Come and Take Them-eARC

by Tom Kratman

  In the Spanish they’d both learned, while living in Balboa, Miller said, “Get the radio up. Make contact with headquarters. They need to know about this.”

  Hurricane Straits, north of Caimanera, Cienfuegos, Shimmering Sea, Terra Nova

  First in order of sail came His Anglian Majesty’s Ship Furious, followed at a distance of about four nautical miles by HAMS Indomitable. Behind Indomitable, at a slightly greater distance, about eight kilometers, came Charlemagne, no stranger to these waters, and Charles Martel. Those were just the carriers, all four of the same class though with minor national differences. Between them, they loaded two-hundred-and-twelve first-rate combat aircraft. They and the task force moved as quickly as practical consistent with maintaining their antisubmarine screen. This ranged around twenty knots, and not the much more economical fourteen or so they’d have done in a normal passage or in peacetime maneuvers. The reason for their caution was that a Balboan SSK had once taken out a Gallic nuclear sub and a frigate.

  The formation was somewhat more dispersed than sound doctrine would have called for. This was because both the Royal Anglican Navy and the Navy of the Republic of Gaul totally and thoroughly detested and distrusted each other. Neither wanted to give the other an excuse for an “accident.”

  Around the carriers, in a complex defensive formation, were some twenty-six visible escorts, destroyers, frigates, and four cruisers. Between the Anglian contingent, and the Gallic, in two columns, sailed the seven fuelers, reefers, ammunition haulers, and grand parts bins for the rest. Unseen, but presumptively below and far out to the fore and flanks, were four nuclear powered submarines, keeping their own distance from the TU’s task force and its noise. The other reason to keep the subs out was that, with the credible Balboan submarine threat, the area closer in to what amounted to the core of the Gallic and Anglian navies was a free fire zone.

  Also unseen, in the seventeen-hundred-meter depths of the sea bottom around Guano Island, rested another of Balboa’s thick-walled, deep-diving, virtually coastal defense submarines. The Orca II, named for a submarine lost in action against the Gauls some years before, was, like Meg, under orders to fire only if fired upon or on unambiguous evidence that war had broken out. And then, it was expressly not to go after warships, if it could be avoided, but to close the straits by threatening and sinking freighters and support ships that might move through them to resupply the combatants. Other passages were covered by other subs. Their rules of engagement were driven only in part by the strategic value of targets and more by concerns that the limited experience of Balboan sub crews was not up to going after major surface combatants without a massive element of surprise in their favor.

  The captain, Warrant Officer Ibarra, formerly Chu’s exec aboard Megalodon, didn’t need sonar to tell him anything. He could hear the passage, even through the layers of thirty-seven surface vessels, especially with their supply ships straining at maximum speed just to barely keep up. The constant pinging in the audible frequencies of twenty-six medium frequency sonars in the escorts gave Ibarra no little discomfort, despite the stealthy characteristings of his boat’s hull. After all, enough Gauls, pinging constantly, had done his command’s namesake to death. The lower frequency pings of the Variable Depth sonars added a measure of poignancy, where that was defined as terror-induced sweat.

  These were mostly known signatures. As sonar identified them and gave them classifications and target names on the big screen, forward, Ibarra whistled softly. We’re quiet, as quiet as anything on or under the sea. And our target strength for active sonar is minuscule. Even so, I wouldn’t want to try to break through that screen, less still to try to break away after launching on one of the carriers while their helicopters track us like bloodhounds.

  Military Police Cohort Guard House, First Corps, Lago Sombrero, Balboa, Terra Nova

  The base, itself, was built around the intersection of a substantial, north-south running airfield, and the InterColombian Highway. It had once been a small Federated States base of about a dozen significant buildings, hosting air, infantry, and light coastal artillery assets. Later it had been turned over to the then Balboa Defense Force. Stormed by the Federated States during its invasion of Balboa, its ruins had lain abandoned for over a decade, until Carrera had begun the creation of the Legion del Cid.

