Operation: Homefront - Walking Wounded
        Author: Warrior Charcharadon Jambavan

        Centurion Selene stirred restlessly and opened her eyes, feeling a
hand gripping her wrist. Turning her head, she followed the hand to its
connecting arm and then up to the shoulder and face of the medical
technician who was taking her pulse. Turning her head the opposite way
revealed her wounded arm, now wrapped in bandages, splints, and a sling.
This was enough to remind her of the pain, so she groaned.
         *Took you long enough to wake up.* Zaphyre's light tone didn't
hide her concern over the human's welfare.
        *I'm fine, Zaph.* She mentally answered the unspoken question,
*just a little shook up.*
        A familiar voice pulled her back to the present. "Ah, I see the
patient is awake and responsive." The bandaged head of Warrior Jambavan
appeared next to the medic, smiling wryly.
         "Charc! Er, I mean, Jambavan. You're not dead!" her surprise was
evident in her words.
        "Hey, a way cool dude like me will never die," Jambavan replied.
"Though your warning gave me just enough of a head start on that fireball.
Thanks." The seriousness of his brush with death showed in his face.
        "Don't mention it. We Dobes have to look out for each other."
Selene tried raising herself to a sitting position, not as easy as it
sounds when you've only got one working arm and have lost a lot of blood.
The room bucked and spun for a while, but she managed it.
         "Careful there! Don't overextend yourself, Selene." She looked up
to see the concerned face of Will Keith looking down on her.
         "I've had worse." She gritted her teeth and wobbled to her feet
with his assistance. "Can't bring to mind anything right now but give me a
minute and I'll come up with something. Thanks." She leaned against him,
feeling her strength slowly returning and looked around the room.

        The fighting had come to an end since she had lost consciousness.
The bodies had been sorted and the Jihaddi who had fallen (thank Grimace
there were few of those) had been separated from their foes with proper
reverence. A group of Sponge Minion prisoners were being guarded in a
corner of the room, and the Jihaddi wounded were being tended to. Selene
noted that very few had escaped without injuries of some kind.
         "So what did I miss?" she asked Will.
        "Not too much," he answered. "All at once the sponge minions under
Rhyn's control just quit fighting. They lost all interest in fighting and
either wandered off or curled up in terror. The other Spongies decided that
we made pretty good substitute targets and turned on us. Caught us a bit by
surprise but we finished them off eventually. Then we found the reason why
the others had stopped fighting." He caressed her cheek tenderly, his
concern showing in his eyes. "Must've been some fight."
        His words brought back memories of the dragon's rage, causing the
Centurion to shiver inside. "You could say that," her voice was hoarse.
Will's other arm tightened around her, causing her to smile. Clearing her
throat, she hastened to reassure him. "I'll be ok. Zaph's eagerness to kill
him just caught me off guard; I wasn't expecting it. So, what's next? Time
to regroup and move on to the next objective?"
         He nodded, understanding her need to take the focus off herself.
"We've captured some of the Sponge Minions loyal to Rhyn. "We've got some
of Rhyn's Sponge Minions captive over there. I'm hoping that if we
despongify them we can get some information out of them."
         "What type of information?" Selene wondered.
        "Information like where Medical and Interrogation are located."
         "Merengue?" she asked quietly.
        "Yep," Will said tersely. They were both silent for a moment, lost
in thought. After a couple minutes, Colonel Sanford came over to speak with
them.
        "Commanders, we've despongified most of the spongies," he began.
"Once their brains started working again they were most helpful. This map,"
she handed over a rough sketch, "ought to get us to where Merengue is
located. Also, most of them have expressed a desire to leave, and a few
have even offered to help us."
        Will considered this for a while. It was a rather unique situation.
"OK," he said finally. "The ones that want to help can come with me and the
rest of the able-bodied Jihaddi. We'll go after Merengue. Tell the ones
that have to leave that they have to help our wounded out. That's the
price."
        Sanford nodded and walked back to the prisoners. Selene turned to Will.
        "I'll make sure everyone gets out safely," she said.
        He looked down at her. "You sure?"
        Selene glanced over at the remains of Rhyn's body and shivered a
little, recalling the power of her Companion's[tm] wrath. "Yeah, I'm sure.
I'm obviously not in any shape to come with you... even I can see that."
She forced a small grin out. "I'll get them out. You just take care of
Merengue.. and yourself. I don't want to have to come back in looking for
you."
        Will embraced her silently before gathering up a small group of
Jihaddi and helpful former Spongies and setting off. Selene turned to the
task of organizing and moving everyone that remained back to the surface.

        "This isn't good," Warrior Jambavan said a quarter of an hour later.
        "What isn't good?" Selene asked.
        "Well, for one thing I'm only seeing double right now. Before, I
was seeing triple, so I could pick the middle one and get pretty close, but
now I have to guess a lot. And I'm almost certain we didn't come down this
hall on our way in," he replied.
        She looked around. "You're right. We must have taken a wrong turn a
minute ago. Everyone double back, we'll have to try again."
         It didn't help. Going back seemed to lead to more unrecognized
corridors and intersections.
        "Man are we lost now," a medic said.
        Jambavan was getting an uneasy feeling and a prickling at the back
of his neck. He was about to comment on it when the lights in the hallway
suddenly all shut off. Expecting a hail of gunfire from an ambush, everyone
dived for cover instantly, but nothing happened.
        *I don't like the looks of this... * Zaphyre's warning began a bit
too late.
        "Reassure me and tell me this is just a blackout," Selene said.
         "Oh believe me, accursed Jihaddi, it is much worse than that,"
said a cold voice full of malice.
        *... there's a Lyran behind us. Grimace help us, Selene. We're in
no shape to fight him,* the dragon whispered quietly into the human's mind.
        Every head in the group turned slowly around as the red emergency
lighting kicked in, bathing the hallway in an evil, hellish glow. Behind
them stood a tall, thin, robed figure wearing an ornate mask. Its hands
crackled with arcane energies. Somewhere in the distance an alarm klaxon
started blaring.
        "Oh bugger. Lyrans," Jambavan muttered.
        "Don't worry, you won't be around too long," the sorcerer
threatened, and began chanting. The mystic energies began to build up
around him.
        *Well, I guess we only have one choice, Zaph...* the human replied,
quickly assessing the tactical situation and making a command decision.
        *Selene?*
        Ignoring the dragon, the Centurion gave the only command possible
at that moment. "Everyone run for it!!" she yelled, and everyone scattered.

To be concluded in "Finale"...