by Tom Kratman
The first step had been recertification of the hull and engines. The engines were a problem, having been rather poorly maintained for some years in an effort to eke out something like a profit from Hoogaboom's operations. Fortunately, Hajipur was a full-service port, albeit a small one, and its facilities and workers were more than capable of rebuilding the engines.
The hull itself was fine. The hold, however, was more problematic. The ship was not double hulled and was, of course, completely unarmored. This would never do.
The mixed Hindu and Moslem workers of Hajipur were able to fix that as well. Inside, they built up a large bunker of two centimeter steel plates. The bunker would be sufficient to contain approximately two thousand tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in pelletized form. It was also leakproof.
Within the bunker a series of pipes with blow out perforations were assembled and welded into position. The workers were told that the pipes were part of a fire suppression system, designed to pump pressurized steam into the hold should the cargo ever catch fire. This seemed reasonable to them. The real purpose of the pipes was to spread an explosion quickly.
A number of additional armoring jobs were added on, though none of these were explained to the welding crew. Above, on the rear-sitting superstructure, the bridge had double layers of two centimeter steel added. Down below, a second bridge—almost a simple CIC—was built up with more steel plates. Video cameras were installed around the ship and linked to batteries of monitors both on the bridge and below, in CIC.
In between, flush with the main deck, two boxes were built, each just large enough for a two man machine gun crew. Machine guns in those boxes, firing through the forward-facing ports cut in the bulkhead, could sweep the main deck with machine gun fire should there be a boarding. Some other, similar, steel boxes were welded in to port and starboard, with similar firing ports cut. Between the size and shape of the boxes, the welders winked knowingly at each other, presuming that the mission of the Hoogaboom was going to be piracy suppression. They'd heard grisly stories of both the pirates and their enemies, the "Christian" mercenaries, operating off the Xamar coast.
The stern was changed as well, two sets of davits being added. These were considerably larger than the normal life boats would account for. They looked like near twins of those mounted on the Harpy Eagle for the patrol boats. The Hajipur crew bought them off of a passenger liner sitting at the breakers down the coast. Two surplus special operations boats were to be fitted as soon as they were delivered by a private company in Anglia which had them.
The bow of the ship was heavily reinforced with armor plate and the intervening space filled with conexes, themselves filled with a mix of sand, Styrofoam packaging peanuts, and sheet metal. The conexes had been filled elsewhere and then moved by rail to Hajipur on Sind's excellent rail system. Further conexes lined the side of the ship from just below the water line to just above the central armored bunker.
There were limits, though, to the modifications that could safely and wisely be made. Some form of cannon anti-aircraft defense, for example, would have been nice. On the other hand, it would also have been more obvious. Worse, training the gunners would have been extremely obvious. The ship made do with half a dozen shoulder-fired anti-aircraft gunners, each with several missiles apiece. Similarly, torpedoes were right out and cruise missiles too problematic.
On the bridge, standing besides the ship's captain and future martyr to the cause, Abdul Aziz sighed with satisfaction. The Hoogaboom's rebuilt engines barely strained as the ship left the tugs that had guided it out into the dredged channel that led to the sea.
"Three more stops," The captain said. "And then one more on the way to Paradise."
"I'll be leaving with the next stop, Captain," said Abdul Aziz. "I must report back to Mustafa."
18/1/468 AC, The Base, Kashmir
Three men, Mustafa, Nur al-Deen, and Abdul Aziz, walked the trails within the fortress. There came from the north the steady crackle of small arms fire as the mujahadin practiced marksmanship. For the most part the practice was a wasted effort. Yet it had one great virtue. In any group there are always exceptions. The marksmanship training program, useless as it was to train any appreciable number of decent shots, was still absolutely critical to identifying the rare naturally superb shot for further, more useful, training. Federated States Army, Taurans, and even the Legion had had occasional cause to curse those rare genuine marksmen the Salafis now fielded.
Along with the rifle and machine gun fire, the din was frequently punctuated with much larger blasts as others among the holy warriors were trained in the intricacies of combat demolitions, booby traps, and other improvised explosive devices.
Mortars, too, could be heard as their crews practiced this simplest of the artillery arts. These, though, fired from outside the perimeter of the fortress and directed their fires even further away. It might have been more effective to fire from inside at targets outside. In the past, as a matter of fact, they had. Quality control at the factory, however, was never all that great and there had been a number of unfortunate accidents. Mortar firing was all done outside the perimeter, now.
After the cacophony of the ship fitting in Hajipur, Abdul Aziz barely noticed the blasts of mortars and demolitions. Mustafa and Nur al-Deen were fairly used to them. None of the men so much as twitched, even at the largest of the explosions.
Abdul Aziz explained, "The greatest weakness to the plan, Sheik, is hitting the target's motive power before it notices the threat from the Hoogaboom. The enemy carrier is more than twice the speed of our ship, and based on the tour given to our two undercover reverts, extraordinarily maneuverable."
"I do not see," Nur al-Deen huffed, "why we need to make this extraordinary expenditure to destroy a single ship. A single cigarette boat with a ton of explosives should be enough."
Mustafa laid a hand on Nur's shoulder. "It would not be, my friend. We have reason to believe that such a boat would be most unlikely to get anywhere near the carrier unless covered by something like the Hoogaboom. Even if it did, the great infidel in space, High Admiral of Pigs Robinson, assures me that the carrier is sufficiently well built and compartmentalized that it would take as many as three such hits to put it down. There is no chance, none, that we could get three cigarette boats close enough."
"And," added Abdul Aziz, "With two thousand tons of a mix of ammonium nitrate, hydrazine, and aluminum powder, the Hoogaboom need not get all that close to destroy the ship, two hundred meters or so."
"I still think it's a waste," insisted Nur al-Deen.
Mustafa stopped walking and turned. "My friend, one thing I have learned since we began this. Defense does not win. We must attack, and attack, and attack again."
"Abdulahi is not enthused about the prospect of martyrdom for more of his men," Nur al-Deen said.
"This is true," Mustafa agreed. "But then he, too, must learn that he must attack and hold nothing back. He should study Parameswara."
"Parameswara isn't being asked for one hundred and fifty suicide bombers," Nur al-Deen answered.
19/1/468 AC, BdL Dos Lindas
"Security and Economy of Force are principles of war, Captain-san," Kurita intoned. "Defense is not."
Fosa paced the rounds of his bridge nervously. Indeed, he grew more nervous the closer the Dos Lindas approached to shore and the possibility of land-based cruise missiles, torpedoes, or suicide boats. The FSN had been clear that an attack on the fleet was being prepared. Sadly, they could not provide the first clue as to its nature.
"I know that, Commodore. And I know we have to do this. Hell, it was my idea. But I still hate the idea of getting closer to a threat I don't know the nature of."
Resuming his pacing, Fosa took all of three steps before he stopped and turned. Facing the Yamatan over one shoulder he observed, "You're taking this all very calmly."
"I was captain, Battlecruiser Öishi," was Kurita's only, and completely sufficient, response.
Fosa grunt
ed while Kurita turned his attention back to the contemplation of the eternal beauty of the sea at moments before action.
It was several hours before sunrise. Only one of Terra Nova's three moons shone. In the relative darkness, the sea twinkled with thousands of stars. Kurita amused himself with the notion that the stars were his old shipmates, come to watch him in action before he joined them at the Yasukuni shrine which had been dismantled and sent spaceward from Old Earth so many centuries ago.
Above the winking sea, the Dos Lindas cruised under half power toward the shore. The carrier was blacked out, with not even deck lights showing. Crewmen, who would normally be allowed to smoke on portions of the flight deck were instead confined to air- and light-tight compartments before they could indulge their vile habit.
On deck every functioning Yakamov helicopter sat with engines idling. Forward of them were a baker's dozen of Cricket Bs, the upengined and expanded variant of the Legion's standard recon aircraft. Between the Crickets and the choppers sat four Turbo-Finches with light ordnance loads of about one ton each. None of the aerial troop carriers had more than their crews aboard.
The Cazadors were going in under strength. One half of one of the eight line platoons was detached to The Big ?, though they'd be nearby at sea and could land by rubber boat if needed. Another two platoons were split up among various Yamatan and Haarlemer freighters. Still, with the headquarters and support troops that were going to land, there were just over two hundred Cazadors in the landing force. These waited below, in the hangar deck, playing cards, sleeping, or sneaking off for a quick cigarette as the mood took them.
UEPF Spirit of Peace
"Computer?"
"Yes, High Admiral?"
"Put me through to Abdulahi in Xamar."
The call went through almost instantaneously; Abdulahi had learned since he'd lost three ships to the infidels' ambushes not to let the High Admiral's warnings pass.
"Yes, Admiral Robinson?"
"Your enemies are moving inshore, between the villages of Sanaag and Gedo. I can't tell which of them is the target. Possibly both are."
"The villages? What reason could they have for going after villagers?"
Unseen below, Robinson rolled his eyes. Were these people incapable of understanding the nature of the war they were in or the nature of their enemies, the nature they themselves brought forth?
Forcing disdain from his voice, Robinson answered, simply, "Terror."
That Abdulahi understood. "I'll have a column on the road within the hour, High Admiral. Thank you."
"I don't know that it will do you any good."
"Perhaps not, High Admiral, but I have to try."
Again, Robinson rolled his eyes. "You can reasonably expect them to cover the roads by air, Abdulahi."
"We have some anti-aircraft weapons mounted on some of our vehicles."
"I doubt that light ones will be enough."
BdL Dos Lindas
The Cricket Bs, being the slowest, were the first aircraft to take off. With the carrier's nose into the wind, even fully laden with five Cazadors and a pilot, it was a strain to keep the things from taking off on their own. With Fosa's command, "Land the landing force," the deck crew removed chock blocks, the pilots gunned engines, and—fwoosh—the things were gone into the night in a couple of eyeblinks.
