Carnifex

CIC, Dos Lindas

Fosa and Kurita watched the large plasma screen—this one, too, was a Kurosawa—intently. The screen showed numerous markers. Central was the carrier itself, shown as a green triangle. Nearby were two smaller markers, green squares, for the Santisima Trinidad and the San Agustin. Ordinarily, there would have been corvettes in place. Indeed, not long before they'd been there on station around the carrier. Now, however, they were needed elsewhere. The plasma screen showed them—another two green squares—racing at thirty-seven knots to a point that would place them within range of a long arc of the main coastal road. They were due to arrive within fourteen minutes; so said the display. Wide circles around the corvettes' markers indicated maximum range for their guns.

A last important green square, The Big ?, likewise chugged toward the coast. It moved much more slowly, however, at some twenty-four knots. That didn't matter; it wasn't expected to be needed until later in the day.

Above the town of Gedo a blue circle was superimposed, Montoya's Finches circling like vultures. Another blue marker, this one in a V, showed the remainder of the carrier's Finches heading in. Further lines from both markers went generally north, intersecting the coastal road. Numbers above the lines indicated the time required for each group to reach a point on the coastal road from their present position. The lines shifted as they were moved by the crew of CIC. The times shifted as well.

Another blue V indicated the flight of Crickets and Yakamovs. This group, too, had a line that ran to the coastal highway. Like the Finches, the line and the times shifted and changed.

From the town and running up the highway were a series of eyes, outlined in black. These were the RPVs, watching the highway. Beneath the eyes, shown in red, was a long dotted column. This was the enemy, the enemy they'd expected to come from the capital of Xamar once the pirates were apprised of the fleet's movements. It was to the center of mass of this that the lines pointed. It was time of flight to this that the numbers indicated. It was this that the corvettes' markers sought to capture within the wide circles that showed maximum range for their guns.

Although the other chart showed times of flight, ease of management required that a different screen show in one convenient place the times for interception from each force to the enemy column. For the aircraft, those times were based on what was possible within their minimum and maximum speed, along with the speed required to intercept simultaneously, with the speed of the truck convoy from the capital factored in. When all subunits on the chart showed a time between nine and eleven minutes, Fosa took the radio microphone and announced, "Black this is Black Six. Roland. I repeat, Roland." Fosa then turned the mike over to his operations officer who quickly and efficiently relayed the speeds and course the various elements were to assume. The entire thing could conceivably have been digitalized, but this just wasn't that kind of force. Besides, voice worked well enough.

Every marker on the plasma almost immediately changed course to intercept the column at precisely the point it was expected to be in ten minutes.

* * *

Montoya keyed his mike and announced, "In ten . . . heading: 262 . . . speed: 137 . . . on one from five . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one." He then adjusted his throttle and eased his stick over to head toward the convoy. A glance to either side with his night vision goggles told him the others were following in a V behind.

A toss of the head backwards and the goggles flipped up, clearing his vision so that he could see his instruments. Everything appeared nominal, so he threw his head forward to bring the goggles back over his eyes. Then, followed by his wingmen, he dove for the dirt. He intended to come in low out of the rising sun.

"Fucking wogs are never going to know what hit 'em."

* * *

Abdulahi might have been willing to send lesser sons to sea, even to sacrifice a few here and there for the greater good of his line. For the core of his power base, the mobile column of over a thousand well armed and—by local standards—well trained cousins and nephews and family retainers, nothing and no one would do to lead except his number one son, and presumptive heir, also called Abdulahi.

Abdulahi the junior stood in the back of the second truck in the column, scanning ahead. Darker than three feet up a well digger's ass at midnight, Junior cursed. Even the one moon that had been showing had gone down. The sun was not yet up. The stars gave little light, even where they reflected off the sea beside the road. Only the headlights of the trucks provided illumination, and that only ahead and only when they actually worked. Many drove on one light, or even none.

Worse, perhaps, than the darkness was the noise. The trucks would have made a cacophony even had they been well maintained. They were not, however, well maintained. Added to the roar and backfiring of out of tune engines were the squeals of badly maintained brakes, the squeaks of abused shock absorbers, the whistles of leaking air tanks. In all, beyond the noise of the column Junior couldn't hear a blessed thing.

That didn't matter, as it turned out, as Montoya's flight was already lining up and the shells were already leaving the corvettes' guns by the time Robinson had alerted Abdulahi the senior to the threat.

* * *

The 76.2mm shell was no great shakes. Even coming it at a relatively high angle, its burst radius—more of an oval, actually—was no more than about fifteen by twenty-five meters. Moreover, because it was high velocity, the shells had to be of fairly high quality steel to withstand the stresses of firing. High quality steel produced many times fewer fragments than did simple, cheap iron.

On the other hand, the guns firing from the corvettes were capable of tossing out eighty shells each in forty seconds and, moreover, doing so with considerable accuracy. By the time the computer controlled guns had emptied their magazines, a sixteen hundred meter section of Xamar's coastal highway had been deluged with fire and flying chunks of glowing hot steel casing.