A Desert Called Peace

by Tom Kratman

  "Your main complaint, however, seems directed at the fact that we don't seem to emphasize the . . . oh . . . skills a leader needs as much as we do the character. More questions for you to answer for yourself: Are those skills something that can be taught or only learned? Do we give you the opportunity to learn even though no one can necessarily teach them? Don't we coach you to learn them for yourself? And do we not teach them, too, in a way? When, Cazador Cruz, will you in the future forget that men need food and sleep to keep going at top performance? When, in battle, when you're a centurion leading a platoon, will you forget to take care of your troops because if you don't they won't be able to take care of you? When will you forget that fear and fatigue are interchangeable, that frightened men get weak fast? That tired men frighten easily? Enriquez died so you would learn those lessons in a way you will never forget.

  "Finally, ask yourself what character a leader in battle must have. I think when you do you may discover that no one who graduates this school can be very deficient in any important aspect of it. But you'll have to find the answers to those questions yourself. Send in Saldañas, please."

  Camp O'Higgins, 34/3/462 AC

  Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, thought Cruz as he trudged his weary way along the side of the mountain. His legs and back ached mercilessly from the uneven path and off-center walk it required.

  The patrol stopped suddenly. Cruz almost walked into the back of the man ahead of him, despite the dim glow of the two florescent strips sewn on the back of that student's hat.

  Men took a knee at alternate sides of the patrol's perimeter, forming a rough cigar shape on the ground. Cruz struggled to keep his eyes open. The assistant patrol leader came forward from the rear of the little column to inquire about the halt. As he passed each man he whispered, "Take off your hats."

  The students complied without argument. They'd learned that the hat became a little house and they'd fall asleep in a heartbeat if they felt themselves at home. A sleeping Cazador was a Cazador who would be left behind by his patrol. There was no greater shame and no more likely cause for dismissal from the course.

  At the point of the column Cruz heard the CI loudly berating the patrol leader, Montoya, for becoming lost. Montoya fumbled verbally, trying to make an excuse. What Montoya didn't do was insist that he did know where the patrol was, even though he did.

  The CI gave Montoya a location on the map that seemed plausible but was incorrect. Rising to their feet again, the men took off in a new, and false, direction. They would march all night up and down the side of this one mountain, with no time for sleep or to eat even the wretched amount of food they carried.

  With each step, the burning pain in their legs increased. When they realized that they were walking in circles around a single summit, getting nowhere, the frustration, and the pain, brought tears to the eyes of some. In the morning, the CI would tell the patrol leader that he hadn't been lost at all, but that his lack of self-confidence had cost everyone. Montoya, the leader, told the squad what had happened. He hung his head for days.

  Unknown to the patrol, it was all planned. Cazador Instructors evaluating each patrol did the very same thing at about the same time. Each patrol, as a result, became lost and wasted the night. The number of students dropped still further.

  Jungle Camp, Yaviza, Balboa, 13/4/462 AC

  Now what's the holdup? Cruz cursed under his breath at the school, the CIs, the rain, the piss warm swamp water that sloshed around his waist. Wiping rain from his brow—the hat he wore was so soaked that it didn't shed water anymore—Cruz felt his feet sinking slowly into the mud below him. He shifted to a fresher spot and let the sinking process begin anew. Lightning flashed, illuminating the murky scene.

  I am so hungry. So very hungry. He thought warmly for a moment of his wife, Cara. He felt a moment's chagrin as he realized that he didn't think of sex anymore, hadn't in weeks. And a sad thing it is, too, when your pecker stops working. The stress- and starvation- induced impotence was something of a class joke for every Cazador class. "Hung our balls on the centurion's office wall when we reported in."

  As he sometimes did when there was time and nothing better to do with it, Cruz played a mental game. He had discovered, almost two months prior, that just dreaming of having enough to eat was unsatisfying. Instead, he gave himself an imaginary twenty drachma, then went on an imaginary shopping spree at the supermarket with only that twenty to spend. The limitation, imaginary and artificial as it was, gave more substance to his dreaming. It also, sometimes, caught his stomach up in the dream so that the organ stopped nagging, Feed me, Motherfucker, feeed meee.

