First off, congratulations on your new job! What will you be doing?

Julian woke up, walked to the showers on steel plates laid over gravel in his flip flops, and took a shower that could be no longer than 2 minutes in water not fit for drinking. He brushed his teeth, looked at his body in the mirror, and put on his flight suit which had began to fit more loosely as this deployment had worn on.

When Julian returned to his two-man living quarters he listened for his room mate. When he didn't hear any breathing, Julian knew it was safe to turn on the light so he could fold his laundry from last night. He put everything away in silence, until the siren sounded to let everyone know there had been a mortar strike. On his first day in Afghanistan, Julian had wanted to duck and cover at that siren, but now he knew it was an affirmation of life. The sirens were automatic, but only activated as the mortar came in and radar detected it. By the time that you heard the alarm, and your brain processed what it meant, it was about time that the mortar landed. If you heard the siren, you had lived through the attack already. The Air Force called this complacence, and Juilan knew complacence could kill him, but the siren always proved that it hadn't been able to yet.

He finished his laundry, put the folded socks and underwear in the drawer, and went to his briefing. He knew that today was nothing special, that it would be uneventful, and that he would have trouble staying awake during the flight despite having plenty of rest last night. He had been in the desert for almost 3 months now, with 3 to go before he could leave. It wasn't even time for a countdown yet, though there were members of his unit that had them. The thought of the countdown still having three digits was enough of a deterrent that Julian hadn't really even counted how many days there were left still.

During the briefing, Julian met who he would be flying with for the mission; a crew that he had flown with many times before and liked. They all made jokes, the pilot was young enough to play along still, the co (pilot) was skilled enough not to get them all killed, and the baller (who ran the imagery ball) would usually have a movie going on one of his computer screens. Though Julian couldn't hear the sound, the baller would turn on the subtitles for him, so he could follow along. He'd actually become passable at reading lips due to this weird crash course in deafness.

At the end of the intelligence briefing, and the operations briefing, and the security briefing, Julian actually started to pay attention as the pilot went down the safety checklist. Berven was someone Julian really respected and went 'Berv' spoke, Julian listened.

"So this is a not operation like always, make sure that your NVGs are good for landing. I will delegate the normal stuff to you co. We obviously have a rider with us, good to see you Julian, so make sure we are extra careful with all his intel security. Yada yada yada safety. We fly together, you know me, I know you, if you see anything dumb, dangerous, or different, speak up. Anything else to mention or can we get breakfast?"

Mike, the baller, raised his hand. "I don't know what to say other than to come out and say it. This is going to sound crazy and I get that, and I would think it's crazy too, but I feel like it must be said." He paused and looked around at their confused faces.

"Go ahead, Mike. I want to hear it," Berven said.

Mike took in a breath and continued, "I think I had a dream last night where we crashed." He was looking at his hands. Berven wrote down "Mike - Crash Dream" because he didn't know what to do with his hands. "I don't know how else to say it. I want to fly, I'm not saying cancel the mission because of a spooky dream," he laughed, "but I thought I should at least mention so that we can be mindful today."

"Are you comfortable flying today?"

"Yeah. I want to fly."

Looking at the Charlie, the co, Berven asked, "Are you comfortable flying today?"

Charlie nodded.

"Are you comfortable flying today, Julian?"

Julian said, "Yessir."

Berven stood up, "I'll go file this."

"I feel stupid for even bringing it up," Mike confessed.

"I'm glad you did. It'll make for a good record in case anything happens. One of those spooky camp fire stories." Berven joked out loud, but every single one of the men was absolutely shaken to the core by Mike's dream. It was the gremlin in the engines that each of them feared every single day, the old superstition that all audacious men listen for.

They went to breakfast, and forgot about the dream in favor of complaining about soggy hash browns and bad coffee, but were grateful for the distraction from their mission. As they arrived at the plane, a small single-engine U28 Berven completed the pre-flight inspection and they all got in. More often than not this was the tail they flew on and so the seats were worn to fit each of them immediately.

The rest of the pre-flight became mechanical repetitions a hundred iterations old, done completely and efficiently, and they began to taxi down to the runway.

"The engines look good, controls, gear, all good." Berven said as the co raced the engine to take-off speed. "You have your clearance when ready."

"Ready. Brakes." The co released the brakes and the over-powered aircraft shot off from the runway. She was happy to be in the air where she belonged and gained space over the ground gladly. "Altitude is good. Climbing well. Looks good."

They all breathed a sigh of internal relief at the completion of the takeoff and settled in to fly across the desert to the operating area. The mission was boring, and the darkness completed by the moon's absence. Mike brought Wedding Crashers for the millionth time, and Julian fell asleep without anyone noticing. When he woke up, Mike was poking him on the shoulder so that he could put his seatbelt on for landing. "Hey buddy, have a good nap. It's time for working whenever you're ready."

Julian looked at his screen, nothing had been missed, it was just another boring flight. The sun would not be up for hours yet, and his body fought all the wakefulness that everyone thought was so important.

"I have radio contact with the field. They are having a radar issue, and they have our position wrong. I confirmed our position based on some mountains around here, so we're good," said Charlie.

"I trust you. Sounds good," said Berven.

"We are on course for landing. Beginning descent."

"I'm having trouble getting visual on the field. It should be at 11 o'clock right? I can't see shit." Berven was looking through his NVGs but they needed to be cleaned and his batteries were running low. He took them off but the world was impenetrable ink. He saw a ridge and was confused at its orientation. It was canted at 15 degrees. He checked the gauges and everything looked right. "What's your altitude?" he questioned the co.

"Coming down to approach altitude of 3000 ft. At 3600 now."

"What gauge are you looking at? I see 800 on the radar altimeter."

"What?"

"You're at 750 on radar now."

Julian looked outside and saw a hill rising up to greet them.

A woman's voice calmly instructed them, "Pull up. Pull up. Pull up."

Berven took the controls from Charlie and said, "I have the aircraft," marking the last words on the flight recorder before the mountain swatted them out of the sky.