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GWOT VI - Waypoint
Nov. 17th, 2024 12:15 pm"During this armed resistance the women belonging to the battle groups were equipped the same as the men; some were members of the Chaluzim movement. Not infrequently, these women fired pistols with both hands. It happened time and again that these women had pistols or hand grenades (Polish "pineapple" hand grenades) concealed in their bloomers up to the last moment to use against the men of the Waffen SS, Police, or Wehrmacht." - The Stroop Report, May 16, 1943, documenting the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto
California Forward Operating Base
"The Farm" / Camp O'Wheat
Eastern Nebraska
The plane arriving in that wee hour between 3 and 4 AM was much smaller than usual.
The pilot really, really needed to pee.
There was no co-pilot, nor was there any other crew.
So while he waited for someone to come out with the electric tractor, he waddled over to the side of the runway and let fly.
Still no tractor.
So he walked to the hangar.
He had made his silent approach, lights out and engine just above stall speed - of course - but why was there no greeting...
He drew his pistol and made sure the silencer was affixed.
The hangar was empty.
Except for a single pallet of cargo, another pallet of jerrycans of aviation gasoline, the electric tractor, and a printed QR code on top of the pallet's contents.
The last time he had been here, he had flown a bigger aircraft and had returned with a load of human cargo, desperate refugees.
There had also been a line of white pickup trucks with hardpoints and festooned with weapons and equipment.
The trucks were gone.
There could only be one explanation.
The base had been abandoned.
He could scan the QR code with his burner device. What he could not do, was call for instructions. He didn't have knowledge or authority to use the camp's comms, he did not have a sat phone, and his aircraft's radio was both intermediate range and easily detectable, even in encrypted and burst transmission modes. Transmitting from a fixed site on the ground would be a huge electronic shout betraying Camp O'Wheat's location.
If the camp had been detected, he would have been met on landing instead by the Nebraska National Guard. Pull tabs on burn pouch and burner phone, put hands on head - or draw pistol, put barrel under chin and pull trigger twice. His decision, that last.
The Nebraskans would eventually, grudgingly repatriate him. The Iowans might - or might literally, physically crucify him. Or worse. They had done worse.
So he scanned the QR code.
It demanded from his burner his personal password. Then it demanded that he take a fresh photo of the pallet and QR code.
Only then did the brief message appear.
"Cargo. Waypoint 2714. Load and go."
He used the electric tractor to bring his light plane into the hangar. First he refueled. He had half a jerrycan of fuel left over after filling his tanks. Someone had done some math.
He opened the rear hatchlet - intended to drop off a pair of commandos, load one stretcher patient or a car trunk's worth of cargo - and hefted the four heavy plastic cases into the back, and strapped them down.
They were unmarked but he readily recognized the contents.
On an impulse, he added the jerrycan. Having the one gave him some options in case he landed at a gas station or isolated pump.
The GPS recognized the waypoint, once he entered the number. It was a map of the Iowa war. Most of the waypoints were in western Iowa.
This one was further east.
The map was not annotated.
He drank his fill of water from the sink tap, topped up his water bottles, used the toilet.
To minimize the noise footprint, he again used the electric tractor to bring the plane back to the runway.
He grudgingly put the tractor back in the hangar. Leaving it in the fields would be a tell.
By then, false dawn was just beginning to appear in the East.
He would not stay here for any reason whatsoever. Even hunger and crying need for sleep. He had a ration bar left in the plane and he could set the autopilot and sleep. It was dangerous but not as much as not sleeping.
The plane took off. His last glimpse showed that there were no farm vehicles near the main farmhouse either.
He set the autopilot for destination with altitude 3000 feet and the burner's timer and alarm clock functions, choked down half the ration bar, and fell asleep as the sun rose.
###
ALARM ALARM ALARM
It was neither the autopilot nor the burner's clock.
It was the radar reflection value detector.
SHIT.
His plane had the radar cross section of a bicycle and between the light blue bottom and mottled top, was low observability by eyeball. The engine was specially designed, as was the exhaust, to reduce both radar detection and infrared signature.
But a big enough radar could overcome that.
No one was running ground based air search radars west of Davenport. California had made sure.
So there was an enemy aircraft up.
He couldn't do anything. If he knew for sure what bearing the enemy aircraft was on, he could change course to reduce signature - but this change would itself be a detection potential.
His burner buzzed. Not the aircraft radio. The burner itself.
The burner worked on mobile phone networks. The only surviving networks were being run by the Churches or by California signals intelligence ...
He checked his message. Password again.
