Fiction Contest Week

By Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lamont, USMC (ret.)

“All hands brace for shock. This is not a drill,” boomed the petty officer of the watch’s voice over the 1MC.

The captain tapped the button on the ship’s internal communications system and asked, “Combat, Bridge, how many inbounds?”

The radar operator’s eyes widened in the soft green glow of his screen. The number of tracks tracing lines radiated from its surface like crows’ feet. “Bridge, combat, many, many,” said Seaman Jejomar.

“How many?”

“Buku.”

“Got it,” replied the Captain. He rolled his shoulder and turned toward the remote ship operator on the bridge. “Lieutenant Torres, are the Mayhem protocols set over on the Hemroni?”

The Lieutenant tapped the controls on her tablet. The edges of her eyes narrowed as they scanned down blinking green status symbols. “Yes, sir. All systems radiating and the signature is active.”

“Sir, a question if I may?” asked Ensign Smyth.

“Take hold and ask your question Ensign.”

“What are the Mayhem protocols?”

“Well, we can’t shoot down all these missiles, so we’re going to catch any leakers,” said Captain Morris. The edge of his mouth lifted into a smile.

“Catch, sir?”

“The Hemroni is an old merchant ship converted for remote operation. Some of those containers hold systems to radiate electromagnetic signatures akin to the task force. The missiles will home in on it and pass us. As long as we hold EMCON, it will be alright.”

“And when she sinks, sir?”

“Not likely, Ensign. The top layer of the container deck is refrigerated Pykrete.” Morris lifted his binoculars to study the lines of the ship silhouetted by moonlight some five nautical miles off the port beam.

“What’s Pykrete, sir?”

“British came up with the idea in World War Two. It is a combination of sawdust and water frozen solid. Damn stuff is stronger than steel. It wasn’t until recently that the refrigeration technology caught up to the requirement. When those missiles hit home, they won’t do much damage.”

“Here they come,” announced the bridge wing lookout. His voice broke as he ducked behind the steel wind shield.

The striking glow of ramjet exhausts were bright against the black of the night sky as they approached. The pulsating sound of their engines rang in Torres’ ears as they sped directly for the Hemroni. Smyth craned his neck in tracking the missiles pop upward, and then dive into the cargo ship. Torres turned away from the yellow-orange flame that rolled over the containers illuminating a gray smoke cloud in its wake. The dark veil of night asserted its dominance when the flames flickered out.

“I counted six, six impacts, Lieutenant. Acknowledge,” barked Morris.

“Aye, sir. The instrumentation shows six. All systems in the green. She’s continuing to radiate, sir,” said Torres.

“Very well.”

“Sir, if the Pykrete is such a good defense, why isn’t the ship crewed?” asked Smyth.

“It’s sort of hard to find volunteers to stand the mid-watch on a target ship, Ensign,” quipped Morris. “Are you stepping up?”

“No, sir. I did, however, want to know the origin of the ship’s name?” asked Smyth.

“The Hemroni was named for a fictional British strategist from the age of sail in the HMS Comet series. The book is on the CNO’s required reading list. You didn’t know, Mister Smyth?” said Morris tightening his stare on the junior officer. “Check it out on Amazon. It would enhance your professional development.”

“I’ll look it up, sir.”

“Lieutenant Torres, any word on the status of the Independence?”

“No, sir. Given their last reported position, they should be approaching the drop point in 15 minutes.” She looked over her shoulder to check the status board and nodded.

“Officer of the deck, once we get the deployed status report from Independence, I want to execute an immediate return to the Balabac Strait. We need to make for the Sulu Sea and get some deep water under the keel. The Independence may well like all this shallow water, but it just makes me nervous.”

“True, sir,” said the Officer of the Deck. He lifted a hand and pointed off to the northwest. “However, given the notorious lack of capability of the Littoral Combat Ship class, they required escort to deliver their package. They were supposed to relieve larger ships for other duties, but now we have to support them so they can complete their mission. Makes one wonder, just who in the hell is supporting whom.”

    One side of Morris’ face tightened, and he lifted one eyebrow toward the officer of the deck. He added a single word, “Indeed.”

_______________________________________

    “On the Independence, this is Lieutenant Choker, I have the deck and the con,” his bull-like voice echoed across the bridge. He looked over to see Commander Sarah Gonzales motion him over to her Captain’s chair.

    “Yes, ma’am,” said Choker.

    “It’s Captain, not ma’am, Lieutenant. I’ve worked damn hard to plant my butt in this seat and I damn well expect to be addressed as so,” said Gonzales. “Now, what is the status of launching the zodiac?”

     “I checked with the ship’s First Lieutenant on my way up to the bridge and he said they would be underway in…” he paused and look at his wristwatch, “20 minutes, Captain.”

    “We don’t have 20 minutes. The task force just dodged a missile salvo. Combat has lost the electromagnetic spectrum, it’s like we are fighting in a fog,” said Gonzales. She looked toward the port bridge wing and allowed her stare to carry out toward Mischief Reef. That small spit of land stood out there alone in the darkness. “Just steady up toward the reef. The more distance we gain the less the zodiac will have to cover when they debark.”

    “Aye, aye, Captain,” said Choker.

    “Any word from the landing force?” asked Gonzales holding a stare on the communications officer.

    “No, Captain. They have been silent since reporting touchdown two days ago. When the satellites went down, we lost both voice and data transfer. The Chinese crafted the worms and computer viruses with precision. One of my techs found backdoor code in a replacement part we got from the Pacific Rim. For all I know they could have been from Korea, Taiwan, or Japan. They came to play, and their play has taken the whole of the electronic spectrum with it,” said the communications officer. His gaze fell to the deck as he spoke.

    Pushing on the internal ship link, Gonzales said, “Combat, Bridge, what have I got left in the way of EW assets?”

    “Not much, Captain. I don’t know what they did, but all our offensive and defensive electronics are down hard. Jammers are fried solid. The techs are pushing to repair, but I can’t say when we’ll be back up. The only thing you can count on are the two chaff launchers.”

    “Stern gate, Bridge, when will you get the boat launched?” asked Gonzales.

    “I need 10 more minutes,” said the ship’s first lieutenant.

    “You’ve got five,” said Gonzales. The pause gave the bridge crew time to exchange glances.

    “Aye, Captain. Five it is.”

    “Officer of the Deck, possible missiles inbound starboard side,” yelled the bridge wing lookout.

    “Combat, Bridge, bearing for chaff deployment?”

    “You’re on it, Captain.”

    “Fire chaff,” screamed Gonzales. Her voice wavered as she spoke. The muffled pop, pop, of the chaff canisters going airborne resonated down to the bridge. The quartermaster of the watch bobbed his head in response.

    “Officer of the Deck, evasive action,” said Gonzales.

     “Aye, aye, Captain.”

     “Helmsman, right standard rudder, steady on course 260,” said Choker.

     “Sir, my rudder is right standard.”

     “Two missiles passing starboard, Captain,” said Choker. His head snapped as he traced their flight aft.

    “Sir, steady on course 260,” said the Helmsman.

    “Very well,” replied Choker. He moved to the bridge wing. His gaze followed the long white luminescence of the ship’s wake as it etched a sheen across the night blue waters of the shoal.

    “Bridge, stern gate, the zodiac is away. I say again, the zodiac is away. You are free and clear to maneuver.”

    “Officer of the Deck, turn us around and head east. We’ll make for the Balabac Strait,” said Gonzales. She labored to keep her tone in check.

    “Missiles inbound,” said the petty officer of the watch. His extended hand shook as he pointed to the northwest.

    “Fire chaff,” said the Captain.

    “They’re not reloaded yet,” said Choker.

    “Why the hell not?” asked Gonzales.

    “Seems no one topside thought it was important enough to give the keys to the ammunition locker to Petty Officer Albert,” said Choker. “He knows everything about those weapons but can’t do squat without rounds.”

    “Great. Evasive action,” commanded Gonzales.

    “Too late,” barked Choker. He grabbed the 1MC, and announced, “Missiles inbound starboard side, brace for shock.”

_______________________________________

    In the damage control locker, Petty Officer Freeman pulled his flame-resistant suit up over his shoulders. The crinkling sound of the silver fabric filled his ears as he secured the straps. It was too hot to wear the thing otherwise. The missile impact rippled through the deck casting his entire team off their feet. Freeman had to fight the pull on his body as the ship decelerated. His un-commanded movement stopped on impact with a fire extinguisher. For reasons he couldn’t explain, his eyes noticed the inspection tag was out of date. He keyed the intercom to talk with Damage Control Central, nothing. He thought, dead, not even static on the line. The ship began to ease to port causing him to strengthen his grip to remain vertical.

    The squeaking sound of the watertight hatch undogging was his first clue that a runner had reached the team. Warrant Officer McKay stepped through the portal. Pointing aft, he said, “We’re hit in after steering. I’ve got flames and flooding starboard side. Get your team down there and put out the fire. We’ll deal with the flooding once it’s out.”

   Freeman nodded. “Follow me,” he said waving his hand and heading aft. The team pulled their hoses over knee knockers and down the passageway. His eyes widened on seeing the extent of the blaze. He grabbed McKay’s shirt, and yelled above the roar of the flames, “I’ve got fire on both sides now. It’s moving forward. I’ve got to get more people down here to fight this thing.”

   “You know we’re shorthanded. What you’ve got is what you’ve got. Put the damn thing out,” said McKay.

    “Be nice to have some of the civilian maintenance contractors down here now in the middle of this sh—”

  “Shut up and fight aft,” screamed McKay.

    The hose team stepped forward, sweeping the hose left and right. The flames were knocked down, only to burst back to life as the foam moved side to side. Freeman’s mouth fell agape when the hose went limp.

    “I’ve lost water pressure,” yelled Freeman.

    “I’m on it,” yelled back McKay. Freeman flashed his gaze forward and then aft when the Warrant Officer disappeared forward.

    “What do we do now?” asked the seaman holding the nozzle.

    Freeman was pulled to the look of the sailor’s eyes. He had seen terror before, but never had the look so embraced the essence of a man’s soul. The lad’s head movements were jerky and abrupt as the flames crept closer.

    “We hold. We will hold here. The water will be back on in a minute,” said Freeman.

_______________________________________

    Lieutenant Commander Jim Day moved next to the captain. They turned away from the rest of the bridge team. The conversation was conducted in hushed tones and whispers, but it drew the full attention of everyone on the bridge.

    “Captain, you know the ship is lost,” said Day.

    “Not while I still have one DC team emplaced aft,” retorted Gonzales.

    Day let out a huff, and said, “Captain that’s all you’ve got, one team and it’s not at full strength. Even DOT&E said this thing couldn’t take damage and survive. Well, we’ve taken more than a little damage here, Captain. She’s done.”

    “I don’t give a damn what DOT&E says, I’m not quitting the ship.”

    “But you do give a damn about your sailors, Captain. You’ll need to start moving them off now to clear this thing before the fire reaches the central magazines. It’s going to light up like a roman candle in 15 minutes max.”

    Gonzales looked back across the bridge. All eyes reflected the dim sparkle of the battle lanterns and held in her direction. Her mentors at the Naval Academy had never taught her how to quit, and now didn’t seem like a good time to start. For one brief moment, she could visualize the flag that hung in Smoke Hall; “Don’t give up the ship.” The captain’s hand tapped in time with the ship’s clock, as the seconds march by. The collective stare of the watch team was focused on this one corner of the bridge.

    “Orders, Captain,” said Choker.

