The Peruvian armies found themselves caught in well-laid traps, with sizable forces moving in across their lines of supply and communication.

It quickly became known throughout Peru that the Rwandan troops were better trained and better equipped than the Peruvian Army—and they were led by Julian Delphiki. Bean. The Giant.

Morale collapsed. Rwandan troops accepted the surrender of the entire Peruvian Army. The Peruvian Congress immediately voted almost unanimously to petition the FPE for membership. Radaghaste Bellini, as interim president of the South American region of the FPE, declined their offer, stating the principle that no territory would be added to the FPE by conquest or intimidation. “We invite the nation of Peru to hold a plebiscite, and if the people of Peru choose to join the Free People of Earth, we will welcome them to join with their brothers and sisters of Runa, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile.”

It was over in two weeks, plebiscite and all: Peru was part of the FPE, and Bean and the bulk of the FPE’s Rwandan troops were transported back across the Atlantic to Africa.

As a direct result of this decisive action, Belize, Cayenne, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic announced that they would hold plebiscites on the Constitution.

The rest of the world waited to see what would happen in Sudan.

Sudanese troops were already spread throughout Nubia; they were already engaged in military actions against the Nubian “rebels” who were resisting the renewed attempt to impose Shari’ah on the Christian and pagan region. So while there were plenty of acts of defiance against Peter’s proclamation of Nubia’s new status, there was no actual change.

Suriyawong, leading the elite core of the FPE military that he and Bean had created years before and used so effectively since, conducted a series of raids designed to demoralize the Sudanese military and cut them off from their supplies. Ammunition dumps and arsenals were destroyed. Convoys were burned. But since Suri’s choppers returned to Rwanda after every raid, there was no one for the Sudanese military to strike back against.

Then Bean returned with the bulk of the Rwandan soldiers. Burundi and Uganda both granted permission for him to transport his army across their territory.

As expected, the Sudanese army tried to strike at Bean’s army inside the borders of Uganda, before they reached Nubia. Only then did they discover that this army was an illusion—there was nothing to strike but a bunch of old and empty trucks whose drivers fled at the first sign of trouble.

But it was a strike on Ugandan territory. Uganda not only declared war on Sudan, it also announced a plebiscite on the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Bean’s army had already traversed the eastern reaches of Congo and were inside Nubia. And Suriyawong’s strike force took over the two airbases to which the planes that had taken part in the attack on the decoy convoy had to return. The pilots landed without suspecting any problem, and were taken prisoner.