Caliphate

Chapter Five

Mindanao, Philippine Islands, 29 June, 2107

The mosque burned with a greasy, sooty smoke. No wonder in that; there were bodies still inside. Around the mosque, likewise burned houses, stores, government buildings. From many of those, too, the smoke carried the savor of long pig.

Hamilton watched Captain Thompson with interest. The captain himself watched several attached Filipino Military Police sweeping the clothing of the prisoners with chemical-sensitive wands. Those who failed the test were pushed off by Suited Heavy Infantry troopers to where others like them were engaged in digging a great ditch with hands and hand tools. Thompson raised a hand as the troopers began herding off a group of children, aged perhaps eight through eleven.

"Put them with the other group, the monks' group," the captain ordered, causing Hamilton to breathe a sigh of relief.

"But, Captain-" one of the MPs began to protest, a protest cut short by a snarl and a flash of eye.

"They are just children, not responsible for being used as they were. Put them in the other group."

"I don't see the frigging point," one of the MPs muttered under his breath. "What will the kids do with their parents dead? Besides, nits make lice."

Hodge escorted a film group from IDI, the Imperial Department of Information, as they recorded scenes of the village. The group was arranging corpses. Rather, Hodge's platoon did the arranging, under IDI direction.

IDI had, of course, closely monitored the approach to and fighting for the place, all recorded by satellite and lower-flying recon drones. They had some pretty good shots, she knew, of the few casualties taken in the assault: one man's suit utterly destroyed by a large, command-detonated mine, two more killed by shaped-charge grenades carried on rockets, one man whose suit was disabled and whom the Moros had de-suited and then hacked to bits. There had also been several each killed and wounded by large caliber rifle fire.

Where the heavy caliber rifles had come from was a matter of some conjecture. The likeliest possibility, likely enough to call it a "probability," was that they had been smuggled across the sea by sympathizers in Moslem Malaysia and Indonesia. Already, airships were being loaded with massive quantities of aerial ordnance to level the coastal Malaysian and Indonesian cities from which the rifles had probably come. At other fields, fighter escorts and electronic warfare planes were likewise being readied to support and protect the airships. For that matter, given their size and carrying capacity, the airships packed an impressive defensive suite of their own, to include four fighters each.

In a way, it was a waste. The ruins of the cities of the Caliphate of Islam, Triumphant, produced no technology able to stand up to the Empire's aerial juggernaut. What little they had was purchased, at ruinous expense, from the Chinese of the Celestial Kingdom of the Han.

And if the Malaysians and Indonesians hadn't shipped the arms? Well, so what? It wasn't as if the Malaysians and Indonesians weren't numbered among the enemy, after all.

Imperial casualties the locals would never be permitted to see, lest it give them hope, in the case of the Moros, or doubt in the case of the Christian Filipinos. Instead, they would see the results of the assault on the Moros themselves, a one-sided slaughter.

Folks back home, on the other hand, would see the full story. It would just be highly edited to show the iniquity of the enemy; that, and the dire punishment meted out to him. IDI had had decades to perfect the art of the propaganda film, the masterful skill of the consummate liar. Michael Moore (despite his having been hanged in 2020) and Leni Riefenstahl were the unofficial heroes of the department.

Around a fire a group of the troops were singing a song they'd rediscovered from a happier and simpler day and then modified to suit:

"Damn, damn, damn the stinking Mor-or-ros,

Cross-eyed, kakiak ladrones.

Underneath the starry flag

Christianize 'em with a Slag

Then return us to our own beloved homes… "

"You're a bona fide hero now, Hamilton," Thompson kidded, once the sorting had begun and the war crimes trials had commenced.

The captain was joking, obviously enough, and so Hamilton didn't respond directly. Instead, he asked, "Why did you save those kids, sir?"

"Softhearted, I guess," Thompson shrugged. "Besides, it was within my discretion. You object?"

Actually, that was the first remotely human response Hamilton had ever seen from his commander. He answered, "No, sir, it just surprised me. It's a… weakness. I didn't think you had any."

"I'm human enough, I assure you," Thompson said with a grim smile. "Those kids will be sent to a Christian orphanage," he explained. "There, they'll have the religion knocked out of them. Rather, they'll have their religion knocked out of them and ours, one of ours, substituted. In time, they'll become assets."

Hamilton raised one eyebrow doubtfully. "That's not why you saved them."

Thompson shook his head. "No… no, I saved them to sleep better at night. If you stay with the Army, young lieutenant, I suggest you find ways to help yourself sleep better at night, too."

