Carnifex

by Tom Kratman

  Sitnikov kept his insights to himself. He had few qualms about using fourteen year olds as soldiers, and none whatsoever to using fifteen- through eighteen-year olds.

  Formerly a colonel of armor in the army of the Volgan Republic, and before that in the Red Tsar's Guards, Sitnikov had been sent to Balboa early on, to train the new legionaries in the complexities and nuances of Volgan-built tanks, as well as their techniques and tactics. He'd come over, liked what he'd seen, liked the larger paycheck on offer for switching nationalities, and so had elected to stay. That had been more than five years ago.

  He'd been as bald then as he was now. Nor had he aged otherwise. Everything in Balboa agreed with Sitnikov, from the weather to the work to his new Balboan wife, a smoky beauty from this very town. The work especially agreed with him. His lifetime's ambition had been to command a division—tank or motorized rifle; it mattered not—in war. He was reasonably certain that, under the table, Carrera had given him the first half of that ambition, the division in the form of what was soon to be nearly thirteen thousand cadets. The other half, the war, was almost certainly coming.

  Sitnikov and his key staff met Carrera at the base of the terreplein over which had been erected a reviewing stand. Behind the reviewing stand stood the fort's massive stone walls.

  "At ease," Carrera ordered, after casually returning the mass salute.

  Sitnikov led the group up a smooth granite stairway, then along the grassy terreplein to the stand. There were already some dozens of spectators; one of them, Carrera was surprised to see, the Castilian colonel commanding the Tauran battalion at Fort Williams.

  Idly, Carrera wondered if Colonel Muñoz-Infantes was here as a spy or perhaps in sympathy. He didn't know enough about the man.

  Note to self: Muñoz-Infantes, check into, task for Fernandez.

  Slowly Carrera walked the line, shaking hands, patting shoulders, smiling. When he reached Muñoz-Infantes he was somewhat surprised to see the Castilian colonel brace to a stiff attention, click his heels, and announce, "Legate Fernandez intervened with Legate Sitnikov to invite me to this ceremony, Duque."

  "Did he indeed?" Carrera searched into the man's face for some insight. No use, it was as blank as a stone slab. "Well . . . welcome, Colonel. Enjoy the show."

  "Fernandez thinks he can be turned," Sitnikov whispered later, once he and Carrera were seated. "Muñoz-Infantes is a Falangist. He hates the Tauran Union, hates the wogs, hates the Gauls, hates the World League, hates United Earth, hates cosmopolitan progressivism, hates . . . "

  At that point Sitnikov was interrupted by a fanfare of trumpets, emanating from both sides of the reviewing stand. This was joined a few moments later by massed drums on the fort's parade, below the terreplain.

  Then came the singing. From three gates to the northeast the six thousand—soon to be over twelve thousand—boys, aged at this point fourteen to seventeen, marched onto the parade singing the theme song chosen for the youth:

  "Think, boys, think on all that matters most:

  Your homeland, the Legion, your flag and your faith.

  Hold them holy, holy in your hearts

  Pure as the morning light.

  Juventud adelante, cantando feliz

  Si hay sol o si llueve

  Juventud adelante, cantando feliz

  A muerte o victoria

  Assaltamos el mundo con pasos fuertes . . . "

  "Is there anything he likes?" Carrera asked.

  "Huh?" Sitnikov looked puzzled.

  "Muñoz-Infantes; is there anything he likes?"

  "Ah. Yes . . . according to Fernandez. They include Castille, the Spanish language, the Catholic Church, the Castilian Army . . . and, apparently . . . us."

  * * *

  The ceremony concluded, the boys were still singing as they marched off the field.

  "Juventud adelante,

  No camino tan duro.

  Gritamos "Ave Victoria!"

