A Desert Called Peace

PART III
Chapter Seventeen

Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket"-which is but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention"; but the wise man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket and-watch that basket!" -Mark Twain

Multichucha Ridge, north of Mangesh,

Sumer, 21/1/461 AC

The land was compartmentalized by east-west running ridges that arose, one after another, and dominated the valleys between. A highway, a mix of gravel, dirt, potholes, and-in rare spots-asphalt, wound through the valleys and narrow gaps that appeared occasionally between sections of ridge. The highway eventually led to Ninewa and, beyond that, Babel.

Joint patrols, Yezidi and Sumeri, walked the demarcation line between the Federated States-guaranteed Yezidi Safe Zone and that portion of the Republic of Sumer still under Sumeri control. This demarcation line, in the vicinity of the town of Mangesh, was a river. The patrols chatted amiably enough across the river despite the certainty on the part of all concerned that the area would see fighting in no more than a Terra Novan month.

In a marginally heated four wheel drive vehicle followed by a truck holding a squad of Cazadors with an engineer team to operate a mine detector, Parilla and Carrera rolled north.

"So there really is a Multichucha Ridge," Parilla observed with wonder in his voice.

"Oh, yes," Carrera, sitting in the back, agreed. There, stretching out east to west before them were five sets of enormous, naturally occurring, grass, bush, sand, rock and gravel simulacra of female genitalia.

"The one farthest east doesn't look all that realistic," Parilla continued. "But the two to the west are frighteningly real."

"Don't know about you two, sirs, but it sure makes me homesick," commented the driver.

There was a Chaldean, a native of Mangesh, in the back of the four wheel drive, next to Carrera. Fahad had grown up in the shadow of the ridge. His people had their own phrase for the terrain feature but that, too, translated as "Multi-pussy Ridge."

"Fahad," Carrera questioned in English, "are you absolutely certain you know a way to the top of that ridge where we can observe the Sumeri positions and that getting to which won't run us into a minefield?"

The Chaldean considered. He spoke Arabic, English, and Yezidi, along with his native tongue. It was in English that he answered. Why not? He had done his first term of military service in the Sumeri Army teaching English at the Sumeri War College outside of Babel.

"Yes," Fahad said. "No problem. The snow makes it tougher but the path I know is broad. We should be fine."

Carrera translated for Parilla's benefit but to the latter's considerable doubt and plain discomfiture.

"I don't even like the idea of land mines," Parilla muttered.

"No one does," Carrera agreed. "Not until you have a horde of screaming motherfuckers coming to kill you and all that stands between their bayonets and you is a belt of land mines."

At Fahad's point of a finger the vehicles pulled over to allow the leaders, plus the Cazadors and the engineers, to dismount. Fahad led the way upward, stopping occasionally to check his memory of the path against what he believed to be certain terrain features somewhat hidden under snow. He must have guessed right; there were no loud explosions on the way up.

Just below the summit Parilla and Carrera stopped to allow the Cazadors to scout forward. At the squad leader's signal that all was clear they, too, crouched low and advanced. A dozen meters or so before the actual summit of the ridge, they went to their bellies and crawled through the hard-packed, icy snow to the top.

The sun was setting to the west. There would be no telltale flashes from the glass of the binoculars they used to scout out the opposite ridge, Hill 1647, which was to be the legion's initial objective.

"Fuck," Carrera said.

"Chingada," Parilla agreed.

From where they lay the pair saw the highway as it ran between two fortresses. Each of the fortresses was just under a kilometer across and, according to photo recon, about two thirds that deep. They were entrenched, bunkered and wired in. Moreover, according to the Yezidi, there were deep minefields in between the belts of wire. To add to the problem, a twenty-meter-wide river, low and slow moving but very cold, crossed the valley near to the base of the Sumeri held ridgelines.

"Too steep to get armor up," Parilla observed. "Even if they could get across the river."

"Maybe the lighter vehicles could make it. Maybe." Carrera countered. "If they could follow the most advantageous paths. If they could go slow. If they were not being shot at. If the best paths were clear of mines which, by all reports, they most definitely are not."

"An infantry attack?" Parilla queried. "Maybe at night."

Carrera didn't answer immediately. Looking back through his binoculars again at the thick rows of barbed wire, Carrera saw them as they might be if he ordered an assault to clear the hill, thick with the bodies, and parts of bodies, of his troops. Half a dozen possible plans flashed through his head. Each was quickly discarded before he settled on something that might be workable if short of brilliant.

"They'll get butchered by machine guns and the artillery that-I have no doubt-is on call to support the defense. And attacking at night, whatever the advantages, is confusing as hell. Too confusing to subject troops to it for their first action."

"Then how?" the Dux asked.

"What we have is a training issue," Carrera responded, cryptically. "That; an engineering problem and a logistics problem. Now, where are we going to get a shitpot of concrete mix and another six hundred tons of artillery and mortar ammunition on short notice?" he mused.

All the drive back to Mangesh Base Carrera pondered, mused, considered and scribbled in a notebook.

Valley between Multichucha Ridge and Hill 1647, 24/1/461 AC

They were called, after the German, Stollen, and they were the least offensive-seeming things imaginable. Long, narrow, and deeprather like the Sachsen Christmas cake-the Stollen were nothing but shelters, passive, harmless, inoffensive shelters. Who can object, after all, to a Sachsen Christmas cake?

The river at the base of Hill 1647 marked the demarcation line. Accordingly, the Stollen went up two to three hundred meters south of the river, within-if barely-the Yezidi Safe Zone.

"What are they for?" all three leaders of the local Yezidi political, which were also tribal, parties asked. Since Carrera was certain that at least one of the Yezidis reported directly to Babel, he told the truth. Sort of.

