Come and Take Them-eARC (37 page)

Chapter Thirty-six

Nous entrerons dans la carrière

Quand nos aînés n’y seront plus,

Nous y trouverons leur poussière

Et la trace de leurs vertus (bis)

Bien moins jaloux de leur survivre

Que de partager leur cercueil,

Nous aurons le sublime orgueil

De les venger ou de les suivre

(We shall enter the (military) career

When our elders are no longer there,

There we shall find their dust

And the trace of their virtues (repeat)

Much less keen to survive them

Than to share their coffins,

We shall have the sublime pride

Of avenging or following them)

—
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle
, “La Marseillaise, Couplet des enfants”

Pedregal Military Academy, Balboa, Terra Nova

Twelve boys aged fifteen to seventeen stood at attention in their squad room in one of the academy’s barracks. Each wore civilian clothes and carried one of the unmarked black overnight bags that the six military schools issued to cadets. In the bags were a pair of boots, two sets of battle dress, a change of socks and underwear, plus the cadets’ individual load-bearing equipment.

A middle-aged Volgan tribune, dark haired with bright blue eyes and not a trace of a gut, looked them over carefully, gauging willingness to fight from their boyish faces. The Volgan, Tribune Depreradovich, was one of the mercenaries hired by the legion in the mists of the past, who had elected to ship over and take up Balboan citizenship.

“At ease,” ordered the Volgan, satisfied of the boys’ attitudes. “Are you sure you can find the address, Salazar?” he asked the seventeen-year-old cadet sergeant.

“
Si, señor
. No problem.” If the cadet was remotely fearful, it was hard to tell. Mostly, to Depreradovich, the boy seemed quite eager.

“All right, then. Take your squad and start walking. Remember to chat and look casual. I’ll see you, I hope, sometime late tomorrow near the airport.”

* * *

There was nothing especially unusual about mufti-clad senior cadets sauntering out the main gate of the academy when their training day was done. A few girls made moon eyes, which the boys returned. The boys then continued on their way to a house with a vault overlooking Herrera Airport.

On the airstrip, itself, large and apparently heavy concrete-filled drums were being placed just off of the runways, where they could be rolled into position to prevent an assault landing.

Meanwhile, back at the school, as most of the older boys filtered out, a few, along with some adult cadre, were left behind in charge of the thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds. These were employed in being run through approximately twice as much as the normal amount of formation attending, mess hall line standing, physical training, and just plain choreographed walking about, to simulate the full complement of cadets.

San Miguelito Military Academy, Balboa, Terra Nova

Across town, the eldest half of the San Miguelito Military Academy were doing the same thing as at Pedregal, but in the opposite direction. Instead of forming up in a defensive position around the main airport, the San Miguelitos moved in dribs and drabs toward some warehouses a few miles from Fort Muddville and Brookings Air Force Station. As with all the other schools, the remaining half of the cadets, mostly the younger half, would be left behind to simulate, through well-scripted formations, marches, and other formal and informal assemblies, that the full eighteen hundred and twenty-seven cadets were present for instruction.

Carrera’s great fear was still that the academies would look
too
normal to prying eyes. For this reason some semi-public anti-Tauran protests by the remaining cadets, complete with banners, drums, and pipes, were scheduled for different times over the next few days.

Penonome Military Academy, Balboa, Terra Nova

The Penonome Military Academy was built in the form of a large quadrangle. In honor of what the boys felt were their spiritual antecedents the school had been nicknamed by its denizens as the “Kurt Meyer School for Bad Little Boys”
(La Escuela por Chicillos Malos, Kurt Meyer),
Kurt Meyer having been the former commander of the 12th SS Panzer Division—
Hitler Jugend
—on Old Earth.

It had been in existence long enough that no one anymore gave a lot of thought to the nuances of its construction. Still, during the construction culverts, tunnels, and covered walkways had been built—even then generating little suspicion amidst all the other innocent construction—to connect the barracks, classrooms, and headquarters. A tunnel also led from the cadet mess hall to a large covered shed. Beginning the night before, the school’s cooks had set up in the shed a rest stop for trucks; trucks that were carrying loads of ammunition in semis from
Lago Sombrero
’s Ammunition Supply Point to the Sixty-first Artillery Tercio at Santiago. The loads of all but the first six trucks were considerably less than either the full capacity of the trucks or the amount of time they had spent at
Lago Sombrero
loading ammunition would indicate.

