The Amazon Legion (Prelude & Chapter 1) by Tom Kratman

Navigation Links for The Amazon Legion: 

Prelude & Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

What follows is the first of six chapters of Tom Kratman's forthcoming novel The Amazon Legion. It takes place in the same universe as his novels A Desert Called Peace, Carnifex, and The Lotus Eaters. Think of it as a sidebar to the main storyline of the series. In terms of timeline, The Amazon Legion begins shortly before The Lotus Eaters ends and runs alongside the yet-to-be-published novels Molon Labe and The Rods and the Ax. - Mike LaRoche

A Desert Called Peace:

The Amazon Legion

By: Thomas P. Kratman

Copyright © 2009, Thomas P. Kratman

DEDICATED TO

KAT AND KELLY AND SERGEANT HESTER ... AND ALL THE OTHER AMAZONAS, PAST AND POTENTIAL

What has gone before (5,000,000 BC through Anno Condita (AC) 472):

Long ago, long before the appearance of man, came to Earth the aliens known to us only as the “Noahs.” About them, as a species, nothing is known. Their very existence can only be surmised by the project they left behind. Somewhat like the biblical Noah, these aliens transported from Earth to another planet samples of virtually every species existing in the time period approximately five hundred thousand to five million years ago. There is considerable controversy about these dates as species are found that are believed to have appeared on Old Earth less than half a million years ago, as well as some believed to have gone extinct more than five million years ago. The common explanation for these anomalies is that the species believed to have been extinct were, in fact, not, while other species evolved from those brought by the Noahs.

Whatever the case, having transported these species, and having left behind various other, typically genengineered species, some of them apparently to inhibit the development of intelligent life on the new world, the Noahs disappeared, leaving no other trace beyond a few incomprehensible and inert artifacts, and possibly the rift through which they moved between Earth and the new world.

In the Old Earth year 2037 AD a robotic interstellar probe, the Cristobal Colon, driven by lightsail, disappeared en route to Alpha Centauri. Three years later it returned, under automated guidance, through the same rift in space into which it had disappeared. The Colon brought with it wonderful news of another Earth-like planet, orbiting another star. (Note, here, that not only is the other star not Alpha Centauri, it’s not so far been proved that it is even in the same galaxy, or universe for that matter, as ours.) Moreover, implicit in its disappearance and return was the news that here, finally, was a relatively cheap means to colonize another planet.

The first colonization effort was an utter disaster, with the ship, the Cheng Ho, breaking down into ethnic and religious strife that annihilated almost every crewman and colonist aboard her. Thereafter, rather than risk further bloodshed by mixing colonies, the colonization effort would be run by regional supranationals such as NAFTA, the European Union, the Organization of African Unity, MERCOSUR, the Russian Empire and the Chinese Hegemony. Each of these groups were given colonization rights to specific areas on the new world, which was named – with a stunning lack of originality – “Terra Nova,” or something in another tongue that meant the same thing. Most groups elected to establish national colonies within their respective mandates, some of them under United Nations’ “guidance.”

With the removal from Earth of substantial numbers of the most difficult and intransigent portions of the populations of Earth’s various nations, the power and influence of trans- and supranational organizations such as the UN and EU increased dramatically. With the increase of transnational power, often enough expressed in corruption, even more of Earth’s more difficult, ethnocentric, and traditionalist population volunteered to leave. Still others were deported forcibly. Within not much more than a century and a quarter, and much less in many cases, nations had ceased to have much meaning or importance on Earth. On the other hand, and over about the same time scale, nations had become pre-eminent on Terra Nova. Moreover, because of the way the surface of the new world had been divided, these nations tended to reflect – if only generally – the nations of Old Earth.

Warfare was endemic, beginning with the wars of liberation by many of the weaker colonies to throw off the yoke of Earth’s United Nations and continuing, most recently, with a terrorist and counter-terrorist war between the Salafi Ikhwan, an Islamic terrorist group, various states that supported them, and – surreptitiously – the United Earth Peace Fleet, on the one hand, and a coalition led by the Federated States of Columbia, on the other.

This eleven year bloodletting began in earnest with the destruction of several buildings in the Federated States of Columbia and ended in fire with the nuclear destruction of the city of Hajar in the unofficially terrorist-sponsoring state of Yithrab.

Prominent in that war, and single-handedly responsible for the destruction of Hajar, was Patrick Hennessey, more commonly known as Patricio Carrera, and the rather large and effective force of Spanish-speaking mercenaries he personally raised, the Legion del Cid, based in and recruiting largely from la Republica de Balboa, a small nation straddling the isthmus between Southern Columbia and Colombia del Norte.

Balboa’s geographic position, well-suited not only to dominate trade north and south but also, because of the Balboa Transitway, an above-sea-level canal linking Terra Nova’s Shimmering Sea and Mar Furioso, key to commerce across the globe, was in many ways ideal. It should have been a happy state, peaceful and prosperous.

It was also, unfortunately, ideal as a conduit for Terra Nova’s international drug trade. Worse, its political history, barring only a short stint as a truly representative republic following the war of liberation against United Earth, some centuries prior, was one of unmixed oligarchy, said oligarchy being venal, lawless, and competent only in corruption. Perhaps still worse, during the war against the terrorists, the security needs of the country had been filled by the introduction of troops from the Tauran Union to secure the Transitway and its immediate surrounds.

Carrera had learned well from the Salafi Ikhwan, however. The drug trade through Balboa was ended by war and terroristic reprisal to a degree that left the surviving drug lords quaking in their beds at night. The oligarchy was beaten through the electoral process and the final nails driven into its coffin – and into the heels of the oligarchs – when it attempted to stage a comeback in the form of a coup against the elected government and Carrera, its firm supporter. Carrera’s second wife, Lourdes – Balboan as had been his first, Linda, murdered with her children by the Salafi Ikhwan – figured prominently in the suppression of the coup.

The problem of the Tauran Union’s control of the Transitway remains, as does the problem of the nuclear armed United Earth Peace Fleet, orbiting above the planet. The Taurans will not leave, and the Balboans – a proud people, with much recent success in war – will not tolerate that they should remain.

And yet, with one hundred times the population and three or four hundred times the wealth, the Tauran Union outclasses little Balboa in almost every way, even without the support of Old Earth. Sadly, they have that support. Everything, everyone, will have to be used to finish the job of freeing the country and, if possible, the planet. The children must fight. The old must serve, too. And the women?

This is their story, the story of Balboa’s Tercio Amazona, the Amazon Regiment.


***************


Chapter One


…a failure, but not a waste.

--LTC (Ret.) John Baynes, Morale


A phone was ringing somewhere. People – women and children mostly – screamed. Others, men and women, both, shouted. Their voices were distant, as if they came from the mouth of a tunnel. Runaway freight trains, having jumped their tracks and taken off into low ballistic flight, crashed into scrap metal yards, one after another. Over that was the sound of jet engines straining and helicopter rotors beating at the air.

With a barely suppressed shriek of her own, Maria Fuentes sat bolt upright in her trembling bed, her hand going automatically to her mouth to stifle the sound. As her eyes adjusted to the small light streaming in through her bedroom window, she realized that she wasn’t asleep any longer.

“It was a…” she began to say. She stopped, mid-sentence, when she realized that she could still hear the trains, the crashes, the screams.

“Mierda!” she exclaimed, as she threw off the light covers. “Not a nightmare. Shit. Oh, shit.” Maria felt nausea rising, mostly fed by sudden unexpected fear.

The phone, which had stopped ringing, began again as Maria raced for her baby’s – Alma’s – room. She stopped and picked it up.

“Sergeant Fuentes.”

“Maria? Cristina.” Centurion Cristina Zamora was Maria’s reserve platoon leader. “Alert posture Henrique. No drill.” Zamora’s voice was strained, nervous. Maria couldn’t remember ever having heard Cristina’s voice as anything but perfectly calm before. Not ever. She felt a fluttering in the pit of her stomach. Zamora’s upset? We’re so fucked.

“Not a drill?” she asked, pointlessly.

“No, Maria, not a drill. Alert posture Henrique.”

“Henrique? Okay, I understand.” ‘Henrique.’ Call up all the reservists, but only those militia who can be quickly and conveniently assembled. “I guess time’s more important than numbers, huh?”

