The Lotus Eaters

Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova

From the island, the sea today might as well have been an expanse of blue painted glass, with waves drawn on. Close in, one could see that the waves were real enough, but very gentle. They rolled in to a smooth sandy beach, dominated by a hill with a couple of natural caves in its face.

"We could butcher them down there," said Alexandr Sitnikov, late of the Red Tsar's Fifth Guards Tank Regiment, as he pointed from the shallow cave mouth down to the beaches to the north, northeast, and northwest.

Carrera nodded but said, looking around the shallow cave, "I expected you would have made more progress than you have, Alexandr."

The short and balding Volgan looked sheepish. (All Volgan tankers were short, though baldness was optional.) "I know," he said. "And I'm sorry. But I ran out of money last year and Esterhazy"—the Legion's Sachsen-born comptroller—"wouldn't shit me any more money without your express order."

Carrera thought, Query to self: Despite what was intended to be a training program that developed vast individual initiative, did my behavior the last couple of years before I cracked make people defensive and rob them of initiative? Ask Mac and Xavier; no one else will answer honestly. If so, how do I fix it?

He nodded his understanding, agreeing, "Fair enough. Not your fault. The money will be forthcoming. Can you finish preparing the island for defense within three years?"

Sitnikov could remember a time when Carrera had been so worn out with the struggle, so tired, that he'd have lashed out viciously over any failing. The rest did him good, I think. Which is good for me, too.

"It will cost more," the Volgan answered. "The old rule still applies: You can have it quick or good or cheap; pick any two. And, of course, some preparations cannot be completed, per your guidance, until war is impending or has already begun.

Sitnikov's face took on an uncharacteristically mulish cast. "And besides that, I've got the problem of running the cadets. They're a goddamned division all on their own, Patricio. I've been juggling the two for years, probably to the detriment of both. You really need someone to do both, separately."

"I know," Carrera agreed. "And I am sorely tempted to make that someone Esterhazy, who is not only a trained engineer but also the fucker who should have taken the initiative and given you the money." He sighed. "But if I did, who would be comptroller?"

"That, happily, is your problem. I didn't sign on with you to specialize in personnel management."

"You didn't sign on to run herd on teenagers or design a system of fortifications, either," Carrera answered, drily, "but you never bitched about either one."

"Actually," Sitnikov corrected, "I signed on to teach your first troops to operate White Eagle tanks. You just bribed me into staying on for the cadets and this island."

"Mere details."

"Hmmm . . . details . . . tanks . . . I've got a demonstration for you, if you're up to it."

"Demonstration of what?" Carrera asked.

"Bunkers, actually," the Volgan answered. "If I didn't have the money to build them all, I did have enough to build some of the prototypes we first discussed and to test a few of the designs."

* * *

"Best put these in," Sitnikov said, taking a pair of earplugs from a pocket and handing them to Carrera. He took another set out, rolled them in his fingers to collapse them to narrow cylinders then stuck those in his own ear canals. Carrera did similarly.

In front of them a Jaguar II (formerly "White Eagle") tank sat with the tank commander's upper torso sticking out of the turret. Sitnikov gave the tank commander, or TC, a thumbs up. Immediately the tank commander dropped down into the turret, hurriedly closing the hatch behind him.

Sitnikov shouted, "This is going to—"

KABOOMMM!

"—sting."

Before the last word was out, indeed, before the concussion from the muzzle had dissipated, a concrete bunker downrange was blocked from view by the evil, black smoke of a good-sized explosion. Eight seconds later, after the turret had traversed a few degrees, the same thing happened to a second bunker, then, another eight seconds later, a third . . . a fourth . . . a fifth . . . a sixth.

"Jesus, I hate those things," Carrera muttered, completely unheard by anyone but himself. "Sting," was something of an understatement. The Volgans made great guns, of tremendous power and range for their weight and complexity. A major downside, however, was that the muzzle blast from those guns was somewhat incompatible with maintaining human health.

The TC of the tank emerged and made an all clear signal. Sitnikov nudged Carrera's arm, even as he dug into his own ears to pull out the plugs. "Come, let me show you." The Volgan picked up a box and began to walk toward the still smoke obscured bunkers.

"The concrete we use," Sitnikov explained, "is special. For fill we use coral we blast out of the reefs around the islands. Remarkably strong stuff, that is. Plus the cement is very high quality, as good as made anywhere on the planet."

Carrera nodded. It was no legend that, during the Great Global War, bunkers made of such material had taken direct hits from sixteen inch naval guns and very large aerially delivered bombs and survived intact.

