The Rods and the Axe

by Tom Kratman

  After that one Hordalander tank, came another, then another. Marciano thought, Well, since they obviously don’t need me to get them moving, may as well turn it into a pass in review. Accordingly, he stood up in his own vehicle, and saluted the next tank passing. That tank commander, a senior sergeant, the Tuscan general thought, returned the salute formally, then twisted a little key on his helmet and said something into the boom mike that ran from the helmet to a point in front of his mouth. Thereafter, as the Hordalander heavy armor passed the vehicle, commanders beat Marciano to the draw, salute-wise.

  From a position well inside the window of the shady house, Corporal Moran, of the Second Cazador Maniple, Tercio la Virgen, tracked Claudio through the scope of his rifle. The precision marked crosshairs floated for a moment in a loose spiral around the Tuscan’s head before settling on the bridge of his nose. I couldn’t miss this one, thought Moran, if Araya’s little sister were blowing me. Again.

  The rifle wasn’t a legion-issued sniper rifle, but an old-fashioned, percussion-primed, brass-case-firing, large-caliber hunting rifle, with a scope, such as any reasonably prosperous Santa Josefinan might own. He’d bought it with legion money, to be sure, and it remained legion property.

  Moran and his spotter, Private Araya, were in a light green painted room in Araya’s family’s house in the town.

  “Go ahead,” Moran told his underling, “ask for permission. Make sure they understand I have the Tauran in my sights and it is a guaranteed kill if they hurry.” Moran rather hoped he’d be turned down. He’d never met the Tuscan but knew, from those who’d served in Pashtia, that Marciano had been a good ally and comrade. He hoped he’d be turned down, but was willing enough to do the job if not.

  Araya, wearing headphones connected to a radio, tapped his corporal on the shoulder and said, “No, Legate Villalobos says hold fire. No explanation.”

  “Okay,” agreed the corporal, though he continued to keep his crosshairs on the bridge of the Tuscan’s nose.

  Marciano heard the steady wopwopwop of his helicopter force, assembling on the Gallic infantry battalion currently in reserve. He wasn’t remotely stupid. He’d seen the way Carrera operated before, in Pashtia, and had acquired a fair measure of the man.

  If the son of the bitch is making an “uproar in the east,” odds are not bad that he plans to “strike” . . . somewhere . . . “in the west.”

  Thing is, do I launch on my own authority? Do I wait for the president to authorize it? Do I wait for him to ask the Tauran Union to order me? I’ve tried to get answers, in advance, but . . . well . . . a person who’s never dealt with one can understand just how immobile and stupid a powerful bureaucracy can be.

  It wasn’t hopeless, of course. After all, the president pro tem of the Tauran Union was in country. And getting a straight answer out of that weasel . . . no, fuck it. I’ll send in the troops as soon as I figure out where to send them. The shitbirds of the TU can court-martial me later, if they want.

  Esquisito, Valle de las Lunas, Balboa, Terra Nova

  The border between the two countries was for the most part artificial, the result of an initial United Nations Interplanetary Settlement and Boundary Committee land grant to MERCOSUR, followed by some bungling judgments on the part of MERCOSUR, followed by the final result of Belisario Carrera’s war of liberation against the UN, followed by a number of minor wars and border skirmishes between Balboa and Santa Josefina, all further muddied by any amount of ignorant arbitration of the part of, mostly, Santander and the Federated States.

  The net result of that was that at no point did the boundary between the two countries have any recognizable natural boundary. In every case where such boundaries could have existed, they had been bypassed or ignored. Thus, what might have served as the natural boundary, the multichannel Rio Naranja in fact wandered back and forth across the border, but was mostly on the Balboan side. Thus, Balboa had the crossings, Balboa had had the opportunity to lay mines east of the river, Balboa knew where the lanes through the minefields were, and Balboa had the opportunity to fortify behind a not insignificant natural obstacle.

  On the plus side, from the Tauran point of view, the TU had most of the high ground overlooking the river, at the likely crossing points. That said, their view was at greater than practical direct fire range, even with the tanks.

