Missing in Action

Chapter Four

Missing in Action

Chapter Four

Cassidy's P.O.V

Two Months Later

We had had two months of successful work, and we only had one month left. I was looking forward to going home and Jay's wedding. She'd asked me if I'd be one of the bridesmaids, but I hadn't accepted it on the grounds that I might not be there.

I was sprawled across the bed in my small room with a flight manual in my hands. We'd had a shipment of new planes for the squadron I was part of that day and they were a bit more technologically updated. Though we had been on training camps using the new planes in the run up to this tour, we had been handed manuals and told to learn the plane inside out by tomorrow morning, but the manual itself was over one thousand pages and came with a disc for a walk through of the controls.

A knock at the metal door echoed through the room.

"It's open!" I called loud enough so the person on the other side could hear me through the thick slab of metal.

The door opened and Lieutenant James Oak put his face around it. James was one of my closest friends in the navy and he was the commanding officer of the squadron I flew with but he had issues with being addressed as "sir" when we weren't flying. He had dark blonde hair and green eyes. James was around six foot one.

"Study break!" he exclaimed as I sat up.

I pushed the chair out with my foot from under the desk I had for him to sit down on.

"I haven't even got to the video part of this yet," I said throwing the manual at the desk where it landed perfectly with a thump on a stack of books.

"Henry hasn't even started yet," he sighed as he sat down. Henry was also part of our squadron.

"But why give us new planes in the middle of a tour?" I asked.

"They carry more bombs that have a larger impact," he said. "It explains it in the tactics section".

"Well I'm on the fuel efficiency section," I replied and he smiled.

"I skipped that bit," he admitted.

We all knew that I was the reader out of our squadron of five. I had all the better qualifications, but James had better leadership skills than I did.

"I thought you might," I said smiling. "So, what do you think we need planes with extra bomb power for?"

"I don't know. It might have something to do with where we're going," James said shaking his head slightly.

"I hate not knowing where we're going," I sighed.

"It's part of the job," James pointed out, but he slumped down in to his chair.

We sat there collecting our thoughts. It seemed that nobody knew where we were going. It had started with the ship making quite an abrupt turn to Starboard. The most that the officers knew was that we had received new order from High Command. A rumour circulating even suggested that the orders had come from an authority above the admiral.

"James, do you ever get the feeling that they're trying to replace us with technology?" I asked.

Anything to avoid talking about what we could be heading into.

"I just had this conversation with Captain Johnson," he said, referencing our commanding officer on the ship. He was a rather social individual and liked to know all of his pilots personally.

"But do you?" I asked looking directly at him.

He seemed uncomfortable with the question. He looked me in the eyes just to see if I was serious.