April 13, 2004 - 40.5N, 31.8E - Köroğlu Mountain Range - Bolu Province, Turkey

“Room, ATTENTION!” shouted the soldier by the door as Willow MacKenna strode into the hanger that was still being constructed. She swiftly walked up onto the makeshift stage toward the podium that had been set up for her, before turning to the assembled soldiers before her. More than 200 soldiers from 23 different nations were standing ramrod straight, eyes forward. She briefly glanced at the other commanders of the program behind her before adjusting the mic and addressing the crowd.

“At-ease. My name is Brigadier General, NATO Designation OF-6, Willow MacKenna. Each and every one of you have been selected from your nation’s tier one special operations teams to undergo advanced training in a joint classified NATO operation. Those of you who pass muster will have your security clearances upgraded to the highest level on the planet and will be fully briefed on the program. Those of you who fail or tap out will be debriefed and you will return to regular duty in your home military. Until such time, your ass belongs to me.”

“Many of you have probably noticed something you aren’t used to seeing in your respective fields of expertise. This is a co-ed program, and gentlemen the women standing within your ranks deserve to be here just as much as you do, as they have earned their way into this program. I will say this only once. A single report of misconduct and I will bounce your ass out of the facility so hard you will be lucky if you’re able to return to military life.”

“You will also no doubt notice the large crowd seated to your right. These are civilians with the project and will also be evaluating how you handle working alongside non-military assets, both on base and in the field.” She gave a hard glance around the room and was pleased that the consummate professionals didn’t bat an eye at this information despite how she knew they were processing it in their head.

Civilian contractors didn’t typically have a place in the field on combat operations with tier one operators unless it was because they were the target of the operation. The hard reality of the program was the civilians, scientists, engineers, biologist, pioneers in branches of science that were still being invented to deal with the threat looming darkly overhead, and were every bit as necessary as soldiers who could pull a trigger.

“Now, I know not all of your are boots on the ground operators. Many of you are pilots, air crew, or other specialties that support ground forces. Every person in this program will go through the same basic training. And by basic training I mean a program that will make most of your special qualification schools look like kindergarten. Due to the sensitive nature of the program, all of your training will take place here. By now you know this facility doesn’t have an official designation anywhere. In training, any time it comes up your instructors will refer to it as ‘The Project’ until such a time as an official designation is deemed necessary.”

“These people behind me are your overall commanding officers and will oversee their respective branches of your training. Colonel Marcus Feltcher, United States Marine Corps, NATO Designation OF-5 Director of Ground Operations.” Marcus stood as his name was called and took a step forward. “Colonel Ariel Hawthorne, Irish Air Corps, NATO Designation OF-5 Logistics, Communications, and Base Operations.” Ariel stood and took a step forward. “Lastly, Wing Commander Jonathan Hewitt, Royal Air Force United Kingdom, NATO Designation OF-4 Aerial Operations.” Jonathan stood and stepped forward. As one, the three officers saluted before stepping back and sitting down.

“The Officers and Enlisted personnel to your left are your instructors for the next 3 years. Due to the nature of the program we can’t simply send you off to the training schools around the world, so we brought the schools to you. With few exceptions your life now only exists in a 250 kilometer bubble around this facility. Training will include BUDS from both the US Navy and Russian GRU; US, German, and Japanese Air Assault schools; US, Irish, and Italian Ranger schools; US and Canadian sniper schools, and those of you who cannot qualify as a sniper will qualify as a spotter, no exceptions; as well as qualifying in both the US Army’s and the RAF’s combat medicine schools.”

“There are a few other specialized schools which will take me far longer to list than necessary, but I thought I would mention the more prestigious ones. Those of you from your home units who are represented in training here are not excused from being put back through the selection schools processes again. You are all the elite of the elite and we expect you to act like it. At any point, any trainer, including those from the more basic schools like the mountaineering division or the orienteering school has the full authority to fail you out of the program and any point during training, including the middle of an exercise. If you are failed out, and I expect at least a third of you will, you will be air lifted out of the training area and immediately brought here for a debrief before being returned to your original unit with-in 24 hours.”

“Schools will rotate based on your original specialties, in example if you’re from the US Navy and have already been assigned to a SEAL unit, you will not be taking US Navy BUDS first, but instead will take GRU BUDS. Once schooling is done and you’re a full-time part of the program, you will have an additional six months of classroom schooling with the civilians based on your aptitudes in various areas.”

“There are 16 of you who have completed medical school as well as special tactics trainings. We have a few instructors from the USAF’s new Special Operations Surgical Teams who will be your trainers for most of the duration here, and will be exempt from the 250 kilometer bubble as most of your training will be live field training in the current conflict zones of Darfur, Iraq, and Pakistan. You will be treating both soldiers and civilians. See your instructors for more details.”

“Lastly everybody will qualify as a helicopter pilot on one of three aircraft, the V-22 Osprey, the MH-60S Black Hawk, or the MH-74 Chinook.” MacKenna nodded to the soldier by the door. He bellowed “ROOM ATTENTION.” The room thundered with the sound of every soldier snapping to attention. “Order, ARMS.” The room saluted MacKenna with one fluid motion. MacKenna returned the salute and said “Dismissed.” Soldiers began to break up into groups as they filed out of the hanger, however the officers on the stage remained.

MacKenna gave a long glance to the construction going on behind the stage before asking Hewitt, “Is the system going to work? I know on paper it’s supposed to, but we don’t exactly have many F-35’s if something goes wrong.” Hewitt eyed the system critically. It was a gradual sloping ramp that was designed to take a fighter plane from horizontal to vertical using a modified catapult system from a naval aircraft carrier.

“Our eggheads assure me it will work. The pilot is going to experience more acceleration G’s than are typical for a catapult assisted launch than typical, but it should accelerate a fully loaded jet with expanded fuel pods to flight speed with out stalling out the aircraft.” MacKenna glanced to Hewitt with a raised eyebrow, “Fuel pods?” Hewitt nodded. “Fuel is heavier than the missile payloads we’ll be using. If the system can handle the added weight of all the fuel, it can handle the armaments.” MacKenna blanched, “Doesn’t that mean if it fails on the test we’re going to have one hell of an explosion in here?” Hewitt chuckled, “Naw, we’re going to fill the tanks with water. Uh Ma’am.”

MacKenna chuckled with a shake of her head, “Don’t stand on formality if it’s just us four. Rank be damned. We’re trying to grow what is essentially a whole new military comprised of the most die-hard adrenaline junkies in the world. Speaking of which, Ariel have you heard back from NATO on if we’re going to get any of the naval assets I asked for?”

Ariel frowned, “Ma’am, you asked for four aircraft carriers and other support ships to be permanently reassigned to us. So far only the United States has been willing to commit any naval forces, and even then only decommissioned ships out of service. They’re sending us two retired Iwo-Jima class Amphibious Assault ships, which admittedly will work for allowing squadrons to be stationed at further points so our helicopters will have a faster response time from the Pacific, but they aren’t willing to commit crews as of yet, and most of the electronics have been stripped from what I was told. They will tug them out to sea to a spot of our choosing, but we still don’t have an established naval port yet.”

“Essentially we’ll have to rebuild them and then appropriate crews. That’s fourteen hundred more people as part of the program, and that’s assuming we don’t have reserve crews to rotate in and out. We can take care of the rebuilding in under a year, so well before any of our troops are ready for deployment, but finding crew is going to be problematic. We’re already so far over our yearly budget that some nations are already threatening to withdraw from the program. With no new incidents, Governments aren’t seeing the need for this program anymore despite the threat looming in the darkness.”

Willow nodded as she’d seen the same reports. “I hate to be a warmonger, especially because of what it would mean, but an attack would do wonders to breath the life into this program we desperately need if we’re going to keep going. We really need at least two full aircraft carriers if we’re going to have effective global coverage with out relying on regular air forces to handle incursions.” The others nodded grimly. Marcus spoke up, “Enough of this depressing chatter, let’s go eat lunch.”