Fallen trees. Dead bodies. Smoke. Signs of a battle mark the jungle. One of the bodies is different, though. He isn't dead. Not yet anyway. Another person moves out of the treeline and hurries to his side. She kneels down and carefully rolls him off of the body of the girl he was protecting. During the battle, she had watched him closely, as she had through the team's entire mission.
He had been quiet and efficient, a great scout, but he had the detached coolness of a warrior. He had seen more than his share of evil, and this mission had been one of the worst. He hadn't even wanted to help all these people. At one point he had been asked for his opinion and in his weariness said the team should abandon the refugees. But the lieutenant said that the team was going to save the people, so he would follow his commander, whether he liked it or not. In the end he had ended up getting shot along with the girl he was protecting.
But the warrior wasn't dead yet.
"Hey," a soft voice says. "Stay with me. You aren't done yet, Warrior."
Hands press him, and he fades into unconsciousness.
Rushing winds. Helicopter blades whirring. Sand stinging his skin. Voices shouting. Growling and snarling. The feeling of being lifted.
He wakes up to the sound of a monitor beeping. He looks at the chair next to his bed and sees his commander asleep. Then he feels the needles in his arms and all the wires connected to him. With this consciousness comes the pain. Not horrible just the pain he knows from previous bullet wounds. His commander awakens as he is looking around the sick bay.
"I can't believe you made it," he states. "I wouldn't believe it till you were conscious."
"Where am I," he asks. "How did I get here?"
"Lake, what is the last thing you remember," the lieutenant asks.
"I remember going back to save one of the refugees instead of bounding like I supposed to. I got shot and so did she. I knew that we were both dead. Everything kinda faded for a while, then someone was talking to me and touching me. I thought…" his voice trails off.
"Thought what," LT asks.
"I thought it was an angel," Lake says. "But that couldn't be for lots of reasons."
"Why is that?"
"Never mind."
"Well let me go find the doc, then I'll tell the rest of the team that they can see you now."
"Wait. How many made it?"
"Doc, Red, Me, and Zee. Zee was badly hurt, he is in the bay next door."
With that LT Waters walks out of the room, leaving Lake wondering what had happened. LT Waters was holding something back. His eyes had shown something when he mentioned the angel. It was brief, but Lake's scout eyes were as sharp as ever, injured as he was. The other thought on his mind was getting out of the sick bay. Lake was just reaching for the needles when the doctor came in.
"Leave those in," the doctor tells him. "they can come out when I discharge you, not before."
"So what is wrong with me and how long do I have to stay in Sick Bay?" Lake asks.
"Well you suffered severe blood loss, worse even than your friend Zee. Not to mention the tissue damage caused by the bullets. The bullets missed your organs, but they did nick an artery. You're lucky she found you, before you bled out," The doctor says, but then looks away quickly. He too is holding something back. And who is SHE?
"You said 'She.' Who is 'She?'"
"I can't tell you anything," he says then leaves.
Great, he thinks. No help there. Maybe the rest of the team would help.
The sound of footsteps reached Lake, but he could he hear them whispering before they came in. They were arguing about something.
"Sir, I think he deserves to know," that was Doc.
"What would it help for him to know that she is real," Waters asks.
"You know he is a straightshooter, he likes to know the facts, and the fact is she saved him," that from Red.
"Yes but he will want to see her, and you know that when he is told he can't, he might well hurt himself trying to get to her," LT says.
"I don't understand why he can't see her," Red whispered fiercely.
"Because she is a prisoner," LT Waters said angrily.
"Generally in a hospital setting you are supposed to be quiet," Lake calls out.
Silence. Then they slowly walk in and stare uncomfortably at each other.
Lake breaks the silence first.
"Who is SHE? And why is she a prisoner," he asks.
"We don't know," LT Waters says.
"You don't know who she is or you don't know why she is a prisoner," Lake asks.
"Both," Red says. "She won't tell us anything."
"Then why is she a prisoner," Lake asks again.
"We don't know. Even the chain of command doesn't know," this from the LT.
"Let me talk to her," Lake says.
"Negative on that. You are NOT leaving this room without the doc's permission or mine," Waters says. "You have to let your body heal itself. Traipsing around this ship is not going to help you heal."
"I don't care about that right now. I need to talk to her," Lake said vehemently. "Please LT, arrange it somehow."
"You know LT, the doc said he couldn't leave, but that doesn't mean she can't come here," Doc suggested.
"She is a prisoner, they won't turn her loose," Waters reminds them.
"Sir, where is she going to go? This ship is at least a hundred miles from shore and well away from merchant traffic," Red says. "Why not have her guards escort her up?"
"And what about the beast she keeps with her? He won't leave her side, and he is not afraid to bite," The LT says, but he sounds open to the idea.
"I noticed the dog is highly obedient to voice commands, and if her interest was escaping, why wouldn't they have fought for it when they were picked up," Doc asks.
"Wait! Hold on," Lake says. "Would someone please explain to me what happened after the battle in the jungle?"
LT Waters and the others look at each other, then Lake. LT Waters clears his throat and recounts what happened.
"After the battle, we were loaded onto a bird in Cameroon. They brought us back here and started to treat our wounds. Then the captain says they received a radio transmission saying that we'd left a warrior behind. They asked who and this person said that one of the warriors wasn't dead yet when we'd escaped. The person also said that they'd removed the bodies of our fallen from the jungle and had extracted them over the Cameroon border. They were already prepping a team to go back and retrieve the fallen, so Commander Rhodes and I went back with the team to verify. About a mile from where we were picked up at the Cameroon border, we saw the LZ markers she had set up. About one hundred yards from there we saw her leaning over you, protecting you from the sand and rocks kicked up by our landing. She had also laid out the bodies of our fallen. We still don't know if she truly did that."
"Why," Lake asks.
"Because the bodies were spread out across three miles or so," The LT says. "There is no way she could have moved all the bodies by herself over that distance in that amount of time. Especially with the fire from the bombs. She would have had to have gone two miles around it."
"And because she won't talk to us, we can't even get her to explain how she did it," Red says. "The markers for the LZ were in standard military formation. She also used proper radio procedure, when she called it in. I still don't understand why she didn't fight when we told her she was under arrest. She seemed to expect it. And I still don't understand why she is under arrest. She is a hero. You heard the doc. He said she saved Lake's life!"
"Red, we know." Doc says calmly. "But the chain of command was told there are warrants out for her arrest."
"I still don't like this." Red fumes.
"None of us do," LT Waters says.
"Sir, let me try and talk to her," Lake says.
"I'll ask, but I don't know if the command will approve," Waters states.
"If her guards are here and we are here, it should be pretty secure," Doc suggests. "She would certainly have enough supervision."
"Like I said, I'll talk to Commander Rhodes and see what can be arranged," LT says.
After that the team starts talking about what is on their schedule next. LT tells them that as soon as Zee is healthy enough to move they will all be sent to Kaiserslautern, Germany. That way Zee can finish recuperating at Laundstuhl Regional Medical Center. They would be placed on leave for at least a month. The team made plans to go out and enjoy themselves, but at the same time there was not as much joy as on previous leaves. Everyone was remembering the losses they had sustained on this mission. Then the doctor came in and said that Lake needed to rest. As the team was leaving, Lake called the LT over.
"LT, don't forget to talk to Commander Rhodes," Lake reminds him.
"I will talk to him, but I don't promise anything," LT warns.
With that the commander left, leaving Lake wide awake and wondering. Lake went over the conversations in his mind, trying to piece together the memories. He vaguely remembered a soft voice talking to him and couldn't suppress his initial thought of an angel. But he knew it couldn't be an angel. There was no way an angel would be sent to help him. Not for everything he'd seen and done. Still he wondered who this "angel" was. Finally sleep overtook him.
The next morning, Red was the first one to visit. He is a good teammate, trustworthy and capable, he is a great friend too. He says he has some news.
"So I may have conveniently heard an interesting conversation between the LT and Rhodes," Red says mischievously. "LT left from here yesterday and went straight to Rhodes to ask. Rhodes doesn't know why she was arrested either, and Command doesn't want us to ask. But LT suggested that it would be for improving your health so you wouldn't do something stupid, like try to take out your IVs and walk down to the brig. Rhodes went up the chain, and somehow got them to agree. So you should be getting a visit from a petite and attractive female."