Read Come and Take Them-eARC Online
Authors: Tom Kratman
Tags: #Military, #Science Fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Fiction
Come and Take Them-eARC (50 page)
“Yes, High Admiral. Sorry, High Admiral. But there’s still precisely nothing we can do.”
Southern Perimeter, Herrera International Airport, Balboa, Terra Nova
The commander of the airborne brigade entered the shack that served as his command post. The bodies had been moved but the bloodstains on the floors remained. He ignored them.
He had been out trying to get a better feel for the battle than the radio would provide. Artillery fire was coming in steadily now, far heavier than it had been even a half hour ago. If the colonel had to make a guess he would have said that he thought it was coming from around Alcalde Flores. The colonel shuddered as another aircraft overhead made the dot to the exclamation point of a Balboan missile.
“Well…at least the bastards are trying,” said the colonel to no one in particular. He turned to his operations officer. “What’s the word north and south?”
“Not good, sir. The Second Battalion is meeting increasing resistance…if they’re still advancing it’s at a crawl. And Third Battalion in the south is only barely holding on against increasing pressure.”
“All right…all right. Tell Second to hold on to what they’ve got. See what you can scrape up to help out Third Batt. If you can get a hold of the Navy or TUSF-B, put their air on helping Third.” The colonel swore, not for the first time that morning. “Goddamnit, I wish we had some kind of armor, even a couple of shitty light tanks. Anything. Damn.”
“There’s one piece of good news, sir. The Balboans that were holed up in the terminal have been taken out. No survivors, sir.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“Yes, sir…but sir, the First Battalion commander reports that they were mostly kids, not more than seventeen years old, with two adults. Most looked younger still.”
* * *
Along the northern perimeter of the airhead established by the paratroopers the pressure was increasing rapidly. The Eleventh Infantry Tercio
was finally making its appearance, fully self-mobile troops and whatever could be stuffed onto a truck or jeep coming first. The tercio’s
light armor, Ocelots, and medium and heavy mortars were already driving the Gallic Paras into whatever cover they could find. There was little return fire from the paratroopers to interfere with the Balboans. Under cover of their supporting weapons they moved, mostly by squads and platoons, to assault positions close to the paratroopers.
When the Eleventh’s commander decided he had enough combat power forward, he would order the assault…with bayonets fixed.
Adjudant-Chef
Jung knew this almost as if he were privy to the Balboans’ orders group. He had been trained as a soldier in his younger days, not a peacekeeper. This was not so true for most of the men of his company. They had initially been trained as soldiers, true. But years of worrying more about international peacekeeping than real fighting had dulled them. Still the Paras had been given less of this to distract them than other types of organizations had. They were not so dulled that Jung’s boot couldn’t send them back up to engage the Balboans. But he could only influence the men immediately around him. It would have taken many months of training for battle to have made them all risk their lives on their own.
Meanwhile, the Eleventh Tercio grew stronger with each passing minute.
East of Dahlgren Naval Station, Balboa, Terra Nova
The remaining Haarlem Marines, wounded and unwounded alike, heard the ominous sound of diesel engines through the fog and smoke. For better than an hour they had been listening to the faint puffs of overhead mine shells dispensing their cargoes. Few had bothered to count the number of incoming shells. They were too exhausted with the morning’s fight.
When the mines had first begun landing a fairly senior officer, a major, had walked the ragged line, informing the men what was happening. He told them to dig in as best they could. This they had done, shallow scrapings on the surface of the earth.
Through the smoke a forward Marine, on Observation Post, faintly glimpsed the outline of an armored vehicle, a Balboan Ocelot. The vehicle eased forward cautiously. Even more faintly seen were several more behind it.
Although Carrera had ordered the Jagelonian cavalry officer to move forward aggressively, his little command had been so subjected to attack by Tauran aircraft, and slowed by them as it took to side trails, that it had actually been caught up with by the bulk of the Fifteenth Cadets.
Suddenly there came a great explosion. The Ocelot lurched to a stop, smoke billowing from its open hatches. As the cadet crew began to disembark, those still alive, the Marines opened up, killing several. This may have been unwise as Balboan artillery was soon pounding the Marines’ line. Within a short space of time the Haarlemers were the unwilling recipients of a pounding steady and heavy enough to drive them down into their holes. They therefore could no longer see the mine field as cadet combat engineers began to clear paths through it. There were none of the aesthetically unappealing, multiculturally insensitive antipersonnel mines to slow the cadets’ work. These, influential elements in the Tauran Union had helped to outlaw internationally.
