strip-capable fighters would base out of Jaquelina de Coco, to drive off any attempt at an intercept from the Santandern Air Force. The air and ground crews were the very best Lanza could provide, supplemented by Samsonov's hand-picked Volgan aviators.
* * *
Pritkin was a proud holder of the Order of Saint Ilyich (for the Red Tsars had wisely enslaved the Church to the cause of revolution, rather than oppressing it), earned for bringing his helicopter in, over and over again, to a wind and fire swept hilltop in Pashtia to bring out several score Volgan wounded. Some of the older and more senior men of the 22nd, in fact, owed their lives to him, though the action had cost Pritkin most of his crew in dead and wounded. Because of that long ago action, Samsonov had hunted the aviator down to recruit him for the regiment in Balboa.
Tall, rail thin, the aviator's cornflower-blue eyes looked out from underneath the stubby brim of his flight helmet to the little, jungle-shrouded, postage-stamp pickup zone, or PZ, where a company of paratroopers awaited him and the other five IM-71s of his flight.
Pushing left pedal and easing his stick forward, Pritkin did a single pass to the right of the PZ, glancing left to eyeball the length and breadth of the thing. One pass was enough. Pritkin pressed his throat mike and announced to the infantry waiting below, 'No fucking way I'm getting six birds in there. Two is possible. You need to reconfigure to load two at a time.'
The answer came back, 'Fuck . . . roger . . . figures. Give us five minutes.'
'We'll be around,' Pritkin said. 'Call when ready. Don't dawdle; we've enough fuel but hardly an abundance.'
Jaquelina de Coco, La Palma Province, Balboa, Terra Nova
Under the noonday sun, in three hovercraft, half of Pritkin's refueling platoon, plus an MP platoon for security, prepared to land and set up their fuel point by the town's dirt-improved-with-perforated-steel-planking airstrip. They, like all the men of the task force, wore Federated States Army issue battle dress, or close copies thereto, and aramid fiber helmets.
Centurion Ricardo Cruz, returned, with his platoon, for a brief break from jungle patrols, watched the unloading and set up with considerable interest. In fact, he was interested enough to stop writing his letter home, and given how he felt about his wife, Cara, that was very interested indeed.
Castillo, the machine gunner, seated on the grass nearby, was watching even as Cruz was. 'What the hell is all that, Centurion?' the gunner asked.
'None of our business, I suspect,' Cruz answered. He pointed, 'And neither are those half dozen jet fighters winging in from the east.'
Fort Cameron, Balboa, Terra Nova
Language was the big, obvious problem. There were three in use in the force: Russian, Spanish, and, as a lingua franca, English. Among one group the languages were Spanish for boat crews, Volgan for the troops the boats carried. The commander of ground troops spoke English as did both the boat captains. The aircraft supporting spoke Spanish or Russian. Another group had Spanish and English speaking transport and gunship pilots and Volgan ground troops. For these a few translators were assigned. After weeks of work and practice the kinks had been worked out, mostly.
The date to launch had been fixed by the confluence of natural factors, tide, moons, and weather, plus the pattern of movements of the human targets. Beginning at midnight, two days prior, Fort Cameron had been disconnected from the rest of the world. MP's at all usual exits to the post had been doubled and roving patrols swept the perimeter roads. Samsonov's officers confiscated all cell phones and removed all telephone transmitters except for the main number which led to the Intelligence Officer's desk. Fortunately, of those troops fortunate to have had time to find romance with young Balboan women, most had settled down quickly into married life. Their women were on the friendly side of the wire and had been educated of late to keep quiet. Thus, the number of 'Can I please speak to my boyfriend?' calls was minimal. For those there were, the regimental intelligence officer, the Ic, simply answered in Russian, rude sounding Russian at that, and then hung up.
Ordinarily, the closure of a post would be a noticeable event. Samsonov had foreseen this, and ordered the place sealed for a couple of days a week ever since receiving his orders from Carrera. Thus, it had become nothing too remarkable.
What was somewhat unusual were the nearly forty helicopters—enough to carry almost a thousand fully combat equipped men—lined up on the post parade field, all of them sporting auxiliary fuel tanks and many with machine gun and rocket pods attached. Equally odd, for sheer numbers, were the fifteen Nabakov turbo-prop transports and the dozen armed attack aircraft, all forming a fan of sorts at one end of the post's short airfield. As far as the bulk of the Volgan paratroopers knew, the assembly of aircraft was only to support another training mission. Nor should they have thought differently. They carried only blank ammunition in their magazine pouches, they'd been issued no grenades, of either the hand- or rocket-launched varieties.
Indeed, only company commanders and above knew of the real mission. What the soldiers might have guessed none but themselves knew.
* * *
'I'm tired of these silly training problems,' said Sergeant Pavel Martinson, a dark skinned Kazakh of partially Nordic extraction. He pulled off his F.S. Army model aramid fiber helmet to rub at the sore spot on the top of his head formed by the pressure of the nylon ring that held the headstraps of his helmet together. 'Three fucking opposing force rotations in as many months and still we train in between.'
'Training mission, you silly twit?' answered his platoon leader, Praporschik—or Warrant Officer—Ustinov. 'You