Still, to an overworked imagery analyst aboard the
Spirit of Harmony,
in orbit over Balboa, having seen, via ship’s camera and the one skimmer sent down, the growing piles of ammunition in the artillery park in Santiago, not having been alerted by anything that would suggest other than a movement of artillery ammunition to a distant post, nothing seemed amiss. She
had
checked the first few trucks with the full spectrum of capabilities of the satellites and computers at her command. Heat and magnetic signatures had been consistent with loads of ammunition. Radar, she hadn’t tried, since that was useless against the metal-walled trailers. And visual, to include IR, had been badly degraded by the rain at times. The stopover near what her maps said was a school for young boys did not alert her. It was SOP, standard operating procedure, around the planet to provide such rest stops for vehicle convoys, using whatever assets were available.

By the time the later trucks—each carrying forty-five to fifty cadets, aged fourteen or fifteen to, in a few cases, eighteen, along with some of their more adult leadership—had turned back from Santiago to
Lago Sombrero
ASP for a second load the analyst had turned her attention elsewhere.

Isla Picaron,
Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova

The “Isla” wasn’t actually an island, though it could become one if the water levels of the lake happened to rise. In the current downpour, Pililak wondered if they wouldn’t. No matter, a little water wasn’t going to stop her where snakes and bugs,
antaniae
, caimen, black palm, and one altogether too inquisitive and now thoroughly dead juvenile smilodon could not.

Unfortunately, she was starting to run a little low on food. This had the benefit of lightening her pack, but carried the downside of possible starvation in the not too distant future. She’d been sure she’d brought enough, yet every leg of her journey had taken two or three times longer than she’d expected. Getting lost once hadn’t helped a bit. And having to crawl for four hours on her belly to avoid the thin line of soldiers who were out in the jungle looking for her had been a little rough, too. She’d known they were there for her because they’d called out her name in both languages.

“To hell with that,” she muttered, wading ankle deep through the mud to the “island” that sat closest to her next point.

Realizing that she really didn’t have the food to continue with her original plan, Ant had modified it. She was going to cut across the narrow part of the Transitway, taking her chances with the passing ships. That way, she’d be certain to find the railroad that nearly touched the water there. With the rail line to guide her there’d be no question of getting lost, no question of having to slash her way through secondary growth, and best of all, “No more fucking black palm.”

By the time she’d struggled across the mud to the barely less muddy “island,” then gotten her air mattress blown up, it was pouring down in a deluge, the rain hard and cool enough to make her shiver.

Visibility dropped to maybe twenty feet, if that. That was a serious danger. She’d counted on crossing to the rail line at night, when no one would be likely to see her but she would be able to see the running lights of the ships. She could wait, of course, for night but there was no guarantee that the rain would stop. She’d seen it rain for as much as seventeen days straight without the slightest let up since she’d come to Balboa from her native, and rather dry, Pashtia. She’d heard it was worse in towards the center of the country, where she was.

“No,” she insisted to herself. “I’m going. Nothing will keep me from my lord, Iskandr.”

Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova

After being up and down, then up and down again, on the subject of invading Balboa, Janier found that this time it was easier, with most of his doubts dispelled. Partly, this was because he was being told to do it rather than plotting to make it so he would be told to do it. Partly it was the steady report of increased Balboan preparations, that made it seem inevitable anyway. But the real factor was that, in the current emotional overload, he was being given everything he asked for.

And when has that ever happened?

Still, it wasn’t all sweetness. There were questionable spots, driven in good part by areas of uncertainty. For example, given the sheer intensity of the threat represented by the Balboans First Corps (Mechanized), it was understandable that Janier, back in Taurus, was not content with either intelligence reports from the Tauran Union Intelligence and Security Agency, nor the reports filtered down to him by High Admiral Wallenstein’s flagship.

“Everything they send,” he’d fumed, starting about an hour after the commencement of the present crisis, “
everything,
gets analyzed for deeper meaning and then sanitized to follow whatever party line is important to the TUISA leadership, today. Just as was that report from that charmingly female Anglian captain, back in Balboa.

“Well, fuck it.
This
is why military organizations insist on keeping their own intelligence gathering ability, no matter what notional benefits there may be in consolidation.” Janier then called his aide, Malcoeur, and said, “Get me through to de Villepin, in Balboa, on the secure line.”

And why not? Admittedly, no one has ever authorized me to send reconnaissance parties into Balboa, but no one has ever denied me the authority either. And we’d planned on it, back in the day. Let’s see if de Villepin has been able to preserve that part of the plan from that butterfingered oaf, McQueeg-Gordon.

And, if not? Then we simply tell him to put it back in, since the limey reports to
me
.

Lago Sombrero,
Balboa, Terra Nova

It had seemed natural, too, to de Villepin to put eyes on the ground to see and report on the legion’s First Corps. Moreover, there was still an MC-61 available at Brookings to insert them. That was the relatively stealthy version of the old standby transport, the C-61. Moreover, it was flown by the best pilots in the Gallic Air Force. Knowing that, knowing the plane was available, de Villepin hadn’t waited for authorization the dithering Anglian probably wouldn’t have given. Instead, he’d sent the plane, with an eighteen-man commando section, on a flight toward Santa Josefina, with a brief fly-by of an area not too far from
Lago Sombrero
.

The aircraft had lifted off with its doors and ramps sealed. Not long after, it had dropped pressure and lowered the ramp. This set the commandos to using the bottled oxygen that came with their kit.

An amusing feature of their equipment, for certain constrained values of “amusing,” was that the complete set for a high altitude-high opening jump was possibly the only one the manual for which mentioned, not less than a dozen times, that failure to do X (1 through 12) would cause Y (1 through 12), “resulting in the DEATH of the parachutist.”

At a normal, nonsuspicious flying height for this distance from Brookings, which was fourteen thousand, two hundred feet, the eighteen commandos had jumped. The jumpmaster had calculated in a dispersal of four hundred and fifty meters between when the first jumper exited the aircraft and when the eighteenth did. He’d also factored in a three hundred meter early release to account for forward throw, which is to say retained velocity from the aircraft. The eighteen commandos had come spilling out, then opened their canopies almost immediately. The meticulously packed steerable, gliding parachutes had opened heroically. Then, by night vision goggle-enhanced sight, with a single, not too visible, infrared chemlight on the central jumper, they’d assembled into a loose staggered trail formation. They’d then used their highly glidable parachutes to navigate to a lonesome farmer’s field, about fifteen kilometers from
Lago Sombrero
.

The aircraft had continued on its innocent way to Aserri.

* * *

The Gallic commandos were genuine professionals, well trained, well led, well equipped, and highly experienced. Among their equipment was included one Balboan F-26 rifle. The Gauls had managed to purchase two of those, from disgruntled legionaries, but the other one had been sent back to Taurus for testing and evaluation. Most of them were accoutered in the pixelated tiger striped camouflage of the legion, plus a close copy of the legion’s standard helmet. The team had two relatively dark-skinned Spanish speakers. One of those carried the F-26, on point, while the other in the rear, more mufti, in case it was useful to appear to be a local civilian to gather their intelligence. All were highly briefed on Balboan military culture, acronyms, ranks, slang, etc.

After dumping their parachutists’ equipment in a hastily excavated hole, they’d immediately taken up a standard formation and begun the move to the general vicinity of
Lago Sombrero
.

* * *

The commandos moved fast, as one would expect of pros. Arriving before dawn, they’d set up an observation post without incident. They saw three maniples report in at about the same time. Had they looked at the ASP it was just barely possible they might have seen the cadets; there was enough moonlight, if barely, for that, at least if looking from a point nearer the ASP. But their mission was to look at the base, not a bunch of ammunition bunkers. The cadets falling in on their equipment in the bowels of the earth remained undetected.