[b][u]Dire Dawa, Addis Ababa[/u][/b]

The International Sefari was placed on the far wing, in the hills above Dire Dawa where there was no fighting. They spent a week there looking at the smouldering city and listening the echoes of gunfire and exploding munitions. For Bucephelus Scott, war was familiar enough he could make some guesses at what the Spanish were doing. The terrain here was open and awkward. It was a place of rocky hills and vast country, and the Ethiopians knew every inch of it. The Europeans would avoid fighting in the mountains for as long as they could, and would focus on hopping from town to town. And from what little Buck Scott knew had learned about this place and its people, that strategy would hurt Spain. This wasn't a nation of city dwellers. Life breathed out from the rural villages, so even if the Spanish should take the cities, every village would defy them.

Buck Scott was starting to know his men. They came from all over the world. More than half were blacks, out of the ghettos and southern farms of America, the sun-drenched slums of the Caribbean, and the poverty of Latin America. Some had lived in England for some time until the racism of that government led them into this fight, and others immigrated from further away. There were whites too - socialists and liberals, communists and mercenaries. There was a union boy from Appalachia who wore a red bandana around his neck, and a young Chinese from Shanghai who had left China before that country entered the war. There was no standard language among the Internationals. Spanish was the common tongue for many, while others tried to learn Amharic. English also held sway, since it was Buck's language and his position as their Fitewrari gave it some prestige.

Bill Vipperman, a West Virginian who spoke something akin to English, had taken a particular shine to hanging around the Fitewrari in their hill camp. Buck would find a rock to rest on, one he could sit and look out at Dire Dawa, and Bill Vipperman would come up and try to force conversation. When Buck went down to his spot that morning, sure enough it wasn't long before Bill joined him and started droning on about something. Buck answered curtly and didn't pay much attention until slowly choice words peaked his interest.

"This is the way I see segregation, General." Bill said. "People's happier among their own folk. Now don't mistake me, I don't like them KKK boys none, but they are the extreme."

"Mhm" Buck nodded. This topic. How was it appropriate?

"Well, think about this country right here. This is a good country full of good black folk. But if me and my kind moved in down the block from that Emperor? Or we set up somewhere in the hills next to one of these colored villages up here, how you think these folk would react with their shouting 'Fair-En-Jay' all the time? Well, my folk wouldn't belong."

"You think colored folk need to leave America, Bill?" Buck replied calmly.

There was a pause, where Buck could almost hear Bill's mind working out how to crawl up from the hole he was digging himself. "Naw, Naw." he finally started. "Colored folk helped build America, I have no problem there. But I'm sayin' that our folk might have less to disagree with if we keep split up. You know, like how you grow crops. You keep your corn in one patch, and your pun'kins in another patch."

"The ol' Injuns used to grow them all together, all their crops." Buck replied. "Helped the soil out is what I hear."

"Aw, but what the ol' Injuns know anyway?" Bill said. "Look what all they know got them to? Hell, I never met an Injun until I joined the International Sef-aRR-ray here."

There was another pause. Both men looked out at the smoking remnants of Dire Dawa. They couldn't really see the fighting from here. Sometimes they could see the fighter planes from the sun glinting off their fuselages. They would weave together and dance and dive, the chopping reports of heavy guns rending the air. Other times they would dip at the ground and open fire on targets the Interationals could not see. At this moment, however, the sky was quiet.

Another man came up to them. He was one of the Jamaicans, an ink-black man with heavy dreads. "There a message fi yuh Fitewrari di Ras wa wi dung inna di city" he said.

"The city?" The Fitewrari hopped off his rock. "How many of us?" Though it was called a Sefari, the Internationals were only about the size of a single brigade.

"All of wi sah. Wi being call up to di battle."

The men hastily packed camp and gathered to march. Buck Scott felt a hint of pride in that. He had drilled them some, not as much he wanted to though, and it gave him a shot of confidence to see that they knew their basic soldiering. The veterans had something to do with it, he knew that in his gut. There were so many veterans here, of so many wars. Men who had fought in America and Canada, in Russia and in the Philippines, in Armenia, Italy, and in other parts of Africa. Damn. So much [i]war[/i]. How was the world still standing? It was rare for something like that to strike Buck so suddenly, and perhaps it was because how so uncharacteristic that feeling was that it passed as soon as the International Sefari began its descent into the battlefield.

