Carnifex

UEPF Spirit of Peace

"We'll call that one a draw," High Admiral Robinson decided, looking at a high resolution recording of the Suzy Q's fight with the Xamaris.

Wallenstein shook her head. "No . . . I don't think so. Sure, the pirates managed to sink the mercenaries' yacht, and sure the mercenaries only got a crappy, slow, tramp fishing boat in return. But all the pirates died, if you count the ones the mercenaries hanged off the flight deck of their aircraft carrier and those they fed to the sharks. Those pirates won't be going home and people in Xamar are eventually going to wonder what horror it is out at sea that eats their sons and doesn't even spit out the bones. No, Admiral, sorry, but it was a loss."

Robinson, being a Class One, hated being corrected by lesser castes. Even so, he was willing to admit Wallenstein was right to the extent that he changed the subject slightly.

"I understand that the FSC is considering rehiring those mercenaries for employment in Pashtia."

"For a very impressive amount of money," Wallenstein agreed. "How do we use that?"

She already had a number of ideas of how to put the deployment out of country of the legions to good use but, since she wanted Class One status more than she wanted life, she thought it best to let the High Admiral recoup from being corrected.

"They're going to have to send sixty-five or seventy percent of their force over if they're going to do any good," Robinson said. "The Taurans are collapsing in Pashtia. That will put the Tauran forces in Balboa on a rough par with the legions, not counting the mercenaries' reserves. It might be enough for the Taurans to interfere with the election there. Our ambassador says that this Parilla bastard is certain to win any open and fair election."

"What do you have in mind?" Wallenstein asked.

"Well . . . suppose we have the World League and the Tauran Union insist on sending observers to oversee the election. Perhaps we can have that idiot ex-president from the FSC go, too. You know the one, Wozniak. No matter how the elections go, they can insist there was voter intimidation, ballot-box fraud, the usual. Then the Government of Balboa can refuse to step down. The Tauran troops can protect that government as long as they match the rump of the Legion in power."

"What about the FSC?"

"About one quarter of the FSC is Progressive, which is to say, Taurophile and United Earthophile, at heart. That's probably enough to stymie any FS support for mercenaries that even the more fascistic among them consider to be distasteful. So it would be just the Taurans against the Balboans."

Wallenstein considered that. "I don't think the Taurans are enough."

With that, Robinson agreed. "They're not; no tolerance for heavy casualties. The Taurans and the Zhong together might be enough though."

Robinson had no clue he was almost echoing Gallic General Janier. Still, the objective reality of the matter was available to both men. Why should they not draw similar conclusions?

"They might," Wallenstein conceded. "I wonder though, if we're not actually creating exactly the threat we fear."

And that was as far as she was willing to go. She did, after all, want Class One status.