The Rods and the Axe - eARC (33 page)
Read The Rods and the Axe - eARC Online
Authors: Tom Kratman
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #military
“What the . . .” began Puente-Pequeño.
“Either something stealthy that snuck in under the radar,” answered Carrera, “or something jammed our radar to let something else sneak in. They went after the top of
Cerro Mina
because we have both radar and a heavy air defense missile battery up there, covering the city, with a battery of light self-propelled guns covering them. If they survived that, they should be—”
The air overhead erupted with the sound of multiple sails ripping, and those ripping fast, overlaid with organ shaking
bangs
as the propellant in the heavy missiles expended itself
almost
as quickly as explosive in a cannon barrel. That sound, too, raised another long drawn out wail from the civilians.
At least they’re not panicking,
thought Carrera,
though, of course, Ruiz has pre-made recordings of very calm and determined looking civilians going to their assigned shelters, complete with the sounds of aircraft and air defense women herding them in. And we’ve got teams out to record the damage as it comes in. And then there are the atrocity tapes.
Now, my personal opinion, is that the average Tauran is about like anybody else, and really won’t give a shit about the damage done to us, real or, as in the atrocity tapes, acted. And the Tauran ruling class, the unelected bureaucrats, won’t really give a shit, either. But between them is a class that doesn’t rule, but decides who does. That class is sensitive, which is to say, weak, and will not be able to stand the damage they do to us.
So they’re giving us ammunition to use against them. Silly bastards; they forget that, except when the Federated States leads, so it can take the blame, they can’t sustain anything on their own that offends their sense of aesthetics.
I
think
. . . well, I
hope.
Still the loudspeakers blared, “Take shelter. Enemy aircraft inbound. This is not a drill. Enemy aircraft inbound within seven minutes. This is not a drill. Enemy aircraft . . .”
The car had to stop for the dense crowd. Soult turned around and said, “Boss, I’m never going to get through this in time for you to get to the shelter. It’s not far, you can get out and trot there before their main attack gets here.”
“What about you?” Carrera asked. “You can’t ditch the car; the ambulances are going to need a clear path through.”
“I’ll stick with the car until the crowds clear.”
“Fuck that shit,” said Carrera. “There are things one doesn’t care to live with. Saving one’s own skin while leaving behind one’s friend is among them. But Puente-Pequeño?”
“Yes,
Duque.”
“You get out and go on ahead on foot.”
Shaking his head, the lawyer replied, “To quote somebody or other, ‘fuck that shit,’
Duque.”
“Insubordinate bastard.”
“Yes,
Duque
.”
Again, the air defense batteries on the hill overhead erupted in a mix of rapid light cannon fire and a single blast from a launching missile. That was followed by two explosions that definitely were not from the defenders, the shock wave knocking the scurrying civilians to their knees or all fours and rocking Carrera’s staff car.
The scampering crowd thinned enough for Soult to advance a few score meters. Catching sight of a thin opening between the row of parked cars, Carrera said, “Stick the son of a bitch in there! Crossways. Just so long as it’s out of the road!”
Soult cut the wheel to the right, struck one of the parked cars, pushed it out of the way, and forced his way up and over the curb. In a flash, he, Carrera, and the JAG were out of the vehicle and hurrying forward. A large explosion hit the hill again. This one was big enough—most likely a thousand kilogramer—to knock all three down, stunning them on the way to the asphalt.
“Enemy aircraft inbound. This is not a drill. Enemy aircraft inbound within three minutes. This is not a drill. Take shelter immediately. Enemy aircraft inbound . . .”
Standing, Puente-Pequeño caught sight of a little brown girl, no more than three, standing alone and crying. She took turns wiping at her eyes and at the snot running down her face. Ignoring the latter, the JAG trotted over and scooped the child up. He looked around for Soult and Carrera, only to find they had almost reached him. Again, the three men, now reinforced by a child, took off for the shelter.
KaaaWHOOMF!
That last, apparently on the old
Comandancia
and current Second Corps headquarters was a whole new order of explosion. The blast shattered windows over a goodly chunk of the old city and sent a column of smoke rising high over the slums between the headquarters and the avenue. A chorus of screams and wails, mixed with an increasing number of police, fire, and ambulance sirens, arose ahead of the party.
Shit,
thought Carrera,
the Taurans must be
pissed
. No sense of humor, those people.
“Here, sir,” announced Soult, upon arriving at a concrete opening, then turning and waiting for the lawyer and the
Duque
to show up.
The shelter was marked as such, both in words and in a graphic showing a wall turning away a blast. Because so much of the area had been destroyed during the Federated States’ invasion of a generation prior, new buildings had been able to incorporate some very strong basements, deliberately designed as shelters. They wouldn’t stop a deep penetrator, but they could stand up to almost anything else, and had within them life support sufficient to provide oxygen in the event of a firestorm.