“They don’t tell me these things, Maria. Later.”

The phone’s tone changed, telling Maria that Zamora had hung up.


Maria’s phone was already programmed with the necessary numbers to conduct an alert. She scanned through until she found the number for her assistant, Marta Bugatti. She pressed that button, then the button for ‘speaker.’ She placed the phone on her bed and, while the phone was ringing, pulled out her Legion-issue foot locker. A couple of flicks of the retainers and the top popped open. She was pulling her tiger-striped, pixilated battle dress trousers on when the ringing stopped and a deep voice – deep for a woman, anyway – answered, “Bugatti here, Maria.”

“Marta. Alert. ‘Henrique.’ No shit.”

“Oh, really? I would never have guessed!”

Unseen by Maria, a mile and a half from Maria’s small apartment, Bugatti shook her head in general disgust and then held her own telephone receiver towards the nearest window. On her own end, Maria could easily make out the sound of chattering machine guns.

Marta’s voice returned in a moment. “So what fucking else is fucking new? I’ll take care of it. I’ll…” Marta’s phone went dead.

“Marta? Marta?” Maria pounded her own phone on the foot locker’s plastic edge in frustration mixed with fear. “Shit. Dead.” She closed the cell and tossed it on the bed. She thought, OK, Marta. You’re a bitch… sometimes. But you’re a lovable bitch and you’re my bitch besides. I’ll trust you.

Maria pulled on her boots, green nylon and black leather, tucked her trousers into them, and then speed laced them shut. She wound the ends of the laces around her legs and tied them to hold the trousers in place. From her locker she took her battle dress jacket. She was buttoning this as she started for her daughter’s bedroom.

She started, then stopped short at Alma’s door. My God, I am going to have to leave her, then fight; maybe die, too, and leave her forever.

Suddenly Maria felt even more ill. How can I leave my baby? Just as suddenly, she felt even worse. How can I abandon my friends, my sisters, my troops?

Bad mother; bad friend. Responsible parent; irresponsible soldier? Hero? Coward? None of those words mean a damn thing. Whatever I do, it’s going to be because I’m more afraid of not doing it than of not doing the other. I’m going to be a coward in some way, no matter what.

Had she been a different person, any different person, she might just have stood there, indecisive, until it was all over. But Maria wasn’t just anybody. The powers that be had selected her very carefully, then trained her more carefully still. They had even organized her unit very carefully, paying more than usual attention to the needs of single military mothers. With or without Maria, Alma would be all right. She knew that. But without her, her troops – her friends – might not. She had no choice, really. She’d made the decision years before.

I have to go.

Alma was still sleeping soundly in her little bed when her mother entered. Maria smiled as her sight took in her daughter’s few dozen pounds and few little feet of soft lines, dark lashes and curly hair. Maria marveled that not only was Alma hers, but that the baby wasn’t awake and screaming.

I could never hope to sleep with artillery flying anywhere nearby, not even in training. What makes it so easy for a kid?

Maria looked out the window from Alma’s bedroom. She couldn’t see much but the street they lived on, and not all of that. Streetlights illuminated the scene. So far as she could see none of Terra Nova’s moons had any noticeable part in that. Then the streetlights began to flicker out, leaving nothing but the moons’ light.

Below the apartment, people were running in the streets, most of them tugging on uniforms. Just about everybody was carrying a rifle, machine gun, or rocket launcher. A number of those who weren’t armed seemed to be trying to hold back someone who was. Somebody’s mother, wife, or maybe girlfriend was crying for him to come back. Maria couldn’t see where anyone did turn back though.

Returning to her own room, Maria continued pulling gear from the locker. Out came load bearing equipment, her helmet, her silk and liquid-metal lorica, the Legion’s standard body armor. Her centurion’s baton she picked up for a moment, then replaced it in the locker. Last came her modified F-26 “Zion” rifle.

She held the rifle in her hands for a moment, drawing some small comfort from its heft and weight. Then she slapped a drum magazine in, turned the key on the back to put pressure on the spring, and jacked a round home.

I hope Alma stays asleep. She hates to see me in helmet and body armor.

Fully clothed and armed, Maria slung her rifle across her back, walked back to the baby’s bedroom, then picked her up in her arms.

Alma almost woke up then, sucking air in with three gasping “uh…uh…uhs.” The mother waited a minute or two, holding her, stroking her hair and saying, “Don’t worry, baby. Everything will be all right, baby. Don’t worry, love. Mama’s here.” The child snuggled her soft hair into an armored shoulder and fell back, sound asleep.

Once Alma had fallen asleep again, it was out the door and down three flights of stairs. Maria didn’t bother with locking the door behind her; crime hadn’t been much of a problem in this part of the city for some time; current invasion excepted, of course.

*****

Lance Corporal Lydia Porras, of the Tercio Amazona’s Dependant Care Maniple, affectionately called ‘the Fairy Godmothers,’ careened her van through the streets, barely missing men as they hurried to their duties in the dark. The Fairy Godmothers were not actually part of the Tercio Amazona, but seconded to it from a regiment of elderly and late enlistees.

Though Porras was in uniform, her vehicle was plainly civilian, both in color and design. Otherwise, it would certainly have been fired on by any one of the dozens of helicopters that swooped in from time to time to shoot at the soldiers in the streets.

Porras made a sharp left hand turn onto Maria’s fast-emptying street. She jerked the wheel left again to pull up to the apartment building, then slammed on the brakes to bring the van to a screeching halt. Porras killed the lights and listened for a moment for the sounds of one of the fearsome attack helicopters the Taurans had in such abundance. There was nothing or, at least, nothing she could hear over the rattle and crump of artillery.

Porras prayed, “Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, take pity on an old woman who has borne children. Take pity on children too young to die. Most importantly, Our Lady of Victory, grant it to us.”

Porras crossed herself and stepped out of the van. As she did so, Maria and Alma appeared in the doorway. Porras took Alma from her mother’s arms – well, pulled, actually; the mother didn’t want to let go – and placed the girl gently, sitting up, in one of the seats of the van, taking the extra moment to buckle the child in. There were a couple of other children there, too. One of the others, an older girl, turned sideways in her sleep to throw an arm around Alma. Porras smiled for the first time that night. Kids can be so sweet.

When one is young and alone and the call comes to fight, it really helps to know someone is going to take care of the kids. That was Porras’ job. She was a nice old biddy. Gray haired, wrinkled; but her eyes shone bright and her posture was immaculate. She had not volunteered for service until she had turned sixty-two years old, with grown children and grandchildren of her own. She’d gone to geriatric Basic Training then, and then volunteered for assignment to the unit.

Old Porras might have been. Steady, calm and reliable she was too. She was also a surprisingly good shot. Even so, Porras couldn’t hope to do what Maria and the others did; she was simply too old. Still, she certainly made it easier for them to do their jobs.
Alma loved her. So did Maria.

Filled with inexpressible feelings of pity, love, and fear, the old woman looked at Maria carefully, as if for the last time. Pretty girl, she thought, eyes glancing over Maria’s five feet, two inches of height, healthy figure, straight nose and large, well-spaced eyes. She placed a hand gently along the younger woman’s sculpted chin, saying, “Go with God, child. And be careful. I’ll guard your daughter with my life.”

Then, eyes clouding with tears, Lydia Porras jumped back into the van, slammed the door, and pulled away amidst screeching, smoking tires.

For Maria it was so hard to watch that van pull away.

*****

Maria Fuentes hands trembled. She was frightened, damned frightened, and she had reason to be. Her country’s enemy had one hundred times Balboa’s own population; three or four times that ratio in disparity of wealth. Between their regular and reserve forces they had more people under arms than the entire population of her country. Weapons? Except for small arms and a couple of tricks there was no comparison. Technology? Sister, Balboa wasn’t even in the race.

But it’s not hopeless, she told herself, forcing her hands to steady down. We have some things going for us, too. Our weapons are generally decent and reliable. We have a better doctrine for battle and a much better one for training. We have damned good leaders.

And this is our country. We have no place else to go.

