Supernova Era

by Cixin Liu

  “Five-kilometer artillery fights!”

  “Ten-kilometer large-caliber!”

  “Thirty-kilometer rockets!”

  “Self-propelled rockets against a moving target! Heh, on the Antarctic plain that’ll be like a sea battle.”

  “Mortars! Who can forget mortars?”

  “That’s right. Mortars at close range. And they can be mobile, too. That’ll be tons of fun.”

  Scott cut them all off, saying, “Let me make a suggestion. Contests at ranges beyond five kilometers can take advantage of aerial reconnaissance and fire correction.”

  “Opposed! That makes the game too complicated, and increases the chance of fouls,” Lü Gang said.

  “In favor! It makes the game more interesting,” Prime Minister Green said.

  “Stop!” Yagüe rapped the helmet loudly. “I said before, technical details are up to the task force to decide.”

  When Yagüe finished recording the artillery games, Davey jumped to his feet. “You’re all interested in quite a lot of events. I’ll suggest another one. Bombers and ground-based air defense!”

  Yagüe raised an eyebrow, considering the question. “The game would be like tanks versus infantry. The two sides would be unbalanced, so you’d need to swap roles, which increases the number of heats, and complicates administration and judging. We ought to minimize this sort of game.”

  Huahua chuckled, and shot Davey a grin. “I’d wager that President Davey didn’t consider the role-swapping issue. He probably only imagined that the US would do the bombing, and someone else would do the defense. Is that right?”

  Davey slapped his head. “Uh, yeah, I overlooked that part.”

  “Cognitive inertia. So how about it, do American kids want our H-20 and the Russians’ Tu-22M to bomb their defenses?”

  “Uh … since the chairman just mentioned the administration and judging difficulties, we can just take a pass on this event.”

  Scott interjected, “We can add a ship-to-shore game, like landing versus land defense.”

  “That’s also incredibly hard to organize and administer. And it’ll take an awfully long time. And it might not be any fun. I say forget it,” Marshal Zavyalova said. Yagüe and the other children followed with similar sentiments, and the game did not pass.

  “This one ought to work: Missile versus missile!” Davey suggested, undaunted.

  Ilyukhin nodded approvingly. “Great. An excellent game. You can subdivide it into close and midrange guided missiles, and ICBMs.”

  “Ooh, ICBMs!” exclaimed Davey, waving his hands wildly. “This is the best game so far!”

  “But no using TMD or NMD,” Ilyukhin said coolly.

  “What? Of course we need to use NMD and TMD!” Scott shouted.

  “But most of the permanent member countries don’t have them, so it doesn’t fit the package principle.”

  “Who cares! We’re going to use them. We support this a hundred and twenty percent! Otherwise, we’re pulling out of the games,” Davey shouted while his arms flailed about uncontrollably.

  “Fine. Use them if you want,” Lü Gang said with a dismissive wave.

  “NMD? They can’t even get Aegis going.” Zavyalova punctuated her criticism with a snort of contempt.

  Davey let out a long breath. “Good. Now let’s move on.” Then he sat down and looked smugly at the other children.

  Huahua raised a hand. “Land mines!”

  “Interesting. How do you play?” asked the children.

  “Opposing teams set up two minefields over an area to be determined by the task force. In the center of each field is the team flag. The first to clear a path to the opposing team’s flag is the winner.”

  Davey curled his lips and said sarcastically, “Fine, give the kindergartners something to play. Write it down, Mr. Chairman.”

  Now a head of state from an island in the Pacific stood up. “Some of the smaller countries want me to say a few words for them. You’ve got to give us at least a few chances to play.”

  “Can’t you play with the rest of us in those traditional events, the ones the Chinese kids proposed?” Davey asked.

  “You’re not getting it, Mr. President. Take my country, for example. Right now we have just one company on Antarctica, fewer than two hundred troops, and even in the simplest infantry game, I estimate we’ll lose combat effectiveness after just one round.”

  “You all can propose other games.”

  “I’ve got one,” said Lê Sâm Lâm, the prime minister of Vietnam. “Guerrilla war!”

  “Wicked! How do you play?”

  “The two opposing teams attack each other’s base using a small guerrilla force. The specific rules are as follows—”

  “Shut up!” Davey shouted, leaping up and banging the table. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for proposing such a vile idea!”

  “That’s right. You should be ashamed!” Green joined in.

  “It’s … it’s going to be a little disruptive,” Yagüe said to Lê Sâm Lâm. “Back at the meeting in Washington, we reached a consensus that country’s bases are sacrosanct. Your proposal disturbs the very foundation of the games.”

  The event was vetoed.

  “Antarctica has turned into a private club for major powers. What’s the point of us even being here?” Lê Sâm Lâm grumbled.

  Yagüe ignored him and said to everyone else, “Our meeting has already achieved some stunning results. Do any other countries have suggestions for new games?” His gaze halted on Ōnishi, far off at the other end of the table, and he called over to him, “Prime Minister Ōnishi, you’ve been silent throughout the proceedings. I recall that at the first UN session, you conveyed Japan’s intense desire to gain the right to speak at the UN, but now that Japan is a permanent member state of the World Games, you’ve gone silent.”

  Ōnishi made a slight bow, and then said slowly, “I’ll propose a game none of you have thought of yet.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Davey said, and everyone looked expectantly at the Japanese prime minister.

  “Cold weapons.”

  The children all looked at each other. Someone asked, “Cold weapons? What are those?”

  “Swords.” He said nothing beyond that terse reply, but sat there motionless as a statue.

  “Swords? None of us have any,” Scott said, somewhat confused.

  “I do,” the Japanese kid said, and then from beneath the table took out a long military sword and eased it out of its scabbard. The children gasped at its icy glint. The sword was so thin that its cutting edge seemed almost threadlike. Ōnishi stroked the surface gently with a finger. “It’s crafted from the finest carbon alloy, and is sharper than anything.” Then he blew across the blade, and the children heard a sustained buzz from the sword. “This is a two-layered blade; when one edge gets dull, the other is exposed, so it remains sharp forever without honing.” He placed the sword gently onto the table, where it dazzled the children with its cool light and sent chill wind down their spines. “We can provide ten thousand of these for the games.”

  “That’s a little too … barbaric,” said Davey timidly, and the other children nodded along.

  Ōnishi didn’t bat an eyelid. “Mr. President, and the rest of you, you all should be ashamed of your weak nerves,” he said, brandishing the weapon. “It’s the foundation of all of the games you all have already suggested, the soul of war. Humanity’s very first toy.”

  “Very well. Include a cold-weapons event,” Ilyukhin said.

  “Except this kind of military sword … isn’t really necessary, is it?” Davey asked, averting his gaze from the sword on the table, as if the glare hurt his eyes.

  “Then rifle bayonets,” Marshal Zavyalova said.

  The children’s enthusiasm had vanished. They all stared at the sword in silence, as if they had just awakened from sleepwalking and were trying to figure out what they were in the process of doing.

  “Anyone else have a suggestion?” Yagüe asked.
<
br />   No one answered. There was no sound in the hall, as if the sword had taken away their very souls.

  “Okay then. We should get ready to start the games.”

  * * *

  One week later, the opening ceremony of the first Olympic Games of the Supernova Era was held on the broad plain of Marie Byrd Land.

  More than three hundred thousand children took part in the opening ceremony, standing in a huge dense crowd. In the distance, the low-hanging sun of this half of the year was mostly below the horizon now, with only a tiny arc shedding a ruddy glow across the mottled monochrome landscape, glinting off the packed mass of helmets. In the dark blue of the sky a few silver stars had begun to twinkle.

  The ceremony itself was simple. First there was a flag-raising, in which all of the participating countries dispatched representative soldiers to carry the five-ring Olympic flag around the venue, and then that symbol of peace was run up a tall flagpole over the Supernova Era battlefield. Child soldiers fired into the air in a salute that rippled across the crowd, gunfire trailing off in one area only to be picked up in another, like the rise and fall of ocean waves. On a platform beneath the flagpole, IOC president Yagüe stood waving for what seemed like ages until the shots finally quieted down and he could make his speech. As he opened up his notes, a kid next to him passed him a helmet. He did not immediately understand why, and shoved it aside in annoyance without noticing that the world leaders and other besuited VIPs on the platform were wearing helmets. He pressed on with his speech.

  “Children of the new world, welcome to the first Olympic Games of the Supernova Era—”

  Just then he heard a burst of rat-a-tat noises, like a shower of hailstones, and after a moment of confusion, he realized it was the sound of bullets hitting helmets and the ground, celebratory gunfire returning to earth. Now he grasped the helmet’s purpose, but before he had sense enough to reach for it, he received a sharp crack on the noggin. A bullet in free fall raised a welt on a scar from a previous head injury, one due to falling glass at the UN Secretariat a few months before. It probably was only a 5.56 × 45 mm NATO round, since if it had been a 7.62 × 39 mm round from one of the Chinese or Russian children’s older AK-47s, it might have knocked him out. Amid laughter, he put on his helmet, fighting back the pain, and reached a hand inside to massage his head. As bullets rained down, he said in a loud voice:

  “Children of the new world, welcome to the first Olympic Games of the Supernova Era. This is a war games Olympics, a fun Olympics, a thrilling Olympics, and a real Olympics! Children, the boredom of the Common Era has come to a close, and human civilization has returned to its childhood, to a happy, uncivilized age. We have left the dreary ground and returned to the freedom of the trees, we have shrugged off the clothes of hypocrisy and grown luxurious downy coats. Children, the new motto of the Olympic Games is: ‘Take part! Sharper, Fiercer, Deadlier.’ Let the world go crazy, children! Next, I’ll describe the events.”

  Yagüe unfolded that creased piece of notepaper and began reading: “After negotiations by all member states, the events of the first Olympic Games of the Supernova Era have been decided upon, and fall into three categories: land, sea, and air events.

  “In the land-events category: Tank battles, tank versus infantry (heavy weapons), tank versus infantry (without heavy weapons), artillery battles (five-kilometer large-caliber guns, fifteen-kilometer rockets, self-propelled mobile rockets, and one-kilometer mortars), infantry battles (machine guns), infantry battles (grenades), infantry battles (cold weapons), guided-missile battles (short-range, midrange, cruise missile, ICBM), land mines.

  “In the sea-events category: destroyer battles, submarine battles.

  “In the air-events category: fighter-jet battles, attack-helicopter battles.

  “Gold, silver, and bronze medals will be awarded in all events.

  “Mixed categories, such as air versus land, or sea versus air, were discussed, but due to the complexity of organization and judging, they were not formally included.

  “Now, will the representatives of the world’s children taking part in the games take the oath.”

  The representatives, a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force, a lieutenant in the Russian Navy, and a lieutenant in the Chinese Army, took the oath as follows:

  “I swear first to abide by the rules that govern the games, and to accept all penalties if I break them; and second, to do my best to keep the games thrilling and fun, and to show my opponents no shred of mercy.”

  Cheers and gunfire rang out on the plain.

  “All armed forces to the battlefield!”

  For more than two hours, infantry and armored divisions from every country swarmed past the flagpole, and at the tail end, tanks, armored vehicles, and mobile rocket launchers mixed with crowds of people into a chaotic flood of iron whose dust clouds blotted out the sky. On the sea in the distance, the countries’ ships fired en masse, their guns flashing brilliant white in the blue-black twilight, shaking the ground with their noise and light.

  When calm was restored but before the dust had settled, Yagüe called for the last item on the program: “Light the torch!”

  The whine of engines filled the air, and the children all looked up to see a fighter jet coming in from the east. In the near-dark sky it was visible only as a silhouette, and seemed cut out of cardboard. As it drew near, they could make out the ugly shape of an A-10 Warthog, its two large engines looking like aftermarket attachments to the tail section. As it passed over a large clearing in the crowd, it dropped a napalm bomb that exploded with a deep rumble, sending flames and black smoke leaping skyward. The crowd on the plain was lit up with orange firelight, and the children ringing the clearing could feel the waves of heat.

  The sun was entirely below the horizon now as the Antarctic continent began its long nighttime. But it wasn’t a dark night; lit by aurora australis, greatly intensified by the radiation from the supernova, every inch of the sky was filled with dancing bands of color, while on the vast land below, the Supernova Era’s nightmarish history continued its march forward.

  GAMES OF BLOOD AND IRON

  The thirty-five tanks in Lieutenant Wang Ran’s battalion advanced at full speed in an attack formation, but in front of them was only an open plain dotted with patches of unmelted snow. They had covered a considerable distance without seeing the enemy. This was the head-on tank vs. tank game. Their starting point was a low-lying depression, an excellent cover position for an armored division, and difficult to locate in this section of the plain.

  Under the norms of regular combat, they could enter under cover of night with a considerable gap between vehicles and carefully camouflage themselves once everyone was in place, and then the following day wait until the enemy drew near to attack. But such an approach was impossible now, because the enemy knew their position, and they knew their enemy’s, and each side was fully aware of the other’s strength. The intelligence was 100 percent accurate; they had informed each other directly. They even knew the type and amount of ammunition carried by each of the thirty-five Abrams tanks they were about to fight, and were completely conversant with the defects in tracks and fire-control systems owing to a memo received the previous day from the US Army commander. Everything proceeded as clearly and openly as the unobstructed plain under the southern lights.

  The only things they could exploit were their attack-formation design and their shooting skills. Wang Ran had been a driver, but his tank had been destroyed in the games two days ago, and he had barely escaped with his life. The gunner in his current tank had been killed in that game, and he had been put into the position as an emergency replacement. Although he was not at all sure of himself, he was still looking forward to it, since being a gunner was a totally different feeling. He sat up in a much higher seat listening to the roar of the engine and enjoying the feeling of speed. The most satisfying part was when the tank crested a medium-size rise in the ground, since in that instant the tracks left the ground and the
Type 99 was entirely airborne, and when it descended again Wang Ran had a delightful sense of weightlessness. For a brief moment the fifty-ton iron beast was as agile as a glider, but in the next instant it landed heavily on the ground, which shifted beneath the impact of its tracks as if it were soft mud. He sunk down with it, like a weighty mountain settling in place. Throughout the whole jump his every cell screamed with excitement, like in a cavalry charge.

  “First of all we simplified tank combat into two opposing tanks traveling toward each other across a two-dimensional flat plane. Such conditions don’t actually exist, just like the points and lines of geometry don’t really exist in the real world, but this allows you a clear view of the essential elements of tank combat. In this age, the key to victory is to fire first, and to hit with the first round. The two have a multiplicative relationship, not an additive one; if either is zero, the outcome is a zero. The interesting thing is that they are in opposition: the earlier the fire, the farther from the target, and the lower the first-round hit rate; and vice versa…”

  This was a lesson given by an adult officer to the young armored forces a year ago, and his words echoed in Wang Ran’s brain, even though he now felt it was all bullshit. Now, Wang Ran could be that colonel’s instructor, since the colonel had never been in actual tank combat; otherwise he’d have taught Wang Ran and the others some more useful information. Sure, the colonel had mentioned that the modified Abrams fire-control system gave it a first-round hit rate of 78 percent outside of one mile, but he didn’t comprehend the actual implications of that figure. Wang Ran understood. The goal he and his young brothers-in-arms had had upon joining the armored division, to be a hero with dozens of tank kills, was the biggest joke in the world. Their only goal now was to hit one enemy tank before they were destroyed themselves, to not lose on the exchange. It was by no means an easy goal; if every Chinese tank were able to achieve it, the Chinese kids wouldn’t lose the game.

  Both sides fired flares, and their surroundings lit up in green light. Wang Ran looked through his scope at the yellowish haze ahead of them, the dust cloud kicked up by tank #105 to their forward left. All of a sudden the yellow dust in his field of vision turned red with flickering firelight. The scene cleared up and he saw #108 slow down, trailing smoke and fire, and then it was far behind them. Ahead to the right another tank was on fire, and was also left behind. At no time did he hear the two tanks get hit. Suddenly a column of dust was kicked up straight ahead of them, and they ran directly into it, stones and shell fragments clattering on the tank’s outer armor. The shot, a high-speed fin-stabilized armor-piercing round, had fallen short of the target. Now his tank was at the head of their formation, and Wang Ran heard in his earpiece the voice of the lieutenant colonel in command of their battalion, from her command vehicle: “Targets sighted directly ahead! Fire at will!”