“So far, the number of confirmed dead has already risen to more than half a million, with as many as 300,000 civilians estimated to have been massacred by Abud Nassan and his men and around 35,000 soldiers from the combined armies of the afflicted nations also thought to have lost their lives in the fighting, sadly, those numbers are both expected to rise – although this has been complicated by the fact that many of the army’s missing soldiers are now counted amongst the rebel dead. But the real source of the international consternation is not the huge numbers of civilian deaths, but the 250,000 rebel casualties, the vast majority of which were inflicted by the Atlantian forces.
“The US President - in his condemnation of the Atlantian Speaker - said that the purpose of a peace keeping mission is to keep the peace, not to slaughter the rebel forces and – in a statement that has shocked the world and deeply offended many African leaders – suggested that Abud Nassan and his army may have been ‘freedom fighters’, not rebels. But having reported from the front lines of this conflict and having witnessed the atrocities and intentional targeting of civilians first-hand, that is one statement that many journalists – myself included - cannot support. Predictably, the Atlantian Speaker refused to comment on what he called ‘the cretenous and dangerous remarks” of the US Head of State
“Political posturing aside, the people of Central Africa have started the painful process of counting the dead, locating the missing and rebuilding their shattered lives and homes. However, the people here in Kampala have welcomed the Atlantian Speaker’s offer of limitless humanitarian aid and an army of construction robots - Artisans – to help in the reconstruction process; a gesture labelled by critics as a blatant attempt to atone for their military mistake which allowed the attack on Kampala to happen in the first place.
“Regardless of what the international community and foreign politicians say, the civilians who have survived this brutal and horrific conflict are clear in their gratitude to the Atlantian government, with impromptu phoenix flags flying from thousands of windows and lampposts throughout this city, each person we have spoken to expressing their gratitude to the people of Atlantia for their help in stopping Abud Nassan and his ending his campaign of terror.
“For their part, major powers across the globe have taken a much keener interest in the Atlantian military forces, one eye - no doubt – firmly fixed on accessing the vastly superior technology that the Spartans and other military assets represent. The prospect of acquiring these technologies will create a whole new dynamic to negotiations when the Atlantian Speaker goes before the UN grand assembly for international recognition in only a few short months.
“But for now, the people of this impoverished part of the world are once again living in peace. This is Connor Price from Kampala. Back to you, Michelle.
*************
“So, how did they get passed?” I asked Alice sternly. It had been five days since the failed assault on Kampala and, although the questions from the press had died down a little, I wasn’t about to forgive our mistake quite so readily.
“In short, they had help.”
“What?!?”
“I don’t know all of the details, and we may never have a full grasp on what happened, but someone gave the rebels access to network Jammers and the means of escaping containment.”
“I’m not following.”
“We knew that the main rebel base was somewhere in the Murchison Falls National Park, a 1500 square mile area of remote wilderness to the Northwest of Kampala. Due to the nature of the terrain, we couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of Nassan’s base, but it didn’t really matter, the whole area was isolated and contained as part of rebel territory. To the west of the national park is Lake Albert, a massive body of water with waterways snaking into the mountains where Nassan was based.
“We had accounted for the possibility of them escaping the national park using the lake, so we positioned Ugandan and Congolese army units on either bank. If the rebels breached containment, the local units would radio in and we would move to intercept. That is exactly what happened, except we didn’t receive the radio calls.”
“How is that possible?” I asked suspiciously.
“Someone provided the rebels with enough heavy-load boats to make the journey as quickly as possible, but more importantly, Radio jammers were dropped by air at various points around the perimeter of the lake to scramble the frequencies and block communications. The local forces don’t have access to this type of equipment and the rebels didn’t even have access to aircraft so it must have been a foreign party. All the rebels did was evacuate their forces from the front, all of whom converged on the national park, then the boats transported them to the Ugandan side of the opposite end of Lake Albert – artillery, armour and all – then they advanced on Kampala. The units who didn’t make it in time were transported later and made up part of that reinforcement column.”
“were those jammers the same ones that blocked our communications with the Ugandan government?”
“Same type, yes… but the army carried some with them, the communications were cut when they encircled the city.”
“Right… so then next question is who?”
“We don’t know.” Alice shook her head regretfully, “there is almost zero radar coverage of that part of the world so tracking them that way is out, I am scanning any security footage I can find on the off chance that one of them picked up the mystery aircraft, but so far, nothing. The jammers themselves are pretty standard in terms of technology and construction so identifying the responsible party that way isn’t possible either”
“Are we thinking US involvement.”
“They would certainly make the most sense, given our history. But I can’t find any reference at all to their involvement at any level of the government, intelligence or military systems. Although this kind of action would be buried deep, possibly even kept off the system entirely. I will keep looking but I’m not expecting to find anything. We must at least consider another outside party though…”
“Like who?”