"The Sumeris are likely to pound the shit out of us once the FSC begins the war. There is no place we can do our job, which is to protect you, where we will not also be in artillery range. The mountains are too rocky to dig into very well in the time we have. So I am building shelters for my men down in the valley where we can continue to protect you despite the shelling I anticipate."

This was, of course, not the complete truth. Still, reasonably satisfied at the answer, the Yezidis offered their followers as a labor force. They did not do so, naturally, without extracting a contract from the legion for pay for the labor provided. The mere fact that someone was doing you a favor was not in itself a sufficient reason not to insist on being paid for helping them do you that favor.

"I loathe the Yezidis," Carrera said to his chief engineer, Sam Cheatham, and Fahad when he had called them together in the valley to explain what he wanted done.

" You loathe them?" Fahad had answered. "Let me tell you about the Yezidis-"

"No time, Fahad," Carrera said, holding one hand up, palm out, "and I've heard all about it before."

"I wish I could put you up about sixteen of the things." Cheatham sighed, referring to the Stollen. "But I just don't have the material or the skilled manpower. I've only got my seventy-odd engineers, plus whatever I can use from the line cohorts' engineer sections. But they, frankly, are sappers, not builders. And the Yezidi are not going to be worth much besides scut work."

"How many can you put up that will be strong enough to take a direct hit from an eight-inch gun?" Carrera asked. "And remember, we have to be able to shelter about twelve hundred men in them for a few days."

"In the time I have," Cheatham answered, "with the material I have and with the workers I have, I can put up four, each about thirty feet by one hundred, and with a thick enough overhead cover to take a couple of eight-inch hits. By the way, sir, what makes you think the Sumeris even have eight inch guns?"

"Nothing," Carrera shook his head in negation. "But they might have them."

"Okay," Cheatham said agreeably. "Four Stollen coming up. This weather is going to be a problem, you know. Concrete-at least the kind I have been able to scrounge locally-doesn't set worth a shit in this kind of cold. How about if I blast a shitload of rock out of the last ridge and use that to reinforce?"

"That's fine, Sam. Do it however you think best. But get me my Christmas cakes cooked."

"What if they try to shell my engineers while they're working?" Cheatham asked, not unreasonably.

"I don't think they will, Sam, mainly because they don't have much in their strategic inventory except some sympathy from whoever hates the FSC. They'll want the coalition to fire the first shot. Even so, until H Hour-3, or at least until you're done building, you've got priority of fires-direct control if you think you need it-over all the legion's artillery plus the 105mm battalion from the 731st ^ Airborne."

"Hmmm. Shells would arrive here before counterbattery could have any effect. So, if you don't mind, I'll start by digging some slit trenches for my people before we start work on the Stollen."

"That's fine," Carrera had answered. "Don't dawdle over it, though. And remember I also need some special shelters built for the artillery."

For Cheatham's slit trenches he used two entrenching machines that had been purchased from the Volgans. These were of the smaller variety, having an arm of sorts that they dragged behind them and which more or less horizontally spun a series of steel buckets to cut a neat trench about seventy-five centimeters wide and a meter and a half deep. The frozen state of the ground made this a slower than normal operation but within a day the entrenching machines had scraped out sixteen reasonably sized slit trenches.

The Sumeris had paid no mind at all, so far as Cheatham could see, to the operation of the entrenching machines.

While the trench cutters were in operation, gangs of Yezidi with picks and shovels began excavating the outlines of the Stollen to a depth of about a meter. The Sumeris paid no attention to them, either.

When the engineers began blasting off slabs of rock from the far slope of Multichucha Ridge, the Sumeris had manned their trenches and bunkers. Still, when no attack materialized, they went back to their normal routine of shivering, freezing and, if the Yezidi were to be believed, buggering each other. In this belief Fahad and the Chaldeans seemed to concur.

They were still, so far as Cheatham could tell, buggering each other when the frameworks for the Stollen began to go up.

Perhaps they had run out of lubrication-that, or they'd discovered that weapons oil was a poor substitute-when the layer of concrete was poured. They seemed fascinated by that, sitting atop the lips of their trenches, chatting amiably among each other, and generally having a good time watching the legion and the Yezidis work in the cold.

Supplies of a less toxic lubricant must have come through, though, because they disappeared again when the Yezidi gangs began piling dirt atop the concrete. Still, so Cheatham and the Yezidis surmised, those supplies must have been limited. They were back again to watch as the dirt was covered with large chunks and slabs of rock.

Sam Cheatham didn't bother to camouflage the Stollen. Anybody who thought that a six to seven meter high loaf of rock, dirt and concrete sticking up out of a flat plain in plain view of the enemy was going to be hidden by a few odd bits of grass was either smoking something or, as was perhaps the case, too busy being buggered to worry about. Besides, snow would be along any day now and it would do a better job of camouflage than anything that could be done artificially.

Hill 1647, Command Post, 2/2/461 AC

Mukkaddam, or Lieutenant Colonel, Ali al Tikriti had a problem. No, that wasn't quite right. What he had was approximately seven hundred and one problems. The seven hundred, give or take a few, were his men, whom he despised as a lot of illiterate, lazy, good for nothing peasants. The one, and that was the worst of the lot, was the dictator-Saleh, his fourth cousin, twice removed-sitting in what was likely to prove a very temporary safety in one of his palaces near Babel.

In fact, of all the people Ali had to deal with, the only one who was not a problem was the thirteen-year-old boy currently kneeling between Ali's legs with his penis in his mouth. And that was at best a temporary distraction from all Ali's other problems, problems which were altogether too likely to prove extremely and unfortunately permanent.

Ali would rather have had one of his two wives kneeling between his legs. They, however, weren't there, while the young boy was.

