Carnifex (28 page)

Robinson turned his attention back to the Kurosawa. "I can't attack them directly. I
can
; however, make sure they not able to attack anyone else."

Wallenstein made a quizzical sound.

"It's simple, Marguerite. That contemptible little fleet can only affect the sea it occupies and about three or four hundred kilometers around it. Even that three or four hundred, though, is constrained by the speed of their aircraft and the chance of being in the right place at the right time.
We
get to choose whether those times and places will be right."

Robinson's voice changed to the neutral, uninflected tone used for talking to machines. "Computer, connect me with Abdulahi."

To the High Admiral's mild surprise, the answer came almost immediately. A melodious voice said, "Yes, High Admiral; Abdulahi here."

There's a shock; one of those down below actually listening to instructions.

Whatever his thoughts, Robinson confined his words to business. "Friend, that new threat I told you of has taken up station off your coastline."

"I see that, High Admiral," the Xamari answered. Robinson had transferred to him, as he had to Mustafa, the means of tapping directly into UEPF surveillance and sensing systems. "We can easily avoid them."

"Excellent, Abdulahi."

"This is superb, Commodore," Fosa complimented Kurita on the sushi the Yamatan had prepared from fish he'd caught himself the night before.

Kurita smiled, slightly, and nodded, acknowledging the compliment.

Fosa looked around at the Yamatan's quarters. In warship terms they were the height of luxury, measuring all of about three hundred and twenty square feet. Even Fosa's own were not quite so large. They were furnished well, as warships measured such things. Kurita had hung on one wall a portrait of the emperor he had served ably and bravely in the Great Global War. That emperor had long since joined his divine ancestors. His memory retained Kurita's loyalty, even so.

It wasn't the size or the luxury, nor even the portrait of the emperor and what it said of Kurita, the samurai, that impressed Fosa. It was the unbelievable cleanliness of the quarters.

He'd asked of his senior naval centurion how the place had gotten so completely sanitized. The centurion had shrugged, "Got no clue, Cap'n. He never asked us for anything but a mop and bucket, sponges and some rags. Oh, and liquid cleaner."

Fosa was left with the only possible solution; that Kurita, at nearly a century old, had gotten down on his ancient hands and knees and
made
quarters fit for his emperor's portrait. That was rather humbling.

"I saved it from my battlecruiser," Kurita had said in explanation. "When we had to . . . surrender"—and the word came out only with painful difficulty—"I took it last, as I was leaving. Every day I apologize to it that I and my comrades failed in our duty. Perhaps someday the emperor shall forgive us."

Which helped convince Fosa, not that he needed much convincing, that the Yamatans were not just odd, but
admirably
odd.

"How goes the hunt?" Kurita asked.

"Not well," the captain said. "Admittedly we've only been on station

two weeks but . . . "

"But given the frequency of reported piratical attacks near this section of the coast a week should have seen at least two," the commodore supplied.

Fosa nodded. "Yes, but there's been nothing. Attacks north of us, yes. Attacks south of us, yes. Nothing here."

The Yamatan quoted, "All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away, that you are near. Offer the enemy a bait to lure him, feign disorder and strike him. When he concentrates, prepare against him."

"Musashi?" the Balboan asked. "The Book of Five Rings?"

Kurita shook his grey head. "Sun Tzu."

"Do you think someone is reporting on our positions and dispositions, Commodore?"

"Unquestionably," Kurita answered. "The only real question is who."

"Not the Federated States Navy," Fosa said. "Even if the Legion is in bad grace with their government their armed forces are still strong friends."

"I agree," the Yamatan said. "That leaves the Tauran Union, the Volgans, the Zhong, and the UEPF. In any case, it hardly matters
who
, for our purposes. What matters is the fact that that someone, to all appearances,
is
reporting on us."

"I wonder if the FSN can shed any light," the Yamatan wondered. "After all, they're rather . . . oh . . . . 
capable.
"

The twin-engined Cricket B came down at an angle that made the deck crew blanch. It didn't roll but hit, bounced once and then again, then came to an almost unbelievable stop.

