Jack of Harts

Luke Spacebase became a central part of the United States Space Force’s return to space in the latter half of the Twenty First Century, and earned its now-official nickname during the first flight of an experimental space fighter. One of its operators asked for a report when communications were reestablished after boost stage. He transmitted as “Skywalker Base” and the pilot quickly responded, “Red Five, standing by.” Star Wars fans around the world celebrated the fact that they had beaten Star Trek to space when the exchange was inevitably leaked onto the networks. They were not entirely accurate on that point, but it was still considered a public relations win, and Luke Spacebase leadership chose to embrace the unplanned, by them, nickname. Though only after a grilling after-action counseling session with the operator and pilot in question about using unauthorized identification codes during high-profile missions.

Barksdale and Luke Air Force Bases had little involvement in the Texas Drug Wars against the Mexican drug cartels. They did send a mixed squadron of bombers and fighters to support some of the larger strikes against the most powerful of the cartels, but they were the very definition of the term overkill. They left little behind to salvage, but Texas granted them generous access to their supply bases in order to replenish their own depleted spare parts inventories. They otherwise maintained an official distance from the Texas State government that the American President had declared to be in a state of insurrection. Until of course the Convention of States called the federal government back to order. But though the lands around them joined Texas, those two bases never did. They remained proudly American despite the many difficulties that entailed.

Barksdale and Luke Air Force Bases in Louisiana and Texas were part of Global Strike Command when the Second Great Depression came upon us all. The massive B-52 bombers trained and flew from Barksdale, while Luke AFB trained and flew the powerful F-35 air superiority and strike fighter. The B-52s were the oldest airframes the Air Force commonly deployed at the time, while the F-35s were the newest and arguably the most powerful fighter America had ever built. The problem was that their focus was fighting other major nation states, and America’s ability to do that during the Second Great Depression was heavily reduced. The federal government had burned away the moral authority to command them, and it lacked the financial resources to support them, and so both bases fell on hard times.