Sanders looked around. “Good job getting this set up. You think they’re ready?”
“They better be. I didn’t come all this way for nothing. You brief your people?” Ricks asked.
Sanders nodded. The officers had a separate briefing this first time. From here on, everything would be done together. “Finished up about ten minutes ago. They should get here any minute. I’ll sit everyone down for a final brief when everyone s here. Where are you placing yourself?”
“Right beside you, Colonel. I’ll personally go between the squads as this thing progresses, but I can help by pointing things out as we go along. We’re lucky the Russians like their sleep. Them stopping their advance at night gives us just the right chance to get in there and get the job done. If they were still moving, this would be a royal pain,” said Ricks.
“I agree. So let’s count our blessings.” The Colonel looked around the room. Everyone appeared to be there. “Let’s get this started,” he said.
Moving toward the front of the room, someone called everyone to attention. Sanders had them take their seats, and then addressed the crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen, today we are going to make some history. This is a new technology and a new kind of warfare. More importantly, we are going to do what we can to stop, or at least hinder the advance of our enemy. But what we do today is no different than what an army has done since the beginning. We go in, destroy an enemy, and go home. Only this time, instead of doing it by carrying in a gun, we do it by sending the drones you control. We still destroy and enemy, but in this case, we don’t put you, the people with the weapon, at risk.
“But like any soldier, you follow the directions of your sergeants and the officers over you. You all know where you are going to go. You have all been assigned a sector. Do everything you can to eliminate every threat in that sector. You must make sure you don’t double hit any target. If you can’t get them all in the first go round, get them in the second. Remember, you have limited time on station. Remember you only have five rounds. Once you are empty, hit the return button and get these things back home. Once they’re back, we go out again with a second batch. The idea is to keep hitting them until they don’t want to advance. It’s a big job.”
“Your workday begins in ten minutes. It goes on until dawn. Then we will come back together and assess what we’ve done. We will do this every night beginning tonight. So get used to sleeping during the day. One thing to remember though. We are very close to the front. If you don’t stop these guys, you won’t get sleep, because they will be on top of us before you can wake up. So make all this work. Now man your stations.”
The men and women began sitting down at their consoles. Each group checked in with their sergeant and platoon leaders. On the large screen indicators for all of the drones were clumped together at a point just over a mile from their targets. Lines, delineating the different sectors were already drawn on the screen for people to reference if they needed. Each drone had a number and letter. On signal, the Colonel watched as the large clump of drones began separating and moving towards the enemy.
***
It was not enough sleep, but Nicolai Sokovsky was ready for another day of operations. Things so far had gone very well. The few tanks and troops they had encountered had been no match for the firepower of his tank. He had spent part of the night making sure a faulty train switch had been repaired so that he didn’t have to train the heavy turret by hand. His crew was standing beside the tank, talking. Two of the men were still munching on their morning biscuit. He was about to order his men into the tank when a strange buzzing sound seemed to grow around them. It sounded a lot like a swarm of bees. “What is that?” he asked.
It was the last thing he uttered as a series of shots rang out, dropping him and one other in his crew. As the others reached out to help their comrades, they too were shot. All across the compound shots rang out. In a panic, some of the guards thought that an enemy force had infiltrated the area and opened fire with their machine gun. They were still firing when two shots rang out nearby, killing the gunners and silencing the machine gun.
The sound of the bees moved away, further back behind the lines. More shots rang out around the mess tent where men had been eating. Three men were shot while using a latrine.
General Andre Kamerovic heard the shots and stepped out of his command tent. “What is going on here?” he shouted. All around him men were running back and forth trying to get to where the shots were being fired. He quickly began running toward the sound.
***
“Look at that fat one,” said one of the drone operators.
“Nail his ass,” said the sergeant.
***
As the general stopped to try and get a perspective on what was going on, another shot rang out. He fell to the ground with a bullet in his head.
***
“I’m out,” said the operator.
“Then bring it back home,” said the sergeant.
The operator pressed the return button and watched as the drone lifted itself up to a height of about 500 feet and begin moving back toward friendly lines.
In the back of the room, Colonel Sanders watched in amazement. “Son of a bitch,” he exclaimed under his breath. “Get them all back and go for a second round. Call in to headquarters. Tell them it worked and I recommend we plow the field,” he said.
In a headquarters back in Germany, Roger Hammond watched as almost the entire Russian line was attacked by the drones. When the report came in from Sanders, he turned to Dortmund and Pol. “It’s time, gentlemen. Do your worst,” he said.
***
In an old abandoned coal mine near the border with Ukraine, the sound of engines starting pierced the pre-dawn morning. Huge steel doors suddenly swung open and German Leopard tanks began sprinting out of the deep shafts and making their way northward. Completely bypassed by the Russians, who had no interest in old mines, the older shafts contained nearly two hundred of the tanks, along with trucks and infantry. All of them sprinted north.
The same thing happened along the Russian border near the Baltic Sea. These tanks and infantry began sprinting south. This was repeated in three additional areas with the primary objective of closing in behind the Russian assault and cutting it off.
They were late. For some reason, the targeting computer began giving fits just one hour before launch. The entire fire control team dove into it, only to find a cold solder joint in one of the circuits. Captain Gary Frye was already upset that this had caused the ship to miss their launch window, but the missiles would fly no matter what.
“How long before we get everything loaded,” he asked calmly.
“Five minutes, Captain,” said the Chief Fire Controlman.
The captain turned to the other side of the room. “Contacts?”
“Five contacts, Captain. All of them are way beyond reach. Closest is forty miles away.”
The Captain looked at his XO. “Still a little too close for me, but looks like we are stuck with it.” He turned back to his men. “Any coming this way?”
“None, Captain,” said the sonar watch.
“Looks like it won’t get any better than this,” he said to the men in general. “Ready all launch tubes. Set general quarters.”
The muted claxon sounded and everyone aboard the giant missile submarine ran to their general quarters stations. The Michigan had been a ballistic missile submarine, but at the end of the cold war, she had been modified to carry only cruise missiles and torpedoes. Only once before had Michigan launched all her missiles. That had been six years earlier during the Korean War. Now she would do so again, except this time it would be against a nation she had been designed to go up against in the first place.