Come and Take Them-eARC

by Tom Kratman

  Still the cadets, and Olveira, advanced. The Marines contested every foot gained bitterly. In places one side or the other ran low on ammunition. There the fight became very intimate.

  Olveira heard a sound behind him and to his right. About time, he thought. The tanks and BTRs were coming up the road from Nuevo Arraijan. Now we can get moving.

  Trawler Pericles, Puerto de Balboa, Terra Nova

  “Captain,” announced a lookout, quite unnecessarily, “we’ve got Tauran helicopters coming in on the dock!”

  The Volgan-born captain nodded, then directed his boat to cease jamming, to reverse engines, and to back out into the waters of the Bay of Balboa.

  No way those people can land on top of us, what with all the cranes and such sticking up. We’ll find another position and see if the Balboans want us to keep jamming or not.

  Chapter Forty-six

  For the old Roman Valor is not dead…

  —Machiavelli, The Prince

  Carrera’s Command Post, Arraijan Ordnance Works, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Carrera had a sneaking suspicion that the Ordnance Works—once it had been a mere rifle factory but there had been quite a bit of expansion—was on the Tauran Union’s “Do Not Destroy” list. For one thing, it made one of the finest and most advanced infantry rifles on the planet. For another, they didn’t want to be saddled with the cost of rebuilding Balboa after the war, while the works could be modified to producing civilian goods, keeping people employed, and cutting down on the amount of future revolutionary activity thereby.

  The CP, itself, was in an alcove that had been built into the works for no other reason than to be a command post at some future date.

  Carrera wasn’t in the CP at the moment, though, he was on foot up by the main highway, accompanied by Soult carrying a radio. That was where he flagged down the Armored Cavalry Troop—which is to say the “Armored Cavalry Club”—of the Fifteenth Cadet Tercio. The troops were now halted along the road where Carrera flagged them down, the vehicles spaced out in a herringbone pattern and hidden under trees. The Fifteenth was a little unusual among the cadet formations in having, in its clubs, the nuclei for two heavy units. Their “clubs” likewise provided for two batteries of 122mm self-propelled guns rather than the single one even the legions’ mechanized tercios were given.

  The head of the cavalry troop, an ex-officer of the Jagelonian Army, jumped down from his Ocelot to stand beside Carrera. Saluting, the Jagelonian announced that he was the lead element of the Fifteenth, that the rest of the tercio was strung out over about the next twenty kilometers back. He also told Carrera that they had been attacked by Tauran aircraft on the way, with some losses to themselves and none, so far as they knew, to the Tauran Union.

  “We might have gotten one, maybe more, if this goddamned jamming hadn’t kept us from spreading the word that the aircraft were around.”

  Carrera nodded. “I know. It’s part of the price to pay to beat the Taurans. Did you think it would be cheap? We’ve lost some men from it, even a few opportunities and some time. But they’ve lost control of themselves and of the battle. It’s a better than fair trade. Besides, Tribune, it won’t last much longer now.

  “Now here’s the situation. The Seventeenth Cadets took Arnold and are taking Nelson and the navy annex. The Sixteenth Cadet Tercio is out of communications but we know they’re attacking Dahlgren. I don’t have any idea about how that one’s going. You, go now, as fast as you can drive, and get me the Bridge. I’ll tell your boss what you’re doing when he gets here.”

  At that moment, Carrera’s radio crackled back to life. He picked up the microphone and called his Military Intelligence Tercio.

  Cerro Gaital, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Sergeant Valdez took the message and issued a simple command to his men. A few switches were thrown, a few buttons pushed.

  High, high overhead, eight satellites in geosynchronous orbit sent a continuous stream of encrypted data. The data, however, said little more than “at the tone the time will be…” Valdez’s men could not read the data.

