The Lotus Eaters (16 page)

Grishkin shrugged, answering, "For the latter question, the Red Tsar never threw anything away and neither did his allies and clients. For the first question . . . basically, nobody wants them anymore so their value is reduced to not much more than the metal . . . and even metal prices are down. Everyone's looking for the most modern planes, whether or not they can maintain them and whether or not they've got the training system and the social system to procure sufficiently high quality human material for pilots. Over much of our world, it's a prestige thing, mostly, a way to keep the sons of the ruling classes amused and give them more reason to strut and better ways to talk girls into bed.

"The average air force, in the world, is nothing but an expensive indulgence. There are only a few air forces that even matter. One of those, sadly for you, is the Tauran Union's."

"Yeah . . . no shit." Carrera hesitated, perhaps only due to an innate conservatism, before agreeing, "Fine. Lanza, get your cost estimates to the
Estado Major
. We're going to go for it.

"And God help the poor kids who will, I have no doubt, volunteer in droves for this."

* * *

Carrera looked genuinely happy as he slunk out the entrance to the real offices of BYC, into the trashy alley, and then into the nondescript car driven by Mitchell and guarded by Soult. The latter two shared a look that said,
Dunno why but it can't be bad.

"
Estado Major
building, Mitch," Carrera said.

"Sure thing, boss," Mitchell said, turning the key and bringing the engine to life. "Umm . . . boss, if you don't mind my asking, why so chipper? It just ain't like you."

"Two reasons," Carrera answered. "One is I've got a little more hope of survival than I did have. The other is I'm going to cut a little cancer out of the system at the
Estado Major
. Meanwhile, ignore me for a bit. I have to work myself into a fury."

There were over a hundred senior officers and non-coms present. Of those, only two, Jimenez and McNamara, knew what was the occasion for the assembly. Even Jimenez's Chief of Staff and Sergeant Major hadn't been told by their commander. As for Mac,
Letting out the word about the boss going to the island so he can have a proper reception is one thing. But this . . . this really
needs
to be a surprise.

Legate Pigna of the Seventh Legion, recruited and based in the east by the border with Santa Josefina, thought if anyone knew what was up, it would be Carrera's Sergeant Major-General. He walked over and asked Mac directly.

"No clue, sir," McNamara lied, then retrieved his integrity by adding, "which means I know exactly, but am forbidden to say. I'd tell you if I could."

Mac actually rather liked the Seventh Legion commander, both at a personal and a professional level. He consider Pigna somewhere around the bottom of the top third of legion commanders and knew Carrera shared approximately the same opinion. Moreover, the Balboan legate looked like a soldier, from narrow waist to broad shoulders to strong chin to pencil thin mustache. If the man was a trifle ambitious, and Mac thought he was, that ambition tended to come out in the form of pushing the troops hard. This, the Sergeant Major didn't disapprove of. He wore a high decoration for bravery at his neck, the
Cruz de Coraje en Oro con Escudo
, so Mac couldn't fault him on his combat performance either. If Pigna had any flaw, in the sergeant major's opinion, it was perhaps that he had a trifle too much personal pride.

Pigna sighed. "I hate being surprised."

"I understand, sir."
And I wish I could warn you that this is going to be a really unpleasant surprise, too.

Jimenez's voice sounded off, "Gentleman, the
Duque
, commanding."

* * *

I
so
wish
, thought Jimenez, while braced at attention,
that I had never taught Patricio to smile while chewing ass. It's unnerving, being on the receiving end.

Carrera had been chewing for a while by now, and the tongue lashing showed no sign of flagging.

"I thought," he sneered, "that you were all soldiers . . . real soldiers . . . not neversufficientlytobedamned
pimps
! Not bendoverandgreaseyourass
whores
for bureaucracy!"

A good ass chewing is a rehearsed operation. Carrera had spent
days
rehearsing this one.

Present, besides Carrera, were the five corps commanders, thirty-two commanders of legions and sub-legions so far designated, the chiefs of staff and sergeants-major for all of those, plus six members of the primary Legion staff, including the acting chief, standing in for Kuralski. McNamara was there, too, but he stood behind Carrera, immune to and exempt from the ass chewing.

