The Amazon Legion-ARC Read online

  The Amazon Legion - ARC

  Tom Kratman

  Advance Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  Baen

  Baen Books by Tom Kratman

  A State of Disobedience

  A Desert Called Peace

  Carnifex

  The Lotus Eaters

  The Amazon Legion

  Caliphate

  Countdown: The Liberators

  Countdown: M Day (forthcoming)

  with John Ringo:

  Watch on the Rhine

  Yellow Eyes

  The Tuloriad

  The Amazon Legion

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Tom Kratman

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4391-3426-9

  Cover art by Kurt Miller

  First printing, April 2011

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  t/k

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  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 Earthlike 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 preeminent 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 Uni ted Nations and continuing, most recently, with a terrorist and counterterrorist 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 Tau
ran 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, Okay, 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 again 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’s 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.