Come and Take Them

by Tom Kratman

Headquarters above cohort level, and some at cohort level, had been given Volgan-made encryption capability for their radios. As a general rule, the devices were as good as anything made in the Federated States or Taurus, for encryption purposes. What they were not, however, was small and light. This, more than factors of cost, was what restricted them to high level units.

  Almost ready to jump for sheer joy, Legate Chin answered back, “Patricio, this is Hector. What the fuck is going on? Over.”

  “Couldn’t be better, Hector. Lago Sombrero held out and the Anglian Paras are history. The rest of First Corps is barreling down the highway. The Fifteenth Tercio will reach your area a lot sooner than that, though.”

  “Fifteenth Tercio? Who . . . what is the Fifteenth Tercio? . . . Oh, you ruthless bastard; you used the cadets?”

  “Yep,” answered Carrera cheerfully. Considering that he had not word one from the Puerto Lindo School, hence no clue as to his only boy’s survival, he answered a lot more cheerfully than he felt. “The kids, Hector. The cadets. We had all six academies fit out full battalions out of their oldest cadets and their Volgan and Balboan cadres. I couldn’t tell you before. Sorry.”

  “Like I said, ‘you’re a bastard,’ Patricio. Is that what I’ve been seeing at Arnold and Nelson?”

  “You’re right, Hector, I am a bastard. And yes, Arnold, Nelson, Brookings, Muddville, Lago Sombrero, Melia, and Dahlgren. Because we had the force they didn’t know about, maybe couldn’t have believed in if I’d given them the plans—just too, too distressing and distasteful for words, doncha know—we are going to win. Big. Don’t doubt it for a minute. Got to go now. You keep hanging on. Mobilize as you can and help the Tenth Tercio relieve the Comandancia. I’ll be in touch. Carrera, out.”

  “Help the Tenth?” queried Chin. “Those assholes? Well . . . if you insist.”

  Gallic Airmobile Artillery Battalion, Imperial Range Base Camp, Balboa, Terra Nova

  “What the hell is this crap?” The chief of the fire direction section took one look at the firing data that had just been sent to the guns, another at the last mission that had been fired, then shrieked into the field telephone, “Cease Fire! Cease Fire!”

  “What’s the problem?” asked a fresh-faced computer operator.

  “The GLS is fucked up. I’m going to try to fix it. In the interim, I want you to manually input the call for fire data. Use the grid coordinates that we’ve been using.”

  Vicinity of the Comandancia, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Like flypaper, getting into a battle in a city is a lot easier than getting away from one, once it’s begun. The Four Hundred and Twentieth Gallic Dragoons were discovering this the hard way.

  Through the mostly ruined buildings around the Second Corps Headquarters, the Tenth Infantry Tercio’s troopers swarmed like so many angry ants. Being a poor place, this one had more than its share of residents who were members of the reserve and militia. Reinforced by reservists and militiamen of the Second Tercio’s recruiting district who voluntarily attached themselves to the Tenth Tercio—“Okay, maybe they’re assholes but they’re our assholes!”—the Tenth was growing stronger, not weaker. The Gallic Dragoons had gone from attacker to defender almost seamlessly, as the force ratios inverted. Moving through the area’s maze of alleys and back streets, the Balboans concentrated on blocking a street the Taurans had taken, preferably by taking out one of the rearmost armored vehicles, then forcing the Tauran infantry to take to the buildings to try to protect the vehicles. Since the dragoons only had maybe two hundred real infantrymen to start with, and something over half that in combat vehicle crewmen, the legion’s Tenth Infantry, heavily reinforced by individuals from the Second, had about a twenty to one advantage in foot soldiers. This advantage was continually growing as more and more reservists and militia rejoined the colors. It didn’t hurt the Tenth any, either, that they also knew the area much better.

  For the Taurans it was no longer a question of taking the Comandancia but of holding on long enough to be rescued. If there was anyone who could rescue them.

  Command Post, Twentieth Gallic Parachute Brigade, Herrera Airport, Balboa, Terra Nova

  “Goddamit, it just isn’t possible!” exclaimed the brigade fire support NCO. “This fucking GLS is telling me that we’re damned near fifty fucking miles from where I fucking know we are.”

