Arab al Ma'azi, Egypt

Two beige, boxy open air land rovers cut through the dry, untamed heat of the red desert on an aging dirt back road. Sand surrounded them on all sides, flowing in wave-shaped dunes between ancient rust-colored ridges and outcrops of orange stone. There were no clouds in the sky, only sun. Leyla felt aware of her growing hunger, and the need for constant water that she could not fulfill.

When they had started their trek through Egypt's western desert, Leyla had given them a few simple rules: Move quickly, do not steal, and do not harm the locals.

They broke the first rule quickly enough. The dry summer heat had done them no favors, and they had been forced to stop along the road to fix their battle-scared Landrovers. When one overheated, they had to wait for it to cool down so that they could replace the water in the radiator. That had meant sacrificing some of what they held back for drinking. Nobody had wanted to lose that water, but the alternative was to walk and that would have hurt them much more. Another time, the shrapnel fragments of a bullet that had struck the vehicle at the Battle of Suez managed to chew through a belt. One of the soldiers was able to fuse the pieces together with a heated knife, and with that they were, at least for the time being, back on the road.

But now it looked as if they would have to break their second rule; they would have to steal. Leyla did not like that at all. They were alone out here in this foreign place, disconnected from the support of their homeland. That meant a disadvantage in any fight. To invite trouble, that was the worst thing they could possibly do. One warlord with the right resources could swat them like a gnat. They were helpless.

But they were threatened by death in a new way now. They were running out of the essentials, food, fuel, and water. What little money they had was traded away early on, and the few people who would talk to them refused to barter for anything but their guns, or their vehicles. One grossly old man with sun-scorched leathery skin had even suggested that she trade her body, but the big man Barentu had stepped in and denied him with a brusque "No" before she could fully take in what was being asked. Barentu had been protective of her ever since he accidentally dropped her on her head during the Battle of Suez. Now they were down to half-empty fuel tanks, a dwindling canteen for every one of them adding up to seven, and the bland flatbread they had traded their blankets for in the first village they stopped in.

They were running out of options. They were leaving the land around Cairo where the heart of Egypt lay and entering the southern half of the country, where the warring Turkish and Egyptian warlords of the north held no power. Southern Egypt was in the hand of Islamists, who's methods of government had hardly changed in one thousand years. They ruled through religion and untrained militias here, ruling the villages that farmed the Nile's silt rich plain. Food was plentiful enough here. It would be a tempting target for the hungry northern raiders if times were good.

But temptation wasn't what drove her to make the decision to break their second rule. It was necessity. Life or death.

When she told them, nobody questioned. The Ethiopian soldiers in her entourage were tough men, but they were not tacticians. The field agents of the Walinzi were picked from the educated, and they were given further training in a myriad of topics. For a nation as poor and thinly spread as Ethiopia's Pan-African Empire, a small force of educated men and women with the ability to act resourcefully made up for some of the strength of arms it lacked. Men in the Ethiopian military knew this, and they were taught to respect the Walinzi almost as much as they would their own officers. There was no official superiority in rank, but an understanding still existed, and that understanding had put Leyla in de-facto command.

There was still doubt, she knew. She wouldn't have kept them in control this long if it hadn't been for Barentu. He was the strongest man in the group without question, and she knew that none of them wanted to cross him. Without him, she may have been Walinzi, but she was also a woman. For many of the men who joined the army, who grew up in villages and were used to a world where everybody had a roll to play, the idea of a woman telling soldiers what to do could not seem natural. She saw the way they looked at her.

Junedin was an older man, and kind. His skin was a dull, bloodless brown, and he kept his greying hair cut close to his head. He war a devilish looking beard which clung to the bottom of his chin and reminded Leyla of a wildebeest. His uniform was unbuttoned, showing curly patches of white hair on a torso that looked mummified. A wooden Ethiopian cross hung from a leather band around his neck. He had been a priest before he left the church to fight against Sahle six years ago, and though he had left the church, he had not left the religion.

And then there was Heruy. He was young enough to have been a child when Yaqob had become emperor. She knew he had lived a hard life - it showed on his face, and in his underfed frame. His eyes smoldered with pent up rage, and they seemed further apart than they should be. Much like Junedin, his hair was cut short in a way that made it easy to manage, and it ringed his head like the faint outline of a hat. Whatever his past had looked like, his experiences had made him angry. There was contempt on his face when she gave orders that he did not like, and sometimes she could feel his eyes watching. It was those four who occupied the first Landrover. Barentu drove, and Leyla sat on the passenger's side, her eyes flitting across the brightly heated desert that surrounded them on all sides.

Leyla thought about her own image now. There was a bandage cloth made from a portion ripped off of Barentu's olive green uniform wrapped around her head. She still had her trench coat, though sweat and dirt had turned it a muddy, diseased looking brown. Her hair had frizzed out in the heat, making her head twice as big of a target as it otherwise would have been.

"We should limit the raiding party." Junedin said. He had a gentle voice, underlined by a low-toned fatherly benevolence. "Just you, I, Heruy, and Barentu." he said. As he said the last name, he eyed the watchful giant. Barentu was just shy of seven foot in height, and he had the body mass to match it.

"That was my plan." Leyla replied. "We will have the others posted in the hills to watch and wait. If there is trouble, I want them ready to come down."

Junedin put an arm on her shoulder and squeezed. She felt the bones of his knuckles pressing into her skin. They felt liked knots in old rope. "Very good. You could have been my daughter." he said. "Or maybe a wife if I had ever took one."

They passed a sign. It was a quaint wooden thing with words painted across it in Egyptian Arabic. "Arab al Ma'azi 1km" it said, a rough estimation. She could see how the dirt road began to descend down from the high desert toward the river plain below.

"Pull into the sand." she said with sudden urgency. "We want to see what we are up against."

When they stopped, it felt as if the weather had instantly grown hotter. In the Landrover, the feel of the air rushing by them had made the heat seem bearable. Now the atmosphere around them felt like the heated air above a roaring bonfire. She was beginning to sweat, and they began to walk.

"How does a woman join the Walinzi?" Junedin asked. "I have always been interested."

"I went to school until I was seventeen." she answered.

"That is a lot of school." Junedin said. His voice sounded like he was mocking surprise "I was seeking God at that age. Before that age, as it truly was. I do not remember how old I was though."

"I tried to join the Walinzi" Heruy barked, his voice under toned by a seething unpleasantness. "They turned me down. I know how to fight, but they turned me down." He looked at her with the pouting eyes of a jealous child.

"The Walinzi took me because I was young and had the schooling." she said. "Ras Hassan's daughter was one of the first agents after the Homeguard reformed into the Walinzi. They don't look at gender as much as other groups do."

"Daughter?" Barentu asked.

"The Queen." Junedin explained.

"Oh." Barentu grunted. "I did not know that she had been a fighter."

Sandy dirt shifted beneath their feet. They approached the apex of the hill cautiously. She wondered if they could be spotted from here. "Hold back!" she heard Heruy snarl. Hearing him now wasn't the first time she had suspected him of mutinous thoughts. She saw Barentu turn around to face down the smaller man. Leyla saw this as her chance.

"Don't." she put her hand on Berentu's fatigues. The cloth felt hot to here skin. "We will approach slowly. We still have to see what is on the other side." They obeyed.

They could see the river near the horizon. It was a shimmering silver line, sharing more the qualities of a mirage than those of a body of water. The place where water met sky was a blur. The edge of the river was marked by the lush green vegetation that had attracted people to this place since the beginning of civilization. It was a dark green, a green that advertised water and life, and the place where that green bordered the red desert contrasted so sharply that it hurt her eyes.

"See down there." she pointed to a small village just below the desert ridge line. "That corrugated metal building with the central air unit. That's a warehouse."

"It doesn't look like it should be there." Junedin said. He sounded thoughtful, but his tone still grated on her. It didn't sincere. "Good work, young woman."

Regardless how he said it, what he had said was true enough. The corrugated metal was dented and dust-stained, but it did not look like it was part of the desert world that the village belonged to. Arab al Ma'azi was traditional looking, with straight mud brick buildings stacked next to each other in an unplanned mess. The shutters and door frames were painted with cheery bright blues and reds, which contrasted with the ruddy consistency of the architecture.

The warehouse was not the only thing that stuck out. It was connected to a strip of blacktop that lead to a building near the river. She could not discern what the second building was, but she suspected it was was a dock of sorts.

"The Turks were trying to improve their infrastructure." she said without pause. She was confident of this. "They were losing in Armenia, and they knew part of it was because they couldn't move supplies quick enough. That is what this warehouse is. Government-purchases supplies."

"There are no Turks here." Barentu swallowed. "Are there?"

"No." Leyla said. "But the Ottoman government only just collapsed this year. There will still be supplies in there." she thought for a moment. "But there will be men loyal to whoever rules this place. This won't be easy."

"There will need to be order!" Heruy interjected. "We need to look at the danger here. I don't think our party is disciplined enough to do this. We need..."

A better leader. A man. She completed his sentence in her mind, and interrupted him before he could finish. "A plan." she said in feigned agreement. "I have one. This is what we will do..."

--

Leyla felt exposed, like the world around her was much too large. They were sprinting across the stretch of desert that sat between them and the village, just four armed Ethiopians in unwashed uniforms with sweat pooling on their faces and nothing to hide them. She kept her hand near her holster, prepared for whatever challenge the Egyptians might have for them.

Nobody saw them. Or, at least, nobody saw them as far as she could tell. When they reached the shadow of the warehouse, she welcomed the cool, wet sensation that the absence of direct sunlight gave her skin. They stopped to catch their breaths, so that it was just the sound of the four of them breathing and the hum of a central air unit sitting next to the building. As they panted, they prepared their equipment. Clips clicked into guns, and knife holsters were unbuttoned. Leyla pointed toward the end of the building and nodded. She watched as Junedin and Heruy went to stand guard. Before he left, Heruy shot her a last hateful look.

Would he do his job? She had to trust that he would. He felt like the type of man who knew to follow orders when it came to combat. He was prideful and angry, but he knew what was at stake when battle was joined.

The warehouse had a backdoor near the central air units. That was convenient, she thought. It seemed too convenient, and it made her nervous. She went to jimmy the lock and found it open. That was also too convenient. Her hair stood on end as they went inside.

The feeling of the cold air as it burst out of the open door and washed across her entire body was impossibly beautiful. It felt like a cool bath after a hard day in the sun, or like a bed after being awake for thirty hours. As she entered with her gun drawn, she thought the warehouse was being kept at freezing temperatures. She was surprised to see that a gauge near the wall read "66f".

Barentu followed her in, his gun drawn as well. They scanned the warehouse carefully, but it was a wide open building with few places to hide. The shelves themselves were scantily stocked, but there were so many of them that it did not make a different. These were simple tin shelves mounted to hollow poles, open on every side so that Leyla could see from one end of the building to the other with little obstruction.

Barentu looked at the gage and his face twisted. "That is a strange temperature."

Leyla was surprised. Barentu had not seemed like a perceptive man to her. "They couldn't freeze this entire warehouse." she replied. "That would take more power than they have here. Those central air units have their own generators."

"They aren't attached to the electricity grid?" Barentu asked. He was trying to whisper, but he was not good at it, and the deep trumpet sound of his voice snuck out at times.

"The village is. They get power from Aswan. But they don't get it reliably enough to send it all to this warehouse. I'm surprised they can keep it this cold."

"This is important." Barentu suggested. "They will try to keep is cold."

Leyla nodded. "Let us just get what we came for." she said. "Look around."

They took different paths through the warehouse. Food and water was their priority, but they were also looking for weapons and car parts. The warehouse was full of food. It was all canned and packaged, most of it Turkish in origin. They were both stuffing backpacks as they went.

"I wish we could pull the trucks up." Barentu said. He was speaking now, and his voice carried so far that Leyla cringed.

"No." she said. "We would have to fight then." He did not answer.

The Turkish food were things she had seen before. Most were vegetables - chick peas, lentils, tomato paste - and they were packed in dull brown-labelled cans with the words printed in flat Turkic script. She grabbed a few of them, careful to pick what she thought would carry the most energy. She was a can of Chocolate sauce and quickly grabbed it as well.

On another shelf she found Spanish food, and it fascinated her. There were tins filled with tomato-flavored crackers, and short cardboard boxes with the words "Tortas" printed on them. She found a tiny can with a picture of a smiling, bright-eyed little girl wearing an over-sized robin's egg blue flamenca dress. The label said "Flan". She tossed it in her bag and continued looking. Nearby, she found a stack of cans of Gazpacho soup which featured the solemn image of a Spanish flag posed above a long stretch of text. That made her curious. She had learned Spanish while serving in Armenia as part of her extended language training, since it was a language the Ethiopians had been expecting to need to know for a long time now. She read the first few sentences and realized at once that the text on this soup was nothing less than a nationalistic plea.



She smiled. It was such a ridiculous thing to find on a soup can. She tossed the can in her bag and continued.

Gunfire rang out. It pierced the silence and, in an instant, the situation had changed

Her head darted up like a cat. She hadn't counted, but it had been a cluster of shots. Ten or twelve, and they came from outside. They were muffled by the metal walls of the warehouse, but she could hear them echoing in her ears. After the first burst, there was a second. Maybe seven this time. A firefight. She felt instinct kick in, and she began to move with the methodological speed of a lioness stalking a its next meal.

"They are in trouble." Leyla barked to Barentu. "We can't do anything in here. Follow me."

She held her sidearm with both hands, pointing it on the ground as they prowled. She slowed down as she approached to door, mentally preparing herself for what was on the other side. She took a deep breath, clearing her mind of clutter and putting herself in the moment.

The door swung open and threw her off balance. A man rushed in and grabbed her, holding her tightly against his chest facing away from him. It all happened in one smooth motion, as if he had seen her through the sheet metal. She watched her gun slide across the floor, and she saw Barentu's wide-eyed look as he tried to figure out what to do, but she could not see the man who held her like a human shield.

Leyla was a hostage now. How had that happened? This man had moved too fast to be a simple militiaman. She could feel it in his arms. This man had been in the military before. He had the instincts. There was something else though. He had wrapped his arm around her chest at first, but quickly shifted his grip. That hadn't been tactical. That had been a squeamishness about breasts. The man holding a gun to her head was uncomfortable that she was a woman.

"Uoooooh, Don't kill me!" she moaned, giving her voice the pitiful blubbering sound of young girl.

She allowed herself to cry. She was happy to let her fears burst out of her in expression0, but that was not why she was crying. These were tactical tears.

"Shut up!" he said in local Arabic. "Cry at your partner if you want to cry. Tell him to drop his gun."

Barentu was aiming, but there was fear in his eyes. He did not know what to do.

"Uoo-oooooo-oooh!" she moaned again. "I think I just shit myself."

She felt what she wanted; the hesitation that showed itself in the confused loosening of his muscles. She knew instinctively that she had only bought herself a quick moment, so she acted quickly. She shifted violently and elbowed him in his stomach. When she was free, she kicked him in the place where her elbow had landed before. The Arab fell back, and it was Barentu's turn. The gentle giant shot the Arab in the face, and it was done.

When the man was holding her, she had been unable to see his face. She saw him now - a man in his late thirties or early forties, bearded and dressed in aged fatigues. That had been an Ottoman uniform, but an old one. The colors were faded, and the seems had fallen to tatters long ago. She figured him for a veteran of the war that the Turks had fought to take this land. When that war was done, he must have settled here.

"Do you need time for yourself?" Barentu asked. He looked nervously at the door, his eyes wide and his mouth agape so that bright white teeth contrasted against his dark skin.

"What?" she asked, retrieving her gun.

"You... your shit?" he asked.

"Shit? Oh. No! I didn't shit myself!" she protested.

"Oh." he said with simple acceptance.

"It was a ploy." she said. "Now come on. The shooting stopped and nobody else came in here. I think we won." They left the warehouse.

The village was filled with the acrid, burning smell of gunpowder and the coppery, fecal stench of men who had died violently. There were five bodies bleeding in the dirt street, and they were all Egyptians. But what had happened to Heruy and Junedin?

A child ran into the street, her arms outstretched in a way that was desperately stiff. Her wailing was so shrill that she sounded like a Hyena. Leyla watched the child attach to the bleeding corpse of a man and stay there, her head buried in the mans chest. That left a bitter taste in her mouth. She was reminded of the tears she had summoned in the warehouse. The sun was on her now, but her realization of that fact was slow. She felt dirty again.

"Barentu!" she heard Heruy yell. "Walinzi! There is a problem!"

"A problem?" Leyla shouted back. She saw the young soldier near a distant cluster of dwellings.

"It is the priest!" he shouted. "Come! He is making trouble for us!"

Leyla jogged forward, and Barentu followed.

She was struck by how empty the village was. People were hiding, she knew. But where? The thought that there were people in all the quiet buildings they passed made her feel uncomfortable. She eyed each one carefully, expecting a trap. She detected the smokey, floral scent of incense wafting from an open window as she passed it, and the scent made her feel dizzy. It did not belong here.

That was when she heard the screaming.

Junedin had dragged a woman out into the street and bent her over a brightly painted stoop, her robes pushed up so that the priest could have her. She was shrieking. That was a sound that made her sick to her stomach. It was a sharp, ear-piercing sound, broken by sobs that bounced in time with Junedin's pumping.

"Stop!" Leyla screamed. The priest looked at her with dead eyes and an animal's frown. That was not a look she had expected from him. It was worse than anything she had seen from Heruy. In the background, she heard the approaching sputter of truck engines, but she ignored that. This was all she could see.

"Stop this or I will kill you!" She pulled her gun and edged toward the cruel scene that was playing out in front of them. Barentu moved faster, his strides covering distances she couldn't help to reach.

The big man grabbed the priest by the collar and yanked. He slipped out of the woman, and his wrinkled member bobbed stiffly when pulled him free.

Leyla held her gun in her hand. Furiosity burned in her veins. She could feel anger in her skull, making her light headed as every raging fiber of her body begged her to execute the priest. He was on his knees, naked and pathetic from the waste down.

She flipped the handgun in her palm and, with the force of everything she was down to the marrow, she slammed his face with the grip. Junedin went sprawling.

The shock of the blow jolted through her hand and up her arm. It was white hot pain, and she wondered if she had broken something. Her rage fizzled down, and she took a moment to analyze the situation.

Barentu had helped the victimized woman to her feet. She had been whimpering and fighting, but when Junedin hit the ground she stopped to gape. The Priest himself spat bloody teeth, and his lips were wet from the red that filled his mouth. Below, his sexual enthusiasm had shriveled.

"You... Bitch!" he coughed. His voice was a monstrous roar from the blood bubbling in his mouth. He tried to scramble to his feet, but that was a struggle. "You whore! You cu..."

She cut him off. "We should leave you here!" she yelled.

"Now isn't the time" she hear Heruy's voice. He was dutiful and to the point now, and when her eyes met his she realized that he was looking at her with a sense of respect she had never seen in him. "The Landrover's are here."

The other men had arrived. "Take him." she said. "He's ours, but we have to go."

"The warehouse?" Heruy asked.

"We take what we need and leave." she said. "That hasn't changed."

Sao Paolo, Brazil

It was an extroardinarily vibrant day in the Brazilian State News headquarters, as the anchors shouted each new result and attempted to come to a consensus as to what the result was heading towards.

"Maranhao coming in at 54% for Caterina Bela! Could this be a serious defeat for Claro?"

"Mato Grosso at 72% for Claro. It was obvious such a socialist stronghold was going to go to the President."

The central news anchor waved for silence as a paper was placed in front of him.

"Preliminary results are now clear: Senator Bela is leading with a solid 53%. Unless the remainder of the votes come in significantly different, the next President of Brazil will be Caterina Bela and the Vice President Adriano Claro as determined by law."

Across the nation, the supporters of the Liberal Party cheered and hugged each other.

---

Inauguration Day, Two Weeks Later
Brasilia, Brazil

The President-elect and President rode together in an armored car, amidst the parade and the massive crowds outside. President-elect Bela was considerably more enthusiastic than the current President, a fact Claro found amusing.

"Now you know how I felt," he remarked.

"It is quite exhilarating." replied the President-elect. She winked. "Don't worry, you're still Vice President. It's not like the Communist Party bested you."

"And what a relief that is," said Claro, laughing.

When they arrived at the National Congress, the President and President-elect (the irony of the switch was not lost on anyone) were greeted by the President of the Senate, Alexandre Felipe. He escorted them inside, where they took their seats to the right and left of him, respectively, before a full session of the Congress.

"We are gathered here to officially appoint the President and Vice President of Brazil," announced the President of the Senate. "I will now take the receipt of election." A representative of the Supreme Electoral Court stood, and handed the document to Felipe, which he gave a cursory look.

"Will all those present please rise." The assembled Congress and others all stood.

"Please repeat after me." He turned to Senator Bela.

"I promise to preserve, defend and uphold the Constitution, observe the Laws, promote the general welfare and equality of the Brazilian people, and to sustain the union, the integrity and the independence of Brazil."

She repeated it, and at that very moment, she became the new President of the Federative Republic.

The assembled Congress, and the various foreign dignitaries including most of the presidents of South and Central America, burst into applause.

The dining room was a sparse dusty place. Decorated only by the large wooden table in its center. A table that for as naked as it was housed the many who lived in the clay-packed bungalow. They sat in rough-carved, unfinished chairs. Simple table cloths had been laid out in front of each, and on top empty ceramic plates. Han Wen sat among them at the table, clasped in the hot hands of nervousness as he sat among the foreigners. There wasn't regard to his inability to speak his language. He could only assume it was them being polite.

He'd been ushered out of their sitting room where he had been left an hour ago. He now held court in a new room. Behind his back an open glass-less window provided a portal to the outside world. The sweet smells of the ocean breeze swam warmly through the open curtains. As did the rumble of engines, the rattle of wagons, and the bleating of goats and sheep. There was an almost surreal serenity here that forgot the war further to the north, along the coast.

Were the confident? Or did they just not know? Whatever the story may be, he didn't know if they talked about it. In their dancing sharp language they dashed foreign words through the air. An entire syntax and vocabulary he was unfamiliar with. Somehow he felt they he would have been better served in Russia, where at least the enemy – and allies - were civilized and familiar.

The chirping of time kept by and he was given more glasses of water. The lightheaded dancing of dehydration was long past. He no longer floated in dusty clouds and he was back to earth. The only discomfort was the familiar need to urinate. Which he did, as soon as he signed with his hosts his need to piss.

As the light of the sun warmed and lowered the bustle in the dining room rose and heightened. On some silent queue the residents came to the table. Talking politely and hushed as they shot wayward looks to their Chinese guest. He smiled nervously, giving his best impression of politeness and bowing. He didn't feel at ease being in someone's home invited like this.

Warm smells floated in the air as the homeowner and his wife walked into the room. Carrying in their arms plates of rice, meat, and large slices of a round flat bread. They smiled and talked among their own kin, and returned anxious nods of acknowledgment with the pilot. Landing the saucers in their arms upon the table another came, gently pushing into the room a feeble old weathered man.

Dressed in a word and ancient uniform, he sat slouched over in his wheel chair. The faded metals of his chest indicated who he fought for in the far past. The German iron cross dangled from the breast of uniform, right under neath the toughened, sun-baked and sand-worn leather pilot's jacket that lay limp as the battle uniform underneath. He still wore is colonial cap that sagged off his brow as he was wheeled in alongside Han Wen. He smelled of must and age, the Chinese pilot noted.

He seemed to great the visitor with a dry raspy breath. Between heavy breaths he muttered away in Somalian as his caretakers sat down. But now it wasn't just Wen they looked up to. But the old man. “Dareewal dayuurad?” he inquired, sizing the Chinese pilot up behind sagging eyebrows. He mimed something flying in his hands.

Han Wen starred down at him with a lost expression. The old man must have read the empty confusion in his eyes. He sighed and puttered under his breath. At the table the rest reached out with their bare hands, grabbing loaves of the flat bread to scope up rice and meat for their plate.

“E-ein Pilot.” the old veteran mumbled as a youth helped put small amounts of rice and bread onto his plate, “Luftwaffepilot.” he repeated. Wen realized he was attempting to speak German. If rusted with age and dried and leathered like his skin and jacket.

“Y-yes.” he nodded dramatically. Even if he could not understand Mandarin, with any luck he knew head nodding.

The old man's face seemed to light up as the response and the gesture. He crooned happily, smiling as he cheered something in his African tongue. Whether it was Somalian or German Han Wen didn't know, nor did he feel he could understand either.

He reached out cautiously across the table, unsure about the practices as he spooned up chunks of grilled meat and rice with the generously sized coins of bread. The loaves reminded him of Naan, and he was comfortable to compare them to such.

The old man continued to speak from his wheel chair alongside Wen. Gently waving and gesturing with his hands. Acting out with gestures as he spoke. Han Wen didn't know what he was saying, or where he was coming from. But through his gesturing he could discern the pattern and the subject, only loosely. He could watch in his hands the same way he could listen from his words, but the image was bury in much the same way a picture was obscured watched through wavy glass. The shapes were there, but none of the details.

There was a ruffle in the corner of Wen's vision. The curtain partition between the rooms moved and stepping through was a tall young woman. A cheap suit hugged her figure, a dark niqab wrapped up her hair. She looked across the room at Wen with a look of silent bewilderment. Then her ears caught what the old man was saying, and she was stunned with silent wonder. She hung by the doorway, listening to the old man talk.

It was there that Han Wen realized that no one in the room was talking either. Instead they sat quietly eating their rice and meat as he told his Somalian stories. His hands gently and shakily flying. Steering and yawing and pitching as if he were in the cockpit seat again. Or firing a gun. Doing the many thing the ancient pilots of the Great War did.

Han Wen was certain of that much. He was dimly aware Ethiopia – with Somalia – fought with the Germans in the Great War to check European power in East Africa. But he knew none of the details. But here was one such detail. A surviving veteran was here beside him, though nothing more than a accessory in academic writings on the conflict. But he was there, and Han Wen couldn't understand him.

He chewed quietly on a pinch of rice from his fingers as watching the old man's bony hands relive the war from so long ago. They moved with great energy, despite his great age. And the deafening silence had every clue that it was a great tale. Or this man was a great spinner.

Through his hands Wen watched him dictate stories of his flying, no doubt alongside the Germans as they battled the British in Africa. The vague depiction of maneuvers. And battle hard fought. He gabbed for hours. Droning on through the meal and on. His voice dry, but it was tireless. Each time he paused he sighed, took a drink of water and chewed wistfully on the rice and grilled meat.

Han Wen had the impression this was not the sweet nothings of an old man. Even if he couldn't understand him, he had weight in his words. And it captivated many to stay behind and listen with attentive silence. The children disappeared soon after finishing their meal. But the adults stayed, chewing on the ends of straws or dried leaves. An incense burner was placed on the table and lit, washing away slowly the smell of the meal that had been eaten there.

Slowly the old veteran slowed in his story telling. He fell silent, and sat back into the comfort of his wheel chair. Though not in the worn, bitter demeanor he had rested at before. He looked like he had relieved himself of a weight. He was resigned, but at some peace. No longer bottled.

“Waad ku mahadsan” he sighed deeply. He looked up at the Chinese pilot, and nodded softly before looking away. “Waad ku mahadsan” he repeated again. With a heavy wave of his hand he called over one of his sons, who with light hands took the back of his rattled wheel chair and pulled it from the table. As he left the room, he hummed an old song.

And with him gone, the rest stirred.

The woman – who had since taken a seat when the children ran off bored – stood up from her seat and rounded the table. Han Wen looked up at her. Caution and other emotions shook in him. He expected someone to speak with him in Somalian.

“Good evening.” she said in Chinese. Though muddled in accent it was unmistakable. She could speak his language.

Han Wen starred up at her, stricken with a sudden wave of shock that came with her greeting. “I- uh. Same to you.” he stuttered weakly. He smiled warmly, oh so he hoped. He had done nothing but gape like a awkward child all day.

“My name is Mulki,” she introduced herself, “I work in the customs office in Mogadishu. My family called me up here, about you.” she smiled nervously, “I guess you've asked about Mogadishu?”

“I- I guess I uh, have.” Wen coughed, nervously tapping the unfinished wood of the dinner table, “I assumed I could get to Addis from there, and... I don't really know how or what to do about that...” he frowned pulling away his eyes. He looked down at his hands. “I figured it would be the best place for me to go since I crashed.” he admitted feebly.

“It's OK.” Mulki smiled, “I can get you to where you need to be. And I can do you one better.” she invited sweetly, “I think now is a special enough occasion, perhaps my boss won't be so on edge with my disappearance. I'll get you a train to Addis. I'll come along too, to make sure you get to where you need to be.”

“Oh-” a shocked Han Wen remarked, “Oh- that... That. I didin't think of that.” he humbly admitted, with pain to his pride.

“Very well, we'll leave tomorrow. I'm afraid we'll be hard pressed to get a plane at night. I'll talk to my cousin, see if he can set you up with some bed space.”

“Th-thank you.”




“So, how many times have you ate with forks and spoons while in Russia?” the agent named Stripped Tiger asked, sitting alongside Jun's bed. It had been several weeks, he had been carefully moved to a proper place. Onto a proper mattress. It smelled like mildew and ash. He could only imagine where they had found it.

“Once.” he said flatly. It had been a small dinner event with Makulov. It was relatively boring. He, Ulanhu, nor the General spoke of anything significant. It was an uncomfortable exchange of pleasantries. The only thing meaningful was a half-ass reminder to why the two agents were there: sway the wraith of a forgotten officer to the Chinese side. But by then the raiding had already begun and Ulanhu was afraid they were running short on time.

“It takes some time to get used too.” the lone agent smiled half-ass as he gently handed over a bowl of mixed grains and meat, “Spoons though, spoons I had the handle of. But it's simply using anything else for solid foods that was strange to handle. The hand just forms so naturally around the use of chopsticks.

Jun had no comment. He accepted the offering wordless. The contents had been steamed, but there was a certain look to them that suggested they were nearing their eat-by date in the first place. The color was muted and gray. And the aroma was listless and sour. He begrudgingly ate it, if to seal the empty rolling in his bowls.

The mattress the youths of the house had recovered was propped atop a rigged-together bed frame. Really made of the same tables as Jun had laid on for the first few days. Moving the crippled agent to the top floor that was his new accommodations was a dramatic event, full of more shouting than he wanted to bother with. Once more, for the one doctor Jun's inability to say where anything hurt simply made the move more cautious.

“It's no Shanghai accommodation.” Stripped Tiger admitted. “Neither is it any dinner with any of the Beijing elite.” he lamented. Hiding it with a dry laughing sigh. But it was as dead as the food was, that much Jun was certain of as he chewed on a flavorless chunk of carrot.

“While you eat though, can I pray again into why you're here?” Stripped Tiger asked, stroking that round boyish chin of his. A light stubble of beard growth was coming in. The shadows of the growing beard brought out the deep worry lines of his face and his pallor complexion.

“Can I get a name?” Jun asked, challenging his host. “I want to know who's housing me.”

He looked at him. Jun could tell he was cold. But he conceded. “Min Shu.” he moaned, “My partner was Xi Jin, but now he's blood and guts. Does this help?” he was agitated and afraid. He tossed a look to the door, hoping none of his wards heard who he was. Jun understood, that sort of information could lead to trouble.

“Was here to contact a man.” Jun sneered. Now here, sitting in bed he felt a rising contempt for Makulov for getting him into this. He wondered about Ulanhu. How well was he doing?

“We were supposed to break him over to the Chinese fold. Makulov. One of the commanding officers who went rogue during the second Bolshevik uprising fucking ten years ago.

“Resistant. I and my partner stayed. He had me hunt down the trash he couldn't deal with. Partner wanted me to comply, in the name of diplomacy. I became his hit-man.”

“I personally would have turned and left for home. Called the mission a failure.” Shu laughed, “After awhile that is. Could – has, rather – gotten dangerous to do stuff for such people. You don't know how many enemies they got or how much it could complicate them.

“Then again I was never asked to perform underground diplomacy. I was more the gun-runner type and intel liaison on the side while I did that.

“At one point, I flew sixty missions into Vietnam during a month-long time-span. Night and day! French never found me. I flew too low.” he crooned proudly.

Jun nodded as he awkwardly spooned a piece of mystery meat into his mouth and chewed. Fighting to ignore the sour flavor.

“But I suppose you've had worse.” Shu continued rambling, “Busted your leg and kept walking. If there wasn't anyone here to hold you down, you'd probably walk out of here yourself, wouldn't you?” he asked.

“You like to talk.” Jun replied.

“I haven't had anyone from China to talk to!” he scoffed loudly, “It's all been Russians and Russian youths.” he lamented in a deep sigh, “Don't get me wrong, they're all bright here. Kids with promise. But they're not in my field, and I can't trust them with nearly three-quarters the information I'd like to impart on them. I can only make do with a quarter, and that quarter's useless!

“They think I'm some kind of wizard sometimes. I want to show them how. But I'd be overplaying my hand well further than I should. I'd get them into trouble. Especially the youngest ones.”

“They're kids, how much trouble could they get into?”

“As soon as the wrong one learns to make home-made explosives and how to break someone's neck then there will be shit all over me.”



The boughs and crowns of the luscious trees bowed and danced in the wind and the furor of the moment. The sound of a diesel engine at their backs roared over the cracking and popping of gunfire. The rupturing roar of the cannon on board and the muffled roar of mortar shells. The driver's viewport burst with flowers of thick dark loamy soil and round mud-caked stones as they roared across the green fields. Through the trees to the town beyond. Columns of stark olive-green tanks made a roaring fast sweep across fields and berms and shoddy, shallow trenches.

Tsung grimaced at each bump in their off road journey. Each one was the walls of a trench or a fallen log thrown down in a desperate bid to bar their progress. But they'd come too fast for the Republic and these obstacles were by no means insurmountable. Ahead of them he could see the phantom shadows of more forward armor, clawing through thicker pockets of vegetation to ram a path to the city proper, marked through the murky plastic of his portcullis by familiar gray columns of smoke from smoldering blocks of the city proper.

The ringing sound of bullets rained against the hull of the tank. He jumped at the sudden spike in sound. The rushing beat of his heart raced in his ears. His palms sweated. He was back in the war saddle again and it carried with him to war the nagging alertness and vile awareness of every small detail that it could bring forth. It was a siren of ill-fortune and dolling it out as much. It's song though was not beautiful and simple, but gritty, gory, and complex. But he was here to liberate a people. That was good, was it not? Some rats had to be simply purged.

Sun Song's wailing orders had become background noise. He sighted down and gave orders on where to turn the gun for his crew to fire. The wet thumping of the main cannon had become a part of the background. Much like the sound of the diesel engine. Its report had lost all uniqueness, slipping away like the sweat from his brow as they tore along the summer field.

It was bright out, open skies for as far as he could tell. And humid. Li Tsung had never experienced a humid heat. For him it had always been dry, whether cold or hot. Summer days were defined by their dustiness under the central-China sun.

“Straight ahead!” Sun shouted, “Enemy armor. Approximately fifty meters ahead of us!”

Tsung looked up through his small driver's porthole. Wheeling around the corner of a wooden farm-house bore a Russian tank. Its hefty turret swinging around the corner as it crept, aiming down for them. Streaming off its metal chassis, Tsung thought he saw streams of hay and straw crawling off its armor.

There was a resounding clunk behind him as Wi Hui loaded a shell. “Sighted!” Tse Lin cried out.

“Fire!” Song roared.

With another deafening, if yet still muffled roar the gun fired on the Russian armor. A cone of white-hot fire erupted from the bore. The hostile tank shook with the impact of the shell. But it still moved, if lethargic as Tsung watched the tracks spin loose from the wheel. Smoke emanated from the wheels as they spun.

Hui loaded another round. The Russian tank fired. As the strangled cry from the Russian tank rang through the armor of his vehicle so did the scream of rending steel as something gouged across the side. There was a shower of sparks and a hot wave that pulsed through the cabin.

“Damage report!” Sun Song demanded.

“Loaded!” Hui reported.

Tsung could feel the sweat roll across his brow in a torrent. It dripped from his brow as he panicked about, searching the cabin. “I-I...” he started to say, his voice warbled violently in his throat.

“We're fine then.” Song yelled aloud, “Take the shot!”

There was another rippling explosion from the main gun. With a crunch metal twisted from outside as the Russian vehicle folded open and exploded. There was a violent sheer of white-hot sparks that showered out. Followed soon after by an eruption of flame. Tsung watched baffled with terror as the jets of golden and bloodied fire sputtered out the hull of the tank and the gun. Following its lead wretched blackened smoke plumed.

Then crawled the men. At least one to have survived threw himself out of the turret cloaked in blistering fire. Loud cracks and pops followed him out the hatch. A new fountain of flame burst out, then slowed to a low death as a stable smoldering enveloped behind him. He screamed. He screamed like the tortured soul he was. His voice was so strong, it cut through the steel and the dampening of the tank itself.

Tsung felt his insides turn cold. From above in the turret Song gave the ordered to keep moving. He obeyed, like a robot. Pressing forward with their own march past the farm house.

With a rippling roar the fire met the ammo magazines. The shells caught all at once. Ripping the hull open. Tsung heard that much, saw the brilliant flash of light in the glass. Then the constant chain of rifle fire with the machine gun's magazine going up in flame.

But it wasn't this he kept hearing. It was the phantom screams of the tanker.

Tsung was no longer a virgin to death. But there was still the act of burning to death he had not witnessed.

“We're getting close.” Song shouted out to the crew, “I can see the city skyline.”

To Tyumen.



Trees stood at rank along the side of the road, dusty and graveling the tires popped and bounced over the loose pieces of gravel as it spun down the lonesome logger's trail. The columns of pine that stood at the road's edge were like sentinels of the forest. Vigilant sentries of the mountain. Beneath their boughs the under brush grew thick and lush in the early summer sun.

The desolation and the emptiness of the countryside road washed in through the open windows as Ulanhu rode along in the passenger seat of a twenty-year old Russian car. Built in what looked like a decadent proclamation of Russian industry the vehicle possessed as many irrelevant and mismatched elements as it possibly could. And most of it was lashed together by wire and duct tape from the innumerable splitting seems and loose headliner. The entire car could be aptly summarized by it being a rolling sea of muddy blood-red leather and vinyl.

In the driver's seat sat a scrawny and spidery young private. He smiled as he drove, his eyes held straight ahead down the empty road with nothing but the sound of the gravel and the humid mountain air that washed in through the window. His head was a filthy mat of wild blonde hair that hung about the rims of giant coke-bottle glasses.

He hadn't spoke much since he was introduced with Ulanhu. His name was Vasiliy, Vasiliy Kulkov Popervoch. He had grown up not far from Moscow, and as he claimed to Ulanhu and Makulov still had family there. He greeted Ulanhu with a boundless, youthful smile and sparkle in his faded blue eyes. The Mongolian didn't know what to do once again when he offered to shake his hand. That had been the first cultural hurdle.

But now here both were, a day's ride out of the Urals and on their way to Moscow. Vasiliy had taken to thinking himself witty and spy-like, insisting to take the back roads. Ulanhu didn't object, he wanted to stay off the inevitable and to allow him to think.

Their briefing was simple, on the surface. Upon arriving to Moscovy they'd seek out and rendevouz with a contact of Makulov's. A man named Chekov Borisovy. A former manager of a factory that'd gone bankrupt with the Empire. Now he was stuck in Russia like so many others. He'd fought in the army before, in central Asia alongside Makulov. Which is why the contact persisted. He would have the means to get closer into the Republican government.

Investigating the situation in Yekaterinburg for the agents was out of the question. Makulov's men had the city more-or-less surrounded. Ulanhu felt he was stretched thin. And he was afraid of what'd happen when the Chinese arrive. Would they see Makulov as a Republican warlord and dismiss him passingly as such? Was Makulov even capable of contacting the Chinese?

Ulanhu had met Hue Wen's intelligence staff chief once upon a time. He made him uncomfortable, made him feel cold. Mann Wu came off as the type to sentence to death first, ask questions later. Not as outright an executioner as Jun when it came down to it. But he and Wu were operatives cut from the same yard of silk, they were tigers through and through.

Ulanhu starred down the short, stubby nose of the car as they drove. The hood was decorated in some gaudy attempt at being futuristic. Though it still retained a hard-cornered, boxy appearance that had typified Russian design for him since he came into the country. There was a single exception that tried to break the rule, a protruding hood vent that stuck up from the hood like a fat nose on a flat face.

“So, uh- Moscow.” Ulanhu brockered, feebly trying to strike up conversation, “What's the city like?”

“Moscow?” Vasiliy smiled. Even his smile was thin like the rest of him. Crooked yellow teeth hung like inverted tombstones in his mouth. Under his green fatiques a stripped white-blue jacket pattered at his wasting neck, “Oh, is home comrade!”

He was bare in his Chinese. Or anything to say the least. But he made an effort to try. “Is where born and raised. Is good.

“Not good as Sankt Petersburg, dja. Richer city was than Moscow!”

“As I understand.” Ulanhu said dismissively.

“Excuse me?” Vasiliy asked, genuinely lost.

“I heard. Uh-” Ulanhu peddled back, “Or, so I've heard. About Sankt Petersburg.”

“Oh, yeah. You heard right you did!” he smiled dumbly.

“Well, what else about Moscow?” Ulanhu continued.

“Oh, is on river.” Vasiliy continued, “Moskva river. Used to swim in it when boy. Some said to not. But I did.” he added with an affirmative nod. “Say factories dump lead and mercury into water. But was all downriver from where I was raised.

“But by river sits Kremlin. Fortress. And seat of government.” the young Russian nodded affirmatively, “Is where we will find president most likely.”

“How do you think we'll need to enter it?” the Chinese agent asked.

“I don't know.” the Russian shrugged, “Climb walls, you like ninja, yes?”

“I'm afraid not.” Ulanhu dismissed. He swallowed the sour taste at the back of his throat.

“Oh well. I suppose too we could walk in through front door. We'll need cover though. Or maybe we can access through subway tunnel!”

“Subway?” Ulanhu asked.

“Dja, subway. Hear Tzar installed private tunnel in fifties for private use.”

“No, what's a subway?” Ulanhu asked.

“Oh! Subways is like train. Underground train, go through tunnel. Is faster than trolly car above ground, but less scenic and more noisy.

“We could find that.” Vasiliy grinned, he was feeling genuinely confident in that course of action, “I heard before I accepted mission that it indeed existed. When built.

“President and guard no doubt know it exist though.”

“We'll need to hope that they're not counting on it.” Ulanhu sighed, looking back out the window.

“Oh sure, they may. But we see when time comes and we make contact.”

“So if we enter the Kremlin, where do we go from there?”

