Computer War

by Mack Reynolds

  She put her hands on his shoulders, then stood quickly on tiptoe and kissed him quickly on the mouth.

  She said, “It won’t be over as fast and neat as you think, but it’ll be over. Don’t worry about me. Nothing happens to guerrillas. They work on the principle that it’s a mistake to get hurt in a war.”

  She pushed him toward the closet cum elevator.

  When he was gone, she turned back to her score of Betastani irregulars.

  Combs said, “Was that good tactics? He’s a full deputy in Number One’s government. We had him. We could have finished him, and then have gone up and disposed of the Surety man in some manner that would have been believable.”

  She looked at him perkily. Tu, tu, tu, Centurion, you continually forget who makes the decisions here. That man we just let get away is going to be one of the levers which overthrows the government of the Free Democratic Commonwealth of Alphaland. That’s a revolutionist in embryo that we’ve got to nourish.”

  Chapter VIII

  Number One, for once showing his years, sat in almost continual audience consulting with his inmost associates, his deputies of commissariats, and closest advisers. To his side, and slightly behind, was Pater Riggin, largely silent but ever alert. It was more or less unprecedented; the Temple Monk was seldom seen in company with the Presidor, certainly not during official business.

  On this occasion, Marshal Croft-Gordon was reporting. His tone of voice was barely short of accusation, as though it were the fault of the Presidor that so much of the unexpected had developed.

  “Largely,” he rapped, “they retreat. However, in some localities they turn and fight like madmen.”

  “What localities?”

  “Largely, where natural conditions are such that it is most difficult for us to bring to bear our superior equipment. The Tatra Mountains, for instance, possibly the most rugged on the planet. They evidently have special mountain troops, long trained. The terrain is impossible for tanks, even the light hover models. Aircraft are all but useless, even hoppers. Bombings, although we continue to utilize them, are largely farce and more for the morale of our own troops than for the damage they inflict. Even so, among the peaks, cliffs, gorges, valleys, we’ve taken a good many aircraft losses when our fliers go in low enough to drop their bombs with any accuracy at all.”

  Number One scowled at him. “Can’t our own men go in on foot?”

  “Yes, Your Leadership…”

  Pater Riggin looked at the military head inquiringly. He hadn’t missed the way the other pronounced the title. Evidently, Number One, in his agitation, had failed to notice.

  “… however, mountains in Alphaland are comparatively gentle and our mountaineers few. The Betastani get about on skis and on devices called snowshoes. They have little motorized equipment, but this is especially adapted to snow and mountains. It is as though their commanding officers always expected to fight a defensive action in this terrain. Their men are armed largely with rifles with telescopic sights. Individuals, or small squads, sit in caves or on mountain tops and pick off our men at great distances, one by one. By the time we’ve secured one area, they manage to infiltrate around it and attack our supply and communications lines from the rear. It is all we can do to program our portable military computers quickly enough to handle each new situation that develops.”

  Number One thought about it for a time. “Where else do they hold out?”

  “In the swampy areas of their southernmost provinces.

  It’s not quite as bad as the mountains. Some of our equipment is usable, especially along the roads. However…” He hesitated. The anger had been growing in his voice as he reported.

  “However, what?”

  “They blow the bridges, tear down communication lines, destroy surprisingly long stretches of roads going through the worst of the swamp areas.” He said, with considerable disgust, “You’d think they didn’t give a damn what their countryside will look like when the war is over.”

  “Scorched earth policy,” Pater Riggin muttered.

  Number One turned on him. “What?”

  The Temple Monk shrugged and patted his rounded tummy. “Back in the early days on Earth, it was occasionally utilized. The Russians, when invaded by Napoleon in command of the most powerful army the world had ever seen, simply continued to fade back before him as he advanced. They destroyed everything in his path, cities, towns, granaries, crops, orchards, all livestock they couldn’t drive away. They destroyed, totally, their own country which he was due to overrun. By the time he reached Moscow, supposedly the goal which would mean his victory, his troops were already on short rations. It was before the day of canned food, and his general staff had planned largely to live off the countryside. It is estimated that not one man out of twenty of the Grand Army got back to Europe proper.”

