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

by FX Holden

  Tonya had let Clarke and others like Homeland Security Secretary Price vent their outrage, and when they ran out of expletives, she raised her hand. Henderson nodded to her. “Tonya?”

  She held up her cell phone, showing the alert she had just received from HOLMES, who had been monitoring and analyzing every snippet of intelligence related to the Israel situation across the entire spectrum of security and intelligence agencies. “NSA has just intercepted a signal from Bandar Abbas. It was sent with an old cypher the Iranians know we have broken, so we were meant to intercept it. Putting it onscreen.” With a flick of her finger, she sent the report from her cell phone to wall screen. For those sitting at an awkward angle, she paraphrased it. “It’s from the Iranian Navy Admiralty to the IRIN destroyers Amol and Sinjan. It is ordering them to return to Sevastopol and prepare for a transit through the Volga-Don Canal waterway and Caspian Sea to Tehran.” She could see some of the faces at the table were either too tired or slow on the uptake to realize what she was saying, so she put it in black and white. “Iran has just ordered its ships back to port.”

  “Well, it seems we got more than a beanstalk, Admiral. We just got the Golden Egg,” Henderson grinned. “And I have the word of the Israeli PM that Israel is standing down its naval and air forces.”

  Admiral Clarke had his hands behind his head, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling. “Our damage assessments show despite their losses, they got the job done anyway. Syrian 4th Armored Republican Guards Battalion is a mess of smoking wrecks on the highway out of Damascus, and their 5th Assault Corps is down 50 percent of its tanks. Nine out of ten Iranian missile launchers were knocked out inside Syria, and military targets across Iran took a pasting.”

  He stood. “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to agree with my press secretary what we’re going to tell the networks for their 11 p.m. bulletins.” He crooked a finger at his Chief of Staff. “Karl?”

  Tonya started scrolling through the other reports HOLMES had parsed for her, but she saw nothing contradicting the NSA report. Carmine came over and sat beside her.

  “How do you get NSA reporting before I do?” she asked. She didn’t sound annoyed, just curious.

  “You have humans between the intelligence and you,” Tonya told her. “All weighing it with their own judgment, assigning their own meaning, filtering and contextualizing it, and then five layers of NSA bureaucrats are reviewing it and signing it off before NSA releases it to your people who then do the same thing.” She held up her phone. “I have HOLMES. And he does all of that in seconds, without worrying about the optics or internal politics of it all.”

  Lewis nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a powerful tool you have there. Some might say, too much power to be concentrated in the hands of any one cabinet member.”

  “I can give you access,” Tonya said quickly. “As Director of National Intelligence you…”

  “Not what I’m saying. In the hands of anyone but you, I’d worry it would be abused. It’s safe enough in your hands, for now.”

  “Good. Alright.”

  “And that was a good intervention,” Lewis told her. “Letting people speak their piece, then dropping the hammer on them without making it personal.”

  “Thanks.”

  Carmine hardened her tone. “But next time, for God’s sake, you don’t raise your hand to speak at ExComm meetings. The White House situation room isn’t a classroom and you aren’t a third grader asking to go to the damn bathroom.”

  Tonya saw her chance. “No. Got it. Thanks. Do you think…”

  “Yes. I think you can scoot off home now. Pour yourself some wine, watch the 11 p.m. news and then get back to work helping Israel to get back on its virtual feet.” Lewis gave her a big smile. “I feel like we are on our way out of this mess now.”

  Syrian Airspace, East of the Golan Heights, May 20

  Lieutenant Yevgeny Bondarev of the Russian 7th Air Group had been up to his eyeballs in the mess that was Syria’s war on its neighbors to the north and west for nearly a year now, and he wasn’t seeing any easy way out of it.

  As he led a flight of four Su-57 Felons with Okhotnik drone wingmen on a combat air patrol over Damascus, it seemed to him the stony deserts of Syria were fast turning into quicksand. He had lost three comrades in the last twelve hours, including that cheeky shit ‘Rap’ Tchakov. Bondarev had even begun to believe the kid’s own publicity. “I was born under a lucky star, Comrade Lieutenant,” Tchakov had told him. “You’ll see. I’ll be leaving Syria with a Nesterov Air Medal.”

  Instead, he was leaving Syria in a pine box.

  Bondarev shrugged the thought away, his eyes flicking across his helmet-mounted display, instrument and system panels, the dark sky around him and the data feed from his Okhotnik ‘wingman’. He had trained on the use of the drones during the hiatus in Latakia between the Syrian conflict with Turkey and its new conflict with Israel, and was just now becoming comfortable with the added burden of piloting both his own Felon and the semi-autonomous Okhotnik. At first he had doubted he could master the additional data overload, especially in the heat of simulated combat. But he’d seen what the Coalition pilots had achieved with their BATS Loyal Wingman drones over Turkey – seen them use the smaller, lightly armed drones to flush out Russia’s stealth aircraft for lurking F-35 Panthers to knock down – so he had persisted.

  He was most comfortable assigning his pilots’ Okhotniks to ‘shepherd’ mode, sending them out in front of his formation with their phased-array radar to sniff out potential targets while he and his pilots stayed invisible, twenty miles behind them. They’d claimed two Israeli F-15s near Damascus earlier in the day with this tactic. The heavily armed Okhotniks, unlike their smaller BATS opponents, could carry up to 2,000lbs. of ordnance in their weapons bays including both air-to-air missiles and air-to-ground missiles or bombs.

  While they required a two-man crew in a trailer to serve on close air support ground attack missions, they could be controlled by a single airborne pilot for air-to-air missions. Able to share targeting data and coordinate their attacks on the fly, Bondarev had used one of the stealthy Okhotniks to lock up the Israeli F-15 fighters while another of his pilots controlling a second Okhotnik attacked them with K-77M missiles from a different bearing, at near point-blank range.

  But he had yet to send the drones into enemy-controlled airspace on an offensive mission of the nature he had just been ordered to execute.

  “Sector Control, Koshka leader, confirming despatch of four Okhotnik fighters on air superiority mission over Golan Heights. Koshka leader out.” He switched to the interplane channel on his radio to address his pilots. “Koshka three, you take Golan Sector A, four Sector B, I will take Sector C, two, you take Sector D. Stay alert for Israeli aircraft entering Syrian airspace, our primary mission is still the defense of Damascus. Understood?”

  The Israeli air offensive had been brutal, for both sides. Dozens of Syrian ground units had been attacked, with heavy losses to both Syrian armor and transport vehicles, anti-air missile systems and troop concentrations. Bondarev had no idea whether Syria was still capable of a ground offensive into the Golan or not.

  But it had also been brutal for Israeli aircraft. Before taking off, Bondarev had seen an intelligence estimate stating Israel had lost thirty-four piloted aircraft, both jets and rotary-winged, and nearly fifty drones. He knew enough by now to take the claims of pilots and missile crews with a pinch of salt, but even if Israel had lost only half that number of aircraft, its offensive had been costly to an extent Israel had not suffered in decades – if ever.

  The simple reason was the extra finger on the scales that Russian air support and control gave the Syrian and Iranian forces. Israel was no longer alone in the skies over Syria or Lebanon, facing only ground-to-air missile defenses – in Russia it faced a foe that it outnumbered, yes, but one that could use airborne warning and control capabilities to choose its fights carefully, that could attack with stealth and bring both manned and unm
anned assets to bear.

  As Bondarev watched his tactical map, a squadron of older-generation Su-30 aircraft was being scrambled from Latakia. The fact the venerable non-stealth fighters were being brought into the fight now told him two things. That the Russian losses were mounting, but also that they had claimed sufficient Israeli stealth fighter kills that Russia was willing to risk its more vulnerable aircraft now, with most of the attacks into Syria being mounted by comparable older-generation Israeli F-16s and F-15s.

  As his men confirmed their orders and split off to manage their sector patrols, Bondarev concentrated on his own. Bringing up the navigation map for his own Okhotnik, Bondarev drew a series of waypoints over the sector he’d assigned himself and gave his drone orders to cycle between the waypoints until it was low on fuel, identifying any hostile aircraft in range and seeking his permission before engaging. It wasn’t possible anyway for the drone to engage on its own initiative unless its ‘mothership’ was destroyed, and he could give it an attack order with a click of the button under his right thumb on the flight stick, so the delay between the Okhotnik locking up a target and firing at it was minimal.

