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  But the Legion del Cid was an equal opportunity employer, he'd found. It was also a miserly employer of human talent. While he'd not shown any remarkable leadership ability at Cazador School, he had shown toughness, determination, and at least a modicum of brains. He could be taught. Moreover, when he'd been talked into volunteering for some hit missions by Cruz, he'd shown considerable personal courage and determination. There were places in the Legion for people like that. In Montoya's case, that place had eventually come to be in a cockpit. And he just loved it.

  What he hated, though, were the carrier takeoffs and the landings. Those scared him silly. Every time.

  No, not landings on the ground, even on pretty rough ground; he'd had lots of experience in those, flying a Cricket. His plane could take it, no problem. On the other hand, landing or taking off from a pitching, weaving, postage-stamp-on-the-ocean? Trying to catch the arrestor cables? Reversing thrust at the last minute so he didn't overshoot and end up crushed or drowned –most likely, both—under the prow? Trying to time his take off so that he hit the leading edge of the flight deck on an upswing? (The deck crew was becoming a big help there, though, he had to admit; especially as they gained experience.) That sinking feeling as the plane dropped almost like a rock as he left the flight deck behind? Gag . . . shiver . . . barf.

  He shivered again, half at the memory of the last take off when his landing gear had plowed furrows in the ocean before pulling up and half at foreboding over the next landing.

  It got progressively worse, too. It seemed like the skipper was actually looking for rough seas and bad weather to launch in. They'd lost one pilot already, and cracked up both that plane and a Yakamov-72 helicopter. At least the Yakamov crew had gotten out.

  From this and other evils, deliver me, O Lord.

  In some ways, Montoya wished he'd been picked to fly a Cricket, as he used to, rather than a Turbo-Finch Avenger, usually called a Finch. With the Dos Lindas facing into the wind, and even a mild headwind, the Crickets took off practically straight up. And for landing, their stall speed wasn't much above the carrier's cruise speed. Piece o' cake.

  On the other hand, Crickets don't generally fight. I'd prefer to fight, even if getting to and from the fight soils my flight suit. And speaking of which . . .

  The island—the Isla Santa Josefina—loomed out of the gloomy dusk ahead. Montoya adjusted his throttle to pick up speed, veered a little left, then right, and mentally reviewed his firing run. Trees began near the water's edge. A slight pull back on his stick, then an equally slight push forward, lifted the Finch and set it on a heading and altitude that would allow its fixed landing gear to just skim over the trees.

  The central hill dominating the Isla Santa Josefina lay ahead. Again Montoya eased back on the stick, causing the plane to just miss the jungle below. He felt a pressure in the seat of his trousers. As soon as the plane cleared the summit, Montoya pushed forward to drop the nose, causing his stomach to lurch.

  There's the target.

  Ahead, in Montoya's view, three old, rusty armored vehicles sat in the open. As he aimed the plane by feel, his thumb flipped off the safety cover on the firing button over his stick and began to press. With each press of the thumb two rockets, one from under each wing, lanced out. As soon as he had bracketed the target Montoya pulled the stick to the right. The nimble Finch acted like the crop-duster it was and turned away athletically.

  Damned good thing, too, thought Montoya. Looking to the left he saw the next bird in the training attack was firing almost before he had cleared away.

  * * *

  The Isla Santa Josefina had been purchased by the Legion as a range. No one actually lived there for the excellent reason that the Federated States had used it as a chemical warfare testing ground during the Great Global War and never spent a drachma or expended an ounce of sweat cleaning it up afterward. It had come to the Legion pretty cheaply.

  The Legion hadn't spent much on it either. It had decontaminated a small landing area for boats and a couple of observation posts. Nearer the center of the island a few target spots in the impact area had been cleared. Cleared paths connected the landing, the OPs and the target spots. The rest was not only presumed to be at least somewhat chemically toxic, and much of that contamination being with very persistent nerve and blister agents, but had had an absolutely amazing amount of ordnance dumped on it over the last several years from the main island, the Isla Real, as well as three much smaller islands purchased to serve as firing positions for mortars and artillery. The new ordnance, too, had the effect of breaking open some of the three thousand dud chemical warheads believed to be still on Santa Josefina, either at the surface or just below it.

