Snooky's story continues:

I was glad Charles had returned. Miles apart in political beliefs and social strata, the doctor and I had somehow bonded. I wasn't surprised. He was, after all, a great surgeon. He could match wits with Hawkeye and BJ, and stood up for principles during several episodes. And when he had a job to do, (my defense) he did it well, and then moved on. Oh, yeah. And he wasn't Frank.

"Creepy gent," he leaned over to me and said, as Hochstetter took the stand.

"He was drawn; I mean, written that way."

"Major Hochstetter, why are you here today testifying against Miss Snooky?" Riker eagerly asked the creepy Gestapo agent.

"Why? Why?"

Hochstetter's face was turning beet red. And this was without explaining why he was there. I briefly wondered if he would explode.

"Yes, why?" Riker repeated.

"I'll tell you why. She plays games. Just when you think you've defeated the greatest enemy the Third Reich has ever known, she delivers the blow that makes you want to crawl into a sewer and hide."

"That's a proper place for ya, it is!" Newkirk shouted.

"Corporal will refrain from editorial comments," Harry said quietly.

"Sorry, guv'nor."

I glanced over at the plaintiff's side of the courtroom and became slightly alarmed at Hogan's appearance. He did not look at all well. On the other hand, why should I care anymore? He started this nonsense up again. I turned back towards the front.

"Go ahead, Major. Please explain."

At Riker's prompt, Hochstetter took a deep breath and began talking. "I had a ring of steel around that camp. Put every single one of them in front of the firing squad. Except you." He pointed to Olsen. "I knew there was someone missing from that barracks. I'll be coming for you."

"Hey!" Hogan stood up. "You touch him, you'll be sorry." He sat down, and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

"Those were the days. Where was I? Oh yeah. Killed all the men in barracks two. Sent rest of camp off to labor camp. That's right. Not bad for a new writer, if I do say so myself. Enjoyable. Except I did die in an air raid. But you take the bad with the good."

"Okaaay. But Major. Why are you testifying against Miss Snooky if you were pleased with her story?"

"That story. But there were more. Remember I said I wanted to crawl into a sewer and hide? Let me put it to you this way, Commander. What if you and your buddies up there in that spaceship thought you had defeated your greatest enemy? The…the…".Hochstetter started snapping his fingers. "The, those mechanical men, machines, you know what I'm talking about."

"The Borg?"

"Yes, those people. Machines. Ready to strike the final blow. Get all their secrets, codes; you know what I'm talking about…"

"Programming?"

"Yes, that's it. Programming. Who made them? Who controlled them? Everything you wanted to know so you could crush them and their followers under as easily as you would…" Hochstetter paused, glanced down, and slammed down his foot. He bent over and held up a now dead cockroach.

"Ugh," I shuddered.

"Disgusting." Charles turned away.

"I think that was left over from our cockroach races," Trapper said to BJ and Hawkeye.

"Klinger, scratch Rupert." Hawkeye raised his glass in a mock toast. "To Rupert. We hardly knew ye."

"Crush this insect." Hochstetter finished. "Only to be defeated at the very end, with the help of a simpering, no-good…"

"Oh, please, please, Judge, make him get to the point." Charles whined. "Before I shoot myself. Sorry, objection. Overdramatics."

"Sustained! Oh, and Major you are fined for killing in the courtroom. Since the movie Enchanted all cockroaches are protected. Bull…no singing. Major, get to the point."

"Hogan killed Freitag, and I had him in my clutches. He was about to spill the beans, I knew it. And then she had to ruin everything and have that schlemiel Mannheim slip Hogan a cyanide capsule…and then Hogan had to ruin everything and kill himself."

"You monster!" Several woman, and a few unidentified prisoners headed for the front of the courtroom, I recognized Tiger and Suzanne. They were joined by Helga and Hilda.

"Stop!" Harry ordered while Hochstetter cowered in his seat.

"Look at him," I pointed out to Charles. "He can give it, but can't take it. Bully."

Harry's cries and the bailiffs did nothing to stop the angry mob, until Riker calmly pulled out a phaser and stunned everyone.

"Oh, did you have to do that?" Harry said as he looked over at the mound of stunned spectators.

"My client was about to be attacked by a rabid mob," Riker said as he put away his weapon.

"Now I'll have to file an official report," Harry complained. "They'll never believe this." He shook his head. "10 minute recess while we pick up these bodies."

Now that Hochstetter was safe, he stepped down, gave me a sneer and headed out of the courtroom. Meanwhile, a small crowd had gathered around the first bench on the plaintiffs' side, where Hogan, believe it or not, had collapsed and was on the floor.

"We need a medic!" LeBeau shouted. Immediately, Wilson, as well as Charles, and his three MASH colleagues in the back, hurried over.

"What is going on here?" Charles asked as he knelt down. "This man looks like he's been tortured." Hogan let out a soft moan.

"Side effects," Wilson explained. "This happened in the last trial and the hearings. For some reason they spill over into the courtroom and we suffer from them again. But it hasn't happened for a long time. It's probably Hochstetter's testimony. The story was almost too much to handle." (No Way Out)

"That's right," Hawkeye said. "I saw side effects when I was here testifying."

"Oh, good God." Kinch couldn't look and turned away. "It was bad enough knowing, but seeing him. I can't imagine what he must have gone through."

"Hey, don't look at me. I never described it. It was implied," I responded to the dirty looks coming my way.

Four doctors and one medic surrounded the colonel, while the crowd backed away.

"Feels like broken ribs," Charles noted as he palpated Hogan. "Possible internal damage."

"Get a stretcher," B.J. snapped. "And get him prepped."

"Prepped? Prepped for what." Carter asked fearfully.

"Owww," Hogan groaned as he painfully pulled himself into a fetal position. Bruises began forming on his face, which no longer looked handsome. He looked like a wreck.

Somehow a stretcher miraculously appeared, and the doctors gingerly picked up Hogan and placed him on the stretcher, which was then gently picked up by two orderlies, who had also appeared out of nowhere.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" asked Wilson who hurried after the medical teams.

"4077th MASH," replied Foster. Or was it? "They have a 98 percent survival rating. That's tops in the Nielsen's."

Carter, Newkirk, LeBeau, Kinch, and Olsen followed the medical teams out. Shortly thereafter, the session resumed with Hochstetter back on the stand. Fortunately, Charles left Hogan in the capable hands of his colleagues, and he returned to our table.

"There was one more thing?" Riker asked Hochstetter.

"Yes. Her story, Friday the 13th. Number one. She wrote me out of character. Like others did. And one ended up in Leavenworth."

Oh no. Poor Sgt. Moffitt. "I can't go to prison. Please. I look awful in orange. It doesn't go with my complexion!"

"Sit down, Susan." Charles hissed. "You'll make it worse for yourself."

"She made the assumption in that story that I was Nimrod."

A large gasp was heard. Klink and Burkhalter stood up. "Arrest that man!" Burkhalter ordered. Several guards, including Langenscheidt, Schultz and Bull grabbed Hochstetter off the witness stand and slapped him in handcuffs.

"What are you doing?" Hochstetter screamed.

"Ditto!" said Riker, as Harry banged his gavel.

"We've been trying to track down Nimrod for years. And it was him all along." Burkhalter made his way out of the German seating area and headed forward. Klink hurriedly followed.

"I knew it. I just knew it," the Kommandant said.

"Shut up. You didn't." Burkhalter walked over to the bench. "Dismiss the charges against this author. This man is a spy and he is coming with us to answer for his crimes."

"Whaaattt?" Charles approached the bench.

"I'll do no such thing!" Hochstetter insisted.

"This isn't fair!" Riker exclaimed.

Burkhalter pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the Gestapo agent. "Care to dispute a general? One who oversees certain POW camps, located in a certain district in Germany."

"No." Charles turned around. "It's fine with me and my client. Quick," he whispered. "Get out of here before they change their mind."

"She can't leave yet. It's only Hochstetter's testimony that's been dismissed," Harry explained. "How did all these weapons get in here? Bull, go check with security. And get me another stack of those forms."

"Right, Judge." Bull hurried away as everyone gleefully watched Hochstetter dragged out of the courtroom.

"That was my last witness," Riker sulked and sat down.

"We will convene tomorrow morning with the defense case." Harry dismissed the court and everyone scattered. The men went back to camp, and the authors went home for the evening. Except for one.

Cue slow dance music: 1940's, early 50's era.

"Snooky, You're so short, and I'm so tall," Hawkeye said in between sips of a very expensive wine he had stolen from Charles' footlocker. "How will we dance?"

"Call me Susan. And don't worry. I'm wearing old platform shoes. They're from the 70's. Yum. This caviar is delicious. Give my regards to Charles."

"You are very welcome." Hawkeye put down his glass and we began to dance, cheek to cheek. Well, not quite. Head to chest was more like it.

"I never knew a supply tent could be so romantic," I said as we did the box step.

"It's had its moments. So, Susan. How long will you be staying with us?" Hawkeye expertly dipped me.

"Oh, I don't know. Long enough, if you get my drift."

He laughed. "But you're married. I don't fool around with married women."

"I know. One of the things I admire about you. That and your sense of humor."

"You've never written a MASH fiction, have you?"

"Can't. I can't compete with the original. You are all too well-developed."

"In other words, you can get away with more on the Hogan's Heroes' site." As Sentimental Journey came on, we got a bit closer.

"You, Captain, are very perceptive. Besides, don't you think you suffered from enough tsouris for those eleven years? Nothing bad ever happened to Hogan and his men during the show.

Hawkeye's face clouded for a moment as he recalled the nonsense the writers (including his own actor…the chutzpah) had put his character through. "Yeah, now that you mention it, I did have it pretty bad. But you should see what some of the authors on my site have done." He grabbed his glass of wine and chugged it down.

"So tell me more about those other stories," I said.

Yiddish definitions:

Tsouris: woe, misery.

Chutzpah: utter gall, audacity, nerve

For those of you unfamiliar with MASH (I can't believe it, but you must be out there), the show was on for eleven years. Some of the misery Hawkeye went through…Henry Blake's death. Death of one of his best friends, Trapper leaving without saying goodbye, temporary blindness when the stove in the nurse's tent exploded, a concussion, terrible rash brought on by a childhood memory triggered by patients left in a swamp in the battlefield (close enough), Hurt arm, hurt leg, claustrophobia, and the coup-de-grace. A complete nervous breakdown during the finale. I was 13 years old when MASH premiered in 1972, and Hawkeye was one of my television crushes. Alan Alda wrote many of the scripts. Hawkeye's character used a lot of Yiddish expressions during regular conversations in the show.

Foster, a prisoner used in several episodes, was played by William Christopher, who also played Father Mulcahy on MASH.

"Enchanted" reference. Please type in Enchanted: Happy working song, into youtube.

Nielsens: an American company that conducts TV ratings. Audience/share etc.