“You know,” the American captain spoke on their channel, “you guys are pretty piss-poor pilots. You fail to heed the agreement our countries signed just last year.”
“You are encroaching on Chinese airspace!” Xue responded, “You need to quit these flights and return to your base.”
“No, I’m looking at my GPS, we are in international airspace. So, I’ll tell you what, what don’t you guys just go away? Go on now, shoo!”
Xue wasn’t sure what the term ‘shoo’ meant, but he assumed it meant to leave, “We do not leave Chinese airspace with foreign spy planes …” He stopped for a second when he heard metal ‘pings.' Were the Americans shooting at them? He turned to find Si’s jet and noticed that there were little black dots around the entire plane, the nose, the wings, the tail. He turned to look back at his own wings and could see similar little black dots affixed to both sides of his plane. Once he turned to look on the other side, he could see they were placed in multiple locations.
“Nice knowing you,” the American pilot said, “See you in international airspace some other time.”
“You will remove…” Xue didn’t get another word out when his jet suddenly turned away from the American spy plane and veered to the left. Si’s plane executed the same maneuver instantaneously.
Xue fought his controls, but the harder he fought, the more shaking and rattling of the plane’s frame he could hear. It sounded like he was literally tearing his own plane apart.
“Si, stop fighting the controls.” He had looked up and over and could see that Si was fighting the direction of his flight as well. Both stopped, and the planes leveled out.
Xue’s speaker squawked, “Flight 1441 why are you returning to base?”
That was an excellent question, Xue thought. but I don’t have a clue.
—
Captain Leo Hodges roared with laughter when he noticed the little black dots, pucks he thought they called them, attach themselves to the jet planes. He keyed his microphone, “Nice knowing you, see you in international airspace some other time.” He and the other men in the cabin laughed when the Chinese jets suddenly turned and veered away from their path.
“I suppose it would be bad manners to mosey on into their airspace just a little?” Jack asked.
“Yes,” Captain Hodges answered, “It would be bad manners,” he agreed. “Not that I’ve been known to always have the best behavior, but I think we need to keep our hands as clear as we can. That way we can keep from looking like we did anything wrong.”
“Tally-ho, steady on till the morning sun.” Jack chirped.
“That’s right,” Captain Leo Hodges replied, “head towards the second star to the right.”
—
Captain Xue continued his frustrating call with ground control, “I’m telling you, we do NOT have control of our airplanes at this time!”
“Bái chī!”
Captain Xue let loose with a string of curses ranging from the person listening had a quarter-brain, to his wife provided him a green hat to wear while he was at work. Unfortunately, that last invective was said after the commanding officer got on the line.
“I assure you, my wife has not provided me a green hat!” The new voice spoke sharply.
Captain Xue’s blood left his face when he realized whose voice on the radio, “No sir, sorry sir!”
“You will return to base, and we will check on these issues.” Xue and Si were informed.
Once the planes were on final descent and landing, neither one noticed the last puck on the nose of the plane as it dropped off and floated away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
South America
Tabitha woke to feel silky soft sheets caressing her body. Unfortunately, she didn’t remember having any such bedding in her bed. Or the smell of coffee and pancakes.
God, she was hungry!
She opened her eyes to look around. She was in a nice hotel room and by the light coming through the window which had room-darkening shades down, it was probably late morning.
She could hear people eating on the other side of her door. Her eyes opened, and she pulled the covers off of herself to look at her body.
Where she had three gunshots before (was it last night?), she had three very tiny white scars. From their appearance, she might not have those sometime in the future. Something didn’t seem right about the view looking at her stomach, like something had changed, but she wasn’t sure what.
She moved her butt over to the side of the bed and found a robe laid out for her. She slid her legs out and realized she needed to shave.
Damn, that’s embarrassing.
She didn’t have a stitch on, but considering her clothes were probably bloody, that made sense. She needed to have some sort of ‘I fucked up really badly bag’ along for her foolish escapades until she got better.
If that ever happened.
She slid the hotel’s robe on, tied it tight and smiled. She remembered what Hirotoshi said to her when he thought she was totally out, and she would cherish that for a long, long time. She might have thought she was a hacker playing a Ranger when they were standing on top of the building, but now she felt like she had passed some test.
A Ranger test. Get there, get shot, take out the bad guys and don’t let them see you stumble as you walk out. She went to the sink and found a small box of hotel-branded toothbrush and toothpaste, cleaning her mouth like her mother scrubbed the toilet bowl.
