Prologue - Day 1

Welcome to Hylewood, it’s a wonderful little town set on an island, out of the way of the urban rush, and great for people to get away from it all...

...but not when you’re the first group of people to ever set foot in this place.

After putting in their twenty in the service of the people of the United States of America, this little group decided to uproot everything they knew and head for the hills...er...island. This cute little island off the coast.

Captain Harmon Rabb Jr., United States Navy, former aviator and judge advocate decided to pool his money with his old RAG buddy, Admiral Tosh “Animal” Nakamura who even at his advanced age; he’d completed thirty years in the Navy and was still single, was still a strapping individual and muscular.

Animal’s former XO, now with eagles herself, Captain Kimberly-Anne “Jugs” Benton had also retired after serving her twenty and pitched in her investment money.

Harm had gotten his best friend, Mac to join in with some of her money and after not having heard from one Meg Austin for quite some time, she had popped back up, asking after Tosh and his whereabouts. Harm’d let her in on their little venture with a bit of a discount on her cut – she was a friend after all...and a friend in need... Needless to say, Mac was not pleased. But then again, when was that Marine ever pleased about anything?

Well, evidently, they got smoked…good. Because all the talk about cabins from the owner vanished once he’d gotten a hold of the money. He’d signed over the deed by himself at the city hall and sent the papers over by courier...

...and promptly amscrayed to the Bahamas presumably, which meant that they were completely pee out of luck. They had a property...and no cabins. Needless to say, it was a big property and one that could potentially be developed, but unfortunately, as far as they were concerned, they were out in the cold (quite possibly wet and miserable too, if there was an itinerant hurricane).

And then to top it all off...the Navy carked up the disbursement of their retirement pay. So...now on top of being homeless...now they were broke at least until their disbursement of their initial retirement pay came in – goodness knows when that will be.

And then, guess who shows up but their resident favorite pain-in-the-posterior-end, Lieutenant Commander Phil “Metalman” Burrows.

After hearing that his favorite CO and unrequited love interest Kimber had retired, he’d tossed in his hat too, since he’d completed his twenty in 2010 and decided to head out to the last known locale that he’d known her to be and was told that she had gone to the “island”. After carefully putting two and two together, he’d come to the conclusion that her parents were talking about Hylewood so he hired a boat and asked the driver to take him out here.

“Looks like a bloody campground.” was Animal’s first assessment of the location once their tents were pitched and a place to excrete was dug out and a rock-shower was implemented so that they could at least keep clean for however long it would take in order to get some sort of finances straightened so that they could build something on this lot.

Things couldn’t be worse... Harm thought to himself, tempting fate to give them another one-two combination. Of course he was interrupted in his train of thought by a jingle.

Oh goody, a food truck that we can’t afford to eat from and it decided to park right across from us. This was going to be torture.

How exactly were the six going to eat with absolutely no money? At least there were some apple trees on the property, thanks to a magnanimous Watcher. And Lieutenant Colonel Sarah “Mac” Mackenzie decided to head over and harvest the apples to distribute amongst the six. When she was done, she came back over and started distributing the apples to the rest of the group. “Admiral, I’d suggest saving those apples until later on in the day to eat.”

“Good idea, Colonel.” Animal replied. “You heard the Colonel…” he raised his voice to the rest of the group. He’d interrupted Phil who was in the middle of taking a bite. The lunatic never bothered listening anyways. Now he was overstuffed and out of an apple. He was going to be ravenously hungry in the morning because he wasn’t getting another one.

Animal suggested that since they were surrounded by water, that perhaps now might be the time to learn to fish. Taking the admiral’s suggestion as an order, the other five decided to head down to the beach and start casting their lines into the water. The admiral had come down following them.

He idly picked an azalea flower and then went off by himself to toss a line in the water.

Harm’s eyes followed him. His friend, being of flag rank, kept to himself most of the time and even when retired, Animal tended to carry himself with a military bearing, meaning that fraternizing with non-flag-ranks were strictly metered – he simply refused to be a part of the regular group.

