The Hunt And The Chase

by Windjammers

During post war reconstruction, the Power Team learns that evil other than Lord Dread exists when captured Dread Youth soldiers begin to disappear. Some swearing, some violence, sexual situations.

6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX – Full Circle

Jon was a patient man. Given his profession, he had to be, but waiting for a doctor to tell him that his wife was going to be fine and then not knowing when that doctor was going to tell him exactly that – which he'd better -- he was losing patience.

He told the doctor he'd wait outside the room.

He was waiting.

He was tired of waiting.

"Jon," Hawk admonished him, "pacing is not going to hurry things up."

"We should have taken her to the Passages," he murmured. "How'd you talk her into coming here?"

"I didn't. She's the one who suggested it. She knows we need actual proof about the hospital's involvement in all this to go along with the mayors' testimonies," Hawk whispered back. "Jon, those new rulings by the Committee have been mangled by local governments like Rogers' group. It's in the wording, and they're interpreting them in whatever way they want. None of this is working the way Command and Council intended it to. This hospital works closely with the prison. We need more witnesses or more people to prosecute if we're going to put a stop to this. You know Jennifer. After what happened to her, she's ready to fight them."

But Jennifer had been hurt. Jon hated sending her in as bait or a guinea pig. Still, Hawk was right. They had to play this out no matter how much they hated it.

Tank was standing like a silent guard beside the hospital room door. Scout stood opposite him, neither one looked patient.

"Did she tell you how they threatened her?" Jon whispered.

Hawk nodded his head. "What they've done, Jon… in some ways, it's worse than a lot of what Dread did. We're going to take them down."

"How do you make monsters like this pay for what they've done? What punishment is enough?" Jon asked.

"Nothing's enough," Hawk told him. "I was surprised that you didn't kill Rogers."

"Almost did," Jon told him. "I wanted to. He took her from me, Hawk. He physically ripped her away from me. He put her in that hellhole and I could have crushed his windpipe. It took everything I had not to."

"Why didn't you? No one would have stopped you. We'd have helped."

Jon thought for a moment. He had wanted to kill Rogers then. Now, knowing what had happened to his wife, Jon wanted to do far worse. He wanted to mangle, maim and mutilate Rogers. "There has to be more to it than just a hunt," he explained to his friend. "There has to be something worse. He's one of the few that we know has answers. If I had killed him, we wouldn't get those answers and how many others would suffer?"

Finally, the doctor walked out of the hospital room, an odd expression on his face. "Who's here for this one?"

"This one? What do you mean this one?" Jon asked. "She has a name. We brought her in."

Without looking up, the doctor pulled out a pen and was poised to write down the information. "Your name?"

"Captain Jonathan Power."

That stunned the doctor. "Captain Power?" The way he uttered Jon's name sounded like he was surprised to see him. "You're THE Captain Power? The Resistance fighter? The one who led the attack on Volcania?"

"How's Jennifer?" Let the doctor be surprised. Jon just wanted to know how she was.

The doctor seemed taken aback, but he read the notes in his hand. "Jennifer?" he mumbled, confused. "The prisoner has bruised bones especially her ribs and shoulders, pulled muscles, a slight concussion. Your medic was correct in his diagnosis. There's no severe injury, but she'll be in pain for a while. You can take her back to prison now if you want, she can be on several of the factory crews, but if you want her for the hunt again, you're going to have to wait a few weeks for these injuries to heal up. Those Dread Youth can really take a beating and keep on going. It's no wonder it was so hard to beat them during the war. So why did you bring her in here again if you were hunting her and why are you calling her Jennifer?"

Jon stared at the man. This was proof that the doctor was one of Rogers' crowd. "What do you mean?"

"The woman you brought in. According to the records, she's a Dread Youth we've already seen before, about three weeks ago was the last time. Doctor Sinclair signed off on her. She was declared fit for the hunt then, work crews before that. So why did you bring her back here instead of killing her when you caught her? Do you need her alive for some reason?"

Stay calm, Jon told himself. "What the hell are you talking about? And what do you mean why did we bring her back here? She's never been here before. She was nearly killed by a gang of murderers. She was hurt. This is a medical facility. Why do you think we brought her here?"

The doctor took a step away from Jon. " Easy, Captain, I didn't mean … look, it's just that you don't see any Resistance fighters going out of their way to help Dread Youth, that's all. Especially overunits like her. Since they're all going to be executed anyway -- ARGH!"

