The Lotus Eaters

Anno Condita 471 Florencia, Santander, Terra Nova

Female mosquitoes buzzed outside the protective net, slamming themselves repeatedly into the gauze, following their instinctive drive to obtain a blood meal for the fertilization of their eggs. Further away, fearful of approaching the camp, antaniae, Terra Nova's genengineered winged reptiles, cooed softly. Mnnbt, mnnbt, mnnbt. Through the torn screen of a glassless window, the diffuse moonlight of Eris and Bellona illuminated the sweat-sheened breasts of a young, sleeping girl.

Comandante Victorio rested his head on one arm, admiring the sleeping form next to him, breasts bare to his gaze in the night's heat and glowing with the moons' light filtering through the windows.

So young, so idealistic, so pretty, thought Victoria. Above all, so easy to convince that even this was for the revolution. He smiled at the remembrance of the first seduction of Elpidia, the sleeping girl.

Victorio had himself been just so naive and idealistic. That, however, had been many years ago. Recruited by FNLS as a university student in Belalcázar, two dozen years before, Victorio had been enthralled by the by then well-established Cienfuegan Revolution, as he had been by the more recent and still tenuous victory for the Cause in Cocibolca, east of Balboa.

At first, before his broader talents were recognized, Victorio had been used as a rabble rouser, leading many student protests. Then, after a period of observation, testing, and review, once it was known that his ideological purity was unquestionable and his leadership ability high, he had been transferred to a field unit of the movement.

Twenty-one years in the bush, Victorio mentally snorted. Twenty-one years and those peasant pigs never rallied to us. Twenty-one wasted years, while the government hunted us like rabbits. Bastards! Using us for little more than training aids for officer cadets. Aiaiai . . . and we had been so close for a while, too.

Victoria tore his eyes from Elpidia's gently rising breasts and lay his own head back on his thin pillow.

And then the Red Tsar was lynched in Saint Nicholasburg. Soon Cienfuegos could afford no more aid. Annam being cozying up to the imperialists. Cocibolca couldn't hold.

We tried to use drugs to continue to finance the revolution. The cartels fought us, and we lost. Well, almost lost. Too many heroes who, it turned out, could be bought. More ruthlessness than the Army showed; the cartels went after families. Finally, at great cost, we have our own little piece of the trade. And, of course, the odd paid mission from the cartels.

Oh, we still spout talk of revolution, ushering in the rule of the people, all that bullshit. Some of the young ones, like this little thing with her breasts so provocatively exposed, still believe. Not me, not any longer. I am happy with enough to be able to eat regularly for a change, and to have a place to sleep out of the rain. Everything else is just icing.

Victorio rolled over to go to sleep. As he did he heard a commotion from beyond the wall. He listened carefully for a moment. The watch was saying something about airplanes. The guerilla chieftain cursed softly, then arose to investigate. The girl, thus awakened, began to rise, herself, before her lover pushed her back gently to the bed.

"It's probably nothing," he told her. "Rest."

At the leather-hinged door Victorio stopped momentarily to listen. He heard no airplanes, precisely, though there was what he thought might be the sound of an unfamiliar engine. Well, they've probably already landed. They? No, more likely one; these mountain walls do odd things to sounds.

Victorio walked briskly, Volgan-designed rifle held in one hand, to the building that in a regular army would have been called something like the "orderly room."

The FNLS was short on military formality and didn't feel it was much of a failing. The group leader of the guard simply nodded his head in recognition at the jefe and said, "One plane, anyway, landed up at the strip. Its engines have never stopped so we can't tell for sure if more followed."

"The guards?" Victorio asked.

"No answer, but the odds aren't bad they're just doped to the gills . . . or drunk."

The jefe sighed. Yes, those are the odds.

Man the perimeter or grab what leaf and paste we have and run? I think . . . it's early to run, and we'd lose too much if we left the huánuco behind. To the group leader he said, "Send a patrol, half a dozen men, to the airfield. For the rest, hundred percent alert; man the perimeter."

"You think it's serious?"

Victorio shook his head in negation. "No, I think it's probably someone who landed at the wrong strip by mistake. But it could be the police or it could be something else. Hmmm . . . are the mortars still out?"

"Si, jefe."

"Tell them to stand by for my call. We may need their support."

