The First Love Of Alipang Havens

Eric had three boys with him, while Rosa had four girls under her command. Eric's party set up an observation post in an empty house along Garden Creek Road, while the female scouts were up within the city, in fact on the rooftop of the Federal Merchandise Center. Alipang's ambush squad was to the southeast of his father, on the south slope of the modest-sized Casper Mountain, overlooking Beartrap Meadow County Park. Eric imagined that Rosa's party would be relatively safe, with plenty of time to flee if the enemy got past the holographic ambush.

Eric did not know just how many utility tunnels existed under this part of Wyoming, despite his elder son having had an adventure inside one such tunnel. Still less did Eric realize that Jessica Trevette was alive, and had provided the Aztlanos with charts of these passages.

The above-ground assault force was not proving so aggressive since they had been hit from the air. They had not, after all, fought a real slug-it-out war in the brief history of the Aztec-Maoist Republic; terrorizing defenseless victims was more the style of Los Malignos and their ilk. When some of the Enclave defenders -- not Alipang's group -- sent a holographic illusion of a Texas Tu-95, the Aztlano center force wasted a great amount of railgun ammunition trying to shoot down the non-existent threat.

While manning his post, Eric saw to the west what he believed to be the Texan detachment's ambulance helicopter. There had been talk of trying to tranquilize the enemy with the old lithium chemtrail formula, although the recent Islamist insurrection had proven that there was such a thing as immunization against this gas. Perhaps the medical helo was going to try laying down some trank-vapors against the enemy detachment which was engaging the Transport Police; Eric wasn't sure.

The main body of invaders finally worked up the nerve to advance again. Seven of the armored personnel carriers with the rail guns came into view, crossing the ridge line where they could and evidently making for Natrona. Infantrymen -- or uniformed gangsters -- accompanied them in ordinary motor vehicles.

"Dartboard, Picnic, Trampoline, Pecan Tree, this is Overbite!" Eric barked into his transceiver. "Seven jumbo burgers being served on the patio, with plenty of fries." Even amid peril, it amused him to be using the code language that had been hastily trumped up. Dartboard was the command callsign for the Texas contingent; Picnic meant the team of Energy Department workers who had projected the airborne illusion, and who were also in the middle of trying to rig up jammers to spoil the enemy's communications; and Trampoline was Alipang's group. Dartboard and Picnic acknowledged Eric's transmission; Trampoline was keeping radio silence, lest their little surprise be spoiled. As for Pecan Tree---

Eric watched as a twin-engine passenger plane came from the north, passing directly above Casper Mountain, bearing down on the armored column at its top speed. This plane was remote-controlled by a Texas Ranger technician, so no one died when it was demolished by a railgun projectile. Shooting forward on its momentum, the wrecked aircraft crashed on the road in front of the enemy column, bursting into really impressive flames thanks to the extra fuel that had been loaded on board. With its line of march blocked by an inferno, the Aztlano force veered to pass through Beartrap Meadow Park: exactly where the defenders wanted it to go. Eric was reporting what he saw of this, when Rosa Cantu's voice cut through his transmission.

"Dartboard, Overbite -- Pecan Tree! Hotdogs on sale at poolside!" This meant, unbelievably, that hostiles were in or near the Merchandise Center. When Eric tried to call Rosa back, he could not raise her; nothing else was coming from her walkie-talkie. But by plain hearing, Eric suddenly made out a faint sound of gunshots from Rosa's direction. It was not automatic-weapon fire, it sounded just like a Winchester in an old cowboy movie. The rifle got off half a dozen shots before answering automatic fire seemingly silenced it.

Eric turned to his young Grange-apprentice companions, handing his radio to one of them. "We've been flanked; must have been through tunnels!" (Eric had long known that the Merchandise Center had a basement; maybe it connected to one of the utility tunnels.) "Mount up, quick! Skirt the city on the west side. Remember, you push to talk, let go to listen. Report anything you see, but avoid contact. Move!"

The teens obeyed their dentist. The dentist was the only one of them who had not come here by horse; Eric Havens was a far better bicyclist than an equestrian. Slinging his double-barrelled Remington over his shoulder and hopping onto his single-seat bike, he pedalled at his best speed toward Rosa's post. He was hoping that some of the airborne Texans would reach her long before he could; but as he raced north, he neither saw nor heard sign of them.

Coming up a street, he heard voices in two languages from a parallel street. One language was Spanish; the other, unfamiliar language seemed like something Asian. One of the Spanish speakers said something about being glad to be in the fresh air again; another said something about having "gotten rid of the old one;" and the first added something about "young nurses treating our wounds." The Asian-sounding ones must have understood the Spanish-speaking ones, as they began laughing.

From the cover of a fence, Eric sighted the raiders: thirteen men wearing police-style body armor and carrying assorted firearms. All but five of these men had suffered wounds of some kind, though all were ambulatory. Four of the unwounded men were dragging along Rosa Cantu's four girls. There was no sign of Rosa -- except that one raider was carrying her lever-action rifle, which grimly implied the brave old lady's fate. It was plain that Rosa had made them pay a price for her life. The teenagers might also have done some damage.

But it was no mystery what the raiders now intended to do with the Grange girls. No doubt they were moving southward because they expected their friends to be rolling into town any minute; also, it was possible that the tunnel they had followed went no farther northward than its terminus at the building where they had emerged. Right now, halting in the front yard of a house, they slammed their captives onto the grass, preparing to commence their cruel amusements.

All through his years in the Enclave, Eric had lived in dread of seeing Cecilia, Harmony and Kim violated by Overseers or suchlike ruffians, with himself powerless to intervene. His wife, daughter and daughter-in-law had been spared; but these teenage girls were not going to be so fortunate.

Outrage took over; and a dentist who had never lifted a weapon against any human being in his life, set out to make up for lost time.

Giving the thugs a moment to get their attention well fixed on their victims, Eric then sent his bicycle rolling toward them from one side of a house, to distract them. He ran around the other side, coming out where he could get a line of fire. One raider was standing where Eric could shoot him with no danger of hitting any of the girls; aiming at a body part which seemed unarmored, Eric sent his buckshot into the man's legs, rupturing both femoral arteries. When another man turned to see who was shooting, Eric put his second shot through this man's face. All this he had done on the run; he continued around the back of the same house in whose front yard the gangsters had paused.

While out of sight of the gunmen who were spraying bullets into the house, Eric reloaded the shotgun with difficulty. An old lawn chair stood close to the corner around which he would come; he kicked this chair ahead of him -- and reversed his own course, doubling back as the hostiles shot the chair. Returning the way he had come, Eric found himself face to face with another enemy trooper who had followed him. This man being ready to fire, Eric's only advantage was his adversary's expectation of coming up behind him. He gave this man both barrels in the face, then dropped the shotgun to snatch up the automatic rifle. Aztlan being less technologically sophisticated, he dared to hope that this weapon had no DNA-recognition requirement. It did not.

There was noise that suggested an attempt by the Grange girls to fight their surviving captors. In response to this, Eric shouted at the top of his lungs, "GET AWAY IF YOU CAN!!" Then he fell back, reasoning that if some raiders came around the house to get him, his own fire at them would not hit the teens. He had the good luck to be able to shoot through a corner of the house: that is, in one window and out another, felling an enemy with bullets through the throat. He wounded another as they came after him...

And then something struck him. He expected to die, but then he realized that it felt more like being hit with a trank dart -- something he had experienced once during his captivity. The man holding a trank pistol shouted something in the Asian language, then drew near as Eric sank to the ground. Before losing consciousness, Eric heard the man switching to English to address him:

"Kali devour me if you're not one of their leaders! Yes, we do know some about the people who live here. I can promise you that your death will not be ordinary, Doctor Havens."
 
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Scanty though the defending forces were, there were enough of them to keep Emilio Vasquez jumping as the effective commander of the defense effort.

Ranger Glenn Souter had in fact taken the medevac helicopter to try chemtrailing the western segment of the aggressor force. The event had proven that some of those Aztlanos were not immunized against the lithium formula, but some were. The immunized ones had put numerous bullets through Glenn's aircraft; he had been able to limp away toward Natrona, but the medevac helo was not going to fly again without extensive repairs.

The light-artillery-grade rail gun from Frontier Plaza, for which Leroy Lincoln had obtained ammunition, had been mounted on an overland truck, which then started southward along the same west-edge recreational trail on which Henry Spafford had rescued Odette Galloway last year. Tipped by Forest Rangers patrolling that boundary of the Enclave, the railgun crew had driven off a company-strength Aztlano ground force coming in from a new perimeter breach. The gunners had also gotten lucky and shot down the single Aztlano combat helicopter to have entered Wyoming airspace, when it came around to try to support the western force.

There was no chance of Inspector Lincoln coming back into the Enclave anytime soon to lend further assistance to the defenders. The latest word Emilio had of the Great Plains Federal District was that it was one of the districts hardest hit by the sudden power shortage. The majority of proletarians in that district had not plunged into still more brawls, being already too tired and disheartened for that. But it was bad enough that hundreds of thousands of them were cast adrift without utilities or food; Leroy Lincoln, and the police officers who had previously been inside the Enclave with him, had their hands more than full just conducting emergency civil-defense procedures, trying to keep the civilians under their care alive.

The four-engine airplane which the Texan detachment had fitted with four particle-beam projectors had not been sent against the enemy center, since it carried no blur-projector and Emilio judged that it would only be shot down by railgun fire before it could get close enough to the enemy column for its low-strength beams to have any effect against armor. So he had ordered Brianna Wallace to take her ship against the infantry force on the Aztlanos' right. Kostas Demophilos' combat team had been holding well, albeit with casualties, when Brianna devastated the enemy from above, using up about half of her available beam power. Friendly reinforcements were now coming down from South Dakota Sector, led by Grange huntsman Porter Hennepin, to secure that flank.

The Texans' Great Condor was almost out of air-to-ground ordnance, because much of its supply had perished in the missile strike on Ellsworth Airfield. At this very moment, Saul O'Keefe and his current crew should be finishing one more counterattack on the enemy rear. Besides the two bombs and single air-to-ground missile remaining, Emilio had instructed Saul to use the sonic stunner now fitted on the gunship -- and to fire his rear-facing rotary cannon back at the hostile troops as he came out of each pass.

Now an encrypted call came from Saul over the cognitive radio: "Dartboard, this is Flapjack! Dartboard, Flapjack, must meet you at Point Fajita for offline conference!"
 
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Sergeant O'Keefe's call was followed by a group of code symbols, which meant: Secure channels may be compromised, must speak in person. Accordingly, Emilio set his chopper on the ground, behind one of the low hills in the neighborhood of Natrona Airport. He kept his engine idling while awaiting the Great Condor's arrival.

He was not waiting long. The gunship came in from the west, and landed facing him, its own counter-rotating rotors also still idling. It had been flying with one seat empty. Roosevelt Hill, the specialist in brain-linked fire control, had been on the first sortie; but that had come right after many waking hours, and since the latest sortie had not needed very complex weapon control, Roosevelt had been allowed to rest back at headquarters. Saul had gone out this time with Lester Buckley, and the new woman Perlita Ramirez; one less crewmember also meant conserving fuel.

