by Chris Hechtl
The bear stopped sniffing to rub his chin thoughtfully. He'd pulled off a couple of daring moves with Khan, the last being a run through a sewer line that had allowed them to come up behind enemy lines and then tear them a new one. Of course Khan had gotten all the credit.
“I wish it could go on longer,” Baloo murmured, “and focus it. They say lightning doesn't hit the same place twice, but why not?”
The tiger stared at him for long moment. “You are talking about the orbital bombardment?”
The bear nodded. “Sure. It's just metal and ceramic, right? Bit of carbon mixed in, some electronics to control it … if they dropped enough of it at one time, I bet they could paste anything they wanted. So why don't they?”
The tiger stared at him with slitted eyes for a long moment before he slowly nodded. He went behind his desk and leaned forward expectantly. “Continue.”
“We could hit …” Baloo's eyes grew bright. “We've tried to hit the PDCs with gunships. They are covered by the ground and anti-air units. So, saturation bombardment. Instead of one rock, drop ten! Hell, drop a hundred! All on top of the same spot if necessary, all at the same time. Not this one-at-a-time crap, letting them pick them off …”
“Defeat in detail versus overwhelming force,” the tiger murmured.
“Exactly,” Baloo said, snapping his fingers.
“I'll consider it. Good work, Baloo. Return to your unit.”
“Sure thing, Khanny baby,” the irrepressible bear said, scooping up his helmet and gear. He gave a jaunty salute then headed off.
The tiger however didn't see him leave. He had sunken into his plush but slightly ripped-up office chair his people had found for him and had already started to type out a fire request to his chain of command. If he was lucky, he'd get his wish.
If he was truly lucky, they'd do it quickly. He, however, was a realist and knew better than to count on luck alone.
<>V<>
Major Khan's suggestion to the brass to strike the PDCs and other primary targets with a saturation bombardment quickly worked its way up the chain of command, right up to Olympus within a day. General Martell personally signed off on the request and asked that it be expedited.
The idea wasn't new to hit a target area with a saturation bombardment or hit one area with a bombardment, which was actually a feint for an air strike on another location. Saturating the target's ability to fight back would crush any resistance and insure that it was obliterated. If it was there. If it didn't get withdrawn under shielding or was moved. If it wasn't a decoy. There were a lot of ifs to consider carefully.
The problem was not just the bean counters but also getting enough platforms over a given target to launch the KEW at the same time. Isaac frowned as he considered the situation carefully. In order for the idea to work, he'd either have to deploy a lot more platforms or group the ones he currently had deployed. They would also go through a lot of munitions in a very short period of time, which would mean they would need to be serviced. Most likely frequently.
But if it worked it would cut a hole in the enemy's lines. It could break the stalemate and force him to retreat and regroup.
“Agreed. We'll attempt it in Pakistan and on the Indian border where Khan is situated since he suggested it. At the very least, it will break the deadlock in the area and shrink the tin can's orbital umbrella a bit.”
“Yes, sir,” Commander Mizu replied with a nod. “We're going to burn through a lot of munitions. And we're going to leave some areas uncovered. They won't be able to call for fire support. The same for Khan's units, sir.”
“Let them know that. Get maintenance on putting half of our reserve platforms out now and get them to stockpile new munitions on the tugs. Logistics …,” such orders had to flow properly well ahead of an offensive or your own side got caught off guard and couldn't follow up a breakthrough. “Give them two days to get the planning and such sorted out.”
The commander winced. It would probably take more than two days to get something sorted out. The logistics tail would have to be stepped up to move the munitions forward from the Lagrange staging grounds for instance. That would disrupt shipping for other vital gear and personnel.
It could cause a ripple effect that could seriously mess with the war front everywhere if they weren't careful.
“It's worth it,” Isaac growled, also aware of the risks involved. “Make it two days to get the planning sorted and we'll initiate the test at the end of the week.”
“Yes, sir,” the commander said.
Isaac grimaced. He was aware that one test without a follow-up would allow the machines to redeploy and find a possible counter. He wasn't certain a counter could be initiated however. They'd have to wait and see.
<>V<>
One week later the first saturation bombardment was scheduled to commence. It was scheduled for just before sunup to allow the Marines daylight time to take advantage of the situation.
The plan had also evolved a bit with a bit of a decoy in the opening moves. The first platform launched a trio of hammers at three targets within the Pakistan PDC's area of operation. One was targeted on a large concentration of robotic troops, one on a massive server complex, and the last launched a little late and was targeted on the PDC itself. During the distraction, while the PDC and neighboring PDCs in the area were engaged in defending themselves and their AO, ground and air units struck at secondary targets elsewhere. They focused on anti-air units as well as the PDCs themselves.
All three of the incoming hammers were knocked off course. That had been expected. But it had done its job; the Pakistani PDC had exposed itself in its attack. The real attack commenced before it had finished firing on its own attacker. Dozens, then hundreds of rounds opened up, forming an almost continuous chain of light to one single point on the ground. Then four more rounds were launched from nearby platforms, these on targets of opportunity.
The PDC control nets were set to prioritize their fire to protect themselves first; after all, if they were destroyed they couldn't protect other units or facilities. But the saturation bombardment was too much for it. It fired as it retreated into the mountainside hole, driven in by the torrent of angry rain.
The rounds began to impact and chew into the mountainside, burying the hole from where the PDC had been pulled into. If there were other places where it could come out, these too would be found and buried in rubble. But for now it did its job. The four rounds that had been launched were followed by dozens more. These were smaller and faster.
The first four hit the server farm, concentration of troops, and a vehicle park. The second wave hit and flattened the air strips, armored bunkers and hangars, damns, power transmission lines, as well as the known ammunition and fuel dumps in the area.
Baloo and Khan stood outside and watched vertical lightning light up the distant horizons like Zeus's thunderbolts. “Bea-u-tiful,” Baloo drawled softly.
“Time to get to work,” Khan said, putting his own helmet on.
“I couldn't have said it better myself. Glad you're willing to get your hands dirty, Major,” the bear said as he handed a rifle to the tiger.
<>V<>
Jack saw the bombed-out Earth clearly for the first time. Before, he'd seen a slice of territory here, a sliver of a continent there before the clouds covered it over. The military had a complete composite of the world but an image in memory wasn't like the real thing.
As he floated there, he could see where the mini ice age had enveloped the pole areas and spread down or in South America's case, upward. Global warming was a distant memory now he mused, no more melting glaciers and rising sea levels.
As his eyes roved the planet, he saw the distant sparkles of explosions along the fronts. He turned away from them, looking at areas that had yet to be touched by the Marines. He made a mental note that Greenland and Iceland would need to be cleansed. He jotted the email out to ask Isaac about it as well as prodding high command into forming arctic teams to hit the pole areas
.
As the planet turned slowly, he heard a gasp off to his right. He looked at the woman and then back to the view of the sight of craters. On some parts of Earth, it looked worse than the moon. Many were from the war's first moments, but others, some on top of each other, were from the orbital bombardment. As he watched a satellite platform opened up raining ceramic and carbon-coated metal destruction on something below. India he noted absently. Hopefully something mechanical he thought.
His eyes tried to trace the line all the way down to impact, but there was a cloud in the way. Still, his imagination filled in the blanks. The bolt of destruction, the hot wash of air exploding outward, tearing apart stuff in range, the mushroom cloud rising with the impacts, the crater, but very little radiation.
At least they were merciful on that front. Small mercies he thought.
<>V<>
Major Khan's plan of saturation strikes against PDCs had been anticipated years ago by Zhukov and the other military A.I. They wondered briefly why it had taken so long for the spacers to enact the measure; it was after all a logical attack method. The only possible answer was that it was proof that humans were slow and inefficient, though Zhukov put forward the alternative theory that there was a possible political complication to the enemy's command and control network.
Zhukov suggested that some humans were balking at the cost and therefore some were conservative about munition expenditures. Their “stomach for war” was reaching a low point, based on psychological modeling the A.I. estimated the general public wished it was over.
Additional attritional losses might trigger a pullback, followed by an additional stalemate situation, possibly long enough for one side or the other to come up with a new series of weapons while also rearming their current forces. Ares, Nike, and Enyalios agreed with the concept and put forth the idea of allowing a hole to be opened on their own terms, a form of trap that they could use to hammer the Marine forces.
However, Zhukov put forward that they must protect the PDCs to prevent orbital strikes elsewhere while also protecting against EMP strikes. Once the PDCs were gone, they would be very hard to replace. That cold logic was inescapable.
Their current counter to protect their PDCs was to move the mobile units around or hide them. Ares and Zhukov had been in the process of converting some of the boomer submarines into mobile platforms before the orbital bombardments had commenced. The plan had been to convert their missile tubes into firing clusters of counter missiles.
There were problems with the idea of course; the missiles would be blind fired and reliant on their own internal sensors and tiny computer minds to perform their missions. Before they could get into the engineering of the project, the bombardment had commenced. The units able to move had been moved out to sea before the drydocks were destroyed. Now there was no means to refit them.
Resupplying the units was also a problem. Some had a limited amount of parts and a repair mech crew to keep the sub functional. They had a limited amount of torpedoes and very few cruise missiles left in their inventory. Only one prototype sub had been outfitted with counter missiles. It sat off the Atlantic Coast of North America.
It was a dilemma not easily solved. The ships that were outfitted with the weapons would, of course, move around as much as possible. However, the satellites could track them, and they were burning fuel while underway.
The mobile forces on the ground had more places to hide but couldn't escape an area as easily once they were pinpointed. It was a tough decision each time an A.I. wished to use them or when a KEW strike got close to their positions. Zhukov had lost two units after rabbiting them out of an area—one to a follow-up bombardment, the other to a partisan group.
The fixed defenses were not as easily protected. Most were well hidden; some under mountains. But the enemy knew where those that had built prior to the war were. The most successful were mounted on rails. A locomotive would pull them out into the open air on the rail line, the sensors would lock on and then the gun would fire, then the entire assembly would duck down back under the mountain.
However, several had been buried in retaliatory strikes. It was a suboptimal situation, growing increasingly dangerous for the A.I. every moment.
<>V<>
The saturation bombardment worked beyond their wildest dreams, Isaac thought as he checked the results on the status board. Khan was no longer log jammed, in fact he'd gained kilometers of ground in the first few hours after the bombardment. He'd even gotten a platoon to the PDC site and taken it.
That was a relief. The bean counters were howling, but others were drowning them out with congratulations over the breakthrough. They were already lining up additional bombardments. Coordinating them would be tougher, but it had been proven that it could be done. They would do it.
His mind turned to one ongoing thorn in his side, the water. He had never been comfortable with the water. He'd also been focused on the land since that was where a majority of the people were. But they were still having a serious problem with the underwater cities, ships, subs, and other vessels.
Even mining platforms had to be taken. Everything had to be gone over and every scrap of electronics fried. Cruise ships and carrier groups both gave him a healthy dose of respect for the forces that would have to go in to try to sink them.
Then there were the islands. Tens of thousands of them all over the world. Just about every island was occupied too, even if it was with just a simple radio beacon warning shipping in the area. Each had to be checked too, a daunting task.
“We're going to have to do something with this,” he murmured, waving the tablet during the meeting.
“Sir? I thought we were making progress?” Isis asked.
“We are. We're making great progress on the Indian front now. No, I'm talking about the sea. It's where we've been ignoring for the most part. Earth is covered with mostly water.”
“And the machines can hide anywhere in it or under it,” Commander Mizu said sourly.
“Exactly,” Isaac said, eying the commander. Mizu hadn't been happy that the Federation Congress had stalled on creating a navy to go along with the marines. Fair was fair, Isaac and some of the other veterans of other branches weren't happy that there was no air force or army either. So far the marines were carrying the ball with militia of all things to back them up.
“Cruise ships, warships, hotels, remote resorts, private islands …,” Isis shook her head. “I think we should focus on one thing at a time. We've been bogged down by taking on more than we can chew here,” she said, waving to the map of the globe. “No offense, sir,” she said hastily.
“None taken,” Isaac replied, working his jaw. She was right of course; they should have stuck to one or two fronts at a time. A systematic approach. He'd gotten too greedy when he'd seen how well the EMPs had worked. Now they knew differently, but they were in too deep to disengage. He also had no intention of retaking the same ground twice, not after paying for it in so much blood.
“The dolphins and selkie are doing a bang-up job in the Caribbean, sir. I say we put them on it. Colonel Tumagar can handle it,” Major White said, bringing up his portfolio.
“He's certainly got that area going. There aren't many locals left on the larger islands either. His forces are limited, however,” Commander Mizu mused.
“We can't send him much,” Major White said. “We're strapped with the new offensive as it is,” she said.
That gained them a painful pause as they tried to think of something to do. Finally the general grunted. “We're going to promote Tumagar to Brigadier. We're putting all water units under his command. He's going to have to make do with them and what secondary resources he can occasionally scrounge up. Cut the orders and then cut additional orders for him to keep his forces concentrated as he sees fit. Finish with the Caribbean and then hit the Bahamas. If we have water forces in other areas, they are now to report to him.”
Commander Mizu nodded. “We've got forces of otters and others scatt
ered across the globe, sir. The otters haven't been very effective, sir. They are very flighty.”
“Then he'll have to fix that,” the general said. The commander grunted. “The same for the dolphins and water chimeras.”
“Yes, sir. They are going to take heavy losses going after some of the harder targets, sir,” the major warned.
The general eyed her coldly. “It's expected. He knows that,” he nodded his chin to the image of the walrus. “So do we. He'll get it done, or I'll find someone else who can.”
She nodded slowly. “Understood, sir.”
He waited a bit for that little warning to sink in before he nodded once himself. “Very well. Moving on,” he said turning to Colonel Johnson, his shuttle force commander. “You had a report on maintenance issues?” he asked politely.
<>V<>
Jack had additional briefings with Doctor Glass to get himself up to speed. Some were fairly basic, progress report on the next phases of troop surges planned. New litters had been born, some to the mothers of the first and second generation. They had learned a lot from mistakes of the first six generations, refining the basic designs along the way. It was clear Doctor Glass was a bit of a perfectionist, never quite satisfied with the final design, always tweaking. Jack wondered briefly if he'd picked that up from Aurelia as her student.
However, they also had other things going on. Like the work on custom mods and designs.
From a chimp who was totally against the project, Jack was amused that he was now all gung ho for it. “What's this?”
The chimp looked to where he was pointing. Then he got closer, adjusting his outlandish and totally unnecessary glasses to see. “Oh, I see. That's for a recon specialist design I put forward. We're still working on funding and well, the design isn't very efficient I admit.”
“Design … “
“Yes I want to create a cloaking device. Something General Murtough asked about years ago put me back onto it when I remembered. You see, they've had cloaks on Earth for years. They can hide things in certain spectrums of electromagnetic energy to various degrees, thermal and visual for instance.”
