by Tom Kratman
Fosa sat in the gunner’s seat of the 40mm mounted in the tub. Standing up to pass through the hatchway, he patted the metal on her hull, saying, aloud, “Good girl.” He repeated it, more softly but with more enthusiasm. “Good girl!”
The ship was ancient, having seen service from the tail end of the Great Global War through a number of brushfire wars after that. She’d taken more than her fair share of lumps since coming into legionary service, as well, including a number of missile hits and near ramming by a suicide freighter packed to the gunwales with explosives.
But, you know, old girl, you’re in better shape now than you have been in years. At least in all the major areas, as a ship, you are.
Leaving the gun tub, Fosa made his way to the hangar deck. A small crew of five men pushed their way past him carrying what looked to be several heavy chunks of steel. It was Fosa’s own rule that for certain events even the skipper made way for the crewmen.
Down in the hangar deck not a single aircraft was serviceable, per the conditions and orders under which the ship had been interned. Indeed, along with the removal of all armaments, and the draining of all fuel, every single plane and helicopter had had a key component removed, generally a propeller or a rotor blade. These, in specially built frames, were kept under lock, connected by chains, which chains ran to welded padeyes. Every aircraft also sat at something of an angle from missing a tire, so that the straight-faced claim could be made that they were still unserviceable when . . .
“I told you fucking pussies,” shouted Sergeant Major Ramirez, the senior centurion of the ship, “that we would continue to do this shit until every motherfucking airplane’s propeller can be reinstalled within three hours. We’ll be at this shit until tomorrow night, dick-lickers, if that’s what it takes.”
The hangar crews stood at attention in formation for Ramirez’s harangue. They wore a mix of brown, green, blue, green, white, and red. Sweat poured off the men, despite the large fans circulating air. Their color-coded jerseys were all also sweat stained, though probably every man had put on a fresh one that morning.
“My little brother,” Ramirez continued, “my no good, black sheep of the family, worthless little brother, the battery commander, is never going to tell me that his guns did more for the war than my ship. Do you faggots hear me?”
“Yes, Sergeant Major!”
“Do you faggots hear me?”
“YES, SERGEANT MAJOR!”
Ramirez looked up and to his left to where the ship’s chaplain stood. “Padre?”
The priest made a sign of the cross and said, in a volume to match Ramirez’s, “May God and the Blessed Tadeo Kurita watch over you and your work, boys.”
Fosa folded his arms as Ramirez consulted his watch. After a time, he said, still quite loudly, “All right, you faggots . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . GO!”
Instantly, the dense formation dissolved into seeming chaos. The chaos sorted itself out quickly enough; this wasn’t, after all, their first run. Men trotted to every corner and side of the hangar deck, there sorting themselves into teams. There was sometimes a struggle to unlock the chains and pull them out. Indeed, before the chain had been hauled through more than a few propellers, the crews were sliding the bottom ones out and, in teams of three, lifting them, for portage to the right plane.
Briefly, the chaos seemed lessened by a reduction in visible crew. That lasted maybe seven minutes before men began returning, wheeling everything from machine guns to light torpedoes, bombs to heavy anti-shipping missiles, and chaff and flare dispensers EDM pods.
Fosa walked the edge of the hangar deck to keep out of the way of the laboring crews. At the portside sternward corner, he watched a Turbo-Finch’s plane captain position a short stand right under and a little forward of the prop shaft. One of the plane captain’s men added an oil seal and moved some lines to particular positions, the value of which he seemed quite set on.
A three-man team bearing the nine-foot propeller maneuvered to put the center about where the prop shaft was, then rotated the propeller slightly to just off the vertical plane. The center man stepped carefully up the little stand, repeating to himself, softly, “clock it . . . clock it.”
“Hold on; let me do the linkage first!”
“Roger, I’m just reminding myself.”
Fosa was pretty sure they knew what they were doing, even if there was some bickering back and forth.
