Frontline News.
Disclaimer: Skymaster23 has no connection to Conan the Barbarian or Dirty Dancing.
When Destro returns to the Terror Drome, he is greeted by a Tele-Viper, who tells him that he was sent to inform him that Cobra Commander has been holding off a staff meeting until his landing. "This way, sir." He said, his visor showing the same words.
"Very well. Did he say what it was about?" Destro asks, already having a good idea as to what the answer will be, but wants to be sure anyway.
"No; just that you should attend or else." The Tele-Viper replies as the two leave the hanger.
Once he enters the main conference room, Cobra Commander speaks. "Now that we are all present, let usss begin; the Baroness has informed me that a ccertain sssomeone has a disscovery he would like to sshare with us."
After scowling at her, Destro stands and tells them what happened. "While i was attending a clan gathering, i found an unexpected "guest" on my property."
"To whom do you refer?"/"Did your mistresses meet each other again?"/"Do you mean to say you had a khild at some point?" Storm Shadow, Zartan, and Dr. Mindbender all ask.
"No, this has far more serious complications, gentlemen... and Zartan." Destro says, ignoring the Dreadnok leader's gesture. "Much to my chagrin, i have found that i have a familial relation, albeit extremely distant, to the G.I. Joe operative Lady-Jaye."
Except for the Baroness, the sub-leaders all discuss this turn of events before one of them raises his hand. "Does this mean we have blackmail material on her?" Firefly asks.
"Yes and no." Cobra Commander replies, surprising all of them.
"No? Vhy not?; Ve kan use zis to not only force her to resign, but perhaps efen force her to choin us." Dr. Mindbender says aloud.
While Destro hand twitches at that under the table, Cobra Commander reminds them of how often Lady-Jaye has been been in and out of their grasp. "I am ssstarting to think that at some point, the Joes may have taken advantage of it; a ssseries of feints to expose all those bases we lost... not to mention Sscrap Iron's little "Number of days since" calendar in the motor pool." He exclaims. The aforementioned agent whistles to himself while Cobra Commander leans forward and points infront of himself. "Know that as of thiss moment i hereby order you to avoid capturing Lady-Jaye as well as G.I. Joe's other two intelligence operatives, Scarlett and Stalker."
While the sub-leaders confer on the decree, the Twins both raised a hand. "How are we to extract..."/"...anything from the Joes, then?" They asked, causing Dr. Mindbender to stand.
"You let me hentle zat, i haf been experimenting vith a new mezzod fur extracting information recently."
Four days later, M.P. Lavigne is granted leave time, which he spends by heading to Rhode Island. After knocking on the door, he is greeted by a man with short blond hair. "Yes... Wait a sec, aren't you that guy Alyssa keeps telling us about?" The man asks.
"That's me, hombre. Chris Lavigne." He replies, only to get an angry glare.
"Get your el asso off our property, you mothe-"
"Thomas, back off right now; he's our sister's friend!" A third man shouts before letting him in. "Sorry about that. Tom's never gotten over how he couldn't make it past bootcamp. Anyway, Alyssa's in the T.V. room... I'm-"
"Dwight; she mentioned you two."
The two enter the room to see her on a couch watching Dirty Dancing with subtitles while her wheelchair is folded up against a wall, making him remember how she described her losses as a bombstrike to the gut. Dwight taps her shoulder, and she gets a smile on face when she sees who has shown up. "Chris, you should have called!"
He smirks while getting out a pen and paper, but is interrupted by Dwight. "No need for that, we were all shown how to do sign language; thanks anyway, though."
"De nada, man. I'll just stick to some codenames for some "co-workers" I'll be mentioning, that alright?"
When Dwight tells him ok, he writes Good new/bad news since last letter. Bad news first. He tells her about how he was hypnotized while trying to arrest Shipwreck, Breaker, and Footloose.
"Oh that, we saw it on the news." She says. "Along with somebody pointing at a certain lady on stage." She adds, causing Chris to look away nervously at her mock glare and Dwight's real one. "Dwight, you were staring at Scarlett, so knock it off." She says next without looking. When her brother asks how she keeps doing that, she replies: "In-tu-i-tion."
She is then told about McCabe's murder, and covers her mouth. "He did what?!" She yelled before she grabbed his collar, making him explain how Breaker may have been in the room, but it was still Cobra who did the deed. She is also told that he was sent to Leavenworth and got replaced by some reservist from Los Alamos. "So it's down to just The Main Three and nurse Simmons? Those goddamn snakes better be glad i can't fight anymore, or I'd skin them all alive!" She growled while wiping her eyes on her sleeve. After nodding, Chris goes on to tell her about Duke's mission to return Alaska to the U.S., that the production sites for the new vehicles are two/thirds finished, and about the discovery made about Lady-Jaye and Destro. "She's his cousin? That's awful." She said out loud.
He then says that she's still seeing Rich about it, and that she's doing "mucho mejor" now. He tells her before mentioning that it seems that one of the PX workers, the one who got replaced by a siegie was also killed, but leaves out how.
"Haruna; i thought the Chinese got her?" She asks him.
He shakes his head and tells her that maybe they and Cobra made a swap or something, and that Destro has some other relatives that he meets with every winter solstice and do some sicko Conan the Barbarian stuff where they drop people into an old well that Lady-Jaye said made her hallucinate about some monster before Flint busted her out. He then tells her that after Ripcord and Iceberg found Haruna's purse in a chest full of items belonging to all the people they killed in a shed on the property, Duke had the well closed off with a cement cover that had a bunch of symbols Spirit carved.
"...I see; how did Lady-Jaye take it?" She asks next, and is told that Lady-Jaye doesn't know about that part since it was happened after she and Flint went to her aunt's place to go through some family records.
She then asks what the good news is, and he says that he and Order are now the senior K9 team after Callaway resigned. "Good for him; Order, i mean. Is he here, by the way?" She asked, but he says that Order is at HQ getting his annual check-up. Following that, he hears a song* from the film and points to the T.V. while mouthing the lyrics.
She nodded in realization.
"-wear it's all the truth and i owe it all to you..."
At the same time, Gen. Abernathy is walking back to his office when he sees another General mumbling to himself by a water-cooler. "Something wrong, Llewelyn?"
"That stupid son of mine called asking on some musician's behalf if i could tell him about any red-haired vets named Martin that screwed some Vietnamese girl back in '76 and now his kid is looking for him." 'Llewelyn' tells him.
"...Is Martin the first or last name?" Abernathy asks, barely able to not knock the other man's teeth out.
"They don't know and i don't care, but i have been able to find two Mr. Martins so far. One named Leonard, while the second is an Andrew." Llewelyn replies.
"Well i can give a third, Martin O'Carolan." Abernathy tells him, adding that O'Carolan was in a prison camp he led a raid against after the war ended. "The northerners must have done a real number on him because he had short term memory loss."
"I see, where's he now... for that matter... how come you're bringing this up?" Llewelyn asks him.
"Because i think i know the other musician you mentioned. Somebody i owe an apology to for the "Watchdog" fiasco." Abernathy explained.
Two days after that, in California, the young man who met Heavy Metal and the original Grunt during the giant produce incident is doing push-ups in his apartment when he hears a knock at the door. "Who is it?" He asks.
"Wild West Haulin'; we have an order fer a trash compactor fer..." An older man in overalls says. "Iz chur name spelled correctly-like on hare?"
Despite thinking he has the wrong address, when the resident checks the clipboard, the delivery man takes a taser and zaps him with it. He then opens the box, showing a copy of the unconscious person. Hours later, the real one is being shook by the landlord. "Aw, my head... wait, nevermind; where the hell is he?!" He asks himself while looking around, only to stop and realize his coach, and a police officer are there too. "What's all this-get these off me, i didn't do nothing!" He says while being cuffed.
"Don't bother playing dumb, Dave; you know exactly what this is. You nearly killed four players from the visiting team." The coach tells him.
"...Did not, i was tasered by some bastard who said he was a delivery man. Ask him." 'Dave' explains, only for the landlord to say no one like that showed up.
After the police car left, the landlord pulled up a sleeve to show a mini-radio on his wrist. "L-71 reporting, inform Cobra Commander that he can arrange for Brett Tinker to take Dave Taputapu's place on the team."
Chapter twenty-four.
*(I've Had) The Time Of My Life.