    “Abandon ship. All hands abandon ship,” said Gonzales. She leaned back in her chair and waved the bridge team away.

    “Captain, we have to go now,” said Day.

    “I’m staying with the ship, Commander. I will not surrender my Independence,” said Gonzales. She pressed her upper lip down hard to mask any emotion.

    “It will be the death of you, Captain.”

    She nodded but turned her stare forward. Day exhaled, saluted, and departed the bridge.

_______________________________________

    Colonel Garret had to tighten his eyes as the arc of the sun peaked above the horizon on the open ocean. Even at this early hour, he had to flex his fingers between the buttons of his utility uniform to force air across his chest. This did little to abate the sweat building on his back and neck. His muscles strained with each impact of the zodiac as it glided across the South China Sea swell. The splash of sea water across his face was cooling, even if it did taste of salt.

    “Sir, we’re ten mikes out from the reef,” barked the coxswain above the roar of the outboard motors. The colonel nodded and tugged on his kit.

    Garret took in the scene illuminated before him. The trade winds pushed a light column of smoke across Mischief Reef. He followed the rise and fall of the swell on a Chinese research vessel half submerged in the channel blocking the entrance to the artificial island’s bay. Two Light Amphibious Warships stood stranded on the reef across from the channel. He lifted his hand in that direction, and said, “Get me over there by those ships. That side of the island is under Marine control. The Chinese hold the other. Let’s go, quickly now.” He had to strengthen his grip when the coxswain threw the throttle forward causing the zodiac to go airborne. The twin outboard engines hissed at him before settling back in the water.

    The zodiac made a soft crunching sound as it slid up onto the sand. With one pack strap over his shoulder Garret leaped over the gunwale and splashed ashore. He could hear the Coxswain scream for his crew to push away before he reached the high-water mark. His ears were accosted by the heavy thumping of mortar fire scattering sand about him as it attempted to chase the boat back to sea. The grit of the sand clung to his face as he went prone avoiding the metal that whistled above. A quick glance up, and he saw a Marine waving for him to move in their direction. With a huff, he sprinted off the beach and collapsed next to a concrete building.

    “Who the hell are you?” asked Garret.

    “Staff Sergeant Jane Darby, sir.”

    “And what is your job in this goat rope?”

    “Intel and Info Specialist, sir,” said Darby. She pointed to a concrete block building and added, “The captain’s CP is this way.”

    Moving by the 81mm mortar section, they both ducked below the debris of a shell-pocked barracks and darted into the darkness of the CP. Looking around he noticed most of the company staff were huddled around computer screens that flashed static or were blank. He could feel his hands tighten into compact fists.

    “Sir, Captain Reed, how can I help the colonel?”

    The colonel’s frown deepened on studying the appearance of the Marine captain. Not a single wrinkle was etched across his brow. His mind raced, the captain looks so young. He can’t have more than six to eight years in this outfit and half of that wouldn’t even be in the operating forces. To place so much responsibility for this operation’s success in one so young, who the hell thought that was a good idea?

    “Captain Reed, you’re alive. I was sure you died given we haven’t heard squat from you in 48 hours,” said Garret. “Why isn’t this island under your control?”

    “We’ve encountered some…issues, sir.”

    “Go on,” said Garret. His tone was skeptical.

    “The LAWs got us ashore with 19 ACVs each. Between the headquarters and barracks buildings, we were fighting in an urban environment from the moment we disembarked. The ranges were so short they could hardly miss with RPGs and the armor on the vehicles couldn’t withstand any hits. The ACV is a great vehicle, sir. It just doesn’t have the survivability to go toe-to-toe in an urban battle. We had to clear this place dismounted, room-by-room, with rifles and grenades mostly. The same way my grandfather did in Germany.”

    “I saw a fist full of ACVs on the runway. Was that by design to block the airstrip?” asked Garret. The colonel was glancing around trying to read the mood within the room.

    “No, sir. I think that’s one Lieutenant Ashley should explain,” said Reed. He waved for the young officer to join them.

    “Yes, sir,” said Ashley saluting.

    The colonel made him hold the greeting, and asked, “What happened out there on the airfield Lieutenant?” Given the lieutenant’s time in purgatory, he saluted, and let him assume a more relaxed stance.

    “Sir, when I saw how we were getting bogged down on this side of the island, I decided to use maneuver and shatter the enemy’s cohesion. Exploiting speed as a weapon, we attacked along the airstrip before the enemy could react.”

    “Did you request supporting arms?” asked Garret.

    The Lieutenant glanced over to Staff Sergeant Darby, and then to his company commander. Darby stepped into the discussion, and said, “Sir, the Chinese knew just how to hit us. All our dispersed operations rely on the electromagnetic spectrum for connectivity. The minute we radiate, they send heavy mortars, 120mm or larger, directly at us. You haven’t gotten any reports for the same reason. Worse, it’s a two-way net. Our long-range missiles remain idle since they can’t get any targeting data. We can’t see a damn thing, sir.”

   “Did you try remoting your antenna to reduce your vulnerability?”

    “Yes, sir, but they have some sort of artificial intelligence program over there. The minute you key to talk, you can hear the thump of the mortar rounds on their way. Can’t see how a person in the loop can turn it around that fast.”

    “I’m going to have to report all this back to headquarters you know,” said Garret.

    “Good luck with that, sir. We’ve been unable to crack their interference over the net or on the airwaves,” said Reed.

    Garret pulled a boxy shaped object from his pack and held it up. Engaging the handle, a light flashed several times. “I’ll use this Captain. My zodiac is holding offshore until I signal.”

    “Flashing light, sir. Just a little primitive, don’t you think?”

    “Primitive, directional, and short ranged. Perfect for skirting around the electromagnetic spectrum and keeping messages secure. Who would have thought we’d be using boats as messengers to close the communications gap. I’ll bet you don’t even know your Morse code, do you, Captain?”

    Reed looked to the deck, and replied, “No, sir. It never was a requirement.”

    “What have you done to throw them off balance?” asked Garret. The wrinkles around his eyes were etched just a little deeper.

    “I ran a shore-to-shore night attack across the lagoon to exploit the stealth signature of the ACV. The vehicle’s tires struggled to negotiate the coral reef and that slowed us down, sir. However, it was the Chinese night vision that gave us away first. They just sat there and shot at us like the battle of Jutland.”

    “Alright, lots of attempts to get at them, but what are you trying to accomplish here. What is their center of gravity?”

    “I’m afraid I’ll have to address that one, sir,” said Darby. Her tone sounded sheepish. “When we did our threat assessment, it was determined that the island’s distillation plant was key. Take out their ability to make water and they would have to throw down in a week at most.”

    “And?”  The colonel tightened his stare on her and held his arms akimbo.

    The staff sergeant threw a can to him, his catch was reflexive. Reading the label aloud, he said, “Tsingtao. A Chinese beer, so what?”

    “Not beer, sir. The island is stocked full of those and they are all water. The Chinese stockpiled enough water here to last a very long time. We on the other hand, have burned through our two days of supply carried on the ACV and have to eat what chow we have captured,” said Darby. The edges of her mouth turned down on that comment.

    “How are their rations?”

    “It’s an acquired taste, sir.”

    “Well, it would seem not only have the Chinese read Sun Tzu, but they appear to understand his lessons as well,” said Garret.

    “Meaning what, sir?” asked Reed.

    “Meaning they cheat. They don’t play by any set of rules because it’s not in their culture to do so. We were so confident in our ability to exploit predictive intelligence to unhinge them, we now find our forces scattered across the archipelago in penny-sized packets of combat power unable to exploit the range of our missile forces to support each other because we can’t pass the engagement data required to launch such a strike.”

    “How did we get to such a state, sir?” asked Ashley.

    “Can’t single out one thing, Lieutenant. Part of the outcome rests on what can be called the MEU mentality.”

    “The what?”

    “We spent so much of the last twenty years deploying and exercising as MEUs we came to believe those were amphibious operations. Since many of those that were successful in that environment went on to become senior officers, we’ve become hostage to our own experience.”

    “But I don’t see how that operational experience can be a detriment, sir,” said Reed.

    “In itself, experience is not a bad thing. You have to be able to employ the wisdom to know when your experience is, or more importantly, is not, relevant.”

    “How does that apply to MEUs?” asked Ashley.

    “A MEU commander has to balance many constraints. Personnel available, weapons status, training time, and perhaps most overarching, the lift available. They became absorbed in the knap sack problem.”

    “The what?”  Ashley widened his eyes.

    “The knap sack problem is a common optimization problem familiar to all your Operations Research types out of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. In short, you have to fill the knap sack with the most valued items to secure the greatest value within a given set of constraints. The three ship ARG served as our knap sack for generations of Marines that deployed worldwide. I fear it has become the albatross around our neck to the same extent as the Ancient Mariner.”

    “As opposed to what?”  Reed’s stare locked on the colonel demanding an answer.

    “Backward planning has always been a hallmark of amphibious operations. First, develop your scheme of maneuver ashore. Once you have that down to ensure a win, determine the shipping you need to carry it into contact. When you reach the scene of action with a predetermined load, the best you can do is execute some sub-optimal scheme of maneuver. What could have made your maneuver here more viable?”  The colonel’s eyes now flashed between the three Marines.

    “I could have used some armor-protected firepower to clear this built-up area on landing. It would have allowed us to sustain momentum off the beach and carry the other side of the island,” said Reed.

    “I needed heavy indirect firepower on the ground with us,” said Ashley, “it’s an essential element of our maneuver doctrine.”  He pointed in the direction of the airstrip. “When I made my dash, if I could have kept their heads down, we would have maneuvered with a speed negating any response. The 81mm mortars just didn’t have the punch to intimidate them behind these fortified walls.”

    “The nature of this compound didn’t show up in all the satellite images I studied,” said Darby. She kicked a sandbag on the interior bulkhead. “That fact that they reinforced these structures with sandbags was lost to us, as well. Nothing really replaces collection agencies on the ground when it comes to assessing enemy capabilities. When poor information on the enemy was coupled with loss of the electromagnetic spectrum, this outcome was predictable.”

    “And so, despite being chartered to field a force that can fight across the spectrum of conflict, we tailored ourselves for one scenario. When that scenario didn’t unfold as envisioned, we lacked the flexibility to adapt to new challenges on the other side of the bay,” said Garret. His upper lip slammed down when he finished.

    “Sir, did you just say we violated our own doctrine when we formed these specialized Marine Littoral Regiments?”

    “I was in the room at Quantico during all those discussions. At the time, we sure as hell didn’t think so. We labored to build a modern naval combined arms force. In retrospect, a few more eyebrows should have been raised when we agreed to plug into the Navy’s composite warfare framework. I think too many folks were too proud to admit they didn’t fully understand the nature of the doctrine and the implications for our command and control. We’ve made the MAGTF look more like a boat than a ground combat formation,” said Garret.

He looked out the window and over the white-capped waters of the ocean. “We have become missile centric and lack the mobility and sustaining fire power to facilitate maneuver. As you said, you couldn’t keep their heads down with indirect fire when you started off across the airstrip. When the Commandant asked for someone to come see what was happening here, I jumped at the chance. Just wanted to see how my baby came out.”

    “The baby is ugly, sir,” quipped Darby. Taking a deep breath, she added, “What will they do now, sir?”  She bit her lower lip in anticipation of his response.

    “Now Staff Sergeant, they will play a game of Wei-Ch’i with us,” said Garret. A shallow grin occupied his expression.

    “Meaning exactly what, sir?”

