Quaranteam - North West Ch. 07

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QT:NW continues the official Spin Off for the Quaranteam universe originally created by CorruptingPower. You do not need to have read the original series to enjoy this one, but you really do need to start with Chapters 1-4 (I really suggest you read the original though, it's great!). Fans of the original should be pleased to know CP has approved the story and the continuity. This chapter includes elements of mind control through chemical substance, anal, squirting (like, a lot) and MFFF group sex.

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The reunion between Miriam, Leo and Erica was even briefer than what she and I had. Miriam had only met them that one time when she had returned stateside a few years ago and took the time to come find me. We'd taken Miriam out drinking in Portland, and the next day she'd flown out for wherever her next posting was.

What struck me was how easily Miriam could switch between her casual demeanour and 'Serious Officer' personality - I wasn't sure what she'd been doing since Germany and the 'incident,' but her voice and command had the calm confidence of someone capable of taking on any challenge.

The new introductions were a little more interesting. "Lieutenant Colonel Abarbanel, this is Ivy, who is partnered with Erica and I, and this is Danielle, Leo's vaccine partner."

"Nice to meet you both," Miriam nodded with a soft smile.

"It is very nice to meet you aussi," Ivy said, as usual slipping into bits and pieces of her native Quebecois french when the words were similar. Then Ivy surprised us by wrapping Miriam into a hug. Ivy was a small woman, and certainly the smallest of our weird little family, and Miriam had a couple of inches on Erica so it was almost like seeing a pre-teen hugging an adult.

Ivy went up on her tiptoes and quickly whispered something in Miriam's ear, and Miriam's face blanched and then she coughed, covering her mouth and said, "I see." Ivy was grinning, and I couldn't tell if it was just happiness or one of those more naughty grins she could get. I looked at Erica and she met my eye and shrugged with a mildly confused expression as well.

"Alright," I said. "Erica, could you get the coffee brewing, and I'll give the Lieutenant Colonel and Captain the nickel tour?"

"Sure," Erica said and kissed me on the corner of my lips.

"Thanks, hon," Miriam said. "We've been up since about 03:00 prepping for the day, though it looks like Harri and some of you have been up longer."

"All night," Danielle said with a soft smile.

"Shit, were you worried?" Leo asked his partner.

Danielle's smile turned broader as she looped her arm around Leo's. "Not at all, baby. Not at all." She winked at me and then turned Leo back towards home and started walking away. It was hard to miss my dad's 1911 handgun tucked into the back waistband of her pyjama pants.

"She seems like trouble," Miriam muttered as Erica and Leo led Ivy and Danielle back to the RV compound.

"I think I might be in love," the Captain chuckled.

"Captain," Miriam said, chuckling in mild surprise.

"What?" Captain Bloomberg asked. "That woman could turn a straight-as-laces old school granny a little queer."

"She's not wrong," I said with a smirk. "Dani is something else."

"I'm assuming that's your firearm?" Miriam asked, shaking her head at me and the Captain.

"She grew up as an Australian military brat before her father passed," I said. "She's firearms safety trained and borrowed it as a precaution for last night. To be honest, I think I trust her with it more than I do Leo with the bear shotgun."

Miriam and the Captain glanced at each other. "Harri," Miriam said. "I think this brings us into... let's call it business, but the three of us know this is FUBAR already. This is technically federal land at the moment and everything is a grey area, but sooner than later it's going to be considered an Air Force base even though it'll look like a suburban neighbourhood. Exactly how many firearms do you have in your possession right now?"

"Well, I can show you my gun safe, or I can run you through last night. Where do you want to start?" I asked.

"The firearms can wait," the Captain said. "Shooting incident first, then the protestors. That's my advice, Lt. Col."

I knew that tone well. It was the 'I'm not in charge, but everyone here knows I'm in charge' voice that practical members of the military used. Of course, it took a well-functioning relationship between officers for that sort of thing to work. There were plenty of dickwads who made rank and had to swing their dicks in every single situation. Thankfully, it seemed like Miriam hadn't fallen into that trap as she climbed the ladder. She was in charge, but the shooting could be a legal matter and the protestors were definitely a legal matter, so while she was the Commanding Officer, the Captain was in the lead as the judge's advocate and legal adjunct.

