Chapter Five
"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
—Emperor Manual II Palaiologos
Village of Jameer, Pashtia, 6/3/467 AC
The bodies, or what was left of the bodies, were still there when the Tauran, specifically the Tuscan, column arrived, about midday. Flies clustered on those of the women and girls in thick, black, buzzing clouds. Even the nine-year-old, legs splayed, appeared to have grown pubes, so thick were the blood-lapping flies.
Tuscan Brigadier General Claudio Marciano stepped from his vehicle, took one look, and promptly threw up.
"Animals," he muttered as he wiped traces of vomit from his lips and face. "Only animals could do something like this."
Marciano's aide-de-camp, Capitano Stefano del Collea, didn't answer. Instead, standing next to the vehicle, he simply went pale and shook with hate.
The two were mountain troopers, Ligurini, members of an elite corps. They were the best infantry Tuscany on Terra Nova produced and some of the best in the world. Other mountain troopers from Marciano's command, the Brigada Julio Caesare, worked their way cautiously through the town.
There was no firing as the Ligurini swept through, only sullen glares from the villagers. You promised what you could not deliver. You failed us. So the villagers' eyes seemed to accuse.
"What the fuck can we do, Stefano? With three battalions of infantry here in our sector I don't have enough to put even half a squad in every little village. I don't have enough even to put in a single man."
"We could go hunting," del Collea suggested. "We're better men than they are. They may know these mountains but we know mountains."
"It's the only way," Marciano agreed, "The only way and I am forbidden to do it." The general smashed a fist into his palm in sheer frustration. "Forbidden to so much as fire a shot except in point self- defense. 'No offensive operations,' the government says, Stefano. 'Don't risk casualties.' Tell me, Stefano, what the fuck is the purpose of even having soldiers if it isn't to risk casualties?"
The captain just shrugged. He was as helplessly frustrated in this as his commander.
Marciano took off his green, feathered hat and wiped his brow. This was just a demonstration of frightfulness. But the word will get out. By this time tomorrow, day after at the latest, every school and clinic we've built, every well my sappers have dug, will be torn down or filled in. No one will risk this kind of obscenity just to have a nicer building to be sick in or a western style school desk. All the good we've thought we'd accomplished will be undone.
"If I could transfer my commission," del Collea said, "I'd join the FS Army. They, at least, are allowed to fight."
"If I could transfer my commission," Marciano rejoined, "I might join the Balboan mercenaries and take the entire brigade with me. They go out of their way to fight."
"They do have mountain troops, you know, General."
"I know . . . but they're not our mountain troops. I would miss the Ligurini, Stefano."
To that the captain had nothing to add. He left his general to his own thoughts for some minutes. When Marciano spoke again it was to say, "Fuck 'em."
"General?"
"Fuck the politicians. Tell the commander of the company— Romano, isn't it?—to follow those sons of bitches and kill them."
The device Noorzad carried, the same one brought by the messenger from Mustafa, beeped low. He answered it.
"Noorzad? Mustafa. Some friends inform me that there is a company of infantry on your tail."
The device was surprisingly static-free. Though unmarked, Noorzad was pretty certain it had come from off world; that, or was an offworld technology perhaps manufactured on Terra Nova.
"I can handle a company of infantry," the guerilla chief said.
"Yes, I am sure you can. But you cannot handle the battalion that will descend from the air if you are found, or the air strikes that will come. They are already gathering."
Unseen by Mustafa, Noorzad shrugged. "I understand. I will split my men up, ditch most of the weapons. We can take shelter in the villages nearby."
"You are not concerned they will turn you in?" Mustafa asked.
"After what we did in Jameer? No; word will have spread like the lightning. They'll be too afraid to go against us."
Escuela de Montañeros Bernardo O'Higgins, Boquerón, Balboa, 8/3/467 AC
Jesus, this shit terrifies me.
Ricardo Cruz had his left hand jammed into the crevice of an otherwise nearly sheer rock wall. The hand was formed into a fist, effectively locking him to that wall. His other hand searched for further purchase higher up while his booted feet rested precariously on a couple of finger-widths of ledge. A rope was coiled around his torso.
Cruz's job was to get the bloody rope up the cliff, attach a snaplink to whatever could be found, and create a belay system so that the rest of the men could follow safely. On the way up Cruz mentally recited the very unofficial and much frowned upon version of the Cazador Creed.
