Jerome Preisler - Net Force--Attack Protocol

“Alex,” he said. “Talk to me.”

Soto listened in stunned silence. He’d been wrong. It wasn’t about Scalpel, not really. Or about anything he would have remotely expected.

Janus Base was under attack. From the very armed security robots meant to guard it.

“Damn it,” he said. “What’s Colonel Howard’s present situation?”

“He’s rolling toward the barracks with the autons. There may be survivors down below in a shelter or safe room. That’s all Duchess could tell us.”

Soto paused to organize his thoughts. Instantly reprioritizing.

“The Puma command vehicle is Argos-equipped,” he said after a moment. “I ordered the fitting out myself. Howard should be able to maintain contact with us.”

“Do you have any idea what’s going on with the hedgehogs?” Fucillo said.

“I normally don’t like to speculate,” Soto said. He exhaled. “They’re vulnerable to a hack. Their operating systems are archaic. That’s at the very least. I scheduled a trip to Romania for right after the New Year to assess whether the robots can be upgraded or need to be entirely replaced. Now I wish I’d made that inspection sooner.”

“Adrian, the world is a busy room, to use your words. So let’s be gentle with ourselves,” Fucillo said. “The hedgehogs are outdated. All Janus’s defenses are creaky. Funding for Net Force has been a tough fight, and I’ve been unable to completely zero in on it. My plate’s been full. There’s our recovery from the cyberstrike. And the mess in the Republic of Birhan. After three months of United Nations dawdling, we finally have a chance to push through international sanctions. I do my best, and can’t feel guilty about not being able to accomplish everything at once.”

Soto thought for a moment. “We have soldiers in rotation at Mihail Kogălniceanu Airfield. The Black Sea rotation—I’ve worked with them planning my trip. Can we send them in to help with the evac?”

“Our boys are ready,” Fucillo said. “But Colonel Howard wants to wait on activating them.”

“With good reason, I think,” Michaels added. “Technically our troops are in-country to support Romanian operations. Not vice versa. Before they start to move, we’ll have to inform our hosts.”

“Who are still feeling burned by our Bucharest operation last summer,” Fucillo said. “Once they get involved, they’re going to have questions. They’ll wonder why so many of Janus’s personnel are off base. They’ll wonder where they are...”

“And we’re trying to keep Scalpel under their radar, at least while it’s in progress,” Michaels said.

Soto was quiet. He heard a trill of laughter outside his office. His crew always made setting up for the feast a kind of party.

“I can push up my trip to Romania,” he said. “Leave as early as tomorrow. Whatever’s necessary.”

“Thank you, Adrian. I appreciate it. But for the moment, I think it’s best we leave things to Howard,” Fucillo said. “He’s a capable man. Let’s give him time. Meanwhile, we’ll stay connected.”

Soto heard a breath escape his lips.

“It’s going to be a long night for all of us,” he said.

“Now you see why I never bother trying to sleep,” Fucillo said.

15

Various Locales

FOB Janus

The four Pumas had gone rolling and rumbling across the field in formation, west to east, and then halted in unison about two thousand feet from the large, roughly rectangular parade ground. Across it was the fiery rubble that only hours ago had been a barracks housing fifty Quickdraw military personnel.

Each of the three autonomous 4x4s was eight tons of tough-looking welded-steel armor, equipment, and onboard weaponry. There was one at the tip of the wedge, one at the right flank, one at the left. More brawn than brains, they lacked the ability to choose their own targets or engage in combat without human control and oversight. Although they did not have the deep-learning abilities of the hedgehogs, they were significantly bigger and stronger.

Julio Fernandez was banking on that crucial advantage in the six-wheeler at the formation’s rear flank, where he sat watching his monitors and readouts while Wasserman spoke on the radio with a Romanian Air Force operator at Mihail Kogălniceanu Airfield. It had taken several tries to make contact, leading Colonel Howard to wonder aloud if anyone there was even awake.

But right now he wanted to see for himself what Fernandez was looking at on the displays. He started to lean forward in the jump seat, felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his side, and sank back in frustration and disgust.

“You got a visual on the ’hogs?” he asked.

“Check. Nice and clear. There’s been no change in their activity status.”

“Meaning?”

“They haven’t budged. It’s just a guess, but I don’t figure they will till we come into range.”

Because it would open a gap in their cordon, Howard thought. If the robots’ purpose was to cut off an escape route for the people in the bunker, they would keep a tight circle around the exit. Until they couldn’t. Or so Julio was theorizing.

Howard was quiet a second. Distract, deflect, and destroy. Their plan was rudimentary as all shit. And sensible. Except it didn’t take the noise in the sky into account. He could hear the vibrations humming and singing through the Puma’s armor like current through a transformer. Forget about it being made by a plane or a helicopter. It was drones, it had to be drones. And whatever they were doing up there, his singular objective right now was to get his people out of the bunker. Just get them the hell out while there was still time.

“What else you need to know before we move?” he said.

Fernandez was silent a moment. “ Wish I knew exactly what adversarial machine learning’s been shoved into their brains. So I wouldn’t have to guess how they’ll respond to our push.”

“But you won’t know that tonight,” Howard said.

“No. And I won’t without a postmortem analysis.”

“Then forget about it. We—”

“Colonel?” Wasserman pulled off his headset and swung around to face him. “I’ve got something from MK Airfield. It answers a big question for us.”

Howard saw the alarm on his face. “What is it?”

“They’re missing a drone swarm. Over a hundred of them.”

“How’s that possible?”

“The Romanians aren’t sure. They took off on their own.” Wasserman paused. “It gets worse, sir. They’re attack drones. Full of explosives.”

“And nobody knew till now ?”

“With the transition over to Camp Turzii, the base is down to a skeleton crew.”

“But the dumb shits have suicide bots there.” He frowned. “All right. What else did they tell you?”

“A mobile patrol visits the field every half hour. At one o’clock this morning, the drones were on the ground. The one-thirty patrol discovered they were airborne.”

“There were no alerts? Nothing on their computers?”

“No, sir. Their monitoring systems still don’t show a launch. But the drones were picked up in the air by their GPS sats. About twenty minutes ago.”

Howard glanced over at Fernandez. “That hold water for you?”

“Maybe.” The sergeant didn’t take his eyes off his console. “We have a warning system in place for the ’hogs. And that failed.”

Howard checked the time on his watch—0147 hours—and frowned.

“Those drones are what we’re hearing outside,” he said. “If the Romanians knew they’ve been coming this way for almost half an hour, why weren’t we notified...or didn’t they bother explaining it to you?”

“That’s the thing, sir,” Wasserman said. “Their GPS sats had them well north of us. Hundreds of miles north, in Ukrainian airspace. So they alerted Kiev. But nobody there could pick them up.”