Carnifex

by Tom Kratman

  There was a stirring in the mass of troops. Most of them didn't want to jump that low. None of them were willing to admit as much. Carrera gave them a few minutes to settle down.

  "All right then. I won't bother asking if you've got issues with doing an incursion into another country. It's a given that you don't or you wouldn't be here at all. Lights," he commanded.

  Once the hangar had dimmed enough for a projector to work Carrera called, "Map." Instantly, a large map of the Kashmir-Pashtia border region appeared behind him. All the men recognized it, despite the distortion caused by the slight waving of the sheet.

  Carrera pulled a laser pointer from his pocket, flicked it on and laid a red point of light onto the Jalala area. "We are here." The red point shifted across the sheet until coming to rest on a fortress symbol on the other side of the border. "We are going there. Next map."

  The previous, large scale map disappeared to be replaced by one of the same scale but a smaller area, side by side with a small scale map of the objective area.

  "Your mission," Carrera continued, pointing at the objective map, "is to seal this off from escape. Before you do that, just before, other forces will infiltrate and attack the center of the Salafi fortress. Still another force, Pashtun Cavalry that left some time ago, will seal the ends of the valley. Heavy infantry and artillery will move by helicopter to crack its shell and peel it. The mechanized cohort will cross the border here," again the point of light shifted to mark the major pass between Kashmir and Pashtia, "and take up a blocking position here," the light rested a bit further north. "The Federated States Air Force will provide air cover at a distance. Our own Air Ala will be in either the transport, the recon, or the close support mode."

  "There's been no time to rehearse this, nor will there be except by back brief. For that matter, if we tried to rehearse it, it would just tip off the enemy. Nonetheless, we've been planning this operation for weeks. Your commanders have the plan. Cohort commander?"

  "Sir!"

  "Take charge of your men. And good luck to you all. Kick their asses."

  Pickup Zone Papa Echo (Principe Eugenio), Pashtia

  Every infantry cohort in the Legion carried enough landing lights, sometimes called "beanbag lights," to set up a pickup zone for helicopter movement. These were color-coded, different colors marking different spots and different functions on the chosen field.

  Cruz's platoon had drawn the duty of setting up the PZ. Pulled at the last possible minute from their patrolling, they'd filled the beanbags of the lights with dirt and rocks to keep the rotor wash from blowing them away. They'd then placed them on the ground in the proper positions. With the duty of setting up the PZ had come the duty of running it. This meant not only arranging the rest of the maniple for pickup, but taking charge of the dozen 160mm mortars that were to fly out ahead of the infantry to take up a firing position in range of the objective and a couple of miles across the border.

  The mortars and their ammunition had been dragged up by their integral trucks, the trucks having to make two or three trips each for the full load of projectiles. The shells were palletized, piled in nets that would be slung by hooks underneath the helicopters. The guns would be manhandled inside by their crews. The trucks would remain behind on the PZ; there were no roads or even trafficable trails where the guns were heading.

  Cruz removed his helmet and wiped a hand across his brow; helping the mortar maggots to move that ammunition from truck to pallet by hand had been a backbreaking task.

  "What now, Centurion?" Optio Garcia asked.

  "Now we wait for a bit."

  Camp San Lorenzo

  Three of the deployed Legion's twenty Turbo-Finches were down for maintenance, housed in hangars. Likewise was one of its four ANA-23 gunships. The remainder stood in their concrete floored and revetted, steel-covered bunkers. There were hinged steel walls in front of the bunkers, proof against heavy shrapnel and lowerable on their hinges to allow the aircraft to leave and enter. Only enough of the doors were lowered to allow ordnance crews, supplemented by nearly every clerk and cook in the camp, to trundle in, jack up, and load the bombs, rocket and machine gun pods, and napalm canisters required for the attack.

  The gunships received a different load, mostly machine gun and cannon ammunition for their fixed, side-firing guns, plus a dozen each five hundred pound GLS-guided thermobaric bombs which would be dropped from altitude out the rear ramps to strike certain key targets.

  While the ordnance crews strained and sweated, mechanics and avionics repairmen poured over the planes, checking status and making necessary repairs. There was to be no waiting for parts; Carrera had decreed they could strip the other, non-flyable aircraft down to the ground to make sure the minimum necessary were fit for flight and fit to fight.

