Chapter 3: Critical Transit

[1st Army Research Division satellite systems loading]

[Tracking, Gunnery Sergeant Donn Kenyon]

[Status: Alive]

[Location: Northeastern Virginia, USA]

[Unit: 1st Army Research Division, aka 'the Trust']

.

Remember those plans for the ACS you pulled out of Kazakhstan?

It turns out we got them too late to make a difference.

We knew that the Russian government was gong to try and crack the module before the inevitable recovery mission but we thought that it had been recovered before they had time, but we were wrong. They managed to crack it before the members of TF 141 could recover it. Most of the important parts of the plans we recovered were in code so that by the time we managed to decrypt the message's true purpose it was too late, we had already put the module back in place, and the Russians were already heading for the United States. They already have paratroopers, planes, and tanks on both coasts. The Deputy Director of Operations was being ferried by helicopter to a safe-house via a helicopter from the recently reactivated 23rd Infantry Division...but he got shot by Russian surface-to-air missiles before he could get there. Thankfully there were members of both the 75th Ranger Regiment and various regular Army units were able to converge on his location to successfully extract him from the crash site before the Russians could get to him.

They left him with an Army unit just outside of the DC area who were supposed to send a unit to escort the DDO to his destination. Unfortunately the unit he was with has come under heavy assault from Russian forces that have prevented them from doing so. All of the attempts to get a helicopter in to him have met failure because of a heavy Russian AA blanket over the area and the land-based supply runs have met heavy resistance, meaning we can't risk having the DDO go on one of those in case the Russians manage to capture or kill him. Special operations units like SEALs, Green Berets, and even the Pararescue Jumpers are too busy elsewhere to get him themselves so that means we're the only ones who can pull him out of the fire. We've got an MRAP truck and a HMMWV that we can use to get him out to safety while more of the boys from the Army try to make way so they can help their friends with t he DDO.

So that's it, good luck, and stay safe out there: Ivan isn't sparing any civilians so I'm sure you'll all run in to a hell of a lot of trouble if they find you out there.

Oh and gentlemen, remember: you're representing the 23rd Americal division, make 'em proud.

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"Critical Transit"
Day 5 - 04:00:00
Gunnery Sergeant Donn Kenyon
The Trust
Northeastern Virginia, U.S.A.

"Are we ready to go?" Lieutenant Ibarra didn't even bother to look at me as we jogged to the waiting HMMWV and MRAP that had been given to us for this mission.

"Yeah: the equipment is loaded, the mounted guns are ready, and everybody is just waiting for your go." I replied.

The MRAP was fully loaded up with most of the equipment and it had extra medical supplies for Reese in case anybody such as Raptor were injured to a point that his standard kit couldn't fix them. The HMMWV was the up-armored variant to protect the crew inside, it had what gear that wasn't in the MPAR in it's cargo compartment, and instead of the standard minigun or M240 medium machine gun which normally graced the top of such a vehicle in the United States military it had been armed with a tube launched, optically tracked, and wire data linked guided missile launcher: a TOW guided missile launcher in more common terms. The crew had been assigned between the two vehicles in the following manner, with our squad and a small amount of other add-on members from the rest of the Trust: Corporal Persley Yoakum would be driving the HMMWV that was going to be operating under the call-sign 'Dispatch', Lieutenant Ibarra was going to be riding shotgun, Robert would be operating the TOW, and Lance Corporal Derek Woods would be in the back seat to hand missiles up to Robert.

Meanwhile Sergeant Gary Harris was assigned to drive the MPAR during the mission and occasionally taking the lead to bust through obstacles when necessary, I was going to be riding shotgun, Alicia was assigned to the roof-mounted M240 medium machine gun, and Reese was going to be in back so that he could attend to Raptor in case he was injured when we picked him up or if he got injured during the trip to the designated extraction zone. When I had first been told about this mission I had felt skeptical and almost hopeless, watching my own home state crumbling so easily against advancing Russian forces, but now I was starting to be more assured about the success of this mission, though the reports of Russian armor in the area still made me a little nervous. However, that was why Lieutenant Ibarra had insisted on one of the vehicles being armed with a TOW: when you plan to go through bear country it's a good idea to bring a bear rifle, even if you aren't hunting for them. Looking back on it some people might find it surprising that the thoughts of my family all living on my childhood home on the coast of Virginia never crossed my mind from the first reports of fighters over American soil to when I was pulling on my combat equipment to start fighting back as possible.

