Amateurs

PAIN! Fiery burning PAIN! Gasping to scream and feeling like her lungs were on fire. She awakened yet again to the echoes of her screams. She was still thrashing around, covered in sweat, gripped by her dark and fiery memories. A weight was pinning her down. Frantically, she tried to push the weight away while brushing the hair out of her eyes so she could see. As soon as her hand encountered the thick soft fur of Shtiya, reality started to return. Reality was brutally reinforced when her missing hand was unable to brush her hair out of her remaining eye. A sob escaped her as she struggled to sit up. Burying her face in the giant Alaskan malamute's fur, she wrapped her remaining arm around the dog and cried. The well trained comfort dog patiently sat there and licked her hand until she managed to compose herself.

Thank god for Shtiya, whose name meant 'My Strength'. If the VA recovery center hadn't assigned the dog to her, she almost definitely would have given up and killed herself in the long, desolate, pain-filled years after the IED had blown her apart. The dog and her restaurant were all she had now, and she poured her heart and soul into them.

It was only 4AM, but she knew from bitter experience she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. She was lucky, her PTSD was getting better and she rarely had dreams of THAT DAY more than two or three times a month. Straightening, she said, "Good girl! Now get down so I can get you a treat." 'Good girl' got Shtiya's ears to perk up and her fuzzy tail swinging, 'down' and 'treat' got the huge snow dog scrambling off the bed onto the floor where she waited patiently for her promised treat. Slowly and carefully, Becky sat up and started getting dressed. Bra, right arm, tee shirt, left leg, right leg, underwear, pants and finally her black eye patch. Carefully standing and using Shtiya to balance, she finished pulling up her pants. Even after all these years, it still took her a minute to get used to walking with her artificial legs. Although she had never been trained to, Shtiya always walked right beside Becky, gently pressing against her left hip. She would turn her head to the side across Becky's thigh to help her balance walking. Having the 105 lb dog glued to her hip whenever she walked, Becky had long ago gotten rid of her cane.

A brief smile lit her face as she remembered decking the idiot store owner who had insisted that the dog wasn't allowed in the store. Only Seeing Eye dogs were allowed in, and the big dog 'obviously' wasn't. The police had been very understanding once they got past the image of a raging Amazon standing over the poor man with the broken jaw. The fact she had both VA and ADA certifications for her dog meant the dog could go anywhere and everywhere she could.

Patting Shtiya's head again as she walked at Becky's side, they went into the kitchen and Becky gave her a large dog biscuit smothered in peanut butter. She then finished her morning rituals and made a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese, French toast and bacon. As usual, half the breakfast wound up vanishing under the table accompanied by enthusiastic tail thumping. After breakfast, she headed out to her car.

It was a personal victory that she had been able to get a civilian driver's license despite the extent of her injuries. While in the Army, she had driven everything from Hummers up to the largest heavy haul tank tenders. Now she was limited to a small sedan. Every time she thought about that, she sighed in pain. As usual, however, the sight of Shtiya sprawled out in the back seat made her smile. The huge snow dog almost completely filled the back seat when she lay down, and she was so cute, looking at Mommy expectantly. "Ok, ok," Becky laughed, "Time for a ride."

It is time, time it is. The fools are in place. I've used them well and they never knew. Never knew they danced to my tune. The others are no better, and they will take the blame, let them all go down. Dear Rachael, soon you will have lots of company and the murdering bastards will know what it's like.

The only good thing about the early morning wake up was that she was able to plow through the backlog of the restaurant's paperwork before starting the usual morning prep work. By the time the morning staff finished straggling in, almost everything had been done. In the years since the Confederacy had started doing pickups, her business had boomed. Since the Confederacy often targeted restaurants, diners and cafes for pickups, volunteers and hopefuls flocked to them, just in case. Eventually, she'd had to set a minimum hourly purchase amount to keep people from spending the entire day sitting around drinking water. Even with the required hourly purchases, the place was packed all day, every day. In only a few months she'd made enough money to remodel the place and make it into a Wi-Fi hub so business professionals could telecommute. It was pure luck that the city's building inspector was also ex-Army and had quietly upped the building's maximum occupancy so even more people could hang out all day.

