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THE MEETING CAME TO order quickly. To Dun, the group felt nervous, no banter or joking. Focused concentration. Tam took the chair. It felt like Dun had lost control of this already. In many ways he was glad. He lowered his nose into the steaming cup sitting before him on the table and let the plan that he was already very familiar with flow over him, as narrated by Tam. The only news to Dun was that Tam had insisted on each team having code names. This was all a bit bizarre sounding to Dun, but he figured the locals knew best. The raft team were called Fish, the team flying the glide-car, Bee, and the jailbreak team, Rat. The base team were called Nest. There were few additions to the plan. Team Rat had purloined more explosive from Stef and tied it into neat bundles with a ten click fuse. Dasha had claimed this was because the Rat party had the most dangerous job. Dun figured her to say that, whatever mission she was offered.
Team Rat needed to leave first as they had the most of the traveling to do to be in the passage closest to the cells when Team Fish arrived with the raft. Everyone else crowded into the packed communications room for Tam to test out the radio links.
“Nest to Rat, Nest to Rat, do you receive, over?” Tam said in a tone of voice that implied that he’d done this a thousand times before.
There was a pause, fifty clicks or so Dun thought, and then the reply came from a loudspeaker over Tam’s head.
“Rat to Nest, you’re coming through nice and crisp,” Dasha said. “We are on schedule here with no hold ups, over.”
“Nice to hear that, Dasha. Good luck. Nest, out.”
“Does a signal always take that long?” Dun said to Tam.
“No,” he said, “it’s instant, but sometimes folk take a while to find the right button to reply if they’ve not used the kit for a while.”
“Oh!” Dun said and giggled.
“Dasha’s lucky if she can find it at all while she’s busy ordering everyone about,” Nev said from the doorway. It raised a flurry of sniggers.
“What happens now?” Dun said.
“Bee and Fish teams get ready in the launch bay, and we go get a hot drink and something to eat while we wait for Team Rat to reach checkpoint one,” Tam said. “You coming?”
“Will they take long?” Dun asked.
“All being well, no. Quarter span or so? No point us all waiting around here though. We’ll leave one radio tech to listen while we stand down for a bit.”
So stand down they did. Dun grabbed a quick drink and then went to loiter in the launch bay, but soon realized with the craziness going on in there, that he would only be in the way. He retreated to the control room where at least he could hear what was going on. When he arrived the radio tech switched on the overhead speaker again. Dun imagined some kind of headset was used for the rest of the time.
“Team Bee, radio check, over.” Nev’s voice came through the speaker.
“Nest hearing you clearly, Bee, over,” the radio tech replied.
“And, Team Fish radio check, please, Nest,” It was Stef’s voice. Dun’s heart leaped.
“Nest to Fish, hearing you fine. Remember to call over please, over.”
“Sorree,” Stef said. “Over.”
“Smart-ass,” the radio-tech said under his breath.
Then there was static over the radio, and then silence. Dun shifted his weight from foot to foot, drained the rest of his drink, and was just about to take his cup back when the radio crackled into life again.
“Rat at check-point one, request confirmation, over.”
“Nest receiving, Rat. Stand-by, over” Then over his shoulder to Dun, he said, “Can you go and haul Tam out of the canteen? Quickly, please.”
“Sure,” Dun said, already on his way.
Tam was in the doorway of the canteen, so they nearly collided.
“Rat at point one,” Dun said.
“Thanks,” Tam said.
Back at the control room, the radio tech said, “Good, you’re here, Tam. Team Rat at checkpoint one requesting confirmation of mission.”
“Tell them they’re good to go,” Tam said.
“Nest to Rat, you are clear to proceed to check-point two, over.”
“Rat here, proceeding to two, thanks, over.”
Tam took control of the console and spoke, “This is Nest to Teams Bee and Fish, final checks, departure in two hundred clicks. Bay technicians, standby doors. Militia to your posts for doors open, please.”
Adrenaline started flooding through Dun’s system even though he wasn’t going anywhere himself. He wished he was. Going and doing seemed much easier than controlling and waiting.
“One hundred clicks...”
“Fifty clicks...”
“Fish to Nest, final checks are done we’re good to go... over.”
“Bee to Nest, final checks done, also good, over.”
Tam said, “Militia stand ready. Doors go.”
The familiar whooping alarm of the doors being raised echoed down the corridor from the bay along with a rattling noise of the doors grinding into action and the noise of engines warming up.
“Doors clear, Nest, over.”
“Thank you, doors. Bee and Fish you are clear to leave. Gods luck. Over.”
“Thank you, fellas, team Fish and Bee are airborne... and we are clear of the doors. Speak to you at checkpoint three. Over.”
“Doors close, please, over.”
More whooping and rattling, a final clang, and then silence.
“Doors and militia stand down, please, over.”
“Doors, over.”
“Militia, over.”
“And that’s us done for now,’ Tam said. ‘Back to standby and back to the canteen. Coming?”
“Sure,” Dun said.
They trundled back and collected a snack bowl of salted dried mushrooms and had water, flavored slightly, but Dun was too tired to tell with what.
“Is it always like that?” Dun asked.
“Like what?” Tam said.
“The missions, raids, whatever they are. Are they always that tense?”
“When you know people on the missions, it’s worse. The constant fear you might lose them, and there’s not a great deal we can do from up here if we do.”
“How do you cope?” Dun said.
“We take it in turns to be mission control, and we look after each other during and after. There’s always someone to talk to.”
“That’s gotta help.”
“Sometimes. Other times it just takes a while,” Tam said. “It’s half a span ‘til everyone reaches their next checkpoint. Why don’t you cram in some bunk time.”
“Good idea,” Dun said, although he doubted he’d sleep.