  Miguel Lanza, much older and a legate III himself now, watched the progress intently from outside. No sense in getting under the feet of men who sure as Hell know their business well by now, he thought.

  A voice came unexpectedly from behind. It was Carrera.

  "Your boys going to be ready on time, Lanza?" he asked, wearily.

  Lanza nodded in the semi-darkness. "No problem."

  "What are you planning to fly, Miguel?"

  "Gunship," Lanza answered. "Lets me in on the action and gives me a copilot so I can control the operation. Also gives me the best commo and sensor suite of any plane we have. Besides, I'm really not up to CAS anymore." Lanza sighed at the injustice of aging.

  "Good choice. Carry on."

  Lanza watched Carrera amble away like a man ten years older then he was.

  The Base

  Oh, Annan, yes, thought Arbeit, this is exciting.

  The bomb sat to one side of the deep cavern. Mustafa ran his hands over it lovingly. Lost in his visions of an entire infidel city turned to a smoking charnel house, he barely heard the words of the High Admiral.

  "Broadly speaking," Robinson said, "if you continue to carry on the way you are, you are going to lose. Moreover, you'll lose in the worst possible way from both our points of view." Unconsciously, the High Admiral reached up to stroke his right breast pocket. Yes, the detonation device is still there. The way Mustafa is looking at that bomb it's a damned good thing, too.

  He spoke in a dimly lit cavern attached to a deep tunnel by a narrow, roughly hewn rock side tunnel. This far below the ground no sound penetrated from above. The air was uncomfortably cool and, despite an attempt to pump in fresh air, rather stuffy.

  Nur al-Deen objected, "Every day new fighters, some in groups, come to join the struggle. Our strength is growing, not weakening. The enemy, the Great Demon called the Federated States, is weakening!"

  "Not enough," Robinson countered. "Their use of mercenaries is not only keeping the financial costs of their war down, it is keeping the casualties down below critical mass as well. And there does not appear to be a practical limit to how many mercenaries they can field.

  "Alternatively," he continued, "the mercenaries' unproven but obvious penchant for targeting families even in the Yithrabi Peninsula, Southern Uhuru, Taurus and the Federated States, itself, has slowly reduced your available recruiting pool to the ignorant children of your madrassas. Their murders of sympathetic media types hurt you as badly. You are losing.

  "That is why I want you to use one of the weapons I have brought here on Balboa. That's the breeding and training ground for the Legion. Rather, I want you to emplace one there, in order to threaten the Legion out of any further cooperation with the FSC."

  "And that's another thing," al-Deen objected. "You have brought us twelve nuclear weapons. This is enough to do incredible damage to the FS, damage from which they will never recover."

  Robinson scoffed. "On the contrary, they will recover. Look at Taurus and Yamato and the number of cities they saw erased during the Great Global War. You can't even tell anymore that the war happened. On the other hand, if you use these weapons more than once the FSC will obliterate you and your religion. You
are the most urbanized population on this planet. The contents of just one of their nuclear missile carrying submarines would be sufficient to kill one third of you outright, and leave another third to die slowly of starvation and disease. And they would probably not stop there. Don't you recall what they did in the GGW when we hit two of their cities to stop their use of nuclear weapons against Yamato? They imposed a blockade that killed a third of that country's people by slow starvation. They would hate you more and do more to you." Robinson left unsaid, and they're quite likely to obliterate my fleet while they're at it, if I even suggested trying to prevent it.

  Mustafa stood back from the bomb, removing his caressing hands with regret, and paced the cavern for a few moments, head outthrust and hands clasped behind his back. "Sadly," he said, pointing at Robinson, "this infidel is right. But that doesn't mean he is completely right. The Blue Jinn and his people must pay."

  "I want the control of three bombs."

  "One," the High Admiral answered.

  "Three," Mustafa insisted. "One in the FS which will be used. One on Balboa which will be used. And one on Anglia with another in reserve."

  Robinson considered this. One used and one threatened knocks Balboa and the mercenaries out of the war. Two in Anglia, one used and one as a threat, probably prevents them from retaliating. That leaves eight for the FS, one used and seven threatened. Maybe . . .

  Robinson looked at Arbeit. Although only her eyes showed through the burkha her head nodded deeply. "Done," he answered.

