Valentine's Exile by E.E. Knight

moving off balance, like a marionette with tangled strings.
    â€œ we agree, ” it said, just before it toppled over again.
    â€œI’d have given two more fingers to have seen that,” Meadows said that night, rattling the ice in his glass. An orderly refilled it from an amber-colored bottle and disappeared back into the throng of officers and civilians at the celebration. The old Sheraton next to the interstate had seen better days—to Valentine it smelled of sweat, sour cooking oil, and roaches—but perhaps never such a universally happy crowd.
    Valentine didn’t feel like celebrating. William Post, possibly his best friend in the world apart from Ahn-Kha, had been maimed as he led the assault on the helicopters. The surgeons were fighting to save his life along with those of the other wounded.
    Luckily that was the only fighting going on. The army of the North Texas Cooperative had marched out of its positions, and then the city, as the sun set.
    â€œYou bit off too much, Major Valentine,” Brigadier General Quintero growled. Quintero had refused alcohol as well. He reminded Valentine a little of the negotiating Reaper; one side of his body sagged a little thanks to an old shell fragment that had severed muscle in his shoulder. “I can just tolerate those Dallas scoundrels relocating, but I don’t like the idea of Texas truckers carrying that fish tank to Arizona.”
    Valentine liked Quintero, and if the general was speaking to him in this manner he could imagine what had been said to him since the afternoon, when Dallas broke out in white flags and the frontline troops cautiously advanced into the city.
    â€œCould I make a suggestion, General?”
    â€œEiderdown quilts for the Quislings?” Meadows put in, trying to soften the scowl on Quintero’s face.
    Valentine ignored the jibe. “Route the Kurian ‘fish tank’ to Arizona via Dallas, with the drivers in a secure cabin-cage attached to a breakaway trailer. I’ll ride shotgun if you need a volunteer. We won’t be shy about telling passersby what’s in back. Maybe a riot starts and you declare hostilities resumed and renegotiate the surrender more advantageously. Maybe the Kurians get pulped, and those Dallas troops get convinced that the only way they’ll ever be safe again is to throw in with us.”
    Quintero turned it over in his mind, sucking on his cheeks as he thought it through. “You are a mean son of a bitch, Major. Excuse the expression.”
    â€œI’m glad you’re on our side,” Meadows added.

CHAPTER TWO
    Texarkana, April: The border town has turned into a staging area. Operations in the Texas-Ozark United Free Region move forward as the political leadership convenes in search of a way to govern the aggregation, already being called the TWO-FUR by the willfully dyslexic soldiery.
    A new name for the region is in the works.
    The city has become one of those chaotic staging areas familiar to those of long service. Units coming off frontline service bump elbows with freshly organized troops. Equipment and personnel swap by means official and unofficial, and creative middlemen set up shop to service needs ranging from new boots to old wine, aging guns to young women.
    An old indoor tennis court serves as the local headquarters for the separate commands of the Texas and Ozark forces. There are warehouses and self-storage units nearby to hold gear scraped up by the Logistics Commandos or brought out of the Dallas-Fort Worth corridor. Most importantly of all, a hospital has been upgraded from a bare-bones Kurian health center to a four-hundred-bed unit that can provide care equal to any existing facility outside those patronized by the elite of the Kurian Zone.
    Churches and temporary schools operate at the edge of “Texarkana Dumps,” the current name for the collection of military facilities. Outside the perimeter of the Southern Command’s patrols,