Set a thief to catch a thief.
—Gallic Proverb
Set a lawless non-governmental organization to destroy a lawless non-governmental organization.
—Patricio Carrera
"Computer, center on target and enhance scale."
At Robinson's command the image on his Kurosawa screen shifted, then changed, going from the western half of the continent of Uhuru and the eastern half of the Sea of Sind to a narrow view of Xamar Coast and, finally, to the little flotilla comprising the Dos Lindas task force. It was in real time; he could actually see the aircraft taking off and landing.
"From here we could toss a rock down and destroy their flagship, but . . . "
"But," Wallenstein interjected, "the FSC has made clear that any direct military action on the part of the UEPF on any target down below will be an instant casus belli. No matter the party in power, none have ever wavered from it. They'd be hounded from office if they did."
Robinson sneered, not at Wallenstein but at the memory of his predecessor, the High Admiral who had scorched two of the Federated States' cities.
"I wonder if he knew the trouble he would cause us."
Wallenstein shook her blonde head. "I doubt it. It's easy to forget how quickly an uncivilized and uncontrolled people can advance if they have good reason to."
"Which reason my predecessor certainly gave them. And all for nothing since they won that war anyway. The only difference was that there were twenty or thirty million fewer Yamatans to see the end. Oh, well, spilled milk and all. Besides, he paid with his life, after a fashion."
Robinson turned his attention back to the Kurosawa. "I can't attack them directly. I can; however, make sure they not able to attack anyone else."
Wallenstein made a quizzical sound.
"It's simple, Marguerite. That contemptible little fleet can only affect the sea it occupies and about three or four hundred kilometers around it. Even that three or four hundred, though, is constrained by the speed of their aircraft and the chance of being in the right place at the right time. We get to choose whether those times and places will be right."
Robinson's voice changed to the neutral, uninflected tone used for talking to machines. "Computer, connect me with Abdulahi."
To the High Admiral's mild surprise, the answer came almost immediately. A melodious voice said, "Yes, High Admiral; Abdulahi here."
There's a shock; one of those down below actually listening to instructions.
Whatever his thoughts, Robinson confined his words to business. "Friend, that new threat I told you of has taken up station off your coastline."
"I see that, High Admiral," the Xamari answered. Robinson had transferred to him, as he had to Mustafa, the means of tapping directly into UEPF surveillance and sensing systems. "We can easily avoid them."
"Excellent, Abdulahi."
"This is superb, Commodore," Fosa complimented Kurita on the sushi the Yamatan had prepared from fish he'd caught himself the night before.
Kurita smiled, slightly, and nodded, acknowledging the compliment.
Fosa looked around at the Yamatan's quarters. In warship terms they were the height of luxury, measuring all of about three hundred and twenty square feet. Even Fosa's own were not quite so large. They were furnished well, as warships measured such things. Kurita had hung on one wall a portrait of the emperor he had served ably and bravely in the Great Global War. That emperor had long since joined his divine ancestors. His memory retained Kurita's loyalty, even so.
It wasn't the size or the luxury, nor even the portrait of the emperor and what it said of Kurita, the samurai, that impressed Fosa. It was the unbelievable cleanliness of the quarters.
He'd asked of his senior naval centurion how the place had gotten so completely sanitized. The centurion had shrugged, "Got no clue, Cap'n. He never asked us for anything but a mop and bucket, sponges and some rags. Oh, and liquid cleaner."
Fosa was left with the only possible solution; that Kurita, at nearly a century old, had gotten down on his ancient hands and knees and made quarters fit for his emperor's portrait. That was rather humbling.
"I saved it from my battlecruiser," Kurita had said in explanation. "When we had to . . . surrender"—and the word came out only with painful difficulty—"I took it last, as I was leaving. Every day I apologize to it that I and my comrades failed in our duty. Perhaps someday the emperor shall forgive us."
Which helped convince Fosa, not that he needed much convincing, that the Yamatans were not just odd, but admirably odd.
"How goes the hunt?" Kurita asked.
"Not well," the captain said. "Admittedly we've only been on station
two weeks but . . . "
"But given the frequency of reported piratical attacks near this section of the coast a week should have seen at least two," the commodore supplied.
Fosa nodded. "Yes, but there's been nothing. Attacks north of us, yes. Attacks south of us, yes. Nothing here."
The Yamatan quoted, "All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away, that you are near. Offer the enemy a bait to lure him, feign disorder and strike him. When he concentrates, prepare against him."
"Musashi?" the Balboan asked. "The Book of Five Rings?"
Kurita shook his grey head. "Sun Tzu."
"Do you think someone is reporting on our positions and dispositions, Commodore?"
"Unquestionably," Kurita answered. "The only real question is who."
"Not the Federated States Navy," Fosa said. "Even if the Legion is in bad grace with their government their armed forces are still strong friends."
"I agree," the Yamatan said. "That leaves the Tauran Union, the Volgans, the Zhong, and the UEPF. In any case, it hardly matters who, for our purposes. What matters is the fact that that someone, to all appearances, is reporting on us."
"I wonder if the FSN can shed any light," the Yamatan wondered. "After all, they're rather . . . oh . . . . capable."
The twin-engined Cricket B came down at an angle that made the deck crew blanch. It didn't roll but hit, bounced once and then again, then came to an almost unbelievable stop.
"It ain't natural," pronounced one of the deck crew. His purple overalls marked him as a "grape," or fuel handler.
An officer from the bridge crew was on hand, detailed to escort Fosa and his small party down to the captain's port cabin. The party didn't include Kurita.
