A Pillar of Fire by Night

by Tom Kratman

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life.”

  —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

  Tauran Union Expeditionary Force Headquarters,

  Academia Sergento Juan Malvegui (Under New Management), Puerto Lindo, Balboa

  Even when the academy, the shipyard, the scrapyard, and the submarine factory had all been going concerns, the port had never seen activity like this. It fairly hummed, except when it screamed, whined, and roared. It wasn’t a smooth enough operation yet to call it a logistics symphony, but things were clearly headed in a very Mozartesque direction. Cranes whined continuously. Some of these were ship mounted and newly arrived, while others were integral to the port and which the Balboans apparently hadn’t had time to sabotage. Helicopters whop-whopped in, bringing a steady stream of men and equipment from freighters stationed over the horizon. Lighters, too, chugged into the port, or split off to go to one of the two lesser ports framing this main one. The air was filled with a constant roar of big diesels, punctuated with the shriek of air brakes.

  Teeth on edge from the brakes, Janier cursed the designer, long dead on Old Earth. God, I fucking hate the sound of those things.

  But, on the other hand, I love the smell of diesel in the morning.

  Janier stood atop old stone battlements, overlooking the terreplein, the town, and the asphalt surfaced road along which rumbled a steady stream of trucks, heading east to the building logistic base north of besieged Cristobal. He had a short brigade of engineers, two battalions and a headquarters, over fifteen hundred men working full time at keeping the road from crumbling completely away under the abuse. That was barely enough, as demonstrated by the frequent traffic jams where the two-lane highway had crumbled from the edges inward, turning it into a one-lane road, if that. A demi-battalion of military police was engaged along the same route, doing little but directing traffic along the stretches where that crumbling was worst.

  Did they make the road deliberately so that it would crumble under heavy military use, Janier wondered, or was it a case of corruption in construction they never got around to shooting someone over and fixing? Or did they maybe notice the road was poorly made, because of corruption, and decide to leave it that way, in expectation of us?

  Maybe I should call the high admiral; get another morale-building session . . . No! No, she means well, but she is warping my senses and dulling my carefully nurtured paranoia. That paranoia was a gift from Carrera and I think I’ve come to treasure it.

  Not too far from where Janier stood, below him out on the fort’s old glacis, an Anglian soldier stood atop a captured Balboan cannon. He was recognizable, as indeed, were all Janier’s national troops, by the pattern of his camouflage. The cannon was, the general saw, one of the Balboan’ light eighty-five millimeter auxiliary propelled jobs.

  The cannon had been rigged for sling loading, with steel shackles holding thick webbing, basically nylon straps, that ran from the axles at each side, and from the joined tubular trails. The three slings were joined by a “donut,” a multi-thickness roll of the same kind of webbing, held together by a steel connector.

  The soldier balanced himself precariously, with one foot on the recoil cylinder and tube, and the other at right angles to the first, balanced on the scalloped gunner’s shield. He held in one hand the “donut,” and in the other a screwdriver from which wire ran down to the ground. Janier couldn’t see but presumed that the wire was attached to another screwdriver, or some kind of metal prod, stuck into the ground.

  It was then that Janier noticed an Anglian helicopter coming in low and slow, and another soldier in the same uniform as the first, guiding the helicopter in.

  I suppose I should put a stop to that, the general thought. It’s a waste of fuel, of parts, and of maintenance time, to say nothing of an unnecessary risk, to have my units looting souvenirs. Then again, what was it that Old Earth poet wrote? Something about, “Loot, loot, loot that makes the boys get up and shoot.”

  How does one measure the morale value of letting men set up monuments to the future, especially when they’re avenging a humiliation like we suffered here? How does one measure the value of the Emperor pinching a grognard’s ear? How does one measure the morale value of a pickle and a loaf of bread?

  So . . . I’ll let them have their trophies, as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.

  Janier watched with interest as, under the control of the ground guide, the Anglian chopper assumed a low hover. It was low enough, in fact, that the donut holder had to duck. He tapped the metal hook under the helicopter with the screwdriver, then tapped it again.

