A Pillar of Fire by Night

by Tom Kratman

  “Good. Now what do you want? . . . Yes, I am getting a relief column ready . . . no, I don’t need anything from you . . . if you had wanted to help, you should have started building your own army so that I’d have more than a short battalion to throw into this . . . no, in fact I may not launch the relief column . . . yes, you should get to work on a time machine . . . or you can ask the Federated States to commit troops to your defense, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am busy today.”

  After a brief knock, Marciano’s operations officer, Stefano del Collea, asked, “Are you too busy to talk to a charming young lady, General?”

  It was a sufficiently silly question that Marciano replied, “Send her in.” He was rather surprised to see the beautiful young woman he knew as Esmeralda, High Admiral Wallenstein’s cabin girl become aide de camp.

  Before he could so much as utter a greeting, Esma pulled a communicator from her pocketbook, saying, “My High Admiral has information she wants to give you that you need to have, sir. This was the only way she thought she could safely get it to you.” Though it wasn’t all that safe for me.

  “Let me talk to her, then, please. And, Stefano?”

  “Sir?”

  “No word of this, and bring me a map and some alcohol pens, would you?”

  “Sir.”

  “So an ambush on both the high speed avenues of approach into the town, and an anti-helicopter ambush close to the town?”

  Khan answered, “We really think so, yes, General Marciano. Do you have the means to fight through them?”

  “No,” he answered. “If I had even half my command available maybe, but about a third of it is guarding airbases for the war in Balboa, and for which my forces were not increased. Another third is engaged in containing the guerrillas in the south and, since their message spreads by non-physical means and their arms by clandestine ones, not having a great deal of success. The remaining third is mostly stuck facing Balboa to the northwest, though I had thought to break away a task force of a couple of companies for San Jaba. But that’s not enough, is it?”

  “Not really my area of expertise, General,” Khan replied, “but, on the face of things . . . just a guess . . . probably not.”

  “Can I speak to Wallenstein?”

  “I’m here; I’ve been listening.”

  “At least somebody is,” Marciano said, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Since you are listening, High Admiral, can you get Janier or the World League or somebody to send me about twelve thousand more men, half of them in the form of eight or so infantry battalions and three more artillery? Because, with guerrillas growing up behind my so-called lines, with the people getting a graphic demonstration that we are not going to win and that the price for our not winning will be death to those who supported us, with that worthless shit Calderon unwilling to raise an army to help us . . . well . . . without those troops I’m going to have to pull back to the capital region and try to hang on to that and the port. Anything else is soon going to be beyond my powers.”

  “No promises. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Academia Militar Sergento Juan Malvegui, Puerto Lindo, Balboa

  Schools were in many ways ideal for military headquarters. They had auditoria, classrooms for offices and billeting, mess facilities, sometimes medical facilities, internal communications, parade grounds for helicopter landing and pickup zones, storage areas, etc. A military school like this one, though, far exceeded the normal school standard for military utility by adding arms rooms, ammunition storage bunkers, heavy vehicle maintenance bays, bombproofs, actual barracks, tunnels to move between the buildings . . . it was simply perfect for its new role.

  It even had a small mansion for the former commandant, though Janier thought that too obvious a target. It was left empty. He made do, instead, with an office in the main academic building, next to his command post.

  It was in that office that he used his communicator to speak with the High Admiral of the UEPF on the subject of Santa Josefina. Janier absolutely didn’t want to send troops to Santa Josefina that he was likely to need in Balboa.

  “I am fairly certain,” said Wallenstein, “from speaking with him, that Marciano is going to pull back immediately if he doesn’t get a firm commitment to add the forces he demands, and will pull back within a short time if they don’t start materializing. My aide was there and spoke to me after. She said he ‘exudes sincerity.’ What’s that do to your plans, Bertrand?”

  “It will cut into our air support,” said the Gaul, “but not so badly as all that. I had hoped that the Zhong would have been able to clear the road from Santa Josefina to supply an attack on the Balboans’ western flank but, since they seem to be completely tied down in a guerilla war themselves, amongst that half-million civilians into whom were apparently interspersed several thousand soldiers of both sexes, there’s nothing to be gained for us that way.”

  The “half-million civilians” referred to the collection of refugee camps, outside of his own defensive perimeter, that Carrera had set up expressly to force the Zhong to feed them, thereby straining their logistics. It also meant the couple of thousand Amazonas and Cazadores he’d mixed in among them to make feeding both the refugees and themselves highly problematic.

  “The thing is, you see, Marguerite, that if we win in Santa Josefina but lose here, Santa Josefina will be lost soon enough, too, while if we lose in Santa Josefina but win here, we can recover Santa Josefina in short order. I’m afraid Marciano is going to have to do the best he can to buy us time to win here. After that he can have fifty, even a hundred battalions, if he wants them.”

  San Jaba, Santo Josefina

  The court-martials there being finished, and the nearby executions done, the Tercio la Virgen also set up headquarters in a school. It was big enough for the purpose and, since the Taurans couldn’t be sure they’d moved out all the children, even at night essentially immune to aerial bombing or artillery strike.

