Carnifex

tank!'

'GUNNER, SABOT, TANK!'

'Louder so de great Voodoo God hear you!'

'GUNNER, SABOT, TANK! GUNNER, SABOT, TANK! GUNNER, SABOT, TANK!'

As the cadets turned the 'prayer' into a chant the instructor stuck his right arm straight out, fist clenched, as if it were the barrel of a tank's main gun, and rotated his upper body like a turret. Between each rendition of the chant he pulled his fist straight back to his shoulder as if it were a recoiling tank cannon. The cadets joined him, sticking their own arms out, rotating them, then pulling them back for recoil, all the time laughing their heads off.

Soon, some of the boys thought, or perhaps merely felt, that a recoil should be accompanied by an explosion. The chant gradually changed to 'GUNNER, SABOT, TANK, BOOM!'

'GUNNER, SABOT, TANK, BOOM! GUNNER, SABOT, TANK, BOOM! GUNNER, SABOT, TANK, BOOM!'

The instructor let the chant go on for some minutes before raising his arms to quiet the cadets again. When he was satisfied that he had whipped the boys into enough of a chanting and laughing frenzy to carry them through the unavoidably boring mechanical training to follow, he lowered his arms and said 'De great god Sabot be pleased by you devotion. Five minute break. Den fall in on de tanks outside.'

On his break Diaz took the time to finish his letter:

'But, as hard as this is sometimes, it can also be a lot of fun—and very funny, too—but I'd still rather be home.

Love,

Julio'

1/6/468 AC, Casa Linda, Balboa

One of the peculiarities of Balboan democracy was that elections were set for the most densely miserable part of the wet season. Whether or not it really had been the theory behind this date that fewer of the wretchedly poor would vote if the price for voting were to be standing in a long line in the middle of a deluge, that was clearly the effect. It was, even so, hard to credit Balboa's moneyed class with that kind of foresight.

'And it's going to hurt us,' Parilla said, staring out into the downpour from the covered back terrace of the casa, the one that looked north towards the Isla Real. The sun was up, but only just, to his right as he faced. Soon enough the entire country would be a dutch oven, with a combination of about one hundred percent humidity and over one hundred degrees, Fahrenheit, of temperature.

Ruiz sipped at his coffee and shrugged. 'It will and it won't. Sure, some of the very poor who might otherwise vote will stay home. But the legionaries could care less about a little rain or heat or sun. And they'll all vote. And if one in a hundred of them votes for someone besides you I'd be very, very surprised.'

'A wash then, you think?' Parilla asked.

'About that.'

Indistinct in the thickened air, a helicopter—Parilla recognized the sound of a Legion IM-62—churned its way eastward toward Ciudad Cervantes, carrying several hundred legionaries to their home town to vote. On the return trip the chopper would take a like number of already-voted reservists, with their arms, to guard the island. Still other reservists had assembled at the polls before sunrise, leaving their arms nearby and under guard. These would later march to the borders of the Tauran controlled areas around the Transitway and the pro-Rocaberti enclaves of Ciudad Balboa.

Whether they would be needed remained to be seen. Observation posts in the towns by the Vera Cruz training area, overlooking the old FSAF base at Bruja Point, reported a Tauran Union aircraft landing every forty minutes, not counting combat aircraft. Some carried troops; some carried supplies. One and all, though, they suggested that neither the Tauran Union nor the corrupt government it backed by backing Gaul was going to acquiesce lightly in any election that turned over control to Parilla and his mercenaries.

Both Parilla and Ruiz looked skyward at the sound of what had to have been a very large jet making a leisurely turn to the west. 'What's Patricio doing about this over in Pashtia?' Ruiz asked.

'He's kept one legion to interdict the border, just as our contract calls for,' Parilla answered. 'The other two, while on their way home, he's maneuvered into position to crush the Tauran Union forces in Pashtia. The Taurans appear to know it, too.'

'They've got to be shitting bricks,' Ruiz chuckled. 'He's holding their people there hostage for the good behavior of their people here.'

Parilla smiled, saying, 'Well . . . Patricio learned about taking hostages from the main enemy. And we've all seen how the TU reacts when someone is holding Tauran's hostage. The only problem is that the FSC can see what we're doing and is really pissed about it.'

Ruiz disagreed. 'I don't think they're pissed so much as they're worried. A war here shuts down the Transitway. That hurts them nearly as much as it hurts us. After all, about seventy percent of the cargo passing through here either starts in the FSC, ends there, or both. And then if fighting breaks out here, they have to know Patricio will hit the enemy wherever he finds him and in the most destructive way he can. That would make a shambles of an already pretty shaky alliance in Pashtia. And then . . . '

'Yes?' Parilla prompted.

'Well . . . emotionally the FSC doesn't really give a shit about us. If anything, the ruling Progressive Party resents us because Wozniak lost his presidency, at least in part, over the Transitway. And their current government just adores the Taurans, and especially the bloody perfidious Gauls. Even though we're much, much more valuable to them, I don't think that emotionally they can do anything but take the Frogs' side of things.'

'Idiots to go with their hearts rather than their heads,' Parilla said.

'Idiots to set their hearts on the Taurans,' Ruiz amended.

Panshir Base, Pashtia

The shell holes were long since filled in. The troops were well fed and had even been able to put on a little fat. All the ruined tents had been replaced. Even so, the Ligurini Brigade of Claudio Marciano was digging in frantically, entrenching, filling sandbags, breaking down ammunition.

They had reason to. Lightly armed as they were, they didn't stand a chance if the legion surrounding them should attack. That it should have come to this, and so quickly . . .

Seating in a canvas folding camp chair, deep in his bunker, Marciano sighed even more deeply. 'I don't know what the idiot Gauls' game is, Patricio. They're playing their cards awfully close to their chests this time.'

Carrera looked up at the roof of the bunker. Pretty solid. Won't stop a 160mm though. He looked at Marciano's altogether Roman face and asked, 'What are your government's instructions if it comes to a fight between us and the Frogs? I mean . . . if you can tell me, that is.'

'I can't tell you, exactly, Patricio, buuut, if you think about it . . . '

There are no Tuscan troops in Balboa, Carrera thought. So fighting there need not spread here as far as they're concerned. But, as far as I'm concerned an attack there by the Frogs means general war and I won't be held back from destroying their forces here.

'I'm going after them here, Claudio. If it's war then it's war to the knife and the knife to the hilt . . . wherever they may be. I'd leave your boys out of it, if I could, but I can't leave a strong enough force to guard you here. I'll have to destroy you so that I can redeploy that legion to take on Haarlem, Sachsen, Anglia, Secordia and the rest.' He actually had a hard time accepting that 'the rest' might include the FSC troops in country.

'And we have mutual defense treaties with them,' Marciano said. 'Mine is an honorable country, even if not all our allies are honorable.'

Carrera thought, 'And Romans in Rome's quarrels . . . spared neither land nor gold . . . nor son nor wife nor limb nor life . . . in the brave days of old.' And Claudio, here, is a true Roman. I wouldn't insult him or his men by suggesting surrender.

'You've got good troops here, Claudio, but . . . you know it won't take a full legion more than a few hours to overrun this base. Please, tell your government that. Explain to them that the stakes are much higher than the Frogs are suggesting.'

'I have. They find it hard to believe.'

War Department, Hamilton, FD, FSC

It hurt, deep inside, for Malcolm to admit it. 'Okay, Rivers, I'm convinced. I'm a believer. If we don't intervene to keep fighting from breaking out in Balboa then Pashtia is lost.' And with it, my chance to become president.