Posted by Captain Marceau Renault (Commanding Officer) in Memory: End of First Year Training Mission

(snip)

Kenneth leaned across the aisle, “You two go on to sleep. Take a power nap.” Billy looked over the seat in front of them. “Five hour flight, with a stop over in Denver because of air traffic, but we won’t be getting off, just sitting still. Then it’s a 45 minute ground ride to Mt Rushmore. So give or take a bit on that depending on where we are going.” Daniel stopped the stewardess and asked for coffee for all of them. “Seriously you two sleep. The rest of us should try to take it in shifts. We have no idea how long we will be up after we get there. We’ll wake you if we have to.”

Helena thought it was a great idea, and didn’t argue. She made sure everyone had stowed their pack correctly and then, fastening her seat belt she used her jacket like a blanket and got as comfortable as possible. She didn’t go to sleep though, until after they had taken off. She didn’t leave Marceau alone with that. About an hour into forced stillness though, Helena and Marceau were both out. Not a single person the squad said a word, but nudges and head nods went around. Helena’s head had tipped over onto Marceau’s shoulder and his head was on top of hers.

Marceau had a white knuckled grip during the entire take off, but he was so tired that once they levelled out and the ride was smooth, he was soon asleep against Helena. Not helping the nudging and nodding was that Marceau had fallen asleep with his hand still in Helena’s from takeoff.

An hour before landing Kenneth nudged them awake. “Commodore’s coming.” Helena blinked awake, unaware of how she was sleeping and bumped Marceau’s chin with her head. She muttered a quiet ‘ow’ and rubbed her head. She sat up straight and gratefully took a coffee from Kenneth and passed one to Marceau.

Marceau muttered a quick sound like aie when Helena’s head bumped his chin. He took the coffee and started drinking it, trying to look more awake before the commodore got there.

Helena muttered a soft, “Því miður (sorry).” She grabbed the coffee and almost chugged it. It was hot and she gasped quietly as the heat hit her. She blinked and tired to stretch a bit. Awake, she needed to be awake.

“Alright Cadets!” Boomed the commodore’s voice. “We’re landing in about an hour. Once there grab your packs and proceed to the vans. One van per squad. We’ll caravan out to our starting location. Inside the van are instructions and information. No don’t ask I’m not telling. Everything you need to know is in the packet. Once we reach the trail head, roughly 1600, you will have two hours of daylight to reach your first camp and get set up. Each squad will be following a different set of directions, information, clues, and challenges. This is NOT capture the flag. Leave the other teams alone. We are not interested in how well you harries everyone else. We are interested in how you work as a team. Understood?”

“Sir, yes Sir!” came the yell up and down the cabin. The commodore nodded and went toward the back of the plane to give the same speech again. Billy reached over, “Bagged lunches. Came around a couple hours ago. Figured we’d let you sleep. Should have enough time to eat before we land.” Helena opened the bag and started crunching on the apple while she unwrapped the sandwhich…it had cheese on it. She had almost taken a bite before she realized. She pulled it off and dropped it back in the bag.

Helena

Marceau was about to warn her about the cheese when he saw her peel it off. “Can I have the cheese?” He asked, pointing to his own sandwich. “Extra cheese is always good.” He ate quickly and was ready to go by the time the plane landed. Landing was always another nightmare for Marceau, the feeling of falling mixed with the bumpiness of the ride was terrifying for him and like the take off he kept a tight grip of whatever was closest to him.

~ Marceau

Helena grinned, “Help yourself. No need to waste it.” She passed it over to him. “You can have it any time.” Helena ate quickly but the lunch got her thinking; she never looked at what was in the ration packs. How much dairy would there be? Granted stranded on an alien planet, there was no telling what was safe to eat or not. And they may not have ration packs with them. It was okay, this was supposed to be the easiest training mission.

Marceau had a death grip on her hand and she looked over at him and then squeezed. “Hey Marcea, you ever go down a really tall slide when you were a kid? Close your eyes and imagine that’s where you are. It’s just a big slide.” Then there was a bump and the sound of rubber hitting tar, “And we’re at the bottom.” Once cleared they all grabbed their packs, making sure it was theirs, then filed out, found their van and took off. The packet included information about where they were going, and few but specific details of where their first camp should be. Helena pulled out the maps and spread them out, those next to her helping her hold the map. Kenson leaned forward over the map. “Okay so based on where that says we are all starting from....here.” He pointed at the map and then looked back and forth between the clues and conversed with Helena. “We should go…this way. It’s about a mile and half from start. We’ll double check our readings and headings once we get there.” Jones looked out the window, “Shelters first when we get there. It looks like it might storm, but either way that wind is going to cool things down a lot.”

When they got there, the instructors shooed them away. “Get going, there are no more instructions from us....today.”

Helena