Confrontation

Ian 'Fos' Foster was a happy-go-lucky sort of guy. A former Marine -- and one time subordinate of one Master Sergeant Myers -- he'd joined the Silver Guardians when his tour of duty was up. His switch of career was due, in no small part, to disillusionment with the forces and a desire to do some real good in his own country.

And it wasn't a bad job, being a Guardian. It wasn't a safe job -- he'd probably faced as much live ammunition fire in ten years of being a Guardian as he'd faced in his entire time in the Marine Corps -- but it was certainly far from monotonous. So when he and his squad had been ordered to Cranston Plaza to neutralise a 'threat', he hadn't known what to expect.

As he reached the relative safety of an ornamental fountain under a heavy hail of blaster fire, he found himself reflecting that whatever he had been expecting, this would not have been it.

Ambushed.

He grimaced. Ambushed by four rangers and a bunch of bronze robots. This was definitely not going to be good.

He pressed the transmit button on his headset and received a squawk of static for his pains. Goddamn! he cursed silently. Why'd I have to be the sap who gets bad guys with brains? The static told him that he and the rest of the squad were most effectively being jammed. It meant there wasn't likely to be any relief coming their way any time soon.

'Kay Fos -- you're paid to be a commander; command. Get your team through this.

He took stock of the situation. He and Deslaurier -- the squad second in command -- were both crouched behind the fountain. Not too far away were three other members of the squad, using a couple of giant, ornamental flowerpots as cover, but all five of them were completely pinned down. There was no way to return fire.

And there were two members of the squad missing.

"Any sign of Clingeleffer or Jones?" Foster asked, looking at Deslaurier who shook her head. "Damn." He had a shrewd idea what that meant but it would need confirmation.

With due caution, Foster peered around the side of the fountain. Sure enough, the two missing members of the squad were sprawled out on the plaza concrete. He grimaced. Judging by the lack of damage to the flowerpots -- the more flimsy of the two areas of cover -- they were just stunned, but...

"What now, boss?" asked Deslaurier.

Foster sighed. Damn good question. "What we need is to find a way out of this." He made another cautious examination of the plaza, taking note of the location of the rest of the stone planters. "If I can distract the hostiles, you and the rest of the squad still standing can get round to the SUV and evac out of here."

"And you're going to do...?"

Foster smiled. "Give me your blaster." Deslaurier looked bemused but did as she was asked and handed over her weapon. He took out his own blaster and holstered the borrowed weapon. "The neat thing," Foster continued, prying open the casing on his own blaster, "is that if you reverse the charge chip," he extracted the chip, "these things overload." He poised the chip to reinsert it into the weapon. "Ready?"

Deslaurier hesitated. "What're you going to do once you've done that?"

"Keep 'em busy," Foster replied succinctly. "Once you're out of this immediate area, call up command. We need reinforcements."

"You're going to take them on single handed?" Deslaurier shook her head. "This plan sucks."

"And your better idea would be...?" Deslaurier sighed and grimaced. "Thought not." Foster sighed. "Ready?" Deslaurier nodded. He inserted the chip. Almost immediately the blaster started to emit a soft, high-pitched whine. "Now!"

One the command, Foster turned, bounced to his feet, aimed and threw the improvised grenade in the direction of the robots and rangers. He barely waited to see where it landed before dropping back behind the fountain. His movement effectively covered Deslaurier's move from fountain to plant pot.

No sooner had he hit the ground again than the blaster exploded. He didn't need to look to know that Deslaurier would lead the other three swiftly round to the SUV under cover of the explosion. He waited a beat, drawing the borrowed blaster, then bounced to his feet again, snapping off a couple shots at the quartet of rangers, noting that the blast had successfully disabled the robots, before diving for fresh cover, careful to go in the opposite direction to the one the squad were taking.

The ploy worked. All fire concentrated on him, leaving the rest of the squad to move freely. Not long after his move, he heard the SUV start up and leave. Stage one complete. Foster allowed himself a brief smile at that. Then the planter he was using as cover exploded into concrete shards, and he was brought back to the situation he was still in.

Reacting automatically, even as the concrete shattered, Foster rolled to his right, back towards the fountain, snapping off another couple of shots. But even as he reached the relative safety of the fountain that too exploded into stone chips. He kept moving, rolling to his feet, snapping off more shots at the...shit! Three rangers! Where'd the fourth one...the Black one go?

"Going somewhere, soldierboy?"

The Black Ranger's blaster was aimed straight at Foster's forehead.

"Let me give you a tip," purred the White Ranger as she and the others joined her Black cohort. "Drop your weapon."

The blaster dropped from Foster's grip, clattering to the plaza concrete.

"Good little soldierboy," the White Ranger cooed, drawing a gloved hand down Foster's cheek. Her voice was a sultry, husky tone that just seemed to wrap itself around the purely male parts of Foster's anatomy. He swallowed. Hard. "Now..." Foster suddenly found himself doubling over in pain as she kneed him in the groin. At once the seduction was over and her voice became hard. "We have a little message for your Time Force masters."

Red and Pink Rangers roughly grabbed Foster's arms and forced him to stand up straight. The White Ranger gripped his chin and forced him to look straight into the faceplate of her helmet.

"We," she continued, "are the Vengeance Rangers and we are coming for them."

She released her grip and stepped back, nodding to the Black Ranger, who had holstered his blaster. Before Foster could wonder at that, the Black Ranger stepped forward and buried his fist straight into Foster's stomach.

"Say good night, soldierboy."

Foster wasn't sure who said it, but it seemed to be a cue as Pink and Red released their hold on his arms while sweeping his legs out from under him. Suddenly robbed of balance, he fell forwards and hit the concrete, hard. He started to struggle to his feet, then a white-booted foot swung into his field of vision. He had a moment to register that sight, then the toe connected with his head, right between his eyes and everything faded to a starry black.

~*~

Eric hated waiting. He was better at it now than he'd been when he'd first returned to Silverhills, some twelve years earlier. A combination of commanding the Silver Guardians, then later marrying Kimberly and gaining a family had taught him patience, but that patience didn't extend to actually enjoying the wait.

And given that he was currently waiting for information that might help him find said family before anything happened to them -- anything more, he amended -- the waiting was particularly grating.

He suspected that Kimberly would have taken it hard had it just been John who was kidnapped, but Alice too... They -- Kimberly and Alice -- had gone through so much prior to meeting him that their relationship was far closer than just mother and daughter. It had got them both through some terrible times; it was the reason for a lot of the stormy arguments of the last few years. It meant that right now, Kimberly was barely hanging on.

And in a moment of honesty, he knew he was little better. He saw so much of himself in John. Saw so many chances not so much to right what went so wrong in his own life as make sure that they never went wrong in his son's life. It meant that he and John were almost as close as Alice and Kimberly.

The only way Eric could deal with this was by throwing himself into the hunt for the children.

Unfortunately, to do that, he needed information.

Information that Zaskin was still researching.

Eric hated waiting.

~*~

Danielle 'Barbie' Hines loathed clearing warehouses on the principle that it was usually the fastest route to getting ambushed. Given what she'd heard over the Guardian radio net, about the ambush at Cranston Plaza, she was even less inclined to enjoy the task.

It would have to be Fos' team that got that call.

She glanced around at her surroundings. Packing cases, stacked four or five high, arranged in neat, angular rows. Lighting so dim that she could barely make out the tops of the stacks. Yep, perfect place for an ambush.

Fos would have to be the Guardian who got beaten up.

Barbie grimaced. She was worried about Fos. They had dated, briefly, not long after they'd both left the Marines and joined the Silver Guardians. They'd quickly realised that wasn't going to work, but for all that, theirs was a close friendship and to not know how badly hurt he was...

...was going to get her killed if she didn't start paying attention to her surroundings. With another grimace, she swept her gaze over the piles of packing cases...

...and caught a movement. There -- top of the stack to her right and just ahead.

Barbie halted and slowly, carefully, studied the row of cases, trying to spot what it was that had caught her attention. Out of the gloom came a shape, man-sized, dropping straight for her.

