Surrender Aurora

by W. Strawn Douglas

  “Pick one out and see if you can get missile lock on it. You won’t disturb them. This is all just in a demonstrator upgrade mode,” she said.

  James picked out the lead aircraft in the formation and his visor gave him five trajectories to choose from. He selected the easiest and launched his fictional weapon.

  When the visor showed his weapon streak forward to the F-15, the screen followed the arc and he heard a soft bell sound as the weapon hit the target.

  “We should do this more. We are spending forty thousand dollars an hour getting you people up to speed so we should be economical. Do it again,” she said.

  They spent five hours moving fast and shooting down fictional adversaries.

  By the time it was done, James had a much greater respect for what the pilots did in their jobs.

  By three in the afternoon, they finished up and headed back to the base. James thought, Nine hours of flying time times $40,000; $360,000 they spent in one day. He was starting to think his $135,000 for the implant was chump change.

  He later found out the program was an estimated $40 billion in research of the Aurora and the interface between the implant and the helmet. The costs boggled his mind.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tanner and James trained for the next two months. It was April of 2016.

  James was in Las Vegas when he got dual calls on his military pager and his cell phone. He was at the buffet at the Golden Nugget casino. He answered his phone.

  “Mr. McGregor, you are ordered to return to Nellis immediately. Report to the drone training center. Can you comply?”

  “Yes, it will take me twenty minutes to get to the base.”

  “You are needed ASAP.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  He ran to his car in the parking lot behind the casino and jumped in. The Honda Prelude he had bought purred into life as he drove down the strip to the highway exit and off to the base. He fumbled for his wallet with his identification card.

  He slowed to a stop at the gate, presented the card to the guard, and was off to the drone center.

  He was able to get from the casino to the base in 22 minutes. He parked and trotted to the building. He walked at a quick pace past the receptionist and down a hall to the training center for the crew.

  As soon as he opened the door, he saw a full assortment of 25 or so men and women, all in uniform, hovering around eight terminals. Pilots were in place. Drone package specialists were in place. He saw the implant interfaces connected to their wireless harnesses.

  There was a thrill of excitement and a tension as thick as a New York strip steak. You could cut it with a knife.

  “James,” said Tanner with a big smile. “We are going operational soon. We have some targets in Syria and we have clearance to test the weapons there. It’s video game time.”

  “Does that mean we are going to Syria? How does this work?”

  “It’s all being done from here. We will soon have a B-52 hovering over North Syria with four weapons on its bomb racks. There are three active targets being tested by ISIS. They could launch at any time. The Islamic State has seven captured MiGs and CIA thinks they are going to deploy in the next few days against airliners. We are monitoring communications. They have at least one Russian fighter pilot on their team.”

  “Seven MiG-21s,” said Barbara.

  “But they have only been able to get three flying,” said Tanner. “We are all going to be on-call for the next few days. Encrypted, intercepted communications lead us to believe they will launch soon. We have F-16s out of Turkey running backup in case the weapons do not neutralize the threat on the first wave. The B-52s can stay on station for thirty hours. They are being refueled by KC-135 as we speak. They will get relieved by fresh crews in from the island of Diego Garcia. It’s a long hop but the whole force is energized and everything looks like it’s a go.”

  James looked at Tanner with a big smile and jokingly said with a wave of his hand to his mouth, “Brief me.”

  * * *

  For the next four days the jets of ISIS remained still. They came out in the afternoons and scooted around the airfield. Then they stopped.

  They waited a day and on the morning of April 22nd, they made an appearance.

  At dawn three MiG-21 aircraft embarked from Tabqa airfield. Three MiGs took off from a darkened runway to climb in tight formation to 20,000 feet altitude heading northeast. Deep into the air traffic lanes between Singapore and England.

  747s coming in from Paris to India overnight were within 500 miles of the three MiGs.

  Each MiG had two extra fuel tanks and an Atoll missile on each outboard pylon.

  Notoriously short-ranged, the MiG-21 had come to fame in Vietnam as the bane of the Phantoms and Thunderchiefs flying out of South Vietnam to targets like Hanoi and Haiphong Harbor.

