Author's Note: OCs not owned by me are being used in this fic with the permission of their creators.

He was ratting them out. She knew it! Some people just had to be good Samaritans, thinking they knew better than you did what was best for you.

BJ made it to her feet, swaying, reaching for Todd’s hand. She pulled him up away from the food. He protested by pulling on her arm to try to sit back down. He didn’t understand.

“You’re not sending us back to the orphanage!” she snapped at Jason, ready to try to run past him with Todd in tow. If his headache was as bad as he claimed, she could whack him one good in the head to slow him down.

“Hold on! No one said anything about an orphanage.” He raised his hands, getting ready to stop her.

There was a crash from the kitchen, cracking wood, the sound of a door being kicked in. BJ jumped, startled.

Jason didn’t have to tell Keyop to grab Annalisa and Bobbie. As Keyop maneuvered them further into the room, towards the window, it shattered, spraying them with glass chips.

“Two!” Jason yelled, instructing Keyop not to transmute unless he absolutely had no choice. Keyop pulled out his bolas to cold-cock the armed green clad goon trying to climb through the window as Jason fired into the kitchen, where several more armed Spectran troopers were coming into the house through the shattered door. Keyop yanked the automatic rifle out of the slumped goon’s hands as he hung half into the window, looking to see if any more were trying to get in that way.

BJ covered Todd protectively as the glass sprayed them, her heart in her throat that their former safe haven was no longer safe. She pulled her knife, the one she had taken back from Jason when he was carrying her back to his car, ready to fight for her little brother if necessary.

She watched in a combination of awe and fear as Jason produced a gun to shoot at the men coming into the house through the kitchen door. The number of armed men pouring into the kitchen seemed not to end. She pulled Todd away from the window as Jason continued to shoot the men coming in.

He jerked and cursed loudly as some of the men fired back. “Get them out of here!” he yelled at Keyop, then raised his left arm.

“Come…on!” Keyop grabbed her arm to practically throw her into the next room, Todd right behind her. Keyop stayed between them and Jason and the men, but where they now hid did not give her a view of what was happening.

Bullets were slamming through the walls, sending wood chips and bits of drywall into the air like projectiles. There were shouts and yells and curses coming from the kitchen as well. Todd was starting to cry as he huddled against her.

BJ tried to see around Keyop, to see Jason, but Keyop was keeping them pinned down where they were.

Suddenly, there was silence, the dust floating in the air to burn her eyes and make her cough.

“Jase?” Keyop hissed, still crouched in front of them. There was a flash that made BJ wince as it echoed on her retina.

Jason came out of the kitchen, a scowl on his face. “Damn goons,” he muttered, looking, at his left arm in disgust. “This was a new jacket.”

 “You hit?” Keyop rose from his crouch. BJ started to rise too, her knife in a death grip in her hand, Todd latched onto her like a leach.

Jason poked at a slice in his jacket, his fingers coming away bloody. “Nicked me.” He turned his attention to them. “You all okay?” he asked in concern.

BJ stared at the blood. His words just hit her. He’d been shot by those men?

Jason’s arm was stinging annoyingly where the bullet had clipped him. Annalisa was staring at him with wide eyes, her knife – how had she gotten that back?- in her hand. He had expected to see her cowering in tears, maybe even hysterical, but she was none of the above. Bobbie, on the other hand, was behind her hanging on for dear life, his face streaked with tears.

“Keyop, check the goons,” Jason ordered, walking over to the kids. He knelt down to be on eye level with Bobbie. “You okay?” he asked. Bobbie’s blue eyes shifted to try to look around Jason in order to watch Keyop. “Those men can’t hurt you. I won’t let them,” he told the boy to try to alleviate his fear.

“Who are they?” Annalisa asked, her grip on her knife easing. Jason couldn’t believe she was asking, but then realized they didn’t have a television to see the news reports. They might not even know or understand there was a war going on. They had more important things to worry about beyond watching television, like where their next meal was coming from.

“They’re Spectran troopers,” he told her, impressed that she was keeping it together. Put then again, she’d pulled a knife on him earlier.

“All dead…but one,” Keyop declared from the kitchen. Jason didn’t nod: his head was pounding painfully. He had tried to leave one alive and had succeeded.

“Tie him up,” Jason said over his shoulder. “I’ve got some questions for him. Call the Chief, too, to report what happened. We need a clean-up crew.”

“Right.”

Jason turned his attention back to the kids. He couldn’t think of any reason Spectran troops would have had for following him and Keyop. He knew they hadn’t blown their covers. He doubted Zoltar was trying to kidnap them to try to blackmail the Chief with his own children. They had tried to kidnap Princess two years earlier and had learned the hard way how lethal she was out of Birdstyle.

That left the kids.

“Spectran? What are they?” Annalisa asked. Jason sighed, his pounding head reminding him he had a migraine brewing. Transmuting back and forth so quickly was going to compound it. He really didn’t have time to explain before he started throwing up.

“Annalisa, A Galactic Security team is going to come to take them away and to place you and Bobbie into protective custody.” At her frightened look, he tried to smile. “They are not police, not will they take you to an orphanage, I promise. You’ll stay with me and Keyop. We need to find out why they came here after you and Bobbie.”

She stared hard at him for a full minute before nodding. She pointed at his arm.

“We have a first aid kit. I can fix your arm,” she said and asked Bobbie to go get it. Jason stopped the boy, not wanting him out of his now blurring sight.

“Keyop,” he called. “I need you in here.” Then to BJ, “Where’s the first aid kit?”

“In the bathroom.” She pointed to the right to show him.

As soon as Keyop came back, Jason stood up. The change in his blood pressure made his head spin as it pounded anew. Bile rose in his throat.

