Carnifex (22 page)

That meant, in practice, that the Imperial Court still had tremendous power within the country, though the power was almost always expressed subtly. Indeed, it was usually expressed so subtly that no one could really be certain what the Emperor actually meant, most of the time. Some of this was, of course, in the way questions to the Throne were phrased.

"His Highness said
what?
" asked Mr. Yamagata of his colleague, Mr. Saito. Each was a representative of a major shipping company. Yamagata's brought in oil; Saito's exported finished goods.

"I mentioned to His Highness," answered Saito, "that ships bringing oil to our land endured many dangers. He answered, 'Sometimes we must endure the unendurable.'"

Yamagata took off his bottle-thick glasses and cleaned them with his tie.

"That is a remarkably forthright answer from Him," he observed. "It seems clear enough, then, as clear as it ever is, that the Imperial Navy is not going to help us. What do we do then?"

"I came to the same conclusion. As to what we must do, I asked the Emperor, 'Shall not the sons of the Son of Heaven resist tyranny and robbery?' He answered with the questions, 'Does not the law forbid private persons from bearing arms? Has the land not seen untold misery from uncontrolled violence?'"

"Shit!" exclaimed Yamagata.

"Shit," echoed Saito more softly. "It was a curious audience. Before I left, His Imperial Highness said, 'Sometimes, we must allow ourselves—like Miyamoto Musashi—to be tossed about by the waves of the sea.'"

Yamagata's left eyebrow lifted, subtly. "Wave tossed?
Ronin
?"

Ronin meant, in Japanese, "wave man," as a masterless samurai was said to be tossed through life on the waves. Many ronin, throughout the history of Japanese culture (which history and culture were largely carried over to Yamato on Terra Nova), became mercenaries. Miyamoto Musashi—old Japan's "sword saint"—had been ronin.

Saito shrugged. "That much of His Highness' words I did
not
comprehend."

"Perhaps I do," answered Yamagata.

The seas were calm and the waves were light, the ship barely taking notice of them.

Montoya took his meal standing in the crowded wardroom. There were seats, a few of them, available, but he'd discovered he really enjoyed watching the maintenance crews in the hangar deck at work. There was a euphony to it, a symmetry. Of course, the irregular pounding from the engine repair shop next to the wardroom was anything but euphonious.

Working in harmony together or not, the crew was frazzled; there was no better word. Montoya had flown three training missions yesterday and two already today. This was bad enough on him; on the ordnance, fuel, maintenance and deck crews it was simply exhausting. And that bastard Fosa showed no indication so far that he intended to let up for an instant.

Is he going to push us until half of us are dead?
Already, half a dozen pilots and twice that in deck crew had perished under the relentless drilling.

From the speakers Montoya heard played six notes of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, then, "Battle stations; battle stations. Pilots . . . . "

Seems he is.

Montoya's plate was dropped and he was out the door before the speaker had a chance to finish, " . . . man your aircraft. RPV pilots to your stations. Cazadors to the assembly area on the hangar deck."

A few weeks ago there'd have been a mad dash for the hatch and a human traffic jam both there and at the ladders leading topside. The sailors and pilots moved just as briskly now, but they'd learned the techniques of transforming themselves from a mob to a mass. Montoya waited his turn at the hatch, then again at the ladder, before easing himself into the only kind of river that flowed uphill.

Topside, Montoya saw what he'd expected to see. Three Crickets were parked in a shallow upside down V just forward of the carrier's Island. Well behind those were half a dozen Turbo-Finch Avengers in two Vs. On the port side the men of the alert company of the Cazador demi-cohort struggled to organize themselves before boarding the eight Yakamov helicopters lined up along the angled deck.

At the top of the ladder Montoya turned half right, which is to say toward the stern and the Finches, and began to trot to where a staff officer of the air group was sorting pilots to planes.

"Montoya!" the staff weenie shouted to be heard over the growing roar of engines and the loudspeakers on the island playing
Ride of the Valkyries
. "Number four spot. Your load is rocket and gun pods. Tribune Castillo is Air Mission Commander. Orders will be radioed just prior to take off. Go, son!"

The crew chief for the plane gave Montoya a leg up onto the wing. Standing, he threw one foot over onto the aircraft's seat, then pulled in the other. To save half a second he'd developed the technique of simply tossing his legs out from under and letting his ass slam into the seat. As his ass hit, his hands were reaching for the helmet. Only when it was on, and a commo check made, did he begin to strap himself in.

The radio crackled. "Boys, this is Castillo. Target is a small boat about seventy five miles from here on a heading of Three One Two, I say again, Three One Two. Just FYI, the skipper informed me that the target boat is small, fast and under radio control so it is going to be a bitch to put down. There'll be a control boat about two miles to the north of the target. DON'T go after the control. It's painted white while the target is sea green so even you blind bastards ought to be able to stay away from it. Now let's wait for the Crickets to get out of the way and we'll take off in standard order, One through Six."

"Any questions?"

"Any questions?" asked the admiral commanding the Ironside's Carrier Battle Group after he explained the rules of engagement for the carrier and her escorts. Had a kinder fate intervened the steel gray old sea dog just might have become the chief of naval operations for the FS Navy. As it was, the Progressive administration was nearly certain to last past the admiral's mandatory retirement date. And the Progs would never let him or anyone like him become CNO. The same was true of the Army, FSAF and FSMC. The most aggressive, most traditional, most militaristic and least progressive senior officers had already been given the word: "There will be no place for you in the future and the sooner you retire the better for everyone."

"Just one, sir," said Ironside's captain, a former shoo-in for admiral himself, now doomed, it seemed, to be cast aside. "What's the fucking point of our being here?"

"Why, to suppress piracy, Captain," the admiral rejoined. "Didn't you listen to me when I explained the rules of engagement? They're clear as thin mud."

"On, not nearly that clear, surely, Admiral. Rule One: 'Guaranteeing free travel by merchant shipping is the number one priority' makes sense enough. But then we run into Rule Two: 'All human life is to be treated as sacred.' I think that must include pirate life as well, no? Rule Three: 'Ships and boats will not be stopped on the high seas without a warrant emanating from probable cause as determined by a federal judge.' There's going to be time to get a warrant? I don't think so. And then there's Rule Seventeen: 'Ships and boats not in the act of attacking merchant shipping will not be attacked.' Does that mean that once a pirate's made a successful attack and is on the way back we cannot engage? I think it does. And Rule Fourteen? 'All hostage situations will immediately be referred to the National Command Authority for determination of appropriate action.'

The captain crumpled up his paper copy of the ROE and dropped it disdainfully to the deck. "It's a waste of time, Admiral. We could deploy the entire fleet here and under these pussy rules it
still
wouldn't stop the piracy."

Always good to see my prime enemy wasting its time
, mused High Admiral Robinson, watching on his screen as a group of Xamaris returned from a raided ship. The FSN wasn't interfering so the Xamaris must have grabbed some of the passengers or crew. The ROE for the battle group, a copy of which Robinson had received almost before the admiral commanding, made any quick reaction, or any action that might be proactive, essentially impossible. These he had passed on to Abdulahi, together with some pointed suggestions on just how to use the ROE to advantage.

Not only is the bastard using them to his advantage, but in the face of TN's only real naval power's helpless flailing about, its inability to control what amounts to seagoing camel drivers, more major shippers are buying protection from Abdulahi. So, of course, the incidence of piracy is down; the FSN can hardly explain that it's down because they failed; the Progressive administration gets to trumpet its "success" . . . and much of that protection money
still
goes to support Mustafa.

Things are going well in Nicobar, too, if not so spectacularly. Mustafa's boys down there are expanding nicely; seven bands, it is, fallen under Parameswara's control. Of course, supporting Parameswara is a net money drain on Mustafa, for now, and not a small one. But he'll make all that up and more once the Nicobars can get in on the racket in style.

It had all been going far too well, Parameswara knew. Something had to go wrong eventually.