"I do not hate them, Captain-san," the Yamatan had explained, "but it would be . . . awkward, even so. My family was in Motonari, you see." Motonari was one of the two cities in Yamato atomic bombed by the FSC.
Being led through the carrier's innards was a less intimidating exercise for
Fosa than had been the approach that showed how completely it dwarfed his own command. One hundred thousand tons and more. God, what a ship.
The passageways seemed more to a human scale to Fosa, and then he came to the hangar deck.
I could almost fit Dos Lindas down in it, he thought in awe and wonder. He did some measurement by eye. No, I could fit Dos Lindas into it, if we ripped off both flight decks. Then he consoled himself with the thought, It's not the size of the ship in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the ship. That, and the rules of engagement.
The rest of the journey afoot was uneventful, but informative. Twice Fosa stopped to ask his escort officer questions about the ship's operation. Both times he made a mental note to at least consider changing SOP on the Dos Lindas.
The captain met him warmly by his port cabin's hatch. Leading him into the quarters, somewhat larger than Fosa's and Kurita's combined, the Ironside's captain made the introductions, the important one of which was to the admiral.
Fosa was surprised to see a bottle of rum sitting on the captain's table. "I thought all FSS ships were dry," he said.
The admiral shrugged. "Yes and no. The chaplain is allowed sacramental alcohol, and the ship's medical staff keeps medicinal brandy. In our case, the chaplain believes in having sacramental bourbon and scotch, rum and cognac, along with the wine. That particular bottle was being held as medicinal rum until it could be properly blessed."
"I see. How . . . " Fosa wanted to say "morally ingenious" but didn't know how far his welcome stayed. He let it go.
"We can be morally ingenious," the admiral said.
Lunch and small talk followed. It was a decent meal, but no better than what was served aboard Dos Lindas, and perhaps not as good. Fosa made a point of inviting both the captain and the admiral, as well as the other two officers present, signals and operations, to come aboard his own ship at their earliest convenience.
"Regretfully, Legate Fosa, we cannot," the admiral answered for all. "If we did, it would be lending official FSC sanction to what we suspect—to be honest, what we hope—is your mission and your rules of engagement. That, our government and the . . . people . . . in charge would never tolerate."
"I understand," Fosa agreed. "Perhaps in some future time, some happier time for your service."
Ironside's skipper said, "The admiral meant what he said, Legate. We sincerely hope you will be able to do what we are expressly forbidden from doing, which is to say, we hope you can do even the slightest good." The captain pushed a folder over to Fosa. "Take a look at that."
Fosa opened the file and saw that it contained a couple of dozen eight-by-ten glossies and a couple of printed sheets of paper. When he looked carefully at the first photo he said, "My God . . . "
The admiral answered, "Our God had nothing to do with it."
The photos were of the massacre, the butchery, of the crew of the Estrella de Castilla.
Fosa shuffled through the photos as quickly as he could. When he came to the first printed sheet he began to read. Halfway through the rules of engagement he exclaimed, "How in the hell can they expect you to do anything under this nonsense?"
"They don't expect us to do anything, Legate," The admiral explained. "They expect us to make the appearance of doing something. Don't you have progressives at home? Appearances matter a lot more to them than actually doing anything."
Fosa took from his white uniform blouse a folded piece of paper of his own. "My commander gave me full latitude to write my own ROE. This is ours."
The admiral scanned quickly, then passed the paper on to his subordinate.
"Admirably direct," was the admiral's sole comment.
"Admirably traditional," said the signals chief when the paper reached him.
"Legate," the captain asked, "what does your fleet consist of?"
Fosa laid out the composition of the fleet, omitting only the precise nature of the recreation ship, dubbed "Fosa's Floating Fornication Frigate" by all the crews of his task force. As he spoke, the ops officer began jotting onto a notepad.
"So you have no long-range strategic recon," observed the ops officer for the carrier battle group. "We can make up that lack."
"It would help," Fosa agreed. "But . . . can you?"
"Officially no," the admiral said. "Unofficially, I think we can provide that and quite a bit more. But it will all have to be under the table."
"Under the table would be fine. But I think I am under a looking glass. Someone is telling the Xamaris where my ships and planes are at any given time. Nothing else can explain how they've been so successful at avoiding us. It can't be all bad luck."
"It isn't. I can't tell you how I know; but I can tell you that I do know that the UEPF is sending data to someone inside Xamar. And it's not their ambassador because they, like everyone else, pulled their embassy out of Xamar years ago, when the place collapsed."
"The UEPF!? Damn. Then I haven't a prayer of doing any good."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," the ops officer disagreed. "Tell me; can you put those two patrol boats of yours back aboard their tender . . . mmmm, maybe preferably just before a serious storm?"
"Sure," Fosa shrugged. "But why?"
"Because if you can re-embark them aboard your ship, and get your ship close to the Ironsides, you can conceivably unload them and hide them under our flight deck. The UEPF may lose track of them, for a while, at least."
"Okay," Fosa said, "I can see that working once. But after that?"
"After that, something else." It was the ops officer's turn to shrug. "Give us a little time."
"All warfare is based on deception," Fosa said and laughed at himself slightly.
"Clausewitz?" asked the admiral.
"No, sir, Sun Tzu. My . . . well, you might call him my supercargo, Commodore Kurita, quoted it to me just days ago."
"Tadeo Kurita?" the admiral asked.
"Yes, sir, that's him."
