Warren Murphy - Unite and Conquer

"Romping?"

"Military slang. Forget it."

"I like this word homping. I would homp with you anywhere, Blaize."

"Call me Winner. It's my real name. Short for Winston."

"Would you homp with me anywhere, Weener?"

Smith winced. Her pronunciation sounded too much like weiner. "Yeah. But first-we have to hook up with Verapaz."

"Did I tell you that Juarezista women are allowed to take whatever man they choose, without asking permission of anyone?"

"No, you didn't."

She inhaled sharply. "I would take you."

Smith swallowed. "You would?"

"Si. And I am not ashamed to admit that if I were to make love to you it would be my first time."

His hands trembling on the collective stick, Winston Smith muttered under his breath, "Mine, too."

And deep in the pit of his stomach, he got a very ugly feeling; he didn't know what to do with it.

Chapter 48

Comandante Efrain Zaragoza kept one eye on the TV as his unit rolled toward Oaxaca. The evil rain came down, making reception difficult. If it wasn't the rain, it was the interference from the mountains. It didn't help that he was hunkered down in the back of a jouncing armored vehicle.

Through the rain that was black, and the white snow on the screen, he could see his objective lumber on through the very strange rain. Coatlicue the animate.

Lightning blazed. It cracked and crashed.

"Santa Madre de Dios!" he cursed. "Why does the lightning not strike the demon and save us all from the terror of confronting her?"

"Perhaps if we pray," a sargento suggested.

"To whom?" Zaragoza spit. "To whom do we pray?"

"Let half our number pray to the old gods and the other half to the saints. And let the most powerful gods prevail."

It seemed reasonable, and so straws were drawn and, with the hammering of the rain from hell against the hulls of their APCs and LAVs, the unit prayed silently, nervous eyes on the horizon. Zaragoza monitored the screen.

The monster Coatlicue made her painstaking way onward. She seemed like an unstoppable juggernaut of steel, her torso bearing the haphazard military markings of the armor she had absorbed. The very same insignia marked their own machines. It made one think terrible thoughts about the fate of their crews.

Abruptly the screen exploded in a flash of fire.

"Our prayers are answered!" Zaragoza cried.

When the screen cleared, they saw Coatlicue standing stock-still, electricity running up and down her metallic skin. It evaporated with a spiteful snap and crackle.

Then ponderously she continued her march.

"No," said the sargento unhappily. "Ours were."

The order was given to pray to saints, not the ancient ones whose loyalties were in question, and as their lips moved silently, all eyes were fixed on the monster they sought to fight but hoped never to behold through their very own eyes.

Chapter 49

It had been too easy, Alirio Antonio Arcila felt.

His Juarezistas had filtered up from Chiapas to Oaxaca without hindrance. It was as if the army was allowing this.

After some thought he realized this must be so.

"They wish us to fight the monster Coatlicue," he told Kix as they paused to rest.

A rain was falling. It was filled with black particles that made their brown uniforms clammy and gritty at once.

"And we will. For are we not Maya?"

The portable TV was brought out of its waterproof carrying case and turned on.

The monster, now plated and scaled like an armadillo, lumbered toward an unknown destination. They fixed its position on their plastic recon maps.

"We are less than thirty minutes' march from the demon, and it is moving steadily our way," he decided.

"We will defeat it," Kix said. He sounded very sure of himself, so right then and there Antonio decided Kix would be the first to attack the monster.

"But where does it go?" Antonio wondered aloud.

"There can be but one destination," Kix muttered, tapping a point on the map. "The cypress of Tule."

Antonio frowned. "Why would it go there? It is but a tree."

"To get out of the fierce rain?"

No better explanation presented itself.

"We will move out now," Antonio announced, standing up. The moment of truth approached. If he defeated the stone mother, his image would be unshatterable. El Presidente himself would doubtless plead to join the Juarezista cause after that.

Chapter 50

High Priest Rodrigo Lujan tramped through the black rain along Highway 190 to Santa Maria del Tule.

They were passing through hills luxuriant with vegetation that was turning an ominous black under a pelting rain. But he had no eyes for their ruined splendor.

For one, he could hardly see. Two, he was having to lead the way through the rain, for Coatlicue did not know the route.

But most difficult of all, he walked without his sheltering cloak and headdress. He had been forced to leave them by the side of the road when the black rain made them too heavy to bear.

It was fortunate that he had discarded them, because the only warning he had of the impending lightning strike was the faint ozone tang and the rising of the hairs on his bare arms.

The knowledge that an electrical connection had been made between earth and sky galvanized him. Panic took him. In his alarm he leaped between the legs of his great stone Mother.

The bolt detonated. That was the exact sound. A ripping explosion, not a crack of lightning. Awesome to hear.

Coatlicue stopped dead in her tracks, and her entire body rippled with blue-and-green sparks and splinters of light.

When his ears cleared enough that he could hear again, Rodrigo heard the creak of her metal carapace as she resumed her untiring gait.

"You live, Coatlicue! " he called out.

"I survive. I must survive."

"We will both survive," he cried, following.

Not two hundred yards farther along, the second bolt struck.

Again the hairs lifted along his arms. Again there was the bitter ozone in his nostrils, and again Lujan sought refuge under the skirts of his mighty Mother.

This time he knew enough to plug his precious eardrums with his fingers.

Still the boom threw him off his feet.

This time Coatlicue crackled and sizzled like hamburger frying, her armadillo armor alive with violent electrical activity.

When it abated, she did not move.

Lujan crawled out to take in the fearsome sight. "Coatlicue! Mother! Do you still live?"

The only answer was the driving rain pattering and spitting off Coatlicue's steel skin. It seemed to spit in the face of High Priest Rodrigo Lujan, telling him his dreams of empire had been dashed by a vengeful bolt from the angry heavens.

Then the soldiers came.

COMANDANTE Efrain Zaragoza saw the second bolt explode and heard silent aftermath of its elemental fury.

He counted a full circle of sixty seconds by his watch. Two. Three.

"Our prayers have been answered," he breathed.

In a corner of the APC, a soldier cursed under his breath and Zaragoza knew the man had prayed for the other side. No matter. The saints had preserved Mexico, if not their lives.

It left only the mopping up and the harvesting of glory.

"Faster! Faster! Victory is ours!"

THEY SURROUNDED the inert golem with their vehicles, leaving no route of escape. It would look very bold on the TV, Zaragoza knew. For the helicopters still patrolled the skies broadcasting all to a cowering nation in need of a savior. Himself, he hoped.

Zaragoza was the first out. He approached the monster with only his H ne gun.

A half-naked man cowered at the feet of the demon that was as tall as a house.

"You are who?" Zaragoza demanded.

"I am abandoned," the man sobbed.

"You are indio. "

"I am abandoned by my Mother," he repeated.