Chapter 01

Author’s Note: I’ve taken some poetic licence in the list of items in the survival packs in this story because it’s just too hard to get a real list of what’s currently in the ones used by the USAF and RAAF. Nor have I sought out the exact radio procedures they use today. Also, I’ve not named the Indian tribe due to issues I had in getting specific data on the family and social structure of the local tribes. So I used researched data on the ways of the major tribes from further east in the New Mexico Territory of that period.

Note: UK English is used in this story, except for dialogue by a US character where US English is used in the dialogue and some nouns.

On the Range

The radar technician looks up and says, “Red Flight is entering the area of tonight’s active exercise control zone for the range, Sir.”

The Captain in control of the practice range tonight looks over at the ’Activities Board’ to confirm there are no other activities in the range tonight. The line for ’Ground Activities’ has the ’No Exercises’ plate up while the ’Air Activities’ section lists only the one line saying ’Red Flight out of Luke AFB, night live fire exercise.’ He nods to the Australian Air Traffic Controller in the tower to conduct tonight’s exercise for the flight of Royal Australian Air Force pilots training on the new fighter planes just sold to the Australian Air Force.

The Australian Squadron Leader in charge of tonight’s training gives a return nod to indicate he has control, he turns to the officer in front of him at the control board and says, “Talk them in, Pilot Officer Mills.”

The Pilot Officer is already tracking the flight into the radar control zone of The Barry M Goldwater Air Force Range, Arizona, and she also has the vector they need to be on to reach the location of the live fire area set aside for tonight’s exercise. She activates her radio and says, “Red One, Range Control, turn ninety degrees to heading two, seven, zero. You are clear to arm weapons. Repeat, turn to two, seven, zero, and clear to arm weapons. Over.”

All hear the reply, “Range Control, Red One confirms turn to two, seven, zero, and clear to arm weapons. Roger. Out.” A moment, then they hear, “Red One to Red Flight, follow me and turn to two, seven, zero.” They all watch the radar displays while they wait. Seconds later the radar shows the flight has made the ninety degree turn to the west, and they hear, “Red One to Red Flight, arm weapons. Out.”

Things sound a bit confusing while each pilot confirms they have live weapons, but it’s an organised confusion with each pilot waiting their turn to radio the confirmation to the leader. Following a short break after the last pilot reports in they hear, “Range Control, Red One. Red Flight is on two, seven, zero, and weapons are armed. Over.”

“Red One, Range Control confirms Red Flight is on heading two, seven, zero with live weapons. Out.” Silence descends on them all while they watch the radar displays.

A little later the Captain looks up from his display and says, “Drone controllers start your vehicles. Range Control, they should be picking up the targets soon.”

The controller is about to activate her radio when they hear, “Range Control, Red One has two moving ground targets on radar bearing two, six, five, and moving right to left. Request attack authorisation. Over.”

Squadron Leader Davis looks at the main radar display, as there’s nothing else showing as in the area he says, “Attack authorised.”

Pilot Officer Mills activates her radio, “Red One, Range Control, attack authorised. Repeat, attack authorised. Over.”

“Range Control, Red One confirms attack authorisation given. Out.” A short delay, and, “Red One to Red Three and Red Four, make your attack run on the targets bearing two, six, five. Northern target for Red Three and Red Four the southern target. Over.” All of them hear the two pilots confirming their targets.

The radar displays show Red Three and Four heading down to attack the ground vehicles as the rest of the flight turns aside while it gains a lot more altitude to leave the field to the two pilots on their attack run.

A moment’s delay, then they hear, “Red Three has radar lock on a ground target moving south.”

Another voice with, “Red Four has radar lock on a ground target moving south.”

A short break, and Red Three says, “Commencing strafing run with cannon.”

One of the drone operators looks a bit worried as he has concerns over what he’s hearing of the radio transmissions as the location doesn’t seem right to him. He glances at his mate’s controls, then up at the main radar screen, and says, “Captain, abort, those aren’t our drones. They’re too far south and our vehicles are going north-east.” All of the other people’s heads come up in shock.

Squadron Leader Davis doesn’t wait to confirm or argue, as he immediately activates his radio and says, “Red Flight, Exercise Control, abort attack, abort attack. Over.”

Flight Lieutenant William March is piloting Red Three while he’s busy with his attack run. He squeezes the trigger to shoot the drone with his cannon. He can see the fire from Red Four out of the corner of his eye, and he’s watching both lines of tracers head toward the targets. Then he hears, “Red Flight, Exercise Control, abort attack, abort attack. Over.”

He immediately takes his finger off the trigger while saying, “Red Four, Red Three. Head for the roof, out.” He pulls back on the controls to start climbing straight up at full power, away from the targets, while saying, “Exercise Control, Red Three, aborting attack and withdrawing. Over.”

