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Chapter Seventeen

 
The guerillas are the fish and the people are the sea.

—The Great Helmsman, on guerilla warfare

 
We fish with dynamite.

—Patricio Carrera, on counter-guerilla warfare

Outside Panshir Base, Pashtia, 3/6/468

With the noonday sun high overhead, the valley was bathed in stifling heat. Even high on the green hills surrounding the Tuscan Ligurini base, it was oppressive. It was all the more oppressive for those troops of the legion filling in fighting positions, mortar pits, and ammunition dumps. These, stripped to the waist, wielded their shovels with a will, however. When the marks of preparations for the aborted attack on the Ligurini were erased, they were going home.

With the election over, and with the FS-imposed practical partition of Balboa, Carrera felt reasonably comfortable standing down his troops, barring those surrounding the local base for the Gallic Commandos. For the Gauls, he'd wait and see how well peace held out in Balboa. The rest would move on to Thermopolis, along with their equipment, and from there go home to Balboa via road, rail, sea and air. Even the ones surrounding the Gauls would eventually leave; they were just further behind in the order of movement.

Besides, it isn't like I'm not working on ways to hit them where it hurts even when I give up the ability to get at the Frogs and Tauros here.

Nor could anyone in the coalition really complain about the Gauls being confined to their little rathole. The legionaries surrounding them were also engaged in something the commandos had signally failed even to try to do (though to be fair this was not the result on any unwillingness on the commandos' part); hunting down and obliterating the insurgency in the area. In this, the legion was having some success.

Carrera drew a mental map of the country and the position of his troops within it. His mind clicked over each stage in the evacuation of two legions from Pashtia and he could find no flaw. Gotta love a good staff, he thought.

"Call from the staff, sir," said one of his guards, holding out a microphone. "Secure. Bad news, they say."

Of course, it's bad news, he thought. Here I am enjoying a peaceful moment and pleased that I won't have to butcher ten thousand allied troops so, naturally, there is bad news. God, someday I hope to have a long talk with you about your sense of humor.

He took the proffered radio microphone and announced, "Carrera."

The radio operator at the other end acknowledged and said, "Wait one, sir, while we connect you to the classis."

The classis? My bad news is from the classis? This is going to be really bad.

There was a series of beeps, and then a voice, distorted by the encryption devices and with odd, unrecognizable sounds in the background, said, "Fosa, here." The voice seemed to Carrera to contain an infinity of sadness and weariness.

"Carrera, here. What is it, Roderigo?"

"Patricio . . . I don't know how to tell you this, so I'll just lay it out for you. We got hit this morning, hit hard. I don't even have a final count of the dead and wounded, but both numbers are going to be high. I lost just about half my fixed-wing aircraft and two-thirds of the helicopters. I'm holed, though—thank God—it's not below the water line. Even so, I'm taking water at the stern and the hole is close enough to the water line that a big storm could put us down. One elevator is totally out. My drives are down . . . well, one is down. The other was blown clean off. My flight deck is warped, but not so badly we can't loft and recover aircraft. I've no radar. And I lost one of the escorts."

"Holy shit!" Carrera said, though he didn't key the microphone. My brave sailors; where will I find your like again? When he keyed it, he asked, "What happened, Rod?"

"It was an ambush in the Nicobar Straits. Somehow the wogs managed to assemble about a dozen speed boats, half a dozen cruise missiles, two torpedoes, and one big fucking suicide ship. We took one cruise missile hit, plus a near miss that did for the radar, a torpedo hit at the stern, and then the suicide ship . . . Pat, it must have been about a two-kiloton explosion . . . anyway, it went off about a klick away." Fosa hesitated and then added, "Well, it didn't actually go off. One of my escorts, the Santissima Trinidad, rammed it at full speed. That set it off. Pat, if they hadn't rammed it, we'd have been obliterated.

"Pat, I want authority to award gold crosses, four steps, to that crew, and three to its sister, the Agustin. Three and two just wouldn't be enough."

"Given," Carrera answered. "Is your ship recoverable? What about the wounded?"

