Come and Take Them-eARC

by Tom Kratman

  Without waiting for Moncey to repeat his question, de Villepin pointed to a map that hung on the wall. “I can’t give you any hard data,” he began. “There isn’t any that’s all that important by itself. I can make an educated guess at what’s happening.” The intel chief cocked an eyebrow to see if Moncey would shut him out because of the lack of mechanically sound data. The chief of staff simply motioned him to go ahead.

  With a nod, de Villepin said, “Okay, sir. The son of a bitch suckered us. We know that already. Here’s how I think he did it.

  “There were six military academies…junior military academies. One was at Penonome. They were apparently trained as mechanized infantry. I think the bastard smuggled them in to Lago Sombrero. I don’t know where he kept the equipment for them, not for sure. We’ve received a couple of satellite photos from just before the Paras stopped talking. Based on those my guess is that it was in the ASP there…”

  Moncey shook his head with disbelief. “Not bloody likely. We’ve been watching the legion for years. We’d have seen that kind of stockpiling—”

  Ignoring rank, de Villepin cut Moncey off. “Yes, sir. They began before we started watching closely, years before. Carrera has been planning and preparing for this for, I would guess, ten years as a minimum. In any event, it was the same with the other five. The equipment must have been sitting there, unused, for a very long time. As for the placement, well, we weren’t very hard to predict…”

  That came very close to being a personal insult. Moncey began to bridle.

  Campbell interjected, “Sir, how did you pick our targets for this invasion?” She went ahead and answered her own question. “You did it based on known legion deployments and installations. Do you think Carrera’s knowledge of his own organization was inferior to ours? I’ll go a step farther. I think he set up his military bases specifically to be targets…then placed the academies where their cadets could be most easily moved to defend those installations without being noticed until used.”

  Moncey looked positively sick. “But that would mean…” His voice trailed off.

  “Just so, sir,” said de Villepin. “We thought we would have the initiative because we were to be the ones acting. We forgot that initiative is a subtler concept. Carrera dictated where we would attack by his dispositions, then prepared the right response. He’s had the initiative all along or.…at least once the decision to invade was made.”

  “Well, what the hell are they doing now?”

  De Villepin shrugged, “Again, I can’t say for sure. He started with just the cadets and whatever—and it couldn’t have been much—of the legions he had alerted to defend, though maybe delay is a better word. They’ve had limited success: The Anglian Paras are gone, that seems certain, along with Fourteenth Anglian Foot, and the Four Hundred and Seventeenth on the Shimmering Sea side. Our Para Brigade is pinned inside a perimeter at Herrera. The Marine battalion is decisively engaged east of Dahlgren. Arnold, Nelson, Brookings, all overrun. Muddville’s under attack. I think that takes care of the six military schools. One’s at Nelson with no place to go quickly, although we’ll see them again if the legion takes the Bridge of the Columbias. One is pinned around Herrera and, probably a part of it, Paitilla. The one on the Shimmering Sea side must be pretty much fought out by now, having taken on parts of two infantry battalions. One is decisively engaged with the Haarlem Marines. Another is still fighting for Muddville and cleaning up Brookings. Only the cadets who ambushed the Paras at Lago Sombrero seem free…and they should take some time getting here, say two to four hours for the main body.”

  “On our part, the dragoons are fighting for their lives in and around the Second Corps Headquarters area. They’ve been screaming for help for hours. We don’t have any to give. I think they’re engaged by the legion’s Tenth Infantry. How they mobilized so quickly? I would guess that it was simply easier because they were based in such a population dense area.

  “The three mountain battalions are engaged in little pissant fights all over the City.

  “That’s the bad news. Not all the news is bad. The airmobile brigade can still be pulled back, although if we do that we’re looking at some serious Balboan artillery a few hours later. I would say it will still be some hours before the rest of the legion comes on line. The two tercios at their training center at Fort Cameron, which are their Volgan Tercio, the Twenty-second Airborne, and the Fifth Mountain Tercio, probably won’t be in action until sometime tonight. They’re scattered over four hundred square miles of jungle. I wouldn’t expect to see their mechanized brigade come down from Lago Sombrero before noon today, at the earliest—”

  “Expect them sooner,” Moncey corrected. “One of the things we knew was that Carrera was scattering some of his wheeled vehicles so we couldn’t take them out easily. I’d be willing to bet that he scattered them to assembly areas so they could bring his mechanized corps troopers to fall in on their equipment on the double.”

  De Villepin shot a glance to where the C-3, Bessières, gibbered in a corner. Whether the C-3 had lost it over the fear of imminent death, or because he knew his career was in ruins, the intel chief couldn’t have said.

  “He’s a waste,” de Villepin said. “You need to relieve him and put up his second.”

  He continued with advice that should have come from the C-3, “I think we have to write off the Marines east of Dahlgren. We might as well consider the Shimmering Sea side to be lost. The dragoons, the Sachsen Panzers and the mountain battalions will go under fairly soon, certainly within a day or two. Once the Third Corps and the Fourth Mech Tercio mobilize we can assume the paratroops at Herrera won’t last very long. They’ll be a bare three infantry battalions—not dug in—facing seven infantry battalions, the equivalent of two mechanized battalions, or maybe three, a tank battalion, and God knows how much artillery.