  Even the few people, forward observers for the artillery the most part, that went there, went with full chemical protection—suits, rubber booties, gloves and masks.

  It was not well know outside of Balboa, but the FSC had tried to use the islands, almost two decades before, as a dumping ground for economic migrants from the impoverished island of Ayiti. Both the government of Balboa and the then owners of the Isla Santa Josefina had objected, leaving the FS to drop the scheme. It would have been interesting, what the highly progressive First Landing Times would have said, if the Ayitians had been dumped there in guarded camps. The headline, "Federated States Exiles Poor Migrants To Nerve Gas-Poisoned Island," would have been the least of it. On the other hand, that headline, widely broadcast, might have served as a damper on the Ayitians' mass enthusiasm for emigrating to the Federated States. This may not have suited the FLT agenda.

  * * *

  The Dos Lindas couldn't see either island, not even from its own island on the starboard center of the flight deck. It could, however, see the mass confusion on the flight deck as the crew attempted to crowd twenty Cricket Bs and five of the Yakamovs in position to load troops and take off. It really shouldn't be as hard as they were making it look.

  No matter, thought Fosa. Practice makes perfect and they'll practice until they puke and drop.

  Though said to be "slightly modified" the B models were actually fairly substantial modifications to the basic Cricket. The cabin had been lengthened and widened to allow four (or if they were feeling really friendly, five) passengers. The wingspan had also been increased by about thirty centimeters a side. The single engine in the nose was taken out and replaced by two slightly smaller and individually less powerful ones on the wings. Also, and this was important given the mission, the two smaller engines were slightly quieter, together, than the original single was, alone. In the nose had been placed a fairly sophisticated thermal imager cum ground sensor for recon and for limited visibility landings. In addition, to either side of the engines were hardpoints, four in total, for rocket and machine gun pods. Underneath was a single hardpoint to which could be attached a light homing torpedo, just in case one of the Yakamov ASW helicopters happened to find a submarine where no submarine ought be.

  Fosa and the commander of the Cazadors, Tribune Cherensa, had arranged for an opposing force at one of the training areas on the Isla Real. That was where the Crickets and Yakamovs were heading, once this batch of Cazadors was boarded. Twenty B models and five Yakamovs weren't quite enough to move the entire demi-battalion in one lift. A further three platoons and the unit's four Ferret light armored vehicles still waited below, assembled on the hangar deck.

  The skipper looked out from the open bridge at the lead Cricket. He recognized Cherensa standing beside the plane. Cherensa saluted, which salute Fosa returned. Then the Cazador boarded his Cricket.

  Picking up a radio microphone that looked more like an old-fashioned telephone receiver, Fosa gave Chirensa and the deck crew the time-honored command, "Land the landing force."

  20/2/467 AC, High Admiral's Quarters, Atlantis Base

  It was really all very sickening to Mustafa, though he tried to hide it.

  But the more Robinson explained, the more the Salafi realized how badly he had screwed up the war, to date, and h
ow much had to be done to redeem it.

  Robinson tried to be gentle with the Salafi, downplaying mistakes as much as possible while still making the point.

  "You saw only Pashtia, the Federated States and the Tauran Union, Mustafa," the High Admiral had said. "You assumed that, because the attacks originated in Pashtia that the FSC would only attack Pashtia. You assumed that all the mujahadin would come to Pashtia to fight. You thought that, because it was a place where there were no railroads, hardly any roads, no ports, no navigable rivers, and few good airfields, the FSC would not be able to support any very large army there. You were correct in this, of course. You thought that you could meet what they could support there on fairly equal terms. This, too, would have been correct had they elected to meet you there only. You forgot that they were able to attack somewhere else, somewhere closer to your holiest city, somewhere that would attract the mujahadin away from Pashtia, where they might have fought on more even terms, to Sumer, where the Feds held all the cards."

