For the first time in weeks, Lady Jaye was excited for the morning's officer call. She actually had Cobra related news to share with the others. To celebrate she had Chuckles help her put together written packages outlining the threats, which she passed out to the others after she entered the conference room.

"Good morning all," General Bradshaw said as he entered the room. He picked up the file. "Somebody has been busy."

"I have, finally." Lady Jaye replied.

"Good. I was going to kick-off with the news out of DC, but why don't you start?"

Lady Jaye stood up and began her presentation. "The first sheet in your file is an overhead shot of a non-descript warehouse in Springfield, Illinois. It's nothing fancy, but it is a huge piece of real estate. Extensive Enterprises purchased it about ten days ago. That in itself didn't raise a red flag. Over the last few months, EE has been making many real estate purchases. We kept an eye on all of them. Most were promptly resold, or seemed to be used to truly expand their business portfolio. None seemed like they were going to be used for nefarious purposes. Until now.

"Ever since the ink dried on the sale, there had been a lot of activity at this warehouse. Trucks coming and going at all hours of the night. Again, maybe they're just using this building as a large storage space. But what sealed the deal in my mind that there might be more going on, is that one of the Twins was spotted at a very swanky restaurant in downtown Springfield a couple of nights ago." Lady Jaye held up the copy of the article published in the Springfield Union that showed Xamot deep in conversation with a buxom brunette. "Maybe Xamot has a lot more free time on his hands these days, but I doubt he's hanging out in Springfield just to oversee the move of insignificant storage."

Flint leaned forward and smiled. "It sounds like we need to pay our old buddy a visit. Anybody mind if I take this one?"

General Bradshaw looked at the leadership staff. Duke and Falcon shook their heads, while Beachhead grumbled. "I'd love a trip off base, but since he has seniority on me I guess I'm staying put."

Lady Jaye rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, Beachhead, I might have something for you as well."

General Bradshaw nodded. "Flint, it's your mission. Go with a two prong attack. Take a couple of guys with you to pay them a public visit, so they know that we are aware of their activities. Also take Lady Jaye, in case you feel there needs to be some undercover surveillance."

Flint opened his mouth to protest, but Lady Jaye beat him to the punch. "Actually, sir, I was thinking Chuckles might be better suited for the mission. I've had many run-ins with the Twins over the years, and even in an undercover capacity they might see through my disguise. They are not as familiar with Chuckles, so he might be more effective."

"That's fine by me. Any objections?" General Bradshaw asked the room, and was met by a series of head shakes. He then waved to Lady Jaye to continue.

"Okay, now to door number two. It's not as exciting as door number one, but it's still something I think should be put on our radar. Remember Castle Destro in Scotland?" Lady Jaye asked with a pointed look at Flint.

"How could I forget? That place was in my nightmares for weeks."

"And you didn't even get to experience its full range of hospitality. It's been lying in ruin for the last couple of years, but it looks like someone has started a reconstruction project on the site. According to our records search, it is still in Destro's name, but as of right now there hasn't been any sightings of Ol' Chrome Dome or the Baroness. But I think it's in our best interest to keep an eye on it."

"I agree," Flint said. "The last time Cobra worked on that site they let a monster loose. I don't think we want a repeat performance."

"Okay," General Bradshaw said. "Since you're passing on Springfield, Lady Jaye you can keep a watch on Scotland. But in the meantime, make sure Flint and his team have everything they need for their mission.

"Moving on to the next item of business, I have an official statement from the Pentagon regarding General Howe's abrupt resignation yesterday. If anyone wants to read the exact verbiage I have it here, but to summarize they said that business will continue as usual, and his replacement will be appointed by the end of the week."

Lady Jaye doubted the veracity of the first part of the statement, and based on the mumblings going on around the table, she wasn't the only one. But General Bradshaw put a stop to any discussion. "There isn't any reason to speculate what any of this means right now. The Joe team has a course of action that it needs to continue to follow, and let DC worry about themselves. If it becomes a problem for us, either General Abernathy or I will take action at that time."

Lady Jaye hoped that the general would follow up with announcing his transfer date, but instead he segued into a discussion with Ace about the current status of the Skystrikers. The meeting wrapped up a few minutes later. Lady Jaye watched as General Bradshaw packed up. She turned towards Flint. "Just give me a couple of hours to collate my findings. I can be by your office by lunchtime with a package."

"That's fine. I need some time to get the team together and work on our travel details."

Later that morning. Lady Jaye knocked on Flint's office door and entered. She nodded towards Beachhead and said, "Good, you're both here." She handed a file folder to Beachhead. "These are our preliminary findings on Castle Destro."

"Great, thanks," Beachhead said. He stood from his desk. "I'm going to take this to the commissary to read while I have an early lunch. Can I get you anything?"

They both shook their head. "No, I'll be down in a little while," Flint said.

"Okay. I'll be back in about an hour," Beachhead said before he closed the door.

Lady Jaye pointed towards the door as she turned towards Flint. "Am I hallucinating or was Beachhead just acting very polite?"

"He was. I think he's starting to get soft in his old age."

A few days later, Lady Jaye looked up at the knock on her door. She saw Ace standing there, so she waved him in. He closed the door behind him and asked her if she had a few minutes to talk.

"Sure, what's up?" she answered.

"Have you heard anything official about the Joe team being dismantled?"

Lady Jaye frowned. The rumor mill had been running rampant ever since news of the scandal surrounding General Howe broke. And as was typical, everyone seemed to be jumping to the worst conclusion. But if Ace was coming to her directly, she wondered if there was a deeper credibility to the rumors. "That was one of many theories I've heard being tossed around in the last few days. But no, I haven't heard anything through the official channels."

Ace took a seat at Scarlett's empty desk. "Jaye, I know sometimes you hear things that you're not allowed to speak freely about. But, I'm asking as one of your oldest friends to please give me the heads-up if this is something I need to worry about."

"You don't have another silly pool going on, do you?"

Ace shook his head. "No. Thanks to General Bradshaw, I'm not allowed to. But even if I was, I wouldn't make up one over something this depressing. The reason why I ask, is that I have this girlfriend in town. It's gotten pretty serious the last few months. In fact I've been thinking about popping the question. But if I'm going to suddenly be transferred to somewhere across the country, I want to give her the heads up so she can be prepared. I already told the general that I don't want to transfer out of here, but from what I'm hearing we may not have a choice anymore."

"First off, congratulations. I'm really happy for you. And I promise that I'm not under some kind of gag order, as I truly haven't heard anything. But with my change in duties, I probably wouldn't get an early warning anyway. However, I can talk to the PFC that took over my personnel assignment and see if he's heard anything."

"Thanks. I appreciate that."

Lady Jaye waited until Ace left before she stood up. She had to rebutton her pants. For the most part they fit, but they were uncomfortable. So whenever she knew she was going to be sitting for a while she unbuttoned them to give herself a little breathing room. She was glad that she had the foresight to order a pair of the next size up pants while she was on leave. They were currently at the tailors having the length altered, and she made a mental note to pick them up after she talked to PFC Solomon.

She took a walk to the area of the base dedicated to the higher ranking Greenshirts. She found PFC Solomon furiously typing away on his computer. "Wow! That's great timing," he said once he looked up and saw her. "I was just getting ready to go look for you. I have a problem I hope you can help me with."

"Okay, what's wrong?"

"How do I go about canceling a set of orders?" PFC Solomon asked.

Lady Jaye nodded. At least this was a problem she could help solve. She leaned over the Greenshirt's shoulder and walked him through the steps.

"I did all that. But when it gets to the last screen, it gives me an error and deletes all the changes I made."

Lady Jaye frowned. "Are you sure that General Bradshaw approved the cancellation?"

"Well, that's where it gets tricky. Because it's his orders that are being canceled."

Lady Jaye felt like all the air was sucked from her lungs. She grabbed the back of Solomon's chair to steady herself. She fought hard to keep herself in check, but unfortunately the Greenshirt noticed her reaction.

"Lady Jaye are you okay?"

She fought to maintain her composure. "Oh, I'm fine. I just remembered that I owe the general a report, and he's not going to be happy that I still haven't turned it in." She cleared her throat and then forced herself to finish the tutorial session with the Greenshirt.

Luckily, the answer to the problem presented itself fairly quickly. "I see the problem. While the cancelation order is in the system, your counterpart on DC's end didn't submit a finalized version. You need to give them a call to tell them to do so, and then you'll be able to finish it."

PFC Solomon looked relieved. "Oh thank goodness. I thought I was doing something wrong."

Now that her tutoring skills were over, Lady Jaye turned to leave. But then she remembered the original reason why she came. She really didn't want to hear any more bad news, but she promised Ace, and she figured she couldn't feel any worse than she did at the moment. So she forced herself to ask the question. "A lot of the guys are a little worried about their future on the team. You haven't seen a sudden influx of transfer orders come through lately, have you?"

PFC Solomon looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, Lady Jaye, I'm really not supposed to talk about those kinds of things."

It was all the answer she needed. "That's okay. I understand. In fact, I shouldn't have asked in the first place."

She then quickly left. She knew she needed to get off base to process the news. The errand to the tailor's gave her the perfect excuse to do some thinking. She wished she could call Flint, but he and his team had been in radio silence for the previous day and a half. Which was probably a good thing. She knew he wasn't going to react well to the news and this gave her a chance to figure out her own game plan to present to him.

She picked up her pants, and went back to the apartment to change. They fit much better than her current pair, but there was less extra room to them than she was expecting. So the one thing that was clear was that she was going to need to admit her pregnancy, most likely within the next couple of weeks at most.

The next thing she decided, on her drive back to Headquarters, was that when she did she wasn't going to admit who the father was. She knew Flint was going to have an absolute conniption at the thought, but they didn't have a choice. Now that the Hawk lifeline had been taken away, when faced with admitting his paternity and being slapped with a dishonorable discharge, or keeping quiet and staying with the Joes, the choice seemed like a no-brainer.

Having a rudimentary game plan made her feel better. Once back on base, she checked in at her desk and saw a note that Beachhead wanted to see her. She sighed and had the thought that her afternoon just kept getting better. Not wanting to delay the next round of bad news, she went to his office.

"Finally, you're back," Beachhead said once she entered. "General Bradshaw okayed a mission to check out Castle Destro. There still haven't been any confirmed Cobra sightings, but he felt that it wouldn't hurt that we take our own look around. Since you have a pretty good history with the place, we want you on the team."

Lady Jaye took a moment to debate the mission. The safe and sensible option was to make up an excuse on why she couldn't go. But Lifeline had said that as long as there was no threat of Cobra activity, she was able to go out in the field up to twenty weeks, which was still four weeks away. Knowing that this was probably going to be her last chance of a mission with the Joes she nodded. "I'm in."