Tougher to measure were some softer factors: Heart, soul, a pretty good knowledge of their own country, and the fact that the enemy was arrogant – and might, with luck, sometime show all the stupidity arrogance entails.

Besides, the Taurans did have some place else they called home. And if they didn’t mind much making others bleed, they didn’t much like bleeding themselves.

Maria thought, If we’re going to make them bleed, we’ll have to bleed some ourselves.

She looked up at the sky and, with the streetlights gone, saw the thin crescents of two moons, Bellona and Hecate. Yeah, they’ve got more night vision capability than we do; they’d hit us at a time with minimal illumination.

She turned away from the direction in which Porras had taken Alma and, her mind on bleeding, faced in the direction she would have to go. She took the rifle from across her back and, weapon in hand, began jogging.

Left, right, left, right.

From the apartment building it was about a mile to the assembly point, the “hide.” This was a small restaurant in Balboa City owned by one of the other squad leaders in Maria’s maniple.

Left, right, left, right.

It is not, repeat not, fun to run, or even jog, in a tropical environment, when you’ve got forty-five pounds of combat equipment and ammunition dragging you down. It wasn’t fun for a man. For women it was worse. Maria knew it would become even worse than that after she picked up the rest of the ammunition hidden at the restaurant.

Left, right, left, right.

Maria heard the steady whop-whop-whop of a helicopter coming closer. Her army had more than a few helicopters, but none of them sounded like this one. She began to look around at her surroundings, desperately seeking someplace she could hide.

*****

“Hey, Johanson, look left. Single grunt. Take ‘im?”

“Yeah, sure, why the hell not?”

The helicopter tilted left as its tail swung around to the right, bringing its weapons to bear. The target ducked and disappeared from view.

“Fire a couple of bursts. See if you can spook him out.”

“Roger.”

*****

In the recessed doorway in which she’d taken shelter, Maria pressed herself against a wall to try to blend in with the shadow. Her heart was thumping so loud in her chest that she was sure even the helicopter’s crew would be able to hear it.

Suddenly the shadow disappeared as the street was lit by the strobe of several dozen heavy machinegun rounds being fired. Against her will, Maria screamed. Again the helicopter fired and she pressed her hand to her mouth and bit down.

More than the sound, it was those solid streams of tracers lighting up the landscape that terrified her. She just tried to make herself smaller, even as she bit down on two fingers again so as not to hear herself scream out loud.

*****

“Fuck it, Jo. If he’s still around, he’ll be wanting to change his pants before reporting to his unit. Call it a ‘Mission accomplished.’ We got shit to do. Let’s go look for easier meat.”

“Roger. Don’t like hanging around one place too long, either.” The chopper tilted right as Johanson flew it up and away from where Maria’s trembling form crouched unseen.

*****

In combat, fatigue and fear are “mutually reinforcing and essentially interchangeable.” So Maria had been told in training. Her training cadre had even done their best to show her, and her sisters, how that worked. Nothing could have fully prepared her for the reality. She felt so weak from the terror of that helicopter that it took an effort of will just to start moving again. Once she did, though, it got better. She was even able to start thinking and stop just reacting.

Left, right, left, right.

Maria thought, The Taurans may be stupid, but they’re not that stupid. They know we have to assemble to defend ourselves. I wonder what they....

*****

The Tauran sniper should have had a spotter, and preferably a man for security. Under the circumstances, the desperate need to destroy the Balboans’ leadership before they could fully mobilize their not inconsiderable force of reservists and militia, spotters and guards had been dispensed with. His spotter, indeed, was also alone, someplace a mile or so to the west.

Alone, on flat roof overlooking one of the enemy capital’s major thoroughfares, the sniper carefully rotated the focus ring on his rifle’s scope as he tracked his target down the street. He’d begun to squeeze the trigger once, when the target was in an open space. But the target had disappeared behind a small truck before the rifle had fired. The sniper relaxed the pressure on the trigger, waiting patiently.

Ah. There he is again. The sniper gently slid the rifle over to bring it to bear on the target. He began to squeeze the trigger once again. “Keep your damned head still, asshole. Stop swinging like some bitch,” The sniper whispered. The trigger depressed….

*****

KAZINGG!

The bullet passed by Maria’s head so closely she felt the wind of its passage. Sniper!

Even as her mind put a name to the threat, her body was diving behind the nearest auto. In falling, Maria scraped her right elbow on the concrete hard enough to rip her uniform and tear the skin beneath. She ignored it, except to think, in some distant part of her mind, My God, Centurion Garcia would kick my ass if he ever saw me do a dive like that.

Her body armor, tougher stuff, protected her breasts, as aramid fiber knee cups protected her knees. Her heart, which hadn’t ceased pounding since her brush with the helicopter, began to race: thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Maria cursed, even as she crawled to put the engine block and the right front tire of the car between her and where she thought the bullet had come from. It was better than nothing.

Unless, of course, the bullet didn’t come from where I thought. In that case, I’m probably toast.

She rolled over to her back, then slithered her posterior around. Trying to make the smallest target possible, Maria sidled her back to get her head flat behind one of the car’s tires.

Another bullet sent a cloud of broken safety glass raining down on her. Another and she heard a bullet ring off of the engine block then pass through the sheet metal of the body just over her head. Maria began to pray quietly.

Her back hunched against the tire, Maria looked to her left. The next nearest car was better than twenty-five meters away. She didn’t think there was any way she could make it before the sniper put a bullet in her. She knew, too, that he wouldn’t be picky, this time, going for a headshot. He’ll put one through my guts then shoot me in the head as I lay there on the asphalt. The lorica’s good for shrapnel and light rounds, not heavy, full caliber bullets. I’m pinned, but good. Worse, if all else fails he’ll probably eventually go for the gas tank. Then it’s going to be fricasseed Fuentes.

She began to pray a bit more fervently, whispering, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come…”

Next to the main door to Maria’s maniple’s headquarters there was a hand painted sign. She’d seen it a thousand times. The sign showed a duck trying to eat a frog, the frog’s legs sticking out of the duck’s mouth. The duck couldn’t eat the frog, though, because the frog’s front feet were wrapped around the duck’s throat, choking it, blocking its windpipe and gullet.

The caption on the sign said, “Never give up!”

She stopped praying to think, OK. ‘Never give up.

Maria took the drum magazine from her F-26 rifle, then tapped it against her thigh to make sure all the cartridges were well seated. She then replaced it in the magazine well. The magazine made a click as it seated, soft enough but seeming loud to her. Her finger flicked on the rifle’s integral night sight. Maria took one deep breath, crossed herself and prepared to get up and shoot back. She was NOT going to burn without a fight.

Even as her body tensed, she thought, If they could think of putting snipers on the roofs to block our mobilization, why couldn’t we have put people on the roofs to block the snipers? Or, at least, to keep the bastards busy?

*****

“Quietly, Pablo,” the old man whispered with authority. “Don’t let the ammunition drag on the steps, boy.”

“Si, abuelo.” The grandson looked overhead, past where a lightly-built shed protected the stairwell that ran through the building from the frequent rain. He could see only one moon, and that a thin and weak one. Perhaps another was up; from where he was, Pablo couldn’t tell. In any case, he couldn’t imagine even the remotest possibility that anyone would or could hear anything over the ceaseless drumming of the artillery, the screaming of the jets, and the whoosh of light air defense missiles trying – usually in vain – to bring down an aircraft. Still, orders from his grandfather, more importantly orders from Legion Corporal (Med. Ret.) Vladimiro Serrasin, were not to be ignored. The old man was a veteran not only of the terrorist war, but even of the invasion by the Federated States, many years before. He was the boy’s hero.

The boy, himself a junior cadet with a slot waiting at one of the military schools, clutched the bandoleer tight to his chest.

“There, Pablo. See him?” The old man pointed to a soldier, enemy presumably, lying down on the sloping roof with his rifle aimed through a large open chink in the wall surrounding the roof.

“This one is good,” abuelo gave as his professional judgment. He had a tone of approval in his voice the boy found incongruous at best. “Good fieldcraft. From the ground only his target would have a chance to spot him. If he is as good a shot, that wouldn’t be a problem for him.”