"Eventually" came in the form of another group of Malay pirates heading out just as Parameswara's group was moving in. The outgoing pirates spotted one of Parameswara's launches looking alone and vulnerable and motored over to seize it. By the time they realized that that launch was not alone it was too late; the seizure turned into a fight which quickly escalated into a general melee at sea.

Parameswara's boys won that fight handily. When they were finished, and it only took a matter of minutes, three of their foes boats were burning on the haze-covered water. The boats themselves were draped with hacked and shot bodies, the blood that collected in the scuppers beginning to steam from the heat.

It's a terrible waste of good seacraft,
Parameswara mourned.

Worse, though, was that the fight, while desperate in places, had overall gone too easily and ended too quickly. Their blood up, Parameswara's men hastily forced a landing and began an assault into the village from which their fellow Malay pirates had come. There, the massacre became general with the assaulting pirates shooting or hacking down old men, women, children and even the dogs and pigs of the place.

It was only with the greatest difficulty, and only after the huts were already burning, that the pirate chieftain and
al Naquib
were able to bring the men to order. By that time, there was nothing left but fifty or so women and children, most of them already raped at least once, remaining. The survivors wept, some of them. Others stood in shock. Parameswara was shocked himself.

"It was so damned unnecessary," he cursed at no one in particular.

"I'm not so sure," said
al Naquib
, who was rapidly picking up the local lingo. "We had already, maybe, made as much peaceful progress as we could. Didn't you pick your early conquests based on how likely they would be to fold
without
having to fight or massacre? Didn't you push the ones most likely to resist to the back of the list? Was not this group one you thought might put up a fight anyway?"

Parameswara shrugged. It was true but . . . 

"Well they did. And they've paid for it. Now there are just about enough survivors to spread the word: If you resist the great new pirate king, Parameswara, all you will earn is death. So let's let these go with nothing but the clothes on their backs, their eyes to weep with and their tongues to spread the word."

Within a fortnight, the first chief of the still independent pirate bands along either side of the Nicobar Straits arrived at Parameswara's newly fortified coastal town to offer his allegiance to the new paramount chief.

Matthias Esterhazy had no real idea why Mr. Saito and Mr. Yamagata had asked to see him. Their credentials suggested only that they were deeply involved, and very prominent, in Yamato's considerable shipping industry. He considered it most likely that they were interested in doing business with either Chatham, Hennessey and Schmied, Patricio's family firm and no inconsiderable shippers themselves, or its Balboan subsidiary, Alexander Steamship Company.

He'd done business with the Yamatans before, especially when he'd worked for SachsenBank. Thus he was unsurprised that the two businessmen, and a third who'd accompanied them, beat around the bush with meaningless pleasantries for more than an hour.

Actually, the third man—they'd introduced him only as "Captain Kurita"—said absolutely nothing.
He's the interesting one
, Esterhazy thought. Old, clearly he was very old, Kurita sat serene and upright. However silent Kurita may have been, and however ancient, Esterhazy saw keen intelligence in his eyes and thought he detected a wry amusement in his face.

He'd almost stopped listening to Saito and Yamagata until he heard, "And in the long run, it's just unsupportable, the price they demand to allow our ships passage."

They'd worked they're way from "Nice weather you're having here" to "Help" and Esterhazy hadn't even been aware of the transition. He looked at Kurita's face again. Yes, there was definitely amusement there. Perhaps he'd seen Taurans and Columbians trying to communicate with Yamatans before.

Kurita turned that gnarled, ancient face toward Esterhazy and spoke his first words since introductions. "Danegeld, Tribune Esterhazy. They don't want to pay Danegeld."

Matthias' head flew back in surprise. That the Yamatan had used the expression "Danegeld" was one thing. He could well have—indeed probably had—been at least partially educated in Anglia or the FSC. But that he knew Esterhazy's legionary rank was simply shocking.

"I have kept up my contacts with Imperial Naval Intelligence, Tribune," Kurita explained, "even though the men who run it are the grandsons and even great-grandsons of the men I served with in the Great Global War. They told me who you were."