The admiral whistled. "He's still alive? Tough old bird. My father told me about Kurita, about him leading what was left of Yamato's Second Fleet in breaking free and running for home after they lost at the Battle of Kuantan. The old man said he'd never seen such seamanship or such guts."
"I think that would pretty much describe Commodore Kurita, Admiral."
An airship passed by gracefully overhead, bearing tourists who wanted to view the sacred cherry orchards from the vantage point of the sky. The cherry trees, or sakura, were in bloom, though a few petals were beginning to fall.
"Kurita advises patience," said Saito to Yamagata, as they sat below, under the cherry trees. "He says the pirates are being very coy and making good use of the considerable aid they receive from on high. He further advises that the ronin fleet will, in his opinion, produce good results with time."
Yamagata said nothing for a while, his attention seemingly fixed on a cherry blossom making its leap into immortality. It fluttered and spun to the ground, joining there the very few which had chosen to die young, in the full bloom of glorious youth.
During the migration from the home islands of Old Earth, it had been impossible to carry fully grown trees. Instead, the settlers had taken along saplings, a few, seeds and some cuttings, which they had carefully nursed into growth. Even then, many—most—had not survived. These trees were descendants of those who had and were, like the Yamatans themselves, of remarkably hardy and tough stock. Raising the trees had been as high a priority as the growing of food, for without these reminders of both the beauty of life, as well as its ephemeral nature, the settlers had feared losing some part of their essence.
With a sigh, Yamagata said, "The patience of the program's backers is not unlimited. We must have results, and soon. We lost another ship's crew yesterday. The Federated States Navy stood by and allowed it to happen because the pirates threatened to kill the crew if they were interfered with."
"His Majesty still will not allow our fleet to intervene," Saito said.
Yamagata grunted. "It is the curse of those who allow others to be their primary line of defense. It is the curse of being insufficiently self reliant."
"It is the curse of losing a war," Saito corrected. "Still, let us trust Kurita's judgment. It is not his fault we lost, last time. He will not permit us to lose again."
Yamagata sighed. "I am still not sure it was wise to tell Kurita about our special source of information. We haven't even told our own defense forces or the FSC."
Saito clapped his colleague on the shoulder. "Do not fear, friend. He will not divulge anything that cannot be disguised as coming from somewhere else."
A kimono-wearing and tabi- and tatami-shod Kurita stared down at the display showing the deployment of the ships of the task force around the carrier. His normal serene smile was missing, which caused Fosa to infer that something with his deployment was drastically wrong. He asked as much.
Kurita answered. "Yes, I am concerned, Captain-san. No matter that the Ironsides Task Force may warn you of the approach of danger. I assure you that before they can act, they will have to get permission from the FSN or even the Executive Mansion in Hamilton. By the time they are allowed to, it will probably be too late."
"You are thinking of Farsian submarines, Commodore?" Fosa asked.
The Yamatan nodded, then said, "I would not expect them soon, certainly not until we begin to show some success. But I would expect them. It is better to be ready, always. And we must also consider the possibility of suicidal dive bombers."
Fosa had considered that threat when outfitting the ship. Indeed, the mix of air defense guns and missiles aboard the Dos Lindas was very powerful for that reason; that, and the possibility of suicidal boats. The task force had more light cannon and heavy machine gun power than the entire Ironsides Battle Group.
His own experience of naval warfare was . . . well, actually it wasn't. The Commodore, on the other hand, had more real experience than the entire crew of the Ironsides and all its escorts, combined. He'd listen to Kurita's advice, he decided.
"Order the escorts to increase dispersion from the carrier to twelve miles," Fosa told the radio watch.
Kurita's serene smile returned.
"How goes it with shipping aboard the patrol boats?" he asked.
"They're already on the deck of the transport," Fosa answered.
"It's going to be a big surprise, you know, when the Xamaris attempt to take another boat under the nose of the FSN and discover that there's someone else there not so constrained by progressive rules of engagement." Kurita gave a slight chuckle then glanced over at the meteorology chart.
"Yes, Commodore, the storm is coming along nicely. By this time
tomorrow we will be fighting it. The cargo ship carrying the patrol boats, the BdL Harpy Eagle, will broadcast that it is in trouble, but we shall have our own troubles. The mighty FSS Ironsides will ride to the rescue. When the storm clears, the Harpy will be nicely alongside the Ironsides with the boats hauled up and undercover of the flight deck. And then we wait, but not for long."
"Indeed, hopefully not for long, Captain-san. My . . . principles are growing anxious for some indicator of success."
The next day's morning sky was red and angry. By noon it had turned black and forbidding. By nightfall the smaller ships of the flotilla were fighting for their lives amidst thirty and forty foot waves that threatened to swamp them with each buffeting. Partly from the wind and waves, and partly to avoid ramming each other in the murk, the ships scattered.
Almost, almost, the Harpy was not pretending when it made the call to Ironsides that she was in trouble. By the time the FSN carrier arrived the Harpy's hull and decks were groaning under the strain, half the crew puking down below decks and most of the rest puking above.
Ironsides took a position into the wind from the smaller cargo ship, placing it in the lee and protecting it to some extent from the buffeting. Harpy's captain went below to bid farewell to the crews of the patrol boats. He knew it might be a last farewell.
Chief Warrant Officer Pedraz, commanding the Santisima Trinidad, looked out at the white-tipped, green-hued hell separating the two ships and thought, not for the first time, Mama never told me there'd be days like these.
If he hadn't been so brown Pedraz would have been white. Even as it was, he had turned relatively pale with fear. His kind of boat was never intended to sail in this kind of weather. And then . . . but he really didn't want to think about the risks of getting away from the Harpy and close to the Ironsides. Most especially did he not want to think about hooking up to and being hauled up by the huge supercarrier.