Entering into the shelter, lit, if not well, by emergency lights lining the walls at just over head level, Carrera looked for a place to stand. Taking the JAG by the sleeve, he dragged both him and the little girl to it.
“You picked her up,” said Carrera, “you get to ask for her mother. How’d she lose her mom, anyway?”
Puente-Pequeño shook his head. “She doesn’t know, but from what she says I would suspect the crowd simply parted them and dragged the mother along with it.”
“Okay, well see if you can . . .”
A woman walked up, bearing a very small baby in her arms. She gave Carrera a dirty look, and then a grateful one to the lawyer, then took the crying girl by the hand, dragging her off while scolding her without cease.
Nice to be loved
, Carrera thought, sardonically.
The ground underfoot shook with another huge blast. Even through the thick concrete walls, the shock wave could be felt by the people sheltering within them.
Nodding to himself, Carrera stood up on the short platform he’d intended for the lawyer to use to find the girl’s mother. The ground shook again, this time worse. This time, also, it raised a new bout of crying from the civilians who were, again, mostly women and children.
“I thought,” said Carrera, loudly enough to be heard even in the recesses of the shelter, “that I ought to give you good people the chance to see if I am as big a son of a bitch as most of you probably think I am . . .”
Joint Headquarters, 16th Aviation Legion/18th Air Defense Legion,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Miguel Lanza, with both his own key staff and that of the duckhunters, felt his organs quivering under the aerial assault. The worst of it was when, so he guessed and so it later proved, the enemy dropped several penetrating bombs onto the thick piles of earth and metal over the concrete bunkers of the joint headquarters. Those had knocked people to their hands and knees, set some of them to vomiting, caused a couple to wet themselves, and generally been a most unpleasant experience.
The lights went out momentarily, but flicked back on again once the emergency power system kicked in.
The mission of the moment was more distasteful than any Lanza could recall. Little by little, he was taking the country’s air defenses off line and hiding them, leaving everything open to a lashing from the air.
As he ordered the Air Defense Legion’s chief of staff to take a battery of medium self-propelled out of action and hide them in bunkers, Lanza thought,
You are a soulless bastard, Patricio Carrera.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
War is the unfolding of miscalculations.
—Barbara Tuchman,
The Guns of August
Isla Real,
Balboa, Terra Nova
Lieutenant Sanders, flying a Sea Hurricane low over the sea, bearing a good seven tons of unguided munitions, really didn’t get it. He’d dropped his bombs on the mainland for weeks now, not less than a sortie a day. At first the resistance from the ground had been fierce, and not especially ineffective. Between the four carriers, the bases on Cienfuegos, and the airfields in “neutral” Santa Josefina, the Tauran Union had been sending in a thousand sorties a day, carrying two or three thousand tons of ordnance. They’d lost better than forty aircraft to ground fire which was not, given rates of production of modern aircraft, long-term sustainable. The rate of loss probably would have been a lot worse except that they had apparently driven the Balboan air defense from the field . . . that, or destroyed it.
Saunders wasn’t entirely convinced of the latter, but when he’d raised the objection with his wing commander he’d been pooh-poohed off.
He still wondered though, and about more things than one.
I wonder if the reason I’m carrying unguided crap now is because we used up everything we had in the inventory trying to avoid bombing their field hospitals and our prisoners. Okay, that part I could get, if true and they’d admit that it’s true.
What I don’t get is why are the higher-ups so confident. How do we know their air defense umbrella is shredded? I
know
that three other pilots and myself made a claim on a missile launched near Brookings. I am pretty sure they counted us each as having destroyed one. What if it was only one? Or what if it was none, a diversion, a dummy?
It’s always been a problem with air forces, inflation of damage reports; don’t the generals and admirals know that? Were they selected for something besides brains?
Hmmm . . . that’s a stupid question, isn’t it, Saunders? Next you’ll be thinking that the Tauran Union’s democracy deficit isn’t a feature of the system.
And then the dipshits declared “air supremacy!” What the fuck is that supposed to mean, that the declaration is a victory? Jesus, popping champagne corks everywhere, and on the GNN cameras. Nearest to an explosion any of those pogues have been, I suppose.
“Aaand . . . here’s my target.”
Saunders jerked his stick, just in case anybody on the other side hadn’t heard that the TU had achieved “air supremacy,” then pulled back and climbed upward, paralleling the slope of the central rise of the island. His targeting computer was already set for this target, a supposed mortar battery, well dug in, facing the northern beaches. At the proper time the computer, itself, released two one thousand pounders. The bombs kept a goodly portion of the course the Sea Hurricane had already been on. They flew up and over the hill, losing energy all the way, then reached the apogee of their arc and began a rapid descent.
