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

by FX Holden

  “Where the hell is Patel?” Bell asked.

  “Probably trying for one more kill,” Buckland said. “You know what he’s like with that damn cannon. He said he’d catch us up at the quarry.”

  “Hell he will, we need all hands to carry the Sarge and shepherd those civilians,” Bell said.

  “You calling me fat, Bell?” Jensen said, through teeth gritted against the pain in his groin.

  “Well, you’re no lightweight, Gunny,” Bell admitted. “We’ll need four men to get you down that slope out back. ’Less you want us to just pitch you over and meet you at the bottom?”

  “I’ll take the business class option, thanks.”

  They’d shifted the settlers onto the concrete apron out back, ready to move them out of the compound, but Jensen still lay on the floor of the hallway in Amal’s house, Stevens holding a bag of his own blood. Bell had had to give the guy something to do to stop him hopping from window to window looking for something to shoot at. Amal was bringing the civilians downstairs, trying to keep them calm. She’d have to get out back to set her demolition charges soon, with Johnson watching her back. With four needed to carry Jensen, and Lopez nursing a shattered humerus, that left only one spare pair of hands. They needed Patel now. “Business class it is. Good choice, Sarge. I’m going up to get Patel,” Bell decided. “He can play sniper again when we get to the LZ.”

  He took the stairs two at a time and then pulled himself up the spiral staircase to the rooftop, lifting his helmet carefully above the lip of the hole in the terrace floor.

  The first thing he saw was the radio, lying on the ground about five yards away. Then behind it Patel, face down on the tiles.

  In a pool of blood.

  The Corpsman in him reacted before the soldier did, and he pulled himself onto the terrace, crawling on his stomach to Patel as fast as he could. He had to drag himself through Patel’s blood to reach him. Guy wasn’t breathing. Bell rolled him onto his side, feeling for a pulse. Nothing. He felt his back, where the shirt was wet with blood, found the entry wound just under his fifth rib on the left side, and then he found the exit wound, above the third rib on his left side.

  And he rolled Patel back onto his stomach again.

  Damn fool. A large-caliber enemy bullet had taken him from behind, traveled diagonally through his ribcage, definitely puncturing his lung but probably also tearing through his heart, and then exited his chest, leaving through a hole the diameter of Bell’s thumb.

  Swinging his feet around, Bell hauled the big man’s body, rifle, combat gear and all toward the stairs and unceremoniously pushed him through, head first. He landed on the stairs with a sickening crunch. Bell crawled back across the floor for the radio next and pulled that behind him, until he reached the stairwell and lowered his legs into it.

  A shocked Amal Azaria was standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring at Patel’s body. “You think you can carry him? Fireman’s lift? Strip off all his gear,” Bell asked her, putting the radio pack on his back and unentangling Patel’s precious rifle from around his neck.

  “Is he…”

  “Dead? Yeah. But we take him with us, right?” Bell said, looking up at her. “If you can’t carry him, get someone else.”

  “I can carry him,” she said.

  As Bell tried to step over Patel’s body, the recoil pad of the rifle caught on his vest, the barrel jammed into the stair railings and Bell nearly fell head first down the stairs before catching his balance. “Goddamn piece of shit rifle!” Bell yelled and threw it down the stairs with a crash. He stood there panting, then wiped a bloodied hand over his face, staring down at Patel.

  “Easy, Corporal,” Amal said, holding a hand out to him.

  “He won it in a bet, you know that?”

  “I heard that.”

  “Got the stupid mother killed.”

  She helped him past her. “I guess so.”

  He turned back to her, pulling the straps on the radio pack tighter. “You need a hand?”

  She shook her head. “I can manage. You can take the radio and get the people outside, I’ll bring Corporal Patel down.”

  Bell picked up the Barrett, pulled out the magazine, worked the bolt to check the chamber was empty, then unlatched the upper receiver and pulled the bolt out. Shoving the bolt in his pocket, he stood the rifle against the wall. “Leave this here. It’s bad luck.”

  Then he went downstairs.

