Worth Saving(5)

“So, how long you been doing this?” Weston asks, still staring down at the clouds.

“Well, I joined when I was eighteen and got commissioned earlier than most, and I started flying these missions when I was twenty, so it’s been three years now.” I adjust the headset again.

“Three years, wow. Are you ever afraid?”

I adjust the headset again, because I’m sure I just heard static on the other end, so I know something’s about to come in.

“Don’t really have time for fear up here, Lieutenant. When things happen, they happen too fast for you to really be afraid. Fear can get you killed out here.”

As soon as the words come out of my mouth, the transmission I was sure was coming blares into the headphones.

“Whiskey Sierra, this is Echo Nest.”

Lieutenant Weston snaps his head in my direction and his eyes bulge. I get the feeling he’s gonna have to get over his obvious fear real soon.

“Go ahead, Echo Nest,” I reply after a deep breath.

“Roger, Raptor Team is in route to extraction point three. Be advised, the team has taken contact. The extraction point has been compromised and will be under heavy fire. Be prepared to execute a quick pick up with evasive maneuvers. How copy?”

Weston’s eyes look like they could fall out of his head any second now as he stares at me.

“That’s a good copy, Echo Nest,” I say into the mic. The transmission ends and I feel my heart rate pick up. “Shit.”

“Oh my god,” Weston says under his breath, then he looks up at me. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

“Hey!” I snap. “Get your head in the game, god dammit. We’re here, and we have a job to do. If we fail, they all die. You want that on your conscience?”

Weston looks me in the eye, and I can tell he’s really not ready. It’s his first mission, and it’s about to be a lot harder and scarier than my first one was, but I don’t have time for sympathy right now. I have to be a strong leader for him and for the Raptor Team. So, I don’t ease up on him. I stare at him like his fear offends me, like it endangers me, because it does. He needs to know how real this is. This is not a video game.

“No, sir,” he finally answers. “I don’t want that on my conscience.”

“Good. Me either. Now, buckle up. It’s time to go pick up our boys.”

Without hesitation, I push down on the stick and the helicopter dips its nose down, and we fall through the gray clouds. The descent is like the world’s worst roller coaster ride and I get a sick feeling in my stomach, but I push through it. We drop through the clouds like they were never there and once we break through, the brown sand of Afghanistan reveals itself to us. The desolate location is covered with stucco houses that are packed tightly together like sardines. Even though it’s dark outside, you can see we’re in a third world country, with trash on every street and very few street lights, which is good because we don’t want them being able to see us anyway. But, based on the sound of the gunfire I can hear over the blades of the helicopter, they’ve already seen us.

Even though I’m trying to convey to Lieutenant Weston that we’re not playing a video game, I maneuver the helicopter like I’m playing one. I grab the control and guide the Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter down the narrow street, just barely missing buildings with the propeller blades. I can hear the Lieutenant breathing hard like he’s about to hyperventilate, but he has nothing to worry about. Not tooting my own horn or anything, but I’m good at this shit, and I’m not going to let anything keep me from getting my guys out of there.

It only takes a second for us to get to extraction point three, and in the same second we arrive, I see the five Raptor Team members running out of a building towards us. The three in front are running at us at a dead sprint, while the two in the back are running backwards while firing rounds from their M4 rifles into the building they just came out of.

“Holy shit! Oh my god!” Lieutenant. Weston yells, his voice filled with panic. “Fuck! Hurry up, hurry up!” he screams as he unbuckles his harness and goes to open the door so the team can climb right in.

“Hey! Keep your f*cking head down, Lieutenant, you don’t have your gear on!” I yell at him, but he’s in too much of a panic to even acknowledge me. “Lieutenant Weston, get your damn gear on, now!”

The Raptor Team is only forty or so yards away when the bullets start to fly past them and hit the helicopter. I can hear the rounds bouncing off the outer shell of the chopper just as we touch down and the first Raptor Team members jump on board.

“Get in, get in!” Weston screams as he stands in the open entryway, waving his hands like a lunatic. “Come on, come on!”

“God dammit, Weston, get your ass back in your seat. The door’s open already, you’re just in the way now. Come on!” I scream at the lieutenant, but he just doesn’t seem to hear it, and he continues to stand there as AK-47 rounds spray in his direction. I see him drop to the floor, finally realizing the danger he’s putting himself in, and the last of the Raptor Team jumps in right on top of him. The instant I see we have all five team members, I pull up on the stick and lift the chopper off the ground.

The rain of bullets don’t stop as we lift off. I try to pull us up as fast as I can, but these bastards have a bead on us and they want nothing more than to see all of us dead. It’s like they have an infinite supply of bullets, because the gunfire never seems to let up as we lift off, and one of the Raptor Team members gets up and starts shooting out the door to try to give us some space. When that doesn’t work, I jerk the stick to the left and spin the chopper around so the nose is facing the enemy, and I fire off a shower of bullets from the Ma Duece machine gun. I only hold the trigger for about three seconds, but when I let go, everything is silent and it’s like the world is standing still. All I hear is the chopper blades above us.