For an all too short period of time, the thirteen year old was able to distract Ali from his many concerns. After tousling the boy's hair and tipping him generously, Ali buttoned his trousers, refastened his belt, and left his rather luxuriously appointed, and very deep, personal bunker to walk the front trench of the rightmost of the two fortresses atop the ridge.

Ali owed his position not to military skill and competence but to family connections. Oh, yes, he'd been to all the schools-and some of them were quite decent-that his army offered. But when one is that tightly connected to the ruling clan, and able to afford substantial bribes to one's teachers, it was not strictly speaking necessary to learn one blessed thing to graduate with honors. In fairness, it had to be said that Ali had learned somewhat more than most would have in his position. At the very least, he had learned something of military engineering. Thus, his trenches were narrow and deep, his bunkers had substantial overhead cover, and his obstacles were well sighted. More than that one could hardly expect.

Ali's men cowered as he walked the line. Occasionally, and not always for any obvious reason, he would lash out with his riding crop to slash a soldier across the face or neck. His cousin ruled the country by fear; could Ali do any less? Besides, the shit-footed clumsy peasants he had to work with understood nothing but fear and the lash. Moreover, terrorizing his men helped allay the worry that the sight of those four large bunkers being built in plain view instilled in Ali. He didn't understand them, didn't understand their purpose. Why put so much construction effort into something so ridiculously obvious and so completely passive? Queries to the local Yezidi had given answers that were not been entirely satisfactory. And queries to Problem Number One, his cousin, had been brushed aside.

Approaching Stollen #1, 7/2/461 AC

There was a slight jingling as the unit marched, the sound of loads shifting and metal touching on metal.

Cruz brushed snow-he'd never in his life so much as seen snow before coming to Sumer-off of his face and shoulders as he walked towards the pass east of Multichucha Ridge. Ahead of him and behind, and on both sides of the highway, walked the rest of the four infantry centuries, minus their mortars, of 1st Cohort, plus the scout and engineer sections and the forward command post team. No vehicles were used; those were left behind. Everything, to include food and water, went in on the soldier's backs.

It was a terrible, man-killing load. Besides his rifle, ammunition and auxiliary ammunition, Cruz carried food for five days, water for three, and a portion of the century's common equipment. In all, Cruz's load was better than one hundred and fifty pounds, and he was not the most heavily laden of the legionaries.

Nearing the pass, Cruz noticed that he could not see the genitalia that gave the ridge its nickname.

Thank God for the snow, he thought, freezing or not. If I can't see the pussies then the Sumeris won't see me. Besides, I'm already homesick enough.

Unseen by Cruz-or by anyone not within a few paces of the cohort commander, Tribune I Gutierrez-a noncom from Cheatham's Engineer Century met the 1st at the pass. The engineer cautioned Gutierrez, "Slow down and keep them quiet until you are in the Stollen." Gutierrez dropped his pace to a crawl to reduce the sounds coming from the company, sounds that might alert the Sumeris that the Stollen were being occupied.

Dammit, the tribune thought, fuming at the low key jingling coming from behind him. It isn't as if we didn't do our damndest to make sure everything was quiet and secured before we set out. They had done what was possible. But some sound was unavoidable and in this cold air could well carry despite the muffling effect of the snow.

The engineer then led them down the road before cutting right across the open field to the shelter's narrow entrance. "File in silently," the engineer advised. A couple more engineers, these with homemade rakes, smoothed the snow behind the passing centuries.

Inside, the place smelled damp and musty, Cruz thought. It was a small surprise in construction so new. Buckets stacked in one corner suggested that it was soon going to have a very different, and much worse, odor.

There were signs on the walls, lit only by chemical lights, or "chemlights." Other chemlights traced out boundaries on the Stollen floor. One of the signs said, in the sickly green glow, "1st Century." Cruz led his team to that corner and set down his rucksack. His three men placed theirs beside his and, like him, began unrolling bedding, air mattresses, sleeping bags, and blankets. As Cruz and his boys were blowing up the air mattresses someone struck a match and applied the flame to a lantern. Immediately, the greenish gloom of the place dissipated, the more so as more lanterns were lit. In the new and brighter illumination, Cruz saw two charcoal stoves, one of which the supply sergeant was in the process of lighting. The charcoal wouldn't give off any noticeable smoke, he knew, but wondered if the heat distortion might not tell too much to someone watching and paying attention. He asked the supply sergeant about that.

"The exhaust doesn't go up," the sergeant explained. "It goes to an underground pipe. That leads to a couple of dozen smaller pipes that eventually emerge above ground. All those are perforated to dissipate the smoke and heat. Clever, ain't it?"

Mangesh, 9/2/461 AC

There were caves south of the town. These were originally natural but had been further excavated and in a few cases connected by the Yezidi during their long and generally fruitless fight with the Babel regime. To these caves the legion directed the people of Mangesh, Yezidi and Chaldean both, to go for shelter from the Sumeri artillery that would, almost inevitably, devastate the town on general principle. The two double-wides were likewise moved up to shelter close in to the mountains, under cliff faces. Howitzer and mortar fire could have reached them there, were they in range. At this distance, though, only high velocity artillery had a chance of reaching and that traveled at too low an angle to search the reverse slope of the hill.

The legion's table of organization included one smallish century of mixed civil affairs and psychological operations troops. The PSYOP legionaries printed the leaflets and ran the loudspeakers that directed the townsfolk to the caves while the CA types actually physically led them, organized them, and coordinated for transport to move their food and water, their old and sick, and the bare minimum of life support.

