A/N: Thank you all for reading and sharing reviews through various routes, especially PDCr203 – feedback like yours is nectar of the gods to fanfiction writers. I truly appreciate everyone who has taken a few minutes to send a note. Hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving! Fix and plate of leftovers and enjoy!

Chapter 5

Vella La Cava, VMF 214 HQ

Third verse, same as the first

"This is K.C. Cameron, reporting from the Solomon Islands, over and out."

"Thanks, Cameron, we'll take it from here. AP Espritos, out."

Casey flipped a series of dials on the scrambler. Static crackled and the line went dead. Bob Anderson jogged the pages of Kate's third story on the desk, then laid the mic on top of them. He pulled off the headset.

Kate, Greg, Casey and Bob looked at one another across the silence.

"That's number three in the bag. Maybe this time . . . ," Casey said finally.

Kate's first two stories had changed nothing. In spite of Greg's confidence, the blockade remained firmly in place. None of the clandestine intelligence Greg extracted from his various contacts in the theatre gave any indication of it breaking up.

Bob cleared his throat. "I say, Katherine, your level of creativity is unsurpassed. It's no wonder Greg enjoys your company so much. If you are as—"

Kate saw where this was going and poked him in the chest. "Don't."

The single word carried an implicit threat of bodily harm. Bob laughed and reluctantly, Kate, joined him, letting the off-color humor break the tension. Things on La Cava were slowly sliding from bad to worse. Given that the base hadn't been a five-start resort to start with, that was saying quite a bit.

No one was going hungry but fresh food, especially meat, didn't come easy. A small hunting and fishing detail saw to it the never-ending supply of Spam was supplemented with birds, fish and mussels. The latter were an acquired taste Kate had yet to acquire. Given the restrictions on ammo, Greg sent only the best shots out on bird-hunting patrols. While they never came back empty-handed, the birds often yielded more feathers than meat and Beans created a savory stew the boys called bird chirp soup because the cook didn't waste any part of the winged creatures.

Jim and Don joined forces with two Ozark boys they borrowed from Micklin's ground crew to pursue the hog hunt. The line chief had huffed about losing manpower but settled down when promised he could have a partial rack of ribs all to himself.

Frustrated at the lack of cold beer, Boyle and Anderson carried what was left of the bar stock to a nearby freshwater spring and submerged it. The boys drew straws to determine who got to play bartender and haul crates of chilled bottles back to base each evening for a happy hour that fell short of the Black Sheep's usual degree of happiness.

With time on their hands and a dwindling alcohol supply, the boys played endless games of volleyball, poker and darts and groused about the lack of female companionship. Delmonte told the girls at the hospital if she caught any of them driving to the base for anything less than a genuine medical emergency, she'd put them under hack for the rest of the war. To provide an outlet for energy that would have normally been tapped during missions or pursuing the opposite sex, Greg instituted morning calisthenics and beach runs. This led to more grousing.

Kate joined them at his unsubtle prodding.

"You're good for their morale." He tossed her boots at her one morning as she sat yawning and stretching on the edge of her bunk.

"Getting up this early to exercise isn't good for my morale," she returned, but put the boots on and joined him anyway.

The isolation was the worst. The base was accustomed to a brisk level of traffic, with transports, ferry pilots, new nurses and the occasional stateside politicians on fact-finding tours all landing on the airfield and being funneled through the La Cava equivalent of Ellis Island—the Sheep Pen. They brought news from other parts of the theatre, along with newspapers, magazines and movies from the States. Their sudden absence was felt by all, as if the door to the rest of the world had been slammed shut with the Black Sheep on the wrong side of it.

XXX

Meanwhile, on a Japanese base off the coast of Bougainville

These guys again.

Maybe they'll listen this time.

Communications officer Atsuya Mikumo stared at his radio console, unable to believe what he'd just heard.

"Enji! American journalist broadcast on open channel again! Enji? Wake up!" He punched his cohort in the arm.

