by Tom Kratman
Estado Mayor, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
The Casa Linda was perfectly suitable as a day-to-day office. But it really wasn’t equipped for what Carrera and the legion needed now.
In a centrally located and very nearly ultimately secure room, a rather large room, at that, with tables with maps, and walls carrying maps, monitors, and televisions, Carrera’s long-laid plans could be seen unfolding.
Unknown to either Wallenstein, Janier, or McQueeg-Gordon, the first steps in Urraca 2000 were unfolding. At Carrera’s coded orders, from around the world over two dozen merchant ships—big ones, mixed break bulk, ro-ros, and container ships—turned their bows toward ports closer to Balboa. Some were fully loaded already. Others had generally innocuous cargoes to pick up from various ports where those cargoes—food, medical supplies, fuel, batteries, spare parts, all the noncombat impedimenta of war—had been stored over the years. Six other ships, one very large merchant ship reconfigured as an assault transport, two medium ships that had been modified to carry Condors and antishipping missiles, and three small freighters that had been turned into mine layers, took to sea from Cochin over a period of days. Though at sea, these stayed as far from Balboa as possible.
Sealed orders, under guard, rested in the headquarters of each military academy, as well as the transportation tercio, the Military Intelligence tercio, and all the corps headquarters. Other orders, being general contingency plans and not nearly so secret, were on hand in every other unit in the legion. This included the rapidly reforming, because never really disbanded, units of Santa Josefinans, massing in the jungles near the border between their home country and Valle de las Lunas.
Despite sayings to the contrary, all warfare is not based on deception. Rather, deception is just part of the bag of tricks. That said, deception can be one of the more valuable tools in the general’s kit bag. Urraca 2000 was based in large part on deception. This took four forms. There would be strict operational security, the guarding of what was actually going on from prying eyes, lenses, radars, magnetic anomaly detectors, sniffers, and microphones. There would be disinformation, the planting of information that might or might not be false but would serve to reinforce any preconceived and incorrect notions the Taurans might have. Most important was to make Balboa seem far less ready to fight, at the precise moment of a Tauran invasion, than was really the case.
There would be activity that could not be hidden but that would not threaten the Taurans’ plans, and would attract their interest. The activation and deployment of a portion of the legion was expected to draw that attention. Such activity was expected to use up a significant portion of their intelligence interpretation assets, the human beings who actually turned the data gathered by satellite and spy plane into something occasionally useable.
Especially to catch the attention of air and space reconnaissance, the Sixteenth Aviation Legion began to disperse most of its several hundred aircraft to small fields around the country. Others had never been moved from small fields.
Similarly, of the thirteen Meg-Class coastal defense submarines, of which two were in for overhaul, the other eleven put to sea, their “clickers” advertising their presence and vulnerability to one and all. The clickers would, of course, be shut off at the first hint of hostilities.
In a program developed and implemented over the preceding decade, there were hide positions for combat equipment for forces the existence of which the Taurans were not terribly likely to suspect. An overstrength cohort’s worth of armor, light and heavy, was hidden deeply in the ammunition bunkers at the Lago Sombrero Ammunition Supply Point. The artillery compliment to support that force was hidden elsewhere, more or less in plain sight in a scrap metal yard, next to a legion repair depot, about ten kilometers away. It had taken almost eight years to assemble that package.
Anyone could anticipate that the Taurans would attempt to seize Herrera Airport. Carrera, naturally, had anticipated it as well. There were some thirty-four houses located on three sides of the field that had been built to legion specifications, were owned by a rental company that answered to Carrera, and had stored in hidden vaults in hidden subbasements all the implements needed for about twelve hundred troops to fight. In addition, a nearby warehouse held several score of the caltrop projectors developed by Siegel in Cochin. They looked like concrete-filled barrels, such as someone might put along an airstrip to deny use to an airlanding assault. On signal, they would explode, scattering thousands of four pointed, sharp and barbed jacks across the entire area. God pity the paratroopers who came down on that.
