Issue #14: "Birds of Prey, Part One"

It was raining. It was always raining for this sort of thing. For all the clichéd times the stories made up dark and stormy nights, no matter how much of a coincidence she knew it was, somehow it always rained on important days. So Jonni walked to the appointed place with her black umbrella to protect her blonde hair, a dark slicker to cover her no-nonsense suit. She stood tall and walked straight, modest heels clicking over the pavement. One manicured hand kept her jacket closed over the curve of her chest, the other held the umbrella high over her head to keep the rain bouncing away. Jonni didn't know just what this appointment was about, but she knew from experience that it never hurt to look her best.

There wasn't much that Jonni could guess about this meeting. The letter had arrived at her office like any other bit of junk mail, but something had compelled her to open this one. It was handwritten, a rarity in this day, and very short. There was no signature but a small symbol, three quick lines scrawled on the bottom of the page-- one diagonal, and two on either side of it, reaching out like arms. Jonni had thought it looked a bit like a bird in flight. More than the standardly cryptic message, there was just something about the symbol that convinced her to brave the weather, and make her way to the right place at the right time.

The café was bustling and buzzing, a soft cloud of steam rising off of Joni’s rain-soaked slicker as she stepped inside. A small bell chimed to announce her entrance, the tinkling sound lost among the chatter. Jonni’s red lips tightened when she saw the crowded space. The rain had driven everyone inside, but she relaxed to see that every small group in the crowd was intent on its own business. No one seemed to pay much heed of her arrival.

One wall was taken up by a counter and a line of plugs, computers lined up in a row, and more customers had their laptops opened up on their tables, taking advantage of the Internet service. Jonni walked past the other people, her dark suit in contrast to the colorful blouses and short skirts on most of the other women. Still, she only looked confident and strong, not out of place. The professional look suited her too well.

When she went to order a coffee, and the barista looked her over. “Your name Jonni?” When she nodded, he continued, pointing to an empty table in the corner where a tiny netbook sat closed. “That’s yours. Man said you’d be coming, now I can stop guarding it,” the man joked.

Jonni offered him a smile, paid for her drink and made her way to the corner table. The light was dim here, and the nearest seats were empty. The netbook wasn’t even as wide as Jonni’s two hands, and her fingers curled around the sides as she lifted it, handling it gingerly. The worst thing she could do would be breaking the computer before her contact could reach her.

The machine powered up as Jonni lifted the top. She settled herself with the screen facing the wall for privacy when she saw the camera light up. She saw her own image in the corner, crystal clear—everything about the machine was top of the line. Still, she heard the voice before she saw the figure, even with his webcam taking up the whole screen. He sat cloaked in darkness and framed in shadow, yet still Jonni could feel his eyes on her. “Jonni Thunder. What a pleasure.”

The voice sounded tinny and small in the roar of the room, and Jonni reached quickly into her bag for a pair of old, large earphones. “I’ll want to know how much you know about me later. For now, I’m a lot more curious about who you are and what you want.”

“That’s a smart thing to be.” His voice was right in her ear now, smooth and quiet. There was a power in his tenor tone, a confidence that seeped into every word. “I like a girl who gets right to business. Although I wish business were something more pleasurable.” Jonni could see a gleaming white smile in the shadows, the teeth perfect. She took note of the patronizing attitude in his voice, the way he used the word girl and smiled at her.

Most frustratingly of all was the way something in his manner made Jonni forget the rain, forget the crowd. The slightly sour mood lifted away from her, and she leaned an elbow on the table as she sipped her coffee. “Let’s get to it, then. I could use something to call you.”

“Ah yes. Names would be useful, wouldn’t they?” The man chuckled. “You understand, of course, that I would keep some secrecy to our trysts, my dear. But even so, I’ve picked a title for myself. You’ll call me Mockingbird.”

“Is that right?” Jonni raised her eyebrow. “Well, it’s better than nothing. Alright, Mockingbird.” The name felt strange in her mouth, somehow powerful. “What do you want from me?”

