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PART FIFTEEN(15)

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Having given Reith a Rend Healant shot and a shock suppressant to stabilize him, Penny called him into a Medi`Ball, as OCley spotted OLie and Co. emerging from the passage.

"Are you good to go?" the Operations Chief shouted inqueriously to him.

OLie felt like laughing riotously, but controlled that urge and simply responded, "Oh yeah, Sir!"

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*\"TDT, it's time you 'flair' and pull back,"/* came OCley's voice from the comm. unit. Two Dash Two heard the queue indistinctly over the noise around him and thought, 'Thank the Goddess! It's about time!'

If he and Everett were pulling back, he had to help Liza knock that darrigen out of commission; entuned or not, the eelza was having a magmar of a time subduing it.

What he didn't know and what Liza could tell him, was that most of the darrigen's scales were waxed against electric attack.

He hated to be so cruel, but he felt he really had no other option ~ He took careful aim and squeezed off a last shot.

The darrigen collapsed with a moan, and Liza cautiously moved in to hazard it ~ Two Dash Two hoped she would be careful and not try something that would bring the Guards to the darrigen's defense.

He turned and rolled forward onto his feet with one fluid motion, and grabbed at his Lowi as he took off down the rubble's rain-slicked and jarringly uneven grade.

When he had good angle, he flashed the Lowi ~ having adjusted it to 'widest pin-point' 'max candle power' ~ over Everett's prone form, to let him know it was 'get aboard or get left behind'.

'He looks as comfortable as that ATTA-G looked before all the noise started,' he noted with some envy. He himself got tense during a munitions exchange; good for some ~ it kept them on their toes and wide awake ~ but hazardous to the health of others. For them, tension meant hair-trigger reactions, and hair-trigger reactions needed instinctive judgment; which usually meant if you didn't have good judgment, you didn't survive these hitchingly twisted missions.

He couldn't spare a glace at his subordinate as he loped with proper caution down the incline of ruins, but he could listen for the trailing of the younger man's footsteps. He heard Everett lay a cover of five 'blooms' with the Acquizen, one after the other, after which the 'kid' was probably drawing back with all proper haste and following in his wake.

Neither of them gave much thought to those they were leaving behind. There were no worries about collecting the loosed P-teamers; the HoCra had a DistantRecall system installed inboard, and it was good for up to five miles.

As TDT had expected, he became aware of Everett's closing footsteps behind him. He slowed and then paused, catching Everett up short with his arm as he tried to breeze past.

Surprised at the 'command halt', Everett quickly realized Two Dash Two wanted him to do something ~ Probably 'van guarded retreat'-wise.

"Put some of the grainite on the lookout ridge up in the air, before we can see the whites of their eyes," came the suggestive command from his superior.

Everett knew what he meant, and knelt down to brace himself. Smiling grimly, he loosed four more cover shots with the Acquizen, aimed just below the crest of the ridges on either side of the lookout point, leading up to it.

More dust and chips were the result they got ~ indeed the one they were wanting ~ and they both moved to retreat again, TDT offering his hand to help Everett up from his half-kneel.

"Get some rounds out of the Acquizen and see if you can manage to set them for timed detonation at from five to twelve seconds delay," Two Dash Two ordered his subordinate, and went on to explain needlessly. "We'll set them along the next ridge and hope the ATTA-Gs don't want to run a minefield."

Between them, they rigged seven rounds for safely timed detonation increments, and planted them cautiously about ten feet apart: three on the approach side of the ridge, and four on the retreat side.

His four charges reposing securely, Everett stood still near the last one and noticed something while he waited for Two Dash Two. The HoCra was in sight, and he read the message that someone within it was flashing towards them.

He turned back to see Two Dash Two hustle over the ridge's crest and into sight. Surprisingly enough, not to the sound of shots from the Guards and their resulting ricochets.

"New orders," Everett informed him with playful grimness, when the older man was near enough to hear.

Running now, beside him, Everett cracked a wide grin at the thought of the disbelief that was probably dawning on his superior's face, and continued quickly with appropriate dryness. "We're to make sure the ATTA-Gs think twice about following us too closely."

Two Dash Two snorted disgustedly and rejoined sarcastically, "Now why didn't we think of that?"

The first thing they didn't think of, went off behind them ~ as they ran for the HoCra ~ with a concussion that would have riled a shattah; the first, independently armed round Two Dash Two had attempted to place, he had lost down into the ruins only-the-Goddesses-knew how far.

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