* * *

Technically, the Nabakov gunship was an "ANA-23," rather than an "NA-23." The extra A was for "Attack." It carried, besides one high velocity 40mm automatic cannon, a brace of 23mm Volgan guns and, in its latest configuration, four .50 caliber machine guns in a single quad mount. All fired out the port side. They had a limited traverse controlled from the gunner's station. For greater changes in aiming, the plane had to align itself.

The gunner was actually the crewman with the greatest intelligence collection capability, as he had the main screen to the thermal cameras used in target acquisition and aiming.

As the 15th Company began to move off from the mountain carved airstrip, the gunner called Carrera, now known to be on the ground.

"Duque, we've got major activity down below. I see . . . call it seventy, give or take a few, people running all over the target area. Might be more; it's hard to keep track. They're lining up in groups before moving. I think you've been heard, over."

"Roger. Figures. We had some unforeseen problems on the strip. Does it look like they're trying to evacuate?"

"Negative, Duque," the aerial gunner said.

"Roger. Stand by." Carrera ran forward to Chapayev, Menshikov following close behind. The 14th Cazador Tercio bodyguards kept their position surrounding Carrera.

Through Menshikov, Carrera said to Chapayev, "Tribune, I just heard from the gunship. They know we're here. We knew they might hear us coming in. It's your operation, but my suggestion is to drop the sneaky shit and move like hell onto the objective. I can have the gunship start pounding now."

It took Chapayev perhaps all of five seconds to decide. "Da. Thank you, Duque. We do that."

Chapayev began to shout to his platoons to move out smartly, while his forward observer notified the mortar section to begin working over the villa. Carrera notified the gunship to engage.

"Si, Señor. Solo un' minuto." It was seconds rather than minutes before the sky lit up with the muzzle flash and tracer burn of four .50 caliber heavy machine guns, water cooled, pouring down a stream of lead onto the villa compound. The eighteen hundred-plus rounds per minute were so close together that each shot blended into the next to create a sound like a zipper being pulled closed dangerously fast. Carrera's party joined 15th Company in sprinting through the widely spaced trees for the villa, the whole party guiding on the gunship's tracers.

* * *

The FNLS were hardly a professional force. The patrol ordered out by Victorio was just leaving the main gate to the compound as the point of Chapayev's company reached the edge of the forest surrounding the villa and nearest the gate. The Volgans tended to be literal and, often enough, excessively obedient to their orders. Rather than set up a hasty ambush to catch the patrol in the open, the point element of the 15th company opened fire immediately. They were rewarded with a couple of hits, but no more than that, before the rest of the patrol scurried back inside the compound, frantically closing the gate behind them. Inside, the survivors hid in the shadow of the surrounding wall, fearful of entering into the open where a storm of fire from something on high was drenching the place with a leaden sleet.

* * *

From the headquarters window Comandante Victorio took one look at the stream of tracers coming down from above, then another at the scared-shitless patrol being driven in through the gate, and said to himself, "We're fucked. Those aren't police, less still some flight that got misoriented and landed at the wrong strip. Those are the goddamned gringos."

But do we run or do we fight it out? He tried to envision how the gringos had gotten to him. Jumping? No, the Cienfuegans said you don't parachute onto mountain ranges, generally. They must have landed. Now how many planes could land on that strip at one time? Not that many. I think we're facing equal odds, give or take. Sure, they've got that fucking airplane overhead but that can't stick around forever. It could maybe follow us, though, if we try to get away through the jungle. That's an unsavory prospect. I think we fight it out here, maybe try to get away in the day after the gunship goes away. Or even if it stays, it will have a harder time finding us in the jungle heat. At least that's what the Cienfuegans said. Besides, we have some friends not so very far away.

So if we're going to fight it out . . .

A shell impacting near the headquarters reminded Victorio that he wasn't without some support of his own.

But where to use it. There's a good chance we could take out any planes on the airstrip. That, however, won't do a damned thing to help us here, now.

"Get hold of the mortar platoon on the radio," he said. "Tell them I want fire on the woods nearest the main gate."

* * *

As the Volgan point man reached the edge of the forest that marked the cleared area around the villa, he went to one knee and took cover behind a tree. Chapayev took cover a few meters behind him, using his voice to direct his platoons into assault positions to right and left.

