The Turn Of The War Tide

A Stroke Of Luck

The ship had pulled away from Port as fast as it could and headed out for the open sea; the long days on-board were filled with just laying around and relaxing or sometimes helping the crew out. Wether it was cooking, cleaning or actually helping with bigger tasks like moving supplies around or helping with various other things they needed extra hands for. No-one seemed to be bothered by our presence unless we did something stupid like a teenager would; I can tell you some pranks were played. Whenever the ship would dock at a port to gather supplies we help out by giving them an extra pair of hands to help get the job done quicker but following their orders we stayed mostly hidden on the ship to help with the suspicion of six teens aboard an Australian Navy ship.

Three days later we arrived back at Shoalwater Bay and as the boat unloaded its supplies we headed back below deck to pack up our stuff and meet Marcus, Zephyr and the rest of the crew in the cafeteria. I placed my folded jumper into my bag and layed the Go-Pro case ontop in the right corner before filling the left space with the book I had brought along to read. A neck at the door sounded as I reached for the zip on my Cowboys NRL dufflebag. Flic looked up at the door and then her eyes turned to me with her head. I turned around and walked over to it only to open it. Standing in the doorway was Alexis with a box big enough for her to wrap her arms around it and a bow was done up with green and gold ribbon ontop.

"What's this?" I asked when she stretched her arms out to give it to me.

"A present. Not from me, The Prime Minister. He said that it would be better for yous not to be out there in the danger zone without these" she said  "Don't open it unless all of you are present. No Marcus. No Zeph. Just you's, Aram's Battilon" she whispered before saying she'd she us soon and said her momentarily goodbye.

"What could possibly be in a box that the PM could give us?" Felicity scoffed.

"The way she was saying made it sound out like she was making it out that there was a gun inside!" I ridiculed.

Felicity reared back from the box, her arms like a T-Rex's front arms.

"I ain't touching that thing!" she shrieked.

Keeping a close eye on the box we returned to finishing our packing. After a couple minutes of pure silence and packing two out of sync rhythmic knocks landed on the door. Flic opened the door and the rest of our friends pilled in. They stopped when they saw the box, giving it confused looks.

"Guess who's given us a gift" I said "The Prime Minister!".

The box wasn't heavy, infact it was a light as a pillow.

"Are the green and gold ribbons supposed to impl Australia? Cause you know, red, blue and white are also Russia's flag colours" Lachlan questioned.

"could guess so" Aquila shrugged.

Slowly I undid the bow and pulled back the cardboard flap ontop of the rest, securing it closed. With another one out of the way from the otherside I could see what was inside the box. I hesitated for a moment, my heat stopped beating before I slamed the cardboard peices back down and turned around to sit on Flics bed. The rest start asking curious and worried questions, Ivy got feed up within a few seconds later of asking questions and opened the box herself only to back away saying Nope every two seconds. Finally go up and dumped the contents of the box on the bed. Australian army uniforms, with our names on them. Specifically tailored to be different from the normal uniforms as they held adecorated specialised patch displaying Aram's Battilon and other specialised features.

"Noooooo. How. This are exactly the same to the normal uniforms except for the Aram's Battilon patches and more camouflage has been put into the material. It's even made for more tactical use than a normal soilder" Lachlan rasped, freaked and geeked out "These are one of a kind. Specifically for us" he said, his voice mixing with his breath.

After packing the surprise presents into our bags we made our way to the cafeteria to meet up wit the rest of our group from now on. Upon entering I could see the crew packing and filtering through their gear while Marcus and Zephyr were leaning over a map. It was two maps infact, layed out right next of each other; one of a zoomed in Queensland and another of Australia. Zeph and Marcus acknowledged us before speaking.

"After leave the Hobart me and Marcus were looking for the safest route possible out to those islands" Zephyr said, pointing to the Kippel Islands on the map.

"I know a couple ways to get to the marina to get to the islands, but it depends which one you want. If your heading for Great Keppel you'd have to watch out because it's. We'll was a tourist attraction until this bloody war came and I don't doubt the Russians wouldn't monitor it. But eventhough North Keppel or Konomie is a national park but it also has a lease for the environmental centre there that has schools do school camps over there" I explained.

"Well, if you put it that way I'd have to say North Keppel it is bjt I wouldn't leave Great Keppel out though either. We'll stay mainly at Konomie and then at some time more later we'll send some trams over to Great Keppel to monitor from that island. Other than that, that's it" Marcus concluded.

We made our way up to the deck after checking everything was packed and onto the landing craft boat again down that daunting ladder. Back on land we didn't wast anymore time dawdling around before booking it and heading straight to the Keppel Bay Marina, fastest way possible. We knew there was gona be some resistance on the way as every gun was manned waiting for atack, we just didn't know what awaited ahead instore. The ride for the moment was peaceful and gave me time to write down what had happened off camera, others slept, read or talked. I didn't mind Felicity or Ivy's occasional 'sneaky' glances at what I was writing.

A sudden shout made everyone alert, the threat we had been expecting was coming. There was an  eruption of fire and tires squealing to a stop. Shouts sometimes made it over the noise of  hailing gunfire but otherwise the exchange of fire from both sides drowned out any other noises. The constant gunfire turned into sporadic bursts until suddenly it was only a few shots here and there.

"It's safe! The bloody bustards ran off back to their camp" a soilder shouted.

We hopped out and took the pistols handed to us by Marcus and Zephyr for just incase, as we rounded the back of the truck I saw a convoy of three Russian trucks stopped on the road. The windows had been shattered and crimson blood stained some of them but it was in small splotches. As we approached noises from the back could be heard. It sounded suspiciously like whispering; two soilders on each side grabbed the cloth dropped over the back, hidding what was inside and reefed it up while others aimed and readied to shoot. Instantly civilians raised their arms up in surrender. We moved onto the second truck and repeated the same as the first only to find more civilians.

The third truck's cloth was pulled back and again a group of about a dozen civilians raised their hands asking not to be shot. One by one they dismounted from the truck happy to be rescued by the allies. Suddenly among the unknown faces was a glimer of a face I knew. Felicity knew. The farmilar person made their way to the front from last in the queue alsmot knocking people aside. The man jumped down off of the truck and smiled widdley, beaming.

Felicity was ghostly white, he was pale "RHOWAN!" Felicity heaved, almost breathless; at her cousin.