The Lotus Eaters (42 page)

* * *

If Carrera wasn't airsick, it was only by the grace of God that he wasn't. After two trips up and down over two different mountain ranges, some of the boys aboard the Nabakov were not so lucky.

Shit
, Carrera cursed,
it always seems you miss something
.

The somethings missing were sufficient air sickness bags. Having no choice but to puke on the floor, the sick soldiers had covered it with vile smelling vomit. Carrera forced himself to choke back a spurt of his own. Almost retching, he went forward to the flight deck for some minor relief. He saw the navigator cum copilot give a thumbs up signal to the pilot. The town of El Dorado, Santander, continued to sleep as a stream of aircraft flew by, low, overhead.

No society can truly be called civilized which is unable to deal with barbarians, of both the external and the home-grown varieties. This is so unless one cares implicitly to define "civilized" as "that which is comfortable but weak, unwilling to defend itself, and in the last stages of life before descending into barbarism."

Of course, since good and evil must be measured by duration as well as scope and intensity, and since such a "civilization" has no prospect of having much more duration, that "civilization" is hardly worth defending anyway. That said, should the people of such a civilization
choose
to defend it, its probable duration and thus its intrinsic value will increase in proportion, just as those decrease when the people reach a consensus
not
to defend their society.

But what then is civilization? Arts and letters? Education? Public Order? Rule in accordance with law? Trade? Specialization of function? Urbanization? Public works and roads? Ports?

Civilization shows all of those things, yet it is more than any of them, singly or in combination. At core, civilization is a system of society which permits something near the maximum number of people, for any given geographic area, to enjoy the maximum feasible quality of life, for the longest possible societal duration.

—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,
Historia y Filosofia Moral
, Legionary Press, Balboa, Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468

In his headphones Pavlov heard, "Unidentified aircraft! Unidentified aircraft! Move away from the flight line and parking areas or you will be engaged!"

Pavlov ignored the calls except to mutter, "With what?" Reducing power to the main rotor, he allowed the chopper to descend to only one hundred and twenty feet above the ground. That was high enough to provide enough fall to arm the mines his bird carried, and also high enough not to worry about sucking any trash that might be blown skyward into the engine.

Pavlov looked left and saw that his wingman had likewise descended and was even now slowly moving along and above the taxiway. From the rear of the wing helicopter, through the open clamshell doors, a deluge of little mines, some of them glowing, descended to the concrete.

It was seeing the glowing mines hit and then bounce up off of the concrete that made Pavlov think,
I have entered the world of the surreal
.

Pavlov, himself, went for the one of the aircraft parking areas showing plain in his goggles. A lone guard below fired his rifle at the bird, the muzzle flash plain in the gloom.

"Ignore that," the pilot cautioned his door gunner. He pretended he hadn't heard the gunner's return comment. At the fighter jet parking area, Pavlov swung stick and played with his pedals to produce a sort of aerial ballet overhead, the chopper twirling and swinging and shifting from side to side. The Santandern jet below was deluged with toe popping mines. The helicopter moved on to the next. Unheard by the crew, sirens wailed out a warning, rousing the base from its slumbers. More rifles were fired at the IM-71s. These, too, were ignored as the choppers continued their work of making the only nearby Santandern air base temporarily unusable. As each HIP finished its mining, it turned its attention to the radar dishes, several civil and one military. Machine guns sparked, colanderizing the radar dishes with fire.

Well
, thought the crew chief,
we weren't told a thing about
not
shooting up the radar.

The radar officer cursed with surprise. "Motherfucker! Sir, three pairs of fast movers just popped over the mountains east of Balboa City. No identification." The lieutenant made a quick speed check. "Yes, sir. Definitely jets. Course suggests they came from somewhere in the Shimmering Sea."

The lieutenant colonel stifled a curse of his own.
Goddamned Navy. By what right do they cut
us
out?

"And, sir? That recon skimmer—at least I think it's a recon skimmer—from the UEPF will be in range in twelve minutes."

Weapons added, "I'm tracking it, sir. We can down it on your command."

