Caliphate

'But why won't the Americans share their medicine with you, Besma?'

The older girl sighed, 'Because we're at war, and it's a war we don't know how to end and they won't until we're all extinct.' She thought about it for a minute and then walked to her trunk. From this she removed a textbook which she brought to the other girl.

She opened the book to a map of the globe. 'This is what the world looks like. Here's where we are,' she said, pointing to a green patch at one end of the largest land mass. That piece, Petra read, was labeled 'Caliphate of Europe and Western North Africa.' One small section, surrounded by green, was in red and labeled 'Switzerland.'

Besma's finger traced east, to a large red swatch extending down into the Balkans. 'This is the Socialist Empire of the Tsar, Vladimir the Fifth. He's an enemy, too, but he isn't trying to extinguish us.' The finger moved down to another section, colored in paler green, that stretched all the way from the upper part of the area labeled 'Africa' over to some islands far to the right. 'This is the Caliphate of Islam, Triumphant. I understand it's a mess.'

Petra noticed that right in the middle of the Caliphate of Islam, Triumphant, on the eastern shore of the middle sea, there was a bare patch unmarked and unnamed. 'And this?'

'I don't know,' Besma said. 'My teachers wouldn't talk about it.'

Still farther down, the finger pointed to, 'The Boer Free State, which owns most of Africa below the Sahara. A lot of the black slaves come from there. The Boers sell us their surplus population. The only good things about them are that they distrust America, too, and they provide us with a lot of technology we can't make for ourselves.'

Moving her finger to the right, Besma marked, 'This is the Celestial Kingdom of the Han. They also sell us some things we can't make for ourselves. They are at war with Nihon,' the finger touched a large group of islands in the ocean marked 'Peaceful.' 'Nihon is an ally of the American devils.'

From there the finger moved southwest to a multicolored patchwork of little states, all crowded into a triangular peninsula. 'This used to be a big country, but split into two, then three, then dozens. I don't know why.'

'What's all this black?' Petra asked, her own little hand sweeping the two continents of the west, various islands in the sea called 'Peaceful,' the area south of the Kingdom of the Han, and two large islands off the coast of the Caliphate.

'That's the American devils, places they rule and places so closely allied to them they may as well rule them.'

Diosdado Macapagal International Airport, Philippine Sovereign Allied Territory, 22 May, 2107

Imperialism not only can come in light-handed and heavy-handed varieties, just how light or heavy those hands feel can depend on whether or not the subject peoples feel the need to have the imperialists around.

The imperial hand laid upon the Philippines was so light that there was talk of statehood, full membership in the Union. Moreover, the need was great, what with the Moros of Mindanao and Cebu. Indeed, it was the remaining presence of so many Moslems in the PSAT that had kept it from statehood, so far.

That's why the 24th Infantry Division had been sent for the second time to the islands. The first time had been to help liberate them from the Japanese.

(The Japanese had actually volunteered troops to the ongoing campaign in the Philippines but the Filipinos, with memories that a mere hundred and sixty-odd years could not erase, had said, in effect, 'Been there; done that. It wasn't all that much fun the first time. So, thanks, but no thanks.')

Thus, the faces on the troops of the 43rd, 45th and 57th Infantry Regiments of the Army of the Philippines, standing in ranks to welcome the newly arrived 24th Infantry Division, were brightly lit with smiles as the first of the Suited Heavy Infantry debarked from the Retaliation. Those Filipinos were all already United States citizens and only looked forward to full joinder in the Empire. Their band, the 12th Infantry Division band, played the song the Filipinos still sometimes thought of as 'Caissons.' And why not? The song, under that title, had been born at this very base, then known as Fort Stotsenberg, in the Philippines, one hundred and ninety-nine years before.

Though it was tied down and partly sunk into an artificial depression, the airship still shuddered with the impact of hundreds of pairs of armored, powered feet, running in place and in cadence, as the twin side ramps hummed down to the tarmac of the airship port to the east of the airfield.

In their communications system, Hamilton and Hodge heard the voice of their not-too-terribly beloved company commander, Carl Thompson, a medium-sized, overly large brained, relentless and vicious mustang with a bad attitude towards graduates of the Imperial Military Academy. There was something about Thompson that was just plain uncomfortable.

'Bravo Company!'

'Platoon!' echoed the lieutenants Laurie Hodge, John Hamilton, Kennedy Parker and Jerome Miles. Parker's supplemental command was late and hesitant.

'Double time—'

'Double time—'

'March!'

At first, since the only troopers really able to run were right at the loading ramp, the pounding and the shuddering of the airship's deck decreased. Then, as the forward ranks thinned and more and more of the troops were able to actually run, the deck could be seen to visibly vibrate.

Far above, on the bridge of the airship, the ship's captain, Lieutenant Colonel Mike (the) Pike, shuddered, grimaced and cursed through gritted teeth, 'I friggin' hate when they do that.'

The captain—'that asshole Thompson'—was already posted on the tarmac when Hamilton and his platoon emerged from the airship. Hodge, leading her platoon, had slowed to allow the troops to form into a solid mass in four files behind her. Thompson was pointing with his left, armored, hand at the precise spot he wanted her to take. For whatever reason—and rumor control said he'd had a bad experience as a lieutenant in the northern territories when some rebels had compromised the radio net—he was much more inclined to point, where that would do, than to use the radio.

Hamilton likewise slowed down and his boys and girls, quick on the uptake as pretty much all SHI troopers were, began forming from the column of twos they'd been in on the airship into a column of fours to mirror Hodge's 1st Platoon.

Thompson wasn't as precise in signaling to Hamilton as he had been with Hodge; Hamilton should have gotten the general idea of where he belonged from where Hodge was. In fact, he did. Leading his platoon to form up next to Hodge's, as soon as he was aligned with her he raised one arm and changed from a double time to running in place.

Third Platoon and Weapons likewise formed to the left. Only when they were properly lined up did Thompson order, 'Company . . . halt. Parade . . . rest,' then snap to attention, turn about (which took practice in a suit), and come to parade rest himself.

The rest, the welcoming speech by General Miguel Maglalang of the Philippine Army, the pass in review, and the march off to the barracks, was anticlimactic.

Al Harv Kaserne, Province of Affrankon, 30 Jumahdi I, 1531 AH (23 May, 2107)

'There shall be no compulsion in religion!' thundered the muscled, graying drill instructor, Abdul Rahman von Seydlitz, to the one hundred and nineteen newly gathered boys in the Hall of Arms. One of those boys was Hans Ibn Minden. 'None whatsoever!'

The boys, none of them over twelve years of age, were positioned in what the Imperial Army would have called 'the front leaning rest.' Most of the world would have recognized it as the pushup position. They'd been that way so long that tears ran down faces even as arms, quivering, threatened to collapse.

In fact, some did collapse until the heavily booted feet of their overseers brought them back up to the pushup position. From those, the tears flowed without cease.

'No compulsion in religion,' the senior drill instructor repeated. 'Yet there is bounty, under the mercy of Allah, for those who forswear their false religion.'

One of the boys, apparently no dummy, raised his head and gasped, 'Bounty?'

'Indeed. It is our custom to fete those who join the faithful. It is very hard to do so with someone in the position you are in and so we relieve