Planning for the future, when you're that young and that in love, means little more than finding a secluded spot and racing to undress.
Ricardo had originally wanted to make love. Cara had not exactly refused, but had made what she thought was a reasonable counteroffer, a little something the girls in her high school sometimes gossiped over and sometimes bragged upon. He'd agreed, she'd tried and found that, while it was an acquired… errr… taste, it was a taste fairly easily acquired. The other taste was not so easily acquired but she'd managed. Twice. This was number three and… well… why not?
Besides, she thought, if those groans and moans are truthful I own him now. Can this little thing really feel as good as all that. Hmmm,
She looked up, smiled shyly and whispered, "Ricardo, I love you. So… if you want to make love…"
He'd started to lift her up, if only so he could lay her down again on the mossy bank. And then he froze in internal confusion.
I am going to war and I may not be coming back. Too, he remembered something his section leader had told the men once: "Some day we all must die. Whether our lives will have meant anything depends on how we have lived them. Have we done well by those who cared for us, those for whom we were responsible? Have we done our duty? Who, among the innocent have we harmed? Who have we helped? How is the world better for our having lived? I think God will want to know. I think He'll ask."
And then what if she gets pregnant and I get killed? That would be a hard thing to inflict on her and the child both, insurance and survivor's benefits notwithstanding.
Cruz whispered back. "I love you, too, queridisima. But I am going to war soon. We don't know yet what will happen. I hope I'll come back. But I don't know that I will. We'll wait then. Maybe when I return we can continue that conversation. For now…"
Understanding, Cara smiled again, bent her head, and continued her bobbing.
Herrera International Airport,
Ciudad Balboa, 15/1/461 AC
The blue and white painted Air Balboa BG-47 bobbed up and down along the taxiway as it approached the terminal. On one side of its designated gate awaited a similar aircraft, on the other a chartered Volgan LI-68 was already boarding.
Some distance away, at the cargo terminal, teams of men, some civilians and others in the uniform of the Legio del Cid, loaded wide- bodied cargo aircraft-a mix of FS military, FS civilian, Balboan civilian and more Volgan military under charter-with the wheeled vehicles of the legion. Since some of those aircraft bays stood seventy feet above the tarmac, requiring that the wheels be hoisted that distance into the air on self-mobile elevators, the loading was sometimes rather precarious.
The Balboan airport was capable of receiving mid-size airships, of course. But the debarkation airport in Yezidistan was not. This ruled out using LTA craft to move any of the brigade, despite the potential cost savings.
Parilla and Carrera stood off to one side, in a pair together and separate from the confusion around them. Carrera was used to the apparent confusion of a major deployment. Parilla was not and looked plainly concerned over it.
"Relax, Raul. This is so normal that it is the very essence of routine for something like this."
Parilla, despite this, did not seem to relax.
Carrera watched as a centurion stopped one three-ton truck before it nearly went over the side of an elevating loader. The centurion walked briskly to the driver's door of the truck, opened it, hauled the driver out with both fists and then held him in the air seven stories above the ground while shaking him and cursing. The centurion didn't drop the driver, however, but put his feet back on the ramp, pushed him back into the cab, forced him to slide over. Then the centurion climbed in himself to show how the damned thing was supposed to be done.
Parilla winced at seeing this. To Carrera it was… well, in small details, at least, he thought the centurions ought to have a certain latitude.
"Are we going to make it, Patricio?" Parilla asked. Carrera had never shut him out-even consulted with him frequently-but neither man had any doubt as to who was really in charge. Nonetheless, Carrera always treated Parilla as his unquestioned superior in public and a good friend in private. Politeness cost nothing, after all.
"I think so, Raul. We were lucky to have the freighters stopped before the Volgans actually began putting our armor aboard. They're going to fly the stuff into Yezidistan directly from the airport near the factory, all sixteen tanks and forty-four Ocelots, plus eight extras for floats, two tanks and six Ocelots. The other twenty-two still come here by ship, for training, of course. I'm still worried as hell about the cold weather gear, though. Those mountain passes are fucking freezing this time of year."
Parilla gave an involuntary shiver. "How badly off are we?"
Without inflection, Carrera answered, "So far we've been able to find mid-weight sleeping bags for every man, Anglian surplus, and about ten thousand heavy wool blankets for when we find out that a mid-weight sleeping bag just won't do sometimes. The Misrani tents we have will be good for summer or winter since they've got a good heavy liner to them, though with that desert pink color they'll stand out like sore thumbs whether it snows or not. The south of the country isn't desert, after all. Stoves are allegedly en route. We'll see."
"God I hate the cold." Parilla shivered in anticipation, despite Balboa's oppressive heat.
"So do I," Carrera agreed. "In any case, balaclavas have been ordered, good wool ones from Helvetia, but the order won't be filled for about ten days-ten cold fucking days, I expect-after the tail end of the legion arrives. Same deal and same source on the polypropylene-lined leather gloves. We have found some really neat polypro mittens that allow the troops to peel back the part covering the fingers for fine detailed work, but in a cold wind they'll be pretty worthless, too. Harrington's looking for leather shells to cover the mittens. Nobody had winter boots available for immediate delivery in the quantity we need and the boots we were offered were almost no better than the jungle boots the men already have. That scares me. I foresee a lot of trench foot in our future unless Harrington can come through on the boots. I told him I didn't care if the styles match, just so long as they are good, serviceable, winter boots. Maybe that will help. Then again, part of our problem is that most of the troops have shorter, wider feet than those found in all the places that make winter boots.
"On the plus side, we have gotten twenty-thousand sets of polypro underwear. It's already in Yezidistan and being issued, first thing, as the troops debark from the aircraft. Most of it will be too big but better too big than too small. I've had a local company take five thousand white bed sheets and convert them to camouflaged pullover smocks. Better than nothing."
"We're going be cold for a while then," Parilla commented.
"Very."
"Wish we'd had time to acclimatize the men to cold weather," Parilla said.
Was there a touch of rebuke in his voice? Carrera thought so but whether it was directed at him or not was an open question.
Parilla's aide de camp came up to the pair. "Sir," he said to the nominal senior, "the aircraft chief stewardess tells me they are ready to board you now."
"You're sure we should fly separately?" Parilla asked of Carrera.
"Absolutely," Carrera answered. "In the first place, God never intended for man to fly. Worse, He has an odd sense of humor. If one of those things comes down with both of us on it, the legion will be fucked. Go on, Duce. I'll be on the flight right behind you."
A bombero band stood at attention on the tarmac playing a martial tune, one heavy on the brass and drums. The legion's main band, the pipes and drums, were already long departed and guarding the headquarters in Yezidistan.