"I haven't done anything yet that bothers my conscience," Hamilton said.

"No? You will."

The captain directed his gaze out to sea where a dozen large amphibious craft were bringing in new, Christian, settlers to occupy the area just cleared of Moslems. The landing craft, under escort, of course, would be used to cart off the remaining original inhabitantseven now moving under guard to the shoreline-and dump them on the Malaysian or Indonesian coasts. The villagers hadn't been driven off with nothing; they still had their eyes to weep with.

"All this would have been unthinkable, you know," the captain said, gesturing with one armored hand at the surrounding destruction, and not neglecting the long lines of Moros being ushered into tents where courts-martial were being held by the Army of the Philippines. "Even a century ago it would have been unthinkable, though a century and a half ago it was all too common.

"The old law of war, you see, was a fragile thing, easily broken. And when the enemy ignored it and some of our own people tried to mold it to do too much, it broke. Now there's no law except for who is fastest, who is best armed and trained, who is most ruthless. And when the enemy demonstrated that the planet wasn't big enough for both of us and we demonstrated that it didn't necessarily have to contain both of us? That's when-"

The captain's words were interrupted by a massive burst of weapons fire as the Filipino troops working with the company shot the first dozen of those villagers convicted of war crimes into the ditch they had themselves been forced to dig.

By the fire, unbothered by the shootings, the troopers sang:

"In that land of dopey dreams

Happy peaceful Philippines… "

Al Harv Barracks, Province of Affrankon, 10 Rajab,

1531 AH (1 July, 2107)

They started the boys off with light rifles,. 22 caliber repeaters. Nazrani were barred from owning or holding arms by law. Yet the boys were no longer Nazrani and so they all-being, after all, boys- were simply thrilled. Here was power. Here was delight in destruction.

The paper targets being destroyed would not have been thrilled, had they been anything other than paper targets. The one hare who bumbled onto the rifle range was definitely not thrilled. That hare had had too many close calls with death already in the last few years.

Fortunately for the hare, the boys had not learned yet to be nearly as proficient with the rifles as falcons are born to be with their talons. Though little devils of dust burst all around the hare wherever the bullets struck, none of them struck the hare. A few hops and it was lost in the grass, trembling.

The tent shuddered as its flap billowed in the midsummer's evening breeze. Within the tent, by the flaring light of a gas lantern, the instructors for the new recruits gathered to discuss their charges over coffee and tea. The senior drill instructor of the company, Abdul Rahman, held forth a number of names, Hans' among them, of recruits for whom it might be well to give advanced training in marksmanship, in time, and perhaps even in leadership.

The boys slept out in the open under the stars.

"Minden missed the hare, just like all the rest of them did," objected Abdul Rahman's senior assistant, Rustam. Where Abdul Rahman was tall and beefy, Rustam was shorter and much more slender. Both had the blue eyes that were typical among the janissaries of the Caliphate.

"Buck fever," Abdul Rahman answered. "He still is proving a better shot than all but a few of the others."

"He was among the very last to accept the faith."

"That's true," Abdul Rahman conceded, "and it speaks well of the boy. He doesn't give up easily." He raised one sardonic eyebrow. "And I seem to recall another ex- Nazrani revert who likewise didn't give up his religion lightly or easily."

"I was just stupid, mule headed," answered Rustam. "It signifies nothing."

Abdul Rahman, who had been a junior drill instructor when Rustam had first been gathered to the janissaries, barely suppressed a snort. "You were the most mule headed, if not the most stupid. As you are among the most faithful now, if not the most clever. I think we'll give this boy the same chance I gave you."

Rocking his head from side to side, making the crescent decoration on his neck swing, Rustam reluctantly and doubtfully agreed. "Oh, all right. Have it your own way. And I suppose it isn't as if we had a better candidate."

"No, and with the American Empire almost done tidying up their perimeter, I have no doubt it will be our turn soon enough, certainly within the lifetime of the boys."

"Is the ordu scheduled to move to the Atlantic Wall when the boys are ready in six years?"

"I don't know," Abdul Rahman answered. "And who really plans anyway? Who even can plan. We'll go wherever the will of the Almighty sends us, east or west or south."

"South? Greeks? Serbs? I hate the Greeks and Serbs," Rustam said with a noticeable shudder. He'd been on the Balkans Front for some years and found too many comrades staked out, castrated and with their eyes gouged out. War was endemic around the borders of the Dar al Islam and the Dar al Harb, the House of Submission and the House of War. But in the Balkans it wasn't just endemic, it was virulent.