"It ain't natural," pronounced one of the deck crew. His purple overalls marked him as a "grape," or fuel handler.

An officer from the bridge crew was on hand, detailed to escort Fosa and his small party down to the captain's port cabin. The party didn't include Kurita.

"I do not hate them, Captain-san," the Yamatan had explained, "but it would be . . . awkward, even so. My family was in Motonari, you see." Motonari was one of the two cities in Yamato atomic bombed by the FSC.

Being led through the carrier's innards was a less intimidating exercise for

Fosa than had been the approach that showed how completely it dwarfed his own command.
One hundred thousand tons and more. God, what a ship.

The passageways seemed more to a human scale to Fosa, and then he came to the hangar deck.

I could almost fit
Dos Lindas
down in it,
he thought in awe and wonder. He did some measurement by eye.
No, I
could
fit
Dos Lindas
into it, if we ripped off both flight decks.
Then he consoled himself with the thought,
It's not the size of the ship in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the ship. That, and the rules of engagement.

The rest of the journey afoot was uneventful, but informative. Twice Fosa stopped to ask his escort officer questions about the ship's operation. Both times he made a mental note to at least consider changing SOP on the
Dos Lindas.

The captain met him warmly by his port cabin's hatch. Leading him into the quarters, somewhat larger than Fosa's and Kurita's combined, the
Ironside's
captain made the introductions, the important one of which was to the admiral.

Fosa was surprised to see a bottle of rum sitting on the captain's table. "I thought all FSS ships were dry," he said.

The admiral shrugged. "Yes and no. The chaplain is allowed sacramental alcohol, and the ship's medical staff keeps medicinal brandy. In our case, the chaplain believes in having sacramental bourbon and scotch, rum and cognac, along with the wine. That particular bottle was being held as medicinal rum until it could be properly blessed."

"I see. How . . . " Fosa wanted to say "morally ingenious" but didn't know how far his welcome stayed. He let it go.

"We
can
be morally ingenious," the admiral said.

Lunch and small talk followed. It was a decent meal, but no better than what was served aboard
Dos Lindas
, and perhaps not as good. Fosa made a point of inviting both the captain and the admiral, as well as the other two officers present, signals and operations, to come aboard his own ship at their earliest convenience.

"Regretfully, Legate Fosa, we cannot," the admiral answered for all. "If we did, it would be lending official FSC sanction to what we suspect—to be honest, what we
hope
—is your mission and your rules of engagement. That, our government and the . . . people . . . in charge would never tolerate."

"I understand," Fosa agreed. "Perhaps in some future time, some happier time for your service."

Ironside's
skipper said, "The admiral meant what he said, Legate. We sincerely hope you will be able to do what we are expressly forbidden from doing, which is to say, we hope you can do even the slightest good." The captain pushed a folder over to Fosa. "Take a look at that."

Fosa opened the file and saw that it contained a couple of dozen eight-by-ten glossies and a couple of printed sheets of paper. When he looked carefully at the first photo he said, "My God . . . "

The admiral answered, "Our God had nothing to do with it."

The photos were of the massacre, the butchery, of the crew of the
Estrella de Castilla.

Fosa shuffled through the photos as quickly as he could. When he came to the first printed sheet he began to read. Halfway through the rules of engagement he exclaimed, "How in the hell can they expect you to do anything under this nonsense?"

"They don't expect us to
do
anything, Legate," The admiral explained. "They expect us to make the
appearance
of doing something. Don't you have progressives at home? Appearances matter a lot more to them than actually
doing
anything."

Fosa took from his white uniform blouse a folded piece of paper of his own. "My commander gave me full latitude to write my own ROE. This is ours."

The admiral scanned quickly, then passed the paper on to his subordinate.

"Admirably direct," was the admiral's sole comment.

"Admirably traditional," said the signals chief when the paper reached him.

