by Tom Kratman
The Mosaic D is flown by exceptionally well selected and well trained pilots. It is not believed that the plane can take on even second line modern fighters with anything like equality. It is believed that its mission is engagement of transports, attack aircraft, and EW aircraft, along with ground attack and naval attack.
Suspected vulnerabilities include: degraded flight characteristics due to modification of wings and tail assembly; low availability due to inexperienced ground crews; lack of modern IFF; limited all weather capability (though it can fly reasonably well in the rain); poor pilot visibility except to the front; EXTREME vulnerability to damage due to almost complete lack of redundancy in systems. The use of small arms for air defense may be the best defense.
It is not known how many of the legion’s Mosaics have been upgraded to this model. Based on Zioni reports, the number may be anywhere from twenty-one to sixty. However, we believe the Zionis are lying and the true numbers are on the order of ninety.
“What do you think that means?” Janier asked.
“Sir,” said Campbell, “we think it means they can engage current TU air forces within the Transitway Area at parity.”
“Fuck,” he said, then added, “that was not an invitation, tempting though the prospect may be.
“What else?”
“They haven’t brought them home yet,” Campbell said, “but after piecing together a great deal of information of ours, plus some that the Federated States makes available to Anglia and Secordia, and nobody else, I’ve come to the conclusion that twenty-four one-seat and seven two-seat Artem-Mikhail-23-465 Gaur jet fighters are somewhere, crated and in shipment or being modified, perhaps in Zion.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you, sir,” she replied. “Really. Please don’t ask.”
“All right,” the Gallic general agreed. Would I have had she not such a marvelous chest? Maybe not.
“Read the chapters on their artillery park and air defense artillery park,” Campbell suggested. “Note their batteries are fully manned but only have three guns, typically. Ever wonder if the other guns weren’t around somewhere?”
“Some of this did get to me,” the Gaul said.
She replied, “Some of it was so obvious it couldn’t be hidden. But let me tell you what bugs me about it, sir: I think that’s only a large fraction of what they have. Too much Volgan, Cochinese, etc. material has disappeared into the cracks. What we show there is just what’s in country, not what might be hidden elsewhere. Then, too…”
“Yes?” he prodded.
“Hendryksen and I go ’round and ’round about this daily. Personally, I suspect they show us just enough to attract our fears and our attentions away from other things.”
“Like their ‘hidden reserve,’ you mean? We know about them.”
“Just what I was getting at, sir. They let us see enough of the hidden reserve that I wonder if it isn’t deliberate, if there isn’t even a more hidden, a more deeply hidden, reserve somewhere.”
“But no evidence?”
“No, sir, none we’ve been able to find.”
Janier nodded somberly. “Dangerous…dangerous,” he muttered. Then he asked her, “Are you available for a boat trip tomorrow?”
Before she could fly into a rage at the suggestion of impropriety, he amended, “Just to accompany me as an advisor for a negotiating session? You would be one of four guards I am allowed.”
“Who with?” she asked. “Where?”
“Carrera. On his yacht.”
“I’ll wear my skimpiest bikini.”
Janier laughed, which may have been the first time in his life he’d found humor in anything having to do with Anglia. “May I ask you for some advice, Captain?”
“Surely, General,” Campbell replied.
“What, in your opinion only, of course, should I do about Balboa?”
Without hesitation, she answered, “Leave them be. Just leave them be.”
Explaining further, she added, “My comrade, Sergeant Major Hendryksen, is of the opinion that they need to be taken down because they are so unconstrained by civilized morals and values. And he, be it noted, sir, likes them.
“I agree with him that that makes them very dangerous, especially while Carrera lives.
“But, he will not live forever. So the problem is one that will mitigate itself in time. On the other hand, if we fight them and lose, as we may, they will not only be unconstrained, they will—after defeating someone a hundred times bigger and a thousand times wealthier, and much, much better armed—be convinced that there is nothing in the universe than even can constrain them.
“They will be impossible to live with, then. Contemplate how regularly the Cochinese flout and frustrate the Zhong after defeating the Federated States and Gaul. Then multiply that by fifty. Or a hundred and fifty while that psychotic bastard Carrera lives.”
Four Miles North of the Isla Real, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso
Janier came in a not too ostentatious boat he’d had Campbell rent. She, being of fisherfolk, herself, steered. Since that made her, in Janier’s opinion, crew rather than guard, he also had four armored and armed guards with him. Ahead, bow on, rolled the considerably larger yacht he recognized from a target folder as Carrera’s. Even if he hadn’t recognized it, the mean looking, gun bristling patrol boat a few hundred meters off would have told him.
And, no doubt, he would claim that the boat doesn’t count against the four guards limit, and, equally doubtless, the fully combat trained and equipped crew for the yacht won’t count either. Only the ones in battle dress and armor count. Naturally. Because he has the nerve to push.
It was said Carrera virtually never used the thing, but allowed his personal staff to borrow it. There was a very faint discoloration at the bow, which Janier thought he recognized as repaired damage from when Carrera’s wife had run the thing into a dock during her flight for help against the late Legate Pigna’s coup.
