by Tom Kratman
Dammit, the tribune thought, fuming at the low key jingling coming from behind him. It isn't as if we didn't do our damndest to make sure everything was quiet and secured before we set out. They had done what was possible. But some sound was unavoidable and in this cold air could well carry despite the muffling effect of the snow.
The engineer then led them down the road before cutting right across the open field to the shelter's narrow entrance. "File in silently," the engineer advised. A couple more engineers, these with homemade rakes, smoothed the snow behind the passing centuries.
Inside, the place smelled damp and musty, Cruz thought. It was a small surprise in construction so new. Buckets stacked in one corner suggested that it was soon going to have a very different, and much worse, odor.
There were signs on the walls, lit only by chemical lights, or "chemlights." Other chemlights traced out boundaries on the Stollen floor. One of the signs said, in the sickly green glow, "1st Century." Cruz led his team to that corner and set down his rucksack. His three men placed theirs beside his and, like him, began unrolling bedding, air mattresses, sleeping bags, and blankets. As Cruz and his boys were blowing up the air mattresses someone struck a match and applied the flame to a lantern. Immediately, the greenish gloom of the place dissipated, the more so as more lanterns were lit. In the new and brighter illumination, Cruz saw two charcoal stoves, one of which the supply sergeant was in the process of lighting. The charcoal wouldn't give off any noticeable smoke, he knew, but wondered if the heat distortion might not tell too much to someone watching and paying attention. He asked the supply sergeant about that.
"The exhaust doesn't go up," the sergeant explained. "It goes to an underground pipe. That leads to a couple of dozen smaller pipes that eventually emerge above ground. All those are perforated to dissipate the smoke and heat. Clever, ain't it?"
Mangesh, 9/2/461 AC
There were caves south of the town. These were originally natural but had been further excavated and in a few cases connected by the Yezidi during their long and generally fruitless fight with the Babel regime. To these caves the legion directed the people of Mangesh, Yezidi and Chaldean both, to go for shelter from the Sumeri artillery that would, almost inevitably, devastate the town on general principle. The two double-wides were likewise moved up to shelter close in to the mountains, under cliff faces. Howitzer and mortar fire could have reached them there, were they in range. At this distance, though, only high velocity artillery had a chance of reaching and that traveled at too low an angle to search the reverse slope of the hill.
The legion's table of organization included one smallish century of mixed civil affairs and psychological operations troops. The PSYOP legionaries printed the leaflets and ran the loudspeakers that directed the townsfolk to the caves while the CA types actually physically led them, organized them, and coordinated for transport to move their food and water, their old and sick, and the bare minimum of life support.
"This is not the first time we have had to do this," said Father Hanna, the local Chaldean priest, when the CA/PO Century commander mentioned how smoothly the move was going. The townspeople looked nervous, of course, but there was no great amount of wailing from the women, or complaining from the men. Even the children were pretty well behaved and that was something the signifer never expected.
"No, we have had to run to the caves many times, not just once," Hanna continued. The priest was old and gray but plainly robust as he and the signifer led the people to the south. He was also multilingual, speaking—besides Chaldean—Arabic, English, Latin, French and Spanish.
When asked about that he had only answered, "Oh, I served my time at New Vatican Hill when I was a younger man."
One of the caves had been set aside as a field hospital. Father Hanna had taken some pains to find women to assist there. This was much appreciated by Carrera, who said so.
He'd also said, when out of the priest's hearing, "That son of a bitch Campos was supposed to give me medical support equal to that the FSC troops will have in al Jahara. What do I get for my men? I get an understrength medical company from the 731st Airborne and a long drive over epically shitty roads to the FSAF base in Kemal; that, or a sometimes-possible-maybe-perhaps available medevac flight from the old Sumeri airbase at Siyilopi. Motherfucker!"
"Arrest the motherfuckers as spies," Carrera commanded McNamara when told that a group of media types from the Global News Network had arrived in now-abandoned Mangesh. When told of a humanitarian medical group nosing around he had said, with equal vehemence, "Arrest them. Take them to the caves and inform them they will care for our wounded as well as any civilians. Make it clear I am firing squad serious about that."
"Patricio," Jimenez cautioned, "do you really think it's wise to alienate the press?"
"Errr . . . maybe not, Xavier," Carrera relented. "Though frankly I doubt it matters. The press is the enemy, as much as the Sumeris or perhaps more so. But . . . all right. We won't arrest them as spies.
"Instead . . . Sergeant Major, take the pressies and medicos into protective custody, confiscate their equipment and cell phones, and confine them to the field hospital cave where they'll help care for our wounded. Don't trust the bastards; strip search them. If any of them are women see if the good father can come up with some Chaldean women to do the strip search. And if they try to escape, shoot them as spies."
Hewlêr International Airport, Yezidistan, 11/2/461 AC
The legion's air component, minus the remotely piloted vehicles that were forward based at Mangesh, was lined up at the airfield. This consisted of eight Turbo-Finch attack aircraft, twelve medium and four heavy lift Volgan helicopters, six Boiohaemum-built Cricket light reconnaissance planes plus four more slightly modified for medical evacuation, two ex-Volgan Nabakov NA-21 medium lift cargo planes and six lighter NA-23s upgraded to B300 standard.
