The Rods and the Axe - eARC

by Tom Kratman

  “There, sir,” said Salas’s RTO, pointing into the haze at a shape his legate still couldn’t see. Even as the RTO spoke and pointed, the radio’s microphone sounded with the news from the boats scattered to seaward that the airship had begun disgorging cargo pallets. This was punctuated at least once when the parachute system failed and the flotation system also failed, probably from the shock of impact upon the sea.

  Whew, though the legate, who would have imagined young Mario could swear like that? I’m impressed.

  Salas had no real idea how many pallets had been dumped before the airship became visible to him, a dozen or so miles away. He could see, or thought he could, another seven come out the back end before the airship, lighter now, lifted through the clouds. No words were exchanged, but Salas offered a silent prayer for the safety of both ship and crew.

  Commercial Airship Casamara, over the Shimmering Sea,

  twelve miles southeast of Capitano, Balboa, Terra Nova

  With the last of the pallets gone, Tribune Soliz took a look downward and watched the smaller boats hooking themselves up to the floating pallets and carting them off, across the water, towards Matama. Satisfied, he turned the command over to his number two, then sauntered down to the cargo deck. There, half a dozen men and one woman broke open the seals on the containers the airship had taken aboard and began removing from them ovoid shapes, long wings, cylindrical containers, balloons, and electronic components. The woman, like the men a member of the long-range bombardment ala, took inventory as the men emptied the containers. This wasn’t because the components were too heavy for her; it was that she was senior . . . and, so would the men have happily agreed, a cast iron bitch.

  Ah, but she’s our bitch.

  For the next two hours, Soliz watched the crews assemble the parts into the beginnings of condors, which were laid out on the deck and lightly tied down, a dozen of them. Carrera had informed Soliz that the cargos were of two types, one funny and the other funnier. He smiled to himself at imagining the consternation they would cause down range.

  From each of them cables were run to a central computer. This, the airship’s captain assumed, correctly, was the control or targeting box. Just what kind of target would be chosen, and where they would be, depended on a number of factors, some of which couldn’t be known yet.

  Hotel Cielo Dorado, Aserri, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  The orders came. Janier had never really had any doubt that the high admiral could persuade the TU’s ruling clique of bureaucrats that the Balboans should be bombed. After the beating she’d administered to Monsieur Gaymard, Janier doubted she’d even had to have bribed him.

  Almost worth the price we’re going to pay, thought the general, just to see that tall and lovely blond amazon smashing his worthlessness against the wall and slapping him silly . . . “almost.” Janier mentally sighed. What a shame she seems to prefer girls; for a while there I thought she might have been interested in me. No matter; I’ve lost all kinds of illusions of late.

  The orders included calling Janier home, to take over the direct command of the punitive force currently at sea and in Cienfuegos, as well as the invasion force that would hit the Balboans from one side while the Zhong hit them from the other.

  Well, if I have to bomb them, I’d better plan on bombing them well. They have an air force, and it’s not contemptible, at least in numbers and, if that delectable Anglian captain—ah, no, she’s a major now, isn’t she? In any case, if she is to be believed, they are unlikely to be worthless in their training either.

  Nor is their air defense umbrella worthless, either. And there are those rumors of lasers for air defense. Well . . . their carrier has them, why not the ground forces?

  And, on the twin principles that one should never do an enemy a small injury and that it is not more moral to cut the dog’s tail off an inch at a time, I’m sure I’d be better to make it a biggie, a thousand sortie attack, such as this world hasn’t seen since the end of the Great Global War.

  Sadly for everybody, not least the people I am going to bomb, the Five Permanent Members of the Tauran Union Security Council have set the limit I can engage in; twenty-four sorties, exclusive of refueling.

  Oh, well, we’ll make the best of their foolishness.

  Puerto Bruselas, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  Corporal Sanchez, now wearing a nondescript uniform consisting of denim trousers, a dark blue shirt, and a blue baseball cap, brought his shotgun to “present arms” as Legate Roderigo Fosa departed the fenced-in area of the port behind which his fleet was interned. The legate had an apartment in town, where he was billeted, in accordance with the law on the subject. No one seemed to object, the Tauran commander, Marciano, had even been known to stop by for drinks from time to time.

  Interestingly, Sanchez and the entire maniple to which he normally belonged had been hired by one of the local police poobahs, a lieutenant named Blanco, to secure the interned fleet. As far as it went, too, they were securing it. They were also fraternizing shamelessly with the crews, until Fosa stepped in and put a stop to that.

  Even so, as he passed through the gate on his way home, after returning the salute, Fosa gave the corporal a wink, which Sanchez duly returned.

  Just past the gate Fosa turned and looked over his fleet. Nearly every ship had somebody chipping paint or dabbing more paint on with a brush, or both.

  One of the nice things about internment, he thought, was that I get to repair all the damage and wear and tear that’s built up. When we sail from this place, assuming we ever do, we’ll be in our best shape in years. And the paint is the least of it.

  PART III

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I am purely evil;

  Hear the thrum

  of my evil engine;

  Evilly I come.

  The stars are thick as flowers

  In the meadows of July;

  A fine night for murder

  Winging through the sky.

