Third wave.


Dusty was getting uncomfortable, and not from the location's heat.

"Hold it, what do you mean "let's go"?!" Lady-Jaye asks. "You can't be serious?"

"We did what we came here for." Flint tells her while putting his canteen back.

"But what about them?, Flint, i can't believe you're telling us to ignore what was done here." She says to him, motioning to the broken statues.

"There's nothing to indicate Cobra was here again; since they did nothing, we do nothing." He replies while headed for the trail.

"...Don't taern away fram me, ye spineless bastard!" She yelled at him, causing the other two to go wide-eyed.

Flint stopped and glanced back. "What'd you just call me?" He asked in a flat tone.

"You heard me, buster; if you won't stay, then i will." She tells him and stomped off in another direction. "Spirit, Freedom, let's move out."

"Halt!" Flint shouts as he grabs her arm. "You're not going anywhere, soldier."

"The hell I'm not." She shouts in response. "It's the right thing to do!"

"We're not here to do the right thing, this was just for public relat-" He starts to say before she punches him in the face. "Lady-Jaye, stop, that's an order!"

"I don't give a rat's ass; I'll get to the bottom of this myself if i have to!" She says through her teeth as Dusty and Spirit rush over to him.

"All this for the same bunch that tried to flatten ya?" The former asks Lady-Jaye while the latter wipes the blood from Flint's mouth, neither having seen anyone this mad since Airtight put some happy face stickers inside Deep-Six's helmet.

"I'm all better now." She tells him.

"Uh, Spirit?" Dusty asks, in an uncertain tone.

"This is not a wise choice, Lady-Jaye." The tracker says, getting up. "But it is an honorable one." He adds, and they leave.

Flint slams a fist on the ground, then looks to his remaining subordinate. "Which side for you?"

Dusty tugs at his collar. "Personally, I'd rather be inside a bar." He tells him, still not sure what just happened.

Flint stands and nods. "Plenty of time for that after we get them back." And they start to follow the other two.

Six miles from the caverns, the two pursuers are stopped by a voice. "Base to Joe Leader 2, requesting situation report. Over."

"Aw, Leavenworth, here we come." Dusty says to himself. "Why did Ace have to go and get hungover that day; why?!"

Flint grumbles under his breath and takes the handset from Dusty's pack. "Joe Leader 2 here, our V.A.M.P. broke down and we're heading to the nearest town. Over." He tells Breaker.

"You want us to send a second team? Over."

"Negative, we're halfway there now. Over and out."

"Acknowledged. Over and out."

Flint puts the handset back while Dusty panics. "Who's going to pay my mom's bills when I'm stuck breaking rocks?"

"Be quiet." Flint tells him. "All they're going to know is w-" He says next before they hear a shriek ahead of them.

"What the hell?" Dusty asked before Freedom appeared, and circled a few times before leaving the way he came.

"You heard him, double quick." Flint tells him before running after the eagle. After going 26 yards, they find the two and a half deserters...and a bunch of decomposed bodies, Primord bodies.

"Jesus Christ; how...how many?" Dusty asked Spirit while placing his hat over his nose.

"8 of them, no doubt they'd been killed in an escape attempt; maybe 5 or 6 days ago." He replied as they watch Flint walk over to Lady-Jaye.

"Do you still~want to ab~abandon them...sir?" She asks him in a mix of rage and grief as she points to one corpse.

Flint looks over the remains, and shuts his eyes when he notices white hairs near the head; they were from the "sideburns" of the chief they met before. He lowers his beret for a moment before answering. "Any indication of who or where the culprit's are?"

"This tree here has some bark removed at a shallow angle, and from the depth of the gouges, I'd say the shooters were standing...here." Spirit answered, moving 18 yards away. "There's another body here!"

The other three rush over to see a human body. "At least they didn't go down without a fight." Dusty remarked.

"I'm afraid that is not the case; this man was shot, single round to the back of his neck." Spirit tells him.

"So their escape was his fault?"

"It is the most probable answer."

"But was it intentional or an accident?" Flint asks himself before he looks back. "You win, Lady-Jaye; can you ever forgive me?"

"...I'll think about it." She told him, while giving him a glance.

The three follow Spirit for another two miles until they see a small camp in a clearing, then belly crawl their way to some bushes. "How much you gonna put in?"/"21."/"...18."/"Fold." They hear from inside a make-shift shack. They see 11 Primords in a metal cage 7 feet to the left of it.

While memorizing the layout, they see one Primord grab a small ornate monitor lizard, which another takes. The noise causes a bald man with a jaguar skin vest* to walk out. "Stop that fekin racket, ya hairy freaks!" He yells before shooting one of them.

The four look away before another of the men, with orange hair and lightning bolt tattoos walked out and grabbed the man's throat. "I thought i said not to damage anymore of the merchandise, we already had to waste money on a second raid thanks to Evert's carelessness." He said before shoving him down and heading back inside.

"I'll be a Primord's uncle if the carrot-top with the arrows doesn't look like a Dreadnok." Dusty said to Flint quietly, only for Lady-Jaye to respond.

"Zandar."

"...Huh?"

"We don't have much info on him since he's unaffiliated, but we do know that he's Zartan's brother."

"Really?"

"There's also a sister, Zarana; but she's in a jail-cell in Laos."

While Dusty and Spirit nod, Flint turns from the former. "Lady-Jaye; I...take back what i said before, all of it." He said, placing his hand next to hers.

"Thanks, and I'm sorry for decking you; i know that we weren't formed for this." She replied. "But we can't just do nothing; please, Flint."

He takes a breath and looks to Spirit, who nods. "Freedom and i stand ready."

"Same here, Flint." Dusty said next, giving a thumbs up.

"We'll be violating our mandate." Flint says before glancing to Lady-Jaye. "But it's be the right thing to do." He says next, and the two grin as she closes her hand around his.

He turns to say something to Dusty before they hear Breaker again. "Base to Joe Leader 2, reques-" He says before Dusty turned it off.

"...They didn't hear that did they?" He whispered, before an arrow lands between his fingers. "...Yep."

"On yer feet, whoever da hell ya are." The first man says before the Primords notice them.

"Tunbu?" One seems to ask itself before a younger one points to them.

"Yoh Joh, yoh joh!" It says.

The first underling looks back to the one called Zandar. "...Isn't that what those G.I. Joe people always shout out?"

The poachers are too busy keeping them quiet to notice Spirit taking his mini-knife out. "Now why would you be all the way out here, i wonder?" Zandar asks them.

"Better question is what's this one got under her duds?" Another man asks, grabbing Lady-Jaye's wrist.

"You leave her alon-oof!" Dusty says before she kicked him in the gut. "What'd you...where are you going?!"

"Cram it, why don'tcha?!" She tells him before walking toward the poachers as they glance to each other in confusion. "He can be a real pain in the ass." She says before grinning at them. "So, how much do these go for; a few thousand?"

"...Well, if we find the right people, we might get somewhere near a million; what's it to ya?" Zandar tells her after glancing to his "co-workers".

"Just makes me think how an army salary's not worth shit next to this line of work...be sure to keep them alive; they'll make for good labor." She tells him while motioning to hers.

"What the hell's she doing?" Dusty asked Flint before Zandar whispered something to the first one, who points his AK at her.

"One of their spook's, are ya; get back over there." He tells her, and ties her up too.

"Damn; Zartan must have told him about that one time." She says to herself after they walk off.

"When you were with Gung-Ho, you mean?" Dusty asked.

"Yeah; and i would have gotten away with it, too, if it wer-"

"Shut up, both of ya!" The first one tells them.

"What do we do with them, boss?" Another asked.

"I say we do 'em in, it's safer." The third says.

"Just leave the woman, I'll take her." The second says.

"Oh no, you-"

"Want her yourself, old man?"

"Did ya already forget what that bitch just tried to pull on us?"