  There were other areas where the terrain was seemingly more favorable for Tauran offensive action; Puerto Armados, for example, was rather exposed. Even there, though, the limited road net didn’t really favor offensive action by anyone.

  Legate Villalobos, in any case, wasn’t interested in offensive action. His job was to frighten the Tauran forces in Santa Josefina into settling down for a long session of glaring at each other over the mines, and keeping them frightened enough to stay there no matter what else might be going on in the interior of the country. So far as he could tell, from the maniple of Cazadores already infiltrated in the Tauran occupied area, from the remotely piloted vehicles keeping track of the Taurans from the air, and from his own eyes, as he watched them pull into defensive positions a couple or three kilometers away, the first part of that program, at least, seemed to be working.

  The only things that really had Villalobos concerned were the Tauran attack aircraft, circling like vultures overhead. He had, of course, his double-strength air-defense artillery complement. That, knowing the rough capabilities of the typical Tauran combat plane, was little comfort.

  MV Roger Casement, Matama, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  Captain Saldañas of the Casement was also Tribune Saldañas of the classis. It really wouldn’t have done to have someone not committed to the legion in command of such a key mission. Indeed, all the noncooking sailors of the Casement were also members of the classis. It made it much easier to cover up things like, oh, say, a couple thousand rounds of belted machine gun ammunition, spilled from the steel door swinging open, at the front of a poorly sealed container, as it was being moved to a higher perch on the ship.

  I swear to God, thought Saldañas, I will track down whoever left that fucking container unsecure and shoot him. Unless, of course, it turns out to be a member of my own crew in which case keel hauling seems in order.

  On the plus side, at least, the customs folks weren’t here to see it. Though they’d probably not have said anything, considering what we’ve already unloaded. On the other plus side, young Macera here seemed about to blow a gasket when the shit spilled out, and watching groundpounders like my brother go into apoplexy is one of life’s truly incomparable pleasures.

  The Casement’s radio room was just under the bridge. Since it had pretty much everything imaginable in terms of communications equipment, to include some things rarely found on a merchant vessel, and since Casement was probably not going anywhere significant again until the war was over, Saldañas had turned it over to Macera. Soon, Legate Salas would be coming aboard to make it his communications center. That’s when some of the more esoteric communications equipment—notably the complete audio-visual studio in one of the containers—would come into its own, though by then it would be offloaded.

  The first formed troops Saldañas saw came trotting in a mass, heading south along Ninth Street. They seemed to split up, with half of them moving west-southwest, down First Avenue where it was met by Fifth Street. The latter group he saw only through a short gap in the warehouses fronting the coast. It wasn’t long between catching sight of them and hearing the first outbreak of small arms fire coming from inside the town. About thirty men also began to race for the Coast Guard barracks and docks, not all that far from the Casement.

  “Dammit,” said Macera, “I’d hoped our cop could talk the rest of the cops into surrendering without a fight. I really hope it doesn’t spill over to their houses.”

  Saldañas pointed to several customs police coming out of their little office just off the main wharf, unarmed and hands clasped behind their heads. They surrendered to several pistol-wielding legionaries who�
��d come in with Macera. “That’s a good sign, isn’t it, Tribune?”

  “Could be worse,” Macera agreed. His radio crackled to life, then gave the couple of beeps and the rushing sound that indicated secure, encrypted communications.

  “Boss,” said the radio operator, Centurion Lopez. “That wasn’t the police station; that was the jail. They figured we were an attempted jail break and . . . well . . . they seen their duty and they done it. Two dead, both of them theirs, plus three prisoners dead. We’ve got one wounded. Private Vargas may or may not make it. I’ve got a stretcher team taking him to the hospital about a kilometer to your south, Hospital Antonio Fidel. God knows, they’ve got enough experience with gunshot wounds.”

  “Roger, Centurion,” said Macera. “Keep me posted on Vargas. Out.” The next post had Macera drawing a circle on his map around the town of Pelirojo. Then the tribune turned to Saldañas, saying, “Captain, I think we should begin unloading the arms and equipment now.”

