The Rods and the Axe

by Tom Kratman

  The captain’s eyes darted back and forth across the plotting table. He saw no good way out. The captain stood there in perfect indecision while the clock ticked away and the recent enemy donations fell through the sea.

  The exec didn’t start tracking time until almost a quarter of a minute after the latest plonks, from above. So it was only his best guess when he said, “Now,” some ninety seconds after the plonks. His guess was fair, though; there was an explosion above the Wu, which reached her in the form of a shockwave, the bang, and then the sound of the explosion, the boom. This was followed by another, then another, and then a third, each about five seconds apart, or slightly less. Each blast came a little worse than the last one, because they were closer to Wu’s depth. The risk was greater, too, as the hull was already stressed because of the great water pressure. The final boom was close enough to jar the Wu Zetian, though the hull kept its integrity.

  This could not be said for the captain, who ran off for his cabin without a word.

  At least the weasel didn’t piss his pants, thought the exec.

  “Sir,” said Sonar, “another plonk. This one was a torpedo, I think. And, sir . . . ?”

  “Yes?”

  “What if it got a bounce back from our hull from the blasts?”

  The exec almost ordered, “Ahead full!” He didn’t give the order but thought, ruefully, That shitheel of a captain’s contaminated me. “Hard port rudder. Ahead one-third.”

  “The torpedo was pinging, sir . . . hmmmph . . . it’s stopped, sir.”

  Oh, I dislike the sound of that.

  “Oops, it’s started again . . .”

  Lightweight Torpedo 35-RSAPEJSCDOTTMCJSC-1097,

  Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  The torpedo, competent but not brilliant, sliced through the waves at the aircraft’s normally slow speed, plus a little, then quickly sank to a depth of eighty-three meters. Thereupon, its control surfaces deployed and it began a long, slow, spiraling glide, listening. The listening was enhanced by the fact that the torpedo’s own engine, an underwater rocket, was not active.

  When 35-RSAPEJSCDOTTMCJSC-1097—or -1097, to its friends—was at about one hundred and thirty meters, there was a series of rather loud bangs far below it. Its brain was competent enough to classify those as, “depth charges, neither friendly nor enemy, and not to be targeted, however . . .”

  The “however” referred to a few hundred lines of programming that said, in effect, “wait for the echo.”

  Naturally, several echoes came, not just from the first four blasts but from bounces off of bounces off of bounces. It was all very confusing, especially to a brain that, while competent, was not brilliant. So -1097 oriented its nose toward the most likely of the echoes and then narrowed things down somewhat with just a bit of pinging. Once -1097 had a fairly definite plot for the probable target, the pinging cut out, and its control surfaces aimed it for the Zhong submarine. This latter was making enough noise, if barely, for the torpedo to follow its swing westward.

  The Wu moved west at five meters a second. The -1097 sank at a rate several times that. And with each meter sunk, the acoustic signal from the submarine grew louder and more distinct. It was not long until the, once again, not brilliant but competent, brain in the computer decided, “They’re fucked.”

  At that point the rocket motor in the torpedo fired, launching it down at many times the Wu’s speed. The one-hundred-and-sixty pound warhead detonated right against the hull, right over the captain’s quarters. Hull breech followed, initially with a deluge of water that killed the captain instantly. A crewman, facing generally astern, saw the water burst out of the door to the captain’s cabin, which was only for privacy, hence neither watertight nor strong, anyway. The crewman survived his captain by not much over a second as the combination of water and sudden rise in the air pressure, hence in heat, raced with simple crushing to see which killed him.

  Zhong Submarine Wu Zetian, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  There are occasions where slow and deliberate reason is indispensable. There are also occasions when panic works best. This was one of the latter. While some quick-thinking crewman slammed hatches and spun wheels to lock them, and while there was still a modicum of control, Wu’s exec didn’t bother thinking; he simply shouted, “Surface! Emergency Blow!”

  The ballast tanks were almost immediately emptied of water by high-pressure air. Another few seconds’ delay and the water pressure would have been too great for that. Then the sub would have continued on down until the hull collapsed in a sudden cataclysm. That, or, had it somehow survived the pressure, the crew would have died one by one, on the bottom, in the dark . . . slowly and miserably.

  Under the twin forces of displacement and the push of the screw, Wu picked up speed as she ascended. Moreover, with the planes and rudder in the stern providing more resistance than the smoothly ovoid bow, she took on a definite nose upward posture aggravated by the planes on the sail being turned leading edge upward, too.

  When she breached . . .

  Aircraft Trixie 53, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  “Holy fucking shit!” exclaimed Warrant Officer Montoya as the water below and to his starboard suddenly boiled, then exploded, the explosion being followed by a good fifty meters of submarine, topped by a sail, shooting out of the water. The forward portion of the sub slowed and reached a tipping point before crashing back down and disappearing. For a moment, its screw and rudder appeared before they, too, sank out of sight. A second or two later, like a cork, it bobbed back to the surface, more or less in parallel to the water. The screw was still turning, but slowly.