  "We've laid on a little reception, partly for ourselves but mostly for guests and the families of the boys transitioning to senior status next year," Sitnikov announced. "Perhaps you might want to chat with Colonel Muñoz-Infantes . . . "

  Carrera thought on it briefly before answering, "No . . . I would if I could but I can't. The Dos Lindas is supposed to be recommissioned tomorrow morning and I have another speech to rehearse in my mind. You feel free to feel him out, though, Sasha. Just don't commit to anything and don't let him send anyone to snoop around our facilities."

  "I understand, Patricio," Sitnikov answered.

  Carrera was reasonably sure that the Volgan understood perfectly.

  * * *

  Most of the tonnage of the Legion's not-so-very-small fleet was, for the time being, here at Puerto Lindo. Besides the aircraft carrier, which dominated all the others, there were five ex-Volgan Suvarov Class cruisers, purchased from a scrap dealer for a total of eleven million FSD, along with thirteen more former Volgan ships, one destroyer, two submarines, six obsolete frigates, one mine-countermeasures ship, and three corvettes.

  The Suvarovs had been out of commission and slated for scrapping for over a decade but, in the confusion attendant on the collapse of the Volgan Empire, no one had ever gotten around to actually scrapping these last five. They were virtually scrap anyway, all but one of them, or possibly two. That best one had been kept up longer than the rest to serve as a flagship. Carrera thought that still something might be done with the rest. The one that was in fair shape was being restored in a somewhat desultory fashion. The others? Even if scrapped for their steel, the gun turrets, five dual six-inch mountings each, might be emplaced on concrete pads around the Isla Real's perimeter.

  The other warships were newer and in better shape. Among these were even two titanium-hulled submarines, formerly nuclear but in fact as dead as chivalry with the reactors and anything to do with them torn out. Carrera didn't actually know to a certainty what he would do with any of them, but the price had been right. Nobody wanted Volgan ships, not even Volga.

  There was a second carrier out there, also an ex-His Anglic Majesty's Ship, the Perseus, the Legion had an option on. It was in truly awful shape though, since some light scrapping had actually commenced before the Legion bought its option. It might, at best, serve as a stationary training ship. It was certainly never going to sail again; it would have to be towed to Balboa to be any use at all.

  Though Carrera didn't know what he was going to do with most of the hulls he'd bought; he did know what he was going to do with the Venganza.

  We're going to commission it.

  The ship had started out as a bargain. Purchased for three and a half million FSD, and needing about twelve times that in overhaul, it had seemed like a relatively cheap, and potentially highly profitable, way of transporting aircraft to the war zone and perhaps even suppressing Salafi piracy in various areas of the globe that had fallen under it. Then the cost of Yithrabi crude had hit eighty FSD a barrel and an oil powered ship had seemed rather less of a bargain. Just moving the ship, slowly, halfway around the globe used about six and a half million FSD worth of diesel. And there was no guarantee that the price wouldn't go up. There wasn't even a guarantee of an adequate supply. Nor were the thermal deploymerization plants –built or building—so far in Balboa really up to more than domestic consumption. Indeed, they didn't even cover most that that, yet.

  Someone suggested nuclear. But it was not that big a ship, at about two hundred and twelve meters in length and twenty-four in beam, measured at the waterline. Oh, sure, this was much larger than some of the nuclear submarines in use by the Federated States, Volga, Zhong Guo, Anglia and Gaul. But the submarines didn't have to account for a flight deck, or fuel for aircraft. In any case, no one except the Volgans was willing to sell a militarily capable nuclear reactor to a private military organization for an essentially private warship. It just wasn't going to happen. As far as the Volgans went, they had lots of redundant reactors from their rusting fleet, but nobody really trusted
their reactors.

  I wonder if the FSC or Anglia would have been more cooperative if they'd known the Legion was already a nuclear power, mused Carrera, standing by the dock.

  Enter the Republic of Northern Uhuru, which had a new design for which they needed money. This design used tennis ball-sized spheres of mixed graphite and uranium instead of the more dangerous, expensive and difficult to dispose of uranium fuel rods used by others. The RNU was willing to sell. Even better, since the reactor design was modular, and not all that large, it could be constructed inside the ship. Hooray!

