Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains . . .
—Kipling, The Young British Soldier
A solar chimney dominated the island's skyline, rising several hundred meters above its highest elevation, the otherwise unnamed Hill 287. From the base of that chimney, a thick tube of reinforced concrete, ran an extension northward, toward the equator, along the side of the hill. This ended at one of the three largest greenhouses on the planet, the other two also being the foundations for solar chimneys. Fixed mirrors, sighted to reflect the maximum amount of sunlight into the greenhouse with the least expense and for the least effort, sparkled on the hillside.
The greenhouse contained air heated by the local sun. The air escaped along the tube that ran along the ground and up the hill before making its final exit at the top of the chimney. Along the way, the wind thus created turned turbines that produced the electricity needed for the island's twenty-one thousand legionary personnel and their families plus those of the thirteen thousand legionaries deployed to the war. Intended, eventually, to provide electricity almost twice that many, the chimney operated at less than half capacity.
There was probably money to be made in connecting the island's own electrical grid to the larger grid of the host country, the Republic of Balboa. Moreover, there had in the past been murmurings from the mainland about forcing the owners of the island, the Legion del Cid, to do just that. The response of the Legion, having several times the coercive power of the Republic, to the idea of being forced into anything was silence containing a heavy admixture of wry contempt.
Still, in a spirit of "one enemy at a time," the Legion had instead constructed another solar chimney on the mainland, one which it continued to own and the electricity from which it sold. There were plans for a third and fourth, and vague interest in building a fifth through fifteenth, though these would really be more than the largely agrarian Republic needed. Still, one never knew when a couple of extra terawatts might come in handy.
On the other hand, at nearly seven hundred million FSD, Federated States drachma, each, solar chimneys were not cheap. Even with the money saved by running significant portions of the chimney along the ground and up mountains, the cost remained very high. It was especially high in land as individual Balboan landholders parted with their patrimony most reluctantly. After that initial capital investment, however, fairly abundant electricity, in the range of two hundred megawatts per tower, was available more or less continuously for no more than the price of occasionally replaced turbines, and the personnel who oversaw them and kept the jungle at bay.
Contemplating from his office window the vapor cloud at the top of the island's chimney, Patricio Carrera wondered if the effort and expense were worth it. On the other hand, what price is too high to be free of energy blackmail by the Salafis?
Toward that end, the Legion had also funded, and made some profit on, a number of thermal depolymerization plants about the Republic. These took waste—mostly agricultural waste but also human sewage and even old tires—and converted it into oil at a rate of about two and a half to three barrels per ton from the best feedstock. Not every stock was of the best, however. The average yield was much less. Even so, the TDP plants, too, had gone a long way toward getting the Legion's host, Balboa, out from under the Salafi thumb.
And that is always worth doing, Carrera thought with satisfaction. And even if Sada—no Salafi, he—were able to supply us with oil someday, the supply would still be in other's hands. Though, I suppose, with us taking whatever sewage and garbage can be shipped in from some of the larger cities of South Columbia and Colombia del Norte, our supply is still partially not in our own hands.
Carrera, once known as Hennessey, had aged much more than the seven years that had passed since his family's murder in the great terrorist attacks that had begun this war. Hair once black had gone mostly gray. The sun and wind and rain had begun turning his face a tough leathery brown. Only the eyes, a bright and clear blue like the sky on a cloudless summer day, remained youthful, and even those were framed by crows' feet at the corners.
The intercom on his desk buzzed. "Tribune Esterhazy is here, Duque," announced Carrera's aide de camp.
"Send him in," said Carrera, looking up at the heavy, locally manufactured, mahogany door to his office. The door had been ornately hand-carved with military scenes at a factory, the Fabrica Hertzog, a couple of hundred miles up the coast and a bit inland. There was a contract between the Legion and the factory for a certain number of discharged legionaries to be apprenticed there, with the Legion picking up the tab of their training. The door had been made by these apprentices.
The scene-carved door opened, held by an aide. In walked Matthias Esterhazy, formerly a major in the Airborne Assault Engineers of the Army of the Federal Republic of Sachsen on the continent of Taurus, later an investment banker with SachsenBank, most recently comptroller and chief of investments of both the Legion del Cid, SA and Carrera's own family's corporation of Chatham, Hennessey and Schmied. He had other duties, as well; most significantly, Esterhazy was the direct representative of the Legion to the War Department of the Federated States of Columbia.
About Carrera's height, five-ten or so, Esterhazy's appearance, like his name, indicated a heavy admixture of Magyar along with his predominantly Sachsen heritage. He was, by nature, darker than Carrera. The natural dark could not easily be seen, however, except in the eyes. Contrasted to Carrera's icy blue, Esterhazy's were hazel.
The Sachsen's skin was only slightly olive in tone. While Carrera's had tanned to a dark finish to match his office door, as one would expect with someone who spent nine months in ten under the pitiless sun of the Sumeri desert, Esterhazy had paled under the weak sun and indoor lighting of the metropolis of First Landing, the largest city in the Federated States.
Carrera shook hands over the desk and indicated a seat with the other hand. He pushed aside a map. Had anyone looked, the map would have shown a one to two hundred-thousand scale topological view of Pashtia, a half mountainous-half desertified half-failed state south of Kashmir and north of the Islamic glacis states along the border of the Volgan Republic. There was a war going on in Pashtia, a sister campaign to the one being waged in Sumer.
"Good news and bad news, Patricio," Esterhazy began, after seating himself. Carrera noted that Esterhazy's Sachsen accent had almost disappeared under the influence of seven years of living in the city of First Landing in the Federated States.
"Bad news first."
Esterhazy had anticipated that. "In a few days the Progressive Party is going to win the next election in the Federated States. Yes, it will be close but they're still going to win. Their most likely candidate for SecWar is James Malcolm. I have spoken with Malcolm, at a fund raiser. The Legion's contract for Sumer will not be renewed. No possible campaign contribution, or even outright bribe, that we could offer will change that. I have also spoken with your family senator, Harriet Rodman. She says that getting it renewed is beyond her power and that it doesn't matter what you pay her; it would still be beyond her power."
Carrera shrugged. "I expected that. The campaign in Sumer is pretty much over, anyway. That Harriet can't help is . . . disappointing. But she's always been up front with me and if she says she can't then she probably really can't. Pity. And the good news . . . ?"
Esterhazy, uninvited but welcome, took a cigarette from a pack on Carrera's desk. Lighting and puffing it to life, he continued, "Financially, you can continue to support the force you have, and even expand it to the full fifty thousand you want to. But that is all; you don't and won't—not with anything low risk that I can do, investment-wise—have the means to continue the war at the current level. At least you won't be able to continue it indefinitely."
