Carnifex (23 page)

Mentally, Esterhazy made a note to inform Carrera that Yamatan Naval Intelligence kept a file on the Legion. He also did some quick calculations. Kurita had to be over ninety years old. He didn't look it.

"The Great Global War?" Esterhazy questioned.

"Yes . . . at the end I was captain, Battlecruiser
Öishi
."

Subtracting 410 AC from 467 AC, and adding in a reasonable time to progress in rank, Matthias came up with the astonishing figure of at least ninety-seven years for Kurita.
Wow; and he doesn't look a day over eighty.

Kurita went silent and serene again, while Saito picked up. "As the good captain, says, Mr. Esterhazy, we do not want to pay Danegeld. It never ends and, if history is any guide, the price always goes up past the point one can afford to pay. For that matter, how much longer until the pirates themselves go into the shipping business and drive us completely out? Whatever your principle might charge us to end this problem, it will certainly be less than what the pirates will cost us in the long term."

"My principle, as you call him, Mr. Saito, is not really in the naval business—"

"Yes, he is," answered Kurita, "now or soon."

"And you have no idea what he charges—"

"Yes, we do."

Once again, Esterhazy turned his gaze back onto Kurita.
Maybe you do. And, one supposes, you also know about his little fleet.

"It's likely to cost on the order of five billion FSD a year, sirs. It could be twice that, even three times."

"We know," said Saito. "And what will it be over fifty years if the problem does not end now? And what is the price when the price becomes so high we are economically strangled? We are an island country that
depends
on imports and exports. Mr . . . . Tribune Esterhazy, without freedom of the seas, we
starve.
"

"Moreover," interjected Kurita, "Mr. Saito and Mr. Yamagata are not alone in this. All seventeen major and minor zaibatsu in Yamato, plus one which is in bankruptcy for the moment, wish to offer their support. In addition, His Majesty's Navy is willing to provide a certain amount of under the table support, to clandestinely curtail operations and overstate expenditures to provide aid beyond the merely monetary."

"You understand I must speak to my principle before I can commit."

"We understand," answered Kurita, and for the first time Esterhazy realized that it was he, not the businessmen, who was senior. "And we have one additional condition."

"And that would be?"

Kurita serene look became for a moment predatory.
Decades
fell away. "They have robbed and murdered my countrymen.
I
will accompany your flotilla.
I
will see these bandits destroyed."

"I'm amazed at how well you've done," Carrera said admiringly to Fosa, as the two stood on the open, upper bridge, high above the flight deck. Below, two crewman refueled a Cricket as a small team of four rearmed a Finch, easing rockets into the nineteen round outboard pods and winding .41-caliber ammunition into the inward ones. The .41 ammunition was the same as used in the Legion's new standard heavy machine gun as well as in the Long Range Sniper system. In this case, it was being cranked into pods that held .41-caliber, electrically-driven, tri-barrels. These same guns were mounted in various spots on the carriers and her escorts. The rockets were standard Volgan 57mm folding fin types, a mix of high explosive, incendiary and flechette.

Fosa shrugged. "The foreigners helped a lot. A decent budget helped more. We could use another month but . . . "

"You sail in nine days," Carrera said simply. "You will sail in company with one frigate, two corvettes, two Patrol Torpedo Fasts, a minesweeper, an ammunition ship, and two other supply ships. Someday, I may actually have a submarine or two for you. You will also have one former passenger liner, the
Wappen von Bremen
, which will have aboard her
full
recreation facilities. In addition, you will have certain ships put under operational control from time to time, upon which you may put armed men, and which I encourage you to use as bait. If I ever decide to finish up a Suvarov Class cruiser, you'll get that, too."

"You may assume," Carrera continued, "that all ports will be officially closed to you. That said, certain concerns in Yamato have volunteered to resupply your resupply ships, but only at some considerable distance from Xamar. They don't want to appear to be involved.