The Harpy's captain walked up and placed a hand on Pedraz's broad shoulder. "Are you ready, Chief?"
Exhaling, Pedraz nodded that he was.
"No time like the present then. Take advantage of the protection Ironsides is offering while we can."
Gulping, Pedraz nodded and shouted for the deck crew to raise and lower the Trinidad over the side. As the lines began to tighten, Pedraz scrambled aboard.
The warrant and the captain had gone over this at length. If there were no crew aboard, it would be long minutes before the Trinidad could get away from the potentially crushing hull of the Harpy. If the crew was aboard and something went wrong with the lowering, they might all be killed. Since mission had priority . . .
The wind dropped off radically as soon as the boat was sheltered in the Harpy's lee. Still, Harpy rocked abruptly, causing Trinidad's crew, more than once, to have to use long poles to dampen the inevitable thumping against the side of the hull. This problem actually got worse as the patrol boat moved closer to the sea's surface and the swings widened.
When we felt the water take control of his boat's hull, Pedraz looked up to signal the boatswain to cut the Trinidad loose.
No luck; the spray was so thick neither could see the other. Worse, radio was right out lest the traffic be intercepted by those watching from above. Fuck!
Up above, on deck aboard the Harpy, the boatswain cursed as he realized he'd lost sight of the Trinidad, even though it was scant yards below. The lines that led down to the boat went alternately tight and slack with the rocking of the larger ship.
In the water . . . but just that, thought the boatswain. That would have been fine except that the rocking of the ship wasn't a steady side to side motion. Instead, the ship was more or less corkscrewing, with a port lean and bow high followed by a starboard lean and bow low.
Okay . . . this is manageable. He ordered the men manning the davits to let the boat down another five feet. After that, while the lines still went almost tight in a not fully predictable sequence, there was enough slack for the boatswain to risk cutting the Trinidad loose.
Mission had priority. Without worrying about whether the Trinidad was safely on its way the boatswain led his small crew to the next set of davits to raise and lower over the side the other boat, the BdL San Agustin.
It was a few moments before Pedraz realized the ship had cut him loose. He had just enough time to silently thank the bosun before ordering crew to action stations. The motors started without trouble, thankfully, but the sharp waves—exacerbated by the nearness of the Harpy—dropped the troughs below the props at odd intervals. The meant the boat could only pull away from the rocking and veering—hence dangerous—ship in spurts as the props bit.
The driving got better but the waves got worse at the boat moved further from the ship. Once it was completely out of the ship's lee the waves became an awesome rollercoaster that made the ship's previous, nausea-inducing buffeting seem like love taps in comparison.
Gunning the engines to top a white-foamed crest, Pedraz thought, Show me a sailor who's not afraid of the sea and I'll show you an informal burial at sea waiting to happen.
The Trinidad's bow cleared the crest and hung suspended over the water. With resistance lessened and the engine at full throttle, the boat lurched forward until reaching the tipping point and . . .
"Yeehawww!" Pedraz exulted, now that he was free of the fear of being crushed by the Harpy. The bow plunged down like a rollercoaster car on steroids, the rollercoaster having plainly been designed by a lunatic on LSD.
The waves were steep and the troughs were deep, but the wavelength was long and the angle at least survivable. The boat continued its plunge for the bottom, the crew hanging on for dear life.
A seeming wall of water arose before Pedraz's eyes. He knew it was
probably half illusion—a result of the Trinidad's angle as it rode down the wave. Even so, his heart skipped a beat. He cut back on the throttle lest the boat's bow go straight into the water below.
Then he gunned it again as the boat reached the base of the trough and began the long climb up and over the next wave. No problem; Pedraz had the storm's measure and timing now, and his crew had faith in their little boat's skipper. With a lighter heart, he forced his way closer to the dimly sensed presence—given the thick, blinding spray one could hardly see it as more than a dim presence—of the Ironsides.
Pedraz had to admit it, the FSN squids had made himself and the other seventeen men of the crew pretty damned comfortable over the last several days. He'd missed his rum ration, of course, and the food wasn't really as close to home cooking as was served aboard legionary ships and boats. Still, the quarters were comparatively spacious and the mattress, oh, much better.
The break was over. A remotely piloted vehicle from one of the frigates escorting the Ironsides had spotted what appeared to a medium sized group of Xamari pirates collecting and boarding three smallish boats for an excursion.
Pedraz had watched in real time in CIC as the pirates gathered.
"Do they always act like that?" he'd asked of a Spanish speaking sailor manning a visual screen
"Generally, yeah, Chief. They dance around, shooting their rifles into the air to psyche themselves up. Then they get all the old men, women and kids cheering. Then they board and launch. By the time we are allowed to do anything it's always too late. See, we can't do a damned thing until they've actually committed piracy on the high seas. By then . . . by the time we can act; they'll have grabbed the crew as hostages and we're stymied."
After watching the pirates' boats for a while, Pedraz commented, "Slower than shit, aren't they?"
"Yeah," the other sailor agreed. "And that's how you're going to get them, this once anyway."
Pedraz went back to watching the slow progress of the pirates' vessels. He estimated them as doing no better than ten knots. A few quick mental calculations told him they needed to get at least eight miles offshore for him to have a decent chance of both intercepting them before they reached the boat and not warning them in time for them to turn around.