As usual, by 9AM the place was just about standing room only. 'So much hope and dreams packed into one little area,' she thought a touch bitterly, since she had none. Becky liked to think the food served here helped keep the people coming back as well. Looking around from her vantage point behind the counter she spotted dozens of regulars. Scowling, she noticed the Earth First group in their usual spot in the corner. She absolutely hated them! The fact that there always seemed to be different faces in the mix also pissed her off. How many of the bastards were there? As far as she was concerned, they were as bad as or worse than the terrorists she had spent years fighting overseas. Unconsciously, she fingered the huge Glock-20 10mm semi-automatic pistol she always wore concealed in the specially designed hollow area of her prosthetic leg. It had taken years of daily shooting to train her left hand and strengthen her wrist to shoot accurately and handle the punishing recoil. Of course it had to have been her right hand she lost. It had made her recovery even more miserable having to learn to do everything left-handed. She sighed and moved her hand away.

The Earth Firsters always made her minimum hourly purchases and didn't respond to her rudeness or insults, giving her no excuse to throw them out. Well, that one guy had come close, always tapping the most identifiable part of the Metallica song, "One". Of course when the leader of the group noticed how upset she was getting, he made the guy leave, never to return. The nightmares sucked that week! Besides, she didn't really want to risk coming in one morning and seeing nothing but a smoking ruin where her beloved restaurant used to stand. As long as they played by her rules, and the government didn't declare them criminals, she swallowed her personal prejudices. As she so often did though, she fantasized about drawing her gun and systematically shooting all eight of them. She never knew about the frighteningly feral smile that bared her teeth or about the hot fury that filled her remaining eye as she dreamed about filling the Earth First terrorists full of 10mm hollow point bullets. Being so focused on the table she knew about, she completely missed the other two tables with unfamiliar faces.

Rana looked over at her boss and shivered. Becky had that look on her face again and it scared the crap out of her. She had never gotten the story of what had happened to Becky, but it must have been bad. Even with the deep wrinkles etched in her face by pain and sorrow, Becky was still strikingly beautiful. At almost 6' tall, she towered over Rana. Becky's single gray eye was really pretty; at least it was when she didn't have the look of an insane berserker looking for a victim. The eye patch, dark clothes and long braid of bright red hair hanging down to her ass reminded Rana of a pirate captain. Just looking at her got Rana hot and bothered, much to her embarrassment. She knew with her CAP score of 5.8 there was only one way off the planet and she really hoped it would be at Becky's side. The thought made her blush yet again, but it was true.

Of course, Becky had never shown any interest in anyone, male or female, and Rana was far too shy to try and initiate anything. At 5'2" tall and slightly overweight, she was completely dwarfed by the tall woman. To her great annoyance, she'd managed to inherit her father's short, squat Inuit genes rather than her mother's tall, thin Cherokee build. She had to admit though; she had gotten her mother's beauty. It looked like her twelve-year-old twin daughters would grow up to resemble her mom in both looks and physique. It was too early to tell which way her seven-year-old daughter would go.

She sighed bitterly, it sucked being single, it sucked being a single mom with no one to help her and it especially sucked knowing she was stuck here to become an alien's snack unless someone chose to take her away. On the bright side, since the place was so packed all day, every day, she was getting paid about five times what a waitress normally made, not counting the small fortune in tips she got. Being well-off financially for the few remaining years before the Swarm arrived definitely beat the hell out of being poor and stuck in a roach-filled, one bedroom apartment that she used to live in and could barely afford. Things had not always been that way, but after her asshole husband managed to get himself killed in a drunken driving accident and the lawsuit the victim had filed was settled, she had barely been able to afford to breathe. Being treated like a pariah by the other members of the tribe hadn't helped at all. She had been forced to stay in the city, albeit in a crappy slum rather that the nice condo they'd lived in previously. Moving herself and the kids into a nicer place had been the highpoint of the year.

It was really convenient that an opportunistic entrepreneur had opened a day-care center right next door and had offered the restaurant staff free child care. With day care right next door, the regulars could spend the day hoping for a pickup without having to worry about their kids being forced to behave in a restaurant all the time. The heavy security at the day care center was also a reassurance for them. Neither a psychotic ex-spouse nor Earth First terrorists nor money-seeking kidnappers had any chance of getting in. Many of the regulars were quite wealthy, as were the professionals who worked in the area, so they willingly paid a premium for the heavy security. 'Oh well,' she thought, 'enough wool-gathering, time to make some money.' She plastered on her best "I'm really glad to be here helping you" smile and returned to work.

Dirk leaned over and whispered to Mike, "On the bright side, at least if we have to stay here all day we have a pretty hot waitress to look at."

Mike scowled but had to admit Rana was pretty cute, even if she wasn't white. The patriot said today was the day, so they were all tense and looking for any distractions to help the time pass. Looking around for their busty waitress, he noticed the owner looking their way. Despite his fighting Irish blood, growing up in the Combat Zone section of Boston, numerous fights against dark-skinned gang trash with his fellow skin-heads and eight long years in prison, he was afraid of her.

