"But?" the woman stiffened, waiting for the hammer to fall.

"What about your parents? We're not married."

Lourdes sighed. "Marriage would be...more proper, yes. But, in all the time you've lived among us you still haven't figured it out, have you? As long as I am your woman and you recognize the child as yours then marriage doesn't mean all that much extra. It's nice...it would be nice. But you don't have to marry me."

Carrera nodded. Yes, he'd known that at some level. He turned and asked a shop girl if the store had a jewelry department.

"No, sir. Sorry," had been the answer. "But there is a very nice one in the building next door."

"Let's try to do this as properly as we can, under the circ.u.mstances," he said to Lourdes, taking her hand and leading her to an elevator. "First the proposal: will you marry me?"

Her eyes lit up happily as she answered, "Yes, of course."

"Good. Be awkward otherwise. Now let's go find a ring. Then Then we go shopping for the baby." we go shopping for the baby."

It was after looking at the thirty-fourth ring that it hit him. c.r.a.p...two edged sword. Now the enemy has something to use against c.r.a.p...two edged sword. Now the enemy has something to use against me me, if I go after their families. Note to self, security detail for Lourdes, soonest. Obstetrician, soonest. Bunker the living h.e.l.l out of our quarters at Balboa Base, soonest.

Later, in the hotel where he'd rented a suite, Carrera mentally kicked himself for not having noticed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s had, in fact, swollen noticeably already. She actually looked better than she ever had. Where she'd once been rather girlishly slender, now both hips and b.r.e.a.s.t.s had filled out a bit, making her look more womanly. Also more desirable, if that were possible.

He looked at her nipples, lovely pert things, and said, "If I sucked those as hard as I liked, I'm afraid I'd hurt you. And your b.r.e.a.s.t.s have got to be tender now. If I did hurt you by playing with them too roughly, I apologize."

She just smiled as she gathered his head to her chest. She had him now and she knew it.

"Suck them as hard as you want," she said in a husky voice. "Play with them as roughly as you want. I'll tell you if it ever gets too hard or too rough. But...I like like it...and they're there for it...and they're there for you you."

Ciudad Balboa, 23/5/462 AC From Hamilton Lourdes and Carrera had flown north to Balboa. After the endless dun color of the Sumeri desert and the mud brick of both city and base, followed by the barren stone of Hamilton, the country that pa.s.sed beneath the airplane windows looked almost shockingly green.

"I'd almost forgotten..." Lourdes whispered.

"There are reasons green is the more or less sacred color of Islam," Carrera observed. "It is very beautiful, though, isn't it? It'll be good to be home for a week."

The charter jet had landed and taxied to the military terminal on the other side of the airfield from the civilian one. Parilla, Jimenez, most of the staff and Esterhazy were there to greet Carrera and Lourdes. Carrera was unsurprised at being met by a band of pipes and drums. He was more than a little surprised that he was also met by what appeared to be a full infantry cohort, supported by tanks, and with aircraft circling overhead.

"It's the Taurans," Parilla explained, when Carrera's surprise became obvious. "Remember, there's a warrant for your arrest from the Cosmopolitan Criminal Court. The government is being openly ambivalent about it, but there's no doubt they'd like to see you and me both gone. And since the Taurans are here the civil government has started to use the police and military police to push us a bit. They've sacked some of our friends in the Civil Force and most of the rest are running scared. I can't go anywhere anymore without an armed guard. Neither can most of our higher commanders. I'll be glad when the base on the Isla Real is finished and we can move our enterprise there completely."

"The sale is going through then?" Carrera asked. With everything else on his mind in Sumer he hadn't really followed developments in Balboa as closely as he might have wished to.

Esterhazy answered, "Oh, yes. Ve haff already bought vell ofer half ze island, plus Isla San Juan and Isla Santa Paloma. Ve haff options on most of ze rest.

"Some of the gringos who built houses along the beaches didn't want to sell," Parilla added with a smile. "But we opened up about twelve square kilometers as an artillery and mortar impact area and, once their sleep started being interrupted nightly by exploding sh.e.l.ls, they dropped their opposition and became, oh, ever so much more cooperative.