“Got this,” Keyop told him in understanding.

Jason headed for the bathroom, fast. He only felt marginally better after throwing up. His vision was all over the place.

He didn’t have time to be weak. He called on his implant again. It took a few moments for his vision to clear. He was able to find the first aid kit and brought it back to the room.

He had no doubt Keyop had reported both his migraine and knick in the arm. A medical unit would be with the clean-up crew. In the meantime, he might be able to get more information out of Annalisa if he let her treat his arm.

“Okay?” Keyop asked as he came back into the room.

“For the time being.” He sat down on the floor in front of Annalisa, noting she was leaning on her brother, holding her injured ankle up. He’d forgotten about her injury. Anger welled up at himself. “Annalisa, you need to sit down, get off that ankle.” She didn’t argue. She slowly sat down in front of him, Bobbie following her example. “Here.” He extended the first aid kit to her. Bobbie was still wide-eyed but no longer crying.

Annalisa took it, fighting the clasp for a moment to get it open.

“How do you know about first aid?” he asked her as he shucked off the jacket. The movement sent an additional annoying pain up and down his arm.

She shrugged, taking out a small bottle of alcohol, wipes, gauze and tape. “I have to take care of Bobbie,” was all she said. Jason rolled up the bloody sleeve, examining the two inch long slice that was only a few inches above his elbow.

“Gonna need…stitches,” Keyop said after getting a look at it.

“It’s not that bad,” Jason retorted. “How’s our friend?” He leaned his head towards the kitchen to indicate the last remaining trooper.

Annalisa poured alcohol onto wipes to clean the wound. Jason sucked in air at the severe burning sensation. Bobbie winced in sympathy and signed. Jason only caught the end of it.

“I’m a baby?” he asked the boy, somewhat indignant. Bobbie shook his head and signed again.

Annalisa interpreted. “He said Chas was a baby,” she said. Jason winced again as she wiped the area around the wound as dry as she could. Bobbie hadn’t signed Chas. He’d signed ‘Ian’. Maybe the brother’s name was Charles Ian, he wondered.

“Why was Chas a baby? That’s your older brother, right?” Jason asked, watching her work. She seemed to know what she was doing and wasn’t the least bit skittish.

“Yeah. I had to patch him up.”

“How’d he get hurt?” Jason wanted to know as she started to place butterfly stitches over the cut. She was cautious and methodical; making sure the skin was closed but not puckered.

“He got into a fight,” she answered as she picked up the gauze to cut an appropriately sized section.

‘Knife fight,’ Bobbie signed. Jason shared a look with Keyop.

“So that’s how you know how to use a knife,” Jason noted as Annalisa placed the gauze over the wound and taped it into place.

She eyed him for a moment before putting everything back into the first aid kit. “I didn’t ask you how you know sign language.”

He looked at Keyop. It was his story. Keyop shrugged.

“If you haven’t…noticed…I have…a speech…impediment,” he said. Annalisa nodded. “When I was…little, I hated…to talk, so…I signed.”

“We all had to learn to talk to him,” Jason added.

“We?” Annalisa was sharp, Jason thought.

“We have two other brothers and a sister,” he told her. Maybe that would make her even more comfortable.

He was just about to ask how Bobbie was mute when they heard pounding from the kitchen. “Guess our prisoner is awake,” he said, getting to his feet. “I need to talk to him.” He thanked Annalisa for patching him up and reached over to rub Bobbie’s head. The kid was starting to grow on him already.

“I’m going to have a chat with him. Stay in here with Keyop,” he told them. Annalisa’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she didn’t say anything.

There was a door between the kitchen and the room the kids had been sleeping in. It was damaged from the firefight, but intact enough to be closed. He didn’t want the kids to overhear the conversation.

The trooper was lying on the floor with his dead compatriots. He rolled towards the door as he heard it close. Keyop had pulled off his car face helmet before gagging him, so Jason could clearly see the hatred in his eyes.

Jason gave him a patented Condor smirk as he crouched down near his head and reached over to remove the gag.

“I know who you are,” the Spectran immediately spat in heavily accented English. That meant he wasn’t normally stationed on Earth. For some reason, every Earth-bound Spectran they’d met spoke flawless English. Jason filed that away to ponder at another time. “I’ve seen your face, Condor. “I’m going to tell everyone.” There was a manic gleam in the man’s eyes.

Jason made a tsking noise and flicked the Spectran’s nose with his finger. The Spectran cried out in pain.

“That’s going to be hard to do, considering where you’re going. Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? You guys seemed shocked as hell that I was here.” Jason smiled at him as he pulled out a shuriken. The man’s eyes widened, but he gave no sign of being frightened.

“I’m going to yell the press. Everyone will know. You will be useless to your precious G-Force.”

Jason tsked and flicked his nose again. He howled and tried to get free, tears in his eyes.

“Gonna be hard for you to do from a cell eleven stories underground,” he told the trooper, flipping the shuriken between his fingers like a baton. “Now, if you tell why you’re here, we might be able to make arrangements for three floors down with a TV.”

The trooper spat at him, so Jason flicked his nose a third time before putting the gag back in place. He’d let the interrogators have him.

Jason’s enhanced hearing picked up multiple vehicle sounds, followed by a squeal of tires and brakes. He cautiously looked out the door to make sure it was the clean-up crew and not more goons.

Several unmarked vans and cars pulled up behind the house, blocking in the Maxima. He recognized them and relaxed.

“They’re here,” he called back to Keyop as he opened the kitchen door back up.

As the clean-up crew disembarked from their vehicles, Jason was surprised to see the Chief and Cloud, their reserve member, getting out of one of the sedans.