Come and Take Them

by Tom Kratman

  She sighed, raising an inquisitive cough from Khan the wife.

  “Nothing, Commander,” Marguerite said. “Continue.”

  “There’s not much else, High Admiral,” she said. “Janier was supposed to start provoking the Balboans over a week ago. He hasn’t because he can’t get the political authorization, which we were supposed to deliver. We simply haven’t been able to.”

  “Even though we’ve offered their ruling classes another quarter-century of life, youth, and health?” Wallenstein asked.

  “Not that simple, High Admiral. Some are willing, sure. Many of them are. But some are idealistic, transcendentally motivated; they really believe in whatever their pet philosophy is—from pacifism to cosmopolitanism to Tsarist Marxism—and won’t trade away their political faiths for mere personal gain.

  “Fortunately, there are few of those. Unfortunately, they carry weight over and above their numbers.”

  “The personal gain isn’t so very ‘mere,’ you know,” said Marguerite. “An extra twenty-five years of youth and health? They should be begging us.”

  “Most of them would,” agreed Iris. “But those others? The fanatics? They are dangerous to the more reasonable types. Well . . . except for the pacifists, of course. They’re only dangerous to themselves and their own.”

  “You wouldn’t have brought this to me if you didn’t have a solution,” the high admiral said.

  “Not me,” replied Iris, “but my husband may have one.”

  Wallenstein turned her attention, perhaps a little reluctantly, away from the pretty wife and toward the—let’s be honest, not bad himself—husband.

  “The key word there is ‘may,’ High Admiral,” began Commander Khan, husband. “That is to say, maybe the Balboans have given us something to work with. I confess, I am not precisely full of confidence. And, for that matter, I’ve had the glimmering of an idea. My lovely wife is the one who figured out—”

  “But it was you—” began Iris, before Wallenstein cut her off with, “Shut up. I don’t care whose idea it is, if it has a chance of working.”

  “It revolves around two things,” said Khan the husband. “One is the Balboan military threat to Colombia Latina as a whole, though more specifically the threat to their eastern neighbor, Santa Josefina.”

  “Santa Josefina got rid of its army decades ago,” said Iris. “The cosmopolitans love that, while the pacifists approve enough that their resistance to knocking out a threat to Santa Josefina will be muted.”

  “Yes,” agreed her husband, “while the second item is that the Balboans have played into our hands by engaging in an arms buildup the likes of which Colombia Latina has never seen.

  “Mind you, High Admiral, they don’t have the logistical wherewithal to support more than a small fraction of their army at any distance from home . . . well, except if they can support it by sea. But the common ruck and muck of the Tauran Union see tanks and guns and aren’t bright enough to realize that those go nowhere without sufficient trucks and rail.”

  Marguerite considered all that. “You think, you really think, Balboa is a threat to Santa Josefina?”

  Khan the husband shrugged. “I think they could be if they wanted to be. They don’t want to because they get everything they want from Santa Josefina—namely volunteers to be cannon fodder—already, without having to worry about the costs of administering the country.”

  “It might help,” said Iris, “if we used the longevity treatments to bribe the Santa Josefinan politicos to ask for Tauran Union protection. Might even throw the Federated States off guard, come to think of it.”

  “Tangled web-wise,” said Marguerite, “I kind of like that.”

  Classroom Shed 47, Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Carrera had a lot more things to hide than just some aircraft, some hovercraft, or some ships. Some were hidden on the island, the Isla Real, that served as the legion’s primary training base and was already most of the way there to becoming the strongest fortress in the history of two worlds.

  On the northwest quarter of the island, not too far from the solar chimney that provided power to the place, a slender, aesthetic and intelligent looking warrant named Saenz taught a portion of a course under a metal shed, without walls but screened against insects. Outside the shed four three-ton trucks waited, their engines shut off. Saenz was seconded from Fernandez’s department to teach a portion of the course for a few months a year.

