by Tom Kratman
“Help the woman to do whatever she needs to do to get us sent that gold. Nothing is more important at this point than that we get the gold so we can send back their army. I am directing four other operatives to your location. They will identify themselves by the phrase, ‘Saints Peter and Paul.’ Expect them within seventy-two hours. They may not all make it there. F”
He emerged from the office loading a magazine, round by round, for the same rifle he’d carried last night. “So where would we find the minister for the treasury?” he asked. “Assuming he’s still alive, I mean.”
CHAPTER THREE
There are five normal methods of launching a Condor, including rolling them out the loading ramp of an airship. The other four are to a) carry or toss them over the edge of a cliff, b) via the balloon launch system, c) self-launching with the on-board propeller or jet, model depending, and d) via a ground winch. There are advantages and disadvantages to each method.
—Legionary Field Manual 16-243 (Top Secret),
Glider Operations
SdL #1, SSK Megalodon
There was a strip in the Bay of Balboa, between the fortress that was the Isla Real and the two not quite so large islands to the east of it, that had never been mined. Into and through that strip, in widely spaced columns, under the watchful gaze of the constellation known as “the Leaping Maiden,” passed seven MegClass coastal defense submarines, refueled, rearmed, well-rested, and ready for action.
First in order came the Meg, itself, under its skipper, Conrad Chu. The submarine was mostly submerged, leaving only the bump that passed for a sail above the water. In a square depression stood Chu, image-intensifying binoculars pressed to his eyes, scanning the shore to the west, the shore where the Zhong Soldiers and Marines of Task Force Wu suffered under a galling bombardment from what had to be hundreds of rocket launchers, guns, and mortars, some of them quite heavy, indeed. Though there were still more guns on the once poisoned landscape of the Isla Santa Josefina, on the opposite side of the passage, these remained silent, lest the flash of their firing silhouette the passing submarines.
Chu cursed as the binoculars’ ghostly green images flared with the shell bursts, went dark, came back to life, and flared again, only to come back to life. Not knowing how much of that the device could take, Chu lowered them, being careful first to turn them off lest the greenish slow give away the sub’s position.
Though no star shells hung in the air, the blasts were frequent enough to give a pretty fair view of the action ashore, as fair, at least, as the two-mile distance could allow.
Chu felt a momentary surge of pride in the men ashore, with both sides of whom he shared genes. Though Balboan by birth, by the overwhelming percent of his genetic heritage, and by loyalty, he probably felt a greater pride in the remnants of the Zhong invasion, stubbornly holding on by their fingernails and with no weapon so powerful as their sheer guts and determination.
Have I a distant and long-lost cousin there, he wondered, another Chu fighting for his own country? Good luck to him, or good luck to them, if so.
The Meg and the other six coastal defense submarines trailing it had their clickers turned off. These—sound makers that replicated the clicks of imperfectly cut turning gears—had been a method for convincing Balboa’s enemies that the submarines were easy to detect, hence no threat.
And that’s probably a trick we’re never going to get away with again, the skipper thought. From now on it’s mostly silence, stealth, and seamanship; techno sneakiness and relying on an enemy’s over confidence are played right out. Well, not against the Taurans, anyway. We might fool the Zhong or Federated States.
This far out from the mainland, and not being in the shadow of the directional antennas that kept the global locating system from working on the island, Chu’s sub knew its location down to the meter.
At a certain point, and with the bombardment now several miles behind him, Chu ducked and slid the cover to the sail’s conn over to cover the depression, then ducked down and dogged the overhead hatch behind him. The cover wasn’t watertight; it merely served to limit the amount of noisy turbulence that could give away the submarine’s position.
“Chill the rubbers,” he ordered. “Dive the boat. Make your depth twenty meters.”
Chu and Meg had kept the same crew for years, all good men, and smart, all graduates of the legions’ Cazador School, hence reliable beyond the norm for sheer toughness and determination. Indeed, they’d been together so long on the same boat that all of them were cross-trained to do at least one other crewman’s job.