"Details?" Carrera asked, likewise reaching for a cigarette and leaning back to put his feet up on the desk.
"I've been conservative, as you wished me to be," Esterhazy cautioned. "Right now, legionary assets are on the order of fifty-two billion FSD. The income from this, after adjusting for inflation and the limited tax we pay, is about two billion FSD per year. This pays for the force but for almost nothing else. It absolutely will not pay for maintaining a full legion of over thirteen thousand men deployed and at war without invading the corpus. In the long run, that is death."
Carrera thought, In the long run, we're all dead anyway.
"There is," Esterhazy continued, "a way to substantially increase the amount I have to work with, if you are willing."
Carrera's eyes narrowed. Whenever Esterhazy used the phrase "substantially increase" it always meant "risk." Carrera was not particularly risk averse, in most respects. Risking money, however? That went against his family's grain. Besides, he understood the kind of risks he took willingly. Those were military risks. He didn't, quite despite upbringing, really understand finances.
"Go on," he said, warily.
"Well . . . you need to start making your own money," Esterhazy announced. He hastily added, "Not money for street commerce. I mean—and I've thought on this a lot, Patricio—that you can increase your assets by converting some of it to precious metals and then offering precious metal certificates, PMCs, for X quantity of gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium to people—rich people—who feel the need to have escape money or even just a hedge against inflation or economic collapse. There are a lot of people like that in the world, you know. There are, for example, something on the order of half a trillion FSD"—Federated States Drachma—"out of circulation around the globe, many—perhaps most—of them held for just those reasons. All the inflation on that money represents profit, risk-free profit, for the Federated States."
"So where would our profit come in?" Carrera asked.
"In two ways," Esterhazy answered. "As it is very unlikely that everyone in the world is likely to ask for their precious metals all at the same time, we can sell a lot more of the certificates than we actually have precious metals on hand. Equally important, I can play the market, buying up certificates and metal when the value of, say, gold is down and selling them when it's high. This is all really just playing the market, but with the added features of leveraging a smaller amount of metal and ourselves becoming something like inside traders. I am good at what I do, Patricio. I will make you money."
"And how much of our fifty-two billion would you like to put into this?"
"Ideally all . . . " Esterhazy was stopped by Carrera's vigorously shaken head. " . . . but I know you won't go for that. How about twenty percent then?"
"How about five percent and we'll see how it works?" Carrera countered.
Esterhazy sighed. "With a mere two and a half billion, Patricio, I can't exercise the kind of leverage that would really generate a profit. How about that amount over and above what I need to generate sufficient operating expenses for the full force . . . say . . . . five billion?"
Carrera considered quietly for a few moments. "I could accept that amount . . . maybe. But see, Matthias; I am not really worried about our being unemployed for very long."
"But I just told you . . . "
"Never mind that," Carrera interrupted, reaching for the map he had earlier pushed aside. "The FSC's War Department may not want to renew our contract for Sumer. I can hardly blame them. But there's still a piracy problem at the edges of the Islamic and Salafi world and the old Venganza"—a Great Global War era aircraft carrier the Legion had purchased for a song—"is about to be recommissioned . . . though we still haven't got a name for the ship. I think they, or somebody, may hire us for that. Moreover, they're going to need a good infantry division for Pashtia here," his finger indicated the map, "before too very long. More specifically, the FSC is going to need a good infantry division capable of operating with very constrained logistics. We're the only ones who fit that bill, the only ones on the planet."
Esterhazy contemplated that. He had good reason to trust Carrera's military judgment. He had no reason to trust his financial instincts, however.
"Patricio, if you are that certain of a renewed contract, why not take the greater chance on the PMCs?"
Carrera's eyes narrowed as he glared at Esterhazy. "Sneaky fucking Magyar."
"With Magyars for friends you don't need enemies," Esterhazy quoted. "Still, I am your friend and this would be a tremendous opportunity."
"You want to put ten billion FSD into metals? Ten billion?"
"Patricio, I can use that much and triple it."
Carrera sighed, deeply. Yes, he was that sure of a new contract for Pashtia. He just couldn't be quite sure of exactly when.
"Two and a half billion now," he offered. "I'll double that in six months if it's working out. When I get a contract for Pashtia I'll go for the rest. Fair enough?"
Esterhazy nodded, shallowly. If it wasn't quite fair or quite smart, he could still work with it.
"Good. Do it. By the way, when's your flight back to the FS?"
"Tomorrow morning. Airship from Herrera Airport direct to First Landing."
"Excellent. Dinner with my family, then, tonight. Say . . . nineteen hundred."
"I'd be honored, Patricio," Esterhazy answered. "By the way, who did you leave minding the shop back in Sumer?"
"Sada."
"You trusted an Arab to be in charge?"
"Matthias, everybody trusts Sada," Carrera answered warmly. "He's as reliable as the moons and as strong as the sun. Has he got his own agenda? Sure; he wants to run the country. And, to the extent I can, I intend to help him do just that. If everyone over there were like him—"
Esterhazy didn't know Sada very well. They'd only met a few times, those rare occasions when Carrera sent Sam Cheatham on leave and let the Sachsen-Magyar come out and fill the duties of legionary chief engineer. He did, however, know Carrera very well.
You need Sada, Esterhazy thought, don't you? Not just because he's a fine soldier and a better politician than you. You need him because he's your proof to yourself that you haven't gone all the way over the edge, that you're not a genocidal maniac, that you can humanly and humanely distinguish between enemies and those who just share some form of a religion.
"Speaking of being over there," Esterhazy said, "what do I have to do to get the fuck out of First Landing and do another tour?"
Carrera thought on that. At length, he answered, "I don't think you do, not in Sumer anyway. I do have some things I need a competent engineer to look at for me in Pashtia, though."
With the relative positions they were in, Terra Nova's three moons cast shadowless light. Cautiously, not least because of the lack of shadow, Noorzad the one-eyed crept forward. Another man might have been nervous. Another man's heart might have pounded. Noorzad was ice.
He was followed by seventy-seven of his men, most of them, unlike their chief, at least apprehensive. This was only a large fraction of the force Noorzad commanded. The rest of his company had stayed behind, guarding the pass through which the group would escape after completing their mission. That pass led to theoretically enemy—but, at least along the tribal lands by the border, in fact, allied—Kashmir, a state caught up in internal conflict between Salafism, more moderate versions of Islam, secular democracy and secular fascism.
