by Tom Kratman
Table of Contents
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY
APPENDIX B: LEGIONARY RANK EQUIVALENTS
A Pillar of Fire by Night
Tom Kratman
Book #7 in the popular Carrera military science fiction series.
Carrera's held off his enemies coming by sea from the north, in the process dealing the naval and amphibious forces of the Zhong Empire a stinging defeat. The Zhong won't soon forget the blood-stained waters and the heaped up bodies on the shores of Balboa's Isla Real.
Now, though, his adopted country of Balboa is under assault from the east, from the south, from the west, from the air, and from space. The Zhong, smarting from the butchery around the island, have bounced back and forced a lodgment east of the capital. Their lodgment is still a-building but when it is done Carrera can expect several hundred thousand brave and determined Zhong to show up on his barely defended flank.
The Taurans, remembering their military roots, have assaulted Balboa from the south, taking half the area of, and cutting, the Transitway that joins Terra Nova's Mar Fusioso and her Shimmering Sea. In the process, they've cut off and besieged the second city of the country, Cristobal, trapping inside the city Carrera's Fourth Corps, and overrunning and capturing a large portion of Carrera's artillery train.
West of Cristobal, the Taurans have created, almost from scratch, a series of small ports and airfields to support their siege.
Inside the town, a sense of desperation is growing among the men and women of the Fourth Corps: Has their leader forgotten about or abandoned them?
Meanwhile another Tauran Expeditionary force secures Balboa's eastern neighbor, Santa Josefina, as a base against them.
In space, the United Earth Peace Fleet, under the Command of High Admiral Marguerite Wallenstein, keeps as low a profile as possible, all the time spying and feeding intelligence to both Zhong and Tauran.
It's beginning to look like the game is up for Balboa and Patricio Carrera.
But Carrera's been planning this war for fifteen years. He certainly hopes his enemies think they're winning.
Baen Books by Tom Kratman
A State of Disobedience
A Desert Called Peace
Carnifex
The Lotus Eaters
The Amazon Legion
Come and Take Them
The Rods and the Axe
A Pillar of Fire by Night
Caliphate
Countdown: The Liberators
Countdown: M Day
Countdown: H Hour
WITH JOHN RINGO
Watch on the Rhine
Yellow Eyes
The Tuloriad
A PILLAR OF FIRE BY NIGHT
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
© 2018 by Tom Kratman
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8356-8
eISBN: 978-1-62579-671-4
Cover art by Kurt Miller
Maps by Randy Asplund
First Baen printing November, 2018
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Electronic Version by Baen Books
www.baen.com
DEDICATION
For Major (Retired) Donald B. Walton, 1956-2014, Lt Col (Retired) Walter E. Bjorneby, 1931-2016; Captain Dan Kostyshak, 1958-2012; Alfredo E. Figueredo, archeologist, teacher, writer, and poet, 1949-2013; SSG Mike Sayer, 1959-2016; MSG Ray Krivacka, 1939-2016, CSM Blagoe Paul, 1928-2015; and Kevin O’Brien, Special Forces, aka Weaponsman.com, 1958-2017. Damn it.
ACNOWLEDGEMENTS
in no particular order:
Yoli and Toni who, in their different ways, put up with me, Steve Saintonge, TBR (the Kriegsmarine contingent of the bar), Ori Pomerantz, James Lane, Jack Withrow, Tom Wallis, Thomas Mandell, Krenn, Jasper Paulsen, Matt Pethybridge, Conrad Chu, John Becker, Patrick Horne, Sam Swindell, Tom Brophy, ARRSE (even if they don’t know it), Bill Crenshaw, Andy and Fehrenbach at old Cambrai-Fritsch Kaserne, Dan Neely, T2M, Henrik Kiertzner, Greg Dougherty, Keith Glass, Leonid Panfil, Ernest Paxton, Chris Bagnall, Jean-louis Beaufils, Chadd Newman, Jeremy Levitt, Bruce Cook, Sheinkin, Jasper Paulson, Keith Wilds, Charles Krin, Mark Bjertnes, Alex Shishkin, Larry Fry, Robert Hofrichter, Ned Brickley, Joel Salomon, John Biltz, Seamus Curran, Tommie Williams, Emeye, DanielRH, Tom Lindell, Arun Prabhu, Jacob Tito, Nigel the Kiwi, Joseph Turner, Dan Kemp, Robespierre, Jon LaForce, John Prigent, Phillip “Doc” Wohlrab, Chris Nuttall, Brian Carbin, Joseph Capdepon II, Mike Watson, Michal Swierczek, Harry Russell, James Gemind, Mike May, Guy Wheelock, Paul Arnold, Andrew Stocker, Nomad the Turk, Paul 11, Geoff Withnell, Joe Bond, Rod Graves, Mike Sayer, Jeff Wilkes, Bob Allaband, John Jordan, Wade Harlow, Michele Chini, Jason Hobbs, Jim Curtis, Bob Oberlender, Darwin Concon, and by no means least, Justin Watson.