Before she could so much as open her mouth, he was on her, tackling her to the ground. There was a loud crack as her head connected with the concrete of the warehouse floor and she saw stars.

Dazed, she felt a gloved hand trace her jaw line, even as a male body pressed her against the cold concrete.

"Well aren't you the pretty one," he murmured.

Barbie tried to regain her scattered wits but when she tried to focus on his face all she could see was a red-and-black blur. It seemed to take forever for the realisation that this was one of the rangers who'd ambushed Fos to penetrate her mind.

"I'd almost be tempted to keep you," he murmured, his voice taking on a lascivious tone and she felt him press closer to her, firmly trapping her against the concrete. "But I need you to do a job."

"Get...your...paws...offa me!" Barbie tried to squirm out of his grip but he was too close, his weight too much for her to shift.

He laughed, a hand stroking down the side of her face again. "Such a pity. I could have fun with you but..." His hand reached her chin and took hold of it in a bruising grip. "The Vengeance Rangers are coming for Time Force."

Barbie knew what was going to happen next -- possibly even before the ranger knew it. She felt his hand tighten even more. He pulled up then pushed back, driving her head against the concrete. Starbursts of colour invaded her vision and she knew she was blacking out.

"Rick, that was overkill," muttered a soft, female voice.

"Oh, and you coming on to Fossie wasn't?" retorted a male voice moving away from her even as it spoke.

Then the world faded out and Barbie knew no more.

~*~

Wes folded his arms and leaned against the wall, his expression grim. He reflected that they should have guessed trouble was not going to be limited to just -- and at that word, he snorted -- the abduction of the four children.

"Guardian Foster's just being checked over by the doctor now."

With difficulty, Wes pulled his attention to the nurse who was hovering at his side. "Pardon?"

The nurse offered a tight smile, perhaps in recognition of Wes' obviously black mood. "Guardian Foster is currently with the doctor -- he came round about fifteen minutes ago." It still took Wes a moment or two to fully realise what the nurse meant. "If you'd like to come this way."

Wes nodded and followed the nurse. Hospital 'duty' was always, and virtually without exception, his, which he didn't mind so much. Normally. It was an excuse to be out of the office. Normally.

Right at this moment, though, the last place he wanted to be was out of the office because being out of the office meant he wouldn't hear about any breakthroughs Zaskin might have made quite as quickly as if he was actually in the building. Then again, given what Deslaurier had reported...

"You may see him now," said the nurse, and she ushered him into Foster's room.

Wes nodded thanks.

Foster was sitting up on the bed, dressed in a hospital gown and looking decidedly worse for wear.

"One day I'll learn to duck, huh?" Foster joked weakly.

Wes dredged a wry chuckle. "Des said it was other rangers."

Slowly, Foster nodded, the faint smile fading from his face. "Yeah -- and someone seems to have forgotten to tell them the SGs are the good guys."

"What happened?" Wes asked.

"They called themselves the Vengeance Rangers," Foster replied.

Wes listened as the man on the bed reported what had happened an hour or so earlier and felt his mood darken even further.

Yep. It really did never rain but pour...

~*~

Taylor silently cursed as she made her way towards the muster point.

Someone had sent a bomb threat to Biolab, threatening the new Silver Guardians training facility in the East Hills area of the city.

The Guardians and the cops had been called in to evacuate and cordon off the facility while bomb disposal experts went over the place with a fine toothcomb.

"Is that everyone?" she asked as she reached the knot of commanders.

Ben, who was in overall charge of the Guardians on the ground, nodded. "So far as we can tell, yeah, that's everyone."

Miller slowly shook his head. "What's the betting this is all a hoax?"

Taylor snorted. "If it is, I sure..."

But she never got to complete that sentence as a huge explosion ripped through the glass-and-steel building.

Taylor found herself being flung to the ground by the blast's shockwave, even as a hail of red-hot shards of steel started to rain down around them. She was faintly aware of someone screaming but the ringing in her ears muffled the sound. It was only when the pain in her shoulder started to override the shock that she realised she was the one screaming.

TO BE CONTINUED...