There was doubt in Fosa's voice, mixed in with determination. "If I can get her to a port . . . maybe. But getting her back in order will be expensive. The wounded we're flying off with whatever I have that can carry a man or two."

"All right. I'll assume you're flying your hurt men to some safe port. As for the expense; damn the expense; a ship like that doesn't come along every day." In fact, I haven't a clue where we could find another one. Rebuild the static training ship? Probably a lot more expensive. And besides, the ship that survived an attack like that has mana. It has soul. Men will adore her and fight all the better for her. Some other ship just wouldn't do as well.

BdL Dos Lindas, 3/6/468 AC

"Captain, we've found something you ought to see."

Fosa nodded his head and said, "Pat, I've got to go. I'll report in around sunset. I might have a better idea of our chances then."

"Before you go, put me on the speaker," Carrera ordered.

Fosa looked over at the communications bench and gave the nod. A sailor flicked a switch. "Go ahead, Pat. Wherever the intercom still reaches, you'll be heard. Fosa, out."

From the speakers, echoing across the length and breadth of the carrier, came, "Duque Carrera to the officers, centurions and men of the classis, and of the tercios Jan Sobieski, and Vlad Tepes: Men, listen; don't stop working to save your ship, but listen. You've taken a hard hit . . ."

 

Fosa didn't really listen to Carrera's speech. It wasn't much more than the same generalities he'd been spreading, himself: We've done well . . . they threw the worst they had at us and we took it and came back punching . . . we'll save the ship. He just hoped it was all true.

At the base of the tower he turned around and looked out over the flight deck. Already crews with cutting torches were slicing away the warped sections and forcing some of the underdecking back into position. There was plywood and perforated steel planking, down below, that they could use to make some temporary patches, enough for the Crickets and maybe even a lightly loaded Finch.

From there, he descended down the double stairs to Deck 2. A balcony off that deck overlooked the hangar. He went to the balcony and looked down. The hangar was filled not only with burned and blasted airframes; it had become a morgue, as well. Even now, parties of crewman, some of them hurt themselves, brought in corpses and laid them out respectfully in rows. Some of his crew, Fosa saw, were curled up in fetal positions, their charred limbs eloquent testimony to the fire that had killed them.

You will not throw up, Fosa gave himself the order. Even so, he turned away.

The sailor who had summoned the captain from the bridge said, "This way, sir. By where we took the hit near the stern."

"Lead on."

The way led through the officers' quarters at the stern, past Fosa's and then Kurita's cabin.

What am I going to do without that old man to guide me? Fosa wondered. For, though he had put out the call to find the commodore, no one had as of yet seen a sign. The nearest thing to a report was the mutterings of a now legless and semi-comatose sailor in sickbay, a gunner on one of the port rear platforms. He'd said something about going "back for the commodore."

Fosa rested his hand lightly on the cabin's hatch, then continued on forward and past the filter room and the two rocket storage rooms.

"We found it out here, Skipper," the sailor guiding Fosa said as he pointed to the twisted scrap that had been a gun platform.

Fosa stepped gingerly out onto the ruin of the platform. It seemed solid enough. There was a ruined forty-millimeter gun there, as well. Fosa turned and . . . 

"My God," he whispered.

There, against the hull, to all appearances a part of the hull now, was the outline of a small man. He might not have known who it was except for the ancient, once reforged katana that was apparently welded to the hull, and joined to the body's outline by the shadow of a thin arm.

Fosa crossed himself and said a small prayer for the soul of Tadeo Kurita, along with the wish that he now be reunited with his wife and children. For, Lord, he was a good man, and a good sailor, and did his duty as he saw it . . . to the end.

 

Fosa looked ahead to where the two corvettes were being rigged to tow the Dos Lindas to port. Astern, they'd managed to get the one remaining AZIPOD working, but it was non-steerable. The corvettes would pull the bow around to steer the ship, with the AZIPOD providing the bulk of the forward drive. He guessed he'd be able to make at least ten knots that way, maybe even twelve, which put the nearest useful and trustworthy port, in Sind, a good eight or ten days' sailing away.