Huerta, Chu’s exec, answered with, “Aye, Captain, twenty—two zero—meters.”
From the diving station Auletti, normally the sonarman and himself standing in for another submariner, announced, “Make my depth twenty meters, aye, sir.” Aleman added, “Chilling the rubbers, aye, sir.” A third said, “Helm, fifteen-degree down angle on planes. Making my depth twenty meters.”
Huerta, facing forward, said, “Forward group admitting ballast, Captain . . . aft group admitting ballast.”
The crew automatically leveled the boat after reaching depth. Chu then ordered that they check for leaks.
“Engineering, no leaks, Skipper . . . Power room, no leaks, C aptain . . . Forward sonar chamber dry . . .”
“Head for Point Alpha,” Chu ordered. This was a gap in the undersea ridge that ran from one corner of the Bay of Balboa all the way to the other. Once they crossed it, they would move to Point Bravo, not far in distance but much deeper, and then parallel the coast to the Zhong logistics base and port at the Isla Santa Catalina. There, four of the subs would wait until the emergence of the classis from internment and arrival on the scene set the Zhong to movement. The other three would advance to link up with the classis as near to the port of internment as possible.
Then we shall reap large, thought Chu. Then we shall reap large, indeed.
BdL Dos Lindas, Puerto Bruselas, Santa Josefina
“Where the hell did they get that huge band?” Roderigo Fosa asked, of nobody in particular.
His senior noncom, Sergeant Major (for the classis used mostly military, rather than naval ranks) Ramirez, answered, “I asked, sir; it’s the Aserri Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, out showing their unquestioned and complete support for both the new regime and its chief ally.” Ramirez spoke with a tone of contempt that was pretty much second nature to him.
“Then where did they get the sheet music for our songs?”
“That, I cannot say. All things, considered, though, sir, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the Duque had the music printed here several years ago, against the day.”
“I’ll ask him, next time I see him,” Fosa agreed. It wasn’t, in fact, all that far-fetched a possibility. And if not Carrera? Well, Professor Ruiz, chief of propaganda, might have done so on his own initiative.
The orchestra, itself, along with the chorus, were giving a fine and moving rendition of the old Volgan war song, translated into Spanish as La Guerra Sagrada, the Sacred War:
“. . . let your noble wrath
Boil over like a wave.
This is the people’s war
This is a sacred war.”
“Nice touch, really,” Fosa said. “Nice, too, that several months of otherwise carefree maintenance have our ships so ready. By the way, is the tightbeam calibrated?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ramirez, “both the main one and the ones for the Crickets and drones.”
“Good, I was beginning to worry.”
As he spoke, two columns of ships, with two frigates and four corvettes in each column, began to steam out of the port. Both of the capital ships, the Dos Lindas and the heavy cruiser Tadeo Kurita, had already been pushed into formation by the tugs of the port. A fifth frigate, an antiaircraft ship rather than an antisubmarine ship, like the other four, was on station between them.
Not that the two capital ships didn’t have impressive—possibly illegal, but definitely impressive—anti
aircraft capability of their own, with, between them, five powerful antiaircraft lasers, two of them mounted high. Still, the frigate’s long-range missiles, for days when the weather prevented getting much use from the lasers, were very comforting.
The crew for those lasers scanned the sky continuously for any approaching enemy aircraft, as did the radar, and several dozen men with very powerful binoculars, standing watch on all the ships.
Meanwhile, the carrier’s handful of helicopters supplemented the ASW squadrons, dipping and listening, or taking more active measures, for sign of enemy submarines. Continuous sorties of reconnaissance and strike aircraft—modified crop dusters, basically—leapt from the deck to track, attack, and slow down Marciano’s retreat to the corner of Santa Josefina defined by the border with neighboring Cordoba, Lago de Cordoba, and theMar Furioso. Most of the crop dusters—Turbo-finches—carried as much as two metric tons of ordnance, generally a mix of machine guns, rockets, and bombs, however there were eleven product improved versions—called “Gabriels”—that carried twice that, at rather greater speed.
