by Tom Kratman
Even before the last of the 'Finches was airborne, Lanza looked out his cockpit window and saw Crickets lining up below, ready to join the others. Behind the Crickets came the heavier but much faster NA-21s and the Cazador-laden NA-23s.
Still in Lanza's view, the forty-one working helicopters of the Ala lifted almost as one, then turned to the north. It was an awesome and thrilling sight.
This, Lanza thought, this is why I joined.
* * *
Carrera watched the aerial armada assemble overhead from the railed walkway that ran three hundred and sixty degrees around the airfield's control tower. A warmed up Cricket stood idling near the base of the tower, its wings and fuselage bearing the legend "4-15." It had had installed a bank of radios and a map board. One pilot would fly its passengers, Carrera and two radio operators.
On the floor beneath the tower a temporary command post was set up. This would provide back up control until another command post was set up near the objective. In the interim, Carrera was capable of running the entire thing in his head with only minimal assistance. Even bone weary, complex operations bothered him not a whit. It was creative thought that had become hard; that, and judgment. And he had Jimenez to help with judgment.
Looking to his right, Carrera saw that the heavily laden Cazadors were struggling into the Nabakovs' cargo bays, one man above pulling while two below pushed to get them up on the ramps.
There hadn't been time to get rough terrain jump suits for the Cazadors. Instead, they'd made their own, after a fashion, using duct tape to attach wooden leg braces and substantial foam padding. If they normally looked like waddling ducks before a jump, now they looked like children so insulated from winter cold they could barely move.
Even over the roar of engines, one could make out the singing as the men loaded aboard:
Thundering motors leave each man alone.
He thinks one more time of his loved ones back home.
Then come mis compadres to spring on command
To jump and to die for our legion and land.
And from our airplanes, and from our airplanes,
Compadre there's no going back,
Except in victory or fee-eet first.
Now make ready to jump. Attack!
The speaker radio in the control tower crackled. "Checkpoint Zulu Omega." That meant that Jimenez and the Scouts had sent the burst signal that they were at the bridge that served as the checkpoint for "two hours out." That was also where the cavalry would link up with them.
With a head motion to beckon his radio operators Carrera left the control tower, passed quietly through the crowded command post below, and walked out to board the waiting Cricket.
12/8/469 AC, Pickup Zone Papa Echo
"Incoming aircraft, Centurion!"
Hurriedly Cruz closed his wallet to put away the picture of his wife and children. I've done this before; I can do it again.
"Stand by your loads," he shouted to the mortar men who were already standing by. "Guide parties, assume guidance as soon as you have a bird."
Because they were under radio silence, the detailed operational control was a bit odd. There was a cross marked out off to one side of the PZ. The lead helicopter made for that, followed by another dozen in trail behind it. When the lead was about forty meters out it stopped and assumed a hover. The first of the guides stood up and pointed directly at himself and then at the helicopter pilot, who nodded his recognition. Then the guide made the hand and arm signal for "assuming guidance," two arms with flattened palms thrust straight up and parallel to each other, palms inward. He lowered his arms, turned, and began to run toward the first load. The helicopter followed slowly.
At that first load the guide turned and again made the "assuming guidance" signal. With more hand and arm signals he brought the IM-71 down to a soft landing. Immediately the clamshell door on the back opened up. A second helicopter was just setting down as this happened.
It was no easy matter for eight men to manhandle a 160mm mortar across rough ground and into the helicopter's cargo bay. Cruz had detached a couple of men from his platoon to assist with each. This was barely enough. Indeed, it might have proven impossible but for the fact that over the last ten years there had been plenty of opportunity to practice.
Once the heavy mortar and its eight crewmen, to which could be added one or two men from the mortar maniple headquarters, were aboard, the guide again took control of the helicopter, directing the pilot to shift left to where a large bundle of mortar ammunition awaited, the ammunition being bound up in a cargo net. As soon as the chopper was directly over the net, the guide thrust both arms directly out to his sides, parallel to the ground: "Hover."
Underneath, one of the two men who had assisted in loading the gun climbed atop the ammunition. In his hand he held a plastic handled screwdriver from which wire led downward. That wire was connected to another screwdriver, stuck into the ground a few feet away. Electricity arced from the hook underneath the helicopter to screwdriver. The wire carried the static charge to the ground, harmlessly. Then the legionary picked up a "donut roll"—a multi-layer thick circle of strap material, held together by a metal shackle—and attempted to slip it onto the hook. He missed. He tried and missed again. Cursing, on the third try he caught the shifting hook and pulled back on the donut roll to make sure it was firmly attached and the hook working properly. He jumped off of the ammunition and gave a thumbs up to the guide.
