This issue is dedicated to the memory of the late Kim Yale. The loving wife and writing partner of John Ostrander.

Raymond Sikorsky’s head was in his hands. "That’s it. We’re finished. The mission was a total failure with nearly 90% missing or dead. Our answer is obvious."

Judge Petrie, another member of the Commission, agreed. "Yes, we must cut our losses and close down Forceworks."

Anger flared in the eyes of General Heywerth. "You people have got to be kidding me! We can’t leave our people to rot on that island!"

The room erupted in screamed accusations and arguments. Robin Chapel, crestfallen and close to tears after she had delivered the news of the mission failure, was in shock at the way these people were behaving.

Anne-Marie Hoag, grandmotherly face looking angry, raised up a water pitcher and slammed it on the table. The pitcher shattered sending shards of glass and a rapidly growing pool of water out across the table. General Heywerth leapt up with his formerly starched dress uniform pants now soaked in water.

"What in the hell do you think you….."

Hoag interrupted him. "Oh, pipe down and listen. I agree with Heywerth. We don’t leave our people in bondage. Everyone comes home."

Heywerth, shocked at Hoag’s support of his position, abruptly sat down.

Ray Sikorsky said, "what do you mean? They just beat the hell out of us down there. You were right from the start, Anne-Marie. Forceworks wasn’t ready and this mission’s failure and those dead people rests squarely on our heads. How can you be changing your position now?

Anne-Marie looked carefully around the table. "I’m not changing my position, Ray. The situation has changed. Most of the personnel that went on this mission are either dead or captured. The only thing to be done for the dead is to seek revenge, which I’ll remind you…got us into this situation. However, the living are a different matter."

Anne-Marie Hoag paused a moment. "Do you remember the hostages in Iran? That crisis ate away at our entire country’s morale and eroded the nation’s spirit. It also killed off any chance that Carter had of re-election. That’s what these prisoners are gentlemen, hostages to be used whenever this crazy person chooses to expose them. They are a direct threat to our nation’s well-being."

Finally, there is one other reason. As General Heywerth said, we don’t leave our people behind. It’s the right thing to do. It’s that simple."

The vote was unanimous.

Robin Chapel was in charge. Tremens wouldn’t be back for several more hours, so Chapel was the boss for now. She didn’t intend to fail Mrs. Hoag.

Within an hour of her assuming temporary command, most of her new recruits were enroute from Colorado on a plane. Most were under sedation.

A few hours later, another new person walked in the door. He was stocky and mean looking. The blank for name in his personnel file was empty.

Chapel welcomed him and he introduced himself. "You can call me Bullet."

Chapel asked, "and what do you do Mr. Bullet?"

"Not Mr. Bullet, just Bullet," he replied. "Let’s just say that I’m a very quiet answer for some of our governments problems. They flew me in to lend a hand."

Chapel asked, "They?"

"Yeah…you know…THEY. Where can I get a beer, a pool table and a bunk?"

Chapel had Bart show him to his room.

The phone is ringing. Chapel has it up to her ear listening and reminding herself, "be charming, be charming, be charming…."

The phone is picked up. A masculine voice says, "Hello?"

Ms. Chapel sweetly introduces herself and he hangs up.

She calls back. A masculine voice answer, "Hello?"

Chapel responds, "Is this the gutless wonder?"

The voice replies, "What the hell do you mean? You are lucky you are a woman or I…"

"Oh shut up, you coward," Chapel snaps.

The voice sighs. "What in the hell do you want me to do?"

"Rescue American hostages from the tin-pot dictator drug lord who is holding them prisoner." Chapel says harshly. "Are you still patriotic or are you just a big bag of augmented B.S.?"

The voice replies.

Chapel says before hanging up. "Just go to the airport. Transport has been arranged. Just tell the person at the desk you are John Walker and they’ll get you here."

She hangs up on him.

Chapel takes a bathroom break then bums a cigarette off of a technician. It tastes good. It’s her first cigarette since she quit smoking her junior year in college.

She gets back to work.

The Compound 2:15 p.m.

Chapel is at Tremens desk checking the status reports from maintenance. Peggy Carter comes in and notifies her that the data link with the converti-plane is up and running and that Mother is sending the tactical data from the last mission to Bart as we speak. She also passes on a request from Stone.

Chapel thanks her and ignores Peggy Carter’s suggestion to get some sleep.

Chapel hangs up the phone with the NYPD detective. Stone’s request will be on the way in an hour.

The Compound 4:00 p.m.

The core of the new field team members from Colorado arrives. They are immediately given private rooms……in the detention center.

