A Pillar of Fire by Night

by Tom Kratman

  The problem was that there were no ports that mattered in the area. The seas here were too shallow for any ship of any size to even get close to shore. And there were, so reconnaissance insisted, something like half a million civilians in the area, who would have to be fed and cared for. Or the bleeding-heart fucking Taurans will cut off our financial support and air support which, again, leads to my balls dangling from Her Imperial Majesty’s earlobes.

  Zhong logistic needs were, on a per capita basis, much less than the needs of Tauran or Federated States forces, but they weren’t nonexistent, nor even trivial. Fuel, parts, food, ammunition, not necessarily in that order. Nine kilograms per man per day was what Wanyan’s chief logistician considered the minimum to be landed. That worked out to sixteen hundred tons per day, minimum.

  And even that’s only a guess and only for fuel, parts, ammunition, food, and a small increment for things like medical care. It also doesn’t account for the roughly seven hundred and fifty tons per day of humanitarian supplies for the civilians the Balboans thoughtfully left in the way, nearly none of them in a remotely convenient location.

  That was also not much more than mere occupation and survival. And it was also near the beaches over which the supplies would have to come. Inland, demand would go up. They would also go up if there were resistance or sabotage. And that also didn’t include the need to build up a substantial stockpile of ammunition in case the Balboans sortied one or more of their heavy formations at the Zhong lodgment.

  It would be much worse if Balboa couldn’t be expected to provide the water on its own. It would be worse if they couldn’t base a fair amount of the effort at sea, where supply wasn’t such a problem. Almost all medical facilities and higher headquarters were going to remain at sea, though the calculation for how much shipping space was best devoted to that, and how much needed to be freed up to continue to ferry in supplies was a complex one.

  And I’m not sure we calculated it all that well, either. How could we when we really can’t predict what the enemy will do?

  Thank the gods, thought Wanyan, that airships can take up some of the slack, even though I can’t risk them past the islands. Speaking—well, thinking—of which . . .

  Wanyan consulted his wristwatch and looked to sea. Pretty much on cue, a brace of heavy cargo lifting airships, on loan, with their crews, from the Tauran Union, appeared on the horizon. The Taurans had lent the Zhong four airships, to supplement Zhong National Airlines, but that really meant about five sorties every week, with Zhong and Tauran both, what with an eighteen-thousand-mile round trip, a speed of about seventy knots, and the need to load and unload, plus downtime for maintenance. The Tauran loaners weren’t of the best or most capable, either.

  We’ll be lucky if we can get a thousand tons a week in that way, maybe fifteen hundred if we don’t cube out before we weight out, though that would be unlikely. Helps, sure, but not decisively. Decisive is ships and ports. And the domestic cost of taking our airships out of service isn’t small or even, long-term sustainable.

  With three small moons, Hecate, Eris, and Bellona, tides were generally lesser on Terra Nova than on Old Earth. There were odd exceptions, as when all three moons were in position to pull together, but on a normal day this coast of Balboa experienced tides of nine to ten feet. With heavy silt covering the bedrock, out to a distance of nearly eighty kilometers, this made bringing a ship in to unload a very problematic issue. At high tide, for example, a standard Zhong replenishment ship of the 309 Class, coming from the west, would ground out about eight miles from the island.

  But there were a couple of oddities that worked in the Zhong’s favor. The eastern coast of Santa Catalina, for example, was actually quite deep for a few hundred meters eastward. Thus, a ship that could be gotten into it during high tide could stay there to unload, even during low tide, without risk of grounding. It would have to be turned around by something else; Wanyan’s staff was planning on cables and winches until some tugs could be ferried in. Moreover, because just outside of that trench in the sea bottom things returned to the more normal depth for this part of the world, the Zhong engineers believed they could ground two freighters, with their own integral cranes, and link them by a mix of floating bridge and barges that had been filled with rock and concrete and then sunk. Already there were pilings pounded in, to hold both bridge and barges in place and a set of anchored floating docks, as well.

