Carnifex

29/9/466 AC, War Department, Hamilton, FD, Federated States of Columbia

Fuck, this sort of "excitement" I can live without, mused Virgil Rivers, waiting impatiently, and even nervously, at the office of the secretary of war for the Federated States. River, a tall, slender, café-au-lait colored general officer could not be said to be handsome. He had, however, a friendly manner and infectious grin that most women found very attractive. He'd married well as a result of it.

Ron Campos was gone as SecWar, gone with the outgoing Federalist administration. Truth be told, nobody much missed him. That is, nobody missed him yet. Virgil Rivers suspected a lot of people were going to miss him, to miss him badly and soon. The new SecWar, James K. Malcolm, Progressive, was Campos' match in arrogance, in Rivers' opinion, but lacked both the former SecWar's patriotism and his determination. Indeed, it was widely believed that, given a choice between advancing the interests of the Federated States, or looking out for the interests of his childhood summer home, the Gallic Republic, Malcolm would always choose Gaul. Nonetheless, Malcolm was one of a very few Progressives with any military background at all. Thus, he had been a seeming natural for secretary of war in the new administration.

He's a natural buffoon, Rivers thought, a natural gigolo, a natural panderer and an unnatural citizen. On the other hand, his goddamned tan is just a little too orange to be natural. Well, what can one expect from a natural fake.

Rivers' collar sported the two stars of a major general now. He'd always known he'd rise at least this high, even as a little boy. Thank you, Daddy, for training me as well as you did. The only question was would he rise any higher. He considered it no better than even money that he would. Rather, he had considered it no better than even money. With Malcolm as SecWar, he would now have given long odds against.

Still, I've had a good run, a damned good run for someone who's great-grandpappy retired as a master sergeant in the horse cavalry.

Rivers ported a laptop under his left arm. It contained the SecWar's daily briefing on the ongoing war. Briefing the secretary was so unpleasant, however, that it had quickly become a rotating duty. Today was River's day and he was not looking forward to it. He'd already been kept standing in front of the secretary's desk, rudely ignored, for almost ten minutes while Malcolm pretended to be busy with a file. It was another five minutes before the secretary closed the file and looked up. He didn't bother to rise or offer to shake hands.

Just as well; I'm pissed enough right now that if he did I'd probably do or say something that would move my chances of another star from dismal to none.

"Have a seat, Rivers," Malcolm ordered.

Rivers sat next to the desk, opened the laptop and faced it toward the secretary. The outside of the computer's top had a smaller screen that showed the same images as the main one. Rivers controlled the images with a small device he retrieved from his shirt pocket. He pressed a button on the device. A color map of the Republic of Sumer, highly annotated, appeared on both screens.

Malcolm looked the map over briefly. There wasn't much to see; the war in Sumer had been steadily winding down for two years. While the first three and a half years had cost the Federated States an average of just under one hundred men a month, killed, this had dropped down into the low double and occasionally single digits.

Rivers had been told not to offer commentary; that the secretary, being a lawyer, liked to direct the briefings like cross examinations in court.

"I see the Balboan sector has almost no incidents, General. To what do you attribute that?"

"They started off well and were able to enlist a great deal of Sumeri help early on," Rivers answered. He did not add, though he considered adding, and they're so ruthless almost nobody in their sector is willing to cross them.

"And we're paying for that?"

"Yes, Mr. Secretary. Under your predecessor we had an arrangement whereby the Balboans fielded, or sponsored the fielding of, combat capable forces, for a price that was originally about fifty-five percent of what the same force would have cost us. In addition, we had to provide medical care equivalent to what we give our own, but in Balboa. The price has slowly crept up as the cost of living rose in Balboa in response to all the money they earned from us. Right now it's about two thirds of our equivalent cost. That's still a bargain, since the blood is theirs, not ours."

Malcolm frowned. He'd known about the Balboans and had mostly negative feelings. Many of these feelings stemmed from rumors. He'd heard the Balboans used torture with gleeful abandon, though no one had ever provided proof. It was said they were conducting an international campaign of terror and assassination against both the common enemy, the Salafi Ikhwan, and any critics of their Legion; though, here too, they covered their tracks well. In a sense, it didn't even matter if the charges were true; the international and progressivist press believed they were true and acted accordingly. There was very little criticism of the Balboan force in the newspapers or on television.

He knew they'd put to death a number of international journalists for spying, war crimes and generally aiding the enemy; they made no secret of any of that. Neither did they make any secret of their penchant for enforcing the laws of war in the most forthright and barbaric fashions. Indeed, they made it a point to broadcast those reprisals.

They did not broadcast reprisals taken against family members though that, too, happened. So it was said and widely believed, in any case.

"How large a force do they have?" Malcolm asked. "How much does it cost us? How big a force could they field?"

This information Rivers had at his fingertips. He'd been, in a partial and roundabout way, instrumental in the Federated States' hiring his old friend Patrick Hennessey, now going by the name Carrera, and the force he had raised. He'd kept up on developments. After all, Hennessey had always been entertaining.

"In theory, Mr. Secretary, they have four divisions. They call them 'legions,' which is a little confusing as the overall organization is called "the Legion." Then again, we call the Army 'the Army' even though we have eight 'armies' under it.

"Of those four, one is forward deployed in Sumer. That's the only one that, officially, we pay for. The other three are back in Balboa in varying states of training and manning. The forward legion usually numbers around twelve to thirteen thousand men. The total active force is about thirty-three or thirty-four thousand and rising. There is also a reserve force but they are very tight lipped about that. We don't think it's as large as the active force . . . yet. They could probably double or triple their force if they wanted to. So far they have given no indication that they do want to. What they have raised, so far, costs us on the order of seventeen billion drachma a year."

Malcolm's eyes bugged. "We pay seventeen billion drachma to some pisspot North Colombian city state?"

"Actually, no, Mr. Secretary. We pay it directly to the Legion. They give a portion, a very small portion, less than a percent, to the government of Balboa. But they're only a non-governmental organization, sponsored by that government. They are not controlled by it. They're not controlled by anybody."

"Oh, really? We'll just see about that."

Goodbye, third star.

"No, Mr. Secretary," Rivers answered forcefully. "Don't see about that. They're quite capable now, financially, of continuing the war on their own for quite a few years, if not quite indefinitely. If you try to control them you'll just find you've let slip any control we have for a control we can't have. I know their commander. Don't try to control him. It just won't work."