[b]Atlas Mountains, Spanish Morocco[/b]

Julio Zuraban pinned the wriggling goat down against the sand, pressing its hind hooves down with his knees, binding the front two hooves in his left hand, and holding the head down flat against the ground by the stubby little horns. The goat groaned in protest, struggling in vain against Julio's weight. The senator-in-exile glanced down upon the animal beneath him, and his eyes met with the upward-facing eye of the goat. The rectangular pupil darted wildly about before locking with those of Julio's, and he could feel the animal relaxing beneath him.

"Sssssh. It's alright," Julio lied. A few strides away, one of the Tuareg playing host to the marooned Spaniards filed the blade of a crude dagger down against a whetstone. The abrasive sound of steel slipping past stone served as a grim reminder of what was to soon transpire.

The leathery-skinned Bedouin gingerly tested the blade against his fingertips and, upon finding it sufficiently sharp, stooped down over the goat's head with the knife in hand. Julio maintained eye contact with the beast beneath him until the moment of slaughter had arrived. With a wincing grimace, Julio averted his gaze to the canyon walls behind him and allowed the Tuareg butcher to do his work. A soft half-bleat escaped the animal's throat before the knife severed it. The goat gave a series of rapid twitches for a few seconds longer and quickly fell completely limp. With his assistance no longer necessary, Julio returned to his feet and stepped away to give the Bedouin sufficient space to butcher the goat.

"Have you never seen a life taken before?" Dejene, the foreign-born African who spoke Spanish, approached Julio and watched as the Tuareg unceremoniously went about skinning the goat, the sand under his knees soaked in bright red blood.

"I have," Julio affirmed, recalling a firefight he had witnessed in southwestern Armenia where had witnessed a sniper strike two Ottoman conscripts dead. "I've seen men shot. But I didn't have anything to do with them in those cases - they would have died had I been there or not. But there was something about the goat..."

"Remorse." Dejene concluded. "You assisted in the slaughter."

"That's it. I feel guilty... I suppose I [i]am[/i] guilty."

"You should feel no guilt," Dejene coldly offered. It was the goat or you."

"How do you suppose that to be?"

"See it in this way: if the goat did not die, it would be you and your countrymen here that must die. The clan can scarcely feed themselves on their own. Your arrival, along with the others that came down in that airplane, has complicated the matter. There is simply not enough food to go around. If these goats are not culled, then you and your countrymen must starve. It is as simple as that: it was the goat or you."

"I see," Julio nodded, understanding but still plainly dejected.

"It was merely a goat, but it's no different than killing a man. I have killed many men during my life, I do not feel remorse for a single one. Because each one of those men - without a single exception - meant immediate harm to myself or people dear to me. I do not regret a single bullet. So long as you only take a life in defense of yourself and yours, that you lead your life in such a way that more good than bad comes of your time on this world... you should never feel the slightest twinge of remorse for a life taken."

"Thank you for your thoughtful words. I hope I should never need to consider your advice, but I appreciate it nonetheless."

"I'm afraid this won't be the last time you are confronted with the need to take a life."

"What do you mean by that?" Julio asked, confusion and anxiety creeping across his face.

"What do you think I mean?" An expectant Dejene asked. "Did you expect these men to go to such great pains to feed and maintain you and your countrymen without repayment? We scarcely need a hundred Spaniards to carry water and help butcher goats. But we are in dire need of men who can carry a rifle, who know the organization and language of our enemy- men who will join us and ride out against the occupiers of this land."

"Most of us have never held a gun in our lives." Julio complained. "We don't know anything about that facility. We know absolutely nothing about the organization of the Spanish military. So we will be of no help in fighting the military. If you send us against them, it will be a slaughter. Where exactly does sending untrained civilians against the regular Spanish army fall in that philosophy of yours?"

"This is not the way we wanted this to happen, Zuraban." Dejene snarled. "The Spanish gunships are combing the region with diligence. Shooting that plane down disturbed them far more than we could have ever anticipated. It is only a matter of time now before the Spanish find this place and destroy us before we can strike. We must carry out our attack against the Mountain - [i]La Cabeza[/i] - at once. I had wanted to give your people some training in handling weapons but there is simply no time left. I will save the people they've taken to that place, and if I must trade their freedom for the lives of a handful of Spaniards then it's a fair trade by my reckoning."

