Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 02]

by Fire in a Faraway Place (epub)

  For two centuries, stockbrokers in every department store and bank had been luring individual stockholders into the market in huge numbers. Periodically, stock prices were run up to staggering levels and a generation of stockholders who thought that the run would never end would be fleeced—in a crude sense, shorn of their wealth to fuel Japan’s ever-increasing economic expansion—by insiders. The endless churning of portfolios made very few people wealthy and many poor, and the leveraged stockholders, who borrowed money to play the market and invariably bet on a sharp rise in prices, fell like moths in flames whenever prices dropped.

  . When the police allowed the traders back into the stock exchange, they found their terminals stuffed with unfulfilled sell orders at prices they couldn’t believe. To save themselves, they called on investors who had bought on margin to put up more money and dumped onto a steadily eroding market the stock of the ones who could not meet margin calls. Within the hour, there was no market for USS stock and a few other issues at any price. The overheated stock market began to fall apart.

  For decades, the only thing that had kept the irregular wheels of Japan’s market turning was the expectation that the incestuous relationship between corporations, banks, and important politicians would never aEow prices to drop too far. Beneath a massive wave of selling, that expectation died.

  By 10:45, the market’s last hope was for intervention by the large securities groups, which had cushioned crashes, often paying off the losses of favored customers. Unfortunately, the wall that had kept the banks from trading in securities had come down ten years previously, and without anyone’s paying much attention, the banks had taken the lion’s share of the securities market. The large securities groups were only a fraction of their former size. When the torrent hit, they blinked, consulted, and ultimately failed to act.

  As Haerkoennen and Redzup had fervently hoped and prayed, the stocks on the Tokyo Exchange lost 19 percent of their value in fifty-nine minutes. By the end of the day, after two slight rallies, the market had lost 37 percent of its value, and most of the traders operating on margin found themselves wiped out.

  The effects would continue to be felt far into the future. Many of Japan’s smaller companies had gotten into the habit of issuing large quantities of short-term low-interest warrant bonds, which entitled the purchaser to convert the bond into shares of the company’s stock at a fixed price when the bond came due—allowing the purchaser to realize untaxed capital-gains income instead of taxed dividends. Assuming that most of these bonds would be converted, the companies spent the cash received. As the market price of shares fell, these warrant bonds became ticking time bombs in the Japanese financial system.

  As a final indignity, an ill-advised Ministry of Finance ruling half a century old allowed banks to consider the full current market value of their stock holdings and real estate in determining their loss reserves. Many of the smaller banks kept no other assets to cushion themselves against bad loans. In a matter of minutes, these banks found themselves undercapitalized, just as the dubious loans they had made began to surface. The Japanese financial system, always viciously and inherently unstable, began to boil.

  In a word, a very small pin had burst a very large bubble. By early afternoon, the decapitated Daikichi Sanwa was left with a large, but finite, pile of cash and a legal mess that it would likely take years to resolve. No one was very sure who owned the companies it had once been associated with.

  IT WAS A WHILE BEFORE ANYONE REMEMBERED TO TELL THE TWO

  corvettes over Siberia that there was an invasion on. Additional time passed before they were able to combine.

  Niigata City, Niigata Prefecture

  AT 9:35, FROM AN UPSTAIRS HOTEL WINDOW, CHIHARU YOSHIDA

  put an 88mm antipersonnel round into a platform from which Osachi Abe and five of his principal supporters were preparing to dedicate a new municipal building. Leaving money with the hotel’s owner to pay for the damage to the walls from the back-blast, Yoshida calmly walked outside, where he was arrested. The medical examiner eventually counted fifty-five flechettes that had passed into or through Abe’s body.

  Central Tokyo

  Tokyo’s guardians reacted, in parts of the city, the earth-quake sirens sounded, and civil-emergency wardens evacuated the population to surrounding prefectures along predetermined routes.

  Soldiers from the Military Academy deployed to protect the Imperial Palace. The three Lifeguards battalions stationed at Shibaura on land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay received ammunition and prepared to move to trouble spots as soon as the situation clarified.

  The Tokyo police responded to the confused reports of

  bombing and terrorist activity. Within minutes after the initial calls came in, seven companies and four independent platoons of armed and armored riot police moved out from compounds scattered around the city.

