1 - Prologue:
"RAF Tonopah," Pilot Officer Dave 'Shifty' Roberts snorted cynically.
"Don't make me sodding laugh. It's not an RAF station, all it is is a corner of a Yank bloody air base."
Sitting at the terminal to the right was the surveillance systems operator, Flying Officer 'Sticky' Vicky Lloyd. An attractive slim woman, originally from Morpeth in North East England. She had a cheerful disposition, in her mid-twenties with dark hair swept back in a tight military bob. Lloyd gave him a scathing glance from the corner of her eye.
He was a white posh boy. A cookie cutter clone of all those who'd gone to a private British boarding school and Oxford or Cambridge university, the traditional route of the British upper-middle class. He was medium height, athletic build and with an overwhelming sense of self-entitlement.
"Why don't you stop moaning and concentrate on the job in hand?" Lloyd asked. "You know, actually flying the drone."
"No point, the bloody thing's on autopilot," he moaned, "I mean, where's the real flying in this?"
"Away Shifty man..."
"No, the bloody thing's autonomous, it can fly the whole mission all by its self," he moaned, "we're only here to tell it whether or not it's allowed to zap the target. We're here just in case the sodding thing gets any funny ideas and decides to wipe all the pesky humans out."
"I don't think we've got to the Terminator stage yet, have we?" Lloyd chuckled.
"Not quite just yet, but soon," Roberts said ominously.
Shifty had a point. They were operating a British Aerospace Taranis, and operating was the right word. Nobody ever claimed that they were the UCAVs crew. No one in their right mind would accuse Roberts or Lloyd of flying the drone.
Taranis is a stealthy, jet-powered Unmanned Combat Aviation Vehicle. The drone was named after the Celtic god of thunder.
The UCAV was part of the British Ministry of Defence's new air war strategy; the whole project cost of creating a fleet of eight drones set the British taxpayer back £185 million, while a single Typhoon FGR4 Eurofighter costs £110 million. For the cost of a single squadron of Typhoons the RAF could launch a swarm of semi-autonomous Taranis UCAVs and overwhelm enemy air defences.
Buried inside the fuselage were two weapons bays, each capable of launching a single Storm Shadow long range cruise missile. Today, however, each bay had a single GBU-27 Paveway III laser-guided bomb. It was a test to see if the Taranis could function in the tactical role.
The Americans were interested to see if the Taranis could be used as a replacement for the F-117 stealth fighter. Like their British RAF counterparts, the USAF were looking for a UCAV that had the low cost to allow a large number to be purchased.
They were thinking of the potential for future conflicts with Russia. The problem that air force planners in the Pentagon faced was Russia's massive size and the comprehensive layered air defence system and anti-access air denial zones - A2AD.
Swarm tactics using large numbers of strategic and tactical drones could overwhelm even A2AD. The drones would bear the brunt of the initial attack and the vast majority of casualties.
"Where would you rather be, back at Aberporth?" Lloyd asked, "I mean, come on, you can only tell if its summertime in Wales because the rain's slightly warmer."
"So it's warmer and sunnier here than it is back in Wales," Roberts showed his contempt by curling his lip, "big fucking deal."
"Besides, this is Nevada. Mate, you could drive to Las Vegas, be there in three hours and spend the weekend playing roulette or something," she continued, "which has got to beat Rhyl any day of the week, hasn't it?"
"Rhyl Vegas," Roberts grunted, and almost broke into a smile. The thought of the small Welsh seaside town trying to compete with Sin City USA was funny.
"Bright light city gonna set my soul on fire," she sang, "viva Las Vegas!"
Shifty began grinning at her singing. She wasn't that bad, but she'd never win Britain's Got Talent.
"Don't quit your day job," Shifty chuckled, "please, don't quit your day job."
"How did you end up being called shifty?" Sensing that Roberts was cheering up a little, Lloyd tried to change the subject and lighten the mood some more. She knew he'd open up to her, Shifty Roberts was a bit of an egotist, his favourite subject was himself.
"for a short while after I graduated from Oxford I was a used car salesman. Nothing shabby, all up-market stuff, Bentley's and Aston Martins, right," he said. "That was before I joined the air force, obvs."
"Obvs," Sticky Vicky mimicked him, "so why did you join up?"
"I thought I'd get to fly real aircraft," he responded, "not something that's the illegitimate product of a shag between a robot and a bloody radio controlled model of a stealth bomber. I'm pretending to be a combat pilot with delusions of adequacy."
"Oh," it was all Roberts could think of to say, there was no response to a rant like that.
Inside the cargo-container like control suite, near-silence descended. The only background noise being the white noise generated by the computers cooling fans and the noise of the air conditioning.
Lloyd knew that the quiet wouldn't last. Once Roberts got the meat bees buzzing in his head, he'd go on, and on, until death would be the only blessed relief. She wasn't sure who'd die; she could either murder Roberts or kill herself. Considering that the scheduled length of the drone's mission was supposed to be nine hours in duration, it'd be a toss up who would leave the UCAV's virtual cockpit alive.
