Days of Burning, Days of Wrath

by Tom Kratman

  “Less, I think,” Marciano said. He chewed his lower lip, contemplatively. “Or, at least, it could be less. The Balboans only have to clear the main highway of the Zhong; then their artillery and, more importantly, the trucks with the ammunition, can pass more or less freely. I’d say two to three weeks after they begin the attack to pinch out the Zhong lodgment, we’re toast.”

  Rall considered that then answered, “No, it’s even worse. I forgot for a moment—no, I don’t know how I could have, given the bombing we’ve suffered recently—but now they’re the ones with air supremacy, not us. They can use either their own or hired airships to move as much artillery as they want, even before they clear the highway of the Zhong. We may have as little as two weeks.”

  “Two weeks,” Marciano echoed.

  Both men grew silent then, contemplating what was likely in store for them in two weeks’ time. They stayed that way, standing in dread silence, until a familiar set of booted footsteps and a familiar voice interrupted them.

  “Sirs,” said del Collea, “I have some really . . . no . . . appalling isn’t strong enough. I don’t know a word or phrase strong enough. I bear news from hell.” Without another word, he proffered several local newspapers.

  “Just give us the gist of it, Stefano,” Claudio ordered, ignoring the newspapers.

  “The gist . . . the gist . . . oh, sirs; the Moslems have risen back home. Tuscany and Sachsen, Anglia, Gaul, Hordaland, Haarlem . . . they’re all in flames. The police are routed. It’s murder and plunder and rape from one end of the Union to the other. Our women and girls are being auctioned off on the open market. The pope’s been hanged inside the New Vatican.”

  “Shit,” said Marciano.

  “On the plus side,” said Rall, with a Teutonic shrug, “the pope was more an enemy of Catholicism than the Red Tsar, in his day.”

  “You always have to see the bright side of things, don’t you, Rall?”

  Rall didn’t answer right away. Instead, he seemed to be listening, to be concentrating on his listening. And then the sirens began to kick in.

  Former United Earth Embassy, Aserri, Santa Josefina

  As the revolution had advanced, and the capital had fallen to the guerillas, most of the embassies had remained open. Even the Taurans’ embassies had usually retained at least a token presence of locals. One embassy, however, was completely closed, with the legation burnt and most of the workers, even locals, killed. That was the embassy of United Earth.

  Fortunately, a couple of outbuildings, to include the ambassador’s residence, a sprawling twenty-thousand-foot mansion, still remained. It was in this that Carrera met the three main commanders of his Santa Josefinan arm of the legions: Villalobos, of Tercio la Virgen, Salas, of la Negrita, and their chief, the Balboan, Legazpi, normally commander of Fifth Mountain Tercio.

  “In numbers,” said Legazpi, “we’re growing stronger all the time.” His two main subordinates nodded at that. “But in combat power, we are, if anything, shrinking.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Carrera.

  “The new men are untrained, mostly unequipped—we don’t even have enough rifles for every man, not by a long shot—and we’re having to detach experienced cadre to train them.”

  “We’re also having some trouble feeding them whenever we move them away from the main highways,” added Salas.

  “Uniforms and field gear are completely unobtainable,” said Villalobos. “We’re doing well with finding enough insignia and pieces of recognizable equipment to keep our boys within the laws of war.”

  Carrera thought about this information, then nodded in such a way as to convey he held none of them responsible. “Have you managed to reestablish contact with the Taurans?”

  Legazpi answered, “We’ve got eyes on their battle positions, yes—and, by the way, they’re digging in furiously and don’t seem to lack for building materials—but it will be another—what do you think, Jesus—six days before the point of your tercio reaches them?”

  “At least that, yes,” Villalobos replied. “We have little motor transport, and not even much animal drayage, while the Taurans wrecked the bridges and a good deal of the road network behind them to slow pursuit.”

  “And as for how we’re going to dig them out . . .” Legazpi let that thought trail off.