Gah! Blood breathe in the morning. Yuck!
She brushed her teeth two more times and then dumped the toothbrush into the trash. No way in hell that was going back in her mouth again.
She padded over to the door and opened it up to find Hirotoshi, Ryu, and Barnabas staring at her as she interrupted their conversation.
Slamming her door, she turned back towards the bed and started walking. No way in hell was she facing Barnabas right now.
“Number two!” his voice came through the door.
FUCK! She wanted to stomp her foot in frustration. Why the hell was he here?
She sighed deeply and turned around, no time like now to take her medicine. Except tomorrow, or next week, or hell, next month would work wonderfully.
She opened the door and stepped through, “Barnabas, how lovely to see you this morning. Except it isn’t.” Walking around the table, she kissed Hirotoshi and Ryu on the top of their heads, carefully avoiding the laughter that caught in her throat. She would have made her amusement more apparent to the two surprised men when she made it to her chair if she were sure it wouldn’t embarrass them in front of Barnabas. Sitting down, she picked up her fork and leaned over to Barnabas' plate to stab a cut piece of his pancake.
“I’m starving here, what’s for breakfast besides what you have?” she asked him as she put her fork into her mouth and started chewing.
“Kimosabe, there is another platter waiting for you there,” Hirotoshi told her. She looked where his eyes indicated and noticed the nice serving tray with breakfast items and a silver dome-covered plate. Driven by sudden hunger, she jumped back up to get the tray, and turned around to find that Hirotoshi had already moved his breakfast platter, giving her ample room to set hers down.
As she sat, she grabbed the napkin to place it in her lap and Barnabas lifted the domed cover. “Don’t think I'm being nice,” he told her, “I’m merely protecting my food by placing your focus on your own plate.”
Tabitha might have said something snarky if the wonderful smells hadn’t chosen to overwhelm her and kick her desire to eat into an insatiable requirement to consume the food in front of her.
Even the bacon, not usually a favorite of hers, called to her. At least it was cooked well here. Limp cooked bacon was one of the top three ways to fuck up a good meat, as far as she was concerned. Right up there with well-done filet mignon and any form of meatloaf with ketchup in it.
She didn’t notice as the three men allowed her to eat half of her plate in silence. The prickles of their attention
finally clued her that she was being watched as her hunger was sated. She had just placed a forkful of refried beans in her mouth when she happened to look up to the three sets of men’s eyes intently watching her. Stopping for a second before slowly pulling the fork out of her mouth, she quickly swallowed her food.
“What, did I get some on my face?” she asked, wondering if she had made a complete fool of herself.
“No,” Barnabas said, his voice calm, “we are wondering if you are going to be ok after the last operation?”
“You mean last night’s debacle?” Tabitha asked, “I can’t believe I got so fixated on the first ass that I failed to consider the second might find his nuts and glue them back on.” She stopped and pulled her knife up in the air to point it at the ceiling, “Did you hear that jackass shot me in the back, three damned times?” She resumed cutting into her breakfast steak. “I mean, ok I get that I was stupid and probably deserved the first one. But, come’on!”
She stopped talking when she plugged the steak into her mouth.
“Yes, I’ve talked with Hirotoshi about the event.”
Tabitha’s eyes opened, and she grabbed her orange juice to quickly swallow her food. She grabbed her napkin to wipe her mouth, “What the hell?” She turned towards Hirotoshi, “You fucking talk?”
“You know he talks, Tabitha,” Barnabas told her.
“Yes!” She quickly looked to Barnabas, “I’m not saying ever, I’m talking about enough conversation to discuss last night.” She turned back to Hirotoshi, “All you ever tell me is ‘try harder, don’t be where the sword is, more strength.’” She complained to him, noticing Ryu’s humor in his eyes so she stuck a tongue out at him for a second.
When Gabrielle had taught her how to jump into the much faster etherically-supported speed, Tabitha had used it to dump Ryu on his ass three times before she fessed up and taught her guys what Gabrielle had taught her. Ryu then used it to wipe the floor with her ass for two weeks afterward in retaliation.
It had been worth it.
“Obviously,” Hirotoshi told her, “You missed the training on dodging the bullets.”
“Like there is a dodging bullets class one-oh-one,” she responded.
Barnabas spoke again, “Actually, that is one of the reasons I’m here.”