"Set radio to encryption CA 4244 and respond with voice burst message. Set burst parameter to 0.2 seconds."
That was a tight burst. But he was being asked to transmit.
His callsign had been selected for anonymity. Not as to whether he was Californian, but as to whether it was a ground or air unit.
"Paw 242, voice reply," he said and transmitted.
A few moments later, the message indicator showed '1 RECEIVE.'
"California Control, Paw 242, change of mission. Confirm that you have numbers four packs aboard?"
"Affirm numbers four packs aboard. Be advised radar return reaching detect values."
Another pause, for the process.
"Mission. Deliver to Waypoint 3812, repeat thirty eight twelve. Maintain course and speed until radar return falls off or until one half hour elapses, whichever is sooner. Then change course as necessary. No reply."
He appreciated their curtness. Every transmission was a risk, not only for him but for whoever they were as well.
He munched the other half of the ration bar and drank water slowly while he waited.
The detector signal reduced below values, so he altered course for the new waypoint.
Even further east. Almost the furthest east in his database.
He did some math.
If winds favored and he didn't have to spend very long on the ground, he would have just enough fuel to attempt to get to locations where he knew California forces would be, or near enough to the Minnesota border that he could reasonably hope to hike across.
Apparently the four packs were worth one aircraft.
He set the autopilot again, and the alarms, to doze. He would not get sleep again, he feared.
###
This time it was the autopilot that woke him. Approaching destination.
It was a farmer's dirt airstrip, but the farmhouse was skeletal ruins and there was no farm equipment evident.
Nothing on burner or on radio.
Normal doctrine would be to circle. But that would expose him to risk without benefit.
So he landed.
A motorcycle roared out to meet him. Just the one.
He drew his pistol. The motorcycle stopped short and the rider took off her helmet. Her standard California motorcycle rider's helmet, painted a dull gray to match her uniform devoid of markings.
"Ravenswood," she said, without reaching for any of her weapons.
"Menlo Park," he replied, completing the exchange of pass codes as he holstered.
"You're to give me one pack. Take the other three and fly here."
He entered the coordinates to his GPS as they were written on the scrap of paper. They did not match any waypoint.
He would have just enough fuel to get there. He would not have anywhere near enough fuel to go anywhere else after that.
He unloaded the one pack, hefted the jerrycan, and emptied it into his less than half full tank.
"There will be no recognition. They're allied forces, Refugees, no Californians with them. Just give them the shit and break contact."
The rider discarded the hard case and transferred the contents to a large rucksack she could wear while riding the motorcycle.
They both heard engines. Several engines.
"Shit. Get out of here!"
He ran for his aircraft, started the engine and turned to take off.
###
"Target in the open," her voice rose in elation. "Enemy light aircraft!"
"All units converge and engage!"
They could keep chasing the damned motorbike later.
The hardpoint machine gun started chattering.
###
ALARM ALARM ALARM. ALARM. BEEP BEEP ALARM.
He blotted out the chaotic noises of several different alarms going off at once. He tried to ignore the pings of bullets on metal and ceramic and sparks in the cockpit as well.
Goddamn technicals with machine guns. They couldn't hit shit but there were a lot of them and he had nothing at all to shoot back with.
He pulled back on the yoke and the plane lurched. He feathered and boosted power.
Smoke in the cockpit now. A pleasant female voice spoke.
"Fire, fire in the engine bay, fire in the electronics bay, fire in the cockpit."
"No shit," he snapped pointlessly at it as he engaged the autopilot. Or tried to. It wouldn't.
So he rigged a bungee cord to hold the yoke back and pulled out the hand-extinguisher, aiming it behind the control panel and behind him towards the electronics bay. He then pulled the handle for "Engine F/E" and manually - just like a small cheap car - rolled down the side windows.
He didn't have a mask or oxygen, but the smoke was mostly carried out by forward motion. Mostly.
At least he hadn't been hit, personally. The long range flights meant no armor, and a bullet that sparked and popped when it hit equipment would make him leak until the bleeding stopped. One way or another.
No radio, no radar detection, no autopilot. The engine coughed and sputtered. Most of the gauges did not respond. But the fuel still read out. The needle dropped as he watched it.
New mission. Land alive.
He fought the crippled aircraft east towards the objective.
He needed to run out of fuel just before landing to reduce the odds of further fire and explosion.
But if he ran out of fuel too soon, there would be no landing, only a crash.
###
"Paw 242, California Control, status check."
"Paw 242, California."
"Paw 242, this is California. Respond."
"Paw 242 no contact. California Control out."
###
A thin line of smoke rose from the fields a few miles west.
