Cyber Warfare and the New World Order: World War III Series: Book IV

by James Rosone

  “Listen up, everyone. I know there is a lot riding on our success, but I don’t want you to concentrate on that. I want you to focus on the tasks assigned to each platoon and squad. You worry about doing your specific job, and let others worry about doing theirs. I want you to fixate every thought you have on operating your Reaper...don’t get bogged down by the bigger picture. If you run into a problem, get your squad leader’s attention quickly so we can address it. I spoke with our support company, and they have several computer technicians assigned to our company to help address any problems that may come up.”

  Pulling up a holographic map of the area, Captain Allen began to highlight the individual platoon and company objectives. “Things are going to move quickly once we are on the ground. Once our initial mission has been completed, there is a chance we will be given new orders and expected to capture more ground.”

  Showing some areas highlighted in red, Captain Allen pulled up more information showing the enemy unit composition. “As you can see, the Russians have moved a brigade of their own soldiers (who are equipped with exoskeleton suits) to the area as well. You can expect these guys to be ready for a fight. The Russians know that if we capture this peninsula, the war is that much closer to being won, so expect them to fight like cats backed into a corner.”

  “Remember, just because we are tied to virtual reality simulator equipment does not make what you are about to see, hear, and be a part of any less real. Keep your wits about you, and your head on a swivel. Do not take unnecessary risks, and do what you can to protect your EHD. Oh, and before we leave, I want you to remember one very important thing…we are going to crush them!” he roared to the delight of his men.

  With that, he dismissed the troops to their individual commanders and they quickly exited the briefing room to head to their simulator pods. As the soldiers got themselves strapped in, Paul walked over to his own simulation pod and began the process of hooking himself up.

  He changed into the skin-hugging jumpsuit that would mimic his every move and allow him to feel what the EHD felt. He put on his gloves and frictionless boots, then stepped onto the simulation platform and began to attach his helmet. Once the power had been activated, he immediately began a quick system check, just as they had been taught.

  Shortly after completing his system check, a message was sent across the battalion net, letting them know the helicopters would be lifting off shortly to begin the assault. As Paul looked from left to right, his EHD mimicked his move, and he could see the others in his transport pod doing similar checks. It was strange looking at the other Reapers, each had a name and rank written on its right chest area just as it would have if it were a regular soldier or Raptor suit. What he never got used to seeing was the soft glowing red eyes of the EHD. The lights for the eyes could be dimmed or turned off all together, and typically were darkened when operating at night. However, the physiological warfare folks believed that the soldiers should leave them on all the time, even if it gave away their positions at night. Their reasoning was simple; the strange sight was a powerful cause of intimidation and fear.

  A few minutes later, the transport pod began to lift off the deck of the America, carrying the Reapers towards their drop point. Paul couldn’t see that much while the EHD was in the transport pod. Switching channels on his visual input, Allen was able to see what the pilot saw as the helicopter travelled quickly at treetop level. In the distance, Paul saw anti-aircraft fire emanating from the direction of the Russian base and city nearby. Several missiles streaked towards some of the helicopters. He saw a Razorback take a direct hit--it exploded violently.

  A few minutes later, Paul saw the airfield his company had been assigned to secure. They were going to be landing towards the tail end of the runway, where the area was cleared of trees. There were no buildings nearby, which is why they had chosen this area to land the EHD pods. It would allow the helicopters enough time to drop the pods and then run back to the America to pick up the next load of EHDs.

  In seconds, the transport pod was on the ground, and Paul and his soldiers began to detach the restraints holding their Reapers in place. They quickly began to exit the transport and began to move as squads towards their objectives. Paul was moving with the second squad from first platoon towards what had been identified as the command building for the airfield. The targeting system on the EHD quickly identified several enemy soldiers, who immediately opened fire on the Reapers with their machine guns.

  Green tracers could be seen heading towards their position. Paul saw one of his fellow soldier’s EHD get hit with several rounds and fall to the ground. As he ran past the drone, he saw it get back up and continue to fire its rifle; soon it was running towards the enemy position with the rest of his squad. While Allen was sprinting towards his objective, he raised his rifle and shot at a small cluster of soldiers he saw emerging from the building in front of him.

  The targeting system on the EHD was amazing. Despite running across rough terrain, the Reaper could keep the rifle stable while tracking whatever target it had identified. Paul found himself awestruck at the integration of the virtual reality technology; the digital and physical world had blurred together in the EHD.

  The Russians began to pour more and more soldiers out of the surrounding buildings to attack the Americans. The Russians were truly caught off guard; they had been expecting the Americans to attack them, but had anticipated soldiers in Raptor combat suits. They did not know how to respond to this new threat.

  A Russian officer observing the attack from the window of one of the buildings a little farther away from the base headquarters would later write that in his memoirs of the war that when the Americans attacked with their new weapon, it looked like something out of a Sci-Fi novel. He saw a small cluster of soldiers’ attack one of the EHDs and hit it with at least a dozen rounds, only to see the drone get back up and continue to attack. Another drone had been hit by a heavy machine gun, ripping one of its arms off. The drone continued to fight on with it’s one good arm, until the heavy machine gunner hit it with a stream of rounds that eventually disabled the drone.

  Within an hour, Paul’s company had secured the airfield and their objectives. Of the 132 EHDs that participated in the attack, they had lost nineteen. Three of the soldiers from their maintenance platoon had been injured when a mortar round landed nearby their maintenance pod; however, aside from their injuries, his company had captured the enemy airfield with no casualties at all. This was a feat that would have cost his company dozens of dead or injured soldiers if they had carried out the attack with only the Raptor suits.

  The success of Captain Allen’s company was repeated throughout the peninsula as they continued to take control of each objective the EHDs had been given. By the end of the first day of the operation, they had secured half a dozen enemy airfields, and several small cities and port facilities. The 32nd Infantry Division immediately began to unload the rest of their armored vehicles and tanks as they began the task of turning the peninsula into a forward operating base and launch pad for further deep penetration operations into the Russian heartland. By the end of the first week, they had secured all their objectives with very few casualties. The division had 2,600 EHDs at the start of the operation and had lost 431 to enemy action and 214 to maintenance issues. The first combat test of the EHDs had proven successful and now their implementation across the rest of the army would begin in earnest.

  Honey Pot, Not so Sweet

  12 October 2042

  Moscow, Russia

  It was cloudy and dreary outside. A light mist was starting to fall as Petr Gromley entered the Pivnoi Bar. The tavern was a small, out of the way place that afforded those government officials who did not want to be seen with unsavory characters the opportunity to conduct meetings unnoticed. Mr. Gromley was not comfortable meeting Sasha Petrosky in Moscow, even if this was a secluded backroom bar. There were too many curious eyes and ears in Moscow for Gromley’s liking. He pulled his ball cap down a
little lower as he moved to a small table against the wall, not far from the door. He took a seat with his back against the wall, waiting for Sasha to arrive.

  Sasha is what people in the intelligence circles called “a honey pot.” She had been specially trained by Russian intelligence to use her looks and sexuality as a weapon for the purpose of gathering intelligence, and to eliminate those her superiors directed her to kill. Sasha was still young at thirty-two years old, and highly intelligent. She had studied economics at the London School of Economics and obtained a Master’s in finance at the Wharton School in Finance by the age of 24. Following a year of specialized training with the Russian SVR, the external intelligence and espionage arm of the FSB (Russian Secret Service), she had been recruited by Goldman Sachs to work as a financial analyst and consultant. This position afforded her favorable placement, and access to a wide range of influential people across the world. Her handler at Goldman Sachs ensured that Sasha had a loose consulting schedule and little oversight, which allowed her to work on a wide variety of opportunities.

  Sasha had been on assignment in London, tasked with obtaining information about the American Moon-mining operation. She had befriended the Chief Financial Officer of a British space mining corporation, who had just signed a joint venture agreement with Deep Space Industries, the leading company managing the mining operations for the American base on the Moon. Her company had helped them acquire the funding needed for the joint venture and her “new boyfriend” was only too eager to tell her all about the minerals being mined on the Moon and how the Americans were incorporating the materials into their new armor and technology.

  She was finally obtaining the valuable information she had been after, and now she had been called back to Moscow for a secret meeting. She risked blowing her cover; she had to travel through several different neutral countries without drawing suspicion. It was a risk, one she was not happy about having to take.

  As she walked into the bar, a place she had frequented during her SVR training many years ago, she spotted Petr. It had been said that Petr was the man behind the rise of President Fradkov and many of the other leaders within the Russian Federation. When she had been told that she would be meeting with Mr. Gromley, she was a bit taken aback. Why would such a powerful man want to meet with her? Not that she had a choice--she arranged for them to meet, and chose this place because it was a hole-in-the-wall place where two people could talk and go relatively unnoticed.

  Petr recognized Sasha as soon she walked through the door into the bar. His contacts had been right. She was a very attractive woman, though she was wearing a coat and headscarf that did a good job of hiding her beauty. As she walked up to his table, she greeted him with a soft kiss on both cheeks and then took her seat next to his, as if they were close friends.

  Blushing slightly, Sasha said, “It is a pleasure to meet you…but I must say I am not sure why you have asked for me.”

  Sizing her up before responding, he told her, “I have recalled you because I have an important mission for you. I need someone of your skillset and trust to do what I am about to ask.”

  Her eyes darted about, searching his for any signs or clues of what he meant. Not sure what this cryptic response meant, she asked, “What tasks do you have for me? I cannot be away from my original assignment for very long without drawing suspicion.”

  Gromley slid a capsule across the table towards Sasha, who casually picked it up and quickly placed it in her Louis Vuitton handbag. “You are going to be brought to President Fradkov’s Dasha tomorrow night along, with one other woman. Each Wednesday night, he has two whores brought to his Dasha for the evening. We are replacing one of his regulars with you for the evening. He may be suspicious, but you will need to dissuade him from turning you away. Once he has accepted you, you need to swap out one of his Viagra pills with the one I just gave you, without being noticed.”