  From his perch, Janier couldn’t tell if the helicopter’s hook sparked when touched. Even so, he thought, Good; I approve of making sure, son. And I learned that the hard way.

  Dropping the screwdriver to the ground, the soldier took the donut in both hands, and slammed it decisively into the hook, a sprung latch closing behind it. He then tried to pull it back the same way it had gone in. It stayed put.

  At that point the soldier jumped off the gun to the ground, and trotted off briskly. The ground guide spun his hand over head, and pointed into the wind. With an increase in pitch, the chopper took off, the trophy gun swaying underneath. The helicopter was actually seriously undertasked, lifting a gun that weighed under two tons.

  “Note to self,” muttered Janier, “and to G4, and to subordinate commanders, for next command and staff meeting: Burning up fuel and wearing out equipment for reasons of morale is one thing, but for God’s sake put the damned business on an efficient footing. Three units could have absconded with a trophy each for the price of that one.”

  And the cannon are good choices; we captured something like fifty of the things, plus a couple of hundred rocket launchers and mortars. Most of it we got before their crews could shove thermite up the breaches or down the tubes.

  Hmmm; that’s another note for the staff. The Balboans hardly got a shot off, we hit them so fast, and there are some pretty large stockpiles of shells sitting out there. I’d like to know how long before we can collect the stuff someplace safe and destroy it. I suppose, for now, we have better things to do.

  Isla Santa Catalina, Mar Furioso, off the coast of Balboa

  Fleet Admiral Wanyan Liang paid no attention to the sounds of construction behind him, a battalion of engineers erecting earthen air defense towers for the guns and missiles already coming off the artificial docks, below. Though called “towers,” in fact, they were more solid pyramid than anything else, albeit pyramids with softened corners and roads winding around their sides. A half dozen of the ninety to one hundred and twenty-foot high pyramids were done. To another ten spots long lines of groaning slave laborers carried baskets of stone and dirt from a quarry to put into the towers. Since the pyramids were located on high ground, that upward trudge added to the groaning.

  Still others—impressed laborers—pounded the material poured into the rising structures into something approaching the strength of concrete.

  The reasons for expending all the effort on pyramids included raising radars, cameras, launchers, and guns above the trees, and to extend their coverage by increasing their horizon. So far, the preparations hadn’t been tested. Wanyan thought though that, maybe, just maybe, the Balboans hadn’t figured out yet he was putting in a serious port where none had been before. When they did figure it out, the other benefit of raising the air defenses was that it changed their geometry as a target, mandating that only a direct hit would be effective, since shrapnel and shards would have no straight line to gun or gunner without that direct hit.

  A serious port? Well, if Janier had cause for satisfaction at the logistic performance of his command, and he did, Fleet Admiral Wanyan Liang had still more. Wanyan had started with less, had no port to hand, had little in the way of heavy equipment, and far less in the way of modern engineering expertise.

  “But through sheer bullheaded weight of effo
rt, it’s working! By the empress’ fragrant cunt, it is working!”

  “Admiral?” asked Wanyan’s aide, Lieutenant Colonel Ma of the Zhong Marines.

  “Huh? What? Was I thinking aloud again?”

  “You must have been, sir. And you were right, sir, it is working. Though I confess, I have no idea about Her Imperial Majesty’s reproductive organs, nor of any alleged aroma thereto. I’m afraid I’ll have to take your word on that matter, sir.”

  “Well,” said Wanyan, “I heard it from . . . oh, never mind.” The admiral glared at Ma Chu through narrowed eyes. “Say, are you trying to get me an appointment with the Juntong?”

  At the name Ma Chu blanched. The Juntong was one of three branches of the Imperial Secret Police, all of which had overlapping jurisdictions, hence all of which unreservedly hated each other, and all of which were above the law as well as totally ruthless.

  Ma said, with more calm than he felt, “Hardly, Admiral, since they’d eviscerate me on general principle even were I not your aide de camp.”