  US blockade line, Mediterranean Sea, May 20

  “They’re turning north,” Ears heard Lieutenant Drysdale say, his voice expressing disbelief. Looking up at the 360-degree situation display, Ears could see the icons for the two Iranian frigates, which had been sailing in train just behind the Russian cruiser Moskva, breaking away from the main group. “Lose their escort submarine and they’re giving up.”

  Ears could see Chief Goldmann open his mouth, close it again as he considered his words, and then open it again to speak. Both men were standing in the center of the CIC in plain view of all and Ears noted he wasn’t the only one watching the exchange. “Doubt it has much to do with losing that Fateh submarine, sir. I’d say more likely it’s the announcement of the October peace talks. Someone back in Iran told them to take their foot off the gas pedal.”

  Sure enough, the Iranian ships completed a leisurely turn and reversed course, headed back up the Aegean Sea.

  Yes! Ears exclaimed, though inside his own head. He allowed himself a tight little fist pump. We did it! Or someone did … now there would be no bluff or counterbluff with the Russians, no ‘shots across the bow’, no high-risk boarding operations. The Iranians had lost a sub in that torpedo exchange, and either the Brits or someone else – maybe the Israelis – might have taken some damage, but an all-out war at sea had been avoided.

  It wasn’t often that Ears saw common sense triumph in politics, but he’d already clocked up a couple of firsts on this voyage, maybe this was a third!

  Karpathou Strait, Aegean Sea, May 20

  His Majesty’s Astute-class submarine HMS Agincourt was only slightly less expensive than the aircraft carriers she had been put into the world to protect. By the time she was launched, she had cost 2.27 billion dollars. But she was also one of the most dangerous weapons platforms in the world.

  Powered by a Rolls Royce nuclear reactor, she could slide through the water, submerged, at up to 30 knots. In stealth mode, her speed was much lower, of course, but she was also nearly inaudible thanks to a pump-jet propulsion system. Her 38 weapons, including both torpedoes and cruise missiles, could be released through six reloadable 533mm torpedo tubes.

  But her true advantage was her sensor system, which featured an integrated search and attack sonar suite with bow, intercept, flank and towed arrays that meant the Agincourt could hear its target long before it risked being heard. And if it could hear you, it could kill you.

  As it had proven with that damn Israeli sub, the Gal, frolicking around it like a bloody dolphin around a whale, when in fact if it had so desired, the Agincourt could have sent it to the bottom of the Mediterranean at least thirty minutes earlier.

  Captain Allen ‘Puncher’ Courtenay, a curmudgeonly Tynesider from Gateshead near Newcastle, had little patience for frolicking. The nickname didn’t refer to a former career as a boxer; it was a derogatory short form of the name ‘horse puncher’ sometimes given to folk from Newcastle after an incident in which an aggrieved football fan punched a police horse in the head. But he wore the nickname ‘Puncher’ with pride because it told the world he didn’t stand for any bloody nonsense. He’d been trained on diesel subs before starting out his proper career as a navigator on Trafalgar-class nuclear subs, patrolling the Atlantic, the Baltic and the Med. Promoted to XO aboard a Swiftsure-class sub, where he’d learned how to get the most out of the new pump-jet propulsion systems being deployed for His Majesty’s nuclear attack submarines, before being handed command of a Trafalgar-class boat and, finally, the prize he’d been seeking all along, the newest an
d by his reckoning deadliest submarine in the world, the Agincourt.

  He wasn’t given to pride or boasting. His belief in his boat was shored up with cold, hard fact. In exercises against the pride of the US submarine fleet, the Virginia-class sub USS Silversides, the Agincourt had tracked the Silversides at ranges the Americans at first couldn’t believe. But when they began combat simulation exercises for real, the results spoke for themselves. After the spray settled, the Agincourt had been awarded four ‘kills’ against the Silversides, and the Silversides only one against the Agincourt.

  It made the Americans very happy that the British were their allies.

  And it meant they trusted ‘Puncher’ Courtenay completely when he and the Agincourt were given the job of blockading the Karpathou Strait leading from the Aegean into the Mediterranean Sea.

