“Oui, mon Chef!”
He paused for a moment to hold the PNG’s to his eyes, looking them over and checking the prized Béret vert on their heads was sat correctly as any true legionnaires would be.
It was not unusual of course for Orientals to be serving in the Legion, but possibly a whole squad could raise a curious comment. However there was nothing else for it but to trust in luck and a little bluff to get onto the site.
Tucking away the PNG’s he nodded approvingly and then lifted a heavy bergen onto his shoulders.
“Bonne.”
Their communications were a problem in a country this size with only ESA, the military and the gendarmeries having access to anything above cell phones. Any transmission made could come from a relatively small number of known sources, so secure encrypted transmissions were out. They would stand out like a sore thumb. Likewise plain speech, that would also register as being ‘off’ so no “Broadsword calling Danny Boy?” on the air waves and microwaves tonight.
Using the cellular system was too easily spiked by its being simply turned off once the French woke up to the fact they were under attack.
The solution was pre-arranged text in apparently accidental transmissions of seemingly innocuous material, the greatly annoying ‘open carrier’, ‘open channel’, or ‘Permanent Send’ momentarily, if you prefer. Jie’s chosen offering was a classic, of the musical variety, as he informed Senior Sergeant Yen, the unit’s warrant officer and the senior amongst the eight troops remaining with the Dai that they were ashore without incident and proceeding.
Jie sang softly to himself apparently absent minded and depressed the transmit button on his Thales tactical radio.
He certainly did not do Charles Trénet full justice but following a calculated pause a single flick of Senior Sergeant Yen’s radio transmit button acknowledged receipt of the message.
Jie turned directly away from the sea, heading towards the highway known as Route de l’Espace.
“Allons-y!”
It would be with extreme caution that Li approached Paracaibo Wharf, the European Space Agency dock sitting three and a half miles downriver from the coastal town of Kourou at the river’s northern lip.
No intelligence updates had been received for over a month. The last they had received merely stated that pair of Atlantiques was at that time believed to have been attached to the colony defences along with a pair of corvettes. There was nothing to indicate where the French naval flotilla was basing out of, either Kourou or the capital? The colony’s main port of Dégrad des Cannes, which had grown to become the southern suburb of Cayenne, housed a permanent detachment of marines in a barracks beside a jetty extending into the Mahury River estuary. It was easily deep enough for even a destroyer to dock there and the river was wide enough for it to turn even without the aid of tugs.
Their intelligence briefing included only that of an armed civilian security guard was present at the ESA dock in Kourou except when freighters carrying the rocket sections or satellites were due, or had docked and were still unloading. There was nothing in the way of warehousing at the ESA dock to interest a thief, that all took place at the colony’s main port. All the ESA dock boasted was a solid, modern jetty and a crane on the river. The quayside was little more than a car park, half covered to provide relief from the sun for waiting heavy duty transporter vehicles and their crews.
A small tank farm sat to one side in a jungle clearing, it was connected to the jetty by all the plumbing necessary to accept deliveries of petrol, Avgas and diesel fuel.
Tall security fences topped by razor wire surrounded the dock and tank farm. Motion sensors and CCTV provided a second layer of security, monitored from a guardhouse at the main gate.
Unlike the port at the capital, Kourou required the regular services of a dredger to keep the main channel deep enough for the freighters to navigate their way safely. When completely unloaded the freighters had to be towed stern first back to the sea by tugs.
As such neither Dai nor Bao could remain completely submerged for their eventual jaunt downriver.
Li did not imagine that storming the dockside facilities would be anything but counterproductive, and so the low key tactics Captain Huaiqing had suggested were being employed.
Having dropped off the submersible, Dai flooded two forward torpedo tubes and two rear tubes. He also opened the outer doors so as to be fully prepared for a surprise encounter with one of the warships, if in fact they were indeed operating out of the ESA dock.
Half of their YU-6 21” torpedoes were armed with the new sodium hydride warheads which released the sodium on impact, producing 2000 °C of heat as the compound reacted with the hydrogen in the seawater, or at least that is what it said on the tin.
Li had four forward tubes loaded with conventional warhead torpedoes because everything new has unforeseen bugs somewhere in the system. If he was going to be at knife fighting distance with the French flotilla then he wanted proven technology to hand. The last two forward tubes contained YJ-12 anti-ship missiles. Useless within the confines of the river but they would be ready for immediate use when they returned to the ocean. No time costly unloading and reloading of tubes to delay their immediate use.
The rear tubes were also loaded with conventionally tipped weapons but he only had four of the smaller, and aging, 16” torpedoes. There were four rear tubes in a torpedo room a third the size of the one forward as there was no storage for reloads, the stings-in-the-tail sat in their tubes ready for use during the entire duration of deployments.
All the torpedoes were set to run shallow.
Thus, suitably prepared for the worst, Dai moved along the coast to within five hundred metres of the town itself without encountering any further mines.
This part of the operation was lacking several ingredients from the rehearsed plan they had trained for in China. The loss of Tuan, her submersible, the special forces detachment and their explosives would mean some ingenuity and adaptability on the part of the much smaller force that was taking on their tasks.
Captain Li was reassured by the quality and enthusiasm of the men.
No cannon fodder, these.
He watched them prepare themselves and their equipment to knock off the Kourou police station and night duty personnel, to render useless any air assets on the small airstrip outside the town, blow a bridge and lock horns with a fearsome regiment of jungle fighters.
Each man would be carrying a FAMAS F1 5.56mm assault rifle, bayonet, three APAV40 rifle grenades, a bespoke detachable sound suppressor, smoke grenades, CS gas grenades, plastic explosives, detonators, an anti-armour mine they could adapt with electrical detonators or simple use as a mine, various ‘switches’ for booby traps, cheese wire garrottes, ropes and a host of other items that made the submariner feel fatigued just imagining having to carry it all.
Half a kilometre off Les Roche Point the eight remaining special forces troopers exited through the rear escape hatch and swam ashore.
Kourou was a very modern place given its moderate size. Thanks to the commerce and cash associated with the space centre it had good roads, street lighting and orderly housing. Microwave masts for the local cellular telephone system were visible, as were the satellite dishes that linked the residents to the motherland via the internet and satellite TV. Had it not been for the war the street lights would be lit, the bars neon signs ablaze and the populace would be enjoying themselves, but blackouts did not engender good nights out so most stayed home and only a lone police car had been visible on the streets through the search periscope’s lo-lite TV.