Raven

Three-Fallen Angels

"Anni's gone."

I could not physically hold back my tears as I approached the co-pilot's seat. My 19 year old daughter had looked all right from the left side, but, the right told the horror story. She'd apparently taken the full force of one of those rockets that had struck the plane. It had peeled back the entire right side of her body, exposing much of her rib cage. Her lungs and heart were shredded, shrapnel was embedded in her helmet and her visor was shattered, the heat from the explosion having burned her eye out of that side of her skull. The sharp pain in my heart worsened when I realized that she had died holding onto Riley, a little stuffed mouse that she'd had since she was three years old. It came with her every time she was airborne, her little partner in crime, damn near everyone in OP-40 had one. She had a death grip on it, and it was the only part of her body that wasn't stained with blood and char. My jaw involuntarily clenched as I used every bit of my will power to reach down and unlatch the harness, only to find that the latch had been bent in place. Issac and I cut the straps and carefully pulled Anni's body out of the seat. Wyatt just happened to glance up from helping Shelby, his face going ghost white. He reached over and tugged on Hudson's pant leg. Hudson turned around, his FAL sliding out of his grip, seemingly beyond his control, caught only by its sling. He watched in a pale silence, bracing himself against the wall of the plane as I carried Anni out of the flaming wreckage of the gunship. The only thing on my vacant mind was...what I was going to tell my wife?

Tyson spread out a blanket he had tied to his vest as I lay my daughter on it, falling to my knees. I'd put holes in a lot of people, stabbed and blown up probably close to the same amount and lost good friends doing the only thing I knew how to do. I should never have let her follow me into this hell, I promised myself that I wouldn't let her make the same mistakes I did. Death rarely bothered me, and when it did...it was only for a couple of days. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do here. I gently reached down and unstrapped my daughter's helmet, pulling it off her head slowly, just in case something might have severed her head from her body. I leaned in and closed my daughter's remaining eye, the ice blue overshadowed with the most horrific terror I'd ever seen frozen into someone's face. I kissed her forehead.

"Anni...I'm so sorry....I did this."

Blitz came to sit next to me, putting one leg around my shoulder and pulling me into this awkward sort of hug. Best he could do given the way his body was designed I guessed. I couldn't keep up the hardened combat veteran ruse any more. I exploded into a weeping mess, crying harder than I ever had in my fifty four years. My entire body was fucking weak, to the point Blitz had to hold me tightly to him to keep me from collapsing completely. Ballistic nylon covered in dirt, dragon sweat and diesel ash wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world to cry into. Wasn't like I cared.

"Talon 1-1 to base." Taro said into the radio, keeping the line open so I could hear, "Allied gunship has been shot down. I repeat, allied AC-130 has been shot down. 12 of 14 crew members appear KIA, area is too hot to land at this time, is there any additional support in my area?"

"Rodger that Talon 1-1, we've got a couple of options staged at Luanda International, what kind of AA are we looking at?"

"Based on what we saw, some kind of MANPAD system. If I had to guess, stinger missiles or possibly Russian PILA. There were too many to clear out on foot, had to be a hundred at least, we'll need some kind of close air support."

"I can instruct our C17 to drop off Firedrake two miles from your location, he should be on site in fifteen to twenty minutes. Once he's on the ground, I can have two F22's tasked from Luanda to provide CAS. Until then, you kids keep those scaled asses on the ground. Let me know if and when the situation changes."

"Rodger that sir, Talon 1-1 out."

I looked up at Taro, wiping my eyes so I could actually see him. There were some things that went unspoken.