Abuelo got on one arthritic knee, the rough gravel of the roof digging into it. Instead of showing a wince, a mild sneer crossed the old man’s face. The light machine gun he bore in his arms – an older and more primitive arm than the fancy F- and M-26s the Legion carried nowadays –went to his shoulder in a motion so smooth it was obviously long-practiced. The old man leaned into the shed that shielded the stairwell to the roof from rain. He took aim on the indistinct shape on the opposite roof. The old man inhaled, let the breath out, and began to squeeze….

*****

Maria crossed herself quickly, then twisted up to one knee to bring her rifle to bear on the building from which she thought the fire had come. Even as she did so, a long, long burst of machine gun fire came from her left rear. She hadn’t been expecting it. The surprise ruined her aim. Her bullets hit the building opposite, but that was all.

She did not wet herself.

From the other side of the street came a scream that might have been heartbreaking if it hadn’t also been so satisfying. The machine gun fired again and the screaming stopped.
Mildly faint and more than a little nauseous, she slid down to rest her back once again against the tire.

As Maria sighed her relief, she heard a laugh from overhead. Then an old man’s voice called out to her, “I once was young and brave and strong.”

Maria answered, loudly as she could, her voice still breaking with terror, “And I’m so now… Come on… and try.”

Then a young boy – he sounded all of thirteen or fourteen – shouted to the world, “But I’ll be strongest, bye and bye.”

“Go on, girl,” said the old man. “We can see for about three blocks. It’s clear that far, anyway.”

Maria shouted out, “Thanks,” then got unsteadily to her feet. Thankful to be alive and substantially unhurt, she resumed her jog again for the restaurant.

*****

The restaurant wasn’t in, though it sat very near, the seediest part of the city, just south of Old Balboa. Though the septic-mouthed, genengineered antaniae had been eradicated from most of the capital, here their nightly cries – mnnbt, mnnbt, mnnbt – could be heard in the distance.

From the restaurant’s door came the challenge, “Delta, Oscar?”

Maria gasped out, “Lima Lima.” The challenge and password for the week spelled, “doll.” Had the sentry asked “Oscar, Lima”, Maria would instead have answered with, “Delta, Lima.”

“Go on inside, Sergeant Fuentes. The platoon centurion will be glad to see you. It’s a freakin’ nightmare, I’m tellin’ ya.”

Nodding, too out of breath for words, Maria brushed past the sentry and eased through the restaurant’s door. Sweat dripped from her chin to splash on the floor below.

Inside was a scene of boundless confusion and disarray. Tables and chairs had been pushed against the walls and windows for whatever cover they might provide. Women soldiers crouched low and indistinct amidst the tangle, their eyes searching out the windows for a threat. A six foot section of flooring had been torn away. From the hole flew metal and wooden boxes of what was plainly ammunition. Women soldiers ran to and fro, moving the boxes to where other armed women were breaking them open and passing the ammunition out.

To one side Maria’s platoon’s optio, what some armies would have called a “platoon sergeant,” spoke frantically into a radio. “What a nightmare! Half of us aren’t here yet! Dead, wounded, held up by traffic; I don’t know. Everyone is doing someone else’s job….No, I haven’t seen a trace of Zamora…. Yeah, yeah. I know. ‘Never to expect a plan to really work. After all, the goddamned enemy gets a vote, too.’… Roger, I’ll keep you posted. Out.”

The optio dropped the microphone to rest beside the radio. She took one look at Maria and said, “Sergeant Fuentes. Good to see you. Your people aren’t here yet. Go help Gupta drag the rest of the ammunition out of the hide.”

Obviously, there wasn’t time for questions. Maria did as she was told.

The ‘hide’ was that hole in the floor, normally kept hidden under a table, which held roughly three quarters of a ton of ammunition. The women all kept their personal load at home, of course, but that was mostly rifle and machine gun ammunition. The hide had enough for a real battle: mortar shells, anti-tank rockets, mines, demolitions, grenades. The hide had never been designed for highly complex and degradable ammunition, like the light, shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles. Those would have to come later, from elsewhere, if they did.

As she eased herself down, Maria wondered how many people had eaten at that table never knowing they sat above enough explosives to blow them half way to La Plata.

“Ouch! Watch where you put your feet, Sergeant Fuentes. That was my shoulder.”

“Right. Sorry, Gupta. Move a little so I can get down there with you.”

Whatever the origins of her name, Gupta was white and approximately blond. Once she’d stepped out of the way, Maria eased herself into the concrete-lined hole, then planted her feet on the floor of the hide and began to help. Some of the boxes took the two of them just to lift. She was struggling alone with a heavy crate when Marta stuck her face into the hole.

“We’re all here, Maria. I also picked up two militia types – Sanchez and Arias – on the way.” With that, Marta brushed off an hour’s stark terror.

Marta turned her head away and ordered, “Sanchez! Relieve the sergeant down in the hole.” Marta reached down a hand to help Maria climb out to make room for Sanchez.

Once back on her feet, Maria reached up to give Marta a quick hug. This was awkward as Bugatti was not only a head taller, but huge breasted to boot. Maria had to really reach.

“Good girl, Marta. Line ‘em up.”

Bugatti turned away and in that La Plata-accented Spanish that might as well have been Tuscan began to bellow to the troops.

After Marta had put the squad into a line Maria started her inspection. This was no time for parade ground bullshit. Sure, naturally she checked their ammunition, weapons, equipment, food and water. Mostly, though, she checked them.

“Your kids get picked up all right, Cat?” She asked of her machine gunner, Catarina Gonzalez.
For answer Cat just nodded her plain face on her stocky neck.

Scared, Maria thought. Don’t blame her. If I had three kids I’d be three times more frightened than I am. She patted Cat’s cheek for reassurances’ sake and continued down the line.

Cat’s ammunition bearer, Arias – a tall, slender, blonde girl – was next. Arias was so new the Maria couldn’t for the life of her remember the girl’s first name. While hands jiggled Arias’ canteens to check the weight of the water, Maria asked about her ammunition to cover the memory lapse.

“Fifteen hundred and ninety rounds, 6.5mm, four ball to one tracer,” Arias answered. “One thousand and sixty in my pack; five hundred and thirty ready.” Arias tapped the two large magazine pouches at her waist for emphasis.

Arias sounded frightened. Maria couldn’t.

Then she remembered the name. Maria squeezed Arias’ shoulder and said, confidently, “Vielka, don’t sweat it. You’re in good company. The best.”

Vielka smiled and relaxed just that trifle that said, Okay, Sergeant. I won’t be scared if you’re not.

“Good girl.”

While Maria checked her troops, the rest of the platoon showed up, a few at a time. The platoon leader, Centurion Zamora, arrived last of all.

Zamora pulled off her helmet to run fingers through sweat-drenched, long, coppery hair as the other Amazons gathered around. The centurion looked around at the platoon she loved and then fiercely pushed away the thought of what lay in store for them over the next several hours or days.
“Troops,” Zamora announced once they’d all been pulled together, barring only a few at the windows and one at the door, “troops, the country is under attack.”

Maria rolled her eyes Heavenward, thinking, What is it about higher leaders in the military anyway, that makes them need to restate the obvious? Ah, well, Zamora has other virtues.

“Our mission,” Zamora continued, “is to assemble, move toward the enemy Comandancia on Cerro Mina, attach ourselves to Second Legion...and fight as directed.”

“Those Tauran Union women who got raped and killed?” Marta asked.

Zamora shrugged, answering, “So far as headquarters knows, it never happened. But did they manufacture an excuse? That’s what I figure. Though who can understand a Tauran, anyway?”

Going to one knee, she pulled a map from a pocket, spreading it out on the floor where the troops could see. “Here’s our route.” A pencil traced a series of streets on a map. “Order of march is Second Squad, Headquarters, Weapons, First, and Third. The platoon optio will take up the rear. Move out in five.”

Maria was skeptical. Not all the ammunition was broken down yet. Pulling at a lock of hair, she said, “Damn, that’s not much time, Cristina.”

Zamora shook her head, though her hair was far too sweat-soaked to move with it. “It’s as much time as we have, Sergeant Fuentes. So it’s as much as we need.” I hate using that tone of voice with people I care for.

Maria’s face went blank as she answered, “Yes, Centurion.”