As those men were moving, each heard the odd screech of incoming fire. For many, it was a first. Still, enough of the praporschiki had served in Pashtia and on the borders during the breakup of the Volgan Empire to know. Chapayev and his men went to ground automatically as the first of several mortar shells exploded in the trees overhead. A Volgan screamed for a medic. As more shells landed the cry for help spread. The Santanderns' mortars were joined by increasing, and increasingly effective, rifle and machine gun fire, as the defenders fought back from their bunkers. Green tracers skipped among the trees.

The paratroopers returned the Santandern fire without noticeable effect. Volgan medics, oblivious to the incoming mortar rounds, ran from position to position, picking up the badly wounded and carrying or dragging them to the rear, where the company's senior medic had set up an ad hoc aid station. Many wounded men refused to be pulled back, shaking off the medics and continuing to return fire.

Chapayev's Forward Observer, or FO, called the 15th Company mortar section to order a cease fire. When, after about two minutes, the incoming rounds failed to stop he knew it wasn't Volgan mortar fire cutting into the company. He ordered a resumption of firing on the compound, then stuck his head around a tree to adjust it. A bullet, flying low, passed through the FO's head, spattering brains over his radio operator, just behind. The RTO pulled the FO's body back to cover, then took his place and continued observing.

Carrera shouted into his radio for the gunship to find and silence the FNLS mortars. Aerial support fire abruptly ceased, even as a more powerful whine from the sky told that the plane was moving off. With the gunship gone, the defender's fire increased.

* * *

Victorio felt his confidence in his chances surge with the first angry, orange-red blossoming of fire in the tree line. That confidence momentarily soared as the fire from overhead cut out.

"Right on," congratulated the guerrilla leader, into the radio. "Keep it up."

Victorio stepped outside, still sheltering as much as possible from the incoming mortar fire, and began pushing his fighters to their positions.

After he had seen the last of his guerillas to the walls and bunkers, Victorio stepped over the inert form of a girl with a rifle. She lay on her back clothed with only a camouflage shirt, and that unbuttoned and in disarray. Her legs were bent at the knees, feet under her, and legs obscenely spread. Victorio closed her legs with a booted foot, but gently. The girl's body was torn by two huge holes from which blood oozed. By the villa's lights, and the moons', he could see she was his partner of the night before. I will mourn you later, my little dear one. He ran to the southeastern bunker, to direct the fighting from there.

* * *

As the gunship flew, the crew for the 40mm, swaying on their feet from the maneuvering, frantically changed their ammunition mix to what the gunnery officer had called for, "shake and bake." This was mixed high explosive and white phosphorous, the former to break apart anything flammable and the latter to set it alight. It was exceptionally good for fuel, and not a bad mix for wood-packed ammunition.

"Gun up!" the chief of the forty announced into his microphone.

"Roger," the gunner answered, while peering at his green screen.

"There they are," he announced finally. "I can see the mortar barrels glow in the thermal sight."

Tracking by the glowing barrels became superfluous as the flash from the mortars' rapid fire gave away their position to the thermal imager. The pilot of the ANA-23 answered his gunnery officer with a, "I'm lining up for a sweep. Take them out. We'll fire as she bears."

"Roger."

The gunner had one screen for target identification, linked to his main thermal sight. There was another, a linked computer touch-sensitive screen, for engagement. He tapped the latter screen for the target, then tapped the button to create a firing solution. The gunnery computer then took note of the target, analyzed its location, the aircraft location, the aircraft speed, altitude, and direction, and a mix of meteorological data, and automatically adjusted the 40mm gun's elevation, training it slightly forward at the same time. A caret appeared on the gunner's screen, as well as on the pilot's. In addition, the pilot's screen received instructions on orienting the aircraft. The target spot remained lit after the gunner had removed his finger. That glowing spot moved inexorably closer to the targeting caret.

* * *

KaWhoomfKaWhoomfKaWhoomfKaWhoomf! Though mounted at the ANA-23's center of gravity, the high velocity forty packed a massive wallop. The entire airframe shook with the recoil. As quickly as one four round magazine was expended, the gun crew slapped in another. In all, sixteen rounds were fired, twelve high explosive and four white phosphorous, before the aircraft had moved beyond the ability of the gun to train.

Fortunately, sometime between rounds nine and eleven, a fuel tank on the ground had been ruptured. Since round twelve was both right on target and white phosphorous . . .

* * *

The pilot looked out his left side window and grinned with satisfaction. "I love my job," he said.

The copilot, on the other hand, said nothing. Instead, he whistled as a very large explosion rent the jungle below. This explosion led to several more, even more spectacular than the first as whatever ammunition the mortar men below had unpacked went up with the fuel.