  The course was top secret, forbidden even to discuss. Of course the techniques taught there were to be passed on to the units that sent men to the course. It was the existence of the course, itself, that was top secret. Indeed, although it was largely about deceiving and defeating the most high tech means of reconnaissance, the course was billed as, “Advanced Field Fortifications.”

  Some of it actually took place around fortified areas. Other portions, like this one, were under cover. Some, the deepest secrets, were passed on underground.

  Exactly on time the instructor, Warrant Officer Saenz, began to speak from a rostrum sitting centered on a low podium.

  “Gentlemen,” said the instructor, “today we will continue with the discussion of tactical deception on the battlefield. I remind you that this is key, because deception is the handmaiden of surprise. Further, it is also simply a great way to reduce the effectiveness of extremely high technology weapons and sensors.”

  Saenz looked over the students for the one who had likely failed to study. Not finding one, at least from a facial expression, he asked, “Now who has studied for today’s lesson? Yes . . . you over there in the third row. Tell me? How many types of remote sensing are there? Name one of them and state briefly how it works.”

  The corporal chosen stood up from his desk and answered, “That we know of, there are several. The simplest, but not the easiest to defeat, is aerial photography. Aerial photography, whether from satellites or from aircraft, can take extremely detailed pictures. In days past the preferred technique for defeating aerial photography was by camouflage, natural or artificial . . . or both. Special films, however, can tell whether camouflage, say vegetation or something that looks like vegetation, is alive . . . or even real. Computer programs and spectral analysis do the same things, only quicker. So it is possible to make yourself more obvious with camouflage than without it.”

  “Very good,” the warrant complimented. “Take a seat, please. The man next to you . . . yes, you, Rudolfo. Give the group another, please.”

  “Sir,” the legionary answered. “Heat is another method of detecting even carefully hidden targets. Our weapons are mostly steel; they cool at different rates than the air or soil around and under them . . . even over them. And vehicles’ engines put out enough heat that they will show up like a spotlight even through many feet of dirt or concrete.”

  “Good. Who’s next? Ah, good. Another, son?”

  “Sir. Radar can be used to find out where we are if we are above the surface of the planet. Then, too, there’s ground penetrating radar. It is like other radars but on a different wavelength; one that will see right through the earth . . . or water. The limitation is how far down it will see; and with what detail. Also trees tend to absorb the radar energy.”

  “Do we know how far down those radars will see, son?”

  “Not precisely, sir,” the soldier answered. “Depending on the type of system and its computer power—computers to make sense out of the jumbled image—anywhere from three to fifteen meters. Possibly more, we just don’t know.”

  “Possibly,” Saenz agreed. “And we may never know. And if we ever find out, we may not like the reason why or the manner how for beans.”

  Pointing to the other side of the classroom, Saenz said, “Next man.”

  “They can smell us . . .”

  The class broke into laughter. A couple of students muttered, none too softly, “They can smell you.”

  “No, really,” the soldier continued. “They can drop sensors that pick up the smell of shit or
urine, probably even our body odor. They can also pick up the smell of explosives, diesel fumes and smoke. I don’t know about food cooking, though.”

  “Neither do I,” Saenz said. “But it is possible. Next.”

  “Magnetic. Like Rudolfo said, our weapons are steel, also much of the ammunition. It is possible to pick up the magnetism from those and, based on intensity, figure out what is hidden from view; or at least if it is worth it to bomb the source.”

  “Good.” Saenz’s finger moved. “Another.”

  “They can drop seismic detectors that will pick up on the vibrations in the earth from passing vehicles, or even feet.”

  “Yes,” Saenz agreed, then added, “and anything we do actively, show ourselves, use lights, use the radio, turn on a fucking truck or car engine . . . even some kinds of field telephones; that can all be picked up and analyzed by folks that are smart and well trained to do so.

  “But we’re not helpless, boys.”

  Saenz raised a hand to indicate he had no more questions. “Follow me out to the trucks,” he ordered.

  The class stood and shuffled through the twin screen doors at the rear of the classroom shed. Outside, they loaded the three-ton trucks, men being boosted from below and pulled up by those already mounted. Once loaded, they were driven out into the interior of the island, to a spot north of the main impact area. It was a bone wrenching journey that took almost an hour. When the trucks came to a stop, Saenz, who had driven himself, was already on the ground waiting for the students.