The order of march put Maria’s squad first. She told Marta to take up the rear of the squad.

Bugatti twisted her face into a mild scowl and answered, “And just where the fucking hell else would I be, Sergeant, sometime Centurion, Maria?”

Maria chucked her on the chin and led the way out. One by one, the rest of the squad followed, some of the women taking a last chance to stuff a pocket with an extra grenade or meal or drum of ammunition. As they assembled at the door, a light truck, in civilian paint but driven by a uniformed elderly man, showed at the door.

“Anyone here need a couple of anti-aircraft missiles?” the old man shouted out.

Maria passed the word back that the air-defense weapons were here. To the old man she said, “Just stand by. The crew will pick them up as they pass.”

“Wilco,” said the ancient.

Stomach flip-flopping as she slipped out the door, Maria began to move forward, hugging the sides of the street. There was the sound of firing ahead, the muffled patter of her soldiers’ booted feet behind. She often heard the distinctive sound of a missile being fired at some helicopter. Sometimes, when she passed through an open intersection and could look south or east, she saw tracers flying high in the air. I guess that’s what ‘a thousand points of light’ look like, after all.

About half way to Cerro Mina, Zamora answered the radio. After a half a minute’s conversation, she called a halt. The optio came running up to her.

“Change of orders,” Zamora announced. “We hold here until called for.”

“Any idea why?” the optio asked.

“Personally, since Tercio Gorgidas got the same hold order, I smell politics,” Zamora answered.

“Mierda!” exclaimed the optio, who then ran back and began directing the troops to find what cover they could in the halls and alleyways off of the street.

Maria took her squad – there were ten of them, all told – and hunkered down between the outside wall of a house and some bushes. Marta flopped down next to her, whispering, “If I were you, Maria, I’d tell Gonzalez to duck into one of those buildings and not come out for several days. I’ll carry her gun.”

Maria nodded her head for a moment, then shook it in negation. “I know. I considered that already myself. Gonzalez’s three kids. I don’t want them losing their last parent to be on my conscience. Still…no. We’ll need everybody soon, especially the machine gunner.” Besides, I like the idea of Alma being orphaned even less than I like the idea of it happening to the Gonzalez children.

*****

The troops began sweating profusely as the sun first arose, and then climbed higher in the sky. Then the spot Maria had picked turned out to have been a good move on her part. The squad was on the wrong side of the street, shade-wise, and would have roasted but for the protection of the bushes. Even so, the building behind them absorbed and then put out a lot of heat as the day grew longer.

Some people, civilians, came out and gave the women cold drinks, snacks, whatever they had to spare. Considering that their country just might lose, and be ruined, it was probably more than they could spare. That made it better in more ways than one.

Curiously, none of those who ministered to the soldiers were healthy young men. Those not with the colors already were perhaps too ashamed to be seen by armed women heading for battle

It was a long, hot wait until Zamora received new orders. Marta filled the time with idle chitchat, mostly concerning the rumors that flew back and forth.

“Do you think the government’s really fallen?” she asked.

“The buildings may be in enemy hands,” Maria answered. “The President’s way too cagey to get caught himself, though. Not alive. He was a soldier once, too, you know.”

One trooper from the air defense team – they had to stay out in the open to use their missiles – stuck her head through the bushes and said, “I heard on the radio that the Taurans were being pushed back into the sea and that the boys of the military schools were on the attack.”

Remembering the other half of the machine gun team that had saved her from the sniper, Maria said that she thought it could well be true.

“C’mon, ladies,” Zamora announced, finally, once the sun was about halfway up the sky. “Enough loafing. We’re back on the job.”

In a way, the centurion thought, it’s better to go ahead despite what’s in store than to wait here, helpless.

It took a few minutes of shouting to get the platoon reassembled in the street. Then the women began to jog again, to move closer to the fighting, as civilians waved to them and cheered. Along their route Zamora’s platoon was joined by the others from the maniple, streaming in from the left and right. Maria almost felt sorry for the poor mortar rats struggling under their loads. Then again, they had a couple of mules to help out. She didn’t feel all that sorry for them. Besides, each of the Amazonas except for machine gun and rocket crews also carried a round of ammunition for the mortars. And seven pounds is not something to laugh at when you’re already toting over fifty.

They passed some awful things on the way. Bodies, of course, friendly and enemy. Some were uniformed and armed; some looked like civilians who had just gotten in the way. A couple were kids.

Maria thought of Alma for about the five hundredth time that morning. Please, God? Please help Porras keep my baby safe?

*****

“Bring me a dozen eggs, child, and the side of bacon,” Porras told Alma Fuentes. The pan on the stove was already sizzling. To Cat Gonzalez’s eldest, Romeo, she said, “Be careful not to scorch the chorley bread in the toaster.”

Chorley was a grain either native to Terra Nova or possibly genengineered by the Noahs. No one was really certain. Growing, it resembled a sunflower that never reached more than a foot or so off the ground. Harvested, processed and baked, it made a yellow bread that was naturally buttery in taste.

“And turn off the television!” Porras shouted at another of the older children. There was no sense in letting them get upset with worry for their mothers.

The safe house for the children was Porras’ own. It was on the coast, far enough from the fighting that the children couldn’t hear much, if any, of it. Whatever she could hear, Porras still knew, at least in general terms, of the battle raging. She forced herself to remain calm, or as calm as she could, and kept the children busy with helping her prepare breakfast. Porras didn’t break out the government provided emergency rations. Time for that later...if things get hard.

“Abuela Lydia, where’s my mommy?” Alma asked from beneath soulful brown eyes.

“Child, do you remember this morning at all?”

“Not much,” the girl answered, shaking her head.

Good.

“Your mommy’s with the Tercio” – the regiment – “and I’m sure she’ll be back by this evening. Tomorrow night at the latest. And you and the other children will be staying here with me. Won’t that be fun?”

Alma nodded very deeply and seriously. “Fun,” she echoed, even while the child thought, I’m little; I’m not stupid. My mommy’s in trouble, isn’t she?

*****

Before the platoons of Amazons reached the base of Cerro Mina they came to an open area filled with smoke, and bodies, and smells both unfamiliar and unpleasant. Marta nearly tripped over two of the bodies locked in what almost seemed an embrace. The knife of one was in the body of the other.

There was also a shot down helicopter, a Tauran gunship, with two burned charcoal lumps in it, their arms and legs pulled up like a baby’s in a womb. Those and their stench made some of the women gag a little.

Maria looked at the helicopter and wondered if it was the same one that had dogged her steps earlier. She hadn’t heard or seen a Tauran helicopter since the one that had tried to fire her up and wondered if that absence was because of the eventual and increasing distribution of the anti-aircraft missiles.

Marta took one sniff of the helicopter and started to gag herself. She bent over and deposited breakfast onto the asphalt.

The Amazons held up briefly just past that scene of battle, while their maniple commander, Inez Trujillo, went to find someone to report to. While waiting, Maria ordered her squad to take positions next to a couple of wrecked enemy armored vehicles. Yes, there were burned corpses in those, too. And, yes, they stank.

“A bad way to die; poor men,” she said.

Wiping her mouth with a hand, Marta answered with a ruthlessness she didn’t really feel, “Fuck ‘em; better them than us or ours.” Still, she shook her head, regretting not the deed, but the necessity.

After several minutes Tribune Trujillo showed up in the open area near Zamora’s platoon. With her was some male tribune the women didn’t recognize. The man towered over little Inez. Muscular, narrow-waisted, and painfully handsome, he looked as if he could have made a pretty good living as a male model. Maybe he did. He and Inez shook hands good-bye. Then Trujillo began to walk – perhaps a little unsteadily – toward where Maria’s squad lay. Halfway there, Inez stopped and forced herself back to reasonable calm. Thereafter, she walked upright and with apparent confidence.

The other two officers and the eight centurions and optios in the maniple gathered around her while Trujillo spoke and gestured to the map and the buildings surrounding them.

*****

Trujillo was nearly finished with her orders. “Our attack to seize the Taurans’ headquarters on Cerro Mina is to be ‘quick and irrespective of losses;’ that’s how important it is.”