"This is not the first time we have had to do this," said Father Hanna, the local Chaldean priest, when the CA/PO Century commander mentioned how smoothly the move was going. The townspeople looked nervous, of course, but there was no great amount of wailing from the women, or complaining from the men. Even the children were pretty well behaved and that was something the signifer never expected.

"No, we have had to run to the caves many times, not just once," Hanna continued. The priest was old and gray but plainly robust as he and the signifer led the people to the south. He was also multilingual, speaking-besides Chaldean-Arabic, English, Latin, French and Spanish.

When asked about that he had only answered, "Oh, I served my time at New Vatican Hill when I was a younger man."

One of the caves had been set aside as a field hospital. Father Hanna had taken some pains to find women to assist there. This was much appreciated by Carrera, who said so.

He'd also said, when out of the priest's hearing, "That son of a bitch Campos was supposed to give me medical support equal to that the FSC troops will have in al Jahara. What do I get for my men? I get an understrength medical company from the 731st Airborne and a long drive over epically shitty roads to the FSAF base in Kemal; that, or a sometimes-possible-maybe-perhaps available medevac flight from the old Sumeri airbase at Siyilopi. Motherfucker!"

"Arrest the motherfuckers as spies," Carrera commanded McNamara when told that a group of media types from the Global News Network had arrived in now-abandoned Mangesh. When told of a humanitarian medical group nosing around he had said, with equal vehemence, "Arrest them. Take them to the caves and inform them they will care for our wounded as well as any civilians. Make it clear I am firing squad serious about that."

"Patricio," Jimenez cautioned, "do you really think it's wise to alienate the press?"

"Errr… maybe not, Xavier," Carrera relented. "Though frankly I doubt it matters. The press is the enemy, as much as the Sumeris or perhaps more so. But… all right. We won't arrest them as spies.

"Instead… Sergeant Major, take the pressies and medicos into protective custody, confiscate their equipment and cell phones, and confine them to the field hospital cave where they'll help care for our wounded. Don't trust the bastards; strip search them. If any of them are women see if the good father can come up with some Chaldean women to do the strip search. And if they try to escape, shoot them as spies."

Hewler International Airport, Yezidistan, 11/2/461 AC

The legion's air component, minus the remotely piloted vehicles that were forward based at Mangesh, was lined up at the airfield. This consisted of eight Turbo-Finch attack aircraft, twelve medium and four heavy lift Volgan helicopters, six Boiohaemum-built Cricket light reconnaissance planes plus four more slightly modified for medical evacuation, two ex-Volgan Nabakov NA-21 medium lift cargo planes and six lighter NA-23s upgraded to B300 standard.

Opposite the legion's air ala, by the cargo terminal, two Volgan LI-68s were still unloading artillery and mortar ammunition. Inside the terminal, near the Volgans and opposite their own aircraft, a century of Cazadors from the 6th Cohort waited for orders to board. Final orders were not expected for some time. The Cazadors would drop from two of the NA-23s.

The B300 was a much improved version of the original NA-23, having longer range, more lift capacity and much improved avionics. Dubbed "Dodos," apparently because they just looked a little awkward, the NA-23s were an early post-Great Global War-vintage design, with twin turbo-prop engines. The newest was over thirty years old. They were, however, fairly simple and robust aircraft and most were still flying even four to five Terra Novan decades later.

To get to the B300 upgrade, the original Dodos were completely disassembled and everything from struts to skin microchecked for excess stress and wear. Then, the fuselage was reassembled, with an additional meter being added between the cockpit and the main cargo compartment. Completely new wings were attached, and to the wings, in lieu of the old turbo-props, new Whitefield-Prance WPT9A-76R turbo-prop engines were added, driving five-bladed propellers. Lengthened troop seats were installed, along with new avionics, and a generally improved cockpit layout

Before being deployed, two of the NA-23s had taken a short detour to Zion where a frame was built up around the aircraft and thin composite Carbon Fiber-Shiff Base Salt tiles added for decreased radar visibility. In addition, the original tail section was replaced with one of V-form. It was these that would drop the Cazadors.

The B300 was, for all practical purposes, a new plane superior in every way, to include operating cost, to the original Dodo. It was the reduced operating cost, as much as the increased capability, that had decided Carrera in favor of the conversion, despite a "fly away" price tag of nearly three million drachma per aircraft and five million for the two that had been stealthified. The legion could-indeed, probably would have to-rely upon the Dodos for critical resupply.

One of the Cazadors due to be inserted via the stealthy Dodos, Sergeant Emmanuel Robles, paced nervously up and down that portion of the terminal set aside for the Cazadors. From time to time he took from his wallet a picture of his wife and three children waiting back home in Balboa. He also spent a good deal of time praying.

It just doesn't feel right.

Mangesh, 12/2/461 AC

Carrera frantically paced the small headquarters set up in an old Sumeri police fort on the outskirts of the town.

"I don't see how the hell you can be so calm, Raul," he said.

Parilla, sitting calmly behind a field desk with his feet up and his hands clasped behind his head answered, "Why should I worry when you are worrying enough for both of us and three more men besides?"

Carrera stopped his pacing, opened his mouth as if to retort, and then began to laugh. "Okay, you win. I'll calm down."

"Care for a drink?" Parilla asked. "The good father presented me with a bottle of the local brandy. It's actually pretty good."

The look on Carrera's face as much as said, "Gimme." Parilla poured several ounces of the brandy into a metal cup and handed it over.

"You know what's bothering me, Raul?"

"No."

"It's the coalition headquarters down in al Jahara. D-Day is supposed to be the day after tomorrow. Ordinarily, I'd expect hourly intelligence updates to have begun by now. But there hasn't been a word or, at least, not a word to us."

"Do you think they've forgotten about us way down here?" Parilla asked.

"Maybe they forgot," Carrera answered, "and then maybe they're deliberately ignoring us. I've got a call in to a friend."

