The cabin air was cold, heavy with stale coffee and the metallic tang of hydraulic fluid. A1C Thomas “Tommy Gun” Thompson hated the waiting most of all. Across from him, Sgt. David “D-Day” Day balanced a glowing map on his knee, its green light painting his face in ghostly strokes. They were just men, ordinary in flesh, flying into the jagged teeth of the Hindu Kush.

“You think he made it, D-Day?” Tommy asked, trying to keep his voice loose.

“He’s a Pave Hawk pilot, Tommy. They train ’em hard,” D-Day shot back.

For a moment, the banter steadied them—until the cockpit erupted in a shrill BRRRT-BRRRT-BRRRT. A warning light strobing red across the panel.

“Flares out! Flares out!” Chief Warrant Officer Mike “Boss Man” Williams barked.

Then came Warrant Officer Pete “Scooter” Hardin’s voice, cracked with terror: “RPG!!!”

The world convulsed. Metal screamed. The rotor tore free, and the bird skidded helplessly across the rock. Tommy locked his body against the chaos, but the final impact crushed the air from his lungs and bleached his vision white.

***

When he finally came to, the mountain wind whistled thin and merciless. His mouth tasted of copper and jet fuel. The fire had burned itself out, leaving only the sulfuric stench of kerosene and spent rounds. Silence pressed in, vast and ringing.

No voices answered. Boss Man, Scooter, D-Day—gone before they reached the rescue site. The weight of it cinched tight around Tommy’s chest.

He shoved the twisted door aside, his left arm useless, and spilled onto the frozen shale. Training took over: Egress. Secure. Survive.

But then the terror hit.

There was no light. Not night, not shadow—an absolute void. The sky and cliffs had swallowed everything. Even the wreckage two feet away was invisible. He raised his good hand to his face. Nothing. Only warmth against his skin, no shape, no contour. Blindness absolute.

He stepped back, searching for footing, and his boot crushed something soft. The snap was small, but it detonated inside him. His heart hammered. He dropped to his knees, ignoring the scream of his broken arm, and swept the ground. Cold stone. Then—smooth, round, unmistakable. A skull.

The shock hit like a fist. This valley was a graveyard. He hurled the bone into the dark, heard it clatter away. His fingers brushed another fragment—a brittle finger—and he recoiled. Panic surged, raw and animal. He clawed backward, scraping his hand bloody, choking on ragged breaths. He slammed against a granite boulder and buried his face in his palms.

He had to anchor himself. He had to be Tommy Gun.

Breath by breath, he forced the mountain air into his lungs. He summoned the creed. The words that made him.

It is my duty as a Pararescueman to save life and aid the injured.

He pressed his shoulder to the stone and rose. He was a Pararescueman. A PJ. His duty was to save lives, to aid the injured. His teammates were gone, but he could stabilize himself. Self-rescue was aid. Survival was mission.

I will be prepared at all times to perform my assigned duties quickly and efficiently, placing these duties before personal desires and comforts.

He crawled back to the wreckage, his hand tracing torn metal. He found D-Day’s body, not as a corpse but as a cache. His throat tightened, but his fingers worked steady: trauma kit, radio battery, the weight of the Paraeagle knife. Grief and terror bent beneath the ethic of his trade.

These things I do, that others may live.

He accepted the inheritance, carrying forward the training and the creed. The knife was life.

Supplies clutched tight, he turned into the black valley, listening, breathing. He whispered the mantra, a plea and a promise: “That others may live.”

Alive. Alone. Prepared.

Then came the sound. Not wind. Not his own weight. A stone, sliding, tumbling from above. Another followed, heavier, closer. The echoes grew, bouncing off the cliffs, until the last thump landed in the waiting dark.

Tommy froze….