Carnifex by Tom Kratman

Khalid simply melted through it and was away.

    I love my job , he thought. Where else could I get both revenge and excitement in these quantities and to these qualities.

29/9/466 AC, War Department, Hamilton, FD, Federated States of Columbia

    Fuck, this sort of "excitement" I can live without, mused Virgil Rivers, waiting impatiently, and even nervously, at the office of the secretary of war for the Federated States. River, a tall, slender, café-au-lait colored general officer could not be said to be handsome. He had, however, a friendly manner and infectious grin that most women found very attractive. He'd married well as a result of it.

    Ron Campos was gone as SecWar, gone with the outgoing Federalist administration. Truth be told, nobody much missed him. That is, nobody missed him yet. Virgil Rivers suspected a lot of people were going to miss him, to miss him badly and soon. The new SecWar, James K. Malcolm, Progressive, was Campos' match in arrogance, in Rivers' opinion, but lacked both the former SecWar's patriotism and his determination. Indeed, it was widely believed that, given a choice between advancing the interests of the Federated States, or looking out for the interests of his childhood summer home, the Gallic Republic, Malcolm would always choose Gaul. Nonetheless, Malcolm was one of a very few Progressives with any military background at all. Thus, he had been a seeming natural for secretary of war in the new administration.

    He's a natural buffoon, Rivers thought, a natural gigolo, a natural panderer and an un natural citizen. On the other hand, his goddamned tan is just a little too orange to be natural. Well, what can one expect from a natural fake.

    Rivers' collar sported the two stars of a major general now. He'd always known he'd rise at least this high, even as a little boy. Thank you, Daddy, for training me as well as you did. The only question was would he rise any higher. He considered it no better than even money that he would. Rather, he had considered it no better than even money. With Malcolm as SecWar, he would now have given long odds against.

    Still, I've had a good run, a damned good run for someone who's great-grandpappy retired as a master sergeant in the horse cavalry.

    Rivers ported a laptop under his left arm. It contained the SecWar's daily briefing on the ongoing war. Briefing the secretary was so unpleasant, however, that it had quickly become a rotating duty. Today was River's day and he was not looking forward to it. He'd already been kept standing in front of the secretary's desk, rudely ignored, for almost ten minutes while Malcolm pretended to be busy with a file. It was another five minutes before the secretary closed the file and looked up. He didn't bother to rise or offer to shake hands.

    Just as well; I'm pissed enough right now that if he did I'd probably do or say something that would move my chances of another star from dismal to none.

    "Have a seat, Rivers," Malcolm ordered.

    Rivers sat next to the desk, opened the laptop and faced it toward the secretary. The outside of the computer's top had a smaller screen that showed the same images as the main one. Rivers controlled the images with a small device he retrieved from his shirt pocket. He pressed a button on the device. A color map of the Republic of Sumer, highly annotated, appeared on both screens.

    Malcolm looked the map over briefly. There wasn't much to see; the war in Sumer had been steadily winding down for two years. While the first three and a half years had cost the Federated States an average of just under one hundred men a month, killed, this had dropped down into the low double and occasionally single digits.

    Rivers had been told not to offer commentary; that the secretary, being a lawyer, liked to direct the briefings like cross examinations in court.

    "I see the Balboan sector has almost no incidents, General. To what do you attribute that?"

    "They started off well and were able to enlist