Emilio had begun climbing out of his cockpit, expecting to speak with his second-in-command, when he noticed two things. No one was getting out of the Great Condor.... and all three persons in the larger helicopter were looking at him in a way that seemed -- wrong.

Not waiting to think or question, Emilio hurled himself back inside his cockpit, one hand slamming the control switch he had installed for his new anti-gravity device, not waiting even to get his door closed. Number 343 shot straight up into the air, as the Great Condor's two forward-facing guns opened fire, taking pieces off of the smaller aircraft's landing skids.

With side door still flapping loose and seatbelt unfastened, Emilio swung his helo directly above Saul's; for the latter was already trying to get airborne. Keeping directly overhead, Emilio could block his attacker from ascending. And the only weapon Saul had which could shoot right up above the rotors was the blinder laser mounted atop the rotor shaft. Saul fired this, but polarization of Emilio's canopy foiled that attack. Emilio shouted into his radio, using the callsign for the airfield guards, but from there used plain speech:

"Fiddler, this is Dartboard! Fiddler, Dartboard! Mental-warfare attack! Enemy has gotten control of O'Keefe and his crew! Personality change! O'Keefe and crew tampered with, cannot be trusted!" He was saying this in order that others would know about the unexpected Aztlano trick in case he should be slain. All the while he spoke, he was matching Sergeant O'Keefe's movements, as the reprogrammed Ranger dodged one way and another, trying to get clear so he could climb and shoot at his commander. Emilio had him stalemated: Saul O'Keefe was piloting the more advanced helicopter, but Emilio Vasquez was the better pilot.

With one hand, Emilio pried his fire extinguisher loose from its bracket, then dropped it out of his open door. As the metal object fell onto his adversary's rotors, Emilio lifted 343 higher, to escape damage from anything ricocheting. With a mighty clang, the fire extinguisher bounced off of, but also damaged, the upper of the two co-axial rotors. A short but violently twisting fall put the robotized Rangers on the ground.

Seeing that they couldn't fly anymore, Saul, Perlita and Lester jumped out of the Great Condor, Saul through the door on his left, the other opposite. All were going for their sidearms.

But they had had to unbuckle their belts before they could do this, which gave Emilio time to be above Lester and Perlita as they emerged. He triggered a fresh burst of gravity repulsion from his Indian device; and since Lester and Perlita were beneath it, the force pushed them down into the dirt. While they were picking themselves up, Emilio circled around the grounded gunship; came at Saul from an unexpected direction, his rotor-wash kicking up an obscuring dust cloud; and thumped Saul's helmeted head with what was left of his landing gear. Saul O'Keefe dropped unconscious. Emilio flew back around to the other side, using his rotor-wash in the same way against Perlita and Lester, and stunned them in the same way as he had Saul.

Only then did he set down his own helicopter, which he saw had taken some bulletholes at the last moment. Using suspect-restraint binders from the supply he always kept on board 343, he tied the hands of his mind-altered friends behind their backs, tied each one's ankles together, and collected their guns. Then he took a hasty look at the Great Condor's external-ordnance points. The ground-attack weapons had never been dropped, and the rear-facing rotary cannon seemed to have its full belt of ammunition unused.

So they never did make their latest ordered attack, Emilio realized. Yet they did make real attacks previously. Whoever tampered with their brains, must not have been able to get a signal through to them earlier to turn against us. What method of tampering? Best guess is, an enemy agent slipped nanobots into Perdita before she came into the Enclave; she unknowingly passed them to the others she worked with....

He realized that his radio had been squawking while he had immobilized his assailants. Hurrying back to it, without even waiting to identify who was calling, he shouted, "Flapjack rendered harmless, but other tampering is possible! Take Roosevelt Hill into custody RIGHT NOW; get him scanned for injected nanobots A.S.A.P.! If he proves clean, get him to Point Fajita, and mechanics with him. Bring a replacement blade for Flapjack's top rotor!"

Once he had his acknowledgement, Emilio returned to the Great Condor. Apart from the question of who could be trusted to fly it, it would not fly again till its upper rotor was repaired. But since it had a fully-loaded automatic cannon to offer....

Fetching the toolbox which went with the gunship, Emilio detached the rotary gun, and hauled it with its ammo belt to the best spot he could find to shoot from -- at the enemy armored vehicles which would be on top of him in minutes. Spreading his flight jacket on the ground beside the gun, he set the ammo belt on the garment, so that the shells would not get dirty and jam the cannon barrels.

With all this going on, Emilio so far was oblivious to the capture of his father-in-law. Not that he would have been able to do anything about it now if he had known.
 
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Though seldom using it, the Texas Rangers at Natrona possessed a sleep-inducing helmet, like the one once used by the late Father Dunak Okigbo at the time of a secret meeting in Onitsha. Because of having been continuously awake for so long, Ranger Hill was now using the helmet. But when he was awakened by Dave Swims-In-Flood, the man who had just spoken with Emilio, he offered no resistance to having himself scanned for nanobots. The scanning device was one which the federal government had begrudged to the Texans; but Leroy Lincoln had had one, and had "accidentally" left it with Emilio's detachment when he was withdrawn from the Enclave.

Besides Dave and Roosevelt, the only Texas Rangers even at the airfield right now were two female mechanics. Transport Police Sergeant Pasquale was there too, with one other man from his own force, helping to guard the field. Other Rangers, those not airborne, were in scattered sniper posts, shooting at the Aztlano patrols which were spreading out over Wyoming Sector. Glenn Souter, deprived of his helo, had gone out on horseback to get a piece of this action. Dave wanted to be out south in the fighting with his Lieutenant; but the mechanics would be needed at Point Fajita, and _someone_ from among the Rangers had to man headquarters, whether Roosevelt was clean or--

Not.

"I swear, I'm not conscious of any change in myself," said Roosevelt, when the scanner showed nanobots inside his head. "But I know you don't dare trust me now. Unless you plan to shoot me, you can render me harmless by putting me back to sleep with the helmet, until you can get that Finnish guy's ultrasound array down here to kill the nanobots inside me."

It was as good a solution as any. But before being put back to sleep, Roosevelt told Dave, "Listen! Remind Emilio how the brain feed shifts to the corresponding firing solutions as the weapons officer _thinks_ about each weapon in turn; and when the black cross icon appears, it means that the weapon under consideration _can't_ currently hit the target under consideration!"

"Do you think Emilio can use the brain link _while_ also piloting the Condor solo?"

"Probably not; he hasn't had enough training with the link, he could get distracted. But if he can _borrow_ a pilot to fly him in the Condor, he'll do well enough on the weapons."

"Thanks, Roosevelt. Now, better get back to sleep, till we can guarantee that you still _are_ yourself." The temporary base commander assigned Frodo Von Spock to keep an eye on Roosevelt. When this was attended to, Dave ran to help the two women load the spare Condor rotor blade, with its fastening hardware, into a truck. He also had them take along two of the remaining air-to-air missiles for the combat helo. Even if no enemy planes showed up, those expanding-coil warheads would also play havoc with a surface target if shot straight into it.

Before proceeding any further, Dave scanned the women and even himself. No more nanobots, thank God for nano-favors. Then he got back on the radio, calling for a reserve squad of Grange hunters to deploy and give what support they could to Emilio's vulnerable position. He next put out inquiries for an available helo pilot. A _Forest_ Ranger proved to be available, a forty-something woman named Vesta Johnson. She had been flying a passenger helicopter, moving some elderly persons farther away from the combat zone; but she was a military veteran, who in pre-revolutionary times had flown an Apache Longbow. She would be able to get to Point Fajita soon, to offer her services as Emilio's pilot while he ran the Condor's weapons.

Meanwhile, the ambush party, with Buck Washburn, Peter Tomisaburo and some Grange members, ought to be making its own attack on the Aztlanos any minute now....
 
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There at the north end of Bear Trap Meadow Park were gathered the old Texan Buck Washburn and Peter Tomisaburo, managing the illusion device; Grange volunteers Alipang Havens, Henry Spafford, Ruby Vincent, Ladira Garvey, Chung Sun-Kim and Floyd Barrington, the last of these being from east of Casper; and three additional helpers named Jeff, Willard and Herb. These three, of whom Herb was just a teenager, were among the acqaintances whom Alipang had enlisted last year to search for clues regarding the rivalries between government agencies. Now, each was waiting to hurl a Molotov cocktail at the enemy; if they survived that action, they would by Washburn's orders be among the first to beat a retreat.

Alipang was as well armed as he had been the whole time he had lived in the Enclave. Besides his bow and arrows, hatchet and sheath knife, he had thrust through his belt a length of pipe about the size of an Escrima stick -- for luck, he told himself. And for extra luck, he had with him his gift from Brendan Hyland, the custom-made balisong knife. While not having so far found many occasions to use this balisong for anything of importance, he had examined its blade -- and had found that it seemed to be made, not of steel, but of a modern colloidal composite, possibly one of the new diamond-based synthetics. It could, at any rate, cut into a rock. So at close quarters, it might prove to be the next best thing to Peter's awe-inspiring micro-whip.

Henry, Sun-Kim and Floyd all carried the bows, knives and axes typical for Grange riders. Henry, in addition, had with him the steel-shafted spear he had made for himself. Ruby and Ladira, as was their habit, had crossbows: losing speed of shooting to gain more distance and penetration per shot. Floyd Barrington had once been a teacher of the deaf... till the Fairness Revolution had celebrated the completion of the lives of his students, as being "burdens to society." Now, in deaf-dumb sign language, his hands were praying for God to protect the ambush team.

The Aztlano column was approaching the point at which it would be closest to the holographic landscape-illusion behind which Peter Tomisaburo's party lurked. Ranger Washburn, reaching a hard-sinewed arm through the confusing mirage inside which they stood, tapped Alipang's shoulder twice. A moment later, with the hologram not yet switched off, Peter Tomisaburo sprinted out of it.

He had less than seven meters to cover, and he covered them as fast as was humanly possible. He dashed so fast that he actually ran _into_ the leading armored vehicle, cushioning the collison with one arm.... while his other arm swung the micro-whip, effortlessly slicing away a large section of the vehicle's armored body. This part fell forward, becoming a giant wedge which halted the machine's forward motion like a doorstop. Peter was already springing in front of the crippled vehicle, putting it between him and any hostiles farther back who might want to shoot him. His cutting of the forward armor left enough of an opening that he could see the astonished driver stupidly peering at the sudden window that had opened before him. This driver died an instant later, as Peter let out more length of micro-wire and made an inward flick which sliced away the top half of the man's head. Keeping the wire moving, he struck higher, cutting the mounted rail gun and its gunner to pieces. It would be good to capture one or more of these weapons intact, but at this early stage self-preservation trumped prizes.

Four Aztlano infantrymen riding in the back of the stricken vehicle also opted for self-preservation, diving out the rear door.