The Finches were next to depart. These had superb short take off capabilities, but nothing like the miraculous abilities of the Crickets. They needed every inch of the flight deck they had to get airborne.
Rafael Montoya was lead bird for the Finches, this mission. As usual, he nearly wet himself as his plane reached the end of the flight deck and began to fall to the sea. As usual—now, at least—he maintained control of his bladder as he fought his plane back into the air.
"I have got to find another line of work," he muttered, once he was sure he was not going into the drink to be ground to pulp underneath his own ship.
Once clear of the ship, Montoya veered left and began a long spiraling climb to five thousand feet. There he loitered until the last of the Finches was airborne. Then, together, the group turned east. If everything worked out, they'd be past the coast and able to turn to make their initial attacks with the sun behind them.
The Yakamovs, with eighteen Cazadors loaded—actually, slightly overloaded— each, took off almost vertically even as the elevators began bringing up the last of the Crickets and Finches for the other part of the mission. Once airborne, the Yakamovs dropped down to skim-the-waves level. One never really knew what the wogs might have bought, in terms of warning radar and air defenses, from somebody or other.
UEPF Spirit of Peace
'They're bringing more aircraft up on deck," Wallenstein said, as she and the High Admiral watched the carrier's ops in high resolution real time. "That's . . . . odd. We know they can launch everything more or less at once if they really want to. We've seen them do it."
Robinson worried a tooth with his tongue. There was absolutely no chance of a cavity in any of his teeth, of course; it was a nervous affectation.
"Maybe tougher to get everything on deck and launch it at night?" he mused. "I don't know. It is, as you say, 'odd,' Marguerite."
The couple went silent then and stayed silent, watching the launch of the last of the mercenaries' aircraft on the High Admiral's big Kurosawa. Bored after a bit, Robinson directed Wallenstein to come over. He snapped his fingers lightly and pointed at the deck, indicating she should kneel down between his legs. She did, of course; sexual service from their inferiors was a given right of the higher castes. Wallenstein hardly objected; she still desperately wanted Robinson's support for a jump in caste. Refusing him, or even performing at less than her very best, would jeopardize that. She sucked expertly but only automatically. Her mind was still working on other things.
Suddenly, Wallenstein pulled her head off. Her face took on a horrified look. "High Admiral," she said, "I just had the most appalling thought. We've been assuming all along that the mercenaries are unaware, and the Federated States only dimly aware, that we might be helping the other side. What if they know? What if they're counting on it? What if they were counting on us warning Abdulahi?"
CIC, Dos Lindas
Fosa and Kurita watched the large plasma screen—this one, too, was a Kurosawa—intently. The screen showed numerous markers. Central was the carrier itself, shown as a green triangle. Nearby were two smaller markers, green squares, for the Santisima Trinidad and the San Agustin. Ordinarily, there would have been corvettes in place. Indeed, not long before they'd been there on station around the carrier. Now, however, they were needed elsewhere. The plasma screen showed them—another two green squares—racing at thirty-seven knots to a point that would place them within range of a long arc of the main coastal road. They were due to arrive within fourteen minutes; so said the display. Wide circles around the corvettes' markers indicated maximum range for their guns.
A last important green square, The Big ?, likewise chugged toward the coast. It moved much more slowly, however, at some twenty-four knots. That didn't matter; it wasn't expected to be needed until later in the day.
Above the town of Gedo a blue circle was superimposed, Montoya's Finches circling like vultures. Another blue marker, this one in a V, showed the remainder of the carrier's Finches heading in. Further lines from both markers went generally north, intersecting the coastal road. Numbers above the lines indicated the time required for each group to reach a point on the coastal road from their present position. The lines shifted as they were moved by the crew of CIC. The times shifted as well.
Another blue V indicated the flight of Crickets and Yakamovs. This group, too, had a line that ran to the coastal highway. Like the Finches, the line and the times shifted and changed.
From the town and running up the highway were a series of eyes, outlined in black. These were the RPVs, watching the highway. Beneath the eyes, shown in red, was a long dotted column. This was the enemy, the enemy they'd e
xpected to come from the capital of Xamar once the pirates were apprised of the fleet's movements. It was to the center of mass of this that the lines pointed. It was time of flight to this that the numbers indicated. It was this that the corvettes' markers sought to capture within the wide circles that showed maximum range for their guns.
Although the other chart showed times of flight, ease of management required that a different screen show in one convenient place the times for interception from each force to the enemy column. For the aircraft, those times were based on what was possible within their minimum and maximum speed, along with the speed required to intercept simultaneously, with the speed of the truck convoy from the capital factored in. When all subunits on the chart showed a time between nine and eleven minutes, Fosa took the radio microphone and announced, "Black this is Black Six. Roland. I repeat, Roland." Fosa then turned the mike over to his operations officer who quickly and efficiently relayed the speeds and course the various elements were to assume. The entire thing could conceivably have been digitalized, but this just wasn't that kind of force. Besides, voice worked well enough.