  “Pilot, continue ahead slow, take her to communication depth. Comms, raise the Canberra,” he ordered.

  They’d stalked the Russian-Iranian convoy from 900 feet below the surface, logging then tracking every single ship in the formation from the fast and noisy corvettes to the destroyers, frigates and cruiser Moskva, finally picking up the thudding slow-turning screws of the huge helicopter landing ship, the Pyotr Morgunov.

  The Pyotr Morgunov was now ten miles beyond them, and the main formation nearly twenty miles. Too far for torpedoes, but they still had a good enough solution on the fleet to enable them to fire their anti-ship missiles, if needed. Courtenay had checked in with the Canberra as the fleet approached and was asked to shadow the fleet only, not to engage. Now, with them sliding out of range, he wanted to check again before his optimal attack window had closed.

  “OOD, Sonar, the two Iranian frigates are maneuvering.” His sonar watch officer looked over at Courtenay in surprise from his position behind his sonarmen. “Commander, it looks they’re coming around to a heading that will bring them back towards us.”

  “What are the Russians doing?”

  “Continuing on current heading, sir, still making a beeline for Tartus. They’re right in amongst the US ships now, no change in heading or speed.”

  The Iranians were breaking out of formation and headed back toward them, while the Russians were proceeding to Syria? It was mystifying, unless…

  “Any chance they’ve picked us up?”

  “Not a chance in hell, sir. Not at this range. We’re twenty miles distant, no sign of another sub or warship near us, no sign of dipping sonar from a helo.”

  “Right, pilot continue to comms depth, prepare to take us back down as soon as we sort this out with the Canberra.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Agincourt rose silently to fifty feet below the water, then raised her digital periscope. She didn’t have a traditional optical scope, but a range of radio, radar and video viewing masts that could be raised with the ship still submerged.

  Courtenay did a quick scan of the 360-degree video feed himself to ensure there were no unexpected threats within visual range, had his sonarmen clear the board of any threats on the sonar and radar plots, and then took the headset his comms officer was handing him.

  “Canberra for you, Commander.”

  “Captain Andrews? Captain Courtenay, Agincourt. We have just picked up indications the two Iranian frigates are turning back toward us, can you confirm?”

  “Good timing, Agincourt,” the US Flotilla Commander replied. “We are seeing the same thing. We are currently surrounded by damn Russians going hell for leather for Tartus, but the Iranians are turning back. We believe it’s related to the announcement of arms limitation negotiations between Israel and Iran. Iran’s sending a signal it’s backing off.”

  “Understood. I propose we let the Iranians come to us, then shadow them up the Aegean to the Bosphorus, just to make sure they’re headed home. Or do you want us to stay in contact with the main body of Russians, just in case?”

  “No. Stay on the Iranians please, Agincourt. We’re letting the Russians pass and unless the situation changes, things seem to be calming down here. If you hear anything go boom, then I was wrong and we’d probably appreciate an assist.”

  Courtenay smiled at the US commander’s understatement.

  “Agincourt copies, Captain. We’ll return to patrol depth, trail the Iranians to the Bosphorus and then check in again. Agincourt out.” He pulled the headset off and handed it back to his comms officer.

  “Pilot, ahead slow, maintain heading, take her down to 500. Weapons and sensors, priority targets are the Iranians, please. Continue to track and maintain firing solutions on the Russians, alert me as we lose tracking. But the Sinjan and Amol are the mission now. We’ll let them come to us, then turn to follow.”

  Another commander might have been disappointed that it appeared the coming conflict was fizzling out, but not Puncher Courtenay. His idea of a successful mission was one where he returned to his base in Faslane with as many submarines as he left with.

  Aboard the IRIN Sinjan Captain Hossein Rostami watched with unconcealed pride from his bridge as his helmsman stayed perfectly inside the Amol’s wake through the tight turn that was going to take them back to the Bosphorus Strait on a course for home. The other trimaran frigate left a phosphorescent trail of foam behind it that glowed almost purple in the light of the near full moon and the Sinjan was bisecting it perfectly with its bow.

