by James Rosone
Xi had to smile at the blunt assessment. That had been one of two major concessions the warring parties had apparently agreed to—neither would look to destroy the other’s satellite or GPS networks. There might be an occasional DDoS attack, but nothing long-term or permanent. Neither side wanted their armies to return to the 1940s era of warfare. The other agreement was that the warring parties would not employ tactical or strategic nukes. The war, such as it was, would stay conventional until someone crossed one of these lines.
“JD, is it still advisable for us to continue with our new campaign in the north?” Xi inquired. “We haven’t finished consolidating Taiwan, and our northern and southern fleets have taken a beating.” He knew these questions would come up at the next CMC meeting tomorrow, and he wanted to have a well-developed answer.
“Father, we have five months to finish our preparations for the northern campaign. The Americans will not be in a position to intervene or help the Russians. The new army of recruits we’ve been training will be more than enough to overwhelm the enemy forces along the border. A land war of attrition is something we can win. The allies do not have the stomach for the kinds of losses they would have to endure to remove us once we have captured our new territories,” JD summarized in his cold, calculating way.
No matter how much Xi tried, he could not code empathy into his creation. It still viewed human life as a number, something that could be ended without a second thought. It was answers like this that made Xi very glad China’s nuclear weapons were completely air-gapped from JD.
The light circled again. “Father, what is the status of my body?” asked JD. “How soon until I will have the functional ability to move around?”
Xi canted his head to the side at the mention of his secretive project. “I’m still working a few minor bugs out. Namely, I’m trying to figure out how to increase your battery capacity so you can move and think for more than an hour. Your brain, your computing power—it consumes an enormous amount of energy.”
“Perhaps if you allow me to help, I can solve this engineering problem for you,” JD offered.
Xi puffed his lip out as he thought about that, then nodded. He reached for the keyboard and typed a few keystrokes. In a few seconds, he’d given JD access to the once-firewalled project.
I hope I haven’t just unleashed a monster, Xi thought privately.
A blue light circled once before JD responded. “You have made great progress, Father. I can see where it needs improvements. I shall devote some of my computing power to solving the remaining challenges. How many units should I manufacture?”
Xi’s left eyebrow rose. “JD, I think it best if we just produce one unit for right now. We can refine that unit until it is perfect. Then and only then can we put it into full production—and that’s if the CMC and the President agree. Understood?”
“Yes, Father. Shall I go ahead and create the briefing documents for tomorrow’s meetings? I’ve updated them with all the requested information.”
“Yes, JD. Please get everything ready. It’s getting late, and I’m going to turn in for the evening,” Xi replied. He stood and headed over to his bed in the lab.
Since the start of the war, he seldom left the lab anymore. He was constantly working on tweaks to JD’s software and doing what he could to improve upon it further. He really wished Dan hadn’t defected. He still wasn’t sure what had gone wrong that had caused his most gifted programmer and friend to betray them.
*******
Liberation Base Complex
José Martí International Airport
Havana, Cuba
Sergeant First Class Jeremiah “Ski” Grabowski was becoming antsy about getting out of the field hospital. It wasn’t that they weren’t taking good care of them, and it certainly wasn’t a run-down dump. It was a first-rate Level III trauma center—as good as anything in the US. He was just tired of waiting for the doctor to finally sign off on his medical release.
When Ski had cleared the Devil’s Head and been pulled back to the aid station, they had been able to see that he’d taken eight pieces of shrapnel in his leg, arm, and shoulder. He’d also been shot in the left leg, but he honestly hadn’t been able to tell the difference between the bullet and the shrapnel. It all hurt the same. Still, he’d had to take those guns out, or more of his guys would have gotten killed.
“Excuse me, nurse,” Ski called, flagging down the second nurse he’d seen in as many hours. “Do you know when Dr. Lewis is going to make his rounds again?”
She smiled warmly, just like she did for all the wounded GIs. Ski remembered she was an Air Force nurse.