  That was all well and good, but the real trick was still to get their cargo ships to the trench to be unloaded, that, and getting the freighters with their cranes in, in the first place.

  “The engineers report they’re ready for the first stretch, sir,” Wanyan’s aide reported. The aide, the new aide, the old one being food for the fishes, was a marine, selected from among the unwounded who had still never made it to shore on the Isla Real for lack of transports to get them there. Though a lieutenant colonel, the aide, Ma Chu, carried a radio on his back. The radio was in communication with the party at work out at sea.

  Letting his hand holding the hand mike drop, Ma Chu announced, “They say the tide will be fully in in a few minutes.”

  “They’ve accounted for every diver and all the slaves?” the admiral asked. Wanyan was perhaps ruthless, but no more, not a bit more, than the job required. When this was over he fully intended to release all the impressed workers and pay them standard Zhong rates for their pains. Not that that was overly generous.

  Best I can do, though.

  “They insist so, yes.”

  “Very well. Tell them to proceed.”

  Wanyan’s engineer’s trick was actually threefold.

  The first part was that, in fact, there was bedrock under the silt. They knew it because they’d drilled down to it. Moreover, though there were a few projections upward from the bedrock, there were only that few, and they could be blown.

  Secondly, silt could be removed explosively. At the moment there were explosive charges, hundreds of explosive charges, placed atop the bedrock sufficient to clear away the silt, over an area of forty-five meters—easily sufficient, if properly marked, for one-way nautical traffic—by eight hundred. The channel they intended to cut was oriented perpendicular to the tides, which could be expected to carry off silt suspended in the water before it could settle again.

  The third trick involved shipping containers, filled with rock, sitting atop barges at a safe distance from the underwater blasting area. The containers had their walls perforated to sink, but not so quickly that they couldn’t be guided into position.

  For a blasting project of this size, a simple “fire in the hole” just wouldn’t do. Instead, the Zhong began to sound sirens, not all that dissimilar really to the ones that announced air raids to the Balboan enemy. Everywhere people began to bolt for cover.

  “Sir?” asked the aide, meaning, Are we going to take shelter or what?

  “You go,” said the admiral. “This, I really want to see.”

  “If it’s all the same with you, sir . . .”

  “Then stay, son, and acquire a memory to tell your grandchildren about. This is going to—”

  The blast was like nothing ever in Wanyan’s experience. The sound wasn’t as much as he’d expected, but from placid seas, suddenly, the surface rose in a sort of boil, followed by a wall of water lurching essentially straight upward. The wall was clear above, but brown as mud below. Up it sailed, and up some more, before reaching apogee in a spray and then settling back with vast but reluctant majesty.

  “Hmmmm . . . I wonder if the messes won’t be serving fish tonight,” the admiral said aloud.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit, sir,” said Lieutenant Colonel Ma, in a tone still replete with wow.

  And, indeed, as soon as the water settled, small launches and rubber boats began to sortie, collecting up the blasted harvest. Among those lesser craft, tugs and landing craft began guiding in the barges to dump their loads, to seal off the edge of the trench just cut from a return of the silt.

>   Ma pointed his finger at something that had just popped to the surface. “Admiral, you know, it might not be just regular fish tonight.”

  “What?” the admiral asked, as he turned to follow Ma’s finger.

  There, out in the still roiling sea, bobbed a twenty-meter long megalodon.

  “Meg tastes like shit, Ma,” the admiral said. “Find the supply weasels and tell them that under no circumstances are my men, nor even the prisoners, to be fed megalodon. Yes, despite the poetic justice of it. Though, you know, it’s sad, too. They’re magnificent creatures, the Megs, much like the people we are here to subjugate or destroy.”

  Parilla Line, Balboa

  The fire from the previously unsuspected trench line was nothing short of awesome. It was, if anything, the more so for the discipline the enemy had shown, to hold their fire until the Haarlemer Commandos were out in full view. A dozen men were bowled over in an instant, while the rest dove for the sparse cover on the jungle floor, the sparser for what had probably been a deliberate and careful clearing of fields of fire.

