Grant Close-Out Checklist - Hud: Fill & Download for Free

I admire Richard Lock’s answer - very realistic.I wonder if the poster might have been hoping for a different take (with thanks and inspiration to the same Richard Lock).1.Josh stopped sucking the air between his clenched teeth. He couldn’t pick up a response on any communication bands, and there was no GPS signal on his Garmin watch.He gently eased his A-10 Warthog, whom he christened “Diablo”, to 300 feet so he could get a closer look at the landscape.On the nose of Diablo was an appropriately painted maw full of large, sharp teeth. Red eyes and flared spikes complemented the artistic vision overlaid around the deadly auto-cannon that was the A-10’s most feared asset.Fifteen minutes ago he’d been flying a routine USAF patrol in Afghanistan at around 1400 hours, at an elevation of 2000 feet - mostly a show of continued presence and force to deter ISIS’ return. When the loopy light show and fireworks suddenly popped up around him he acted instinctively, pulling a hard right, shooting off chaff and flares.He braced himself for impacts that never came.The lights and explosions around him disappeared just as suddenly, to be replaced by an opaque, dark, amorphous form about 50 feet in front of him. He braced himself again and, instinctively, cut loose a burst from the auto-cannon, thinking to weaken the structure of whatever was about to crash into Diablo’s nose.Again - nothing.And then he found himself….”here”.A strangely dressed civilian, a goat herder, unlike any he had seen around Kandahar lately, ran away from Josh’s plane, forgetting the flock of goats that scattered in all directions.This was a little strange given that the “civvies” were accustomed to the American presence nowadays.If anything Josh was pretty certain he was up North, in Canada or Germany, maybe England, judging by the dramatic change in landscape from the sand dunes and roughly hewn mountains he was used to seeing. He didn’t think there were any small scale, individual goat farming operations in existence at this stage.He had already determined that this wasn’t a hallucination. He wasn’t sleeping. And while he believed in God he was a pragmatic realist - this wasn’t Heaven.Otherwise his first child would be sitting on his lap and they’d be reading bedtime stories.He blinked away some dust in his eyes.He had remembered, from an episode of “Batman Adventures” that dreams interfered with reading. You could never clearly read words in a dream. But everything in sight was sharply defined, everything in his cockpit behaved logically, and, moreover, he could read clearly and legibly all the words around him.As he scanned his readouts, he noted a few strange things.First - no fuel consumption. He’d been airborne for over 20 minutes. He knew that Brody and Mike, his A-10 maintenance crew leaders, were top notch and would not have missed such a critical facet of their job.He hoped that he wasn’t damaged during the strange transit he had undertaken from Afghanistan to wherever he was currently.Second - his HUDs and readouts were either behaving strangely, or totally normally. Anything digital, that received data from external links, was not working. There were various error codes on display he thought he’d never see after training. Anything analogue, mostly the backups, were perfectly normal.Altitude - check. Pitch and yaw, double check. According to the results of his quick situational checklist, using the backup dials, Diablo was 100% normal.Finally - ammo - not one single round used from his GAU-8 Avenger. Not one flare or chaff stash consumed. Again, very nice, all things considered.He noticed a large plume of smoke, maybe a sand devil, about 5 miles away. He turned Diablo in that direction and pushed his throttle forward. If he wasn’t using any fuel up he might as well see what’s happening and try to get his bearings he reasoned.2.Lord Barstow of Norwick, Baron of Crestwick Fields, 2nd Duke of Lincoln, marshalled his forces once more. He bellowed with a confidence he did not feel inside.He was in charge of a deteriorating situation.His liege’s army had been cut off, slain or fled with their morale in tatters. Lord Barstow was one of the few remaining defenders of King Stephen of Blois.The remainder held a desperate line in front of castle and lands, against a superior invading force led by Robert of Gloucester.Robert’s Angevin Knights were cutting a wide swath towards the king. Lord Barstow’s forces were about to be crushed as the Welsh infantry strode forward. Their ally, Alan of Penthievre was watching his forces melt under a systematic barrage from Welsh crossbows.Lord Barstow heard an unholy scream from above joining his own hoarse voice at the exact moment he committed himself, and his remaining troops to a forward charge.He saw the Welsh line shudder as one, then flee before him.Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond, saw a break in the barrage of deadly quarrels and, ignoring the cacophony around him, spurred his troops into a charge. It was their only chance to counter the crossbows and pikes that had been decimating their numbers.Bloody butchering chaos, and shouts mingled with a dull roar from overhead.3.Josh saw a castle in the distance so he climbed to 1000 feet and took a slight turn to go around it. He caught a good look at a pitched battle as he got closer to the source of the smoke, about 1/2 mile away. He eased up on the throttle for a better look.He didn’t like what he saw - a bully.A large force of armed men were cutting up a smaller force that had formed a crumbling perimeter about 50 yards in front of a smoking castle.Corpses, soldiers and civilians alike, body parts, horses thrashing wildly on their last breath, were haphazardly littered.He didn’t know where he was but he