Carnifex cl-2
Page 23
"I wonder if the FSN can shed any light," the Yamatan wondered. "After all, they're rather . . . oh . . . . capable."
FSS Ironsides, Xamar Coast, 6/6/467
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."
Kamakura, Yamato, 8/6/467
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."
9/6/467 AC, BdL Dos Lindas, Xamar Coast
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.
* * *
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.