And another ten minute prompt vignette.
Dragon
Three in the morning was not his favourite time, Mark decided. In fact, it was quite possibly his least favourite time. Being woken up an hour either side was still horrible, but after ten minutes or so he was functioning, wide awake, ready to do whatever was needed.
Three a.m., though... the alarms had gone off half an hour ago now, he'd raced to the briefing room, they'd been briefed, they'd raced again down to the Phoenix, they'd launched, and he was still having to fight not to close his eyes and drop back into deep and dreamless sleep.
"Somebody say something," he said.
"Like what?" asked Tiny.
"Not you - you're busy. Come on, Keyop. What's the weather forecast where we're going?"
Maybe he hadn't actually been awake for the briefing. Where was it that was being attacked again? One of the 'stans, but which one?
"Clear and windless," said Keyop. "Five degrees above freezing."
"And the attack report?"
Jason laughed. "Were you even listening to Anderson? Pretty damn incoherent, but if it's big, flying, and targeting oil pipelines, who's it going to be apart from Spectra? Seriously, Mark, are you-?"
"More details," Princess said, in the tone of voice which meant this was official business. "It's a fire-breathing dragon."
And, just like that, he was wide awake.