"Allies?" Campos asked, hopefully.
"Besides the Yezidis, none," Rivers answered. "The Anglians and the other small packets from our allies are either needed for the major attack or are too small to be of any effect. And the Yezidis just aren't up to it even though they've been supplemented by our own Special Warfare people."
The Yezidis were a caste-based Kurdish group that had left the area of Mosul, Iraq, en masse early in the 22nd century. They practiced what appeared to be a pre-Islamic-pre-Zoroastrian, as a matter of fact-religion with elements of Islam grafted onto it. They had never been accepted by the majority Moslem population who thought them "devil worshippers" and among whom they had lived-usually not amicably-for centuries. The Moslems, mainstream as well as Salafi had often fought with the Yezidi, much to the disadvantage of the latter.
With the opening up of mass emigration to the new world the Yezidi had jumped at the chance to be on their own. They had a reputation as fine warriors. Reputation notwithstanding, they had been continuously stomped into the dirt by their neighbors and had seen their original colony parceled up among the Kemalis, Sumeris, Alawis and Farsis in the area. Even the Volgans had, at one time, had a piece of them. Rivers, who had worked with them in the past, thought they were posturing swine but, since the secretary had great expectations from the Yezidi, he kept his own counsel. He couldn't keep a look of contempt off of his face, however, and Campos saw it.
"What? You don't think the Yezidi will come through for us?"
Rivers sighed. Time for some honesty, after all, it seemed.
"Mr. Secretary, everything you need to know about the Yezidi is explained by their conduct during and after the Oil War. We told them if they arose in rebellion, in other words if they helped us by drawing off some of the Sumeri troops, we would help them. They rebelled all right, but they waited until after we had stomped the crap out of the Sumeri army on our own. They only rebelled when it seemed perfectly safe to rise up in the vacuum we created, and after we didn't need their help any more. Then they whined when even the shot-and-bombed-to-shit rump of the Sumeri Haris al Watini was able to crush their chicken-shit asses. They will do nothing for themselves or for us. Trust me on this. Politically they're unreliable and militarily they're worthless."
Campos started to object but… he's been there. He should know.
Eager to divert the subject before he said something truly career damaging, Rivers asked, "What about the Balboans? Could we use them down in Yezidistan?"
"One medium-light brigade to do the job of a heavy division, Rivers? I don't think so. Besides, that colonel we sent down, Ridenhour, has very mixed reports on them."
Rivers, who had read the same reports, looked nonplussed. "I don't understand, sir. Ridenhour was very clear that he thought they'd put up a good fight."
"But what about their losses to friendly fire in training, Virgil? According to Ridenhour they've killed nearly one and a half percent of their own people just in training and just in the last year?"
"Well… yeah," Rivers replied. "Losses are not something that would deter Pat Hennessey from going ahead. He might eat his own guts over it later, but he would never let that stop him. And… frankly, so what? It isn't like those are our people being killed."
"But that's precisely the point, Virgil. If we let a maniac like that loose near our people there's no telling how many… oh."
"Right, Mr. Secretary. In the mountains of southern Sumer-Yezidistan, if you prefer-there are not going to be any of our people, not until the 731st Airborne makes its drop. And if I know Hennessey, and I do, he'll just wave at the 731st as they drop and continue the march to wherever he can find a fight."
"Balboans, huh? Well… can Thomas get by without them?"
"Honestly, he doesn't want them. He knows Hennessey from way back and, as he so delicately put it, "If I never see the son of a bitch again, it'll still be too soon." They, ummm, really don't like each other."
"Does anybody like Hennessey? Oh, never mind. All right, Virgil. Work out the details and brief me. And by the way, how are we coming in modifying the plan to take advantage of the awesome shocking power inherent in our technological superiority?"
Rivers, who knew that the only difference had been to take the basic plan and a word processing program and add in the phrase "awesome shocking power" in one hundred and twenty-seven places, answered, "Just fine, Mr. Secretary. It's a much better plan now." Yessir, yessir, three bags full.
Casa Linda, 10/1/461 AC
"Son of a bitch!" Carrera cursed as he read through the dispatch sent this morning from the FS embassy in Ciudad Balboa. He looked rather pleased when he first began to read since the missive contained agreement that his legion would be hired at the agreed price by the FS for the coming campaign. As he had read further though…
"What is it, Patricio? What's wrong?" Lourdes asked.
"That motherfu… it's Campos. He'll hire us on but not for the mission we originally agreed to. Instead of going to the north with our equipment going by sea and then basing out of al Jahara, we have to go south-by air, mind you, which is much more expensive-and establish ourselves in Yezidistan. Then we have to fight through to where an FS airborne brigade is going to jump in, and continue operations with them until we link up with coalition forces somewhere north of Babel."
He kept reading before admitting, "Oh. Well, it isn't that bad. We get the airborne brigade's artillery and service support battalions flown in and attached to us in advance in Yezidistan. And he's offering to allow us to cost-plus the extra money we'll have to spend to get the Volgans to fly us in over what it would have cost for us to go by sea."
"So you will actually make more money than you planned?"
"Ummm… maybe. No telling what we'll face or what we'll lose. And I've been in those mountains before. They practically defend themselves, at least as long as they're not being defended by Yezidis. Yezidis are a net minus to combat power.
"It's going to be tough fighting, though. They're also moving up the date by a week and I am not sure we can have the cold weather gear we'll need on hand by then. Iffy. Lourdes, would you assemble the staff please? Key members only."
She was about to go, then remembered the phrase "tough fighting." That worried her. So, instead of going to use the telephone to spread the word, she locked the door to Carrera's office and went back to stand beside his chair. Then, somewhat to his surprise, she rotated the chair to face her. She dropped to her knees and began to undo his belt.
"This won't take long," she said, "I'm getting better at it. And I want to take every chance there is to remind you to come home to me when the fighting is done… and not to let yourself get killed."
Near Caridad's home,
Las Mesas, Balboa, 12/1/461 AC
Ricardo Cruz leaned against a tree in a secluded spot by the creek that fed Cara's family's farm. He and the girl were asymmetrically undressed, her with her top off and him lacking trousers. She knelt on the trousers so as to leave no tell-tale dirt scuffs as her head bobbed rhythmically back and forth, lips locked in a tight, and, since it was her first occasion, rather odd feeling "O."
Cruz had returned home on leave, prior to deploying over to Sumer with the legion. Before returning home, he stopped off at a small jewelry shop on Avenida Central in Ciudad Balboa and purchased a ring. It hadn't been anything amazing, as far as engagement rings went. Still, when he had shown it to Cara and asked her to be his wife she had seemed to think it a marvel equal to the Anglian crown jewels. Naturally, as a well bred and brought up young man, he had asked Cara's parents' permission to marry her, after she had indicated no reluctance on her part. They, weighing his prospects, seeing that he had already been accelerated in rank past most of his peers, and liking him in general, had agreed and discreetly suggested the new couple take a walk somewhere they could plan the future. Well, Cara's parents had been young once, too.