  Saldañas gave a sardonic grin. “I started three days ago with a little of the ammunition and some of the less offensive-looking supplies. Had the manifest and container labels marked for ‘Delivery, Tauran Union Security Force-Santa Josefina.’ Customs didn’t give it a second thought. The arms, on the other hand, are still waiting.” He gave the orders for that, then listened as Macera’s radio reported the cutting of the landlines and deactivation of the cell phone tower in the town, plus surrenders among the police, key intersections and bridges secured, and even some criminals killed.

  Which is all to the good, thought the captain.

  Headquarters, Tauran Union Security Force-Santa Josefina,

  Rio Clara, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  Marciano, half-resting against a desk, took one look at the message handed him by a runner and went into a stream of profound invective, largely in Italian, that was both lengthy and, insofar as it made full use of various concepts, terms, and phrases not found in Italian but common in French, German, and English, really quite original.

  It was three days before Marciano got word of the uprising in the south. He still didn’t know about the arms being landed, or the place of the Casement in it, because, by the time he got an overflight, the Casement had been almost entirely unloaded.

  He might not have found out even then but for the events of months before. The mechanism of the discovery went back to the Tauran Union’s loss of the Balboa Transitway. Prior to that, most of whatever supplies couldn’t be purchased locally, and barring a trivial amount flown in by air, had come through Puerto Bruselas, on the Mar Furioso. Once the Transitway was gone, however, and ships had to sail the long way to Santa Josefina, the Tauran Defense Agency had eventually determined that there was a Tauro to be saved by changing the chief supply port to Matama, and trucking the goods over the central mountain range.

  There’d been no real hurry about it, though. Most food and fuel were locally purchased. Little ammunition was being used. Replacement troops came in via airship, for the most part. Some parts were needed, of course, and things like military-specific batteries, of which there was a vast number of completely incompatible types, for equipment that could almost never use civilian batteries. Even there, the minimum requirements could be brought in, more or less space available, on the airships or occasional planes. And there’d been sufficient stockpiles that switching simply hadn’t been a priority.

  But with the advent of the overstrength tercio massing on the border, switching ports had moved up quite a bit in prioritization. Marciano had given the necessary orders. Contracts for civilian trucking had been negotiated, and the advance party had moved out for Matama.

  They had not, however, quite made it there. By the time the column—no more than a score of vehicles and under a hundred men—had reached the road intersection in the town of Pelirojo, the town was under Legate Salas’s control. In the ensuing ambush, soldiers from such diverse states as Lusitania, Mannerheim, and Anglia, plus medical personnel from Castilla, had been almost utterly annihilated, either killed or captured. Only a lone vehicle, a Gaul-provided, Mannerheim-driven, Sochaux S4, had managed to escape to bring the word.

  Those shots, historians would later agree, constituted the first shots in the broader war between Balboa and its allies, on the one hand, and the UEPF, Tauran Union, and Xing Zhong Guo, on the other.

  “They could have fucking told me,” Marciano said, as his contempt for Santa Josefina climbed upward a notch. He crumpled the note and tossed it on the desk.

  “They probably didn’t know,” answered his exec, Oberst Rall, of the Sachsen Army. “Infrastructure here is poor, without a lot of redundancy. I’d be surprised if the landlines didn’t wash out, or the cell towers didn’t have their power cut, regularly.”

  “Don’t try mollifying me, Rall. I have my heart set on sneering at Santa Josefina and its moral welfare and I don’t want anything interfering with that.”

  Marciano was grinning as he spoke. With an answering grin, Rall, agreed, “Jawohl, Herr General. Zu befehl. And I couldn’t agree more. Even so, what are we going to do? They’ve engaged our men and killed a number of them. We can’t just take it.” Rall pulled out a map and laid it across the desk.