“Supporting forces on the right?” Zamora asked. She already knew that one understrength maniple of the Tercio Gorgidas was going to be on the left. And that there might be – or might not; things went wrong in war – an artillery barrage to soften the hill up.

Trujillo shook her head. “I’d have mentioned it if there were going to be.”

Zamora sighed at those words. “Irrespective of losses,” she quoted. “Oh, well. At least our left will be secure. Maybe the TGs are mariposas. We’ve all got reason to know they are some tough mariposas.”

“Other questions?” Trujillo asked. There was some lip chewing, some head shaking. Of further questions there were none.

“Dismissed.”

The officers and centurions saluted Trujillo and returned to their places. The Weapons Platoon centurion called her women and their mules over and began setting up the section for firing. As soon as the others saw the mortars begin to set up, they began filtering over by twos and threes to drop off their single rounds of ammunition.

*****

Too soon Maria was crawling on all fours behind her platoon centurion, her squad following her. They passed through tight little alleyways and buildings; their inhabitants staring at them with wide, terrified eyes. A little girl came to stand near where they had to pass, making the sign of the cross at them. Maria flashed the girl her best smile; almost as if she wasn’t scared to death.

I guess she means well. And it’s nice to know someone cares.

The women crossed open streets with hearts pounding. The whole time they moved they heard artillery – their own, they’d been told – pounding the steep enemy held hill to their front. The blasts made their internal organs ripple in a way that was both fascinating and extremely unpleasant, the more so as they got closer. The sensation wasn’t entirely new to any of them as they’d all been shelled, deliberately, in basic training.

Eventually they stopped in a courtyard that abutted onto Avenida de la Santa Maria, also known as Avenida de la Victoria, the road that marked the partition between the part of the country under Balboan control and the part held for the last decade by the Taurans. Some of the machine gunners, the ones with the heavier .34 caliber belt-fed guns, were ordered into the buildings to support the attack. Cat and her drum-fed M-26 stayed with her squad.

Maria was scared to death. She didn’t want to kill anybody; she didn’t want to be killed either. The more she thought about it, the more frightened she became. It got so bad that she lay right down on the asphalt, pretending to nap and hoping that its steadiness would help her conceal from her troops how very afraid she was.

Marta wasn’t fooled. She sat down, cross-legged, and said, “Don’t worry, Maria. It’ll be fine.”
Foul-mouthed and occasionally insubordinate as Marta was, Maria was awfully glad of her company. She patted her leg and half agreed with her, “Fine. Yeah. Sure.”

In a way, having Marta there did help. Maria wasn’t quite so scared, anyway. She didn’t feel so alone. That had really been the worst part of getting to the hide, being all on her own.

Now she was with her tribe. Life was not so bad.

*****

“What do you mean there’s no damned smoke available?” Trujillo cursed into the radio. “I can’t order my girls into that without smoke!…Yes, sir…Yes, sir…I understand, sir. Yes, sir, I’ll try.”

Inez handed the microphone back to her fire support sergeant, her Forward Observer. The FO just shrugged and said, “Can’t store the white phosphorus with the high explosive. We’ll have to wait for the WP to reach the guns.”

“We can’t wait. It’s got to be done now. Suarez promised to paste the hill good with high explosive before we go in. But we’re going in.”

“Oh, Christ,” the FO said. Smiling nervously, she added, “Funny, how you call on the only man who can help you, isn’t it?”

Trujillo, look at her watch nervously. “Yeah...funny.”

The FO looked up at the sky and said a little, hopeless, prayer; something to the effect of, “Lord, please make them run away.” No such luck, of course. The Taurans had their jobs, too.

Trujillo looked around at her command, nearly two hundred women of the Tercio Amazona. Her eyes sought out especially those who had gone through training with her back when the regiment was just a dream. They were her best friends; no difference in rank could ever change that.

Her eyes settled on Maria briefly. She smiled with warmth and a little sadness. As she turned her gaze slightly, the smile grew both warmer and sadder. Cat Gonzalez smiled back, encouragingly.

*****

The tempo of artillery fire landing on the hill ahead picked up noticeably. Maria opened her eyes and stood up. Lying on the asphalt hadn’t really helped all that much, anyway. She put her arms out parallel to her body to bring her squad on line. Marta fell in behind the squad. It was her job to make sure nobody fell behind her.

“Fix...bayonets!” Trujillo commanded. Word was passed from soldier to soldier. “Fix bayonets...fix bayonets!”

Maria’s hands shook as she reached toward her belt. She pulled the bayonet out and fixed it on the end of her rifle. A steady click-click-clicking said the rest of the maniple was doing the same, putting a knife on the end of a modern rifle to turn it into something a caveman would recognize as a spear.

It was not silly, however many thoughtless amateurs thought it was. True, bayonets almost never killed anybody who could still fight. They were not supposed to. What they were supposed to do, instead, was to terrify the enemy into running away or giving up. They did that well enough, often enough, to justify keeping them in the inventory. Of course, part of the terror was in the way they really were used; to hack the enemy’s wounded into spareribs after winning.

Even though it is against the law of war to refuse to take prisoners, prisoners are almost never taken in a hotly contested assault. Then, too, speeding is against the traffic code.

Arias got down on both knees, right there on the hard pavement, crossed herself, and began to pray. She included the Taurans in her prayers. Another girl, from a different squad, was crying softly. No one but she knew exactly what or whom she was crying for.

Then it was time.

*****

Trujillo handed the microphone back to her radio-telephone operator. The RTO held it to her own ear, listening. Then Trujillo looked at the F-26 in her hand, shook her head, gave a little “to hell with it” shrug and slung the piece across her back. The tribune took the eagle from its bearer and crossed herself.

There’s only one way to do this, to make sure they go up that hill…together. We’ve got a broad open street to cross. The way the trees are, they cover the enemy from sight of most of our supporting weapons but give them a perfect view of most of the street. On the plus side they couldn’t see us where we assembled on our side of the street, what with the trees, the walled courtyards, and the covered vestibules. The Taurans might only kill my girls a few at a time if we try to cross in ones and twos, but there will be a lot more time to do it in; a lot more rifles and machine guns for every second there’s a target – my women! – exposed. And there just isn’t any more time to wait. A chance at the headquarters for this whole sector? It has to be done, if it can be done, right away, right now. If we fail…

*****

“What the hell? Captain! Captain Bernoulli. You need to see this, sir.”

Bernoulli – a stubby Ligurini, a Tuscan mountain trooper – leapt from hole to hole, sheltering from the now desultory incoming artillery. Reaching his machine gunner’s side, he hunched his short and stocky frame down next to the man who had summoned him. “What is it, Basso?”

Basso pointed at the street below. “Sir, it’s one of the locals. I think it’s a she and I think she’s giving a speech…right in my line of fire. Sir, do I have to shoot her?”

Bernoulli shook his head at the waste of it all. “Let’s wait a sec’. Maybe she telling them all to go home…no, I guess not. Shoot if he…or she comes any closer, Basso.”

“Yessir,” the mountain trooper answered, though he clearly didn’t like it.

*****

On the far side of the street below, Inez Trujillo shouted, “On your feet, Amazonas!” Then she waited for the girls to rise, such as hadn’t already.

“Now...For your old parents and grandparents back in the City; for the children you have or hope to have; for your country...for YOURSELVES! The future is at the top of that hill! Follow me, you cunts!”

Holding the eagle high with both her hands, the tribune raced out into the street. She had made it more than halfway across before three things happened: the artillery stopped falling on Cerro Mina, the rest of the Amazons realized what she had done, and two enemy machine gunners on the slope simply shot her to pieces.

Perhaps if only one or two bullets had hit Trujillo the rest might not have followed as they did. But Inez was torn apart.

The women could see that she was dead, very dead, even before her body hit the ground. She didn’t even have time to cry out. Her head was nearly severed, misshapen by a bullet, too. Entrails spilling, her corpse sprawled on the pavement. In an instant she was transformed from a living, breathing woman into an obscenity.

One or two enemy bullets must have hit the eagle’s staff, because it fell to the asphalt in two pieces.

The rest of the women – those who could see – just stared for a moment, speechless except for one or two of the girls who screamed. Maria recognized Cat’s scream clearly. She looked again at the body, biting her lower lip, tears coming to her eyes.

