Chapter 1

The little pup yipped as Skylar 'Sky' Raven worked to unlock the door to the veterinary office, where she worked. It was late at night, and normally she'd be at home, taking care of her menagerie of pets, but here she was.

"Yeah, I know, Brubba, but it's going to take me a few seconds," she soothed as she headed for the building alarm system to turn it off, a large German Shepherd hot on her heels. Also snuggled against her, in a baby sling, were three more German Shepherd puppies, all belonging to Artemis, the German Shepherd beside her. Beside her, Artemis whined, hearing her babies. It was feeding time and her babies were hungry.

Except for the fact that Brubba had a condition known as secondary cleft palate, and had to be tube fed in order to get his milk to his stomach and not in his lungs or up his nose. Surgery would later correct the problem, but he was too young for that right now. And Sky had run out of puppy formula before she'd planned on it. Which was why she was at the vet clinic in the early hours of the morning.

She stared at the alarm system. Someone had already turned it off. "That's strange," she muttered.

Artemis growled. Something was wrong, and she smelled something she didn't like.

"Easy, girl," Sky soothed, patting the dog. She grabbed Artemis's collar, just in case, and slowly moved down the hall to the main part of the building. There wasn't supposed to be anyone there at this time of night, but her boss, Staff Sergeant Yun, had been acting funny for the last few days, so there was that.

It was then, in the main surgery area, that she heard raised voices. One of them was Staff Sergeant Yun, and he was arguing with another male.

"There! The bullet is out, now get out!"

There was the sound of flesh striking flesh, followed by a clattering noise of a body hitting metal things and then the floor.

"I don't think so," the second male snarled. "You don't get to tell me what to do, chink!"

Sky had her hands full trying to stop Artemis from growling and barking, while trying to see what was going on through the swing door windows. "Ruhig!" she hissed, and Artemis, clearly not happy, quieted.

"You do as you're damn well told, or we will hurt your family," the man continued. He was wearing dark green and brown camo, with his face painted black, and he was wrapping gauze around a stitched up left forearm. Beside him, guns clearly visible, were three other men in matching clothing and face paint. One of them had removed the sleeve of his long-sleeve shirt, and Sky could clearly see two crossed hammers on his tanned bicep. She didn't know what it meant, but she was sure it was important.

"Get rid of him," one of the other men said, jerking his head.

"No! You said if I helped you, you would leave me alone!" Staff Sergeant Yun yelled.

And Sky watched in horror as a third man pulled out a gun and shot Staff Sergeant Yun in the head.

He fell silently, blood spraying the equipment behind him. She screamed, and Artemis barked.

And the bad guys saw her. With her bright pink hair, it was kinda hard not to.

Everyone froze. Then the leader yelled, "Get her!"

And Sky grabbed the leash that was on her belt, which should have been attached to Artemis (but she was such a good dog, she didn't really need it) and threaded it through the door handles as fast as she could.

"Don't look at the bad guys, don't look at the bad guys," she chanted, tying a square knot as fast as she could. The doors slammed, nearly throwing her off her feet, but the knot held. She looked up, and saw two very angry men looking back at her.

"Hi guys!" she quipped, waving cheerfully. "Bye guys!"

And she took off running, Artemis hot on her heels.

"Baby formula! Need it now!" she yelped to herself, dashing through the building, which was a bit of a big building, considering who they serviced. "Don't know how long that door's gonna hold, what with all the guns and all that (don't think about that! Just get the damn formula!)" She quickly found the storage room where the puppy formula was, grabbed one of the garbage bags and grabbed three containers of formula, throwing the formula into the garbage bag. "Pas Auf!" she told Artemis, who promptly went to the door and started guarding it, tail wagging. "And whoop! Thar she blows!" A crashing noise reached her ears as the surgery doors were finally broken through.

"Find her!" someone yelled.

"Time to go!" she told Artemis, who barked in agreement.

She turned off the room light, just as someone tried the door. "Oh doggy doo-doo!" she hissed, throwing herself against the door. An aerosol container of room freshener caught her eyes. "Spray to the eyes, makes them cries," she said softly, grabbing the container, just as the door creaked open.

The attacker screamed when he got an eyeful of the spray. Then he was moaning when Sky kicked him in the groin, and then nothing when she introduced his face to the door.

"Night-night asshat," she said cheerfully, dragging the unconscious man into the room. After grabbing his wallet, she then locked the door, and, garbage bag full of formula in hand, took off running for the back door.

Then she had a new problem. He was about six foot something and ugh-lee with his face paint and bald head. Oh, and he had a gun.

"Back off, jarhead, or I'll let her go and she'll attack!" Sky threatened, holding on to Artemis' collar, which was a bit of an effort, considering the way the powerful German Shepard was barking, growling, and lunging against Sky.

"You're bluffing, bitch," the man sneered.

"Yeah? Wanna find out how much her bite hurts? And because you just killed Dr. Yun, there ain't gonna be nobody around to fix your little boo-boos. Oh, and that was her leash that was in the door. No leash, big trouble." Sky let go of Artemis just a little, and the dog lunged, growling.

The man took a step towards her, and Sky let her go. Artemis didn't attack (she wouldn't unless she heard the command) but she stepped forward. The man stepped forward again.

"Fass!" Sky yelled, and the man's eyes went wide as Artemis, growling, attacked. The gun went flying, both man and dog went stumbling into the nearby metal shelves, and everything came down. A metal pan across the guy's face sent him out, and she grabbed his wallet too.

"Hier!" she told Artemis, and they both dashed down the hall, slamming out the door and heading for her car. "Good girl. Really good girl," she huffed, seeing two more of those bad guys leave the building, throwing the formula in the car, and Artemis jumping in after. "Time to run like a rabbit with a dog on my tail! Sorry for the crowded condition, pups!" Her side mirror shattered as she tore out of the parking lot. "You're paying for that, buster!" she yelled. "Mad woman driving crazy car time!"

It wasn't until she was several miles away before she was able to slow down. "Thank you, Almighty Lord, for Your protection. Now this girl needs a store with water, and a phone call to a friend, 'cause this girl is scared out of her teeny tiny little thong undies," she prayed.

It was two o'clock in the morning, and someone was banging on his door.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming," Special Agent Jethro Gibbs grumped. The second he unlocked his door was the second a walking tornado with bright pink hair blew in.

"Hi, I'm Sky, and Abby says 'Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs, you gotta keep her safe! She's a really good friend and fantastic with animals and call me as soon you can!' Oh, and that's Artemis, and she really needs to feed her babies, and I really need to feed Brubba," the woman said, a large German Shepherd dog following her. She quickly locked the door, took off the baby sling she was carrying, which had strange whimpering and whining noises coming from it, and went into the living room.

Gibbs stared at her in confusion. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded.

"Abby said I could come here, that I'd be safe here with you and you didn't have any problems with dogs," Sky said, kneeling on the floor near the couch and removing her baby sling.

"You're a friend of Abby's?" Gibbs asked, confused.

"Yup. She and me were besties before she left for Jolly Ol' England after the death of that really cute English guy," Sky said, carefully removing four German Shepherd puppies from within the sling. Artemis flopped down on the floor and Sky gave her three of the puppies, who started nursing. The fourth puppy she gave to Gibbs, who took it (not that he had a choice) and removed a can of formula from a garbage bag. Making fast work of a bottle of water, a syringe, a rubber tube, the formula, a coffee mug, and Gibbs' microwave, she was soon tube feeding the puppy she had called Brubba.

"What the hell is going on?" Gibbs demanded.

"Well, I'm a vet nurse for the Army. I'm not actually in the Army, but Staff Sergeant Yun liked me, so he hired me. We look after everyone's pets, but especially the ones on the base, and we get all kinds. Well I ran out of formula for Brubba a little faster than I had planned on, so I had to go to the clinic, but I couldn't just leave Artemis and her kiddies behind because my neighbours complain about the whining. So anyway, I get to the clinic and find the alarm already off," Sky said. "So I go in there and I hear Dr. Yun yelling about something in the surgery room and I get there in time to see a couple of ass-ugly (actually asses are kinda cute, especially the donkey kind, except when they kick) anyway really ugly guys dressed in black paint and brown and green camo clothes. They came after me, I clobbered two of them, left one of them in the storage room, and Artemis got a bite out of the other one. Oh, and I took their wallets." She reached into her kangaroo sweatshirt pockets and took out two wallets, which she handed to Gibbs.

"What about Dr. Yun?" Gibbs asked.

