Repulse: Europe at War 2062-2064 (29 page)

The generals gave the new device their approval, until the designs landed on Sir Terry Tidbury’s desk.  In
In the Eye of the Storm
, Sir Terry complained: ‘Some of the generals were becoming a little too comfortable with the progress of Repulse.  At the start of the invasion, I felt confident I had made the best appointments I could, but as time passed, I sensed some battlefield complacency creeping in.  Each general mainly concerned himself with his own sector of the front, so when this new tactic arose, there was a fear among them that the casualties were getting too high, and a delay would be in order until the countermeasure android could be deployed.  However, this was the kind of problem I believed we could not let delay the advance.  We had no way of knowing how long the plant at Tazirbu would be out of action.  I wondered often if the Caliphate had more advanced construction replicators than us and could rebuild their manufacturing facilities quicker than we estimated.  Repulse could not be delayed.  At that time I entertained strong hopes of regaining Europe before the year was out.’

Sir Terry would see those hopes dashed, but at the end of August new designs were finalised for the next generation of NATO weapons.  From Aldermaston to California, the democracies used every resource to produce a weapon which would not only guarantee success against the Caliphate, but ensure Europe’s security to prevent any repeat of the events of 2062. However, the enemy had also not been idle.  While handicapped by its rigid command structure and distracted from the European theatre by the on-going standoff with India, when the Third Caliph did decree a course of action, it was invariably carried out with an efficiency which only the threat of severe punishment for failure can engender.  Thus it was with the deployment of the Caliphate’s first and only super-AI battle tank.  Designed inside the Caliphate and assigned the NATO reporting name ‘Moose’, the tank was manufactured at captured facilities in Europe.

On 3 September on the approach to Hannover, lead elements of the Polish 34th were skirting a large lake among fields and forested areas.  Suddenly, according to one private: ‘… the Abrahams all began taking hits.  We heard loud pops and saw flashes of blue from their shielding on the far side of the lake.  A pair of Scythes came screaming in and we took cover and waited while they dealt with whatever the holdup was.  It took them a while, so we knew it wasn’t just some ragheads being awkward.’  The Moose was based on a dated German Leopard design, armed with shells captured during the Caliphate’s invasion the previous year, and boasted a similar strength of shielding as the British Challenger.  On its own, it could not change the course of the war, but certain of the Caliphate’s commanders at divisional level and above clearly realised the imperative to slow NATO’s advance by all possible means.

Given the battle casualty figures for the first three weeks of Repulse, the NATO armies understood that many thousands of warriors must be retreating, and as time passed concern rose at where, when and how these formations might stage a counterattack.  While NATO forces retained control of the airspace there was little chance of the course of Repulse being reversed, but this did not mean that the Third Caliph would not order ground to be held at all costs.  Sir Terry Tidbury called this: ‘… the “Hitler Option”, in which the retreating forces could only delay the inevitable, but in doing so might still inflict painful losses on our own troops.’  Unknown to Sir Terry and the rest of NATO, the previous day the Third Caliph had decreed that Repulse was to be stopped and reversed.  Reconstruction of the plant at Tazirbu continued and, having learned the lesson of vulnerability, Caliphate authorities expanded other existing weapons facilities and began constructing new plants.  As battles raged on a thirteen-hundred-kilometre front from Bordeaux to Hamburg, each side became locked in a race to develop and deploy new weapons before the other.

XIII. PROGRESS SLOWS

In September, the Caliphate’s response to NATO’s advance began to differ on a number of localised fronts.  After the war, evidence came to light which indicated local commanders were afforded an element of freedom to decide how best to delay NATO troops.  All of the leading NATO armies found sectors of their fronts abruptly held up as Scythes and tanks required more time to clear approaches to villages, towns and cities.  Gen. Sir Patrick Fox, in charge of British First Corps’ advance into central and southern Germany, wrote testily in a report to the Field Marshall: ‘Our “honeymoon” period would appear to be over.  The enemy is taking decisive steps to slow our progress, and as a result Repulse may suffer delays.  The addition of the Moose tank is becoming more than a hindrance.  I had to relieve Colonel Porter of his command when the Ox & Bucks dithered in front of Bonn for seventy-two hours.  In addition to coordinated Caliphate ACA/tank defensive manoeuvres, I have the feeling that troops are becoming wary of the threat of hidden, dormant Spiders.  Brigadier Sutton reported that the androids we’ve begun deploying are failing to detect them due to the low level of electronic emissions.  It also does not help matters that a Spider, even in its dormant state, is quite capable of identifying whether its enemy is composed of flesh and blood or not.’

The General’s frustrations were shared by many other commanders.  Throughout September, NATO lost over three thousand officers and other ranks to hidden Spider attacks.  In one typical case, a captain of the German 21st Armoured was killed while leading his men into the outskirts of Kassel. Twenty-one-year-old Private Hans Behrend witnessed the incident and said afterwards: ‘The captain was that kind of man - lead by example.  We had the all-clear from the Scythes and the tanks to proceed towards the town centre, but it was as if the whole platoon felt jinxed.  The day before, we had lost one of our Falarete team to a Spider and we thought the whole of Kassel bristled with them, and they were waiting for us.  He sensed that, I think, so decided to give us a lesson in foolhardiness, or bravery, depending on how one looks at it.  He strode off ahead of us and we followed sheepishly, like children that were misbehaving in front of a parent.  Suddenly, the Spider clattered out of a pile of rubble and click-clacked up to the captain in a second.  He actually had just enough time to bring his Pickup to bear on the machine, but it wrapped its claws around him and detonated.’

Private Behrend would himself finish the war with the rank of Sergeant Major and enjoy his country’s gratitude in the form of a Gold Honour Cross for Bravery, when in the closing days he saved several refugees and became one of a handful of troops to successfully shoot down a Spider in flight.  All armies in every war need a certain complement of soldiers with the mettle of Private Behrend’s commanding officer, especially if their actions and - more likely than not - their sacrifices, can inspire subordinates to greater deeds. Nevertheless, Private Behrend was the exception rather than the rule, and the slow but relentless loss of troops continued.

XIV. A NEW THREAT

The daily situation briefing on 1 October was tenser than usual.  Sir Terry Tidbury had moved his headquarters to France, so the meeting took place with his virtual attendance at the War Rooms in Whitehall.  Although not reported in the media at the time, documents recently released by the English government set out the extensive stresses placed on the NATO powers.  MI5’s mole in Beijing had supplied an in-depth intelligence dossier drawn up by the Chinese military concerning ‘existing and future threats’.  Analyst Imogen Jones, a lucid young woman, described with eloquence the key findings: ‘One: influential elements inside the political establishment regard a war between India and the Caliphate as desirable.  India is China’s main competitor in shrinking global manufacturing markets, and a similar war between the former and the Caliphate as seen in Europe would benefit the Chinese economy.  However, the drawback is that unlike in Europe, such a war would undoubtedly involve significant exchanges of nuclear and/or chemical and biological weapons, whose effects would likely not be restricted to within the antagonists’ own borders.  Two: the cessation of all exports to the Caliphate in result of its use of a biological weapon in Europe does not appear to be having an effect.  Intelligence estimates believe that the plant at Tazirbu will be operational within days.  Three: however, an on-going and protracted struggle in Europe does not affect China greatly.  Thus far, compensation paid to legitimate business interests which have proved their European write-downs is less than a hundred trillion Yuan.’

Sir Terry immediately asked for the date of the dossier, and Jones informed him it was four days old.  He then asked the Head of Development and Testing at Aldermaston when the new generation of Scythes would be ready for trials, and was told at least two weeks.  Sir Terry withdrew from the meeting with a polite request to Aldermaston to accelerate the development programme if at all possible.  A few hours later, he chaired a meeting with his senior generals and informed them of the urgency of the situation.

In the event, however, strategic requirements played a more important role than tactical concerns.  After the war, it was established that although the ACA manufacturing plant at Tazirbu had indeed been rebuilt in two months and equipped to produce a new, more powerful ACA, its production capacity had been more than halved, and time was required to build up stocks of the new weapon before it could be deployed to reverse Repulse.  Nevertheless, at the time the Chinese dossier caused great concern in the democracies.  A secret memo from Downing Street circulated among NATO political leaders stated that Prime Minister Napier: ‘… believes contingency plans should be drawn up in case the Caliphate attacks with this new ACA and manages to begin driving NATO forces back across Europe.’  Defence Secretary Liam Burton responded in another secret memo that super-AI forecasts showed the next generation of NATO ACAs had been designed to leapfrog what it estimated the Caliphate would throw at Europe next.  This drew an irritated reply from Napier’s office that she hoped the Caliphate’s super AI had not had the same idea.

As the race to develop new weapons took on greater urgency, those tasked with doing so came under material pressure.  Blake Chambers, a thirty-three-year-old aerospace engineer, recalled years later: ‘Physicality was always the problem.  Where did you place your bets?  If you wanted better shielding, then you were going to get less firepower.  If you wanted more firepower, then you were going to get less manoeuvrability.  If you wanted the most dexterous manoeuvrability, then you had to compromise on shielding and firepower… We had loads of feedback coming from the troops, everyone from privates up to generals.  They were all pretty happy with the Scythes, but we were developing a new machine which had to remain the best on the battlefield for at least eighteen months, so we could be sure of finishing Repulse.  But more than that, it had to be able to defend Europe from any repeat.  So, we developed two new ACAs in parallel: one for attack, the other for defence.  This was a tall order, and there wasn’t much time.  But we did it.  Our CO called the defence Scythe the “Alpha”, because it was going to be the first line of defence once we’d retaken Europe.  He called the attack one the “Omega”, because it was going to be the last word in ACAs.  Amazingly, the NATO weapon-naming committee agreed and let the names stand.  And he wasn’t far wrong either, as it turned out.’

Meanwhile on the battlefield, Repulse continued to fall behind schedule.  On 9 October, lead elements belonging to the US Marines approached the border between France and Spain, but suffered 23% casualties clearing a front from Bayonne in the west to Tarbes.  Their courage and willingness to push forward despite the risk of mortal injury from dormant Spiders drew appreciation from the British and grudging admiration from the generals of the other European armies.  Lyon was cleared the next day.  German battalions reached a line from Nuremberg to Munich, and on 11 October Polish General Pakla lead his troops into Berlin to establish that the resistance fighters there had indeed been killed by the same lethal nerve agent the Caliphate employed against the Paris resistance.  Nevertheless, with the exception of the US Marines NATO formations were progressively falling behind the targets set for Repulse.

XV. FRIEND OR FOE?

More worrying intelligence arrived on 10 October, with a report from the USAF showing increased activity from Russian forces approaching Belorussia’s border with Poland.  When President Coll confronted the Russian president, he informed her that his country had no territorial ambitions, but was merely concerned that retreating Caliphate forces might attempt to cross into Belorussia and on into his country as an escape route.  He then offered to provide military assistance to NATO forces, ‘if they would deem it expeditious to remove the Caliphate from Europe’.

In a move which caused consternation in military circles, Coll said she would give the Russian president’s offer due consideration.  When news of this exchange reached the generals, disbelief vied with anger as the primary response.  Sir Terry Tidbury wrote: ‘General Pakla understandably blew his stack at Coll’s ignorance of history.  I contacted some people I knew in Washington who claimed to be equally flabbergasted.  They said either her advisers were idiots or she didn’t listen to them.  To have welcomed the Russian military into Poland at this stage in the war would have been the same as sending the Third Caliph an invitation to move his Council of Elders to Rome permanently.  The worry of Russia invading in support of the Caliphate had been increasing in my mind with every kilometre Repulse gained.  But those borders from Poland to Belorussia and on to Russia had stood for nearly a hundred and twenty years, and they would have to stay.  Fortunately, the PM was a little better educated and shut Coll and the Russians down with their duplicitous “offer”.  Nevertheless, I got Davis at the planning department to begin work on plans to repel a Russian incursion into Poland.  I wanted a breakdown of potential scenarios for the next six months, and our responses to them.  We shared a chuckle when he said he’d begin by updating Churchill’s 1945 plans for Operation Unthinkable.’