Maria felt a horrible anger build in her. “They ruined her! They ruined her!” She tightened the grip on her rifle and screamed, “Ataque!” In the next moment she and her girls were charging across that street screaming like she-wolves and firing from the hip.

The other squads followed right along. Well, men and women both are herd animals.

More machine guns – rifles too, of course – joined those that had killed Trujillo. Maria vaguely saw – rather, felt – one long sweeping burst cut down the woman – more of a girl really, she was no more than eighteen – beside her. A spattering of angry hornets cracked the air by her head and two or three more Amazons – three, it was three – cried out and flopped to the ground behind her.

*****

Marta’s chest hurt terribly where a bullet had struck her breast, penetrating both liquid-metal plate and silk backing to lodge in the soft flesh below. Still she crawled from one body to another trying to do whatever good she could. She stopped briefly by the still-breathing form of Isabel Galindo. Isabel had been an immigrant from Santander. Isabel had been lovely.

She wasn’t anymore. From whatever angle the bullet had struck, it had blown away most of her face and both of her eyes. Marta dropped her head onto the shallowly breathing chest and wept, briefly.

“I can’t help, Isi. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Got to get to the other girls.” She bent to give Isabel a kiss from bloody lips before crawling on.

She stopped briefly by Martina Santa Cruz. Martina had just joined the tercio a few months before. She wasn’t much past eighteen years old. She would never be nineteen. Marta crawled on.

Marta didn’t have to turn the next body over to know whose it was. “Oh, Cat, she moaned, “what about your kids?”

That was one friend too many. Marta collapsed, unconscious.

*****

Maria didn’t know, of course, that almost every close friend she had in the world was wounded or dead or dying. She kept running forward, firing short bursts. She kept shouting for the others to follow.

There weren’t many others in her squad who could follow. Half of those who began that charge went down before they’d even crossed the broad street. Provided one didn’t mind stepping on the wounded, or making the odd short jump, it would have been possible to have crossed it and never set foot on pavement. Even if someone had tried to cross it without stepping on any bodies, they would still have stained their boots red.

The rest of them, the half left standing, reached the wooded slope and, firing from the hip, began to close. It was slow going up that hill. More girls fell with every step.

What few Amazonas Maria had left did what she did, dodging from tree to tree, firing ahead without bothering much to aim, mostly just trying to ruin the Taurans’ aim.

Then someone ahead of her reached a row of barbed concertina. The Amazon detached her bayonet to use with the scabbard to try to cut a way through. Together bayonet and scabbard made a good set of wire cutters; they were designed that way. Others had the same idea, of course. The Taurans concentrated their fire on those trying to cut through. They were hit, some wounded, some dead. Not one of them got more than thirty feet past the wire alive. The wire itself was draped with bodies hanging grotesquely by the barbs caught on their uniforms and in their flesh. Most were dead, but one woman who had been hung up on the wire kept trying to pick her intestines off of the ground and stuff them back into her torn belly. Her one good arm kept getting re-caught on the wire, forcing her to spill her organs back to the earth. She made a horrible keening sound – hardly human, really – the entire time.

That made Maria very angry, but in a very cold way. When she saw a pair of enemy soldiers come running up, she drew her rifle to her shoulder, leaned into a tree, took careful aim, and fired.

Her first target threw his hands into the air and fell back, dropping his machine gun. The other one stopped, foolishly, for a second or two. Perhaps he was stunned or confused; she didn’t know or care. He looked, maybe, eighteen. She shot him in the stomach. With a surprised look on his face, he dropped his rifle, clutched his hands at his midsection and sat straight down. He fell straight back after she shot him, again, this time in the head.

“Sergeant Fuentes,” someone gasped. It was Vielka Arias. She had Cat’s machine gun in her hands. Maria looked her over and saw that Vielka was hit, too, in the leg. She must have crawled all the way, dragging Cat’s gun behind her.

Maria flopped down to her belly beside Arias. Pointing with a finger, she said, “Good girl, Vielka! Now see those two bunkers?”

Vielka nodded deeply.

“Good. Good girl. I want you to use that gun to keep their heads down. I’m going to go for the wire. If I can cut through I’ll signal you to join me.”

Though Arias winced with pain, she nodded her understanding with great seriousness.

Vielka began firing, first at one bunker than the other, as Maria crawled forward, snakelike. As she crawled, she detached the bayonet from her rifle and the scabbard from her belt. These she linked together.

Once at the barrier, Maria started using her bayonet to gnaw her way through the barbed tangles. Vielka’s fire alternated, spitting first to one side of her, then to the other.

“Goddamit,” Maria exclaimed as her hand caught on a barb, tearing the skin. She continued her cutting, even so, her work slowed by the ripping barbs. Eventually, she found she had to rise to one knee to keep up her cutting.

Kneeling like that, the work progressed more quickly. Maria had made it about half way through when she felt a blow hit her, as if from a great fist. Something tore through her side and out her abdomen. Alma would be the only child she could ever bear with her own body.

Maria cried out in surprise and pain. As her bayonet-wire cutters flew away, she fell down again. Dimly she saw that there was the ragged lip of a shell crater nearby. She started to crawl for it.
After the first shock, her wounds didn’t hurt all that much. Then they started to burn like hellfire, especially the larger exit wound. Maria began to cry from the pain. As she lay there, sobbing into the dirt, the bullets continued cracking overhead. That was Vielka, still trying.

*****

Zamora had been trying to make sense of the ruination of her platoon when she saw Maria fall. She didn’t think; she just raced for the writhing body of her friend. Bullets split the bark from trees where the enemy gunners sought vainly to bring her down. When Zamora’s helmet strap broke and her helmet flew off her head not even her longish, red, woman’s hair caused the fire to slow.

Something – luck or God or pulsating prong of perversity – was with her, however. She managed to dive to the ground next to Maria unhurt. She paused only for the briefest moment before taking a firm grasp of Maria’s combat harness.

Maria dimly felt the strong grip of Zamora’s hand on the back of her harness. She muttered, faintly, “No. No. Leave me here.” The muttering quickly turned to one long continuous scream as Maria’s body was dragged across the broken ground. The screaming grew to a crescendo, until Zamora dragged her across the rough lip of an artillery crater and down into its muddy, protective shelter. Then Zamora took off, leaping out of the crater like a deer.

A few others, all but one in pretty bad shape, joined Maria in the crater. The Amazons’ fire stopped, for all practical purposes, not long after Maria had been hit. One woman – a not so badly wounded one – crawled to the edge of the crater and fired her rifle until an enemy bullet blew her brains out the back of her head. The enemy stopped, too, for a while, then picked up firing again. Maria heard some woman call out to save her, that the Taurans were killing all the wounded. She dug her fingers into the compacted mud of the crater and tried to crawl out to help.

She lacked the strength. Halfway up the slope of the crater Maria passed out.

*****

Somewhere up the jungle-shrouded slope bagpipes were playing Boinas Azules Cruzan la Frontera, Second Tercio code for “No quarter.” Down below, medics picked through the one hundred and twenty-odd female bodies littering the street and the hillside. Most, if not by much, were still alive…if not by much. Many could be saved.

“Sergeant…sergeant we’ve got a few live ones here!”

The man with three stripes and a Red Cross armband came over and looked down into the blood- and corpse-filled shell crater. He shook his head sadly, muttering, “Stupid women…brave women.”

Ahead, the sounds of firing told that Second Infantry Tercio was cleaning up the remnants of the Taurans atop the hill. Second had made its attack hours later, but in overwhelming strength – nearly four thousand fresh men, with substantial artillery support! When the men of the Second had seen the bloody pulp into which most of the women had been ground, they had gone berserk. There would be few if any enemy survivors on that hill. “No quarter.”

“Well don’t just stand around with your goddamned teeth in your mouths!” the sergeant said.

“Separate the live ones and get them out of here!”


*Interlude*


Overhead, at about twenty-five hundred feet, the streamlined shape of an airship wound its laborious way between La Plata, far to the north, and Secordia, way down south. Balboa’s Herrera Airport was a routine stop for such. Patricio Carrera stepped out of his armored limo and looked at the ship without much interest. He had more important work to do today to spare a thought for anything but that. Besides, if it mattered, Fernandez would have told me about it.

