Captain Vance gave himself a few more taps before zipping himself up.  He knew the golden rule: two shakes or it’s just touching yourself, but he figured his audience deserved a little show.  Smiling contentedly, he turned away from the bright-pink tree he’d just gone number-one on and almost had his eye poked out by the barrel of an M4-Carbine assault rifle.  The smile waivered for an instant, but remained.

The rifle’s owner was a rather large, muscular, black man, wearing the same goggles given to airborne troops as standard issue.  He was in full uniform, and held his rifle with a sureness that told Vance he’d used it before, and not just on the firing range.  Looking around, Vance could see at least twenty fully-uniformed men had him surrounded, assault rifles all focused on him.  “Hands where we can see ‘em,” the black man, obviously the leader, whispered.

Vance obeyed, raising his hands with the palms exposed, but still the smile remained.

“What’s so funny?”  The man in front of him asked.

“S’just weird, you know?”  Vance replied.  “I was about to tell you the same thing.”

Suddenly, a hundred more men materialized from the woods around them, decked out in ghillie suits and covered in native foliage.  It was almost ludicrous, seeing so many battle-tested warriors with pink leaves tucked into their uniforms, but in the end it had been completely effective.  They blended it in perfectly with the Everfree forest.  The troopers surrounding Vance hadn’t suspected a thing until they were already caught in the trap.  And still the smile remained on the Captain’s face, only this time the other man joined him, grinning broadly.  “Nice to see you haven’t gone soft, Captain.”  He said, lowering his rifle and extending a gloved hand.

“Lieutenant Webb!”  Vance gushed, seizing the hand and shaking it vigorously, “I haven’t seen you since Fallujah!”

“It’s been far too long, sir.”

“That it has, son; that it has.”  Vance whistled, and immediately every man in the forest lowered their weapons and marched forward to greet their paratrooper friends.  Vance selected a specific man from the crowd and began ushering the group back to their main encampment.

“Lieutenant, I want you to meet Second Lieutenant Parker.  He’s my second in command for this operation, and though he doesn’t look it, he’s just about as tough a leader as they come.”

“Nice meetin’ ya,” Webb extended his hand.

“The pleasure’s all mine, sir.”  Parker replied, strapping his assault rifle to his back and shaking Webb’s hand with a grin.  “My brother was one of those Army guys you pulled out of that crossfire just outside Fallujah.  It’s an honor to meet you face-to-face.”  Parker replied, shaking the hand.

“Yeah, well, just doin’ my duty.”  Webb shrugged, trying very hard to keep from blushing.

“Don’t be so modest, Webb.  It’s unbecoming for a leader of your caliber.”  Vance said, smiling as he looked at the paratroopers accompanying his men to camp.  “Now, I see you managed to hook up with Zulu squadron, what about the others?”

“Well, we did manage to find Bravo squad,” Webb replied, and suddenly, twenty more men in paratrooper gear appeared from the wilderness, all surrounding the path they had been following, all with their rifles focused on Vance and Parker.

Vance just grinned even more widely.  “God DAMN, I missed workin’ with you, Webb!”

“I missed the hell out of you too, sir,” Webb replied as the newcomers fell in line with the rest of the group.

“Where’s Alpha squadron, though?  You find those guys?”

“No sir, I’m afraid they were absent from the rendezvous.  We assumed they couldn’t make it and had gone directly to camp.”

Vance grimaced, “I swear, if it wasn’t for all this wild…magic in the air…”

“Still not used to that shit, sir.”

“Neither am I son, but like I was saying, this never would have happened in any other op.  We wouldn’t have to assume anything: Alpha would have radioed somebody by now if all the damned magic didn’t interfere with long-range radio!”

“I’m sure they’re just fine, sir.”  Webb shrugged.  “They’re big boys.  They can care of themselves, and if not, we can always begin a search of…”

As if on cue, a voice cried out from the encampment: “WOUNDED!  WE’VE GOT WOUNDED INCOMING!”

Every man in the now company-strength human group immediately picked up the pace, reaching their base just as the first handful of new paratroopers began trickling out of the woods on the opposite side of camp, some of them limping, some of them being supported by their comrades, and some being hauled in on makeshift stretchers.

“Alert the medical tent, we got casualties!”  Vance screamed.  “Every man help Alpha squad get the wounded to the tent, and somebody find me Lieutenant Bannon!”

“Over here, sir,” a man gasped as he limped into the clearing, sweat dripping off the bushy mustache cradled on his lip beneath his paratrooper visors.  As two of Vance’s Marines rushed forward to pick up the stretcher tied to his back, the man with the mustache dropped to the ground, wheezing.

“Bannon!  What happened!?  The enemy!?”  Vance barked.

“No sir…some kinda storm,” he gasped, struggling for breath.  “Tore the chopper to pieces…a few minutes out of the rift.  We tried…to deploy early, but some of us…just weren’t fast enough.”  He motioned to the casualties now funneling into the medic’s tent.

“Is that everyone?  Did everyone make it to the ground?”  

“No sir.  The pilot, he…” Bannon choked.  “His seatbelt jammed.  I was the last one out, so I tried to help him, but…I dunno.  Something hit me,” he removed his visors, allowing Vance to see a swollen and blackened left eye.  “I was in a daze after that.  Next thing I knew, I was outside the chopper, parachute deployed and already drifting to ground.  I saw it go down, sir, I…sir, I…”

He sniffled, “Sir, I don’t think he made it out.”

“Alright son,” Vance sighed.  “You did your best, but right now you need to get to the medtent and get that shiner checked out.”

“Yes, sir,” Bannon whimpered, pulling himself to his feet.

“In the meantime, me and my men will be searching for that pilot.  Until we find a body, we are going to assume he made it out of that chopper in one piece, understand?”

“Perfectly,” the Lieutenant sighed, trying to maintain something that at least resembled a confident look in his eye, “And sir?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“What about the Major? Is he going to help?”

Vance’s nose wrinkled in derision.  There were quite a few things he wanted to say about the Major just then, but he knew it was bad practice to bad-mouth a superior around one’s subordinates.   “Swarm has not been seen in the past twelve hours or so.  I would assume he has more important matters to attend to elsewhere.  Until he returns, however, we are going to carry on as the soldiers we’re trained to be, and trust that wherever that pilot is, he’s in good hands.”

“Yes, sir.”  Bannon said, before turning and making his slow, limping towards the medical tent. Next Chapter: Chapter V: The Missing Pilot (Part 2) Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 50 Minutes