From behind him Fosa heard the command, “Up Uranus, motherfuckers,” He turned his attention to a red T-shirt-clad ordnance crew, using a large rolling jack to lift a Volgan Uranus anti-shipping missile onto one of the Finch’s inboard hardpoints. The Finch would carry two, which, together, cost about as much as the plane.
Hmmmm . . . this is a kind of dance, but not exactly an elegant one. I wonder if adding music might help. Note to self, consult with Ramirez this evening.
Fosa listened and watched for maybe another twenty minutes. He consulted his watch again. No, no way they’re going to make the standard I want them to have, not this run. Maybe I’m being unreasonable. Maybe, too, a little music and a slightly better organization will help. In the interim, God have mercy on them because Ramirez will not.
From the hangar deck, Fosa sauntered to the flight simulators, of which there were ten for fixed-wing aircraft and six for helicopters. The helicopter simulators were somewhat undertasked, as Fosa had transferred out two-thirds of them in favor of another dozen Turbo-Finches. The Finch and Cricket simulators were, accordingly, somewhat overtasked. Indeed, they were in use when Fosa arrived at that section of the ship, and, so far as he knew, they’d been in use since internment, with only minor breaks for maintenance. An experienced warrant officer pilot ran the flight simulation center. Fosa asked, “Progress is too much to ask for, but how about maintenance of skills?”
“Captain . . . there are some things a simulator just can’t do. Engaging a target? Ducking or enduring the incoming defensive fire on a strike mission? We can simulate those, not a problem. We cannot simulate the ‘couldn’t drive a knitting needle up the pilot’s ass with a sledge hammer’ fear factor. Same for an actual landing on the roof.”
“Yeah . . . okay, but we started with a pretty well-trained group of pilots.”
“Yes, sir; and I hope, just like you do, that they haven’t lost their edge.”
“Anything we can do for that pucker factor?”
“Rotate them out to join the guerillas? No, I’m not serious. But I can’t think of anything we have available. I’ve thought on it.”
“Okay. I want a list, then, of the twenty-four Finch and eighteen Cricket pilots you’re most sure haven’t lost anything . . . with three more and two more of each, respectively, for backups.”
“Wilco, Skipper.”
And now let’s see how the rearm the guns drills are going . . .
High Admiral’s Quarters, Spirit of Peace, in orbit over Terra Nova
“High Admiral,” said Khan, the husband, through the intercom on Wallenstein’s cabin door, “I hate to disturb you but there’s something you need to see.”
The door whooshed open to reveal a tall and svelte blonde in a considerable state of dishevelment, her body covered in an embroidered silk cheonsam, one which almost failed to hide Marguerite’s privates.
I wonder if she knows how magnificent she looks like this, thought Khan. No matter what she looks like, she is a massive improvement over her predecessor.
“Yes, Khan, what is it?”
“I can show you better . . .”
“Oh, right, come into my office then.”
Khan did, carefully not noting the small and dainty lump under the covers of the admiral’s bed. And why not? She deserves a little love, though I retain my doubts about whether Her Imperial Majesty is capable of feeling it.
Khan went directly to the computer and signed himself in, then pulled up a folder.
“We’ve been picking up an odd amount of radio traffic in the jungle east
of the town of Hephaestos, Balboa.” He drew a circle with his forefinger broadly taking in the thrice-fallen town—more the ruins of a town now—of Jaba, and ranging east to Sethlans, Santa Josefina. “It hasn’t been much, mind you, but there was essentially no radio traffic before. I ordered a skimmer to overfly the area, which, by the way, proved a total waste of effort. But on the way back, the skimmer saw, or rather, didn’t see, something it ought to have near Hephaestos, in Balboa.”
Khan brought up some images the skimmer had taken, then some color plates quite probably filched from some defense publications on the planet. “Those are the only uniforms we could see, High Admiral. I sent another skimmer down later and those were still the only uniforms we could see.” He fiddled again with the picture. “These are Balboan uniforms. The others were Valparaisan and Lempiran. Part of the Balboan Fifth Mountain Tercio—how much I cannot say—isn’t in Hephaestos anymore; they’ve moved into Santa Josefina.”