  The fire support officer, or FSO, looked at the display. “No shit,” he said. “Cut the bitch out of the system. Go to voice and map operations.”

  “Sir, this is going to seriously slow down our response times.”

  Tauran Attack Helicopter Yankee Five Five, over Cristobal Province, Balboa, Terra Nova

  “I hate this shit,” cursed the pilot as he strained to see anything with his night vision goggles. The rains of Cristobal Province, falling in a torrent now, defeated his best efforts. There were power lines and towers around somewhere, he knew. Hitting them could prove fatal.

  “Don’t sweat it, Bob,” answered the copilot. He patted a machine which displayed glowing numbers. “I know exactly where we are— Huh?”

  The pilot asked “‘Huh,’ what?”

  “This contraption suddenly changed its coordinates.” The copilot slapped his GLS, hard. No change.

  “You mean you don’t know where we are!”

  “No! Pull our asses up and out of here!” the copilot shouted.

  His shout came too late as, out of the black, a steel tower loomed. The pilot veered to avoid the tower but, in doing so, went straight into a set of power lines.

  There were no survivors.

  Tauran News Network, Headline News Studios, Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova

  None of the troops fighting on the ground in Balboa would have, nor even could have, understood the cheerful tone in the announcer’s voice. Did they have no emotional connection to the people fighting at their behest? It had been, after all, the newsies who had drummed up a fever for war, not the soldiery.

  Cheerfully detached, though, the voice was. “Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to TNN Headline News, English Desk. Our top story this morning: War. We turn now to our Tauran Defense Agency correspondent, Brad Lupus. Brad?”

  The screens of thirty million televisions in the Tauran Union alone changed to show a crowded and busy briefing room that, from years of watching, viewers knew was located somewhere inside the former Gallic Defense Ministry that had been given over to the Union.

  “Good morning, Drew. I’m here at the TDA where the Combined Chiefs of Staff are about to issue an initial official statement on this, the Tauran Union’s most recent military operation in Balboa. As you know, Drew, there has been a lot of ill feeling between the Tauran Union and Balboa’s military government in the last several years; ever since the Balboan military overthrew its legitimate civilian government. These have apparently come to a head since five Tauran women were kidnapped and brutally murdered, apparently by members of Balboa’s military or internal security apparatus. Early this morning Tauran Union forces invaded, it is said to preempt a Balboan attack on the Tauran forces guarding the Transitway Area. Knowledgeable TDA insiders report that the fighting is said to be heavy and bitter, with many casualties on both sides.”

  Without shifting scenes back to TNN, the voice of TNN’s resident English-speaking talking head asked a series of questions.

  “Brad, how much of this story of preempting the Balboans from attacking our forces can we believe? After all, didn’t the incident with the women from NOUMCWW alone give the Tauran Union sufficient reason to attack?”

  “That’s a hard question to answer, Drew. Certainly the murders of those five Tauran women, one of them a high ranking minister, raised the possibility of war, but whether their deaths were really the cause . . . we can’t say at this point. The TDA’s unofficial position seems to be that the Legion del Cid, the mercenary organization that has taken power in Balboa, was about to attack our forces in and around the Balboa Transitway precisely because they feared a Tauran invasion;
which caused the Tauran Union to have to go over to the offensive to protect our service men and women.”

  The “head” asked, “Was that a real possibility, Brad? What kind of fighting force could Balboa have used against us?”

  “Drew, the Balboan legion was a large, reasonably modern and well-trained force prior to this morning’s events. They could have thrown as many as four or five divisions’ worth of soldiers against our forces in the Transitway area with anywhere from hours’ to days’ warning, but probably no more than hours.”

  “You said, Brad, that the legion was . . . moderately well trained. What should that mean to our viewers?”

  “They were predominantly a militia army, Drew, something like Helvetia’s or Zion’s. It might be incorrect to put them in the same category as our reserve forces, though, since a lot more attention was paid to the reserves in Balboa than is true in the Tauran Union. A retired Sachsen Army general I spoke to earlier this morning said they were a force to be reckoned with.”

  “Do we have any idea yet, Brad, of how long it’s expected to take before the fighting is wrapped up?”