  “But we can hold onto something, maybe enough to let us be withdrawn under truce…with our dependents. I don’t think Carrera wanted this fight…not this time. He might settle for just being rid of us.”

  “Withdrawn under truce,” Moncey repeated in his mind. God, how I hate the idea of that. Truce? I wonder if Carrera would accept a truce now? No. Not if he doesn’t have to. I wouldn’t. But if we can drive up the price in blood? Maybe, just maybe.

  “All right. How long until the Tenth Artillery Legion can mobilize?”

  “Hard to say,” de Villepin answered. “I don’t doubt that we’ve hurt their leadership. Maybe badly. Say four or five hours. Maybe as much as twelve if we’re incredibly lucky.”

  Moncey contemplated what could be done in four or five hours. Decided, he said, “Take over the C-3 slot, de Villepin. Pull the Airmobile Brigade out of Alcalde Flores, except for some stay behinds to delay the Balboans’ mobilization. Put them into an attack to retake Muddville and Brookings. Get whatever escaped of the Thirty-fifth Commandos and the rest of the original Infantry Brigade to guard the Bridge of the Columbias and our southern boundary with the City. We’ll drop the Sachsen Fallschirmjaeger Brigade and the last battalion of our Para brigade in behind the airmobiles. Then I want you to establish a perimeter from south of Muddville, through Brookings, then to the northern base of this hill, and then on to the Transitway. We need to evacuate the Haarlem Marines to this side of the Transitway, too.”

  Moncey gestured with contempt at his former C-3, “And get that miserable piece of shit out of here.”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  And you know, sonny, there’s no bad shots at five yards’ range.

  —Sinn Fein aphorism, Traditional

  Iglesia de Nuestra Señora, Via Hispanica, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Among the many missions given to the ad hoc brigade of mountain battalions, which is to say, sometimes down to platoons and squads of mountain troopers, directly, an important one was to block major transportation arteries running through Ciudad Balboa. One, or rather two, of these crossed each other in front of the beautiful white church that fronted V
ia Hispanica. A mountain infantry company had air assaulted—come in by helicopter—early in the operation, the helicopters touching down near the fountain of a nearby hotel.

  Two platoons of the company moved out from the intersection to block other roads, one moving up past the University of Balboa, one toward the sea. The company headquarters and mortar section stayed in the vicinity of the church, along with the remaining infantry platoon. Within minutes of the landing all of the vantage points overlooking the intersection had been occupied by at least a couple of soldiers each.

  The troops at and around the intersection passed the first four hours with no more excitement than that provided by the original helicopter insertion. Their commander was not surprised by this. The local reservists and militia were from a battalion of the legion’s transportation tercio; they were not combat troops. Certainly, he thought, the same kind of unit in the Tauran Union armed forces would not be expected to put up much of a fight. Less was expected from part time support troops.

  However, unlike some other armies, the legion did not believe in a line separation between support and combat echelons. Moreover, every officer and centurion was a graduate of Cazador School, hence guaranteed to be tough and to have a belligerent mindset. Lastly, even though the transportation tercio had a primary mission of moving troops and supplies it retained an official secondary mission of fighting as infantry. True, it was only trained to about one third the standard of an infantry tercio, but that was not a contemptibly low standard. The drivers were trained to attack successfully with a ten to one advantage in numbers, to defend against even odds.

  Moreover, unlike the combat tercios, where the leadership had to be offered up as bait to the Tauran Union, the truck drivers’ leaders were mostly at their homes in the city. So, while it had taken some considerable time for the platoons and companies to assemble, well before sunrise a battalion of truck drivers was in a position to attack the nearest Tauran soldiers.

  The first news the Taurans had of this was when a leading squad of truck drivers stumbled upon a small team of mountain infantry on the roof above a ladies’ clothing store. Within half an hour, the southern side of the intersection was cleared of Tauran soldiers. Caught in the open, the company mortar section was driven—with heavy losses—away from their tubes.

  Finding no opposition to the east and west, the transportation battalion had crossed the broad street, turned inward, and rolled up both Tauran flanks. Three dozen or so Taurans took refuge in the church. Repeated, desperate legionary assaults failed to dislodge them. Ultimately, the transportation battalion commander called off the attacks, though not before several dozen of his men had been hit. Their bodies were scattered all along the open spaces surrounding the church. Then, with the radios finally cleared, the Taurans used their artillery to good effect in keeping the truck drivers from massing nearby for an assault.

  Sniping at the defenders continued.

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

  The colonel ducked instinctively as the air was once again torn by the blasts of Balboan artillery. “Can’t we get any goddammed air on those bastards?” he demanded. “They can’t be all that hard to find.”

  The Brigade S-3 (Air) shook his head in negation. “There isn’t any to be had, boss. We’re on our own for now.”

  The Operations Officer, the S-3, gave a triumphant shout. “Sir, Second Battalion reports they’ve finally gotten through the people who’ve been holding us up. We’ve got a route to the Third Corps Headquarters. It’s a damned narrow way, though.”