* * *

The series of explosions, so much louder than the distant crump, crump, crump of the mortars firing, told Victorio that his mortar support was no more and that his little command would soon again be under intense fire from above. Almost he gave in to despair. Perhaps, even, he would have, had not a radio call come in from an adjacent unit of the movement.

"We've been training in your area and can come to your aid in about half an hour," the woman on the other end of the radio said.

That was tempting but . . . maybe there's a better way. I thought it best not to use the mortars on the aircraft. But the enemy to my front couldn't have responded to a mortar attack even if he'd wanted to. He can, on the other hand, respond to a ground attack and he just might.

"How far from our airstrip?" Victorio asked.

"Closer," the woman answered. Victorio thought he recognized the voice as coming from Comandante Ingrid, a fiercely dedicated fighter that he knew slightly from meetings at infrequent conferences. "Maybe fifteen minutes . . . no . . . ten. Ten if we accept some risk."

"If you want to help, go for the airfield," Victorio advised. "The gringos have it. But be warned; there is some kind of aerial platform, a gunship, roaming overhead. It just took out my mortars."

"We saw it," Ingrid spat back, her voice full of fury at the imperialists. "We can spread out to reduce its effectiveness. Unfortunately, we can't retake the airfield if we're spread out too much."

"I don't need you to retake it," Victorio said. "It will be enough if you distract the gunship away from my base and cause them to break off the attack here."

"Done."

If I believed in God, Victorio thought, I'd thank Him for putting Ingrid's band near enough to help. Since I don't, despite Father Castaño's sermonizing, I'll just be grateful to fate.

* * *

The gunner was just tapping in a new targeting command for the villa when the ANA-23 received a frantic call from the airfield, the call punctuated by single shots and longer bursts coming through clear across the airwaves.

"We've got a group of guerrillas," the platoon commander below said. "Strength unknown; they're hitting us from below. We think they're working their way around our flanks—"

The transmission was drowned out by a long burst of fire. The ground commander repeated, "They're working their way around our flanks to get higher. I'm sending out half a section to each flank. Watch out for them. Right now the aircraft are safe enough, but if they get to the lip of the field or, worse still, above us, it's going to be a long damned walk home."

Carrera had apparently been following the conversation. His voice came over the ANA-23's radio. "Concur. Secure the field."

* * *

Carrera, sensibly prone behind a thick trunk, shook his head with admiration as he watched Tribune Chapayev walk the firing line as if unafraid. Carrera couldn't make out one word in fifty of the tribune's running diatribe.

But no matter. The words aren't important; the tone and the heart behind them are.

Of course, the better question is how we ended up this way. Too ambitious? Poor planning? Maybe. On the other hand, what we planned did get a group of first class soldiers to the enemy, while giving him little useful warning that we were coming. It does have the motherfuckers pinned to their compound. And casualty-free perfection is not the goal; destroying the bastards is the goal. If we can still do that, the plan and execution will have been good enough.

If . . .

* * *

"Keep up the fire, boys," Chapayev shouted over the rattle from his soldiers' rifles and machine guns, and the incoming zing of the enemy's fire. "Beat their fucking heads down."

A machine gun nearby went silent suddenly and stayed that way a moment too long for comfort. The Volgan began to trot over when he felt a tremendous blow to the calf of one leg. The force of the hit spun him, twisting his legs around each other and depositing him on the damp ground.

The leg was too close for Chapayev's night vision goggles to focus on. He felt for the wound, wincing as his finger found a long but, as far as he could tell, not terribly deep gash. Blood poured around his questing fingers but at least it didn't gush.

Moments after the tribune was hit, a medic flopped to the ground at his side, asking, "Are you hit, sir?"

"A little," the Volgan answered, voice quavering slightly. "Not bad. Can you bind it up?"

"I can, sir, but if you don't get your head down, or at least behind some cover, I'm not sure what would be the point."

* * *

Carrera saw the Volgan struck down. He began to rise to go to the man's aid when he saw, briefly and faintly in the strobe-like light of the firefight, the red cross of a medic's arm as the medic beat him to it. Moments later, with the medic's help, Chapayev got himself sitting up with his back to a tree that stood between him and the enemy.

Despite the action, a small portion of Carrera's mind continued to calculate, coldly, rationally. We've got to pick up the tempo here, he thought. Telling his little guard detachment, "Follow me," the Duque began to crawl forward.