“Shit. Just shit. You know, Khan, it’s times like these that I wish to the elder gods that this fleet had something other than nukes—not that we know if any of those will work, mind you—to use on the planet. Something, anyway, we could use to, shall we say, influence events.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t think that a good idea, High Admiral. If the Federated States thought we could target their nuclear space forces with precision, they’d nuke us now on general principle.”
“Good point,” she agreed, “but I wish there were something I could do about what’s about to happen to a Tauran dependency, which is to say one of our dependencies, in practice. What’s Task Force Jesuit got to face that with?”
“Having lost a battalion recently—oh, yes, it was effectively annihilated—General Marciano is stretched to the breaking point. He’s got a composite battalion blocking the easy road to the capital and a bit under three facing west. This will break him.”
“Can’t Janier reinforce him?”
“Yes, High Admiral. If he would; he could. But he won’t. It seems the good general has gotten some intelligence that has tripped every paranoia instinct Carrera gave him.”
“So Santa Josefina is lost?” Wallenstein asked. “Lost beyond hope?”
“I believe so.”
Wallenstein felt her maternal instincts kick in and her blood pressure begin to rise. “Then get my Esma the hell out of there.”
Headquarters, Task Force Jesuit, Zeledón, Santa Josefina
The shuttle, the High Admiral’s own barge, was waiting just east of the town. Overhead, the constellations shone brightly, as none of the planet’s three moons had yet arisen.
Marciano drove Esmeralda to the shuttle himself, with just a guard in the back for security’s sake.
Outside the shuttle’s open hatch, with red light streaming out, Marciano passed Esma her bag, which he’d carried from the plane. “Tell your high admiral,” he said, as she took the bag, “that I appreciate the intelligence, and concur in her writing us off.”
Esma, who genuinely liked the old man, shook her head vigorously. “I’m sure . . .”
“Please, child. Based on what she sent me before recalling you, she rightly recognizes that I cannot stop the better than four-to-one odds that are coming for me. Tell her I appreciate the communications device, too.”
“I wonder,” said Esma, “why she ever sent me when she could have just sent the communicator.”
“Two-way communications,” Claudio answered. “Oh, yes, we could have talked both ways with just the communicator, but with you in the loop she could believe what she was told and, as importantly, know she could trust it.”
“Ah.”
“Ah. Never fear, child; you are young; you will learn.”
“Oh . . . oh, I almost forgot.” Esmeralda started to undo the holster to return Marciano’s pistol.
He stopped her hands physically. “No, Esma. Where I expect to be going I won’t need it. You keep it, a gift from me. Maybe better to put it in the bag, though, all things considered.” He took the pistol, leaving the holster where it was, and slipped it into her carry-on.
“But . . .”
“My grandmother would have approved. She, you know, was quite a beautiful woman, too. If you ever get the chance, go to Tuscany and find my wife. The Tuscan Army will help. She can show you our family history . . . of which you, now that you own that pistol, are a part.
“Now no ‘buts.’ Get your shapely little derriere on that shuttle and get yourself to safety.”
Esma felt tears forming. She knew what he’d meant when he’d said, “where I am going.” Flinging her arms around his neck and laying her head against his chest, she said, “I won’t forget you. Not ever.”
Marciano’s hands stopped just shy of returning the hug, hovering in indecision around the girl’s flanks. “Thank you,” he said. “Now go before I make a fool of myself.”
Spirit of Peace, in orbit over Terra Nova
Esma had cried the whole way up. There were people she was leaving behind who had come to matter to her, Marciano, Bertholdo, Stefano were only a few among them. They’d all been good men and good human beings, no matter how trying their circumstances.
And they’re all going to die. And my side—if it still is my side—is going to kill them.
