[IC] This Means War

[liah]

"Oh I can't wait! I can't wait to see all the pretty flowers and fruit trees and the sand." I grinned. I loved the heat! I would rather be hot than cold any day. As long as I had a bottle of water to keep me refreshed, I would be cool. "Its going to be so nice to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin."

[natcat]

I smiled. "Well then, let's hope the one, maybe two, hour flight goes quickly." I said nudging her lightly. "I'm sure the place'll be wonderful, but I'm not so sure of the mission. So, we're entering enemy territory as well as a tropical island. Mixed feelings."

[liah]

I bit my lip. "I forgot about the enemy territory thing. I hope they're troops aren't too close to where we're going to be. That would really suck." I thought of how they could easily attack us if we weren't being careful out there. "Definitely having mixed feelings about it now."

[natcat]

I raised my eyebrows and tightened my lips. "Yup, definitely." I said resting back in my seat and staring out the window. It had only been 10 minutes into the flight, and already I was getting uncomfortable. "The only thing about planes and helicopters, you get uncomfortable pretty quick." I said giving her a smile and settled down for the ride.

An hour and a half later the pilots voice came ringing through our headsets. "We're about 2 minutes out from the landing site. I'll touch down momentarily to let you off and then we have to get right out again. Stay safe soldiers." I sat up, looking out the window as others in the helicopter sorted themselves out. The blue sea was underneath us, and from where we were we could see the white sand on the beach and green trees signalling the forest edge.
"You ready for this?" I asked Daisy as I reached down for my backpack.

[liah]

"As ready as I'll ever be." I said with a small smile. I did the same, reaching down and grabbing my pack. "Are they dropping us over the water?" I asked, curiously. I sure hoped not. I didn't want to get my hair wet. Or my clothes. "Or are we touching down on the beach?" I sat up in my seat, adjusting my headset one last time before we were ordered to get out and start the mission.

[natcat]

"The beach." The soldier who helped us onto the helicopter jutted in as I opened my mouth to explain that I didn't know. "We're touching down on the beach." He said sending Daisy a smile. I shrugged. "Well, there we go. On the beach." I said looking out the window again.
"Another minute folks." The pilot sent through the headsets.

[liah]

"Oh, cool. Well thank you." I smiled back at him. When the minute was up, we were landing on the beach. I took off my seat belt and then my headset. One of the soldiers opened the helicopter doors and let us out.

"Now what you need to do is be quick. Run to the trees as fast as you can and stay hidden. Be stealthy, be careful, and watch out for one another. If you're going to be on the beach, it better be close to sunset so no one can see you that well. Got it?" He said and we nodded. "Good. Good luck, soldiers." He saluted us.

[natcat]

We all saluted right back at him and he nodded, sending us out one by one. In a line, we all bee lined for the forest edge. Once I reached the shade of the trees, I looked back at the helicopter as it pulled away from the beach and up into the sky. "Right, I say we find a spot we can lay low in while we figure out what we've been given in these backpacks of ours." I suggested to Daisy and the three others.

[liah]

I nodded. "Good idea. Hopefully they gave us a map so we know where exactly we need to go." I adjusted my back pack and looked out at the beach. It was so beautiful. The white sand and clear blue water. I wished we could enjoy it. But we weren't here for that. "Welp. Lead the way, guys." I looked at Sam and the others.

[natcat]

About five minutes later we reached a well hidden spot that was covered by large trees and bushes. We’d be able to stay here for a bit while we figured ourselves out. On our way to this spot, I had talked to the other soldiers with us and discovered who was who.
There was only one other guy with us, Luke Burns, who was tall and muscular at twenty two, with dark black hair that accentuated the brown tan he had.
Christy Pearson, who was small for her twenty one years of age, was a no nuisance kind of girl. Straight blonde hair kept tight in a ponytail, she stood strong next to Penelope Write.
Penelope, at nineteen, only had a couple of inches on Daisy but her long light brown plait made her seem taller in a way that apparently only hair could.
They’d all come from our base, and their stories sounded familiar to mine and Daisy’s. Drafted, dead siblings or parents, the list could go on. Each of them was just as keen to get out of that replacement base as we all were, all of us agreeing the oatmeal was the worst thing so far.