Meg, on the other hand, thought that it was sad that Animal seemed to think that the rules of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and its rules regarding fraternization still applied to him and to his interactions with his friends.

Kimber or Jugs as she was called by the aviator community, also agreed with her assessment. And even though Meg was suspicious of Kimber and her ties to the admiral, she was certain that Kimber worried about her former CO as well.

At this point the only female that seemed to be in a good sort of a mood was, surprise surprise...the Marine lawyer, which appears to be a complete oxymoron. Marine and lawyers were never in good moods. It’s hard to say if they even have a sense of humor let alone enjoy things outside of taking beaches and suing the heck out of someone. Well, this Marine Lawyer, Lieutenant Colonel Sarah “Mac” Mackenzie was enjoying her time fishing, even when the catch was a toad.

Meg didn’t trust her either.

Phil, as usual, was oblivious to anything that was in anyway shape or form subtle. He was too busy enjoying himself, as per usual, in direct opposition to social norms. At least he wasn’t whistling Don’t Worry Be Happy or Harm would have to dunk him head first in the water. “Hey have you noticed that every side of this island we can see land?”

“Yeah?” Mac was curious.

“So what does that tell you?”

“Oh…” they were not on the coast...actually. They were smack dab in the center of a massive lake. Y’know...something like Lake Pontchartrain. Maybe Phil was brighter than they thought.

Now for a little island smack dab in the middle of some unknown lake in the middle of Watcher-knows-where, it had some very nice scenery. From the little water-wheel-house at the top of what passed for the highest elevation on the island, one could see little waterfalls coming all the way down to lake level.

Well, fishing took the majority of the day. Phil on the other hand, decided to go snorkeling. Frankly it was a good choice for him because at the end of the day, he managed to grab several shells, luckily none of them was a cone shell since those things are lethal.

Mac was none too impressed since Phil kept invading her fishing area while snorkeling and scaring away all her fish, “Dang-it, Phil...for all you know there could be water snakes – lethal water snakes...get out of there, you’re scaring the fish!” Phil just ignored her. He hadn’t seen any swimming in the area and he was absolutely certain that Mac was just yanking his leg.

Animal managed to find several flowers throughout the day after getting tired of fishing and he managed to earn a pretty penny for them. Phil did manage to find a Cosmos and that gave them a Lord Vladimir’s Conjuring Cauldron which allowed them to conjure items. On the whole though, it was a rather productive day once they got their bearings set, I mean, it was a small island, right? Wasn’t much bearings to really set. The rest of them spent the day fishing and it was quite the plentiful catch.

Dinner on a budget meant vegetarian, for everybody, to Harm’s delight which did not amuse Mac or Meg in the slightest. Mac, because her idea of dinner was Beltway burgers or Meg, because she was from Texas and Texans subsisted on the five main food groups: whiskey, chili, BBQ, Tex Mex and Southern Comfort Fried Chicken.

After crunching on Autumn salad most of the group went into their respective tents to relax or read a book or something. Animal on the other hand decided that he was going to conjure things in the Lord Vladimir’s Conjuring Cauldron (author’s note: I tend to read that name of that store item in what would be an echoing voice deep from a chamber – sounds more epic that way).

While Animal managed to conjure a Tiberium in his very first conjure in Lord Vladimir’s Conjuring Cauldron he only managed to get a few lower end gemstones after that, no pink diamonds, no soulpeaces, nothin’ just opal and a geode. One of the drawbacks of Lord Vladimir’s Conjuring Cauldron…

(Meg (annoyed): Can you quit with that? There’s people trying to sleep here! The echoing is driving me nuts)

…oh sorry…I’ll try and be quieter…ahem…Animal overdid his conjuring attempts. After all one can only use the ~shhhhh~ (slightly tinnier and less loud) Lord Vladimir’s Conjuring Cauldron so many times before reaching a state of exhaustion. Animal passed out, the resulting thud on the ground awoke both Phil and Kimber.