“President may be in Terem Palace. Private residence on grounds. I saw it once as visitor before nation went to shit. But never inside, no one ever goes inside.”

“That's where we'll start.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” Vasiliy commented, “Better than nothing!”

They continued to pop and roll down the gravel road. It felt endless in length. But the long tracts of forest was beginning to give way to open clear-cut field. And eventually meadows. “So, is this your first real mission?” Ulanhu asked his Russian partner.

“Not at all. Did lot of work in Yekaterinburg. Actually inside Republican congress!” he boasted confidently, “Doubt any contacts I had there will not help. But I brought my ID card with me. It should help.”

“I hope it will. What was your cover by the way?”

“Mikhail Nikitich, lived across from the Church of All Saints. Married young, wife was murdered. Never re-married. No children either, rest of family lives in Communist-occupied Russia or fled the nation all together, lost contact with all.”

“Sounds complete enough.” nodded Ulanhu.

“It was good identity. You have one?”

“I'm afraid I've always been Ulanhu.” he admitted guiltily.

“Bullshit!” Vasiliy laughed, “What does Ulanhu mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Vasiliy asked stricken, What do you mean?”

“I mean it's not worth knowing.” he said, looking back at him, “Would it really matter.”

“I guess not.” Vasiliy admitted.





It had taken him awhile to brave the thought to do it. Even as the school terms ended. At least for a while, merely the month. And then it was his last tour. It felt strange really. But it was washed aside as he stood in the shadow of the pillaring necropolish before him. It was a blackened and gray mass of unwashed and unkempt structures. Even the flair of inner Hong Kong was devoid around it, much of it caught in the sickly aura of Kowloon's darkened heart.

Guilded by soot the apartment walls of Kowloon rose above the ground below. An orbiting ring of dirt and grass that tried to give as much a barrier between Hong Kong and the Walled City stood underneath Pui Tui's feet. He hadn't bothered to drive, he knew that was too much of a danger.

It was also a heavy irony that for the disease that the Walled City gave off in its mere visage was counteracted by the density of dentists and doctors who had their offices built on the extreme outside of the mighty enclave of madness amid Hong Kong's relative sanity. The Walled City was a tumor that unlike the rest of China did not fly any of the orange banners of the Chinese state. But opted instead to fly the dusty multi-colored rags of laundry from every possible balcony. The city was not only a rotten temple of bone and cement with blackened tips and grizzled, swelling growths that built steadily up. It was also the advertisement for the most destitute of fashion. The fraying and dusty jumpsuits of the factory laborer, the cotton jerkins of the rough and violent under belly. And even amid these the stray blood-red flag of the old triads and the assertive disdainful detachment from reality in the red banners of the long defunct Red Guard Gang.

Though it was perhaps not all dead. But somehow the worse came to Walled City. Pulled in by its dangerous magnetism. It being the only source of state resistance.

On normal occasions Pui Tui wouldn't dare to stand short of the gates to the former fortress. Neither would his friends. But he had for himself many thousands of ren he needed to use. And somewhere inside was someone who knew how to use it. Tui took a deep breath and looked up at that pleasant, open, July sky and stepped across the dusty mall towards the city.

He walked briskly towards the city. Stepping over centuries old stones and engravings that lay in the dirt like gravy markers. None of them were whole, but looking at them the ancient writing carved in the heavy marble slabs were still visible to read. It was a strange sort of feeling to walk over history unpreserved, where the state had sought to do that much. To hold on to the past, repurpose it for the future. Make everything a lesson for the revolution. Yan Cong had commented on such things in significant depth; he read a lot. Tui wondered what he would say about all this. But he knew he'd be too terrified to come so close.

He came onto the gate, a narrow opened guarded by an ancient arch. The centuries old brickwork of an ancient Yamen defined this way in. Windows shuttered with wood seemed to watch the young man approach, silently like the dead. His skin went clammy as he made his approach. In the darkness inside and beyond the gate he could listen to the echoes of many thousands. Uncountable numbers of people, not only by the danger within but how many were packed together. Tui didn't need Cong to tell him that with as many souls were cramped in the Walled City it would be nearly impossible for the city of Beijing to count them all and tax them.

He paused outside that gaping maw. The gate was old, faded. The blue paint of the yamen house was peeling pack and parting from the centuries old wooden frame. What shone through was a graying disaster. The frame was buckled and bent, distorted by the weight of infrastructure that refused to stop growing. And looking up the Walled City's edge Pui Tui felt a sickly vertigo take hold of him as its vertical expanse swam into the clear sky. He couldn't tell where the crowns of the projects ended, of if that was just simply a weighty and dangerous buckling of the structures as they grew.

There was a bronze cannon in the grass. Its green turret hidden by weeds and bushes thick as the hair atop his head. He only noticed it when he looked back down and saw the empty bore of the gun staring up at him from the weeds. Its dark chamber like the Walled City in miniature. It felt damning in its presence there. Also challenging. “Go ahead.” it invited, “I leave this kingdom unprotected.” it taunted.

Tui looked back. Perhaps the last sanest thing he could do in this situation. He'd told his father he was out on the town as usual. He'd be back by dinner to do the evening chores. Was this foolish?

He took a breath, and forced himself to swallow his fear and walked into the entrance's embrace. Cringing back as he felt the heady smell of human squalor wash him as he walked into the concrete caverns.

The light behind him was an intense silver glow in the claustrophobic shadows of the city within. His shadow trailed long ahead of him across the filthy cement ground as he walked alongside the exposed plumbing and electrical conduit that serviced the entire city. Hanging just inches above his head puttered and flickered weak incandescent lights. His eyes strained to understand the darkness while his ears and nose took in so much.

The passage from one world into another had been sudden, jaunting. His nose was assaulted by the smells of a million different things. It made his stomach belch and twist inside him. The sharp bitter smell of rot and sewage permiated the air and clung to the humidity like a swampy cloth that brushed his cheek and pooled in the back of his sinuses. Blood, sweat, and even semen was heavy in the air, like the tar and grime that covered the walls and pipes. He could smell it all. Every rotten smell. From the refuse to the people. From the people to the rats. It was almost inhuman. Insane almost.

And there was the sounds. The great echoing and clashing of tools. They echoed near and far, disorienting the young man as he meekly worked through the maze of tunnels and dense alley ways of the city. There was no one ever far away from. There was always someone close at hand, around ever corner and in every niche and alcove. And he could hear them. Shouting, yelling, arguing, and bickering. From somewhere there was the moaning of whores. Elsewhere prostitutes and butchers shouted out the price of their goods and services. Likewise he heard a preacher proclaim something unfamiliar and distant: alms. Alms to the Christian God. Proclamations and taunting jeering in praise to Guan Yu against the Christian missionaries that found the unsettling home here in the darkness.

But he could not blame these parties, he found uncomfortably. For they were trying to bring light to a dark place. And every so often Tui would pass through a fresh column of sunlight in the entombing shadows of the Kowloon underworld. It was a brief relief. But it was all too rare.

Tui passed by many people in the holds of the city. Brushing shoulders against man and woman and preacher and child alike. Some tried to stop him. A preacher tried to pass onto him a bottle of milk for his well wishes. But in the choking darkness of it all when he looked into any of their faces he could see only their deformed sunken features in the ill lighting.

It withdrew him. His heart flashed and screamed in his chest. He put his head down, keeping his eyes down as he pressed along. Following channels of trickling water and snaking lines of conduit and other pipes. He looked up only to check the signs, looking for the corners and stairwells he had to be at. His shoes sloshed through puddles of blood. He looked up to find the very road itself had cut through the middle of a butcher's shop. The meat cutters within glanced up from the chopping of their meat. Pig's heads and hearts lay out in the open watching him as silent as the butchers with their bloodied and rusting cleavers. Cigarettes hung loosely in their lips as they stood over their cuts of meat and strips of bacon.

Tui refrained his breathing, and kept moving.

Elbowing through the choked throngs of everyone he kept moving. Looking up at the lamps along the side of each sign marking each road and inter-section. Tui couldn't help but snicker sickly at the names of many of these informal roads and pathways. Pleasantry Boulevard, Paradise Avenue, 5th Avenue, Lucky Way. They were a perverted sort of humor of the city. Then he came to where he needed to be.

The crossing of 5th and 8th avenue. Both not much wider than a man and a half. Both with shallow trenches cut in the middle where all the liquid of Kowloon flowed freely into a drain in the middle. Rats freely gleaned through the water, looking up at him through black beady eyes.

“R-right, top floor now...” Tui muttered to himself as he looked at the dented and rusting road posting. He looked around for a stairwell. Or elevator. Anything to get him up. He didn't need to look far.

The stairwell he found was a narrow climbing alcove built between the closed-in walls of what looked to have been an old wooden house and that of a brick building alongside it. Both reinforced by the concrete, the constant urban reconstruction evident in the Walled City's underbelly was swallowing the old whole in its continued quest to grow or to reinforce. Chalky pieces of cement littered still the iron steps between lakes and rivers of rust created from leaking pipes above. In the dim light Tui could look up into its winding climb to see the ragged silhouettes of simple people, withdrawn into the darkness. Or into a drugged sleep.

He hit the stairs with a determined charge. Not just to try to escape the pressing depression of the under belly, but to break through what remained in the rest of his voyage. The stairs rang under his feet, groaned and shook in loose anchors to the wall. There were no lights were he went. Simply the glow from interior apartments where the noisy sounds of fighting, crying, laughing, and singing exploded. The smells of cooking rice and noodles mingled with the sickly sweet smell of burning opium. Switching back he scaled the cavern of squalor. Squeezing past languid individuals.

He kept climbing, hoping for the relief of the pure sunlight. His shoulder met against the side of an elderly man who crept down the stairs rattling off in tongues to himself. Someone shouted from above and below. His hand brushed across a slimy metal railing that overlooked an open pit, the bottom of which was a mess of discarded pieces of life and garbage. He looked down into the pond of detritus to see rats the size of large dogs feeding among the filth.

He kept climbing.

Scaling further up a halo of sunlight burned through a thin curtain. He could hear the faint breeze in the cavern and he knew he was making it. His heart breathed a sigh of relief as he kept moving. And with a gasp he broke to the rooftops, the top floor.

Standing once again in the sunlight he took a pause to look about. He had not left the Walled City's demesne, but he was simply in a easier hell. Standing atop the writhing realm before he walked forward into the light. He felt warm again in the sun and he realized just how good it was after being trapped for so long away from it. He gave a sigh of relief.

Though even on the rooftops the growing reach of the Walled City didn't stop. Standing in random patterns across the broken and irregular flat roofs there were free-standing structures of brick. A few precious sky-lights dotting the area let in precious light no doubt to down below. And even more precious breaks between the buildings were marked by cables and twisting strands of barbed wire.

Some of the Walled City's citizens had stepped out into the light like he. Elderly men reclining on beds made of orange crates. Women and their children trying to hold onto the few remaining green plants in the whole city. And off in the distance among the sounds of Kowloon proper's traffic the noise of power tools and hammers sounded as more was built atop the already creaking structure below.

“What sort of fresh fish did the monster swallow today?” a voice called out callously.

Pui Tui jumped. The voice was sudden and direct. He knew it couldn't be for anyone but him. “E-excuse me?” he stuttered nervously, turning every which way and that as he looked.

“Over here fuck-face.” the man demanded. Tui found the voice's source.

He was a small man, short by Cantonese standards even. His face rat-like and bulging. It had its own share of moles and blisters on it to go around. And the man's dome was almost completely bald. A pair of sunglasses shone in the afternoon sunlight as he leaned over railing strung together by rusting conduit in front of a simple shack. It had green tile work, which struck Tui off as odd.

“I-I'm looking for someone.” he said nervously, defensively even.

“Sure, you better fucking be doing so. You're young kid.” he spat, pointing a crooked finger at him, “And I know young men like you don't simply wander into the Walled City without a reason. Or you're an absolute fucking retard, you know?”

“Oh- I- uh-” he started. He felt shameful, exposed.

“Don't fucking stand their jabbering or some meaner cunt is going to slit your throat for a pair of your jeans.” he hissed. The man was loud. He pointed down at the pair of pants he was wearing. “So get your words in order before I do the honors. Best to die in the sunlight than in the shadows and eaten by rats. At least up here you can be fed to the gulls.

“Certain people would call that an honor.”

“I-I'm looking for someone. Song Yun-Fee.” Tui cracked. He fought up some of his courage to speak, “A, uh- a Ghost sent me.” he bit his lip.

The man's back straightened and he rose from the conduit railing of his soap-box front porch. “I see.” he said hushed, “Come inside, we'll talk. Get you out of someone's eyes.” he turned to the blanket-covered door of his shack, waving him in as he went.

Tui was apprehensive, afraid at first. But knowingly he had to follow him, and he did. Taking wide steps he bound over the gravely roof tops and the chords of cable and vent pipe for the porch. Stepping up and following him in.

“So that motherfucker is still alive.” Yun-Fee said as Tui trailed in. His hut was small, merely a room and a half large. A half-hidden bathroom stood in the corner, being only simply a toilet and a sink. The rest of Yun-Fee's live possessions sat clinging to the wall. A simple table sat out in the middle of the linoleum tiled floor. But despite its small size, the man moved swiftly about it like it was a palace.

“I think so...” Tui nervously smiled

“You think?” Yun-Fee shot, giving him a sour cynical look.

“Oh, uh. Yea. He's alive.” Tui stammered. His stomach felt cold realizing his slip.

“That's what I wanted to know.” the gambler huffed, stepping over to a small gas stove shoved in the corner. “Sit down.” he ordered.

Tui nodded, shuffling carefully through the prison cell of a makeshift apartment to the table. “You want tea?” Yun-Fee asked as the teenage sat down.

“I- I guess. Yeah...” Tui nodded. His voice trailed off nervously. His fingers tapped numbly against the wood of the table.

“Good tea is a good thing to have. Especially on a warm and clear afternoon.” his host pointed out, “I hope you like it black, it's all I got.”

“Fine. Fine. That'll be... Fine.” Tui stammered coldly.

“So, this ghost...” Yun-Fee started as he went to work brewing the tea. Filling a beaten tarnished pot with water from a sink that spat and sputtered out water like vomet, “why'd he send you to me?”

“I have money problems.” Tui admitted

“Money problems?” Song Yun-Fee asked, “Like what? Not enough? Need a loan? This ghost wouldn't give it to you?”

“Well, no.” Tui shrugged, “I do races. And I, uh... I won some money from over time from racing. But I'm told it'd be dangerous to spend it.”

“How much?” Yun-Fee asked

“Some several hundred thousand, I think.”

“Ahh-” Yun Fee crooned, “Some serious Ren. I take it the more you race the more this grows?”

“It does.”

“Then I suppose I can fix that.” Yun-Fee boasted confidently, “It's not fucking hard. It's like taking a shit. Though it may sometime be a slow process but the relief comes inevitably.”

Tui didn't feel comfortable with the analogy, but rolled along with it. Leaning back to listen as the man put the water onto bowl and prepared the tea itself. “I do however charge for this financial fixing.” he continued, “Not mostly all for me though, I have some palms to grease to get it through. But it'll get through, trust me.

“I wouldn't be in fucking business if I didn't get it through and you won't find my head on the fucking street because I tricked some cunt triad boss!” he laughed, turning away from the stove as he wagged on crooked finger at him. “I'll need fifteen percent.”

“Fifteen?” Tui repeated.

“Fifteen.” Yun-Fee scowled, “Can't you fucking count? One over fourteen and one under sixteen! Fucking four higher than five!”

“Y-y-yes, I know.” Tui admitted, reeling back from the ferocity of his tongue, “I just-”

“I don't care what you just thought.” Yun-Fee said in a low voice, “I care about business.

“I'll take fifteen percent of your race winnings, use however much I can to move it into city finances as I can. Without a week or so it'll process through probably and come to you as back pay on taxes paid.

“Simply put, you'll get a heft return of some several thousand percent written off by fellow conspiring entrepreneurs in city hall.”

The tea pot began to steam and Sun-Yee went silent as he worked to finish up the tea. He moved with practice gracelessness in dipping the tea and mixing the briny herb in the water before turning back to the table. “So, let's talk details.” he continued, coming back from his silence, “So let's start: who the fuck are you?”

Atlas Mountains, Spanish Morocco

Through a pair of binoculars, Julio Zuraban scanned across the desert wadi, combing across a jagged horizon where a hazy blue sky met the dark basalt of the Atlas Mountains. Still nothing. The coast remained clear.

"Nothing yet." Julio reported, lowering the binoculars and laying them down upon the boulder he sat behind.

"Good." The news bore no effect on Graciela, who continued staring out over the valley from behind the scope of a monstrous rifle. Laid across the top of the same boulder, the gun was every bit as long as its user was tall. It was a high powered rifle built to penetrate the engine blocks of armored vehicles during the Great War. Such weapons were no longer in vogue in modern militaries; man-portable rocket launchers had become the vehicle-killer of choice for well funded armies, and so Great War surplus like this trickled down to brushfire conflicts and rebel armies the world over. For her purposes, however, this mothballed anti-tank rifle was exactly the tool the plan required.

"Eyes up," Graciela reminded tersely. "Gunships frequent this area, we could get company at any moment."

Julio returned the binoculars to his face and resumed his vigil over the sky. No sign of the dreaded helicopters that patrolled these lands so doggedly, Julio's attention went to a band of Tuareg warriors milling about in the bottom of the wadi. Within the twin ovals of the binoculars, Julio watched as the Bedouin carried worn old tires on their back and deposited them at the trunk of a spindly acacia shrub. The Ethiopian adviser, Dejene, watched as the Tuaregs made their haphazard pile about the scrubby tree before splashing the tires with the contents of a small jerrycan. Seeming satisfied with the pile, Dejene struck a match, cast it upon the pile and orange tongues of fire sprouted forth from the tires. Julio followed the thick, black smoke as it rose up into the clear sky above.

"That should attract some attention," Graciela mused as she watched the tire pile ignite through her scope, along with Dejene gesturing to the Tuareg to assume ambush positions. Julio followed the Bedouin as they scrambled up the rocks on the opposite side of the wadi. Even with sheathed swords dangling at their hip and billowing robes knocking against their knees, the Tuareg easily negotiated the boulders on the far slope and tucked themselves into crags in the rocks or beneath acacia scrub. Within moments, the desert warriors were invisible. The wadi had returned to its previous desolate and uninhabited state. The inky smoke rising from this barren land would be suspicious indeed to anyone who happened on the site from the air. "Now pay careful attention to the sky, Julio." She reminded, somehow aware he was no longer scanning the horizon for activity.

Julio's binoculars traced the distant peaks. A speck of motion far off in the distance - a dark speck rising upward against the lavender-blue haze that frosted the horizon. It could only be one thing: Spanish aircraft.

"I saw something," Julio reported, his pulse intensifying.

"Where?"

"Off to the left, between the..."

"Clock positions, Senator," Graciela demanded.

"Erm.... ten, eleven o'clock?" Julio combed over the peaks he had seen the twinge of motion. He found it again, hovering over that same dusty peak, but could not see what exactly it was. His fingers fumbled with the focus knob between the two lenses. As the wheel spun, the world became blurry - wrong way. A few spins in the reciprocal direction and the clarity increased. He could see what that speck in the distance was.

"Nevermind," Julio sighed.

"What do you mean?"

"It was just an eagle. We're still clear." Julio's face reddened with shame, lowering the binoculars again. "Apologies for putting you on edge."

"Don't apologize," Graciela chastised, still scanning over the land through the rifle's scope. "I'd much prefer an early false alarm to learning too late that we're not alone."

Julio nodded, stealing a glance of Graciela. She laid flat against the boulder, the dark leather of her pilot jacket blended well against the basalt. Baggy khaki trousers that once comprised part of a complete Ejercito battle uniform were rolled at her ankles to accommodate well worn combat boots; he caught himself staring at the neat mound her buttocks made in spite of the oversized khakis.

"I take it you've served in the Ejercito?"

"Not a chance," Graciela bristled. "Women can still only join in non-combatant roles as nurses and such. But even if I could fight, I'd sooner lop off my trigger fingers than enlist. The Ejercito has spilled much of my family's blood." A sensitive subject it seemed. Better to drop the conversation, Julio reasoned.

"What makes you ask?" She pressed. "The outfit? The jacket came from one of the pilots on that plane you came down on; the pants from a patrol that came too close to the camp."

"That and the way you handle the firearm," Julio added, attempting to cover his oogling.

"I was born in the Basque Country; hunting is common in that part of Spain. My father took me hunting since I was five years old, I shot my first boar before my seventh birthday. The Ejercito has no monopoly on marksmen, certainly not on markswomen."

"Keep watching." She reminded once more. Julio once again put the binoculars to his face and screened the desolate landscape.

"Have you ever... uh," Julio stumbled over words as morbid curiosity overcame his trepidations. "Have you ever shot a person before?"

"I wouldn't call them people, the men I've killed. After what they've done to my father, people like you, I feel no remorse in ending them. I don't distinguish between a hog and one of Sotelo's men."

"My condolences for your father," Julio offered.

"I fear the worst for him. He was an avowed enemy of the state. Those like you and Joaquin only asked too many questions for the regime's liking. You were more of an indirect threat to Sotelo's power, dangerous in your own right but not as pressing - they had to disguise your sequestration with this ridiculous virus quarantine story. My father and his colleagues presented an existential threat to Sotelo - Basque nationalists who decided to work with other disaffected circles when Alfonso Sotelo started to show the country who he really was. That was the beginning of the Partisans."

"That was where my father and his colleagues made their mistake - letting strangers - spies, informants - be privy to the workings of the movement. They bided their time until the critical moment, and took them all in a swoop."

"They sent them to... Arratzu?" Julio shuddered as the name left his lips. The memory of that wretched place filled his mind with unwelcome images. The sting of the truth serum crackled through his brain by association, he winced tacitly behind the binoculars, waiting for the surge to abate as he calmed down.

"No need for it. From what I gather from you and the others on the plane, Arratzu is an interrogation center disguised as a quarantine hospital. My father and his friends were clearly enemies of the state - no need for that ridiculous virus story for them. And the informants in their midst had relayed everything Sotelo could have ever wanted to know. If they didn't execute him on the spot, then the only place the regime would have taken him is La Cabeza."

La Cabeza - the Head. Since crashing down in this land, the fortress one hundred kilometers to the southwest was the center of every endeavor, at the heart of all questions. He had heard from Dejene that the Bedouin locals had noticed heavy construction equipment moving deep into the desert sometime in mid-1976. That had been a tumultuous time indeed for the Second Spanish Republic, a brief engagement in the Second North American War, followed immediately thereafter by Miguel Tejero's assasination and the attack on the Capitol complex in Madrid. Alfonso Sotelo ascended to power in the ensuing the emergency elections. And while Spain proper's attention was assaulted by immense happenings, the publications were too distracted to make note of the momentous construction efforts going underway at the edge of the Sahara.

Whatever was at La Cabeza, it was to be left alone. The government had gone to immense lengths - literally - to assure the facility's security. Even at a distance of a hundred kilometers, patrol aircraft combed the desert to assure prying eyes stayed well away from a facility buried underneath a mountain. The settled Moroccans were easy enough to keep at bay, but it seemed that the Tuareg Bedouin required more persuasion. If Dejene was to be believed, the Spanish government had done terrible things to these people.

But if La Cabeza to be left alone, why then had Julio been sent with a hundred other prisoners to this place, one of numerous daily shipments of people being taken to this place?

Slave labor perhaps. In addition to the planes, trains laden with all manner of materials had been reported moving to the facility, but invariably leaving emptied out for the return trip to Tangiers or Marrakesh to be loaded with more materials. That seemed to be the most plausible explanation. It was one of the more optimistic outlooks.

"What do you think is there?" Julio asked, his curiosity demanded to know if Graciela had heard more from Dejene or the Tuaregs about what La Cabeza was or was not.

"I have no idea, but we'll know soon enough what that place is."
---------------------------

Locusts made rattling calls from the acacia scrub as the day wore on. Six interminable hours had passed since they had arrived to establish this ambush. The signal fire had died down multiple times as the tires burned down, and now Dejene and the Tuaregs were running out of tires. Around the charred stumps where the acacia bush had been hours before, robed Bedouin placed bundles of dessicated acacia limbs into the fire to supplement their dwindling supply of vulcanized rubber. Soon, they would would be out, and they would have to return to the camp to scavenge more tires from abandoned hamlets within La Cabeza's exclusion zone - dangerous and laborious task in itself.

Julio could feel his face burning in the desert sun. Sunscreen was a luxury the Tuareg did not possess, likely why they insisted on their full-bodied robes, and so Julio had to do without. He was certain that looking through the binoculars for several hours had left two rings of unburnt skin around his eyes, the sort of sunburns tourists at Ibiza or the Canaries got after leaving their sunglasses on a long day at the beach.

He looked once again across the landscape. The sun was lower in the sky now, casting long shadows against the rocks and crags of the wadi. It would be dark in a few hours, and the ambush would have to be called off soon even if there was plenty of rubber to burn. Being out in the dark, exposed to nighttime patrols, was a dangerous proposition as it was feared that the gunship pilots had cutting-edge infrared goggles to see activity even on moonless nights.

"We need to be going soon," Julio spoke up, his voice raspy for lack of water. "Much longer and we'll be hiking back in the dark."

"One more hour, or until Dejene runs out of tires - whichever comes first. Keep looking until then."

The same, bleak empty horizon greeted Julio as he scanned once again. In the distance, a pair of eagles could be seen in the distance, gaining altitude on the updrafts rising over the mountains. On second glance, it was one large eagle. Julio spun the knob to focus on it.

It wasn't an eagle this time.

"Graciela, we have company! Your two o'clock position!"

Graciela slid down off the boulder for the first time in hours, pivoting the massive rifle to the reported direction. A second of silence as she fixed the scope upon the object, and then Graciela's uncovered eye widened.

"Barracuda!!" She screamed across the wadi to Dejene. "Coming in from the West! Get to cover!"

Julio slid down out of the open behind the boulder next to Graciela, occasionally peeking out into the wadi as the Tuareg scattered for their hiding spots. Dejene rolled the last two tires into the fire before breaking for the rubble and ducking into cover just as the roar of the chopper's propellers became audible. The gunship decelerated as it descended toward the wadi, its downgusts sent sheets of dust and sand scattering off the ridges as it approached. There was no doubt, the pilot had noticed the smoke and had decided to investigate.

The constant thwocking of the propellers was now deafening. Julio slid as far down beneath the boulder as he could. Wispy desert brush waggled behind him as the gunship slowed to a crawl over the wadi. He looked directly above and saw the underside of the attack helicopter. At this distance, the individual rivets of the aircraft could be counted. The boots of a gunman seated at a pintle-mounted machinegun dangled mere meters above him. His heart was racing now as he hoped desperately that the soldiers inside did not think to look down at this moment. Fluttering earthward in the downdraft, a glowing cigarette butt fell from the helicopter and nearly landed on Graciela's boots. The gunship eased off to his right, circling around over the wadi - wisely scanning the area for any sign of danger. So long as they weren't very thorough, Julio hoped.

The helicopter was now somewhere over the big boulder, Julio nor Graciela dared to peek over to see exactly where. But the rotors were winding down - gradually but surely. The gunship was going to land and investigate - the bait had been taken. A minute passed, and Julio could definitely hear the rotors idling now. The gunship had certainly landed at this point. He shifted about, crawling around to the side of the boulder to peer out into the wadi.

Dust danced about the valley as three Spaniards clad in Ejercito battle uniforms disembarked from the open fuselage of the chopper while a pilot and copilot threw switches behind the windshield. The soldiers stepped out incautiously into the desert wash with seemingly little concern, though standard issue firearms slung across their backs could be accessed at a moment's notice. There was plenty that could go wrong with this ambush yet.

"Tires," one of the soldiers reported to his comrades in Castillian, poking the smoldering rubber with his boot.

"Goddamn Tuareg were probably camped out here. I saw a ton of footprints in the sand before the props blew them all away."

"Probably buggered off when they heard us coming," the more-senior of the soldiers concluded. "I doubt they got far. See if you can find some tracks, will you? I'll go ahead and make sure they call it in.

Graciela too had heard that exchange, and knew full well that attracting any more attention was not an option. It was time to strike, silence the radio before anything unusual could be reported. She hefted the giant rifle back up onto the flat of the boulder and took aim.

"Jesucri-" One soldier blurted too late.

What followed was likely the single loudest thing Julio Zuraban would ever hear in his entire life. It sounded like a grenade had exploded in his ear. A shell the size of a man's fist tumbled down off the boulder, trailing smoke as clinked down to the ground - inaudible to Julio as sharp tinnitus rang through his head in lieu of the popping of a firefight. Graciela tumbled down behind the boulder before a salvo of small arms fire ricocheted off the rocks.

Julio stole a momentary glimpse of the wadi. The three soldiers appeared to have survived, taking cover on the far side of the valley behind a mass of fallen rock. A poor choice of cover indeed - Dejene gave the call for the Tuareg to begin the attack, and immediately they were beset by gunfire from directly behind them. The three of them were dispatched instantly, while another contingent of Tuareg and some of Julio's fellow survivors stormed the gunship.

"Let's move!" Graciela commanded, scooping the rifle up into her arms. Julio bolted out from behind the stone and clambered down the hillside to the wadi.

By the time they had reached the bottom, all members of the gunship's crew had been disposed of. Four killed by gunfire, another two had attempted to surrender. For their cooperation, they were put to the takooba shortswords carried by the nomad warriors. The Tuareg demonstrated once again that they did not take captives. The Tuaregs and the prisoners removed the dead from the chopper, rifling through their weapons, ammunition, and supplies. When they arrived at the chopper - its blades still whirling overhead - Julio could see the damage inflicted by Graciela's rifle: a perfectly round bullethole had effortlessly pierced the bulletproof windshield panel directly in front of the pilot's seat - leaving only minor spiderweb fractures in the glass. Just inside, the glass, the pilot's upper torso had been pulverized by the monster round. Perhaps a gallon of thick, pasty gore had been splattered across every conceivable surface in the cockpit. Two Tuareg fighters emerged from the Barracuda carrying the lower three-fourths of the pilot's remains in blood-soaked arms. They went out a few paces and then unceremoniously dumped the body with the bodies of the other crew.

Julio felt a twinge of remorse. Even though these soldiers would have killed him if given the chance, these were his countrymen that he was complicit in gunning down. If the atmosphere were any less hectic at that moment, perhaps he would have felt serious regret.

"You've made a terrible mess in here, Graciela." Dejene reported jestfully, leaning out of the open fuselage as Graciela and Julio jogged over to the chopper.

"Will it fly though?" Graciela asked in between pants.

"My hands will get very messy, but it appears to be in good condition," the Ethiopian smiled. "You haven't hit anything vital."

"Good. Go ahead and start the propellers back up, we need to get moving before they notice the gunship missing."

"Agreed. I'll inform the Tuareg to hide the bodies and make their way to camp and await radio communication to mobilize." Dejene explained

"I can assist with that," Julio offered. "Without combat experience, I'll be of more use here."

"No, you and the other Spaniards go on the gunship with us. We need everyone who can pass for a Spanish soldier on hand if we have any hope of getting into La Cabeza alive."

Addis Ababa

"The floor is now closed for debate. The vote will begin." Akanni announced, his voice filling the Senatorial chamber via the electronic aid of a microphone. There had been no debate. When it had been announced earlier that morning that the Tribal House had abandoned the city without pomp or a vote, the senate lost interest in debating the issue at hand.

Prime Minister Akanni stood at the podium. He wore a black velvet, high-collared Kaftan robe trimmed with weaving patterns of red and white. The robe opened up below the waste to reveal supple black leather boots and European dress pants. On his breast he wore a white rose made from knitted cloth.

There was something adversarial about the way the Senatorial chamber was built. It was round and tall, shaped like a stadium with its seating along its edges. It had rows of long, connected desks that rose in tiers as they came closer to the wall. The walls were covered with dark wood paneling, and there was an imposing Lion of Judah imbedded in back of the room. The Lion was painted in full color and towered above the seats of the Imperial Coalition. In the center of the room was the podium where the speaker on the floor would stand, and behind that was the Prime Minister's desk. It was the habit of the Imperial coalition to sit behind the Prime Minister, leaving the seats in front of him to their opponents. This made Akanni feel like a field commander at the head of an army as it faced off against its foes. There were taunts and debates, but they never came to blows in a violent way.

Young pages wandered between the desks, collecting votes in stereotypical voting boxes. Conversation mumbled in a few places in the room, but all else was silent. Akanni felt his eyes wandering to James Lutalo, the leader of the Wakomunisti party and defacto leader of the far left in Ethiopian politics. He was a middle aged man, a dark-skinned Kenyan with mercenary personality. He carried himself with aggressive confidence, holding his chest forward and his back straight and looking people solidly in the eye when he spoke to them. He had been an adventurer of sorts during his youth, joining the colonial rebellions of the fifties and sixties for excitement as much as any other reason.

Now Lutalo was a national nuisance. Wakomunisti meant Communist in Swahili. He wasn't a communist by the Spanish definition, where the word was used as a curse rather than a reference to political and economic theory. Lutalo was the real deal, and he had a habit of appealing to China from time to time requesting the deposition of the African monarchy.

That had been an amusing habit at first. Akanni had always wondered what Chairman Hou thought of those letters.

But this time had been different. They were at war now, and Chinese aid was crucial. Akanni shared the same fear that Yaqob's ministers expressed, that Lutalo's letter had complicated the situation in China. Though Akanni held no doubt that Hou would be supportive of the African cause, the Chairman ruled his nation with a light hand, and the related facts of his ailing body and the political scramble for his replacement had only lightened his hand further. He would have the help of Fulumirani, but Fulumirani was a cold fish and naturally designed to move with the currents of local politics. In many ways, Hou's support would be worth more than the Ambassadors presence.

Hou's relationship with Yaqob was personal. Akanni has seen that when he had served as the first Ambassador to China, an appointment he had been given by Yaqob's father. Akanni thought of Hou as a polite and politic man, but Hou acted differently around Yaqob. Regret, Akanni had sensed. That, or nostalgia. Hou was a man who had dedicated himself to the task of steering his country away from the dangers of party politics by doing more of the work than left him time for living his own life. As far as Akanni knew, the old man had no wife or children. Yaqob, a prince from Africa with all the energy and excitement of youth and the heart of an academic, had somehow filled the void.

But Hou was an outlier. China was a country with a cultural love of isolation. They had tried to isolate from Europe for most of their history, and their initial failure had burned them. This second attempt had saw them shun the world stage for a decade. That isolation had left a mark on their political system. They were naturally driven to be skeptical about the outside world, and the Wakomunisti letter had not helped.

"The vote is in." he heard the spirited voice of a slim-faced young page say, facing him from the floor in front of the podium. He was wearing a beige button-up jacket with pleated pockets and a belt that caused the extra cloth below his waist to flair. There was a badge on the left breast pocket. It was a single loop of thin brass wire, with the bottom of it indented inward into the crude silhouette of an elephant. That badge had become popular with the youth of Addis Ababa as a symbol of the Pan-African nationalism that was now blossoming across the otherwise contradictory continent.

The results of the count were given to Akanni, and he was not surprised.

"Forty seven vote in favor, seven against. Forty six abstain due to absence."

There were many absent, represented by empty seats is the chamber. Tomorrow, they would all be empty.

"The motion to immediately move the Senate in emergency to Gondar for an undetermined time is passed." When his words passed his lips, the room began to buzz.

Everyone knew this would be the answer. The Pan-African legislature was a Tricameral apparatus, in which three houses reigned with equal powers to introduce legislation or veto it. The three houses were thus: The Senate, a central elected body that served African delusions of democracy, The Tribal House, where representatives of recognized tribal or traditional bodies were given a say in what was an otherwise alien, western style of government, and the Imperial Deputies, who were men appointed by the crown to weigh the wants of their districts with the wishes of the Emperor. This was an inefficient mess of a government, where three spheres fretted to the point of incompetence. The Imperial Deputies were little more than puppets of Yaqob's government, ruining the democratic sentiments of the other two with their monarchical veto. The Tribes pulled the opposite way, making every move they could to turn the Pan-African government into little more than a funnel for occasional aid. In the middle of this all the Senate could do was try to make it work, but only when they did not get too caught up in their own fights.

It was no matter now. The government had broken up well before the senate called their retreat. The Tribal House was no longer in session now that the local leaders were fleeing into the countryside, and the Imperial House was crippled by the Emperor's grief-inspired disappearance from public affairs. With the senate on the move, Addis Ababa was prepared to be a battlefield.

The closing of the Senate was momentous despite having been predicted and inevitable. The roar of so many Senators hummed through the chamber like machine-gun reports. Men were standing up, stirring awkwardly behind desks. Now the vote was passed, they were anxious to make good on it and leave.

Akanni picked up a gavel and clapped it down in quick, morse-like strokes. Senators stopped in their paths. The hum died to a murmur, giving the room the grim feeling of a tremoring volcano with portends to erupt all around him.

"Before we go, I have something to say." Akanni said. "And I will say my peace." The room settled to listen to him.

"I am not like our Emperor." he said. "I do not have his gift with speech, so I will keep this brief. All I want to say is this. Today is not the end. We are not done here. We are a continent of similar people, and our people have all faced the extraordinary odds of European invasion in the past. We are all here because our peoples overcame these problems, and we will overcome them again. Africa has gained the power of knowledge and fellowship. We have friends abroad. I have been told that foreigners from places abroad are traveling to fight on our continent. There are Armenians and Americans, Persians and Brazilians, organizing alongside our own soldiers to fight for the belief that all peoples on the earth should have the right to govern their own affairs. We will see frightening times soon, and there will be horrors before this war is done, but it when it ends we will return. And then we will continue our work. Be safe."

There was a nervous applause. It was respectful, but it finished as soon as it could. They began to leave.

The humiliating feeling of retreat hung heavy over Akanni's conscious. He felt the boy in him urging to resist the forces driving him to run, but it was not a meaningful feeling. He was no warrior, and he had no place in a warzone. The Prime Minister's place was behind the lines, ministering.

His slow walk to the door felt like a sulk. He looked around, admiring the round room and the commanding lion at his back. Would he see it again? He wondered what what the Spanish would do if they got their hands on the African capital.

"Prime Minister. Can I have some of your time?" he heard a familiar voice, gravelly and self-gratified. The Fitawrari Iregi approached him with a small number of uncomfortable senators in tow. Iregi had been a staunch modernist, in love with the republican forms of government in the west, and he had tried to make his dream a reality during the Civil War when he and a number of insurgents carved out a small government around Mogadishu. He had called himself 'Fitawrari', an old Ethiopian term given to distinguished nobles who commanded levies large enough to be considered respectable. This was not an official title in his case, but many still called him by it, and he had the gall to put it on his stationary. His gall annoyed Akanni all the more, as Iregi was the leader of the opposition.

Akanni turned and smiled.

"That was a beautiful speech." Iregi said. He was dark skinned man despite being an Ethiopian. He was from the Shanqella of the south, who the Abyssinians of the highlands had once drawn their slaves from. The southerners had been pagans and muslims before they were conquered by the christian Abyssinians, so when Iyasu tried to convert his country to Islam, the dark-skinned southerners had came to sudden prominence as loyal servants of the crown.

"It did not have Yaqob's flair." he continued. "But still well worded."

"I said it from the heart." Akanni said wearily. "This was a strange vote. It stirred up some feelings."

"True, True." Iregi said flippantly. "Though the nation could use some words from its Emperor, if we only knew where he was."

"At home." Akanni answered. "I have not heard of him leaving the city. He is in grief, you know."

"This is true. It was a horrible tragedy, and all of Africa morns." Iregi sounded sympathetic, but Akanni couldn't help but remember when this very same man had been a suspect in the plot that killed Emperor Yohannes.

"But we need our Emperor." he added.

"Yes." Akanni replied. "I was planning to see him before I left the city. Or, at least, to try to see him. I hear his secretary and his new priest screen his visitors now."

"You are the Prime Minister. Would they screen you?"

"Well." Akanni hesitated. They probably would not, but Akanni wasn't sure. The Emperor had been secluded for days. Akanni was afraid what he might find. "I am planning to go over there at least. I should deliver the news about our move in person. I am his friend. He deserves that respect."

"He deserves so many respects." Iregi said. "For he is the Emperor."

"Yes. Yes. What are your plans, Iregi? Will you participate in this war."

"Oh no, no. Not yet. If I chose to it will be circumstances that feel right to me. For now, I am fleeing with all of the rest of the government. I fear there will be a traffic of nice foreign cars all the way to Gondar."

"I will see you then." Akanni replied. "But now I suppose I should visit a friend."

--

Akanni climbed into the backseat of a Chinese-model sedan. Asian sensibility set the car apart from the European models. It was smaller than the limousines that westerners preferred, its lines plain and boxy with a dull grey-black paint job that reflected very little light so that it lacked the more desirable, flashy designs of the Maybach and Hispano-Suiza. The leftist values of Asia had driven Yaqob and the government that followed his fashionable sensibilities to adopt Chinese vehicles for government use, supplemented only by the hardier, but most often uglier, Polish trucks.

"The Emperor's Residence." Akanni said to the driver, who had fetched the Prime Minister's vehicle from a protected place in the guts of the parking alcove. There was no reply, but no reply was needed. They rolled forward through the shadowed alcove under the west wing of the National Palace.

The car smelled like fresh upholstery and filtered air. Akanni put his hand down to feel the coolness of the cloth covering the back seat, but instead he found the book he had been reading that morning during his commute across the city. It had a nauseous moss-green cover with the simple black outline of an ancient bireme, and the title 'Crusaders of Royal Adulis' was printed across it in bold Amharic text.

It was a historical fiction about the Axumite King Kaleb and the crusade he personally led against the Jewish monarchs of Yemen. There were allusions to modern Ethiopian control of Hejaz, but the purpose of this book and those like that were their part in the larger Pan-African cultural movement. The threat of Europe and the rise of Ethiopia's Pan-Africa had given the people of the continent an enhanced sense of their own identity, and they were beginning to eschew western art for art that celebrated their people. Heroic stories of ancient African kings replaced the classical European myths and further enhanced the growing divide between white and black.

Light suddenly filled the car. They left the grey-brown stone of the alcove and entered the National Plaza. It was surrounded on three sides by the National Palace, where the day to day affairs of African government were decided. The National Palace reflected western architecture, shadowing the neoclassical columns and thick, cut stone construction of the Reichstag of Germany, though the rounded eastern flair adopted from Arabic style gave it a more palatial feel. The building hugged the plaza, where a commanding statue of Menelik II watched over the stone roadways. Menelik wore the feathered crown of the old Empire, a round-shield in one hand and a lance in the other as his horse reared defiantly.

It suddenly struck Akanni that this was the place their government had nearly ended only three years earlier. This was where Hassan had held off a murderous riot after news of Yaqob's near-death from an assassins bullet had spread. It had been a battle all across the city. Twenty good men had defended the hospital where Yaqob had lay in a coma, while violence spread into Embassy Row, where the rioters had threatened the Chinese ambassadors with death before the streets were finally clear.

Lutalo and Iregi had been implicated in that ugly event, Akanni recalled. Their supporters had helped stir up the panic and fear gripping the city, and they had tried to turn it into revolution. Tried, but failed completely.

The sedan left the plaza and descended the hill toward the city below them. Addis blanketed the rolling hills in the shadow of the rising Entoto mountains to the north. A pang of nostalgia grew in Akanni's heart. He felt empty, looking across a city he may never see again after today.

He saw the lime-washed stone edifice of the hospital where Yaqob had spent his time recovering from the attempt on his life. It was nestled among the scattered canopy of palm trees and Australian eucalyptus's that hid the capital's more unassuming buildings. That was Negus Mikael General Hospital, and it was the only completely modern medical facility in the country. A disturbing thought intruded on the Prime Minister's mind just then; that hospital commanded a tactical view of the area around it from its tallest three-story tower. When the war came to the city, that hospital would become a choke-point.

They climbed a modest hill in their economical Chinese vehicle, which seemed to lose some power when the road became steep. From the crest of the rise, he could see the high hill that dominated the northern edge of the city. That was Mount Entoto, a name it shared with the more impressive neighbors who's shadows stood like fading clouds on the distant horizon. Mount Entoto was where the city had been founded. It was there that Menelik II and his domineering wife had constructed a modest palace commanding the heights of the Oromian territories, a land the Ethiopians had acquired only decades earlier, and it was there in which that Emperor and his wife were buried.

Before Entoto lie the city in its fullest. He could see the hospital in the corner of his eye. The sprawling campus of the University of Addis Ababa was recognizable by a flash of manicured grass in the distance, and beyond that was the tree-filled vale where the foreign embassies rested. In front of him was the core of the city. The main roads met here, bringing the business of a tentatively linked Africa to what had once been the location of a market bazaar, but which now hosted much more. There were no buildings in Addis Ababa that climbed above sixteen stories. The single sixteen-story rise was the Ras Hotel, a gawdy yellow structure who's sliver-thin crescent balconies and rounded European windows spoke of colonial tastes. He remembered it as a place where Safari-Trophies decorated the lobby and animal skins covered the seats. That had also been a favorite haunt of Sahle before his failed Imperial reign. In those days, the scandal of Yohannes' heir defined the Ras Hotel nearly as much as it's ridiculous design.

There were other tall buildings near the center of the city, though they were so sparse that no two ever rose on the same block. There were apartment buildings and office complexes, but few of them were truly specialized. On the edge of all of this, the fortress-like neoclassical Abyssinian Front Museum gleamed as if it were an ancient monument. That was another defensible spot. The granite and limestone that made the crossed wings of the museum were stronger than the walls of Harar, though the building itself commanding no particular strategic view.

Surrounded the city center were the miles of ramshackle homes that constituted the suburbs of Addis Ababa, where sunlight flashed on the tin roofs that had witnessed Sahle's ignoble attempt to escape and the failure that had officially ended his regime. Beyond those homes lay the scrub-land of Oromia, a land of yellow hills covered in lush trees. To the south, the land descended toward the Awash river and the lands of the black-skinned tribal peoples. To the north lay the highlands; the mountainous heart of Ethiopia, where most of its people lived and waited and prepared for war.

As they crawled into the city, the day-to-day pedestrians began to be replaced by a disheartening sight: refugees. They had came to the city from the African coast, and they had found no other place to go but the heart of their national capital. Akanni saw them, and felt as if he had helplessly failed them.

They were the robed Islamic people of Djibouti, the robe-clad Ethiopian, and the occasional American refugee from the ghettos of that same embattled port. Many wore the white or pale-colored tunics that were so popular amongst the Habesha, or the semi-arabic clothing of the Somali. There were half-naked tribesmen as well, representative of the very view who had abandoned the salt-deserts of the Afar. They carried their worldly goods with them in pathetically small cloth bags, and many were covered with the dirt of travel.

When they saw the black government sedan cutting through the city, they stared. That made Akanni nervous. After seeing evidence of the carnage that preceding Hassan's entrance into the city, and after experiencing the riots of '77, Akanni was nervous when it came to unwashed mobs. He felt a certain pity for their lot, inevitable as it was, but pity did not blind him to the danger that was always posed when a group of people stood prepared to egg each others grievances into hatred.

The people did an unexpected thing then. They began to cheer.

It was not the cheer of an audience seeing the end of the opera. No, this was the sound of a warrior people. Their voices rose into an ear-stinging "LEE-LEE-LEE-LEE-LEE!" Men hopped and shook their fists, while women and children came close and touched the slow-moving car. Akanni was stunned. The behavior was too novel for him to completely accept, and he watched the jubilation with discomfiture.

As they left the crowd, the Prime Minister had time to reflect on what he had just witnessed. He watched the Lion-Of-Judah statue at the center of the downtown roundabout as a man lead a mule through the grass beneath it. The feelings of the people puzzled him. Was that fear, or overconfidence, or did the people in the city truly have that much faith in their government? Where they rooting for the Prime Minister, or just the Emperor that he served? Or, in that brief moment, had Akanni served as a symbol of their entire continent?

The car reached its destination

--

Akanni's sedan came to a stop in the shade of the eucalyptus trees. The Imperial Residence was separated from the road by a long yard, giving the a sense of rural serenity. He was met in the drive by Mvulu, the captain of the Imperial Guard, who wobbled away from the doorway of the palace in order to meet the Prime Minister. Akanni opened his door and moved quickly in order to save Mvulu the walk.

Mvulu was a central-African, as black as ink with short wiry hair clinging to his scalp. His face was covered in scars, the worst of which was hidden behind a gilded cream eye patch that matched the color of his uniform. His walk was a hobble because of the leg that he had lost during the Katanga crisis. In place of his lost leg was an ivory peg which with an elaborate engraving of gorillas in a mountain jungle.

"Captain Mvulu" Akanni greeted with a smile. "You're guarding the door?"

"The Emperor prefers me at the door." Mvulu replied. He shook Akanni's hand with a grip that was as firm as stone. "He is not a happy man now. He wants me to personally oversee who comes and who goes."

"I would not expect him to be happy." Akanni's smile fell. "This has been a tragic month for us all, but much worse for our Emperor."

"It has hit me hard as well, I confess." Mvulu said. His expression grew distant and disturbed. "I held Tewodros the day before... You know, I lived with the family too. Its a horrible thing, death. I have know many people who have died, and I have seen it happen too, but it is never easy." He paused, searching Akanni's face for a moment. "Do you know what it was that..."

"The Chinese have confirmed, it was a Spanish aircraft. Something new." Akanni said. "The Chinese tried to intercept, but they only arrived in time to get revenge. They lost a man in that battle."

"I respect them for that." Mvulu nodded. "Maybe there are good people in the world who are not African. That is something I have doubted for some time."

Akanni changed the subject. "May I see him? I have news that he will need to know."

"You were his friend." Mvulu said. "His secretary is away at a rally and the priest is gone on church business, so I will let you in."

The Imperial Residence was a palatial estate built with all the charm of an Italian country villa. It had a shingled roof and beige stucco walls. Colonnades with arched columns surrounded much of the home, and lead between the buildings to a peaceful inner courtyard.

Mvulu opened one of the tall wooden doors that constituted the entrance to the building and held it politely for the Prime Minister. Akanni entered and felt the cool air-conditioned atmosphere wash over him.

"Are you going to tell his Imperial majesty to pull himself together?" Mvulu inquired.

"Yes." Akanni confirmed.

"The priest had been doing the same thing." Mvulu informed. "He tells the Emperor that he should go in the streets and help in the city. That is his advice."

"That sounds like it would be more work for you." Akanni said. Mvulu chuckled.

The residence carried the faint hint of pungent incense, but there were no other human scents. The first thing he saw was the thick granite map of Africa that hung from the wall opposite of the doorway. It was a massive slab, so heavy that Akanni could feel the weight just by looking at it. Visitors were known to avoid standing underneath it for fear that it might fall on them, but it was not the strangest thing in the Emperor's home.

Yaqob had decorated his house with an eclectic taste that straddled the divide between museum and mad-man's hermitage. As Mvulu led him through the halls, he passed a Kenyan war mask, countless framed paintings from all across the world, a gilded suit of 15th century European armor, and a mummified cat resting on a wooden table next to a phone. These were only some of the things he took note of amongst the ridiculous collection. When he turned a corner to see an elongated Hunnic skull on a silver stand, it reminded him of the fossilized skeletons of two lovingly intertwined ape-people that Yaqob had placed in the press room of the residence.

"He is in the Scroll room?" Akanni guessed as he saw where they were going.

Mvulu nodded. "I'll leave you too him so I can get back to my post." Akanni finished his walk alone.

The door to the scroll room was made to look like bamboo, but when he pressed against it he could feel the weight of the heavy wood at its core. When he entered the room, he felt the subtle change in temperature that accompanied the climate control. The light in here was dim as well, kept like the glow of an artificial dawn.

Yaqob's Scroll Room was a repository for a set of Chinese artwork that had been given to the Emperor by Chairman Hou. The hand scrolls, some twenty feet in length, were works of art designed to tell a visual story scene by scene. The oldest ones were a millennia old, dating back to the Tang and Song dynasties. Those old scrolls had been printed on silk paper that had went brittle and yellow with age. The scenes they revealed were of medieval Chinese villages nestled amongst craggy mountains, dense forests hugging serene lakes where fishermen on bamboo rafts watched herons take flight, and ancient hermits in humble mountain temples giving lectures on Confucius using the nature around them as a source for examples. The sharpness of the detail was surprising, and the Chinese ink-work made it possible for these intricate scenes to blend seamlessly into the paper.

There were modern scrolls too. They were much younger than the ancient examples, rarely dating from more than twenty years ago. Hou himself had commissioned those works as part of the cultural programs he had launched to fortify traditional Chinese identities in the tumultuous years following the revolution. They mimicked the ancient scrolls, using yellow silk paper and showing scenes that praised the natural world, but the villages and hermits had been replaced with regiments of flag-waving soldiers and dutiful workers operating modern equipment in the rice fields of progress.

All of the scrolls were protected by glass cases that lined the walls. In the center of the room was a fountain made to look like a trickle of water running down a stone mountain. A red porcelain dragon wrapped around the top of the fountain. It was of the Asian variety: Long and serpentine, with colorful flame-like fins along its back and an expression of surprise so exaggerated that it looked as if somebody had goosed it.

But where was Yaqob? Akanni took a step, and the bamboo floor creaked.

"Who is there?" a weak voice spoke up.

"Akanni."

"Oh." Yaqob appeared from behind the fountain.

The Emperor looked grey and drawn. His eyes were bloodshot, and he carried himself like an elderly man too frail to leave the hospital. He wore a wrinkled white bed tunic. There was a thin book in his hand with a title that read 'The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia'. Akanni had never heard of it before.

"How are you doing?" Akanni asked tentatively.

Yaqob sighed. "I have not been doing well. You heard the news?" he clicked his teeth and but down his book. "Yes. Of course you have."

"I am grief stricken." Akanni replied. The silence that followed his words was so profound that the trickle of water seemed spiteful.

"Yes." Yaqob said, the word caught in a rattling breath. "I know that grief."

"I have to tell you what I have came to convey." Akanni stated. He did not know what else to say. "The Senate has voted to abandon the capital for Gondar. I feel that it would be best if you came with us."

"I cannot leave Addis Ababa. It is all I have." the Emperor said. "The rest of you must go though. You must carry on this thing."

"Your people need you alive."

"I can't." there was a pause. Akanni saw how his friend was struggling. Yaqob was fighting to keep his composure, but he was not winning the fight.

"God! I can't save this country! I cannot do anything! I..." He pulled himself back together for a moment. "Akanni, you know me. We have been friends since Beijing. You have to trust that I am no good now."

"I can't believe that." Akanni replied. "You have suffered worse than any man I have known, but most of your suffering had been brought on by one thing." When he saw the change in Yaqob's eyes, he realized what he had let slip. There had been uncertainty at first, confusion about how Azima's plane had went down. There had been reports of rogue aircraft, but the initial guess was that the storm had brought down the Queen. The Chinese had brought them the truth though: It had been Spanish malice that had done this evil.

"They did this?" Yaqob said. "I thought it was true, but I did not know. It was the enemy?"

Akanni swallowed. "I... yes. The IB at Pemba sent us a report. They encountered the Spanish fighter."

"Did they bring it down?" Yaqob asked. His mood had changed quite suddenly. He was intense now, hanging on Akanni's words.

"No." the Prime Minister answered. "They only damaged the enemy craft."

Yaqob fell back onto a bench. Tears began to well on his eyes. "They hate me so much, that they would kill my wife... and my child?" he was crying now. Akanni sat beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I wish there were better things to say." Akanni said softly. "Your Empire stands behind you. I saw the people in the streets today, and they were cheering your name."

"An Empire is nothing." Yaqob sobbed. "I cannot hold it in my arms."

"Your Empire is made of people, and they need you. If you cannot live for yourself, live for them, and remember that I am your friend and I will stand by you until you learn to live again."

"I can only try." Yaqob said. "But I have been trying, and it has been no use yet. And now that I know how it happened? Leave me, Akanni. I want to forget that I was a person on this earth, just for a little time more."

Sevan, Armenia

"Where's your name, son?"

Still groggy and hungover, bound in handcuffs and tossed into a cell, Yaglian writhed around on the jail cot and groaned. He had banged his head on the roof of the police car as he got out: a black bruise on his forehead might cause some to turn and wonder if the police had beat him in custody. Generally, MPs were better about that sort of thing than civilian cops. Police abuse wasn't often reported in the town, but it was there. The Corporal shook his head and tried to bury it into the green mattress of the cot. The MP sighed, crossed his arms, and tried to rouse the Corporal from his sleep again. His partner arrived in the room with a bucket of water. Yaglian groaned again as the other MP dumped out the bucket. A wave of cold passed through his spine, an involuntary desire to leap up overcame him. With a yelp, all he managed to do was tumble out of the cot and onto the concrete floor: he was soaked and shivering.

"Are you awake now?" the cop with the bucket asked sarcastically, wiping his slightly wet hands on the bare undershirt he wore in lieu of jacket. His partner chuckled, watching Yaglian spit and sputter on the ground. The sound of water dripping on the concrete filled the silent intermissions.

"Fuck! Shit! Jesus, what a helluva shower!" Yaglian shouted in surprise. "For fuck's sake, you could have asked!"

"Sorry, boy, I guess you just weren't being very responsive."

"Gah, shit. Fine, fine. I'm George Yaglian."

The two MPs looked at each other, shrugged, and wrote his response down on a notepad.

"Where do you work?" one asked.

"I laterally transferred from the Border Guard to the Army a few months ago... I work as a security specialist," Yaglian admitted, coughing up some water and removing his drenched jacket.

"Huh. Airfield?"

"Yep."

"Who's your CO?"

Yaglian squinted his eyes and looked back up at the MPs before shaking his head. Their unit's commander had just been fired for sleeping with an underage prostitute in the town - he claimed he did it unknowingly but the base higher-ups wanted to make an example out of him. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence, but Yaglian's commander was gone nonetheless. An interim officer, a somewhat meek executive officer, had been assigned to command until a new Captain could be found. He explained the situation to the MPs, who wrote that down as well. They warned him that they would be sending a citation to the commander and that he needed to be more responsible on future town passes. Such minor incidents were generally under the responsibility of the unit commander instead of the Armenian Army's legal system. The most that could happen would be a reprimand and some restriction, maybe jail time if the commander was harsh enough. Yaglian, however, severely doubted anything major would come out of it.

The cops let Yaglian go shortly before noon, giving him a new set of fatigues and a bag to put his possessions in. It was Sunday, the base eerily quiet. Most people were sleeping off hangovers or working the weekend shift in their buildings. In the distance, helicopters were taxiing off the runway and heading east to the training section of the camp. The Corporal struggled to find his way back to the barracks, still hungover and tired. By one in the afternoon, he had almost fallen through the door to find his Greek roommate standing with half a dozen other shirtless Greeks, all watching intently as two more played a serious game of chess on the coffee table. Yaglian looked quizzically at his roommate, who shrugged and replied: "We're alright. Did you get jailed?"

Yaglian sighed, replied with an unenthusiastic yes, and then announced that he was going to bed to take a nap. "Whatever you're doing," he said as he shook his head, "just keep it quiet."

Monday came, and Yaglian began his trip to the headquarters for the morning briefing. Generally administered by the officer of the day, it went over general concerns like current events and dangers to be looked out for that day. As always, the threat of Ottoman saboteurs was marked as a moderate threat. It was not expected but that didn't mean that Yaglian was allowed to drop his vigilance. Arms were issued out by a bored-looking armorer, and Yaglian was sent out to the hangars were he stood in the shade and watched fighters and helicopters fly back and forth over the tarmac. His fellow guard, another foreigner, never spoke. Yaglian's main theory about security guards was that they took all the refugees who couldn't speak Armenian and tossed them here, out of the main public eye. The "true" Armenians were all thrown together in the main regiments and sent off to fight for glory. That would explain Yaglian's roommate's Greek parties.

Curiously enough, Yaglian's commander never spoke to him about the drunken brawl. Maybe the word was lost in the confusion of interim commanding or the issue was discarded completely. Nonetheless, Yaglian was never sure if he was supposed to be punished or not and decided it was safe to just keep on the down-low. Yet he suspected ulterior motives: a storm was brewing over Istanbul, and he feared that they were keeping NJPs to a minimum in order to have troops ready to go at a moment's notice.

One could only hope for some action around those parts.

Independent Istanbul

A fireplace crackled as an NSS agent threw a box of shredded papers down into it. A man in a suit with a rifle peeked around a window curtain to see the view outside. The sun had set, and the Armenian embassy had begun final procedures to sanitize its covert involvements before something happened. Actionable intelligence had just come in that the Ottomans were massing troops at a previously-abandoned military base just outside of Istanbul. The staff could see reconnaissance planes circling daily, no doubt taking pictures of anything and everything. The NSS had contacted the Istanbul Police and determined that they were taking steps to fortify strategic points in anticipation of an invasion. Militias, generally organized neighborhood-by-neighborhood, were forming. Strangely enough, they were equipped with Armenian weapons: the NSS staff at the embassy claimed that they didn't know how and blamed it on surplus, but the station chief was a notoriously bad liar. On the other side of the city, Greeks were poised to enter under the pretense of securing the city's independence against expansionist Ottoman policies. Lines of trucks and tanks stretched for kilometers down the main road leading to Europe.

A helicopter was expected to arrive sometime in the night to evacuate the officials to a waiting Armenian vessel in the Black Sea. Then, they would be quickly and quietly ferried back to the Fatherland and a waiting debriefing in Yerevan. The building was to be abandoned, the staff dispersed back to other government jobs. When the Greeks, Ottomans, Istanbulites, and possibly Armenians came to blows over the ancient city, the embassy workers would be safe. Outside, there were echoes of gunshots across the city. Criminals? Skirmishes? Nobody really knew. The man with the rifle by the window tensed up every time a crack sounded off. He looked over at the NSS agents, as if trying to hurry them up. The embassy staff, ties undone and button-down shirts untucked and unbuttoned, paid no attention. They focused on the tasking at hand, without too much thought. It took six hours to do a clean sweep of the record room, combing through it again and again and again to ensure that nothing was left behind. God forbid the Ottomans find a folder in some corner with captured documents still inside. An NSS agent stood by with a manifest, checking accountability every time something was tossed in the fireplace.

A heavy cargo helicopter arrived at one in the morning, flying in low with no lights on. The building shook violently as the thunderous rotors tore shingles off of the roof. It couldn't land on the questionably-sound structure and instead hovered about a half meter above the surface. Commandos, holding rifles with gigantic nightvision scopes, hopped out of the cargo bay and crouched down low on the embassy roof. They wore masks, black uniforms, and lean kit. The embassy workers arrived on the rooftop just as shots came over. They dropped to the ground as the sonic cracks snapped and lashed at them. The commandos urged the embassy workers to hurry up, one of them grabbing a clerk by the collar and tossing him violently up the cargo ramp. The enormous helicopter could take forty people. There were sixty-three on the embassy.

Luckily, a sister helicopter arrived to take the remaining staff. Someone, most likely eager militiamen, were ready this time. Antiaircraft gun fire, tracers, arced across the night sky. Rifle shots hit the concrete barriers on the roof and threw up clouds of dust and shrapnel. The special operators inside ducked down and shouted at the horrified embassy workers to hurry up. They needed no encouragement and jumped aboard. The helicopter throttled up, turned sideways, and rocketed to altitude - it was never apparent that the rotor narrowly missed a power line that could have crashed the whole thing back down. The flight to the mothership lasted thirty minutes: they touched down on the helicopter carrier immediately. The civilian ship - the flat top cleared and replaced with fabricated metal landing pads for eight helicopters and assorted support functions like fuel - turned its rudder and steamed away as fast as it could.

It was a clean escape from a coming storm.

Sevan Island, Armenia

The rumbling of a dozen helicopters let the enemy know long before the Officer Candidates arrived on the beaches of Sevan Island. Hidden in the dense forests overlooking the drop zone, the cadre were ready. Armed with rifles and rubber bullets, they readied for the attacking force. Heavy machineguns in the woods had enough power to knock a Candidate down and, possibly, break bones with the "non-lethal" weaponry. It was enough incentive as any to take it carefully during the opening stages of the assault. Abbasian and Sulayev, squad leaders in D Company, knew the simple objective was not so simple. The cadre would be laying out traps and ambushes as they darted up the flank to hit the rear. Despite their tactical officer's assumption that there would be no "wild goose chases", Abbasian had been privately warned that the instructors were in possession of the battle plans after breaking into the barracks and picking the lock on the CO's file cabinet. The fight was designed to be as unfair as possible.

They hit the beach seconds later. The helicopters, in keeping with their violence of action strategy, landed harshly. A loadmaster practically threw the first few troops through the door as the dismounts began firing wildly at the treeline. They hit the floor, flattening themselves against the warm sands of the beach while their comrades took turns suppressing the cadre. Twenty seconds into the rehearsed action, there was still no returning fire. Abbasian kept his face firmly in the sands until he heard murmuring along the lines: "Where are they?"

The Officer Candidates cautiously looked up. Some went up onto their knees, scanning the trees for anything like movement or activity. Sulayev inched up and gazed through the telescopic sight attached to his K19 before Abbasian grabbed his sleeve and dragged him back down. "They know, this is a trick."

Behind Abbasian, the platoon leader's radio beeped. The bespectacled Candidate reached for his backpack handset and listened as another platoon leader voiced his confusion. The officer simple replied the same thing that everyone else was thinking: "I don't know either!" and hung up. He put his hands back on the rifle grip just as B Company began to cautiously execute its attack procedure. The cadre, however, were waiting. B Company, heading across the sands slowly and hunched down low, had no cover as a barrage of rifle rifle peppered them with rubber bullets. The referee attached to the company walked calmly behind with a stick, whacking those who were "out" and telling them to play dead. Those he determined were wounded were told to scream out in mock pain. C Company's leader came over the tactical radio net and shouted to get out of the ambush. The instructors had begun sweeping fire to the other sides of the arrowhead formation that B Company had spearheaded. B Company was completely wiped out, with maybe a squad or so combat effective. "We need to go, right fucking now!" ordered Abbasian's platoon leader.

"What are we gonna fuckin' do, roll out of the way?" Abbassian shot back while a burst of rubber bullets plunked into the sand just centimeters away. The platoon leader shrugged, stood up, and ran like an Olympic sprinter to safety.

"Follow him! Follow him!" Sulayev commanded before getting up to do the same. The four squads all took off, running in full gear as if their lives depended on it. The company took heavy fire during its advance before the platoon leader ducked down behind a rocky portion of the beach. It was there where he could hide his men and allow them to regroup and catch their breath. F Company was on its way but Abbasian's platoon leader hadn't heard of them. The cadre were playing dirty tricks to disorganize the students' approach, and that just made him frustrated. If anything, his resolve to finish the exercise and graduate became stronger than ever. The platoon leader was busy trying to communicate on the radio when Abbasian approached him.

"Hey man, listen... The instructors are going to be one step ahead of us," Abbasian warned the sheepish mock-Lieutenant. "They have our plans."

"Yeah, I know," the platoon commander shot back, cupping his hand over the radio's mouthpiece.

"So we need to improvise, we can't keep heading up the flank. If F Company isn't answering their radios then they might be out. That means the cadre have positioned units to interdict our flanking operations further down the beach..."

"Shit."

"Let's think about it, how many instructors and staff do you think we have? Equal force?"

Sulayev, unbeknownst to Abbasian, had crouch-walked up to the meeting. His dark skin was shining with sweat and large, dark pools had formed under his armpits. "Equal force is what the briefing told us," he answered cautiously. "If the instructors are being dicks about it then they probably scraped up some more troops to answer us."

"So what can we gather about the landing? They wiped out B Company with that barrage... How many guns do we estimate?" Abbasian started the train of thought in his fellow Candidates, walking them through a thorough evaluation of the battle. They determined that it was a whole platoon in the front shooting their weapons at B Company based on how much fire was directed as the advance group versus the time it took to "kill" them all. The lighter resistance to moving up the beach that D Company experienced was most probably due to the lack of men available at the frontlines of the cadre's positions to deal with a scattering. F Company's quick destruction was the result of the same: possibly a greater-sized defensive force knocking it out on the west side of the island. Down on the east where D Company huddled in a rocky bluff, it was only natural to assume that there was an equal-sized force waiting downrange on the beach. That was three or four units accounted for. There was going to be at least one at the home base pulling security, possibly two. There were a lot of assumptions, but it was the best they could do.

"We should dart into the woods behind the initial welcoming party but in front of the suspected location where they're waiting for us," Sulayev offered as he drew a rough map in the sand with a stick he found nearby. "They're expecting us to continue up the east into their trap... If we go through here we could flank the frontlines and relieve pressure on the main assault force."

The Yazidi held his head up and nodded to the landing zone where the sounds of a fierce battle were still showing no signs of letting up.

"What about the entrapment force?" Abbasian asked with a stoic voice, pointing to the circled position. "I can take a squad up and make it look like we're still trying to flank... That would stop them from investigating your incursion and make it appear that everything was still going to plan. It's suicide, and it only buys time for you to break their lines, but it might be necessary."

The platoon leader shook his head: "We're outnumbered as it is, we might need you."

"It's not gonna matter if the entrapment force collapses on us when we attack the suppressive positions. This beach is rocky, we can dig in behind cover and our much smaller force can defend against the reinforcements if they decide to collapse. We turn it from an offensive to a defensive and we have somewhat of an even playing field."

In the distance, the faint sounds of artillery simulators - blasting caps stuck into the earth that went off on random fuzes to give the sounds and smells of an artillery barrage - could be heard. The intensity of the instructors' counter-attacking artillery would shake and disorient the trainees. The platoon leader looked at Abbasian, who maintained that his plan was the only option. His steely eyes looked down at the hasty sand table below them, hands gripping his rifle. Sulayev solemnly nodded. There was no time for debate: the longer they stalled, the higher the chance that they would be collapsed on anyways.

Abbasian's squad readied themselves, trading in some of their rifles for more light machine guns to give the impression of a bigger force. Much of their ammo was distributed out to the rest of the company alongside rations and other gear. They weren't expecting to survive the encounter. Sulayev and the platoon leader watched wordlessly as Abbasian walked over to the radioman, tapped him on the shoulder, and grabbed the handset off of his manpack. The Candidate offered it to his platoon leader: "You need to tell them we're launching our attack up the flank. I think they're monitoring communications. They must be."

Sulayev cracked his knuckles and looked back at the men gearing up. "What will the others think?"

"It doesn't matter," the platoon leader agreed. "We'll link up and explain anyways."

As the sounds of artillery got closer, the platoon leader took the phone from Abbasian. Squatting down in the rocks by the bay, he turned the channel to the leaders' joint combat net: "All units, C Company. We are beginning our stage of the attack as scheduled, over."

The radio was hung back up and the platoon leader turned to Abbasian: the dark-skinned ethnic Syrian was already halfway out of cover and sprinting up the beach. Sulayev watched him go in a mix of amusement and mild surprise. "How did we even find motherfuckers like him?"

Socotra

The natives had let Azima and the children sleep through the morning, and when the evening came they celebrated. A goat was slaughtered and roasted in honor of the Queen, which they served with dried dates and bowls of rice soaked with sour milk. An old man, his skin the charcoal black of central Africa, had arrived in the middle of the day with a string of silvery fish, which where roasted over the same open fire as the goat. Azima hadn't eaten since their plane went down, and now she was hungry. Her stomach seemed to be bottomless, and she ate more than she thought was polite, though nobody seemed to notice. She sat with her guests at the edge of a roaring fire, her body still sore and bruised from the crash. The women had lent her a simple blue dress to replace the torn clothes they had found her in. This was the first time these people had saw a Queen, and in their clothes she hardly looked any different from them.

A young man plucked an Oud - a string instrument that looked like a large nut that had been cut in half and strung. He played it quick and lively, and its playful resonance reminded her of the Spanish guitar. He sung as he played, and the young people danced around the fire. A young girl, barefoot, wide-eyed, and dressed in colorful scraps complimented by a headscarf, had chosen Tewodros as her dance partner. As a toddler, he was not coordinated, but he tried to keep up with all the grace of a turtle flailing on its back. Olivier stayed next to Azima, more interested in the fire than the dancers.

Socotra was a beautiful island. As the sun went down, it bathed the surrounding hills in an fresh orange light the color of an overripe melon. Umbrella-shaped trees turned to shadowed silhouettes in the dying light, and they stood stark against a vivid sky. Below them were the rocky precipices where green patches of grass draped ridge-tops like blankets of moss.

The natural world seemed to swallow the small village. Here, the buildings were small and humble. They were built out of raw stone and dry thatch, and they blended into the scenery around them. Humanity proclaimed their presence in this natural landscape with the floral scent of burning dragonsblood and the savory smell of roasted goat. They also brought to this place the sound of music and laughter, the soft crackle of the fire and the distant mooing of cattle.

She sat at the place of honor, the village elder next to her. He was an old man in islamic garb. His skin was red and worn with age and a ragged grey beard sprouted from his face, but his protruding belly told of a life that had not been dominated by hardship.

Azima watched her only son dancing with the girls. It was a beautiful thing. Her entire body felt warm, and half of her thoughts were dedicated to him. She had lost him. Every time she saw him, she remembered that. She had lost him, but he had been returned to her!

She watched him shuffle and knew she would get him to China. She imagined him an adult sitting on the throne of Africa. She would not lose him again.

"They are having a good time." he said, watching the children dance. Some of the adults joined them, but most stayed in the sidelines. People talked, told stories, argued, and laughed. "Look at the good time that they are having." her host bellowed a second time, chuckling as he spoke.

"Yes" she smiled, her eyes centered warmly on her boy. Several courtly responses came to mind, but they did not seem appropriate. This was not a time for Imperial pomp.

"I do not think Socotra has ever seen a Queen." the elder said. "But I do not know. All of my life our island has been part of Ethiopia."

"Has your island ever been on its own? Did it ever have royalty?"

"I do not know this thing." he shrugged. "We were ruled by the faranj before I was born. Before that, this place belonged to Islam."

Azima nodded. She thought bitterly about the other Queen who should be here. The Queen Dowager, Yaqob's mother. She had left Addis with them, but the sea claimed her now. Elani's death would hurt Yaqob and his sister, who were the only ones left from the family that Iyasu begat. Yohannes' siblings had died young, victims of the diseases and wars that plagued Ethiopia's transition from tribal feudalism to modern nation-state.

Azima wanted to stay and help search for the Queen-Dowager's body so that it could be given a proper burial, but she knew that Yaqob would think his child and his Queen dead as well. She knew he was suffering, and it pained her to be the cause of that suffering. They had to leave the island, to save her husband from total grief and to show the Spanish that they had failed.

"We will take you to town in a few days, when we think it is safe." the elder explained. "The fishermen say that planes have been seen in the sky, and that faranj ships are being spotted out to sea."

"We want to be safe." she agreed. "Are there any government employees in town?"

"There were." the elder said. "But they have left. It is just the people who are native to this place. We can access the radios, though. Do not worry. We will make sure you reach the safety in the east."

She studied the villagers and wondered. These were not wealthy people. Their clothes were frayed and dusty, and there was no common fashion to the choice of their garb. The women wore colorful homespun dresses. Some wore head-scarfs, while others let tangled hair twist freely into a wild mess. There were men who wore turbans, while others did not. Some men wore long skirt-like wraps, while others had baggy pants. Azima noticed that half of the villagers were barefoot, and that included most of the kids. Those who did wear shoes had no more than home-spun rope sandals or cheap leather slippers.

They were thin. Not starving, but thin all the same. The men had bony faces where they wore short mustaches or half-grown wispy beards. They were short as well, and plain. These were not warriors, Azima knew. They had the fire of youth in their eye, but it was not battle that those flames inspired in them. She knew part of it was her; she was still young, and though she had born a child she still had a shape that men liked to notice. Without the tail of guards and courtiers that she was used to, she was more aware of the unknown men around her than she had been for several years. It did not worry her. There was no malice in this place, but noticing the men noticing her made her think about what they could do, and what they could do was not much.

It would only take one Spanish soldier, well trained, well armed, and draped with all the necessary ammunition, to wipe out this entire village. An idiot might bungle too close and get mobbed, but a clever man would know to strafe them so that they panicked. She, the Queen of Ethiopia and Africa, was the only fighter in this place, and it had been many years since she had performed in professional violence.

Had Socotra ever seen a war?

"How do you people feel about what is happening?" Azima asked.

"The War?"

She nodded.

"Well, we do not think we will see it here." the elder said. "I am not sure what the faranj would want with our island this time. When they were here before, they were barely here at all."

"Perhaps they might arrive to set up some sort of outpost to watch the red sea. Perhaps they need your cows to feed their soldiers. What happens then?"

He had not seriously considered this as a possibility before now, that much was plain on his face. He looked afraid. What she saw was not the existential fear that the young show, where the eyes go wide and the mouth droops. This was a ponderous fear. The fear in a man who's life is nearly done so that he worries more about the fate of what he will leave behind than his own mortal life.

"We can take to the hills."

"You already are in the hills." Azima pointed out.

"There are higher hills" he retorted. He had worked through his fear, and he was smiling now. "But do not worry about these things, I will tell you something tonight, when we have put the children to bed."

She was intrigued.

When the last purple sunlight escaped over the sea beyond the hills, the stars came out in endless numbers. People left the fireside one by one, but the children did not seem tired. They danced on, slower than they were before, while the old men and women dosed off. It was only when the fire had burned to embers that everyone agreed to return to their homes.

--

The guest room was a simple room on the side of the Village Elder's house. The floor was dirt, and they slept on beds that were no more than blankets placed on top of straw. The darkness of the room weighed heavy on Azima's heart, and she could feel the anxieties of night starting to prey on her as soon as she found the place that she would rest. She stayed up to talk to the children until they went to sleep.

"I am tired now, ahkist." Olivier piped. He had a whistling voice, almost as empty as air.

"That is good." Azima said softly.

"I not tired." Tewodros struggled in his toddler's voice, but the sluggishness of his speech told her that he wasn't telling the truth. "Where setiiyet?"

Elani. That struck her like a punch in the throat. How could she tell her son that his grandmother was lost to them? "She is elsewhere." Azima answered cooly. "And she would want you to go to bed."

"Abat too?"

"Yes." she answered.

"I did a dance." he crooned. She could not see him in the blackness of the windowless room, but she could hear the smile in his voice.

"You did." she said. "Did the dancing make you tired?"

There was a silence. Somewhere outside, a cow mooed.

"No." Tewodros finally replied. "Or yes. I do no want to be tired."

"You don't want to be tired? Oh Yeh-nay-wehn-deh-lee! What is there for you to do now but sleep?"

"I can dance!" he exclaimed.

"In this darkness? You could not see yourself dance, and I could not see it either."

There was another pause. It seemed like she could hear the volume of the darkness that surrounded them for miles.

"I am tired." he finally gave in. She could not see when he fell asleep, so she sat alone in the silence looking at nothing.

When there is nothing to sense, the mind runs wild. The weight of what had happened began to crush her again. She heard the scream of metal, and the sickly death rattle of plane engines as they dove into the ocean. Worst of all, she remembered the last time she saw Elani. If people die bravely, or if they die peacefully, those who witness their last moments can take some comfort in the knowledge that they had accepted death when it came. The last image Azima had of her mother-in-law was not of bravery or peace. What she had seen was a terrified old woman, elderly before her time and confused about what was happening as her life entered its final seconds. It was a heartbreaking image, and Azima couldn't shake it.

She sat alone in the painful dark and knew she couldn't sleep. Her vigil was cut mercifully short when she heard a whisper, and she remembered what the elder had told her at the fire.

She stood up and brushed the straw from her dress. The room was dark except for the ethereal glow of orange that came from the doorway. She groped blindly until she found herself in the next room, where she was greeted by the elderly man. He held a torch in his hands.

"I am sorry that it is late, but I was afraid the children would not get their sleep. I wanted to talk." His wife stood next to him, an old woman with prunish skin and wiry grey hair. Her eyes looked bloodshot in the light.

"What is it that you wanted to say?" Azima asked in a whisper.

He shook his head. "I want to show you something first." The torch drank in the air and roared as he motioned toward the door. Azima looked back at the dark room where the children still slept and wondered at leaving them behind. They were in no danger, she accepted. This place and these people are benign.

He lead her out of his modest house into the dirt path outside, and his wife followed them like a silent wraith in the star-lit darkness. Torchlight played across desert stone, and in the eyes of camels restless in their pen. A cool breeze blew in from the ocean, which she could hear humming far away. Somewhere nearby, a cow mooed.

They came to a newer building, built from the same raw stone that formed the rest of the village. It had windows framed with sticks, and there were Arabic words painted above the door. It read, quite simple, "Madrasa." School. They went inside.

The building smelled like dirt and musty paper. There were benches arranged throughout the room like the pews of a church, and they all faced a smaller bench where the altar would be. A bookshelf sat directly behind the small bench, and it left the walls in the back of the room bathed in shadow.

"This is a new place." Azima noted.

"Yes." the elder said proudly. "We did not have a school when I was a young man. My children did not have a school either, but my grand children have this place." He went to where the small bench was and thrust his torch up so that the back of the wall received light. Her eyes went instantly toward an image she recognized.

In the left-hand corner of the room hung a painting of Yaqob. It was the one that was most often copied and sent to government offices, but she knew that it was even more common than that. He sat regally in a wicker chair, dressed in a brown cape draped over a white robe. It was a portrait from when he was young and new to the throne, and his face was still unbearded.

"Your husband is a handsome man." the Elder's wife said thoughtfully.

"And we are grateful for him. And not just for him." the elder eyed a second painting, this one to the right of the bookshelf. If Yaqob's portrait had been unexpected, then the second one was like seeing a ghost materialize from the shadows.

Emperor Yohannes had always been a serious, long faced man. He stood in his portrait with one hand on a ceremonial sword as he looked onward toward the left. He wore a long white robe tied with a red sash, and on top of his head was the crown his father had ordered made with a crescent at its peak.

There were two Emperor's in that schoolhouse, and they were the only paintings in the entire village.

The Village Elder surprised her in a new way now; he began to exude strength. His appearance took on an air of nobility Azima did not think possible for the people of this island, and his slumping face seemed to tighten where once his jowls had drooped.

"You wanted to know what I think about what is happening to our country." He began, and he spoke with the confidence of a general giving a speech before battle. "I feel like I needed to take you here first. Our people are different in many ways, so I wanted to show you that we are fellow countrymen. Your people mean a lot to ours."

He took a deep breath and studied her. She looked him in the eyes, but the visages of her husband and his deceased father stole her attention in the periphery of her vision. The old man continued to speak.

"When the faranj ruled us, they built a dock and put in the radios. The Emperors from Africa have done more for us. The father gave us the school, and the son has made it where a school-teacher travels from the town once a week to teach our children how to write and read. Some of the children here can speak two languages, our tongue and yours. One of my grandchildren knows French as well, and he is only twelve." A proud smiled slipped across the old man's lips, and firelight twinkled in his eyes. "I have only known this island, and I do not complain. But my grandchildren? They will be able to make choices that I never knew, and that I could never give to my children. If they want to stay here and know the life I have known, that will be their choice, and if they want to leave, they will have the languages and the skills to find their place elsewhere. Perhaps one of my grandchildren will join the bureaucracy and have a home where the windows have glass. Maybe they will find work on a ship and travel the world. I cannot..." he chuckled. "I cannot even think of all of the things that they can do! And I know who we owe this too."

The old man glanced back at the portrait of Yohannes.

"If all of your Kingdom has enjoyed blessings such as these, then I have no reason to fear. Some of the fishermen, and some of the men in the town, they have went to the mainland to go and fight. My people are not fighters, but I know that my sons watch the ocean sometimes and wonder. I want you to know that your people love you. They will rise up like waves and dash the enemy likes crabs against the rocks. Perhaps, when the people of the world were scattered and afraid, the faranj could confuse them and take control, but our people are united now, and they know. There are not enough faranj in this world for you to worry."

Azima was speechless. Since the war began, she had endured the rises and the falls of the war along with those she knew, but tonight was the first time she felt truly at peace with what was happening. She thought it was possible that things might go back to how they had been before.

Esfahani Courier

LAND REDISTRIBUTION ACT RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL BY SUPREME COURT ; TENSIONS IN RULING COALITION

The Land Redistribution Act, which the Majlis voted last October, has been struck down by the Supreme Court. The bill, which ordered all properties over 10,000 acres to be broken up, and which mandated that tenant farmers have an at least 50% share of all properties over 100 acres, was ruled to contravene the basic rights of property inscribed in the Law, insomuch as the expropriation was deemed not to be conducted in the superior interests of the State. Furthermore, the court judged that the compensations offered to the owners were insufficient.

With this ruling, the court confirms its status as a staunch opponent of the SPP-lead government, with similarly negative decisions expected in the coming months on the reforms enacted since the coalition arrived in power last August. This faces the authorities with the challenge of finding an alternative method to apply the reforms while making them palatable to the Supreme Court, whose 9 members, none of which can be considered to be sympathetic to Socialism, will not make it an easy task.

As the conflict with the Judicial system opens, so does a rift in the ruling coalition, as the uneasy compromise between the various factions composing the SPP as well as the groups which associated with it following last summer's scandals appears increasingly fragile. While the most radical among the SPP speak openly of disregarding the court's decision, if not simply forcibly replacing the justices, others are starting to question the feasibility and even desirability of certain campaign promises.

Dariush Kayrani, widely considered as the spokesperson of the leftmost faction of the party, has made in recent weeks repeated calls for the "uprising of the proletariat", and the "rightful reclamation of the lands and factories by those whose blood and sweat have made this country great". In so doing he has openly criticized the perceived lack of "revolutionary ardor" of the current cabinet, and most of all the First Delegate, Mahmud Hotami, whom he heckles at party rallies as an "agent of Capital". Supported by a significant portion of the militants, he demands the immediate dissolution of the Supreme Court, the destitution of the Shah, and the start of a vast campaign to collectivize the countryside, occupy factories, and eradicate religion.

Sara Gamool, one of the members of the Central Bureau of the party closest to the FD, has often faced off with Dariush Kayrani. Justifying the executive's actions, she has said, again and again, that the government must respect the democratic institutions of the state, and the Constitution as it stands, until a new Constitution will have been drafted and adopted. As a consequence, though she expressed her "profound disappointment" at the ruling of the Supreme Court, she said the executive had to respect the verdict of the highest court of justice in the nation. She added she trusted the FD would not rest until lands were fairly distributed and until all farmers could live with dignity from the toil of their land.

Tensions run high within the party itself, but it is with its external partners that they seem to be reaching a critical point. Ruhollah Shanjari, a liberal activist from the Center for Freedom, declared earlier today that "the Court's decision gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we are trying to achieve with this law. I think it was too extreme, and would have adversely affected the country's economic growth. Perhaps the ruling comes at the right moment, and will allow a healthy, moderate debate on land reform." This wing of the coalition, always uneasy with the SPP's ideology, is pushing for a strong shift towards the political center.

These voices of dissent are increasingly undermining the government's authority, but they do not yet threaten its majority in the Majlis. Professor Muhammad Marissian, who teaches politial science at the University of Tabriz, explained that "the coalition is held together by fear of the PR (Party of Righteousness). Everyone knows that if it falters, the PR will return to power. Furthermore, in the current tense geopolitical environment, it is understood that a weak leftist government in Persia is an easy target for anticommunist governments such as Spain. It is a matter of survival that, despite the very wide array of ideological positions present within the coalition, all factions support the government's opposition to Spain's and the other European powers' neocolonial attitude, indeed pushing for more direct intervention to help the Pan-African Empire."

The coalition's hold on power seems, for the moment, assured, but if the standoff with the Supreme Court continues, and if trust is not restored between its members, turbulent times might be ahead of us.

(This is a collaborative post by @gorgenmast and @Vilageidiotx)
(This is a continuation of the events of this Hassan post and this Spanish post. If you don't remember what happened in them, it might not be a bad idea to read them again for context.)

The Battle of Djibouti: Night 1

The pilot sat in silence. It was not true silence, not with the choppy purr of the fighter's engine roaring near his ears, but that was a sound that he had grown accustomed to. It still felt like a silence, punctuated by the calmness of night.

His eyes had adjusted to the darkness beyond the bubble of glass that protected the cabin from the freezing cold air outside. The only light he could see aside from the stars was the green, supernatural glow of the radium paint that illuminated the dials on the dash. Any more light in the cabin could cause night blindness, so that radium glow was the only thing cutting through the blackness he sat immersed in. He could make out the rugged rocky details on the ground below, a moonscape of jagged hills broken by dry scrubland and thin, salty dunes. It was a hell of a place to fight a war, he thought. The port at Djibouti was all there was to fight for in this part of Africa, and the pilot doubted they could retake it. Was reconquest even the purpose of this attack? It wasn't his business to question, he supposed. He was here to bring down a few ferengi and go home.

The Ethiopians had came out in force - seven hundred aircraft, aging fighters bought from Germany during Iyasu's reign and the newer streamlined and silvery fighters purchased from China during Yaqob's, arranged like migratory birds in extended V's bristling with torpedoes and bombs, and machine guns that would pepper the Spanish with millions of lethal shots before the night was over.

Part of their training had been to gain a personal relationship with their birds. Once a week, they slept underneath them at night. They took part in the maintenance, helping to refuel when they landed and to do mechanical repairs when necessary. They had also been allowed to paint their own planes, the paint supplied to them by the air force itself. The colors they used were vibrant and alive, and they covered most of their planes so that few retained their original metallic sheen or any traces of dull factory paint jobs.

He had decorated his bird with an image of Saint George riding a charging, muscle-bound horse. The Saint leaned forward on both sides of the plane, gilded red robes flowing about him like the clouds of heaven, and his couched lance ending where the plane's guns jutted from breaks in the fuselage. This image graced both sides of his craft - not exactly identical, but close enough to seem so without being able to see both at the same time. Others had chosen similar images. There were Lions of Judah, and angelic cherubs that looked like disembodied heads with wings. Some had painted warriors on their fuselage's, others women, while pilots from other parts of the Empire used geometric designs made of interwoven diamonds and webbing lines. Animals were a popular choice as well. There were leopards and gazelles speeding through the sky alongside his Saint George, though it was difficult to seem them in the dark. In fact, it was difficult to make out anything in the dark.

Before war was declared, after the enemy had stated their intent to invade, Hassan had ordered the airforce to drill in night flying. It was a tricky skill, he could not doubt that now if he ever had before. To fly at night required a completely different level of concentration. It was difficult to see anything more than shadows, and the sky was so profoundly black that they could crash into an enemy aircraft just as soon as they spotted it. He would have doubted their ability to fight in these conditions if he hadn't been assured that the problem was accounted for by command. Their training had prepared them for caution above all else, but it had also trained them how to interpret what they were seeing with too few visual clues. His eyes scoped the few hints of earth he could see in front of the wings.

He could see the mottled ground below as it slopped down toward the ocean. The tumbled hills gave way to an open plain, with a halo of orange light crowning the eastern horizon like the first hints of sunrise. But this was not the sun, which had set less than an hour earlier. The Spanish fleet was there, he realized. That was their light.

Olive-drab patches on the sandy ground below suggested the scrub and palm groves of the coastal desert. They were dry this time of year, the wet season having given way to the quenched heat of summer. He examined the ground as a massive landing strip now, considering where he should go if he were forced to land. It would be dangerously open, and the Ethiopian forces would be tucked further west in the protection of the hills behind him. If he were to wander in that direction on foot, he would run the risk of getting lost in an unforgiving desert, but the alternative would be captivity. He had no intentions of waiting out the war in a prison camp.

The orange halo grew closer, and as it came closer it became more mysterious. It wasn't the blistering white beams of spotlights, nor was it the dull blush of the few streetlights that Djibouti had along its main thoroughfares. It was organic and blotchy, like the glow of a lamp behind an animal-hide cover. Some parts of the city still lay in darkness, while others seemed to grow. He saw flashes bloom brightly before becoming part of the luminous whole.

And that was when he realized it was fire. Djibouti was on fire, and the fire was growing.

Radio silence was cut when the electric voice came from the static. "//Targets sighted. Eleven o'clock... gunships.//"

"//Waaahaaa!//" and excitable second voice cut in, loud enough to obscure itself in frantic feedback. "//Free kills! Take them out, brothers!//"

The darkness was not a problem. Djibouti had become a lamp for them to fight by, and he could see the enemy targets like black bugs against a burning sky. The engine whirred as he dove, and he felt sweet gravity pressing him to his seat. He lined his sights and, with adrenaline filling his veins full of a new energy, he opened fire. Machine guns in the nose of of the craft punched out murderous rounds, and he could feel the power of the attack coursing through his arms.

--

What had been a faint, orange haze glowing on the horizon minutes earlier had grown into a proper inferno. The sea was cast in the hellish glow of the city ablaze, waves shimmered with warm hues as the landing craft crawled ever closer to shore. Beyond the last hundred yards of surf and foam that separated Luis and his companions from the shores of Ethiopia, a seething wall of fire towered before them. Hector and the others no longer had ridicule to pour upon the defenders. The Spanish infantry bided in solemn silence, basking with trepidation in the glow of the blaze.

Gunships swooped overhead, drowning out the crashing of waves against the beach and the hum of the boats' motors for a moment as they drove into the veil of embers and smog. Downdrafts from their propellers agitated the fires below as they flew above the city, leaving momentary whirlwinds in the blazes spewing from the windows and rooves of waterfront tenements.

"About a minute out...!" The driver crowed from the landing boat's helm.

"When that ramp goes down, you get your asses to cover - stones, trees, dunes, whatever." Ayesta ordered once the roar of the gunships had passed. "If bullets won't go through it, get behind it. Rally on me once the beach is clear and we'll move south along the coast around the city and the fires."

Luis could feel the waves lurching up under the hull of the boat, jostling him back and forth. The waves were crashing down over sandbars just beyond the hull. Almost there.

"About to lower the ramp!" The helmsman reported. "Get into pos- Jesucristo..."

A glance above the infernal horizon and one could see what had interrupted the driver. A helicopter erupted into fire - a sizzling red blaze engulfed the propeller mast as it tumbled into the burning city in a trail of sparkling embers. Luis' gut wrung itself at the very sight; he couldn't bear to imagine the fiery demise of his fellow infantrymen aboard that craft. He wished the comrades aboard that doomed Barracuda a quick and painless death as the helicopter plummeted into the hellscape of a city.

"How did that even happen?"

"Ember got in the intake? I'm not sure if that's even possible."

"Poor bastards." Someone mumbled solemnly.

And then another gunship met a violent end. Sparks created by metal striking metal flashed into being briefly amidst the maelstrom of embers as another Spanish aircraft disintegrated in a shower of metal scraps. It was apparent at that moment that the streaking flashes of red light materializing around the fleet of Spanish choppers were not embers at all - but tracers.

A shower of hot red tracers fell through the smoke clouds like infernal rain. As a third and fourth gunship were struck by the torrent of lead and fire, the surviving fleet of Barracudas were joined suddenly by squadron of propeller fighters. Their undersides glowed in the light of the inferno below as they swooped triumphantly down from the night. The soft rumble of Djibouti ablaze was drowned in the roar of a hundred propeller engines as airplane after airplane fell out from the blackness and into ember-laden airspace above the city.

The Ethiopian fighters advanced against the Spanish gunships. With the savagery of wolves loosed against pregnant ewes, the fighters swarmed about the gunships, flanking about the relatively-cumbersome attack helicopters with an ease that caused the Luis and his comrades extreme distress.

"You said we had air superiority! What the fuck is going on, Lieutenant!?"

"Hector!" Ayesta snapped, throwing his index finger at the turret beside the driver's perch, "get up on the machine gun and put some lead in the air! Take some pressure off the Barracudas so they can get the fuck out of here!" Without response, the unseasoned recruit clambered up a ladder of steel rungs into the driver's nest at the stern of the boat.

Luis' heart palpitated as the airborne massacre played out before his eyes. The Barracuda gunships could scarcely back away before the unending swarm of airplanes were upon them, flitting about the helicopters with the grace of swallows and picking them off with short bursts of gunfire. Luis watched as a Barracuda rocked backward to halt itself and turn around, and then spun about hastily to retreat for the sea. Bursts of gunfire from pintle-mounted machine guns pointed out of the fuselage of the choppers amounted to a futile attempt to retaliate against the pursuing fighters; the Spanish pilots ceded the skies to the swarm of Ethiopian planes as the survivors all beat a hasty retreat toward the Armada ships.

This was not how this war was supposed to be fought. The adversary was to be a technologically-deficient and backwards excuse of a modern nation. Africans were not supposed to be able to rout mechanized infantry in gunships. Ethiopia had deviated from the script so carefully written by Prime Minister Sotelo and his generals... or perhaps the stratagems of Spain's military leadership were not so well crafted after all. Perhaps a crafty and judicious African general could outfox the might of the Spanish Ejercito. Perhaps Djibouti would be to the Second Republic what Coquilhatville was to Juan III.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit..." Luis whimpered under his breath, cursing with each exhalation as he began to hyperventilate.

"For fuck's sake Hector, shoot something!" Ayesta demanded. In the turret, the panicked recruit fumbled with a belt of ammunition. His trembling hands failed to insert the lead round into the slot. After several tries, the belt slid into the chamber. With a deft tug on the lever and a quivering finger on the trigger, the landing boat's turret fired off its response to the Ethiopian fighter planes. Their boat was joined by numerous others as the waters beyond Djibouti sparkled with the muzzle flash of dozens of machine gun turrets firing up into the teeming swarm of airplanes.

A brief, bright burst of light flashed momentarily above the coast, followed by a percussive thud that rang out across the water. Several other thuds, followed by a series of flashes that all produced the same dull rumble. Flak shells: the Armada was opening up on the Ethiopian air force. The beams of high-power spotlights from the Spanish warships flickered on one-by-one, and then pointed their beams down across the water at the sky above Djibouti. The bright lights and shells did not seem to deter the Ethiopian pilots - they pressed on across the water, seeming intent on hunting down each gunship and then attacking the Armada itself.

Starting with the landing craft.

A shower of tracers fell about Luis' boat. For each red-glowing tracer, dozens more rounds fell down upon the boat, sparking and ricocheting against the armored hull. Luis cowered and covered the back of his neck with his free hand, too frightened to notice the splotch of wet warmth against his inner thigh.

"I'm hit!" A fellow infantryman wailed who sounded more surprised than anguished, "I'm fucking hit!"

"Lower the ramp!" Lieutenant Ayesta commanded the boat's driver. "We're swimming the rest of the way!"

Under normal circumstances, the ramp at the front of the landing craft would only be lowered to allow troops out when the boat was beached or in very shallow water. Being strafed by dozens of enemy fighter planes, however, did not fall under the purview of normal circumstances. And so the driver nodded in accord, turning the knob on his console that lowered the ramp. A motorized whirring accompanied the descent of the ramp, giving Luis and his fellow soldiers full view of the hellscape that awaited them beyond some hundred feet of foamy surf. Waves and surf colored red by the glow of the inferno washed against the beach. Everything in sight burned - even the beachside palms were alight, their fronds crackling and throwing clouds of smoke and embers into the wind.

"Everyone off!" Ayesta bellowed as the ramp crashed into the water in a foamy splash. A string of bullet geysers shot forth from the surf before the boat which ended in the helmets of two of the frontmost soldiers. Their bodies fell limp into the seawater flooding into the floor of the hull, but did little to impede the survivors from rushing out into the waves. The force of the soldiers pushing themselves out the front of the landing craft shoved Luis along with them. In a blur of uniforms and metal hull, the world disappeared with a loud splash.

--

Djibouti looked like a city on the surface of the sun. Old homes of mudbrick and plaster were swallowed by the flames just as quickly as the newer cement and cinder block constructions, and the air was so hot that it seemed to shift and shimmy across the ground. Dry bushes and solitary palm trees seemed to burn from the sheer heat of the scorched air all around them, and everywhere everything glowed. He could hear the roaring blaze over the sound of his engines, and it only seemed to fade when he let the nose-guns scream.

The Ethiopian pilot watched a gunship burn and dive, losing its shape as it struck the orange-tinted ground. Nearby the crash site a shell exploded, and the flash from its flaming mushroom plume stung his eyes. He shielded his face out of instinct. Would he be night-blinded now?

No. That was ridiculous. There was too much fire for it to matter. He could see it glittering on the fuselages of his colorfully painted comrades. Everything caught the glean of that devilish light. It was dancing on the ocean as well, a mirror image of hell scattered by the waves. The sight of it stopped his breath.

"Holy Mother Mariam" he muttered, making the sign of the cross over his face with one hand as he piloted with the second. He composed himself and prepared for the descent.

They had came in high, purposely avoiding the super-heated air rising from the city's inferno. That meant that the planes carrying torpedoes had to dip sharply toward the sea in order to deliver their payloads. He gently pushed forward on the stick and felt himself grow lighter. He could see the coast directly in front of him now, where dozens of bristling steel battleships held against the kicking red sea.

Tracers cut a line between him and a diving comrade moving away from him on his right. He watched the white-hot flash of whistling gunfire glisten on that plane's fuselage, where a snarling cheetah reached for a mutilated impala on the craft's nose.

The pilot buzzed over empty landing craft bobbing gloomily in a glowing sea. Beyond that was his target. Instinct reached into his gut and wrenched it. Now was the time for Torpedoes!

He flipped a switch.

--

The cacophony of battle was swallowed into a dull gurgle as Luis was wholly enveloped by the sea. He threw his arms and legs about in the dark, turbid water to try and find the bottom. Before long, his boots kicked against something soft yet unyielding. Luis allowed his feet to settle against the underwater sandbed before shoving off with a powerful kick up to the surface. The water was quite shallow even this far out from shore, a little over six feet deep, for Luis had little difficulty clearing the surface. Salty ocean water infiltrated his mouth as he inhaled sharply and stole a glimpse of his surroundings. Most of the landing craft appeared to be making it to shore, although the boat he had bailed from seconds before was now listing forward and sinking quickly into the waves - due to being swamped by the premature disembarking rather than battle damage. A string of bullet geysers frighteningly close to his head sent Luis sinking back to the bottom.

As his head slipped back underneath the waves, the sea around him rang out with the sound of something heavy crashing through the surface. He could not tell where it came from, for underwater it was impossible to determine the source of any sound, but the very volume of the suggested that it was close indeed. It was followed shortly thereafter with a mechanical whir that droned through the inky water. That mechanized whine could be nothing other than a torpedo, one much too close for Luis' liking. The unseasoned recruit threw his arms upward - pushing his body down to the seabed and allowing him to shove off and bounce toward the shore.

His head cleared the surface and Luis opened his eyes once more. The sting of saltwater irritated his eyes as he looked about and stole a breath. The Ethiopian planes were flying overhead low and fast against the firelight, several dropping black, cylindrical tubes into the sea before the landing craft. Luis submerged once again and kicked toward shore.

A flash of light pierced the blackness of the ocean around him, and a terrible sound tore through the water as he shoved upward into the whitecapped waves. Where his landing craft listed in the surf moments before, a smoldering mushroom cloud of fire now rose up amongst the African fighter planes. Much farther out, an orange flash appeared that illuminated the Armada a mile back. There was no time to fear for his countrymen or the mission at hand, the flight-or-fight instinct had utterly seized Luis - and it commanded him to get out of the water.

Four more hops off the seabed placed Luis into water shallow enough to wade through. The waves rolled over his shoulders and face, knocking his back and forth and tugging at the FE-74 strapped loosely to his back. As he waded closer to shore and the seawater fell to chest-height, he found that he was not alone. Some of his comrades had surrendered their heavy guns and bullets to the sea and had swam to shore, and were gathering in the surf. In the midst of the gaggle of survivors of Luis' boat, another Spanish landing craft rumbled through the waves and lodged itself up against the beach. Its ramp fell down into the seafoam, the boots of a platoon of Spanish infantry splashed against the ebbing foam as the soldiers within disembarked. It seemed the Ethiopian counterattack had not proven entirely successful.

An exhausted Luis collapsed onto his hands and knees in ankle-deep water, inhaling and exhaling deeply now that he had made it to shore. His soaked combat uniform clung against his chest as it heaved with every breath. But no sooner than he had stopped to rest, someone's hand firmly gripped his right shoulder and pulled Luis to his feet.

"Is that you Luis? Are you hurt?" A familiar voice asked. Luis turned about and saw it was Hector's face glowing in the firelight.

"No," Luis managed between pants, "only tired."

"This is no place to stop for a rest, friend." Hector continued on, wading toward the burning city. "Remember what Lieutenant Ayesta told us: find cover."

Without comment, Luis trudged through the final few yards of surf and followed Hector begrudgingly toward the inferno.

--

Before the pilot prepared for another dive at the panicking Spanish navy, he reached an angle that gave him a commanding view of the battle at sea. Against a night sky filled with the demon dance of red and orange, the Ethiopian planes swarmed. They looked like gulls at a food-littered beach, and the sound of so many planes screaming as they dove or sputtering in a climb sounded like the dissonant music of hell. Hundreds of them shared the sky, diving and spraying their stationary targets. The Spaniards fought back, fiery flashes of returned fire erupting from dozens of intimidating steel vessels. Tracers filled the sky, as did searching white pillars from the spotlights on the decks of the ships. The sky was now cast in a muddy brown with streaks of pale, rusty clouds. Where light fell, florets of black smoke hung still in the air.

He dove.

His engine screamed as he aimed the craft at a ship below. His muscles tensed. He could feel the blood in his body shifting as the gravity went to his head. He lined himself up with the big guns, hoping to do some damage before he corrected his path. The trigger pulled, and gunfire jostled his soul.

He felt his plane jolt, accustomed with the shrill sound of screeching metal. He pulled up immediately, showing his belly to the ship below. In front of him, a comrade was shot out of the sky. He watched the other plane as it was consumed by a ball of sparks before spiraling into an orange sea.

The pilot's blood was boiling now. This was what it felt like to be a warrior. A couple of enemy vessels were listing, caught in vital places by the Ethiopian torpedoes. A fuselage illustrated with a twisting tribal warrior passed by his window so near that he was afraid he would hit it and the craft it belonged to.

He dove again, and saw an enemy aircraft carrier towering above the waves. The planes on its deck were burning.

--

During the initial barrage, one of Ras Hassan's artillery shells had overshot the city and landed ineffectively on the beach, managing to only ignite a copse of palm trees lining the waterfront street. Within the lip of the blackened crater that shell had created, Luis and Hector found a platoon of fellow infantry. A two man machine gun team lay at the forward edge of the crater, flanked by three other soldiers armed with standard issue FE-74s, all of whom aimed anxiously into the city that burned just across the beachfront road. Others busied themselves checking over their gear loadout and supplies, or kicking sand onto resilient tongues of flame burning out of the beach. Others still looked into the sky, watching helplessly as Ethiopian fighters swooped by over the inferno. Hector and Luis jogged over and slid down into the char-lined pit. The two drenched recruits elicited curious glances, but it was only their commander who offered any verbal response to their arrival.

"Identify yourselves," the unit's lieutenant demanded sternly.

"Hector Allega," Hector spoke up for Luis, gesturing to himself, "and Luis Morazon. From Lieutenant Ayesta's unit."

"Where's the rest of your platoon, Cabo Allega?"

"I don't know, Lieutenant." Hector offered after exchanging a confused glance with Luis. "Our boat went down, I don't know where the rest of us are."

"Jesucristo." The lieutenant snarled, turning about to face his orderlies.

"Gentlemen, as you can see, this invasion has become an unmitigated clusterfuck before our very eyes. If this were the Armee Francais or even the Preuissiche Wehr, this would be just about the appropriate time we raise a white flag and turn tail back home. But, unfortunately for us, we enlisted in the Ejercito Español. We comprise the finest fighting force in all the world, and as such, neither cowardice nor failure are tolerated."

"We have not been dealt a fair hand. Our leaders have demonstrated extreme incompetence in preparing an invasion against an enemy that they have grossly underestimated." At this moment, a passing fighter began a strafing pass on the beach. The soldiers within the crater collapsed to the ground and waited for the roar of the plane's engine to pass overhead. A dozen or so rounds impacted into the sand around the crater, crashing safely against the berm of impact-thrown sand that formed the crater's lip. Cautiously, the Spaniards returned to their feet.

"We're going to adapt and overcome in spite of these highly adverse conditions. As we can see, advancing south across the coast around the city isn't an option - until the Armada gets its shit together and gets some planes in the air, moving across open ground like that will be a deathmarch. So we're going to go through the city and emerge on the other side to engage the Ethiopian positions inland."

Luis looked over the Lieutenant's should and saw Djibouti's skyline roiling in flames. Did this madman not realize that the city was on fire? Not just burning - completely ablaze. And just how did he plan to get through this wall of burning rubble - form bucket brigades running from the sea through the city? A glance around to his companions - all wide eyed and fixed upon the infernal city before them - demonstrated that he was not alone in his sentiments.

A pair of planes roared past through the smoke clouds rising above them, prompting the Spaniards to duck down into the charred sand once again. As the drone of the propellers passed into the distance, the Lieutenant bolted to his feet. "Now's our chance! Move!"

At once, Luis, Hector and the others rose to their feet and clambered up the walls of the crater and back onto level sand. Blackened dunegrass crunched underfoot as the Spaniards charged across the last remaining stretch of open ground to the waterfront district of the doomed city. Even at this distance, the heat put out by the blazes was sweltering, and Luis turned his head back to avert his eyes from the uncomfortably warm air. He could see the battle raging at sea, where the Armada did battle with a locust swarm of Ethiopian planes. There, across the black sea, a second conflagration seemed to have emerged - a horizon of fire illuminating the Spanish warships. It was the flagship: La Ira de Dios was ablaze. Even at this distance, burning masses could be seen falling into the ocean. The flagship of the invasion was doomed to suffer the same fate as the Vanguardia nearly a decade before.

Thoroughly distraught, Luis reverted his attention to the task at hand: escaping Djibouti.

--

The Spanish Navy had taken their licks. Fire consumed proud iron fortresses, forcing their crews out of the battle so they could fight to salvage their vessels. The Ethiopian Pilot could see them frantically running across the decks. He wanted to sweep down and strafe them, to watch them dive away or die, but he held himself back. They were no longer a threat, and he had limited ammunition. He passed over them instead.

The ocean itself was a wreck. Where the water didn't reflect fire, it was as black as tar. Debris tangled with corpses floated near the ships. There were places where petroleum skimmed the surface on the water, and in those places the sea itself was burning.

The order went out over the radio that the Spaniards had taken the beach. That was no surprise. The Ethiopian military was entrenched in the hills outside of the city, unable to repulse the enemy beach-head. The inferno that swallowed Djibouti made it impractical to defend. There were no building left untouched by the blaze, leaving no hiding places for defenders. As he turned around to face the city again, the pilot realized another problem that made a ground defense impractical. It would be so hot down there that the air itself would be dangerous. Smoke would make it difficult to breath, and the temperature would be infernal.

Over the radio, a captain rattled off the location of the Spanish landings in a voice that was cool and professional. The pilot didn't need that information, he could see it for himself in places where landing craft had managed to beach. They were in clusters, far enough from the city to be safe but in a precarious place none the less. They were out in the open, stuck between an unwelcoming sea and a city that threatened to cook them in their clothes. And there were no places to hide on the beach.

A flash of flame erupted quite suddenly from the sand near the water, followed by a second. That was artillery. Ethiopian artillery. They were shelling the Spanish beachhead now.

The pilot dove toward the enemy. Flecks of ash settled on the canopy of glass that surrounded him, speckling the action with grey smears. He saw where men were moving on the beach, and he opened fire. Geysers of sand spouted around them. Some men ran while others fell to the ground. Whether those who fell were wounded or had simply fallen to shrink their profile was hard to tell. He pulled up and straightened his plane.

--

Warbling klaxons rang dissonantly throughout the steel bulkheads of the aircraft carrier, rallying all hands aboard La Ira de Dios to action as they had the past hour and a half. Thunderous bangs and the roar of Ethiopian propellers from outside the warship contributed to the discordant music of battle. And from the stairwells, the pitter-patter of a score of deckhands racing down the steeply graded stairs provided the percussion.

They negotiated the carrier's stairwells as quickly as could be done without falling down. Shipmates, ensigns, and officers all came down the stairs and charged through the corridors toward the access to the flight deck. Armed not with firearms, but fire extinguishers, theirs was a last ditch effort to salvage the Invasion of Ethiopia. A haphazardly-organized fire brigade, with officers and enlisted shipmates alike cobbled together to restore their carrier's runway

Near the main doors to the flight deck, Admiral Santiago Santin cradled in his arms three more fire extinguishers he had raided from the corridor walls. His pressed admiral's jacket had been cast aside in the control tower, leaving his white button-up undershirt rolled up to his elbows; now was hardly the time to ensure one was observing proper dress.

"Take these." the Admiral commanded as the makeshift fire brigade reunited with him. Greedy hands immediately snatched two of the red cylinders from his arms as his comrades ran past. Santin followed behind the stragglers with his own extinguisher as they charged out at once onto the carrier's tarmac platform.

The fire brigade was met with towering plumes of fire belching acrid smoke and embers into the night. At the heart of each of these blazes, a blackened Halcon fighter plane roasted, sizzling and popping on the tarmac deck. The Spaniards wasted no time in combating the fires, spreading across the deck and assaulting the burning. crumpled aircraft. A trio of forklift trucks were started and driven up to the nearest Halcones.

The Ethiopians had made a terrific mess of Spain's flagship, a mess Santin had every intention of remedying in spite of the danger. Earlier in his career, he had seen the Vanguardia lost; and he had no intention of allowing La Ira suffer the same fate.

"This one first!" Santin ordered, beckoning one of the forklift drivers over to a wrecked aircraft nearest the elevator that hoisted aircraft from a belowdeck hangar up to the flight deck; this area was the most critical part of the deck to be cleared. A tug of the safety pin and the Admiral fired off a puff of white foam into the heart of the blaze. The fire retreated with angry hisses from the blasts of frothy retardant, exposing a segment of charred metal to the air. There, Santin directed the driver's forks to be skewered into the warped fuselage of the fighter, who then lifted the mast up a foot off the surface.

"Now dump it over, quickly!"

They escorted the forklift under threat of gunfire as it moved forward with the mass of ardent scrap threatening to spread to the truck and set it ablaze. Santin and a few of his cohorts shot the burning Halcon with their extinguishers sporadically - aiming to contain the fire for a few more seconds. The burning plane was shoved, scraping and screeching against the flight deck the entire way, to the edge of the tarmac, beneath which choppy water crashed against the vessel's plowed hull some fifty feet below. On the precipice of the carrier, the forklift truck braked to halt, allowing the momentum of the burning plane to send it tumbling down off the deck. With the groan of strained metal and a fiery swoosh, the plane fell into the ocean - the fire that enveloped it immediately being quenched in a cloud of steam.

The swarm of fighters over the Armada had shifted away in the previous minutes, directing their ire to the forces landing on the African shores instead. While that development made for a severe complication in the landing efforts, it had provided the Admiral enough of a lull to clear the runway just enough. With the fire no longer roaring in his ears, he could hear the plane elevator winching up under his feet. Little time remained.

"Get these off as well!" Santin commanded, gesturing to a fighter that had been cut in twain by a well-placed string of bullets. "We cannot have that plane waiting to take off for one second! Move it!"

An African fighter swooped over the carrier's runway, loosing a volley of bullets on one of the forklifts as it wheeled over to the wrecked plane nearest Admiral Santin. The truck's windshield spider-webbed as two rounds pieced the cab and rendered the driver lifeless. Santin grimaced; bastard communists'd pay for that shortly.

As the larger chunk of that smoldering Halcon was plunged into the sea, the plane elevator behind him had reached the flight deck. One plane sat upon that platform hanging precariously over the sea: the Fantasma jet fighter. It had been placed in the hangar deck as an investigation concerning its dogfight over the Gulf of Aden was conducted. Stowed safely below decks, it had been spared the onslaught wrought by the African planes. But now it's sleek, predatory outline glimmered in the flashes and fires of battle, her belly was full of jet fuel and laden with belts of ammunition.

"We're out of time!" Santin declared, gesticulating to his orderlies to clear the runway. "Get out of the way!"

A cone of yellow fire erupted from the Fantasma's thruster, jerking the plane forward but only until the gear brakes caught, holding the fighter fast against the pavement. Although Santin and his compatriots had cleared some wreckages from the deck, the far end of the carrier's runway was still littered with burning fighterrs; the Fantasma's pilot would have to make due with the clear runway, taking off diagonally.

Within seconds, the Fantasma's jet engine had built up sufficient thrust. Its pilot cut the gear brakes, allowing the Fantasma to rocket past Santin and his deckhands; the scream of the jet engine left the ring of tinnitus in the ears of the Spaniards. As the jet shot off the edge of the runway, it fell down beneath Santin's field of sight. A harrowing several seconds passed, and for a moment the Spanish Admiral feared that the jet was lost - it's take-off just slightly too ambitious.

But the Fantasma rose upward, the white-hot glow of its thruster pod shining against the blackness of the ocean shot triumphantly skyward before disappearing into the flak-strewn night. A pair of Ethiopian fighters attempted to pursue the Fantasma as it banked away, but were immediately separated by a great gulf of night as the jet rocketed away.

A smirk crawled across Admiral Santin's mouth as he witnessed the Fantasma escape into the dark. The superior technology of the Spaniards would turn this debacle around. Ethiopia would be reminded why resisting Europe was folly.

--

When it came, it was like watching an eagle snatch a lesser bird from the sky. But what was it? The Ethiopian pilot could not tell.

The Spanish aircraft - it was an aircraft, he knew that much for no other reason but because it was in the air - shot an African plane out of the sky and disappeared like a comet into the towering smoke that overcame Djibouti. The pilot watched in heart-wrenching dismay as his countryman helplessly rode his dead craft, a fuming ruin with a laughing hyena on it's side, into the oily sea. That man had certainly drowned.

The eyes of the Africans were all in the sky. The smog-choked night was a bigger place now that it was hiding a weapon so unbelievable that the Pilot's heart told him it was a monster. There were rare stars in the smokey vale surrounding Djibouti, and when they twinkled behind the ashes, they caught the sudden attention of panicked eyes.

"//Where did it go//?" A shaky voice inquired over radio static.

"//Keep your eyes alert.//" an officer replied. "//And shoot anything that moves.//"

We are in the wild now. The Ethiopian pilot thought. We were the lions, but now we are the gazelle.

The Spanish craft swooped in a second time, somewhere from behind them. As soon as it was spotted, it opened fire on its new target, another one of the pilot's comrades, and blew a hole so hot in that plane's engine that the explosion made him momentarily lose sight of Djibouti.

This time, however, they were ready. As the Spaniards= rushed past them, the Ethiopian birds veered to chase and opened fire. The burning arcs of their enfilades crossed each other in confused needles of sky-fire.

"//Fuel tanks are getting low.//" a shaken voice announced.

Vengeance, hatred, and fear all boiled in the heart of the pilot. He chose that moment to open the channel and reply.

"//This is not the time to forget we are men, with all the body parts that remind us of our manhood.//" he said. "//We will get this one, and we will go home, and we will never have reason to doubt ourselves if we ever grow old.//

That settled the issue. Hundreds of African warbirds fixed their designs on a single aircraft.

--

They had cut into the mouth of a drainage canal running through the city, inside of which a trickle of garbage-riddled water wound in a snaking ribbon of filth before emptying out into the sea. There was little that could burn at the bottom of this ditch, and as such it was the safest means of passage through the heart of the city. Luis, Hector, and their adopted platoon marched through the muddy sand that reeked of festering sewage. The smell did not seem to bother any of the soldiers - they were all grateful that the air at the bottom of the channel was not choked with smoke and that they could breath.

They carried their weapons loosely as they trudged forward. Over the concrete retaining berm, the Spaniards gawked upon the conflagration that surrounded them. Every single building - regardless of its original purpose or construction - was ablaze. The tires of the cars burned to the asphalt they sat upon, buildings spewed torrents of fire from their windows and doorframes. In this apocalyptic state, there could be no enemy presence in Djibouti - no danger of encountering an ambush nor fear of snipers in the minarets. Luis, Hector, and their compatriots entered the damned city with impunity, as if they were tourists rather than invaders.

The howl of shells arcing high above pierced the roar of a million bonfires burning as one. Of the louder, sharper whistles, Luis cringed and ducked down in instinct the same way one might at the crack of a particularly loud clap of thunder. The loud explosion of an artillery shell impacting the earth at the speed of sound was never registered - only the dull bang of explosions rumbling in the distance behind them. It seemed that the Ethiopians were shelling the beach now with the landings intensifying.

"Take it easy, cabron." One of the machine gunners teasingly punched Luis in the shoulder. "If you can hear 'em, you're safe. Ever hear those Great War veterans talk about being shelled? They say you never hear the shell that actually kills you."

Luis' grandfather had fought with the French during the greatest war in history, but he had never recounted his experiences. When he was younger, a curious Luis once asked to hear what it had been like fighting off the German army. He expected to hear stories of high adventure and bravery, holding the line at the Fourth Battle of the Marne or the daring Stuttgart Salient. Luis' grandfather offered no such stories; he remembered his veteran grandfather glanced down at the scaly stump where his left elbow should have been and declared had nothing to recount.

"Bull-shit," contested the soldier carrying belts of machine gun ammunition draped across his shoulders. "Of course you're gonna hear a shell that's about to kill you."

"No you won't. The shells are moving faster than sound even. If an artillery shell is moving toward you faster than the sound it makes, then you won't hear it until it blows you up."

Luis found that to be a decidedly uncomfortable thought: that at any moment, he could die without any warning. He would rather have some notification that the end of his life had arrived. Just enough time to utter a plea to God for forgiveness was all he wanted. But it seemed even that was a luxury that a soldier could not be guaranteed.

The drone of an engine screamed out of the smog-choked sky, signalling the presence of an Ethiopian airplane swooping out of the night. The platoon's commander pressed himself against the canal's retaining wall, prompting his orderlies to do the same. The chatter of machine guns firing sounded over the roar of the inferno, causing the Spaniards to flinch and duck under the wall to avoid another Ethiopian strafing pass. Rounds could be heard tearing through the air above, smashing into the plaster facade of a burning repair garage on the other side of the ditch. Sure enough, the propeller-driven Ethiopian fighter flashed by overhead. But it too was on fire - Luis saw a billowing contrail of flame rolling over the fuselage from the propellers. That plane did not swoop up out of the way of the horizon of flame as the other African planes had before - it careened into the infernal city and plunged into the ruins with a meaty crash.

A scream shot through the night, tearing the collective attention of the Spanish infantry from the crashed fighter back into the sky. A blur of light raced across the sky, following the embery contrail of the downed airplane before zipping back into the night. A cone of glowing exhaust followed the object as it rocketed back into the sky. The whistling howl resounded over the burning city as this object's exhaust shot into the city, fanning the fires below and ejecting embers as the downdraft splashed against the burning city beneath. Luis had heard that sound before, when he left Malta to rendezvous with the Armada: the propellerless aircraft that flew faster than anything he had ever seen.

The smoky haze blanketing the sky over Djibouti boiled as a hundred planes followed that ghost out of the night. More planes than Luis could count tore the smog layer apart with their propellers and chased after it as a single swarm. A buzzing swarm of African hornets chased this one aircraft over the city, unleashing thousands of glowing tracer rounds after it. Portions of this rain of lead fell all around Luis and his compatriots, forcing them back down against the berm and sloppy mud. Above their heads, the combined might of Ethiopia's airforce roared past overhead, in such numbers and volume that the Spaniards had to cover their ears. Their fuselages were adorned with lions and elephants and martial tribal paint schemes, in the way that Zulu warriors might have painted their shields and assegai while fending off the British and the Boers a century before.

As the last planes thrummed back into the night, the platoon's lieutenant came upright to his feet, beckoning for the others to do the same. Once upright, Luis noted the myriad bullet craters that pocked everything around the drainage canal.

"We were damn lucky to have good cover just then, we may not be so fortunate when they return. Look sharp, soldados; let's move."

--

It was the momentary silences in between attacks, when there was nothing to do but keep formation and wonder who would die next, that tore the most at the morale of the Ethiopian airmen. They formed into several V's flying near to one another so that the moment the supernatural enemy aircraft took another victim, they could turn on it and spray return fire until it disappeared at high speed into the smoky night.

There was something about their formation that reminded the pilot of traditional warfare. This was a battle-line in the air, trudging forward in tight lock-step so they could throw a united volley at their enemy. It was Napoleonic, a military machine made from hundreds of individuals acting as one, but what they faced was a single craft fighting wielding all the wrath of god against the African columns. They knew when that wrath struck, as it came in the form of sudden violence. There would be a scream of bullets, confusion, and then death. When the enemy came, everyone knew their place in the fight. But so long as that enemy was gone, all there was to do was stare anxiously at the sky all around them.

It came again, shrieking violence and fire, but there was no time for panic. When he heard the attack, the pilot knew he was not the victim this time, and he went quickly to identifying the enemy. It shot past them at brain-scrambling speed. Hundreds of Ethiopian planes opened fire at once, filling the sky with tracers, but there was only a second's worth of time before the enemy was out of range, and he always seemed to get away unscathed.

//"C Squad is returning to refuel."// a voice announced over the radio. It was a confirmation of something the pilot already knew. They chose to use the moment they located the enemy as a time to send some squads back to Harar. They could be useful in the fight, but it would be a disaster for the majority of the Ethiopian airforce to crash land their planes in the desert just because they had no fuel.

The Enemy came again. The Ethiopian pilot looked desperate, but he only saw the enemy when it was too late to fire. He cursed his impotence, and watched a friend spiral into the drink, where flame-kissed waves swallowed him.

On the beach below, the Spaniards were landing the hardware of war to join the battle alongside their infantry. There were armored cars, and tanks, and rigs of every size. They were forced to dodge the fiery blossoms of Ethiopian artillery. With only a handful of light artillery batteries to back them, however, the Ethiopian barrage did not have a strong suppressive effect on the Spanish operation.

The Enemy aircraft came again. This time he saw the bloom of fire where an Ethiopian plane was blown out of the air, and he spotted the attacker quick enough to take a few shot at it before it left.

//"I have seen the enemy!"// an excited voice shouted over the radio. //"He has cat eyes! Big green cat eyes!"//

//"He would need such eyes."// another voice replied. //"To move so fast in this dark."//

//"What dark do you see? Djibouti is like a lamp tonight."//

//"He does not face the city to attack us."//

The conversation made the pilot wonder, what other things could the Spanish do? If they had ways to see in the dark, and to move an attack craft at such speeds, what other horrible things would this war witness.

When the enemy came this time, he left his victim in the air with a stalled engine. At first, in the moment that followed the return volley, the pilot could not see that anybody had been hit. That was until another voice came over the radio.

//"Brothers, I am dead!"// it shouted in a pitch that was half panic and half euphoric. The Pilot saw the damaged plane gliding fast toward the beach, its fuselage painted with the image of two ink-black women wrestling naked in a desert. It was going down too fast for a safe landing, and the beach it was heading for teemed with Spanish soldiers.

//"Brothers, I know what to do."// he shouted frantically. Did he still have some sort of control in the craft? The Pilot watched in amazement, wandering if his comrade was going to find a way to survive.