If I’ve forgotten anyone, chalk it up to premature senility.
Oh, and everybody else who buys my books? Yeah, I know it’s been a while. The next one will be much quicker, and that will be it for the series. Thanks for your patience.
—Tom
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WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
(5,000,000 BC through Anno Condita [AC] 476):
Long before the appearance of man, there came to Earth the aliens known to us only as the “Noahs.” About them, as a species, nothing is known, least of all what they called themselves. Their existence is surmised by the project they left behind. Somewhat like the biblical Noah, these aliens transported from Earth to another planet samples of virtually every species existing in the time period approximately five hundred thousand to five million years ago. They also appear to have modified the surface of the planet to create a weather pattern and general ecology suitable to the life-forms they had brought there.
Having transported these species, and having left behind various other, genengineered species, apparently to inhibit the development of intelligent life on the new world, the Noahs disappeared, leaving no other trace beyond a few incomprehensible and inert artifacts, and possibly the rift through which they moved from the Earth to the ne
w world. No other such rift has ever been found, suggesting, though not proving, that the Noahs can create and eliminate them at need.
It was through that rift that, in the year 2037 AD, a robotic interstellar probe, the Cristobal Colon, disappeared en route to Alpha Centauri. Three years later it returned, under automated guidance, through the same rift. The Colon brought with it wonderful news of another Earthlike planet, orbiting another star. (Note, here, that not only is the other star not Alpha Centauri, it’s not so far been proved that it is even in the same galaxy, or universe for that matter, as ours.) Here, finally, was a relatively cheap means to colonize another planet.
The first colonization effort failed due to ethnic and religious strife. Thereafter, rather than risk further bloodshed by mixing colonies, the colonization effort would be run by regional supranationals such as NAFTA, the European Union, the Organization of African Unity, MERCOSUR, the Russian Empire and the Chinese Hegemony. Each of these groups were given colonization rights to specific areas on the new world, which was named—with a stunning lack of originality—“Terra Nova” or something in another tongue that meant the same thing. Most groups elected to establish national colonies within their respective mandates, some of them under United Nations’ “guidance.”
With the removal from Earth of substantial numbers of the most difficult and unprogressive people, the power and influence of supranational organizations such as the UN and EU increased dramatically. With the increase of supranational power, often enough expressed in corruption, more of Earth’s more ethnocentric and traditionalist population volunteered to leave. Still others were deported forcibly. Within not much more than a century and a quarter, and much less in many cases, nations had ceased to have much meaning or importance on Earth. On the other hand, and over about the same time scale, nations had become pre-eminent on Terra Nova. Moreover, because of the way the surface of the new world had been created by the Noah’s and divided by the supranationals, these nations tended to reflect—if only generally—the nations of Old Earth.
Warfare was endemic, beginning with the wars of liberation by many of the weaker colonies to throw off the yoke of Earth’s United Nations.
Into this environment Patrick Hennessey was born, grew to manhood, and was a soldier for many years. Some years after leaving service, Hennessey’s wife, Linda, a native of the Republic of Balboa, along with their three children were killed in a massive terrorist attack on Hennessey’s native land, the Federated States of Columbia, said attack having been aided by the United Earth Peace Fleet, or UEPF, in orbit over Terra Nova. The same attack likewise killed Hennessey’s uncle, the head of his extended and rather wealthy family. As his dying testament, Uncle Bob changed his will to leave Hennessey with control over the entire corpus of his estate.
Half mad with grief, Hennessey, living in Balboa, ruthlessly provoked and then mercilessly gunned down six local supporters of the terrorists. One who survived being gut shot Hennessey pistol-whipped to death in retaliation, and with astonishingly bad judgment, the terrorist organization, the Salafi Ikhwan, attacked Balboa, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, including many children.
With Balboa now enraged, and money from his uncle’s rather impressive estate, Hennessey built a small army within the Republic. For reasons of internal politics, Hennessey assumed his late wife’s maiden name, Carrera. It was as Carrera that he became well-known to the world of Terra Nova.
Against some expectations, the Legion del Cid performed quite well as auxiliaries of the Federated States. Equally against expectations, its greatest battle in the campaign was against a Sumeri infantry brigade led by a first-rate officer, Adnan Sada, who not only fought well but stayed within the customs, rules, and laws of war.
Impressed with the Legion’s performance (even while loathing the openly brutal ways it had of enforcing the laws of war), and needing foreign troops badly, the War Department of the Federated States offered Carrera a long-term employment contract. Carrera likewise offered to not only hire, but substantially increase, Sada’s military force. Accepting the offer, and loyal to his salt, Sada revealed seven nuclear weapons to Carrera, three of which were functional and the rest restorable. These Carrera quietly had removed, telling no one except a very few, very close subordinates.
