The transcript, p.12
The Transcript, page 12
“Your friend, Daddy! He said he was your best friend!”
“Daddy’s friends didn’t come out to camp with us, sweetheart.”
She had a puzzled look on her face. “But he said he was one of your Army friends.”
Those hackles went up again. A man? In the woods? He scanned the now ominous woods with hardened eyes.
He put Alexis down and took a knee, coming eye level with her. He placed both hands on her shoulders. “Sweet-heart, please tell Daddy what happened. Who was this man?”
She looked shyly at the ground and then at something behind him. “He was right there, Daddy,” she eventually said. He turned around, but nothing was there.
“I fell down the big hill but then your friend grabbed my hand and picked me up and carried me up the big hill!”
He looked at her.
“The man said he was your friend, and that he was going to take me back to you. And he held my hand.”
She paused to wipe the remaining snot from her nose.
“We walked back to you, and he told me about how you and he went on adventures!” She suddenly held a look of excitement. “Can you tell me about your Army adventures, Daddy?”
He didn’t know what to think. “Sweetheart,” he said, “what did this man look like?”
“Ummmm, he had dark hair, and his skin was brown, he had a gap in his front teeth like me—oh, he wore the same clothes like your old job, in those pictures you showed me!”
His eyes grew wide.
“He pointed here,” she continued, pointing to the right side of her chest, “and said his name was Ricardo. But I could call him Mr. Ricky. And that he was so happy to finally meet me.”
He kneeled in silence. A war waged in his stomach. He could never forget that name. That was the name inscribed on the black bracelet he wore on his wrist.
SSG RICARDO “RICKY” DANIEL
OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM
29MAY09
She smiled. “Mr. Ricky, he is always with you he said. You just don’t know it sometimes.”
His hands began to tremble. “Sweetheart, are you sure?”
“Yes, Daddy. He was right behind us.”
He stood up and turned around, scanning the foliage. Looking at every shadow, every twitch, for something. Any-thing. Cold sweat travelled down his face.
“There, Daddy—look! Hi, Mr. Ricky!”
A man stood next to a tree, a soldier in a faded Army Combat Uniform. The soldier stared at them before breaking into a toothy smile.
He knew that smile anywhere. He held the soldier’s gaze in disbelief before breaking into a sad smile and a nod. The soldier nodded back and waved before turning and wal-king into the shadows of the forest.
Father and daughter both watched as he faded away. As he vanished, a gentle breeze embraced both of them.
“Goodbye Mr. Ricky,” Alexis said. He again picked up his daughter up in his arms. Walking slowly in silence as she held onto him tightly.
Memories of friendship, brotherhood, war, and tragedy replayed in his heart. Memories that he had allowed to spoil to the point of becoming pain. Whispers and demons retreated deep into his mind. He looked up into the sky and smiled.
“Sweetheart, I want to tell you about someone.”
The Taking of Clydesdale 66
Now
When Chief Warrant Officer Percy Diaz opened her eyes, the first thing that ran through her head was the beauty of the stars.
Crickets chirped around her, enhancing her bliss with their violins. A cold mountain wind blew, gently, caressing her cheek as it rustled the tall grass in which she lay. She laid on her back; in awe of the Milky Way and the near-infinite stars. It was like a painting—no, a masterpiece; on display across the vast night sky. She couldn't remember the last time she saw a night like this, and her eyes were wide as she watched her breath form into a cloud rising into the air.
She thought back to her childhood, reminiscing fondly of a stargazing youth. Her heart filled with joy and wonder. She used to imagine that, one day, she would fly into that same night that she was in awe of. A smile was growing across her face.
And then it hit her.
She jolted back into reality, heart racing, sitting up. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she looked around her.
Diaz jumped to her feet and drew her service pistol from her flight vest: a useless gesture in the pitch darkness of the Afghanistan night.
“Where the fuck am I?” she muttered. She realized she was still wearing her flight helmet, and with a relief reached up to bring down her PVS14s over her eyes.