Mockingbird’s smile shone again through the shadows. “I have need of quite a few services. I’ve selected you, Jonni Thunder, to perform them for me. I couldn’t say as of yet everything that I would ask of you, but we do need to start somewhere. The computer you hold gives you access to a very full bank account, and contains a list of notable people, places and things that I am interested in. They are at your utter disposal, to carry out a crusade against injustice. If you have the honor of your ancestors, you’ll use everything I'm going to hand you to do this.. I’ll be able to contact you whenever I’ve an assignment for you to do. You’d be a sort of special agent, going to places that I can’t reach.”

Jonni took another long drink from her cup. “Well. That’s quite an offer. Bit more interesting than I’m used to,” she admitted with a small smile of her own. “And in return?”

“First, you can carry out these wishes however you see fit. Second, that bank account is much too fat for my missions to starve it away,” Mockingbird lilted. “But that isn’t enough though, is it? Not for you.”

“You don’t think so?” There was something so pleasantly infuriating about the way this man spoke. He talked as if he knew her intimately, though she knew nothing but a false name of his. “What would sweeten this deal of yours?”

“A chase,” he answered, and Jonni could see his fingers coming together in front of his chest. “I’ve always loved games, all sorts, and I can tell when I’ve found a fellow…enthusiast. You’ll agree to carry out my assignments, to fill the missions I send your way, until you find me out. The day you give me my true name, your obligation to spend the remaining funds my way ends.”

Jonni’s smile grew, and she held her coffee cup up to the screen as if to clink glasses with him. “Mockingbird, I think you’ve found a deal.”

“Good…very good.” The voice purred in her ear. “You won’t be able to fill these missions alone, so find a team, whoever you wish to share the danger with you. However you want to organize them. When you’ve made your choices, I’ll contact you again.”

The webcam window flickered out on the screen, leaving a bare desktop to accept Jonni’s toast. She re-traced her lips around the coffee cup and strengthened the mark left by her lipstick, before standing again and packing the netbook into a carrying case that had been left for her as well. So many thoughts and questions ran through her mind as she left the café, that Jonni couldn’t even find it in her to be irritated by the rain.



There was smoke. Before that had been fire. There had been dust and the jarring impact from the crash of metal into earth; heat and pain and fear. Now there was only the smoke, and her.

She smelled the smoke inside the transport. She felt the heat still, but the pain was almost too strange to still be called painful. She hovered in the craft that she had traveled in, her slippery, shimmering form mingling with the smoke as it tried to dissipate. Both trailed through the broken ship, driven upward by the heat from below, softly hitting the ceiling and circling back around to the floor. She twirled and floated, dazed and so confused.

Then, in a flash of shimmering light, and she was hard and small. Brilliant starlight burst through her form, blinding her with colors like she had never seen. They dazzled her and dazed her and made her forget how trapped she felt, until the clouds covered the shining star and she was left in drab light again. Then she felt the fear again, the uncertainty. She was alone in a vast array of sand, sparkling where no one could see.

There was a hand, picking her up. There were voices, a language, though she didn’t understand. Another small body sat against the warm flesh, held delicately, examined with an eye.

“Do you think you can figure out how to make more of these diamonds?” The voice sounded female, although it was hard to tell. She was turned around, a slow revolution, a sad echo of the brilliant starlight eking out of a bulb above, her colors dimmed and solemn. “Do we know what’s giving them this power?”

“We believe we’re close to finding out, Madame Mortalla. There’s some strange energy; it’s been elusive, but it has to be coming from that crash site. And once we’ve learned how to infuse more of the diamonds with that energy…well, let me show you.”

The man lifted something strange, a long, thin device, with a thicker handle that his hand curled around. She tried to see better, but the tiny body was taken from the woman’s hand, and placed inside the thicker part. The sound was muffled here, the light was gone. But there was a small click, and a sudden bright beam. “They might be the perfect energy source for our weaponry. With more of the guns prepared and in our control, imagine we could accomplish!”