Which, thought Fosa, may become kind of important given that most of the Tauran helicopters were faster than the older modified crop dusters. Wish we’d been able to get more of the Gabriels, but at what they cost . . . no, not until we can build our own.
The two mixed antisubmarine warfare squadrons that had already sailed out to ping furiously for the presence of enemy submarines reported in that there was nothing out there, which pretty much agreed with Fosa’s existing suspicions.
The question of what happens when a neutral power joins a war, with a belligerent fleet interned by the neutral power, has never come up before. Therefore it was never something the enemy governments even considered. Hence, nobody thought to put a couple of subs out there.
Under his command, the core of the fleet began to make way out of the port, before turning generally east, in the direction of the Cordoban border.
Among the other life-forms brought to Terra Nova by the beings called “Noahs,” the most fearsome was probably the meg, or megalodon, a shark, of sorts, that could range over twenty meters long. It was believed the megs were going extinct, not least because Man had savagely hunted the whales that were the primary component of the meg diet, in some cases and places nearly to extinction.
Megs were hungry all the time, anyway, but when there were no whales around it was still worse. One such very hungry meg, patrolling the mouth of the deep inlet that led to Puerto Bruselas, turned into the port at the sound of the first corvette, churning the water with its propeller.
The meg, being not all that bright, became slightly confused when another propeller began churning the water. It was, at least insofar as a gargantuan shark can be, quite happy at the thought of its upcoming two-course dinner.
But then the two corvettes were joined by eight more, along with the more resounding propellers of five frigates.
A whole school of them! thought the meg. Oh, happy, happy day.
Ah, but, sadly for the meg, both the Dos Lindas and the Tadeo Kurita kicked in to the undersea orchestra. Maybe, thought the meg, I am not all that damned bright. But, ya know, whatever those little things were, the big ones sound a little too big. Maybe better if I go find me a whale, even a small one. Or maybe a couple of seals. Yeah, that’s the ticket; seals.
The meg swam out of the inlet a lot faster than it swam into it.
Headquarters (mobile), Task Force Jesuit, Santa Josefina
Wounded men, dozens of them, lay in rows, perpendicular to the inland highway. It wasn’t much of a highway, to be sure, being macadamized, rather than asphalt, and not really wide enough to use as a two-lane road. This was a matter of some concern to the wounded, of course, since a bad road meant a rough ride and, for many, a rough ride meant wounds torn open, bleeding, and pain. Some of the wounded moaned with pain or delirium . . .or a mixture of both.
Along the road, three civilian Santa Josefinans with horse-drawn wagons were in earnest and loud discussion with one of the Tauran medical officers who wished to rent their carts for cash.
Claudio Marciano, commander of the task force, tried to ignore them all, not out of lack of sympathy for either but because he needed, and they needed him, to think.
“I think,” said Oberst Rall, “that we’re going to end up using this road alone, or maybe this one for the main body but with a group of engineers along the coastal highway to crater it behind us and to blow up or burn down every bridge along it.”
Claudio nodded, slowly and deliberately. “I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, Rall, but what’s your reasoning? I mean, we can, after all, move our troops to our destination faster on the coast road. And, as you say, we can make it so the enemy has to crawl to pursue us. So why?”
Rall sighed, then said, “I want us to get under the cover of the rain forest, for protection from a Balboan aerial attack that I am certain is coming.”
Claudio laughed, even though he understood Rall’s position perfectly. Respect for the rulings of the Global Court of Justice had almost completely stymied the air support that had been Task Force Jesuit’s only real advantage over the guerillas. This, in turn, had gone a long way toward seeing them turned out of position after position until the present, which saw them no longer trying to hold but running for their lives.
