The Rods and the Axe

by Tom Kratman

  “We’ll go with it then. Log it in as Balboa trying to tell the Zhong to leave its waters, nonviolently.”

  Combat Information Center, BdL Dos Lindas,

  Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  Once again, the ship shuddered slightly as a concrete practice bomb-laden Turbo-finch lifted off from the flight deck, followed by another, similarly “armed.” Between them they carried twenty-six fake bombs, which ought at the bare minimum catch and keep the Zhong’s attention.

  Fosa was in tune enough with his ship to feel the take offs, slightly, though it wasn’t necessary that he do so; the intercom system announced it, after all.

  Not for the first time, Fosa was wracked with doubts. They were dropping the practice dummies on a fixed schedule. Would Meg be able to keep to the schedule? Would it matter if not? Was it better if they could and did or better if they couldn’t and didn’t?

  The only thing I can be reasonably certain of is that Meg’s still alive.

  Submarino de la Legion 1, Megalodon, Mar Furioso

  The offset dummy bombing also served to help Meg navigate to where it was believed the Zhong subs lay. It was preplanned, each probable position—some behind the escarpment, others behind the ridge—would be dummy bombed with an offset of one thousand yards, though the direction of offset varied so as not to look too obvious. Chu had the table of variances.

  This close, and with enough water under the keel to permit it, Chu cut the engines to almost nothing, allowed more of the ammonia in the rubbers to liquefy, and glided past the first probable location. And . . .

  “MAD says she’s there, sir. About eight thousand tons. Probably was degaussed before leaving port but picked up a charge on the voyage over. Nuke boat, but not of the newest or the best. I make her as a Zhong Dynasty class.”

  “Note it,” Chu ordered. “Get the position. Put it in the burst message we’ll send when done.”

  Thought the captain, God, I love being in a plastic submarine, with air independent propulsion, and nearly no moving parts.

  While there were a few bunks in a separate compartment, the sub really wasn’t designed around them. The crew, except for the black gang, stayed up in a common compartment in chairs that had cost, as far as Carrera and the Senate were concerned, way too much. These folded back to allow the crew to sleep at their stations. Some of the stations, on the other hand, were paired so that one man could watch over two functions.

  Chu alternated watches with Huerta. The others stood, or, rather, sat, their watches. When neither on duty nor asleep, they interspersed the long periods of boredom with food—nothing special there, just normal legionary rations—video games, with the sound effects fed to headphones, or reading. The games and the library were both accessible from digital readers every man had. Some just stared at the main screen where the computer did its best to estimate the watery terrain ahead.

  At each probable or possible contact point, PROBSUB or POSSUB, in the vernacular, the entire crew went to battle stations, as the Meg began its gentle roller-coastering, on planes and ballast tanks, with minimal shove from the jet pumps. Sometimes they left a Zhong behind with the classification, CERTSUB. More often, they had to call it a NONSUB. They never did find all four expected Zhong boats. One of them was simply not there along the escarpment. Neither was it in the trench or behind the ridge.

  All those other subs were important, but for what the classis needed to do the key piece of information remained, could a presumptively top-notch submarine from the Federated States Navy spot a Meg class.

  Trailing its towed array, Meg searched east and west, north and south.

  “Nada!” cursed Chu. “Bring us around again. Nav, are we over that last plot?”

  “The two corvettes are still marking this as the spot, yes, Captain.”

  Auletti, the sonarman, cocked his head slightly, then pressed his headphones tight to his head. He took one hand off the headphones to turn a couple of dials and punch a few commands into his console.

  “Well, I’ll be fucked. Captain? Ummm . . . Skipper?”

  “What is it, Auletti?”

  “We’ve been looking in the wrong direction.” The sailor pointed straight up. “We’re under them. Eight thousand tons and no magnetic signature to speak of. Quiet nuke. That’s the FSN.”

  Chu smiled. “And they didn’t see us. Excellent.”

