The Rods and the Axe

by Tom Kratman

  Which half-explains, thought Salas, why they were such easy meat. The other half of the explanation, of course, is that they didn’t know we were here, or that we were weapons-free.

  The bodies, at least, had been taken away for a Christian burial. Still, when men burn in vehicles, parts of the men always remain behind.

  Hence that clinging, long pig aroma.

  There were also fifty-three prisoners. Ideally, so had Colonel Nguyen advised, the prisoners would be placed somewhere where Tauran fire was sure to kill them. Salas could see the logic of that, could see the intensely demoralizing effect and also the enraging effect.

  But I’m not a barbarian. My duty is to safeguard the prisoners, not use them to score a propaganda point. And Carrera himself can kiss my ass if he thinks I’ll violate the customs of war for such a trivial advantage.

  ’Course, if he were here he’d be less likely to be kissing my ass than having me shot for disobeying orders. Well . . . before I commit an avoidable war crime I’d rather be shot.

  Legate Salas had known happier days. Not a lot of satisfaction in machine gunning people who don’t know there’s a war on, he thought. Not a lot of joy in knowing what’s going to happen once they—their side—figures out that there is a war on.

  He’d had reports on that, too, from scouts his cohort in Pelirojo had sent out up Highway One, to the north, that the Taurans were unlikely to be ambushed again. He’d also had scattered reports of enemy scouts actually behind the town. If true, the defenders, once it came time to defend, wouldn’t be able to count on any mortar fire five minutes after the Tauran attack started.

  Thing is, this isn’t key terrain to me. Or, at least, it won’t be once we’ve finished dispersing the arms and other supplies to the units. I need to hold this only until then. Well . . . and until the cohorts are fully into the jungle.

  The other thing, though, is that if they hit me right this minute . . .

  Salas looked around. There wasn’t much to see, but he could hear the sounds of preparation. He could also hear the sounds of argument, as civilians told his troops to fuck off, their houses weren’t there to be turned into battle positions. Not for the first time, he contemplated the old saw, “When you’ve got ’em, by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.”

  But . . . nah. The downsides, at least for now, are too great. We need them on our side, not harboring grievances. And the whole idea of a native Santa Josefinan military is just too strange to them. Besides, when the Taurans level this place, even though we didn’t take any but public buildings, it’ll be a big shot in the arm for our recruiting efforts.

  But what worries me is that my troops are not the “First Infantry Tercio, Liberation Army of Santa Josefina.” They’re an amalgam of different maniples and platoons, squads and some individuals, scraped out of every tercio in the legion with a Santa Josefinan to spare. Technically and tactically, they’re about as good as any in the legion. Maybe not quite as good, because we have fewer officers and centurions, but still . . .

  But still, the really worrisome thing is that they aren’t a real regiment, they’re just a collection of disparate parts, and we never had the chance to fully turn them into a regiment.

  And, sure, the Tauros are a bunch of disparate cohorts, but at least at that level they’re cohesive.

  And, now, I suppose, it’s time to make my speech.

  With a shout, Salas summoned his driver and his commandeered economy-class sedan. They drove off, taking Highway Twenty-three in the direction of Matama. Several miles outside of town the driver pulled off the road then turned right to follow a narrow trail to where the radio container waited, with generators humming in the background.

  “You ready?” Salas asked his chief of propaganda.

  “As we’ll ever be, sir. Your speech is sitting there. You probably should rehearse it a few times before you go live.”

  Silently, Salas nodded. He was perhaps a little thankful for the delay offered by the chance at rehearsal.

  Irazú, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  The Hordalander tank had the name, Thanatos, or death, painted on the barrel. The tank crew had been in country long enough for three things: to have acquired a taste for the local women—except for the tank commander, who generally referred to himself as “Thanatos” and who preferred boys; to have picked up enough of the language to have some chance with the local women (or, in the case of the TC, boys); and to have acquired a certain appreciation for the music. Thus, they had a civilian radio going just atop the tank’s turret, while they relaxed there, and over the glacis, catching a few rays. Yes, yes, it was normally bad practice, but it wasn’t as if the enemy was likely to throw an airstrike at them.

