Repulse: Europe at War 2062-2064 (27 page)

During the day of 6 August, the Caliphate mounted repeated attacks across the majority of NATO’s frontlines.  Wave after wave of Blackswans and Lapwings was stopped by Scythes.  US Marine Unity Reeves, on the frontline near Nantes, spoke contemptuously: ‘This is one-dimensional warfare, it’s a joke, lots of pretty contrails in the sky, lots of shrieks and bangs and hunks of metal crashing down in the fields and towns, but where are their tactics? The ragheads either disappear or fight as isolated units and companies.  They got no artillery, and our ACAs are better than theirs.  Since the invasion we’ve lost more troops in accidents than combat.’

Reeves and many other troops may have enjoyed a similar sense of superiority, but it was misplaced.  Less than two hours after speaking those words, Reeves’s section of the front came under attack from a new, upgraded Lapwing and her unit was among those which suffered 100% casualties.  General Ty Mitchell, watching the drama unfold from behind the lines, ordered reserve Scythe units to be sent from England.  An assistant monitoring the progress of the attack later recalled: ‘The General didn’t seem to realise that the SkyMaster had already called in more Scythes.  To be fair, this was the first time the enemy used this version of the Lapwing, and it was quite scary.  The SkyMaster told us the machines in this wave were taking more hits than they should, so it was taking more effort to knock them out.  Before the battalion had suffered a single casualty, we knew this was something new, something tougher.  In many ways it was our worst nightmare.  You don’t want to be in the middle of an invasion and the enemy deploys a better weapon than you thought he had.’

General Mitchell and the others could do little to assist the frontline troops who found themselves obliged to take whatever defensive action was available to them.  As would be established soon after the attack, the Caliphate had improved the efficiency of the muon-crystallised power units in its ACAs to a level approaching that which NATO scientists achieved six months previously with the Scythe.  However, the attack was well advanced before the new Lapwings joined it.  In
A History of Warfare in the 21st Century
, Victoire Tasse concludes that: ‘Such had the nature of warfare advanced, that there remained little room for conjecture.  Super AI devices were by this point able to extrapolate conclusions from the minimum of evidence.  Thus it was that NATO soldiers both on the frontline and in the rear areas were alerted to the seriousness of the threat which now approached.’

By 16.30, NATO forces had destroyed nearly a quarter of a million Caliphate ACAs for loss of half that number of Scythes.  However, this two-to-one ratio began to shift against the Scythes as the new Lapwings probed NATO’s forward areas at dozens of villages and towns in France and Belgium.  For the first time since the invasion, many frontline NATO troops found themselves in mortal danger.

Twenty-two year old Private Felicity Lowe described what happened on her section of the front at Eindhoven: ‘The ACA battle had been going for a couple of hours.  We were advancing slowly through a lightly forested area, following normal infantry tactics.  Then our Squitches told us we only had a few seconds to find cover.  That wasn’t going to happen so most of us hit the ground.  I had a Challenger about a hundred metres away from me and felt relieved - at least it was some defence.  I think a lot of us worried we might get hit with something like the nerve agent they used on the capitals.  It was almost a relief when a Lapwing came zinging down from the clouds and started setting the tress and fields on fire.  The laser was invisible, but if you listened closely you could hear a kind clicking as it fired the pulses.  It came in low and the Challenger let off a couple of shells which exploded in blue in the Lapwing’s face.  I remember a lot of shouting.  My Squitch kept repeating in my ear, “Take cover,” so I turned it down.  A few of the company were running towards denser forest, but I doubted that was the thing to do.  The Lapwing turned suddenly and made another run at the Challenger.  The tank fired more shells, but I could feel the heat coming from it from where I lay and didn’t think it could last much longer.  The Lapwing changed tack and whizzed away to burn most of D Company, who’d been right out in the open.  I got up and ran past Dan, who had his shovel out and was furiously trying to dig in, and told him not to be an idiot.’

Private Lowe decided that some movement was better than none, and her regiment took more casualties under the Lapwing’s attention.  The Challenger tank brewed up but reinforcements had driven south to come to her regiment’s aid.  An additional four Challengers brought the Lapwing down after repeated shelling finally broke through its enhanced shielding.  Private Lowe was surprised to find herself still alive and uninjured: ‘The forested areas were mostly on fire, and the fields to the south were covered in drifting smoke.  That was the odd thing about the lasers: apparently total destruction gave way to a tree or patch of ground that was completely untouched.  I wandered around and found Dan’s shovel, but not Dan.’

Further to the south, outside Brussels, Captain Joel Harding ordered his company of Rifles to scatter among the ruined buildings of Anderlecht and take cover: ‘We’d spotted some enemy on the far side of the canal when the Lapwing turned up out of nowhere, barely a single warning from our Squitches.  I ordered the Falarete carriers to stand by in case we’d have to face Spiders as well, then I sent most of the troops to take cover.  We had half a dozen Abrahams ahead of us and I knew the SkyMaster would bring them back for fire support.  The Lapwing came zooming up and down the streets, blowing already-ruined buildings even more to bits.  Through the smoke, I saw Corporal Smith clamber up the bent steel rods poking out of the side of what used to be a two-storey apartment block.  I assumed he had decided to commit suicide by Caliphate ACA.  The climb took him a few minutes, all the while with the Lapwing firing off its laser at anything which moved.  Smith reached the top, un-holstered his shoulder-held Falarete, and shot the Lapwing down.  I don’t think anyone had ever done that before.  Incredibly brave, if very foolhardy.  But it got him a Victoria Cross.’

Nevertheless, after Corporal Smith had earned the gratitude of his country and the engagement ended, the warriors on the other side of the canal were nowhere to be seen.  In hundreds of engagements the length of the front, only in two places did warriors in larger than company strength attempt to regain lost ground.  Sir Terry Tidbury, shortly to move his headquarters to France, wondered aloud at the situation briefing on 7 August why the Caliphate appeared to be making little effort to reverse the invasion.  MI5 Head David Perkins suggested that warfare itself had now evolved to where the machines really decided victor and vanquished.  As the Caliphate demonstrated the previous year, without control of the airspace above the battlefield, warriors or troops on the ground faced certain defeat, and control of that airspace was decided by autonomous machines which, the rare Corporal Smiths of the world notwithstanding, operated at speeds no human could match.  The meeting continued with a sober analysis of the previous day’s casualties: twenty-one thousand NATO troops killed or injured, which almost equalled the total number of Caliphate warrior casualties since the invasion began.  Although no ground had been lost, the Caliphate’s counterattack was not entirely wasted.  Sir Terry would later describe his feelings during this situation briefing in
In the Eye of the Storm
: ‘Perkins spoke sound commonsense, but my thoughts were elsewhere.  That the Caliphate had produced an improved weapon did not really surprise me, but I felt certain it was being manufactured at Tazirbu.  While I did not wish the success of Repulse to rest on Hastings and his team, that day I was a little distracted wondering what had become of Operation Thunderclap.’

IX. HASTINGS ATTACKS

Gen. Hastings had been delayed.  As Capt. Dixon described it in
Sightseeing in Tazirbu
: ‘We had to spend more time than we anticipated reconnoitring the ACA manufacturing plant.  As the General anticipated, the plant consisted of a number of separate facilities, each of which would have to be attacked.  We could safely reconnoitre only during darkness.  One of the small technological luxuries we allowed ourselves were some out-dated night-vision goggles.  These were cumbersome and uncomfortable compared to the modern soldier’s range of battle-management equipment, however they emitted a sufficiently low level of power that we should avoid detection.  On the first night, we split up: the General went south; Palmer and I skirted around the city to look at the plant from the north and east; while Bird and Gardner would have the least travelling to check the west side, close to the metropolis.’

Hastings and his team all returned to their Lying-Up Point (LUP) before daybreak on 7 August.  They spent the day hidden in a wadi which Capt. Dixon considered a dry riverbed.  They selected five key locations among the facilities which made up the plant.  Dixon continues: ‘The most important facility to knock out was the one which either manufactured or assembled the muon-catalysed power units.  From our research, we could not be sure which facility housed it, and none of us had much enthusiasm to investigate further.  Bird and Gardner had done good work, identifying the final assembly facility from which we suspected the ACAs left the plant.  This was confirmed mid-morning when a vast siren blared out across the city.  Palmer said: “Time for prayers, boys!” and then we all stared as ACAs began leaving the plant.  They hissed out across the sky a few kilometres in front of us.  This continued until nightfall, and we estimated upwards of ten thousand machines left, bound presumably for Europe.’

When Hastings’ team finished watching the ACAs leave to vex NATO forces in Europe, they resolved to lay the sonic mines that evening.  One condition on which Hastings had insisted before Operation Thunderclap began was that each man should return to the coast separately.  Assuming the mines would destroy the plant, local forces would very quickly begin searching for the perpetrators, and the odds would be better if each man went alone.  Now, however, Palmer’s Triumph motorbike lay buried under sand outside the city and he and Dixon were obliged to travel together.  Bird and Gardner would be the first to leave, as they had the shortest distance from their target to the LUP.  After at least two more hours, Dixon and Palmer would follow, using a different route fifty kilometres further east.  Hastings would remain until the mines detonated, and would take a different route back to the coast.

Thus in the evening of 7 August, the five soldiers split up to carry out the sabotage. Captain Dixon describes at great length how he and Palmer placed their six mines close to the perimeter fence around the facility they believed responsible for assembling and fitting munitions.  However, they then had to hide for a substantial time when a group of armed guards patrolled the perimeter.  As Dixon writes: ‘Palmer whispered to me, “If they notice those mines, we’re for the chop.”  Both of us felt in our holsters for our semi-automatic pistols, and I wondered again how many chances I’d get to reload it if trouble began.’

The guards eventually moved off.  Although not compromised, Dixon and Palmer had been delayed.  The Captain describes the tension as the men made their way back to the LUP to find Hastings waiting for them.  The three would have to leave together as the mines were set to go off in a few moments.  They left the LUP and rode out to a safe distance.  The appointed minute came and went without any sign of detonation.  After some discussion, Hastings ordered Palmer and Dixon to set off for the coast, while he would return to establish what had gone wrong.  The two subordinates rode out some distance before resolving to wait for the General.  As Dixon writes: ‘Abruptly, there came a deep thumping sound.  The city trembled and then shuddered.  Palmer and I felt a distinct ripple go through the rock and sand around us.  At once Palmer said: “The General’s bought it,” and I felt inclined to believe him.  Then we witnessed the spectacle of a city collapsing like a house of cards blown over.’

The sonic mines, which utilised nano-technology to create ultralow sound waves, appeared to destroy not only the key facilities at the ACA manufacturing plant, but much of the metropolis of Tazirbu as well.  In addition to Dixon’s and Palmer’s testimony, earthquake monitoring stations in ten different countries from Asia to South America detected the tremor, and all estimated the movement at 6.8 on the Richter scale.  However, none could claim this was an earthquake in the traditional sense, as the tremor lasted a mere seven seconds.  Nevertheless, this was sufficient to remove Tazirbu, its ACA production plant, and the bulk of its citizens from the war.

It now seems unlikely that what became of General Hastings, Captain Bird and Sergeant Gardner will ever be known.  Dixon and Palmer returned to the coast and waited aboard
Warspite
a further three days before the submarine’s captain ordered his ship to submerse and begin the return journey to Faslane.  As Dixon wrote in
Sightseeing in Tazirbu
: ‘Both Palmer and I would gladly swap places with the others.  Each of us feels to have had the raw end of the deal.  In my mind, there is no doubt the General rectified the fault with the detonators and remained to ensure Thunderclap succeeded.  As for Bird and Gardner, I am reduced to conjecture.  The desert in North Africa is a large space, and without the benefit of modern technology it would be a very easy thing to become lost.  I wonder if those ancient motorcycles did not break as Palmer’s had on the way there.  Possibly some Caliphate ACA may have stumbled across them and dealt them a fatal blow.  On the other hand, I shudder to think how they might have coped if both of their bikes failed them and they were reduced to travelling on foot without a water replicator in the burning desert heat.  In the last analysis, Thunderclap succeeded, and the Caliphate’s ability to interfere with Repulse had been severely lessened.’