Insurgency blossomed across Sumer. In Carrera’s area of responsibility, this insurgency, while bloody, was contained through the help of Sada’s men and Carrera’s ruthlessness. In the rest of the country it grew to nearly unmanageable levels. Eventually, Carrera’s area of responsibility was changed and he was forced to undertake a difficult campaign against a city, Pumbadeta, held by the rebels. He surrounded and starved the city, letting none leave it until he was certain that every dog, cat, and rat had been eaten. Only then did he let the women and children out.
After the departure of the noncombatants, Carrera’s Legion continued the blockade until the civilians within the town rebelled against the rebels. Having a rare change of heart, Carrera aided those rebels to liberate their town. Thereafter, nearly every insurgent found within Pumbadeta was executed, along with several members of the press sympathetic to the them. The few insurgents that he—temporarily—spared were sent to a surface ship for rigorous interrogation.
With the war in Sumer winding down, Carrera and his legions were—as it turned out, unwisely—let go. When the Federated states needed them again, Carrera exacted an exorbitant price before agreeing to commit to the war in Pashtia. That price being paid, however, and in gold, he didn’t stint but waged a major—and typically ruthless—campaign to restore the situation, which had deteriorated badly under Tauran Union interference and faint support.
Ultimately, Carrera’s intelligence service got wind of a major meeting taking place across the nearby border with Kashmir between the chief of the United Earth Peace Fleet and the emir of the terrorists, the Salafi Ikhwan. Carrera attacked, killing thousands, capturing hundreds, and seizing a dozen more nuclear weapons, intended gifts of the UEPF to their terrorist allies. One he used against the capital of the major terrorist-supporting state of Yithrab. When detonated, this weapon not only killed the entire clan of the chief of the Salafi Ikhwan, but also at least a million citizens of that city. In the process, he framed the Salafis for the detonation. This ended the anti-terrorist war . . . at least for the nonce.
Among the captures were High Admiral Robinson, of the United Earth Peace Fleet. His position was taken over by Marguerite Wallenstein, who had actually helped Carrera to remove her former chief from the playing board.
The price to Carrera was also heavy; he collapsed, physically, mentally, and emotionally, going into seclusion until persuaded back to active duty by Legate Jimenez and Sergeant Major McNamara. There followed a vicious no-holds-barred, and little-quarter given war with the quasi-sovereign drug cartels of Santander, along with an attempted coup d’état by the treacherous Legate Pigna. In the same coup, the rump of the old, oligarchic Balboan state was reabsorbed into the rest of the country, the oligarchs and their lackeys being driven from the country or killed. The Transitway, however, the canal linking the Shimmering Sea and Mar Furioso, remained in Tauran hands.
An easily winnable war against Balboa on the part of the Tauran Union was precisely what High Admiral Wallenstein wanted, on the not indefensible theory that such a war would serve as a catalyst to turn the Tauran Union into a real country and a great power, which would serve to stymie the other great powers of Terra Nova. That war came to pass, though not by the high admiral’s doing and not to the result she wanted. Instead of defeating Balboa and changing its regime, the Tauran forces went for high-value targets that turned out to be bait for a countrywide ambush. When the smoke had cleared, thousands were dead, and almost twenty thousand Tauran troops were prisoners of the Balboans.
All was not obviously well for Balboa, however. In the course of the battle one of its double handful of stealthy coastal defense submarines managed to sink an aircraft carrier of the Navy of Xing Zhong Gu
o, New Middle Kingdom. This would have been fine, had the carrier actually been involved in the attack on Balboa. Unfortunately, it was not; it was evacuating Zhong non-combatants from the fighting. No one knew how many thousands of innocents—men, women, and children—burned or drowned in the attack. Interestingly, Carrera didn’t appear to care about rising Zhong anger. One might almost have thought he wanted them to join a continued war.
Whatever he wanted, though, Carrera needed time. He’d been preparing Balboa for war for about a decade but, of necessity, many of those preparations were out of sight or not quite complete or both. He bought time for that completion by returning a trickle of TU prisoners.
There had to be a peace conference, of course, and so there was. Carrera and the President of Balboa, Raul Parilla, sent to the peace conference Carrera’s second wife, Lourdes, with a small contingent. It was an unusual peace conference insofar as almost no one present had any particular interest in peace. Still, a false peace prevailed while the conference wore on. In that false peace, all the more desperately clutched for its very fragility, Carrera and his legions completed their final preparations. From all over the world, contingents of troops from allies and well-wishers large and small poured in to help defend Balboa. Next door, with the introduction of Tauran troops to defend a neighbor from Carrera, an insurgency sprang up, which insurgency Carrera fed. In the Tauran Union, the very lists of dead and captured were perverted and twisted to undermine the governments. Best of all was the thing Carrera had never anticipated or planned for— he acquired a spy well placed in the highest enemy camp. It was a very nice complement to a lesser, localized spy.