  It didn’t matter. They knew what the data had to say: “at the tone, the time will be…” The eight satellite dishes around Valdez took that interpretable data—and the unencrypted time data—delayed them ever so slightly, then fed them to an amplifier. The amplifier, in turn, sent all eight streams to several directional antennas. The antennas sent fairly narrow—and immensely powerful—radio signals in the directions of the fire base at Imperial Range Base Camp, Herrera Airport, Balboa City, and Cristobal.

  Taken collectively, each directional antenna’s retransmission said “at the tone, the time will have been…” Any Global Locating System that did not use the encrypted signal and was within the arc of that powerful directed signal containing the stream of eight satellite messages would interpret them perfectly. By comparing the minor—fractions of nanoseconds—variances in the time from the eight satellite signals, the GPS could calculate nearly exactly the receiver’s position. Unfortunately, without the delay in the signals the position the GPS would calculate would be the position of the PDF receivers on Cerro Gaital, not its own. The delay not only ruined the data, it made it very difficult and maybe impossible for a GLS operator to destroy the jammers by calling in artillery or air power to attack the grid on his receiver.

  For the more sophisticated GLS, the stream of data would be ignored because it did not, could not, mesh with the data being received from the other satellites. That is, it would be ignored until the other sections of the Anti-Navigation Company overpowered the true signals of the other satellites with their own overpowering jamming.

  Electronic barrage being fired, Valdez cleared his men away from the hill. He took with him a remote switch to start and stop the electronic barrage as his future orders might dictate.

  Fort Guerrero, Balboa, Terra Nova

  The Commander of the Second Tercio, Legate Chin, was surprised to hear his radios come to life after so much static, music, and false traffic. Unlike some of the other places the Taurans had attacked, at Guerrero they’d seen to cutting the telephone lines beforehand. Therefore, the Second’s headquarters had been out of touch with anyone since a few minutes prior to the attack.

  “Chin, Chin. This is Carrera. Do you read me? Over. Chin, this is Carrera…”

  Headquarters above cohort level, and some at cohort level, had been given Volgan-made encryption capability for their radios. As a general rule, the devices were as good as anything made in the Federated States or Taurus, for encryption purposes. What they were not, however, was small and light. This, more than factors of cost, was what restricted them to high level units.

  Almost ready to jump for sheer joy, Legate Chin answered back, “Patricio, this is Hector. What the fuck is going on? Over.”

  “Couldn’t be better, Hector. Lago Sombrero held out and the Anglian Paras are history. The rest of First Corps is barreling down the highway. The Fifteenth Tercio will reach your area a lot sooner than that, though.”

  “Fifteenth Tercio? Who…what is the Fifteenth Tercio?… Oh, you ruthless bastard; you used the cadets?”

  “Yep,” answered Carrera cheerfully. Considering that he had not word one from the Puerto Lindo School, hence no clue as to his only boy’s survival, he answered a lot more cheerfully than he felt. “The kids, Hector. The cadets. We had all six academies fit out full battalions out of their oldest cadets and their Volgan and Balboan cadres. I couldn’t tell you before. Sorry.”

  “Like I said, ‘you’re a bastard,’ Patricio. Is that what I’ve been seeing at Arnold and Nelson?”

  “You’re right, Hector, I am a bastard. And yes, Arnold, Nelson, Brookings, Muddville, Lago Sombrero, Melia, and Dahlgren. Because we had the force they didn’t know about, maybe couldn’t have believed in if I’d given them the plans—just too, too distressing and distasteful for words, doncha know—we are going to win. Big. Don’t doubt it for a minute. Got to go now. You keep hanging on. Mobilize as you can and hel
p the Tenth Tercio relieve the Comandancia. I’ll be in touch. Carrera, out.”

  “Help the Tenth?” queried Chin. “Those assholes? Well…if you insist.”

  Gallic Airmobile Artillery Battalion, Imperial Range Base Camp, Balboa, Terra Nova

  “What the hell is this crap?” The chief of the fire direction section took one look at the firing data that had just been sent to the guns, another at the last mission that had been fired, then shrieked into the field telephone, “Cease Fire! Cease Fire!”