Considering how fucking stupid I am . . .
Aha! There was a little outcropping of rock. He grabbed tight hold of it and began working his left leg to another little spit of a ledge.
Appreciating the fact that nobody lives forever . . .
The ledge and the outcropping held. Heart pounding, Cruz unballed his left fist, removed it from the crevice and began feeling up and along the wall for another place to anchor his hand before he risked moving his lower foot.
Zealously will I . . .
Cruz's foot slipped.
There were actually four legions now, since the last, but probably not final, reorganization. The field legions were numbered I through IV; plus the air ala and the naval classis, which retained their tercio numbers, and the training and base legion, which was not yet numbered at all. At the moment, two of those legions, I and II, were at or just over full strength. The other two were at roughly seventy percent, for III, and forty percent, for IV.
Under the reorganization, which had been implicit from the start, the Legion del Cid would operate on a four-year cycle. While one legion was fighting or ready to go, another was at full strength and training to fight, while a third was building up to full strength and training at lower level unit and individual tasks. A fourth was, practically speaking, broken up with its personnel either in school or supporting school. Since this was the year the married soldiers could actually be home nearly every night, sometimes Carrera referred to the fourth, or school, year as the legion's "Reproduction Enhancement and Divorce Reduction Program."
Legio IV was currently in school, hence the forty percent strength. It would be replaced by Legio I after the terms of service of that legion's one-term volunteers ran out. Arguably, during the school year, a legion was not really a legion at all, since it consisted only of cadre and those were mostly in school or supporting the training legion or other units. But, since the school year legion had an Eagle, had a chain of command, had equipment and would be filled to strength at some point, it was still considered a legion.
What was not generally considered, outside of by Carrera and his staff, was that, since there was a reserve clause in the enlistment contract, every legion could be brought up to strength in a matter of days. This presupposed that the troops would come back voluntarily as Carrera had no legal way of making them return.
I think that's a safe bet though, Carrera thought. And besides, their business and student loans all go into default if they fail to answer the summons.
Legio III's cadre had completed their refresher training the previous year and was in the process of building up to one hundred and five percent strength. Legio II was at roughly one hundred and five percent strength, and was working up to divisional operations.
Legio I, recently returned from Sumer, still had seven months left on the enlistment contracts of the sixty percent of its strength that were one-term volunteers. Rather than waste the time, or let the men go slowly crazy from boredom, Carrera had them training. To be more specific, he had them training to return to the war, but in Pashtia.
As a young officer in the Federated States Army, Carrera—then under the name Hennessey—had acquired a fine loathing for general officers. Oh, yes; he'd known a few he thought were better and more useful than sandbags. He'd even known a few he genuinely admired. But those few had been few indeed.
One of the distinguishing marks of worthwhileness, a sine qua non of good generalship, in Carrera's view, was that the general ought not let himself become a hindrance to training. Since people became, frankly, freaky when a general—or a senior legate or a dux—showed up with all his entourage and all his pomp and circumstance, Carrera thought a general could assist training best by, in most cases, seeing while not being seen. Thus, while Cruz inched up the wall, Carrera and Soult hid in a sheltered draw and watched through binoculars. They'd parked their vehicle two miles distant and walked in guided by map and compass. Carrera loathed being dependent on the global locating system.
Soult, a senior warrant officer now, as was Mitchell, had stayed on. Most of Carrera's original group, those still alive, had.
"You're pretty confident, aren't you, Boss?"
"Confident about what?"
"That we're going to be rehired by the FS. I mean, why else go through the expense of training at this . . . intensity?"
Carrera adjusted the focus on his binos to key in on a youngish trooper scaling a wall. He spoke as he turned the adjusting wheel.
"I am somewhat confident, yes, Jamey. But I'd have the troops training like madmen anyway just because I think it's the right thing to do, that it's . . . immoral for soldiers not to spend every possible minute and every dollar, every drop of gas, and every round of ammunition you can spare on it.
"What's more . . . ah, fuck."
Soult looked into his binoculars until he saw what had caused his chief's outburst. When he did see it—a climber who'd slipped until he hung by his fingertips from a small rocky outcropping—he repeated, "Fuck."
. . . try to fuck every female I can talk into a horizontal . . . FUCK!
