A Desert Called Peace Part 30

"No, we're not not MPs," Carrera answered. "What we are is a large combined arms brigade with a core of leadership some of which was converted to military police but were infantry before that and which we converted back to infantry or to some other combat arm. That cadre has been expanded with young men of such a high quality that your own Rangers would weep with envy. In the last year that brigade has spent more time training, and under more realistic situations, than any unit in your army MPs," Carrera answered. "What we are is a large combined arms brigade with a core of leadership some of which was converted to military police but were infantry before that and which we converted back to infantry or to some other combat arm. That cadre has been expanded with young men of such a high quality that your own Rangers would weep with envy. In the last year that brigade has spent more time training, and under more realistic situations, than any unit in your army except except, maybe, for the Rangers. We have used more live ammunition in that year than your entire 39th Parachute Infantry Division uses in three years." Parachute Infantry Division uses in three years."

"You can really force a pa.s.s through the Yezidi mountains?" Thomas asked.

Carrera translated that for Parilla, who snapped his fingers and answered, in heavily accented English, "Piece o' cake."

Thomas nodded, looked contemplative for a few moments, then hit his intercom and said, "Cancel the plans to fly a brigade of the 11th Division up to Yezidistan." Division up to Yezidistan."

Turning to Parilla, Thomas asked, "Will you need a Liaison Officer?"

Parilla shook his head, no, while Carrera answered, "We have one we're happy with who's been with us for some time. He'll do."

On their way out Parilla looked mildly thoughtful. "Patricio, I'm curious. Everyone in the headquarters that I saw had a pair of those tan colored boots just like Thomas did. But I haven't seen a line trooper with a pair yet. What's going on there?"

Carrera smiled. "Raul, you have just observed the 'trickle down theory' of supporting combat troops. I will just about guarantee you that every rear echelon mother-f.u.c.ker will have a pair of those boots before a single pair finds its way to a private in an infantry squad."

Parilla looked confused. "But how can that be? The rear support types don't need them. The infantry do."

Carrera laughed bitterly. "How can it be be? How can it not not be? It starts with Normy himself. He gets these high-speed boots and "tests" them personally. Or, more likely, just wears them because he's the big cheese and he can. Who knows? be? It starts with Normy himself. He gets these high-speed boots and "tests" them personally. Or, more likely, just wears them because he's the big cheese and he can. Who knows?

"Then the next senior guy below Normy will get a pair. After all, he's got to show that he's a pretty big cheese, too. So far it isn't a big problem. But then the boots get to the other REMF generals, colonels, and majors. You might think that Normy, or his Deputy, could put a stop to that with an order. They could, too, if it wasn't that they lost the moral authority to do so by wearing the boots themselves first. It would be embarra.s.sing to tell the REMFs they can't have them...and generals spend most of their time surrounded by REMFs.

"So by now, we've got all the more junior officers and senior non-coms in the rear wearing the G.o.dd.a.m.ned boots. Well...how can they tell their REMF troops that the troops can't have the boots? They can't. They gave up their moral authority to do so by grabbing a pair for themselves first. So, because Normy grabbed a pair for himself and let his subordinates grab a pair too, every REMF will have to have a pair of those boots before a single set trickles down to the line. Disgusting, isn't it?"

A light seemed to flash in Parilla's brain. "Patricio....is that why you didn't want to use the doublewide?"

"It's a part of it, Raul. You can use yours and nothing's lost as long as I establish that there will be no palace building below you."

"I see. Maybe I should give up the palace, too."

"You could have refused it initially. Now?" Carrera shook his head emphatically. "No. It would look too much like you're following me...which is not the impression we want to give the troops."

"But I want to do the right thing. I must must do the right thing," Parilla insisted. do the right thing," Parilla insisted.

