Fiction Week

By Karl Flynn

March 13, 2026

“Grandpa, there’s a car coming up the driveway!”

“OK, I’ll be right there.”

Detlev Ganzhorn, grandfather of seven and a 30-year Navy veteran, handed the latest addition to his family to his son-in-law and got up to go to the door. A black SUV with government plates stopped in his driveway. A man about the same age as Detlev exited the passenger seat and walked toward him with a smile and extended hand.

“Detlev!”

Detlev broke into a smile. “Captain Rahimi?”

“Just Amir nowadays.”

The two men clasped hands. “Alright, Amir. Good to see you. What brings you all the way out to beautiful Kearny, Wyoming?”

Amir gave a short wave to a newborn held up by her father through the living room window before turning back to Detlev. “As much as I’d like to stay here and say hello to everyone, I’ve come because I need your help. Or rather, the Navy needs our help.”

Detlev laughed. “Why does the Navy need a couple of old farts like us? A new museum?”

Amir smirked and shook his head. “All I can tell you right now is that it’s important, and could save lives. In fact, you’ll need to sign an NDA if you come with me.”

Detlev thought about what his old FRC commander just told him. Looking back at his children and grandchildren through his front window, he replied, “You know, when I retired, I was looking forward to making up all that lost time with my family.”

Amir took a step closer to his old Master Chief. He spoke softly. “I hoped for the same. I wish I was with my family right now, too.” Amir collected himself before continuing. “I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important.”

Detlev gave a sad smile before continuing, “Oh, I believe you. It’s just that it’ll be hard for me to say goodbye. Know how long we’ll be gone?”

“Hard to say. If it helps, most of the old command is already there.”

Detlev raised an eyebrow. “It’ll be good to see everyone again, I’m just curious to know just where ‘there’ is.”

“I can tell you when we’re on the way.”

After emotional goodbyes, Detlev packed his old seabag. He looked at the bucking horse and rider he’d drawn on it after reaching his first duty station to remind him of home, and his emotions welled up again. After another round of goodbyes, the two men made the short trip to the regional airport. The driver drove straight onto the taxiway next to a waiting private jet. After climbing aboard, Amir placed his phone in a soundproof faraday bag and handed one to Detlev. The pilot took them to the cockpit. Amir and Detlev sat down in well-cushioned seats, and once the cabin door was closed, Amir handed Detlev a non-disclosure agreement. After signing, Detlev turned to Amir.

“Alright, what are you up to, Amir?”

“I need people with your expertise. Today’s maintainers are phenomenal. The active-duty force is well trained to maintain every aircraft type in inventory. There’s even some Marines on active duty who worked on Prowlers.” Amir gave a sly smile before continuing. “Problem is, no one’s left to work on Phantoms, Skyhawks, Tweets, or Vikings.”

Detlev gave Amir an incredulous look. “Those birds are ancient. Even if we can get them flying, they’re dead meat in the air. What exactly is the plan for them?”

“Well, the Prowlers and Vikings are going to be turned into unmanned tankers. We’re scrounging up some buddy-stores and drop tanks for them.”

“Makes sense. Those frames are worn out, but there’s no need for a tanker to pull high-g maneuvers. What about the fighters and attack birds?”

Amir thought for a moment. “Ever heard of the Kettering Bug?”

Davis Monthan Air Force Base

The briefing room was full of veterans of varying ages and professions. Some accountants, small-business owners, or truck drivers, others worked as maintainers for airlines, and some had left the service to be full-time mothers. All had served as aircraft maintainers.

Amir got up and addressed the assembled crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for putting your lives on hold one more time. You gave a lot during your active-duty service. No one could ask more of you, so from an old FRC commander, please know I am personally grateful for each of you making the decision to support Project Phoenix. I hope our work here is ultimately not needed, but if it is, it will make an important contribution to defending Taiwan.

“Now the purpose of Project Phoenix is to convert stored aircraft into drones. The reason we are here is to determine how many aircraft can be made flyable—not fully functional, not even pilotable, but flyable. Then, the real work begins.

“The next thing on the agenda is getting together in groups by rate or MOS. You’ll find rosters around the room. Groups are set up, so there are framers, avionics techs, electricians’ mates, and so on, plus one contractor in every group. We’ve given copies of the maintenance manuals for the aircraft you worked on. We’ll need you to work with the contractors to confirm the systems needed for each platform to be considered flyable.” 

Amir motioned to civilians dressed in jeans and black polos before continuing. “Speaking of the contractors, the folks from Mithril Technologies should get us parts for all aircraft types. Alright, please make your way to your tables.”

Detlev found his table and greeted the men and women he’d be working with for the foreseeable future. Since he was most senior both by age and rank, the group deferred to him for his initial thoughts. Detlev rubbed his chin as he spoke. “Flyable, eh? Well, let’s see.” He thumbed through one of the F-4S’s maintenance manuals. “I’d have to look through here for the specifics, but if we can get the fuel systems and engines running, then we’d need basic electrical, avionics, and hydraulics. The only actuators we should need are for the control surfaces. That’s still a lot, but pretty much it. Beyond that, flaps would be… helpful, but not strictly speaking necessary, I suppose. Life support, ejection seats, fire suppression, radar—none of those are needed for controlled flight.

“Of course, we all know the seals and lines in those planes are gonna be dry-rotted, wiring’s fouled up, God only knows what condition the airframes are in.” He turned to the contractor in the Mithril polo. “Amir said you could help with parts. Did Mithril buy up a bunch of old stock parts or something?”

The contractor chimed in. “Not exactly. We took the specs and tolerances from the old parts and machined new ones that meet the same requirements. Most of the high-pressure lines we’ve built are lighter and stronger than the originals. Just tell us what you need and our I-level guys and gals will see what they can do.”

The contractor got incredulous looks from around the table.

“Testing is well underway. The MAMLS project started a few years ago. We can’t do everything, but we’ve managed to print hydraulic components. Makes me wonder how fast we could’ve turned jets around if I’d had access to this type of manufacturing on active duty.”

The skeptical looks turned into nods.

“Oh, but before I get ahead of myself,” the contractor pulled a stack of papers out of a folder and passed them out to everyone at the table, “I have a list of all the aircraft’s systems we need to get working for the drone conversion. The onboard computer we’ve rigged up is basically a modernized and simplified version of the QF-4’s systems. It’s barebones—just relies on instrument data and its own onboard sensors.”

Detlev spent the rest of the morning and afternoon reading through technical manuals and conferring with fellow veterans and contractors. By the end of the day, they agreed upon a list of bare essential systems required to get a Phantom airborne. As the group prepared for evening chow, Detlev walked over to Amir with the list.

“Well, here it is.” He laughed. “I’m sure if I ever brought an idea like this to you when you were my CO, you’d have had a stroke.”

Amir studied the list. “Oh, you’re absolutely right about that.” He looked up at Detlev. “But times have changed.”

The Next Day

The Sailors had just flown in from NAS Lemoore and North Island while the Marines came from Yuma. As the Sailors assigned to Detlev’s group shuffled into the conference room, he noticed that they were almost as young as some of his own grandchildren. Detlev smiled at them and said, “Good morning.”

An Aviation Machinist’s Mate spoke up. “Good morning, sir.”

Detlev had started to sip coffee and nearly spit it through his nose when he heard the Sailor call him “sir.”

“I appreciate it, young lady, but ‘Detlev’ will be just fine.”

“Yes s—, I mean, Detlev.”

Both Detlev and the Sailor couldn’t help themselves from smiling at the awkwardness of the situation. 

“We’ll work on it.”

“Sounds good, Detlev.” She held out her hand. “I’m Josefina.”

Detlev shook her hand. “It’s very good to meet you, Josefina.” He released her hand and greeted the other Sailors—all ADs, AEs, and AMs—by their first names. He then addressed the group, “Please, have a seat.” Once the room was seated, Detlev continued. “I must confess, I’m going to need a lot of your help. I spent many hours working on Phantoms, but it’s been years since I’ve touched any airplane—well, other than a seatback and armrests. I’ve been brought here to fix up some old F-4s.” Detlev motioned to the window, where Phantoms sat in the hot Arizona sun. “I’ll need your help to get them flying again.”

Josefina’s eyebrows shot up. “Flying?”

“Yes, flying, but not flown by a pilot—just patched together to the point that we can get them in the air as drones.” There were murmurs throughout the room. “But, before we start turning wrenches, let’s get to first things first.” Detlev turned toward the projector screen and whiteboard at the front of the room. “I’ve talked to some friends of mine who are sitting in other rooms with friends of yours right now. We’ve come up with a list of systems and subsystems that would need to be restored to make them airworthy. You’ll find maintenance manuals for the F-4S on the table, so I’d like to scrub this list with all of you before we get to work.”

Later that Week

The maintainers set up temporary shelters over most of the aircraft to obscure satellite views. Detlev felt a wave of nostalgia as his group took the protective cladding off an old Navy Phantom. His nostalgia gave way to astonishment when he noticed something painted on the nose.

Is that…?

Faded, but still visible, was a bucking horse and rider, only instead of a horse, the rider was saddled on a diving F-4. Amir had allowed Detlev to stencil the homage to his home state before he retired. At the time, the aircraft had been selected for preservation at the boneyard.

Hello, old friend.

Josefina saw Detlev running his fingers over the artwork. She heard him say, “Still here. After all these years…” She recognized the weight of the moment and was unsure of what to do.

Detlev turned to her and asked, “Can you help us get her airborne, Josefina?”

Josefina smiled at him. “It would be an honor, Detlev.”

Once again, Detlev found himself working on a Phantom—his Phantom, only this time under floodlights with fellow retirees, active-duty Sailors and Airmen, and a contractor. After a few hours of inspecting the aircraft, Detlev was surprised with just how well it had been preserved. He turned to an Airman from the 309th AMARG.

“You zoomies do a pretty good job working on old saltwater airplanes,” he jibed. The Airman nodded.

“We sure do. Never thought I’d see one fly again, though.”

Detlev turned back to the Phantom. “Me too.”

Across the boneyard, retirees, veterans, and a new generation of maintainers worked around the clock to give the Phantoms a new lease on life. After a few days, Detlev’s group managed to get their Phantom’s brakes to release. Within a few weeks, they were ready for a hydraulics test. The Phantom’s engines were remarkably well-preserved, so they were able to do a static engine test the following week. Detlev felt a surge of excitement when he heard a sound he hadn’t heard in decades – a J79 roaring with power.

She’s still got it. There’s a lot of fight left in her.

Once the Phantom had been verified by the maintainers of the 309th for airworthiness, it, along with two early production F-16s and a handful of T-37s, was loaded onto wide-body lowboy trailers. Maintainers crowded the dirt road and whooped, clapped, and cheered as they watched the first of many restored aircraft leave the boneyard. After a brief moment of mutual congratulation, they got back to work on more planes.

2027, Somewhere Near Taiwan

Scattered across vast distances, there was a flurry of activity on expeditionary airfields. Shelters that had kept planes shielded from saltwater spray were revealed – Tweets, Skyhawks, and Phantoms. The Tweets launched first, followed by the Skyhawks. Across multiple runways, the subsonic planes took off for the last time and turned north toward the Taiwan Strait. The Phantoms—assisted by solid rocket motors—took off a short while later.

CICs on PLAN ships across the Strait were abuzz. Tracks streaked across digital displays showing hundreds of aircraft and missiles crisscrossing the Strait. The displays suddenly showed more than 100 tracks approaching from the south. SAMs shot out of the vertical launch cells from guided missile destroyers to meet them. Some of the incoming aircraft deployed chaff, others performed evasive maneuvers. The Tweets were eviscerated, but a few Skyhawks survived the SAM barrage.

The Phantoms were closing the distance with the subsonic planes a few minutes after the initial SAM barrage. As the Phantoms climbed higher, the PLAN ships were forced to choose between engaging weapons coming from Taiwan or the incoming Phantoms. Some SAMs climbed toward the Phantoms, but there were precious few missiles remaining aboard the PLAN ships. The air defense commander for the southern sector was getting worried. From his station in the CIC of a Renhai-class cruiser, he retasked a J-11 squadron providing electronic warfare support over Taiwan to intercept the Phantoms.

Racing southwest, the J-11 pilots loosed their short-range air-to-air missiles at the Phantoms as soon as they were in range. The pilots were shocked to see them pulling astonishingly high-G evasive maneuvers. In fact, many went beyond the Phantom’s g-limits and warped their airframes. But it didn’t matter. They would never fly again.

While most of the Chinese missiles found their mark, several dozen Phantoms were undamaged—other than their warped frames. After expending their missiles, the J-11 pilots came around behind them. Then, they had another terrible realization. On even footing, the J-11 had a slight speed advantage over the Phantom. The Phantoms, however, were clean. The J-11s were carrying anti-radiation missiles and ECM pods. The PLA pilots ditched their missiles, but it was too late. They helplessly watched the remaining Phantoms accelerate out of gun range toward the fleet.

Of the launched Phantoms, over half had been shot down. The Skyhawks and Tweets had done their duty – they had soaked up SAMs and left the PLAN ships vulnerable. The remaining Phantoms accelerated past their maximum operating speed. As they neared the PLAN ships, CIWS systems engaged the surviving Skyhawks.

A few managed to engage the Phantoms. At the speed the Phantoms flew, the CIWS had less than five seconds to fire from when the Phantom was within range to impact. A few 30-millimeter shells briefly tore through the airframes of the lead Phantoms, but their immense momentum kept their course true.

One Phantom, with a bucking rider painted on its nose, screamed toward the southernmost PLAN cruiser. The CIC staff was in sheer panic.

Too many tracks, too few missiles.

The air defense commander saw the radar track closing in on the combat display. Futilely, he ducked under his battle station. Fractions of a second later, the Phantom smashed through the CIC and broke through the Renhai’s keel. In short succession, other Phantoms followed suit, each slamming its fifteen-ton mass into other warships at supersonic speeds.

As was their namesake, the Phantoms appeared like riders from a storm. Now, the old warbirds that had seen combat over Vietnam and Iraq had fought their last fight.

Three Weeks Later

News reports remained muddled, but the invasion had not succeeded. Detlev knew the future was still perilous, but he was happy to face it with his family.

He was helping swaddle one of his granddaughters when another of his grandchildren brought him an envelope from his mailbox. It had been sent from NAS Lemoore.

Detlev opened it with his family looking over his shoulder. It was a framed picture captioned “F-4S Phantom II” adorned with many signatures, with the phrase “Pharewell, Phantoms” written over top.

Detlev smiled when he saw the note written above Josefina’s signature.

“Thank you for everything, Detlev. Enjoy the time with your family. We have the watch.”

Captain Karl Flynn is the assistant operations officer at Third Battalion, Second Marines in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI. 

Fiction Week

By Daniel Lee

The following takes place between the hours of 1000-1100 SMT on the surface of the planet Jyrmfür. Dominion forces occupy a heavily-fortified research complex under a large mesa, designated Tango 419.

Union forces are directed to capture it intact at all costs.

THE ANT

A shell impacted not more than five meters from Line Private Michal “Stef” Stefanovich’s head as he lay face down in the mud. Luckily, a shallow berm shielded him from most of the shockwave, but it was still close enough to bounce his grey matter around. He shielded his head with his arms as bits of fragmentation, rain, and mud rained down on him.

“FUCK!” he heard someone yell. “Stef, ya good?!”

Stef coughed out a ball of mud before rasping out, “Yeah, bell’s just rung.” He did a quick check for blood—arms, legs, pits, and most importantly, groin—and once he was reasonably satisfied, grabbed for his rifle. It was a simple weapon: the R21A2 Trecoran Union Marine Corps standard issue rifle, designed to fire ultramax caseless 85 grain 6.5x30mm chemically-propelled rounds at 1,200 meters per second. It had fancy recoil-dampening pods and holographic sighting systems, sure, but it was basically the same rifle his grandpappy used. The unrelenting rain made the grip slick in his hand, so he quickly used his sleeve to wipe down the weapon before scrambling up the last few meters of hill to rejoin his squad.

Once at the top, he quickly slid into the crater where his squad was taking cover, his S-LINK lighting them up with green outlines on his helmet HUD. He landed close to where Line Private “Yip” Buckley and squad newbie Private Oskar Ramirez were going cyclic with their R60 machine guns. Unlike the R21, R60s were designed for cased rounds to aid heat dissipation. This was not lost on Stef as he received a face-full of hot thermalloy. He swiftly rolled away and got to his feet as the senior gunner yelled at the junior to watch his fire rate. “You’ll burn out the fucking barrel, dumbass!” Yip yipped.

Stef shoved himself past the Doc, who was busy applying biofoam to the stump of Private Pete Nakahara’s right arm, and took a firing position next to the squad leader, Corporal Jenn “Hick” Tennyson. She was attempting communication with the platoon commander in her thick Yolloran countryside accent: “Nah, WRAHNG, I nee’ to talk to Lew-tenan’ Helman! No, naht— god-DAMN this weather, man! Comms’ shot to shit!”

