Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 02]

by Fire in a Faraway Place (epub)

  As the Los Angeles Maru quietly blew apart, Jankowskie maneuvered to engage the transport Chiyoda on the right side of the diamond, which unaccountably was still heading in his direction, apparently convinced that Jankowskie was going to allow it to remain a spectator to the battle.

  Passing as close to the transport as he dared, Jankowskie rapidly disabused it of the notion. Struck by nearly two dozen composite pellets, and raked by Jankowskie’s laser, Chiyoda's skin peeled away, and it began drifting, helpless.

  “That’s two!” Sery exulted from his gunner’s station.

  Jankowskie ignored him. The corvettes Yahagi, Kasumi, and Asashimo had been flying top cover “above” Maya with respect to Suid-Afrika’s surface, and the three ships were closing in on him in a broad inverted V.

  “Time to get out of here, Snipe,” Jankowskie ordered.

  “Trouble,” Moushegian commented, and Jankowskie immediately realized why. With more thrust built up than Ajax, the pursuing corvettes were rapidly closing the gap in between, and with Ajax lower in Suid-Afrika’s outer atmosphere, Jankowskie had more friction to contend with, as well as one direction where he could not go. In a stem chase, Admiral Horii’s ships would soon catch up. While the race does not always go to the swift nor the battle to the strong, that’s the way to bet.

  “The ships on the wings are changing course to intercept, skipper. Maybe two minutes to contact,” Moushegian announced glumly.

  “Nicolas, it’s Christmas tree time,” Jankowskie said.

  “Yes, sir,” Sery said automatically. Anticipating his order, Seiy was already engrossed with his jury-rigged firing controls.

  A corvette’s weapons were designed to be fired forward, and the sole purpose for the eccentric array of flak missiles that Jankowskie and his crew had hung on Ajax was to permit her to fire a Parthian shot at ships pursuing her. Although nimble at low speeds, Afagara-class corvettes were pigs under full thrust, which was just as well since even a slight evasion would cause the missiles to miss at the relatively low speeds their rocket engines could generate. With luck, they might cause the pursuing corvettes to veer off.

  “Targets acquired, missiles one, two, seven, eleven, and fifteen,” Sery announced. A new light came on. “Twelve!”

  “The middle corvette has opened fire,” Moushegian mentioned.

  Sery fired. A second later, he shouted “three” and fired once more. One missile spun out of control immediately. The other six “sped” off aimed at two of the three pursuing corvettes, although the corvettes were moving toward the missiles at eight times the best speed the missiles could manage.

  Seconds later, with maddening lack of response, Jankowskie jerked the ship left to dodge a thrust of fusion energy from Kasumi immediately astern and held his breath, not knowing how well the corvettes’ sensors would pick up the tiny missiles against the clutter, and whether the corvettes’ crews would recognize them if they did. Half a minute passed.

  Seconds before impact, Kasumi and Yahagi recognized the danger. Yahagi’s commander pulled his nose away and easily avoided the missiles aimed at his ship. Intent on his prey, Kasumi's commander ignored the missiles for a few seconds too long. His panic reaction at the last instant dodged three of the slow missiles moving toward his ship and impaled his ship on a fourth.

  The twenty-kilogram antitank charge that Armorer Rytov had stuffed into the missile’s warhead squashed itself against the vessel’s hull and exploded, boring a finger of white-hot metal deep into the ship’s side. Most of a corvette’s interior is taken up with the fusion bottle, and by luck and the grace of God, the molten metal pierced it through. The ship disappeared in a cloud of light.

  Kasumi having disintegrated and Yahagi having taken herself out of the fight, Jankowskie prudently turned the ship to evade Asashimo, which managed only a few insignificant hits with composite pellets before her target eluded her.

  A few seconds later, when Sery realized that he was going to live to see another birthday, he whooped and pounded Jankowskie on the back. Jankowskie, still intent on his instruments, banged his head against the display.

  As Jankowskie held his nose with a hurt look on his face, tiny globules of blood began floating across the bridge.

  “Sorry, sir,” Sery said contritely.

  Minutes later, Ashashimo and Yahagi gave up the chase, as increasingly anxious calls for ground support came to them from the planet below.

  During the battle, Maya had not moved from her initial position, and now she drifted, tilted slightly. To an anxious Yahagi, she broadcast, “Have been damaged by sabotage. Render immediate assistance.”

