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

by FX Holden

  “Finally, we announce our full intention to hold free and fair elections for the Governorship of the new Golani province in one year, to elect the provincial councilors who will serve you and represent your views in the national government in Damascus. My fellow Syrian citizens, today, we, the men and women of the Druze Sword Battalion, have returned our homelands to Druze control. With the help of Syria, we will ensure the peace and safety of all Syrians in the Golan Heights and an end to Israeli occupation. Long live the Arab Ba’ath!”

  Situation Room, White House, May 19

  Tonya Dupré had stepped out of the White House situation room after receiving an urgent page. She had long ago learned to live with the curiosities of her role, one of which was the fact that she could be paged to take a voice call from an AI Decision Support System.

  “HOLMES, what is it?”

  Director, you asked to be alerted to any indications the All Domain Attack on Syria was moving from the first cyber and space domain phase to an air, naval or ground phase.

  “I know about the Israeli Air Force attacks inside Syria and Iran, thank you, HOLMES.”

  Yes, Madam Director. However, I have also been monitoring radio communications between the US Marine peacekeepers in the Golan Heights and Marine close support aircraft indicating US Marines are engaged in heavy combat inside the town of Buq’ata in the Golan Heights with an unidentified hostile force.

  Tonya’s stomach dropped. “Oh no. Syrian?”

  The radio reports indicate the hostile force may be local Syrian Druze militia. There have been casualties on both sides.

  “This is terrible. Syria can use this as a pretext for sending troops into the Golan.” She wasn’t talking to HOLMES, she was thinking aloud.

  I have a supplementary report, Madam Director.

  “Go on.”

  NSA has intercepted a broadcast emanating from Buq’ata on multiple frequencies, claiming to be from a group calling itself the Golani Governate Sword Battalion and claiming it has taken control of the Golan Heights to prevent violence against Druze residents following a terrorist attack in Buq’ata. They have ordered all Israeli settlers in the Golan Heights to return to Israel and have called for support from Syrian government, quote, ‘peacekeeping forces’.

  “Is this connected with the fighting in which the US Marines are engaged?”

  Unknown. But I estimate a high probability that it is. There is one final connected intelligence report.

  “Yes?”

  The 432nd Air Force pilot patrolling the no-fly zone over the Golan Heights has reported a small force of Syrian armor moving into the Golan Heights from Syria.

  “How small is a small force, HOLMES?”

  Platoon strength, comprising main battle tanks, IFVs and unmanned ground vehicles. They appear to be Russian, probably an element of the Strauss Security Group, attached to Syria’s 4th Armored Division.

  Platoon strength? That didn’t sound like much of an invasion to Tonya. “HOLMES, have you done any wargaming on these latest reports?”

  Yes, Madam Director.

  As a decision support AI, HOLMES’ role was to take the intelligence reports coming in from hundreds, thousands of different US government sources, analyze them for relevance to high-priority strategic issues and then create scenarios regarding potential outcomes, ranked by probability. “Drawing on all available intel, what is your highest probability scenario?”

  The still ongoing cyber offensive, the civil unrest in the Golan Heights, combined with similar unrest in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and the Israel-Lebanon border confirm we are seeing phase one of an All Domain Attack against Israel. For Syria, it is intended to prepare the way for a ground invasion of the Golan Heights. For Iran it is intended to increase pressure on Israel in future negotiations regarding an arms limitation treaty. For Russia it is intended to strengthen Russia’s position as the pre-eminent power in the region with resulting economic and military benefits. Probability at 64 percent.

  “HOLMES, likelihood of a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran or Russia?”

  That scenario is at less than 1 percent probability. There is another nuclear conflict scenario with a higher probability, would you like to review it?

  Would she? Most probably not. But of course she had to ask. “Sure. What is it?”

  I regard the probability of Israel attacking Syria and/or Iran with a tactical nuclear weapon to be at 27 percent, rising with each new report of significant deterioration in the Israeli economy and its defense capabilities. I expect that probability to increase to the mid-thirties if I am able to validate USAF, DIA and CIA reports of significant losses to the Israeli Air Force from its ongoing attacks on Syria and Iran.