"For now," Parilla continued, "we have about half the casernes about half built. Sitnikov is over there supervising. In a year, or maybe a year and a half, we'll be able to move most of the enterprise to the island."

"Speaking of Sitnikov and his projects, how is the boys' school going?" Carrera asked.

"First stop on the tour that begins tomorrow," Parilla answered. "For now, we're heading to the Casa Linda where you and Lourdes can rest. We're having a big dinner for you two, the staff, and key commanders."

Puerto Lindo, Balboa, 24/5/462 AC Balboa had free and compulsory education. Sort of. Between the need for parents, often poor parents, to buy school uniforms for their children, along with books, paper, writing implements...well, it was actually a fairly expensive proposition. That the country still had, despite this, one of the highest literacy rates on Terra Nova was testament to the value the people placed on education.

Still, it was was an expense. So when a new school, the an expense. So when a new school, the Academia Militar Sergento Juan Malvegui, Academia Militar Sergento Juan Malvegui, had been created promising not only free uniforms, but free everything including room and board, many parents had jumped at it. The kids even received a small stipend. Not that it was open to everyone. Prospective students had to be male, of the right age, in perfect health, and pa.s.s what amounted to an IQ test. Only about one in five of the applicants had been accepted. had been created promising not only free uniforms, but free everything including room and board, many parents had jumped at it. The kids even received a small stipend. Not that it was open to everyone. Prospective students had to be male, of the right age, in perfect health, and pa.s.s what amounted to an IQ test. Only about one in five of the applicants had been accepted.

The Academy was sited at an old stone fortress from the second century after colonization. The fortress looked out over an almost perfectly rectangular bay and had been intended to defend the bay from the Anglian and Gallic pirates that had once infested the Shimmering Sea.

A mix of Volgan, Balboan and FSC instructors and cadre manned the school. These, bright and early, were out with the boys on the fortress' broad green parade ground. The school commandant, Carrera, and Sitnikov stood atop a covered reviewing stand on one side of the parade field.

"They have academics four days a week," Sitnikov explained, leaning over to speak into Carrera's ear. He'd flown in the night before from the Isla Real expressly to show off his handiwork. "Two days are devoted to more military subjects. On the last day they rest, as the Bible insists. This summer will be their first. Half of it will be spent in a military course. The other half will be vacation at home...if they want vacation."

The school's adjutant, a crusty old Volgan, reported to the commandant. Salutes were exchanged and the commandant ordered, "Pa.s.s in review."

There was no band. Perhaps it could come later. For now, the green and gray uniformed boys sang wherever they marched, something they had apparently picked up from their Volgan instructors.

As the first company of about one hundred and fifty boys wheeled and began to march past the reviewing stand, Carrera heard them sing:

Juventud adelante, cantando feliz Si hay sol o si llueve Juventud adelante, cantando feliz A muerte o victoria a.s.saltamos el mundo con pasos fuertes...

Carrera looked upon the marching boys' dark faces and bright eyes with a smile. "Very good," he judged, nodding slowly. Then, turning slightly to Sitnikov, he asked, "The other five schools?"

"Next year two more will have been built. This group will be split into three, one for each of the schools. They'll be able to a.s.sume some of the leadership responsibilities themselves, which will allow us to use fewer cadre members, per capita. Teachers for civilian subjects are like beans; we'll just buy more. The following year the last three academies will be built. We'll split the student body again. After that, it's just maintenance. It's not particularly cheap, though. Each one of these kids costs about seven thousand drachma a year to keep clothed, fed and educated. When all six schools are filled with their full compliment of eighteen hundred kids it will cost almost eighty million drachma a year."

"Small change," Carrera scoffed. "Eighty million for nearly eleven thousand fanatical potential infantry? A bargain. Besides, we have the money."

But I have to take that f.u.c.king h.e.l.lhole, Pumbadeta, to keep the money flowing. b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Campos. s.h.i.t.

