The Coward's Way of War

by Nuttall, Christopher

  Their rejoicing, for the record, lasted exactly four minutes, seventeen seconds.

  ***

  Captain John Drake had been surprised when he’d been told what he would be doing in the opening hours of the war on Saudi Arabia, and surprised again when it seemed that the plan was actually working. As someone who had lost a grandmother and several close civilian friends to Henderson’s Disease, he had had no hesitation in volunteering for the mission when it had been explained to him, but he’d doubted that it would come close to success. The plan was simply too clever to work, for no battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy.

  His F-22 Raptor was the latest model, a highly-classified and extremely expensive fighter with extremely good stealth coating. It was almost as stealthy as a B2 or an F-117, yet it could fly at supersonic speeds and hold its own against every other fighter in existence. The expense had prevented the USAF from purchasing more than a handful of the craft, for the cynics had wondered what good it was when the USAF needed to concentrate on CAS for the men on the ground, but today it would prove its value. The Saudis had literally no idea it was there.

  It didn't seem to have occurred to them, but the USAF had designed and built the systems the Saudis were using to defend their kingdom. There was no one else who knew the systems – and how to spoof them - so well, with the possible exception of the British or the French. The planners had assured him that if he flew low and kept his weapons bays closed, the Saudis would be unable to track him as he flew into their country, waiting for his moment. He pulled back on the stick and the Raptor rose into the air, heading right for its target. The Saudi AWACS was a blaze of electromagnetic radiation on his HUD. They might as well have painted a big targeting cross on their hull.

  “Burn, you bastards,” he muttered, and keyed the firing switch. For a brief second, the F-22 would be visible as the weapon bay opened and released a missile, but by then it was far too late. “Lights out...”

  ***

  The operator looked up in horror as the alarms sounded, revealing a missile that had somehow appeared out of nowhere, but it was far too late. The AWACS pilot hadn't been expecting any kind of attack and hadn’t even thought to prepare for evasive manoeuvres. By the time the operator thought of shutting down the radars, the missile was already approaching the aircraft and refused to be deflected. It slammed into the hull and detonated within the aircraft’s fuselage. Explosions ripped through the craft before most of the crew realised that something had even gone wrong.

  There were no survivors.

  ***

  John smirked as the Saudi aircraft disintegrated, before popping off two more missiles at the Eurofighters that had remained with the AWACS, providing it with a totally illusionary protection. Judging from the sudden change in the environment, the other stealth fighters had also accomplished their parts of the mission, downing the other command and control aircraft. The Royal Saudi Air Force had been blinded.

  Ignoring the dying Eurofighters, he pulled his aircraft around and rocketed back towards Kuwait. There would be other missions in the next few days.

  ***

  The Saudi formation disintegrated as their command and control aircraft were wiped out of existence. A properly integrated system would have tied them into the ground-based systems as well, but the Saudis didn't seem to be prepared to adapt to the sudden chaos. It wouldn't have helped them anyway. American aircraft armed with HARM missiles were already streaking towards anything that showed even a hint of being a radar facility. They would all be closed down by the end of the day.

  “All aircraft, you are cleared to engage at will,” the fighter controller said. Edwards smiled darkly as he pulled the Raptor around again, bringing his targeting systems online. The Saudi pilots were no longer an organised unit, but a disorganised – and panicky - mob. “Give them hell.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  War, I was told, is 99% boredom and 1% sheer fucking terror. They were right.

  -Mija Cat

  Saudi-Kuwait Border

  Day 37

  “I think the emergency is over,” the old hand said, helping Mija to her feet. “That noise you can hear is the all-clear.”

  Mija nodded and headed towards the door, which was opening and allowing the reporters to return to the briefing. She stopped just as she left the shelter, her attention caught by a fire blazing away on the other side of the base. Emergency vehicles were racing towards it, while helicopters were taking off and heading west, towards the Saudi border. She caught sight of a twin-rotor helicopter and waved at the door gunner before the aircraft vanished into the distance, but she didn't see if the gunner waved back. She cringed as a fighter jet roared over head, terrified that the Saudis had come back to finish the job, before realising that it had to be an American aircraft. It wasn't dropping things on her head.

  Pull yourself together, she told herself, sharply. The King of Saudi Arabia – or whoever was really in charge somewhere to the west – wasn't going to send the might of his armed forces to wipe out one reporter, even someone as annoying as Lois! She looked over and saw a pair of men in BDUs running up to her, both hidden behind black sunglasses. The leader demanded her ID and checked it carefully before passing it back to her with an apologetic smile.

  “We’ve had some bandits within the secure perimeter,” he explained, by way of apology. A brief crackle of gunfire rang out in the distance. “That might be them being wiped out.”

  “Bandits?” Mija repeated, puzzled. “How did they get into the base?”

  “Kuwaiti army uniforms and a lot of confusion,” the other soldier said. He pointed towards one of the buildings. “I suggest you go check in with HQ and see what they want to do with you. Wandering around a battleground is not conducive to long life.”

  Mija took his advice and headed over to the building, which was guarded by armed soldiers who frisked her after checking her ID and asked her to wait while they figured out what to do with her. Mija, who had been advised by the more experienced reporters not to argue when there was a war on, did as she was told and waited for nearly twenty minutes before a PRO appeared out of nowhere and waved to her. She smiled up at him, genuinely pleased to see a Public Relations Officer. He might know what was going on.

  “The Saudis decided to kick off the war without waiting for us to get ready,” the PRO said. He might be a REMF – it had taken her several requests to find out that it stood for Rear Echelon Mother Fucker, a general term for someone who never went near the fighting and therefore considered himself an expert – but he knew what he was talking about. “They launched an air and missile attack on our bases and are sending troops towards the border.”

  Mija followed him into the command centre and stopped dead, surprised by the flurry of activity. Operators sitting at computer screens were chatting away into their headsets, trying to coordinate a response and find out just what had been hit and how bad the damage had been, while senior officers were trying to project an air of calm. Junior officers were running around, carrying messages and reporting to the senior officers, some seeming to be on the verge of panic. The scene looked completely chaotic.

  The PRO pointed towards the big screen and Mija winced. She had no idea what half the icons on the display meant, but it was clear that the Saudi Army was advancing on the Kuwaiti Border – or at least she assumed that that was what the red icons meant. They seemed to outnumber the blue icons gathered along the border. Streaks of light flickered across the display, representing...what? She couldn't understand what was going on.

  “The Saudis are throwing what looks like most of their armoured forces against Kuwait,” the PRO said, with an air of calm dispassion. It didn't seem to affect him at all. “The Saudi Air Force is currently taking something of a pounding” – he pointed to a mixture of blue and red icons over Saudi, near Qatar - “but they’re fighting back hard.”

  Mija swallowed several responses that came to mind and studied the display. It looked as if the American
and Saudi aircraft were practically on top of one another, but as she stared, it became apparent that the display was showing the entire country and there were tens of kilometres between the opposing fighter aircraft. One great mass of blue icons was clearly visible in the Gulf, while a smaller mass of green icons could be seen on the other side of the water, in Iran.

  “Ah, Miss Cat,” the General said. He waved her over to where he was sitting, surveying the display with a lordly eye. “Please, take a seat.”

  Mija blinked. “General,” she said, “shouldn't you be giving orders or something?”

  The General grinned at her. “My subordinates along the border know what they have to do,” he said, seriously. “I could try to direct their operations from here, but I don’t know the ground like they do, so all I can do is set priorities and let them work on meeting them. It’ll just cause confusion if I attempt to distract them at this distance.”

  “I see,” Mija said. She didn't want to ask the next question, but there was no choice. “General...does the Saudi decision to strike first mean that we are losing the war?”

  “Hardly,” the General said. His face turned suddenly serious. “Back in World War Two, there was a very bloody battle fought out in France, when Allied forces invaded to begin the task of destroying Hitler and his regime. The battle was a great victory, but had it been fought now...well, the news media would have called it a defeat and demanded withdrawal from France, ignoring the fact that the only way to make the world safe was to crush Hitler’s regime in its lair – or, for that matter, that we won!

  “This is not a defeat for us, not by any means,” he added. “Yes, they’ve hurt us, knocked us back on our heels, but we have plans for dealing with it. We will push them back and then continue the invasion...and in some ways I’m rather pleased that they chose to attack us.” He smiled at her expression. “This way, we get to kill their tanks and armoured vehicles in the open, rather than digging them out of the cities. It works in our favour.”

  ***

  “The air strikes were a great success, General,” the radio operator reported. “They destroyed all of their targets and shot down a number of American aircraft.”

  General Najd frowned as the force of American-built Abrams tanks advanced towards the Saudi-Kuwait border. If it had been up to him, the tanks would have been rumbling across the border when the first air and missile strikes were launched towards their American targets, but the high command had disagreed. The Americans might just launch a spoiling attack against the Saudi formations, disrupting their attack.

  “Good,” he said, dryly. He knew all about inflated claims from the RSAF. The vast number of Princes – and other well-connected pilots – made any real post-battle assessment very difficult. The teams he had watching CNN and FOX – and Al Jazeera, even though that was officially forbidden – would probably end up with a more accurate picture of what the air force had done to the Americans, if anything. “Do they give details?”

  “Apparently they have not finished processing the data,” the operator said. General Najd snorted, a sentiment that was echoed by the remainder of his staff. “They are just claiming that the Americans got hurt badly and that we could finish them off with one bold stroke.”

  General Najd scowled, but said nothing as the tanks continued to rumble towards their targets. He might not have been able to bring his forces into a nearby jump-off position for the invasion, yet he had been able to bring up some mobile SAM units – all American-built, apart from a handful of French systems – and plenty of handheld Stinger missiles, giving his force some protection from American aircraft. The RSAF was supposed to be providing top cover, but so far he hadn't seen a single aircraft devoted to their protection, unless he counted the attack helicopters sweeping ahead of his force. The American aircraft would go through them like a knife through butter.

  “We keep moving,” he ordered. Whatever his doubts, it was too late to back off and withdraw. The Americans would be tracking them from orbit and guiding their own armoured units to intercept the Saudi tanks. Their only hope was to crush the American 3rd Infantry Division before it could deploy.

  ***

  “I see four, maybe five tanks,” the spotter said. “They’re advancing, as bold as brass.”

  “They probably think we’re going to run,” Lieutenant Douglas Baird growled. After the attacks on the FOB, the tank platoon had been ordered to advance towards pre-selected positions, where they would wait for trouble or for the rest of the division to begin its advance towards King Khalid Military City. A lanky man who bore an uncomfortable relationship to the Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who, Baird was determined to prove himself before his junior officers. “I wonder what else they’re bringing to the party.”

  He glanced down at the terminal and allowed himself a grin. The Saudis hadn't realised it, but their Force Tracking system was giving away their location to the American forces, who hadn't hesitated to take advantage of it. Baird had been warned that the Saudis could be running an elaborate bluff – he’d heard plenty of horror stories from the older sweats about how deceptive and treacherous the Arabs could be – yet it seemed rather implausible. The commander of the enemy force might have well have painted bulls-eyes on their own tanks. Once the USAF returned to CAS operations, the Saudis were going to get a pasting.

  “Target the lead tank and load antitank rounds,” he ordered. The briefing had made one point clear; the Saudis might have Abrams tanks of their own, but they didn't have the special armour protection of their American counterparts and would, therefore, be killed easily. They had been warned not to get overconfident, yet Baird couldn't see how the Saudis intended to win. The Kuwaitis alone would have given them a bloody nose. “Prepare to move us when they start returning fire.”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said. He felt the tank vibrating beneath his feet as the engines rumbled to life. The Saudis might be able to pick them up on an IR scope, but it was already too late. “We’re ready to move.”

  “Fire,” Baird ordered. The tank shuddered as it launched the first round towards the enemy tank. “Reload and target the second tank; fire at will.”

  The tankers of the Second World War would have been astonished to discover just how rapidly an Abrams – even with a half-trained crew – could fire on the enemy. The main gun was already rotating to come to bear on the second target when the first shell struck home, smashing through a Saudi tank and sending it up in a massive fireball. Baird had no time to feel sympathy for the crew as his tank fired again, hitting the second enemy tank and bringing their column to a halt. The third enemy tank was struggling to target the American position when it too was hit, sputtering to a halt before exploding. The fourth Saudi tank fired a shell back towards the American tank, but it was so badly aimed that it flew right over their heads.

  “Get us back,” Baird snapped. The driver was already gunning the tank, pulling them out of their position and sending them careering back, just before a shell impacted right where they had been. Clearly, at least one of the Saudi crews had been paying attention on the training ground. “See if you can hit the bastard who...”

  “Got him, boss,” the gunner said, as another Saudi tank exploded. Baird saw the enemy turret rising up into the air before crashing down to the ground. “My, he was a quick one.”

  “Incoming enemy rounds,” the radio crackled. “They’re shelling your positions.”

  Baird nodded. “Keep firing,” he ordered. The other tanks in the platoon were adding their own firepower to the mix, hammering the softer Saudi vehicles as well as the tanks. He rather suspected that seeing their best and brightest hit so hard would convince the Saudis to back off and surrender, but if they were anything like the Iraqis, perhaps not. The old sweats had plenty of tales of enemies who had been forced to fight the invading Americans at gunpoint. “Call in and see if we can get some support from aircraft.”

  He saw a Saudi helicopter disintegrate in a sheet of flame, struck by a missile launch
ed by American soldiers. He had no doubt that the USAF’s aircraft were already on their way. Now the Saudis had come out of cover, they would be hammered and trapped, rather than be allowed to fall back into their cities. They would have the choice between surrendering or dying in place.

  ***

  “Watch your back,” Doug snapped, as he led his men towards the enemy. The company had been moved up to the front lines just after they’d beaten off the enemy soldiers who had tried to storm the base, where they’d been ordered to provide support to the tankers covering the Kuwaiti Border. The Kuwaitis weren't that keen on massed tank battles in their country and were therefore urging the Americans to fight as far forward as possible. At least there was a contingency plan for such a battle. “Keep your heads down and don’t be afraid to shoot!”

  There were some chuckles from the older sweats as Saudi artillery began crashing down all over the battlefield. Doug wasn't sure what they thought they were shooting at, but their shooting wasn't very accurate. The same couldn't be said for the American gunners to the rear, who used their radars to track the Saudi shells back to their launchers and bombarded them until they put the guns out of action. The more Doug considered the battlefield, the more he realised that both sides had largely lost control, for the Saudis were feeding in men and material without regard for losses. He saw a flight of American aircraft – the ugly Warthogs, loved by American soldiers and feared by everyone else – passing overhead, before opening fire on the Saudi positions. A pair of Saudis fired missiles back towards the American planes, but the Warthogs launched flares and vanished back over the horizon. Neither of the aircraft were hit.