  When Marciano remained uncommunicative, but for a scowl, the Sachsen continued. “If we try to contain it, there are two avenues of approach to the capital. That takes a minimum of two battalions to outpost, and we don’t have them. On the other hand, if we take the town where our men were ambushed, Pelirojo, that is where the road branches. We can hold it with one battalion, I think.”

  “And our reserve, Rall? And how we handle attacks there and across the border?”

  The Sachsen gave that an apparent half-a-minute’s worth of thought, more for show than anything. He’d already decided to recommend that, “We can outfit a small mobile force, say the Hordalander Panzers and a company of Sachsen infantry on trucks. But the bulk of our reserve striking power ought to be in the air.”

  “Still leaves us the problem of taking the town back,” said Marciano.

  “I’ve taken the liberty already of getting the Cimbrian commandos on the road,” said Rall. “We don’t even know what’s there yet. They’ll recon the town, and we can build our force around what they find. For the nonce, I think we start assembling a counterattack force at Cerveza.

  “The enemy can’t be in great shape,” Rall said. “We knew they were scattered all over and are probably still assembling. For now, from Cerveza we can cut them off if they try to take the southern road to the capital. If they try to go after Cerveza . . . well . . . we’re regulars, better trained and better armed. We’ll just stomp them.”

  Marciano tugged at an ear. “They thought that in Balboa, too, you know, Rall.”

  “Different circumstances,” said the Sachsen. “We walked into an ambush they’d been laying for ten years. Here, we’re the ones who’ve been on station for a while.

  “And, yes, yes, sir, I know they know their own ground better. But they know their own ground in the places they grew up, or worked or lived in. How many, do you suppose, grew up right in Cerveza?”

  “All right,” said the Tuscan. “Get things in motion. But restrictive rules of engagement for now. The mere fact that the enemy shot first is probably not enough to get the Tauran Union to authorize offensive action. That, too, is one of the side effects of the defeat in Balboa. The bureaucrats weren’t keen on war to begin with. Now they’re positively gun-shy.

  “Yes, sir. I concur, for what they may be worth. But the Cimbrians, at least, have to be able to fire in self-defense, yes?”

  “Yes,” the Tuscan agreed. “And if we can get the artillery in position to support them if they need it, we’ll go for third party self-defense, too.”

  “Speaking of self-defense . . .”

  Marciano rolled his eyes. Rall’s tone alone said, “Serious problem.”

  “Okay, what is it?” the Tuscan asked.

  “You remember that bar where Corporal Martin
elli, of the sappers, was eviscerated?”

  Marciano gave it a moment’s thought, then answered, “El Mono Loco, in Aserri? I remember.”

  “Well, seems there’s been another incident. We didn’t lose anybody, but two dozen Tuscans broke up the place last night, killed three of the locals, including one girl. She was probably an accident, but the two men were definitely not accidents, since the sappers carved ‘This is for Martinelli’ on their faces before cutting their throats.”

  Marciano put his head in his hands, asking, “Do we know who did it?”

  “They’re all in custody, sir, yes. On the other hand, they’re nearly a platoon of engineers and it’s not clear we can spare them all indefinitely. And none of them will admit to anything or testify against anyone.”

  “There are times, Rall, when I wish I were Carrera, or could operate under his rules.”

  “Why?” asked the Sachsen. “What would he do?”

  “Either ignore the murders or line up the sappers and shoot every tenth one.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Insurrection by means of guerrilla bands is the true method of warfare for all nations desirous of emancipating themselves from a foreign yoke. It is invincible, indestructible.

  —Giuseppe Mazzini

  Pelirojo, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  The town had streams on three sides of it, two of them, east and west, rather large and the third, to the north, narrow but swift. The rivers tended to channelize movement naturally, and had dictated the placement of roads and bridges.

  Anywhere near the main road, one could still smell the burnt rubber and overdone human meat, heavily overlaid with the stink of diesel. All along the main street running through the town, from where Highway Twenty-three crossed the bridge over the river to the west to both branches that split off from it in the center, were the wrecked vehicles of what, upon interrogation, turned out to be a slice of service support troops.