Fiction Week

By LCDR Joe Huskey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI.

Fiction Week

By Bryan Williams

RAMONA, CALIFORNIA.
1416R hours. 25 MAY 2029.

Go figure, it all starts when he’s in the shower.

He’s standing there in the cold water washing off the stink when the lights quit. Ah, nothing unusual. Just a freak power outage. Someone probably crashed into a utility pole or something, right?

Right.

So, he continues, still trying to clear his mind when the ground shutters, then rumbles in succession. Earthquake? Maybe that explains the lights.

“What the hell?”

Since when did earthquakes feel like that?

There’s a shimmy. Then a jolt, a big one. Then another one, the repetition getting faster as the shampoo tumbles off the shower rack. No freakin’ way this is ‘normal,’ and if anything, his stepdad confirms it by banging on the bathroom door.

“Hey, Shawn!” Tom shouts. “SHAWN!”

“What’s going on?”

“I think we’re being bombed or something! Get out here!”

No one has to tell him twice. He’s dried and dressed in seconds, nearly falling down the moment a bright flash beams through the small window. Instinct has him hit the deck, waiting, and waiting, and waiting until an enormous thunderclap strikes the house, the overpressure wave nearly shattering the windows.

“Did they nuke us?”

“I don’t know.”

“You okay?”

“What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know.”

Cellphone. It still works. No EMP equals no nuke, so his first thought is to call Nicole.

NO SERVICE.

Of course not. Then he tries the Maps app.

NO GPS SIGNAL. 

Internet? He tries the news.

NO INTERNET CONNECTION. 

Same problem on Tom’s phone. They hear slews of police sirens now as if every emergency vehicle in California was summoned simultaneously, but one grows close as the Sheriff neighbor pulls up, passenger door flung open, and not an ounce of hesitation to take Shawn to the burgeoning fight.

“Where we headed?” he asks. “Miramar?”

“No. Ramona Airport.” Shawn says, piecing it all together himself. “We finished moving stuff there yesterday morning.”

“Well, good thing. Radio says Miramar’s toast. San Diego International. North Island. The whole naval base is hit. Got every squad in San Diego headed down there.”

They’re stunned by the sight of the New Ramona Oil Refinery burning, itself a moment interrupted by the whine of a little jet engine overhead, Shawn looking up to instantly identify a cruise missile in its terminal phase, diving down to explode amid the new construction.

Emotions mix. Fear. Disbelief. Rage.

Emergency alerts flood the radio. Traffic gridlocks. People panic. No telling what’s going on nationwide, but at the very least, Ramona Airport is still running as they pull up to the gates.

“Do me a favor.” says Shawn as he opens the door.

“Yeah, anything.”

“Tell mom, Mitch, and Tom that I love them. Okay?” he extends his right hand, shaking the Sheriff’s firmly. “If I don’t make it back, please—”

“I’ll tell them! Don’t worry! Go get em’!”

Shawn nods, opening the door, savoring the very last moment he wasn’t at war.

________________________________________

 

There’s his jet, a leftover hand-me-down 40-year-old Legacy Hornet, flaky paint and all, but it’s armed and ready.

He’s up the ladder and in the cockpit, helmet fastened, strapped into the seat as the engines whine, their turbines spooling up as he runs through the startup sequence and closes the canopy. Then he gives a thumbs up to the ground crew, who either heroically or suicidally guide him out into the open, yelling for him to go as the AA guns in the distance open fire towards the west.

Shawn gets the point and rolls onto the taxiway just as another Hornet pulls up into the sky, both engines belching smoke as the canopy pops and out shoots its pilot.

“Holy shit.”

It crashes in the distance.

Finally on the right comms channel he hears the tower screaming, “FOD on the runway! FOD on the runway!”

He stops, watching in stupor as two pickup trucks ram away the wreckage.

Shawn judges the distance. Maybe a half mile. Maybe more.

Can I make that? Dammit, can I make it?!

Thirty minutes in and the taxiway is all we got? Shit.

Full flaps. He stands on the wheel brakes and says a prayer. This is it. Do or die. Two choices: get bombed on the tarmac, or die trying to fly. He’s no hero, but he’s going with option two.

Afterburners.

The F404s roar. He’s gaining speed, but that blown up hangar at the end of the run seems mighty close. Too close. So close in fact that Shawn debates whether ejecting is a better idea.

Make a choice! Make a choice! MAKE A CHOICE!

150 knots. Should be enough, right?

Rotate! ROTATE!