  “You’re not,” Carrera said. “Just between us three, I just want you to reestablish contact and dig in around them. They don’t leave, except into Cordoba for internment or . . . maybe by sea. And that’s plenty. No sense in throwing away lives on a cause we’ve already won.”

  “Then should I dismiss the new recruits?” Legazpi asked. “I mean, if we won’t need them to fight.”

  “No,” Carrera said, “for Santa Josefina will still need them to vote.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.

  —Clausewitz, On War

  Santa Cruz, Santa Josefina, by the Cordoban Border

  “Sir . . . sir . . . I think they’re gone.”

  The speaker was Oberst Rall, gently nudging the body of his napping commander, Claudio Marciano, with the toe of his boot. Some generals might have taken offense at that. Marciano was, Rall thought, as Sachsen as a Sachsen, no matter that he was a Tuscan. He wouldn’t be upset by the familiarity in the field.

  “Wha’ . . .what’s that? What time is it?” Marciano asked needlessly; he’d already bared his sleeve to consult his watch. He was dimly aware of three things. One was the sound of saws, mattocks, picks, and shovels coming from all around. The other was the absence of both the drone of aircraft engines and the pulse of explosions, coming from anywhere at all. The third was the rather pleasant aroma of terribly deadly tranzitree fruit, hanging from the trees overhead.

  “You’ve been asleep a grand total of three hours,” said Rall, equally needlessly. “And the reason for that, the reason you were able to sleep, is that the aerial attacks appear to have been called off. The observation posts you left behind to keep us informed also report that there’s none inbound. I think they’re gone.”

  “Okay . . . okay, good. Now what else have I missed?”

  “The Cordobans appear to have put two battalions in on our flank, between the lake and the border. They’re digging in like busy little beavers. I had a chat with their commander, across the border, and he says he’s purged his regiment—yes, there’s a third battalion coming, plus an artillery battalion, an engineer company, and a battalion of air defense—anyway, he’s purged his regiment of the few veterans of the legions it contained. So that flank, at least, we don’t have to worry about.”

  By this time Marciano had sat up straight and cross-legged, rubbing sleepers from his eyes. “Any chance of—”

  “Absolutely none,” Rall replied. “The commander of that regiment, a Colonel Alfaro, said, and this is exactly what he said, ‘Not just no, but fuck no. I’ll defend my own country’s borders and turn a blind eye to the smuggling you’re going to have to do just to stay alive. At least I’ll turn a blind eye until the legions turn on me, at which point you’re on your own. But start a fight? Not in my portfolio. ’”

  “He sounds like a sensible man,” Marciano observed.

  “Yes, far too sensible for our good. On the other hand, though, he struck me as someone we really can count on to make sure the enemy doesn’t outflank us through Cordoba. Have to take the bad with the good, I suppose.

  “And speaking of the good, Stefano . . .”

  “Yes?” Claudio asked, suddenly alert and tense.

  “He gave me the report. He’s come through, everything we asked for except barbed wire, either here, stockpiled on the border, or enroute. Oh, he has some wire, a few thousand rolls of single strand, zinc-coated, and maybe twice that on order. It will help, at least. But what he has brought or assembled is better than I really hoped for: rations for twenty days, lu
mber enough to dig in everyone to the Nth degree, medical supplies, fuel, mostly in drums. He’s even managed to come up with a few thousand rifles, surplus to Cordoban military needs, and a couple of million rounds of ammunition. Plus some mortars and ammo for those. I understand the arms and ammunition came pretty dear, mostly because of bribes.

  “We’re shunting it from the places he’s stockpiled it, right by the border, and distributing it where needed.

  “Also . . .”

  Something in Rall’s tone brought a glare and raised eyebrow from Marciano.

  Rall continued, “There’s a small delegation that wants to see you, Santa Josefinan politicians and such. They want to leave and cross the border to safety.”

  Marciano, fairly neutral at first, had acquired a considerable distaste for Santa Josefinan politicians, for Santa Josefinans, generally, in fact, over the course of the guerilla war there.

