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Not sure how good my action writing was here. Does it keep a good sense of pace and suspense? Comments welcome :) Criticism is also totally okay.

Also - Be aware, violence and a distinct lack of porn in this chapter! Noes!

Chapter XXVI - Deadly Shadow

Everything behind him was an inferno, as he had intended. He scaled the rough terrain, picking a path that would keep him away from the smoke but close enough to see when the enemy arrived at their little signal fire.

He was nothing and nowhere. He was darkness given flesh, coalescing from one boulder's moon shadow only to vanish into another moments later as if he'd never existed.

By the time his enemies' first outriders arrived, he was situated. Several hills away, the shadow had finally stopped moving, it's black on black body hiding it well in the cloud-scudded half-moon night. He sighted down his rifle's scope, caressing it with a paw like a lover as he lined it up and took his range using the flaming wreck they'd left behind as a marker.

Through it, he could see the small bodies they'd pulled from the belly of that metal beast earlier. Of the fifty or so with whom they'd left the tunnels, faithful believers in their skill and heroism, only eighteen had escaped the crash. Of those left down below, all were dead, their tiny bodies smashed to bits when the bus had folded around that rocky hillside.

He didn't feel angry. No, the shadow felt cold, calm, like he was surrounded by some unknown and undefined element that was an element all his own.

The first shot from his rifle penetrated the Serbian jeep that had come to investigate the flaming crash site. He didn't waste time on satisfaction when the driver's skull emptied all over his passengers, or when the vehicle veered into the flaming wreck, flipping from the high-speed impact to join its erstwhile prey.

The second vehicle saw what happened and flicked on its high beams hoping to blind its attackers. So far away, the lights did little but offer him a frame of reference on where to fire his next shot.

His rifle spat death twice more, killing both driver and passenger in the second vehicle, and he ignored the slain enemies' mount as it sped along and lazily listed left until it crashed into another hillside.

He had a few minutes' respite then, in which he reloaded his clip by paw, and waited for the next enemy scout. In the distance, he could see the flashes of light that were evidence of what he'd suspected; a long chain, like a fiery dragon in the night, come to hunt the children he'd promised to protect.

Somewhere down there, he knew his wounded Captain was leading his comrades towards safety. He had faith in the stalwart stag to lead them, Rene to fight, the crazy burro to do whatever needed to be done. He had faith in his own ability to stall their attackers, to bleed them, to take their fear and give it form.

This response from the Serbians could only mean one thing: their explosion at the farm had gone beyond its intended effect. The enemy believed his group were a larger force than they actually were, and had detached some portion of its siege line to hunt them down and prevent an action they likely believed was intended to lift their assault on Sarajevo.

He just hoped that Sarajevo's defenders were smart enough to notice the weakening of the enemy line and make some use of it. Somehow, he imagined they just weren't that organized.

As the next vehicles arrived, he delayed his shot. Six armored personnel carriers, fully loaded by how they were handling, were more than he felt wise to snipe at just yet. Not without a distraction.

From a pocket of his black on black armored vest, he pulled a little present Sato had made for him. He smiled at the black scrap of ribbon the wolf had tied there, and lovingly unwound it, only to tie it into his headfur back behind his rounded ear.

It was medieval, he thought, and it amused something deep inside the darkness. The black tiger was wearing his mate's favor and doing battle with a fire dragon in the night. He almost laughed out loud.

Then he raised the black-painted device, flicked open the plastic safety over the trigger mechanism, and waited.

When the third of the six vehicles was pulling towards the two that had already parked near the bus, he depressed the trigger.

There was no flash of light - Sato wasn't that unprofessional or showy. The C-4 he'd given Arlen as a gift lit off with an instantaneous crack, like a glacier suddenly splitting, and four of the APC's were suddenly buried and crushed as the granite hillside blew outward into them, then rolled down over the soldiers in a tidal wave of bouncing, thrashing stone.

Before the dust could clear, he was back on his rifle and firing again, putting a round through the view slot in the front of the Cold War-era APC in front. He doubted the driver would be killed, but the vehicle swerved as he predicted all the same, and foundered in the tide of scree and gravel coming from the detonated hillside. In moments, it was shoved up on its side, then over on its top, and came to a stop upside-down in a pit of mud by the side of the road.

The hillside collapse was starting to settle as the sixth vehicle pulled about as sharp a turn as such an armored beast could, and went back the way it came. He saw the hatch on its top open and a paw stick out, and was waiting for the turret gunner to come up for the .50 cal on top of the armored beast, when someone grabbed the gunner and dragged him back inside.

You just saved your friend's life.

Arlen followed the enemy APC just long enough to see a different paw emerge and feel around for the roof hatch, and fired a bullet that blew the fingers right off just before the vehicle drove around another hillside and out of sight.

So far so good.

He checked his watch, and saw he'd given his friends at least another ten minutes to run. Or limp, more accurately. There wasn't much he could do to the tanks except slow them down with intimidation. They had to believe he was an army, not just one single tiger on a hillside with a rifle and a few dirty tricks.

The PSG-1, for all its might, wasn't much match for a Soviet-era T-72's heavy armor. He could have used the C-4 on them, but he knew he had to stop the APC's first. The relatively more maneuverable vehicles had more of a chance to find and kill his friends and the civilians they were escorting. Thus, they had been the initial main targets of his wrath.

He slid down the hillside on his belly away from his perch, shouldering the rifle as he went. From here on, his work would have to be closer, quieter. The flare of his rifle firing was muted by the suppression system, but even the slightest hint of his location would get him killed when the big T-72 main battle tanks opened fire. They only needed to hit in his general area to get him.

So, his next weapons would have to be of the subtler type. He drew his combat knife in his left paw and began the stalk back towards where the fight would be won or lost.

The blast was audible, and Buck knew that meant they weren't nearly far enough yet. Lamia was under his arm, the stoic mouse girl helping him along thanks to his broken leg, and he could feel the blood caking and drying in the fur on his face under his wrecked eye.

The captain turned his head and looked back at what was left of their refugee train. Half were badly hurt, and slowing down the rest, who were mostly also wounded though not so badly.

Rene had rigged up a basic drag-pallet for a couple of the most seriously injured, and was dragging a tiny cat girl with a ragged wound in her gut and one of the two black wolves, her head wrapped in ragged bandages made of scavenged cloth. The other of the wolf twins was clearing brush and rocks out of their way to help, swinging her fire axe like she was born to it.

Zebra had managed to build himself a crutch out of...Well, Buck wasn't quite sure what it was. The burro grinned at him, his teeth clean of blood, which was a good sign.

"I figure we make it to t'border in about a mont' at t'is rate."

Buck raised a brow and gave him an annoyed look.

"I'm aware of our slow speed. Give me solutions, not gripes."

The burro's grin was static for a second, then faded as a bit of the façade seemed about to crack. Buck's interest was immediately piqued, though a revelation about Zebra's personality never came. The burro just shrugged.

"Find a place to hide t' wounded ones. We can come back wit reinforcement later."

Buck shook his head, and patted Lamia's back when she gave him a curious look.

"We're not here legally, remember? If its Croatians at the border check, they might just arrest us. If it's the UN, I can damn well guarantee it. They don't have much love for mercs, remember?"

The burro shrugged and kept moving, stumping along up a slight rise. He paused at the top, and pulled out a set of rangefinder binoculars. Zebra held up a paw and waved them all to stop and go quiet.

Recognizing the signal, Lamia hissed out a command to her own, and they went silent like the grave, most dropping down and looking around with fear in their eyes. For his part, Buck just watched the canny Mexican.

He'd counted to thirty by the time the scout slowly lowered himself down from the lip, to avoid drawing attention with motion. Zebra slunk over to him remarkably well, given his injuries. The voice was a hissed whisper.

"I can see th' border checkpoint. Five miles up t' road. But t'ere's also Serb military trucks. Must have been here before everyt'ing got started at t' farm."

Buck frowned and looked back. The kids were exhausted, injured, but they'd troopered on through all of this like champions despite their fear and pain. His frown crept into being a scowl, as he calculated, and came to what he hoped was a solution that wouldn't get them all killed.

"Rene, get up here."

The hare set the pallet down carefully, stooping down to check the girl's pulse as he had every once in a while since they'd left the bus. Satisfied she was still alive, he trotted over, bobbing his head.

Figures the fucking hare would be the least hurt. Lucky rabbit's foot comes attached.

Rene looked like hell, but it was all superficial. Cuts, scratches, a burn on his cheek somehow...But he felt just fine. Adrenaline, the hare figured.

"What's the plan, boss?"

