Free Come and Take Them-eARC by Tom Kratman

in the legion in a matter of a few days or weeks. But those two were overwhelmed with personnel information requests and, as suggested, fifty percent of what they sent the TU intel office had serious disinformation contained therein.
    Fernandez looked down once again at the almost bare file, the synopsis, on Anglian Army Captain Jan Campbell and cursed.
    Still, I can tell some things. What can I infer from the fact that she was a late entry officer, taking a commission after a long career as an enlisted woman?
    Hmmm; I’ve met a fair number of Anglian officers. Some are fine. Others are the kind of human material that has one clicking one’s knitting needles and muttering, “Aha, guillotine!” She surely saw enough of both types, but probably put up with all too many of the guillotine bait.
    Or maybe she was one of those women attracted by power. In many ways that would be ideal.
    “Ah,” Fernandez mused, “what a coup it would be to turn an officer in their intel office! What a solid coup!”
    Ah, well, for now we’ll leave the ball in the blonde’s court. If she really wants to turn, she’ll find a way. That much, at least, I can glean from the synopsis.
    Still, might be useful to offer her some way to get in contact with us. Hmmm…I think maybe I’ll buck this one up to Carrera.
    Reluctantly, Fernandez folded the thin copy of Campbell’s file and turned to more pressing matters. So, Patricio’s being forced to back off from the Taurans. Already, he’s cancelled overflights and explosions. How very dull that will be. So what can I do to openly support what he’s been ordered to do, while still setting us up the better to prosecute a war…?

    Training Area C, Academia Militar Sergento Juan Malvegui, west of Puerto Lindo , Balboa, Terra Nova

    More so than in the Federated States or Secordia, somewhat more so than in the Tauran Union, fast going amorally familistic, life in Balboa tended to run informally and as much by connections as by rules. Thus, for example, Lourdes Nuñez-Cordoba de Carrera and Caridad Morales-Herrera de Cruz were good friends and had been since the day both their men had boarded aircraft for the war with Sumer. When Caridad, with a troublesome pregnancy about five years back, had needed an arrogant doctor browbeaten, Lourdes had made a call and had a long chat with a very humbled doctor. Now, when Lourdes had a son in a military school where Ricardo Cruz was temporarily instructing, Cara had made a call. Following that, Cruz had had a long chat with Lourdes’ son.
    * * *
    His father tended to treat all legionaries as moral equals, but centurions as social equals, as well. This made them minor gods to damned near everybody. Even Ham, who had grown up around them, tended to treat the centurions with vast respect and no little deference.
    “Relax,” said First Centurion Ricardo Cruz to the boy standing at attention in front of his desk. Seeing that “relax” had only gotten the boy to parade rest, he pointed at a camp chair and ordered, “Sit.”
    “Yes, Centurion.” The boy more or less jumped into the camp chair and sat. At attention.
    Cruz was tempted to pick up his badge of office, his stick, and wave it in the boy’s face until he, in fact, relaxed. Ah…no, that won’t work. Hmm…what will? Ah.
    Leaning back in his chair, Cruz plopped his booted feet on the desk. “I said, ‘relax,’ cadet, and I meant, ‘relax.’ So relax.”
    “Yes, Centurion,” Ham answered. He managed, at least, to slouch a little in the chair.
    “The first peer reviews have been tabulated,” Cruz announced formally. It was a silly statement and he knew it was a silly statement. Everyone knew the peers were done.
    At the words, though, Ham went from slouching in his chair to sinking into it. He seemed nearly to melt.
    “I’m at the bottom of my section, right?”
    Cruz nodded.
    “So, father or not, I’m going to get the boot, right.”
    “Wrong,” the centurion answered. “Peers are for