A while later, the three trucks rolled back out of the Preserve, headed back up the road to the prison. The short drive was made without incident; when they arrived at the gate the guard manning it opened the barrier and waved them through. Stone-faced, the driver of the first truck raised his hand in acknowledgment and drove on. Crouched beside him, out of sight, her gun pressed into his side, Melanie breathed a sigh of relief. So far so good, she told herself. The truck rumbled on; no sirens, yelling, or gunfire erupted, suggesting that their presence was not yet suspected.

Based on what Harry had told her about the layout of the prison and what to expect, it went about as well as it could possibly go. The captive guards drove the trucks in and parked them where they were expected to be parked; Melanie and the others who'd held them at gunpoint through the drive then handcuffed them to their steering wheels, took the keys, and left the trucks. From the backs the women poured out, fifty strong, all of them armed now. The wounded guards remained in the trucks, to be dealt with later on.

The next barrier was the main gates leading in to the holding cells and inner courtyard. According to the guards, and confirmed by both Harry and her own observations as an inmate here, this wasn't going to be an easy hurdle to cross. Here, there was always a guard in a cage high above the floor, a cage that was provided with loopholes he could fire a shotgun through; taking that cage was essential to getting inside, since the electronic controls that opened the primary and secondary gates were located there. Between those sets of gates was another guard station, always manned by at least two heavily-armed men. Stealth would take them no farther; they'd have to fight their way in from here.

From outside the front door, Melanie peeked in. There was a receiving desk, but currently no one was seated there; beyond that was the open area where the main gates were. She could clearly see the cage and the guard inside it.

"Any ideas?" she asked Harry.

"Yes." He checked the rifle he was holding, a long-barreled .30-30 with a scope. "We're going to need to create a distraction. Get him firing though the loophole. To do that, he has to stand in front of it. When he does I'll pick him off through it with this."

Melanie looked doubtful. "Harry, I'm sure you're good with a rifle too, but that slot is a very small target from here..."

"I'll do it. Count on it."

"You got it, Harry." She turned to the assembled women behind her. Knowing that her women would not allow her to take the risk herself, she didn't even try. "We need two, volunteers. This is high-risk, you could get hit. We need to get that guard up there firing through the slot in his cage. Generally in this direction." At least ten women jumped forward; Melanie chose the nearest two, two of her own, two she knew were experienced. "Go in there and shoot at the cage. The glass is bulletproof, but that doesn't matter, you'll draw his fire that way." She turned. "Ready, Harry?"

"Ready."

"Go!"

Without hesitation, the two women rushed into the open area and started firing their automatic rifles up at the cage. The guard jumped visibly, then stared down at them in disbelief for a few seconds, obviously wondering how they'd gotten this far. Picking up his shotgun, he stuck the muzzle through the slot and pointed it in the general direction of the two women. In response they started running, using the same crossing zigzag patterns they'd used in the forest to avoid being successfully "led" by the archers. The guard in the cage swung his barrel from side to side, trying to follow them.

He never got a chance, never even got off a single shot. From the edge of the doorway Harry's rifle spoke, just once. The guard's body jerked violently; the barrel of the shotgun slid far through the slot as he let go of it. He seemed to fumble with it for a moment, then he slid down out of sight.

Melanie looked around at Harry. "Is there anything," she asked, "that you don't do well?"

"I suck at card games," he replied. Then he was running past her, climbing the stair toward the cage. Near the top, he used the .45 automatic he carried to blast open the lock; it took eight shots, but finally he got it open and got inside. Melanie watched as he looked over the controls; then, a moment later, the outer gate started to rise.

Almost instantly gunfire echoed from inside. Everyone took cover; a bullet hit the wall right over Melanie's head, causing her to duck back quickly. Even as she was considering how to deal with this threat, the guard's shotgun, now in Harry's hands, boomed from inside the cage, and the two guards between the gates were obliged to take cover themselves. Wasting no time, Melanie led her women across the open entryway while Harry kept the guards pinned down. When he was obligated to stop and reload, one of the guards popped around the corner, his rifle at the ready--but practically in Melanie's face. She fired her pistol, and this time she did not miss. The guard, shot through the chest, crumpled to the floor.

"I give up!" the other guard yelled. "Don't shoot, I give up!"

"Hands up, no weapons, and come out, now!" Melanie shouted back. He did; a moment later, disarmed and handcuffed with his own cuffs, he was left sitting on the floor beside his dead comrade. Melanie looked up at Harry; he waved them in, then came back down the stairs himself. In the zone between the two gates, Melanie found the switch that opened the inner gate, and moments later they were all in the courtyard. The women swarmed in; the cell blocks, six of them, lay straight ahead. In front of one was a guard; someone fired at him and missed, and he threw down his shotgun and held up his hands. Melanie ordered him taken captive as well.

"Any ideas where the prisoners are?" Harry asked her. "A lot of these have to be empty."

"Not really," she answered. "Cell Block B is where I was held." She asked the other girls the same question, and got a chorus of "Cell Block B's" and "Cell Block C's" in response.

But, while they were making their decision, they heard a gunshot--from Cell Block F, which was at their far right. By unanimous and unspoken decision, they all rushed off that way. Hearing another shot as she neared the door, Melanie waved everyone else to the side and jerked it open; as she did she found herself listening to a new chorus, a chorus of female screams. She looked around the doorway.

And was just in time to see a guard, a large burly man, pulling an orange-jumpsuit-clad red-haired woman who was obviously a Class-A out of a cell by her hair. The woman was screaming, struggling, and protesting; ignoring all that, the guard shoved the muzzle of a handgun into the center of her chest and fired two quick shots. Blood splattered the floor behind her; she crumpled without a sound.

"Bastard!" Melanie screamed. Jumping out, she opened fire in his direction but missed him. He fired back, missing as well; from the other side of the doorway Paula appeared, and she fired at him too. She did not miss. Dropping his gun, the guard grabbed at his groin and fell to the floor.

Heedless of other possible dangers, Melanie rushed to him. As she went, she noticed two other corpses inside the cells. "Why?" she demanded, dropping to one knee beside him. "Why, why were you killing them?"

"Policy," he groaned. "They're death-row. Policy is to kill them if there's a threat of a jailbreak..." He looked up at her with pain-wracked eyes. His whole groin was covered with blood. "Please, I need a doctor..."

Melanie glared at him, then made a decision. "Fuck you," she snarled. His eyes popped wide open when she pressed her own gun into his chest. "You get what you were so willing to give them." She pulled the trigger; the guard spasmed twice, then relaxed.

She rose then; Harry and the other girls had rushed by her, and the remaining two guards in this cellblock had surrendered. Both were quick to point out that they were not, in spite of their orders, taking part in the executions of the women in the cells. Melanie gave orders that they were not to be harmed, then began opening the cells. The women held here, all Class-A's and sixteen of whom were still living, were confused but grateful for their release. Several, though not all, stripped off their orange jumpsuits and discarded them, saying they preferred the look of the women from the Preserve to prison garb.

The next step was to find the Class-B's the other guards had mentioned; Melanie hoped they were still alive. From Cell Block F they moved to B, where they found two guards more than eager to surrender to them and the two Class-B's, both alive and well. Interrogation of the guards revealed that the only ones left were those in the three towers marking the edges of the outer walls and the two manning the front and back gates. Using the intercom in the front office, Harry informed these men that the prison had been taken, they were guarding nothing, and guaranteed them that they would not be harmed if they surrendered. They did; the gun battles, for the moment, were over, and the women still had not yet suffered their first casualty.

From there, the women explored the remainder of the facility, collecting all the weapons they could find. Some of them wanted to execute the doctor; Melanie forbade it, although he had never been a friend to any of them. Instead, she confined him and his staff to the infirmary and delivered the wounded guards into his care.

The prison's administrative staff was a surprise, as was the housekeeping staff. With the exception of a couple of older men and women who'd been career employees of the Bureau of Prisons, the entire staff of both consisted of unusually attractive women, all under forty; all, Melanie noticed instantly, would have been Class-As or Class-Bs if they were inmates. The same was true of the housekeeping staff at the otherwise-deserted hunting lodge. Although some of the employees--the chef at the lodge, in particular, who'd been responsible for developing "long pig" recipes for those hunters who wanted to try a little cannibalism--were either sullen or fearful, the young women acted almost as the prisoners had, they were delighted to see the women from the Preserve.

The reason quickly became apparent. None of the secretaries and housekeepers were here voluntarily; without exception, Melanie discovered, they'd been blackmailed into coming to work at the prison. All--all the ones she talked to, at least--had been accused of some crime that could have landed them on death row, and they'd had the charges "suspended" on the condition that they accept employment on the island. The reasons were clear too; these poor girls were not only being treated as indentured servants--and as prostitutes, whether they liked it or not, they were expected to be available if the hunters wanted to pay for them--but they were "reserve stock" in case the supply of Class-As or Class-Bs ran low. A few of them had been there for fifteen years, and these veterans could remember times when charges were "reactivated" against one of their co-workers, who was then assigned to the Preserve or featured in a setup scene or TV show.

Practically all of them elected to join the women from the Preserve, now the "rebels" in general parlance. The few that did not were sent by Harry to the ranger station, where those rangers who did not want to be involved remained. After that, the victorious rebels invaded the well-stocked lodge kitchen, and an impromptu celebratory feast was held.

"You," Melanie said as she sat at a table with Harry and his family, "need to get out of here now. We won here, but you know as well as I do that this is temporary. I'm sure some of those guards got the word out about what was happening here before we captured them; it won't be very long at all before some sort of armed force lands here. When they do, we'll put up a fight, and hopefully a good one. But in the end we'll all be killed, I don't have any illusions about that." She sighed and looked out over the group assembled in the spacious lodge dining room. There were close to a hundred women and perhaps twenty men. "I want to find a way," she went on, "to get the women from the staff, and the rest of the rangers here and all, out too."

Harry grinned at her. "And how do you suggest we do that?" he asked. "There are no boats, no planes. The patrol boats dock in at the mainland. That's by design, to prevent escape attempts." He shook his head. "Looks like you're stuck with us, Melanie."

She scowled at him. "You're rather chipper about that, considering," she shot back. She glanced at Rachel and Eileen. "You have your family here. If you don't get them away to safety, they could get killed too."

"We'll take our chances," Rachel said.

"Besides," Eileen put in, "there are things we know that you don't know!"

Melanie stared at the girl. "What things?"

"You remember the group we talked about, Dave O'Neill's group? They've made some arrangements. They're sending a couple of--uhm--little boats over. Boats big enough to take us all."

Melanie's frown deepened. "They are? How do you know this?"

"Internet," Eileen answered.

"If it was on the Internet," Melanie countered, "won't the government know about it too? And if they do, what makes you think those boats will ever get here?"

"Oh, I think they might," Eileen said with a grin.

Wishful thinking, Melanie told herself, just plain old wishful thinking. "Can we stop them somehow?" she asked.

"Stop them?" Rachel said with a frown of their own. "Why do you want to stop them?"

"Because," Melanie said, "they're liable to get killed. Even if they don't they're liable to be arrested. Anybody here imagine that aiding a prisoner escape doesn't carry the death penalty these days? For their own sakes we need to stop them."

"I don't think we can," Eileen said. She looked almost sly. "They're probably en route now. No way to stop them."

Melanie sighed. "Well," she said, "all I wanted to do here was get the prisoners out. We've done that. We should go back to the woods now, back to the Preserve. We're more at home there, we can put up a much more effective fight. I'm sure they'll hit this place first anyway."

"I imagine they will," Harry agreed. "And I'm in agreement. Better tell the others."

Wasting no time, Melanie climbed up on a table, yelled for silence, and informed the group of her decision. "Those of you who were a part of the administrative staff or housekeeping staff here, think about what you're doing very carefully. If you go with us you're outlaws, and I'm very sure we're all going to be killed in the end; all we can hope to do is make the world take notice of us, maybe make the country think about the system that put us here. If you stay here, you're not criminals. I can't say what your future might hold, but you'll survive, at least." Her speech finished, she jumped down and, with Harry beside her, led the way back to the trucks. Watching the rebels climb in, she realized that few, if any, of the staff women had taken her up on her suggestion; practically all of them, if not all, were throwing their lot in with the ex-prisoners. Melanie sighed. They'd be killed, she was sure of it. And she wasn't sure if their deaths would accomplish anything. As the convoy got underway, she was feeling depressed about the whole thing. All she'd done was to buy the right of eighteen prisoners to die out in the open, in the woods, instead of in a cell or in front of a TV camera. And in the process she had, she was sure, condemned quite a few more...

Melanie hadn't planned for them to take the trucks very far; a few hundred yards beyond the gates, after which they'd abandon them and melt into the forest, waiting for whoever was going to come after them.

But they didn't even get quite that far. Just as the last couple of trucks was passing through the gate, Melanie and Harry, almost simultaneously, became aware of a noise coming from the direction of the mainland. They got out of the truck and, climbing atop the cab, looked back in that direction. As they watched, a number of assault helicopters, at least a dozen, came into sight above the prison walls.

"Damn," Harry breathed. "They're pulling out all the stops, right away."

"We'd better get--" Melanie started to add. She stopped speaking as she saw streams of smoke burst from the lead helicopters, thin fast-moving streams headed for the prison. A moment later, she and Harry were almost thrown from the top of the truck as heavy concussions rocked the ground. Yelling and screaming, the rebels poured from the trucks as huge fireballs engulfed sections of the prison; Melanie watched the wall nearest them crumble and crash to the ground.

"Damn!" Melanie cried. "They're killing their own people in there! The doctor, the guards!"

Harry could only stare for a moment. "I didn't expect this," he said slowly. "This kind of reaction..."

Explosions continued to rock the ground, brilliant fireballs erupted from the prison, and a huge column of smoke rose from above the structure. From where she was standing, Melanie could see that the lodge was being hammered too; it seemed that the helicopter pilots were under orders to leave nothing standing. Melanie's sympathies for the infirmary staff and the guards was muted; more than anything she was worried about the ranger station, and about what the invasion force was going to do once it had finished bombing the prison to the ground.

She didn't have to wait long for an answer to the second question. Like malign giant insects, three of the helicopters broke free from the smoke over the prison, headed right for them.

"They've got the trucks spotted!" Harry screamed. "Scatter!"

No second warning was needed. Melanie found herself running through the woods with Harry, Rachel, Eileen, and Michelle, diving over a ridge for cover. Just a few seconds later, explosions erupted right behind them; Eileen screamed and they all threw themselves on the ground. Melanie looked up to see a wheel fly over her head, followed by a mangled human leg. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed for a moment. This time they had not gotten away without casualties, and there were sure to be more. Two more explosions erupted, temporarily deafening her. Finally, when they seemed to have stopped, she peeked back over the ridge.

The helicopters were still there; the line of trucks was a flaming mess of mangled metal. Bodies, quite a few of them, were visible on the ground around them, and she could hear the cries of the injured. She waited, hoping the choppers would move off.

Instead, they rocked down lower, close to the treetops, and opened up on the brush around the trail with side-mounting Gatling guns. The forest was shredded by the force of the bullets; leaves were flying everywhere and medium-sized trees were going down. For a moment, Melanie thought they were firing blindly; but then, just as she was thinking that, a group of nude women broke from cover near the spot the helicopter had focused on.

Melanie could do nothing but watch. The women, about ten of them, raced across the trail, headed for denser cover on the opposite side. They not only didn't make it, they had no chance to make it. The Gatlings opened up on them, blasting their bodies backwards, tearing dozens of holes in them in an instant. Melanie saw one girl, one from her own troop, pinned up against a tree, shot thirty times or more already, her body bouncing in a grotesque dance as bullets continued to rip through her.

"God damn it!" Melanie screamed. "How'd they know they were in there?"

"Heat seekers," Harry told her. "They have infrared scanners. Hard as hell to hide from."

"They're going to kill us all," she said flatly. "Nothing we can do about it." Harry didn't answer, he merely pounded his fist on the ground in frustration.

One of the other helicopters turned on another patch of woods, further from them, and opened up with the Gatling guns. As before, a group of women--and one of the rangers--broke from cover in desperate flight. Melanie gasped as she saw that one of them was Paula. The gunfire pursued them as they frantically zigzagged across the open trail; Melanie saw one girl go down on Paula's left and the ranger fall to her right. She stopped, whirled around, and started firing her rifle at the helicopter. It was a surreal scene, the naked girl standing her ground, aiming her rifle at the intimidating shape of the chopper.

She got off two shots before the Gatling guns focused on her. Then a spray of blood filled the air behind her as she was riddled with bullets. Her rifle went spinning away, her body was driven backwards as the bullets continued, tearing her to pieces.

"We might as well step out there and get this over with," Melanie said, her voice flat and lifeless.

"Not quite yet," Harry told her. "Listen!"

She did; she could hear a rumbling. "What's that?" she asked.

"A little hope," Harry answered. "I hope." He looked up; Melanie followed his gaze.

Out of the sky, well over the helicopters, two jet planes streaked by. They swooped low over the helicopters, passed them, then turned and started back. Confused, Melanie stared at them; they'd passed close enough for her to see the insignia and the "U.S. Navy" logo on the wings.

"That doesn't look like hope to me," she said sourly. "Looks like more firepower against us."

Harry said nothing; Melanie watched as one of the helicopters turned around and headed back toward the prison. The other two started swinging their noses around as if to face the oncoming jets. From one of the jets, a very fast-moving smoke trail erupted, and an instant later one of the helicopters exploded in a fireball.

Melanie could only stare, open-mouthed. The other helicopter swung on around and headed away as flaming pieces of the one the jets had destroyed rained into the forest.

"Time to go," Harry said, rising. "I think our ride's here."

Melanie could only sputter. "What? What? What the hell just happened? Why'd he do that?"

"It'll all be clear in just a minute," Eileen told her. "Come on, we have to get everyone together and we've got wounded down there."

"Yes, we do," Melanie said. For the moment, she tried not to wonder about the jets and the motivations of the pilots. It was enough that the deadly helicopters were gone; she rushed down to the trail, trying to get everyone organized, gathering up the wounded. It became clear that they'd lost three of the rangers and over thirty of the women; in addition, they had about twenty with wounds of varying degrees of severity.

"Where do we go, Eileen?" Harry asked his daughter. "You had the plans..."

"North Beach," Eileen answered. "They weren't sure about the harbor in front of the prison."

"Who?" Melanie asked.

"You'll see," Eileen answered. "What's the best way to the North Beach?"

'This way," she said, pointing. Without asking any further questions, she led the troop slowly across the forest. Helping the wounded along meant it was slow going, but about thirty minutes later she crossed the dunes and stood looking out at the ocean.

Again she stopped and stood open-mouthed. There were a dozen ships out there of various sizes and shapes; by far the dominant one sat well out to sea.

An aircraft carrier. An aircraft carrier that was currently landing the two jets that had attacked the helicopters. Much closer in, maneuvering among the reefs, were six or seven landing craft, the first ones just reaching the shore. The assault helicopters were nowhere to be seen.

"Harry, what is all this?" Melanie demanded, her voice rising. "Have they come to arrest us or something?"

"Let's just say it wouldn't be a good idea to start shooting at them as they come ashore," Harry advised.

This Melanie didn't question. She turned and gave an order; everyone was to hold their weapons down. By the time she turned back, the first landing craft was pushing up on the beach. Two SEALs jumped out and pulled it on ashore, and a group of men got out, two of them in Navy dress whites.

"We're not going to accomplish much fighting them anyway," Melanie observed. "I'm going to go down and talk to them."

"Mind if we come?" Harry asked.

"It'd be safer if you stayed here..."

"I don't think there's any immediate danger. But things are probably going to get more formal now. If you say stay, we'll stay."

She gave him a quizzical look. "Okay," she said. "You, Michelle, me. Everybody else stay down."

Harry rose and stood beside her. "Let's do it," he said. Together, he, Melanie, and Michelle walked down the beach.

As they came close, one of the men stepped forward, a man dressed in military camouflage. Melanie scowled at him; she couldn't see his face clearly, but he looked familiar in a way.

"Harry Littlebird?" he called. "Melanie Abbot?"

"That's us," Melanie answered. "And Michelle... uh..."

"Jefferson," Michelle whispered. Melanie repeated it.

The man's face broke open in a wide grin. He started running toward them, taking off his hat as he came. "Melanie!" he yelled. "Melanie, God damn, it is you!"

Melanie took an unsteady step forward. "Dave?" she said, too soft for him to hear. "Dave?" Then, louder: "Is it really you, Dave?"

"Yes!" He ran on; Melanie, her eyes filling up with tears and making it impossible for her to see anything, moved toward him as well. They both stopped short, however, of a cinematic embrace.

"I can't believe it," she said, wiping her eyes. "Can't believe it... you're David O'Neill, right?" He nodded. "When I heard the name I thought... but then I thought, no, it can't be... but it is, you didn't forget, oh, Dave, my God..." She stepped on forward, put her hands on his shoulders, and laid her head on his chest momentarily.

"No," he said, patting her back gently. "I didn't. Come on, you need to meet some of the others." She let him lead her down to where the other men were waiting, and by now Harry and Michelle were following.

"First," Dave said, "let me introduce you to Rear Admiral Taylor Hansen," Dave said. "That's his fleet out there."

The admiral took his hat off. He was a large man, blond, with hair graying around the temples. He looked familiar to her; she tried to look back over the years, see him years younger.

"Miss Abbot," he said. "Very happy to see you, delighted to see you're all right."

The voice brought it back. "You were a hunter," she said slowly. "You came here, like Dave, as a hunter. There was a girl, you caught her in a snare, you..."

"A girl named Jill," he answered. "Yes. I'll never forget that name, or that face. That day I didn't take the advice of my good friend Captain Garner. I should have; what happened that day has haunted me ever since." He gestured at the ocean behind him. "This," he said, "is my task force. That's my flagship out there, the USS Jimmy Carter. We are, unfortunately, in rebellion against the government of the United States. Every man and woman here is here by his or her own choice. In support of you and your rebels."

Stunned, disbelieving, Melanie didn't even answer him. She looked around at the other men standing on the beach. Gradually, several of the faces assembled themselves. "John? Mitch? Oh, my God, oh my God..." She lost her control and fell to her knees on the sand, her hands covering her face.

Immediately, Dave was beside her. "Are you all right?" he asked.

She turned to him. "Yes," she answered. "Yes, oh God am I all right! I can't believe you guys... you don't understand, it means my friends didn't die in vain..." She shook herself and stood up. "Admiral, I can't express my gratitude..." she said. Then, much more formally: "I have wounded. Can we get them aboard your ship, get them some help?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered. "We can do that!" He turned and barked an order to one of the sailors on the launch, who then spoke into his radio. Moments later a pair of helicopters lifted off the carrier, headed toward them. Over the next half-hour, the wounded were carried back to the ship by helicopter while Melanie and the remainder of the rebels went back on the landing craft. Not long afterward she found herself walking down the flight deck in front of a long line of stiffly saluting--but smiling--sailors. She could not imagine what the scene would have looked like to an observer; a stark-naked woman, her hair a mess, walking along being honored by these men.

"What now, Admiral?" she asked as they neared the end of the line.

He looked at her and smiled. "I don't think you fully understand, Miss Abbot," he said. "I'm not making those decisions. You are acknowledged as the leader of the rebellion. My task force has declared allegiance to you. I'm not in command of these ships and planes; you are. We're at your service." His grinned broadened at her--again--open-mouthed and stunned look. "I do have a couple of suggestions, though."

It took her a moment to find her voice. "Please."

"Half the country is in rebellion right now," he told her. "It's something that's been brewing for a while; there was too much of this stuff going on, too many people had lost wives and daughters. One place that we know is very solidly behind your revolt is the city of Key West and the Florida Keys in general. My recommendation is that we sail for Key West. You and your troops can go ashore there and begin your march. We'll be able to follow up the coastline and offer you air and logistical support from offshore."

"Our march? Where are we marching?"

Again he smiled. "Washington, I'd assume. That's where your enemies are. The Congress, the President, the IRS, the Bureau of Prisons."

Melanie smiled and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Washington, eh? I like that idea, I really do..." She nodded, as if to herself. "Yes, Admiral. Let's sail for Key West."

"Before we do," Harry put in, "we probably should pick up the rangers and staff at the ranger station, the ones that didn't join us. We can put them ashore most anywhere, but I don't much like the idea of leaving them to whatever tender mercies the Bureau of Prisons might have."

"Sounds like a good plan, Harry," Melanie agreed.

The admiral gave another order; the huge ship turned slightly. "That'll bring us around in front of the complex, the prison, the lodge, and the station," he told them. "Just a moment or two, and then we can send people for them." He hadn't exaggerated; only a few minutes later the ship came around the rocky point that separated North Beach from the complex.

"No!" Harry cried. "No, God damn it, God damn them!"

Melanie just stared. Just like the prison itself and the lodge, the ranger station, the complex where all the rangers lived--and where most of them had stayed--was a smoking and still-burning ruin. The job the attack helicopters had done on it was very thorough.

The admiral sighed. "That," he commented, "makes me a lot less sorry we had to shoot down one of those helicopters..."

Harry stomped on the deck. "Why'd they do that, why? Those men radioed in, they told the bureau there weren't any prisoners there, that they were holding the ranger station! I know they did, that was the last order I gave them, and they were making the call when I left! Why in the fucking hell would they bomb it?"

"All things considered," the admiral said, "I'd guess they didn't want your rangers talking to the news media after the island was retaken. There's a lot of unrest in the country right now, they didn't want to feed the fire. This way, they can easily say that the prisoners slaughtered the rangers and the complex was bombed to destroy prisoner resistance."

"A lot of those rangers," Melanie noted sadly, "had families. Wives, little kids..."

"They sure as hell did," Harry said bitterly. "And they were all there, thinking they were safe there. I was the only one who brought my family into the Preserve, and that was at Rachel and Eileen's insistence. They'd be dead too if I hadn't given in..."

"We'll put a search party ashore," the admiral said. "See if there are any survivors. There might be." Melanie merely nodded; it was worth the time, even though she was sure, looking at the ruins of the complex, that there wouldn't be any. In this, it turned out, she was wrong; when the search party returned two hours later, they brought with them a total of six men, eleven women, and ten children, all from a group who'd been in the main ranger station when the attack began; the building had partially collapsed, but it doing so the concrete walls had crashed together to form a shelter they'd been able to hide out in.

Many more, though, were dead--and, among the survivors, there weren't any of the adults who declined to throw their lot in with the rebels in what was starting to be called "Melanie's War."

"I should have asked you this sooner," the admiral said as the fleet turned northward toward Key West. "What can I get you--and the other women--to wear?"

Melanie looked down at herself. She commonly forgot that she was running around nude these days. "Nothing, thank you, Admiral," she answered. "As for the others, let them choose for themselves. But for me, this has become my uniform; this is the way I've lived for ten years, I don't really want to change that now." She smiled broadly. "I'd kill for a shower, though!"

He grinned too. "Right this way."