Asteroid Discovery by Bobby Akart

Author:Bobby Akart [Akart, Bobby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-25T22:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

ASTROMETRY

Identification Number: 2029 IM86

Right Ascension: 19 hours 25 minutes 52.6 seconds

Declination: -26 degrees 25 minutes 55 seconds

Greatest Elongation: 69.6 degrees

Nominal Distance from Earth: 0.558 Astronomical Units

Relative Velocity: 28,309 meters per second

Chapter 32

Saturday, April 7

Sea of Japan

Flying around the world wasn’t easy on the human body. While Bear and Cam slept through most of the trips, which included stops at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, and then Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Gunner thought back on his career and some of the operations he’d led.

Most Americans were familiar with Navy SEALs and Delta Force, largely because of their portrayal in movies and television shows. The Air Force special tactics units were different in that they incorporated an element of air combat into their operations. Because the airmen who were chosen to be part of the Air Force special operations required specialized training, their career path was quite different than Delta and the SEAL teams.

Gunner, in particular, was an anomaly in the U.S. armed forces. With an advanced degree in Earth science, he could’ve been hired in either the private sector with a large oil company, or in the aviation industry, or the public sector with agencies such as NASA or the Defense Department.

He’d opted to follow his family’s chosen career—the Air Force. Initially, the Air Force tried to fit Gunner into the box that made sense for them. The Special Tactics squads at Hurlburt Field trained in everything from free-fall parachuting procedures to deep-sea diving as part of the combat divers’ school in Key West.

Gunner, who was always a quick learner, suddenly found himself on a fast track within the USAF’s ranks. Colonel Smith, as Gunner’s commander, recognized his prize recruit’s drive and capabilities. He pushed him to learn all aspects of Air Force Special Tactics, including combat skills. Ghost, as he’d been referred to around Hurlburt Field, even went to his superiors at the Pentagon to request that Gunner be exempt from the normal timetables for his training. The military had always been regimented, by design, but the courses were developed for the average airmen. Gunner was anything but average.

The decades of the eighties and nineties in the prior century had changed the direction of war. Battles were increasingly fought in cyber space, and the days of ground combat were numbered. With the dawn of the new millennia, a new breed of soldier was required by the nation’s military. They were required to be more cerebral, many with college educations. The battles were fought with computers and drones. The days of the infantry grunt were numbered.

With this change in warfare toward the end of the twentieth century, U.S. government agencies became increasingly reliant upon seasoned veterans to join special operations units to be inserted into specific hot spots around the world.

Political assassinations, disabling critical infrastructure, or generally disrupting a government’s operations to create instability became just as important as tank warfare. Also, air combat became increasingly relied upon to gain advantage over an adversary. Capable fighter pilots were sought after by all branches of the service, especially the Air Force.

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