The target was a series of turrets, set into concrete, with large muzzles pointing generally upward. What damage he did, Saunders had no clue. Supposedly someone was tracking battle damage from the air or space or both.
The pilot deftly punched in the number for his next target, noted the preferred approach on his screen, and brought his plane around for another pass.
Hmmmph, Wonder why we’re not bombing the city today. I suppose it could be those peace activists who chartered an airship and intend to occupy various points in Balboa as human shields. Yeah, that’s likely it.
Herrera International Airport,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Pax Vobiscum
, despite the use of a Latin title, and the presence of Catholic clergy, was not a Catholic organization. Oh, it had its share of mostly nominal Catholics in it, mostly liberation theologians, nuns in mini-skirts and see-throughs, that kind of thing. But, by and large, the organization was secular, and made up of citizens of the Tauran Union’s member states supremely dedicated to preventing the use of force, even where that use was necessary to save life. They did this by physically placing themselves in positions to protect whatever it was they thought either their home countries or the Federated States might want to bomb, then defying those same powers to do so. It might have been noble and brave had there been the slightest chance that either the TU or FSC would take them up on their dares. As it was, though, it was safe and, better still, gave the membership of PV the chance to travel in style, screw all kind of grateful and admiring youngsters, and preen themselves on their courage.
In the case of Balboa, they’d have ridden to the rescue sooner, of course, had it been possible. This was the chance to stop a real war. But chartering airships—five star airships—and having them repainted in
Pax Vobiscum
colors took time. And both, of course, the five stars and the colors for advertising, were a lot more important in the big scheme of things than mere timeliness. Besides, if the TU managed to kill a slew of civilians in Balboa, while that killing had to stop upon the arrival of PV’s martyrs, that would go to show how very important and effective PV was.
A couple of the senior Paxers had been invited up to the bridge by the airship’s captain. They were listening as the captain made the call to the control tower, below.
“Herrera control, this is Anglian Airways Charter Eight Seven Seven, out of Mauer, Sachsen, with eight hundred and ninety-nine really annoying passengers. Can’t you please take them off of our hands?”
It’s possible that the captain lacked tact, a remarkable lack in an Anglian, to be sure.
“Eight Seven Seven, this is Herrera Control, are you requesting permission to land?”
“I thought I’d made that clear, Herrera Control.”
“Just making sure. You
are
carrying
Pax Vobiscum,
are you not, Eight Seven Seven.”
Said the disembodied Anglian accent, “Sadly, yes.”
“ ‘Sadly,’ ” echoed the Spanish-accented voice from the ground, “it’s not as simple as that. Assume a circular holding pattern, eight kilometers south of this port . . . hmmm . . . you’re dynamic lift, so circle clockwise, altitude of thirty-five hundred feet, while I notify some people of your request. Note that the solar chimney that was there is currently dysfunctional and you won’t be able to see the plume it used to put off. Lights are out, too. The peak of the tower’s still there, though, except that now it’s jagged.”
“Roger, Herrera Control, eight kilometers south, thirty-five hundred feet, clockwise. And thanks for the tip.”
“I say,” said Sister Mary Magdalene, short-skirted and thin-shirted, “I don’t think I like the sound of that. You would think they’d be pleased we’ve come to protect them.”
“They’re probably just concerned with the prospect that we have spies among our ranks, Sister,” said Father Segundo; Leonardo Jon Oscar Segundo, in full, a steel-haired and seam-faced pastor of
an
old school, if not the traditional old school.
“But we . . .” The nun looked properly scandalized.
“No, of course not, Sister,” the priest assured her. “But they can’t know that, can they?”
“I suppose not, Father,” agreed the short-skirted nun.
Pity,
thought Puente-Pequeño, looking over the bare concrete floors of the Herrera International terminal,
that there wasn’t time to set up tents. On the other hand, good thing we got the bloody carpets up.
“Bloody,” in this case, wasn’t a minor Anglian vulgarity. Between the maniple of the Balboan Corps of Cadets that had been stationed here and the Gallic paras who had, finally, pretty much exterminated them, the old carpets had been soaked with blood. The other downside to using the terminal was lack of power for air conditioning. On the other hand, with the bulk of the windows blown out during the assaults of a couple of months prior, there was at least some breeze, sufficient to reduce the heat inside from impossible to merely miserable. That most of that heat came from just this side of melting tarmac of the runways and taxiways didn’t help.
Walking across the bare concrete to a shattered window, Puente-Pequeño looked out at the five lines of mostly Taurans passing through some hastily set up “customs” check points, none of which actually cared in the slightest about routine tax collection or smuggling prevention. No, these agents were actually police detectives and they were gathering evidence: “Where is your citizenship? Is that where you vote? Is that where you pay taxes? What is your purpose in coming to Balboa? So you were aware that there is a war on, albeit under a temporary truce, between your home country and the alliance of which it is a part, and the Timocratic Republic of Balboa?”