“Show me,” the woman’s voice ordered. The beam grew brighter, and something whirred all around her, and suddenly there was pain again. Inside the spacecraft she cried out, feeling that part of her body encased in the diamond as it was drained, as the weapon shot something hot and deadly from the end of the long barrel. In the desert she felt the heat, and the weakness, that diamond body mute and unresponsive. Inside the gun she was lanced and drained, her own life force leaking out of the diamond for an agonizing second, and then stopped.

There must have been some wonderful destruction, outside of the gun. The woman sounded pleased. “Make more. As many as you can find. They will serve our plans well.”

She felt herself dissipating even as they spoke, wisps of herself finding more stone bodies in the sand, and knowing that soon she’d be torn apart even farther. Inside the craft she whirled and turned with the smoke, unable to stop it.



Kendra Saunders sighed heavily as she looked up from the book on her lap. Her brown eyes stared up at the sky, the brilliant blue dotted by puffy white clouds, and exhaled heavily once more. She tried to look over the words in her archaeology textbook and ran fingers through her short chestnut colored hair in frustration. This is too good a day to be buried in books. I should be flying, maybe finding some crook's head to bust. She took a sip from her thermal cup and slammed the book shut as she leaned back against the smooth bark of the tree. So much for all that 'gotta spread my wings' bull I fed the League. Turns out the 'my own woman' I'm looking for has become a bad student. She gave a 'hmph' and a snicker at herself as she flipped the book back open.

"Interested in sharing the joke?" Kendra snapped her head up and saw the well-dressed woman standing in front of her. "Ms. Saunders? I'm Jonni Thunder." She held her hand out to the student, the perfectly manicured hand slim and pale.

"Joke's on me, actually," Kendra said as she set the book to one side and pushed herself up to her feet. She brushed the grass and dirt from her hands to shake with the detective. Jonni was as well-dressed as always, a gray suit over black shirt now, and she took a long look at Kendra. Faded blue jeans, a little long and ratted at the hem, where the thick black combat boots constantly stepped on them; she had a simple white t-shirt and little else, not even jewelry or make-up. This was a woman who believed in basics, believed in getting to the point, and Jonni liked the implications. "Diana called, said you might be coming to see me, Ms. Thunder. Not sure I'm the girl you're looking for though."

"Jonni, please. And according to the queen, you are precisely who I'm looking for, Ms. Saunders," Jonni countered as she watched Kendra tuck the books into her bag and sling it over her muscled shoulders. Jonni kept herself fit, it was important in her line of work and preferred cases, but Kendra was an athlete, a fighter.

"I dropped out of the League to get away from being the back half of 'Hawkman and', or stop being the team member people have to think about when they rattle off the roster," Kendra said as she started to walk along the quad path. "Mind if we walk and talk? I got Dangerous Citizens over at Schermerhorn, and I don't think the instructor likes me much."

"Oh? Here I thought you'd be doing very well in a class like that," Jonni said with a sly smile as she paced alongside Kendra, maneuvering through the students that drifted in all directions.

"It takes his permission to take the course, and he was 'encouraged' by the administration to take me after a couple of influential friends of mine talked to the Provost. You know one of them, she sent you here," Kendra added with a laugh.

"I see," Jonni chuckled as they hustled along. "Anyway, my point, Ms. Saunders. I need someone with experience, with strength, someone used to the superhero scene. I've got money, I've got jobs, I need the personnel, and I need you to help me with them."

"I already said, I didn't quit the League in order to join some other team," Kendra replied as she paused on the broad concrete steps up to the hall. "Especially one that doesn't really exist yet. But thanks, you got some real good compliments in there, makes a girl feel appreciated." She gave a toss of her head as she laughed.

"I'm not looking for a team-mate, or a girl," Jonni said. "I'm looking for a woman ready to lead. I'll coordinate, and run the business, but when we're out there, doing the actual job, I want you at point."

Kendra balked at those words. She swallowed hard, and cupped the back of her neck in surprise. "Um, well...guess that does change things. A bit. Me? I'm no leader."

"Wonder Woman says differently," Jonni countered in blunt words, no longer coyly referring to their mutual acquaintance. "She says you're more than ready. And you're telling me you want to be your own woman. This is your chance. You and I, we'll pick a team together, and they'll be yours. Fighting the good fight, and all the while, we'll try and figure out just who it is giving us the money to do it."

