TRIPLICATE
Freddy Costello and Michael Z. Williamson
Prologue: 31 January 21XX, Consensus Epoch
To Their Excellency the President,
and the Congress of the ReUNITED! States:
The Fourth World War lasted exactly seventeen days, fourteen hours, twelve minutes, and thirty-six seconds. Its outcome was inconclusive as far as initial results show, but the After-Action Review has only entered its fifth year. It is thus far too soon to develop any real Lessons Identified, or to discern whether World War IV was an anomaly or the shape of things to come. We have only three more staff cycles to finalize our report before it is due to the Second-Level Plenary New United Nations Security Council War Powers and Conduct Review Board Presidium, in triplicate, certified by biodegradable plankton-based ink signatures using only officially approved pronouns. The 2LPNUNSCWPaCRBP has denied our request for an extension to the deadline.
Also please see my attached request for retirement.
Respectfully,
HANSCOM T. HANSCOM, General, ReU! Army
Commander, ReU! Homeland Defense Command
PS. I, using my declared pronouns, apologize for sending a true handwritten hard paper copy of my own thoughts and recollections of the conflict. I feel that it is important for the benefit of individual bodies in service to their collective identities, so much so that I willingly cause harm to Plant-Based Persons commonly referred to as “trees.” I trust Your Collective Noun will understand. May the Mono, Poly, or Pantheistic Subjective Moral Standard of Your Choice (or None), demonstrate compassion and mercy.
PPS. Fuck you all with a rusted pipe, I quit.
I. It Begins . . .
“Don’t ever be the first, don’t ever be the last, and don’t ever volunteer to do anything.”
—US military truism
My alarm woke me promptly at 0400 local time. I was only half-asleep, anxious to get this mission underway and concluded as quickly as possible. Considering how little use airfields get these days, the Distinguished Visitor Quarters on Dover Air Component Base are dated but still some of the nicest I’ve ever seen. I availed myself of the amenities. I took my own sweet time in the shower and enjoyed the luxury of a four-ounce cup of TruKaf, made from ethically sourced and equity-certified semiorganic coffee beans. While my Social Credit expense limit is a lot higher than most, I’m not authorized unlimited access to things like electricity, water, and heat. Checking my privilege, I decided to save my usual run for later. The cool Atlantic Seaboard dusk would make for a pleasant evening run, and I’d likely have the roads all to myself. Unfortunately, I can’t run the base perimeter trail, it’s now part of the Animal Persons preserved habitat, and off limits to humans.
All cleaned up and presentable, I straightened my gig line and checked my teeth in the mirror one last time. I felt the buzz of my secure handheld phone. It was a technological marvel most citizens would never get to see, let alone use. Retrieving it, I saw the small portrait of my appointed escort for the duration of this operation. A cheerful voice and giant smile greeted me. “Good morning, General, I’m already at the control tower. The Neo-Soviet aircraft will land in forty-five minutes.”
“Thank you, Major. It was the UN code as expected? Treaty compliance inspection?”
“Yes, General. Do you approve the Homeland Defense Command escorts to return to base?”
“Yes, they can stand down. Have we positively ID’d the type of plane, Major Thomvs?” I learned when I arrived two nights ago that it was pronounced like “Thomas,” and that their name was just “Thomvs.”
“Yes, it’s an LN-850. Oversized cargo conversion.”
“Copy all, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I waited patiently outside until Thomvs arrived with the car.
“All set, General?” Thomvs’s voice practically squeaked with cheer.
“We are. Are thou ready?”
“They are ready, General, please have their seat, we need to hurry.”
The ride to the dingy air traffic control tower was uneventful, and we didn’t speak much. At the time, I had no cause to suspect that anything was out of the ordinary, despite this being an unusual event. The Neo-Soviets hadn’t requested a Global Warfare Treaty Compliance Oversight Conference in twenty staff cycles, but it was something we trained and prepared for on a daily basis. In retrospect, our confidence in the integrity of the process above all else nearly did us in.
The commander, a colonel, met us at the car. He gave his pronouns and escorted Major Thomvs and I up to the control room where the chief controller greeted us. “Good morning, General, we received an update about an hour ago, there are actually two planes inbound, the ’850 and a smaller escort, not a fighter, it looks like DV airlift.”
“You should have woken me up for that!” I snapped. I shouldn’t have done that, as raising my voice can have ugly consequences to Social Credit and my next evaluation. The controller seemed to ignore it, fortunately.
“Yes, sir,” he said, snapping back into old terminology. “But the codes all matched the decryption matrix you authenticated. It’s a UN approved diplomatic code, an older code, but it checks out. There’s no turning them back, we have to let them land.”
Thomvs stared at the circling monstrosity and shook their head. “Wow, that’s a big plane. There are suspicions about the carbon tax signature documentation we received. It checks out as biofuel, but it looks suspiciously like refined petroleum. It’s amazing that old planes like this are even still allowed, much less capable of operating.” I should have made a note of that at the time.
Thomvs wasn’t exaggerating. The LN-850 was the single largest cargo aircraft left in the world. The Sovs had exactly one, and they jumped through all sorts of regulatory hoops and circuses to keep it operational. In the light of the rising sun, I could see the massive shape revealed, no longer just hinted at by its overt lighting in the predawn darkness. Black smoke belched from its engines. Biofuel my ass, I thought, the Neo-Sovs don’t give one damn about biofuel. They’ll face steep fines for this. Still, they build things to last, just like we used to. Today we just don’t build them, period. I buried my thoughts, before Thomvs could sense my inner discomfort. In contrast, the little Nabakov VIP bird was miniscule, a gnat. The Nabokov’s crew, speaking heavily accented Global Aviation Standard landed the plainly marked aircraft, and taxied without fanfare or incident. All in order and to the perfect letter of international law.
II. Bundles
“Cynicism is the smoke that rises from the ashes of burned-out dreams.”
—Unknown Major, on the daily thrashings delivered to action officers
Major Thomvs smiled at me. They had a fantastic smile. “General, we should make our way down to the car.”
