Captain Rourke and his first officer were surrounded by dead screens. Their radios hissed with static. The transponder panel showed an intermittent fault. A portable emergency receiver lay open between them, useless.
“We lost normal ground comms at the same moment those fighters arrived,” Rourke said. “Then we received a datalink warning we cannot authenticate. Airport operations is not responding.”
Dana leaned toward the windshield.
The maintenance cart blinked again.
Three short.
One long.
Three short.
Not random.
“That cart is transmitting on a military guard-adjacent frequency,” she said. “Or trying to. The Raptors are probably here because somebody spoofed an airborne distress code from somewhere in this hold area.”
The first officer shook his head. “From a ground cart?”
“If the signal is strong enough and the network is already disrupted, yes. It would look like it came from us until they triangulated it.”
Rourke looked at her. “Can you communicate with the fighters?”
“Not through your radios.”
“Then how?”
Dana stared at Viper’s cockpit.
The answer felt absurd in a civilian airliner.
“The old-fashioned way.”
She asked for the emergency signaling card, a flashlight, and permission to use the captain’s side window shade as a contrast panel. The cockpit windows did not open, but the visual line was clear enough.
Dana flashed a sequence toward Viper.
GROUND SOURCE SUSPECTED.
WAIT.
Viper answered with hand signals.
SECURITY TEAM MOVING.
DO NOT TAXI.
A minute later, black vehicles raced across the far service road. Armed personnel spread around the maintenance cart. One technician approached wearing a bomb suit. Another raised a directional receiver.
The second Raptor pivoted slightly, protecting the runway side.
Rourke exhaled for what seemed like the first time in minutes.
“You just did more with a flashlight than we managed with forty million dollars of avionics.”
Dana did not smile.
“Wait until they clear it.”