"We're going to make it, Pat," Fosa told Carrera, later that night via secure radio. "We may be pumping like madmen all the way, and we're toast if were attacked at sea, or hit a really atrocious storm. But barring those, we'll make it."

"I've alerted Christian back in Balboa to push to make good your personnel losses," Carrera answered. "A freighter will be sailing in three days with replacements for your lost Crickets and Finches. It will be a month and a half before we can replace your Yakamovs. I've given orders that a cruiser be readied to sail ASAP. That, and that another escort be sent along. But, Rod, we don't have another Patrol Torpedo until we can have some built. Will a corvette do?"

"It will," the captain answered. "Pat, has the cruiser been rechristened yet?"

"No, why?"

"Because I'd like it to bear the name of Tadeo Kurita, if that works for you."

UEPF Spirit of Peace, 3/6/468 AC

In the limited confines of his quarters, Robinson paced furiously. Nothing works; he fumed, nothing fucking works! It didn't even help to take a belt to Khan's ass because she likes it.

Wallenstein sipped coffee shipped up from below. To all appearances, she was calm and composed. Inside, though, she was worried. An unhappy high admiral is a high admiral who is less likely to get me a caste lift. This will not do. But . . . still, I have to tell him or he'll be even less likely to give me the boost I need.

"Martin, we've got a decoded message we intercepted between the mercenary fleet and its commander. Not only is the ship not going to sink; it's going to be reinforced."

"With what?"

"A heavy cruiser. I believe it's the only heavy cruiser in commission in any wet navy down below. Good armor, ten six-inch automatic, long-range guns in five twin turrets. It's also nuclear powered, just like the carrier. I'm sorry, Martin, but the mercenary fleet is not only not substantially weakened, except in the very short term, it's growing. Worse, the Yamatan Zaibatsu appear to be so eager to get it back on station that they're paying two-thirds of the cost of restoring and refitting the carrier. I'm afraid that using piracy to both raise funds for the Ikhwan and to undercut the economy down below is . . ." Wallenstein hesitated.

"Doomed to abject failure?" Robinson supplied. "Tell me something I don't know."

BdL Dos Lindas, Hajipur, Sind, 15/6/468 AC

"I don' know, Skipper," the master of the shipfitting company said, shaking his head. The master was an old man. Underneath his turban, Fosa thought, the man's hair was likely as gray as his beard.

The Dos Lindas rode at dock, Cazadors guarding from the landward side while corvettes and the Agustin watched to seaward. Getting her here? Through one of the worst storms in the history of the Sea of Sind? With waves battering at the temporary patch welded over the spot where the Ikhwan cruise missile had struck home? That would take a volume. Suffice to say that there were a lot more Cruces de Coraje earned by the crew. Some heroism was never recorded. For that, for those unknowns washed over the side, Carrera had issued the first unit citation in the history of the Legion del Cid.

"I don' know," the master repeated, tapping the temporary patches on the flight deck with his cane as he and Fosa toured the ship with an eye to damages and estimates. "It gonna cost."

"That's not the point," Fosa said. "I don't care what it costs, as long as my fleet isn't being cheated. The point is, can you repair my ship?"

"We do flight deck, hull, hangar deck," the master shipfitter answered, with a shrug. "Those . . . easy. Cut sections from old ship up coast; drag down. Weld into place. Paint. My people tell me can replace lost AZIPOD, if you buy, and fix other. Have to wait for dry- dock open up but . . . no sweat. Form and weld on new gun tubs? Also, no sweat. Replace guns? You get guns, we replace. Radar? You get radar; we replace. Same, same; laser up top. Got nephew at SIT, Sind Institute Technology. He good with shit like that. Him got friends good, too."

"But?" Fosa asked.

"But got build new fucking elevator from scratch. Hard. Tough. Expensive. Never do before."

"Hmmm. What if someone made an elevator and shipped it here?" Fosa asked.

"Like other shit; you get elevator; we replace."

 

Kamakura, Yamato, 17/6/468 AC

"Kurita did request, in his last will and testament, that we continue to support the ronin as much as possible," Yamagata said.

