trains. I think I can get a regiment from the army for not too much."
"We've already got a Volgan regiment for that. Don't sweat it."
Khudenko nodded. He knew about Samsonov's group and its relationship with the legion. "We don't make the rest of what's on this list. You know that, right?"
"We don't want you to produce the other material, of course, but to acquire and ship forward," Kuralski answered. "I'm here for the next two months to assist in that."
"There will be many bribes needed. Large bribes. A third of the rolling stock in this country is in private, and generally criminal, hands."
Kuralski shrugged. "Whatever the market will bear. Money's not really an issue. There's something else we need, too. We'd like you to set up at Thermopolis a forward maintenance depot from your workers here to match the one you've set up in Balboa. We'll provide a rather generous bonus to them, if that helps. And Samsonov's boys will be staying on to guard."
Khudenko rubbed one hand across his face. He removed that hand and began to tap on the table, thinking hard.
"There's no way to both produce the tanks and provide the depot. Unless . . . is it acceptable for us not to be ready until a week or so after the last equipment or supply train reaches the railhead?"
"Mmm . . . sure; that will work," Kuralski answered. "We shouldn't have lost much or need much higher level maintenance until then, anyway."
Isla Real, Quarters #1, 18/7/467 AC
The phone rang. Lourdes answered it, then called out, "Patricio, it's Adnan on the phone for you. The secure line."
Carrera patted her posterior lightly and took the phone. "Carrera."
"Pat, you bastard, what do you think you're doing?" Sada shouted.
"Huh?"
"You're going to war in Pashtia and you forgot about me," the Sumeri chided. "And I thought we were friends."
"What are you talking about, Adnan?"
"You're going to war again," Sada explained, "and you haven't asked me for help? What kind of friend is that? What kind of friend leaves a friend owing a debt and doesn't let him try to pay it back. Harrumph!"
"Ohhh. Well . . . I thought you had enough problems at home."
"My biggest problem, friend, is that you've got Qabaash hiding his head in shame and throwing things at walls because you're leaving him out of this. Look, this is the deal and I won't take no for an answer. Over the next week Qabaash and one light infantry brigade— the Salah al Din—from the Sumeri Presidential Guard are going to fly to Thermopolis, along with the cohort from the legion I have here. Don't worry about the expense; I'll cover it. The oil market's been very good to me."
"That's a good brigade," Carrera conceded, "and I'd appreciate having my cohort back, but, again, can you afford to lose it?"
He heard Sada sigh into the phone on his end before he explained, "Barely, but yes. Right now, Pashtia has problems because the lunatic Salafis lost here. If they win in Pashtia, they'll come back here stronger than ever."
"Adnan, if—no when—they lose in Pashtia, they'll come back to Sumer anyway."
"Yes, that's true, my friend. But if they lose in Pashtia, they'll come back here much weaker than they will if they win. So not another word. Qabaash and company are coming."
Carrera, unseen by Sada, nodded his head. There is faithfulness. There is honor. Thank God for you, Adnan.
"I'll be expecting them, friend," Carrera said. He saw Lourdes mouthing "Ruqaya?" and asked, "Is your wife there? Lourdes wants to chat."
From: Legion del Cid: to Build an Army (reprinted here with permission of the Army War College, Army of the Federated States of Columbia, Slaughter Ravine, Plains, FSC)
The insurgency in Sumer, of course, continues today, albeit at a very low level. It is unlikely to completely disappear anytime soon.
With the gradual drawdown of the insurgency in Sumer, and the building up of the Sumeri security forces to the point where they were able to defend law and order and maintain control of the country without resort to wide-scale terror and massacre, it proved possible to reduce the commitment of coalition forces to the security mission. By 466, for example, the Federated States Army and Marine Corps were able to drop their troop commitment to two divisions, then one, plus equipment parks for three more. Since casualties had dropped to near nothing, this was a military commitment the Progressive administration in Hamilton could continue. Moreover, Sumeri contributions to the maintenance of these divisions, once the oil began steadily flowing again, made them little more expensive than they would have been had they been stationed in the Federated States. They were much cheaper to maintain in Sumer than in Taurus.
The war however, was far from over. Sumer had been only one campaign among many: Pashtia, Eastern Magsaysay, Kush and Amazigh also were active at some level. For that matter, the insurgency existed across the entire globe and was fought, in one form or another, wherever it could be identified and targeted.
The major advantage of fighting the largest of the campaigns in Sumer had been that, being so centrally located, it had served as a magnet for insurgent volunteers and monetary donations from all over the Salafic and Islamic world. Much of the success the Federated States and its coalition had met with elsewhere could be directly attributed to the pull of the Sumeri insurgency on the Salafi mind.
With their infrastructure within Sumer largely destroyed, these volunteers, and the charitable and religious front organizations that directed them on behalf of the overall movement, began to reorient themselves in the only place where they still had a chance of striking back to any effect: Pashtia.
Pashtia had seemed to the uneducated to be quite safe and secure in the antiradical fold. What these missed was that it was in large part thanks to the insurgency in Sumer itself that Pashtia had achieved as much stability and progress as it had. Certainly it was not the number of troops committed there that brought about relative peace. Pashtia could not even support, due to lack of road, rail, and navigable river, any substantial number of first quality coalition troops. The infrastructure of Pashtia had not much improved over that found by the Volgan Empire during their abortive ten-year campaign there. If the Volgans had found themselves logistically limited to a corps of about one hundred thousand soldiers, the Coalition was unable to field more than half that number, which half required even more in the way of logistic support than the previous Volgan total.
The insurgents, on the other hand, needed little but willingness to fight and the most basic of supply. Uniforms were a detriment. Food and fuel were purchased or taken from the economy. Weapons were light and largely individual. A single column of five donkeys and a driver, moving at night and feeding off the local vegetation, was able to provide ammunition for an insurgent company sufficient for a month's operations.
Thousands of guerilla volunteers, the younger brothers of those who had once gone to Sumer, began to flood Pashtia by the middle of 467. These came in in one of four ways. From the east they came through Farsia, itself something of a model for theocratic dictatorship and always eager to confront the Federated States and its allies or to help those eager to fight them. From the north, Kashmir—populous and somewhat radicalized, and never really exercising control of its common border with Pashtia—saw thousands of young men flock to the cause. In the south, the ongoing war between the Volgan Republic and its own Islamic radicals turned the entire area for hundreds of miles to either side of the border into, from the radicals' point of view, one big war zone. From the Volgan and FSC points of view, there were two which should have been one but which could not, for political reasons, be joined.
Of course no small numbers simply bought tickets, boarded aircraft, landed in Pashtia's capital, Chobolo, and disappeared into the countryside.
It is estimated that some ten thousand guerillas entered Pashtia between mid-467 and mid-468, adding to the thousands already there. To have confronted and neutralized these required, by normal doctrine, some one hundred thousand coalition troops. These were available. The logistic infrastructure, however, simply wasn't there. Arguably, after the long, drawn out and bloody campaign in Sumer, neither was the will.
Money, however, was not a problem.
The legion began investigating Pashtia in either late 466 or early 467, the record is unclear. It is clear that no later than mid-467, a recruiting campaign had begun in Pashtia to attract and raise one cohort of mixed foot and mounted scouts plus some other auxiliaries from among the Pashtun, notably those Pashtun whose tribes had formerly sided with the Volgan Empire and then switched allegiance to the FSC-propped national government. These were brought to Sumer, trained, and equipped and to some extent integrated with the existing Balboan-Sumeri forces in the provinces of Ninewa and Pumbadeta, Sumer, before being redeployed to Thermopolis.