  One riot company converged on the Kasumigaseki. As they arrived, they were greeted by the sight of two police helicopters crashing into the streets.

  Unfortunately, their metal shields, helmets, and corselets were designed to protect them from staves and rocks, not assault rifles. Within minutes, Salchow and his compatriots on top of the ministries picked off five policemen and put an antitank rocket through the cab of an armored riot van. Screaming for reinforcements, the riot police backed away to regroup and bring in heavy weapons. A three-man reconnaissance team tried to enter the Security Ministry. None of them returned.

  INSIDE THE SECURITY MINISTRY, AFTER CLEANING OUT THE BLACK-

  legs in the first and second basement levels, Meagher’s men butted up against a final armored door.

  “What do you think, Ketlinsky?” Meagher asked, shining an ultraviolet light.

  The little engineer scratched his chin. “It must weigh a ton. With the power gone, we can’t open it, and I doubt that they can either.”

  Meagher nodded. “Ail right. DeKe, you and Mother Elena leave me Miinalainen and Ketlinsky. Take everyone else—give Kaarlo a hand watching the door, and clear us a path up to the roof. I don’t want to miss my flight.”

  De Kantzow and Yelenov took off with most of Meagher’s men.

  “Any ideas?” Meagher began rummaging through his ber-gen full of goodies.

  “A thirty-kay shaped charge to blow a hole in the door, an eighty-eight-round through the hole to discourage anyone standing behind it, and then gas grenades,” Ketlinsky said with authority, wanting to use the heavy charge strapped to his back in the worst way.

  “Good, except they’ll probably have masks, so the gas won’t get to them,” Meagher reflected.

  “Smoke candles,” Miinalainen volunteered unexpectedly. “Toss a bunch of them through the hole along with the gas grenades. There’s no air circulating. They’ll suck up the oxy-

  Meagher slapped him on the back. “You big squirt, you’re a genius! We’ll do it.”

  Five minutes later, they were headed toward the roof where Kokovtsov and Thomas were waiting in their stolen tilt-rotor. Miinalainen dropped his recoilless gun on the way to bring along Dirkie Rousseaux’s body.

  Hachioji Air Defense Site, outside Tokyo

  CLUTCHING HIS SMASHED SHOULDER, JAN SNYMAN ASKED ISAAC

  Wanjau, “Any ideas?”

  Snyman’s men had penetrated the site’s command bunker and blown the elevators to isolate the personnel below, and had beaten off a small detachment of riot police. Snyman’s battle dress had largely absorbed a round from a policeman’s submachine gun, but the impact had broken his collarbone.

  The site’s commander had made one attempt to fire off missiles, which had left two rather large holes in the ground.

  “Major Kolomeitsev is sending a transport to pick us up, but if we leave, the police are going to move our charges and the moles in their holes get to shoot at us,” Wanjau said happily. “It sounds like we got a problem.”

  “Liu is an armor puke and Nikoskelainen is an engineer, so we’ll send them back along with the wounded. The rest of us ought
to be able to hold this place for as long as it takes,” Snyman thought aloud. “I guess we don’t go back. God help Liu when he has to explain this to my wife.”

  A white grin split Wanjau’s dark face. “Well, to tell you the truth, Jan, I’m not that fond of your planet. The natives aren’t friendly. I still have family in Nigeria, cousins. Since we’re here, I thought about taking some leave and going to see them.”

  “Your leave is approved, starting an hour from now.” Snyman shook his head. “I wonder how Orlov is doing.” Kirill Orlov had supervised Snyman’s basic training.

  Wanjau’s eyes sparkled. “Kirill? He is at Tachikawa right now, happy as a bug moaning to everyone that he was an idiot to volunteer to come here.”

  “I bet you’re right.” Snyman tilted his head. “I never asked you why you volunteered, Isaac.”

  “You missed Ashcroft.” For a moment, Wanjau’s eyes burned. “The corporations made the planet what it was. We remember. Everyone the Variag recruited there came. What did you do to your mask?”

  Snyman took off his face shield and examined it. “I don’t see anything wrong.”