Kendra gawked in disbelief. "Wait. You want me to lead a team to fight, presumably, for justice and goodness and all that rigmarole, with money we don't know who is supplying? You're a detective. A private eye, aren't you supposed to be...I don't know," she shrugged her shoulders as she furrowed her brow, "more cynical, less naive?"

Jonni's face hardened at the question, and she deliberately buttoned up her suit coat before answering. "Yes. Yes, normally. There's something about this whole set-up that lured me in. Another reason I want someone I'm told is savvy, smart and pragmatic on my side. I don't know who this Mockingbird is, and I can't let that stand. I won't be played for a fool, not by anyone."

"My own team, huh?"

"Your own team. We pick the roster. Together. Just one restriction, and that's wanting an all-female team," Jonni said, and then chuckled at the strange look Kendra gave in response. "The Queen's inspiration, that's all I have to say about it. For now." She leaned against the handrail in the center of the stairs. "Would it help if I told you what I want to call the team?"

"Give it a shot."

"I was thinking," Jonni held her hands up as if framing the words, "'Birds of Prey'." She gave a sideways glance at Kendra. "What do you think, Ms. Saunders?"

"I think you should call me Kendra, Jonni." She shook Jonni's hand again to seal her agreement.



They had all been gathered together to see the new discovery. The Terrorism Leg of SPIDER was filled to the brim with the organization’s most blood-thirsty members, all talking excitedly and showing wicked grins. They had heard just enough about the weaponry to tickle their fancies, every man and woman of them ready for war.

Gabrielle Binya was late. She snuck into the back of the audience hall, running a dark hand through her short black hair, just as their leader made her way onto the platform. The speech would begin soon, and then she would know just what was going on. The images were clear in her head from all of the news reports she had been watching—the crashed UFO, steaming in the sand.

Gabrielle was struck with the usual pang of envy when she compared herself to Mortalla—where the leader was nearly six feet tall, Gabrielle only had a few inches on five. Where Gabrielle’s hair was a coarse black and kept short, Mortalla’s silver locks flowed weightlessly over her shoulders. Her body was soft and curving, hugged tight by her customary green jumpsuit, and her violet eyes were obscured by the polarized lenses that gave them such an arachnid look. When she had first arrived at SPIDER, Gabrielle had mocked the leader’s looks, and taken her for the kind of spoiled white woman she never wanted to see in her homelands. But she had seen the strength of Mortalla’s mind and strategy, the way that the organization had grown and prospered under her leadership, and Gabrielle had come to respect her leader. When she learned about Mortalla’s albinism, that she had been born in Africa just the same as anyone, it erased any doubts she used to have.

Without even having to call her soldiers to order, Mortalla had their full attention. “We are lucky this day. Some god or another has smiled on our cause, and finally, we have what we need, what we have waited some time to possess.” She held her hand high to show off the diamond between her pale fingers, turning it to catch the light, and the attention of every soul in the room. “There is magic in our midst. An alien object has crashed outside our compound, a scant few miles away. Within this object is an energy that no other group in the world can put to such use as we will. The diamonds can contain it; and you all shall use it. With the diamond resources in our possession, we willfill them with this new energy. Finally after years, we have the power we need to fuel our ultimate weapons!” Mortalla paused to hear the soldiers cheer, and she was not disappointed. “Our time is nearly at hand. Go now, tarry no further. Your commanders have been given your instructions. SPIDER will rise up after such a long sleep, and we will show the whole world the power of chaos!”

The men and women standing below her cheered, and went obediently to their positions, Gabrielle among them. The excitement was palpable in the air, and her heart pounded with the thought. SPIDER had been years underground, and finally they were going to get to surface. It was nearly enough to make her forget her curiosity, until she reported for duty. Her commanding officer rattled off the jobs that Gabrielle’s unit was to do, and only when they had been dismissed did she think to ask.

“What is that thing, anyway?”

The commander, a tall, scarred black man, only gave her a look. “I don’t know, and you shouldn’t care. All that matters is the diamonds.”