  “Fuck that,” he said. “They’re our only rationale for still staying here, to protect a government in being inside the country. Put the lot of them under arrest and under cover. They speak to nobody.”

  Rall, sharing his general’s feelings on the matter, simply gave a broad grin, raised and lowered his eyebrows a couple of times, and said, “Already done.”

  The two heard the sound of cows, mooing as they were herded down the road.

  “I did mention, sir, that Stefano has found us twenty days of rations.”

  “Yes,” Marciano agreed. “Now, if you would, take over the command post. I am going to go back to seeing that the troops are digging in properly. That, and thank God for the breather.”

  Marciano turned away to go, then twisted back. “How close are our pursuers now?”

  “At this point still maybe three or four or even five days until the points of their main columns close with our forward trace. They don’t have enough vehicles to really move any faster, not with everything we did to the roads and bridges as we passed.”

  “Good.”

  BdL Dos Lindas, Mar Furioso

  The ship churned through the water at a fair clip. Under the figurehead, a representation of Carrera’s first wife, Linda, murdered, with their children, by terrorists, the bow wave was barely noticeable. This was the result of the retrofitted bulbous bow, unseen under the water, put in when the ship was retrofitted by the legions’ classis, or fleet. That retrofit had included the addition of nuclear power and AZIPOD drive, which had made it, in the first place, of nearly infinite operational range, while the second had given it a maneuverability pretty much unknown among surface warships of that size on Terra Nova.

  The retrofitting had not stopped there, with renaming, figurehead, bow, nuclear power, and drives. Oh, no; in addition, the far-in-excess-of-needs nuclear plant also powered three quite powerful lasers, one each forward and aft, and another above the island.

  She’d carried different armaments loads over the years, too. Initially, she’d been more of an amphib, carrying a demi-cohort of commandos and the helicopters needed to move them to shore to combat pirates, to ferret out their nests, and destroy their infrastructure. Since the infrastructure was almost entirely blood-based, this had meant virtual extermination of the clans engaged in piracy. The lesson was not lost on any other clans that might have been thinking about it, either.

  Along with the helicopters and commandos, back then the ship had carried only enough fixed-wing aircraft for reconnaissance and close support, a bare twelve of the latter. Later, the pirates pretty much extinct or having acquired a new and profound sense of caution, she’d lost her infantry back to the ground forces, and picked up more significant antisubmarine and antisurface capability.

  Fosa, standing on the bridge of the Dos Lindas, kept his eyes on the computer screen. This, continuously updated, showed the plots from the reconnaissance screen spread out forward and to starboard of the classis, at a range of a couple of hundred miles.

  The nearest segment of the screen consisted of one modified Cricket, an extraordinarily effective STOL bird, essentially hovering above and five miles to starboard of the carrier at an elevation of twenty-four hundred feet. The Cricket was linked to the carrier by a tightbeam, along which traveled information garnered from the drones. Those, an even dozen of them, were flung out in an aerial picket line forward of the classis. The drones flew a preplanned course, though one which could be, on a case-by-case basis, modified in flight by the Cricket.

  As the drones passed over the shore inside the Zhong lodgment, over the channel between Isla Santa Catalina and the mainland, and over the island, itself, and the mostly artificial port, one thing became clear:

  “Where the fuck is their fleet?” Fosa fumed. “Have we been able to get anything on satellite?”

  Balboa owned no satellites, but did have a very limited ability to tap into and use the satellites of others. The ship’s communications intelligence officer shook his head no, then said, “Against people who aren’t looking or don’t care we can sometimes get in, Skipper. But whatever the merits and demerits of the Zhong political system, sir, give them their due; they’ve got no masters at fucking with satellites and shutting us out.”

  “Yes, yes; the dirty bastards.” Fosa scowled, then said, “And, of course, they’ve got the fucking Peace Fleet on their side, the best satellite reconnaissance system in existence that we know of. We could fool it on land, and the Duque has, several times. Not so much at sea. They know exactly where we are, all the time, on visual. Only reason even to try to hide ourselves is to make terminal guidance for a missile tough. But where we are, generally? They know that, and in real time.”

