The Rods and the Axe

by Tom Kratman

  One of those preparations had involved cutting a ragged rent in the hull’s side, just above normal high water and facing the coast of the tadpole’s tail and the beach to its west. That artificial tear in the hull was so close to high water that strong waves sometimes partially washed into the hulk.

  Well behind the ragged cut, almost on the other side of the hull, two water-cooled machine guns sat on tripods welded to the steel of the decking. Except for the water cooling, these were middle-weight guns, at .34 caliber, heavier than the M-26 light machine gun that was really just a heavy step up from the standard legionary rifle, but still lighter than the .41 caliber guns that graced most vehicles. With the water cooling, of course, they could fire for hours.

  The rent was highly irregular, rising with an almost vertical tear such that the rightmost gun could fire at high trajectory at the tadpole’s tail, about a mile away. He did so, in medium long bursts, not so much in the expectation of hitting something smaller than the island, but in the anticipation of making people on the tail more nervous than they would be just from the deluge of heavy mortar shells they were already suffering under. There is something about direct fire that is somehow more nerve wracking, at least for some people, than the random chance of indirect.

  Watching through the rent in almost exactly the same angle as one of the machine gunners, Alba saw a long snaking line of Zhong Marines wading through water that was just above waist deep for most of them. One of the obstacles the Zhong faced in their perilous wade was a thick, almost solid, carpet of bodies, rising and falling rhythmically with the surf.

  The gunner shook his head with disgust. “Oh, fuck it,” he said, then used his left hand to depress the butterfly trigger of his -34. The gun began spitting out a stream of high-velocity lead at a rate of somewhere between four hundred and five hundred rounds per minute. The gunner tapped the gun with his right, more or less gently, causing it to traverse along the line of the advancing Zhong, knocking most of them from their feet to join the carpet of bodies already built up in the waves.

  Within the steel confines of the hull, the muzzle blast was like a continuing series of blows to the face. That was anticipated; the platoon manning the ship was connected by headphones and an intercom system.

  “This isn’t fucking war,” said the gunner, ceasing fire for lack of targets. “This is just murder.”

  “When did I tell you there was a huge amount of difference?” asked Alba.

  “Never, Centurion, but I never expected to—”

  The ship’s hull shuddered with the impact of a high explosive round. “Pay no attention,” said Alba, with a confidence greater than he actually felt. “The engineers built us positions to take a few hits.”

  I hope.

  Headquarters, Eighth Fortress Legion,

  Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Down in the bottom floor of the oldest of the deep shelters dug into the island’s bowels, Carrera and Puercel stood staring down at a three-dimensional model of the island and its fortifications. The model itself had been put together by a team of Sitnikov’s cadets.

  At fifteen by twenty-five meters, the terrain model filled up over half of the shelter’s bottom deck. It was by built-in sections, sitting well above the floor, held on wheeled carts. The carts had been moved, leaving a gap between the bulk of the island and the area the enemy had obviously targeted for his landing, so that staff officers and noncoms could mark the known and presumed positions, friendly and enemy.

  The floor was also marked, though those markings were traced from the model’s approximate center, Hill 287. On the floor were not only representations of the Zhong ships, hundreds of them, but also arcs were painted in the blue and marked with artillery calibers: “122mm . . . 152mm . . . 160mm . . . 240mm . . . 180mm . . . 180mm ERRB.” That latter referred to “Extended Range, Reduced Bore,” the sabot-mounted, laser-guided shells that could reach out more than two and a half times the 180’s normal range, and have a fair prospect of hitting a target the size of a ship when they got there. Though the floor wasn’t marked that way, there was also a limited number of ERRB-BB, the last two letters standing for “Base Bleed,” which had certain advantages over rocket assist and added considerably to the already impressive range.

  Virtually the entire Zhong fleet was within the latter arc. Lines of advance for landing craft were also drawn to the three identifiable beaches. As Carrera and Puercel watched, somebody placed a Zhong flag atop one of the larger surface combatants, the light cruiser which could only be the Taizhou.

  “I have my doubts,” said Carrera.

  Thereupon, Puercel called over the staff officer who had emplaced the tiny flag. Replied the staff type, “Analysis of radio traffic, sir, says that only that cruiser, or either one of the carriers, could be their admiral’s flagship.”

  Legate Puercel looked questioningly at Carrera, who said, “Sure, it could be. But we don’t have the ability to unencrypt Zhong secure radio, so we have no idea what the traffic we’re picking up say, only a volume of traffic. And between aircraft and requests for fire from the cruiser, sure there’s more radio traffic.” Turning to the staff officer, Carrera asked, “is there any correlation between radio traffic from the cruiser and the cruiser firing in support of the landing.”

  “Yes, Duque, some. But we’ve also seen bursts of radio traffic that correlated to changes in direction of columns of landing craft, changing of targeting parameters from attacking aircraft . . . sir, I’ll bet my rank on it; that’s the flagship.”