A half dozen similarly sited houses dominated the much smaller local airport that lay on a shallow peninsula north of and abutting the city.
On the Shimmering Sea side there was a brewery that hid equipment at Puerto Catival, and deeper hides at Pilon and Clay Dairy Farms.
Two construction sites at Santa Cruz and Vacamonte faced Arnold Air Force Base. Another heavy equipment maintenance facility at Arraijan also faced east toward the naval station, the Bridge of the Colombias, and the Transitway itself. The final position, a set of warehouses that seemed placed to support a shopping mall, was in the general area of Alfaro’s Tomb, facing Fort Muddville and Brookings Air Force Station.
Military equipment was not remotely out of place in the maintenance facilities. And because they were maintenance facilities, with expensive military equipment present, it had not been suspicious for a constant guard to be maintained on them. And then, too, with sheds, working bays, conexes, and a constantly shifting level of “broken” equipment to be serviced, it had been very difficult for any Tauran intelligence asset to keep a very good count of what was available at any given site. In fact, the Taurans hadn’t even tried. Even if they had, it would have been impossible for them to know how much was serviceable since even Balboan maintenance records lied. The really secret part, the provision of troop shelters proof from remote sensing, had been accomplished years before, back when there was little or no suspicion between the Taurans and Balboans.
The construction sites had been more of a problem. For one thing, tanks and artillery were not the usual denizens of such places; nor was it a simple matter to disguise a tank as a bulldozer, although it could be done and in a few cases had been. For another, construction sites move from time to time. The second problem had been handled by making them sites for major construction projects; roads, for example, in the cases of Vacamonte and Santa Cruz. Equipment had been smuggled to the place in dribs and drabs, in locked conexes where possible. Unsuspicious guards were generously provided to—in theory—secure the precious building materials and construction equipment. In practice, of course, the guards were there to secure the hidden arms. Few, if any, of the guards had any reason to believe that conexes and locked warehouses contained arms and ammunition.
All of this was for the cadets, the roughly eleven thousand children, though most were over fifteen, that the legion’s military schools recruited, and thoroughly trained, against the coming day. The signs were all there to see, really, but the Taurans, even if they’d bothered to look closely, would likely have gone into apoplectic shock as the notion of using fifteen-year-olds for machine gun fodder. Thus, they’d shied away from it.
At least that was Carrera’s theory. On the other hand, Fernandez just thought they’d hidden the real capability too well for suspicion.
Of course, getting the cadets from their schools to their assault and defense positions would take some doing. There were some fairly complex plans—and some rather simple ones—for that, as well. One part of both plans, that actually made things easier, was a selective call up of the reserve echelon, which attracted attention away from the academies.
All of this poured out, as Carrera watched, onto the maps, the computer monitors, and the television screens in this deepest of deep conference rooms. He did take time out to order a maniple, no more than that, to helicopter in and set up an interdiction line about three miles long to try to capture Pililak
.
“The Quad,” Fort Muddville, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova
There hadn’t been a lot of time for farting around. Rather than try to keep her trip secret, this time Marguerite had let it be known. Indeed, she’d announced she was coming to Balboa, all in the interests of peace.
“And it’s true, in a way,” she told Esmeralda, on the flight down. “Peace for our home requires that this planet be organized into roughly equal power blocks perpetually at each other’s throats, precisely five of them.”
“Why five, High Admiral?” Esmeralda had asked. She was back in mufti for the trip, though Wallenstein kept in uniform.
“Seems to work well, through human history,” Marguerite answered. “The average treachery quotient is such that, of five, one is certain to betray somebody, when it counts, while a three to two advantage is not enough to win before someone in the three sticks it to the other two.”
“And two to one would be too great a disparity?” Esmeralda asked.
“Yes, dear; Orwell got it completely wrong.”