"I know," Saito agreed, "and it's hardly that grand a request. The problem is that nobody here has made or designed an elevator for an aircraft carrier in decades. Many decades. And the ronin need their elevator now. Between design, tooling up, and actual production, we're looking at half a year to a year."

"And no one makes elevators like this anymore, do they?" Yamagata asked, rhetorically.

Saito shook his head in the negative. "The nearest thing to what the ronin need—or, in any event, could use—is a side-mounted elevator the Federated States put on some of their amphibious carriers. The ship, however, is not designed for that."

"Could it be modified?"

"I have sent a naval engineer to enquire. There is also one other possibility that gets them an elevator quickly and gives us time to have one custom designed and built."

Isla Real and Bay of Balboa, 20/6/468 AC

The waters quaked with the pounding of newly christened BdL Tadeo Kurita at gunnery practice a few miles away. From the bridge of the conning tower of the spare carrier, never given a name but referred to simply at BdEL1 (Barco del Entrenamiento Legionario Numero Uno, Legionary Training Ship Number One), the exec of the Tercio Don John could see the top of Isla Santa Josefina, the artillery impact island. The place was wreathed in smoke and flame, only the crest of the central massif visible, and that not all the time.

Overhead came a near continuous freight train rumble as Tadeo Kurita lobbed salvo after salvo toward the impact area island. If the classis exec cared to, he could have climbed topside and seen the cruiser as she fired. Even in daytime, the clouds above flickered with an orange glow with each broadside.

On the bridge, the exec studied diagrams of the ship. The schematics were old and the paper crisp and yellow with age. Worse, they were in Portuguese, which was more or less intelligible to Spanish speakers, but always a strain.

"Ah, well," muttered the exec. "Could have been worse. Could have been in something uncivilized . . . like English."

And with that, the exec set himself to solving the problem of how to disassemble a major component of one ship, the elevator, get it loaded aboard another ship, somehow, and move it to a foreign harbor wherein sat a third ship, the Dos Lindas.

Fucking Fosa, thought the classis exec. What kind of miracle worker does he think I am? Worse, how the fuck am I supposed to train replacement crew here with only one working elevator?

The exec heard something very soft behind him. He turned and saw the Yamatan engineer, Keiji Higara, pensively tapping his lips while looking out across the bay at where a seaborne crane was in the process of removing turrets from one of those Suvarov-class cruisers not scheduled for refit.

"I am idiot," Keiji announced.

"Why's that, Hig?" the exec asked.

"I been worried . . . you know . . . getting this ship someplace where is crane powerful enough lift the elevator assembly out from hull. That was problem since docking facilities in Ciudad Balboa under . . . enemy control. Then, too, ship immobile. And whole time I been worrying . . . there was that." He pointed at the crane ship.

"You mean we can do it."

In answer, Higara snapped his fingers.

Quarters #2, Isla Real, 33/6/468 AC

"Look, it only makes sense, Patricio," Jimenez said, punctuating with a snap of his fingers. "I'm shipping over to Pashtia with the Fourth Legion in the not too distant future. So I'll have no use or need for this big old white elephant. Even when I come back, what do I need? A bedroom? An office? Someplace to eat? Artemisia and Mac can give me all that, right here. And they'll have a place to stay suitable for their position."

Jimenez, Lourdes, and Carrera sat on the upper balcony, looking over the parade field. On the table between them was a bucket of ice and some scotch. The air was heavy, both with the natural humidity and the smoke of Xavier's and Carrera's cigars.

"Have you mentioned this to them, Xavier? Mac's a serious stickler for protocol and propriety," Carrera asked wearily, flicking an ash over the railing and onto the lawn. He'd just flown in that morning from Pashtia with the tail end of 1st and 2nd Legions and was clearly feeling the toll of both the long flight and the time zone change.

"No," Jimenez admitted. "Why should I? It's your house and your Legion; you get to decide."

It does make a certain sense, Carrera admitted to himself. I get to billet my best friends and number one and two subordinates right next door where I can harass them mercilessly. Mac gets a house to go with the wife he's getting. Artemisia—God, she's achingly good to look at, isn't she?—gets the house she probably deserves. Probably? No probably about it. She makes my sergeant major happy and she deserves whatever I can give her.