Julio's face drained of its color, and the shady canyon gully began to spin dizzily about him. Julio had seen battle firsthand more than once, but he had never fought himself. Save for a few tips he had gathered in passing whilst covering the last war in Armenia, Julio had no knowledge of conducting warfare. Joaquin - the policeman from Madrid - at least he had some experience handling a sidearm, but as far as Julio knew, none of his fellow prisoners had any experience in combat. These were hardly ideal circumstances for assaulting a heavily fortified outpost guarded by the Spanish military.

"Tonight, Graciela, myself, and the Amghar will discuss our aims. Give yourself plenty of rest today; in the coming days you and your countrymen must be prepared to fight if need be."


[b]Straits of Mandeb[/b]

They flew high and slow, rumbling angrily through the nebula of clouds generated by the monsoon squall. A wing of Gargola bombers eight strong merged together into a long, wavering line on the southern end of the anvilhead clouds growing above the southern Red Sea. And they were not alone; a dozen propeller-bound Halcon fighters bobbed and skirted alongside the monstrous bombers The higher-pitched drone of the high performance engines that powered their nose propellers sang in alto above the baritone hum of the Gargola engine pods.

They had come from airfields in the east of Egypt - Ismailia, Suez, and a stretch of usable tarmac at the demolished airport at Port Said. From the commandeered airfields, the Spanish squadrons leapfrogged from the aircraft carrier and the flagship of their armada: [i]La Ira de Dios[/i]; the bombers had sufficient fuel to cross the length of the Red Sea for the first bombing campaigns against the Ethiopian homeland. But those first strikes were now on hold as a new target for the Fuerza Aerea had been discovered. A reconnaissance flight carried out by a blisteringly-fast Fantasma had sighted the anemic remnants of the Ethiopian Navy. And from the plexiglass enclosed noses of the Gargolas, the pilots could see them now as well.

Where the Red Sea funneled into a narrow channel - the Bab El Mandeb - a string of miniscule gray dots formed a diffuse line from the Ethiopian coast to a miniscule island just off the Yemeni side of the straits. The last Ethiopian fleet, the survivors of two invasions from across the Red Sea, formed a defensive line between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The Ethiopian line would deny the Spanish Armada the ability to land its army at Jibouti, or it would perish in the attempt.

The Spanish squadrons would see that they perished.

(([url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-CpuuseZ7s]Suggested listening[/url]))

Five of the Halcones banked out of the attack squadron and plummeted down toward the Earth, and another three split off and followed in behind them, diving down at dizzying speed to the Ethiopian fleet. The vast distance between the Red Sea and the planes was closed rapidly, at which point the fighters leveled out only a few hundred feet above the whitecaps of the choppy waters below. At this altitude, the Ethiopian warships loomed on the horizon and the beginnings of exhaust trails billowed out from their smokestacks as their engines throttled up to maneuver against the airborne attackers.

The Halcones punched the throttle in turn, roaring above the waves and closing in on their prey in two loose waves. Tracers shot from the decks of the Ethiopian vessels in sweeping arcs at the approaching fighters as the sailors opened up with their anti-air guns. The Halcones drew lower still - only a few dozen feet above the churning sea, an altitude so low that deck-mounted guns would have difficulty aiming at the incoming planes. The fighters split apart from their formation, steering toward the largest and sturdiest vessels of the Ethiopian flotilla. Within two kilometers, the air around the Halcones periodically burst into hot shrapnel and smoke as the African flak guns opened up. Even so, the Spanish planes were not deterred. When the Ethiopian vessels before them grew into mountains of steel, the Halcones released their weapons upon the Ethiopian fleet: torpedoes.

Heavy tubes of black metal tumbled off the wings of the fighters and plunged into the water, generating geysers of frothy seawater that splashed against the wings of the fighters as the swooped up to climb away. Bubbly contrails of ghostly white snaked ominously under the waves toward the Ethiopian vessels. No sooner than the torpedoes were away, the deck guns fired upon the underwater serpents loosed upon them by the Spanish. With the Ethiopians' attention diverted, the fighters shot skyward over the decks and smokestacks of the fleet - at this proximity they were mostly safe from flak shrapnel. Mostly.

