Read Come and Take Them-eARC Online
Authors: Tom Kratman
Tags: #Military, #Science Fiction, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Fiction
“You said, Brad, that the legion was…moderately well trained. What should that mean to our viewers?”
“They were predominantly a militia army, Drew, something like Helvetia’s or Zion’s. It might be incorrect to put them in the same category as our reserve forces, though, since a lot more attention was paid to the reserves in Balboa than is true in the Tauran Union. A retired Sachsen Army general I spoke to earlier this morning said they were a force to be reckoned with.”
“Do we have any idea yet, Brad, of how long it’s expected to take before the fighting is wrapped up?”
Before Lupus could answer pandemonium broke out in the briefing room. Lupus’s attention moved quickly away from the camera to a man who was trying to speak on the center stage. Lupus listened for a few moments before turning his attention back to the camera. “Drew, it looks like things have gone badly wrong for the Tauran Union in Balboa.”
TUSF-B Headquarters, The Tunnel,
Cerro Mina,
Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova
From a large television screen overlooking the main briefing room, General Janier glared down at the assembled senior staff officers still in the Tunnel. “What the fuck is going on?” he demanded. “What the
fuck
is going on?”
That last was nearly shrieked. Around the central briefing area a multitude of staff officers busily tried to gain some understanding of the extent of the disaster. They were distracted in this by the steady crump of artillery, soft because cushioned by the thick concrete, rock, and earth of the Tunnel. A few were more distracted still by the knowledge that there was a strong likelihood that Carrera’s legion would come knocking before the day was out. The C-3, or combined operations officer, in particular, was taking things badly, if it can be said that withdrawing to a corner and whimpering was a sign of some personal discomposure.
Campbell and Hendryksen remained calm, rocks of sorts arising from amidst the swirling maelstrom of confusion. De Villepin, to no one’s surprise greater than theirs, was also standing firm.
Disgusted with the rest, Moncey gravitated to that area, as much from aversion to the disorder reigning elsewhere as because it was de Villepin’s job to determine what the legion was up to. He tactfully didn’t mention that de Villepin had failed—
badly
failed—to anticipate the nationwide ambush laid by Carrera. Just as tactfully, de Villepin didn’t bring up the fact that neither Janier nor Moncey had been willing to listen to any doubts.
Without waiting for Moncey to repeat his question, de Villepin pointed to a map that hung on the wall. “I can’t give you any hard data,” he began. “There isn’t any that’s all that important by itself. I can make an educated guess at what’s happening.” The intel chief cocked an eyebrow to see if Moncey would shut him out because of the lack of mechanically sound data. The chief of staff simply motioned him to go ahead.
With a nod, de Villepin said, “Okay, sir. The son of a bitch suckered us. We know that already. Here’s how I think he did it.
“There were six military academies…junior military academies. One was at Penonome. They were apparently trained as mechanized infantry. I think the bastard smuggled them in to
Lago Sombrero
. I don’t know where he kept the equipment for them, not for sure. We’ve received a couple of satellite photos from just before the Paras stopped talking. Based on those my guess is that it was in the ASP there…”
Moncey shook his head with disbelief. “Not bloody likely. We’ve been watching the legion for years. We’d have seen that kind of stockpiling—”
Ignoring rank, de Villepin cut Moncey off. “Yes, sir. They began
before
we started watching closely, years before. Carrera has been planning and preparing for this for, I would guess, ten
years
as a minimum. In any event, it was the same with the other five. The equipment must have been sitting there, unused, for a very long time. As for the placement, well, we weren’t very hard to predict…”
That came very close to being a personal insult. Moncey began to bridle.
Campbell interjected, “Sir, how did you pick our targets for this invasion?” She went ahead and answered her own question. “You did it based on known legion deployments and installations. Do you think Carrera’s knowledge of his own organization was inferior to ours? I’ll go a step farther. I think he set up his military bases specifically to be targets…then placed the academies where their cadets could be most easily moved to defend those installations without being noticed until used.”
Moncey looked positively sick. “But that would mean…” His voice trailed off.