In some ways, and while it certainly irked Noorzad and his followers to have only half-hearted support from Kashmir, and even that only from certain elements acting unofficially, overall the arrangement had this much going for it: the boundlessly evil infidel, the despised Federated States of Columbia and their Tauran lackeys and Balboan mercenaries, were content with Kashmir's shadowy status and never crossed over the border openly in order to avoid embarrassing their "allies."
The infiltrating guerillas of the Salafi Ikhwan—based, trained and supplied from the Kashmiri side of the border—felt no such restraint.
"Restraint," Noorzad muttered, as softly as a butterfly landing on silk. "We'll show them some restraint."
A regular army unit would probably not have had its leader on point. Sometimes, too, Noorzad felt comfortable ordering one of his platoons to lead out. In action, though, a leader of the Pashtun in war had little choice but to go first, and to leave last. There was no other way to gain and keep the respect of the men who followed him. They were, after all, Pashtun, the freest men on this world. Even the Arabs in the company, volunteers from far-off lands, were no different in that. They followed where they would, and no one could make them do otherwise.
There were a lot more Arabs, Noorzad knew, ever since the war to free their lands had gone so badly against the faithful in Sumer. Their fighters killed, their support chains betrayed; the Arabs no longer even had a decent way into Sumer, let alone a way to prosper and succeed there. So instead they came—eyes all aglow with the hope and expectation of martyrdom—to where there was still a chance, to where their brethren still fought with some success. They came to Kashmir and then to Pashtia, or sometimes to Pashtia directly.
There was a glow ahead, as if from a small fire. Noorzad stiffened, his eyes searching and his keen nose sniffing for signs of the enemy. Satisfied that the enemy were neither dangerously close nor expecting him, he continued forward to a low, rock-strewn ridge between the source of the glow and the column he led. The guerilla leader stooped lower as he closed on the ridge. A few meters from it he got to his belly and crawled forward, still as soft and silent as a kitten's breath.
It had been a fire, wonder of wonders. In similar circumstances Noorzad's men would have gone cold, eaten cold food, rather than reveal their positions like that. The Tauran troops—he could see they had Tauran vehicles in the glow from the fire—had been spoiled, it seemed, by no contact this far into Pashtia in years.
That was about to change.
Carefully, Noorzad counted his enemies. Six vehicles, all soft skinned. Thirty-eight men, near enough . . . soft hearted and weak as are all the Tauran infidels. Fools do not even keep their weapons to hand. Am I some soft woman that they should not fear me? As carefully as he had counted the enemy, he marked firing and assault positions in his mind.
Still careful, still as quiet as a cat, the guerrilla leader backed off from the ridge and, in hushed tones, issued last minute instructions to his chief subordinates.
Noorzad pointed with a finger at a tall, aesthetic-looking fighter. "Suleiman, take your RGLs"—rocket grenade launchers—"that way. There's a rock outcropping and some low bushes. They're progressivines, I think." The progressivines were one of those few species, like the tranzitree, the bolshiberry, and the septic-mouthed antania, or moonbat, that the Noahs, the unknown others who had seeded Terra Nova with life from Old Earth, had set down, possibly to interfere with the development of intelligent life on the new world.
"You can engage the whole encampment from there," Noorzad continued. "Remember, concentrate on the vehicle with the most antennae first. We don't want them calling for artillery or air support. Your signal to open fire will be when I fire. The signal that the assault is beginning is 'Allahu Akbar.'"
Suleiman nodded—he rarely spoke much—and turned to collect his seventeen men and eight RGLs. These were every one that the company owned. Noorzad waited until that part of his column was underway before laying a hand on the shoulder of his next subordinate, Malakzay. To this one, in charge of all three of the company's machine guns, he gave similar instructions, differing only in that the low ridge Noorzad had just vacated was to be their firing position.
As Malakzay and his gunners and their assistants began to creep forward as quietly as their chief had crept back, Noorzad went and picked up the remainder of his organization, the forty-four rifleman that we would lead personally. He led them back, then down into a draw that led almost to the enemy encampment. From there the men crept forward in single file, behind their leader. No sentry barred the way.
Stinking amateurs, Noorzad cursed. Hardly worth the bother of killing.
At what he judged was a distance of about one hundred and twenty meters from the edge of the encampment, Noorzad halted. There was a substantial boulder, half the height of a man, perched precariously on the lip of the draw. It was this, as much as the nearness of the enemy, which caused the guerilla to stop. From there he sent half his men left, the other half right. They, like their leader, crept on cat feet.
Noorzad himself stayed in the draw until the last of the men had gone out to form the assault line and the word, "Ready," had come whispered back. Then he, too, silently scrambled up and posted himself, crouched low, behind the boulder.
Risking a peek out, Noorzad saw that his enemy had heard and seen nothing. Just pitiful, he subvocalized. Tsk. He gave a last look left and right, just to confirm that his men really were ready. Then he drew his own rifle to his shoulder, drew a bead on a silhouette outlined by the fire and began to squeeze the trigger.
The shot came as a surprise, as most good shots do. Noorzad's surprise was as nothing though, compared to the surprise of the Taurans when eight rockets streaked from the darkness and caused three of their wheeled vehicles, including the command vehicle, to explode in flame. To this surprise was added the shock of several score, then several hundred, tracers ranging through their camp as the guerilla machine guns joined in within half a second after the first rocket.
Watching from his boulder, Noorzad saw the enemy knocked on their asses by exploding RGL rounds and sliced down by the searching machine guns. One target, in particular, drew a smile from the way it danced as two guns chopped at it from slightly different directions.
Satisfied after a minute's steady firing, and by the lack of any return fire, Noorzad stood and in a voice that carried even over machine guns and rocket launchers shouted "Allahu Akbar! Kill the infidels!"
On command his men stood up and began running forward, firing from the hip as their fathers and uncles had learned to do during the Volgan invasion and occupation of their land almost a generation before. Still there was no return fire. Indeed, as Noorzad drew closer he heard the wailing of women, infidel women he was certain, coming from the enemy camp.
His men must have heard it, too, as they slowed their fire and picked up the pace.
The camp's denizens were not soldiers. Rather, they appeared to be civilians, about two thirds men and the remainder women. Nor were they all dead. Many screamed and moaned. A few seemed to be begging for help. The pleas cut off one by one as Noorzad's followers killed the men. They seemed less eager to kill the women, though some of those were shot as well.
Malakzay arrived at the burning encampment leading his band of gunners. "What do we do with them?" he asked. "What were they?"
"Non-Governmental Organization types, I think," answered Noorzad. "Hand wringers and bleeding hearts. Kill the men; they're just infidel dogs. As to what we do with the women?" He smiled. "Fuck 'em. Then kill the ones who look like they won't make the march back. The rest we can sell back in Kashmir. Might raise enough to get a few more heavy weapons."