The sailors aboard the [i]Kebra Negast[/i] scored a lucky shot indeed with the flak cannon. Their gun launched an explosive shell into the very heart of a passing Halcon fighter as it climbed away from its torpedo run. The shell remained lodged within the fighter's fuselage for a few brief seconds before exploding. The Halcon emerged from the ensuing fireball as a rain of smoldering hunks that plummeted down into the waves. The pilot was soon avenged for the fiery death that had befallen him. The torpedoes he had launched against the cruiser had found their mark beneath the hull of the vessel and exploded deep underneath her bow and, moments later, her midsection. The sea around her hull instantly boiled and plumes of ejected steam and water shot skyward about the hull. The surviving pilots watched with satisfaction as the [i]Kebra Negast's[/i] back broke under the strain and the ship's very hull bowed inward and immediately inundated.

The first wave of torpedoes had burst beneath several of the larger Ethiopian vessels, exacting considerable damage against them all and mortally wounding two. The three planes in the second wave concentrated their torpedoes on the unscathed destroyer [i]Ras Makonnen[/i] and the [i]Gambela[/i]. Four torpedoes rocked the [i]Ras Makonnen[/i], completely splitting the vessel evenly down the middle, but not before her anti-air guns shot down one of the planes responsible for her demise. The shot plane lost control on its escape ascent and cartwheeled down into the waves. With their torpedoes spent, the remaining fighters circled about amongst a barrage of anti-air shells and flak bursts, and then turned about to face the fleet with their wing-mounted machine guns. The Halcones bobbed and weaved through the stream of metal and shrapnel racing toward them before raking the larger vessels with long pulses of gunfire. The smaller torpedo boats - too small and nimble to waste torpedoes on - were easy targets for swooping gun strafes. Streams of tracers riddled the Ethiopian patrol boats, sometimes setting them ablaze or even striking the high-explosive torpedoes and causing them to explode. Amongst the rising plumes of diesel-fueled smoke, the anti-air shells, and the masts of moribund Ethiopian warships, the Halcones darted, strafed, and swooped with the maneuverability of swallows.

Even so, the Ethiopians presented a vicious fight. Even as their vessels listed and sank into the churning waves, the Ethiopian guns continued firing. A passing Halcon took a shell to the belly, permitting a stream of fuel to pour out vigorously into the air. The Ethiopians fought to keep their feet planted against the decks as the whitecaps crested above the hull, but they paid no mind; revenge was all they considered as they kept the guns trained on the swooping airplanes. A Halcon took a flak shell to the nose, showering the plane in shrapnel. The sputtering plane flew through the puff of black smoke with a shattered windshield and then careened into the sea with a mighty splash.

And then a new sound joined the cacaphony of battle: an angry piercing whistle. It grew in pitch and intensity until it reached its climax in a concussive blast that thundered across the sea, and then another, and then another five. The [i]Gambela[/i] was now totally ablaze, her forecastle a smoldering wreck. The bombers had joined the battle at last.

Bombs whistled angrily from the sky, dozens of them and continuing to fall by the second. Some splashed down into the water, bursting just under the surface to generate colossal columns of frothy water. Others found their mark on the decks of the Ethiopian warships, burst with tremendous force. A separate string of bombs rained down upon the [i]Adwa[/i] and the surrounding waters. Sailors lept from the doomed ship to escape the fires and suffocating smoke.

Torpedo boats and patrol cutters swerved this way and that, breaking formation to avoid being crushed by a capsizing cruiser or destroyer. Those smaller ships with enough integrity to sail broke for the African shores at full speed. They would fall back to Jibouti with the aim to repel a landing there in whatever capacity they could, with air support perhaps. But even if the Spanish planes could be repelled, the Ethiopian fleet was effectively destroyed. A ragtag smattering of cutters and torpedo boats would offer no resistance to the full might of the Armada that would be upon these waters in a matter of hours. There was no reason to stand and fight, and so the remaining ships scattered for the coast.

Satisfied with the destruction they had wrought and their fuel allowance all but exhausted, the Spanish fighters backed off and turned back to refuel on the deck of [i]La Ira de Dios[/i] some two hundred miles to the North. And even though there were a few planes with plenty of fuel to hunt down the routing Ethiopian boats, they were allowed to escape nonetheless. They would present no danger to Admiral Santin's fleet, but instead return to their superiors. Those survivors would bring news to the Ethiopian people that the hurdles to the Spanish advance had been brushed aside.

They would bear that worst of news: that the stopgap defenses were all exhausted; the battles that would decide the fate of the Pan-African Empire, perhaps the fate of the world as a whole, would be fought in ancient Ethiopia.

Whatever the outcome of that struggle, the Blood of Solomon would be spilled across the last bastion of free Africans.