"Oh. Umm," Sky said, her eyes going a bit wide. "Um, the leader told the other guy to shoot him. He's, umm, he's, well, he's dead."

"He's dead?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah. Really messy head shot kinda dead," Sky said. "Oh boy. Umm, you wouldn't happen to have some coffee, would you? Abby said you were a Marine and you know a thing or two about coffee and I really could use some Marine-strength coffee. Oh, and um, they saw me." She tugged at her hair, which had a buzz cut around her head at ear-level down to her neck, with the rest of her hair straight, but no less bright pink. Gibbs also spotted a seahorse in the shell of her ear, a dragon head on the back of her hand, and he was sure he saw something on the back of her neck when she headed for his kitchen.

Gibbs flipped open the two wallets and his eyes went wide. One of the wallets had a military identification card in it. "Private James Brunno, USMC" he said. He held up the identification card. "That him?"

"Paint his face black and it might be. What color are his eyes?" Sky asked, carefully removing the tube from Brubba, who wiggled in protest. She then stuck her finger in the puppy's mouth, letting him suck on it for a few seconds.

"Brown."

"That would be the guy I left in the storage room, after I sprayed his eyes with room freshner," Sky said. "The second guy had blue eyes. Oh, and I think he was bald. And in a lot of pain from where Artemis bit him."

"Okay." Gibbs held up a second military identification card. "Private First Class Frederick Cameron, also a Marine. And he has blue eyes."

"That's him. Oh, and one of the other guys, he had stitches in his left forearm, and two crossed hammers on his upper arm.

"Two crossed hammers?"

"Two crossed hammers. Coffee?" she asked hopefully, giving Artemis her baby back.

Gibbs set the wallets down and headed for the kitchen. When he came back, it was to see Sky petting Artemis, who had her head in her lap, and tears rolling down her face. She looked up at Gibbs. "Why did they have to kill him?" she asked sadly, accepting the coffee he handed her. "He did as they told him to, even when they threatened his family. Abby says you're really good at what you do. Are you?" she asked, as he sat down beside her.

"I try to be," he said. He reached for his phone, which had been in his pocket, and called the local police. After asking them to check the clinic, and giving them the address, he also called CID and asked them to check on Dr. Yun's family, explaining he'd received a tip that his family might be in danger. Then he called Abby.

"Gibbs! Did Sky make it okay? Is she safe?" Abby demanded.

"She's safe, but what color is her hair?" he asked.

"Bright pink. Oh, and she has a seahorse in the shell of her left ear and a really cool dragon tattoo on her right arm. You can see the dragon head on her wrist and hand," Abby said.

"That's her."

"She's a really nice person, and she knows animals like nobody's business. Take care of her, Gibbs, please."

"I will, Abs, I will."

"Oh, and you might want to run a q-tip on Artemis' teeth. If she bit the bad guy, there's lots of DNA evidence right there," Abby said.

"I'll do that. Take care," he said, ending the call.

He then headed for his bathroom and grabbed a few q-tips, and then a baggie from his kitchen. "DNA evidence," he explained. "Artemis bit him."

"And you think you can get evidence from her teeth," Sky said, wiping her face. "Okay. Give," she said, waggling her fingers at him. He gave her a q-tip and she quickly swabbed the German Shepherd's teeth.

"What's wrong with Brubba?" Gibbs asked, curious as to why she'd been tube feeding the little guy.

"He's got a genetic condition called secondary cleft palate," Sky explained, before yawning heavily. "Basically means the roof of his mouth didn't seal properly, and if that happens, then he can get milk up his nose, or down into his lungs. When he hits about three or four months, he'll have surgery to fix that, but for now, he gets the tube to the tummy." She yawned. "I really need to go to my apartment in the morning. I have a couple of friends I have to feed in the morning."

"Get some rest," Gibbs said, leading the tired woman upstairs.

"Okay. Can Artemis stay down here? She's a really good guard dog," Sky said.

"Sure."

"Artemis, bleib! Good girl!" Sky said. The dog wagged her tail, and settled down.

Once he was sure Sky was settled, Gibbs settled down on the couch. Several hours later, he was woken up to a wet nose in his ear, and the feeling of something tugging on his pillow. He looked down, eyes wide, and discovered Artemis looking at him, head cocked, and one of the puppies pulling on his pillow.

And his cell phone was ringing.