[liah]

When we reached a good spot, I sat down against a tree and sat my pack in my lap. Christy, Penelope, Sam, and Luke all did the same. "Let's see what we've got here." I unzipped my back pack and began to go through it. There was a canteen of water big enough to last me about two days. A first aid kit, complete with bandages, a tiny bottle of peroxide and alcohol that was just enough to clean any wounds, a needle and thread for stitches, gauze, and other typical items you find in a kit. There was a knife, two guns, a thermal jacket for possible cold weather, a thin blanket, a walkie talkie, canned foods and granola in a bag. So far, they'd packed a good bag for us.

[natcat]

I pulled out the water and took a sip. "This is great. A lot better than I was expecting considering what we received at the actual base." I said as I screwed the lid back onto my bottle and shoved it back into the bag.
"Yeah. They're gonna be heavy to carry though, especially for a long period of time." Luke spoke up as he zipped his own bag up, having stashed the weapons on his body already.

[liah]

I stashed the knife and one of the guns on my body, just as Luke did in case of an emergency. "It won't be too bad." I sad, knowing exactly how heavy this thing would get after carrying it for a long time.
"Yeah, don't be such a baby, Luke." Christy nudged him and laughed. He shooed her away, rolling his eyes and getting to his feet. I stood up as well as the others and glanced around the area. Everything was so pretty and colorful.
"So he said they're in a cave." I cleared my throat. "I wish we could get a birds eye view on this place to see if there might be one nearby." I adjusted my backpack so it fit comfortably on my back. "Where should we start looking?"

[natcat]

"Well the deeper into the forest we go, we'll have more of a chance of finding some caves. We didn't get a map did we?" I asked the others as I opened up my bag again, quickly grabbing a gun and knife, copying the others as I hid them on my body. Seemed like a good idea. Zipping it up, I threw the bag over my shoulders and looked around where we stood now, searching for anyone possibly hiding and listening to us.

[liah]

"Nope. The one thing we really needed." I huffed. "Or, one of us could climb a tree? See how big this place is and scope things out from a better view?" I suggested. Penelope volunteered in a heartbeat, dropping her bag on the ground and climbing the nearest tree. We stood back as we watched her climb.
"I don't see too much!" She yelled down. "Just tree's, and tree's... Ooop! There's some smoke. More tree's..." She trailed off before sliding back down. "The smoke is far out. There's no way to tell if it's from our peeps or not." She picked up her pack and slung it over here shoulder.

[natcat]

“Well maybe we should head towards it, and then one of us can sneak closer and have a look, see if it’s us or them.” Luke suggested.
I shrugged, seemed like a good enough idea to me. “Do you know the direction of the smoke from here Penelope?” I asked her as she flicked her long braid off of her shoulder.

[liah]

"Yep. If we go straight for about thirty minutes then a left, we should be right where the smoke is coming from." She said with a nod and smile. "I'm guessing we can figure out who'll be the one to check on things once we're close." She adjusted her backpack one more time before heading in the direction she said the smoke was.

[natcat]

"Great, let's do that then." I said and started following after her, along with Christy, Luke and Daisy. "Hey, who's got the time on them?" I asked the group after about five minutes. If we wanted to be smart about this mission we should be keeping track of how much time we had until dark.

[liah]

"It's 9:00. Still bright and early in the morning." Luke had a big black watch on his wrist that he looked at.
"Oh good. It shouldn't take us long to get there." I said as I kicked a pebble as we walked. "I hope it doesn't get hotter as the day goes on." I said, knowing it would do exactly that. Good thing we had a ton of water.

[natcat]

I nodded. "If we don't find them before nightfall, we have to find somewhere safe to set up camp. We can think more on that later though, it's just good to have the plan." I said as we went through a thick part of forest, leaving hardly any room on the path Penelope was creating as she walked ahead. We were forced into single file, following each other as we brushed various branches and bushes out of our faces.