“It’s no protection,” Claudio finally said, as gently as possible. “He”—He, in this case, clearly meant Patricio Carrera—“doesn’t give a fig—doesn’t give a tranzitree fruit—about any opinion emanating from the GCJ. He despises them. You’ve never dealt with him, have you? I mean in either Sumer or Pashtia?”
Rall shook his head in the negative.
“What would you do, Rall, if you found ‘journalists’ working for the enemy in a war zone?”
“I suppose I’d consult my rules or—”
Marciano cut that off. “I’ve worked with him. Carrera gives them a quick trial and a slow hanging. He doesn’t care in the slightest—no, that’s not exactly right—he takes active and serious joy out of defying and humiliating the whole Kosmo crew, from politicos, to entertainers, to human rights lawyers, to NGO and QUANGO big shots and activists, to international judges.
“So being in the rain forest, while it might have a good deal of benefit for camouflage and concealment purposes, would only draw that much more fire if we were found there.”
Rall looked a bit crestfallen.
“Oh, cheer up,” Marciano said. “We’re going to keep using the main road along the coast, and this piece of horizontal shit, too, despite the risk from the air, because we have to move fast, to get where we’re going and dig in. But I want you to start planning to use this road alone if we must. Moreover—”
A radio operator, sitting in the back of a command car, something like a Jeep on another world at another time, exclaimed, “Sir? General Marciano! Terrible news, sir! Terrible.”
Marciano hurried over. “Hush, boy,” he said, softly, “are you trying to start a panic?”
“No, sir,” said the radio operator, “but . . . well . . . we just got word: the Balboan fleet is out of internment and sailing towards us.”
“WHAT!? That’s not . . . oh, shit, yes it is.”
The radio operator raised an eyebrow and smiled, Marciano’s “WHAT!?” had been louder than his own “Terrible!”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right, son. Rall?”
The Sachsen walked over and stood by as Marciano told him the news, preceded by a “Be very calm and quiet.”
“My God,” Rall said. “How? It’s against—”
“No,” Claudio corrected, “it isn’t. It’s just never come up before that a neutral power, which had an interned fleet, joined the war on the side of that fleet. At least, I don’t know of any such circumstances. Nearest I can think of is a neutral power, anticipating war, that took over a ship under right of angary, and then returned it when they joined the war. And that’s not quite the same.”
>
“Oh, shit,’ said Rall, “those Zhong destroyers; we’ve got to warn them.”
“To warn them and ask them to buy us some time,” Claudio corrected.
“I’ll get on it,” Rall said.
Marciano nodded, already distracted by what was going on with the horse-drawn wagons. He stormed over, as Rall went in the other direction, and demanded to know, “Just what the fuck is going on here?”
The Tauran medical officer—he was a Hordalander captain named Haukelid—said, with more than a hint of anger in his voice, “These peasant sons of bitches don’t want us to take their horses and wagons, sir. Claim they need them.”
“I see,” said Marciano. “Translate for me, would you, that in the first place we must have these wagons, and in the second place we cannot leave them behind for our enemies to take.”
As one man, the Santa Josefinans crossed their arms and shook their heads in negation.
“I see,” said Marciano, not needing a translation for that. “Pity, really, I like horses. But needs must and all.” He drew his pistol and walked to the foremost horse. Muttering, “Sorry, old boy, truly I am,” he pointed the pistol at the horse’s head and began to squeeze the trigger.
“Wait! Wait!” one of the Santa Josefinan teamsters cried.
Sadly, Marciano didn’t hear him. His finger squeezed the trigger until he was rewarded with a loud boom. The horse stood stock-still for a moment, then its knees buckled, letting it sink to the macadamized road.
The driver, on the point of hysterics, ran over and threw himself over the equine corpse, wailing with grief.
Marciano turned to the remaining two drivers, “Are you willing now to lease us your horses and wagons?” he asked. The Santa Josefinans didn’t need to wait for Haukelid’s translation. Between gestures and familiar-sounding grunts they made it clear: Take them.