  “Assume heading, due north,” ordered Chu, and the sub duly swung around and moved off, leaving escarpment, trench, and ridge behind. At a point about two hundred statute miles north of Ciudad Balboa, Chu brought the Meg up to just below surface level, let up an antenna buoy, and sent a very brief, encrypted radio message.

  Combat Information Center, BdL Dos Lindas,

  Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  Now Fosa had some work to do. From aboard the Dos Lindas, to the flight deck of the Barco del Entrenamiento Legionario Numero Uno, to the airfields at the tadpole’s tail of the Isla Real, to the sub pens on the south side of the island, to the SSKs already under the classis, and the corvettes on picket duty, sailors sprang into action.

  First to set off were the two Megalodon-class submarines that had been refitting in the sub pens. They followed much the same route as had Captain Chu, out the “sally port” between the islands, north to the escarpment, down into the trench, and then east or west to take up positions right behind two of the Zhong subs that had been positively identified. That took the better part of a day.

  When the day was up, Jaquelina Gonzalez and Inez Trujillo, both of which had been playing navigation aid, took a far more aggressive posture. They knew where the Zhong were and, even if they couldn’t pick them up well amidst the clutter, the fact that they pressed close would likely make the Zhong think they could.

  And they did press close with their active sonar. Close enough to drive the Zhong beneath them half-mad with nervous anxiety. Then they’d switch off and go for a different one. Then back again . . . and reverse again . . . and, finally, pull back toward the island.

  That was when SdL Nine, Esox, floating behind and rather below the Zhong Submarine, Mao Zedong, fired one torpedo . . . at the Lycosa-class corvette, Jaquelina Gonzalez.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  There is a touch of the pirate about every man who wears the dolphin’s badge.

  —Commander Jeff Tall, Royal Navy

  SdL 9, Esox, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  Even though it was in the Zhong’s blind spot, the sub had maintained its position, once arrived, entirely by manipulating the heat in the rubbers. Then the captain had let the clock tick down until . . .

  “Fire control. Firing solution is ready. Torpedoes are ready.”

  “Shoot!”

  “Unit One away. Running straight and normal. Good wire.”

  Upon firing, Esox killed the juice to the rubbers, which killed the heat, letting the gas condense. Whatever tiny noise the liquefaction might have made was covered by the almost immediate movement of the Zhong sub. While that one took off to the east, Esox sank directly down.

  Esox also kept control of the fifty-three-centimeter torpedo it had fired via a pair of wires that trailed out behind the torpedo. It just wouldn’t do to actually hit the Jaquelina Gonzalez. There would be, the captain was certain, all kinds of paperwork from something like that.

  “But we do have to make it look good,” the skipper told his torpedo man.

  “Skipper, what about the Zhong? We can put one right up his ass, right this minute, and nobody the wiser.”

  The captain shook his head. “No. Nice thought but no. In the first place, someone—the FSN, notably—will be the wiser. But in the second place, we’ll ruin the joke.”

  FSS Oliver Rogers, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  “Sonar, what the fuck was that?” demanded the captain.

  “Sir, one of the Zhong—had to be the Zhong—has fired at the Balboans. The torpedo model is Volgan, but all the Zhong torpedoes started as Volgan. And . . . there’s another one. Sir, a second Zhong
Dynasty class has fired. The Balboans are running. What? Forty-two fucking knots? Jesus, I didn’t know one of those corvettes could do forty-two knots. I’m impressed.”

  “The Balboans ran,” said the captain. “I’ve never heard of that before. I’m impressed.”

  “Helm?”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Things are about to get really unpleasant around here. Get us away. Heading one nine zero. Slow.”

  “How do I log that, Captain?”

  Meredith answered, “As the Zhong having fired the first shot.”

  Zhong Submarine Mao Zedong, Mar Furioso,

  north of the Isla Real, Terra Nova

  The sound penetrated the hull. When it reached him, Captain Liu’s face went instantly from porcelain pale to ghastly white. His eyes darted back and forth. I gave no order. What the . . . ? In the initial shock he almost asked if his own boat had fired, but no, he would have felt that right through the deck.

