by James Rosone
As Admiral Casey sat down in his chair, his mind wandered to the national security brief he would be giving following this meeting. There was a lot to discuss, particularly with the operations in the Northern Atlantic. Carrier Strike Group 13 (CSG13) had completed construction and a rushed sea trial, this newest American Carrier Strike group would soon be moving towards the North Atlantic. The Navy had also finished completion of 12 Submarine Unmanned Drones (SUDs). Eight of them had been unleashed in the Pacific, with the remaining four sent to operate in the Artic, hunting Russian submarines. The Chinese and Japanese navy had retreated to their coasts, abandoning those forces in Alaska that could not retreat. It was unfortunate that China and Russia had been able to execute a well-run evacuation of their forces from Alaska. The Allies had hoped to trap most of the enemy soldiers in the Kodiak and let them wither on the vine; now those fighters could be redeployed elsewhere.
Admiral Casey wanted to end the war quickly. To him, if winning meant plunging America’s enemies into complete darkness through his teams of hackers, then so be it. However, the President continued to insist that the war needed to be maintained against the enemy government, not its people. As far as Casey was concerned, they were one and the same. Casey was also aware of the Secretary of State’s ongoing efforts to bring the war to an end through a diplomatic process. Although the admiral acknowledged that an end to the fighting would be great news, he was not excited about any situation where the enemy could retain their ability to restart the fighting again in a few years. In his mind, the enemy needed to be defeated, not negotiated with.
Suddenly, the large double doors leading into the PEOC opened, and in walked President Stein with his Chief of Staff in toe. The President looked rested for a change, and he even had a slight tan from his vacation. He walked around the table, shaking a few hands as he worked his way to his seat. Once he sat down at the center of the table, the meeting began.
“Good morning, everyone. It’s good to be back. I’m glad to be here so that we can all discuss the status of the country.” Pausing for a minute, the President looked around at his cabinet members and zeroed in on DHS. “Secretary Perez, where do we stand with capturing the remaining Japanese and Chinese Special Forces units still running around the country right now?”
Perez straightened up in his chair as he responded, “Sir, I’ve had my department working feverously with the FBI and local law enforcement on tracking these individuals down. We believe we are down to just two teams left. One is the unit that landed in Charlotte, North Carolina and the second is the group that originally landed in Phoenix, Arizona. We still do not know their current exact locations.” He put his head down after he finished speaking, knowing that the President was not going to be happy with his response.
Stein was a little taken aback at the way Perez had responded; he decided to take a softer approach. “Why the uncertainty? Do you need additional resources?”
Jorge sighed. “We have the resources we need; they are just good at evading us. We have a wide net, and once they make a mistake, we will catch them. Until they move out of hiding again, there is not a lot of we can do other than to keep a vigilant eye out for them.”
Director Smart, the head of the FBI, interjected to add, “Mr. President, we are close. My agents are tracking down each lead that comes in and it won’t be long before we have them.”
The FBI had been working with DHS on tracking down these groups since they arrived in the country eight months ago. Slowly and steadily, they were either apprehending them or killing them. The Chinese and Japanese Special Forces groups had stuck to military and critical infrastructure targets, refraining from attacking civilians when possible. For that, everyone was grateful.
The meeting continued for another 90 minutes as the various advisors brought the President and each other up to speed on their specific aspects of the government that they managed. The economy was running at full speed, and was as close to full employment as it was going to get. The stock market was still going strong, despite the periodic domestic attacks and the war.
Now that the enemy had been fully defeated in Alaska and California, hundreds of billions of dollars were being poured into the affected areas to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure and housing. Tens of millions of people across California had lost their homes and were living as refugees in their own country; the President had already visited many of the refugee camps, encouraging them and letting them know the government was going to ensure it did everything it could to help rebuild the cities and towns they had fled from during the invasion. The damage to California was extensive; nearly all of the major roads, overpasses and bridges in and around LA, San Diego and Oakland had been destroyed. It was going to take years to remove all the rubble and rebuild what had been lost. The only good thing to come from it was city planners now had the ability to completely redesign the transportation system of these cities and improve upon them with the latest in maglev trains and mass transit systems.
Following the meeting, the President dismissed his domestic and law enforcement advisors so that he could meet privately with the national security and military advisors. Before the second half of the meeting started, Stein had more beverages and some finger foods brought to the room; the President was sort of like a friendly grandma in that he never wanted anyone to work on an empty stomach.
Once everyone had a chance to grab some food, the President began the meeting again. He surveyed the room full of professional killers. “I know these past 90 minutes may have seemed like a waste of your time, and you may be thinking that you really did not need to sit through all these domestic reports and updates of what is going on in the country. I assure you it was not just an exercise in increasing your patience.”