Opposite the legion's air ala, by the cargo terminal, two Volgan LI-68s were still unloading artillery and mortar ammunition. Inside the terminal, near the Volgans and opposite their own aircraft, a century of Cazadors from the 6th Cohort waited for orders to board. Final orders were not expected for some time. The Cazadors would drop from two of the NA-23s.
The B300 was a much improved version of the original NA-23, having longer range, more lift capacity and much improved avionics. Dubbed "Dodos," apparently because they just looked a little awkward, the NA-23s were an early post-Great Global War-vintage design, with twin turbo-prop engines. The newest was over thirty years old. They were, however, fairly simple and robust aircraft and most were still flying even four to five Terra Novan decades later.
To get to the B300 upgrade, the original Dodos were completely disassembled and everything from struts to skin microchecked for excess stress and wear. Then, the fuselage was reassembled, with an additional meter being added between the cockpit and the main cargo compartment. Completely new wings were attached, and to the wings, in lieu of the old turbo-props, new Whitefield-Prance WPT9A-76R turbo-prop engines were added, driving five-bladed propellers. Lengthened troop seats were installed, along with new avionics, and a generally improved cockpit layout
Before being deployed, two of the NA-23s had taken a short detour to Zion where a frame was built up around the aircraft and thin composite Carbon Fiber-Shiff Base Salt tiles added for decreased radar visibility. In addition, the original tail section was replaced with one of V-form. It was these that would drop the Cazadors.
The B300 was, for all practical purposes, a new plane superior in every way, to include operating cost, to the original Dodo. It was the reduced operating cost, as much as the increased capability, that had decided Carrera in favor of the conversion, despite a "fly away" price tag of nearly three million drachma per aircraft and five million for the two that had been stealthified. The legion could—indeed, probably would have to—rely upon the Dodos for critical resupply.
One of the Cazadors due to be inserted via the stealthy Dodos, Sergeant Emmanuel Robles, paced nervousl
y up and down that portion of the terminal set aside for the Cazadors. From time to time he took from his wallet a picture of his wife and three children waiting back home in Balboa. He also spent a good deal of time praying.
It just doesn't feel right.
Mangesh, 12/2/461 AC
Carrera frantically paced the small headquarters set up in an old Sumeri police fort on the outskirts of the town.
"I don't see how the hell you can be so calm, Raul," he said.
Parilla, sitting calmly behind a field desk with his feet up and his hands clasped behind his head answered, "Why should I worry when you are worrying enough for both of us and three more men besides?"
Carrera stopped his pacing, opened his mouth as if to retort, and then began to laugh. "Okay, you win. I'll calm down."
"Care for a drink?" Parilla asked. "The good father presented me with a bottle of the local brandy. It's actually pretty good."
The look on Carrera's face as much as said, "Gimme." Parilla poured several ounces of the brandy into a metal cup and handed it over.
"You know what's bothering me, Raul?"
"No."
"It's the coalition headquarters down in al Jahara. D-Day is supposed to be the day after tomorrow. Ordinarily, I'd expect hourly intelligence updates to have begun by now. But there hasn't been a word or, at least, not a word to us."
"Do you think they've forgotten about us way down here?" Parilla asked.
"Maybe they forgot," Carrera answered, "and then maybe they're deliberately ignoring us. I've got a call in to a friend."
"So what are we going to do if they don't answer?"
"Send in the Cazador long-range recon teams anyway, tonight around midnight. They'll need that much time to get to their positions behind the Sumeri lines."
"And if D-Day is moved up? Or delayed? How do we get them out?" Parilla asked.
"I swear to God I'll start the war on my own if it's delayed. And if it's moved up without them telling us, I just might shoot that son of a bitch down in al Jahara."
Hewlêr International Airport, Yezidistan, nearly midnight, 12/2/461 AC
Robles still didn't like it. But there were the two stealth-modified Dodos, waiting with engines idling not one hundred meters from the terminal. There, lined up by the terminal door were the chutes for each man who would jump tonight. Standing by that door was the century commander and there, in his hand, were the orders to go.
The men were singing as they lined up to chute up. Ordinarily, Robles enjoyed the singing before a jump. Now it just irritated him, especially when the song came to the lines:
Thundering motors leave each man alone.
He thinks one more time of his loved ones back home.
Then come, mis compadres, to spring on command
To jump and to die for our people and land . . .
Chingada. Bunch of morbid bastards. Why the fuck did I ever sign up for this?
And then they were at the aircraft, the crew chiefs and their assistants helping the pack-mule-laden, barely mobile men to climb the ladders and shuffle up the ramps and then walking the lines to make sure everyone was buckled in.
The engines began to thunder in truth now as the Dodos rolled down the runway. The airfield was high where the air would normally be thin. Even so, in the dead of winter the air was cold and dense enough for lift. Robles felt the plane lurch upward, leaving the runway behind. There was a winding, grinding sound followed by a pair of thumps as the landing gear raised and stowed away. Then the planes veered eastward towards an area where reconnaissance showed little in the way of Sumeri troops to observe—or Sumeri air defense to engage—the aircraft as they passed.