  Before Lupus could answer pandemonium broke out in the briefing room. Lupus’s attention moved quickly away from the camera to a man who was trying to speak on the center stage. Lupus listened for a few moments before turning his attention back to the camera. “Drew, it looks like things have gone badly wrong for the Tauran Union in Balboa.”

  TUSF-B Headquarters, The Tunnel, Cerro Mina, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova

  From a large television screen overlooking the main briefing room, General Janier glared down at the assembled senior staff officers still in the Tunnel. “What the fuck is going on?” he demanded. “What the fuck is going on?”

  That last was nearly shrieked. Around the central briefing area a multitude of staff officers busily tried to gain some understanding of the extent of the disaster. They were distracted in this by the steady crump of artillery, soft because cushioned by the thick concrete, rock, and earth of the Tunnel. A few were more distracted still by the knowledge that there was a strong likelihood that Carrera’s legion would come knocking before the day was out. The C-3, or combined operations officer, in particular, was taking things badly, if it can be said that withdrawing to a corner and whimpering was a sign of some personal discomposure.

  Campbell and Hendryksen remained calm, rocks of sorts arising from amidst the swirling maelstrom of confusion. De Villepin, to no one’s surprise greater than theirs, was also standing firm.

  Disgusted with the rest, Moncey gravitated to that area, as much from aversion to the disorder reigning elsewhere as because it was de Villepin’s job to determine what the legion was up to. He tactfully didn’t mention that de Villepin had failed—badly failed—to anticipate the nationwide ambush laid by Carrera. Just as tactfully, de Villepin didn’t bring up the fact that neither Janier nor Moncey had been willing to listen to any doubts.

  Without waiting for Moncey to repeat his question, de Villepin pointed to a map that hung on the wall. “I can’t give you any hard data,” he began. “There isn’t any that’s all that important by itself. I can make an educated guess at what’s happening.” The intel chief cocked an eyebrow to see if Moncey would shut him out because of the lack of mechanically sound data. The chief of staff simply motioned him to go ahead.

  With a nod, de Villepin said, “Okay, sir. The son of a bitch suckered us. We know that already. Here’s how I think he did it.

  “There were six military academies . . . junior military academies. One was at Penonome. They were apparently trained as mechanized infantry. I think the bastard smuggled them in to Lago Sombrero. I don’t know where he kept the equipment for them, not for sure. We’ve received a couple of satellite photos from just before the Paras stopped talking. Based on those my guess is that it was in the ASP there . . .”

  Moncey shook his head with disbelief. “Not bloody likely. We’ve been watching the legion for years. We’d have seen that kind of stockpiling—”

  Ignoring rank, de Villepin cut Moncey off. “Yes, sir. They began before we started watching closely, years before. Carrera has been planning and preparing for this for, I would guess, ten years as a minimum. In any event, it was the same with the other five. The equipment must have been sitting there, unused, for a very long time. As for the placement, well, we weren’t very hard to predict . . .”

  That came very close to being a personal insult. Moncey began to bridle.

  Campbell interjected, “Sir, how did you pick our targets for this invasion?” She went ahead and answered her own question. “You did it based on known legion deployments and installations. Do you think Carrera’s knowledge of his own organization was inferior to ours? I’ll go a step farther. I think he set up his military bases specifically to be targets . . . then placed the academies where their cadets could be most easily moved to defend those installations without being noticed until used.”

  Moncey looked positively sick. “But that would mean . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Just so, sir,” said de Villepin. “We thought we would have the initiative because we were to be the ones acting. We forgot that initiative is a subtler concept. Carrera dictated where we would attack by his dispositions, then prepared the right response. He’s had the initiative all along or . . . at least once the decision to invade was made.”

  “Well, what the hell are they doing now?”

