The Pole turned. “You are robot officer, yes? Tell me — your machine, it knows difference between soldier and farmer with rifle?”
“Thermal signature, movement patterns, weapon recognition—”
“I ask simple question. Does. It. Know?”
Marrick’s jaw tightened. “It processes thousands of data points—”
“So no.”
The table went quiet. Torres saw hands drifting toward bottles — not for drinking.
“Different tools for different jobs,” Torres interjected. “Ripsaw spots targets. We decide what to shoot. System works.”
“Until it doesn’t,” the Pole insisted. “Ukraine teaches us — war is chaos. Your pretty robots, they like order. What happens in chaos?”
“We adapt.” Novak appeared, Captain Sikora beside him. “Just like you did. Just like everyone who survives does.”
Sikora nodded approvingly. “Well said. Another round for my American friends! To adaptation!”
The tension broke. Conversations resumed, war stories flowing with the alcohol. Torres noticed Marrick remained at the bar, isolated in his certainty.
“Walk you back?” Torres offered an hour later, finding the warrant officer still nursing the same drink.
“I’m good.”
“Wasn’t a question, sir.”
They left together, stepping into the sharp Polish night. Their breath steamed in the cold air.
“They don’t get it,” Marrick said finally. “The capability we’re fielding. It’ll change everything.”
“Maybe. But those guys? They’ve been watching Russia’s moves for years. They’ve earned their skepticism.”
“Skepticism’s fine. But they act like I’m trying to replace them.”
Torres stopped walking. “Aren’t you?”
Marrick turned, surprised. “What?”
“Be honest, sir. Five years from now, ten — you really think we’ll need tank crews? Or will it all be Ripsaws, controlled from bunkers in Nevada?”
“That’s not—” Marrick paused. “I don’t know. Maybe. But right now, we need both.”
“Right now.” Torres resumed walking. “That’s all any of us have. Right now, your machines need us to tell them what to kill. Second that changes, we’re all obsolete.”
“You’d rather we stick with pure human control? Let kids die because they’re slower than algorithms?”
Torres thought of McDermott, his growing confidence. Of Munoz, fighting through his hesitation. Of his own son, chasing dreams in Texas.
“I’d rather we remember that someone has to live with the consequences,” he said finally. “Your Ripsaws will kill more efficiently. But they won’t carry the weight after.”
They reached the barracks in silence. Inside, exhausted soldiers grabbed what sleep they could before morning brought another day of preparation.
Torres paused at his door, checking his phone. A text from Maria: “Miguel went to all his classes today. Even stayed after for tutoring. Whatever you said worked.”
He smiled, pocketing the phone. Small victories.
Tomorrow they’d train again. Perfect the integration of man and machine. Prepare for a conflict everyone said wouldn’t happen.
But tonight, his son was back on track. His loader was working through his fears. His crew was ready.
For now, that was enough.
The early-morning air hung thick with salt and humidity as Michael “Mick” Matsin exited the building housing the underground bunker, stepping into the night air. It felt good to escape the ops center buried beneath twenty feet of concrete and rebar that separated the world above from the nerve center below. As the fortified command post for the ROC Navy, it had been built to survive whatever Beijing might throw at it. It was a constant reminder of the threat under which the people of Taiwan continued to live.
As Mick pulled his Unplugged encrypted phone from the pocket of his cargo pants, he checked the time difference, noting that if it was 0230 here, that meant it was 1130 the morning before back home in Ventura County. His wife, Sarah, would be finishing her morning run along the beach, probably stopping at that coffee shop along Main Street she loved. The same place where they’d had their first date twenty-eight years ago, when he was a freshly minted fire control tech and she was finishing her nursing degree.
He pressed Call, and the phone rang twice before her voice filled his ear. “Hey, sailor.”
“Hey yourself.” Mick leaned against the building’s concrete wall, still warm from yesterday’s sun. In the sky above, the stars wheeled through gaps in the scattered clouds, the same stars she’d see in twelve hours. “How’s the weather back home, Sarah?”
“Seventy-two and perfect. The beach was gorgeous this morning.” She paused. “And you?”
“Hmmm, well, it’s humid and tropical, kind of what you would expect of an island,” he responded, omitting, of course, the air raid sirens they’d tested earlier, or how often and brazenly the PLA Air Force had been violating the Taiwanese ADIZ, or Air Defense Identification Zones, the closer they got to April 15. “It kind of reminds me of that time when we were stationed on Guam or Hawaii.”
