An
Alternate Beginning
By CherylR
August 4, 2012
~~~~ His hand tightened on the collective as he tried to steady the shaking helicopter. More sparks flew as more systems failed. “Get on the radio and tell them our location and that we’ve been hit,” Blair yelled to his copilot. “Hold on guys, we’re going down.” He glanced down at the piece of shrapnel sticking out of his chest and knew this was going to be his last mission. Blair knew he was fighting a losing battle trying to keep the broken bird in the air but he had to give Jim and the rest of the team a fighting chance to make it out alive. Sorry, big guy. I know that you’re going to blame yourself for this. A loud popping noise was heard and then the main rotor stopped spinning. “Crap, going down now. Brace for impact.” Blair tried every trick in the book and a few that weren’t, in an attempt to keep the copter in the air. The call to the wind would have worked except for the tropical storm brewing off the coast. The low pressure system in the immediate area didn’t leave him enough power to work with. Just before they hit the ground, Blair turned to look at Jim one last time… he saw his image in Jim’s sunglasses… but, it wasn’t his own face that he saw in the reflection. Blair shot up in bed with a gasp of dismay. He tried to get his breathing under control before he freaked his roommate out. Too late, he thought as said roommate bounded into the room. The door bounced off Jim’s chest on the rebound from the wall. “I’m okay. I’m okay, Jim. It was a dream,” Blair sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Let me make some tea and I’ll tell you about it. We must have done something to give our investigation of Colonel Oliver away.” ~~~ Blair sat on the chair cocooned in a blanket Jim had pulled off the back of the couch. The warm tea provided a soothing aroma to the two tense soldiers. “He must have a larger set up than we originally thought,” Blair said. “I thought that we had been pretty careful in acquiring our information but, someone we trusted must have informed Oliver of what we were doing.” “Either that or he has bugs in place that I didn’t find,” Jim added. “So know we have to figure out how to protect ourselves and the team while still getting help to Incacha,” Blair declared. “We owe him big time for all the help he has been with the all the questions we’ve had with the Sentinel and Guide stuff.” “Not to mention all the help he has been to you over the years, Mr. Shaman,” Jim teased while tugging gently on one of Blair’s curls. “Right, so we need a plan to catch Oliver quickly so that we can go kick some drug runner butt.” Blair placed his tea mug on the coffee table and tried to unwind himself from the blanket. After a struggling for a bit, Blair turned to Jim, “give me a hand here big guy, you could get a second job swaddling babies or making burritos for a living. Neither one would ever come unwrapped. Come on, I gotta take a leak,” Blair squirmed around trying to find a loose end to grab. Jim laughed and helped de-blanket Blair before he had an accident. That would be breaking rule number 74. A definite no-no. ~~ “Food poisoning,” Blair said as he came back in to the room. “It’s rarely fatal,” Jim replied “and it wouldn’t take down his network.” Blair blinked in surprise, “No, Jim. Not him. Us. We always have a team dinner before a mission. If everyone gets sick, they’ll scrub the mission until we get better instead of trying to get another team up to speed. That should give us enough time to get things into place to take out Oliver and most of his group.” “Oh, okay,” agreed Jim, as he absently rubbed his stomach in anticipation of upcoming distress. “You better eat a good lunch today, I think salmonella is on the menu for dinner tonight and I don’t want you to get too big a dose. No telling what that would do to your more sensitive system, not to mention your senses.” Blair continued, “Might as well kill two chickens with one food poisoning. I’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with that new food processor for a while now. You know the one I’m talking about, Jim. He calls himself ‘J’ man, the one who’s been intimidating the local farmers and trying to run them out of business. This is a great way to shut him down for good. Bring in the feds.” Blair nodded his head in agreement with himself. “I want you to go with me to pick up the chicken. I’m sure that we’ll find some that has salmonella bacteria. He had horrible cleaning practices. We’ll get enough so that there is plenty left over for the investigators to find in the fridge when they are searching for cause. We only need enough bacteria to show up in the blood tests. So, what’s the best way to get the results we want without making ourselves too miserable in the process? “What about fresh pineapple?” “That could work. I remember that weekend when Sarris hogged all the pineapple. Poor guy couldn’t get out of the bathroom the rest of the night. He kept asking us to shoot him. Senna tea should get more consistent results without the tummy upset too much fresh fruit can cause. We’re going to owe the guys big time after this. Of course, I guess compared to dying for real… they’ll probably forgive us.”
“Especially since we’re going to tell them before we eat what’s going on,” Jim added. ~~ The sound of a flushing toilet was heard and then the bathroom door started to open. A pale face was briefly seen before the door was quickly shut again with a groan. Sergeant Kans glanced around the med center and then moved off to a quiet corner to place his call. “Sir, Ellison’s whole team is down sick. The docs are thinking food poisoning from the symptoms. They sent someone over to Ellison’s place to check it out. Do I need to send a team over first to do any damage control? No sir, I wasn’t implying that you did anything. I was… Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Their mission has been postponed. It may be scrubbed later depending on what’s going on in the world once they’re well. It’s not like they were going to be doing anything important… just a bunch of natives. Yes, sir. I’ll keep you informed.” Sgt Kans turned off his phone, glanced around the room one more time and then headed out the door to go back to his office. ~~ Two weeks later “I don’t think the guys are going to be willing to eat chicken with us again any time soon, Chief,” Jim sighed. “That’s okay, Jim. I don’t think I want to see chicken again for a while either,” Blair said with a groan. “I’m not sure that was one of my brightest ideas.”
“It kept us all alive. I think it was a great idea. And now we have enough information to go to the brass and get Oliver shut down for good. That is a big win for the good guys,” Jim let out a big burp. “Pass the tummy tea, Chief. We need to be back to one hundred percent before we head off to help Incacha.” “Here you go, Jim. I added it to my restock list. I’m planning on taking a full Sentinel kit with me when we go. Better safe than miserable, I always say.” The end ~~
Author
notes: This story started out in April
2010 with the helicopter dream scene. It
then sat in my unfinished folder until it jumped out and said that it wanted to
be finished, now. I try not to disagree
with my stories, too much… they get very angry and bad things happen. Hope you enjoyed it. CherylR