//"Brothers, behold!"// The voice shrieked. The Pilot watched, somber at first, and then filled with glorious excitement as he understood what he was watching. The damaged plane glided at full speed, skimming just above the sand of the beach until it smashed into the broadside of a Spanish tank. The fireball took them both and turned them into blackened ruble.

//"Steel was no match to that man's fuel."// a reverent voice came across the radio.

The heroic death of their self-avenged comrade renewed their vigor. They had circled the city, and with the beach now falling behind them, they faced out toward a churning sea. The ships that still floated were putting out their fires and regrouping their sailors so that they could be ready for another fight, but not all of the ships could be salvaged. There were some who's hulls had sunk beneath the water, only blackened guns and rising command and communication towers sticking above the waves. Debris filled the sea, now thick with oil, and the last straggling landing boats struggled to avoid collisions with twisted metal bobbing in the water like apocalyptic sea-mines.

The plane at the pilot's right burst into flame, and a familiar shriek filled the air. The Pilot was ready. His was the first stream of fire to announce the volley. The pilot held his stick with sweaty palms, his grip so intense that he felt his skin numb. The silver blip of the enemy aircraft did not disappear as quick as it normally did. This time, it seemed to flicker and fade.

And then it reappeared, seemingly closer. A veil of black smoke seemed to obscure it, and as the pilot flew into that cloud he realized something that others already knew but were keeping silent about. Their bullets had found their target, and the enemy plane was moving slowly now.

The Pilot took to the radio. //"I am directly behind the target. I will take it out."// This was no moment for the entire formation to converge on one single point. They had acted as a single machine for the duration of this fight, and they would end it the same way.

As he approached, he saw where smoke erupted from the damaged engine of a streamlined aircraft that looked like something out of a pulp space magazine. How did this engine even work? He felt uncertain about taking it out, not knowing if there were any other tricks to this craft. The one thing he did completely understand was a bubble cockpit, where the enemy pilot would be fidgeting with the controls trying to correct what he could to regain confidence in his ability to pilot. The Ethiopian would not give him the opportunity. He climbed so that he could drop, and in his descent he leveled his guns to the enemy's cockpit.

And then he opened fire.

His guns caused his body to shake. What was seconds felt like minutes, and the stream of fire became so heavy that his guns overheated and jammed. It did not matter. His work was done.

When he came near enough to the Spanish plane, he saw that the cockpit was cracked and entirely wet with blood, like a ripe berry on a smoking silver ruin. The enemy aircraft fell silently into the sea and disappeared.

//"The ferengi has died!"// the pilot shouted excited over the radio. //"Let us go home!"//

--

Hassan watched the sky whirl with the afterglow of fire. It was like looking at sunlight playing across the ripples of a lake; it would reach out and leap across the stars, and then it would recede, only to leap again. The after-effects of the conflagration reached the artillery batteries in the desert, where the air smelled like smoke and ashes covered everything in a fine layer of dust. He considered how the ashes were from things he had seen before. This was the dust of the French colonial buildings built in Indian style, and the thatching of mud huts. It was also the twenty thousand civilians that had been in the way when the shells fell, and the Spaniards who had advanced to their doom.

The artillery still blazed, though not as frequently as they once had. The crews had began to sleep in shifts so that they would have some rest before the next day. Hassan did not know how the Spaniards would react, and there were still gaps in his knowledge of their capabilities. He had not seen evidence of a counter-attack yet, and the reports that had been sent to him from the front by messengers on motorcycles did not suggest that they would be tried in a big way before morning came.

The Artillery officer had paced through the camp for most of the bombardment. He was aware of something that most of the soldiers did not know; that the evacuation had been ineffective, and that the Ethiopians had fired on their own people. Hassan was more worried what the Spanish would do with that information, but what could they do? Had they not came here to murder Africans themselves? The average European was a hateful fucker as far as Hassan could tell. They could not possibly care.

Hassan considered putting the officer to bed. Perhaps that would be best. His pacing, after all, was nerve wracking for anybody who could see it. Hassan watched the officer scornfully. He considered the man. A coward? Perhaps not. He was one of those types of men who's nobility had never matured. He still saw the romantic virgin warriors of christian mythology as an ideal to be admired. Such a thing was ridiculous in real warfare. In a real war, blood wins over valor every time.

A whisper among the servicemen turned Hassan's attention. Before he could ask what was happening, he heard the sound. It was an approaching buzz high up in the air. It was aircraft.

This had not been the first to return over their heads. Ethiopian planes flying back home for fuel. But this last group, it was large. Dozens on black-shadow V's against a dull-red sky. They had done their part, and they would have more parts to play before this war was finished.

As he watched the planes pass directly over him on their solemn return, the flashing light of a single headlight caught the bottom of his eye. A motorcycle. He watched the bright glow of the headlight bob and hop across the desert as it grew bigger and brighter. When the sputtering sound of a struggling engine began to accompany the light, Hassan walked forward and climbed on the ramparts.

The motorcycle stopped and the light went dead. Hassan was blinded for a moment, and the rider seemed to be a vague silhouette camouflaged against the ground, slowing improving until he became a tiny man with bug-eyed riding goggles.

"Ras Hassan." he bowed. "I have been sent to give you three apologies from my commander."

"Apologies?" Hassan felt his throat tingle. Apologies for what?

"Yes." the rider continued. "He cannot send counter-attacks as he was ordered. The fire..." the rider looked back at where the sky danced. "It's too hot, Ras. Djibouti is gone, its just fire now. It would cause more casualties than an attack would be worth."

"Right, right." Hassan assured. "I ordered him to assault the Spanish forces if possible. He had judged it is not possible, and I am inclined to agree. Tell me though, what of the Spanish?"

The rider grinned. "Their navy is burning, Ras. I do not think that they will take us lightly after tonight. I feel good about this war."

"Good!" Hassan shouted, loudly so he could be heard by all around. He chuckled and jumped down from the ramparts and faced the men. "Brothers, I have been told the news. Spain burns!"

The men cheered manly cheers.

"The planes we just saw fly above us killed the enemy and lived to return! We've had a good night tonight, brothers! We will quiet the guns for now, you all need sleep so we can kill more Spaniards in the morning!"

The men cheered again, and they were louder this time. Hassan walked away from them smiling and approached the nervous artillery officer.

"I need you to deliver a message." Hassan asked. "Can you do that?"

"A message?" the officer looked confused. "That man is a messenger. I am not a messenger."

"No, I know this, but the man I want to get a message to might consider it an insult if I send anybody less than an officer. I am here in the trenches, I can command your men for now."

"Man? what man is this?"

"Do you know Ras Goliad?"

"The governor of Harar?" the officer nodded slowly. "I have heard the name. What do you want me to tell him?"

"Tell him to raise some men. He has the local legion, but tell him to bring together the village chiefs and the shiftas. I want him to drill them and get them ready for a real fight."

"Are we retreating to Harar?" the officer asked. "After a victory?"

"Not yet, but we can not hold these hills for long, and now that Djibouti is gone there is nothing of value for us here. We will fight as much as we need to, but only so that we can build up our defenses in the highlands. When it comes time, I want to have Goliad with us."

"I will do this." the officer nodded. "Let me get ready for the trip."

As the officer walked away, Hassan turned his attention to the west. For hundreds of miles stretched the Danakil, and he had no intention of fighting a protracted war there. The desert was too open, and there was nothing to hold on to. It was a place where water was the most strategic resource, where white sand-scapes and rocky martian dunes divided him and the Seventh Sefari from the protection of the Ethiopian highlands. In this open expanse, hardware would count for everything, and Hassan knew that the Spanish were well ahead of them when it came to hardware.

But he remembered a story about the tanks under Kwanza's command during the Battle of Lubumbashi. Bemba tribals, men who had never seen a tank before, snuck up behind three tanks and took them out of the battle. That had been a strange story for a strange war, but he wondered if there was some wisdom in it. How would the Spanish hardware hold up when everything that surrounded them was hostile?

Selmer, Tennessee
8:24 PM

“The events of the last month are just the latest in a long line of events that are all too familiar to us.”

Isaiah Wolde, the man more and more people simply called the Ethiopian, stood in the pulpit of the local AME church. A sea of black, sweating faces looked out at him as he spoke. The church was filled to capacity and then some. The vestibule door opened up and countless more people listened from outside. The mass of people crowded together in this little church on this hot summer night turned the interior temperature from hot to nigh unbearable. But for all of that, Wolde did not seem phased by the heat save for a few drops of sweat near his hairline.
Wolde’s speaking tour through Tennessee and North Carolina. The demonstrations and protests in Mississippi had been violent and bloody, but they’d gotten the attention of the country. White journalist covered the marches with aplomb, filling papers and radio programs and the evening news with updates on the brutal violence going on down in the heart of Dixie.

Just thinking about that made James Calhoun’s jaw hurt. He touched it on reflex. The wire was gone, but the memory was fresh. A white cop in his own hometown broke it when the man laid hands on his daughter. When it came to Sarah, James did not care about repercussions if someone touched her in a harmful way. That act of violence put him in Wolde’s circle of trusted advisors… but it also put him on some bad people’s radars.

“My adopted homeland of Ethiopia is the latest target of imperialist aggression,” Wolde said to a chorus of nods and amens from the crowd. “It’s a story as old as time. White aggressors invade Africa, looking for spoils. Spain says Ethiopia has become a threat because of communism. An ism is behind their fighting, but it is not communism. Racism is their motivating factor, my brothers and sister. The white man cannot stand the fact that a nation of proud, black men and women are among the world’s best. Long ago Africa was a land ruled by black kings and queens, a land of art and beauty before the European bootheel kicked our ancestors into the squalor and wrapped them in chains. An Italian ‘discovered’ America for Spain. The problem was, there were already people living here. The problem was, nobody asked those people if they wanted to be discovered. Like nobody asked our people if they wanted to come to America. The power, money, and culture coming from Africa became a problem for Spain. White Europeans saw a problem and they are solving it the only way they know how: violently.”

Wolde took a break and sipped a glass of water. The crowd broke out into applause. James scanned the assembly and stopped cold at the sight near the back. A white, middle-aged woman with dark red hair stared straight at him. James felt his stomach go cold. He turned away from her and wiped sweat from his face as he looked back at Wolde. Jessica Hyatt, FCB agent shadowing the Wolde camp. She was more than that to James. She held James and Sarah’s fate in her hands. If he pissed her off, they would both go to a Mississippi work farm and spend years on a chain gang. James could handle it, but he doubted Sarah could. She was so young and so hopeful and so beautiful. Hard time would crush her, so he cut a deal. Wolde knew the FCB was following him on the tour and that they were probably tapping his phone lines, but he had no idea a member of his inner circle was an FCB informant.

“Like our brothers and sisters in Africa, we find ourselves in a struggle. Ours is not one of life or death, but it is just as important. While they fight for survival, they fight for equality. While they fight Spain, we fight Jim Crow. While their cities burn, our people are drug into the streets and beaten. Their enemy is a foreign invader. Our enemies are the people sworn to protect our citizens and uphold our laws. Our struggles and their struggles are very different, but very much the same. What the white man fears it hates and oppresses. We are linked by a common oppressive enemy that seeks to destroy what it cannot control. This is why our upcoming march on Nashville will be both a protest for our rights, and a show of support for our brothers and sisters in Ethiopia. Our cause is their cause, their fight is our fight, and we must show the white people of this country that fact.”



Washington DC
11:35 PM

A secret service agent quietly led Secretary of State Lillian Mather into the Oval Office through a side entrance. President Norman was already waiting for her on the couch in front of the desk. The Secretary of State was taken aback by two things she noticed right away. The first was the president’s attire. He wore a pair of khaki slacks and a white button-down short sleeve shirt tucked into his pants. Despite knowing Michael Norman for over twenty years, she had never seen the president in casual clothes. He was either in military dress or a suit and tie. In his new outfit, he looked less like a war hero and commander-in-chief and more like a mid-level office worker.

The second thing that caught her off guard was that they were alone. She knew the president had a select group of people he spoke to alone. Lillian was not among those people. Every meeting with the president so far had involved at least three or four other high-level officials and bureaucrats. She didn’t see White House Chief of Staff Jeff Brewer chainsmoking butts near an open window. Vice President Reed wasn’t skulking in a darkened corner like a southern gothic vampire. For the first time since he asked her to serve as Secretary of State, Lillian was alone with the president.

Norman stood and offered her his hand. “I know it’s late, Lillian. I’m sorry about that.”

She shook his hand and nodded with a smile. “The president calls and you come running, no matter the time of night.”

Norman shrugged a bit sheepishly and pointed her to the couch while he walked towards his desk. He sat down behind the thick wooden desk that Lillian recognized. It floated through the White House over the years, placed in various rooms by the different presidents and their first ladies. It was made from the timbers of a British ship, HMS Resolute. Rutherford B. Hayes was president when Queen Victoria sent the desk to the White House as a gift. Now Norman used it as his own work desk.

“CIA intelligence coming from Africa arrived on my desk this afternoon. Have you heard of Djibouti?”

“It’s somewhere on the Horn of Africa, right?”

“It was,” said Norman. “The briefing I received had conflicting reports, but most agree that it was destroyed by fire. There was a battle sometime yesterday; the Spanish attempted an amphibious assault. Sources aren’t sure about the numbers, and the fighting is still going on, but it seems that the Spanish won a Pyrrhic victory at best.”

The news surprised Lillian. Ever since Suez the talk was that it would be a matter of time until the war was over. The Africans had heart, but heart was no match for gunships and fighter jets.

“It’s their home,” she said. “And a very important city on top of it. They’ll fight tooth and nail to keep it, or see that the Spaniards don’t get it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Africans set the city on fire themselves.”

Norman nodded and stared down as he spoke.

“Probably. Take what they can, burn the rest to keep the Spaniards hands off it, and retreat into desert to equal the playing field. It’s what I’d do.”

“Is that why you called me into a meeting at midnight, sir? To listen to you play armchair general.”
The president looked up and gave Lillian a wry smirk. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin.

“About one hundred and sixty years ago, one of our predecessors who served as Secretary of State and then president said about the United States, ’She goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.’ John Quincy Adams’ words, a supplement to George Washington’s talk of avoiding foreign entanglement, has defined US foreign policy for two hundred years.”

“We almost violated that once,” said Lillian. “1917, with Wilson.”

“That was Wilson’s fault. He said the right things and did the right things, but congress… just would not back him. He couldn’t get the votes or twist the arms, so congress said no… and the Great War went on a lot longer than it should have by all rights.”

“Is this what you wanted to talk about?” Lillian asked. “The possibility of—“

“Don’t say it,” Norman said quickly. “I don’t want to say that word in this office. It is something I’ve thought about more and more the past few days. I see on the television that they’re burning Spanish flags in New York City, people are wearing pins with the colors of the Ethiopian imperial flag. The country by and large is still pissed from Spain sticking their nose into the last war with Canada. On the flip side, I have letters arriving here every day saying we should side with Spain and bomb those dirty commie savages back to the stone age. On top of all that, in two days the House is going to introduce a spending appropriations bill for foreign relief aid to Ethiopia when they come back from summer recess.”

Lillian leaned forward on the couch and looked at the president.

“You hired me to tell you like it is, sir, and I will say this: this show of support is your doing. In a joint session of congress you called out the war as naked imperial aggression. You’re president, but yet you’re surprised that people actually listen to you? If you called me here to tell you the best course, I can only offer one solution: let things play out. You’ve started that you can’t just stop now. Sic Vice President Reed on congress if you want that appropriations bill to fail. If you want it to pass, have it pass and go from there. You and President Fernandez both have been preparing us for conflict if it happens again. Keep it up. We may need it.”

Imperadora, Strait of Gibraltar

Beneath their feet, the greatest and most ambitious earthmoving project in the history of Man progressed in full tilt.

The Gibaltar Dam.

Vessels of every sort traversed the ten mile wide stretch of water that would be straddled by this mammoth construction in the not-so-distant future. Barges laden with earth and concrete gathered at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea as did ants at the aperture of their mound. On the southern shore, a fleet of dredges plied the waters just off the coast, throwing wispy plumes of silty water into the air. The mud water rained down upon the shore of a peninsula composed of the same fresh silt in heaping piles, which were smoothed over and spread about the surface of the constructed peninsula by dozens of bulldozers and excavating vehicles. At the base of that long finger of fresh land, near the African continent's natural coast, a dozen channels of varying widths had been cut into the earthwork. Those ribbons of water would eventually become the locks that would facilitate the passage of vessels around the dam.

Upon its completion - sometime in 1990 as predicted by Borgos Industries - the dam would yield incalculably vast quantities of hydroelectric energy; enough to power much of Western Europe. Multi-lane thoroughfares, freight rails, and oil pipelines would run across the dam's crown from Iberia to Africa - linking Spain's African possessions directly to the European homeland. The dam's blockage of flow from the Atlantic would drop sea levels across the Mediterranean and alter the very face of the Earth. Dependent upon Spanish whim alone, the depth of the Mediterranean Sea could be dropped merely ten meters, or all but drained to create millions of square miles of new land to colonize.

It would be a testament to Spain's mastery over mankind and the natural world alike; a worthy monument to Alfonso Sotelo's empire.

Pride swelled within the Prime Minister's breast as he gazed westward, out over the profiles of Iberia and Morroco upon chalky teeth poking over the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean. These were the beginnings of the dam's support pylons, just now protruding from the water's surface like the tips of a newborn's teeth from virgin gums. For years, the dam's construction efforts consisted of earthworks, dredging, rail building, and canal excavation. But now the dam itself had finally begun to sprout, a Spanish dam was already a reality at least in some small portion.

Sotelo's attention returned to the matter at hand, the progress review. Borgos Industries' executives preferred to hold their quarterly reports on the construction's progress from a place where the efforts made were apparent for all to see: the air. The luxury airship Imperadora afforded such a vantage point in the most comfortable means possible. Panels of crystal glass on each wall of the conference deck gave all those in attendance a panoramic view of the Straits and the fledgling dam rising slowly from its depths. Seating for some one hundred attendees had been arranged around a podium bearing the Borgos insignia. It was here that representatives for each of the major stakeholders in the dam effort were in attendance. As the Second Spanish Republic itself was the largest contributor to the project behind Borgos itself, Prime Minister Sotelo himself had elected to serve as the government's representative at the review.

"Indeed, in all regards, this quarter has indeed been tremendous for all of us here at Borgos." The corporate keynote speaker continued; Sotelo hadn't paid attention to what he had said in the previous minutes. "Since March this year, we have recorded a marked increase of objectives met and duties completed per workweek, and yet the number of injury-related incidents has fallen drastically. In fact, the number of injury-related and near miss incidents reported since our second quarter review last year is down two hundred and forty percent!" The speaker declared proudly, eliciting a round of light applause from the audience. "Here at Borgos, safety is our primary consideration!"

Sotelo too smiled and joined in the round of unenthusiastic golf applause, in spite of the fact he was aware that the speaker's figure was an outright fabrication. If anything, worker deaths on the Gibraltar Damn had increased in the past year; Sotelo knew because he himself had introduced a bill designed to weaken occupational safety standards on Borgos' behalf. The loopholes provided in that piece of legislature had since allowed Borgos and their contractors to severely deflate the unacceptably high rate of mortality and injury on the project. Near misses that did not involve vital project property were simply not recorded; provincial laborers from Rio Niger and Spanish Algeria - people who wouldn't be missed by anyone that mattered - were sent to do the most dangerous work. Sotelo felt no guilt for it; if the dam was going to be completed in an acceptable timeframe, some corners would have to be cut. Safety legislation - telling businesses how to accomplish work - is all socialist nonsense anyway.

"What that amounts to, gentlemen, is more work is being done more safely. And we continue to explore new options for..."

The Prime Minister's attentiveness lapsed once again. He glanced to his side, to two ever-present bodyguards standing out of the way against the window-walls. In these sorts of closed-door meetings, bodyguards served as his links to the world outside, ready to appraise him of any particularly important happenings. Their cold, stoic stares across the audience demonstrated they had no news for him.

The head of the Spanish Republic could not simply be away from contact for an hour or two if something critical were taking place, and Sotelo had learned it was more polite to not leave early to check in with his aides and advisers. He had no interest in this review in any case - being here was purely a political move. Officially, the Prime Minister's seat was to be voted for in the September elections. Sotelo had been making moves for years to ensure that he would not face a candidate that would ever stand a chance of usurping his rule. But he had to at least pretend as if he was if he was campaigning. Amongst Spain's industrial plutocrats, attending these reviews demonstrated interest in working for their interests in the future. This amounted to a far better use of time than pretending to pander to the average Spaniard. He had more important things to concern himself with than playing the "man for the people" as he had in '76.

Chief among those more pressing matters, for the moment at least, was the War. The evening before, General Ponferrada had informed the Prime Minister that a landing on the very coast of Ethiopia would be underway at once. That had been twelve hours ago, and Sotelo wanted direly to know how far they had pressed into the enemy homeland. His soldiers might well be assaulting Addis Ababa right this moment, and he would be none the wiser.

At that moment, a tap of the finger was felt upon Sotelo's left shoulder as one of the guard stooped down and cupped a hand over his ear after he had noted his paging receiver buzzing softly in his pocket.

"Your presence is requested in Madrid, Excellency," the somber, trained disinterest of the Cazador protection graveled into Sotelo's ear. "A chopper has been summoned and will be awaiting you on the helipad shortly. I ask that you excuse yourself as soon as you see fit."

Sotelo shot upright in his seat. "On what grounds? What has transpired?" The Prime Minister made no effort to whisper; he was either so perturbed that he had forgotten to keep his voice down, or he simply did not care. In any event, Sotelo had cut the keynote speaker off while diverting the attention of all those present aboard the Imperadora.

"I was not informed as to the exact subject, Excellency. All I know is that it concerns military matters."

Then it was bad news. Good news could always wait, and if he was being requested to meet immediately with the military leadership in the capital, then something very grave indeed had transpired. The urge to determine the scope and nature of this disaster utterly seized him. Sotelo bolted to his feet, giving the Borgos speaker pause.

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, is everything well?" The man at the podium asked, worry written on his face.

"There is an urgent matter which must be attended," Sotelo answered. "I must go." And with no further explanation nor apology, Alfonso Sotelo departed the conference deck with guards in tow to the utter bewilderment of all those in attendance.

“Ram it down!” Sun Song roared over the tumultuous orchestra of war. The diesel engine roared like a blast furnace. Against the metal hull small-arms fire peppered the steel shell ringing against it like hammers against an iron bell. The ricochets were loud and sharp, further drowning much of what was going on in Tsung's ears.

His senses were over-extended. The grind into the city had not ended and neither had the Russians seemed to tire. But there was a chaos in the air. A maddening storm that crashed against the walls of his house threatening to spike the calm of his sanity. His heart thumped in his chest as fast as the turbine engine behind him spun. And in front of him was the unstoppable force of a concrete wall. Or so Song didn't think.

Slamming his foot down on the accelerator pedals he hurled the tanks against the cobbling wall, smashing it against the stone with the grind and sheering popping of metal as several tonnes of heavy iron and explosive ammunition came to bear against it. Cracks spider-webbed in the brick-work as he pressed their vehicle into the offending blockade.

The Russians had erected in the streets tank-traps. The heavy iron crosses and concrete blocks designed to slow or stall moving armor. They were heavy, but were with any faith not nearly as stubborn as the exterior wall of a apartment block.

Steel wrenched itself into twisted forms as the cracks broke open into holes and the engine screamed at a higher pitch. “We're going to over-heat her!” Tse Lin screamed.

“Pull back, give her time to cool!” Song ordered from his commanding chair. His knuckles glowed white-hot as he gripped the frame of his gondola. “Hui!” he barked, “anti-tank rifle at four-o' clock.”

“How high.” Hui called out, calmed and collected. Too eerie for Tsung whose heart took a lurch at the invocation.

“Doesn't matter, I want high-explosives.” Song demanded.

“D-d-d-” Tsung stuttered. But Song answered the question before he could choke it out.

“He's shooting over us, I don't think he noticed.” his commander consoled as the main turret roared to life with a guttural bang.

“Try again, Tsung!” Song ordered as he turned to the radio, shouting out over the sounds of the intense conflict around them. A mortar grenade landed somewhere nearby, its detonation muffled by the thick shell. But none the less too close as shrapnel cascaded down the thick bullet-proof port glass.

Tsung threw the tank forward again and the wall came to lurch. He saw the cracks split and a dark void form between them as rebar supports bent and groan. All that could be hoped in this insanity was that Russian steel was inferior.

But for all the rushing madness this wasn't coming on top. From his chair Tsung had watched his armored comrades roaring across the farmer's fields, cut by shallow rudimentary trenches with sleds of steel. Laying out behind them bridges the mechanized infantry and foot soldiers of the Revolution rushed across without hesitation or question. Circumventing and climbing over the very defenses the Republican army had struggled to erect.

He watched a tank next to him take an anti-tank shell through the turret. The rush of burning diesel exploded into the air through the exit behind it. The fire ultimately catching the ammunition stores before he could tell anyone had escaped. The explosion in his hair as pounding and deafening as the croak of a dragon bullfrog.

And now here they were, committing in their own way for the mission. Ramming the nose of their tank into the wall of an apartment.

With a crackling wail the brick and mortar split aside and fell. Bursting into a thick cloud of ashen dust as the Tei Gui sped in, tearing freely through the drywall. Wood and plaster crunched and scratched against the steel hull as they roared through. The cabin bumped and yawed as it lumbered through walls of thinly space rooms and narrow halls. Scrapped along the low ceiling and knocking free rivers of plaster and asbestos.

With a crash it cleared to the front lobby, desolate of life and the dark murky interior devoid of civilian activity. Unabated, it sailed through the door. Rendering from the frame the wood and brick as it cleared the entrance. Brick and steel gouged along the side. The interior sang with the rancid sound of sharp steel and toothy rock. Groaning in its exit, it crashed into the street below. Tsung rocked in his seat as he kept the pressure on and back into the clear summer afternoon.

The engines turned and the treads spun against one another and the boat turned down the street. “We're breaking this barrier.” Song snarled, “Keep straight to the corner!” he issued without hesitation, “I want the turret rotated to ten o'clock. High explosives at the ready.”

“Yes, comrade.” Hui and Lin reported in unison. The high-pitched whine and clatter from above signaled the turret was on the spin as Tsung moved along the road. The fury of combat muffled by the separation of buildings. Behind him, the familiar swallowing clunk of the turret affirmed the gun was loaded.

The air hummed with the grinding of diesel as they barreled down the street. The familiar tones of machine gun fire rising ahead of them as they approached the intersection ahead. Flanking their sides the industrial gray of additional projects towered above them.

Among the din and the cacophonous call of fighting they rolled behind the barriers as a leopard. The olive-green uniforms of Russian riflemen turned against them as they lay behind concrete barriers and sandbag redoubts. The street had been turned into a vicious choke point. And beyond their barriers the iron crows feet barriers that dissuaded them sat in wait. Many more stretched along the road for blocks.

Chinese and Siberian rounds flaked off the hardy armor of the Tei Gui that loomed behind them as Hui made the final adjustments. There was a delayed pause before the Chinese war machine opened up. But when it made its report, the bagged nest the Republican defenders had risen to ward off the Chinese had unfolded into a cloud of debris and smoke, leaving behind a smoldering crater and scattering soldiers who scattered from the wayward shell that hit from behind. Or if they did not scatter, they lay dead or dying in the milky dust. Their corpses mangled in the street.

A moment of broken silence passed on by as the low roll of the shell's impact faltered and faded as it echoed through the streets. Rushing forward, the otherwise pinned Chinese attackers marched forward, pressing themselves against the walls as they trained their guns into windows and up high as they watched the shattered windows of apartment floors above. Even through the hull of the armor Tsien could hear the echo of distant fire as Chinese and Russian troops skirmished in the streets. Over head airplanes droned searching for targets, or scouting the streets from on high. Behind him, Sun Song called in what had happened on the radio, sending back their position.

But above it all, ringing in his ears still was that hallowed scream of the tank shell and the explosion. Still looming in front of his vision and in the dark corners of his psyche the repeating image of the vaporizing Russians played. He felt cold and sweaty. Subdued jitters crawled across his skin with each pass of clammy coldness. In the moment of peace and inaction, he closed his eyes, trying to hide himself away. But he could still hear the booming of the gun, and the guttural, horrible rending of the impacting shell.



With a putter and a wheeze, the car drew to a lumbering stop in the middle of the country road.

“Cyka blyat!” Vasiliy cried, bashing the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. Ullanhu jumped from the sudden explosive outburst from his partner, broken from his meditative staring out into the rural landscape of European Russia. Stretching out all around them stretched miles of wheat fields in varying state of use and disuse. Some looked clearly tended too, flush with golden waves of amber grains. Where as others had become clearly overgrown where old farmers had simply let the crop grow wild.

Ullanhu looked over, dazed and stunned with his partner. The scrawny Russian with the stringy blonde hair and floppy stripped collared shirt stood slumped over the scratched steering wheel. His lip stuck out in the air and a powerful look of anger dashed across his face. From the car there was a rhythmic tapping as metal contracted and clicked. The engine had gone silent and a cloud of steam bellowed out from under the hood, and the obnoxious hood vent.

“Steam?” Vasiliy said in Russian, raising his head. “Steam! This I can fix!” he cheered happily, throwing open the driver's side door and bounding out onto the shoulder of the road. “I can fix this!” he cackled insanely as he whipped around to the trunk of their car.

“You can?” Ullanhu muttered from the passenger's side, turning to watch his partner dance around and fumbling with his keys as he engaged the trunk in vicious key-to-lock combat.

“Yes yes!” he yelled back, “Is only radiator. Is out of coolant!” he cackled in his broken Chinese.

“You know if it's easier you can always talk to me in Russian...” Ullanhu offered cautiously, “That I can speak too.”

“No, no. Is not of polite!” the young Russian sputtered anxiously. He fought each word, like someone trying to calculate long math by his own head, “Besides, I of need practices.”

“Well, whatever you want.” Ullanhu agreed tentatively. He leaned back in his chair and starred out down the road. Their road had long turned from forested dirt tracks and over-grown two-tracks in the low mountains to a twisted long stretch of country weaving. The road had become paved, but only in a broken sense. The pavement was cracked and pitted. At times, entire stretches seemed like gravel in its most pure form. He couldn't help but wonder if this was a fact of recent developments, or if it had been such a problem even during the glorious days of the tzar.

It was for Russia an idyllic summer day they drove through. This car, whatever it was, lacked any means of air conditioning. The two had driven for the better part of a day with the windows rolled down to take in the fresh air and to flush out the summer heat. The sky was a clear and beautiful expanse of blue. In a way, the day reminded Ullanhu very much of being at home, among the herdsmen of Mongolia before the life of the IB took him.

“Vasiliy.” the agent offered, “What did you do before all this?” he asked.

“What do?” the Russian answered back, reaching into the car to pop the latch on the hood. In his hand was a worn army can full of some manner of liquid.

“Before... this.” Ullanhu gestured out, to all around him. “This war. This civil war?” he poised.

“Oh, I was a army private.” the young Russian answered weakly, smiling wide and dumbly as he looked up at his Chinese partner. “Is what you want?”

“Not necessarily.” Ullanhu mumbled.

“Oh.” Vasiliy said, walking around to the popped hood. A cloud of trapped steam rushed out of the heated engine block and into his face as it flew open like a steel clam shell. Now it blocked his view of the road ahead. But he continued speaking as he watched the Russian unscrew the coolant cap to fill the reservoir.

“I mean, what did you do before the army even?” he asked.

“Father owned barber shop.” Vasiliy answered plainly, “Mother worked as clerk at bank. We live in Moscow.”

“Are they still there?” the Mongol asked.

“Yes and no.” the young Russian answered, his voice lowered to an almost uncomfortable level. “You see, they died.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Ullanhu comforted, he felt almost stung he had broached to something such as that. An aching curled up in his heart and he looked away, almost apologetically, like he had caught a girl naked.

“No, no. Is good.” replied Vasiliy as he finished pouring the coolant. But still the engine clicked as he lowered the hood of the car. “What of yours?” he asked.

“They're fine.” Ullanhu answered guiltily, “They uh- they're shepards.”

“Shepards? Such modesty.” the Russian commented. “How man go from shepard to spy?”

“I don't know.” Ullanhu shrugged, “For being smart?”

“Wish I was so smart.” Vasiliy commented, “Perhaps I be not in Russia but in France during such anarchy.” he grinned tensly.

“Yea, France. France would be a good place to be.” Ullanhu stammered.

Vasiliy got shut away their reserve coolant into the trunk and slid back into the driver's seat. His finger drummed on the red wooden steering wheel as he starred ahead down the road.

“So, are we going?”

“Of not yets.” Vasiliy remarked calmly, “We waits for engine to cool.”

Ullanhu nodded. The two sat listening to the engine click and groan. Ullanhu looked out across the open farm-fields, looking for something to look at and to watch. In the far distance between two fields a small Orthodox chapel stood in the open. Its rounded domes and roofs sagged in on itself. And even from the distance between each other Ullanhu could see the broken exterior wall and the gaps in the worn and faded plaster than had protected the brick work underneath. The inconsistency in the colors was powerful.

“You be of out of country before?” Vasiliy asked, taking his turn to broach conversation.

“Have I?” Ullanhu asked back.

“Ya.”

“I dunno, I suppose you could say China is foreign to me.” he laughed nervously. He felt like he was betraying himself saying so, while at the same time somehow staying loyal. “Or, well, for a while we were independent when I was just a toddler. But I grew up in China for as long as I can remember, so I suppose I can't ever say that.

“So no. No I haven't. This is the furthest I've been from home. Ever.”

“I have been to of Ukraine.” Vasiliy remarked, “When I just green and fresh. We want to of retakes lost Imperial land, bring Ukraine back to Empire. Be united again, and not be of broken people.

“But, you know the rest. But we didn't know at time. Was I only eighteen at time. Certainly didn't know better, never pay attention to Finland.”

“Do you ever wish to get out?” Ullanhu asked.

“Maybe.” Vasiliy smiled, “Maybe I visit China after war.” he smiled. He sounded like he was posing a compliment. Even the look in his eyes was warm as he looked over to his partner.

“But that's not now.” he finished, licking his cracked lips, “Perhaps car is of workings. We back to road.” he mused, cranking the key in the ignition. With a burp the car started up. The engine screamed in protest and whined. Perhaps it was too hot, but it wasn't so much that it wouldn't start up again.

“Where'd you get this?” Ullanhu asked as they rolled back out onto the road.

“Founds in car lot during break in Moscow.” the Russian smiled, “With lots others. Owner had fled to some wheres. We moved in, Makulov claimed them all. We took for selves.

“I like this. Is sportings car. Always dreamed driving sportings car.”




The car took a hard bump over a piece of garbage in the road. The asphalt glistened with the kiss of fresh rain. Ripe green brush grew over the embankment of the road. Underneath soft-red clay and sand lay in wait, ready to emerge again when the seasonal rains receded and the landscape returned to being bone dry. Scoring the hills and their green farmer's fields dashed the landscape in long lines, themselves lush with green produce. Among the rows men and women wandered hunched gleaning through the crop to come.

The sky overhead was the patchwork of clear skies and white clouds reminiscent of a sky that had been pregnant with rain before it. Birds darted above them as they dashed to collect bugs before returning to scrubby brush. There was little in the way of trees to cover in. It was all hard, coarse bush and hardy plant life. Han Wen sighed, hoping to soon escape the ground and return to the sky. He had forgotten how much he missed it. To be in the true openness of the skies. To maneuver and dance, and not lumber through on sand-abused wheels with a engine that groaned and protested at every suggestion of acceleration. He wanted to be above this. He wanted to give that Spaniard a rematch above these fields.

The heat and the wet season humidity had not worked well together. Sweat beaded on his brow and long ago he had thrown off his leather pilot's jacket and tossed it into the back of the withering coup where it lay crumpled in the back seat. Mulki had seemed not to care, but the two had not spoken since Bargaal. Wen's anxiety to get home had closed him like a clam shell. And he didn't quite know how to approach such foreign women.

They closed in on another town he'd soon forget. He stopped trying to learn their names. He was an airman after all, his direction was given in degrees and altitudes. Before he could take final note of the countryside they rolled in passed plaster-coated buildings and mud-brick shanties. The sides of the street were abreast with activity. Humble Muslim women shuffled about in groups, their faces shaded by hijabs and bodies hidden behind long dresses. Old men in chairs outside the doors of their homes watched the passing car with a casual disinterest as they chewed.

It wasn't a spectacular thing in its own.

“So what was your grand father talking about?” he asked suddenly, breaching the silence. It had burned him silently for the better part of the day. He had figured to broach it. In truth, he had some idea. But the picture wasn't complete.

“Excuse me?” Mulki responded.

“He is your grandfather, right?” Wen asked again, turning to look at Mulki. She sat at the driver's wheel, handling through the sparse village streets and dodging battered utility vehicles and the odd mule-pulled wagon. She made a cursory glance to him.

“Well, by marriage.” she admitted plainly, “But he's also not my grandfather. He's my great uncle to my husband.” she corrected.

“Ah, I see.” Wen nodded, “Forgive me then.”

“It's alright.” she forgave, “But you wanted to know about his stories?”

“Yeah, I have an idea. But it's not too shaky. He fought in The War?”

“Oh, he did.” she said. There was a tinge of regret, or was it awe? It was difficult to place and Han Wen had to fight to figure it. He put it in bewilderment, “But, he's never talked about it much until just recently. I mean, we all knew. He still wears the uniforms, the medals. He's proud, but he's never put anything to words.

“You were the first person to ever have him tell his story, and you can't even understand him!” she exclaimed.

“Did he know?” Wen asked.

“Probably, but there was something about you that I guess convinced him he could open up to you.” she nodded, “Perhaps he knew you couldn't judge him? I don't know him well enough to say. I can't get into his head, and neither could his closest family, and most of them are dead too by now.”

“Such a shame.” commented Wen.

“Well, I can't dwell on it honestly.” Mulki laughed politely. She shot him a stray smile.

“So, these stories?” Wen prodded, “I can tell he's a pilot. And flew for the Germans I guess?”

“Oh, one of a few!” she boasted, it sounded like one of the odd things she could be proud about for him. They stopped in the road as a young boy led some cattle across the intersecting roads with the help of a skinny, scruffy dog.

“But as far as I knew before hand he was recruited by the Germans in the war as part of a auxiliary corp of Ashkari pilots with the Somali and Ethiopian loyalty during the war. There was maybe only twenty whole pilots recruited by the Germans from Africa as a whole. They mostly kept my people as infantry, but I assume they really wanted to make sure they had pilots here while ensuring they had the best in Europe.”

“So, what sort of stuff did he do?”

“I -uh, I don't know where to start.” Mulki giggled nervously, “He bombed I guess British and French forces in Africa. But those were Ashkari too.”

“So Africans bombing Africans.” Han Wen mused.

“Not exactly...” corrected Mulki, “A lot of them – including himself – were commanded by European officers. He lamented that he never got to a rank that he could call himself one, despite his long career throughout the large majority of the war. He actually outlived a number of his own officers, but he was always kept low. I imagine that was true across the entire unit. No matter how loyal they flew, or how well they fought.”

“So what was he trying to say with that?” Wen inquired dully.

“Maybe that he knows how you feel. That he knows that hate with Europeans?”

“I don't necessarily hate Europeans.” Han Wen defensively muttered, “At least, not totally.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I hate Spain. But because the Spanish are my enemies. The others... I haven't met the others...” he trailed off, thinking. He wasn't sure where he was going with that. In truth, he didn't think highly of Europe and its people. But he had been grappling with how to define his relationship, since enlistment and before. He had met Russians, and he met the few remaining Englishmen from Hong Kong and Portuguese in Macao through his service. They had been as much a person as he was, without the intense hunger to oppress him and his nation that had been expounded in the dialog and rhetoric of Beijing politics.

“It's complicated, I guess.” he admitted flatly. But he could feel it chew him. He was to fight them now. Could he say he was going to not unlike them anymore?

“Well, which ever the case I can only guess he understands and supports your fight.” Mulki comforted the pilot. They kept moving through the town, passing over a creek. Its banks full of water.

“So what else did your step-great-uncle do?” Wen needled, moving the conversation along.

“Well, he talked about flying above the armies led by the nobles of Ethiopia.” she continued, “Seeing their armies from the ground and the airs. And the Ras that lead them. He flew on to drop bombs with his own hands on the enemy. And combat another pilot even with his own pistol.

“He met Hassan's father too.”

Han Wen nodded. Hassan hardly carried as much prestige among the Chinese as he did Africa. To him, he was another name among the ones of Africa he had to know to understand the continent. Another face. But without any associations with the Pan-African Empire the image he had of their most powerful of generals was a mixed relationship.

He could admire his command. But be critical of him in private. There were many stories of his deeds. Including the mutilation of a village's worth of toddlers. He was a man invoked when speaking of Ethiopia's successes and potential when the question of their strength was raised with an Ethiopian officer. Someone who had fought and marched across the continent from one shore to another.

He had even heard from a superstitious soldier that Hassan communed with God directly to receive insights, which is how he brought down the Queer General of the Congo. He didn't believe it.

“Did he have anything to say on his father?” the pilot asked.

“Just what anyone from Somalia would say about him.” Mulki quipped, “He's well respected among us people.”

“Sounds like an admirable person.” Han Wen admitted flatly as they continued along past ramshackle shacks. The village held in it the sparse efforts of modernization. It straddled the edge of multiple worlds.

“Who?”

“Your great step-uncle.”

“We knew he was.”




“Uncounted are believed to have died in the attempted crossing!” Jin Feng read out aghast as she held the newspaper out in front of her. The warm light of the summer sun basked her face in a warm light and glittered in the distance off the waves of the ocean. “Surviving refugees have recounted harrowing stories of Spanish ships firing on civilian crafts seeking safety before the imperialist dogs of Spain arrived at their homes in Djibouti.

“Liling, this is crazy!” exclaimed the youth as she leaned forward off the chill radiating off the air-conditioning machine at her back. On the roof of the tenement building they both lived in rose high above the city below in the hills at the center of town. Plover cove was a bed of bluish steel where fishing boats and other watercraft crawled like white diamonds across the maritime bed.

“It's crazy you actually read the paper so much.” Liling replied in a dry tone as she lay across a towel thrown over the gravel of the rooftop. Liling, unlike her girlfriend Feng was not a young girl to have wholly shed her youthful roundness. Her body hadn't become long and thin like her partner. She lay in the sun in her underwear, watching the puffy cotton clouds slowly sail across the facade of the sun.

“Well it's crazy that this would have happened, just blowing up innocent people like that?” Feng continued, wringing the paper in her hands, “That's reserved for the worst.”

“There's a lot of things reserved for the worst and I don't think the Spanish warrant enough of them for me to care.” Liling groaned as she sat up. Unlike the most of Hong Kong, this roof was with exception one of the most private places to be in the open air, without trudging into the rocky overgrowth that so choked the rugged hills the city circled so tightly, it was this roof that provided privacy. If because it still stood among all the others.

It opened unto whoever could manage to break out into it a panorama vista of the Tai Po district. Looking behind them the rounded and wild landscape of hilltops and peaks crowned with lush greens stood and spiraled behind them. Hidden in the boughs of trees hung the heavy woven nests of weaver birds.

Opposite, snaking down the slope of the highlands was the city proper itself. More a spectacle of human domination than what was behind them. Concrete and steel rose above isolated garden parks in pillars of white or softly shining glass. And even as far as they were from it the sounds of traffic - the honking horns and motor engines – still rose to their ears to compete with the birdsong as part of the already naturalized symphony of Hong Kong.

“Still, something should be done.” spat Feng, rolling up the newspaper and smacking it against her legs. She had rolled her dress up so she might sit cross legged, and on top to keep the fabric from being dusted and dirtied by her choice of seat. As such her legs shone long and bare in the afternoon summer sun.

“And it's not either of our choices to make.” Liling consoled, tilting her head to the side and giving her girl friend a long lover's stare, “Don't be like a little brat.”

“I'm not!” Feng protested loudly. Feng smiled.

“Oh, you are.” she giggled, reaching out an arm and sliding along the gravel as she stretched out to her. She pressed a warm hand against Feng's legs as she lay her head at the side of her mate and looked up into the blue sky.

“No I'm not!” Feng continued to moan. Her face glowed a beat fiery red.

“That whatever in Shanghai is looking into it.” Lilling reminded her through long smiling lips. Dark green eyes looked up into her own through half-closed sleepy eye-lids. She brushed a hand through short ash-black hair before liberating one of Feng's from her lap and holding the fingers tight. She messaged them tight in her palm as she spoke, “Some of those Africans or something are asking someone to help out. Is that enough?” she crooned, “See, I pay attention to the news.”

“Oh, please.” Feng bemoaned distraught, “That's probably the only thing because you listened to it while waiting for a bus.”

“Well what would I do on a afternoon around town without you?” Lilling posed, “I certainly don't go to any of your friend's motor races on the mainland.

“Or whatever that other skinny boy does. What does he do?”

“Cong does whatever.” she said flatly, looking away from her lounging girlfriend. Her hand was warm and firm, and it was making a part of her want to hold her. But still, her stubbornness over not caring for what was going on made her want to hit her. She was confused, and hot. “He's probably reading.”

“Mhmm...” Lilling smiled, “Maybe we should invite him?” she teased.

“No!” she shouted, that'd probably kill the poor boy. Lilling laughed at her suddenness.

“Well, what do you think we do?” Lilling continued her interrogation wistfully, “Do you want to hear what else I heard on the city news?”

“What?” Feng asked.

“It was going to be a hot day today.” Lilling grinned lustfully, running her hand up Feng's leg. “Come one, there's no one here to look. Nothing's broken, so can we break it then?”



The theater was abuzz with an excited chatter. Looking out from behind back stage Auyi watched the seats filling up as curious voters-to-be and spectators flowed in through the doors. He'd been in this very building once, inside the national opera house, for an opera aggrandizing the revolution. In little way had Auyi claimed to have had once an important roll to play in it, much unlike his debate partner to be.

He looked across the stage. There hidden in the shadows of the spotlights he caught eye of Mang Xhu. Standing cold and strong, like some ancient golem or imperial statue. His scowling face starred back at him. Even without the light, Auyi knew he was scowling at him. There was no sense of loyalty between the two. And Auyi knew for sure that the minister long considered him a traitor. He wanted to say it was his decision to run against the minister of industry. But he knew it went further back.

Still yet he needed to have confidence. Spiting Xhu's demeanor Auyi bowed from across the stage to him. He knew he could see him. Both of them could. He gave no outward response.

“We're ready in six!” a stage hand hollered over the racket of filling theater steams and the controlled chaos of backstage activity. It was no play or opera to be sure, nor concert. The engineering wasn't complex, but it was all it needed to be. Lunging at ropes, engineers climbed to the scaffolding above to the lights that ran across the central stage. Auyi stopped to wonder how many times these simple, black jump-suited men had done this before.

“Are you ready?” a voice asked. Auyi turned around to find behind him Shanxi Wu. His large glasses hung off the tip of his nose. In his hands he held a delicate, thin folder.

“I am.” Zhang Auyi nodded, taking a deep breath. He brushed his hands down the breast of his white suit, “Do I look it?” he inquired with a confident smile.

“As usually, comrade.” Wu bowed, “And how about Xhu?” he asked, pointing across the way, “Not letting hims get into your head?”

Auyi turned to his half-hidden competitor. He loomed like a hawk in the shadows. Glaring ever so still at him behind the throws of dark shadows. “Not at all.” Auyi turned back, smiling. “What's in your hand?”

“I got it from the International this morning.” Wu said, “They wanted you to look at, since you're still secretary. Confirmation for candidates to fill your seat has yet to be made still.”

“Well why haven't they finished?” he pried, “I thought they'd be done.”

“I think they decided to hold off. Besides, they're tied up with the Africa question. Of which, this is the informal vote count for the debate on action in Ethiopia.” he seg wayed, holding out the folder in his hand. Auyi took it, and immediately flipped it open.

“Public yet?” he asked, opening the first page.

“No, not yet.”

Auyi nodded, scanning down the paper. Passed the breakdowns and footnotes to the final results page. “A little over half abstained, undecided.” he nodded, “But... the Vietnamese are greatly concerned I guess. They're in charge of the vote?”

“I guess.” Wu shrugged.

Auyi continued, flipping through the pages. “I guess...” he said in a hushed tone, “They're concerned this'll revive an era of European colonization. They're wanting this extended to the British aggression in South Africa?”

“I wouldn't know, I haven't read it.” Wu snipped.

“Ok, hold on to this for me then for after the debate.” demanded Auyi, handing back the Comintern report, “I'll have to read it then in full when we're through.”

“You going to take any action?”

“Now's not the time for that sort of decision making.” he shot back, “I don't got long...” he trailed off. Looking out at the open chamber. The lights were beginning to dim. “We're starting.”

The lights went out so only the spotlights on the stage illuminated the finished wood floors. Casting their golden light upon a pair of podiums set apart from each other. Red carpet sat under neath the wooden stands. A round of polite applause filled the opera hall like rain. In the darkness only the faint suggestion of Beijing's city lights glowed from the glass pagoda that was the hall's roof.

The applause was the signal for Auyi and Xhu to step out on stage. Each sauntered out into the light in their own manner. Xhu taking the stage like a drill officer surveying his recruits, his face neither benevolent nor cruel. His balding head shone in the spotlights and his face was twisted into an indifferent bulldog as he came up to the podium.

Auyi, knowing the value of politics was spry. He turned and modestly rose his hand to greet his audience. He smiled warm. His thick black hair combed across his head as youthful eyes peered out in search of phantoms.

“Comrades, on this day: July 4th, 1980 we convene to hear in debate candidates Mang Xhu and Zhang Auyi.” the moderator of the event droned in a indifferent voice. “Who in their pursuit for the seat of Grand Secretary have agreed both to engage in a public event to present and discuss their points to the nation.

“I am Yi Chang, reporting over NPN radio and for commentary on film reel. Comrades, let us begin:

“In the news recently the people have heard terrifying accounts of war in Africa as per the aggression of Spain against the African people. China, having commitments with Ethiopia has so far hung out of the war. As Grand Secretaries, what is the course of action you two will designate in Africa should National Congress feel apt to declare war, or the International decides to act on declaring war on our behalf, obligating us to provide some manner of armed accommodations to Africa?

“Mang Xhu, you have a minute.”

“The hostility of the Spanish people are a sure sign of the corruption of the bourgeois class!” the industrial minister began plainly, clapping his hand upon the podium, “And to know that we have gone so long without clipping their corruption to disable their ability to commit such terror is beyond me. We, the Chinese people should stand as the bulwark of progress for the proletariat on an international level, and we should be committed to war for not only Africa, but to sweep Revolution into Europe through Spain.

“China should go forth to Africa and to deter the Spanish. But in doing so we should re-write our commitments to the African people and to enforce popular, proletariat sovereignty of the nation and its political structures. This war is a means for us to bring the Revolution to Africa as well, and to depose the regime of Yaqob. Though he may be in part educated by us, he has failed to reform the state from its reactionary status as a monarchy and to be a true, progressive, socialist state ruled by a vanguard of their own people. A vanguard that Yaqob can not be!

“To rest our case, we owe not only to ourselves to rid us of threats in Europe, but to enforce a mission of liberation in the hearts and lives of the African people so they may be truly free. They may be free of Europe now, but they are not free in their self-determination in a free society!”

“Thank you.” Yi Chang said politely from the darkness beyond the spotlights, “Auyi, your response?”

Zhang Auyi looked into the blinding light, trying his best to hold his composure against the blinding silver that drowned his vision. “It is true that China should have in its interests to defend the African people.” he began, “But it should not be so much that we so aptly sweep into their homes to dismantle and destroy their home as we drive off the invader. Would this too make us an aggressor as well to our allies?

“Yaqob, though an Emperor is not an evil man. He is a leader lead by his own compassion to lead the nation as much as Hou Sai Tang has with ours. He is a leader of humility and intelligence, and it's in his capable abilities that he can direct Africa into a liberated society without the need of undue violence. So I must reject my companion's insistence that the Ethiopian body be burned as we defend it as a friend. Because after all: one does not invite a friend to his home for him to remarkably burn it as another uninvited guest loots it. It is a moral and logical fallacy that this is the way it should be and has to be.

“China is a defender! A benevolent and enlightened beacon of hope for the weak nation and the trodden proletariat. It is in the moral interests of this nation to act as such and not in its own self-interest. Patience as a nation is a virtue, and it is in our best interests that Spain - if they are the enemy – be dealt with in time. If that time is that war: then so be it. But if it's a later war: let it be so. The worker's revolution shall prevail, but it needn't do so with a fire so vengeful and filled with rage it should destroy everything else that came before it.”

“In the interests of the continued aims of the revolution then, as aptly referenced. How might it be executed then as a foreign policy?” the moderator inquired. “Mang Xhu.”

“To put it aptly there is no nation that is a friend of China until they accept the nature of proletariat revolution. The guiding principles of the NPCLA being a vanguard party for this state is to ensure not only the active defense of our people but to complete the process of our people into a society of Communism. And as called for in its defense, we should take to the larger world. Assert ourselves and our force of arms to break down the institution of the oppressive parties of the international world to bring about a state where-in all nations can complete and undergo social evolution. To distance themselves from religion, class, and money. China can not accomplish this alone.”

“I'm afraid to decline.” Auyi interjected, “Continual war is a factor that can not be helpful to any state. No matter how big or smile. Its rewards are too small for such a high a cost and the machine which will see it through will eventually break down and counter-revolution will ultimately win in the end. Under the proposed aggressive policy China will only make more enemies than it does friends, and the isolated policy of China over the past twenty-years has only given us so few valuable friends. We can not afford to loose the friends we have in order to pursue a moral obligation blinded by aggression.

“China can achieve and enforce the Revolution in softer ways.” he continued, speaking politely and soft like a teacher. He allowed himself to lean free of the podium, “We do not need weapons so much as we need to introduce our own economy outward to the larger world. Allow for others to consume our culture and become warm to the benefits of economic relations. Become powerful off of this, and in this power have the ability to influence.

“Like leading a young child to bed,” he smiled warmly, calling upon his own family as a metaphor, “we shall lead the children of the world to a brighter, freer future in the light of Communism not through violent conflict and encouraging harsh guerrilla conflict.

“Simply put, when states are dependent on us they shall follow our steps. To break free from the shackles of class warfare. To feel themselves become free of monetary debt as the corruption of money is swept away and every man can give and take from the system as according to his own individual virtues.

“It is friends China needs and not enemies.”

“Opening the nation to foreigners can only lead to rampant corruption!” Xhu boomed, “It is not the foreigners rights to enter China and to engage in two-way exchanges. It is this relationship that had seen the decline of our people in the last century! It is this that is the naivety of a foolish man. And not the stalwart strength of a proud revolutionary. And I should hope that you are not a fool!” Xhu turned, sneering at Auyi from under thinning brows.

“Retain civility.” the moderator reminded, “In change of subject, what is the Chinese commitment in Russia, to stay on the topic of the international world.”

“Our mission in Russia is coming to an end.” Auyi affirmed confidently, “Soon it will come to a point that the Russian people can manage the conflict and to see the unification of Russia in liberated freedom. Too many young Chinese have lost their lives in the north. We should bring them home.

“But China should not abandon its commitments in Russia. And withdrawing from it will not be a betrayal of friendship. A process of withdrawal will be had. Where the strength and power of Chinese troops will be filled by Russian ranks. Material assistance will be made to the Russians. But it is their solemn duty to finish the mission. So that they may have pride in themselves, and not feel the pinch of being used by a foreign entity. That is a truth we too horribly know for ourselves as a collective.”

“Our commitment is until the end!” Auyi declared, “We will stand side-by-side by our enlightened brothers until the end. For that is our commitment. And with them, we will go further.”

[Sorry for the crap post, way too tired tonight.]

Leyla Kowsar, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, sighed. She had just finished typing a letter destined to Marcos del Piñon, her Spanish counterpart. She was mildly confident that he would consent to Persia's demand that his country leave the Hejaz unsullied. The strip of land held no strategic value to the Spaniards, and the remaining Ethiopian troops were hardly a threat. On the other hand, if the Spaniards did set foot in Djedda and Mecca, Persia could not but consider itself under threat. Mecca was just a few hours drive from Riyadh along the highway, and from there, practically on the shores of the Persian gulf.

The letter went as follows:

Esteemed Sir,

Our two nations have long shared cordial relations, which I hope to maintain as long as possible. We have, certainly, a mutual understanding, which it is my wish to preserve.

It is to this effect that I address to you, my esteemed colleague, this request. In the conflict which opposes the Spanish Republic to the Pan-African Imperial Union, your country has recently moved troops to the vicinity of the Red Sea. While the State of Persia has no intention to interfere with this affair, my government has been concerned that the cities of Mecca and Medina, which are supremely important to my people as well as all Muslims the world over, might be invested by the troops of your country.

Furthermore, my government could perceive such an action, in light of the present request, as a hostile act endangering the vital interests of the Persian State. As I have stressed, I wish anything but a souring of the ties which unite our two countries.

We must not forget that the Pan-African army currently fields very few units in Arabia; its presence there confines to ordinary policing, and in no case represents a threat to your country.

For these reasons, and recognizing that a military occupation might trigger uncontrollable reactions throughout the Middle East, and particularly among the Persian public opinion, I ask, amicably, for a strong guarantee that the Hejaz will remain untouched by the Spanish army.

I am confident that you will see the sensibility of this request, and will not miss the opportunity to strengthen ties between our nations by demonstrating the goodwill of the Spanish government.

Leyla Kowsar, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Persia.

(I'm taking liberties with how Freedom Square and Batumi in general is shaped. Here's something quick I drew in Imgur to try and explain how the Main Street/Freedom Square thing is going)

Main Street, Freedom Square, Batumi

The screams of fear and pain echoed across the square but they were only met with the gunshots of the Adjaran army, who had concealed themselves behind a blockade of trucks and steel sheets.

The guard tower, a remnant of the Ottoman colonialism, was now smouldering softly in the fading light of evening. An officer shouted for someone to put it out as the soldiers picked off stragglers who remained on the streets surrounding the square. The statue of the former Sultan, which in the Guards eyes was a symbol of oppression and occupation, had been the target for the protesters. Where a petrol bomb had found it's target in the guards tower, the same could not be said for the statue. The failed attempts of knocking chunks from it lay around the brass statue in the form of bricks and other missiles, which had all missed their target. The statue of Sultan Suleiman still stood in the centre of Freedom Square, its eyes staring blankly at the dark, cloudy sky but its brass sword pointed at the cream cobbled ground, daring anyone to disobey it.

The main street was littered with the dead and dying, some still clutching their missiles or weapons, others with looks of defiance forever frozen onto their dark faces. The protesters who survived the initial onslaught had fled and they darted between the sharp alleyways that circled the square, lost and leaderless. As terrified people streamed past, the Guard had taken positions along the street, sheltering in alcoves, doorways of abandoned shops, alleyways and even behind the dry fountain. Rifles flashed in the darkness as the militiamen remaining men took potshots at the barricade.

In a nearby alley, Davit Patarava, founder and commander of the Georgian Guard, screamed in pain as the bullet was wrenched out of his arm. "Fuck sakes, Donauri!" roared Davit, his teeth clenched and his fist bashing off the wall in pain. "Sir, you're doing very well" murmured Donauri as he examined the bloody bullet held in his pale, albeit bloody, fingers. A sharp knife had been stuck inside his commanders arm to pull wrench a stray bullet out. The bullet, a hunk of twisted metal covered in blood, was dropped into a small, glass jar. The medic adjusted his glasses and then turned back to his patient. "See? The worst bit is over. We've pulled the bullet out, now we just have to clean the wound..." said the doctor, his soft voice barely heard over the infrequent gunfire. Just metres away, a battle was beginning to boil between the Guard and the Adjaran Army. Davit groaned, laying back onto the muddy ground. Donauri searched through his briefcase before pulling out a bottle of Polish vodka.

"Jesus Christ..." winced Davit, preparing himself for the pain. "This might hurt a bit" said the medic. With the speed of a cheetah, he pulled the bullet wound open and poured the vodka inside. Davit screamed in pain and desperately tried to pull him arm away from Donauri, who's cold, iron grip was simply too powerful. Tears burned the corners of his eyes as he bashed his closed fist onto the ground, the searing pain in his arm almost too much to handle.

"Oh, hush, it's almost over now" said Donauri sharply, wiping away excess alcohol from the wound with a cloth. A vein pulsated on Davits temple and beads of sweat formed around his round, unshaven face. "Just fucking finish it up" growled Davit, wiping his balding, sweat-soaked hair with his free hand. The medic pressed the wound together, squeezing out any remaining blood and then began wrapping it tightly in a white bandage. "Now, Davit, this is only temporary. First thing tomorrow, I want you to go to a proper doctor and get this fixed up" said the medic sternly. Davit only nodded, wiping the tears from his eyes with his free thumb and forefinger. "Chin up. You lost a bit of blood but you'll be fine after you've seen a real doctor. I've cleaned it up and wrapped it but there's still a chance it'll go septic. So, next time, try to dodge the bullets!" said Donauri, smiling.

His voice was as soft as his hands and his medical history was murky at best - but he seemed to know what he was talking about. He helped Patarava into a sitting position against a wall and handed him a flask of water. "Drink it slowly" said the Medic, closing his briefcase and standing to his feet. "Thanks, mate" grunted Davit, gulping down the water like he hadn't drunk any in months. "You might of saved my life" "Yes, well, make sure you see a real doctor as soon as possible" said Donauri, secretly relishing the praise that the commander gave him.

At the mouth of the alleyway, a group of Guards skidded around the corner and jumped out of the street as a volley of machine gun bullets tore down the street. There were seven of them, the oldest in his fourties, the youngest barely out of boyhood. They wore a patchwork of salvaged Turkish and old Georgian army uniforms and carrried a collection of weaponry from across the Middle East. As was customary in the Guard, a First Georgian Republic flag was sewn on the sleeves and their rank was sewn onto the material above their hearts. The oldest of the group, a grizzled veteran with a salt-and-pepper beard, approached Davit and Donauri wearily in the darkness. "Sir?" he asked, his unit crowding behind him.

"Yeah, I'm here" said Davit from the ground, lifting his good arm in greeting. The captain winced at the sight of his injured superior. Davit Patarava had never been an impressive man - he was slightly overweight, unshaven and was usually found in his dressing gown with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. But on this evening, he looked worse than usual. His right sleeve was entirely torn off and his upper arm wrapped in a white bandage. His face was slick with sweat and his eyes were red from rubbing the tears from his eyes. His rusted rifle lay against the wall, carefully placed there while Donauri had pulled the Commander in from the shooting.

"Sir, what do we do? They've set up a machine gun in the barricades and our shots aren't hitting their targets!" said the younger private from the Guard. "Report, captain. Tell me what the hell has happened in the last half an hour" grunted Davit, ignoring the boy and sipping some more water. The captain stood to attention.

"Sir, the Occupying Forces have barricaded the main road to Freedom Square with army trucks, sheets of metal and barbed wire. Upon the protesters approaching the barricade, the Occupying Forces fired upon the crowd, slaughtering several people and injuring many more. The protesters, along with the Trade Unions, have abandoned the square and left the units of Georgian Guards to clean up the mess. Our men have taken shelter in the alleys and doorways along the street and are now concentrating fire upon the barricades. However, we've reached a stalemate. We cannot shoot over the barricades and the Occupying Forces cannot hit our men" recited the captain.

"Hm. What's your name, Captain?" said Davit, examining the inside of the empty water flask. "Captain Laren Bakradze, sir" replied the Captain. "All right, Captain Bakradze. Tonight, the Georgian Guard is taking over Freedom Square, with or without the physical support of the people. Tonight, the statue of Suleiman will fall, if it fucking kills me. Pass that message on to as many units as you can. I want two units to snake around and flank the Turks from the other side of square. Then, I want you to split your unit - or whatever is left of it - into two and I want you to get into the shops that run up the sides of the street. These shops usually have two or three stories - get as high as you can and start seeing if you can snipe those bastard Turks out from behind their barricades."

"Yes, sir" chorused the unit, saluting their fallen leader. "What about you, sir?" asked Captain Bakradze. "Will you join us?" Davit snorted. "Fuck that, I've just been shot. I'm going to rest for a while. No, I'll lead the attack with the remaining two units on this street and try to smash through to the square from the front. Now, go on, Captain, you've got your orders. Try not to get shot crossing the bloody road, either". The unit all saluted and turn to the mouth of the alley, where the glanced out carefully. They waited for a lull in the gunfire before darting off into the darkness.

"Sir, I don't think it's wise for you to lead a full-on attack on the front of the square with the condition your arm is in" said Donauri, crouching beside his leader and poking his arm carefully. "Yeah but I don't want my own men thinking I'm a coward"

"They already think I'm crazy for doing this in the first place."

(This is a collaborative post by @Dinh AaronMk and @Vilageidiotx)

Socotra

Azima spent the morning near the sea, waiting for the villagers that had went to town to radio her position to either China or Persia.. The weather was calm. The sea crooned on the edge of the pebble-strewn beach, and near the horizon the sun shone pale through the lingering humidity left behind by the storm. A cool breeze blew across the sea from the North-East, tempering the equatorial heat. After all that she had been through, she allowed herself to feel at peace.

She wore a grey ankle-length tunic borrowed from the natives, and it hung loose enough to let the breeze cool her skin. Her borrowed sandals sat at the foot of a leafy baobab tree, and she hazarded the pebbles and rocks so that she could feel the smooth white sand against her feet. Tewodros and Olivier played with the native children at the edge of the surf, building sand-domes and decorating them with seashells. She watched them from the corner of her eye, making sure she knew where her son was at all times, but she had another reason to be on the beach this morning.

Two tiny yellow crabs scurried by as she searched for good stones on the ground. Only the best stones would do, and she inspected them thoroughly before choosing whether or not accept them. Those she took went to the construction of a simple cairn on the tide-line. She had been stacking the perfect stones since dawn, and the cairn had continued to grow until it stood at breast height. It was the best she could do to ensure that Elani had a monument on this island, so near to where she had perished.

Elani had never been a strong woman. She lacked the tenacity of the great women that Ethiopia had produced, possessing neither the power of Taytu Betul, the Queen she had named her only daughter for, nor the spiritual certainty of the rebel Zewditu, who had nearly brought down Iyasu during the Great War. But where she hadn't been strong, she made up for in her kindness. Azima had came to the Imperial court as a little girl, torn away from her mother by a father who had no interest in her. In that time, it was Elani who took her in and played the parent. In many ways, Azima loved her more than she did her own father.

Elani had been born to one of the minor nobles of old Ethiopia, a family that had stayed loyal to Iyasu during his reforms, and their reward had been the marriage of their daughter to the Emperor's only surviving son. Her new family became her entire life as she raised three children and a fourth misplaced little girl under the shady eucalyptuses of Imperial Ethiopia. When Iyasu died, Yohannes had ascended the throne and Elani became a Queen.

And when Yohannes died fifteen years later by the bullet of an unknown assassin, Elani's happiness was over. The following years slowly killed the person that she was as she saw one son go to war with another, the first one to disappear into the wilderness and the second one to nearly die from another would-be assassin. It had been too much for her, and it destroyed her mind. In some ways, her unexpected death had been a mercy. Azima could only hope that it had been painless.

The Queen stood in silence in front of cairn. She knew that it was time to leave, but it was difficult to pull herself away. Once she left this spot, it would be saying goodbye to Elani forever. Instead, she allowed herself to be carried away by a day dream.

Under a rustling baobab tree, with children chattering on the edge of the murmuring equatorial sea, Azima dreamed about her childhood. She remembered climbing trees, and eating sweets in the garden. She remembered the woman that would be her mother-in-law later in life teaching her how to drink coffee on the veranda with her ladies, and standing closely by as she petted one of the lions in the Emperor's menagerie. The morning crawled, and Azima remembered.

Her day-dream was broken by the growl of a four-wheel drive antique. It was Polish built, one of the old post-war cars they sold in small numbers to the ruined West European economies after the Great War. They had sold well in the undeveloped world, where there were few good roads for a normal vehicle to travel. It was tub-shaped, a rusted black boat on thick tires with only a windshield and old-style pop out headlights to break its strange outline. There were signs that this one had been patched up several times by crafty Socotrans.

Two stick-thin men with stick-thin mustaches rode in the car, one at the drivers wheel and the other standing on the floorboard like an ancient Assyrian on a chariot. He was waving to get her attention, and they stopped near enough to the water that the spray lapped at their wheels.

"Good Queen!" the standing man shouted. "The Chinese have been contacted! They will be coming here!"

"Are you sure they were Chinese?" she asked. She was nervous about the native's ability to call for help. It seemed risky, considering that there were Spaniards about, but they had insisted she stay hidden in the countryside until they send for help. With nothing to her name now but her son, there had been no other choice but to accept and believe in their confidence.

"I did not talk to them, but I am told it is China. If it is not, we will know. It is the fishermen who communicate the message."

She imagined a string of HAM radios on the back of wooden sail boats. How else could they be involved? Surely they were not sailing to Pemba and back so quickly.

"That is good. Before they come, I have one more thing to do." the Queen requested. "Take me and the children to see the priests."

--

Sitting at the long dining table, Sen Zhou sat hunched over a bowl of simple white rice. The taste as bland and inoffensive as the bland and sapped of life as the walls of the ship's interior. It carried no flare, or prestige in particular. It just was. It only had its own purpose, like the ship. It wasn't made to dazzle or surprise, but to just execute its own thing.

All along the side of the officer sat equally hunched sailors, pilots and soldiers eating from the same drab lunch meal. Scattered throughout the rest of the narrow lunch hall the fishermen leveed into the search for Azima's downed aircraft sat partaking in the same free meal as the rest. It had been a while since they went on the search and still all they uncovered were drifting debris. And somewhere floating at sea where those damnable priests.

Zhou tried to shut them out of her mind. She had sentenced them to die. Among the lingering anger that plagued her mind the last thing she needed was conflicting guilt for calling the order. So she shut it out. Let the old men dive into the great dark sea below for whatever insane purpose they did. Maybe they'd find their God, drowned and waterlogged at the bottom of the sea. Then they could realize how hopeless their faith was.

She looked back down at her plate of sterile white rice, and took a pinch with the tips of her chopsticks. Without ceremony she chewed on the steamed grains. She desperately wanted something to change in this mission, before the Spanish came as well to confirm or collect. There was a lingering doubt that for whatever they could bring the Chinese here couldn't well fight. She sighed deep stabbing the bowl of rice again.

The situation in Djibouti hadn't gone much better as radio reports went. There was a burning jealousy she had for the men there. They got to see real combat. She was cut away from that. It was the same funny feeling she had when she was withdrawn from the Philippines. The nagging internal conflict some veterans felt with their action. The diametrically conflicting relationship they had for war. On one hand: wanting to be free of it when in the field, on the other wanting to be back in it when they were free of it.

Many would consider being here at sea to be a vacation. But it hardly felt it.

From the other side of the mess hall the door opened. Catching it in the corner of her vision Zhou looked up mid-bites to find one of the communications officers step in. On the far side of the room he stood lost among the crowd, scanning the heads of the sailors and airmen present. He looked passed Zhou, but then on his return back found her and walked across the room.

“Zhoong Xiao,” he started as he came up to earshot, “We received a message from the bridge not long ago.”

“Yes, and?” Zhou responded, “Are the Spanish coming?”

“No, comrade.” bowed the officer, “We believe it involves the Queen, Azima.” Zhou stopped eating and looked up at him, eyes intense as she starred up.

“Some fishermen from the island of Socotra made contact over the radio. They have in their village Azima.”

Zhou sat frozen in disbelief. Someone found the empress? Hastily pushing aside her pull of rice she sat up from the table. “Get me a crew and fill me in on the way!” she demanded, “We're going to close up shop. Let's go.”

--

The salty air had not done no favors for the Polish off-roader, and the decaying suspension jostled them back and forth when the driver accelerated across the uneven beach. Azima held the children close to her, afraid that they might spill from the cab if they were allowed out of her grip. She sat tensely in her seat, grimacing with every bump, and she watched the sea to pass the time.

A thin line of storm debris sullied the beach and marked the tide line. Toward the land, the beach became rough and climbed into rocky hills. Toward the water, the beach was smooth, clean, and white. The sea itself was cleared of the murk that had been left by the storm. It returned to its native color; the tropical bright blue of clear shimmering water above alabaster sands. It was a warm look, an environment of profound relaxation, and she drank in every bit of it. China would mean safety, she knew this, but it would also be an exile that would put her to work. Azima and her children would become the face of the embattled Africans to a politically foreign east.

When a cliff-face crossed over the beach and blocked their way, the driver took to a goat path that meandered into the hills. She recognized this place. It was where she had wandered aimlessly looking for her children two nights before. She scanned for the driftwood she had stacked in a failed attempt to start a fire that night, but she did not find it. It was only when they passed the abandoned stone house that her recognition was confirmed.

They went across the rocky path at the lowest part of the ridge, swerving around umbrella-shaped dragons blood trees and bloated baobabs. A camel stood near the path and caused the driver to take a wide berth through rougher terrain, which shook the car so fiercely that she banged her elbow into the wheel well, causing a spark of pain to shoot up her arm. The animal watched impassively as they went around, chewing its cud and staring with empty ruminant eyes.

They descended into a green valley where a shallow stream trickled toward the sea. As she looked across the scrubby hills, he realized something. She was leaving Africa, the continent that had been home for her entire life. She wasn't even sure if Socotra counted as part of Africa, but to her it felt like it was. It was familiar. Here was the wide open equatorial landscape that she knew from the mainland, where dark-skinned children lived rural lives in small villages across an endless agricultural world of its very own. This island was a place in touch with its ancestors, where lives had not changed passed the occasional convenience since the arrival of the first stone-aged humans on its pristine shore. Where she was going after this she did not know. China was something else. If Africa and Socotra stood for an idealistic past, China was the future. It was a land of progress where nothing would be familiar to her. She had never considered herself a conservative person, nor had she ever felt especially sentimental, but the violence of this change shook her. Her transitory conservatism was a feeling of emotional nakedness, like what was happening was out of her control. It was the feeling of wanting to find a womb somewhere and crawl inside.

Perhaps that was what happened to Elani, the thing that caused her to lose her mind. Azima was a different Queen, and she was made of stronger stuff. She had fought in the last war, toe to toe against the enemy. In this war, she would fight in a different way. She pulled Tewodros closer to herself and shook the uncertainty from her mind the best that she could. It was a mental state she would have to fight against so that she could stay strong for her child, and for her country.

The driver slowed to a creep when they joined the stream bed, as if he was afraid the centimeter-deep water might drown the engine. Azima watched the beach come back into view between the steep scrubby hills. Near the tide-line, she spotted a fragile driftwood hut and a thin line of grey woodsmoke rising from a cookfire.

The car choked to a stop in front of the fire. Azima climbed out, her limbs shaky from the ride, and she saw one of the priests come from behind the hut. He was thin, bruised, and covered in shredded rags. He had lost his sword, and in its stead he held a driftwood cudgel.

"Queen. It is good that you are alive." he said politely, but with am aloof chilliness that came off as almost malicious. The priests had spent their lives dedicated to God, and these men were amongst the most fervent of their type. Where there is obsession, there is always some lack of social aptitude, and the priests showed this to be true. The malice she detected was, she accepted, likely nothing more than awkwardness.

"It is good to see you as well, though I heard that your brothers were alive." she peaked out toward the sea, "Where are they?"

"Swimming." he said. He eyed the natives suspiciously, and his cudgel arm hung tense.

"Swimming? It is a lovely day I suppose."

"Not for recreation, Queen." he answered quickly. "We are still on duty, as you might say, and our charge is out there." he motioned toward the sea with his cudgel.

The Ark. They were looking for the Ark. She should have known they would, but in her mind it was as lost as the plane that had carried them. It struck her as odd how flippant she was being over such an important relic, but she had never been anymore than nominally religious, having inherited an almost secular form of cultural Islam from her father. She wasn't even sure if she really believed at all, or if her religiosity added up to nothing more than an innate belief in some sort of Allah and a warm deference to any mosque she happened to pass by.

"Do you know where the Tabot is?" she asked. A lump formed in her throat. If they knew where the wreck was, they might know where Elani's body was.

He hesitated to answered. "No, we do not. I saw a glimmer when I went out last, so we are looking in that direction."

She nodded. She felt relieved for an instant, and that made her ashamed. Why was she afraid of finding Elani?

"I have something to..." she started to say, but she was cut off when Tewodros began to howl.

Her motherly instinct kicked in and she swung down to where he was. Him and Olivier had been crouched down next to the cook fire, where a curled sliver of silver metal sat suspended above the fire. On it was the pink and white flesh of a crab firming over the heat.

"What did you do?" she said, worried. She saw where he had blistered his finger and understood at once.

"I burning!" he cried. "I burning!" she held him in her arms and sucked on his finger. From the corner of her eye, she saw Olivier reach out with his good arm to snatch a bite of crab, and she shot him a look that stopped him in his tracks.

When she looked back up, she saw that one of the swimmers had returned. Before he went to swim, he had removed all of his clothes save for a linen breach-cloth which, soaked with sea water, hid absolutely nothing from sight. She looked away.

He approached them and, when he saw her, he quickly found his dry robe and tossed it about himself. "Queen." he said abruptly.

"I was wanting to tell you." she began, bouncing Tewodros to keep him occupied. "That the Chinese have arrived. I can arrange to get you transport."

"We cannot go anywhere." one priest said.

"Not without the Holy Tabot." the other one said, crossing himself. Water dripped from his stringy hair.

"Are you going to live right here?" she asked, surprised. "On the beach?"

"Yes." one priest said.

"The natives are Moslem. They would not understand." the other said.

She nodded. "And when you do find it, how are you going to get it out of the water."

"I do not know, but I have faith that God will show us the way." the dry priest said. "We cannot ask the natives, as we have told you. And we cannot ask the Chinese because they are non-believers. And besides that, they are unhappy with us."

"They are unhappy with you?" Azima asked, bewildered.

"Yes. When they came looking for the wreck, they found us at sea and left us there."

"Left you?" she asked, suddenly concerned. What had happened since the wreck that the Chinese would be cold to them.

"They were arrogant, and so I corrected them." the wet priest informed. "Non-believers do not have the right to talk as the Chinese do. God cannot will such a thing, and a man of God cannot abide it."

"Arrogant." she nodded. Truly, the priests were no diplomats. She hoped they had not ruined it for her and her children.

--

The warm salty air of the ocean swept into the helicopter cabin as it sped over the waves of the ocean. The sky was clear, and peering through the cabin window Sen Zhou could look out into the horizon for several clear miles. Unimpeded by storm clouds, rain, or the drab walls of ship-bound imprisonment. And there was among the crew a excited hum. A silent tensity that spoke of returning to Pemba. A restrained hope for warm food and no sea sickness. And to be rid of the Somalian fishermen.

“Are we still on course?” Zhou asked, restraining the bubbling juvenile excitement. Setting out into the hot sun of the African coast she had set aside the discomfort of dress code, opening the top buttons of her uniform, her collar flapped in the air filling the open cabin. It was a relief against the eager sweat that soaked into her uniform's undershirt hugging her tightly kept breasts.

Her black hair also trailed untamed in the twirling wind and she smiled, round cheeks flush with excitement as they flew against the reflection of the sea. This was their best lead and she wouldn't now be doomed to looking at wreckage in the water. If this course was clear: then there would be no more pieces of aircraft cabin, no aircraft seats, and no shredded cloth. It can all drown as it became waterlogged.

“So far in: yes.” the pilot replied. His head almost completely enclosed by the bulbous, beetle-like pilot's helmet. Tinted shades gave off a almost monolithic, emotionless look to his face. Only his nose to chin were open to the air. And even then it might be shut away by a face-mask designed to muffle the noise of action when using the radio.

“You told me the same thing the comm officers told you.” he continued, “The island of Socotra. Natives called in and said they have Azima and are willing to see her off safely.”

Zhou smiled giddily. She was less worried about straying off course, and more excited to have the lead. Much so she pried and asked. Simply wanting to hear it again and again.

“Eyes open, we're coming up on the island.” the co-pilot called out. Herself another military woman. Zhou looked up into the horizon. In the distance loomed the pencil-thin dash of a landmass over the waves. Its color and form disguised by the distance and the haze of sky and sea. But it was there.

She giggled excitedly to herself, and wringing her hands tight on the pilot's chairs pushed herself back into the cabin.

She had only with her two other soldiers who sat placated at the chopper's edge. Their rifles slung casually on their backs without even so much as their magazines loaded.

Under the speeding chopper the color of the water changed over from deep-sea blue. Shifting over towards lighter turquoise as the shallow sands rose to meet the surface. An arid, tropical landscape rose over the waves. Dotted with many trees so bulbous and swollen at their bases they were much like melting candles left to wilt on the rocks. Brown and red rocks marched and rose as sentries over the sand of the beach and the scrub of the rising highlands. Twisting two-tracks snaked along the coast without logical direction or bearing.

The coastal scrub land soon gave way into dusty hills dotted by the sentries of baobab trees. The rush of the leaves and scraggly, twisted bushes rushed under neath them as they sped across the desert landscape. Searching the ground and the horizon for a sign or indication of civilization. Somewhere to stop and chase their leads.

“This is Wu Chang,” the pilot said, lifting the covered radio microphone to his mouth. “Of Chinese naval helicopter group A01 out of Pemba. Calling to request information on the location of one Princess Azima, over.”

He relaxed his hand on the microphone. Zhou looked down at him as he listened, hoping that whoever had brokered contact with them knew Chinese and was still there.

There was a strained awkward silence from the pilot as they rose over the rising red mountains of Socotra's interior. “Pemba. Azima. Nuqadah.” he shouted into the microphone. Zhou rose a curious brow.

“I didn't know you could speak Arabic.” she observed interested.

“I lived among the Hui of Beijing.” the pilot replied dead-pan.

“Do you know where Azima is then?” she asked.

“No.” scoffed the pilot, unpleasant and annoyed, “But I know someone who does.” he sighed as he banked the helicopter about. He nodded into the distance over the ridges to a faint and hazy radio tower.

With the aircraft's course changed, they flew north-west over the mountains. Beyond the rocky cliffs, settled in the lowland sat a small town. Marked by white-washed buildings that shone in the warm summer sun and the single minaret of a mosque, dwarfed only by the great distances between them and it.

The helicopter banked about the radio tower outside the city as it searched for a landing place. In the lush wet-season growth below a simple hut stood among palms and cypress trees. A dirt two-track split the growth in two as it wound through rocky hills at the foot of the mountains. Rushing out into open, stricken and bewildered men ran out into the sun as they looked up at the descending chopper.

Zhou hung out the door as she looked down at the gawking Arabs standing in the grass below. The foliage rippled and danced furiously in the down thrust of the lowering aircraft. Darting and shouting, they ran about in confused disorder before the Chinese touched down.

“Azima!?” Zhou shouted, almost stupidly. But with any hope these men would remember why they were here. There was a sense of timid fear of the groaning dark-green comma that now rested on the ground before them. Its twirling rotors kicked up a stormy cyclone of air, even resting.

But in coming to terms, or some other realization a man ran forward. “Azima!” he cheered excitedly, “Maleeka!” he smiled nervously as he approached the helicopter.

“Get in, get in!” Zhou invited impatiently, throwing out a hand to pull him in. He grabbed her hand with insecure hesitation as he was pulled inside.

“Assalaam alaikum.” the pilot welcomed from the pilot's seat. The welcome caught the man off guard and nearly stunned him in such a way he might have fallen out of the aircraft as the engine's motor roared to a greater ferocity as they lifted off.

“W-wassalaam alaikum.” the Socotran replied distantly frightened and twitchy as he sat between the two indifferent, if armed Chinese soldiers in back with him. He even looked up to Zhou with a curious and awkward look on his face, as if expecting something different.

The pilot called back to him, asking a question. Zhou didn't know if what he was saying was correct in any way and for all purposes she hoped that it was what they needed. A sneaky bug suggested the good fortune of all of this. But forcefully she cast the thought aside, reminding herself that some asset officer saw the need to equip her with a crew with one Arab speaker at least. It hardly mattered to her where he learned it, or how much of it he knew. So long as he knew.

There was a certain confidence in the Socotran though as he babbled direction in his foreign tongue to the pilot. Even nervous and anxious being surrounded by the foreign Chinese he pointed and shouted from the back of the cabin where he fearfully gripped the cold metal walls as they lifted off and flew down along the coast.

His face went as pale as the settlement below as he looked over to watch the coastal town pass by through the open cabin doors. Zhou imagined this had to be the first time he ever saw a helicopter, never mind riding in one. He was twitchy, and his knuckles and fingers glowed white-hot as he held on for dear life to stay in his naked metal seat.

Zhou looked up from their civilian passenger. The conversation he held with the pilot wasn't her world, as much as she hated not knowing it. But it had to be. The northern waters off of Socotra shone in the sun and the twisting and swaying landscape of the coast below slithered like a snake. Following its path to a t was the road, cutting a serpentine path at the water's edge.

Their passenger stood up from his cheat, and pointing began to exclaim something in Arabic. Pointing down below to stood a simple hut, a pencil-thin trail of smoke trailed up into the sky from a fire in the yard. And gathered around it stood figures, and nearby an old automobile. They descended for their landing.

--

Azima covered her eyes and held the children close to her as she watched a desert brown helicopter land on the beach. The only sound anybody could hear was the rushing whine of helicopter blades, which sent a gust of air rushing in every direction around them. Sand was whipped into Azima's eyes, and her hair tangled in front of her face so that she could not see. She could feel the thick cloth of her simple woolen villagers dress slapping at her shins.

"Are Azima place?" she heard over the slowing helicopter motor. It was a broken dialect of Arabic, understandable but painfully foreign to her.

"Yes" she answered pitifully. Her lips were gritty with sand, and she discreetly tried to spit them clear. With one hand, she cleared the sand-stung tears from her eyes and looked up.

A shaking Socotran jumped out of the helicopter and squatted on the ground nearby. His face was distant and strained, the expression of a man trying to regain his bearings. An Asian woman sat in the front of the craft, and two more stood outside. The first of the two was a man with a smooth face below a clunky helmet and aviator goggles. The second was a butch looking female. She appeared military to the heart, wearing a thick brown-green uniform unbuttoned only near the top to reveal a small hint of sweat-soaked undershirt. Her hair was cut short, and she had shoulders that made her bust look out of place in the barrel of her torso. All three of the Chinese had tanned olive complexions, and sweat pooled on their exposed skin.

She realized suddenly what she must look like. With a borrowed local's dress covered in sand, her ink-black hair tangled in knots around her head, and squinting eyes made watery by the wind, she must look a mess.

"I am Azi..." she began to add, but the two priests cut her off. They came in front of her, and her words caught in her throat when she realized what was happening.

In the hands of the two priests were sticks of driftwood; their makeshift cudgels.

"It is not just." the dry one challenged, "For you to land so near that you threaten the sanctity of this place. Do you not understand that this is the veil of the Holy Tabot?"

--

Zhou looked up from the woman in the simple dress, she must have been Azima: there were no other women around. But her dress and demeanor surprised her, when she was sent off in search of a queen, she expected the regalia as such. The sort of misplaced regalia of the Empresses of dynastic China had come to mind with long golden dragon robes and the ancient veiled hats. But what stood on the beach was by many accounts a figure that resembled a simple commoner with frayed filthy hair and a loose shoddy simply dress. She felt a terrible tinge of distress that this was not the right woman. But she might be a courtier of some kind, and the real queen was hidden away from the sun in one of the huts.

Though when she made her introduction Zhou didn't need for her to finish to realize with mixed emotion that she was not a simple peasant girl. It was only conflicted by who was in her company.

Stepping between her and Azima the wet priests that she had left to die at sea crossed onto the sand between them, their swords thrown away in favor of driftwood clubs. Her confusion melted away at the burning touch of anger and annoyance that came to fill her chest so much, it began to tickle the back of her tongue. She fought to restrain any drama as she addressed them, “Bullshit, I'm just here to get Azima.” she snarled, withholding her spite with shaky chains. Her Ahmaric was forced and stressed.

Her shoulders tensed as she leaned back, arms crossed. The two soldiers looked up at her confused, their arms raising as if expecting a brawl, or orders.

--

"By the sacred name of the House of David and Solomon, I demand that you stop this." Azima commanded. The possibility of a fight had been a surprise, but she would not let it go further. She brushed the hair from her eyes and picked her son off the ground, holding him so he was at face level with the priests. They did not fail to get the message.

When the priests parted away from her, she saw that the Socotran had stood up, and he had balled his fists in preparation for a brawl.

"Holy men." she continued. He voice was gentler now. "Do you want to go to China with us and be safe?"

"Oh Queen." the wet priest replied. "You know that we cannot do this. We have to stay here and save the tabot."

She smiled. "I will respect your wishes, but I must go with the heir. I wish you luck."

"God bless you." the priests replied in unison. "God bless you as well." she replied.

She held Tewodros in one arm and held Olivier's hand with the other. Confident in herself, she approached the Chinese in a slow walk that had all the grace of a glide. "We are ready to go." she said, "Wherever it is that you are bidden to take us, though we hope it is to Beijing. Chairman Hou is expecting us, you see."

--

Sen Zhou nodded, smiling. Her hands moved to her hip as the Empress drew near.

"I'm zhoong xiao Zhou," she introducing herself, "These are my men."

Looking up past Azima to the anxious priests who glowered in their wet robes at the Chinese aircraft she let off a sly, victorious sneer. "Our flight plan however won't take us to Beijing." she continued, turning back to Azima and the children with her as she helped them onto the helicopter, "We have a boat to catch to Pemba. Then you can leave for Beijing."

In the corner of the drab unadorned room a fan clattered. Weakly circulating a hot humid air through the room. It was a false comfort, but one all the same. The sound of the distant pounding waves of the ocean just off the coast provided a backdrop to the crack of live-fire drills and the rumble of distant airplane engines. All these sounds were the backdrop of Pemba, and much normalized to Sen Zhou as she sat at the spartan metal-frame chair in the center of the room.

Across from her, separated by several meters of empty space sat a desk occupied by a brick of a tape-recorder. She recognized the device as an audio log for debriefings. It was certainly something she sat through and observed the debriefings of sergeants reporting on the unapproved duties of bored enlisted types. The sort of frolicking misbehavior brought upon by putting youthful testosterone on a equatorial island with nothing to do.

And now she sat looking at it. It was no crime on her part and she felt no quilt or emotion to the familiar device and its simple red radio buttons. If anything, through her career in knowing this they had certainly gotten smaller. She remembered at the end of Mindanao she'd sat in a room with a single large tank of a piece of military recording equipment to give detail the after-action reports for the Filipino government. Somehow she'd got caught up in their original furor over the assassination of the rebellious and self-described Pope in Mindanao. But now that machine had become big enough to fit on a desk.

How curious things were developing.

Alongside the desk stood her superior officer. Dezhi Cao stood by waiting patiently, picking at stray grime and sand under neath his finger nails with a distant and inattentive look in his browning eyes. He hadn't been sleeping well these last couple nights, Zhou noted as she looked at him from the debriefing chair. His eyes were darker and sagged. It wasn't hard to know that what was happening to the north was wearing in on him.

“How'v things been here on the home front?” Zhou asked with a polite smile. The question visibly startled Cao who must have drifted off into his own space. He visible twitched and looked up for the source of the intrusion, but settled when he realized it was Zhou.

“Oh, uh. Fine.” he said choppily, raising a hand to massage his eyes, “Men are getting excited.”

“Thinking they'll get to see war?” she inquired.

“I suppose.” Cao responded dismissively. He gave a worn smile that suggested he wasn't all enthused. He was trying to hide that same fear he had when the Turks were bearing on the Africans.

Cao was an academy trained officer. He'd never seen combat, nor probably ever dreamed to see it. It wasn't hard for Zhou to deduce that her commander was just in this game to rake in whatever benefits he could have. Some stability or sense of purpose maybe. But that was her own impression. He could do the administrative and image functions perfectly, and performed with perfection. But she knew privately he shook in his boots when it was to come to decisive combat action.

“We'll talk about it when we're finished with the debrief.” he prattled, “Chen Wu should be in soon.”

“Wu's getting involved?” a stunned Zhou asked. At which the door in the side of the room opened.

She turned her head to the newcomer. Standing in the door frame a middle-aged intelligence agent stood with a folder of papers in his arms and a pen dancing between his fingers. He gave the two a flat look, darting his wide eyes between the two. “Right.” he began in a dry cracking voice, “I knew someone said my name. What's the new rumor?” he asked with dry sarcasm.

“That you still haven't returned that one book due to Beijing.” Cao spun back.

Wu rolled his eyes as he walked over to the desk. “Uh-huh.” he grumbled, finding a seat. He dragged the chair to the side of the desk. In the empty room the grinding of the bare metal legs on the floor resonated with almost explosive force. Zhou squinted her eyes as the lonesome song of all four legs dragged the floor like nails on a chalkboard. Cao reacted in much the same manner as he winced back from the desk.

“I didn't expect you to take notations.” Zhou observed when the crying of the chair stopped. She looked up at Wu with an almost distasteful look. Even in the hot weather he wore the signature black uniform of the IB. It matched with the rest of him. He was long and lanky, almost frail in an essence. And his black hair was swept back against his head, even where it was short.

“When the commanding office back home got the pilot's debrief,” he remarked indifferently, referring to the central command in Beijing, “They deemed that anything relating to Azima was above normal standard and they want a report from me personally, with meeting annotations and any and all recommendations I can provide.” he gave the two a proud and wide smile, “So it's not Cao hitting the button and asking questions. Or you or even Zhong Hue.”

Zhou nodded. Zhong Hue was the officer in charge of security and was most often in charge of the disciplinary questions if available. Otherwise, he delegated it to a crony; but that was uncommon. “I suppose we're all here then.” Cao declared, reaching over to the recorder. With the press of a button the machine produced an audible, plastic click and the reel-to-reels turned. “This is Lùjuun shàngxiào Dezhi Cao in debrief with Zhoong xiao Sen Zhou for the operational records in Beijing.” Cao began, prattling out the words in a dry official voice. Again, Zhou could not help but smirk at his insistence of retaining the dry official rhetoric.

“On the fifth of June, 1980 Zhoong xiao Sen was deployed with assets including the light-support naval vessel, designation LNS-023 from Pemba to cross reference reports given by an earlier deployed mission to intercept a civilian distress call given by an aircraft identified as carrying the Empress Azima and company. Sen Zhou will now give her debrief.”

Coughing lightly, Zhou began, “The mission set-sail aboard the LNS-023 from the Chake Bay training installation on the morning of the fifth of June, 1980. Assets in our serviced included six Láng B-1 helicopters and a full crew for each as well as the LNS-023. Due to the carrying capacity of the LNS-023 the ship was only capable of ferrying one aircraft which I designated my own for commanding use in the field. Flying along the coast, the rest of the aerial assets moved ahead to locate and perform initial surveys of the believed crash zone.”

“When we arrived,” she sighed, “we had discovered the debris field had likely shifted from the known general location. W-”

“Which can be referred to on the written debrief of the pilots.” Cao cut in. He gave Zhou and apologetic wave and bid her to continue.

“-Weee... We deemed the field of debris left behind by the crash had shifted due south. Boarding a helicopter, we preceded to the Somalian coast on the sixth of June to recruit local fishermen as volunteers search crews, having no contact or availability of the Ethiopian navy. Spending the day acquiring and preparing Somalian volunteers we returned to the crash site on the seventh of June to begin searching the debris.

“We spent the next several weeks flying the area and sailing it, turning up no conclusive evidence of the survival of the Queen Azima or any known survivors of her flight from Africa.

“While on the mission, our Somalian volunteers suggested that through the course of the search any evidence of Azima and company would have followed currents east or west, and we deployed to search the waters to the east and to chase the African coast in hopes that debris from the crash washed up on shore during our initial search stages.

“This process continued until the Fourth of July when we received a radio communication identified as being from the Ethiopian island of Socotra that the villagers there had in their possession Azima, her son, and her nephew. Upon hearing the news I immediately called for a helicopter and I and a crew of four arrived at the island of Socotra that afternoon at approximately 1300 hours.

“Our search for further leads brought us to a radio station in the mountains south of the northern-most town we were informed was named Hadiboh. Landing nearby, we received a local who had direct information on the location of Azima and he was able to guide us to her exact location roughly four to five kilometers east of the town of Hadiboh. There she had been residing with local fishermen on the coast.

“We landed and received Azima aboard our craft, as well as the children she was attending.” she leaned back in her chair. Her voice was beginning to dry out and she could feel the sapping weight of the heat and humidity. Things felt much better to have flown over Socotra. Thinking on it as she talked, she wanted to feel the relative coolness of the wind rushing over her, swimming through her uniform and into her shirt cooling her breasts in the insufferable heat of Africa.

“We made immediate arrangements back to the LNS-023. There, I invited the queen into the quarters given to me by the ship's captain Xin Huan for the duration of the mission. There, I asked Azima to tell me what had happened that day she was shot down.

“She was familiar with the process. Telling me she had been an agent in the Walinizi service of Ethiopia and she spoke clearly.

“She explained that while on route to Persia, where they would transfer to China the pilot's received a report that a strange aircraft was en'route, then spotted over the Red Sea. The aircraft – which was never identified – was traveling at super-sonic speeds beyond which the Ethiopians had never experienced.

“The pilot of their aircraft took immediate evasive action to avoid the Spanish deployment but was none the less engaged over the water. In the moments between engagement and splash-down she admits to having little actual memory. She explained to me that it was a chaotic blur of sirens and crying.

“Inevitably, the aircraft hit the sea and she was adrift for an unknown period. Aboard the airplane was the queen-mother Elani who is believed to have surely perished in the crash. But the heir-apparent of Ethiopia and her adopted nephew survived the impact with Azima and will be ready for transport to China.

“And that's what happened.” she said confidently, clapping together her hands. She gave a weak, almost strained smile as she leaned forward in her chair.

“Did you meet any resistance?” Cao asked.

“No, comrade.” Zhou responded.

“How receptive were the Somalian volunteers?” he inquired again.

“Willing.” replied Zhou, “They were informed they were taking part in the search for the queen of their nation and her children. They were inspired by a sort of national pride to throw in their boats and crews.

“As incentive, they could take any approved scrap they found adrift at sea.”

“I see.” Cao nodded, walking about the desk. Chen Wu sat with one leg crossed over the other as he scribbled down the brief transcripts of the debriefing. “Were there any notable issues?”

“If you count boredom among the men.” she replied, “Then no: no notable incidents that might cause a diplomatic row between our nations.”

“Very well.” declared Cao, reaching out to the recording device, “I call this debriefing to a close.” and with that, the recorder stopped with another sharp, plastic click.

“I'd certainly offer a ration or two worth of candy.” Chen Wu remarked sarcastically, “What a good little girl.”

“Shut up.” Zhou snapped back.

Laughing, Wu stood up and bowed to the both of them. “So when is this being sent home?” he asked.

“I'm aiming for tomorrow when we send Azima and the kids.” said Cao, “You want to send yours in with it too?”

“Of course.” Wu smiled, “And where are the royal quests?”

“They were on the beach last I knew.” Zhou nodded, standing up.

“Good, good.” the agent said, “I just wanted to confer with Azima what happened. Am I dismissed?” he asked Cao.

“You are.” Cao waved.

“Thank you, comrade.” he bowed, stepping back, “I'll no doubt see you around dinner. Have a good day.”

“Same to you.” Cao called back, watching his out the door with tired foggy eyes. Zhou lingered, arms crossed in front of her.

“You're tired, have you been sleeping?” she demanded sharply as the room fell silent.

“Am I that fucking bad?” Cao groaned agitated.

“I just have to wonder if anyone has seen you.” she snapped back, “I can tell you're visibly wearing yourself out. What is it?”

Cao sighed as he walked to the wall. Hanging his head against it he leaned into the dull wooden planks of the bungalow. An aching groan rolled from his through, “It's that damnable conflict up north.” he reported grimly, “I sit here and receive multiple reports from comms and even Wu about what's happening. Projections, reports as they happen. All sorts of shit.

“Hassan is engaging the Spanish at Djibouti.” he said, “The city is on fire, and Wu doesn't think he'll hold it. The Spanish are going to break through.”

“And?” Cao asked, “It's not fucking Pemba. I don't know why you're being a baby.”

“It's not Pemba I'm worried about!” Cao beat his head on the wall, “It's if they order us to redeploy. I got a warning from Beijing a while ago that they might move these operations to Addis and re-classify the mission as an active-duty combat unit, as opposed to a training unit.

“I know you're excited, don't have to say anything.”

“Well thanks for the confidence.” Zhou sneered snidely, “So if we are moved, what do you think you'll do?”

“The problem is: I don't fucking know.” he moaned woefully, “It's like the Ottoman invasion again: I don't fucking know. But at least then Hassan was there to save it all and I didn't have to move in the end. Fucking came back from the dead! Have you heard some of the fucking Ethiopians talk about him?”

“Plenty.” an unenthusiastic Zhou remarked.

“Well, with this I don't know if he can pull the same card twice.” he mourned with a long sigh, “This isn't the Turks we're talking about, the Spanish here don't have five-hundred enemies. They'll bust through Djibouti's ashes and sweep up the Ethiopians with the rest of the soot and the dust. We'll be cannon fodder, we'll lack support.”



As they drove along the road they came out of the deserts and on into the rising mountains. Turning from sparse land recently impregnated by the summer rains Han Wen, driven by the woman Mulki found themselves crawling up into the lush and green toes of the Ethiopian highlands. The roads coursed like a river in the valley and peaks of the landscape as it became more rugged and as they rose up into the hills of Ethiopia proper. At the tail end of a convoy they lumbered at the same rate as utilitarian trucks. Through the open windows the moist heat of summer-time Ethiopia came in a constant flow as much as the sharp odor of the diesel fumes.

Marking their slow, steady ascent into the fringe of the Ethiopian heartland the signs marking the shifts in regional happenstance came to show in the subtly brutal fashion as war often shows itself beyond the front lines. Coming in on the city of Harar – as Mulki noted proudly – they joined in partnership for the road bands of soldiers who patrolled on foot through the middle of the thoroughfare and throngs of men riding horses or mules. They jockeyed for a place on the dusty blacktop of the highland road for space with trucks of increasingly military use.

In the storm of traffic sounds there was a sing-song occasion to the grinding of vehicles and marching of boots. From somewhere along the side of a road a truck ladden full of eager young men in simple white robes sang songs of praise as they thumped their fingers against the worn and patched wooden stocks of rifles up to some fifty years old. From somewhere in the distance beyond the constraining obstruction of banners, truck and wagons laden down with produce and supply, and the very presence of people all around the amplified shouts of some soldier gave direction. The traffic slowed, and in the shadow of an acacia and flowering Terminalia tree they were brought to almost a stand-still in the torrid river of traffic and migration.

“I don't get it, I would expect people to be leaving with this area under potential threat of the Spanish.” Wen observed as he gazed on down the road. Off to the side hills rose and fell to great in the distance the veiled haze of distant mountains.

“I suppose commerce still has to flow.” Mulki opined, “Perhaps that's it?”

“Maybe.” the Chinese pilot responded as he gazed out at a group of shaggy men riding thin, small horses along the side of the road. Stained and dirty white robes hung to hug the gray and patchy flesh of the beast as machine guns bounced at their backs. Sunken graven eyes starred out down the road, and beneath their scraggly black beards their expression did not change so much as to flinch or spit. There was a certain American desperado air to them, made more musical by the clicking chimes of bullet-packed bandoleers that wrapped their chests. “But it still doesn't explain the guns.” he added in a low sketchy tone. He eagerly cranked up the window to put a barrier between he and the individuals outside.

“Well, once we get inside the city and through it maybe things will be a lot less... war-y.” Mulki smiled weakly. She was visibly wary, as much as Wen. She stressed her words as she leaned over the driver's wheel. Perhaps she was hoping to not be seen.

With a jump, the traffic ahead of them busied forward and the two were on their way. The muffled sound of the car motor filled the cabin as they made slowly along the main road. “Inside the city?” Wen asked, confused on the choice of words and the delivery.

“Oh, yes...” she paused as a army motorcycle buzzed passed the window, just an elbow's brush away from the side-view mirrors, “Harar is walled.” she said flatly.

'Perhaps that explains the traffic.' Wen thought to himself as he turned to look out the window again. The same business crawled on as it had earlier. But now in the edge of his available vision there was winding out on hill-top plateau a stretch of ancient wall that reached out to snake back in and around. The crenelations that lined the battlements resembling the roundness of up-turned shields that came to a point. Beyond the ancient parapets the peaks and towers of mosques rose to reach the sky. And built outside along the wall's edge among dirt foot paths were the shanties and hovels of individuals forced to live outside the once protective walls.

The scene Han Wen observed was like something out of ancient stories. The placement of this city, and its continued existence behind something as antiquated as city-walls was a sign of Ethiopia's juxtaposition between world powers. Among the unreachable mountains and hidden valleys of the ancient nation there still resided the peoples and places that lived as they had centuries ago. Eating among, working among, and raising their families in the same context that was forgone by both Asia and Europe as the march of time demanded that things march ahead.

In a strange way: it was as If Ethiopia had never changed, Han Wen realized. Its normality was an abstract romance that the European and Asian nations can only make veiled claims to possess in their own contexts. China had built on top of its old ways, putting down islands of glass and steel in seas of hutongs and ancient neighborhoods. But as in Europe, even those places were doomed to be swallowed by China's forward progress.

But here was a place where that had not yet happened. A walled city clinging to the old ways as the world moved ahead. And it was on the edge of the raging conflict that was the meeting of the modern and the antiquated.

Wen heard the familiar and distant drone of an airplane and looked up into the skies to great his airborn brother with his eyes. Though it started as a black dot against the cloudy blue of the African sky Wen was soon brought to curious wonder the sort he hadn't felt since he was a kid observing airplanes in the same way. Like an expert silently appraising art on a wall, he looked up at the passing fighter as it soared overhead. He knew it to be Chinese in design, but it was the paint that attracted him.

Lunging across the sky was a furious lion clinging the mangled corpse of a foreign soldier in its jaws, as its mean and legs streamed the Ethiopian flag as if it was a halo of fire that adorned the massive cat. Against a field of blue, the rest of the aircraft nearly hid itself against the sky so that it was only that lion on its side as the prey in its teeth streamed blood along the plane's length, as if streaming it across the sky as a proud statement of the pilot's defiance.

It was this that amazed him at Harar.




The wind rattled the long brush along the side of the road. Rising ahead the foot of a bridge span rose up to a distant crest. Beyond which, visible barely through the gnarled branches of the foliage were the colorful facades of distant Tyumen proper. Distantly in the breezy summer silence the Tura river gurgled empty against a bank of mud, gravel, and concrete. The sky overhead was an unburdened blue that stretched on into the infinite over head.

In the middle of the road a young lieutenant stood watch gazing back down away from the bridge. His feet planted at a distance apart and his arms crossed behind his knee-high officer's coat. The olive-green tunic body fluttered in the light gust of breeze as it beat around the loose-fitting pants at his legs. At his hip, his sword tapped his thigh with each passing disturbance. His heavy waiting stare found itself following the hurrying shine of armored vehicles as they sped towards them. The groan of their motors cut the quiet afternoon air as they came forward. And soon was the clatter and bang of their guns against the armor. The helmeted head of a machine-gunner looked out over the roof of the lead vehicle.

The officer turned to look back behind him. Lounging on the railing that ran along the side of the road his men sat watching out of boredom. Hanging high above them on makeshift poles of wood and metal two massive flags flew limp in the weak wind. One red, and the other orange. These banners ordered by the general himself. Though tall, their construction was precarious and spontaneous by all of the regards, it wouldn't take more than a strong gust – let alone anything else – to shatter the standards and topple them. Wayward wires stripped from the surrounding urban warscape lashed the impromptu flagpoles steady by tying them to the nearby trees and telephone and electrical poles.

The groan of the oncoming motors grew louder and soon they were on top of the officer. Calmly he stepped aside as the convoy drew up onto his position and stopped to idle. After a moment's passing the back doors of the middle-most car opened, and stepping out a handful of armed guards jumped, their rifles raised as they scanned the rooftops and shaded windows of the few odd buildings that stood over the tree and brush line of their elevated escarpment.

“I'm sure if there were issues with snipers, the good officer would not be out in the open!” a voice shouted. The guards paused to lower their weapons, but kept their watch ever out on the nearby nests.

The lieutenant bowed as out stepped Huei Wen. His longer coat dragged as he slipped out of the armored cab. The general was a large man by many means. “Comrade.” the lieutenant greeted, “If I knew you were coming sooner I may have prepared a better greeting.”

Adjusting his cap to the bright summer sun the commander smiled. “No, no.” he began with a polite smile, “That would hardly be in the spirit of things.” he walked towards the lieutenant, beaming politely, “Besides, I'm not one here to play any sort of politics or make favoritism. I'm a supervisor, checking in on his men. And where possible, lend assistance.”

He strolled past the young officer as he moved towards the bridge. His body guard rushed forward in lines along his flank. Moving ahead as they brushed passed the platoon of curiously watching young soldiers as he walked by. Anxiety and curiosity in their eyes. Was this a punishment.

But Wen did not lend them a punitive eye as he walked. He smiled accordingly, like a casual passerby in the street. He was here on business and though his hand lay to rest on the tufted hilt of his sword he retained a polite air about him. Much more so than his own men, who operated in tension as their own commander's stubbornness tested them.

“I don't recall having to radio in for any sort of help.” the officer admitted plainly as he followed. He realized that this sort of meeting was something that he would have preferred with a superior officer, and not the top brass. And that it might be done in private, least it distress the men.

“You and I are proud men.” Wen called back to him, “In different ways. But proud men do not often go out of their way to admit errors. So men such as I must find them.” he turned briefly around, pausing in his step, “Not out of scorn mind you. I think no little of you than you do yourself over this. It's a thing that must be done though.”

“I understand.” the lieutenant bowed. In truth, he hardly did.

“Excellent!” Wen beamed, clapping his hands, “So let's check out this bridge.”

Reaching the point of the structure so that the river proper was stretched out at his sides, making its winding crawl through the city of Tyumen with its additional bridges spanning its wide belt, and the further shore was visible before him he stopped. Standing in the open sun he scanned the city ahead with a sharp eye. The lieutenant stood back, wary of the danger posed there. The general's bodyguard found cover behind the debris and barriers put up to impede any progress in any direction. But Wen absconded the thought, forgoing the reality of the safety provided.

“Have you made any attempt to scout the furthest bank?” Wen asked, turning back. He looked up from the young officer and to the great banners that hung behind him.

“We've been keeping watch on the far bank.” he said, “We've observed sporadic enemy movement on the far-side, so they are present. On some mornings, Russian snipers attempt to take pot-shots at us.”

“Evidently not today though.” Wen nodded, “A fortune, to both of us.” he smiled in good humor, “But you haven't made any attempts across?”

“No, comrade.” admitted the lieutenant.

“How come?”

“As said before, the sniper fire. Or possibility of it. The bridge here is far to open.” he pointed out. Although the curved body of the bridge obscured any sensible observation of the far-side, Wen humbly admitted to himself the officer had a point. He adjusted his footing as he walked to the side.

“How's the current?” he asked. Nodding down to the water below as he reached the bridge's edge.

“Excuse me?” the lieutenant responded, shocked.

“The river current, is it fast or slow in this stretch?”

“I-” stammered the lieutenant, lost for any proper words, “I- I must admit that we uh-, we have not tried.

“No faster than any other river I imagine. We are not in any hills.”

“An admirable observation. So why haven't you tried to cross it? On rafts, or boats?” he pushed himself away from the edge of the bridge and gestured down to the other-side. Standing just over the peak of the bridge a proud pink and white-trimmed tower stood in plain view, “If you are concerned of Russian snipers, then setting sail to the other-side by cover of the bridge at and night would be a remedy, if you have not managed to demolish any offending structures!” he had a critical air to him. But nothing more harsh than a rough father, “So why camp here, if you have not made any meaningful tests of the enemy's lines?”

“With all due respect comrade, I have made a request for water craft but I have not received an order.”

“Then I am here, and I will put in my command to the supply. And you will have your boats.”

The lieutenant was visibly surprised. “You will?”

“I will.” said Wen, “Every moment we spent burning time in this city is one more the enemy uses to galvanize himself elsewhere. Other units break through Tyumen's streets now driving the enemy into corners and from the city. But there are those such as this that remain frozen in position. And this I will not have! Mobility is our resource, and I will have us on the move to discover, isolate, and engage the Republicans. Are we understood?”

“Yes, comrade.”

“Good.” he clapped his hands together and walked down the bridge, to the eager relief of his guard who rushed down out of the open. Looking up at the banners above he added: “I will see these flags flying on the far-shore of this river by tomorrow, this is an order.”

Sevan, Armenia

Sahle was alone in a dark room. He had crawled in on his own, banged up by a bizarre mix of Dr Feelgood and tranquilizers. This was a mix Marc had concocted in a mescaline and corn liquor induced stupor, curled up in a naked sweaty ball in the corner of the room while Sahle and Yared watched the droning patriotic Armenian song that signaled the end of television for the night. The freaky little addict had sworn by his twisted blend, and at the end of the next day's set Sahle had decided to wind down and try it.

It was not good. It fucked him up.

He supposed he had been high-strung since getting back from the Georgian border, where some shaky Russians had bought a crate full of Feelgood from them. That had been Vasily's idea, and he had brought along a ridiculous Chinese warrior to help them out. Sahle had expected to get shot, and for the entire truck-ride he had watched hills ominous with black trees and imagined himself holding his own guts as he bled to death in some forgotten misted forest far away from fucking everything. Vasily had made it worse, telling stories of a famous mustachioed Georgian bandit called 'Koba' who's gang had haunted them hills for the first half of the century. The thought of some band of highwaymen from a cheap European movie, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, did not make Sahle feel better. If they'd put the screw you for being wealthy, what would they do to you if they found you were selling drugs?

When the deal was made, nothing violent happened. It had been a tense situation, but Vasily handled it like the expert mercenary that he was, and they got away safely. Everything had felt fine, until they began to leave. That is when Vasily had pointed out the beasts watching the entire deal from the bald ridge above them.

Two beings with the bodies of men, the long guns of soldier-men, and the real-deal heads of man-eating horses. That had meant something else to Vasily, but Sahle did not know what. Those fucking horse-men haunted his highs now. He couldn't shake the bastards.

Hours passed by. He lay in the ground, smelling the sour flavor of his own vomit on the floor next to him. He could hear water flow in the creaking pipes that stood naked against the walls. When somebody flushed a toilet or turned on a sink, he could hear the pipes jerk as water began to trickle through them. The sound of flowing water reminded him of his own internal plumbing, and how food became excrement and blood. He imagined blood moving through his veins, and his imagining became so intense that he could feel it. The flow of his own blood now felt like one million little strings tugging on his insides.

That was gross. He felt sick again. He curled up in a ball and closed his eyes. The anomalous lights and patterns that seemed to play on his eyelids, like spasmodic movie from a broken film projector, slowly formed into what Sahle's paranoid mind couldn't accept as a hallucination. It was another fucking horse-man's head. Or a horses head? He didn't give a shit about the technicalities, he just knew it was spooky. He opened his eyes again, so quick and so sudden that he gasped unintentionally.

He felt that familiar feeling, the one that everybody who was acquainted with hallucinogens knew, where he wondered if he would ever be normal again. Hours went by as he patiently worked at focusing his mind. When he felt calm enough to close his eyes again, he took a nap.

When Sahle woke up, the drugs were no longer working their effects. He was hungry now, and he judged that it was time to leave the room.

He wandered the halls of the Dead Man's Drink until he found the kitchen. It was a small room with a broken stove and cupboards full of canned food. At the end of the Armenian Revolution, the government began to sell surplus food stuff bought from Persia and Ethiopia to feed their military in the absence of Turkish products. They had done this in order to make up some of the massive debt that war had dumped on the young government, and in doing so they had filled the pantries of its people with cheap foreign-produced food made to remain edible long after it had lost all it's flavor. Old man Horasian was as patriotic as he was cheap and flavorless, and he had bought more than his share of it. Wheat from Ethiopia, yoghurt from Persia, canned fish from Oman, and dried fruit from the Congo, all in the most non-descript dull packaging that could be conceived. Most of these cheap ingredients went into sticky soups.

He found the leftovers of one of these soups in a stained chest refrigerator in the corner of the room. It stuck to the bowl now, more a paste than a soup. He scooped it with his hands. It tasted like lumpy, sour milk. Old man food. Still, he was hungry, and he kept scooping until his fingers were sticking together and the bowl was empty.

"Samel." it was the drawn out voice of Yared. He turned around to see his friend standing in the doorway. "How was the stuff?"

"Friend, it was no good." Sahle replied. "I saw horses all night."

"Horses?" Yared smiled. "What did they do to you, friend?"

"They scared me. That was all, friend. I'm no sick freak who dreams about fucking horses."

Yared laughed. "I was not thinking that until now. Was it the gangsters?"

"The... yeh." he remembered. The men on the hill with the horse-heads had been Russian gangsters. That is was Vasily had told them on the way back to Armenia.

"They made me shiver too." Yared said. He went to get a glass of water, the pipes clanking as his cup filled. "I hope that is all Oziryan wants from us, friend. If we are done, maybe everything can calm down and we can focus on the tunes."

"Yes." Sahle replied. What was normal now? He hadn't had much time to think about it, but when the thought of slowing down came, he always remembered that he wasn't Samel. His past had came flooding back into his mind when he heard that Azima and her children might be dead. He had never felt much for Azima, though she had been a good lay. Still, she was part of his childhood. And Yaqob... he was his brother, even after the war, and their child had been Sahle's nephew. He had once had a nephew, one he had never knew, and now the boy was dead.

"Samel friend, what is weighing you down?"

"Nothing." Sahle replied. "I am still feeling the effects of that mix."

"It was a potent mix." Yared agreed. "Something Marc would do, but not you."

Sahle wiped his beard with the back of his hand and sniffed. "Well, I did it though."

"True." Yared eyed him suspiciously now. "Is it Aaliyah?"

"What?"

"I am not feeling the vibes anymore, friend. Not like they once were. Is it her?"

"No, brother." Sahle replied. "She is my girl."

Yared looked at him sympathetically for a silent moment. "Of course she is, friend. She is writing a song now. She said that the news is bringing her to think about things, you know. I mean, what is the world coming to, friend? All the people of Africa want is peace, brother, but everybody around the world keeps giving them war."

"War." Sahle repeated. "Yes. Yes, I will go see her now. Where is she?"

"On the boardwalk out back, at that big picnic table."

"Right." Sahle smiled. "Thank you, friend."

--

The morning sunlight hit Sahle's eyes like headlights on a dark road. The back door of the Dead Man's Drink emptied into an alleyway, its garbage pails and dented asphalt pristine from the morning clean up. It connected to a single-lane gravel service road, beyond which the city met the lake front. From where Sahle stood, the alley faced out toward the wide open Armenian landscape, where empty hills rolled on for miles towards the foothills of the Caucasus.

He crossed the service road barefooted. The jabs of gravel did not bother him, and he was in the grass soon enough anyway. In front of him was the grassy slope that ran down toward the water, before which was a wooden walkway. On a typical morning, this path was trafficked by elderly people watching the sun rise across the lake, or by younger tourists trying to work off a hangover. Today there was nobody except for Aaliyah sitting at a table with her white cocktail dress flowing over the bench.

He sat down next to her, and when he saw her face he feigned a friendly grin. That face, the painted half given to her by the dollmaker, still made him cringe inside.

"Where the fuck is everybody?" he asked, looking all around.

She smiled softly. Or, at least part of her face smiled while the other half remained cold and clay. "The fishermen have been charging people a dram to take them near the island. The army is practicing their fighting, and people want to catch a peek."

"Oh." he nodded. "That must be where the old man has gone."

"He went out at first light. I think he must be back by now." she replied. "But Samel, where have you been? You have been gone so much."

He felt blindsided by the question. He did not know why, it made sense that she would ask, but he couldn't think of what to say. It felt like he had been caught, though all he had been doing was...

"Drugs." he blurted.

"Drugs?" she asked. "You didn't really do that stuff Marc made? It sounded dangerous."

"I did." he affirmed. "It was some supreme shit too. Marc is the greatest chemist in the world, or drug chemist or... I bet he is better than the guy on the acid tablets."

"The 'Try me' guy? You know he is not a real guy."

"How do you know?"

"Because who would dress like that." she giggled. Sahle was feeling comfortable now, and he began to forget about her face. Still, it seemed strange. He felt like he was looking at an old friend. She was an old friend with great breasts, that he would never deny, but he didn't feel like this was love anymore. He considered that this maybe what married people felt like.

Still, the breasts. Her dress was strapless so that it showed her cleavage. It had been a strange habit of hers to wear white show-clothes everywhere she went, and it made her look like some sort of excited bride out to lunch in her dress before the wedding.

He reached out and began to tug at it. "You know, there is nobody out here now. Why don't we do it right here?"

"Stop." she swatted his hand weakly. "Not now. On the table? No, that is awful."

He thought it was funny that she would say no to a table when they had done it on the sacred ground where Jesus was born. "Well, not on the table." he bit his lip. "In the road. Why don't we do it in the road?"

"No." she said flatly. Her fake eye fell on him, and its lifeless gaze killed his lust as quickly as if lightning struck her and instantly turned her into a shaved bear.

"I'm writing songs." she explained, trying to make sweet after she had shot him down. "You know, i've been reading poems and trying to learn how."

"Right." Sahle nodded.

"The war, that is what is inspiring me, you know? I feel like this is the most important thing that will happen in our lifetime. You know what they are saying on the streets?"

"No"

"The Armenians think that China is going to declare war soon, and they think that Spain will declare war on Armenia since the government is on such good terms with Addis Ababa. Somebody told me that Brazil means to declare war on Spain too."

"Does it?"

"You know, ever since we left Cairo I have felt like the world was a rotten place. But maybe that is going to change now. Maybe, if all the world comes together to stop the Imperialists, everything will turn out good after all. Maybe justice will win. What do you think, Samel?"

"I don't know much about these things." Sahle said.

"Oh, we don't talk as much now Samel. Not like we used to. Will you come to my room tonight? If you do, I promise we will make love just like you wanted to do in the road, just like old times. Maybe we can talk then, get things back to normal. Everything has been so awful since the shooting, but that is over now. We can have our life."

"Yes." Sahle smiled. "I will be there tonight."

--

For the rest of the morning, Sahle felt uneasy. He knew that deep down, he did not want to go to Aaliyah that night, and that disturbed him. She had been so much to him before, and he had thought that maybe she would be the silver lining in his exile, and that he would find in her the sort of love his father had found in his mother. Instead, she was becoming a chore.

He daydreamed about fucking the Russian woman. She was an exotic piece of the pale-skinned north, and there was a burning sexuality to her that fascinating him. But what did that mean? Was he just made to be the sort of man that never settled down? How could he possibly do that now he was a penniless nobody?

What he needed was more drugs.

He found Marc incoherent in the prop department staring at mannequins. Marc looked at Sahle with dialated, excited eyes.

"We are all naked, brother, except for all our clothes." He said.

But Sahle had no time for that. He spent an hour begging his friend for something powerful. When he got what he wanted, he went to his room and lost his mind in the psychedelic otherworld.

He did not find himself in strawberry fields, nor did he end up back in the nightmare forests of Georgia. His hallucinations transported him back to the past, to a time when he first found work at the Pharoah Club in Cairo. It was not a single memory, not something he could put a date on, but the power of the mutated memory was enough to make him feel as if he had been in this exact moment once. It was all there, the gangly Barnham calling everyone in the ethereal crowd his 'Loves' from the back of a chariot pulled by lions, the faux Sphinx dominating above the dance floor and the walls painted to look like the bright and sunny Egypt of the Pharaohs, and the were the dancing girls in their cages. He saw it all from everywhere at once, like a child staring into the room of a dollhouse as their imagination carried them away.

The dancing girls had always been a favorite, always topless and freaked out on some sort of chemical. They were in stone cages hanging from the ceiling near where plaster replicas of Egyptian statues pissed alcohol into troughs. The girls were ghosts to him, writhing female shapes in a sea of Cairo elites and Ottoman soldiers on leave. He only had eyes for one. This had been the place he had met Aaliyah all those years ago. She had been something unique to him then, a girl who cared about him even though he had no money or power to flaunt.

He felt like he was watching her for hours, like a personal dance just for him. The music grew slower, the lights went dim, and people cycled out of the club one by one. It was near midnight now. He did not know how he knew the time, but he did. Perhaps it was the reflection of an old instinct, his subconscious playing out the schedule he had remember in his short time working for Barnham. He hoped that when they had all left, it would be him and her, and they could make love under the watchful eyes of a sphinx.

But then a man handed her money and the two of them left together, and Sahle remembered that it had been her job to be nice to people. People like Sahle and Aaliyah, they were not made to be together. They had lost that part of their humanity long before they met each other.

When the room was empty, Sahle got a good look at it. It wasn't the same place now. The paint on the walls was caked thick in some places and cracking in others. One of the urinating Pharaohs had a broken cock, and alcohol piss sprayed haphazardly from the crater. He saw that there was lion dung on the gilded stage and stains in the floor, and the faux Sphinx was of such a poor quality that he wondered if school children had made it. A phantom party mulled about on the empty floor, and he remembered all of their excesses from a different perspective. This had not been a party, it had been scatological horror show. It had been a club where nasty drunks and worn out whores came waste the hours until their back-alley deaths.

There was a hard truth in the club that Sahle had not comprehended when he had worked there, but there were glimpses of it in the drug-induced memories that overpowered him now. It had been like the decadent and boundless orgies of Heliogabalus, the last lewd hurrah of failing Empires. This was the end of the Ottoman Turks, the people who drank in the wealth of the east and celebrated imperium with harems and hashish, and who's one thousand years of fratricidal palace intrigues had came to their climax at the same time Sahle entered Armenia. But there was another Empire ending here. It was also the last hurrah of the 19th century European dream, the mission civilisatrice and the gentlemen who had dreamed it. Those last few orientalists of the old type, the intellectual playboys of Europe who saw the east as a lamp-lit gateway to everything mystical and erotic, this was their place and Stanley Barnham was one of their dying breed. These two, the Ottoman and the European, partied stupid for as long as time would allow, because they knew that when the sun came up over the cold new world, they would be left in a syphilitic gutter to be forgotten.

This is Radio Aaron, reporting my disappearance to the Port Sanilac area.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, Shaoqiang Jun watched as the young doctor slowly unwrapped the bandages from his legs. Mashed blotchy across the bare skin of his legs were the bubbling, pale scars of harsh burns. He watched indifferently as the wounds came to the air. From the door the gaggle of Russian youths watched and cringed from the still-pink scars that deformed the flesh of his legs. The injuries still looked fresh, but he could feel no pain. There was no decided empathy for himself as he looked down at his naked legs.

Slowly, the bandages unwrapped around his ankle. His foot hung at a disjointed angle from the rest of him, a malformed scar in itself from previous injuries.