  Since then the place had expanded enormously. It wasn’t really capable of comfortably housing the entire First Corps, but it could provide headquarters down to maniple level, billeting for all the officers, warrants, centurions, and noncoms, space for all necessary medical facilities, plus motor pools for the bulk of the Corps’ vehicles, five or six thousand of them. The other facilities were adequate to the regular cadre of about two thousand, plus a thousand new troops going through their assimilation tour, but not more than that.

  * * *

  Medics had been called to the barred cells to dress the Tauran captives’ wounds. For two of those the medics asked, “Why bother? Outside of a major hospital they’re going to die anyway,” but did what they could even so. The other four, who were conscious, were likewise treated, though given no pain medication. Whether this was a violation of any convention against torture was a case, in Balboan terms, of, “Who gives a shit?”

  The other dozen men of the Gallic recon team were, oh, very dead indeed. They lay under tarps, outside of the guard house, pending a team from Graves Registration showing up to deal with them. Since “Graves Reg” was a very low priority call up, the bodies were likely to begin rotting and stinking long before anything was done.

  The intelligence officer, or 1c, First Corps glanced over the four surviving Tauran—he assumed they were Tauran—soldiers as they were being treated for their wounds. He noted that two were in civilian dress while two others wore unmarked uniforms that could easily be mistaken for legionary battle dress in a dim light. He’d also seen geuine legionary battle dress on a couple of corpses, outside.

  “So what happens to us now?” asked Tréville, in Spanish. The adjudant’s voice was strained with pain from his wounds.

  The 1c answered in fairly colloquial French. To speak some French had become almost de rigeur to be assigned as an intelligence officer in the legion, though English was more common. In any case, the 1c spoke better French than most.

  “Kind of depends. A court-martial for spying, of course. Punishment? If there’s no attack by the Tauran Union, I imagine you might get off with something relatively minor. Or perhaps Carrera will exchange you for something. Who knows? Not my style of prophecy. On the other hand, if your boys attack…and don’t win…well, I expect you’ll be shot…for spying. Our Articles of War are pretty traditional. That is the specified penalty for spying.”

  “But we were just doing a recon, keeping an eye on you!” exclaimed Tréville. “That’s nothing to shoot a man for!”

  The 1c smiled, coldly. “In civilian clothes? Or not wearing your own country’s uniforms but ours? With our type weapons? Shooting up our soldiers? Near a vital military center? C’mon. You’ll only be shot because the crime doesn’t call for hanging.”

  Suddenly, as if it were a new thought, the intel officer looked upward. “Although we could hang you, I suppose; for murder. Four of our men are dead…and we are not at war. On the other hand, the penalty for murder is crucifixion.” He shuddered, adding, “And let me tell you, that is one shitty way to go. I’ve seen it.” The 1c left a pregnant pause in the conversation, then continued. “Of course, you could always turn state’s evidence, so to speak.”

  Tréville said nothing. Seeing that he wouldn’t, the 1c said, “Your funeral,” and left.

  The 1c immediately went to an office off the block of cells to listen to whatever the microphone planted in the cell might pick up.

  * * *

  “Are they serious, Adjudant?” asked Caporal Moreau, one of those in Balboan battle dress. The corporal was still in serious pain, a searing agony in his shoulder from a gunshot wound, so was perhaps not thinking clearly.
“Shoot us? For what? Crucify us?! What kind of maniacs are these people?”

  “Relax,” answered Tréville, not so badly hurt and thinking more clearly. “And stop talking before you say something you should not.”

  In the office, eavesdropping, the 1c told the MP in charge of the desk, “I want six men with rifles, one with a pistol, and several shovels. Take them out and have them start digging, the ones that can. Start to go through the motions of shooting them, but assume I’ll come and stop you before it’s too late. Do NOT shoot them.”