They followed a goat path down. The rocky soil shifted beneath their feet and gave the feeling that one was unbalanced. The hills were covered in brush, rare patches of green grass, and a few sparse and dry acacia trees. Africa. There was a magic to this continent. Every black man and woman in America would say the same thing, but Buck had been cynical about the effect until he arrived. What was it about this place that made him feel warm and happy? This place with its villages, the tribal traditions like gugs fighting, and their strange food. Perhaps it was as simple as its Emperor. Yaqob II had invited him to be a guest. How strange was that? If Buck Scott did as little as drive into the same neighborhood the mayor of Kentucky lived in, any black man could bet he'd be pulled over and cited for some bullshit reason. But not here, not in the motherland. He had met the Emperor. He had been his [i]guest[/i]. He had sensed in Yaqob a young man with an old soul. That man had a way of making a person feel warm and comfortable by his presence, but there was a melancholy hiding thin beneath the surface. And why wouldn't it? There was nobody in the world as burdened as that Emperor as far as Buck could tell.

When they reached the main road they found it trafficked with Ethiopians moving in both directions. Some were on foot, others in trucks or staff cars, or even walking alongside pack camels. There were corpses left on the side of the road where men had died from their wounds, or where enemy strafing runs had shot them dead. A lightly armored truck with a machine-gun mounted in its bed burned on the side of the road, and they had to give it a wide berth to avoid the scalding heat of the flames. Some of the native Africans stared at them, others completely ignored them, but it seemed to always be one of those extremes, and each look was grim.

War. It was exactly how he remembered it from his Vancouver days. The Ethiopian soldiers were bruised and covered in grime, and their uniforms hung torn on their bodies. He could see how tired they were - that kind of tired only a soldier could know, where every inch of their bodies and every facet of their souls were drained. It showed it their faces. No life, not now. They were the walking numb, like one might imagine the victims in a leper colony looking before parts started dropping. Every step they took was a heroic feat of strength and survival. Buck would be there soon. He didn't look forward to it, but it was going to happen. What could he say? It was his fault. He had signed up for this after all.

The city of Dire Dawa started with scattered huts and mudbrick homes. They began to stack on one another. Stone buildings came next, and then torn market stalls and real roads. The battle roared here, sounds from all across the city. They arrived in a city center, where a statue of a European man reigned. Wounded men were laying in stretchers all throughout the central plaza. There were the bloodied, the gauzed, the limbless, the dying, and the dead, all laid out while women and old men did their best to care for them. Without asking for orders, the few medically trained men among the Internationals went to work. Buck didn't stop them. These Africans needed the help.

"Where is Ras?" Buck asked the first knowledgeable looking Ethiopian on the field; a nut-brown man with a thin face and bright, tired eyes. He wore white robes, a belt with a knife, and held a rifle in his hands. The man pointed forward toward the sound of the battle.

They found Hassan near a bombed-out multistory apartment building. Ras Hassan. He had heard the name so much, in the news before he arrived, and in Ethiopia, and among the Ethiopians. Who he met was a thick-set man, almost fat. His black-grey hair receded into a widows peak and he had a fresh crop of thick stubble on his face. Buck noticed the man had vaguely lighter skin than most - a dark tan, with a pointed nose that made him look un-African. A dramatic scar on his face suggested an equally dramatic personality. The stars and crown insignia on his shoulder identified him to Buck. And there was his manner too... he gave off that air of Command.

"Ras." Buck saluted. He almost added 'Sir', but not knowing how to say that in Amharic, he swallowed the word. "Fitawrari Bucephelus Scott reporting."

Hassan looked at his strangely, and the corners of his mouth curled with amusement. "Fitawrari?" the Ras looked him up and down. "You have the Internationals."

"Yes, Ras."

