by Tom Kratman
"Where did you learn to do this, Centurion?"
"Out of a book, boy. Well . . . that and a course run out on the Isla Real."
Executive Complex, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Despite the high wall surrounded the complex, the sounds of traffic could be heard even within the President's office. Parilla was pretty much deaf to those; what attention he had to spare was focused on listening for the sound of a Cricket, bringing Carrera in for a meeting.
The subject of which is not going to please friend Patricio, Parilla thought. But when he gave up control of most of the money to the Senate he also assigned responsibility to the Senate. And they're taking their responsibilities seriously, seriously enough to say, "Halt, we're going broke!"
The rest of his attention span Parilla gave over to reading a book, his reading glasses perched between the bridge and the end of his nose, while he waited for Carrera to show at his office. The government comptroller, Señor Dorado, was already seated.
* * *
One side effect of the Federated States' mandated repartition of the country was that the old executive offices had fallen inside the border of the enclave granted to the old government. Thus, while Parilla's government had physical control of the Legislative Assembly complex, there had actually been no place for the president to sit.
For a short while, during the time Carrera had first convalesced on the Isla Real, Parilla had made do with the Casa Linda and its outbuildings. That was, however, pretty damned suboptimal what with most of the population of the country being on the other side of the Tauran Union-controlled Transitway.
For another half a year, near enough, the president, cabinet and executive department had sat in various rented office spaces. This, too, had been something less than ideal, as getting the cabinet together for face to face communication was, given Ciudad Balboa's appalling traffic, always a time consuming and problematic activity.
Thus, in the time since Parilla had taken office, much effort and no little amount of cash had gone into creating a new executive complex, containing mansions for Parilla and his two vice presidents, plus the cabinet officials, along with executive office buildings for all the major agencies, and barracks space for a cohort of guards. There was even a set of quarters for Carrera, as de facto chief of defense, though he and Lourdes had never moved in and had no intention of ever moving in.
* * *
When Carrera arrived at the receptionist area fronting Parilla's office he was greeted by a statuesque, slightly olive skinned, and intensely attractive brunette in her late-twenties—Parilla's secretary and, so it was rumored, one of the old dictator, Piña's, many former mistresses. That the woman would have been a mere girl in her early teens at that time only made the rumor the more credible. The receptionist, Lucilla, stood and announced Carrera's arrival into an intercom, then walked—or, rather, swayed while moving forward—to open the door to Parilla's office. Turning the knob, she bent down just enough for Carrera to get an eyeful of most enchanting cleavage. She smiled at him as she straightened back up. It was a smile of interest and a statement of availability.
"I'm starting to get on in years, Luci," Carrera said. "Someday you are going to give me a heart attack doing that."
The woman answered, one eyebrow lifting for emphasis "From that or from something else, Duque." Her smile grew into an invitation.
Carrera just shook his head, a regretful grin on his face. Thinking of Lourdes, now seven Old Earth months pregnant, he said "I don't mind dying, dear, but I do have my preferences as to how. A knife in the back while I sleep is very low on that list."
Inclining her head and shrugging her shoulders, and incidentally jiggling her breasts, the woman just gave Carrera a look of something very like sympathy. You don't know what you're missing.
Power corrupts. Luci had been around power since her mid teens, about the time her breasts reached their full development. She was, in many ways, as corrupt as a human being could possibly be . . . and she liked corruption, too. Unnoticed by Carrera, Luci returned to her desk, picked up a phone and began to dial a number.
Parilla was already walking from his desk to the door to greet Carrera. He, too, took in a good eyeful of some of Balboa's loveliest scenery before closing the door behind Carrera and leading him to the small conference table that graced the office. The comptroller was already seated. He stood for the President and Carrera.
After a very brief period of small talk the accountant opened his briefcase and extracted a series of thick folders.
With a dramatic, even melodramatic, air, Dorado, "Without either a substantial drop in expenditures—or some large increase in revenues—the government will be bankrupt within five years."
