Three
Hannibal stared at Face. Nobody else moved. The wind had dropped and for a long moment the world held its breath.
"I'm going to turn the generator back on." Face turned and headed back inside via the workshop. Hannibal dropped the rope and ran after Face. He caught up with him part way up the west corridor. Hannibal grabbed Face's arm and Face pulled away from him at once.
"What the hell is this, Lieutenant? A mutiny?"
"Yeah, sounds about right." Face growled, striding onwards. They came to an interior door and Face opened it towards himself, but Hannibal slammed it closed and leant on it to stop Face going through.
"Okay, just stop! What the hell is wrong with you, Face?"
"Wrong with me?" Face sounded outraged. He turned to Hannibal. His face was hard to see in the dim light, but there was no mistaking the fury in his voice. "Oh, I'm the crazy one, am I? For not wanting to walk away from all this food and heat and shelter, into a frozen wilderness? Yeah, what the hell kind of nut am I?"
"The others are willing to give it a try..."
"Bullshit. BA is going because he'd charge the gates of hell if you ordered him to. Murdock is going because he thinks it's his fault we're here in the first place. Decker is..."
"Oh I wondered when we'd get to Decker."
Face snorted, sounded disgusted. He wrenched the door open and forced his way past Hannibal. Hannibal almost had to run to keep up.
"This has nothing to do with Decker!" Face shot back over his shoulder. "I just happen to agree with him." He stopped abruptly right outside the door to the offices and Hannibal almost collided with him. Face swung around to glare at Hannibal. "At least it has nothing to do with Decker for me. For you it has everything to do with Decker. You have to be opposite to Decker. Never mind that in this case he's right. Never mind that it's going to get us all killed."
"That's not -"
"Shut up! I'm not finished."
Hannibal gasped. Face had never told him to shut up before. He had to fight down the urge to instantly take a swing at Face.
"I'm not gonna let you do it, Hannibal. I'm not letting you take us out there to die, just so you can prove - try to prove - that you're cock of the walk. And maybe I can't stop you going by myself, but I'd bet real money that I can talk Murdock and BA out of it. Decker doesn't need any talking out of it. And then the four of us can sure as hell stop you going."
"The four of us?" Hannibal echoed. He didn't like that. He didn't like that at all.
Face passed a hand over his eyes then through his hair. His hand was shaking and he was very pale, Hannibal noticed. When Face spoke again, his voice was calmer, conciliatory.
"You get so single minded, Hannibal. And most of the time that's good, you keep us all focused on the mission, keep us all moving forward. But some of the time it's not so good. It makes you blinkered. You get an idea and you want to blast ahead full steam. Well usually we don't have the time to do anything else. But now we do." He took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall, folded his arms.
Hannibal felt his anger ebb away. He'd been ready to rip into Face for defying him in front of the others, in front of Decker - and there he went again, thinking about Decker.
"If we sit here until spring the 'rescue' takes us straight to jail." Hannibal pointed out.
"Jail's a hell of a lot easier to escape from than this place."
They looked at each other for a long time, their faces deeply shadowed in the dim light.
"Go and turn the generator back on." Hannibal said. Face sighed and then gave a very small, very faint smile.
"Yes, Colonel."
"I'll go and tell the others that I - we've decided we're not going. Is that..." He hesitated a moment. "That okay by you?"
"Yes, Hannibal." Face nodded. "That's okay." He turned to leave.
"Face." Face turned back when Hannibal spoke. "Thanks."
Face nodded and this time he gave a real smile. "I'll make a pot of coffee. I think we all need to sit down and work a few things out."
~~~~
When the others trooped back indoors Face was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. He was studying the station operations manual and making notes on a legal pad. The station manager's bunch of keys sat on the table too and Face saw both Decker and Hannibal eye them as they came in.
"Hey," Face said. "Coffee's hot." He waved at the coffee maker.
"Thanks, Face." Hannibal said.
"Yeah." The serious tone in Murdock's voice made Face look up. "Thanks, Face." Face nodded slightly. BA got himself a coffee, probably mostly for the heat, Face thought. He came to the table and as he passed he rested one hand on Face's shoulder, just for a second, then sat down.
Eventually everyone had taken a seat, still bundled up in their coats. The other four sat around quiet and subdued as Face went on writing. Face wondered how much of a surprise it had been to the others when Hannibal went back outside and told them they were staying. Not that big a surprise he suspected and definitely a relief. Face hadn't spoken to any of the others before he turned around and defied Hannibal, but he was sure they all had the same doubts as he did. But actually talking to them about disobeying the Colonel's orders... well that really would have been mutiny. Conspiracy.
Murdock broke the long silence. He cleared his throat and spoke. "I wonder if there's a turkey in the cold storage." The others looked at him. "It'll be Christmas in a month."
They nodded slowly.
"Yeah." BA sighed.
"How long can you keep a turkey in the deep freeze anyway?" Murdock asked.
"Pretty long time if it's cold enough." Hannibal said.
Murdock shook his head and sighed. "Well I must be doing something wrong. Every time I put one in there it's dead the next day."
Decker snorted coffee out of his nose and started to choke. BA tried to scowl and muttered "Fool". But then he started to giggle. Hannibal laughed. He sat back in his chair and just laughed. Face looked around at them then at Murdock's now grinning face. Murdock turned the grin to Face and got a smile in return. Looking satisfied Murdock turned and started slapping Decker on the back.
Good 'ice breaker' Face thought. Which was pretty appropriate after all.
"Okay." Face said when the laughter and choking had subsided. "I'll start."