Suddenly her vision replaced darkness for the ghostly, blueish gray. Through her night vision goggles, the mountains of Afghanistan loomed. She was in a field surrounded by hills, filled with tall grass, somewhere far from any semblance of civilization that could be found in Nuristan. A cold wind blew, rustling the grass around her. She looked in every direction, trying to understand.
“Where the fuck am I?” she growled, mind alight in disorientation. Then she remembered her crew. “Bazgew!” she yelled, “Hernandez! Chu! Anyone!?”
What the fuck is happening? Diaz wondered. She couldn't remember how she’d got here.
And as she tried, her head erupted with a splitting migraine. It was like she had been struck in the head. It was as if the attempt to remember had set her brain now on fire.
She dropped to a knee as the pain became unbearable. Her weapon fell from her hands as she reflexively grabbed at her head. An earsplitting sound erupted in the confines of her skull, like nails on a chalkboard combined with explo-sive static. An inhuman scream was rending through her brain. She tried to brace through the pain, her jaw clenched with such force she felt she would break it.
As the pain contorted her, her abdomen suddenly clinched in a tell-tale sign of what would happen next. Diaz fell to all fours as she vomited uncontrollably. As the last of the bile cleared her throat, the pain in her head began to subside.
Diaz tasted blood in her mouth.
The head fog began to lift and images flashed through her mind. Panic began to fracture her attempt at staying calm. Coughing and trying to catch her breath, she struggled to remember what the fuck was going on. Where was she? How did she get here? What happened?
A strange metallic hum rose above the wind, snapping Percy out of her thoughts. She couldn't remember much, but she did remember she was on her own…in the wild west of Afghanistan. Taliban territory. She reached out and recover-ed her pistol, gripping it tightly in the darkness.
Diaz looked up through her NVGs and spied a large rock sitting among the tall grass. She crawled to it on her hands and knees, sitting up and bracing her back against it. She panted as she tried to catch her breath. She laid her pistol in her lap and looked into the night sky again, this time through her NVGs. The stars above were infinite.
She grabbed at the memories coming back. Struggling to solve the puzzle racing through her mind. She went back to the beginning.
Six Hours Ago
Chief Warrant Officer Percy Diaz walked across the Bagram flightline. As she made her way to her UH60 Black-hawk, she glanced around. In the fading twilight, the airfield was alive with movement. She walked past several soldiers working on aircraft spread out on the flight line, the main-tenance never ceased on helicopters, they ate parts and were always hungry for more. A trio of Apache gunships galloped in, their empty rocket pods and absent hellfire missiles told Diaz all she needed to know about the success of their hunt. Two F15’s screamed down the runway before climbing near vertical into the sky; either the pilots are showing off or they just scrambled for a mission, Diaz thought to herself as she walked to her helicopter.
Soon, Diaz sipped an energy drink as she set her gear down onto her seat. She had just finished her flight brief and was wired for tonight’s mission. She was the pilot in com-mand tonight, and she looked forward to the flight hours.
Diaz and her crew had been tasked to fly a resupply to a lone outpost tucked away in the Nuristan National Forest Reserve. Flying in at night to drop off rations and mail attracted a lot less attention than flying over the Taliban’s head during the day.
While she was closing out her brief, her crew had been working on the preflight for their aircraft. Diaz’s copilot, First Lieutenant Bazgew, was busily fiddling with the radios and the navigation system.
“Alright, Brandon,” Diaz teased. “I’m trusting you to not get us lost. You know what they say about LTs.”
“Yeah, yeah, can't spell lost without LT,” Bazgew chuc-kled back.
Her crew chiefs, Specialist Chu and Sergeant Hernandez, they were busy mounting the aircrafts two M240 machine guns. While they had the speed of the aircraft and their skills to avoid fire, the ability to send one thousand rounds of 7.62mm back at the enemy was the preferred method to deal with contact.
“Chief, take the scenic route?” Sgt Hernandez asked. “Flight’s going to be boring anyways.”
“Yeah, I was kind of hoping to fire off this thousand rounds,” Chu added excitedly.
Diaz slapped the side of the helicopter and laughed, “Even Haji has to sleep, you guys.”