She turned to Barnabas. “What, there really is a super-vampire how to dodge bullets class?” she asked him, confused.
“In a way, it’s called don’t let them shoot you in the first place,” Barnabas qualified.
“Funny boss, real damned funny,” she mumbled as she continued to eat.
“No, I’m here to drop off some special armor from Bethany Anne’s set.”
“She’s taller than me,” Tabitha commented.
“And you have a bigger chest, so it probably evens out,” he told her.
“Didn’t think you noticed,” she responded as she grabbed another bite.
“Even the dead notice new things, Tabitha,” he replied drily.
“Hey!” she put her utensils down to open her robe to check and then looked back up at the men all watching her, “Excuse me!” she looked at the men.
“There is a bathroom right back through that door,” Barnabas told her pointing at her room.
“My bad,” she agreed and got up from the table, grabbing a muffin on the way out. She started munching on it, went into the bathroom and set the remainder of the muffin down before opening her robe. “Holy shit, when did the perky pair get upsized?” She hefted one of her breasts and realized it was heavier, “Damned good thing I got the muscle upgrades or I’d be overdosing on ibuprofen and bitching about my back," she muttered to herself. She closed her robe and turned to walk back towards the table in the other room.
She heard Barnabas answer to her question. “We think the connection with Bethany Anne’s blood tweaked your nanocytes in some way. Until TOM gets a chance to figure it out,” he dropped his voice as she returned to the table, “we won’t be able to tell for sure.”
“Well, it’s not like they have to go away,” she told him and looked up to see a slightly pained look on his face. “Oh, wait, I’m stuck with them?”
“That’s the working theory,” he admitted. “You can try to communicate your desires with the nanocytes in your body, so I suppose you could try and get them to modify your breasts to shrink in size.”
No wonder she had thought the view was a little wrong earlier.
“No shit?” she asked, taking another drink from her juice, “Then maybe I can persuade them to help me get taller.”
Barnabas turned behind him to reach out and snag a folder from the table before resuming his first position. “While you were sleeping, we have done some research.”
“What the hell?” she asked, “I’m only out like eight or nine hours, and you kick my researching efforts to the side?”
“Eight or nine hours?” Barnabas asked looking over to her, “Why do you think that?”
She pointed towards the window, “Well, look outside. It’s what, noon or somewhere close?”
“Yes, but this is five days from when you got shot, Tabitha.”
“Five…days?” she stammered before looking down at her legs. “Oh. Well, that explains the hair, and I suppose the extra boobage cooking time, too. I got quite a soufflé here.”
“Can we stop talking about hairy legs and boobage, number two?” Barnabas asked, looking over the top of the folder he had opened.
“Sure, but why do you keep calling me number two?” she asked him as she picked up her tray to drop it back on the serving table.
“Because,” he told her as she sat back down, “It’s what Bethany Anne calls me. Although she calls me Number One like it’s a hilarious joke. She will call me her ‘Number One Ranger.’ and smile. I know there is a joke that’s relevant to her age in there somewhere, but I’ve realized I like the numbering system. So now, I’m one, you're two, and as we add more, we will add to the numbers.”
“We should totally get specially numbered badges or something so we can flash them to the bad guys. Then, I'll let them know that Ranger Two just kicked their ass.” She considered aloud.
“If you don’t let them shoot you, first,” Ryu commented.
She glanced darkly at Ryu when Barnabas wasn’t paying attention. She wondered if Bethany Anne’s blood helped her in other ways while she was recuperating. Ryu might be in store for a Ranger’s ass kicking if it did.
Which would be nice, because she was tired of the Ryu ass kicking he kept handing her.
“I’m sure that is the main reason,” Barnabas murmured as he reviewed something in the folder, “Not the fact that you would be able to flash a big Number 2 badge in front of anyone else who joins us in the future.”
“Never entered my mind,” she told him.
“Right,” he agreed.
Damn, she thought, he’s on to me.
“Hey,” she spoke to her guys, “while Dr. Demento over here is reading his folder, do I have any clothes?” Ryu nodded to the couch behind her, and she turned to see two bags from a local fashion clothes store. “Not that shit!” She said aloud and turned back around, mad at being provided regular clothes, “Where the hell are my leathers?”
“Ah, Barnabas,” Hirotoshi spoke as Barnabas looked up from the folder to raise his eyebrows, “She is ready to get back to work.”
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