They had patrolled through there. Neither refugees nor the hated Christians.
Something new.
They were expecting ... help. The Bear Force operative had been vague but firm, days ago.
"Stay here. You will know it when you see it," the operative had insisted.
He shrugged. His survival was mobility and the operative had moved along.
"Let's go check it out," he said to his team, none of whom disagreed.
###
A burned fuselage, with broken off wings. A hatch open at the back.
A moaning body sprawled over a single plastic case, a good fifty meters away. Marks in the dirt showed a scramble back and forth, more than once.
The injured man wore a woolen cap, scorched, and a jacket and baggy pants, surprisingly not scorched. He coughed sootily and weakly tried to wave his hand as they approached. A pistol with a silencer lay below, in the mud.
There were two burned objects nearby. One had been a small piece of electronics, maybe a phone. The other had been a small documents pouch, but something affixed to it had burned through it fiercely.
"Friends," the team leader said, as he motioned for one of his soldiers to help the injured pilot.
There were two other plastic cases, the same as the first, but they were much closer to the wrecked plane.
He walked to one and opened it.
Closed it again.
Small individually wrapped greasy bundles.
"Sir. Thirty percent burns, severe shock, inhalation burns. Pulse weak and thready. He won't be with us long."
The pilot's face was peeling off in strips. The Refuge soldier had stopped trying to wash it, instead extending his canteen and dribbling a little over blackened and cracked lips, peeled back.
He grasped the pilot's hand.
"We have the cargo. You did the job. You did good."
The hand relaxed, the eyes stiffened and the raspy breathing stopped.
"Pack up the stuff and let's go."
But first. He took one empty case and just one little bundle. Rigged the pencil in the bundle to a thin wire attached to the handle.
They dragged the pilot's body to lie next to the case, as if he had died trying to open it.
###
Half an hour later, a powerful explosion.
He did have enemy scouts on his tail. But ... fewer now.
###
The little bundles kept finding homes somehow.
In a backpack on the body of a dead refugee.
Under the gas tank of a Reverend's car, foolishly parked in front of his house as if this was peace.
In a bundle tossed by a bicyclist into a truck full of Christian troopers.
In a gift basket of baked bread, matter of factly taken by a Christian patrol.
Roadside, formed into a V shape and wires touched together as another patrol passed.
But the deadliest were when the individual bundles were split up into much smaller, fist sized chunks - and issued to each, whether Refuge soldier going forward or Refugee still in flight, to carry to use as needed.
The Christians could still kill their refugees. Nothing would stop that.
But not in safety.
Not any more.
California Forward Operating Base
"The Farm" / Camp O'Wheat
Eastern Nebraska
The plane arriving in that wee hour between 3 and 4 AM was much smaller than usual.
The pilot really, really needed to pee.
There was no co-pilot, nor was there any other crew.
So while he waited for someone to come out with the electric tractor, he waddled over to the side of the runway and let fly.
Still no tractor.
So he walked to the hangar.
He had made his silent approach, lights out and engine just above stall speed - of course - but why was there no greeting...
He drew his pistol and made sure the silencer was affixed.
The hangar was empty.
Except for a single pallet of cargo, another pallet of jerrycans of aviation gasoline, the electric tractor, and a printed QR code on top of the pallet's contents.
The last time he had been here, he had flown a bigger aircraft and had returned with a load of human cargo, desperate refugees.
There had also been a line of white pickup trucks with hardpoints and festooned with weapons and equipment.
The trucks were gone.
There could only be one explanation.
The base had been abandoned.
He could scan the QR code with his burner device. What he could not do, was call for instructions. He didn't have knowledge or authority to use the camp's comms, he did not have a sat phone, and his aircraft's radio was both intermediate range and easily detectable, even in encrypted and burst transmission modes. Transmitting from a fixed site on the ground would be a huge electronic shout betraying Camp O'Wheat's location.
If the camp had been detected, he would have been met on landing instead by the Nebraska National Guard. Pull tabs on burn pouch and burner phone, put hands on head - or draw pistol, put barrel under chin and pull trigger twice. His decision, that last.
The Nebraskans would eventually, grudgingly repatriate him. The Iowans might - or might literally, physically crucify him. Or worse. They had done worse.
So he scanned the QR code.
It demanded from his burner his personal password. Then it demanded that he take a fresh photo of the pallet and QR code.
Only then did the brief message appear.
"Cargo. Waypoint 2714. Load and go."
He used the electric tractor to bring his light plane into the hangar. First he refueled. He had half a jerrycan of fuel left over after filling his tanks. Someone had done some math.
