The rain came down in sheets, drumming against the canopy of the forest like a thousand war drums. Each droplet hissed as it hit the mud, turning the clearing into a swamp of slick soil and rivulets of water snaking between roots. The towering trees surrounding Task Force 141 seemed to bend under the weight of the storm, their branches dripping steadily, like nature itself was sweating under pressure. Every breath was heavy with petrichor, damp earth, and the metallic tang of rain-soaked steel.

The squad stood scattered but alert, their gear glistening under the relentless downpour. Soap’s usually cheeky expression was replaced by a razor-sharp glare as he gripped the radio like it was his last tether to sanity. Water ran down the grooves of his mask, dripping from his chin, but he barely noticed. You stood close enough to feel the tension radiating off him, your pulse thrumming in sync with the rain hammering against your tactical vest.

“You lost an F-35?” Soap barked into the comms, his voice cutting through the storm, edged with disbelief.

On the other end, Roach’s voice crackled through with maddening calm. “Yeah. I lost an F-35.”

Soap’s fingers twitched around the radio, knuckles white under the leather of his gloves. He dragged a hand down his drenched mask, exhaling so hard it fogged briefly in the cold. “Where?” he demanded.

“What do you mean, where? I just told you I lost it,” Roach replied, his tone bone-dry, as if he’d misplaced a set of car keys instead of a state-of-the-art jet.

Soap’s groan was drowned out by the thunder rumbling overhead. “Can’t you be any more specific?”

“I dunno…” Roach drawled, pausing just long enough for Soap’s eye to twitch. “The ground?”

Soap turned, shooting you a look that screamed kill me now, before growling into the radio. “So you want me to tell the rest of the task force to search… the ground?”

There was the faintest shrug in Roach’s next words. “It could be in the air?”

Soap tilted his head back and stared at the rain-choked sky, silently praying for patience. “Oh, brilliant. Possibly in the air,” he muttered, sarcasm dripping thicker than the rain running off his shoulders.

A short distance away, Gaz stood next to Ghost, his hood pulled low as rainwater rolled off in steady streams. He pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering, “How does that even happen?”

Roach, meanwhile, pressed on like nothing was amiss. “Look, I was in the cockpit, enjoying a nature double chocolate crunch bar—”

Soap’s head snapped forward, his expression twisted between horror and disbelief. “You were eating a crunch bar in a million-euro aircraft?”

“Now let me finish,” Roach replied, maddeningly composed. “I reached down for some Red Bull, popped the can open, and then this red light started flashing on the dashboard. It said, ‘Emergency eject…unidentified liquid aboard.’ And before I knew it, I woke up on the ground.”

Soap froze, brow furrowed as he tried to untangle the sheer stupidity of the story. His hand massaged his temple like the motion could wring logic out of Roach’s nonsense. “So let me get this straight: you were munching on a crunch bar and chugging an energy drink inside a cutting-edge military aircraft…” He paused, pinching the radio so hard it creaked. “Do you even know which direction you were flying in?”

Silence. Then: “No. I don’t.”

Soap blinked. His jaw tightened. His entire soul left his body for half a second. “So this 15,800 kg aircraft could be headed straight for Big Ben, and we wouldn’t have a clue?”

“Probably,” Roach answered with infuriating calm. You could practically hear the shrug through the radio. The storm raged around the team, but nothing compared to the thundercloud forming over Soap’s head