The doctor couldn't speak when Jon shoved him up against the wall and slammed his arm across his throat. Wanting to beat the life out of two people twice in one day was a little out of the ordinary for Jon. "She's not Dread Youth. She's not an Overunit. She's one of the Resistance leaders," Jon said. He dropped the doctor on his rear and then kicked him away. "Get out of my sight."

He saw a nurse standing nearby watching the goings-on. In a menacing voice, he said, "I want another doctor for her. Now. Is that clear?"

The nurse just nodded her head and hurried back the way she came.

He turned to his team. "That's one doctor who's in on it. We'll move on the second one if he uses a similar approach. That way, we'll know there's more than one doctor involved. Don't let anyone else in here for a few minutes." Without a look back, Jon walked into the room and saw Jennifer lying on her side on the makeshift bed. Her head was lowered, and her arm was tucked close into her stomach. Jon could hear her hitched breathing indicating the pain she had to be in. "Jennifer?"

She slowly lifted her eyes to meet his. The bruises that weren't visible earlier were becoming more and more apparent. "He didn't have much of a bedside manner," she muttered.

Jon pulled the chair close to her and sat down. He didn't know what to do. He was afraid he'd hurt her if he touched her. Taking her hand, he saw the bruises and the cuts left by her dash into the wilderness. "I'm sorry. I don't like the idea that you had to see someone like that."

"It's okay," she muttered in a pain-filled voice. "We had to start somewhere. At least we know this facility is involved with Rogers and his group even if we don't know how many are. Can we go now?"

He noticed her torn clothes, her ripped boots, the short, burnt edges of her hair where the weapon shot hit – it was testament to how hard she tried to escape, to stay alive, to find the bodies of the other Dread Youth. If she wanted to go, they'd go. If she wanted to fly to Paris, he'd take her there. Right at that moment, he wanted her safely away from these monsters that kept crawling around every corner.

"As soon as they release you -- which will probably be soon. I might have made that doctor angry. I'll take you to the jumpship. You can bunk out there for a while. The rest of us have a few people to question and a few statements to get before we can go back home."

"Statements?"

"The Council and Command are back in New Chicago. Elzer got to Grey, they raised hell with them about the Committee, we got the mayors to turn on Rogers. They arrested Rogers and the soldiers at the prison. They may have arrested the mayors. We left before that happened. Oh, General Grey was the Command representative hearing the case. He wasn't happy with what happened to you."

Jennifer almost smiled. "He wouldn't be. He's the type of man who doesn't like it when someone hurts a friend of his, especially one who can outfly him."

Outfly? "You never told me you beat Grey."

"A lady can have a few secrets," she quipped lightly. "Did he hit Rogers?"

Jon shook his head. "Not while we were there. I came close to choking him."

"Close?"

"Very close. I probably would have if we didn't need more information from him. We found out that the doctor who just left here is in on it, but we're going to spring a trap on the next doctor that comes in if we think that one's involved. I'd say some people have a big problem on their hands."

"Okay," she said, her voice strained and wispy. There were times when Jon cursed the Dread Youth more than others. The sublimation of pain, the not acknowledging when they were hurt – how many times had he seen Jennifer ignore her own injuries for the good of the mission? He wished she could scream in pain, yell, anything that would let her channel it instead of ignoring it. Some training was more difficult to break than others.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I'm sorry about what you went through. I should have blasted into the prison, found out you weren't there and then raided Facility 7. I shouldn't have waited."

Jennifer smiled slightly. "Then we wouldn't know what we do now. We wouldn't know how their operation worked or where some of the bodies were buried. It had to happen the way it did or it would have been for nothing. We needed solid proof."

"If they had caught you –"

"They didn't," she reminded him. "And we know more than we did before. There's more going on than what Elzer found out. Jon, all the prisoners they have now, all the thousands still in hiding… people like Rogers are worse than Dread. At least Dread was honest in his desire to destroy people. These people are hiding behind laws and rules and legal loopholes."

"I know, and we had no idea anything like this was happening. We know now. We can do something about it even if we can't help the people they've already hurt. We can still make the guilty pay for what they've done." Jon carefully swept her hair away from her face. He could see the bruise of a handprint on her cheek… someone had struck her. He saw the darker bruise where a gun butt had hit her. The cuts, the bruises… he wanted to hit someone, just pound them until they couldn't move anymore. "I don't think I'll let you out of my sight ever again," he smiled at her.

"That could prove difficult," she teased him. "I can move faster than you."

"Not at the moment," he forcibly smiled. "And once you are up and around, I've got a surprise for you."

"Surprise?" she asked, trying to take a breath.

"Yeah. It's something I've been working on for a while since I've been on the West Coast. It's not finished yet, but it's close enough."