  Number One felt a twinge go through him. He turned back to Marshal Croft-Gordon. “Go on, Coaid. What else?”

  “Largely, we progress elsewhere, with the funkers fleeing before us, unwilling to stand and fight.”

  “Surely you must be able to corner or surround some elements.”

  “Of course! You think my army’s composed of cloddies?” The Marshal’s tone was unnaturally belligerent before his superior. “But when we do, large numbers simply melt away. They dissolve into smaller units and take to the woods, hills, swamps, wherever motorized military units find it most difficult to operate. They become guerrillas, never standing and fighting, but sniping, burning, assassinating. It’s the most idiotic, infuriating type of warfare imaginable. Why, there are no back areas. The territory we overrun is never secure. Soldiers on leave, expecting to have a cold glass of guzzle in some local inn, never know when a grenade will be tossed through the window. Soldiers strolling the streets in a conquered village never know when a sniper will pick one off.”

  Number One fell into thought.

  Not even Marshal Croft-Gordon felt rebellious enough to interrupt.

  Finally the Presidor shook himself and said, “Would it be of benefit to ignore public opinion and resort to nuclear weapons?”

  Both the Marshal and Pater Riggin stared at him in shock.

  “Jim,” the Temple Monk said, so low as hardly to be heard.

  The Marshal shook his head in bitter regret. “There are no particular targets we could use. We can’t flatten the, Tatra Mountains—they cover an area larger than most of the neutral nations can boast. And besides, how can we know what action United Planets might ultimately take? Fusion and even fission weapons have been used only two or three times in the past century among the some three thousand member planets of UP, and in which case it meant disaster for the user.”

  Number One changed the subject abruptly. “How much of their countryside do we now nominally control?”

  “Nominally is correct. But including the open cities that capitulated, more than one-half. However, there is another element here. I need more troops. More age groups must be called up to the colors. My men are being spread too thin, considering the number of guerrillas operating behind our lines.”

  His ultimate leader nodded wearily. “We’ll consider it. The finances involved are a problem; Coaid Matheison is still working in a madhouse. So are the anti-draft and peace riots a problem. But I’ll take it up.”

  Marshal Croft-Gordon barked, “It’s not just a matter of taking it up, Your Leadership. I must have more men, more equipment, more munitions. Do you realize that the computers estimate that it is taking an average of fourteen tons of ammunition, bombs or other expendable material, to kill one Betastani, the way they are now fighting?”

  Number One looked at him bleakly. “Pay attention to the manner in which you address me, Coaid. I weary of your lack of courtesy.”

  A young woman pushing a baby carriage passed two Surety guards who idled at a street corner.

  One of them grinned down into the conveyance, but she whispered, “Shhhhh, asleep.”

  “I gotta little girl,” he whispered b
ack.

  She went on her way, turning a corner. The street was clear before her.

  She darted her eyes, up, down, then temporarily abandoned the carriage at an alley head and scurried up the narrow way half a dozen feet. A pair of rubber handled wire snips materialized in her hand.

  Moving fast, she approached an innocuous looking box set into the brick of the building.

  Her little tool went snik, snik, snik.

  Deputy Mark Fielder of the Commissariat of Surety was on the carpet. His face, for once incapable of controlling inner currents, was slowly darkening.

  Number One rumbled, “You were aware of the state of the man in the street. Coaid Westley warned us repeatedly at sessions of the Central Comita. And now, here, this massacre. Your men firing wholesale into bodies of teenage children.”

  “Your Leadership! Hardly children. The affair began as a demonstration against the new draft edicts. Children are not of draft age.”

  Pater Riggin raised his eyebrows and murmured, “I had always thought otherwise. What is a boy of seventeen?”

  They both ignored him,

  “Go on,” Number One said ominously. “Explain, Coaid, why over a hundred and fifty of my people were shot down on the streets of Alphacity.”

  There were blisters of cold sweat on the forehead of the Surety chief.

  “It began fairly innocuously. My men, armed only with truncheons, attempted to break up their march. However, new elements, attracted undoubtedly as usual from curious passers-by, encouraged the youths. Some had the audacity to call out against my Surety men. The crowd swelled. My commandant in charge called for reserves.”

  Fielder took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his face.

  “Nobody seems to know how the first spark was struck. Most likely it was one of the Betastani…”

  “The what… ?”

  “The saboteurs. Was Your Leadership of the opinion that these continuing civil disturbances were spontaneous on the part of our own citizens? Please, Coaid Presidor, this much activity does not come spontaneously. It is planned. Any police agency, down through the ages, could tell you that Riots need leaders. Most often, they need planning. Our people are too well disciplined to provide either.”

  Number One was dour. Tell me more about these saboteurs before continuing with today’s riot.”

  Deputy Fielder felt himself on stronger ground. “How long the Betastani funkers have been planning for this war is unknown but I begin to suspect that it had been even longer than our own preparations and certainly on a different level. We should have suspected the large number of exchange students that enrolled in our universities. We should…”

  Pater Riggin murmured mildly, “At the time we thought it a wonderful opportunity to influence their minds toward our form of regime and our religion.” Once again they ignored him. He didn’t mind.

  “… have paid more attention to the number of their citizens who took up semi-permanent residence in Alphacity and elsewhere. At any rate, upon the declaration of war, these supposed students, tourists and temporary residents, disappeared into our streets, our mountains, our countryside. My commissariat is now of the opinion that a considerable number are highly trained ECE agents or graduates of their hush-hush Partisan Tech.

  “What was that last?”

  “A very secretive, very difficult, highly demanding institution devoted to guerrilla warfare as adapted to the modern scene. Marshal Croft-Gordon has infiltrated several of his and imprisoned. Without doubt, whoever scrambled Deputy Matheison’s records was a product of Partisan Tech.

  “At any rate, Your Leadership, evidently the Betastani espionage and guerrilla chiefs hit upon the idea of disguising large numbers of their operatives as teen-agers. Has it ever occurred to you how inconspicuous a teenager is upon the streets? Their very loudness of dress, their raucous voices, their condolescent gawkiness, tend to make us ignore them, usually scornfully.

  “Anyway, my computers, working on what little data we can program them with, have established that there are some four thousand Betastani operatives, plus or minus three hundred and twelve, disguised as teenagers in Alphaland, at least half of them in Alphacity. Their equipment has evidently been accumulated, in various drops, over the years, some imported, some stolen.”

  Number One had been staring at him grimly. He rumbled now, “And why has all this not been brought to my attention sooner?”

  His Surety head was suavely defensive. Your Leadership, not even the Presidor can carry all the details of government. It was deemed basically a problem of my commissariat.”

  “You certainly did little to solve it. Coaid! You flat, can’t you see that such situations should have been cleaned up before the Crusade began?”

  “We didn’t know its magnitude until the war started, Your Leadership.”

  His superior looked at him ominously. “You do not seem to hold down your position as well as I once thought, Coaid Fielder. It was your job to know of these spies and saboteurs.” He glowered at the other for a moment. “Go on with today’s riots and the ineptness of the manner in which they were handled.”

  “Yes, Coaid Presidor. The spark was struck, as I say, probably by a Betastani agent. My men used their riot batons. The students began to throw bricks, torn from a nearby construction job. Several Surety agents were badly wounded. Reinforcements came up, armed with stun guns. Several of these were surrounded and captured by the growing mobs. The mobs were now not young draftees alone, but older adults as well. They were shouting for the ending of the war and the resignation of your government.”

  “Oh, they were!

  “The captured stun guns were turned against my men, who, by this time, were being reinforced by armored cars and squads armed with scramblers.”

  Pater Riggin said in gentle accusation, “You turned scramblers loose on an unarmed mob of our own people?”

  Fielder looked at him desperately. ” Unarmed is one way of putting it. There were thousands of them by then. They were armed with everything they could improvise. If we hadn’t suppressed it all with every means we had on hand, they would have marched on the government buildings.”

  He wound up, saying, “As it was, it was necessary for me to call upon Marshal Croft-Gordon to send three regiments of Air Marines to help police the area.”

  Number One was ominous again. “This is the first I have heard of that step, Coaid. I am not sure that I like the idea of Marshal Croft-Gordon’s men under arms in my capital city.”

  A benign looking civilian, seemingly in his late middle years, issued forth from a personal pneumatic car at one of the entry points facing Independence Square in downtown Alphacity. He looked up and down the moderately crowded street before turning to dismiss the vehicle.

  As though casually, he dropped a small packet onto the seat of the car he had just left and threw the control to dismiss it.

  Even as he straightened, two inconspicuously garbed men grasped him by either arm.

  “All right, fella,” one snarled. “What was that you left in the pneumatic, a grenade?”

  “I—I beg your pardon?”

  One of them flashed a Surety badge. “Come along with us, Pop. You’ve had it. You got any proof you’re a Alphaland citizen and loyal to His Leadership, the Pres—”

  “Help! Help,” their prisoner screamed suddenly, attempting to wrench away.

  Five or six youngsters, dressed in the current foofaraw affected by juvenile delinquents and adolescents in general, came jostling forward.

  They surrounded the two Surety men and their captive, yelling, pushing close, complaining vociferously.

  “Let ’im go, you two crooks!”

  “Hey, stop hitting my father, you big funker!

  “They’re robbin this old man! Pickpockets!”

  “Let ’em go, you yokes!”

  A crowd began to gather, jostling, shoving, trying to see. It was a busy corner; the crowd grew geometrically.

  Unseen, one of the youths slid h
is hand under his jacket to emerge with a short bladed, icepick-like weapon. He jabbed it, underhanded, into the spine of the heavy-set Surety agent before him. The man groaned softly and collapsed.

  Far beneath them, in the city’s pneumatic transport system, the innocent packet blew lustily, wrecking a central shuttle area.

  For once the dignity of age had escaped from Academician Philip McGivern. His face was a confusion of conflicting expressions, his hands were trembling.

  Number One considered the aged economist dourly. The elderly, he decided, forgetting his own years, collapsed quickly under unwonted pressures.

  He made no attempt to encourage the Old Hand companion of the days of his revolutionary seizure of power.

  “Your report,” he said curtly.

  “Jim,” the other blurted. “The whole economy’s tottering. It was bad enough, the mess made of the financial system. John Matheison’s been doing yeoman’s work, toiling arduously day and night, to make some sort of order out of the chaos.”

  “But…” Number One led him on.

  “But, Jim…”

  “We’re in formal audience, Coaid. Don’t call me by personal name.”

  “Uh… Yes, Your Leadership. My pardons. Your Leadership, we’ve found out what happened to the Betastani fleet.”

  This was not news to the Presidor, but he held his peace for the moment. Undoubtedly, there were new angles.

  “Your Leadership, they didn’t exactly go into hiding. They submerged and dispersed, the whole navy. They’ve become commerce raiders. If there’s any manner in which they can keep from standing and fighting, they do.”

  “Funkers,” his superior rumbled angrily.

  “No, no, it’s not that.” The old man was shaking his head miserably. “Jim, it’s obviously long planned. I’ve been looking into this submarine raider business, checking way back through history. There were two major wars back on early Earth where such means of warfare almost won a conflict that otherwise couldn’t have possibly succeeded. It is estimated that had Hitler been able to have kept only fifty submarines operative throughout his war, he would have brought his opponents to their knees.”