joined.
Of course no small numbers simply bought tickets, boarded aircraft, landed in Pashtia's capital, Chobolo, and disappeared into the countryside.
It is estimated that some ten thousand guerillas entered Pashtia between mid-467 and mid-468, adding to the thousands already there. To have confronted and neutralized these required, by normal doctrine, some one hundred thousand coalition troops. These were available. The logistic infrastructure, however, simply wasn't there. Arguably, after the long, drawn out and bloody campaign in Sumer, neither was the will.
Money, however, was not a problem.
* * *
The Legion began investigating Pashtia in either late 466 or early 467, the record is unclear. It is clear that no later than mid-467, a recruiting campaign had begun in Pashtia to attract and raise one cohort of mixed foot and mounted scouts plus some other auxiliaries from among the Pashtun, notably those Pashtun whose tribes had formerly sided with the Volgan Empire and then switched allegiance to the FSC-propped national government. These were brought to Sumer, trained, and equipped and to some extent integrated with the existing Balboan-Sumeri forces in the provinces of Ninewa and Pumbadeta, Sumer, before being redeployed to Thermopolis.
PART II
Chapter Ten
'We eat and then we shit. Do we eat in vain?'
—The Great Helmsman, On Guerilla Warfare
'We kill you. Then we slaughter your sons to half-extinguish your line and sell your wives and daughters to dishonor the other half, sparing and taking only the youngest, converting them, and using them against your cause. Have we killed you in vain?'
—Patricio Carrera, on counter-guerilla warfare
13/9/467 AC, Thermopolis
In the setting sun, as far as the eye could see, military encampments stretched out. To the north, northeast, and northwest were three large camps holding one legion each. These were minus most of their armor, four fifths of their Cazadors, all their aviation but for a half dozen each Crickets and medium lift helicopters for command, control and medevac, and some of their engineers and artillery. Near the airfield to the south of the town were three camps, one for the Cazador
On that strip, and nearby it on helicopter pads, troops boarded aircraft. Qabaash's brigade filed quietly aboard sixty-seven IM-71 medium lift and a dozen IM-62 heavy lift helicopters. Theirs was, in many ways, the toughest mission, involving, as it did, the deepest insertion to block the
The seven provinces that comprised the Legion's initial objective for pacification were infested with insurgents. They could be expected to run as soon as the battle turned against them. This was no cowardice but merest good sense. When they ran, as Carrera was certain they eventually would, Qabaash's battalions would have to stop them and, moreover, they would have to stop them largely on their own, without artillery support, and with only limited support from the air.
Of course, there were other passes. Qabaash couldn't hope to cover every little goat and camel trail. But with every easy pass over the mountains blocked, the Sumeris could at least ensure that little in the way of vehicles, heavy weapons, or ammunition, got away.
The Salah al-Din was taking with it enough supplies for thirty days of existence, assuming they cut wood for fuel to cook their meals, and about three of full up combat. Emergency resupply was possible, but not something Qabaash counted on or Carrera felt he could promise. There was too much for the helicopters to do.
For the other places, the footpaths and goat trails, there were the Cazadors. These were going in via a mix of helicopters and Crickets, depending on the landing site chosen. While the choppers carrying the Sumeris would race almost directly for their objectives, the Cazador carriers would touch down anything from three to nine times each to confuse the enemy as to where they had actually dropped troops, or even if they had dropped troops at all. Most would continue to touch down even after leaving behind their passengers to add to the confusion. At some of the passes, and with the prevailing winds, Crickets could practically hover over a spot.
While the Sumeris, with three dozen heavy and twenty-seven light mortars among them, and being deployed in larger units, would be able to hold on on their own for some time, the Cazadors were not intended to fight much, if at all. Instead, they would call in aircraft or, as the rest of the force advanced, artillery on any enemy groups they saw trying to cross the mountains to the north.
Each Cazador team had, in addition, two sniper rifles—one in .34 caliber for long range shots and one in .51 caliber subsonic for closer in work—to engage individuals and small groups. Still, the Cazador teams' primary weapon was the radio.
The enemy had some radios. They had a great many satellite and cell phones. For those, Carrera had a special trick.
* * *
Miguel Lanza was getting a bit long in the tooth to be flying attack missions. Still, commanding the entire deployed portion of the
If Lanza had assembled all of his medium transports, he could have lifted a grand total of perhaps three hundred, two-thousand pound bombs. This would have been enough to scour mostly free of human life perhaps ten or fifteen square kilometers. That was a drop in the bucket for an objective area of this size, perhaps a tenth of a percent. Oh, yes, they could have extinguished a guerilla company or two, maybe even three. That would not have much mattered.
Instead, Lanza's transports were going to drop some very special bombs, one or two over each of the several hundred spots that the Federated States' Office of Strategic Intelligence had indicated held a body of guerillas of platoon size of better.
A red warning light flashed on the instrument panel of Lanza's cockpit. He spoke into his throat mike, 'Stand by to roll in three minutes.'
The crew chief answered back, 'Roger, three minutes.'
Lanza's aircraft was flying at very near its maximum altitude of ninety-two hundred meters. Given the power of the weapon they carried, this seemed hardly enough to Lanza. As soon as he felt the plane lurch as the bomb fell away, he accelerated to his maximum flight speed of four hundred and seventy kilometers per hour and hauled ass to get as far away from the bomb as mechanically and aerodynamically possible. Lanza had absolutely no desire to lose every bit of avionics in his bird to an overpowering flash of electro-magnetic pulse.
* * *
The bomb was contained within what appeared to a standard two hundred and fifty-kilogram casing. That appearance was deceiving; the casing was made of a non-magnetic material, epoxy resin in this case. Inside, moreover, instead of the usual explosive component, the bomb contained a much smaller amount of explosive, a capacitor, three reels to release long wire antennae, a stator coil and a number of other things the precise nature of which was classified at a fairly high level.
Along with those other things, and this was not classified, was a Global Locating System guidance package that would guide the bomb in on a set of coordinates punched in from the cockpit. This particular set of coordinates happened to correspond to the headquarters of Noorzad's group of guerillas, now grown to the size of a small battalion.
The bomb knew none of this, of course. It 'knew' that its capacitor was suddenly powered up and cut free of the power source from which it had been drawing. At the same time, it 'knew' where it was. Shortly thereafter it 'knew' it was falling even as it 'knew' where it was going and how to navigate to that point. Almost the last thing the bomb 'knew' was that it had reached a preset distance over the target. At that point the three thin wire antennae deployed. Shortly after that, the bomb reached the point of optimum detonation.