Cruz felt his lower foot slip vertically. That put excess demands on the other one, which likewise lost its hold on the rock ledge. His left hand hadn't quite found purchase. In much less time than it takes to tell about it he found himself hanging by the fingertips of one hand, and not even all of those. His body slammed the cliff face, almost causing him to lose his death grip on the outcropping. Moreover, while his helmet protected the bulk of his head, in slipping he had managed to scrape the left side of his jaw along the rough rock wall. He felt hot blood drip down his neck.
His first instinct was, frankly, akin to panic. It lasted milliseconds before training and experience took over. I've been scared witless before and overcome it. I can again.
As Aristotle had said, "We become brave by performing brave acts." This Cruz had done often enough to deserve the title of "Brave."
The first thing Cruz's questing fingers found was a tiny little spur of rock. It would never do to support his entire weight but, gripped by two fingers and a thumb, it was just enough to take some weight off of the overstrained fingers of the other hand. His heart began to slow, if only slightly. Okay . . . so I have at least two or three more minutes of life. My fingers will hold that long. A lot can be done in two or three minutes.
Next, his foot found the previous ledge it had occupied. He was unwilling to take quite the same perch he had had previously. He spent some of his one hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty seconds feeling around for the best position he could find. When he found it he tested it, spending a few more precious seconds. He then allowed his foot and leg to take some weight from his whitened, tired fingers.
At last, breathing a little more easily, Cruz found a spot for his other foot and began to rest his fingers in turn.
"I recognize the face, boss, but who is that kid?"
"I think it's a centurion, junior grade named Cruz," Carrera answered. "Volunteer for the original legion. Decorated twice . . . mmm, maybe three times; not sure. Two kids. Wife's name is . . ." and here Carrera had to struggle to remember, ". . . mmm . . . Cara or . . . no; Caridad, I think. Good kid. Going places if he stays with us."
Unseen by Carrera, Soult smiled. Gotta admire the boss's memory.
"You actually know his wife? I mean, we've got fifteen hundred officers, twenty-five hundred optios and centurions, maybe a thousand warrants and you know his wife?"
"Long story," Carrera answered.
Soult shrugged, then asked, "Hey, boss; does it bother you when . . . you know . . . when you have to meet the wife and kids, or the parents, of somebody who got killed?"
Carrera was a long time answering. "Jamey, it bothers the hell out of me. But you know what keeps me going?"
"Revenge?"
"When we first started, sure, that was all I had. But the fact is, I keep going now for two other reasons. One is that we have to win this war for the sake of our civilization, for our kids and grandkids."
"And the other?"
Carrera sighed. "The other is that I love this shit; that I'm addicted to it."
Cruz didn't have time to think any deep thoughts until he reached the top of the cliff and secured and lowered the rope. After that, he thought, Maybe Cara was right. Maybe I should give this shit up.
If only I didn't love it so.
UEPF Spirit of Peace, 10/3/467 AC
I love it when a plan comes together, thought High Admiral Robinson, as he watched a distant image of Xamari pirates in half a dozen boats swarm, engage and board a Balboan registry freighter.
It hadn't been all that easy for Robinson, setting things up as he had. It had helped, though, that nearly half of Terra Nova's global shipping was registered with the Republic of Balboa and most of the rest was with an otherwise insignificant country in Uhuru. The Balboan government needed merely to be reminded of the World League's discountenancing of privately armed merchant vessels and that, with a large, uncontrolled and potential hostile army inside its borders the government needed whatever friends it could get . . . or should we arrange to pull out the TU troops that are there to safeguard you, Señor Presidente?
Robertsonia, the other large flag of convenience registry on Terra Nova had needed a bribe that was so low it was pitiful. The Tauran Union had, of course, begun to enforce the World League's edicts. The rest of down below, except for the Zhong, didn't much matter. And to the Zhong, every non-Zhong ship seized by the pirates was all to the good.
While the currently in-power Progressive Party in the FSC also frowned on armed merchant ships, it had a large and powerful surface navy, more powerful in fact than all the other navies combined, to protect its own shipping. A task force of this had been sent off to suppress the piratical scourge along the Xamar coast. It was signally failing to do so. In part this was because Robinson was passing to Abdulahi which ships could be attacked without risking engagement with the FSN; in part because the FSN's Rules of Engagement, or ROE, forbade taking any seriously deterrent action even if they happened to be in a position to engage. The Progressive Party's domestic "mandate" was not so strong that it could afford to alienate any of it constituencies, progressive, pacifist, racial, environmental, or other.
