Book 2: Episode 35

944th Fighter Wing, 52nd Squadron, Air Combat Command

Flight Level 40, San Bernardino County, CA

“Apple Valley Traffic, Air Force Flight Ninja One Niner, Ten Miles East at 4,000 Feet, inbound for landing, Apple Valley”

Lt. Colonel Nguen hadn’t landed at an uncontrolled airport with no air traffic control since he was a teenager in a rented Rockwell Commander.  He was pretty sure that no air force fighter had ever landed at the Apple Valley airport.

Until half an hour ago, he didn’t even know that Apple Valley airport existed.  He had to look it up in the nav system.  There it was, SPV.  Most amazing of all is that the small civilian airport out in the middle of the California desert had a six-thousand-foot runway.  More than enough to handle his F-35A.  Even more importantly, the three C-17s following him could also land there.

“Apple Valley Traffic, Air Force Flight Ninja One Niner, entering left downwind for runway three six, Apple Valley.”

Keeping a sharp eye out for traffic, Nguen brought his heavily armed F-35A into a gentle landing.  He had no idea how he would get any spares if he did something dumb like blowing a tire so he kissed the runway as gently as he could.

Rolling down runway 36, he glanced to his left and saw a sign reading “MAG Aviation Fuel.”  He hoped the FBO had a fuel truck or two; rolling the entire squadron up to a fuel pump was going to be a bitch.

Turning left at the end of the runway, the followed the taxiway back towards the FBO office.  Finding a spot on the ramp, he stopped, hit the brakes and popped the canopy.  Taking off his helmet, he looked down and saw an older man standing beside the plane.

“You lost, boy?”

“No sir, looking for gas.  JetA?”

“Well fuel we have, son.”

“You take a DOD Fleet Card?”

“First time for everything.”

“I got thirteen more thirsty birds, right behind me.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

The man turned around and shouted.  “Frank!  Get your lazy ass off that phone and fire up the other tanker truck.  We’ve got company!”

Getting out of an F-35 by yourself isn’t exactly easy.  It took Nguen a full five minutes to shut down the aircraft, get his helmet off, get his safety harness off and finally make his way down the ladder that extended down from the side of the aircraft.   By the time he had all that done, a fuel truck had driven up with a confused young man driving.  Nguen assumed this was Frank.  Nguen ducked under the nose of the plane and opened the door hiding the fuel inlet on the right flank of the stealth fighter.  Underneath was the same type of valve that civilian jet aircraft used.  Nguen watched carefully as Frank filled his fighter with JetA.  It wasn’t exactly the same thing as the JP-8 the F-35 normally used, but it was close enough.

By this time, the rest of the wing had begun to arrive, with one plane landing every minute.  Within twenty minutes, a full squadron was lined up neatly.

Nguen found his second in command supervising the refueling of his aircraft.  “Jim, take command here, marshal the squadrons one at a time and then get them lined up on the apron over there.  I want fifty second squadron on plus five ready to go.  I need to figure out where to park the maintainers and their gear.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nguen found the FOB operator refueling another of the fighters a few hundred feet away.  “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Carsten, Colonel.”

“Are you ex-service?”

“Yes, sir.  Did my twenty and got out an E-6.”

“Well, Sergeant, consider yourself called back to active duty.”

Carsten stopped what he was doing and turned to face Nguen.  “Shit, sir.  If you need me back, it must be the mother of all ratfucks.  Sir.”

Jesus Christ, doesn’t he know what’s going on?  Nguen had been pretty busy since the attack but he assumed the internet was going insane at the moment.  “There are Russian and ChiCom regular army in Mexico and the CONUS just got fucked up the ass by ChiCom hypersonic missiles.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.  This squadron took out two ChiCom SAMs in Mexico that took down one of our birds and we just had to evacuate Luke to avoid ballistics inbound.”

“Well, fuck me.”

“Yeah.  So, I have a shit ton of spares and weapons along with all my maintainers coming in three C-17s.  I need your help to figure out where to put them.”  Nguen pointed at the tiny terminal building.  “I hope there is a bar in there; you’re about to be ass deep in Air Force.  You guys are now my FARP.”

Carsten took off his stained baseball cap with Titan Aviation Fuels written on it and scratched his head.  The idea of setting up a forward arming and refueling point at his airport didn’t seem to bother him.  “You’d have more room over at George.”  He pointed vaguely in the direction of Victorville and the former George Air Force Base.

“We were headed there.  Command in all of its infinite wisdom decided that as a former air force base, it might still be targeted.  The idea is to disperse to locations unlikely to be attacked.”

Carsten laughed.  “Well, if there is one place I reckon less likely to be attacked by the ChiComs than this here airport, I can’t think of it.”

In the end, they decided to simply move the two civilian aircraft currently on the ramp.  This gave them enough space (barely) to unload one of the C-17s.  After quickly setting up all the gear needed for a FARP, the first plane left and the second landed.  It was tight, but they were able to make it work.

I hope command gets their thumb out of their ass soon.  It’s not doing my birds any good sitting out here in the desert, thought Nguen.