Heya all. I was around some time ago, but left since I got sick of everyone constantly talking about the grammar and spelling errors and little else here of what I was asking about in the first place. I've decided to give the forum a second chance as there are some nice people here, so here's part of a story I'm working on. This is early work in progress, so please ignore any grammatical errors, spelling errors and all that for now. I'll deal with that later on when the story is finished.
After advice from a close friend, I'm more interested in three specific things.
1. I want to start slowly and introduce the characters, but my friend said she would prefer starting with the crash as it draws the reader right into the story. What do you think?
2. Should Jessica and Sarah be sisters? Again, I think so as it makes it more interesting later on, but she say it makes things too complicated. Besides, the army wouldn't allow two siblings on the same squad anyway, but can this be countered by having one of them the pilot and thus not really part of the squad?
3. Is it interesting enough for you to want to read more?
Spirits of Nature
«So what do we know about the situation?» Jessica Crowley looked out the window in the helicopter and let out a deep sigh. This wasn't what she had signed up for, but someone had to do it. It might as well be her and her team.
«Not much,» Sergeant Mike Prescott said and addressed the whole team. He, Jessica, her younger sister Sarah, Johnny «Walker» Olson and Billy Anderson had been sent out to the middle of nowhere to investigate something, but right now even Mike did not know what it was all about. Their bosses simply said all would be revealed to them in due time.
«Can't you at least tell us where we are going?» Billy said. «We don't know anything.»
«All will be revealed to us in due time,» Mike said. «We are marines. We go where we are told to go and do what we are told to do. If you wanted more than that, you should have joined the air force or the fuckin' navy.»
«I'm sure the pilot knows where we are going,» Jessica said. «Can't she tell us anything?»
«I'm just the pilot,» Gina Winston said from the front seat.
«But surely you know where we are going?» Jessica countered. «You're the pilot, after all.»
«All I have is my coordinates,» Gina said. «I will take you to the red dot on the radar, then head back to base. That's all I know, all I need to know and all I
want to know.»
«So you don't know anything,» Sarah said with a sigh. «Why all this secrecy? How are we supposed to do our job if no one ever tells us anything?»
«Because we are marines,» Mike repeated. «We are soldiers. They gives us orders and we follow them. Thinking is not a requirement.»
«I'd say,» Johnny said with a smile.
«Come again?» Mike said a bit angry. «You said something, Walker?»
«Only that thinking clearly isn't a requirement,» Johnny said louder. «Why else would someone promote
you to sergeant?»
«And you are still just a private,» Mike said. «I'm in charge here, so shut up before I throw you out of this baby. No one will ever have to know what happened to you.»
«And now you're threatening me,» Johnny said with a grin. «So much for team building.»
«No one said anything about team building,» Mike started getting angry. «We are...»
«...marines,» Jessica quickly interrupted. «We all get it. Can you two just shut up? You're starting to give me a headache.»
«Women,» Billy sighed. «Next thing we know we have gay people in the army as well.»
«And what's wrong with that?» Sarah said. «Don't they kill people efficient enough? Or is it too embarrassing to be killed by a gay guy?»
«Well, you know what they say. It takes one to get one,” Jessica said with a laugh.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Billy asked and frowned. “You don't think...”
“... that you're gay?” Jessica laughed. “It would explain a lot of things, like why you are so obsessed with avoiding the subject.”
“The few times he isn't
starting the subject,” Sarah said with a grin. Billy opened his mouth to say something, but knew it would be pointless. The Crowley's always find a way to make fun of everyone, and even though he knew they didn't mean anything with it, it was still annoying at times. Especially when he was their target.
“Sure is a lot of forest here,” Johnny said thoughtfully. “I wonder where we are? Canada? Alaska?”
“Not enough snow,” Sarah said. “Mexico?”
“Now why would anyone want to go to Mexico?” Billy said with a grin. “Tequila, enchilada, crap music and fiesta. What else do they have?”
“What else do you want?” Johnny wondered. “Sounds like paradise to me.”
“We're heading north,” Gina interrupted from the front seat. “That leaves out Mexico, and we're too far off for Canada.”
“We're still in uncle Sam's country, right?” Mike said.
