[b]Marsaxlokk, Malta[/b]

Pencil lead ground softly against a crisp leaf of white stationery. With a raspy murmur it twitched across the paper supported against the cover of a bound manual sporting [i]Técnicas y métodos de la guerra moderna[/i] printed in plain, bold letterhead, leaving a trail of sloppily-written Castillian cursive as it did. Upon completing another handful of lines, he released the pencil from his grasp, letting it fall to the wrinkles of the sheets atop his cot as his eyes scanned the hopefully-complete letter he had finished drafting.

[i]Dear Mother,

I hope that this letter finds you and Father well. I am sorry I have not written you sooner; things for us have been quite busy lately! I haven't had a moment to collect my thoughts and put them to pen and paper until now. Since I enlisted I have never been so busy - even during basic training I had more free time to rest and keep up with both of you.

I am sorry to hear about Hugo. I can't see why the Health Ministry would ever think that he of all people would be at risk for contracting the disease they worry so much about. For God's sake, he and Felicia were to be married in August, weren't they? As sorry as I am for her and Father, I wouldn't worry too much about it. There has to be some mistake and I'm sure the Ministry is going to realize that as long as Father keeps trying to get through to them. Even if not, the Ministry has to find a cure for this condition sooner than later. They have quarantined so many people for fear of it - they have to be working on some kind of solution. God willing, Hugo will be released well before his wedding. I'm sure of that.

Malta has been busy ever since the 3rd Mechanized arrived here. General Ponferrada has found no shortage of ways to occupy our time and has seen that we are constantly alert. It is difficult to get five hours of sound rest on any given night - less if the Coronela has planned a drill for deployment during the night. The 3rd Mechanized is ready for anything at any given moment, but nobody is quite sure just what we are getting ready for. Officially, our division had been posted to Malta to protect the territories from the Ottomans after what happened in East Africa. But now the Ottoman Empire has ended, and we are redoubling our efforts now when it seems safest. I do not understand and I don't care to. I only hope that Ponferrada gets tired of tormenting us - and soon!

I'm afraid I don't have time for much more at the moment. I hope that things back home continue to go well, and that Father eventually manages to have the Ministry release Hugo from quarantine. I look forward to hearing back from both of you.

With Love,

Luis Morazan[/i]

Content with his finished letter and upon finding no errors, he folded the letter into thirds and gingerly stuffed it into a waiting envelope. As he did, the young soldier was taken by surprise as the canvas flap of the entrance of the tent burst open with the swish of disturbed fabric, forcing him to involuntarily crush the envelope in his clenched palm. The fresh recruit dressed only in uniform khakis and a white tanktop flew across the tent with a face drawn into an anxious frown, shooting only a momentary glance at the man laying upon his bed.

"Luis, what the fuck are you still doing in here?" The tentmate demanded as he feverishly unbuttoned the folded uniform top upon his own cot. His eyes flitted over to his idle tentmate and fell upon the envelope in his hand. "Jesus, are you seriously writing a letter to mommy right now?"

"N-no!" Luis stuttered unconvincingly, stuffing the wrinkled envelope underneath his pillow once his tentmate had reverted his view to the shirt he was unbuttoning. "Why have you returned so soon, Héctor? What's going on?"

"Fucking Ponferrada..."

"Oh God... What's he up to now?"

"Addressing the whole goddamn division." The tentmate spat as he threw the unbuttoned uniform shirt over shit shoulders and slipped the bottom two buttons in. "I should have known there was a reason the taskmaster had eased up on on the yoke this afternoon. I'd finish up jerking off or whatever it is your doing - the coronela's going to rip your balls off when he finds out you weren't there. Now come on, I don't want to be the only one showing up late for this thing."

Without further comment Luis bolted out of bed and followed his companion out into the sprawling field of canvas tents that the Ejercito had assembled on the outskirts of Marsaxlokk to house the thousands of soldiers and servicemen pertaining to the 3rd Mechanized Division. His stomach turned as he looked about the tent city and found it perfectly vacant. On the dirt trail through the camp where hundreds of Ejercito soldados could typically be seen milling about at any given time, Luis saw nary a soul. Above the expanse of tent roofs and the twin cupolas of the Church of Marsaxlokk in the distance were the yellow-red forms of two Spanish flags hanging limply from a pair of flagpoles. In between them, at the assembly ground a half-kilometer away, Luis knew General Ponferrada was preparing to address the whole of the division at that very moment. Héctor took off down the gravel trail to the source of the orders echoing through the apertures of bullhorns. Luis followed closely behind him.

"Hope to Christ the coronelas are all down there already." Héctor called back the Luis as they jogged past identical canvas pentagons. "We're fairly-well boned if someone of rank finds us skipping out on the general's debriefing."

"I'm more worried about Ponferrada myself. He's hardly an understanding man." Luis added in between pants. 

"That's the fucking truth if ever I've heard it spoken. But he'll never notice two grunts missing out of six thousand. As long as we can slip in, I think we'll manage."

Luis nodded in agreement, though in truth his worries had scarcely been assuaged. It was no secret amongst the men beneath him that General Victor Ponferrada was a brutal, unforgiving man. He had made a name for himself during Spain's intervention against Batista's Italian regime as the captain of a column of Spanish tanks by merit of his speed and savagery against the Batistan loyalists. The rumors that circulated of what became of those hapless Italian prisoners who found their way into Ponferrada's possession were generally accepted to be more than rumors. Where more humane leadership would have opted to reprimand or perhaps even court-martial then-Captain Ponferrada for his questionable use of shock against the loyalist forces, Prime Minister Sotelo himself groomed Ponferrada for rapid placement in the Ejercito's general corps. Suffice to say, the general was not a man to irritate - even with trivial matters.