They had hit us by surprise: that was what mattered to myself and the others now.

I pulled myself up in to the passenger-side seat of the truck. The convoy was already starting before I had even shut the door: the DDO was one of the few people who even knew about our existence in the government anymore, not to mention that he was also a member of the very exclusive group that could give our commander orders. We didn't want to waste any time in getting to the location of the Army unit as fast as we possibly could, not wanting to risk the unit being overrun before we could get there, and thus failing our mission completely. We couldn't accept that outcome because we were some of the best: we just didn't fail, it wasn't in our nature. I knew that every single person with me had been trained with the best techniques and technology that the United States government could offer since it's conception in the extremely early sixties. We had an exemplary performance record that we didn't plan to spoil with such an epic failure as having the DDO die from a Russian invasion when we had been entrusted with his well-being and making sure that he made it to safety.

"Iron Taxi, Dispatch." Lieutenant Ibarra's voice came over the radio.

"Go Dispatch." I replied curtly.

"It looks like it was a good idea that we have the TOW." Lieutenant Ibara said, tacking a small spout of nervous laughter on the end.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Some of the local units are saying they've seen or heard Russian armor in the area." Lieutenant Ibarra said.

"Well that's just great." I replied, sighing.

I looked out to the night sky. I watched as beams of spotlights cut in to the air to illuminate the storm of aircraft overhead, streaks of tracer fire arched up in to the sky, and I could occasionally see the glow of anti-air missiles or fighter jets exchanging fire with each other. As I looked at the warfare a hand reached up for the night vision goggles that were mounted to the top of my helmet. The sun had yet to rise in our area, we had planned that on purpose because we didn't want to be easily seen by hostile forces, so along with going during the pre-dawn hours every single source of illumination was covered, dimmed, or just shut off completely if possible. That meant that Gary was probably going to have an eye-straining time of trying to drive and as I looked over at him I could tell with the way that he clenched his jaw while he surveyed our surroundings that he was focused. Meanwhile when I glanced back I could see Alica's legs as she scanned our surroundings from the shielded turret while Reese sat on one of the two benches in the back with plenty of packs of supplies and some medical equipment in the back with him. I looked forward out the windshield and I could see Robert as he looked at his surroundings from behind the roof-mounted TOW launcher, ever vigilant.

One thing about night vision goggles is that they don't allow for good vision in every sense of the term. Yes they could make it easier to see various things in the darkness of your surroundings but because of how they were designed they gave a horrible restriction to a person's peripheral vision. Because of this as we started passing through thicker and thicker groupings of houses it was almost impossible for me to see the Russian jeep moving a street over from us. Apparently the commander of the small scouting party had been scanning the suburbs for American forces moving through the area in order to warn their commander of any fresh forces coming to face the Russians. They had seen the plane dropping the vehicles and had moved in to a range of around one or two miles to observe what was happening, and even though they didn't know who we were exactly they probably knew special operations when they saw them. Of course if they had any info on active and known special forces units then they were probably a bit thrown off by the markings of the Americal infantry division. We didn't know it but the leader of the patrol hadn't thought the incident worth reporting in yet, to him it was just something that he had to observe to the fullest extent possible. At the time I didn't see them but when I glanced over to my right there was no missing their shapes between the buildings.

"Dispatch, Iron Taxi." I said, watching the jeeps as we approached a curve in the road.

"Go Iron Taxi." Lieutenant Ibarra replied.

"I have two possible Russian scouts on our right flank: do you want us to engage?" I asked.

"Negative: there's a right turn for them up ahead, they'll have to break off or cut through the yards in to an open park if they want to keep up." Lieutenant Ibarra answered.

"Confirmed Dispatch." I responded tersely.

It might have seemed like a bad call and in any other situation we would have engaged the scouts to try and prevent them from giving details to their commander, but in this case by the time the Russians could afford to pull a jet or helicopter from combat to blow us off the road we would be gone from the current area, and probably able to slip in to the streets of the heavier suburbs and city. Besides, even if it wasn't aircraft, and they did try to send some of the tanks reported in the area, in the same way as with the helicopters we would be gone before they got to our current location, and w had a missile launcher to take out any that might find us on our way to or from the American unit. So for now Alicia just kept her eye on them from within her shielded turret, watching them through a rectangle of bullet-proof glass, and just making sure that they didn't make any sudden or hostile moves towards us. Of course if they fired on us it wasn't like we were just going to ignore them: we would light them up like a Christmas tree to make sure that they never did it again. However, for now they weren't shooting at us, and we were in no mood to change that.

