The Moscow Offensive

Twenty-Four

Kirill Aristov cranked the wheel of his big rig, turning off the West I-820 frontage road and into the empty lot of a large discount furniture warehouse. He pulled around the back of the store and parked alongside two other FXR Trucking — registered tractor-trailers already there.

When he clambered down out of the cab, the first thing that struck him was the silence. Apart from insects chittering in the nearby woods and the occasional soft whoosh of a truck or car speeding past on the highway, everything was quiet.

Pavel Larionov stepped out of the shadows to greet him. “We’re secure here, Captain. I’ve got Yumashev and Popov posted to keep an eye on the road.”

“Good work.” Aristov heard footsteps crunch across gravel and turned to see Dobrynin and Mitkin, the other members of his six-man security team, emerging from the woods. Both men were armed with Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine guns. Just over sixteen inches long with the stock collapsed, the compact weapons fired 4.6mm copper-plated solid steel rounds that could penetrate body armor at up to two hundred meters. MP7s equipped the special forces of more than twenty countries, including the Vatican’s Swiss Guard.

Dobrynin gave him a thumbs-up sign. “We scouted all the way to the edge of the woods. No problems. If they stay away from the shoreline, the colonel’s KVMs should have a clear shot straight to their objective.”

Aristov nodded. They were not far from a winding cove that led out onto Lake Worth, which was a man-made reservoir and recreational waterway on the northwestern edge of Fort Worth. Although a number of private homes and boat docks lined this cove, a thick belt of scrub oaks and underbrush farther inland offered a concealed way past them. Decisively, he jerked a thumb toward the three trucks. “Okay, then let’s get Baryshev and his robots outside and send them on their way.”

Moving with practiced efficiency, the four former Spetsnaz soldiers unlatched the doors on the back of each of the three semitrailers and hauled them open. More quick work propped open the package- and box-studded false fronts that concealed the compartments hidden inside.

One after another, Colonel Baryshev’s six combat robots spooled up with a low, ominous whir. They came smoothly to their feet, bending at the torso to clear the trailer ceilings. The Kiberneticheskiye Voyennyye Mashiny straightened up once they were outside — towering over Aristov and his men. Each carried an arsenal of heavy weapons, mostly 30mm autocannons and antitank guided missiles, in their hands and stowed in packs slung across their torsos.

Unable to shake off a feeling of primitive dread, the former Spetsnaz captain stared up at them. Everything about these machines exuded inhuman precision and lethality. Nervously, he made his report.

An antenna-studded head swiveled noiselessly in his direction. “Understood, Captain,” an emotionless, electronically synthesized voice said. “Guard this position until we return.”

Without waiting for an acknowledgment, the six Russian war machines swung away and stalked off into the woods — heading southeast toward a bright orange glow visible above the treetops. Those lights marked the location of U.S. Air Force Plant 4, a sprawling aircraft assembly facility. Almost ten thousand people were employed there, working in shifts around the clock, to build America’s top-of-the-line F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters. Sixteen aircraft assembly stations and a wing manufacturing plant were all housed inside one enormous, nearly mile-long building at the heart of the giant complex.

Minutes later, Colonel Ruslan Baryshev hunched low near the edge of a tangle of scrub oaks and brush. He was only a few hundred meters west of the F-35 assembly building. Five green blips on his tactical display showed the other KVMs. They were concealed close by in the same scraggly patch of woods, awaiting his final attack orders.

He concentrated, using his neural interface with the robot’s computer to see more of the composite imagery obtained by its passive sensors. Two red dots, evaluated as hostile, blinked into existence on his display. They were positioned just off the two-lane road leading to the American aircraft plant.

Baryshev zoomed in on them, using a night-vision camera. He saw a white Tarrant County sheriff’s patrol cruiser parked next to a desert-camouflaged U.S. Army National Guard Humvee. The Humvee carried a 40mm grenade launcher in a 360-degree traversable mount. Several soldiers had dismounted from their armored vehicle to man an improvised roadblock. A couple of them were smoking cigarettes. One was chugging a bottle of water. All of them looked bored and tired.

He smiled thinly. Originally, he’d questioned Moscow’s orders to delay this next attack — arguing that only an unrelenting clandestine offensive would knock the Americans off balance and keep them there. Now he could see that prolonging the interval between their terror operations was yielding dividends. Every experienced commander knew how difficult it was to keep troops fully alert as hours and then days passed without action.

Situation update, his computer reported coolly. Communications intercepts have pinpointed additional enemy patrols and defensive positions.

Baryshev widened his sensor fields again, seeing more red icons appear at various points around the aircraft plant’s seven-kilometer-long perimeter. Radio chatter between the different American posts and mobile units had enabled his robot’s systems to identify more of the police cars and army vehicles deployed to defend this facility. He sneered. The defenders were too few in number, too poorly equipped, and too widely dispersed to offer any significant opposition to his attack force.

Instead, he turned his attention to the local National Guard armory, not far south of his current position. It was a cluster of one- and two-story buildings — offices, maintenance and equipment sheds, and living quarters — and two vehicle parks crammed with dozens of trucks, Humvees, mine-clearing vehicles, and MRAP troop carriers. “Evaluate this facility,” he ordered the computer.

Thermal signatures indicate up to one hundred personnel currently deployed at the enemy base, it reported. Motion-capture analysis confirms that most are asleep or resting. Three armed vehicles and two infantry squads are on alert status.

Those National Guard troops were not much of a threat, Baryshev knew. Only the heavy machine guns and grenade launchers mounted on their Humvees presented any real danger to his KVMs. On the other hand, there was no point in running any unnecessary risks. Besides, he thought, yielding to a sudden predatory impulse, why not try to kill as many Americans as possible? If nothing else, running up the casualty totals would spread even more terror and anguish among Russia’s enemies.

He opened a secure channel to one of his robot pilots, Major Viktor Zelin. “Specter Lead to Specter Three.”

“Three,” the former Su-34 fighter-bomber pilot’s laconic voice replied.

“On my order, you will destroy the American National Guard base on our flank.” With a quick flick of a finger, Baryshev opened a data link to Zelin’s robot and uploaded his computer’s intelligence evaluation and target analysis. “Leave no survivors.”

“Data received,” the major said a second later. He sounded happier now. “I will comply. Three, standing by.”

Satisfied that his subordinate knew what to do, Baryshev turned his attention back to the improvised roadblock up ahead. He opened another channel. “Lead to Two. You take that police car. I will destroy the enemy armored vehicle.”

“Affirmative, Lead!” KVM senior pilot Oleg Imrekov radioed back. His former wingman sounded keyed up and impatient, eager for action.

Baryshev felt his own pulse accelerating. A targeting icon blinked into existence, highlighting the Humvee parked four hundred meters away. He raised his 30mm autocannon, selecting armor-piercing ammunition. He took a deep breath, savoring the fierce sense of anticipation rising in his mind — sweeping away any lingering doubts or hesitation. It was the same feeling of exultation, of near omniscience, he experienced when hurling his Su-50 fighter into a whirling, close-range dogfight, only now multiplied tenfold. “Specter Lead to all Specter units,” he snapped. “Execute attack as ordered!”

Immediately he opened fire.

Tungsten-steel alloy slugs tore through the Humvee’s side armor and blew out the other side in a spray of molten metal. Its bullet-resistant windows shattered. The gunner manning the grenade launcher was killed instantly by a 30mm round that cut him in half. The soldiers who’d been manning the roadblock crumpled, either hit by cannon fire or shredded by jagged shards of armor spalling off the wrecked Humvee.

Baryshev ordered his robot to its feet and dashed out of the woods — sprinting fast straight up the road. Smoke from the Tarrant County sheriff’s car that had been ripped apart by Imrekov’s shells curled across the scene, momentarily blotting out the carnage on his visual sensors.

His tactical display showed four more KVMs following him toward the brightly lit F-35 assembly plant up ahead. The icon representing Major Zelin’s machine moved at right angles, closing in on the National Guard armory he’d been ordered to destroy. Flashes lit the sky to the south as the former Su-34 pilot started firing antitank missiles into buildings at close range.

