The Lotus Eaters

Fort Cameron, Balboa, Terra Nova

They used Samsonov's regiment's conference room. Maps were tacked to walls and spread across the large central table. The chairs were stacked against one wall. Outside, guards were posted just out of earshot. The place had been swept and then swept again for listening devices.

In theory they were assembled to discuss expansion plans for the Centro de Entrenamiento Nacional. In fact, Carrera's staff and key commanders were there to work out the details for a major hit.

Carrera was of an age now when healing was slow, hard, and imperfect. His shoulder ached and probably would, at least when the weather changed, for life. This was the opinion of his doctor, at least.

"The problem, gentlemen," Carrera said, ignoring the pain, "is that I want to hit the bastards hard, but I don't want to alienate Santander when we do. In fact, I really want to pin the whole thing on the Federated States."

"Neat trick, if you can pull it off," said Dan Kuralski, dubiously. He removed his broad-brimmed hat to scratch as his bald pate. "Frankly, I doubt we can."

"We can," Carrera insisted. "I've made arrangements for us to host two of the Federates States Army's three Ranger battalions at the right time, along with a small group of aircraft. That's unusual enough to divert eyes to them. Moreover, we'll be keeping them more or less out of the way, and our aircraft, especially helicopters, will make a larger than usual number of sorties in support. Arguably, it will all look like troop movements."

"That's why you want use my people?" Samsonov asked, his Volgan accent thick. "We all white? Well . . . almost all white."

"Yes," Carrera confirmed. "I'll want you to go in sterile, but that will also suggest an FSC attack."

"Why, Duque?" asked Lanza, head of the Legion's aviation division, or ala. "I mean, why pretend it's the FSC doing the attack you want?"

"It's complex," Carrera said. "But, short version: Assuming war with the Tauran Union at some point in the not too distant future, I don't want Santander annoyed enough with us that their government feels compelled to support the TU, or allow it to base there."

"Fair enough," Lanza agreed.

"You can't use me then," Fosa, head of the classis, or fleet, said. "We're too obviously yours."

Carrera nodded his head deeply. "We can't use the Dos Lindas or the Kurita," he agreed, "nor even any of the corvettes or patrol craft, at least directly. That doesn't mean we can't use some of your sailors or the hidden reserve."

"Have to stop playing opposing force for a while," Samsonov counseled.

"I know," Carrera agreed. "Kuralski is working out a scheme to have units going through your training center operate against other, main force, units."

"Trying to work out that scheme," Kuralski corrected.

"You'll succeed, I am sure," Carrera said.

"Month to train?" Samsonov asked.

"Sure. Rather, six weeks. The FSA Rangers will be here then. In any case, I'm more interested in hitting at the right time than at any particular set time. We've got to look for a confluence of tidal and weather factors, plus eyes-on-target knowledge that the targets are home. The first two are givens, since our weather is fairly stable that time of year, and the last two are under our control."

"Can do, then," the Volgan said. "If someone else bring to fight. And we get to train together for while. Must first talk men into it. You join us tonight at regimental dinner?"

"If you think it will help," Carrera answered.

"Could hurt?"

"No, probably not. If this is family, too, I'll send for Lourdes and Mitchell's wife."

"Might help."

Carrera gave Samsonov a curious, raised eyebrow look. "You were planning a formal regimental officers' dinner for this evening? Odd sense of timing."

"Could see coming," Samsonov answered, with a shrug. "You got whole Legion, practically, disassembled to rebuild bigger. What you haven't is off in jungle in La Palma. Mine only force still whole that not already in jungle hunting guerillas."

* * *

Lourdes had been reluctant even to broach the subject with Mitchell's wife, Chica, thinking, It's just too soon for her to be going to a social event.

Still, at Carrera's insistence, his wife had explained it. Chica had had exactly one question. "Will it help get revenge for my husband and the father of my children?"

"Maybe," Lourdes had admitted. "That's what Patricio told me he intends, anyway."

The corners of Chica's mouth turned up in a wintery smile. "Then I'm going. I'm definitely going."

* * *

Bagpipes, thought Carrera, are an odd thing to hear at a Volgan dinner. Bagpipes being accompanied by balalaikas and jackbooted dancers stomping atop tables is altogether too weird.

Carrera kept his face carefully blank. Oh, well, at least they cleaned their boots, given the food out, and all.