  The Tunnel, Cerro Mina, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova

  As it had been almost since the disappearance of Patricia Britain and her women, the Taurans’ headquarters was a flurry of activity, most of it with a point. Staff officers consulted over maps while drawing operational overlays with alcohol pens. Messengers hurried frantically from one officer’s desk to another. A team of wiremen checked connections between the field telephones strung between staff sections.

  Walking calmly from place to place, McQueeg-Gordon’s chief of staff, Moncey, who was for all practical purposes still Janier’s chief of staff, inspected maps and charts to ensure integration and coordination between the various sections and subordinate commands. Given the sheer number of languages, it was a toughie.

  Moncey stopped for a conversation with the C-2, de Villepin. Before speaking, he looked over the Intelligence overlay on the map on de Villepin’s wall. Even as he watched the famously large-breasted Anglian captain used an alcohol wipe to erase something from the area of the map labeled, “Lago Sombrero.”

  That, he had heard already, was the disappeared reconnaissance team.

  In other places on the map, arrows pointed to the Transitway Area, and then away. They described a maneuver, rather, a series of them, that the operational graphics didn’t quite cover. Whoever had done them, though, appeared to have decided that the lunges were mere feints.

  “De Villepin,” asked the chief, “just what the hell are the Balboans doing?”

  As he searched the top of his desk for the pointer he knew had been there just a few minutes ago, de Villepin said, “Trying to keep us off balance, I think, while they try to find the men who murdered those women. I don’t think they realize that that doesn’t matter anymore. The planes and airships are in the air, with the former very close. The carriers start launching shortly. We couldn’t call this off if we wanted to… Aha, there you are.” He held up the pointer, triumphantly, extended it, then walked to the map.

  The end of the pointer touched on a twisted arrow drawn on the map between the nearby towns of Las Mesas and San Juan Bautista, homes of two regiments of legionary infantry, and the Isla Real.

  “Nothing surprising in this,” said the C2, “and it works to our advantage. These two tercios, in battalion strength only, are moving by hovercraft and helicopter, some small boats too, to the big island and these two smaller ones.” The pointed end touched briefly on a couple of the larger islands around the Isla Real, then returned to the big island. “The trainees here—most of them—on the island are also taking up defensive positions. They’ve no effect on our plans and can be expected to surrender after the country falls.”

  De Villepin’s pointer tapped lightly on a dozen spots on the island, as he explained, “And we’ve seen, by air and satellite, a literal shitload of trucks moving troops and equipment from place to place.”

  “What kind of equipment?” asked the chief.

  “About what you’d expect, sir. Artillery, mortars, some armor—mostly light armor—and general supplies.”

  “Numbers of troops?”

  “Hard to say, sir. There are maybe ten thousand trainees and students on the island, plus a couple of thousand instructors. Between what we’ve seen moving to the island, what’s still waiting at the casernes, and what’s on the road to Las Mesas and San Juan Bautista, I estimate another fourteen or fifteen soldiers beyond that. Which is all to the good. They may as well put up ‘prisoner of war camp’ signs, because they’ll be surrendering after their state goes down.

  “Note, though, that the islands are…well, to say ‘heavily fortified’ would be a considerable understatement. National assets”—spy satellites and spy planes, also, though they were not “national assets,” info fed to them by the UEPF—“have identified over thirty-thousand bunkers and other positions, something over one hundred per square kilometer. There is probably nearly as much concrete on that island as there was in the entire Maginot Line, back on Old Earth. I’m pretty sure many of them, maybe most, are fakes. But the Intelligence and Security Agency can’t tell us yet which is which. They are very good fakes.”

  “What about the Second and Fourth Corps?” the chief asked.

  “They’ve stopped moving towards the Transitway and appear to be dispersing or retreating. Frightened of us or our reaction? As I said before, Chief, I think they’re trying to disconcert us to buy time.”

  “Artillery?”

  “The mobilized units have brought theirs out with them. Tenth Artillery Legion’s guns are still in their parking spots.”

  The chief wiped a sweaty hand across a sweatier brow; the tunnel was an oven in Balboa’s heat, even at night, even with the air conditioning going. There were just too many people in too small a space for it to be otherwise.

