Here we go, Face thought, sitting up with a gasp as Maggie Sullivan hurried into the room. He looked over her shoulder as she knelt down beside him. Where were the others? She must have a guard. Hannibal wouldn't let her wander around alone during the attack.

"Are you badly hurt?" Maggie asked, touching his bruised ribs. She pulled a medical scanner out of her doctor's bag and started running it over him. "No internal injuries. Let me see what I can do about these lacerations."

"Yeah, no rush, I'm fine," Face said, though he winced when she touched the scrapes, cuts and bruises on his torso. "I can walk no problem. Find me something to get out of these chains. You probably have something in your bag I can use. Something long and thin. Made of steel preferably. Where's the colonel?" His eyes widened as Kyle walked into the room. "Damn! Look out, doc!"

Maggie jumped to her feet and stalked across the room to Kyle. Face stared amazed as she raised a hand and slapped him hard across the face.

"You bastard!"

Kyle grabbed her wrist to stop her hitting him again. "What the hell was that for?" He pushed her away. No, not pushed, Face thought. At least not a shove, just sort of moved her back. Then he let go and walked past her, to his console, started checking screens. Face stared in confusion.

"He's been beaten!" Maggie pointed at Face. "You said nobody would be hurt. You promised me!"

"Yeah, well he wouldn't behave himself, would he?"

"And what about Murdock and Calvin? You destroyed Calvin's home! You fired on Murdock's ship!"

"Murdock? What's that about Murdock?" Face demanded at once.

He got no answer. Maggie glanced back at Face, but turned to Kyle again. Furious now, Face scrambled up to his feet pulling at the chain, trying to get to her, make her answer him, but couldn't reach her.

"What about Murdock?" He demanded again. "Is he okay? Maggie, what the hell is going on?"

"Had to stop that data getting back, didn't I?" Kyle said. "Keep it from blowing your cover."

"You said you would stop them, not kill them!"

Face almost fell to the floor again, as a wave of sickness hit him. He stepped back, needed the support of the wall as he knees shook.

Kyle looked at Maggie speculatively. "What exactly did you think I meant by 'stop'?"

Maggie flushed, seemed to founder, despite her anger. "Well... well you failed. The data and Calvin got back to town."

"Murdock," Face shouted, frustrated beyond reason that nobody would answer his questions. "What about Murdock? Somebody better tell me right goddamned now that he's okay!"

"I know that," Kyle growled, answering Maggie, still ignoring Face. "That damn lunatic pilot nearly destroyed my ship before he escaped."

Face gasped with relief and even grinned. Yeah, sounds like Murdock's okay all right.

"The ship's space-worthy though?" Maggie asked.

"Yeah, just about."

"Then we have to go. We have to leave, before John gets here."

Kyle turned in his chair. "'John' is it?"

Face thought his head just might explode, trying to take all this in and unable to understand most of it. One thing he could understand, however. The team were not here. Only Maggie. Alone and not a prisoner. A guest. A returning guest at that.

"I have some more news for you, Doug." She folded her arms, appeared calmer, her anger cooling to icy rage. "I'm not the only one whose cover is blown. Leto is sitting in a cell right this minute."

"What?" Kyle jumped up. "Shit!" He shook his head. "How'd they catch him?"

"I don't know and I don't care. I want to know why the hell you didn't tell me about that part of the plan. Don't you trust me?"

"Mo, you know the drill. 'Need to know'," Kyle said, sitting down again and turning back to his console. "I needed the inside track on their plans."

"I'd have got that for you."

"Would you? Really?" He shrugged. "Anyway, not the stuff they talked about among themselves, you wouldn't."

What the hell were they talking about? Face wondered. How could Leto get to hear what the team talked about among themselves? Well it sounded like it had gone wrong, whatever they'd done.

"Doug, we have to go," she insisted. Panic laced her voice, Face thought, as if she feared Hannibal might be right at her heels. "They'll be here as soon as Colonel Smith gets the coordinates of this base."

"So what? I've increased the fortifications. He's not getting in. This base is too useful to give up. You think I'm scared of those clowns?" He grinned maliciously at Face. "They're a man short anyway."

"They'll come with plenty of extra hands," Maggie said.

Kyle just grinned and turned to her, spreading his hands. All of them.

"Sugar, we both know that I know all about what to do with extra hands." He winked at her.

"Suddenly I'm very glad I missed lunch," Face said, voice rather faint as his stomach flipped. He sat down again. Might as well save his strength.

Maggie glared at Kyle, but it didn't bother him. She turned back to Face and knelt down by him again. When she reached towards him, he pulled away. She may not have any extra limbs, but two faces, even metaphorical ones, beat three hands in Face's opinion.

"Don't touch me."

"Face, I'm sorry. I know you can't understand." She spoke quietly and her face showed anguish. "I know you don't want to hear it either. It's just... Well, Doug and I have a history."

"Yeah?" Face almost sneered. "Tried to kill you too, did he?"

She frowned at him, not understanding of course, but he had no intention of explaining.

"Please, just let me check your injuries."

"I said it once." His voice dropped low, a dangerous tone he rarely used, certainly not to women. "Do not touch me." He stared into her eyes until she moved back and then hung her head. She put the med scanner away in her bag.

"I'm sorry, Face."

"That's Lieutenant Peck." Petty maybe, but he didn't want to hear his nickname from her. That made her sound like a friend.

She stood up and walked over to the console, beside Kyle. He looked up and then put an arm, one of the normal ones, around her waist. Face thought she stiffened up when Kyle touched her, but she didn't push him away

Kyle spoke; voice low, but Face had excellent hearing. "We'll be okay, babe. You and me, take on the world."

Face sincerely wished he could go temporarily deaf.

-o-O-o-

Hannibal guessed that a council meeting had never been held in the sheriff's office before. But the council members had arrived in ones and twos at first and then those based out of town had shown up in a group and no matter how hard Ted had tried, he couldn't persuade them to reconvene somewhere else. After all that would waste valuable yelling time.

Hannibal listened to them arguing for as long as he could stand it and then walked to the back of the office, to the cells. Joy still sat on the bunk in her cell, even though the door now stood open.

"Joy, you can come out, you know."

"The old broad can't tear herself away from me," Leto said, from where he stood leaning on the bars of his cell enjoying the meeting like a cabaret act.

Hannibal reached through the bars and grabbed him yet again. Hannibal's own arms would have some impressive bruises on them by the morning, he suspected.

"Shut your mouth, pal. There's less pleasant places we could lock you, you know."

Leto raised his hands and backed off, smirking, when Hannibal let him go.

Hannibal went into Joy's cell and sat beside her on the bunk. She didn't want to come out, he realised, because that meant accepting Maggie's guilt. Accepting that her friend had betrayed her and set her up. She didn't seem ready to do that.

"Colonel," Joy said, looking up at him, shaking her head. "This can't be true. It just can't be. There must be a mistake. Seth and Murdock were almost killed! Maggie couldn't possibly have anything to do with that!"

Hannibal sighed. "I know, Joy, I know. I wish... But the evidence seems clear."

"Yeah, well, an hour ago the evidence against me seemed pretty clear, didn't it?" She shook her head again. "It doesn't make sense. Kyle's only been harassing people around here for a few months. But Maggie's been claiming to visit Seth for several years. Just how far ahead does this Kyle bastard plan?"

"My guess?" Hannibal said. "He's had his base over there for years. A bolthole to retreat to between jobs. None of you knew about it, it's so well hidden."

"And he wasn't interested in us until the last few months." She nodded, looking thoughtful. "Then something changed."

"Someone hired him," Hannibal said, nodding back at her. "I'm certain of that. Kyle's a mercenary, a pirate. He's not interested in land or mineral rights. He doesn't want to be king of this moon. He likes cold hard cash."

"Sounds like you've got it all figured out, Colonel."

"No," Hannibal said, "not all."

"Maggie?" Joy said. "What her connection is?"

Hannibal nodded. When Murdock and Calvin reported their findings Hannibal had simply refused to believe them. It's a mistake, he'd insisted. It's not her ship. The data is screwed up or faked. Calvin is lying. Anything but face the truth that she'd played him for a sucker and she'd hadn't even needed a disguise to do it.

She'd wrapped him around her little finger from day one. But as hard as he tried to hate her he couldn't help remembering the way she'd wept here in this office, at the moment it became clear to her that her life here had ended. Was that the behaviour of a mere spy?

And then, when she made love to him, did she do that only to manipulate him, distract him? He didn't believe that. It served no purpose at that point that he could see. No ulterior purpose that is. In fact, it delayed her escape. She already knew Calvin was in town and could expose her lie at any moment. Yet she waited.

"It must go back to the war," Joy said, interrupting his thoughts. "Perhaps they knew each other from then? Could it be that he has something to hold over Maggie? Some way to blackmail her?" She almost smiled, then scowled, fierce. "That's got to be it! I don't believe she'd do this willingly. Betray us all? Frame me? No way. She's my friend. I know her, she's a good person."