"Good thinking, Captain," Miriam nodded. "Harri, why don't you run us through it? We've gotten briefed, but you've got the firsthand knowledge."

"Don't skip anything," the Captain said. "Give it to me like you're making an incident report, MP."

So I did. I walked them through the construction camp, outlining the situation and framing it as a military judgement call. The construction area and offices were the operating theatre and valuable assets, the RV compound was our base camp position, and the protestors were a potentially hostile force. I outlined my assessment of the situation as potentially dangerous, my reasonable preparations, and then my engagement report including my best estimation of timing between spotting the incoming potential hostiles, their approach, and my non-lethal engagement.

I was finished by the time we rounded the last temporary office portable. "You can just see where I was positioned up there in the tree line," I said, pointing up the south hill. "About three yards right of that tree with the gap in its foliage. And the primary target was... well, you can see where he was."

We stopped walking in front of the blue cloud that was sprayed onto the portable, the outline of a surprised person stencilled onto it. The paint can was still on the ground, its side ruptured in a gouge by my .308 bullet. It looked like I'd been an inch from missing.

Miriam eyed the shot from the position the person had been up to my sentry post. "Pretty good shot," she said.

"I was happy with it," I said. "Not so different from trying to cleanly hit a deer during hunting season."

"Well, I'm just happy you didn't decide to tag the fucker," the Captain said. She'd been scribbling notes in her leather folder. "You didn't happen to take recce pics, did you?"

"No," I said. "I probably should have thought of that."

"It's fine," she said. "Everything sounds like a clean shoot, and they were definitely trespassing with intent to vandalize or worse. Here's what I'm thinking - you've been here since the land ownership changed, right Mr Black?"

"I have," I nodded. "Not like there are many other places for us to go at this point, everything considered."

"Right, that's good," Bloomberg nodded, then turned to Miriam. "Let's just head any problems off by hiring Mr Black as a security contractor for the site. We can work a small stipend from the discretionary budget to make it official, and backdate the order a week. Put a rush on getting him the proper clearance and everything should be clean if someone gets the bright idea to try and throw in a lawsuit."

"I like it," Miriam nodded. "Any problems with getting some low-level security clearance back, Harri?"

"Is this necessary?" I asked. "I just wanted to make sure my people weren't in danger, and this whole thing didn't get blown even further out of the water."

Miriam sighed and smiled at me. "Harri, who knows what kind of trouble they would have caused? Maybe it was just some spray painting, maybe it was breaking windows and trashing offices. Maybe it was vandalizing the heavy equipment. You took care of a problem for us, just let us take care of a problem for you." Then she winked and nudged me with her elbow. "Besides, I still owe you for the last time you saved my ass."

The Captain eyed the two of us but didn't say anything.

"Fine," I acquiesced. "There shouldn't be any problems with a clearance background check as far as I know, unless Erica or Ivy are hiding some big secret."

"Speak of the devils and they shall appear," Miriam said.

Erica and Ivy were just coming around the portable carrying travel mugs of coffee for us, hot and steaming. "Wasn't sure how you ladies took it so I snagged some creamers and sugar packets from the site fridge," Erica said.

"We brought some café to your soldier men too," Ivy said with a smile, handing the mug she was carrying to the Captain. "They are... how would you say? Facilement distrait, um... easily distracted?"

"They are, are they?" Miriam said, raising an eyebrow.

"Not their fault," Erica quickly put in. "Ivy is a little tease and Danielle wasn't much better."

"Still," Miriam said and turned to the Captain. "Maybe we need to start doing some counter-espionage training or something. Teach them how to spot a honeytrap and not think with their dicks."

"Noted," the Captain said, writing in her folder.

"I think we're going to need to have a chat about being too flirty with strange men," I said quietly to Ivy off to the side.

"Oh, no, Harri," Ivy said, taking my free hand in both of hers. "I wasn't flirting. I'm sorry, I just wanted to tease them- I don't know. Fuck."

"I told you," Erica smirked. "I think there's a spanking coming in your near future, Ives."

Miriam sputtered into her coffee as she was taking a sip.

* * * * *

I gave Miriam and the Captain a brief rundown of the legal background after we gathered up the soldiers. One of the airmen stuck with the helicopter and the pilots, so for the long walk down the driveway it was me, the Lt. Col and Captain, and five airmen in full fatigues and appropriately armed for active duty.

Captain Bloomberg was fully aware of the legal decisions regarding the land, so she was more interested in my personal views on the opposition. I was truthful with her - the Band had legitimate generational and historical issues with my family, but the courts had cleared the slate legally speaking. There was little doubt in my mind that the likes of Kara and Feather would be too stubborn to back down even in the face of the military.

The din of the protest was already underway and it wasn't even past seven in the morning. "They really are going at it, aren't they?" Miriam asked. "Alright, masks on everyone."

The airmen had never taken their masks off, so in reality it was just Miriam and the Captain who needed to put their medical masks back on. Then Miriam looked at me with some concern, "Where's your mask, Harri?"

"I... don't have one?" I said. "I'm vaccinated."

Miriam stopped our little procession. "That's not- Harri, what info did you get about the vaccine?"

"Not a whole lot," I said. "Mostly just what Erica, Danielle and Ivy could remember."

"Jesus H fucking Christ," Miriam muttered and turned to the Captain. "Alright, we need to see if we can get some sort of review of what information is being given to the vaccinated. And we should at least be giving out a goddamn pamphlet or something." She sighed as the Captain scribbled her notes in the folder, and then turned back to me. "Harri, the latest data is showing with two vaccinated partners your immunity is about eighty to ninety per cent effective, but that's changing almost daily, and it's a big margin of error. Put on a fucking mask."

She snapped at one of the airmen and pointed to me, and the guy pulled out a medical mask from a pocket in his fatigues and offered it over.

"Well, when you put it that way," I said with a bit of chagrin.

"It's just a precaution," the Captain assured me. "The research on these viruses is changing and updating weekly, sometimes daily, and a lot of what's being announced to the public is being skewed by realistic necessity or political bullshit."

"I just don't want to see you get sick, Harri," Miriam said.

"Hey, I'm not complaining here," I said. "I thought I was in the clear, and I guess I'm not."

"Not yet," Miriam said. "Or not enough, really. Each partner you have will increase your immunity by several percentage points. They're still running the numbers on what an optimal number would be."

"Wait," I said. "Does that mean I'm going to have more surprises like Ivy? She's worked out well so far but I've been way too lucky recently and I don't need the other shoe dropping."

Miriam and the Captain glanced at each other. "No comment," the Captain said.

"I'll tell you more when I can," Miriam said.

All masked up, we walked around the final turn and looked down on the organized chaos of the protest. More people had arrived since last I'd seen, and now there were close to two hundred protestors. I wasn't sure what the current actual population of the Band was, but I knew if this kept up there would probably be double this number tomorrow or the next day. Especially if the media showed up.

The protestors took a moment to react to us, or really to the armed soldiers, and just like I warned their response was to get even louder. They also linked arms, getting even closer to each other, showing solidarity against the show of minor force. I saw Feather up on a big Native guy's shoulders, shouting into the mic of a loudspeaker though it was hard to tell what she was actually saying.

We walked down to the line of construction workers. They were looking haggard and tired and were about thirty yards up the driveway from the protestors, who themselves had edged further onto the property as if they were being held back by a buckling, weakening wall. I nodded to the Foreman who had been left in charge. He was a big guy, but then they all were, with neck tattoos and the look of a guy who spent his non-working hours between the gym and the strip club. Actually, now that I had a good look in the light of the morning, each of the ten guys that Vanessa and her father Brent had left here overnight looked like the kinds of guys I wouldn't want to meet in an alley. They were big, agitated-looking motherfuckers.

I gave the foreman a quick upward nod of hello, the universal 'sup' sign of recognition between men, and then leaned close and yelled through my mask and over the din, "You can send whoever's doing the worst up to camp. Coffee's on in the breakroom. Or they can stick around for the show."

The Foreman nodded and turned to his guys, and two of them started trekking back up to camp after deciding they didn't care about what happened next. The rest stuck around, grinning and joking between themselves.