* * *
From Atlantis Base, they’d taken the locally purchased UEPF plane direct to Brookings Field. From there, the new Tauran commander had had them whisked to his administrative headquarters—he’d barely given a thought to the combat command post in the Tunnel since his arrival in country—and met them there in the green grass rectangle south of Building 59.
“You should have met me at the field,” said Marguerite crossly. “The Gaul could get away with meeting me here, but he had a style you lack. Now trot your Anglian buns into the secure conference room so I can tell you what you’re up against. Nothing in the preparations we can see from space suggests you have a clue.”
Fortunately the Gaul, for all his wishy-washy, nervous nellieism, is doing a fair job of prepping the invasion from his end.
Parade Field, Camp Pontfaverger, Suippe Department, Gaul, Terra Nova
One of the nice things about lighter than air craft that derived some of their lift aerodynamically or through fans, or through both, was that they didn’t need much in the way of facilities. Any open field of sufficient size—a parade field, say—would do. This one was doing splendidly, with the airship holding itself in place while the Gallic 105th Régiment de Chars de Combat lined up along the road leading to the field. The airship, any airship of this model, could only take a maximum of sixteen of the Gallic tanks, plus their crews and minimal supplies. The other three for this regiment waited at other open fields. They’d come in for the pickup as soon as the first one was done. Loading the first one, under the eyes of the units professional sergeants, was going…fairly well.
* * *
“Hey, asshole, keep eye contact with your ground guide at all times! You hear me, Garcon?” The sergeant’s shouts in fact went unheard by the tank driver, cautiously steering his sixty-ton monster across the ramp and into the hold of a far more monstrous airship. Nonetheless, with the psychic perception which most privates develop and which warns them of potentially comfort-threatening interaction with a sergeant, the driver returned his full attention to his task. A long line of other armored vehicles—and their crews—awaited their turns to load.
There was no chance that the tanks would arrive in Balboa before the invasion kicked off. Indeed, had the first of them arrived it would likely have signaled the legion that war was imminent, causing the Balboans to initiate hostilities on their terms. Instead, the tanks and the dragoons regiments loading elsewhere—along with Anglian Hussars, Sachsen Panzergrenadiere, Tuscan Carabinieri, and a host of others coming in by slow airship—were to be a third echelon of reinforcement once the legion was scattered and demoralized, with their leadership killed or captured.
It was hoped that their mere appearance on the battlefield would serve to induce holdouts and die-hards to throw in the towel, sparing both sides needless effusion of blood.
Seeing the previous tank disappear into the airship’s hold, the sergeant turned around and signaled for the next to begin moving.
Camelot, Anglia, Terra Nova
The men of the 25th Regiment, known as “Paras,” had taken the news of a lawful strife impending with joy almost unalloyed. The two dampers were that a) they actually rather appreciated the notion of a hot poker being, in the words of their RSM, “Shoved right up that Gallic tart Marine Mors du Char’s smelly little cunt,” and b) they were going to be under Gallic command.
The latter was fine, if one was a Gaul. If one was not a Gaul, however, one could be confident of getting the shitty end of the stick in every case. When the news came that while, “Yes, the bloody perfidious Gauls are in overall charge, but there’s a proper Anglian gentleman, McQueeg-Gordon, on the ground now and, besides, we’re going to hit far away from any of the bloody Frogs,” their happiness quotient lifted by quite a bit.
There was still that issue of attacking people who, after all, had only done what every proper soldier in the Tauran Union wanted to do, but, “Eh, fuck ’em. And besides, it’ll be fun.”
Lautrec International Airport, Lautrec, Gaul, Terra Nova
It was pleasantly warm here, with a mild breeze that originated in the great inland sea to the north.
Khalid had never been to the Lautrec airport before. Nonetheless, the sudden sprouting of nearly five hundred tents he took as being some variant on a “tent, general purpose, medium,” all in rows on one side of one of the airport’s twin, parallel runways, he took as strange and unusual.