Peter's friends were not leaving him unaided. Four conventional arrows, and two crossbow bolts, had already flown to slay the first six enemy infantrymen who could be reached by the archers. After this volley, and while the male Grangers were nocking, drawing and loosing again, Ruby and Ladira ran southeastward out of the holo-mirage, together with Jeff, Willard and Herb. Alipang's three friends flung their firebombs into the middle of the Aztlano column, while the two women were cranking up their crossbows as quickly as they could. Screams went up from suddenly-charred footsoldiers, and two of the armored vehicles collided as one swerved in an attempt to avoid the flames.

But not every Aztlano gunner was rendered ineffective by the surprise. A turret rail gun discharged -- and Ruby Vincent's body exploded from the impact of a projectile, which went on to shatter a tree behind her.

"Run!" Ladira Garvey ordered her companions; for it had been planned in any case that these five persons would run for safety once the Molotov cocktails had been used and a second crossbow volley had flown. Alas, even pausing for that second shot had been too long a stay for Ruby. But Ladira, killing an enemy infantryman with her own crossbow, scooped up Ruby's and killed another enemy for her, even while evading laterally. Then she joined the three men in fleeing. As it was, she and Willard both were wounded by ordinary bullets as they ran, but not fatally.

Not very many invaders had the leisure to react to the flank attack, because Peter Tomisaburo was upon them. The troops behind his first victims had never even heard of a micro-whip, and had no idea what had hit the lead vehicle. The crews of the second and third armored vehicles died still wondering, as Peter charged in with his weapon whirling. Impossibly, what seemed like an invisible sword sliced again and again, hindered no more by armor than by the flesh and bones of the evildoers sheltering behind that armor. These two vehicles were demolished in such a way that their rail guns would be intact for the salvaging, if this engagement ended successfully enough. But now, for the moment, Peter stopped attacking and took cover in the wreckage he had just created. While he was hiding, he saw and picked up a submachine gun from one of his dead foes, and there he waited for the first wave of retaliatory shooting in his direction to pass.

Henry hurled his steel spear like an Olympic javelin, destroying one wheel of the next fighting vehicle behind the wrecked ones; for these were not properly tanks, and they had wheels rather than treads. Alipang, Floyd and Sun-Kim went on shooting at infantrymen. When Henry resumed using his bow, he began sending high shots toward the very rear of the column, since his Everstrain bow had the longest range and could easily reach that far. This caused bewilderment to the enemy's rearguard.

But the most heroic of archers were not bulletproof. Buck Washburn, aware of this, played one more technical card before the enemy's reaction could get better organized: he caused the holographic projector to simulate a wall of flame, as if more Molotov cocktails had just exploded, and made this phantom flame advance against the enemy. Besides giving them a scare, this also masked the locations of the Grange huntsmen, who could thus _change_ locations. Buck changed his own location, too: figuring that he had achieved all he was going to achieve with mirages, he ran to the far side of the enemy column, which had not yet been attacked. With a Tek-Nine in his right hand and a hair-triggered revolver in his left, the old Texan began shooting down as many exposed enemy soldiers as he could. His aim was lethal; each bullet found a gap in its target's armor.

Peter saw his chance to move again. Rising from cover, he sprayed bullets from his borrowed gun into all of the space ahead of him that he was confident did not contain any of his friends. Then he dropped out of sight again, as two railgun projectiles ripped through the space where his head had been, and sprang to the east.

Alipang, Henry, Sun-Kim and Floyd poured arrows into the enemy, doing plenty of damage before they lost the benefit of the flame illusion. Some of the Aztlanos at the enemy rear had started shooting blindly in the wrong directions, convinced that the arrows falling among them had to have come from someplace other than the visible ambush. But a turret gunner in the middle was not wasting his fire; he put a railgun shot into Chung Sun-Kim, whose upper body disintegrated as Ruby's had done.

The last three Grange hunters realized that they, plus Peter who was making his way toward them, were all that was left. There was no sign of Buck, and no more sound of his shooting could be heard. So, having caused the enemy far more losses than the defending side had suffered, they felt themselves entitled to retreat. Floyd made as if to try to save the holographic unit, which was on a wheeled cart; but Alipang yanked him behind a tree. "Just get clear! But I'm going to try to see if Buck is alive."

 
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Fleeing halfway over, halfway around the hill overlooking Beartrap Meadow, Henry paused long enough to send another long-range arrow at the holograph unit they had been obliged to leave behind. His arrow struck it hard enough that he could feel sure the enemy would not be able to use the device. Changing cover, he put two more arrows through the bodies of Aztlano troopers who were threatening to overtake Peter. For his own part, Peter sliced the trunk of a tree on the hillside, at such an angle that the tree would immediately fall toward the pursuers, making them cautious.

In this manner, Peter, Henry and Floyd made it out of sight of the enemy; and half a kilometer to the northeast, they could see that Ladira and the men with her were also getting away. The next move was to head for a fallback position within Casper. At the same time, they would see what they could find out about the unexpected enemy appearance at the Merchandise Center, which had been called out so briefly over the radio. The need to counter this menace was the only reason why Henry was leaving Alipang to his own devices.

While running, Henry finally had leisure to grasp the fact that today, for the first time in his life, he had slain fellow human beings. He knew that his Amish friends, with the possible exception of Ransom Kramer, would want him to feel guilty and ashamed over it.... but the Fairness Party would _also_ demand that he feel ashamed, and to heck with _them!_

Meanwhile, Alipang was carefully circling around to pass behind the disrupted enemy column. He did not bother feeling even a flicker of guilt for slaying some of his foes today, for he had already been over that ground, half his lifetime ago. But if the truth were known, _fear_ was another matter. Every past time that he had ever been in any kind of combat, he had at least been able to see how many antagonists he had, able to see what they were doing. Today, by contrast, he had been in a battle with too _many_ foes to keep track of; he could at any instant have been felled by a chance bullet not even intended for him. That was scary, because of the randomness it introduced into fighting; he could do everything right, and still get killed. He had not let this fear prevent him from doing his part.... but as of now, he had an increased respect for his friends who were war veterans.

With only two arrows remaining, Alipang had one on his bowstring, and the other loosely held by his left hand at the same time as holding the bow. He was almost even, in north-south terms, with where the center of the Aztlano column had been, when four soldiers came into view from the trees, moving from his right to his left. They were probably looking for Ladira, Jeff, Willard and Herb.

What they found instead was Alipang's last two arrows, and his hatchet. Each arrow perfectly pierced a man's throat; the hatchet, flung as Alipang dropped his bow, struck the third soldier's helmet, failing to break through the helmet but stunning the wearer. On the run in an oblique approach during these three missile attacks, Alipang had his belt knife in one hand and his length of pipe in the other as he closed upon the fourth soldier. The improvised Escrima baton forced the man's gun barrel down just as he began to fire; the knife gashed a hand, making the man drop the rifle; and a second stroke of the pipe knocked him out.

Fleetingly, Alipang remembered all the times he had watched action movies, when an _unarmed_ hero infiltrated an enemy fortress... killed or knocked out a bad-guy sentry... and then _failed_ to take that man's gun. Alipang was not about to be so dumb, especially since his bow had run out of ammunition. There was no time to yank his last two arrows out of their victims' necks, for the moment of gunfire would attract more Aztlanos. Barely enough time to stick his hunting knife back into its sheath. At least the hostiles wouldn't immediately open up on Alipang with rail guns, because their own men were down-range.

Snatching up the nearest of the automatic rifles, Alipang ran several paces back in the direction he had come from. From there, he fired a long burst toward the main body of invaders. Then he threw the gun farther north, making as much noise by the throw as possible, while he dashed south again, staying as low as he could.

The man stunned by his hatchet was awake again and getting to his feet, even as others were shooting at Alipang's fake-out position. But this man's luck had just run out; Alipang swung the steel pipe so hard as to break his neck. The other stunned soldier had the good fortune to stay stunned, thus avoiding a finisher. Leaving the pipe behind in his haste, Alipang retrieved his hatchet and the latest dead man's rifle, and kept running southward, using any cover he could find.

= = = = = = = = = =

Emilio Vasquez counted only two railgun-bearing vehicles in the force that was coming toward him. Crossing open ground, these went abreast; and both were firing their EMRG's. Not at Emilio; with a little elevation of the weapons, they could easily hit the airfield behind him.

But not for long. They were already well inside rotary-cannon range. Emilio opened fire, and the whining stream of metal, if not flying as fast as railgun projectiles, flew fast enough to break both armored vehicles into scrap. Having controlled his bursts to use just enough shells on each target, he had more than enough ammo left to destroy all of the lesser enemy vehicles likewise; and then it was the turn of all Aztlano troops who had survived the destruction of their convoy.

Emilio didn't wait to see if any of them thought of offering to surrender. These were the thugs who thought it was a sport to cut open living victims on a replica of an ancient Aztec altar, and their friends had bombed Lubbock. When a few managed to find cover behind wreckage, he simply carried his weapon to a new firing position from which he could get at them. He kept on shooting until he had only ten or so rounds left on the belt, and was as sure as he could be that all of the enemies before him were dead.

When Forest Ranger Vesta Johnson arrived on the truck with the lady mechanics, Emilio hurried to ask whether they had stayed in contact with Dave at the mostly-deserted airfield. They had, and so could report that no lives at Natrona had been lost to the railgun attack, though a parked airplane had been destroyed and several buildings damaged.

Emilio had Vesta help the mechanics on the rotor change for the Great Condor, while he dragged the tied-up aviators to the truck and heaved them in. All three were conscious by now, but said nothing. Emilio checked that their bonds were still secure, saw that the three women working on repair were doing fine, then made a wide-swinging approach to the scene of carnage he had created. He carried with him not only his own pistol, but also those he had taken from Saul, Perdita and Lester. He also carried some of the tools from the regulation toolkit on board good old Number 343.

No one shot at him; his own surprise shooting had been too effective. One enemy soldier was alive and stirring; Emilio put a bullet through that man's head. Under less desperate conditions, he would have been prepared to take prisoners; but right now, the Enclave had so few defenders that none could be spared for guarding captives. Anyway, nobody in the Enclave had _asked_ the fluking Aztec-Maoists to invade. When he knew for a certainty that no one remained alive of this enemy platoon, he went to work to detach the railguns from the two armored vehicles.

One weapon was too tightly wedged into the wreckage of its mount for Emilio to free it, but the other was recoverable. Picking this up, with its electrical accumulator and as much ammunition as he could carry, he struggled back to his friends with it.

"I wish we could add this to the Condor's armament, since it's got no more than half a belt now for each forward cannon," Emilio told them. "But I realize that we don't have the means right now to program the rail gun into the ship's fire control."

"We can mount the railgun on a ground vehicle, though, just like the one that Inspector Lincoln found ammo for," said one of the mechanics. The other mechanic added, "And for the Condor, we brought you two air-to-air missiles."

"Sounds good," Emilio replied, after which he sat inside his damaged light helicopter, to get back on the radio and find out how things stood. This was how he finally learned that his well-loved father-in-law, Eric Havens, had encountered hostiles, was now missing, and was believed to be dead.