  He roused himself back to reality as he realized the patrol was moving on. The man to his front reached back to tap him; too many times a patrol had become separated after a halt to a seemingly interminable march. Men had learned that they could fall asleep on their feet. The students no longer took chances. Cruz likewise tapped the man behind him. "Come on, Montoya. We're moving out again," he whispered.

  Montoya nodded. Speech took too much energy. The group continued their fight with the water and the muck.

  Jungle Camp, 16/4/462 AC

  A light rain, unusually light for Balboa, fell on the patrol. Montoya walked back to the center of the perimeter, where Cruz minded the radio. "I failed another one, Cruz."

  "Shit."

  Montoya collapsed in a heap next to the radio. "Not to worry, friend. They're going to keep giving me back-to-back leadership phases until I pass. I'm leader, again, for this one. I'm fucked. You all are even more fucked."

  Cruz, who had already tabbed out—made the requirements to graduate the course—made sympathetic sounds. Saldañas, Ramirez, and Dominguez walked over and sat down as well. They, too, already, had made the grade.

  "Heard you're on the intensive track, Montoya." That from Ramirez.

  Cruz interjected, "It just isn't possible. He can't do any more." Montoya didn't argue the point.

  "He can't, but we can. Listen." Cruz listened as Saldañas laid out his plan for how the four of them would do as much of Montoya's work for him as the CIs would permit.

  Montoya looked up, hope dawning in his eyes. His eyes clouded. "I can't make it on charity."

  Dominguez took his shoulder in a firm grip. "It's not charity, Montoya. When Saldañas, here, froze on the log walk, who went up and talked him across? You, friend.

  "And when Dominguez fell off the side of the hill at Camp O'Higgins, rolling end over end while his own machine gun tried to beat him to death, who carried the gun and the pack for two hours until he was capable of carrying them again?"

  "Me, too, Montoya," said Cruz. "When I fucked up and didn't order chow for the platoon . . . and we all had nothing at all to eat for a day. Who talked me up to keep on going. They're right. We can help you, and it isn't charity. It's just paying a debt."

  Montoya bowed his head, humbled and grateful.

  Ramirez, silent until now, said, tersely, "Now let's get to work."

  Graduation Exercise Area, Camp Gutierrez, 5/5/462 AC

  Unique among militaries, the legion, at Carrera's insistence, had a requirement that all officers and centurions be combat tested before receiving their commissions or centurion's batons. This was so even though almost everyone sent to the Cazador School, followed by OCS, CCS or WOCS, was a veteran of combat already.

  "Eventually, there will be peace, however transitory it will prove," Carrera had said. "The tradition of combat testing starts now so it will be kept then."

  This was the most dreaded mission in the school, although much of the danger was still more apparent than real. Nonetheless, students were wounded or killed by design rather than by accident.

  The live fire took place on an area of rough ground. The objectives consisted of well fortified battle positions, with bunkers and trenches, protected by broad belts of barbed wire and concertina. Interspersed among the bunkers, sometimes in place of them, very heavily uparmored tank turrets with an
ti-spalling liners—lead shields to absorb the little splinters of steel that often flew off of the inside of armor when it was struck by fire—were set into concrete. These held the defenders of the positions.

  The tanks had the main guns removed. Unlike the ones the school used elsewhere, however, the crews of some of these tanks would try to hit the students rather than merely frighten them. Ordinarily, this would mean serious casualties. To keep these within acceptable limits, the turrets' machine guns only carried one round in ten live. The rest of the belted ammunition was plastic tipped. This was still dangerous close up but the plastic rounds lost velocity rapidly due to their low density. Every burst would be aimed with evil intent, but only one round in ten would actually have a bullet in it. The machine guns were, moreover, set loosely in their cradles to allow the fire to spread to cover an area as a normal ground-mounted machine gun would. Therefore, even if the gunner was dead on target, inclined to shoot that target, and that target was a real student, and the burst happened to have a live round in it, the odds were good that the bullet would go low, high or wide.

