Fiction Week

By Till Andrzejewski

Act 1 – Opening Moves

February 11, 2050.

Today would not be the first time two women, three mothers, seven children, and one grandchild mourned. And of course, not the last time.

United States Coast Guard

The sea lies like amazonite beneath a sky just as blue. USCGC Miguel Diaz cuts a white, foaming scar into the morning Caribbean. On the bridge, Captain John Ramirez stands with his arms folded, coffee untouched, eyes fixed southwest where the AIS shows nothing but silence. His home, Puerto Rico—the 52nd state—is only about 350 nautical miles away.

“Target confirmed. No identification. Thermal signature: three persons plus one heat source, likely an outboard.”

The sensor specialist’s voice is dry. On the main display the fast boat appears—a grey wedge, four meters long, carbon fibre, flat as a blade.

Ramirez nods. “Guardian One, cleared for launch. Maintain distance.”

The drone lifts off from the aft deck—a slender dragonfly, barely more than a stroke against the west wind. Below, five cable lengths off the beam, the sea bulges, then the boat cuts across the line of sight, sprays white, vanishes, surfaces again. No response on radio.

“Warning shot,” says Ramirez.

“Aye.”

From the cutter’s bow the 57-millimeter barks—a short cough and a fountain erupts ahead of the speedboat. The boat jerks, accelerates.

“No response.”

Ramirez lifts his gaze—only briefly. In offense there lies a kind of calm he knows well: those ten, fifteen seconds when decisions, aided by algorithms, no longer feel as heavy as they once did.

“Open fire. Destroy.”

The second round hits. The boat shatters as if made of glass. Something black—a barrel? —tips overboard, rolls, sinks. A body half-bursts from the water, then falls back, vanishes. Smoke lies like a stain on the surface. Cold optics, hot barrel.

“Hit confirmed. Debris field.”

Ramirez inhales. The coffee is cold. On the screen the program begins to place red rectangles around floating objects: a crate, another, a torn-off outboard, a slick of fluid spreading like ink in a bowl.

“Do we recover anything?” asks the executive officer.

Ramirez closes his hand around the mug without looking. “Negative. Mark, report, destroy.”

He knows how that sentence sounds. He also knows it’s the eighth time this year he’s said it. He’s been a Coastie twenty years—since the year the USCG adopted Navy tactics and began blasting apart anything that even vaguely looked narco. They’d saved America that way—or at least its health system. The conflicts with Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil were another matter. And, of course, Europe’s economic decline.

Outside, the 25-millimeter opens up—short, clinical bursts. The crates burst. The sea swallows quietly. On the display, rectangles vanish one by one. At the edge, the drone hovers for a moment before it drifts away like a vulture losing its prey.

Ramirez thinks of Europe—of images from Copenhagen, Munich, Naples; train station squares, madmen snapping in subways; of women who enter apartments and never leave; of men raised on spirals of violence—and remembers the stench of cities.

“Cocaine is cheaper than chocolate now,” a German analyst once said—half cynical, half drunk—at a NATO briefing.

What kind of world makes candy more expensive than cocaine?

He takes a sip of cold coffee and thinks something he would never say aloud:

We choked the routes—and rerouted the currents.

Netherlands Coast Guard

The harbor water breathes slowly, muted. Hr.Ms. Texel of the Kustwacht Caribisch Gebied rests in the cross of sunlight, its white paint still warm. Luitenant ter zee Eva van der Meer holds her pen so the paper barely feels it, beside it a camera, beneath it Form E/9-2050: “Search, Seizure, Preparation of International Legal Assistance.”

“Four containers, route Paramaribo–Willemstad–Rotterdam. Manifests plausible. Owner is a foundation in Belize, managed by a law firm in The Hague. Ship is chartered for single voyages.”

Her first officer reads steadily, then mutters, “Damn Suriname.”

Van der Meer shoots him a look. “We go in. No heroes, no quips. Every recording redundant, each container with dual witness oversight. The Hague wants evidence.”

She straps on her vest, pulls the gloves tight. On the freighter the smell shifts—from food and garlic to laundry and wet steel. The cargo: bananas in reefers, fair-trade, Ghana seal, a smiling boy on the box.

“Container 12C,” someone calls. “Anomaly on scan.”

She steps forward. “Container shifting No. 3. Open it.”

The scanner shows a shadow that doesn’t fit the fruit. Peel back the lining, cut the straps, pull the clips—tension rises. Inside: a second wall, neatly fitted. Behind it, packages bound with plastic banding—tidy, almost tender. Logo: a billiard ball. A knife in, powder meets reagent and blooms blue. Someone says, “Positive.”

Van der Meer feels a burn behind her forehead. You know it’s not enough, she thinks. This is only the finger. The hand is elsewhere.

They photograph, film, weigh. Open samples, record label numbers: “Boxes 1–20: 997 grams, purity 74 percent.” The list fills, the camera hums. Outside, seagulls bark. Inside—the whistle of lungs behind tight respirators.

Later, on deck, she leafs through papers, speaks to the captain who wrings his hands and swears he knew nothing. It’s possible. It’s also irrelevant. She says, “You have the right to remain silent,” and finds the address of the registered agent for the Belize foundation—a P.O. box in Rotterdam where no one has ever worked.

That evening, shortly after a call with her children in Zwolle, The Hague rings. “Good work,” says someone sounding like a tie and cufflinks. “Six-hundred-eighty kilos. Press photo is important. Europe needs to see that…” She stops listening. She knows what she sees: grand words about crimefighting while in a kindergarten in Groningen a five-year-old girl draws her parents with nosebleeds.

She hangs up and keeps writing. The evidence isn’t spectacular. But maybe it pushes the world one millimeter in a different direction.