Buck gestured out towards the border with a chopping gesture, as the mouse under his arm shifted to hold up his weight as he shifted.

"You're going to go get us a ride. Get to the border checkpoint. Either convince them to help us or steal something and come get us. We're staying right here. Kids won't make it if we have to sneak past the patrols on the road."

Rene looked the stag over, and came to understand that the stag wouldn't make it doing that either. The captain was a man of steel...He'd seen the wily, stone-willed fur keep his cool under the heaviest of fire in the shittiest of situations...But right now, his eye was a mess of blood and glass, his leg broken and swelling up like a softball at mid-shin...The hare nodded, then stuck out his paw.

Buck stared at him uncomprehending for a second, before the hare grabbed his paw and shook it, looking him right in the eyes.

"I'll be back. I swear it."

With that, and not a further word, the hare took off at a loping run, keeping the hill between himself and the road, and disappeared quickly into the dark.

Buck looked down when he realized Lamia was looking up at him with questions written in the beetling of her brow.

"Do you understand?"

The mouse girl looked down at the ground, then back at the bloody, tired kids. Her normally crisp habitual nod came slowly, betraying her uncertainty to the stag. Lamia's words were stilted, halting, slow so she could be sure she was using the right terms.

"Croatians maybe help. Maybe not. Might...Want money."

The stag narrowed his eyes in the general direction of the border.

"I..." Her voice choked up a bit, and he looked back down at her in concern, to see her eyes had teared up. "If Croatians want m-money...I..." She was giving him a pleading look, and he realized she was begging for his understanding. Because she was probably going to offer them the same deal she'd forced on him.

You have a lot of dignity in there, and you're giving it all up piece by piece for these kids...

He kissed her forehead and gave her a squeeze with a powerful arm, and he felt her start to shake with what might have been relief or might have been fear of the future, as he responded to her, quietly so only they could hear even though only Zebra would understand the words.

"No. I won't let that happen. We have money, just not here right now."

Lamia's face scrunched up as she puzzled through what he meant.

"You are...Rich?"

Buck snorted slightly, watching the warm breath push the bangs over her eyes a bit.

"No. My boss is."

Six heavy tanks and four APC's had rolled up to the blast site and built a perimeter. Even if he'd stayed up on that hill, the armored bulk of the vehicles would have stopped him from getting any kind of clean shot on the furs picking through the rubble.

It had surprised him that they'd stopped to look for their own. Somehow, he just assumed that the Serbians weren't people. Arlen could pretty much hear Sato's lecture on 'dehumanizing the enemy' in his head as he crept along in the darkness outside their circle of lights.

He was close enough to hear them talk, their voices tinged with anger, effort, and more than a little bit of fear. These were military furs, but they had just watched from a mile or more away as a good fraction of their column had been torn apart by an enemy they couldn't even see.

Somewhere overhead was the other reason he'd left his sniper's perch. The droning was distant, high-elevation, but audible all the same. In the darkness, a scout plane would have trouble spotting him, but it was just not a risk he'd been prepared to take. Also, the longer he delayed them here, the less chance there was of the plane moving off and finding the much larger and more visible group of children.

Getting close to the vehicles had been a pain. Even though there were no visible sentries, he knew the APC's were watching through gun ports for anyone approaching. The tanks were more vulnerable to being crept up on, however, and he'd done just that. After one more slow spate of crawling, he reached up and patted the caterpillar track of a mighty T-72 main battle tank with a close-lipped grin so his teeth wouldn't show him to an observant sentry.

Damaging the thing would be near impossible, though. He pulled a hand grenade from inside his gear and used a strip of duct tape to rig it inside the cat-track, near one of the wheels that operated the mighty system. Tying strings, he created a trip-wire system that would arm the grenade as soon as the tank started to roll, and hopefully damage its track enough to stop it a few seconds after that. He drew out a second item; a string of firecrackers he'd bought in a shop before crossing the border. That item was placed in the lee of a rock, its extended fuse quietly lit, giving him about ten minutes to work the rest of his little plan before the distraction started.

Then, creeping low across the shadowed ground, he silently slunk between the trapped tank and the one next to it, to get a look into the perimeter beyond.

The Serb soldiers had spread out and were canvassing the rubble, calling out to each other every thirty seconds or so, probably reporting in. They were hurrying, or at least they wanted to be, if the officers' looks of frustration and pacing were any indication. He counted thirty enemy soldiers scrambling around on the rubble, plus three officers, and none of them looked to be part of a tank crew.

