The Lotus Eaters

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-