"I know you like her, Joy. Sometimes... I guess that sometimes stops us really knowing a person, being able to see who they really are."

Joy stood up, paced the cell. "Well, I'll not believe it until she tells me herself! When do we attack, Colonel?"

"We?" Hannibal looked at her, and then he smiled. "Well, I do have a job in mind for you in the assault, now you're a free woman. But patience, Captain. I'm working out the details."

"Well, we'd best snap to it, before Kyle escapes and takes Maggie and Face with him. And, Colonel, at some point soon I have to get back out to that power plant and fix up the systems."

Hannibal had almost forgotten about that problem. However, he couldn't ignore it forever. People needed that plant to supply the power to the systems that provided them with air, heat and light.

"How quick do you need to get that done?"

"The backups aren't designed to run for more than a couple of days," she said. "They're already at their limits. If they go offline then the miners down there will be relying solely on their own backup generators for power." She folded her arms, a serious expression on her face. "I'm not prepared to leave anyone for long with just a single point of failure."

"Okay. We'll get you out there as soon as Kyle's base is secured."

She nodded briskly, the anguish gone from her face now, as she started getting back to business. They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the council still debating. The meeting had been going on for over an hour now and it had covered only a quarter of what Hannibal had discussed just now with Joy and earlier with Murdock and Calvin. The councillors were still going through the whole "the data is wrong, Calvin's lying, not her ship" denial stage Hannibal had passed through earlier.

Democracy is a marvellous thing, Hannibal thought, and he'd fight to his last breath for it. But sometimes it just took a hell of a long time.

"I'm going to grab my team and go someplace quiet to start making plans," Hannibal said. "There's no time to wait for this lot to start passing resolutions."

"You can use my workshop," Joy offered. "The back room, keep you well out of sight and uninterrupted."

"No offence, Joy, but if that transmitter was in there, who knows what else is."

She grimaced. "Good point. Sounds like I need to give the place a really thorough cleanout." She looked happier then. "Oh well, it needs tidying up, and I can get Russ to do all the actual work." She glanced around the office outside of her cell. "Where did Seth go?"

"I think the crowd made him nervous," Hannibal said. "He left."

When Matthew had returned with a whole mob of out of town councillors and the room had filled up, leaving everyone elbow to elbow, Hannibal had seen Calvin go pale and look close to panic, then push his way towards the door and almost run out.

"Oh." Joy looked worried. "Well I think I'll go find him, make sure he's okay." She walked out of the cell and Hannibal followed. Joy frowned up at the bookcase where Duchess paced, as if treed by a dog, regarding the council members malevolently.

Joy grabbed a chair and Hannibal held it steady, while she climbed up and retrieved the cat. It snuggled against her, without attempting to rip off any flesh, to Hannibal's surprise.

"She always liked me," Joy said, petting the cat's head. "Come on, girl. Let's get you some food, eh? See you later, Colonel."

She strode through the crowd; clearing a path by calling out, "Make room, please. Hungry cat and unjustly imprisoned woman coming through."

That stopped the yelling for a moment and Hannibal took advantage of the small lull to catch the eyes of the rest of his team and nod towards the door. A moment later the team met up outside.

"Man, those people can talk!" Murdock said.

"Talk more than Face and the fool put together," BA said, scowling.

"Amy," Hannibal said, "if you want to stay and cover the meeting for your story..."

"No way!" Amy shook her head vehement in her refusal. "There's only so much I'll go through for my work. We're going to go come up with a plan now?"

"You're getting to know me, kid," Hannibal said. "We'll use our ship for the meeting. Right now it's the only place I trust even a little."

"Okay," Murdock said. "Any chance of running over and grabbing some food from the Spot though? I'm starved."

None of them had eaten lunch and it was well into the afternoon now. Hannibal wished he'd had the lunch Maggie had offered him. He frowned, recalling her words. She'd not just offered him lunch she'd almost insisted he helped himself. "Please, have some lunch", she'd said. Please. Not just an offer. A plea.

He stopped and looked around, orienting himself. The others piled up behind him, Murdock walking on BA's heels and earning himself the promise of a pounding.

"This way," Hannibal said, turning around. He strode off and the others had to hurry to keep up.

"Hannibal, the landing bay is the other way," Amy said, taking his arm.

"And the Spot's down there," Murdock said, pointing down a road they were not turning on to.

"I know," Hannibal said. "I know. I just have to check something out."