“Yes and no,” Gina said. The others looked at her. “We are still in the US, but there shouldn't be anything up here. To be honest, I don't know where we are.”
“Great, just great,” Billy said. “Even our pilot doesn't know where we are.”
“I don't need to know,” Gina said. “I follow the red dot on the map. That's all I need to know. It will takes us where we are supposed to go.”
“Which could be anywhere,” Sarah said. “You will tell us if we are heading out into the ocean, right? And how is the gas situation?”
“We have enough gas to reach our destination,” Gina confirmed with a look at the display. “I'd say we have enough for about thirty minutes, maybe an hour.”
“Sounds good to me,” Johnny said. “At least it won't be that much longer before we land.”
“One way or the other,” Gina said to herself. The needle was leaning far more towards thirty minutes than an hour, and yet the red dot she was following was leaning far more towards an hour than thirty minutes. All she could see around them was an endless forest, so it would be a close call. Even when they did reach their destination, it could easily be a matter of minutes between finding the landing zone and before she had to land the helicopter. If she reacted too slow, this entire mission would be over before it even started...
“Alright, here's the deal,” Gina said and hit a switch on the radio. Just static, as she expected. It was the same five minutes earlier and five minutes before that. “We're going down, and we're going down hard. Be prepared for a though landing.”
“What do you mean we're going down hard?” Mike asked and leaned forwards toward Gina.
“I'm saying you should sit down, put your seatbelt on and pray,” Gina said angrily and tried to hold the helicopter steady. “Look around you. What do you see?”
“Forest,” Mike said. “What about it?”
“And look at the needle?” Gina said and pointed at the fuel indicator. “
That is what I mean with we're going down hard. We're almost out of fuel, we are surrounded by forest and there isn't a fucking landing space in sight, so unless you want to kill yourself, I suggest you sit down, buckle up and shut up!”
“How the hell is that possible?” Mike asked, quite angry. “Didn't you check the fuel level before we left?”
“Of course I did, you idiot!” Gina said. “I double checked as I always do, and there should be plenty of gas left! It must be an engine failure we have overlooked!”
“Winston, if we live through this...” Mike started, but stopped. Maybe threatening the only person that could keep them alive the next few minutes wasn't such a good idea. He could rather survive the crash,
then perhaps kill her.
“If you want to survive, I suggest you sit down, hold on to anything you can find and shut the hell up!” Gina said angrily. “
Sir!”
“One of us won't live through his,” Mike said and went back to his seat.
“How much longer?” Jessica tried to remain calm, but felt her heart being to pump a bit harder than it was supposed to. At 28, she was old enough to have been to several missions where her life was at stake, but it didn't mean she was getting used to almost dying. Sarah was only 26, but somehow seemed more calm than her. Even Mike seemed a bit worried, a detail that really made Jessica nervous.
“We're down in five... four... three...” Gina counted downwards, but was interrupted by a large noise when the helicopter hit the first branches. The helicopter started shaking badly, and the entire team tried to hold on to whatever they could to avoid being thrown around like broken toys.
“Hang on!” Gina shouted and tried to aim as best she could at a small clearing in the forest, but with no luck. The helicopter crashed into a tree, and she could almost feel it bounce off and start to roll.
She drew a deep breath and tried to get some sort of control over the helicopter, but failed miserably. The helicopter crashed into another tree, and she could feel it start to roll sideways. The rotor hit the trees and cut off leaves and branches, and all she could see was chaos. Parts of trees, weapons, clothings, food supplies, medical supplies and God knew what else were flying everywhere, and she could only hope no one would get hurt before they landed.
“Hang on!” she cried out again when she noticed the ground in front of her. Not above her or below her. In
front of her. They were still only near the tree tops, but they were going down face first. If the ground didn't kill them, the rotors or the wreckage of the helicopter itself probably would. Or the loose stuff on board the helicopter might hit someone in a place you really shouldn't get hurt and kill someone. Even if they somehow made it down in one piece, all she could see around them was forest.
“This one's for you, Lizzie,” Gina said low and draw her breath again. Raising her voice, she tried to shout a warning to the others, but she felt a sharp pain as something hit her head hard and started loosing consciousness.