He opened the rear hatchlet - intended to drop off a pair of commandos, load one stretcher patient or a car trunk's worth of cargo - and hefted the four heavy plastic cases into the back, and strapped them down.
They were unmarked but he readily recognized the contents.
On an impulse, he added the jerrycan. Having the one gave him some options in case he landed at a gas station or isolated pump.
The GPS recognized the waypoint, once he entered the number. It was a map of the Iowa war. Most of the waypoints were in western Iowa.
This one was further east.
The map was not annotated.
He drank his fill of water from the sink tap, topped up his water bottles, used the toilet.
To minimize the noise footprint, he again used the electric tractor to bring the plane back to the runway.
He grudgingly put the tractor back in the hangar. Leaving it in the fields would be a tell.
By then, false dawn was just beginning to appear in the East.
He would not stay here for any reason whatsoever. Even hunger and crying need for sleep. He had a ration bar left in the plane and he could set the autopilot and sleep. It was dangerous but not as much as not sleeping.
The plane took off. His last glimpse showed that there were no farm vehicles near the main farmhouse either.
He set the autopilot for destination with altitude 3000 feet and the burner's timer and alarm clock functions, choked down half the ration bar, and fell asleep as the sun rose.
###
ALARM ALARM ALARM
It was neither the autopilot nor the burner's clock.
It was the radar reflection value detector.
SHIT.
His plane had the radar cross section of a bicycle and between the light blue bottom and mottled top, was low observability by eyeball. The engine was specially designed, as was the exhaust, to reduce both radar detection and infrared signature.
But a big enough radar could overcome that.
No one was running ground based air search radars west of Davenport. California had made sure.
So there was an enemy aircraft up.
He couldn't do anything. If he knew for sure what bearing the enemy aircraft was on, he could change course to reduce signature - but this change would itself be a detection potential.
His burner buzzed. Not the aircraft radio. The burner itself.
The burner worked on mobile phone networks. The only surviving networks were being run by the Churches or by California signals intelligence ...
He checked his message. Password again.
"Set radio to encryption CA 4244 and respond with voice burst message. Set burst parameter to 0.2 seconds."
That was a tight burst. But he was being asked to transmit.
His callsign had been selected for anonymity. Not as to whether he was Californian, but as to whether it was a ground or air unit.
"Paw 242, voice reply," he said and transmitted.
A few moments later, the message indicator showed '1 RECEIVE.'
"California Control, Paw 242, change of mission. Confirm that you have numbers four packs aboard?"
"Affirm numbers four packs aboard. Be advised radar return reaching detect values."
Another pause, for the process.
"Mission. Deliver to Waypoint 3812, repeat thirty eight twelve. Maintain course and speed until radar return falls off or until one half hour elapses, whichever is sooner. Then change course as necessary. No reply."
He appreciated their curtness. Every transmission was a risk, not only for him but for whoever they were as well.
He munched the other half of the ration bar and drank water slowly while he waited.
The detector signal reduced below values, so he altered course for the new waypoint.
Even further east. Almost the furthest east in his database.
He did some math.
If winds favored and he didn't have to spend very long on the ground, he would have just enough fuel to attempt to get to locations where he knew California forces would be, or near enough to the Minnesota border that he could reasonably hope to hike across.
Apparently the four packs were worth one aircraft.
He set the autopilot again, and the alarms, to doze. He would not get sleep again, he feared.
###
This time it was the autopilot that woke him. Approaching destination.
It was a farmer's dirt airstrip, but the farmhouse was skeletal ruins and there was no farm equipment evident.
Nothing on burner or on radio.
Normal doctrine would be to circle. But that would expose him to risk without benefit.
So he landed.
A motorcycle roared out to meet him. Just the one.
He drew his pistol. The motorcycle stopped short and the rider took off her helmet. Her standard California motorcycle rider's helmet, painted a dull gray to match her uniform devoid of markings.
"Ravenswood," she said, without reaching for any of her weapons.
"Menlo Park," he replied, completing the exchange of pass codes as he holstered.
"You're to give me one pack. Take the other three and fly here."
He entered the coordinates to his GPS as they were written on the scrap of paper. They did not match any waypoint.
He would have just enough fuel to get there. He would not have anywhere near enough fuel to go anywhere else after that.
He unloaded the one pack, hefted the jerrycan, and emptied it into his less than half full tank.
"There will be no recognition. They're allied forces, Refugees, no Californians with them. Just give them the shit and break contact."
The rider discarded the hard case and transferred the contents to a large rucksack she could wear while riding the motorcycle.
They both heard engines. Several engines.
"Shit. Get out of here!"
He ran for his aircraft, started the engine and turned to take off.
###
"Target in the open," her voice rose in elation. "Enemy light aircraft!"
"All units converge and engage!"
They could keep chasing the damned motorbike later.
The hardpoint machine gun started chattering.
###
ALARM ALARM ALARM. ALARM. BEEP BEEP ALARM.
He blotted out the chaotic noises of several different alarms going off at once. He tried to ignore the pings of bullets on metal and ceramic and sparks in the cockpit as well.
Goddamn technicals with machine guns. They couldn't hit shit but there were a lot of them and he had nothing at all to shoot back with.
He pulled back on the yoke and the plane lurched. He feathered and boosted power.
Smoke in the cockpit now. A pleasant female voice spoke.
"Fire, fire in the engine bay, fire in the electronics bay, fire in the cockpit."
"No shit," he snapped pointlessly at it as he engaged the autopilot. Or tried to. It wouldn't.
So he rigged a bungee cord to hold the yoke back and pulled out the hand-extinguisher, aiming it behind the control panel and behind him towards the electronics bay. He then pulled the handle for "Engine F/E" and manually - just like a small cheap car - rolled down the side windows.
He didn't have a mask or oxygen, but the smoke was mostly carried out by forward motion. Mostly.
At least he hadn't been hit, personally. The long range flights meant no armor, and a bullet that sparked and popped when it hit equipment would make him leak until the bleeding stopped. One way or another.
No radio, no radar detection, no autopilot. The engine coughed and sputtered. Most of the gauges did not respond. But the fuel still read out. The needle dropped as he watched it.
New mission. Land alive.
He fought the crippled aircraft east towards the objective.
He needed to run out of fuel just before landing to reduce the odds of further fire and explosion.
But if he ran out of fuel too soon, there would be no landing, only a crash.
###
"Paw 242, California Control, status check."
"Paw 242, California."
"Paw 242, this is California. Respond."
"Paw 242 no contact. California Control out."
###
A thin line of smoke rose from the fields a few miles west.
They had patrolled through there. Neither refugees nor the hated Christians.
Something new.
They were expecting ... help. The Bear Force operative had been vague but firm, days ago.
"Stay here. You will know it when you see it," the operative had insisted.
He shrugged. His survival was mobility and the operative had moved along.
"Let's go check it out," he said to his team, none of whom disagreed.
###
A burned fuselage, with broken off wings. A hatch open at the back.
A moaning body sprawled over a single plastic case, a good fifty meters away. Marks in the dirt showed a scramble back and forth, more than once.
The injured man wore a woolen cap, scorched, and a jacket and baggy pants, surprisingly not scorched. He coughed sootily and weakly tried to wave his hand as they approached. A pistol with a silencer lay below, in the mud.
There were two burned objects nearby. One had been a small piece of electronics, maybe a phone. The other had been a small documents pouch, but something affixed to it had burned through it fiercely.
"Friends," the team leader said, as he motioned for one of his soldiers to help the injured pilot.
There were two other plastic cases, the same as the first, but they were much closer to the wrecked plane.
He walked to one and opened it.
Closed it again.
Small individually wrapped greasy bundles.
"Sir. Thirty percent burns, severe shock, inhalation burns. Pulse weak and thready. He won't be with us long."
The pilot's face was peeling off in strips. The Refuge soldier had stopped trying to wash it, instead extending his canteen and dribbling a little over blackened and cracked lips, peeled back.
He grasped the pilot's hand.
"We have the cargo. You did the job. You did good."
The hand relaxed, the eyes stiffened and the raspy breathing stopped.
"Pack up the stuff and let's go."
But first. He took one empty case and just one little bundle. Rigged the pencil in the bundle to a thin wire attached to the handle.
They dragged the pilot's body to lie next to the case, as if he had died trying to open it.
###
Half an hour later, a powerful explosion.
He did have enemy scouts on his tail. But ... fewer now.
###
The little bundles kept finding homes somehow.
In a backpack on the body of a dead refugee.
Under the gas tank of a Reverend's car, foolishly parked in front of his house as if this was peace.
In a bundle tossed by a bicyclist into a truck full of Christian troopers.
In a gift basket of baked bread, matter of factly taken by a Christian patrol.
Roadside, formed into a V shape and wires touched together as another patrol passed.
But the deadliest were when the individual bundles were split up into much smaller, fist sized chunks - and issued to each, whether Refuge soldier going forward or Refugee still in flight, to carry to use as needed.
The Christians could still kill their refugees. Nothing would stop that.
But not in safety.
Not any more.
