He paused again at the back door and grabbed a small, high-intensity flashlight and stuffed it in his front pocket and slipped his wallet into his back pocket. He slapped the magazine into the rifle's lower receiver, grabbed the charging handle and cycled the weapon's action, loading a live round into the chamber. He verified it was on "safe" and slipped outside. Jason closed the door without a thought of locking it; there was nobody within miles of the small cabin, one of the main reasons he was hiding out in it.
He hopped off the porch and headed off down a well-worn trail that led into the woods. His familiarity with the land allowed him to move quickly through the pine trees with only the light of the moon to illuminate his path. He judged that the aircraft (or, most likely, the crash site) was no more than two or three klicks away given the speed it was traveling and the time from when he lost sight to when the sound had stopped. He had no idea what he expected to see when he got there, so he mentally prepared himself for anything and everything.
The easy, loping gait Jason assumed was good for covering distances relatively quickly, but not leaving him worn out when he arrived. The few kilometer run, even through the rugged mountain terrain, wasn't much of a challenge to him. The AR-15, a civilian version of the military M4 rifle he had trusted his life to many times, was a comforting weight in his hands as he jogged, holding it across his chest. As he ran he could feel the subtle change from the drowsy, relaxed demeanor he had adopted in the small mountain town he lived in to a brittle alertness that had been finely honed by multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing escaped his attention; every sound and shadow was scrutinized and catalogued as he ghosted through the wilderness towards his destination.
Soon, there was a discernable brightness along the ridgeline up ahead so Jason slowed to a walk, and then eventually stopped. He crouched down in the soft earth and strained his ears for any sound that wasn't natural. The light was definitely artificial, however faint that it was. The hue and brightness told him the light was not coming from a natural source and the steady, constant glow was also inconsistent with flaming wreckage, the thing he most expected to find. He began a silent stalk the remaining distance up to the ridge and paused right below the crest of the hill. He could now hear, and feel, a dull thrum coming from the area as well as the occasional sound that he could only describe as mechanical. Why was he so wired and apprehensive over what it most likely an aviation mishap? Whatever the reason, he had learned long ago not to shrug off the feeling, it was a lesson that had nearly cost him his life.
The last five meters to the top of the ridge were made at a snail’s pace as Jason crawled on his elbows and the toes of his boots, the AR-15 cradled protectively in his arms. He knew this area well from months of scouting out from his cabin and knew there was a large clearing up ahead, the soil being too rocky for the trees to take hold. The clearing sloped gradually west from his current position and ended in another tree line before butting up against the next rise. His crawl ended right before his line of sight would clear the ridgeline and he'd be able to see down into the clearing. At this point the light was quite bright and the sounds of metal scraping on metal and the occasional clanking were clear as a bell. Jason hunched his shoulders forward and dug his elbows into the soil, then he slowly used his shoulders and back to drag himself up the last little bit so he could get a clear view of his objective.
Although he wasn't sure what he had expected to see, the view stunned him nonetheless. The clearing was dominated by what was clearly an aircraft of some type, but it was unlike any he had ever seen or even heard of. For starters, it was simply huge. Jason had seen C-5 Galaxy cargo aircraft during his time in the service, but the craft currently sitting in front of him would easily dwarf the Air Force's largest plane. Despite its size, Jason was also certain he was looking at a tactical vehicle and not some slow, ungainly cargo hauler. The craft appeared to be an elongated delta shape from his vantage point above and behind it, there were discernable wings that extended out from the main fuselage, but the sweep maintained the same angle that started at the nose, far too steep a rake for normal flight. There were also what appeared to be two stabilizers extending out from the tail section at 45-degrees, but even with his rudimentary knowledge of aerodynamics Jason could see that their orientation in relation to the wing would make them nearly useless at controlling the attitude of the craft as well as probably adversely affect the wing's performance. There were four engine nozzles that were arranged in pairs in two nacelles tucked up under the wing roots at the tail of the aircraft, but instead of the expected stream of hot gas Jason would normally expect from a gas turbine, a passive, wavering blue glow was pulsating down the visible length of the interior of the engines.