  “What’s the problem?” asked a fresh-faced computer operator.

  “The GLS is fucked up. I’m going to try to fix it. In the interim, I want you to manually input the call for fire data. Use the grid coordinates that we’ve been using.”

  Vicinity of the Comandancia, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Like flypaper, getting into a battle in a city is a lot easier than getting away from one, once it’s begun. The Four Hundred and Twentieth Gallic Dragoons were discovering this the hard way.

  Through the mostly ruined buildings around the Second Corps Headquarters, the Tenth Infantry Tercio’s troopers swarmed like so many angry ants. Being a poor place, this one had more than its share of residents who were members of the reserve and militia. Reinforced by reservists and militiamen of the Second Tercio’s recruiting district who voluntarily attached themselves to the Tenth Tercio—“Okay, maybe they’re assholes but they’re our assholes!”—the Tenth was growing stronger, not weaker. The Gallic Dragoons had gone from attacker to defender almost seamlessly, as the force ratios inverted. Moving through the area’s maze of alleys and back streets, the Balboans concentrated on blocking a street the Taurans had taken, preferably by taking out one of the rearmost armored vehicles, then forcing the Tauran infantry to take to the buildings to try to protect the vehicles. Since the dragoons only had maybe two hundred real infantrymen to start with, and something over half that in combat vehicle crewmen, the legion’s Tenth Infantry, heavily reinforced by individuals from the Second, had about a twenty to one advantage in foot soldiers. This advantage was continually growing as more and more reservists and militia rejoined the colors. It didn’t hurt the Tenth any, either, that they also knew the area much better.

  For the Taurans it was no longer a question of taking the Comandancia but of holding on long enough to be rescued. If there was anyone who could rescue them.

  Command Post, Twentieth Gallic Parachute Brigade, Herrera Airport, Balboa, Terra Nova

  “Goddamit, it just isn’t possible!” exclaimed the brigade fire support NCO. “This fucking GLS is telling me that we’re damned near fifty fucking miles from where I fucking know we are.”

  The fire support officer, or FSO, looked at the display. “No shit,” he said. “Cut the bitch out of the system. Go to voice and map operations.”

  “Sir, this is going to seriously slow down our response times.”

  Tauran Attack Helicopter Yankee Five Five, over Cristobal Province, Balboa, Terra Nova

  “I hate this shit,” cursed the pilot as he strained to see anything with his night vision goggles. The rains of Cristobal Province, falling in a torrent now, defeated his best efforts. There were power lines and towers around somewhere, he knew. Hitting them could prove fatal.

  “Don’t sweat it, Bob,” answered the copilot. He patted a machine which displayed glowing numbers. “I know exactly where we are— Huh?”

  The pilot asked “‘Huh,’ what?”

  “This contraption suddenly changed its coordinates.” The copilot slapped his GLS, hard. No change.

  “You mean you don’t know where we are!”

  “No! Pull our asses up and out of here!” the copilot shouted.

  His shout came too late as, out of the black, a steel tower loomed. The pilot veered to avoid the tower but, in doing so, went straight into a set of power lines.

  There were no survivors.

  Tauran News Network, Headline News Studios, Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova

  None of the troops fighting on the ground in Balboa would have, nor even could have, understood the cheerful tone in the announcer’s voice. Did they have no emotional connection to the people fighting at their behest? It had been, after all, the newsies who had drummed up a fever for war, not the soldiery.

  Cheerfully detached, though, the voice was. “Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to TNN Headline News, English Desk. Our top story this morning: War. We turn now to our Tauran Defense Agency correspondent, Brad Lupus. Brad?”

  The screens of thirty million televisions in the Tauran Union alone changed to show a crowded and busy briefing room that, from years of watching, viewers knew was located somewhere inside the former Gallic Defense Ministry that had been given over to the Union.