  Somebody made a bad goddamned mistake, thought Sergeant Werner Verboom, heart doing the mamba as he slithered backwards, dragging his rifle behind him as he did. “It’s the rear of a fortified line,” they said. What bullshit. “There’ll be nothing there to stop you,” headquarters insisted. Horseshit. “Cakewalk,” they told us. My ass.

  He felt the solid thunk of one of those overpowered Balboan six-point-fives slam into his ruck, which was still perched on his back. Shit. Too close. Well . . . at least it didn’t feel like it hit my bottle of jenever. If they had, I’d have to start taking this personally rather than as an unfortunate professional matter.

  As soon as he sensed a change in the ground, a dropping of it, that had him more or less safely below the arc of enemy bullets—And, Jesus, isn’t that damned Zioni-Balboan rifle one fucking bullet hose? Or maybe a bullet firehose—Verboom halted, and began scanning for other retreating troops from Thirteenth Company. These he began ordering back into a line under the cover provided by the fold in the ground in which they found themselves. Then he took his entrenching tool, the infantryman’s standard “wretched little shovel,” and held it up to show it to the men he had with him.

  The message was clear: We’ve pulled back far enough; dig in.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “In the first assault on Vicksburg, Grant’s theory (when an enemy is disorganized an assault will overwhelm him) broke down, because he failed to realize that a mob of men entering an entrenched line is automatically reorganized by the actual trench they occupy. They are no longer a mob. In place they are a line of men, nearly as well organized, and far more securely protected, than when they were in line in the open field. There is no possibility of manoeuvre, their tactics are reduced to the very simplest form; for all the men have to do is to turn about, and open fire on the advancing attacker.”

  —J.F.C. Fuller, The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant

  South of Parilla Line, Balboa

  I have got to get back and report in that the Volcano is ready, thought Sergeant Juan Sais, sheltering with Espinal in one of those rare patches of thick growth that happened sometimes when the fall of a tree left a light-permitting hole in the jungle canopy overhead. The fallen trunk, half rotten and more than half buried, had new plant life—the beginnings of a sickly gray-green progressivine colony—growing from and feeding on its mass. It provided a modicum of cover to go along with the concealment of the copse. That said, it was rotten enough that Sais had his doubts about just how much cover it might provide, were they to be spotted by the enemy.

  And it stinks like a corpse.

  It had been a long, hot, and miserable crawl just to get to the concealing plant life, with Tauran patrols thick on the ground. Sais’ and Espinal’s lungs still heaved with the effort, which made talking difficult. Sais could still think, though, and did.

  The fucking Taurans are too many. That asshole Carrera has fucked this up right properly. Still, must report in. But, I don’t know; can we get through to report in?

  There was a flurry of firing ahead, the surprise of which made the sergeant shudder. The shots were a mix of the Balboans’ distinctive F-26 rifles, distinctive mostly for having such a high rate of fire, when set to auto or burst, and the deeper sound of weapons that had to be Tauran, for lack of anything else they could have been. The sound was muffled and distorted, partly by the trees and partly by the undulating, almost bare surface of the ground. And, fortunately, given the state of the tree behind which they sheltered, the fire was directed in some other direction; all they heard were muzzle reports, not the crack of bullets passing close by.

  From the little copse in which he and Private Espinal sheltered, Sais watched as a group of Taurans—Sais figured them to be a squad or so, sheltering down in a draw—looked up from heating their rations. The Taurans glanced in the direction of the firing, then shrugged it off, turning their attention back to whatever they’d been doing. Sais couldn’t tell what that was until a minor shift in the wind brought with it the aroma of some kind of hearty stew.

  Jesus, has it really been two days since we’ve eaten anything?

  Concerned with the more immediately important task of getting something to eat, the Taurans didn’t notice Sais licking his lips and giving some serious thought to trying to take on the Tauran squad to steal their food.

