Carnifex

near winner for Miss Terra Nova. I've spoken to her, personally and privately, and when she says she's in love, and moreover in love for the first and only time in her life, I believe her. Please trust me in this.

Besides that this is good for John, I must tell you it is good for me, too, as he's stopped whining about joining you in Pashtia and settled down to doing good work, the kind of good work he is better at than anyone, right here.

'Wow. The beauty queen and the old centurion? Wow. Note to self: appropriate wedding gift. Money? Possibly. House? Maybe. All expense paid honeymoon for a bare minimum.'

They've asked me to set up the wedding and be the chief bridesmaid and I think John would like you to be best man. Xavier is, of course, going to give away the bride. I've been making one of the nicer upstairs rooms available to them so that Xavier can pretend not to notice that she's acting like a cat in heat and Mac's acting like a teenager.

Speaking of which, beloved, I will be wearing a mattress on my back when I meet you at the airstrip, just as you said. But you had best make sure you're the first one off the plane.

'Gotta love that girl . . . '

14/3/468 AC, Kibla Pass, Pashtia

Gotta love it when a plan comes together, Carrera thought as he watched the huge flight of helicopters pass overhead carrying Qabaash's brigade north to seize the summit of the pass. Qabaash had begged for the chance to go in first and, after a phone call from Sada, insisting that he needed the good press back in Sumer, Carrera had agreed. Besides, he'd seen the Salah al Din brigade in action both here in Pashtia and in Sumer. They were . . .

Well, Hell. They're good soldiers under a first rate commander. I don't have anybody any better for this than Qabaash. Oh, sure . . . maybe Jimenez, back in Balboa. But he is back in Balboa while Qabaash is here.

Atop the mountain range the enemy awaited; intel from both the FSA and the Legion's own sources confirmed that. The air had been pounding their positions for two hours and would continue to do so for the just over an hour's flight to Qabaash's landing zone.

The pickup zone, here well below the mountains, was already hot enough to have to cut the helicopters' combat load. There would be no sling-loads underneath, either. Not that it would have helped all that much if the ambient temperature south of the mountain range had been less; the air above was thin enough that the choppers had to fly with reduced load anyway, despite the cold helping with the air density.

Strictly speaking, Qabaash's brigade was not going to be the first in. The Cazadors had claimed that honor as much as two weeks ago for some units, back when snows were still falling. Indeed, it was under the cover of the snows that they'd been able to come in by Cricket, chopper and even parachute, without being seen. It had been under the snow's cover that they'd been able to build hide positions undetectable to the enemy.

Still, the Salah al Din Brigade and their fire eating commander were the first going in with the intention of finding a fight. They'd land and secure the landing zone—that narrow ledge lodged between cliffs—then fight their way overland to the summit of the pass. After that, it was intended that they spread our, north and south, to the military crests on either side. Even if they didn't take them, they'd attract enough attention in the south to make the climb up easier for Carrera's main column. In the north, if all else failed, they'd still be able to get a good jump off position for the rest to continue the attack.

Mines, of course, are going to be something of a problem, thought Carrera. What a pity the Gatineau Anti- landmine Ban was never effective against anyone who actually needed landmines. Well, what could one really expect? He gave a derisive and contemptuous mental snort. As if law was stronger than life. We're coming to butcher those poor Ikhwan bastards and the progressives think a little treaty to which they're not even a party is going to stop them from using whatever they can?

Distantly, Carrera heard the roars of massed diesels, hundreds of them. That would be the mechanized tercio moving up to their assault positions. Damned shame about what the treads are going to do to the highway. Still, that's why God made sappers. We'll lay a better road down after we pass than this place has ever seen before.

Carrera waved—futilely, as the IM-71s lacked windows in the passenger compartment—at the departing Arabs from Salah al Din. 'Good luck, boys, and good hunting.'

As the last navigation light from the helicopters was killed by pilots interested in survival, Carrera got in his vehicle and instructed his driver to take him to headquarters.

It was an odd thing, really, the drive back. They passed column after column of infantry moving up on foot. That wasn't the odd thing; that was simply part of the scheme of maneuver. No, what was odd was that the columns all stopped to cheer him as they passed each other. He waved back, of course, and held out his hand to shake whatever hands he could, but uncertainly and even with a touch of embarrassment.

Why should they cheer me? The bloody Sumeris did, too. Makes no sense. I am nobody but a nasty bastard out for revenge and using them to get it.

The driver provided half the answer. 'The boys sure seem ready for another fight, sir.'

The other half, or perhaps it was more than half, is that soldiers love a commander who leads them to victory. It has ever been thus, and that, at least that, Carrera had done.

He felt his mind and spirit click into full battle mode.

* * *

They'd lifted an hour and a half before sunrise, Qabaash, as always, in the lead lift. Because they were flying so high to reach the summit of the pass, the helicopters had had to be underloaded. Even with it being so cold, the air was just too thin up there for them to hope to carry a full load. Underloading, in practice, meant that they could carry, at most, twenty-one men with full combat equipment, and with no sling load of additional supplies carried underneath. This meant that the rest of the supplies, especially shells for the 120mm mortars and the one battery of 160mm jobs Carrera had had attached to them, either had to go in on separate helicopters or be parachuted in by aircraft. And for the latter, they'd need to grab a piece of land considerably larger and flatter than their chosen landing zone.

There was a platoon of Cazadors, minus one squad keeping eyes on the objective, ringing that landing zone. Qabaash, wearing his night vision goggles was the first to spot their infrared strobe. He flipped the goggles up, waited a moment for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom, then looked generally in the same place, scanning for any visible indicator of enemy fire.

No flashes. Qabaash breathed a sigh of relief. Good, it was only the strobes and not machine guns.

He tapped the pilot and pointed. The pilot gave one thumb up where Qabaash could see it. What did he care if the signal meant something rather different in Sumer than in Balboa?

Qabaash felt the helicopter start to heel over, then begin its spiraling descent. The other three birds in the lift followed. Qabaash keyed the radio and spoke the signal to the waiting Cazadors. Suddenly, lights began flashing on all over the drop zone, marking safe spots for individual helicopters to land.

The landing zone was barely big enough for four helicopters at a time. This lift of four carried Qabaash, a small portion of his command post, and part of one infantry company. The next lift in would bring in the remainder of that company.

As soon as the chopper touched down, the clamshell door in the rear opened to disgorge the troops. Qabaash, sitting at the front of the passenger compartment was the last out. He threw himself to the ground along with his men while waiting for the choppers to lift off. It was easy enough to walk into a spinning tail rotor in the daytime. At night it was hard not to.

With a rush of air and a roar of engines the IM-71s lifted off.

Under two minutes until the next comes in.

Qabaash looked around with his goggles over his face. He couldn't hear a bloody thing for all the aircraft buzzing around. There wasn't a lot of light but what there was the goggles magnified more than ten thousand times. Though the picture was grainy, it was still clear enough to see squads of his men racing to the assembly area nearest the worser of the two trails out from the LZ. It would be a special beneficence of Allah if no one shot anyone on the same side.

'Light of the world, Maker of the Universes, let it be so,' Qabaash whispered.

The CP was supposed to set up under a rock overhang to the west, between the trails. Grabbing the two radiomen who had accompanied him, Qabaash headed that way. Once there, he met his forward air controller and his operations officer, his fire support officer and his 'intelligence puke.' They had been scattered among the other