by Tom Kratman
Much closer, I saw and heard helicopters landing and flying off. More reinforcements to replace the units we’d destroyed here at the enemy base? So I assumed.
No longer able to support myself at the window I let go my grip, relaxed my legs, and slid back to the concrete floor. As I did so, I painted the wall and my back with something very unpleasant that must have been stuck to my backside.
I still didn’t know what it was, that sound, those flashes. I knew it could have been the enemy’s artillery blasting their way south to the City. If so, it was more likely both the enemy’s airplanes and artillery doing the blasting. I had no real sense of time, hadn’t had since I’d been awakened by the electricity. Maybe they’d been able to get their air fleet back up and flying while I’d been unconscious. Maybe.
A bit more likely, so I thought, was that our artillery and the enemy’s were dueling for the Gamboa Line and the bridges and fords over the river. I considered, and almost completely rejected, the idea that it was mostly ours, the legion pounding our way south to relieve Cristobal.
It didn’t matter in any case. Not to me. I was going to die there, I was sure, either in that stinking pit or from cardiac arrest in the metal chair they strapped me to in order to work on me. Or maybe they’d just put a merciful bullet in my head when they realized that I wasn’t going to break, that I would never break in time for it to do them any good.
About Alma I wasn’t worried too much. Carrera had told us he’d banked a really large amount of money in Helvetia to take care of the widows, widowers, and orphans of the war, no matter who won it. And Porras would live long enough to see Alma into college, a job, or marriage. Maybe all three. Porras wasn’t really all that old. I hoped Alma wouldn’t miss me too much.
I heard a lot of helicopters landing and taking off. I didn’t know why. I’m not sure I even cared. I fell back to sleep, my shitty back resting against the shitty wall.
* * *
I blinked. Light streaming into the room through the window had woken me up. Daybreak. Time to get reacquainted with the torturer. I began to shake. Yes, it was from fear.
I heard footsteps on the floor outside my cell, two sets of them. The shaking grew worse. I couldn’t control it. I’m not afraid of being hurt. Only a fool isn’t afraid of pain that you can’t control, that robs you of any human dignity, and that might last forever.
I began to pray, mostly for strength, though I mentioned to God that a quick death would be an acceptable alternative.
The lock to the cell clanked open. I heard a knock.
“Why should they knock?” I asked myself aloud. “They own the place.”
The door opened slowly. “Centurion Fuentes? Maria? Maria! Are you in there?” a voice asked, uncertainly, in La Plata-accented Spanish.
Epilogue
Rise Again! Rise Again!
Though your heart it be broken or life about to end.
No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home or love or friend,
Be like the Mary Ellen Carter, Rise Again!
—Stan Rogers, “The Mary Ellen Carter”
Marielena Mistral, Recruit Private, Service number 127-10976:
It was right after I heard about the massacre that I decided to join up. All the recruiting offices near my town were closed. Still, all I had to do was find one of the undercover people. He hooked me up with the sergeant. The sergeant filled out my papers, took my oath of enlistment, gave me a little traveling money, some directions, and sent me on my way.
I went through seven different way stations—rarely having the slightest idea where I was—before I arrived at the training base deep, deep in the jungle.
It wasn’t much of a base; just some tents and dugouts, those, and a large number of people carrying weapons. The people were mostly in uniforms. A number, like myself, were still in civilian clothes. Most of those, also like me, had just recently decided to join and only just arrived for training.
The men who ran the base were very nice to me and the other girls. I’d expected a lot of shouting and screaming, a lot of the meaningless harassment one saw in the movies. It wasn’t like that at all; not at first, anyway.
Those men gave us uniforms to replace the tattered civilian clothes we’d arrived in, fed us decently, then assigned us in groups of ten or twelve to some of the tents. Before leaving us alone, they pointed out where the nearest bomb shelters were and explained to us what to do if we heard the siren that meant an aerial attack was imminent. The camp had been hit before, they said.
As we went to sleep, all we could talk about was the counterattack. A great victory, the rumors said. A great victory, but perhaps not a final one. The Taurans and the Zhong had a vote too.
The next morning, we were unceremoniously hustled out of our tents and put into four ranks, one rank about a meter and a half behind the other. One of the sergeants explained to us what to do when we heard the command “Attention.” We practiced that a few times until he was satisfied. Then he told us to stand “at ease” while we waited for the platoon centurion to show up. The sergeant had a slightly feminine quality to his voice, but he seemed to know his business well enough.
The first I saw of the centurion was a glint of gold at the base of her throat. It stood out even in the faint light that penetrated the jungle canopy overhead. My head turned in the direction of the glint and I saw her, held up by two other soldiers—they looked like women to me; one looked very much like a woman to me. The centurion shook off their help and began walking stiffly, and with a pronounced limp, toward us. The sergeant, still facing us, hadn’t seen her yet.
