The Amazon Legion-ARC

by Tom Kratman

  * * *

  Doctrine called for using everything to resist an occupation. Besides the Amazons and Cazadores, and below them in the military scheme of things, were the refugees, not all of whom were helpless. There were one hundred and eighty-three people in Maria’s area whose credentials were pretty much impeccable: Retired soldiers, veterans discharged into the Home Guard, children of soldiers and the widows of soldiers who had been given jobs in legion-owned factories.

  The Amazonas and Cazadores trained those as and when they could. Mostly, though, the civilians were a source of labor. It was expected they would become a useful source of intelligence. The credentialed ones were also a means of controlling the others whom the soldiers didn’t know and had no real basis for trusting. Ultimately, they might be a source of recruits.

  All the rest, the nearly fifteen thousand otherwise useless mouths without credentials, were also put to work, but on open projects: Communal bomb shelters, sharpening wooden stakes to use for foot traps, making charcoal, drayage and storage. Those with agricultural backgrounds were even put to work growing food.

  * * *

  While preparing, the people used small portable AM/FM radios to keep up on the news. It was almost all bad. First the Tauran Union and the Zhong had begun flying over the country on reconnaissance missions despite the government’s protests and despite the disapproval of most of the world. So Balboa stopped returning their POWs. At least one high altitude reconnaissance flight had been shot down, too, though that had been something of a fluke nobody seemed to think the legion could repeat.

  Then the legion’s classis began mining the Mar Furioso approaches to the Transitway, to either side of the Isla Real. That led to the enemy sinking one of the mine-laying ships. Either a flight of Legion Jan Sobieski planes or a battery of the air defense tercio—it wasn’t certain, based on the reports—took out two of the enemy’s aircraft that were going after another of the mine-layers. Balboa finished up the mining with the two ships they had left.

  Then the Taurans tried to force their way in with mine clearing ships, escorted by warships, with fighters overhead. The classis sank a mine-clearing vessel and damaged a destroyer before the rest pulled back out of range. The radio said reports in the enemy press put the loss at over two hundred Tauran lives. Balboa’s didn’t count.

  One broadcast was directly from Parilla directly to his opposite number, his enemy. It concerned the thousands of prisoners of war still held by Balboa. Those, Parilla announced, were to be split into very small groups, then placed, under guard, in the area south of the City. Maria remembered from Carrera’s map that that was where he was putting all the service support for both north and south. Parilla said this was not intended to be some kind of human shield. He said that nothing of any military value to Balboa would be allowed within two hundred meters of one of the newer and smaller POW camps, excepting only that the legion might put medical units and field hospitals there. That was, so he said, so that the enemy could bomb with gleeful abandon using their extremely accurate precision guided bombs.

  Even as Parilla was speaking, most of the surface elements of the classis—one light aircraft carrier, one heavy cruiser, some corvettes—made a run for it to Santa Josefina, to the east, there to be interned. No mention was made of either the classis submarine force nor of the shallow draft patrol boats.

  Oddly enough, a couple of days later, and for two days after that, a series of convoys rolled by, heading to Santa Josefina, carrying some thousands of troops. Sometimes they stopped by the side of the road to rest, or to ask for water. Maria was there on one of those occasions and spoke to the men, none of whom would say a word of what they were up to or where they were going. She found it interesting that, while the insignia indicated that the men came from nearly every tercio in the legion, every one of them had a thick Santa Josefinan accent.

  We always did have a lot of recruits from there, Maria thought. And, somehow, I don’t think those men are going home to escape the war, not on legion trucks and buses.

  * * *

  In a deep bunker in one of Maria’s platoon’s little bases, Marta had her head on Pastora’s shoulder. Nobody thought the worse of either of them for that. She, Maria, Pastora and his optio were studying the map, going over contingency plans when they heard it, the sound of a jet flying low overhead. It paid no attention to them. It was obviously heading toward the City.

  Pastora said, in a subdued voice, “I’ll come by later, Centuriona. We both have better things to do right now.”

