GOLAN: This is the Future of War (Future War)

by FX Holden

  They only carried one backup.

  Now they had risen to sensor depth again and deployed the buoy to update their picture of the battlesphere above the water around them, which supplemented what their onboard AI was able to glean from sonar.

  Something strange was happening.

  The shipping lane leading from the Aegean Sea into the Mediterranean south of the Greek island of Rhodes was one of the busiest in the world, feeding traffic from the Black Sea, Turkey and Greece into the Mediterranean and onwards to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. At their previous check-in with the tethered buoy, they’d seen normal levels of shipping, both on sonar and radar. But in the period since, their sonar had detected declining levels of traffic, unusually low for the time of day and year.

  As their radar scanned the sea around the buoy, it picked up almost no civilian shipping, just a few coastal freighters. No oil supertankers, no bulk carriers or container ships. And now, about ten miles off their starboard side, they were picking up an active sonar search signal. Military. Their AI had classified it as coming from a US Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyer, and the sonic signature from its screws and engine identified it as the USS Porter.

  It was clearly searching for something and that worried Binyamin Ben-Zvi because the chances were that the Porter was searching for the same thing that the INS Gal was trying to avoid … the 4,000-ton Russian Kilo-class submarine pickets that would be traveling out of the Aegean Sea ahead of the Russian-Iranian fleet. The newest variants in the class, which were known to have been assigned to the Black Sea fleet, were both silent and deadly.

  To hide themselves from sonar, their hulls were covered in rubberized anechoic tiles. Even the internal surfaces were rubberized to prevent sounds from inside the hull – like engine mounts or even tools dropped by its fifty-man crew – reverberating through the hull and into the surrounding water. Their double-skinned hull was lined with passive acoustic sensors that Russian admirals had bragged could ‘hear a dolphin burp at a range of twenty miles’, and active decoy systems designed specifically to defeat the most common US anti-submarine weapon, the Mark 48 homing torpedo.

  Most importantly, it was designed to hunt and kill enemy submarines, like the INS Gal.

  The fact that a US Arleigh Burke-class destroyer was combing the waters near them for what could only be the Russian pickets was like being a surfer out on the lineup and hearing the lifesavers sound the ‘shark warning’ siren. You couldn’t do much except roll onto your stomach and paddle as quietly as you could toward shore, hoping the shark ate someone else.

  Their problem right now, however, was not a Russian Kilo, or the USS Porter. Their problem was that they still had no link with Eilat and had no idea whether the strategic environment around them had changed along with the tactical environment, which clearly had. Their latest inbound communication from fleet command had updated them on the known position, bearing, speed and composition of the Russian-Iranian fleet, along with the news that the US President had ordered a blockade as hoped. The communique also confirmed that their orders were the same as when they had sailed; in that respect, there had been no change to their mission.

  “Well, we can try to increase the reception range. The drone on top of the buoy can lift the aerial a hundred feet into the air. That will give us about another hundred miles range but I’m not even picking up Tel Aviv, so I don’t see how…”

  Subsurface contact on passive sensors. Screw in the water, bearing three five zero, depth 200, range five point three miles, speed sixteen knots relative.

  The voice of their AI-assisted sensor system broke into their conversation exactly as a human sonar operator would have done, though with much more calm in its artificial voice. Five miles! And directly ahead of them. A single screw … it could only be another sub, hunting them.

  “Gal: all engines stop, pull in the buoy, turn to zero four zero and glide,” Binyamin ordered. They were bobbing about just under the surface of the sea, the submarine equivalent of being in plain sight to any boat coasting below them.

  All engines powering down, turning to zero four zero, gliding, the AI repeated. I recommend arming aft torpedoes.

  “Confirmed, Gal. Arm aft torpedoes. Prepare for emergency evasion. And analyze that screw signature.”

  Arming aft torpedoes. Emergency evasion routines prioritized. Analysis already underway.