Enji Notsuda scowled and yawned. "They still not have scrambler fixed? Americans, bah! They not able to make rice with directions."

"We should tell Major Ikeda! This is third time we hear about offensive with big new weapon. Americans up to something. I feel it in my gut."

Enji looked dubious. "That breakfast you feel. Americans always up to something but they not winning this war, hmm?"

Atsuya ignored him.

"You heard Major in briefing last week. Blockade need to hold until we take back key bases. Rendova. Choiseul. La Cava. They crumble without supply line. Weak, easy to take. But now maybe Americans knock out blockade. Bases get well supplied, fight like tigers. Not so easy. This something Major want to know. This why we sit here all day, listening to jabber, getting sore back side. We should tell him," he said stubbornly.

Enji remained doubtful. "Newspaper man's story not tell specifics. You asking for trouble, running to Major Ikeda with ghost rumor."

Atsuya snorted. "You asking for trouble not telling Major. What if Americans come? What if Ikeda find out we knew but didn't say anything? You think comms duty boring? He have us digging latrines for rest of war."

Enji took off his headset and pushed back his chair. "Okay. We tell Ikeda. No way to take naps on latrine duty."

XXX

"Dismissed."

The two communications officers saluted sharply and left the room. Major Hiroji Ikeda looked out the window of the flimsy hut constructed from bamboo, native grasses and canvas. He longed for his gracious home in Tokyo with its classically designed gardens and soothing waterfalls. He missed drinking a glass of wine with his wife in the evening. He missed waking up in the morning and being sure he'd still be alive that evening.

This war was a mistake. Japan had bitten off more than she could chew. Ikeda had traveled to America in the 1930s. He'd seen the factories, the thousands of acres of farmland, the pens of fat cattle in the stockyards and the vast forests of harvestable timber and mining resources. Above it all, he'd seen the pride of the American people, their work ethic, their willingness to sacrifice personal convenience for a greater good. America was going to squash Japan like a bug. It was only a matter of time.

This blockade was nothing more than a veneer of hope over a dark reality. Perhaps, if the powers in Tokyo could recapture some of their previously held strongholds, islands the Americans had taken as they inexorably pushed Japan back, then the Empire could hold on long enough to save face, to negotiate a peaceful end to this endless bloodshed.

A colorful bird flew by the window and Ikeda sighed. Beauty juxtaposed against violence. Now two of his comms officers had come to him with a tale about an American campaign aimed at ending the blockade with some kind of new super weapon. Ikeda remembered walking through the factories in Detroit on that visit to the United States. Workers created automobiles with both industry and efficiency. The assembly lines that had rolled out Chryslers and Packards had since been modified to fuel the war machine. He had no doubt the Americans could produce any super weapon they set their minds to.

With a last glance out the window, he shouted toward the outer chamber for his personal secretary. It was time to call Tokyo and pass along this newest intelligence.

XXX

One week later

Vella La Cava

Flight line. Where things have been boring. But that's about to change.

"Is this plan of Greg's gonna work?" Hutch tossed the wrench onto a canvas tarp spread under the nose of Jerry's plane. "We're doin' okay with the birds 'cause they're mostly just sitting on the line but one of these days someone's gonna come in with their flaps shot to hell or their canopy shattered and we won't have the parts to fix it." He nodded over his shoulder to the stripped-down wrecks of several Corsairs edging the jungle. "We've nearly picked the boneyard clean."

Kate pushed a loose curl behind her ear and leaned back in the shade along the plane's fuselage. "He's convinced it will and you know Greg—there's no telling him he might be wrong." She'd poured her heart and soul into this scheme and kept any doubt locked firmly in the back of her mind.

"Hey, hand me that spanner, would you, second one from the left." Hutch pointed. "And you don't think it's working?"

Kate picked up the tool and stretched up on her toes to hand it up to him. "We all expected there to have been some reaction by now but the Japanese haven't moved an inch. Bob broadcast the third story this morning."

