Riding the Red Horse

by Christopher Nuttall

  Jones’ face flashed a bit of annoyance, but she nodded. “Yes, Josh. Thanks. The same thing occurred to us.”

  Larkin spoke from the screen. “We’re closing with the nearest Chinese merchant now. The People’s Liberation Army Navy doesn’t have any vessels or aircraft in this area. If they’re targeting off of surface transponder data read by satellites in orbit, their targeting resolution may be too mushy to risk going after us if we get in close to the ships they’re sparing.”

  The XO nodded. “We’ve beaten back the first wave of suppressed-ballistic HGW attacks and we’ve started to extend the dome of our protection to the other non-Chinese vessels around us as well. We haven’t had to resort to our store of anti-air or anti-orbit missiles, so the quiver is essentially full. If they were intending to break the planet-wide armistice, they really wasted the element of surprise by launching out of mainland China first. Our early warning nets info’d us in plenty of time to get the CIWS beamers up. Not the smartest move.”

  I narrowed my eyes as a thought occurred to me. “Or they really wanted us focused on the skies instead of somewhere else.”

  I had barely finished speaking when fate deemed that to be the moment when USS Jefferson Edwards exploded with light and fury. The trimaran destroyer on our quarter erupted from the water, ripped in half by an expanding sphere of white water and actinic flame. As a deafening boom swept over the waves, her starboard outrigger ama tore free and flipped end over end, almost hitting the Griggs. We all stared in horror to the two flaming, broken halves, searching for life-rafts or any sign that some of her crew might have survived the horrific blast.

  I could not bear to watch the flames; it was too close to the experience I half-remembered from the death of the Pensacola. Instead, I looked in her turbulent wake, at where she had come from. That’s when I saw it: a low, curved shape in the water, writhing organically, though the sensor blister atop it proved it was no organism. I watched it survey the wreckage of the Edwards, then turn toward us and dive.

  The required commands were fresh in my mind from just having learned about them. I screamed them now, even though I had not yet formally taken the conn. “Left hard rudder! All waterjets ahead flank three! Launch acoustic countermeasures and kinetic shields astern! Stand-by for super-cav evasion!”

  We made it home to Penang. That’s about the only good thing we managed.

  My orders had been heeded by our nerve-shot helmsman and bridge crew, despite my not assuming the conn, and we just survived the Chinese orca’s attack which occurred only moments later. The more distant super-cavitating, rocket-propelled torpedoes of their initial spread were led astray by our maneuvers and countermeasures. The other kill-shots were caught up in the razor filament nets that we spread behind us as kinetic shields, detonating early or collapsing as their enveloping layers of drag-free steam were breached.

  By the time the manta-shaped Autonomous Underwater Ranged Combat Assembly (AURCA or orca for short) was back in position to re-attack, we had interposed a Chinese freighter between it and ourselves. Unable to complete its attack on us without endangering one of the ships it was apparently instructed to spare, the orca departed. We kept the freighter from abandoning us as we retreated by keeping both our decimeter railguns trained on its bridge.

  The XO shook my hand after we tied up at our old pier. The skipper said nothing and left the ship immediately.

  It took a while to reconstruct things after that first battle, to figure out how and why the world had changed. But we had a pretty fair grasp of the situation by the time we all settled down and could gather in the wardroom later. The captain’s seat at the head of the table remained empty, so the XO laid it all out for us instead.

  “And that’s where we are,” she said. “The outer planets, belt, and orbitals we’ve been contending with the Chinese for are largely at a stalemate or in recovery mode, so Earth’s own resources matter again. The longer these strategic waterways remain either under Chinese control or denied to us, the worse the economic position is for the US and our allies. The longer they stay on top, the more of our “friends” will leave us behind and set up shop with China. We are looking at the irreversible decline and economic subjugation of our nation. What has long been threatened is now coming to pass. Our orders are clear: re-open and secure the Strait of Malacca to US traffic and prevent Chinese traffic from transiting. If we don’t act now, we will be relegated to becoming a footnote in history.”