  Wanjau popped an incapacitation grenade under his nose. “I forgot to tell you, Jan. You’re one of the wounded. Besides, I couldn’t have let poor Liu face your wife.”

  Wanjau kept seven men and sent four men and one corpse back to Tachikawa on the tilt-rotor the Iceman had dispatched.

  Shibuya Ward, Tokyo

  “not MUCH PARKING HERE,” MALINOV SAID AS THE CORVETTE

  Lightwell Gomani made its way toward the city’s center. “We should help them build a few lots.”

  Sanmartin grinned. “When I make comments like that, Hans tells me I’ve been spending too much time with slugs and bugs.”

  “He’s right.”

  Sanmartin had one ear monitoring Jankowskie. “We need to attract some attention.”

  “Targets coming up.” In the Shibuya district, approaching the city center, Malinov planted a half-dozen five-hundred-kilogram projectiles on the Imperial Censorate Building and pushed a couple more through the windows of Dentsu-Hakuhado’s offices.

  Sanmartin shed some speed and jogged northeast. “O-Chan Pharmaceutical?” Malinov asked.

  ‘They’re on our list. The chairman of the board should have the biggest window.”

  Malinov ran a five-hundred-kilogram bomb through the chairman’s window. As police milling around the Meiji Shrine Outer Garden ineffectually opened fire, Malinov hosed a few of the persistent ones with the laser.

  “Imp aircraft are veering to intercept us. The corvettes still aren’t taking the hint. Drop something on the offices of the patriotic organization up the street, and then get ready to let off some steam.”

  Malinov grinned and prepared to drop chicken seed into the moats around the Imperial Palace. With his hair gone and the skin stretched taut over his face, he looked hideous. The Gomani's mission was to shoot up enough targets to create a diversion for the Iceman to get the assault teams off. Yuri Malinov intended to enjoy every minute of it.

  Earth orbit

  ABOARD THE HENDRIK PIENAAR, JANKOWSKIE SAID, “SIR, THE IMPE-

  rial corvettes are dropping low and veering south to get around us.”

  Oblivious to other threats, the corvettes from Siberia were converging on the city’s center to intercept Sanmartin and Malinov.

  “Ignore them,” Vereshchagin ordered. “Position us so that we can cover Piotr’s withdrawal.”

  The New Akasaki Prince Hotel, Tokyo

  “KOKOVTSOV HAS GOTTEN MEAGHER’S PEOPLE AWAY,” ZEREBTSOV

  reported to Coidewe, “and the cops are pounding on the door down there.” Coidewe had already sent the rest of his people off.

  “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” he told the reporters. “Nonetheless, I bid you adieu. I suggest you stay here for about ten more minutes and keep watching in the direction of the USS Building. The corvette Lightwell Gomani should have one 210mm penetrator left, and you may find it interesting. You might want to lie down and pull some of those tarps over your heads.”

  “You are leaving?” The Asahi reporter was beginning to look frazzled.

  “Yes, and with any luck, I won’t be back. Remember, ‘the Buddha forgives the wicked if they open their eyes to his wisdom.’ ”

  Zerebtsov already had the little Sparrow’s engine running. Waving regally to the newsmen, Coidewe hopped in and told Zerebtsov, “Home, James.”

  Tachikawa Air Base, outside Tokyo

  KOKOVTSOV GROUNDED HIS HIJACKED TILT-ROTOR NEXT TO THE

  one the Iceman had flown off, and Meagher’s assault group climbed out to board the Iceman’s shuttle. Zerebtsov landed the Sparrow with Coldewe a few moments later, and Kolomeitsev met them by the shuttle’s crew door.

  “I have begun pulling my men in,” the Iceman said. “I sent one of your Sparrows to pick up one more of Wanjau’s people, but the rest are staying to make sure that we get off. Who is still unaccounted for?”

  “Mizo is staying, and Chiharu isn’t going to make it back.” “I am not sure Chiharu wanted to,” Kolomeitsev said. “We are still missing the intrepid duo of Haerkoennen and Redzup.” “Damn!” Coldewe swore. “They should be here by now.” He tried calling them. “I’m not getting through.”

  A huge flash arc-lit the sky.

  “That must be Raul. We have to get the shuttle turned around and out of here,” the Iceman said inexorably. His two Cadillacs completed their final firing pass, and their crews were boarding and strapping in. The last of Kolomeitsev’s riflemen followed them seconds later. Demolition charges in the armored cars and aircraft left behind began to explode.

  As the shuttle’s engines began turning over, Redzup’s Sparrow appeared. Taking no chances, Redzup taxied it right up the shuttle’s ramp. Willing hands strapped the tiny plane down as the clamshell closed and the shuttle began its takeoff.

  Watching Earth’s surface diminish, Kolomeitsev told Coldewe, “I am going to have to ask Timo why he keeps saying to Vulko, ‘Just one more phone call, you said.’ ”

  Central Tokyo

  “i MAKE IT TWO MINUTES BEFORE THE INTERCEPTORS ARRIVE AND

  another nine before the corvettes join the party,” Sanmartin told Malinov.

  Malinov pointed to his instruments. “Tell them that. The interceptors are firing missiles at long range.” He tossed a tiny squeeze bottle in Sanmartin’s lap.

  “What’s this?”

  “Imitation arak for the third toast. The real stuff would have eaten through the bottle.”

  Sanmartin laughed. “You realize that drinking on board is unmilitary as all hell, Battalion Sergeant. Give it to the ghosts we brought along.”

  “The Ministry of Security?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Malinov fired the 210mm penetrator at the ruined Ministry of Security Building to make doubly sure of the people inside. Then Sanmartin pulled the corvette’s nose straight into the sky over the Imperial Palace and engaged a preset navigation program. Missile batteries to the north and east that had been screened by the horizon locked on, and half a dozen missiles leaped into the air to follow the ship into space.

  Twisting the Gomani around in the tightest arc its fabric would withstand, the automatic pilot whipped the ship around and aimed its nose at the ground below.

  The missiles from the interceptors lost contact and passed by harmlessly. The pilots of the planes gaped, aghast at what they were seeing on their screen. Ships were not built to withstand the stresses involved, still less were the men inside.

  At fifteen hundred meters over the ground, the corvette spewed its fusion bottle. Venting solar heat like an enormous laser, the ship continued to dive toward the ground. The flare lit the sky.

  Plunging at a steep angle, the corvette struck the third floor of the United Steel-Standard Building. It buried itself in the subbasement. The building unfolded, scattering debris over a circle half a kilometer across. Two of the ship-killer missiles from the city’s d
efense sites followed it down and hurled themselves into die growing hole where the building had stood. Every window in a ten-block area shivered itself apart.

  Even as the force of the explosion buffeted the approaching aircraft, their pilots understood that if the Gomani had not vented its fusion bottle, their aircraft and a quarter of the city would have shared in the corvette’s destruction. As it was, a crater graced the spot where the United Steel-Standard Building had stood.

  Still looking for an opportunity to fire a shot, the two corvettes that had been picketing Siberia headed back out into space to try to engage the Hendrik Pienaar.

  Earth orbit

  ABOVE THE CITY, VERESHCHAGIN AND HENKE WATCHED IMPAS-

  sively. Vereshchagin said very quietly, “From dust we come. To dust we go.” Esko Poikolainnen began broadcasting what the corvette had done, and why.

  Obliterating USS corporate headquarters would deal the company a fatal blow, but Raul Sanmartin had argued long and hard that the expedition needed to tap into the thread of death and self-sacrifice that ran through Japanese culture in order to succeed.

  Standing by the viewscreen, Vereshchagin recollected the points Sanmartin had made. To the Japanese, it mattered little whether the goal Malinov and Sanmartin had given themselves for was morally correct. What mattered was that by dying, they had proven their “sincerity.” If self-sacrifice fascinated the Japanese, they had received a surfeit.

  Vereshchagin came to understand that the Japanese people would not stand for the punishment his expedition had inflicted without this gesture. Still, it sickened him.

  Coldewe had unwittingly mailed out information to every newspaper, and in the days to come, the Japanese would begin to understand what this war was about. It was Raul Sanmartin ’s goal to rub the noses of the Japanese people in it. After that, there was only hope.