"Not a lot of quarter given or received with either of them," Abdul Rahman agreed, a little sadly. "Not a lot of quarter given or received by anybody anymore."

Kitznen, Province of Affrankon, 13 Rajab, 1531 AH

(4 July, 2107)

There was little in the way of fun and games anymore, not with Besma living in terror of the beatings al Khalifa would administer to Petra for the slightest failings of either of them. It was all Besma could do to keep her promise to Hans to teach Petra to read. And she couldn't let her stepmother see that, either, lest she decide that was a sufficient excuse to beat Petra again.

There was something deeply sick, Besma thought, about the look on al Khalifa's face when she took her whip or a switch or a belt to Petra's back and rear. She was enjoying it, yes, that much was clear. But there was something more, too, something Besma didn't understand and perhaps didn't want to. She found the slack lips, the glassy eyes, and the heavy breathing sufficiently frightening in themselves without delving into whatever thoughts and feelings lay behind those external symptoms.

"School will start for me soon," Besma announced, as she and Petra practiced Petra's reading by a flashlight hidden under the covers of Besma's bed. "I'll be gone most of every day. I'm frightened of leaving you alone with al Khalifa."

Petra didn't say anything but began to chew her lip nervously. "Please don't," she begged. "I'll do anything… carry your books for you… anything. But that woman will hurt me every day; I know she will."

"I know. I'm terrified of it, too. But I don't know what to do about it."

Petra began to rock and softly to cry. "I'm just a poor slave girl," she whimpered. "Why does she hate me?"

Besma shook her head. "I don't even think you exist for her," she said. "It's me the bitch hates. She'd much rather have me stretched over the table with my skirt up, but she doesn't dare."

"Your father's a good man," Petra said, still crying. "Can't he help? He helped me before."

"My father is a good man," Besma agreed, putting one arm around Petra and using the hand on the other to gather the slave girl's head into her shoulder. She rested her own cheek on the top of Petra's head. "But he is also a pious one and the law gives the management of the household to the woman. He would never interfere. Oh, he might beat al Khalifa himself if she ever gave him cause, but she never does. If he calls for her she will come even if she's in the kitchen making bread. And she lets him plow her as he will; I've heard them."

"Plow her?"

"I'll explain when you're older. Now stop crying and get back to your reading."

Mindanao, Philippine Islands, 4 July, 2107

The Philippine Scout, in this case a genuine tracker and not a mere infantryman, read the signs by the charred corpse. The scout-he went by Aguinaldo-was perhaps forty, though the years, the sun and the rain had aged him beyond those years. He had probably been an Imperial retainer since youth. His English was, in any case, quite good though he still had some of his native accent.

Some of what there was to see was obvious: the single bullets in the power packs that had rendered two suits helpless, the scraps of armor chiseled apart… the tripod under which one soldier had apparently been roasted with his belly down towards the coals.

Hodge had taken one look and run off, vomit pouring into her helmet and down the flexible neck guard to gather on her breasts.

Well, it had been her man, after all. Originally she had dispatched two soldiers on a patrol. One of them was still missing.

Hamilton refrained from following her, in both senses, but just barely.

"Over there," the Filipino said, pointing towards some vineshrouded rocks. "They fired from over there." The finger rotated to a cave in the side of the jungle-clad hill to the east. "Some ran in there from the west. Your men followed. They were ambushed. Then the Moros in the cave came out and dismembered their armor. They want you to think they roasted this man alive but he was already dead when they strung him up over the fire. The other they dragged off, I think… alive. Initially they went south. I can't tell from here if they kept going that way."

Thompson nodded. He'd had opportunity enough these last few weeks to have learned to trust the scout's eyes and senses. "Can you track them?" he asked.

Aguinaldo said he could but, "Captain… they want you to follow. They didn't have to leave the trail so well marked and they usually don't. Then, too-" the scout hesitated.

"Yes, go on," Thompson commanded.

"You're the least suitable type of unit to track them."

"I know," the captain sighed. "But we're here… and nobody else is."

Thompson had already radioed for a light infantry unit to insert and track down the Moros. None had been available. He'd had high altitude aerial recon check out the area for twenty miles around. They'd seen nothing.

And yet, Thompson thought, we know they're out there. If they can't be seen that means they're ready, waiting and, just as Aguinaldo said, they want us to follow.

Hodge returned, a little unsteady in her armored feet. "I'm sorry, sir. I-"

"Never mind, Laurie," Thompson cut her off. "No shame."