  * * *

  Enemy planes flew by regularly thereafter. Neither platoon had television, unless they went to the only major town in the area, so they couldn’t see the punishment being inflicted on their country.

  But they could hear. Over the radio they heard a mother weeping softly as she and her neighbors dug in the rubble for the bodies of her husband and children. Marta and the others clenched their fists and vowed revenge for that.

  They heard a radio announcer give a blow-by-blow description of three of Balboa’s obsolescent fighters shot out of the sky by some unseen enemy airplanes. And the pounding the island took? Sometimes they could listen to bombing over the radio and actually see the night sky to the west light up with the flashing lightning of three-thousand-pound bombs.

  Listening to that, worrying herself sick over Alma and Cat’s kids, Maria couldn’t help herself. She began to hate an enemy that, before, it had just been her job to fight. They all did, and yearned for the day of revenge.

  Desire for revenge warred with fear and frustration, however, as the enemy made their main landings, Taurans to the south around the port of Cristobal, Zhong to the north, on the Isla Real. The landings on the island were repulsed, supposedly with heavy losses to the Zhong, but Fourth Marine Legion was trapped inside Cristobal, holding on to the charred, ruined city by their fingernails.

  Then came the news that both Puerto Armados, on the Mar Furioso, and Capitano, on the Shimmering Sea, had fallen within two days of each other to enemy Marines. Detachments of Fifth Mountain had fought before being driven back, licking their wounds, to their enclave in the mountains between the ports.

  * * *

  One day, a lone enemy bomber limped by, trailing smoke. There was a puff, a lurch, and then another, larger, puff, followed by a parachute. Maria sent four girls under Vielka Arias to round up the pilot.

  When Vielka limped back to report, she showed a bullet riddled Zhong body and said, “He tried to escape.”

  Maria noticed that one of the pilot’s legs had been broken but that it hadn’t been done by a bullet. “Tried to escape?” Oh, yes…of course.

  * * *

  Bombs are very accurate. They will always hit the planet they’re dropped over.

  In the bowels of that planet, Marta sat with someone’s girl on her lap. With her in the bunker were half the platoon headquarters and a couple of hundred civilians. Civil or military, they all cowered as the logs overhead shook with concussion, dirt filtering down between them to coat hair and clothing, hands and faces.

  Why are they even bothering? Marta wondered. Sure, we’re here to be hit but it’s unlikely they even know about us. Is it just terror?

  A young woman, eighteen or twenty, Marta couldn’t say, shrieked aloud at a particularly near miss. That was understandable. It was understandable, too, that the shrieking went on long after the ground had ceased to rumble.

  Understandable, but not tolerable, Marta decided. She lifted the small child off her lap and stood. Bending to the girl’s ear, she said, “I’ll be right back, honey.” Then she strode to the shrieking woman, grabbed her by the front of her dress, and slapped her silly.

  “Will”—slap—“you”—slap—“shut”—slap—“the”—slap—“fuck”—slap—“up?”

  Wide-eyed, in shock, the young woman bit her lower lip hard enough to turn her chin white and nodded, quietly and very briskly.

  “Good.” Marta went back to her log seat and picked the
child up again.

  I swear, some people just need to be slapped.

  * * *

  After two days of aerial attack, essentially no harm had been done to either the Amazons’ or the Cazadors’ ability to fight. Maria didn’t lose a single girl to the aircraft, in fact, though a couple of hundred civilians were hurt or killed. Pastora lost one boy who took a shot at a bomber with a shoulder-fired antiaircraft missile.

  There is a reason they call them missiles rather that hittiles. The antiaircraft gunner didn’t even get a near miss and the bomber’s wing man dropped a seven hundred and fifty pounder on the boy’s lap.

  There wasn’t enough left for a decent memorial service.

  Not that there was time for a memorial service.

