Carnifex

Chapter Three

The Helen (H): that amount of beauty required to launch one thousand Achaean ships of approximately eight tons empty displacement each, or approximately eight- thousand tons of shipping, and to destroy one city.

The milliHelen (mH): a more convenient measure than the Helen, that amount of beauty required to launch one ship and burn down a single house.

The Linda (L): a more up to date measure; that amount of beauty required to launch eight-thousand tons of shipping in a single ship and destroy a city.

Dos Lindas: (ex-Venganza) an antique aircraft carrier of sixteen-thousand tons unladen displacement, restored and recommissioned to take part in the war waged against Salafi terrorists and their supporters by the Legion del Cid (qv). Destroyed cities: TBA.

From Baen's Encyclopedia of New and Old Earth,

Terra Novan Edition of 475 AC

1/10/466 AC, Academia Militar Sargento Juan Malvegui, Puerto Lindo, Balboa

The original port had been raided and burned by pirates almost three centuries before. Its crumbling walls, what remained of them, huddled at one corner of the rectangular bay, held up in places by nothing but friction, gravity and the binding, green and brown tendrils of jungle that interwove among the stones. Shacks, too, sat within the ruins, sometimes surrounded on three sides by the chewed walls.

Outside that original town, or the ruins and shacks that remained of it, a certain amount of newfound prosperity could be seen; new houses, some few stores with bright glass windows, paved streets. This was to be expected when one trebled the population of a not very populous place, and considerably more than quadrupled the average income of an otherwise rather impoverished place. The new population and the new money had come from two sources. The first of these was the Academy, especially its fairly well paid (by local standards) professors and military cadre. The second was the shipyard built to refit the old aircraft carrier—the ex-HAMS Venganza— the Legion had purchased for a song, albeit at three and a half million FSD a rather pricey jingle, one step ahead of the breakers. There were other ships in port waiting for the shipyard's attentions.

Carrera had made some efforts to keep the old town as it was, buying up properties to fix and preserve the ruins. He'd wanted the boys of this first military school to have the lesson always before them: This is defeat; avoid it. (Another school sat on the other side of Balboa, right next to the equally ruined Balboa Antiguo, also sacked and burned but by Old Earth's UN. That one, the Academia Militar Belisario Carrera, was sited by the ruins for much the same reason as was the Juan Malvegui.)

The school itself was on the other side of the bay from the town, near the bay's mouth. When the fog was not heavy or the rain was light, the boys could see the ruins from the battlements of the old stone fortress—Fortaleza San Filipe—that dominated the bay, the school, and the old town.

There was no rain and only a very light fog as Carrera's staff car wound through the street. It was both preceded and followed by armed and armored vehicles. There was a battalion of Castilian troops at Fort Williams, not so far away. Relations between the Legion, on the one hand, and the government of Balboa and the Tauran brigade of which the Castilians were a part, on the other, were, at best, strained. Moreover, the Tauran dominated Cosmopolitan Criminal Court had a standing warrant for the arrest of Carrera and his nominal chief, Raul Parilla, for various alleged crimes committed by the Legion during the initial campaign in Sumer.

I know we're going to have to fight them, eventually, Carrera admitted to himself. But I want that fight to be on our terms, not brought on by well-meaning troops trying to save Parilla or myself from incarceration. So . . . best not to tempt the Taurans . . . yet.

Though no one but Carrera knew it for a fact, the boys of the Brigade of Cadets were part and parcel of the plan for meeting and defeating the Taurans when the day came. Some others had guessed some of that plan. Alexander Sitnikov, in particular, was, as commander of the cadets, well aware that the boys spent two days a week training on strictly military subjects, that the three schools thus far built had their buildings connected by tunnels, and that those tunnels led off the school grounds to well concealed spots in the jungle. Sitnikov knew, too, that the three schools still building shared these features. Lastly, any fool with a map could see that four of the six schools were well sighted to serve as springboards to attack into the Taurans' base area, the ten mile wide strip through the country that contained the Balboa Transitway, an above sea level canal. Of the other two, one was in excellent position to defend the country's main airport, west of the capital, from ground or airborne attack, while the last was near enough to the former—and future—military base at Lago Sombrero to effect the same purpose.

Sitnikov kept his insights to himself. He had few qualms about using fourteen year olds as soldiers, and none whatsoever to using fifteen- through eighteen-year olds.

Formerly a colonel of armor in the army of the Volgan Republic, and before that in the Red Tsar's Guards, Sitnikov had been sent to Balboa early on, to train the new legionaries in the complexities and nuances of Volgan-built tanks, as well as their techniques and tactics. He'd come over, liked what he'd seen, liked the larger paycheck on offer for switching nationalities, and so had elected to stay. That had been more than five years ago.

He'd been as bald then as he was now. Nor had he aged otherwise. Everything in Balboa agreed with Sitnikov, from the weather to the work to his new Balboan wife, a smoky beauty from this very town. The work especially agreed with him. His lifetime's ambition had been to command a division—tank or motorized rifle; it mattered not—in war. He was reasonably certain that, under the table, Carrera had given him the first half of that ambition, the division in the form of what was soon to be nearly thirteen thousand cadets. The other half, the war, was almost certainly coming.

Sitnikov and his key staff met Carrera at the base of the terreplein over which had been erected a reviewing stand. Behind the reviewing stand stood the fort's massive stone walls.

'At ease,' Carrera ordered, after casually returning the mass salute.

Sitnikov led the group up a smooth granite stairway, then along the grassy terreplein to the stand. There were already some dozens of spectators; one of them, Carrera was surprised to see, the Castilian colonel commanding the Tauran battalion at Fort Williams.

Idly, Carrera wondered if Colonel Munoz-Infantes was here as a spy or perhaps in sympathy. He didn't know enough about the man.

Note to self: Munoz-Infantes, check into, task for Fernandez.

Slowly Carrera walked the line, shaking hands, patting shoulders, smiling. When he reached Munoz-Infantes he was somewhat surprised to see the Castilian colonel brace to a stiff attention, click his heels, and announce, 'Legate Fernandez intervened with Legate Sitnikov to invite me to this ceremony, Duque.'

'Did he indeed?' Carrera searched into the man's face for some insight. No use, it was as blank as a stone slab. 'Well . . . welcome, Colonel. Enjoy the show.'

'Fernandez thinks he can be turned,' Sitnikov whispered later, once he and Carrera were seated. 'Munoz-Infantes is a Falangist. He hates the Tauran Union, hates the wogs, hates the Gauls, hates the World League, hates United Earth, hates cosmopolitan progressivism, hates . . . '

At that point Sitnikov was interrupted by a fanfare of trumpets, emanating from both sides of the reviewing stand. This was joined a few moments later by massed drums on the fort's parade, below the terreplain.

Then came the singing. From three gates to the northeast the six thousand— soon to be over twelve thousand—boys, aged at this point fourteen to seventeen, marched onto the parade singing the theme song chosen for the youth:

'Think, boys, think on all that matters most:

Your homeland, the Legion, your flag and your faith.

Hold them holy, holy in your hearts

Pure as the morning light.

Juventud adelante, cantando feliz

Si hay sol o si llueve

Juventud adelante, cantando feliz

A muerte o victoria

Assaltamos el mundo con pasos fuertes . . . '

'Is there