“Yet the one inherent limitation with drone warfare is battery life, isn’t that right?”
“That’s another thing that technology has improved upon. Even ten years ago, the most you could expect was between twenty minutes to half-an-hour of flight time. Now with lightweight and long-lasting fuel cells, your average off-the-shelf UAVs can run for a couple of hours, maybe longer. And let’s face it, if an attack goes beyond half an hour or so, the effects will be exponentially worse.”
“Won’t they run out of ammo long before that… or just explode?”
“There’s not much that can done to stop the suicide drone designed simply to appear on-site and explode. For the others, there’s a whole menu of UAV-compatible armament now available, from lightweight nylon and composite cartridges to miniature missiles. And since most drone attacks take place at point blank range, there’s no need for a lot of range or penetrating power, so a decent-size combat drone can carry enough armament to last for a while, depending on how plentiful the targets are. That’s the reason the RDC has become so important. Without some countering force showing up on-site, these killer drones can just leisurely pick off targets as they’re located. I know the death toll always look high in most drone attacks — even to me — yet without us there to shut down an event, the numbers would be far worse.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me, Mr. Smith. Now I’d like to spend a few minutes talking about the operators — the pilots, as you call them. Are you really pilots?”
It was Xander’s turn to smile. “That’s what we’re called. I can be honest with you and say I don’t hold a pilot’s license for traditional aircraft; however, I’m pretty good with a controller in my hand.”
Their eyes locked for a moment. “I’m sure you are, Mr. Smith.”
The moment passed and she continued. “What about burnout and other psychological factors with your pilots? I know that was an ongoing problem with the military drone pilots.”
“We don’t have that problem here.”
“Why not?”
“Because our mission is completely different. What you’re referring to is the outdated foreign strike program. Those units have been retired. We now use the smaller UAVs.”
“So what makes your mission so different?”
“Simple, we’re completely defensive in nature. On background, Tiffany, the problem they had with the initial drone program came from the attachment the operators sometimes developed with their targets. They would often spend weeks surveilling a hostile before getting the order to take out them out. They weren’t given a reason, just the order. It’s one thing to be in a firefight against an enemy across the street shooting back at you. You’ll kill without remorse, justifying it as self-defense. Most of the PTSD live combat troops suffer is a result of the fear associated with such fighting, not from the act of killing itself. With the drone program, the issue became the killing. There was no direct feeling of self-defense or personal danger in these cases, and most compassionate people have a problem with simply following orders to execute a person — any person.”
“But the targets were enemy combatants.”
“Or so they were portrayed. The pilots and sensors had a problem accepting that assertion, and so there was a lot of turnover in personnel in the early days of the program.”
“But here at the RDC you don’t have that problem?”
“Not at all, since we react to an attack already taking place. It’s our job to stop an event in its tracks by killing — if you will — inanimate objects. Our job saves lives, we don’t take them. It’s a completely different mindset, based on the mission, and our people take immense pride in what they do.”
“And yet you stay secret, unnamed, and hidden away.”
Xander smiled again. “We’re not looking for medals and ticker-tape parades, Tiffany. We stay anonymous because the enemy realizes our value and have made us targets. In all honesty, you can have thousands of advanced UAVs at your disposal, yet without skilled pilots and operators, they’re just useless pieces of plastic and composite.”
“Which brings us to the Exceptional Skills Bill. You know there’s a lot of opposition to its passage—”
The door to the conference room suddenly burst open and a grave-looking Colonel Jamie Simms stepped in, followed by an Air Force tech sergeant.
“Sorry to interrupt, but this interview is over,” Simms announced in a voice that left no room for discussion. “The sergeant will escort Ms. Collins to a safe room until arrangements can be made for her departure.”
“What’s going on?” Tiffany asked. Her face was flush with anger. “Was it something I said or asked?”
“No, it’s nothing like that—”
Just then an alarm began to sound throughout the Center. Xander had never heard this particular alarm before. It was different from the normal drills that were run periodically.
“What is going on, Jamie?” Xander didn’t care if Collins heard or not.
Simms looked at both their faces, seeing the matching concern. “This will be hard to keep secret as it is, so what the hell. The base is under attack, Ms. Collins, so it’s important that you go with the sergeant until the crisis is over. Xander, you’re back on duty.”
“Who’s doing the attacking?” Tiffany asked.
“The bad guys,” Simms responded. “Now please no more questions. Just go with the sergeant so Xander and I can get to work.”
Tiffany looked at Xander. “Xander, your name is Xander?”
“Talk to my mother about that. Now get going, please.”
Chapter 6
Once the reporter was out of the room, Xander turned to Simms. “Are we really under attack?”
“That’s a big-ass affirmative. A whole fleet of quads and octs have breached the outer perimeter east of the Center and are headed this way. According to the security images, they’re Lightning Z4’s and 8’s, equipped with full strike packages.”
“How did they get past the countermeasures?”
“That I don’t know, not yet.” The pair left the conference room and headed north toward the tactical section. They were in the Admin building, which housed the executive offices and command facilities for the RDC, and all the corridors were full of determined men and woman rushing about with concern on their faces.
Xander and Simms entered the main tactical command room for the Center, a huge chamber resembling a college lecture hall, with rows of observation stations set high to the back of the room and a series of flight control stations on the main floor below. In reality, very few operations were run out of the room. Instead, it was used mainly to monitor the activities of the ninety individual combat stations located in the Operations building.
Yet today most of the stations were occupied, with over twenty pilots and operators just now lighting up their consoles. Xander took a seat at a vacant pilot station. To his left and right were a wingman and a scanner-operator. Simms stood behind him watching the screens as they came to life.
“How many bunkers have activated?” Xander asked. Las Vegas had more than its fair share of rapid-response bunkers, not only from its proximity to the Center, but also because of the massive number of tourists who frequented the city each year, making it an ideal target for terrorists.