Джон Шеттлер - Condition Zebra - The Next War - 2025

With profound regret for the loss of all who died to liberate these lands and deliver this victory, General Erkin Kutukov.”

Fedorov took a long breath, thinking. Would Karpov want that—to leave the ship here and return to Siberia? Would he be in any condition to make such a decision soon? Should he inform the General as to his present condition? He knew he could not go to Karpov with this now—not until he had recovered from his fall. He therefore wrote and coded a return message saying that the General should proceed as he saw best, and that the Admiral would contact him in the near future.

On the 8th of November, seeing that the Siberians were willing to withdraw from all territories they had occupied in Heilongjiang, returning to the old Amur River border in exchange for Primorskiy Province, the Chinese accepted a cease fire to allow both sides to disengage and redeploy. General Kutukov was firm in demanding that the Chinese Army should not advance to reclaim lost ground until the Siberians had completed their withdrawal to the Amur River, and secured assurances that there would be no attempt to move military forces within 50 kilometers of that boundary line.

As negotiations proceeded over the next several days, one thing was perfectly clear in the General’s mind—the Chinese did not want a war along this long northern front while they were slowly becoming involved in a much broader general war at sea with the US and UK. The drain on supplies, and the need to devote a considerable portion of the PLAN Air Force to that theater, was a great burden. No nation wanted a two front war if that could be avoided.

So in keeping with the maxims of Sun Tzu, who said: “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle,” the Chinese were only too happy to wait and watch the Siberian troops pull back to the Amur River. They would see the threat to Mudanjiang relieved, recover Mudan, Jiamussu, and Fujin in the Rhino’s horn without a fight, and see the liberation of both Daqing and Qiqihar, along with the valuable oil district in that region. When they saw what the Siberians had done to many of the wells, an angry message was transmitted to Irkutsk, but in return, the Siberians simply sent photographs of the devastated docks and quays of Vladivostok.

Honor would be served, on both sides, and the hot war would slowly cool down to a low boil all along that front. A kind of DMZ was established along the river, and both armies would sit eyeing one another through field glasses, probing with UAV’s and drones, ever guarded against any possible attack and renewal of hostilities.

In truth, the Siberians wanted nothing to do with a general occupation of the territory they had overrun during the campaign. Such an occupation would have been fruitless, and would only fuel the fire of an incipient guerilla war that had already started behind the front line when the withdrawal began. If modern war proved one thing it was this, countries were no longer conquerable as they had been in the past, and no nation would ever really be able to sustain any occupation of Chinese territory for any length of time. Heilongjiang Province had only 38 million Chinese citizens, but this was more than the entire population of all Siberia. Behind that border province, there were over 1.3 billion more Chinese in the heartland of their country.

General Erkin Kutukov knew China would never be defeated in a land war, and never occupied by a hostile power for long, as this brief campaign had clearly proved. So in his mind, getting the army safely back to the Amur River was the smartest thing he could do. Strategically, he knew the old borders were not easily defended. The ‘Rhino’s Horn’ jutted ominously up through Fujin towards the liberated Siberian city of Khabarovsk. It had always been a dangerous salient that could see Primorskiy easily cut off, isolating Vladivostok if the river borders were ever crossed and the rail lines cut.

To forestall that, he knew the Siberian Army was now in for a long watch along that disputed border. The Chinese had come for resources they could not secure by trade. While occupying Amur and Primorskiy province, they had harvested vast amounts of timber, diverted fresh water, drilled new oil wells in many areas. In doing so, they had also improved roads and rail lines, so the raw, unfinished land was somewhat of a remodeled house for the Siberians now. Yet as he took that long ride north, watching his tanks and APC’s snaking along the roads and turnpikes, Erkin Kutukov knew that unless Siberia found a way to mend relations with the Great Dragon to the south, the fate of Siberia would always live under the shadow of war.

While Fedorov was pleased to hear of the cease fire and negotiations, a thorny question would soon arise: what would the Free Siberian Navy do now? He was sitting on it— Kirov the flagship, with Kursk its faithful escort. What would they do in the long struggle at sea that might lay ahead? He would soon find out.

“You have no idea what it was like,” said Karpov. “It was as if another mind was rushing into my head, years, decades of life, the memories all crowding one on top of another. I didn’t think I could bear it. The pain was terrible.”

“Yes,” said Fedorov. “Something like that happened to Orlov, and it was lucky that I was with him at the time to talk him through it. And I think it also happened to me when I disappeared aboard our old warhorse, the very first ship we took out for those live fire exercises. Yet in both our cases, it was only a year or so that jumped into our heads, not half a lifetime.”

“That first ship…. Seems ages ago,” said Karpov. “Yes, we had all that old ordnance to get rid of, the old Moskit-II’s. Remember? We even had the Klinok, stocks of the export variant if that SAM system, though we also had the early prototype that became our new Zircon. Yes…. We called it the MOS-III.”

“How are you feeling now?” Fedorov’s eyes were still laden with concern.

“Better, Fedorov. Much better. Oh, I am still grieving the loss of my brother, and it is so terribly strange. It’s as if I bury my own future, for he lived through decades that remain ahead for me, should I be so lucky to survive and live those years out. Just meeting him again was one thing…. Seeing how your own self would grow old and wither is a very hard thing to do. Yet now, I can feel him inside me—literally. I can see the days he lived in my memory—not everything, as recollection is seldom ever that way. But I remember the salient events of his life, my life, really. Now I carry all of that within.”

Fedorov nodded. “You are one man again,” he said. “You are whole in heart and mind. All his experience, the lessons he learned, mistakes made—all of that is there for you to draw upon. In some ways, it’s an enviable thing—to see all you might have done had you remained in Siberia, and now to have that opportunity before you again. Only this time, you are a younger man—stronger, and fortified by all the Siberian brought to your soul when he passed. I suppose that begs a question. What will you do now that he is gone? General Erkin Kutukov was named as acting head of state upon his death, but he asked me to put this question to you. I hope it’s not too soon. You may just need to rest and recover now before you make these decisions.”

“No, no, I am quite alright,” said Karpov. “Erkin Kutukov… Yes, I can see the man’s face in my mind’s eye, though I have never met him personally. My brother trusted him, and relied upon him a great deal. I can pull up many conversations, long hours he spent with that man. He would be a very good choice if Siberia needs a new leader now, though he is not an administrator.”