  * * *

  Within a couple of hours of that incident the helicopters started coming in, Zhong troop carriers. While that was happening, still more choppers winged past from over the mountains. These were Tauran, coming from carriers in the Shimmering Sea to help the Zhong ferry troops ashore.

  “It’s time,” Pastora said. Maria nodded her head, sadly, while Marta’s shoulders shook with her attempt to keep in her sobbing. Pastora shook Maria’s hand, then wrapped Marta in a bear hug. If that made the sobbing worse, and it probably did, Pastora was a big enough man, and strong enough, to dampen the shuddering.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Marta said, in a shaking voice.

  “I do, love,” the centurion replied. “They will not set foot on my land, nor place their boots on the necks of my people, without me and mine striking a blow against them. It’s a matter of honor.”

  * * *

  “Move away! Clear a way!” one of the stretcher bearers shouted, as he and another brought a bit over half of Pastora into the bunker. His legs were tourniquetted off, what there were of them.

  “He had a…a disagreement…with an artillery shell,” one of the bearers said. The bearer—his name tag read, León, and his rank said “corporal”—looked ghastly white with fear. Maria had the sense that his fright didn’t come from the combat he’d just come through, but from the knowledge that he was now senior in his unit.

  Yeah, Cazador, I know what it’s like to suddenly find yourself in charge of a goat fuck, Maria thought, with sympathy.

  “Find the optio,” she ordered Ponce, once she saw Pastora’s condition. God, poor Marta. Twice she finds somebody to love and twice she loses them in blood.

  Maria heard heavy steps, booted feet, pounding down the log stairs into the bunker. Marta raced over and threw herself to her knees, next to Pastora’s litter.

  “On your feet or dead,” he said, smilingly but weakly, “never on your knees.” He reached up a hand to stroke the woman’s cheek, softly.

  She reached up to hold held his hand firmly in place, sandwiched between her own and her cheek. “I think I told you,” she said, in a near whisper, “and demonstrated, too, that I’m not doctrinaire about it.”

  “I remember. You remember, too, that I was going to ask you to marry me if we came through this.”

  Before Marta could form an answer, one of the platoon medics came in, lugging an aid bag slung across her back. She took one look and shook her head. Even so, the medic said, “I’ll try.”

  Marta started to back out of the way.

  “No, Optio, stay there. Morale is as important as anything else in these things. Keep his morale up.” The medic checked Pastora’s dog tags and shouted out, “I need a line of volunteers with Type O Negative blood!”

  “I’m O Neg,” Marta said.

  “Good,” the medic answered. “That means you can hold his hand while I transfer blood.”

  * * *

  In the limited light of a flaring lantern, Marta stroked Pastora’s cold, damp face. Tears ran down her own cheeks.

  “Stupid men. Stupid honor.”

  Interlude

  The town of Concepción had once been small, peaceful, even sleepy. No more.

  Now it bristled with activity. It bristled, too, with weapons. It might even have been said to have bristled with the sharp points of barbed concertina wire that surrounded it, controlled it, divided it.

  Children watched, wide-eyed, as load after load of helicopter-borne men, equipment, and supplies descended onto the open field just outside the town.

  Young women watched, too, as those same helicopters disgorged dozens of young men, small even by local standards. If those men were small, they also looked strong, and even exotic. The young women watched with interest. Their own men, brothers, fathers, cousins, were mostly gone elsewhere.

  The interest of the young women varied, however. One among them was not looking for large biceps or matching those against larger stomachs. One was counting men and heavy weapons, noting locations for supplies, watching the interaction of the leaders and the led. This one took notes only in her mind; a pen and paper would have been too noticeable, too dangerous.

  The young woman who watched with a different eye noticed that the soldiers were, many of them, overage. She saw how they sweated in the muggy air. She observed how the looks on some of the faces suggested that their wearers would rather be anywhere but there.

  A very small dozer excavated a long deep pit not far from where the young woman waited, watched and counted. A protected spot for supplies? No, she decided, a command post; there are too many wires and antennae for this to be anything else.

