Battle Scars

Chapter 43: Aerial Acrobatics

A/N: that is Preston --->
Aka TBNRfrags/Purrrrston
Bit of a weird picture of him but it's the best I could do haha

Chapter forty three: Aerial Acrobatics
Mitch was more than a little annoyed when he discovered my presence in the hovercraft, but he did not, as I had expected, attempt to ignore me or prevent me from doing anything.
"I had a suspicion you were going to try something like this," he said. "You're here now, so you might as well be helpful."
"So you don't hate me then?" I asked, trying to hide my smile. He chuckled.
"I could never hate you Abby," he replied. "I just wish you weren't such a magnet for danger."
"Mitch we can fight for each other," I said, looking up at him. "We're better off fighting side by side than we are fighting alone." Mitch sighed, and nodded.
"You're right, I should have known that by now."

We were almost to India, and Mitch was explaining what we planned on doing.
"The hovercraft is going to circle around a populated area where there's lots of people who will be able to spot us," he said. "The Soviet already know we're here, they just need exact details, and the people who see us on the ground are going to provide that. As soon as we think we've been there long enough we'll head to a different part of India, and do the same thing. Hopefully we can avoid getting blown up for long enough to escape. After six hours we can head home, and hopefully the Europe mission is successful in that time."
Everything went according to plan for the first few hours. We dodged around in the skies above India, and every so often we were shot at, but managed to escape most of the shots. Only one shot actually hit us, but it had done no damage, so we assumed it must have been a small bullet. After a while, we realised the people on the ground were discovering our presence much quicker than they had been previously. We weren't really concerned by it, until one time, shots were fired at us as soon as we arrived at a particular area.
"Ok, something's going wrong here," said Mitch. "How are they picking up our location so quickly?"
"Maybe they've got something on the ground that's monitoring the skies?" Suggested Jerome.
"You're probably right," nodded Preston. "But it might also have something to do with what they hit us with earlier. That might be a tracker, not designed to actually damage us."
"Can we find out exactly what it is?" Asked Mitch.
"I'll see if I can pick up any signals coming from it," replied Preston, disappearing into the control room. He returned about five minutes later, looking grim.
"It is a tracker," he stated. "Which means we need to dump this craft before returning home again, otherwise they'll know exactly where the base is."
"If it's a tracker, wouldn't that mean they probably don't plan on blowing us up, but rather just pretending to, when really they're following us to our base?" I asked.
"I'd say you're right there," said Jerome. "But it's weird that they'd miss a chance to blow Mitch up. Do you think this means they know about the Europe mission?"
"I'd say they definitely do by now, since our hovercrafts have been there for a while, but they're probably not in Europe at the moment," said Mitch. "How much time before we can head home?"
"Half an hour is left," replied Preston. "But we've gotta dump this craft somehow, remember?"
"I know," Mitch frowned. "But how are we going to do that? We could get one of the little crafts to come and pick us up, but where would they pick us up from?" There was a brief silence.
"There's nowhere we can land really, is there," said Jerome. "And I wouldn't like to try over water."
"We could try to get their hovercraft to hover directly beneath ours, and we can jump down through the bottom of ours and the roof of theirs," I suggested.
"That would be a tricky manoeuvre," said Preston. "But it might be our only option. Mitch do you want me to contact them now?"
"Yeah, you better get onto it quickly, or we'll run out of time," replied Mitch. Preston once again disappeared into the control room. The rest of us decided to wait it out in the main room.

About half an hour later, Preston had picked up the smaller hovercraft on the radar. It was about five minutes away, but we were in a dangerous position. The Soviets appeared to have realised that someone else was coming to bale us out, and we were having to dodge missiles from fairly high up in the sky. We couldn't see them coming, and there was no way the people on the ground would be able to see us. However, we could pick up the flying missiles on the radar, and it was clear that The Soviets on the ground knew where we were because their shots were getting more and more accurate.
"I can see the other craft now," said Jerome. "How long until another missile reaches us?"
"About two minutes," I replied, examining the radar.
"Tell them to come straight through then, we'll have to risk it," said Mitch.
"I'm on it," said Preston. "Is there any stuff on here we want to take with us?"
"I didn't bring anything with me," said Mitch. "Did you guys?"
"No, I didn't," said Jerome, and the rest of us shook our heads no.
"Wait, wouldn't it be a wise idea to rip out the security cameras and other stuff like that?" I asked. "If somehow The Soviet doesn't manage to blow this up, they might find it later and use the footage for information or something."
"That's true," said Jerome. He looked up at the camera on the roof. "Mitch do you wanna help me with these?" Mitch nodded, and the two of them went from room to room removing anything that could be of value to The Soviet.
"Guys we've got one minute," I warned. "Preston can you open the floor up? We need to get out, the hovercraft is just below us." Preston pulled the lever down, and the floor slid open.
"Where's the other two?" He yelled to me, over the sudden noise the passing wind made at the open door. I shrugged my shoulders.
"Don't know," I replied. "Mitch! Jerome!" There was no reply. We looked down to the hovercraft below us. The roof had slid open, and our allies were beckoning for us to jump.
"Preston, go, tell them what's going on, I'll go and find those two."
"No Abby, you jump, I can find them!" Exclaimed Preston. I sighed, and gave Preston a shove. He yelled, and went flying through the air, and landed safely in the hovercraft below. I turned from the hole, and ran through the rooms to find the other two. After yelling their names, I heard thumping on one of the closed doors. I ran to it, and unlocking it, I tugged it open. They were both there, with their arms full of security cameras.
"The door blew shut and locked when you opened the floor to jump out," explained Mitch. "Let's go." The three of us ran down the passage and back to the original room.
"We must have about fifteen seconds left," said Jerome. "I'll go." He threw his armful of security cameras below him, and then jumped himself. Then Mitch took my hand, and we jumped together. As we fell through the air, we saw the missile pass us in the opposite direction, and suddenly there was an almighty explosion in the air above us, as the hovercraft blew into a million bits. And suddenly we were in the second hovercraft. The roof snapped shut, and we were flying away to safety.