Carnifex

7/6/47 AC (Old Earth year 2106), Terra Nova, Balboa Colony

The shuttles came down in broad daylight, the better to intimidate the population.

Belisario Carrera, watching from a jungle-shrouded perch overlooking the ciudad, counted them as they descended. Multiplying by twenty-four, he came up with a number of new opponents that set his teeth to grinding and his stomach to churning.

Still, there's no way to tell from here, Belisario thought, how many are actually aboard, what their equipment is like, or what kind of soldiers they are. Hmmm . . .

"Pedro?" Belisario called, summoning a short, stocky and dark, loincloth-clad fighter.

"Si, jefe?" Pedro asked when he had crawled up to his leader's observation post. He massaged a sore shoulder as he lay upon the ground, gift of a captured UN rifle with altogether too much kick.

"I want you to . . . " Belisario began and then stopped. Pedro was a cholo, an indian, but he was also very nearly the brightest of Belisario's followers. He was among the bravest. If Belisario asked Pedro to go into town and spy, Pedro would certainly do it. But the risk?

I must risk it. I must risk him.

"Pedro," Belisario continued, "I need to know what we're facing. Can you go into town and look around for me?"

The cholo didn't say much, ever. He didn't now, either, but just nodded and began to slither backwards.

Belisario returned his attention to the town below and the parade of descending shuttles. So even here I cannot escape Earth and its corruption. Ah, well, at least here I can fight and have a chance. But I do wish that before I left I'd killed more slowly that UN bastard who wanted to trade me my own land for my daughter.

* * *

The ciudad wasn't really much of a ciudad. Even Pedro, cholo or not, knew that. Only the stone church had any real presence, at least since Belisario and his men had attacked and burned to the ground the local UN offices. It wasn't difficult for Pedro to keep a smile off his face as he passed the ruined UN compound. After all, there was a substantial group of uniformed men busily working to rebuild it.

Looking carefully at the soldiers, Pedro engraved on his mind the image his eyes saw. Big, strong, tough looking. Red cloths wound around their heads. Cloths look pretty neat. Might get one. Keep rifles close by or slung across backs. Hotter than shit and they still haven't taken off shirts. I smell trouble.

Pedro had his basic letters and numbers. He counted, in all, about one hundred and fifty before moving on.

I thought other fucking UN bastards looked tough, he thought, a few hundred more yards down the street. He, like the civilians of the town, rapidly got out of the way of another group of soldiers, marching silently in three files and about fifty ranks, separated into five groups. They short shits, like me. Eyes different, though. Skin lighter. But little fuckers look mean. And them big fucking curved knives they carrying? Scary.

After three-hundred of the toughest looking men he had ever seen, Pedro breathed a small sigh of relief as he got close enough to see the next group, just emerging from the shuttles.

Hah, that more like it. Them look like Botswanan fellahs we kick shit out of while back. Smell worse, though. Jesus, nobody tell dirty fuckers "Cleanliness next to Godliness?" I mean, I know water tight on fucking transport ships but . . . ewwww. It ain't like you sweat any in deep freeze. Them nasty fucks musta been stinky when board ship.

Then Pedro smelled something he had only ever smelt once before in his life. That time had been at Tocumen Airport, in Panama, on old Earth, as he had been about to board the aircraft that would take him to the United States to be shuttled up to the Amerigo Vespucci. He didn't know what caused it. At first he thought it might be the helicopters roaring by overhead.

But, no . . . them too far away . . . downwind, too.

A horn sounding behind him half scared Pedro out of his coppery skin. He turned quickly, and found himself staring into eyes that just emerged above a long, green painted, solid-looking slope. He looked above the eyes, looked further up to what appeared to be a pipe sticking out of a half a trash can stuck on front of the universe's biggest frying pan. Up; a machine gun mounted atop a flat roof, with a soldier nonchalantly resting one hand on the gun, while waving with the other for Pedro to clear away.

Oh, shit; they got tanks.