 
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Chapter 138: Things Fall Apart, The Center Cannot Hold

Camerawoman Freya Vanaheim was licensed to fly ultralight airplanes. This proved fortuitous, as most aircraft any larger than that were grounded. She and Denise Heathcock, the former Dynamo Earthquake, had previously gone from interviewing the Salisbury family to covering an erotic-dance festival in St. Louis; the latter activity had been in progress at the time the Diversity States lost most of its electricity. Denise and Freya had survived some frantic hours which both women would always wish to forget, as their efforts -- mainly Denise's efforts -- to calm the panicking citizens had yielded little result.

Helping each other to scale a fence whose alarms and shock-current were dead, they had used Freya's high-level DNA clearance for use of ultralights to commandeer one that was large for the type. After that, with Denise hanging on for dear life, Freya had coaxed the mini-plane just high enough to get away from the metropolitan area. The network supporting Denise's dataphone had electrical priority, so the star reporter was able to search for the whereabouts of someone she would sure like to see right now.

She remembered the no-nonsense conduct of Inspector Leroy Lincoln, on the day when Aztlano jets had flown over the border from Colorado to bomb Kansas. If _anyone_ in the dubious law-enforcement community of the Diversity States, not counting the Texas Rangers who were seceding, could lessen the present chaos, it would be Leroy Lincoln. Certainly _not_ Continental Marshal Yelena Gorshkovskaya, who had just been discovered to have left the country, along with every currently-serving Justice of the Supreme Court.

Right now, the vaunted Fairness Party wasn't even doing a credible job of cravenly surrendering. But Inspector Lincoln was indicated to be here in Missouri, within the ultralight's one-way flight range. Denise was thinking that, although she and Freya had been unable to get hysterical proletarians in St. Louis to listen to them, perhaps their efforts _combined_ with a police presence would avail to create an island of rationality, so that at least _some_ Americans might survive long enough to let themselves be conquered in an orderly fashion.

Northwest was their course. Inspector Lincoln and some of his officers were at or near the site of one of the deactivated concentration camps, though Denise could not find out why; she could not get a direct call through to the Inspector. But now, unlike the past, Denise _could_ pray to her Heavenly Father to protect them.

At around the time when Emilio Vasquez in Wyoming was ready to take the repaired Great Condor into action, Freya found the guidance of Denise's dataphone information leading them to descend, aiming to land on a street of a small town in north central Missouri. It was the closest normal population center to where the concentration camp had been. Had they known it, the abandoned camp was the same one where Darcie Beale the hazmat expert had once been interred. At last, there was contact with the Inspector -- in fact, he called them, his own dataphone being able to hail a wide spectrum of channels simultaneously. "Ultralight aircraft, this is Great Plains Federal District Police! Identify yourselves!"

Recognizing his voice, Denise nearly wept with relief. "Is that Inspector Lincoln? There are two of us, the same two journalists you babysat on the day when the Sky Rangers broke up a bombing attack!"

"Earth-- I mean Heathcock and Vanaheim? How about that!"

"It's us, up from St. Louis, where things are pretty bad."

"Not many places they're _good_ right now. Half the government is running away, including everyone ranking above me in my own police force! But come on in; the approach you seem to be making is as good as any right now. I'll send one of my ladies to meet you."

Landing the ultralight, Freya mentioned that they had flown the last twenty-odd kilometers on nothing but solar batteries; all fuel was expended. The ultralight wasn't going anywhere else anytime soon, so there seemed to be no point asking for someone to guard it. As soon as the policewoman sent by Leroy showed up -- on foot -- the two newswomen walked with her to the hardware store where Leroy had set up a command post.

Or a food bank. Hundreds of common citizens were lined up across the hardware store's pre-revolutionary parking lot, waiting their turn to come before a sort of serving table where some kind of food was being doled out to them. Leroy Lincoln was doing some of the feeding himself, but broke away when he saw Denise and Freya being escorted toward him.

"Citizen Heathcock! Citizen Vanaheim! Now I can ask you, are you bringing any news, or orders, from Washington? If orders, or seriously bad news, tell me in private."

Denise lowered her eyes despondently. "No orders, and the only news is the anarchy and misery that you already know about. There's probably no one managing any better now than you are. At least you came up with some food for the locals."

"Not much in the way of food, really. That stuff we're giving them was in a locked storage building still intact at the prison-camp site. All of it is made from those leftover gen-mod crops: the mutant corn that was all for making ethanol, and the mutant soy that was all for making biodiesel. Which means that I'm feeding these people _entirely_ on fat and sugar, not enough protein to create one fluking field mouse. But I've told them the truth about it, and they're eating the rations because even _that_ stuff is better than literally nothing. My officers and I are eating it too; we've given our own emergency rations to local children."

One middle-aged man who had just received his ration made so bold as to interject a word, since the police officers here had been behaving humanely enough that he wasn't afraid to speak. "The United Nations will help us. It's all a global village, right?"

"I hope so, Charlie," said Leroy, as the man made way for the next handout recipient. The Inspector then faced the newswomen again, lowering his voice. "The United States lavished disaster aid on every quarter of the world for decades, and got mighty slight gratitude for it in all that time. We can't assume we're getting outside help anytime soon. But many of the folks here will recognize you, Denise, and they respect you. God willing -- I might as well say that, since all the former Pinkshirts appear to have split for Venezuela -- you'll be able to help me to keep these citizens cooperating. Working together sure beats panicking, or having kinetic negotiations."

"At least it's not winter yet," Denise observed.

"Yeah. That gives us time to do what the old political poster used to say, but now in an absolutely literal sense: teach people to catch fish!"
 
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Fluttery Madsden, son of the former W.A.L.N.U.T. activist Burt Madsden, had been at Jane Fonda Peace College when the sudden electricity shortage occurred. But the emergency was not so immediately obvious to him and his companions as to the proletarians, because the Peace College was a priority recipient for the remaining electrical power. Fluttery had been facilitating a seminar for adolescent bioproducts of the elite, persons not much younger than himself. The subject was "How To Attach Blame To God-Fascists For Every Possible Adverse Event." The title was not a joke, it meant what it said.

One of young Madsden's first illustrations had been a television appearance by the famous Bill Maher, a man whose name the Fairness Party had bestowed on an elementary school in one federal district and on a high school in another district. Twenty-five years ago, in the context of the September 11 attacks on America, Maher had stated with a straight face that the mere fact of believing in life after death AT ALL was by nature likely to make a person violent toward others. *

The Jane Fonda campus employed armed guards for the sake of the spoiled young aristocrats now present there. When the new crisis began, the nominal adults of the Fairness Party government had judged that their children were as safe there as anyplace; accordingly, on Thursday night after the seminar, Fluttery and his students had been left free to amuse themselves in the dorms all night as they would have done anyway -- with the understanding that giving pleasure to Citizen Madsden in particular would result in their being given a better academic evaluation for the seminar.

The Friday session of the seminar began as expected, with a lecture on how to cover up one's own bias when one cursed and condemned traditional families while praising every "progressive" alternative. But before lunch, it became apparent that the campus guards had run away. So had the college administrators.

Thousands of proletarians living farther out from the capital, but within bicycling distance, were converging on the Peace College because it had been seen to have lights during the night. Also because, like abused children still wanting to believe in the goodness of the abusive parent, these well-indoctrinated human cattle still believed that government was going to save them from whatever was going wrong.

Fluttery had the presence of mind to throw open the college's dining facilities and invite the people to eat. There was hardly any fighting. Everyone in the first wave of citizens, or very nearly everyone, managed to get at least a little food before it ran out. Then, inspired by the way his students were expecting him to take command, he held an impromptu rally on an outdoor stage. Since he still had electricity at his disposal, he was able to amplify his voice and project a giant hologram of himself as he improvised a speech. The crowd listened, for this was clearly a government figure speaking, and government was their provider and savior.

"Peace to you, citizens! The collective is all! From each according to her ability, and to each according to her needs! Always love yourselves! Distribution is the cure for all injustice!" Fluttery was able to recite those lines without thinking about them, buying time to put some actual thoughts together in his head. He continued:

"For five years now, you have all enjoyed the fruits of the Fairness Revolution. You have enjoyed protection from the primitive, hate-crazed Biblicals who resist all science and all progress. You have been freed from the fear of an imaginary Deity, so you would be free TO obey the erotic instincts given to you by Mother Universe. You promote peace in the realistic way, through the flesh rather than the spirit. Thus do you honor the memory of those champions of relational equality and economic justice who came before us, like Jessica Trevette and Trip Conklin. Today, all nations in the global village respect our oneness and harmony!

"But the reactionary forces of the nature-phobic tribal patriarchal capitalists do not go down easily. Driven by their hatred of everyone who is different from them, it was they who caused the recent outbreaks of fighting among unfortunate, deceived citizens. It is also they who have now caused failures in the usually-reliable national power grid, which the Department of Sustainable Energy and the energy-related unions have long maintained IN SPITE OF the frequent interference of oppositional defiant nonconformists.

"But I refuse to be intimidated. I call on all of you to love yourselves, and to love the collective effect of our loving ourselves. The towering menace of backward-looking theocracy will not overcome us! The vast armies of racist Bible-babblers will never defeat us! With our unity and our vision for the future, we will TAKE BACK AMERICA!"

The atheists of the Fairness party were always willing to explain away miracles as only coincidences. But right now, it happened that coincidence was about to produce a seeming miracle in Fluttery Madsden's favor. More than two thousand kilometers away, inside the Western Enclave, the Undersecretary of Sustainable Energy, leading by example, was working furiously to repair the missile-blasted power lines leading beyond the perimeter. And just as Fluttery was working his crowd up with a repeating chant of "The collective is all," the first re-connection was completed, sending restored current into the Washington, D.C. area.

Although Jane Fonda Peace College itself had never lost electricity, it did not take long for Fluttery and his crowd to discover that the power was coming back on in adjoining neighborhoods. This recovery having occurred after Fluttery had promised a "taking back of America," his audience committed the classical fallacy: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. This representative of the government media, by sheer force of karma or something, had CAUSED the electricity to return.

Thus did Fluttery Madsden become an instant cult figure, for all the good it would do anyone.

* Maher actually did say exactly that!
 
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When Emilio Vasquez donned the brain-link headgear for the Great Condor's fire-control system, he could still see the world around him -- but it had changed to black and white. The only things with color were the displays that reported on his weapons inventory, his field of targets, and the automatically updated firing solutions. At his direction, Vesta Johnson switched on their holographic blur-projector and took them aloft. Their own sensors were filtered to see outward though enemies could not see in. The two mechanics, meanwhile, drove back to the airfield; with them went the three mind-altered Rangers, the detached rotary cannon, the salvaged rail gun, and Emilio's anti-gravity device. The last would be recharged, in the hope that its owner would live to use it again.

Before committing to any combat actions, Emilio picked up all reports he could about the scattered, ongoing battle. The first report of substance he heard was that, similarly to the sudden enemy appearance in Casper, other Aztlano raiders had just appeared inside a power station fifty kilometers west of the city. Forest Rangers led by Lyra Bender were exchanging gunfire with these hostiles, who must again have used utility-access tunnels. The power station in question was one that supplied electricity for users _within_ the Enclave. Although there were backups if that source were cut off, it was disquieting that the enemy apparently _knew_ this particular station to be serving the exiles. It was further confirmation that someone with knowledge of the Enclave was guiding the invasion.

Eric Havens still was missing; but now it could be said that if he had been killed, it had not been for nothing. Four teenage girls had just come upon Henry Spafford and his companions, and told of how Eric had saved them from what used to be called a fate worse than death.

A message relayed from Mark Terrell informed Emilio that President Atkinson was improvising. Since all members of the Supreme Court besides Tim Govinda had fled America, Meg Atkinson had begun declaring that those Justices had been part of a vast right-wing conspiracy, in league with the usual generic evil business corporations. This enabled her to characterize the Aztlanos as _rescuers,_ driving out the wealthy capitalistic reactionaries, in order to guarantee a future of blissful collective oneness.

Emilio, however, now had targets in sight. There was one more armored fighting vehicle with rail gun, the last one still operating anyplace in his view. Vesta, following prior instructions, kept the Condor's blur-cloaking asymmetrical: that is, she kept their aircraft well _away_ from the center of the blurred volume of space. Which was fortunate, for two railgun projectiles shot exactly through that center before Emilio put his air-to-surface missile on target. "There's your oneness!" he shouted, as the last major surface threat in the close vicinity blew up. Keeping his cannon shells, the two anti-air missiles and the two plain bombs in reserve, he swept over the fleeing infantrymen who had been accompanying the armored vehicle, blinded some with his ventral blinder laser, and stunned others with his sonic blaster. Those might be taken prisoner, if someone on the defending side could be found to _take_ them into custody.

Congratulating Vesta for good flying, Emilio ordered a return to base. Unless more fuel could be dug up, the Condor was good for only one more sortie; they needed to conserve that resource.

Meanwhile, in Casper, a new scouting party was forming: Floyd Barrington leading the female Grangers while Jeff, Willard, Herb and Ladira continued on toward relative safety. The teenage girls, ashamed of having accomplished so little while first Mrs. Cantu and then Doctor Havens were sacrificed, were determined to make some contribution yet, though it were only the gathering of information. The oldest of the girls had borrowed Ladira's crossbow with its remaining bolts.

As for Henry and Peter: now that the more vulnerable persons were clear of the most immediate peril, they wanted to go back and help Alipang if possible.

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Another insert opportunity.

Maybe introduce the Yenovkians??

 
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Unaware that he had any reinforcements on the way, Alipang stalked south past the stalled enemy column with a wide separation. His latest captured rifle was slung on his back, no more of an encumbrance than a bow and and a full quiver had been. From his distance, it seemed to him as if many of the Aztlanos were trying to figure out what had turned their first three armored vehicles into metallic sliced bread, and their crews into cold cuts. Out of this confusion, action abruptly emerged: the surviving railgun vehicles opened fire across a broad arc centered north. Alipang shuddered at the realization that he had only just come far enough to be outside of that kill zone. He hoped that all of his friends were already on the far side of the hill.

His way had taken him past the mortal remains of Chung Sun-Kim and Ruby Vincent. He thought of trying to retrieve one of their bows, which would still have the advantage of silence; but that would bring him uncomfortably close to a lot of guns. As he continued south, he opened his special balisong. If he had to bring a knife to a gunfight, this was the knife to bring.

Whoever was commanding these invaders finally restored some discipline, and the column resumed its march against the evacuated city of Casper. Or most of them did. Four soldiers lingered behind, and Alipang soon realized that they were assigned to detach the salvageable rail guns from the second and third armored vehicles. Since they were so obliging as to do the work for him, Alipang allowed them to do so, while their friends moved out of sight. Four hostiles again, piece of cake.

Inching closer, he did his best to judge the right moment, when the complex weapons (which he would have had no idea how to de-install) were loose from their mountings, yet the four Aztlanos still had their hands full. Also doing his best to come from a direction where they weren't looking, Alipang ran at them with all the speed he could achieve, and vaulted onto the tail of one wrecked vehicle without stopping.

Held in his left hand, his knife severed the cervical vertebrae of the nearest man; almost simultaneously, his hatchet cracked the helmet of the next man. He then threw the hatchet at the man farthest from him; thrown, it did even less damage than when it had stunned a man in the previous encounter, but put this man off balance while Alipang pounced upon the fourth. This man was trying to raise a gun when the high-tech balisong severed his gun hand, and followed up with a disembowelling cut. The farthest man, who had been merely staggered by the hatchet hitting his body armor at an imperfect angle, panicked at the sight of how fast his friends had been killed, and tried to run away. This actually did him some good -- because Alipang made a split-second decision to risk taking one live prisoner.

Tackling the fleeing man, Alipang pulled his helmet off and punched him four times in the face, rapid fire. Then he glanced back north to see if any adversaries were looking back his way. They weren't.

His captive, another of those types who were bravest against the weak and helpless, was crying and sobbing, begging for his life in Spanish: a language of which Alipang knew only a little. And the coward knew no English at all. But Alipang managed to remember how to say, "Carry those" in Spanish, gesturing to the ammunition boxes for the railguns. The man obeyed, and Alipang put forth his considerable strength to drag away both railguns.

On the way, he caught sight of the body of Buck Washburn. He _couldn't_ leave the old Ranger while there was any chance he was alive, so he went to look. Washburn was unmistakably dead. "We gave them better than we got," Alipang told him, and continued on with his prisoner and his loot, taking the more easterly course by which Ladira Garvey and the three civilians had gone, thus diverging away from the enemy column.

This was how Henry and Peter met him as they came looking for him; they had found Chung Sun-Kim's corpse, and Henry had salvaged his bow and quiver. "I see you've been busy," said Peter drily.

"Ranger Washburn?" asked Henry.

"Gone, but they've paid a price for that."

Just then, some noises reached their ears that suggested someone returning to see if the salvage crew had gotten the rail guns detached yet. "Let's gallop!" cried Henry, relieving the tired Alipang of one rail gun while Peter took the other. Alipang took one of the two ammunition boxes from his prisoner, and all four men fled.

The prisoner showed no sign of wanting to be found by his compadres. Alipang guessed that the troop commander would not give this man brownie points for letting himself be taken by surprise and letting the rail guns be captured.
 
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It seemed that they had given their enemies the slip for now. Finding their horses where they had left them, Alipang said to Peter, "You were awesome with your whip, but you don't have the same stalking experience as Henry and I have. I suggest that you take charge of our prisoner and the captured weapons. Tie one railgun with its ammo onto Sammy, another onto Cochise, put the prisoner on a horse, and mount one yourself. Here, take this rifle to make sure the prisoner behaves."

Peter nodded. "I'll join up with a police unit if I can, or failing that, I'll head up to the camp on Teapot Creek. These rail guns probably can't shoot more than two rounds apiece on their remaining internal charge, but that would sure discourage any hostiles trying to attack the camp." Henry, meanwhile, handed Sun-Kim's bow to Alipang, and placed the Korean's arrows in the empty quiver still attached to Alipang's belt.

The Chinese agent and his little caravan got underway without mishap. On the eastern outskirts of Casper, he sighted a squad of Commerce Inspectors who were hiding between two houses. They must have heard the recent shooting from more than one direction, but they obviously had not cared to go any closer to danger.

"Hello!" Peter hailed them, not bothering to call them cowards. "Here's a prisoner taken from the Aztlano force which is less than ten kilometers away. You must still have radios or dataphones, so report his capture to someone. And tell them that his armored column was badly damaged, and two rail guns were captured. Unless a competent authority has other ideas, I'm going to take them to a defensive position farther north."

The report transmitted by the Commerce Inspectors did one piece of good, at least. Brianna Wallace, still airborne in her four-engine plane (which had the virtue of long on-station endurance), heard that the enemy's center force had suffered losses, and decided to risk an attempt to hurt them still worse. Flying in from the east as low to the ground as she dared, she came upon the enemy column in an exposed position, and let them have all the charge that was left in her particle beams, taking care to hit the surviving armored vehicles first. All but one of the armored vehicles perished, as did at least another fifteen infantrymen. The last railgun mount scored on the airplane's wingtip; but Brianna kept her plane aloft long enough to get away and make a rough landing close to Natrona.

Once Brianna's crew was safe at the airfield, Emilio placed her in command there, making sure she knew what selection of weapons was now available, as well as explaining what had happened with Saul, Perdita and Lester. This freed Emilio to hop into a small fixed-wing plane with Dave Swims-In-Flood, so they could at last scout for any sign of what might have become of Eric. In case the Great Condor had to be used in Emilio's absence, Fu Hai-Sheng was to substitute for Emilio on weapons control, with Vesta Johnson piloting again.

Emilio wanted very much for his wife's father not to be dead.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

As if to confirm further that they had prior knowledge of Casper, Eric's captors had brought him directly to The Church of the Faithful. The Asian-looking man who had made the actual capture of the stalwart old dentist here introduced himself as--

"Vinu Dandekar, special agent in the service of El Presidente Emilio Formentera. I'm told that you have an Emilio in your own family too. But I'm afraid that this is all you and I have in common. Well, maybe not all. With a little good karma, I hope also to have Cecilia Havens in common with you, and at least one of your daughters."

Eric refused to let the thug see him showing outrage or fear.

"You may not think of yourself as famous, Doctor Havens; but the forces of evolutionary progress have not forgotten your former activism on behalf of bandit capitalism, racism and theocracy. Besides which, your son Alipang once killed two men who were also part of the cause. A relative of one of those men is here with me, hoping to find your son." Dandekar nodded toward the young hoodlum from Los Coyotes Gordos. "I'm not sure what to do with you. La Bonita -- never mind that. Suffice it to say that leaving you alive, so that you can see what will happen to members of your family, has much to recommend it. Yet in case something might happen to take you OUT of my custody, I hate to leave you completely intact. So I think I'll just retire you from your dental profession; that is, unless your GOD plans to save you!" He laughed then, as if he had just made the cleverest joke in the history of humor.

"God has already saved me from things you can't even understand," replied Eric.

"Then I'll stick to things I do understand, like blood and pain!" exclaimed Vinu Dandekar. At a sign from him, the "Fat Coyote" grasped Eric's right arm and held it out straight. Then Dandekar severed Eric's hand raggedly with a large knife. Eric couldn't help letting out a cry of agony....

....which was heard by persons whose proximity was unsuspected by the raiders.
 
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With Dave piloting the single-engine plane, Emilio looked below as they passed over that area of the city which lay between the Merchandise Center and the storefront church. Suddenly he shouted, “Veer off!”

The Ranger leader shouted this because, in the streets below them, he had spotted some thirty men in camouflage uniforms of a design unlike anything used by Diversity State police agencies. They could not be other than enemies. Dave’s responsive evasion was barely in time. The hostiles on the ground had no rail guns or missiles with them, but small arms put holes in the plane’s right wing as it dodged to the left.