"I should have explained how this s.h.i.t really works initially, when I first saw that rolling wh.o.r.ehouse Harrington scrounged. My fault I didn't, not yours. Let me see." He thought intently for a short while, then said, "Raul, in about two days, at the command and staff meeting, the medical unit is going to ask about having another air conditioned and heated facility for some of the inevitable casualties. You will ask Harrington about it. He will say that none are available and none will be for the immediate future. You will then order the Sergeant Major to cart off your mobile home and get you a tent. I will then tell the medicos that the very first time I see or hear of that building being used for ANY ANY purpose but care of the wounded and ill, I will have the guilty parties staked out naked in the cold overnight." purpose but care of the wounded and ill, I will have the guilty parties staked out naked in the cold overnight."

Laughing lightly, Carrera said, "You know, I'm not sure it won't work out better this way than if you'd turned down the trailer in the first place."

Mangesh Base, Yezidistan, 20/1/461 AC Colonel John Ridenhour approached the bunker guarding the gate with some care. When he had walked to within fifty meters of it, but no closer, a voice rang out, loud enough to be heard, but no louder, "Halt! Who goes there? Friend or foe?"

"Friend," Ridenhour answered in Spanish.

"Advance, friend, to be recognized." Ridenhour again walked forward before being halted again. He met the sentry's whispered challenge with an equally soft-spoken pa.s.sword.

A young Balboan sentry emerged from the bunker and brought his rifle to present arms. present arms. Ridenhour returned the salute. Ridenhour returned the salute.

When the sentry had moved his rifle back to a more ready position, he asked, "Sir, what the h.e.l.l were you doing out there?"

"Just looking over the perimeter from the enemy's point of view."

Satisfied, the young sentry asked, in halting and accented but understandable English, "How does it look?"

"Good, son, very good. By the way, what's your name?"

"Cruz, sir. Private First Cla.s.s Ricardo Cruz."

"Where are you from in Balboa?"

"Las Mesas Province," Cruz answered proudly.

"You're a long way from home."

Cruz smiled, white teeth shining slightly amidst the dark night. He thought longingly of Caridad. "Sir, a mile would be too far to be away from home. But if I have to be away, here's not much worse than anywhere else. Except for the d.a.m.ned cold, of course."

Research Building, University of Ninewa Sada shivered as he watched the trucks loaded. There was a bitterly cold south wind blowing across the city. The scientists, soldiers and workers, like Sada, suffered in the biting breeze. Unlike him, most were allowed by their positions to find shelter wherever there was a lee.

Shaking his head sadly, Sada noted that there were only enough trucks to move half the load, all of that being money and bearer bonds. Was Saleh, the dictator of the country, incapable of coming up with enough vehicles at one time to make away with the contents of the building's bas.e.m.e.nt?

If we cannot even come up with trucks, what chance have we? Sada fumed. Sada fumed.

"We'll be back," the colonel commanding the column a.s.sured Sada.

"You'll be back if if you aren't blasted to s.h.i.t on the way," Sada corrected. you aren't blasted to s.h.i.t on the way," Sada corrected.

EXCURSUS.

From: Reconquista, Copyright Xavier Jimenez IV, 601 AC, Carrera-Balboa Press, Ciudad Balboa By 155 AC Makkah al Jedidah had only one stream, and that shallow and sluggish. The other had gone to hide below ground. The city still had trees, about as many as it had at the founding. Most of those trees, however, were no longer growing but had been cut for roof beams.

Further out was sand with a few water holes and oases. Caravans trekked the sand; woe betide anything that grew near the caravan trails. The camels and especially the goats would eat anything found green right down to the roots.

There was little wood by this time, little to burn for fuel. Instead, the people gathered up the droppings of their animals and dried and burned those. Thus, even that little bit of fertilizer never nourished the soil.

As one went further away from the original center of settlement one would find more greenery. Yet the pattern was clear. The settlement of Salafi Man was spreading fast; the existence of natural flora and fauna disappearing at the same rate or faster. The Salafis fled the desert. But they brought the desert with them, created it, wherever they went.

The nomads' flocks' hooves pounded the soil, compacting it and pulverizing it. This rendered the soil fine enough to be carried off by water and wind. And the trees which might have protected the soil, holding it in place, gathering it from the wind, shading it so that surface water did not evaporate so quickly...these were gone or going. Evaporation, too, brought salt to the surface, killing what plants remained and rendering the soil useless for growing.