  Proud as he was, he could also not help but feel dismayed. His crew had been running drills to prepare them for a possible conflict with the US blockade force, and he was confident they would have prevailed in any scenario – from resisting a boarding party to open warfare between themselves and the US destroyers. It may have been a strategic victory, but the war fighter in him also saw it as a lost tactical opportunity to test his magnificent ship and its crew.

  “You look a little downhearted, Captain Rostami,” Admiral Karim Daei said beside him. “You were perhaps looking forward to making port in Tartus for the first time?”

  “First time for the Sinjan, Admiral, not for me,” Rostami told him. “I visited in 2025 as XO on the Tondar and made a tour of the old Crusader Citadel. It was there I learned several lessons.”

  Admiral Daei raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what were they?”

  “That the Crusader is still our enemy. He has been fighting to control our lands for one thousand years and he will never relent. I also learned that it is futile trying to make peace with the Crusader. The Sunni lord Saladin conquered Tartus, taking it from the Crusaders in 1188, but the Knights Templar retreated to their citadel inside the city and Saladin allowed them to remain there, like a cancer in the center of his empire. From inside their citadel, they plotted their return and it took another hundred years and another war against the Crusaders to finally rid Tartus of their presence.”

  “So, the Christian nations have always been our enemy and will always be so?”

  “I believe so, yes, Admiral.”

  “And where we have shown them civility and forbearance in the past, it has been abused, so we must be resolute and ruthless now?”

  “If by ruthless you mean to act where action is warranted, yes. In the museum at Tartus there was a history of the Sunni general Saladin, which recounted his capture of Jerusalem. In that battle he took a Crusader king hostage, Raynald. Despite a peace agreement, Raynald’s troops had been raiding civilian caravans, and he had insulted the prophet and killed unarmed caravanners. Saladin personally beheaded Raynald. There were no more Crusader attacks on the caravans.”

  “So, by not confronting the Crusader here today, by seeking a path to peace, you feel we are repeating the mistake of the Sunni Saladin?” the Admiral asked.

  “I do not question the decisions of the Supreme Leader or the Council. But I suspect that any peace with the Crusader will only last until he sees an opportunity to break it again.”

  “Then we may hope that the weapons now in our possession will persuade your modern-day Crusaders that the cost of that opportunity is a price they dare not pay.”


  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “Is there any word from the Qaaem?”

  The Fateh-class submarine Qaaem had been patrolling the sea lanes leading from the Aegean into the Mediterranean Sea, preparing to intervene if required to support a defense of the Russian-Iranian fleet. But it had missed its last transmission window. With Russian, Iranian, Israeli and potentially western submarines patrolling the same waters, the risk of an incident below the waves was high.

  “No. They are nearly an hour overdue. The US destroyers have been actively searching for submarines with their helos and drones, so they may have been forced deep to evade them. But we…”

  His Officer of the Deck suddenly interrupted. “Captain, contact on towed sonar array! Subsurface contact, five miles astern!”

  Oval Office, White House, May 20

  Oliver Henderson took Carmine Lewis with him to his next press briefing preparation. He wasn’t the type who wanted to be closely scripted, but he also didn’t like to be taken unawares, so they always rehearsed with his Chief of Staff Karl Allen throwing questions at him, and a subject matter expert like Carmine helping with the content of his responses, while his Press Secretary, Anna Kaspersky, helped him refine his delivery.

  “Alright, I welcome the indications from the leaders of Iran and Israel that they are willing to discuss arms limitations as a first step toward peaceful relations blah blah blah…” Henderson said, reading from the text prepared for him. “It’s more or less a repeat of our press statement, so let’s get to possible questions.”

  “So we have definitive proof Iran has nuclear weapons?” Allen asked with no preamble, not giving Henderson time to settle in.

  “Yes. We have established beyond doubt that Iran acquired a number of weapons from North Korea.” He looked to Anna Kaspersky. “I leave it there, right?”

  She nodded. “Answer the question, don’t elaborate.”

  “What proof?” Karl followed up.