  A lean man, taller than the enemy norm, wearing the uniform of the Zhong, oversaw the baby dozer with the keenest interest, as if his life depended on it. The watching woman could not make out the rank or name of the tall man from this distance. She wasn’t sure what to make of him…though she thought making him a corpse would be nice.

  A civilian clad man of middle years, his arms tied behind his back, was prodded forward to the taller Zhong at the point of bayonet. A few words were exchanged and the civilian was led away in the direction of the town’s small jail.

  The watching woman recognized the mayor—the alcalde—of Concepción, as he was led away by his guards.

  The taller Zhong, he must have been either the commander or his deputy, turned his attention back to the dozer and its work.

  Unnoticed, the watching woman turned away and slid through the town. On her way she made mental note of the positions of four mortars, what looked to become a motor pool, and the medics’ aid station.

  Then she stopped short, at the edge of the town. Half a dozen of her countrymen, all in uniform, had been lined up along a ditch they’d apparently been forced to dig. The shovels were still there, stuck into the dirt spoil. Behind them, a dozen mean-looking Zhong Marines stood easy, rifles in hand. At a command the woman didn’t understand, the Marines lifted their rifles to their shoulder. At another command, shots rang out, and the six men along the ditch crumpled into it. An officer, at least she assumed it was an officer, drew his pistol and walked to the ditch. Nonchalantly, he walked along it, stopping to fire a round every step or so. When he was finished he gave another command and the Zhong slung their rifles, walked forward, picked up the shovels, and began to fill in the ditch.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Remember that two wrongs don’t make a right, but that three do.

  —National Lampoon’s “Deteriorata”

  Maria:

  A tall, rangy black girl carrying a .34 caliber sniper’s rifle whispered to me, “Here they come, Centurion.”

  I risked a peek up though the narrow firing port of the position I’d taken up with one of my two snipers. Lucinda was by far the better of the two, actually. I can’t recall ever seeing her miss by mistake; not even once.

  Oh, very nice, I thought.

  I swept my binoculars along the enemy’s line. Ten men. One radio. Crossing an open field. Call it four hundred and fifty meters. Remembering a particularly unpleasant patrol in Cazador School, I had an idea…two of them, really. Without taking the binos from my eyes, I whispered, “Can you put one through the radio?”

 
; Lucinda—we called her “Zulucinda,” or “Zuli,” for shorts—answered, maybe a little miffed, “At this range? With this rifle? Me? Hmmph. I could put one through the microphone.”

  “Let’s not be overly ambitious,” I said, “the radio will do just fine. But let’s wait a minute until they’re all in the middle of the open field.” I took careful note of the faces and bodies. Yes, the one just in front of the radio operator seemed to be in charge.

  I thought for a second, then said, “Three shots in rapid succession. Wreck the radio, then two more at random to keep their heads down.”

  We waited.

  It had been almost a week since Pastora’s boys got chopped up. The Zhong Marines had come, pushed on, been replaced by enemy reservists, and then pulled out for their next mission. The reservists weren’t too well trained or led; not in comparison to our reservists and militia.

  Supposedly the departed and thoroughly unmissed Zhong Marines were even then making another go at capturing the Isla Real. Hopefully, they’d fail again. In any case, not my problem.

  I didn’t know how much of it to believe, but the radio was quite definite that they were not having a walkover there. I guess the part I didn’t believe were the reports of a large—to my mind an incredibly large—number of enemy warships sunk or damaged on the first day of the Marine landings.

  In any case, as I suggested, the enemy reservists hadn’t proven nearly so formidable as their regular Marines. On the other hand, they were already showing signs of being quick learners. I wanted to make sure they didn’t have much of a chance to learn.

  Lucinda’s first shot rang out and the radio disintegrated in my view. The enemy were diving for cover even as the next two shots lent them encouragement.

  “Come on, Zuli. Let’s get to the next position.” Lucinda was a tall—better than six foot—girl. That, along with her color, lent her her nickname. She rather liked it, I suspected.