  As Yahagi and Asashimo acknowledged and closed to dock, missiles and clouds of composite particles from the heavier-armed frigate knifed out and slit open both corvettes.

  ON MAYAS BRIDGE, SANMARTIN SAT IN THE CAPTAIN’S CHAIR, WITH

  the corpses of her bridge crew wedged to one side.

  With silenced submachine guns, breaching charges for interior doors, and eighteen gas grenades apiece, it had taken Thomas’s men, veterans of house-to-house fighting in Krugersdorp and Nelspruit during the rebellion, less than seven minutes to penetrate to Maya’s bridge, and less than twenty to clear the ship.

  Sanmartin turned to his commo man, a brainy, ship-trained young Afrikaner. “All right. Tell the freighter and the transport to surrender or we’ll cut them open.”

  Predictably, the two ships tried to escape. In a matter of minutes, the freighter Zanzibar Maru, much too close, was run down and destroyed. The transport Hiyo built up speed and disappeared into space on a vector that would carry it far from any jump point.

  “Let them go,” Sanmartin said, staring at the lump of brain on his sleeve.

  “So that was a space battle,” Thomas said, wondering. “The very first,” Sanmartin replied. He absently tried to wipe his sleeve. “Someone ought to tell these navy boys that people sometimes shoot back.”

  A few minutes later, after studying Maya's control panel, he began systematically destroying the network of reconnaissance satellites that operated as Admiral Horii’s eyes.

  On the planet below, the battle reached its crescendo.

  MATTI HARJALO WALKED UP TO LIEUTENANT MURAVYOV’S

  Cadillac, which was draped in live seed ferns. Muravyov sat on the rim of the hatch where he could give Haijalo a hand up.

  Crouching beside the turret, Harjalo asked, “The Ninth Light Attack is on its way. Your people ready?”

  Muravyov had four Cadillacs and four slicks—two-man scout vehicles—from his own No. 15 platoon plus Savichev’s two Cadillacs from what was left of No. 16. He nodded.

  “Good.” Haijalo patted him on the shoulder. He sniffed the air inquisitively. “What is that I smell?”

  Muravyov stared off into space with a disgusted expression. “Recruit Private PrigaFs lunch.” He eyed his driver. “Prigal and I were just discussing that a few moments ago.”

  Haijalo smiled. “Chicken! Where might it have come from?” Muravyov’s gunner turned his head and began making sputtering noises like a teapot.

  “I, ah, found it while I was out scouting, sir,” Prigal responded, peering up from his seat like a turtle.

  “Indeed.” Haijalo looked down at his wrist mount. “Well, we have ten or fifteen minutes yet. Recruit Private Prigal, I call this field court-martial to order. Yet again, what do you have to say in defense or in mitigation?”

  Prigal thought for a minute. “Sir, the chicken refused to identify itself when I challenged it.”

  “Very imaginative. The farmhouse up the road?”

  Prigal nodded guiltily.

  “I vote for boiling him in oil if we live through this,” Muravyov said, looking daggers at Prigal.

  “Since you’re still a recruit private, I can’t very well demote you, can I?” Haijalo announced. “I just spoke with the farmer up the road there, and he is a very nice man. I think he’s one of Jan Snyman’s cousins. Sometime next week, go knock on his door and tell him I t
old you to pay double what he asks for.”

  “Yes, sir,” Prigal said, holding his head between his hands.

  Haijalo looked at Muravyov. “Set?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Remember, your job is to set them up for Stash Wojcek.”

  “I will.” Muravyov smiled, his aged eyes glowing. He shut the hatch behind him.

  Moments later, Muravyov summoned his vehicles to battle as the Hangman had always done. “Hear me, my brothers. The winds of paradise are blowing. Where are you who long for paradise?”

  Like a man challenged by a wasp, Lieutenant-Colonel Okuda delayed his refueling operation and moved to meet him, throwing a platoon against each of Muravyov’s flanks to drive away the covering slicks so that his battalion could crush Muravyov, Cadillac to Cadillac. Overjoyed at the prospect of pitting his electromagnetic guns against an armored foe, Okuda purposefully did not use his waiting air power.