  “Good morning, Drew. I’m here at the TDA where the Combined Chiefs of Staff are about to issue an initial official statement on this, the Tauran Union’s most recent military operation in Balboa. As you know, Drew, there has been a lot of ill feeling between the Tauran Union and Balboa’s military government in the last several years; ever since the Balboan military overthrew its legitimate civilian government. These have apparently come to a head since five Tauran women were kidnapped and brutally murdered, apparently by members of Balboa’s military or internal security apparatus. Early this morning Tauran Union forces invaded, it is said to preempt a Balboan attack on the Tauran forces guarding the Transitway Area. Knowledgeable TDA insiders report that the fighting is said to be heavy and bitter, with many casualties on both sides.”

  Without shifting scenes back to TNN, the voice of TNN’s resident English-speaking talking head asked a series of questions.

  “Brad, how much of this story of preempting the Balboans from attacking our forces can we believe? After all, didn’t the incident with the women from NOUMCWW alone give the Tauran Union sufficient reason to attack?”

  “That’s a hard question to answer, Drew. Certainly the murders of those five Tauran women, one of them a high ranking minister, raised the possibility of war, but whether their deaths were really the cause…we can’t say at this point. The TDA’s unofficial position seems to be that the Legion del Cid, the mercenary organization that has taken power in Balboa, were about to attack our forces in and around the Balboa Transitway precisely because they feared a Tauran invasion; which caused the Tauran Union to have to go over to the offensive to protect our service men and women.”

  The “head” asked, “Was that a real possibility, Brad? What kind of fighting force could Balboa have used against us?”

  “Drew, the Balboan legion was a large, reasonably modern and well trained force prior to this morning’s events. They could have thrown as many as four or five divisions’ worth of soldiers against our forces in the Transitway area with anywhere from hours’ to days’ warning, but probably no more than hours.”

  “You said, Brad, that the legion was…moderately well trained. What should that mean to our viewers?”

  “They were predominantly a militia army, Drew, something like Helvetia’s or Zion’s. It might be incorrect to put them in the same category as our reserve forces, though, since a lot more attention was paid to the reserves in Balboa than is true in the Tauran Union. A retired Sachsen Army general I spoke to earlier this morning said they were a force to be reckoned with.”

  “Do we have any idea yet, Brad, of how long it’s expected to take before the fighting is wrapped up?”

  Before Lupus could answer pandemonium broke out in the briefing room. Lupus’s attention moved quickly away from the camera to a man who was trying to speak on the center stage. Lupus listened for a few moments before turning his attention back to the camera. “Drew, it looks like things have gone badly wrong for the Tauran Union in Balboa.”

  TUSF-B Headquarters, The Tunnel, Cerro Mina, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova

  From a large television screen overlooking the main briefing room, General Janier glared down at the assembled senior staff officers still in the Tunnel.
“What the fuck is going on?” he demanded. “What the fuck is going on?”

  That last was nearly shrieked. Around the central briefing area a multitude of staff officers busily tried to gain some understanding of the extent of the disaster. They were distracted in this by the steady crump of artillery, soft because cushioned by the thick concrete, rock, and earth of the Tunnel. A few were more distracted still by the knowledge that there was a strong likelihood that Carrera’s legion would come knocking before the day was out. The C-3, or combined operations officer, in particular, was taking things badly, if it can be said that withdrawing to a corner and whimpering was a sign of some personal discomposure.

  Campbell and Hendryksen remained calm, rocks of sorts arising from amidst the swirling maelstrom of confusion. De Villepin, to no one’s surprise greater than theirs, was also standing firm.

  Disgusted with the rest, Moncey gravitated to that area, as much from aversion to the disorder reigning elsewhere as because it was de Villepin’s job to determine what the legion was up to. He tactfully didn’t mention that de Villepin had failed—badly failed—to anticipate the nationwide ambush laid by Carrera. Just as tactfully, de Villepin didn’t bring up the fact that neither Janier nor Moncey had been willing to listen to any doubts.