  Except that even one miserable module provided more than five times the power the ship needed. Worse, each module cost about one hundred and twenty-five million FSD. Talk about cost overruns. The RNU went back to the drawing board, coming back some months later with a much smaller design, costing about seventy-five million, and producing only twice the power actually needed. Carrera had been offered two of the things for one hundred and thirty million so perhaps that one Suvarov Class cruiser might someday sail again, after all.

  * * *

  "But that's still twice as much as we need," Carrera had railed at the design team.

  "Yeah, Duque . . . but . . . see . . . there are things we can do with the extra power. Lasers."

  "Laaasssers . . . ," the ship's redesign team had echoed when their chief said that.

  "Lasers?"

  "Oh, yes. Lasers. Shoot down incoming missiles . . . aircraft . . . cruise missiles . . . even shells. Lasers."

  * * *

  And so the ship had been fitted with three high-energy lasers; one each bow and stern on projecting mounts, plus one over the superstructure, or island. Add another seventy-five million to the cost. Then, once one has a ship into which one has sunk some hundreds of millions of dollars, one starts to give a lot of thought to protecting one's investment. Guns it had. The lasers helped, too. Armor was right out. That left maneuverability.

  * * *

  "You want me to spend what on this new drive?"

  "But it only makes sense, Duque. The electric, podded, variable azimuth drive would make the ship turn within its own length. And we can get substantially increased speed, too."

  * * *

  After that, the twenty thousand spent for a bronze figurehead of his lost Linda, with her breasts demurely covered, had seemed pretty cheap to Carrera. In the end the thing had cost just over a quarter of a billion, not counting aircraft. All that just to get eighteen helicopters (three of them equipped for Anti-Submarine Warfare), twelve light attack aircraft modified from crop dusters, eighteen slightly lengthened and widened, and substantially upengined, Cricket light recon birds, eight remotely piloted aircraft, and a demi-battalion of light infantry into some littoral area where they could raid.

  Even with that light an aircraft load there had been problems. None of the older Volgan helicopters that were suitable, available, and affordable fit both the hangar deck's 5.3 meters of height and the dimensions of the elevators. Conversely, none of the more modern helicopters produced by the FSC or Tauran Union were capable enough or affordable enough, although they fit the hangar nicely. In the end, they'd decided—rather, the legate of the classis, Roderigo Fosa, had decided, since Carrera had simply given him a budget and said, "You figure it out"—on a newer Volgan helicopter, The Yakamov YA- 72 that was offered for sale for surprisingly little.

  Little was not, however, nothing. The twenty-two YA-6s purchased had still run nearly fifty million FSD, with spares.

  It is a fine chopper, Carrera thought. But still; fifty million . . . . And it doesn't mesh logistically with the IMs we already have . . .

  Sighing at the cost, Carrera approached the ship's bow. Fosa, the legate commanding the classis, or fleet, followed, leading Mrs. Parilla who had been selected to do the honors for the rechristening.

  Let's hope somebody hires us to use it.

  2/10/466 AC (Old Earth Year 2521), UEPF Spirit of Peace

  One might have thought that a figurehead on a starship would have made little sense. Nonetheless, United Earth had for centuries had hundreds of thousands of otherwise unemployed and unemployable "artists." Some of them were even capable of more than flinging dung onto a canvas and calling it "art." Of those, some numbers had been commissioned to create figureheads for the Spirit class of UE starships.

  Spirit of Peace had been assumed to be a representative of all Earth's peoples, for only a joining of all the people could hope to bring peace. Thus, her figurehead had been a mixed race beauty. It looked quite a bit like the figurehead for the Dos Lindas, for that matter.

  Which is decidedly ironic, thought High Admiral Robinson, sitting in his quarters, half turned from his desk. His uniform trousers were partly undone since he was being fellated by his fleet sociologist, Lieutenant Commander Iris Khan.