  “So where do you think they are, Skipper?” Comms asked.

  Fosa filled his cheeks with air and blew them out, in exasperation. “They went to sea, maybe not so much to get away from us as to get away from land-based air, now that the TU is out of it. They may even be headed to Atlantis, though I doubt it.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  That took all of three seconds’ thought: “We’re going to entice them back in by bombing the shit out of their lodgment and anything that supports it.”

  Fosa chewed his lower lip for a bit, then ordered, “Orient our screen out to sea two hundred miles. Pass to the Kurita they’re to take point. Also shunt them control of four drones. And send the all clear to raise the submarine fleet.”

  “Skipper!” Intel exulted, pointing at the screen. “The Zhong fleet isn’t entirely gone. We’ve got visual on two freighters, one airship, and a bunch of lighters.”

  “Ready a strike. But not until Kurita has done for their air defense umbrella. Ops?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Recommendations on strike composition in twenty minutes. Oh, and coordinate with the Legion Jan Sobieski to provide cover for the strike, again, after Kurita takes out the air defense.”

  SdL Megalodon, off Santa Catalina Island

  Extremely low-frequency communications had never been on Balboa’s wish list, even though it might have allowed communications down to hundreds of meters of depth. The problem was just too hard, and the soil of the republic too conductive; never mind the unfortunate side effects. Instead, the classis had opted for a very low-frequency system, supplemented by an acoustic system and some prearranged codes. The very low-frequency system, or VLF, was based on the mainland. VLF was slow, though, very slow. And, while it could retransmit Dos Lindas’messages, the simple act of sending that message was a potential risk from a radiation homing missile.

  Or—fuck, I don’t know, maybe a homing torpedo if we responded. And homing pigeons are right the fuck out, thought Chu, commanding the Meg and the squadron. Pity no one’s yet come up with homing mackerel. Salmon  .  .  .  note to self, see about homing salmon.

  They’d heard the Zhong fleet depart, generally to the north, half a day or so ago. Chu had eaten his own guts out over the question of whether he should attack on his own ticket, even without the presence of the classis. Standing orders for the squadron h
ad been that, if one of the seven engaged, they were all “weapons free.”

  Ultimately, he’d decided against. And, sure, maybe I’m a little skittish after sinking a Zhong carrier I wasn’t supposed to, loaded with civilians, mostly women and children, when we weren’t even at war. Would anyone blame me if I were? But, no; it was because as far as I could tell the other six weren’t in position to engage, and the classis wasn’t remotely near.

  The Zhong had left half a day ago, but then they’d heard the approach of a similarly sized fleet. Acoustics in the shallow, island-rich waters off Balboa’s and Santa Josefina’s northern coasts were d ifficult. It was only four hours ago that Sonarman Auletti had been able to confirm, “Those are the AZIPODs of the flagship and Kurita.”

  That the fleet approaching was friendly didn’t necessarily mean that there were no enemies about. Chu waited until . . .

  “Underwater explosion, Skipper!” Auletti announced. A minute passed. “And another.” Another minute passed. “There’s number three, all timely.”

  “Wait for it,” Chu ordered.

  “One . . . two . . . three . . . four. I have four bangs in rapid succession,” the sonarman said. “A delay . . . nothing . . . another bang . . . I mark two minutes . . . another bang . . . one-fifty-nine . . . another bang . . . another . . . another. That’s the signal, Skipper: be ready to surface in five hours.”

  Santa Catalina Island, Balboa

  Fleet Admiral Wanyan Liang had been aboard his flagship for several days, ever since the Balboans had appeared to have knocked the Tauran Union right out of the war. Long before that, the admiral, currently ordered away with the remnants of the fleet, had demanded that sixteen pyramidal flak towers be built. This was not so much to raise the guns and missiles above the clutter on the ground, though that mattered, nor to extend their range, though that mattered, too, as to make them relatively immune to any incoming fire that wasn’t a direct hit.