It's not like I have all that much choice, the captain continued with his musing. If I owe the men nothing else, I owe them that they won't be abandoned while we can still try to help. Is this going to cost me more? Yes, probably. But the soldiers can be replaced. What can't be replaced if it's lost is the faith that we-this company-won't give up on them.

Then, too, assume the worst, that there's a company or two of unusually well armed, well trained, and well led Moros out there. So we follow and they get in the first licks…maybe hurt us, maybe even badly. After they get in their first licks, we get in the last ones. How many lives do I save if that group of Moros can be destroyed?

Man, all my choices suck; not a good one to be had. Hell, I don't even have a choice. I'm not going to leave one of my boys out there to be skinned or roasted alive.

So the question is, do I have everybody strip down to just Exos and follow or only enough to catch the Moros and pin them in position. The latter, I think. One platoon should do.

Thompson looked directly at Hodge. "Lieutenant, you want to get your own back?"

No hesitation: "Yes, sir!"

"Fine. Have your children strip down to just Exos, helmets, chest plates and small arms. That will give you the speed and the endurance to follow and catch them. The rest of the company will follow you as fast as we can, carrying your extra armor. I'll arrange for aerial recon and fire support… that, and an on-call power pack drop. I'll try again to get some light infantry inserted to block their escape but I can't promise it.

"Sergeant Aguinaldo, you go with them."

"Yes, sir," the scout answered.

"Be careful with my boys and girls, Laurie," Thompson cautioned. "Now go!"

Hodge was just as glad that the captain had ordered her platoon out of their suits. She wasn't sure she'd have been able to stand the stench of her own puke fermenting in the jungle heat.

That wasn't all that dumping full armor had done for her. Thus lightened, the suits were quieter, faster, and had a lot greater endurance. Since all the processing power was located in the back and all the sensing was in the helmets, she and her platoon lost nothing in those departments.

Unfortunately, the suits still weren't going through any major trees. These, the platoon had to snake around. Even as they did, though, branches and leaves and long, sharp grasses lashed at them, tearing at uniforms and sometimes slashing the skin beneath. No matter; one of theirs was somewhere ahead, facing a grisly death unless rescued. What was a little blood and pain not to have to face that failure?

Hodge stopped as Aguinaldo stiffened. The scout gestured with one hand, the other holding his rifle, for the platoon to move to the left. They did.

While they were doing so, Aguinaldo took a small remotely piloted vehicle, a miniature helicopter, from his pack and prepared to send it aloft.

"What is it, Sergeant?" Hodge asked, once she and the platoon were off the trail and hidden amongst the jungle's fronds.

Aguinaldo started the small RPV and lofted it before answering, "I can't say, ma'am. Something's not right up ahead. It's-"

The air was suddenly split by half a dozen large explosions, the homicidal shriek of the jagged metal those explosions threw forth, and by heavy fire from more rifles and machine guns than Hodge had devoutly hoped would ever be aimed in her direction.

Al Harv Barracks, Province of Affrankon, 13 Rajab, 1531 AH (4 July, 2107)

"Listen carefully to the sounds, boys," said Rustam. "That's fire going high."

Down in the pit, prepared to bring down a target, mark it, and hoist the target back up, Hans listened. He also watched as new holes appeared in the target. Sometimes he could catch them as they were created and match the distance and direction to the quality of the bullets' crack.

This is what it will sound like when I am under fire. This is what I will hear after I pass training and am accepted as a full janissary.

Once the boys had been trained on the. 22s, they'd moved up almost immediately to thirty caliber rifles, about the most they could handle with thirteen-year-old bodies just now beginning to fill out properly (because only recently given enough to eat reliably). It was with the. 30s that they were taking turns firing on the known distance range, one half firing while the other half worked the targets. It was a low tech solution, one that would have been sneered at in any of the armed forces of the Empire (excepting only the Imperial Marine Corps, a regressive lot, to be sure). And yet it not only worked, it had the double benefit of accustoming the troops to the variable sounds of fire directed their way.

This was also one of the benefits of using janissary troops. With boys raised in Islam, not only the religion but the culture behind it-or most of the cultures behind it; there were some exceptions-it was almost impossible, and at best, with the best candidates, very difficult to train them to shoot properly. Hits, after all, came through the grace of Allah as did everything else. This, for mainstream Sunni boys (Moros and Afghans being among those exceptions), was so much a given that no amount of lecturing and no amount of punishment could break them of it.

Christian boys, however, raised in the belief that God helps those who help themselves, would retain that attitude-it was too inchoate to call it a philosophy-even after they reverted to Islam. For one generation, they would, anyway; which was one reason why janissaries, after release from service, were never permitted to send their own sons to the corps. Abdul Rahman's, for example, were, in one case, a cobbler, in another a fireman, while a third was still apprenticed to a shopkeeper. But janissaries they would never be.

