by Tom Kratman
And my family's life depends on my doing so. Shit.
* * *
Bouncing along over what passed for a road in this part of the world, Mustafa thought, Shit. Nothing seems to work out the way it should. When I launched the attack on the Federated States I knew they would come here and I expected to be able to bleed them white and drive them out in shame and disgrace, the same way we did the Volgans.
Didn't happen.
Then I saw the hand of Allah in their invasion of Sumer. Surely, I had thought, that with the best army and the most militarized people in all the Ummah the crusaders would meet their doom.
Didn't happen.
Oh, it attracted the mujahadin in vast numbers, to be sure. And the crusader coalition killed them in vast numbers, too. It seemed so close. But with their allies and mercenaries they always had enough troops to meet any success we had while they built up a new government—whores that owe their souls to the infidels, the lot of them—capable of standing on its own. Meanwhile, we were barely able to hang on here.
I thought then that Allah had truly turned his face from us. Two campaigns; two victories for the enemy. That only shows how foolish I was, for God is the greatest plotter of them all. With the cost of their victory in Sumer, the FSC has lost almost all stomach for the fight. Even now, the bulk of their forces in Pashtia are the Tauros—more albatross than ally—and these mercenaries. These we can defeat. And so Allah shows his omnipotence and his wisdom while mocking our lack of faith. We lost here, to lose there, so we could win here and recreate a base for establishing His law in the world in a more perfect and secure fashion.
Curse me to Hell if I ever doubt the wisdom of God again.
* * *
Damn all shavetails.
Sergeant Sevilla, 3rd Cohort, 6th Cazador Tercio, hated having his signifer along on a mission. The kid—he was only nineteen—was just so damned ignorant. Oh, sure; he'd come up through the ranks just like all the others, proved himself in combat, gotten through Cazador School and SCS. And Sevilla had to admit, it was the right thing to do for him to have come with his most forward deployed squad, on his platoon's most dangerous mission. It showed the right kind of heart.
Unfortunately, this wasn't a heart mission; it was a head one. And the next new signifer Sevilla met who had his head in the right place would be the first. Oh, sure; if they lived they learned. And tribunes and legates, who really were important to the Legion, had to come from somewhere. But the price in lives among the enlisted men, non-coms, and centurions was pretty damned high to produce those absolutely necessary higher officers.
Why, why, WHY did it have to be my platoon that got stuck with the new shavetail when we could have had a nice, wise, older centurion in charge? No heroics then; just do the mission and come home safe. The sergeant suppressed a sigh.
He didn't really have to suppress it. The squad, all eight including the signifer, was well below ground with a good camouflage job covering them above from prying eyes. Only one little opening had been left in the camouflage, natural vegetation supplemented with a burlap strip net, that covered the hide, and that was closeable.
Corporal Somoza lay at that opening, watching with a pair of non-reflecting binoculars toward the fortress to the south. Somoza's Hush Fifty-one sniper rifle, a .51 caliber subsonic with a silencer, rested against the earthen wall of the hide beside him. A Pashtun scout attached to the squad lay resting near the rifle.
Most of the problem was that from the hide you couldn't see much of the fortress, only some—not nearly all—of the bunkers and a few stretches of trench here and there. Somoza's perch was actually oriented on the most likely avenue of approach for a Salafi patrol, rather than the fortress.
The signifer wasn't happy with that. He wanted to be able to see and report more. Never mind that that wasn't the squad's mission, that they were only there to serve as a relay and retransmission station for someone below among the enemy. Sevilla didn't have a single clue as to how to identify the spy, except by a code word over the radio. He supposed that if someone were to show himself at the hide and managed to get the code word out before being killed then he'd likely be accepted as the spy for whose word the team waited. Then again, Sevilla was reasonably certain the spy would not know where to look for them; Fernandez was careful that way.
In the interim, all the Cazador squad could do was wait for the signal and hope they weren't spotted. That is, that's all they could do unless the signifer had a bright idea.
* * *
Bashir was bone weary, every muscle in his torso aching, by the time he and his company were released to rest for the evening. Though he didn't have his rifle, they'd left him his pack. He unrolled the bedding, adjusting it to the firm ground, then took out the yellow radio before placing the now half-empty pack at one end of the bed roll for a pillow.
Lying down after placing the radio's earpiece in one ear, Bashir fiddled with the dial until he found an Islamic station broadcasting from the capital of Lahore, many hundreds of miles to the north.
The radio Fernandez had given him was much more sophisticated than it looked. Most of the short time he'd had available before he'd had to leave on the Cricket, Bashir had spent learning to use its features. One of these was an integral, and passive due to the nature of the system, Global Locating System positioner. By putting the dial at a given point, one where no station in range broadcast, Bashir was able to upload his current location to a small computer chip. By placing the dial at another, he was able to tap out his simple codes and phrases which were also stored on the chip. A third notional frequency set the thing to "transmit." Flicking the on-off button halfway transmitted the contents of the chip in a burst and continued to do so every thirteen minutes for five bursts.
