Come and Take Them-eARC

Come and Take Them-eARC Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: Come and Take Them-eARC Read Online Free PDF
Author: Tom Kratman
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Action & Adventure, Military
Wallenstein ordered Esmeralda to go with the captain. In the end, though, she not only recognized the captain as straight but as an intel type. No way she was letting an intel type get anywhere near her cabin girl.
    “His Gribbitzness will be along shortly,” the captain said, before leaving through the double door.
    I wonder what the hell “Gribbitzness” means, Wallenstein wondered. The tone she used said it was not a compliment. I suppose I’d better not ask. Yet.
    * * *
    Whatever Marguerite had come to expect from reports about Gallic General Janier, the broken reed seated opposite her didn’t quite fit it. He hadn’t even donned the reproduction uniform of a marshal of Napoleonic France, and she’d been certain he would. Why, he wasn’t even carrying the marshal’s baton that was supposed to be his constant companion.
    “I could have taken them four years ago,” the Gaul said, shaking his head regretfully. “Maybe even three years ago, I could have. We had a good plan for doing it. We’d go after their leadership, before they could mobilize, using forces here and others brought in from Taurus. Then we could have turned on and destroyed the leaderless rabble one small unit at a time.
    “Back then they were in the throes of reorganization. They had people in high places we could have gotten to. Eventually we did get to some of them, too. And there was—thanks to Federated States meddling—an existing opposed government to step in and give legitimacy to the entire operation.”
    There was a touch of frenzy on the Gaul’s voice as, leaning forward excitedly, he insisted, “It’s all gone now. We can’t win anymore, not with any likely level of force the TU will give me. There are too many of them—not even counting the parts we don’t know about but which I am sure exist.” Janier collapsed back into his chair.
    “Like what?” Wallenstein asked, ignoring the outburst.
    Janier sat up a little straighter. It was pleasant, after all, to have someone his political masters would happily grovel to, and who also possibly understood some military realities.
    He replied, “Like, for example, what do you call a three or four thousand man construction company that has no official formation or barracks or anything else, but where every man is a veteran of the legion and where the CEO is never referred to by anything but his legionary rank?”
    Marguerite agreed, “I’d call it a brigade of engineers.”
    “Precisely,” the Gaul said. “And that, I think, is just the tip of the iceberg. Worse, still, my own political superiors are willing neither to retreat from this place nor to put in an effort to win here. They are, for all practical purposes frozen, like a megaloceros caught in headlights.”
    “What if I could unfreeze them, General?” the high admiral asked.
    “They’re cowards,” he replied.
    Marguerite smiled wickedly. “Oh, I’d count on that. What if I could unfreeze them by offering them a limited rejuvenation, about twenty or twenty-five years’ worth?”
    “You could do this?” Seeing she could, Janier grinned for the first time since the meeting began. “They’d be on it like a child molester on a six-year-old.” Which, come to think of it, and though the controlled press avoids the subject, some of them are.
    “All right then,” the Gaul said, “I could do something with the kind of political support that would drum up.”
    “What would you do?” Wallenstein asked.
    “I’d build us up to eighteen light and heavy—mostly light—infantry battalions here,” he answered, without any noticeable hesitation. “With all the usual support. This would require some civil construction, to be sure. I’d beg, borrow, or bribe transit rights through Santander to the west and Santa Josefina to the east. I would begin stockpiling in those places as well as here and in Cienfuegos to support a moderately lengthy campaign. I would get substantial sections of both our fleet and the
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