What the Corps of Janissaries would do after the last Christian in western Europe reverted neither Abdul Rahman, nor Rustam, nor even the caliph, knew.

Mindanao, Philippine Islands, 4 July, 2107

Hodge never knew what hit her. One moment Aguinaldo was telling her something, the next his body had practically disintegrated in a blizzard of hot metal shards while Hodge herself was knocked almost senseless by the blast and spun head over heels by something striking her right thigh.

When she recovered enough to rise to her hands and knees, she saw and smelled the blood, not hers she hoped, dripping from her helmet and Exo. Hodge shook her head to try to clear and felt a wave of nausea wash over her. That she'd emptied her stomach earlier didn't help her as she'd eaten again, hurriedly from a pouch, while on the track of her lost soldier. She re-emptied her stomach, the puke mixing with the scout sergeant's ghastly remains. Then she looked at the bloody, torn meat of her right thigh and wanted to puke again.

When the shock wears off, that's really going to hurt.

Already, Hodge's Exo had analyzed the damage and applied a nondisorienting general pain killer. It wouldn't make the damaged leg any better, but it would help Hodge make full use of what was left.

There was firing all around; that much she could hear even if her vision was blurry with concussion. An indistinct shape appeared over some rocks hard by. It was shouting something unintelligible and waving something that looked shiny. Automatically Hodge pointed her left hand at the shape, formed a fist and dropped it. A burst of fire from her Slag leapt out, ripping the bolo-wielding Moro to shreds. His ruined body tumbled back over the rocks.

"Charlie Niner-Six, Bravo Two-Three," Hodge gasped out. "Ambush. We're fucked."

"Hang on, Two-Three," answered Thompson's calm voice. "I've got a drone inbound, ETA three minutes. Air support is coming."

"No go on the air support," Hodge answered. "I think they're all mixed in among us. Wait, out."

Even as Hodge said that, her left arm was once again pointing at a Moro, this one carrying a rifle rather than a bolo. The stream of fire that lanced out practically sliced the man in two.

"Report," she managed to get out.

"One: Sergeant Caudillo's dead… three others down. Pinned. Returning fire."

"Two: Six left unhurt, two wounded. Holding on. They're between us and first. I think third's out of it. What we gonna to do, El Tee?"

She waited in vain for a report from her third squad leader. "Sergeant Ryan," she ordered, "report. Anybody in third squad, report. Anybody?"

There was no answer from third. She'd had to force herself to keep the sound of desperate pleading out of her voice when she asked that last, "Anybody?"

"Ma'am, Sergeant Pierantoni here. I'm with second… close enough, anyway. The rest of the company's better than half an hour behind us. Maybe more; if they hit us here they might have something waiting back there. I don't think we're going to hold on that long."

Hodge had been up near the point, near Aguinaldo. One could argue she'd been too near the point, but that was for the future if, indeed, that argument was ever to be made. Third squad, which had been nearest to her, was destroyed, insofar as she could tell. Sure, it was possible there was a man out there wounded and alive, or one with broken communications. But the way to bet it was that they were dead or soon would be.

"Recommendations, Sergeant?" The drug in her system was all that allowed her to keep her voice human.

"You pull back to first. We'll cover you and first. Then we can take turns, bounding back."

"No go, Sergeant, I can't move far."

"I'll come for you."

Hodge's voice was both sad and determined. "No. Here's what I want. First squad?"

"Ma'am?"

"I'll cover as best I can from here. Get yourself back to second and the platoon sergeant. Sergeant P, carry out your plan once you and second and first link up. I'll… "

"No, ma'am, we'll wait."

Hodge wanted to cry, not just from the pain that was ebbing from her ruined thigh, but also from the knowledge that the life she'd hoped to have with Hamilton after she left the army was just not going to happen. She wanted to cry; what she didn't want was to argue.

"No. I've only got a little left in me. I need to use that to cover first squad."

"Ma'am… "

"Don't argue with me. First squad?"

"Ma'am?"

"If I can't get the order out; when you hear me fire, go."

Thompson and Hamilton could hear Hodge through the command circuit.

"Laurie, hold on. I'm coming," Hamilton cried into the radio, as he started tearing the jungle apart in an attempt to move farther, faster "Lieutenant Hamilton, hold fast," ordered Thompson in the same calm voice as usual. The captain had the good grace not to say, I warned you about this.