The Volgan continued, "While we may have to face a substantial aerial bombardment, heavy weight naval gunfire is a thing of the past. I think we carry the largest naval guns on Terra Nova today, in our Kurita class cruiser, and they're only six inchers. Still, what will resist a sixteen inch shell is likely to resist a thousand kilogram bomb, as well."

"Not a deep penetrator," Carrera pointed out.

"A penetrator of any size," Sitnikov countered, "would rarely or never be used on a bunker containing at most three men and a machine gun or light cannon."

Carrera nodded. "True enough."

"And after I show you these I have something else to show you in reference to bunkers a deep penetrator might be worth expending on."

"What's in the box?" Carrera asked.

"Toys and garbage," Sitnikov answered, cryptically.

* * *

The range had been short. Thus, each of the six bunkers had taken a direct and well placed hit from the tank's main gun. The hits were, however well placed, off center.

"There's no point in testing for what happens if a major round hits the firing aperture," Sitnikov explained. "In that case the crew dies. We're more interested in what happens when a gun hits any other part of the bunker."

The Volgan led the way around to the back of the bunker, to its entrance.

"This first one shows what happens when a tungsten or depleted uranium long rod penetrator hits anything but the firing aperture or hits at an angle that drives it through the bulk of the shelter. And it's . . . ugly."

Carrera looked through the entrance. Inside, lit only by daylight, the butchered carcasses of three pigs lay on the concrete floor. No, Carrera thought, they're not all dead.

One of the pigs, still breathing, lifted its head and looked at Carrera hopelessly before laying its head down again and expiring. Air escaping from punctured lungs turned pig's blood into a red froth.

Ignoring the iron-coppery stench of porcine blood, Carrera looked at one wall, where a long deep furrow of concrete had been blasted out, leaving the rebar exposed. He nodded, not needing an explanation for what had happened. The penetrator, when passing through the concrete, simply forced displaced concrete out the most convenient side, explosively.

"The next one," Sitnikov said, pointing and leading the way, "is a high explosive plastic, or HEP, hit."

Here, Carrera saw, the outside surface of the bunker was deeply pitted and cratered over an area of about a foot and a half in diameter. Walking to the back and, again, peering through the entrance, he saw something similar to what had been in the interior of the first bunker. This included three dead pigs—mercifully they were dead by this time—as well as a large, fairly round gap of exposed rebar.

"The exterior explosion sends a shockwave through the concrete. As the shockwave bounces back from the inner face, that face detaches . . . explosively."

"I understand."

"The next," the Volgan said, walking on, still carrying his box of toys and garbage, "was a simple high explosive round on a superquick fuse." At the bunker Sitnikov opened a steel door. "We only closed it for this one and the last," the Volgan explained, "to get a good simulation of concussion. It didn't matter for the others."

Carrera said nothing but looked through the open portal and saw three . . . living pigs.

"Straight concrete," Sitnikov said, "and the concussion gets transmitted pretty much in full. This stuff . . . well, what we've done to it, plus the peculiar qualities of the coral fill, and . . . well, you can see for yourself."

Carrera face grew mildly contemplative as he considered the stunned, staggering, but still living pigs. "What were you planning on doing with our porcine brothers?" he asked.

"Back to the farm?"

"No," Carrera shook head. "Seems kind of cruel . . . maybe even double jeopardy. I think they ought be retired for 'service to the Legion.' "

"Your pigs," Sitnikov shrugged. He walked to the next bunker. "Now it gets interesting. Look for yourself."

Carrera saw that, curiously, there was a wire mesh over the open portal and that behind the mesh were stunned but otherwise healthy porkers. He looked inside and saw no exposed rebar. He walked around front and confirmed that, yes, there was a pitted crater about where there had been one on the first bunker. For the moment, he withheld comment.

"This next one," Sitnikov said, pointing, "was another tungsten penetrator. You'll find the pigs are mostly healthy enough."

Carrera walked over and looked again through wire mesh. As the Volgan had predicted, those pigs weren't even stunned.

"All right, what's the trick?"

Now Sitnikov placed his box on the ground and opened it. From it he withdrew a number of two to three inch colored plastic shapes, a tetrahedron, a square, a pyramid, a cube, a sphere. These he placed on the ground, then reached in again and set beside them a small, plastic soft drink bottle.

"Those are the tricks," he said. "For the last two bunkers, plus the one you haven't seen yet, we placed these more or less randomly in with the concrete as we poured. They have the effect of breaking up the shock wave from HEP, of providing space where concrete can go when displaced by a penetrator, and of muting the concussion from a hit or near miss with high explosive."

Carrera mused on the concept for a half a minute, then pronounced, "Clever . . . but I've got some questions," Carrera said.