He pulls the joystick and the nose rises sharply, the wings buffeting, the fuselage pogoing as the wheels leave the ground, the damn stall warning beeping away.

Too hard on the stick! Shit!

Then, at maybe 50 feet of altitude, he ignores his instincts and lets the ole Hornet eat, nose back at high alpha just after the stick release as he pulls hard again. He crosses over a group of soldiers beneath him, all looking up at him as they run, the peak of that damaged hanger approaching in slow motion.

Oh, god, he’s not going to make it.

Not enough altitude. He tried, but it’s not enough!

All this, and he’s going to clip the roof!

Eject, or ride this out?

Now or never. Now or never, Shawn!

All he can do is close his eyes, just waiting for it all to end right here. He sees the obituary now: “First Pilot on Scene of World War III Dies During Takeoff.”

What a shameful way to go. Even for a subpar pilot like him.

But it isn’t the end, because with no more than 10 inches of clearance between the rear wheels and the hangar roof that they barely clear, Shawn opens his eyes surprised to be alive, looking back as he climbs away, just as a trio of cruise missiles open up their cluster munition warheads and pulverize the area he occupied just seconds ago.

He screams aloud, “Hooooooly shit!”

And at 2:36PM Pacific Standard Time, May 25th, 2029, Lieutenant Shawn Paxson, the ‘failed’ prodigal child of his soon-to-be Joint Chief father Admiral James Paxson, takes to the sky in his DoD surplus F/A-18C Hornet.

History is made here. He just doesn’t know it yet.

________________________________________

 

Gear up. Flaps retracted.

He settles at 390 knots.

Is that too fast? Or too slow?

Where’s my kneeboard?

What channel—HOLY F–!

Just like that, he’s pulled a last-second barrel roll atop a twin-engine airliner.

Quick sitrep: No Air Traffic Control. No ILS or MLS. No GPS. Nothing.

He sees at least six more flying blind through the airspace less than a mile apart, wings banked and noses hunting for somewhere to go.

Just don’t shoot one down!

He has to wait for orders and targets, but what if, considering the radio silence, he never gets any? He flies in circles, seeing Ramona Airport ablaze, the tower blown to bits as fires bloom, but he sees another Hornet in the mirror hot on his four-o-clock trail. It closes quickly, tipping side to side to wave its wings amidst the radio silence until the pilot briefly pops his visor up.

Ah, yes. That’s Jamie. Weird guy, but decent pilot. No better or worse than Shawn. He points and waves, but Shawn points west, trying to direct him that way.

Thirty minutes into World War III and they’re down to hand gestures, at least until he hears the first friendly voice through the static since Ramona Airport’s tower was hit.

“All players, all players on this emergency channel, this is MOP 1-0-0-5 on Guard for Emergency Combat Air Patrol! Any CAP-capable flights report to MOP 1-0-0-5 on Bravo-Six-Zuu! Say again—”

Don’t have to tell Shawn twice.

He switches to the Mission Operator’s channel, trying to hear through the clicking and beeping sounds, all evidence of enemy jamming from an unknown source.

“This is—” shit, what the hell is his callsign? Check the kneeboard, “—SPIFF 46-3 and 4, two Hornets up, flying north! Requesting, uh, Bogey Dope.”

A pause, then, “Thank god! SPIFF 46, be advised. Bandits! Bandits! LACMs (Land Attack Cruise Missiles) and PALMs (Precision Attack Loitering Munitions) inbound battlespace BRA 2-7-0 for, uh, wait. SPIFF 46, right?”

What the hell?

This guy sounds like he’s barely holding it together on the other end, “Yeah, SPIFF 46 to MOP 1-0-0-5. Bogey Dope on bandits. You said—”

“—SPIFF 46, I’m showing you merged!”

WHAT!?!

Shawn’s eyes hunt around, first to the radar, then left and right outside of the canopy. He sees nothing. Plus, how the hell isn’t Jamie on the comms yet? What the hell is he doing? He looks over at him, ready to gesture when his voice suddenly breaks in.

“3! Look down! LOOK DOWN! NINE-O-CLOCK LOW! LOW!”

His head cranes left as the jet rolls, his eyes hunting around until he sees one little glint. Then three. Then seven. Holy hell. It’s a swarm of them flying by, slinking around the hills below as he peers up and gauges the surroundings before he commits.

It’s different with the overhead view, his eyes panning to the horizon out west, seeing the billowing smoke from San Diego and the port, the contrails of surface-to-air missiles rising from the air defense batteries and the ships still stuck in the San Diego Bay.

Oh my god. Oh my god.

Master Arm switch toggled.

Radar in BORESIGHT mode.

The Hornet flips inverted, its nose aiming square for the ground, Shawn squeezing his legs to keep the blood going to his head. He’s got the armament for this. Sure, months and years ago it seemed pretty dumb to be relegated to a shitty old jet for drone swarm and cruise missile killing, but off the Hornet’s wings hang a set of four LAU-61 rocket pods, each one packing a jerry-rigged kit of AGR/AAR-30s, little mini-rockets repurposed to lower interception costs in these predicted situations. 76 in total, all laser-guided from an empennage fixed to the leading edge of the pod, these little makeshift air-to-air missiles are among the only things able to push back against Southern California’s overwhelmed air defenses.

“SPIFF 46,” Shawn’s got the JHMCS visor ready to roll, “we got a group of uh, unknown TOIs heading 0-9-2. They look like small drones or cruise missiles. Request—”

“SPIFF 46, you are cleared to engage! Engage any and all hostiles in battlespace!”

Well, that clears it up.

The Hornet rolls left, then right around the hillside, the smoke rising from Ramona ahead as he lines up the jet, nose filling in behind the group of little black planforms.

Radar slews to them, cueing the lasers. He can lock up to eight at once, but they’re varying their headings, acting much like a flock of migrating birds versus the hapless duds he’s seen in training ops, but he isn’t surprised that cruise missiles, drone warfare and loitering munitions have come a long way since Ukraine, Israel, and Yemen.

“Ramona, you’ve got incoming! Another group of bandits inbound 0-2-2!”

What was once eight cruise missiles is now two groups of four, and then three groups now, two in one, three in another, two diving into the ridgeline behind the hills, and wait, is that last one climbing towards him?!

What the—?

 There’s no time for shock. He hears the blinking acquisition tone, waiting for it to ring solidly until he hears Betty,

SHOOT! SHOOT!

He hits the uncage button like God almighty possessed him to do so. Eight times in quick succession, rockets spew from beneath the Hornet’s wings, alternating left and right, each little missile popping out its fins and streaming to the target like hyenas heavy for a meal as Shawn holds his breath to watch.

The first five AAR-30s detonate dead center of their targets, igniting the cruise missile warheads in spectacular fashion. He pulls up instinctively, hearing debris pelting the jet’s belly, praying he doesn’t FOD an engine or two, but he’s okay, nosing down to reassess.

Five kills, but three misses. That’s a failing score since he was in grade school, but it’s surely better than nothing.

“SPIFF 46-3, splash five!”

The combat cameras are rolling, recording every move he makes. They’ll have all his data. They’ll tell him what he’s doing wrong, but until then, he sends five more rockets to finish the last three with overkill.

God, rookie shooting over here. Clean it up, man!

 “Splash three!”

Then he hears Jamie, “—SPIFF 46-4, engaging bandits 2-9-1, inbound Ramona from the east. Group of twelve!”

The EAST!?! What the hell?

Shawn looks in that direction, his JHMCS highlighting his wingman just three miles away as he follows the little enemy missiles, all slinking away at a two-story home’s height above the ground.

Could it be? Are people launching missiles and drones from inside the United States? Or maybe they’re flying pre planned routes? Maybe, in the logic of their AI hivemind, they’re adjusting to avoid air defenses, but that doesn’t matter right now. He has just has to kill them.

“SPIFF 46-3 to MOP,” he says, “I’m still tracking six more bandits headed north off my nose, following Interstate 15. FOUR, do you see them?”

Then Jamie says, “Got em! Just passed Costco!”

“SPIFF 46-4, is that the—what road?”

“Scripps Parkway!” Jamie yells. “Fox Three! Fox Three times five! Splash!”

“Okay,” Shawn rolls the Hornet left, right above a parking lot filled with onlookers, his altitude so low that he swears he can see their individual faces, “I’m taking three more! They’re terminal! Hold on—Fox Three! Shit!”

He can’t fire. The little cruise missiles are already in their final dives, risking collateral damage if one of the AGR/AAR-30s either misses or hits its mark too late.

Still, he’s got an idea, a bold one like he’s John-freakin’ Wayne. Shawn flips to GUN, kicks the rudder and with a deep breath he squeezes the trigger and holy hell, he’s splashed one! Add a little nose up pitch at the last minute, a quick 7.5g pull and he’s taken down another. It’s spiraling now, exploding into a trail of flames as he tail-slides back towards the ground below, helplessly watching as the other enemy missiles hit their marks straight into a handful of buildings.

