Raven

All Our Fates-Part One

The loss of John rattled Operation 40 to its very core. Per preset contingency plans, Hudson Weaver assumed control of the company and its assets.

Angel "Blitz" ██████

Sunday, June 23rd 1991

Operation Forty Headquarters

One Week after Angola.

John's death rattled OP40 to the core, and the news of Dropkick being shotdown and her crew being lost brought all but the most sensitive operations to a halt. Shelby had ended up passing from her injuries later in the hospital, leaving only one member of those who crewed the gunship alive, and her last words had been to me. A thank you for trying to save her little brother. The pain of being cooked alive by white phosphorus hadn't compared to the anguish I felt losing John and Anni. I spent a lot of that week hooked up to ventilators and a bunch of other equipment, in and out of consciousness, and only able to start moving around on my own again come Saturday. Saying goodbye to the closest thing I'd ever had to a family hadn't been easy. I didn't have many good things to say about the Draco brass, but since Draco and O4S worked so closely together, they had given us the time until they needed us in Iraq to grieve, and allowed us to be there for the funeral, and it had been a beautiful sight. OP40 had put on a hell of a show for their fallen commander and his daughter, complete with dress uniforms and an electric guitar playing of the national anthem and the procession to the company's private cemetery must have been four and a half miles long. Hudson had access to a huge cargo truck, and so we rode on that in the procession, shielded from prying eyes, of course. I was shocked just how accepting of us that the members of O4S were, and I did get my share of sincere thankyous for my actions in Angola. Many words were had, many tears were shed, and many laughs were laughed as John's men told their stories. Some of them had been with him since he first enlisted in the Marines. Some had been under his command during the cold war, and some of us had him as an instructor in basic training. Out of all the people who spoke, the members of Raven had the most to say. Hudson, his older brother Issac, the sniper Wyatt, and for course, Frank, whose arm was now in a sling. Hudson had been speaking, and I had been too busy looking at the ground, trying to hide the rather obvious fact that I'd been sobbing my eyes out, when out of seemingly nowhere I felt a wing pull me close to a warm body. I glanced up to find it had been Tyson. Of course, the cocky bastard didn't have anything to say, I guess he just figured I needed a shoulder to cry on. Dammit, he wasn't wrong. Hudson got to telling the story of the first time they had deployed with us back in '88, which was actually a good one. I looked back on that day with mixed feelings. It had been my first combat deployment, and until that day, I hadn't met anyone on Talon. I had mostly kept to myself in basic, but I had leaned pretty heavily on them this last week.

"When they told us were going to deploy with a team of dragons, I don't think a single one of us believed them" Hudson said. There was a time I would have thought that statement was entirely true, but now I knew better, "So, imagine our shock when we roll up to the FOB, and the first thing that happens is Taro comes out to greet us. I swear we all cleared a good two feet of air with how shocked we were."

Hudson grinned and panned the crowd with his finger, "And you all fuckin' know what I'm talking about, I don't want no liars today."

There was a round of deep laughter, because some of those guys had reacted the same way not an hour ago.

"But, three years and a dozen successful missions later, here we are. I was hesitant to get up here, because I've had something on my mind that I think needs to be said. Even though I don't think this is maybe the most appropriate place to say it, I feel strongly enough about it that I will, I don't think John would mind. To those of you who have deployed with Draco dragons in the past, and I know I have a few of them here today, look after those kids folks. They need people they know they can trust, and when it's you, you may just find that you have someone who's willing to walk through the fires of hell for you."