Their battalion had been in country for five months now. For many, including her entire crew, this was their first taste of Afghanistan. This was Diaz’s second deployment to the country; she had flown hundreds of hours in hostile skies, had taken fire more times than she could count, and had even more close calls in the air.
As a cold wind blew across the flight line, Diaz was thankful for her winter flight gear. Still, she shivered just a bit under her Army-issued layers. It was more nerves than the cold, of course. The wind was a reminder of how hostile these skies could be. It had brought down plenty of aircraft without the assistance of the Taliban. Luckily, at this point in her career, she was able to mask her apprehension before every mission.
Hopefully, at least for tonight, this flight should be a simple one. It was winter and typically the Taliban went to ground to build their strength for the spring offensives. That combined with a late-night hit time at the outpost should mean for a relatively quit ride. But flight missions over Afgh-anistan could provide a slew of surprises.
Diaz watched the twilight fade as more and more stars appeared and twinkled. It was a clear night tonight; not a cloud. Diaz gulped down the small knot in her throat, putting her flight helmet on and then activating her NVGs. It was time to get in the air. She clapped her hands together. “Alright, fellas. Let’s get this show on the road.”
The crew quickly prepped for launch, tying down the cargo and finishing radio checks. Diaz and her copilot ran through their preflight checklist, robotically going step by step as had been drilled into them after countless hundreds of hours of training. Soon a sharp whine erupted from the aircraft as it began to power up. The frame began to rock as the four blades began to turn; slowly at first, then they were a blur and the whine had become a roar.
Diaz and Bazgew finished their final checks and radioed for clearance to taxi as their crew chiefs secured themselves in the Blackhawk. Their request was granted and they slowly began to rise off the ground. The aircraft hovered to its takeoff point. They hovered for a few minutes for some final checks before the tower told them to standby for traffic. Diaz brought down the aircraft to allow a massive C17 laden with soldiers returning home begin its slow rumble down the runway. The crew watched the massive gray aircraft soon rise into the sky.
Four more months and that will be us heading home Diaz thought to herself. The Blackhawk took its place on the flight line and waited eagerly for its turn.
“Tower, this is Clydesdale 66, request clearance for takeoff,” Diaz chimed into the radio.
A man’s voice chimed back. “Roger that, Clydesdale 66, you are cleared for takeoff. Stay safe out there.”
Diaz took a breath and the Blackhawk thundered down the runway, rising ever higher. As the aircraft cleared the runway, it turned to follow the course Bazgew had program-med into their navigation system. Below them, Afghanistan had gone dark. The farther they got from Bagram, the less signs of people they saw. But luckily the sky remained open, and the innumerable stars provided enough ambient light.
As Diaz wrestled with the wind, she stole a look at those stars. Out here, without the light pollution and her NVGs, Diaz could see everything. The Milky Way was in full view, and Diaz couldn't help but admire.
“Holy shit, check that out!” Bazgew pointed as a meteor came thundering from the heavens.
Diaz watched the extraterrestrial projectile rocket down on the same course they were on. It was a strange, but beautiful sight: a streaking object cutting across the sky. The two pilots watched as it plummeted to earth over the moun-tains. A flash ominously followed and moments after it all vanished from view.
“Chief, you think it crashed into the mountains out there?” Bazgew asked. “Maybe we’ll find a kryptonian in a crater.”
They neared the mountain range, and as they did Diaz increased altitude. The Blackhawk began to shudder and groan in the thin air.
“Not sure, LT, but let’s make sure we don’t,” Diaz responded back dryly. “Crash, that is.”
The Blackhawk jumped and shook. Diaz and Bazgew wrestled the controls as they maneuvered deeper through the mountains, flying between peaks and over ridgelines in the starlit dark.
Soon, a small outpost nestled in a valley came into view.
“Paladin CP, this is Clydesdale 66, approaching DZ Hospice,” Diaz called out on her radio.
“Roger, Clydesdale 66, read you Lima Charlie,” a static-fuzzed voice responded. “Confirm you see the DZ.”
Diaz looked through her NVGs at a clearing situated in the middle of a series of Hescos. A soldier stood in the center of the clearing, swinging an IR ChemLight in a large circle.