  Hoti-Chobolo Highway, Kashmir, 12/8/469

  The road which had been smooth from Hoti turned into a kidney-pounding washboard five minutes after turning off toward the enemy base. Speed dropped, out of sheer necessity to maintain health, to under ten miles an hour.

  The convoy traveled with lights on. Anything else would have been suspicious. Even so, a suspicious group of tribesmen did stop the lead vehicle carrying Jimenez and Masood.

  "What you here for?" a rifle bearing brigand demanded, once Masood had stopped and dismounted.

  Bold bastard isn't he? Masood observed to himself. Bet there are half a dozen machine guns covering us right now or he wouldn't be nearly so bold.

  "We come to join the great Prince Mustafa," Subadar Masood answered which was, after a fashion, true enough.

  The suspicious tribesman ignored the answer, or seemed to. Instead, he went to the vehicle and looked over the passengers. He reached in and pulled away the scarf Jimenez had pulled across his face. Jimenez white eyes shone against his coal-black skin even in the darkness.

  "What this one?"

  "He's from among the faithful of Uhuru, come all this way to fight for Allah."

  The tribesman asked a question of Jimenez, who stared pleadingly at Masood.

  "He doesn't speak our language," the Subadar said. "Do you, perchance, know any of the Arabic dialects of Southern Uhuru?"

  Scowling, the tribesman answered, "Not even know where this Uhuru place is. How speak language?" he asked, rhetorically.

  Masood shrugged.

  "Mustafa great man," the tribesman announced. "Give my people many gifts. You give gifts?"

  "As the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, 'Give gifts to each other and love each other and hatred will disappear.' We would be happy to share our blessings with our brothers," Masood answered.

  "Prophet, PBUH, he say that?"

  "Indeed he did. We are brothers in our faith, are we not?" the Subadar asked.

  "Not know nothing about no brothers. You give gifts?"

  "Would money do?"

  "Money do fine," the tribesman answered. "You give . . . one hundred rupees per man."

  Two drachma, near enough, per man? About a thousand in all? Sounds very reasonable to me.

  Masood reached into a pocket. "Can you accept FSD?"

  "FSD good."

  12/8/469 AC, The Base

  Robinson had slept in better places. Indeed it was hard to remember ever having slept in a worse.

  Oh, the Salafis had tried to make him comfortable. They'd laid out for him and the marchioness a bedroll of stacked rugs and provided blankets. They'd even made provision of a slave girl—Volgan, Robinson thought—to warm the bed and entertain their guests.

  She might have been more entertaining but for the whip marks Arbeit had added to her bare back; the girl already had a fair collection. Robinson had to turn off the light to keep the disturbing image of the girl's criss-crossed back out of his view.

  The girl spoke no English. Neither did Robinson speak Arabic or Volgan. He'd had to make do with pointing and signs. She seemed to understand those well enough. In any case, she cooperated, albeit without any noticeable enthusiasm.

  Which is perfect, thought the High Admiral, drifting off to sleep with the detonation device clasped in his hand under his pillow. The more of this world chained to these dolts the less of this world that will be a threat to mine.

  * * *

  His sleeping arrangements were considerably less luxurious than the High Admiral's. Bashir made do as best he could against the cold and rocky ground with a couple of blankets and his pack for a pillow.

  Having sent his message and—wonder of wonders—received an answer, Bashir was more than certain that an attack was imminent. This had its good sides and bad.

  I've done my job; done everything they asked. My family should be safe now. But what about me? When they attack they're going to see that their men have been crucified. They'll kill everything moving. Allah knows, I would. Shit.

  So how do I keep them from killing me, too?

  He hadn't come up with an answer before sleep took him. As he nodded off, Bashir wondered if he'd see the next sunrise or if a bomb would kill him while he slept.

  Camp San Lorenzo

  The eastern sky was just beginning to glow red when the first of the gunships began its roll down the runway. Heavily laden as they were, the birds needed nearly every foot of runway space before they achieved liftoff.

  Once the first one, Miguel Lanza at the helm, was up and had gained some altitude, the next began its take off run. A few minutes later, with the last of the gunships airborne and circling overhead, the first of the nine Turbo-Finches in this attack wave likewise rolled down the hardened strip. These took off in half minute intervals and assembled at an altitude just below that of the gunships.

  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 be
fore 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.