Other colonies on the periphery of the Salafis felt the nomads' desperation. Often starving, themselves, the Salafis raided for food. They raided to spread their way of life, their purer faith. They also raided for slaves, especially women slaves. Thus, added to the now forced emigration from Old Earth, the slave women brought new Salafis into the world in continuingly large numbers.

Most of the southern sh.o.r.e of Uhuru, along the Tauranian Lakes, had fallen to them, as had northwestern Taurus and substantial parts of Urania and, once the Salafis took to sea, some islands of the Mar Furioso. This meant more slaves, more women, and more Salafis. And, except where even they they could not overcome nature, it also meant more desert. could not overcome nature, it also meant more desert.

The other peoples of the new world began, not to strike back, but to defend what was theirs. After what they had endured from the Salafi, mercy was not a concept in common currency.

In Ardeal, five thousand Salafi raiders were impaled at a pa.s.s following the defeat of their raiding party. At Turonensis, in Gaul, an amphibious Salafi invasion was defeated by disciplined musketry and its survivors hanged to a man, several thousand Christian slaves being liberated in the process. When a Salafi army pushed north, past the desertified coast of Southern Uhuru, seeking new lands to turn barren, it was met by the Bulala Amalungu- Bulala Amalungu- and and Bayede Nkhosi Bayede Nkhosi-crying, Shosholoza- Shosholoza- and and Nomathemba Nomathemba-chanting, Amazing Grace Amazing Grace- and Onward Christian Soldiers Onward Christian Soldiers-singing, ma.s.sed, Christian-Animist impis of the great King Senzangakona III of the Nguni.

Salafi hit and run tactics, on horseback, had proven no match for the Nguni numbers and their urge to close and kill at breakneck pace afoot. The Salafis and their mounts were butchered, despite their extensive use of firearms. It was said among the Nguni that the glittering sheen of their spearheads had been lit by a miraculous glow from the large gilded cross they carried as their king's standard. It was said among the few Salafi survivors, thereafter, that it was almost impossible for a man on horseback to outpace a racing Nguni impi in the long run...and that with the Nguni it was always always a long run. Only the desert, creation and ultimate defense of the Salafi, had kept the impis from continuing on to exterminate the threat to their south. a long run. Only the desert, creation and ultimate defense of the Salafi, had kept the impis from continuing on to exterminate the threat to their south.

Nor was the resistance limited to non-Moslems. The Salafi were a threat to everyone everyone. Near Babel, in Sumer, disciplined, musket-wielding Sunni and Shia farmers on foot held the mounted Salafis at bay while their own, limited, cavalry swept in behind to trap them. Something not dissimilar happened when the Salafis faced the civilized, Moslem and Christian, Misrani along the banks of the Interu in Southwest Uhuru.

In time, the Salafi immigration from Old Earth ceased. The semi-starvation which had driven their expansion on Terra Nova began to reduce their population as, morally ingenious literalists that they were, they avoided the proscription against burying infant girls alive by first either smashing their heads with rocks or leaving them exposed for the desert animals.

And so the Salafi movement began to recede, for a time. It would come again, in the guise of an ideology. As it left, it left behind little but wasteland and corpses, and small detachments of outcast adherents. When it returned, it would be over a carpet of waste and bodies, stepping along the footholds it had left behind like a man crossing a stream on stones.

As the Salafis fell back to their desert fastness, they left little but waste and destruction physical, moral and intellectual behind them. Their adherents left behind in the lost lands were outcast and despised. Indeed, they were often killed out of hand, especially especially in Moslem lands. Heeding the Koran's stricture on how to deal with those who brought disorder to the world, only shortage of wood saved many Salafis from crucifixion. And those lost hands and feet on opposite sides. in Moslem lands. Heeding the Koran's stricture on how to deal with those who brought disorder to the world, only shortage of wood saved many Salafis from crucifixion. And those lost hands and feet on opposite sides.