  In the middle of the circle of waypoints he’d just drawn was a town whose name he’d come to recognize. The town over which that fool Tchakov had been lost. Luckily, he hadn’t been ordered to send any piloted aircraft into that sector.

  Bloody Buq’ata.

  All Domain Attack: Nuclear

  Buq’ata, Golan Heights, May 20

  Bloody Buq’ata was exactly what Corporal Ravi Patel was thinking as he ducked his head under another spray of bullets from the Syrian machine gun. He should be in Kuwait with his feet up, drinking an ice cold ‘near beer’ right now. He had spotted the MG crew of two, on a rooftop about three hundred yards back from their compound. He’d also spotted dozens of soldiers moving through side streets, about a block back – no doubt prepping for arrival of the Russian armor – so the machine gun fire was intended to keep the Marines’ heads down and stop them from observing. Well, they were going to be sorely disappointed when only two tanks rolled into town, instead of ten.

  But then again, two tanks were plenty against a bunch of lightly armed, badly wounded Marines.

  Another staccato burst of fire, this time against the windows below him. The Druze gunner was not the creative type. One burst at the rooftop, one at a window below, then back to the rooftop. Below him, someone returned fire in frustration. Stevens, he was willing to bet. Guy had no self-control.

  He heard a voice behind him as he waited for the next volley to come his way.

  “Patel, we’re about ready to move out.”

  He looked over his shoulder and saw Corporal Buckland stick her head out of the stairwell from the terrace to the floor below. She ducked back down as a line of machine gun bullets stitched the lip of the terrace from left to right, just above Patel’s head.

  Now, Ravi.

  Ignoring her, Patel rolled into the gap in the concrete rampart, bent his eye to his light-intensifying scope and focused on the rooftop where he’d seen the two Druze gunners – one working the gun, the other feeding ammunition. He’d already adjusted the scope for range. There was no wind to speak of. As the MG crew trained their weapon on the windows below him, and before it fired again, blinding him with the muzzle flash, he put his crosshairs on the chest of the Druze gunner. Took a breath and held it. Caressed the trigger like the CIA contractor had taught him. His rifle bucked into his shoulder, and the Druze gunner flew backwards like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. The Barrett had a five-round magazine so Patel didn’t need to reload. He quickly worked the bolt, laid the crosshairs onto the ammunition loader, firing as he twisted away from his dead comrade, headed for the ground. The round seemed to catch him in the ribs and shove him sideways, but he fell out of sight.

  Call that one kill, one probable. Camp Pendleton here I come.

  Patel rolled back out of sight of any other troops on rooftops across from them and turned to Buckland. “I’m going to call for air support, then I’ll be down. We got Gunny on a stretcher or something?”

  “Corporal Bell broke up a sofa and made one out of that.”

  “Alright, get moving. I’ll catch you up at the top of the quarry.” He picked up the handset for the field radio. “Angel, Angel, Marine JTAC.”

  “JTAC, go for Angel.” Bunny had pulled her last two Fantoms west of Buq’ata into Israeli airspace and was circling them low and behind the small range of hills overlooking the Golan Heights.

  “Got a damage assessment for you. We disabled four Armata main battle tanks with mines. You knocked out one MBT and one UGV. Two other UGVs are immobile, probably because their motherships are stranded. But we still have one Armata MBT and Udar on the move, now two klicks from Buq’ata. We are preparing the civilians and wounded for evac but those tanks could seriously ruin our night.”

  “I’m guns dry, Patel. I could try a kamikaze hit…” Kovacs shook her head so vehemently O’Hare could feel the trailer rock, “… but that wouldn’t do much more than scratch the paint on an Armata. Best I can do is keep an eye on them, tell you exactly where they are.”

  Patel thought it through. “We could do with eyes in the sky over our position as we pull out,” he said. “Make sure the Druze don’t have any drones up that can see us on infrared. Watch for any patrols they might have circling the town.”