That duty done, and no one apparently the wiser, Bashir closed his eyes and went to sleep.
* * *
Sevilla shook the signifer awake. "Sir, we just got word from our infiltrator. I've got his location and he sends that the main target isn't there. He doesn't know when the target will return. There is a meeting scheduled for sometime in the near future. Corporal Somoza is already retransmitting the message."
26/7/469 AC, Camp San Lorenzo, Jalala Province, Pashtia
"Dammit!"
"Be calm, Patricio," Fernandez advised. "Rome wasn't burnt in a day. Besides, we still haven't even figured out how to do the damned mission. Delays while we do figure it out don't hurt us."
Carrera slowly nodded his graying head. "I know. And I am still not convinced we can do it, even with the boy's suggestion."
"It was a hell of a good idea though, wasn't it?"
Again Carrera nodded, though this time with a slight smile at his son's precocious insight. Carrera found few reasons to smile anymore. "Clever boy, isn't he? I'm going to leave him with you when . . . if . . . we actually go through with the attack."
"That would be fine," Fernandez agreed. "And, yes, Patricio, he's a frightfully clever boy. Pity he didn't have a way to get forty IM-71s and eight IM-62s, of which no more than forty, total, will be functional on the day we move, to carry what we need."
That was a daunting problem. To take the fortress, even if the enemy could be enticed away from its rocky, bunkered and entrenched outside ring, required more than forty helicopters could lift. In the first place, to enable most of one cohort, minus its armor and softer vehicles, to survive attack until relieved required fifty sorties of IM-71s. Under the circumstances, it would be improvident to use any of the heavier lift IM-62s. Given that the cohort selected would go in with limited mortar ammunition meant that they would need continuous artillery support from outside. Even lifting one maniple of twelve 155mm guns with their required ammunition would take up all the IM-62s. But that wouldn't seal off the area from escape. It could be sealed off, at least to vehicle traffic, by using the 300mm multiple rocket launchers to drop mines at the fortress valley's two entrances. But those would have to move into position to range the fortress. This might we
ll tip the enemy off.
It would also tip them off if the first two loads in—the Air Ala was still configured to lift one infantry and the Cazador cohort in by helicopter in two lifts—were used to seal off the objective. Of course, the Cazadors, at least and in theory, could jump in. Carrera thought about the prospect of his men landing by parachute on either the rugged mountains around the fortress or the valley within it and shivered. In the former case, he would expect anything up to twenty percent broken legs and ankles before so much as a shot was fired. In the latter, his men would hang for long moments in the air while the defenders below shot them up like sitting ducks. Gliders? Squad sized gliders? Maybe if I'd thought of it two years ago.
And then there was the problem of intervention by the Kashmir Air Force, by no means a despicable one. Yes, they couldn't control the tribal lands along their border with Pashtia. That didn't mean they were willing to let anyone else do so. He could bring in the SPLAD, the Self-Propelled Laser Air Defense system, the Legion had had built. But that, too, meant weight and cube and less lift for the infantry. All that, taken together, meant the likelihood of intervention by a Kashmiri armored division before he could finish off the fortress and extract his men.
As far as sealing off the fortress from relief by Kashmir's also somewhat respectable ground forces . . . he could do it, for a while, by committing the Legion's mechanized cohort. But a ground war between himself and Kashmir was something of a losing proposition. They already sided altogether too much with the Salafis. A direct strike would certainly push them over the edge from secret to open support.
Briefly, he thought about using one of his seven nuclear weapons. But no, the downsides of that are just too great. Besides, I'd have to know it would get Mustafa and all his top lieutenants. They're just not that effective on a hardened, underground target.
"Any change on the ground reported, independent of our infiltrator?"
"Not really, Patricio. They're still improving their positions, digging out caves and the like. That, and a lot of housework."
"Any good estimate on the number of women and children in their camps."
"Thousands," Fernandez answered, shaking his head. Do they think the women and kids will be a shield? They're living in yesterday's war, if so.
27/7/469 AC, The Base, Kashmir Tribal Trust Lands
Khalifa, wife of Abdul Aziz, was as much a part of the movement as her husband, so she felt. She not only cooked and cleaned—for her husband, yes, but also as part of the communal kitchens for all the holy warriors of the base—but she raised the children who would go on to carry forth the movement, the boys, and to breed warriors, the girls. She had only had two, so far, but this was quite good considering her age, nineteen, and that she had only entered into marriage a bit over five years before.
She'd not met her husband before the marriage, of course; good girls rarely did. She had been pleased, though, at the choice her parents had made for her. Not only was Abdul Aziz good looking, to the extent her limited experience allowed her to tell good looking from bad, but he had a bright future. Everyone said so.
It was really only that bright future that had caused her family to go past first cousins to second, which Abdul Aziz was, in searching for a husband for their daughter. With no particular background in genetics, indeed without even the ability to read, Khalifa saw nothing wrong with either sort of match. It was not forbidden by the Holy Koran, of course, and was therefore permitted.