“MOP we got buildings hit! Buildings hit!”

“Did they bomb the fucking Costco?!”

Later reports will clarify that these are corporate offices and laboratories belonging to General Atomics filled with employees that are just going about their daily routines. Just another Friday until it isn’t. . . aka when a Chinese Tomahawk equivalent detonates its warhead dead center of the structure.

And what does he do? Watch in horror as ole’ Betty bitches at him.

ALTITUDE! ALTITUDE!

PULL UP! PULL UP!

Shit. He’s going to nosedive into the fucking ground, so he’s straining against the g-limiter override, hearing the fuselage creaking around him as his vision fades for a moment, joystick pulled to a point where it could castrate him.

This is the beauty of the Hornet, the ancient, ‘unsexy,’ busted and tired old jet that it is. It forgives so well, saving even the most moronic of pilots like Shawn Paxson by pulling such a high alpha that the vapor clouds later find their way on local television when they cover him as a hero.

On a normal day, nearly flying his jet into a goddamn Costco car wash would be a guaranteed grounding, but today? Shawn’s the hero as he somehow pulls out of it like he’s leading the Blue Angels in a local airshow, forming up right next to Jamie who’s peering over out of his canopy like he’s seen a ghost.

To those on the ground either dumb enough, or bold enough to whip their phones out and record what they’re seeing, he’s the man. He’s the soon-to-be legendary fighter pilot that faced overwhelming odds and opened up the M61 cannon as a last-ditch effort to save lives, and mostly succeeded.

They’ll never forget him. They’ll never chastise him.

Because even in the opening hours of America’s darkest day, he represents something that until now had faded away into a distant memory.

The fight. The perseverance. The coming rebuke of defeat from a country so bitterly divided that its newly sworn enemies played their hand in a decapitation strike and seriously thought it would work.

And for a few minutes it did, but to Shawn’s pleasant surprise, Miramar’s not entirely gone. He hears the status call of SHADOW 77, a flight of four Legacy Hornets rushing to engage a new line of bandits inbound from the ocean, each hauling their own set LAU-61s all the while. Blasting towards the Pacific, he passes by Miramar’s giant smoke plumes, spotting his new Hornet friends, talking with them and Jamie as they watch the US Navy’s surviving vessels unleash their air defense ordnance on the second onslaught.   

The sight alone gives him a new wind, a hopeful contrast versus the sight of San Diego burning below as a voice breaks in, more frantic than ever,

“MOP to SPIFF 46, attack warning! Attack Warning! Bandits! Bandits! Group of one hundred forty-five plus inbound B-R-A 2-2-5 for—uh—57.”

Did he say 145?! One?! Hundred?! Forty?! Five?!

Yep. Sure did, but he’s not alone. Not anymore.

After all, he’s nothing to write home about, eh?

Just a run-of-the-mill Marine fighter pilot, eh?

Proudly, and with great emotion, he looks side to side, filling into formation with the other Hornets, banking left until the blue abyss of the Pacific covers the span of his view.

“SPIFF 46, SHADOW 77,” he directs, “turn 2-2-5 for CAP! SPIFF 46 will take the southern targets, SHADOW 77, you take north! Copy?”

“Copy!”

“Okay.” Shawn takes a deep breath. “Let’s go!”

Afterburners. . . .

Bryan Williams is a mechanical engineer who previously worked in the automotive industry before moving to upstream materials and packaging development as a senior scientist. He is an aviation and combat aviation fan, still chasing his dream of becoming a successful novelist. He is the author of The Underground Kings, and has recently finished two novels, including the military thriller Bandit that includes the full story of what is depicted in this excerpt.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI.

Fiction Week

By Jay Turner

The ocean was calm off the coast of Virginia as Jake settled into his captain’s chair on the bridge wing of his Navy destroyer. The morning breeze was fresh and chilly, and he tucked his exposed neck deeper into the collar of his foul-weather jacket. It was springtime, the sun glimmered on the wavy sea surface and the boaters were out, but the temperatures were still dropping into the 50s at night. Overall, it was a beautiful day at sea.

He received a strange email from his wife this morning that the FBI raided a house in their neighborhood and taken away their neighbors, Rick and Susan. The neighborhood Facebook page was alight with discussion centering on the rumor that they had been flagged as “ANTIFA” activists after attending a rally in Virginia Beach to support an electoral candidate. At the rally, some people had brought fruit to throw and lit firecrackers, several were arrested. The raid on their neighbors’ house was executed in a SWAT fashion, in the middle of the night. There were photos posted on Facebook of the black trucks cruising through the neighborhood and their neighbors lying handcuffed on their manicured lawn.

Although the ship was underway for a short training mission, it was carrying a full complement of weapons and had been through the normal training cycle in preparation for an upcoming Middle East deployment. Jake was sipping on his second cup of coffee as the day began to warm up when he received a call from the Combat Information Center (CIC). The Tactical Action Officer (TAO) was requesting his presence. He hustled the three decks down, navigating the steep ladders easily after years of practice. The TAO showed him a chat from the Strike Group Commander, the first Admiral in his chain of command, with an odd tactical order. He was to launch a helicopter and proceed 30 miles to the east, locate a privately owned motorboat, and once a positive ID was established, his direction was to “engage with 5-inch guns until destroyed.” 

He paled at the order. It was something he had never seen before. Was this a terrorist threat? The TAO was noticeably shaken and pale as he pointed to the name of the boat, Telluride. “Sir,” he said, with a shaky voice, “I know the owner of that boat – he lives in my neighborhood – what’s going on?”

Jake took the ship to battle stations and ordered the Officer of the Deck to start the ship moving in the direction given by the chat from his Commander. He launched the helicopter and ordered it to fly off to the east, toward the motor vessel Telluride. The helicopter crew was able to determine that the boat did have the correct name, and there were four people on board. This information was relayed back to the Strike Group Commander, and they were told to reach out for a final positive identification. The Bridge-to-Bridge radio they used to hail the boat could be heard in CIC. The TAO ripped the headphones from his head when he heard the voice of his friend and neighbor answer the call over the radio. He turned to Jake and said, “Captain, I will not be part of this. I do not believe the extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizens in territorial waters is a lawful order. I request to be relieved from watch, and you can impose whatever sanctions or consequences you please, but I will not execute this order.”

Jake called down the Combat Systems Officer to take the TAO watch and called a meeting with his Department Heads and Command Master Chief. They discussed the order and its implications, but at the end of the discussion, Jake knew that he alone had to decide how to proceed.

At this point, he had been in the Navy for 22 years, starting at the United States Naval Academy, and working his way up through the ranks to command a Navy destroyer. He loved the Navy and his country. He had been imbued with a sense of duty to follow orders and carry out the nation’s business since he was 18. He had been to war, defending merchant vessels against drones shot at them from the Houthis during his deployment as Executive Officer on the same ship last year. He considered himself a good leader and a solid tactician, but he had never come up against something like this.

Politics aside, he thought back to his leadership and ethics courses, including such topics as rules of engagement and the law of the sea. The idea of attacking a vessel that presented no physical threat, and then making no effort to pick up survivors, seemed abhorrent to him. And yet the order implied exactly that.

He realized that he did not have much time to act. He thought about his mentors and his father, his family, and his neighbors, all individuals that he could normally lean on for advice, but suddenly he felt very alone.

He sat with his thoughts for about five minutes, which seemed like an eternity. With more resolve than he expected, he picked up the red confidential telephone and reached out to his direct superior, the Commodore. He had been underway for several days and had not seen the local or national news in detail, but the Commodore explained that the group of individuals at the rally had been declared to be part of ANTIFA and declared members of a “domestic terrorist organization” under the new executive order issued in September 2025. This put them in essentially the same category as the suspected Venezuelan drug boat crews who had been attacked and destroyed in the Caribbean by U.S. forces earlier this year. Apparently, the individuals on the motorboat Telluride, like his neighbors, had been at the rally and had been declared hostile to the United States as members of this domestic terrorist group.

There was a desire to make a bold statement via a show of force – hence the order to attack instead of making an arrest. “And,” added the Commodore, “make sure you get good video.”

Jake took a deep breath, aware of the implications of what he was about to say. His heart was racing as he said, “Commodore, I have received the order to destroy a civilian commercial boat, and I understand the direction given and the reasoning behind it. I do not intend to carry out what I consider an unlawful order and will not give batteries release for the destruction of motor vessel Telluride.”

There was silence on the line, and then the Commodore told him to stand by. Several minutes passed before coming back on the line: “Jake, listen to me carefully. Either you execute the order as given or turn over command of your vessel to the Executive Officer. Do you understand?” Jake stared straight ahead as he replied, “Yes, sir, I understand. I will turn command over to the XO.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and put down the receiver.

Before heading to the bridge, he called up to the Officer of the Deck and gave the order to break off the engagement, recover the helicopter, and turn the ship west towards Norfolk. He quietly sipped his coffee, sent a note to his wife on the computer that he loved her, and opened the desk drawer where he kept his 9 mm pistol. He stared at the gun for a full minute, then shut the drawer.

As soon as the helicopter landed and the motorboat was over 15 miles away on the horizon, he walked up to the bridge and reported himself to the Executive Officer. He said simply, in a loud voice, “Attention in the pilothouse, this is the Commanding Officer. I relinquish command to Commander Smith. I will be in my cabin until we return to port.” There was a stunned silence on the bridge, and many of the crew hung their heads. Some breathed a sigh of relief, some rolled their eyes. One clapped but was quickly silenced by a glare from the XO.

As he prepared to leave the bridge, Jake heard a noise in the sky. He and the Executive Officer both looked up to see a small drone pass overhead with a low humming noise, traveling at an altitude of 500 feet as it disappeared to the east. About a minute later, a small puff of black smoke appeared on the horizon. Jake closed his eyes for a moment, then heard the muffled boom of a distant explosion.

Slowly, he descended the ladder towards his cabin. His life, like that of many others, would never be the same.

Jay Turner is a pen name for a retired naval officer.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI. 

Fiction Week

By Philip Kiley

The pilot boat’s horn cut twice, a warning that flattened chatter across the lock wall. LT Mara Delgado raised her head from the operations console as a bright speck wavered over the Miraflores chamber, a silver seed fighting against the crosswind. Someone near the observation deck shouted. The quadcopter dipped, steadied, and then kamikazed toward the pilot boat’s bow.

The coxswain threw the helm over. The drone missed by a breath and pinwheeled into the fendering with a brittle snap that sounded smaller than the video would later make it. The pilot boat’s wake sloshed against concrete. Phones went up in a twitching forest of arms. The containership in the chamber blew a long, angry blast that made coffee ripple across the ops room desk.

A news ticker crawled beneath the surveillance feed, half ignored by the ops team: Panama Canal Coalition ministers reaffirm joint stewardship; U.S. chairs safety board this quarter. The line blurred into weather alerts and insurance warnings, but the reminder was constant, an allied consortium led by Washington now managed the Canal’s safety and operation.

“Not a toy,” Mara said.

Across from her, Engineer Rogelio Paredes sat with his hands tented beneath his chin. His cuff was damp with sweat or the ever-present humidity.

“Accident,” he said. “A yacht lost a toy.”

Commander Ethan Rowe, on liaison orders and already impatient with the room’s mixture of civilian engineers and administrators, leaned on the console and peered at the playback. “You don’t throw away two thousand dollars by mistake, and you don’t test a ship’s luck where it can’t move. Drones make a sitting target of a carrier in a channel.”

On the wall screen, a social feed erupted in captions and looping clips. #CanalAttack popped up, as did an insurance desk’s automated alert banner: POSSIBLE INCIDENT — REQUESTING RISK UPDATE.

Mara muted the feed. “Miraflores, status,” she said into her headset. “Any damage to fenders or the pilot boat?”

“Negative,” came the reply. “Plastic bits in the basin. No injuries.”

“Then we do not give the world reason to panic,” said Paredes. “We have a schedule.”

They had more than a schedule. The drought had shaved inches off Lake Gatun, inches that translated to drafts and tonnage and the velocity of money across oceans. The Canal Authority had been using water-saving basins, cross-filling, everything short of rainmaking. Someone had scribbled on the whiteboard: 36 HOURS — LNG WINDOW. When the level dropped again, the heavy gas carriers would have to wait. And risk did not like to wait.

In theory, drones were an amplifier to airpower rather than a force that redrew frontlines. In practice, Mara thought, they were a perfect weapon for the canal: cheap, anonymous, and deadly where maneuver was impossible. A tanker in a lock had the evasiveness of a parked building. Against a swarm that used surveillance to find a seam and kamikaze strikes to exploit it, the ships felt exposed.

Rowe tapped the whiteboard. “Your window just narrowed. If the insurers decide transiting is unsafe, they’ll price the crossing out of reach.”

“Not if we do not feed the fire,” Paredes said. He looked at Mara. “Lieutenant, we will maintain safety messaging. Hobbyist drone. No deliberate intent.”