  Other turrets had both main gun and machine guns removed. These had sniper rifles locked firmly into place. The "sniper" turrets fired all live ammunition, but their job was to try to fire as close as possible to the students without actually hitting any of them. Still, mistakes happened. And, it was widely rumored, the CIs manning the sniper rifles would deliberately shoot a man if provoked by incompetence. The rumor was only occasionally true and they never shot to kill.

  Still, the students weren't entirely helpless. The things they had learned, careful reconnaissance, thorough planning and rehearsals, control, and teamwork could, properly applied, allow them to put effective fire on the turrets. The turret crews would cease fire for fifteen seconds after taking a hit from a bullet. There were also two small, upper body shaped, targets on the front of each turret. If the students hit both of these in an area about ten inches in diameter, the tank would cease fire completely. It was possible, though very uncommon, for no turrets on an objective to have a chance to fire.

  Turrets never fired deliberately at a CI. Indeed they avoided them as completely as possible.

  As an added measure, the students were issued the heavy, fifty- four pound, ceramic torso armor and extra-heavy helmets. Face, arms and legs were still exposed, but the odds of a fatal hit were lessened. Statistics said that out of a typical class of about three hundred to three hundred and fifty, 8.4 men would be shot as a result of the day's training, 1.4 of them fatally.

  Olivetti, wearing more complete body armor, painted white to mark him as a CI, stood in front of the class, explaining these things to the students. "Those casualty rates are only averages. Sometimes a class comes through without a scratch. Once we had seventeen men shot. Four died. If anyone wants to resign now, step to the rear and see Sergeant Major Schetrompf. He'll take your resignations." The CI didn't mention that after that particular day, the course had changed to give sixteen hours unbroken rest and five complete meals to the students before sending them to the graduation exercise. It was better they should believe the course was even more dangerous than it was.

  Inside the ranks men wavered, Olivetti could see it in the way they shifted weight from side to side, looked around to see what their peers were doing.

  Montoya finished their mental self debate for them. Speaking loudly, he said "You've made me shit myself more than once already, Centurion, although with the little bit you feed us there wasn't much shit. I'll be damned if all that, plus starving us and making us walking dead from lack of sleep, was for nothing. Bring on your fucking tanks, Centurion Olivetti. Besides, I need to pass one more patrol to graduate anyway." A few students laughed nervously. The moment of wavering was broken.

  Olivetti nodded, seeing the men quiet down in the ranks. That's why you're still here, Montoya. You can't lead for shit. Your squad has carried you through every leadership phase you passed. But you're a tough little bastard and you don't quit. Your legion has use for those, too. At his signal, the three, much truncated, student companies began to shake out into tactical formations, separating and moving toward their objectives. Olivetti fell in with the center company, talking on his radio as he did so.

  Overhead, real artillery, not simulators or preplaced charges, began to rumble across the sky toward small impact areas offset from the objectives. Though frightened, the men grinned. It was almost over.

  Parade Field, Camp Gutierrez, 8/5/462 AC

  The school commandant, Major Broughton, FS Army (retired), stood on a low reviewing stand. He looked over the ranks, 331 men of six hundred and ten who had started. Four were dead, about par for the course, most of the rest dropped with prejudice or quit. Some of those dropped were medicals. If they recovered, these would have a chance to continue the course with another class. A few others, hospitalized with wounds from the final exercise, would be graduated, and decorated, in their beds later in the day, their squads in attendance.

  Broughton walked up to the microphone and began to speak. At his command the class stood at ease. He told the graduating students how tough they were, and brave; how they represented the best of their countries, and some of the best in the world. He said he expected great things of them, as they had proven themselves capable of great things.

  Cruz whispered to Montoya, standing at his left, "You feel tough, bud?"