  “You got it. Keep the radio on this channel, I’ll update you.”

  “Copy. JTAC out.”

  As she cut the link, new icons flashed onto Bunny’s visor and her threat warning screen simultaneously, picked up by both the AWACS over Cyprus and the radar warning receivers on her own Fantoms. Four fast movers, heading for Golan from Syria, fanning out like their intention was to cover the length and breadth of the disputed territory. Her AI was calling them Okhotnik drones.

  Bunny had grown to hate the Russian bat-winged automatons. You couldn’t spook them. You couldn’t outguess them. And their AI reaction times were that millisecond faster than a human’s that could make the difference between life and death.

  She got on the blower to the controller in the Bombardier. “Falcon, Falcon, Merit.”

  “Merit, go for Falcon.”

  “Falcon, we have Russian drones inbound, you see them?”

  “Copy. You are clear to engage if they cross into Golani airspace or if they attack your aircraft from inside Syrian airspace.”

  “Thanks, Falcon, I know the ROE. I suggest you scramble two more Fantoms from Akrotiri. We are likely to be weapons dry soon if these Russians are making another push.”

  “Copy that, Merit. Will check what Akrotiri has on readiness and revert. Falcon out.”

  “Kovacs,” Bunny said. “You know that override you put into the code that can give our Fantoms fully autonomous decision making?”

  Shelly squinted at her. “No, what override?”

  Bunny sighed. “Come on, girl. I went through that code line by line … it’s there.”

  Kovacs looked at her warily. “There are eight million lines of code in the Fantom combat AI, you couldn’t have.”

  Bunny shrugged. “Alright, I lied. But you know I know it’s there, your face says it all. We need to activate it.”

  “No. We don’t know how those Fantoms will perform if we give them full air-to-air combat autonomy,” Kovacs protested. “They might shoot down a damn Israeli plane!”

  “Hah, so it is there! They aren’t going to shoot down any Israeli if it has its Identify Friend or Foe transponder on. Look, I have two birds left with air-to-air weapons. They are up against four Okhotniks and those things are fire.”

  Patel rolled onto his stomach, pushing the radio handset back into the pouch on the side of the backpack that held the 10lb. radio. Alright, no time to waste. He eyed the rooftop stairs about twenty yards away at the back of the terrace. So he wouldn’t be seen by the troops below, he’d have to crawl on his stomach the whole way pushing the 10lb. radio ahead of h
im, with his 15lb. rifle hanging awkwardly across his back, or push the radio with one hand, the rifle with the other, or…

  Screw it. Stay low and run for it.

  The Druze rifleman crouched on a rooftop 300 yards across town had taken his brother’s rifle up onto the roof with him. The rifle his brother had dropped when an American drone flew a fragmentation grenade under his hide earlier in the day and killed him.

  The Israeli IWI Dan rifle, with its long barrel and .338 Lapua Magnum ammunition, was accurate out to 1,200 yards and had a low-light scope – so though he was not a sniper, the rifleman felt confident he could put a bullet on target at a range of 300 yards.

  If he could find one.

  The Marines on the rooftop had not raised themselves above the rampart running around it, and he was too low to be able to shoot down into them. He’d seen fleeting movement at breaks in the concrete, but not enough for him to fire and give away his position. He’d scanned all of the windows facing the town too, but they were obscured with curtains and piled-up furniture and all lights inside the building were out. If there was anyone inside, he could not see them.

  When their MG crew had opened up on the building, he had intensified his scrutiny and nearly got a shot on one of the Marines as he appeared at a window and returned fire at the machine gun, but the man was gone as quickly as he appeared, and didn’t reappear.

  There was a cold fury boiling inside the rifleman’s guts. No matter what it took, at some time today he would avenge his dead brother.

  Then there were two heavy cracks from the rooftop, in quick succession, and the MG fell silent.

  He trained his scope on the ramparts again, sweeping slowly left to right, hoping that…

  There! A dark form, crouched, rising. Before he even realized it, his finger had twitched on the Dan’s trigger, sending a round downrange.