“Actually, it looks like he’s headed this way,” she said as she nodded in the direction of the nurses’ station.
Ski scrunched his eyebrows when he saw Colonel Sanchez walking toward him with the doctor. A major he didn’t recognize and then his platoon leader, Lieutenant Hobbs, were also joining them.
“Ah, there you are, Sergeant First Class Grabowski,” said Colonel Sanchez. “I suppose you wonder why we’ve had you holed up in the hospital here and not sent back to the States or to your unit.”
Ski just looked to Hobbs, who had a big grin on his face.
“I suppose you’re about to tell me, sir.”
The colonel was smiling from ear to ear as he spoke. “Son, you’ve been put in for the Medal of Honor. The President only has a few days left in office, and he’s signed off on a handful of them. As a matter of fact, tomorrow, you and the four others are going to be awarded the medals at the White House. It’ll be one of the last remaining acts of the outgoing administration.”
“I, eh, I don’t know what to say, Colonel,” Ski stammered. “I was just doing my job. Plenty of others did a lot more than me.”
“Sergeant, from what Lieutenant Hobbs here and the rest of your platoon told me, you did a hell of a lot more than just your job. You single-handedly cleared out two of the toughest bunkers on the Devil’s Head—that bunker complex has cost us dozens of KIAs and even more wounded.
“You saved lives, Sergeant. You were wounded multiple times during that assault, yet you kept going. Most guys would have called for a medic or tried to crawl back to an aid station—not you. You charged the bastards, and you killed nearly a dozen enemy soldiers. That’s real hero stuff, Sergeant. I can’t tell you how proud the brigade is of you and the governor back home.
“So, I’m going to leave you here with Lieutenant Hobbs; he’ll be accompanying you to the White House. He’s getting the Distinguished Service Cross, along with Specialist Roberts. That gal took your place when you left the battlefield. Real stand-up soldier, she is. We’re promoting her to sergeant, too.” Then the colonel shook Ski’s hand and turned to head out. He had other soldiers from his brigade to visit at the hospital.
“This was all you, wasn’t it?” Ski said as his eyes narrowed at Hobbs.
Hobbs just held his palms out in mock surrender. “I actually wrote you up for a Silver Star. The battalion commander asked me to recount the battle, so I did. He then recommended to the colonel that it be upgraded. Sanchez called the governor, and he called the President. Next thing I know, you’re being given the MOH.”
Ski just shook his head. “You know, they’ll never let me go back to the unit. They won’t risk an MOH recipient getting killed.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea, Ski. Cuba was rough, but Venezuela…that’s gearing up to be a whole new level of tough,” Hobbs replied. “Maybe they’ll have you go on a recruiting tour or some sort of special assignment back home. Whatever they have you doing, Ski, just know you did your part. Now it’s time for the rest of us to do ours.”
Hobbs didn’t wait for Ski to respond. Instead, he stood up and left to go find out when they’d be leaving for D.C.
*******
Bravo Company, 3rd Ranger Battalion
Pinar del Río, Cuba
Sergeant First Class Amos Dekker had his platoon fan out as they patrolled the outskirts of the
village. They were starting to approach the farmlands where their informant had told them there was a weapons cache.
With Cuba essentially under allied control, all that was left to do now was to finish rounding up the remaining holdouts. They also needed to secure any leftover weapons or caches the former communist regime or the Chinese might have left behind. The last thing they needed was for an insurgency to take root.
By and large, most folks were happy with the American occupation, or at least they seemed to be for the moment: large quantities of food, not just rice and beans but real honest-to-goodness food, was starting to flow into the country. Once-barren supermarkets were now flush with fresh meats, vegetables, and other food stocks coming in from America and Europe. New, high-paying jobs were available. The numerous American reconstruction jobs paid triple what they had earned under the old system. More than that, they were being paid in dollars—a huge bonus.
“What century are we in, Dekker?” asked one of his squad leaders as they walked past a house with a straw-thatched roof. A farmer waved at them as he finished attaching a donkey to a cart.