I nodded, and Thomvs drove us out to the flight line. It had been cleared of Plant-Based Lifeforms, just enough for what we needed to do. I made a note to commemorate their collective sacrifices at the conclusion of this operation. While Animal Persons must have unrestricted movement within protected habitats and remain as undisturbed, exceptions exist for national security events like this. Given the cracked and crumbling state of the runway, I wasn’t sure how safe it was for human use. As we approached a security checkpoint, I smiled at the phrase “Dover Air Force Base” still visible on one of the Restricted Area signs. The Air Component dropped the word “Force” decades ago. Too aggressive. Flight-line security gave us a cursory bio-assessment, scanning and wiping down every surface of the car, every visible inch of our uniforms and equipment for bacteria and viruses. Some of those plants were endangered, and we needed to ensure the preservation of their rights to autonomy. The military remains at the forefront of national environmental and climate security.
Thomvs parked the car outside the passenger terminal and accompanied me to the runway. The base commander met us at the front of an honor cordon, only a short distance from the Nabokov’s main cabin door. We stood at attention and waited patiently for the ambassador to make themselves finally known. Per treaty, identities are protected until the individual touches foreign soil. The Nabokov’s main cabin door started to crack open, and we rendered impeccable salutes as dawn broke over the airfield. I expected to see a gaggle of officious Neo-Sovs in faux fur coats, just to add insult to the injury they’d already inflicted on the base’s wildlife and vegetation.
That didn’t happen. Instead, the aircraft’s main cabin door flung open, and a large, wrapped bundle was thrown unceremoniously out onto the crumbling tarmac. Followed by a second. And a third.
“What the . . .?” The base commander dropped his salute and looked at me incredulously. I was annoyed. I’m used to Neo-Soviet games; every staff cycle they try something different to gain advantage over us in the New United Nations. Not today!
“Mind if I borrow your flight-line security for a second, Colonel?”
He was completely at a loss for what to do. “Umm, General Hanscom, sure, it’s just that . . .”
“Okay thanks!” I ignored him and motioned to the major and the two nearest security technicians to help me investigate the bundles. As we approached, a fourth and then a fifth bundle were thrown to the ground. Then a sixth. Still, no human being emerged from the aircraft. I knelt alongside the growing pile and put on the pair of NullLeather gloves I shoved in my pocket this morning. Better safe than sorry when it comes to Neo-Sovs. The bundles were tightly wrapped in what looked like hemp fabric, very organic-looking stuff, secured by rope, presumably hemp as well.
“Does anybody have a blade or a knife?” The security technicians, Thomvs, and the colonel all shook their heads, looking surprised and unsure of what to do or say next.
“Fine!” I roared and did the unthinkable. I produced a small folding knife from under my coat where I kept it attached to my belt. Luckily for me, the security people were so cursory in their bio-assessment scan they hadn’t found it. Fortunately, I couldn’t hear the gasps of horror due to the flight-line noise. I cut the top knot of the closest bundle and sliced a small portion of the covering away. The package was full of memory sticks labeled “Compliance Inspection,” and “Formal Complaint Processing,” and “Environmental Impact Analysis,” and more. I performed the same autopsy on a second bundle, growing fearful of the implications. More memory sticks. A couple of thin-client servers. Hard-copy paper documents in manila folders. Hundreds of them!
Oh no. This can’t be happening. Not to me. Not this close to retirement!
“Colonel! Major! Collect these bundles and get them back to Base Operations and recall your staff! Put the base on full alert and . . .!” I didn’t have time to finish giving orders.
“General! We need to clear this runway NOW! EVERYONE MOVE!” All this time, a growling sound, like a hurricane in a wind tunnel had been growing. As we waited for the ’850 to land, I watched flight-line vehicles puttering about, doing what they do, and since I was an Army officer, I had no idea what that was. I assumed it was just air people doing what air people ordinarily did, despite being out of regular practice. Thomvs grabbed my arm, and we ran back to the passenger terminal on foot. I only looked back as we reached the safety of indoors.
The ’850 had landed while we were absorbed by the spectacle on the runway. The giant polluting monstrosity slowly came to a resting stop a few hundred feet from the little Nabokov. The great beast sat there, nose turned halfway or so toward us. Security surrounded it, as did fire mitigation trucks. Meanwhile, the Nabokov’s main door had buttoned itself back up before I or anyone else could so much as order a team to board and seize it.
As I stared, the major brought new information. “Tower says they ignored all orders to ascend to altitude and fly out to a point over water and stay there. They did a rapid descent! Completely ignored us, and we had to clear everything out of the way, otherwise they just would have run us over.”
“Look!” Without thinking, I grabbed Thomvs’s shoulder. I only suspected before, but now I was certain that “they” was in fact “she.” Either an excellent self-declared presentation or a from-birth genetic expression. Her parents, however many she had, selected an excellent cell line. Until now, I’d gone out of my way to avoid looking at her for any length of time, lest I face a Class II Male Gaze complaint. My career couldn’t survive another demerit like that. Shaking myself free of distraction, I watched the massive aircraft’s nose slowly open, and ramps deploy. A different set of engines growled to life.
Thomvs was horrified. “Those sound like internal combustion! That’s practically a war crime!”
That’s when the enemy’s deployment began in earnest. Forklifts rolled forward out of that gaping black hole. Forklifts carrying pallets. Pallets stacked high with document containers. A never-ending parade of documents. I made eye contact with Major Thomvs for the first time since we’d met.
“We’re at war,” I said, half shocked myself.
III. Immediate Response Authority
“His knowledge of that topic is only PowerPoint deep.”
—Unknown staff officer
Stunned, Thomvs looked at me in confusion.
I said, “Major, I need you to listen to me very carefully. On my authority, get the colonel, mobilize every single uniformed person on this installation and put them to work immediately. Get every single document, every single hard drive, whatever those Neo-Soviet reprobates throw at you, and just stamp every single one as RECEIVED, PENDING REVIEW. Don’t even bother to read them. Don’t waste any time analyzing or evaluating them yet. The UN inspection team will land in a few days at best. It’s critical they see those stamps! Hop all your people up on ibuprofen and caffeine if you have to, dig into the war reserve stockpile!”
The major nodded, a measure of professional demeanor and confidence returning to her face. “Yes, sir! I’ll get them going around the clock, and we’ll even get the local reservists in here too. What else do you need?”
“I need a video telecom with the Joint Chiefs. Don’t worry about the electricity budget. I’ll give you the numbers and access codes, and then meet me in your biggest conference room. We’ll need the space.” She seemed to absorb what I was saying, but I wasn’t done yet. “Quarantine these damn planes. As soon as they finish unloading the ’850, isolate the Sovs onboard and keep an armed cordon around them. I have a few ideas for dealing with them.”
“Yes, sir!” she said, excitement shining in her eyes. Amazing, all it took to make Thomvs drop the façade was a little bit of high-stakes stress.
IV. Defensive Campaign Design
“I may be slow, but I do poor work.”
—Unknown Major, US Army Europe
It took far too long to get to the rundown base headquarters building. I met the command staff in the main conference room. The secure video teleconference I ordered was already connected with the National Military Consensus Center, deep in the Nonagon. All eleven Joint Chiefs were on screen and socially distanced, some of them participating from their well-appointed secure home offices. The Secretary of Defense hadn’t dialed in yet, but we received word to start the conference and bring them up to speed when they joined.
Sitting at the archaic real wood table, I scanned the on-screen faces surrounding me on three sides. The command post team found and hastily mounted the screens straight from Class III Enviro-Protect storage. Some of the junior personnel wouldn’t even touch them at first, but luckily the threat of massive Social Credit Demerits all around righted the situation.
The Chair looked like they had just woken up. They looked awful. The long thin crack down the middle of the main screen directly in front of me didn’t help. They still had beads of sweat, indicating that it probably wasn’t sleep we had pulled the Chair away from. The resolution on these ancient, banned devices was so good I could see the ReJuv injection sites on their forehead. They and the rest of the Joint Chiefs were clearly agitated and unhappy to be disturbed. I was prepared for the firestorm, but for the others here, this would probably be unlike anything they’d ever experienced or would ever want to experience again. The Chair finally spoke.
“General Hanscom, we see thee. Are thou well?” The sarcasm was dripping from their voice.
Oh yeah, here it comes. I knew this was going to be a complete shitshow. “Yes, Chair, good morning to all the Joint Chiefs and Human-Based Persons on this call! Thank you for meeting with us on short notice. While the arrival of Neo-Soviet aircraft with an official delegation was known and understood to all bodies with the appropriate clearances, the Neo-Soviets have engaged in unusual behaviors.” I chose my words very carefully.
“Unusual? This body doesn’t understand, General,” said the Chief of Staff of the Armed Environmental Protection Agency. “You had better have a really good explanation for this. Really good, otherwise you and every idiot body that listened to you will be answering to a Reeducation Court-Martial!”
You? I thought. Okay that’s an outright insult, in front of the entire Joint Chiefs, directed to me, also a full GENERAL BODY, in front of all these junior bodies! I struggled to contain my anger, only a Joint Chief could survive the Social Demerits my completely justified Complaints would generate! However, since this was Their Truth, they had nothing to fear, especially the AEPA and the Interior Security Service. They Collective were untouchable. Still, the younger folks didn’t deserve this suffering.
“Of course. We will clear the room.” I smiled, nodded at the Senior-Most Leading Sergeant present, who understood completely and shooed everyone out except Major Thomvs and me. I haven’t seen anyone move that fast in my entire career.
“May we introduce Major Thomvs. They are prepared to give thee all the intelligence we have so far.”
The Chair growled at Thomvs. “Major, thou may proceed. And thou doesn’t need to waste the Chiefs’ time with backstory, They Collective are aware of the irregularities with the LN-850, and formal complaints are being prepared for launch at the Neo-Sovs through UNECH, the UN Environmental Compliance Headquarters.”
“The fines alone will wreck their economy!” The EPA smiled.
I was flabbergasted. The fool! Those would take staff YEARS to resolve. We didn’t have staff years! Thomvs broke in and recounted everything that happened once the Sov aircraft landed, as if sensing my agitation and trying to save me from falling on my sword.
“I’m sorry, they did what? You should have just stormed the planes, General!” The Air Component Chief of Staff was so agitated he slipped into Unsocial Speech patterns. His Social Credit score could afford it, so I felt no sympathy for him.
Undeterred, Thomvs continued. “At this time, our main line of effort is to fully account for every single document, media item, and all hardware. The entire base complement is stamping everything in accordance with standard procedures.” This caught their attention, and I could tell their collective confusion because no one bothered to mute their microphones.
“Gentle Bodies, please! You can’t fight in here; this is a war teleconference!” The Secretary of Defense had snuck into the telecon unnoticed and unannounced. “General Hanscom, what is thine assessment of the situation?”
I had seen SecDef do this before. The technique kept all the fractious Joint Chiefs off their game, lest one get too cozy with the President themself. I couldn’t waste this opening.
“Yes, Mx Secretary! Gentle Bodies, my assessment is that the Neo-Soviets have quite possibly launched covert lawfare against the ReUNITED! States. To confirm or deny this, we will need to analyze and respond to everything the Sovs dropped on us and prepare for the UN Inspector General team that will surely soon follow.”
All fell silent, soaking in the severity of the situation. As if on cue, the SecDef spoke. “Stand by, we are receiving a call from POTReU!S.” He had trouble not pronouncing it as “Petraeus,” an old name guaranteed to cause a strike even against his Social Credit score even though no one living understood why.
The Secretary disappeared from the screen. Staff minutes ticked by.
“Every Body, as you were bickering, the Secretary of National Intelligence briefed the President. This situation has evolved.”
The SecDef bristled as they spoke. There was no love lost between the powerful intelligence director and them. They struggled to keep the distaste out of their voice.
“We’ve received an official New UN Inspector General notice. An authorized Inspector General team has departed the Hall of Global Social Law pursuant to a possible declaration of lawfare by the Neo-Soviet Eurasian Union against the ReUNITED! States of the Western Hemisphere. Expect the IG to arrive in ninety-six staff hours. All bodies will provide every accommodation to the IG team.”
Before I or anyone else could respond, the AEPA Chief swore, and targeted me. “HANSCOM, YOU’RE responsible for Homeland Defense! Care to explain this failure?” The meeting dissolved into swearing, the kind not heard publicly in decades, and racked up tens of thousands of Social Demerits. The sheer amount of nanocurrency lost that day was staggering.
“Please! Everybody!” The Chair called for calm, and the furor quickly subsided.
The SecDef cleared their throat. “We’ve avoided war with the Neo-Soviets for thirty-five consecutive staff years, by ruthless application of Effects-Based Staffing and battle rhythm discipline. It must be this way because World War III made it impossible to do otherwise. There are too few of us left to fight, too little to fight with, and too little to fight over. Such is the price of civilization, and of the survival of humanity.”
As that sank in, the SecDef didn’t wait for a response.
“General Hanscom, the President has authorized thee to present a Course of Action and requisition assets. What do thou need?”
“Yes, Mx! Here’s my recommendation. We have already set up a twenty-four-hour contingency staff response cell. We’re not even out of the ‘receive’ phase yet, but we’ll need to drastically expand operations to counter this, if indeed it is full lawfare as we suspect. Before the IG team arrives, we can have all 250 tons of enemy documents certified positive receipt at a minimum. That should keep the IG busy for the first few days. Then, we need to analyze the attacks and respond in kind. And we also need to care for our Neo-Soviet guests. They are already complaining that their lavatory facilities are near failure because we’ve kept them quarantined on the planes. We’ll need to construct an appropriate facility for them as soon as we can serve them with an appropriate response for the LN-850.”
The Chief of Staff of the Army laughed. The relief on the call was palpable, which meant I had them on my side for now.
“We need a massive budget infusion; open up the electrical, water, heat, and food stores. Petroleum and plastic too. We’ll need lots of real paper and real ink for both the defensive campaign and the counterstrike. We’ll need fully trained special-operations compliance teams. We need authorization for a full reserve lawyer mobilization.” The AEPA Chief nearly came out of his seat. He couldn’t take any more and swore to destroy me.
“Oh, stuff it, Regina!” the chair shouted at him. For now, at least, the Chair was my ally. “You’ll get everything you need, Hanscom. All of it. We’ve been piping this into the Situation Room in the Rainbow House. Do you need anything else?”
I looked over at Thomvs, her eyes wide. While I’m not a lip reader, “stimulants” was as clear as the day is long. “Stimulants. Lots and lots of stimulants.”
“Done! As far as that budget request goes, we’ll start by charging as much as possible to your own Social Credit accounts. We have full faith and confidence in you, Hanscom, don’t let our Collective Noun down!”
“Thank you, Chair. Hanscom out.” It figures.
V: Stabilizing the Front Line
“None of us is as dumb as all of us.”
—Excerpted from a briefing, USEUCOM
Clouds of dust disturbed for the first time in who-knows-how-long hung everywhere in the enormous hangar where the colonel established the hastily assembled and minimally trained Provisional Contingency Response Processing Teams. Space was a nonissue, as this base once housed dozens of cargo planes, not much smaller than the Soviet monster still sitting inside the armed cordon on the flight line. The reconstruction of the old hangar’s interior was spectacular. On short notice, the colonel found a suitable cadre, mostly identified cismen, able to build what resembled an old-fashioned assembly line. The base’s ancient cargo transfer gear was disassembled, moved, cleaned, and reassembled here perfectly by the skilled NCOs and crusty civilians. However, before they so much as twitched a muscle, the colonel had to promise them immunity from all disciplinary action, and they demanded he put it in writing. In triplicate. A horrifying display of toxic masculinity and triggering language followed, but they got the job done. War is an ugly thing, and sometimes the ends justify the use of problematic ways and means. We had no other choice. The colonel gained my respect for his bold leadership.
I walked the length and breadth of the hangar, inspecting various construction sites and ad hoc machine shops. I smiled at the “Temporary Decontamination and Medical Safety Quarters,” coming together at the far end of the building, just waiting for our increasingly impatient Neo-Sov guests. Meanwhile, the base’s junior enlisted, supplemented by some from the Merchant Marine branch, unsealed and opened crates and boxes by the dozen, and then placed the contents on a rolling belt. I marveled at the younger Air People as they meticulously sorted the contents by type—stick, drive, paper document, and a curious array of things we could only classify as “other.” The Sovs had just mixed everything up and crammed it in every which way, to complicate the matter. Lieutenants made up the Stamp Processing Unit. They stamped everything as RECEIVED, PENDING REVIEW.
Further down the massive gaggle of belts and conveyors, a formation of captains, passed-over majors, and squinty, humorless senior NCOs tried to stage the mess into some semblance of order for the Analysis Team. Major Thomvs led that all-important effort and reported her findings directly to me. I don’t know how she did it, and I didn’t ask, but she managed to scare up a team of Internal Security Service and National Intelligence Corps personnel from the Cyber Service to aid her. The stare of her ice-cold eyes seemed to instill her charges with a powerful sense of urgency. I could see both of them now that she pulled her surprisingly long hair back into an Equine-Based Person tail and cleared away those fashionable lopsided bangs. “Bangs” is another word I can’t use publicly, because it makes some Bodies feel “unsafe.”
After a few hours, the hangar smelled of plastic, adhesive residue, coffee, and sweat. And feet. The environmental units howled as they ground out their best effort at the ragged edge of hard-wired energy usage limits. They barely knocked the humidity down without doing anything about the temperature. I started to grow nervous. Too slow! Normally unthinkable, I contemplated issuing a waiver for the entire gauntlet of operational safety measures just to speed things up. Medical personnel, including National Public Health Service officers, enforced breaks to avoid repetitive stress injuries and other ailments. This was quickly becoming an all-branches operation. Other medical and psychological issues rapidly emerged as well. Decades had come and gone since anyone had seen papercuts in such numbers. A few Bodies even fainted at the sight of blood, no matter how little. The colonel declared an entire separate building as a safe space for all the stress casualties we accumulated in those first few hours.
Nevertheless, we persisted. Once the troops got into a routine, the next three full staff days or so weren’t too bad. I made several battlefield circulations and tried to enhance morale. If Bodies thought this mess was stressful, they’d never survive the Nonagon’s depths.
The perpetual shuffling and rolling of boxes down the belts made a din. The troops spoke little but kept it mostly professional and focused.
“—I need another stamp, ASAP.”
“—That’s your fourth one!”
“—I know!”
“—These bastards even made a claim under Section 47 of the Aviation Torts in Wartime Act, Subsection 2319. They’re claiming stress injuries from their original offload, and now they’re blaming us for it.”
“—What the hell is an ‘Offog’?”
“—We don’t know, but apparently we need twelve of them!”
“—Disregard! Use Hazardous Material Destruction Form 121-B!”
“—Form 121-B? You idiot, that’s been rescinded!”
“—Stand down, we have the correct version! List all twelve as ‘decommissioned and subsequently destroyed.’ Back date it, make it triplicate, and problem solved!”
The colonel wisely set up a forward command post in the second-story offices ringing the north side of the hangar. I assumed these were where the old Air Force ran aircraft maintenance operations before the base’s aircraft were destroyed for Treaty Compliance. Major Thomvs and I scrutinized the enemy material itself. The colonel’s phone never left his ear, and his eyes were stuck on the decrepit computer screen in front of him. I watched it flicker, a reminder of city lights during preprogrammed rolling blackouts. Few places were exempt, but this short list now included Dover, thanks to Presidential directive.
The colonel hadn’t slept since this whole mess started, and I could see that he was struggling. The constant influx of supply requests, purchase orders, and taking care of morale and disciplinary issues was taking its toll. His SNCOs hadn’t slept in three days either, judging from the number of mental health cases and suicide attempts.
“Copy all, we’re down to twenty-four-hours supply of stamps?” He put down the phone momentarily. “General, I hate to do this, sir, but we’re going ‘red’ on stamps and need another bulk buy. The other lines of accounting aren’t open yet; Congress won’t authorize the appropriation until the Joint Staff fixes whatever it is that they don’t like. May I . . .?”
“Do it. Worry about the accounting later.” Well, I thought, there goes today’s hot shower.
“Sir, it’s almost time, we should review our talking points.” Thomvs reminded me that I was due for my first daily videocon with General Eugene Volkov, the enemy commander. We’d let him and his people off their planes but quickly moved them into the prefab trailer complex. We confiscated their cameras, their phones, everything. We gave the personal electronic devices back to them in pieces and didn’t allow the Sovs to leave the compound. They took it rather well, considering how long they’d gone with only aircraft chemical toilets and bottled water. We even found them some expired cookies in the passenger-terminal supply lockers. Pre-WWIII expired. Only the best for our guests.
Thomvs handed me a folder with prep materials. I flipped through Volkov’s bio, looking for anything that might give me a clue to what the Sovs wanted out of this little war. Thomvs must have read the questions on my face.
“There’s not really much to go on, sir. Very generic upbringing, education, career, nondescript postings. Identifies as ‘he/him/his,’ which is expected.”
“Ah, he’s Intelligence then. The Sovs always make the mistake of creating profiles so painfully boring they’re obviously fake. I know how to deal with him.”
“If you say so, sir.” Thomvs gave me a coy smile. “Are you ready?”
“Lead the way!”
She took me to an office with nothing more than a desk, two chairs, an electric lamp, and a very new-looking VTU, which she informed me was paired to a similar one installed for Volkov’s personal use. I guessed this was straight from the war reserve stockpile, or she’d spent a lot of my personal expense account on getting them rapid-drone delivered. I winced as I thought about the Social Credit deduction for exercising that privilege. She dialed the prearranged number to the single-channel secure line we provided to the Sovs. We couldn’t restrict their ability to call home or to contact the UN, but that didn’t mean we owed them unfettered access to our comms. This VTU ran a on a single hard fiber line direct between the two ends.
Thomvs dialed up the number, and the VTU made noises I’ve only previously heard from museum pieces. Where are we keeping these things? I wondered.
“General Hanscom, thank you for calling me. I trust your troops are busy now, yes? Over 250 tonnes of busy?”
“Oh yes, we’re busy. In fact, I just signed off on the first batch of responses to your opening salvo there, Eugene, do you mind if I call you that?”
“Not at all, Hanscom. I trust you’ll see that everything is proper and in order? The UN will be here shortly, and they will verify everything you know?”
“Just you wait. You won’t know how to spell your own name when we’re through!”
“Hanscom, please, temper! I’m sure your Social Credit score is as fragile as our intelligence experts say it is. You’re no favorite of anyone.”
“Let’s just cut the bullshit, Eugene. This time, you and me, every day until this is over?”
“Yes, that is acceptable.”
“The food and accommodations to your liking?”
“Absolutely not! This is deplorable and substandard you know, the UN will—”
“Hey Eugene, look at the time, I got to go. Same time tomorrow, okay, my friend? Ciao!”
I killed the connection and gave Thomvs my cold General stare. Something clicked in her eyes, and in her cheeks, I saw just a hint of color.
I said, “I think we need to run another round of decontamination on the entire Sov contingent. You know, stripped down, foam, cold water hoses, that sort of thing? We need a team from the Department of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, Pharmaceuticals, Explosives and Entertainment to check for illegal inorganics, nicotine contamination, contraband real alcohol, the works. Can you do that for us?”
“Oh, sir, I’ve been dying for the chance! The DAFTPEE folks will love it!”
The sheer joy in her voice made me feel a little flustered. Before I could answer, before my voice could break or something else embarrassing happened, I was saved. Klaxons blared throughout the complex, and overhead lights strobed and bled red over everything in sight. The base loudspeaker system crackled.
“Alarm Red! Alarm Red! Possible chemical contamination in the operations area!”
Thomvs and I briefly made eye contact, and then scrambled for the office door. Out on the catwalk, I looked down into the entire complex, a scene of total chaos. Loud footsteps on the metal stairs turned out to be the colonel, out of breath and waving his hands.
He gasped and relayed the bad news. “It’s the damn ink! We might have an entire trailer full of contaminated documents! If you don’t have them handy, I need to ask you to retrieve your chem bags. We’re going to MOPP 4, full chem suits, masks, gloves, overshoes, the whole thing! It’s the only way to be sure.”
I cringed. I couldn’t argue with his logic, and it was still his base. However, full chem gear would make an already tense, barely tolerable operation ten times worse. We’d already had a few workplace-violence incidents pop up due to stressed tempers, including misgendering and a host of other offenses. This wouldn’t help the morale and social cohesion status one bit. Still, I didn’t have real cause to override the base commander, nor did I want the extra burden of running this place on top of everything else. “Absolutely, Colonel, we’re with you one hundred percent. Major Thomvs?”
“Yes, sir.”
“As soon as you get your suit on, file a formal protest, bring it to me for signature, and then send it direct to the inbound IG team’s inbox. Demand that General Volkov verify the source of the ink and paper in that trailer. No, make it the ENTIRE docu-drop. All ‘two hundred feefty tonnes,’ as he so enjoyed reminding me.”
The colonel added his own ideas to help twist the knife. “Sir, we should demand environmental impact statements for each and every single document.”
Thomvs nodded and upped the ante even more, proving she had a real knack for this. “And if they can’t produce those, or prove how the material was sourced, we shred it and claim they never existed.”
“Now you’re talking like a real staff officer!” I congratulated both and gave them one final instruction. “If they protest us ignoring or shredding anything, tell them to eat war crime charges, and see how they like that!”
VI. Discovery Phase
“It’s not a lot of work unless you have to do it.”
—Unknown Lieutenant Colonel
The next few days were a blur of stamps, signatures, and rapid-onset carpal tunnel syndrome. The IG team arrived with thankfully little fanfare. The bespectacled, balding male-identified lifelong bureaucrat Senior Inspector, constantly flanked by the two biggest IG Special Forces of any gender I had ever seen, was relatively low maintenance. This was good for us, because we had little in the way of electricity and clean water to spare for international elites used to unlimited Social Credit luxuries. Fortunately, the Senior Inspector and his team were more interested in the placement and color of the stamps than they were with the content of the ordnance. They left that to Major Thomvs and her team, who continued to work around the clock like machines. What Thomvs found in the depth of those stacks, in the deepest recesses of the hard drives and memory sticks nearly undid decades of progress.
As we are taught in the war colleges, human conflict has never been more civilized than in the present day. National or corporate belligerents petition for war, the staff packages are launched, and the New United Nations approves or disapproves it. The belligerents respond to each other’s claims. The Inspector General arrives and adjudicates the conflict. The UNIG tallies the results, lays in the fines and any validated physical damage or casualty requirements, disseminates the reports, and everything goes back to normal. Better luck next time for the loser! If the loser doesn’t like the outcome and tries to pull something clever, well let’s say they don’t call them the Inspector GENERAL without reason. The IG troops are the most violent, most fanatical, most disturbing warriors the human species has ever produced, and Moralistic Therapeutic Deity help whoever is on the receiving end! Such is the price for continuing civilization as we know it.
This time was different.
I was showing the IG around the command post, introducing Major Thomvs’s crew to highlight their performance and hopefully score some rare IG challenge coins, which would bring the recipients big Social Credit prizes for years to come. A fitting reward for their dedication! Thomvs interrupted me, a huge breach in protocol and not something she’d shown herself the type to do unless the situation was dire. I excused myself and handed the IG over to one of her intel NCOs, who chomped at the bit to bore everyone to death with details that weren’t useful, and no one actually cared about. Perhaps she did me a favor.
“I signed WHAT?”
She gulped and became flush. “Sir, we knew it was risky, but in our haste to ensure that no attacks went unanswered, we were not thorough in our first-phase analysis. The Judge Advocates are just now getting their second- and third-order looks at them.”
“Explain this to me again, just so I’m sure.”
“The Declaration of War was hidden deep in the User Agreement for a requisition order of Chemical-Biological-Nuclear-Radiological detection equipment. The fine print concealed the consensual deployment of a single nuclear weapon delivered to a mutually agreed upon UN-brokered target in each belligerent’s territory. The Neo-Sovs even cited the Geneva Conventions and International Law of Armed Conflict Combat Results Tables (Sixth Edition). When you signed and certified it, it became binding.”
I read and reread it three times. She was right. The paperwork was exquisite. It was an unexpectedly bold move for the Neo-Sovs. Simply put, the loser eats the nuke and must even pay compensation for the costs of construction, delivery, and maintenance. Well done indeed! I must hand it to Volkov and his crew, they weren’t messing around this time. “What are the targets? They’re not listed here.”
“No, sir. Those are in the fifteenth attachment to the adversary’s mandatory diversity and inclusion report that must be sent with the Declaration of War.”
I dug through layer upon layer of charts and saw it. “Miami, huh. Don’t do us any favors. And they’re offering up Tashkent? Really? That’s pathetic. Hardly a fair trade.”
“Sir, I don’t think I understand, what’s significant about Miami?”
“All the former presidents living there as well as the wealth concentration. If you wanted to disrupt the economy and political life of the ReUS! then this is a fantastic target. We would need decades to recover. We need to brief the President, the SecDef, and the Joint Chiefs. No, there’s no decision space on this one, we’re committed, so it’s a back brief to give them the chance to yell and fire me. We’d better put this on slides, because while we have to suffer through every line of legal text, they sure as heck don’t. How’s your PowerPoint these days?”
VII. Counterattack
“I can describe what it feels like being a Staff Officer in two words: distilled pain.”
—Unknown
I don’t know how I kept my job. I didn’t want to keep my job. I think the President and the SecDef saw it as fit punishment. I thought it was a fate worse than death. The President nodded a few times. Scratched their chin, and authorized a full mobilization, something that hadn’t been done in thirty staff years. Not since a Nonagon Capstone Exercise nearly ended the world by accident. A nameless lieutenant colonel prepared the war declaration request email, forgot to attach the required EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE markings, and sent it straight to the Neo-Sov Defense Minister’s inbox. Fortunately, the mistake was discovered just in time to recall the message before it hit the failsafe server. Exercise RED BALLOON, like that foolish officer’s career, was cancelled.
Memories of that awful time made me shudder as I briefed the updated plan to the SecDef. They gave me everything I wanted and more. Almost overnight, we built a huge Joint Interagency Whole of Government Actualization Force under my direct command. The JIWGAF had all nine military services represented, along with teams of regulators from the fourth, fifth, and sixth estates. For two weeks nonstop we created new forms for the Sovs to fill out as fast as we could and still barely slowed the assault. Every lawyer in the country was recalled. We hired retired lawyers back as contractors. Things were going rough.
“—Hurry! We need counter-battery information assurance readiness packets on that inbound Mandatory Cyber-Based Persons Awareness Training Course they just hit us with!”
“—Can’t do it! Your Sexual Conduct Validation Training Certificate is expired! You must do that training, Sergeant! No exceptions to policy are authorized!”
“—How was I supposed to do that? I’ve been quarantined for two weeks!”
“—No exceptions! Mandatory!”
“—Specialist, what am I signing?”
“—It’s a form to requisition more forms, Captain. And my early release from active duty.”
“General Hanscom, we’re impressed by the rapid response displayed by thine personnel.”
