Murdock should have been happy.

By some miraculous act of God, Face had gotten him one of the brand new, fresh off the production line Cobras, that had just been dropped off that morning for their latest mission: an air-recce of the Main Supply Route between Quang Nam and Da Nang. The new helicopter was shiny, unmarred, it purred instead of spluttering and it flew like a dream. Murdock should have been happy.

Murdock would have been happy if the lovely clean collective control of the delightfully shiny new chopper had managed not to come off in his hand.

He'd have been even happier if the bird hadn't started to come to bits over the M.S.R. Anti Aircraft hot spot he'd been doing his damnedest to avoid all day. But true to form for his luck in general out here, a whistle followed by a violent jolt and the deafening screech of impacted metal heralded their doom.

"Damn it!" Murdock wrestled with the remaining controls, fighting to keep the chopper from nose diving. He tossed the useless collective stick over his shoulder and began wrenching the bird back under his control. From behind him he could hear the shouts of the S.O.G.s as they grabbed at the safety rails, and over his headset he listened as his crew fired off rapid commands and replies, as cool and efficient as ever. He allowed himself a tight smile, his boys were unrivalled in the air.

Well. They were unrivalled when their aircraft worked.

Charlie, the unfortunately named new door gunner, was emptying a belt of rounds at the A.A. position below, trying to score a point against the enemy before they hit the ground. Beside Charlie, Ray was leaning out of the bird, one foot braced against the skid as he fired his 203 at the grumble launcher that had shot off their lovely new tail rotor, all the while screaming questions as to how the V.C. had managed to get a grumble missile in the first place. The 203 round scored a direct hit and the launcher went up in flames, the fuel in the gas tank igniting and scorching everything within a twenty meter radius.

The Americans cheered their victory, even as they hurtled toward the jungle and their almost certain deaths.

Tuning out the excitement, Murdock pressed his lips together; he would have loved to join in with the celebratory whoops and hollers coming from his passengers, but his entire concentration was being used to get said passengers to the ground with their heads and limbs still attached. No-one was dying in one of his birds.

A yell edged with fear came from the back and galvanised his resolve, "Murdock, if you can land this thing without killing us, then God help me, I'll get you every Fantastic Four comic ever printed!"

Face was nothing if not a master manipulator…

Murdock landed the chopper...

... If 'landed' could translate as 'hit the ground without exploding'.

The plummeting helicopter cut a Cobra-shaped path through the trees, well away from the M.S.R. and mercifully out of immediate danger. A hard jolt sent the Jesus nut flying out, which in turn sent the rotors wizzing off in the opposite direction to the still-travelling bird. One skid snapped off and the left side of the chopper's shell was torn clean away with another screech of distressed metal.

The dead helicoptor finally came to rest in a dense thicket of trees and undergrowth, smoke pouring from its ruined engine, inadvertently acting like a homing signal to any nearby V.C. troops.

Ray and Charlie were the first to emerge from the grounded bird, their side of the chopper thankfully being the side that had remained intact. Between them and acting as quickly as they could, they managed to pull the rest of the team out. Murdock and Frank, his co-pilot for this mission, clambered from the cockpit under their own steam, Murdock muttering angrily under his breath about having another lost bird chalked up next to his name.

The men all emerged intact; some of them climbed out and some were dragged, but one was unconscious.

Face was at B.A.'s side in a flash, helping the bulky sergeant to lower the limp form of their colonel to the floor. Face hissed at the sight of the angry wound to his C.O.'s midsection. B.A. paled as he realised that the wound was seeping bright red blood all over the colonel's D.P.M.s; he flashed a furious scowl at Murdock, and hissed,

"This is all your fault, Sucker!"

Murdock stepped forward and dropped to one knee at the colonel's side, helping Face to clear the wound of tattered fabric. Thankfully, whichever foreign object had caused the injury had removed itself, so all they had to do was patch the wound and hope that there was no serious internal bleeding. He glared back at the irate soldier,

"How is it my fault? Did I fire the missile that took us out?" He turned to Face and said in a hushed tone, "Please tell me this isn't as bad as it looks, Faceman."

Face's lips were pressed into a thin line as he yanked Jim down beside him so he could get to the medical kit the grenadier had stashed in his bergen, "I can't really tell yet, Murdock. The wound doesn't worry me too much, it's only shallow and I can patch that up easily; it's the head wound that could cause problems. I saw him get clocked really hard on one of the support struts as we crashed-" he caught Murdock's mortified expression at his choice of words, "Uh, landed. When we landed."

Between them, Face, Murdock, and Jim managed to dress the colonel's wound and fashion a litter so they could carry him with them. Before they set off however, Ray took Face to one side, out of earshot of the others.

"Lieutenant," Face stiffened as Ray dropped the nickname that he had staunchly been using since the day Eddie christened him, "the colonel would order you to leave him. We all know that effective E&E this far from base can only be successful if the injured are left behind."

Face locked him with a firm gaze, "We take him with us, Ray. He wouldn't leave any of us behind."

Ray looked at him for a long moment, his dirt-circled eyes assessing the officer with a deep, probing gaze. Peck was still young in officer terms, and Ray had wondered on occasion at his ability to make the big decisions, especially when they concerned life or death. A few years into the future, a British S.A.S. soldier would sum up their crazy little group with one paragraph:

'On any mission you've got a group of strong-minded and independent guys united only by a common aim of killing the enemy.

It's a fine balance: you've got to pull together, but ultimately it's what each individual brings to the party that will make the mission a success.'

Peck's contribution to the whole was clear, Ray knew that he was an excellent acquisitions officer, but he still had his doubts as to whether he was a capable leader, and Ray knew the shorter man had a temper. It was clear that he held the colonel in high regard and he respected the others and what they brought to the group, but this show of loyalty was what Ray had been looking for, for all these months. Any man this determined to keep the leader of the pack alive would make sure that he did his very best to protect them all.

Finally he smiled tightly and Face let out the breath he hadn't felt himself holding, "Good call, L.T.. No-one gets left behind."

And so, knowing that there was very little chance of them evading capture, the unit left the crash site as soon as they were able, the unconscious colonel suspended between four of them.

-A-

Eddie was impressed.

What had seemed a suicidal decision to take the injured and immobile Colonel Smith with them actually hadn't impacted too severely on the team's ability to sustain effective escape and evasion. Moving under cover of night and laying up in whatever shelter they could find during the day, the team had managed to stay out of Charlie's way for three days.

The problem now was that because the original mission had been a quick bomb-and-run assignment, the team was at half its usual strength and they hadn't brought enough rations along with them. The colonel was now conscious and moving under his own power but his recovery had taken all of his energy, and even sharing the others' rations hadn't helped that much. So Eddie was now laying on his belly in the undergrowth around a small village, his face smeared with handfuls of dirt as he peered through the scope borrowed from Face's sniper rifle, scouting for food.

A pair of boots appeared in the sight and Eddie froze the very breath in his throat; a patrolling soldier had unwittingly snuck up on him and was now standing less than twenty meters away at twelve o'clock.

Eddie cursed himself for not seeing the other man sooner. He knew that his alertness was not at its peak due to his lack of food but he hadn't realised just how slack he had become.

Fighting the fire in his chest, he forced himself not to breathe until the soldier had moved away. Once he was sure the patrol had moved to a safe distance, Eddie slowly moved up into a crouch and backed away, boxing the area to come back at it from another angle.

The mouthwatering aroma of freshly baked bread made his nose twitch and his stomach rumble in excitement. Dropping to his belly again, he lined up the sight on a nearby hut; there was a loaf of the hard bread they ate around here, cooling on the window ledge. Edging closer, he felt a smirk twitch the corner of his mouth despite the seriousness of his situation; he felt like one of those cartoon characters stealing fresh, hot pie from an open window.

Edging closer still, his vision tunnelling with prompts from his empty stomach, he almost didn't see a second patrolling guard until it was too late. Luckily, he was still covered enough to remain unseen to the Vietnamese man as he passed Eddie's position.

But not to his dog.

Shit.

Eddie froze, willing himself into invisibility, trying to work out which way the breeze was carrying his scent, hoping against hope that the dog, too, would be captivated by the aroma of fresh bread.

No such luck.

The dog looked straight at him and started barking.

Shit, shit, shit!

His position compromised, Eddie shot to his feet and raced back into the jungle on a heading forty five degrees to the position in which he had left the team.

If he was to be captured there was no way he was going to get his unit caught too.