Carnifex

FSS Ironsides, Xamar Coast, 6/6/467

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."