The Lotus Eaters

Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova

Lourdes still served as Carrera's very private and very confidential secretary, as she had since he'd first hired her, more than a dozen years before.

"The big advantage," he said to her, as she laid the latest consolidated Research, Development and Procurement Report on his desk, "is that now I don't have to pay you a regular salary."

"Watch out," she answered, "I might go on strike for better working conditions. More sex, for example." She glanced, meaningfully, from Carrera's office toward their bedroom.

"Why is it," he asked, "that you always get hornier when you're pregnant and stay that way until the baby's a year old?"

"Are you complaining?"

"Oh, not a bit. But you're a lot younger than I am. I foresee the day when I knock you up as the last gasp measure of an old man and you then kill me with your insatiable demands." He sighed. "Can't think of a better way to go."

"You better believe it," she said, turning away from the desk. He was struck, as always, by the fact that, recently pregnant or not, she never lost her shape. Bigger breasts? Yes. And yum. A bit displaced in front? Yes, but that didn't last. And from behind she was still the willowy girl he'd married.

"Anything interesting in the report?" he called after her.

"They finished testing on the frontal composite armor for the SPATHA," she answered, without turning. "Likewise the gun. And the Global Locating System Interdictor has some technical problems they need a tactical solution to."

"You're a treasure," Carrera said, just loud enough for her to hear.

"You better believe that, too."

* * *

Only five people had access to the complete report. There were Carrera and—as a practical matter—Lourdes, plus Fernandez, Grishkin, the Volgan-born chief of Obras Zorilleras, and Kuralski. Not even Fernandez's deputy had access. (Though Legate Barletta didn't, in any case, have access to much, his post being more administrative in nature.) This was about as compartmentalized as information ever got. Carrera quickly scanned over the reports from Siegel, in Cochin. Those projects were well on track. The Meg plant at the shipyard on the bay of Puerto Lindo was slated to begin full production soon, he was pleased to see. Mortar production was keeping pace with force expansion. Good . . . very good. The artillery ammunition plant at Arraijan, not too far from the small arms fabrica that produced the F-26 rifle, M-26 light machine gun, and their variants, was experiencing a shortage of brass for shell casings.

Note to Fernandez: Is the brass shortage worldwide? Our screw up in procurement planning? Long term or short? Note to the Ib: Can we substitute?

He did more than just scan the report on the SPATHA, the Self Propelled, Anti-Tank, Heavy Armor, project. Balboa didn't have access to the planet's best armored vehicles; those were the purview of the Federated States and the Tauran Union, neither of which was interested in selling to the Legion.

And I wouldn't trust a Tauran tank even if they'd sell.

Still, the Legion needed something that could go toe to toe with a first line Tauran tank, if only to keep the latter from playing too free if—No, when—war came.

Hence, the SPATHA, a semi-obsolete Volgan tank, with the turret removed and a fighting compartment built up, a 152mm gun bored out to 160mm slung in the fighting compartment, and enough composite armor added on front to stop even a Gallic or Sachsen 120mm depleted uranium penetrator at knife fighting range.

And the redundant turrets go out to the Isla Real to add to its defenses.

He read first about the armor, a back-engineered composite expressly designed to defeat long rod penetrators. Satisfied with that, he pulled out several photos from an envelope attached to the report. One of these showed a dead pig, strapped into the gunner's station of a tank, with a machine gun driven completely through its body. All the other pigs, so said the report, were likewise killed, if not in so grisly a manner.

So, a hundred pound charge of a plastic explosive, splattered on the turret and detonated, will do that to the crew of the target, will it? Cool.

On the other hand, we still need to build nearly a thousand of the bastards, including for operational floats.

Turning the page to close that section of the report, Carrera skipped ahead several—there were forty-one major sections—to go to the section dealing with GLS Interdiction.