  As soon as Okuda went for the bait, Captain Stash Wojcek’s four helicopters materialized from bunkers built into the back side of the Drakensberg Mountains. In a matter of seconds, they shot down the two waiting fuel transports and the two helicopters escorting them. Then two of Wojcek’s helicopters peeled off to engage the attention of the Imperial Shidens with help from flak gunners hidden on the ground, while the other two made a quick, but devastating, attack on Okuda’s flank platoons.

  Wojcek’s wingman, Kokovtsov, heeded Wojcek’s instructions to make his firing run count, banging his left wheel on a Cadillac’s turret a second or two after his gunner had finished pumping it full of holes.

  Weaving in and out to discourage pursuit, Wojcek’s three surviving copters flew off to the north. Kokovtsov’s gunner grinned feebly. “Hey, Coconut. I thought for a minute there you wanted to join the infantry.”

  A thin smile played around the edges of Kokovtsov’s mouth. “Me, a groundhog? I fly. Serves them right for living on the ground. Good run,” which was the most his gunner had heard him say at one time in seven years.

  Sergeant Platoon Commander Konstantin Savichev, who took command after Muravyov’s Cadillac blew up, used the respite to break contact. Lieutenant-Colonel Okuda had to be physically restrained by his battalion sergeant. Halfway up the Leiden Pass, his remaining vehicles began running out of fuel. Less than a dozen of them limped back to Bloemfontein.

  When the Shidens flown off to support Okuda returned to the spaceport, Maya caught eight of them, damaging or destroying six in a running chase.

  NINE MINUTES LATER, THE FULL GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION BE-

  came apparent to Admiral Horii’s staff when snipers picked off two of the Lifeguards Battalion’s flak gunners and an extended-range round from an 88mm recoilless gun crashed into the spaceport radar. It cleared the way for four of Vereshchagin’s Shidens.

  Crammed with ordnance, they came in low—with fern fronds dangling from the engine nacelles—and pulled up over the spaceport to unload indiscriminately on troop positions, parked aircraft, and supply depots. Custom-made drag-plates attached to their bombs gave the fuses time to arm and the aircraft barely enough time to clear the buildings before hell came loose.

  As Colonel Enomoto mobilized his men to fight fires, Admiral Horii, watching through his window, commented to Watanabe, “The situation is quite serious, isn’t it?”

  Moments later, the flight of Imperial Shidens that Maya had shot up appeared and immediately came under intense small-arms fire from Enomoto’s jittery guardsmen. While most of the flight circled and attempted to identify themselves, one plane streaming fuel from a ruptured tank tried to land and was struck several times. As it touched down, it began sliding and burst into flame when it fell off the runway.

  “Another own goal,” Horii commented.

  In a smoke-stained uniform, Colonel Sumi prepared an order of the day that read, “Due to unexpected setbacks, soldiers must hold their positions without fail. This is a contest of spiritual strength. Continue in your mission until all your ammunition is expended. When it is expended, use your hands. If they are broken, use your feet. If your feet are broken, use your teeth. If there is no breath left with your body, continue to fight with your spirit.”

  He went to present it to Admiral Horii for signature.

  MORE OR LESS REENACTING HIS ORIGINAL ENTRANCE INTO BLOEM-

  fontein, Piotr Kolomeitsev returned in the back of a borrowed bakkie truck. Traveling down the Venterstadt Road, he spotted a group of about a hundred men and boys armed with a miscellany of weapons off to the side and signaled his driver to slow the vehicle.

  An older man with a decrepit shotgun saluted. “Major Kolomeitsev, we were expecting you. Most of us have weapons.” The Iceman carefully studied the way they held themselves and said with what passed in him for kindness, “Please. Go home.” “We want revenge!” one man shouted, brandishing a rifle. A few others echoed him.

  “Many of us have lost relatives,” the older man said soberly. The Iceman’s voice could cut like a knife when he chose. “The dead are dead. Hanna Bruwer would not have wanted this. Please—go home. We professionals will ask for assistance if we need it.” His smile was chill as he left them.

  Matti Haijalo was waiting for him by the fountain in the Krugerplein, having “reoccupied” the town, already under sporadic mortar fire from the nervous Manchurians in the casern, with the pilot of his Sparrow.

  Haijalo grabbed Kolomeitsev by the shoulder as soon as he arrived. “Piotr, how long will it take your men to deploy?” “Give me fifteen minutes, and I will have two platoons in position. What is the situation?”