“The advance party must have called for more to follow by the same tunnels!” Without speaking, Dave nodded, and kept the plane on the far side of buildings from the Aztlano infantry, while Emilio called Natrona by cognitive radio to tell Brianna Wallace as much. Acknowledging this, Brianna asked, “Do we scramble the Condor?”

“Negative. Enemy presence around Casper not immediately threatening any vital objective, and we _must_ keep Condor in reserve. But have you got that rail gun I retrieved mounted on a truck yet?”

“Expect another fifteen minutes, counting time for charging its accumulator to power it.”

“Roger that. Can’t say if they plan to move against Natrona. They must know that the armored thrust failed. If no further orders from me, hold rail gun to defend airfield; but we might need to use it for counterattack in Casper. Try to raise other units in comms, find out if anyone’s free to converge on the city. Also find out what you can about any open movement of additional troops from the Colorado side.”

Emilio felt still more of the unremitting strain of trying to defend a large territory, with hardly anything, against unknown numbers of adversaries. Dave saw to avoiding enemy gunfire, while Emilio both watched the ground and listened for new reports on the radio. No good news had yet come, when Emilio _saw_ something that sparked hope.

Along a street which led in the direction of The Church of the Faithful, a group of people who clearly _weren’t_ Aztlanos was advancing. Emilio guessed them to be Grange volunteers; two had bows, anyway. Emilio couldn’t raise them by radio; but they had to have heard the shooting, so they would not be unaware of the enemy’s general whereabouts. A moment later, two more figures came into sight, on another street, where neither friendlies nor hostiles on the ground would yet see them. These two men Emilio could identify even from high above: one stocky and bearded, the other tall and very long-haired.

Even if there had been a place where Dave could land the plane right away, Emilio still had to try to keep the defenders coordinated. But he knew that Alipang and Henry would not be easy to ambush; and he could help them there. “Dave, give the gangsters another buzz, draw their fire, make them reveal themselves!”

Ranger Swims-In-Flood brought the plane low enough that, although passing at a perilously close range, it would only be in line of sight for a very brief interval. The gamble paid off: the latest firing by the enemy missed, and the direction Dave took was meant to distract them from looking toward either the first Grange group or Alipang and Henry.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

Neither Floyd Barrington and the four girls with him, nor Alipang and Henry, failed to recognize the light plane as one belonging to the Texan detachment; and they heard the renewed shooting. Floyd, not having spotted Alipang and Henry, judged it best to take his team on a wide detour; but from where the Filipino and the Apache stood, it was nearly a straight line to where Eric Havens’ cry of pain had come from.

Alipang might have tried to locate Floyd’s party first, if the agonized voice had been a stranger’s. But the distress of his adoptive father awakened in Alipang the fury and might of the ancient Moro blood which he had received from his otherwise-worthless birth father. Henry’s Apache blood responded to the same battle-call.

“Henry! I know the rear entrance to the church! You draw their attention in front, without needless risk, while I get around behind!”--and the Escrimador was on his way.
 
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(This completes the current chapter, anyway)

Arriving in view of The Church of the Faithful, pausing at a corner of an opposite building, Henry was stationed at an angle where he could just see that two men were looking out the church’s western windows, presumably because they had heard the gunfire from that direction. All right, then my attention-getter should be the more startling for them.

No one seemed to be looking out the front windows. Having given Alipang a moment to reach the back of the building, Henry took the chance of running up quite close. A rock would have been handy to throw at one of the front windows, but he had none. So he knelt as low as he could while still being able to use his bow, and sent an arrow through a front windowpane at a rising angle, hoping that this would ensure the arrow _not_ hitting the very man he and his friend were trying to rescue. Then he counted to five: surely long enough that Alipang would be breaking in the back door as Henry went for the front....

= = = = = = = = = = =

Alipang was nearly thwarted at the crucial instant, for the building’s rear door was a steel door; and despite the usual Enclave practice of keeping doors unlocked, this door on this day happened somehow to BE locked. But he remembered his super-hard balisong blade, and used it to sever the _hinges_ of the door. That was enough weakening, that the door could be torn loose and tossed aside by a Moro in full berserk rage.

The front window had already been smashed by Henry’s arrow before Alipang got inside, but he moved fast enough not to lose the benefit of the diversion. Bounding from the back room onto the pastor’s platform, he beheld his foes -- and his father.

Eric Havens was to his son’s left, and wore a tourniquet around his right forearm. One man was watching him -- the same, had Alipang known it, who had held Eric’s arm in place for the impromptu amputation. Eric and his guard were the only men who happened to be looking toward the head of the sanctuary; thus, the first to see Alipang coming in. The Aztlano, who seemed to have laid aside his rifle, raised a pistol; but Eric swung a leg, sweeping the thug’s feet out from under him. The gunshot was wasted on the ceiling.

From there, everything accelerated. Alipang put an arrow through the forehead of the next man who seemed ready to shoot at him; at the same time, Henry burst in the front door and shot two more, again selecting the most immediate threats. Dashing toward his father, Alipang made sure that the enemy next to him was out of action, by putting an arrow through that man’s stomach as he tried to retrieve his dropped pistol. Then Alipang and Henry, as if with one mind, dropped their bows and waded into their surviving enemies with knives and axes, Henry uttering his best approximation of an Apache war-cry.

Not one of the Aztlano hoodlums was able to get a shot off to any effect -- excepting one whose rifle was knocked aside by Henry, so that the bullet struck another Aztlano instead. The center of the church sanctuary was deluged with blood, but none of it was Alipang’s or Henry’s. Less than one minute after Henry’s diversionary window-breaking, the only enemies alive inside the church were the one wounded by a comrade’s bullet, and the worse-wounded man lying beside Eric.

Vinu Dandekar lay in the midst of his men, his brain spilling out of a skull split by Henry's axe.

It would have been much harder for the two Grange huntsmen if they had had to contend at close quarters with one of the strength-enhanced men prepared in Aztlan by the enslaved scientist Nora Daley. Unknown to Alipang and Henry, one of these had been in the enemy's tunnel-scouting party; but that man's giant strength had not protected him from the buckshot that Eric Havens had put through his femoral arteries.

Without needing a suggestion, Henry dashed to one of the same western windows from which the raiders had been looking before, and scanned for any new hostiles coming into sight. Alipang grabbed up the dropped rifle of the bullet-wounded Aztlano, more to keep that man from using it than to use it himself, and returned to his father’s side.

For a man who had never been called to be a warrior in the physical sense, Eric Havens was showing now, late in life, what strength was in him. He was fully coherent as his son knelt to examine him. “Al, don’t drop your guard... might be others.”

“We’ll be all right, Dad.” Fresh from killing enemies without a qualm, the descendant of Moro fanatics wept now at the sight of his father’s mutilation.

“So will I,” gasped Eric. “The hand’s the only thing, and they tied it off quickly. I can tell I didn’t lose a fatal amount of blood, or my head wouldn’t be so clear. But what about the girls, the ones who went with Rosa?”

“They got away, Dad; you saved them. Now keep still, while I--“

Alipang was interrupted by the stomach-pierced man: “Die! Die! You have to die!” As he groaned these words, he was trying to draw a belt knife. “You killed Clemente! It had to be a trick! You couldn’t-- beat him--!”

Alipang stared at his enemy; all at once, the man’s face became familiar. It became the face of a gangster who had assaulted the Pansit Paradise Restaurant on a bygone Christmas Eve; and the identities of that night’s criminals, determined later by the police, popped back into Alipang’s brain. “Do you mean Clemente Pasquale?”

“I do, Alipang Havens! I’m Raul Pasquale of Los Coyotes Gordos, Clemente’s brother!” Getting his knife clear of the sheath, he tried to lift himself off the blood-soaked floor. “You couldn’t beat him fairly, and you can’t beat me! No one can defeat The Race!”

Remembering his toughened skin, courtesy of Doctors Verble and Swift, Alipang closed his left hand directly on the the belt knife's keen blade, easily pulling the weapon out of Raul Pasquale’s grasp without harm to himself. “I don’t have time for this! But _you_ have all eternity to have your nose rubbed in how _wrong_ you are!” Flipping the confiscated blade to put the hilt in his hand, he served the younger brother the same death he had given to the elder brother: a throat cut open like a melon. Then, lacking time to detach the sheath it had come from, he slid the knife down beside Chung Sun-Kim's arrows in his quiver, likewise recovering the arrow from Raul Pasquale's stomach. Henry, meanwhile, had finished off the other wounded Aztlano. Alive as prisoners, they would have been a risky encumbrance; alive and free, they could have set their friends on Alipang and Henry’s trail. Dead and in Hell, they would make no more trouble.

Gunshots were audible from outdoors, but these seemed to be moving away, not closer.

Alipang slung his captured rifle behind him; hoisted his father onto his shoulders as if he weighed nothing at all; and retrieved his bow. Henry also helped himself to a rifle, and they fled the church by the way Alipang had entered. Seeing no hostiles on that side, they ran for their lives. Only after they had covered many blocks -- coming near, in fact, to the neighborhood of Eric’s own house, though this was no refuge for them now -- did Henry urge Alipang to let him take Eric for awhile. As he was transferred onto Henry’s shoulders, the injured man rasped out: “Al, you killed a defenseless man.”

“I executed a murderer, Dad. His life was forfeit, and he had no right to enjoy any revenge for his gangster brother. If it had been _safe_ to spare him, I might have, assuming he even did live after that gut shot; but his life had NO claim on me, compared to your life.” With that, the three Americans were on their way again, leaving behind not only a dead Raul Pasquale with his revenge unattained, but also a dead Vinu Dandekar not getting to offer Eric Havens to his leaders as a captive to torture. They never did see where Eric's severed right hand had gotten to.

No war has only one or two heroes. As Alipang and Henry would learn later, the reason why they made it cleanly away was the fact that, together with Emilio's actions in the air, Floyd Barrington and the girls with him had lured the Aztlano reinforcements into chasing them. Floyd’s party also escaped in the end -- but not before the girl carrying Ladira Garvey’s crossbow put a bolt through the neck of one pursuing invader. For Mrs. Cantu.

Leaving Casper on a northeast line, Alipang and Henry beheld a sight too good to be true, but it was true. Terrance and Harmony Havens, unable to endure not knowing what was happening to their father and elder brother, had borrowed horses and come riding down from Teapot Creek as fast as they could without harm to their mounts. Once aware of the situation, Terrance dismounted and lifted their father onto his horse. “Get him back to the camp,” he told his sister; “I’ll stay with Al and Henry!”

“All right,” Harmony replied reluctantly; “but don’t _any_ of you guys go and get killed!”

As Harmony turned back, leading the horse that carried her father, Alipang noted that his younger brother had come without weapons in his haste. “There just _aren’t_ many weapons to be had, thanks to our noble government,” Terrance explained with a shrug.

“Then take these, you have some training with them,” Alipang told Terrance, detaching his quiver and handing it over with Sun-Kim's bow. "Careful with the quiver, there's a spare knife inside it, with no sheath." He also removed his left-arm archery brace and handed it over as well. He had only bothered using it at all as a precaution, in case the slap of his bowstring might come down just _outside_ his area of toughened skin.

