The Rods and the Axe - eARC (26 page)
Read The Rods and the Axe - eARC Online
Authors: Tom Kratman
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #military
Mar Furioso
, Terra Nova
The torpedo, competent but not brilliant, sliced through the waves at the aircraft’s normally slow speed, plus a little, then quickly sank to a depth of eighty-three meters. Thereupon, its control surfaces deployed and it began a long, slow, spiraling glide, listening. The listening was enhanced by the fact that the torpedo’s own engine, an underwater rocket, was not active.
When 35-RSAPEJSCDOTTMCJSC-1097—or -1097, to its friends—was at about one hundred and thirty meters, there was a series of rather loud bangs far below it. Its brain was competent enough to classify those as, “depth charges, neither friendly nor enemy, and not to be targeted, however . . .”
The “however” referred to a few hundred lines of programming that said, in effect, “wait for the echo.”
Naturally, several echoes came, not just from the first four blasts but from bounces off of bounces off of bounces. It was all very confusing, especially to a brain that, while competent, was not brilliant. So -1097 oriented its nose toward the most likely of the echoes and then narrowed things down somewhat with just a bit of pinging. Once -1097 had a fairly definite plot for the probable target, the pinging cut out, and its control surfaces aimed it for the Zhong submarine. This latter was making enough noise, if barely, for the torpedo to follow its swing westward.
The
Wu
moved west at five meters a second. The -1097 sank at a rate several times that. And with each meter sunk, the acoustic signal from the submarine grew louder and more distinct. It was not long until the, once again, not brilliant but competent, brain in the computer decided, “They’re fucked.”
At that point the rocket motor in the torpedo fired, launching it down at many times the
Wu
’s speed. The one hundred and sixty pound warhead detonated right against the hull, right over the captain’s quarters. Hull breech followed, initially with a deluge of water that killed the captain instantly. A crewman, facing generally astern, saw the water burst out of the door to the captain’s cabin, which was only for privacy, hence neither watertight nor strong, anyway. The crewman survived his captain by not much over a second as the combination of water and sudden rise in the air pressure, hence in heat, raced with simple crushing to see which killed him.
Zhong Submarine
Wu Zetian, Mar Furioso,
Terra Nova
There are occasions where slow and deliberate reason is indispensable. There are also occasions when panic works best. This was one of the latter. While some quick-thinking crewman slammed hatches and spun wheels to lock them, and while there was still a modicum of control,
Wu’
s exec didn’t bother thinking; he simply shouted, “Surface! Emergency Blow!”
The ballast tanks were almost immediately emptied of water by high pressure air. Another few seconds delay and the water pressure would have been too great for that. Then the sub would have continued on down until the hull collapsed in a sudden cataclysm. That, or, had it somehow survived the pressure, the crew would have died one by one, on the bottom, in the dark . . . slowly and miserably.
Under the twin forces of displacement and the push of the screw,
Wu
picked up speed as she ascended. Moreover, with the planes and rudder in the stern providing more resistance than the smoothly ovoid bow, she took on a definite nose upward posture aggravated by the planes on the sail being turned leading edge upward, too.
When she breached . . .
Aircraft Trixie 53,
Mar Furioso,
Terra Nova
“Holy fucking shit!” exclaimed Warrant Officer Montoya as the water below and to his starboard suddenly boiled, then exploded, the explosion being followed by a good fifty meters of submarine, topped by a sail, shooting out of the water. The forward portion of the sub slowed and reached a tipping point before crashing back down and disappearing. For a moment, its screw and rudder appeared before they, too, sank out of sight. A second or two later, like a cork, it bobbed back to the surface, more or less in parallel to the water. The screw was still turning, but slowly.
Hatches opened. From them, with what struck Montoya as commendable discipline, little manlike shapes emerged, one man helping another out and, in a couple of cases, teams of two aiding the injured. The shapes wore different colored uniforms, the colors generally standing out brightly against the black of the hull. He tried to count them then gave that up; there were too many, coming too quick, and without enough of a pattern. He guessed he saw maybe eighty-five or ninety men emerge.
Brightly colored life rafts blossomed on the ocean surface. The pilot didn’t see where they came from, only that they were suddenly there. They were not, however, all that close to the sub. A few teams of men jumped into the water to retrieve them, swimming them in where the injured could be more easily loaded.
Yeah, good discipline . . . good teamwork.
Montoya reported in the event, then was told, “Thanks for being the fifty-second person to call us with this information. We do, of course, appreciate it. Now fuck off and quit bothering us.”
“You’re going to save them, right?” asked Montoya. He didn’t get an answer, but he saw a couple of Yakamovs vectoring in and dropping lines, with maybe half a dozen more off in the distance but closing.
“Go and circle them,” said control. “See if you can spot any sharks too close to the surface . . . ummm . . . you
do
have loaded machine guns, don’t you?”
This time it was Montoya who didn’t answer.
Arrogant pricks. Yes, of course I do.
Even so, he took up a position fair for spotting a shark.
One of the nice things about the Turbo-finch, being derived, as it was, from a crop duster, was that it could turn on a dime. At least, when it wasn’t carrying a huge load of ordnance it could. At the moment, Trixie Five-three was carrying almost nothing besides Montoya. It easily kept to a tight pattern over the life rafts and the few Zhong sailors still in the water. The only touchy part was keeping out of the way of the YA-72s as they came in to pull Zhong submariners out of the drink.
While circling, Montoya formed the impression that the Zhong had all abandoned ship. Then one lone sailor appeared at the bridge, atop the sail. That sailor shook his head ruefully, then climbed over the side of the sail and began to descend by the ladder welded to its side. He turned about once his feet had settled, then rendered a really smart salute to the ship before stripping off his upper garment, dropping off his shoes, and diving in.
However calm he’d seemed to Montoya as he’d gotten out, there was nothing especially relaxed about his swimming. He made it like a torpedo—
Oh, all
right;
he’s a little slow for a torpedo
—straight for the nearest yellow life raft.
He’d made it rather less than halfway when the whole eight thousand ton boat shuddered, some huge bubbles appeared to either side, and it began rapidly to sink. The swimmer disappeared, pulled under with the downward tow of the
Wu Zetian
.
“Shit,” said Montoya to himself. “A man that calm and purposeful needs to live.” He nosed his ’finch over and swooped low just a bit off from the spot the swimmer had disappeared. With one wing almost touching the churned up sea, Montoya looked to his left.
Crap, he’s there! But
—he leveled out and looked at the nearest life raft—
no, they don’t see him.
Montoya pulled back on his stick, tossing his plane into a loop. This was a dangerous maneuver, this close to the water. No matter. Leveling off again he found the swimmer once again by eye. The nearest life raft didn’t get it.
Oh, I can fix that.
Montoya pulled up, swooped down, and fired his machine guns at a spot about twenty meters from the life raft. All the raft’s passengers shuddered and looked up.
Coming back around, Montoya wagged his wings then cut throttle to just above a stall. Twenty pairs of eyes, all wide with terror, followed him. The warrant pointed ahead, frantically. He was rewarded with one of the Zhong suddenly standing, stripping off his shirt, and diving into the sea, swimming in the direction Montoya had pointed. Taking his eyes off of the sea for a moment, Montoya gazed around at other aircraft, dozens of them, winging it trippingly in other directions.
Well . . . yeah . . . we thought, after all, that there were four Zhong subs. Why settle for one?
Corvette
Jaquelina Gonzalez, Mar Furioso,
Terra Nova
It was never really much of a contest. The torpedoes fired at the
Jaquelina Gonzalez
weren’t even set for particularly high speed, as compared to the corvette’s own forty-two knots. They were being guided by submarines that had precisely zero interest in actually hitting the ship. And they were fired in conditions where the ship had land to hide behind.
Nonetheless, to make the show look good,
Esox
and her sister let the torpedoes almost run out their wire before having them self-destruct.
It made a nice couple of splashes.
BdL
Dos Lindas, Mar Furioso
, Terra Nova.
“Thanks, Patricio,” Fosa said over the secure line, then replaced the phone on its gray-painted receiver.
“Tell the boys ‘well done,’ ” he says. Like that makes up for the rest. Sure, I’ll tell the boys . . . but ‘it’s time to go’ . . . they won’t be happy over it.
I’m
not happy over it. But . . . well . . . no sense in wasting lives.
Coto, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova
In the little border town, half in Balboa, half in Santa Josefina, a long line of civilian-clad and disarmed legionaries waited, with their passports out, for permission to cross the border and return home. There were seven or eight hundred of them, thought the immigration agent on duty.
No fucking way we can deal with this ourselves, just me and a half dozen other agents
, he thought, too, as he frantically dialed the number for headquarters, some distance away.
Unknown to the border control agent, a scant two hundred meters away a Tauran soldier was also calling his headquarters, just as frantically. To each, the answers were similar. The Tauran was told, “We have no authority to arrest anybody here, and the press and the human rights lawyers will be all over us if we try.” The border control officer was told, “What the fuck do you want us to do? Yes, we can send a half dozen men down to help you clear them through, to search baggage, and such. But they’re citizens. They’ve broken no laws here. They have the right to come home. And the president asked them to a while ago. So fuck off.”
Corporal Sanchez, Second Cohort,
Tercio la Virgen
, had no idea why he was ordered to turn in his rifle and equipment, put on civilian clothes, and go home. At first, he’d balked, too. After all, the order wasn’t coming from the tercio commander. His sergeant though, had set him straight. “Don’t give the border police a fucking reason, except that you’re homesick. As for why, can you think of a better way to get through an enemy to where you can attack his vitals? And don’t bother asking where we get reissued arms. I’d be really surprised if that becomes an issue. Now shut up and change clothes. Oh, and remember to show up at the Bar la Cascada at the end of the month to collect your pay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
If, notwithstanding the notification of the neutral Power, a belligerent ship of war does not leave a port where it is not entitled to remain, the neutral Power is entitled to take such measures as it considers necessary to render the ship incapable of taking the sea during the war, and the commanding officer of the ship must facilitate the execution of such measures.
When a belligerent ship is detained by a neutral Power, the officers and crew are likewise detained.
The officers and crew thus detained may be left in the ship or kept either on another vessel or on land, and may be subjected to the measures of restriction which it may appear necessary to impose upon them. A sufficient number of men for looking after the vessel must, however, be always left on board.
The officers may be left at liberty on giving their word not to quit the neutral territory without permission.
—Second Hague Convention, Article Twenty-four
Hotel
Cielo Dorado
, Aserri, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova
Empress Xingzhen’s agonized and outraged scream shook the walls of the hotel. “Those bastards!” she cursed. “Those fucking evil little brown pigs! Those filthy . . .” Tears began to course down her ethereal face, as she rocked back and forth, her own arms clutched about her, on the bed she generally shared with the high admiral.
Wallenstein came out of one of the two bathrooms that came with the suite. “What . . . ?” She didn’t ask more; it was enough to see her lover in pain. She raced, long legs eating up the short distance to the bed, threw herself upon it, and wrapped the empress in a tight hug with one arm, wiping her tears with the hand of the other, and covering the grief-stricken woman’s face with kisses.
Xingzhen started to break away, then collapsed into the high admiral’s ample bosom. Shuddering, still sobbing, shaking with unrelieved hate and lust for vengeance, the empress managed to get out, “They . . . they . . . my boat . . . my ship . . . it was
mine
. . . named by me . . .
mine
. . . aiaiaiaiaiai . . . they
sank
it . . . aiaiaiaiai . . .”
One hand pressing the empress’ head tightly to her chest, Wallenstein looked around until she saw a formal looking sheet of paper, lying on the bed. She picked it up with the other hand, then began to read it. She got through the first paragraph then thought,
Oh, shit.
“I’m going to nuke them out of existence,” the empress hissed. “Their grandchildren will have nightmares. They will . . .”
“Hush, love,” said Wallenstein. When not engaged in making love she was the senior of the partnership. “You’re not going to do anything of the kind.”
“What? I will . . .”
“Shut up,” said the high admiral, more gently than the bare words would usually permit. “If you try to, the Federated States will obliterate you. You have what, two hundred warheads, most of them tactical?” Wallenstein neglected to mention that she wasn’t sure she had even a single functional nuclear weapon.
“About that,” said Xingzhen.
“Twenty missiles that can range?”
“Twenty-five,” said the empress, who, calming somewhat, then admitted, “though their reliability is low.”
“Right . . . let me tell you a little secret, my very dearest; Balboa will kill many more of yours than you will of them. That’s right, they have at least seventeen nuclear weapons, ten of those, or more, being city busters. And that’s not even counting the FSC, which will not permit nukes going off in their hemisphere.
“Now what happened,” Wallenstein demanded, “the short version?”
“We had four of our newest and best nuclear submarines move to a position to cover our invasion fleet. You knew that; I told you that. We had to, to protect the invasion fleet from a sortie by the Balboan carrier.”
“Yes, I knew,” Wallenstein said, “and I approved. Please continue.”
“Well,” said Xingzhen, with a small sniffle, “the stories conflict. We had four out there, but two of them apparently were sunk. Of the two surviving, one says we fired first—under vast provocation—and the other says they don’t know what happened but that they did
not
fire, that a torpedo passed them from behind.”
“The captain of the second one trying to cover his ass against a future inquest?” Wallenstein suggested.
“I don’t know,” said the empress. “I suppose it’s possible. But I don’t
care
. They sank my ship!
Mine!
Do you know how hard it will be to convince my people to accept a female ruler when the ship named for another female empress sank? They’re a silly, old fashioned, narrow-minded, and superstitious lot. The Balboans have deprived me of my due. They must
pay!
”
“Easy say, hard do,” said the high admiral. She thought for a couple of seconds and added, “For you. Impossible for me.
“Get dressed and call in your girl to do up your face, my love. Then let’s go talk to Janier.
“By the way, where are the two surviving subs now?”
“Out at sea several hundred miles; maybe even five or six hundred. Once they managed to break off from the Balboans, they didn’t stop until they were safe enough to come up close to the surface to get a message out.”
BdL
Dos Lindas, Mar Furioso,
Terra Nova
The
classis
moved as a single unit, with two Volgan-built frigates in the lead, zigzagging across the line of travel, pinging mercilessly for submarines. Mercilessly? The number of cetaceans damaged or killed by the sonar argued for a certain lack of mercy, yes.
Two corvettes worked the sea closer in shore, while three more, among them the
Inez Trujillo
and the
Jaquelina Gonzalez
, under the control of another frigate, swept the sea to starboard. The ring was closed by several more ships, grouped behind, while within the ring, the
Tadeo Kurita
, the
Dos Lindas
, and a few nondescript replenishment ships sheltered. Below several Meg-class SSKs patrolled, among them the
Meg
, herself, and the
Esox.
Two of
Dos Lindas’
ASW helicopters, along with some of those carried by the frigates, took turns in dipping their sonar into the sea or laying passive sonar buoys to the northern flank. Overhead, a half dozen Turbo-finches fluttered, their normal ordnance replaced by a half dozen air-to-air missiles, each. Nobody, least of all the pilots, really expected the ’finches to do any real good if attacked by modern aircraft.
The radar down in CIC, and on the bridge, too, showed at least a hundred non-naval aircraft. Given their speed they were unlikely to be anything but Mosaic-Ds. Besides, Fosa wasn’t exceptionally worried about the air threat.
And besides
, he thought, looking glumly at his fleet from
Dos Lindas’
bridge, as the entire crew sailed towards the Santa Josefinan port of
Puerto Bruselas
, currently the main port for supplying the Tauran Union in the country,
it’s not like we have huge ambitions
.
Fosa felt a sudden pressure, then felt a wave of sound as a brace of Mosaics buzzed the flight deck at no very great altitude.
Fosa nodded. “As expected and just about right on time.” Turning to his air boss he ordered, “Call the ‘finches back to the ship. And radio those fuckers in the fighters and tell them if they buzz my ship again I’ll have their balls tacked to the figurehead’s pretty little bronze hands.
“Oh, and get the correspondents from the
First Landing Times
and Global News Network up here, with their cameramen. I want them to start broadcasting soonest.”
Headquarters, Tauran Union Security Force-Santa Josefina, Rio Clara, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova
Marciano ran from his quarters, his boots untied and him still tucking his shirt in. The panic in his AdC’s voice moved him just as fast as the emergency warranted. The Balboan fleet had sortied and seemed intent on coming to and smashing the TU’s remaining major port. Without that? Well, it was eventual defeat by the guerillas, no matter the success Marciano had had so far.
When he arrived in the headquarter hut, the staff was in full-fledged panic mode, such as his AdC’s demeanor had only hinted at. Only
Oberst
Rall, the Sachsen, seemed to have his head about him.
“What’s going on, Rall?”
“Damned if I know, Herr General,” answered the Sachsen. “Suddenly, with no advance warning, we get reports of a mass of Balboan fighters swarming by the border and out to sea. The regiment of—we are pretty sure—Santa Josefinans on the border, less one battalion, starts marshaling for what looks like an assault across the border. But worst of all, their fleet sank a couple of Zhong subs and sortied toward
our
port. Sir, we’re screwed if they destroy the port.
“The only good thing is the guerillas to the south are quiescent.
“I’ve sent for the . . . speak of the devil.”
The Anglian commander of the fighter-bomber squadron, Squadron Commander Halpence, looked ghastly pale. He wasted no time, but simply reported, “Sir, we’re on the ass end of nowhere for parts. Of my dozen Hurricanes, three are down for maintenance or in for service and, to some degree or another, bloody disassembled. I can keep maybe two or three aircraft up continuously for the next couple of days. After that, I make no promises.”