Thus Salafism languished for more than two centuries while the new world progressed around them. In fact, while Uhuru, Urania and other continents were carved up by Taurans, Zhong, Yamatans and Columbians, the Salafis of the Yithrab were left in peace. This was neither altruism nor respect but a simple reflection of the fact they had nothing anyone wanted.

The resurgence of radical Salafism can be dated to the discovery of substantial energy deposits, in the form of fossil fuels, in the Yithrab Peninsula and its environs, beginning in the year 348 AC. Having access to Earth's history prior to the end of emigration, the peoples of Terra Nova were never in ignorance of the value of the stuff. Civil war within the Salafi reach erupted within a few years of the discovery, the al Rashid clan eventually emerging triumphant.

Oil revenues were initially more or less trivial to the buyers, though significant to the then-poor Salafis. Especially during the Great Global War, when all civilized constraints of behavior were thrown off, the Salafis were altogether too frightened of conquest to exert the power implicit in control of so vast a reserve of energy.

With time, however, growing awareness of the value of their resource, coupled with the post-GGW nuclear standoff between the Federated States, the Volgan Empire and the UEPF, placed the al Rashid in a position to take control of their own oil and their own destinies. Others, not merely on the periphery but around the globe, followed suit. Fossil fuel prices rose precipitously. In point of fact, they did not stop their continuous rise until the fall of the Volgan Empire freed the Federated States to credibly threaten the use military force should prices get out of hand.

Oil brought unprecedented wealth. Money received from it went into the creation of welfare states, impressively armed if indifferently effective military and naval forces, and provided obscenely lavish lifestyles for the ruling clans. No small amount, too, went to the spread of Salafism.

Among the Misrani at the edge of Southern Uhuru, to Kashmir, to Sukarno, madra.s.sas sprang up like mushrooms. Providing free room and board, as well as a free if highly constrained education, the madra.s.sas were highly popular among the disenfranchised lower cla.s.ses of the Moslem portions of Terra Nova.

And that that was the problem. was the problem. Most Most of the population of Moslem states on Terra Nova were disenfranchised and frighteningly poor. Moreover, while the first two hundred and fifty years of settlement had seen them prosper approximately as well as colonization efforts by non-Moslems, after approximately the middle of the third Terra Novan century this was no longer true. Increasingly, they had fallen behind. Increasingly they were seen to be militarily inept. Increasingly, the pride of a very proud set of people was p.r.i.c.ked. Increasingly, they heard the message of the Salafis to return to the older, purer ways...to fight back with fire and sword. of the population of Moslem states on Terra Nova were disenfranchised and frighteningly poor. Moreover, while the first two hundred and fifty years of settlement had seen them prosper approximately as well as colonization efforts by non-Moslems, after approximately the middle of the third Terra Novan century this was no longer true. Increasingly, they had fallen behind. Increasingly they were seen to be militarily inept. Increasingly, the pride of a very proud set of people was p.r.i.c.ked. Increasingly, they heard the message of the Salafis to return to the older, purer ways...to fight back with fire and sword.

PART III.

Chapter Seventeen.

Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket" which is but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention"; but the wise man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket and watch that basket!"-Mark Twain

Multichucha Ridge, north of Mangesh, Sumer, 21/1/461 AC The land was compartmentalized by east-west running ridges that arose, one after another, and dominated the valleys between. A highway, a mix of gravel, dirt, potholes, and in rare spots asphalt, wound through the valleys and narrow gaps that appeared occasionally between sections of ridge. The highway eventually led to Ninewa and, beyond that, Babel.

Joint patrols, Yezidi and Sumeri, walked the demarcation line between the Federated States-guaranteed Yezidi Safe Zone and that portion of the Republic of Sumer still under Sumeri control. This demarcation line, in the vicinity of the town of Mangesh, was a river. The patrols chatted amiably enough across the river despite the certainty on the part of all concerned that the area would see fighting in no more than a Terra Novan month.

In a marginally heated four wheel drive vehicle followed by a truck holding a squad of Cazadors with an engineer team to operate a mine detector, Parilla and Carrera rolled north.

"So there really is a Multichucha Ridge," Parilla observed with wonder in his voice.