“Confirmed.”
The Blackhawk began its rapid descent. While Diaz hoped the Taliban were asleep, she knew the reality was they were probably watching this outpost. An outpost surround-ed on all sides by the high ground. A helicopter would be a prime target for a mortar or a RPG team.
Chu and Hernandez were busy preparing in the back, the helicopter wouldn’t be long on the helipad. Diaz slowed the Blackhawk as it got closer, soon touching down as a wall of dust browned out the crew’s vision. Diaz reduced power to the engines as the dust cloud dissipated.
A group of infantrymen ran towards the aircraft, setting up a human chain in the dark. They hurriedly grabbed the boxes of rations and mail that Chu and Hernandez shoved towards them. The aircraft was emptied in less than a min-ute and the infantrymen retreated off the helipad as a dust cloud exploded upwards.
Diaz increased power, rising up and away from the outpost as it turned to exit the valley.
“Delivery complete, Paladin CP, goodnight and see you later.”
“Roger that, Clydesdale 66, thanks. Safe flying. Paladin CP, out.”
The Blackhawk once again fought the thin mountain air as it rose over the high ground. The crew chiefs peered out from behind their machine guns: it appeared the Taliban were in fact asleep.
The Blackhawk increased altitude over the peaks. The rest of the flight should be quiet before they returned home.
With the outpost thirty minutes behind them, the crew diverted their course to a FARP located at a combat outpost outside Bagram to refuel before the final leg of their journey. They had all the time their fuel levels would allow them now.
Diaz turned to Bazgew and prompted her copilot, “Hey, LT, on the job training is the best type of training. I’m handing off the stick to you. Three…Two…O—”
“Hey, Chief, wait—do you see that?” Bazgew inter- rupted. “Ahead of us. Eleven o’clock. What the fuck is that?”
Diaz looked up and ahead. She strained her eyes.
A bright light flashed in the darkness below. A blue light lit up the interior of the Blackhawk. Diaz closed her eyes, not wanting to be blinded by her NVGs.
“Shit, I can't see!” Bazgew shouted as the aircraft jerked.
Diaz squinted, struggling to regain her own vision. She shouted, “I got stick, I got stick!”
Diaz searched for the source of this blue light as it dis-sipated. Her eyes, coming back to her, widened when she found it.
It came out of nowhere. Diaz increased power and tried to veer off. A dark mass rapidly rose from the land below them. It glowed softly as it closed the distance with the Blackhawk. It was a massive, circular object, covered in pul-sing lights. It looked as big as a C17, one that was rocketing towards them.
Diaz wrestled the controls, veering hard to the right. But it wasn't enough, Diaz realized they were about to collide. Time seemed to slow as she watched the strange object fill her vision, bracing for impact the whole while as their interior was once again filled with blue.
The last thing Diaz remembered was the blinding light filling her vision, and overcoming her.
Now
Diaz watched her breath cloud in front of her, stunned as the memories returned to her in the darkness. The moon was eerily bright overhead.
Something was very, very wrong. Her mind raced as she tried to piece together what all had happened. She was sure that the Blackhawk had collided in midair with the aircraft (object?). What the hell was that thing? Where was her helicopter? And her crew? How the hell was she still alive and not canned lunchmeat scattered across an Afghan mou-ntainside?
Regardless, Diaz needed to find the others, alive or not, no matter what. It was apparent she was on her own and in this hostile territory. She stood up and adjusted her NVGs on her helmet, next flipping the safety off on her handgun. She took out the GPS that she kept strapped to her flight vest and tried to orient herself. To her frustration, the electronic compass couldn’t get a lock on anything. It just spun in circles.
She cursed the electronic device and, at the same time, she saw a white flash out of the corner of her eye. An owl sat perched on a neighboring boulder, much like a barn owl from back home. It stood tall and regal upon the stone. Through the darkness, two black eyes stared back at her. Diaz froze as she studied the owl. She was surprised; she didn't know owls lived in Afghanistan. They both remained motionless. The owl seemed regard her with curiosity and interest, then it spread its wings and silently leapt into the air.