After what seemed to Pedraz to be a very long time watching, Ironsides' operations officer spoke up, in English. "Tell Mr. Pedraz to man his boat and to have the Agustin's crew man as well. We'll lower them to the water and then signal when it's time to leave."
The pirate chief's smile grew into a chuckle as he watched three of his boats closing on the lone freighter. He watched on a laptop's screen, the laptop hooked into the receiver provided to him by those space-faring infidels overhead.
Such a useful toy it was, that receiver. It was not only capable of giving him the locations of any naval vessels that might interfere with his operations, it gave him the precise locations of potential targets and identified—though this was trickier—ships belongs to companies that were already paying the Jizya. It would never do to seize those who paid to avoid attack unless, of course, those payments were late.
Abdulahi panned back, to embrace a broader ocean area. At this scale he could make out the two infidel carrier groups, which he thought of as "the greater and the lesser infidels," both the distinctive flat tops and their smaller escorts. He could close the view in, also, to watch the take offs and landings of their aircraft. That, however, usually cut off the view of the escorts unless they happened to be very close to the carriers.
Recentering the cursor on the waters between the target freighter and where his own boats had to be, Abdulahi clicked to lower the scale to where he could just make out his vessels. The two carrier groups disappeared off to the sides of the screen.
One might have thought that the pirate lord would have paid more attention to the threat to his operations, rather than the targets. But there was emotional satisfaction in watching the targets taken. The threat? Well, he knew the rules of engagement as well as the captains and crews of the warships. The FSN wasn't allowed to be a threat until it was too late and the others, the infidel mercenaries, were not nearly as capable and were, moreover, being watched by the space-faring infidels who would warn him if the mercenaries got into a position to interfere.
While Abdulahi concentrated on the target, Wallenstein—from Robinson's desk—focused on the threat. She, unlike the Xamari, was not restricted to a laptop screen. Instead, she had the latest in Terra Novan video technology, and something every bit as good as anything produced at home, the High Admiral's two-and-a-half meter Kurosawa. With that, and the processing power inherent in the ship's computer, she was able to track both war fleets as well as the pirates and their targets. Symbols stood in for full views of the ships.
That is to say, she was able to track everything but didn't see the need. Once she'd identified that the mercenary fleet was in no position to interfere with the pirates with their own ships, she focused in on the carrier to ensure it wasn't launching aircraft at the pirates. That kept her rapt attention. The only thing that had bothered her was the disappearance of the two patrol boats from the ocean surface. This had not troubled her long, however, for she had found them sitting under tarps atop the ship the screen identified as the Harpy Eagle.
The boatswain spared a glance overhead, silently praying that his camouflage job would do.
The hardest part had been assembling the frames in the midst of the storm, with the wind roaring and the waves sometimes washing over the deck. It had actually been fairly easy to construct the frames out of cheap lumber down in the cargo hold. Taking them apart and stowing them in an open space within the deck level of the superstructure hadn't been hard. But getting the frames out and built when no man could hear a word, or sometimes even see another for all the spray in the air? The boatswain rather hoped they'd not have to try this trick again and certainly not in a storm like the last one.
Safe enough bet, though, he thought. Like most tricks, it's unlikely to work more than once.
Still silently, the boatswain said a small prayer for the success of the Trinidad and the Agustin.
The sea state, so long after the storm, was low and the bow rode high, skipping over the waves, propelled by twin screws driven by sixty-two hundred horsepower. Pedraz stood at the helm, giving light taps to the wheel to cut expertly across the waves. His body bounced in time with the beating of the hull.
Up front, on the 40mm, stood Seamen Clavell and Guptillo. The pair wore Legion standard (plus) body armor and helmets, though Clavell's helmet covered a set of headphones that were hooked into the boat's intercom. The "plus" came in the form of a silk and liquid metal apron that extended over the crotch, and liquid metal greaves covering chins and knees. There wasn't a hell of a lot of cover on a patrol boat.
A few paces behind the gun crouched two more of the crew, likewise accoutered. One of these carried a clip of five 40mm shells and was close to the forty. The other had the same but was closer to the magazine well from which more shells would be passed upward.
Pedraz looked to port where Seaman Leonardo Panfillo clutched the spade grips of a .41-caliber heavy machine gun. The shiny brass belt draped down before disappearing into a gray painted ammunition can. Pedraz looked for signs of worry in Panfillo's face. There weren't any—and perhaps this made perfect sense after having braved the hair-raising transfer during the storm—but only a look of grim determination.
Satisfied with Panfillo, the skipper glanced to starboard where Estèban Santiona manned the .41 on that side. He was heavyset, was Santiona, but the weight helped him control the vicious vibration of the HMG. Something, at least, made the sailor such a bloody good gunner; in informal competition with the gunners of the other boats in the tercio Santiona had, frankly, kicked the rest of the patrol boat maniple's posteriors.
"Estèban," Pedraz shouted over the roar of the engines and the pounding of the water. "Leave a couple of the bastards for the rest to practice on, got it?"
"Si, mi skipper," the rotund gunner answered without looking up.
The Ironsides and Pedraz had worked out a simple method by which the supercarrier could vector in the patrol boat to the targets without being too obvious about it. The method was that the Trinidad and its sister ship were assigned a flight number, Blue Jay Four Three. The Ironsides' radio room broadcast vectors under that flight number. Pedraz heard and adjusted his course while Agustin's skipper merely followed Pedraz. The carrier couched the directions in terms of naval aviation but had schooled Pedraz to ignore the parts irrelevant to him. They'd also told him not to acknowledge the directions. For further deception, Ironsides had put up an aircraft which would follow those directions.