Enroute to Ninewa Airport, 27/5/462 AC The legion AN-21 was something less than comfortable. Lourdes didn't complain, though, and Carrera hardly noticed. She slept with her head on his shoulder and he with his cheek resting against the top of her head.

Halfway through the flight, he suddenly sat erect, waking her and causing concern among the crew. He cursed himself for an idiot.

"Sorry, Lourdes," he apologized. Carrera then walked to the c.o.c.kpit and asked if it was possible to make a telephone call to Hamilton, FD. a.s.sured that it was, he gave the radioman/navigator a number to dial.

"Mr. Secretary? Carrera. I can do it. But it's still going to cost you the extra figure I quoted. And I am am going to need those battalions you promised." going to need those battalions you promised."

Pumbadeta, Sumer, 35/5/462 AC The FS Marines never patrolled the streets of the city anymore, Fadeel was pleased to see. Moreover, whoever among the local police had not come over was surely cooperating anyway. Perhaps the entire family hanging by their necks from one of the bridges over the river had something to do with that.

This had not been the first family put to death in the city, of course, merely the first for whose execution Fadeel had been present. It had been a grisly, awful thing, even by Fadeel's atrophied moral standards. The father and mother had been forced to watch first as each of their five children, aged four to eleven, were hoisted up. The ropes were thick and the children light. After watching for a quarter of an hour of slow strangulation, the children's faces slowly purpling and their legs kicking frantically for purchase, Fadeel had told his men to hang onto the legs to put the kids out of their misery. Both mother and father had been too grief-stricken, horrified and shocked, thereafter, to even struggle as the ropes were placed around their own necks. They'd died more quickly and far more easily than had the children.

A small price to pay, however distasteful, to ensure the rest cooperate, was Fadeel's judgment.

And cooperation had indeed been forthcoming. Crews of conscripted civilians dug ditches and tunnels wherever they were directed to. Streets were being blocked off; mines, b.o.o.by traps and improvised explosive devices being set all across the city. More than twenty-five hundred holy warriors, too, had gathered for a climactic showdown. Best of all, the cost of stockpiling food for the coming siege and there would be something like a siege, Fadeel was certain of it had been borne by various worldwide humanitarian organizations. Since more than a few of these were Islamic, supply of ammunition had also been seen to.

We'll make the infidels pay a price in blood that will open their eyes to the truth, Fadeel thought, Fadeel thought, that they can never pacify and control Islamic lands. that they can never pacify and control Islamic lands.

Interlude

Makkah al Jedidah (New Mecca), Al Donya al Jedidah (the New World), 6 Jumadah I, 1529 (20 May, 2105 AD) Abdul ibn Fahad wasn't entirely comfortable with the new calendar system. He still went by the old, though he also as a very holy man kept both sets of religious holidays and festivals. That took up quite a bit of time. Worse, celebrating two Ramadans a year was exhausting. Fortunately, at least occasionally they coincided.

In twenty-one years they had coincided twice. In twenty-one years the population of the colony had blossomed. Not only did the women bear children in vast numbers, but every month it seemed new ships arrived bearing colonists from among the most faithful, the most traditional, back on Earth. The colonists, of course, brought many slaves with them to tend to the farming. It was well that they did so; the life expectancy of a slave was naturally lower than that for a freeborn man.

Sitting, as it did, at the confluence of two streams, Makkah al Jedidah was green and lush and lovely. This was as it should be, as this was a holy place, especially marked by Allah to be a reminder of the blessing of Paradise that awaited the Faithful.

Further out, the greenery lessened. It was hardly noticeable to the new colonists, coming as they did from the barren deserts of Old Earth. As more people arrived, more trees had to be cut for their homes. As more people arrived so, too, they brought more domestic animals with them. These ate the gra.s.s. The goats, in particular, ate the gra.s.s down to the roots. Without trees, without gra.s.s, the sand blew. Already, one of the two streams that fed the settlement was noticeably shallower than it had been.