"So what are we going to do if they don't answer?"

"Send in the Cazador long-range recon teams anyway, tonight around midnight. They'll need that much time to get to their positions behind the Sumeri lines."

"And if D-Day is moved up? Or delayed? How do we get them out?" Parilla asked.

"I swear to God I'll start the war on my own if it's delayed. And if it's moved up without them telling us, I just might shoot that son of a bitch down in al Jahara."

Hewler International Airport, Yezidistan, nearly midnight, 12/2/461 AC

Robles still didn't like it. But there were the two stealth-modified Dodos, waiting with engines idling not one hundred meters from the terminal. There, lined up by the terminal door were the chutes for each man who would jump tonight. Standing by that door was the century commander and there, in his hand, were the orders to go.

The men were singing as they lined up to chute up. Ordinarily, Robles enjoyed the singing before a jump. Now it just irritated him, especially when the song came to the lines:

Thundering motors leave each man alone.

He thinks one more time of his loved ones back home.

Then come, mis compadres, to spring on command

To jump and to die for our people and land…

Chingada. Bunch of morbid bastards. Why the fuck did I ever sign up for this?

And then they were at the aircraft, the crew chiefs and their assistants helping the pack-mule-laden, barely mobile men to climb the ladders and shuffle up the ramps and then walking the lines to make sure everyone was buckled in.

The engines began to thunder in truth now as the Dodos rolled down the runway. The airfield was high where the air would normally be thin. Even so, in the dead of winter the air was cold and dense enough for lift. Robles felt the plane lurch upward, leaving the runway behind. There was a winding, grinding sound followed by a pair of thumps as the landing gear raised and stowed away. Then the planes veered eastward towards an area where reconnaissance showed little in the way of Sumeri troops to observe-or Sumeri air defense to engage-the aircraft as they passed.

En los aviones! Los aviones!

Nunca volveremos compadres…

Fuckers!

Royal Jahari Land Forces Headquarters, al Jahara, 12/2/461 AC

They'd found out, so they believed, where the dictator of Sumer was hiding. Thomas had delayed going after him immediately, pending legal review by his judge advocate general. This had taken long hours as the lawyers had argued back and forth about the propriety and legality of assassination, the strategic implications, the public relations aspects. What did lawyers have to do with strategy and PR? In the Federated States Army there was nothing that lawyers were not intimately involved with.

Too, Thomas had not wanted to appear indecisive or at the mercy of his JAG section. So he had kept mum, pending their review and approval. This had never actually come, as the JAG section itself was evenly split on the issue. Thomas had therefore bucked the decision up to Campos who had thrown a fit that the dictator wasn't already dead. "Awful shock" readily became "Awe shucks."

It was then that Thomas moved up D-Day by twenty-four hours. This gave just enough time for his own troops in al Jahara to move to their assault positions and for his aircraft to send stealthy birds with two thousand pound GLS guided bombs winging their way towards the implicated palace.

Unfortunately, it also gave time for the dictator to change palaces as was his habit.

As unfortunately, or even more so, it did not give Parilla and Carrera time to call back the two Nabakov-23 Dodos carrying seventysix airborne Cazadors before the planes went low behind a series of mountains and the Cazadors had jumped.

Interlude

14 May, 2070, Brussels, Belgium

Money was always tight in the EU and among its member states. The only place to find it was to raise taxes (and, with the various levels of government already confiscating over sixty percent of GDP, those were already onerous and rather unpopular) or to reduce military expenditures (and at less than one percent of GDP those were already anemic and still rather unpopular). Only if the construction of ships could be made in the guise of social welfare legislation would there be easy acquiescence.

The United States helped quite a bit, if not with money then with free technology transfers. This was actually critical as, in this year-of- something-other-than-Our-Lord, 2070, Europe was a technological backwater. Even with the money found, or looted, the expertise simply didn't exist anymore. So many of the highly talented had left for other climes, most notably and infuriatingly for the United States, that the Old World had fallen far behind.

Between the shunting of social welfare funds to starship construction and the technology transfers from the U.S., the EU did manage to put together a half a dozen ships. These were duly turned over to the United Nations in theory, though in practice they remained for the time being under absolute EU control.

And then the screws began to tighten. With a means of getting rid of their undesirables in hand without at the same time strengthening the Unites States, EU bureaucrats and their police minions began identifying those who most needed to go, and those they least wanted to go to the United States. No one was forced out initially; that would have been inhumane. Instead, a letter would arrive in the mail stating that "pursuant to new austerity measures X and such, you and your family will no longer be receiving any support from the government and would you please consider subsidized emigration to the new world?"

Riots ensued, of course, especially in Muslim majority or near majority states like France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain. This did nothing to keep the transfer payments to the indigent flowing. After all, what did hard-working, tax-paying Poland or Sweden care what happened to France or Belgium? If anything, the resulting destruction of infrastructure within the Muslim majority areas speeded up the rate at which Moslems proved willing to leave. (As an exception, Sweden did offer to make some tax transfers, but only on condition that their Muslims be among the first to go.)

Young Europeans were an issue. They were valuable. How else was the social welfare state to be maintained without their tax receipts? On the other hand, how were they to be kept when the more politically and economically free states on Earth-the U.S., UK, Brazil, India, Australia and South Africa-acted as talent and willingness- to-work magnets?

The answer to that was border and emigration control. Much as had the Soviet Union decades before and much as in Cuba, still, attempting to emigrate, except as permitted by the bureaucracy of the EU, became an antisocial crime with severe penalties, both formal and informal. The reduction of the Muslim populations, coupled with the gradual deIslamicization of Europe, helped there.