  —“Ethel Mannin,

  Song of the Bomber”

  Casa Linda, Carretera InterColombiana, Balboa, Terra Nova

  From somewhere to the south, a smilodon or jaguar roared at the stars. Overhead, the Pentagram was visible, as was the moon Eris. Antaniae called out, mnnnbt . . . mnnnbt . . . mnnnbt as they searched for mates and prey, in the latter case preferably young and weak or blind . . . or stupid. Trixies, of course, one could not hear. Those intelligent proto-birds hunted the antaniae silently, only announcing their kills once made.

  Most of the valuables and sentimental articles were long since stored deep in a cave halfway from the house to the beach. The people continued to sleep in the Casa, largely because the cave was a misery, cold, wet, and insect-ridden. It was also far too small to hold the household and its staff in anything but a standing or, for some of the women and girls, a sitting position. At that, the sitting position for them would mean a lot of wet feminine posteriors.

  Ham was gone, sent off with Cano and Alena the witch to Valdivia. They’d keep him in a hotel, not too far from where a ship was expected, not too far from a refugee camp for children with a surprising number of boys each of whom boasted a remarkable degree of military bearing. Ham would join them eventually, but not yet, not when his presence might tip off somebody to something.

  For the rest, all of Ham’s thoroughly deflowered wives, five of whom were now pregnant, though not showing much, if at all, the Pashtun guards, a few of Carrera’s personal and household staff . . . they all waited in their normal quarters for the word to run like hell for the shelter of the cave. There were several shoulder-fired antiaircraft missile teams around, but those were mostly to ward off helicopters, should the enemy get too daring. Oh, they might get a revenge shot in, but Carrera thought it unlikely.

  Still, one has to try.

  Complementing the missiles, there was a platoon of light antiaircraft guns, twin 23mm towed jobs. He had no great hopes for them, either.

  Under gleaming moonlight
from two of Terra Nova’s moons, Bellona and Eris, sitting outside his quarters—he found no joy in his own bed, with Lourdes for the moment still in Santa Josefina—at his normal table on the elevated veranda, with his usual bottle of scotch still mostly full. A bucket of ice came with the scotch. He looked out to sea, then lifted the condensation-dripping glass to his lips. The sip barely qualified as a taste. He thought about drinking more—as tired as I am after all these months I need the sleep—but decided against it.

  Carrera didn’t have to see them to know that some of Ham’s Pashtun guard stood silently just off the veranda. Orders of Alena the witch? The boy? Or are the guards just in the habit?

  The glass door squealed open and a Pashtun stepped onto the veranda. “Sir,” said the Pashtun, “father of the God, Iskandr, there is word from the . . . communications center? . . . yes, that . . . or through them from Lanza, commander of the air legion. This word is that there are aircraft, maybe twenty, maybe thirty, heading toward us. Lanza sends that he knows what he can and can’t do, and that the traps are waiting.”

  “Excellent news, Sarbaz,” said Carrera, recognizing the voice. He still held onto the glass. He wasn’t sure where the word had come from. He could find that out later, in any case. The news was as welcome as expected.

  “Please get everyone into the shelter. And alert the air defense people here.”

  The Pashtun gave a quick bow, announced, “I alerted them first, father of our lord.” Then Sarbaz hurried off. In what seemed mere seconds, several long processions of people began winding from the house, the barracks, and several of the stand-alone quarters. None of the women, none of Ham’s wives, none of the men or boys shed a tear. But Lourdes’ latest and final, little Linda, sniffled loudly enough for Carrera, above, to hear.

  The little girl cried, “But why, Pililak? Why do they want to hurt us?”

  Ham’s first consummated and—in his father’s opinion—best wife answered, “Because they are slaves and we are free, beloved sister of my lord and husband.” Ant’s voice dripped pure venom as she finished, “Slaves always hate the free.”

  Gotta love that girl. She’s such a bitch but, after all is said and done, she’s our bitch.

  Carrera stood then and turned to the two guards he’d known were behind him. “Loot the liquor cabinet,” he ordered. “As much as you can carry, bring it to the cave.”

  “Yes, father of our lord. Glasses?”

  “Too fancy; the bottles alone will do well enough.”

  Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

  In theory, twenty-four sorties, exclusive of refueling, could carry an impressive load of ordnance, about one hundred and ninety tons. In practice, that was a rarely achieved dream. In the first place, the twenty-four aircraft used were not all fighter-bombers or attack bombers. One was a propeller-driven early warning and command bird, recognizable by the outsized dome, the radar, carried above it. Two—one Anglian, one Gaul—were set up for electronic warfare; these would prevent the Balboans from sensing the incoming air until late in the game, then would spoof them as to how many, and where, once it was obvious they were there. The electronic warfare birds would also make pursuit somewhat problematic, if the Balboans decided to try that, as they might.

  It was believed that the Balboans could lift several hundred obsolete fighters. But it was also believed that, if they did, they would take some time getting airborne. Thus, two fighters were almost entirely devoted, eighteen of twenty-two hardpoints’ worth, to air-to-air missiles. Every other plane carried two missiles on two hardpoints. Each of those also carried an additional two fuel tanks; given the range at which they were operating and the route they planned to take, this was only sensible. Everybody carried at least one homing antiradiation missile, for shutting down or shutting off enemy radar. Thus, the total air-to-ground ordnance was under ninety tons, most of it in the form of larger bombs.