In a moment, a shout went up, and more than half of the troops rushed up towards a rubble heap he knew was covering one of the destroyed APC's. Arlen watched as one of the soldiers heaved a stone out of the way and started to drag a half-dead collie out of the wreckage.

Lucky sonovabitch.

He seized his opportunity a moment later, when one of the officers stopped not three feet from him to light up a cigarette.

The burly tiger flowed to his feet and stalked silently forward. For a few seconds, he paused, making sure nobody was looking their direction. Then he stepped up, wrapping a paw around the fur's jaw, clamping it shut as he shoved the knife up into the base of its skull.

He felt blood flow down over his paw, and the jerk of the jaw as its nerves abruptly died. Arlen lowered the bovine to the ground, pulling his knife back out of its brain stem as he did and wiping it against the bull's uniform. Arlen left the body right where he'd killed the creature, even picking up the burning cigarette from where it'd fallen and putting it on the bull's chest. Then, a moment of inspiration struck, and he folded the creature's arms over its chest, in a funerary posture, before sliding back out from the perimeter. Moments later, he was two vehicles down, hidden in the shadow of an APC too low for its view ports to spot him.

Not a minute after he'd found his new spot, someone shouted, and there was a rush of activity. The Serbs had found their dead Major, arranged like he'd died and been sent to burial in his uniform, and Arlen could hear the anger and fear in their voices as they started rushing around, boots clattering over the loose stone, a perfect cover for the sounds of him sticking several more grenades to the bottom of an APC. He waited a few seconds after finishing, and watched for the movements he was expecting.

Sure enough, soldiers started to exit the perimeter, shoulders hunched as if they expected to be fired upon at any second. Though they were soldiers, by their uniforms, and well-armed with AK-74's and other light weaponry, he could tell their training wasn't exactly up to the Ranger level. They weren't moving in groups, weren't clearing areas...They were just scanning around, pointing their weapons at anything they thought might be the enemy. Some had been so close he could have reached out and grabbed them.

Instead, he waited for the last of them to be out of the perimeter of vehicles, and then slipped right through the center of their guard.

As he'd predicted, they weren't expecting anyone in there. Gun ports were open, as soldiers inside the vehicles had initially been watching the search effort. In the panic, they'd left them open, with no one watching them.

Arlen pulled another grenade from his belt pouch, slipped the pin out of it, and held down the spoon as he looked the thing over. It was small, no bigger than his palm. Most wouldn't even notice its sudden appearance, which made it even more deadly. On top of that, it made his next step possible, albeit risky. The second grenade he pulled had a strip of black tape across it, Sato's reminder that it was a 'special' device. The black tiger rubbed his cheek against it, imagining it was his boyfriend's soft fur he was touching.

Arlen's watch vibrated.

Thirty seconds left.

He slunk forward again, moving with a fluidity that would have been impossible for a less physically fit fur, and ended his movement with his back pressed against an APC, its open gun port just over his right shoulder.

The firecrackers lit off, the triple string sounding like nothing if not a barrage of machine gun fire. Outside the perimeter, armed response was instant. Without muzzle flashes to orient on, the Serbians started firing their automatic weapons at anything they thought might be an enemy, many of them diving to the ground and shouting a confused cacophony of words no doubt meant to ask where the enemy was firing from.

The tiger's paw slapped upwards, tossing the frag grenade in through the gun port over his shoulder, the spoon making a soft 't-tink' as it popped free, the grenade making a heavy but quiet thunk landing somewhere inside. He dashed to the next APC, and slapped the white phosphorous grenade through its gun port next, then without missing a beat rushed towards the opposite edge of the perimeter.

He made it four steps before the fragmentation grenade detonated inside the first APC. No screams echoed, the shockwave and shrapnel ending its crew instantly. The second blast was far worse. From the gun port, a white light hissed to life, accompanied by the shrieks of burning furs inside the vehicle as the hellish molten metal spewed from its housing, coating their bodies in flame that could not be extinguished.

As he ran, Arlen saw a glint in front of him. The collie had been left there, ostensibly to be protected by the ring of steel they had such faith in. His eyes were open, though one was bleeding from the pink edge on its inside. Their eyes met, Arlen's dark and slitted with concentration, the collie's wide with shell-shocked fear, but calm enough not to dart away from the black creature rushing towards it out of the darkness.

