resurrection

aw3 eto#3

03/26/98

 
He sat in his chair staring at nothing.  The office lit only by the moons light.  The windows in his office were open to the night air.  The breeze was rustling the raised blinds just a bit.  The thoughts that passed through his mind were haunting and frightening.  The face and the intense agony were forever etched into his mind now.  His experience however provided no answers, only more questions.
As he sat there his mind wondered back to that operation.  It had been an immense success by everyone's opinion.
They had started out on the defense as the bases they were at were already under heavy attack by the enemy.  That changed nearly instantaneously as they launched to combat the enemy.  Yellow Beard wing had been in the thick of it from the start.  His wing, Crimson, had come in from another base to assist but that fierce battle was already over and won by the time they had gotten close.  So he had Crimson divert to Solo.  When they began their approach he ordered AWulf, Exile and Modas to take out the maintenance buildings while he wiped up the ack positions.
As he rolled over into his dive he could see behind him that the rest of the wing rolled perfectly with him one after the other in their P38's.  "Weapons HOT!" he heard one of them call over the radio.
Applying the air brakes and throttling his twin engines back he sliced through the air dropping like a falcon upon unsuspecting prey.  Only his prey was all to aware of his descent as the ack shells began exploding around his craft violently buffeting him with the closer explosions.  And then the cross hairs fell across his target. He released one bomb and then began to pull out of his dive.  He simply smiled to himself as fate gave him a perfect line up on a maintenance building.  With a flick of his thumb his last bomb was away.  As he cleared the field he looked back to see the ack silenced and all the maintenance structures smoking ruins.  "Way to go Crimson!" he radioed.  He was proud of their efficient attack.
The rest of the operation went exactly like that.  Solo, Mul,  Macfly, Necro, Hardrock, Baron, Ghost Rider, Moggy and Assassin.  It was incredible what the squad had done that day.
It was frighteningly incredible what happened at the end....
He and Dice had escorted $-Mar to Assassin.  There were other CMC about but he couldn't remember who was involved in the incident that was about to unfold.  When they got to Assassin the ack positions had been quickly fixed from previous attacks.  So Dice offered to do his thing and take it out.  As he dove on his target the ack gunners got a lucky shot and tore Dice's plane from the sky.
He was light but he wasn't going to stand idly by like an impotent dog while these gunners slapped each other on the back for their success.  He dove on them...  his cannons roaring...  they responded in like... and then the unbearable pain as shrapnel pierced his canopy and tore into his chest.
His plane was smoking badly but still flying.  He knew he was dying as he felt the coldness creep into his body.  Blood every where.  He hears over the radio that someone has seen him take a bad hit.
And then he sees her face.  Her violet eyes piercing his soul.  Her skin the color of delicate china.
She is somehow in the cockpit facing him.  Her huge feathered wings unfold as she reaches to grasp him by the shoulders as if to lift him up out of his plane.
A loud cry over the radio.  It startles him.  Someone yelling about wings coming out of his cockpit.
"Come with me. You are dying" she tells him in her whispered velvety voice.  "no...noOO... NOOO" he yells at her.  " I... AM... ALIVE!" he roars willing himself to remain conscious.
And then he hears it.  Someone's guns are firing close by.  Their stacoto thunder shaking his concentration.
Her back arches as she seems to be hit by something.  Someone shooting at us? he wonders in amazement.  He sees tears of blood running down her snow white cheeks.  And though he can't hear it he sees she is screaming in agony.  Her hands lock on him with the strength of steel and she strains upwards pulling him through his seat harness as if it were not even there.  Her feathered wings beating with the beat of his slowing heart.  A white light begins to surround them with each stroke of her wings.  Blinding and warming him at the same time.  A P38 passes close to them.  It has the Cutthroat insignia on the tail but he can't seem to focus on the number.  Who was it? are his last thoughts as he passes into oblivion thousands of feet above the ground.
He awakes to find himself here at headquarters.  All in one piece.  He wants to tell himself it was only a bad dream but can't seem to lie to himself.  He has refused Wheel's debriefing for now as all he wants is solitude to come to terms with what he saw, what he experienced..... again.