14 - Epilogue:
Corporal Shauna McDermott normally worked as a supply team leader in the Logistics Support Section of 1355 (Training) Flight. The flight took advantage of Nevada's good weather to train British and American personnel to fly Taranis drones.
Shauna had served nine years in the Royal Air Force. She was newly made up to Corporal and following her promotion had extended her service by another six years.
The last couple of years she'd been based at RAF Aberporth in Wales. Her role was to support drones by making sure that spares were in stock when they were needed. When the chance to spend six months at the Joint UCAV Training Task Force at RAF Tonopah arose, she jumped at it.
RAF Tonopah was in the U S of bloody A! The training camp was attached to the nearby US Air Force base. The Americans were adopting the British-made UCAV, and the climate in Nevada had better flying weather than Wales for training drone pilots.
The training camp had once been an RV park. The British Ministry of Defence had bought it for a song and established the camp quickly. As a result it lacked any feeling of permanence.
Flying operations used the USAF airbase. The RAF camp at Tonopah itself consisted consisted of a handful of prefab buildings. The RAF personnel were accommodated in what looked suspiciously like cargo containers.
However, RAF Tonopah had something in common with most RAF camps world wide; a gate guard. A former RAF Harrier GR9 had been found languishing in the boneyard at Davis-Mothan Air Force Base. The Brits had arranged for it to be shipped to their camp, and set up on the grass verge next to the main gate.
Shauna hadn't been in America long when things started to get tense, beginning with drive by shootings. In the middle of the night a pickup truck would come screeching to a halt and rednecks would use the Harrier for target practice.
When the drive-by shootings occurred the guard would stand to, but were forbidden from opening fire unless they themselves were fired on. The drunks seemed satisfied with shooting up the Harrier. It was, after all, just an extension of what they did to road signs.
Shortly after that there was the drone attack on the school. While it had been an RAF UCAV and it had launched from Tonopah, it wasn't their fault, it'd been hacked, but that didn't seem to make any difference to some of the nutters from the far right. The attack had happened first thing in the morning and the first death threats had been emailed in within minutes.
The RAF increased defences at the camp. A number of sangars had been built. These were angle iron framed bunkers reinforced with Hesco Bastions; sturdy steel wire cages lined with thick plastic sheets filled with rocks.
It seemed daft to McDermott that an RAF training camp in the USA needed the sort of defensive positions she'd seen during her tours in Afghanistan. Wasn't there supposed to be a special relationship between America and Britain?
Thirteen fifty-five flight was too small to have its own RAF Regiment detachment for camp defence. Instead an Augmentation Force of cooks, clerks and drivers took up defensive duties in the bunkers.
McDermott was in charge of a sangar on the eastern fence not far from the main road. She preferred the positions on the southern side of the base. At least there she could watch wildlife through the day/night sight on her SA80 rifle.
McDermott checked her Casio G-Shock; it was five thirty-six. In the pre-dawn quiet she could hear the sound of a mechanical digger grinding its way in low gear. It seemed that American construction workers went to work early.
When the digger came into sight it was a Bobcat mini bulldozer; grime-encrusted and hard used. Behind it was pickup truck. She could imagine just how frustrated everyone in the truck was at being stuck behind the slow moving digger.