"We're not going to get there in time going this way." Héctor huffed, turning into the narrow space between two tents. Luis hesitated for a moment before following his companion into the alleyways between the tents. "This way, Luis. It's a shortcut."

As the two made their way through the maze of tents, Luis patted down his head in an effort to even out the mussed mop of hair upon his scalp. After a mere four months since entering basic training for the Ejercito where his head was shaven down to the regulation length of 2.5 cm, a dense mat of wavy hair had already returned to the top of his head and once again had a proclivity to frizzle out of control. The patted-down hair matted against globs of sweat secreted partially due to the midday heat, though most was the result of the circumstances at hand. Luis wiped some of the beads from the forehead and his smooth, hairless face. 

Luis Morazan had been subjected to more than a little taunting on the account of his lack of facial hair and his smooth, infantile features. Indeed, the baby-faced young man hardly seemed the kind of young man cut out for a life of soldiering - an unfortunate fact that had elicited all manner of torment from his drill instructors. Luis seemed more at home in a climate-controlled office high above downtown Madrid than amongst these muscle-bound brutes; Luis would much prefer the former were it an option. But economic uncertainty back in Spain triggered by the drying-up of the Murzuq oil fields, coupled with stiff foreign competition for positions on the mammoth Gibraltar Dam had left Luis with no better prospects. But within the Spanish Ejercito, consistently bloated with funding by Sotelo's fascination with a powerful military, Luis found no such shortage of work. He had hoped his military career would be no more adventurous than five years of idle guard duty at a base in Spanish Algeria. The powers that be, however, had other plans.

Héctor came to a stop and held his palm out behind him, halting Luis just before he could bump into him. The sea of tents ended abruptly before Héctor, giving way to several acres of dusty open field upon which a makeshift parade ground had been established. Upon this island of open space within the sea of tents, thousands of soldiers stood in rigid rank and file. Perfect columns and boxes of stoic soldiers in khaki olive uniform stared on across the field to a raised wooden platform flanked on either side by two flagpoles.

"He's not begun, has he?" Luis asked anxiously.

"No." Héctor confirmed upon a sigh of relief. "No, I don't see anyone on the stand. But I do see our company from here. Come on..."

Héctor and Luis slinked in from the tents and quickly melted into the rest of their own company alongside their platoon sergeant, who shot the two a knowing, reassuring glance. If one of the captains or other officers had witnessed the two slipping into formation, they did nothing about it - perhaps because they themselves were afraid to step out of rank before General Ponferrada, even if he was still nowhere to be found.

No sooner than the two had settled in, the crested form of a general's cap could be seen bobbing up ominously from underneath the floor of the wooden platform. General Ponferrada had arrived. With astounding synchrony, the entire army locked their boots together and threw extended palms to their brows in rigid, uniform salute. Every step the general took to the top of the platform could be heard clearly even from where Luis and Héctor stood.

Hawklike eyes scanned over the assembled army as the general assumed his position atop the wooden platform. For several moments, Ponferrada looked back and forth across the soldiers locked in stoic salute, savoring each second before finally putting them at ease with a downward wave of his fingers. With the precision of automatons, the soldiers retracted their arms and stowed them at their sides. The sound of a thousand shirts brushing against themselves, and silence again resumed.

"Men of the Third Mechanized Division. Without doubt, you are aware of the measures of preparedness that this division has undertaken since its arrival here in Malta. I will not deny that I have expected a tremendous expenditure of effort from each and every one of you during our time on this island. I have no illusions - I understand full well that a great many of you see these recent efforts to maintain a constant state of readiness to be a waste of time and effort. If our purpose was to assure the security of the Western Mediterranean from the perils of the imploding Ottoman Empire - as it has been until recently - I would agree that I have demanded a tremendous deal of wasted effort from every last one of you. This, however is not the case."

Only locusts buzzing in the scrubland beyond the tents responded.

"I am not a man to mince words and I eschew dishonesty whenever possible. In this game of geopolitics and strategy, one can only be so honest. And so it was with the noblest meaning that I have withheld the intent behind these recent operations from this division until this moment. Let it be known to all of you the purpose of our presence in Malta these past weeks: Before this week is out, this division will participate in a military intervention into the Empire of Ethiopia to depose the Yohannes Dynasty and oust all traces of socialist sympathy from the African Continent. On the points of your bayonets, we will drive Hou's sympathizers from the West and carve a line in the sand. We shall send a message written in the blood of their co-conspirators to the Communist lords in Peking: the fighting men of the Republic will burn them and their supporters from every hole they find them. The day of reckoning for Marx's followers draws nigh.

"As I said, I am not one to mince words. The battle to destroy the Chinese pawns in Ethiopia will not be simple. We fight against a seasoned adversary on a homeland they have fought to preserve for many centuries. Arabs, Italians, and Turks alike have tried and failed to dominate the Ethiopians. They are a brave, hardy people, but even they will quail against the horrifying might of the Ejercito and the Armada. Against the ferocity of Spain's fighting men, not even Ethiope shall withstand. The world will bear witness to the truth that there will be no safe haven for the Communists."

Not a soul among the entire division even thought to follow the debriefing with applause or cheering. In solemn silence, the 3rd Mechanized stood by rigidly as General Ponferrada descended from the platform.

"Jesus Christ, Luis." Héctor mumbled into his companion's ear. "We are going to war. Can you fucking believe it?"

Luis wanted to vomit.