  The tank company, minus one platoon that was still up supporting the troops by the border, was currently not even in artillery range of any enemy. Instead they were sitting in a public park, the objects of intense curiosity from the locals. They expected to stay there at least through the end of the day, then move by night to the assembly area by Cerveza.

  In any event, the radio was on and, if no one was dancing, still the music had the most gratifying tendency to put a little spring in the step of the Santa Josefineñas, which spring put a lovely bounce in Santa Josefineña bosoms.

  Rather, it did right up until the music cut off with a protesting squawk, to be replaced by one of those annoying “We interrupt this broadcast” messages.

  The best Spanish linguist on the tank was the driver, Corporal Arthur Kjelstrup. He translated for the rest.

  “People of Santa Josefina, I am Ricardo Salas . . . of the Liberation Army of Santa Josefinan . . . the Lord God and the dead generations laid in our soil since the founding . . . call the children of Santa Josefina to her flag . . . to strike for freedom . . . and to resume her old place as an honored member of the nations of this world by becoming . . . once again . . . a real nation in this world.

  “The guiding spirit of our country . . . having sent her sons and daughters away to learn the arts that our corrupt national elites have denied them . . . summons them to her colors and her cause again. . . . Relying, in the first place, upon those newly trained sons, but confident also . . . in the second place, of the unstinting support . . . of our brothers and cousins across Colombia Latina . . . and in total and complete confidence in the dear God who is . . . the wellspring of liberty . . . Santa Josefina rises now to strike for her freedom from foreign occupation.

  “Our country is ours alone. . . . It is not Tauran. . . . It does not belong to Old Earth. . . . Less still is it the country . . . of the government and president . . . who called the foreigners in to occupy us. . . . The Taurans could be here for one thousand years; still would this land be ours. . . . They could leave tomorrow; still would the traitor . . . and licker of foreign boots, Calderón, have relinquished his right to call himself a citizen.

  “Santa Josefina . . . sacred and holy . . . calls upon all her true children . . . to rise in arms against the foreign occupation . . . to drive them out . . . to take back what was ours . . .”

  Though the speaker was still talking, Corporal Kjelstrup stopped translating. The tank crew exchanged nervous looks among themselves until the gunner, Sergeant Qvist, said, simply, “Oh, shit.”

  Rio Clara, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  Corporal Moran shook his head in disbelief. “They said what?”

  Araya shrugged. “I don’t understand it either, Corporal. But maniple headquarters says, ‘no,’ ‘don’t call us; we’ll call you,’ and, ‘go talk to the locals and see if you can’t drum up a little demonstration to block the roads.’ They also said they were trying to get a riot going in Irazú.”

  “Okay,” said Moran though, of course, neither his agreement nor Araya’s was precisely necessary. “Well . . . you go see about getting a group together. I’m going to go check on the road and the bridge. Maybe we can take it out if we get the order. At least I might see something worth reporting.”

  �
�Jeez, Corp,” said Araya, “I don’t know anything about explosives . . . if we had any, which we don’t.”

  “I don’t know much,” admitted Moran. “How to use them, safely for limited purposes. And I know nothing about making them. Maybe we could steal some.”

  “Maybe. Though we might be better off trying to buy some.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Anyway, you run along.”

  Once Araya was out of the way, Corporal Moran walked the few paces down the hallway to the next room, Jaquelina Araya’s. She gave him a big smile once the door opened.

  Irazú, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  It was shocking really, not least to the tank commander of tank Thanatos who, safe behind his armor, had never really imagined a serious threat coming from the locals. But then a veritable hurricane of Molotov cocktails had engulfed the tank ahead of him, as the company tried to escape from the town in a long, clanking column. The Molotovs didn’t initially set the tank alight. Rather, they cut off oxygen to the engine and stalled the thing temporarily.

