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Authors: Tom Kratman
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about five meters off the port side. Kuralski exclaimed, “Damn it!”
The third shell came in, causing a splash even farther away, at perhaps nine meters, or about thirty feet. The fourth? No one in the FDC had a clue where that had gone. The fifth landed about as far away as the first had.
“It’s perfect, ” Carrera said, and started to laugh. “Fucking perfect !”
In a pure fluke, the barge was actually struck by the third normal shell which, since it contained high explosive and a normal fuse, duly detonated, shredding the barge like tissue.
* * *
Kuralski’s chin hung on his chest. “Every one of them, every goddamned one of them…”
“Yeah, so?”
“Twelve thousand drachma a shot! Useless.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Carrera said.
“Huh?”
“Oh, c’mon, Dan! How wide is a fucking warship?”
“Oh. Well…yeah…I guess so.”
“Order more shells, Dan,” Carrera said. “Order at least fourteen hundred of them. We’ve got or will soon have fifty-four guns just like these on this island, plus several dozen more at other spots. Not counting the ones in the Tenth Artillery Legion. I want each, barring the Tenth’s, to have at least twenty shells. If there’s a significantly reduced unit price in ordering more, you can go up to twenty-five million drachma, total.”
Kuralski nodded. “There’s something else, Pat. We’ve used Volgan laser-guided heavy mortar shells since Sumer. They’ve got a new one—well, a completely new system, actually—called ‘Trapeze.’ No, I have no clue why they chose that name. Anyway, it’s a 240mm mortar, special laser designator, special shell with—”
“Nah.”
“But…I thought, with these twelve-inch mortar positions on both sides, all four sides, rather, of the Transitway…”
“They won’t last days if it comes to war. No, the 122/180s make sense, because we can protect and hide them and their guns. But 240mm mortars in open pits? With us conceding to the enemy air supremacy ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths percent of the time? I don’t think so.”
With a shrug, Kuralski said, “Just a thought.”
UEPF Spirit of Peace , High Orbit over Atlantis Island, Terra Nova
“So what was that all about?” asked the fleet watch officer, a few moments after the last of sixty shells splashed into the water or blew up. The images had been forwarded by the Spirit of Harmony, in orbit over Balboa.
The fleet’s surface reconnaissance officer shook her short-cropped, blond head. “We don’t have access to any of their internal communications, since that was apparently all done by land line. It will be a few hours before we can break the encryption on their television signals. But, just on the face of it, it looked to me like they were exercising their coastal artillery’s capabilities on landing craft and that the exercise failed.”
“One hit out of sixty rounds?” mused the watch officer. “Yes, I’d call that a failure. Even so, run it by the Analysis Office before passing it on to the high admiral as a briefing. She can decide if she wants to let our allies down below know about it.”
Intel Office, Tauran Union Security Force-Balboa, Building 59, Fort Muddville, Balboa Transitway Area, Terra Nova
To the relief of everyone who worked there in Building 59, and every man, woman, child, dog, cat, trixie, antaniae, snake and coatimundi who lived on Fort Muddville, the recoilless range, Range 18, was silent. No Chinese water torture of boom…boom…boomboomboom…boom was ongoing. Several people, in gratitude, were currently on their knees at the post chapel, thanking God that the Balboans had let off for a while.
For that matter, some noticed, the almost daily sonic booms from the Mosaic-Ds hadn’t been heard for a week or so now.
In the office fronted by the balcony that lay toward the Florida Locks and the range beyond that, Sergeant Major Hendryksen and Captain Campbell puzzled over the short and seemingly unimportant
The third shell came in, causing a splash even farther away, at perhaps nine meters, or about thirty feet. The fourth? No one in the FDC had a clue where that had gone. The fifth landed about as far away as the first had.
“It’s perfect, ” Carrera said, and started to laugh. “Fucking perfect !”
In a pure fluke, the barge was actually struck by the third normal shell which, since it contained high explosive and a normal fuse, duly detonated, shredding the barge like tissue.
* * *
Kuralski’s chin hung on his chest. “Every one of them, every goddamned one of them…”
“Yeah, so?”
“Twelve thousand drachma a shot! Useless.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Carrera said.
“Huh?”
“Oh, c’mon, Dan! How wide is a fucking warship?”
“Oh. Well…yeah…I guess so.”
“Order more shells, Dan,” Carrera said. “Order at least fourteen hundred of them. We’ve got or will soon have fifty-four guns just like these on this island, plus several dozen more at other spots. Not counting the ones in the Tenth Artillery Legion. I want each, barring the Tenth’s, to have at least twenty shells. If there’s a significantly reduced unit price in ordering more, you can go up to twenty-five million drachma, total.”
Kuralski nodded. “There’s something else, Pat. We’ve used Volgan laser-guided heavy mortar shells since Sumer. They’ve got a new one—well, a completely new system, actually—called ‘Trapeze.’ No, I have no clue why they chose that name. Anyway, it’s a 240mm mortar, special laser designator, special shell with—”
“Nah.”
“But…I thought, with these twelve-inch mortar positions on both sides, all four sides, rather, of the Transitway…”
“They won’t last days if it comes to war. No, the 122/180s make sense, because we can protect and hide them and their guns. But 240mm mortars in open pits? With us conceding to the enemy air supremacy ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths percent of the time? I don’t think so.”
With a shrug, Kuralski said, “Just a thought.”
UEPF Spirit of Peace , High Orbit over Atlantis Island, Terra Nova
“So what was that all about?” asked the fleet watch officer, a few moments after the last of sixty shells splashed into the water or blew up. The images had been forwarded by the Spirit of Harmony, in orbit over Balboa.
The fleet’s surface reconnaissance officer shook her short-cropped, blond head. “We don’t have access to any of their internal communications, since that was apparently all done by land line. It will be a few hours before we can break the encryption on their television signals. But, just on the face of it, it looked to me like they were exercising their coastal artillery’s capabilities on landing craft and that the exercise failed.”
“One hit out of sixty rounds?” mused the watch officer. “Yes, I’d call that a failure. Even so, run it by the Analysis Office before passing it on to the high admiral as a briefing. She can decide if she wants to let our allies down below know about it.”
Intel Office, Tauran Union Security Force-Balboa, Building 59, Fort Muddville, Balboa Transitway Area, Terra Nova
To the relief of everyone who worked there in Building 59, and every man, woman, child, dog, cat, trixie, antaniae, snake and coatimundi who lived on Fort Muddville, the recoilless range, Range 18, was silent. No Chinese water torture of boom…boom…boomboomboom…boom was ongoing. Several people, in gratitude, were currently on their knees at the post chapel, thanking God that the Balboans had let off for a while.
For that matter, some noticed, the almost daily sonic booms from the Mosaic-Ds hadn’t been heard for a week or so now.
In the office fronted by the balcony that lay toward the Florida Locks and the range beyond that, Sergeant Major Hendryksen and Captain Campbell puzzled over the short and seemingly unimportant
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