Neither the World League nor the other—marginally—significant naval powers on the planet were taking any significant action to suppress the pirates.
Even better; Mustafa's man among the Nicobars is gradually bringing the other pirates under his control.
Nicobar Straits, 11/3/467 AC
A thick haze floated over the water, reducing visibility to no more than two hundred meters in the daytime. At night, a sailor could, sometimes, see the end of his nose. The haze was not from the weather. Rather, it was mostly smoke from grass and brush fires that raged uncontrolled upwind of the Straits.
On any given clear day the Straits would have a steady hum as more than one hundred and fifty ships made passage through it. When the haze closed down like this, though, all the ships stopped engines and dropped anchors. Even the risk of pirate attack was better than risking a wreck.
Parameswara, chieftain of his own band of pirates smiled in the silence. Tonight was not a night for piracy. The ships were safe for the nonce from him and his men.
I have a better fish to catch tonight, he thought
One remarkable feature of Nicobar piracy was not that it was entirely Islamic, but that it was not entirely Islamic. Indeed, there were Hindu pirates, Sikh pirates, animist pirates, Buddhist pirates . . . even "Christian" pirates. There were Chinese pirates and Tamil pirates. There were white, black, brown, and yellow pirates. In all, there were—and not counting mere part-timers—some thirty-three large bands of pirates, plus substantial numbers of small time freelancers, not more than half of either Moslem.
They all hated each other; that was key.
It had taken some time, and considerable intelligence support from Robinson, before Mustafa had determined the solution to his problem. It was really elegant in its conceptual simplicity. Mustafa would help and direct one not terribly large or powerful Moslem group, under the leadership of a fat, middle-aged Malay cutthroat named Parameswara, to take over, one by one, all the non-Moslem pirates. That band would then be large to take on the largest of the Moslem bands. That united band would then be large enough to have little difficulty taking over the rest of the Moslem bands. At that point, there would be enough Moslems under cohesive leadership to exterminate the previously allied non-Moslem pirates.
That was one elegant concept. More elegant still, so much so that Mustafa nearly shivered when he thought upon it, was that the ultimate targets of the pirates, his ultimate target, the shippers of the industrialized world, would pay to have Parameswara do this.
In the short term, the Malay would do precisely as he said, suppress piracy. The shippers, like all their ilk, rarely thought in the long term. Short-term returns were what kept them in their cushy jobs. Short-term returns were what got them golden parachute packages. Indeed, that much at least Terra Nova's capitalists shared with its progressives. There was little practical difference between a progressive, or an outright socialist, promising to rape an economy for short- term gain to buy votes from the masses and a capitalist raping a company for short-term gains to buy votes from the stockholders.
So, at least, Mustafa thought of it. And, in principle, giving money to Parameswara to protect their ships from pirates was not substantially different from paying it to Abdulahi, as an increasing number of shippers were, to keep his merry boys from seizing their ships.
The part Mustafa had the greatest difficulty in understanding was the failure of the shippers to arrange for their own ships' protection. Is it that we are charging one drachma less than it would cost the shippers to hire mercenaries for protection? Are they really that short- sighted? They must be.
One form of aid Mustafa had given Parameswara was a company of his own mujahadin. That company had also brought with it modern weapons ranging from rifles to heavy machine guns and rocket grenade launchers, or RGLs, sufficient to arm ten times Parameswara's band. In addition, they had brought money, a doctor, night vision equipment and radios.
Mostly, they brought expertise. The war to gain control of the pirate factions of the Nicobar Straits would be fought mostly on land.
The engine was killed even as the boat's pilot turned the wheel hard a port, toward the coast. Landfall was a subdued scraping of muck along the lead vessel's bottom, followed by a shuddering stop. There was no sound except the lapping of small waves on the hull of the boat, the sound of feet scraping along a dirty wooden deck and the quiet splashing of men easing themselves over the side to the waist-deep, murky and polluted water.
Mustafa's man—called, simply, al Naquib—sniffed at the unpleasant smell composed of mixed smoke, salt sea, rotting jungle vegetation, and pollution. It was so unlike his native desert that inside he cringed.
Still, the mission was important and if al Naquib had to put up with a few esoteric smells to complete it, then so be it. He, too, eased himself over the side and into the foul water. Parameswara followed.