French Navy

Off Martinique, the blue is deeper than time. Capitaine de frégate Armand Deschamps is in the Caribbean mostly because cigarettes are still affordable here. He rests a hand on the bridge rail; the ship is so quiet you could forget it moves. On the monitors: lines, numbers, tide models, supply routes—drawn with the graphic eye of a program he doesn’t love yet adores for the patterns it gives him.

“The tanker turned off course, west of Grenada.”

The navigator points with his pen. “No reason. No storm. Reduced speed, five hours adrift, then reverse course.”

Deschamps’s eyes follow the track. Five hours is a gap where things happen—rendezvous, dark transactions, a transfer into a belly empty enough to carry secrets. He flips through a folder that smells of toner. Photographs: hulls that gleam at the seams, hatches that aren’t, boats that leave almost no wake—semi-submersibles, narco subs—a fashionable word for 30 years, but one you don’t hear when you stand alone at sea at night.

“They don’t see it,” he says to no one. “They only see waves.”

The French aren’t shooting today, he thinks. They’re painting. With thin lines across charts. With arrows that end in places that don’t exist.

He has no romance for it, but respect. It is as if the sea sends him signs, and his task is not to be a hero but a pair of reading glasses.

Since he lost his daughter to ‘Mont Blanc’—that’s what they call the deadly powder in France—Deschamps has changed. Quieter now. Rarely speaks. His officers appreciate that, unaware of the reason. He has the face of a man who watches the world pretend to be new each morning while only finding new names for old things. And he knows in the end others will act, and perhaps he has just shown them where.

Act 2 – Entanglements

February 13, 2050.

The semi-sub never surfaces again.

Before anyone can read its shape from the corrugated sea, it has swallowed water, lost air, taken two lives. A patrol craft of the Royal Montserrat Border and Narcotics Force spots the large white bubble rising through the blue, then reports several faint echoes—and a ship without AIS, without signature.

USCGC Miguel Diaz catches the message first. Guardian One transmits imagery: a hulking silhouette without a phosphorescent wake. Around it, small craft, diffuse signatures under water. Ramirez is still half-thinking that the Brits always report first and hope someone else will act. Then the thought snaps, he’s in the present again: “Mothership.”

The word is old. It explains almost nothing—and everything.

On the Texel, the fail-safe VHF squawks:

“All units in Sector Yankee November nadazero-bissotou, anomaly detected. Possible sub-surface operation with low signature, likely multiple semi-subs. Suspected mothership on same position. Confirm coordinates.”

Eva van der Meer turns the volume up.

“Confirmed. We’re six hours out. Offering reconnaissance and evidence collection.”

So the narco subs are being pregnant now, she thinks.

“USCG here—we’re going in,” says Ramirez. “Keep clear if you don’t intend to fire.”

A pause—then the French:

“Marine nationale: we have movement data. The presumed mothership sits where a tanker drifted two days ago. We’re tracing the drift backward. There is a corridor.”

“A corridor?” asks van der Meer.

“A mental one,” says Deschamps. “It begins south of Tobago.”

“And what does that mean?” asks Ramirez.

“It means,” says Deschamps, “we’re not here by accident.”

The argument between van der Meer and Ramirez mirrors three decades of diverging political instincts.

“We have to secure evidence,” she insists. “Names, routes, logs, communications, encrypted drives, manifests—without that we have nothing.”

“We destroy routes, not hard drives,” Ramirez replies. “Europe isn’t our mandate, and your islands profit from ours.”

“Your mandate changed Europe,” van der Meer says—the word changed sounding as though she meant wrecked. “You rerouted the stream. Now we drown.”

“We saved our country,” says Ramirez, then adds, “If you want to save yours, shoot here—not in the free port of Rotterdam.”

Deschamps says nothing. He lets the lines crawl across the screen, the software run its correlations. In his mind a geometry of the sea unfolds—one without borders. Today, he thinks, we’ll all be right—and all be wrong.

Act 3 – The Hunt

That same afternoon, the sea rumbles softly, as if somewhere a volcano had forgotten to erupt.

Three silhouettes form a triangle—Miguel Diaz to the northwest, Texel to the south, the French frigate to the east, almost within the shadow of its own sonar. Between them lies water that seems made for this single moment.

“Corridor updated,” says Deschamps. “Target twelve nautical miles west of our position. Low speed. Diffuse signature. Possible mothership with deck containers, camouflage irregular.”

“We’re going in,” says Ramirez.

“Negative,” says van der Meer at the same instant. “We’ll begin with reconnaissance. Boarding team, cameras, legal oversight.”

Ramirez glances over his shoulder. Guardian One hangs above the scene like a mosquito over a net. He knows what happens if he waits: another loophole, another route, another later.

He’s seen the faces of mothers who never knew why their sons coughed blood in the mornings—his own mother, his own brother.

“Sécurité broadcast: this is USCGC Miguel Diaz. We will open fire once positive identification is achieved. This is your warning.”

“Miguel Diaz, this is Texel: negative, negative—we’re approaching with helicopter for boarding. Give us ten minutes!”

She knows they’ll need longer.

“Marine nationale: target altering course—slightly. It has detected us.”

Time bends. Ten minutes at sea can hold one lifetime—or the death of three living.

Ramirez sees the gray bulk of the target—no, the enemy, he deliberately chooses the old word—emerge optically on the horizon, like a sea monster rising from literature into the reader’s dreams.

“Open fire,” he says.

The 57-millimeter spits a cascade into the air, like a failed rainshower. Impacts tear bright splinters from the mothership’s hull; smoke thickens, gains shape. Texel screams over the radio, legal articles dissolving in the clatter of guns. The French say nothing—their cameras run, their algorithms drink in signatures, reflections, vectors.