The President saw the looks on his military advisors’ faces, and clearly, they were not impressed. “I wanted you all to be a part of that discussion so that you could remember that this is ultimately what we are fighting for. It is these people’s lives, and a vision for the prosperity of our great country and the world—that is what this is all about. It is not enough that we win this war; we need to also win the peace. That is going to be harder than anything we have ever embarked upon, and I am going to need each and every one of you to push your people harder and farther than ever to not just bring this war to a close, but to push through and win the peace that will follow. We need to identify those who will oppose peace and wipe them out.”
The President saw the faces of these hard men and women soften. Maybe they realized that the challenge he was laying out for them was not just the military one, but what to do after the war had been won. Maintaining the peace and rebuilding the world would be as challenging and fraught with danger as the war has been.
Admiral Casey was the first to break the silence and address the President’s challenge. “Mr. President, the war is still some ways off from being won. While I appreciate the lesson on why we fight and who we are fighting for, the conflict is far from over. The intercepts that we have received from the enemy governments indicate that they plan to continue fighting, despite the battlefield losses.”
This was becoming a source of contention among the military and intelligence leadership. The Chinese had been forced to return their armies back to Asia, and Russia had lost Poland and parts of the Ukraine during the summer offensive in Europe. Despite these defeats, none of these enemy powers were willing to discuss an end to the war. The Indians, on the other hand, had approached the American embassy about a separate peace. The cyber-attacks against their country had begun to so cripple their economy that the government was on the verge of collapse, and many of the provinces had fallen into complete anarchy. The implosion of their financial system and collapse of select portions of their transportation system had nearly ground the country to a halt. Starvation was starting to run rampant through their country as the logistical network needed to move resources from the farms to the city had ground to a halt.
Despite the initial su
ccess in the cyber-attacks against the Japanese, they had managed to restore most of their systems within a couple of weeks. The strikes had caused some serious economic damage to Japan, but nothing they could not recover from. What was plaguing Japan now was an internal resistance to the government’s decision to continue to support China and the war against America, despite the devastating naval losses and invasion of California. The Japanese had lost nearly 283,000 soldiers in the first four months of the war; much of their navy was gone. They were now relegated to providing the Chinese manufacturing support for the war and allowing the PLAAF to use their land as forward operating bases to house their aircraft. Once the American SUDs had cleared the waters around Alaska of enemy ships, they had moved to the waters around Japan and were causing havoc on a nation that depended on imports to survive. They were slowly being economically choked out of the war, and the people of Japan had had enough. The reduced rations, consumer goods and continued presence of Chinese soldiers was becoming more than they were willing to tolerate.
The President knew that the Admiral had a point; he needed to bring them into the loop on Project Terminator. “Everyone, this next portion of the meeting is going to be highly classified. Everyone will need to be read onto the program before we continue.”
Everyone’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Admiral Casey’s jaw dropped; there were very few secrets within the government that he did not know about. Clearly, the President still had a few aces up his sleeves. Dr. Gorka and Professor Rickenbacker walked into the room, and everyone shook hands and welcomed them to the room; Casey was particularly excited that whatever the President had in mind involved these two secretive and brilliant men. After a few moments, the President signaled that it was time for them to get the meeting going. Monty opened a vault on the side of the wall in the PEOC and pulled out several folders. Before each person could read the contents inside, they had to sign paperwork swearing them to secrecy.
Once the formalities had been completed, the room was darkened as Dr. Gorka prepared the holograph brief he and Professor Rickenbacker had brought with them.
The President smiled and announced, “Gentlemen, I believe it is now time for everyone to learn about Project Terminator.”
A few of the men in the room snickered at the reference, but everyone was still very eager to see what the President had up his sleeve.
“As you know, the Bodark project had its ups and downs in Alaska. It was our first attempt at using a humanoid drone for combat. It was also a test of a newer system that Professor Rickenbacker had been developing for some time. I will hand the meeting over to him,” the President explained, signaling for the professor to take over.
The professor stood up and began his presentation, switching on the holographic display. As soon as the first image of the new humanoid machine came up, someone let out a whistle; they were all in awe. “Ladies and gentlemen, what we are looking at is the next evolution in modern warfare, the Enhanced Humanoid Drone or EHD. We have named this EHD the Reaper, which seemed appropriate because it will reap death and suffering upon our enemies. The wars fought during the last one hundred years relied heavily on humans waging them. This war, however, has changed that reality. Since the beginning of this conflict, we have used increasing numbers of drones; now we are nearly ready to shape the face of war with the next evolution.”
The professor could see the raised eyebrows on the faces of his audience. They had so many questions written on their faces that they were practically raising their hands, but the professor wanted to press on with his presentation before he allowed the group to respond. “As you can see by the dimensions, the Reaper is about 6’6” and weighs about 340lbs. It is built out of the same enhanced armor our tanks and other armored vehicles are, so it’s a tough beast.”
On the screen, the drone began to run through a variety of scenarios, from loading and unloading the M5 AIR infantry rifle to throwing a grenade. It ran as if it were a human, dropping to a knee to fire a few shots with its rifle before diving behind cover. It moved as if it were a human clone and not some sort of machine.
“Before anyone asks, the machine is not an AI. We have not moved forward in that direction, at least not yet. The Reaper is a drone. It is still operated by an individual.” Another screen was brought up that showed the soldier operating the drone. He was wearing a set of sensors, helmet and other equipment that tied him to the drone.
“Like our fighter aircraft drones, these are also controlled by a human operator, though they do have the option of being turned into a semi-autonomous platform. When the operator needs a break, the drone can be turned on semi-autonomous mode, which turns the drone into a sentry. It will stand guard at its present position and challenge any target that enters its field of engagement. This mode also allows a single soldier to operate several of these drones when used in sentry or guard duty operations. We do have an AI version, but we want to further refine it before we move forward with deploying it.”
The presentation on the screen finished, and Professor Rickenbacker held his hand out to the group with a “bring it on” motion. “Now I will take some of your questions before we move on,” he said.
General Branson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was the first to ask, “Why were we kept in the dark about this project? This will have a huge impact on the battlefield.” His brows were furrowed and he was obviously somewhat annoyed at not being brought in on the project earlier.
“General, we experienced a lot of challenges and problems with the Reaper last year, and until we were able to iron them out, we did not want to get everyone’s hopes up. We had initially hoped to release the Reaper at the same time as the Bodark; however, we could not establish a secure enough link between the drone operator and the drone itself. When we deployed the Bodarks, we were able to figure out how to fix a lot of the issues that we had been observing. We simply did not want to place the Reapers behind enemy lines before we were sure that we could maintain control of them; to do so would have allowed them to fall into enemy hands.”
Rickenbacker signaled to the Marine Commandant next.
“When do you plan on introducing the drone, and how many do you have ready?” asked General Lynch. The Commandant immediately saw the impact this would have on the coming battles. If this could save more of her Marines from dying, she was all for it.
“Now that we have a steady supply of Tritium4, we have been able to ramp up production of the drone. It’s kind of ironic really; we have EHDs making additional Reapers as we speak--”
One of the generals interrupted, “--Now that is a scary idea, kind of reminds me of a movie I saw as a kid.” A few people snickered, realizing that he was obviously thinking of “The Terminator,” like the project’s name.
“The thought is not lost on us either,” retorted the professor. “However, we have purposefully not gone the route of AI, so the drones will not be able to function beyond a limited protocol without an operator.”
“Back to the question--we have 100 of them right now, 2000 are being built right now, and we will crank out another 2000 a month going forward. Soon, we will be able to produce about 10,000 a month. Presently, 50 of the new drones are slated for the Moon colony as their use in space is almost limitless; the rest are being slated for the war. What we need to do next is identify our potential drone operators and then get them pulled from the line and trained up. We would like to have the first battalion of Reapers ready to deploy within the next 45 days.”
The President signaled for the professor to take a seat, “Gentlemen, the war is about to enter its final stage. By employing this new technology, we are going to bring the war to enemy with as few casualties as possible on our part. I am directing the Secretary of State to issue a final ultimatum to the enemy leaders; they will either surrender and allow the world to return to peace, or we will move the war to the next level and wage unrestricted warfare on their countries, economy and people. Nearly two Billion people have died across the world d
uring the war, and it is time to bring the suffering and killing to an end.”
Mike Rogers, the National Security Advisor, spoke up first, “Mr. President, if we can, I would like to recommend we deploy our first batch of these drones to Japan with some of our Special Forces. The majority of their population now believes it was a terrible mistake to have gone to war with the United States. The support for the government has nearly collapsed, and if we were to help give it a shove, we might be able to topple the government and force one of our enemies out of the war.”
Director Rubio from the CIA cleared his throat and said, “I agree. The situation in Japan is becoming unstable. The people are incredibly suspicious of the government and angry at the loss of their soldiers in California and near Hawaii. Many people in Japan have family and friends in America. The war has placed an enormous strain on the country. My agents believe that if we can provide weapons, explosives and support, many of the disaffected groups would revolt against the government.”
Several others in the room also spoke in favor of supporting a popular uprising against the government. The President also liked the idea of the people being the ones to lead this effort. He had detested the idea of being at war with Japan; the two nations had been close allies and friends for nearly 100 years. The present Japanese government had not only betrayed America, its ally, it had cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of its people. Moreover, the treachery had not achieved anything for their nation.
After a few moments of discussion, the President raised his hand for everyone to be quiet. “I agree that we should move forward with a plan to assist the people of Japan in taking their government back. I want our efforts to focus on helping a popular uprising in Japan succeed. We will need to identify new leaders who are credible with the population that can take over. We also need a plan in place to assist the new government, in case the Chinese decide they do not want to accept Japan’s surrender and leave the Island.”