Abdul didn't worry about that. It is good, It is good, he thought, he thought, if by the Grace of Allah we return here to the desert from whence we sprang. Life has been too easy. Too much green and the faithful might forget that greenery is the gift of the Almighty. A green and holy Makkah al Jedidah should be enough to remind them of the bounty that awaits in the hereafter. if by the Grace of Allah we return here to the desert from whence we sprang. Life has been too easy. Too much green and the faithful might forget that greenery is the gift of the Almighty. A green and holy Makkah al Jedidah should be enough to remind them of the bounty that awaits in the hereafter.

The hereafter was more and more on Abdul's mind of late. He hadn't been precisely a young man when he'd made the hejira hejira to the new world. Now he was well advanced in years. Soon, very soon, his time would come. to the new world. Now he was well advanced in years. Soon, very soon, his time would come.

Chapter Thirty-one.

I will leave your flesh on the mountains, and fill the valleys with your carca.s.ses. I will water the land with what flows from you, and the river beds shall be filled with your blood. When I snuff you out I will cover the heavens, and all the stars will darken.-Ezekiel 32; 5-7

Northern Boundary, Ninewa Province, Sumer It began with a gradual repositioning of troops along the boundary. From all appearances, this was merely an attempt to seal off infiltration into the BZOR from the insurgent held city of Pumbadeta. There were a fair number of firefights, mostly in the nature of ambushes, over the following week. Some of those were staged purely for show but some really did stop infiltrating vehicles and small units of insurgents.

The other effect the move had was that it placed the troops an average of fifty miles closer to the town. It also put them within one day's very hard march. Moreover, a fair amount of artillery was moved into range, ostensibly to support the interdiction line. Lastly, because the interdiction line was somewhat remote from any substantial place of habitation, it lessened the chances that anyone would report the sudden move away from that line, either by foot or by helicopter, in anything like a timely fashion.

Pumbadeta, Sumer, 1/7/462 AC The stars were unseen through the cloud cover over the city as the remotely piloted vehicle made its pa.s.s. The RPV was nearly silent. Certainly, it was quiet enough that no one noticed it over the normal noise of the place.

Normally it might have been seen, of course, by any of the city's population of nearly three hundred thousand or by any of the now three thousand, approximately, of the mujahadin who had also taken up residence. The cloud over the city prevented that. The cover did not, could not, prevent the thermal imagers the RPV carried from seeing down and recording the town below. Among other things, the operator of the RPV, sitting comfortably in a cool adobe building in Balboa Base, was counting dogs and cats running free in the town.

Cloud cover overhead could not prevent the people, or the mujahadin, from seeing outward, though, as hundreds of helicopter sorties landed and took off, removing the FSMC troops who had been partially investing the city for some months. After giving the populace of the town a good look at the Marines leaving, the Marine artillery and mortars expended their white phosphorus and HC, hexacloroethane-zinc, sh.e.l.ls to screen the pick up zones.

Thus, the mujahadin, no great shakes at patrolling in the desert anyway and very loathe to risk fighting the Marines in the open, really didn't see the men of the deployed cohorts of the 1st through 4 through 4th Infantry Infantry Tercios Tercios of the of the Legio del Cid Legio del Cid as the men landed in the helicopters ostensibly coming in to pull Marines out. Nor, given the dark, did they notice that not all the helicopters inbound were of the types favored by the FMC's armed forces. as the men landed in the helicopters ostensibly coming in to pull Marines out. Nor, given the dark, did they notice that not all the helicopters inbound were of the types favored by the FMC's armed forces.

Balboa Base, Ninewa, Sumer In the cool adobe building, more of a bunker really, the RPV's controller watched his screen. He pulled back on his stick slightly and nudged it to the left, causing his bird to begin a slow left-banking spiral up to height. As it gained alt.i.tude, more of the city spread out below on the green-toned control monitor.

The city ab.u.t.ted the river at a spot where it turned south, then north, then south again to form an N. By that N, coming from the city to the west of the river and continuing on, was a highway that cut through the center of town. East were two bridges, close together. It was too far up for the RPV pilot to make out how many bodies were hanging by the neck from the spans. Previous flights had seen a variable number from four to, on one day, thirty-one. Some of those bodies had seemed very small, even to the distant pilot.