Down at the picket line, Kara had come towards the front, as had Feather. Kara was staring at me and the military uniforms, while Feather was pacing back and forth and continuing to rally the shouting.

Miriam ordered her soldiers to spread out but not to raise their weapons unless there was a clear and present lethal threat. Then she started forward, signalling me to follow, and I sighed. I'd tried to make it clear that including me in this may not be the best idea for it to go smoothly, but apparently they didn't care about smoothness at the moment.

Just like with me and with Brent before, Kara closed the distance and met us halfway, but when Miriam tried to introduce herself she couldn't be heard through the shouting and chanting. An additional hundred people added a lot of volume. Miriam's brow furrowed, and she gestured to Kara and the protestors.

Kara responded by shrugging, and I could just imagine the smirk under her bandanas.

And then we just stood there for about half a minute, neither side wanting to back down.

This is stupid, I sighed to myself. I gestured to the Captain, asking for her pen and folder, and she ripped out a clean sheet of paper and handed it to me on top of the folder.

Kara, you are really going to want to hear this, I wrote. I handed the folder back to the Captain and then passed the paper to Kara. She read it and rolled her eyes, then showed Feather who laughed behind her mask. Kara made a show of crumpling the note and flicking it at me before she turned to the crowd and raised her hands. Slowly the shouting died down to the dull roar of murmuring and talking.

"Miss Swiftwater," the Captain said. "This is Lieutenant Colonel Abarbanel, and I am Captain Bloomberg. While we appreciate your usual right to peaceful assembly as per the First Amendment, unfortunately you are currently interfering with a military operation of national security. I must order you to disperse immediately."

Kara and Feather looked at each other and burst out laughing again. "Yeah, no," Kara said. "Nice try though. Harri, what the fuck even is this?"

"Kara, this is real. It's happening. You need to listen," I said.

"Sure, sure," Kara said. "Say that all you want. Listen, lady, we don't care that you've got a uniform - in fact, that makes us care even less. There's going to be another hundred people arriving here in the next two hours, and then the media is going to start showing up. We've got calls into every local station in the state. You can't stop this."

"Actually, Miss Swiftwater," the Captain said. "The media will not be responding to you. There will be no television crews. There will be no newspaper articles. The current pandemic has been declared a national emergency, and the Federal government has issued a gag order on all operations of national security, including this one. There will be no support arriving for you today. Now, I repeat, I must order you to disperse as you are impeding in a matter of national security."

Kara's eyes narrowed. "I don't fucking believe you," she said. "You can't just throw out the First Amendment. We are peacefully assembling, and the media has every right to cover this story."

"Every news agency of any repute has received the gag order and acknowledged their acceptance," the Captain said. "This isn't as uncommon as you might think, Miss Swiftwater. National Security trumps personal liberty. Also, your protest has directly spurred trespassing with intent to vandalize a Federal holding."

"That's some absolute bullshit," Feather said. "We haven't vandalized anything."

The Captain looked at me, and I sighed.

"Did you hear the gunshot last night?" I asked, looking at Kara.

"Yeah, you fucking panicked at least a dozen people who were awake at the time," Kara said.

"Well, that was me firing a warning shot, Kara," I said. "At people trying to sneak into the construction yard. Keep your eyes out for one of your people painted blue this morning because I shot their spray paint can and it exploded all over them."

Kara and Feather looked at each other, finally realizing that this might actually be some trouble they couldn't just swagger around.

"This is your final notice, Miss Swiftwater," the Captain said. "If you do not disperse this protest immediately, every single person is going to be arrested and hauled off. That is not the end to this that we want, but it is the one we will enforce if necessary."

I watched it happen. Kara went from questioning to 'fuck you' in five long seconds. She glared at Miriam and the Captain. "No," she said. "You want to break the law and open yourselves up to a lawsuit for infringing our rights? Fuck you. Go ahead and try arresting two hundred people. There are five cops for the entire county and one of them is part of the Band, so good luck."

Miriam sighed heavily, shaking her head as she pulled a cell phone out of her inner jacket pocket. She tapped at it for a moment, then raised it to her ear. "Yes," she said. "Yes. Do it." Then she hung up and put the phone away.