Carrera stared at the accountant as if he were quite mad. Unfazed, he continued.
"Numbers do not lie. With current defense expenditures hovering above two and a half billion per year, and expenditures growing as they are, we simply cannot meet the defense plan past that time. We will actually begin to feel shortages well before that. And if there is an economic downturn, globally, even the admittedly huge sum you've turned over to senatorial control will drain away like dirty dishwater."
Parilla raised an eyebrow in Carrera's general direction.
Carrera shrugged. "It doesn't matter. We'll be at war with the Tauran Union within five years. After that, a little thing like bankruptcy hardly matters."
"Sure," Parilla agreed. "But what if we're not at war with the Taurans within that time? What if they can delay things for ten years?"
"Then we have a problem," Carrera admitted. "But, Raul, now is the time to be buying equipment. Now is the time to be buying shipping, or getting it under long term lease, anyway. Now is the time to be bringing young boys and even girls into the legions, before the population bubble disappears. Our women used to be the most fertile on the planet. That's changed and I don't know if it's ever going back to the way it was."
Staring Carrera directly in the face, Dorado said, "Of all your programs only those run by Professor Ruiz are not ruinously expensive. Even then, his radio, television, films, music, and translations of military works don't quite break even, even with foreign sales. Of course, since you directed that the Military Museum, which falls under Ruiz's department, not charge more than a quarter drachma for entrance, that's a loser. I have given the money from the anti-crime campaign over to the Professor to keep his department running."
Carrera perked with interest. "Money from the anti-crime campaign?"
"Yes, Duque," Dorado said. "We've had to sell seized property at distress sale prices, but still there was cash, some gold, seized bank accounts, a couple of yachts, one small merchant vessel, some residential property. It made us about two million last month. Of course, if the campaign is ultimately successful, you can expect that source of funds to dry up too."
Carrera leaned back in his chair, covering his eyes and rubbing his eyebrows with his fingertips. Victims of our own success. I suppose I am pushing expansion faster than I should. But I've only so much time. Where do I get more money? A lot more.
To Parilla he said, "I'll look into finding some other sources of funds. Or maybe let Esterhazy"—the Legion's comptroller and investment officer—"run a little wild."
Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova
Carrera had come out of his post-Hajar funk with a base suitable for a small corps of about fifty thousand. That amount of barracks space, recreation facilities, housing areas, hospitals and the like was more than adequate for the number of new trainees the Legion had to take on annually, roughly thirty-six thousand. Indeed, it was about three or four times more than was actually required, since thirty-six thousand annually meant about twelve to fourteen thousand at any given time, plus a few thousand regulars in professional development courses. That excess didn't even include the dependent housing areas, most of which were unneeded now that only a small percentage of the population, the regular cadre, was even allowed to have families on the
island. Centurions and optios were living in spacious quarters formerly reserved for tribunes and legates.
There were still several myriad jobs to be done before the Isla Real and the other islands of the chain could serve to guard the northern approaches to the capital and the Transitway. There was, for example, already one dual pier for offloading supply ships. For an island fortress with a good expectation of being bombed viciously in the not too distant future, one double pier could not be enough.
There was already an all-weather, hard surfaced, asphalt ring road that roughly paralleled the island's coast, connecting tercio casernes with ranges, training areas, and the more complete facilities of the main post, to the north, by the tadpole's tail. That asphalt could be expected to be turned into craters interspersed with boulders under a sustained, intensive aerial attack. Thus, both a parallel system of easily repaired dirt roads, and a half-subterranean, narrow gauge railway were under construction.
During Balboa's long wet season, roughly eight thousand tons of water fell on every square kilometer of the island . . . every . . . day. The drainage system they had was adequate for peacetime purposes. It would crumble under sustained aerial assault, making defensive positions untenable, providing vastly expanded breeding grounds for insects, and potentially opening up any defenders to the triple scourges of malaria and yellow and dengue fever.
