Salem reared his head back and laughed aloud, as he slid down against the wall pouring water over his head and gasping for breath between guffaws. The team, enjoying his good mood, followed suit. Rios and the smaller man had just run the kill house shaving a full minute off of their previous time, which was three ahead of anyone else's, cementing them into a firm first place among the other SSC squads. It was a well earned achievement, and the new men relished in the fact they they had now firmly made their mark in the company despite only being active for eight and a half months. Finally, he tossed the deflated plastic bottle aside and flopped his forearms onto his raised knees. Then he shook his head, like a wet dog, sending the cool droplets flying before resting it back against the concrete wall.

"We fuckin' nailed that shit, Rios," he said gruffly, his voice hoarse from tear gas, hours of yelling and responding to commands. Then scrubbing the back of his right wrist back and forth across his snot clotted mustache, "no way any a these bozos are gonna beat that run. No way."

Rios, still standing and looking down at the smaller operator, nodded and slugged back the rest of his bottle of water, "I hear ya, Salem, I hear ya. You were a force to be reckoned with, Kermit."

"A force? I like that. I am a force, and we are sure as shit an army of two. One more run and that'll clinch it. We move t the top slot for high value ops. Fuck, that makes me feel fantastic."

"Money in all of our pockets. Murray will be happy. That's for damned sure," Giddy said, then sounding very serious, "Ask me, though, she thinks a bit too much about the money sometimes."

Salem shrugged and watched as the next team stacked up to run the live fire CQB drill, "Eh, so far so good. Us guys are tight, and that's what matters. Go Delta."

Just over an hour and a half later, Rios and Salem stacked up for their final run through the course. The buzzer blared, and Rios breeched the first door. They pushed through the tight series of halls clearing the rooms as they moved. Eight minutes in on the second of three floors, Salem pushed forward and after stepping back slammed into the closed door on his side of the hall hitting the barrier with all of his strength and body mass. In turn, he bounced backward howling in pain as he slid down his back against the opposite wall. Rios stepped over him, slammed his massive right shoulder into the door three times unsuccessfully before resorting to blasting away at it with his combat shotgun and mule kicking the remaining remnants away. The wood splintered, and on the other side the big man saw the hastily built bracing. It was not a part of the normal kill-house structure. The door had been sabotaged. Cursing, he cleared the room and stomped back to where Salem still sat against the wall screaming furiously.

"Where you hurt?" he asked as the clock continued ticking away.

"Collar bone, shoulder…" Salem rasped, "Get me up, Rios. No fuckin' time!"

Rios focused on the smaller man's right side, and peeked beneath the edge of his black tee shirt, "Shit, Kermit! We are done here," then into his mic, "Medic!"

"No, I can go. Just…"

"You have an open break, Salem. No…"

"Just stabilize my fuckin' arm in my fuckin' vest, and hit me with some 'drenalin. Hurry."

Rios nodded while quickly tearing open Salem's vest. Then he bent the damaged arm at the elbow, and with Salem howling in agony jammed it into the open vest, re-secured it as tightly as it allowed and yanked Salem to his feet by the front of his vest.

"Move, Rios. We're burning time," Elliot snarled shoving his Galil around to his back on its sling, yanking his side arm free with his left hand and shaking his head to clear the waves of pain flooding his mind.

"Copy that, Salem," he replied once again amazed at the smaller man's resolve.

Finally, eight and half minutes later they poured out of the exit, the cordite and CS gas rank smoke from tear gas and their flash bangs wafting after them. Salem stumbled five or six staggering paces before collapsing to his knees and vomiting onto the boot track churned sand while leaning heavily on his left arm. Rios dropped down next to him, and Salem swatted at him weakly.

"Medic," Rios yelled into his mic, "need a medic down here, now damn it. Giddy get your ass down here too."

Salem shoved off of the bigger man and shakily stood up, but staggered backwards ten steps to the kill-house wall falling back down and leaning heavily against it. Rios picked up The injured man's discarded mask and moved to him. After flipping up his own mask, he knelt back down.When he saw the bones protruding from just below Salem's chin he fought down panic.

"Damn it, Salem stay still, man. Shit! Where is my fucking, Murray!"

"Time, time how'd we do, Tyse?"

"Fuck the time! Christ you're a bloody mess," Rios snapped studying the horrible wound where Salem's right Clavicle was jutting through his tanned skin, the three splintered ends of bone bright white against the crimson blood in the afternoon sunshine, "we should have stood down. Hang tight, this will hurt," he said gravely while undoing the velcro straps securing Salem's tactical vest gently as possible one by one. The industrial velcro was unforgiving though, and the smaller man screamed in pain; and then, after the vest was over his sweat soaked head, he tipped left and curled into a ball, gasping for breath. Giddy and the SSC medic finally dropped down beside them kicking up a cloud of bloody dust.

"Let's get him back up," the big chief-medic said gruffly trying to roll Salem back to a seated position against the wall, "Good, now what have we got? Fuck."

The man then moved rapidly his skilled hands expertly cutting through the smaller man's blood soaked black tee shirt and tossing it aside. Salem banged his head against the wall fighting off waves of pain. When the medic reached around behind him to check his shoulder blade, Elliot screamed through clenched teeth.

"Compound fracture to the left Clavicle, shattered left Scapula. Gimme 8 mg of Ketamine IM (intra-muscular) please, Guidry. Then start a saline IV with Ket at 1.5 mg drip at 1 mg per minute."

"Salem gets nauseous with anything over 7 mg. I think that…"

"Who is the Chief-medic medic here?"

"You, but I know my guys and…"

"8 mg IM then 1mg per minute. Make it so, Guidry! He is in pain, after all."

"Copy that," Guidry responded flippantly, setting aside the vial he kept pre-loaded for Salem in his med kit and filling another needle, "8 mg IM and 1 mg per minute, drip."

Then after finding a clear path in between Salem's gear he stabbed the needle into Elliot's left buttock, slowly, carefully depressing the plunger so that the drug didn't flow into his system too rapidly. That done he winked at his patient and handing the Saline bag to Rios went about inserting the IV shunt in Salem's left wrist just above his watchband. Finished, he grabbed the Ketamine bag, and gave gave it to Rios too. As he was hooking it to the IV shunt in Salem's wrist and adjusting the drip setting the injured man tensed and vomited all over the chief-medic.

"Son of a bitch!" the medic snapped settling back on his heels arms askew watching the

vile vomit slough down the chest of his tac vest.

"Warned you, chief-medic, sir," Giddy said tipping his head to the right and chuckling, "I-know-my-men. Hang in there, Fifty. Easy, easy don't fight it let the meds work. Good, good relax."

Suddenly, the IV bags dropped; and as Giddy tried to catch them, he heard Rios roar. It was animalistic, terrifying, and Giddy couldn't help but flash back to the last time that he'd heard the huge soldier scream like that. It hadn't ended well for the men who had incited Rios' full wrath.

"Rios!" Elliot slurred struggling against the Ketamine and the medic's hands, "Rios! Go le'me go. Rios!"

"Hold still, Elliot! Hold…"

Giddy heard a chorus of Rios no and Rios stop coming from around the area. Holding Salem's IV up at arms length, he watched helplessly, over his left shoulder, as Rios tore off his mask and charged toward who Giddy thought was Alpha team.

Refocusing on a flailing Salem, "No, let him go, Fifty. Fifty!"

"How is he even awake?" the chief-medic snapped, "keeps this up his Clavicle will be irreparable! Hold him damn it! Gonna hit him with another small dose of K. Knock him out."

Behind them, Rios slammed his bulk into the cluster of four Alpha operatives. Salem finally went limp in Giddy's arms; and after a last look at the frenetic battle, he eased Salem down onto the ground his head resting on his thighs, while the chief-medic stabilized his right arm. While snatching glances to his left he watched Rios shredding Alpha team. After the first few moments of the battle, the few men trying to side with Alpha had bailed out after seeing the futility of battling the enraged Delta team operator.