Metalman couldn’t care less. Throughout his naval career, his main objective was to annoy his commanding officer. Yes, he was a competent stick and a consummate air warrior, but his schtick with routinely ticking off his commanding officers had, on many occasions, relegated him to bottomsies on the promotion list. His flying skill was what kept him from being separated from the Naval Service. He openly yawned and asked, “Hey, boss, you OK? Looks like you hit your head a bit hard there.”

Kimber on the other hand was right beside Animal in a flash, “Are you alright, sir?” The concern in her eyes clearly visible as Animal opened his eyes from his stupor to see his former XO just inches from his face asking questions that he barely registered until his braincells snapped into alignment at the position of attention.

“Ah, it’s just a bump on the ol’ noggin.” Animal tried to calm her down, “I’ve whacked my head harder against the canopy doing seven G bat-turns in my Tomcat.”

“Sir, you should get that looked at, A concussion is nothing to sneeze at.” Of course Kimber’s concern for her former commanding officer frankly was annoying Phil who appeared like his crush had just vanished into thin air. Not only she didn’t notice that he existed, Kimber couldn’t even be bothered with him. Not to mention the fact that she was eight years older than he was, a year older than Harm in fact and had definitively ruled out dating men younger than her. Nope, Kimber’s eyes were only on her former CO. Animal was the man she wanted. No one else would do.

Harm may be ruggedly handsome and all that and easy on the eyes, but the experiences that she went through in the air, flying with her CO, welded wing, as they both flew their Tomcats in formation, knowing to a tee what the other was going to do in a given combat situation against aerial opponents, so that she could protect him and Animal instinctively, even without saying, protected her.

They were a bonded pair in Kimber’s eyes. And it was only a matter of legal investiture that they needed in order to become a matched pairing in the eyes of the law. And the concern for him was just an offshoot of the love she felt for him. Now if he would only show an inkling of any sort of feeling towards her. (author's note: that's right, Animal needs his head examined, not just for the bump on the noggin, but just the fact that he can't tell that Kimber loves him)

Meg woke up to see Phil muttering under his breath.

The flaps of both Kimber’s and Animal’s tents were open and a sinking feeling came into the pit of her stomach.

“Where’s Captain Benton and Admiral Nakamura?”

“Well, Ma’am. Looks like the guy with stars went to the hospital after whacking his noggin on the ground….technically because he was seeing stars.” Metalman replied. “Captain Benton insisted he get his noggin’ looked at.”

“Is he alright?” Meg snapped out was concerned for Tosh and irritated at Metalman’s flippancy and at the fact that Kimber was sniffing around the man she wanted too. (Author (smugly) - if only she knew about the Clone Drone potion (evil smirk))

“I have absolutely no idea, Ma’am. I was woken up out of a sound sleep!” He turned to his own tent, “By your leave, ma’am.”

“Dismissed, Lieutenant Commander!” If anything there was still some form of social hierarchy which they’d all defaulted to even after retiring from the service. The admiral was still the admiral, even if he didn’t want to be called that. Just like Rear Admiral AJ Chegwidden was still referred to as Admiral by her, Mac and Harm. If Phil referred to AJ with the same flippancy, he wouldn’t have any skin left after the admiral got through with him. You never tick off a Navy SEAL.

Meg stalked off towards the hospital.

Metalman yawned and headed back inside his tent closing the flap. He was tired and just wanted sleep; and to forget about Kimber who seemed to want the Admiral. Technically, he could just uproot and leave the island. But he figured, somebody had to inject some liveliness into this bunch of stick in the mud command officers who were now retired.

Even if they were retired, five out of the six officers held themselves to a military ingrained honor code. Meg and Kimber wanted the same guy and well Harm was smitten by Mac, Watcher knows why, that cantankerous jarhead tended to be irritable at the best of times. She made teenage mood swings look like child’s play. But if that was what floated Rabb’s boat…

After an all clear from the hospital, Meg, Kimber and Animal came back. And the group all settled in for a nice sleep.