AN: Here's a little 'teaser' for The Measure of Our Lives, my DIY version of Season 4.

SOMEWHERE IN THE BALKANS

(THE EXACT LOCATION IS CLASSIFIED)

'…and then, there's a bang, and Cousin George says to me, we gotta run, Jack, the Terminator's coming! And trust me, he was coming, and he wasn't Arnie, and I was thinking, man, we're-'

Jack, his feet up on a desk, was chatting with Mac, Bozer and Riley, enjoying some rare downtime that lined up with their downtime, when the call suddenly cut out.

A second later, the lights flickered ominously, and the power went out.

He glanced around the room, at Deacon, Fitzy, Munoz, Lanier and Worthy.

(All of 'Dalton's Heroes', as they now called themselves, thanks to Mac, had been recalled when Kovac had turned out to be not-dead after all, except Thorpe.)

All of them had that same look on their faces.

Their guts were all telling them, I have a bad feeling about this.

And when guys like them with their training and experience all got that gut feeling, you knew it was about to go south.

Real south.

Munoz grabbed his laptop, which still had power, and tried to bring up the feeds from their cleverly-hidden security cameras, but got nothing.

Hands shifted to weapons.

Jack's radio crackled to life.

'We're…under attack…he…'

It cut out after a gunshot.

Weapons came out and were checked. At least three of them touched their boots, near their ankles, double-checking that the back-up to the back-up was there.

(Old habits died hard.)

'What's the plan, boss?'

Jack addressed Munoz, even as he assessed the situation.

'Told you not to call me that, man.'

'Hey, it's Dalton's Heroes, not Fitzy's, so you are the boss, Dalton.'

Fitzy, predictably, made an affronted noise at Munoz's retort.

That familiar banter, that way of keeping some light in the darkness, brought grim smiles to all the men's faces.

Jack, too, smiled grimly as he considered, checking the magazine in his gun out of habit.

Their position inside HQ was pretty defensible, with plenty of furniture for barricades and cover, and the various doors provided chokepoints.

But this was Tiberius Kovac, who definitely wanted them all six feet under and deader than dodos.

(Who else would it be, after all?)

Kovac would have brought plenty and plenty of firepower. They'd be severely out-gunned and out-numbered.

Besides, knowing him and his thing for blowing up buildings, he'd just launch a rocket at HQ.

They were dead if they stayed here.

Jack dove under his desk, grabbed his knife and tore out a section of carpet, revealing a trapdoor in the floor.

A secret escape hatch.

Which probably wasn't super-secret, since it connected to a network of tunnels from the Balkan War.

Kovac probably knew it was there already. Hell, he might have a map of the tunnels, and an ambush all set up.

They might be dead men if they went down there too.

But, in Jack's mind, it was better to die bringing the fight to the baddies then waiting for them to get to you.

'We're getting outta here, boys.'

He looked around, saw that same knowledge and acceptance and that touch of fear and sadness on their faces.

With a pang, he was reminded of Honduras, in that cabin, and of course, that reminded him of Mac.

This time, there wouldn't be Mac buying them time with something genius and crazy and weird that only he could do, and Matty swooping in to save them.

They were on their own.

There were affected nonchalant shrugs all around the room.

'Blood makes the grass grow.'

'Shame to stain the carpet.'

'Hoo-rah!'

They headed into the tunnels.

AN: For the rest of this 'episode', please see The Measure of Our Lives, which is now up. There will be no more updates to this story, so please either subscribe to The Measure of Our Lives or me to get update notifications. If you don't wish to do that, the posting schedule should be fairly regular – check back Sundays Australian time!