The Lotus Eaters

I made them think they have no choice.'

In point of fact, Carrera actually did have a pretty good idea of who was coming, the units and the strength. After all, his enemies in the Tauran Union only had so many airborne units of the requisite quality.

Anglian paras or Gallic, he thought. Sachsen, just possibly. But I don't think so. Probably Gauls.

Over the hill that separated the Ammunition Supply Point, or ASP, from the rest of the base, blocked from Carrera's view by the thick, intervening trees, was the bulk of the cadre of the First Legion. At current mobilization levels, this amounted to the cadres, the very senior cadres, of two of the mechanized tercios, or regiments, of the legion, supplemented by a small number of select reservists. In terms of strength, these made up roughly the equivalent of six fairly small companies.

Mostly dug-in in a ring around the base; the reinforced cadres were there as bait. Good bait, however, ought not resemble bait too much. Therefore, some of them actively patrolled the perimeter. This patrolling had an additional, and vital, purpose. The one thing Carrera feared—not just here but in half a dozen places around the republic—was that the Taurans would find out that something beyond the obvious was waiting for them at Lago Sombrero  . . . or at the airport . . . or at Fort Williams . . . or at any of half a dozen spots where, in fact, a major ambush or surprise attack was waiting for them.

Aerial reconnaissance wouldn't tell them enough. He had flown over the base himself that very day and there wasn't a sign of any special reception. Even the United Earth Peace Fleet, orbiting overhead and de facto allied with the Tauran Union, was unlikely to see what Carrera wanted to remain unseen and unsuspected. He had some measure of the capabilities of the UEPF. In this case, though, he believed he'd met and matched those capabilities.

Still, the Taurans might send in a ground team, scouts or pathfinders, to check things out before their main invasion force dropped down on the Balboans. That ground team might just stumble onto something Carrera wanted kept secret. Hence, the patrols.

Carrera didn't expect the patrols to necessarily catch or stop a ground recon team. Rather, he thought that they should make one as concerned with personal survival as with finding out anything important.

'Nothing's perfect,' the Duque said, sotto voce.

* * *

Around the airfield proper, four Volgan-built self propelled air defense guns stood; one at each end of the strip and two to the sides where the Inter-Colombian Highway bisected the strip. Sandbagged in on three sides, the guns were unmanned. Still their radar was turned on. Other, simpler, air defense guns stood manned by solitary Balboan soldiers. These were in the open; they had to be manned to be credible. More bait.

Within a radius of fifty or sixty miles of the base more than twelve thousand reservists and militia of the First Legion (Mechanized) waited in their homes or clubs with pounding hearts and with their issue rifles at hand for the call to report to their units at Lago Sombrero. Some of the legion's wheeled vehicles had already been dispersed to pickup points to bring the reservists in a hurry when called. Still others had their private vehicles and pickup rosters. Some would go to pre-planned pickup zones to await helicopters, assuming any survived the initial Tauran onslaught. Busses from what Carrera liked to think of, and hoped was the case, as the 'hidden reserve' would take still more.

All this was known to both the Taurans and the UEPF. Indeed, it was knowable, in broad terms, to anyone who cared to study. Without the threat of those reservists, and hundreds of thousands more like them, waiting for the trumpet's call, the Taurans would probably never have jumped.

Not everything was known though. Carrera would have bet—in fact was betting—that six secrets had been kept. Inside the ammunition bunkers was one of those six real secrets. Hidden away, as they had been for the last three days, roughly eleven hundred young Balboan troops waited, unknown to anyone outside of a very small circle. They were little more than boys, most of them; the average age was just under sixteen.

The boys had been painstakingly smuggled in from their military academy just after the most recent outbreak of tension between the Tauran Union and Balboa. They had found in the bunkers a complete set of all the equipment needed for them to form a mechanized cohort, a very big cohort.

* * *

'But it's as perfect as I can make it.' Carrera turned and left his post outside the bunker, going inside to speak with the commander of the hidden force.

Once out of possible observation, Carrera lit a cigarette. The smoke drifted up and hovered about the ceiling of the bunker. 'Rogachev, are you ready?'

Unseen by the light-blinded Carrera, former Volgan Army Major, and current legionary Tribune III, Constantine Rogachev nodded in the affirmative. Rogachev was a typical, even a stereotypical Volgan; a short, stocky, hairy bear. Above his round head and light blue eyes, was a thatch of blond bright enough to gleam in the flash from Carrera's lighter.

'We're as ready as we're going to be, sir,' the Volgan answered. All of the vehicles that are going to start are topped off with full fuel tanks. The ammo is loaded. My cadre knows its mission . . . well, the mission is simple enough. Let the Taurans land. Pop out of these shitty bunkers. Get in formation. Drive off their close air support, and crush them with armor.

'The only thing that has me worried is the traffic jam we'll have trying to get out of this place and into formation.' Rogachev shrugged, ruefully. 'Couldn't really rehearse that. If the Taurans notice us, or the UEPF does, and a couple of thousand tons of steel moving is very noticeable, sir, they could destroy us before we're properly deployed.'

'I know the risk, Legate. There is nothing to be done about it, except get your air defense systems out first, before anyone really notices.'

Rogachev nodded, briskly. 'Yes, sir. We know that's the plan.' He chuckled, apparently at himself. 'Maybe I'm nervous about it because that's all that could go wrong. A soldier has to worry about something after all.'

Carrera laughed a little. 'Indeed we do. Fine. I'm going back out. I suggest you get your boys into their tracks now. It can't be too much longer.' Carrera threw his cigarette to the ground and stepped on the glowing ash.

* * *