The Lotus Eaters

Three Hundred meters north of the Bridge of the Colombias, Balboa, Terra Nova

"I don't understand it," Rocaberti said. "Janier gave me his word that there would be soldiers here to provide us a safe haven and escort if things went to crap. But . . ." He shrugged, eloquently, while gazing in the general direction of a Tauran Union fighting vehicle, legging it trippingly for the demarcation line between the Transitway Area and Balboa proper.

Suddenly the street around the convoy seemed full of soldiers, in the pixilated tiger stripes of the Legion, all armed and looking decidedly dangerous. Their bayoneted rifles aimed steadily at heads and torsos, engines and tires. Perhaps just for emphasis, still other legionaries aimed rocket grenade launchers, or RGLs, at armored limousines.

The forward most of the vehicles in the convoy, not Rocabertis, attempted to run. An RGL armed legionary fired, his rocket impacting on the front windshield. The armor was useless against the directed explosive. That vehicle veered left, crashed into another, and stopped dead, blocking the road.

As the rump president and his staff and collaborators were hustled out and bound with duct tape, three IM-71 helicopters in Legion colors beat through the air overhead, heading in the general direction of Dahlgren Naval Station and Santa Clara.