  “That’s more like it,” said the colonel. “Put everything we’ve got into supporting Second Battalion.”

  For the next several moments the TOC seemed more like normal. The brigade had broken through and everything was going to work out. Then came the message, “Sir, Third Battalion reports they’ve got tanks and infantry carriers moving up on them from the south. They are taking casualties.”

  Four hundred meters east of the One Hundred and First Air Defense Artillery Caserne, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa Terra Nova

  Though the caserne had been given up with no more than a token sacrificial fight, the officers, centurions, and men of the ADA had themselves by no means given up. From their humble houses to their neighborhood rally points they had gathered. Now, by platoons and companies, with no more than their government-issued but personally kept small arms, they moved forward to take back what was theirs—their guns and missile launchers—and then to fight for the skies over their country.

  They moved raggedly. Though each man had gone through infantry training, close combat was not their primary duty. But there were nearly three thousand of them on hand.

  Eighty-first Artillery Tercio Caserne, Alcalde Flores, Balboa, Terra Nova

  The artillery was, if anything, even more ragged than the air defense when it came time to assemble an attack to regain the use of their guns. For one thing, more of their leadership had been trapped defending their buildings and artillery parks. For another, they had put in a hasty attack too early, while the Taurans were still in full strength and good form. This had been beaten back with considerable loss.

  So they had waited for hours, gathering up their reservists and militia. The commander of the Tenth Artillery Legion now had nearly eight thousand men under his control. They were poised to retake four of the eight casernes that dotted the east side of the township. Still, the commander hesitated.

  Then, a half hour or so ago, he had heard the flutter of dozens of helicopters. Mierde, he had thought. The bastard Taurans have been reinforced.

  This had made him put his counterattack on hold. Little by little, though, he had come to suspect that the Taurans were not reinforcing but rather withdrawing. Finally, the commander had made his decision. He would attack.

  Fire Base Eagle, Imperial Range Base Camp, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Janier’s forces initially had but a single battery of cannon larger than 105mm, the standard light gun used to support light infantry. This battery consisted of six 155mm lightweight pieces attached to the airmobile brigade. Dug into a pentagonal shaped fire base, surrounded by fighting positions and barbed wire, this battery had provided general support to invasion forces.

  Some hundreds of miles away yet, the ad hoc division of Marines under Anglian command had three batteries aboard their transports. Likewise, two more full battalions were to be flown into Balboa later in the plan, about thirty hours hence. For now, however, one single battery was it for medium artillery.

  Unlike the 105s, the 155s were able to fire scatterable mines. Unfortunately, the mines were strictly antiarmor, as the Tauran Union had sworn off using politically incorrect antipersonnel mines. Even had it not, however, there had been no reason, prior to the turn of fortunes in the invasion, to anticipate their need. Worse, while there had been artillery ammunition containing antiarmor mines available, it had not been convenient to locate and move to the battery.

  Finally, however, the mine ammunition had been found, moved, broken down from its containers and made ready to fire. Unfortunately, since each round of ammunition contained but nine mines, the placement of a mine field west of the Bridge of the Columbias in support of the Haarlem Marines would take considerable time.

  Around the single battery of 155s, another six batteries—the 105mm artillery of Gallic airmobile brigade, plus three much shorter-ranged guns from the mountain battalions, fired more or less continually in support of their own and other units. They were slower to respond to a situation that could have been described as chaotic than Tauran artillery was wont to be. Their GLS still insisted that the artillery was located somewhere other than where the artillerymen knew they actually were.

  SSK Megalodon, Mar Furioso, Bahia de Balboa, eighty kiloyards north of the Isla Real, Terra Nova

  Captain Chu bit at his upper lip. Nerves, doubt—maybe too—regret, assailed him. “Sonar, have you nothing else?”

  “No, Capta
in. Not since that one explosion,” answered Auletti, the sonar man. “The one that went off near where the Santisima Trinidad was supposed to be on patrol. The other sounds might—or might not—have been helicopters.”

  “What of the carrier ship that passed by?”

  “She’s still out there, noisy as hell, about eighty kiloyards away. She’s moving in a sort of box…back and forth, side to side.”

  His orders had been to stay submerged and undetected until and unless fighting broke out between the Tauran Union and the Republic of Balboa and then to use his initiative to defend the territorial waters as he thought fit. Although the explosion could have been the signal to that outbreak, he did not think that it, alone, was enough. And there had been some kind of jamming that made civil radio reception impossible. Chu thought that, too, to be a signal for war, but was loath to start the war all on his own if he were wrong.

  Suddenly signals looked up brightly. “Skipper, I’ve got reception. Estereo Bahia came through for me!”

  “Skipper?” said Signals. “It’s the mobilization call…And there’s someone reporting live on heavy fighting in the City…people are fleeing their homes. A good chunk of the place is in flames.…But we’re holding our own, it seems.”

  Chu’s face grew angry, then determined. “Auletti, any change of the location of that fucking Tauran ship. No? Helm plot a course. Take us as near as possible but first go down under the thermal. Speed six and a half knots. We’re going in quiet. Weapons, make a last check on your babies. That ship’s going under if I have to use all of them.”