"Computer, lights off!" Face shouted, plunging the room into darkness. Amy gasped and jumped up.

"Computer, lights on!" Decker yelled. It did him no good. Amy realised Face must have the computer set only to accept voice commands from himself.

She saw the shapes of men already at the window, opening it. Face always chose a room with a fire escape and the rest of the team were always ready to make a hasty exit. Decker would probably have men out there of course, but they'd deal with that problem when they got there. Although Amy had only been with the team for a few months, she'd already gone through this scenario several times.

Decker was yelling orders, yelling for flashlights. The MPs themselves blocked the light from the corridor outside and Amy could hear them falling over each other and cursing in the dark. Then someone grabbed Amy around the waist and she yelled and tried to push them away, until a familiar whiff of expensive cologne told her this wasn't any MP.

"Just me, Amy. Hang onto your hat. Hey, fellas! Catch!" Face half pushed, half threw her at the others by the window and her feet actually left the floor for a second as she sailed across the room. Two years had passed since she moved here to take up her job at the Martian Chronicle, but the lower gravity still had the capacity to surprise her.

She landed right in BA's arms and he scooped her up and handed her though the window to Hannibal and Murdock, then climbed out after her onto a small metal platform.

"Dump the heels," Hannibal ordered, glancing down at her shoes. "Let's go, Face!" Hannibal yelled back inside. Amy guessed Face must be running a little interference, knocking over furniture as he retreated to the window. She struggled with the little round button on the strap of her shoe, hopping on the platform.

"Hannibal!" Murdock yelled, pointing down the fire escape tube at the MPs waiting there.

"Face," Hannibal roared back into the room. "We are leaving!"

A second later Face climbed out of the window. "All my stuff is back there!"

"Forget it. Move." Hannibal grabbed Amy's hand and stepped with her into the fire escape tube. The anti-grav force fields caught her and she resisted the urge to grab at the rungs set into the walls, not wanting to drop her shoes.

"Hannibal!" Amy cried as they began to sink slowly, towards the group of waiting MPs. She really wished she'd worn pants, instead of a skirt tonight.

"Don't worry, kid, they won't shoot us." Hannibal grinned at her. "They've got to take us alive. How else will they ever find the rest of the bank robbery money?"

"What?" Amy gasped, panting now. "What do you mean the rest of --?"

"Now, BA!" Hannibal shouted and Amy heard a shot as BA blasted a hole in the side of the tube, right through the power conduits. Amy shrieked and grabbed the rungs as her weight came back. Her shoes fell down onto the MPs, but that was the least of their worries, as a second later the team fell down after the shoes. After a short and very cramped melee, Hannibal looked up from atop a heap of groaning men.

"Come on down, kid. This is no time to hang around."

Decker's voice above her, yelling at his men to climb down the tube spurred Amy on to climb quickly down the last couple of metres to the ground and the team piled out of the exit from the tube. Hannibal fired a low power plasma blast back up the tube, to discourage the pursuers and then they ran.

They ran, headed for crowds, in the streets busy with evening revellers. BA ran with hand across his chest holding down his gold to stop it knocking him out. Face carried Amy's shoes one in each hand and groused about his soon to be confiscated possessions.

"Hannibal, I left everything back there! That damn Pseudo Suit was new! It even had the new voice altering option. Do you know how much that thing cost me?"

Hannibal looked at him.

"Okay, I mean, would have cost me if I'd, you know, paid for it."

"Sorry, Face," Hannibal said. "But I've told you before; you have to be ready to leave everything behind in an instant."

Face sighed and glanced back over his shoulder.

"I think we lost them."

Amy looked back too. No sign of uniforms among the crowds. The team slowed to a walk, breathing hard.

"Well, guys," Hannibal said. "How about we blow out of this town? Seems it's a little too small for us and Decker right now. And we've got an invite to Ganymede. Amy, you joining us?"

Ganymede might be a long way out, Amy thought, but if the team took down Douglas Kyle, notorious war criminal, well that would be a story good enough for a promotion. And something about the way Face in particular had reacted to his name had intrigued her.

"Sure, Hannibal. Hold on, please, let me put my shoes back on, before Face sells them." She took them from Face and hopped on one foot, a hand on his shoulder, getting into the shoes and fastening them. When would she learn to wear sensible shoes when hanging out with the team?