“Shall we see if we can take some scalps?” Henry invited.

 
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Chapter 139: Reductio Ad Absurdum

In Beijing, on a hotel floor set aside for diplomatic personnel from the Diversity States, diplomatic personnel hovered in limbo, unsure if there was any more Diversity States to represent or to go home to. The most prominent Americans awake at this early morning hour were Benito Salazar and Reltseotu Smith, who sat in a holovision lounge watching a Brazilian newscast.

President Megavolt Atkinson had been given refuge at the Chinese Embassy, a place no one would dare to attack. From there, she was trying to persuade someone in Aztlan to accept her surrender, along with her doubling and tripling of past apologies for the way the evil horrible old United States had caused all the world's troubles all by itself. The Vice-President was missing. The Great Lakes Muslim Cantonment was negotiating with Canada for independence, the Diversity States no longer being relevant. Texas _was_ a de facto independent country by now, taking two-thirds of Oklahoma and a section of Louisiana with it. The Northwest Federal District was begging to be annexed by Canada, post-haste, before Aztlan began sending troops north from California.

The inhabitants of the Western Enclave not only were holding off their Aztlano attackers, but had even managed to restore near-normal electrical power to the rest of the D.S.A., greatly alleviating conditions for common citizens even amid the present chaos. Fairness Party bureaucrats in the district governments, though bereft of top-level guidance, were giving themselves credit for ending the brownout -- something which, so far, the Brazilian streamcasters were not contradicting. It was just that Reltseotu and Benito themselves knew who _really_ had the brains and guts to have done something about that emergency.

"Do you think Mexico will intervene today?" Benito asked, feeling a need to say _something_ amid his fear and powerlessness.

"I should think they would," replied Reltseotu beside him. Not yet having had all her delusions bludgeoned out of her, she followed this by saying, "Mexicans know as well as anyone what harm is done by white-supremacist neo-Nazis, so they'll surely move to set things right for the oppressed bronze peoples."

Benito, himself as Hispanic as they came, suddenly snorted. "What the _fluke_ are you talking about, Relly? Are you watching the same news I am? Those are 'bronze' people _doing_ the oppressing! And if Mexico intervenes, I hope to Gaia that they'll be doing it for _humanity,_ not for a scragging skin color!"

Reltseotu took three long breaths, then said, "Benito.... if this isn't about what I've wanted it to be about.... if the Aztlanos _aren't_ poor victims of white Christian imperialism.... if _they're_ the unprovoked aggressors.... then everything you and I have built our careers on--"

"--Is garbage, and always was, and you always _knew_ it was!" barked a manly voice from behind the sofa. Reltseotu and Benito turned their heads, to see two men with a strong military bearing, though one, a white man, was in civilian clothes. The one in a uniform was the familiar Lieutenant-Colonel Yang Sung-Kuo; the other, who had just spoken, was unfamiliar to Benito. But Reltseotu, to her intense discomfort, recognized Brendan Hyland, once of the United States Marines, now a Nigerian citizen.

"Don't bother opening your mouth, Miss Maggot," Brendan added. "You deliberately lied about me and my men when we repelled that Neo-Marxist offensive. You deserve to go down with your joke of a government; but for the sake of civilians who are a lot more innocent than you are, someone's about to offer you and the Dead-Worm-City States a way out."

Yang Sung-Kuo's face was a stereotypical Chinese deadpan, showing no sign of even having heard Brendan. But precisely as Brendan stopped, Yang said mildly, "Ambassador Salazar, Ambassador Smith, if you'll come with us, you'll soon find out what is the offer being extended to you. And Ambassador Smith, I recommend that you allow Ambassador Salazar to do most of the talking. Not because he is male, but because as an individual he seems to possess more brain cells than you do."

Benito spoke up at this. "May I ask whom we're going to see?"

Yang looked at Brendan. "That isn't for me to decide, but I see no reason for keeping them unaware."

The secret-army agent nodded, then faced the diplomats again. "You're going to meet with Thomas Guduza of the African Union. And when you hear his proposition, you'll probably be surprised at how much it pleases you."

 
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A nearby hotel was home base for those diplomats who represented the African Union and its individual member states. Thomas Guduza, who spoke for that alliance as a whole, occupied the penthouse. Lieutenant-Colonel Yang escorted Brendan, Reltseotu and Benito to the express elevator, then excused himself. The final glimpse Reltseotu had of the Chinese officer's face gave her the impression that Yang understood, and was amused by, her fear of the warrior whom she had premeditatedly slandered.

But Brendan Hyland not only did not boil her in oil right there in the elevator, he didn't even look at her. Arriving at the penthouse level, Brendan went first to the security door and presented both his irises -- the new irises from his tissue regeneration -- to the iris reader. The door opened, and he beckoned the two diplomats to follow him in.

Thomas Guduza had a proper patriarchal air about him. One other black man, many years younger, was with him. Benito, who had paid more attention to his actual job than Reltseotu had ever done, recognized the younger man as readily as he recognized Secretary Guduza.

"Ambassador Westmore! Pleased to see you!" A sidelong glance advising him that his colleague was staring blankly, Benito told her, "He's the Liberian Ambassador."

Reltseotu made the best recovery she could contrive. "Oh, of course! Mister Ambassador, Mister General Secretary, please pardon me; I've been preoccupied with studying ways to reconcile the racial hatreds and the outbreak of fighting in North America."

"Shut up," said Carson Westmore flatly. "We don't have time for your gutflak. Sit down. You too, Ambassador Salazar." His tone was less harsh toward Benito, but Benito was scarcely less nervous for that. Brendan stood silently behind the chairs in which the American diplomats now seated themselves. Westmore looked at Guduza, who took over.

"If we wished you harm, we need only have asked the Chinese to ship you back to the D.S.A., where you could learn exactly how gracious the Aztlanos intend to be in their presumed victory. Presumed by them, that is; they may have some surprises coming. But to pave the way for the surprises, we have to deal with global opinion: a mindset which you and your Fairness Party have promoted for as long as you've been in business. For you to understand what is entailed, I must present a lesson in _your_ country's history: its _actual_ history, which you have tried not to know and tried to prevent others from knowing.

"The United States of America was founded, more than anything else, on an _idea:_ the idea that individuals had value, and that a government was morally obligated to respect the people's rights. Whatever systemic flaws were present at the start, the root idea possessed such moral force that it could grow and expand, until the flaws were corrected. You totalitarians of the Diversity States have mouthed empty words about being for the people, but you have at every point been _completely_ aware that you were lying. You never had any other intention than to be a ruling elite."

Reltseotu could not believe that her own largely African ancestry counted for nothing with Thomas Guduza. She sputtered, "But, but, the slave trade! Segregation! Inequality! Genocide!"

"Listen carefully, Miss Smith. I don't even say Citizen Smith, because there's doubt now of your _having_ a country to be a citizen of. So listen. There was not one injustice committed within, or by, the United States in its history, which was not equally committed, or even more so, by many _other_ nations. But most of those other nations never had the _honesty_ the United States had, to _confess_ their faults and try to make amends." Guduza cast a glance at Westmore, who had something to interject:

"You probably don't even know this, but my own country was _created_ by the United States. It was a colony of liberated slaves, which was why they _called_ it Liberia. One example of Americans trying to undo the harm they had done."

"In contrast," Guduza resumed, "to the Turks denying their genocide against the Armenians; the Japanese pretending they didn't oppress the Koreans; the French pretending they didn't help the Nazi invaders to round up Jews; the Chinese denying that they did any wrong to Tibet; or today's Aztlanos, claiming Aztec heritage, and brazenly _defending_ the Aztec tradition of human sacrifice."

Brendan felt a need now to add one point of his own. Leaning close above Reltseotu's shoulder, he muttered, "In some of your past propaganda diatribes, with reference to the United States, you have resorted to the platitude that 'It's the winners who write the history books.' But you knew, or you could easily _have_ known if you'd bothered to find out, that _losers_ were allowed to write history books in the United States. Native Americans, Mexicans, Soviet Communists, all had free access to the American audience, all were able to tell their side of events. But you didn't want to give us any credit for that." He looked back at Guduza, as if to say he was finished. The General Secretary nodded at Brendan, then looked at Reltseotu again.

"As Lieutenant Hyland says, there was a love of truth in the American system, which persons like you didn't want to acknowledge. Yes, the Johnson administration lied about the Tonkin Gulf incident; yes, Nixon covered up Watergate; but those leaders _didn't_ send secret police to arrest or kill everyone who _denounced_ their corrupt actions. The real suppression of dissent in America only began building up as the nation began changing into the very thing _your_ movement wanted it to become."

"I admit it!" Benito Salazar suddenly exclaimed. "The Fairness Party _was_ dishonest from the start; we _lied_ on purpose about the character of the United States. We needed to, because if the people understood what they already had, we could never have persuaded them to discard it in favor of our system. But we believed... I should say, we flattered ourselves... that the proletariat would be happy under our wiser leadership."

"So instead," replied Carson Westmore, but in a voice which did not seem to be condemning Benito, "you created a social order which _neither_ gave any justice to the common people, _nor_ had the resolve to defend them against being conquered by an even _worse_ dictatorship."

"Like it or not," said Guduza, "the same dishonesty is widespread all over the Earth today. People in many nations, no, _most_ nations, have chosen to convince themselves that the United States was extraordinarily bad, for the sole and only reason that they _envied_ its prosperity and strength. It's like Cain in the Bible resenting his brother Abel for no just cause. They ignore their own wrongdoing, and inflate in their minds all wrong that America ever did... because they don't _want_ to believe that America did anything to _earn_ its advantages. This toxic mixture of self-pity and self-deception persists even now, when there _isn't_ any more United States.

"Because of this, any steps we take to rescue the people of the Diversity States will have to _avoid_ looking as if the _United_ States is being rebuilt. Otherwise, we'll face too much opposition, both in the United Nations and in the Western Hemisphere Union. The Liberian government came up with a suggestion which I think is actually daring enough to work. Ambassador Westmore?"

The Liberian smiled at the American diplomats. "Because of the link my country has with the former United States, we will propose in the General Assembly that all territory of the former United States which is not otherwise under a stable government... shall be placed under the authority of Liberia. We will keep you out of Aztec-Maoist hands, by annexing you ourselves."

Now Guduza smiled also. "Call it slave reparations; your faction in America always did like to talk of such things. The petty, spiteful detractors of the United States will be happy with the symbolism; but in objective reality, the American people will be _returning_ to something resembling what their parents enjoyed but didn't appreciate enough." He looked past Reltseotu and Benito, at Brendan. "After all, a great many American Christian expatriates now live in Africa, and they've been encouraging our own better side to assert itself."