  Back at Nellis AFB, the mood was tight. It was afternoon when four pilots and four missileers approached their workstations. Each had four video screens—two large screens, one on top of the other, a foot-and-a-half square, with two smaller screens nine inches square in a side-by-side formation. The top screen read thermal signatures of the MiG afterburners glowing in the dark cold of the desert in spring.

  The B-52 was a hundred miles to the south. The order was given to deploy all four of the mothership’s Aurora vehicles.

  Each Aurora peeled off from the bomb racks of the huge bomber. Soon they were in formation and opened up their afterburners and climbed in speed up to 1,000 knots in supercruise mode. The distance decreased from 100 miles to 70, then 50, then 30, then 10.

  Overhead a Global Hawk RQ-4 monitored the position of the three jets. Closer and closer the Global Hawk’s seven blips on thermal sensors crept toward each other. The Global Hawk was the Air Force version of the Triton long-winged drone surveillance aircraft.

  At ten miles out Tanner’s pilot, Teagarden, told the other two active shooters to close and ready themselves. The dogfight was about to begin.

  At 2,000 feet behind the MiGs, Teagarden ordered the group to turn on missile lock radar.

  Instantly Sergeiovich and Hafez and Faisal knew the radar had been turned on and was gunning for them. In the high altitude dawn the three jets dove for the deck and kicked in their afterburners. They dove at close to Mach 2 but the four Auroras kept up, copying every move and dodge.

  As the MiGs got closer to the ground, Sergeiovich ordered Hafez and Faisal to split up, stay close to the ground, and evade missiles.

  The Sidewinders would not work close to the ground. Sergeiovich was confident he had an American fighter jet on his tail and if he had the chance, he would shoot it down with his two Atoll missiles.

  He got to within 200 feet of the desert floor and descended gradually to just 30 feet above the deck. Sand whipped up on the wake of his jet blast.

  Teagarden closed to within a thousand feet in his remotely piloted Aurora. He told Tanner to ready himself.

  Tanner clenched his teeth and grew excited but calm. He said to Teagarden, “I have the shot. Am I clear?”

  “Clear,” said Teagarden.

  “Here goes, fox five,” and the package shot out at the MiG, closing the thousand feet in two seconds. Rocketing forward, Tanner kept the MiG in his video screen.

  The Aurora captured the scene in live video and the entire crowd in the Vegas base broke out in cheers.

  The package had torn the back third of the MiG off in a second.

  Sergeiovich never had a chance to eject. The MiG’s forward fuselage and wings tumbled to pieces on the desert floor.

  Jackson and Rodriguez tracked the other two MiGs from their pilots’ stations. Jackson’s MiG deployed air brakes but Jackson was quick to deploy split-flap air brakes and held the Aurora on the MiG piloted by Hafez.

  Jackson’s missileer said, “I have missile lock.”

  “Take him out,” Jackson said and in an instant, the direct brain connection of the missileer sent an explosive package of 70 pounds toward the MiG. The blast
erupted in flame and debris. Hafez ejected and the Aurora sped past the descending parachute.

  Faisal made an arcing turn to the right, cruising at 950 knots at full afterburner. The flat of the wings was perpendicular to the deck as an Aurora closed in hot pursuit.

  Rodriguez called out to his missileer, Waltham, and said, “Got a lock yet?”

  “Almost got him. He has to level out soon. I think he’s headed back to his base. He thinks we are Sidewinders. He’s trying to confuse our radar with the ground. As soon as he levels out, I’ve got him.”

  Just as predicted, Faisal leveled out at 20 feet over the deck, screaming forward at full afterburner.

  “I’ve got lock. Can I—”

  Rodriguez said, “Take him out. Now!”

  Waltham fired his package at Faisal’s MiG. Instantly the jet fighter exploded into fragments no bigger than a wheelbarrow. The body of the late Faisal was shredded into scraps.

  The ground crew at Nellis erupted into cheers.

  The remaining Auroras headed off to a landing at a NATO base in Turkey.