U.S. Agent arrives in a foul mood. He goes to his old room, throws Rozum’s stuff out into the hall and promptly goes to sleep.

Stone’s people from New York arrive. One is tall and rangy with a handlebar mustache. Reminds you of a cowboy until he opens his mouth and you hear that thick New York accent. The other is suave, intelligent and charming with absolutely wicked good looks. He is also in handcuffs. One is sent to a room and the other is sent to a detention cell.

Chapel wakes up with her face stuck to Tremens desk by drool. She is embarrassed and glad no one came in and saw her asleep. She stretches, wipes off the desk with a paper towel then goes down to the Operations Center below to check the status reports. A technician is nodding off a the communications monitoring panel. She wakes him and warns him. She picks up the status reports and goes to check on Bart.

He is asleep sitting in front of his computer. She has him do a secure shutdown on the terminal and has him go get some sleep.

Chapel is perusing the status reports and taking notes while eating a donut and drinking some coffee. The survivors of the Costa Verde mission arrive. She welcomes the solemn group back.

The only people awake at the Compound are the night shift security personnel and the watch officer at the Communications console in Ops.

The room is full. All the department heads and all members of the field team are present. Some people, mostly looking particularly unhappy, are wearing solid metallic bands around their necks.

Robin stands, "all right people. Let’s start."

"I am Robin Chapel, Director of Operations for Forceworks." She noticed a trio of the rougher looking guys, with banded necks, giving her the look and whispering to each other. They all grin when she looks their way. She ignores them. As she is introducing the department heads, she notices Tork leaning over and talking to the three guys. They glare at him, but quit talking. She continues.

"The last mission undertaken by this unit was a complete and utter failure. Casualties ran at about 90% and there was a total failure to meet any of the mission objectives." A collective gasp and some muttering begins. "The failure was NOT solely on the ground, it was also in this building. We threw together a team and sent them on a combat mission with inadequate intelligence, no contingency planning, etc. As the Director of Operations I take full responsibility for those failures and have done everything possible to insure that they won’t happen again. That’s my role. Your role is to carry the ball in the field."

"For you people WITHOUT the neck jewelry, I give a warm welcome and my heartfelt thanks that you have chosen to accept this mission. Now, for those WITH the neck jewelry, your situation is a bit different. You have a choice to make. I understand that you have been briefed on our offer prior to your arrival, but I am going to review it one more time."

"Here’s the deal. You serve with Forceworks and you get a nice fat stipend from Uncle Sam, room and board and time taken off your prison sentence for good service. For exceptional service in the line of duty, you MAY qualify for a full pardon. Now the downside is that if you try to escape, those shiny new metal collars will explode and take your criminal minds to new heights of existence. In addition, if you screw up on a mission, you will lose all of your ‘good time" saved up and go back into the Vault or whichever institution you were incarcerated in prior to your arrival here. Finally, the missions that Forceworks is designed to accomplish will sometimes result in injury or death. It’s a risk you take for a reward. So, if anyone is out then just raise your hand and we’ll return you to your point of origin."

No hands were raised.

"Good. Then I welcome you all to the ranks of Forceworks. Now, some introductions are in order."

The introductions went relatively smoothly except for the fight that nearly broke out when U.S. Agent realized that the Resistants were present. (He would have walked except that Chapel pricked that big ego).

The rest of the briefing went smoothly. Peggy Carter reviewed the communications procedures. Mother Majowski, assisted by Bart Rozum, reviewed all of the intelligence on Costa Verde including satellite photos and computer generated diagrams and layouts. Strausser discussed the modifications that were being made to the two converti-planes that would be used for this mission. Finally, the new Mission Commander, Lt. Marcus Stone, was given the freedom to design his own plan of action with the assistance of Mother and Tork, his best friend and a highly decorated NYPD Detective. Later that day, after the personnel had completed their preparatory tasks, the team was briefed in on the mission.

Tremens stayed in his office and out of the way.

"So far so good," Alfredo Morelli thought as he scratched himself through his Costa Verde military uniform. "Who would have thought that just three days ago, sitting in my cell in Ryker's Island, that I would end up trying to break into a prison (even if it is in a third world commode of a country) with a member of the NYPD and a mutant terrorist?" Life sure was funny.

He glanced at his companions while Marvin Flumm AKA Mentallo did his mutant mental mumbo-jumbo on the gate guards brains. Flumm looked like some old carnival magician with that goofy goatee and the bald, black Stone looked like his namesake: stone. Expressionless, hard as nails and ready to kick someone’s butt on short notice. Glad he’s on my side this time.