  “True enough,” said Wanyan, mollified. He turned and signaled for his driver to pick up him and the lieutenant colonel up. Since the admiral’s own vehicle had been landed, Ma Chu had not had to hump a radio around continuously.

  “The engineers say they’re ready to blow the last trench, Admiral,” announced he driver. Unlike the aide de camp, the driver was a navy man, and enlisted.

  “Tell me that, at this point, they’re not still waiting for my order,” said Wanyan.

  The driver shook his head, emphatically. “Oh, no, Admiral, they just thought you might want to watch.”

  “Nah, I trust them. Well . . .”

  “Yes, sir, they said they’ve accounted for all the drivers and workers.”

  “Okay, then.” After Ma swung into the back seat, and he’d taken his own, Wanyan directed the driver, “Take me to the southern shore.” Sirens began to sound loudly as people rushed either to shelter or to a good vantage point for the show, however the spirit moved them. To the north, behind Wanyan’s party, unseen—for the briefest nonce unheard, too—a band of water half a mile long and a couple of hundred feet wide seemed suddenly to come to a boil.

  That had been practiced enough, nineteen times in the last ten days, that Wanyan didn’t worry overmuch about it. He was more concerned that the suction dredger he’d asked for might not make it to the island to keep the undersea canal they’d blasted through the silt open. He was much more concerned with air drop—the first of its kind, here—arranged with the Tauran Union for some heavy equipment needed on the Isla Santa Catalina that it was still some ways from being able to unload. The actual coordination for the drop hadn’t been too hard, taking little more than a request to the Empress, her to the High Admiral, and the High Admiral to Wanyan’s opposite number, Janier. It had still taken over a week after that to get the equipment off-loaded at Puerto Bruselas, moved to Julio Asunción Airport, near the Santa Josefinan capital of Aserri, and prepared for a drop.

  Puerto Bruselas, Santa Josefina

  Hauptmann Nadja Felton glanced down at the port as she veered to starboard, to assume her course for the island of Santa Catalina, nominally Balboan but currently under Zhong occupation. She’d known, at a purely intellectual level, that the port was filled to bursting with interned Balboan warships. Still, knowing and seeing were two different . . .

  Son of a bitch, she thought, that aircraft carrier is tracking me with their lasers! Is that legal? Can anything be done about it if not?

  If anyone had asked her, Felton would have happily admitted that nothing, absolutely nothing, made sense to her in the Republic of Santa Josefina, anyway, so, Why shouldn’t ships theoretically interned be continuing to train to engage targets?

  Hauptmann Felton checked her position on the map, then again on the Global Locating System. It wasn’t a surprise that they matched; in this part of the theater the Balboans either couldn’t mess with the GLS or, for reasons of their own, refrained from doing so. That was just as well, she believed, since she was now flying a much bigger target, and one that would make for a very hard landing in case of a crash.

  Felton was just as happy at having been pulled out of flying Hacienda 121s and put back on heavy lift in T16s. The “16” was for the tonnage. In other respects, they were twin engine, prop-driven aircraft, with relatively wide bodies and a tail ramp for ease of loading and unloading. In this case, unloading involved dropping by parachute. Part of her joy was that she’d seen the inside of the cargo bay after the drop on Balboa, and before the maintenance people had hosed out the blood and body parts. It had been a sobering experience and one she really didn’t want to be reminded of.

  Not ever again.

  Back in the cargo hold of this plane she had six pieces of equipment, all unusually lightweight. These were two small bulldozers, manufactured by Wu Can Machinery Corporation (five and a half tons between them), a backhoe (Bright Day Industries, three tons), two towable backhoes (Model KB512, under a ton, between them) and a coral and rock crusher (Tiger Mining Machinery, Ltd., two-point-eight tons).

  It wasn’t an ideal mix, she suspected, for any purpose, but likely a compromise between what the Zhong needed and the weight and cube of the aircraft that would be delivering. Even with the weight, her T16 had cubed out before it had weighted out.

  Or, more technically, squared out because there was lots of unused cube left, even after the square area of the deck was all taken.