 
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When Monica Sotero made her debut appearance at the Bi-Continental Assembly of the Hemispheric Union, she scarcely needed to bother with the race-card justifications that Secretary Guduza was planning to apply at the United Nations. Media outlets were doing this for her. The Oneness Channel and the Collective Network, along with the rest of the Diversity States propaganda system, had fallen apart when authorities turned their attention to outdoing each other at surrendering; but Brazilian, Canadian and other journalists were able to link into the streamcast mechanisms for the stricken country, to inform the D.S. proletariat of the sea change. And almost every commentator performed the same routine: pointing out that the first President installed in the Diversity States by the Fairness Party had been WHITE. The second President being black seemed irrelevant, since long-time editorial hacks were fixated on spinning the latest events as racial justice being done.

Still, Monica wanted all the help she could get; so, when it worked in her favor and in favor of Texas, she could live with socialist-minded reporters claiming that the Texan Secession was all about race. Her thoughts flying Heavenward to her husband Pablo, she took the podium. But she was NOT going to add any definite lies herself.

"My fellow inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, I stand before you as a Hispanic woman--" (pause for cheering) "--who has been elected by persons of ALL colors, to be the first President of the new Republic of Texas." A midair projection of her new nation's outline appeared above her head. "As you can see, portions of what used to be Oklahoma and Louisiana have joined their fate to ours. My first act as President of Texas is to appeal to you all, to ask all of you to give your approval of Texas establishing the borders you see indicated, and your approval of Texas becoming a free and equal partner in the Mexican Alliance!"

Mexico's President Andreas Garcia, sitting with his own delegation, was the first to rise to his feet, making for a standing ovation. Ricardo Formentera, the Aztlano delegate, was the only person to vote against recognizing Free Texas with its modestly enlarged borders, while just a few abstained. The Venezuelan bloc joined Aztlan in opposing the new nation's entry into the Mexican Alliance, but the yes-votes outnumbered them.

President Garcia warmly congratulated President Sotero, and said the obligatory things about brown people and the righting of alleged wrongs; but he himself realized that it was an IDEA which had just prevailed, not a genetic racial grouping. And to consolidate this victory, he hastened to make a call to Mexico City's major air force base. It was an order to proceed with a predetermined plan: to place a squadron of Maquihuitl fighters, and a squadron of Great Condors, at the disposal of the Texans. The pilots in these squadrons would all be United States expatriates with air-combat experience; President Garcia refused to do any juvenile pouting over the fact that many of these were Anglos.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The plane in which Samantha Ford, Zimmo Garland and several other movie people had fled from the Enclave had had just enough fuel to reach the same upper-class resort in Iowa where Chilena Salisbury and her family had found refuge. For her first day and a half in the former Amana Colony, Samantha had tried to raise the morale of her companions by predicting that the heroic Aztlano liberators would soon restore the collective spirit, chasing away the evil capitalistic business corporations which had corrupted the Supreme Court and many members of the Presidium. The repairing of severed electrical connections in Amana, allowing the recently-restored power to flow in, made her feel vindicated for this prediction.

Then the word reached the refugees that Canada would be approaching the Hemispheric Union for permission to annex what had once been the states of Washington and Oregon. This worried Samantha, since she felt Canada could not be trusted to be collectivist enough in its governance. But the claim to autonomy made by the Great Lakes Muslim Cantonment made her feel better, since it ensured that the Muslim proletariat would avoid the danger of being taken over and enslaved by racist Nazi Christians. Then the United Nations approved the absorption of what was left of the Diversity States into the sovereignty of Liberia, and Samantha forgot her fleeting admiration for Aztlan. Zimmo had pointed out to her that Aztlanos had murdered some of their fellow show-business professionals; but Samantha had hesitated to shift verbal allegiance until she had someone else non-white to favor. Now, she exulted that the wise, warm-hearted Africans would rescue her homeland from the evil capitalistic business corporations which had corrupted the Republic of Aztlan.

With a little good karma, Samantha might be the one to get everyone in Africa playing Equalityball.

Her optimism was destined to endure for exactly the span of time it would take for news to reach her that privately-owned business firms from Africa would be involving themselves in reconstructing North America.


I THINK I >SHALL< USE THIS RETROACTIVE-ADDITION SPACE FOR THE YENOVKIANS.
........................................................................................................................................................................................

oooo Vartan Vartui 000000
 
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Acting on behalf of her new President, Texas Ranger Commandant Brittany Pierce welcomed the new air force which was being given to her as a housewarming gift by the Mexican Alliance. The Maquihuitl fighters were organized as the First Air Superiority Squadron, and the replacement Great Condors were the First Tactical Air Squadron. Ranger Lieutenant Sally Pitt assumed responsibility for furnishing logistical support to the new air assets. Later would be soon enough to decide whether this aviation wing would remain subordinated to the Rangers, or be set apart as a separate Texas Air Force, leaving the Rangers to concentrate on land and water activity.

By Saturday night, the American-expatriate fliers and their aircraft were primed and ready to carry the fight to the aggressors. The Mexican Air Force loaned them two fuel-tanker planes, with four Mexican-subordinated Maquihuitls to protect these. The Texan jet and helicopter squadrons both split into half-squadrons for the mission. One half-squadron of each type set out to strike military installations in those parts of Aztlan closest to Texas. Their job was made easier by the havoc that Colt Finnegan and Greg Jessup had already inflicted on the enemy. The other half-squadrons had much farther to travel tonight; the tankers were along for their benefit.

Interceptors belonging to the Aztec-Maoist government in southern Aztlan scrambled to try to stop the Texan assault. All they accomplished was to allow their adversaries to demonstrate why the cutting-edge fighter design was called Maquihuitl. The ancient Aztec weapon for which the airplane was named was a length of hardwood shaped like a sword, with its cutting ability provided by sharp teeth of obsidian along both edges. Corresponding to those volcanic-stone teeth, each Maquihuitl carried eight drones, which would be released at the pilot's discretion, and eventually retrieved if both drone and parent aircraft survived. There were three options for equipping the drones: with a three-shot laser beam, with two compact air-to-air missiles, or with an electronic warfare suite to confuse the radar, guidance and communications systems on opposing airplanes. The drones incorporated the latest friend-or-foe systems to prevent them from attacking their own side. This design concept represented an attempt to deal with the modern robotic emphasis in air combat, while still retaining human pilots who could exercise human judgment. At the pilot's disposal besides the drones were two belly-mounted extreme-range air-to-air missiles, defensive countermeasures, and a variable-aperture six-shot particle beam.

The Great Condors on this close-range mission carried all ground-attack ordnance, apart from their rotary cannons counting as air-to-air weapons. They relied on the Maquihuitls for protection from Aztlano fighters; and the Maquihuitls came through for them. Not one Texan aircraft was destroyed, though the helicopters took some damage from ground fire and the fighters took some damage from the Aztlano fighters. When the mission ended, five military sites in southern Aztlan were in flames, and every Aztlano jet that had challenged the Maquihuitls was either annihilated, or crippled and forced to make an emergency landing.

The surviving Aztlano pilots swore that there had been at least forty Texan jets, shooting at them from every possible direction. Their counterparts up in Colorado, Nevada and Utah were destined to fare no better.

When the farther-travelling component of the air operation had visited similar devastation on its targets, the tankers replenished fuel for everyone (including their own Mexican escort jets, which had not engaged in combat except defensively). Then they all turned back toward Texas -- except for the half-squadron of Great Condors, which had purposely kept some of its ammunition in reserve. These helicopters then went into stealth mode with their blur-projectors, and continued north, to come to the aid of the Western Enclave.

When word of this disastrous turn of events reached the palace and the bed of Emilio Formentera and Jessica Trevette, Jessica's first words to her lover were unprintable.

Since he understood her anger to be directed at their enemies, Emilio replied to her gently: "We still have our last card to play. Los Bucaneros have contingency orders; I'll get them started at once."

Jessica nodded. "No time to lose. They'll have to cross the Northwest District before Canada takes possession there, if they're going to make it to Yellowstone Sector."

"They'll make it, querida. And when we can threaten to set off the Yellowstone supervolcano and blow up the whole continent, everyone will back down. We'll show them that we're the ones who know how to play to win!"
 
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Chapter 140: Volcanic Vector

Los Bucaneros had come into their own. Aztlan's ramshackle air force had by now lost nearly all of its fighter jets to the overwhelmingly superior Maquihuitl fighters, just as most of their armored ground vehicles had been destroyed by the Enclave's resourceful defenders. But as the faint first light of Sunday morning touched the east, mere propellor-driven airplanes promised to salvage victory for The Race.

A certain Colonel Ramon Ybarra, in being assigned to lead this mission, had been hastily promoted to Major-General by El Presidente. The boost in rank was to distract Ybarra from thinking about the way he might end up dying.

Felipe Contreras was on board one of the former U.S. Coast Guard seaplanes: not as its pilot, but as commander of a rifle squad which would be involved in securing the area surrounding the Yellowstone Sector geothermal plants. As they flew in from the Pacific to sweep low over Oregon, the very fact that they were seeking to sneak past before the Canadians occupied this region made him think about Canada. He was remembering the day when he had acted as a courier, meeting those haughty, stuck-up Diversity States diplomats, Cassandra Jefferson and Samantha Ford, at a resort in Canada. They had held him at their mercy that day with an Executioner Virus, while taunting him with the sight of their bodies, treating him as a nobody.

Felipe would have liked very much to have those women at HIS mercy now. But as for that, he would also have liked to detour north to Seattle, to blow up the headquarters of the ridiculous All-Species Council, where the ridiculous Tim Govinda had presumptiously spoken against bullfighting.

A man can't do everything at once. But once we hold this hemisphere by the throat, the gringos will beg us to TAKE their women, if only this will appease us and prevent us from exploding the supervolcano.

He had spoken of this very thing with his men. From time to time, they glanced out the windows of their plane at the two larger planes flying in the center of their formation. These aircraft carried the penetration bombs which were to be jammed into the volcanic steam vents around which the Yellowstone power stations were built. The bombs weren't nuclear; they didn't have to be. All they needed to do was uncork the supervolcano.

Long intoxicated with hatred of everything and everyone daring to defy The Race, Felipe had been able to convince himself that he was not a bit afraid to die if El Presidente's bluff was called and the strike force DID go ahead and blow up North America. He would live on in the Solar Influence, his machismo radiating through the universe. The same confidence, he knew, motivated two fellow Aztlanos, doctrinaire Aztec-Maoists, who were furnishing cover to the north. Flying two old jets which had been scraped up by the Party, these two pilots had the proud duty of challenging any Canadian fighters that might come from the north to intercept the Bucanero planes. In such an event, the Aztlano fighter pilots would be killed, probably without even being able to do any damage in return; but it was hoped that they would keep the Canadians busy long enough to help the airborne troops get into Yellowstone Sector.

Felipe and his compadres would not need any escort for a return flight. Either they would die in Yellowstone, as every living thing in North America and many in South America died with them; or they would be strutting conquerors, free after this to come and go as they pleased.

When it became apparent that no Canadian jets were coming, the two Aztlano jets redirected their own one-way flight toward North Dakota Sector, to strafe any town they could find before their fuel ran out. Then the fanatical aviators would land wherever they could and take their chances on the ground, having drawn attention away from the Bucanero mission.

The propeller planes crossed Oregon airspace into Idaho airspace, making steadily for Yellowstone.
 
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