The tiger could see the collie wasn't going anywhere. Its uniform was dark on the left side and seriously torn, showing torn flesh likely from when the vehicle had partially collapsed around the male. Its left arm hung limply, broken in at least five places by the crazy angles of 'joints' it had just gained tonight. The collie's right arm flopped ineffectually, as it tried to move with a body that was unresponsive.

The collie was in a haze of pain, and could see only a terrible shadow approaching, silhouetted by fire and the screams of the damned. Its left arm ended in a long, black blade, and its eyes...They seemed totally black, without whites, shining in the moonlight. He tried to call out for his companions, or his god, but all that came up were breathless coughs and gurgles from his wounded lungs.

Arlen could have run his combat knife through the collie without missing more than a second or so...And given the confused yelling behind him, it likely wouldn't effect his escape. He could see, though, that the wounded canine was trying his damnedest to fight, even though its sidearm wasn't in the holster it was reaching for. Something about its determination to live left him feeling as if he had no right to finish it so callously.

The collie watched, knowing his own helplessness, as the demon came towards him. Its eyes glinted red, as one of the armored vehicles behind it exploded, the same that had been filled with screams and white-hot fire. The thing leapt off the ground several feet as its fuel tank and ammunition blew, hurling shrapnel into the air.

He whispered a prayer, closing his eyes, and waited for death.

Arlen passed right over him and sprinted the rest of the way through the perimeter of vehicles, glad he was right in his guess that the APC's nearest the rock face were empty, their troops having been disgorged to act as sentries on their exposed side.

Thank god for unprofessional enemies.

Buck had set up a cycle of watches that had him and Zebra trading off who rested and who rode herd over the kids keeping sentry. He didn't like the idea of using the children to watch, but there wasn't much choice - Zebra was more or less mobile, but he was only as mobile as Lamia's ability to keep going, and the mouse had reached the edge of her endurance.

At that moment, he was sitting on a slight hillock with the mouse girl was in his lap, curled up against his chest, his left arm around her back slowly rubbing it with a paw to help her keep warm in the chill of the evening. He glanced over her shoulder and down at his swollen leg, a frown turning down a corner of his lips as he saw it was bulging his uniform.

One of the kids limped up, the ax-wielding wolf girl from before. He nodded to her, and spoke a word Lamia had explained to the sentries earlier.

"Report."

The girl's face was stoic, unreadable but for a vague air of emptiness that gave him reason to worry. Hard to tell if she was about to snap or not at any given moment. Still, she hadn't failed him so far, and it'd been hours since the bus wreck.

She waved a paw, the other gripping her fire axe just under the head. The wolf was searching for words.

"Dark. Silent." Her voice was raspy, and he realized at that moment he'd never heard it before. She'd been the forward-most sentry since the start of his watch, and had sent other kids back to report for her. The sounds from her mouth were painful, though the only sign of her feeling it was some slow, awkward swallowing she did after speaking.

Buck nodded and gestured back to camp with his thumb. Lamia stirred in his lap as he spoke.

"Go sleep. Send someone else to scout."

The wolf just stared at him, then shook her head and walked back the way she came. The stag considered going and explaining what he meant via pushing her back to camp, right up till he tried to move his leg and realized he couldn't feel much below the knee.

Not good.

Zebra sat up next to them, checking his watch. Overhead, the sky was starting to show the very first signs of false dawn...A slight lightening along the horizon.

"If we goin' to move, we gotta do eet now. Rene must no have made eet."

Buck clenched his jaw, but knew Zebra was right. Something had either stopped Rene getting there alive, stopped him leaving, or prevented him finding a way to pick them up. His money was on the second. With a gentle shake, he woke Lamia, who slipped off his lap to stretch, pushing her chest forward with her paws on her lower back as she yawned.

The stag would have ogled the pretty tomboy if he'd had time or been less ethical, but instead reached up a paw.

"Help me up. We have to move before the sun rises, or we'll be found."

Lamia nodded and took his paw, helping him to his feet as she rubbed her eye with the heel of her other one.

From behind him, sudden motion alerted Buck something was up. He turned that way, as Zebra was gathering up his rifle and moving to follow as Buck limped off that way with Lamia hurrying to keep up and under his arm.