"But first we can fuck them?" Malakzay asked again, the eagerness in his voice palpable.
In answer, Noorzad raised his voice to carry to all his band. "As the Prophet commanded, 'Go and take a slave girl.' These women are your fields; plow them as you will."
At first, and for some years, the Legion had raised its own beef on the island. Little by little, though, the cattle fields had given way to casernes and training areas. They still kept cattle, but only in small numbers and only for dairy. Carrera watched the dairy cows at work through the glass door that led from his office to a railed, tiled and partially shedded roof. The orientation of the roof was at ninety degrees from the window facing the solar chimney. Much like watching tropical fish in a tank, the cattle gave a sense of calm. This was important to a man with great responsibilities who also happened to be in a very bad mood.
There was a tapping on the glass below. Carrera looked down and saw Jinfeng, his late wife's pet trixie tapping impatiently. He'd brought the bird out some years prior, leaving her in his current wife's, Lourdes', care. Trixies were smart though, as smart as a gray parrot, and Jinfeng had quickly learned the way to his office. She showed up most mornings that he was actually on the island, rather than in Sumer, looking for a handout, or just to be skritched atop her head.
Carrera and the bird had never been more than tolerably friendly before Linda's death. Afterwards, when the bird had no one else, she'd warmed considerably. As soon as Carrera opened the door, she gave a loud screech and stepped into the office, boney tail scraping the stone floor and claws from her partially reversed big toes click-clacking as she walked.
Carrera bent to pat the proto-bird, raising a more contented call. He then walked to the intercom on his desk. "Do we have any—"
"I'll bring it right in, sir," his aide answered. Jinfeng and her appetite had become well known at the headquarters.
Terra Novan ecology was a very mixed up thing, courtesy of the Noahs—aliens about whom nothing was known and whose very existence was only inferred, albeit very strongly inferred. After all, someone, something had to have brought to the planet the life forms from Old Earth, sometime in the impenetrable mists of prehistory. Jinfeng and her increasingly rare kind were but one example of what the aliens had brought. Besides the trixies, archaeopteryxes, in the air, there were carcharodon megalodons at sea, the great carnivorous birds, phorohacos, on land, and thousands upon thousands of other terrestrial species, most long extinct on the home world.
There had once been more species but, man being man, many of those which had been saved by the Noahs and gone extinct on Old Earth tended to be driven to extinction on the new once man put down roots.
Besides those living relics of Old Earth, other species, plant and animal, were either native to Terra Nova, or had been transplanted from some other world or worlds by the Noahs, or were even the product of genetic manipulation. Some of these appeared to have been created expressly to prevent the rise of intelligent life on Terra Nova. The septic mouthed, winged reptiles called "antaniae," or moonbats, were one example. More sinister still was the fruit of the tranzitree. Very sweet, tranzitree fruit contained a toxin that was deadly to beings with highly developed brains. Moreover, the toxin built up in the flesh of food animals. Eat a steak from a cow that had been eating of the tranzitree fruit, or its kin the bolshiberry and progressivine; die in shrieking agony, brain inflamed and swelling until it seemed it would burst from your skull.
These were clever traps and might have been sufficient, on their own, to prevent the rise of intelligent life on Terra Nova. They had proved generally ineffective against colonization by intelligent life, however.
The archaeopteryx ate greedily, beak scraping on a metal tray on the floor. Carrera continued to pat it while looking out the glass door. Off in the distance, he saw a mid-sized airship winding gracefully through the air on its way from somewhere in Colombia del Norte down to Southern Columbia. An airship had been the instrument of the murder of his Linda and their children, so he always looked at the things with feelings, at best, mixed.
Every feeling I have, he thought, with a sigh, is mixed these last seven years.
He stood, leaving the trixie to eat, and walked the few steps to the window that overlooked the solar chimney. Am I doing right, he wondered, trying to bring Balboa into the fifth century. After all, the Oil Yithrabis have been spending money right and left to try to do the same there, while keeping the culture of thirteenth century Old Earth. Hasn't worked for them for beans.
The difference, he thought, between Balboa and, say, Sumer or Pashtia . . . or even Yithrab, isn't one merely of religion, but also one of degree. The Arabs and Pashtun put family above all except religion . . . so do the Balboans, and only to a somewhat lesser degree. Breaking them of that . . . well . . . difficult. I have not succeeded yet, and I may never entirely succeed. Even in the Legion . . .
Even in the Legion there were connections that mattered. He'd combated that, or tried to, in a number of ways. It was perhaps the only armed force on the planet that insisted on a complete family tree for four generations back before enlistment, and that only to organize cousins out of the same units to prevent them from taking care of each other to the detriment of the organization as a whole. He'd had leaders turned out and even shot for preferring cousins and brothers over better, but unrelated, men. Even then, it still popped up, this preference for family, or amoral familism. And even the appearance of it was dangerous.
More dangerous is that even I am infected with it, he thought. My only saving grace is that the number of people whom I will favor for familial relation is very small: Lourdes, and the children. Of course, I was infected with it as a boy, when my parents and their friends tried to turn me into a cosmopolitan, too.
Which helped explain his bad mood and his need for the cows to calm him. Lourdes, his second wife and arguably the reason he retained as much sanity as he had, had spoken to him the night prior to try to get him to help a member of her extended family. Her cousin, Marqueli—Carrera had met the girl once, beautiful little thing—was married to one of his soldiers. That soldier was on the medically retired list which, in the Legion, only meant that he was given some other duty out of his normal regiment. In Marqueli Mendoza's husband's case, those duties for the last several years had been going to school, at Legion expense, at the university to earn his baccalaureate.
Jorge Mendoza, former tanker in what was then the Mechanized Cohort, Carlos Martillo, was blind and missing both legs, the result of enemy action in the Sumeri city of Ninewa, early in the war.
The boy—well, he was only twenty-two or three—wanted to continue his studies. His wife, Marqueli, had spoken to Lourdes, apparently, and Lourdes to Carrera, about giving Jorge Mendoza some special help with that.
He wanted to help the boy, of course, anything to help one of his legionaries and especially one who had given up so much in the cause. But he hadn't a clue how to do that, consistent with his principles, and the Mendoza's were due at his office any minute.
Actually, though Carrera didn't know it, the couple was already there, sitting nervously in the anteroom while Carrera's aide de camp, or AdC, waited for the time to tick away until their last minute appointment was due. They were both very nervous.
Jorge Mendoza showed it. Marqueli didn't, even though she was more nervous for her husband's sake than he was for his own.
