Captain Elizabeth Mann had been the Commanding officer of the newest Reagan Class Supercarrier, USS Donald J. Trump, for the past year. Before that, she had spent a year as the executive officer on the USS William Clinton before she was promoted and given command of one of the new supercarriers. It had been a great honor; she had beaten out a lot of other officers for such an important command.
Captain Mann was nervous about this particular mission. Her carrier (along with her sister carrier, the USS Barrack Obama) were escorting the 32nd Infantry Division to invade the Kola Peninsula and the critical Russian naval base of Murmansk. The fleet was going to be sailing deep into Russian territory, and would be attacking what was perhaps their most important naval base in Russia. If the 32nd Infantry could secure the facility and the Peninsula, it might bring the war that much closer to being won. In addition to transporting the 32nd Infantry, she had been told they were also escorting 1,000 of these new humanoid Reaper combat drones. The senior captains were not given a lot of information about them during the pre-deployment brief, other than being told that they were going to change the way ground wars were going to be fought.
The fleet had three attack submarines running about 100 miles ahead of their position, and another two SUDs shadowing them in case any Russian subs managed to slip through their anti-submarine screen. Subs were her greatest concern. The USS Seawolf had managed to sink one of the enemy carrier ships in the decisive battle of Hawaii. She did not want to lose her ship or any other ship in the fleet to a sneak attack from below.
As the fleet continued to move further north into Russian waters, the weather remained cool and the water became choppier. Thus far, they had encountered little resistance from the Russians. The submarine screen had sunk two subs a couple of days earlier, and one of the fleet’s destroyers had also sunk an enemy submarine.
Unfortunately, three coastal raider ships had managed to slip past one of the American destroyer’s surface radars and fired off a volley of anti-ship missiles, sinking one of the destroyers and damaged another frigate. Some of the intelligence officers thought that the Russians had used some sort of new anti-ship radar technology that allowed the small ships to slip past them.
While the fleet continued to move closer to Murmansk, the ground forces that would be operating the new Reaper drones continued to train on them, trying to become as proficient with them as possible before their first big test.
Captain Paul Allen was still getting used to being on a ship. Of course, operating in a virtual reality simulator all day was not making it any easier. Once the Russian and Chinese began pulling the bulk of their forces out of Alaska, the 32nd Infantry Division had been pulled from the line and redeployed to the East Coast. Captain Allen’s brigade had been selected as operators for the new enhanced humanoid drone program. Seeing the Bodarks for the first time at the start of the New Year had been scary; however, the reality of the Reaper drones was nothing short of terrifying. Their flat silver grayish exteriors, menacing looking faces and glowing red eyes were unnerving. These new killing machines were truly science fiction nightmares.
After being selected for the EHD program, his company had spent a week in a classroom learning about the Reaper drones’ functions, how they worked, and what they could do. They spent another week learning basic maintenance of the drone, though the technicians assigned to each drone would handle the day-to-day maintenance. Following the familiarization of the drone, they were introduced to the equipment that would allow them to operate the machines.
The operation of the EHDs was similar in function to other virtual reality systems; there was a circular three-foot round platform that you stood on while wearing a special suit, shoes, gloves and headset. The shoes were frictionless, which essentially allowed the operators to walk or run in place on the platform. The users’ gestures and movements would be matched by the Reaper the soldier was paired to. If the soldier walked, the Reaper walked, if it ran, then the drone ran. When the soldier raised his simulated rifle, the drone would raise its rifle and engage whatever the soldier had placed in his or her sights. The drone was essentially a surrogate, doing the bidding of the soldier without risking the life of the soldier.
Allen’s soldiers had spent three weeks learning to operate in a virtual reality environment: conducting patrols, storming a beach, conducting house-to-house searches and any other combat scenarios that the trainers threw at them. They were given a week of leave to enjoy some downtime before their brigade boarded the USS America and head to Russia. The USS America was a massive amphibious assault ship that could transport 2,000 soldiers and their combat equipment anywhere in the world. Paul had never been on a naval ship before; as he approached the ship, he was amazed at how utterly enormous it was.
After boarding the ship, they were introduced to their new surroundings; the vessel would become their home for the next several months. Unlike the rest of the soldiers in their division, they would not be going ashore. They would be staying aboard the America, operating the suite of virtual reality stations that had been installed throughout the belly of the ship where the landing craft and vehicles used to be stored. Those areas had been converted into a space large enough to hold up to 600 virtual reality stations. The bays had been broken down by battalions and then companies. The aircraft bay was currently filled with the Reaper drones and the maintenance crews assigned to support them.
Because each of the drones were being operated by human beings with biological needs, the army created drone teams. Each team would consist of three drone pilots and three maintenance technicians. The plan was simple; one soldier would operate the drone in four hour intervals and then swap out with a team member. This would enable the drone to be operated twenty-four hours a day while in combat, and give the operators time to rest.
When the pods got dropped off out in the field, there was a whole system set up out there. Several Reaper drones would be activated in sentry mode to guard spare drones and drone parts. In that cluster of pods, there were also be a few that were designated maintenance pods, filled with spare parts and staffed with technicians to repair the Reapers as needed (these soldiers were not there to fight, but solely to support the EHDs in their mission). As drones became damaged or needed repair, a spare drone would be activated until the original was fully functional again. If the technicians were not able to fix one of the Reapers with the spare parts and tools on hand, then it would be flown back to the USS America for a more advanced maintenance crew to work on.
Between the rest of the division using the Raptor combat suits and the Reaper drones, the Russians would have no idea what hit them. It was hoped that the Army would be able to secure this northernmost Russian base and provide the Allies with a platform from which to launch further attacks deeper into the Russian mainland, pulling additional resources away from the frontlines in Eastern Europe.
After nearly two weeks at sea, the invasion force was nearing their launch position. As Captain Allen sat in the briefing room with the other battalion and company commanders, looking over their objectives, he couldn’t help but wonder if they were finally nearing the end of this bloody war. After nearly three years of combat, he was ready to be done with fighting.
The plan for the invasion was simple; the Reapers would be flown in via the Razorbacks to assault the Severomorsk naval base along with regular troops who had been equipped with the Raptor exoskeleton suits. Once they landed, the first wave of EHD pods would be delivered and the Reapers would then begin to fan out and secure the facility. The same process would be replicated all throughout the peninsula as small units in Raptor suits secured various landing sites for the Reaper pods and then let the drones go do the dangerous and dirty work of securing the broader area. Once the port facilities were fully secured, the transport ships would move down the channel to offload the armored vehicles. The Air Force would work on getting the nearby airfields up and running while several squadrons of fighter drones and additional Razorbacks were flown into the area.