A few minutes later he heard a now-familiar voice. Chapayev was once more on his feet, limping back and forth along the tree line encouraging his men. Carrera, bodyguards in tow, crawled up to a tree in the rough center of the company line. At what looked to be about two and a half kilometers in the distance, he saw the stream of fire that said the gunship were engaging the enemy below the airfield.

Fuck. Can't pull back with the guerrillas still alive. They'll pursue and eat us for breakfast. Can't send any troops to help the airfield. We've got to hold there, win here, then go back and win there.

As Chapayev limped by, he was hit again and sent spinning. Carrera crawled over and dragged the Volgan behind the cover of a tree. Once Chapayev was close enough that his face could be seen by the light of the muzzle flashes, it was obvious the man couldn't command the company any longer.

Carrera twisted his body to face Menshikov. "Tell him, he's done enough."

As he translated, Menshikov saw what Carrera had seen, that Chapayev's face had gone a ghastly white with loss of blood. We're so fucked, the Volgan translator thought.

Carrera risked a look around the tree. Not too far away, close enough to make with a surprise rush, there was a shallow draw that led past the villa. Further on there looked to be a drainage ditch that also led near to the southeastern bunker. The steady stream of tracers lancing out from it said that was the bunker that was doing the most to keep the Volgans down.

If we could take out that bunker . . .

"Shit. I don't speak Volgan . . . Menshikov, take charge of the company. Keep them firing. I'm going up that ditch."

Still with his bodyguards in tow, Carrera crawled along behind the Volgan firing line until he reached a point he judged to be nearest the ditch he had seen. Bullets smacked the trees over head, sending chips of bark and wood flying.

On the way he crawled over the body of a dead Volgan paratrooper. Next to the corpse was what appeared to be, and on inspection turned out to be, a satchel charge. There is a God, Carrera thought.

Pulling the charge's strap over one shoulder, Carrera made a check of his own Pound sub-machinegun and made ready to rush for the ditch.

Seeing the tensing in his duque's body, one of the Balboan Cazadors grabbed his web gear to hold him back.

Carrera lurched forward only to fall on his face. With a snarl, he turned on the Cazador. "Son, whatever your legate told you, I guarantee he won't do anything worse to you if I'm killed than I will if you don't get your fucking hands off my belt." The Balboan let go.

Now freed of the restraining hand, Carrera rushed for the cover ahead. The Balboan who had grabbed Carrera's belt followed, as did the other three. The last of the group was hit two meters from the edge of the depression, machine gun fire spinning him around and leaving him in the dirt. The man moaned with pain until a second, unnecessary, burst made sure he was dead.

Finally understanding where Carrera was headed, Menshikov directed the Volgan fire to suppress any Santandern position that could see into the ditch. Bullets pockmarked select places on the wall ahead.

* * *

Victorio, now crouched in the bunker he had chosen to command the fight from, had often wished, in his younger days, to cross swords with the gringos and defeat them. And now, at long last, it looked like—

"We're holding the sons of bitches. We're holding them."

One of the guerilla fighters shook his head and said, "Comandante, we've got company."

The guerilla then raised a rifle to shoot at Carrera's head as it peeked over the top of the ditch. One of the Volgans back with the company fired at the head. The Volgan missed, but the fire caused the guerilla, too, to miss by inches. That near miss spattered dirt and caused Carrera to duck his head again.

* * *

Menshikov saw Carrera's position near the bunker. He passed the word "Fix bayonets!" Fire from along the tree line slackened temporarily in a sort of a ripple as word was passed from man to man and each man took his rifle off his shoulder to comply. Then, bayonets attached, the fire resumed. Menshikov sent one squad, reduced now to five men, to crawl up the same ditch to support Carrera and his guards.

* * *

Spitting out dirt from the near miss, Carrera automatically checked his trouser leg cargo pockets for grenades. Double fuck. Of course I don't have any. I'm the next fucking thing to a fucking general officer. We don't carry grenades. We're not smart enough. He asked his escort if they had any. No, they were in civvies; there'd been no place to hide any hand grenades.

OK. Have to use the satchel charge, then my bayonet—understandably, the denim and guayabera dressed Balboans didn't have those either—to cut the wire. He pulled his Volgan-designed bayonet and scabbard from his belt, drew the bayonet and affixed it to the scabbard to form wire cutters. These he handed to one of the Balboans.