"From this bay you will make transit, then proceed to the Xamar Coast. There you will take all actions consistent with suppressing piracy along that coast. Your rules of engagement are
suppress piracy.
You may, insofar as I am concerned, legally and morally consider yourself in a time and space warp that has put your and your group on Old Earth in its eighteenth century. Destroy them without pity or mercy."

"About fucking time, sir," smiled Fosa, wickedly.

"And you are going to pick up an observer, a passenger, named Kurita. From what I've been told you two will get along famously."

The ship was drifting, so much was obvious. It did not answer hails. The crew didn't come on deck to wave at the helicopter as it buzzed.

Going lower, low enough to actually look into the ports for the ship's bridge, the helicopter from the
Ironsides
saw nothing. It turned toward the portside, scooted around the ship's superstructure and swept the rear decks. Nothing. Then it made a radio call.

The second chopper was different and came from a different ship, the troop carrier FSS
Tiburon Bay.
The chopper carried thirteen tightly crammed FS Marines in full battle gear. The leader of the Marines, a second lieutenant due within the month for promotion to first lieutenant, had no idea what to expect. He was pretty sure though, that ships that floated without crew represented potential problems.

The remainder of the Marine infantry platoon flew behind in echelon left. The last three would circle until the first chopper's passengers could secure a landing spot.

The lieutenant, DeSmedt was his name, looked out at the deck of the ship as the choppers made one circling recon pass. If someone were going to shoot, better they should shoot now before the helicopter put itself in a vulnerable position, stationary, on the deck, or hovering, just above it. Door gunners from all four birds kept careful watch just in case.

DeSmedt saw that the deck was uneven, with pipes showing, hawsers unstowed and a liberal layer of junk scattered about. As the lead chopper passed the stern, he saw the ship's name:
Estrella de Castilla.
Still, there was no fire. He tapped the pilot and made a downward motion with his thumb.

The lead pilot guided his aircraft down in an easy descending arc. When he was over a part of the deck that seemed to have slightly less junk about than the others, he pulled the bird up to a low, ground-effect hover. Rotor wash kicked trash around even so; it could become a danger if they kept this altitude and position. The pilot signaled Lieutenant DeSmedt to
unass
.

DeSmedt tossed his rucksack and then jumped from a dozen feet over the deck. The jump was a little awkward; he lost his balance and fell, slamming his helmeted head on a hatchway.

Thank God for aramid fiber,
he thought.
Then, too, if I didn't have a thick skull would I ever have become a Marine?

By twos the rest of the Marines followed their lieutenant down until all thirteen men were aboard the derelict and watching for trouble. The chopper pulled up and away, allowing the flying junk, such as had not blown to sea, to settle back on the deck.

DeSmedt gave the order to the squad leader, "Sergeant, have Charlie Team clear this junk off and fuck environmental regulations. When the platoon sergeant and the rest land, tell them I want them to start clearing the ship from the top down. The rest of you," he pointed at a vertical hatchway into the superstructure, "standard drill; thata way."

Whether the power was off and the batteries dead, the men didn't know. Nor were they going to even
think
about flicking a light switch on a ship that might have been "wired for sound." Instead, they relied on the flashlights affixed to their rifles' barrels and whatever light made its way in from the scarce portholes.

It didn't matter anyway; they could find their way to what they were looking for by smells alone. Those—the smell of rotting meat (and meat rotted fast in these climes), the coppery-iron stink of gallons of blood, the stench of shit . . . worst of all, the pervading odor of fear and terror—were sufficient guides.

Hearts were pounding so hard the men might have thought they would burst through their chests as the lead team of two men reached what had to be the hatch from which emanated all the stench. Whatever it was, and all the Marines had a strong feeling they already knew, it was going to be bad.

DeSmedt was right behind the first two Marines. Before he could see what the flashlights at their muzzles found, he felt them stiffen.

"Jesus Christ, Ell Tee," one of the men exclaimed.