The colonel thought,
This operation
has
to originate at echelons above God. No way I can get permission to fire in any timely fashion. Well . . . I'm an officer of the Federated States. I see my countrymen in action. I see a threat. I am duty bound to take out that threat, if it's within my capabilities.

That will sound great at my court-martial, won't it? Ah, screw the court-martial.

"Fire as soon as they're in range, Mister."

Unable to sleep for all his worries, Estevez tossed and turned on his king-sized mattress. His wife, plump beyond her years, snored softly beside him.
I would so much rather be in bed with Gabriela, or—better still—Isabel
. But domestic peace was important. He couldn't sleep with either of his mistresses in his own home.

An unusual sound roused Estevez. He rolled to his back and sat straight up.
Helicopters? Police come to arrest me? But what's that screech?

Whatever the sounds were, they couldn't be good. Estevez roused his plump wife. "Marta," he insisted, "get up and gather the children! Quickly, woman! Go! Get to the basement. I'll join you when I can." As the wife rose and began to rub the sleep from her eyes, Estevez ran out of the bedroom, pulling on a robe and shouting for his guards.

* * *

From five thousand feet overhead, Montoya turned on his siren, banked his plane over and began a dive. He felt himself pushed back into his seat so hard that he thought he could feel the stitching through his flight suit.

Flicking on the radio he announced his call sign for the mission and, "Diving to the attack." A voice answered, "Roger," with a strong Volgan accent.

Montoya saw the target hacienda and his personal target, a large barnlike structure a few hundred meters from the main building. Intelligence had identified this as a barracks for guards.

At twenty-one hundred feet, two blackish ovoid shapes, each a two hundred and fifty pound bomb, fell away from beneath Montoya's aircraft. He felt the Finch balloon slightly as its load was reduced.

"Bombs away." he announced to himself, pulling the stick back into the pit of his stomach. Whatever pressure he'd felt in the dive was nothing compared to the force pulling him down into his seat as he fought to pull out of the dive.

Far below, the helicopters began very slowly to approach the lawn around the hacienda.

* * *

The shriek coming from somewhere above wouldn't have been so bad if Francisco Estevez had ever heard it's like before. He hadn't. It might have been tolerable if some of his comrades had, and they'd been able to reassure him. They were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. It might have been acceptable if he'd been a trained soldier. He was a tyro, recruited to his cousin's guard force to provide a sinecure to a relative. In short, Francisco was completely unprepared for the attack, mentally, morally, and as a matter of training. It was about the limit of his ability to join the dozens of other armed men racing from their barnlike barracks to the main house.

As Francisco fumbled with loading a magazine into his rifle while trying to run across the manicured lawn to his assigned position, he saw his elder brother. "What's going on?" he shouted out.

"Who the fuck knows? Just get to your position."

Twin explosions, so close together as to be almost indistinguishable, rocked the world behind Francisco. A wall of hardened air slapped his back. He was slammed forward and down, first to his knees, then to all fours, then to his belly. The metal receiver of his rifle punched into his stomach.

Francisco felt, more than heard or saw, pieces of flying metal and wood tear the air around him. Lifting off the ground and twisting his head, Francisco saw that the barn was gone, it its place an expanding cloud, black and angry, that threatened to engulf him. Francisco shook his head to clear it. This was a mistake, he found, as pain and nausea shot through him.

Half deafened, still Francisco heard or felt someone screaming close by. Through the dark and acrid smoke he crawled toward the sound. Though it was only a few feet, it seemed like miles. A legless man, bones showing and blood spurting, thrashed the ground. One leg, still shod and covered in denim, lay nearby. He turned the over the body of the screaming, legless man.

"Oh, no. Oh,
hermano
, what will I tell mother?"

The siren shriek overhead returned. It was followed by more explosions, closer to the
hacienda
. Then there were many more explosions, smaller ones. A rocket passed over Francisco's head. He never heard whether it exploded or not.