  Hatches opened. From them, with what struck Montoya as commendable discipline, little manlike shapes emerged, one man helping another out and, in a couple of cases, teams of two aiding the injured. The shapes wore different colored uniforms, the colors generally standing out brightly against the black of the hull. He tried to count them then gave that up; there were too many, coming too quick, and without enough of a pattern. He guessed he saw maybe eighty-five or ninety men emerge.

  Brightly colored life rafts blossomed on the ocean surface. The pilot didn’t see where they came from, only that they were suddenly there. They were not, however, all that close to the sub. A few teams of men jumped into the water to retrieve them, swimming them in where the injured could be more easily loaded.

  Yeah, good discipline . . . good teamwork.

  Montoya reported in the event, then was told, “Thanks for being the fifty-second person to call us with this information. We do, of course, appreciate it. Now fuck off and quit bothering us.”

  “You’re going to save them, right?” asked Montoya. He didn’t get an answer, but he saw a couple of Yakamovs vectoring in and dropping lines, with maybe half a dozen more off in the distance but closing.

  “Go and circle them,” said control. “See if you can spot any sharks too close to the surface . . . ummm . . . you do have loaded machine guns, don’t you?”

  This time it was Montoya who didn’t answer. Arrogant pricks. Yes, of course I do. Even so, he took up a position fair for spotting a shark.

  One of the nice things about the Turbo-finch, being derived, as it was, from a crop duster, was that it could turn on a dime. At least, when it wasn’t carrying a huge load of ordnance it could. At the moment, Trixie 53 was carrying almost nothing besides Montoya. It easily kept to a tight pattern over the life rafts and the few Zhong sailors still in the water. The only touchy part was keeping out of the way of the YA-72s as they came in to pull Zhong submariners out of the drink.

  While circling, Montoya formed the impression that the Zhong had all abandoned ship. Then one lone sailor appeared at the bridge, atop the sail. That sailor shook his head ruefully, then climbed over the side of the sail and began to descend by the ladder welded to its side. He turned about once his feet had settled, then rendered a really smart salute to the ship before stripping off his upper garment, dropping off his shoes, and diving in.

&nbs
p; However calm he’d seemed to Montoya as he’d gotten out, there was nothing especially relaxed about his swimming. He made it like a torpedo—Oh, all right; he’s a little slow for a torpedo—straight for the nearest yellow life raft.

  He’d made it rather less than halfway when the whole eight-thousand-ton boat shuddered, some huge bubbles appeared to either side, and it began rapidly to sink. The swimmer disappeared, pulled under with the downward tow of the Wu Zetian.

  “Shit,” said Montoya to himself. “A man that calm and purposeful needs to live.” He nosed his ’Finch over and swooped low just a bit off from the spot the swimmer had disappeared. With one wing almost touching the churned-up sea, Montoya looked to his left. Crap, he’s there! But—he leveled out and looked at the nearest life raft—no, they don’t see him.

  Montoya pulled back on his stick, tossing his plane into a loop. This was a dangerous maneuver, this close to the water. No matter. Leveling off again he found the swimmer once again by eye. The nearest life raft didn’t get it.

  Oh, I can fix that. Montoya pulled up, swooped down, and fired his machine guns at a spot about twenty meters from the life raft. All the raft’s passengers shuddered and looked up.

  Coming back around, Montoya wagged his wings then cut throttle to just above a stall. Twenty pairs of eyes, all wide with terror, followed him. The warrant pointed ahead, frantically. He was rewarded with one of the Zhong suddenly standing, stripping off his shirt, and diving into the sea, swimming in the direction Montoya had pointed. Taking his eyes off the sea for a moment, Montoya gazed around at other aircraft, dozens of them, winging it trippingly in other directions.

  Well . . . yeah . . . we thought, after all, that there were four Zhong subs. Why settle for one?

  Corvette Jaquelina Gonzalez, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  It was never really much of a contest. The torpedoes fired at the Jaquelina Gonzalez weren’t even set for particularly high speed, as compared to the corvette’s own forty-two knots. They were being guided by submarines that had precisely zero interest in actually hitting the ship. And they were fired in conditions where the ship had land to hide behind.

  Nonetheless, to make the show look good, Esox and her sister let the torpedoes almost run out their wire before having them self-destruct.

  It made a nice couple of splashes.

  BdL Dos Lindas, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova.

  “Thanks, Patricio,” Fosa said over the secure line, then replaced the phone on its gray-painted receiver.

  Tell the boys ‘well done,’ he says. Like that makes up for the rest. Sure, I’ll tell the boys . . . but ‘it’s time to go’ . . . they won’t be happy over it. I’m not happy over it. But . . . well . . . no sense in wasting lives.

  Coto, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  In the little border town, half in Balboa, half in Santa Josefina, a long line of civilian-clad and disarmed legionaries waited, with their passports out, for permission to cross the border and return home. There were seven or eight hundred of them, thought the immigration agent on duty.

  No fucking way we can deal with this ourselves, just me and a half dozen other agents, he thought, too, as he frantically dialed the number for headquarters, some distance away.