She was a short little woman, very pretty, olive skinned, rather older than the rest of us. She was very pretty, that is, if you overlooked her eyes. Those were cold and hard, with maybe a touch of madness to them.
Her left hand was covered completely in a cast. There was a smaller cast on her right hand, mostly holding her thumb in position. The fingers of the right hand were free, grasping a stick about two feet long, with bronze at the tips.
“Madre Maria,” I heard someone say. “Whoever she is, she’s wearing the Gold Cross!” I didn’t yet know quite what that meant.
The sergeant heard that, glanced over his shoulder, and saw the woman. He came to attention himself, then called us to the same position. Smiling, he whispered, “God help you all.” Then he turned around and saluted the woman with the stick.
In return, she touched the stick to the brim of her hat, then said, “Post.” The sergeant walked off smartly to one side. I didn’t see where he went to.
The woman, the centurion, stood silently appraising us for a few moments, disgust shining clear in her features. She looked over each of us; you could feel her eyes on you, measuring you. You could feel, too, that you just didn’t quite measure up…not to her.
Still silent, the centurion walked stiffly over to the girl at the right front of our formation. That girl was a little bit plump.
The centurion stopped in front of the girl, looking her up and down. She said, finally, “You, little sister, are fat. You shall lose that weight…or I shall skin you. Clear?”
Speechless, the plump girl just nodded, quickly and shallowly. The centurion stuck the pointy end of her stick under the girl’s chin and said, “When I ask you a question, Ballenita, you will answer it in a loud and clear voice. You shall also append ‘Centurion’ to the beginning and the end of your every answer. So let us try this again. Is what I have told you clear?”
Shaking, her voice wavering still, the plump girl answered “Centurion. Yes, Centurion!”
The centurion removed the point of the stick from the girl’s chin and walked to the next in line. “You don’t look smart enough for this,” was all she said before going on.
By the time she came to stand in front of me, I thought I had already heard every insult known to womankind…and even learned a few new ones. To me she said, “Too much little girl in you. That will change.” It hadn’t been a question, so I didn’t a
nswer. I was certainly too afraid to answer her back. She slapped my face with her stick, even so, but just hard enough to sting a little. I forced myself not to cry out. Satisfied, she nodded and moved on.
When she was finished, the centurion moved—still limping—back to in front of the platoon. She said, “I am Fuentes; Senior Centurion Maria Fuentes. I am responsible for turning you little maggots into soldiers…Amazon soldiers. When that is done to my satisfaction, I will be responsible for leading you into the area where the enemy is polluting our soil…and for leading you against him.
“Now the Taurans may kill you, here or later. I may kill you myself, or send you somewhere to do something that will get you killed. That is what war is about; that is what being a soldier is about. I am going to train you to kill…and I’m going to train you to die, if die you must. If you do not like that, get out now, while you still can. I don’t need or want you unless you want to be here…on my terms. Remember, the enemy cares even less for your opinion than I do…and I don’t care at all.
“But if you stay, and if I decide to keep you, and if you live, there will be something true for which you may thank God. When women all over the world are second class citizens of their own societies, you will not be. You will be the equal of anyone, anywhere, anytime.
“The price for that equality will be fair…”
Appendix A: Glossary
Appendix B: Legionary Rank Equivalents
Note that, in addition, under legion regulations adopted in the Anno Condita 471, a soldier may elect to take what is called “Triarius Status.” This locks the soldier into whatever rank he may be, but allows pay raises for longevity to continue. It is one way the legion has used to flatten the rank pyramid in the interests of reducing careerism. Thus, one may sometimes hear or read of a “Triarius Tribune III,” typically a major-equivalent who has decided, with legion accord, that his highest and best use is in a particular staff slot or commanding a particular maniple. Given that the legion—with fewer than three percent officers, including signifers—has the smallest officer corps of any significant military formation on Terra Nova, and a very flat promotion pyramid, the Triarius system seems, perhaps, overkill. Since adoption, regulations permit but do not require Triarius status legionaries to be promoted one rank upon retirement.
Afterword
Nah. Sometimes a book just has to speak for itself. If you have a question, ask (www.tomkratman.com, hit “contact,” or in the KratsKeller at bar.baen.com); I’ll try to answer it.
Well…maybe one thing. Yes, I think it could be done, both Gorgidas and Amazona. But pretty much only in the way I’ve described.
Acknowledgments, in no particular order of merit:
Major (now Colonel) Kat Miller, Sam Swindell, Mo Kirby, Bill Crenshaw, Sue Kerr, Matt Pethybridge, the ’flies, Toni Weisskopf, the late Jim Baen (who rejected this way back, thereby giving me the opportunity to rework it extensively), MSG Dan Kemp. If I’ve forgotten anyone, chalk it up to premature senility.