Return of the Mockingjay

Chapter 14

The flight back seems to take forever and I drift in and out of a slumber as exhaustion starts to take me. Blaine is safely strapped in his seat sleeping soundly pumped full of morphling with his leg bandaged up.

As I look at the others they all seem to be the same as me, heads lolling about from side to side with tired, dreary looking eyes. Steph returned to her seat not long after we took off and she's now sleeping soundly.
It's a welcome relief when we finally touch down on the landing pad back at 13.
Alek winds down the engines, lowers the ramp and we make our way out into the bright winter sunshine to see our friends waiting for us. Plutarch, Ellie, Lyndon and Mom all stand waiting. I walk over to them and Plutarch congratulates me on a successful mission but I really want to see Peeta and Rue. Mom walks over and wraps her arms around me.
"Welcome home darling" she says into my ear. I sigh and close my eyes as I feel her embrace, that comforting feeling that only a mother can give her children. When I open my eyes I see the elevator open with a smiling Peeta, dressed in a casual grey suit with Megan stood behind him with Rue in her arms. I release my mom and run to him. He holds me so tight he nearly crushes the breath out of me.
"Welcome back beautiful" he says softly into my ear.
"I've missed you so much" I reply as I bury my head into his chest.

"It's only been one day Kat" he says chuckling.

"Hey, someone else wants to see her Mommy" I hear Megan say.

I release Peeta and Megan hands me my daughter. I take her in my arms and see her eyes grow wide as she recognises me.
"Hey sweetie" I say as I kiss her forehead. Megan goes off to see Joel and Gale as Ellie comes over.

"Hi Katniss" she says while smiling at the three of us.
"Hey Ellie. How are your parents?"

"They'll be fine, dad has a few ongoing issues but Mom should be out of medical any day now"
I nod and give her a light kiss on her cheek, I'm so pleased her parents are safe in 13 and although her father has some mental problems from his torture in the Capitol I'm told he'll make a full recovery. Lyndon comes over and gives me a heavy playful slap on the back.
"Okay, that's enough of that captain, we need you all down in command for debriefing"
I sigh and hand Rue back to Peeta, then follow Lyndon down to command.

The whole squad except Blaine is sat around the conference table in command. Plutarch, Peeta, Elise, Beetee, Lyndon and the three generals sit along one side of the table while the squad and I sit along the other side.

Plutarch clears his throat to begin. "Firstly, I'd like to congratulate you all on a successful mission. I know it didn't turn out as planned but well done all the same"

I hear Johanna mutter something under her breath and I struggle to keep a straight face over her disrespect for Plutarch. But If he heard her it didn't seem to bother him as he continues on anyway.

"Pollux, can we have your camera please"

Pollux leans across the table and hands his camera to Beetee who plugs it into one of the many computers situated on the wall at the far end of the table. Beetee taps a few keys on the keyboard and waits for the camera to load up its data.

"Okay Katniss, if you could tell us everything that happened with the mission up to the point when the train crashed"

I explain in detail all the events that led up to the detonation of the explosives early that morning, A lot of questions were asked about the mutt patrol we ran into the previous evening and Steph contributed to the conversation as to how we killed them. This whole process takes around an hour when we're interrupted by Beetee to tell us the film footage has finished uploading from Pollux's camera.

Beetee invites me up to the head of the table to comment on the images captured on film. For the most part there's not much to say as it's pretty uneventful although there we're some murmuring's of admiration when we watched the footage of Steph chasing down and killing the mutt. As I watch an idea forms in my head which will need the help of both Steph, Lyndon and Alek, but I'll sort that out later I think to myself. I can see Plutarch starting to fidget in his seat as we get to the important part of the mission, the mystery behind the precious gems and strange shaped metal plates we found laying about the forest floor. This brings on a long discussion as to what these plates could be and Beetee suspects that could be some sort of jigsaw puzzle as it looks like that these plates could join together to make something much larger. But Plutarch and Beetee are far more interested in the footage of Wolfe at the crash site. Even the General's were shocked at the images of Wolfe's transport device as only myself and Lyndon had ever seen it in operation before. Then a long debate begins as to who this new guy is who's walking around the crash site but while the conversation takes place Lyndon gets up from his seat and walks to the screen to get a clearer view of our new mysterious friend.
"It's Casper" he's says quietly, unheard by the others still lost in their debate.