Jimenez continued, "Besides, Pat, Mac's living in the senior centurion's bachelor quarters. That's no place to raise a family and if you want your sergeant major happy you had better make his wife happy . . . and Arti wants a family. Soon. As soon as possible."

Jimenez smiled and then began to give off a most unmilitary giggle.

"What's so funny?"

With some difficulty, Xavier got control of himself and answered, "I was just thinking about how badly Arti wants to bear Mac's children. It isn't like they didn't start work on that months ago."

So much for Lourdes giving them the use of a room for privacy, Carrera thought, drily, looking over at his wife. She, too, was laughing, even while she tried hiding her face with her hand.

"Well, Patricio, I tried," she said.

"What about when you get married?" Carrera asked.

Jimenez snorted. "What sane woman would marry me? Not an issue, Patricio; it's never going to happen. Besides, I'm married to the Fourth and that's bitch enough for me—no offense, Lourdes. No . . . I'll be just fine as a sometime guest here."

Carrera shrugged, thinking, No, actually you won't be a sometime guest here, since we're going to be moving the legions to the mainland over the next year. So . . . I suppose . . . why not?

"Yeah . . . okay," he conceded. "Mac and Arti can have Number Two. Now that she's about to be married at least the young signifers and tribunes will stop trying to serenade her under her window."

"Tell me about it," Jimenez said. "I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if they could sing."

Isla Real, Quarters #1, 33/6/468 AC

Lourdes hummed the wedding march softly to herself as she crossed the hundred and twenty meters from her old home, Number Two, to Number One. Having Mac and Arti as next door neighbors was going to be great; she just knew it.

And, better still, when they thump the bed against the wall all night, I won't be able to hear it. Besides, it reminds me of what I am missing when Patricio is away.

Entering by the front door, Lourdes took one look at McNamara and Artemisia—coming down the stairs arm and arm, he looking guilty and she like the cat who fell into the vat of cream—and she started laughing again. She ran to the nearest room, her husband's library, to hide her discomposure. She closed the door behind her and covered her mouth again to try to stifle her laughter.

"What's so funny, Mama?" little Hamilcar asked, looking up from one of his father's books.

"I'll tell you when you're older," Lourdes answered. Curious, she walked over to the desk and picked up the book that her son had been reading. That he was reading was no surprise; the child had been literate for almost two years. The title, however, she found worrisome: The Battle of Kuantan by Tadeo Kurita.

Can it be genetic, somehow? she wondered, suddenly growing utterly serious and seriously worried. Did my son inherit his father's taste for battle? God, please don't take my baby from me. He's not even five yet.

 

After his mother had left, Hamilcar returned to his reading. Kurita's dry account of the exchange between his battlecruiser and the Federated States Navy's superdreadnought, Andrew Jackson, soon had the boy quivering with excitement and a wordless longing to be there, to trade shot for shot and blow for blow. Never mind that he was, half ways, from the Federated States, nor that his other half had had little involvement in the Great Global War. It was the battle, itself, that drew him. And, he already knew, it always would.

He knew, too, that he already understood things that were forever barred to most human beings, at any age. He understood, instinctively, without Kurita explaining it, what it meant to cross the Jackson's T and why Kurita had accepted a couple of bad hits to get his own ship in position to do that. Hamilcar understood, without anyone explaining it, the logistic and time-space factors that had dictated why the Battle of Kuantan had happened where it had and when it had.

In short, Hamilcar Carrera-Nuñez already knew, at age four, that he had the knack.

He closed the book, sighing, and thought, Mama and I need to have a long talk.

4/7/468 AC, Main Parade Field, Isla Real

"I've seen you under fire, Sergeant Major, and I've never seen you look nervous like today."

"Sir . . . fuck you, sir," McNamara answered. "T'isn't every day a man gets married. And it's almost never a man marries a woman like Artemisia. If I'm nervous . . ."

"You have a right to be, Mac," Carrera answered, gently. "I just like pulling your leg and needling you. Because, you know, if I didn't know you were watching me, there's a half dozen times, over the years, that I'd have been gibbering. By God, I've a right to needle you. If only for the goddamned bed thumping that's kept me up every night but the last few."

