A/N: Thank you everyone for the reviews and hanging in there as it all went kinda crazy. Also computer stuff in this update is complete BS... so please just let it go and roll with it :-)

Chapter 25

Danny gasped for air as his body was in shock. He'd been hit in the vest a couple times and in the leg. The gunshot wound to the leg was what finally dropped him. What was supposed to be an easy meet turned into what looked like a turf war. one of SUVs of the Milwaukee contingent had the blast had knocked them all down. Then the bullets started flying as men driving trucks with flat beds tore across the airport strips firing semi automatic weapons. One was armed with a grenade laucher which explained how the SUV exploded. He blew up the one other SUV before he'd been killed by one of Danny and his team.

He didn't know, as they were all fighting for their lives. The Captain had ordered a retreat to the plane and that was when Danny had been hit and fell to the ground much to his frustration.

Bullets flew through the air, he heard the shouting of his friends and the Captain as they laid down suppression fire at the enemy. He saw a shadow pass over him and the Captain's face swam into view.

"Keep breathing." He ordered Danny as he grabbed the handle on the back of his vest and dragged him away as he fired his rifle with his other hand. Hands grabbed under his arms and Danny finally had a view of the mess of dead bodies and charred vehicles. He was dragged half carried onto the plane, where he was laid back on the floor. He turned his head to the side and saw Mrs Miller rush to his side.

"Get this plane in the air NOW!" The Captain ordered. The back door of the Hercules closed as the engines rumbled at full speed propelling the air plane into the air.

"Just slow your breathing." Mrs Miller told him, he looked up at her using her as a focal point as he did as she told him while she shouted for a med kit. She knew she was right, even if his rational mind told him to rip the vest off. He needed to keep it on until he calmed down. He watched in what felt like a weird dream as Mrs Miller; Miller's Mom had gone into full medic mode. He wanted to ask if she knew what she was doing. She was a bookshop owner not a medic let alone a doctor but she seemed adept. Somewhere between trying to breathe and her pressing gauze to his leg he blacked out.

"Hey," Kara said to Larrin in a low voice, the doctor had finished his work and left continue his rounds. Larrin's nose had been set back into it original structure. It had been iced to reduce the swelling even if it was all too little too late as Larrin had the dark bruised circles under her eyes. Her right arm and wrist was finally set in a cast, all the blood had been cleaned off her face and cuts were cleaned and stitched. Not that there were many, just a couple stitches on top of her forehead, her right cheek had a butterfly stitch on it. They'd changed her out of her clothes into a gown and put an IV drip of fluids to rehydrate her.

"How you feeling?" Kara asked her.

"Fuzzy." Larrin replied. She struggled to pull the blankets up to her chin. Kara gently pulled the blankets out of Larrin's hand adjusted the blankets for her. "Thank you." Larrin mumbled.

"There anything else you need?" Kara asked her.

"I want to leave." Larrin said sluggishly. Kara smoothed a lose strand of hair behind Larrin's face and gave her a empathetic smile as she knew how Larrin felt. She could see her panic and while Kara didn't know what was going on, she did know their lie about Larrin's identity wasn't going to last long.

"We will when the doctor comes back with your discharge papers ok?" Kara asked her, Larrin gave a nod.

"Yeah." Larrin replied.

"Listen, I have no clue what is going on but we're all in this together ok. We'll protect you as best we can." Kara promised her, she looked at Larrin and frankly wanted to hunt down the man that did this to her and pay him in kind.

"I can't get a job." Larrin told her. Kara gave her a kind smile as she didn't care about that but could tell it was important to Larrin.

"That's not a priority ok and we'll find other ways for you to contribute when you're better. So right now let's focus on you healing up. Ok?" Kara asked her.

Larrin nodded tears filled her eyes as the pain meds they gave her did nothing to dull the pain she was in. They only made her feel drowsy but she was too afraid to close her eyes. She also knew she had to confess everything and face being judged for what she'd done.

"I knew him." Larrin told Kara, she watched as Kara's eyes grew wide in shock. "He's -" Larrin stopped as the curtain to their room swung open and a woman with wild brunette hair that had tomato red streaks through it. She wore black skinny jeans, a yellow Navy PT T-shirt that Larrin had seen in Wolf's gear and a leather jacket with a canvas bag over one shoulder. It was a very confusing look and her head couldn't figure it out thanks to the drugs.

"You are-" the woman started but Kara cut her off.

"A bad friend. I know, I'm sorry I should have called." Kara said as she rushed over to Val and pulled her into a hug as a nurse came up to them obviously watching them. "I'll tell you later what happened but right now Alisha's going to be fine." Kara said to her "So play along." she whispered in Val's ear before she released her.

"How did you find us so quickly?" Kara asked her, she was surprised as Val actually turned pink. She couldn't believe she had 'Valkyrie' the bad ass defiant hacker blushing like a school girl.

"I'm her emergency contact." Val told her which made Kara frown as she knew that wasn't true but she decided it was safer to go along as Val could be an ally if she didn't give their game away. "What happened?" Val asked Kara.

"Right, sorry. It's a long story." Kara told her, the nurse drew the curtain close leaving them and Val moved closer to her.

"Isn't she the one who put Wright in the hospital?" Val asked in a low voice to her. Kara nodded and pulled her closer to the wall so if the Nurse was nearby she wouldn't be able to hear them without getting closer to the curtain giving herself away.

"I need you to hack Alisha's personnel records and make it match her physical description." Kara told her in barely a whisper. Val's eyes went wide in shock, Kara knew because what she was asking meant breaking the law and falsifying documents something Val knew straight-laced Kara would never ask. But the Val didn't know Kara very well.

"Now?" Val asked her, a smile playing on her lips as she wondered what the hell was going on but also surprised goody two shoes Kara wanted to get up to some bad.

"Now before they look into it." Kara said pushing her.

"You're bossy." Val told her as she dumped her bag onto the spare space of Larrin's bed and pulled out her laptop and booted it up. The President offered her a job to turn Valkyrie into a communications network to bring America together. Of course what Michener didn't know was the reason Valkyrie worked so well was that it was in very basic terms a virus that infected everything it connected to. It was just a small version of her original purpose. So with her laptop she connect to any system that had their wi-fi still switched on like mobile phones, computers etc. So in essence she could pretty much control everything technologically speaking until more server farms were re-powered and the internet was brought back online.

"Just hurry." Kara said as she moved to the curtain and stuck her head out looking around. There was only a couple nurses on as the doctor seemed to have disappeared. She just hoped he was on a break and not up to something bad.

"Done." Val said after what felt like two seconds worth of typing.

"That was quick." Kara said as she looked to Larrin who was struggling to stay awake. She wished Larrin would rest for a little bit as it would be easier on her but she had a feeling Larrin had something important to tell her but wouldn't talk in Val's presence.

"Valkyrie." Val said in a patronising manner as she pointed at herself. She started to shut it down to conserve battery power.

"No one's that good." Kara told her, worried that Val was just putting on a show for her instead of helping her. It wasn't like Kara had even explained what was going on.

"In simpleton terms, I corrupted the Nathan James medical and personnel files with a virus. So talk." Val told her as she closed her laptop and stuffed it back into backpack. Kara moved away from the curtain back to Val and looked to Larrin. She didn't know what to do, so she just went with her instincts. Val liked to fight for the innocent and she also could hack into seemingly any computer network.

"You hear anything about people being tossed over state lines as 'sport' in any of your time before the Nathan James?" Kara asked her in a low voice. Val frowned in confusion which made Kara inwardly sigh with relief as Val had no poker face, so she could tell that the woman had no clue what Kara was saying.

"I lived by myself on an oil rig for nearly half a year. So I have no clue unless it was said on the network." Val told her.

"Could you look into it?" Kara asked.

"Why don't you look into it?" Val asked her.

"Because people won't talk to me thanks you bad mouthing the Military for months." Kara pointed out.

"Touché." Val said, accepting responsibility that people might call the sailors of the Nathan James heroes but that didn't mean they were going to talk about anything sordid to them and she had feeling this was going to be good. "But I need more to look into this." Val added.

Kara looked to Larrin who had dozed off, the drugs in her system and the severity of her injuries putting her to sleep. She turned to Val. "She was mugged, her passport taken, they called her 'sport' and the police, the doctors in the public hospital wouldn't help her at all. They told me that I had to get her to go to the Embassy." Kara said in a low voice. Val narrowed her eyes in suspicion as sounded off even to her.

"Ok. I'll look into it but I'm waiting to be called to fix the computer systems here. The virus that corrupted the Nathan James records is rather vicious." Val told her, Kara smiled.

"So you and Alisha?" Kara asked changing the topic as she had to wonder how Val knew Alisha had been checked into the hospital. She only assumed that Val had Alisha's name tagged in a search.

"It's nothing, she's hooked up on her ex but you have to admit. She's got spunk." Val said with a shrug completely downplaying it but Kara wasn't fooled for a minute. Val had a crush on Alisha which was surprising and adorable.

"I thought you were anti-military." Kara said, Val gave her and exhausted look as she folded her arms across her chest and acted like it was nothing.

"I believe violence only breeds more violence not Peace. Anyway, I'm not against what you stand for, I appreciate my civil liberties and freedom. I understand the military is a necessary evil. What I hate is how the government lies to it's people and they use the military like their own gestapo to control the world-"

"Ok, just stop." Kara said cutting Val off from her tirade. Val gave her a mischievous smile.

"Alisha likes a heated political debate. Though she doesn't believe the amount of money the government spends on frivolous travel, cocaine and hookers." Val told her in a high and mighty tone.

"Gee, Michener looks so wholesome." Kara drawled sarcastically.

"The wholesome ones are usually into underage boys and girls." Val informed her.

"That's disgusting." Kara told her.

"Don't have to tell me." Val said agreeing with her.

"They are right on our tail. We need to lose them." Burk told Alisha who was behind the wheel. It was by dumb luck she was in the driver's seat as they had raced to the vehicle when they started taking heavy fire from the same hostiles who had attacked the Milwaukee party. The strange thing of it all was that yeah they fired at their people but they hadn't killed any of Military personnel and allowed the Captain and the others to escape. The only problem was that the unknown party were hunting them.

"We've lost comms with plane." Wolf said, Alisha made a harsh left hand turn onto an arterial road that made the man smack into the side door. He exchanged a look with Burk who was just as worried as he was. It wasn't just that they were being followed but Alisha was one scary driver as she navigated the road barely dodging cars, but then the people behind them in a pick up truck were slowly lagging behind as their vehicle was larger and older model. But they'd catch up.

"Who the hell were they?" Alisha asked.

"Scavengers?" Burk suggested as he couldn't see why the Milwaukee group would kill their own people or chase them down when they were outside their territory.

"Where should we go?" Alisha asked as she barely knew the area they were driving she only knew she was heading south.

"Norfolk, it's further away than St Louis but it'll give us more time to lose them." Burk told her.

"I don't know how to get there from here." Alisha informed him as she swerved to miss an abandoned car but ended scraping the side of front bumper by mistake.

"Head south east, try not to scrap the paint work." Burk told her.