  Montoya answered, likewise in a whisper, "He must be talking about some other people. I don't feel tough."

  Broughton finished, calling the class to attention and ordering the school adjutant to call the roll.

  The adjutant took Broughton's place at the microphone and began to read off names.

  "Optio Enriquez."

  The entire class answered, as rehearsed "Here!"

  "Signifer Trujillo."

  "Here!"

  The adjutant finished the last names on his list of dead, each with the rank he would have held had he finished Cazador School and the next course for which he was scheduled. Following the last "Here!" he gave the command, "Open ranks, march!"

  As the companies opened their ranks, the CIs of Camp Gutierrez trotted out, one to each rank of each platoon, each CI carrying a cloth bag draped over one shoulder. Olivetti came to attention to Cruz's right front.

  "Present the tabs!"

  Olivetti took one step forward, halted and faced left. He nodded, "Cazador Cruz?"

  "Blood tab, Centurion." In the school's short life no Cazador had yet failed to ask for a "blood tab." It was an article of faith among the students that the first one to do so would have his name publicized across the entire legion.

  Olivetti reached into the cloth bag and pulled out a full color black and gold half circle with the word "CAZADOR" spelled in bold, gold letters. A safety pin ran through the tab. Olivetti unlocked the safety pin, grabbed Cruz's sleeve near the shoulder, and drove the pin into the emaciated flesh beneath before withdrawing it, pushing it through the cloth, and hooking it back onto itself. Cruz controlled his flinch. What's a little more pain, after all?

  "Good job, Cruz." Olivetti held out his hand.

  "Thank you, Centurion. You, too." Cruz shook the hand with real feeling.

  Olivetti passed on to Montoya.

  Montoya smiled. "Blood tab, Centurion." He held his smile as the point pierced him.

  "You're a shithead, Montoya. But you're a damn fine soldier. Congratulations."

  When the last of the tabs had been awarded, Broughton returned to the reviewing stand. "Pass in review!"

  Without further fanfare, the platoons faced right and began to double time past the reviewing stand. They only dropped to a walk when the last of them had passed. The students—no, full fledged Cazadors now—began to sing as they walked back to barracks.

  Once he arrived back in Las Mesas, Cruz was very pleased to discover that his impotence was only temporary. Caridad was very pleased, as well.

  Interlude

  15 June, 2104 (Terra Novan Year 45
AC), Atlantis Base

  The acting commander of Atlantis base was at wits' end. High Admiral Annan was gone; reported dead. The Marines and shuttle he had borrowed were gone as well and he had to presume them to be dead or captured, likewise the Supervisory Office in Balboa colony. He had no more Marines to spare. He had no more shuttles and only three helicopters. And until a new ship came in system he had no way of getting any more, either.

  It was bad enough that Anglia colony, for now, reported only to its home government back on Earth. No one ever expected anything different from the stinking Americans beginning to fill up Southern Columbia, or indeed anyone from Earth's Anglosphere except for the people settling Secordia. But the colonies from the Earth's Third World? These were supposed and expected to stand by the UN, to toe its line, to build one-world government here to match the one building back home. Otherwise, Terra Nova would become just another twentieth-century Earth. And that, the acting commander knew, spelled danger.

  "Commander?" an aide broke in, giving the honorific despite doubt about whether the title would become permanent. "News from our office in San Jose colony. They're under attack by hundreds of men armed with modern weapons."

  "Shit!"

  "It gets worse, Commander. The rebels are broadcasting from the radio station at our Balboa office—what used to be our Balboa office—calling on everyone to 'throw off Earth's chains.' And we have little or nothing to stop it."

  That bastard, Annan, the acting commander thought. He could have bought all the little girls he wanted from the Yithrab, or even bought them from Earth at one of the open markets and brought them here. But nooo, the cheap son of a bitch had to go outside channels and avoid paying the little bit asked for. God save me from hereditary bureaucrats and their offspring. Now I get to sit, helpless, while the world we wanted to construct here falls apart around me.