Chapter Eighteen From our enemies we can defend ourselves but God save us from our friends. -Lenin

UEPF Spirit of Peace, Earth Date 2 December, 2513

High Admiral Robinson had never really anticipated the headaches that came now with increasing frequency and never seemed entirely to go away. He wondered, sometimes, if they were guilt driven. Certainly the images of the people jumping to their deaths stuck with him in much the same way as the headaches.

And while Mustafa's people did the necessary reconnaissance and flew the airships, I was the one who did the structural analysis that said the buildings would fall once the fire weakened their steel supports. I just never imagined that I would actually see people die. It was harder than I would have thought even if I had considered it.

That was one headache: guilt. He had others.

I'd thought that once the FSC invaded Pashtia they'd end up in an endless, sticky quagmire, the same way the Volgans did twenty-two local years ago. Whoever would have suspected that they'd topple the place in under a month? Whoever would have thought that they'd do it so cheaply. I'd wanted a war that would tie them up and use up their wealth so they couldn't use it to get rid of us and later attack Earth. I'd wanted a failure that would undermine their nation-state system and leave useful idiots like Wiglan in charge. Instead, this affair has seen people like Unni marginalized and the nation-state, or at least the FSC, more powerful than ever.

Did I make a mistake, helping Mustafa? Did I make an irreparable mistake?

Robinson thought about that one for a bit. Finally, he came to the conclusion, No. It wasn't a mistake. Mustafa would have gone ahead anyway. And the result would have been the same. All I could have done was warn the FSC of what was coming and that I could never do.

Never.

The high admiral stood and began to pace the close confines of his office, still lost in his thoughts.

I simply overestimated the ability of Mustafa's people and his allies to confront the FSC. That, and I apparently badly under estimated the ability of the FSC to impose its will through force. They're even more dangerous than I had thought they were. So, no, it wasn't a mistake to start down this road. It had to be done. What was a mistake was to think I could start down it without going all the way. The FSC must be involved in a wider war, one that disenchants its allies, dries up its treasure, kills its soldiers and demoralizes its people.

Now what do I have to do to make that happen?

Robinson ceased his pacing and resumed his chair.

"Computer, view screen on. Show me a map of Terra Nova, one annotated with population density, industrialization and resources."

The Kurosawa came to life. Not for the first time, Robinson wondered if the difference in the quality of the picture was the result of wear and tear on the ancient, Earth-produced, screens or if-awful thought-the Terra Novans had actually exceeded Earth's technology in this one field.

It really is an excellent picture, though, he thought. Pity that the map tells me little.

"Computer, add major historical events for the last sixty years."

Still nothing; too crowded.

"Computer, reduce detail to show major conflicts."

"Ah, there it is," Robinson said aloud. "Before I arrived to assume command. The Petro War."

"Computer, get me all pertinent data on the FSC-Republic of Sumer War of local year 447 plus developments in that region since then."

Atlantis Base, Earth Year 7 December, 2513

The high admiral met the Tauran Union's commissioner for culture in a little used but meticulously maintained garden not far from the island base's single major river. The garden itself was kept up by the same crew of proles brought in from Earth as servants to the families of the Class Ones, Twos and Threes that made up the bulk of the fleet's crew and the base personnel. Wiglan never saw the proles, of course. It was part of their job to be as little seen, as little noticed, as possible.

"So good of you to come, Unni, and on such short notice."

"Always a pleasure," answered Wiglan sincerely. Then, seeing the worried look on Robinson's face, she announced, "There is something troubling you."

"Yes. Yes there is, my dear. Silly of me to think I could hide it from you."

Silly of me to think I had to make an effort to look worried.

"Well, what is it then, Martin?"

"The war, of course. Terrible thing. All those poor civilians caught up in the FSC's imperialist games."

Never mind that previously they were caught up in bloodthirsty and fanatical Salafi and Fascist games.

"Oh, I know," Unni fumed. "By what right does the FSC think it can impose its will on others. Only the World League and United Earth have that kind of moral authority."

"Exactly, Love. I knew you would understand." Nothing. "Tell me, is the TU going to go through with providing forces for this venture?"

"I've argued against it, Martin. All of us right thinking people have. But the TU still hasn't quite extirpated national sovereignty even in Taurus. And some of the new member states especially, the ones that think the FSC was somehow responsible for liberating them from the Volgans, are going to go along. Even Gaul and Sachsen are planning on sending some troops, though we hope to limit their rules of engagement so that they are ineffective. And," she finished with a disgusted sigh, "the Anglian lackeys of the FSC will give their full support, almost as if they were a state of the Federals themselves."

I don't suppose it would ever occur to you, Unni, that Anglia's permitting the FSC to set its foreign policy, to the extent it does, is not in principle different from any state of the TU allowing the TU to set foreign policy? You cannot logically, in principle, complain about a state giving a portion of its sovereignty to another entity and then insist that it should give it to you instead.

But then, logic is not your strong suit, is it?

"What's done is done, Unni. No sense crying over it or wishing to undo it. What concerns me more is the FSC's next step."

"You really think they won't be content with knocking out Pashtia, Martin?" The commissioner looked rather horrified.

"I am certain they won't," Robinson answered. "When you have a rogue state running free there is no limit to the damage it can do."

Wiglan agreed, her head nodding slowly, sadly and silently. "And they simply refuse to take us as their equal, either," she added.

"Unni, I am not sure that the FSC considers even the UE to be quite their equal."

And there's another repetitive thought to give me indigestion; three hundred highly militarized million of the FSC lording it over half a billion sheep on Earth and the fifty million in Class Three or higher reduced to penury or worse.

While Unni knew it was likely true that the FSC held even the UE in contempt, she was sickened to hear a major figure from the mighty UE admit to it openly. She gave a gasp of horror, her hand flying to her mouth of its own accord.