  Modern tanks were designed generally to prevent gasoline from firebombs leaking down into the engine compartment. Despite this, and probably because of the sheer amount of fluid, coupled with the many different angles from which it came, some of the burning fuel from those must have dripped down to torch off some of the plastic over the wires or the rubberized pieces, or the fabric gaskets of the engine, for black smoke began to pour out from the engine grate behind the turret. That, in turn, caused the crew to pop hatches and try to escape, before being driven back in by something the tank following could not see. And then a single firebomb had smashed against the inside of the partially open commander’s hatch, letting burning fuel pour down upon the TC. His scream, followed by those of his crew as the flames spread, were heard by every man of the company. Why the fire suppression system failed to activate, as it should have, would remain a mystery.

  The driver, alone, managed to escape, as he was separated from the fighting compartment of the tank. But as soon as he’d crawled across to glacis and down to the ground, choking and heaving from smoke inhalation, a small mob of Santa Josefinan men, bearing clubs, surrounded him and began kicking with their feet and pounding with their clubs.

  It was then that the tank, Thanatos, opened fire on the crowd, sweeping across the mob with its coaxial machine gun.

  “What the fuck?” screamed the gunner. “What the fuck are you doing you goddamned maniac?”

  “Back up, back up,” screamed the tank commander, still wildly flailing with his coax at the scattering crowd. He ignored the gunner, or perhaps his span of attention had narrowed to where he couldn’t hear. Too afraid to stick his head up, as a proper tank commander would have, he tried to direct the driver by viewing through the narrow and inadequate periscopic vision port on the rear of his cupola. The tank ended up backing into a relatively narrow side street, preparatory to turning around and running like hell.

  The vision blocks were perfectly acceptable for some purposes, but really made it difficult to see fine details like the fifteen-year-old Santa Josefinan with the sister five months pregnant by the Gallic legionary . . . the fifteen-year-old with the Molotov cocktail . . . and the lit match.

  Ignorant, the boy had aimed his fire bomb uselessly at the turret. Inexperienced, he’d missed that and landed it across the engine grate. It wasn’t enough to stop the tank immediately. The next one to try to throw did even worse; he set his own hands alight, then, panicking, dropped the Molotov at his feet, making a large flambé of himself. His screams could be heard over the roar of flames, though not inside the tank he’d intended to target.

  The third and fourth fuel bombs, however, possibly following the fifteen-year-old’s unwitting lead, landed across the rear deck and bursted into fireballs. Those did cause the tank to stall temporarily. They did not stop the turret.

  What did stop the turret was a combination of things. First was that the narrow side street meant the tank’s main gun bumped against something solid, and was no longer able to traverse in that direction. Second, however, and more important, was that the tank commander, seeing the flames and being something of a coward, panicked. Ripping off his combat vehicle crewman’s helmet, he undogged the hatch and practically flew up.

  Sadly, Molotov cocktails five and six landed on the turret roof at about that time, catching him in their fireballs, melting his eyes, setting hair alight, and making him scream like a terrified little girl, until the inhalation burn running down his throat caused the tissue there to swell, cutting off his breath.

  And then the tank commander of tank Thanatos got to experience the very Platonic essence of a shitty death, more than one deadly effect, racing at a snail’s pace, to see which one would kill you. In his case it was even more than usual as the flames set his subcutaneous fat alight, too. For a while, no more firebombs flew as the mob stopped for a moment to enjoy the arrogant Tauran’s death.

  While the TC burned alive, above, the gunner, who did not panic, managed to get the hatch shut again. Some burning fuel got in but the automatic fire suppression system did for that, even as it half-suffocated the crew. Still, after a few minutes, they were able to breathe again and get the engine started again. Ignoring the possibility of running over civilians, the driver then took off like the proverbial infernal bat, crushing cars, knocking over streetlights, but moving so fast that no more Molotovs hit his tank.