"So you've been goofing off instead of working out there, huh?" she joked, wrapping her fingers around his.

That time, his smile was genuine. If she could joke with him – "Goofing off? Me?"

There. There it was, that smile he loved to see. It was the smile that actually reached her eyes. "I love you, you know," he told her as he kissed her fingers. "I'd have done anything to keep what happened from happening."

"I know," she said. "Love you, too."

There was a knock at the door and an older woman stepped into the room.

"Captain Power? I'm Doctor Sinclair. The nurse said you requested another doctor for the prisoner."

Sinclair? Jon glanced back at Jennifer and saw her roll her eyes. This was going to be another long conversation.

"Show time," he whispered to his wife.

"Prisoner?" Jon asked, trying to keep his anger in check. "Where did you ever get the idea that she's a prisoner?"

The doctor looked at the chart in her hands. "It says here she's Dread Youth, Overunit Élan Parsons. The only Dread Youth we get are prisoners we have to classify. So I naturally assumed –"

Hawk walked in behind her. "How many Dread Youth do you get here, Doctor?"

"All from the prison. Some transferees. They have to be certain that they're healthy enough to work or fit for the hunt."

"Let's start with the work option." This time, it was Tank who walked in the room, questioning the doctor. "What kind of work do the Dread Youth do?"

Now, the doctor was aware that whatever was going on was going to be bad for her, no matter what she said. "Perhaps you should speak to the hospital administrator –"

"We're talking to you," Scout told her as he entered and closed the door behind him. "We want to know about the Dread Youth you process through this place and what you're processing them for."

The doctor cleared her throat, not quite knowing what to say. "As per Committee orders, Governor Rogers sends the Dread Youth from the prison here to be assessed. Those that are considered healthy and able are sent to work on the farms, roads and in the factories. Those that are deemed fit for the hunt are used for that."

"The hunt," Hawk repeated. "Explain that."

The doctor looked at the five individuals in the room. Something was very wrong. "It's a hunt. A Dread Youth soldier is released into the wilderness while Resistance personnel hunt them down. They want healthy specimens so our soldiers can gain more expertise in tracking than they would get if they chased someone who was in poor health. It's good training for finding all the Dread soldiers still in hiding."

Tank towered over her. "How long has this been going on?"

"Months, maybe?" the doctor answered. "It's perfectly legal. The Committee sanctioned it."

"Sanctioned it? How?"

Sinclair seemed at a loss for words. "As I understand it, the Committee allows this form –"

"As you understand it?" Hawk repeated condescendingly. "How exactly is this law written? Word for word? Repeat it for us."

"I've never actually read the law," Sinclair protested. "I only know what the governor explained to us. He works for the Committee."

"Slave labor and running targets, sanctioned by a group that has no legal standing to make laws," Jon commented. "How many of these Dread Youth have you seen, Doctor?"

"Hundreds," she said confidently. "I can assure you that they were all in good enough health to be put to some use when they left here."

Hawk moved in front of her. "Where are they now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Simple question," Jennifer said, her voice indicating that she was holding back the pain. "Where are the Dread Youth soldiers now?"

Sinclair looked at all of them, then said to Jennifer, "You should know. You're Dread Youth and were in the prison. You know how the system works. Dread Youth are the new work force or they're expendable. That's their punishment for following Dread."

"And Overunit Élan Parsons?" Scout asked. "Tell us about her."

She looked down at her reader. "This prisoner was scheduled for the hunt three weeks ago and was on the work farm prior to that. She really shouldn't be here if she was caught. The governor frowns on any of us covering for soldiers who can't catch what they hunt."

"Who said?" Scout asked as he leaned against the wall.

"Excuse me?" the doctor asked. "Who said what?"

"Who said she was a prisoner? We were the ones who brought her here, and not a single one of us said she was Dread Youth or in a prison. We brought in a woman who was beat up, injured and exhausted. You had a patient who needed assistance. One doctor that was just in here treated her worse than dirt. Her, a resistance leader, a member of the team who kicked Dread out of the picture. Where did you get the idea that she was Dread Youth or a prisoner?"

Sinclair stepped out away from them to try to figure out the answer they wanted. "Look at her. The hair, the eyes -- she's Dread Youth."

"So all blonde haired, gray eyed individuals are Dread Youth?" Hawk was quickly losing his patience with this doctor.

"The records show –"

"Lies," Jennifer said as she moved toward the edge of bed. Jon helped her to stand, letting her move as slowly as she needed to. He didn't dare support her by placing a hand on her waist. That would put her in more pain. He carefully held onto her arms as she took her first steps.

"I am not Dread Youth, but if I were, how would you assess my health at this moment? Able to work or run on the hunt? Sent to the Lower Sections in Facility 7 to die of starvation or sickness? Maybe for some other area that they use the Dread Youth for? I want to see that chart."

"That's not allowed –" the doctor started to say but stopped talking when Hawk reached over and grabbed the chart from her. He handed it to Jennifer.

"Let's see…" Jennifer flipped through the pages. "Oh, my picture is here."

"It is?" Jon glanced over her shoulder… there was Jennifer's picture.

"It says here my name is Overunit Élan Parsons. I am being transferred from Facility 7 to the New Chicago prison; this is my fifth transfer and my fifth time to be checked out at this medical facility. I was in adequate health to join the work crews prior to the transfer three weeks ago... afterwards for the hunt… here we go. Apparently, I'm not a good candidate for the hunt for the next few weeks… Interesting fiction, don't you agree, Doctor?"

"This is the paperwork that was sent when we ran your identification in the system."

"Really?" Jon asked. He glanced over at Scout who nodded his head. They needed to check out how the identification system worked. "What form of identification did you use and how accurate is that system?"

"Look, I demand to know what is going on here –"

Tank crossed the short distance between them and loomed over her. "We have to repeat ourselves? This woman is Corporal Jennifer Chase, a member of the Power Team and one of the leaders of the Resistance. She was kidnapped, thrown into prison for no reason, chased, shot at and nearly killed by a band of murdering soldiers who think it's fun to hunt people. As it turns out, there are several murdering bands out there that need a fresh supply of Dread Youth soldiers to hunt down. What we have discovered is that there is a conspiracy to channel as many of the imprisoned Dread Youth to these people, and even doctors such as you are helping. Tell us, Doctor, of the other times an Overunit Élan Parsons has gone through this facility, how many of her charts will have your signature?"

That did it. They had the doctor. They could tell by the look in her eyes that she was trapped.

"Tell you what," Hawk said as he glanced around the room, "you cooperate with us, and we will put in a good word for you so you might not go to prison for life yourself."

"Prison?" she gasped. "What are you talking about? Everything we did was legal."

"Legal? Hidden in the paperwork, you mean," they heard Jennifer murmur. Loopholes. The doctor may have been following the 'legal' interpretation of the Committee rulings as interpreted by Rogers, but they weren't legal in the first place. "You sent people to their deaths – or worse -- knowing what was happening to them. So much for the doctor's oath of first doing no harm," Jennifer said, her voice now sounding low and angry. "You had the same names show up time and again but used by different individuals. A new picture was put with an old name, like this chart. You wrote down false statements on medical charts. You were willing to put an innocent person into that deathtrap – how many other innocent people did you send? Hmm? You knew. Your actions show the cover-ups of the entire operation. You're not just looking at time in prison. You're part of a mass murdering conspiracy. I believe once the entire truth of your conspiracy gets out, the Council will consider your crimes capital offenses. That could make you subject to execution."

No one had ever heard Jennifer focus her anger on anyone like that before. They couldn't tell if it was raw fury or a calculated gamble to force the doctor to confess.

"So this is what you are going to do," Jennifer stepped away from Jon, her arm still holding onto her ribs, her foot dragging a bit with each step, "you are going to make a full confession. You're going to write it all out, how the entire operation works –" she paused for effect as Scout handed the doctor a portable writer – "who's involved, the timeline, the procedures, your contacts, all of it. You're going to do that, and I can promise you this; we won't let them execute you. You don't want to disagree with me because there's no third option."

Calculated gamble.

"But we did nothing wrong," the doctor protested half-heartedly.

"Look at me," Jennifer ordered. The doctor was too afraid to not obey. "I'm bruised. Hurting. I've been chased, shot, beaten, threatened, can barely walk – and you have the audacity to even try to say you did nothing wrong? What do you think happened to the people you deemed fit for various work crews? What about the ones you sent on the hunt? Those you sent to other prisons like Facility 7? How many other innocent people have you sentenced to death?"

"But I didn't –"

"And don't you dare say you didn't send them," Jennifer warned her. "After all, we've got your signature on how many documents?"

The doctor didn't move except her eyes grew wide.

"I'd start writing down all that information if I were you."

~*~*~*~*~

They did it.

They found the bad guys, found out how they were doing what they did and brought down a major faction of them. Rogers was going to be spending a great deal of time in his own prison, only as a prisoner and not the warden. His squads along with anyone who hunted a Dread Youth were in trouble. A recent development was that all those towns around New Chicago had new mayors.

But this was only one particular evil in existence. How much more was out there that they didn't know about?

The Prison Commission was investigating the prison facilities. The New Chicago prison and Facility 7 got first priority in the long, laborious process given the eyewitness accounts readily available from the Power Team. Story after story of the heinous crimes being committed against the Dread Youth soldiers was being made public. General Grey contacted Jennifer to let her know that Overunit Terese Vincent's body had been found buried near the location Jennifer had uncovered the bones.

Jon couldn't complain about the outcome – bad guys were stopped and innocent people were rescued -- but how they got there terrified him more than he let anyone know. That old nightmare where he relived the moment Jennifer blew up the old base came back every night. It would wake him up and keep him from falling asleep again. He'd sit in the chair by their bed and watch her as she slept. The bruises had begun to fade. The cuts were healing. Her much shorter hair would grow out again – Jon didn't care if her hair was long or short, neither did she. Again, it was a residual affectation from her Dread Youth days. The females had long hair they always kept back in a tight braid. She would let her hair flow loose as a form of open defiance.

Sometimes, he could see her facial expression change when she moved in her sleep, aggravating a wounded bone or muscle. She didn't like taking pain killers – part of that was a reflex action learned in her youth. The Dread Youth were trained to withstand a variety of pain and still keep going without acknowledging it. How many times had Jon seen her do that?

Those first few days he got her back to the base were the most unsettling for him, but Jennifer had soothed his fears in her own inimitable fashion.

"I'm all broken up inside."

"I love you, Jon. So much."

"Just think of me sometime!"

The explosion blasted over the speaker… then silence…

Jon woke up, looked around the dark room – no, Jennifer was lying there sleeping. She wasn't dead, she wasn't blown up, she wasn't digitized and she wasn't being tortured for information. She was sound asleep, forced into slumber by a painkiller so she could have a few hours respite from the pain. Nighttime was the only time she agreed to take the painkillers, maybe so they could both get some sleep.

"Nightmare?" she asked him sleepily.

"Old one," he said as he lay back down.

She opened up her eyes, groggy as she was and said, "One day, we're going to have to convince your unconscious mind that I'm still here."

"Not if we have many missions like the one with Rogers."

"And given our jobs, it won't be easy," she grumbled. Then, trying to lift his mood, she added, "But we do get days off after missions like the one with Rogers."

Jon smiled. "You know, I wanted to spend some time with you, but this isn't how I planned it."

Jennifer settled herself under the covers a little more. "We'll just have to make those plans for later," she mumbled as she started to fall asleep again.

She knew how to roll with the punches. Jon wished he could do that as well as she did.

After two months, Jon was determined that Jennifer could have some time off that wasn't just recuperating from her wounds. Every now and then, he'd see her move and wince – her ribs were healed but still a little tender. She needed to relax, and he knew that as long as she stayed at the base, she'd find "something" to do instead of relaxing. It was time for him to give her the surprise he'd been working on.

There was a particular site that Jon had found about ten years earlier. It was near the coast, just in view of the ocean. He and Jennifer had gone there after a mission some months after they'd rescued her from Volcania. Jennifer was contacted by an acquaintance for a meeting. Jon flew her there on a sky bike. Afterwards they flew back to the site and set up camp. It wasn't much, just a tent and a campfire.

However, Jennifer had a surprise for Jon. When he came back from finding firewood…

A hammock.

An honest-to-goodness hammock!

Jon hadn't seen a hammock since he was a kid

Jennifer had brought a hammock with them. She must have found out about them during some of those conversations she had with Hawk when she was recuperating. Jon, Mitch and Katie used to love playing in the hammocks in the Masterson's back yard when they were kids.

Darn things still wanted to tilt over when you climbed in, he soon discovered. After his third attempt landed him on his rear end for the third time, he was willing to give up. At least, he was until he heard Jennifer laughing at him.

"You think it's easy?" he taunted her. "Let's see you climb in this thing."

"Okay," she said confidently. With absolutely no trouble, she sat down on the side of the hammock and then slowly turned and lay down. "Easy," she teased him. "Care to join me?" She took his hand and gave a gentle pull. Without hesitation, he easily landed in the hammock and lay next to her.

"I did that on purpose," he told her.

"Really? Imagine that?" she smiled at him. "I'd hate to think that the leader of a Resistance group can't climb into something as simple as a hammock."

She was smiling, really smiling. It'd been months since they'd rescued her from Volcania, and she was behaving like her old self again. It had taken time, but she'd come back to them. It had been slowly at first. Sometimes, it was a look, sometimes it was a small smile. Then, eventually, the horrors of what had happened to her didn't stay at the forefront of her mind. She was able to get through the day without the thoughts of what happened to her preying on her memory.

Jon reached up and gently brushed her hair behind her ear. "You know," he said, "we never did finish that talk we were going to have."

Maybe that was the right thing to say? Maybe it wasn't? The smile went away. Had he said too much too soon?

"You don't have to," she said. "It was –"

He placed his finger on her lips, not letting her finish the statement. "Yes, I have to. I wanted to months ago, but Blastarr messed up my plans." Lying there in the hammock, facing each other, touching – it was difficult for him to find the words he wanted to say. His concentration was moving toward other concerns. "I wanted to tell you then how much you meant to me, but when the moment came, I acted like the captain, all detached and professional. Then you weren't there, and everything just sort of stopped for me. When we got you back, I wanted to tell you everything, but I couldn't. Now…"He placed his hand on her waist and pulled her closer to him. He kissed her. It was that simple. He cupped her face, looking into her gray eyes, seeing a tear form. "I love you, Jennifer Chase, and I should have told you that a long time ago."

He went back to that spot from time to time when working on the West Coast. He wanted to surprise Jennifer with a small cabin since neither one of them liked sleeping in a tent for nights on end. As cozy as a large sleeping bag could be – and it could be more than just cozy -- sometimes, it was nice to sleep in a bed and not on the ground when they camped out for the night on a mission or just got away from it all.

He'd read about how to build a log cabin, Mentor had given him a few tips, and he spent a few hours now and then when he could trying to construct a small structure on the site. One large room was the best he could build with the types of trees he had to work with, but he took care to build a front porch and extra large front porch at that. He remembered how he loved sitting on the front porch of his house when he was a kid, late at night or after summer was over but the nights weren't cold. He would sleep out on that porch sometimes, listening to the crickets or the birds in the distance. It was something Jennifer had never seen let alone experienced, so he built a porch.

He still had that hammock tied to two trees just four feet from the porch. No way was he going to move that. Lots of good memories were tied to that hammock.

When they landed the sky bike, Jon couldn't wait to show Jennifer her surprise. She didn't know what to make of it. She'd heard of log cabins but she'd never seen one.

"Surprise," he said with a grin.

Jennifer was astonished at the amount of work done. "You built this by yourself?"

"When I'd get a few hours free, and I'd come up here to work on it. What do you think?"

He'd never seen such a huge smile on her face as she ran inside to take a look around.

As a member of the Dread Youth, she was never allowed any personal property. During the war, personal belongings were at a minimum. Now, with the war over, they could have a few creature comforts but they had no time to collect them. A log cabin was a little more than an ordinary creature comfort, but it was now hers.

He shut down the sky bike and hurried after her. She was standing in the middle of the one large room, looking around. There were three soon-to-be windows sitting glassless in the walls, a door that closed and locked hung on wooden hinges, an open loft overhead that could be reached via a small, narrow staircase nailed to the wall, a solid wooden floor, and a ceiling. Furniture was very sparse. He had built two simple stools and a platform for a bed just big enough for the two of them. She took a few steps up the very narrow staircase to get a look at the open loft.

"All by yourself?" she repeated as she turned to look at him. "This was a lot of work."

"It was, but I think it was worth it. I know how much you don't like sleeping in a tent, so I thought something just a little bigger and little sturdier would be better when we came here. It's not finished yet. The fireplace still needs to be bricked up, but it works. I need to put in windows instead of just having square holes in the walls… yeah, so far, all by myself."

"Impressive," she said as she looked around again.

"You like it?"

She smiled. "I love it."

He walked over to the staircase to stand in front of her. "It's all yours."

There was a slight hint of disbelief in her eyes. Not that she disbelieved him – she didn't – but it was more like disbelief that anyone would give her something like this. "Mine?"

Jon smiled at her astonishment and nodded his head. "Yours. I want you to have something all your own."

"But you put so much work into it," she told him, unable to keep the grin from her face.

"And it was worth every bit of it if it gets a smile like that," he told her.

Ah, that got rid that small glint of disbelief in her eyes. She reached up, hooked his shirt with her finger and drew him to her so she could kiss him. "So that means if I want this to be our place, it's my prerogative?"

"Absolutely," he told her as he took her other hand in his, pulled her close and kissed her back. "There's a lot more to be done to it –"

"Need help finishing it?" she asked, a more direct look from her saying more than mere words could.

"You're supposed to relax here," he said, taking note that the look was becoming more serious.

"I haven't done anything I need to relax from in a while," she pulled him close and whispered in his ear, "I won't break."

It had been two months since they were at Dobbinsville, two months since Jon could court his wife, two months since they had been together, months since they had been so completely alone… "Hmmm, well… come to think of it," he pulled her into his arms. "It might be a good idea to see how sturdy that bed platform is."

"I think you must be a mind reader – mmphb --" her voice was muffled when Jon pressed his lips to hers.

~*~*~*~*~

There was a constant breeze blowing in from the sea and into the cabin. The sound of the surf, once quieted by Dread's wars and only now starting to reclaim its former glory, could be heard inside the cabin. Jon woke, but he couldn't figure out why until he realized that he was alone in the oversized sleeping bag.

They had been at the cabin for about a week. Jennifer had slept and rested. They'd gone for long walks in the woods. They'd even gone swimming. Jennifer was moving without hurting – yes, Jon was convinced that coming to the cabin was a good idea. His nightmare hadn't made another appearance since they had been there.

The small indention in the pillow showed that Jennifer hadn't been up long. She really was all right. They first night they were there, he'd been worried, concerned that he'd hurt her if her wounds hadn't healed completely. She knew why he had been so careful and humored him.

He kept his weight off her, using his arms to support most of his weight. He didn't want to press on her ribs. He didn't want to hurt her after everything she'd been through, not when he could finally make love to his wife.

She took his face in her hands, drew his lips to hers. "See? I'm all right," she whispered. "I didn't break."

He laughed as lowered himself to his elbows and touched his forehead to hers. Just the sheer presence of her -- he knew he must have done something right to be lucky enough to have such a woman love him, to want to share a life with him. He looked into the gray eyes he loved so much, saw the same emotion reflected in them. "You're a remarkable woman, Jennifer Power," he said, saying her married name that he spoke only in private. Remarkable wasn't the right word. How could he sum up such an incredible woman in a few small syllables? "Have I told you lately how much I love you?"

"You just showed me," she said, still catching her breath after their exertions. "I think you may have finally given me something to relax from," she joked.

Jon settled himself a bit more, feeling the thin mattress and their oversized sleeping bag yield more to their combined weight, delighting in the sensation of the physical comfort they shared. It was more than just comfort though. There was such a willing acceptance of each other when they joined together physically, a sharing that went beyond mere words.

"So does that mean this little trip was worth it?" He loved to see that smile on her face.

"I think so, but I meant what I said about helping you finish the cabin."

"Do you think there's a specific place we need to start?"

"Absolutely. You see, we may need more experimentation to see how sturdy the bed platform is…" she grinned."After all, practice makes perfect."

Oh? He noticed the mischievous gleam in her eye. "Really? Are you saying that there are some areas of our platform experiment that require further intense study? Or perhaps some research techniques that need some improvements?" he teased as he kissed her.

"You'd be hard pressed to improve on certain techniques. However, there is a maneuver or two… maybe three… that deserve repeated examination and very close scrutiny due to their complex and thorough nature. Now that you know I won't break and the platform is extremely sturdy, there are a few exercises that I think I'll submit for serious re-consideration."

It was one of the few times they were completely alone in the two years since they had been married. A full moon, a dark night, peace, solitude – what more could they ask for when reconsidering certain maneuvers in repeated experiments?

He got up and walked through the small cabin until he reached the front door. Jennifer was sitting on the banister of the front porch, watching the moon shine on the incoming waves. The sound of crickets chirping in the woods echoed with the ocean's roar. Birds flying overhead added their singing to the chorus and the night sounds were becoming familiar once again.

The world was returning to what Jon knew as a child, something that Jennifer had never known.

He walked outside and stood behind her. He carefully placed his arms around her waist and nestled her against him.

"Wide awake?"

"Woke up," she told him. "A very loud bird screeched by. Couldn't go back to sleep after that. What are you doing up?"

"I think I realized I was alone in the sleeping bag," he told her as he kissed the top of her head.

"I don't think this little cabin will be alone for long. People will realize there are sites like this and start building houses here themselves. We won't have it all to ourselves anymore."

Maybe not, Jon thought to himself. Re-population and re-settlement. The human race had a lot to do to rebuild civilization. "You know, we won't have to live at the base forever. Once the governments are re-established, they won't need us as much anymore. We could live anywhere you wanted to." Thinking about a place to live… that was something Jon had never thought to do.

"Don't you want to go back to Colorado?" she asked, mentioning his childhood home.

"It's one of the places, but there are a lot of places in the world we can go. Mountains, seaside, Montana was known as the big sky country at one time, London, Madrid –"

"You want to travel a little, don't you?" she teased him as she leaned her head back against his shoulder. "Maybe see all of Europe? Asia?"

"Since we don't have to fight Dread or the biomechs anymore, we'd have the time," he answered.

"I don't know," she told him. "I've never thought about having a real home anywhere." She glanced up and could see stars. The ever-present pollution that Dread put in the air was slowly dissipating, and people could see stars at night again. She placed her hands over Jon's and urged him to tighten his grip.

Ah, yes, her ribs were fine now.

"Remember the first time we were here?"

Of course, he remembered it. He'd thought about just before when they landed. "A couple of years ago. We had some fun figuring out how to climb in a hammock."

"You had fun climbing in the hammock. I had fun watching you." She glanced back at the hammock in question. Jon could tell something was bothering her.

"Jennifer? What is it?"

She sighed. "I was thinking about everything that happened with Rogers. I might not be welcome in a lot of places."

"What do you mean?"

"After what happened… how many other people out there feel the same way? The minute they find out I used to be in the Dread Youth –"

"I'm never going to let anything like that happen to you again," Jon told her. He moved so he could sit beside her.

"You can't stop people from hating, Jon," she said. She took his hand, and he placed his fingers in hers. "The Committee made laws restricting the rights of people who had no idea what they were doing was wrong. Even if the Committee's been disbanded and the Council and Command have rescinded all their decisions, not everyone's going to agree with that. Those doctors at the hospital at New Chicago had no problems doing what they did. The man Tank talked to after the feast? He didn't care what happened to the Dread soldiers. Hundreds were hunted down and murdered, thousands were enslaved and it all happened right under our noses. We had no idea this was going on. There's no telling what else has happened in just the ten months since we beat Dread. Those soldiers wanted to exterminate the Dread Youth. How different is that from Dread wanting to exterminate everyone and have only machines on the planet?"

"I know. Those people are in a lot of trouble right now," Jon assured her. "They've arrested almost three hundred individuals that were involved and more arrests are happening every day."

"They can arrest them all, but I don't think it'll change attitudes," she murmured.

Jon shook his head. "No, not yet. They don't understand, it'll take time, but eventually everyone will know that most Dread soldiers were just children who didn't understand and had never harmed anyone. Only a small percentage were guilty of any crimes."

Jennifer looked out at the ocean again, the moonlight shining on the incoming waves. "A lot of people had no trouble allowing the rules the Committee passed that restricted the rights of a Dread Youth."

"The Council and Command have tossed all those out."

"But towns are allowed to govern themselves if they want," Jennifer reminded him. "Some may keep the Committee's rulings. There may be some places that wouldn't recognize the fact we're married. They might not allow you there just because you're married to me."

These were concerns that had run through Jon's mind as well. When Ibold had questioned his being married to Jennifer, that was another indication of how dangerous the Committee was. "I don't need a piece of paper or a ring or some official verifying whether or not we're married. I know we are. Their opinions don't matter."

"But the law does," she reminded him. "Then I start to wonder… what about the children? What will they face by some of these governments if one or both of their parents were Dread Youth? They might not have any legal standing."

Children? Jon hadn't considered that. Would some of these governments deny them? If they could condemn children who had no idea that what Dread taught was wrong, then of course, they could condemn children who were born from the Dread Youth. He reached out and placed a gentle hand on her belly, "If we're lucky enough to have children one day, they're going to grow up knowing what it's like to have parents who love them and how special their mother is." He slid his hand along her waist so he could draw her to him. "They're also going to grow up as happy as we can make them."

"We've never really talked about having children," she said.

"No, we haven't," he agreed.

"I'd like to have children some day -- when we're ready. What about you?"

"One day," Jon told her. "Right now, I like it just being the two of us."

Just the two of them… years ago, if anyone had told Jon that life could be so good after all they'd been through, he might not have believed them then. Now he saw so many possibilities in front of them, so many choices life could offer them: home, children, a new world to build from the ashes of the old, a life without war…

So much lay before them, maybe more than they could imagine.

Beep beep beep

Both looked toward the noise. The communicator was demanding their attention.

"Talk about bad timing," Jon muttered.

"The guys know we're taking a break, so –"

"It's got to be important," Jon finished for her as walked back toward the communicator.

He pressed the talk button. "Go ahead, Mentor."

"Captain, I've received an emergency communication from the Passages."

Jon glanced back at Jennifer who laughed. "Time to go to work," she said, smiling.

Right. Time to be the Power Team. The future would just have to wait a little while.

"All right, Mentor. We're on our way."

The End

Or is it just the beginning?