In a few moments the gate guards (both, whom he noticed, were badly in need of bath), were leading them inside the massive stone wall and across the yard towards the entrance to the main prison building. The structure was obviously old (probably built by whichever colonial power was the last to misrule Costa Verde he thought) and constructed of very thick stone with heavy iron gates. On once side the courtyard was dominated by a large square stone tower that had obviously been part of the original construction and on the other side a rickety looking wooden tower had been added (for symmetry he supposed). Each was manned with a couple of guards and a machine gun. "Should make it interesting if things fall apart", he thought. As they stepped into the entranceway gate to the main building, Stone turned to Mentallo and delivered a punch that sent Flumm sprawling on the ground. Morelli thought, "here we go," as he stitched their two smelly escorts with bullets from his MAC-10 submachinegun. He dove for the cover of the archway as Stone dosed Flumm with a couple of well-aimed kicks to the face. Dirt kicked up into Morelli’s face as the machineguns began to fire into the courtyard. Yeah, life sure was funny.

Beams of plasma leapt from Occult’s oversized eyes as he blew a hole in the prison wall big enough to drive a truck through. His glanced quickly at his companion, Meteorite, who was furiously concentrating and gesturing at the large stone tower flexing his gravitational muscles. Occult noticed the big tower beginning to sway as the assault team rushed through the hole into the courtyard. He followed.

Crucible was leading the way. "Let’s show these flat-scans just how powerful we mutants are," he thought as he turned a trio of guards into staggering torches with the flames that had come from his hands. He was still feeling triumphant when the machine gun fire from the wooden tower on the opposite side of the courtyard cut him down.

Tork yelled, "Scatter!" as the stone tower toppled over into the courtyard. He tugged the yelling and blubbering team doctor behind a partially smashed car parked in the courtyard as stones fell around them. "Calm down, Malus!" he said to his panicked companion. He smelled something…it smelled like…."Ah, gimme a break, you didn’t…" The wet stain on Dr. Karl Malus’s trousers made it clear that he had. "Damn," Tork muttered as he began to fire his shotgun at the tower.

A stocky heavily built man charged across the courtyard running directly at the wooden tower. Quill wondered, "What the hell is he doing?" then began to shoot rushing guards with the 6 to 12 inch long spines that he fired directly from his own body.

The stocky man picked up speed as he hurtled across the courtyard. He thought," I’ll show you a real Bullet," as he crashed into the tower shattering its lower support structure. Like it’s stone counterpart, it also fell.

Tork grabbed Malus by the arm and said, "Come on Doc…time to go," and drug him towards the entranceway.

Johnny Walker’s voice came into Stone’s ear over the headset, "We’ve got troops and some of those old WWII surplus tanks coming. Hurry it up."

"Just hold your position, Agent, " Stone replied as Morelli burned through the lock on the gate.

"This is crazy," Paralyzer whispered to the pretty woman lying on the ground next to him as the approaching tanks made the ground rumble. She nodded fearfully in reply.

Paralyzer continued. "I’ve been thinking, I think you can cut off these neckbands with your powers and we could escape from this bozo."

She looked at him with surprise on her face. "What do you mean? Stone told us how important our role is to this mission. We have to keep the Costa Verde Army from interfering with the rescue!"

Paralyzer scoffed, "Rescuing some government flatscans? That’s not our mission, that’s Stone’s. We need to get out of here and hook back up with the rest of the Resistants."

Mist Mistress thought a moment then leaned over and touched Paralyzer’s collar. He started a little as the acid burned through the metal and scorched his neck a bit. She then removed her collar. They ran into the night.

Twenty unconscious or dead soldiers lay on the dirt road leading to the prison. U.S. Agent could hear the tanks approaching. "Where the hell are the other two?"

He was in a rage. First, he had allowed himself to be coerced into this mission by that bitch, Chapel (quite a dish to be sure, but still a bitch). Then he had been assigned to work with some mutant terrorist scum that he himself had worked to put into prison. Now, they were gone. No surprise…cowardly terrorist trash.

He yelled into the darkness, "I WILL find you when this is over and rip off your arms and legs like you were bugs!" Then he leapt on to the approaching tank

"Burn Baby Burn," Morelli sang to himself as the chemical burned the lock away on the cell door. The firing in the narrow hallway was loud and hurting his years, but this is what he really loved: action. It had been awhile for the self-admitted action junkie. The last time he had felt that wonderful rush of adrenaline is when the Sisters’ had tried to gang rape him in the shower at Ryker’s. He had truly enjoyed hurting the violent sexual deviants who got their kicks from inflicting pain on new inmates. Two of the five would never inflict anything on anybody again and the others would bear marks from the fight for the remainder of their sick, twisted lives.

