Episode 30

142nd Fighter Wing, Oregon National Guard

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

“What the fuck is this?”

Sergeant Tinney was prepared for the outburst.  “That sir, is the hourly ‘Airborne Radar threat evaluation report’ or ARTE.”

“I can read sergeant.”  The major did not look happy.  At all.

“Major, my apologies but this has just come down from PACAF.  As you can see, it lists all the possible airborne radars in our sector and assigns them a priority order list.”

“Again, I can read.  My question is, who the fuck decided that they could send me a target list from halfway across the globe?  Where is this intel coming from?”

“Sir, my understanding is that this is near real-time data.  We have assets that are triangulating all radar sources in the AOR.  This information is then processed by a machine learning algorithm to determine those most likely to be a threat to our Naval assets.  Our orders are to interdict those threats.”

“Finally, something I can understand.  They want us to shoot these fuckers down?”

“Yes sir.”

“OK.  That I can do.  Tell me sergeant, do you know what ‘Machine Learning” is?”

“No sir, but if we bag some bad guys, I’m all about that.”

“A-firmative.  OK, get the wing fired up.  Let’s build a mission plan around this target intel.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any word on the F-16’s?”

“Yes, sir.  Ops shack says inbound.  Expect them to land in about two hours.”

“OK, let’s make it happen.”

Tinney walked to the operations shack past a row of F-15C fighters who were just completing the installation of their FAST pack conformal fuel tanks.  These tanks almost doubled the F-15’s normal range while only limiting her ability to “turn and burn” by a small percentage.  Each plane was also being armed with a full complement of AIM-120C air to air missiles.

The Chinese had done a good job of knocking back the US tanker fleet to the point where US tactical aircraft could no longer assume air to air refueling whenever they wanted it.  The motto of the USAF fighter community used to be “Speed is Life” but now that had changed to “No Gas, No Guns.”

“Linney!  Tell the gas pukes they have thirty minutes to finish those FAST installs.  We got some birds to kill.”

“Roger that Sarge.”

“Lancert!  Robinson!  Move your ass!  We are wheels up in one hour.  I want all these birds pre-flight, ready to turn and burn!”

Tinney watched with some satisfaction as the maintainers sprinted to finish their tasks.  The pilots got all the glory, but the wing ran on the enlisted.  As the highest ranking enlisted in the Wing, it has his job to make sure they did their jobs.  Having just flown in eight hours earlier, most maintenance items had been completed while still in Portland.  They had left two birds behind and a mountain of spare parts was currently unloading from a pair of C-17 cargo planes at the end of the ramp.  The Royal Brunei Air Force wasn’t very big, but they had a nice facility with plenty of space to maintain the fighters indoors.

Unlike active duty Air Force, Guard Units like the 142nd tended to stick together for long periods of time.  Most of the guys in this unit has been with the unit for at least two years.  Some of the pilots, like the Major, had served in this same unit for over five years.  This meant that he knew exactly where the slackers would be and which airman to assign to which task.

The pilots started emerging from the briefing room about thirty minutes later.  Each showed the stress of facing a combat mission differently.  Most were serious and grim-faced.  A few were joking around.  The Major simply looked intent.

“We ready Sarge?”

“Yes, sir.  Last pre-flights are wrapping up now.  All birds fully fueled and FAST packs installed.”

“OK, we have some tanker support out of Clark but the extra gas will come in handy for sure.”

“What’s the target sir?”

“An AWACS bird and a couple of maritime patrol planes.  We’ll take the AWACS first if we can or force her off the air.”

“Good hunting sir.”

“Thank you Sergeant.”

Exactly sixty minutes after the first order was given, the F-15’s of the wing lifted off in pairs, trailing bright tails of fire from their afterburners.