Snow-borne

"Mishael, I was in the US Marshal's Fugitive Task Force program for twelve years, so yes, I have done this before and I never lost a team mate," Philly informed her.

"That sounds like the 'Big Time'," Mishael was impressed. "What led you to be here – Tok, Alaska?"

"A poor choice in who I fell in love with," Philly replied in a sad voice. "Let's just say it turned out she loved her husband more than me."

There was more Mishael wanted to know about that relationship but it didn't seem prudent to pursue the matter at the moment.

"How do you think this will turn out?" Mishael asked.

"Honesty – poorly; he, she or they are desperate and desperate people make stupid choices," she answered. Mishael found her head falling softly to Philly's shoulder.

"Don't let this change you Mishael," Philly whispered to Mishael before kissing top of her head. Mishael turned her head, tilted up slightly and kissed Philly back on the lips. There was more an act of compassion than passion but Philly responded with more heat than expected.

'Oh God,' Mishael thought, 'I could get killed in the next two days.'

'Or – Philly could get killed,' she added.

Philly's mind was going down the same path. There were as many as five hostile individuals out there. There was also the possibility of hostages and that would be something a novice like Mishael shouldn't be forced to face.

"You should get some sleep," Philly advised.

"Okay," Mishael answered but didn't move away.

"This is a normal reaction to being under a great deal of stress," Philly pointed out.

"Do you really believe that?" Mishael responded softly.

"I believe you and I are going to need to have our minds clear when we catch up with any survivors," Philly evaded.

"Okay," Mishael nodded then they both lay down. She gave her Trooper all of two minutes before rolling over and straddling the lawman.

Mishael pushed up until she was perpendicular to Philadelphia. She began unbuttoning her shirt but Philly placed her hand on Mishael's. Even as Mishael gulped though, Philly's grasp floated down and began pulling up Mishael's thermal underwear and running one hand along her taut stomach.

The titillating sensation of Philly's cool fingertip circling her belly button hurried her up. She virtually yanked the shirt off, hooked her fingers on either side of Philly's hand and pulled the thermal underwear shirt off over her head – on her black sports bra remained.

"Are we not in a sharing mood?" Mishael teased, indicating Philly's fully clad torso.

"Oh, I'm intrigued but thoughts of frostbite are my real concern," Philly shared.

"Trust me," Mishael smiled, "I know a few tricks that will keep you warm." Philly responded by reaching up, hooking Mishael's bra then rolling it up to expose her firm breasts and chilled nipples.

"Hey," chided Mishael but Philly wasn't relenting. She drew Mishael down until she secured a strong suction on the closest to Mishael's racing heart. She had to use one arm, palm beside Philly's right ear to prop herself up. She did find her left hand working in tandem with Philly's to work open her thermal underwear then open her shirt and bra.

Now it was Mishael's turn to fondle her partner's breasts. They were larger than her own, she imagined, but somewhat less firm. As Mishael plucked the nipple, Philly fought back by nipping with her teeth on her painfully engorged tit (it was still quite cold in their tiny enclosure).

"Hey!" yipped Mishael. "Who is taking advantage of whom here?"

"I normally get the person who starts trouble," Philadelphia jokingly warned her.

"You've got me there," Mishael smiled as she slid down Philly's body enough to initiate a kiss. Philly slipped a hand to the back of her hair and drew Mishael in deeper. The warmth of that embrace tingled with electricity Mishael's toes.

"Ummm – our pants are in the way," Mishael panted hotly.

"Mishael, we have to get up early and those wolves are still close," Philly cautioned her. "We can't go any farther tonight but I think you know I want to." Mishael rolled onto her back and huffed in the chilly air.

"I'd be happier if you wouldn't make so much sense," Mishael smirked. "Five more minutes I would have been putty in your hands – or is it you would have been putty in my hands?"

"I suggest we keep our putty to ourselves and get some sleep," Philly sighed. "I want to set out at five o'clock while we still have some moonlight to play with."

"Usually when I seduce a girl things don't end up so sexually frustrating," Mishael grumped.

"I go after woman, not girls, but I know the sentiment," Philly sighed. Mishael straightened he upper wear, caught Philly doing the same and snuggled up to her. It was different to her being so close to a woman she desired yet felt so appreciated while surrounded by another's self-control.

(The second morning)

It was noon and they had found the aircraft. The pilot had either been the best one in the world on his worst day, or the luckiest one alive. Mishael could imagine them coming down, the pilot angling at 45 degrees, keeping the wind into the flaps. The bird had bounced once or twice across Hannigan's Rock but the rock was sliced up with six inch to one foot long fissures and on that last touchdown, a tire had gotten wedged in and snapped free.