She knew better than to press for information, and Gabrielle left with the rest of the soldiers.

But the question burned in her mind. She kept seeing the crashed ship, or whatever it was, every time her eyes closed. Gabrielle knew herself well enough to know it wouldn’t end like this. She wouldn’t be able to go along as a drone, follow orders and forget about it. She had to know what was going on. And so, at the first opportunity, she slipped away, and headed for the crash site.



Soft, rhythmic breathing echoed through the small room, the peaceful quiet cut with the occasional whimper and scoff. Dawn Makes-Strong-Move had cleared out the center of the room for her stretches, and she sat in the middle of her circle with her head pressed down to her ankles. Slowly, she shifted her weight, trying to keep her focus and her balance as her hands moved to support her headstand. Dawn's long hair was bound into a thick braid, laid out on the carpet in front of her face and filling her nose with the fruity scent of her shampoo. She kicked her legs up above her head, and laughed to herself for the several seconds that they stayed in the air, feeling the rush of blood to her head before her balance failed. Dawn rolled out of her headstand back into a seated stretch, just as the knock on the door broke her peaceful atmosphere.

"Coming!" Dawn pulled herself up off of the ground and dusted off her sweatpants as she hurried through the house. When she opened the door and saw the company that she had, Dawn wished she'd been wearing something more flattering. Her faded grey t-shirt and black pants looked nothing short of ratty next to the sleek grey suit worn by the woman she didn't know. At least she knew that Kendra wasn't likely to criticize her exercise clothes. "Oh, hi!" she greeted both of them with a smile.

"Nice place, Dawn," Kendra nodded, smiling back at her former teammate and gesturing toward the other woman. "This is Jonni Thunder. Jonni, Manitou Dawn."

"Oh, is this a business meeting?" Dawn asked with a chuckle, hearing her hero's name. She offered a handshake to Jonni, and stepped aside for the two women to enter her home. "Sorry the place is wreck, wasn't expecting company."

Jonni took a moment to look around the living room, but her attention quickly returned to the woman. "No need to be sorry. It's good to meet you. Ms. Saunders has been telling me much about your talents."

"Well that's because she's generous," Dawn laughed, taking her guests to a small coffee table, surrounded with soft chairs where they could sit. "But I do have some things going for me, true. How's school going, how's everything without the League?" she asked, turning to Kendra. "I guess you have more free time, now."

"That's kind of why we're here." Kendra crossed one of her legs under the other. In the opposite chair, Jonni placed her ankles one behind the other and her hands in her lap. "I really wasn't that good at settling down, I guess." She explained the meeting she'd had with Jonni, and the idea of the Birds of Prey. "We're gonna need good people involved, and if we're being honest here, we need people who aren't already on a team. Can't really go off spying very well if we have to ask the League for permission first," she chuckled.

Dawn nodded, looking more intently at Jonni. "I guess not. It sounds pretty strange, though, to be honest."

"Yes, I'm aware of that. Would it help to see the evidence?" Jonni's lips curled into a small smile as she pulled the netbook out of her bag. Dawn hopped out of her chair to lean over the back of Jonni's, and Kendra shifted to see better as the screen flared to life. "He'd told me about the bank accounts, but I had no idea how much information would fit into this little thing. The most detailed files I've found so far are all around a group called SPIDER. I've heard of them before, but never in half as much detail as Mockingbird's given me."

Jonni's fingers tapped on the keys, still cautiously, pulling up documents and pictures on every corner of the screen. But at the sound of the name, another window opened on top of all the others. Mockingbird's shadowy smile shone on the screen, and all three girls saw the camera in the netbook turn on, catching their image in return. "Why, Jonni, what a lovely start to your team."

"Glad you approve." Kendra folded her arms across her chest. "So this is our fearless leader?"

"No, my dear, I believe you're meant to be our leader," Mockingbird lilted. "I'm merely your guide."

Kendra tensed at the words and looked back at Jonni-- she hadn't heard the other woman tell anyone about their leadership plan. But the voice began again, and she felt her muscles relaxing.