“There are lots of interested parties in that region, nations invested in infrastructure or industry. Russia and China are heavily involved, so are Europe, albeit to a lesser extent. I can’t speak to motive, but all of them have the capabilities to pull this off. There are a host of other, smaller, nations who are less involved who could have done this, but it is all speculation. Again, I have started looking through the systems of potential culprits, but the same security precautions should be expected. The simple fact is that we don’t know. We may never know.”
“Great, just what we needed.” I huffed, slumping into my seat after pacing the floor of my office for the past few hours. “Either the US are actively trying to sabotage us, which wouldn’t be much of a surprise but their methods would certainly raise a lot of questions, or another mystery third party is actively trying to see us fail, the motives and capabilities of who are as much of a mystery as their identity.”
“More or less, yes… We haven’t considered one possibility though.”
“Which is.”
“Maybe this action wasn’t meant to undermine us. Maybe it was aimed against the Ugandans. None of the nations in the region had the ability to pull this off, but if Nassan had an international backer that wanted to see him in power instead of the Museveni government – or just wanted the current government overthrown regardless of who replaced them - maybe that was the reason why they intervened, it would also explain the switch in Nassan’s tactics… he’d never attacked a major city before Kampala.”
“hmmm,” I hadn’t considered this possibility. With the UN meeting coming up, the idea that this action was targeted at anyone other than us hadn’t even occurred to me. “Either way, we need to be careful and keep our eyes open. If it was against us, then we will probably find out eventually and will deal with the threat when it presents itself. But if it was aimed at Uganda, then it didn’t work, meaning that whoever was respons
ible may try again. If Uganda falls, it could destabilise the entire region.”
“Agreed.”
“Alright. How are things going with the aid package?”
“Things are progressing as planned; food, water, shelters and clothing are being loaded onto condors as we speak, they will be dropped off to the locations that need it most, then – once they have what they need, supplies will be distributed to the next location and so on. Pelicans are being loaded up with ten thousand Artisans, again to be deployed as needed. They will focus on basic infrastructure first; roads, water and food supplies, hospitals and emergency services and then move on to repairing or replacing the damaged existing buildings. I have estimated a period of about 15 months to get the infrastructure up to suitable levels.”
“What do you mean by ‘acceptable levels’?”
Alice looked at me as if the answer was obvious. “the levels we would expect in Atlantia. Were you expecting them to only be repaired to the standard they were before?”
“No,” I smiled, once again feeling pride in the humanity of my creation. “Just making sure we were on the same page… “what about the Spartans?”
“68,000 of the 75,000 we deployed will be loaded onto the condors after they have delivered their aid, all Mechs and most of the aircraft are also returning to Atlantia. Each of the five African nations has requested we leave a small contingent in the area to act as a deterrent to future warlords – none of them are completely satisfied that the whole of Nassan’s army was defeated, they are still expecting a hidden force to come screaming out of the hills at any moment. But we agreed to stay to guard the POW camp anyway, so all 8,000 remaining Spartans, a small fleet of condors and 4 squadrons of aircraft – 2 of each type – will set up base there. Whether that turns into a permanent fixture – as in an American style military base on foreign soil – is yet to be seen.”
I nodded in approval. Providing security and humanitarian aid to a war-torn region of the world would make us look good on the international stage, more than that, it was the right thing to do.
“alright,” I said, clapping my hands together, “Let’s see what The Council have made of all of this.” Alice nodded and a few minutes later a single member of the Speaker’s council entered the room. Having very little to do with the invitations to sit on the council anymore, I was never fully aware of who would be assessing my actions or their area of expertise, but it was immediately clear that this man was ex-military.
“Brigadier General Hans Levy,” The military man said proudly as we shook hands, “formally of the Deutsch Heer… excuse me… the German Army.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, General,” I replied, offering the thick accented man a seat on one of the new leather sofas in the middle of the office. “I believe you are the first German national I have met since becoming Speaker. What brings you to Atlantia?”
“My son,” Levy smiled, “he came here a few years ago and had been extolling the virtues of your remarkable nation since he arrived, my wife and I came for a visit about a year ago. My wife is Austrian, born and brought up in Landeck, a small town in the Alps, she took one look at your Western Mountains and fell in love. I was due to retire from the army anyway, so…”
“Happy wife, happy life.” We both laughed, I ignored the small pang of grief at my loss of that kind of relationship.
“We moved to our new home just outside New Highlands about three months ago,” the General continued, images of the picturesque town – settled by former Scottish citizens – nestled in the foothills on the other side of the Western Mountains from Atlantia flashed through my mind. It was a beautiful part of the country. “It is a good place to starts one’s retirement.”
“And your place on the council?” I asked.
“Yes… if I understand correctly, the council wanted an experienced military officer to assess the effectiveness of Spartan operations, only two applicants were acceptable to the committee: Myself and a former Colonel in the United States Marine Corps. The Council decided that the relationship between the US and Atlantia being what it is, the Colonel would be a poorer choice for the role, so they asked me.”
I nodded in understanding. “So, down to business then. You have looked over all of the reports?” the General nodded, “and what is your assessment?”
“Mr Speaker, I must apologise but I do not think you are going to like what is in my report. I was asked to complete an honest appraisal of you actions and…”
“Please, General Levy…” I interrupted, “the entire purpose of the Council is to highlight mistakes I have made and offer suggestions on how those mistakes could be avoided in the future. My conduct in these kinds of situation will never improve unless they are criticised first and means to improve are suggested. You will not offend me by pointing out mistakes, I am well aware that I have made many in this campaign.”
The General nodded solemnly, “That is fortunate, Mr Speaker, because there were many, many mistakes in this campaign.”
Over the next few hours, the General went through his report point by point; he hadn’t been exaggerating, there were countless improvements that could have been made that would have tidied up the operation, ranging from a flanking manoeuvre that would have forced the surrender of a large number of rebels – instead of slaughtering them – to the disorganised deployment of airpower that eventually culminated in Kampala being left defenceless until the closest air assets arrived, an oversight that should never have been allowed.
“These are all ‘minor’ mistakes,” the General said, “although I know the loss of civilian life is no minor issue to either of us. What I mean to say is that they are mistake that were easy to make and are easy to rectify in the future…” I made to speak but the general held up a hand to silence me, “… however, these mistakes have highlighted a much more serious flaw in your armed forces, a potentially fatal flaw if it is not rectified soon.
“In the Africa campaign, you were fighting against ill-disciplined, poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly led rebels, they only enjoyed as much success as they did because of the relatively small militaries they needed to overcome, in almost any other place on earth, that rebellion would have been destroyed in its infancy. There is no denying the technological superiority of the Spartans, but if you were fighting an organised military – an established armed forces with training, equipment and leadership - I am not sure you would have been so successful; the Atlantian armed forces are woefully under supported and in a conflict with a developed military, I fear that technologically advanced weaponry wouldn’t be enough to ensure victory.”
I sat stunned for a few moments; all of the suggestions that the general had made up until now had consisted of minor adjustments to strategy, this suggestion was something else entirely. “I’m not sure I understand…” I eventually managed to say.
The general sighed, thinking about his answer, “Before the Battle of Kampala…” he started, “The rebel army was holding the lines in front of the Spartan advance, they were being pushed back, but you knew where they were, at least the ones on the front lines. Then one morning, they disappeared, where did they go? How did they get there? Some of those fronts were hundreds of miles from Kampala yet they were arriving by the next afternoon, how?”
I didn’t know what to say. The truth was I had absolutely no idea of the answers to those questions. I shook my head and lifted my hands up to indicate this fact to the General. “And there is the problem, Mr speaker,” he continued, “a military is more than the men on the front line, or the bombers in the sky. There is a whole support structure behind them that makes sure that they are functioning effectively, the fact that you lost an entire army is more than enough evidence that your military doesn’t have one.
“Please, don’t misunderstand, I can see how this was overlooked. Every other army in the world has to feed their soldiers, supply them with ammunition and clothing, transport the wounded to medical facilities, communicate between different
area of operation and disseminate orders; in your military, none of that is necessary, orders are received instantly, Spartans require neither food nor ammunition nor medical treatment and so, much of the support structure is unnecessary, but losing that rebel army has highlighted one very serious omission from the current military; any form of intelligence or reconnaissance network.
“The German army, if it had been in the same position as you found yourself in on that morning, would already have had fleets of reconnaissance aircraft monitoring the enemy, satellites watching their movements, special forces tracking the rebels and working behind the lines, intelligence agents and local forces questioning the residents of nearby villages to get information on the rebel’s whereabouts and that would be in the very unlikely event that they had missed the rebel withdrawal in the first place. You did none of this, your Spartans literally walked past countless sources of information. I understand that you don’t want people on the front lines, that you want to avoid casualties, but sometimes, putting people in harm’s way is the only way to avoid disasters like Kampala.”
“So, you think we should have had men on the front line to support the Spartans?” I asked, the logic of his criticism echoing the discussion that I’d had with Alice on that very morning.
“Not just on the front lines, Mr Speaker,” Levy replied, “You need them in the rear guard directing operations, you need Special forces teams behind enemy lines to scout terrain, enemy locations and – in this case – their movements, you need people to recruit, or at least communicate with the local population, they almost always have information essential to your operation. You need to massively increase your fleet of reconnaissance aircraft and put them to better use… in short, you need a military.”
The Rise of the Speaker Page 35