"Er, start what, Face?" Hannibal asked.
"The meeting." Face said. "I'll be the chair."
"Can I be the table?" Murdock asked at once. BA giggled again and Hannibal grinned. Even Decker was almost smiling. Face gave a theatrical, long suffering sigh.
"Sure Murdock. Anyone else want to be pieces of furniture or can we move along?"
Murdock sat back with his arms folded and a terribly serious expression on his face. Face looked down at his legal pad for a moment. Being the chair was good. It didn't mean you were in charge of the group, just of the meeting. He hoped like hell Hannibal was getting that. The first thing written on the paper was the word 'keys'. Face looked up.
"I think there's a few things we should work out. Number one is these."
He leant forward and picked the bunch of keys up using his pen, like a cop handling evidence at a crime scene.
"It's silly for any one person to be walking around with these keys. The key to the drugs cabinet is on there. If we need that in a hurry I don't think we should have to be running about trying to find whoever is..." He stopped himself saying 'strutting around carrying the keys as a macho status symbol.' "Whoever has them."
He glanced between Hannibal and Decker as he said it. They both looked ashamed of themselves.
"Good idea, Face," Hannibal said. Decker nodded in agreement.
"Right." Face let the keys slide off his pen and clatter back onto the table. He had to press on. He had to get things on the right footing before the two subdued colonels regained their confidence. "So we agree. The keys are not to be carried around by any one person. Should we take a vote on that?"
Now Hannibal frowned back at him.
"When did this become a democracy?"
Face checked his watch. "About fifteen minutes ago." He looked back at Hannibal, steadily, held his gaze.
"Yeah, we should vote," BA said. "I vote yes, keep the keys in one place."
Murdock gave Hannibal a nervous look, then spoke. "I vote yes too."
The three of them looked at Hannibal and Decker.
"Are you two voting?" Face asked.
"Well it looks like you already have a majority," Hannibal said.
Face didn't speak, just looked at him questioningly. Come on Colonel, he thought. This is the only way this is going to work. There's no way to stop you and Decker fighting for command, so the best thing for everyone is to just pull that rug out from under both of you right off. Democracy is good. Voting is good. Figure it out
"Yes," Decker said, startling Face and making him look away from Hannibal. "I vote yes."
Face nodded, looked at Hannibal's frowning face again. "Four yes votes and one abstention?"
"No," Hannibal said. "I mean, yes, I'm voting. I vote yes."
"Great. Unanimous." Face put on his most pleased look and ticked off the first item on his sheet.
"Okay. Item two. I propose we have one of these meetings once a week? Anyone opposed?"
He smiled as he went on through the agenda he'd drawn up. This was almost surreal. But they'd never faced anything quite like this before and that meant they had to deal with it in ways they never had before
Time to move forward.
~~~~
Hannibal left the meeting wondering if Face had been reading business manuals. Everybody had what Face called 'action items' to work on. This wasn't anything Hannibal was used to. He gave people orders, not action items. But it seemed to be working. If he'd attempted to order Decker to draw up a chores roster they'd still be arguing about it now.
Murdock and Face were doing a detailed inventory of the supplies, BA of the fuel and equipment. Decker had the roster and would then help out Hannibal, who was tasked with exploring the station top to bottom, to make sure they knew every inch of the place and exactly what they had and where.
First Hannibal had a personal action item to take care of though. He went to the radio room.
"Smith?" Baker sounded amazed when Hannibal came on the line. "I was told you'd set out."
"I... changed my mind. You were right, Captain." He glanced up. Hail was lashing against the window. He waited for the "I told you so" that he so richly deserved.
"Thank god," Baker said, with what sounded like genuine relief. He sighed. "Thank god. Right, Colonel, what are your plans now?"
"Explore the station thoroughly, take a full inventory and estimate if our food and fuel will hold out. Then I guess we just..." he shrugged. "We just settle in and do whatever chores we have to do every day and well, catch up on a lot of sleep."
"Good. Colonel, there's someone manning this frequency twenty four hours a day. Whatever we can do to help we will. If you need to talk to a doctor. If you need a mechanic's advice for any of your machinery -"
"Actually we're pretty much covered on that one." Hannibal said. "Just happen to have the best mechanic I ever met right here on my team. He can fix anything but the weather."
"That's great. I'm sure the four of you will be fine."
"The four of..." Hannibal stopped, frowned. Surely... The realisation hit him. Decker hasn't mentioned Murdock to Baker. He probably just forgot, in the shock of being told how long we were stuck here. Decker must have said that he had the A-Team as prisoners. And Baker had looked up the A-Team, or reported on to the US Army and they had told him that there are three members of the A-Team.
"Yeah, the four of us," Hannibal said slowly.
"Well I suppose you don't think of Colonel Decker as one the group."
"No, I guess not."
"You should work out a way to get along with him, Colonel Smith. It would be silly for you to argue all winter."
Hannibal laughed. "You're right there, Captain."
"My name's Eric, Colonel."
"Eric. Okay, I'm Hannibal. Like the guy with the elephants."
"Ah. Perhaps if you'd had some elephants you might have had a chance of making the journey." Baker's voice had just a hint of teasing in it.
"Yeah. Just my luck I left my elephants in my other pants."
Baker laughed. "Okay, Hannibal, I'll let you get on. But call us, any time."
"We will. Over and out." Hannibal shut off the radio. He smiled. Sure, we'll call you. I'll call you, so will BA and Face and Decker. But Murdock isn't getting anywhere near this radio.
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