"It's a good idea you have, Jorge," she insisted, placing a warm and comforting hand on his arm. "Duque Carrera will see that; I'm sure of it. My cousin was sure of it, as well. She agrees it's a wonderful idea and that her husband will support it."
"Maybe," Mendoza admitted just as the AdC looked up and said, "Time, Candidate."
Into the speaker box on his desk he announced, "Duque, Warrant Officer Candidate and Mrs. Mendoza are here to see you."
Barring exceptional circumstances, Carrera would have had tossed from his office anyone who brought his wife along. Mendoza, legless and sightless, was such an exceptional circumstance.
Can't criticize a man who suffered as much as he has in my service just for bringing along some help. Besides, she's awfully easy on the eyes.
The door opened, allowing the Mendoza's to enter. Yes, she's just as pretty as I remembered. Poor Mendoza, that he can't see that. Then again, he's a fine-looking boy, too. I can see why the girl was drawn to him.
Instead of meeting them at his desk, Carrera stood and indicated a couch for the couple, then took for himself a well-stuffed chair opposite. Mendoza's artificial legs whined slightly as they bent to allow him to sit.
"You want to continue your studies, I am informed," Carrera began.
"Yes, sir," Mendoza answered, turning his head to face Carrera. His eyes remained unfocused. "I had thought to take up teaching at one of the military schools when I finished. But it hit me when I was reading a book that there was something more, something better, I could do. Actually, Marqueli was reading the book to me," he amended.
Note to self: Library, Braille, pass on to Professor Ruiz to investigate the possibilities, Carrera thought. Even if not worth it to us, maybe it will be good public relations for the Legion.
"Something better?" Carrera asked.
Marqueli pulled a paperback from her purse. Carrera saw that it was one he had had printed by the publishing house he'd had set up under Professor Ruiz's propaganda department. He saw, too, the title: Tropas del Espacio and the letters, "RAH."
"How'd you like the translation?" he asked Marqueli.
"It was so-so, I think," she answered. No one but Carrera and Ruiz knew that Carrera had personally translated the first third or so of the book.
Both deflated and wryly amused, Carrera sighed. Oh, well, can't win 'em all.
"But the original thoughts," Marqueli continued, "well . . . tell the Duque, Jorge."
"History and Moral Philosophy, Duque. There is a need for such a book, a need all over this planet. Balboa needs it as much as anyone."
Ohhhh, so that's his idea. Not bad. Can I tell myself with a straight face that I am doing this, if I do, for one of my soldiers and not for a man married to my wife's cousin? For my adoptive country and not for a relative? For the world and not for nepotism? That would help.
"And you want to write this book, Candidate Mendoza?"
"I do . . . but it will take time. That, and more education than a baccalaureate."
"In English," Carrera said, "PhD stands for 'piled higher and deeper.' Still, I see your point."
Carrera then went silent for a while, unconsciously leaving the Mendozas to squirm. If I do support this will I be breaking my own principles? No, I am doing it for one of my troops which is absolutely consistent with my principles. But . . . even worse, maybe I'll look like I'm breaking my own principles. But what if . . .
He smiled broadly. It's such a joy when the answer just jumps out at you. "Candidate Mendoza . . . Mrs. Mendoza. I think your idea is a fine one, especially if you broaden it to the question of which one should place first, family or nation or civilization or religion." It's a question to which I need an answer myself. "There is a new program for the Legion." Damned straight it's new since I just thought of it. "It's so new we haven't even had a chance to advertise it yet. Actually, we haven't even yet worked out the application procedures. But we are going to offer, annually, a half a dozen scholarships for higher education to deserving veterans of the Legion. There will be a battle- or service-connected disability preference."
Am I quick on my feet or what?
"You'll have to apply and be interviewed by either myself or Duque Parilla and a board we will designate. At that board you will have to make a presentation of your intended project. The first board will meet in about six months. I suggest you have your presentation ready by then," he finished, standing to indicate the interview was over.
Marqueli, too, stood, followed by Jorge once he felt her lift from the couch.
"Thank you, sir," Mendoza said. Until Marqueli nudged his right arm he was uncertain as to whether to offer his hand to a superior and could not see that Carrera had thrust his own out. At the nudge he did offer his hand, which Carrera took and shook warmly enough.
The tiny Marqueli waited until the handshake was done, then launched herself at Carrera, wrapping her arms around his torso and pressing her lovely head to his chest.
"Thank you, Duque," she said, tears of gratitude shining in her eyes for the favor she was certain had just been done her husband. "Thank you."
The farmer plowing his field waved at the passing column of legionary infantry. Newly promoted centurion, junior grade, Ricardo Cruz, taking up the rear, waved back. Curiously, the farmer kept waving, even after Cruz had returned it. Cruz's eyes narrowed and he looked more carefully at the farmer. Yes, the man's wave was definitely exaggerated.
"Thank you muchly, Mister Farmer," he muttered.
"Platoon leader," he said into the earpiece-cum-microphone he wore. It was a minor modification to a civilian system, a short-range wireless that ran through a longer ranged one. The Legion had adopted the communication system, or Comsys, it because it was cheap, effective, and available almost immediately.
Almost immediately a voice answered, "Centurion Arredondo. What is it, Cruz?"
"That farmer we just passed. I think he's trying to give us a warning, boss."
"Maybe," Arredondo answered. It was even likely. As time had passed and the insurgency weakened, more and more civilians had proved willing to help both the Legion and the Sumeri National Forces to flush out more of the enemy. As more of the enemy had been flushed out, more civilians had become willing to help. The guerillas were really on the ropes over most of the country. Worse, they knew it and so did the civilians among whom they tried to operate.
It could easily have gone the other way, had certain things not come to pass some years before.
"Did he give you any specific indicators?" Arredondo asked, then continued, " . . . Ah . . . never mind. The pooch's already alerted. They're in the wheat growing to our left front."
Cruz couldn't see the attached scout dog from his position in the back of the platoon, but did see the men sinking to their bellies along the dirt road that led between the irrigated fields. He joined them.
"Artillery?" he asked Arredondo over the Comsys.
"No . . . no. I don't want to fuck up the farmer's crop; be a damned poor way to repay him for trying to help. What's available for air?"
Air support was well out of the range of the Comsys, which were, by design, limited to no more than a mile in range. Cruz turned to the chief of the forward observer team, bellying down beside him.
"What can we get from the air?" Cruz asked.
The corporal made an inquiry over his longer ranged radio. A few minutes later he answered, "We can have a brace of Turbo-Finch Avengers"—crop dusters reconfigured for the close air support role—"in about twenty minutes, or there's an armed Cricket recon bird we can have in five. The Avengers are carrying some flechette rockets and a gun pod each. Mostly they're carrying bombs though."
