26/7/469 AC, Camp San Lorenzo, Jalala Province, Pashtia
"Dammit!"
"Be calm, Patricio," Fernandez advised. "Rome wasn't burnt in a day. Besides, we still haven't even figured out how to do the damned mission. Delays while we do figure it out don't hurt us."
Carrera slowly nodded his graying head. "I know. And I am still not convinced we can do it, even with the boy's suggestion."
"It was a hell of a good idea though, wasn't it?"
Again Carrera nodded, though this time with a slight smile at his son's precocious insight. Carrera found few reasons to smile anymore. "Clever boy, isn't he? I'm going to leave him with you when . . . if . . . we actually go through with the attack."
"That would be fine," Fernandez agreed. "And, yes, Patricio, he's a frightfully clever boy. Pity he didn't have a way to get forty IM-71s and eight IM-62s, of which no more than forty, total, will be functional on the day we move, to carry what we need."
That was a daunting problem. To take the fortress, even if the enemy could be enticed away from its rocky, bunkered and entrenched outside ring, required more than forty helicopters could lift. In the first place, to enable most of one cohort, minus its armor and softer vehicles, to survive attack until relieved required fifty sorties of IM-71s. Under the circumstances, it would be improvident to use any of the heavier lift IM-62s. Given that the cohort selected would go in with limited mortar ammunition meant that they would need continuous artillery support from outside. Even lifting one maniple of twelve 155mm guns with their required ammunition would take up all the IM-62s. But that wouldn't seal off the area from escape. It could be sealed off, at least to vehicle traffic, by using the 300mm multiple rocket launchers to drop mines at the fortress valley's two entrances. But those would have to move into position to range the fortress. This might well tip the enemy off.
It would also tip them off if the first two loads in—the Air Ala was still configured to lift one infantry and the Cazador cohort in by helicopter in two lifts—were used to seal off the objective. Of course, the Cazadors, at least and in theory, could jump in. Carrera thought about the prospect of his men landing by parachute on either the rugged mountains around the fortress or the valley within it and shivered. In the former case, he would expect anything up to twenty percent broken legs and ankles before so much as a shot was fired. In the latter, his men would hang for long moments in the air while the defenders below shot them up like sitting ducks. Gliders? Squad sized gliders? Maybe if I'd thought of it two years ago.
And then there was the problem of intervention by the Kashmir Air Force, by no means a despicable one. Yes, they couldn't control the tribal lands along their border with Pashtia. That didn't mean they were willing to let anyone else do so. He could bring in the SPLAD, the Self-Propelled Laser Air Defense system, the Legion had had built. But that, too, meant weight and cube and less lift for the infantry. All that, taken together, meant the likelihood of intervention by a Kashmiri armored division before he could finish off the fortress and extract his men.
As far as sealing off the fortress from relief by Kashmir's also somewhat respectable ground forces . . . he could do it, for a while, by committing the Legion's mechanized cohort. But a ground war between himself and Kashmir was something of a losing proposition. They already sided altogether too much with the Salafis. A direct strike would certainly push them over the edge from secret to open support.
Briefly, he thought about using one of his seven nuclear weapons. But no, the downsides of that are just too great. Besides, I'd have to know it would get Mustafa and all his top lieutenants. They're just not that effective on a hardened, underground target.
"Any change on the ground reported, independent of our infiltrator?"
"Not really, Patricio. They're still improving their positions, digging out caves and the like. That, and a lot of housework."
"Any good estimate on the number of women and children in their camps."
"Thousands," Fernandez answered, shaking his head. Do they think the women and kids will be a shield? They're living in yesterday's war, if so.
27/7/469 AC, The Base, Kashmir Tribal Trust Lands
Khalifa, wife of Abdul Aziz, was as much a part of the movement as her husband, so she felt. She not only cooked and cleaned—for her husband, yes, but also as part of the communal kitchens for all the holy warriors of the base—but she raised the children who would go on to carry forth the movement, the boys, and to breed warriors, the girls. She had only had two, so far, but this was quite good considering her age, nineteen, and that she had only entered into marriage a bit over five years before.
She'd not met her husband before the marriage, of course; good girls rarely did. She had been pleased, though, at the choice her parents had made for her. Not only was Abdul Aziz good looking, to the extent her limited experience allowed her to tell good looking from bad, but he had a bright future. Everyone said so.
It was really only that bright future that had caused her family to go past first cousins to second, which Abdul Aziz was, in searching for a husband for their daughter. With no particular background in genetics, indeed without even the ability to read, Khalifa saw nothing wrong with either sort of match. It was not forbidden by the Holy Koran, of course, and was therefore permitted.
In any case, Abdul Aziz's tall and lanky frame was well matched to Khalifa's shorter and much more well rounded one. Though for all that, she was not a short woman at a meter, seventy. That height came from her pure Bedu ancestry. Along with it, she had inherited large, well shaped, not-quite-almond eyes, full lips and high cheekbones. Her husband, she knew, was as pleased with her appearance as she was with his. At least, in the five years they had been together his ardor had never flagged nor had it shown any signs that it ever would. This was a pleasure to the girl, and in more than her body.
Her two children were a boy, four, and a girl, two. She'd been disappointed in herself for failing to deliver a second boy. But her husband—wonderful man!—had shushed her apologies and told her, in all seriousness, that it was the women who would deliver this world to the sons of Allah. She should be proud, he'd said, as proud of her as he was. How could she not love such a man?
Khalifa knew a little, but only a little, of the outside. She knew she and her sisters were pitied by the women of the industrialized world who believed them to be little more than chattels. She could not for the life of her understand that. Oh, yes, there were men, even Salafi men, who abused their wives. But didn't those "modern" women understand that every Salafi girl had a father and brothers who loved them so long as they were worthy? A father and brothers, uncles and cousins, too, who would not only take a very dim view of their female relatives being abused but were very likely to abuse right back? Salafis who mistreated their wives tended to wind up dead. Fortunately, her parents had chosen well. Her husband cherished her.
It was with that thought; that, and the warm glow still remaining from the night before, reinforced by anticipation of the night to come, that Khalifa ground the beans for the morning's coffee happily and with a smile.