Odd, thought the Gaul, if we had taken out that boat in the course of the coup, Carrera’s wife could never have gone for help. The coup might have worked and I would not be out here now, but back in Gaul with accolades galore. Why I didn’t order that—it could have been discreetly done by us—I will never know.
Oh, be honest, Janier, at least with yourself in the confines of your own mind: Yes, you do know why. You lacked the nerve.
The general found it strangely refreshing to admit this, if only to himself, refreshing…and a relief, as well, not to have to pretend even to himself.
Campbell guided her small craft with an ease and expertise learned as a child. With barely a thump, and not much of a scrape, she eased it right up to the ladder hanging off the side of Carrera’s boat. The boat transmitted both the waves and the little bit of bump almost directly to her barely contained breasts.
Watching from the yacht’s gunwales, Carrera thought, She doesn’t have to flaunt them a bit; they flaunt themselves.
Then he was reaching a hand over to help Janier aboard, while one of the Gaul’s guards tossed a line to one of his. Campbell came aboard last, and Carrera waited, helping each Tauran up in turn, just for the chance at an eyeful. As Carrera took her hand to help her up and over, Janier introduced her as, “My aide de camp, Captain Campbell.”
* * *
Jan sat behind Janier, on the rear deck of the yacht, occasionally stretching or shifting position every time she thought Carrera’s mind was in gear. Not for the first time in her life she recalled what her mother had told her were the purpose of breasts: Ta feed bairns and ta turn grown men into bairns.
Finally, Carrera had had enough. He stood, walked off, then returned with a bathrobe. “Put this on, please, Captain,” he said. “Take it as a compliment, also please, but I simply cannot get a clear thought in my head while you parade yourself.”
Oh, well, she thought, as she directed a knowing smile Carreraward, didn’t figure I could get away with it indefinitely. And you’re more reasonabl
e and at least somewhat less of a psycho than I had thought.
“And now that I can think,” Carrera said to Janier, “let us continue our negotiations with all the good faith we’ve come to expect…hmmm…no, scratch that, with genuine good faith.”
* * *
“You are not, despite your words, negotiating in good faith,” Janier said. “I have offered to stop the rehearsals—yes, we both know that’s what they were; rehearsals and opportunities for you to give us a casus belli—for invading your country. But, throw me a bone, here. I am trapped by our own propaganda. We’ve painted you as a major threat to the peace of the region; I simply can’t back off from that without something to show for it.”
“How,” replied Carrera, “can I show good faith to what is essentially a lie? You know I have no designs on Santa Josefina or Santander, and those are my only neighbors. I couldn’t attack either one. Oh, sure, I have the tanks and tracks, and all of that. But I don’t have the ships to attack Santander, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. Neither do I have the trucks for Santa Josefina. As a professional, you should understand that.”
“That’s not true,” Campbell said, interrupting for the first time. “Oh, it’s true that you don’t have a dedicated transportation division able to support your entire army in Santa Josefina. But a), Duque, you don’t need your entire army to take Santa Josefina, even with the troops we’ve sent there, and therefore, b), every other truck in the legion is available to be taken out of their parent formation and used to support the—what, maximum two legions?—you would send there. And that is not even counting that you, you personally, own a trucking company able to move a thousand tons a day all the way to the border. At least one trucking company. And while it is impossible to track just who owns what in terms of shipping, I note a tendency to move your arms shipments on the same vessels, over and over.”
“Just a habitual relationship with someone who gives us a good deal,” Carrera lied.
Then, obviously caught in that, he said, “I cannot trust you. Or, rather, even if I thought I could, I cannot trust the Tauran Union precisely because of the propaganda you’ve painted yourselves into a corner with. That said, what might constitute a sufficient bone?”
“Duque,” said Campbell, “you need to concede more or the general will be replaced and all your negotiations will be fruitless.”
Carrera nodded. “All right, I can see that. But by the same token, if I give up too much my troops will ignore me. Really. So what do you really need that I can live with?”
“For starters,” said Janier, “you could leave those—what was it, Captain, thirty-one?—Artem-Mikhail-23-465 Gaur right where they are, in Zion or on their way there, I believe, and not repatriate them to here.”
Carrera felt a moment of almost panic. If they know about those, what else do they know about? He pushed it aside with the thought, If they knew about the other things, they wouldn’t be asking for is us to give up those.
“All right. I’ll leave them with the Zionis. But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up ownership or that I won’t continue to train pilots. It only means they won’t come here. For now.”
Janier looked at Campbell for confirmation of his instincts. At her subtle nod, he said, “That’s fair, as far as it goes. Can you disband that newly created, outsized regiment of Santa Josefinans?”
“You don’t want me to let them go,” Carrera said. “If I did, and if they went home, there would be no end of troubles for Santa Josefina.”
“Then don’t let them go,” Janier said. “Reintegrate them back into the units you pulled them out of.” He cast Campbell an appreciative glance. “Yes, we caught that that was how you raised them. You haven’t lost anything by it and then we can say we’ve gotten you to eliminate a formation that was clearly intended to wage aggressive war in Santa Josefina.”
