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PART SIXTEEN(16)

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The last thing they didn't think of, went off while Everett watched for its fiery blossom, sitting with his face held near the glass of the HoCra's rear viewport.

OLie and his four teamers were glad to be alive, but having a P-teamer down put a damper on everyone's mood.

OCley was staring at the Medi`Ball in Penny's hand broodingly, and even Three Dash Two didn't feel very much like opening his mouth for a change.

Everett turned from the rear viewport, and having decided he wasn't going to listen to the depressing silence any longer, spoke to Two Dash Two with unabashed directness.

"I'm asking how you downed the darrigen, because I'm trusting you didn't kill it," he challenged his new partner-in-arms.

TDT shrugged disinterestedly and replied; "You'd go down too, if you caught a bullet through one of your weak points."

Everett's jaw dropped in shock. "You mean you holed one of his gonads?" he demanded disbelievingly. "I thought only girls could bring themselves to do that to a guy!"

With most of his team mates looking at him with open interest, Two Dash Two quickly denied, "Nothing so crass; I put a round through his cranial plate."

Two Dash One winced and remarked compassionately, "I wish you hadn't done that; ATTA poke`mon or not, he doesn't deserve the headache he'll have when he wakes up."

He lifted a hand to his head and muttered loud enough for OCley and OLie to hear, "If he feels anything like I do now, my heart goes out to him."

"Want some dope?" OCley pressed him concernedly, with a telling glance at OLie that effectively belied the suggestive quality of the question.

Two Dash One smiled wanly and returned knowingly, "Are you really asking?" He didn't suspect for a moment that his Chief actually was.

"Are you really that prideful?" OCley shot back peevishly; he knew Two Dash One was reading him loud-and-clearly. Then he demanded with open disapproval in his voice, "Are you really such a blockhead that you would rather pass out or get sick from the pain?"

Eyeing OLie expectantly now, but still speaking to OCley, Two Dash One chuckled quietly and accused, "There you go, asking a silly question again." Very carefully he shook his head and still he was brought to wince by the pain the motion caused him. "If I do have any pride left, it feels like it must be leaking out of my ears!" he confessed balefully.

OLie took that as a 'yes, please; I could use some very heavy dope', and extracted a shot-vial of sootheogen carimen from the medical kit under his section of the bench seat. He handed it to the stolidly suffering man.

Two Dash One seemed to concentrate fully on injecting himself, while OCley's gaze drifted back to the Medi`Ball and OLie reached down into 'human medical supply', fishing for another shot-vial of pain-killer. But all three of them had an ear tuned to the conversation among the others that the head-injured teamer's general comment had set off.

Dee Two had made a comment on how sensitive a darrigen's cranial plate was supposed to be, and Two Dash Two had objected defensively that 'Liza had needed some help and he hadn't wanted to give the poke`mon entry and exit wounds, so he had gone for a safe, clean shot; and anyway, he had only nicked the exposed boney crest'. And then he had given everyone except Everett a look which dared someone to make something of his judgment call.

"Well, gee, that was merciful of you!" snorted Three Dash Two, never one to be shy about accepting dares. But he steered his attack carefully away from the glaring man, towards a different, less-present-and-threatening, target. "What the havellion was Liza's problem?" he demanded sourly. "Can't she hit what she strikes at, anymore?"

But Two Dash Two was just as ready to defend a P-teamer who stood accused behind her back, as he was himself, and opened his mouth quickly, blinking furiously, to do so in no uncertain terms. However, he subsided into accepting silence, as another took the shameless accuser to task.

"You lay off of her," Everett snapped at Three Dash Two. "She got him good several times, and he just sorta smirked and acted like he would have stuck out his tongue if he was sure it wouldn't get zapped."

OCley perked up and made a 'cut it' gesture at Three Dash Two, who looked fully prepared to debate Liza's usefulness and dependability with Everett. Turning an inquerious gaze on Two Dash Two, he demanded of the ~ thankfully ~ sedate teamer, "Will you confirm multiple ineffective hits by Liza on the darrigen, in your report?"

"I will," he answered slowly. "I guess the darrigen was shock-proofed somehow."

OCley 'harrumphed' quite elegantly and muttered loudly, "Will we have anything good to report?"

Meanwhile, OLie had communicated to Dee One through hand gestures, that he wanted him to use a sootheogen shot as well, if he felt halfway like he needed one. Receiving an affirmative answer, he had passed the shot along to the injured diver, who had carefully injected himself with half of the full dose.

Now, at OCley's disgusted comment, the two divers traded looks, and Dee Two waved his hand discreetly, hoping the Operations Chief was actually asking.

OCley noticed the motion and sighing deeply, questioned the diver, "You have a ray of light to shine forth, Dee Two?"

"Well, if you consider any knowledge you don't have, to be a ray of light," Dee Two allowed cautiously.

OCley rolled his eyes and commanded impatiently, "Whatever. Just spill it in my lap, already!"

Dee Two looked at his partner again, and then announced succinctly, "We found a pair of bodies down there, Sir."

OLie came alive with a half intrigued, half dismayed fire in his eyes, and demanded of the man indignantly, "Probably, you mean in the chamber. Why didn't I hear about it when you found them?" He let a note of accusation creep into his voice, as he finished with almost-sarcasm, "Don't tell me you got excited over that lump of gold and not over discovering two bodies!"

"Never mind ruffling your feathers," OCley ordered OLie firmly, leaning forward towards Dee Two. He worried his top lip for a second, then inquired searchingly, "What was their condition?"

Dee Two made swift reply to OCley's question, eyeing the Operations Leader apologetically, and speaking to both of them. "There wasn't a whole lot to them, Sirs; just a lot of charred bones," he reported. Then, with an indicative nod at the teleport container ~ which no one took the meaning of ~ he elaborated, "The only reason I knew they were human, was because of the pelvic bone of one and the scull of another."

Obviously disappointed, OCley straightened back up in his seat, and ran the palm of his right hand along his right thigh. At the knee, his hand clenched nervously into a fist, and looking at Dee Two sedately, he said meaningfully, "Technically, they fall under the retrieval parameters; Did you collect them?"

Dee Two scowled and responded with evident distaste, holding up his hands in such a fashion as to suggest he wished they weren't attached at his wrists. "I ain't no mortician or forensics sap, but I did; I follow orders," he affirmed darkly.

Understanding clearly now, as to where the aforementioned bones presently resided, many in the HoCra's passenger and cargo bay, looked at the teleport-container-turned-coffin with new respect.

"Do you suppose those remains are what the customer wants?" Three Dash Two asked OCley uneasily.

After serious consideration of that possibility, OCley's eyebrows mated quite effectively with the curly forelocks of his head, and he pronounced agreeably, "Almost definitely; they must have historical significance."

"Can we talk about something besides charred bones? Please?" Penny begged beseechingly of no one in particular, but of everyone in general.

Most everyone chuckled dryly at her seeming squeamishness, and lapsed into a not-long-for-this-world silence. OCley on the other hand was staring intently at the teleport container.

Dee Two was careful to note his superior's fixed look, and took a stab at reading the man's mind. "I suppose you want to paw through it," he guessed disgustedly, then added; "The atom smashers at the Corp. Lab will do those honors, you know." He saw out of the corner of his eye, that Penny shuddered at the suggestion.

OCley didn't speak but nodded and the teamer passed him the container without further word.

"Well clear, and approaching three miles for recall," One Dash One announced suddenly, giving some of his fellow teamers a bit of a start; he hadn't said anything since pullout and those less awake had quite forgotten he was up front.

"Then go ahead and do it!" OCley barked distractedly, as he reached his hand into the tele-container. Then he reminded One Dash One hotly, "Things could be getting sticky for them, by now!"

"Righty-oh, Sir," the pilot responded mildly, letting the Operation Chief's snappishness slide, like water off of a farfetch'd's back. He activated the recall system with the flick of a power feed switch and the pressing of the DNA Breakdown Sequencing, startup button.

No more than thirty seconds later, the four mission engaged poke`mon were back inboard the HoCra's C(losed-circuit)P(oke`mon)S(torage)S(ystem). They would be reloaded into Shatta Balls later, after they had been debriefed.

Knowing they were in the clear put an idea into Two Dash Two's head. He shifted to his right and began rooting through the emergency equipment stores: a metal container bolted to the HoCra's passenger cabin wall.

OCley paused in his inspection of the teleport container's contents, and eyed the man with amused interest.

Everett was also quick to note Two Dash Two's activity. "What are you looking for?" he demanded curiously of his fellow teamer, suspecting he knew exactly what.

The man turned to him with a crooked grin on his face and said, "Another twist in the plan; we're not on covert anymore." He frowned, brought his hand out of EE-store holding a flare gun, and added with a puzzled glance at the OC, "Sir? I can't seem to find a Sign flare."

OCley promptly burst out laughing. "That's probably because I took them from EE-store, while you were getting over here from the lookout point," he suggested helpfully.

He reached down into the inside of his right boot, and extracted the pack of three signature flares his teamer was desiring.

At Two Dash Two's surprised expression, he winked and made confession as he handed them over. "I figured either you or ODiT would be so trigger happy that one of you would think of the only acceptable way to get one more shot off tonight." He watched TDT load a flare into the gun, as he admitted confidingly, "To tell you the truth, I had a bet on with myself ~ at four to one odds ~ that it would be One Dash Two who went for it."

Shaking his head with amused disbelief at his superior's sentretishness, Two Dash Two stood and brandished the loaded flare gun.

Sliding the glass port set into the HoCra's heavy, canvas roof, he raised the flare gun and stuck its barrel out into the light rain ~ and pulled its trigger.

None of them could see the flare bloom at about four hundred feet, but they knew well what could be seen; a golden yellow quiver full of blue arrows, set against a white and red archery target ~ The Quiverfear Sign.

(:)-(:)-(:)-(:)-(:)

Sending up the signature flare made all the guys feel a little better; it was a way for them to victoriously thumb their noses at any ATTA person/poke`nel they tangled with.

But Penny brought them all back with the dark observation, "What a nightmarnes of a mission!"

Caught by the voicing of his own, much earlier thought, OCley saw she was looking at One Dash Two as she said this, and he noticed that the young man nodded agreement with absentness, as he locked gazes with her.

OLie Three grinned at the same sight, thinking he was the only one who knew their real names. That thought was close enough to true; One Dash One had an inkling, but didn't know for sure.

'Go on; react with your heart,' the OL urged Everett silently, holding his breath expectantly. He was not disappointed. He saw Everett open his mouth ~ probably to speak.

But the lighting in the cabin was sufficient, so the young man mouthed at Penny, 'Can you lip read?' She smiled and nodded, and he continued, pleased that she could understand. 'Great. Don't you dare forget there is something I still want to say to you.'

A happily contented look that One Dash One would have recognized, washed over her face, as she leaned back against the thin pad of the straight-backed bench, and hung her head tiredly.

Able to read lips himself, and having caught every word Everett had 'spoken' to Penny, OLie thought: 'This must be real life; no nightmarnes I ever dreamed ended with romance!'

As many times during the mission as he had wished he could have woken up and found it all to be a nightmarnes, he was just as many times grateful now, that it wasn't. He hoped Penny and Everett would get something going for themselves that would never stop.

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