Source code, p.3
Source Code, page 3
Half a dozen organizations were still furiously setting up further south, down past the fences and guards that would keep the general public out of the active military side of things. Catering and vendors and major industry partners.
But this end of the flight line was equally full of aircraft. All military. Most here for the show. Classic planes and aerobatic acts and even the Storm Gryphons.
They dwarfed the local contingent of five.
The air stank of JP-8. The low hum of a dozen jet turbines rumbled in Daelia’s gut. There was an entire flight of P-51s out there, waiting for their turn at takeoff.
Today was the last day for the various aerial teams to practice their acts. And they would be practicing all day.
One event after another. No waiting. No crowds.
The best time to see it all, actually. And every organization at Ellington Spaceport took full advantage.
Air Show Friday always had a bit of a carnival atmosphere to it. Back at the civilian hangars, down at the NASA complex, doors were being thrown open, drinks chilled, barbecues fired up. Maybe some good old patriotic rock music pulled up for good measure. It was a day when everyone pulled their kids out of school, spouses called in sick to work, and everyone had a good time.
It had been like that at the Bellona Robotics facility, once upon a time.
Now, well…
Dad said he liked the party at the 121st better anyway.
The old World War II fighters had to wait their turn, however.
Because right now, coming in for a landing, there was Emily.
That massive, bronze-scaled, two-headed dragon form, wrapped around an MQ-9, sailing in for a landing.
No matter how many times Daelia saw it, it was always impressive. As a visual, sure, but also just in terms of the technical skill required to render it. The overlay was perfect, unlike a lot of the other abiotic aircraft on the ramp today. Realistic.
If a dragon landing on a runway could be called realistic.
As the aircraft inside the form touched down, huge talons seemed to unfurl and grab at the ground, turning into an easy run as the machine body taxied in.
Strictly speaking, Emily’s projected form was nothing but a description. A very complicated description, three-dimensional and well capable of animated movement and speech. Daelia had a binder with the exact code for it, for Emily and every other abiota that Bellona Robotics serviced here. That description expressed differently, depending on what kind of AR or VR field it was being viewed through, and what the individual viewer’s TGLP filters were set to.
In the operational AR overlay that was broadcast base-wide, Emily’s form was little more than a graphic outline, a grid of blue light that generally outlined the dragon shape. The Air Force funded the back-end server infrastructure for such things at the absolute bare minimum.
Daelia had Emily’s presets loaded to her own AR, however, and was able to watch the abiota in all her high-definition glory.
Bulky, muscular, and yet somehow still sleek, Emily’s dragon form extended well beyond the fifty-foot wingspan of her machine body. Her heads dipped as they approached, long necks bobbing like snakes as she pretended to inspect the humans waiting for her and taxied back under her shelter.
A keen gaze, modeled off a green-eyed cat, settled on Daelia.
“Hi, my lovely beast,” Daelia said, holding out a hand. “How was that for you?”
The integrated TGLP unit in the visor picked up both the words and body language, transcribed them for Emily’s benefit. Like most of the abiota here, Emily’s machine body wasn’t fitted with microphones itself; communication took place within the simulation. Within the shared AR field.
The military didn’t like it, had spent billions trying to figure out a better way to manage it, but at the end of the day, TGLP was the most effective way abiota and humans could relate to each other. And TGLP required augmented reality to function.
Tamm Good Language Protocol had been a technological coup. A masterpiece of computer programming. While some early abiota had developed their own ways of communicating with humans, TGLP had enabled communication for all. Frank Tamm had even kept it open-source, available to everybody and anybody.
Daelia often wondered what it was that Emily saw. Nobody knew. It was one of those secrets that the Domain Array guarded jealously, its silence enforced assiduously.
Spawn, Emily acknowledged.
“You look good, girl. Nice to see you flying with this new upgraded form. I think it’s the first time I’ve gotten to see you in person since you got back from Clark.”
Emily preened. I have much gold. I hire good illuminator, human, not some predictive tracer.
“You get paid in bytebuck, Emily.”
Gooooooooold, the dragon form repeated. Daelia’s monocle filled with laughter emojis. Daelia smiled.
And then she was reminded of just what a goat-rope the morning had been.
“That was a hell of a ride, Emily!”
Daelia turned.
A guy in a flight suit was walking up. Nobody she recognized. Pilot, of course. Big guy, at least six foot and built like a Viking. Shorter hair, though. Green eyes, intense. That practically oozed out of him. He was different than the average guy back at school, that was for sure. But he was a pilot, and she’d dealt with enough of those over the years. Daelia knew better than to swoon over that flight suit.
The guy just eyed her in return and walked up under the aircraft. Patted the metal skin of the fuselage. “That was some bullshit out there,” he told the plane. “Let’s not do that again.”
Emily cut the language feed with Daelia, switching to a private line with the pilot. Even without sound, Daelia could tell the abiota was feeling smug. Emily’s dragon form stretched itself, front claws digging at the ground a little bit, body rolling.
Whatever she said to the pilot only deepened his frown. But the left dragon head threw back, mouth open. More laughter emojis popped up in Daelia’s feed.
The pilot sighed.