  If it was a Russian Kilo and it saw the Israeli Dolphin as a threat to its fleet, it may just decide to fire, in which case the Gal had to be ready to respond.

  Target is changing heading to an intercept course. I calculate a high probability we have been detected. No active sonar registering.

  “Damn,” Ehud said. “They caught us sleeping, Benji.” Just because the unidentified sub wasn’t pinging them on sonar didn’t mean it didn’t have a good enough lock on their position to be able to take the shot.

  “Well, more fool them. Gal: engines ahead one third. Turn to an intercept bearing. Take us down to 250 feet. Do you have an ID on the target?”

  Insufficient data. Analyzing. The AI confirmed his orders and the boat accelerated again, turning more tightly so that it came around and pointed directly at the unidentified contact.

  “Playing chicken?” Ehud asked with a grin, checking his instrument display. “We’re back at twelve knots relative, increasing.”

  “Let me know when we hit twenty.” They were pointed directly ahead of the contact and accelerating their dive so that they would cross directly aft of it. A Russian Kilo was twice the weight and half as nimble as the Gal: a supertanker to a speedboat, and Binyamin planned to take advantage of that. If they lived long enough.

  “He’s not deviating,” Ehud observed. “Fifteen knots relative.”

  “Good, take steerage control.”

  “Gal: first officer assuming manual steering control.”

  AI pilot deactivated. You have the helm, Officer Mofaz.

  The Gal’s AI painted a laser-generated 3D holographic image of the water around their sub and projected it into the air between their two chairs. It showed a generic image of the contact in yellow, since it was still unidentified, gliding through the water straight and level below them and to starboard, and, in blue, the Gal, in an angled dive that would bring it across the contact’s stern. It was a maneuver intended to make a torpedo shot almost impossible, and if the enemy did get one away, to close the range so dramatically there was a chance it wouldn’t arm before striking because the Gal would be inside their minimum safe distance.

  “Gal: sound collision alarm at 100 feet.”

  Collision alarm set for 100 feet.

  Binyamin scratched the back of his neck, and his hand came away covered in sweat. “When you get underneath him, turn hard starboard, put us in his baffles and glide again. Unless he fires on us, I want to try to increase separation and play the thermocline, got that?”

  “Yes, Benji.”

  The throb of their engines and the tick, tick, tick of their hull compressing as they dived down toward the unidentified submarine was background noise. The only sound they were interested in was the inappropriately gentle chime that would signal an enemy torpedo launch.

  A loud sonar ping sounded through their hull as the contact at last engaged its active sonar to get a precise fix on the Israeli boat. It provoked an immediate and drastic reaction.

  Contact decelerating. They appear to be executing an emergency stop. Engine noise. Analysis indicates screw has reversed. Acoustic analysis complete. Contact identified as the Astute-class submarine HMS Agincourt.

  “Oh shit. It’s a Brit attack sub,” Binyamin said under his breath. He had put them on a collision course for an 8,000-ton British nuclear submarine. “Gal: engines back full!”

  “Speed eighteen knots relative. Falling, but not slow enough,” Ehud said. “We’ll have to push through with it.”

  “Port ten degrees,” Binyamin said. “Cross their stern and level out at 200 feet. Engage active sonar and matc
h speed and bearing.”

  “Aye aye. I’ll pass ahead of them and then pull around on their portside inside Aqua-fi range. Let’s hope they’ve also worked out who we are or we are going to give them a perfect shot into our starboard side as we pass. Gal: engage active sonar.”

  Active sonar engaged. Sounding. Contact acquired.

  If it was a game of chicken, it was being conducted in the dark, with their eyes shut. Neither of the leviathans rushing toward each other under the sea could actually ‘see’ the other, but now both were using their sonar at least they had a fix on each other, and with both of them chopping back their speed, a collision was less likely.