The lieutenant pushed passed the men. Inside was an abattoir, he could see, even from the little illuminated by the flashlight. He turned his own rifle against the wall and saw a man, what had been a man, already green tinged and beginning to blacken. The corpse's face was set in a rictus grin, below which, on his throat, was another, newer, grin, red-tinged and gaping. DeSmedt moved his rifle's aim along the wall and saw next a body with a similar dual grin. That one, though, had both eyes gouged out. Next a man hung by the neck from a pipe in the ceiling. His trousers were down around his ankles. When DeSmedt saw that this one had been castrated and his penis likewise removed he couldn't hold his bile any longer.

The pungent smell of vomit was added to the stench of death.

Still, DeSmedt was a Marine. Once he'd evacuated his stomach, and despite his dry heaves, he continued to sweep the room. Along one wall he found no bodies. Instead, there was a message painted. He was pretty sure it was painted in the crew's blood.

The message read, "Thus to the infidel who fails to pay the
Jizya
."

"It's in English, Ell Tee," murmured one of the two lead Marines. "Why would they put it in English?"

"Because they had a pretty good idea who was coming and wanted us to get the word out."

"What word, sir?"

"
Jizya
's a tax, or maybe sometimes a toll, the Moslems levy on non-Moslems. I'd guess that some people . . . some shippers . . . are paying it and the pirates want everyone to."

The carrier almost filled the lock chamber. They'd had to remove the lighting on one side of the locks to allow space for the angled flight deck. The ship was held fast in position by extremely heavy locomotives called "burros," as water poured out to drop the inside level to match that of the sea. The burros would actually pull the carrier out of the locks before it could proceed under its own power.

All but a few of the carrier's aircraft sat topside for the transit. Those that were down below, in the hangar deck, were in for routine maintenance.

The escorts had already formed at Puerto Lindo and would meet the
Dos Lindas
a few miles out to sea.

Fosa fumed, and it wasn't because of anything having to do with the locks, the aircraft, the escorts, or his Yamatan supernumery, Commodore (by courtesy bumped up for the duration) Kurita. It had nothing to do with the speed of transit and it had nothing to do with the efficiency of the entire operation. Fosa's mood wasn't based on leaving behind his home, nor even his wife and children.

No; what had him ready to shit nails was that for the duration of his ship's transit
someone else
—a Transitway Pilot—was commanding
his
ship.

"Roderigo-San," Kurita said, with that same serene smile he almost always showed, "if it makes you feel any better, when I was a real captain I'd have given anything to have taken
my
ship, Battlecruiser Öishi, though the Transitway, even if I had to put her under someone else's command."

"Huh? Why is that?"

The serene smile, as it sometimes did, turned feral. "Because that would have meant my country won the war."

Fosa immediately recalled that there were worse things,
much
worse things, than having to let some stranger con one's ship. "It was pretty bad losing, wasn't it?"

Kurita's smile went from feral to serene to nonexistent. "It was worse than bad. We couldn't surrender; we didn't even know
how
to surrender, really. We were staking everything on being able to make the Federated States pay an unacceptable price in blood so that they would give up before we did. Then they nuked us and for a brief period of time we thought they would not have to pay that price and so we considered surrender. But then the UEPF nuked them and we
knew
they could not bomb us into surrender and would have to invade."

Kurita shook his head, very sadly.

"We were wrong. Unable to convince us one way, they took a different, and far more brutal, way. They imposed a total blockade and, just as with cities under siege, they refused to let anyone escape. They came in with defoliants and attacked the rice crops. They bombed and burned any food stockpiles they could identify. They attacked the roads and rails so that what food there was could not be moved to the cities."

Kurita shuddered, as he said, "Over twenty million people, almost all civilians, and mostly the very old and very young, either starved to death or died of starvation-related causes.
Then
we surrendered."

"God, you must hate them," Fosa said. "The FSC, I mean."

The serene smile returned. Kurita shook his old and dignified head. "No . . . no, I actually don't. We'd have done no less. And they tried to give us an easy out by using the atomic bombs. What a bargain it would have been if we had been able to surrender after only losing a couple of hundred thousand instead of twenty million."