Kuralski, himself, had been sent one of those letters that sometimes drives the recipient's blood pressure up into the Never Never land of apoplexy and cerebral stroke.

Pounding his fist on a table with each syllable, Carrera continued, "I turn my back on you for one miserable year and you revert to pencil pushing bureaucrats?" The pounding ceased and his voice took on almost the quality off weeping. "God! God! God! Where did I fail? How could I have been so wrong about you all?"

It could be worse
, Jimenez thought, philosophically.
Napoleon, back on Old Earth, used to beat his marshals over the head with a stick.

From the table Carrera picked up the top copy of a sheaf of papers perhaps a quarter of an inch thick. "Suarez," he said, reverting to a facial and verbal sneer. He crumpled the paper into a tight ball and threw it directly into the face of the Second Corps commander. "Pussy."

The next name he . . . well . . ."read" wouldn't be quite accurate. "Cursed," perhaps, would be closer. "Brown."

Aaron Brown, a short black legate who had been, before being recruited by Carrera, a tanker with the Army of the Federated States, steeled himself for the coming blow. Not that a sheet of crumpled paper would hurt, except deep inside.

Nor did it, when it struck him square on the nose . . . except deep inside.

"Chin, you
stupid
 . . ."

* * *

Only the corps and legion commanders were blessed with a paper projectile to the nose. All the other flypaper reports Carrera saved for the acting chief of staff.

"And you . . . you wretch of a pencil pusher!" Carrera crumpled a flypaper report and threw it into the acting chief's face. He continued crumpling and throwing as he screamed, "Who cares about your silly fucking reports?" Another report struck the chief's face. "Who needs them?" And another. "Who told you to have your fucking staff suck my commanders away from training their units? Are you some kind of fucking Tauran saboteur?" Carrera reached up and ripped the legate's insignia from the chief's shoulders.

"Get out! Get out now. You are retired effective today."

No doubt about it
, Jimenez thought.
The son of a bitch is good at what he does.

"Obviously I have made a number of serious mistakes," Carrera said, his voice growing terribly calm. "I made you legates and put you in command of legions and corps, or made you my key staff, because I thought you had enough courage to stand up to the inevitable bureaucracy. Or, at least," he looked directly at the bent back of the departing acting chief, "not to make the bullshit grow.

Carrera sighed, as if brokenhearted. "Where I am going to find
real
officers, now . . . men of talent and courage . . ."

That was just a little too much. "We're
sorry
, sir," Brown said. "It just sort of . . . grew on us."

Carrera stopped in mid tirade. He nodded slowly and said, "All right. Enough then. Don't let it happen again. Don't just let the bureaucrats nail you to your desks with endless demands for information.

"You are all on probation. You have disappointed me . . . badly. If you let the administrative shit the staff has been laying on you distract you from training your men you have let them, and the Legion, and the
country
down . . . badly. In the future,
try
to remember that your duty is to prepare for war, not to shuffle paper.

"Except for Jimenez and McNamara, dismissed."

* * *

After the others had left, Jimenez said, "I didn't deserve that. Neither did the others."

Carrera cheerily agreed. There wasn't a sign of anger on his face now. "I know, Xavier. If anyone's, the fault was mine for letting administration get out of hand."

"So why the ass chewing?"

"Because I'd already chewed my own ass and, after that little session, the next time someone starts asking for useless information, your brother commanders will tell that person to take a flying fuck for himself. Besides, I've been thinking about dumping the acting chief for a while. This way, more people benefit from the lesson."

McNamara shook his head, doubtfully. In his accented English he said, "I t'ink you were maybe a little
too
hard on t'em, boss. T'ere's such a t'ing as overacting."

"It's possible," Carrera agreed, still cheerily. "But they're big boys. They'll get over it."

Jimenez shook his head. "The acting chief won't. You
fired
him. He wasn't a bad sort, you know."

"You want him in
your
corps?" Carrera asked.

"I didn't say that."

"Well then—"

"—but now that you mention it I do have a place for him."

"As? Besides 'Assistant Corps Vector Control Officer,' I mean."

Jimenez thought upon that for a minute or so. "He was a better commander than a staff weenie. He never wanted to
be
a staff wienie, not even chief of staff. I think he could be a decent to good
tercio
commander."