To that McNamara had no answer, but only a sort of a question. "It worries me, sir, you know? I'm pushing sixty. She's less t'an half my age. I've got to, you know . . . get the gettin' while the gettin's good. T'e day's not long off . . ."

"My ass."

 

A white tent sat not far from where McNamara and Carrera traded jibes and worries. In the tent Lourdes and a bevy of bridesmaids fussed and fluttered around Artemisia Jimenez, fluffing, primping, and generally polishing. She looked amazing.

"Does my ass look fat in this, Lourdes?" Artemisia asked worriedly.

Lourdes looked. I should have such an ass, she thought. Then she looked again. "No, Arti, your rear end is not fat. But unless I'm much mistaken you've grown a cup size. How many months along are you."

Artemisia smiled wickedly. "Six weeks. I had to, don't you see? He might have backed out."

"Does Mac know?"

"I was going to tell him tonight. Otherwise, he'll be so worried about me . . . hell, this is John McNamara we're talking about; he'd be so embarrassed at our being caught jumping the gun; he'd probably blow his lines. And those, he must get right."

"And besides," Lourdes said, drily "if he screws this up enough to delay the wedding, you'll need a new dress, won't you?"

Artemisia dimpled. "So you see my point in not upsetting him, right?"

 

"You've upset the signifers and some of the tribunes," Carrera said, pointing with his chin at two sets of bleachers filled to overflowing with sixty or more junior officers, all in dress whites and every man wearing a black armband.

"Young punks," McNamara said, when he saw.

"It's a compliment, Sergeant Major. Take it that way."

"I suppose so," he admitted, with bad grace. "T'ough if t'ey t'tought about it, t'ey'd realize t'eir lives are about to get a lot more pleasant when I have somet'ing to do besides ride t'eir asses."

"That's one way to look at it," Carrera agreed. "They really ought—" He hushed suddenly, even as the crowd did (for ringing the field there were thousands of legionaries, plus their families, who had come to watch).

Artemisia, escorted by her uncle, Xavier, brilliant in his dress whites, had emerged from the tent. Lourdes followed, as did another eleven women, about half and half Arti's close in-laws and the girls she had competed against for Miss Balboa. In the bleachers, sixty signifers and junior tribunes looked at the procession and suddenly had the same thought: Well . . . there are some other opportunities out there.

"You are such a lucky bastard, Top. I believe that's the only woman I've ever seen to match my Linda."

The band of the Legion del Cid, mercifully sans drums and bagpipes, picked up the wedding march.

 

Oh, God, I'm so nervous, thought Artemisia as she led her party forward along the carpets laid to protect her shoes and dress from the grass. What if I'm not a good wife? What if he gets tired of me? What if . . . ?

Stop being an idiot, Arti, you and he are perfect together. It's going to be wonderful.

But what if my tits sag after the baby comes?

Then you get pregnant again and reinflate them.

But what if he gets tired of my cooking?

Then you hire a cook. Lourdes already said that Patricio's gift to us is "impressive and of many parts." Besides, John's salary with the legion, plus his retired pay from the FS Army, is huge by Balboan standards. And I can work, too. And then, too, Uncle Xavier is going to contribute.

But what if—?

 

"I'm sooo glad t'at's over, sir," McNamara whispered.

Carrera answered, "Men don't enjoy the ceremony, generally, Top, but endure it because of the state it formalizes. By the way, did you know you're going to be a daddy?"

Mac sighed, embarrassed. "She hasn't told me, but, yeah . . . I kinda figured it out."

Smiling, Carrera chided, "Bad, wicked, naughty sergeant major. You should be ashamed. Oh . . . and Lourdes and I would like to stand as godparents, if that's okay with you and Arti."

"We'd be honored, sir."

 

"You got to be focking shittin' me, sir. I mean . . . well . . . we knew Miss Lourdes had set up the honeymoon but . . ."