  Mustafa could only accept it for it was nothing but the truth. He knew now that there had been other mistakes in plenty.

  "I never even considered it as a possibility that Kashmir would turn against us, or even play a neutral part," he admitted. "I thought the Federated States would grow sick of the killing after they'd lost a couple of hundred soldiers. I counted on Allah doing too much, forgetting that he cuts the coat to fit the man, or that he might demand more of us than that we fight and be willing to die. The Nazrani have taught me though, and taught me well."

  "You know I do not believe in your god, Mustafa. But, accepting for the moment his existence, let me tell you something a wise man of Old Earth one said. 'God is not willing to do everything and thus take away from us our free will and that share of the glory that belongs to us.' Within that man's mental framework, he was right, and you would be well advised to follow his teachings.

  "It is a truth of war," Robinson had continued, "that groups in conflict tend to come to resemble each other. This is true tactically, technologically, and morally. You have learned from the FSC not to trust everything to God. What do you suppose they've learned from you? How have they become like you?"

  Mustafa thought upon this for a long time before answering. When he did answer, he said, "They have learned to use terror, as well. In fact, they have learned to do it better than we do. We've knocked one country out of their unholy coalition, Castille. They've knocked out at least four from what should have been ours, Sumer, Pashtia, Kashmir by threatening genocide and Fezzan by threatening to extinguish its leader and his family."

  "Those, yes," the High Admiral agreed. "Other places, too. More than that, faced with a non-state adversary like yourselves, they have also learned to use and develop non-state allies."

  "Those stinking Latin mercenaries."

  "Well . . . following the same man who wrote about God and free will, they're not technically mercenaries. But, yes . . . "

  * * *

  "I think," said Mustafa, finally, on this, the last day of his conference with Robinson, "I think that we are agreed on all the important things."

  "Yes," said Robinson, then recapitulated, "You will, with my help, gain complete control of your movement. This will leave you potentially more vulnerable to attack but will also make your own attacks make sense in the larger plan for the first time. Serious attacks on the FSC will end, though planning will continue. Within the FSC, you will build a group of supporters for when the time comes to renew attacks there."

  "Agreed."

  "You will make peace with the Royal Family in Yithrab. Active operations there will end so that you can continue to draw financing."

  That was tougher. Mustafa loathed the Yithrabi government and longed to see it gone, but . . . "Agreed."

  "To increase financing, I will take operational control of the pirates along the Xamar coast. Using the intelligence assets available to my fleet, I will guide Abdulahi to seize those ships most likely to yield good return and to intimidate the shipping companies into paying protection. When and if the time seems suitable, I will send a totally inadequate number of UE Marines to 'control' the coast and suppress piracy. They will, of course, fail to do so, but will help secure Abdulahi's position as paramount chieftain." Especially will they be inadequate and fail because half my Marines have been sent back to Earth.

  "Agreed."

  "Within one month, you will identify to me one lesser pirate emir in Nicobar. We will both then throw our efforts behind him to make him the paramount chieftain of the Nicobars. Then we will do with them as we intend to do along the Xamar coast."

  "This will be tougher, you know?"

  "It might be impossible," Robinson agreed, "but we must try."

  "Yes. We must also try to get rid of those mercenaries."

  "This is especially true," Robinson added, "since they have begun to develop a fleet which just may be aimed at the Xamari and Nicobars. For now, though, they appear to be unemployed and out of the war."

  The High Admiral continued, "Within Pashtia the first prong of our strategy will be to ensure control of the opium crop and that there will be a crop. This not only helps finance your movement, the crop ultimately helps to undermine the FSC. The second prong will be to go after the Pashtian collaborators who assist the FSC's coalition and terrorize them into supporting you while at the same time engaging and driving away the FSC's lesser and unwilling allies like Tuscany and Gaul. The third will be to drive out of the war the FSCs willing allies, Anglia and Secordia, by engaging their forces and driving their casualties up to politically unacceptable levels."

