by Tom Kratman
Esmeralda didn’t comment on that one way or the other. Instead she asked, “What’s next?”
“Makeup!”
Casa Presidencial, Aserri, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova
There was a young black man in a light linen suit with the president when Esmeralda returned. President Calderón introduced the man as “Lieutenant Blanco of our Public Force. He speaks English and French along with our native Spanish.”
After spending a few minutes on pleasantries, sincere ones insofar as they reflected Esmeralda’s new, more feminine and tasteful appearance, the president cut to the chase.
“If your Admiral Wallenstein wants my cooperation, then she needs to see to it that the Taurans in Balboa admit Lieutenant Blanco into their confidences and show him that they are ready to move at a moment’s notice to put troops in place to defend us. When Blanco can assure me that this is ready, then and only then will I speak out in public against the military buildup in Balboa.”
“I’ll bring your proposal to her, Mr. President. What you want exceeds my instructions. I cannot agree to it on my own.”
“Very well. Blanco will be available as long as needed. Go back to your admiral and get her agreement. For the peace of the planet.
“Now, can that device you played the high admiral’s words on for me also record?”
“Yes, it can, Mr. President,” Esmeralda said. Khan, male, had taught her how to do that, too.
“Good. I have a prepared statement I would like you to bring to your chieftainess.”
High Admiral’s Office, UEPF Spirit of Peace, in orbit over Terra Nova
With her middle finger resting on her upper lip, her ring finger on the lower, and her pinky on her chin, Marguerite’s index finger tapped her nose contemplatively, mostly ignoring the mufti-clad girl who sat opposite her, with a finger poised over a replay button.
She looked down at the small hologram of Calderón Esma had brought back, tapped some more, then muttered, “You are adding complexity, young man, where I neither need nor want it. Actually, you are adding both complexity and scheduling issues.”
She sighed. “But, I suppose, in your shoes I would demand no less. Now, the question remains, can I deliver? What would actually be required to defend you from the Balboans, if they decide you need to go?
“Time to go consult Janier again, down below, I suppose. Ground combat I know very little about, and he is supposed to be expert.”
She looked in the direction of her cabin girl. She’s showed already some unusual ability. Let’s give her another, technically more complex, mission and see how she does.
“Esma?”
The girl looked up, “Yes, High Admiral?”
“You and I are going to be going back down below, but only to Taurus. Make the arrangements, please, and have signals get a message to General Janier to meet us in . . .” she consulted her computer for a suitable unobtrusive but comfortable town below “. . . let’s go for someplace with a lot of tourists this time of year . . . preferably someplace I can fly to directly without screwing around with local airlines.
“Yes, set us up to fly directly to the island of Teixeira, and have Janier meet us there with a small staff. Have him arrange to bring with him whoever is needed to authorize a sufficient force to defend Santa Josefina.”
“Yes, High Admiral.”
“And get a rejuvenation screening medical team to come with us. I wish we had full capabilities within the fleet, but the Consensus keeps that at home. We’ll make do with what we have. We can prepare to deliver on the twenty to twenty-five years I’ve promised, at least.
“Also get with our ambassador to the World League, below, and have him get us a representative with a little clout.”
“Yes, High Admiral.”
“And, by the way, Esmeralda, you look very lovely in your new outfit, and properly made up.”
“Thank you, High Admiral.”
“Who taught you to put on makeup?”
“The ambassador’s secretary, in Santa Josefina. She’s very nice. I would count her a friend if I could be truthful with her.”
“You can’t.”
“Yes, I know, High Admiral.”
Hotel Edward’s Palace, Island of Teixeira, Lusitania, Tauran Union, Terra Nova
“The question’s a lot more complex than you might think,” said Janier to Marguerite, alone, without aides, and before they allowed in Janier’s nominal political masters. “And, like many things, it’s a political question as much as a military one.”
He took a map from a pocket and unfolded it so she could see that it was of the Balboan-Santa Josefinan border, stretching back to Aserri.
“There are two regiments nearby on the Balboan side of the border, both with heavy increments of Santa Josefinans. Of course there are a lot more farther in, thirty-five or so, I think, exclusive of support.
“But to get those up to the border requires time and effort, which means warning. So it’s really only the two close by we need to be able to deal with. As for those . . . they’re not really two regiments. They’re really two big companies of professionals—though, since they are not Taurans, they are, at best second rate—with another six company equivalents of barely trained reservists, and perhaps sixteen or so companies of rabble they call ‘militia.’ I discount that last, but I think we can say that the professionals and the reservists probably form two modestly capable battalions.”
Janier’s finger traced along the main highway, that ran from Ciudad Balboa, along the coast, then to Aserri. “This is the only practical invasion route for them.” His finger tapped some high ground, not too far from the border. “This is easily defended by one battalion against two of theirs. Indeed, I think a single company, and not necessarily an elite one, could hold it against two of their battalions, except that a single company could be too easily outflanked.”
“I don’t know how that works,” admitted Marguerite, “so I will take your word for it that a single battalion can defend that road. Why so far back though?”