“The Senate is my creation, not my creature,” Carrera reminded himself as he walked up the building-wide stone staircase, toward the four dressed granite columns. Compared to a local, Carrera was tall at five feet, ten inches or so. He was also considerably lighter than the national norm, with a kind of piercing blue eyes that were essentially unheard of in the Republic of Balboa. Since this was the Senate House, the Curia, he wore dress whites, but devoid of nearly all decoration. Despite the light material of the uniform, in the short walk between his staff car and the portico he could already feel sweat building up on his back and sliding down. Balboa had a very hot climate.

The blazing sun shone on columns which held up a thirty foot deep portico. Past the columns stood the dressed but unpolished granite blocks of the front wall of the Curia, the Senate House. Centered on that, directly to Carrera’s front, were great bronze double doors. In front of those doors stood a liveried servant of the Senate, who was also a retired first centurion of the Legion’s Fourth Infantry Tercio.

To this man Carrera said, “Dux Bellorum Patricio Carrera requests audience with the Senate of the Republic.” He then took out and handed over his service pistol. That military officers should never enter the Curia while under arms, nor indeed be escorted by armed guards, was a tradition Carrera hoped to establish firmly and beyond question. The best way in his power to do that was to follow it himself.

There was no doubt that the audience would be granted. Otherwise, Carrera would not have come. Still, formalities had to be observed. The retired centurion took Carrera’s pistol, said, “Please wait here, Duque,” and then turned and walked through the doors to announce Carrera’s request.

Carrera then waited, patiently enough. It wasn’t a very long wait, a matter of mere minutes, until the man returned and said, “The Senate will hear you now, Duque.”

*****

Raul Parilla, President of the Republic and, pro tem, Princeps Senatus, sat a curule chair facing the Curia’s long, tiled central aisle. The space was flanked by rising levels of marble benches holding a quorum of the roughly one hundred and forty senators. Behind him, to his left, stood a larger than life-sized loricate statue of “Dama Balboa,” the personification of the nation and the Republic. The statue’s model had been Artemisia de McNamara. Carrera had sent far and wide for a sculptor – rather, a team of them – to do Artemisia, and the country, full justice, and just as far for a one by one by three meter chunk of near-molasses-colored marble.

The space behind Parilla to his right was empty, though the Senate had some thoughts on whose statue should fill it. “Victoria should go there,” was the consensus, and Lourdes de Carrera’s name had come up more than once as the prospective model. Then, too, what the hell, since the sculpting team was just hanging around…

Carrera didn’t know about any of that, though Parilla and the Senate did. Fernandez, the chief of intelligence knew, too, but he knew nearly everything and told only a fraction of that. Indeed, Fernandez had made only one serious mistake the entire time he’d been chief of intelligence, though that one had been a doozy. All three knew why Carrera was at the Curia today, though few if any of the Senate knew.

And they’re not going to like any of it when they do know, Patricio, Parilla thought. Not a bit. We’re just not that “enlightened” a country. Pretty unenlightened, as a matter of fact. Barely out of the trees, truth be told. Why…

Parilla’s thought was interrupted by the opening words of Carrera, his friend, supporter, sometimes subordinate, and sometimes mentor.

*****

One of these days, Carrera thought, I really am going to begin a speech to the Senate with the words, “Conscript Fathers.” And why not? I conscripted the bastards, didn’t I? Today’s not that day though. Maybe after the next war.

Instead, he began, “As I’m sure all of you know, I am the most progressive, the most enlightened, the very most multiculturally sensitive human being on the face of this planet.”

He kept his own face straight all through that opening but had to wait for the Senators to stop laughing before he continued.

“Exactly,” he said, and smiled as he said it. “So when I tell you I want to do two things that might strike less astute observers as progressive, enlightened, and sensitive, you gentlemen – and you, too, Mrs. Hurtado – will not be fooled. You, at least, will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that those are the least of my concerns.”

He cast his gaze around, seeking eye contact with a few key members of the Senate. When he had caught the eye of one in particular, a dark-skinned veteran named Robles, Carrera asked, “Senator Robles, how old are you?”

“Thirty-nine, Duque,” Robles answered.

“How old is your wife?”

“Seventeen,” Robles answered, defensively. Fernandez had been sure he’d be defensive about his new wife’s age. “Why?”

Carrera held up and lightly wagged his right index finger. Please wait. You’ll know in a bit. And Fernandez knows everything.

“Fifteen days ago,” Carrera continued, “I had to witness the execution for mutiny of a senior tribune, aged thirty-seven, and a young corporal, aged nineteen. Both were male. When they joined we didn’t ask so they never mentioned that they were homosexual. Note, that there is no law or regulation against being homosexual, but there is a law against two people, conspiring together, to subvert good order and discipline in the Legions. That’s mutiny.

“The corporal was fairly new, but among the tribune’s decorations were three wound badges, the close combat badge, the Cazador tab, of course, and the Cruz de Coraje en Oro con Espadas.

“And, despite that, I had to have them both shot.

“No more,” Carrera said, shaking his head firmly. “I don’t want to have to do that ever again. Ever. Again.

“Because,” and Carrera’s finger shot out at Senator Robles, “Eros mocks Mars. Love knows no ages, nor sexes, nor conditions. It accepts no bars. And people brave enough to fight and maybe die for the Republic are not going to be dissuaded or deterred by our occasional firing squads. The most those do is encourage discretion.” He shrugged. “Usually… imperfectly.”

Carrera held his hands up, palms facing and parallel, roughly six inches apart, and said, “But, you know, deterrence always seems to fail by about that much.”

Senator Hurtado used her hand to hide an embarrassed smile.

“So what do you propose, Duque?” Parilla asked, though he knew perfectly well what Carrera intended. And really didn’t approve.

Speaking slowly and very deliberately, Carrera answered, “I want to raise a regiment – a small regiment, I think; not many will be suitable for the conditions I have in mind – of married male homosexuals.”

Someone – Senator Cardenas, Carrera thought – shouted out from the benches, “This is impossible, Duque! You are going to make us a laughingstock among the nations of the world. Raising a regiment of queers; married queers? Impossible. And I shudder to think what the church will say.”

Bright eyes flashing, Carrera answered, “It is possible, Senator. It’s been done. It can be done again. And I intend to do it.”

“But to what purpose, Duque? We don't need them. I don’t want them. They make my fucking skin crawl!” Cardenas shuddered.

Carrera hesitated before answering. “No pun intended, but I find them a little, ah, distasteful, myself. But, Senator, as I said, just two weeks ago I watched two good soldiers shot by firing squads for mutiny. Their crime was that they were of different ranks, fell in love and... did something about it. They weren’t the first we’ve had to shoot, either. You know that.

“They died well, those two. I want them to be the last. This is a way, a chance anyway, for them to be the last.”

Carrera looked around the Curia, gauging support. He didn’t think he had it. He said, “Senators...if it doesn’t work… what have we lost? Some money for training. A few buildings we could always use for something else. Some uniforms. Let me try this...please?”

“Besides, I need them for something else.”

“Eh?” Cardenas asked. “What? What else?”

Carrera’s eyes lit again as he answered, “I want to raise a regiment of women.”

*****

Later, in his own offices beneath the Curia’s main floor, Parilla sighed, “They voted against you, Patricio. On both questions. No money for your Tercio Gorgidas or Tercio Amazona. Even Hurtado voted ‘nay.’”

“I’d be proud of them,” Carrera admitted, then scowled, “if I wasn’t so damned annoyed that they balked me.”

“What are you going to do?”

Carrera’s mouth twisted before he answered, “When I turned over the bulk of the Legion’s assets to the Senate, you know I openly kept quite a bit for discretionary funds.”

Parilla smiled. “Yeah, I told them you would. I think they were secretly relieved to be able to balk you without frustrating you. I also made you a deal, even against my better judgment.”

Carrera’s left eyebrow shot up. “What kind of deal?”

“If you can make these regiments worth a damn, on your own ticket, the Senate will recompense your discretionary funds.”

“Best you could do, huh?”

“Better than I really wanted to do,” Parilla admitted.