  Someone from around the table spoke low, but loud enough to be heard. “And if we do act now, we’ll be relegated to becoming a reef like the Jefferson Edwards and half the ships in Singapore.”

  Jones slammed the table with her fist. “That’s enough of that! This is a do-able mission, people. The Chinese navy has been in decline for as long as ours has. These suppressed-ballistic profile HGWs and these orca undersea drones are a new twist on sea control and denial, but they’re nothing we can’t defend against if we put our minds to it. TAOs, take control of your watch teams and start developing courses of action to get us back on top. Chief Engineer, I want that plant gone over head to toe and put back into fighting trim. We must be able to rely on it. Lieutenant Morrow, I need to see you in private.”

  My curiosity perked up at that, but I had no idea what she could want. Everyone broke up and I walked over to her seat at the wardroom table. She motioned me close and I leaned down.

  “Josh, we need the skipper.”

  “I don’t exactly have him in my back pocket, XO.”

  She smiled. “I think you can probably guess where he is. And you're both spacers, right? Maybe he'll listen to you.”

  “You think he’ll listen to me? XO, you told me yourself, I am him, a few years removed. What makes you think I won’t just end up in the room right next door?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s exactly what I meant. But know this: those years, along with senses of empathy and duty which you have and he doesn’t, make all the difference. You’re not the skipper, Josh, but if anyone can draw him back, it’s you.”

  One short robo-tuk ride and a gauntlet of courtesans later, I found myself in front of the door to the skipper’s favored room at the brothel. I knocked and someone opened the door from within. The same girl was there, naked, with her long hair trying and failing to conceal her nicer bits from view. She let loose another rapid stream of angry Mandarin, but it was wasted on me.

  “Sorry, I can’t understand and I don’t care. Give us a minute, would you?”

  She stopped and frowned. “Okay.” She pulled her silk robe from a hook behind the door, slipped it on, and stalked out. I walked in and shut the door behind me.

  Commander Brett Larkin stood next to the bed, staring at me. He wore a floral silk robe like the girl, but it was less fetching upon him. It did not help that he held a bottle of rotgut scotch already three quarters empty, nor that he swayed noticeably upon his feet. He held the bottle out as an offering. “Aerospace Navy, united till the end?”

  I did not reach for the bottle. “Captain, I’m here to bring you back to the ship. Your presence is requested aboard.”

  “Calling that tub a ship is an insult to every ship that’s ever plied the spaceways, Josh. I’ve served on real ships before. You have too. Don’t bother telling me what you picture in your head when I say ‘warship,’ cuz I know it ain’t the Griggs.” He shrugged and took a slug from the proffered bottle before lowering his arm to his side.

  I stepped closer, pleading. “It doesn’t matter what I picture in my head, sir. It matters that this ship is my ship now, and she has a need for all of her officers, including her skipper, whether he respects that post or not. The war has come to us and this is our chance to serve with honor, to do our duty.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed. “The best thing we could do for duty would be to switch places with the Edwards. Don’t kid yourself, Morrow. The Chinese are kicking our asses in space, and now they’re doing it on the water. You go out there, that
stupid robot is going to eat you for lunch. It’s probably right outside the harbor, waiting for us to peek out, ready to shoot a whole spread of straight-running super-cavs as soon as it picks up our acoustic signature.”

  “We’re working on a number of different options now. We’ll find a way to win.”

  He laughed. “Good god, you’re stupid! It doesn’t matter what you plan. It doesn’t even matter if we win this one battle against this one orca. The Griggs isn’t anyone’s critical lynch-pin for a defensive strategy. She’s one tiny little rusty destroyer defending a waterway that allows merchants to get to major ports a couple of days faster. She does not matter. We don't matter.”