“Just so, sir,” said de Villepin. “We thought we would have the initiative because we were to be the ones acting. We forgot that initiative is a subtler concept. Carrera dictated where we would attack by his dispositions, then prepared the right response. He’s had the initiative all along or.…at least once the decision to invade was made.”
“Well, what the hell are they doing now?”
De Villepin shrugged, “Again, I can’t say for sure. He started with just the cadets and whatever—and it couldn’t have been much—of the legions he had alerted to defend, though maybe delay is a better word. They’ve had limited success: The Anglian Paras are gone, that seems certain, along with Fourteenth Anglian Foot, and the Four Hundred and Seventeenth on the Shimmering Sea side. Our Para Brigade is pinned inside a perimeter at Herrera. The Marine battalion is decisively engaged east of Dahlgren. Arnold, Nelson, Brookings, all overrun. Muddville’s under attack. I think that takes care of the six military schools. One’s at Nelson with no place to go quickly, although we’ll see them again if the legion takes the Bridge of the Columbias. One is pinned around Herrera and, probably a part of it, Paitilla. The one on the Shimmering Sea side must be pretty much fought out by now, having taken on parts of two infantry battalions. One is decisively engaged with the Haarlem Marines. Another is still fighting for Muddville and cleaning up Brookings. Only the cadets who ambushed the Paras at
Lago Sombrero
seem free…and they should take some time getting here, say two to four hours for the main body.”
“On our part, the dragoons are fighting for their lives in and around the Second Corps Headquarters area. They’ve been screaming for help for hours. We don’t have any to give. I think they’re engaged by the legion’s Tenth Infantry. How they mobilized so quickly? I would guess that it was simply easier because they were based in such a population dense area.
“The three mountain battalions are engaged in little pissant fights all over the City.
“That’s the bad news. Not all the news is bad. The airmobile brigade can still be pulled back, although if we do that we’re looking at some serious Balboan artillery a few hours later. I would say it will still be some hours before the rest of the legion comes on line. The two tercios at their training center at Fort Cameron, which are their Volgan Tercio, the Twenty-second Airborne, and the Fifth Mountain Tercio, probably won’t be in action until sometime tonight. They’re scattered over four hundred square miles of jungle. I wouldn’t expect to see their mechanized brigade come down from
Lago Sombrero
before noon today, at the earliest—”
“Expect them sooner,” Moncey corrected. “One of the things we knew was that Carrera was scattering some of his wheeled vehicles so we couldn’t take them out easily. I’d be willing to bet that he scattered them to assembly areas so they could bring his mechanized corps troopers to fall in on their equipment on the double.”
De Villepin shot a glance to where the C-3, Bessières, gibbered in a corner. Whether the C-3 had lost it over the fear of imminent death, or because he knew his career was in ruins, the intel chief couldn’t have said.
“He’s a waste,” de Villepin said. “You need to relieve him and put up his second.”
He continued with advice that should have come from the C-3, “I think we have to write off the Marines east of Dahlgren. We might as well consider the Shimmering Sea side to be lost. The dragoons, the Sachsen Panzers and the mountain battalions will go under fairly soon, certainly within a day or two. Once the Third Corps and the Fourth Mech Tercio mobilize we can assume the paratroops at Herrera won’t last very long. They’ll be a bare three infantry battalions—not dug in—facing seven infantry battalions, the equivalent of two mechanized battalions, or maybe three, a tank battalion, and God knows how much artillery.
“But we
can
hold onto something, maybe enough to let us be withdrawn under truce…with our dependents. I don’t think Carrera wanted this fight…not this time. He might settle for just being rid of us.”
“Withdrawn under truce,”
Moncey repeated in his mind.
God, how I hate the idea of that. Truce? I wonder if Carrera would accept a truce now? No. Not if he doesn’t have to. I wouldn’t. But if we can drive up the price in blood? Maybe, just maybe.
“All right. How long until the Tenth Artillery Legion can mobilize?”
“Hard to say,” de Villepin answered. “I don’t doubt that we’ve hurt their leadership. Maybe badly. Say four or five hours. Maybe as much as twelve if we’re incredibly lucky.”