  De Villepin shrugged, “Again, I can’t say for sure. He started with just the cadets and whatever—and it couldn’t have been much—of the legions he had alerted to defend, though maybe delay is a better word. They’ve had limited success: The Anglian Paras are gone, that seems certain, along with Fourteenth Anglian Foot, and the Four Hundred and Seventeenth on the Shimmering Sea side. Our Para Brigade is pinned inside a perimeter at Herrera. The Marine battalion is decisively engaged east of Dahlgren. Arnold, Nelson, Brookings, all overrun. Muddville’s under attack. I think that takes care of the six military schools. One’s at Nelson with no place to go quickly, although we’ll see them again if the legion takes the Bridge of the Columbias. One is pinned around Herrera and, probably a part of it, Paitilla. The one on the Shimmering Sea side must be pretty much fought out by now, having taken on parts of two infantry battalions. One is decisively engaged with the Haarlem Marines. Another is still fighting for Muddville and cleaning up Brookings. Only the cadets who ambushed the Paras at Lago Sombrero seem free . . . and they should take some time getting here, say two to four hours for the main body.”

  “On our part, the dragoons are fighting for their lives in and around the Second Corps Headquarters area. They’ve been screaming for help for hours. We don’t have any to give. I think they’re engaged by the legion’s Tenth Infantry. How they mobilized so quickly? I would guess that it was simply easier because they were based in such a population dense area.

  “The three mountain battalions are engaged in little pissant fights all over the City.

  “That’s the bad news. Not all the news is bad. The airmobile brigade can still be pulled back, although if we do that we’re looking at some serious Balboan artillery a few hours later. I would say it will still be some hours before the rest of the legion comes on line. The two tercios at their training center at Fort Cameron, which are their Volgan Tercio, the Twenty-second Airborne, and the Fifth Mountain Tercio, probably won’t be in action until sometime tonight. They’re scattered over four hundred square miles of jungle. I wouldn’t expect to see their mechanized brigade come down from Lago Sombrero before noon today, at the earliest—”

  “Expect them sooner,” Moncey corrected. “One of the things we knew was that Carrera was scattering some of his wheeled vehicles so we couldn’t take them out easily. I’d be willing to bet that he scattered them to assembly areas so they could bring his mechanized corps troopers to fall in on their equipment on the double.”

  De Villepin shot a glance to where the C-3, Bessières, gibbered in
a corner. Whether the C-3 had lost it over the fear of imminent death, or because he knew his career was in ruins, the intel chief couldn’t have said.

  “He’s a waste,” de Villepin said. “You need to relieve him and put up his second.”

  He continued with advice that should have come from the C-3, “I think we have to write off the Marines east of Dahlgren. We might as well consider the Shimmering Sea side to be lost. The dragoons, the Sachsen Panzers and the mountain battalions will go under fairly soon, certainly within a day or two. Once the Third Corps and the Fourth Mech Tercio mobilize we can assume the paratroops at Herrera won’t last very long. They’ll be a bare three infantry battalions—not dug in—facing seven infantry battalions, the equivalent of two mechanized battalions, or maybe three, a tank battalion, and God knows how much artillery.

  “But we can hold onto something, maybe enough to let us be withdrawn under truce . . . with our dependents. I don’t think Carrera wanted this fight . . . not this time. He might settle for just being rid of us.”

  “Withdrawn under truce,” Moncey repeated in his mind. God, how I hate the idea of that. Truce? I wonder if Carrera would accept a truce now? No. Not if he doesn’t have to. I wouldn’t. But if we can drive up the price in blood? Maybe, just maybe.

  “All right. How long until the Tenth Artillery Legion can mobilize?”

  “Hard to say,” de Villepin answered. “I don’t doubt that we’ve hurt their leadership. Maybe badly. Say four or five hours. Maybe as much as twelve if we’re incredibly lucky.”

  Moncey contemplated what could be done in four or five hours. Decided, he said, “Take over the C-3 slot, de Villepin. Pull the Airmobile Brigade out of Alcalde Flores, except for some stay behinds to delay the Balboans’ mobilization. Put them into an attack to retake Muddville and Brookings. Get whatever escaped of the Thirty-fifth Commandos and the rest of the original Infantry Brigade to guard the Bridge of the Columbias and our southern boundary with the City. We’ll drop the Sachsen Fallschirmjaeger Brigade and the last battalion of our Para brigade in behind the airmobiles. Then I want you to establish a perimeter from south of Muddville, through Brookings, then to the northern base of this hill, and then on to the Transitway. We need to evacuate the Haarlem Marines to this side of the Transitway, too.”