  The instructor motioned for the troops to take seats on the ground in a semicircle around him. He raised a finger to his lips. “Boys, you can never . . . and I mean never, divulge what I am about to show you or tell you. It is simply this. Any remote sensing system can be defeated on its own, any of them. The trouble is that they are never used singly. Put camouflage overhead, they will pick up your heat signature. Hide your heat signature by digging deep, the ground penetrating radar will find your holes or tunnels. Put up a radar defeating screen and they’ll bomb the screen out of existence and then bomb you.

  “And better than half the effort you use has to be to make the enemy think there is a better target elsewhere. Put out a dummy tank. When the engine doesn’t get hot every day they’ll know it’s a fake. Even if you light a reasonable fire under the dummy it won’t have the magnetic signature of a real tank, so it will be ignored. And there is only so far down you can dig a tank in and still be able to get it up again quickly.”

  “Now, single file. Follow me.” The centurion led the troops through the jungle and into a tunnel. The boys stumbled along into the ever increasing gloom. After several minutes they passed through a double cloth barrier and came to an opening. The centurion flicked on a light switch when the barrier finally closed behind the last of the troops. They saw an Ocelot, an infantry fighting vehicle that the legion typically used as a light tank, in the opening. The roof was concrete, the walls dirt, except for one that was thick steel, with hinges on the sides and a part in the middle. Several other tunnels led off in different directions.

  “This,” said a solemn Saenz, “is how we defeat remote sensing. And it isn’t easy or cheap. Although it is cheaper than the sensing systems themselves. This tank, with a combat load, weighs about seventeen tons. If you follow those tunnels you will come to six other bunkers just like this one. In each bunker is a large pile of metal, steel and iron, of roughly seventeen tons weight, cost about two thousand, one hundred drachma. The magnetism detectors can’t tell the difference between the piles of scrap and the real tank. So much for magnetism. We are also working on the practicalities of using magnetized scrap to cut down on the cost.”

  Saenz pointed overhead. “The roof of this bunker is made of concrete. So much you can see for yourselves. What you can’t see is that chicken wire was put in with the concrete when it was poured. Also for all the other dummy bunkers. Ground penetrating radar only operates well at certain frequencies. The chicken wire’s gauge is set to disrupt those frequencies. Thus the radar can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t. So much for GPR.”

  “What about GPR when we’re in the open or under the jungle’s canopy?” asked one of the students.

  “Good question,” Saenz said. “It’s not due to be covered yet but, what the hell. We’ve got some hundreds of tons of metallic strips cut to the right lengths—actually, twice the right lengths, and varying for different possible frequencies—we’ll drop from helicopters onto the jungle roof over wide stretches. We hired a foreign oil exploration team to test it with aerially mounted GPR. They couldn’t see through the shit.”

  Picking up a length of flexible hose, Saenz fitted it to the tank’s exhaust. He pointed to six plastic pipes near the wall and sticking up from the bunker’s dirt floor. “This hose connects to those pipes. The pipes connect to one of the dummy bunkers, each one to a different bunker. You can switch from one to the other by moving the hose’s connection. So much for sniffing diesel. It also tends to send the heat elsewhere.

  “Of course, when you run the engine for very long it tends to get very hot. The flyboys will pick up on that in a heartbeat. So you avoid running it for long if you can, and if you can’t you do this.” The instructor walked over and pulled aside a canvas curtain. Behind the curtain was an alcove. In the alcove were sheets of four-inch-thick polyurethane. He directed the students to take the sheets of polyurethane. He then showed them how to place them along the concrete ceiling. “That’s about the best heat insulator in the world, boys. Before you run the engine you cover the tank with this stuff and no heat escapes . . . or so little, anyway, that you won’t be picked up.”

