Out of the Fire

Part 13 - The Search for Joe

The search team finished breakfast together and while the colonists crowded around to see them off, Jill, after checking the engineer vehicles, gave Sergeant Baume the nod. To cheers of the crowd's encouragement, his LAV led the Hummers slowly out of the square. Carefully avoiding the more daring of the younger boys, the LAV and Hummers of the investigation and engineer teams, crawled slowly to the gap in the wire, over the creek and powered up the hill into the forest.

The track to Sierra One was by now fairly well defined, at least as far as the bridgework over the American River, they had adopted the local name for the river, and the team made good time. Kai's bridge, now finished simplified the crossing, as the river level, though dropping, was still over the causeway from the rain almost a week ago. Charlie was contemplating calling for a comfort stop when Sergeant Baume reported over the radio that they were passing the location where Major Kawalski had been wounded. Attracting Jill's attention, Charlie signalled that she wanted to take a look at the site. Jill spoke into her microphone and the lead LAV veered back into the tree line and halted in a defensive position, the other vehicles followed suit.

Jill advised Charlie and her team to remain in the vehicle until the area had been cleared by Sergeant Baume's team. When, after a torturously long time, the all clear was given, Charlie eased herself from the Hummer and with a desperate wave to her men, made a bee-line to the nearest clump of bushes. A much relieved Charlie emerged a few minutes later to find Jill and the others in her team, standing around one of the larger trees discussing a small scar in its bark. She joined the group just as Sergeant Baume informed them that this was where William Wainwright was killed and where Joe had been wounded. To Charlie, it appeared to be a peaceful place, a small undisturbed, shady clearing in the forest, it was incongruous that only a short while ago, it was a place of violence and death.

"Oh well," she thought to herself, "That always seems to be the way." Charlie took a quick look around the site and after getting a description of the fight from a couple of the participants, she checked with Jill and climbed back into the Hummer.

Sergeant Baume ordered "Mount up."

Resuming their mission and after another tricky crossing of the Border River, it was a straight run through to Sierra One. Before the final approach, the vehicles propped in a hull-down position on the last ridge overlooking the Sanctuary, while Private Aarth piloted the drone in a reconnaissance of Sierra One and the surrounding area. The rest of the team took the opportunity to grab a quick meal and to brew a hot drink. When Private Aarth declared the site to be clear, the vehicles backed down from the ridge, navigated around the hill and powered across the wide grassland to the compound gates.

At the Sanctuary and again Sergeant Baume was pressed into reliving the battle, pointing out the main features of the battlefield and defence positions. Although the Clans had purged the area of all sign of the Unworthy, the scars of the battle, the craters and burnt areas caused by claymores mines and grenades were still visible on the ground.

Jill and the Sergeant agreed that as there were still a couple of hours daylight left, they would press on and harbour closer to Fort Jones. Ensuring the preparations for night routine had been completed, the mission departed Sierra One, heading along the road to Fort Jones. Charlie, suppressing mixed feelings of guilt at spending so much of her adult life pursuing the Company responsible for building the Sanctuaries, had really been looking forward to finally seeing the first Sanctuary. It didn't disappoint and in spite of the guilt, she decided that all in all, her first excursion outside the confines of Sierra Two was so far almost fun.

With about an hour of daylight left, Sergeant Baume identified a potentially suitable area to harbour for the night, an elevated wooded area about a mile to the South of the road. As the mission, so far, had not encountered clansmen, Jill decided it was a good idea to prop before entering the populated areas. The convoy swung away from the road after by-passing the chosen site by about a mile, the Sergeant led the convoy in a loop back to enter the harbour site from the South. Anyone following their vehicle tracks from the road would pass across the front of the harbour, giving the team ample warning of their approach.