Moncey contemplated what could be done in four or five hours. Decided, he said, “Take over the C-3 slot, de Villepin. Pull the Airmobile Brigade out of Alcalde Flores, except for some stay behinds to delay the Balboans’ mobilization. Put them into an attack to retake Muddville and Brookings. Get whatever escaped of the Thirty-fifth Commandos and the rest of the original Infantry Brigade to guard the Bridge of the Columbias and our southern boundary with the City. We’ll drop the Sachsen
Fallschirmjaeger
Brigade and the last battalion of our Para brigade in behind the airmobiles. Then I want you to establish a perimeter from south of Muddville, through Brookings, then to the northern base of this hill, and then on to the Transitway. We need to evacuate the Haarlem Marines to this side of the Transitway, too.”
Moncey gestured with contempt at his former C-3, “And get that miserable piece of shit out of here.”
Chapter Forty-seven
And you know, sonny, there’s no bad shots at five yards’ range.
—Sinn Fein aphorism, Traditional
Iglesia de Nuestra Señora, Via Hispanica, Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Among the many missions given to the ad hoc brigade of mountain battalions, which is to say, sometimes down to platoons and squads of mountain troopers, directly, an important one was to block major transportation arteries running through
Ciudad
Balboa. One, or rather two, of these crossed each other in front of the beautiful white church that fronted
Via Hispanica
. A mountain infantry company had air assaulted—come in by helicopter—early in the operation, the helicopters touching down near the fountain of a nearby hotel.
Two platoons of the company moved out from the intersection to block other roads, one moving up past the University of Balboa, one toward the sea. The company headquarters and mortar section stayed in the vicinity of the church, along with the remaining infantry platoon. Within minutes of the landing all of the vantage points overlooking the intersection had been occupied by at least a couple of soldiers each.
The troops at and around the intersection passed the first four hours with no more excitement than that provided by the original helicopter insertion. Their commander was not surprised by this. The local reservists and militia were from a battalion of the legion’s transportation tercio; they were not combat troops. Certainly, he thought, the same kind of unit in the Tauran Union armed forces would not be expected to put up much of a fight. Less was expected from
part time
support troops.
However, unlike some other armies, the legion did not believe in a line separation between support and combat echelons. Moreover, every officer and centurion was a graduate of Cazador School, hence guaranteed to be tough and to have a belligerent mindset. Lastly, even though the transportation tercio had a primary mission of moving troops and supplies it retained an official secondary mission of
fighting as infantry
. True, it was only trained to about one third the standard of an infantry tercio, but that was not a contemptibly low standard. The drivers were trained to attack successfully with a ten to one advantage in numbers, to defend against even odds.
Moreover, unlike the combat tercios, where the leadership had to be offered up as bait to the Tauran Union, the truck drivers’ leaders were mostly at their homes in the city. So, while it had taken some considerable time for the platoons and companies to assemble, well before sunrise a battalion of truck drivers was in a position to attack the nearest Tauran soldiers.
The first news the Taurans had of this was when a leading squad of truck drivers stumbled upon a small team of mountain infantry on the roof above a ladies’ clothing store. Within half an hour, the southern side of the intersection was cleared of Tauran soldiers. Caught in the open, the company mortar section was driven—with heavy losses—away from their tubes.
Finding no opposition to the east and west, the transportation battalion had crossed the broad street, turned inward, and rolled up both Tauran flanks. Three dozen or so Taurans took refuge in the church. Repeated, desperate legionary assaults failed to dislodge them. Ultimately, the transportation battalion commander called off the attacks, though not before several dozen of his men had been hit. Their bodies were scattered all along the open spaces surrounding the church. Then, with the radios finally cleared, the Taurans used their artillery to good effect in keeping the truck drivers from massing nearby for an assault.
Sniping at the defenders continued.
Command Post, Gallic Twentieth Parachute Brigade, Herrera Airport, Balboa, Terra Nova
The colonel ducked instinctively as the air was once again torn by the blasts of Balboan artillery. “Can’t we get any goddammed air on those bastards?” he demanded. “They can’t be all that hard to find.”
The Brigade S-3 (Air) shook his head in negation. “There isn’t any to be had, boss. We’re on our own for now.”
The Operations Officer, the S-3, gave a triumphant shout. “Sir, Second Battalion reports they’ve finally gotten through the people who’ve been holding us up. We’ve got a route to the Third Corps Headquarters. It’s a damned narrow way, though.”
“That’s more like it,” said the colonel. “Put everything we’ve got into supporting Second Battalion.”
For the next several moments the TOC seemed more like normal. The brigade had broken through and everything was going to work out. Then came the message, “Sir, Third Battalion reports they’ve got tanks and infantry carriers moving up on them from the south. They are taking casualties.”
Four hundred meters east of the One Hundred and First Air Defense Artillery Caserne,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa Terra Nova
Though the caserne had been given up with no more than a token sacrificial fight, the officers, centurions, and men of the ADA had themselves by no means given up. From their humble houses to their neighborhood rally points they had gathered. Now, by platoons and companies, with no more than their government-issued but personally kept small arms, they moved forward to take back what was theirs—their guns and missile launchers—and then to fight for the skies over their country.
They moved raggedly. Though each man had gone through infantry training, close combat was not their primary duty. But there were nearly three thousand of them on hand.
Eighty-first Artillery Tercio Caserne, Alcalde Flores, Balboa, Terra Nova
The artillery was, if anything, even more ragged than the air defense when it came time to assemble an attack to regain the use of their guns. For one thing, more of their leadership had been trapped defending their buildings and artillery parks. For another, they had put in a hasty attack too early, while the Taurans were still in full strength and good form. This had been beaten back with considerable loss.
So they had waited for hours, gathering up their reservists and militia. The commander of the Tenth Artillery Legion now had nearly eight thousand men under his control. They were poised to retake four of the eight casernes that dotted the east side of the township. Still, the commander hesitated.
Then, a half hour or so ago, he had heard the flutter of dozens of helicopters.
Mierde,
he had thought.
The bastard Taurans have been reinforced
.
This had made him put his counterattack on hold. Little by little, though, he had come to suspect that the Taurans were not reinforcing but rather withdrawing. Finally, the commander had made his decision. He would attack.
Fire Base Eagle, Imperial Range Base Camp, Balboa, Terra Nova
Janier’s forces initially had but a single battery of cannon larger than 105mm, the standard light gun used to support light infantry. This battery consisted of six 155mm lightweight pieces attached to the airmobile brigade. Dug into a pentagonal shaped fire base, surrounded by fighting positions and barbed wire, this battery had provided general support to invasion forces.
Some hundreds of miles away yet, the ad hoc division of Marines under Anglian command had three batteries aboard their transports. Likewise, two more full battalions were to be flown into Balboa later in the plan, about thirty hours hence. For now, however, one single battery was
it
for medium artillery.
Unlike the 105s, the 155s were able to fire scatterable mines. Unfortunately, the mines were strictly antiarmor, as the Tauran Union had sworn off using politically incorrect antipersonnel mines. Even had it not, however, there had been no reason, prior to the turn of fortunes in the invasion, to anticipate their need. Worse, while there had been artillery ammunition containing antiarmor mines available, it had not been convenient to locate and move to the battery.
Finally, however, the mine ammunition had been found, moved, broken down from its containers and made ready to fire. Unfortunately, since each round of ammunition contained but nine mines, the placement of a mine field west of the Bridge of the Columbias in support of the Haarlem Marines would take considerable time.
Around the single battery of 155s, another six batteries—the 105mm artillery of Gallic airmobile brigade, plus three much shorter-ranged guns from the mountain battalions, fired more or less continually in support of their own and other units. They were slower to respond to a situation that could have been described as chaotic than Tauran artillery was wont to be. Their GLS still insisted that the artillery was located somewhere other than where the artillerymen knew they actually were.
SSK
Megalodon,
Mar Furioso,
Bahia de Balboa,
eighty kiloyards north of the
Isla Real,
Terra Nova
Captain Chu bit at his upper lip. Nerves, doubt—maybe too—regret, assailed him. “Sonar, have you nothing else?”
“No, Captain. Not since that one explosion,” answered Auletti, the sonar man. “The one that went off near where the
Santisima Trinidad
was supposed to be on patrol. The other sounds might—or might not—have been helicopters.”
“What of the carrier ship that passed by?”
“She’s still out there, noisy as hell, about eighty kiloyards away. She’s moving in a sort of box…back and forth, side to side.”