  Headquarters, Tauran Union Security Force-Santa Josefina,

  Rio Clara, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  “I’m a Sachsen,” said Rall, with perfect seriousness, and perfect hate. “My recommendation is that we go into Irazú, round up five hundred men, one hundred for each of ours, heard them into a public building and burn them alive. Not that I expect you to do that.”

  “And I’m, at heart, a Roman,” said Marciano. “I’d instinctively crucify that same five hundred. The problem is that that wouldn’t solve our problem.”

  “A thousand then?” Rall suggested, hopefully. “A nice round number, one thousand.”

  “No,” said Marciano, definitively. He explained, “The problem with a reprisal, young Colonel, is that the people you’re reprising against have to believe you can keep it up. If we reprised for the death of our troops, we’d be pulled out of here within hours, the Santa Josefinans would know that reprisal was not a Tauran policy, and we—rather, our replacements—would never have a moment’s peace.

  “Besides, we’re here to protect their poor little pacifist delusions.

  “So no, no point. But there is a point to clearing a way through the town. And that, tsk, tsk, will cause a certain amount of damage. Which—who knows?—may be sufficient to dissuade the townsfolk from fucking with our goddamned columns again!”

  “I’ll see to it, sir,” offered the Sachsen.

  “Please do.”

  Cerveza, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  It had been an overstrength company, with twenty Sachsen-built Smilodon tanks. Of those, six had been left facing the Balboan border while fourteen had been sent to the attack force assembling at Cerveza. Of those fourteen, the Taurans were down to thirteen now, with one—the one ruined in Irazú; still sitting there, as a matter of fact—needing something close to a depot-level rebuild. Additionally, two more had broken down on the road, though those had been recovered and moved forward to the assembly area at Cerveza.

  In that assembly area, the crew of the tank formerly known as Thanatos were busy scraping their old nickname off. They hadn’t yet decided whether to rename their tank Pederast or Pussyboy, in memory of their late commander’s efforts to abandon them.

  Not that he’d ever entirely succeeded, of course. Why some remnants of burnt flesh and melted fat still stuck to the turret roof, though the loader was scraping at those, and tossing the scrapings contemptuously over the side, even while the gunner and driver took turns obliterating the name.

  “How did we end up with a weasel like that for a tank commander, anyway, Sarge?
” asked the loader, from atop the turret.

  “Recruiter may have had a bad day,” answered the new tank commander, “or been behind in his quota for the month.”

  “What’s going to happen to us over him opening up with the coax on the crowd?” asked the driver.

  “Well . . . nothing to you, for sure,” answered the former gunner.

  “There’s no objective way for higher to tell it wasn’t me doing the shooting . . .”

  “I can tell them,” said the loader. “I saw the panicky piece of shit override you.”

  “Yeah . . . well . . . your testimony might not be so persuasive. Same crew and all. Still, don’t sweat it yet. We might manage to get killed before they can convene a court-martial on me.”

  On that note, the remaining crew laughed. The laughter cut off when the first truck of the Tuscan artillery battalion rolled past, dragging its 105mm gun smoothly behind it.

  “Yeah,” agreed the loader. “Yeah, we just might.”

  Outside Pelirojo, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  There were only two companies of Jaegers in the Cimbrian Army’s Jaegerkorpset. At any given time one of those, in rotation, was assigned to the Tauran Union Security Force for Santa Josefina. Considering they were from a small and not very populous country, without a huge military tradition in modern times, and frankly fairly pacifistic, the Jaegers were actually quite competent. Across the world of Terra Nova they were generally considered about as good as anyone’s Tier II special operations forces—Federated States Rangers, for example, or Zioni Sayaret—and probably somewhat better than most such. Being, as individuals, way too big and way too blond, mostly, they’d stand out like a sore thumb trying to blend in with nearly any local population. But out in the jungle—once they got used to the jungle, which always took a bit of time—they were just fine.