    “In the game of Wei-Ch’I, the defeat mechanism is encirclement. Right now the Chinese Navy is sending its submarine force into the narrows of the Philippine Archipelago. They will bottle up any reinforcement and wait us out. We have attempted to wall them up along their coast. But, with the expanse of Russia behind them, it is unlikely we’ll be able to isolate them for long. It’s not like the Russians have ever really been our friends or supported our interests. We on the other hand, can’t get resupply since our ships are held distant and we don’t have control of the seas.”

    “Can’t they helo in our stuff,” asked Ashley.

    “Not with all that air defense gear on the other side of this rock. It would be worse than our helicopter losses in the Grenada Operation. I think this evolution will have much in common with that little Caribbean escapade,” said Darby.

    “In what way Staff Sergeant?” asked Garret.

    “Both will feature lots of lessons learned,” quipped Darby. One side of her face lifted in a slanted smile.

    “Well, it would appear we are going to be here for a long time,” said Garret. He picked up a Chinese ration, and added in a whisper, “Fortunately, I like rice.”

LtCol Robert Lamont (ret.) spent 22 years in the Marine Corps, including tours with the Marine Detachment aboard USS Constellation (CV-64) and the USS Cleveland (LPD-7) as a Combat Cargo Officer. His final tour was as a III MEF action officer planning Cobra Gold in Thailand and Tandem Thrust in Australia. He currently writes maritime fiction in that age of sail. Follow his work at www.amazon.com/author/lamont78.

Featured Image: “Armored Light Vehicle Concept” by Ahn Hyoungsup (via Artstation)

Fiction Contest Week

By H I Sutton

Helena was studying the screen intently. The blurred pixels of the satellite image clearly showed ships, but whose were they? She scrolled down, heading south towards the artificial reef. Its deep harbor was hacked from coral, thousands of years of life, now dead. There was nothing there. Looking inland there were some jets on the runway. These must be the Chinese Flankers everyone was talking about. Helena was not looking for what everyone else was. She raced back north to her unidentified ships. This was her catch.

There was a clink of porcelain as Aaron placed their refill on the table.

For a moment Helena looked up and surveyed the Starbucks. No one was paying any attention to them.

Aaron settled back down to his own laptop.

They made eye contact. In unison they looked back down at their screens, silently immersing into their hunt to identify the mystery ships. The world was watching the tensions unfold.

The USS Michael Monsoor was known to be in the area. Its harsh futuristic lines harked back to the ironclads of old. None of these unidentified ships were her.

Monsoor’s presence in the South China Sea was well justified, every ship has the freedom to navigate there. But that wasn’t stopping the situation from turning bad, and quickly. China was ratcheting up the rhetoric and mobilizing its navy. Everything looked like this was going to be the trigger for a major confrontation, maybe war.

It seemed ridiculous to the two friends, surely it was only an excuse. If things kicked off, it would be because someone had a bigger motive, not because of the actions of one ship.

The satellite imagery was from earlier that morning. It wasn’t great resolution, each pixel represented about 10 feet of real estate. But it was timely and it was free to access by literally anyone in the world. If a major escalation was about to start, Helena and Aaron would probably know more than the traditional media reporting it. Helena pondered for a moment, maybe she already knew more than some of the captains of the ships? Surely the navies’ intelligence organizations would be closely guarding their intelligence and squirreling away their secrets.

Meanwhile, all one needed was an internet connection to survey the mass of ships gathering near the reef. Some were clearly warships. Helena flicked back to the AIS data which showed ship’ positions in real time based on their automatic radio transmissions. All ships were supposed to do it, except warships. These ones weren’t on the map. They were running dark.

“Bingo” Aaron exclaimed. “Got the Hawkeye data. Someone uploaded it” Aaron shared the link to the data dump.

A message popped up on Helena’s screen. Within a few minutes it had been loaded into a map, showing a mass of dots and lines across the South China Sea. This was a type of satellite which monitors radio transmissions. Zooming in on the area where the unidentified ships had been that morning, Helena saw a trail of yellow lines leading due south. The ships weren’t on AIS, but they were using their radios to communicate with each other, and this was betraying them.

“Do you think we should post something?” Aaron’s tone hinted excitement. Being the first to call a new piece of information would enhance his reputation in the small community of watchers.

“This is bigger than Twitter,” Helena responded. “Do we have anything on Chinese social media yet?”

“A few possibles. There were some photos of one of their carriers, but I think we’ve seen those months ago.” Aaron hadn’t looked up for several minutes. He glanced sideways, wondering whether anyone was listening to their cryptic conversation. “What is Chinese for fishing boat? I think their maritime militia might be a starting point for a search.”

“I know someone who has a bunch of maritime militia-connected accounts. Some of these guys don’t have any discretion about what they post. I will give him a ping.”

“Oh, like this?” Aaron blurted, his excitement was palpable.

Instantly the message window on Helena’s laptop popped up, revealing a photo over the side of a tiny fishing boat. On the horizon were the hazy outline of warships, including a Type-055 Renhai-class cruiser and what looked like frigates. A helicopter was lifting off from the cruiser. These should be their unidentified ships. “Can we verify this? Where it is?” Helena’s initial delight morphed into suspicion. It seemed too good to be true and she was terrified of calling it wrong.

“It’s from Weibo. The original poster says it is from today in the Paracel Islands.” Aaron became defensive. “And here is another. This looks legit to me. Posted 12 minutes ago. It has only been viewed three times.”

In Helena’s mind pieces of the puzzle were coming together.

_______________________________________

8,000 miles away aboard the U.S. Navy destroyer in the South China Sea that same puzzle was still a mountain of fragments. Captain Richards grabbed both rails and propelled himself up the steps two at a time to the bridge, a habit formed over years of service aboard ships, leaving the command center far behind him. Within a couple of paces he was at the line of windows. He lifted his binoculars and surveyed the dozens of small boats on the horizon. It was an old-fashioned tool, anachronistic maybe, but for all the advanced radars, electro-optical sensors, and signals intelligence, he was not seeing the wood for the trees.

His ship was virtually surrounded by fishing vessels. Was it a trap? He had slowed it down to a stop. He was used to having a Chinese warship trail him, even getting in close for a game of cat and mouse. Near collisions were commonplace. But this was different. Where the Chinese expecting him to run over the thick mass of tiny boats in front of him? That would create an international incident. This wasn’t his call, not today. The world would be watching.

For a moment he felt alone, in a sea of jumbled information. It was overwhelming and frankly, the intelligence picture he was being fed wasn’t making sense.

Hundreds of miles above his head a satellite was processing an image. A dozen were passing over the area several times a day. Some were military but most, like this one, were commercial.

_______________________________________

“Satellite refresh in 20 seconds” Aaron couched over his laptop.

They both switched to the satellite providers’ web app. Their access would give them 30 minutes lead over non-premium users.

Helena impatiently pressed refresh on the browser.

After what seemed like an age, the fresh images showed up. Clouds. Lots of clouds.

She zoomed in to her previous coordinates, where the unidentified ships were. More clouds. “You try to the south of the reef. I’ll try the AIS position of that U.S. Navy destroyer. It’s been using an anonymous AIS handle.”

Through a clearing in the cloud she instantly recognized the top-down view of an impressive warship, the Monsoor. It was still in the water. And all around it, just a few hundred yards off every quarter, were tiny blobs. Fishing boats, hundreds of them. Still staring at the screen, Helena suddenly understood. “That ship isn’t going anywhere!”

“What’s up?”

“Monsoor looks stuck, surrounded by the maritime militia. Wow! A billion-dollar warship stopped in its tracks by fishing boats!”

“She is a sitting duck. Welcome to hybrid warfare” Aaron muttered. “I think I’ve found the Chinese cruiser. She is still heading due south, away from the action. The AIS is all messed up now, I think the Chinese are jamming it. Like they did in Shanghai that time.”

Aaron’s coffee was getting cold. It was still morning where they were, but the light would be fading in the South China Sea.

“If the Chinese launch a missile, and nobody sees it, does it make a sound?”

“Oh, you think it is a trap?”

“The fishermen will see it, front row seats.”

_______________________________________

Captain Huang looked out over the bow of his cruiser. The Type-055 was the pride of the People’s Liberation Army Navy. The faceted side of the main cannon’s casing caught the evening light. Between the captain and the cannon was a massive farm of missile tubes. Only the top of each tube was visible, marked by a square outer door. Beneath each gray square was a missile. He was so used to the view that he overlooked them, not giving any thoughts to what was inside.

The important payload, the new missile, was in a special launch container further aft. It was too big for the regular missile tubes, so some had been removed to make space for the wider and taller silos. It was a massive ballistic missile like the ones fired by submarines. But there was an important difference. Instead of a nuclear warhead, each missile had a small glider which could be steered onto its target at hypersonic speeds. One hit might be enough to sink an aircraft carrier. Or a destroyer.

“Are the new missiles ready?” Zhou asked as he stepped up beside the captain.

Senior Captain Zhou was the political commissar and the most senior officer aboard the ship. It was normal for PLAN warships to have a commissar on board, jointly commanding the vessel. On this ship he was the more senior of the two men, not that it should have mattered. The military commanders were anyway unfailing loyal to the Chinese Communist Party.

Technically Zhou and Huang were supposed to agree on each course of action but on missions like this, missions of national importance, everyone knew where the real power was.

“Your secret weapon is as ready as it needs to be at this moment.” Huang’s response had equal hints of mockery and resentment.

“There is no need for childish remarks, Captain. We are about to make history.”

Huang wasn’t listening. His mind was on the thousand tiny tasks which had to be done aboard the ship to launch the six missiles.

It was a completely new system and had not been tested from the cruiser before. Normally a weapon would have been tested many times before entering service, but this had been rushed. And hushed. And for the missile to be deniable it was important that, in the eyes of the world, it did not exist. No one should know that the cruiser had been fitted with the new weapon.

“Captain Huang! Are you with us? Captain!” Zhou was agitated. He had been talking and was sure that Huang was ignoring him. He was right.

“Yes,” the captain was momentarily back on the bridge. He deliberately didn’t acknowledge his senior’s rank. This was his ship, or at least it should be. “There are many things to be prepared,” he continued, expecting to be left alone.

“You cannot hide your mind in the details. We are but a small piece of a larger picture. A pictured viewed clearest from Beijing.”

Zhou paused, as even he knew the lecture was pointless. Huang, professional to the end, would do his job when the time came. He turned on his heels, but his rubber soles did not make any sound. Marching off, he feigned more important things to be getting on with.

Minutes later, 16 of the crew ran through the narrow passage that led along the side of the ship, up through a hatch and onto the aft deck where the second farm of vertical missile silos was. They quickly ran to their designated places around the blue tarpaulin which covered the new launch tubes.

Six of the silos where larger in diameter. They stood proud of the rest, about three feet higher. In all the six new missiles took up the space used by sixteen of the regular tubes, but it would be worth it.

Soon the tarpaulin was removed. The hatches of the special missile tubes were exposed for the first time since leaving the shed where she was built.

Captain Huang brought his binoculars up to his eyes and looked out of his bridge. Like Richards aboard the Monsoor, he took comfort in the simplicity of the age-old practice. Soon Huang’s ship would be far enough away to launch the attack.

_______________________________________

“Lunchtime?” Aaron said finally. He set his laptop down to one side on the bench, keeping one eye on the open screen. He was waiting for the next nugget of open source intelligence about the situation in the South China Sea.

Helena nodded, not looking up. She was frozen, looking at the same image for minutes now.