  There was a mop-up to do. There was debriefing but there was also relief and joy. They got the bad guys and the operational success of the Aurora had been a certified triumph.

  The officers club would welcome James and Barbara and all the civilian contractors. It was going to be a hell of a party.

  James sat back, amazed. He had never seen a video game come close to this.

  There was no telling who would claim victory for all. The presidential debates would go on but pilots had won the day on time, on budget, and the bad guys were out of business.

  * * *

  Tanner saw James off to the airport outside of Las Vegas. “You know you can write your own ticket with this, Mr. Guinea Pig.”

  “It’s been great to be involved in all of this. I think I will get that nursing degree. I will see you at the aviation medicine Alamo.” They hugged and slapped backs.

  “Good luck, kid,” said Tanner. “I have a wife and three girls coming to the awards dinner. Gotta go.” Tanner walked off to the arrivals section of the terminal, looking for his jet-setting family.

  AFTERWORD

  “So, Sean, what the fuck do you mean by a day-long step five?” asked James. He looked at his friend and saw a flicker of joy cross his face.

  “A day-long step five is an essential move in a real tangible recovery. Look at it like you would a Catholic’s confession,” said Sean. “You cannot confess your sins and shortcomings in a half an hour. These things have built up in a lifetime.”

  “So you mean every slight or disrespect from kindergarten to the modern day? That could take a while,” said James. “But I am getting mixed messages from these steps. I am not big on miracles,” said James.

  “Then perhaps you need a miracle in your life,” said Sean. “Think of it as an exercise in faith. How long has it been since you last prayed?”

  “Try never,” said James.

  “Well then, you can start with a clean slate,” said Sean.

  “Well, if that’s the way you want to put it, then great, but it’s my life, I live it for real. You look at these people as guinea pigs to condition,” said James.

  “They aren’t guinea pigs. We call them clients but that doesn’t cover the human connection. Some are unpleasant but all are needy. Sometimes they say things you don’t want to hear but they all need to be heard,” said Sean.

  James looked at his old friend, a friend he partied with in high school and went to school with for ten grades. Sean had strands of gray in his hair over the ears. A few crow’s-feet wrinkles framed his eyes. He looked at the coffee cups on the table in the Starbucks coffee shop where they had agreed to meet.

  Sean leaned forward and cupped his chin in his palm. “Learning to empty the mind of all of its clutter is essential. We struggle for a fullness in the Western mindset. My path is one of removing the excess. I seek to simplify in a complex world. I work, and in my job I deal with the clutter of packed lives. People in our modern era are pack-rats. New electronics give us the ability to store three hundred video games on a terabyte computer drive. Who needs to play three hundred video games? I deal with people with hoarding disorders. Our society is drawn to psychological pack-ratting. We buy products today and shelve them as soon as we acquire them. Like a fabulous library of books that never get read, we lose our quest for meaning as soon as we buy whatever it is we are looking for. And when we are done, we go out looking for more.”

  James looked out at the brilliant pinks and blues of a textbook spring sunset in Minneapolis. Through the window of the coffee shop, the cars were caught in the bright sun and long shadows of the day’s end. He thought about the lumber and televisions in his apartment and mused for a moment. He knew he was a hoarder. The only question to be asked was whether or not it was a disease.

  “The most important steps are step one, where we hope to get an addict to surrender to God all of his or her addictions and ask for help in quitting drugs and alcohol.” Sean looked at his friend as a spiritual seeker and continued, “Then comes things like doing an inventory of all your assets and detriments. Doing a step-five confessional is essential and I recommend doing a full version that covers a few hours. To do it fully you need a few days with your confessor. A sponsor or priest work well. I know you aren’t big on religion. I recommend Buddhism or other Eastern philosophies in conjunction with your own versions of faith.”

  James paused a moment and said, “I can live with Buddhism. It’s strong on meditation and balance. I just don’t know if I am up for the task. I feel the need to give up the marijuana. Ironic that now that it’s becoming legal, I find myself drying out. I want to become a nurse. I want to be able to write about the issues of psychiatry and chemical dependency. It would help if I was sober myself.”