"No doubt you've found your first assignment by now. I expect no less from my employees," Mockingbird said, and though his eyes were still lost in the shadow, each woman felt them pass over her face. "I've given you all you'll need to know about the Society for Political Instability and Diverted Economic Resources. Though you'll save your breath by referring to them as SPIDER. A nasty lot, not usually worth troubling with. But something very interesting has happened in their territory. Your first task is to explore it for me."

Dawn spoke up now, her arms resting on the back of Jonni's chair. "How interesting?"

"You'll all enjoy the adventure, I'm sure. You'll be receiving more information shortly. I've sent along pictures and maps. There's been a crash landing in mid-Africa. No one knows yet what, precisely has crashed, or what's inside the vessel. You three will be the first to find out." With nothing more than that, Mockingbird vanished from the screen. True to his words, photographs and hastily-written news articles popped up in place of the camera. The crash site was a smoking wreck, a once-smooth black sphere now half-buried in sand.

All three women looked from the screen to each other in turn. Jonni shut the computer after a minute of reading, and stood up. "We'll need transportation. Have you decided, then, Dawn?"

"Just let me change," Dawn nodded. "He seemed pretty sure I was part of the team. I don't think I could walk away from this now if I wanted to!"



The lone figure raced across the flat, brown landscape, a trail of dry dust in her wake. The geography of Chad had proven especially conducive to Zenobia's all-out speed, as fast as many of the cars that could be found in the African country. She'd been on the road for hours, her leather-clad feet slapping the ground hard to make a rhythm that helped her maintain her pace. She had spent the last couple of months in the Darfur region of Sudan, doing the best she could for the oppressed. She was might, and a skilled warrior, but she was only one woman, and while there were several villages that owed her a level of freedom, she was frustrated as ever at how little she felt she had accomplished.

She preferred to run now. She could move so fast, and for so long, and while she loved the way the wind tugged at her long brown hair and caressed her skin like warm hands, and she could hear the blood pound through her ears, this way she was kept close to the hard-pressed, the poor and unjustly ruled; always reminding her of her new mission.

A mission that drew her to a new place now, near Lake Chad, in Nigeria. Militants, insurgents, brutally clearing out the government and slowly but unceasingly claiming the surrounding land. While the governments around the lake were suspect at best, it was stability, and it could let the nations of the world try to make things right. Worse, these insurgents gained such ground from weaponry much too advanced for even the established political bodies. There was a mystery in this, and one that drew Zenobia relentlessly to the fray.

Zenobia was an angry warrior against injustice, but for all the rapacious slaughter and ugliness she'd battled in recent weeks, none of that was what angered her. It was Athena. The ruler of Olympus had used her recently in the battle with Kronus* and then left her with a blessing, as one of a triumvirate of sisters to take on the Amazon legacy. And then she just left! Departed our reality altogether! Just like that! Zenobia screamed in her head. How could she do that? What did she mean by that? I never asked for sisters, or legacy-building or...or... She came to a stop, kicking up dirt and stones as she did.

*see Wonder Woman #31-33

"I'm just a warrior!" she screamed up into the sky, shaking her fist. "What is it you wanted me to do?" She hung her head and took a deep breath as she clenched her fists repeatedly. Get a grip, woman, she chastised herself mentally. People are depending on you, and Athena left, so clearly, she's expecting me to sort this out, and if I disappoint her in the end, well, then it's her fault, right?

She rolled her shoulders, the backpack she wore shifting. Her weapons, her battle garb, and some essentials; her entire life she wore on her back. That made her scowl again, and she started her race anew, as if she were trying to outrace the life that led her to his moment. She continued her mad dash into her future for another hour before finding signs of the new struggle she intended to bring to an end before it became another massacre, another tragedy.