“Need a runner, Hick?” Stef offered.

Hick waved him down. “Nah, Doms an’ tinskins pushin’ us. Kill somethin’!”

Stef poked his head out of cover just in time for a flash of lightning to illuminate the battlefield. Tango-419 stood tall, menacingly, off to the north. The base of the mesa had to be at least a kilometer away, but it was hard to tell through the downpour. Opposing forces were dug in tight, artillery and laser emplacements all along the sheer face of the mesa. The guns were firing at such intensity that the entire mesa appeared as one, long, continuous firework. Angry storm clouds swirled into dark peaks above, disgorging a constant barrage of sparks and moisture. A loud shriek overhead and a brief green flicker indicated the passage of a pair of friendly Albatross gunboats. They unleashed a torrent of 25 mike-mike on the mesa and swooped away. Even if the squids in orbit had their thumbs up their ass, at least they sent the flyboys to help out.

Stef looked down at the plain descending from the mesa. An angry mess of red outlines popped in and out of focus as S-LINK fought through hostile jamming and weather. Dominion forces had deployed drone combatants, humanoid in form but almost spider-like in movement, to flush them from cover and provide a buffer for the mesa. These served to augment the human combatants who also acted as local drone controllers. Stef spotted a few of these controllers scrambling through the mud behind their metal puppets.

He sent rounds downrange as quick as his finger would let him. He took down a few clankers as they scrambled down a muddy slope barely 100 meters away. The drones’ controller fell out of cover behind them—having maybe slipped on the mud—and Stef put three rounds in him, center mass. He emptied the rest of his mag at vague red outlines farther away, hunkered down to reload with the practiced hands of a Marine infantryman, and resumed fire.

Stef and his squad laid down the hate, taking out bot after controller after bot. However, the mass of red outlines only seemed to get larger and his ammo count smaller. As he felt his bolt lock back once again on last round fired, he reached down for another mag and found only empty pouches. “Need a spare mag!” he yelled. Before anyone could answer, he felt something slap him in the face, throwing him back into the mud.

On instinct, he immediately crawled back as far as he could in the crater. He put a hand up to his face and felt something warm trickle down. Hopefully just a graze. He started feeling around for his rifle, and through the gunfire he could hear Hick yelling into her helmet comm, “We’re bein’ overrun! Are there any available assets tha’ can provide assistance…”

Before she could finish her sentence, an ear-splitting crack far louder than any lightning bolt resonated through the air. Stef then saw multiple fireballs emerge from the clouds above, followed by a cloud of small dark objects that acquired a green S-LINK outline on approach. One of these objects cohered into the shape of a man as it descended, slowing on final approach until he landed before Stef like some sort of heaven-sent angel. The man was clad head-to-toe in armor, torso and limbs encompassed in a sinewy exoskeleton, and he carried a rifle Stef had only seen on the net.

Stef stared. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed. “They sent HERA.”

THE BEETLE

Staff Sergeant Vitas “Vee” Lundy grunted as the Disposable Reentry Vehicle was thrust out of the launch bay, forcing his stomach into his throat. Once the DRV was free of UNS NEW PRINCETON and began its plummet towards the planet below, weightlessness overtook him.

He took a moment to survey 2^nd platoon, his people, through the dim red interior lights. They were harnessed into their shock seats around the outer perimeter of the drop pod, 36 in total. They were all clad head-to-toe in pressurized armored suits capable of handling both bullets and vacuum. On their backs were displacement packs, or d-packs: essentially miniaturized reactionless warship thrusters that enabled them high mobility in both zero-g and on the surface of a planet. A sinewy exoskeleton extended from their chest rig to all four limbs, giving them enhanced strength and endurance. While older models might have used clumsy pistons and hydraulics, these newer ones utilized artificial muscle for maximum range of motion and fidelity of movement. On each of their shoulders was a patch: a sword thrust vertically into a star, backed by spread eagle wings, encircled by their moniker – Hazardous Environment Reconnaissance and Assault.

Vee thought back to the day he made it through six months of hellish training at the Special Operations Training Course, two months of special tactics and demolitions school, and four months of the hazardous environment assault course to finally stand in front of Marshall Angelopoulos to receive his HERA star. He was proud. Proud to be the only force trained to fight in every environment, from sulfuric acid rain-soaked moons to the cold of deep vacuum. Sure, the Navy SPALS claimed to do that too, but they were only visiting. Marine HERAs lived in it.

And now they were plummeting at celestial speeds into a thunderstorm.

“Alright boys,” 1^st Lieutenant Ben Milas yelled from beside him, attempting to maintain his equilibrium through the increasing turbulence. “Attention to brief! As always, the regs down below need our help. Dominion forces are pushing out from Tango 419 and stalling the assault. Our company will be reinforcing weak points along the line. We have no armor support, but we do have a few Trosses providing close air support. Comms are shot to shit from the storm, so we’ll be relying on IR poppers to call in airstrikes. We also won’t be able to talk to each other past shouting distance, so once you land, regroup on my IR beacon, and then we kill everything in between the LZ and Tango 419. Oorah?”

“Rah, sir,” Vee responded. The platoon also erupted into a chorus of “Rah!” and “Kill!” in acknowledgement. Only moments later, the red interior lights snapped to green.

“To hell!” Vee roared as his seat was abruptly yanked backwards and into the atmosphere. The seat harness blew loose and soon he was freefalling towards the surface below. All around him he could see the rest of his HERAs scattering from the pod almost like dandelion fluff. The DRV had done its job shielding them on reentry, and now each individual HERA would maneuver themselves the rest of the way. Pods were easy to track and shoot down; individual humans flitting around with d-packs, not so much.

To aid them in their landing, the DRV ejected its three supply pods—each jetting towards pre-determined landing sites—then rapidly deconstructed into a cloud of metallic chaff and fireballs to confuse anti-air targeting systems. The decoys continued to bloom in intervals as the remains of the DRV fell, leaving a trail of cover for the drop. It continued into the sea of dark clouds, and the HERAs followed.

The upper cloud layer hit Vee like a brick wall. He couldn’t see much at all as the howling wind buffeted him and the moisture saturated his visor. He breathed slowly and deeply, calming his nerves and keeping an eye on his altimeter. At a bit less than a kilometer above the ground, he broke through the last layer of clouds and tried to survey the battlefield below. Unfortunately, an Albatross gunboat abruptly screeched past him, sending him tumbling. He used his d-pack to steady himself, cursing. Goddamn flyboys.

The ground came up quickly; he maneuvered his feet downwards and rapidly decelerated. With a loud squelch, he landed inside a crater next to a squad of Marine regs. One of them was on the ground with a bloody cheek, looking straight up at him. “Holy shit,” the reg exclaimed. “They sent HERA.”

“Glad to be of service,” Vee grunted through his helmet’s voicebox, and helped the Marine to his feet. “Supply pod landed 200 meters east. Move!”

The Marines followed him without question. Alternating covering fire, they pushed towards the supply pod. Vee managed to tag at least a half dozen clankers with his XR-5 coil carbine; 25 grain ferro-tungsten projectiles magnetically accelerated to 3,400 m/s had enough oomph to put them down with a single shot each. Thankfully, the carbine’s displacement compensators reduced the recoil to a polite suggestion.

Once at the supply pod, he left the regs behind to rearm while he looked for his platoon commander. Using the mobility and strength his kit afforded him, he sprinted through the rain and leapt over entire hills until his HUD obtained a visual on Milas’ IR beacon. On final approach to his platoon commander, he landed next to a Dominion controller fumbling with his rifle. Without hesitation, he slammed his armored fist into his chin, snapping his neck instantly. One more leap and he was by Milas’ side. At least half the platoon was already gathered.

“Lundy, glad to see ya. Take the left flank. We’re pushing!” Milas ordered. The lieutenant then leapt away, his men following. They circled and weaved around the battlefield, providing staggered covering fire, dodging the hardened defenses and poking into small weaknesses in the enemy line. As they advanced, they came across a pocket of regs encircled by drones. Coordinating with wordless fluidity, Vee took a squad to the left while Milas took the rest to the right to flank the assaulting bots. They were quickly decommissioned, and their controllers were rooted out and similarly dispatched.

“Hell yeah, absolute badasses!” one of the Marine regs yelled.

Vee wasted no time. Rallying the regs, he formed a line for the final 200-meter push to the foot of the mesa. Once they had collected to some semblance of a battle line, he turned to Lieutenant Milas—who was crouching by the crest of a nearby berm—and gave him a thumbs up. Milas responded in kind, stood up to lead the charge, and immediately evaporated into red mist.

“Fuck!” The curse escaped Vee’s lips reflexively as he hit the deck. The other Marines did the same. Just in time, too, as a barrage of cannon fire tore across the top of the berm where Milas used to be. A reg next to him split in two. The upper half had enough air in her lungs to let out one last excruciating scream before exsanguinating and going quiet.

A HERA close to the top of the berm, Corporal Blanchard, slid down next to Vee. “ADP, between us and Tango-419,” she reported. “Must’ve just climbed down the mesa. It’s got the whole area locked down.”

Vee grimaced. Area Denial Platforms were nasty work. Basically, an armored disk on four legs covered in MGs, cannons, and mortars, they couldn’t move fast but anything short of a Breacher tank wasn’t getting past it.

Time for some heavier ordnance.

“Corporal, get a popper on that sumbitch. Full ordnance, whatever’s available.” Blanchard nodded, pulled a small cylindrical object from a pouch, typed something into it, and leapt to the top of the berm. Once at the top, she threw it with all her might towards the ADP; her powered suit let it fly much farther than any ordinary human could throw, and the IR beacon landed directly underneath the four-legged behemoth.

THE SPARROW

Lieutenant Commander Raella “Beans” Adebayo adjusted her craft’s HUD brightness for what seemed to be the hundredth time today. The rain streaking across the canopy and cameras coupled with the occasional lightning flash made it a less-than-ideal environment for sight. Her G/A-17D Albatross gunboat was equipped with top-of-the-line sensors, radars, and lidars, but vision was still a nice thing to have. Not to mention the fact that she had almost splattered a deploying HERA not twenty minutes beforehand.

She and her wingman, Lieutenant Robert “Tin Man” Fumbernickel, had been on station and dropping ordnance for the last forty minutes. Beans did a quick status check: battery and heat sinks were good, but she only had a few hundred rounds left on the 25 mike-mike. Nothing on the bomb racks.

“Nimble 2-2, this is Nimble 2-1, ammo check, over,” she queried.

“Nimble 2-1, Nimble 2-2,” Tin Man responded, full of static, “I’ve got two MK33’s and about…uh… 17 rounds of 25. Over.”

So two 500kg bombs and essentially winchester on the gun. Beans started considering pulling back to orbit to rearm when her HUD caught something near the surface. The gunboat’s sensors had picked up a friendly IR beacon, holographically displayed as a pillar of red light emanating from near the foot of the mesa. The computers decoded its message: URG-AAO.

An urgent request for all available ordnance on the beacon.

“Nimble 2-2, we’ve got a fire request. Fall in behind. I’ll lead with a gun burst then you drop the MK33’s.”

“Nimble 2-1, wilco.”

Beans nudged the vector stick to the left and pushed up slightly on the scalar stick, banking to port and gaining airspeed. She lined up her craft with the beacon to get a good targeting solution. Not that she needed it; the target was readily apparent by the presence of the 20-meter tall 4-legged behemoth spitting hot death.

On the approach she switched to gun mode. The computer made its calculations and, once in range, changed her HUD’s gun pip to red while nagging into her helmet: “GUN. FIRE. GUN. FIRE.” She squeezed the trigger on the vector stick, causing her entire airframe to vibrate with the violence of magnetically accelerating 276 25mm cannon shells downrange in less than three seconds. A line of impacts erupted on the ADP’s armor.

She pulled up as soon as she was dry and witnessed Tin Man do the same, sans two Mk33 bombs. A moment later, two bright flashes. Another moment later, a shockwave.

Beans pulled around to do a quick BDA. The remains of the ADP lay motionless on the ground, and she could already see HERAs leaping over the wreckage towards the mesa. Their job was done.

“All wings, this is Nimble. We’re RTB to rearm and recharge.” With that, the two gunboats disappeared up into the storm clouds.

THE EAGLE

Aboard the amphibious assault ship UNS NEW PRINCETON, in the dim blue light of CIC, Captain Ronald Bailey stood with his hands clasped firmly behind his back. He stared intently at the large tactical viewscreen dominating the center of the room. On it, he saw…nothing. Static. Error codes. A camera view of the source of all his frustrations: a freak electromagnetic storm that none of the xeno-METOCs had predicted.

Flank Admiral Isaiah Varnum, the Commander of the Amphibious Task Force, approached him. “Captain. Status report.”

Captain Bailey suppressed a sigh. “Nothing yet, sir. We deployed HERAs about thirty minutes ago. We’ll debrief any pilots that return.”

“Hmph. Well, find me in my ready room when you decide to be useful,” the Admiral harumphed, and departed.

The Captain released his sigh and continued to observe the screen.

Daniel Lee commissioned as a surface warfare officer, nuclear (SWO(N)) in 2016. He served on USS ASHLAND (LSD-48) out of Sasebo, Japan as first deck division officer. After qualifying in nuclear power school, he spent two years on USS GERALD R. FORD (CVN-78) in Norfolk, VA. He has previously worked in the International Surface Warfare Officers school in Newport.  He has honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy and is now working as an engineer at Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Covert, Michigan to assist in its historic restart effort. He is the author of SWOES, a weekly comic based on life as a junior SWO.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI. 

Fiction Week

By LCDR Joe Huskey

He leaned against the table, bent over at the waist. His breathing ragged, his heart raced, beads of sweat ran down his face, dripping from his chin and nose. Small pools began to form on the various charts and notes spread out before him. This was the production table, filled with battle schemes, strategy diagrams, and binders filled with standard responses to a variety of warfare scenarios. They were all a blur to A.J. now as he blinked in arrhythmic successions.

The battle simulation was like a marathon. There were rows and columns of television screens that spread around him in a semi-circle displaying visual battle cues and problem-sector scenarios. Bright light glowed from the screens, the only source for that dark space with the exception of the low-level blue work lights overhead. The screens all faded in unison into a common message. Now on screen were bright white text set on a black screen. “Blue Victory,” it said.

“Fourteen hours and thirty-five minutes,” the proctor said in a plain voice as he entered the tactical operations center. This is where A.J. had just finished his commanding a simulated joint force against a computer-generated adversary. “Very good, Colonel Roark,” he continued while scribbling notes onto a digital work-pad with a little plastic pen tipped with a rubber nub, a stylus of sorts.

A.J. stood up from his leaning rest and looked around the room. It was all black, ceiling to floor, the lights from the semi-circled monitors cast a dull glow on everything around them. There was the large production table in the middle and two rows of long tables in front which had numerous computers on them. Seven operators in unmarked uniforms sat at those consoles. During the simulation, they would swap out regularly, ensuring they did not fatigue while taking orders in rapid succession from A.J. Now, they were all turned in their chairs, focusing their collective attention on the colonel, anticipating the debrief.

The proctor was an Army Major General named Womack. He had two stars on his collar and a ruddy, stoic grimace on his face. He flipped a switch which shifted the blue-lights overhead into bright, white lights, washing the room in brilliant fluorescence. The new illumination made his demeanor appear even more grim. In fact, he had shown little-to-no emotion whatsoever over the past three days of in-briefing.

He tapped a sequence on his tablet with his stylus. The screens around the room changed their text from the victory message to a Battle Damage Assessment. “Please refer to the forward screen for your results,” Womack said.

New words flashed onto the screen in the same white text, black background format. A.J. read them faster than the Womack could announce them, but he paid close attention to the debrief all the same.

The general began, “Blue Force Casualty rate: 47%. Adversary Casualty Rate 51%. 12 billion dollars in Blue Force equipment damage. Loss of 62% Blue Force logistical capability. 92% loss of adversary logistical capability.” He droned on, reading out selective figures from listed results from the scenario.

“That’s very good?” A.J. asked with a respectful tone.

“We would like to see less Blue Force casualties and a better protection of friendly equipment,” Womack replied, “but the adversary casualty rate is the highest we’ve recorded yet.” He broke eye contact with A.J. and jotted another note down on his tablet.

Sweat continued to roll down A.J.’s face. Despite being winter in Virginia, the simulation required things to be as close to a battlefield environment as practical. This meant that the temperature was cranked up above 100 degrees to force the subject to manage not only a battlefield, but also endure dry, hot, and loud stimuli. Although A.J. barely moved from the perimeter of the production table, he had likely paced miles moving back and forth throughout the long day, all in an artificially stressful environment.

Using his sleeve, A.J. wiped his forehead. “So, the real question is, did I pass?” He asked. There was no smile on his face or in his eyes. He was physically and mentally exhausted. The scenario required his complete attention for its duration. With every problem he solved, every complication he overcame, and all creative counter-tactics that he employed, a fresh wave of increasingly difficult opposition followed.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Womack answered. “There is no rubric here: only win or lose. In this scenario, you won. Your victory didn’t come without sacrifice, but you decidedly chose the right losses to take in order to overcome the adversary.”

“Forgive me, sir,” A.J. started, “but it is hard to quantify a level of success without understanding the rubric. The in-brief provided very little in the way of battle metrics.” He took a deep breath and tried to slow his heart rate before his next statement. There was a second of pause for him, unsure if he should push the envelope. However, nearly fifteen hours of uninterrupted decision making and constant stressors had worn away most of his decorum. “I think I’m owed a little more of an explanation for what I was just tested on.”

The request was intended to hold the timbre of discipline and respect, but it nonetheless came out with an obvious note of venom. There was another beat of silence, and then he remembered something important that he forgot to say: “Sir.”

“Colonel, your understanding is not important to the outcome of the simulation,” Womack said. He had raised his voice a little, the first real sign of emotion. “If you knew everything then it wouldn’t be a real test.”

“Again, forgive me,” A.J. said, wiping sweat from under his nose and chin, “but that sounds like bullshit.”

The general let out a refrained sigh. “Gentlemen,” he said in a plain tone, holding unwavering eye contact with A.J., but speaking to the other men in the room, “give me and the Colonel the room.”

The seven console operators all stood up and shuffled out of the one door of the simulation room. No one spoke, they barely breathed. They did not want to draw any undue attention from the two men who were attempting to stare each other down.

The door to the room had closed behind the operators, leaving the colonel and general alone with oppressive tension. Their staring match continued for a moment more, neither blinking.

The General huffed, tapped his pad with his stylus while still staring directly into A.J. The screens changed again. Each displayed a different image: Some outlining lines of information, others displaying pictures of A.J. at various stages in his career.

A.J. was the first to break his glare, distracted by so many monitors detailing a very specific storyline of his life. “What the fuck is this?” he asked with zero bearing, turning his gaze from the monitors back to Womack.

“Andrew John Roark, Colonel, United States Marine Corps,” he began. “Enlisted in 2003 as an Infantryman but picked up Infantry Unit Leader M.O.S. 0369 very quickly. Recognized for your capabilities, you were recommended and then accepted into a commissioning program, excelling at strategy and assigned as a Marine Air-Ground Task Force Intelligence Officer. Serving in collection and planning roles in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then assigned in special, clandestine combat roles in Eastern Europe.”

“Wait,” A.J. broke in, “the Europe Op was sealed. How did you…”

Unmoved, the General continued. “Volunteering for combat whenever able, however being assigned duties as staff planner and strategist despite your eagerness for continued groundwork.”

“What’s your point?” A.J. asked again but was ignored.

“Post graduate education at Princeton and the Naval War College, both focusing on Strategy, Technology, and Advanced Warfare. Fellowships in both the Naval Institute and Marine Corps University, as well as working with Joint Tactical Allied Forces designing various wargames.”

A corresponding picture and file appeared on the center screen with each point of information the general was making. A.J. watched it all occur seamlessly, as if on verbal cue. The general continued to list his various jobs and accomplishments including his time at NATO, the Pentagon, and MARFORPAC.

There was a pause. A.J. scanned the screens, studying a story that seemed foreign but was so unmistakably his own. “What does any of this have to do with…” he began to ask. Again, he was cut off.

“The short of it is that you’re qualified to be here,” the general stated, ignoring A.J.’s attempts at questions.

“Point taken, sir,” A.J. replied. “But, if I may ask,” and in this he slowed his breath and focused on the most respectful tone he could muster, “what the hell is going on here?” He gestured his hands around the room. “I received temporary duty orders with an indefinite date. I get pulled out of Japan and flown here to Quantico with no explanation. I was given three days to ‘study’ as much documentation and procedure as I could, thrown into this room with no context and told to ‘fight the problem.’ Why am I here and what was I fighting?”

“I’m not going to read your record again. I’ve proven that I know who you are,” the general said, “but you’ve obviously been recognized throughout your career for dynamic responses to exponentially complex problems. That’s why I have chosen you. What we are facing now should be common knowledge to you regarding our adversaries.”

The general raised his stylus again and changed the screens in the room. They displayed various photos and videos. They displayed a menagerie of uniformed violence, technologically advanced demonstrations of warfare, and matrixes of coding expressed in alpha-numeric symbols.

“The world is getting smarter, and worst of all, our adversaries are getting smarter faster than we are,” the general said in a grim voice. “They have always been one step behind us regarding warfare and technology. We’ve held the top of this hill since World War One. Very seldom have we even felt the competition getting close. Even when the Soviets appeared to be keeping up, they were just bluffing.

“Today, this very moment, our enemies are surpassing us. They have embraced technology in ways we have eschewed for decades. We were caught behind in the unmanned vehicle race, we’ve focused on outdated platforming at least two decades too long, and now artificial intelligence is increasing our adversaries’ performance in exponential ways – ways in which we are woefully outmatched.

“Those who would see us toppled from the top have spent innumerable hours painstakingly devising ways to steal our technology and root out our vulnerabilities. The U.S. military has been mired in less-than efficient platforms and weapons systems that are still failing to meet their designated potential. Our enemies are stealing and buying the specs on those systems and instead of building their own, they are designing ways to neutralize them, all while moving forward with more future-minded technologies.”

A.J. was processing the general’s statements while attempting to reconcile how they corresponded to the screens in the room. He didn’t have to say anything because his blank face broadcast his continued confusion.

“A.I., as they say, is king,” the general continued his explanation. “What you have been fighting for the last fourteen plus hours is an A.I.-generated battlespace. Our team here has tirelessly worked to program it with the best parameters we can discern to match axis oppositional forces made up of the most likely strategies and tactics an A.I.-led assault from our adversaries would entail.

“Their technology has far outpaced ours. We are behind the curve. Our systems do not yet match that of the adversary’s. We have developed a plan for this, however. And you, Colonel, are the subject of that plan. We call it the Henry Protocol.”

The Henry Protocol? A.J. thought. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m still a little unsure how I fit into this.”

Womack looked visibly annoyed. He let out a breath and started explaining, but with an exaggerated slowness, “With your pedigree in combat, strategy, and planning coupled with your experience across our most challenging theaters, you have been selected to test the machine.”

It made sense now. Test the Machine. Henry Protocol. John Henry and his Challenge. But didn’t Henry die? He thought about the connections and staggered for a moment. “So, I was just fighting A.I?” he asked.

The general thought for a second. “In a way, yes,” he replied. “But it is more of an A.I. model based on our best estimates of our opposition’s capabilities. We know that our enemies have already procured incredibly advanced A.I.-generated warfare designs. It infiltrates all forms of warfare, sees the entire battlefield in real time, and seamlessly integrates the sensor and visual cues with real-world applications perfecting the overall battlespace concept. It’s nearly unstoppable.”

Womack’s words wafted into A.J.’s ears, barely overcoming the throbbing he felt in his head. His heart was still beating fast and heavy. He felt that he was oxygen starved despite all the deep breaths he was taking due to artificially heated air of the room. Sweat continued to roll down his face.

“Nearly is the key word, though, Colonel,” the General said. He tapped his stylus on his handheld screen and the monitors changed again. The debriefing results were redisplayed. “You beat it. It took you almost fifteen hours and it damn-near killed you, but you beat it.”

“Almost killed me?” A.J. asked. He still felt unusually short of breath but was doing his best to stand firm as if unbothered by the chaos in his chest.

There was another momentary pause as the general looked down at his screen and tapped in a sequence. The monitors shifted to display diagnostics. They showed different readings to include heart and respiratory rates, blood pressure, body temperature, etc.

“This is you,” the general said. “You were, and continue to be, extremely close to myocardial infarction, Colonel Roark. The simulation tested you right back, and it almost killed you.”

This affected A.J. more than he wanted it to. He clutched his chest and focused even harder on slowing his breathing. In his moment of doubt, he felt vulnerable and weak. “But what is all this for? Why have me fight a fake battle? I’m just playing a video game? Shouldn’t we be doing more?”

“You are well aware of how late to this dance we are,” the general said. He didn’t seem to care that A.J. was showing signs of physical distress. “We put our best military and civilian minds to this problem, and the Henry Protocol is their answer, its test. We’ve recorded all the battle data. Our plan is to continually put the Adversary Model up against our best available strategists and develop a hybrid man-in-the-loop program that interfaces A.I. solutions but keeps our military leaders at the helm.

“We’re behind the curve on the technology alone, but our greatest strength has always been dynamic leaders. We’ve combined our most advanced battle problems with self-learning A.I. systems and then stimulated exponential battlespace evolution. Through you as a human interface challenger, we aim to catch up.”

Pain radiated through A.J.’s jaw. He stretched it out as he attempted to push through it. His left arm alternated between sore and cold as he listened to the general’s speech. He leaned against the table again and surveyed its contents. The last fifteen hours seemed to be years ago now. He was already struggling to remember every decision he made.

Now tacitly aware of his circumstances, he pondered the severity of where he was. Their adversaries had snuck up on them while their attentions were elsewhere. A.J. had spent no small part of his career studying these competitors and determining the best ways to avoid conflict while at the same time making his best efforts to assess and prepare to overcome them. He knew better than most the difficulties that the U.S. would have in direct conflict with its newly minted peers.

These deep thoughts coupled with this obvious leap forward in efforts to catch up to their competitors inspired a new fear in A.J. “Things are bad, aren’t they?” he asked.

“Colonel,” the general replied, “you haven’t even scratched that surface yet. This is us doing our best to stay ahead. The best time to start this process was ten years ago. The next best time is right now. We have a lot of ground to make up.”

“So, you’re using my battle data to train an A.I. to get smarter about fighting our enemies?” A.J. said, more as a recap than a question. “But I beat it. So, what’s next? That can’t be the endgame.”

“Well, that’s how the whole thing works, Colonel,” the general said, “you beat it, it learns, it evolves, then you have to test it again.”

“Test it again?” A.J. asked. He was feeling better a little bit at a time. “How many more times?”

“Until it learns everything from you,” the general stated. “As you’ve seen, we not only record your battle data, decisions, etc., but we are also monitoring your vitals, your stress levels, endocrine and hormone spikes. We are recording your physiological responses as you face increasingly capable threats. We have to learn more than just how you fight. If the interface is to be successful, we must also learn your physical limits. This is to ensure we re-overtake our peers.” The word peers was stressed in a way that showed the general’s discomfort with its proximity.

“Colonel, you are part of the Henry Protocol now. You’re not going home, not until this is done. We have a duty, you and I. We must do whatever we can to make up the lost time on this. You battle the machine again tomorrow. I hope you’re ready.”

Joe Huskey is a Surface Warfare Officer who has served in various capacities onboard USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7), USS Indianapolis (LCS 17), and with Coastal Riverine Squadron 3 (CRS 3). He served as a Naval Science Instructor at Texas A&M University’s NROTC unit and is currently assigned as a Permanent Military Instructor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy. He holds a MPA in Homeland Security from Texas A&M and a MA in Language and Literature from the University of Maryland. He is an amateur Speculative Fiction writer published on Kindle.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI.