Drone Command

“My grandfather took me out on his fishing boat when I was a small child,” Hara said. “I’ve sailed these waters for over sixty years now.”

“The Japanese people are always nostalgic for the sea, even if they have never sailed in a boat,” Ikeda said. Pearce leaned forward to hear him better, his gentle voice barely above a whisper. “We are an island nation. The ocean is our past and our future. Nearly everything we buy or sell sails across the waters.”

“Which is why we need a powerful navy to defend the sea-lanes,” Hara grunted. “A true blue-water navy.”

“The admiral is correct,” Tanaka said. “The United States became a great economic power because it acquired great naval power, and it became a naval power because it was bordered by oceans just as we are.”

Myers and Pearce exchanged a furtive glance. It was going to be a long day.

“The United States Navy is committed to the concept of open sea-lanes for everybody, especially our ally, Japan,” Myers said.

“And our navy is undergoing its own technological changes. I hope to show you the future of naval warfare today,” Pearce said.

Admiral Hara spun around, gazing up into the sky. “When will we see these drones of yours, Mr. Pearce? The morning is getting late.”

“Funny you should ask, Admiral.”

The other Japanese instantly raised their eyes, scanning the skies. Nothing. But Hara’s eyes, conditioned by years of keeping watch, spotted something on the water in the distance to the north. He pulled his binoculars to his eyes. “A surface vessel, ten to twelve meters in length, coming in fast, straight toward us. Sixty knots at least.”

Ikeda pointed excitedly to the east. “Another boat. Also coming fast.”

Tanaka called out two more, from the south and west.

The camouflaged vessels ran so fast that half of their mono hulls were out of the water, waking like drug-running cigarette boats screaming across the Gulf of Mexico. “Chinese warships!” Tanaka called out. “What are they doing here? These are Japanese waters!”

Pearce’s catamaran was only a few miles off the southwestern coast of Japan, far closer to South Korea than the Chinese mainland.

The four boats sped furiously toward their ship. They were clearly on a collision course.

“Pearce! Take evasive action!” Hara barked.

“I’m no sailor, Admiral. I’m a grunt.”

“Tell your captain!”

“Please, be my guest.” Pearce nodded at the door to the wheelhouse. He hadn’t given his guests a tour of the boat.

Hara charged over to the door and flung it open. He whipped around.

“There’s no crew!”

“No, I guess there isn’t.”

Tanaka’s eyes narrowed. Ikeda laughed.

“Troy—” Myers tugged on Pearce’s arm. The speeding boats were less than a hundred yards away, their roaring engines rattled the air. Just seconds to impact.

Pearce smiled at her. “What?”

At the last possible second, each boat veered just enough to pass the catamaran fore and aft, port and starboard, spraying the deck with water. The catamaran’s twin hulls sliced through the checkerboard of frothy wakes they left behind.

The Japanese ran to the rails, watching them each turn in a synchronous clover leaf.

“No pilots,” Tanaka observed.

“Those are Katanas. One of the latest autonomous surface vehicles. They’re fitted with anticollision software, so we were never in any danger. And, of course, we can take control of them at any time.”

“Impressive,” Ikeda said.

The admiral grunted skeptically.

The Katanas took up positions one hundred yards directly north, south, east, and west of the catamaran, assuming the identical speed of the much larger vessel.

“Our vessel is designated as a mother ship. The Katanas are synced with our control center. If needed, we could designate one of the Katanas as the mother ship or transfer control to an entirely different vehicle — air, land, sea.”

“Why only four Katanas?” Hara asked.

“Just a convenient number for the demonstration today. In practice, you could sync dozens, even hundreds of ASVs together, depending on your computing and bandwidth capacities. Swarming algorithms give them independent combat-decision capabilities as well. And, of course, almost any manned vessel can be converted into an ASV.”

“What is the advantage of deploying a mother ship?” Tanaka asked.

“If you want to operate continuously in open waters with smaller vessels like the Katanas, they’ll need regular refueling, restocking of weapons, and maintenance. Also, the Katanas are multimission platforms. A mother ship can store a variety of weapons and surveillance systems, and hot swap them out as mission requirements change. Missiles, machine guns, cannons, you name it.”

“But you have no crew!”

“In real-time combat, this vessel would have a full complement of human crew to carry out the tasks that automated systems still can’t accomplish. But for today, it’s just us. Please, follow me.”