An Airman, An NCO and An SNCO

Control, Romeo 2

"Control, Romeo 2. Initiate RA."

"Copy."

Taking a deep breath you start one of the many to come checks for my area. See, being in the security sector isn't all that bad but it gets dull after some time. Especially when you have to guard an empty hangar for twelve hours and just struggle to stay awake. But hey, I get to do something a little more important to the mission than just sit behind a computer screen and slowly become a potato. Actually, I hope the dinner meal comes by soon. Can't wait for those mash potatoes and veal.

Sorry, the mind tends to run whenever I am hungry.

"Hey! Butler!" Yells your Alpha.

"Just hold on! Let me finish the check!" You yell back.

After signing a form and terminating the check with control you head back over to the ECP for the hangar. Taking off the beret and M4 and placing them on/in the weapon rack and asking Alpha what they wanted.

"Dude! Can't believe they're doing some high tech stuff on the base!"

Rubbing your eyes you reply with a grunt and take a seat at the second desk since your Alpha is at the other desk. The seat squeaks at the weight being applied on it but it holds. Thank goodness for that, you did not want to take out the plates in your vest, they were a pain to put in.

"Aw... You can't tell me that you're not excited about this!"

"Oh I'm excited, but doing all of these checks kinda sucks since I gotta study my CDC," you reply while adjusting the vest.

Your Alpha notices the discomfort in your face, well more than usual for yourself.

"You can take off your vest y'know," replies Alpha while leaning back in their chair.

"No, it's bad enough half of the flight doesn't even have their plates in, besides Patrol, I just feel a bit safer and warmer with this on. Don't want to be a DBA like you," you smirk.

"Oh ha ha. Very funny Mr. Highspeed," Alpha shoots back.

That name seemed to just stick with you throughout your time here at the base. In all honesty you are not that "high-speed" like everyone thinks you are. You just do what you are told to do, whether it is written down on an SSI or Flight Chief says to do it. Everyone else, besides Police, just does their own thing but it is within the guidelines.

You are about to retort but Control decides to interrupt you.

"Romeo 2, Control. Landline."

Sighing you reach for the phone and call Control.

"Romeo 2, A1C Butler. You called?"

"Yeah, hey uhh Flight Chief wants you to do outside checks along with the internal ones. You got that?"

"Is it just because of the new toy we got for the base or something else?"

"It's because of the toy."

Confirming of the new order you hang up and grab your beret and rifle. Once all secure you head out the door.

"Frago?" Asks Alpha.

"Frago," you parrot.

"Alright, just don't get lost."

"Well if I do I know what my means of communication are," you tease.

"That was ONE time! I was dead tired that day," replies your embarrassed Alpha.

Chuckling at you partners misfortune you head out to do the outside check.

Once opening the portal to the outside world and feeling the cool breeze brush against your exposed skin felt like an old friend greeting you. Before you were on the "Graveyard shift", now though you are on the typical day shift. It sucks because you were use to the colder temperatures and not sweating inside of your vest and having to spray some scent blocker on the inside. And like you said before; it sucks, but there is a saying we have for situations like this. Embrace the suck.

Chuckling to yourself you round the first corner of the hangar and check to make sure that you can not get inside. But you hear some fellow airman talking about something. They all are wearing the required reflector belt for working on the flight line so they must be the mechanics or maintainers. You honestly can not tell the difference between the two at a glance but it is not your job to tell the difference between them, it is to provide protection to the resources that they work on. And on the occasion yell at them for not cleaning their area after they are done.

Shaking your head you continue on while keeping an eye on them... okay, now it is just one. That is fine with you, less airman to give the stink eye to. Wait, not an airman, that is a Staff Sergeant. Well the same rule applies to everyone whether or not if you are enlisted or officer.

The sergeant turns to you and just stares at you with the typical cautious gaze that civilians would give to cops. You hate getting that stare but it does not bother you as much as it did at first so you just wave to the sergeant. Thankfully he waves back to you and turns around.

"Eh, at least I got a wave out of them this time," you mutter to yourself.