“It wasn’t, you know,” Carrera said. “What it was intended for was to make it necessary for you to keep so many troops in Santa Josefina in the event of war that you wouldn’t have a lot more left to spare for us. Five thousand guerillas, acting as cadre for twenty thousand more, would have sucked up the bulk of the maneuver forces the Tauran Union can field. I am surprised you never keyed on that.”
Janier said nothing but thought, So am I. It is obvious, isn’t it, that you were making Santa Josefina a bad investment.
“I’ll do it; I’ll disband that tercio. But I want the force in Santa Josefina reduced. You don’t need half of what’s there.”
“Agreed,” said Janier, “to a point. But we’ll have to keep more than half. It’s a shape issue. Isn’t that one of Balboa’s principles of war: Shape? The shape of the bloody border, and its length, and the road net, means that we can pull out the one battalion that is there resting and training, but the other three, with their support, must stay.
“And another thing…”
Chapter Twenty-six
Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.
—W. H. Auden
UEPF Spirit of Peace, in orbit over Terra Nova
Wallenstein was alone in her office…well, alone but for a bottle of the good stuff, flown up from the Kingdom of Anglia. The bottle was emptying fast, which was remarkable in someone who rarely drank to excess. But then, Marguerite had her reasons.
The difference between myself and the late High Admiral Robinson, thought High Admiral Wallenstein, is that he tried to use two opposed forces, Islamic barbarism and modern cosmopolitan progressivism, to do two opposed things. It was never possible for the latter to win and castrate all their atavistic tendencies toward aggression out of the new world. It was never possible for Islamic barbarism to triumph over the power of the modern state. Neither was it possible for both together to have achieved this, even if they’d been able to really work together, which they were not.
My approach is different. I don’t want to—because I don’t think I can—knock down Terra Nova. Instead, I want to build up first the Tauran Union, using a can’t lose war with Balboa as a catalyst to create a real country from the hate-each-others’ guts collection that exists. Then I’ll create a union in Colombia Latina, which will use driving out the Taurans as its mechanism for unity. Then a combined Islamic-South Uhuran state that I will usher into the modern universe. And lastly, I would push Xing Zhong Guo—New Middle Kingdom—into trying to exercise hegemony over its end of Taurania. All the while leaving enough could-go-one-way-could-go-another territory between all of them that they’re perpetually at each other’s throats, while the UEPF keeps in position to help whoever was the underdog, to ensure perpetual conflict, and all those eyes down below focused on their own problems and their own hates…because as long as they were doing that, they wouldn’t be thinking of how to get at us and they wouldn’t have the resources to spare to build a fleet to come after Old Earth.
And five, historically, has been the perfect number for great power stability.
Meanwhile, back home, I could use the fact of perpetual war here to get the bleeding heart tendency—which normally detests the Peace Fleet—to support us for the humanitarian work we’d do.
It was perfect…and then that fuck-faced piece of French-speaking shit had to go and fuck it all up one me. The pussy. One would almost think he was the brother of that cowardly bitch, Marine R.E.S. Mors du Char the Fourth.
And the crawling filth won’t even answer the communicator I left him so that I can chew him out properly.
Awkwardly, she plucked a few ice cubes from the bucket left by Esmeralda and dumped them in her glass. Just as awkwardly, she pulled the cork from the bottle and poured about four fingers’ worth over the ice. In putting the cork back in the bottle she managed to tap the glass with the bottle’s base, spilling ice and scotch all over the desk. Coriolis force made the scotch run across the desk rather strangely.
“Fuck!”
&nb
sp; Esmeralda appeared instantly at the office door. “Are you all right, High Admiral?”
Wallenstein looked up, mildly slack faced. She wanted to say, No, I’m not all right. All my plans have been ruined by the weakness of a Gallic barbarian, below. I am lonely. I am desperately horny. I think you are beautiful and sweet and I wish I could take you to bed. But that would be rape, on my part, even if I made you get on top…which I would, since I’m a submissive precisely so I can unwind from the stress of being in charge and responsible. But never mind the details; it would also be a betrayal of Richard, who adores you. And that betrayal might be even worse than the rape.
Some looks come through even the slackest, most drunken face. That one was easy to read. Esmeralda’s answering look was, I will, if you want.
Oh, I want. But it would still be rape. So, no. I know what that’s like and you deserve much better. Just in case the cabin girl and sometimes brevetted officer didn’t understand, Marguerite shook her head most reluctantly.
“Just toss me a towel, please,” the high admiral slurred. “I can clean up after myself. Then you go to bed.” Before I weaken and change my mind. Because you make me very weak…very…
* * *
Esmeralda left the light on in her narrow bunkroom next to the high admiral’s. Lying on her back, with a light sheet and comforting blanket pulled up to just over her breasts, she looked over at and thought about the connecting door that led from her tiny cabin to the high admiral’s. She realized that the reason for the door and the proximity was precisely so that cabin boys and girls could be of greatest use—which had nothing to do with pouring drinks or cleaning spills—to whoever held the office for the time. She felt, as she had felt before, tremendous gratitude toward Wallenstein for not putting her to use as the high admiral had every right to put her to use.