I glanced at the low-light GPS system that was mounted on the dashboard in front of me, unaware that as we approached the area where the Russian scouts were forced to turn off that their commander had radioed us in finally, and that there had been a quick response team a mile ahead of us that dispatched two of their BTR-80 APCs to intercept us. Instead I just checked and rechecked the route, looked out the windows to observe our surroundings, and occasionally glanced back to see how Rees and Alicia were doing. Meanwhile the HMMWV continued ahead of us as we began approaching the much tighter turns of the actual suburbs, slowly down drastically from our recent highway speed. I kept watching the buildings and the rest of our surroundings diligently...until I looked in front of us. Three blocks away at a four-way intersection sat an eight-wheeled monstrosity: a BTR-80A, capable of carrying ten armed men in to battle, and armed with a 30mm 2A72 autocannon on it's roof that could wreak havoc on exposed infantry or unarmored targets. While Lieutenant Ibarra yelled both at his own driver and at Gary to turn right, breaking off.

Alicia opened fire rather needlessly, her well trained soldiering instincts not allowing her to just stand there without fighting back against the threat. The BTR began firing as we all turned to the right but before it could really start hitting us the HMMWV was already entirely protected by surrounding houses while the only shot that actually hit the MPAR only shook us all up on the inside while leaving the exterior with nothing but burn marks from the impact against armor designed to defend against things like mines and IEDs at point-blank range. We began flooring it through the town while Alicia looked back and informed us that we had another BTR on our tail at around the same time as it's explosive rounds began hitting the road around us. Unfortunately we were between the Russian APC and the TOW launcher so Robert couldn't take out the metal beheamoth until he got a clear line of sight and a positively confirmed lock. I listened as Alicia continued to fire while we kept going as fast as possible through the city streets.

"Iron Taxi: I have a plan to lose this guy!" Lieutenant Ibarra sounded understandably rushed "There's a gas station on our right, coming up!"

"So?" I asked.

"When that tin bastard is near it, blow the thing, and we should be able to out-run the blast!" Lieutenant Ibarra explained.

"Are you insane, sir?" I couldn't believe what he was saying: when the underground storage went off the entire block would probably get cooked.

"It's either that or you can try and fit that over-sized coffin of yours to the side in all these yards!" Lieutenant Ibarra snapped.

"Fine, it's done!"

I looked back at Alicia and patted her leg to get her attention.

"Alicia!" I called up, still needing to get her attention.

"What?" I heard her call, angry and focused, over the fire of her machine gun.

"There's a gas station coming up, shoot the pumps!" I yelled.

"Are you insane?" Alicia looked down at me.

"Lieutenant's orders!" I responded.

Alicia bit her lower lip but gave me a nod as she pivoted the machine gun around to the front where she could look out for the gas station. I looked out the front window and I saw a Nova gas station approaching on our right with four perfectly intact gas pumps. We came up on it fast and passed it even faster as the HMMWV and the MRAP both began to pick up speed. I heard Alicia's machine gun open fire again for only a half second at the longest, then it was followed by a thundering roar as the gas reserves underneath the pumps blowing up as well, and I looked back to watch as Alicia turned the turret away before ducking inside the truck. We floored it down the straightest path we possibly could and I could almost imagine the flames that silhouetted us from behind as they licked across the yards and houses around that station in an ever expanding fury. We went as fast as we possibly could and we didn't slow down until we were almost three blocks away and had to in order to make a tight turn ahead of us without tipping one of the vehicles. As we did turn I was able to look out my window to see the flash-burned grass and houses, all the fire gone, and the BTR sitting on the street in front of the station with the crew probably literally cooked inside it's metal walls.

"Okay, on to Raptor." Lieutenant Ibarra sounded relieved.

I leaned back against my seat with a sigh as some of the adrenaline in my system began to wean off now that we weren't being chased by an APC around Virginia. We couldn't stop and relax though, and we had to keep moving in to the city where the American and Russian army were fighting it out in bloody combat. Glancing at the GPS system in front of me I could see that the marked location of the Army unit's current position, where the DDO was waiting for us to get him to safety. As we kept going down the roads soon we could see cars and other debris positioned on the street in such a way that it slowed us down significantly, past that we could see barbed wire fences set up, and it wasn't hard to recognize the pile of sandbags housing a mounted machine gun with a man who was tracking us intently as we approached what was obviously the unit's perimeter. Now we had to lie to our fellow soldiers and convince a bunch of edgy and combat-weary men that we weren't infiltrators trying to kill an important member of the US Central Intelligence Agency but rather members of the unit tasked with his retrieval.