"Oh, yes," Carrera, sitting in the back, agreed. There, stretching out east to west before them were five sets of enormous, naturally occurring, gra.s.s, bush, sand, rock and gravel simulacra of female genitalia.

"The one furthest east doesn't look all that realistic," Parilla continued. "But the two to the west are frighteningly real."

"Don't know about you two, sirs, but it sure makes me homesick," commented the driver.

There was a Chaldean, a native of Mangesh, in the back of the four wheel drive, next to Carrera. Fahad had grown up in the shadow of the ridge. His people had their own phrase for the terrain feature but that, too, translated as "Multi-p.u.s.s.y Ridge."

"Fahad," Carrera questioned in English, "are you absolutely certain certain you know a way to the top of that ridge where we can observe the Sumeri positions and that getting to which won't run us into a minefield?" you know a way to the top of that ridge where we can observe the Sumeri positions and that getting to which won't run us into a minefield?"

The Chaldean considered. He spoke Arabic, English, and Yezidi, along with his native tongue. It was in English that he answered. Why not? He had done his first term of military service in the Sumeri Army teaching English at the Sumeri War College outside of Babel.

"Yes," Fahad said. "No problem. The snow makes it tougher but the path I know is broad. We should be fine."

Carrera translated for Parilla's benefit but to the latter's considerable doubt and plain discomfiture.

"I don't even like the idea idea of land mines," Parilla muttered. of land mines," Parilla muttered.

"No one does," Carrera agreed. "Not until you have a horde of screaming motherf.u.c.kers coming to kill you and all that stands between their bayonets and you is a belt of land mines."

At Fahad's point of a finger the vehicles pulled over to allow the leaders, plus the Cazadors and the engineers, to dismount. Fahad led the way upward, stopping occasionally to check his memory of the path against what he believed to be certain terrain features somewhat hidden under snow. He must have guessed right; there were no loud explosions on the way up.

Just below the summit Parilla and Carrera stopped to allow the Cazadors to scout forward. At the squad leader's signal that all was clear they, too, crouched low and advanced. A dozen meters or so before the actual summit of the ridge, they went to their bellies and crawled through the hard-packed, icy snow to the top.

The sun was setting to the west. There would be no telltale flashes from the gla.s.s of the binoculars they used to scout out the opposite ridge, Hill 1647, which was to be the legion's initial objective.

"f.u.c.k," Carrera said.

"Chingada," Parilla agreed.

From where they lay the pair saw the highway as it ran between two fortresses. Each of the fortresses was just under a kilometer across and, according to photo recon, about two thirds that deep. They were entrenched, bunkered and wired in. Moreover, according to the Yezidi, there were deep minefields in between the belts of wire. To add to the problem, a twenty-meter-wide river, low and slow moving but very cold, crossed the valley near to the base of the Sumeri held ridgelines.

"Too steep to get armor up," Parilla observed. "Even if they could get across the river."

"Maybe the lighter vehicles could make it. Maybe." Carrera countered. "If they could follow the most advantageous paths. If they could go slow. If they were not being shot at. If the best paths were clear of mines which, by all reports, they most definitely are not."

"An infantry attack?" Parilla queried. "Maybe at night."

Carrera didn't answer immediately. Looking back through his binoculars again at the thick rows of barbed wire, Carrera saw them as they might be if he ordered an a.s.sault to clear the hill, thick with the bodies, and parts of bodies, of his troops. Half a dozen possible plans flashed through his head. Each was quickly discarded before he settled on something that might be workable if short of brilliant.

"They'll get butchered by machine guns and the artillery that I have no doubt is on call to support the defense. And attacking at night, whatever the advantages, is confusing as h.e.l.l. Too confusing to subject troops to it for their first action."

"Then how?" the Dux Dux asked. asked.

"What we have is a training issue," Carrera responded, cryptically. "That; an engineering problem and a logistics problem. Now, where are we going to get a s.h.i.tpot of concrete mix and another six hundred tons of artillery and mortar ammunition on short notice?" he mused.

All the drive back to Mangesh Base Carrera pondered, mused, considered and scribbled in a notebook.