Susan woke with a splitting headache, curled into a fetal position in a dark corner of the compound. Gradually fragments of memory stole back into her bludgeoned mind. First there had been the explosion of the soup pot. Must have been too much annarerobic bacteria in the last batch of blue green algae she'd put in, but no, there had been an amazing sound, like a psaltry, only with buz saw/bag pipe/accordian/tiple overtones, and a bit of nails on a chalkboard thrown in, and the whole pot had roiled up in rebellion. When the mixture had boiled over and hit the fire, well. Mom always said it wouldn't be evenly distributed. She could only thank the goddess that things had bgone in the other direction. molton algae and tofu were too horriffic to think of. Then the entire camp had erupted as Sgt. Kat's commandos had tried making a break for it. Susan had run, slashing left and right with her soup ladle, and had almost made ot to the wall when said wall had collapsed under the strain of the sounds from that horriffic musical instrument, and she had known no more.

Now she lay quietly listening, and stealing a careful glance under her out-flung arm to see what was happening. The camp was quite quiet, but there was a muttering and shuffling as a group of enemy soldiers escorted, oh no!, the comandos back through a ragged gap in the wall.

Susan huddled in the shadows, thinking about what to do next, when suddenly a voice out of the shadows next to her said . . .