“Can't... just... yet...” she told herself and tried to focus as best she could on keeping the helicopter from turning upside down. Her vision started to fail, and she knew she wouldn't be able to stay focused much longer.
Something warm and wet dripped down her nose, and she knew she was bleeding. From the amount of blood, it was probably a deep cut. It was painful, but she ignored it as best she could. If she passed out now, everyone would die. If everyone died, she would never learn who had ruined the engine, or even why.
“Gotta focus,” she told herself angrily. The engine. She had checked the fuel herself twice before they left, so there was no way they had ran out so soon. The engine was also newly maintained, so how could it...
“Unless they did it on purpose...” Gina said low. The engine had been repaired just a few days before and should be in perfect condition.
Should. Unless someone had deliberately broken it instead of repairing it. It didn't have to be a big thing either, so it wouldn't have been noticed until they had been flying for quite a while... when it was too late to turn around.
But why? And who was the real target? The marines she were transporting, or herself?
“In five, four, three...” she counted low and braced herself. This was going to hurt.
Johnny tried to open his eyes, but after several failed attempts he came to the conclusion they were already open. Everything was dark, and he felt something heavy laying on top of him. His back ached, his left foot hurt badly and he had his worst hangover since college. Only that he hadn't been drinking at all the last few years, so it had to be something else. A concussion? It was possible, considering where he was.
He tried to recall the last few minutes, but came up with nothing. He and the others had been on their way to... wherever they were going when Gina had called out that they were going down. At first he thought they had arrived, but apparently it wasn't that simple. For some reason the helicopter was going to land, and there wasn't anything anyone could say about it. The rest was pretty much blacked out from his mind.
Someone moaned nearby, and he tried to push himself free of the wreckage on top of himself, but it was too heavy for him to lift in his current condition. The more he tried, the more his back ached.
“Anyone alive?” he said. “I could use some help over here?”
“Walker?” Mike said and almost sounded relieved. “Billy, over here!”
“Coming!” Billy said loud and grabbed the object laying on top of Johnny and tried to lift it. Johnny felt a sharp pain in the stomach area and let out a small cry in pain.
“Careful,” Mike said. “You've got a cut in your side, but it shouldn't be a big deal. It will hurt when we remove the wreckage, so be prepared for...”
Without warning, Mike and Billy grabbed the object and lifted if it off Johnny. He couldn't help himself crying out in pain, but fortunately it didn't last very long. He would still be sore for days, but not so much it would hinder him much.
“That's three,” Mike said. “Winston is unconscious, but will be fine after a few hours of sleep. As for the Crowley's...”
“What about them?” Johnny asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“Sarah will be fine, but Jessica...” Billy said in a low voice. “Jessica didn't make it, and Sarah is taking it hard.”
Johnny didn't know what to say. Jessica was dead? He knew life as a marine meant you could die on a daily basis, but this was supposed to be a simple flight! Now they were stuck in the middle of nowhere, most of them badly hurt and one dead.
“Any idea what happened?” He asked. “How could we have crashed?”
“We ran out of fuel,” Mike said, but for some reason Johnny didn't quite believe him.
“We are marines,” He said. “We don't run out of fuel. Besides, I know Gina. She's a damn good pilot and love this helicopter like it was her own baby. There's no way she would have forgotten to refuel it, even if she didn't know how long we were going.”
“Who say she didn't?” Billy said, and the two turned towards him. “All we know is she claim she followed the red dot on the radar, but put it there? Someone must have given her our destination, so for all we know she could have known where we were going all along.”
“But why crash?” Johnny asked. “If she knew how far we were going...”
“She might not have meant to crash,” Billy interrupted.
“She said something about an engine failure,” Mike said thoughtfully. “If she was right, someone could have caused our helicopter to crash, knowing fully well we probably wouldn't have survived.”
“But why? And who?” Johnny asked.
“We can worry about that later,” Mike said. “First things first. We need to salvage the wreckage and pick up what we can use, then head off towards the red dot Winston was talking about.”
“And which direction would that be, sir?” Billy asked. “I don't even know where we came from.”
“Gina knows,” Mike said. “As soon as she wakes up, she will tell us.”
“And if she doesn't?” Johnny asked.
“Then she will just have to find a way, won't she?” Mike said with a smile, but he wasn't joking.
