Mad Dog - First Strike Ch. 14

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.

The corporal's attention was beginning to wander, the sound of grinding gears and a change in the engine tone caught her attention. The digger had swung off the road and was crossing the broad grass verge heading directly for her position.

"Stand to!" she said it softly at first, then with increasing agitation and volume to her colleague, Leading Aircraftsman Keith Rooney, who was cocooned in his sleeping bag. "STAND TO!"

The digger was thirty metres away and closing fast. To her utter amazement the pickup was following close behind. McDermott reverted to the drill she'd been trained to use.

"ROYAL AIR FORCE!" she yelled. "HALT OR I FIRE!"

With the digger closing fast on her sangar, McDermott made an instant judgement call; this was a clear and present threat.

LAC Rooney struggled to his feet, hauling the Minimi Light Machine Gun to the bunker's parapet. Normally a cook in the camp's kitchen, being on Augmentation Force duties gave him a chance to live out his Rambo fantasies.

"What the feck's happening?" he rasped in a sleepy Northern Ireland accent. "Don't tell me the fecking eejits are havin' a drill."

"It's not a fucking drill!" she snapped back, "this is the real deal!"

"I'll make the wee wankers wind their necks in," he racked back the machine gun's cocking handle and nestled his cheek against the weapon's butt.

"ROYAL AIR FORCE!" she repeated herself. "HALT OR I FIRE!"

McDermott felt silly, the situation felt surreal. She knew that the digger's driver couldn't hear her but training took over.

The bulldozer blade hit the chain link fence, the driver kept his foot on the gas. The Bobcat strained the fence until it tore through. A light flickered from the diggers cab. There was the thud as bullets hit the sangar.

"Keith, the buggers are firing at us!" she hissed, "let 'em have it!"

Rooney squeezed the LMG's trigger. The staccato burst of fully automatic fire shattered the night. Green 5.56mm tracer arced towards his target.

With the digger now just ten metres away neither nor Rooney could miss at this range. She squeezed the trigger of her SA80.

McDermott's rifle clicked.

"Fuck!" She swore at her self under her breath. "Take the safety off you dozy tart!"

She thumbed the catch but by the time she had the digger was almost on top of the sangar.

"KEITH! GET BLOODY OUT!" she yelled.

McDermott dived for the gap in the Bastion's wall that served as a doorway jarring her skull as her head hit the angle iron frame. She rolled over on the grass and then looked up at the digger and the pickup following on behind.

Green tracer continued to spit out of the sangar. She could hear the clang as bullets ricocheted off the digger's bulldozer blade.

There was an almighty crash as the digger demolished the sangar. The truck parked up a little way behind, their doors were flung open and figures jumped out.

Just a few metres away in the digger's cab the driver was silhouetted against the early dawn glow in the eastern sky. McDermott raised her rifle and squeezed off four shots in rapid succession. The driver slumped forwards.

"Good shooting," she hissed to herself, "for a dozy tart who couldn't remember the safety catch was on."

One of the people who had debused from the pickups was edging round the back of the digger. With the dawn behind him McDermott could clearly make out the shape of an Armalite AR-15 assault rifle.

The SUSAT sight on her SA80 rifle uses radioactive tritium for aiming in low light level conditions. Like the current pre-dawn gloom.

McDermott took brief aim through the sight and fired at the gunman. He fell instantly. Taking her eye from the sight she saw two others dive for cover.

She glanced over at the sangar. It was, basically, demolished. There was no sign of Rooney.

McDermott looked back at the gunmen. They were lying prone and judging by their strobing muzzles, they were firing at her. They were unused to firing from the prone position, their shots passed over her.

She rolled over on the grass until she was out of their line of fire, then got up and ran hunched up to the digger. She crouched down by the digger's rear wheel and took aim at the prone forms of the gunmen.

Before she could shoot a groan from the cab distracted her. She looked up and saw the gunman glaring down at her.

"God damn!" he spat venomously. "I was shot by a fucking bitch!"

He levelled the MAC 10 sub-machine gun and drew a bead on McDermott's back.

Her last sensation was her legs buckling as she dropped to the grass.