Work In Progress: Prologue #2 (draft)

So this one goes in a new direction, which my wife will definitely support. She is a huge Gray Man fan, and I've always loved the combat scenes from the drone control rooms. Eyes In The Sky is a good movie that explores the ethical issues these pilots run into (I've read drone operators crash out at very high rates). The Delta scene from Patriot Games (over forty years old now but still delivers) is a classic thermal display set piece. So freekin' spooky. Anyway, I wrote this prologue over the past few days. Please excuse the typos.

Alamnza’d been up at least two hours before the alarm went off, unable to turn off the loop in her head, a stream of aerial footage she’d flagged two days ago. A tunnel entrance had sprouted out of a berm, a gopher hole the size of a storm drain, large enough to crawl into. Then six more yesterday.

She’d been flying grid patterns with Reaper Nine over the same sector, watched the women hang the laundry, seen the troops in the FOB play cards with enough optic clarity to know a few of the men were sharps who worked off a second deck in their socks. She watched a team of medics feed the village strays every morning at 0800, the one hopeful scene she got to witness on her twelve hour shift sitting in her chair twelve thousand miles away at Creech AFB. As she lay there on her bed in the ditch between sleep and consciousness, she kept picturing the tunnel entrances ten klicks behind the line of contact. Then it came to her. They weren’t entrances; they were exits. 

She drove 80 miles an hour most of the way on I-15 to the base, arrived 30 minutes before the briefing, and reviewed satellite imagery from the day before. She fed it through filtering software, expanded the search radius 10 kilometers, then 20, and so on until finally at 100 klicks she spotted it: a shored hole large enough to fit a blimp. The tunnel network through the mountains had to be hundreds of miles long. 

“Baines, come take a look at this.” Her sensor operator, Staff Sergeant Baines was on his phone too busy texting to do more than grunt.

The Major entered the room without his usual flourish, his game face suggesting some urgency to this morning’s briefing.

“You’re giving overwatch to a team of Deltas, call sign Specter.” An image flashed on the screen behind him, a shed with a corrugated roof no larger than the size of a Starbucks. “High value target. Grid coordinates charlie-seven-niner-two. Check your briefing card.” The major pointed to the tell-tale series of insulated wires, the only ones in the area, running from a street pole to the structure. Had someone simply buried the cables, the unfortunate saps inside would not now be a target for a team of Deltas, their fate now foregone.

“Exfiltration?” Alamanza knew the answer. She was just trying to get her head in the game.

The Major nodded, reviewed a few more details, then dismissed her and Baines who both stood and saluted the Major as he disappeared out the door.

“What’d you find?” Baines threw his chin at the satellite images she was holding.

She gave him some stink eye. “I was looking for your johnson but they don’t make a lens powerful enough.” 

She led the way to the Ground Control Center, really not much bigger than the classroom bungalow she sat in for fourth and fifth grades. There were four other operators in the GCG, each sitting at a work station with no fewer than four screens and a console with as many buttons and knobs as in a commercial airliner. The air felt used and flinty.

Almanza ran through a few tests then pulled on her headset and made contact with the Delta team leader. “Specter Six-One, Reaper Actual. On site overhead.”

There was a pause then a click of a radio. “Copy Reaper Actual, this is Specter Six-One. Need eyes on dismounts.” The team leader spoke in a hushed voice, in position and ready to move. 

“Thermals show two tangos on the north wall.” Almanza could make out the glowing bright red button of a guard’s cigarette by the main gate. The second one had stepped off to relieve himself against the wall, showing up a pale red on Alamanza’s FLIR.

“Copy, Reaper. Paint the tangos.” He’d use night vision goggles to pick up the drone’s infrared laser, invisible to the unaided eye.

Almanza watched the Deltas come through the gate and fan out. She could hear the suppressed gunfire through the team leader's mic.

Thwip-thwip-thwip.

The guard dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. The second man, now done with his business, tried unsuccessfully to reach for his gun.

Alamanza saw the Deltas crouch outside the target structure, waiting for the all-clear. “

"Tangos down. Perimeter’s clear. Interior clear.”

Through her split screen, she watched the four-man Delta team slip inside, their imagery suddenly less distinct.