The guide then whirled one arm over his head and pointed into the direction of the wind. With a sound of straining engines, the helicopter lifted up, shuddered a bit at the load once the straps connecting the donut roll and the ammunition pallet lost their slack, then pulled the net off of the ground and began to move forward, gaining altitude and leaving a whirlwind of dust, rocks and vegetation behind.
The Base
Dust spurted from each of the wheels as the column moved up the winding pass. Some had broken down on the way and been abandoned, their passengers can cargo being stuffed into the other vehicles as time and space permitted. Cavalry rode to either side with Cano on the left and his brother-in-law, Rachman, leading the right. For this mission, both for her own safety and the intelligence insight she could provide, Alena was back at the Camp San Lorenzo.
Jimenez, riding in front with Masood, recognized from aerial photographs taken by the RPVs of the Legion the steep sided pass that led into the enemy fortress.
The trucks and buses were adorned with white banners painted in black and green. "There is no God but God," said some. "Mohammad is the Prophet of God," proclaimed others. More than a few carried the message, "The sword is the key to Heaven and Hell." Still others proclaimed, "Death to the infidel."
"The horns, do you think?" asked Jimenez. "Really? Isn't that overkill?"
Masood shook his head in the negative. "If we were what we proclaim ourselves to be, we would announce our presence among friends fearlessly. That means, yes, sir, the horns and the cavalry firing their rifles into the air."
Swallowing, Jimenez then said, "The horns then. Let them know we're coming so they won't guess who we are."
Interlude
4 July, 2206, Cygnus House, Chelsea, London, European Governing Region, Earth
It had once been something of a day of mourning, in London, the anniversary of the Declaration that had utterly screwed up the proper ordering of the world. It was a happy day, now. And why not? The United States of America had ceased to be decades prior. It was now split among four governing regions, each with its own UE-appointed archduke to rule them. The world celebrated the Fourth of July now in memory of what wasn't.
Lucretia seemed to her father even more jubilant than the day called for.
Louis Arbeit, the Marquis, had barely aged in all those years since he'd first assumed the mantle of leadership for Amnesty, Interplanetary. He'd spent those years well, moving the company from the relatively unremunerative harassment of unfriendly governments to more solid, sounder, and infinitel
y more profitable business arrangements. If there were political prisoners languishing in prisons and psychiatric facilities now, and there were, they were unenlightened, anti-progressive opponents of the UE. Amnesty had no interest in such.
One would hardly know that Lucretia was, herself, well along in years. She, too, had had the best anti-agathics available. She could, and did, pass for twenty-two or -three, regularly. She bounced out to her father's favorite patio, bearing with her their morning coffee. The coffee came from the highlands of Panama where High Judge Nyere maintained extensive holdings farmed by the serfs that had been made of the locals. That land included what had once been the ranch of Belisario Carrera. It was worked by, among others, Belisario's collateral descendants, laboring under the lash.
"I made it especially for you, Father," Lucretia announced. They were still a very close family, even though Louis had stopped fucking his daughter decades ago.
He smiled, picked up and sipped at the coffee. Ah, just right.
Lucretia's lips smiled around her own cup. She, too, sipped, then said, "The world really is wonderful now, for people of our class, isn't it, Father?"
"Well . . . of course," Louis agreed.
"It's not so wonderful for people of my generation though," she said. "We have to wait and wait and . . . "
"We've had this conversation before, Lucretia. You'll just have to wait until . . . "
"No, I won't, Father," the daughter said. "I'm glad you like your coffee."
It was at about that time that the Marquis of Amnesty noticed that his vision had become very narrow, and that his hand trembled as he lifted the cup back to his lips.
Chapter Twenty-three
De l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace.
Napoleon, quoting Georges Jacques Danton
12/8/469 AC, Cricket 4-15
The scout plane carrying Carrera and his small party flew alone. Above it, the thundering transports, gunships, and attack aircraft moved in formation. Below, flights of helicopters, some the huge IM-62s, ferried men, supplies and equipment forward.
Carrera's mind wandered a bit, as it sometimes did these days. He thought of his original group and where they were now. Most were still with the legions in one capacity or another. Kennison had left when his term was up and, sorry though he'd been to see him go, Carrera had understood. Soult and Mitchell were warrants now, teaching on the Isla Real. Well, they'd gotten a little too old and senior to carry my radios but . . . I do miss not having those boys here with me. Daugher and Bowman had been killed, in different actions. They'd died as they'd liked to live, fighting to the end. Tom Christian had taken a second retirement and then immediately gone to work for the legions as a civilian. Greedy bastard, Carrera thought, smiling slightly. All the others were still on the job, most of them in uniform back on the Isla Real. Parilla was President of the rump of the Republic.
In the Cricket, Carrera used half his attention to keep a mental tally of where everyone should be, modified by the rarely broadcast code word for a delay or advance in the schedule.