"If anyone can make them believe the Allies are sending the cavalry, it's you." Hutch paused from wrestling with the radial engine to look down at her. "Greg says you're incredible."

"He does?" Kate let the words hang in the warm air, unsure what direction the comment was intended to take.

"Your writing! I meant he says your writing is incredible! I would never—I didn't mean—oh hell."

Kate laughed. She liked Hutch. It was refreshing to spend time with one of the boys who didn't consider what she and Greg were - or more accurately weren't - doing an open topic for discussion.

On the other hand, she wasn't entirely sure what Greg told the boys about the time they spent alone. She suspected it wasn't much, since they deviled him—and her—about it every chance they got.

But this time, the sparkle in Hutch's eye made her wonder if Greg had made a comment about skills explicitly not related to writing. The pot shouldn't call the kettle black, she reminded herself. She let a few details slip now and then when sharing drinks with Dee and the nurses at the hospital. All the girls dished on their boys to varying degrees and quite frankly, she'd heard things that made it hard to look some of La Cava's residents in the eye. Some of the nurse's tales made her redouble her own commitment to discretion.

She was tempted to pursue this line of inquiry and see if she could work anything out of Hutch when the hum of engines in the distance redirected her thoughts.

The mechanic grabbed the binoculars resting on the plane's wing and trained them on the sky as dark specks appeared in the distance.

"Eight birds! They're all back!" he shouted. Kate let out her breath. The entire squadron rarely went up at the same time any more. There was no need. This morning's patrol had Greg leading A Flight on a jaunt that barely left La Cava airspace.

"Ahhh shit, we got a winger!" Hutch tossed both wrench and field glasses down on the tarp, narrowly missing Kate, who jumped back with a yelp. He slid down the ladder without his feet touching the rungs and bolted for the mechanics' shed. Micklin was already barking orders to the ground crew, who raced toward the air strip, towing a mobile fire extinguisher unit.

Kate retrieved the field glasses and focused on the returning planes. The leading bird dipped, then regained altitude. Dark smoke billowed from the engine, leaving soot smeared across the sky. The other pilots held back to give the damaged craft space to land. As the planes grew closer, the sound of pistons firing out of sync rattled through the late morning air.

Kate had been with the squadron long enough to know every mission, even the most mundane patrol, harbored the potential for danger. This was true now more than ever, even though the boys didn't go as far afield as they had before the blockade. Rumors of Japanese forces pressing closer to American bases were rampant. Had this casualty been inflicted by the enemy or was it the result of some mechanical failure?

She lowered the glasses as the plane neared. The injured bird canted dangerously to port but the pilot leveled it out just in time for the landing gear to strike the packed earth. The plane bounced and rose partially into the air before submitting to gravity in a rough spin that sent smoke and dust rising in equal amounts. The pilot's name was unreadable.

The rest of the flight set down with routine efficiency. Kate watched, breathing a prayer of relief when she saw Greg drop from his plane. Fear abruptly replaced that emotion as TJ joined him and the two men raced toward the wounded aircraft, disappearing into the swirling maelstrom of smoke and dust.

The pilot killed the engine and the huge prop shuddered to a halt. The bird's canopy slammed back and a figure leaped over the side. Greg and TJ grabbed him by the arms almost before he landed and the three men raced away, narrowly avoiding a collision with the ground crew on their approach. The crew aimed the extinguisher nozzle at the plane but before they could take action, there was a loud pop and flames shot out of the forward engine cowling.

"Ah, shit," Hutch, Micklin and Kate said in unison.

Ten feet away, Jim dug in his heels and shook off Greg and TJ's assistance.

"Let go of me, damn it!" he bellowed. "I'm fine. I'm on fire!"

Kate marveled at the incongruity of this statement, wondering if she would ever get used to the boys' ability to equate nearly crash landing an aircraft or being on fire as fine.

Jim peeled off his gloves and slapped at the lower right leg of his flight suit where a series of small holes in the fabric were edged with glowing red embers fading to black char. Before Kate could say anything, Micklin appeared and slung a bucket of water over the pilot's lower half, effectively putting out the smoldering cloth.

"Thank you." Jim straightened, grimacing.

"Glad to help, college boy," Micklin said. Kate suspected he was nearly biting the cigar in half to keep from laughing out loud.

"How did you catch on fire?" TJ asked.

"How bad is it?" Kate asked.

Jim's answer was a dual purpose "Damned if I know." He sat down on a stack of crates and gingerly rolled the wet cloth up to his knee. They all looked at the angry red splotches on his shin and calf. Several had already blistered.

"What happened up there, Pappy?" Hutch asked. "I thought the patrols were just for show these days."

"We got complacent." Greg's mouth was a tight line. "And we got ambushed. We hadn't seen a Tojo patrol for days but I think this one was pushing close to see if we were still putting planes in the air. We sent them packing but not before one of those riceballs got a lucky shot on Jim."

Kate swallowed hard. Greg's cavalier attitude was for show and they all knew it. It hadn't been a lucky shot. The Japanese air force was well trained and well supplied. The boys might jokingly call them meatballs but they never took them lightly. A Japanese patrol this close to La Cava meant the rumors were true—the enemy was starting a push to reclaim territory. With limited fuel and ammunition, the weakened U.S. bases were sitting ducks.

"Dunno what that monkey hit but I had flames coming into the cockpit through the footwell." Jim grimaced again and turned to Greg. "I need a drink. And then we gotta start looking for a replacement bird. You know them jokers are gonna come closer and closer unless we git up there and push 'em back."

Kate stepped in, unable to quell the odd sense of responsibility she felt for the boys' welfare. It wasn't so much the need for a woman's touch as the need to override their own single-mindedness.

"You're going to the hospital first," she said. Left to his own devices, she knew Jim would slap some burn cream on his injuries, then forget about them unless they got infected and/or his lower leg fell off, whichever came first. While she admired all the Black Sheep's ability to ignore any injury less than a missing limb, that wasn't happening on her watch.

"We don't have time for that." Greg turned toward the base. "Where's Casey? Casey! Get on the horn and call—"

Kate stepped in front of him, effectively halting his forward motion. "Jim is going to the hospital to have that leg checked out." She narrowed her eyes and raised her fingers to his temple where blood trickled from a deep gash. "You, too. You're bleeding."

Greg gripped her shoulders and moved her out of his way. "Got tossed around a bit up there. I'm fine."

Burned, bruised, bleeding. Fine.

Men! God didn't create women to have babies, He created them to keep the dumb ass men alive, she thought.

She stepped back in front of him and deliberately let him run into her this time.

"Let Doc Reese be the judge of that," she said. "You won't be any good to anyone if you have a concussion."

Greg gave an inarticulate growl. He took her upper arms and tried to shift her aside. Kate dug in her heels and held his steely-eyed glare. Given their routine disregard for their own personal well-being, there were days when she wondered how any of the Black Sheep were still alive.

Greg clenched his jaw. Irritation wafted off him in almost tangible waves but Kate didn't budge.

"There'll be plenty of time for Casey to do whatever you need once Jim has those burns dressed and Reese looks at your hard head," she said. "It's not like any of us are going anywhere."

His expression didn't change but his grip on her upper arms softened. "You're a pain in the ass, Cameron."

"So are you." She turned away. "Hey TJ, radio up to the hospital, tell them a couple of patients are on the way with burns and a head injury."

With a final look at Jim's plane, they climbed into a jeep. The flames were extinguished but wisps of smoke wafted from the cowling like displaced ghosts. Hutch and Micklin prowled around it, pointing and shaking their heads.

"That's not gonna buff out," Jim muttered and Kate put the jeep in gear.

XXX

Dee met the trio at the front door. She looked relieved to find them all ambulatory. Greg wondered what TJ had told her when he called to alert the medical staff about incoming wounded. The boys tended to exaggerate any injury he sustained, as if being ten years their senior rendered him old and feeble. He could still drink and fight all of them under the table and they knew it. He supposed it was their way of caring.

Dee briefly inspected his bleeding head and Jim's blistered leg, then called over her shoulder to another nurse on duty. "Burned toast and a cracked egg! I'll get started on them, call Reese, please." She turned to Kate. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," Kate returned. "I'm just the driver. They had a little dust up on patrol this morning."

Her casual reference to their injuries didn't fool Greg for a minute. He'd seen the concern in her eyes as her fingers touched his brow earlier, gentle and cool in spite of the day's building heat. To be honest, he'd gotten banged on the head harder during a few memorable knock-downs in the OC on Espritos. The headache was already fading but if he didn't get checked out, she wouldn't leave him alone. He'd watched her harry Don until he went to the hospital after he stepped barefoot on a piece of coral and remembered the look of bemused annoyance on her face as she checked on TJ the day he got mild sunstroke, making sure he was drinking enough water and resting. She generally wasn't the mother hen type but her affection for the boys was genuine. And there was no damned arguing with her when she got something in her head.

"Casey told me your patrols aren't going very far up the Slot these days," Dee said, pulling Greg's attention back to the present as she led the two men to an exam room. He was aware of Kate following them, as if she expected them both to bolt out the window at the first opportunity.

"When did you see him?" Greg asked. "Have you been sneaking into my base when it's dark and fraternizing with my clerk?"

"Not at all, Major," she said lightly, meeting Greg's grin with one of her own. "He's been sneaking in here."

Greg let that go. Being the CO of this meatball circus meant overlooking a few things. Quite a few things. "He's right, in any case. We haven't flown a real mission in two weeks and patrols are so limited we might as well not even go up."

"If something don't break loose with that blockade pretty soon, we ain't even gonna have the fuel for that. We'll just stand on the ground and throw rocks at Tojo when he flies over," Jim grumbled, then groaned loudly as he climbed onto the exam table.

Under other circumstances, Greg might have reprimanded him for his bad attitude. Jim's negativity would spread like wildfire through a unit already stretched to the emotional breaking point, but he let it go. It wouldn't be right to bite a guy's head off when he was already hurt. Maybe Jim really was in pain after the adrenaline from the dogfight and rough landing had drained away but it wouldn't be the first time the boys' reaction to their injuries escalated once nurses got involved. Hell, he'd done it himself but he wasn't about to exaggerate the extent of today's head wound. Kate would have him flat on his back in bed for a week if she thought he was seriously hurt. He rolled the thought around in his mind. It had a certain appeal.

Kate leaned against the wall, hands in the pockets of her shorts, the long, sun-streaked plait of her hair curled over one shoulder. She looked concerned and annoyed in equal measure. If she hadn't insisted on driving them, he could have dropped Jim off, then bulled his way out of waiting for Doc Reese and gone back to the base. He and Casey needed to start contacting other units to find a replacement for Jim's bird but damned if he knew how that was going to work. None of the other nearby units had planes to spare and even if they did, ferrying one to La Cava would be tricky business, given both fuel restrictions and enemy presence.

He felt the heat of her gaze on him and looked up, realizing he'd been absently studying her legs. They were a damned fine alternative to thinking about wrecked planes and the enemy. She raised her eyebrows and he had the unnerving impression she'd insisted on driving them because she knew exactly what he'd do if she wasn't there to stop it. He let his gaze drop to her legs again, then back to her face and winked. She tried to look reproving but the set of her mouth made her look more amused than annoyed.

Dr. Reese appeared while Dee was washing Jim's burns with a sterile solution. Greg sat with one hand clamping a gauze pad to his head to stop the bleeding, still thinking about Jim's plane and Kate's legs, not necessarily in that order.