Carrera just smiled as there, on the parade field, a smallish airship descended and lowered ropes to half a dozen waiting heavy-duty recovery trucks packed to the brim with sandbags. Chartering the thing had cost a not-inconsiderable fortune but for his sergeant major, no expense was too great.

"Shitting you about what, Top?" Carrera asked. "You and I are just simple soldiers. This kind of thing—an airship honeymoon to tour all of Colombia del Norte—seems too much to us. But she is . . . was Miss Balboa and she will, by God, have a honeymoon to set the continent wild."

McNamara scoffed. "T'at ain't it, you sneaky bastard. I know you. You ain't t'at nice. What you're doing is sending us on a whirlwind recruitin' tour, ain't you?"

Rather than deny it, exactly, Carrera answered, "Siegel's going with you as a sort of aide de camp. You and he and Arti are going to entertain every goddamned General Staff in Colombia Latina on your trip."

"T'at's nonsense, boss, no offense. T'ose arrogant assholes won't even talk to no noncom. Not even one wit' Miss Balboa on his arm."

"Who says you're a noncom?" Carrera asked. He pointed at Siegel, standing not far away. Siegel came running, bearing a carved silverwood box about two feet in length and perhaps four inches on a side. Wearing a huge smirk, he stopped, standing at attention and holding the box out. Carrera opened it and drew from it a baton, about eighteen inches in length and an inch in diameter. The baton was gold colored, as were all sergeants major's batons. This one, however, was encircled by harpy eagles spiraling down its length. They looked like, and were, solid gold. There was a jewelry store in Ciudad Balboa that really wanted to keep in the legion's good graces.

The crowd hushed. Rumors had suggested something like this. At the central reviewing stand Tom Christian announced, "Attention to orders."

"You see, Top," Carrera explained, "there was such a thing as a praetorian prefect. Then, too, the origin of your rank, back on Old Earth, was 'Sergeant Major-General' . . ."

What was probably the most finely tuned, spotlessly clean armored vehicle not merely on this world, but on two worlds and in the history of two worlds, pulled up by the gazebo. The band picked up the Wedding March again while Mac and Artemisia, both still in white, walked to it. They were pelted by rice and chorley seed the entire way.

At the tank, McNamara put his hands on Arti's still-narrow waist and lifted her to a cushion thoughtfully placed behind the turret. He then scrambled up to stand atop the tank where he bent to lift his new wife to her feet. Gently—no mean feat given the nature of Volgan- built tanks—the armored vehicle trundled off to just underneath the airship. There, they dismounted in reverse order and began to ascend the gangway the airship had lowered. They stopped twice on the way up, Artemisia with tears in her eyes, to wave to the crowd.

Waving back, crying, Lourdes whispered to her husband, "Weddings do something to me. They make me horny. Take me home and fuck me. Now."

"Orders are orders," Carrera answered, reaching over gently to wipe away the tears flowing from Lourdes' huge brown eyes. "And those orders, my lovely wife, are always a joy to obey."

Isla Real, Quarters #1, 5/7/468 AC

Hamilcar had inherited the huge size of his mother's eyes, along with a blend of color from both parents. His were a brilliant green with the same dark circles around the iris that gave his father's such a frighteningly penetrating quality. He turned those big green eyes up at his mother and said, "Mama, can I ask you for something?"

Lourdes, puttering in the kitchen, stopped what she was doing, looked down at her eldest and said, "Yes, of course, baby. What is it?"

"When daddy goes back to the war . . . Mama, I want to go with him."

Christ, no, not my baby, too.

"You're too small," she answered. "You're only four. When you're a grown man of five we'll discuss this again."

"Does that mean I can go when I'm five?"

"No, it means we'll discuss it. Then. Not before."

This was not an entirely satisfactory answer so Hamilcar upped the stakes. "Mama, if you don't tell me I can go when I'm five . . . I'll go over your head." He heard one or another of his daddy's soldiers use that expression. He was pretty sure he understood what it meant.

Lourdes did understand what it meant. He'd go to his father to ask permission. Which Patricio just might give. And what objections will I have? I kept Hamilcar in the war zone for almost two years when he was a baby, just so I could be with my husband. I can't object to him being there now that's he's past being a baby.