"What
tercio
?" Carrera asked.

Jimenez already had the answer for that. "Forty-fourth Artillery, Fourth Legion. We're really running short competent artillerymen, you know."

"Fine," Carrera said. "But let him stew for a few days first, so that he appreciates the grace."

"I wouldn't wait t'at long, boss," McNamara said. "Whatever his faults, and t'ey were many, the old acting chief was pretty damned dedicated. He's going to take t'is
hard.
Maybe even terminally hard."

"You really think?" Carrera asked.

Hmmm. I suppose it's possible.

"Okay, Mac," he said, then turning to Jimenez he added, "Xavier, invite him to dinner. Tell him you are
going
to work on me to rescind my order and to get him a slot. That will give him a lot of well deserved suffering along with a reason not to decorate the wall.

"Fair enough?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Mac said. "T'ank you. I t'ink t'at's t'e right t'hing."

"It's fair, Patricio," Jimenez agreed.

* * *

All but two of the dismissed officers and non-coms looked downcast. Of those two, one, Arosemena, the former acting Chief of Staff, looked borderline suicidal, he was so upset. The other, Legate Pigna, kept his face carefully blank. Inside, though, Pigna was seething.

How dare that bastard gringo, how
dare
he insult me to my face? Humiliate me in public? Heap scorn on me and all these men? This is an insult that can only be washed out in blood.

Balboans self describe their state as a "Timocratic Republic," where Timocratic is taken to mean "the rule of virtue," as opposed to the rule of wealth which has all too often been presumed, despite copious evidence to the contrary, to be virtuous. Balboa is more properly said to be a mixture of a popular republic and a limited military near-dictatorship, existing side by side but with the better funded, more aggressive military branch gradually taking over more and more of the functioning of the country, even as it becomes less dictatorial. That process continues as of this writing.

In structure, the government of Balboa appears conventional, with three branches, Executive—consisting of the President, two vice-Presidents, a cabinet and sundry executive agencies, Legislative—with both Senate and Legislative Assembly, and Judicial—consisting of a national level Supreme Court and lower, provincial, and district courts.

In terms of domestic politics, the geography of the country is profoundly subdivided. The bulk of the state is split into two parts, eastern and western, by the existence of the Tauran Union-occupied, World League-mandated, Transitway Area, running approximately through the center. Of the remainder, a fair chunk of the capital,
Ciudad
Balboa, is under the sway of the previous government as a result of an order, intended to prevent civil war, from the Federated States of Columbia.

The bulk of the state, the Republic of Balboa, proper, is further subdivided in two ways. Conventionally, it consists of eleven provinces, ranging from
Valle de las Lunas
, in the east, to
La Palma
, in the west. Although provinces sometimes have a considerable emotional pull on their inhabitants, politically they do not mean much in Balboa. They have no degree of individual sovereignty, no independent police or militia, nor any right to make province-specific laws. Even provincial governors are appointed by the national government.

The military division of the country is the more profound one. In the year 470 AC, the Senate, initially an appointed lawmaking body composed entirely of military veterans (though gradually becoming an elected body, still composed entirely of military veterans and elected by veterans), divided the national geography into several overlaying and overlapping grids, which grids paid absolutely no attention to existing provincial or district lines. These grids, the exact boundaries of which fluctuate slightly, are regimental.

One grid layer is composed of combat regiments, of which it is believed there are about forty. Parallel to that is another grid which defines combat support regiments—artillery, combat engineers, air defense artillery, military police, and the like. Parallel to those is a grid layer of headquarters and service support regiments. There are further grids for the air and naval arms, as well as for certain unique regiments, such as the
Tercio Amazona
(qv), which is female, the
Tercio Gorgidas
(qv), which is male homosexual, the
Tercio Socrates
(qv), for the elderly, and the
Tercio Santa Cecilia
(qv), for the handicapped. Which grid a given citizen belongs to, if he or she belongs to one, is determined at the time of their voluntary enlistment into the armed forces of Balboa, the
Legion del Cid
. It is believed that age, health, sex, and, where applicable, sexual orientation are the primary factors in assigning a prospective recruit to a layer of the grid and a regiment.