Myers turned away from the slaughter to focus on his survivors. He cupped his hands and yelled at a group of men fifty yards away. One of them rose to a knee and flashed a thumb up. “XO! Glad you made it. We need to get this mess organized and get the unit moving again!”
Before Myers took two steps in his direction, the executive officer, and all the other soldiers, came apart in a tornado of air-bursting flechette rounds. Myers roared in impotence.
“No fucking way!”
The colonel screamed at the six Fed planes swirling above, all dodging his missiles with ease. One executed an insanely tight barrel roll that should have blacked out even the toughest pilot. The jet slid right out of an oncoming Stinger’s engagement envelope.
The whole time, the magic jet never stopped spewing pinpoint accurate death in all directions. “Impossible.”
Myers was still shaking his head when one flashed past and squirted off a perfectly placed shot in his chest.
“Look, no hands!” A thousand miles from the massacre, two young federal drone operators high-fived. The drone manufacturer’s sales rep grinned from behind them.
“See? Exactly as promised, General. Reaction time, accuracy, survivability- we’ve exceeded your metrics by orders of magnitude. If you think these 50 Sky Hunters were impressive, could you imagine 1,000 roaming the skies? How long are we going to mess around with these trials? I can have the first batch of 100 delivered within two weeks, if you place the order today.”
The federal general didn’t know what to say. These fully autonomous ground attack drones, based on the proven A-10 Warthog manned platform, worked better than advertised. That alone was a shocking experience.
The real fancy came from the next-generation, pattern recognition software collecting data from all the drone’s networked cameras. This unprecedented total awareness, all fed into a self-teaching AI unit, kicked this toy up to a whole new level. The miniaturized supercomputer controlling each of these killers alone cost more than the plane and ordinance.
So far, the Air Force had only used the sci-fi technology to augment human eyes. The system would flag suspicious vehicles or personnel and a human operator always made the decision to engage. Today though, in a true emergency and with the enemy in a Free Fire Area with no civilians or friendlies around…
Well, the Air Force made the call to take the middleman out of the equation.
For the first time in history, robots were pulling the trigger. The US had outsourced every aspect of the process, from target acquisition to engagement, to the machines. The only thing they hadn’t automated was the burial detail.
Uncomfortable or not, the federal general couldn’t argue with the results. Ten of the fifty Sky Hunters crashed or were shot down, but that just meant they’d saved the lives of ten pilots. His eyes rested on the uncanny battle damage assessment report. The robots had neutralized 98.5 % of identified targets. Twenty-five hundred enemy combatants dead or wounded, without putting a single one of his people in harm’s way.
All in a mere six minutes.
Hollywood didn’t have shit on these Terminators. “How many can you deliver by the end of the week?”
The rep licked his gums, savoring the flavor of his juicy bonus commission. “Well, we could rush production and get the next 100 airborne in only five days, but it’ll cost triple.”
With the new Rapid Fielding Initiative, there was little bureaucratic oversight on procurement for the general to wade through. The only limitation was his budget.
Which, in wartime, was far from thin.
The general shook the rep’s clammy hand. “You got a deal.”
Chapter 5
“Where the hell is our harbor pilot?”
After six weeks of stalking about the South Pacific to avoid US naval patrols, the Vietnamese freighter captain wasn’t in the mood to wait.
“Captain, no one’s responding. It’s pure static on every channel. Like no one’s there.”
Manzanillo wasn’t a mom and pop operation. This was the largest Mexican deep-water port on the Pacific coast. With the US blockade up north, that made it the primary gateway to the entire western United States. Nowadays, one of the most bustling ports in the world.
Hairs prickled on the back of the captain’s neck. What seemed like a dozen CONEX-laden ships lazily coasting into port was deceptive. Every ship was dead in the water. They’d clearly been waiting a while. Something wasn’t right.
At the head of the line, a sleek gray vessel slid into view. She was launching and recovering several small boats. The rubber dinghies dropped off armed sailors on each freighter ahead. The captain caught sight of a small turret on the ship’s prow.
“Oh shit. That’s a destroyer. An American one!”
His first mate shook his head. “Can’t be. We’re in Mexican territorial waters. Even those cowboys aren’t that crazy.”
An English voice, with that distinctive pillow-in-the-mouth American accent, mumbled over the radio.
“To all you new ships: prepare to receive boarders. We’re sending prize crews. Any vessel that resists will be sunk with all hands onboard, no quarter given. This is your first, last and only warning.”
The captain slumped into his chair. It was unlikely they could dump their cargo in time. Most of their “industrial goods” had clear military uses. He clapped his first mate on the shoulder. “I hope you have some savings to pay for a lawyer. It doesn’t look like we’re getting paid for this trip.”
His executive officer fumed. “I don’t think these Americans are too interested in the law either way.”
The normally reserved president of Mexico bounced out of his chair, spittle flying into the camera. “This is illegal! An outright violation of our national sovereignty and every standard of international decency. Mr. President, you can call your actions whatever you please, but I’m going before the United Nations to denounce this outright piracy! I will formally request armed peacekeepers to repel this unwarranted invasion.”
On the other end of the video conference, the president of the United States lost his cool.
“You know what this is? This is war! Mr. President, we’ve begged, pleaded, threatened and bargained with your government, but you refuse to stop supporting our domestic terrorists. As far as we’re concerned, you’ve chosen a side. The Senate is meeting right now to vote, but that’s just a formality. As of this moment, thanks to your personal actions, a de facto state of war exists between the United States of America and the United Mexican States.”
The president of Mexico worked his jaw for a good minute before he mustered a coherent response. How could things get so out of control? Armed conflict against his most important trading partner… and strongest military power in the world. Just a month ago, this was unthinkable. On the other hand, with those western rebels falling apart and the US on the warpath, maybe he was playing with fire. The Mexican president counted to ten and swallowed his Latin pride.
“Sir, there has surely been some terrible misunderstanding. Mexico has taken a neutral stance from the beginning of this conflict. We have no interest in getting involved in America’s internal affairs. Now, if smugglers have corrupted some members of our customs and border patrol services, I’ll do everything in my power to root them out. Please be rational; it’s not reasonable to hold the whole country responsible for the actions of a few criminals.”