  I looked at him, feeling heat and anger suffuse my face. “You could say the same thing about any single unit in war, in space or the water. The strait is a critical line of communication and defending it is tactically necessary, or else the Chinese wouldn’t be trying to deny it to us. If we make them expend more resources to counter us, we draw resources away from somewhere else. Will we win the war here? No, but that doesn’t mean the fight isn’t necessary.”

  “I swear, if you say it’s not the size of the ship in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the ship, I will punch you.”

  I stepped directly in front of him, fists balled up at my sides. “The Edwards just died here!”

  He looked up at me and smiled unhappily. “That’s exactly my point, boy, and I’m saying it’s not worth it.” Larkin took a swig as I stepped back, realizing I was going to fail.

  I reached behind me until I found a seat and plopped into it. “What if it was a Defiance-class astrocruiser out there instead of the Griggs?”

  He took another drink. “Have you considered that maybe I’m just a coward, and sea or space, it doesn’t mean a thing? Do you know why I was barred from service in the Aerospace Navy?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Agoraphobia. I couldn’t stand being in space anymore… but apparently that’s not my only problem. Your whole body got broken in battle and you’re still put together better than me.”

  We sat in silence for a long time while I tried to decide what to do. Eventually I stood. He looked up at me. I answered his quizzical look with a question. “What will you do now?”

  Brett Larkin considered the bottle in his hand. “I’m going to drink cheap scotch and spend time with beautiful women until the money runs out. And then I’ll finish disappearing.”

  I nodded and turned to leave.

  “Aerospace Navy! All the way!” he cried out.

  I didn’t look back.

  Back aboard ship, the XO saw me and paused in her frantic preparations long enough to take me to one side. “Well, is he en route? There’s a lot he needs to be briefed on.”

  I had thought about how to couch my failure. This way seemed best. “There’s no need. Our Commanding Officer is already aboard. Captain.”

  She stared back at me for a long measure before finally nodding. “Okay then. Gather your gear. You’re leaving the ship too.” She beckoned with her chin and I looked over to a Chinese freighter moored at another pier.

  Two missiles boiled out of the vertical launch system cells atop USS Forrest Griggs’ outrigger amas and arced overhead. Their primary boosters burned out and vectored thrust took over, driving them down sharply to a splashdown just outside the mouth of Penang’s harbor. One missile detonated upon entry into the water, the other after diving 20 meters. Concussive waves of force expanded out from the detonations, setting the bottom contours of the harbor ringing with vibrations.

  Sonar reverberations from small objects and fish were reduced to background by the twin explosive echo-ranging pulses, but large objects gave back a clear signal, no matter how stealthy they thought they were being. The technique was not very benign where fish or coral were concerned, but they were secondary concerns during war.

  On the shared tactical net, the fusion plot combining every source of information available to us lit white with sonar noise, then showed the clear position of a manta-like submersible waiting across from the harbor’s entrance: the first of two orcas Intel indicated were denying US access to the strait. As Larkin and others had guessed, the Chinese long-range underwater drone was fulfilling its directives to destroy us by waiting for our destroyer to emerge from the harbor.

  Griggs drove forward into the trap at full speed, but she was no longer a target surprised and on the run. Torpedo tubes on her central hull opened and spat a pair of our own fish into the water. The explosive pulses had revealed the orca lying in wait, but had also ensonified the water, blinding any sonar system not configured to receive the data. The torpedoes separated from one another, re-oriented on the Chinese unit, and then ignited their own super-cavitating drives, propelling forward at over 200 knots.

  The orca never knew what killed it. It erupted in a fountain of white foam, fluids, and debris. A cheer rose over the net, but unfortunately I was not there to hear it in person. As my new Commanding Officer, LCDR Tamicka Jones had warned me, I was off the ship.

  But I had not gone alone.

  The Griggs continued on, leaving the safety of Penang behind and turning to port to enter the traffic separation scheme of the Strait of Malacca. Traffic was notably reduced. Other nations had gotten the word in the last 36 hours: ally with China or be sunk. Any US or US-allied unit that attempted to enter the chokepoint of the Straits of Malacca or Singapore would be destroyed. Enough of our tonnage had been lost to either HGWs or rocket-propelled torpedoes by that time for point to sink in.

