War is hell, and among the first casualties of war are those who fight it. Except, of course, for some special soldiers. The truth is a casualty, too, and procedures not followed means more casualties.
A constant drizzle fell from the ash-colored sky of Kalpax Seven as I prepared myself for the speed and violence that would come. My team stacked against the compound wall, rivulets running off cold steel and forming small, coffee-black puddles in the mud. I keyed the command net, the soft crackle of the open channel flooding my earpiece.
“Zeus, Kilo Zero-One, DACS are starting the call outs,” I said.
“Roger, Kilo Zero-One,” the colonel replied from the Luzon’s Tactical Operations Center. But none of our DACS were doing call outs. They weren’t doing anything other than providing security on the corners, but the boss didn’t need to know that. I glanced skyward, the small, pale blue reticle highlighting the ship’s position in orbit.
“Captain Hawk, would you like us to start the call outs now?” Johnny-D cut in on the team internal channel.
“Negative,” I said.
Tommy-D this time. “Sir, I am required to inform you that in accordance with–”
“Understood,” I said. “You have your orders.” I spat into the muck surrounding my boots and glanced over my shoulder, but I knew the DACS would be doing what they were told. Unlike the men and women breathing into the cold around me, DACS didn’t have a choice.
I waited the obligatory amount of time for the colonel’s sake in the pattering rain. We stopped doing call-outs months ago. All they did was give the target time to react. They never came out. Not on K7. Besides, nobody in the TOC, Tactical Operations Center, would be able to tell humans from DACS on the grainy, monochrome feed piped out from the hand-launched relay drone hovering 3,000 feet above the compound.
“Zeus, Kilo Zero-One, negative response,” I said on command net. “DACS are announcing intentions and positioning to breach.”
“Roger, Kilo Zero-One,” the colonel said.
I looked at the squad of humans around me and tucked my rifle into my shoulder. The breacher stood in front of the wooden door hefting a steel sledgehammer and waiting for my signal. Sounds of conversation and dinnerware slithered through the cracks and mixed with the falling rain. A man coughed. A child laughed. Why’d there have to be a goddamn child?
If I had known how it would end up, maybe I would have thought twice about violating the ROE, the Rules of Engagement. I may have done things differently. Christ, I don’t know. But something had to change, that much I knew.
I nodded, and we went to work.
#
“Another round?” Decker said.
“I got it,” I said.
I turned and raised two fingers to the barkeep, Gina. She nodded through the smoke hanging in the air as she placed four shots in front of two soldiers at the bar. Pulling two mugs from wooden pegs, she began filling them below a tap handle with the carved figure of a serpent on it.
“I think she likes you,” Decker said. “She usually ignores me.”
“You puked on her bar.”
Decker shrugged. “One time.”
I held up my fingers. “Twice.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You wouldn’t.”
He ran a hand across the nicked metal surface of the bar. “Well, it needed a good scrub.”
I shook my head. “It’s good to be back, brother.” I turned and surveyed the place. It hadn’t changed much.
Arnie’s rode at the top of its seasonal wave, the bar buzzing at peak frequency fueled by the few days both teams were on the Luzon before the next team went down the chute. Decker had command of Black Team and was heading out in the next seventy-two hours. He had caught me off the shuttle, dropped my bags with the bay sergeant, shoved a beer in my hand, and forced me onto the lift to Arnie’s. I could have used some rack time, but some traditions die hard. I didn’t complain.
“So, how was it?” Decker said, rubbing the dark stubble of his jaw line.
“Same.”
He nodded.
Gina approached and slammed the mugs down in front of us, beer sloshing over the rims. She frowned at Decker and punched my ration card while blowing a stray wisp of black hair out of her eyes. Then she pulled a frayed, white rag from the back pocket of her coveralls and tossed it at Decker’s chest as he fumbled to catch it. “In case you need it,” she said, and hurried off to fill another order.
“I think I’m in love,” Decker said.
I laughed and took a pull. It wasn’t cold, but it didn’t need to be after five months on the rock.
“So, anything go sideways on you?”
I stiffened and kept my eyes on my mug. “You know how it is with the DACS.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
I could feel him looking at me now.
“They do their job,” I added, lifting my mug to my lips.
He nodded again and then turned slowly, looking at the wall behind the bar tacked with squadron coins and team patches. “Most of the time,” he said.
“What?”
Decker took a long pull. “One of my DACS lost it.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah. Last rotation, in the middle of a raid. The DACS breach and enter. The shooting starts and it just doesn’t stop. I’d never heard a firefight like that before.” He studied his beer for a moment, his eyes narrowing. “When it finally does stop, none of the DACS come out. Hell, nobody comes out. Of course, I thought they had barricaded the place with heavy weapons, tunnels, you know the drill. But this felt different. So eventually, I sent in a human squad. They called me in right after.”
“What the hell happened?”
His eyes looked beyond the bar, unfocused. “Charlie-D had killed them all. The target, his wife, three other adult males, two women, three kids, hell, he even killed the dog. Then it destroyed the other DACS on the assault element. When I got there, it was standing in the middle of the carnage, slack-jawed, shifting targets between dead bodies and destroyed DACS. It was empty, but it just stood there pulling the trigger–click, click, click.” He mimed the motion with his hand and shook his head.
“No shit,” I said. It was the first DACS malfunction I’d ever heard about. “What’d you do?”
“What do you think? I bagged it and sent it back for evaluation.”
“And?”
“And nothing, man.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing?’ A DACS goes off half-cocked and–”
“Keep it down,” he said, looking around again.
Soldiers, transient crews, local girls, and working girls were packing the place solid now, pressing toward the bar, sweat-stained fatigues and flight coveralls marbling their way through the haze of nylon mesh and hungry skin.
“So what happened?” I asked.
He took another drink, swallowed, and grimaced. “They sent another replacement of DACS down, and we went back to work. Never heard another word about it. They smothered it. I got the nudge from the boss that I was to drop it.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Yeah. But I couldn’t shake it. So, I started to fabricate our civcas numbers, the wrong way. You know, inflated them to make the DACS look bad to see if I could force a policy shift, an ROE change. Nothing seemed to matter.” Decker sighed. “Look, Jim, I wanted to tell you before, but I didn’t want to spook you.”
“I get it,” I said.
Decker slammed the rest of his beer and his face sagged. “I don’t trust them anymore. Something’s got to change, or I don’t know if I’ll make it through this next rotation.”
I nodded. He was right. I suppose it’s why I stopped sending them in, even though that’s what they were designed to do. DACS: Direct Action Combat System. Technically, they were classified as cyborgs. But they were no more than human husks of blood, organs, and circuitry. Molecules and atoms, vibrating, sliding, moving together in form and function. A clanky punchline to a bad joke. I’d be damned if I was going to let them hold the balance of life and death in their repurposed fingers.
They had been intended to lower civcas–civilian casualties. Collateral damage. At least, that was the bill of goods Ishikawa Cybernetics sold to the Department of Defense. But it wasn’t that simple in practice. Sure, they may look human, but they were still just walking flesh bags of ones and zeroes. They weren’t infallible. I’d seen that. Decker had seen it worse.
“I should tell you something,” I said.
Decker turned his head back toward me from trying to flag down Gina.
“I haven’t been sending them in,” I said.
He looked at me a long moment. Then a grin spread across his face. “It’s about damn time someone did something about it. I’ll drink to that.” He signaled for two shots of whiskey.
“Yeah, well anyone up the chain won’t see it that way. It’s an ROE violation. A damn big one.”
“And everyone is in on it?”
“All the humans, yeah,” I said.
“What about the DACS?”
I shrugged. “They’ve been following their orders. They have to. I put them on a gag order, like everyone else.”
“So, you’ve been going in with your own team?”
“Yeah.”
“All human?” he said.
I nodded.
He shook his head. “You crazy son of a bitch. Is it working?”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “Better than it should. Since we pulled the DACS off, we’ve only lost one guy, and our civcas rate is down. Almost twenty-five percent.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
Decker stared. “That’s not possible,” he said.
“I know.”
My eyes caught a flash of my team patch as a figure moved through the crowd and approached the bar.
“Captain Hawk,” Tommy-D said, a dead smile hanging below a pair of hollow, film covered eyes. “Captain Decker,” it said with a nod too quick to be human.
“Perfect,” Decker mumbled.
Gina dropped off the whiskey shots in green plastic shooters etched with the unit crest: a serpent wound around crossed daggers.
I turned to face the DACS. “Tommy-D. I’d offer you a round, but I’d just be wasting it. You understand.”
“Certainly, sir. Actually, I’ve–”
“I’m off the clock, Tommy-D. I’ll see you at muster tomorrow.”
“I’m afraid it cannot wait.”
Decker handed me one of the shots. I sighed. “What is it?”
“It’s a matter of our operations and civcas, sir. I’d like a word if you can spare a minute.”
My heart skipped as I stared at its stupid, grinning face. Technically, Tommy-D wasn’t breaking the gag order since I was the one that gave it. But it should know better than to speak about the matter here.
I raised the shot glass in acknowledgement, threw it back, and slammed the overturned shooter back on the bar. I grimaced as its contents burned their way down my throat. “Sure,” I said. Then to Decker, “I’ll be back in a few.”
I turned to follow Tommy-D. Decker’s hand shot out and seized my wrist.
“Watch your back,” he said out of the side of his mouth.
I nodded and slipped after Tommy-D through the smokey, stale haze and the throng of bass-infused, pulsating bodies.
My ears were still ringing when the station police took me.
#
Commander Jennifer Blatt sat behind the aluminum table at the front of the grey room, looking like a fat Cleopatra on her throne. Her black hair hung board-straight down to a pair of doughy shoulders supporting her rank. Dark eyeliner extended beyond the corners of her eyes in the style of the outer stations. Next to her, an elderly bespeckled man in a blue suit sat motionless, hands folded in front of him. A dozen other officers sat like statues around the periphery.
They had deposited me at the briefing room without a word. My initial fears had melted away as Tommy-D spoke with the SPs. There was no mention of ROE, nor how we operated on K7. Just a discrepancy with the civcas numbers, a routine summons. I figured they might catch it, as much as I tried to hide the data in my reports. But it wasn’t my first dog and pony show. You can put up quite a smoke screen with the right buzz words. I’d had a lot of practice.
“Do you know why you are here?” Commander Blatt said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “Then you admit–”
“Ma’am, I know the civcas metrics are off,” I said. “That was my fault. The ops tempo was up, and I rushed the sitreps before I had verified the data and post-op assessment with the site teams. I see now that my reports were substandard. I’ll see to it immediately. It won’t happen again.”
Commander Blatt sat with pursed lips staring at the paper in front of her and nodding. Then she sat back and said, “Tell me, Captain Hawk, why are you intentionally violating the standing Rules of Engagement on Kalpax Seven?”
I stared back and tried not to move. They know. Of course, they know.
“Should I take your silence as an admission of guilt?” Commander Blatt said with a smirk, pen hovering above her notes.
I cleared my throat. “No, ma’am.”
“Please, Captain Hawk, there is no need for this charade.”
“There’s a problem with the DACS,” I said, swallowing.
The small man in the suit sat up and pushed his glasses into place. “There is no problem with our product,” he said.
“Who the hell are you?”
“You will remember your decorum at this inquiry,” Commander Blatt said. “This is Mr. Takamoto. He is here as a subject matter expert representing Ishikawa Cybernetics. I assure you he knows more about the DACS than you or I.”
