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Disengagement of Forces
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West on 66
About the Author
Copyright
Phantom Force
James H. Cobb
SILVERTAIL BOOKS • London
Dedicated to the merchant mariners and the merchant fleets of the world, the red
corpuscles in the flowing blood of civilization
Prologue to Conflict
A snowflake falls on a suitable slope, another follows, and then another. The snow pack thickens. The cornices mass. Pressure and instability increase.
A kind of ambience may ensue for a time, the disaster held at bay for another day, another hour. But inevitably, inescapably, there falls that one last snowflake too many.
The great wars of human history frequently begin in the same way. Rarely is
there a single cause or triggering event. Rather, like a mountain avalanche,
there is an accumulation building to catastrophe.
Part One
Initiation of Engagement
Port Aiduna Station
Irian Jaya (Indonesian New Guinea)
0043 Hours; Zone time, September 10, 2008
There is truth in the belief that things can be “too quiet”, especially in the jungle.
Like the sea, the jungle is an all-inclusive environment. Any disruption within it radiates outward among the millions of living organisms that make up its existence. The night birds cease their singing, the animals huddle unmoving in their hides, and the myriad of crawling, creeping, chittering things go silent in the darkness.
Captain Baktiar Rajamala of the Indonesian army knew about such silences. From his position in the main gate watchtower, he swept his night glasses across the forest line a quarter of a kilometer beyond the perimeter fence. He saw nothing, but he knew they were out there, lurking in the shelter of the undergrowth, staring back across the defoliated dead zone that surrounded the colony. The terrorists of the Morning Star Movement were always out there.
Captain Rajamala’s lip curled in contempt. Filthy savages! Hadn’t Indonesia driven out the damned Dutch, freeing the Papuans from the tyranny of European Colonialism? Hadn’t Jakarta taken Irian Jaya and its Stone Age peoples under its wing, seeking to administer its mineral wealth for the betterment of all? Couldn’t these black monkeys understand that it was for their own good?
Apparently not, for the ingrates had raised their Morning Star flag, arrogantly demanding a plebiscite on the annexation of their island by Indonesia and calling for independence. As if these Stone Age barbarians were capable of caring for themselves in the modern world.
Totally unaware of the irony of his thoughts, the Javanese-born officer continued his visual sweep around the port facilities, panning his binoculars across the administration complex and the barracks of the security garrison. Beyond the buildings, glowing an evil murky green under the glare of the work arcs, were the settling ponds for the copper slurry brought down by pipeline from the mines deep in the Maoke mountain range.
Farther to seaward, the lights of the loading jetty extended into the bay. Clustered at its shoreside were the dwellings of the two thousand Javanese workers and their families brought in to service the port and the ore handling facilities.
Putting the residential area so near the pier had been a mistake as far as Captain Rajamala was concerned. It caused no end of trouble for the Army security force. The damned lazy transmigrasi kept trying to stow away on the ore transports. Those peasants had yet to get it through their heads that Irian Jaya was their home now and this was their new life. Jakarta had made the decision and that was an end to it. Like the Morning Stars, they seemed incapable of understanding that this was for their own good and the betterment of the nation.
The garrison commander lowered his glasses, letting them hang from the strap around his neck. All was as it should be. And why not? Captain Rajamala prided himself on keeping a tight camp. Port Aiduna had been ringed by an eight-foot high electrified and sensor-studded barbed wire fence. Automatic weapons mounted in watchtowers like this one covered every inch of the perimeter and banks of floodlights blasted the darkness with their glare.
