The desert night was restless. Inside the forward operating base, the air was thick with dust, diesel, and the faint metallic bite of gun oil. The base wasn’t much: just a scattering of concrete bunkers, a few sandbagged walls, and a runway barely long enough for supply aircraft to land. But tonight, it had become a refuge for a Navy SEAL team that was bleeding, exhausted, and dangerously close to being overrun. The men had returned from a mission that hadn’t gone according to plan. What was supposed to be a clean extraction turned into a nightmare.
They had fought through ambushes, improvised explosives, and relentless enemy pursuit. By the time they staggered back through the gates of the base, they were down to their last magazines, some carrying wounded, others too tired to even speak. Their eyes said everything: this fight wasn’t over.
The enemy was regrouping, and it was only a matter of time before they came crashing down on the base. Inside a dimly lit command room, the SEAL captain stood hunched over a table covered in maps and radio equipment. His face was hard, worn with years of combat, but the lines around his eyes revealed more than age; they showed the weight of command, the burden of having men’s lives tied to his decisions.
Around him, his operators shifted uneasily, checking weapons, exchanging whispers, trying to mask their fatigue. The captain knew what they all knew: they weren’t going to hold out long without air support. On the ground, SEALs could fight, maneuver, and improvise, but when the numbers turned against them, when the enemy had vehicles, mortars, and waves of fighters, they needed the sky on their side.
He straightened, his voice breaking the heavy silence. «Any combat pilots here?» It wasn’t a question he expected to yield much. This was a SEAL forward operating post, not an air wing base.
His men were trained for water insertions, demolitions, and raids, not flying aircraft, but desperation forced him to ask anyway. The room shifted with restless movement. Operators looked at one another, shaking their heads, some lowering their eyes.
Nobody spoke. The silence was answer enough. Then, from the far end of the room, there was the sound of a chair scraping lightly against the concrete floor.
Heads turned, and eyes fell on someone few of the SEALs had paid much attention to during their time here. She was young, mid-thirties maybe, but carried herself with a stillness that one truly noticed once the spotlight turned to her. She wasn’t dressed like them, not in combat kit weighed down with gear, but in standard fatigues, smudged with dust and streaked with grease from long hours working on base equipment.
Her sleeves were rolled, her hair pulled back tight. An Air Force patch clung to her shoulder, faded but unmistakable. Slowly, she rose to her feet.
«I can fly,» she said. The words were calm, unshaken, yet they hit the room with more force than a gunshot. Several of the SEALs frowned, exchanging doubtful glances.
It wasn’t hostility. They had seen enough action to know better than to judge too quickly, but skepticism was instinct. In their world, trust wasn’t given lightly, and a statement like hers demanded proof.
The captain’s gaze fixed on her. He said nothing at first, just studied her expression—the way her eyes didn’t flicker, the way she stood straight despite the weight of every stare in the room. She didn’t waver.
«What do you fly?» he finally asked, his voice low, testing.
«A-10 Thunderbolt,» she replied without hesitation.
The reaction was immediate. Some of the SEALs muttered under their breath. Others looked at her with something approaching surprise. The A-10 was no ordinary aircraft. It was slow compared to sleek jets, but every soldier who had ever fought on the ground knew its reputation.
Nicknamed the «Warthog,» it was a flying tank built for one purpose: to protect troops in the fight. Its cannon, a monstrous GAU-8 Avenger, could shred enemy armor and infantry alike. Ground operators swore by it. When the Warthog was overhead, you lived.
The captain’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly. He wasn’t one for showing emotion, but the faint narrowing of his eyes suggested that, for the first time in hours, he saw a sliver of possibility. «You’re telling me you can get one of those in the air? Here?» he pressed.
She nodded once. «There’s one on the strip. Grounded, but intact. I can bring it up.»
The room went quiet again, but this time the silence wasn’t disbelief. It was calculation. The SEALs glanced at their captain, waiting for him to weigh the risk. If she was telling the truth, she might be the only chance they had. If she was wrong or unprepared, then sending her up meant losing time and lives they couldn’t afford.
One of the younger SEALs leaned against the wall, muttering, «She’s not even flight-suited. What’s she gonna do? Duct-tape that bird together and hope?» But his voice carried less bite than he intended. Doubt was normal. Hope was dangerous.