The IG had turned out to be a pleasant fellow, which made me incredibly nervous. “We thank thee, Senior Inspector. We attribute that to our diverse and inclusive personnel.” We strolled slowly, inspecting the perimeter fence of the Sov compound, and talked to a few of our guards. I saw General Volkov eyeing us from the steps of the VIP trailer.
“The Neo-Soviet delegation should be just about done with its mandatory quarantine. Yes, that should be expiring within the next”—he paused to calculate on his fingers—“thirty-nine hours, if I am not mistaken. I look forward to us all sitting down face to face.”
“Of course, Senior Inspector, I can’t wait either.”
“We need to extend that quarantine somehow.”
“Sir, I think I’ve got just the thing.” Thomvs reverted to I and Me a little over a week ago. Now, she beckoned me over to a computer terminal where one of her analysts was sifting through camera footage of the Neo-Sov compound from multiple angles, frame by frame.
“Sir, do you see the rectangle outlined in tape, just outside the wire?”
I nodded affirmatively. Volkov negotiated for an exercise space outside the wire of the fence, but it was kept under guard. The deal was, the Neo-Sovs couldn’t step outside the taped lines on the ground. They get an hour outside of the fence, every day, and even get to use equipment. No grunting allowed while using the weights. In return, they pulled back twenty tons of documents, no questions asked, like they never even existed. I thought it was a good trade to buy us some time and space. Now, Thomvs’s intel analysts showed me conclusive proof of violations. The Sovs weren’t even attempting to comply. They had to always wear their corona-herpa-gono-syphilAIDS-50 viral protective gear including masks.
Thomvs smiled that deviously evil smile she did so well. “I say we fine their officers for every step they take outside the certified box. They’ll deny everything, and then only offer to pay a token fee when we show them the video footage.”
“Volkov will absolutely deny everything,” I said, thinking forward to our daily video call in four hours.
“Yes, sir. In fact, I’m counting on him to do just that. Before the call today, I think we should order our guards to start checking Sovs’ masks for ratings every time they come on the exercise pad.”
“And fine them on the spot if they don’t wipe down the equipment!” I added, a bit more enthusiastically than was perhaps proper.
Thomvs leaned toward my face, eye level since we were both seated. “Every time they exit the fence line, have the medics start anal swabbing them!”
I piled on, thoroughly enjoying this. “And demand all personnel who want to enter and exit the sovereign ReUS! comply with Sexual Class Struggle training and stick them with every immunization known to humankind.”
I looked in Thomvs’s eyes. “Make sure to use the big needles.”
The counterattack was on.
“—Nope, sorry Comrade Captain Constantin, I’m afraid I can’t accept this form.”
“—What are you talking about? We’re rationing down to one square of toilet wipes per person per day now! Sign the receipt!”
“—Yeah, I would Captain Consonant, but entomology hasn’t finished their report yet. They have to look for all sorts of bugs and pests you know. Could you come back tomorrow? Wait, yeah that won’t work, we’re closed tomorrow, it’s a training day.
“—It’s Constantin, wait! Did you say ‘TRAINING!’ In the middle of a damn war?”
“—You know how it is, sir. Sorry!”
The next time I saw the colonel, he had a giant, well-earned smile. “General, here’s the maintenance inspection authorization for the ’850 and the Nabokov. The IG released it to me! Please sign here!”
“Approved. And if you find a single leak, seize the aircraft, and make them agree to fines before releasing it back to them. Time to teach those commie bastards!”
“Well, I’m sorry, Eugene, the POL folks tell me that your craft’s fuel doesn’t have a sufficient ratio of biofuel, we’ll have to seize it as war-crime evidence.”
“You’re out of your damned mind, Hanscom! You’ll never get away with this!”
“Is your paper eco sourced properly, Eugene? Huh. He hung up on me.” I turned to the colonel, who accompanied me at today’s conference.
“Colonel, create a new fuel-replacement requisition submission process. The enemy plane has an inadequate biofuel ratio for the number and types of engines on it. In accordance with international law, I order you to seize it as evidence of a war crime committed by the Neo-Soviet forces. Bring the armed JAG officers with you. Oh, and check the sourcing on the aircraft’s papers to see if the logbooks are green enough.”
VII. Collapse
“When all else fails, simply revel in the absurdity of it all.”
—Lieutenant Commander (USCENTCOM)
The counterattack was going well so far, but success was far from guaranteed. Success also tends to breed overconfidence, and my forces were getting more fragile by the day. The enemy knew this, so they hit us with a devious trap. That trap started with a knock on my DV quarters, on the seventeenth day of the war.
“I’ll be right there.” I started to get up from the bed, but Marilyn murmured, and tried to pull me back down and back under the blankets with her. I smiled and kissed her full on the lips.
“I’m sorry, Major Thomvs. I think I need to answer the door.”
“In here, when it’s just us, it’s Marilyn Thomas. That’s what my parents named me.”
“How many did you have?”
“Just two. A biological mother and a biological father.”
“You must have been pretty ostracized growing up.”
“Yes, that’s why I . . .”
She didn’t get to finish that sentence. The knocks grew so loud and continuous, I angrily got up, put on a robe, and flung the door open myself. The colonel stood there, mouth open and ready to speak. Nothing came out, because he was frozen in fear; he couldn’t stop staring at the very attractive female by any standard of beauty sitting on the bed, wrapped in a blanket. She waved coyly at him.
The colonel’s eyes darted back to Major Thomvs, then to me, back to Thomvs, then to me again. He sputtered, he coughed. He might have been having a panic attack.
“This couldn’t wait a few more minutes, Colonel?”
“Sir, I’m sorry! So sorry! I, uh, we, uh thee . . .”
“WHAT. IS. IT.”
“We might have what we need to win the war, sir. If you’ll meet me back at the command post, there’s someone there you should talk to right away.”
I wasn’t buying this whole “defector” thing. This was simply too good to be true.
“The IG themselves certified me,” the Sov cooed. “It’s all here, in triplicate: ‘Defector, one each.’”
I frowned. Thomvs’s face was completely made of stone. The colonel hung on the man’s every word.
“Why should we believe you?” I asked, and I made sure to make the disbelief resonate in my voice.
“Because I have the key to ending the war with a slight marginal Western victory. I have a few things I want in return of course, but you need what I know to end the war.”