Baryshev broke past the shattered American roadblock’s jumble of burning vehicles and dead men and kept going. He bounded high in the air, clearing two fences topped with razor wire, and thudded down on a low berm in a spray of torn earth and grass. Still on the move, he slung his autocannon and rearmed with one of the three Israeli-made Spike antitank missiles he carried. Thanks to his neural interface, he was aware of everything going on in all directions. Behind him, the four other KVMs assigned to this part of the mission fanned out across the assembly-plant complex.

As he crested the shallow berm, he saw a startled security guard come running around the corner of a nearby building. The heavyset American skidded to a halt when he saw the tall gray war robot lunging toward him out of the darkness. His mouth fell open in horror. Without pausing, Baryshev swatted him away in a grisly fog of splintered bone and blood.

The Russian laughed aloud, seized suddenly by the feeling of being a god striding majestically through a sea of confusion and panic among mere mortals — dealing out death and destruction with every step. Through his radio links, he could hear Imrekov, Zelin, and the others echoing his jubilant shouts.

ATGM targets selected, his computer reported calmly. New aim points appeared before Baryshev’s eyes. Without thinking, he fired at the closest. The small missile streaked low across the ground, slammed into the long aircraft assembly building, and punched through its thin steel wall. The missile’s high-explosive fragmentation warhead exploded deep inside. Flames boiled back out through the ragged hole it had torn. Through his robot’s hyperacute audio pickups, he could hear screams and shrieks echoing from inside the building.

F-35 assembly station severely damaged, the KVM’s battle computer judged.

More explosions erupted down the length of the huge structure as the rest of his force opened fire using their own shoulder-launched antitank missiles. The high-pitched yells of the American technicians and engineers trapped inside amid a hail of fire and shrapnel were continuous now, creating an uncanny, discordant symphony of agony and terror that he found electrifying.

Baryshev dropped the smoking launch tube and yanked a fresh weapon from one of his weapons packs. Exultantly, he aimed and fired a second time. And then again, using his last missile.

Discarding the launch tube, he drew his autocannon. Loading preselected mix of armor-piercing and incendiary ammunition, the computer said calmly. Sighting along the torn and smoking building, he squeezed the trigger and fired repeatedly — sending 30mm round after round ripping through the battered structure.

WHANG. WHANG. WHANG. WHANG.

Razor-edged steel fragments whistled away through the night air. More flashes erupted inside the assembly plant, followed by billowing clouds of gray-and-black smoke. Hot spots bloomed in his thermal sensors, each showing a new fire ignited amid the heaps of debris strewn across a formerly pristine factory floor.

Baryshev’s autocannon fell silent. All ammunition expended, his computer reported. Mission damage parameters achieved. Recommend immediate tactical withdrawal.

For a split second, he felt the urge to press on, using his KVM’s powerful metal hands to tear open the F-35 assembly plant’s walls and continue his rampage. But then, reluctantly, he allowed reason to regain its grip over his mind. “Specter Lead to all Specter units,” he radioed. “It’s time to go. Withdraw to rally point Alpha. Repeat, head for rally point Alpha.”

One by one, the other pilots acknowledged. Baryshev could hear the strain in their voices, as if they, too, were fighting the temptation to override his orders and continue their killing spree. But like the disciplined warriors they were, they obeyed.

He took one last look at the shattered building. Flames crackled in dozens of places now, feeding on paint, splintered wood, and superheated carbon-fiber fragments. He grinned triumphantly. Between the evident damage to expensive, virtually irreplaceable machinery and the terrible losses they’d inflicted on the plant’s skilled workforce, it was clear that America’s F-35 stealth-fighter production line would be out of commission for many months.

Laughing again, Baryshev turned and sprinted away into the darkness.

By the time the Americans could organize any kind of effective pursuit or search, he and his robots would be safely hidden again… concealed in the Dallas FXR Trucking warehouse right under their noses. And then, once the heat died down, Aristov and his men could ferry them on to their next assigned objective.