Through the fray, two more medics trotted up with a stretcher. Shortly after that, while Rios was pounding Alpa team leader's head into his raised knee, Giddy saw and heard full twelve man squad of SSC internal security operatives storm the area around the fight. As the medics gently loaded Salem onto the stretcher, Guidry and the chief-medic watched the remaining six of the twelve finally get Rios down on his stomach and plasti-cuffed. Still the big man raged growling and snarling his fury unabated.

Giddy stood with the stretcher bearers and jogged along toward the awaiting evac vehicle. He stopped when Murray and Heckler flagged him down.

"Salem?" Murray asked. Then to the chief-medic, "Go, Roland. My man will be there shortly. Sit-rep, Guidry?"

Giddy looked from Salem and then back to Murray. He hated leaving the young man in someone else's hands, "Salem, he's…shit!" he broke off when two of the SSC men tased a still fighting Rios. He'd snapped the plasti-cuffs and now free was moving back toward where a second medical team was triaging the shattered Alpha team. "Rios enough," he yelled turning away from Murray and moving toward the fight.

"Guidry, leave it," she ordered grabbing his right elbow, "They'll get him under control! Salem?"

Not taking his eyes off Rios as he battered his way through three more men, he pulled free and faced her, "Right Clavicle shattered, looks like three pieces, compound, and his Scapula is also fractured. What the hell happened to that door, Murray?" he snarled grabbing her right bi-cep, turning her roughly and leaning down slightly stared into her brown eyes, Then, pointing toward the kill-house, "he breached that door four times already with zero problem, zero! What the hell happened?"

Unflinching, she held his angry gaze, "If the mumbling in the crowd is accurate, Alpha snuck in there and barricaded the door, knowing that it was Salem's tasking to breech it. That would also account for Rios' actions."

Seething at the information, Giddy broke her gaze and glancing over her shoulder watched a SSC operative fire a one, then another, and then a third tranquilizer round into Rios' broad back.

"Bastards!" he growled watching Rios stagger, drop to his knees and keel straight forward onto his scarred face, "Rios couldn't breach it. Murray, If that turns out to be true, they got what they deserve."

"I tend to agree, Guidry. Time will tell, though, how Stockwell and Dalton feel about Rios decimating an entire team. Go to sick bay with Salem. Report back to me, as soon as he's been through imaging. I will stay with Rios. They are taking him to the brig until decisions are finalized," she ordered. Then looking toward where they were loading an unconscious Rios into another vehicle, "And get Heckler and the rest back to the team room to clean up the gear. It will keep them focused while we wait for news."

"Copy that."

Giddy watched her walk rapidly toward the truck holding Rios and climb aboard. Then he turned and began gathering up his gear. Heckler, M.I.T and {} walked over and squatted down giving him a hand. All three sported cuts and bruises to the face. The hand to hand fight with the security detail had been brutal.

"Lets move to the bleachers; and I'll fix you guys up, before I go check on Fifty," he said standing up, "What the hell happened?"

Heckler started talking as the group trudged through the sand, "Alpha barricaded the door. They wanted to slow them down. Don't think they figured on Fifty shattering his arm like that."

"Whether they did or not, Heck, that's a shit trick to pull," M.I.T snarled, "he didn't deserve that."

"Status on Alpha?" Giddy asked plopping his kit down onto the bottom bleacher step amidst the rest of the gear, "M.I.T. you first. That gash is worse than Heck's broken nose."

M.I.T. laughed bitterly while tipping his head to the right giving Giddy access to his split right cheek, "Ah…from what little that I saw, Giddy, there is no longer an Alpha team."

Giddy stopped daubing the wound and leaned back locking eyes first with Heck and then M.I.T., "Say again."

Heckler shook his head and snorted, wincing when pain stabbed his crooked nose, "They are done for. Gone. At least one dead and one well on his way. The other two…" he paused and shrugging considered his words, "well they ain't never gonna be active again. The last two were not there. Lucky enough, I guess, to miss the party. But, when Rios is out, they better not be SSC anymore. He's not taking prisoners on this one, Giddy. Last I saw him this pissed was…"

"Yea, I remember too," Giddy said his voice a tense whisper, "Bolivia, and I hoped never to see that part of him again," then sighing deeply, "I really thought that that part of him was long dead."