"Shoot, boss."

"What the hell are these projections of concrete all around the base of the bunkers?"

"The technical term is 'rafts.' Basically, they help keep the bunker from flipping over from a near miss from a big shell or bomb."

"Are the plastic fillers expensive?"

Sitnikov shook his head. "Cheaper than the concrete they displace."

"What's the cost of a bunker?" Carrera asked.

"About five hundred legionary drachma for the base structure, exclusive of NBC filters, electrification, labor for camouflaging, and such."

"And you want to put how many up?"

"We still haven't finished completely surveying the island for defense. Right now, my best guess is that we need about fifty-four hundred of these, plus maybe another six hundred that will cost several times more to house redundant tank turrets, plus thirteen—twelve more, plus one we've already built—underground shelters of very large size that will cost considerably more than the other six thousand, together, plus . . ."

"Show me."

* * *

The elevator fell and fell, lifting stomachs mouthward. To reach it, Sitnikov had driven into a tunnel that led right into the side of Hill 287.

"We put up the first one," he explained, "in part by using the budget you gave McNamara to build a secure facility for the precious metal. He and I had a little chat and agreed that we could kill two birds with one stone. So you have your secure vault, and you also have a very deep and strong fortification."

How many floors down is it?" Carrera asked.

"It's more than fifty meters from the surface, though still above sea level. There are twelve floors, each with about four hundred square meters of working and living space. You could house a cohort in it, more or less comfortably. Though this one is modified from the base design in order to serve as a command and control station, with service support and a small infirmary.

"We can put up to six, including this one, under this hill," Sitnikov continued, as the elevator slowed to a stop. "Here, they'll be safe enough from a direct hit even from the really deep penetrators the FSC is developing. Well . . . provided it's not a nuke, anyway.

"Should some enemy try the other approach, an offset hit to create a camouflet, a large hole beside the bunker to collapse the foundation, we've left a considerable space between the bunker and the rock of the hill and reinforced that space. The other locations, and those are driven by tactical considerations that we can't do a lot to change, need something else."

As the elevator doors opened to a sparse, Spartan, concrete-walled emptiness, Sitnikov took a one drachma coin from a pants pocket, and a pen from his breast pocket. He held the coin out between thumb and forefinger, parallel to the floor.

"Imagine," the Volgan said, "that this is a steel, about two inches thick and a bit less than two feet around. Call it a 'shield.' " He showed his pen held in the fingers of the other hand. "Now imagine this is a deep penetrator." He moved the point of the pen to the coin. "When the penetrator hits the shield, it will either hit it so near the edge it simply rips through, or it will hit further in and pick up the shield, or it will hit more or less in the center. In the latter case, the shield, being bigger than the penetrator, will have more resistance to the rock or concrete and so reduce the depth of penetration. In the middle case, where it hits between the edge and the center, it will cause the penetrator to . . . tack, basically . . . to shift from coming straight down to coming in partially on its side. This, too, will change the cross section and reduce penetration. For the first case, where it just rips through, we need to have more than one layer of shields."

"I recall Obras Zorilleras sending me a message telling me something about this technique," Carrera said. "Cost?"

"Not cheap, particularly," Sitnikov answered, with a shrug. "Though we are looking into using reformed and re-alloyed scrap to cut costs.

"In any case, that is how we're planning on securing the big shelters that have to go someplace else."

"Won't work," Carrera said. "the explosion will rip off the layer of shields and the next bomb that comes in will go right through."

"Might not work," the Volgan conceded. "But we'll have a couple of things working for us."

"Such as?"

"Bombs like that are expensive and rare. Nobody has an excess. They're also expensive in terms of operational costs; planes, because they're doing that, can't do anything else for a while. People also have acquired a lot of faith in them, such that they're disinclined to question whether or not a hit was a kill.

"Somebody drops one of those bombs on a shelter, they're going to get all the signature, smoke, and debris that would indicate a kill. Why should they question that?"

"They still might," Carrera insisted.

"Yes, they might," Sitnikov conceded. "But we can't do anything about that and this is our best shot."

"Fair enough, then."

"And besides, we might have some chance of replacing the shields in between a strike and a repeat." Seeing that Carrera looked highly dubious of that, Sitnikov amended, "Well . . . a chance, as I said.

"And I've something else to show you."

* * *

Carrera whistled. It really was a lovely thing Sitnikov had wanted him to see.

"My boys made it in sections," Sitnikov said, explaining the fifteen by twenty-five meter terrain model that filled up over half of the shelter's bottom deck. "Then we moved it here and modified it."

