Tango Down: The Last Flight of St. Nicholas

The jolly old elf known to many as “Kris Kringle” and to the United States government as “Threat Vector 19″ crosses into American airspace at 0520 Zulu just north of Duluth, Minnesota. A pair of F-22 air superiority aircraft silently slide in behind him and maintain station a few hundred meters away.

This is new, Claus thinks.

Suddenly invigorated by the presence of high-performance aircraft, he lets out a right jolly old laugh as he takes the rare chance to perform close-quarter aerobatic maneuvers, thinking the pilots of the fighter craft behind him will relish the opportunity to do the same.

It’s a fatal error.

Just as the tiny red sleigh completes its barrel roll, the pilot of STARFISH 3 yells, “FOX 1!”

Santa barely evades the AIM-7 Sparrow missile and dives for the ground as the missile’s contrail glistens above him in the moonlight.

Just a few weeks before, the US Government informed Kringle that he was required to appear at an FAA facility for vehicle inspection and a flight competency test before he would be permitted to operate in US airspace. Always willing to help out the good people at the Federal Aviation Administration, Santa appeared as instructed in his trademark sleigh drawn by eight flying reindeer.

The FAA inspector approached with a clipboard in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Santa was alarmed, but you know, America.

The FAA inspector noticed Santa’s discomfort and smiled as he boarded the magical craft. “Listen, I’m not supposed to tell you this because it’s your test, but” he nodded his head toward the reindeer, “you’re going to lose an engine in flight.”

It was a joke, but Santa isn’t laughing now as he evades dozens of 20MM rounds zipping all around him. He jukes to-and-fro in a mad dash for any type of haven from the onslaught as tracers leave ghastly after-images in his eyes. The trees whip by in a blur as he increases speed, but Kringle’s mind recalls a heretofore unneeded fact: these aircraft are ungainly at low-altitude and low-speed. Santa promptly pulls-back on the reigns, decelerating so rapidly the inertial dampeners can barely compensate. A quick check of his magic sack reveals none of its precious cargo has been lost as the F-22s speed overhead and pass quickly out of sight.

The old Saint removes his cap and wipes his brow. He chuckles to himself at the near escape from almost certain doom, but unbeknownst to him an RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV has been monitoring his movements from 60,000 feet overhead and relaying his precise coordinates back to NORAD. Even now, as Kringle speaks comforting words to his frightened reindeer, electronic signals are forming an invisible net around the elf from which there will be no escape.

With a wry smile, Claus snaps the reigns and begins to rise once again into the night just as a pair of AH-64E Apache helicopters appear above the tree line, their cannon trained directly upon his sleigh. Santa looks over his shoulder to see another pair of Apache approaching from behind. Above, he can barely make out the silhouettes of two MQ-9 Reaper drones circling overhead, each armed with AIM-9 Sidewinder and GBU-38 JDAM munitions. He briefly considers making another run for it before spying a black cross slowly diving toward him.

Kringle’s blood runs cold. It’s an A-10C Thunderbolt, the same beast that took out Jack Frost years before on Alaska’s North Slope with its deadly 30MM GAU-8/A Avenger autocannon.

The gig was up.

The pilot of the Apache directly in front of Claus signals him to land immediately as a long line of black SUVs approach along a simple dirt road from the north. They encircle the sleigh as Claus descends to the ground in a clearing just off the road. Men in cheap suits empty from the vehicles by the dozen, guns drawn just as Santa touches down.

Kringle holds up his hands but Comet, sensing danger, bolts and makes a run for the tree line. He staggers and falls as his body is riddled with hundreds of bullets. The muzzle flashes from the massive array of small arms fire form a constellation of death in the dark night. With a gargling moan, Comet breathes his last.

An enraged Prancer charges a group of agents directly in front of him and manages to connect head-on with one of the anonymous men as small arms fire again erupts under the moonlit sky. Though mere inches away from a withering barrage of gunfire, Prancer is a credit to his name as he spins about, kicking here and there with his massive hooves. Viscera hangs from his antlers and human bones crush beneath his bulk during his mad dance of death. A direct shot to the head finally fells the great beast, whose momentum allows him to crush one more suited figure before he, too, expires. In all, half a dozen men lay dead or dying in a circle around the doomed reindeer.

An inconsolable Santa tries to make a run for it, but without the extra lifting power of Prancer and Comet, he can’t achieve take-off speed. Agents board his sleigh and forcibly toss him from the still-moving craft. As Kringle lands on the ground, he rolls and comes to a stop. He looks up to find a dozen guns pointed at his head.

The government agents, inexplicably wearing aviator-style sunglasses even in the dead of night, strip Claus of his famous red suit and cap, leaving him shivering in just an undershirt and boxers in the snow. He’s handcuffed by an agitated agent who makes sure to tighten the cuffs real tight, restricting blood flow to Santa’s hands. Numb from the cold and likely in shock, Santa doesn’t notice. He winces as a boot hits him square in the back and plants him face first into the snow. The agent grabs the jolly old elf by his magnificent white mane of hair and drags him to one of the waiting SUVs.

Through his tears, Kringle sees his magical reindeer punched, kicked, and rifle-butted, their moans of agony piercing the silent night. It’s the last thing he sees before a black hood envelops his head.

As the line of SUVs snakes off into the night, they leave behind a scene of utter horror. All that remains are a few tufts of fur and chunks of meat in massive pools of maroon blood against the purest white snow. By morning, the wolves and other carrion will have removed the remaining evidence of slaughter, leaving only the blood behind as silent witness to the night’s deadly events.

Santa is never seen or heard from ever again as his workshop is destroyed by drone strikes, leaving no survivors. Rudolph, it is rumored, is an unwilling test subject at an undisclosed Department of Energy facility somewhere in Utah.

In a short memo released with no fanfare during the doldrums between Christmas and New Year’s, the Defense Department announces that Threat Vector 19 has been neutralized, but it garners little attention as the world’s attention is laser-focused on Pete Davidson’s apparent root access to reality after rumors emerge that he’s dating the First Lady.