Avalanche

| the after |

Everyone was out of the deck, every pilot, every engineer, every technician, and every officer waited in the masses to great our newfound heroes.

Hangman landed on the aircraft carrier, and I was the first to greet him. I was first in everything, remember?

Hangman drove his F-18 out of the way on the runway. His canopy popped, and a team of engineers immediately ran to take care of the plane.

Maverick and Rooster would be landing later, their F-14 was having problems, and was about as fast as an airline plane.

I followed the engineers as they approached Jake,  running to him as fast as my legs could carry me.

His canopy popped open, and his ladder folded down. Hangman jumped out the side, and slide down the ladder to solid ground. At least, as solid as an aircraft carrier can be. We're in the navy, we're supposed to have sea legs.

He squints his eyes as the sun burns down, and a smile reaches his face as he sees me. Jake sets his helmet up on the wing of his F-18c right below where it said his name in a blue outline.

Hangman prepared to hug me with his arms wide open, and I practically jumped into them.

"Hey Jake," I said, burrowing myself into his chest.

"Miss me?" He asks jokingly, and I pull back enough to stick my tongue out at him.

"Just a little bit."

"Avalanche!" Phoenix yells, at the front of the group of people. "Rooster and Maverick are coming in!"

Hangman releases me, as we both look to the horizon, watching as the old ruck bucket of a plane enters our eye sight. We jog back over to the group of people, out of the way, in case the
Maverick and Rooster's commandeered plane decides to stop working or crash onto the carrier.

We watched as the landing crew put up the net, ready to catch the two right out of the air.

Maverick descended lower and lower to the ocean, crashing into the net, and scraping the landing zone, because somehow, the plane was missing its landing gear. I wasn't surprised by that, but I was surprised the old thing still worked.

One of the engines blew, and was suddenly on fire. Another crew rushes out with hoses filed with fire extinguishers especially crafted to put out jet fuel fires. Once they were sufficiently sprayed down, the canopy slide open, and Rooster and Maverick came tumbling out.

We all cheered, and everyone went running to celebrate the success of the mission.

There were a million handshakes, hugs, partings on the backs, and spoken congratulations, but they didn't look overwhelmed in the slightest.

Eventually, I made my over to Maverick, and gave him a big hug.

I try to speak loud enough so he can hear me over the crowd, "You did it Uncle Mav."

He chuckled, and answered, "Well, I couldn't have done it without Goose and Iceman."

"Really?" I question.

"Somebody has to watch over Rooster, and if it wasn't for your Dad, I wouldn't never been placed on the mission."

I shrugged, "The navy needs good pilots. They need Maverick."