Just shy of the Kashmiri border the Cricket dropped down behind some mountains and began to circle. A dozen helicopters passed, turned a few miles to the north, and began to set down their loads on a barren and fairly flat hilltop.
1st Maniple (Heavy Mortar), Artillery Cohort, in firing position. Check.
UEPF Spirit of Peace
Wallenstein sat her command chair on the ship's bridge fuming. It wasn't enough that she'd sold her soul to Robinson in exchange for a jump in caste. No, that price might have been worth it. But to be cheated out of her price? There was a reason that people used to say "Hell hath no fury . . . "
"Captain, we've got a lot of Novan air traffic near where the Admiral set down," announced one of the lower caste sensor operators, turning away from his console to face his captain.
"Identification?" she asked.
The intelligence officer piped in half a second later. "Almost total radio silence, Captain. Based on flight paths I'm pretty sure they're coming from the mercenary base near Jalala, Pashtia. Their target looks to be the Salafi base in southern Kashmir."
Oh, my. Wallenstein was never so lovely as when her face lit with a smile. She looked particularly beautiful now. Revenge will be sweet.
"Ignore them," she commanded.
"But . . . "
"Ignore them!" she insisted.
"But shouldn't the High Admiral be warned?"
"He knows," she lied, forcing her brain to think quickly. "This is just what he's been waiting for. Send to all ships of the Peace Fleet to cut off all communication except with this ship. Now."
The Base
If the sight of a large column of vehicles carrying armed men and blaring their horns was a shock to the leader of the guards at the pass, he failed to show it. He did raise an arm to halt the lead vehicle.
Masood had the right look and the right accent. Shorn of his uniform, he stood up in the lead vehicle, one hand resting lightly on a machine gun mounted to the roll bar. "Allahu Akbar!" He called to the sentry leader at the western entrance to the fortress valley. "We have come to join you in the fight against the infidel crusaders. Rejoice, brothers!"
The leader had had no word of any large group of reinforcements coming. On the other hand, they hadn't been told not to expect any. And, in the closed world of the Salafis and the Yithrabi culture from which they sprang, information was power. It was always horded, rarely fully revealed. There really wasn't anything inherently suspicious about a column of armed men who looked the part showing up and requesting to join the struggle. This one was a little large, to be sure, but hadn't Mustafa promised them all a growing force in their struggle against the infidel? Apparently he hadn't been lying.
The sentries waved the column through while the men riding the vehicles stood and cheered. To the flanks, cavalrymen fired standard Samsonovs into the air with the gleeful abandon of schoolboys. Soon enough, the entire camp was cheering while men and women emerged from caves and tents to add their voices and the rattle of their rifles to the air.
* * *
Jimenez, face nearly covered, looked out the side of the cross-country sedan as it made a turn into an open area at the base of the central massif. He noticed a large cave with a camouflage net over it. His eyes lit upon five rough crosses erected in the open area. Children played at the foot of the crosses. Men, or what was left of them, hung stiff and dead above the children, one of whom poked at a body with a stick. Still in their legionary battle dress trousers, but stripped of all other equipment and adornment, Jimenez recognized the remnants of the lost Cazador team.
You are going to pay for that . . . with usury.
And then he saw a head move.
* * *
Sergeant Sevilla heard the blaring of the column as though through a series of baffles. His grip of reality was quite poor by this point. He head was filled with rushing noises and his eyes went into and out of focus regularly. With a bit of the little strength remaining to him he forced his chin off of his chest and his head up enough to see.
More of the bastards come to gloat and jeer? May they burn in Hell.
* * *
Jimenez, riding in the back next to Masood, stood up and whispered, "One of our men, over there on those crosses . . . . he's still alive."
Masood looked himself and saw that this was true.
Hand still resting on his machine gun, Masood asked, "What do you want to do, sir?"
Jimenez asked himself, If we warn only the vehicle leaders and just we and they open fire on that mass will the rest of the scouts catch on quickly enough? It wasn't in the plan but . . . God . . . what a target! Worth the chance. And then . . . those are our men.
Sitting back down Jimenez keyed the mike that led to the small, short range radios carried by each of the leaders. "On my command, I want you to blast that crowd. Try to hit only armed men . . . but don't be a fanatic about it."
Masood, who like the others
heard from an earpiece stuck in one ear, looked down at Jimenez and raised one eyebrow. You sure about this?
Jimenez's eyes narrowed as he gave an affirmative nod. Oh, yes, I'm sure.
So be it. Smiling still, Masood waved his right hand, genially, acknowledging the cheers of the mujahadin and their families. The welcoming rifle fire dropped gradually as magazines were emptied. When, like a bag of almost completely microwaved popcorn, the firing had dropped to no more than an occasional pop Masood threw his head back and laughed heroically.