Hassan nodded and turned to give a sealed envelope to an Arabic-looking man standing nearby him. "Move" the Ras growled. The man stiffly bowed and walked away from the scene. Hassan gave his attention back to Buck. "The Ferengi have take my sky, Fitewrari. I cannot trust my supply lines while I'm concentrated in this place. I need to extract this army from Dire Dawa and spread a line into the countryside." Hassan explained. "I want to have all my armies when I do that."

"What do you need us to do?" Buck didn't hesitate to ask. How odd it was to be talking to a person as... infamous as this one. Buck held that thought inside.

Hassan pulled a map from his pocket, unfolded it, and slammed it against the crumbling wall of the apartment building, holding it firm with the palm of his hand. It was a nice map, detailed, but marked with handwritten notes. "This is where we are." he pointed somewhere in the southern edge of the town. "This snaking blank line you see here, that is the river. That is where they will get us. I think you understand what I am saying already."

"Yes." Buck said. "Where is the best place to hold it?"

"That is the problem." Hassan said. "There is no best place. The bend of a river might help you some, but you will be up against their tanks. I am sure of that."

Were they being sacrificed? That was a deflating possibility. They were foreigners in this land, and this was a country that didn't seem to like foreigners. But he was a soldier. He pushed those doubts back. "We'll give you some time." he said dutifully.

Hassan betrayed what almost looked like momentary relief. "I want to pull back and hold them at the heights south of town. My men do not fight well in the city, so we will make a new battle-line in the bush. Ten miles south of here is where the Harari plateau rises. When it time, that is where you will regroup with us."

"We will meet again, then." Buck said. Hassan's face went placid, and he paid Buck a respectful look. They parted. His presence, and the fact Buck had met a man such as him, stayed with him until the fighting was joined. 

The Internationals spread out along the riverbank. It was shallow enough that casualties which lay on the floor of the river were mostly dry above the mud-colored water. Buck's men hid in the bushes, and against the walls of Dire Dawa. They took places on both sides of the river and spread out to make themselves difficult to target. Men fondled the grenades on their belts, and those with high-caliber rifles or rocket launchers loaded them.

Buck took a place near the back of their gauntlet so he could oversee it. From there, he could see Ethiopian solders step from their retreating clusters and hand unseen objects to grateful Internationals. That peaked his interest, but he was too far from the road to tell what it was that was being exchanged. 

"Do you hear them?" an officer nearby said. That was Major Adcox; a British-born colored man of Caribbean heritage. 

Buck had heard before. The enemy armor. Gunfire slowed down so that the approaching roar of tanks was that much more obvious. It triggered memories of the fighting in the fields around Aldergrove during the Vancouver war. The hum of several dozen diesel engines was like walking between two trees colonized by bees, and it made a man just anxious. 

They appeared. Centauros, the workhorse of the Spanish and their allies; and the bulkier Musteños, which they kept for themselves. There was a strange moment of quiet, as if this were all a parade, but when the targets made themselves broad against the walls, International rockets began to hiss and armor-piercing rifles opened fire. 

How about that, Buck thought. Spain had challenged Ethiopia, and now for the first time the [i]whole world[/i] answered them. 

Turrets turned slow and mechanically. They spat fire, and the Internationals along the front wavered, the line of them looking together the same way a sheet looks after a short gust of breeze. Gunfire opened up from the cracks of the buildings behind the tanks, and Spanish infantry melted out, finding cover before the Internationals regained their composure. 

"Come on." Buck said to the men about him. They checked their safeties and advanced to the fight. Everyone spread out to avoid becoming targets. 

Two tanks had been brought down by the initial International volley. One smouldered and burned, and the other had just sort of stopped. The second became another form of cover for the enemy. Buck picked a number of men and led them personally to try and find a new angle they could fire from. One of them placed in his hand what looked like a tin can with a handle made from chicken-wire.

"This?" Buck motioned with the thing. "Are we in a cartoon?"

The man shrugged. "Africans gave us some."

There was fighting between the buildings. The streets and alleys here were not laid out like at home - there was no order. It made it easier to hide, and easier to ambush. The Spaniards didn't give. Gunfire peppered everything, and chewed through fences of woven sticks until piles of shavings and toothpicks remained.