The model showed the rough curved-tail, tadpole shape of the Isla Real, plus a fair amount of the surrounding water. From each side two strips of blue-painted "water" leading almost to the island were marked "Mined." There were crude wooden ship models on each side of each strip. In addition, arcs were drawn in the blue and marked with artillery calibers: "122mm . . . 152mm . . . 160mm . . . 180mm . . . 180mm ERRB."

"It isn't my job," Sitnikov said, "to worry about the geostrategic endgame. That's your problem. Mine—half of mine, anyway—has been to design the defense of this island and the closure of the Transitway."

Sitnikov walked to a corner and picked up a very long pointer. When he returned, he set the edge of the pointer on the gap between the naval minefields and the island. "These minefields, as long as they're not cleared, close the Transitway. Note we left gaps within artillery range so that we can let through whomever we might wish to." The pointer moved to the wooden ships models. "We don't need anything too very special to lay the mines. Any old ships will do. They simply need to have the mines on board, a means for hauling them to the top deck, a crew to arm them and push them over the side, and maybe someone to record where they were dropped. The mines will have to be on activation timers. There are four ship models because we think we can lay these barrages in about three days, using four.

"The mines can conceivably be cleared, of course. No obstacle is worth much unless covered by observation and fire." The pointer began to touch on various turreted fixtures, all around the perimeter of the model. "These are to be taken from the turrets of the Suvarov Class cruisers you never restored."

"Those are only six inch guns," Carrera objected. "They won't range the extremes of the minefields and any fortifications to cover those extremes, being landbound or close to land, are vulnerable."

Sitnikov gave an evil grin. "They don't have to cover them. The things won't even be manned, except for skeleton crews to traverse the turrets and look threatening. Instead,"—the pointer shifted to a set of what were obviously models of ammunition bunkers behind the turrets—"each of these will hold an eighteen centimeter gun which will fire reduced bore, sabot shells, with laser guidance packages, the laser beams doing the painting coming from"—the pointer made a circular motion around the top of Hill 287—"here and a few dozen other likely spots. OZ ran the math and a lengthened 122mm shell, surrounded by a sabot, fired from a 180mm gun will range over eighty kilometers. This will allow coverage of both mine barrages as well as, by the way, any amphib ships or combatants engaged in trying to take the island."

"Those guns will only unmask, though, for a major push. For individual mineclearers, we'll put in some fixed torpedo firing installations, spaced around the island." The evil grim returned. "Mineclearers are notoriously slow."

Carrera nodded his head up and down, slowly. "And so to clear the Transitway the enemy would have to clear the mines. To clear the mines he needs to get rid of our guns and torpedoes. To do that he has to clear the island . . ."

"And to do that," Sitnikov finished, "he must land. If he lands, he bleeds. He bleeds oceans."

Carrera noticed several other ship models around the island. "What are those for?" he asked.

"Those are derelicts," Sitnikov answered. "We'll take older freighters and outfit them for fighting positions. Then we'll anchor them, unmanned, around the island, in shallow water, at all the best beaches. We'll make them look as if they're carrying supplies for the defense. Maybe, even, they will. An enemy, if he attacks them will sink them, but in shallow water. If he doesn't attack them, we'll sink them during an attack. Then we can shunt infantry out to take up the fighting positions. They'll make a landing a bloody endeavor."

Carrera had a sudden image of infantry, wading through the water to get to a beach while an unseen machine gun behind them chopped them down. "Good thought," he agreed. "Best for the people in the derelict ships not to use tracer, though."

"Well, of course," Sitnikov said.

"Have you worked up a table of organization and equipment for the defense?" Carrera asked.

"Yes. In broad terms it will take a standard infantry legion—new form, not the old hexagonal counter guerilla organization—reinforced with another infantry tercio, a coastal artillery tercio, a fixed fortified defense tercio, some extra air defense, engineer and other support troops. In all, about twenty-four thousand men. If we have to defend the island from an invasion emanating from the mainland you would have to add quite a bit to that."

"Doable," was Carrera's judgment. He thought for a while, then said, "Leave me here and go round up the commander of the Training Legion. Bring him to me."

"Any particular reason you want him?"

"Two of them," Carrera answered. "It's a good news-bad news kind of thing. First, I'm going to promote him to Legate III. Then, we're going to show him this model, you're going to brief him, I'm going to brief him on how to turn the Eighth Training Legion into the Eighth Infantry Legion, quickly, at need. And then I'm going to send you back to the cadets and stick him with preparing this defense.

"And Sitnikov? Hurry, please. I have to meet Siegel after dinner at the Casa. After that, later this evening, I am meeting with select committees from the new Senate and from the Legislative Assembly."