"That's… that's terrible. How can they…"

"They can because they have us stymied, Commissioner. We can't do anything to them because they would do the same or worse right back to us. I'd be willing to sacrifice my fleet and, of course, myself in the cause of peace but when I consider the environmental damage…" He meant, of course, "nuclear winter." It's amazing how the local progressives can accept the concepts of humanocentric planetary warming and nuclear winter at the same time.

They should see that, even if true, the one is the cure for the other. Oh, well, not my job to educate them.

"Oh, my brave and selfless High Admiral, I know you would," Wiglan nearly swooned.

Robinson made a minor show of looking very brave and very selfless.

"This is especially bad," Robinson continued, "in that I am certain that the FSC intends once again to attack Sumer. I do so hope, Unni, that you and right thinking people like you will be able to keep the Tauran Union's hands clean in this filthy business."

"Many will participate no matter what the TU says," Wiglan muttered. And I feel so terrible about it, too.

"Then, Unni, you must do whatever it takes, not just you but your colleagues as well, to ensure that such participation is minimal and that whatever there may be along those lines turns out to be more albatross than ally."

High Admiral's Conference Room, UEPF Spirit of Freedom, Earth Date 5 January, 2514

"All told, Admiral Robinson, the FSC can muster nearly twentyfour divisions' worth of troops. That's counting their militia organizations, which are considerably better trained, organized and led than the usual militia down below, their Regular Army and the Federated States Marine Corps."

Robinson regarded his strategic intelligence officer, a Class Two named Henkin, bleakly. All of Earth could not muster half of that, and those would be underequipped and badly trained. His own few battalions' worth of security troops hardly counted on that scale.

Seeing the admiral's bleak look, the strategic intelligence analyst hastened to add, "But not all of those are useable, few can be logistically supported in the theater of war you believe the Federated States is contemplating, and almost forty percent are part time militia, not particularly suitable for either a short and intense war or a long drawn-out, low-intensity one."

"That hardly matters, Henkin," answered the fleet's tactical intelligence officer, Commander Spiro, as he tapped a pen on the table. "The Sumeris are rotten, even more rotten-and far less well equipped-than they were the last time. Four divisions of FSC troops-five, tops-plus maybe one from Anglia, would be more than enough to knock them over. I think they could do it with three, myself."

"I don't disagree about needing only three or four divisions for a successful invasion," Henkin admitted. "We could quibble over the number but why bother? It is afterwards that they'll need more troops, not just to wreck and defeat a fairly worthless army but to control a fairly numerous people. And there is where they'll have problems. Those roughly twenty-four divisions you mentioned are the equivalent of fifteen regular and nine militia. The fifteen regular can be counted on to sustain at most five divisions fighting. The militia's nine might give one division's worth, or perhaps one and a half, on continuous deployment. That's a total of six to six and a half useable divisions. Of those, one will continue to be needed in Pashtia. And Spiro, Admiral… five will not be enough."

"So you think, then, that the FSC will not invade, Henkin?" Robinson asked.

Henkin's face was set and sure. "They have the same data I do, Admiral. Perhaps they have better data. I don't see how they would unless they somehow felt they absolutely had to. Yes, I say this even though a lodgment in Sumer gives them access to major oil fields in every direction. The risk is simply too great."

"I wonder what would make them feel they absolutely had to," wondered the Admiral, idly.

Atlantis Base, Earth Date 17 May, 2514

"It's the only way I can see, Unni, to prevent this war. The FSC must be convinced that the Republic of Sumer has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Otherwise, the Federals are certain to invade."

"But do they have those weapons, Martin?"

"My people think they might," Robinson answered, truthfully. Indeed, the Republic of Sumer might also have time travel and the fountain of youth, though both seemed about as unlikely. There was no reason to burden the commissioner with doubts, however, or none that the high admiral could see.

"They might," he repeated, "and the dangers of letting that particular genie out of the bottle are too great not to do everything in our power to prevent even what 'might' happen."

"I see that," Wiglan agreed, though she really didn't. "But what can I do? I'm just the commissioner for culture; I'm not in one of the military or intelligence branches of the TU."

"You know many people who are in those branches though, don't you, Unni? You have access to them, and through them to national intelligence services."

"Yes," she agreed. "I know them… at least slightly, I do. You understand that we in the… softer services have as little to do with the military and intelligence as possible."

"Yes, Unni," Robinson answered, "and that is, normally, proper. But in this one case-"

"I'll do it," she burst out. "For you and peace and the eventual creation of true global governance, I'll do it."

Excursus

From Baen's Encyclopedia of New and Old Earth, Old Earth Edition of 2497 (442 AC)

Freedom of Speech: This entry has been declared unfit for human knowledge by the United Earth Council for the Suppression of Hate Speech.

Freedom of Religion: This entry had been declared unfit for human knowledge by the United Earth Plenary Committee for the Advancement of Human Knowledge. See, instead, the entries on Marxism, Islam, Environmentalism, Druidism, Pan-Gaeaism…

Nation: This entry has been ordered expunged by decree of the International Criminal Court and legislatively confirmed by the General Assembly of United Earth. Further, this word has been declared obsolete and ordered removed and expunged from all public references, dictionaries, encyclopediae, textbooks, literary works, monuments, buildings, archeological sites, public records…

Weapons: This entry had been restricted to members of the UE Peace Force and holders of informational clearances above the Deputy Assistant Directorial level.

Liberty, Human concepts of: This entry has been ordered expunged as redundant. See instead the entries on Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear.

Electricity Production: This entry has been ordered restricted to members of the United Earth Organization, Class Three and above.