  “The Manchurians are holed up here and in the Pretoria and Johannesburg caserns. We got lucky—one of De Wette’s platoons managed to stampede the garrison company out of Complex, so we took it intact. Also, tell your boys to be careful—some farmer already mistook Thomas for an Imp and tried to part his hair with a shotgun. He was thouroughly indignant.

  Haijalo concluded, “The people flying transports are breaking their backs, so Coldewe and De Wette may have their people in place in about an hour.”

  The Iceman nodded, acknowledging the sincerity of the statement, and began positioning his men. In truth, it was another three hours before Coldewe and De Wette could put any semblance of a ring around the other two Manchurian-occupied caserns.

  As soon as Harjalo reported that his men were ready, Vereshchagin nodded impassively to Timo Haerkoennen and took the microphone from him. “Colonel Uno, this is Lieutenant-Colonel Vereshchagin. As you are aware, your warships have been captured or destroyed. Further military action on your part is useless. I wish to arrange for the peaceful repatriation of the force under your command. Please respond.” Vereshchagin repeated his message three times. He deliberately avoided using the word “surrender.”

  Haerkoennen shook his head. “No response, sir.”

  “Signal Raul.”

  On cue, Ajax dipped low and showered the Johannesburg casern with chicken seed, while Maya did the same to the Pretoria casern.

  “Colonel Uno. Please respond,” Vereshchagin repeated. “We’re getting a response from Bloemfontein, sir,” Haerkoennen said.

  Vereshchagin recognized the reedy voice of Lieutenant-Colonel Bukichi, Uno’s blackleg chief of staff. “As Imperial soldiers, we will never give up our positions!” “Lieutenant-Colonel Bukichi, please allow me to speak with Colonel Uno or Lieutenant-Colonel Okuda. If the Manchurian regiment accepts repatriation, I will return its officers and men to Earth. If it refuses, I regret that it will be destroyed,” Vereshchagin said inexorably.

  Unknown to Bukichi, Timo Haerkoennen had tapped into the Manchurian regiment’s radio net, and every soldier trapped in the three caserns was able to hear their exchange.

  “We will fight to the end as befits Imperial soldiers,” Bukichi said shrilly. “And at the first sign of attack, we will shell the towns of Bloemfontein, Pretoria, and Johannesburg. This discussion is at an end.”

  “Tell Matti,” Vereshchagin told Haerkoenne
n quietly. "Bloemfontein first.”

  The Johannesburg and Bloemfontein caserns were built on hills made of deeply veined and fissured quartzite, and before leaving the two caserns, C Company Armorer Rytov had carefully pumped thousands of liters of liquid artillery propellant into the rock, forcing it deep into the hairline cracks. One result was that neighboring farmers found displaced water flooding their fields, and it had taken Raul Sanmartin some effort to soothe them over.

  Of greater import, the artillery propellant had turned both knolls into huge bombs. It was a fairly spectacular variant on Rytov’s usual task of preparing a dead-man’s switch to blow up his armory to keep it from being captured.

  At Harjalo’s command, Rytov sent a radio signal to ignite the charges he had left to touch off Bloemfontein casern, and the nitrate-impregnated rock erupted, detonating the ammunition stored in the armory above it for good measure. It left an irregular crater eighteen meters deep and four hundred meters in diameter. The shock wave set off the casern’s mine fields and broke virtually every window in the city. People as far away as Upper Marlboro felt the ground tremble.

  One Manchurian, stripped of his clothes but otherwise uninjured, landed on top of a neighboring farmhouse. It was four hours before he was able to speak with sufficient coherence to identify himself.

  A Company had little trouble mopping up the dazed survivors.

  “I didn’t think it would work,” was Rytov’s comment.

  Moments later, Vereshchagin explained how his men had destroyed the Bloemfontein garrison and again called on the Johannesburg and Pretoria garrisons to accept repatriation.

  “It’s a shame we couldn’t do anything with the Pretoria casern,” Haerkoennen commented.

  “We may not need to,” Vereshchagin replied.

  The Japanese major commanding the Johannesburg garrison curtly refused. Inside one of the bunkers that Coldewe’s men had built, Section Sergeant Ma and his section listened surreptitiously.