  Flanked by only a few Chinese-flagged vessels transiting the strait, the Griggs proceeded forward, surrounded by drones, using acoustic search, magnetic anomaly detection and blue-green lasers to search through the water. The destroyer had to proceed carefully. The physics of the hunt favored the stealthy, heavily armed orca, which could hide within its element and pick the time and place of the eventual encounter. As Larkin had warned, the odds were almost entirely in the Chinese automation’s favor. We only had one thing going for us: organic brains.

  The orcas and HGWs were operating autonomously, relying upon a programmed set of orders about who and what to engage. “Kill US vessels; Preserve Chinese shipping; etc.” While artificially intelligent, they lacked the creativity, boldness, and sneakiness of the devious human mind. That was why we employed local Remote Operators and Autonomous Systems Officers, to help manage our drones and provide adjustment to the rigid and sometimes contradictory orders initially given to AIs.

  The second orca rose from the bottom clutter at the center of the traffic separation scheme after the US surface destroyer and its drones had already passed over it, cued by a kilometer-wave radio signal from mainland China, initiated by satellite cueing of transponder-less traffic in the strait. It rose quietly and sinuously, moving like a fish rather than propelling itself with noisy screws or propulsors. Well astern of the sonar blind zone caused by the destroyer’s water jets, and well behind the drones deployed to mitigate that blind zone, the orca set up its shot.

  Looking at it in false color through the eyes of a completely separate set of underwater and aerial drones deployed from the Chinese freighter we had commandeered in Penang, I triggered my mike. “Orca 2 is setting up its shot about five kilometers directly astern of you. Do you want to make the kill, or shall I?”

  Jones answered from the Griggs. “Take your shot. We’ll focus on defense and mop-up.”

  I sent a command to my drones and they swept from their positions around the freighter to swarm the orca. Mini super-cavitating projectiles fired out from their sleek bodies and detonated all around the orca, blasting it with shaped-charge jets that pierced the robot’s rubbery skin and destroyed its interior. The Orca imploded less spectacularly than the first, but dead was dead.

  Jones keyed her comm again. “Nice work, spaceman. Welcome to the real Navy!”

  I smiled for what felt like the first time in a long time. “Thanks, Skipper.”

  Editor's
Introduction to:

  WAR CRIMES

  by Benjamin Cheah

  O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us

  To see oursels as ithers see us!

  —Robert Burns, To a Louse

  Who or what, among God’s living creations, is not fascinated by a mirror? In this case, the holder of the mirror is Benjamin Cheah, citizen of the Republic of Singapore. I suppose that’s fitting since Singapore, Chinese, Indian, and Malay jewel of the former British Empire, holds up a mirror to the West, a mirror that shows our weakness, our fundamental unseriousness, our lack of determination to preserve our or any civilization, and our grasping at comforting liberal delusions like a drunken sailor to a tart’s leg after three years at sea.

  Ben is a journalist as well as a veteran of Singapore’s armed forces, a well-regarded citizen-soldier militia, and one with a great deal of Havah Nagilah in its ancestry. Between regulars, reservists, and conscripts, Singapore is capable of mobilizing a million and a half (mostly, though not entirely) men, out of a population of five and a half million. Even the Swiss and Israelis have never approached that kind of commitment to self-defense. If they'd been able to do that in 1942, Yamashita's army would have died in the Straights of Johor. On my short list of places likely to survive and ride out the collapse that I sense coming, Singapore ranks high.

  Ben’s motivation for writing his story, “War Crimes”, was the highly-edited fraud perpetrated upon the stupid and gullible by Wikileaks, “Collateral Murder”. Rather than ruin it for you, I’ll content myself with suggesting that you look deep into the mirror Ben holds up for us, and see what he, an objective witness and reporter, sees.