Artificial Intelligence and Computers: The entry has been ordered restricted to members of the United Earth Organization, Class Three and above.

Ownership and property, concepts of: This entry has been declared obsolete and ordered expunged. See instead the entry on "Socialism and Justice."

Sovereignty: The entry has been ordered expunged by the High Commission for Semantics and Decency.

Taxation: This entry has become obsolete with the passage of the Act for the Creation of a Rational Economy, also known as the Collectivization Act of 2257.

Great Global War (Also known as "the Long Night"), History of:

An eleven year (399-410 AC) world conflict on the planet of Terra Nova that began with the use of extensive formations of horse cavalry and ended with significant usage of nuclear weapons.

By the year 399 AC, Terra Novan military technology, along with broader industrialization, corresponded roughly to that of Old Earth in the years 1920-1929. With industrialization came considerable social turmoil, along with hardship as older, more established states found themselves in mercantile competition with newer, more aggressive powers.

There was no one spark that can definitively be said to have begun the GGW. Fighting among the powers of that world, especially those of the continent of Taurus, had been endemic since at least the beginning of the 3rd century, AC. While naval conflict had spread across the planet by roughly the middle of that century, in the 4th century, ground combat moved from the continent of Taurus, itself, out to the colonies, spheres of influence, and trading blocks that had been established across the world by the Taurans, the Yamato, the Zhong Guo and the Federated States of Columbia. Thus, when the Gallic Republic declared war on Sachsen in 399, it was merely the last step in a series of smaller conflicts and battles that had been waged between these two from approximately 250 AC onwards.

What made the war such a bloodbath-indeed total deaths from all causes approached the two hundred million mark before the war closed-were the systems of alliances, some of them secret and a few mutually exclusive and contradictory, which the major Tauran powers had bound themselves to in the preceding fifty years. Hence, in initiating its abortive invasion of Sachsen in 399, the Gallic Republic also immediately found itself at war with the Kingdom of Anglia. This relieved pressure on the Sachsens, but at the cost of the Gauls invoking their treaty with the Volgan Empire, which set in motion a Volgan invasion of Sachsen and its ally, Karinthia. Yamato, at that time an ally of the Volgans, likewise launched an attack in conjunction with Gaul upon the Sachsen and Anglian enclaves along the Zhong coast.

This early, strategically and tactically mobile, phase ended within two months as a combination of defensive technology-ranging from shovels and barbed wire at one end to artillery and machine guns on the other-combined with limitations in offensive technology, such as communications and transportation, and severe limits in logistics, bogged virtually every major combatant down in what would eventually become very extensive systems of field fortifications. Of course, as the fortifications became more extensive, the logistic requirements of breaking them grew still further. Moreover, those requirements grew much faster, initially, than did the means of meeting them. This phase lasted approximately two years.

The next phase, also lasting two years, found the Gauls defeated and occupied by a combination of Anglian naval blockade and amphibious invasion with Sachsen ground attack. This left Sachsen to turn its land power against the Volgans while the Kingdom of Anglia moved at sea against Yamato.

Both the Volgans and the Imperial Yamato Fleet proved much tougher customers than had been expected. The first Anglian Fleet met, and was essentially destroyed by, the IYN in the Battle of the Shujimo Straits in 403. The Sachsens, on the other hand, while initially successful against Volga, soon found that the sheer strategic depth of that empire was more than their slender logistic arrangements could well deal with. Worse, as a Sachsen general of the day observed, "What matter that we kill three or four Volgans for one of ours when there are five Volgans for every one of ours?" By 405 the Sachsens were stymied and Volga on the counterattack.

It was at this time that Tsar Vladimir Ilyich III dusted off an old and discredited political and economic philosophy from Earth and imposed it on his people in the interests of furthering the war effort. Peasants, previously freed by the tsar's grandfather, found themselves once again bound to the land as de facto serfs. Industrial workers likewise were organized and a vast array of repressive measures, backed up by an extensive secret police apparatus, were imposed.

The destruction of the Anglian power at Shujimo Straits had the side effect of radically transforming the balance of naval power in the Mar Furioso. Moreover, with both the Gallic and Anglian fleets out of business the Federated States was able to gather its not inconsiderable fleet in from the two oceans into which it had previously been split and concentrate it to face Yamato. This was eased by the possession, on the part of the FSC, of the Balboa Transitway, which linked the two oceans and allowed rapid redeployment. Potential threat led to tensions; tensions led to war between Yamato and the Federated States.

In this Yamato was initially frightfully successful, dealing as harshly with the FSN as they had earlier with the Anglians. Where Yamato miscalculated, however, was in confusing another island state, Anglia, which could not readily replace its fleet, with a continent-spanning empire like the FSC, which could. By 406 the Federated States was on the attack as much as were the Volgans.

The final phase of the war saw Sachsen, Anglian and Federated States troops holding a line against the Volgans across central Sachsen while the FSN approached the home islands of the Empire of Yamato. Two nuclear weapons, newly developed, were used against Yamato in an attempt to compel its surrender. The United Earth Peace Fleet likewise bombed-using rather larger, albeit much cleaner, nuclear weapons-two cities in the Federated States, San Fernando and Botulph, and threatened further bombings if nuclear weapons were again used.

Fearing nuclear destruction, the Federated States instead imposed a complete naval blockade against Yamato, while continuing mass bombing with conventional high explosives and incendiaries. It is estimated that thirty million civilians either were killed by the bombing, or starved to death, or died to disease or weather as a result of starvation-induced weakness, before that empire agreed to unconditional surrender.

Following the surrender of the Empire of Yamato, a peace treaty was negotiated between the Volgan Empire and the allied states of Sachsen, Anglia and the FSC. This peace treaty left in place the military lines existing as of 410 AC.