"Place not far," the Malay bandit advised. He spoke a sort of pidgin Arabic that served as a lingua franca along the Straits.
"I hope not," al Naquib answered. "My men are not used to the jungle. I am not used to it either."
"Not far," the Malay repeated, then left to take the lead to guide the mujahadin toward their target.
The village sat on a low promontory above a slow flowing, greenish river. Culturally and ethnically the place was Chinese, part of the diaspora on Old Earth that had been replicated by forcible immigration to the New. The ethnicity could be seen in the architecture, smelled in the aroma of cooking, and heard in the sing-song speech of early-rising women. Boats were tied up to the riverbank, below the village. Most were unpowered. One, however, sitting low and lean and rakish, had a powerful outboard mounted to the stern. This was the boat the men of the village used for their piratical forays.
Parameswara eyed the boat hungrily. It would make a fine addition to his small fleet. Only let the Yithrabi, al Naquib, do his job as Mustafa promised me he would.
In the dank, green jungle surrounding the village, al Naquib was doing just that, positioning the men of his company by squads. The early morning calls of birds covered the sound of his movements, and it did those of his men and Parameswara's, and the few words he spoke. Even without the birds, it is doubtful they would have been heard over the chatter of the village's women.
Yuan Lin was the village chief's senior wife. This didn't protect her from having to rise early, just like any of the other women, to clean and to cook. At most, her position allowed her to drop some of the more onerous duties on the younger women.
She was doing just that, slapping into submission the chief's newest concubine, a fifteen-year-old Cochinese girl seized from a refugee barge, when armed men began emerging from the steamy jungle surrounding the village. Lin opened her mouth to call out a warning. She stopped and closed it again when she saw just how many fighters were swarming the place and how quickly they were doing it.
Wide-eyed, Lin stood with a basket of laundry on one hip, her free hand still raised to strike the Cochinese, when a man materialized in front of her and made pushing motions with the rifle held crossways in front of him. She used her free hand to grab the Cochinese by the ear and pulled her in the direction—the center of the village—where the armed man had indicated he wanted them to go.
The thing that was surprising, perhaps, was that Lin was neither terribly upset nor terribly afraid. She had herself been seized in a raid when she was even younger than the Cochinese. As she'd discovered then, she was a woman, she was not a threat or competitor, and she had value. She might be raped but she'd been through all that before and survived well enough. Nothing worse was likely to happen to her now. As a matter of fact, Lin didn't even necessarily object to being raped as long as she wasn't going to be permanently damaged by the experience.
Al Naquib and Parameswara stood in the village center, watching as the people—men and boys, women and girls—were herded, cattle- like, inward.
"Fine," al Naquib said, "you have control of the village. Who do you want killed?"
"Maybe . . . nobody," Parameswara answered. "Dead, they no use . . . me . . . anybody. I see how it fall out."
Mustafa's man merely shrugged, Up to you.
Parameswara nodded and walked out into the center of the square.
"I'm glad you were all so eager to talk to me," he began with a smile, eliciting a nervous chuckle from the villagers. "And I hope you don't mind that I invited a few close friends along." Parameswara's hand swept around, taking in the more than two hundred that accompanied him.
That earned another mass chuckle, a bit more sincere than the first. After all, why not? He hadn't killed anyone yet and it never hurt to laugh at someone else's jokes. Even Chang Tsai, the chief of the village, joined in the laugh. He, most especially, feared being dead soon. What better reason to try to ingratiate himself with Parameswara?
The Malay chief had a gift for oratory. He spoke of the rising sun and the setting sun. He talked of the low tide always returning as a new high. He talked of the Prophet and he spoke of the Buddha. He waxed eloquent over the future and the past.
What he means is, we join him or he kills every man, woman and child in the village, thought Chang Tsai. It would be better to join.
Kamakura, Yamato, 15/3/467 AC
Yamato had this much difference with the Salafis; whereas the Salafis emigrated to Terra Nova to recreate the seventh century of Old Earth, Yamato had preferred recreating the latter third of the nineteenth and earlier third of the twentieth, with a profound nod of respect to the thirteenth through seventeenth. About the entire Pearl- Harbor-to-the-deck-of-the-USS Missouri fiasco, back on Old Earth, they preferred to forget (though the rebuilt Yasukuni-Jinja had some hundreds of thousands of mementos). They were none too interested in delving too deeply into the mistakes of the Great Global War, either.
