=================
0930 Hours

Unknown river bank

The shade cast down by the dense leafy canopy above us was a godsend. The sun has had Alot more bite than the days previous, the air seems fresher too.

The tan/ olive green tiger-striped Puma sits lazily under the shade. Having not been moved since last parked an hour and a half ago. The thin Very deep river had been the crews original objective, as they needed to clean their vehicle, so that its camouflage could be effective.

Contrary to popular belief, Camouflage is not meant to completely render a vehicle invisible. No, its purpose is to break up the vehicles shape against its background.
An example would be... Ahah! This Panther tank!

There! See how its Camouflage doesn't make the tank 'Invisible' but it breaks up its shape enough to make it harder to identify at longer range, unlike this Panther.

I Chose our Puma's camouflage pattern very carefully! I chose a two tone tan patch pattern as the base, due to tan's ability to blend in with most landscapes near flawlessly. Then covered that with a drab olive green tiger-stripe pattern to breakup the vehicles signature further. And when we threw fresh foliage atop that to breakup the vehicles 'Shape' further, so we blend into the background. Don't get me wrong. If your Looking for our puma properly, you'll find us. But if you don't know we're there, or our approximate location... Your efforts are mostly for naught.

Speaking of which. We were careful where we parked our little beauty. There was a convenient patch of bushes, Shaped like a horse shoe that we reversed into. We also went the extra proverbial 'Mile' and smothered the top of the Puma in foliage to conceal it from the air. Command hadn't radioed us back yet, so we became concerned that our transmissions were being jammed. Thus our little crusade to find fresh water and a place to hunker down until further notice.

Further more, this place was paradise! Not a stray sound to be heard besides the birds chirping, the rivers merry gurgling, and the hum of the occasional dragonfly.

The greens from the grass and vast leafy canopy above us counteracted the harsh tans of the fallen dry foliage that littered the ground. The coolness of the shade was occasionally exchanged for short periods, when the warm breeze would blow through. The temperature outside was about... twenty seven degrees C.
Not too hot overly, just, comfortable if not slightly warm. That golden temperature that prompts laziness.

Once we had cleaned the outside of the vehicle, Andrew and I opted to clean the inside as well. For good measure i took some pine needles from a nearby tree, crushed them up, and placed a whole ration container full of them on the floor of the turret basket. Four blokes in a constantly sealed can that averages 43 degrees Celsius, thats 104 Fahrenheit for you fine people who still use it, isn't the greatest pleasure on one's nose.

With the Puma cleaned to the point you could eat your dinner off of it, we quickly ran out of things to do...
Tommy chose to read a comic book, Surprise Surprise...
Jackie, fell asleep in the shade of a pine tree.
Andrew was downing various parts of his 48 hour ration pack, after having polished off his 24 hour ration pack from the previous day.
And i decided to go for a swim, i always felt a natural affinity for water. It Relaxes me, lightens my soul. My avid love of the water had earned me the informal nickname of 'The Otter Knight'.

I loved that nickname so much i took it on as my Mascot, Say... I don't believe i ever mentioned the name of our steel steed. 'Tidal Tiger', i paid a small fortune in making her amphibious. I had to do it myself, with occasional help from Jackie, since every mechanic i tried hiring simply laughed in my face and told me it couldn't be done. And i'll have you know, did it we did! And we only suffer from the occasional minor leak...

That isn't the only modification that was made to our vehicle. I had 'Ready racks' installed around Andrews position so the poor bloke wouldn't have to bend over every time we needed to reload the cannon. The Consequence from this adjustment was. Andrews compartment became slightly more cramped, but he now doesn't have to bend over to pick up the next round every reload. As either side of his seat now has a six round 'ready rack'. This also changed our Puma's fire rate, we can now get off one shot every one point five to two seconds, for twelve rounds, after that though our reload rate increases to one round every seven seconds!
Due to Andrew having to squeeze into an even smaller space to retrieve rounds from the ammo racks in the floor of his position. The original fire rate for our vehicle was one shot every four and a half seconds, but this time would increase due to Andrew getting fatigued from having to constantly bend over and heft a eight kilogram shell from the floor to the breech.

The rear of our Puma also now sports twin 30 liter or 7.9 'liquid gallon' external fuel tanks. I also had a long range 'Arrow' laser sighting system installed for far quicker and more accurate range finding. The sides of the vehicle have 'Hanging stowage' which are literally just toolboxes i bought from the local hardware store and attached to hook loops i welded to the sides of the vehicle, and i also had custom stowage boxes made for the turrets exterior. Finally i had twelve millimeter armoured side skirts attached to the sides of the vehicle to protect the really thin undersides of the vehicle, those being only eight millimeters or something like that angled at forty five degrees down angle.