"Can we have both?" Cruz asked. After all, we don't necessarily have to use the bombs.
"Don't see why not."
"Get 'em both. We'll let the Cricket flush them and use the Avengers to help us pursue. Rockets and machine guns only though." He passed the same on to Arredondo via the Comsys.
"That's fine, Cruz," Arredondo answered. Cruz then heard him say, "O Group," or orders group. All four squad leaders immediately answered with their ordinal numbers, "First . . . Second . . . Third . . . Fourth." Fourth was also known as the weapons squad.
Cruz himself announced only his name, and that only to let the squad leaders know he was there and listening.
"Here's the deal," Arrodendo announced. "I think we've got a group of guerillas up ahead in the wheat to the left. They probably know they've been spotted by the fact we took cover. That's ok. We're going to kill them anyway."
"We've got air inbound in five . . . no, about four now . . . minutes. Once that's overhead, we're going to start moving forward by bounds, by squad. Second Squad will bound first. Once we take fire we'll return it and develop the situation a bit. I want to flush them into the open where the air can kill them. Questions?"
"First, negative . . . Second, no questions, Centurion . . . Third, roger, out . . . Weapons, no sweat."
"Centurion, this is Cruz. The machine guns can range the wood from the road and can see it, too."
After a short pause to think, Arredondo said, "Right . . . keep weapons by the road, Cruz. You stay with them to control the air. Now, good hunting, gentlemen. The war's been dull of late. This should give the boys a little much-needed excitement."
The Cricket was heavily muffled. Cruz didn't see or hear it until the pilot came up on the radio to announce he'd arrived.
"Keep out of light missile range," Cruz cautioned. "We're going to try to flush them out of cover."
"Wilco," answered the pilot. "Hey, Cruz, that you?"
"Montoya?" Cruz asked in return.
"'Oh, Cazador Buddy,'" Montoya answered.
"I didn't know you were going to flight school."
Montoya sighed over the radio. "I didn't do well enough in school"—he meant Cazador School, a miserable exercise in starvation, sleep deprivation, danger and sheer hard work; it was also the Legion's sine qua non for leader selection—"for them to actually trust me as an officer or centurion. So I hung around the Cazador Tercio until someone came to talk to me about becoming a pilot. So it's Flight Warrant Officer Montoya now."
"Good job," Cruz answered, and meant it. Unlike most armed forces the air component of the Legion was a part and parcel of the whole; treated like crap the same as everyone else, rather than as spoiled children with too many privileges. There was, therefore, quite a bit more affection between ground and air than was true of most armed forces. The air loved the ground because they were the honorable edge of battle. The ground loved the air because there was none of this "our pilots are too precious to risk" and "but we need our crew rest" nonsense and because they'd always be there when needed, even at the cost of pilots' lives.
"Yeah," Montoya agreed. "Besides, I'm a better pilot than I was a grunt. I'll be standing by and watching," he concluded.
The enemy opened fire first, at a range somewhat long for the rifles and light machine guns they carried. From the road, about twelve hundred meters away from the wood, the legionaries had no trouble returning fire with their excellent .34 caliber machine guns. Three medium guns, belting out three to four hundred rounds per minute, sustained, between them, and coupled with return fire from the infantry squads closer in, were more than the insurgents really felt up to dealing with. They began to run.
"Cruz, Montoya; I see them and I'm on it."
"Get some, Montoya."
For the first time that day Cruz heard the thrummm of the Cricket's engine as Montoya gunned it to close to range. Then, mere moments later, he heard the steady sound of cloth ripping as the dual machine gun mounted to side-fire from the Cricket opened up. He couldn't see if they hit anything, as the enemy was running away. He could see the rest of the platoon rise to their feet and begin to run forward, firing from the hip, urged on by Arredondo's wide-carrying shout.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Cruz ordered the weapons squad and then began to trot low from gun to gun, making sure the crews had heard.
Idly, Cruz wondered if there would be prisoners. Hopefully so; this is enough excitement for the day.
Then the brace of Turbo-Finch Avengers swooped in like eager hound dogs. "Where you want it?" they panted. Their lives had been a bit short of excitement over the last year, too, and it showed.
"Save it," Cruz answered, "but thanks for stopping by. This party's about over."
"Fuck!"
Over the radio Cruz heard Montoya laugh. "What? You guys think me and my Cazador Compadre are going to leave anything for the likes of you."
"Tell 'em, Montoya," Cruz added, with a snicker.
"Hey, Cruz, I got a postcard from Khalid in Taurus a few months back. Nothing too personal but he says he's doing well."
"Good old Khalid," said Cruz.
The small brass placard above the mailbox said, "Mahrous ibn Mohamed ibn Salah, min Sa'ana." That name and address matched his briefing packet was no particular surprise to Khalid. This was his fifth hit in two years and, so far, there had never been a mistake in identity. What he would do if he ever was called upon to make a hit that turned out to be a mistake, Khalid didn't know. At this point, he suspected, he'd probably yawn, then go to a café and read the paper. He'd grown a steel shell, had Khalid, these last five years.
Unlike the previous four, this target was "hardened." This is to say that his house was detached, with broad lawns around it and a wall around them, that his sedan—sedans, rather; Mahrous kept four Phaetons—was armored. He had bodyguards, mostly veterans of the Royal Anglian Army's Special Operations Directorate, or SOD. He was believed to wear body armor of the very highest caliber, religiously. Moreover, Mahrous rarely traveled the same way from his home twice in a week.
If the swine wasn't so paranoid, thought Khalid, I'd have offed his ass months ago.
For those months Khalid had considered and discarded one option after another. Shoot him from a distance? No way; nothing elevated hereabouts and no really good firing positions. Besides, I'm a good long range shot, but not a great one. We Arabs rarely are; I don't know why. Shoot him close up? I'd never get through the bodyguards who are, let's admit it, first rate men. Bomb the house? No way to get close enough with enough material. Bomb the office? Similar problem. Bomb the Phaetons? Which one. How do I get to it? No way.
He'd even considered leaving a small bomb with a chemical agent in it but . . . It wouldn't surprise me a bit if those SOD types carry atropine and nerve agent antidote.
In the end, Khalid had gone for something simple. There was a sewer that ran the length of the street Mahrous lived on. That sewer had one manhole cover not far from the driveway to Mahrous' residence. Khalid had simply made a radio control detonator from parts obtained at a local hobby store, then manufactured—as he had been trained to do in Volga—about fifteen pounds of PETN, pentaerythritol tetranitrate, in his apartment in the city. "Factor P for plenty," the Volgan instructor had said. Fifteen pounds of PETN was more than plenty. An electric blasting cap he lifted from a poorly-guarded construction site.