"...Oh, nevermind then."

Zandar is about to say something when they hear engine noises. "Skyhawk; take cover!" He shouts. While they scatter, Spirit take the opportunity to cut his and the other's ropes.

"Thanks, now lets get our weapons back." Flint says. "We can't leave any survivors, got it?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good; Dusty, burn any papers you find...Lady-Jaye, get that cage open; Spirit and i will do the rest."

The four nod to each other and split up. Lady-Jaye gets to the cage, and the younger one inside looks at her, she gasps when she recognizes him as the dead chief's son. "Poor thing, I'll have you out in a second." She says before he picks up a piece of bone from the lizard they ate and throws it. "What was that...oh." She asks before turning to see that it was thrown into the mouth of the second poacher right behind her, who chokes on it.

"Yoh joh?" The Primord youth asks.

"Yo Joe." She replies, before getting a pin from her hair to pick the lock.

Elsewhere, Spirit is looking around when he stops and pulls his head back, narrowly avoiding an arrow. "What i heard of you lot is true, then." Zandar says from above him.

"You could have just asked." Spirit says back.

"At least with you, I'd get an answer." Zandar replied as he jumped down.

"But mere words would not be sufficient."

"No, they would not."

"Very well; Freedom, leave him to me."

After the eagle flies off, the two charge each other.

Back with Flint, he hears the two in the distance. "Sounds like Spirit found your boss." He says to the last two underlings, all three are aiming at each other.

"Sure does; who do ya think'll win, yank?" The first one asks.

"Take a guess." Flint tells him.

"I'd rather take yer head."

"Because yours is empty?"

"Heh-heh, only thought i got are of the twenty ways i can kill all four of ya."

"That many; hell, i only got one, and it's way better."

"And he said my head's empty." The man said. "Which way you think he...means." He says before seeing the third one gone. "Morgan**?" He asks, looking around. When he looks back, he hears a round whizz by before feeling a blow to the chest, and looks down to see a k-bar sticking in it. He gives one last chuckle before falling dead on his back.

Flint walks over to him to pull it out. "Nice work, Recondo." He says.

The other Joe nods while standing over the third one's body. "Anytime, Flint."

Once the two head back to the camp, Flint sees Spirit, who has some bruises and cuts, on a chair being bandaged by nurse Blake. "The one called Zandar escaped somehow; but i doubt he will be be of any concern for the time being."

"Who's Zandar?" Recondo asks.

After explaining, Flint goes to the radio to contact Duke. Once he meets them at the caverns a few hours later, he's livid. "And i thought your girlfriend was trouble, but no, you had to make it a god damned competition." He says aloud.

"Sorry, sir." Flint replied, having take the blame for all of it.

"I hate to do this, but when we get back, you'll have to spend the rest of the year in the stockade." Duke tells him.

"Yes, sir." Flint replied.

"But Duke!" Dusty says while consoling Lady-Jaye.

"But nothing, or you'll join him."

"And what of the Primords, sir?" Spirit asks him, and they watch Recondo, Ace, and Clutch try to keep them from going to far in their examining of the A.P.C.'s and Skyhawks.

"The obvious thing would be to leave them here; but it's likely that other black marketers will come here once we take off." Duke replies.

"There's gotta be some suggestion to keep 'em out of somebody's collection." Roadblock says.

"...Well, i think i know a good place." Duke says.


A few days later, at a city in a mountain region.

"And this is why have brought these...Primords here?" An old woman asks Duke and Flint.

"Yes, your majesty, we felt that your land's remoteness would make an ideal location." Duke replies.

"...Selina?" She asks her advisor.

"It does seem a good cause, grandmother; even if it is without much warning." She say, while thinking, "Or hearing back from him."..."And we do still owe him for his country's help in rebuilding our city."

"You have made your point, child." The person says as she stands. "By edict of Queen Neldre***, the Primords are now fellow citizens."


Chapter eleven. Read and review.

*Gnawgahyde

**Zanzibar

***Made up name.