  “OK, HOLMES. Please write up the intelligence and analyses we just discussed and circulate them to ExComm members and heads of agencies.”

  Yes, Director.

  Tonya shut down the call and put her phone in her jacket pocket. Then she leaned against the wall behind her, listening to the raised voices inside the situation room. Carmine Lewis, Harry McDonald, Kevin Shrier and the President had gone upstairs to the West Wing, to deal with some of the ‘voices of concern’ being raised by world leaders about the US blockade and no-fly zone, they said. That left a very hawkish VP Sianni as the loudest voice in the situation room right now, fully supported by Admiral Clarke and the Joint Chiefs, and she didn’t feel like feeding their narrative with HOLMES’ latest intel and dire predictions of all-out war and an Israeli nuclear retaliation.

  She could justify that with the argument, even to herself, that HOLMES was just an experimental decision support system … But she would share with the room what she had learned about some of the military facts on the ground: that the cyber attack on Israel was still ongoing, US troops were engaged in a firefight in Buq’ata and had taken casualties, that Syrian armor had been seen crossing the ceasefire line, in limited numbers, that the Israeli Air Force was, unusually, sustaining heavy losses in its air offensive, no doubt due to the unaccustomed presence of the more than capable Russian opposition.

  What a shitshow, she thought. And we have no way out.

  Buq’ata, Golan Heights, May 19–20

  Corporal Ravi Patel had been hoping the USAF drone pilot who called herself ‘Angel’ was going to give him a way out of this cluster. He wasn’t a people leader, not in his own mind. But Gunny Jensen was laid out flat downstairs with a bag of blood donated by Stevens hooked up to his arm, passing in and out of consciousness. Buckland, she was a better leader than him, but Patel was designed second in command. He’d never considered he’d actually have to step up.

  Patel had not signed up for this. He had managed to get through six months of the siege of Kobani without getting mortared, shot or burned and he had thought he was a short Big Boy ride away from a reunion with his huge and rambunctious Detroit family followed by Scout Sniper training at Camp Pendleton. But if he’d learned one thing on this side-tour, it had been that having a big mofo rifle didn’t make you a sniper. Lopez and Jensen had been taken out by that Syrian, or Druze, or whatever-he-was sniper right under Patel’s sights. He had gotten in, taken his shots, and gotten out again and Patel never even saw him.

  He wanted to be able to do that, now more than ever, he wanted to be able to do that. Wanted it like a fire in his guts no amount of regret could put out.

  And here he was again, radio at his side, looking through his scope at nothing. Nothing south, nothing north, nothing west.

  “Movement south-east,” Stevens said quietly. “Civilian. Alone. No weapon sighted.” Patel had put two other riflemen on the roof with him – Stevens and Johnson. Wallace and Buckland were at windows downstairs. Bell was running between all of them, checking they were awake, checking on the wounded civilians, Lopez and Jensen. Patel had tried telling him to get a couple hours’ shuteye, but he hadn’t. Everyone in the squad knew Bell was a Modafinil junkie. Any doubts Patel might have had about that were put aside when the Corpsman went around about a
n hour ago handing out the small white stimulants to everyone to make sure they wouldn’t fall asleep on watch. He seemed to have an endless supply.

  The problem was with Lopez and Jensen down, and the Israeli corporal in her workshop rigging up some new death machines, there was no way for anyone to stand down and get some sleep. So yeah, if it took some of Bell’s magic pills to make sure no one fell asleep and got them all killed, the hell with it.

  Patel heard a scrape on the roof behind him and Bell slid up alongside him, picking up the night vision scope. Without a word he started panning it slowly around the rooftops across the town, and then back again, no doubt going further back than he would have normally after the distance of the shot that took Lopez and Jensen out. But after a couple of minutes he lowered the scope again.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s middle of the night, and that lunatic colonel declared a curfew, so it’s only the brave or stupid out there right now.”

  “I mean, they put up no new scouts, snipers, nothing … what are they waiting for? We hurt ’em bad, they got to be wanting to get some.” Bell rolled onto his back, whispering loudly to Johnson, who was watching the eastern approaches across the quarry. “Hey, Rooster, you got anything on your side?”

  The big Minnesotan turned his head slightly, not taking his eyes off his front. “Been counting rocks a couple hours now. Up to three thousand one hundred forty-nine. But no movement.” He pointed straight up over his helmet. “Plenty action up there, though. Almost makes me glad to be down here.”

  Patel looked up and realized he’d gotten so used to the sound of jets sweeping back and forth through the sky above them that he’d stopped listening to it. Every now and then there would be the swoosh of a missile or the boom of an aircraft breaking the sound barrier, but they were nearly invisible unless one of them took a hit. Then they were like falling stars or a shower of comets, suddenly appearing as a bright spot in the sky before arcing toward the earth in a shower of brief live sparks.

  Patel bent his eye to his scope and started scanning rooftops again. He wasn’t up there, he was down here, and he wasn’t glad about it.

  Where were they? If the Druze had put any new scouts in place to replace the ones the Israeli corporal had taken out with her drones, he couldn’t spot them. And what a piece of work she was. Patel had never met an Israeli before they got off their tilt rotor and doubled into town to start picking up pieces of bodies and shepherding the walking wounded away from burning cars. But if she was an example of your typical Israeli, he had no fears for the safety of Israel.

  Bell had told him how she returned fire on those terrorists while she still had blood running down her face from the bomb blast. Took out a damn tracked IFV and a squad of troops with a couple of hobby planes. Used a couple more to drop frags on the heads of the Druze scouts.

  Woman was a lioness.

  The Lioness of Buq’ata was sitting on her butt on the cold concrete of her workshop floor, back against a toolbox, face pressed to her knees, shaking and crying.

  Toymaker? She was a damn monster.

  How many men had she killed or wounded today with her ‘toys’? Ten in the IFV, two scouts, another ten, probably more, in the center of town.

  The worst part? It wasn’t like dropping a laser-guided bomb from 30,000 feet, ten miles away, and watching it glide into a cave entrance. She could still see the expression of horror on the face of that Namer driver as he looked down at the drone that had just slammed into the console beside his chair and sat there waiting for it to explode and kill him.

  She wiped her nose. And so what, Amal? Yesterday morning you had been sitting in the furniture store with old Yozam, getting ready to go home and play in the sunshine with Raza. And those bastards had brought a war to the street right outside. Yozam was dead, Raza fleeing west with Mansur. She understood the anger of the families who had lived in the Golan Heights for centuries, the resentment they felt at the new Israeli settlements … but Yozam was Druze. Most of the people who were killed and wounded in that terrorist attack were Druze. Her brother Mansur had really believed that the Golan was a place where Israeli and Arab could live in peace together. “Aren’t we living proof of that?” he’d asked her.

  Maybe one day, Mansur. Not yet. She slapped her leg so hard it stung. Get up, Amal.

  As she pulled herself to her feet, using her workbench for support, the medic, Corporal Bell, entered.

  “OK in here?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “No. Not really.”

  She lowered her head and began crying again, not even realizing he was beside her until she felt the medic’s strong arms around her shoulders, and felt him pull her head to his chest.

  He said nothing, just held her. But she could sense, somehow, he knew what she was feeling. That he knew exactly how it felt to be surrounded by death and dying, to be able to see it even when you closed your damn eyes…

  When she stopped sobbing, he held her away from him and looked in her face. He wiped the tears from under her eyes with his thumbs, and then felt the cut above her eye.

  “That’s bleeding again,” he said. He lifted her onto the workbench as though she was as light as a small girl, and pulled off his backpack. “Let me clean and dress it.”

  She didn’t protest. She let him work. Thinking of Mansur and Raza, hoping they were safe. Thinking of this place, her new home, knowing it wasn’t.

  Syrian Airspace, East of the Golan Heights,

  May 19–20

  Rap Tchakov wasn’t glad to be up at 30,000 feet over western Syria in the middle of the damn night. Which was weird. Usually he was the first one out on the flight line, first one finished with his inspection, first one in the cockpit of his Felon. Rap was a ‘Felon baby’ – as a trainee he’d moved straight from the Yak-130 trainer to the Felon, without transitioning through any other type. The Russian Aerospace Force had decided to see what a new crop of young pilots who grew up in an era of VR video games could do if you put them into the cockpit of Russia’s elite stealth fighter without having to unlearn everything they’d learned on the older generation of aircraft.

  The answer as far as Rap was concerned was that they could fly those birds like no one else. His Felon fit him like a glove. When he slid into the seat, pulled on his helmet and powered on its target acquisition and display system, his hands just fell naturally into a rhythm of their own, flipping display panels, punching icons, and paging through menus and checklists as his eyes scanned the cockpit, the ground and sky around his machine. He could absorb a hundred inputs simultaneously, from his eyes, his hands, his body, his ears, and react to them almost as quickly as the combat AI that was always watching over him.

  Only once had that AI reacted faster than him and, yeah, it had saved his life over the sea west of Syria when that damn bitch in her F-35 Panther had jumped him. But…

  Let it go, Rap.

  He had let it go. He really had. Just before she’d jumped him, as they were sailing through the bright Mediterranean sky in international airspace, side by side, like pilots instead of enemies, almost like brother and sister, he’d taken off his helmet and waved to her. She’d done the same, though she hadn’t waved back. And he’d wanted to prove it had happened when he was telling his fellow pilots back at Latakia, so he’d pulled his phone out of his flight suit pocket and snapped a picture of her.

  After which they’d put their helmets back on and he had prepared to break off for Syria. But she had pulled her machine into a screaming loop, fought her way to a missile solution and took out his port engine.

  So about a week ago, Rap had taken the print he’d made of that encounter, the picture of the Coalition fighter pilot with the buzz cut glowering across a hundred yards of sky at him, the print he’d had pinned up in his quarters ever since – and he’d burned it.

  Stop bloody thinking about it. But he couldn’t. He never would. It had knocked the sharp edges off his confidence and he knew it. He felt it now as he pushed hi
s wingman and himself toward their patrol sector for his second mission of the day. The ground crew had been buzzing as they readied his machine. Did you hear about Yuriy? He got an F-16 and an F-15! Did you hear about Dmitry? He got his wing stitched by the cannon of a Panther and he still made it home, with a drone kill and a probable on the Panther.

  Rap felt like saying to them, Did you hear about Ivanov? He didn’t bloody make it home at all.

  Mind on the job, Rap. “Akula two, Akula leader, are you a homosexual?”

  “Comrade Lieutenant?” his number two asked, surprised.

  “I’m just wondering since you seem intent on sticking your nose into my Felon’s bloody exhaust ports. Maintain separation, five miles, watch your infrared. You’ll pick the bastard Panthers or their missiles up on your passive sensors before you ever see them on radar. Day or night. Got that?”

  “Yes, Comrade Lieutenant,” the rookie said, pulling his machine a little further back. Alright, not technically a rookie, since this was his second mission of the day too, and he’d been with the unit a month now. But Rap had told him he was nothing until he got his first kill and he was still scoreless, so until then, the guy was a rookie.

  He’d rather be flying Bondarev’s wing, anytime, than dragging this deadweight newbie around the sky. But Bondarev’s machine had experienced an engine flare on landing and it was grounded. They had more pilots than machines after several hours of fighting, so that meant Bondarev was grounded too and now Rap had a bad feeling.

  His bad mood was interrupted by the Beriev A100 controller circling safely back over central Syria, the chickenshit. “Akula leader, Sector Control, I have a tasking order for you.”