  The Gallic fighters, the Tourmentes, boasted a few more hardpoints, but their maximum ordnance load was within about one hundred kilograms of the Anglians’ Sea Hurricanes.

  Of the nineteen primarily bomb-carrying planes, two split off from the main body and stuck fairly close to the civil airport at Ciudad Cervantes and the military field at Lago Sombrero.

  The planes avoided most Balboan radar by the expedient of coming in over the mountains on the eastern side of the country, by Santa Josefina. One of the electronic warfare planes blinded the civilian radar at Ciudad Cervantes’ airport. Then they’d turned west, except for the one dedicated to cutting the runway at Cervantes, heading for the capital. The second EW plane took care of the radar for that approach. Whatever the effect of jamming the radar, and it surely had some, it didn’t stop the Balboans from tossing up an impressive display of fireworks above the City as the Taurans approached.

  They probably had visual or aural warning passed on to them, thought the leader of the Tauran strike package.

  Visually impressive the Balboan cannon fire might have been, the bright green and red tracers arcing up into the night sky. But it was still a case of small bullet (or cannon shell), big sky. Nobody in the strike package was really all that impressed.

  The first visual glimpse of the planes near the city probably came when some of them lit off their antiradiation, which was to say, anti-radar, missiles. Given that the Balboans were being jammed, even as they tried to use their radar to find targets for their guns and missiles, meant that few or none of those so targeted had clue one about the incoming HARMs until their radar dishes exploded in flame and shards of metal.

  The first actual bombs to fall near the capital were rocket-assisted, Gaul-manufactured Oliphants. These runway cutters—resembling more narrow pipes with fairings and fins than more traditional ordnance—were released over Arnold Air Base at an altitude of a few hundred feet. They deployed small parachutes behind them which slowed them and also caused them to change angle to about forty-four degrees. Once they reached that angle, at which point the aircraft was long gone, a rocket in the tail fired, driving the bomb down into the concrete or asphalt of the runway. There, because of their narrowness, strength, and speed, they typically penetrated completely.

  These did that. Then the larger charge in each of them exploded, creating a large crater and driving a much smaller charge very deep into the earth below the runway. When these exploded, the concrete was lifted up and moved. At that point, repair requirements changed from a few score hours of coolie labor to much, much heavier machinery for a much, much more difficult job.

  In short, nobody but maybe a Cricket or Turbo-finch was going to be flying out of Arnold any time soon. Two planes, both Gallic Tourmentes, came back around to give Arnold a more thorough pasting, setting one airship alight, smashing several hangars and two barracks, and generally having a fine time.

  With Arnold out, two planes cut left to take out the airfields at Brookings and Campo de los Sapos. Two more bore on for Herrera International. There were other airfields around the country, of course. But the six targeted—Cervantes, Lago Sombrero, Arnold, Brookings, Campo de los Sapos, and Herrera were expected to cripple the Balboans ability to lift the kinds of waves of fighters that had been driving Marciano and his Anglian fighter jock, Squadron Commander Halpence, more or less batshit for quite some time now.

  The Oliphants were mounted in clusters of four, with the clusters themselves affixed to the hardpoints. Each of the five aircraft involved in the runway cutting mission carried four clusters. They also carried on their remaining three (or five) hardpoints three (or five) bombs of between a quarter of a ton and a ton and a half. The bombs were satellite guided.

  For the bombs, the two planes out to the east of the country, the ones targeted at Cervantes and Lago Sombrero, would eventually turn their attention to the buildings at the legion base that fanned out from all four corners formed by the intersection of runway and highway. For now though, the runways needed cutting. This was tougher than it sounded. All of those runways had been designed and built by
the Federated States for their much heavier aircraft. They were also longer than the Balboans needed, meant to accommodate heavy transports and bombers rather than nimble little lightweight fighters. This meant that to cut the major airfields, they had to be chopped into sections smaller than the minimum take off run of a Mosaic-D. This meant they had to be cut into sections of five hundred meters or less. For something like Lago Sombrero, with its seventeen hundred and thirty-five meter runway, this meant cutting it thrice; once would only have left two perfectly suitable airfields for the Mosaics. Twice would have left two or three.

  Legate Thomas Broughton was pigheaded and a prick. Everyone knew it, to include himself. And he was proud of it. Being a prick went with the job: running the legion’s Escuela de Cazadores, or Cazador School, a close cognate of the Federated States Army’s Ranger School.

  Broughton was also a bit on the short side, though his general prickishness didn’t come from that. If it had, he’d have cheered up immeasurably at being in a country where he was middling tall in comparison. But no, he remained a prick.

  Known to Carrera of old, and much appreciated for his qualities, he’d been hired expressly to set up and run the school. He got less credit for it than he deserved, really, since the Cazador School was the very soul of the legion. It was the thing that tied together all of the leadership corps of the legion. It was their sole source value system. It was their moral foundation.