One never could tell who might be listening.
The computer on Robinson's desk spoke. "Captain Wallenstein, I have discovered an anomaly."
"Go," ordered the captain, simply.
"There are two small surface craft in the area of focused observation that should not be there. Moreover, when the largest of the vessels in the area broadcasts certain directions, an aircraft responds by taking those directions, but so do the surface craft."
Crap! "Show me."
The Kurosawa immediately panned in to show the Trinidad and the Agustin skimming the waves, leaving broad V-shaped wakes behind them. Resolution was just fine enough for Wallenstein to make out darkened blobs on deck that had to be men.
She hit an intercom button. "Admiral? Marguerite. Come back to your quarters immediately."
Abdulahi could read a chart as well as the next pirate. When Robinson called to warn him of the position, direction and speed of the patrol boats bearing down on his men he knew immediately that they were on an intercept course. He tried frantically to call the leader of the band on the radio but, maintenance being what it was among the Xamari . . .
It took longer than a radio would have, had it been working, to get through via cell phone. It was pretty amusing, really, that Xamar couldn't have police, fire or medical services, that courts were right out, and that transportation was catch as catch can. Even so, somehow they managed to keep cell phone service up and running. Some called it "connectedness."
What a silly word, Abdulahi thought, while waiting for his son to answer the phone. It's touted as the route to civilizing the more barbaric parts of Terra Nova, whatever "civilizing" may mean. In practice, it means that a slave dealer in Pashtia can know whether the price for fourteen year old female virgins or fat little boys is higher in Kashmir or among the brothels of Taurus. It means the drug smuggler can easily learn both where he might obtain the best price for his merchandise and where the risk of arrest is least. It means money laundered from crime and corruption. It means corruption extending its influence to yet new places from its more familiar paths.
"Connectedness" means that, when you mixed a gallon of cat piss with a gallon of goat's milk, the mix tastes a lot more of the former than of the latter.
When we in Xamar were still a real country then being connected to the rest of the globe would probably have been a good thing, for us and for everyone else. As is? It makes everything worse. I couldn't be the pirate I am, nor what used to be my country the mess that it is, without our "connectedness." And I'm not sure it wasn't our "connectedness" to the rest of the globe that ruined us.
"Lungile" he was called by his Bantu-speaking concubine mother, herself taken as a girl in a slave raid by Abdulahi. "The good one," it meant, and to his mother he had indeed been a good son. As son of Abdulahi, Lungile was the leader of the three pirate vessels. Nineteen-years-old and closing to action, Lungile didn't hear the ringing at first over the straining, gasping sounds of his boat's overused and undermaintained diesels. On approximately the fourteenth ring he noticed it and answered, "Yes, Father?"
"My son, it's a trap. How far are you from the target?"
"Perhaps forty minutes, Father." The boy's voice sounded calm enough. "What it is this time? More of their silly sound machines? We can face those. What to fear from a demon's wail?"
"Ai, forty minutes? Then it is too late for you to take hostages. And it may be too late also for you to turn around and make it back to shore. Lungile, my son, it is not the sound machines. There are two small warships almost upon you. Our friends say they are fast, partly armored and well armed with cannon and machine guns. They say the boats are from the infidel mercenaries."
It was still an even and calm voice that answered, "Then we will run, Father, and if we cannot escape we will sell our lives as dearly as possible."
The boy's mother had never been a favorite, but Abdulahi had always had a soft spot in his heart for the boy, himself. So brave and forthright he was, so full of fire was his heart. I will miss this boy. I will . . .
"My son . . . " and the father's voice choked with emotion and pain, " . . . if you must die then, yes, die like men."
"Il hamdu l'illah, Father; we shall if we must."
In CIC, aboard the Ironsides, a sailor huddled over a screen and watching a real time image from a military satellite. He whispered a curse and announced, "They're turning for home."
The captain looked at the ops board and answered, "They're probably too slow to escape but they might get in close enough to swim for it."
"Wouldn't matter, Cap'n," his ops officer said. "If those legion boys catch 'em in the water they'll kill 'em anyway."
"War crime?"
"No, sir. In this one type of case the international law enforcement model makes perfect sense. It really is a law enforcement problem and the law says, 'kill 'em,' skipper. Fleeing Felon Rule, it's called."
The captain nodded. "Call the Trinidad. Give them the code word for we've been made and give them the pirate's new course."
"A stern chase is a long chase," Lungile whispered to himself. "But when one boat is four times faster it isn't long enough."
His own boat had begun life as a sport fisher, back when Xamar had actually had tourism. As such, it had a flying bridge and a climbable mast above it. Lungile stood atop that mast, gripping the ladder with one hand and surplus Volgan binoculars with the other. Through the binoculars, pressed tight to his eyes, Lungile searched for his pursuers. He'd caught glimpses of them, each one closer, when waves happened to have lifted both boats simultaneously. The mercenaries boats looked . . . Lungile searched for the right word . . .
"Like sharks," he decided, "like predators."
Lungile turned away from his pursuers toward the distant beckoning coast and safety. There was no real chance of making it unless he could somehow drive off both of the enemy craft. But to fight them . . .
"Hard left," he shouted to the helmsman.
Lower, with no flying bridge, Pedraz saw the smoke from the badly-maintained diesels before ever he saw the smoke's source.
"XO, take the wheel," he ordered, backing off and pulling out a set of binocular that hung hard by.
Immediately his assistant, Cristobal Francés, flashed black eyes and answered, "Aye, aye, skipper." Francés was huge, towering above his captain. His long arms reached out as he right-stepped to take the wheel seamlessly.