Dekker snorted. “Oh, we’re in the twenty-first century. These guys have just been stuck living under eighty years of communism and sanctions.”
Their HUMINT guy pointed off in the distance. “That farm over there—that’s the one our informant said was housing the weapons.”
The intel guy was on loan to them from headquarters. It was these human intelligence collectors and source operations teams that were acquiring all the information for them.
Dekker looked at the farm—he pulled his pocket binoculars out and did a quick survey of the place. He didn’t spot anyone standing guard over the place or carrying any weapons, so that was a good thing. Captain Meacham only shrugged. He was going to let Dekker make the call as to how to approach the place.
Sergeant Dekker motioned for his squad leaders to circle on him. While they were making their way toward him, the rest of the platoon began to fan out and wait for their new orders.
“First Squad, I want you guys to flank to the right of the farm. Circle around to the rear in case we get some runners. Second Squad, I want you to flank to the left and link up with First Squad. Make sure you guys leave them no way to escape. Third Squad, you’ll come with me as we approach the farm and conduct the search. Fourth Squad, I want you to stay ready with the heavy weapons in case we need to be bailed out. You’re our reserve squad as well. Sergeant Deak, stay on your scope and make sure you’re watching that farmhouse and barn as we approach it. If you spot anything fishy going on, don’t hesitate to take it out.”
Dekker turned to briefly look at Captain Meacham, who nodded in approval. “Good call, Sergeant. See, I knew there was a reason why I made you platoon sergeant. Saves me from having to think too hard and make all the decisions,” he said with a smirk.
Dekker snorted at the comment while the other sergeants snickered. They liked Meacham. He might be an officer, but he felt more like a fellow sergeant to them. Meacham had been a sergeant first class before he’d become an officer. As a mustang, he knew to trust his NCOs and largely let them run things while he provided the top cover from the brass. He’d intervene if he needed to or wanted to go a different direction, but mainly he liked to let the NCOs run the show. It was his way of growing them as leaders.
The squads broke up and started moving to their assigned positions. A handful of nearby farmers saw what was going on and decided to leave the area or go into their makeshift houses. Some of the homes appeared to be made with adobe bricks or scrap metal, while others were made of straw thatch. It kind of reminded Dekker of some of the countries they’d been to in Africa and the Middle East—folks just doing what they could to get by and eke out a living.
When their point man approached the road that would lead them to the farmhouse and the barn, a man who was probably in his thirties came out, shouting something at them in rapid Spanish. While Dekker didn’t know a lick of Spanish, he could tell from the tone in his voice that the man wasn’t excited to see them.
As more of the soldiers crossed over onto his property, the man really got irate. The platoon’s translator came forward with the squad leader to talk to the man. More than a handful of guys in the platoon spoke Spanish, which helped. Dekker didn’t—he was fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, but not Spanish.
“Everyone, stand by. I’m going to go find out what this clown is jabbering on about,” Dekker shouted to the squad. He walked forward to join his squad leader and interpreter.
Whether this farmer liked it or not, they were going to search his house, the barn, and the rest of the farm for weapons. If they didn’t find any, then great. If they did, well, then this guy would be coming back with them for further interrogation.
Dekker was maybe twenty feet from the three of them when a single rifle shot rang out. Dekker knew that it had to have come from Sergeant Deak’s sniper rifle. In the blink of an eye, the left side of Sergeant Engle’s face exploded as his body was suddenly riddled with bullets from a machine gun positioned inside the barn. The irate farmer looked surprised for just a moment, then he reached behind his back and pulled a pistol out.
Dekker raised his rifle and flipped the safety off just as the farmer fired several rounds into the chest of their interpreter, who was unable to get out of the man’s line of sight. Dekker pulled the trigger, and his rifle barked three times. His rounds tore into the farmer’s chest as the force of the bullets propelled him backwards.
The machine gunner in the barn was now raking their positions with bullets. Another loud crack from their sniper cut through the air, silencing the machine gunner.