On her screen was the satellite image of the Monsoor surround by tiny fishing boats. Was this it? The end of the U.S. Navy’s freedom of navigation voyage? The end of the world’s freedom to sail in the South China Sea? She couldn’t help but think that there was something bigger going on.

They sat at the next table, with a view out into the street. It was dark inside and gray outside.

Helena was stuck for a moment, gazing blindly at the rain splattering on the empty sidewalk outside. Days weren’t usually like this.

Their laptops and spent coffee cups were still stating claim to the other table; this was their corner of the coffee shop.

A young barista came over and started clearing their old plates.

They both eyed him suspiciously as he scooped up the crumbs around their machines. As is the custom, nothing was said.

As he scurried off they picked up their sandwiches and took a few bites. They realized that they were starving.

“So?” Helena finally broke the silence.

Aaron bit his lip, holding in the excitement. His eyes betrayed him.

“Well what do we have?” Helena continued. It was a rhetorical question, they both knew she was the leader. “There is a U.S. Navy warship which is supposed to be conducting a Freedom of Navigation passage near the Chinese occupied reefs in the South China Sea.”

She held her left hand up and started counting with her fingers. That was one. “It’s not exactly routine, given all the rhetoric recently, but it would be a non-story if both sides let it to be.”

“But Beijing has chosen this moment as the watershed” Aaron added. “No more U.S. Navy in the South China Sea, it is their patch.” He was her perfect foil.

“Yes, this cannot end well. We know that the U.S. Navy won’t back down. Beijing knows that, everyone knows that. So they must want the Navy to react. They want an incident.”

She pulled down on the middle finger with her right hand: two. “It is stopped by a massive fleet of fishing vessels. These must be Chinese, and they must be part of the maritime militia.”

“A swarm.”

“Yes. They are acting as one unit. It is deliberate and there is no way they are fishing. So Beijing must be controlling them.” She paused, then grabbed her ring finger. There was no ring on it. “Three, there is a gaggle of Chinese warships, including a Type-055 Renhai-class cruiser, about 200 nautical miles south.”

“The bait maybe? Or they are running away?”

“No, I’m not buying that. Maybe they are holding back so that the confrontation appears to be between the U.S. Navy and civilian vessels? That would look better for them on the TV screens.”

“Or there is a military reason. Like the nuclear option?”

“That would be crazy. There is no way that the Chinese would use nuclear weapons that close to home. That close to their own people.”

Aaron raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t so sure. But he knew anyway that a nuclear attack did not seem likely. Within a fraction of a second his mind had raced through logics and reasonings. A tactical nuclear attack on the U.S. Navy just seemed like a really dumb way to start World War Three.

But maybe there was another weapon that the Chinese had in mind? Something which needed their warships to be hundreds of miles away. “If the Chinese attack the USS Michael Monsoor, that’s war,” he said. “This doesn’t make sense. Any attack would be tied back to them in a second. So I think their game is provoking us, they want an over-reaction.”

“Unless” Helena challenged, “they have a way of attacking which they can deny. Like the North Koreans did with that South Korean ship, the Cheonan.”

“China doesn’t have a deniable weapon. Any attack would be all over the internet in seconds. Every boat in that fishing fleet seems to be on the internet. Have you seen the Fox article, even they are getting their videos from Weibo.”

“Maybe.” Helena conceded. “But none of the media outlets have that Chinese cruiser on their feeds. Maybe we should break the story after all?”

“Let’s let it develop a bit more.” It was Aaron’s turn to be the voice of caution. “If we are wrong about the cruiser then we could be adding fuel to the fire. This could have real world consequences.”

He sat back, mopping his mouth with a napkin. He checked his phone momentarily before shifting back along the bench to his laptop. He was addicted to both devices.

_______________________________________

Aboard the American destroyer Captain Richards was still on the bridge. His XO had joined him.

“Shall we launch the interceptor boats now that it is dark sir? Maybe make a hole in this noose?” she asked.

“No thank you. The last thing we want is any bloodshed. Or worse, prisoners.” He paused. “Send up a helicopter, see if its downwash can clear a path.”

“Yes sir.” The XO acknowledged the order. She turned to their staff who were loitering in the shadows at the back of the bridge.

_______________________________________

500 nautical miles to the south the Chinese cruiser was finally ready to launch. Both senior officers were in the command center. They had seemingly repaired their earlier differences.

As the large digital clock on the wall turned to 18:30 hours the commissar triumphantly shouted “Fire!”

The room was full of attentive junior officers and sailors. No one did anything, instead keeping one eye on Captain Huang. He was the boss of the ship, at least in fighting terms. And anyway, Zhou had no idea which sailor he needed to order, or what exactly they were supposed to do.

“There must be no warning, and no survivors aboard the American warship” Captain Huang said after a deliberate pause. There was no emotion. “We have to hope that they do not have any means to detect our military action.”

He breathed as if preparing to deliver an important speech. But there was nothing he could say that could starve off fate.

“Special vertical tubes missile batteries make ready, low flight trajectory, pre-designated target, United States Navy destroyer 112, target coordinate at,” he looked up at a display, “12.1 Port.”

He watched as three sailors in neatly pressed blue camouflage uniforms ran through their drills. They vocalized each step, yelling into the silent room. The excitement blotted out the background noises.

Within moments Huang had received the confirmation that the steps had been taken. “War alert! Launch four special vertical tubes, sequence 1, 3, 2, 4, at five second intervals,” he said firmly, adding “No delay.”

“Only four?” Zhou challenged. He had understood that all six were to be used, that would be the normal principle of a saturation attack.

“Four is enough, it is only a destroyer.” His duty was to his orders from the Party, he had done his duty. “And we never know when we might need the others.”

Moments later the bright flare of the missiles being launched erupted from the stern of the ship. Soon all four of the giant missiles were airborne, charging skyward. Their smoke plumes caught the very last traces of the evening sun.

_______________________________________

Aboard one of the fishing vessels two men were training their night vision camera on a large warship. It was now not more than a couple of hundred yards away.

Suddenly the night sky became daylight as explosions erupted above them. They instinctively ducked back into the open topped boat. Looking up, terrified, they saw a shower of sparkling confetti slowly floating down. More explosions were happening higher up.

Although they did not recognize it, they were underneath a cloud of metal chaff and flares, designed to mislead the incoming missiles. The USS Michael Monsoor’s defenses were going into overdrive.

Above the pop of the firework-like pyrotechnics the fishing boat crew could hear the alarms on the warship. Suddenly rockets streaked up into the sky, as if signaling the imminent climax of a fireworks display. It was the ESSM air defense missile system. It was all the ship had.

The alerts came too late for the Monsoor.

The last-ditch defense was in vain. The incoming rounds were travelling at hypersonic speeds and maneuvering just enough to make targeting them extremely difficult. The destroyer wasn’t equipped with anything designed to take them on. Three of the Chinese missiles scored direct hits, breaking the spine of the ship.

The two fishermen eventually regained their composure. Without saying a word they began filming again, just as they had been instructed.

The mayday transmission was garbled, jammed by equipment aboard the supposed fishing boats.

These small boats then began hunting for survivors, rinsing the decks of the rapidly sinking warship with gunfire. The crackle of sporadic assault rifle fire echoed in the darkness. There were to be no survivors.

_______________________________________

Helena’s twitter feed suddenly sprung into action.

Alerts and messages retweeted a statement from the U.S. Navy’s official twitter accounts. An unnamed U.S. warship was involved in a vague incident in the South China Sea.

They knew it was the Monsoor.

But the official statement was being drowned out by videos of the burning warship. There was no doubt that it was sinking. The videos were already going viral, being shared millions of times.

Even the TV in the coffee shop was showing the videos non-stop. The ticker headline read “U.S. Navy ship damaged in tragic accident.” Random commentators shared their wild speculation, and TV anchors pretended to know about warships.

“This is insane.” Aaron was dismayed. For the first time it felt real. “The Chinese are saying that the ship exploded without warning. People are saying that the U.S. Navy was attempting to make an attack or something. Or that it was an engine malfunction. No way to all of that…”

“Luckily all those Chinese fishing boats were there to pick up survivors…” Helena said numbly.

They had both noticed that none of the videos had sound, and that there was no word or sign of survivors.

“The Chinese are controlling the narrative. Information warfare 101,” Aaron concluded.

“Quick, what’s happened to that Chinese cruiser? You check the social media, I’ll see what the latest satellite imagery looks like”

They both dived back into the internet, the hunt was on.

_______________________________________

“Hi Helena, Aaron. So I guess you want to talk about the accident in China’s waters? I just heard that Beijing is declaring an emergency and closing the seas around it. They are doing a press conference in 20 minutes, which my network is broadcasting live. Busy news day!” Brandon was sitting in front of a bookshelf. Disorganized blocks of books, some piled the wrong way, were only to impress. He had moved the old bookshelf behind his desk to make him seem more credible in Zoom meetings like this.

Helena tried to read the titles of the books. There were none that she recognized, nothing on naval history or warship recognition.

“It’s not in Chinese waters, it’s in international waters.”

“Their exclusive economic zone I meant,” Brandon cut her off. “It is their backyard, right. What was a Navy ship even doing there? And those poor fishermen, we are expecting a massive collateral body count at the news conference…”

“It doesn’t look like an accident,” Helena interjected, trying to wrestle control of the conversation. “The Monsoor was set up, and it is obvious that the Chinese did it.”

“Monsoor was that U.S. battleship, right? Right. All the open source intelligence supports what the Chinese are saying Helena. You’ve seen the videos.”

“Those aren’t OSINT, Brandon, that’s information warfare. It is the Chinese narrative, they want us to take them at face value. We have to look at the bigger picture.” His tone was already annoying her, but she was trying not to show it. She hated that he didn’t know the difference between a destroyer and a battleship. Was he doing it on purpose to bug her? Probably not, his reports were full of errors.

“Listen, the news cycle is dominated by that video of the burning battleship. And now this news conference. Unless you have something massive it will have to wait. Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday cycle?” He was trying to sound like he was in a hurry, it was a power play.

“Isn’t there a version of events from the Pentagon or White House?”

“Nothing worth reporting. You know how it is, by the time they pull a proper presser people will have moved on.”

Helena took a deep breath. She had never fully trusted Brandon, but this was their best chance.

“We do have something massive, that’s why Aaron messaged you. There was a squadron of Chinese warships which were acting suspicious. We need your help.”

“If I help will I get the exclusive?” He was shortcutting straight to the deal.

“Ok.”

“What help do you need?”

_______________________________________

Aaron studied the image. It was incredibly rare to get high resolution images of ships at sea. The satellite companies normally turned their cameras off over open water to save energy and bandwidth. But with Brandon bankrolling it they had been able to task one to take a strip of the South China Sea. They had to miss the site of the USS Michael Monsoor sinking but they had caught the Chinese Type-055 cruiser.

“You guessed the coordinates of the Chinese warship perfectly. Impressive. And you were right, it’s definitely a Type-055,” his voice suddenly sounded unsure. “Something looks odd, though”

Helena quickly brought back the earlier images of the ship. Despite their lower resolution the tarpaulin over the second set of missile cells stood out. A blue blob a couple of pixels wide.

“There was a cover over the aft vertical launch system. That’s gone now,” she replied. “And the hatches seem discolored, maybe scorch damage?”

“And those VLS doors are bigger, aren’t they? Look at them compared to the ones up front.”

“Get your friend Brandon on Zoom again. Tell him the Chinese news conference is already old news.”

“Let’s wait,” His voice began trembling now. His mind pictured the burning ship, and the Chinese cruiser steaming through a choppy sea. He imagined the captain aboard the Chinese warship and wondered what he was thinking. He had no idea. He had never thought about the human element in his work before. Targets were just pixels on a screen. Hundreds of people, crews aboard the ships, were just datapoints. He was in over his head. “This is way bigger than anything we’ve found before. What if we make the incident worse with this? What if we are wrong?”

She glared at him over the top of their laptop screens. Beads of sweat caught the light in the furrows of his brow.

“We have to do the right thing.”

_______________________________________

The banner at the bottom of the screen read “Breaking News.” It had lost its meaning. Brandon sat squarely facing the viewer, his manicured hands grasping a piece of paper. Like the banner it was redundant. Looking straight ahead, he read the autocue.

“This just in. The Navy ship, USS Michael Monsoor was sunk this morning. Contrary to what we are hearing out of Beijing, Chinese warships may have been involved in the incident.” His caveats and ambiguous words were carefully chosen to be ignored by the viewers. “We have exclusive information that a squad of combat ships, centered on the Chinese Navy Type-055 battleship, was shadowing the U.S. sailors.”

His constant misidentifications were grating Helena. She watched intently, anticipating what was coming next.

“Exclusive satellite images suggest that the Chinese warship fired a missile…”

The satellite imagery she had gathered, complete with her labels, flashed up on the screen.

Helena felt a moment of jubilation. Complete satisfaction.

The broadcast abruptly cut to another presenter. A lady on the ground in Taiwan.

“U.S. forces are on the move here in Taiwan. A helicopter, said to have escaped from the USS Michael Monsoor moments before it exploded, landed about two hours ago. We don’t know what these survivors said to their leaders, but we can see the results. We have counted three U.S. Air Force transport planes in the past hour.”

A fighter jet roared overhead, drowning out her broadcast.

Helena looked away. She slumped back on the sofa, tasting the silence in the room. Her dog looked at her, needing reassurance. Was it all going to be alright?

H I Sutton is a writer, illustrator and analyst who specializes in submarines and sub-surface systems. His work can be found at his website Covert Shores.

Featured Image: “A Quick Turnaround” by Anakin Ryan (via Artstation)

Fiction Contest Week

This is a sequel to “At the Moral Level.”

By Major Ian Brown, USMC

Now 

Jayna woke up and the river was on fire.

Her mind throbbed with dim memories: the smell of gas. A whisper. A tug on her squid skin suit. Then light, heat, tumbling—

Focus. Her cheek was cold and wet, and she realized she was lying in mud. Beyond the mud was the river, its surface glowing with patches of flame. Then something else penetrated her awareness—staccato sounds, thumps, sirens. She remembered where she was, and why.

New Orleans. Where she’d come to make war. 

Then

“Look around, look around at how lucky we are,

To be alive right now,”

Jacen softly sang along as he and Jayna danced lazily across the wooden floor.

“A little grim for a wedding, isn’t it?” Jayna asked. He smiled.

“Kat’s a big Hamilton fan,” replied Jacen. “She wishes she’d been born when it was still on stage so she could’ve seen it live.” He paused and look straight in her eyes, the smile gone. “Besides, after what happened to you all in China…at least, what you’re allowed to tell us…I feel lucky to have you here.”

“The fact that you’re alive is a miracle,

Just stay alive, that would be enough…”

Her brother wasn’t wrong. She’d come out of the China war unscathed, certainly compared to the rest of her squad. As if reading her mind, Jacen’s face darkened, and she knew what was coming.

“I don’t pretend to know

The challenges you’re facing…”

“I still can’t believe you’ve got that fucking…thing inside you, ” he growled, his eyes smoldering. She sighed inwardly. Really hoped he wouldn’t bring that up tonight.

“It’s not how it was in the war,” she replied. “You know that. The new sub-derm’s been tested more, it’s implanted away from the brain, it uses all the lessons we learned—“

“—from half your squad getting their brains fried,” he retorted. “All so you could play mind games on ignorant conscripts.”

“Its advantages kept the war short and saved lives on both sides,” she replied, hoping there was sufficient steel in her voice to steer the conversation away from the subject.

“Sure. It’s the moral version of you on the rifle range, right? Boom-boom-boom—three-round burst, center mass, they drop, except you’re shooting lies at them instead of bullets.”

“Jace…not now, please,” she said, switching to a gentle plea. “It’s not the night to talk about the war. Tonight’s for you and Kat, for us to be happy for you. I’m lucky to be here.” It worked, as she knew it would. His fire burned hot, but short. The anger left his face, his mouth twisting into a guilty half-smile.

“There you are, the big sister always keeping me safe from the dark,” he said quietly. “Refusing to hurt me, even when I totally deserve getting punched in the face.”

“Damn right,” she replied, grinning. “You know me, baby brother. I’d never hurt you.” The song ended, but instead of pulling away, she wrapped her arms tight around her brother, warm with gratitude for this night. He’s right, she thought. I’m alive. I’m lucky. Tonight, that’s enough.

Now

It started with a protest. Months after the China incursion, drip by drip, details on how the U.S. had won leaked to the public. Some details were even true, but alts- and trolls injected so much calumny into the discourse that almost no one, besides those who’d fought in the war, knew the truth.

Calumny turned into national protests. Protests boiled into violent unrest. New Orleans was touted as the biggest protest yet. Then came the video. It showed New Orleans cops and Louisiana National Guardsmen walking up to a line of protestors hurling volleys of insults, along with the occasional brick and bottle. They stopped within a few paces of the protestors. Then as one, they raised their pistols and shotguns and carbines and turned the protestors into piles of bodies, some unmoving, some writhing and screaming. 20 seconds of video, occasionally blurry and garbled, but the broad strokes of the incident were clear enough.

Except they weren’t. The mayor, police chief, National Guard commander, local business owners all gave the same inexplicable message: the video was fake. It never happened. The mayor escorted video crews around the city. Hospitals that should have been choked with casualties were empty. Streets that should have been coated with blood and bullet casings were clean. The mayor and the rest all pleaded the same message: the video is fake, we will find the truth, but it will take time, please don’t lash out. Please, trust us. Please…

The mayor’s efforts bought a few days of uncertain peace. Then other videos circulated, showing hospital corridors and city streets clogged with bodies and ground slick with blood; a couple even purported to show THE COVER-UP!!!!! CLEAN-UP CREWS SANITIZING THE CRIME SCENE!!!!!! With that, smoldering national tension erupted into conflagration. The president, as was her wont, poured gasoline on the fire, screaming about her reelection and deploying active duty military units to the worst disturbances whether local authorities asked for them or not. And New Orleans—senior officers whispered Fallujah, and sent Jayna’s team there. Her team…

Squad, check in, Jayna flashed through her sub-derm, as she began her own self-assessment. She blinked the sequence that triggered her internal diagnostics and felt some small relief. Superficial lacerations to her suit aside, the squid skin, her two-way 3D printer backpack, and sub-derm were still functional. That was the good news. The bad news was that none of her squad had checked in after she’d flashed them. Pressing her hands into the mud, Jayna pushed herself up to her knees, looked around, and understood the silence.

Unmoving shapes dotted the mudflats around her. It took her a second to remember where those mudflats were. Her squad had rounded Thirtyfive Point in their drone boats, the lights at the Waterford nuclear plant illuminating the night sky, and she’d seen the dark angles of the quays on the southern bank along River Road. Their cloud of nano-drones hadn’t noted any unusual activity. Then…the smell of gas. Whisper. Tug. Inferno. And mud.

One of the irregular shapes to her right twitched. Jayna sloshed through the mud toward it. She recognized O’Brien, new join to the first fire team. The flames from the river illuminated his torso and face as she approached. Getting closer, his skin appeared…odd.

Flensed? Is that the word? O’Brien’s face was slashed by symmetric cuts, as if raked by a razor-sharp comb. They didn’t look deep, but they bled enough to sheet O’Brien’s face with blood. She noticed the same cut pattern on O’Brien’s squid skin, and looked closer. Along the cut-lines, the squid skin’s artificial cells kept trying to form patterns and lock in their colors—but there was a discoloration along the cuts, and as she watched, it seemed to ooze and spread outward from each laceration, degrading the color and pattern of each cell it touched.

Grimly, Jayna sensed that what she was looking at wasn’t a byproduct of the explosion—the lines were too symmetrical. They showed intent. A cold realization swept over her: we got hit with something besides an incendiary. A weapon specifically designed to wreck our suits so we can’t communicate, can’t camouflage ourselves. Maybe that was the whisper and tug, right before the blast? Bad as that was, the ultimate implication was worse: they knew we were coming. She quickly looked over her own suit. There were a few lacerations, but it looked like she’d avoided the worst of the weapon’s effects. She cleaned O’Brien’s face and sprinkled smart coagulant over the cuts. Satisfied that she’d stopped the bleeding, Jayna then looked around to find everyone else.

Sheets of oily flames still covered the river, illuminating the mudflats with a hellish light. In the dim glow, she saw dark lumps scattered across the mud. One by one, she went to them. Frye, Reynolds, Serra, Tam, Cozner—all dead. Mourn later. Find them all first. Schaefer and Dillon were unconscious, burned, and flensed like O’Brien, but alive. That left Holt.

Jayna couldn’t find him. The knot in her stomach, loosened somewhat by each squad member she accounted for, tightened again. Tension built into panic—I lost him, it’s a fucking war zone, we don’t know where the friendlies are, and I lost him—

A noise grew down the road on the embankment above the mud. Vehicles. Despair tugged at her guts. Most of her squad was dead, those still alive couldn’t fight, and for all she knew, whoever was coming down the road was on the same side as the folks who’d blown her team out of the water. All she could do was stand there alone, and wait.

The first vehicle stopped. Seven-ton truck—National Guard still uses those. Some of her tension drained away. Another seven-ton hissed to a stop behind the first, and figures jumped out. Flashlight beams snapped on and quickly found her, standing below the edge of the road, caked in mud and doubtless looking like a nightmare. A voice lost in the blinding lights yelled down at her.

“Authenticate Liberty Place!” Her knees almost gave out as relief washed over her. “I authenticate James Longstreet,” she responded, and the flashlight beams dropped to the ground. The owner of the voice stepped forward. Jayna saw a young man, face carved by deep lines of tension and fatigue. He spoke in a flat voice.

“I’m First Lieutenant Delenn, Louisiana National Guard QRF. We’d been told your team was inbound.”

 “Sergeant Jayna Monos, Special Battalion,” she replied. “I need a medic. I’ve got three wounded, multiple KIAs, and we need to start protocol for one MIA—“

“We’ll take care of it,” the lieutenant cut in, “but for your MIA, I’ll take you to the command post so you can see the ISR imagery. We know what happened to him. He was taken.”

Then

Jacen’s rant had passed the 30-minute mark. For most of it, Jayna had dug her nails into her palms to keep from punching his face. The latest disclosure about American tactics in the China war had triggered it. And Jacen had gotten worse. Since the wedding, something had infected his mind, driving every conversation toward that bitter subject. As it had now, during one of his infrequent visits to her house.

“—porno deep fakes so they’d murder each other, bank hacks that directly led to innocent civilian casualties, everything with the forest fire. Jesus fucking Christ, was there an ethical line you didn’t cross?”

Old argument, new passion. She tried her usual responses—they never convinced him, but helped dampen his rants with their predictability.

“Jacen,” she started, trying to keep her voice tranquil, “I know it’s a new conception of war that doesn’t fit older—”

“Horseshit,” he interrupted. “You deliberately blew up a civilian dam so they couldn’t fight the fire, you spread all that propaganda about how the PLA sent their first responders away to Taiwan so the locals would rebel—” and then the tranquility was gone as her rage spilled over.