Turning back to your task at hand you hear the scream of a jet engine barreling down the runway. Turning to see the jet take off you notice something weird about the aircraft.

"Isn't it dangerous to have wires on the outside of the jet?" You ask slowly.

Once done with the sentence the jet was just lifting off of the ground. The after burners kicked on as usual but something happened to the wires on the aircraft. The wires started to pulse to life like a heartbeat pumping blood throughout the body. Soon the pulsing was getting erratic and looked like it was out of control.

"That don't look good."

That was the last thing you said before the aircraft exploded in a bright white light. Out of reflex and training you get to cover and wait for the thunderous sound of an explosion, but it never came. Instead the white light started to burn your eyes, even when you closed your eyes it still burned. Soon the searing pain was too much to keep quiet to yourself and started to scream out the pain, hopeful for the screaming to lessen the pain, but it seemed only to intensify the pain. Collapsing to the ground you scream out one last word.

"FUUUUUCK!"

Then everything was black.

Pain, all there was to feel was pure white hot pain. Thankfully that did not last long and just shrank down to a dull ache. Feeling for the ground you fine out that instead of the rough and jagged asphalt that you remember it seemed to smooth out and feel cool to the touch, which felt good on the exposed parts of your battered body. Even though it felt good to your body it confused your mind to no extent. Even more confusing was the sounds of some soft clops against the surface. It would not confuse you so much if you were stationed in California since they have horses on base but you are overseas, thousands of miles away from the state. You needed to know what the hell was happening and asses the situation along with controlling it to ensure that nothing will hurt you or your surroundings.

Placing your right palm down on the ground along with its partner you push yourself up and bring your left knee underneath you. The pain decides to make itself known once again but not as bad as before. This made you grunt but you held your tongue from trying to curse out the pain. Once in position you took a deep breath of the crisp and clean air, which only added fuel to the confusion fire, and opened an eye. Another flash of pain decided to prod the front of your brain but it was not enough to bring out any verbal disagreement. Blinking to sway the annoying pain away colors started to blur together and started to make very fuzzy shapes. Looking around to find your spectacles you find the black framed glasses on the ground between your arms. Putting them on everything became crystal clear and what you saw made you want to lay back down and close your eyes.

All around everything was lush with nature making its presence know to everyone. There was no asphalt nor hangars anywhere in sight, only mountains, hills, trees, flowers and a cobblestone path leading to a mountain. Looking up said mountain you could see something glinting a faint yellow color almost like a cartridge shell shining in the sunlight. Tearing your sight away from the shine you quickly make sure that you did not lose anything and find out that you did not. Releasing a satisfied breath you stand up and stretch letting a few pops worm their way out of your muscles and joints.

A pained grunt from behind startles you and causes you to lapse into training. Getting up and expanding your reactionary gap you turn around and raise your M4, only to put it back down once you see who made the noise. They look like that sergeant that you waved to only moments ago. Kneeling down to his side you shake him slightly to try to wake him up. After another grunt you call out to him to see if he would respond.

Thankfully he does and asks what happened. You give him the simple answer of "I don't know" which was enough for him to open an eye only to close it just like you did. You go to ask if he would like some help but another grunt sounds off before you even ask. Turning to see the perpetrator you find out that it is an SNCO that you do not recognize. She is a Senior Master Sergeant with what looks like an admin insignia above her nametape. You ask the Staff Sergeant if he is okay enough to get and he confirms that he can, just not that quickly. Giving a nod you move over to the SNCO and go over the same routine you did with the NCO to her.

Once everyone was up on their own feet you pulled out your radio and hoped for the best with this call.

"Control, Romeo 2. Do you copy?"

After releasing the button you pray for a quick response. As usual your prayers come back unanswered and now a huge pit is sitting in your stomach. You try again and again but with each failed try the pit grows denser in your stomach. Placing the radio back in its holster you look up to the sky saying the one word that is on your mind.

"Shit."

And to make matters worse that clopping noise you heard earlier is getting louder. Which means that someone saw or heard what happened. Which could either screw you or help you immensely. You pray that it is the latter, for the groups sake atleast, but your luck with Murphy has been shit since you were born so you have little hope.