"Legate," the captain asked, "what does your fleet consist of?"

Fosa laid out the composition of the fleet, omitting only the precise nature of the recreation ship, dubbed "Fosa's Floating Fornication Frigate" by all the crews of his task force. As he spoke, the ops officer began jotting onto a notepad.

"So you have no long-range strategic recon," observed the ops officer for the carrier battle group. "We can make up that lack."

"It would help," Fosa agreed. "But . . . 
can
you?"

"Officially no," the admiral said. "Unofficially, I think we can provide that and quite a bit more. But it will all have to be under the table."

"Under the table would be fine. But I think I am under a looking glass.
Someone
is telling the Xamaris where my ships and planes are at any given time. Nothing else can explain how they've been so successful at avoiding us. It can't be all bad luck."

"It isn't. I can't tell you
how
I know; but I can tell you that I
do
know that the UEPF is sending data to someone inside Xamar. And it's not their ambassador because they, like everyone else, pulled their embassy out of Xamar years ago, when the place collapsed."

"The UEPF!? Damn. Then I haven't a prayer of doing any good."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," the ops officer disagreed. "Tell me; can you put those two patrol boats of yours back aboard their tender . . . mmmm, maybe preferably just before a serious storm?"

"Sure," Fosa shrugged. "But why?"

"Because if you can re-embark them aboard your ship, and get your ship close to the
Ironsides
, you can conceivably unload them and hide them under our flight deck. The UEPF may lose track of them, for a while, at least."

"Okay," Fosa said, "I can see that working once. But after that?"

"After that, something else." It was the ops officer's turn to shrug. "Give us a little time."

"All warfare is based on deception," Fosa said and laughed at himself slightly.

"Clausewitz?" asked the admiral.

"No, sir, Sun Tzu. My . . . well, you might call him my supercargo, Commodore Kurita, quoted it to me just days ago."

"Tadeo Kurita?" the admiral asked.

"Yes, sir, that's him."

The admiral whistled. "He's still alive? Tough old bird. My father told me about Kurita, about him leading what was left of Yamato's Second Fleet in breaking free and running for home after they lost at the Battle of Kuantan. The old man said he'd never seen such seamanship or such guts."

"I think that would pretty much describe Commodore Kurita, Admiral."

An airship passed by gracefully overhead, bearing tourists who wanted to view the sacred cherry orchards from the vantage point of the sky. The cherry trees, or
sakura
, were in bloom, though a few petals were beginning to fall.

"Kurita advises patience," said Saito to Yamagata, as they sat below, under the cherry trees. "He says the pirates are being very coy and making good use of the considerable aid they receive from on high. He further advises that the
ronin
fleet will, in his opinion, produce good results with time."

Yamagata said nothing for a while, his attention seemingly fixed on a cherry blossom making its leap into immortality. It fluttered and spun to the ground, joining there the very few which had chosen to die young, in the full bloom of glorious youth.

During the migration from the home islands of Old Earth, it had been impossible to carry fully grown trees. Instead, the settlers had taken along saplings, a few, seeds and some cuttings, which they had carefully nursed into growth. Even then, many—most—had not survived. These trees were descendants of those who had and were, like the Yamatans themselves, of remarkably hardy and tough stock. Raising the trees had been as high a priority as the growing of food, for without these reminders of both the beauty of life, as well as its ephemeral nature, the settlers had feared losing some part of their essence.

With a sigh, Yamagata said, "The patience of the program's backers is not unlimited. We must have results, and soon. We lost another ship's crew yesterday. The Federated States Navy stood by and allowed it to happen because the pirates threatened to kill the crew if they were interfered with."

"His Majesty still will not allow our fleet to intervene," Saito said.

Yamagata grunted. "It is the curse of those who allow others to be their primary line of defense. It is the curse of being insufficiently self reliant."

"It is the curse of losing a war," Saito corrected. "Still, let us trust Kurita's judgment. It is not
his
fault we lost, last time. He will not permit us to lose again."