  Mustafa, who had better intelligence on the Anglians and Secordians than Robinson did, commented, "Their troops always seem willing enough to fight."

  "No matter, their politicians and most of their people really want out. Kill enough and they will leave. Moreover, while random terror has not worked with the FSC or Anglia, it has worked with Castille, appears to be working in Gaul and may well work to drive Sachsen out of the war."

  "I agree about the others, but with the Anglians there is a problem even if it did work," the Salafi objected. "Without the Anglians and the Secordians, the Federated States might just rehire the mercenaries and they have proved much more effective."

  Robinson shook his head. "Not for four years, at least, and possibly not for eight or more. As long as the Progressives are in power, the mercenaries are not likely to be hired." Robinson believed he had this on the very best authority. That said; the Khans were not nearly as certain.

  The High Admiral continued, "After the Anglians and Secordians are gone, and Pashtia has seen the last of the other allies in the coalition, you will begin actively seeking fights with the FSC troops."

  "There is something else you can help with," Mustafa said.

  Robinson gave the Salafi a quizzical look.

  "They rule the air. They can find us from the air. They attack us from . . . "

  "I can't do anything to interfere with that."

  "I'm not asking you to. But you can balance things out. From space, surely, you can also tell us where they are, no?"

  The High Admiral went silent for a moment, scrunching his eyes in thought.

  After several long moments he answered, "I can get you something to allow you to see our view from over Terra Nova, a direct feed from the fleet's sensors. What you do with that would be up to you."

  "That would be sufficient."

  "Maybe not quite sufficient," Robinson countered. "If you started sending real-time intelligence to your guerillas, it would be traced to the Peace Fleet. Let me see what I can do about providing you some limited secure communications."

  5/3/467 AC, Village of Jameer, Pashtia

  Noorzad had understood immediately what Mustafa's message meant when he had received it, two days prior. During the Volgan imperial incursion, while Mustafa had been off collecting money and volunteers and living the good life in Kashmir, Noorzad had been at the bleeding edge, puttin
g the theory of resistance warfare to the practical test. He had learned much in that time.

  "And about bloody time, too," Noorzad said, to no one in particular.

  Still, Malakzay, trudging along nearby, had heard. "What was that?"

  "About bloody time," the one-eyed bandit chieftain repeated. "About bloody time Mustafa began to direct and control the jihad. About bloody time we got assigned some missions with a point greater than, 'survive and fight.' About bloody time every little band of mujahadin was not in the war alone. And about bloody time we had a concerted plan to take care of the collaborators."

  "I've heard of no plan," Malakzay objected.

  "It's suggested by the message Mustafa sent; that, and by this mission and by the device the messenger brought."

  Malakzay thought upon that. He had to admit that if anyone was likely to be able to tie disparate bits of information together to make a coherent whole, Noorzad was that man.

  "Any word from reconnaissance?" Malakzay asked.

  "Yes, the village appears effectively disarmed."

  * * *

  The Taurans had an interesting approach to individually owned firearms; they banned them. No one had a right to arms except governments; that was the almost universal Tauran view. Still, they were reasonable. They banned the weapons and then paid for a buyback program. Since the buyback program paid slightly more than replacement cost (and normal Volgan firearms were frightfully cheap), there was no real bar to the local Pashtians selling their, generally poorly-maintained, rifles to the Taurans operating in the south of the country and then buying newer ones.

  The downside, though, was that once the Taurans had banned rifles and bought them "all" back, they presumed that anyone with a rifle was breaking the law and attempted to arrest them. These arrests usually fell out in one of two ways. If the potential arrestee was a mujahad, there would be a firefight which the Taurans were usually barred by their national governments from engaging in. If the arrestee was a simple otherwise harmless civilian, he would submit to arrest and the confiscation of the firearm. Since, however, the civilians did not want to give up their arms, they hid them. Sometimes they hid them too well.