The town jutted out west of the river. It was almost rectangular and about three kilometers, north to south, by perhaps five, east to west. A multi-lane highway ran northwest to southeast, west of the town. The narrower highway, Highway 1, ran through the town from a cloverleaf on the major highway to the two bridges over the river.

As the RPV inched higher, more and more of first the city and then the surrounding lands became visible. Lights marked landing / pickup zones where groups of men, their body heat gleaming on the monitor, boarded hot-engined helicopters.

The command post for the legion was lit red inside. The usual ceiling fans turned slowly and, for the most part, silently overhead. Messengers and staff officers hurried to and fro on various missions. Not all of those messengers were legion troops, either. There were plenty of Sada's Sumeris and more than a few FS Marines. Briefings were being conducted in three languages in different corners of the CP.

"I wish to h.e.l.l my men and I were going in with you," the crusty FS Marine Corps colonel told Carrera.

"No, you don't," Carrera corrected. "Trust me on this; it's going to be nasty and the nastiest part isn't even going to be the fighting."

"Even so," the Marine countered, "It's going to be the best brawl since Gia Long, in the Cochin War. My boys will hate to miss it."

"Well...maybe we'll save you some. You just make sure that things here don't go to s.h.i.t while we're gone."

"No chance of that," the Marine a.s.sured the legate. "I've got all three of my battalions, plus another two coming from the Army, to hold down your ZOR. Plus, you're leaving me enough Sumeri and Balboan liaison that we won't exactly be strangers. And I'll have that one battalion of Sada's troops; they look pretty competent. We'll do fine."

I hope to f.u.c.k you do. Carrera was actually desperately worried about the situation in the BZOR. He, Sada and most of their troops were going to be gone for over a month, possibly two. A lot of unpleasantness could come to pa.s.s in even a month. Carrera was actually desperately worried about the situation in the BZOR. He, Sada and most of their troops were going to be gone for over a month, possibly two. A lot of unpleasantness could come to pa.s.s in even a month.

Still, they are are FS Marines, good troops. Campos could have given me Tauros to cover my sector in my absence. Thank G.o.d for small blessings. FS Marines, good troops. Campos could have given me Tauros to cover my sector in my absence. Thank G.o.d for small blessings.

Landing/Pickup Zone Bluejay, 1400 meters north of Pumbadeta, Sumer Carrera had had Jimenez flown in two weeks prior just for this operation. He'd been the first Balboan on the ground, arriving to coordinate with the Marines ten days prior to the shuffle.

A young tribune commanding a maniple ran from a group which had just debarked from a Marine helicopter and reported to Jimenez. "Sir, Tribune Rodriguez, Maniple B, 2nd Cohort, 3 Cohort, 3rd Tercio, Commanding. Where do you want us?" Tercio, Commanding. Where do you want us?"

"You brought the mines?"

"Yes, sir," Rodriguez answered. "Every man is carrying a couple and the helicopters left us six bundles with...well, s.h.i.t, sir....c.r.a.ploads. Plus a f.u.c.k of a lot of wire and stakes. We can mine and wire maybe three kilometers. I counted the wire before we left. It was six hundred rolls and maybe fifteen hundred stakes." Plus a f.u.c.k of a lot of wire and stakes. We can mine and wire maybe three kilometers. I counted the wire before we left. It was six hundred rolls and maybe fifteen hundred stakes."

Jimenez nodded. "Good." His finger pointed in the dark. "See that red chemlight to the right, Tribune?"

Rodriguez looked, saw it and answered, "Yes, sir."

"Your sector starts there and then works over to the left along the berm the FS Marines left us. You'll know when to stop when your line reaches the green chemlight to the left. Occupy and then move forward to just outside effective small arms range. Then mine and wire in. Don't forget to tie in with the units to your left and right."

"Yes, sir. I won't, sir. I mean, no problem, sir."

"Good lad. Off with you now."

There had been four Marine battalions surrounding the town. This was not considered enough to take it. It would have been enough to seal it off if if they had really been permitted to seal it off. They hadn't. they had really been permitted to seal it off. They hadn't.