did know what he didn’t like to see. It’s why he signed up for duty after his first child died. It’s why he was proud to fight for what he believed in after he and his wife separated, each dealing with the tragic turn of events in their own way.He flew over the castle and started to setup a loiter pattern over the battle, about 550 feet high.At that altitude, with his keen eyes and training, it was relatively easy to pick out the bullies. They were organized in three engagement fronts.He flew a tight circle and pointed Diablo downwards.His first auto cannon burst shredded a dirty line beside a picket of soliders with spears and what looked like crucifixes. As he passed low overhead he noticed they were carrying crossbows.What the heck was going on here? He had a quick, paranoid, premonition that he was breaking up a Medieval Recreationists Society event, or perhaps, one of those “LARPing” gatherings Brody attended on his downtime.He shook the thoughts from his head.He had seen dying before, first hand from the air, and he recognized it on the grassy fields and cobble stoned road in front of the castle. This was as real and visceral as any battle he had witnessed. The only difference was the equipment and sides.On his second pass he drew another cratered line on the opposite side of those same forces, causing more disarray and stupor. He noticed the smaller mass of the defenders engaging spearmen and crossbow archers. He noted limbs and weapons fly with equal abandon.He concentrated on the last knot of conflict, changing his loiter pattern and altitude to get a better look of the situation.3.Lord Barstow’s face was covered in brains and blood.Thankfully it was the enemy’s and not his nor his retinue’s. He didn’t know where the dragon came from, but willingly accepted a fervent belief that it was sent to bolster King Stephen’s forces.A more cynical side of him piped in, saying it was just saving them all for hors d’oeuvres. He choose to ignore his internal gremlins, as he called the voice, in order to concentrate on routing the Welsh forces in front of him.The dragon screamed loudly again, belching fire and destruction into the Knights of Angevin who had chopped their way within 20 feet of King Stephen’s standard.Metal clad bodies, heavy war horses, were thrown into the air. They lay still, or twitching, as the dragon passed overhead, turning gracefully, but quickly, to make another run.Lord Barstow noted that King Stephen, a deeply religious leader, was now smiling, almost maniacally, probably also choosing to believe that the dragon was fighting for their cause, and was not a simple ravening scourge.Barstow screamed himself hoarse that afternoon, fear mingling with religious devotion.4.The battle had ended in a bloody rout. Victory sprang forth from the slimmest of coincidences and miracles.Josh had just managed to land Diablo on the long, rough cobblestone path. It took some doing but Diablo had managed well enough.Josh was brought up alongside his vehicle, before the king.He could barely understand the language - it sounded almost like English but was functionally unrecognizable. His own responses drew puzzled stares, punctuated by the occasional look of near recognition.But the cheers from the king, and other mounted nobles - Brody’d once described this type of character in great detail during a particularly long deployment - gave Josh a measure of confidence in his safety.But he still had questions.A tall blonde, willowy and graceful, rode up with a heavily armed retinue. Josh instinctively ran his calloused hand through his thick brown hair and smoothed out his flight uniform…5.Decades passed.Josh reflected on his marriage to King Stephen’s secret daughter, and the highs and lows of Medieval life.Diablo was the benevolant dragon that guarded the castle, and its lands, from deep within a nearby forest.In reality Diablo was lovingly worshipped like a religious statue by the simple peasants, while the aristocrats and nobility grudgingly recognized its usefulness as deterrent, symbol, and political influence alongside Josh’s considerable mystery. He had been instrumental in being an active participant at King Stephen’s side during the early years.Near the end of the campaign the mere mention of the Dragon of Lincoln, along with the support of many traumatized witnesses and prisoners of war, gave King Stephen all the clout required to secure his seat of power.King Stephen had granted Josh titles, land, but retained him at all times at Castle Lincoln with their close friend Lord Barstow.The Baron of Crestwick Fields was delighted to be the second home of Joshua, King Stephen’s daughter Wyonna, and their brood. While their presence provided a continual supply of political clout and influence, Lord Barstow considered Joshua an agent of Heaven, an avatar given mortal form, a brother from another mother.Josh had been instrumental in setting up King Stephen and his lineage as the defacto power in England. The king’s daughter, kept secret for political reasons, enjoyed life with Josh and was perhaps the most keenly aware that despite their vast differences - some she understood, others she didn’t - he was a good and just man.Their children had a privileged childhood and Josh seemed to be a most helpful husband and noble.Unlike the others he took a very active role in raising the children and turned out to be very capable with a guitar.. ….EpilogueReality bends, matter touching its neighbour at a torturous frequency.“Satisfaction noted?” says a bottomless voice, deeper than Time itself.“Curious,” comes the reply in a flicker of photons.“Manifest destiny or byline of causation?” inquires deeper than Time itself.“Neither. Return forbidden. Carry forth,” is the beating response.Reality silently screams for a moment, before all is still once more.