"We're just gonna rush straight off?" BA asked. "What about that stuff about not going off half-cocked?"

"Aw, why change our methods after all this time?" Hannibal took out a cigar. "Better get to the ship."

"I'll get us a cab," Face said.

"Oh no," Hannibal said. "No cabs, they've all got cameras in 'em, Decker would be tracking us inside of ten seconds." He grinned. "I've got something faster in mind."

"Faster?" BA scowled and stepped towards Hannibal. "You'd better not be thinking what I think you're thinking, sucker. You can forget it. I'd rather walk."

"BA," Murdock said, "You know don't you, that it's statistically the safest form of transport?"

"Safest if you don't use it at all." BA insisted.

"Okay, BA." Face slapped BA on the shoulder. "We'll go get the ship, you can walk and we'll meet you there in about six hours."

"You won't..." BA's eyes crossed and he folded up, hitting the ground with a crash.

"Face, why didn't you try to catch him?" Hannibal said as he and Murdock grabbed BA's arms and heaved him to his feet.

"Hannibal, if I'd grabbed him I'd have given him a double dose." Face held up his hand to show a small needle sticking out from between his fingers. "Not to mention putting my back out."

"Man, how did we ever do this on Earth?" Murdock complained as he and Hannibal struggled with BA.

"Come on," Hannibal led them across the street. Face smiled at Amy and offered her his arm. She took it, returning his smile and they followed their team-mates.

-o-O-o-

The young man working the evening shift at the matter transporter station almost fell off his chair as the team piled in. He stared at the bizarre group and spoke nervously while they heaved BA into the staging area.

"I... um, I'll need to see your I.D. and method of payment."

"Take care of the man, Lieutenant," Hannibal said.

"Ah, right." Face approached the operator with a big smile and produced an ID card.

"Murdock, you set the co-ordinates," Hannibal ordered.

"Wait, you're not authorised to --" the operator said, alarmed as Murdock ran over and started to mess with the console. He frowned down at the ID Face held. "But you're not --"

"Ready," Murdock ran to the staging area. "Come on, Face. Five seconds." Face joined them and the panel over their head started to buzz.

"I'd stand well back from the console, kid," Murdock advised the operator, as the transport started and the team vanished in a shimmer.

A second later the console exploded in a shower of sparks.

-o-O-o-

The team rematerialised in the cargo bay of their ship, half a metre off the floor.

"Murdock!" Face yelled in protest as they dropped, landing in a heap.

"What, you'd have preferred we landed up to our knees in the deck plating instead?"

BA had ended up on the bottom of the heap and they heard him groaning as he started to come around. A second later the heap of people erupted and BA exploded out of it. He looked around at the ship and then looked at his watch. He glared at the team and Hannibal grinned back while the rest tried to avoid BA's eye as they scrambled up.

"Either my watch has stopped or we got here awful fast." BA's voice was low, full of warning.

"BA!" Murdock protested, "I'm shocked. You know that we know that you hate transporters. We would never do that to you."

"You did it. I can feel it. I can feel my molecules is all scrambled." He pounded one fist into the opposite hand and advanced on the others. "Now I'm gonna scramble your molecules the hard way."

The matter transporter, perfected only two years ago, was being touted by its makers as the greatest advance in transportation since someone first said: "See that horse thing over there, I'm gonna climb on its back." But they could count BA Baracus among the unimpressed.

The team had even bought one for the ship. For emergencies only, Hannibal insisted. The night after installation it had mysteriously broken beyond the wit of any technician to repair. Face used the now useless booth as extra wardrobe space.

"Er, talking of scrambling," Face said, "Hadn't we better get out of here before Decker sends a squadron of fighters after us?"

"Right," Hannibal nodded. "BA, get to the engine room, get us as much oomph out of that engine as you can manage. Murdock, get us in the air. Let's go people!" He ran off up the steps leading from the cargo bay to the rest of the ship. BA followed him muttering about "later."

-o-O-o-

The ship lifted out of orbit and a pursuing squadron of fighters showed up to prove Face right. Plasma fire chased the team's ship.