"Do you want to break your mother's heart, Ham?" she asked.

"No."

"Then please don't 'go over my head.' Wait until you're five and we will discuss it."

Five is not so long a wait. "All right, Mama. But if you don't let me go then, I will go over your head."

Interlude

7/9/49 AC, Balboa Colony, Terra Nova

In the thick Balboan night, with monkeys and antaniae and even the occasional trixie filling the air with sound, with the steady drone of mosquitoes in their ears, the Gurkha Rifles and the Sikh Pioneers bivouacked close together and well away from the ad hoc OAU infantry battalion. Frankly, while the Gurkhas and Sikhs got along just fine, neither could stand the undisciplined rabble from the OAU. Less still could Majors Dhan Singh Pandey and Amita Kaur Bhago stand the . . . 

"Overbred, cowardly, stuffed shirt, little boy bunging, limey bastard, Duff-McQueeg," as Amita usually phrased it.

"Please, Amita, be charitable," Dhan chided. "After all, we don't know he's a coward. Personally, I think he only stays with the OAU troops for the little boys they keep for him."

"We'll see about that when the fighting starts," she answered, automatically killing a mosquito that had landed on her wrist.

"I don't know fighting ever start," said Company Sergeant Major Rambahadur Thapa, of Pandey's company. "We are end of supply trail, sahib. And jungle boys pretty good at keeping away."

That was true enough; Pandey's shrug admitted it. So far into the jungle and so far from any road was the task force that resupply depended on helicopters and shuttles. But the force was literally at the maximum distance the helicopters available could support. Another kilometer and the excess wear would begin to overwhelm the maintenance staff.

"We could drive twice as far or more without the OAU acting as a dead weight," Amita said. "Though in that case the task force commander would have no little boys. Worse, he'd be with us."

Dhan Singh Pandey opened his mouth to speak when the jungle erupted in heavy automatic fire coming from the direction of the OAU bivouac. He was about to call for his radio bearer when Amita held up her hand.

"I didn't hear anything," she said. "Sergeant Major?"

"Not me."

"Sir, call from the OAU," the radioman announced.

Pandey thought about that for half a second and said, "I'm sure you're mistaken, Naik."

 

Belisario hadn't rushed it. New weapons were fine. New weapons his men didn't know how to use were just expensive clubs. He'd spent a month just in training with the new rifles and machine guns and another two weeks in feeling out the enemy. In the process, he noticed something interesting. The Gurkhas would come running to help the Sikhs, and vice versa. But when he probed the OAU, or someone sniped at them, both Gurkhas and Sikhs indicated a profound disinterest.

This night, he'd decided to risk an attack. A full attack.

 

In the privacy of his tent Duff-McQueeg held a local boy, down on all fours, firmly by the hips while moving his own in a steady, rhythmic stroke. He was suddenly interrupted by the sound of heavy gunfire. He was tempted to ignore it, but then Warrant Officer Bourguet ripped open the tent flap and announced, breathlessly, "Sir . . . sir . . . the enemy . . ."

A large red stain suddenly blossomed on Bourguet's T-shirt, visible through his unbuttoned uniform jacket. Wordlessly, the warrant officer crumpled to the ground. His hands remained gripped to the material of the tent, which followed the heavyset warrant to the ground. Duff-McQueeg, and the boy, were trapped underneath. By the time Duff-McQueeg could extract himself from both the boy and the tent, he emerged to find a smoking muzzle pressed to the side of his head.

"Señor Carrera, aqui!"

"Bring him out, Pedro," Belisario said. He was almost embarrassed for the prisoner when he smelt the odor of shit. Then he realized the man had not shat himself and sympathy changed to disgust.

The tent material wriggled and distorted.

"Whoever you are, come out," Pedro ordered.

The boy emerged, pulling his threadbare trousers up.

"Chico," Belisario asked, "were you with this man by your own will?"

The boy spat at Duff-McQueeg and said, "They stole me from my village."

Belisario nodded grimly and said, to Pedro, "Get a rope."

The boy, with a look of utter hatred in his eyes asked, "Can I have a gun?"

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