Soon, through breaches made in the mine field, Balboan light armor was in and among the defending Haarlem Marines. Completely unaffected by the minefield that had no antipersonnel mines, the infantry of two cadet tercios simply stood up and, firing from the hip to upset the Marines’ aim, walked, then jogged, forward into the assault. The boys’ bayonets were fixed.
The Balboan artillery lifted at the last possible instant. For some of the boys short-falling rounds made the lifting a lifetime too late. For most, it was salvation.
The Haarlem Marines did not run but rather, outnumbered and outgunned, they died on their line. To some it seemed unfair somehow that their much vaunted long-range marksmanship did them so little good when the range had closed to under fifty meters.
Chapter Forty-eight
When given the German command, [Varus] went out with the quaint preconception that here was a subhuman people which would somehow prove responsive to Roman law even where it had not responded to the Roman sword. He therefore breezed in—right into the heart of Germany—as if on a picnic, wasting a summer lording it on the magistrate’s bench, where he insisted on the punctilious observance of every legal nicety.
—Marcus Velleius Paterculus
Tauran Defense Agency, Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova
Monsieur Gaymard, president once again of the Tauran Union under rotating presidency, was announced to Janier and the chiefs of land, air and naval forces, as, “The President of the Tauran Union,” just as if that office were real and meaningful, rather than an honorific passed among the true executives, the Cosmopolitan Progressives, or Kosmos, of the Tauran Union Security Council. The other chief members of the executive council—Anglia, Sachsen, Tuscany, and Castile—followed Gaymard into Janier’s private conference room.
Janier was surprised at the presence of the Castilian.
Perhaps he doesn’t know we did our best to destroy the Castilian battalion in mutiny in Balboa. Or perhaps he cares more for the rejuvenation being offered by the high admiral. Yes, I am sure that is it.
“General,” began Gaymard, “what the hell is going on in Balboa and what can we do about it?”
Janier sighed. This was a painful duty. After steeling himself for the inevitable, he said, “Right now, Mr. President, it looks something like equilibrium. That would be a false view, however. We began this invasion with six battalions of parachutists, two of commandos, one of dragoons and one of Sachsen Panzers. There were also three mountain battalions, six infantry battalions, plus a fourth that was, so to speak, visiting. We also had in place a fine battalion of Haarlem Marines.
“Of those twenty-one battalions, some of which we call ‘regiments’ but are battalions all the same, at this point, and to our certain knowledge, we have lost three Paras, two infantry, the dragoons, and one mountain, and one commando. Most of the rest are badly attrited, as well. Also, most of the rest are fully pinned, unable to extricate themselves and with our forces in Balboa unable to help them in the slightest.
“We further anticipate the destruction of the Haarlem Marines, the three Gallic Paras, two more infantry, and God knows what else. Lest you misunderstand, gentlemen, short of using nuclear weapons, those units’ destruction is inevitable. As is the loss of all of the troops we have in Balboa.”
Gaymard chuckled mirthlessly. “Nuclear weapons? In the same hemisphere as the Federated States? Let us try to find some less radioactive way to commit suicide, shall we, General?”
“Could not agree more,
monsieur
,” said Janier. “Further, the Balboans have managed to put up their air defense…navy is quite definite on that, they’ve taken appalling losses in aircraft.
“Maybe worse…the Balboans started with maybe the equivalent of ten or eleven ground combat battalions, six of which we never suspected and not all of which were in a position to fight. The intelligence people have now identified maybe twenty-four battalions, which they call ‘cohorts,’ in or very near the combat area. Another six are moving from the Balboan training center at Cimarron and will be in action before nightfall. A further six or eight are moving down the highway from
Lago Sombrero
toward the Transitway. And they have managed to mobilize something like twenty battalions of artillery that are in range with even more on the way.
“At those odds…we simply cannot win.”
“I…see.” Gaymard’s face was ashen. He’d expected the news to be bad but
this
? This was beyond bad. “Is there any possibility of stopping the Balboans diplomatically?”
Janier laughed. “Monsieur, at their current state of political, social, and philosophical development, the Balboans are centuries behind us. Centuries ago, was there a single state in Taurus that, attacked without warning in the dead of night, their soldiers killed and their citizens sent scurrying like rats for shelter, would then have said, ‘Oh, well, sure you can go home, no hard feelings.’”
The general laughed again, this time bitterly. “No matter, in any case. A couple of days ago I had communications with their government. They have since become…’ah…unavailable.”
The general then added, “Mr. President…they’re going for the kill. They won’t be happy with anything less than our complete humiliation and expulsion from their country.”
“Can we reinforce them, General Janier?”
Janier looked over at the Chief of Staff of the Air Forces. That officer answered, “My planes have another brigade of parachutists, the Sachsen Brigade of
Fallschirmjaegers,
en route. But I believe we should call them back. If the Balboans have a credible air defense…?”
Navy answered, “It’s credible all right. We’ve taken up to twenty percent hits—though losses were less than that, thank God—on some missions. We just haven’t had the
time
to analyze their defense and put together the right packages to suppress it. Another thing…some of our smart weapons don’t seem to be acting all that smartly.”
Air Force resumed speaking to explain. “The tight security and short notice we were operating under meant that we couldn’t alert more than a tiny fraction of our air power. And we expected to be able to reuse what we had alerted by refitting them at Arnold…which is lost now.
“That’s starting to be corrected, but it will still be another two hours—at a minimum—before we can flood Balboan air space with power. The Sachsens are going to have to go in before that, or we’ll have to refuel them in flight. But, if we refuel them in flight, we’ll either have to reduce the bomb load being carried by the attack aircraft that are almost ready to take off or delay long enough for the tankers to land and top off again.”
Gaymard said to the Air Force Chief of Staff, “I don’t understand this. It’s what?…a six hour flight to Balboa, less from Santa Josefina. What have we been paying for, if you can’t get there with overwhelming force in a few hours?”
Air Force suppressed a sigh. “Mr. President. You and the security council gave us the order to attack with minimal notice. We had a choice. We could invade Balboa when they were fully mobilized and ready…and take unacceptable losses. Or we could use surprise. Surprise has its costs. Not every unit could be notified without word getting out. And if word had gotten out, you can be sure that Balboa would have gotten that word and would have been fully mobilized. That would have meant higher casualty figures.
“But even if we had managed to keep surprise while getting all of our units ready…the Balboans are a militia army. Most of the time there’s nothing to attack except maybe their bedrooms and workplaces.
“What we intended, and expected, was that we would be able to take out their leadership with minimal destruction and maximum surprise, bringing combat packages on line in a neat orderly fashion after the fighting had started and delivering firepower as and when needed.
“And again, even if we had put everything in the air in a few hours, and if we’d been able to keep surprise, it would have been anywhere from hours to days before those aircraft could return to action, hours to days in which our forces would have had little or
no
air support.
“Mr. President, have you any idea how hard it is to change an air tasking order less than three days out?”
Ignoring the implicit criticism, President Gaymard asked Janier, “Will dropping that brigade make any difference to the final outcome?”
Janier replied, “We don’t think so, sir. We’re talking about changing the odds from seven or eight to one, against us, to at best six to one. The most we could hope for is to delay the inevitable…slightly. And drive up our own casualty lists…which are going to be impressive enough in any case.”
Air Force spoke up again. “Mr. President, I can probably inflict more delay from the air than that one brigade can inflict on the ground, but only if we don’t hesitate any further…if delay is what you want.”
“Delay? Yes. Until we can get the Balboans to let our people go.” Wearily, and with a genuinely aching heart—he was no so much a bad man as a very, very weak one—Gaymard said, “Recall the paratroopers. Please tell General McQueeg-Gordon for me.”
Why?
wondered Janier.
You’ve already told the general who matters.
The Tunnel, Tauran Union Security Force-Balboa,
Cerro Mina,
Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova
The news from Janier was a death knell for the defenders. They had little enough chance with the Sachsen paratroopers, Without them there was none.
Moncey, long Janier’s underling and supporter, took it particularly badly. Pounding his desk repeatedly, he exclaimed, “That cowardly son of a bitch! Get me de Villepin!”
When de Villepin arrived, a matter of less than a minute, Moncey explained what he wanted done. “Everybody holds on until we can get the wounded and civilians out.” He spit out his next words. “Then I’ll try to surrender to Carrera…if he’ll accept a surrender.”
“But where the hell do we evacuate the civilians and the wounded to?” de Villepin asked. Surrender was too uncomfortable to talk about, even when imminent.
“The Navy. That’s the only safe place there is.”
“I suppose,” de Villepin agreed. “The Zhong have been evacuating their civilians for hours now.”