  What I’m carrying should be enough for the Zhong to start work. Felton thought. And I saw enough other kind of equipment waiting for pickup that I’m not going to worry for a minute about whether the Zhong engineers have thought it through.

  Isla Santa Catalina, Mar Furioso, off the coast of Balboa

  “There, Admiral,” Ma Chu said, pointing at the approaching T16.

  “Will they drop it all in one spot, or lay it on line?” Wanyan asked, while thinking, You know, I really should have asked my staff.

  Ma shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. I was a marine, not a parachutist. But . . .”

  “But?”

  “I’m guessing here, but my guess is that they won’t want to risk dropping one heavy piece on another, and that they’d have to come around a bunch of times to get them all to land close together, even if they wanted to. No enemy is shooting now, but that’s just fortune . . . and you train for bad fortune, not good. So, I think they’ll do it on line, maybe come around once if there’s not enough room, but otherwise drop and scoot.”

  “Makes sense,” Wanyan said. “Let’s see.”

  With the marked drop zone coming up fast, Hauptmann Felton’s hands shook for no reason she could put a calm and objective, or even a trembling subjective, finger on.

  Maybe that laser back at Puerto Bruselas has me spooked, she thought. Or maybe it’s the memory of my last drop. Or the flesh and blood or . . .

  Never mind, she reminded herself. This is a secure drop zone. So they tell me, anyway. May it remain so.

  Wanyan snapped his fingers at his driver, who immediately produced a set of binoculars.

  Putting them to his eyes, he zeroed in on the tail of the oncoming Tauran—No, those colors say “Sachsen,” don’t they?—transport. The admiral held his breath as first a small bundle appeared just behind the aircraft. It blossomed into a green streamer, a parachute, which filled with air then turned into four of them. Those four then seemed to stand still, once opened, while the plane continued onward. Indeed, from Wanyan’s point of view, it seemed that the first item dropped suddenly materialized in the air where the plane had been when the parachute first opened. The heavy load, a small bulldozer, it seemed, swung down and around the four parachutes like a pendulum, except not so well-controlled.

  Satisfied with that one, the admiral dropped the binoculars, visually reacquired the T16, and then slapped the field glasses back to his eyes. This time, he didn’t see the small bundle of chutes appear. Instead he saw two open, and another vehicle
appear. Unfortunately—and it was unfortunate enough to bring a curse from Wanyan’s lips—the two chutes were not enough to do more than drag the load out. One chute tore, then fluttered into a streamer, while the other seemed to just disintegrate under the load. The load, a backhoe, spun end over end before smashing into the ground, creating a great geyser of rock, dirt, and vegetation, all nicely punctuated with shards of yellow painted steel.

  “Fuck!”

  “God-fucking-dammit!” exclaimed Felton, when her loadmaster informed her of the mishap. The anger lasted about as long as the curse did. Then she took to asking herself the serious question, Did I screw something up?

  Mentally running over the sequence just past, she decided she had not, that it had to have been either a procedural or a material error back at the airport. She continued on.

  The next drop went as smoothly as had the first, as did the next three. With a flutter of wings the Sachsen transport turned and made for home.

  “Five out of six? That’s not that bad. But, damn, we needed all of it.”

  Saint Nicholasberg, Volgan Republic

  The diesel fumes and rumble of heavy traffic were a high price to pay, thought Jan Campbell, just to have a place to meet someone.

  Though meeting an old . . . well . . . no, “friend” didn’t quite cover it . . . was the ostensible reason for her subjecting herself to Volga, Jan Campbell wasn’t entirely sure what had really brought her here to Saint Nicholasberg. Certainly, it wasn’t the vodka, although that stood far above the generally poor food and unsanitary hotels. She looked at some trash blowing down the street next to the outdoor café in which she sat, thinking, Someday the trash is all going to be picked up, the cleanliness of the restaurants will improve radically, the hotels will have fresh linen, and people will flock to the barricades because then they’ll know that the Red Tsar is back.