That meant, in practice, that the Imperial Court still had tremendous power within the country, though the power was almost always expressed subtly. Indeed, it was usually expressed so subtly that no one could really be certain what the emperor actually meant, most of the time. Some of this was, of course, in the way questions to the Throne were phrased.
"His Highness said what?" asked Mr. Yamagata of his colleague, Mr. Saito. Each was a representative of a major shipping company. Yamagata's brought in oil; Saito's exported finished goods.
"I mentioned to His Highness," answered Saito, "that ships bringing oil to our land endured many dangers. He answered, 'Sometimes we must endure the unendurable.'"
Yamagata took off his bottle-thick glasses and cleaned them with his tie.
"That is a remarkably forthright answer from Him," he observed. "It seems clear enough, then, as clear as it ever is, that the Imperial Navy is not going to help us. What do we do then?"
"I came to the same conclusion. As to what we must do, I asked the emperor, 'Shall not the sons of the Son of Heaven resist tyranny and robbery?' He answered with the questions, 'Does not the law forbid private persons from bearing arms? Has the land not seen untold misery from uncontrolled violence?'"
"Shit!" exclaimed Yamagata.
"Shit," echoed Saito more softly. "It was a curious audience. Before I left, His Imperial Highness said, 'Sometimes, we must allow ourselves—like Miyamoto Musashi—to be tossed about by the waves of the sea.'"
Yamagata's left eyebrow lifted, subtly. "Wave tossed? Ronin?"
Ronin meant, in Japanese, "wave man," as a masterless samurai was said to be tossed through life on the waves. Many ronin, throughout the history of Japanese culture (which history and culture were largely carried over to Yamato on Terra Nova), became mercenaries. Miyamoto Musashi—old Japan's "sword saint"—had been ronin.
Saito shrugged. "That much of His Highness' words I did not comprehend."
"Perhaps I do," answered Yamagata.
BdL Dos Lindas, Mar Furioso, 3/22/467 AC
The seas were calm and the waves were light, the ship barely taking notice of them.
Montoya took his meal standing in the crowded wardroom. There were seats, a few of them, available, but he'd discovered he really enjoyed watching the maintenance crews in the hangar deck at work. There was a euphony to it, a symmetry. Of course, the irregular pounding from the engine repair shop next to the wardroom was anything but euphonious.
Working in harmony together or not, the crew was frazzled; there was no better word. Montoya had flown three training missions yesterday and two already today. This was bad enough on him; on the ordnance, fuel, maintenance and deck crews it was simply exhausting. And that bastard Fosa showed no indication so far that he intended to let up for an instant.
Is he going to push us until half of us are dead? Already, half a dozen pilots and twice that in deck crew had perished under the relentless drilling.
From the speakers Montoya heard played six notes of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," then, "Battle stations; battle stations. Pilots . . ."
Seems he is.
Montoya's plate was dropped and he was out the door before the speaker had a chance to finish, ". . . man your aircraft. RPV pilots to your stations. Cazadors to the assembly area on the hangar deck."
A few weeks ago there'd have been a mad dash for the hatch and a human traffic jam both there and at the ladders leading topside. The sailors and pilots moved just as briskly now, but they'd learned the techniques of transforming themselves from a mob to a mass. Montoya waited his turn at the hatch, then again at the ladder, before easing himself into the only kind of river that flowed uphill.
Topside, Montoya saw what he'd expected to see. Three Crickets were parked in a shallow upside-down V just forward of the carrier's Island. Well behind those were half a dozen Turbo-Finch Avengers in two Vs. On the port side the men of the alert company of the Cazador demi-cohort struggled to organize themselves before boarding the eight Yakamov helicopters lined up along the angled deck.
At the top of the ladder Montoya turned half right, which is to say toward the stern and the Finches, and began to trot to where a staff officer of the air group was sorting pilots to planes.
"Montoya!" the staff weenie shouted to be heard over the growing roar of engines and the loudspeakers on the island playing "Ride of the Valkyries." "Number four spot. Your load is rocket and gun pods. Tribune Castillo is Air Mission Commander. Orders will be radioed just prior to take off. Go, son!"