Daelia’s brain caught up.
“So you’re Argo. You’re the guy who was flying her like a total asshole,” Daelia said, and stepped forward herself, back into range of Emily’s necks. The dragon form dipped back down to meet her hand.
“Really, you too?” the pilot asked, and then shook his head. He looked over at Daelia. Squinted for a moment. “Who are you?”
“I’m the one who had to save your ass out there. So don’t be blaming her for your shitty-ass flying. You fucked that up all on your own.”
“She was fighting me.”
“You were fighting her.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“It’s really not.”
“Argo!”
Somebody was running up behind them. Sergeant Holloway, a decent-enough guy with about thirty extra pounds and a wicked sense of humor. He wiped some sweat away from his bald head as he joined them, flight suit sleeve pulling up, revealing a watch and the colorful end of a full-sleeve tattoo.
“What?” the pilot asked.
“I just got word food’s on the way. If we hurry, we might be able to grab some lunch before the debrief.”
“What is it?” Daelia asked.
“Lunch? Cajun. Same as every time we get something catered.”
Daelia looked back at Emily. The dragon form was preening now, heads rubbing against the scales as a group of young maintenance troops moved in with big buckets and mops. In the AR field, they were all fancied up in embossed leather and silk livery, a proper little team of fantasy serfs working on their mistress.
She could catch up with the abiota later. All the flight data they needed was downloaded directly to Raijinn’s servers anyway.
Besides, Bumper wanted her at that damn brief.
“Sounds good,” Argo said. “Haven’t had decent Cajun in a while.”
“You’re not going to get it now,” the enlisted sensor operator laughed. “But at least there’s a lot of it.”
“Ah, fuck,” Daelia grumbled. “Did they order Lenny’s?”
4
Heading down the flight line toward the operations building, Argo couldn’t help but cast one last glance back.
Not at Emily’s shelter.
No. At what lay just beyond her.
The Storm Gryphons.
Both RPAs and support packages took up several acres of real estate, both on the ramp and just off it. Cockpits, radar, deployable operation center. That was a pair of gigantic RVs, bright graphic wraps broken only by the blacked-out windshields. Everything else was built into shipping containers, modular and easily moved. Cable bundles thicker than his arm snaked between them. An entire team of enlisted crew were hurrying about their work, personnel in distinctive gray flight suits, tailored to the point of discomfort.
By comparison, the MQ-9 cockpits seemed small, insignificant.
The 121st’s own complement of four was clustered under a shelter near the maintenance hangar. Two for long-range piloting, one for handling launch and recovery, and one that was apparently used for only local domestic ops. Hurricane support, flooding events, things like that.
Active duty his entire career, Argo had never dealt with a disaster support mission. It simply wasn’t something that part of the force was trained to do.
But he was Air Guard now. Everything had changed. Whole new world out here.
He cast another glance up at the Storm Gryphons. Argo wasn’t too proud to admit that he’d wanted the FQ-47, back when he was a young lieutenant waiting for his UPT slot.
The MQ-9 was not a sexy plane. Too ugly. Too plain. Back when he was at the Academy, it had been viewed as something of a punishment. But the MQ-9, and the newer variants, was the workhorse of the flying mission now. And so, like most of his UPT class, that was where he’d found himself.
After a decade flying it, Argo had developed a fondness for it. Sometimes, he wondered now why the DOD had bothered commissioning the FQ-47 at all.
Public appeal, maybe; it was hard to sell the American public on RPAs, no matter how effective they were in the field. That was why the Storm Gryphons team existed, after all. Or maybe it was nostalgia.
Dogfighting was pressed into the Air Force’s DNA, as surely as the calvary charge was for the Army or the cannon broadside was for the Navy.
Old habits died hard. And public opinion was even harder to sway.
The idea of dogfighting was laughable now. The beyond-horizon targeting systems, deployed by both sides during the Five Days War, had wiped out vast swaths of air assets without so much as a glimpse of the enemy. The MQ-9 hadn’t been prioritized by the Chinese as a target, something that ACC had ruthlessly exploited.
Argo liked the mission.
But shit if it wasn’t going to take some getting used to, flying these damn emergents.
Especially one like Emily.
Argo glanced over at the girl walking with them. Dressed plainly in jeans and a faded graphic tee, messy honey-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, she didn’t seem the contractor type. Not old enough, maybe. Most of the guys he’d dealt with over the years were retired maintenance or cyber troops, and she looked like she was in her mid-twenties.
And then, there was her arm.
A complicated brace made of thin silver bars and carbon fiber encased her arm from shoulder to hand. Filigree circuitry ran down her fingers to the very tips, connecting to tiny interface ports.
There was something familiar about her too, something he couldn’t quite place.
“So, you’re a contractor?” he asked.
“I’m with Bellona Robotics,” she answered, terse.
“Shit, where are my manners?” Ho asked with a display of mock contrition. “Argo, this is Daelia Hall. Daelia, this is Argo, our new pilot.”
She eyed him. “Yeah. I gathered that.”
Argo realized then where he’d seen her before. But from the way she was looking at him, he didn’t think the observation was welcome. “Must be nice,” he said instead, “working with your dad.”