A visit to the local courthouse had given Khalid the map for the sewer system. A couple of visits to three different uniform shops had given him a fair simulacrum of a sewer worker's uniform and accoutrements. A used automobile dealer provided the van and a paint shop changed the van's color to green to match those used by the public works authority. A few telephonic complaints to the PWA had given him, after a bit of figuring, a schedule and therefore a time frame in which there would be no sewer workers down below.
Making a package of the PETN, descending into the sewers—Blech, that stank!—and finding the right manhole cover had been easy.
And so, now, Khalid waited and watched the road and the manhole from a café not far from the manhole cover. He'd been waiting for four days. If Mahrous didn't soon use the road that led by the bomb, Khalid would have to think of something else. You just couldn't leave a bomb lying around indefinitely. And if it was found, if Mahrous or his bodyguards got wind of it, their paranoia level would go, oh, way up.
"Which would be saying something," Khalid muttered, as he sipped his coffee.
As Khalid put down the cup, he spied a long, black Phaeton easing out of the barred and guarded gate that fronted the driveway from Mahrous' house. He didn't tense; he seen the same thing three times already, since planting his bomb, and three times the Phaeton had gone in a different direction.
Ah, but Allah smiles upon those who wait, Khalid thought, with a smile of his own. Now let's see if the wretch doesn't turn off before he reaches the manhole. And . . . . .bingo. They might stop outright, but there are no good turns before the bomb.
Judging the speed of the Phaeton, Khalid carefully timed his reach into the side pocket of the jacket he wore. His hand curled around a small transmitter, his finger caressing the detonator button. At precisely the right moment, he pushed that button and smiled.
The explosion went off directly under Mahrous' ample posterior. Besides cracking the street around the manhole cover, sending chunks of asphalt, concrete and rebar flying, it lifted the cover strait up at an amazing rate of speed. The cover cut right through the Phaeton's transmission and then cover and transmission together mashed Mahrous' anus into his brain, forcing the resulting mix right through and out of the Phaeton's armored roof.
The blast was also sufficient to kill the ex-SOD driver and guard, both seated in front, as well as Mahrous' eldest son, sitting beside him.
Knocked over by the blast, as was nearly everyone else within two hundred feet, Khalid stood up, forcing an artificial expression of shocked disbelief onto his face. Like other people, he ran forward to try to help the injured. Khalid, however, merely wanted to confirm results.
He saw that all four tires had been blasted off the torn and twisted wreckage of the Phaeton, and that it was burning merrily. Since there were no screams coming from inside, despite the fire, he was reasonably confident that his hit had been a success. Once a sufficient crowd had gathered to cover his withdrawal, Khalid simply melted through it and was away.
I love my job, he thought. Where else could I get both revenge and excitement in these quantities and to these qualities.
Fuck, this sort of "excitement" I can live without, mused Virgil Rivers, waiting impatiently, and even nervously, at the office of the secretary of war for the Federated States. River, a tall, slender, café-au-lait colored general officer could not be said to be handsome. He had, however, a friendly manner and infectious grin that most women found very attractive. He'd married well as a result of it.
Ron Campos was gone as SecWar, gone with the outgoing Federalist administration. Truth be told, nobody much missed him. That is, nobody missed him yet. Virgil Rivers suspected a lot of people were going to miss him, to miss him badly and soon. The new SecWar, James K. Malcolm, Progressive, was Campos' match in arrogance, in Rivers' opinion, but lacked both the former SecWar's patriotism and his determination. Indeed, it was widely believed that, given a choice between advancing the interests of the Federated States, or looking out for the interests of his childhood summer home, the Gallic Republic, Malcolm would always choose Gaul. Nonetheless, Malcolm was one of a very few Progressives with any military background at all. Thus, he had been a seeming natural for secretary of war in the new administration.
He's a natural buffoon, Rivers thought, a natural gigolo, a natural panderer and an unnatural citizen. On the other hand, his goddamned tan is just a little too orange to be natural. Well, what can one expect from a natural fake.
Rivers' collar sported the two stars of a major general now. He'd always known he'd rise at least this high, even as a little boy. Thank you, Daddy, for training me as well as you did. The only question was would he rise any higher. He considered it no better than even money that he would. Rather, he had considered it no better than even money. With Malcolm as SecWar, he would now have given long odds against.
Still, I've had a good run, a damned good run for someone who's great-grandpappy retired as a master sergeant in the horse cavalry.
Rivers ported a laptop under his left arm. It contained the SecWar's daily briefing on the ongoing war. Briefing the secretary was so unpleasant, however, that it had quickly become a rotating duty. Today was River's day and he was not looking forward to it. He'd already been kept standing in front of the secretary's desk, rudely ignored, for almost ten minutes while Malcolm pretended to be busy with a file. It was another five minutes before the secretary closed the file and looked up. He didn't bother to rise or offer to shake hands.
Just as well; I'm pissed enough right now that if he did I'd probably do or say something that would move my chances of another star from dismal to none.
"Have a seat, Rivers," Malcolm ordered.
Rivers sat next to the desk, opened the laptop and faced it toward the secretary. The outside of the computer's top had a smaller screen that showed the same images as the main one. Rivers controlled the images with a small device he retrieved from his shirt pocket. He pressed a button on the device. A color map of the Republic of Sumer, highly annotated, appeared on both screens.
Malcolm looked the map over briefly. There wasn't much to see; the war in Sumer had been steadily winding down for two years. While the first three and a half years had cost the Federated States an average of just under one hundred men a month, killed, this had dropped down into the low double and occasionally single digits.
Rivers had been told not to offer commentary; that the secretary, being a lawyer, liked to direct the briefings like cross examinations in court.
"I see the Balboan sector has almost no incidents, General. To what do you attribute that?"
"They started off well and were able to enlist a great deal of Sumeri help early on," Rivers answered. He did not add, though he considered adding, and they're so ruthless almost nobody in their sector is willing to cross them.
"And we're paying for that?"
"Yes, Mr. Secretary. Under your predecessor we had an arrangement whereby the Balboans fielded, or sponsored the fielding of, combat capable forces, for a price that was originally about fifty-five percent of what the same force would have cost us. In addition, we had to provide medical care equivalent to what we give our own, but in Balboa. The price has slowly crept up as the cost of living rose in Balboa in response to all the money they earned from us. Right now it's about two thirds of our equivalent cost. That's still a bargain, since the blood is theirs, not ours."