“Out of artillery range. Enough distance to give time to pursue and destroy any Balboans who come that far. Enough distance for patrols to give warning of an incursion. Also it’s the most defensible ground in the area that suits those criteria.”
Such a wonder to report to someone who knows what she does not know, thought Janier. How rare is this world, and probably on hers as well.
“As for a single battalion defending it, no, not indefinitely, not against everything they might throw at us, but long enough for us to mass the airpower to make it impossible to supply any large force assaulting that battalion, yes. And provided that battalion includes at least one battery of artillery and a company of tanks.
“However, that is not the only problem.” Again, his finger began tracing, this time along the lengthy border between the two countries. “This is a much less tractable problem,” he said. “It simply cannot be defended. Fortunately, as a logistic matter, only trivial attacks, mere pinpricks, can come through the jungle. To deal with that I need aerial reconnaissance assets, information from your own ships, overhead, a battalion engaged full time in security and anti-infiltration patrolling on the ground, and another battalion’s worth of reaction force, with helicopters, engineers, and artillery but no armor. And I’ll need a fourth battalion to allow rotation of the troops for rest and training. Plus service support. In total, I need about six to seven thousand men on the ground, and perhaps twelve hundred in aviation assets.”
“What about naval?” she asked.
Janier shook his head. “No, High Admiral. The Santa Josefinans have no real ground forces, but they never disbanded their small navy since it never took part in a coup attempt. They’re adequate to screen the seas nearby.”
“The Balboans have a not inconsiderable little fleet of their own,” Wallenstein objected.
“Yes, I know, including the last true heavy cruiser at sea on this planet, as well as an old aircraft carrier. But the aircraft
carrier isn’t really capable of contesting with modern air forces, and the cruiser is not really all that heavy. Airpower can secure the seas, provided we know they’re coming. That also allows us to avoid those peculiar plastic coastal submarines they’ve built, the exact capabilities of which has my naval staff at each other’s throats.”
“How will you get forces to Santa Josefina once President Calderón makes his announcement?” Marguerite asked.
“Well, not from the Transitway Area,” Janier hastened to say. “That would be the worst possible time to weaken ourselves in Balboa.”
“I agree,” she said. “Airship direct from Taurus?”
“That would be my preference,” he said. “Six airships for several days, two of them heavy-lift capable, should suffice. The only problem is they will have to be in the air before Santa Josefina even asks or there will be a day’s worth of window of vulnerability. I want troops debarking the moment Calderón stops talking.”
“I concur. Now give me again your troops list.”
Janier reached into another pocket and withdrew a small, folded and stapled packet of printed sheets. “It’s all there.”
“Very good,” said Wallenstein. “Now let’s go meet our public.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Safety is an illusion. Bad things can happen to anyone at any time, whether you follow the rules or not. You can check left, check right, check left again before you step off the curb and into the crosswalk, but that won’t stop an anonymous asshole in his shitty pickup from putting you in intensive care . . .
—Megan McCafferty, Perfect Fifths
Range 4, Imperial Range Complex, Balboa, Terra Nova
Hendryksen and Cruz observed as a platoon from Third Maniple, by squads, went through a remarkably ugly structure built of wood, dirt, and—mostly—tires, clearing it room by room with hand grenades and rifle fire. Hendryksen was alone, today, since Campbell had semi-attached herself to the cohort operations officer, the I, for a couple of days, splitting her time between watching the operations, logistics, and intel office and looking at training close up.
Two men crouching on either side of a window nodded at each other, pulled the pins from grenades, released the spoons, and counted: “One . . . two . . . throw!”
The grenades sailed through the windows, exploding a couple of seconds later. Angry black smoke spilled out of the window. It had been preceded by a cloud of light shrapnel, serrated wire. Following the twin blasts, first one man, then another, lunged over the sill and into the room beyond, spraying from the hip as they did. The first man crouched and sprayed low while the second stood and sprayed high, just over the head of the first.
“Clear!” came the shout through the window. The rest of the squad begin piling in.
“Marine R.E.S. Mors du Char the Fourth would never approve,” said the Cimbrian.
“Who’s she?” asked Cruz.
“Tauran Union minister of safety,” he replied. “Think: Essence of self-righteous pussy, with a heavy side order of moral cowardice, ignorance, insuperable arrogance, and massive stupidity. If you want to know what’s wrong with civilization, Sergeant Major, just look at Marine Mors du Char the Fourth.
“Do you know the type?”
Cruz shook his head. “No, we don’t have any of those.”
Figures, thought Hendryksen. The more I watch you guys the more frightened I become.
The Cimbrian asked, “Sergeant Major, where the hell do you guys get all this ammunition? Or are you all putting on a show for the foreigners?”
He had seen this legionary infantry cohort—essentially a part-time infantry cohort, at that—go through more live ammunition in five days than most army units in Cimbria used in as many months.
Cruz chuckled. “Not a show, no. We were expressly counseled against that.
“No, we use about as much as another army might, but about half of another army’s allocation we use for our regular and reserve increment, spread out over the year, and the other half we use when we have everybody together for annual training.” He wagged his hand, palm down, adding, “Roughly.
