Waiting to go on a mission, Sara Lance thought, is often more stressful than the mission itself. Especially the build-up to this one - she recalled the headache that had been building up while she was driving back to the motel after she'd spent half a day trying to talk Lyla Michaels into agreeing it could go ahead.

''Give me time to think about it'' was all her boss had been willing to offer.

''Give her time'' Len told her - his customary controlled attitude seemed irritating to her at that point. 'If she doesn't come around, there are other options.''

''Old friends'' Mick put in.

Going on a mission with a gang of crooks would not do a great deal for her career, Sara thought privately.

They had spent most of the night drinking and playing cards. When they did make it to bed, it was simply to have a rather sozzled sleep.

Fortunately, Lyla did not call until later in the day, when the worst of their hangovers had worn off.

She wanted to hear more, so arranged to meet in a rented conference room - somewhere well away from any A.R.G.U.S. location. She had grilled Len pretty hard about the details of his plan - his residual hang-over made him a bit more sarcastic than Lyla appeared to care for, but in the e end she sat back in her chair.

''Alright, Mr Snart, I'll go for this, but there are certain conditions.''

''Agreed'' Sara said quickly.

Lyla raised an eyebrow ''I need to hear that from the team leader.''

X

So here they were on Greenworld, having used individual breach devices to travel between dimensions. This kind of forest had become almost familiar to the three of them and probably to Cisco as well. Curtis Holt, plainly an urban type, was looking around with a slight unease - maybe, like Cisco, he was expecting to get eaten at any moment. Floyd, security escort for the tech pair, had spent the military part of his career in Asia - he'd seen this kind of forest scenery plenty of times. The other part of the group, under Major D'Agostino, were standing a few feet away.

They moved, going cautiously and silently through the forest, until they were an estimated half-mile from the previous viewpoint. Six of them went forward to take a closer look - Sara, Len, Mick, Floyd, D'Agostino and the woman who was his second in command. The defences hadn't been improved since their last visit and there didn't appear to be any more people. What did give Sara pause for thought was that a couple of new buildings were under construction - more people were obviously expected to join them. What made her hackles rise was the sight of the Laurel-doppelganger, overseeing her troops unarmed combat training at the near end of the base.

They moved back to join the others. D'Agostino and the woman had a short discussion, finalising their targets in the camp, then went to brief the rest of their team. Their orders were simple - plant a couple of bombs, set fires, do whatever was necessary to create a diversion, a bit of nighttime chaos, then breach back to Earth 1, pronto.

Carefully, in small groups, they made their way through the woodland, until they were concealed in scrub a couple of hundred yards from the camp. A couple of D'Agostino's troops had been assigned as escorts to Cisco and two were on look-out on the hill above, due to descend once everything in the camp was quiet.

They waited. Sara was conscious of Len's soft breathing, only a few inches away. With little to occur her mid, it was hard to keep Lyla's final order to her and Floyd out of her thoughts.

'If this goes south, make sure that Savage doesn't take any prisoners. There can't be trail back to A.R.G.U.S.''

She'd been a trained killer, yes, but she wasn't sure if that was an order she could bring herself to carry out.