“Is that a fact,” I said. “Because I hear that they are killing more civilians per raid than they should be. That a DACS went haywire and massacred an entire compound and everything in it, including its team. Does he know that?”
Commander Blatt paused, glancing at the man. “I’m sure Mr. Takamoto did not–”
The small man held a hand up, cutting her off. He removed a small, silver cigarette case and offered it my direction. When I remained stoic, he removed one, lit it, and placed the case back inside his vest.
“Captain Hawk, I doubt very much that one of our units went berserk as you claim. And if so, an acceptable fail-rate nonetheless. Your ROE dictates that DACS be the only ones through the door on a raid. Do you know why that is?”
“Of course, I do. But–”
“The human brain’s reaction time, your reaction time, to a visual stimulus is one quarter of a second. A DACS’s cortex-processor can identify, classify, and react to threats in a billionth of that time. Surely you can see how that translates to civcas.”
“But that’s not what’s happening.” I turned to Commander Blatt. “You’ve seen the numbers. My team. You know it’s true.”
Commander Blatt stared back and said nothing.
Mr. Takamoto pushed his glasses into place and sighed. “What comes next will no doubt be a surprise to you, captain. Officers at your level are seldom privy to what I am about to tell you.”
A sickening feeling came over me, like I was freefalling toward re-entry, waiting to burn up in a long, fiery streak.
“The DACS are fully capable of zero civcas,” he said. “But we don’t design them that way. On the contrary, we set a threshold we believe to be appropriate to the objectives provided by the Department of Defense.”
“What? What objectives?” I said. “You mean–”
“To win the war on Kalpax Seven, of course. Why, if the rebels were to think that DACS would never kill noncombatants, it will remove the one thing that makes them so effective. Fear. Fear of your family’s extermination. Fear that your choices will endanger those you love when they come for you. A powerful motivator, wouldn’t you agree?”
I felt the blood hammering in my ears. “You knew? You knew they were killing innocent civilians?”
He laughed, a thin, incredulous cackle. “Innocence is subjective, captain. Does the wife that feeds the rebel contribute to the war? Does the child that will grow up to be the rebel? Does the home that shelters them?”
I stared back. “It’s wrong,” I said.
“That is the luxury we afford with our product. For you to maintain that illusion. An illusion you shattered when you decided not to use them. To get your hands dirty.”
“Have you ever led soldiers in combat, sir?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then you can’t possibly understand the first thing about your illusion.”
Mr. Takamoto leaned forward, studying me through the narrow slits of his eyelids. “Ah, yes. Is that why you have been leading your team the way you have? You enjoy the thrill of it, do you? The killing? The adrenalin? Please, captain, do not look so surprised. It is physiological. You can no better resist it than resist the urge to breathe. It is why we designed them in the first place. To spare you the addiction. Unfortunately, we are aware that their personality limitations have created some…friction on the teams. Our newer models will alleviate that concern. Much more empathetic, relatable. In fact, they are already in production.”
It was true, about the DACS at least. They had mannerisms of ventriloquist dummies. It was their behavior that had turned me sour. Too automatic. Too placid. Too remorseless after a kill. A machine with a face. A sad attempt at a smile when social parameters were met. They’d never feel. They’d never know what the rush was like. But it didn’t change anything. We didn’t need better DACS, empathetic DACS, more human DACS. We didn’t need them at all.
“It’s wrong,” I said again.
“It is a shame we cannot change your mind, captain. But I know we cannot. We have been watching you for some time.” Mr. Takamoto tapped his cigarette into the ashtray on the table and sat back.
Commander Blatt cleared her throat. “At this time, the inquiry will call its first witness.”
The doors opened behind me, and the sound of boots on metal passed me as Tommy-D entered and took the stand wearing that same stupid grin.
#
The inquiry turned to trial. The rest passed in a numbing blur. A jury, the stenographer tapping along as the official charges were trumped up and laid forth: Dereliction of Duty, Failure to Obey a Lawful Order, Sedition. The verdict read. The sentence passed. Execution by lethal injection. After all, this was a time of war.
The hypocrisy of it. The spineless sausage churning of senior officers kowtowed before the industry, knowing innocent lives were being extinguished for Ishikawa Cybernetic’s bottom line. They hid behind a smokescreen and called it strategy, obscuring the fields of lifeless, blank faces, a sea of collateral damage.
How many others had tried and failed as I had? How many more? Decker. I had to warn Decker. But I was in a dark room, strapped to a cold, metal table, awaiting the unjust reward for trying to do what was right.
The door to the chamber opened and clicked shut.
The clean-shaven face of an officer in a black uniform appeared over my strapped forehead.
“Captain James D. Hawk, sedition, execution order one-zero-eight-five-two,” he said, reading from the clipboard. “Well, I’m afraid we should get on with it.”
He disappeared to the rustling of metal instruments, returning with an unsheathed needle. It caught the glint from the buzzing, fluorescent bulb overhead and panic overtook me. I thrashed against my restraints, a cornered animal.
“Whoa, easy now,” he said.
“Wait!” I pleaded. “Please, you have to deliver a message for me. Please.”
The officer regarded me curiously and lowered himself onto a metal stool next to the table.
“To whom?”
“Captain Decker, Black Team. Please. Just tell him Jim said they know. Tell him they know. I beg of you. From one soldier to another.”
The man bit his lip. “I’m afraid I cannot do that, captain. My apologies.” The smile came on a touch too quick, the head nod too swift.
I stared at it for a hard moment and laughed.
“I’m sorry. Is something amusing, sir?”
I shook my head beneath the restraint. “Nothing, pal. For a second, I thought you were human.”
“I see,” it said. “My name is Danny-E.”
I returned my eyes to the ceiling in disgust. “The new and improved model, I presume. They could at least have the decency to send a human to do the job.”
They say that in the end, your life flashes before you, a highlight reel of your beloved friends and family. Or you recall a special memory or place. Or that all your life becomes clear, weightless, lifted. For me, all I felt was the guilt settling over me like falling snow.
“You know,” I said as Danny-E prepared the injection site, “I don’t remember the ones we saved. The ones we spared doing what we did. You would think that would be the important thing, but all I can think about is that last raid. We bagged the target within the first moments, and it was over almost before it began except for the wailing and screaming from the corner.”
Danny-E sat on the stool. He held the needle and waited.
“There was this woman crouching there, hysterical, clutching a steak knife and holding a small, crying boy to her chest. Next to her, there was this man cradling a black-haired little girl in his arms. A stray bullet had found her left lung. He held her as her small body labored for life. A rifle lay across his lap, and he looked at me. I’ll never shake that look.”
I felt the warmth run down my cheeks, wishing for the end, for atonement.
“A DACS would have identified the weapon and engaged the threat,” I said. “Taken them out. But we didn’t. We just packed it up and left. That’s the real cost of this war, and you’re on the wrong goddamn side, pal. So go ahead. Get on with it.”
“Just a moment, captain,” Danny-E said after a pause, wrinkling his forehead. “I don’t understand. You turned your back on an armed enemy?”
“No,” I said. “I left a father to bury his child. I saw it written on his face and I knew. From one human to another, I knew. Something your kind will never understand. I don’t know if it made any difference in the end. But I wish I could have saved that little girl. I wish I could have, but I didn’t. I know that much.”
When I said no more, the DACS glanced at the clipboard and rose from the stool. It reached out and grabbed my wrist, steadying my arm in preparation. Its fingers were warm and gentle. The needle rose and Danny-E looked at me with sad, clear eyes. Its brow furrowed as it searched my face, the muscles of its own belaying budding emotion. The needle hovered, and I waited.
THE END