Malcolm frowned. He'd known about the Balboans and had mostly negative feelings. Many of these feelings stemmed from rumors. He'd heard the Balboans used torture with gleeful abandon, though no one had ever provided proof. It was said they were conducting an international campaign of terror and assassination against both the common enemy, the Salafi Ikhwan, and any critics of their Legion; though, here too, they covered their tracks well. In a sense, it didn't even matter if the charges were true; the international and progressivist press believed they were true and acted accordingly. There was very little criticism of the Balboan force in the newspapers or on television.
He knew they'd put to death a number of international journalists for spying, war crimes and generally aiding the enemy; they made no secret of any of that. Neither did they make any secret of their penchant for enforcing the laws of war in the most forthright and barbaric fashions. Indeed, they made it a point to broadcast those reprisals.
They did not broadcast reprisals taken against family members though that, too, happened. So it was said and widely believed, in any case.
"How large a force do they have?" Malcolm asked. "How much does it cost us? How big a force could they field?"
This information Rivers had at his fingertips. He'd been, in a partial and roundabout way, instrumental in the Federated States' hiring his old friend Patrick Hennessey, now going by the name Carrera, and the force he had raised. He'd kept up on developments. After all, Hennessey had always been entertaining.
"In theory, Mr. Secretary, they have four divisions. They call them 'legions,' which is a little confusing as the overall organization is called "the Legion." Then again, we call the Army 'the Army' even though we have eight 'armies' under it.
"Of those four, one is forward deployed in Sumer. That's the only one that, officially, we pay for. The other three are back in Balboa in varying states of training and manning. The forward legion usually numbers around twelve to thirteen thousand men. The total active force is about thirty-three or thirty-four thousand and rising. There is also a reserve force but they are very tight lipped about that. We don't think it's as large as the active force . . . yet. They could probably double or triple their force if they wanted to. So far they have given no indication that they do want to. What they have raised, so far, costs us on the order of seventeen billion drachma a year."
Malcolm's eyes bugged. "We pay seventeen billion drachma to some pisspot North Colombian city state?"
"Actually, no, Mr. Secretary. We pay it directly to the Legion. They give a portion, a very small portion, less than a percent, to the government of Balboa. But they're only a non-governmental organization, sponsored by that government. They are not controlled by it. They're not controlled by anybody."
"Oh, really? We'll just see about that."
Goodbye, third star.
"No, Mr. Secretary," Rivers answered forcefully. "Don't see about that. They're quite capable now, financially, of continuing the war on their own for quite a few years, if not quite indefinitely. If you try to control them you'll just find you've let slip any control we have for a control we can't have. I know their commander. Don't try to control him. It just won't work."
I think the thing I like about this, thought Lourdes, on her knees with her head bobbing and her tongue working, is the control it gives me, not just over the sex, but over Patricio. But then, she thought as her husband pulled her head off, stood her up and pressed her back to the wall, but then he doesn't always let me keep control.
Despite having borne two children, a boy and a girl, Lourdes' body was unmarked, well shaped and still very firm. Tall, almost as tall as her husband, she was quite slender except in those places a woman should be more full. If anything, her breasts had improved from her pregnancies.
Cupping one of those, Carrera bent his head to tease the nipple of the other with his tongue. Lourdes loved that, he knew.
She let him continue in that for a long while, moans of sheer desire occasionally escaping her lips. When she couldn't stand it anymore she pulled his head up to kiss more intimately.
Balancing her back on the wall, Lourdes arched her hips forward and reached down to guide. A small gasp escaped her lips as Carrera thrust up and forward. The gasp became a long moan as he filled her fully.
And, for a while, she didn't think of much of anything.
"Do you really have to go so soon?" she asked Carrera, later as they lay in bed. "You only come home about five or sometimes six weeks a year. Are you so anxious to leave me."
Carrera sighed, then answered, "I take more leave than the troops get."
"Yes," she conceded, "but they only spend one year away for ever three years they spend here."
"That's only now," he countered. "Most of the leaders have been gone half the time since the war began."
"And you've been gone eighty percent of it."
To that Carrera had no really good answer. He went silent, thinking, They don't carry the curse I do, the obligation to destroy those who murdered Linda and the children.
After a short time he offered, "You were with me there until you came up pregnant with the second child. Besides, the war won't last forever."
"It will last too long; long enough for me to become a dried up old prune."
"Never happen," he answered, adding, "You're one of those women who will keep her looks into old age. I can tell."
Lourdes shook her head, doubtfully. "I'll age, the same as anyone. And you'll grow tired of me."
"Never happen," he repeated, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her head onto his shoulder. "For one thing, you're a lot younger than I am. By the time you're a wrinkled up old lady, I'll be using a walker, too old to get tired of anything except pissing myself."
She giggled at the image. "Now that," she said, "will never happen."
"Yes it will." Unless I'm lucky enough to be killed before it does.
"Speaking of the future, what's on for tomorrow?" Lourdes asked.
"Mass review of the Corps of Cadets at Puerto Lindo, then rechristening of the old HAMS Venganza. Want to come watch? The boys are bussing in from all over."
"No . . . no. I'm not comfortable with turning fourteen-year-old boys into soldiers."
"I love you for that, too," Carrera whispered, "for that among many other reasons."
Lourdes never asked if her husband loved her more than he had his first wife, Linda. She was much, much too afraid of the answer.
The first thing Martin Hoyer the Third noticed about the envelope was that it was pink and flowered on the outside. How like the government to send bad news in such bright packaging, Hoyer thought. Perhaps if grandfather had not been such an untalentierte teilzeit schmierfink we would have had enough money of our own not to have to rely on the state's largess to see us through our old age. Instead he wasted his life writing books no one would read . . . even in German.
Not that Martin or his wife, or their one—unemployed —child, were particularly old. He and she were only fifty-seven and had been drawing on the state's pension scheme for a scant two years. The boy, Martin Hoyer the Fourth, received unemployment compensation, despite never having worked a day in his life. But even in two years they had seen the system go from penny-pinching to outright miserly.
At least we haven't been reduced to eating dog food. Yet.
He opened the envelope and began to read:
Dear Sir or Madam:
In accordance with the European Union Directive 2076/015 for the preservation of the public fisc and extra-planetary colonization, you and you spouse have been identified for reduction of benefits or transportation, with assets, to the planet of New Earth.
Hoyer took a quick glance at what "reduction of benefits" meant in concrete, Euro, terms and thought, Dog food.
You and your spouse have thirty (30) days from the date of this letter to decide. Thereafter, should you decline transportation, on each anniversary of this letter you will have another thirty (30) days to change your minds, transportation schedule permitting.
Hoyer read the missive through, sighing frequently. He put it down and called for his wife. As he waited, he went through the rest of the mail.
Interesting that there's a letter too for our lazy-as-dirt son, he thought.