Riding the Red Horse

by Christopher Nuttall

  "Yes, sir, he did mention that," The soldier replied. "Sir, I have orders to get you to the helipad as soon as possible. The nanobots?"

  Toby pointed at the two cases. The soldier looked at the still-panting guard, who shook his head. The soldier made a slight grimace and got back on the radio. "Lt. we have two large cases. I will need assistance." A pause, "Yes sir, at least three people."

  The soldier wore medic's insignia. When he was off of the radio, Toby asked, "The helipad? Is it a trauma case? I'm not really on call, I've been on leave."

  "Sorry sir, I think we need let the Lieutenant brief you. I was just told to bring you, the nanobots and to tell you it was a 'Phase Three Situation'."

  Phase Three. That wasn't a hospital code; Phase didn't really mean anything in that context, unless it referred to the nanobot Phase Three…

  Damn you, Max. What have you done?… and how did you get Billy involved? Toby stood up from behind his desk and addressed the guard, Son, catch your breath, and open that other crate, there's a pry bar on the floor where my colleague left it." Toby eyed the name and rank on the soldier's uniform. "Sergeant… Wohlrab… it will take two people each per crate, and it will be slow and awkward. You have three more people coming?" Sergeant Wohlrab nodded. "Good, you can each carry two cylinders. Might as well get them out of the packing and ready to go."

  As the two started unpacking the crates, Toby grabbed his white coat and the black 'doctor bag' that he always kept behind the door. The bag was actually a gym bag containing a change of clothes, toiletries and a set of clean scrubs, but it also held a basic set of few medical instruments and he kept it ready for emergency calls that involved heading out to accident and emergency sites.

  Three more soldiers arrived at the office, one of them wearing officer insignia. "Billy?"

  "Dad, are we glad to see you." Toby and his son exchanged a quick handshake and hug. "I'll brief you as we go, but we have to hurry." He spoke into his own radio. " 'Empress', this is 'Kermit', dust-off in ten minutes, one-zero minutes, keep it low and fast, there's still Grunts about."

  "Billy, what's going on?"

  "No time, Dad, we have to move." Each of the soldiers grabbed two cylinders, and the security guard opened doors as the six men hurried down the stairs and across the top of the parking deck to the helicopter landing pad. There was a small hanger for emergency maintenance or in case a medical transport had to outwait bad weather. They waited just inside the open hanger door as Billy continued to explain.

  "It's a new war, Dad, and this time it is aliens, just like in your old sci-fi books you let me read."

  "Aliens, what aliens?" Toby was confused—even as a boy, Billy had seldom lied and never made up stories, but this was a bit too much to believe.

  "Remember the 'Comet', Dad? The one that wasn't really a comet? Didn't you see the news?" Toby thought. The Comet? That was what the headlines were about?" He looked quizzically at Billy, who nodded in return. "Well, they have a weapon --

  Billy was interrupted by a voice on the radio, "Kermit, this is Empress, on approach. Make it quick, I've got Grunts on my tail." Toby raised an eyebrow and mouthed 'Kermit?' Billy gave a quick laugh and replied, "Well, Dad, you've always told me that it isn't easy being a Greene. Captain Sullivan… 'Empress'… gave me that call sign." The moment of shared humor was brief, and Billy turned to pick up his share of the cylinders and motioned for the other soldiers to do the same. "We have to be fast. The aliens have an energy beam that just kills people, the beam touches you; you die… except it doesn't work on everybody. Unfortunately, not enough of our troops are protected. We have to move quickly, Sullivan's got aliens chasing her."

  The wind picked up, and a loud beating sound signaled the arrival of a large military helicopter. It touched onto the landing pad, but seemed to bounce slightly, and the speed of the turning rotors never lessened. A soldier leaned out, helped him aboard, and handed him a spare helmet. Toby had used them before and knew that trying to talk onboard without the built-in radio would be impossible. He put on the helmet as one crewmember took the cylinders of nanobots and handed them to a crewmember to secure in back of the compartment.

