Colonel Hogan lay on his top bunk, reading a particularly good story in which he was the main hero. It never ceased to amaze him how engrossed he could become in these stories when they were all about him and his men. But there were plenty of good yarns, and their characterizations were surprisingly accurate.

"Say, Hogan?"

Hogan sighed and lowered the papers in his hand to look over at Buckles. "Yes?"

"Do you think you can read a little faster?" Buckles asked as he tried to peek over his shoulder.

"Why? I thought you weren't going to read any of these. 'That's what interns are for'," Hogan said, somewhat contemptuously.

"No, no, it's not that. It's just I want to get the ball on this movie rolling and this is taking so long," Buckles answered.

"Nominations aren't due until February 15. That gives me a week and I intend to savour the stories I have left."

"Fine," Buckles said impatiently. He sighed and flopped himself down in Hogan's chair and picked up a pen which he then dropped. He made a few sounds with his lips as he continued to play with the pencil.

Hogan sighed and dropped his papers after an unsuccessful attempt to go back to the story. A little miffed, he sat up and swung his legs over the side. "You know, Buckles," he said through gritted teeth, "there's no harm in reading the stories just for your own amusement."

"Nah," Buckles said, waving away the suggestion.

"Well, if you read some, you could make your own nominations. I'm sure your taste is much better than ours."

"I only have a week left and there are almost 200 stories. I realize you read slower than a glacier, but even a normal person can't do that!"

Hogan scrunched his nose at the slight. He didn't read slowly; he savoured! "Well a lot of people start late. They just focus on one section, like the snapshots, or the challenges, and they send in their nominations for those. And then when the voting round comes along, they have a much smaller pool of stories they have to read in the other categories."

Buckles bobbed his head from side to side as if he were considering that. "I suppose there's nothing else to do around here. There's a shocking lack of entertainment!"

"Yeah, it's rough," Hogan said dryly.

"All right. I'll have a go at a few," Buckles said. He grabbed the papers off Hogan's bunk. Hogan opened his mouth to protest, but quickly shut it. It wasn't worth the fight.

"Tell me, Hogan- do any of these stories have women in them?"

"Women?" Hogan repeated.

"Yes. I'm noticing a distinct lack of women around camp-"

"You know," Hogan interrupted, feeling annoyed, "I keep telling the Kommandant that we need more women around here, but he keeps saying something about there being a war going on and how we're prisoners."

"Darn it, Hogan, there must be some. You can't sell a story without a love interest! Not in Hollywood."

"There's a few," Hogan conceded. "But usually they work for the Underground. They're tough as nails and I don't think they would like to be passed off as just love interests."

"Yeah, yeah," Buckles said dismissively. "I'm sure they all have beauty and brains. But which one would you say is the sexiest?"

"Does it matter?" Hogan asked, a little confused. "It's not like you're going to cast them to play themselves. Shouldn't you be more interested in whose story is most compelling?"

Buckles just laughed. "You mean give a woman a story arc? You don't see a lot of action movies, do you, Hogan."

Hogan frowned and shook his head. He shouldn't have been surprised, he supposed. The last movie he saw Buckles' cousin in, the woman was nothing more than a pretty doll that cooed over the hero and not much else. The women Hogan had the privilege of fighting alongside deserved so much more than that.

"Well, there's Marya. She's frustrating and exasperating and crazy and completely brilliant. She's a Russian operating in plain sight in the middle of Nazi Germany. She's got nerves of steel and she's always one step ahead of me.

"And then there's Tiger. She's got more courage in her little finger than a whole platoon of soldiers. She's risked her life more times than I can count to make sure vital information was passed along.

"And, of course, there's Helga and Hilda. They're not necessarily part of the Underground, but without them, a lot of our plans would be dead in the water.

"Dr. Suzette Lechay went toe to toe with the Gestapo and played her part so perfectly that-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Hogan, "Buckles said, holding up his hands. "Five women? This isn't going to be a movie about a knitting club. I mean with that many women, they might even talk to each other, and there's only so much each of them can say about the heroes before-"

"But they are the heroes," Hogan insisted.

Buckles arched a skeptical eyebrow. "Look, people want to see movies about manly men doing manly things before ending up with the perfectly sweet and sexy girl in the end. So, do you have any stories like that?"

Hogan sighed. "I'll go check," he said before making his way to the door.

From his seat, Buckles chuckled to himself. "Five leading female roles? Now that's just silly!"


A/N: Head on over to the forums for more information on the PBAs.