But he couldn't fucking see them except for flashes. A helmet here, or arm there. Choke-points choked with bullets. Instinct. Buck raised, pulled the trigger, swung forward, repeated. The Spanish on this side of the river were separated from their comrades, and the effect of the International advance was to drive them back.

It stopped at the opening at the edge of the shallow water. Tanks were crawling up the winding riverbed, and water frothed against their treads. Buck realized there was a chance of being cut off here. No time to waste. They tossed grenades - the ones they had brought, and the jury-rigged cans the Africans had handed them. Fire bloomed on armored plating, and reflected on brown water. One tank slowed as the rubber of its treads melted beneath a blaze. The machine ahead of it turned its turret. It fired, and a man Buck did not know exploded from the torso, everyone around him falling singed and covered in blood. They couldn't stand here. Buck gave the signal, and they moved back into the housing. 

That was the nature of the fighting, and it continued that way. The enemy armor pushed forward, undaunted by casualties, and Buck realized the line couldn't hold indefinitely. How much time had they given Hassan? Buck couldn't tell if it was twenty minutes or two hours. He didn't know if his men had anything more to give, but they [i]had[/i] to give more. When the fight was pushed into the central square, Buck was relieved to see it mostly evacuated. A silent, broken city was left behind them. The wounded in the square had been taken, but the dead had not, and the corpses of hundreds of Africans covered in bloody blankets dotted the ground. The Internationals skipped across, minding the dead, and hurried to a hill overlooking the square. There they could purchase some more time.

It was a wooded hill, covered in spindly trees and thick brush. A palatial home stood at its crest overlooking the town square. They kicked down the door and went inside. Louis XIV furniture and a Gothic taste in art made every room feel like something from a Victorian mansion. They busted the windows and scattered what was in their way until the acrid smells of war and horror filled the stately rooms.

From this place they could pin the Spanish infantry down, and that is what they did. The tanks continued their procession forward despite the crossing gunfire. There was a brief second, just as the tanks entered into the square, where the lead driver seemed to realize the path was strewn with neat rows of blanketed dead. You could see his realization play out in the quick stutter of his engine, and a hiccup in the advance. But there was no alternate way forward. The rows of tanks plodded over the corpses, leaving a trail of gore behind them. 

This was one of those moments in his life that reached right up, slapped Buck on the face, and said to him [i]'This is war, damn you. This is war.'[/i]

A rocket hissed from its launcher held by a man next to a chiffonier. It missed its target. A desperation set in on the hill. Buck felt glass crunch beneath his feet when he thrust himself out the window and shot toward their enemy. No effect. Spanish tanks poured into the central courtyard. They erupted, pouring shells back, and the hill beneath them shook. Walls ripped, plaster became dust, and men fell back into the house. They heard glass shatter on the second floor. Buck was hurled back onto the ground, and the air was punched from out of him. He took a few wheezing, coughing breaths. His lungs felt full of cinders. When he had gained his composure, he stood. "We need to go back." he exclaimed. "Toward the hills. Fight! Fight!"

Dire Dawa became a running retreat. The power of the Spanish advance had broken through, and trying to stop it now would risk capture or complete collapse. They rushed out among where the acacias had stood, but where now only stakes carved from gunfire remained. They would find a wall and wait for the enemy to approach, then they would open fire and scatter away. This went on, over mud walls and behind trees. They continued until they reached the hills, where they met White-robed soldiers prepared to defend their retreat. 

They were clear of the fighting now. Buck looked at the sky, expecting enemy aircraft to strafe them, but none came. He saw the faces of his men - hollow and expressionless. How many had seen war before? For how many was this their first sight of it? When had he first seen battle? It was all muddled for them too.

"Goddamned." he heard the low-tone twang of Bill Vipperman's voice come from behind him. The West Virginian spat wad of blood into the grass.

"You wounded some?" Buck asked.

"No sir." Bill replied. "I bit my damn lip back yonderways."

Both men laughed darkly.