She found a quiet spot out of the way, and slipped off the simple gray tank-top she wore, then stepped out of her shorts and running shoes. She pulled out her black and silver gear, slipping on the boiled leather garb, and felt like she slipped on a second skin. She tugged upper arm guards into position, laced her greaves around the thick strong calves, and then stood and stretched her limbs and rolled her shoulders. She reached back into the pack and pulled out the sectioned poles, twisting them together and forming her spear. She tightened up her belt, and hooked on a pair of daggers and coiled a weighted net into place. When she was finished, she returned to the location that had stopped her run, examined the signs of the battle, the ebb and flow of the struggle etched into the ground, and then jogged in one direction the tracks indicated to her.

Twenty minutes later, she closed in on the camp, several worn tents scattered around a pair of fires. A dozen people were involved in various activities: cleaning weapons, two patrolling the perimeter, three of them at a table marking up a map. None of them were prepared for the whirlwind that struck them.

Zenobia unleashed a primal war cry and tore into the campsite. Her spear spun brutal, bloody arcs that scattered the guards. A dagger hurtled across the camp to put down one of the three plotters, as Zenobia quickly pulled her net free and continued her assault. The soldiers did their best to retaliate; a couple of them even managed to grab up their rifles, which gave the ferocious woman of wonder her first start in the battle when laser beams lanced out at her. She pivoted out of the way of one, and deflected the second with her bracer. Her foot lashed out and caved in a chest in response and caught the firing arm of the second with the net, pulling the shooter in close and she brought down her forehead, adorned with a silver diadem, onto the bridge of her enemy's nose.

Moments later, the sounds of battle faded, to be replaced by whimpers and moans of pain. Zenobia's heavy boots crunched across the campsite and she snatched up the only one of the three leaders still conscious. <"I want information about these weapons,"> she growled as she held up one of the laser rifles, crumpling it in her hand for emphasis. <"You are going to give it to me, but first, I really, really hope you try to resist my interrogation. See, I'm being confounded by matters of family and faith of late, and I have a great many frustrations to work out.">



"Okay, I'm convinced, this is a sweet ride," Kendra said as she stepped up into the cabin of the lear jet. "We have to buy one of these for the team."

"Aren't these kind of pricey?" Dawn chuckled as she piloted the jet over the sea. "Though you're right, it's nice. Not quite the same as the League airships, but it's better than swimming."

"Pricey-shmicey," Kendra said as she plopped down into a chair behind the other two women. "I've been going over this little computer of Jonni's, and I've learned two things."

"What would those be?" Jonni asked with a smirk as she leaned over the back of her chair to face Kendra.

"One: we're loaded. I mean, seriously, this Mockingbird has money to burn, and more favors listed in here than a deck has cards," Kendra said with an excited grin. "The heck with chartering a jet in the future, and that's scary."

"What's number two?" Dawn asked as she turned the jet toward its final destination, radioing in to the tower at Diffa Airport in Nigeria.

"We need to find a more tech-savvy Bird then me. I can do the basic stuff, but there's programs and spreadsheets and...other things on here I'm almost afraid to open up." Kendra gave a laugh as she closed the netbook up. "Guess it's time to get the wings out?"

"We'll be landing in about twenty minutes," Dawn confirmed.

"Okay then, the answer is yes, time to strap on the feathers," Jonni said. "We should be on our guard too, after we get there. The crash site is some distance out, we'll have to get some ground transportation, which means even if they don't notice an ax-wielding Native American and a winged warrior woman getting out of a chartered jet, someone has to notice us interact with them. We know SPIDER has presence in the area seeking out the crash site, and the government is likely to, and the U.S. State Department has put up a recent tourist alert, so that means rebels or terrorists."

"Right. The minute after we step on the tarmac, everyone who wants that whatever will know we're there to keep it away from them," Kendra called up from the cabin. "Just so long as we keep that glass-half-full perspective, gals."

"It occurs to me to ask, Jonni," Dawn spoke up as the Nigerian plains came into sharper view. "Other than being a private investigator, do you do anything? Have you any special gifts that our leader should know about?"

"Ah yes, that, well..." Jonni paused and reached into her shirt pocket. She pulled out a carved wooden clasp for neckerchiefs and bolo ties. It was worn smooth from over a century of use, but the clear shape of a thunderbird could easily be made out. "As it happens, I do." Her fingers curled tightly around the object and slipped it back into the pocket.