Mara adjusted her headset to hide the flicker of annoyance on her face. She had learned in her first week at the Canal that the infrastructure was as much a stage as a machine. The world watched every squeak of gate and wash of water for signs of weakness.

“Copy,” she said. “No deliberate intent.”

She didn’t believe it, and she could tell from Rowe’s silence that he didn’t either.

____________________________________________

By evening, the coalition board was restless, insurers dialing up their risk models. The Canal Authority issued a Special Transit Order before doubt hardened into cancellations. It was written in the calmest language they could craft: three LNG carriers, staggered entry, all safety measures, minimal public drama. The word drought appeared only once, as if to name it would make it worse. The order carried a request: Lieutenant Delgado will act as convoy safety officer.

Mara skimmed the line twice. She did not protest. Her orders had pulled her from a cluttered emergency management office in Miami to this control room with its domed cameras and stale coffee smell because she was good at threading people and procedures through chaos without making noise. They needed that now. She texted her mother in Spanish that night, a quick I am fine, the work is busy, it is beautiful here. Her mother sent back six praying hands and a photograph of the cousins eating pastelitos in Hialeah.

At the evening coordination meeting, Paredes sketched the plan with markers on a laminated chart. “We will take advantage of the basin cross-fill,” he said. “Miraflores to Pedro Miguel, Pedro Miguel to Gatun. The carriers will not move nose-to-tail. We stagger entries to preserve levels.”

“Spacing helps risk too,” Mara said.

Rowe nodded, but didn’t smile. “Spacing makes each ship a more discrete target.”

The word target hung a beat longer than the others.

“Words matter,” Paredes said. “We have no target. We have ships, and we have water. We also have tourists with cameras.”

“And we have someone with drones,” Rowe said.

“Someone with a hobby,” Paredes said.

Rowe looked at Mara. “Do you want to bet your license on hobbyists?”

Mara kept her voice even. “I want to bet my license on not creating a headline. We can harden without turning this into a war movie.”

Paredes lifted a finger. “Exactly.”

Rowe exhaled through his nose. “Fine. Harden with your theater lights off. But if you see something that even smells off, you act, you don’t present a PowerPoint.”

Rowe cut in before Paredes could finish, tapping the laminated chart. “This isn’t just Panama’s headache anymore. The coalition board wants those LNG carriers moving, Washington in the chair, Tokyo and Madrid watching every metric. If we slip, we don’t just answer to insurers, we answer to twenty different flags.”

____________________________________________

AIS showed a tug called Santa Marta drifting off Taboga Island, but the radar signature was bigger than its paperwork suggested. Mara flagged it; Paredes shrugged it off as a transponder error. Rowe wasn’t convinced.

“A wolf in tug’s clothing,” he muttered.

The name tugged at something in Mara’s memory, a line from a regional intelligence brief she’d skimmed her first week in-country. Analysts in Bogotá and Miami had worried aloud about “low-cost disruptive capabilities” targeting chokepoints in the Americas, the Canal mentioned but never underlined. Nothing specific, nothing actionable, just another vague paragraph buried beneath piracy statistics and cyber intrusion data. Still, the phrasing stuck with her: “Aden, Yemen reborn, only this time with algorithms.”

Now, staring at Santa Marta’s heavier radar return, it no longer sounded academic.

The tug’s false transponder remained an itch in her head. She chased small things that day, a patrol report about an unlit vessel sliding along the breakwater, a pilot’s offhanded complaint about a “toy” crossing their path, and then, at a warehouse inspection earlier in the week, a manifest that did not sit right. In a crate stamped MARINE SPARES she found neatly packed lithium cells, the kind sold in bulk to electronics shops and cheap enough to make a drone swarm disposable. Alone on the dock she pictured carbon-fiber arms and tiny autopilots clipped to those batteries, a hundred plastic insects with a single-minded, replaceable life.

By the time she left the chandlery, the pilots were whispering. Confidence is contagious in both directions; worry moved through the pilot corps faster than any official notice. The coalition was restless, and the insurers were already turning their calculators. The 36-hour LNG window on the board ticked like a clock.

It was not a case for a PowerPoint. Evidence would come, if Santa Marta slotted into the usual bureaucratic traps, but evidence came too slowly when tonnage and weather had a timetable. If someone wanted to exploit the drought, they would do it in the hours that mattered most.

So Mara drew on the whiteboard, erasing as fast as she wrote. “We stage a decoy barge with a lure and false schedule. It won’t be a tanker, but it will look like one on the trackers, a dummy stand-in to draw their attention. The real convoy enters staggered, under cover of the drill.”