He entered the cell with the shaky looking Malus in tow, the song in his head combining with the staccato bursts of Stone’s rifle and Tork’s big booming .44 magnum revolver into an odd symphony.

U.S. Agent looked up at the stars as he thought, "I’ve gotta get up or I’m a dead man." He had trashed the first tank by ramming his augmented-strength-propelled fists through the thin armor like it was tissue paper. The second tank had ran off the road after he had knotted the barrel of the main gun into something resembling a pretzel. He had gotten too involved with that one he thought. Barely got my shield up as the third tank fired its main gun. The impact from that round had sent him flying down the road and now he could hear the other tank or tanks moving around to finish him off. That’s when he noticed the hands trying to tug him up.

Under the light of the full moon he recognized her face. "Where did you go?" he asked.

Mist Mistress fearfully replied, "I was escaping. Now stand up"

U.S. Agent, still feeling a bit fuzzy. "Then why are you here?"

Mist Mistress, "Stone made it clear that if we failed, then the mission would be a failure. I know I may just be an illegal mutant to you, but I’m an AMERICAN illegal mutant. I couldn’t leave you and the others to die. Now, get up!"

He did.

"Guess he just needed something to do," Morelli thought as he admired Karl Malus’s efficient rendering of medical care to the obviously tortured pair of men he had just freed from their chains. Bullet entered the cell.

"Let’s get going," he said as he hefted one of the men over his shoulder and headed out of the cell. "I’ve turned into a friggin’ one-man ambulance service," he grumbled.

Morelli and Malus grabbed the other man and followed.

"The blocking force looks to be in a little trouble," Mother Majowski, flying above the battlefield, said to Stone over his earphone.

"Dispatch Occult and Meteorite to reinforce them and then feel free to light the army up with that mini-gun. We have everything under control at the prison and we are hauling two rescued prisoners out, " Stone replied.

He continued. "And have the other converti-plane pick us up in the courtyard."

Mother replied, "Roger, the other aircraft is on the way."

20 minutes later in a field outside the prison….

Mother fired the door-mounted mini-gun at the advancing enemy troops as the blocking team ran for the plane. "Mowing them down like grass," he thought.

U.S. Agent leapt aboard with an unconscious Mist Mistress followed by Occult and Meteorite who were serving as the rearguard.

Mother yelled, "Where is Paralyzer?

A laughing Meteorite crowed, "Escaped!"

The plane lifted straight up, the tilt-wings rotated and it shot off into the darkness mini-gun blazing.

Stone spoke into the mike, "The mission was a success. We have one dead, two wounded and one missing and presumed escaped. We have recovered Tom Nakadai AKA Warhawk and have captured one prisoner.

"Some survivors of the first mission have just arrived in Honduras in a stolen bush plane," Peggy Carter’s voice said over the radio.

"Really? That’s terrific!" Stone replied.

"Oh and there’s one other thing…the President sends his congratulations on a job well done."

"Greetings and welcome to the FANFARE everybody! I’m Trisha Thornson."

"And I’m Craig Winters. MARVEL FANFARE is your sixty minute nightly fill of the biggest superhuman stories of the day. This story is just in…Hector Gonzalez, President of the Caribbean nation of Costa Verde and an alleged drug lord, announced today that Costa Verde has been attacked twice in the past several days by what he refers to as ‘the hired superhuman terrorists of the Imperialistic United States."

"Sources say that the attacks may have been in retaliation for Gonzalez’s suspected involvement in the ‘New York City Massacre’ that resulted in the deaths of over two hundred dignitaries from around the world including John Patterson, a close friend of the President and the Chairman of the International Conference on Drug Policy."

"President Gonzalez, commonly known as ‘The Razor’ due to the brutal methods in which he deals with his opponents, demonstrated his displeasure by having the half-decayed bodies of those claimed to be killed in the attack hung from the walls of the Presidential Palace. "

"The White House has denied any U.S. involvement in the matter."

NEXT ISSUE: Whom survived the first mission in Costa Verde and how did they escape? Who is this mysterious prisoner? What is Stone going to do with the treacherous Mentallo? Who will stay and who will go? Will this team ever get a permanent cast of characters? Some new members join the team and a couple of familiar faces from the Vault (you just have read that series) pay a visit. It’s a double-sized extravaganza that delves into the characters of Forceworks.

----Shan Kelley