Samsonov leaned over and, over the screeching, said into Carrera's ear, "We borrow pipers from Second Infantry Tercio. Down in jungle, they not need anyway. Cost me two pallets of good vodka even so."

"Why don't you start your own band?" Carrera asked.

"Working. Slow. The Jagelonians have pipes, but different, not so loud . . . forceful. We have . . . a dozen men working on learning. Someday. Not yet ready."

"Fair enough," Carrera agreed. "Do me a favor though."

"What that?"

"If . . . when you do get your pipe band going, please don't have them pipe in the haggis. As a matter of fact, please don't have haggis." Not if you want me to show up again.

"Haggis start on dare," Samsonov said. "We paratroopers . . . we crazy; we not stupid."

At a subtle signal from the pipe major—it was, in fact, too subtle for Carrera to catch—the pipers, who had been marching around between the tables and the walls of Samsonov's regimental officers' club, suddenly stopped their marching. The dancers ceased their stomping, jumping, and somersaulting, then bowed as one, jumped off of the tables, formed up and marched off to the tune of the pipes. The pipers, too, formed up behind the dancers and marched off through the main door, their music fading as they went.

"We emotional people," Samsonov said. "Sentimental. Watch."

"Watch what?" Carrera asked.

"Evil capitalist term: Salesmanship," the Volgan answered.

"Aren't you concerned about security leaks? I mean, Fernandez has never caught one from among your people, but it only stands to reason . . ."

"We have leaks," Samsonov answered. "Many of them. But the leaks are to State Security back in Volga, not to people you want us to attack and destroy."

"And VSS has nobody involved in crime?" Carrera asked, dubiously.

"Many, but not this kind of crime . . . well, drug running, yes, but opium, not huánuco. If we take down the Santanderns, is, from VSS point of view . . . eliminating competitor product . . . and competitor. Now watch." Samsonov twisted around and said to one of his younger officers, "Menshikov, translate for the Duque."

* * *

Carrera listened with, at best, half an ear to Menshikov's translation. Instead, his attention was entirely on Samsonov and the faces of the officers and warrant officers—praporschiks—the regimental commander was addressing.

Those seemed rapt as their commander recited the history of the organization from its earliest days as one of the Tsar's Guards regiments, then through the Great Global War wherein the unit—so Menshikov translated—was transformed into paratroopers and suffered roughly two thousand percent casualties over the course of the conflict, to the disastrous incursion into Pashtia, and the fall of the Red Tsar whose ancestor had brought Tsarist-Marxism to Volga to aid in the GGW.

Many Volgan heads shook or nodded as Samsonov described the misery for the Army and all its formations after the fall of the Red Tsar. Menshikov didn't bother translating that word for word, instead explaining: "No pay . . . no money for fuel . . . no training . . . we had to grow our own food and we weren't very good at it. Nor was the land near our base good soil. Cold barracks."

"Of course," the translator added, "that was just for our regiment. Others had it worse. Half those people out there are from other regiments that joined ours after you hired us."

Smiles broke out across the sea of round Volgan faces as Samsonov made the comparison between the unhappy past and the regiment's comfortable present. "We were starving. Now I worry I'll have to put you all on diets. We were unpaid, poverty-stricken. Now? Our pay for our lowest private is better than a middle manager makes in Volga. We don't have to wrap ourselves in shoddy blankets and shiver in our quarters through the long and bitter winter. And best of all, now we have the money, the fuel, the equipment and the ammunition to train to be what we are called to be, among the finest, most elite, soldiers on the planet."

Samsonov pointed at Carrera. "Thank this man for that," he said, then waited for several minutes while the other Volgans stood as a man and applauded Carrera. For his part, Carrera just nodded and returned a shy smile.

"And how many of you," the Volgan continued, once the applause had died down and the men had returned to their seats, "have married into this, our new home?" Dozens of hands shot up. "And how many still have feelings for our old home, for the holy soil of Volga, fertilized from one end to the other with our blood?" All the hands shot up.

"This is right and proper. But you know what, comrades? Both our homes are under threat. And that threat is real."

Samsonov gestured again towards Carrera. "This man you were just praising was almost killed by that threat recently. His man was killed. And that man, Praporschik Mitchell, was our comrade."

Chica, seated on the other side of Lourdes from Carrera, started when her husband's name was mentioned. Still, she held her blond head proudly erect, fighting back her tears.

"See his wife," Samsonov said, gesturing with an open palm toward Chica. "Brave, is she not, to be sitting here dry-eyed and asking for our help with her beloved husband's body barely cold in its grave?"

Chica hadn't a clue about the words. The tone, however, was clear. It was also too much. She buried her head in Lourdes' shoulder and began quietly to weep. Several of the Volgans could be seen, as well, dabbing at their own eyes.

Smiling, coldly, Samsonov asked, "So . . . comrades, will we put up with this? Will we let our new home be corrupted? Will we let their filthy substances pollute our old motherland? Will we let the death of a comrade go unavenged? Will we be unfaithful to our salt?"

"NYET!"

"Will you fight with me then, for our new home and our old, for justice and right, to secure a decent place for our children to grow up?"

"DA!"

"Very good. Meeting for battalion and company commanders tomorrow, following physical training. In the interim, drink up."

Samsonov sat down again, next to Carrera. "Piece of cake," he said.

* * *

While the core of the mission was to be the 22nd Tercio of Volgan paratroopers, there were jobs for both the Classis, the Fleet, and Lanza's Aviation Ala.

The Classis would not be using any of its major combatants, neither the battle-scarred light aircraft carrier, the Dos Lindas, nor its one serviceable heavy cruiser, the Tadeo Kurita. Even the corvettes and patrol boats were barred from direct participation, as being too easily and obviously traceable to Balboa and the Legion del Cid. Instead, they would maintain something like their normal drug interdiction picket line.

Sailors from those ships, however, would be used. They would man the ostensibly civilian vessels the Legion had procured over the years against just such a contingency. These included the S.S. Mare Superum. Like much of Carrera's armed force, the Mare Superum was part of the hidden reserve. Normally it carried paying passengers around the islands near the Isla Real, and along the coasts of Balboa, San Jose, and Santander. Nonetheless, every crewman aboard was either an active duty sailor, as was the Captain, a reservist, or a militia member of the Legion. Of late, the ship had spent most of its time sailing the eastern coast of Santander.

Besides the Mare Superum was the research vessel reconfigured to carry commandos, the S.S. Francisco Pizarro. There was also the command, control and communications ship for the exercise, the Motor Yacht Phidippides. Lastly, was the three thousand ton bulk tanker, Porfirio Porras (no relation to cadet Porras). Along with pumps and fuel adequate for the helicopter detachment, Porras carried a helipad disassembled and stowed under tarps on the deck. In addition, three largish hovercraft would set up a refueling and rearming base at the airstrip at Puerto Jaquelina de Coco.

Lanza's contribution consisted of thirty-eight IM-71 helicopters, some of them configured as gunships and most of them sporting auxiliary fuel tanks, a dozen Turbo-Finch strike aircraft, and fifteen Nabakov turbo-props, several of those also configured as gunships, along with a half dozen Cricket scout planes. Additionally, a half-dozen rough-strip-capable fighters would base out of Jaquelina de Coco, to drive off any attempt at an intercept from the Santandern Air Force. The air and ground crews were the very best Lanza could provide, supplemented by Samsonov's hand-picked Volgan aviators.

* * *

Life is a lot better here than in Volga, thought Pritkin, Samsonov's chief aviator, but it was getting a little dull.

Pritkin was a proud holder of the Order of Saint Ilyich (for the Red Tsars had wisely enslaved the Church to the cause of revolution, rather than oppressing it), earned for bringing his helicopter in, over and over again, to a wind and fire swept hilltop in Pashtia to bring out several score Volgan wounded. Some of the older and more senior men of the 22nd, in fact, owed their lives to him, though the action had cost Pritkin most of his crew in dead and wounded. Because of that long ago action, Samsonov had hunted the aviator down to recruit him for the regiment in Balboa.

Tall, rail thin, the aviator's cornflower-blue eyes looked out from underneath the stubby brim of his flight helmet to the little, jungle-shrouded, postage-stamp pickup zone, or PZ, where a company of paratroopers awaited him and the other five IM-71s of his flight.

Pushing left pedal and easing his stick forward, Pritkin did a single pass to the right of the PZ, glancing left to eyeball the length and breadth of the thing. One pass was enough. Pritkin pressed his throat mike and announced to the infantry waiting below, "No fucking way I'm getting six birds in there. Two is possible. You need to reconfigure to load two at a time."

The answer came back, "Fuck . . . roger . . . figures. Give us five minutes."

"We'll be around," Pritkin said. "Call when ready. Don't dawdle; we've enough fuel but hardly an abundance."