SSK
Megalodon,
Mar Furioso,
Bahia de Balboa,
eighty kiloyards north of the
Isla Real,
Terra Nova
The
Meg
had not even managed to close half the range to the Tauran ship it stalked. The zigzag pattern made it seem unlikely to Chu they would ever get much closer.
“Sonar? What’s the range?”
It was there on the display screen but, what the hell, Auletti figured the skipper was nervous and wanted a human sound. “Sir, thirty-eight thousand yards. It’s extreme if you want to fire now.”
The XO piped in, “Sir, we’ll never hit them at this range; if they keep on this course the wire will run out before we hit while, with their unpredictable behavior the torpedo will not hit without guidance.”
Sonar raised a hand for silence. The whole bridge waited expectantly. After some minutes of listening with great care the sonar man announced, “They’ve changed course, sir. They’re heading almost exactly toward us. I make their speed to be…call it sixteen knots. The escorts are tagging along.”
“All stop,” ordered Chu. “Fine. They can come to us.”
Southern Perimeter, Herrera International Airport, Balboa, Terra Nova
Every Balboan tercio had a small band of pipes and drums. Most Tauran soldiers didn’t know this. Nor had the morning’s festivities done much to inform them, since most of the pipers and drummers had dropped instruments and picked up rifles as they received news of the invasion. It came, then, as something of a surprise when, through the twisting smoke, was heard the sound of a dozen and a half pipers playing “
el Pato
,” a brisk Scots’ tune, perhaps drearier than most but giving a profound sense of impending violence. They also couldn’t know that “The Duck” was used in the legion to signal precisely that: “Make your hearts ready for the fight.” But then, that was pretty much the story with all bagpipe tunes, not least the wedding march.
Adjudant-Chef
Jung sensed the meaning of the message before most of his company. “Goddamnit! Get ready! They’ll be here soon!”
* * *
No counterbattery radar could hope to acquire bagpipes. No sophisticated satellite would notice them. The most subtle propaganda had no effect on them. A precision guided bomb had no more likelihood of hitting a piper than of hitting anyone in particular. It was not for nothing that England had forbidden them to the Scots as a “weapon of war.”
Radio waves carried complex messages, with detail and—sometimes, at least—clarity. Friendly pipes sent a simpler message: “You are not alone. You will not have to fight alone.” To the enemy on the receiving end, the message was different: “We’re coming to kill you. You can’t stop us. All you can do is surrender…or die. And, by the way, we’re not all
that
interested in prisoners.”
* * *
“Incoming!” shouted Jung, along with a dozen or so of his men. Suddenly, the wailing of the Balboan pipes was drowned out by the shrieks of dozens of incoming shells. Soldiers of the Para Brigade hugged earth as best they were able. Even so, some were flung into the air, torn apart by hot flying shards of steel and iron. Amidst the explosions, they never heard the revving of engines as legionary Ocelots raced forward.
A near-landing shell tore Jung’s left foot away. He fainted with pain and loss of blood. “The
Adjudant-Chef’s
down!” cried a nearby Tauran soldier. Another shouted “Tanks! Tanks!”
Balboan rifle and machine gun fire picked up to a furious crescendo. Bullets cracked and spat against walls and streets. It was death to put one’s head into the air, or so it seemed. It would have taken better training, and been more expensive in money and blood than the country was willing to pay, to have convinced the soldiers otherwise. It was, in any event, far too late for that.
The artillery lifted. A soldier took one look at a nearby Ocelot and raised his hands in surrender. The tank shot him down; no time for prisoners.
A breach made, the Eleventh Tercio poured in to the center of the Airborne’s perimeter. Rout became general. First one, then another, of the Tauran artillery batteries were overrun. Not dug in, with no armor to protect them, the gunners died by their guns. The wounded were abandoned.
To the north the Third Tercio, painstakingly reassembled, renewed its attack. An hour later the commander of the Gallic Para Brigade died by his command post, fighting to the end and cursing politics and politicians to the last.
Later in the day, as the survivors of the Airborne brigade were herded away, a lone soldier was seen to take his wallet from his back pocket. He removed a card from the wallet. On the card were instructions telling those who had given him his initial training some years before that they were to stop harassing and intimidating the soldier should he produce the card. With a remorseful look back toward the place where his brigade had been destroyed, the soldier proceeded to rip the card into very tiny pieces. Then, prodded by a rifle butt, he began his journey into captivity.