Then the Cessna had skidded down the hard rock surface, one wing and the rear of the fuselage breaking free but the main cabin had miraculously remained intact. The bad part was the rear had taken all the luggage and survival gear with it, leaving the survivors with only what they had carried on. Worse, for some reason they had killed one of the survivors after the crash.

"Broken leg – busted knee," Philly listed off the dead man's injuries, "He couldn't walk so they busted his head in with a rock," she added. Her eyes scanned around and founded a bloody stone, maybe a pound and a half with blood along one face. Mishael looked over to Philly.

"I'm guessing that without skis and heading east, they haven't made the cabin yet," Mishael noted.

"Help me out here," Philly motioned Mishael to wait about ten minute back inside the wood line. Mishael waited for Philly to pull aside her then bend over and examine the prints.

"Man up front, man in the rear and three women in the middle," Mishael pointed out.

"Yes, but see the woman in the middle? Every ten feet or so her movements stagger – like she's being pushed."

Mishael looked up and down the refugee's path and nodded.

"Damn, you are right. I hadn't seen that...so they have a prisoner," Mishael's heart sank. Things became a lot more complicated.

"That implies the front woman is compliant, or one of the kidnappers," Philly surprised Mishael. She hadn't thought that one through but it made sense.

"What do we do?" Mishael said.

"Missioned hasn't changed Mishael – rescue the hostage, arrest the bad guys and don't let anyone escape; in that order," Philly informed her with long practiced ease.

"There is four of them now – and two of us," Mishael let hang out there.

"We offer to let them surrender; if they don't, we wound them. If no other option presents itself, we kill them Ms. Childers. That is part of the mission of any law enforcement agent," Philly' eyes filled with compassion. Mishael recalled that Philly had been married to another woman and most likely had to tell her the same thing on multiple occasions before going into harm's way.

"I won't let you down," Mishael promised.

"That should be easy," Philly smirked. "Stay alive – that is all I ask."

"What about you?" Mishael pleaded for a promise to stay safe as well.

"Mishael, I have a high-powered rifle, a submachine gun and a pistol. They are the ones who should be worried, not you," Philly smiled in a terribly emboldening and proud manner.

Mishael took a deep, cleansing (and rather biting) breathe and took off in pursuit once more. She knew they were gaining fast but the storm was gaining on them both. The snow was starting to come down heavily when Mishael, in the lead, motioned Philly forward once more.

"There is hardly any snow in the tracks anymore," Mishael hissed, "but the lodge is only a kilometer away. It will be close."

Philly placed her rifle down, opened her parka and pulled out her FN-P90, euphemistically called a Personal Defense Weapon; it was essentially the bastard offspring of a submachine gun and an assault rifle. She strapped the rifle over her head and shoulder to keep it out of the way.

"You move off ten meters to my right and don't move in front of me Mishael. I will follow the path and run them down. Stay in cover and preferably behind a tree but do what you have got to do," were Philly's orders.

Mishael now knelt and readied her bow. She couldn't have it ready to shoot and ski, but she'd have the instrument ready and three arrows in hand if things went wrong. She knew that meant 'when people started shooting'. Phyllis gave her one final nod and took off. Mishael wasn't religious but found herself praying to the spirit of every woman who had sent a loved one off to battle before now.

"Fuck it!" some male wheezed off to her left. "We made it."

It all became hypnotically easy; Mishael popped of her skis quietly, readied her bow and stalked forward like they were some Snowshoe Hare instead of a person. She heard more huffing to her left and left rear – she had gotten ahead of the group and could now see they were at the rear of the lodge.

Mishael edged forward until she could make out four of the five figures. A man with a pistol was in the lead. He looked half frozen – they all did. Next was a brunette woman with her head down near exhaustion and behind her was a late middle aged woman with grey-black whose hands were bound in front of her. In the rear was a tall blonde woman close to frostbite from wielding her own pistol. Of the last man there was no sign.

"Alaska State Troopers!" came a voice from the grey, whirling wilderness. "Put down your arms!"

"Fu," a man started to say then Boom! Brruuup, followed by a man's truncated scream. The man in front with the pistol began turning around, the numb woman just stood there, the hostage fell flat and the blonde woman looked around behind her.

Mishael knew it wasn't sporting but she did it anyway – she shot the lead man in the torso, most likely screwing up his kidney. It wasn't marksmanship she was proud of but this was a fire fight for the love of Goddess! Unlike the movies, the man didn't keel over. He was rude enough to catch her movements and start shooting.

Worse, the blonde woman started shooting her way too. Mishael dove behind a tree and kept her head down. Somewhere a gun clicked on empty. The man stepped around the tree and pointed his pistol at her.

"Put down the fucking gun and lie on the ground!" came Philly's voice carrying loudly over the battlefield.