  Nah . . . can’t. Maybe if I still had the other half of the team.

  Three days ago had been when a Tauran thousand pounder—well aimed or just lucky, Sais couldn’t say—had killed the other two men in the team and obliterated their shelter, most of their equipment, notably the radio, and their stockpile of rations. He and Espinal had had their one carried ration, but that had stretched only a day.

  Sais still didn’t understand how the thing hadn’t cracked the Volcano it had been his job, his and his team’s, to fill and arm.

  Fact that I’m still here suggests it didn’t. Doesn’t prove it, though, and slow leaks are possible. We need to get back to let higher know that the bomb might be defective . . . or might be defective now, after the near miss. And we need to avoid capture, too, because we can’t risk the enemy finding out about the Volcanos.

  I wish I could be sure . . .

  Sergeant Sais was sure of only a few things at the moment. He was sure he’d set his team’s Volcano properly, both the timer and the digital code. Or, as least, that the test set said it was all fine and functional. Best I could do. He knew half of his team was dead. Fortunately, they were not captured, but then half-tonners don’t take prisoners. He was pretty sure he and his remaining man, Espinal, were going to be dead, too, pretty soon.

  Sais was also sure that, if the Tauran troops he could see between himself and safety noticed him or Espinal, there’d be no getting away from them.

  Espinal, able to see everything Sais could, leaned toward Sais’ ear and whispered, “I don’t . . . think we can . . . get through . . . Sergeant. I really . . . don’t.”

  Not trusting his own straining lungs to make a soft enough answer, Sais shushed the boy with a finger to his lips. Then, in agreement, he shook his head. A couple of deep breaths further and the sergeant said, “We’ll . . . hole up here . . . for now . . . behind this tree. Tonight . . . we try . . . to get through.”

  “Mines?” asked Espinal.

  Sais shook his head and shrugged. Sometimes you just have to take your chances.

  Log Base Alpha, so called, Balboa Province, Balboa

  What are the odds? thought Tribune Ramirez, staring down at the hole where the battery kitchen used to be. A Tauran thousand pounder had done for that, along with the battery’s cooks. They hadn’t even found enough of them to bury. Deformed pots and ruined kitchen utensils, being stronger than flesh, had survived well enough to dot the landscape.

  The tribune, standing on the crater’s lip, was flanked by his much-chastened executive officer and first centurion. Of whatever treatment they’d gotte
n at the hands of Fernandez’s department, neither one would say a word.

  Eight guns I’ve got, thought Ramirez, and sixteen barrels for them, plus in effect two headquarters bunkers, mine and FDC, plus three for supply. So they manage to hit the one thing I only have one of? There is no justice. If the troops didn’t get a couple of days training in cooking for themselves in basic, we’d be screwed. As is, though, since cooking for oneself is pretty damned inefficient, and, since we’re not infantry, tanks, or combat engineers, we get unit rations a lot more than combat rations . . .

  “Excuse me, Señor,” queried a voice from behind the tribune, “but is this Ramirez’s battery?”

  The voice was an interesting combination of old, weak, and thin, and decidedly female, but with a curiously firm edge to it, as if the speaker was quite used to having her own way. Ramirez turned in surprise, as did Top and the exec. There, standing before them, was a tiny woman, really tiny. How old she was he couldn’t tell. Wrinkles and steel gray hair suggested she was quite old, but bright blue eyes, a thin teenaged girl’s general shape, and an unbowed back suggested she might be younger than she looked. The old woman was accompanied by two much younger ones, likely in their middle teens. Good looking kids, they were, too. Those stood well behind her, dragging a small cart behind them.

  “I’m Digna Miranda,” the old woman announced, “and I am a lot older than you think. These two”—Mrs. Miranda’s head flicked once each, left and right—“are my great-great-granddaughters.”

  “Ah, yes, madam,” Ramirez said, recovering from the surprise. “What can I or my battery do for you?”