  “What do you really want out of life? I hear you talk about career and sobriety. Where are you at with family and lovers?”

  “I have a girlfriend. Sobriety is always there. I seem to have found myself a part-time job as a medical guinea pig. I wouldn’t call it a career but they helped me get my VA benefits. I can now, finally, go to school. My part-time job gives me a connection to the aviation community. It’s connected to the guinea pig job. They finally explained it all to me but I can’t talk about it much. I got my security clearance back and a part-time job doing research for the aerospace community.”

  Sean looked surprised. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Jimmy-boy? Are they going to strap you to a bomb and call you a guidance system?”

  “It’s not too far from that but the retirement plan is better than you might think. I have seen the Syntheris work at what it’s designed to do. It’s a cruel world we live in and there are military applications.”

  “Military applications for a mood stabilizer?” inquired Sean.

  “It’s a neuro anti-rejection drug. They use it in conjunction with brain implants. I can’t go into details but I can tell you it works, after a fashion,” said James. “But that’s not for me. I am just a consultant. I don’t like the idea of getting acupuncture of the brain. That’s what they use it for.”

  “Sounds like science fiction. Are they still running you through video games?” said Sean.

  “We are beyond that stage, thank God,” said James. “I ran into Patty a while ago at an NA meeting. She seemed well. Two kids and a husband. That means my ambitions there are done.”

  “How do you feel about that?” inquired Sean.

  “I have mixed feelings about the whole surrender issue. The state has insisted that we all surrender. I just got done helping the USA to not surrender. I feel I did the right thing. Now with pot going legal, it seems we won the war. It boils down to who do you surrender to? I can kick the drugs and even kick the state and go it on my own. But I am getting old and I have needs. I am not the fighter I once was. In my old days I could go to war with the state. These new kids don’t know anything about Nicaragua or even Vietnam.
They just know about Bush and the Arabic wars in the Middle East. It looks to be another clusterfuck. I am a Marine and an anarchist. Those are divergent masters to serve. They go opposite ways. I now get paid as a form of drone pilot instructor tasked with destroying ISIS. I have a job now. My students will drop laser-guided bombs on trucks loaded with two ISIS troops and a Syrian family of five human shields.”

  “Sounds exasperating and morally questionable. War is ugly. But I think you’ll get it sorted out soon. ISIS is an evil. Killing off evil-doers never goes out of style.”

  “But what happens when this technology comes back to us and gets used against the poor by the rich?”

  “That, Jimmy, is the nature of war. Be comforted that you will never get confused with an ISIS supporter. They all get a world of hurt from Uncle Sam. You get secret commendations from generals and privates alike. You have saved lives, if I am guessing right at your covert job. You can do a step five with me and I won’t ever tell your anarchist friends about it. Won’t tell the government either.” Sean smiled and played with his gloves for a moment. “Up for a meeting in the church basement?”

  “Yeah. Stop by the gas station so I can pick up a pack of smokes,” said James.

  “It wouldn’t be an NA meeting without a pack of smokes. Choose your addictions well, grasshopper,” said Sean.

  “This whole thing was based on one fighter pilot who bucked the system and fought for jets that could fight and dance through the skies without relying on fancy toys like foolproof missiles and pushbutton warfare. He would be appalled at what his work had come to. Now it’s just another arena of old men giving orders to younger men to die on command. Sure, our men won’t get snuffed out that way but the last thing I heard on my way out the door was those old men asking if this new weapon could have a cruise missile nuclear version. They are making those decisions as we speak.”

  “It’s out of your hands, James. Your step five may need a security clearance to hear but you have a cup of coffee and a new pack of smokes. Tell me your step five. I am all ears.”

  * * *

  President Obama approached the podium. He glanced at the White House press corps and recited from memory.

  “Today all of the world can celebrate a significant and substantial victory in the battle against terror as the United States Air Force has successfully deployed the experimental Aurora program in Syria against ISIL forces headquartered at the former Syrian Air Force base at Tabqa.