"No," the man yelled, yanking Mishael up, "It is time for you to give up, Cop! I have your partner." Mishael wanted to tell Philly she was sorry for this, to somehow make things right. Instead she got,

"Face on the ground, hands behind your back and if I half to repeat myself I'm going to drag you behind our Snow Cat (big winter vehicle)," Philly droned out an abridged police dialogue.

"I swear to God I'll kill her," the man screamed. Only the click-click of handcuffs going broke the silence.

"Now for you," Phyllis called out from the curtain of snowfall. "What do you want?"

"Um...me, my brother, my sister, and my girlfriend are all walking out of here," he demanded.

"Your brother was the guy with the shotgun?" Philly asked sedately.

"Yes," he replied.

"Not happening; I blew his heart out passed his spine. He is as dead as they get," she informed the semi-crazed individual. "Now, if you want to join him, I'll make it easy."

"I'm going to tell you to put your gun down three more times," Philly spoke soothingly, "and then I'm going to kill you unless the gun is tossed and you are face first in the snow. If the gun freezes to your hand..."

"Listen up bitch!" he hollered.

"...I don't care, I'll shoot you. Now, put your gun down – that's one," she called out.

"I swear I'll kill her," he pressed the gun to Mishael's chest.

"Do you know where I am? Because I know exactly where you are," Philly remained calm. Mishael was afraid she'd pee on herself but somehow she knew the game Philly was playing. "Put down your gun – that's two."

"Put down..."

"Stop it! Fuck it, just stop it. I'm putting the gun down," the man cried out hysterically as he hurled the pistol down. Nothing happened for several seconds. Around the tree Philly crept up and pushed her barrel to the back of the man's ear.

"Hey Babe, are you okay?"

"If this means the fire-fight is officially over, I'm rather okay with this," Mishael mused. "Our second date is going to have a lot to live up to."

"I'll take that under advisement; now would you please retrieve the pistol and we can get everyone inside," Philly told her, and that they did.

(Aftermath)

In the lower 48 there would have been a ticker-tape parade, medals, commendations and some screwed up inquiry on the excessive use of force and dragging a civilian into a law enforcement exercise. In Alaska, it took five days to get rescued from the lodge and another two days for Philly to get use of a vehicle to go retrieve Mishael's trapped jeep.

It turned out Chief Jack-Ass robbed a bank and when everyone went looking one-way, he drove to the airport, with his wife, her brother, and her brother's girlfriend. Unfortunately, the pilot and his two other patrons were not part of the plan. When they crossed the Alaskan Range, they finally ignored the pilot long enough for him to drain most of his fuel tanks.

The wife lost it and shot the pilot in the back. The brother disabled the transponder and tried to land, which didn't turn out to well. The male half of the married patron couple got banged up on impact but after they agreed to take him and the wife to safety, he told them about the lodge. One brief discussion later, Jack Ass killed the guy with a rock.

In the final showdown, Jack Ass drew down on Philly with a shotgun and promptly joined his ancestors. It was Jack Ass's wife that had been the blonde banging away. Philly handcuffed her. The Brother lost his left kidney thanks to Mishael, which he bitched about. Mishael wrote him a get well card inviting him to come back and lose the other one too.

The girlfriend was sort of screwed in life. She hadn't really done anything but she'd been helpful in caring for the widow, the brother and pissy wife/sister while they were snowbound in the lodge, Mishael had given her a job as a delivery girl because everyone needs a second chance once or twice.

(Two weeks later)

"Ready for some of my new cappuccino blend, Trooper?" Mishael readied a cup for Philly. She pulled out a small bottle of non-dairy creamer.

"I am now," Philly gave a lop-sided grin.

"Oh, you'll love this one; I ground up real Columbians in the coffee beans this time around," Mishael stated deadpan.

Philly did snort slightly. Since she didn't bury it in creamer, she must have liked it.

"I don't think I've been more afraid than when I saw him hold that pistol to your chest," Philly whispered out of the blue.

"I wasn't afraid," Mishael leaned forward and responded softly. "I know you were close by, looking out for me."

Another customer drew Mishael over to a computer station and an annoying discussion on malware but she caught Philly heading for the door. She pressed a brochure into Mishael's hand. It was for a place about a hundred miles away – a mud springs.

"You do realize this will require us to FINALLY get naked, you do realize?" Mishael repeatedly pointed out teasingly.

"Sure," Philly shrugged. "Unless you are volunteering to do my laundry I imagine I'll be naked a lot."

"No," Mishael giggled. "I meant naked as in 'no guns'. No prospects of people trying to do us harm – that kind of stuff."

"Oh really," Philly seemed put off. "I was planning on giving my guns snorkels, have them hang out in a nearby mud puddle and let them hash out living arrangements with your Grizzly Knife."

"Ah damn!" Mishael laughed loudly. "We'll make a native out of you yet. Next weekend: It is a date." That was the most Alaskan way of asking to move in together Mishael had ever seen and she loved it.