“Effect unknown,” reports the fire-control officer.

“Follow up.”

The second burst finds material eager to escalate—a pressure bubble, a tank, a space that held too much air.

The explosion unrolls from the ship like a torn-open heart. A fragment—perhaps a hatch—arcs into the sea with perfect geometry. Smoke settles; then the hull breaks along a line that had looked like paint. Water rushes in. Somewhere, someone screams—but the wind is faster.

“Target burning, sinking.”

Van der Meer watches the images as if staring into an aquarium where someone had switched off the filter.

“Cease fire!” she shouts. But her words die in VHF static.

“USCGC Miguel Diaz confirms—target no longer maneuverable.”

“You have…” she begins, then the link collapses into crackle—an open space for interpretation.

When the flames gutter out, only a black carpet remains. Debris floats—no crates, no laptops, no logs—only charred timber, Styrofoam, shreds of cloth. Texel later fishes out a metal plate, hand-sized, three fused letters visible: ARA.

Van der Meer holds it, feels her heart stutter twice and return to rhythm—as if her body had decided calm was safer.

Ramirez steps onto the bridge without a helmet—Kilgore-esque, as if someone had turned the war off.

“They’d have destroyed the evidence as soon as you boarded,” he says into the radio silence. “Or they never had any. There are two kinds of ships: those we sink, and those we haven’t sunk yet.”

On the French frigate, Deschamps leans against the chart house. With his Gauloises he traces a line in the air that leads nowhere, then dissolves. “He’s right,” he murmurs, “and he’s wrong.”

His officer nods. “As always.”

By evening the sea turns gray, lights bloom at its edges like very small harbors.

Ramirez transmits openly on the shared channel:

“For the record: I destroyed the mothership on my own authority. I concluded this was the only way to end smuggling in this corridor. Europe needs what we learned in the States—routes die when you burn them.”

No one answers immediately.

Van der Meer sits in the radio room, staring at her hands—clean papers meaning nothing now.

Deschamps looks toward the horizon and realizes he still finds it beautiful.

Act 4 – Reactions

The steak in Buenos Aires is still steaming when Comandante David Rodriguez of the Argentine mercenary company ‘Libertad’ sets his knife to it.

Across from him sits Maurice Estevez—sleek, a man untouched by heat.

Through the window, the Río Matanza–Riachuelo slides past, sluggish as lead.

“Chile to Canada,” Estevez says, as if naming a holiday. “From there down into the U.S. Ore is our friend. Consistency is a religion, and we are atheists.”

“Routes?” asks Rodriguez.

“Two-thirds by sea, one-third by air. Sea transport’s a joke now—nobody watches the old lanes, the little ports, the coal, the ore, the ferromanganese. Everyone’s staring at the boats, the subs, the Cessnas.”

He smiles. “And when they look, they see only rocks.”

Rodriguez drinks his beer—pale, cold.

“I’ll need more men in the Argentine cities and in Uruguay,” Estevez continues. “We’ve been moving freight to Portugal via Angola for years—nice and far from the uniformed Caribbean. From there, Europe’s a medium stroll. But the gangs are jumpy. Too many cowards. In Montevideo, you don’t die at the docks anymore—you die in the logistics park.”

“Libertad delivers,” says Rodriguez. He says it because it’s the line he has to sell.

In truth, he’s tired of fighting. The mercenary contract gives his men one more chance to claim a slice of the buffet.

“The Americans are making life hard up north,” Estevez says, “but they’ve turned Europe into our promised land—a continent of greed, a continent of noses. The Russians pay if I keep going. The Chinese pay if I stop. I’ve taken both their money. That’s why you get double.”

He raises his glass, knowing he’ll still profit the most.

“To the war of routes.”

Later, when the city outside dissolves into its own light, a news ticker glows above the bar:

‘Suspected smuggler mothership destroyed in the Caribbean. No arrests. USCG confirms operation. European authorities criticize.’

A few patrons glance up, nod, order beer. Then someone starts talking football.

Estevez pays. Rodriguez pockets the receipt as if it were for the tax office.

“You’ve lost,” Estevez says—to the window, the river, the city, to no one at all.

“Who? Our people?” Rodriguez asks.

“Everyone.” Estevez smiles thinly. “Everyone who ever believed the sea could be controlled.”

Till Andrzejewski is a senior police lieutenant with the Maritime State Police of Lower Saxony, Germany, currently focusing on interagency cooperation against maritime smuggling networks. His experience includes leading operational shifts at maritime police stations, serving in a police diving unit, acting as operations leader within maritime patrol units, serving as commanding officer on coastal patrol vessels, and contributing to the Joint Emergency Reporting and Assessment Center Sea (JERACS) in Cuxhaven.

Featured Image: Artwork created with Midjourney AI. 

Fiction Week

By Ben Plotkin 

/ˈɑnːɑ pɑˈlɑː/ — Finnish, idiomatic interjection

Literal: “let it burn” (anna = “give/let,” palaa = “burns”).

Idiomatic sense: “go for it,” “bring it on,” “hit it,” “keep it coming.”

Raahe
West Coast Finland
The near future

Seppo took a long inhale from the gilt vape pen and felt the immediate adrenaline rush from the custom blend of nicotine, amphetamine and menthol spreading its barbed tendrils pleasantly through his body.

Anna palaa!

The loud drum beats from the old Killers song throbbed through his oversized headphones, enveloping him in an aural bubble.

Time to get to work.

Outside was Arctic winter. The cold that went to the bone, to the marrow. Freezing, bleak, and forever dark.

Inside the dark room, the wall was covered with a bank of glowing monitors. A single metal-framed window provided a view of the small harbor. A two-toned grey corvette lay at berth, lit by the orange glow of a sodium-vapor dock light.

On the monitors Seppo tracked the approaching flight. They thought they were undetected as they crossed the border and flew low over the Finnish countryside, but Seppo had been tracking them since they had left Murmansk. Thanks to a well-placed asset, Seppo knew their route and loadout.

They were a trio of coaxial Ka-97 “Bereza-M” assault helicopters (NATO: HAG), designed for stealth and deep penetration assault missions. Each could be piloted by a single human, or capably controlled by the internal AI node. It was standard practice to have at least one human pilot in nominal command of a flight, although this was redundant. The HAGs were equipped to carry an interchangeable mix of men, machines, and weapons. This flight carried an offensive and defensive drone mix: 72 Skvoret and 36 Sapsan.

The Skvoret were assault drones. They carried a small charge and had just enough brain power to operate independently although they were more effective when mesh-linked with the command node aboard their HAG mothership. The Sapsan were interceptor drones. They handled short-range air defense with a small warhead, flechette guns, and a micro-EW suite. In addition to the drones, each HAG carried two Kh-86U “Rusalka” light air-launched anti-ship missiles.

Seppo knew they were dangerous creatures.

The custom keyboard off to his side was marked with a series of brightly color-coded buttons. He queued the kill-macros and waited. It wouldn’t be long.

Seppo leaned back in his chair and took a sip of now cold coffee from the black and red Robert’s Coffee cup.  He didn’t notice the taste. The red blips on the screen got closer.

Seppo looked out the window. The Kemi-class corvette, Oulu, was tied at the quayside.

A tangle of umbilical lines linked ship to shore. Protective RF-mesh anti-drone netting tented the ship. A quintet of interceptor drones languidly patrolled the perimeter of the harbor.

Kemi-class corvettes were built for surveillance and interception in the narrow Arctic skerries and confined Baltic waters. They hit Russian intruders so hard that their patrol boxes turned to ghost zones. Moscow prioritized their destruction.

Seppo finished the last of the cold coffee, cracked his knuckles, looked at the screen and readied himself.

________________________________________

 

The three HAGs approached from the northwest. After crossing Lapland they tracked southward along the Bothnian coast weaving around the small rocky islets. The AI nodes precisely flew each craft within 15 meters above ground level, occasionally popping higher to avoid poles and the trees.

Chameleon composite IR damping nanotiles coated the HAGs, morphing and mirroring the bleak winter palette. The coaxial rotors ran individual blade control—piezo flaperons twisting each blade to kill harmonics at the source—while higher-harmonic control flattened the acoustic lobes. Their rotor signatures muted to a murmur. Skimming the frozen flats, the three helicopters were almost invisible and unnervingly quiet.

Five kilometers out from their targets, the HAGs slowed and deployed their drone swarms. The Sapsan fanned out in an equidistant shield covering the frontal aspects of the attack formation.

The Skvoret formed up near the center awaiting their targets.

The Raahe harbor lay quiet. An ephemeral fog flitted across the shore. The darkness broken only by a few streetlights.

The starboard side of the corvette Oulu was dark, mirroring the blackness of the bay. Its superstructure obscured by tarps, the port side dully reflected the orange glow of the lone quayside lamp, its protective netting nearly invisible in the winter night.

Pavel was a veteran. This was his 13th deep penetration raid. Lucky number, he thought. He checked his displays to ensure all was as it should be, then took the controls and began the assault run. He reflexively glanced to either side for his autonomously piloted wingmen. The other two HAGs were barely visible in the dark winter night. He locked onto his target, one of the hated corvettes, and tapped his screen, designating targets and issuing commands. There was little left to do but watch. He thought about smoking, but decided he would save it for the long dark flight home.

The assault drones divided into three wings and each began their attack run. One group had been designated to take out harbor defenses while the other two would approach the corvette from bow and stern.

The small group of defenders rose from the harbor to meet the attacking swarm, but Pavel’s briefing had assured him their numbers were limited and only a single reserve Maakuntajoukot defense platoon was tasked with providing security for the corvette. They would pose no trouble.

The flight of five Finnish Kotka drones formed up and headed toward the attackers. Each was armed with short range micro-rockets, miniguns, and self-detonating charges. Ukrainian designed, Finnish built, workhorse general purpose defense drones.

Five against a hundred and eight. The Finns were used to those odds. They rather liked it that way.

A continuously undulating screen of mesh-linked Russian drones awaited the small band of Finnish attackers. Pavel smiled. Too easy, he thought. All too easy.

The Finnish Kotka drones pressed forward. They flew straight into the cloud of defenders, penetrating toward the high value HAG targets. The Kotkas launched a swarm of guided micro-rockets. Scores of rockets gyrated, twisted, and exploded as they found their marks.

Dozens of Russian drones fragmented and fell into the waters of the icy bay. The center of the swarm fell back, allowing the Kotka drones to penetrate further toward the massed assault drones and the controlling HAGs.

Flechette rounds filled the sky. The armored Kotka drones shrugged off most of the impacts, motors were sliced away, but built-in redundancy kept them flying forward, in a constantly charging erratic jig of evasive maneuvers.

The defensive screen thinned, creating a pocket through which the Finnish drones pressed on. The Kotkas penetrated further into the defensive cloud, pushing through a disintegrating storm of defending Russian drones. Then the two flanks of the Russian interceptors closed around them. The Kotkas were surrounded and trapped as the flanks of the Russian drone shield completed their encirclement. Using short range peroxide micro-thrusters, the interceptors surged toward the rear of the penetrating Finnish wing. Small talons emerged and they impaled themselves into the flanks and rear of the Finnish drones before detonating.

Shards of metal, plastic, and smoke filled the dark night sky.

A lone Kotka survivor surged forward, its target HAG almost within range. Three guided missiles locked on its rear, accelerated, closed and detonated. The Kotka disintegrated in debris and flame.

Pavel smiled, and rolled the cigarette between two fingers. If that was all, he might just light up now.

An alert flashed on his screen. He dropped the cigarette and silently swore. Pavel’s sensor-fusion display bloomed with range rings from his six, counting over a hundred tracks. The camera panels and EO/IR feeds showed only snow and dark, yet the millimeter-wave radar painted menacing tracks.

Where had they come from?

Overriding the AI node, Pavel swung his HAG around to face the threat. His two AI-controlled HAG wingmen followed pirouetting in a perfect pattern. The HAGs’ front-mounted minigun unleashed a wall of lead into the dark night sky targeting the cloud of new threats.

From the pylons of each HAG shrapnel-filled rockets fired and detonated in clouds of lethal metal. When the minigun ammunition had been nearly depleted, Pavel ordered the drones forward to mop up the survivors.

Pavel glanced down at his display. The Finnish attackers looked to be pressing forward undeterred. Not a single one seemed to have been hit. The range was closing quickly and they would soon be a threat. Pavel didn’t understand. He scanned the night sky with his goggles, but could see nothing. No attacker. No contacts.

His defensive drone swarm buzzed angrily ahead but found nothing to engage. Pavel cursed, and suddenly realized he had been deceived. It was too late.

In his small room Seppo watched and smiled. His hack had perfectly spoofed the sensors of Pavel’s HAG. The ghost contacts vanished, they had done their job.

The four stealth missiles fired from a concealed rooftop cell now rapidly approached the HAG trio, precisely aligned along their aft sector blind spots. Two targeted the lead HAG, the others split, each targeting one wingman. Nearly simultaneously they closed and detonated. From outside his window Seppo grinned as he saw two fireballs bloom in the dark sky.

________________________________________

The blast that blew in the front door nearly knocked Seppo from his chair. Even through his music-filled headphones it was deafening. The alarms sounded. Useless, thought Seppo, after someone had just blown a hole through the front.

Quickly recovering his composure, Seppo jabbed at the specially colored keyboard enabling a series of defensive mechanisms. From under his workstation he pulled his old Glock and chambered a round. As he did, he saw that to his exasperation one of the HAGs had survived and was still pressing forward with its swarm of drones.

“Vittu,” he muttered. Must be damaged though, he thought, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. Seppo had shot his bolt. It was all he had, his ambush had only been partly successful.

Three heavily armed operators rapidly entered the main entry room in staggered formation.

The leader rolled a stun grenade through the far doorway.

Seppo’s control room lay off an L-shaped corridor from the main entry. He saw the flash and heard the bang, but now he was ready.

Seppo knew they were a deep infiltration Spetsnaz team. They had been a constant bane, targeting equipment, individuals, and command centers across NATO’s rear areas. How had they found him?

Another grenade rolled through the corridor with a flash and blast. Seppo didn’t have time to figure out where he had screwed up. Survive first, then assess. Glancing up at a monitor he saw the three Spetsnaz operators slowly clearing the room. Three against one. I like those odds, he thought.

The lead Spetsnaz operator stepped forward and edged into the corridor. Seppo watched. The operator crouched and swung into the corridor. The small autonomous defense unit fastened to the ceiling fired an aimed cloud burst of jagged fragments into his head. Seppo saw a quick mist of flesh and blood and the operator crumpled to the ground.

The remaining two fired into the corridor, wildly spraying rounds from their short-barreled assault rifles. The small defense node’s last shots harmlessly impacted the body armor of the second Spetsnaz operator as he attempted to cross the corridor to the adjoining room. He fell backward, stunned but unharmed. His companion rapidly aimed and fired a long controlled burst toward the ceiling shredding the defense node and gouging huge holes in the ceiling. Two small drones hovered into the corridor spraying restraining foam. The compressed foam when released, instantly expanded in an explosive exothermic reaction creating a hardened cocoon nearly impossible to escape.

The drones were quickly dispatched, but not before one of the Spetsnaz had his foot tacked to the floor immobilizing him. He cursed loudly in Russian and called for his comrade. The other operator continued down the hall toward Seppo’s control room, constantly firing controlled suppressing bursts as he advanced.

Outside, the surviving swarm of assault drones spread out across the harbor and detonated around adjacent infrastructure and defense points.

The last Spetsnaz operator rolled a grenade down the hallway detonating astride the door to Seppo’s command center. The blast was deafening in the narrow confines, and the room filled with smoke, but the ballistic walls prevented any major damage.

Well, this is it, thought Seppo. He balled up into a compact shooting crouch and pivoted around the doorjamb. The acrid smoke caused him to cough and he had difficulty sighting the advancing Spetsnaz—a blurry dark form in the chaotic hall. He emptied the magazine, trying to maintain control and discipline as he fired each round.

Click. The magazine emptied.

He tried to retreat into his control room but a well-aimed shot slammed into his left shoulder and knocked him backwards against the wall. He dropped his Glock and let out a reflexive cry. The more rational part of his mind continued with an internal damage assessment—not good, not fatal but clearly fractured.

Before he could react, the operator was standing over him, his black rifle aimed at Seppo’s head, the targeting laser barely bobbing. His face was masked. Seppo yelled the worst Russian curses he could.

The operator pulled one hand away from his rifle and pulled off his mask. He had short-cropped blond hair, and an incongruous young face, almost like a model.

Seppo flipped him off.

The operator’s finger tightened on the trigger. There was a series of sharp concussive cracks.

Seppo closed his eyes. A loud thud. Seppo looked up—the man lay sprawled across the floor, a pool of blood leaking from a well-placed headshot.

At the end of the corridor stood another figure, rifle held at ready.  The figure lowered the rifle and stepped forward. Seppo could see the man stuck to the floor by the foam was dead, bent against the wall at an unnatural angle, one leg still planted to the ground.

She wore the uniform of the regional defense forces. She was young, long blonde hair wrapped tightly back in a series of braids. Soot and smoke smeared her face—her eyes were wide with fear.

Seppo smiled at her. Her face remained a tightly controlled mask. An explosion from the quayside rocked the building. Seppo ran back into the control room and looked out the window. Where the ship had been was now a burning conflagration.

The soldier followed him. Seppo saw the flames mirrored on her pale face—a face plainly writ with anxiety. He smiled at her again. She seemed confused.

Seppo picked up the vape pen from his desk and took a long inhale.

“Decoy,” he slowly said. “Not the real ship, dressed up old barge. Just bait.”

It took a moment for the soldier to understand, then finally she smiled too.

The surviving AI-piloted HAG began its egress from the flaming quay accompanied by its remaining drones. Thick black smoke belched from its wounded rotor hub.

On a rooftop along the edge of Raahe, another young reservist stood and fired a MANPADS at the fleeing helicopter.

He watched in satisfaction as it spiraled into the sky and detonated against the HAG’s underbelly.

Anna palaa!

Ben Plotkin is a physician in Southern California. He can be reached at phaenon@gmail.com.

Fiction Week

By Tyler Totten

February 5^th – 0340
Amphibious Strike One
Palanan Bay, Philippines

“Handshake confirmed,” Lieutenant Parodi reported from the copilot seat, his voice low.

“Relax Juan, the drones won’t hear us. Let’s get on the deck.” Commander Valerie Cunningham smirked. Still her own nervousness caused her to glance at the weapon status, seeing green across the board on the defensive systems. While appreciated, she missed the offensive role.

When this was an offensive platform…

“Yes ma’am,” his seriousness remained but his tone level. “Petrel Six, One. Follow us down.”

Cunningham kept further comments to herself. Looking to port, she could see their destination. The base looked half abandoned but she knew better.

“They’ve taken some hits since while we’ve been gone.”

“Docks are holed, yeah.” Cunningham saw impact points in the floating concrete piers, blackened gouges. One broken cargo ship sat on the gravelly bottom. She highlighted it in their joint augmented reality environment. “That wasn’t there before.”

“Most of the spare sections have been slotted in.” Parodi likewise highlighted only two of the floating concrete pre-built sections remained moored off to the side.

They touched down gently and taxied to their mooring point, keeping at least 200 meters of separation from each other and the base itself, dispersing to remain as unattractive a target as they could. An automated small boat was there to collect both aircraft’s crew before their engines even wound down. The tender with fuel and provisions was moving up to Petrel Six as the boat whisked them across to the entrance.

“Welcome, ma’am, sirs.” The ensign saluted them as they stepped inside, their identification read by base security system as they crossed the threshold. “Admiral Stevens is waiting for you.”

“Lead on Ensign.” They all followed him in and below the waterline, feeling the air change as they moved deep underwater. The base’s protection came from its section replaceability and from using tens of meters of water as armor. Stepping quickly into the briefing room and exchanging another round of salutes, Admiral Stevens waved them to their seats.

“Let’s get started.” Stevens was direct and liked to get down to business. Cunningham couldn’t blame him, most of the stiff, stand-on-ceremony flags had either been removed from command or killed. There wasn’t time to be inefficient, the war moved too fast. They had barely sat before Stevens began speaking, gesturing to his aide to bring up the AR briefing.

“As you are aware, losses among manned surface combatants have been heavy. Even with the dispersed approach and pairing each with three or four autonomous surface vessels, the PLA has proven adept at targeting the manned assets specifically. The stealthy command frigates have had better success, but are in short supply. Until that is rectified, we must improvise.” The aide zoomed in, the theater ship loss map fading, replaced by the waters of northeast Luzon and three groups of ten small ships.

“These autonomous squadrons are inbound for strike operations. The PLA has been picking at them for the last four days but they are still 60 percent combat effective and carrying 80 percent of their strike package. You will be providing human-in-the-loop command and control in lieu of manned ships.” An overlay appeared, showing two plane flight with infiltration and exfiltration routes and alternates. Mission time stamps showed their tanking points and flight profiles. “Low and on the deck all the way in, land and establish control of your squadron, wait for the targeting data. Approve the shots, get out. Questions?”

“Are we expecting to pull out our squadron?” Cunningham asked, considering the timings and geometry against known PLAN coverage.

“Negative, these are one-way assets. They have tasking if they survive to launch but it will not be your concern.”

“No on-call support from loitering assets?” Lieutenant Commander Bulan, Petrel Six inquired.

“Not this run. The PLAN has finally pushed substantial numbers of UUVs and that little underwater dogfight has become vicious.” Stevens frowned at that, not mentioning the SSN losses that had come with that surge.

A few additional questions around the room before the admiral dismissed them. Less than 2 hours after landing, both powered up and headed east for the first leg of their route. Behind them, the base’s air raid siren sounded and the base braced for another round.

February 5^th – 0720
Dawn Seas Field Team
Houma, Louisiana, USA

Tim Masson stepped across the gangway, the first morning rays cutting through the light fog and creating glistening outlines across the handful of supply vessels tied up along the piers. This was his first vessel of the day, the hour drive from New Orleans having delayed his normally early start.

“Susan, pilothouse. Mark, topside. I’ll take engineering.” His two engineers nodded, having already known this would be the plan.

“Bet you’ll still be done first,” Susan joked.

“Only if you keep sandbagging,” Tim quipped back.

They parted ways and Tim noted how rough of shape this vessel was in. Not that any of the ones tied up to this set of piers were beauty queens, rusting and covered in flaking paint. It was clear they had not received much maintenance in the two years they had sat idle. Tim was honestly surprised they hadn’t been scrapped altogether, but that had a cost as well.

“Better just get on with it…” He grumbled to himself. Setting his small pelican case down he opened it and extracted his augmented reality glasses. Settling them into place but not energizing the system yet, he opened the hatch and made his way down into the main engineering space. Once firmly on the deck plates he turned the AR glasses on and allowed them to go through their few seconds of boot cycle.

It had taken him some time to get used to them, still feeling he was entirely too old for learning new tricks, much to the bemusement of Susan and Mark, both twenty years his junior. Tim grumbled and complained about the systems yet he wasn’t too much of an old man yet to deny their utility. Even just a quick glance around the space and the computer-vision system was measuring the space and identifying key systems. Much of the basics, like the main engines, were more confirmatory of what limited data they already had. For others, like vales, pumps, and electrical panels, the algorithms got to work matching them and identifying compatibility. Where the system struggled, he helped find the right component. Sometimes he needed to wipe off a greasy label plate or fill in the blanks on a name when it ran up against the CV algorithms’ limits. He still prided himself on knowing most of the systems almost as fast as the system could match them.

As with the dozens of vessels they had already worked on, these old rust buckets were destined to be turned into rapidly automated platforms. His team, and others like them, catalogued their status and systems. The AR glasses of each team member rapidly formed work orders, 3D models, and queued purchases or pulls from existing supply to outfit the vessels. This vessel would take more than most, many of its systems manual or had broken equipment so old that they were obsolete and could not be replaced with a form-fit-function replacement. Even still, he was confident they could meet the deadline. Twenty minutes later he had finished in the engineering spaces and climbed back to the working deck. Susan was already there, confirming the alterations for the bridge systems on her tablet.

“Better,” Tim remarked in jest. “Mark?”

“Here.” Mark said coming down the ladder behind him. “She’s in rough shape, don’t you think?”

“These will be one-way drone ships for sure but that’s still something, if they can launch their missiles before they break.” He considered his data for a moment, AR glasses letting him look back down into the engineering spaces and the work out diesels contained there. He shook his head slightly. “My bet is four days, assuming all the parts can get here on time. Last shipment was delayed by reported drones over Highway 51. Nothing came of it but still snarled traffic.”

“Do you blame them after Long Beach?” Susan shuddered, mentally replaying the footage of an entire bridge span full of cars and trucks collapsing into the water under the surprise drone swarm.

“Fair enough, still destroys our schedule.” Tim shook his head again, trying not to dwell on things beyond control. “Let’s get over to the next vessel.”

Almost 98 hours later, Tim watched six boxes land on the freshly automated OSV. Each housed a variety of missiles, though he didn’t know which types. He suspected these were strike weapons, given the one-way nature of the old rusty wrecks. One express routing through the Panama Canal and they’d be in the war.

Everything west of Panama is “in the war.” He snorted to himself. Shaking his head he turned and walked to his truck. There were still a few more vessels to salvage. He could only hope all that reported new construction was about to start launching. They were running out of wrecks.

February 5^th – 1450
Amphibious Strike One
20 nm north of Farallon de Pajaros

The engines thrummed with power, the comforting sound louder and more in Cunningham’s chest than usual. Her two-plane flight was on the deck and the engines were working hard, having left their buddy tankers behind three hours ago. The run was at a bare 300 meters, staying well below the anticipated radar horizon. It was expected they would even avoid detection by the over-the-horizon systems thanks to their small form factor. The only real risk was getting spotted by a visual or infrared satellite pass. For that, they had to make use of a regular window in which PLA overhead birds would be blinded. The Navy had been keeping a regular-as-clockwork blinding campaign since the war’s start, typically doing nothing in the window. The hope by this point was that the PLA largely ignored the window other than to recheck the locations of the three prowling CSGs that threatened but did not move west from their racetracks around Midway. Further west of that had…unfortunate outcomes.

Cunningham shivered at the thought, remembering their search-and-rescue sortie to recover who they could from the burning ocean around the remains of the Big E. Her stern hadn’t quite slipped below when secondary explosions erupted from her hull as they struggled to pull a few dozen from the dark waters. The surviving escorts had already fled, protecting the wounded Ford running for Midway’s air cover.

“Coming up on initiation point,” Parodi noted. “Confirming Petrel Six in green.”

The laser pulse hit Six precisely on its flank array, the beam tight even at one kilometer. The return pulse was instantaneous.

“Six confirms.” Parodi checked the automated navigator system for their position. “Still good positional fix, within acceptable GPS-denied bounds.”

With that final perfunctory check, the computer would have flagged any issues, Cunningham gripped the controls again and toggled off the autopilot. The computer could fly this alone but she wanted to at least start the run herself.

“Powering up, Six to follow.” Cunningham advanced the throttles, bringing her aircraft up to full power. Like its predecessor, they were capable of a Mach 0.9 sprint. On this lightly loaded run, with only a few defensive weapons, her Seamaster II easily advanced across Mach 0.9 to Mach 0.94. The only change was a small shudder in the stick.

February 5^th – 1635
Task Force Romeo Bravo 15 (TF-RB15)
15 nm south of Taiwan

Self-elected commander of TF-RB15 noted the new command node come online, linking up with one of the task force’s UAVs maintaining a line-of-sight (LOS) laser communication net over the entire group. Having departed Hawaii with 16 ships, the surviving nine pressed on with the same undaunted progress that came with being automated. The command unit had been lucky, positioned mid-group and carrying a majority offensive payload. It had directed the defense against a half dozen raids on the group. Several, mostly outer pickets, had fallen to enemy fire.

As valid command codes filtered in from the new arrival, the command unit transmitted a task force status update. It also added a positional fix, pulling from the collective task force’s GPS-denied positional assessment. A combination of inertial, star fixes, and tracking known satellites in orbit all coordinated with triple-redundant atomic clocks. The result was remarkably accurate, at least for open-ocean navigating.

Receiving a simple acknowledgement of the update but no orders, it continued as before. Launched UAVs passively searched for threats with cameras and radio-direction-finding sniffed for radars. And onward they sailed.

Amphibious Strike One

“Command Unit confirms no contacts,” Parodi reported for the third time in the hour since arrival. Out there somewhere, their brethren should have linked up with the other two Romeo Bravo task forces, more SeaMasters bobbing on the wavetops near the ships plowing west.

“Wow, these things are struggling. Rust Bucket task force indeed.” Parodi looked over the updates, driven by boredom rather than need. The system would flag anything they needed to review. “Half these ships are down an engine. Two only have half power and are running flat out. Lucky if they survive past launch, enemy or not.”

“They just need to launch.” Cunningham checked the time. “Any minute now.”

As if having willed it into existing, a soft trill announced the satellite orders. They saw it simultaneously as it was decrypted.

“Full salvo,” Parodi noted.

“As expected, probably going to get jumped as soon as we light off anyway,” Cunningham said casually as she confirmed the proper codes had been transmitted. She waited, though only a few seconds, for the command unit to provide proposed strike package edits.

“Light edits,” Parodi highlighted, the command unit providing modifications to reflect the latest inventory and positions of the task force.

“I see no issues, let’s get Six’s concurrence,” Cunningham ordered.

“Six confirms.”

“Lock them in, clear task force to fire by the numbers.”

Task Force Romeo Bravo 15 (TF-RB15)

The command unit received the confirmation of its recommended plan and disseminated launch authorization and final timing, syncing the group. Within seconds, each ship was executing at pre-launch. Across the waves in the fading dusk light, containers opened to reveal racks of cruise missiles. A few red and yellow lights came back, weapons not waking or showing partial faults. While there was nothing to be done about unresponsive weapons, the command unit authorized the launch of any partially responsive weapons. Its mission parameters allowed for maximum risk to launch platforms, no self-preservation was required. They sequenced flagged weapons to fire last to mitigate possible damage.

With a minute left to launch, a UAV picket flashed an alert, processed in a microsecond. Inbound missiles, skimming the surface at subsonic speeds but closing fast.

With only seconds to respond, the command unit ordered an interceptor salvo. Though low on interceptor inventory, the outer picket also had few offensive weapons to preserve. The command unit ordered it to maximize its electronic emissions and deploy radar reflectors, making itself a large target. The inbounds may not care but any advantage was worthwhile.

Calculating the closure rates, the command unit ordered an early and immediate launch from all ships. It provided the update to the human-in-the-loop with two seconds to countermand. The weapons could still make their trip, the change in launch distance trivial, but a deviation was a deviation. Command must be allowed a countermand opportunity. The time passed, slowly, and confirmation to deviate was received.

All across the task force, rusty ships were momentarily lit up and then disappeared under billowing clouds of rocket exhaust as each disgorged its deadly cargo into the night.

Amphibious Strike One

“Inbounds!” Parodi didn’t yell but he was still loud. Cunningham set that aside and examined the threats on screen. “Command unit is moving to immediate launch, providing for override.”

“Allowing,” Cunningham confirmed.

She noted the likely enemy launch positions were flagged, well beyond their own engagement range. She queued a prosecution request and set to transmit from one of their task force’s SATCOMs. Those ships were already exposed, she wasn’t risking her position.

“Sub-launched, old YJ-82s.” Cunningham noted. “Must be a UUV, no way they’re loading that trash on a manned sub.”

“We’re clear of all twelve inbounds, definitely targeting the task force.” Parodi’s calm had returned.

Better, she thought.

They watched the task force’s defensive fire, downing five of the approaching weapons. Four more, lacking any in-flight collaboration, slammed into the decoying ship nearly in unison and massive overkill. A final missile was intercepted in terminal by a last-ditch launch, the interceptor not even getting up to speed. Even still, shrapnel ripped into the converted commercial ship and she lost all power.

The last two missiles spread to either side of the stricken ships and found their own targets, slamming into one each as they launched the last of their own missiles. On one, it found a container with two missiles that had failed to launch and added their fuel and warhead to the conflagration that quickly consumed the ship. On the other, the midship strike was mortal but less spectacular. Still under power but with flooding it could not contain, the ship continued forward and prepared to scuttle itself.

“Well, that’s it.” Cunningham turned away from the screen, glancing only momentarily at the horizon where she could just make out two of the burning ships of her temporary task force. “We’re out of here.”

“Yes ma’am. Powering up.” Parodi worked the abbreviated pre-flight and within 90 seconds they were pointed into the wind and starting their take-off run.

“Another successful hurry up and wait for the fearless Amphibious Strike One,” Cunningham remarked, eliciting a snort from Parodi.

“You just want another splash twelve moment. War’s moved on with that sort of opportunity. It’s all drones, drones, drones nonsense now.”

“I can dream, can’t I?”

Tyler Totten is a naval engineer working on autonomous systems, including autonomous surface vessels, in the maritime domain. Previous roles have included supporting several Navy and Coast Guard programs including LCS, DDG(X), and PEO Ships Futures Directorate. He has a strong interest in international and maritime security. He is also an amateur science fiction writer published on Kindle. He holds a B.S from Webb Institute in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering and can be found on Bluesky at @azuresentry.bsky.social and X/Twitter at @AzureSentry.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI.