OR2-EP1: Perun Awakens (8)
The mode of warfare in the 21st century was unthinkable to military experts in the early 20th century and even after the end of the Second World War; satellites and various high-tech devices orbiting throughout outer space have drastically altered the meaning and flow of war, and society's view of war has become pluralistic - not limited to ends or means alone two interpretive perspectives. With ever-changing technological support, the arms race is seen as a necessary measure to maintain deterrence, motivated by the desire to make potential and already existing adversaries realize the consequences of confronting an entity with such a powerful military force. Generally speaking, it is a means of exerting pressure, and once the war actually begins, both sides lose. The United States, which continues to invest heavily in its military in order to maintain its global hegemony and strategic strike capability, faces widespread skepticism both at home and abroad, and the victories and economic power have done more to convince the opposition than any argument, and once the record of constant victories comes to an end, the second tier of those willing to replace the former hegemon will swarm to the forefront, much as the United States did in the place of its former suzerainty, the British Empire.
In the late 1920s of the 21st century, before the shadow of the New Ice Age had completely enveloped the planet, drone tactics advanced by leaps and bounds. Utilizing a new generation of solar energy technology, the United States has used swarming drone tactics in regional confrontations and overseas military operations to untold horrific effect on their opponents. Some of the drones patrolled the skies as small weapons of war, while others were used simply as large bombs. Using drones to destroy enemy air forces or carry out assassinations seems quite cost-effective to technologists and intelligence officers, and it's much more efficient and convenient than many traditional means. Even as solar technology is eclipsed by the new ice age, creative and exploratory scientists are finding new applications for drones.
However, if an adversary learns this tactic and intends to use it in war, the headache will be for the United States itself. According to U.S. military advisers, the Ukrainian air force is defenseless against Russian drones, and the Russians have even had the audacity to launch massive drone attacks on Ukrainian airfields, destroying at once on the runways or in the hangars all the fighters that could not take off in time. Hardliners called for a direct cross-border attack on Russian airbases, but this was opposed by most NATO members: they dared not envision what would happen if the Russians resorted to nuclear weapons in a fit of rage, and the continent would only be reduced to flames ahead of the United States on the other side of the ocean. As the United States' military advisors in the Ukraine racked their brains for a viable counterattack strategy for the Ukrainian army, they were surprised to find that communications and reconnaissance had been severely disrupted. All U.S. troops sent northeast to prepare for a possible overt Russian intervention were out of contact, and satellites were unable to capture clear images, an anomaly that aroused the suspicion of commanders. Of course, it might just be a technical glitch that might be resolved within a few days. Just to be on the safe side, the American commanders at the front decided to send small teams to the towns in the northeast that should now be under American control to investigate in order to find out the real reason why friendly forces had lost contact. At the same time, spies active in Belorussia moved in earnest to cooperate with the U.S. forces in order to contain the Russians who were about to descend on the city.
"In short, there's a black spot on the satellite." Sergeant Salas summarized, "Drone reconnaissance operations have also mostly ended in failure, our drone was shot down by a Russian drone just outside that area. It looks like we'll need to investigate this case on site ourselves."
The sergeant didn't move to give McNeil a look as the young soldier with many more black stains on his military coat was standing off to the side under a dead tree looking for something. It was good for young men to have enthusiasm and fantasies, but this excess of energy shouldn't be on the battlefield. War was something that should be considered by professional commanders who had years of training in military command, they were just ordinary soldiers, and wars since the beginning of time had rarely seen such a situation as a soldier questioning the general course of an entire war. He'd heard the story of McNeil, a lucky man who'd survived two consecutive deaths at the hands of the Russians, and that was all - whether he feared the Russians or loathed the war itself, that wasn't Sergeant Salas' concern. He was half Mexican, and McNeil was one of those purebred Americans. Traditional families from England had always been able to assimilate easily into the new environment of the United States.
"My opinion is that we need to split up the search." The corporal next to him offered his opinion, "Regardless of when they fix the satellite or find the real problem, we're likely to step into a Russian trap by moving blindly here. Worst case scenario, the Russians have already shown up and promptly wiped out our advance force in its entirety ... It's hard to imagine exactly what technology they used to do that."
McNeil, who was listening to the officers' banter from the sidelines, believed this scenario was possible. The Russians had been working hard to close the technological gap with the United States, and even though they couldn't retain much talent, there were always a few fanatical idealists willing to serve their homeland here. In addition, increased command efficiency could somehow improve the fighting ability of the army. If McNeil had all the equipment he needed and the troops under his command were in good condition, he would be able to encircle and destroy the enemy without them realizing it.
It was still snowing, and the snow had been falling for days, overshadowing the mood of the soldiers. McNeil couldn't remember the last time he had seen snow, he tended to only care about the coming war itself. War was a disaster for civilians that could never be escaped, and for him it was a duty and a shackle that bound him. Constant war destroys traditional morals, and McNeil shudders to think what a world without war would mean to them. When never-ending war becomes the norm, the heroes who can only live in the midst of war inevitably face difficult choices before the next era. McNeil didn't have to face that test; like a true fighter, he left the earth as the last war wound down ... to run off to the next one.
The non-commissioned officers concluded their discussion and decided to split up into three groups to go along the trail and search for nearby towns. According to the original U.S. battle plan, these towns should be completely under U.S. control, and even if the Russians had decided to intervene and launch a direct counter-offensive at that point, the garrison here would be able to hold out until reinforcements arrived. McNeil and Tom moved forward and backward down the snow-flooded dirt road, behind them the machine gunner and group leader who were nervous as hell. The real fear came from the unknown; they weren't sure if there were still remnants of Russian forces here, and where other militia and partisans were hiding. A large contingent of American troops could evaporate here, and it was even less likely that their dozen or so ordinary soldiers would have much of a chance of defying the culprits who had caused that catastrophic outcome to occur.
Sgt. Salas walked at the end of the line, always feeling that there was something spooky about McNeil - couldn't let this guy get in the way of the mission.
"Sir, does our army have a specialized Magician unit?"
"No." Sergeant Salas gave an immediate reply, "To be precise, there aren't enough Magicians in any country to form an independent unit. There are very few people with that talent to begin with, and it would be even harder to convince them all to join the military instead of settling down to a life or another profession. Of course, if we were willing to produce Magicians by human experimentation, it would be possible to do that before a few of our old rivals. But ... it's hard."
The patterns of warfare McNeil had seen so far were not beyond his perception. There was no doubt that once Magicians joined the war and became the dominant force, the war itself would change radically again. McNeil didn't believe in the so-called bloodline, he had his own set of thought patterns and believed that such nonsense as being born to be doomed was used to deceive people. Though he didn't know what his main mission was in this world yet, he already had a vague plan. The next Britannian Empire could not be allowed to appear here, and humanity had to be prevented from making the same mistake.
Gunshots suddenly rang out in front of them. The crowd was alarmed, and they quickly sought cover close by to hide, while allowing McNeil to go up and continue investigating. This was McNeil's job, there was nothing to push back. He just had to keep creeping forward and saw several Russian soldiers on patrol at the bottom of the road. These soldiers were talking and had very odd-looking expressions on their faces. Unable to hear what they were saying, McNeil stepped around the angle where these enemy soldiers might notice and followed the edge of the road to the road sign.
"What were they shooting at just now?"
McNeil was puzzled; these Russian soldiers chatting in the field were probably not the same group as the unknown person who had just opened fire, and he should continue to watch the situation ahead to make a judgment. The young soldier probed up the snowy slope in front of him, and was surprised to find that the place that was supposed to be a town below was now a big pit with no bottom. There were Russian soldiers patrolling the edge of the crater, and a couple of suspicious characters who looked like researchers (these men wore glasses and were unarmed) were measuring something nearby. Without a word, McNeil backed away and returned the way he had come. As he passed the spot where the Russian soldiers had been entrenched, he took extra care, but the snow under his feet seemed to be ungrateful, allowing him to slide down at an inopportune time and attracting the attention of the Russians. Seeing this, McNeil raised his rifle and fired indiscriminately at the Russians who were coming up from behind, and then quickly climbed down the gentle slope beside him to the highway. The gunfire must have alerted the other Russians, and McNeil had to inform his comrades to get out of the area immediately.
Looking at the wretched McNeil, Sgt. Salas asked without malice:
"You seem to have encountered a difficult enemy?"
"In short, the town is gone, the whole town is gone." McNeil stated briefly what he had seen, "Also, the Russians came after us. I'm sorry I couldn't shake them off."
The sergeant wasn't surprised; the Russians always had a keen sense of smell. He judged the number and firepower of the other side based on McNeil's description before ordering a counterattack on the spot. Since there were only a handful of Russian soldiers here, it was assumed that the Russians were not present in large numbers, and they might not have to worry about being rounded up at the end of the battle. The same figures in white military coats appeared in the distance, spotting the moving American soldiers and preempting the attack. The men, under the command of Sgt. Salas, barely escaped into the next available cover and set up their machine guns and began returning fire. The Russian soldiers exposed on the road were defeated by the machine gun fire and retreated to their original lot to reorganize their attacking detachments, while sending some of their soldiers around the rear to attack these American troops who had come from nowhere. With the enemy's attack temporarily weakened, McNeil seriously considered a safe route of retreat. But there was no such thing as a safe route; they had to leave along the main roads or else head south haphazardly, directed by a locator system that could fail at any moment. In fact, the locator system had begun to strike from time to time as they entered the area. McNeil had reason to believe that the Russians were interfering with the proper functioning of the locator system and the satellites by some means, and the intensity would only continue to increase. If they stayed any longer, they'd soon be running around blind.
The machine gunner didn't seem to realize he was exposed to the enemy until his head exploded, and the group realized that the Russians had ambushed snipers nearby. Sgt. Salas asked Tom to take the machine gunner's place while McNeil tried to find out where the enemy sniper was. McNeil, who had just taken a few steps away from his original position with his rifle, ran face-to-face with a Russian soldier who, like him, was struggling through knee-deep snow. Before the enemy could react, McNeil raised his rifle and slammed it into his opponent, catching the Russian soldier off guard and falling into the snow after receiving a blow to the face, while McNeil quickly escaped. After taking a few steps out, he aimed a dozen rounds at the spot where the Russian soldier had fallen before deciding to leave the scene. In case the guy got up and then went to sneak up on his comrades, McNeil would be the number one person responsible for causing his teammates to be killed.
Perhaps it was McNeil's always unusual luck that he found very obvious tracks on the roadside. It couldn't have been caused by any animal; Russian snipers were nearby. With the vigilance he had developed over the years, McNeil quickly ducked underneath the road, making sure there weren't any suitable angles for shooting around before continuing along the edge of the road. They had only encountered the Russians in two places along the way, and if the enemy had previously had other ambushes in the vicinity, the soldiers would inevitably have attacked as soon as they appeared, rather than waiting until the American troops, who they thought were unlikely to be detected by the Russians, had already been exposed to falsely cooperate with their pursuers in an attack. The fact that the enemy was among those Russian soldiers who had just been chatting on the side of the road made the shame inside McNeil disappear instantly. See, it wasn't his responsibility, the enemy hadn't prepared an ambush here in advance that even he couldn't detect.
The snow became deeper and deeper, and McNeil's movement became more difficult. He continued to follow the traces left by the enemy, and finally saw a Russian soldier hidden behind a dead tree furtively looking around. The discovery of the hidden enemy didn't make the situation any better for McNeil, who couldn't draw his rifle and fire at the enemy due to the snow that was already burying him underneath. The fact that the Russian sniper was probably advancing with both hands on his rifle the entire time to avoid the same dilemma as McNeil was the only viable explanation McNeil could come up with after his many failed attempts to get his rifle out from under the snow. He couldn't move on, that would surely alert the enemy, and as soon as they put a gun to his head before he got close enough, it was game over.
"God bless me for my grenades." With a grimace, McNeil pulled the grenade from his belt, lifted his hands out of the snow, and threw the grenade towards where the enemy was. The Russian sniper, who hadn't realized until the very end that there was a sneak attack behind him, was blown to smithereens, and Sergeant Salas was relieved of the greatest threat he had ever faced. McNeil, however, was lost, he wasn't very good at fighting in the snow after all, and besides, being buried in ice and snow was a whole different kind of torture. The hypothermia had rendered him almost incapable of thinking, and by the time Sgt. Salas got on his headset and told him to retreat as quickly as possible, he didn't even know what direction to run in.
To be precise, Sgt. Salas wasn't going to run away. After another corporal was killed by the Russians, the sergeant realized that they were going to lose, that there was no chance of survival by running away, and that the only option was to find a way to make the Russians think they were dead. The snow nearby is deep enough that the Russians won't know if there are traps and large pits in the snow, and Sgt. Salas intends to take a big gamble that as long as the Russians don't discover their hiding place, they are safe. So, the two men left the bodies of their companions behind and ducked right under the snow, shivering and waiting for the Russians to leave. The Russians did not seem to be fooled, and after the gunfight ceased, the Russians, realizing that the American soldiers had stopped resisting, quickly decided to conduct a search and had to find the bodies of their enemies before they could leave with confidence. Russian footsteps approaching, Tom as if to see long skull death to him smiling, he flashed in front of his own total of twenty years of life in those things that are not worth remembering ... people always to the near death to realize that the ordinary life of the precious. As for why people were afraid of death, that was another question. Even devout religious believers are afraid of death.
Not far away came the strange sound of explosions, the Russian soldiers looked at each other, they think there are still American soldiers lurking nearby, they decided to switch the search direction. The two men, who had been given amnesty, realized that McNeil was approaching from the snow next to them and signaled the two men to get out of the area as soon as possible. The Russians were far away for the moment, and if the sergeant did not take advantage of this opportunity to escape, they would surely be enemy prisoners.
An hour later, the three men who had finally decided to climb out of the snowdrift lay unimaginatively in the wilderness; they were almost frozen to death. Had it not been for the last will that drove them to keep going, they would have given up their resistance and peacefully answered the call of death halfway across the field.
"Hell, the other two teams aren't responding, they're not being counted out by the Russians too, are they?"
Sgt. Salas blamed himself a little, he had unwisely taken his men's advice and split up their forces, at the time they had assumed that there would be no Russians in the vicinity, a judgment that now seemed abysmal. The sergeant, who had expected some criticism from McNeil, was surprised to find McNeil struggling to his feet and limping toward the road heading west.
"Hey-"
"Where are you going?"
"Escaping." McNeil said with a flourish, looking very serious. The Sergeant was furious, he wanted to reprimand McNeil, and that's when he remembered the story that had to do with McNeil: that all of his comrades had been killed by Russian drones, and he alone had survived and given up the fight, and that's how he got his life back. The sergeant must have thought McNeil was a coward before, now he was one himself.
"No, we've got to report all the anomalies here to the chief first." The sergeant, assisted by Tom, stood up as well, intent on talking McNeil back.
"Yeah, we can't be deserters-"
"No problem, we'll contact the Chief here and see what they'll say." McNeil simply sat down and helped the sergeant pull the still-crushed tablet out of his backpack and began to make contact with his superiors. Ten minutes passed and the screen went black with no response from the other side. The Sergeant looked nervously at McNeil and then at Tom, who was also filled with suspicion, and decided to communicate with the other two squads. Again, there was no response and they seemed to be islands.
As if to convince himself, the sergeant repeated out loud to McNeil:
"Bad signal, it can't be helped."
Without a word, McNeil pulled out his military cell phone and dialed Sgt. Salas' number. Embarrassed, the sergeant pulled out his cell phone and declined the call, now completely disoriented.
"The Russians are experimenting with some kind of new weapon capable of mass destruction, and they won't allow anyone to escape alive from the experimental site ... It seems to me that they want to find a deterrent tool for the post-nuclear weapons era. As I recall, the international community has been worried since last year that a war between the major powers would destroy humanity, and it doesn't look like the Russkies want to take the blame for being the first to use nuclear weapons." McNeil was shaking so badly he couldn't speak properly, his desire for a steaming meal now seemed to be just his own wishful thinking, "Sir, with the friendlies gone, we'd only be caught red-handed by the Russians if we returned to the south."
"Then why don't we know anything about it?" Sergeant Salas looked at McNeil incredulously, "What are our satellites and drones doing? What are the geoprobe devices doing?"
"You should ask the Russians, they might be able to answer that question ... Trying to keep the outside world completely in the dark about any intel is either their secrecy is just too good, or we have spies here."
The three men argued as they backed away, and by 6:00 p.m., Sergeant Salas, who had not waited for his chief's routine daily instructions, was finally forced to believe McNeil's story. The Russians had hit the U.S. Army hard with some new weapon, and they, the common soldiers who could not play much of a role in the war, could not afford to throw themselves on the mercy of the enemy. Driven by the desire to survive, Sgt. Salas decides to flee, confident that friendly troops will forgive him for his selfishness: he'll probably be able to muddle through as long as he explains when the time comes that they're lost.
TBC
Chapter Notes:
Well, in hindsight, at least one statement in this article may have been correct: military drone technology was developed to a great extent in the 2020s.
Maybe the srategic-class magician here was Leonid Kondrachenko.