While Volgan fire snapped overhead, keeping the bunkers' occupants' heads down, Carrera grabbed the straps of the satchel charge and swung it experimentally to make sure it would clear the sides of the ditch. Then, keeping his grip in the same place, he used his free hand to pull the igniter. With a pop, the igniter sparked and caught the fuse alight. A thin stream of smoke began to rise from where the internal heat bubbled and split the plastic around the fuse.

There really wasn't time to think now. Where he might otherwise have hesitated about sticking his head up amid all the fire, now Carrera had but one thought: To get rid of the satchel-encased catastrophe before it blew up in his face. He swung the charge around three times, then lifted up on the fourth and released it to fly toward the bunker.

He barely beat to the dirt the bullets that sought his life.

* * *

Victorio saw Carrera's sparking bomb fly to a landing that had to be near the main firing port for his bunker. He began to order one of his men out to throw it back, then realized that he was the only one unoccupied. He dropped his rifle and ran out the back of the bunker, then turned and lunged the six feet to the satchel. Bullets from the attackers firing line across the clearing kicked up dirt at his feet. As he stooped to pick up the smoking bundle one of the Volgan's bullets found him. He felt one leg jerk as he fell. Again he tried to throw the bomb away, even if only a little. He was hit again, this time in the chest. Victorio coughed blood as he made a final attempt to get rid of the damned bomb.

I'm sorry, friends. I can't. Too weak.

The explosion stunned Carrera and his men. Dirt and rocks showered down on them. Again risking a look over the ditch, Carrera saw a tangle of logs, dirt and sandbags where the blast had partly knocked in one side of the bunker. He directed the Balboan with the wire cutters to begin working through the wire, one other to watch over him. Then he and the remaining guard began to fire their weapons down the line of Santandern bunkers, suppressing them.

A sound to his right caused Carrera to turn and almost to fire up the ditch. Then he saw the familiar shape of a gringo helmet. His finger eased from the trigger. With hand gestures, he told the Volgans to start clearing the bunker line from the south to the north. Fortunately, they did have grenades.

In the distance, short bursts from the ANA-23's various guns told that the fight at and for the airfield was still ongoing.

* * *

A burst of fire from above raised screams from a small assault group a bare fifty meters away, causing Comandante Ingrid to shudder. Ambushing a patrol from, or overrunning an outpost of, the Santandern Army was one kind of thing. They were just men, like her own, and could be killed. But Ingrid was now realizing that the gunship overhead was a wholly different order of threat. She couldn't kill it; she couldn't even engage it to any effect. And it could see. The screams that followed nearly every burst from overhead told her the damned thing could see well, even through the jungle cover.

Run? She asked herself. Do I run and leave Victorio to his fate? Can I even run or will that flying monster pursue? No . . . no. So I stay here and die . . . or I run and die . . . or . . . maybe . . .

"Fix bayonets," the female guerilla commander ordered into her radio. "Wait for my command but we're going to charge them . . . get in among them where that airplane can't fire for fear of hitting its own."

Even as she heard her little command group fixing bayonets behind her, Ingrid heard one of them mutter, "Oh, shit."

* * *

"Shit," said Lanza, as the perimeter around the airfield suddenly exploded with flashing muzzles and the strobe-image of soldiers locked in battle, hand to hand and bayonet to bayonet. Still seating in his command pilot's chair, Lanza flicked on his radio's transmit button and ordered, "All copilots will remain with their aircraft. All other aircrew will take up small arms and assemble on me. NOW!"

Bloody good thing, Lanza thought, unbuckling himself from his pilot's seat then grabbing a submachine gun on his way out, that Carrera insists everyone is an infantryman first and foremost.

* * *

"Duque," announced the gunship over the radio, "We can't support the airfield anymore. Ours are all mixed up with theirs. We can see it on the thermals and it's nothing but bayonet and rifle butt all over the place."

"Roger," Carrera answered. "Come on back here and support the bulk of the company. We're pretty mixed up here, too, but it looks like we're going to win here and I don't want any of the fuckers escaping."

"Wilco, Duque."

Sitting back against the walls of the ditch, Carrera contemplated the tattered remains of the Santandern who had tried to throw away the satchel charge. You were a brave son of a bitch, I'll give you that. He took a deep breath, rolled over and began to add his fire to that of the paratroopers.