But thats enough Armoured car porn for now.

I laid on my back as i floated down stream for a few minutes, before i'd right myself and free style back to the 'camp site'.

At Twenty minutes past two in the afternoon i heard the hushed voice of Jackie quietly hissing at me to get into cover as i floated downstream for what must of been the fortieth time. After following his instructions and grabbing onto a tree root that overhung the river and pulling myself under the cover of a bush leaning over the water. He pointed up at the sky mouthing the words 'look at this shit'. I Obliged him curious, and i noticed a inky black silhouette against the suns rays about five hundred meters off to my right and about two hundred feet high.

"Damn" I quietly hissed. "I hate drones!"

Once the flyer left Line of sight, i trudged from the river and sprinted down the pebbly shoreline to Jackie, enjoying the feeling of the small smooth pebbles messaging my feet as i bolted for my driver.

I Placed my digital binoculars down on the wooden collapsible picnic table that we always carried on our Puma, Reclining into my camping chair.

I pulled an ice cooled Bundaburg Lemon lime & Bitters from my chairs cooler pocket.

After cracking open my bottle and taking a hearty chug, i let out the loudest holler of a laugh that my body would allow me. For several seconds i actually forgot the breath, i was laughing so hard i was doubled over in my chair, shaking from laughter, but no noise was leaving me as i'd ran out of breath to laugh with.
Before taking a large enough gasp of air that i gave myself hiccups.

"Bravo, Brav- *Hic* -o, You've Taken the ca- *Hic* -ke with this one guys!" I Said clapping loudly. "I Love how you even went though the *Hic* trouble of planting that image in my Bionoculars gallery. howd you *Hic* do that? Take a photo of an image on one of your phones?" I mused aloud with a chuckle, a sly smile spreading across my face.

"Damn it Jay! I'm Telling you its the truth! Look around you! Do either of us look like we're joking?!" Jackie Hissed with all the seriousness of a drill sergeant.

'Jay, he addressed me by my actual name. That in its own right is unusual and a cause for concern. And that would be a hell of a poker face... Jackie couldn't hold a poker face if his life depended on it...' I Racked my brain but it refused to accept the image of a flying Pegasus as actual fact.

"So, on the hypothetical that, this isn't you lot pulling my leg. What would that even mean? Pegasai- Pegasai? Pegasus? Pegasuses? Pega- Peg- Ah fuck it you know what i mean. They are not real! So what? Is it a new drone being used by the other teams? Is it some balloon that got loose from its moorings? Or some escaped government experiment? I Dunno?!" I Said waving my arms through the air.

"I Don't know Lancer... But either way. We should consider being more careful. Moreover, What the hell do i do? i cant radio HQ and say theres flying horses around us, they'll have an event paramedic check us out for head trauma!"

"..." My awkward silence and rubbing of my lightly bearded chin was certainly concerning for the three worried crewman, it meant that i was actually considering their hallucination in serious thought.
"Alright... I Don't know whats going on, but none the less... We STILL need to link up with the rest of our unit. Then make an effort to locate wherever Johnna decided to 'Set up shop' with our HQ truck. Until then, our current goal is certain. We must meet up with Lancer-02 ,03 ,04 and 05. And i imagine it in out best interest to remain undetected, so we stick to the roads, under cover, and at low speeds so as to not kick up much dust." To the end of that summery i looked up to see my crew silently nodding. "Righto, Everyone mount up and ready your positions, Tommy, Get on that radio of yours, and attempt to make contact with the rest of the unit. Use our SOS code if you need to, just get them to come running. Jackie, help me put on the rubber dust skirts. And Andrew..... Do what ever it is you do" I Finished with a laugh before walking to the Puma.

Getting our Rubber dust skirts into their operating position was simple enough, as Jackie and i had grown tired of the Tedious labor of sliding them into their runners, which they had the habit of slipping out of constantly. So we opted to do the Lazy thing, and leave them in their runners 24/7, and just fold and tie them to the same hooks the 'Hanging stowage' are attached to.

With that done Jackie jumped into his position and began starting our girl up, whilst i packed up the last of our camping furniture, and jumped into my position.

After slipping on my Throat mic, placing on my headset and plugging into the vehicles intercom. I said in a thick German accent as seriously as i could-
"Fahrer, Aus Marsch!"