This really isn’t my job, though the Druze assassin, but I suppose I’m the only one here, so it’s become my job. Hmmm…let’s see, I count four hundred and ninety-five tents, give or take a few, at eighteen men per tent. That’s about eight thousand, nine hundred. That’s a little more than the Twentieth Gallic Parachute Brigade has, but subtract a few for mess tents, headquarters, medical aid stations…so yes, I think I’m looking at the entire half division they call a brigade. That would be the light armor regiment, which probably can’t drop its gunned armored cars but can drop the troops, four battalions—oh, they call them “regiments,” don’t they?—of parachute infantry, a battalion of engineers, of artillery…yep, there’s the gun line over there,
But can they lift everything? I see forty-six A-4N transports…thirty-three C-61s…nineteen Airtec-532s, I think those are.
It wasn’t, as he’d thought, Khalid’s job to know, but he took a healthy interest in his adopted country’s potential enemies and their equipment, even so. He guestimated in his head: Forty-six A-4Ns…fifty-three hundred…thirty-three C-16s…twenty-nine hundred…nineteen 532s…about eight hundred. ’Course, that’s not leaving anything for outsized equipment and heavy drops. They’ve got to either airland some things, or bring in more lift, or send them by echelons. The most I see is three-fourths of this assembly going on the aircraft available.
Then, too…hmmm…the 532s won’t range all the way to Balboa. Note to Fernandez: have the boss consider attacking them at wherever their forward staging base will be.
Oh, and now that I think about it, they could move everything forward to Cienfuegos or Santa Josefina so that the second echelon comes in hard on the heels of the first. Eh…that’s really not my job or expertise. Let the people whose job this is to analyze do their jobs, Khalid, and you do what you can from here.
The Tunnel, Cerro Mina, Balboa, Terra Nova
Wallenstein had practically had to drag McQueeg-Gordon—tall, slender, and unintelligent looking—to the Tunnel by his earlobe, like a naughty child. The general didn’t seem to understand even that there was a secure operational headquarters, less still that circumstances were changing so quickly that he’d better get his ass into it.
De Villepin, still chief of intelligence, had met them at the Tunnel’s entrance, duly checked out Esmeralda’s allegedly eighty-seven year old body, given Marguerite a dirty look for inflicting the Anglian fool on them, then led them all into the bowels of the hill.
Fortunately, procedures and drills i
nstituted by the Gaul, Janier, were still largely remembered among the staff. By the time Wallenstein deposited a sputtering McQueeg-Gordon in Janier’s old office, the other important players from Building 59 had already moved into the Tunnel.
The command still had a Gallic intelligence chief, de Villepin, a Gallic operations chief, Bessières, and a Gallic chief of staff, Moncey. What chance had a simple Anglian, whose mother wasn’t entirely sure of his paternity, when faced with such a solid consensus to ignore him?
Ah, thought Marguerite, now I understand. The Gauls are still running the show, and have no intention of letting their Anglian pseudo commander have anything much to do with it. Such are the benefits of coalition warfare, I suppose.
Though few recognized her, her initial admission by de Villepin, plus the security badge he pinned on her granting her unlimited access, saw her able to traverse the Tunnel, all its side corridors, and their offices without let or hindrance. And what she saw was impressive.
“Anglian pathfinder team, Aserri airport…all okay for reception…” and someone would duly check a block on a small monitor, which check would be reflected on one or more of the large screens. “420th Dragoons report vehicles loaded…” and another check would appear. “37th Commando reports assault position for Fort Williams occupied…”
Then came the frightening announcement, the one that set hearts to racing: “Balboan television and radio are reporting that the reserve echelon is called to duty. Repeat, the enemy reserves are called to duty.”
“What aboot their fookin’ militia?” asked someone aloud. Marguerite thought she recognized the voice of the delightful Anglian captain she’d met briefly on a previous trip.