The crew chief for the plane gave Montoya a leg up onto the wing. Standing, he threw one foot over onto the aircraft's seat, then pulled in the other. To save half a second he'd developed the technique of simply tossing his legs out from under and letting his ass slam into the seat. As his ass hit, his hands were reaching for the helmet. Only when it was on, and a commo check made, did he begin to strap himself in.
The radio crackled. "Boys, this is Castillo. Target is a small boat about seventy-five miles from here on a heading of Three One Two, I say again, Three One Two. Just FYI, the skipper informed me that the target boat is small, fast and under radio control so it is going to be a bitch to put down. There'll be a control boat about two miles to the north of the target. DON'T go after the control. It's painted white while the target is sea green so even you blind bastards ought to be able to stay away from it. Now let's wait for the Crickets to get out of the way and we'll take off in standard order, One through Six."
"Any questions?"
FSS Ironsides, Xamar Coast, 32/3/467 AC
"Any questions?" asked the admiral commanding the Ironside's Carrier Battle Group after he explained the rules of engagement for the carrier and her escorts. Had a kinder fate intervened the steel- gray old sea dog just might have become the chief of naval operations for the FS Navy. As it was, the Progressive administration was nearly certain to last past the admiral's mandatory retirement date. And the Progs would never let him or anyone like him become CNO. The same was true of the Army, FSAF and FSMC. The most aggressive, most traditional, most militaristic and least progressive senior officers had already been given the word: "There will be no place for you in the future and the sooner you retire the better for everyone."
"Just one, sir," said Ironside's captain, a former shoo-in for admiral himself, now doomed, it seemed, to be cast aside. "What's the fucking point of our being here?"
"Why, to suppress piracy, Captain," the admiral rejoined. "Didn't you listen to me when I explained the rules of engagement? They're clear as thin mud."
"On, not nearly that clear, surely, Admiral. Rule One: 'Guaranteeing free travel by merchant shipping is the number one priority' makes sense enough. But then we run into Rule Two: 'All human life is to be treated as sacred.' I think that must include pirate life as well, no? Rule Three: 'Ships and boats will not be stopped on the high seas without a warrant emanating from probable cause as determined by a federal judge.' There's going to be time to get a warrant? I don't think so. And then there's Rule Seventeen: 'Ships and boats not in the act of attacking merchant shipping will not be attacked.' Does that mean that once a pirate's made a successful attack and is on the way back we cannot engage? I think it does. And Rule Fourteen? 'All hostage situations will immediately be referred to the National Command Authority for determination of appropriate action.'
The captain crumpled up his paper copy of the ROE and dropped it disdainfully to the deck. "It's a waste of time, Admiral. We could deploy the entire fleet here and under these pussy rules it still wouldn't stop the piracy."
UEPF Spirit of Peace, 1/4/467 AC
Always good to see my prime enemy wasting its time, mused High Admiral Robinson, watching on his screen as a group of Xamaris returned from a raided ship.
The FSN wasn't interfering, so the Xamaris must have grabbed some of the passengers or crew. The ROE for the battle group, a copy of which Robinson had received almost before the admiral commanding, made any quick reaction, or any action that might be proactive, essentially impossible. These he had passed on to Abdulahi, together with some pointed suggestions on just how to use the ROE to advantage.
Not only is the bastard using them to his advantage, but in the face of TN's only real naval power's helpless flailing about, its inability to control what amounts to seagoing camel drivers, more major shippers are buying protection from Abdulahi. So, of course, the incidence of piracy is down; the FSN can hardly explain that it's down because they failed; the Progressive administration gets to trumpet its "success" . . . and much of that protection money still goes to support Mustafa.
Things are going well in Nicobar, too, if not so spectacularly. Mustafa's boys down there are expanding nicely; seven bands, it is, fallen under Parameswara's control. Of course, supporting Parameswara is a net money drain on Mustafa, for now, and not a small one. But he'll make all that up and more once the Nicobars can get in on the racket in style.
Nicobar Straits, 7/4/467 AC
It had all been going far too well, Parameswara knew. Something had to go wrong eventually.
"Eventually" came in the form of another group of Malay pirates heading out just as Parameswara's group was moving in. The outgoing pirates spotted one of Parameswara's launches looking alone and vulnerable and motored over to seize it. By the time they realized that that launch was not alone it was too late; the seizure turned into a fight that quickly escalated into a general melee at sea.