Heavy machine gun fire, each burst like a series of fists against a wall, passed by him. Bright tracer lines burned themselves into his retinas. He turned his head in panic as the steady
whop, whop, whop
of helicopter blades cutting the air assailed him. Like a cornered rabbit, Francisco looked frantically around for an escape. He heard more helicopters to his right and his left, explosions to his front. Picking his brother up on his shoulder, Estevez began to run to what had been his rear.

* * *

As two helicopters broke off from the main body to drop off the platoon that would seal off escape; the other four, landing on line, began to disgorge the rest of 12th Company across the lawn. Those armed with rockets and machine guns fired forward to cover the paratroops' exit.

"Look at that!" cried the copilot of the rightmost bird. The goggled pilot turned his head to see a Santandern struggling with a load on his shoulders across the ruins of a large wood building.
Orders are orders: "Maximum feasible frightfulness
," thought the pilot as he swung the IM-71 over slightly to bring its guns to bear. He pressed the firing button, causing the helicopter to shake with the recoil. Fifty-one caliber bullets, one in five a bright green streak, lashed the ground around the target. The image in the pilot's goggles flared.

* * *

Dirt, dust, and splinters of wood kicked up around Francisco Estevez. Two projectiles, at least, found him, passing through his lower torso. Both hips smashed to red ruin, he was bowled over, his load flying. Francisco landed in agony, his blood staining the green grass beneath him.

For a few moments he lay there in shock. Then, dimly, he remember his brother who had to be somewhere nearby. Francisco forced his arms to lift his upper body from the ground. Dragging his useless legs behind him, he pulled himself on his hands and elbows to where his brother had been flung.

* * *

The tracer-caused flare in the night vision goggled lessened. "One's still alive," said the copilot. "You know the orders."

A second burst followed, longer than the first. The Estevez brothers, distant relatives of Señor Estevez, died side by side, Francisco's hands still trying to pull his elder brother to safety.

* * *

The helicopters had each a single side door, mounted on the left, and rear clamshells. With the chopper bucking from the rotor wash kicked up from the ground, the crew kicked open the clamshells even as Samsonov jumped out of the side door to the ground. Automatically, the legate of the 22nd rolled and came to a prone firing position, eyes searching frantically for threats and targets.

The more heavily laden radio telephone operator, or RTO, jumped after Samsonov. Because the helicopter was slowly moving forward, however, the RTO landed closer to the target than his commander had. He crawled back toward Samsonov, taking a position to the left rear of the legate. Samsonov shot an inquiring glance at the RTO, which was answered with a smile.

"Almost as much fun as Pashtia, sir," said the RTO.

Samsonov raised an eyebrow. "Boy," he shouted, "you're not old enough to have seen Pashtia."

"True, sir," the RTO agreed, unabashed. "But every-fucking-body
talks
about it enough that it sure as shit
seems
like I was there. Sounds like it was fun, too."

Samsonov shook his head and shouted, "This is all just a job boy, just a job."

While Samsonov and the RTO exited the narrow side door, the bulk of the helicopter load had begun pouring in a double file out the back, through the clamshells. Warrant Officer Ustinov bent low, fearful of walking his head into the rotor spinning overhead. He was followed by Martinson.

Even before the platoon finished forming, Samsonov was the first to rise. RTO in tow, he began shouting into his microphone.

Someone was listening. Ustinov saw his company commander off to his left. The captain arose, blowing a whistle and hand signaling for his platoons to begin moving up. The captain had one arm curled overhead, the other pointing a rifle toward the hacienda. In the center of the 12th Company soldiers of the Weapons Platoon, serving as riflemen, did short rushes to form a rough line. Light fire, so far overhead it must have been unaimed, came from the direction of the target building. No Volgans were hit.

Ustinov and Martinson, still crouched low to avoid the helicopter's spinning rotor, moved up as well, pushing and prodding their platoon to get on line. The chopper gave off a differently pitched whine, lifted a few meters higher, and then, tail boom up and nose down, moved closer to the hacienda. At a certain point the chopper leveled off again. Its guns began firing steadily at the house. With troops behind it, rockets were, for the moment, right out.