In any case, Abdul Aziz's tall and lanky frame was well matched to Khalifa's shorter and much more well rounded one. Though for all that, she was not a short woman at a meter, seventy. That height came from her pure Bedu ancestry. Along with it, she had inherited large, well shaped, not-quite-almond eyes, full lips and high cheekbones. Her husband, she knew, was as pleased with her appearance as she was with his. At least, in the five years they had been together his ardor had never flagged nor had it shown any signs that it ever would. This was a pleasure to the girl, and in more than her body.
Her two children were a boy, four, and a girl, two. She'd been disappointed in herself for failing to deliver a second boy. But her husband—wonderful man!—had shushed her apologies and told her, in all seriousness, that it was the women who would deliver this world to the sons of Allah. She should be proud, he'd said, as proud of her as he was. How could she not love such a man?
Khalifa knew a little, but only a little, of the outside. She knew she and her sisters were pitied by the women of the industrialized world who believed them to be little more than chattels. She could not for the life of her understand that. Oh, yes, there were men, even Salafi men, who abused their wives. But didn't those "modern" women understand that every Salafi girl had a father and brothers who loved them so long as they were worthy? A father and brothers, uncles and cousins, too, who would not only take a very dim view of their female relatives being abused but were very likely to abuse right back? Salafis who mistreated their wives tended to wind up dead. Fortunately, her parents had chosen well. Her husband cherished her.
It was with that thought; that, and the warm glow still remaining from the night before, reinforced by anticipation of the night to come, that Khalifa ground the beans for the morning's coffee happily and with a smile.
* * *
"Well, you check out," an unsmiling Noorzad announced to Bashir, alone, over the morning coffee. The rest of the company had already eaten and drunk and was back at work on the cavern.
"You are remembered both at the camp from which the lost column set out and in your home area. But I have some very bad news . . . " the grizzled old fighter hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Your family has been taken by the infidels."
Bashir had to feign shock. He inhaled sharply, then allowed himself to exhale as his chin sank down upon his chest. "Have they been . . . "
"No," Noorzad answered. "No word of a trial. None of any murders, either. They're just being held, apparently for questioning."
"How . . . ?"
"The infidels have their ways," Noorzad answered. "They can find your whole life story and family tree from the smell of your camel's three-day-old fart, so say some. If they took your brother, or even the smallest part of his body, they can find out where he came from."
"The crusaders will know I am missing," Bashir wailed. That, too, had taken practice. "They'll torture my parents to tell them where I am."
"No matter," Noorzad answered with a shrug. "Your parents don't know. Nothing they can say can hurt the cause. Besides, the infidels rarely bother to torture, no matter what we might say to the contrary, unless they have some particular reason to justify the effort."
Bashir restrained himself from saying, They'll beat the crap out of you for the slightest lie, or the merest failure to come clean, if they've got an interest. After all, he wasn't supposed to personally know that.
But I really want to know, need to know, what the hell is supposed to fit into that huge cavern we're excavating. Unfortunately, I can't ask you about it, just like I can't ask you about . . . or maybe I can.
"Will Mustafa want to speak to me again do you think?"
Noorzad shook his head. "Not this week. Maybe next. He often commiserates with those who either have given, or may soon give, much for the struggle."
"Okay . . . well, if he won't need me any time soon, I'd just as soon join the rest of the company at work."
"Good lad," Noorzad answered with a personable and friendly slap to Bashir's shoulder.
28/7/469 AC, Camp San Lorenzo, Jalala Province, Pashtia
No matter how closely or how much Carrera stared at the model of the Salafi base, he found no solution. It's logistically impossible. Impossible!
He tried picturing the attack under the most promising scenario developed to date. The Cazadors jump in by NA-32s—damn the broken ankles—and get by with nothing but air for fire support until the artillery is in range and ready. The helicopters move in the whole artillery cohort, except for the rocket launc
hers, which can move themselves, then go back for an infantry cohort. By the time they come back with an infantry cohort the enemy is completely ready. Any guests they may have—and Mustafa—are long gone. So we keep shuttling in the troops until we can reduce the place, get in a war with Kashmir, and after we take it we pull out, fight a border war while the diplo-shits try to patch up a peace . . . and do it all over again in a year or two.
Fuck! Fuck! FUCK! Maybe if I wasn't so fucking tired all the time . . .
All right . . . lets start at the beginning. What do I want for an end state? I want to kill or capture every Salafi in the area, and especially their leaders, destroy the base, and pull out before it becomes a Kashmir-Legion ground war. That means I need an infantry cohort in the center, two more plus the artillery to make a breach and peel the edges, and Cazadors and Pashtun scouts to seal it off.
Ok . . . the Pashtun scouts could go in over a period of days by air. Some might even just cross the border on horseback. Let's see . . . eighteen Crickets of which fifteen work at any given time. Each carries three Pashtun. Do it over a period of days? No . . . not a chance. The longer they're out there the more certain it tips my hand, alerts the enemy and warns Kashmir. And they could be there for fucking weeks before we get word that the leadership will be there. Skip that idea.