A button on her console flashed green. One of the Deltas had already started uploading a hard drive to the Reaper. Normally, they would have taken the whole computer but often they were held to the floor inside steel cages that were welded in place.

Something blinked in her secondary threat window.

“Fast mover inbound,” Baines said, doing his best to contain his surprise. “High altitude. 350 miles out. ID... standby...Voodoo One One. F-18. Navy wings.”

“Flight path?” She checked the sortie schedule which was empty for her sector.

“Bird’s coming straight for the target.”

What the fuck? Almanza thought. She keyed her secure line. “Reaper Nine to Creech Ops. We’ve got a friendly inbound on sector Sierra-Four. Requesting confirmation on mission profile.”

Silence. “Reaper Nine. Creech Ops. Standby.”

The F-18 banked left. A red light on Baines’ console lit up.

“Shit,” Baines had covered his microphone and whispered. “Missile bays just armed. Cruise loadout. Fucker’s going to strike.”

Alamanza’s headset crackled again. It was the F-18 pilot.

  “Reaper Actual, this is Voodoo One One. Need immediate laser designation on grid charlie-seven-niner-two. JSOWs are armed and ready. Request paint.”

Alamanza froze. Where the fuck is Ops? She had to stall.

“Confirming targeting support.”

“Affirmative. Priority strike. Target confirmed Tier-One HVT. Black seal orders, Reaper Actual.” He paused. “Above theater command.” Superseding authority, but it hadn’t come through channels. A Navy pilot couldn’t give an Air Force pilot a direct order. 

She flipped to her tasking protocol, scrolling. No air asset had been assigned to her AO. She checked the schedule, again. Still nothing. 

“Voodoo One One, be advised, Delta 6 is on site. Reaper Actual is in overwatch support. This is not a green box for strike. Hold fire, Voodoo One One.”

  “Negative. I’m under OpCon, direct authority. You are to mark the target, Reaper Actual.” He was losing patience.

Alamanza switched her headset to Creech Ops.  This time she barked into the microphone. “This is Reaper Nine. I have a blue on blue situation. Inbound F-18 has requested target paint for HVT Charlie-Seven-Niner-Two. Voodoo One One is on-site. Repeat friendlies in the box. Please advise.” These were the moments that wormed into the heads and hearts of drone operators, spawned lifetimes of dreams where the walls closed in and the floors dropped out.

Creech Ops was still dark. Alamanza was on her own. They were down to seconds.

Baines looked at her, again covering his microphone. “Fast mover in weapons range, Jess. Missiles are armed. Jesus, he’s gonna fire blind any second.”

She stared at the screen. The Deltas were moments from being obliterated.

She keyed into the Delta channel. “Voodoo One One, Reaper Actual. Fast mover inbound—F/A-18 with standoff weapons looking to clear the board. Repeat. You are in a green box. Abort now. Repeat. Abort now.”

The team lead immediately acknowledged. “Copy, Reaper Actual. We’re out.” 

  The F-18 pilot came through a separate channel. “Reaper, this is Voodoo. Final call. Paint the target or I drop blind.”

Her fingers hovered over the laser designate control. Four of the five Deltas had fled the target and were already outside the wall. One soldier had stayed behind to finish the job.

“Goddammit,” she whispered.

She flipped the switch. The Reaper’s targeting laser flickered to life and found the corrugated tin roof just as the upload reached 100%. The last Delta bolted to the door.

Too late.

Two bright streaks arced into frame.

The entire compound disintegrated in a flash of white on the screen, a few wandering dogs, scurrying away on the neighboring streets.

“Fuck me.” Baines didn’t even bother to cover his mic. 

“Voodoo One-One, splash confirmed,” the pilot said. “Target neutralized. RTB.”

Alamanza sat staring at the screen and tried to busy herself with after-action log notes. She felt some new anxiety find her throat. She forced a few long breaths. 

“Reaper Actual, copy. One down, request dust off. Repeat one down, request dust off.” 

She had little hope the soldier was alive. Two of the Deltas grabbed an arm of the down soldier and pulled him out onto the street. In a few minutes, a helo would touch down for medevac.

Whatever was in the upload had made someone very nervous.