* * *

GLS, the Federated States' Global Locating System, and its Tauran and Volgan competitors (which were incomplete in any case, causing both to rely more or less heavily on the GLS anyway), depended upon timed signals. In effect, a receiver was bombarded continuously with signals that amounted to, "At the tone, the time will be." By comparing the time "stamps" it was given, a receiver could calculate quickly and accurately its location on the surface of the planet, its altitude, and even—if moving—its direction of travel. So dependent had all possible adversaries grown on the GLS system, that defeating or sabotaging it was a major priority of the Legion's R&D establishment.

But, as Obras Zorrilleras had discovered, there were some limitations to what could be done.

* * *

"It just won't work, sir," the project officer had said to Grishkin, out on the OZ facility on the Isla Real. "Not like we planned anyway."

Grishkin muttered "Why?"

The electronic engineer had pulled a white dome from off a Zion-supplied GLS. Pointing at a series of squared off funnels, the large open ends of which faced outward, he'd said, "It's these little bastards. We can acquire the signals from any eight or ten satellites that are covering an area. We can amplify those signals and delay them. We can send the delayed signals to a directional antenna and bombard an area with false data. But only three of these little devices will be oriented in the right direction to accept a signal. And the machine will ignore them as soon as the data they receive doesn't jibe with what the other horns—they're called feeder horns—are getting. The GLS will still be able to calculate its location from the remaining satellites' time stamps."

"Scowling, Grishkin had asked, "Can't we send from more than one location?"

"Yes, sir. And we can totally jam the signals if we can hit the target area from three sides; possibly even two. We can make the GLS useless. But we can't fool one into thinking it's somewhere other than where it really is . . . except, maybe, if we are in a very static situation. Even then, though, we won't be able to do anything too fine."

"Better than nothing," Grishkin had shrugged. "What about the other GLS systems, the ones that don't use the encrypted signal."

"Those, sir, we can fuck with unmercifully. They don't have the nasty little feeder horns to cut out our false transmissions." The engineer had led Grishkin to a different section of the building. A box stood on a table.

Again pointing, the engineer had said, "This is just a prototype, of course. It is intended to be emplaced at some area the enemy is likely to target or move through. It picks up the unencrypted signals, amplifies them, delays them, then broadcasts omnidirectionally. Range: Three to four thousand meters. Unencrypted GLS is useless within its range unless the jammer's signals are blocked by something, a building or mountain perhaps."

Considering for a moment, Grishkin had then asked, "Our own troops won't be able to use the GLS satellites in that case, will they?"

"No, sir, not once the jammer is turned on. Defensively, however, it will still be useful because our men will be able to use it in a given area before the enemy show up . . . before it's turned on."

The engineer turned from the jammer and led Grishkin to a different, larger, table.

"This is the most subtle project we have," he said. On the table stood a small remote piloted vehicle, a Zion-designed Molosar II, built under license in Balboa. "This doesn't screw with the location of the receiving set much, it hovers overhead, collects signals from those satellites that are most nearly overhead, delays them, and shoot them down in a 60 degree cone. This convinces a GLS receiver in the cone that it is much, much lower than it really is."

Grishkin understood immediately. "It makes aircraft navigation and artillery fire direction computers think they're much lower! Ha! The planes will fly too high, the artillery will shoot too far."

"Well . . . at least until they catch on," said the engineer had answered with a smirk.

* * *

Of course for that, Carrera thought, we'll have to have a pretty good idea where the artillery is and where the aircraft will fly through. Hmmm . . . note to Training Branch, of Cazador Tercio: Troops trained in maintaining deep hide reconnaissance positions.

And, thinking about deep hide and reconnaissance . . .

Carrera pressed a button on the intercom on his desk. "Lourdes, honey?"

"Si, Patricio?"

"I was just thinking about your fringe benefits and I've decided you have a legitimate grievance. Why don't you bring your bargaining committee to my office and we'll see if we can't . . . ummm . . . hammer out something fair."

Unseen by her husband, Lourdes shivered. She was always so desperately horny after she had a baby. It was even worse than when she was pregnant. The strength of her hormone driven desire was nearly a physical pain.

"Patricio," she answered in a husky voice, "that is just so tacky. I'll be right up."