It was also possible, he added, that it was just bad luck — the planes took off, then happened to see an enemy.
Turk had his own theory: spies were watching the Sicily base and sending information back to Libya when different planes took off. It wouldn’t be too much more difficult for a spy to infiltrate the allied command responsible for targeting or scheduling the aircraft.
He had other worries at the moment. While he was engaging the Mirages, the Sabres had begun their programmed attack. Unlike older UAVs such as Predators and Raptors, or even the Dreamland-designed Flighthawks, the Sabres featured what the geeks called “distributed autonomous intelligence.” That actually involved two different features: first, the Sabres pooled resources (“distributed”), sharing not only their sensor data but their processing power; second, the Sabres were allowed to make their own battle decisions (“autonomous”). Not only did they decide the best route to battle, but they could pick their own targets.
This was highly controversial, even within the military. Robots were used all the time in battle, but a man ultimately pulled the trigger. While the aircraft were under Turk’s command and he could override at any point, they were every bit as capable a human pilot of fighting on their own.
The aircraft were targeting a government tank formation near Wadi al-Hayat. Located at the north side of a small cluster of hills, the camp looked out over a wide expanse of desert. There were several towns and villages in the area. These were claimed as loyal to the government, but that status was in doubt. If recent history was a guide, the inhabitants would join the rebels as soon as a sizable force got close. And that would happen once the tanks were destroyed.
The primary targets were T–72s, venerable Russian-made armor equipped with 125mm main guns. The tanks had not been used in either this war or the 2011 conflict, but were nonetheless operational; they had moved up to their present position only a few days before. The Libyan government had recently obtained a shipment of ammunition on the black market.
The attack plan was simple. The UAVs carried four antiarmor Hellfire missiles each, had been given four tanks as targets, and would attack much as a group of manned attack planes. The autonomous programming in the UAVs allowed them to do this without human guidance or input, though Turk could intervene and redirect the attack if he wished.
Turk had run a half-dozen missions along these very same lines, and with the exception of the Mirages, this looked to be as routine as all the others. Using a hand gesture — his flight suit was specially wired to interpret gestures in conjunction with the command context, or the screen displayed on his visor — he pulled up the overall sitrep map. This was a large area plot that superimposed the positions of all four Sabres as well as the Tigershark on a satellite image. The real-time sitrep showed the four UAVs coming in exactly as programmed, flying at about fifty feet over the sand dunes just northwest of the encampment.
That made it difficult for the mobile SA–6 antiaircraft battery protecting the camp to spot them, let alone target them. A pair of ZSU–23 four-barreled mobile antiaircraft weapons were parked in their path, but the radar-equipped weapons had apparently not found them either; all was quiet as the small UAVs approached.
Turk had taken the Tigershark some one hundred miles to the southwest as he engaged the Mirages. He now swung back to get a view of the attack. He was still about fifty miles away — well beyond the range even of the high-powered optical cameras the Tigershark carried — as the first aircraft reached its attack point.
“Visual preset two,” he told the computer. “Image screen B Sabre One.”
The command opened a new window on his virtual cockpit screen, displaying the feed from Sabre One.
Turk watched the aircraft launch a pair of missiles at the command and control vans for the SA–6 site. Launched from approximately five miles away, the Sabre’s missiles used an optical guidance system to find their targets: the small sensors in their head essentially looked at the terrain, identified their targets based on preprogrammed profiles — photos, in this case — and flew at them. This meant that there was no signal from the missiles or their launch planes to alert the defenses to their presence; the first thing the Libyans knew of the attack were the explosions, which occurred almost simultaneously.
The destruction of the two vans rendered the missile battery useless, but the enemy’s SA–6 missiles themselves were still relatively high-value targets, and as soon as the destruction was recorded, Sabre One’s combat computer pushed the plane into a second wave attack on the launchers, two tanklike chassis sporting three missiles instead of a turret.
The first strike created an enormous secondary explosion, shrapnel and powder shooting across the complex. The Sabre’s second missile disappeared into a cloud of smoke; a bright burst of flame confirmed that it, too, had hit its target.
Turk switched over to Sabre Two, which was aiming at one of the ZSU antiaircraft guns. It fired two missiles. Both hit. Still on the same approach, the aircraft dished out another pair of projectiles, this time at separate targets, having used the success of the first launch to decide it could go with just one shot per tank.
Meanwhile, Sabre Three initiated its own attack on the second ZSU gun and the nearby tanks. Using the data from Sabre One, it computed that one missile was all it needed to eliminate each target. It dished one at the gun, then fired three more in rapid succession, each aimed at a different tank.
By now Turk was close enough to see the battlefield through his own optical sensors. He closed the feed and expanded his screen, which duplicated in extremely high definition what he would have seen if the sleek Tigershark had a real canopy. Six plumes of black and gray smoke rose from the encampment, stark contrasts against the light blue sky and the gaudy yellow of the sand in the distance.
As he approached, Turk turned to get in line with a highway that ran through the area. The annual rains and an underground water supply combined to make the foothills suitable for agriculture, and a patchwork of tiny farm fields appeared under his nose. The squares were groves of citrus and olive trees, planted and tended by families that had lived here for generations. A little farther out were circles of green, round patches fed by pivot irrigation systems.
There was a flash of red in the far right corner of Turk’s screen. He pointed his hand and told the computer to magnify.
It was a house, suddenly burning in a hamlet about four miles from the tank base. A black shadow passed overhead.
Sabre Four.
“What the hell?” sputtered Turk.
He watched in disbelief as a missile was launched from under the wing of the aircraft. The missile flew level for a few hundred feet, then dove down into the roof of what looked like a large barn. The building imploded immediately, setting up a huge cloud of dust and debris.
“Abort, abort, abort!” said Turk. “Sabre command computer, abort all attacks. Return immediately to base. Repeat, abort!”
“Authorize?” Direct command confirmation was necessary to override the preset attack plan.
“Authorization Captain Turk Mako.”
Turk added a stream of curses even as the planes complied. He saw Sabre Four pull up and continue south, away from the settlement. Farther west, two other UAVs rose from their attack runs, missiles still clinging to their wings. The synthesized image included small tags under each, showing their IDs: SABRE 2 and SABRE 3.
He couldn’t see the other plane. Where was it?
“Sabre One, status,” said Turk.
“Optimal status,” responded the computer. “Responding to abort command.”
“Locate visually.”