Red Three and Red Four are very busy controlling their planes when the dark night is suddenly as bright as day while both of the aircraft are buffeted and they hear, “What the hell!” Will March looks to his left where his friend and wingman, Will Hall, should be, and he can’t see him due to a large fireball. Of more concern to him is the way his plane’s wing is coming apart. His training kicks in and he pulls the ejection handle.

Two large black SUVs are driving across the Arizona desert late at night. They’re driving across the Barry M Goldwater Range toward the Mexican border. They know the border patrol will be easier to avoid at the point they intend to break through the fence, and then they’ll race along the Mexican Federal Highway 2 to vanish into Mexico. They know it’s safe to cross the range tonight because their friends at Luke Air Force Base have seen the flight orders for all of the USAF Squadrons based there and none of them are having night exercises tonight. The four men smile when they think of the millions they’ll get paid for the four stolen tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) in their two vehicles.

Suddenly the night is torn apart with cannon shells exploding in the two SUVs. The planes only fire their guns for a second, but they are rapid fire cannons and they fire at a very fast rate. Also, the targeting is spot on so all of the rounds are on target. In both SUVs the exploding cannon shells detonate and they activate the explosives used in the TNWs to slam the nuclear material together. These actions set off the four devices in a simultaneous explosion that turns the night into a bright day while also vaporising the thieves.

When Red Three and Red Four peel off to attack Red One turns the rest of Red Flight aside while gaining altitude, thus there can be no mistake about who is where and doing what. This is to minimise the risks of an accidental friendly fire incident. The fast fighters take only a few seconds to move well away from the two planes attacking the drones. He hears the abort order and he thinks it’s just an extra test of the pilots’ skills, until the desert is suddenly as bright as the noonday sun. He looks over to where the radar says the drones are, and he’s surprised to see an elongated fireball expanding up and out. He glances at his radar because the distance is already too far to pick out the two fighters by sight, especially in the light of the fireball, and he’s stunned when both planes vanish from his radar screen.

“Exercise Control, Red One, two planes are down. Red Three and Red Four are no longer on my radar. Over.” Control comes on the radio to order the flight to land back at Luke Air Force Base.

The explosion is too far away from the range control centre to see it in detail, but they can easily see the bright burst of light down that way. They all turn to stare at each other while they wonder what the hell is happening down there. After a moment everyone is soon busy carrying out the required Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to report a major range incident, and the SOP to report the loss of the two aircraft with their crews.

The next day Squadron Leader Davis has the sad duty of calling his sister to tell her his brother-in-law, Will March, is missing and believed dead. Thus she’s now a widow due to his aircraft being destroyed in a training accident.

The investigators do find most of the aircraft frames, engines, and one ejection seat; thus they can tell both pilots ejected, but nothing can be found of the pilots or the other ejection seat. It’s assumed the missing pilots and seat were totally destroyed in the fireball, like the canopies and some parts of the planes were. The investigation takes four months to be completed, but the main details are so obvious they’re in the preliminary report lodged at the end of the third week.

A month after the incident funerals are held in Australia for the two dead pilots. It takes time, but the families grieve and move on with their lives. Both men are missed by their family, friends, and workmates.

Orientation Time

Will March blinks twice then he looks around him. There’s a short blank spot in his memory and he’s sure he wasn’t knocked out, but even if he was it couldn’t have been for long because he’s still hanging from his parachute with the ground still a long way down. What’s a big worry is there’s no sign of the fireball, fire, or aircraft wreckage. Being night he should be able to see the fire of his downed aircraft wreck burning, or what’s left of the drones that blew up in so spectacular a fashion.

A few seconds later he’s thinking, Was that the drones we shot and blew up? Now he’s not so sure of that because of the abort command. He thought it was a test, but the explosion now has him wondering about what did happen. Whatever went off did so in a big way, and he’s not seen anything make such a large fireball so quick before. It was way short of the film footage he’s seen of nuclear explosions so he rules that out as a possibility. Even so, there should be something still on fire, and he can’t see any flames at all.

He still has his helmet on with its built-in microphone so he reaches for the radio lead to plug it into the emergency radio unit on his flight suit. He turns the emergency radio on, but there’s nothing on the frequency. He looks down to check the power, the light shows it’s on so he activates the radio and says, “Exercise Control, Red Three, do you receive me? Over.” He gets no response so he repeats the call several times, but there’s no reply. This worries him because this radio is on the emergency frequency which is always listened to, and no answer means there’s a major communications breakdown for the whole area.

Will puts the matter aside to look at the ground as he’s now low enough he can start to make things out to decide where he wants to land. For now, all of his attention is on getting safely down on the ground in one piece, and that’s the way it should be.