The kids looked scared, and in an immediate way. A breathless child, one of his sentries, ran up to Buck bouncing up and down and yelling in fearful excitement. Lamia listened, asked something, then spoke in an urgent town.

"We go now! They come!"

Buck grabbed his rifle and slung it over his shoulder, praying they could make it, as he started shouting to the kids to get them moving. In less than a minute, they were trooping towards the road.

"Zebra, get ahead of us, find out if the road's clear."

The burro broke into a limping run, and was gone from sight. The kids were struggling, though faster than yesterday, they had less adults to carry the wounded. Lamia kept looking back as they moved out of their little overnight base, clearly expecting the Serbians any moment.

Two minutes later, Zebra came sprinting back, as the convoy of kids was straggling down a gully towards a low forest not far from the border. He was panting and grinning like a loon. Normally that would worry and annoy the Captain, but right then he figured Zebra violating rules of engagement wasn't really a problem exactly.

"Dey're near t'road. Two damaged APC's, tree tanks dragging a tank wit' its track blown off." The burro was virtually giggling in glee. "Tey look like dey're runnin scared."

Buck calculated, considered...Decided.

"We go into the forest a mile or so, then get on the road and make a sprint for the border check. Did you see who was manning it?"

The burro shook his head, but gestured northwest towards their destination.

"No, but probably Croatians."

Without further talk, they moved down towards the forest, slogging through shin-deep water in the gulch that protected them from being immediately spotted and fired upon by the tanks and APC's.

Ten minutes later, Lamia left Buck leaning against an ancient old pine tree and slithered up to the edge of the forest, peeking out onto the road. He watched her movements, unschooled as they were, and could only admire her determination. To succeed at what she'd done without any real training was no mean feat.

The mouse came back up and grabbed his paw, leading him towards the forest edge as she waved for the kids to follow. They fell into a vaguely line-like formation behind her, as she slid under Buck's arm again, pressing her lean body against his side and squeezing his paw unexpectedly, despite the awkward angle. He squeezed back, and bumped her temple with his forehead companionably.

They emerged from the trees onto a cracked strip of asphalt that glittered as the rising sun crested the horizon, reflecting off the dew and giving the road an almost mystical aspect. A mile or so ahead, he could see the border checkpoint, a concrete and steel fortification and road-block complete with a line of camo-painted tanks, their guns all facing his direction. Furs of a dozen varieties swarmed there, looking on in curiosity as a sentry noticed them and shouted out, pointing across the border.

Blue hats...Thank whatever gods are listening...UN troops.

With a laugh, Buck called out to them.

"Hey! A little help over here?"

The smile died on his lips, as a buzzing sounded behind them. Someone screamed, and he heard a motorcycle fly around the bend in the road. He turned his head in time to see the fur on its back, dressed in Serb uniform, brandish an SMG and start yelling.

Children started hitting the ground, screaming, covering their ears. Buck didn't waste a second. Being 'arrested' by the Serbs so close to safety just wasn't going to happen. In one smooth motion, he drew his sidearm and pumped four rounds into the Serbian's chest. His voice bellowed, louder than the report of the gun in the ears of many soldiers he'd served with.

"MOVE MOVE MOVE!"

The droning of APC engines, the squealing of tanks, like a herald of doom, was growing closer and closer, as the children picked themselves up and broke ranks, running flat-out towards the border, the UN troops there looking befuddled, uncertain, many raising weapons and pointing them over the kids' heads as officers shouted in a dozen languages to hold fire.

Shit, UN must be under orders not to engage...Fuck!

He was huffing, puffing, his leg suddenly gone from numb to a ball of fire under his ass, as Lamia was basically throwing them both forward towards the border. A mile became half, which became a quarter, the faster of the fleeing children reaching the barbed wire gate block and throwing themselves at it, trying to climb to safety as the guards yelled and tried to wave them back.

Buck shouted at them, a hundred feet away and coming, as the first Serbian vehicle came whirring around the corner belching smoke from a damaged engine. Buck looked back, and narrowed his eyes, as he saw Zebra laugh and give them the double-bird salute.

Then Buck's brain registered his own shock as the gunner atop the APC opened fire, .50 caliber slugs blasting into the running group of kids for all of half a second before someone with half an ounce of sense on the other side of the gate yelled an order.