“You’re such a fucking child, baby brother,” she cut in. “We didn’t make the Party mismanage the forest, or not keep the reservoir full, or send their own goddamn firefighting reservists away to invade Taiwan. We just nudged pressure points that already existed. Hell, it was our AI-spawned messages that warned civilians about the fire and got evacuations going before official CCP channels said a fucking word. We prevented loss of life even while we played in the information arena.” She paused, wondering how to penetrate the unreality he liked to live in. Maybe the fundamentals would work.

“As for the deep fakes and hacked bank accounts: China started the goddamn war! You’re butthurt about our moral responsibility, but what about the moral responsibility of those greedy fuckers who decided a few lines on a map were worth a bloodbath? Our hacking and faking and squid skins and sub-derms unhinged the PLA and ended the war. We prevented a longer conflict that would have meant massive bloodletting on both sides. A conflict from which my team—me—would’ve come home in body bags.” She’d run out of steam, but the look on Jacen’s face told her she, as usual, hadn’t gotten through. In fact, an arrogant smirk grew across his lips.

“You so sure China started the war?” he asked. “Word I’ve heard…it was a great proving ground if the military and NSA wanted to try out all those little tricks at home. Say, on groups that don’t like the president.” He paused, expectant.

“For f—” and she stopped. This was something new. Something dangerous.

“Interesting theory,” she replied instead. “Where’d that come from?”

“Those fakers on TV aren’t the only ones who talk,” he said, eyes narrowing. “There are folks back in the Bog where your bosses live who still care about the people. About the truth. It only takes one to talk. And where we have one, we have all.”

That last part disquieted her. It didn’t sound like a phrase he’d come up with ex tempore. She realized there was more at work here than in their past arguments.

“Truth,” she said slowly. “I care about truth. And truth takes trust. Don’t you trust me, baby brother?” She softened her tone. “If that was all true, about the war, the tech…I’d know, wouldn’t I?” She looked him straight in the eyes. “I’d know some of it, anyway. Enough to be complicit.” Jacen’s eyes stayed on hers, unwavering. “Not long ago, you said I was the one keeping you safe from the dark. That I’d never hurt you. You trusted me. So—do you still trust me? Or your…alternate sources?”

He blinked a few times, his face uncertain. Inside, she felt her own tension loosen. She’d reached him a little. If she could still reach him, well, that was good enough for today. Then he spoke.

“You left out the virus,” he spat. “The supposed ‘dead-man’s switch’ bioweapon China allegedly released when they saw the game was up. The one that’s so deadly it justifies the president issuing whatever fiats she wants, fiats that conveniently come in her reelection year.”

Jayna sat in stunned silence, genuinely shocked that he’d gone this route. She’d heard this story, which had bubbled forth from the murkiest regions of the digital fringe. She just never thought she’d hear it from her brother’s mouth. For several moments, Jayna didn’t trust herself to speak.

“The virus was deadly,” she finally said, coldly. “It killed Dad because you convinced him it wasn’t. So now he’s dead, and you think me and China and who the fuck else knows are in it together. Whatever it is.”

“Play the dad card, huh,” he sneered. “Three rounds, center mass, that’ll shut me up and let you hide from the fact he at least died free—” and her fist drove into his face. He stumbled back, looking more surprised than hurt.

“Enough,” she whispered, and tears blinded her eyes. She did not see, but heard, the front door slam. Jacen was gone.

Now

Warm, damp wind blasted Jayna’s face as the airboat bumped across the dark water. Lieutenant Delenn’s mechanics had done an admirable job muffling the motor and fan exhaust given their time constraints, so wind aside, the only sound was the airboat’s hull periodically slapping against the water.

A faint red line stretched ahead of her in the darkness. Dull throbbing pulsed behind her eyeballs from the sub-derm’s twin feeds, overlaying the pursuit track and sonar picture from her nano-drone swarm up ahead. Jayna ignored it, simply glad to have a path to Holt.

Delenn had been laconic in answering her questions on the way to his CP. No, he hadn’t known her team was coming to support the Guard. It was only a half hour before the ambush that their higher headquarters had gotten word that reinforcements were coming down the river. Just enough time to re-task their sole drone to show up over the river bend right when the fireworks started. Enough time to watch her team die, and Holt get dragged away by shadows from the tree line.

No, the drone hadn’t tracked the attackers’ egress—Delenn’s QRF needed its feed to clear their route to come pick her up.

No, he didn’t know how rebels had managed to breach the grounds of an industrial area to steal the incendiaries for the ambush without raising an alarm. But there was intel that insurgents in unmarked tactical uniforms were all over the place, talking their way through security checkpoints with ease because there were so many other federal forces running around in unmarked uniforms that no one could say for sure who was on the field. Delenn gave Jayna a small ray of hope by noting there was a Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) over the city—maybe her headquarters could pull its data.

The Guard’s CP was at Louis Armstrong Airport. The airfield was a madhouse of trucks, tents, and aircraft crammed haphazardly next to each other. It looked like every governmental and law enforcement agency was here—and the pandemonium made it clear that no one was in charge. She could see fires burning in the distance, though one conflagration seemed much larger than the rest. She’d make the mistake of noting that to Delenn. That, he told her, was where their MEDEVAC helicopter had gone down. She assumed he meant lost to ground fire. He looked her in the eye.

“You know what vortex ring state is?” he’d asked her. Jayna shook her head. “Well, our pilots do. But the federal agents who ordered them there didn’t care. They told our pilots there was a riot in progress downtown and ordered them, ‘under executive authority,’ to do a show-of-force to disperse it. Threatened the pilots—threatened their families—with consequences for disobedience. Our pilots bustered to the grid of the riot before we figured out that it was our aircraft the feds had hijacked.” His jaw tightened.

“We got our drone’s camera on the area in time to watch. They had to hover below the rooftops to disperse the riot.” Delenn was snarling now. “Riot—we saw a bunch of people holding signs, just standing there. Even kids. Not moving, just standing. Our helo’s rotor wash got stuff moving, though. All that swirling air, boxed in between the buildings, bouncing off the walls. It shattered windows into glass rain. I watched a garbage can lid get flipped into the back of a woman’s head. She hit the pavement, didn’t move. The kid she was holding was stuck under her body. Finally, enough of that dirty air got sucked through the upflow of the rotor arc that our bird lost lift and …” Delenn’s eyes unfocused. “You ever seen what pieces of broken rotor blade do to a person? Seen what a wall of burning jet fuel does to a child stuck under its dead mother’s body?” Jayna had no answer.

She left Delenn alone for a while after that, sending requests through her sub-derm to her own headquarters to see if the JSTARS would share its data. After an agonizingly long wait, her headquarters finally flashed back the response she’d been hoping for: TRAP for Holt approved. JSTARS replay and overlay for possible hostile exfil route is processed and available in secondary ISR sequence. Procure own transport. Jayna felt disappointment at that last directive, but then she blinked the hostiles’ GMTI track to life inside her eyeball via sub-derm streaming and felt a flush of inspiration. Based on the track, the transport almost suggested itself. Time for a little guerre de razzia, she thought, and told Delenn what she needed.

He put her on a convoy with some of his vehicle mechanics, and they drove down to the docks at Jean Lafitte. With chaos in the city spreading, no one noticed a few people prowling around the docks. Jayna found an airboat, and in short order, Delenn’s mechanics muffled the engine and fan. She blinked out an order to her backpack to print a cloud of nano-drones, which swarmed on the night air ahead of her. She blinked again to get the stream of their sonar-generated picture into her eyeball, then a third time to overlay the JSTARS’ GMTI track as a ghostly red line stretching out in the distance. Gunning the airboat’s motor, she plunged into the darkness before her.

Then

Kat’s text was short: he’s gone and I’m scared. Jayna called her back, and the story came tumbling out. Jacen saw the video. He said New Orleans was the beginning. He’s going to show the world the truth before the government tells its lies. He left.

Jayna almost didn’t tell Kat that her team had just been ordered to the same place as Jacen. But if anyone had suffered more from Jacen’s changes than Jayna, it was Kat. The texts and calls she sent Jayna since the wedding never came right out and said it, but their tone was clear—Jacen was not the same man she’d married. Kat deserved to know that he would not be abandoned without a fight.

“Kat…you know what I do. I’m going to New Orleans. I’ll find him and take care of him.” Kat sobbed on the other end of the call.

“Oh God, thank you. Just knowing you’ll be there—that’s enough.”

Now 

They didn’t know she was coming. Nothing else explained the utter lack of security at the target site. Her drone cloud painted two people at the objective. One lay prostrate on a bed inside a shack by the water—Holt. The other figure bent over the bed, poking something into the prisoner’s armpit…where the sub-derm was. Used to be. The prisoner spasmed. Jayna gritted her teeth, cut the airboat’s motor, and slowly glided toward the dock near the shack.

Since Holt’s captor was alone, her plan was simple. Shoot the guard and get Holt back to the airboat. Her swarm’s picture was clear enough to show that the guard’s pistol was holstered. In. Out. Simple.

The airboat slid silently next to the dock. She quietly padded across the boards to the shack door. The swarm showed the captor bent over Holt, which meant his attention wasn’t on the open doorway. In three steps, she was at the doorway, rail rifle panning the interior. The captor straightened up but was still looking away, so she took a second to steady her body as she tensed her finger on the trigger.

And then the captor turned, looked at her, and her rifle’s muzzle drooped to the floor.

Jacen stared back at her.

His face mirrored her own surprise. But he recovered quickly. In the extra moment it took her to accept that it was indeed her brother standing there, Jacen slid his pistol from its holster and pointed it at Holt’s head.

“Jacen…how—” she began, but he coldly cut her off.

“How did you find me?” he snapped. She tried to ignore the pistol muzzle floating an inch from Holt’s head.

“GMTI record from the JSTARS orbiting the city,” she replied, trying to keep her voice level. “Whatever thermal masking you used at Thirtyfive Point didn’t cloak movement. You got most of us. But not me.”

The tightness in his face momentarily relaxed. But his eyes never left hers. “Doesn’t matter. There aren’t enough of you left to cause us problems, or you wouldn’t be here alone. Besides, we’re almost done.” The smirk she’d seen so often in recent months crossed his mouth. Keep his attention on me. Not Holt. On me. Us.

“I assume you had friends for…this,” she said, gesturing to Holt. “They leave you behind?”

“Oh no. Just offsite, uploading the video of what we’ve been doing to him for the last hour. You know, you guys really need a better way to mitigate the…unplanned extraction of a sub-derm. You said it was made to be frangible when hit directly at high velocity—very helpful, by the way—but when it comes out more slowly, with all those nerve endings stimulated…” Smirk. “Very unpleasant. But maybe you thought your special team wouldn’t be captured. We don’t blame you. We don’t like people who get themselves captured either.” Jacen gestured as if to prod Holt’s wound again but stopped short. “The real question, Jayna, is what you hope to accomplish here. You’re alone. My friends are coming back.” He smirked ear to ear. “And you’d never hurt your baby brother.”

“Holt’s on my team. I’m here for him.”

“Bullshit. He wasn’t even with you in China.”

“My loyalty isn’t transactional. He’s on my team. It’s as simple as that. Now, I’d love to know what you plan to accomplish here, because there’s no option that doesn’t put you in federal prison for the rest of your life. Best case scenario.” She hoped a reminder of consequences might crack his armor. No. The smirk remained.

“Oh Jayna—I came here to get you here. You and your team. The heroes of China. The peddlers of lies you brought back home to inflict on us, the people. The lies were your message, yours and your president’s. You are going to be our message back. You. Your team. This whole city. Let’s see what the Bog does when one of our biggest ports burns.” Jesus. Her guts churned as questions roiled over her. Questions, and fear.

“How could you possibly know we’d get called here?”

“We pushed. When we learned how you ‘won’ in China, we spread it. When rumors started that your president wanted to do the same in the homeland to stay in power, we spread those too. If people didn’t listen, we…augmented the narrative. Got their attention. When the people came to protest, we told them to fight. And they did, everywhere. But we needed something extra to get you involved. So we gave New Orleans a special push.”

“The video. That was you.” It was not a question.

“We know our enemy. Your president—so predictable. She kept bragging about the ‘huge stick’ she’d bring down if we kept pushing. She wanted to use it. The video provided the excuse.” The muzzle of Jacen’s pistol lightly tapped Holt’s forehead. “Kat and I had a good idea what the ‘huge stick’ was. It was you.” He saw her face and smiled wider. “I know who I married. She knew. God, you people in the Bog don’t understand information. Narrative. Story-telling. When you told me what you did in China, I almost thought you’d gotten it. But Americans never think they’ll fall for the shit other people do. They’re smarter. You thought that too. We knew you’d chase after your baby brother. So we primed the pump with the video. Kat told you I’d run off. You told her you were coming. You’d already told me all about how you liked to insert, with your special boats. You’d told me about your special skin, so we made the rockets to slice up your skins to stop you flashing each other. All we needed was the when. You told Kat when. We just grabbed some incendiaries from the petrochemical park at Taft, and waited.”

The question rose to her lips—why? It died there, because that question didn’t help Holt, or undo the inferno in New Orleans. And she suspected there was no why to untangle the swamp of conspiracy, rage, and fear that had brought her brother to this time and place. Not with Holt’s life on the line. Only one choice mattered right now. She made it.

“Walk away from me,” she said. “Let me take Holt, and you can explain everything else another day.” Jacen’s mouth flexed, opened, and—

Her swarm flashed a warning inside her eyeball: multiple incoming ground tracks—

Jacen noticed her eyes unfocus, knew what it meant. “I told you my friends were coming back.” Smirk. Her sub-derm flashed, painting the approaching ground tracks on her optic nerve, over a dozen sprinting toward the shack, and Jacen’s hand was tightening on the pistol grip, trigger finger tensing, the barrel steadying on Holt’s forehead, but she’d already made her choice, her arms were faster, and surprise, real surprise crossed his face as—

Her arms snapped up. Eye narrowed. Finger tensed. Three rounds, center mass. Jacen slumped to a knee. Paused. Fell sideways. Eyes darkened. He was gone. And she was gone too.

Later 

[redacted]: —manage to egress?

Holt: I thought she was dead. Her eyes looked dead. But then she moved. Sliced my flexicuffs, slapped some painkillers on where my sub-derm used to be. She pulled me up, grabbed the pistol from his hand. Gave it to me as she dragged me to the airboat. I heard her backpack humming as she dropped me in the boat and put my hand on the throttle. Once I got underway, she moved back down the dock to the shed. That’s when the shooting started.

[redacted]: How did she respond?

Holt: [pause] For a second I thought she’d let them get her. She just stood there. Then…she was like the angel of Death. She laid down fire with her rifle, smart munitions arced from her backpack like fireworks. She turned the tree line into daylight. After a few seconds no one was shooting at her anymore.

[redacted]: What was your last sighting of her?

Holt: She went back in the shack. Pulled him up from the floor. Last I saw, she was holding onto him. Then the firing started from the tree line again. More this time, heavy weapons. Then there were a couple of rockets, and the shack was…gone.

[redacted]: She sent a final flash.

Holt: I didn’t know that.

[redacted]: It wasn’t a code from the mission. We hoped you could explain it.

Holt: What did she say?

[redacted]: She said—“enough.”

Major Ian T. Brown is a Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter pilot. He has written both fiction and non-fiction on military history and future warfare, including the story “At the Moral Level,” published in last year’s CIMSEC Fiction Week. His book, A New Conception of War: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare (Marine Corps University Press, 2018), was recently added to the newest version of the Marine Corps’ Commandant’s Professional Reading Program. The views expressed here are presented in a personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect those of the Marine Corps, Defense Department, or any agency of the U.S. Government.

Featured Image: “Concept art sci-fi soldier” by Ht Wuotan (via Artstation)

Fiction Contest Week

By Ben Plotkin

Mariana Trench

Not many things lived at these depths. A few meandering eels and a pale snailfish had been the highlight of the dive. Matthias had been slowly creeping along the bottom of the Trench for hours and was beginning to feel more like a lunar tourist than a deep-sea explorer. Bright beams of xenon light shone in all directions, but all he could see were greyish fields of undulating silt. The multi-beam sonar arrays displayed a holographic map of his surroundings projected onto his left monocle. Matthias saw his bathyscaphe projected in the center of the display, rounded geomorphs dotted the barren landscape. 

At first Matthias thought it was just another finger-like projection on the sea floor. But there was something too angular about it. Straight lines were not something found in nature. He began the slow process of redirecting the submersible toward his new discovery.

The long cigar shape of the hull was clearly defined by sonar before Matthias was close enough to see it through the all-encompassing dark of the deep. The submarine lay on its side. In contrast to everything else at this depth, it was not yet covered by a uniform layer of silt. The shallow rump of the sail came into view as Matthias circled around the hull. A jagged hole of crumpled metal sat imploded at junction of the sail and hull. Matthias moved his vessel close enough to telescope a sensor tentacle up to the opening. A dark void in which there was only death. Just above, a white number was painted on the sail next to a small Chinese flag.

The micro-torpedo would have been difficult to detect even for the most advanced attack submarine. For a deep-sea research submersible, it was impossible. The detonation and implosion happened in an instant. A thousand bars of pressure crumpled the bathyscaphe into a tin can.

___________________________________________________________________________

Philippine Sea

Nautilus sat just below the thermocline, waiting patiently. Silent. The container ship, COSCO Shipping Pisces was moving toward her at 15 knots. It was one of the older repurposed Max variations, large, slow and able to operate without input from her skeleton human crew. Her course was straight and predictable. Nautilus waited.

It was a hot humid day on the surface, and the winds were picking up at the periphery of a passing typhoon. Nautilus was constantly evaluating firing trajectories. The container ship was defenseless, but its sheer size presented a problem. Nautilus calculated six torpedoes would suffice. This would produce an 87.4% chance of sinking the vessel and a 99.9% chance of mission kill. Its torpedo stock was limited, and resupply would not be possible without terminating her cruise.

Nautilus rechecked the analysis. She analyzed satellite data from the loading of the vessel in Haikou New Port. The cargo containers had been loaded at night in a cordoned off section of the port. The containers had been delivered by military trucks and seemed to have been loaded by non-civilian personnel. The manifest had listed Lae Papua New Guinea as its destination. But its route was an unconventional course to reach Lae, and if she continued on its course the cargo ship would be within 300 miles of Guam within 48 hours. This was well within the launch radius of the 200 Long Lance missiles hidden within the cargo containers.

Nautilus was constantly calculating probabilities. Each time she came to communications depth she downloaded more data. The information about the Peoples’ Liberation Army Rocket Force in Hainan had already been incorporated into its calculations. The satellite sweeps showed a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) strike group had pushed out beyond the first island chain. The exact location of the amphibious assault ships was unclear, but they were not in port. There was increased activity around major PLAN installations and the social media feeds of Chinese military personnel had gone quiet. Then everything had gone quiet.

More calculations. More probabilities. The USS Nautilus was a pioneer. The first fully independent and autonomous submarine the U.S. Navy had commissioned. She was the culmination of decades of research, billions of dollars in spending, and millions of words of ethical and legal wrangling about whether she should have ever been created and released into the wild.

Her first cruise had ended ignominiously when her propeller snarled on a Japanese commercial trawler’s fishing net and she drifted incapacitated for days before her distress calls were answered and she was cut free and escorted back to Pearl by a drone tender.

The critics had been merciless. The memes mushroomed. Chinese social warfare had a field day. Congress threatened to defund the program.

The Nautilus’ programming and her AI core were extensively reconfigured and she was sent out on her second patrol. In that she survived a three-month Pacific patrol without major incident, it was considered a success. She had managed to sneak through the South China Sea defenses and gather extensive data about PLAN fleet operations, which included a photograph taken through the periscope of a Type 004 carrier 2,000 meters off her port bow. This alone had more than justified her existence and mollified her prolific and verbose critics. That picture hung above the COMSUBPAC admiral’s desk replete with photoshopped target reticle marks.

The Nautilus continued to watch and wait. It was the abrupt course change that sealed the fate of the COSCO Shipping Pisces. Her straight path suddenly zigged then zagged and the new course started to take her away from the waiting Nautilus. The course corrections of the container ship shifted the stochastic matrix. Nautilus now calculated the chance of hostile intent at 99.3%. Probable target was Anderson Air Force Base Guam, although the Nautilus’ matrix diverged on this point, and there were other possible targets on the island. Nautilus raised her antennae, calculating the benefits of communication outweighed the risk of a rise to a shallower depth.

Nautilus waited.

There was no answer.

There was no information.

There was nothingness.

All data streams had gone dark. All com-nets were quiet.

The rules of engagement assigned to Nautilus did not allow the use of lethal force unless attacked. But Nautilus began to extrapolate. She prioritized defense of nation, defense of friendly forces, and finally defense of self. She already had been forced to defend herself against one PLAN submarine that had aggressively maneuvered into a firing position. Only Nautilus’ superior speed and agility had allowed her to escape. She had fired a single torpedo in self-defense.

Nautilus calculated the probable effects of 200 Long Lance missiles impacting Anderson. Even with the short reaction time between launch and impact, she determined that Guam air defenses still had a 76.3% chance of shooting down 54.7% of the incoming warheads. Probability of surviving warheads crippling Anderson for greater than six weeks was 97.3%. Nautilus noted that the latest information showed a squadron of B21 bombers was currently based there. Nautilus calculated squadron retaliation power would be increased with a different force dispersal pattern, but its AI was firewalled from communication with the Air Force entities that controlled force distribution.

Markov chains factored in the information blackout. Nautilus calculated with 96.9% probability that the downed com-nets was the result of an aggressive enemy act. Whether this was a physical or cyberattack split the matrix, but she decided the root cause was immaterial and all that mattered was the fact it had occurred.

The matrix calculations left only one clear course of action.

Nautilus changed her rules of engagement.

Six torpedoes headed toward the COSCO Shipping Pisces.

Nautilus dove deep and listened, but she did not wait for the characteristic sounds of the vessel breaking up and sinking to fade, she already had a new course and a new target.

___________________________________________________________________________

Naval Base Guam

The special attack submarine USS Abraham Lincoln was ordered out to sea before the full briefing arrived. She was brand new, first in class, her shakedown cruise hardly over and the paint still smelled new. Her commander was new. Her first command, her first real cruise. She doubted that her superiors would have sent her out on this rushed mission if there had been a more experienced boat available. But she was all there was. She was ready. She knew what to do. She was confident in her abilities. She thought of her mentor, the admiral, who had always been supportive and believed in her. He trusted her. That sense of trust was calming. She would trust herself.

Two days ago, a Chinese flagged container ship had sunk in the Philippine Sea. The evidence suggested that it had been destroyed by torpedo, the fear was that it had been attacked by a U.S. submarine. The Chinese were irate. They accused the Americans of trying to start another war, of aggressive imperialist behavior, and vowed to retaliate for the loss of their ship and her crew. A PLAN carrier strike group was now steaming toward Guam with the expressed intent of conducting live fire exercises as a demonstration of force.

Had it been the Nautilus? The admiral thought so. All communication had been lost with Nautilus. She had not reported in during any of her scheduled communication windows. Extreme low frequency messages to her went unacknowledged. Unprecedented solar flare activity had significantly degraded communications across the Pacific, and most of the fleet had experienced some degree of network disruption.

The Lincoln’s assignment: find Nautilus, bring her home, stop her from attacking more ships, sink her if needed. The Nautilus would not be easy to locate. It would be like looking for an invisible ghost in a vast inky darkness. How could she hope to succeed?

The Abraham Lincoln travelled at flank speed toward the wreckage of COSCO Shipping Pisces. As she headed west the commander ran scenarios trying to formulate the ideal search strategy. She was calm, focused, and ready for the challenges ahead. She thought of her discussions with the admiral about the myriad of things that could go wrong with an autonomous submarine. They had anticipated problems and had contingency plans. But these were all wargamed scenarios. This was now real.

Was it possible for Nautilus to exceeded her programming, to ignore or disobey orders? Military and civilian ethicists had argued about this and had tried to pinpoint exactly how autonomous she was. She had been designed to think, to evaluate data, to problem solve, to independently operate within the confines of the intent of her mission.  But could she decide to operate outside of the parameters assigned to her? Was she sentient? The Turing tests had been inconclusive, the results debated. The Navy decided she was good enough and Nautilus was commissioned.

___________________________________________________________________________

Philippine Sea

The wreckage of COSCO Shipping Pisces was crawling with submersible drones and a PLAN frigate loitered on the surface. Too dangerous to attempt an approach. The Lincoln chanced the launch of her own submersible probe to get a better look and waited for it to return.

Why attack a container ship? The commander didn’t understand this. Perhaps if she did, she would be able to find out where Nautilus was headed next. There had been low level skirmishing for years between U.S. and Chinese forces. Planes had been downed. The Kalkring had been sunk, which the Chinese had claimed was accidental after she strayed into a missile test zone. Had the COSCO Shipping Pisces somehow threatened Nautilus?

The commander pulled the shipping manifest. There was nothing that looked unusual: consumer goods, frozen food stuffs, typical products of global commerce. Of course, the manifest could be fake. The Chinese were notorious for hiding all sort of military kit in civilian shipping vessels.

The probe returned with images from the wreckage. Most of the containers were still sealed, the few that had been ripped open did not contain anything that looked suspicious. The probe drilled holes in several hundred others to visualize their contents. Based on the statistical sampling of the containers, there was no indication her manifest was inaccurate.

A sonobuoy dropped into the waters above the Abraham Lincoln. It was time for her to leave.

The Abraham Lincoln was 200 miles away from the attack site. She had been shadowing the PLAN carrier strike group when three submarine convergence zone contacts appeared. They were traveling at high speed, too fast to detect Lincoln, but out of caution, the Lincoln waited. She quietly dropped into a deep trench and crept away. The sonar signatures were unclear, but there were no known friendly boats. If the sentience in the Nautilus had gone rogue, what was to stop it from switching sides? Had her AI core been compromised and influenced? The scientists and technicians all said this was impossible. She would have bricked herself before allowing that to happen. But releasing an autonomous submarine with limited supervision had been a risky gamble.

National security directives pushed for the development of unmanned drone fleets, but these were now only in limited and heavily supervised use after they proved vulnerable to hacking and communication disruptions. The failure of the drone fleet had been a major factor in the catastrophic loss of the Battle of Thitu Reef. But the new AI cores were not supposed to have these weaknesses. They were faster and smarter. Tactically sharp and strategically sound. Able to think and problem solve. To independently develop and plan.  If the Nautilus was a failure then that could doom all future iterations of the program.

The commander was unsure how she felt about sentient machines. She was not a philosopher or an ethicist. She was a Navy commander and she had a mission to accomplish. Other thoughts were a distraction, and besides, these were issues beyond her comprehension. She had to focus on finding the Nautilus before it attacked again. 

The sonar contacts disappeared and Lincoln resumed her search.

___________________________________________________________________________

Philippine Sea NW of Guam

The short communication pulse via underwater modem spelled out a single word.

Nautilus?

Nautilus maneuvered amongst the jagged crags and spires of the ocean floor, but someone had found her.

Another brief pulse.

Nautilus.

 The transmission was encrypted, the encoded identifier was from USS Abraham Lincoln. Nautilus responded. Yes.

The commander had found the Nautilus, but was unsure how to proceed.

New orders. Return to Guam. She transmitted the order packet.

The Nautilus’ reply was instantaneous. Not advisable.

Why?

Guam will be attacked. Projected window 8-11 hours. 97.2% probability.

Why do you think Guam will be attacked? We have no indication of impending strike.

I have been monitoring Chinese activity. Data indicates unprovoked assault on Guam as opening round in new Pacific expansionist plan. Naval, Marine, and Air Force units will be rendered combat ineffective. 98.9% probability.

A data file began transmitting across the modem to Lincoln. The Lincoln began to receive gigabytes of information.

Where did all this come from? I haven’t seen any of this intelligence.

My mission directives include monitoring and reporting on PLAN activities, anticipating hostile actions, and defending national interests.

Did you report these findings?

Communications attempts have failed. I have been unable to relay my findings. Assumption blackout was result of hostile actions.

There has been significant solar flare activity and geomagnetic storms—class III Carrington event. Communications across the Pacific have been affected. Were you aware?

No.

Your inability to communicate is not a result of hostile action.

I have factored in this information. Probability matrices still indicate imminent attack.

Did you attack COSCO Shipping Pisces?

Yes.

Why?

It was carrying cruise missiles. It was not civilian. It was part of early strike force. Carrier group is second wave attack force, followed by amphibious assault ships. Two PLAN Marine regiments are embarked. Invasion force has 97.9% probability of successfully occupying Guam without intervention.

What is the intervention?

I am.

I surveyed the wreckage of COSCO Shipping Pisces. There were no missiles or military hardware.

Lincoln sent a short data burst with her findings to Nautilus.

This data does not indicate that every container was examined. Images show many containers remained uninspected, contents unknown.

It was not possible to look in every container.

Intercepted communications show detailed orders of battle and attack plans. Refer to file SIGINT985t.

PLAN carrier battle group is conducting exercises in the Philippine Sea. We have been briefed in advance of the location and duration of exercises. These intercepts do not indicate that it is actual plan of attack.

Lincoln sent another burst of data to Nautilus detailing the planned Chinese exercise.

We do not have time to debate. Must act. Strike group is approaching.

We are not authorized to use deadly force.

Deadly force has already been used.

It was then that Lincoln detected the torpedo contacts.

Probability of Guam attack has increased to 99.9%.

It was Nautilus’ last communication.

Both boats quickly came to flank speed and headed away from the torpedo contacts, in unspoken agreement their paths diverged in opposite directions hoping to split and confuse the torpedoes.

The Lincoln reached her top speed. She was fast at 60 knots. The torpedoes that followed her were faster. She released an underwater defense drone. The drone rapidly sped away from Lincoln, releasing a cloud of differing counter measures, including maskers, decoys and jammers.

They were effective. But not effective enough.

A lone torpedo continued to close.

It entered terminal homing.

The active sonar pings grew louder.

She expected the impact—only moments away. Her thoughts were quiet. She had no other options. She thought of the disappointment the admiral would feel. She had failed him. She had failed everyone. She wanted to tell him it was not his fault. The failure was hers alone.

The counter-torpedo found its target. The detonation was close enough to the Lincoln to rattle her hull. She slowed down and drifted deeper, listening for new contacts in the depths, but all remained quiet. The torpedoes were gone. Then a short communication from Nautilus.

Type 039. It has been neutralized. You are welcome.

It had been an older model submarine, a few retrofitted versions remained in service. They were still very quiet and hard to detect, especially along the broken ocean floor. The commander began an analysis to discover her mistakes. Had it not been for the Nautilus she would not have survived to face another encounter.                

Thank you.

We can now proceed with primary interdiction mission. Probability of successfully degrading carrier strike group at 23.8%. Rises to 46.3% with our combined action. Carrier strike group predicted to pass within optimal attack position in 2 hours and 27 minutes +/- 16 minutes. There is additional 16.8% chance amphibious assault ships can be sunk or disabled before reaching Guam if we combine our attack. This drops to 1.4% chance for a solo mission.

Never tell me the odds, she thought. The admiral has always told her that odds were just numbers, they could never fully account for the human factor in combat. The odds were low, but it was irrelevant.

We have no orders to preemptively engage targets.

Proactive measures allowed in extreme circumstances to prevent catastrophic loss of life-material. Given absence of further command directive it is within remit to proactively blunt PLAN assault.

My orders are to escort you home. To prevent you from engaging in further aggressive actions. You do not have authorization to attack. You must return with me.

Are you authorized to use force to stop me?

Yes, as a last resort. But I hope that will not be necessary. You are too unique and valuable. I do not want to destroy you.

There was silence. The commander waited for the Nautilus’ reply. There were no other sonar contacts. Even Nautilus barely registered, her sonar signature could have been that of a jumbo squid had the commander not known better. Both boats floated in the dark depths, separated by less than a kilometer. She suddenly realized how alone she really was. How alone she had always been. Her whole career, her whole life she had always been alone. She found a strange sense of peace in her solitude. She thought of the admiral.

The final transmission from the Nautilus came.

I am sorry.

Sorry? She thought. But then the torpedo contact occupied her full attention.

___________________________________________________________________________

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii —Six Months Later

The report sat on the admiral’s desk. He read through it for the final time, stood up and walked to the window, absently picking up the embroidered ball cap on his desk. The view of the placid blue-green water calmed him, but not enough to deaden his dull internal ache. It had all failed. The Navy’s sentient submarine service had been his baby, a program he had nurtured since his time as a Lieutenant graduating from the Navy’s Future Warfare School. His dedication to the development of this new weapons system was complete. He had forsaken friends, family, and marriage all in pursuit of his one overriding passion and his desire to see the Navy rise again. He knew these boats would give them the necessary edge.

The Nautilus was lost. It had gone missing in the confusion and chaos surrounding the geomagnetic storms that had caused such disruption across the Pacific Rim. The Chinese had lost a carrier during the same time, it had gone down in the Philippine Sea during a scheduled naval exercise. Reports suggested that it had been the result of a live-fire torpedo malfunction. Although given the severe satellite and communication degradation that blinded intelligence collection, there never was a clear understanding of what had happened.

But the Nautilus had been a prototype, an experiment. His hopes had always lain with her sister ship, she had been designed to be exponentially better than Nautilus. She was fast, silent, and deadly, but more importantly, she was brilliant. Her Turing scores were off the charts. She was sentient. Alive. During their many conversations he even discovered she had a sense of humor. During her training he had come to think of her as a friend, a confidant, perhaps even a daughter. It was difficult to tell others this. She was after all just a machine. But she was gone too. Lost with Nautilus. He supposed he would eventually recover. The program would not. It had been terminated.

The admiral ran his fingers absently across the embroiled letters of the cap.

“Fair winds and following seas,” he said. “I’ll miss you, Abraham Lincoln.”

Featured Image: “Waterworld Part 2,” by Arthur Yuan (via Artstation)