He had seen the dossier his superiors had put together on her when his group was assigned here. Sergeant Rebecca Rose had spent fourteen years in the army, with six of those years being the range coach for her transportation unit. A qualified expert with both the M-16A3 and the 9mm pistol, she was also qualified to range coach machine guns, grenade launchers and shotgun combat courses. She had volunteered for the spec-ops program and completed training with both airborne rangers and the Green Berets. This qualified her to be deployed with Special Forces units to assist in post-combat field ops. He was not too supportive of the program. Who honestly cared how traumatized the damn village women were after their men were killed in a firefight. It was their own damn fault for being there in the first place and supporting the terrorists.

Included in the dossier was the after-action report of her last convoy mission as she was transferring to a Special Force unit. As much as he hated to admit it, she had some serious balls. He was pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to do what she had done. After getting blown up by an IED, she had managed to drag herself to a flanking position where she was able to pin down the attackers with the RPG's long enough for the surviving convoy personnel to retreat, firing her M-16 with her off-hand, one-handed, using rubble to balance and brace it. She had been willing to sacrifice herself to save them, knowing when she ran out of ammunition she would be killed or worse, assuming she didn't bleed to death first. She'd had no way of knowing there was a helicopter gunship escorting a medivac chopper only a few miles away. By the time it was over, she had four unconfirmed kills and one confirmed kill caught on the Apache's gun camera as it flew in and flattened the building the insurgents had been using for cover. Yup, she was a tough fucking bitch; to have survived wounds that the most experienced military doctors were certain would be fatal. Despite the loss of one eye, traumatic brain injury, a skull fractures, amputation of her right arm and both legs, six broken ribs and a collapsed lung, she had managed to pull through.

He wished he had met her before she was injured! Hell, she was still pretty hot despite her injuries and being on the wrong side of 40. He tried to picture her young and naked, YUM! The images, fantasies and the physical result quickly vanished when he saw his death in her insane glare. He'd seen that look from her before, always directed at their table. A cop friend of his had been able to confirm she had a concealed weapons permit, so he was pretty sure she was packing, even if he'd never seen any evidence of it. That was why he'd ordered his men to absolutely behave no matter how much she provoked them. It was also why he'd assigned two of his men to kill her immediately if there was a pick-up.

A commotion by the door drew his attention and his adrenaline spiked when he saw the group of four women and ten men standing by the door. They were wary, watchful and moved like professional soldiers. Grabbing his grenade, he prepared himself for a fight, reassured by how his well-trained men tensed for action. Noticing Rana walk over to them, he sighed in disappointment. The entire group were Asian and below average in height. Seeing their large gym bags, he realized they were just a bunch of athletes and he had misread their moves. Damn Asians! They needed to go back where they belonged and stop stealing jobs from real Americans. Knowing Confederacy Marines were extremely tall and mostly Caucasian, he told his men to stand down, false alarm. Sadly for him, he missed the determined-looking woman and her above-average-sized male companion that slipped in behind the group.

Pasting a polite smile on his face, Seiji returned the waitress' friendly greeting and said it would be fine if his group was split up. He reassured her he understood that there far too many customers here already for them to accommodate such a large group. Akane leaned over to Seiji after the waitress left and whispered, "Did you notice?"

"Yes," he replied, "Three groups, all armed, ready to start shooting. They will be our prime targets when the Confederacy arrives."

He was still not entirely pleased that the clan elders had ordered them to come to America to be extracted. Of course, he had obeyed. The habit of a life-time of obedience could not be denied. He had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the elders had been correct. The clan had existed for centuries, moving and adapting as required when discovered or threatened. It had taken years, but he had finally understood why the clan had quietly stopped any questionable activities. They must have realized early on that criminals would not be allowed to leave the planet. So while the clan does not appear in any known criminal databases, the elders did not want the alien AI's to believe the Hollywood movie version of ninjas and find anything that would stop the extraction. Since there was no place on Earth safe from the Sa'arm, the elders had decided to send most of the clan members off-world to survive and continue the clan traditions.

After researching all the businesses in the city, they had chosen the ones most likely to have a large number of volunteers. Once that had been determined, making a list of nearby restaurants, day care facilities and other probable pickup locations was child's play. They quickly set up a network of spy cameras in the best surveillance locations and settled in to wait. For the last two weeks the clan had been on standby, studying targets and getting familiar with the city. They spent most of every day driving around in rented vans, waiting for extraction info. When the call had come in that there were possible Confederacy Marines near this restaurant, they thankfully were only a few blocks away and were able to race here before an interdiction field went up. They were inside now, so all was going according to plan. Hopefully they could spin their skills well enough to get picked up as a group.