  Saenz pointed to another hose. “That hose leads to a water tank that is filled off the island drainage system. After you run the tank a while you can cool it off with water. So much for infrared. Now come with me.” He led the way through one of the smaller tunnels. More gloom. At length they broke into another bunker just like the first except that there was no tank and the polyurethane panels were already in place on the ceiling. In the tank’s place was a roughly rectangular pile of scrap steel, most of it in small pieces. There was also a fifty-five-gallon fuel drum and what looked like an explosive charge.

  The instructor flicked another light switch. “Let’s not deny the enemy his fun. We want him to feel he’s doing well. He might bomb the whole complex, all seven bunkers, at a cost of some millions of drachmas in guided bombs. More likely, he’ll go after them one at a time until he strikes pay dirt. How will he know? Why he’ll know by the secondary explosions from cans and charges like that one over there,” Saenz pointed at the fuel drum.

  Turning away, the warrant pushed open the wide doors at one end of the bunker. “Of course he can still sniff you. But that’s not hard to fool either. C’mon.”

  The students walked out into the jungle smothered light. “What can they smell?” asked the instructor rhetorically. “They smell you, you nasty buggers.” He pointed at various metal buckets and gourds on the ground and hanging from the trees. “So you save your piss and shit in buckets or gourds and you hang the buckets from the trees . . . those in your area and those some distance away. Likewise your filthy socks and sweaty uniforms. There are still two more things we must defeat.” The instructor led the way down from the bunker to its base. There he lifted a small tarp. The boys all laughed.

  Beneath the tarp, standing on a metal pole stuck into the earth was a little wooden man with a little wooden hammer. Saenz spun a tiny windmill and the hammer rose and fell, rose and fell.

  “That’s one technique. We have others that run from rainfall. Some solar powered, some battery. Some are on the main power grid for the island. So much for seismic detection.

  “Can anyone tell me what’s left?”

  “Aerial photographs, sir?”

  “Right.” Saenz pointed straight up again at the jungle canopy overhead. “But not through that shit. And we can play a shell game, too. Say the enemy hits a bunker.
We can . . . maybe . . . it is risky . . . move the tank to the bunker that was hit, then move the scrap metal by hand to take the tank’s place. Remember . . . sensors are probably not looking at you all the time. You will never have every kind of sensor looking at you all the time. And the more sensors you have looking at you, the better the odds that the enemy won’t have the trained people on hand to interpret what they’re looking at.

  “One caveat . . . the signature you don’t have tells the enemy a lot about you, too. If they see something one way, and if we’ve defeated all the other ways they could have seen that something with, they may well blast it, just in case. Same if there are unique types of targets. So you must, must, must make things look as similar as possible, and have as many of them as possible.

  “Ten-minute break. Next we look at a heavy mortar position.”

  Before the boys separated for their break, one asked, “Mr. Saenz? Ah, how much does this cost?”

  The centurion rubbed his chin as he pretended to think. “Let’s see . . . about twenty-five hundred drachma for seven concrete roofs, maybe fourteen thousand for the scrap metal. For nine hundred meters of narrow tunnel . . . about twelve hundred . . . nine hundred meters flexible hose . . . about four hundred drachma. Polyurethane . . . maybe another four hundred. Labor is a couple thousand more. It would be worse but we use convict labor for a lot of it. Steel doors cost a bit over a thousand as well. Call it about nineteen to twenty-two thousand, depending on where we build. For a bigger tank, a Jaguar, say, it can be about twice that.”

  The warrant smiled wickedly. “Although, since it can cost anywhere from ten thousand to a half-million drachma to make and deliver a bomb good enough to have a fifty percent chance of taking out whatever is in one of these bunkers, it’s a small price to pay. I’ll give you an example: If someone used . . . oh say, fire and forget missiles to attack this complex, and say they had to use . . . mmm . . . nine or so of ’em to make sure, the missiles themselves would cost about six hundred thousand drachma. Wear and tear on the aircraft might be almost as high, depending on what kind of fight we put up from the ground. And they still would probably not know if they got one tank . . . or seven tanks . . . or if they really got anything at all. Now go take your break.”