Parameswara's boys won that fight handily. When they were finished, and it only took a matter of minutes, three of their foes' boats were burning on the haze-covered water. The boats themselves were draped with hacked and shot bodies, the blood that collected in the scuppers beginning to steam from the heat.
It's a terrible waste of good seacraft, Parameswara mourned.
Worse, though, was that the fight, while desperate in places, had overall gone too easily and ended too quickly. Their blood up, Parameswara's men hastily forced a landing and began an assault into the village from which their fellow Malay pirates had come. There, the massacre became general with the assaulting pirates shooting or hacking down old men, women, children and even the dogs and pigs of the place.
It was only with the greatest difficulty, and only after the huts were already burning, that the pirate chieftain and al Naquib were able to bring the men to order. By that time, there was nothing left but fifty or so women and children, most of them already raped at least once, remaining. The survivors wept, some of them. Others stood in shock. Parameswara was shocked himself.
"It was so damned unnecessary," he cursed at no one in particular.
"I'm not so sure," said al Naquib, who was rapidly picking up the local lingo. "We had already, maybe, made as much peaceful progress as we could. Didn't you pick your early conquests based on how likely they would be to fold without having to fight or massacre? Didn't you push the ones most likely to resist to the back of the list? Was not this group one you thought might put up a fight anyway?"
Parameswara shrugged. It was true but . . .
"Well, they did. And they've paid for it. Now there are just about enough survivors to spread the word: If you resist the great new pirate king, Parameswara, all you will earn is death. So let's let these go with nothing but the clothes on their backs, their eyes to weep with and their tongues to spread the word."
Within a fortnight, the first chief of the still independent pirate bands along either side of the Nicobar Straits arrived at Parameswara's newly fortified coastal town to offer his allegiance to the new paramount chief.
First Landing, Hudson, FSC, 16/4/467 AC
Matthias Esterhazy had no real idea why Mr. Saito and Mr. Yamagata had asked to see him. Their credentials suggested only that they were deeply involved, and very prominent, in Yamato's considerable shipping industry. He considered it most likely that they were interested in doing business with either Chatham, Hennessey and Schmied, Patricio's family firm and no inconsiderable shippers themselves, or its Balboan subsidiary, Alexander Steamship Company.
He'd done business with the Yamatans before, especially when he'd worked for SachsenBank. Thus he was unsurprised that the two businessmen, and a third who'd accompanied them, beat around the bush with meaningless pleasantries for more than an hour.
Actually, the third man—they'd introduced him only as "Captain Kurita"—said absolutely nothing. He's the interesting one, Esterhazy thought. Old, clearly he was very old, Kurita sat serene and upright. However silent Kurita may have been, and however ancient, Esterhazy saw keen intelligence in his eyes and thought he detected a wry amusement in his face.
He'd almost stopped listening to Saito and Yamagata until he heard, "And in the long run, it's just unsupportable, the price they demand to allow our ships passage."
They'd worked they're way from "Nice weather you're having here" to "Help" and Esterhazy hadn't even been aware of the transition. He looked at Kurita's face again. Yes, there was definitely amusement there. Perhaps he'd seen Taurans and Columbians trying to communicate with Yamatans before.
Kurita turned that gnarled, ancient face toward Esterhazy and spoke his first words since introductions. "Danegeld, Tribune Esterhazy. They don't want to pay Danegeld."
Matthias's head flew back in surprise. That the Yamatan had used the expression "Danegeld" was one thing. He could well have— indeed probably had—been at least partially educated in Anglia or the FSC. But that he knew Esterhazy's legionary rank was simply shocking.
"I have kept up my contacts with Imperial Naval Intelligence, Tribune," Kurita explained, "even though the men who run it are the grandsons and even great-grandsons of the men I served with in the Great Global War. They told me who you were."
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
Oishi."
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 principal might charge us to end this problem, it will certainly be less than what the pirates will cost us in the long term."
"My principal, 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 principal 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's 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."
BdL Dos Lindas, Isla Real, 27/4/467 AC,
"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 crewmen 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."
SS Estrella de Castilla, 1/5/467 AC
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 to 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, El 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 jiylah."
"It's in English, El 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?"
"Jizyah'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."
BdL Dos Lindas, Marguerita Locks, 1/5/467 AC,
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 of the lock 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
Oishi, 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.
"No, Roderigo-san; if I hate someone over it, I hate those who prevented the FSC from following through and making us surrender when it was possible and cheap. I hate the UEPF."