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Day 5 - 04:35:00
Captain Frank Weiss
1st Army Infantry Division
Northeastern Virginia, USA

As I pried sweat-filled rubber gloves from my hand my weary mind somehow found itself drifting to how this was not the kind of day I had been planning for my stay on the east coast. Segments of the Big Red One had been sent on to the east coast as part of a training exercise for two months which I was to take part in before we were to be shipped in to Afghanistan to supplement the "war on terror" that was still going the same way that it had been when it started a few years ago. If it hadn't been for the Russian invasion I would have been counting away this final week before getting on a Navy ship to sail in to the Middle East where I would practice my military-trained skills of being a medical professional but now I was dealing with floods of wounded Americans and a mysterious man adorned in an expensive suit and bullet-proof vest who the Rangers that dropped him off identified as the Deputy Director of Operations Jack Brantley of the Central Intelligence Agency. Apparently he was in the process of being evacuated when he had been shot down by Russian anti-air systems, rescued by a joint force of regular Army soldiers and Rangers, and then brought here where I was ordered to make sure that he was stabilized and okay for when his extraction could finally be carried out.

As I looked about at the mostly empty beds and the stabilized soldiers in those that were filled, I decided that it was probably okay for me to take a quick trip to the mess tent for a cup of coffee, but as I started for the flap of the medical tent it suddenly opened to admit three men who I had never seen before. They were in standard Army uniform, rifles held loosely in front of them, sleeves up to their elbows, and they all had an expression that I felt was familiar from somewhere even though I couldn't name it. The closest man had the rank of Lieutenant with 'Ibarra' on his name tag. He looked to be around five feet and eleven inches in height, he had slim features, and a clean-shaven head. He was obviously a well trained and experienced soldier who I was willing to bet had probably served a few tours in the Middle East for this proclaimed "war on terror" that we were all being trusted to fight by our government.

The second man, on Lieutenant Ibarra's right, looked to be around six feet in height. His rank markings and name tag identified him as a Corporal Middleton. His hazel eyes scanned the tent with the exact same look as his Lieutenant while he ran a gloved hand through his mop of raven black hair that looked like it was barely being kept within regulations. I could tell from a quick glance at some of his visible equipment that he was obviously a combat medic. He came across with a sort of reduced air from that of the Lieutenant. It was obvious that he saw combat but whether it wasn't as much or simply not as intense as the Lieutenant's experiences was hard to tell. Then again it could have been that I was simply underestimating him because of how young he looked in comparison to Lieutenant Ibarra.

The third man was Staff Sergeant Kenyon. He looked to be maybe an inch or two over six feet and he seemed to carry the same air as the Lieutenant, even if it wasn't a bit more intense. With the way he carried himself it struck me that given his rank the man was probably the platoon sergeant for the Lieutenant who he had followed in to my tent. He was wearing normal gear like the rest of them but I noticed that while the other two didn't even have their helmets on I couldn't see much of the Sergeant's face. Atop his head he wore a digital camouflage bush hat though by the sides I could tell that he had almost orange-red colored hair, he had a pair of orange-hued ballistics glasses that made it hard to tell what color his eyes were even though they looked green, and he wore a camouflaged gator neck that hid all of his face below his nose. He went to brush something from his shoulder and the sharpness of his movement drew a quick glance from me, which is when I noticed something odd. He had a chest-mounted Colt. 45 semiautomatic, these days the only guys who carried those were specialists of a very specific type.

"Captain Weiss?" Lieutenant Ibarra asked.

All three men gave me a salute which I lazily returned.

"Yes, what is it?" I asked.

"I'm 1st Lieutenant Ibarra with the 23rd infantry division, my unit was tasked with escorting the Director." Lieutenant Ibarra motioned to Mr. Brantley "He was shot down yesterday."

"So I assume you are here to extract him?" I asked.

"Yes sir, is he okay to move?" Lieutenant Ibarra asked.

"Well he seems fine, but I haven't really had time to look at him." I explained.

"We have equipment with us for that sir: we just need to know if it's okay to move him right now." Lieutenant Ibarra replied.

"I guess it would be okay: I can have some of my staff help you get him to your transport." I offered.

"No need sir, that's why I brought these two men with me." Lieutenant Ibarra turned to Corporal Middleton "Corporal: get the litter." Lieutenant Ibarra ordered.

With a salute the medic disappeared from the tent flap again.

"Russian AA is too thick here: how did you boys get in?" I asked "It couldn't have been by helicopter like before."

"We had to cut through the suburbs with a HMMWV and an MRAP." Lieutenant Ibarra replied "We had a run in with some Russian armor but we took care of them."

The medic came back in once again, a partially folded litter under one arm. He and Sergeant Kenyon moved past their Lieutenant to stand beside the bed of Director Brantley. Lieutenant Ibarra stepped up as they opened the litter, picked up the director in bridal-style carry, and gently laid him on to the litter. With a salute from the Lieutenant the three men departed from the ten, moving out in to the darkness to return to their transports in order to get the Director out. As I watched them leave one of my assistants, a beautiful young Lieutenant who had gotten her commission and assignment only a few months before the hell we were in now, came up beside me after having just made sure all the patients in the tent were okay. About the time that she came to stand beside me something dawned on me. Their general expressions, their attitudes, how to-the-point they were with talking, the side-arm, that gator neck that one of them wore, and an overall weird vibe I got from them.

"Those weren't grunts." I said, hooking my thumbs in to my pockets.

"What do you mean, sir?" The Lieutenant asked.

"Just look at them." I explained "My dad was in the Green Berets back in Vietnam and I remembered that in all his photos he had this strange expression on his face, a kind of sleepy eyed grin, and it's the exact same look I saw on those boys." I then grinned "Besides that, even with his gator neck I could see that beard of his sticking out: we haven't been fighting that long."

The Lieutenant gave me a quirked brow and a small grin before I walked out of the tent to head for the mess, I really needed coffee now.

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Day 5 - 04:45:00
Gunnery Sergeant Donn Kenyon
The Trust
Northeastern Virginia, USA

As we drove away from the base, on a different route then the one we had first taken, I couldn't help but feel a little bit relieved: the start of a strange cycle of feelings that each and every one of us seemed to go through in various degrees of intensity near the end of a mission. Once all the objectives had been complete you started to feel relieved as you headed for the extraction site, as you got closer to it a new surge of stress at the possibilities of what could go wrong began to build up again, and you couldn't be relieved of that feeling until you were on the helicopter out of the area. I kept scanning our surroundings as we continued through the streets to a pre-designated extraction zone outside the city. From there we would leave the vehicles for a clean-up crew, board a waiting Army Chinook with the DDO, and then we would fly him to another point away from the coast where a plane would be able to take him to a place where he would be able to command much more effectively. That would be once we reached the field, however, and so right now we all still had to take care as we made our way through the streets to the city limits once again.

According to Reese the Deputy Director was perfectly fine save for a few scrapes, cuts, and bruises. When the DDO had come to consciousness from a stress-induced deep sleep he hadn't known who we were at first, which was funny in a way considering that he was one of an extremely small handful of people outside of the Trust who knew of our existence. Once we had explained who we were and what was happening I swore I had never seen a man be more relieved then him as he had made himself comfy on one of the benches with a pack of supplies as a pillow while Reese did a more thorough examination for anything that he or the Army medics might have missed like slowly leaking internal bleeding or other life-threatening damage. When he had found none he had me inform the Lieutenant that the DDO was perfectly fine, there was nothing to worry about, and that we all couldn't wait until we were able to pull our collective asses out of this mess for the time being.

Besides that, those Army boys had made me nervous. I still hadn't shaved the beard I kept from a few tours in Afghanistan and so it wasn't like I could shave before entering the base in the rush we had been in. There was only a small collective of people who were allowed to have relaxed grooming standards and we didn't want to go stepping on any of the toes in Delta by trying to pass off as one of them. So I had just put on the gator neck before Reese and I had gotten out of the truck while hoping that the extra handgun I carried with me didn't stick out to anybody in the moment: I could only hope that it was the case so I didn't start any new rumors flowing in the military about their officially denied unit of special forces operators. As I sat in the passenger seat of the MRAP I pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind while listening to the DDO as he occasionally spoke to Reese about topics that I wasn't interested enough to listen in on in short spouts of speech to which we had all become accustomed to out of some odd and seemingly mandatory requirement of being in the Trust.

"The extraction zone is one mile out, keep sharp." Lieutenant Ibarra came over the radio.

"Yes, sir." I replied.

I kept scanning our surroundings as we continued through the suburbs, watching the ever diminishing amount of houses around us, and making sure that we weren't going to get attacked by another Russian armored vehicle. Eventually we reached the end of the buildings and found ourselves with nothing but a short wooden fence separating us from the field in which the extraction helicopter would arrive to pick us up, extracting the DDO to safety. The HMMWV slowed down to let the MRAP past and we plowed through the wooden fence before the HMMWV followed through the hole made out on to the field. We spread out from one another to avoid being taken out by something like a chance missile fired from a Russian anti-tank gunner or something similar. Then we came to a stop while Alicia and Robert continued to scan our surroundings with their respective mounted weapons. We didn't want to take any chances when we were this close to being extracted and so the DDO didn't even exit the safe confines of the MRAP until Lieutenant Ibarra confirmed over the radio that the Chinook charged with our extraction was inbound.

Until then I simply held my M4 close and watched both the skies and the nearby road for any signs of movement. We had turned off the engines for the time being to reduce both our noise and heat signatures while we waited for the extraction helicopter to pick us up. Eventually I heard the sounds of a helicopter approaching through the cupola that Alicia had been standing in for the good portion of an hour. We all looked up to the sky and watched the approaching Army helicopter through our night vision goggles, it's exterior lights off, and with the barely illuminated face of the pilot and co-pilot giving any signs of illumination as the helicopter proceeded to slowly turn around in mid air before gently touching down on the side of us opposite of the road. At that moment we wasted no time in moving: everybody was already piling out of our vehicles before the helicopter had fully touched down and we were already rushing Deputy Director Jack Brantley up the ramp before it had fully lowered so that we could get off the ground that much faster, a notion which the flight chief obviously understood and was visibly grateful for.

Sitting down on a seat opposite of Lieutenant Ibarra, I watched as Alicia moved next to me. She spread out across several seats and proceeded to rest her head on my lap, closing her eyes, and drifting in to a light sleep after having been awoken so rudely by the Russian invasion. Some people in the regular service, or readers of a particularly poorly written story might have interpreted this as a sign of romance, but to us it was simply the fact that Alicia deemed my lap to be a more comfortable head-rest for her nap than the chair. In my time with the Trust I had seen this many times, and not just between male and female "Trustees." I had even seen men sleeping in similar positions with other men simply because something else comfortable was too far away to be convenient or because any other options were only going to cause extreme discomfort and neck pain when the person woke up. While most men would have been thrown off by this seemingly subtle homosexual behavior, to which I could imagine the gay fiction of men at war even as I thought this, I didn't much mind such activities...though that probably came with the service.

Besides that, Alicia was an extremely pretty girl, and so I didn't really mind her sleeping on my lap anyways. She was around five feet and ten inches in overall height with dark red hair that she kept tied in a neat pony tail unlike the raggedy, exotic, or otherwise non regulation hair styles of other members in the unit. Her face was graced with slim and petite facial features that wouldn't make her look like a black ops soldier if you didn't see her in combat gear. She was extremely friendly and a strikingly pretty woman. Besides that she had this fascination for art in the form of coal and chalk drawings that she practiced whenever she could, obviously when not deployed in to the field. However, despite what some people outside of the Trust who would look at this might think I saw absolutely no potential for a romantic foray of any kind with her or any other women I had met in the Trust. None of us could really even afford husbands, wives, or any really sort of families with the jobs we held. We would have been gone from home for weeks or months, or even a year at a time without being able to tell those families where we were going or why so it just wouldn't work out.

Pushing all of these thoughts to the back of my mind, I leaned my head back, and relaxed as we flew to safety once again.

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Author's Notes: Wow...this chapter was actually really hard to get finished. I knew exactly where I wanted to go with it but it took me forever to actually go and do it, I was practically fighting a war with myself, and in the end I do feel that the final product suffered but I still hope it's good enough for you guys. Also, I would like to thank my brother "Captain Kurt Hoffman" for a lot of his support and ideas so far throughout the few chapters this story has. Honestly, he really has helped me through more cases of writer's block then he is probably aware of, and besides that he's one of my brothers so I had to have an excuse to work him in to my "Author's Notes" for this section somehow. Anyways, as I said before I am always open and appreciative of reviews, suggestions, and any constructive criticism that people have to offer me so go at it. Don't worry though, I'm not going to be like one of those jerks who always demands a certain number of reviews before adding a chapter.