“Can you attack a fleet?” asked Marciano.
“Not that one,” said Halpence. “Not with any real hope of success. They’ve got three immensely powerful lasers mounted fore, aft, and in the tower. I understand they have no qualms about using them on aircraft. My men would be blinded before we got in range.” The Anglian seemed to relent slightly. “Well . . . we would if we went straight in at them. The terrain here’s complex, so maybe there’s a place we can get a shot in before they know we’re there. I confess I don’t know where that place might be.”
“Fine,” said Marciano, “find it. Find one. The Balboan fleet is sailing for
Puerto Bruselas
. If they wreck that, we can probably forget keeping any aircraft up for long.” When the Anglian didn’t move immediately, Marciano grew unusually harsh. “What the hell are you waiting for, Squadron Commander? Move.”
The Anglian dismissed, Marciano returned his attention to Rall. “What about the carriers in the Shimmering Sea?”
The Sachsen half snarled, “They’re still cowering either on the south side of Cienfuegos or in the port of Caimanera.”
“Why
still
?”
“The Balboan submarines. They know the Balboans took out a Zhong carrier recently and, a few years back, one of the Frogs’ subs, plus a destroyer. They don’t know how and it has them . . . a little timid, shall we say?”
Marciano rolled his eyes. “What is it about we military types that we invest in our enemies superhuman powers if they beat us once or twice? Are we so arrogant as to believe we could only be beaten by supermen?
“I
know
the Balboan legion. I
know
their commander and, under different circumstances, would count him a comrade. I
still
count him a friend. But a superman, he is not.”
“He’s pretty good though,” said the Sachsen, with a wry grin.
“Well . . . yes,” agreed the Tuscan, with a complimentary shrug. “Good, that is. But a superman? No.”
“Kingdom of the blind,” said Rall. “Makes him look better than he is. Makes his troops look better than they really could be, too. Almost like Zion and Yithrab.”
“We need more aircraft,” said Marciano, “and the only place to get them in a hurry is from the fleets.”
Rall inhaled deeply, held it for a moment, then exhaled. Getting the navies to cooperate?
Tough, very tough. Even so,
“I’ll get to work beating the navies into submission to get in position to support us here.”
“Don’t hesitate to ask for help,
Oberst
,” Marciano said.
“I won’t. Oh, and one other thing, General.”
“Yes?” asked Marciano.
“We still have a modest HUMINT capability on the other side of the border,” said Rall. “It seems one of the Santa Josefinan infantry battalion—cohorts, if you prefer—has turned in its arms and come home. Just walked across the border in civilian clothes, last night. Showed their passports and sauntered across, a whole battalion of them. Do you suppose the junta down in Balboa is losing its grip?”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Marciano. He raised the inevitable quizzical eyebrow. “And we didn’t arrest them because . . . ?”
“Because our status of forces agreement gives us no domestic powers of arrest, and because the office of the president of Santa Josefina thought it was just ducky that her wandering sons were coming home.”
“And the arms for this battalion,” asked Marciano, “when do we expect those to arrive? So they can attack us from behind, I mean.”
“We’re working on that one, sir.”
“I need a helicopter,” said Marciano.
“Already standing by at the pad,” answered the very efficient Rall. “And if you hurry you can see their fleet rounding the Burica Peninsula.”
“How did you . . . ah, never mind.” Turning to a troop who seemed underemployed at the moment, or perhaps simply a bit more calm than most of the rest, Marciano ordered, “You! Yes,
you
. Map, pen, notebook, field uniform. Come with me.”
On the way to the pad, Marciano noticed,
Goddamned progressivines growing back around the perimeter. Note to self, get the engineers to work cutting them back.
The Octaviana 602B helicopter, a four seat job intended primarily for scouting and command and control, made it to Sour Gulf, one of two major gulfs on the
Mar Furioso
side of Santa Josefina, in about twelve minutes. It flew well above the surface of the planet, straight and level. Then Marciano’s stomach heaved as, without warning, it dropped down to maybe ten meters above the waters of the gulf, moving generally northwest and keeping close to the coast for camouflage. Popping up over the trees of the Burica Peninsula, it turned north, shielding behind the peninsula’s central range of hills, then dropped down almost to the beach fronting the
Mar Furioso.
There, still blending into the tree behind it and high enough to avoid raising a cloud of sand, the Octaviana hovered, giving Marciano an excellent view of the passing fleet, a bit over twenty kilometers out to sea.