  Sasha thought about the capsule that had just been given to her and what was most likely in it. She did not like the thought of killing the President and being one of two prostitutes in the room with him when the poison took hold.

  Seeing her sour facial expression, Petr added, “The poison is time-delayed. It will take 48 hours for it to release in his body. Once it does, it will appear as if he has had a sudden heart attack. You will already be on your way back to London by the time the poison kicks in,” he said, reading her mind.

  Gromley handed her a cell phone and a piece of paper with additional instructions on it before leaving. As he got up, he said, “Do this assignment well, and you will go far in the SVR. Screw it up, and you’ll be dead before you know what happened.”

  As Sasha watched Gromley walk out of the bar, she was glad she had asked him come to her stomping grounds. This was only the second time she had met Gromley. Few people met him more than once. There were the figure heads in the SVR, who everyone knew, and then there was Petr Gromley, the spy who ran the spies. Very few people could even identify Petr Gromley, but he was probably the most powerful man in the Russian Federation. In many circles, he was only known as “The Shadow,” the unseen powerful force that pulled the puppet strings behind the curtain.

  Petr walked down the alley way, ducking into another bar to check that he had not been followed. He exited the rear of the bar, and then slipped into another restaurant, repeating the process before he eventually arrived at the subway station. He boarded two different subways and passed through three different stations before he arrived back at his office, confident he had not been followed. He then resumed his work, transferring generals from one unit to another and dispatching orders for certain military units to be rotated to the capital while others were sent to the front. It was all a well-orchestrated charade to ensure that units loyal to him and his benefactors were in place when Fradkov had his heart attack.

  Gromley had helped place Fradkov in power, along with his generals and cronies. Now he was removing them from command because of their incompetence. He had advised against attacking the Americans and Europeans, arguing that they should wait at least a year to let the IR and Chinese weaken America first. Fradkov and his generals would not listen. Now Fradkov wanted to join Premier Jinping’s Pan Asian Alliance. Giving up Russian sovereignty in a vain attempt to save his war was one step too far for the oligarchy who really ran the Russian government to endure. Fradkov needed to be removed and replaced before the war was truly lost. There was still time to make an honorable peace, but not if they waited much longer. The sudden loss of their Artic bases in Murmansk was the final straw.

  The New Colonizer of Africa

  12 October 2042

  Pretoria, South Africa

  Wang Ma was the Chinese Ambassador to the African Confederation; over time, he had become perhaps the most important man on the continent. For nearly four decades, China had been investing heavily into Africa and, in particular, South and East Africa. They had invested in developing industrial ports, heavy rail networks, international airports and other major infrastructure projects. During the 2020s, while the rest of the world was suffering a global depression and food shortages, the Chinese government had been working with their African partners to develop industrial-sized farms and an intricate water system that turned large swaths of previously unusable land into fertile farmlands for commercial farmers.

  The Chinese began to cultivate leaders and political parties over the course of several decades, ensuring there were always political leaders and parties that were sympathetic and friendly to Chinese policies and initiatives. The Chinese also encouraged their own citizens to emigrate to the African nations and removed any limits on the number of children a Chinese family could have if they relocated to an African country. After several decades, this had led to a massive Chinese diaspora in multiple African nations; they began to exert immense political and economic sway over these countries.

  When World War III broke out, many of these African nations chose to remain neutral. However, once it appeared that America was
going to lose, many of these nations chose to join China in declaring war against America. Led by handpicked leaders in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Madagascar and Zimbabwe, the African Confederation had been born in March of 2041. With assistance from the PLA, the “African Confed” (as it was being called) began a conquest of their neighbors, with the intent of uniting Africa under one banner, one policy.

  While Europe and America were fighting for their very survival against the Islamic Republic, the Russian Federation, and the People’s Republic of China, the African Confed had been conquering one African nation after another. By the end of 2041, the nations of Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo had fallen. Angola had willingly joined the Confederation and provided the Chinese Navy with South Atlantic naval ports.

  By the summer of 2042, when the war in Europe had started to turn against the Russians and the Chinese had lost control of the Pacific, the African Confederation had conquered all of Central Africa and half of Nigeria. The brunt of the fighting taking place on the continent now centered around parts of Cameroon and Nigeria as the Americans and the South American Multination Force began to provide military assistance to the fledgling governments, trying to do their best to fight against this new force.

  Ambassador Wang Ma’s purpose in Africa was simple--assist the African Confed in winning their war and in developing a sustainable long-term government and economy that could continue to support and sustain Chinese global dominance. Though Wang had been born in mainland China, he had spent most of his life in Africa. His father was a prominent businessman and had earned billions in mining and railroads; he had helped stitch Africa together through hundreds of thousands of miles of train tracks and brought enormous economic prosperity to the continent by linking their vital mineral resources with the very hungry Chinese manufacturers who would purchase those goods. The railroads he had helped to build also linked the countries together, growing the economies and bringing the people of the continent together. His legacy had helped to cement China as the nation who had brought Africa into the 21st century and beyond.