  The lunch room now served as the unit’s tactical operations center, with some of the classrooms set aside for quarters and specialty shops.

  Similarly, the medics had moved into the town hospital, a blue-painted concrete facility of about twenty-four thousand square feet, complete with an emergency room and trauma center, plus wards equal to thirty-three beds.

  In the headquarters, Villalobos listened absently as the reports of the Cazadores on the screen line came in by wire. All was quiet along the “front.”

  If they were coming, thought Villalobos, they’d have been here by now. So, I think I can assume that they’re not coming. Still, this wasn’t a waste, not even having those poor bastards shot.We’ve got a liberated zone. We’ve taught collaborators, real and potential, a pretty sharp lesson. We can maybe even claim belligerent status, ask for recognition, and import arms openly. Could be worse.

  I really expected them to fight me for the town and to do something to try to push us back over the border. I was wrong. And that’s what I planned for. So where do we go from here?

  Task Force Jesuit Headquarters, Rio Clara, Santa Josefina

  And demography and geography, under their child, logistics, dictate, fumed Claudio, studying the big, wall-mounted map in headquarters. I cannot stay where I am. Not only am I outnumbered in both areas, with guerrilla movement rising behind us, but I cannot move my crappy reserve quickly enough to either reinforce either east or south, nor to clear a road to withdraw them if the enemy keeps trying to infiltrate.

  On the other hand, if I try to pull back to near the capital, my road net, for mobility, is fine, but I’ll have granted the enemy a potential hundred thousand young male recruits, and an absolute moral ascendency.

  Speaking of one hundred thousand new troops, I wonder if the Zhong might provide me . . . ah . . . never mind; the word from Balboa is that they have a very heavy, and not all that effective hand when it comes to counterinsurgency. That might work for them when
they don’t have to deal with a free press and the TU government. Nothing but trouble for me, however.

  Hmmm . . . I could try the firebase and strongpoint approach, guard each of the avenues of approach to the capital with a single strongpoint, all within range of an artillery battery located on a different strongpoint or firebase. I’d have to pull back there, too. Except . . .

  Marciano made a compass of his right hand’s index and baby finger, spread them along the distance scale, and then started measuring artillery ranges against useful spots for strongpoints and came to the conclusion, No. Worse, even if I did, I have good reason to know they’re aggressive patrollers. Given that and numbers, they’d drive my patrols back into our strongpoints, then bypass us at leisure. And that’s not even counting what thirty or forty heavy mortars—eighty or more if we count their one hundred and twenty millimeter jobs—could do to a battalion strongpoint in the course of a week or so.

  Can I somehow starve them back to Balboa? Mmmm . . . eventually, maybe, but the regiment in the south probably brought five or six thousand tons of food on their ship. Starving them out could take two years unless I got very lucky and found a bunch of their food caches . . . without them destroying the patrols looking. And the other regiment, the one my staff tells me is named for the Virgin Mary; they’re being supplied from Balboa, of course. There’s no real way to stop that, no useful way, anyway. They sit near the border and remain fully supplied or they go back across the border, still present a threat to us, and remain fully supplied.

  Marciano turned over those and half a dozen other options in his mind before deciding, Okay, so there’s no static campaign that would have a chance. No campaign aimed at their logistics that would have a chance. So . . . is there a mobile one? Risky, risky. Marciano rubbed nervous and sweaty palms together. But everything else is doomed . . . and in the kingdom of the doomed, the risky must be king.

  Then, too, as long as that lovely young lady is here, I’ll have some pretty good intelligence from on high.

  So, what now? Now, I think, I abandon every air base but the most easily defended one that I can use myself. If the war in Balboa won’t aid me, they can kiss my Tuscan ass. Okay, that frees up a battalion. So, I’ll have one facing south, one west, and a mobile force of nearly three battalions, including the artillery, four if I count the commandos and tanks. If they probe one of my forward battalions, or attack it, I’ll have them fall back. Then, with my three, one vehicular, one airmobile, and the artillery, plus the engineers and commandos, I can hit back when they’re overstretched.

  Yes . . . yes . . . I can see possibilities here.

  I can hardly wait to tell Janier that I won’t pull back from our current positions, but all the guarding of air bases is going to fall on him; let them stand or let them fall, no matter to me. They wear our notion of being an independent protective mission pretty damned thin, anyway.

  And, just maybe, I can feint a withdrawal—no; think “Cannae”; withdraw only under pressure; anything else is too suspicious—and use it as bait for my mobile force . . . and a touch of disinformation? Trebia? Trasimene?

  “Rall! Del Collea! You two! In my office! Now!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”

  —Virgil, the Aeneid

  Tauran Defense Agency Headquarters, Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova

  One entry in the spreadsheets and reports given her by Vladimir puzzled Jan Campbell deeply. What, she wondered, is an SPM-7b? It’s a fairly recent purchase. It doesn’t have a motor. It has no caliber. It seems to use a kind of fuel cell. It comes in a . . . hmmm . . .

  She took the file with her as she left her office. Captain Turenge, deep in her own number crunching, looked up but said nothing as Jan left.

  And why would they need twenty-four of them? And why are they so expensive?

  The elevators in the old building were iffy, at best. Jan took the nearest set of stairs, then clop-clop-clopped down their granite risers to the basement, to where the open source, which was to say, globalnet-connected, computer room lay.

  Houston, loafing outside his own office, saw her and instantly ducked out of view.

  Flashing her badge at the attendant, she neglected to sign in. Instead, she went straight to one of the small closets that held a computer each, and logged in with a spurious account she’d set up for herself some months prior.

  SPM-7b, she typed in.

  Hmmm . . . nothing. Let’s try SPM alone , no numbers . . . well it’s not likely to be a Kashmiri civil decoration or a band from Wellington. Hmmm . . . okay, narrow it to SP. Nope. Okay, expand to “SPM Volga.”

  Bingo; a spacesuit or, rather, two dozen of them. And new, apparently, based on the price. Hmmm . . . almost latest model . . . and maneuverable in zero G. Now how often do the Balboans buy new? Must be important. But why in the name of the mythical purple-suited Elvis would Carrera need space suits.? He’s done a lot—credit where it’s been earned—but a space program he doesn’t have. Planning ahead? Well . . . he does plan ahead, but this is an order of magnitude more. This is like planning for powering the planet with magic unicorn farts. You can set up all the fart collection stations you want, but since there are no unicorns . . .

  She considered contacting the Volgan agent, Vladimir, from the computer in front of her but decided, No, that might be a needless risk. I’ll use my computer at home, after work. However . . .

  Campbell carefully removed the sheet from the file, folded it into a small package, and tucked it down between her breasts.

  It was late when Turenge and Campbell decided to call it a day. The more they’d delved the more difficult things had gotten. After all, “What does i’ mean,” Turenge had asked, “when you find an entry for five-’undred and seventy-two eighty-five-millimeter barrels but can only find about ’alf that many carriages.”

  “Ask an artilleryman,” was Campbell’s parting advice.

  Mostly as an indicator of personal esteem, but also to maximize her productive workday, Janier had arranged for a driver for Campbell. That poor sod had little to do besides fetching her in the morning and wait around, ready to take her anywhere she wanted. Fortunately, there was a nice little brasserie not far from the headquarters, with waitresses pretty, saucy, and well-built, so the driver didn’t feel too abused. An occasional lunch purchased for the door guards, too, and he could count on early warning of when la petite fille ecossaise would need transport.

  He was, in any case, standing by at the side door when Jan emerged. She’d come to take that for granted by this point, but still rewarded her driver with a brilliant smile. He held the door for her, closed it, then walked around to the driver’s side. While he walked, she sniffed. My God, heavenly. What is that . . .

  “It was a late lunch special, madame,” the driver said. “Two for one, so . . .”

  “Merci,” she said, rather warmly, while thinking, Good because I am not only a wretch of a cook, but too busy tonight to go out.

  By the time city traffic permitted her driver to pull up near the door to her apartment complex, in reality an old mansion that had been subdivided, a light rain had begun to fall.

  “Don’t worry about the door, Marcel,” she said. “No need for both of us to get wet.”

  “As you wish, Madame.”

  Flinging the door open, Jan ran for the awning over the main door. Inside, she was greeted by the rather fine stone and plasterwork of a bygone era. She had never really acquired a taste for that kind of finery, though. Oblivious to it, she entered the main lobby elevator and punched in her floor.

  A thumb-driven lock clicked open. She entered, automatically nudged the door shut with her hip, then went to sit down at her computer desk.

  Opening the system, and then logging in to the email address Vladimir had given her a password for, she composed a message that read, simply, “Why twenty-four spacesuits?” Then she saved the message as a draft and signed out. Fifteen minutes later she signed in again.
There, under her own draft, was the message, “We haven’t the faintest clue. Let us know if you figure it out.”

  Isla Real, Balboa

  A heavy shell landed outside the even heavier bunker Colonel (Brevet) Wu had taken over to serve as a command post. Wu really wasn’t sure why he and his little command were still alive or uncaptured. They had us. They still have us. Why didn’t they finish us off?

  Wu had landed on the island as a major, but a combination of casualties, failures on the part of the generals and colonels commanding the landing, plus his own determination and an unusual helping of luck had seen him survive to be promoted by Admiral Wanyan. He had, in any case, made the only real gains of the landing that were not quickly wiped out or later abandoned as untenable.

  By the evening of that first day Wu had had about five thousand men under his shaky command. By the next day, another three thousand badly shocked stragglers had crept in. They continued coming, too, for the next week, in dribs and drabs. At the moment he, a mere brevet, which was to say not even a real and permanent, colonel, had a decent sized division under his command. And Admiral Wanyan was talking about jumping him yet another grade, to brigadier general.

  And the Balboans still ought to be able to toss us into the sea if they pushed matters. But they’re not. They’re not even interfering with the nightly supply run, twelve to twenty helicopters that bring me the thirty-six tons I need and without which we begin to die.

  And then there’s this. Wu looked down at an official-looking certificate which had been brought through the lines by a parlementaire and which read: