Another bite sized one for ya.


Twenty Four


Tori waited until they were almost at the base before she slowed the pace of the Volvo, and glanced into the rearview mirror. She spotted James a bit back, in Jade's car, and also caught the half asleep faces of Sinjin and Brent in the back seat.

It was very quiet in the car, she'd deliberately turned the stereo down to allow her passengers to relax and doze off if they wanted to. In fact, she encouraged them to do just that, knowing Jade would remain awake and alert if everyone else was just out of sheer cussedness.

But Sinjin had taken her hint, and loudly announced his intention to nap, poking Brent in the leg until the slightly slow on the uptake tech realized what he wanted and huddled down in his seat with a glum expression.

Then, of course, and only then had Jade allowed herself to relax, and slump against the doorframe, using a folded sweatshirt of Tori's as an impromptu pillow as she closed her eyes and surrendered into a light doze.

Now, Tori wished the trip was longer, but she reached over and gently touched Jade's thigh, squeezing it twice before she got a reaction. Jade's eyelids fluttered open, and she blinked, turning her head to peer at Tori in confusion for a moment before her expression cleared, and she straightened in her seat.

"Okay, duck down, guys." Tori said. "Just pull those comforters over you while I go through the gates." She turned into the base, and eased slowly down the approaching gate , pulling up next to the guard shack and leaning back a little so Jade could see the guard.

"Afternoon." Jade greeted the man. "Looks quiet."

The man came closer, then smiled. "Ms. West… hey." He glanced around. "Didn't expect you here on the weekend."

Jade smiled back. "Got some little things to clear up." She said. "And my parents are coming down, just for old time's sake, to look around in the daytime."

The marine's eyes lit up. "Big Jimmy's coming in today? All right.. man, wait till the guys hear… you know they got a big old UD get together going on today, right?"

"No.. I didn't." Jade replied. "That'll be a damn nice surprise for him, though. Thanks for the word." She waved casually. "Gotta get to work."

The guard raised the gate and waved back. "Take it easy, Ms. West."

Tori drove into the parking lot. "Will that be a problem?" She asked. "That meeting or whatever?"

Jade was rubbing her eyes, and now she looked up. "Problem?" Her lips quirked. "I doubt it. This place'll be crawling with SEALS. This could be easier than we thought."

"Crawling with SEALS." Tori parked, and set the brake. "Interesting visual, Jade, but how does it help us?"

Jade opened the door, and got out, stretching out her body as Sinjin joined her on the passenger side, and Tori with Brent walked around the front of the Volvo. "It means we have friends here, Tori." She felt better already. "The kind of friends you like to have when you're in a potentially dangerous situation."

Tori consider that, as Sinjin removed the analyzer from the back of the car. "Unless some of them are involved." She commented, looking up to see ice cold blue eyes looking back at her. "Um. I mean.."

"Never." Jade said, low and forcefully. "Not these guys."

Tori and Sinjin exchanged glances. "Okay." Tori agreed softly. "You're the expert." She patted Jade's back. "Glad to hear that.. if they're all like dad, this'll be a piece of cake." Her eyes slid past Jade to meet Brent's, which darted off in another direction. "I feel better already."

"Brent, gimme a hand with this." Sinjin was kneeling next to the analyzer. "I need to fit the wiring harness."

Brent walked over and they fussed over the equipment, leaving Jade and Tori standing a little apart as they waited. Jade glanced around, then exhaled, and ducked her head a bit. "I know I'm being a bitch. Sorry."

"Were you?" Tori asked mildly. "I hadn't noticed."

Their eyes met. "Liar." Jade managed a smile.

Tori shrugged slightly. "It's all right." She forced herself not to think about the churning in her guts. Suddenly, she found her shoulders circled by Jade's arm, and her senses were barraged by the abrupt closeness and warmth as Jade pulled her close in a hug. A voice whispered into her ear, and it took her long seconds to acknowledge the words.

"If I get too obnoxious, slap me."

Tori felt some of the tension seep out f her, as she circled Jade's waist with an arm and squeezed. "All right, I will." She promised, releasing her and swatting her lightly in the butt. "Right there. Deal?"

"Deal." Jade let go of her as Sinjin and Brent came around the side of the car again, carrying the equipment. "Soon as the others get here, we move."

A fusillade of gunshots made them all jump. "Holy shit." Sinjin backed against the car. "Is that for us?"


"War games." Jade peered over the hood of the Volvo. "We got lucky again."

"Lucky?" Tori winced, as she heard an echoing boom. She edged a little closer to Jade, and peered behind her where James was just haphazardly parking her car's larger cousin. It was still overcast, and the air was thick with moisture. She sniffed at the wind. And thick with what smelled like gunpowder. "Those aren't real bullets, are they?"

"Sure." Jade replied. "But don't worry. Everyone will be participating, or watching, or keeping the hell out of the way. We can get in, and get out, and not attract attention." Unanticipated, but Jade wasn't a person who argued with good luck when it happened to thump down on top of her head. Things had been strained enough lately, a little smooth sailing was definitely called for.

"Ah." Tori frowned. "Well, as long as we stay inside. I'm allergic to bullets." A group chorus of deep, male chanting carried over. "Mm.. way too mucho macho for moi,"

The rest of the group came over and gathered around them. "All right." Jade spoke. "We're heading for the administration building, over there. It should be pretty much empty. " She glanced around, seeing that most of the area, in fact, was pretty much empty.

Tori shouldered one of the portable scopes. "I'll take Sinjin to the telecom center." She offered. "I remember where it is, and I've got my badge, still." She displayed it. "He can hook up there and control the network."

Sinjin looked up. "Brent, you and Josh come with us. Bring that cable kit, willya?"

Jade nodded. "Okay . the rest of you come with me to the computer center. Bring that array and the black box." She said. "Dad, go along with Tori. She's headed towards the ops center, and there might be people around."

James regarded her thoughtfully. "All right." He drawled, after a moment.

"If anyone questions you." Jade told them seriously. "Just tell them you're doing your job, and refer them to me, understand?" She made eye contact with the techs. "Don't act like you're not supposed to be here, got it?"

"Got it." Sinjin assured her.

"Captain, you come with me." Jade squared her shoulders and started to lead them towards the building.

The group sorted themselves out and followed her. Jade took the few moments of peace to run her plan through her mind again, checking the details, and making sure she knew what she was going to do once they got to the computer center. After a few strides, she realized she had diminutive shadow. "Thought you'd go with dad."

Ceci rubbed the side of her nose. She and James really hadn't talked about what they were going to do once they'd gotten to the base, but after Jade had told him to go with Tori, it had seemed only natural that she… What in the hell are you talking about, Cecilia? This isn't natural for you in any wayl! "Well." Ceci glanced around. "I just figured if you ran into any trouble, I'd just tell them that I'm your mother, and I said it was all right."

Jade's eyes perceptibly widened and went round. She gave the two techs a startled look, grateful they hadn't heard.

Or, at least, they were pretending very hard not to have heard. "W.. what?" She lowered her voice.

Ceci smothered a grin, and shrugged. "It always worked when you were a kid." She explained soberly. "Those marines usually recognized my authority a lot faster than their CO's."

Jade felt a blush coming on, and she hoped her employees wouldn't notice. Having her mother along wasn't something she'd figured into her battle plans. She sighed. Not that Ceci wasn't right, she grudgingly admitted, remembering many a time where only her mother's intervention had saved her from fates worse than death.

Like cleaning the recruits latrine. Jade felt her nose wrinkle in remembered disgust. "Good point." She finally spoke aloud. "Maybe you better write me up an admin pass while you're at it."

They climbed the stairs, and one of the techs scurried forward and opened the door, holding it courteously as the rest of them approached. Jade paused, resting a hand on the doorsill, and looked around.

No Marine. She wondered about that. Hadn't there always been a guard at this door? It seemed very quiet, though, and after a moment she shook her head and continued inside the building. It's been years, Jade. They could have changed a procedure or two.

The door closed behind them, it's metal lock clicking home with an exaggerated sound that echoed slightly in the empty hall.


Tori walked next to James, one hand nervously running up and down on the strap of the scope she carried. So far, they hadn't seen anyone on their walk to the telecom center, and she was trying to decide if that was good, or if would be better for them to meet the first potential objector, instead of anticipating it.

Not that she was all that worried, not with Jim strolling beside her, his long and somewhat rolling stride making her lengthen her own steps a little to keep up. She had no doubt her father in law could handle whatever uniformed minion got in their path, but still.

She looked around. It was creepy. "Is it usually this quiet?" She finally voiced her worry aloud, seeing from Sinjins' quick look he'd been thinking the same thing. "I remember it being a lot busier the last time I was here."

James regarded the hallway, then turned and walked backwards for a few steps, his pale eyes flicking over every inch of the painted wooden walls and the studiously polished tile floors. He reverse himself again and continued forward. "Well." He paused. "Admin's usually emptier than a sack of sand with a wet bottom on the weekend."

"Kinda like our office." Sinjin supplied.

"Yeap." The ex seal agreed. "Usually a body or two more round thereabouts, though." He glanced down an offshoot corridor. "Figure everyone's out watching the pups."

"Pups?" Sinjin asked.

Brent, walking beside him, was listening intently but pretending not to. He hadn't said a word since they'd left the office, and Tori found herself wondering again why he was there. She glanced at the shorter man's face, and just then he looked up, and their eyes met. It only lasted an instant, then Brent jerked his head forward.

Tori had felt the icy coldness behind his eyes, though, and she drew in a faintly unsteady breath.

"Got a couple of new SEAL teams goin through some situations." James said. "That's what 's all going on outside."

The door to the telecom room loomed up, and Tori tried the latch. She was surprised to find it open, and she looked over her shoulder at James in question. "That's pretty careless."

James grunted, and held the door open as the techs passed inside. "Y'all gwan in there. I'll be right back." He let the door close, then turned, and just stood for a moment in the hallway.

Listening.


They found their first two navy personnel inside the computer center. Jade pushed the door open and stuck her head inside, giving the two console operators a nod as they looked up in surprise. "Afternoon."

One had been on duty the day she and the Chief had tangled, and that one stood up as Jade entered. "Ms. West…"

Jade held a hand up. "We're just collecting some data." She waved the woman back to her seat. "Relax."

"B…" The woman protested.

"You're not going to ask me for authorization, are you?" Jade swiveled, and gave her a patented glare.

"No, ma'am, I'm not, but.."

"Great." Jade continued towards the console and sat down in front of it, eyeing her arm in irritation.

The console operator opened her mouth, then closed it, and gave her companion a little shrug. The male sailor also shrugged, and shook his head.

Jade leaned on the console, and scanned the screen. "Hook that up to the aux port." She absently directed the shorter tech, a young man with curly red hair and russet freckles sprinkled over half his face. "I want it direct."

"Yes, ma'am." The tech replied quietly. "We do have the net direct card in it."

"I know." Jade hunted and pecked, scowling. "I don't want it addressable." She answered, cursing silently at the length of time it was taking her to set up the program she wanted. After a moment more, she gave up and unhooked the sling holding her arm close to her body, and removed it, laying it over her thigh.

Ow. Whether from lack of use, or her injury it was hard to tell, but her muscles were screaming as she flexed her injured arm. Jade grimaced, but kept up the motion, finally laying her forearm down on the console and using both hands to type. Ow, ow ow. Son of a… A glance up at her reflection in the screen showed a tense, drawn face looking back, and she paused, taking a deep breath and releasing it, trying to will the pain away.

Stupid damn arm. Her mind muttered in disgust. Stupid damn Chuck, and his stupid damn bat and his stupid parochial macho ego. The jolts of pain went down her shoulder and all the way into her fingers, so intense it almost made her sneeze.

It was hard to keep her mind focused, with all that. She had to retype the same line twice, then reenter a parameter, before she finally had things set up the way she wanted them. It was a simple program, really – just a looping bit of code that would transfer the contents of the base's main system to her storage box sector by sector – at a machine level that would not allow for any interference in the copying from any high level security that might be running. Sort of like copying the encoded digital signal from a CD, rather than recording the sound as it was produced. She hoped that would protect the integrity of the data – any attempt at a simple copy could trigger god only knows what if someone who really knew what they were doing and had protection in place. Jade was surprised, actually, that her previous intrusions hadn't been detected and objected to – she'd figured that either meant whoever was doing this wasn't as good as she was… or the person was a lot better.

Jade sighed, and hit enter. She wished she knew which it was, remembering a time when considering anyone to be 'better' was an alien thought to her. Another sigh. God, she'd been such a cocky son of a bitch.

She moved slightly, and a shot of pain made her suck in her breath and hold it, her eyes blinking away the sudden tears. The painkillers she'd taken before they'd left were wearing off, Jade realized. Shit.

C'mon, Jade. You used to just work past this, remember? For a moment, she just closed her eyes, and concentrated, allowing the ache to become something she could handle, and put into the background of her conscious mind. It took a little longer than it used to, but after a bit she was able to start breathing normally, and let her eyes open, focusing on the screen and the task before her.

Okay. I can do this. Her mind cleared, and she started typing again. Logic strings emerged grumpily from long unused memory cells, but it only took two or three tries before she had a relatively working loop going. "Okay." She glanced at the tech kneeling nearby. "Ready?"

The redhead looked up at her confidently. "Ready, ma'am."

Jade hit the enter button. For a moment, she thought she'd screwed up the program, then the screen flickered, and started scrolling a hexadecimal display with commendable obedience. Whew.

"Wow." The tech watched, evidently impressed. "You did that on the fly?"

Jade shrugged modestly. She was aware of the navy console operators watching over her shoulder with interest. One whistled under their breath. Jade rested her chin on her hand, and wished herself elsewhere.

"Scuse me." Ceci's voice came closer. "Here." The older woman put something down on the console, then rested a hesitant hand on Jade's shoulder. "They were out of Evian."

Jade eyed the cute container of MacArthur Dairy chocolate milk and found herself smiling. God, her mother had always hated her constant consumption of this stuff. "Guess I didn't turn into a chocolate cow after all, huh?"

"No." Ceci said. "All those sleepless nights worrying about you keeling over from scurvy, wasted."

Jade half turned and glanced up. "Did you? Really worry about that?"

Ceci studied her daughter's tense face. "Yeah." She admitted quietly. "I worried about you all the time, for a lot of reasons." She paused. "I guess I shouldn't have."

Jade thought about that. Then she shrugged a little. "Maybe it's a mother thing."

One pale eyebrow lifted. "It sort of grows on you after a while." Ceci said. "Surprises the hell out of me sometimes."

Jade grinned slightly. "I bet."

Her mother chuckled, with a hint of wry humor. "I've got some ibuprofan. Interested?"

Jade nodded in thinly disguised relief. "Thanks." She accepted the handful of small pills, and opened her milk, washing down the painkillers and drinking the cold, sweet liquid with a feeling of pure relief. The program was running, transferring the information to her secured storage at a very good rate, she had aspirin, she had chocolate milk... things were looking up.

The only thing she was missing at the moment was…

"Jade." Tori's voice made her look up and spot her lover coming in the door. "Sinjin's having trouble syncing the circuit. He wants to know if you know anything odd about the data rate."

Ah. Jade leaned on the console and regarded the Latina. Tori's brows were creased, and her dark hair was messed, apparently from her running her hands through it. Definitely a sign of her lover being a little distraught. "Nothing concrete. He want me to go take a look?"

Tori came up to her and leaned on the console, peeking at the screen before answering. "He didn't say that, just wanted to know if you had any hints."

One of Jade's eyebrows lifted. "He couldn't just call and ask?"