The brief interviews were being taped,
Which should,
thought the staff judge advocate,
save some time
. A little more time was saved by separating out the eight hundred and ninety-nine peace activists into three groups, Taurans, who made up—by far—the biggest, citizens of the Federated States, and everyone else. From the furtive glances of the Taurans—
Well, from all of them, but especially the Taurans
—Puente-Pequeño had the impression that the fact of being separated and segregated was making them nervous.
Perfectly understandable it is, too
, he thought.
As the lawyer watched, armed legionaries boarded the airship, to make sure it didn’t go anywhere until released.
Father Leonardo Jon Oscar Segundo was neither unholy nor a hypocrite. Other Catholics in
Pax Vobiscum
may have been nominal; not he. He’d read the scripture diligently from boyhood, and from that early age he’d read in it things that seemed to completely pass by most of this fellow clergy and nearly all of those they served. He took seriously the admonition, “Put away your swords.” He believed that the miracle of the loaves and fishes was more about sharing than about multiplication. And, while he truly believed in the life hereafter, he didn’t think that absolved anyone from trying to make life in this world more just.
And he knew—he didn’t delude himself about the matter—that most of the activists with him were more concerned with their perks and prestige than with anything else. Even Sister Mary Magdalene, who was better than most, had a streak of excessive concern with her own position.
Okay, so maybe bricks without straw are not of the best, but they’re better than no bricks at all.
When the guards came and ordered the priest to follow them, he’d taken it in stride. Excessive militarism was hardly unique to Balboa, after all. He was a little more concerned when he found himself standing before a panel of three judges, was presented with a uniformed man, a Warrant Officer Bonadies, who, the priest was informed, was his defense counsel, and then heard read off a criminal complaint charging him with treason.
Treason? Treason against their enemies? These people are charging me with treason against the Tauran Union and my own Tuscany? That’s . . .
“How do you plead, Father Segundo?”
“ . . . preposterous,” the priest said, thinking aloud. “I mean . . .”
“The good father pleads not guilty,” said the man assigned to his defense, Bonadies.
Thereafter the trial went very quickly, from the video recording of the reading of the activists’ rights, to their admission that they were citizens of a country at war with Balboa. Bonadies made his objections here and there, but they were all obviously pretty pro forma.
It didn’t really sink in with Father Segundo just how much trouble he was in until the three judges conferred for all of five minutes, without ever leaving the room, and the center one of the three, Judge Achurra, said, “And, so, however reluctantly, Father Segundo, this court finds you to be a citizen of Tuscany and of the Tauran Union, with which polities the Timocratic Republic finds itself at war. We have further examined the prospect that, you might, as a priest, have claimed extraterritoriality, even though you did not. Sadly, as your church, which is also ours, is based in Tuscany, and since Tuscany is also at war with us, a claim of extraterritoriality will not stand.
“We further find that, in coming here to interfere with the Tauran Union’s war effort, you have attempted to give aid to it and Tuscany’s enemies, those being ourselves. This is treason under our laws, which do not define treason only in regards to Balboa, but as a human phenomenon, applicable anywhere in the world and to almost any human being who holds citizenship somewhere, and over which we claim universal jurisdiction.
“Father, before you faint dead away, consider that if a Tauran court can claim jurisdiction over crimes against human rights, as they have, and if human rights, on the one hand, mean an obligation to respect those rights, on the other, this recognizes human obligations as a universal legal reality. There is no principled reason to restrict universal legal realities to merely the obligation to respect human rights. Among other obligations is also an obligation to be true to one’s country.
“In other words, Father Segundo, your polity has claimed universal jurisdiction over human rights, hence of human obligations, while we claim universal jurisdiction over human obligations, which implicate human rights, the right of your fellow citizens not to have you betray them by betraying your common country.”
The judge’s voice grew very somber than as he said, “Thus this court has no recourse but to sentence you to death for treason to your country. And that doesn’t even begin to address how we feel about the mortal insult directed toward our country by the implication that we can only be defended by hiding behind you and yours.
“Oh, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Father Segundo sat behind barbed wire, in what had probably been the luggage handling area of the terminal in a more peaceful and happier day. The parting words of his defense counsel, Bonadies, hadn’t been a lot of comfort: “The sentence has to be approved by the president, who is a fair man. Thank God it doesn’t have to be approved by Carrera, who is not a fair man. I think I can probably get you off with hanging, or maybe even firing squad, rather than crucifixion. Fortunately, no one tried to put on any evidence that this was not a first offense or it would be the cross for sure.”