  “Okay,” Carrera conceded, “it could well be.” Turning back to Puercel, he said, “Now the question for you, Legate, is, ‘Do you target the cruiser first, to get rid of their commander, or leave it alone, so he and his staff can add confusion when things begin to go badly wrong?’ Well?”

  “No it isn’t,” said Puercel. “The question is, is it worthwhile to get that fucking cruiser before it can go after my 180s?”

  “Well . . . your show,” said Carrera. “Decide and do it.”

  “Time then, Duque?”

  “Like I told you when I first arrived and just told you again now, ‘your show.’ ”

  Puercel scanned the walls for the intelligence charts posted there. Over half of the enemy Marine Corps was either landed or en route. Over three-fourths of his surface combatant fleet was in range of the island’s artillery. Every purpose-built amphib known to be in commission in the Zhong Navy was in range. And the estimate of how much air they could put up in the next two hours was not especially intimidating.

  “Your show,” Carrera repeated.

  For the rest of my life, thought Puercel, I will be reliving this moment. My grandchildren and great-grandchildren, if I live that long, will grow up on stories of it. This is the supreme moment of my life.

  So don’t blow it.

  “Air defense umbrella, up!” the legate ordered. “Get our own RPVs out there.”

  “I’ll have the heavy-missile batteries on the mainland unmask, as well,” Carrera said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  A ship’s a fool to fight a fort.

  —Lord Horatio Nelson

  Zhong Light Cruiser Taizhou, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  There wasn’t any particular shortage of remotely piloted vehicles in the Zhong armed force. Nor was there any shortage in Admiral Wanyan’s invasion fleet. What there was, or, rather, what had developed in the last four or five minutes, was a shortage of information that the RPVs in the air had been providing. There was no shortage of clues as to why this had happened; two of the seven hovering above the island had sent back videos of massive walls of tracers appearing in front of them, just before going off the air.

  It would only be a matter of minutes, eight or ten of them, at the most, before visual coverage of the island was restored. Already, replacement RPVs were winging in from the Taizhou and several destroyers. But it was disturbing to the admiral that now, just at this key moment, the enemy had elected to unmask his air defense.
Wanyan had already called off the aircraft from the two carriers, waiting until a proper package could be assembled to take on the Balboan air defense. At that, better to wait until naval gunfire . . .

  Batería Pedro el Cholo, Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Tribune Pham stood beside the concrete-set rails that led from the bunker behind him. Through the open doors of the bunker, with a great rumbling sound, emerged the twenty-three-ton, 180mm cannon that had hidden within for years. To either side of it, from two other “ammunition” bunkers, two further guns were dragged by small “shunter” locomotives, called, locally, “mules.” Others were being moved out other steel doors to take a position either behind the ammunition bunkers or, in a few cases, along the ring railroad that encompassed the island. In total, sixty-four 180mm guns had been sent to the island and put on Volgan-designed and -built railway carriages. Almost all of these could be used.

  The presence of turntables, such as still existed for some of the old Federated States railway guns, long since abandoned, would have been a dead giveaway. Instead, the rails had been laid out in several almost parallel curves leading to the ruined turret of the battery. This allowed a fair degree of effective traverse, all on its own. Still, even with the built-in traverse of the railway mounting, only some four and a half degrees each way, the guns were quite restricted in the arc they could cover. Conversely, with over sixty of them in action, from all around the island’s perimeter, and able to fire either front or rear, every arc was covered by, on average five guns.

  While Pham had ears only for the rumble of the rolling guns, he had eyes only for the sky, for the enemy RPVs that would spot his batteries, and for aircraft that would come in with explosive and liquid fire to destroy the guns and men.

  For a moment, he wished earnestly for the little bitch of a trollop, Warrant Officer Siegel, to put a little foul-mouthed fire under the asses of his crews. Then he saw the first gun in position elevating up to about forty degrees and decided that she probably wasn’t really needed.

  “Sir,” announced one of his men from the shelter of the bunker, behind, “Battery Mkhize says it has its first gun up. For the rest they say another two to five minutes.”

  “Let me know when they’re all up,” said Pham. “Both batteries.”

  “Sir!”

  Zhong LPD Qin Shan, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  Major Wu took what he firmly expected to be a last look at the miniature portrait he carried in his wallet of his wife, Jiao. I wish I could have promised to return to you, my so very dear, but I cannot make a promise I cannot be sure to keep.

  Wu was slated to go in by landing craft with the first wave from his battalion, though it would be a later wave from regiment’s perspective. Casualties were expected to be immense, just shy of one hundred percent. Wu suspected, not without reason, that casualties actually were expected to be one hundred percent, but that the staff was simply lying about it, in the interests of morale.

  He put on a good face, did the major, for someone who was scared to death. That was scared to death, not of death. What terrified him wasn’t the prospect of dying, but the probable futility of it.

  Oh, ancestors, Wu prayed, do not let your heir die uselessly and ingloriously, in the water. For the glory of our clan and our name, see me, at least, to shore, where I can strike a blow before I die.

  Headquarters, Eighth Fortress Legion,

  Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova

  While Puercel kept his attention glued to the displays showing heavy batteries coming on line, Carrera paid more attention to the physical depiction of the Zhong fleet on the concrete floor.