“Let’s see it.” The man asked for the briefcase he’d brought with him when he jumped the checkpoint. His colleagues made a great and noisy show of trying to restrain him, and to pull him back through. Almost too good of a show. He opened the briefcase and displayed a packet of printouts with unreadably tiny font.
“I hope you have magnifying glasses, General Hanscom.”
Thomvs briefed the contents of the defector’s briefcase at my staff meeting. A hushed silence fell over the room.
I finally broke it, nearly in despair. “Since when do we promise ISO certification? We’ve only ever gone up to ISO compliance before. Sonsofbitches got us again!”
“General, this is your final warning, language!” I nodded but didn’t say anything. Along with all the supporting assets I demanded from the Joint Chiefs, they’d also finally sent a Toxic Command Culture Prevention and Intervention Counselor too. I despise them on the whole. I ignored this one.
“This will destroy us. He only gave us a copy. The original is still on the Neo-Sov plane, apparently there’s a dead-person’s switch that will auto deliver it at the last authorized second of the war, if it looks like the Neo-Sovs might lose. We can’t effectively respond to that for the IG to certify us ISO!”
Thomvs sounded pessimistic. “What’s worse, we consented to this way back at the beginning. The consent form was in the very first docu-drop.”
I knew we would regret rushing through things at the beginning! This was my fault. I signed it, and now we would suffer. If you want a vision of the future, imagine a Neo-Soviet self-inking seal stamping RECEIVED, PENDING REVIEW on a human face—forever.
The colonel brought us back down to practical matters. “Well, we’d better figure something out. My SNCOs are constantly breaking up fistfights. Fistfights! Just yesterday, the safety officer complained about the spike in RSI rates, and recommended limiting coffee intake. A Senior-Most Leading Sergeant shanked him. Of course, no one saw ANYTHING.”
Thomvs stood up and clapped her hands. “I’ve got it!” Now she was even dropping all pretenses in public, not just private. “We board the plane and shut down the dead-person’s switch before it detonates!”
“In an hour?”
“Do you have a better idea, Colonel?”
Thomvs frowned and got up. “Sir, I want to check on something. I recommend you go down to the flight line and crack that plane back open. I’ll join you shortly.”
The flight line was completely cordoned off, not by our security forces, who were nowhere to be seen, but by two Armed EPA agents. They were dressed as birds. Endangered white whooping cranes, as it turned out. This struck me as odd because I had never seen a white whooping crane anywhere near this base. Brown ones, yes, in the hundreds, but not a white one. The colonel was apoplectic.
“On my authority, you will stand down, you will let us onto that flight line, and we will be boarding that LN-850!”
The costumed special agent in charge put his hand on the colonel to stop him. Others leveled their rifles at us. “You have no authority here anymore, Colonel! This is the primary habitat for an aging white whooping crane, who we are tasked to protect and if necessary, bring into protective custody. You are charged with being ableist and word-violent! Furthermore, the nonperson object self-identified as a cargo airplane has been classified as a Class-A Pollution Offender by the Chief of Staff of the Armed Environmental Protection Agency! We Collective Noun will take custody from here on.”
I spoke up. “If you don’t let us on that plane in the next few minutes, we’ll lose a war, and you’ll be responsible for the deaths of every person, Human, Plant, Animal, and Cyber-based, in the State of Miami. Do you understand me?”
“General Hanscom, it could take us weeks to properly and respectfully bring that Bird-Person in for proper medical care, and we can’t allow you to interfere with that process, regardless of your truth. You are hereby placed under arrest for interfering with national law enforce—”
The colonel moved faster than I would have expected, and I don’t know exactly how Thomvs caught up with us so fast. Within seconds, both special agents were disarmed and unconscious. There would be hell to pay later. Hell is low-ranking bureaucrats with one tiny little sliver of absolute power over the one thing you need at one specific moment in time.
We quickly armed up and prepared to make our way to the plane. We were ready to fight, in case other AEPA agents were found. I finally spotted the giant white crane. As we approached the fenced off LN-850, he decided to block my path. He was flanked by dozens of brown cranes.
“If you have to, you can shoot the brown ones, but not the white one!” Then, I realized in horror what I had just said! But it was too late. A lone voice, louder than any I have ever heard before or since in my entire life, rang out over the airfield.
“WHAT?”
VIII. End of the War
“I’m just ranting . . . I have nothing useful to say.”
—Lieutenant Colonel (EUCOM)
The IG bumped elbows with me and prepared to leave for his flight back to New United Nations Headquarters. He handed me a copy of his draft report and reminded me that it would not be certified complete for several months. In the meantime, the nukes would be disassembled and deactivated, and then returned to their normal storage. As he left my office, he thanked me for my service, and congratulated me on my upcoming wedding.
We only survived because I shot that stupid whooping crane, and Thomvs disabled the dead-person’s switch with seconds to spare. It turned out the defector was real after all, but he used his final bargaining chip to save us. I don’t know how Thomvs got General Volkov’s password for his computer in the opulent executive cabin on the LN-850. I don’t want to know. All I do know is Volkov didn’t call me or give us an ounce of trouble after his brief interrogation session.
The war ended quietly, and with no change to the overall world geostrategic situation. Control of a few obscure UN bureaucracies changed hands between the superpowers, and things returned to a sane state of tense but quiet cold war again. World War IV was over, and all that was left was to sign the awards paperwork. Every member of my task force received a newly struck campaign medal. Purple Hearts were given out in droves, mostly for mental harm caused by triggering language. Fortunately, only one was given posthumously and that was for the Dover base safety officer. We listed the official cause of death as “enemy action.” I even got a paid gig under a pseudonym to consult on a full-length three-minute documentary dance video about the war. They portrayed me with a very femme-looking Asiafrican male neutrois to capture the intersectional spirit we all live by.
I ended the war standing on the Rainbow House south lawn, in my dress purples. Mx. President themself placed the medal around my neck. A circular medallion, with an old-fashioned ink stamp in the medal. The medal hung from a red ribbon. I saluted the President, bumped a lot of elbows and fists, and left as soon as possible. Marilyn waited for me at our new home, and I found her wearing a silk robe and nothing underneath it.
“Ready to make it official?”
“Absolutely,” I said and began to undress.
“Hold up, tiger. Sign these first, and press down hard. They’re triplicate.”