Carnifex

* * *

Chu let go the wheel to pull Rodriguez back behind fuller cover. The blood flowed too thickly for the sailor to see the damage. He pulled a water bottle from a holder above deck and poured its contents over the centurion's eye.

This is probably a mistake, he thought, as he reached to remove a thin spike of wood from the white of the eye. Rodriguez screamed, once, as the splinter was removed. Blood flowed even more freely afterwards. Still, the pain became more or less manageable.

'Thanks, Chu,' he whispered. 'See to the defense . . . I'll be all right.'

* * *

Blast the pirates into eternity Jaquelina could do, wounded or not. What she could not do was stop the progress of their boat. It continued on, closer and closer, until it rammed the side of the Suzy Q, staving it in and causing water to pour through the rupture.

'Marta!' she screamed, 'See to the wounded boy and let's get the fuck out of here!'

Jaquelina stood up and backed away from the gun. Blood suddenly began to rush from her wounded side.

'Mierde,' she muttered, and promptly fainted.

* * *

The bilge pumps kicked in automatically, relieving Chu of the burden of flipping a switch while trying to lead his own crew and the Cazadors. Whatever or whoever it was who'd taken over the central .41 on that side might have knocked the pirates' dicks loose, but just couldn't stop the boat or kill them all.

Well before he'd been enticed into becoming a squid, Chu had been a pretty fair riflemen with the Fourth Tercio. He picked up Rodriguez's bayoneted rifle and, screaming something unintelligible even to himself, launched himself bodily to the spot where his hull was breached and the pirates oozing over the side.

He was joined at the boarding point by Legionario Tomas Guillermo, the latter likewise charging forward with bayonet point to the front. The prow of the pirate vessel was on a rough plane with the side of the Suzy Q. They met, Chu and Guillermo on the one side, half a dozen half-panicked pirates on the other. The pirates towered over the little legionaries but, since both the legionaries had body armor—better still, training—the first two Xamaris met went down with screams made gurgling by the blood filling their lungs.

'Get the fuck away from my fucking ship you scum-sucking bastards!' Chu cried.

* * *

By the time Marta got on deck, Jaquelina carried under one arm and the burnt legionary slung over her shoulder, the other hookers had also emerged. Marta set Jaquie down gently and just as carefully laid the legionary alongside her.

'Does anybody know first aid?' Marta asked.

'Sure,' answered one of the girls, brightly. 'I know just what to do; I've watched the legionaries.' She then proceeded to fill her not unimpressive lungs with air and screamed 'Medddiiiccc!'

* * *

With their own boat sinking under them, the legionaries had little choice but to swarm the other. Leaving their machine guns and grabbing rifles, they followed Chu and Guillermo in a surge over the gunwales. The pirates had little chance of stopping that charge. While the bodies and not-quite-yet bodies were being rolled over the side to the gathering sharks, the legionaries collected their wounded and dead and carried them across. A half dozen pirates they saved for questioning. Besides, Fosa had said he thought it would be good for morale for the rest of the fleet to see some of their enemies hang.

UEPF Spirit of Peace

'We'll call that one a draw,' High Admiral Robinson decided, looking at a high resolution recording of the Suzy Q's fight with the Xamaris.

Wallenstein shook her head. 'No . . . I don't think so. Sure, the pirates managed to sink the mercenaries' yacht, and sure the mercenaries only got a crappy, slow, tramp fishing boat in return. But all the pirates died, if you count the ones the mercenaries hanged off the flight deck of their aircraft carrier and those they fed to the sharks. Those pirates won't be going home and people in Xamar are eventually going to wonder what horror it is out at sea that eats their sons and doesn't even spit out the bones. No, Admiral, sorry, but it was a loss.'

Robinson, being a Class One, hated being corrected by lesser castes. Even so, he was willing to admit Wallenstein was right to the extent that he changed the subject slightly.

'I understand that the FSC is considering rehiring those mercenaries for employment in Pashtia.'

'For a very impressive amount of money,' Wallenstein agreed. 'How do we use that?'

She already had a number of ideas of how to put the deployment out of country of the legions to good use but, since she wanted Class One status more than she wanted life, she thought it best to let the High Admiral recoup from being corrected.

'They're going to have to send sixty-five or seventy percent of their force over if they're going to do any good,' Robinson said. 'The Taurans are collapsing in Pashtia. That will put the Tauran forces in Balboa on a rough par with the legions, not counting the mercenaries' reserves. It might be enough for the Taurans to interfere with the election there. Our ambassador says that this Parilla bastard is certain to win any open and fair election.'

'What do you have in mind?' Wallenstein asked.

'Well . . . suppose we have the World League and the Tauran Union insist on sending observers to oversee the election. Perhaps we can have that idiot ex-president from the FSC go, too. You know the one, Wozniak. No matter how the elections go, they can insist there was voter intimidation, ballot-box fraud, the usual. Then the Government of Balboa can refuse to step down. The Tauran troops can protect that government as long as they match the rump of the Legion in power.'

'What about the FSC?'

'About one quarter of the FSC is Progressive, which is to say, Taurophile and United Earthophile, at heart. That's probably enough to stymie any FS support for mercenaries that even the more fascistic among them consider to be distasteful. So it would be just the Taurans against the Balboans.'

Wallenstein considered that. 'I don't think the Taurans are enough.'

With that, Robinson agreed. 'They're not; no tolerance for heavy casualties. The Taurans and the Zhong together might be enough though.'

Robinson had no clue he was almost echoing Gallic General Janier. Still, the objective reality of the matter was available to both men. Why should they not draw similar conclusions?

'They might,' Wallenstein conceded. 'I wonder though, if we're not actually creating exactly the threat we fear.'

And that was as far as she was willing to go. She did, after all, want Class One status.

Interlude

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

CORDER, GOVERNOR, UTAH v. SIMPSON, COMMISSIONER, INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE

CERTIORARI TO THE TAX COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Argued October 13, 2104–Decided March 1, 2105

The overwhelming weight of international opinion that fair and just taxation of the richest portion of humanity for the benefit of the poorest and most exploited is not controlling here, but provides respected and significant confirmation for the Court's holding that the Fairness in Taxation Act of 2101 is both constitutional and binding upon those states which have, so far, failed to implement its provisions. See, e.g., Tomlins, supra, at 831—832, and n. 30. The United States is the only country in the world that continues to deny to its superior organization, the United Nations, its fair and just due in fiscal and tax matters. It does not lessen fidelity to the Constitution or pride in its origins to acknowledge that the concept of national—still less so, state—sovereignty has grown dated, and no longer meets the aspirations of a kinder and more enlightened world. Express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and peoples underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own heritage of freedom. Correspondingly, their entitlement to support and development lays a duty upon the so-far privileged portion of humanity to pay. The duty to pay implies, indeed, requires, the right to tax.