"No, I meant the woman behind the counter," Akane corrected. "She looked like she was in a kill-trance and was ready to act."

Looking around the restaurant, which really resembled a cyber cafe with all the business men and women using their tables as workstations, he spotted the tall American woman with one eye. He was impressed in spite of himself. She was clearly a warrior, her bearing being almost identical to Akane's. He could sense her dangerousness as well as the hostility she held toward the largest group of Earth Firsters.

"Hmm, we definitely have a common enemy, but keep an eye on her. You are right, she is too dangerous to ignore." Nodding her agreement, Akane made her way over to the counter and sat down. The rest of the clan scattered around the restaurant, sitting as close to the Earth First terrorists as possible while trying to remain out of the direct line-of-fire.

Becky wasn't sure what had snapped her out of her bloody fantasy, but something had set off her internal warning bells. She'd been too engrossed in her fantasy to notice the Earth Firsters tensing for a fight. Looking around, she noticed the small group of Asians still standing by the door. They made her a bit uneasy so, after telling Shtiya to stay, she quietly slipped over to them. The leader had been busy giving directions and did not notice her quiet approach. He had an air of command about him and he moved like some of the veteran Special Forces instructors who had trained her. He was short, being only about 5'5" tall, but solidly built. Her unease increased when she noticed the Asian woman who followed her from the counter. Watching her reflection in the window, Becky could see the woman moved like a dancer. Coming up behind the Asian man just as he finished giving what sounded suspiciously like orders in Japanese, she side-stepped, putting her back to the wall so she could see both the man and the woman who had followed her. Opening her mouth, she said.

Suddenly a harsh, croaking voice came from right behind Seiji. "Who are you and what the hell kind of trouble are you planning?"

Surprised that he had not sensed anyone near him, Seiji spun around, hands vanishing into his clothing, coming nose-to-tit with the speaker. He was stunned to see the tall woman from the counter only a few feet away from him, her back to the wall, obviously splitting her attention between him and Akane, ready for a fight. Her size, skill and beauty all grabbed his amazed attention, but what really shocked him to the core was that the woman who had managed to sneak up on him had crippling injuries, missing one arm and both legs, and yet he still felt uneasy being on the wrong end of her hostility. Despite all his deadly skills and training, a woman using prosthetic legs had snuck up on him and intimidated him. He was in lust! No matter what he had to do, he was going with her when the pickup occurred. Even her harsh, destroyed voice had a strange beauty to it.

Slowly removing his hands from his clothes and showing them to be empty, he bowed and said, "My name is Seiji. I am the leader of this group. We were ordered off-world by our clan leaders and found out there would be a pickup here today." He could see Akane's shocked frown as she realized he was revealing their secrets to an outsider, but he continued on anyway, "I scattered the others around the room to make sure any trouble was handled."

The rage was cooling, red rage, nice and warm. Can't let it go, it's all that's left. Remember, remember what they did, what they have done and why I must pay them back.

'So what happened to Mike? I haven't seen him today.'

'Didn't you hear? One of his concubines attacked him'

'Really? Why?'

'Her name was Rachael Kitty, so he decided to make her fit her name and made her into a cat-girl. Apparently she freaked when she saw what he'd done to her and attacked him. They shoved her into the nearest recycler and he had a new concubine by the end of the day. Idiot, never make a woman look like your dream, make her look like HER dream and your life will be amazing.'

Rachael, my Rachael, my dear sister, I missed you by one day. You are gone now and they don't even care. They murdered you! Murdered! Murdered! I will make them pay! Shhh, easy now, quiet like the mouse, no patient like the cat, waiting to pounce. Yes, that's me, the cat waiting to pounce, and when I do, they will pay for what they did. Family means so little to them. I'll show them. Today is the day.

Looking around the room, Becky spotted the Japanese slowly, casually spreading around. Four were about half-way to the large group of Earth Firsters. "Clan?" she asked, noting the skill they exhibited by the way they moved.

"Yes," the Asian man, Seiji, responded, "We are a clan of ninjas"

A loud, amplified voice cut him off. "May I have your attention please?"

By the time the female voice had finished speaking, a gray field had cut off all outside views. With a yell of, "Death to the alien-loving traitors!" the Earth First table she had been watching earlier jumped to their feet. To her chagrin, two other tables of apparent Earth Firsters that she had missed also jumped up, drawing weapons.

Time froze, the trouble she had been half expecting for months unfolded around her.

Snap shot- the large man and woman, apparently Confederacy Marines, moving back-to-back drawing some type of brass knuckles.

Snap shot-three tables of men, 17 total, jumping up and drawing pistols, sawed-off shotguns and one even holding a fucking grenade.

Snap shot- Seiji and the Asian woman tensing for combat, their hands suddenly filled with star-shaped throwing weapons.

Snap shot- the other Asians lunging toward the Earth Firsters with a variety of weapons, including swords, in their hands.

Becky even had time to see the resignation on the faces of the four Asians lunging toward the back of the restaurant, knowing they were too slow to stop the man with the grenade. Suddenly, she was locked back in her bloody fantasy, complete with ringing ears and the sounds of screams. Only this time it was real.

As fast as he and Akane were to fill the air with razor-sharp shuriken, the redheaded woman had been even faster. A huge, semi-automatic pistol suddenly filled her hand and with surprising speed and accuracy she gunned down six of the eight Earth Firsters on the far side of the restaurant. The first person she dropped was the man holding the grenade, and when it detonated, the remaining two Earth Firsters had no chance. Ironically, their bodies and the hard-wood table they had been in the process of overturning for cover protected most of the patrons from the grenade blast.

Seiji followed the tall woman's gun hand with his eyes as she ejected the half-empty magazine and dropped it to her leg. He was impressed when he saw that the seam in her pants was open revealing a holster built into her prosthetic leg. Apparently, drawing the gun had released a simple spring-loaded mechanism that caused a spare magazine to lean out at exactly the right angle so she simply had to slam the gun against her leg in a well-practiced move to reload. Having only one hand, she'd been forced to improvise.

She had impressed him repeatedly in the last few minutes. There was no fear in her, just a deadly resolve to kill the terrorists. In less than 10 seconds, his ninja team and the red-haired woman had killed all 17 men. By the time the Marine reinforcements had poured into the restaurant through the kitchen, it was all over but the screaming.

"Freeze," the tall redhead yelled, her harsh voice cutting through the screams. The initial two Marines, seeing the huge gun pointed at them, did just that. "Drop them, NOW!" she snarled.

Exchanging grim looks, the two Marines complied, then raised their hands high. 'Oh shit,' Seiji thought, remembering the saying about plans and combat, 'how the hell am I going to fix this mess?' With a few gestures, Seiji set his team in motion. They raced unhindered through the confused, shocked mass of people. Even as the Marines struggled to make sense of the carnage around them and open fire with their stunners, a ninja flash grenade went off blinding them and increasing the volume of screams around the room. Seiji watched the ninjas surround the Marines before they were even noticed, easily avoiding the shots from the blinded Marines. He approved at how quickly they disarmed them, but worried about the possible repercussions.

Lieutenant Whyte was stunned by the disaster. Almost before they could react, the restaurant owner and the Japanese group they had used as a distraction when they came in the restaurant had slaughtered well over a dozen Earth First gunmen who had obviously been waiting for the Marines, and then taken her entire squad prisoner. She had no idea what the Asians intentions were, but they were helpless at the moment and could only hope for the best.

"Lieutenant Whyte, report! The AI reports gunfire" The transmission through her implant was suddenly cut off, replaced by a faint buzzing. With growing terror, she looked at the leader of the group of Japanese and knew she wasn't in charge anymore. With a slight frown, he held up one finger and waved it back and forth in a universal 'no-no' gesture.

"Oh shit," Sergeant Rock swore, real fear in his voice.

Knowing he was a lifetime Marine veteran who served three tours in Vietnam before becoming a police officer when he retired from the Marine Corp, the fear in his voice turned the young lieutenant's guts to ice water. She was only 18 and this was only her second extraction, the first being the one where she had been picked up. She did not know if they were about to be killed and had no idea what to do. At the moment she was trying very hard not to cry at the complete failure of her first real mission.

"I can't believe those ninjas have figured out a way to jam our AI connection," Sgt. Rock said, stunned at what he was seeing.

"Wait! Ninjas? Jammed?" Lt. Whyte asked in confused disbelief.

With a jerk of his chin, Rock indicated a man with a complicated-looking device with an antenna. "As soon as he powered up that device, our links went dead. Look at them," he continued, "all Japanese, carrying swords, throwing stars and other weapons I thought Hollywood had made up. They tore through two groups of fanatic gunmen without taking any injuries and were still fast enough to capture our backup. I don't see any tattoos, so they aren't yakuza. That only leaves ninjas."

"You are correct," a slightly accented voice said. "We are certainly not yakuza."

Taking a deep breath, Becky tried to focus through the adrenaline rush and her inner demons. She was really twitchy and on a hair-trigger. She was also still having trouble recognizing friendlies. Taking another deep breath, she looked around the room. There was chaos and pandemonium in the room, but between her staff and the ninjas, order was slowly being restored and the patrons with guns were being disarmed. 'Ninjas,' she thought, 'here in my restaurant, with pre-knowledge of the pickup. I bet there is a hell of a story there.'

Seeing how scared and young-looking the lieutenant was, she lowered her gun said, "Go join the rest of your unit." She got a twisted satisfaction from seeing them jump at the sound of her fire-burned voice. Gesturing at the two Asians moving to flank the Marines, she spoke harshly, "You two go with them; I need some space right now."

Bowing, Seiji and the Asian woman led the Marines away. The moment they moved off, Shtiya bounded over to Becky and pressed herself against Becky's hip so hard she almost fell over, begging to be petted. Shtiya's silky soft fur immediately helped Becky to focus, and she was able to look around objectively. The Marine squad was being guarded by four ninjas carrying swords, two of whose swords were still dripping blood, although none of the Marines seemed to be harmed she was relieved to note. Another two ninjas were carrying some sort of ring-shaped device from the kitchen. Strangely, seeing it in the ninjas' hands upset the Marines as much as anything that had happened. She wondered what importance the ring had to them. The remaining ninjas were disarming patrons and performing first aid on the injured. She sighed with relief after taking a quick head count, finding her entire staff alive and well. She had lost enough people under her during the war. It made her proud to see them circulating around the restaurant, helping calm the patrons and restoring order. Seeing they had things in hand, she made her way toward the Confederacy Marines, Shtiya glued to her hip.

"Sergeant Rose, you're alive!" One of the Marines yelled.

Her head snapped up in time to see a vaguely familiar face on a very unfamiliar body. "Sergeant Ryan? Is that you?" she asked in disbelief.

"Not any more, only a Corporal in the Confederacy," he stepped forward smiling, only to be intercepted by a sword-wielding ninja. "MOVE!" Becky commanded, using her harsh voice's best tone of command. The ninja had jumped completely out of Sgt. Ryan's way before the source of the command registered. He rather sheepishly looked at Seiji, who nodded that it was ok. As Sgt. Ryan came up to her, her head tilted further and farther back.

"Damn Runt, you sure grew up!" They both laughed, although she missed the look of pain that flashed through his eyes at the sound of her harsh voice.

"Yup, when I joined the Confederacy Marines I got the standard Marine package; two meters tall and lots of muscles." With a leer he added, "In fact everything got sized up proportionally."

With a happy laugh, Becky said, "get over here you old reprobate and give me a hug." She reached out and pulled him in to a tight, one-armed hug, and much to everyone's surprise gave him a quick kiss on the lips.

"I'd heard you'd managed to get yourself blown up," he said in a light, teasing voice, being deliberately light-hearted to hide his shock at her appearance.

With a leer of her own that seemed totally out-of-character for her, she replied, "Well, I lost a few peripherals, but the chassis is intact." The light tone she used was betrayed by the pain in her remaining eye.

Noticing Rana standing nearby with a look of shock on her face, Becky grimaced wryly, "Sorry, I wasn't always like this. Sean here was my boyfriend during my first and second combat tours overseas." Becky could almost see the wheels turning in Rana's mind. "An IED got me on my third tour just as I was transferring to a Green Beret unit."

Several of the Marines gasped or whistled sympathetically. Looking at Seiji, Becky asked, "So what are your intentions for these Marines?" Neither Seiji nor Rana missed how Becky had stepped protectively between him and the big Marine.

"I plan on freeing them of course. I merely wanted to slow things down enough to explain our request before they dropped everyone in the room with their stunners. You seemed to need some alone time so we kept them away from you," he replied. As he said this, the ninjas all moved away and sheathed their weapons. Something had changed in Seiji's expression when she'd stepped between him and Sean, and Becky suddenly found herself blushing. "We'd originally come to be certain we would get picked up, as none of us are sponsors," he added, looking pointedly at Becky, eliciting another blush.

"Wait," Sgt. Rock said, "How is it possible that none of you are sponsors? Your troops tore through the EF's like they were nothing and captured us easily."

"That's the problem," Seiji replied, "we're not troops; we're, well, martial artists." Seeing his look of confusion, Seiji added, "we all scored almost the same on our CAP tests, averaging 6.1-6.3 overall. We maxed out the scale for physical, intelligence and aggression, but our loyalty outside our clan was non-existent. We also scored very low compassion and nurturing. Most telling, our sex scores were very low, as we view sex as a weapon or tool to distract our targets, not for recreation. Only older clan members have children, having proven their value by surviving so long. I can, however, guarantee our absolute loyalty and obedience to our sponsor." From Becky's experience in the military, she had to agree, they would make great weapons but awful soldiers.

One of Seiji's clan came over and reported that none of them or the Marines had been injured, all the Earth Firsters were dead, as were two patrons and eight patrons were injured, another twelve had been dropped by the Marines. After finishing the report, he handed Seiji a flash drive with pictures of the dead Earth Firsters and their weapons, as well as bags containing anything that might be useful in tracking the organization, including cell phones, receipts, keys, wallets and anything else they had the might give clues about their movements.

"What about us? Are we going to get picked up or not?" a timid voiced asked from nearby. Embarrassed, Becky realized with the confusion and drama she had forgotten about the reason her loyal patrons were here.

"Yes," Sean replied, much to her relief. It would have been horrible if the Marines had just packed up and left her customers behind because of what had happened.

Suddenly, she had a horrible thought, if the Earth First was here, were they next door as well? Grabbing Seiji's arm, Becky dragged him aside. "I need to get out of here! The day care center next door may have been targeted by them as well since so many of my employees' and customers' children are there!"

"I assumed the Marines had it covered before they came here," Seiji replied, anger growing in his eyes.

Sgt. Rock and Lt. Whyte, overhearing Becky, looked at each other in shock. "Oh shit," she swore in horror, "We didn't even think of it."

Looking at each other, Seiji and Becky said in deep disgust and perfect unison, "Amateurs!"

"Don't worry," Seiji said, seeing the looks of terror and fear on the faces nearby, "We are not amateurs, and everything should be secure by now." Pulling out a cell phone, he said "Team One to Team Two, status report."

"Team One, this is Team Two, we have just finished securing the objective, all hostiles down with no collateral damage."

"Excellent! Try to keep the children calm and make sure everyone there is ready to move on a moment's notice. Double check that all outside entrances are secured. Hopefully we'll be able to get an interdiction field around you soon."

A ripple of relief went through the room at hearing the transmission, except for the Marines who had uniform looks of shock on their faces. "How are you doing that?" Lt. Whyte asked in disbelief, "The interdiction field stops all cell and land-line communication."

"When we came in, we dropped a heavily shielded hard line connected to transmitters. Your interdiction field is amazing and we spent a ton of money and resources trying to figure out how to send signals through it before a technician thought of simply using a shielded fiber-optic line to connect transmitters on either side of the field. As you heard, it worked."

"Sir," the voice continued, "There is something else you should know, codes shinobi and bakudan."

Plugging an earpiece in, Seiji said, "Confirmed, continue." The report went on for several minutes and he got a grave look on his face. "Understood, good work," he said. Looking at Lt. Whyte long enough to make her start squirming he said, "Did you know there was a spy in your unit?"

"What?" She burst out, shocked, "That's impossible!"

"Really? Then how did the terrorists know where your target would be? How did they know about the daycare center and your oversight in failing to secure it?" he continued coldly, "and most importantly, how did they have enough time to plant enough bombs in the day care to level it?"

The entire room gasped in shock and the blood drained from almost every face in the room, even the unemotional ninjas looked shocked. The poor lieutenant was speechless and devastated. With growing horror she remembered who's idea it had been to come here and do an extraction. Unable to help herself, she looked at Corporal Kitty who was wearing a nasty smile. "Fooled you all, didn't I? Murdering bas�" His shout was cut short by a pair shuriken burying themselves in his neck.

Noooo, I can't die, not until the children are dead, like my Rachael.

Lt. Whyte slumped to the floor, overwhelmed by what was happening. "How is that possible?" she whimpered, "How could an Earth First spy get past the AI's? Hell, how could he communicate with Earth, all transmissions go through the AI's. I know he wasn't on Earth anytime recently." Her voice dropped to a whisper, "How could I have missed it?" Even though Becky was angry at the Confederacy Marines for their carelessness, she felt sorry for the young lieutenant.

"We were able to capture the leader of the Earth First group that attacked the day care center. Under deep hypnosis," Seiko added, "members of my clan got him to reveal that the spy wasn't Earth First, he's Confederacy. Something happened after he was picked up that made him turn against the Confederacy. He called them and made them an offer they couldn't refuse. Using a satellite phone to make calls down from the ship in orbit to Earth, he was able to reveal several pick up locations and earned their trust. It seems your AI's never thought to monitor for transmissions outside the normal networks." Seeing how upset she was, Seiji almost felt guilty continuing, "Their plan was to blow up the day care center. It seems they had placed one of their agents there months ago to get ready for today. They had three main goals: to discredit the Confederacy by proving they couldn't protect the evacuee's children; to demoralize the Confederacy and traumatize the new sponsors, making them ineffective; and finally, to make future volunteers think twice about joining. Sadly, it was a brilliant plan that almost worked. Almost. He is still alive so you can interrogate him at your leisure."

"Excellent," Sgt. Rock said. "We'll bring him with us so an AI can question him. They are the perfect lie-detectors and will get everything possible out of him, and then we'll recycle the bastard."

Slowly, an inch at a time, Lt. Whyte fought her way back to her feet, crushing out all her fear, horror and feelings of complete inadequacy and failure as she gathered her resolve. Coming erect, she saluted Seiji and said in a steady, controlled voice, "Thank you for your invaluable service to the Confederacy. I will make sure you are extracted or die trying. Please stop your jamming so I can report to my superiors on the situation, I'm sure they are getting frantic, besides there are wounded that need to be treated."

Seiji was pleased to see the girl blossoming into a real officer. He suspected she would do quite well in the future. Bowing to her, he gestured to the man by the jamming device to shut it off. The lieutenant closed her eyes to focus on the bombardment of sub-vocal messages pouring through the suddenly open link. She surprised everyone when she shouted, "Damn it sir, listen to me! You need to get a team to the day care center RIGHT NOW! You need to set up an interdiction field and get everyone out, no questions asked. We will be proceeding with the extraction here momentarily, but we are bringing up everyone, including wounded, I'm not leaving anyone behind for the Earth First bastards to pick off. We can always discretely return them later if that's what they want."

Seiji noted the newly appeared look of respect in Sgt. Rock's eyes as he listened to the lieutenant and was glad her subordinate had seen what he had. While the Marines started organizing things, he went over to Becky. "Are you a volunteer?" he asked, somewhat embarrassed when he realized he didn't even know her first name. He couldn't help but notice the Confederacy sergeant who knew her was hovering beside her, also waiting for her answer.

"Me?" she asked with a bitter laugh, "Why should I? There isn't enough of me left to be worth the effort. I mean I've heard rumors about Darjee medical miracles, but I never really thought they would be able to help someone as damaged as I am, so I never bothered to get tested." Taking a sad breath, she added, "Besides, who the hell would want me like this?"

With a cry of "I would", the waitress, Rana, plowed into Becky and wrapped her arms around her, crying. With a look of complete surprise, Becky slowly wrapped her remaining arm around the crying woman. As Becky opened her mouth, Seiji interrupted her. "I too planned on asking you to bring me with you," he said quietly. "As did I," Akane added, "I thought you were magnificent even before I saw you in battle." Several other patrons added their desire as well. It was Becky's turn to look overwhelmed by the outpouring.

Looking at her ex-boyfriend, Becky asked, "Do you really think there could be a place for me in the Confederacy? I mean, there is no way I could meet the physical requirements for any military, no matter how desperate they are, can I?"

Coming over and hugging her also, he said, "Hon, after a few weeks in the medical tubes you will be fully restored and looking like you did when we met, maybe even better." Glancing at the lieutenant for confirmation, she began to cry when Lt. Whyte confirmed that everything he had just said was true.

"Alright," she said, tears streaming down her face, "put me back together and I'll show you how to kick ass!" Almost as an afterthought, she added, "assuming I pass your damn test that is, just my luck to get all ready and find out I failed."

"Don't worry," Lt. Whyte said, "the AI assures me you will pass. Now let's get everyone out of here and onto the ship." With that said, the lieutenant moved off to organize the belated extraction with Sgt. Rock.

When her turn to transport finally came, the Marine guarding the transport node got an embarrassed look on his face, "Sorry Ma'am, pets are absolutely prohibited, no exceptions."

With a beatific smile, Becky cold-cocked the surprised Marine, dropping him in a heap right on the transporter pad and watched him vanish. 'Yup, this is going to be fun' she thought, stepping into the green light with Shtiya in her usual place glued to her hip.

Together as always, they stepped into the future.

My thanks to deGaffer, swarmfic, Nuke, Tom, George, Gary, Mike and the other Swarm authors for their comments and corrections, and to Thinking Horndog for giving us a place to vent our creativity. All remaining errors are my own.