"Um." Tori fiddled with a button on her shirt, then peeked up from under dark lashes. "He didn't want to chance the cell?"

"Uh huh. And he had to send you to ask?"

Tori's lips tensed, masking a smile. "I volunteered."

Ah. Jade felt an absurd contentedness. Tori had come to check up on her. Mom was bringing her milk. Next thing she knew, she'd be in a rocker with someone putting a shawl over her shoulders. "Tell him to try an extended packet size on tcp/ip – look for an added four byte segment."

"Oh." Tori got up. "Okay, I'll go tell him Thanks, Jade." She started for the door, but paused as she heard Jade get up to follow her. They walked together past the consoles, and edged out into the hallway.

"Everything else going all right?" Jade asked, in a low voice. "We've got the transfer going here, Tor. I estimate another twenty minutes, and we'll be done."

Tori looked up and down the hallway. "I don't know. This place is giving me the creeps today, Jade. Dad went off a little while ago, and he hasn't come back yet. It's just too quiet."

"Yeah." Jade exhaled. Okay, so maybe she didn't come to check on me. "Maybe he's just scoping the place out. He knows his way around, and he can take care of himself, so there's no point in worrying about that."

"Hm." Tori folded her arms. "Any sign of that petty person?"

"No." Jade stated. "No sign of just about anyone, except for the two console ops in there. Everyone else must be watching the war games."

"Mm." Tori murmured again under her breath. "You okay?" She finally asked. "You took your sling off."

"Had to type." Jade explained. "I'm all right. It's just sore."

Tori once again looked up and down the hallway, then she leaned foreword and very gently kissed Jade's injured shoulder. "Be careful." One hand lifted, and rubbed Jade's belly. "I worry about you."

And then she turned and strode back down the hallway, the twitch of her shoulders indicating her awareness of Jade's watching eyes.

Which weren't precisely on her shoulders, despite the situation and the ache in her arm, and the worries that were now running through her mind. Boy. Jade couldn't help the observation. She's got a sexy walk. It had a little swagger to it, a gentle roll to her hips and a muscular strength that Jade found very, very attractive. She watched her wife until she turned a corner at the far end of the corridor, then she sighed, and returned to the ops center.

"Ms. West?" The console operator stepped into her path. "Are you part of this exercise, ma'am? I was just wondering… we weren't told to expect you, and Dave and I figured you got stuck in just for a challenge. Are we right?"

Exercise? Jade stopped, and eyed her warily. "Are you talking about the war games?"

The navy tech exchanged glances with her partner. "It's not a war game, really. It's a security drill." She replied. "You mean you didn't know?"

"Security drill? They told us it was a SEAL exercise at the gate." Jade stated. "Graduation for some new teams."

The sailor named Dave got up and trotted over. "Well, yeah, but they're graduating from the urban warfare school." He explained eagerly. "They've got to counteract a terrorist infiltration of a critical operations center."

"Crit… " Jade glanced around. "You mean here? This is the target?"

The woman tech nodded. "Yeah, we were expecting the terrorists.. we thought you were them when you came in, but then we fi.."

The door slammed open with a loud bang, and the room was suddenly filling with grungy looking men in green and brown fatigues. "Don't move! Don't move!" The one in the lead screamed, brandishing an M16. "Get back against the wall, you pigs!"

Jade felt the situation explode out of control with frightening speed. Two of them men rushed at her and grabbed her arms, causing her to let out a startled yell of anger and pain. "Cut that out!"

The man on her left slammed her against the wall and leaned against her. "Shut up! Shut up or we'll kill you!"

Jade struggled out of pure panicked instinct, wrenching her body around and shoving off from the wall, throwing her surprised attackers back as she twisted, ignoring the pain. One grabbed for her again and she swiveled, lashing out with a kick that caught him in the gut as she tried to move away from the second one.

Something exploded against her head, and she was barely aware of slamming against the wall, as her knees buckled, and darkness quickly overcame the stars in her vision. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.