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"Polish that any harder, you'll be down to bare metal."

Sam turned round to snap at the critic, and half way round put together male, tenor and Australian. "Jason! Are you better? It's been weeks!"

"Two weeks, five days." Jason leant casually against the wall looking pale, even thinner than before, but thoroughly happy. "I've been let out on the understanding I don't do anything too energetic for the next few days. Racing isn't energetic, is it?"

Sam's mind went blank as she struggled for a way to say 'actually, yes' diplomatically, but he took pity on her.

"Just kidding. They gave me a choice of paperwork or mechanic for a week. No contest. I'm supposed to be giving you a hand."

Sam grinned delightedly. "Great! There's a reason this car's so shiny. Next on my list is stocktaking."

---

Standing in the storeroom, Jason stared at the date on the top of the list. "You were supposed to do this weeks ago!"

"Two weeks, five days." Sam's smile was shaky. "I did start. Your best buddy Mark hauled me out in the middle last time, and now every time I come back in here, I can't stop thinking about what happened." She considered the shelves and appeared to come to a decision. "Can I talk to you?"

Jason took a breath to answer, caught it awkwardly, and coughed hard. God, but he was glad he hadn't done that during his appraisal that morning. Chris Johnson would have refused to clear him to go back to work, and he might just have gone insane with boredom.

"Just as long as it's not 'I think my new friends are from Sigma Minor.'"

"Where?"

"Never mind. Go on."

"Did they tell you what happened?"

"More or less." Desperately frustrated, Jason had harassed the medical staff until they'd found out for him that 'his' operation had been a success. He'd assumed for several days that it had been a wild goose chase, and had been horrified to find out that he'd been right all along. Mark had pulled no punches in telling him what he thought of a plan which relied on one particular person not being incapacitated, and Jason was forced to agree - to himself - that his commander was right. 'I told you they were Spectran', 'Thank you for taking over from me', all had remained unsaid.

In fact, when Mark had finally been allowed in to see him, he'd used language Jason had considered his own to describe exactly what he thought of Sam for not doing what she'd been told and staying safely hidden. He'd finished off with 'no matter how well Sam was doing up till then, if Princess wasn't a crack shot with a rifle, we'd have one dead mechanic. Next time you see me even considering using a civilian, you can shoot me.'

Sam stared into the distance. "It was Adam. He grabbed me from behind. The Eagle took the window out, and the Swan just shot him. Through the eye. It was horrible. The bullet went so close I heard it. And it didn't worry them! They just turned round and carried right on. I saw the Eagle kill seven, eight Spectrans in a few seconds, and he didn't even flinch. Like a day at the office." She ran out of breath, struggled to regain some composure and carried on. "I thought they were just the top ISO security team, like your Team 7, but better. But you're not like that. Mark isn't, Rick isn't. They were terrifying. I was more afraid of them than of the Spectrans."

Jason looked at her, discarding the wholly inappropriate responses which insisted on coming to mind. 'Actually, that was Mark.' 'No, I'm not like that. I'm even more ruthless.' 'It was all your own fault, you should never have come out – and by the way, Mark thinks you're an idiot.' If she'd been a security officer, he'd have used the last. She wasn't, and she never would be.

"And that's the way it has to be." He put a hand over her shaking one. "Some huge proportion of their opposition either surrenders or runs away. That only happens because G-Force are utterly ruthless with anyone who stands and fights. You see them kill anyone who wasn't resisting?"

Sam shook her head, mute.

"If they'd stopped to think about the risks in shooting Adam, they might be dead. You certainly would be. Mark, or Rick, or I, or any other ISO operative, would have done exactly the same. Lucky for you the Swan's one of the best shots in ISO."

Sam turned, but didn't meet his eyes. "I know it had to be done. I just don't understand how anyone could do it. Even watching was awful. I never, ever want to see anything like it again."

Jason decided she'd calmed enough to risk a joke. "And there was me all ready to write your reference for ISO Security."

Sam's giggle was nervous, but present. "What, 'can be relied on to throw up under pressure'?"

"Something like that." He coughed again. "I'm obviously working too hard already. How about that coffee you promised me?"

"Well, if you still need taking care of…"

"Don't even think it. I've had enough of being taken care of for the next ever." Mischief lit up his face. "I'm sure a walk would do me good. We're going to the café for a real cup of coffee, and you can fill me in on just how badly my replacement did on Saturday."

"Stupid idiot should have had it won, if he'd only seen the gap…"

Jason listened with relief. Sam's mind was back on racing, where it belonged. She still had a life here, he still had a racing career, they'd smashed the local Spectran recruiting program, and a fair proportion of the dissatisfied local youth, having been scared out of their wits, were thanking Providence for their narrow escape and behaving in an unusually law-abiding manner. The weather had improved and he'd be back training properly in just a few more days. In the meantime, he might finally have time to get his race car tuned to his satisfaction, and out of reach of the ISO doctors he could do some unofficial fitness training in his old spot on the waste ground behind the track. It had all turned out for the best.

This time, they'd been lucky.

---

Notes:

1) Flu. Flu is not just a bad cold, it can be this severe and worse, easily. Even for someone as young and fit as Jason. The flu epidemic at the end of the First World War killed far more people worldwide than the fighting did, and was particularly notable for targeting fit young adults - the section of the population normally least affected. If Spectra wanted a way to incapacitate Earth's armed forces, they could do a lot worse than a new and vicious strain of flu.

Do antivirals stop you being infectious? Depends which website you read. For story purposes, I've presumed ISO have something similar which, like current antivirals, doesn't do that much for the patient, but does make them noninfectious. Otherwise Chris Johnson wouldn't have allowed Mark anywhere near Jason, and probably would have slapped both him and Tiny in quarantine. And I'd have been writing a story solely about Team 7 which nobody wanted to read.

Vaccines do work, though only against the specific strains in any particular year's vaccine. I'm guessing Jason stood next to someone recently back from Darkest Peru where the flu virus going round in the States five years ago is still active.

2) Dyslexia. Let me first say I have the utmost respect for anyone who has to cope with this problem. I hope I've presented it realistically and avoided the standard cliches of a) the person is stupid and b) the person is illiterate. a) is just rubbish. b) can and does happen, especially if dyslexia goes undiagnosed, but is far from a foregone conclusion.

The coloured glasses do exist, but how they work (or if they work at all) depends on which website you believe. I do know several children who use them, and one adult who, besides being a primary school literacy teacher, is a published children's author.

Ironically, given how most writing is presented, black writing on white paper is considered the hardest of all colour combinations for a dyslexic to read!