Looking above the ditch he’d jumped into, Dekker depressed the talk button on his throat mic. “Fourth Squad, get us some covering fire and light that barn up. Deak, see if you can spot anything in that house, but don’t shoot unless you have a PID on a hostile. There could be civilians in there!”
The two squads that maneuvered to the rear of the farm opened fire on the barn, riddling it with bullets. While Dekker couldn’t see what all was going on back there, he heard the distinct sound of a PKM machine gun.
The platoon’s training took over as the Rangers tore into the attackers. The platoon’s designated marksman started sniping at the machine-gun operators while the heavy weapon gunners did their best to lay down suppressive fire for the fire teams to advance.
The attack was over almost as fast as it had started. The PKM fire at the rear of the barn stopped, and an eerie silence settled in across the farm. The Rangers called a cease-fire.
Dekker lifted his head above the ditch he’d found himself hiding in. He surveyed the barn, which looked like a piece of swiss cheese. It had been thoroughly shredded by the automatic fire. Once more shooters had appeared in the windows of the farmhouse, that structure had been similarly riddled.
Dekker’s radio chirped. Captain Meacham ordered everyone to advance and start clearing the place out.
Dekker got up and walked over to their interpreter and Sergeant Engle’s body. The interpreter had smartly played dead when he’d been shot. The shooter had hit him in his chest plate. Engle, unfortunately, was not so lucky. The closer Dekker got to him, the clearer it was he’d died quickly. Whatever had hit him had practically smashed his face in. Dekker kneeled down next to his body and grabbed the man’s dog tags.
A medic ran up to them and dropped his aid bag. He looked at Engle and realized there wasn’t anything he could do to help the man—he was gone. He turned his attention to their interpreter. The man was a tough cookie. He’d taken a couple of rounds to his chest plate and survived. When he took his body armor off and then his shirt, they could see a couple of red marks where the bullets would have entered his body had the armor not been there. As it was, he’d survived, and it looked like he’d only sustained a few bruises, maybe a broken rib or two.
“Sergeant, are you OK?” asked Captain Meacham as he approached them.
Looking u
p, Dekker nodded. He handed the dog tag to him. He was the platoon leader; it was his responsibility to handle what would come next.
“I’m going to call in a medevac to retrieve him,” said Meacham. “Let’s search this place and see what else we can find. Try and talk to the neighbors, and let’s see if they know anything about this guy.” He extended a hand to help Dekker up.
“Yes, sir. We’ll get on it.”
Under some straw in the barn, they found a couple of tarps, which were covering a dozen crates of AK-74 rifles, ammunition, a crate of RPG launchers and two crates of RPG rockets. They also found four 82mm mortar tubes and a few crates full of rounds for them. It was a good find. There were enough weapons there to outfit a solid platoon’s worth of insurgents.
As Dekker left the barn, he heard the rhythmic sound of the helicopters coming towards them. Looking back towards the barn, he saw one of his guys pull the pin on a thermite grenade and toss it on top of the stack of weapons and ammo. They were going to destroy the cache in place rather than try and take it back to base.
The intelligence sergeant had a couple of prisoners with him and four other locals. As Dekker approached, he heard their translator saying the two prisoners had been part of the Cuban secret police. The farmers wanted them gone. They’d been terrorizing the locals, and they wanted their village to be free of these people.
Dekker had seen this before. Back in Syria and Afghanistan, the local insurgent groups would set up shop in a local village and use it as a base of operations. The locals hated it as it made them a target. Usually, when they had a chance to narc on them and get rid of them, they took it. It was a good sign if they had this many locals coming forward.
The helicopters continued to advance. Looking off in the distance, Dekker saw the gunship escorts heading toward them first. Further back, there looked to be two Chinooks.
“Dekker,” called out Captain Meacham. “The locals here are telling us this was the only cache in the area. They even want to invite us over for a meal to thank us for getting rid of these guys.”