The only clothes the apathetic agent wore were the unadorned, military boxers. The same pair that he had unfortunately been wearing when he set out from Vladivostok. They had been cleaned, out of the charity of his guardians. And he was much grateful for that.

Looking up at the gang of kids, presided over by their foster, Chinese uncle he felt a light tinge of remorse he'd been leaving. For nearly a month – if not more – they had been tending to him. Fighting his own distant silence and bearing the nature of his secretiveness. Only the agent that watched over them, and tried to hold order in their broken lives really understood. And he knew enough to keep his meaning suppressed.

The young faces hiding in the door cringed back from the sight of his gaze. The blood was beginning to return to his eyes. The unfortunate if harmless malignment of his condition. As much as he was deaf and blind to the cries of his own body from the twisted cutting scars that carved valleys into his chest and shoulders. And the twisted compression of the side of his chest where his own ribs had not healed right.

The doctor looked up at them with an eye of unrest and pained empathy. He knew it would hurt a normal man, and that Jun now would hardly be the same as he was before. But his diagnoses of the extent of his injuries was hampered by Jun's own painless flesh. He had the discipline to keep as still as needed, once it was insisted he lay for a month. But without the biting wrath of new and old wounds striking at his mind through his body it was impossible to say if he ever healed right. Or if the Mafiya hadn't done that much of a number under neath him. And he lacked the resources to explore what was underneath his olive flesh.

“How are you feeling?” asked the doctor. It was a stupid question and he knew it.

“I'm fine.” Jun muttered distantly. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the mattress. He didn't know what it was he was waiting for, to be told to get back into the bed, or to stand up.

The doctor's pained expression gave way that he was giving it much consideration. There was a sea of deep thought behind his heavy brow. “Then get up, out of bed.” he ordered with a dry croak. He stood up and stepped back. Stricken with surprise Jun sat there in his bed, wholly expecting to have been ordered back down. Every appointment had ended that way.

He nodded quietly, and slid from the tattered sheets. His bare feet bumped against the carpeted floor and he felt the weakness in his legs as he staggered to hold himself up on his feet.

“I imagine you'll need to leave soon.” said the young doctor as he stepped back to the empty cot not far away. His appointed informal nurses had been set there to sleep so they can keep an eye of Jun and his orderliness. He watched the agent fight to stay on two feet with a sunken look of resignation. His face seemed shallower and older. Even his hair looked thinner that it should be.

Jun nodded, “It'll be for the best.”

“Then we'll skip the whole physical rehabilitation process.” he sighed remorsefully, “It'll be for the best you learn to walk again as quick as possible before you leave.”

Picking up his bags he stood up off the bed, giving Jun a quick nod without room for argument or protest. With heavy feet he walked to the door. Quickly, the spectators peeled away and thudded off down the stairs like the excited school children they were. He reached the door, and made like he was leaving. But hung there at the door frame, bag in hand. There was a hushed exchange between he and Shu. There curt nods, and he too left, and with the gentleness of a spider the doctor shut the door.

He turned around, and Jun couldn't help but feel suspicious. He leaned against the flaking plaster wall, his legs still felt as if they were jelly as his heart raced in his chest. Instinct roiled inside him, but without the capabilities he could only watch, with his hands meekly pressed against the wall.

“Comrade.” the doctor nodded with a sigh, speaking in Chinese. There was a sharp biting tinge in Jun's spine as a cold wave course up and down his body. Delivered like a revolutionary, but out of place. Too much so. Jun felt panicked at the turn and he grappled against the wall as oriented himself to the young man as he walked towards him. He felt the sudden urge a wounded and cornered tiger must feel when confronted by a poacher.

“Don't think I don't know who you are,” the young man continued as he walked to the foot of the bed, leaning a hand against the foot board as he sized up the crippled Jun, “I had it figured out.”

“What the fuck are you going to do?” snarled Jun. The politeness of the doctor did little to comfort his wariness. It didn't do much to render it anything as less than cockiness. A deep whisper in the back of his mind played a tune of betrayal in his mind's ear.

“Don't be afraid,” continued the doctor as he sat down on the bed. He crossed his hands over his knees as he looked up at him, “But I know that like Tiger, you're not anyone who's supposed to be on benevolent business. As if the extent of your injuries – old and new – didn't indicate you're here as a charitable missionary. Tiger at least fell into the position, and I consider him with no ill-favor.

“But you're someone different. You're not supposed to be rooted in a station like he and his former partner.” he added, in reference to agent Shu somewhere in the house, “Therefore, I'd like to make a request.”

Jun was stunned. Too much so for words. He lapped dryly on his laps as he looked down at him. His body still felt weak, and the anger inside him still bubbled; unable to escape its well, save to trickle out with each breath he made.

“It's my father.” the young man said sadly. His voice fell to a soft whisper, almost as if he was ashamed of it, “I want to know if for sure he's alive, in this world still. If he's in Russia, or China.”

Jun pressed his lip together. Unwilling to respond for a moment. But with a croak he asked, “What do you mean?”

“He worked for the Imperial intelligence service before the Tzar was killed.” he admitted straight-out, “When I was young he actually used to take me down to the river-side or to the industrial corners of the city and from his car he would point out the men who were on shifty business and teach me about them, simply about how they looked and acted. He loved to profile, it was his entire game in life it seemed like. Simply by the way they looked at someone he could tell if they meant to kill that man, or if they were looking for a hit on the street. I'm sure he knew when a man had a hard-on.

“But, the year before I went on to university he disappeared. This was roughly thirteen years ago. We don't know where he went, no one told us. Even he didn't. But we suspected he was sent to Finland to spy on the insurgent freedom fighters.”

His voice choked and he turned away. He pressed his lips into a thing frown. Turning his eyes from the Chinese agent to the distant dusty window in the corner of the room he continued with a voice that wavered with internal conflict, “Mom, my siblings, and I believed he'd be back in a couple months, or even a year. As soon as he identified who was leading the Finnish freedom fighters and could destabilize the revolution there he'd come back home to Perm and we wouldn't worry. That was what we believed.

“But come the czar's death he didn't come back. He was just in Finland, surely with no more orders and all government stability lost he'd come back?” he hissed behind stifled emotion, “I mean, he was still technically in country as the generals and princes tore the nation to shreds. And a man of his caliber could come back.

“But, things continued to weaken, and he did not return. Your people rushed north into Siberia and this so-called Republic was built be a despot's iron hand, almost over-night as the local warlords all came to recognize him, or disappeared.

“That's when I began to suspect: he probably didn't go to Finland.”

“What makes you think that?” asked Jun. A part of him turned uncomfortably this stranger to him was opening up in such a way. He wanted to walk past him, brush him aside with his hand and move on. Speak to Shu, collect information and leave. But he wasn't getting that here, not now. He was a prisoner to some man's emotional tale.

“Call it a hunch.” the doctor shook his head, “I don't have any evidence to back it up or anything. But as my mother passed away and my siblings ended up scattered across the country I was the only one to remain here in Perm. Searching, or more like waiting for my dad's return. Understand, he and I were close. Perhaps dangerously so for his profession. Or maybe I just felt I was close. Shit I don't know!” he confessed, clearly confused.

“Do you want me to find him and send daddy home?” Jun asked sarcastically.

“W-what? I- uh, well... Yes, if you could.” the doctor groaned, “It'd be preferred if you could, really. Or maybe find a way to get word to me if you ever find out if he's dead or not.

“I would go out and look for him, I would...” he continued, pausing uncomfortably, “But I'm stuck here. One of a few doctors in the city with any certification. I have my obligations, to Shu and this new family, as well as the city. But, I would like to know what happened to what remains of my old family. I can't reward you, but I can offer you a prayer.”

“Prayers to non-existent entities don't help me at all.” Jun snarled bitterly.

“Y-yes, forgive me. I understand.” nodded the doctor, “But it's the best I can do.”

“Fine then.” Jun growled, “What's his name?”

“Isaak Girgorvich Alexandrov.” answered the young doctor, “He's a tall man. Looks like me, but older.” he smiled uncomfortably, “Think you can remember?”

“I can try my best.” Jun answered weakly.

“Oh, thank you!” the young man cheered, “Then, uh- have a good day. I probably won't see you again. But I wish you the best of luck.” he got up from the bed and made for the door on light feet. Stopping he turned and said feebly, “And take your time getting used to your legs again.”



A two-lane road stretched on, contouring over forested hills as it marched lonesomely on wards. The car crested each gentle rise like a boat on a gentle ocean. Together, Ulanhu and Vasiliy carried on their journey, nearing on their port of mission's calling.

“Is exciting to be so near home again.” Vasiliy smiled as he drove the old sports car along. The engine hummed in peaceful meditation as it carried them along. The long hum of the motor having become a normal sound in the cabin.

No one else joined them on the road it seemed. It was long and empty. Along the sides overgrown forest grew tall and thick nearly up to the road's edge. The elms and gentle maples that stood as a solid palisade of wood and over-grown brush forming a cavern of leaves over-head, turning the road almost into a tunnel. The sun light that broke through the boughs over-head came broken and sparse, casting the road into a long green shaded band. There was an almost spooky serenity to it. Broken only irregularly by the road-side billboards that stood on their steel columns among the bushy, green boughs as an almost apocalyptic reminder to the world of the czar before. And along side these the hidden road-lights, crowned in faded bronze and brass highlights, the bodies being slowly engulfed by mildew.

“It looks different.” Ullanhu pointedly observed, intending to describe how other-wordily distant land was to his own familiar life in China. So far deep in Europe, he did not expect the world to seem to barbaric, and primitive. He excused it as merely being no strong central state, or local governments being too weak to handle such pursuits as road maintenance. Yet deep down he knew this was a lie, not all of this had to transpire in the past ten years. Yet he could not help but to compare it to the open steppe of Mongolia, or even the wide-cut highways that crossed China, even if many were far newer than Russia's.

“Oh, is look much same.” Vasiliy confirmed to his partner with his normal cheer, “If much emptier. But is going without saying.”

From the other direction a truck laden with covered goods passed them by. The cabin and body afflicted by powerful body-rot. He wondered why so few drove, why there were so little Russians traveling the roads. He suspected in finer times, this thoroughfare would be an example of life. It was then they passed a gas-station tucked in a clearing off to the side, bordering a marshy swamp-land choked with tall gas. The rusting sign boasted a liter of gas to be near 65 rubles.

He considered raising it as a point of concern, until remembering they had a trunk of gasoline stored in blitz cans in the back.

They continued to drive. As the trees thinned Ulanhu could look at at fields flush with wheat. Or see as the forests rose and fill, dipping and cresting with the low valleys and hills of this region of Russia. The landscape seemed to dance and sway. And through it the road was a straight-path cut through it all, dominating the natural landscape and declaring it its own.

This prestigious act of its own however and fallen dead. Even as they drew up to an intersection there was no motor-traffic besides themselves. In its place were men and locals who drove horses along the broken asphalt. Old farmhouses, still brightly colored in the proud hues of color that so dominated the Russian conscious stood at the corners of the roads. They passed a small diner and cafe built clinging to the shoulder of the road, almost as an easy quick-stop for travelers. Though dark and devoid of anything to fill the parking lot, there was still a sense of pride in the Russian identity there. The log-cabin walls well maintained, and the frilled crowns on the roof and under the eaves giving a bright ginger-bread home feel.

Yet they continued to pass, to the curious looks of the peasantry there.

Ullanhu decided that in the leery silence of travel he'd again strike up conversation, “You mentioned yesterday that you had family living in Moscow,” he started, “Or, your parents did. You implied you might have someone living there still.”

“I did?” Vasiliy asked.

“I think so, at least.” said Ullanhu.

“Wells, parents are dead. We may find room with uncle, aunt.” Vasiliy shrugged, unsuredly, “They'd invite me back warmly, ask where been. I feed them lie, trained lie. But, I know not of you. I know not what to say about you.”

“Are they someone to betray us?”

“I-...” he hesitated, “Uncle used work as banker, I think.” he croaked hesitantly, “So may not like Chinese, communist Chinese. May suspect only Chinese to be in Russia.”

“You could say I'm just a dissident.” Ullanhu suggested.

“Oh yes, is of good plan.” Vasiliy agreed, “From wheres?”

Ullanhu paused to think, trying to come up with a likely lie. Several names came up. Ullanbator itself, Harbin perhaps. Or maybe he could be from Ullanhu or as far south as Hong Kong. But if it were the later, it would make more sense to have fled to Japan first and then spring to America or elsewhere after.

“Harbin.” he affirmed after a moment's thought, “I'll be from Harbin.”

“Cover name?” Vasiliy poised.

“Shu.” he answered, “Shen Shu.”

“Will Shen Shu speak Russian?” asked Vasiliy.

“No.”

“I see. Of good answer then, I suppose. Will we use this to get to president?”

“I got to figure that out still.” Ullanhu lamented, “But I'm afraid I still know too little. I'd like to see the Kremlin first.”

The car continued to wallow on forward. The hum of the engine maintaining a constant low hum. Conversation drifted back into silence and Ullanhu starred again out the window. Wilderness continued to pass them by, and the Mongolian began to wonder when it would end, when it would change. This long round-about route was the sort of scenic route that many would not have taken. It was all through trees tall enough to be blinding, and farm-fields desolate enough to be deserts. For how green Russia was, its woodland expanse was as empty and devoid as the windy steppe of his Mongolian home. Or even akin to the deserts of the Uyghur homeland. Russia was a desert, a constant green desert.

“Comrade, you best of put your best face on...” Vasiliy opened up again, his voice long and stressed, “We come to a checkpoint.”

“Checkpoint?” Ullanhu said, looking aside to the Russian driver. But he stopped before he could turn fully towards him.

A fair distance down the road where the forest gave to an end at a wooden fence stood a blockade across the world. Smoking on piles of tires thrown along the side men sat smoking cigarettes with automatic weapons placed across their laps.

The guards looked up at the sound of the approaching car and shifted uncomfortably as it drew nearer. Their casual relaxation melted away with the smoldering puff of their cigarettes as they rose to their feet and cocked their guns. One – a large man in a deep-blue beret – stepped out into the middle of the road, his hand raised ordering them to stop.

“Polish paramilitary.” Vasiliy said, “Krakow's praetorian in western Russia. Let me do talking.” he whispered under his breath as he lightly tapped the brakes of the car.

Coming to a comfortable halt before the mercenary Vasiliy put the car into idle. He rolled down the window as the checkpoint guard walked over to him. “Good evening.” greeted the soldier as he leaned down at the window, “Can I have identification?” he asked Vasiliy in a bored voice.

“Yes, certainly sir.” Vasiliy complied, reaching into his pocket. Drawing a tattered wallet from his trousers he pulled out an equally battered paper card and handed it over to the soldier. Walking around back another team of men scanned the vehicle for traps or identification. Flashy assault rifles hung at their breasts as they moved.

“Who's the chink?” asked the man.

“He?” replied Vasiliy, pointing to Ullanhu, “His name is Shen Shu.”

“Mr. Shu?” asked the guard, “What does the spook have in Russia?”

“He's a dissident.” Vasiliy explained, “I have been taken care of him since he fled China. He just simply wants out of that country.”

The officer knelt over into the window to get a good luck at Ullanhu. He couldn't help but to stare awkwardly at the heavy gaze of the soldier as he looked him up and down. He could feel the burning weight of the man's eyes, and the condescending thoughts of simply arresting him and Vasiliy for being together in the same car. Yet in the intensity of that man's blue eyes he could hear the confrontation he was having within himself on the lie Vasiliy had told. He felt it was the truth, but didn't want to. Or suspected it was a lie, but had nothing to base it off of. In that moment he had all the power to do something radical.

He breathed out a deep sigh and linger groan and he peeled back from the window. “You're free to go.” he grunted, forcing Vasiliy's forged ID card into his hands.

“Thank you.” he smiled, taking the card back eagerly. With a wave of the officer's hands they were let through the check-point and on they passed. Closer to Moscow, and now within the suburban sprawl of cabins and brightly painted homes of Moscow's distant-most reach.




With heavy cheer Auyi waved good bye to the crowd packed into the central Shanghai auditorium. With the conclusion of the rally, he felt a burden lift from his shoulders. The same sort of stage-fright he suffered when addressing the public. It wasn't new, and it was inclusive. He was much assured that every public speaker had to carry that daunting weight of so many eyes bearing on them at once. To be in the public vision was not a weightless existence.

But now it was gone and he was numb to it. He could clamp his mouth shut as he smiled wide. Now the only discomfort was the baking heat of the lights and the poor airconditioning. He felt a tinge of fear that his white suit could be stained from any trickling or beading pearls of sweat that rolled across his skin just under it. But he couldn't look here, he had to get out. And his escape was as tactful as his entrance.

Giving the people the waving salute he retreated out stage-left. As he slipped into back-stage shadows the raging discomfort of focused lighting withered away. The aura of the incandescent glow shutting itself off as he found the cold embrace of the shadows. “How'd I do?” Auyi gasped as he loosened the collar of his outfit as he trotted through the warehouse-like space of the auditorium back stage. He desperately fanned himself by tugging the collar of his shirt. Although it was no warmer than anything, the soft flow of air up along his neck was soothing all the same.

But he couldn't stop. He was on a tight-schedule. Is impish campaign manager had seen to that, and he had to meet him to move along.

“You did great!” an anonymous man complimented. He would have returned in kind, but he had already disappeared through the door.

Water splashed up the leg of his pants as he stepped down from the building's back-door, stepping into a narrow rain-soaked alley. The water shone off of the cobble-stone alley floor and from where the fresh rain-water had gathered in wide-shallow puddles. Parked close-by a long government coup waited in idle with a uniformed attendant.

The car whose skin was black as inky night warbled with a soft rumble as the engine waited. The cabin and nose was a balanced mess of hard edges and beetle-like curves, especially where the hood swept to the nose. The very front of the car seemed to angle itself down, look it was superior to the world.

Auyi gave it no thought as he passed the bowing attendant as he slipped into the cold, air conditioned cab.

“How'd the rally go?” his manager asked from the seat across from him. Auyi threw himself back into the seat, reeling still from the sweat and basking in the cold comforts of more managed airconditioning.

“Well enough.” he said distantly. The windows shone with a gray light from the beads of rainwater that trailed and stuck to the glass like weightless diamonds. He sighed deeply, immediate to take advantage of the physical peace of a car. He was getting tired, and Wu no doubt had more places for him to go.

“That'll be fine.” Wu laughed dryly. As the driver got in Auyi straightened himself up and fastened himself in. His attention turned to Wu, who watched him from behind wide bottle-glass glasses. The lenses shone with an eerie reflected light that made Auyi think: did he even notice?

“I have something to ask you about as we drive to the station.” Wu continued in a dry dictational tone. The motorcar lurched ever slightly as it rolled down the narrow, wet alley, “Or rather, something we should look to do to enhance the campaign.”

“Oh, why?” asked Auyi.

“Well, while the debate did do good...” he trailed off, “It probably wasn't the best for publicity. NPN poll numbers are clocking Xhu at a rise as well. Once more: along the lines of which pollsters had access to what form of media. It's rather interesting.”

“How can that be?” requested Auyi. He twisted in his seat out of curiosity. Outside the cold comforts of the car Shanghai came to view. Or the Shanghai alone the Yangtze river.

Shanghai was a city like Hong Kong, a municipality that straddled two different worlds as per its placement in the political games that took part on China over a century ago. The muscular columned structures of Victorian-era buildings stood in brooding opposition to and oppression to the street below as they pulled out onto the river-side road.

The Shanghai Public Audiotorium was perhaps one of the few original constructions of the modern era of China since the Japanese forces conducted wide-scale bombing and shelling of the city during the Revolutionary period. But even then, the buildings was stinted to favor blending into with the colonnades and towering domes of the old embassies and other such structures of former British, American, or French interest. Many of these had become re-utilized for other purposes.

Even by the river the remnants of European influence remained. Columns erected to dedication to the soldiers who had won them this land stood against the watery backdrop of the Yangtze. And on the other-side of the river the high-rises of a newer Shanghai rose above the treeline.

“Well, in all respect comrade our supporters or new supporters might very well suggest that you're a man best viewed.” Wu observed with an passive wave of his hand. His brow sunk out of the droll boredom of this basic distinction, “It's come to my attention through our statistics sources that those who viewed the debate in theater showings say that you have a very refreshing and visible presence. They point a lot at the suit.

“Radio listeners have however criticized that you're rather boring to listen to. In contrast, Mang Xhu's temperamental manner of speaking is something for them to get behind.”

“So what do you want me to do?” asked Auyi, “Ditch my white suit?”

“Oh no, hardly.” Wu laughed, comfortingly. It was strange to hear him laugh, he had a high-pitch voice that became even more so when he so much as giggled, “It's one of your stronger areas. No, what we need to do is develop a better presence over the radio if we're going to have a well-rounded campaign.”

“So should I learn to be emotional?” asked Auyi. The car had come to a stop outside the walls of one of Shanghai's several film offices. The building - which was built like a movie theater at the turn of the century – rose with a number of tiers lashed together by vertical pillars as it stood above the river. In an alien display of gaudiness the side of the building was illuminated in neon, proudly showing itself as property of the NPN film office in bright luminescent letters and words. Studio 12 burned from the pale-yellow concrete siding in fierce electrical pink and purple hues.

Auyi looked and gestured to it as if indicating if acting lessons was in his future according to Wu.

“Would take to long.” he sighed, taking the hint and rolling his eyes.

“So, what do you have in mind?”

“I was thinking we may need to seek some sort of patronage from the artistic community. Fitting, as we're in Shanghai.”

“Artist community? Music, actors, painters?”

“Well if we're on the topic of sound who do you think?” Wu said, “I was thinking of appealing to the song-writers. We need someone to say something. Music would be the easiest option to make.

“I can go out and find supporters among the music community. See if they can donate any songs or skills of theirs. I have a few names.”

“Like?”

“Well, Chen Yiaoliang would be a good first target.” Wu pointed out, “He's supportive of your office, especially since what you helped him out with a few years back, what with the NPN director. And with his circle of friends and colleagues including foreign artists I'm sure he's a sure-in for the minority representation. He's the voice we need and want, and he can help us access the youth vote.

“Every demographic counts, and we should keep ourselves relevant and strong in your core representation.”

Auyi considered the proposal. Leaning against the side of the car he felt the rain-cooled glass curress his cheek and the soft jostling of the car as his head lightly knocked against the window. “Yeah, why not.” he said, “Do whatever you think is best on this. It shouldn't hurt us.”

“If anything, it might inspire Zhu.” Wu remarked with a sarcastic smile, “But as long as we stay at the head of innovation when it comes to campaigns: we'll be fine.”



A small crowd gathered inside the confines of Hou's old office. Standing corners heavy reel cammera stood pointed towards the far-end of the room, their lines of sight intersecting over the chairman's desk, which now stood nearly empty; save for a few trinket's of patriotic importance. A stand at the corner of the desk brandishing a collection of small Chinese flags, and a mount for pens. The old wooden surface itself was barren, save for a thin leather mat at its center.

The office was set like a T. Facing down the center core of the room the desk brooded over a long stretch of crimson carpet over top hard-wood floors. Banks of desk stood sentinel along the side of the room. On the far-side, a bank of windows formed the outer-edge of the top-most arm of that letter T. These windows looked out on the city of Beijing, giving a panoramic view of central Beijing. Among the buildings and ancient neighborhoods Chang'an avenue cut downtown in two. Well beyond it the smoke stacks of factories loomed just barely out of view, churning out clouds of silvery black exhaust. And somewhere beyond all of that was Tianjin and the sea.

Hou himself, who had been in the room for months stood off to the side. Alongside him stood a heavy-weight man who carried himself with a certain Altaic, Jurchen persuasion. He cradled in his hands a animal carrier, where an equally large and unamused feline which curled furtively on the furthest wall of the cage to keep from the loitering and excited dignitaries and journalist's present. Its fearful scowl none to complimentary to that of its owner, who smiled proudly.

Behind these two a stoic guard stood, arms crossed behind him. He gazed over the heads of the assembly, waiting.

“In a minute, chairman.” a camera man called out. Hou nodded receptively as he leaned on his cane. His old tired face had sunken. The excitement of the day thus far was not a relief. Being in this room was chilling for him, and he loathed being in it. But it was better than inviting them to tromp about his house. He wanted that for peace and quiet in his retiring days.

This room was not that. A lot had happened. And a lot of that escape from his own realities as he drowned himself in work and lychee wine.

“We should probably get into their view.” the chairman invited, turning to the man alongside him.

“That'd be good.” he answered, following Hou's languid and slow pace to the desk. It was another reminder about how far he fell physically. Before the stroke, he'd had rushed to and from it. Now he could not. And he tried to not think about it.

The animal carrier thumped as the man put it on the desk. Fumbling with the door, he opened it and pulled out from inside the frightened, mewling cat. The guard moved the cage to behind the desk to keep it out of sight before manning his position alongside the elderly chairman.

“Counting...” a camera man called out, holding out his hand, “In three...” he declared, holding out three fingers, “Two... one.”

“We are present today in the grand secretary's office with Comrade Hou Sai Tang and director Hu Wei of the Ministry of Space and Science research labs, Ullaanbatar.”

“On June 30th of this year we announced that our nation has made great scientific strides.” Hu Wei smiled proudly as he hugged his cat close, “And it is today we would like in full to say this, and to introduce the adventurer who so made the journey beyond Earth's atmosphere and returned.

“At the Ministry installation on Green Island our teams launched a Type-3 rocket, specifically modified to carry in it a life-form. The intent of the mission: to collect physical readings of the effect of exposure to the conditions of outer-space and to confirm that life can indeed survive in space, given the right protective measures.

“Our mission as such has confirmed our calculations and laid the early ground work for missions in the future, and it is placed on my shoulders to announce that we – as a nation – feel capable of exploring Earth beyond its atmosphere. Not with animals, but with volunteers from the people. Volunteers who will be no less or no more heroic than comrade Chou.” he smiled as he lifted up the cat. Its eyes widened at the sudden movement as he was presented to the camera. Shifting on their mounts they moved to capture the shocked and weakly struggling cat. A cat who had just enough being handled, having gone to space and back.

Turning, Wei acted in a manner unrehearsed for this press release and presented Chou to Hou. Hou coiled back, shocked at the invitation to hold the fat animal. But on Wei's insistence he found himself holding the cat none-the-less. Abandoning his cane in favor of support from the startled and panicking guard that had been standing behind him just recently.

Hou found himself starring into the golden eyes of a pet as stricken with as much confusion and fear as he was in that moment. “Ah, thank you.” Hou bowed, shifting to take control of this certainly unplanned maneuver on his part.

“Hold him, hold him.” Wei insisted in a low breath. Hou was angry, and confused. His head swam with wanton loss as he manipulated the cat at the ends of out-stretched arms. Gradually, he pulled the cat closer and held it to his chest. A certain degree of laziness and submission resigned it to being retired to Hou's suit, its chin supported by the chairman's arm and tail flicking annoyed at the other end.

Hou had to assume control. “It is with the honor of my office and my service that I do congratulate our advances.” he said uncomfortably, but assuming the role of politician that he was, “With these endeavors, I have been consoled to know that should we choose we will assume the title of space explorers in approximately five-years time. This is momentous for myself, as it is us. The progress we are capable of making is a proof to ourselves and to the world that we – China – will overcome. Let the light that we shine be a beacon to guide and direct all people to the future.

“Thank you.” he added in stuffy closing.

With a dry click the cameras and equipment were shut off and the present audience shuffled about, making their congratulations and compliments to Hou's current health. Uncomfortably and delicately, Hou returned Chou to Wei. “If I did anything wrong, I'm so-” Wei started.

“Don't say it.” Hou interrupted as he took his cane back from the guard. He leaned against the desk as he starred ahead at a secretary moving through the departing crowd. More of them seemed to have appeared with his absence. “It wasn't much trouble.”

“As you say.” Wei bowed.

“I have word directly from Pemba.” announced the secretary in a hushed breath. Wei departed the scene, still bowing nervously. Hou had decided to not think of it, and wished he would stop nervously seeking forgiveness.

“They couldn't just go through Lou Shai Dek instead?” asked Hou.

“It did, but he said to inform you.” the secretary said, “It's the Ethiopian princess. They found her, and her children. They're on their way to China. They just left.”

“I'll be at home, you can send them there when they land.” Hou ordered, “I want Daohang there too.”

“I'll tell them.”

Dar es Salaam, The Confederation of Tanganyika and Mozambique

The Tanganyikan authorities locked Taytu in the royal suite of an old colonial hotel, and they left her there for eight days. She did not know what to think.

There had been no signs of a Spanish presence between the airport and her plush prison, though the shooting of the Walinzi agent had left her dazed for most of the ride. As far as she could tell, they were trying their best to treat her like a guest now. Her room was large, with a view over the city facing toward the sea. There was a kitchen stocked with food, a radio, and a silk canopy bed with a leopard skin draped across the sheets. The bed faced a mural depicting a black Adam and Eve in a thick African jungle, and false vines decorated the other walls. Every day they sent her a messenger with a newspaper, an apology for the delay, and assurances she would be properly briefed on developments shortly enough.

So she waited. For the first few days, she listened to the radio and read the newspaper, hungry for any news of the war. It was slow, only mentions of the Brazilian and American comments on the invasion, and updates on the Battle of the Mandeb. After that, she lingered in the bath for an hour. When she climbed out, she did her hair into tight rows, exploding into a bush of unchecked frizz in the back. For the remainder of the day she had nothing to do but eat, listen to the radio, and stare out the plate-glass window at the city below.

Dar es Salaam was the image of a typical African colonial city. Neat European streets crisscrossed the center of town, where buildings with a mixture of Arab and stylized African architecture decayed in the Swahili heat. Many of them had been white once, but age and grime turned them the color of stained teeth. Beyond the city center lay a mish-mash of colonial buildings, traditional mud huts, and new shacks built from scrap. Coconut palms and leafy savannah trees bloomed green along freshly paved avenues, leading to the dirt road sprawl where most people lived.

Tanganyika and Mozambique had both been made independent during Yaqob's visit to Europe at the beginning of his reign. In truth, they had been German colonies in name only by the time Yaqob got involved. Mozambique was taken by Germany from Portugal as spoils after the Great War, but the official language of that country still remained Portuguese. From the end of the War until Yaqob's deal, they had both been backwater posts for unpopular German officials to languish with minimal government funding and poor support. In Tanganyika, the colonial government had come to rely on the Swahili people of the coast, and they used the the Maasai and Sukuma tribes of the north to keep the southern Matumbi, Hehe, and Ngoni at bay. When the Germans left the country to Yaqob's advisors, it was a Sukuma government that was put in charge despite attempts to bring the southerners into the fold. There was bad blood between north and south now, and Taytu wondered what part it might be playing in the confusion she had unwittingly became involved in.

But Tanganyika and Mozambique were not one country. Rather, they were a loose confederation of two separate nations, meaning Mozambique had its own government. Left mostly alone by the Germans, violence had been less frequent there, as the Portuguese and mestizo populations allowed for a transition that was fluid and balanced. It was the poorest state in Yaqob's small African alliance, however, and its influence was small. The Ethiopians had made considerable effort to bring more native Africans into its government. That had only caused some of the ruling Portuguese to leave the country for their ancestral homeland, though the Spanish shadow over Portugal sent many of them packing for Brazil instead. Poverty was the defining problem in Mozambique, and the government was desperate to keep the peace between the remaining intelligentsia in Maputo and the hungry villages of the rural countryside.

For several days she had considered these facts, obsessing over them as she watched the days turn to nights over the sleeping Tanganyikan capital. Instability must be the key. Even now, both states were too young to stand on their own. Could they withstand a war?

Her political musing ended abruptly on the third day. That is when the news reached her that the royal plane had been shot down over the Indian Ocean. No survivors had been found. Alone, with no control over her own future, she discovered that her mother was dead. Her sister the Queen was dead, as was her nephew. And her own adopted son, he was dead too. She had broke down that day and cried herself to sleep before she could take a bath. When she woke up, it was night.

She was supposed to be on that plane. She might have been on that plane, and she might have died as well. She should have been there with her son, or maybe he should have been with her here. She had saved him from Hassan so he could drown? How was that fair? How was it fair that her mother had died like that, without the Queenly dignity she deserved? And Yaqob.

Oh Yaqob. How much would he have to endure in his lifetime? How had he sinned that he should suffer like this?

Where she had been confused before, grief and fear made her feel trapped like an animal. She saw the faces of her dead family in her mind's eye, and she could do nothing but grieve. What else was there for her to do? It was a small comfort that her captors began to give her wine with her newspaper now, and she drank a bottle every night so she could sleep.

When she sobered in the morning, her thoughts returned to what she had lost. It was her and Yaqob now, the sole survivors of Iyasu's dynasty. Her grandfather had broken the Solomonic nobility of Ethiopia before she was born. If her and Yaqob died, would there be anybody to replace them, or would the house of Solomon go extinct? Modernity trudged ahead like an elephant in musth. It smashed and rampaged, destroying everything around until only it remained. She had always considered herself a liberal like her father, but it felt unnatural trying to hold that opinion when the rest of the world saw you and everybody you loved as relics of a bygone age.

The newspapers reported that it had been a modern weapon, a fearsome fighter plane with a new style of engine that outpaced everything the Ethiopians had to offer. She recognized that it must be the same sort of plane the Chinese were experimenting with on Pemba. She had never seen them, but Walinzi reports had told of their existence, and hinted at the possibility that Spain might be fielding the same sort of craft. The murder of her family proved it. They had been killed by something their government could not protect them against, and that made Taytu even more doubtful.

Her doubt grew every day, and the walls seemed to close in nearer and nearer. There was no news after that, nothing that she could do anything with. Spain had suffered heavy casualties after their initial landing in Djibouti, and they were pinned in the city. The newspaper reported that a Spanish naval bombardment had started a fire that blazed out of control and burned down most of Djibouti, killing thousands of civilians in their homes. Every story about the war made her sick, but she had to read them. They were one of the only things that kept her mind occupied and allowed her to gather her thoughts. She cried more now, unable to cope with the loss of her mother or her failure to care for Olivier.

But on the eighth day, the messenger came with another set of guards and surprised her.

"The Confederate Council will see you now." he told her cheerfully. "Do you want to prepare yourself?" She said yes, and she went back to do her hair and clean her face. When she was ready, they left.

--

She was taken to the State House in a nondescript beige sedan with tinted windows. The city passed by her like a blur, open-space markets and plaster walls reminding her of Addis Ababa. Once, when the foot traffic forced them to stop, she saw a graffiti caricature of a white man in a suit on the wall near where some men were grilling fish. He had demonic features, and he held a rifle with a plain yellow flag on it. She realized he was supposed to be a Spaniard of some sort, and it gave her hope to see that the caricature was splattered with rotten food and other filth that had been thrown at it like a dart-board. It made her feel hopeful.

They arrived at the Statehouse late in the morning. It was a plain looking building with lazy arched columns and a flower garden dominating the yard in front. They came to a stop where guards waited for her. They were dressed in antiquated Askari garb; Khaki clothes, wide-brimmed hats, and short spears held at the bottom and left to rest against their shoulders as if they were rifles. They escorted her at a brisk pace, like a prisoner being led to trial. Her hope began to fade again. She was surprised that she was not nervous. Death had been a possibility for eight days, but instead of fear she felt resigned curiosity.

They went inside through the front door, and she was taken aback by the elephant in the room. There was, quite literally, an elephant in the room. It was stuffed and placed on a pedestal in the center of the rounded two-story entryway. In front of it was a glass case with a tattered British flag inside, but she did not have the opportunity to read what it said. A relic from the Great War, she had no doubt.

She was lead through bare white halls until they came to a place with more guards. It was a courtroom, she realized. Was she being tried for something. A guard opened the door and she was motioned to go inside.

At the back of the room was a panel of five men. Two of them she knew. In the center was Adolf Mwashinga, an elderly dark-skinned man with a thin ring of white hair circling his bald scalp. He was the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Tanzania, and she had worked with him before. To his left was Joao Salomao, the overweight native-born Minister of Foreign Affairs for Mozambique. The other three men she did not know.

It was a courtroom otherwise, but all the seats were empty. It was just Taytu, the five men, and the guards. On the back wall hung two flags. In the center was the flag of Tanganyika; a horizontal black stripe with yellow borders against a green field. To its right was the flag of Mozambique; a horizontal tricolor of green, black, and yellow. To the left of the Tanganyikan flag was a square of wall that was lighter than the rest. She knew that the empty space had once held the Ethiopian flag. They had taken it down, she knew, and that made her mad.

"I demand to know why you killed one of my Walinzi in cold blood." she heard herself say.

"I apologize for the incident, Le'elt Taytu." Mwashinga replied. The shiny top of his bald head was dotted with sweat, and he wiped it down with a handkerchief so often that it looked as if he was the one on trial.

"And may I say, Le'elt Taytu." the unknown man on the far right said softly. "That we are extremely sorry for your loss. I was aggrieved to hear that such indecency can be done during a war in the civilized age."

"I do not know you, sir." Taytu replied wearily. "May I have your name?"

"Mukwava Kidude. I am in the senate."

"Mr. Kidude is on the Committee for Tribal Affairs." Mwashinga interjected.

"Tribal Affairs?" Taytu asked.

Mukwava Kidude smiled politely. "We require that one of our committee members be allowed to sit in on most things, to make sure the rural people are included in decision making."

"Then I thank you for your words, Senator Kidude. But my question has not been answered. Why was one of my men murdered in cold blood, and why I am under arrest by an allied nation?"

"We are holding you for suspicion of inciting our population to war." Adolf Mwashinga said, patting his head with his kerchief. "Your man pulled his weapon during the arrest, and our men had the right to protect themselves. We are deeply sorry for his death."

"You are deeply sorry for a great many things." Taytu barked. "And being sorry is the only thing that Tanganyika has done right since I landed here. Inciting war? We're allies! I came here to talk to your government about the conflict that you are required by treaty to support us in."

"We will get to that. It has been our intention to bring you up to date as soon as possible, but things are complicated now." Mwashinga said. He looked to his colleagues. "You have met Senator Kidude and Minister Salomao. This man to my right is Dr. Rudolf Sumari, he is the Director of the Tanganyikan Walinzi. And to the left end of the table is Teodato Zucula. He is the Minister of Justice in Mozambique."

She nodded. "Good. Now will you explain your betrayal?"

"Our governments have determined that our inclusion in the the African Continental Entente agreement is illegitimate, as it was decided upon by foreign powers rather than our own people." Zuculu said. He spoke with a pronounced Portuguese accent, which seemed out of place for a native African. "Since the ACE agreement was ratified before either of our nation's constitutions were complete, and because signing it was a prerequisite for our independence, we see it as having been done in bad faith. Therefore it is illegitimate."

"You never complained before." Taytu argued. "When my government reached out to help fund yours, and to build a military to defend yourself, I never saw you act to reject it."

"A military, yes." Sumari stated. "But for use by whom? Has the Ethiopian Empire not been preparing for a war against the Europeans since nineteen seventy? Now that we have our independence, we have no reason to go to war with Spain or any other European power."

"You have your independence because of my brother, and he only asked your support. You owe him!"

"We are not subjects of Emperor Yaqob, Le'elt." Senator Kidude spoke. "We do not owe him things. This debate is strictly about legality."

"If we are talking law then." She said. "Why am I being held a prisoner?"

"We are holding you for suspicion of inciting our population to war." Mwashinga repeated.

"And what does that mean? I hope you know that I did not come to preach in the streets."

There was a nervous pause among the committee. "We are aware, but the situation is delicate." Mwashinga began.

"We do not know why you have come, if we are to be honest about it." Senator Kidude interjected. "If you believed we would honor our treaties before you arrived, than why are you here? Surely you don't think we need Imperial oversight. We only got word of your arrival three hours before you landed. What are we to think of that?"

"I apologize for the sudden nature of this visit." Taytu said wearily. She hadn't considered this angle. Had her visit scared them? "I was originally supposed to be on the plane that went down over the sea. I only came here after a last minute discussion with my brother."

"A discussion." Sumari spoke up. "What were the details of this discussion, if I may ask?"

"It was a private discussion." Taytu insisted. "Between siblings. It is inappropriate for you to ask."

"Well then, there we have it." Mwashinga said. "Secrets. How do you expect us to trust you or your government? The people of Tanzania cannot go to war for no reason. Not with Spain. If the Spanish navy decided to occupy this port, what do you think would happen to its people."

"They would suffer." Taytu admitted. "As they will when it inevitably happens. Do not think that my government started this war, Minister Mwashinga. You are not dumb men, you can see what is happening to this continent. The British are reasserting themselves in South Africa, and Spain has been gobbling up territories on our continent since the French first sold them their colonies in West Africa. This isn't just a war, this is colonization, and your nations stand in the way of European domination. Gentlemen, the Europeans think of the past half-century as a brief pause in their Imperium. We have all tried to build a free Africa here, now we have to fight for it. One people, one continent..."

"One Empire." Senator Kidude interrupted. "Is that the way of it? You said you were not here to preach."

"I said I was not here to preach in the people in the streets, but I am here to talk to their government. Though, I am beginning to wonder, what do the people think about their government's decision in this case?"

There was a telling pause, and brief moment where Mwashinga looked at Dr. Sumari. And then she understood.

"Does my government know that I being held captive." Taytu asked pointedly.

"No." Mwashinga muttered. "Not yet. We do not see you as under arrest."

"You do not see, you do not see, you do not see." she muttered to herself. "You should tell my government the truth, even if you do not know the truth yourself."

"And what is the truth, Le'elt Taytu?" Senator Kidude asked politely.

"That you have abducted the Minister of the Ethiopian government on false pretenses, a Minister who is the sister and only surviving heir of that government's Monarch, and that you have chosen to flout a treaty between our nations that has benefited for four years."

"Only surviving heir?" Kidude replied. "You have not had the latest news then. A Chinese search party found your Queen and the two children alive on the island of Socotra. I believe one of the children is yours?"

"What?" she was confused at first. Her heart began to flutter, and she tried to see a way his claim might be a political falsehood, but she could not think of any reason for him to lie about this. "But you said..."

"I am still sorry for the loss of your mother, Le'elt Taytu. But the rest of your kin has been found. I assumed you had been informed."

"Alive?" she had grieved for five days, but they were alive. "I did not think... but in the middle of the ocean?"

"Socotra is in the middle of the ocean too." Kidude said.

"I think we should adjourn for the present moment to let Le'elt Taytu process this news." Mwashinga ordered. "We will meet with you again soon enough. Until then, you will be returned to your suites."

Taytu had did not have a reply. Her mind was somewhere else now, with a child who was on his way to China.