  Before Billy and the others could board, he heard female voice over the helmet communicator, "Weapons hot, Grunts incoming. The crewman who had helped Toby into the helicopter moved to a mounted gun at the doorway as Billy climbed aboard. Sergeant Wohlrab and the other two soldiers shouldered their weapons and each took a knee, facing in the direction from which the helicopter arrived. "EMPRESS! Take us UP." Billy had just put on his own helmet, as he shoved his father into a seat and roughly secured him with a harness.

  As Billy moved to the mounted gun on the opposite door, Toby could see several black spheres, each less than a meter diameter, floating in the air and moving rapidly toward them. The spheres surrounded the helicopter and began to shoot strange white energy bolts as the helicopter struggled to rise. Billy and the other gunner took aim, and managed to each destroy one sphere, one of the soldiers on the ground also managed to get a sphere, but as Toby watched, three of the bolts touched the soldiers, causing one to drop his rifle and fall over. As the helicopter slowly rose, the bottom of the door began to obscure the scene, but Toby could see the Sergeant take one last shot, reach into a bag at his waist and pull out a syringe. He moved to the injured man, checked him, raised the syringe and… Toby attention was taken by the sight of three energy bolts striking the chopper, two of them passing right through the pilot's seat, from front to back, and with one hitting Billy, and the other hitting Toby himself!

  There was a strange sensation of heat, followed by an almost electric shock, but it passed quickly. Toby heard Billy shout "THERESA!" as the chopper started to pitch sideways. He could hear the same female voice from before, whisper "Dragon, take over." Then a cough and fading wheeze. Toby started to unbuckle to help the pilot, but Billy shouted "STAY THERE" and moved to assist her instead. Toby heard Billy mutter, "Wohlrab had all of the Phase Twos, it's too late." The chopper righted, and then bounced up and down rapidly. His son shook his head and crouched down to grab onto the floor of the chopper. The wind through the open cabin doors picked up as the chopper finally gained height and speed under the co-pilot's ministrations. Billy moved back to a seat and slumped down beside his father.

  Toby waited a bit, and then put his hand on his son's shoulder. "I'm sorry, son. Is that the weapon? I don't understand what happened, why didn't it affect you or me?"

  Instead of answering, Billy looked straight ahead, and then changed the subject without even looking at his father. "General Odle and Doctor Geuiszlerr have been worried about you. You didn't answer your phone or pager, and the satellites aren't working right, so we didn't know if you didn't—or couldn't—get the message. I went out to the cabin but you had already left."

  "Is that what this is about? Max Odle needs me to patch up more boys and girls to send them out to get blown up again? And he drafted you to do it?" Toby had gone from curious, to alarmed, to pleased to see his son, to panicked, to afraid all in the course of a few minutes. A headache was starting, centered just behind his left eye and the jarring ride brought back all of the stress and strain he'd been experiencing before his relaxing interlude.

  "No Dad, it's not like that. It's more like 'help us Obi-Wan, you're our only hope'." He finally turned toward his father. "That's the weapon, Dad, and you are our hope. The reason it didn't affect you and me is because we've both got your nanobots in us. Most people it hits, like Empress, suffer immediate hemorrhage and organ failure. Some just act like they're drugged, and if we're fast enough, medics like 'Doc' Wohlrab can save them with your Phase Two nanobots. We don't know how it works; only what it does."

  "So you need me for what, exactly?"

  "Well, General Odle and Dr. Geuiszlerr said you were working on a Phase Three nanobot, one that would be protective. We now know that the soldiers who survive are the ones that you've put back together, or least ones who have had treatments base
d on your nanobots. We've lost a quarter of our armed forces—hell, we've probably lost at least ten percent of the population—but we have between ten and fifteen percent of our troops who are totally immune, and EVERY ONE is because of you. We can survive, and we can fight back—and we do fight back. These aliens aren't omnipotent, they just have different weapons."

  There was a sense of pride in Billy's voice. Toby thought of the implications of the hundreds of people he had operated upon using his surgical nanobots—just like Billy and Max. Most of them still had a residual amount of the devices remaining in their bodies; some had even received the nanobots for less traumatic reasons, such as the chest pains Toby himself had experienced. He had treated and saved hundreds, his colleagues, thousands. Around the world it might even add up to millions.

  "I've got some Phase Three nanobots, Billy, in one of those cylinders back there." Toby motioned over his shoulder to wear the cylinders were secured against the up, down and sideways jarring as the helicopter flew as close to the ground as it could get. "But it's not enough. I suppose I can reprogram the Phase Two's; there are certainly enough of those."

  Billy smiled, and took his father's hand. "That's exactly what we need. General Odle told me to get you; Dr. Geuiszlerr said to get the nanobots. With that, we have a chance. Anyone gets hit by this new weapon and the nanobots go to work healing the damage, blocking the effects, and we get on with our jobs. Healing is our weapon, and you are our armorer."

  Max had once told him, "They also serve, who forge the armor and beat the swords." The helicopter was approaching the base, and Toby could see plenty of activity, unlike the cities and towns. From what Billy had said, every one of them was a person that Toby had directly or indirectly affected; that he had armed and armored to fight for their very lives and existence.

  It had been a month since Toby had come back from vacation. The alarms sounded every day, and there was a constant stream of vehicles—both ground and air—in and out of the base. Toby hadn't had a nightmare in weeks. He was part of the war, now, and he finally understood.

  We also serve.

  Today was a different alarm. This time the base was under attack.

  The troops were calm as each assumed a station somewhere on the base. Toby had since learned that the aliens appeared in a few different configurations, most were the orb-like 'Grunts' armed only with the killing beam, much more rare where the 'Officer' class devices armed with explosive weaponry, the source of the 'lightning' Toby had seen many weeks ago. Finally, there was the 'Command' unit that had appeared as a comet to Earthbound astronomers. They'd never learned whether there was a central, organic intelligence behind them, or if the machines were the aliens.

  He watched the troops assemble—soldiers he'd treated, in one fashion or another. Now he understood why the kids he patched up would go back into combat—because it was their choice to serve. Today they held fast, calmly standing up to the Grunts, whose weapons were totally ineffective against the humans. Guns, tanks and aircraft zeroed on the few Officer units, and were holding their own against those heavier units…

  . . . and for the first time, the aliens retreated from a field of battle.

  I also serve, thought Toby. We all do.

  Co-Editor's Introduction to:

  LEARNING TO RIDE THE RED HORSE: THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR

  by Tom Kratman

  Being an honest and humble man, Tom asked me to take the controls for a moment concerning the introduction to his contribution to this, the first volume in what will be an annual series of military fact and science fiction.—Vox Day

  LTC Tom Kratman, U.S. Army (ret) is a former practitioner and lifelong student of the art and science of war. He is a Ranger and served in the storied Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne. He took part in the occupation of Panama with the 193rd Infantry Brigade, and first encountered the elephant in Kuwait, where he earned the Combat Infantry Badge while attached to the 5th Special Forces in Gulf War I. In addition to his practical experience of tactical combat, Tom also possesses a remarkable command of both strategic matters and military history; after obtaining his degree and license to practice law in Massachusetts, he returned to the Army and lectured at the U.S. Army War College as Director, Rule of Law, for the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute.

  One of the staunchest of the Baen Books stalwarts, Tom has published a considerable quantity of popular military science fiction. He is best known for the six-volume Carreraverse, which began with A Desert Called Peace. The Rods and the Axe is the sixth and most recent novel in that series. He has collaborated with John Ringo on three books, the most recent of which is The Tuloriad, and his Big Boys Don't Cry, published by Castalia House, may be the first story in which the reader finds himself inclined to shed a tear for the fate of an intelligent, 20,000-ton main battle tank.

  One of the most-feared monsters under the bed of the science fiction left, Tom is the Grand Strategikon of the Evil League of Evil; his hobbies include crucifixion, waterboarding, and training up a new generation of right-wing intellectual warriors. He is a hard man who is far more decent, kind, and generous than his fans, let alone his detractors, would likely believe possible. He can, however, be provoked…. Regardless, it is men like him who permit civilized society to survive in a world of chaos and war.

  LEARNING TO RIDE THE RED HORSE: THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR

  by Tom Kratman

  I’m a pedantic son of a bitch and I know it. Since you’ve gotten this far, gentle reader, by now you probably know it too. Pedant or not, however, I am not, in a paper of this length, going to make you an expert in war or the principles of war. The most I can hope for is to give the interested student some tools—not a full toolbox, just a few tools—he can use to learn how to understand war. Note I said “learn to understand.” I did not say, “teach to understand.” War is too complex, too variable, too subject to chance, too much in defiance of the normal rules of linear logic to teach anyone to understand it even if the teacher has infinite time and space, and the student infinite patience. The most I can do is teach you a bit of how to teach yourself.

  If you’ve gotten this far, it is just barely possible that you don’t mind pedantry in a good cause.[1] With that hope ever in mind…

  The Principles of War, of which there are many versions and variants, ours having come—much altered and filtered—from the Napoleonic Swiss general Antoine Jomini and the British general J.F.C. Fuller,[2] share a few important things in common. I don’t mean the principles themselves, but rather the uses to which they’re put. Those uses? It might be helpful to first observe what they should not be used for.

  The Principles are not a checklist to victory. We've never heard of anyone who tried to construct his plans through constant reference to the Principles: “Do I have enough security? No, no, gotta have more security. How about Mass? Wait, wait, wait, can I afford any more economy of force to gain more Mass? And what about Unity of Command? Have I given my bloated staff enough power for Unity of Command? And…oh, my God! I need a smidgeon more Surprise in the recipe!” We’ve probably never heard him of because he and his force were buried in unmarked graves somewhere.

  Note that in the title of this piece, the active verb is “learning.” That’s one of the three things the Principles are about. They are a study guide to war, a constant reference to what happened, why and when, way back then. The student is to use them as an analytical tool for every work he reads, fiction and non-fiction, on war. In this way, if he is a true student and studies diligently, an understanding of war becomes a part of him, permeates his thinking on war, and structures his mind so that, rather than going through some sort of programmed ritual, he knows what matters and what to do in any given circumstance.

  While I came to this conclusion independently, it may reassure the reader to know that I didn’t come to it uniquely. From the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force’s Senri Nyumon (An Introduction to the Principles of War), translated by Dr. Joseph
West:

  However, in order to be able, under all situations, to make accurate decisions and to form creative plans that accomplish the mission, it is absolutely necessary ordinarily to identify these principles in all military histories and other books on military science, to give careful thought and consideration to them, to train in them through applied tactics and field exercises, and to incorporate them into one's own capability.[3]

  The second purpose the Principles of War serve is as guides to training men for war. In this case, a checklist or recipe approach has more validity, because in training men for war one must take an incremental approach as there is only so much time to spend on any given matter. There is nothing wrong with looking over a training plan and deciding, “You know, the men have really never had a sound lesson in the pain of being surprised, nor in the benefits that flow from gaining surprise,” or “the boys are really concentrating too much on taking out the enemy to their front when I want them to bypass that enemy and drive to the deep objective…is that my fault? Have I not been giving them sufficient openings to slip through and bypass? Have I been putting the enemy on the objective so that they instinctively go for the enemy, because he is always on the objective? Well, I can fix that little problem…”

  The last purpose the Principles serve is as a defense against intellectual horse manure and the interference of the ignorati. Sadly, they aren’t used for those purposes nearly often enough.

  Though lists across different armies will vary, the United States and most of our allies use the same nine principles, or a similar set that bears an obvious relationship to a common conceptual ancestor. The British, for example, have ten, eight of which are very similar to eight of ours. They leave off Simplicity, and add in exchange Maintenance of Morale and Sustainability. The Russians currently have twelve “principles,”; the word is in scare quotes because some of them strike me more as tenets or maxims than principles.