Some minutes later he hits the ground and he rolls the way he’s been trained to do it. A moment to deflate the parachute before he takes a few minutes to roll it up the way he’s been taught. They can repack it for re-use, and if he’s really lost it’s a useful resource for shelter, warmth, etc.

He stuffs the chute away in its pack as per the SOP before he gets out his GPS (Global Positioning System) device to check it, only to be stunned by the screen saying, ’No signal.’ He should have several satellites in range here. Oh well. On with the SOP to check what he has to work with in the way of survival gear. The major items are in the big pack that’s part of the ejection seat which should have landed nearby, but it didn’t. However, his vest and small pack with the chute are on him.

Going through the survival items is necessary to ensure he knows what he has to work with, and also because the RAAF and USAF have different packs. He’s wearing a RAAF survival vest with some of the gear but the USAF pilots no longer use one. Plus the gear in the USAF seat and chute packs vary too. So he needs to sort out what he does have on hand. It takes him several minutes to go through it all and to move some of it to be a bit more ready to hand than where it’s first stored. He also changes the way the parachute and packs are strapped on so they’ll be more comfortable while he’s walking about. One of the first things he does is to ready and load the survival rifle in the pack. Things are just way too screwed up for him to be complacent about his situation. He moves out with everything still on him. The helmet is easier to carry strapped on his head, but with the visor up and out of the way.

He takes his time to look around the area, and when he spots a hill a few miles away he heads toward it. He figures to be able to see further from there when the sun comes up. A couple of hours later he’s near the top of the hill and he’s working his way under a bush to be out of sight while he sleeps for the rest of the night.

Time for a Walk

Will wakes up in bright sunlight. He glances at the sky, and he can tell the sun’s been up for a couple of hours, but not too long. He takes a moment to get out from under the bush, stand, stretch, unload excess fluids, and have a sip from his canteen. All of the time he’s looking about him, and all he sees is the same Arizona desert he’s seen since arriving a few weeks back. He gets out his monocular to start looking around.

For several minutes he closely examines everything within sight, and he isn’t happy with what he sees. The wreckage of the two planes and the drones or the burnt patches marking their wrecks should be visible. But there’s no burnt out areas, nor are there any of the roads he’s seen in the area when taking daylight training flights. He wonders if there was a very strong wind and he’s been blown far away from the wrecks. If that’s so the usual rule of waiting near the wreck for the recovery unit isn’t going to be of any use. Also, with no wreck in sight he’s got nothing to wait beside. Oh well, out with the compass and to pick out a sight target to the north-west because the city of Yuma is the closest major urban area and it should be in that general direction. He can fine tune his path when he has it in sight since the city is big enough to see from many miles off.

A moment to double check everything is secure, take out an energy bar to nibble on, set the rifle in his hand for use, and start walking. He’s not happy with having to walk out, but he can’t see any other option. So he takes his time and great care. He walks slowly to conserve his energy while he keeps to the shade as much as possible to avoid heatstroke. Near noon he takes a long break in the little shade available. He has some food prior to taking a two hour nap through the heat of the day.

After waking up he sets off again. Late in the afternoon he tops a fair sized hill and he stops to survey the path ahead of him as well as all of the surrounding area. Using the monocular he has a good look around him. He’s about to put it away when he spots movement on a rise near the limit of his vision to the north. Up comes the monocular again to get a better view. He’s shocked to see a group of a dozen or so Indians on horses carrying bows while one has a very long rifle. He holds still as he watches while they check out the area before moving off to the east.

While they’re moving off to the north-east Will thinks, They look like they belong in a film set in the mid 1800s. Modern Indians all use saddles and they dress in normal work clothes like jeans, except when they put on a show for people. I wonder what sighting that group of Indians means?

He continues to walk through the remaining day and twilight, only stopping when he walks up to a large scrubby bush after he figures it’s getting too dark for him to see his way well. While crawling under the bush he thanks the powers that be for the tough gear he has because he doesn’t have to worry about getting them torn up by the bushes. A moment to find a comfortable position, a bit of food, and a sip of drink, then he settles down for a night’s sleep. The bush will protect him from most of the desert wildlife and it’ll give him warning about the rest.

The next morning he wakes up soon after dawn and he gets out from his overnight bush. He does the usual daily preparations while looking around, then he starts walking toward Yuma while eating an energy bar. Today he sights nothing except the desert, and that’s a worry because there are roads and old buildings he should be passing, but he doesn’t.

Again he stops for a two hour nap through the worst of the day’s heat. After the nap he keeps moving until near the end of the twilight before taking refuge under a large bush for the night. While having his evening feed he’s real worried because he figures he should’ve sighted the outskirts of Yuma by now, and he’s not seen a thing.