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Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 5
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Feedback on Chapter One
Please give me some feed back on this chapter. It has been designed to give a little look at the normal life of my main charactor, Moya. I'm currently working on chapter 16, but need to know if this needs more depth or not.
Thanks for your comments.
HOME BASE
CHAPTER 1
Date: Wednesday October 27th.
It had been another scorching hot day in Corando, a small island town in San Diego Bay, California.
A few miles down the road from the Naval Amphibious Base, which was built on land reclaimed from the San Diego Bay in the early 1940's. U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command was commissioned, and run from the Naval base, and is the place where The Navy SEALs have their head quarters.
On the beach a few meters from the Avenida Del Mundo (Avenue of the World) overlooking the bay, is a little rustic looking-bar its roof clad with bamboo, and its outside walls made from drift wood and corrugated iron. Inside the floor is just the sandy beach, apart from the area near the bar. The bar itself is built of vertically standing split logs, and the bar top a long unmachined teak plank with a strange charred hole in the middle of it. It has been frequented by the Navy Seal's from the base for many many years, and is their second home when not on a mission.
Lieutenant Commander James Moya sits wearing jeans and a T-shirt, waiting for his girlfriend and his friend Senior Chief Petty Officer Pete Townsend to arrive. It's hot and noisy inside the bar, the chatter of people socialising and having a laugh after a long day working on the base. There's a cool breeze blowing in from the bay, it finds it's way through the open windows and doors, carrying with it the clear smell of the sea, and the smell of hot sand. The curtains flutter in the breeze, causing the light to dance backwards and forwards across the reflective surfaces of the bottles, and glasses above the bar.
As he finishes his bottle of beer, the bar erupts into a frenzy of shouting and screaming. Everyone is glued to the large wide-screen TV above where Moya is sitting at the bar. The closing stages of the 102nd baseball World Series between the Detroit Tigers and the underdogs, the St Louis Cardinals. St Louis Cardinals had just won four against the Tigers two after Adam Wainwright got the save, striking out Brandon Inge for the final out. The first championship win for the Cardinals since 1982.
Moya shouts over the raised voices to Angie behind the bar.
'Well that's that then, may as well turn it of and put some music on, it'll quiet this rowdy lot down a bit.'
Angie picks the remote up and flicks the TV off. Then quietly at first the sultry sound of Otis Redding's Song, sitting in the morning sun comes drifting through the air from the jukebox. Things quiet down, just chatter now, people engaged in conversations. Moya watches Angie behind the bar, in her element serving people their drinks. She glances over and sees him watching, so gives him a wink and a smile, he returns the smile. He plays with his empty bottle loosing himself in thought for a moment. His eyes are drawn for a second towards the charred hole in the bar top, his face lights up and he chuckles to himself, as he remembers how it got there.
In one way or another he's connected to this bar, with the people in it, with those that were here, but have now gone. But not in Moya's mind, their still with him, as clear as day, he sees them in action doing their work, and then dying in a pool of blood in front of him. He cringes back for a moment as his mind is aloud to remember, the doors have been opened, he's been caught out again by his deeply buried memories. But then he catches it, and the door is closed shut with a BANG, as he's brought back inside the bar by the words of a young recruit talking to a friend, as their waiting to be served a drink. Annoyed at himself at first, for allowing his mind to hurt him, but then he listens.
'Shit, I didn't expect that! how in the hell could they have won.'
His friend smiles, as Angie brings them two beers. he picks his drink up and as he moves away from the bar to join his other friends, he says,
'the better team won on the day.'
Moya looks at the recruit, who was shaking his head, still surprised by the outcome of the game. Observing that he is young and would benefit from his wisdom, decides to enlighten him with a small piece of advice, that he'd learnt from his many years in action. He turns around on his stool, to face the recruit.
'Your new here, haven't seen you on base before, what's your name Seaman?
Moya asks.
'My names Carlos Anria, and you are?' Asks the Recruit, in a slightly bolchy manner, not realising Moya's rank.
'My names Jim Moya, but you can call me Lieutenant Commander Moya.'
The Recruit stands up strait from his leaning position at the bar, his face slightly red, and in a flustered manner he salutes Moya and apologises for not realising he was a Commander.
'Jesus, please excuse me, Sir I didn't Rea----.'
Moya stops him.
'Take it easy, take it easy, next time you see me you'll know. I just wanted to give you some good advice. Advice that may save your life one day. Trust me, it's a big mistake to underestimate the underdog, one of which you will learn to correct, once you've seen some action. You will find that the underdogs are often the ones with the fiercest teeth. If you push them into a corner their bound to come out fighting.'
'That's exactly what happened there,' says Moya pointing up at the TV screen.
The young recruit gulps down his beer looking at Moya, Listening to his advice. There's a shout from over by the pool table where a group of recruits are getting drunk and trying to play pool.
'Hey Carlos, you're up.'
'Excuse me Sir,' He turns to his friend and flicks him a look, a shut- the- fuck- up- look. His friend gets the message and carries on playing.
'Thanks for the advice Sir, I'll keep it in mind next time I'll check the teeth first.'
Moya smiles and the recruit apologises again before he leaves to join his friends who were getting eager for him to take his turn at the pool table. Moya turns back to the bar and orders another beer which is swiftly delivered to him by Angie.
The bar had been built by a friend of Moya's, Shawn Taylor, he was also in the SEALs. He'd brought some land and built the Bar for him and his wife's retirement. Unfortunately he never got to reap the rewards of his labour. He was killed in 1992 in Somalia, in an action that Moya and his team were also involved in.