  “Behind us, sir,” Kuang announced. “But there’s nothing there.” The imperial cousin hesitated, then added, “And now we know about those plonks. Torpedoes . . . mines . . . and the one we apparently set off just missed us.” The possibility of there being a submarine right behind the Mao didn’t occur to either Liu or his crew. After all, if there’d been a sub there, it would have fired to hit, not to miss.

  “Captain, that was a hostile act!”

  “Bring her about, due north,” ordered Liu, snapping out of his state of shock. “No, belay that. Heading is zero nine zero. Slow. Make your depth three hundred meters.”

  “Sir,” reported Sonar to the captain. “I make our sister ship, Wu Zetian, turning about at flank speed.”

  Hmmmph, thought Liu. Panicking. The one cunt dynasty is—like its namesake—going to have a short life expectancy.

  That sister submarine had been named after Old Earth’s sole Chinese female empress regnant. It was believed in naval circles that the choice of name had been made by the current empress, Xingzhen, possibly as a means of testing the waters. The Zhong, like their ancestor Han, were fully cognizant that more than one empress had ruled through the reigning emperor. They were reasonably accepting of that, provided the forms were maintained and she took a back seat in public. They were, however, less than thrilled with the thought of genuine female rulers, who made it plain they were such.

  Even if she were testing the waters, the current empress, though ruling in everything but name, was wise enough to rule through the emperor.

  Sonar reported, “Captain, dipping sonar, active and passive, all around and ahead of the Wu Zetian. And . . . plonk . . . and . . . plonk . . . and . . . plonkplonkplonk. I make those as light torpedoes . . . Volgan Model Thirty-fives. Wu Zetian is effectively boxed in, Captain. She is going deep.”

  Aircraft Trixie 53, Punta Cocoli Airfield,

  Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova

  As with all the legion’s combat pilots, Rafael Montoya was a graduate of Cazador School. He wasn’t by any means the best graduate of the school, skin of his teeth being the usual descriptor. As such, though he was bright and tough and brave, Montoya was just not considered either officer or centurion material.

  Still, no armed force ever has quite enough of smart or tough or brave. He’d been shunted to pilot training where his talents could be put to good use without having to suffer through his decrements. As a pilot, he’d fairly shone, learning to fly everything but the jets the legion had taken on in fair numbers over the last several years. He was in the line for that school, too, though.

  Montoya, sad to say, knew too much. As such, in any armed force with a solid intelligence bureaucracy, he would probably not be risked on anything with even the slightest, remotest, most ridiculously unlikely chance of capture. Or, at least, not yet, he wouldn’t. Indeed, Fernandez, who had such a bureaucracy at his command, considered locking him away more than once.

  What did Montoya know? He knew the legion had stealthy gliders, so stealthy, in fact, that the Federated States Air Force couldn’t pick them up at fairly close range from their Airborne Command and Control Ship. But, all things considered, it wouldn’t have been disastrous if the FSAF had discovered that fact. No, Montoya also knew that the UEPF’s base on Atlantis couldn’t see a Condor glider, inbound, outbound, or hanging around overhead, scouting. That was a deep secret, or, rather, two of them, because the second secret, that Balboa was scouting out the Earthpigs, was an advertisement that the legion intended to attack Atlantis base at some point in time.

  Still, Fernandez wasn’t heartless about it. He’d let the boy fly some missions, so long as the chance of capture was very low. In this case, it was essentially nil, submarines not being noted for either their ability or intent to take prisoners.

  Thus, Rafael Montoya, Cazador not too very extraordinaire, and pilot fairly extraordinary, zipped down the thirteen-hundred-meter runway of the airstrip at Punta Cocoli, his plane laden with one Volgan lightweight torpedo and four smallish depth charges, each set for a different depth.

  As soon as he was airborne he reported in to the YA-72 helicopter controlling the attack on the Zhong submarines. He reported in as, “Trixie Five Three.” Someone there, whose voice he didn’t recognize, ordered him to take a position at such and such altitude, circling and such and such direction, and wait. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

  “Story of my life,” answered Montoya, as he pulled back on his stick to climb to the ordered altitude, especially where women are concerned.

