Posted by Lieutenant Helena Laursen (Helm/Nagivation Officer) in Memory: End of First Year Training Mission

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

Posted by Lieutenant Helena Laursen (Helm/Nagivation Officer) in Memory: End of First Year Training Mission
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(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.

If there was dairy in the ration packs, Marceau would trade her the non dairy stuff from his pack just to be sure she got enough to eat. He took the cheese and added it to his sandwich.

Marceau had a death grip on her hand and she looked over at him and then squeezed. “Hey Marceau, 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

No, thought Marceau, he hadn’t gone down any very tall slides, but he could pretend. His eyes closed, but his grip remained tight on Helena’s hand. And then they were landed, and Marceau relaxed a little. He was terrible with directions, so he listened to Kenson and Helena while they read the map. When they had figured out which way to go, he said, “Let’s hurry. If the temperature drops too much or weather gets too bad hypothermia or other exposure illnesses are a threat.”

~ Marceau

Kenson and Helena took point with the map and compass. Gerard piped up, “Hey I know we are all together and don’t plan to separate but while we walk, let’s check the comms.” It didn’t take long while they walked. Akela was their slowest member. She was no slouch, just the slowest, so she fell in line behind Kenson and Helena. Jones was their strongest, and he stayed in the back. He didn’t want to out strip anyone, but also if someone fell behind or needed help, he was the most capable. The rest filed in in between. It was easy going and mostly flat. Kenson and Helena weren’t willing to risk getting lost though and they took several compass readings and checked the maps frequently. It took them roughly 100 minutes of hard marching to reach the designated location. The semester of basic security training helped them all.

Kenneth and Emilio moved around the space, judging it. “Alright drop your tent rolls here, we’ll get them set up.” Flenza and Helena went to help. They all had been camping before and it was easier to put a tent up with two people. Yvette went with Kenson to find water and test it. Jones grabbed several others to walk the perimeter and make sure there were no surprises, animal tracks, hazards etc. Gerard, “I’ll cook. Drop a ration pack over here and I’ll get started. Hey Jones, while your walking around, could you all collect some dry wood. A fire will help keep the chill away.”

The tents were set up all facing the the fire, the food was prepped and the water came back clean. Helena grabbed her pack and unrolled her sleeping bag and set the back on top of it at one of the tents. The tents were small - two/3 person. Which worked good for the wood terrain to fit among the trees. Flinza asked as he sat down with his food, “Any idea where we go from here?”

Helena

Marceau was helping with various tasks, as was Akela. Neither he nor Akela were outdoorsy or avid campers and their specialty of medicine wasn’t particularly helpful just then so they were doing anything they could help with. Marceau was gathering flammable wood when he saw something pinned to a tree, a piece of paper in a plastic envelope, no doubt to protect it from the elements. A nail tacked the plastic envelope to the tree. It took some doing for Marceau to get it out. When it was, he read it, and then returned to their camp. “There are instructions for the next leg of our mission here!”

The note read:
Cadets: Your destination is 44.775348,-104.427647. You have two days to arrive at the coordinates. Your rations should last two weeks. There will be opportunities to obtain extra ration packs at later points in the mission.

Marceau read the note aloud to the rest of the cadets. Then made a face. “Where are these coordinates? How far away?”

~ Marceau

Helena crawled into her tent and came back a few minutes later with the maps and navigation equipment. “Billy!” he was helping walk the perimeter and he jogged over. “Marceau can we get a couple of lanterns?”

Marceau grabbed the lanterns and handed them out when asked.

They unfolded the maps and Helena looked at the coordinates listed. It only took Helena a couple minutes to find the coordinates, but she had been doing this for several years. It took Billy a bit longer, but Helena didn’t want to just take over. It also never hurt to make sure you were right, to have someone double check your work. When they had confirmed they both had the same location they calculated the miles. “About 110 miles. That could be more considering the terrain. It’s 10 miles to the back side of Mt Rushmore and then 100 more to the next camp location. That’s 55 miles a day. That’s a hard march of forest and mountain terrain,” Billy chirped. Jones came back and put down a stack of firewood. “That’s just over 16 hours a day at a hard march. That leaves very little time to set up and break down the camp. Not to mention eating.”

Gerard shook his head, “Everyone search your packs for the protein bars. We’ll be eating on the go.” Emilio came over and glanced at the map and the distance. “If we pack 3 to a tent we’ll have less to put up and take down.” Yvette grabbed a topographical map, “Look here…there are creek beds. Probably not big enough to travel by, but the banks should be clear and more level.” Kenson shook his head, “That will work, except here,” he pointed at the map, “This is a huge drop off, we’ll have to find a way down or around.” Akela nodded, “I can do it.” Everyone smiled, no one doubted that she could nor had they thought to ask, but they all understood she felt the need to say so.

Gerard brought over rations for Helena and Billy, who had not eaten while they worked. Helena shooed Billy off to go eat while she packed up the maps. She didn’t look at the food right away, but Gerard, trying to be helpful and kind, had prepped everything, and there was butter and cheese spread over everything.

Helena

Marceau sat by Helena, not having eaten his own rations yet. When he saw hers, with butter and cheese on everything, he held his out to her to swap. He could eat the one with the butter and cheese and she could have his… sans butter and cheese. He wasn’t thrilled about sixteen hours of hard marching, but it was the mission and it was what it was. No sense complaining about it.

~ Marceau