by Chris James
On the wall in front of them hung a large screen showing BBC News. To images of burnt and blasted sheets of twisted metal, the anchor said: “These pictures appear to show the remains of an Israeli Nesher 101-C autonomous combat aircraft. The Office of the Third Caliph claims that Israel attacked the Caliphate with two hundred and fifty-six of these ACAs, each of which was armed with uranium-234 fission warheads. If the Israeli ACAs had got through the Caliphate’s defences and reached their targets, it’s estimated they would have cost the lives of tens of millions of Caliphate subjects.”
Prime Minister Dahra Napier said: “Incredible. Could that evidence have been manufactured somehow? Planted?”
Defence Secretary Phillip Gough stroked his trimmed beard and said: “Not a chance. The world and his wife tracked the Israeli launches and followed them until they disappeared inside Caliphate territory. Frankly, I think we’ve had the lesser of two horrendous evils. If the Israeli attack had succeeded, serious doses of radiation would’ve been blowing all around the world for years.”
“And what’s happening inside Israel now?” Napier asked.
Gough shrugged his shoulders, “We don’t know. As with Turkey, when the Caliphate’s ACAs gain air superiority in a given battle space, satellites blanket the area with impenetrable jamming.”
“Okay,” Napier said, “and how do we defeat that?”
Gough hesitated, “Er, we’ve got experts at Porton Down working on a solution now.”
“You mean they can just control any space they like?” Napier asked.
“Not exactly,” Gough replied. “It’s more about force projection. We agreed to the Caliphate’s isolationist stance as it kept the peace, yes? Over twenty years ago, it developed an earlier version of this not to stop us from seeing in, but to stop its subjects from communicating with each other. The First Caliph didn’t want any factions and other splinter groups joining together to overthrow him. Now, as long as there was peace, which there was until Tuesday, successive governments accepted the status quo, under pressure from China. But after what’s happened the last two days, we’re in wholly unchartered territory. The Caliphate has hit our navies, Turkey and now Israel with weapons we didn’t know it had and which are, however much we might not like it, actually quite a bit better than ours.”
For a moment, the room fell into silence, until Webb muttered: “The press are going to have a field day with this. The bloody Caliph couldn’t have managed this any better.”
Terry said: “I’m sure he did take global public opinion into account, but the foremost thing to note here is that we have now witnessed two tactically perfect assaults on neighbouring countries. Invading Turkey first and then allowing the Israelis to assume he’d left his own people relatively unprotected was a stroke of genius.”
“And,” Gough added, “by goading Israel into trying to nuke him, then by defeating that, he’s kept the moral high ground by replying with a non-nuclear counterattack.”
“I know,” Webb sighed. “The global press are horrified at the violence but, if you can believe this, they’re broadly supportive of the Cal—”
“That’s because of China, Crispin,” Napier interrupted. “Most countries in Asia, Africa and South America regard China as the saviour of the world. And the Caliphate is China’s creation, so it stands to reason that on other continents, the Caliphate gets the benefit of the doubt.” Napier frowned and pinched the bridge of her nose. Terry looked on, wondering how she was really coping.
Napier glanced around the room, at each of the men who surrounded her, and said: “The question is: what happens next? What happens when Turkey is fully assimilated, when those poor Israelis are either destroyed or otherwise released from that dreadful terror? What will the Third Caliph do then?”
“Squonk,” Gough called out, addressing the Ministry of Defence’s super AI.
“Yes?” came a gender-neutral voice.
“Display current probability blocks for future Caliphate action.”
The images of the destroyed Israeli Nesher ACA were replaced with a simple block graph.
Gough spoke: “Okay, along the bottom we have the most likely options: attack India, attack Russia, attack Europe, or take no further offensive action. Up the side, we have time, from one day to one month from now. Each block contains Squonk’s percentage forecasts.”
Terry watched the others study the blocks, which gave varying probabilities of the Caliphate’s next actions. Terry didn’t need to look at the graph because Gough had shown it to him when he was in transit to the meeting, and in any case after this week, he didn’t trust Squonk to tell him the sky was blue.
Napier spoke: “The ‘take no further offensive action’ for the next week is the highest figure, the most probable. Why is that?”
Gough looked at Terry. “Sir Terry?”
The General answered: “Normal military doctrine insists the invader needs time to consolidate newly gained territory. In the case of Turkey, Squonk estimates that it will take Caliphate forces at least two weeks to establish full control over the country and begin its assimilation into the Caliphate properly, so they will not take any further military action.”
She looked at him pointedly: “Do you agree with it?”
“No, I do not,” Terry replied, and waited for one of the others to suggest that the super AI must know better.
None did. Napier asked: “Why?”
“I’d like to say only because it completely missed this week’s staggering events, but it’s more than that.”
“Go on,” Napier said.
“Let me show you what I mean,” he said. “Squonk, recalculate this graph to factor in a one-hundred percent certainty that the data contained in the leaked data-pod is in fact true.”
The heights of the bars changed, and the ‘take no further offensive action’ option shrivelled almost to zero. Terry spoke: “This is a little nearer the likelihood of what we can expect.”
Napier let out a gasp. She stood and faced Terry with a look of shocked realisation: “Of course, it makes sense now… If he’s built such huge military forces, he has to use them. He absolutely must use them.”
Terry nodded as he noticed the others’ faces drop. “He absolutely cannot, not use that vast an army.”
“Three million men under arms, the data-pod claimed,” Gough said.
Terry shook his head, “Not claimed, but told. It’s fact, not planted evidence. It never was,” he said to Gough. Then he turned to Napier: “That data-pod has been the only reliable thing all along, PM. It has to be accurate. It’s the only way the Caliphate could have the volume of arms necessary to attack two large and well-armed countries at the same time, and be the easy victor against both. And with that volume of personnel, guided by their own super AI, I do not believe it will take them two weeks to consolidate their hold on Turkey. The Third Caliph has to move his warriors, soon.
“Now, the one thing only that madman knows is where he’s going to deploy those warriors. Is he going to take on India, with the third largest military in the world? Is he going into Russia’s underbelly to assimilate the Muslims there, and risk upsetting China in result? Or is he going to turn his attention to the rather weaker Europe and NATO?”
All heads turned to look at the bar chart and saw there was very little difference between the three options.
Napier blinked and said in a tight voice: “I think we should prepare for the worst.”
Chapter 20
15.28 Wednesday 8 February 2062
TERRY LOOKED AROUND the large, virtual meeting room at the forty or so of his service chiefs of staff and their aides, and asked: “Any questions?”
The vice chief of staff of the RAF, a slight man with a thin nose on a drawn face, said: “Sir Terry, in exercises in the last few years, we had problems with the Greeks and Italians. Are you confident we will be able to rely on them if the Caliphate attacks Europe?”
“I believe nothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of t
otal annihilation. As I mentioned in the presentation, I believe that if the Caliphate attacks Europe, we will see a definite increase in performance, but in any case I will be talking with their NATO chiefs in the near future.”
“Sir Terry,” called the colonel of the Royal Logistics Corps, a severe-looking middle-aged woman with short brown hair. “I think the refugee estimates are a bit on the low side. It’s fair to suppose that every last European citizen has seen the pictures from Turkey and Israel, especially Israel, so I think that if the Caliphate does invade Europe, the only people who wouldn’t run would be those who couldn’t due to physical incapacity. In addition, if they use the ACA with the laser that they’ve used on the Israelis, we won’t be able to fight back. It will be a slaughter.”
Terry’s adjutant, John Simms, interjected: “The NATO naming committee has ascribed the reporting name ‘Lapwing’ to that design of Caliphate ACA.”
Terry replied: “In the event of an invasion, a great deal will depend on their tactics. Later today, more in-depth scenarios will be available, but right now we’re severely hampered by the lack of hard data.”
“Can’t the spooks help us out more, especially through third countries?” asked a lieutenant colonel responsible for combat service support.
Terry said: “We’re ramping up our intel-gathering in tandem with the Americans and other NATO members, but we have precious little to go on. If war is coming, people, it’s going to be completely unlike any other war in our countries’ histories. The opportunities for subterfuge simply won’t be there.”
An aide to the colonel from the Royal Engineers raised a hand and spoke when Terry nodded. “General, one area of concern which you touched on in your presentation concerns comms. If an invasion comes and it moves as quickly as it did in Turkey and Israel, will NATO be able to accelerate reactivation of StratCom?”
“StratCom and the other centres of excellence have been mothballed for the last decade, so it’s going to take some time, but NATO is reassessing all of them to determine which will offer the greatest benefit in the event of an invasion.”
Terry looked around at his audience, waiting. A moment later, he said: “Okay then, if there are no more questions, we’ll close now. Thank you all for attending. I’ll conclude by reminding you that some kind of confrontation with the New Persian Caliphate is, in my opinion, inevitable. I sincerely hope I am wrong. But if we look at the events of the last two days, the adventure upon which the Third Caliph has embarked sits easily alongside the most shocking surprise military attacks in history, and to think that his attention lies somewhere other than Europe and NATO is, again in my opinion, a luxury we cannot afford. Please, people, go back to your divisions and regiments and tell them to get ready. As this week has shown, events could move incredibly quickly, and we, the British Armed Forces, who remain the best armed forces the world has ever seen, may soon be forced into a confrontation which we did not seek, but in which we will prevail, as we have prevailed in conflicts for centuries. Good luck.”
Terry watched a number of the participants vanish and then removed his own VR glasses to return fully to the kitchen in his home.
“Tea’s brewing,” he heard his wife Maureen say.
Terry exhaled and got up from the stool to walk around the table and stare at the garden, lost in thought. He knew his wife would never question him about his work, which is what he adored about her. She would wait for him to tell her, and then she would use her formidable intuition to clarify, verify, and ensure he’d missed nothing that could damage him.
“You know, Maureen, I can’t quite believe I’ve just had to talk like that to those chiefs of staff. It seems incredible that a vast machinery has begun functioning, with me at its head.”
“If you think about it,” she said, stirring his mug of tea and removing the bag when she judged the liquid sufficiently malty, “they probably feel better having you point things out to them clearly.”
Terry smiled as he took the mug of tea. “Thank you,” he said.
Maureen let out a sigh and also glanced at the garden. “Pity it’s not warm enough to sit outside.”
The weak February sun washed the green from the lawn, making it appear a sickly, undernourished yellow. The branches on the trees in the corners stuck out, naked, and the borders offered nothing but dirt. The bleakness matched Terry’s mood and his fears. He sipped his tea and said: “It’s strange. I was due to retire later in the year. A part of me wonders why this has happened now, Maureen. Why this week? Why not any other week? They must have been planning this for years.”
“Because it’s happened. But it’s what you’ve spent a lifetime being prepared for. I remember when we were courting and you told me that every soldier always hoped for at least one war.”
Terry chuckled. “Yes, I remember. But I never believed it would come. It seems so strange that I always thought peace in Europe had achieved some kind of permanency, so much so that until last weekend I didn’t give it a second thought.”
Their eyes met, and Maureen smiled and said: “No retirement for you yet, Terry.”
Chapter 21
15.45 Wednesday 8 February 2062
BERAT KARTAL CYCLED past the silent distribution centre on the outskirts of the town of Durasilli. Ahead of him, the sun hued the high clouds a fiery red, and he realised he’d have to stop for the night soon, especially as the temperature had dropped. To take his mind off his aching legs and back and arms, he tried to calculate his averages of speed and distance, and then to extrapolate how long it would take him to reach the port city of Izmir.
However, he couldn’t concentrate. The sights he’d seen and the conversations he’d had in the thirty-six hours since fleeing his home in Usak concerned him greatly. Most upsetting had been witnessing the abject shock and panic in what he assumed were otherwise perfectly rational people. But now their devices didn’t work anymore, they didn’t know what was happening and couldn’t find out. Lenses in eyes remained empty and unresponsive; handheld slates spun open to reveal nothingness. And this was only at the individual level. Berat didn’t need to imagine the chaos at the levels of communities and local governments and provinces, because he witnessed it as he pedalled on.
The previous night he’d stayed at a distribution centre not dissimilar to the one he now cycled past, where the handful of humans who oversaw the super AI couldn’t grasp at all why the centre no longer functioned. Berat had explained patiently how the Caliphate’s microwave bursts—very short and very low—burned out unprotected components, and nearly all civilian devices were unprotected. The people to whom he’d given this bad news reacted with anger and frustration, seeming to feel strongly that such a situation shouldn’t have been allowed to happen. Berat could only sympathise with them and then be on his way.
Later, he stopped at a vehicle charging station to beg some water. He filled a two-litre plastic bottle and spoke to a policeman, who knew nothing but explained that only military equipment would’ve survived the microwave bursts. Berat cycled on for a few hours. He noticed people beginning to move. The first refugees of this new war, he thought with mounting bitterness. Families with children carried their most valuable possessions in backpacks or plastic carrier bags. When he stopped for a rest, he greeted and then questioned some of them. Again, anger congealed with frustration to produce a sickly animosity which acted as a cover for the sense of impotence, especially in the men. All headed in the same direction as Berat: the port city of Izmir and the hope of a ship to escape the country.
As the light faded, Berat’s attention was caught by a large crowd of people up ahead. He pedalled around pedestrians as the road became busier, and saw a sign that read ‘Yelda Restoran’. He decided to chain his bike to the supporting post of a large sign some distance from the throng. Once again, he marvelled at the sense of true exploration. For all of his life, when he arrived at a new destination, his slate or his lens would tell him everything he needed to know. To people of his generation, n
othing was a mystery; everything was explained succinctly. Now, Berat found himself approaching people and places with no advance indication of who or what they might be. At some deeper level, he felt thrilled and enriched. To confront a complete stranger with no knowledge of whom they were felt incredibly liberating.
He joined the unthreatening crowd. Families with small children and elderly parents trudged on to the charging station with a little knot of low buildings, likely hoping for some small corner in which to huddle and avoid the chill of the February night. The sound of an argument came from somewhere to his left. He heard the shrill squawk of an elderly grandmother matched against the deep muscular voice of a man. He eased his way nearer.
The elderly woman shouted: “What do you know, eh? This Caliph will kill all of us. I heard from my grandson in Adana they have lasers and are burning all of the young men in each town.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about, hag,” the man chided her. “The Caliphate’s warriors are coming to protect us. Did not our great President Demir himself say we would have a vote whether to join—”
“Protect us from what?” another male voice asked.
“Demir is a fat pig,” someone else called out.
Berat edged closer and saw through the mass of shoulders and arms an elderly woman standing on a couple of wooden pallets. Her wide face wore a concerned expression and Berat wondered when and how this gathering had begun.
A man in the crowd motioned to the elderly woman: “Your grandson is in Adana; I have a cousin just along from there, on the coast in Mersin, and this morning he told me warriors are processing civilians to get them ready for assimilation. He said the only fighting is from units of the Turkish Army and Police. Remember, everyone, the Third Caliph is the most peaceful leader in the world—”