  Using the hologram as a visual cue, supplemented by the bearing, speed, depth and range data on his own display, Ehud tightened his hand on the submarine’s ‘flight stick’ and as the Gal crossed close behind the Agincourt, he twisted it to full right rudder and pulled back on the stick to angle the dive planes upward. Steering a 2,500-ton submarine was not like steering an airplane, and he had to allow for the momentum of the boat and the lag in response to its controls, but he was pleased to see the Gal swing around the bigger British sub and then drop in alongside it, on a parallel track. It was helped, of course, by the fact the British captain had known to keep his own boat sailing straight and level, but as he leveled out and applied a touch of portside rudder, Ehud couldn’t help feeling a little like a Top Gun pilot on a fighter range.

  Just for a moment.

  “Gal: cut sonar, use acoustic sensors to match depth and bearing and hold separation,” Binyamin ordered, clapping Ehud on the shoulder. “Nice work, Ehud. Gal: hail the contact on Aqua-fi.”

  For nearly a century, the only way submarines could contact each other while submerged was via ‘Gertrude’, an acoustic system that fired soundwaves through the water between transceivers on the hull and allowed voice-to-voice contact at short range. While the range hadn’t improved much – both boats still needed to be within a hundred yards of each other – contact was possible now using boosted wifi signals that allowed both voice and data transmission between boats. It took only moments for the Gal’s hail to be answered, and the thickly accented voice of a very perturbed British captain to come over the command room loudspeakers.

  “Agincourt to INS Gal, what in the bloody hell kind of suicidal stunt was that?!”

  Binyamin felt his cheeks redden. “Apologies, Agincourt, we were unsure of your identity until we had committed to the maneuver. As soon as we identified who you were, we adjusted course. I am sorry for the scare.”

  “We had you identified twenty minutes ago, Gal, your boat needs a bloody good sensor upgrade. I know a firm in Bremen that could do it for you at ‘mates’ rates’.”

  Whether that was true or not, Binyamin was grateful the British commander hadn’t overreacted to their aggressive maneuvering. “Uh, thank you, Agincourt. I will pass that offer on to my Admiral.”

  “Good, that’s the bollicking out of the way then. I assume that we both have a similar mission out here, Gal?”

  I very much doubt that, Binyamin thought to himself. But he kept his reply neutral. “I can’t confirm that, Agincourt, but I am happy to listen to your ideas for avoiding another incident. I assume also that you are in contact with that US destroyer to the north?”

  “We have been, and I can tell you, they already know you are in the neighborhood, Gal. Given that all our friends know, I think it reasonable to suspect that our enemies know as well. Whatever your mission is here, as they say in the clandestine services, it would seem your cover is blown, old girl.”

  Again, Binyamin had no way of knowing if what the British captain was saying was true, but then, what reason would he have for lying? Their trip via the Cape of Good Hope, their efforts to avoid detection on entering the Mediterranean, had they really been for nothing? No. He had exercised with both the British and US navies, and he and his former crew, in their older, noisier, slower Dolphin II boat, had scored more than their share of ‘kills’ against their NATO partners. And racked up more than a few simulated kills against Russian warships too. If their presence in the Mediterranean had been betrayed, it was by other actors in the IDF, not himself and Ehud.

  He ignored the jibe. “What intelligence can you share about the estimated position of the Russian subsurface pickets?” Binyamin asked. “We have made no contact to date.”

  “Happy to share, Gal. We’re all on the same side in this little stoush, and all that. Our friend the USS Porter is prosecuting a contact twenty miles north of our current position,” the British captain said. “Kilo class, probably the Yakutsk. We think the Russians have two Kilos with them, so if they follow their usual pattern, the other will be trailing the fleet to guard against a rear approach. If their picket is already well into the Med, it rather looks like they intend to force the issue, don’t you think?”

  Binyamin could see the British and their allies did not have a full picture of what they were facing. Should he share? He raised an eyebrow to Ehud. Aqua-fi communications weren’t recorded or logged, there would be no blowback for disclosing confidential information. Ehud nodded at Binyamin, reading his mind.

  “Yes, it seems like it, Agincourt. Look, I said we have had no contact with the Russian-Iranian fleet since we started our patrol, but you should know it is accompanied by more than two Kilo-class submarines. Our intelligence service says an Iranian Fateh-class submarine sailed from Latakia in Syria last night. We estimate that at submerged cruising speed, it would currently be approximately 250 miles east, and likely to be in position off Rhodes to support the incoming fleet in about ten hours. If the Russians and Iranians plan to force the blockade, it would make sense for that Fateh to be in position to engage the US destroyers just before they clash. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  Binyamin heard voices confer at the other end of the connection before the British captain replied. “I suspect you are saying, Gal, that we have a maximum of ten hours before all hell breaks loose in the Mediterranean.”

  Binyamin and Ehud exchanged glances. “That is a good way to put it, Agincourt.”

  “Very good. Look, we will continue our patrol in support of the US destroyer squadron. For coordination purposes, you will find the five of them strung out in a hundred-mile line between Rhodes and Lefkos. That may sound like they are spread thin, but each of them fields helos with dipping sonar, plus unmanned aerial and surface surveillance vehicles, so nothing is going to get past them unchallenged.” The British captain paused. “And that includes you, Gal. Our American cousins do not take kindly to either enemies or friends ‘pissing in their pool’ as they put it. Your presence would be considered … inconvenient.”

  Ehud gave Binyamin a sour look and seemed to be about to say something aloud, but Binyamin put a finger to his lips to silence him. “Message understood, Agincourt. At the next opportunity, can you please advise the commander of the US destroyer squadron that we can see you have the exit routes from the Aegean well covered. We will withdraw to a position … let me see … at MGRS coordinate 4QFJ12345678, between Cyprus and Turkey on the most likely route for the Russian-Iranian fleet to approach Tartus. That particular part of the world we regard as ‘our pool’, as you delicately put it.”

  There was a chuckle at the other end. “Touché, sir. I can’t promise I’ll be able to keep our cousins out of your pool, but they can hardly be surprised to find you lounging about in it. Very good. Well, bon voyage and good hunting, Gal.”

  “And to you, Agincourt,” Binyamin said. He cut the contact, pulled up his navigation screen and put new waypoints on it. “Gal: steer to waypoints please, optimize depth and speed for stealth.” They both sat quietly and watched the holograph sphere as the two submarines separated, the Gal headed north and the Agincourt east.

  Navigation order confirmed and onscreen. Stealth cruise routines prioritized.

  Ehud leaned over, looking at the waypoints. He raised an eyebrow. “That course will put us nicely behind tha
t Russian Kilo and in a position to intercept their fleet. You don’t intend to pull back to Cyprus at all?”

  “No.”

  Ehud settled back in his chair. “Our allies may find that ‘inconvenient’, Binyamin.”

  “Israel has no allies, you know that, Ehud. Only enemies it has not made yet.”

  RAF Akrotiri Air Base, Cyprus, May 19

  Shelly Kovacs had trust issues. She knew that. She’d put eight years of her life into the Marine F-47B Fantom project, and she’d fought like a wildcat to prevent her precious prototypes being suborned to the Air Force 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing, but she’d been told it would be good for fostering Marine Corps Aviation-USAF joint operations, good for DARPA and good for her project.

  “You will get more data in a few weeks of real combat than you could possibly get in a year of exercises and simulations, Shelly,” her program manager had told her, as she called to bitch again.

  “Yeah, except they don’t expect my babies to last one week, let alone a few,” she’d replied. “I’ve lost two machines already. They aren’t ready for combat and you know it. I have five pilots who fly them like they’re hobby drones and one pilot, one, Matt, who flies them like she’s possessed and none of the other pilots can come close to matching her skills. She’s a coder, a hacker, a gamer, a fighter pilot and frankly, she’s either the worst or the most inspired recruitment I’ve ever made.”

  “She’s the one who rewrote your aggressor routines? It doesn’t matter the others you’ve already got can’t do what she can do, we’ll find more like her.”