Carnifex

Camp San Lorenzo

Three of the deployed Legion's twenty Turbo-Finches were down for maintenance, housed in hangars. Likewise was one of its four ANA-23 gunships. The remainder stood in their concrete floored and revetted, steel-covered bunkers. There were hinged steel walls in front of the bunkers, proof against heavy shrapnel and lowerable on their hinges to allow the aircraft to leave and enter. Only enough of the doors were lowered to allow ordnance crews, supplemented by nearly every clerk and cook in the camp, to trundle in, jack up, and load the bombs, rocket and machine gun pods, and napalm canisters required for the attack.

The gunships received a different load, mostly machine gun and cannon ammunition for their fixed, side-firing guns, plus a dozen each five hundred pound GLS-guided thermobaric bombs which would be dropped from altitude out the rear ramps to strike certain key targets.

While the ordnance crews strained and sweated, mechanics and avionics repairmen poured over the planes, checking status and making necessary repairs. There was to be no waiting for parts; Carrera had decreed they could strip the other, non-flyable aircraft down to the ground to make sure the minimum necessary were fit for flight and fit to fight.

Miguel Lanza, much older and a legate III himself now, watched the progress intently from outside. No sense in getting under the feet of men who sure as Hell know their business well by now, he thought.

A voice came unexpectedly from behind. It was Carrera.

"Your boys going to be ready on time, Lanza?" he asked, wearily.

Lanza nodded in the semi-darkness. "No problem."

"What are you planning to fly, Miguel?"

"Gunship," Lanza answered. "Lets me in on the action and gives me a copilot so I can control the operation. Also gives me the best commo and sensor suite of any plane we have. Besides, I'm really not up to CAS anymore." Lanza sighed at the injustice of aging.

"Good choice. Carry on."

Lanza watched Carrera amble away like a man ten years older then he was.