  He asked, “Do you believe all of it, de Villepin? Do you believe everything they’re showing us?”

  “No, sir.” The C2 shook his head. “No, I don’t. I think we’re being painted a picture…or maybe a kaleidoscope is a better way to put it. They’ve got so many troops on the ground right now that they could be hiding anything, doing anything, without our knowing about it.”

  “So what are they doing…or hiding?”

  De Villepin turned to his map again. “Sir, I just don’t know. And that worries me.”

  “You think the Balboans are going to attack?” The chief’s voice was strained with the immediate worry.

  “No…not exactly. But I do think that these maneuvers are a ballet, something to keep our minds occupied with while something else is planned.”

  The chief considered. “Can you articulate your suspicions to Janier?” Neither Gaul really cared about the opinions of McQueeg-Gordon.

  “Sir, I can tell him what I suspect. I probably can’t make him believe me since I can’t produce any hard data to back it up. He’s the type who really needs hard, understandable, manageable data.”

  “Call him and try. Do the best you can. Now tell me what happened with that SF recon team.”

  “Sir, all I know is what the chopper pilots reported. The team was compromised and tried to fight their way out. They were shot up pretty badly. Some may have been captured.”

  “Have the Balboans said anything?”

  “Not a word. Which is kind of strange, if you think about it.”

  Part VI

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

  —Napoleon

  Fort Nelson, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova

  The alleged phenomenon of decision cycling had perhaps never really worked as it had been billed in the history of warfare on two planets. That said, sometimes one could present one’s enemy with so many decisions at one time that he either fell into paralysis or, in attempting to meet them all, fell victim to micromanagement and violation of span of control.

  To some extent Carrera had already done this to the Tauran Union forces in Balboa. Taking advantage of their penchant for micromanagement anyway, he had presented them with so many targets, so widely dispersed, that the Tunnel had taken command of platoons, bypassing brigades and battalions in the process.

  For example, the Gallic Thirty-fifth Commandos’ combat elements consisted of three companies of commandos, each of three platoons, plus small mortar and antitank elements, and a headquarters which had scout, medium mortar, and antitank platoons, plus the “ash and trash” usually found in a headquarte
rs.

  The Thirty-fifth, however, hadn’t been given a battalion mission, nor even three company missions close enough in space for battalion to exercise command and control. Oh, no, because of the target array presented by Carrera, one company, Company B, was assigned to helicopter to Fort Guerrero to attack the headquarters of Second Tercio and Second Legion. Another rifle company, Alpha, had three separate platoon missions, none of them within easy supporting distance of any other. The last rifle company, Charlie, was more fragmented still, having one mission for a platoon, one for a platoon minus one squad, and four for individual squads.

  Command- and control-wise, these arrangements had one imagined virtue to the man theoretically at the top, McQueeg-Gordon. Being an artilleryman himself, dedicated to the maxim that guided virtually all artillery thinking—“maximum feasible centralized control”—to him this form of mission tasking ensured that all the real control, all the real decision making power, remained with his headquarters.

  The Thirty-fifth had one more difficulty to contend with. When the better part of the equivalent of a Tauran infantry division had begun bearing down on Arnold Air Force Base and its own Fort Nelson, the commandos had to abandon planning and rehearsing for its offensive missions in order to dig in like madmen in case they had to defend their own turf.

  Forts Melia and Tecumseh, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Much the same story held true for the Fourteenth Infantry and Thirty-seventh Commando on Fort Melia, as well as the Two Hundred and Seventeenth Infantry currently enduring the jungle school at Fort Tecumseh. When those had been threatened by the maneuvers of Jimenez’s corps, covering for the cadets, with the added possibility of civilian rioting to contain, both battalions had had to suspend offensive preparations and begin to dig in with most companies, while rehearsing riot control with at least one each. This would all change once the Taurans moved and seized the initiative, of course. It was only a temporary matter, and unimportant, that they were currently reacting to Balboan moves.