"Captain, that's-"

Hamilton couldn't quite bring himself to say it, that Hodge was the woman he loved. It would have been worse than Thompson saying, "I told you so." Instead, after a pause, he said, "That's one of ours. We can't just-"

"I'm aware, Lieutenant, of who she is."

Another voice, the forward observer sergeant's, piped up, "Captain, airship Pershing on station with a heavy load of ordnance. They're carrying whatever we might want to ask for. Well, short of nukes, they are."

The company was still pushing on through the jungle. In his head, and aided by a map painted onto his eye with a low-powered laser,

Thompson calculated the time it would take to get to Hodge against her very short life expectancy. No matter how he tried to calculate it, he kept coming up short. There was no way he and the troops would reach her in time.

"Private circuit, Lieutenant Hodge," he said into the radio. "Laurie, your plan is approved. We won't make it to you in time. I can deal you aces and eights to prevent capture. Your call."

"Give what's left of my platoon a chance to break contact, Captain," she answered. "And… "

"Yes?"

"Don't make John call in the dead man's hand… It wouldn't be fair."

"I understand. Let me know when."

"Yes, sir… Sir, if you don't hear from me… if I'm not able-"

"I'll call it in myself, Laurie."

"Thank you, Captain. Hodge out… break, break… First squad; prepare to move."

Dragging her ruined right leg behind her, Hodge slithered to the blood-flecked rocks nearby. She extended a monofilament microviewer from her right glove and looked over the area first squad had been in. Already some of the Moros were out, rifles slung across backs and wavy swords in hand, chopping their way through the tough battledress and inner coolsuits of the dead and wounded troopers.

"Bastards," she whispered, before retracting the miniviewer and taking her rifle in hand.

The rifle, a Model-2098, had its own viewer, which was connected by radio to Hodge's helmet. In theory, and especially when augmented by the Exo to absorb recoil, one could fire the thing effectively from behind cover with only the armored hands exposed. Practice was better than theory, though, and practice said that the natural shooting position of rifle against shoulder and eye aligned with barrel was more effective.

Hodge had counted seven of the Moros out in the open, finishing off the wounded and making sure the dead were dead. Her firing position had her to the right side of the base of the rock gathering. Sensibly, she opted to take out the rightmost Moros first, thus keeping the rock between her and those she had not yet engaged. With a whisper, she instructed the rifle, "Activate. Fire on center of thermal signatures as you bear."

With that, she swept the rifle steadily from right to left. When the first thermal image was center of mass, it opened fire with a five round in a sixth-of-a-second burst, then repeated as its operator aligned it with the next target. Hodge was quick and four of the seven went down before the remaining three realized what was happening and dove for cover.

In seconds, Hodge's rock was deluged with fire, driving her back to shelter behind it.

"Go, first squad, GO!"

"Sir, Sergeant Pierantoni here. We're out of immediate danger… maybe half a klick from where we were ambushed. The El Tee's stopped firing right as we heard a pretty big blast. I think it's time. We can be seven- or eight hundred meters away before anything can hit."

"Concur, Sergeant P… break… Lieutenant Hodge? Lieutenant Hodge?… negative contact… break… FO? Does Pershing have an FAE pod ready?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Release on Lieutenant Hodge's position."

Much as one could only rarely train someone raised in Moslem culture to be a decent shot, so too the Moros expected that if Allah did not want them to rape their captives, He would say so or otherwise prevent it. If He allowed it, as He invariably did, it was because He wanted it to happen. If there was a different price to be paid for it, then that, too, was merely in accordance with the will of the Almighty.

Thus, by the time Hodge awakened from the blast that had propelled her into unconsciousness, the Moros had stripped her from her Exo and, apparently noticing she had tits, begun to strip her of her battledress. A line of them were forming up even as eight of them began staking her arms out and her legs spread. A ninth and tenth cut away her clothing, taking some care not to cut her so as not to damage the merchandise any further. A blond infidel with tits? She'd bring a high price from one of the datus, the Moro chieftains. Or maybe she could be presented as a gift to the sultan.

Hodge's vision swam in and out of focus. She raised her head and saw one of the Moros pulling out what she couldn't help thinking was a laughably small penis. In fact, she did laugh and was rewarded with a light kick to the head. That made her see stars and wretch yet again.

"Goodbye, John; I loved you," she whispered. "Anytime now, Captain. Anyti-"

She barely caught the flash as a huge thermobaric bomb detonated a few hundred meters overhead.