Pedraz raised the binos to his eyes, swept the horizon until catching sight of the smoke, and looked down from that. The smoke grew thicker but the boat was not visible. He waited, keeping the glasses fixed at the lowest part of the column of smoke . . . he waited . . . he waited . . . he . . .
"They've decided to risk a fight," he announced. "Radio! Get on the horn to Agustin and Dos Lindas. Tell them the pirates are ready and waiting, arms in their hands. Agustin is to stand off at .41-caliber range and engage the two to starboard. We will take on the port pirate ourselves before going to join Agustin."
"XO?"
"Aye, skipper."
"I want to go straight in to about six hundred meters then cut sharp a-port."
"Roger, skipper."
Pedraz flicked a switch on the headphones he wore, in common with the 40mm crew, uncomfortably under his helmet. "Main gun?"
"Aye, skipper," Clavell answered.
"You may open fire on your own hook when the target is visible and in effective range. Forward port and starboard Heavy Machine Guns?"
"Port here, Chief," answered Panfillo.
"Esteban here, skipper."
"I don't expect you to actually hit anything until we're within two thousand, so hold you fire until then."
"Aye, aye, skipper."
"Aye."
The rocket grenade launchers, or RGLs, were the older version. They could reach out to eleven hundred meters; the rocket motor would drive them that far, but the integral fuse self-detonated them at just over nine hundred. They could hit a target the size of a tank at three hundred, but would generally miss at four. A larger target, something like the eighty-two-foot length of a patrol boat like the Trinidad or Agustin, they could, at least conceivably, hit at something like six hundred.
It didn't really matter that the RGLs weren't very likely to hit. They were the best the pirates had and so they had to try.
Lungile pushed and cuffed his RGL gunners, four of them to the forward
deck where the backblast wouldn't endanger the ship or the other crewmen, the other two to the rear. He ordered the two to the stern to load fragmentation rounds. These were forty-millimeter, rather than seventy, and might, he thought, extend the practical range of the shells as the fragments reached forward in a cone after the shells exploded. Other crew, armed with rifles and light machine guns, he put to lining the gunwales on the side he was presenting to the enemy.
They'll never close to where we have a decent chance of a hit, thought Lungile. Best to try for the longer shots, then. At the speed they look like they're making, that would be . . . mmm . . . maybe two minutes. We'll wait . . .
Then Lungile saw the flashing flame and the puffs of smoke from the forward deck of the infidel boat.
The 40mm, L56 gun was not so much a lightweight as a miniature heavyweight. In the other version, the longer and higher velocity version purchased for the Dos Lindas, it fired up to four-hundred-and-fifty, eight-hundred-and-seventy gram shells per minute from a one hundred and one round magazine. On the patrol boats the Legion had mounted the lighter weight, simpler, slower firing, and frankly obsolescent, land version. This had only a forty-three round magazine but, on the plus side, the weight and recoil were not enough to capsize the boat. The crews thought this was a pretty good tradeoff.
Guptillo's job wasn't to keep the magazine filled under full rate of fire; that was impossible. Rather, he and the other feeders were tasked to reload the fixed magazine after it went dry. This took considerably longer than emptying the thing did.
It could have, perhaps even should have, been a much more sophisticated system then it was. Ideally, given the rise and fall of the bow, the gun would have had an integral laser range finder and pseudo-stabilization system that allowed it to fire only when the elevation matched the sight. It didn't have anything like that. Instead, it had Clavell and the finest fire control computer in the known galaxy, the human brain.
The problem with using the brain as one's fire control computer, however, is that it is an absolute bitch to program.
With the first salvo of infidel shells, Lungile knew he had a chance, if not a great one. He thought he saw four short-falling shells impact and explode on the ocean's surface. At least one shell, he knew for a fact, overshot the boat. He knew it because it went right through one of the crew standing above the open-backed wheelhouse, waving his rifle around and shouting imprecations at the enemy. Apparently the pirate's body didn't create enough resistance to detonate the shell. This helped, though the body practically exploded anyway, showering the crew with blood, bone and meat, and sending one other pirate down with a chunk of rib buried in his throat.
And still the enemy boat was too far away to engage.
"Wait for the order, you bastards," Lungile shouted at his gunners.
"Clavell, you bastard, you missed!" Pedraz shouted into the intercom.
"Sorry, skipper. But hey, I bracketed it. Did you see that fucker go poof?"
Pedraz simply grunted, then said, "Hold fire until we're closer; twelve hundred meters should do."
"Aye, skipper."
"And Santiona and Panfillo, you're going to have the same problem Clavell did, the rise and fall of the bow. Hold fire till we get to eight hundred."
Lungile's eyeball was no better calibrated than Clavell's. His weapons were considerably less sophisticated. Yet, as his mother was fond of saying, "The lion runs for a meal; the antelope for his life."
He couldn't run, of course, the pitiful ancient engines of his craft would get him nowhere when pursued by such swift opponents. Unlike the antelope, however, he had fangs.
"Fire!"
Pedraz saw the flash of flame and the balls of smoke erupt from the pirate ship at the same time Clavell opened fire again with the 40mm.
The forty is high velocity, but not that high. I wonder . . . FUCK!
"Incoming!" Pedraz screamed, loud enough to be heard over the engines even down in the galley, just as half a dozen much larger balls of flame and smoke appeared in the air between his boat and his chosen target.