But then, Cass was kind, too, and helped me through much. And Carrera risked his life to find me and explain some things to me. And I just don’t know what to do anymore except cry. And when I think of that soldier I killed to protect myself . . .
Esma felt the slightly disorienting effect of the shuttle matching the spin of the ship. There was no obvious correlation between the two, but she broke down in a new bout of sobbing, even so, as the shuttle lined itself up on the hangar doors.
The rest of the landing was as uneventful as the pickup and flight. The shuttle pilot applied a certain amount of braking in the form of retros, even as the deck magnets were activated to bring the small boat down. Then it was wait about a dozen minutes as the doors were closed and the deck pumped with air.
Richard, earl of Care, met Esma at the shuttle’s hatch as she came out. He couldn’t, in the very low gravity of the hangar deck, do what he wanted, which was pick her up in his arms and spin her around a dozen times. Rather, he could have, if he’d removed the magnetic slippers he’d put on outside the hangar, but if he had done both it would probably have set the both of them to flying through the air, bouncing off bulkheads, spinning, and eventually puking until recovered by the crew. The crew really hated cleaning up vomit in zero or near zero G environments, and he hated being more of an ass as captain than the job actually required.
Instead of that, Richard just gathered her in and held her tightly, his chin resting on the top of her head for a long sweet moment.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered, moving to place his lips near her ear “but before I take you to my quarters to show you how much, the High Admiral wants to see you.”
Richard’s greetings were welcome, with only that little awkwardness to be found when a man loves a woman, one who doesn’t really love him back, but who still feels a sense of obligation to him.
They stopped off at Esma’s spartan quarters, near the High Admiral’s, to deposit her baggage. There, Richard said, “I hope to see you in my quarters when she’s finished.”
Where Richard’s welcome back had been warm and loving, Wallenstein’s was a mother’s, replete with hugs and kisses and strokes of cheek. Three times she held the much smaller Esmeralda’s shoulders tightly in her hands while she stood back to just look at her. Esma found this all the more remarkable insofar as Marguerite Wallenstein really did prefer girls, but had never come on to her in the slightest degree. She found that love very easy to reciprocate.
Finally, Marguerite, still holding Esma’s shoulders, stepped back a final time and studied her face intently.
“What are you looking for?” Esma asked.
“Some sign of change, maybe of guilt, since you shot that prisoner.”
&nbs
p; Esma sighed, then lied, “I wish I could say I had it, but, at the time, all I saw was the ruined embassy and my murdered friend from down below.”
Marguerite nodded. “I understand; it’s easier when you’re sure they’re guilty. I pray to the elder gods that you’ll never find out what it’s like to be responsible for killing someone innocent.
“Speaking of the embassy, we’re recovering the ambassador tomorrow. And speaking of guilt, I’m sending the evil bitch to Atlantis Base to stew on her latifundia until I pack her home to Earth.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FISH and CHIPS—Fighting in someone’s house and causing havoc in people’s streets.
—British Army unofficial acronym
Magdalena, Balboa
Ruins, charred and smoking, were everywhere. There was hardly a house that hadn’t been fought for, hardly an open field without its trenches, tunnels, and bunkers, hardly, for that matter, a sewer that hadn’t seen vicious hand-to-hand fighting within five meters of itself or even inside its dank depths.
Surrounded by his aide, Malcoeur, and a few radio bearers and bodyguards, Janier could almost taste victory. He stood in a captured trench, gazing intently through binoculars at the street fighting raging in the ghetto to his south.
It’s such a dump, he thought, why do they fight so fiercely to hang onto it? Dump or not, with this port in hand, we can take the rest of the country, no problem. Perhaps that’s why they fight.
It was no mean task to actually get a sense of progress through the binoculars. Malcoeur had found the best spot available, but even there, at most, Janier could catch a glimpse of an occasional squad assaulting across a street; making it whole, if they were lucky, though few were that lucky. As often as a place was taken, it had to be evacuated as the almost inevitable fires got inevitably out of control in this dry season.