His orders had been to stay submerged and undetected until and unless fighting broke out between the Tauran Union and the Republic of Balboa and then to use his initiative to defend the territorial waters as he thought fit. Although the explosion could have been the signal to that outbreak, he did not think that it, alone, was enough. And there had been some kind of jamming that made civil radio reception impossible. Chu thought that, too, to be a signal for war, but was loath to start the war all on his own if he were wrong.
Suddenly signals looked up brightly. “Skipper, I’ve got reception.
Estereo Bahia
came through for me!”
“Skipper?” said Signals. “It’s the mobilization call…And there’s someone reporting live on heavy fighting in the City…people are fleeing their homes. A good chunk of the place is in flames.…But we’re holding our own, it seems.”
Chu’s face grew angry, then determined. “Auletti, any change of the location of that fucking Tauran ship. No? Helm plot a course. Take us as near as possible but first go down under the thermal. Speed six and a half knots. We’re going in quiet. Weapons, make a last check on your babies. That ship’s going under if I have to use all of them.”
One Hundred and First Air Defense Artillery Caserne,
Ciudad
Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
A few dozen commandos really hadn’t been sufficient to hold the caserne against the legion’s counterattack. Superb though the commandos might have been as light infantry, and relatively poorly trained though Balboa’s ADA people had been, as noninfantry, odds of nearly a hundred to one gave the Balboans a quality all their own. Sprawled and bleeding Gallic and Balboan bodies littered the grounds and rooms of the caserne. A few wounded prisoners, le Blanc among them, were being given first aid under guard.
The commandos had had just sufficient time to damage a few of the launchers and gun systems. Most were still quite serviceable. The commander of the tercio, with his maintenance chief, was just now in the motor pool sorting out the good from the bad and sending the good to their firing positions as quickly as their crews could be assembled.
Their munitions were not kept on board the heavy launchers. Balboa’s climate was far too wet for that. So the vehicles had to be taken to the bunkers and loaded. This was time consuming. Still, the ADA tercio, like most heavily equipped BDF units, had only forty or so percent of its equipment, enough to equip it to level II mobilization. The rest of the bodies, the militia, could and did speed the work of getting what they did have into action.
For the moment, Balboa had nothing but tactical air defense, the batteries and battalions assigned to the tercios and legions. Within a half an hour, possibly less, that would change. It was changing with every passing minute.
UEPF
Spirit of Peace
, in orbit over Terra Nova
Her recent experiences in acting stood Esmeralda well for the moment. As the display being continuously updated by Khan’s crew showed the disaster unfolding on the Taurans, she was able to keep from cheering her distant cousins, the Balboans.
Inside, though, she still thought,
Die, you swine, die. I know where your society leads and death is still too good for you.
The high admiral was past tears. She had to laugh at the scope of the disaster torrentially expanding below. She laughed again as one of Khan’s analysts exclaimed, “Shit, there goes another one.”
That was a Anglian Navy aircraft, the fifth so far, fireballing in the skies over Herrera. The analyst couldn’t tell if the pilot had been able to bail out or not; the skimmer they’d sent down had only so much discrimination. And it was hard to sort an ejecting pilot quickly from the other debris that filled the skies.
“Can you get locations on the launchers?” asked Wallenstein, pretty sure she already knew the answer.
“Sure, High Admiral,” Khan replied, “for all the fucking good it’s going to do. They’re moving after each firing…moving them faster than we can report if not see. And we can’t always see, either. The skimmer is low in the sky. The Balboans are using the buildings and trees of the city and jungle to get out of sight when they move. This shit was never meant to see through buildings, you know.”
“Are we feeding Janier what intel we can?” she asked.
“Yes,” Khan said, “but he’s not been able to make any real use of it.”
“Would it help if we broke in to the local telephone or radio net and began giving it directly to the Taurans at
Cerro Mina?
”
“Oh, don’t do that, High Admiral,” said Khan, wife. “We don’t want our fingerprints on any part of this disaster.”
“I think my wife’s right, High Admiral,” said the other Khan. “Besides, things are so far gone that nothing we can do short of dropping nukes—”
“Don’t even joke about that,” said Wallenstein.