Angie a pretty blond haired women, is the bars owner and was the wife of Shawn. When he was killed Angie decided to keep the bar going, she knew nothing else, being the wife of a military man, she was used to that life, and being around the friends of her husband had helped her get through her grief. Not long after Shawn's death, Angie asked Moya if he wanted to be her business partner, Moya thought what the heck why not, so he put some money in, now he owned half of the bar.
'Don't worry Jim, he'll soon learn' she said as she past over the bottle. 'They're all like that to start with, think they know it all.'
'Yea, I know Angie, Well they either learn or die, but that's their choice,' he replies.
Just then he feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around to see the tall figure of Pete Townsend standing there. Holding his hand out, he says.
'Looks like you owe me 50 bucks Jim, I told ya the Cardinals were going to win.'
Moya laughs as he puts his hand in his back pocket and pulls out 50 bucks, neatly folded together, almost as if he half new that his team were going to loose. Angie looks at Moya and laughs saying "you should have taken your own advice and backed the underdogs." She passes Pete a beer, and he sits down at the bar. Jim puts the money down in front of him. Pete picks it up and casually roles it through his fingers, before he passes it over to Angie.
'Take that of my bar bill Angie. Christ it's a hot one tonight.' He says as he wipes off the condensation from his bottle of beer.
'Don't worry Pete; you can cool down next week our orders have come through.'
Moya was the head honcho of a six man SEALS team, they had been assigned the task of testing out two new vehicles, which were being developed for the Navy by General Dynamics for Arctic reconosince purposes.
'Where they sending us?' asked Townsend.
'We're of to Antarctica, with the team from General Dynamics, to test out those new snow transport vehicles. We'll be working out of McMurdo Station.' Said Moya.
The team had been put on the back burner for the last four months with no new missions pending. Their time at the base was mainly taken up with the training of the new recruits, and testing of new equipment. Until their commanding officer Captain walker put Moya's team forward for the trip to Antarctica.
'Sounds like fun; it's time we got back into something,' says Townsend raising one eye brow.
There's a silence for a moment, Moya looks tense, and Townsend can see there's something on his mind. Things hadn't been going to good for Moya and his long term girlfriend Claire for a while now. She was sick of him having to go off all over the world on different missions. It made her worry about him getting killed, and she was lonely when he was away. Moya had moved out of their house in town and onto the base. She wanted time to sort her head out.
'How are things with you and Claire?' Townsend asks.
'Not to good, I think she's had enough of this kind of lifestyle. But what can I do, I don't know anything else.'
'Shit, she's gonna have a Cow when you tell her we're off to An------.'
'Off to where?'
Came a voice from behind. They both look around to see Claire, Moya's girlfriend standing there, a tall dark haired foxy looking women with sultry Latin looks, and pert figure to go with them. She was never short of admiring glances from the rest of the men in the bar. She stood there for a moment, silent, starring at Moya with her big brown eyes smouldering. She looked stunning in her loose fitting open necked top which stayed open all the way down to her cleavage. Moya always liked her fiery temperament and the way she looked when she was angry. But he didn't like much what usually came after the smouldering silence.
'Hi Claire,' said Townsend giving her a smile. 'I've just gotta go to the bathroom. You can take my seat.'
He didn't really need the bathroom; he just wanted to get the hell outa there before the sparks started flying. As he got up from his stool to let Claire sit, he gave Moya the look, the look that all men give one another in situations such as this, when their about to get roasted by their wives or girlfriends. The old raised eyebrow good luck pal look. Claire looks at Moya casually, as she asks.
'So what is it this time, Afghanistan, or the Gulf?'
Claire pulls up the stool and sits down, crossing her long legs as she makes herself comfortable.
Moya orders her a drink before he answers her question, thinking, maybe it would calm her down a little.
'Angie could I get a drink for Claire, her usual rum and coke with a splash of lime.'
Angie promptly pours it, and brings it over, putting it down in front of them, then quickly moving away, giving Moya the same good luck pal type look that Townsend had given. Now feeling pretty much like the condemned man. Moya picks it up and hands it to Claire, as he says.
'No it's Antarctica, and just before you start shouting, remember I've been here on base for four months.'
Claire sipped her drink and lit a cigarette. She inhaled, and pursed her red lips as she exhaled; a waft of smoke hit Moya in the face, he coughed. He thought he was in for both barrels but it never came, instead she nervously looked at him, then hit him with some bad news. News that he was half expecting but had tried to ignore. He loved Claire very much, and deep down she loved him too, but like so many relationships spawned out of a military life style they often burn out in time. She put her hand up to Moya's face and looked into his eyes before she said.
'Listen Jim, I've decided to move to Burbank for a while, to stay with my parents. I think it would do us both good not to see one another for a while.'
Moya new it was coming but it still hit him hard. "I think it would be good not to see one another for a while," was really code for, it's all over pal. Claire stood up and kissed him, and told him to be careful, and then she left.
All that happened over a week ago. Now Moya was sitting in a chair with his head vibrating on the window of a plane, looking out at the clouds, and thinking back to that day in the bar. The propellers of the massive C-130 Hercules transport plane spinning around on the wing in front of him. The six man team is on the first leg of their journey, bound for Antarctica. The team is happy and looking forward to their new adventure. All happy apart from Moya that is, his world outside of the forces had just collapsed leaving him feeling shell shocked. A situation that he would quickly have to get on top of, for the training mission on which they were about to undertake will turn everything that the military has been fighting against for the last 60 years, upside down.
Last edited by spud : 10-13-2007 at 10:37 AM.
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