“Other than that, the ammunition account only varies by assigned troop strength and type of unit. I could have the battalion supply sergeant gin up the cost for you, if you’re that curious. It’s not exactly a secret. If you don’t need that much precision, I’d guess that the ammunition for this training period will cost . . . oh, maybe half a million drachma, give or take. Maybe seven hundred drachma per troop though, of course, some ammunition is more expensive than others.”
Cruz considered. “Hmmm . . . I guess maybe that is still substantial. On the other hand, since our basic rifle and machine gun round used little brass—just the stubs for obturation—our ammunition is often a lot cheaper than yours might be.
“But I once heard Duque Carrera speak on the subject. He said that while other armies spent their money on computers, paper, pens, transparent slides for ornate briefings, and red carpets to make their headquarters look more civilian and less military, he would spend money on training: food, spare parts, ammunition and fuel.”
Hendryksen digested that for a moment. He started to ask, “How many rounds for the twenty-five days for—” then stopped, his attention diverted by a series of unusual squeaking sounds. He turned to look.
Gaping, he asked, “What the hell is that?”
Cruz also turned around, to see a half-dozen wheelchairs carrying crippled men, along with some ten apparently mentally retarded kids taking turns pushing them up the road. Cruz smiled; he did not laugh. “That is the TSC, the Tercio Santa Cecilia. It is one of only . . . well, very few named tercios in the legions that I know of. Oh, they’ve got a number but nobody much uses it, while every tercio has a name but is almost always referred to by its number, sometimes with an honorific like ‘Cazador’ or ‘Mountain’ or ‘Marine.’ There’s also a Tercio Socrates, for old folks who decide to join. And one hears persistent rumors that a couple more are going to be raised.”
Cruz continued, “The TSC are an interesting story. It seems that, about a year and a half ago, Duque Carrera was visiting the building where they test new recruits for the legion. It’s in Ciudad Balboa.
“Anyway, there was a demonstration outside the building. It consisted mostly of a number of crippled people, almost all in wheelchairs, who objected to being denied enlistment and the right to become full citizens. Duque Carrera listened and decided that they had justice on their side, provided the people concerned could understand the oath of enlistment. So he ordered the TSC formed. The Tercio Santa Cecilia, he named it himself, must find useful military work for those who cannot qualify for service in a regular tercio but insist on their right to serve. Some of them are formerly fit legionaries who were badly hurt in accidents and didn’t want to take a medical discharge.
“But there’s a tank turret range about two miles down that road, so those people are probably Adios Patria troops.”
“Farewell Fatherland?”
“Yes. Those men are assigned to serve in fixed tank turrets, ones that have been taken from unserviceable or modified tanks and mounted in fixed fortifications. You can buy a tank turret for as little as a few thousand drachmas, you know. And, once mounted in concrete, they don’t need a lot of care and can take a lot of killing.”
Hendryksen was normally pale. He seemed paler still as he said, “But retarded kids? That’s . . . not to be judgmental, Sergeant Major, but I just don’t have any words for how evil that strikes me as being, using the retarded for defense.”
“Well,” observed Cruz, “if you guys don’t attack us then those guys will be perfectly safe, won’t they?”
Hendryksen started to say something, his mouth opening and closing several times like a gasping fish.
Cruz opted to help him out. “Generally—if not always—the mentally retarded can be trained to do many things by rote. I understand that the para- and quadriplegics are the gunners and commanders, while the mentally retarded lo
ad the gun and hand ammunition up to the turret from a concrete bunker that’s built below. They also do the scut work; fetching and carrying, and caring for their gunners and commanders.
“Nobody plans on chaining them into their positions, but there would be little chance for them to escape if they had to fight and things got bad. So . . . Farewell Fatherland.
“I have never worked with them, personally. But they try very hard, I hear. For most of us our basic training is quite difficult. The TSC uses a more soft-handed approach . . . little if any harassment; but still a lot of meaningful pain. I don’t know enough to say whether that’s right or wrong.”
Hendryksen muttered something under his breath.
“What was that?”
“I was just thinking out loud. About what a ruthless . . . man . . . Carrera is; to use the mentally retarded as cannon fodder. What a waste; they can’t possibly be effective.”
Again, Cruz shrugged. “Well . . . he certainly is . . . you could say ruthless, I suppose.
“Yet there is more to the story, I think. An acquaintance of mine broke his back and went to the TSC rather than take a medical discharge. He has a crew of three retarded, all Adios Patria troops. He says that his ‘retarded boys are smarter than dogs, just as loyal, don’t slap you in the balls with their paws or drool. They let themselves out to go to the bathroom. And, best of all, they have opposable thumbs. They just might be effective enough.’ As for ruthless . . . kind I should think. Kinder anyway than wasting their lives entirely.”
The Tauran hid his scowl until a series of explosions within the tire house drew the two men’s attention away from the parade of the “differently abled,” as the community of the caring and sensitive might say.
A few hundred meters from Cruz and the Cimbrian, Legion Corporal Rafael de la Mesa swore under his breath. Bad enough I am a cripple. But to saddle me with these morons is just too unbearable.