"Good morning, gentlemen. What have you done this time?" Reese asked. "Hi, Katie."

"Doc Cameron here won't release me for the flight roster until you clear me," Jim grumbled with a sideways look at Kate.

"Doc Cameron made a good call." Reese did a cursory exam. "Looks like first-and second-degree burns. Keep your leg clean and dry for a week and you'll be fine."

Dee spread salve over the red splotches and wrapped them with gauze. The fact the Navy nurse used the absolute minimum of bandaging didn't escape Greg's notice. The hospital was as low on supplies as the 214.

Reese moved on to examine Greg. "Any problems with your vision? Blurring? Seeing double? Drowsiness? Nausea? Headache?" He shone a penlight in Greg's eyes, checking pupil reactivity.

"This war gives me a headache," Greg said.

"Amen, brother," Reese replied and taped a small bandage over the cut. "That doesn't need stitched and I don't think you have a concussion but the bruising indicates you took a pretty hard crack. I'd like you to stay on the ground for the next 24 hours, just to be safe."

"I've got a patrol to lead in the morning." Greg headed for the door. "We need to keep our presence known in this airspace or we're gonna lose it." And more than just airspace, he thought, but didn't say it out loud.

Kate pushed off the wall with the lithe grace of a dancer and stepped directly into his path, intercepting him for the second time in less than an hour. He stopped abruptly, his hands on her waist to keep from knocking her over. She didn't flinch.

"You will do no such thing." Her face was calm, her words tempered steel. "Let Casey lead B Flight. You're only sending up eight planes at a time anyway and you know he can handle it."

"Damn it, Cameron, who put you in charge?" As much as he wanted to be annoyed at her tone of authority, he found it sparking an entirely different reaction.

"I gave myself a field promotion," she said. "War correspondent and chief medical officer. You can stay out of that plane for twenty-four hours until you're sure your hard head isn't cracked."

"What if I don't?"

Given that he still had his hands around her waist and his back to the room, no one else caught the subtle shift of her posture from draft horse stubborn to something invitingly sensual. She was close enough he could smell the rain-washed scent of her skin, see the hazel flecks in those smoke gray eyes. She didn't say a word, just flattened her palm over his heart, her fingers warm through the fabric of his flight suit.

"Don't take chances, Greg," she said. Her voice was little more than a whisper.

His heart accelerated at her touch and the unspoken promise as she looked up at him from under dark lashes. Damn. She did that on purpose, knowing exactly the effect it had. There'd been plenty of women in his life before her, temporary distractions along the path of a lifestyle that didn't accommodate long-term attachments. He'd cared for all of them in the brief, transitory way of war-time conveniences but none of them had woven themselves into his very being like she did. She meshed with him like a piece that completed a puzzle, making the whole greater than merely the sum of two parts. Loving her was a complicated process. He'd stand down for a day because he didn't want to find out what she'd do if he didn't.

"Fine. I'll ask Tojo to take a day off," he said. She smiled, acknowledging victory.

"How much longer is this situation going to last?" Reese asked.

Greg stepped back, his hands reluctant to leave Kate's waist. He presumed the doctor wasn't talking about their silent exchange.

"The seriously wounded patients who couldn't be moved when everyone else evac'd are well enough to transfer to Pearl, only they can't leave because there's no way to get them there," Reese continued. "We don't have any new patients to treat, except you boys, and that's good, because we're low on everything but aspirin powder."

"I dunno, Doc. Wish I could say for sure," Greg said. "Until that blockade breaks up, we're like ducks in a shooting gallery."

There was a moment of silence, then Reese clapped him on the shoulder. "You boys go on back to the base. Listen to Kate when she tells you to take it easy."

Jim groaned. "Listen to Kate. Now the press corps is in charge of the war."

Greg thought that wasn't the worst thing that could happen.

To be continued . . .