"I thought you said they didn't want to shoot us?" Amy said nervously strapping herself in behind Hannibal, who sat at one of the two control panels up front. Face sat at another panel behind Murdock.

"Targeting our engines," Face said. "BA will be mad." A hit on their aft shield made the ship shudder.

Hannibal opened the comms channel to the engine room.

"Faster would be much, much better, Sergeant."

"What am I, a miracle worker?" BA demanded. "You got everything."

"We're staying ahead of them," Face reported. "But we're not losing 'em."

"Evasive manoeuvres, Captain. Face, I've got an idea, find us a nice big asteroid."

"What?" Face looked up, scowling. "You're not thinking of --"

"You recall that little game of tag we had with Lynch around Ceres back in '78? Same plan. Get scanning, find us something."

Face started scanning for a good sized asteroid, but he did feel obliged to point something out.

"Hannibal, this plan of yours. There's just one thing about it that might have slipped your mind over the years."

Hannibal looked back at him. "What?"

"It didn't work."

Amy groaned and Murdock chuckled.

"'Didn't work' is a value judgement, Face." A defensive tone tinged Hannibal's voice for a moment.

"No, it's a fact. 'Horribly backfired', now that would be a value judgement."

"Relax, Face." Hannibal turned back to his console. "I'm pretty sure I know what went wrong."

"That's a comfort." Face looked at Amy, who looked genuinely scared now. He gave her a reassuring smile and then wished someone would give him one too. "Okay, got one. Sending you the co-ordinates, Murdock."

"Muchas gracias, compadre. Hold on to your butts!"

-o-O-o-

Twenty minutes later they were hovering over the surface of an asteroid, holding position with thrusters. The flight deck emergency lights cast a bluish glow over their faces.

"I think we lost them," Murdock said. "They lost our radiation trail once we shut down main power. Now we just have to stay out of sight for another fifteen minutes and they have to turn around and go home, or they won't have the fuel to get back." He grinned and leaned back in his chair. "And then we can moon them out the back window if we like, but if they want to get home they have to keep going." He looked around. "Anybody volunteering to write 'Up yours, Decker' on my butt? Just, you know, not in permanent marker this time."

Face and Amy both shuddered. Hannibal gave a nostalgic sigh.

"So I'll just --" Murdock frowned suddenly. "Uh oh." He hit the comms. "Warm her up, BA, we gotta move."

"What's wrong?" Hannibal asked. "We can't show ourselves yet."

"You know how the asteroid is rotating?" Murdock said, "And you know how it's rotating faster than we're travelling? Well a kind of pointy, sticky out bit just came over the horizon and is coming right at us."

"Pointy sticky out bit?" Hannibal asked, with a sinking feeling.

"Okay, a mountain. It's a mountain. And it's heading right for us."

"BA!" Hannibal yelled over the comm, "Get us back to full power."

"That'll take a couple of minutes." BA's voice sounded over the channel. Hannibal looked at Murdock who shook his head.

"Gotta be faster, BA."

"Man, I can't change the laws of --"

"Fine, you take your time, I mean, you're at the back of the ship, so when we get rear ended by the mountain that's chasing us, it'll hit you first."

BA went silent for what seemed like an hour, "Okay, stand by for full power in one minute. And don't come crying to me if we explode."

Hannibal closed the channel.

"Murdock, how's it going?"

"Oh, spiffy. We can't reach escape velocity with thrusters, but just might be able to clear the mountain. Climbing now."

"It's still gaining," Face reported. Hannibal glanced back at him and found himself on the receiving end of Face's glare. "I'm about to make a value judgement, Colonel."

"We'll make it," Hannibal said, smiling at Face and the wide-eyed Amy. "We always make it."

"Full power now!" BA's voice broke over the comms system. Murdock's hands flew over the controls, and sudden acceleration pinned them all in their seats.

"Climb, baby, climb!" Murdock pleaded. "Just a little bit more!"

Hannibal could see it on the aft scanners. A wall of rock coming at them, rushing past as the ship climbed. A bank to starboard wrenched him in his seat. And suddenly the rock was gone, the stars appeared and they were clear. The sight of open sky drew a full throated yell of triumph from Murdock, prompting protests from Face and Amy.

And three fighter ships rose from behind the mountain and opened fire.