The captain was deafened, his ears filled with ringing and his eyes with flash, snout filled with the distinct scent of cordite as the UN tanks behind him opened fire. The APC vanished, obliterated in a ball of fire as HEAT rounds cut through it like butter.

He thought he heard the gate moving over the sound of bells in his ears, squealing as the un-oiled barricade was pulled aside by UN soldiers. His senses flashed and deadened, he still felt it as gloved paws grabbed him and started to pull, and he felt the report of tanks firing into oncoming Serbian attackers.

His eyes cleared enough to see UN soldiers grab Lamia and start carrying her inside...He saw blood on her knees, and reached out towards her, as the soldiers started pulling him away from the rest.

"Damnit, let her go!" He thought quickly, knowing they were separating 'unauthorized combatants', namely obvious mercenaries, from fleeing refugees.

"That's my wife!"

"Mr. Buck, I'm sorry, but without legal guardianship, the children will be surrendered to the local authorities for foster placement."

Buck sat up in the hospital bed, holding one side's grip bar as he grabbed the pencil-necked white-suited sleaze in front of him and yanked him forward, snout to snout with him, and spoke in the worst and most frightening kind of yell he had. The quiet, calm, death-promising type.

"You give those kids to local authorities and they'll end up stuck in this fucking war-zone. They're ethnic Bosnians, you fucking idiot, do you want them in a fucking death camp?"

Strong arms grabbed him from both sides, as a pair of burly coalition soldiers who were now doubling as his bailiffs prepared to pull him off the terrified bureaucrat. Buck felt great satisfaction, looking into the wide whites of the shaking weasel's eyes as the once-preening thing scampered backwards.

"I w-will forward your concerns!"

"You'll burn in hell you fucking piece of shit!"

The soldiers holding his arms and shoulders pushed him back, and one of them spoke, in Aussie-accented English.

"Look, mate, you keep struggling and we're gonna have the doc shoot you up, got it?"

Buck growled low in his chest and bunched his muscles, preparing to slam the two together and make a break for it...Then realized this wasn't the time for dramatics. These were the friendlies, soldiers just like him. With a sigh, he settled back down, waving his paws gently.

"I get it, I'm calm. Just...Do me a favor?"

"Yeah mate, do what we can, right?" The Aussie had been polite with him, friendly even. Despite the local politicos being a big bag of assholes, the soldiers who had seen him lead wounded kids out of a killing field seemed to be on his side. Well, as much as they could get away with being.

"There's a mouse with the kids. Lamia Kojic. I need to know what's going to happen with her."

The two soldiers looked at each other, then back down at him, as the one with more pips on his shoulder raised a brow and asked a question.

"Your wife, yeah?"

They met eyes, the stag and the Rhodesian Ridgeback UN trooper. They were asking if it was the truth, though it was pretty damn obvious Buck was lying and he knew it. Thus, he reasoned, it wasn't dishonorable as long as he succeeded at helping her.

"Yeah. Got married just before this shit got hot. Was trying to help her get out of the war-zone, and got caught up in all of this. Couldn't just let kids get killed."

The two Aussies looked at each other, and one of them shrugged.

"Sounds like the truth to me, Leftenant. Want I should go talk to the Colonel?"

The golden retriever Leftenant nodded and sent the Rhodesian off with a wave of a paw. Then looked back down at Buck.

"Promise me you'll stay here and I'll go get you a sat phone. Call up whoever paid you to be here and get ahold of a lawyer, right?" The retriever patted Buck's shoulder, compassion and steel in his eyes in equal proportion.

Buck's gratitude was hidden only because it wouldn't do for the Captain to start lavishing the dog with praise and thanks. He just nodded instead.

"One more thing. The burro with us. Where's he being held?"

The retriever looked around at the walls of the hospital, noting the dozen or so empty beds.

"Not a clue what yer getting' on about mate. No such detainee."

The captain blinked and tilted his head, confused. Then, realization dawning, tossed his head back and laughed uproariously.

"Haha! Fine fine, nevermind. Just get me that phone, okay?"

The retriever grinned and shrugged, and walked out. Buck grinned, and muttered.

"You crazy fucking asshole. Mexican drug runner my ass. CIA more likely. Pff. 'No Such Detainee.' Christ."

He was still laughing when a teary-eyed mouse girl, cleaned up so as he barely recognized her white fur, was led into the room and ran straight into a tight hug with her rescuer.