  That last was simply untrue. Montoya’s success with women was nearly legendary. But, as he often moped, The ones I really want don’t want me, and Caridad Cruz and Marqueli Mendoza are married . . . to friends. Montoya was, sadly, on the down slope, which is to say the post-breakup misery, of his last affair, so such thoughts were only to be expected.

  “Trixie Five Three?” sounded in his flight helmet.

  “Yo?” Montoya answered. He could almost feel the man on the other end of the radio link wanting to reach through and strangle him for violation of standard radio procedures.

  “We want your depth charges dropped at . . .” and the controller read off an eight-digit grid. There was no question of setting the depth on the depth charges; the computer could have handled it but the depth charges themselves could not. Their settings had been made back on the island.

  “Roger,” answered Montoya, punching the grid into his on-board fire-control computer, then pushing his stick left and forward. The Turbo-finch dropped altitude until he pulled up about a hundred meters above the ocean surface.

  Do not, notnotnot, want to be too close to one of these fucking things if it goes boom on hitting the water.

  The computer did most of the heavy lifting for this. Montoya just lined his plane up along the path the screen showed, then followed it until the computer announced, “Dropping.” The four large splashes below didn’t reach the aircraft.

  “Dropped,” reported Montoya.

  “Come around again and drop your torpedo.”

  “Roger.”

  Lightweight Torpedo 35-RSAPEJSCDOTTMCJSC-1097,

  Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  The brain that could profitably be fit into a lightweight—in this case about half a ton—torpedo that was, in essence, a throwaway, was fairly stupid. Similarly the on-board sonar was not of the best. The target selection capability was limited. Still, torpedo 35-RSAPEJSCDOTTMCJSC-1097 had been just thrilled when they’d loaded it under the portside wing of a Turbo-finch, then spun it up to semi-active. Rather, it would have been thrilled . . . if it had been capable of anything beyond counting fast on its figurative fingers. As things were, though, the torpedo merely noted that it was alive, totally missing that also sprach Zarathustra moment, and began reporting its state pretty much continuously to the pilot in the cockpit. Not that it knew anything about either, of course.

  But from somewhere the torpedo could not, in its metallic ignorance, know anything about, data came back. A smarter torpedo might
have marveled at the continuous updates, the passage of the waters below. A Yamatan torpedo might, all unheard, of course, have begun composing haiku in praise of the glimmering waves.

  This torpedo, however, was not Yamatan. It was Volgan: businesslike, unimaginative, competent but not brilliant. Like other things Volgan, it was intended for use in mass, without a lot of extraneous computing or communicating capability for one torpedo to coordinate with another, and completely without a care for fratricide. The data it cared about was highly limited; things like: What’s my target? How deep? How soon, so I can save power by not spinning up until necessary?

  Torpedo 35-RSAPEJSCDOTTMCJSC-1097 did have something like a thought, as it was released from under the wing of the Turbo-finch. It was something like, or at least had the sense of, Oh, goody.

  Zhong Submarine Wu Zetian, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  There were two known lightweight torpedoes underwater and searching for the Wu. They were known because they were actively pinging. But there had been other impacts of heavy objects upon salt water heard. What those were was anyone’s guess. The boat’s exec certainly tried to guess. More dummy bombs? Mines . . . well . . . probably not mines, not all of them, not unless the Balboan monsters were witless, which they do not seem to be, since those had impacted closer to the coast. Torpedoes passively listening?

  “Captain,” announced Wu’s sonar operator, “I’ve got four plonks above us . . . falling without propulsion.”

  Wu’s exec—in contrast to the Mao’s, a clever commoner saddled with an aristocratic captain—thought, Well of course. After you panicked, their Archangel had no problem tracking us. And since we’ve stopped they still know where we are. So those are either more torpedoes or, if the Balboans think this way, depth charges, Nobody much uses those anymore, of course, but it is said they think cheap, wherever possible, so maybe. Either way . . .