A New Mission: Ash to Fire

Moment

Lyle was sleeping on his bare stomach when he abruptly awoke in his hut. Like that suspicious waking jolt you get when you think you slept through your alarm. In this case, Lyle's assumed alarm was his commanding officer. He braced himself up on his elbows and then saw the yellow notepad that his Colonel slid into his hut.

"On personal recon. You both explore and debrief later. -Col"

Okay. So he didn't miss anything. Lyle cracked his neck, stretched, and gave a loud yawn. He then exited his hut holding his collared, camo shirt seeing that the mid-morning sun filled the village canyon. And in zero surprise to Lyle, Mansk was already sitting out on a log in front of their lit hearth. Mansk looked at Lyle and gave him an acknowledging upward nod.

Type-A bastard, Lyle thought. He also saw that Mansk again wasn't in his typical long-sleeved gear today, rocking the gray T-shirt once more, but he still had gloves. Lyle approached and hit Mansk on the shoulder with the back of his hand smiling and commenting, "Eyy sun's out gun's out, huh?"

Mansk rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses.

"What time you get up?" Lyle then asked, taking a seat on the log diagonal from Mansk and hanging his shirt over his shoulder.

He shrugged. "Like thirty minutes ago."

Lyle nodded and rubbed his head, noticing he had a light amount of fuzz on top. Not quite enough to shave, but in a day or two he would have to.

Lyle then remarked, "So the Colonel went off to do some personal recon. He said we should explore on our own and debrief later." Mansk just nodded and Lyle followed up with, "Guess we'll just... walk around the village? Learn what we can about these people?"

Lyle had slight uncertainty in his voice, realizing that he was technically the ranking member here.

"Sounds good," Mansk replied, neutral.

Lyle got up, put his shirt on, buttoned it up, and went to grab his utility belt in his hut. Mansk already had his resting on the log he was sitting on. Lyle then emerged from his hut with his gear, as well as an MRE in his right hand and two candy bars in his left. He put the candy bars in his collared shirt pocket. Mansk saw this and Lyle smiled and said, "For later."

He then opened up the MRE package, labeled "steak and eggs" though he knew it was anything but, and downed it.

Mansk looked at Lyle with slight disgust. "You're not even gonna warm it?"

Lyle just shrugged and said with his mouth full, "Food is fuel, dude... You eat?"

"Yes." Mansk gestured to the fire and an empty MRE package with his gloved hand.

Lyle said, "Hm," still chewing his mouthful. After a few moments, Lyle swallowed his last bite of breakfast and said, "Alright let's go."

Mansk stood and put out the fire by kicking dirt into it.

The two then set out into the village with no plan of what the day had in store for them. Their mission was to learn these people and figure out how a relationship with them could benefit the RDA. So what does that mean in the context of right now? They already knew a bunch of helpful basics. But for today, they couldn't even speak the language and their translator didn't greet them this morning. The last they saw of her she was chatting it up with the villagers at the dinner which celebrated their arrival last night. They seemed to be on their own today. No Colonel. No translator.

They approached the main thoroughfare of the village to see it was active and bustling. Na'vi villagers were out and about, working, chatting, laughing, eating. Kids were playing, and those animal-led carts were moving through the village carrying goods and materials. Now here were these two blue recoms, Marines, asked by their Colonel to lightly engage and observe. They assumed. Both just walked on and made note of open huts and tents where Na'vi craftspeople were fashioning clothing.