  That, thought Carrera, is probably because he’s concerned with defending this island while I am a lot more worried about winning the war and winning it in such a way that it’s worth the winning, which is something the good legate probably couldn’t give a good goddamn about.

  Carrera listened with limited attention as Puercel, bypassing the Eighth Legion commander, gave instructions directly to his attached subordinate, the commander of the Twelfth Coastal Defense Artillery Brigade.

  The big thing ordered Carrera tended to agree on. The fucking Zhong cruiser must go. He had to pause for a minute to translate unit designations into personal information. He was pleased to see the old men of the Cochinese artillery would get first crack at the cruiser. They hated the Zhong about as much as they hated the Gauls.

  One of the display charts on the wall showed which batteries and which dedicated forward observers would be engaging which targets. Little flags for those were placed on the simplistic wooden ship models dotting the floor. Though the shells would be laser guided, there were limits to what laser guidance could do. The guns would still have to be directed the old-fashioned way and aimed the old-fashioned way to get their guns within laser correctable limits.

  It seemed to take forever, though a check of a watch would have shown the target assignment process as being a matter of under ten minutes. Still, the time came when the display of the eight heavy batteries, batteries the Zhong certainly thought wrecked, showed each with a target, and each target ready to be lased by a forward observer, or RPV, or laser designator mounted under a barrage balloon.

  “The Zhong carriers are never going to come in range,” said Puercel to Carrera. The latter just shrugged. Nothing to be done.

  “Paint,” ordered Puercel.

  Zhong LPD Qin Shan, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  Standing just behind the ramp of the landing craft, Wu turned around to see the ship still disgorging its fighting cargo, landing craft and amphibious vehicles pouring from the well deck. He heard occasional faint cries, orders, shouted out over the roar of engines and the splash of the waves, natural and artificial.

  The LDP represented safety. The direction of the landing craft, however, represented duty. Wu tore his eyes from the former and, exposing no more than those eyes and the top of his helmeted head, turned his attention to the smoke-shrouded, jungle-clad island to the south-southeast. There were other landing craft there, as well as amphibious armored personnel carriers and light tanks. They seemed to Wu to be forming a rough line and staying there.

  Hmmm . . . beach obstacle of some kind, or maybe a reef. A great blast shook the air and water. Wu felt it first through his feet. Engineers clearing the way. Good boys!

  The landing craft seemed to speed across the water, though Wu knew it was capable of no more than twelve knots. Part of the sensation of speed came from the continuous bouncing of the hull, up, down, up, down, up . . .

  Wu caught himself barely in time, shutting off his urge to vomit through sheer will power. Behind him, he heard someone else whose will either failed or who tried to exercise it too late. Blaaaghghgh.

  And that’s why I’m up front, thought Wu, up where the stench won’t reach me . . . because in the presence of a strong smell of vomit, even the best will can fail. And that would . . .

  The thought was cut off as Wu felt a sudden pain in both of his eyes. He blinked but the pain remained. He ducked down, behind the ramp. This was just as well, as from somewhere on the island machine-gun fire began to lance out, ringing off steel hulls and ramps or raising small geysers in the sea.

  Zhong Light Cruiser Taizhou, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  “Admiral, we’re being lased,” announced one of Wanyan’s operations people, clutching a headset tightly. “Five . . . no . . . six other ships also report they’re receiving laser energy. Not especially powerful, all of it is consistent with range finding or target designation.”

  That sailor suddenly went white as whatever report he’d just received through his headset. “Sir . . . we have . . . a lot . . . an awful lot . . . of artillery rising from the island. The trajectories don’t match anything in the database, but if they’re not some kind of bluff, then . . .”

  “What, dammit?” demanded the admiral.

  “They . . . they can range . . . they can range . . . if it’s not a bluff they can range . . .”


  “WHAT!”

  “Between seventy and one hundred kiloyards. And . . . Admiral? It looks like we’re a prime target.”

  Wanyan was about to say, “Ignore it; nobody can hit at that distance.” Then he recalled the other common purpose of lasers and wanted to say, instead, “Shit! Bring her about. Turn the fleet about. Smoke.” Lastly, he remembered that, come right down to it, his cruiser, the destroyers, and the frigates couldn’t take the island, but the infantry still waiting in the assault transports could, while the poor bastards on or heading to the beach still needed his fires.

  And, after all, fuck it; at least I have some armor. And we can use smoke.

  Batería Pedro el Cholo, Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova

  The two batteries between them manned sixteen guns. One of those, Pham was disgusted to learn, over on Battery Mkhize, was apparently defective. Rather, its railroad mount was. The mount disintegrated under the stress of recoil. Where the shell went . . . it was going to be short.

  Let’s hope the infantry blame it on the enemy.

  Being artillery, Pham only had two medics for one battery and one for the other, another two in an aid station, and two men in a single light wheeled vehicle for evacuation. That vehicle, siren blaring, raced to the position of the shattered gun mount and began treating the wounded, of which there were far too many for the one ambulance to deal with.