En los aviones! Los aviones!
Nunca volveremos compadres . . .
Fuckers!
Royal Jahari Land Forces Headquarters,
al Jahara,
12/2/461 AC
They'd found out, so they believed, where the dictator of Sumer was hiding. Thomas had delayed going after him immediately, pending legal review by his judge advocate general. This had taken long hours as the lawyers had argued back and forth about the propriety and legality of assassination, the strategic implications, the public relations aspects. What did lawyers have to do with strategy and PR? In the Federated States Army there was nothing that lawyers were not intimately involved with.
Too, Thomas had not wanted to appear indecisive or at the mercy of his JAG section. So he had kept mum, pending their review and approval. This had never actually come, as the JAG section itself was evenly split on the issue. Thomas had therefore bucked the decision up to Campos who had thrown a fit that the dictator wasn't already dead. "Awful shock" readily became "Awe shucks."
It was then that Thomas moved up D-Day by twenty-four hours. This gave just enough time for his own troops in al Jahara to move to their assault positions and for his aircraft to send stealthy birds with two thousand pound GLS guided bombs winging their way towards the implicated palace.
Unfortunately, it also gave time for the dictator to change palaces as was his habit.
As unfortunately, or even more so, it did not give Parilla and Carrera time to call back the two Nabakov-23 Dodos carrying seventy- six airborne Cazadors before the planes went low behind a series of mountains and the Cazadors had jumped.
Interlude
14 May, 2070, Brussels, Belgium
Money was always tight in the EU and among its member states. The only place to find it was to raise taxes (and, with the various levels of government already confiscating over sixty percent of GDP, those were already onerous and rather unpopular) or to reduce military expenditures (and at less than one percent of GDP those were already anemic and still rather unpopular). Only if the construction of ships could be made in the guise of social welfare legislation would there be easy acquiescence.
The United States helped quite a bit, if not with money then with free technology transfers. This was actually critical as, in this year-of- something-other-than-Our-Lord, 2070, Europe was a technological backwater. Even with the money found, or looted, the expertise simply didn't exist anymore. So many of the highly talented had left for other climes, most notably and infuriatingly for the United States, that the Old World had fallen far behind.
Between the shunting of social welfare funds to starship construction and the technology transfers from the U.S., the EU did manage to put together a half a dozen ships. These were duly turned over to the United Nations in theory, though in practice they remained for the time being under absolute EU control.
And then the screws began to tighten. With a means of getting rid of their undesirables in hand without at the same time strengthening the Unites States, EU bureaucrats and their police minions began identifying those who most needed to go, and those they least wanted to go to the United States. No one was forced out initially; that would have been inhumane. Instead, a letter would arrive in the mail stating that "pursuant to new austerity measures X and such, you and your family will no longer be receiving any support from the government and would you please consider subsidized emigration to the new world?"
Riots ensued, of course, especially in Muslim majority or near majority states like France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain. This did nothing to keep the transfer payments to the indigent flowing. After all, what did hard-working, tax-paying Poland or Sweden care what happened to France or Belgium? If anything, the resulting destruction of infrastructure within the Muslim majority areas speeded up the rate at which Moslems proved willing to leave. (As an exception, Sweden did offer to make some tax transfers, but only on condition that their Muslims be among the first to go.)
Young Europeans were an issue. They were valuable. How else was the social welfare state to be maintained without their tax receipts? On the other hand, how were they to be kept when the more politically and economically free states on Earth—the U.S., UK, Brazil, India, Australia and South Africa—acted as talent and willingness- to-work magnets?
The answer
to that was border and emigration control. Much as had the Soviet Union decades before and much as in Cuba, still, attempting to emigrate, except as permitted by the bureaucracy of the EU, became an antisocial crime with severe penalties, both formal and informal. The reduction of the Muslim populations, coupled with the gradual deIslamicization of Europe, helped there.
Chapter Eighteen
From our enemies we can defend ourselves but God save us from our friends.
—Lenin
UEPF Spirit of Peace, Earth Date 2 December, 2513
High Admiral Robinson had never really anticipated the headaches that came now with increasing frequency and never seemed entirely to go away. He wondered, sometimes, if they were guilt driven. Certainly the images of the people jumping to their deaths stuck with him in much the same way as the headaches.
And while Mustafa's people did the necessary reconnaissance and flew the airships, I was the one who did the structural analysis that said the buildings would fall once the fire weakened their steel supports. I just never imagined that I would actually see people die. It was harder than I would have thought even if I had considered it.
That was one headache: guilt. He had others.
I'd thought that once the FSC invaded Pashtia they'd end up in an endless, sticky quagmire, the same way the Volgans did twenty-two local years ago. Whoever would have suspected that they'd topple the place in under a month? Whoever would have thought that they'd do it so cheaply. I'd wanted a war that would tie them up and use up their wealth so they couldn't use it to get rid of us and later attack Earth. I'd wanted a failure that would undermine their nation-state system and leave useful idiots like Wiglan in charge. Instead, this affair has seen people like Unni marginalized and the nation-state, or at least the FSC, more powerful than ever.