Santiona, like the other side machine gunners, scrunched down over his .41 to take any fragments on his helmet and the shoulder-reinforced lorica body armor. This left his legs open and unprotected but for the greaves. The greaves, moreover, didn't quite cover his bulky legs. That, of course, was where he was hit.
He felt a sort of plucking in three or four places on his legs and thought little of it until he looked down and saw his uniform rapidly reddening. Santiona felt suddenly nauseous. Then the burning began, a result of the hot bits of metal lodged in his flesh.
Shouting, "Medic!" the wounded gunner released the spade grips and sat heavily to the deck, his hands pressing to staunch the flow of blood. As soon as his rear hit he remembered his duty and also shouted, "Replacement gunner!"
The medic hustled up from a spot at the rear of the deck from which he could normally keep his eyes on all the crew in action. He stopped at the hatchway just long enough to shout down to the engine room, "Replacement gunner on Number Two!" before dashing over to render aid to Santiona.
Lungile felt a momentary rush of joy mixed with relief when he saw the half dozen RGL warheads self-detonate and then one of his enemies fall to the deck. That rush was shortlived, as the apparently wounded man was replaced almost immediately and someone else—a medic, Lungile assumed—began tended the man on deck before dragging him off.
Another reason for the short duration of the pirate's joy was that the enemy boat veered sharply to Lungile's right, slowed to about twenty knots and opened fire again. This time, at that slow speed—still twice that of his own bucket—and with the range closed and the bow no longer doing the Samba with the sea, the 40mm proved deadly. Another five round burst lanced out. This time, three of the five shells found the bow of his boat. It half disintegrated in fire and metal shards mixed with smoldering wood splinters. A dozen men screamed in pain as splinter and shard found them.
One of the shells hit very near the waterline, near enough to it, in fact, to blast a hole large enough to let the sea come pouring in. The bow lowered and the boat slowed with the increased resistance. As it lowered, still more water gushed in.
Clavell switched his fire to single shot, traversing left to right and then back again, raking the gunwales. By this time he knew that his shipmate was hit. Clavell was in no mood for the niceties. His shells smashed in the wooden bulwark, knocking pirates down like ninepins. Especially did he concentrate on those who seemed most willing to fire; for them he would sometimes donate a second shell.
After about thirty rounds of 40mm, two .41-caliber heavy machine guns, one amidships and the other near the stern, kicked in. At that point Clavell felt free to concentrate on the stern and the engine compartment. Four shots and the thing was not only dead in the water and sinking, the parts still above water were beginning to burn. Pirates, such as still could, began dropping their weapons and jumping overboard. Many of those who could not rise to jump began to pray and scream as water rose or fire spread around them.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Pedraz ordered. "Cris, hard a starboard. Let's go help Agustin."
Lungile trod water fifty or sixty meters away from the ruin of his boat. His heart seethed with hate for the enemies that had killed his men, robbed him of his first command, and caused him to fail his father.
"I'll make you pay, infidel filth. I swear I will."
That would have to wait, however, for Lungile's next incarnation. Since the Salafis did not believe in reincarnation, it might have to wait forever. Lungile, struggling in the water, looked over to see an impossibly large shark's fin towering above the surface and veering towards him.
So much for oaths, the Xamari thought, sadly and hopelessly.
The shark slowly cruising a few feet below the water, and not very far from Lungile's scissoring legs, didn't really care about revenge or reincarnation. It did care about lunch and it did care about the invigorating aroma of blood in the water. Mostly it cared that lunch was, apparently, served.
I love Uhuran food, thought the carcharodon megalodon, as it slid over onto its side to take Lungile at the waist, slicing him crudely in two and filling the water with the invigorating scent of very fresh blood.
The immigrants had served their purpose. They had bought time for the populations to be regularized. They could go now. According to the papers, they should have gone ten years prior.
Spain and Italy were Islamic now, except for the Vatican in the latter. And the Vatican's independence was merely formal. The imposition of sharia law had allowed the central and important European powers, the core of the EU, to cast those southern Latin states out. Both sides were happy enough with that, though the dethroned Pope, residing in a dank dungeon beneath Saint Peter's while awaiting his ritual burning at the stake, was not.
Give the people in charge their due, though; this was not to be a racist pogrom. Former Moslems who had cast off their worn shackles and joined the secular humanist majority of Europe were welcome to stay. It was only these, these wretches still resident in the cramped and filthy banlieues of France, or the slums of England and Germany, who had to go.
Moslem Spain and Italy would not take any. They were poor enough and growing poorer still by the day. There was no room within either of them, or both together, for the forty or fifty million disenfranchised Moslems of the central powers. Switzerland, perhaps the premier military power of the Continent, had said, "Nein," and massed its troops on the borders.
That left only one outlet . . .
While French troops went to England, mostly via Calais, for the great clearing out, and English Guards regiments landed at Bremen before marching to surround the Moslem quarters of Berlin and Stuttgart and Frankfurt; German troops, a full corps of them, had rolled to Paris on a mission that the EU called, "Human Hygiene." It was believed that the troops—German, French, or British—would be as harsh as necessary only if they did not share a language with the bulk of the people they were to uproot. The Scandinavians and the Benelux had likewise exchanged troops for the same reasons.
Gendarmes waved—well, not all the French were always sorry to see the Germans roll into Paris, after all—as the grenadiers and pioneers of Second Panzer Division relieved them of responsibility for securing that portion of the electrified wire perimeter. While grenadiers climbed ladders, and others stood by their armored vehicles, the pioneers cut a portion of the wire fence for the rest to pour through.
From loudspeakers mounted atop heavy vehicles came the command, "Kanacken . . . RAUS."