They found Hodge's lost soldier in among a group of Moros. That much satisfaction the men and women of her platoon had; at least their comrade hadn't been roasted alive. They found Hodge, herself, apparently raped, with her skin-where it had been exposed-dried and scorched and her body blue where it wasn't scorched black. (In fact, there had not been time for rape but the soldiers couldn't know that.) Her luxurious strawberry blonde hair was gone, except for a blackened, crispy residue next to her scalp. Her eyes… well, the less said about those, the better; Fuel Air Explosive did bad things to soft eyes.

The company set up a wide perimeter around the site. Within that perimeter, military police gathered DNA samples of every Moro body found. Those samples would be used in every village they cleared out. Adults who matched as being family of the ambushers would be killed, in every case.

It had long since become that kind of war.

Hamilton, suited but with his helmet off, grieved beside Hodge's body, arms wrapped around shins and rocking erratically. Yes, the lieutenant had responsibilities that he was neglecting but Thompson gave him a pass on those for a while.

Thompson still didn't say, " I told you so."

He did say, however, "I'm sending you back with the body. I'm allowed to send someone back and your platoon sergeant can handle things well enough for a week or ten days." That was being tactful; the platoon sergeant needed no lieutenant and would do better without having one whose nose he had to wipe.

Hamilton stopped his rocking and shook his head, "No. Being gone for a week or ten days would be a week or ten days I wouldn't be killing the people who did this. All in all, I'd rather be killing Moros than drinking in a bar in Iowa. She was from Iowa, you know."

"I knew." Thompson didn't bother to mention that "the people who did this" were already dead. He knew Hamilton knew that and he knew Hamilton meant the People, the entire People, ranged against them in the field. "You're still going. Her parents deserve to hear what happened from someone who loved their daughter, too."

Sergeant Pierantoni came up, with three other troopers, one of them with a stretcher over one shoulder. "We've got a landing zone hacked out, Captain. All the other bodies have been brought to it. She's the last one."

"Give Lieutenant Hamilton a minute alone with her," Thompson said. "And come on." With that, the captain led the party a few score meters away.

Hamilton, once he'd been left alone, started to reach over to brush the burnt stubble from Hodge's scalp. His hand stopped of its own accord millimeters from her. He couldn't bring himself to touch her, not the obscene ruin she'd become. No more could he stroke her face. Instead, he just spoke to the corpse.

"I'm sorry; I can't touch you because this isn't you. I'll punish them for this, Laurie. I promise I will."

He knew the pain he felt was as nothing to the pain he would feel once he really, deep down, came to understand she was gone and was never coming back. And how will I feel when I realize I wasn't man enough to kiss her goodbye?

Then, however hard it was to do, Hamilton leaned over and kissed Hodge's forehead. As he backed away, tears fell.

"God, what a shitty world."

Camp Stotsenberg, Philippine Islands, 18 July, 2107

"Sit. Drink. That's not a request."

The O' Club for the camp was in a large plastic foam building, set off away from the troop billets lest the soldiers see their officers drunk and silly. Local hires did the maintenance, keeping the grass trimmed and the jungle at bay. The building itself was formed by blowing up a large, Quonset hut shaped balloon and then spraying it with the foam. Once the foam hardened, the balloon was removed and sections were cut away for doors, windows, and air conditioning units, which were installed as kits. Furniture came disassembled in shipping containers, it being the job of the troops to assemble it. The foam came pre-tinted for the natural environment. In some cases, of course, no tint was necessary as white, snow-white, was the dominant color.

The method had many advantages-cheap to heat and cool, more durable than canvas, and bugs loathed the taste of the foam.

"Sit, I said."

Hamilton, just returned from Iowa, looked at the table around which sat Thompson, Miles and Fitzgerald. An amber bottle graced the center, standing out against the starched white tablecloth. Hamilton couldn't see how much was left in the bottle. It didn't matter anyway; the club had plenty more where that came from.

"Yes, sir," Hamilton answered Thompson's command, pulling out a chair and taking a seat.

Miles reached over and took the glass from in front of Hamilton, while Fitzgerald uncorked the bottle. Into the glass Miles plunked several cubes of perforated ice. He then held the glass out for Fitzgerald to fill before setting it down in front of the company's junior lieutenant.

"How was the funeral?" Thompson asked.

"Bad," Hamilton answered, ignoring the glass. "I had to lie to her parents, and her brothers and sisters, her aunts, uncles, cousins, high school friends. 'I'm sure she went quickly, without pain.' 'No, no… she wasn't raped.' Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain to parents why the coffin has to stay closed?"

"I do, actually," Thompson said. "And, as it turns out, she wasn't raped. I got the forensic report while you were gone."

"That's something anyway," Hamilton said, wanting to believe but not at all sure his commander wouldn't lie to him to spare his feelings.

Thompson, no dummy, caught the doubting tone in Hamilton's voice. "I'll let you read it, if you think you're up to it."

"Maybe later, sir."

"Drink up, Lieutenant," Thompson said.

"Drink to forget?" he asked.

"No, son. We don't drink to forget. We drink to remember."

Interlude

Erfurt, Federal Republic of Germany,

1 February, 2005

The sounds of the concert still echoed in their ears even as Gabi's and Mahmoud's eyes were etched with the pyrotechnic display.

Rammstein was in town.

"I'm not so sure I liked what you've shown me of the inner soul of modern Germany any more than you liked the sermon at the mosque," Mahmoud said, as they walked to his small car parked not far away.

"Surely you're not one of those who see neo-Nazism in a harmless concert." Gabi gave his hand a half-mocking squeeze.

Mahmoud shook his head. His face looked… confused. "No, no… not neo-Nazis. This… that, goes back much further than the Nazis. I didn't see Triumph of the Will in there; for one thing it wasn't orderly enough. For another it was too… primitive."

"Then what did you see, lover?"

Mahmoud hesitated, still thinking and still trying to frame his thoughts in words. "Did you study your own history in school, Gabi?"

"Yes, of course."

"Hermann? The Teutoberger Wald?"

"That, yes," she admitted.

" That's what that music makes me see. I saw Roman legionaries sacrificed over flat rocks. I saw them nailed to trees. In the fires of the concert I saw them being burned alive… in the Teutoberger Wald." He chewed his lower lip for a few moments, then said, "Maybe the Nazis, themselves, were just a symptom-sure, an extreme symptom-of something deeper in the soul, something very primitive, very dark, very real… and very scary. Also something very envious; Amerika was not, after all, a love song."

They both went silent then, still walking and holding hands. They heard the chant before they recognized it. When they recognized it, the two were almost at Mahmoud's auto. And by then it was too late.

"Kanaken raus! Kanaken raus! Kanaken raus! Kanaken… "

There were nine of them, standing around Mahmoud's car, pounding on it with their fists in time with the chant: " Kanaken raus! " They wore leather and chains, or bomber jackets, and high, American-style, jump boots. Some were pierced; still others tattooed, though with only one exception the tattoos could only be seen where the neck met the chest and the shirts and jackets failed to cover them. The one exception had the numbers "88" tattooed on his forehead.

"There are nine of them, Mahmoud," Gabi cautioned.

"Yes," he agreed, sadly, "but I only have the one car."

Gabi screamed as a booted foot came down on Mahmoud's head for the dozenth time. In the near distance, a siren wailed with the peculiar soul-searing screech of the Polizei. It was a sound that conveyed images of burning buildings pouring off bricks as they crumbled, amidst ruined, blasted city blocks, with bombers droning overhead.

After a final flurry of kicks, the thugs turned as one and took off into the darkness. Perhaps they would be caught and perhaps not.

By the time the police car stopped, Gabi was on her knees, bent over Mahmoud's prostrate body, weeping. He was unconscious, his scalp split, blood seeping onto the asphalt of the pavement, and his face covered with it.

While one policeman trotted over to investigate, the other called for an ambulance.

"Animals!" Gabi screeched. "Animals!"

"Yes," the policeman agreed. "But at least the assholes haven't learned how to march in step." He saw that Mahmoud was breathing, then felt at his neck for a pulse. Satisfied with that, the policeman touched lightly around the bloody hair and scalp.

"I think he'll be all right, eventually," the officer said in an attempt to calm the woman. "I don't envy him the headache he'll have, though. Can you tell me what happened?"

Between gasps and bouts of tears, Gabi explained as best she could. As she did, the policeman, still listening, walked around the car, illuminating outside and in with his flashlight. As he did, the other policeman, call to the ambulance service completed, came to see to Mahmoud.

"Nothing on the outside to indicate the driver wasn't German," he observed, "but… oh, oh… " The light settled on a text laying on the back seat. The cover was in Arabic. "This must have caught their eye."

"That?" Gabi said, incredulously. "That's the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam. It's a book of poetry."

"It's in a foreign, non-Latin or Gothic alphabet," the policeman said. "That's often enough. With easterners especially is that often enough, particularly if they're unemployed."

"You're his wife?" the policeman asked.

"He's ask… we live together," Gabi answered.

"I don't envy you either then, the task of cleaning up his vomit when he returns home from the hospital."