  Khan, despite having one distant ancestor from the region of Pakistan on Old Earth, was blonde and blue-eyed. Kneeling between Robinson's legs, her eyes stayed upturned, intent on the High Admiral's face, even as her mouth worked diligently to give the High Admiral the quality of service to which his position entitled him.

  Normally Robinson used the captain of Peace, Marguerite Wallenstein, for his physical needs. The captain, however, had duty at the moment and Khan had been otherwise unemployed. She would do.

  Indeed, she does very well, Robinson thought as he reached out a hand to force Khan's head down and his penis into her throat moments before ejaculation. She stayed that way, her lips against the root of the High Admiral's penis, even when a yeoman entered the quarters with the fleet's morning report. In the UEPF there was no shame in servicing one's betters. Only after the yeoman had left did Khan back off to lick away the still leaking residue. By that time the High Admiral's face was blocked by the report.

  "That will be all, thank you, Iris. I'll call you if I need you," was all Robinson had to say.

  A few last licks and Khan closed the Admiral's trousers, refastened his belt, stood and turned to go.

  Just before she exited the cabin, Robinson ordered, "Send your husband to me. I want to go over some developments down below with him. It seems the local mercenary chief isn't content with merely having a ground army. He's got a major warship now. I wonder what's next."

  3/10/466 AC, Obras Zorrilleras, Cuidad Balboa, Republic of Balboa

  Cheapness was a watchword for the Legion. Let others pay the expense of being on the cutting edge of military and scientific research; the Legion didn't need that. Instead, the Obras Zorrilleras, the research and development arm of the Legion del Cid, concentrated on stealing, reverse engineering, modifying, and occasionally—after evaluation—outright purchasing of technology. Even so, they did some original work, too.

  They'd had some successes. The modifications for the Dos Lindas had come from OZ's naval bureau. They'd had a strong hand in the remanufacture of several smallish nuclear weapons captured in Sumer half a decade before. The small unit tactical communications system, or Comsys, was likewise their design, modified from a wireless cell phone system in broad use around Terra Nova.

  The big projects now were stealth, something the Federated States had a near monopoly on and which they would not share even with very close allies like Anglia.

  Carrera had some potential uses for stealth, in the air, at sea and under the sea. That made it an OZ priority.

  "We've got three things for you, Duque," the chief of OZ, an immigrant named Pislowski from the Jagielonian Commonwealth, said. "Two of these are the same basic technique but applied differently."

  Carrera, Pislowski, and three others sat at a cheap conference table deep inside the main building for OZ. The researchers hadn't thought to provide refreshments. Instead, three models stood atop the table.

  How refreshing, Carrera thought. He loathed briefings, meetings, and all the rest of the modern world's bureaucratic time-sinks. Refreshments tended to make it worse, not better, since they invited people to stay too long and talk too much. On occasion, Carrera though
t of enacting a regulation requiring all meetings and briefings in the Legion to be conducted standing and in the rain.

  Pislowski smiled, pointing a finger. "It was that bloody Volgan's idea."

  The Volgan—his given name was Pyotr –smiled back. He then picked up one of the models, a strangely proportioned aircraft. "As my friend has said, it was my idea. Technically. Better to say I was the one who pulled together some things I'd seen and read over the years. Some of that came from Jagielonia. This is a glider we've nicknamed the Condor."

  "They build many gliders in Jagielonia,' Pyotr continued. "Their interest goes back many decades. Even when I was doing design work for the Volgan Empire, it occurred to me that a glider has many advantages over an aircraft, even for combat purposes. It is fuel efficient. It is easy and cheap to maintain, even if it has an engine, as some do. It is quite easy and cheap to train people to fly a glider. Because a glider is so cheap and easy to fly, there is no great reason to require that the highest caliber men be chosen as pilots. Ground support requirements are only a tiny fraction of what is needed for a high performance aircraft. A glider is also relatively difficult to pick up on radar."