  Unknown to the border control agent, a scant two hundred meters away a Tauran soldier was also calling his headquarters, just as frantically. To each, the answers were similar. The Tauran was told, “We have no authority to arrest anybody here, and the press and the human rights lawyers will be all over us if we try.” The border control officer was told, “What the fuck do you want us to do? Yes, we can send a half-dozen men down to help you clear them through, to search baggage, and such. But they’re citizens. They’ve broken no laws here. They have the right to come home. And the president asked them to a while ago. So fuck off.”

  Corporal Sanchez, Second Cohort, Tercio la Virgen, had no idea why he was ordered to turn in his rifle and equipment, put on civilian clothes, and go home. At first, he’d balked, too. After all, the order wasn’t coming from the tercio commander. His sergeant though, had set him straight. “Don’t give the border police a fucking reason, except that you’re homesick. As for why, can you think of a better way to get through an enemy to where you can attack his vitals? And don’t bother asking where we get reissued arms. I’d be really surprised if that becomes an issue. Now shut up and change clothes. Oh, and remember to show up at the Bar la Cascada at the end of the month to collect your pay.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  If, notwithstanding the notification of the neutral Power, a belligerent ship of war does not leave a port where it is not entitled to remain, the neutral Power is entitled to take such measures as it considers necessary to render the ship incapable of taking the sea during the war, and the commanding officer of the ship must facilitate the execution of such measures.

  When a belligerent ship is detained by a neutral Power, the officers and crew are likewise detained.

  The officers and crew thus detained may be left in the ship or kept either on another vessel or on land, and may be subjected to the measures of restriction which it may appear necessary to impose upon them. A sufficient number of men for looking after the vessel must, however, be always left on board.

  The officers may be left at liberty on giving their word not to quit the neutral territory without permission.

  —Second Hague Convention, Article Twenty-four

  Hotel Cielo Dorado, Aserri, Santa Josefina, Terra Nova

  Empress Xingzhen’s agonized and outraged scream shook the walls of the hotel. “Those bastards!” she cursed. “Those fucking evil little brown pigs! Those filthy . . .” Tears began to course down her ethereal face, as she rocked back and forth, her own arms clutched about her, on the bed she generally shared with the high admiral.

  Wallenstein came out of one of the two bathrooms that came with the suite. “What . . . ?” She didn’t ask more; it was enough to see her lover in pain. She raced, long legs eating up the short distance to the bed, threw herself upon it, and wrapped the empress in a tight hug with one arm, wiping her tears with the hand of the other, and covering the grief-stricken woman’s face with kisses.

  Xingzhen started to break away, then collapsed into the high admiral’s ample bosom. Shuddering, still sobbing, shaking with unrelieved hate and lust for vengeance, the empress managed to get out, “They . . . they . . . my boat . . . my ship . . . it was mine . . . named by me . . . mine . . . aiaiaiaiaiai . . . they sank it . . . aiaiaiaiai . . .”

  One hand pressing the empress’s head tightly to her chest, Wallenstein looked around until she saw a formal-looking sheet of paper, lying on the bed. She picked it up with the other hand, then began to read it. She got through the first paragraph then thought, Oh, shit.

  “I’m going to nuke them out of existence,” the empress hissed. “Their grandchildren will have nightmares. They will . . .”

  “Hush, love,” said Wallenstein. When not engaged in making love she was the senior of the partnership. “You’re not going to do anything of the kind.”

  “What? I will . . .”

  “Shut up,” said the high admiral, more gently than the bare words would usually permit. “If you try to, the Federated States will obliterate you. You have what, two hundred warheads, most of them tactical?” Wallenstein neglected to mention that she wasn’t sure she had even a single functional nuclear weapon.

  “About that,” said Xingzhen.

  “Twenty missiles that can range?”

  “Twenty-five,” said the empress, who, calming somewhat, then admitted, “though their reliability is low.”

  “Right . . . let me tell you a little secret, my very dearest; Balboa will kill many more of yours than you will of them. That’s right, they have at least seventeen nuclear weapons, ten of those, or more, being city busters. And that’s not even counting the FSC, which will not permit nukes going off in their hemisphere.”

  “Now what happened,” Wallenstein demanded, “the
short version?”

  “We had four of our newest and best nuclear submarines move to a position to cover our invasion fleet. You knew that; I told you that. We had to, to protect the invasion fleet from a sortie by the Balboan carrier.”

  “Yes, I knew,” Wallenstein said, “and I approved. Please continue.”

  “Well,” said Xingzhen, with a small sniffle, “the stories conflict. We had four out there, but two of them apparently were sunk. Of the two surviving, one says we fired first—under vast provocation—and the other says they don’t know what happened but that they did not fire, that a torpedo passed them from behind.”

  “The captain of the second one trying to cover his ass against a future inquest?” Wallenstein suggested.

  “I don’t know,” said the empress. “I suppose it’s possible. But I don’t care. They sank my ship! Mine! Do you know how hard it will be to convince my people to accept a female ruler when the ship named for another female empress sank? They’re a silly, old-fashioned, narrow-minded, and superstitious lot. The Balboans have deprived me of my due. They must pay!”

  “Easy say, hard do,” said the high admiral. She thought for a couple of seconds and added, “For you. Impossible for me.