Paredes pressed his temples. “If this leaks, the coalition will accuse us of theater.”

“It’s survival,” Mara said. “They can call it whatever they like.”

Rowe leaned in. “Fine. But you own it if it goes wrong.”

“I own it,” she said.

____________________________________________

Later that night, under the hum of diesel pumps, the decoy barge crept toward the locks, its false transponder flashing the identity of a full LNG carrier. The real tankers waited upriver, engines idling, their silhouettes blacked out to satellites and livestreams alike.

Dawn was just a thinning of the dark when the first drones came, two, then four, then six, whining like angry bees. They arrowed straight for the decoy’s heat and radar signature. One clipped the rail and shattered. Another struck high on a lock fender, scattering screws across the concrete like hail.

The real LNGs held position in their basins, their rudders barely twitching within the narrow confines. All that mass, nowhere to go. The drones didn’t need accuracy, any ship in the channel was an aimpoint.

Another drone found the lure and exploded harmlessly against the barge’s hull. Off Taboga Island, the tug Santa Marta, the same vessel Mara had flagged days earlier, lit up the radio net with a sudden “medical emergency.” Its engines spooled to full.

Mara leaned over the console. “There it is,” she said quietly. “That’s our launch platform, it has to be.”

Rowe’s hand hit the desk. “She’s running for the edge of jurisdiction. Take her down now.”

“Not with the world watching,” Mara said. “We soft-block her inside the channel. Docking issue, not a firefight.”

The operations center dispatched an intercept team. The patrol boat swung across Santa Marta’s bow and signaled to heave to. The tug hesitated, then eased back toward the quay as if it had planned to dock all along. Boarding officers went aboard calm and professional. Under the tarps they found racks of drones, charging cables, and spare carbon arms. The tug was no tug at all.

Behind them, the decoy’s smoke drifted away over the water. The three real LNG carriers made their transits later that morning, unharmed, the damage limited to scorch marks and scattered drone debris inside the lock.

____________________________________________

They issued the press release at noon. The final draft circulated with coalition letterhead across the top: Panama Canal Coalition — Joint Statement. It praised resilience, thanked “international partners for their steadfast stewardship,” and referred to the drone wreckage only as “malfunctioning hobby devices.” The statement boasted of drills and resilience and the importance of the Canal to global commerce. It did not mention Santa Marta or the decoy barge.

The second LNG carrier transited under a sky so blue it looked synthetic. The third entered with tourists recording from the overlooks. The pilots worked with the muscle memory of a thousand quiet crossings. Rowe spent the afternoon on calls full of words like escalation ladder and confidence building. Paredes drafted a memo titled Program for Physical and Electronic Hardening of Lock Approaches, benches that doubled as bollards, new rules for drones, and fences disguised as landscaping.

Mara walked the lock walls at dusk. The water breathed. A dragonfly drifted across a launch’s wake. She leaned on the rail, remembering her father teaching her to thread a needle on a rocking porch: don’t fight the motion, move when the wind does. She thought of the Santa Marta captain’s hot lies about a sick crew member, and of lithium batteries and drones on board without an adequate explanation.

At midnight she wrote her mother that it was still beautiful here, that she had eaten a mango that stung her lip, that she had learned a new word for the day’s wind. She didn’t mention the drones. She didn’t mention Santa Marta. She promised to visit in September, and she meant it.

The morning came with a freighter’s horn rolling across the houses. The decoy barge sat tarped in a maintenance lane with a stray cat asleep on it. Insurance sent a qualified sigh. The social feed moved on to a football match.

At noon a new tug took Santa Marta’s place off Taboga Island. Its AIS was clean, its radar return matched. Confidence was the product, and it sold another day of normal.

Mara sipped coffee gone bitter in the pot and watched the locks cycle. The Canal had two lanes carved into the isthmus by men who had died and men who had been paid, and water that could be commanded only by gates. The third lane was not concrete. It was belief. If the world believed the Canal would hold, it would. If they believed it would fail, it would fail faster.

She grimaced at the coffee and smiled at her reflection in the glass. Neutral did not mean safe. Neutral meant necessary. It meant being the gap in a ridge where the wind always blew, and learning to stand there without being knocked over.

The afternoon thunderheads built and did not break. The water whispered through the basins, and for that day at least, it was enough.

Philip Kiley is the Senior Reserve Officer of U.S. Coast Guard Base Cape Cod. His career has brought assignments in port security and emergency management.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI.