by FX Holden
On the floor above he heard a scraping sound. Like a foot, sliding on a dirt floor. He was holding a modified 9mm Sig Saur 18 out in front of him and spoke softly. “Easy, boys. Listen.” The dogs had led him here and it looked like their instincts had been right.
Both dogs stopped, lifting and swiveling their heads. There it was again! The scrape of a boot on a floor above.
Jensen pointed his pistol toward a set of stairs at the end of the corridor that appeared still to be intact. He used the laser sight on the gun to paint a dot on the wall at the end of the corridor. “Brutus. Stealth. To the marker, go up the stairs, scout,” he whispered. The dog, Brutus, dropped to a crouch, and moved carefully around the fallen bricks and smashed furniture to the end of the corridor and then started slowly slinking up the stairs, head and shoulders low. “Spartacus, with me.” The second dog waited, and as Jensen began to follow Brutus toward the stairs, it paced along behind him.
Both dogs were streaming vision from their body-mounted cameras into the visor on Jensen’s helmet. If the sniper was upstairs, Brutus would find him, and Jensen would see him. What happened next was up to the enemy soldier.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs and put his foot on the lowest step to start moving up, he saw Brutus’ camera vision jerk crazily and heard the sound of heavy feet thudding across the floor above, then a muffled shout. Bounding up the stairs with Spartacus in his wake he slammed into a door frame at the top of the stairs and bounced through, rolling onto his stomach with his pistol steadied on the ground in front of him.
He was just in time to see Brutus slam into the legs of a fleeing Syrian soldier, sending him down onto his knees. The man had landed on the rifle he was carrying, but he twisted, pulling a handgun from his waist and firing it into Brutus’ head. The dog collapsed on top of him, but not because it was dead. Its legs splayed as it dropped its 440 lb. body on top of the man and pinned him to the floor. He emptied his pistol into the dog’s torso, but it stayed on him, adjusting its weight to keep him trapped as he scrambled to pull himself out from under it.
Jensen checked for other threats, saw none, and then jumped to his feet. He pointed with his pistol again, putting the targeting dot on the Syrian soldier. “Spartacus, attack. Gun!”
The second dog bolted ahead of him, faster than any man could run. In two seconds it was alongside the Syrian soldier and had clamped his weapon hand to the floor. As its jaws squeezed, Jensen heard bones in the man’s wrist snap sickeningly and he screamed, his handgun falling to the ground. Jensen ran up to him, kicked it away, and pointed his pistol at the whimpering man’s head as he reached down and pulled the sniper rifle out from under his body, jacked out the round that the sniper had loaded, and threw the gun against a wall.
The upstairs room was suddenly quiet, except for the panting of the man on the floor, trying to draw breath through crushed ribs, whimpering at the pain in his broken wrist. He was looking at Jensen with a mixture of horror and hatred.
Jensen knelt down beside him, Sig Saur casually pointed at his head. “I’m going to pull that dog off your chest now. If you move, the other one will bite your hand off. Nod if you understand.”
The man winced and nodded slowly, eyes fixed on Spartacus.
Jensen stood. “Brutus, with me.”
The dog lifted itself off the Syrian soldier one leg at a time, then stepped away, backing up so that it fell in behind Jensen but kept a clear line of sight to the Syrian. The prisoner whimpered, holding his left hand to his bruised chest.
“Now my other dog is going to let go of your hand. You are going to roll onto your stomach and put your hands out so I can tie them behind your back. If you do anything else, they will attack again. Nod if you understand.”
The man looked at the dogs, looked at Jensen’s pistol, maybe weighing his chances. He apparently decided they were zero, and nodded again.
“Spartacus, release and step back,” Jensen ordered. The dog holding the man’s wrist opened its jaws and took two steps back, head still low, legs crouched and ready to jump if ordered. Jensen motioned with his pistol for the man to roll onto his stomach, and when he had, bound the man’s hands. He gave a cry as the carbon plastic ties bit into his broken wrist, but Jensen was a little short on sympathy. The man had put one Marine in hospital and wounded a second in the last two days alone. Jensen and his dogs had been hunting him for a week.
Jensen sighed and stood, looking around him. No sign of a spotter, the man had been working alone. “At ease, boys,” he told the dogs, and they both sat back on their haunches.
He reached for his field comms unit. “Crimson One to base, requesting prisoner transfer detail to my position. One Pax. Include a medic in the detail, prisoner has light injuries.”
“Receive you, Crimson One, detail to your position, base out.”
Jensen took a step back, leaned up against the wall and took in the unreality of the scene. On the floor, a Syrian sniper, muttering something in Arabic, probably complaining about his broken ribs. Beside him, two Legged Squad Support System LS3 Hunter units, one of which had just taken a full Tokarev 7.62mm clip to the head and body and wasn’t even showing a dent. He pulled a command pad out of a leg pouch and ran a diagnostic on Brutus just to be sure, but apart from a slight heat warning on his rear hip actuator, the dog was reporting that all systems were nominal.
Jensen shook his head. It was a take-down that would have entailed far greater risk if he’d been working alone, or even in concert with a small squad. The guy had been alone, this time, but he might not have been. Being able to send in the dogs meant that he wasn’t putting himself or any of his men in the line of fire when the sniper reacted to the assault.
But it hadn’t gone perfectly. He’d have to flag some concerns in his after-action report.
He had ordered Brutus to scout, not to attack. It should have reached the top of the stairs, located the sniper either by sight, sound or infrared, and then sent the data and vision to Jensen’s helmet-mounted display so that Jensen could plan the assault. For example, he would have sent Spartacus out and around to the building’s other exit to block it or pursue in case the man managed to escape. Instead, the dog had seen the target, or the target had seen Brutus, and when he’d tried to flee, Brutus had charged him and pinned him. The LS3 had an ‘always on’ link to a cloud-based neural network system that was constantly learning and adapting as Jensen put it through its front-line field trials. It had a level of autonomy regarding non-lethal actions such as recon, pursuit, and apprehension. But in this case, it had chosen to exercise that autonomy in a way Jensen had not ordered.
Sure, the end result was one sniper, in the bag. He couldn’t fault the system for that.
There was a sound outside and both dogs’ heads snapped toward it, but it was just a pigeon taking off and they returned their attention to the Syrian prisoner on the ground in front of them. Jensen had to laugh. In that respect, they were like every dog throughout history. All it took was a pigeon to take them off task.
But they didn’t look like dogs, not really. They had four articulated legs that ended in tennis ball shaped pads, a long square body with rounded edges, actuators and electronics built around a 125kw hydrogen fuel cell.
At the front of the LS3 was a head that didn’t look like a head at all. It was an interchangeable robotic arm that Jensen could swap out depending on the mission profile. There was a weapons arm that could be fitted with projectile weapons, tear gas or a grenade launcher, even a harpoon for pulling open wooden or light metal doors like car doors. Or it could be fitted with manipulator arms, like the ones Brutus and Spartacus were fitted with today, that enabled the LS3 to do everything from pin a man’s hand to the ground, grab his throat, open a door or window by the handle, pick up and move an explosive device or stab a man in the heart. The head also carried the infrared sensors that, in a sense, were the closest thing it had to eyes.
But they weren’t its only eyes. In the center of its body it had a 3
60-degree pan-tilt-zoom camera and infrared sensor that it used for navigation and image capture. All vision was streamed to a cloud-based AI which managed target identification, macro navigation, pathfinding, systems and power distribution. In addition to the compact and quiet power source, it was the cloud-based AI that made the system possible. Brutus and Spartacus were linked to quantum computing platforms able to take in the inputs from their sensors, marry them to Jensen’s commands, and issue orders to the dogs to carry them out at a speed even a real dog would have trouble matching.
Which was also their primary weakness, because if it lost its link to the AI in the sky, an LS3 would become nothing more than a handy packhorse, falling back on basic programming to follow its master around like a small mule. You could get it to carry your junk for you, maybe tie a prisoner across its back, but it couldn’t do anything except follow you around until you managed to get an uplink again. Which was fine as long as you were working in bombed-out buildings with walls and roofs a radio signal could penetrate, but useless if you were in a concrete reinforced bunker.
The dogs were programmed to move at random intervals, not to freak out anyone watching, but to keep their joints evenly lubricated, and both Brutus and Spartacus chose that moment to stand and then settle on their haunches again. Jensen saw the Syrian flinch as they moved, and breathe out in relief as they settled again.
He holstered his Sig Saur and crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall.
War in the Middle East in the year 2030. It certainly wasn’t going to be fought the way his Pop had fought it in 1991.
Patience was not something Lieutenant Yevgeny Bondarev of the 7th Air Group, 7000th Air Base, had been born with an over-abundance of. And what little he had, had been sorely tested since he joined Russia’s Syrian Air Group from his squadron’s base in Chkalovsk.
Bondarev had been a cadet pilot at Armavir when border skirmishes between Syria and Turkey had blossomed into full-scale war. Bondarev was one of what his trainers called the Su-57 ‘Felon babies,’ the first generation of pilots brought in specifically to fly Russia’s new 5th-gen fighter, rather than transition across from older 4th-gen airframes. Russia had wanted to see what a new crop of pilots without any of the legacy habits of previous generations would be able to do with its most advanced fighter aircraft.
Not bloody much, had been Bondarev’s own conclusion. Not that they weren’t skilled at flying the Su-57 Felon by the time they graduated. But their instructors, like his new CO, Captain Dmitry Bebenko, were legacy thinkers, and had trained their pilots in exactly the same tactics as they had been trained in themselves. To Bondarev and his pilots, the Felon was made to roam the skies like a hawk on the prowl and pounce on its targets with unexpected speed and force. It was not made to fly like this, in strict finger-four formation, patrolling fixed waypoints 30,000 feet over Syria between Kilis and Kobani. He looked out over his port wing at the three other aircraft in his flight as they bobbed up and down alongside and ahead of him, their formation-keeping radar locking them in place beside the next aircraft in line.
If Bondarev had been General of the Air Army, he would free his force of twin-engined Felon stealth fighters to roam far and wide, alone or in pairs. Because a Felon pilot was never really alone: the Felon was able to pull data from orbiting early warning aircraft, other fighters or ground radar, giving it a commanding view of the battlesphere around it. And its unique IMA BK integrated avionics AI simultaneously performed the role of weapons operator, navigator and electronic flight engineer, freeing the pilot to concentrate on his tactical environment. Fewer aircraft would be needed because every Su-57 was worth four or five 4th-generation fighters.
But the commanding officers of the Syrian Air Group were all 4th-generation themselves, and were fighting this war the way they had fought over Georgia, the Ukraine and Syria before the Felon had entered service, with the same tactics. And don’t even get him started on their approach to the use of even newer aircraft like Russia’s Okhotnik (Hunter) unmanned combat aircraft!
The smaller Okhotnik was virtually invisible to radar, could get up close and personal with its targets, carry 2,000 lbs. of air-to-air or air-to-ground ordnance internally and 4,000 on external hardpoints, and complete high-G maneuvers that would render human pilots unconscious. Most importantly, tests early in its development had shown it could be successfully slaved to the Su-57’s IMA BK AI system and perform as a ‘virtual wingman’ in combat.
Had his far-thinking generals pursued this opportunity? No. Instead they had decided that the Okhotnik should be used like the older two-crew Su-30 Flankers, flown by a remote operator and a weapons officer sitting in a trailer five hundred miles from the battlefield! Now the system required two officers instead of none, and was relegated almost exclusively to ground attack missions like the drones of old.
Bebenko’s voice broke his train of thought. “Siniy Flight, Siniy Leader. I am showing a temperature anomaly on my port engine. I am returning to Khmeimim Air Base. Siniy Two, you stay with me. Siniy Three, you are flight leader. Keep a cool head and finish the patrol, Lieutenant Bondarev. Out.” With that, Bebenko’s aircraft peeled out of the formation, taking his wingman with him as it fell away toward the Russian airfield a hundred miles to the south, on the Syrian coast near Latakia.
Bondarev acknowledged the order and changed his flight status to lead aircraft, giving himself command authority over the weapons of his wingman’s aircraft if needed. Keep a cool head? He had done nothing but keep a cool head since arriving in theater. He had not fired a single shot in anger in the course of nearly ten sorties. And no wonder. One stealth fighter was almost impossible for Turkish ground or air-air radar to detect. Two in close formation were also highly unlikely to be picked up. But four, flying in a tight air-parade style formation? It was no wonder the timid Turkish F-16s had stayed well out of missile range on all of their patrols – any low-frequency ground radar or patrolling early warning aircraft could probably get a return off the formation. Not enough to plot an intercept perhaps, but enough to know they were there.
He keyed his mike, reaching out to his wingman, Second Lieutenant ‘Rap’ Tchakov. Rap was a ‘Felon baby’ like himself, and had gone through fighter school at Armavir at the same time, though in a different flight. He’d earned his nickname from the music he had thumping in his ears whenever he was lying on his bunk or working out at the Armavir gym. Checking that Captain Bebenko was truly disengaged and still moving away, Bondarev opened a channel to Tchakov.
“Welcome to the new century, Comrade Tchakov,” he said, unable to keep the smile out of his voice. “What say we fly these Felons the way we tried to tell them they should be flown, back in Armavir?”
“Roger that, Siniy Leader,” Rap replied eagerly. “Your orders?”
Bondarev called up his navigation screen. He would send Rap to cover the easternmost point of patrol route, and he would cover the westernmost point. “You patrol grids E47 and F47, I will cover D47 and F46. We overlap in the middle, over … Kobani. Understood?”
“Understood, Siniy Leader,” Rap replied. “You are perhaps hoping Turkey will think the sector is unprotected and will try to sneak a supply flight into Kobani?”
That was exactly what Bondarev was thinking. The Turkish and American quadrotors that delivered supplies to their besieged comrades at Kobani had an uncanny ability to sneak in through gaps in the Russian air patrols to resupply the forces there and evacuate the wounded. Or worse, to strike at Syrian ground forces with their ground attack aircraft. Bondarev’s plan was to split his force and create the impression of a gap.
This particular patrol had an added edge to it. The Russian Syrian Air Group had just received new orders, and new rules of engagement. They were no longer to shy away from combat with Coalition aircraft. Syrian forces were preparing for a final push on Kobani and Bondarev’s flight had orders to engage any and all hostile aircraft in the sector in an attempt to achieve air dominance in advance of the attack.<
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“Rap, I sincerely hope they will try,” Bondarev said. “It’s about time we showed our commanders what the Felon is really capable of.”
Royal Australian Air Force Flying Officer, Karen ‘Bunny’ O’Hare, was also looking forward to finding out what the Felon was capable of. Because until now, although she had heard a Felon squadron had been moved to Syria, she had yet to see any evidence of it. All she’d seen in two months of patrolling the Turkish border with RAAF 3 Squadron had been skittish fourth-gen Sukhoi-34s and Mig-35s which tended to operate deeper inside Syrian airspace and bug out at the first sign of Coalition fighters.
A ‘limited conflict’ they called it. Not war. Coalition forces were only authorized to engage Syrian forces, not Russian. Russian troops and aircraft focused their attacks on Turkish forces, not Coalition. On the ground, Iranian Republican Guard special forces backed their Syrian allies, US Marines shored up Turkish and Kurdish positions, and all the while, Israeli fighters were busy attacking Syrian troops in the west of the country, who were getting ready to move on the Golan Heights.
She wasn’t running Combat Air Patrols, she was ‘reinforcing the NATO mandated no-fly zone’. In a flight of F-35 Panthers loaded for bear. With rules of engagement which said she could fire on hostile aircraft if fired upon or ordered to engage.
But no, it wasn’t a war.
Listening to the panicked call for help now coming over her radio, you could have fooled Bunny O’Hare.
“Coalition flight Virtue Able, this is Sector Combat Control, vector to heading one two three degrees, twenty thousand feet. Turkish F-16 flight Delta Four Niner engaged with hostile aircraft. Buster. Acknowledge.” The Turkish Combat Controller (CCT) circling behind Turkish lines in a Boeing 737 Peace Eagle said with urgency in his voice.