Thus, the drainage system, too, was being revetted, backed up, supplemented, and—for some lines, moved underground.
Sitnikov had actually given Carrera only a truncated version of the fortification plan. There was much he had not covered. For example, eventually there would be just under three hundred kilometers of one meter culvert and tunnel of varying dimensions connecting various positions within the defense plan.
The Volgan tanker had demonstrated the types of bunkers to be built, but hadn't gone into their deployment in any depth. For example, the centerpieces for the defense were to be thirteen forts, each dominating a piece of key terrain or a probable landing site. Those forts would typically consist of fifty to sixty of the type of heavy bunkers Sitnikov had demonstrated, but those bunkers would be connected by tunnels, trenches, and culverts, draw their air from remote intake sites, and have very deep and strong shelters for their garrisons. Redundant tank turrets, emplaced in concrete, would also cover any bunkers that could not be covered by the limited firing arcs of other bunkers.
Then there were the sixteen hundred positions to be built for armored vehicle hides; some seven per actual vehicle. Artillery and mortars needed an additional four hundred and sixty real firing positions, as well as several times that in plausible fakes.
The nearby islands of Santa Josefina and Pablo Gutierrez were slated for similar treatment.
The general layout of the defensive scheme was that the big island would be divided into several areas. Nearest the coast would be a triple defensive line. Each of those three lines was to consist of platoon battle positions that would have 360 degree security, thus preventing more than a couple of kilometers from being rolled up once a penetration was made.
That was known as the coastal defense area, although it did not, generally speaking, cover the actual coast so much as it restricted it. Snipers, mines, obstacles, and a few concrete mounted tank turrets would actually see to waterfront defense, though delay was a better word, of the first few hundred meters inland from the high tide waterline.
Behind the coastal defense area was the artillery area. It, like the coastal defense area, was somewhat arbitrarily named. Infantry would also be present, as would support troops who could serve as second and third line infantry in a pinch. The artillery area would contain the redundant Suvarov Class cruiser turrets allocated to the Isla Real, as well as bunkers—many disguised as ammunition bunkers for the cruiser turrets—for fifty-four 180mm guns. There were also six battalions of 160mm mortars—eighteen batteries—intended for the island. Given the presumed enemy air superiority, most of the time, at least, each of these batteries needed seven alternate positions.
Behind the artillery area, in a dense ring about Hill 287, was the core area. This was to contain most of the deepest and strongest shelters, plus a thick glaze of defensive bunkers, and would serve as the nexus for power distribution (two small Hakunetsusha nuclear reactors were intended to back up the island's existing solar chimney which was expected to last mere minutes after the initiation of hostilities), and transportation of troops and supplies.
* * *
"Full employment's a wonderful thing," said Sam Cheatham to Carrera, as they watched one of Cheatham's larger crews creating a new company sized fortress on the island. Cheatham was the CEO of the Balboa Foundation and Wall Company, S.A. In some ledgers this corporation was also known as the 70th Engineer Tercio, Legion del Cid, just as Cheatham appeared on some rosters as "Legate Samuel Cheatham."
"How far along are you with this one, Sam?" Carrera asked.
The engineer shrugged, saying, "About a quarter done, though the thing won't really be ready until the concrete's had some time to cure.
"Come on down, let me show you how the boys work."
* * *
BFW had organized itself into several teams for the effort. The first, or 'survey,' team found and marked the site for the fort's bunkers, shelters, and tunnels according to the master plan. It also marked the direction in which the bunkers were to be able to fire. Following the survey team, an 'access' team made sure that the construction equipment and materials would be able to get close enough to the planned site.
Sometimes the access team needed to do nothing; trees in triple canopy jungle grew rather far apart. At other times the team had to cut a tree or a few trees, lay some steel planking, gravel or light asphalt, or build a trough from the nearest convenient point to the bunker site.
