The War in 2020

Staff in the background.

'Mr. President, Colonel Taylor's telling you not to fiddle around with his plan. We'll give him a lesson in manners once we get him back in-country, but for now I think we better do what he says.' The chairman laughed again, almost a snort. 'I know Colonel Taylor, and he's apt to just ignore us, anyway. Isn't that right, George?'

Thank you, Taylor thought, fully aware of the risk the chairman had just taken on his behalf, and of the cover he had provided. I owe you one.

'Well, I'm not certain I like the thought of being ignored,' the President said seriously, but without malice. 'However, I have no intention of interfering with the colonel's plan. I think I know my limitations.'

If I live, Taylor thought, until election day, I just might vote for the poor bastard, after all.

'Colonel Taylor,' the President said, 'I'm just trying to understand what's going on. I'm not a soldier, and I seem to spend a great deal of time being confused by all this. For instance, these wonder machines of yours, these miracle weapons. No one has ever managed to explain to me in plain English just exactly what they're all about, how they work. Could you take the time to do that?' How, Taylor wondered, could you tell your president that you did not have time, that you had everything but time?

'You mean the M-l00s, Mr. President?'

'Yes, all that gadgetry the taxpayers bought you. What's it going to do for them?'

Taylor took a deep breath, searching for a starting point. 'Mr. President, the first thing you notice about the M-100 is that it's probably the ugliest weapons system ever built.' Taylor heard a background voice ordering that an illustration of the M-100 be called up. 'The troops call it the flying frog. But, when you fly it, when you learn to fight out of it, it becomes very beautiful. It's squat, with a big belly to hold all the equipment and the fire team of dragoons — mounted infantrymen — in the back. It has tilt rotors mounted on stubby wings. It doesn't look like it could possibly get off the ground. But it does fly, Mr. President, and it flies very fast for a ship of its kind — or slow, when you want it to. Its electronics make it almost invisible to the enemy. He might see it with the naked eye, but our countermeasures suite — the electronics that attack his electronics and confuse him — is so versatile, so fast, and works on so many levels, that one of his systems might see nothing but empty sky, while another sees thousands of images His guided munitions will see dummy aircraft projected around the real one. But our target acquisition system— the gear we use to find him—has 'work-through technology Unless the Japanese have come up with a surprise, we should be able to look right through their electronic defenses.

'You see,' Taylor continued, choosing his words from the professional history of a military generation, 'we rarely fight with our own eyes anymore. It's a competition of electronics, attempting to delude each other on multiple levels, thousands of times in a single second. The Japanese taught us a lot, the hard way. But we think we've got them this time. Anyway, the revolution in the miniaturization of power components gives us a range of up to fourteen hundred nautical miles, one way, depending on our combat load. That's good for a bulky system that's really still more of a helicopter than anything else. But the best part of all is the primary weapons system itself. The Japanese surprised us with laser weaponry back in Africa. And they're still using it. But on-board lasers have more problems than were apparent back in Zaire. We didn't realize how dependent the Japanese were on recharging their systems, for instance. They were closely tethered to their support system and they could only fight short, sharp engagements. We took a different technological tack.

'Our main weapon is a 'gun' that fires electromagnetically accelerated projectiles. Just think of them as special bullets that use electromagnetic energy instead of gunpowder. These projectiles travel very, very fast, and when they strike their target, they hit with such force that they either shatter it or, at least, shatter everything inside it by concussion. There are several kinds of projectiles — the fire-control computer selects the right type automatically. One type is solid and can penetrate virtually anything. Another has two layers, the first of which detonates against the outside, igniting anything that will burn, while the hard inner core proceeds on through any known armor. The shock wave alone kills any enemy soldiers inside a vehicle, while rendering the vehicle itself useless. A tremendous advantage is that one M-100 can locate and destroy several hundred targets on a single mission. After that, the 'gun' needs to be recalibrated back at its support base, but it's still far more versatile, lethal, and survivable than the Japanese laser gunships.'

'And the pilot's… just basically along for the ride?' the President said. 'The M-100… does everything automatically?'

'It can do a great deal automatically. But the vehicle commander — the pilot — and his copilot/gunner still make the broad decisions. And the desperate ones that a machine still cannot think through. Ideally, you go in firing fully automatic, because the computers can identify and attack multiple targets in a matter of seconds. And the computer gets intelligence input directly from national-level systems. But it's still the man who decides what to do when the chips are down. For instance, the computer never decides when to land and employ the dragoons. It's a smart horse. But, in the end, it's still a horse.'

Despite Taylor's best efforts, the President still looked slightly baffled. Then Waters spoke:

'Well, Colonel Taylor, while you've been filling me in, I've been watching some graphics your boss called up for me. Very impressive. Very impressive, indeed.' His distant eyes seemed to search very hard for Taylor's. 'Tell me, is it really going to work? In combat?'

'I hope so, Mr. President.'

'And… you have enough… of these systems?'

Enough for what? You never had enough.

'Mr. President, I've got what my country could give, and we're going to do the best we can with it. I'm confident that we have sufficient combat power to accomplish the mission as foreseen by our current op-plan. Besides, there's more to the regiment than just the M-l00s. First, we have fine soldiers: superb, well-trained soldiers who are ready to believe in the job you sent them to do, even if they don't fully understand it. Without them, the M-100 is just an expensive pile of nuts and bolts.' Taylor paused, as the mental images of countless men with whom he had served marched by — not just the soldiers of the Seventh, but faces remembered from half a dozen trials, as well as from the endless drudgery of peacetime garrisons. 'Mr. President, I've got other equipment, as well. Magnificent electronic warfare gear… a battalion of heavy air-defense lasers to protect us while we're on the ground… wing-in-ground transporters that can haul my essentials in a single lift. And the Tenth Cav is giving me tremendous intelligence, electronic attack and deception support. But, in the end, it's going to come down to those soldiers down in the squadrons and troops. Are they tough enough? Are they sufficiently well-trained? Will they have the wherewithal to hold on longer than their adversaries? I think the answer is yes.'

* * *

President Waters felt greater confidence than ever in this man with the ruined face and the firm voice. As a politician, he recognized that he had been a bit taken in by his own desire to believe that all would go well, coupled with the infectious persuasiveness of this colonel in the odd foreign uniform. He had been listening to exactly the sort of speech he wanted to hear, a speech in which the spoken words themselves were far less important than the manner in which they were spoken. Yet, this recognition of his own weakness did little to dilute the new confidence he felt. That, too, would slip away. But, for the moment, he felt that things might not go so badly after all.

He wondered if he should tell this hard-eyed colonel about the Scrambler business, to warn him, just in case there was something to it. But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended against bringing up the matter. And, surely, these military people knew among themselves what was best for their own.

Still, the Scrambler business nagged at him. The instincts that had led him to the White House said, 'Tell him. Right now.'

The briefing room door opened, and John Miller poked his head inside.

'Excuse me. Mr. President, if we could clear the monitors for a moment, the sandwiches are here. And your salad.'

President Waters nodded. But he held up his finger to the communications officer. Wait.

The President stared into the central monitor, where Colonel George Taylor's discolored face waited impassively, larger than life-size.

'Colonel Taylor,' the President said, 'we're going to blank the system out for just a moment. But I'd like you to stand by. We have an intelligence briefing coming up, and I'd like you to listen in. To ensure that we all have exactly the same picture of what's going on.'

Waters thought that his logic sounded pretty good. But, in his heart, he knew that the intelligence update