“Sometimes,” she said, discomfort clear now.
From the runway, the prop wash off the P-51s whipped up a breeze in the humid fall morning air.
“Hell of a thing, aren’t they?” Ho asked.
Daelia shrugged. “No soul. There’s nothing alive in there.”
“Different kind of alive,” Ho said.
“What other kind of alive counts?”
Argo stayed out of it. Kept walking.
South, past the knot of hangars and the antenna yard, lay their destination.
The Ops Group facility.
Thanks to the air show, the entire place was busier than a beehive. The voices of kids, playing out on the wide lawn between building and tarmac, carried far up the flight line.
Normally, RPA facilities were huge, encompassing all the various components required for keeping those planes in the air. Cockpit and operations, intelligence, weather, back-end comm support, administration. A place for everything, everything in its place.
Ellington’s, well, Ellington’s facility—in Argo’s professional opinion—was a fucking mess.
Like everything else at Ellington, the 121st Operations Group’s building was old. Very old. Repurposed time and time again. It had been a single-story barracks once, way back in the day, and after that, base vehicle maintenance administration, NASA flight training support, weather. Then, after a particularly bad hurricane, it had been stripped to the studs and abandoned.
When Ellington had picked up the RPA mission, back in the early days of the GWOT, the commander had taken full advantage of the funding windfall. He’d taken the facility back, added on where he could, connecting to two other buildings where he’d had to.
At least, that’s what Argo’s new colleagues had told him.
He probably could have deduced it himself, though. The place looked like exactly what it was, a bunch of bits smashed together and painted over to give it the illusion of uniformity. And inside, it was just as much of a mess.
The only part of the renovation that made any sense was the section that bordered directly onto the airfield. It jutted out from the building like the head of a hammer, taking up as much of the prime real estate as possible.
This was where the front command section was located, along with the auditorium and the squadron heritage room, wide windows looking out across gray concrete and ocean-washed sky. A very nice triple-level deck ran along its entire length, stepping down from building to grass.
It was here where most of the kids were, dozens of them, ranging in age from toddlers laughing over an automatic bubble machine, to teenagers pouting behind their monocles and pretending they didn’t care about the World War II battle reenactment going on over the runway right now. The patio was thick with spouses and dates—wives mostly, but a few men as well—chatting over sweating cans of soda or red plastic cups of beer.
Heading up the rough wood stairs toward the heritage room entrance, Ho waved at a couple of people, before opening the door for Daelia with a gallant little flourish.
“Remember when we could call it ‘the squadron bar’?” Ho asked, waving Argo inside.
“A little before my time,” Argo admitted.
“Damn brass, wanting to crack down on the fun,” Ho said. “At least they didn’t ban beer taps.”
Whatever you called it, these places were always the same. A little bit worn, a little greasy around the edges. Wide built-in cabinets to one side held memorabilia, coins, little models of the planes the unit had flown over the decades. Photographs littered the other walls. An ejection seat from an old F-4 sat in a corner, and next to it, a well-used and poorly cleaned popcorn machine.
On the wall adjacent to the bar, a huge series of hooks held the fliers’ personalized beer steins. Squadron and Group insignia were painted above rows of mugs, while hook-and-loop squares stuck to the wall held flight suit name patches, helping identify whose mug was whose.
Ho went to get his. Argo had slapped one of his old name patches above a peg already, but it would be a few more weeks before his stein came in. Or his new name patches. He liked the ones he had just fine, but the squadron here had a Lone Star design they required everybody to use.
Texans.
He grabbed one of the guest steins instead.
It was before noon, and drinking would have normally been frowned on. No work was getting done today, though, outside of Argo’s practice run in Emily. Everybody was already drinking. Air Show Friday was an unofficial holiday anywhere you went in the Air Force.
It was nice to see it was the same here.
Made Argo feel slightly less out of place.
“You want a drink?” he asked Daelia, who was looking at some of the photos.
“Yeah, sure, why not?” she replied.
Following her gaze, Argo saw somebody familiar. Sitting on the edge of an old F4 cockpit, rakish grin on his face. “Shit, is that Bush 43?”
“He flew out of here back in the day,” Ho said.
Argo raised an eyebrow. “So he actually was in the Guard?”
“How was your first ride with Emily, Argo?” the senior enlisted man behind the bar asked loudly, before that discussion could go anywhere.
It was Scurvy. Chief Luis Martin Fuentes, the squadron’s chief master sergeant. He had the affable good humor of a native Texan and the compact build of his Guatemalan heritage. He was a sensor operator by trade and had taken the time earlier in the week to personally welcome Argo to the squadron. Seemed like a good guy.
But then, chiefs usually were.
“They told him to use the virch, Chief,” Ho said. “It was a fuckin’ shit show. I’m sure you heard.”
Scurvy rolled his eyes and held out his hand for their steins. “Jesus,” he said. “Ho, you got what you deserved, not telling him how Emily is.”
“I didn’t know what was going on,” Ho replied. “He’s a Weapons School grad, I thought he knew what he was doing.”
“I can handle an orcinus-class,” Argo protested.