An excavation team did such digging as the bunkers, the shelters, and the culverts and tunnels that would lead to them required. Where needed they also put in temporary supplements to the main drainage system. The excavators were careful to preserve the top soil and any vegetation separately before digging deeper. There was no ecological motive in this; they simply wanted the soil and plant life for natural, self-replenishing camouflage.
Some excavators used heavy digging equipment. Other excavation was done by hand by some hundreds of healthy and strong criminal prisoners—politicals were not used on the works—serving sentences of less than fifteen years. These earned two days of 'good time' for every day of adequate performance. The work was hard but, since the food was rather better than a prison's mess, because a small stipend was paid, and because of the chance to live something closer to a normal life, convicted criminals tried very hard to get on the program. Another inducement, not much mentioned, was occasional access to a small brothel integral to the temporary prison camp. Female criminals—again not politicals—gained the same benefits as the male laborers for service in the brothel. As with the excavators, only volunteers were accepted for service in the brothel and health was an absolute requirement.
Looks were not but, then again, criminals didn't really deserve the best.
* * *
"We reached bedrock with this one," Cheatham explained in a loud voice, pointing into a hole. "We don't always."
Over the noise of the jackhammers scoring the bedrock to allow rock to displace in the event of a subsurface burst from a penetrating bomb, Carrera asked, shouting, "What if you can't reach bedrock?"
"In those cases," Cheatham answered, "the excavators bore anywhere from three to seven holes down to bedrock and set up concrete pylons to support the base of the bunker. Sometimes, the bunker has to be built on a sort of concrete 'raft' to prevent it sinking into the ground or being displaced by a near miss from a bomb."
Carrera nodded. "Ah, yes, Sitnikov mentioned the rafts to me once."
* * *
A substantial team of tunnelers, these from Balboa Exploratory Mining, a wholly owned subsidiary of Balboa Foundation and Wall (and also known as 4th Bat
talion (Heavy Construction), 70th Engineer Tercio) had dug space for the two hundred and forty man shelter inside of the hill the fort was intended to dominate. This was more than the strength of a normal infantry maniple but it was assumed that the fort might well be cut off and have to be self-sufficient for a period of time until relieved. It would be manned by a very overstrength company.
The tunnel to the shelter was some eight hundred and thirty meters long, with its entrance toward the center of the island. The tunnel entrance, too, had outlying bunkers to cover it, which bunkers could only be reached from culverts leading off from the tunnel.
* * *
"Who are they?" Carrera asked, still shouting over the jackhammers below.
"The 'Rebars,' " Cheatham shouted back. "The 'Rebar and Mold Detachment.' Concrete hasn't much tensile strength on its own. They put in the rebar lattice—reinforcing iron rods—that give tensile strength to the concrete."
Cheatham pointed as a different crew, sweating, straining, grunting and cursing for every meter gained, as they rolled precast concrete culverts to the site and laid and joined them in the trench behind a bunker's hole.
"We use from twenty to seventy meters of culvert to join each bunker to either the central shelter or a tunnel. We mostly cut and cover those. See those old plastic soft drink bottles?"
Carrera, tired of shouting, nodded.
"They keep their shape and they don't degrade under environmental stress. We put them around the culverts to provide a bit of space for earth displaced by bombardment. It ain't perfect but we think it will help."
* * *
Away from the central shelter, the BFW carpentry department (Bravo Maniple, 2nd Cohort) built—or rather, since the parts were manufactured at a central site near the cantonment area and then moved, rebuilt—the wooden interior mold to a fighting bunker. That was heavy plywood, mostly, with strong wooden beams at the corners and edges. Heavier logs formed a roof that would absorb spalling if the shelter took a direct hit on top from a bomb large enough to break pieces from the interior face of the concrete. A thick layer of synthetic rubber was glued to the interior of the plywood mold to help reduce the concussive effects of incoming high explosives.
