Constraints: Some point after Tiffany attends USAES.

Synopsis: LLH Alternate Universe: Having attended the USAES, Tiffany decides to sign up for active service. Now she has to keep her secrets even though it hurts to do so.

Qualification.

Content: Violence, mild sexual abuse.

Legal: Daria = MTV, Legion Of Superheroes = Warner Brothers, Legion Of Lawndale Heroes = Roentgen & Brother Grimace.

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg[/img]

Tiffany felt herself sway a little as she struggled to maintain her balance. The now foul bag over her head meant she couldn't see anything that could help her maintain her position, she was entirely dependant on her sense of equilibrium, and that was almost non-existent thanks to unknown hours of sleep deprivation.

"WHAT WERE YOU DOING?" screamed the asshole next to her. She was just about beyond flinching when his voice nailed her ears like that. She had even gotten used to them discharging guns next to her ears, and these weren't blanks they were firing. Everythign going on around her reminded her how vulnerable she was at this point.

The Mk. 40 compliance band on her wrist meant that if she didn't want her captors to REALLY kick the shit out of her, she had to stand and not move when they hit, caned, whipped, drenched, or electrocuted her anyway.

The stick struck the back of her thighs again, but again, she was beyond flinching. They had her standing with her knees slightly bent, and her legs were burning from the constant tension her muscles had to maintain. Her shoulders and outstretched arms were also burning.

"YOU WILL TELL ME NOW OR YOU WILL TELL ME AFTER YOU PUT YOURSELF THROUGH SOME THOROUGHLY UNNECESSARY PAIN!"

"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are talking-"

She was interrupted by an elbow strike to her back, just under her ribcage, and she fell over.

"GET UP!" He was now kicking her arms and legs, "GET UP! WHO TOLD YOU TO CHANGE POSITION! GET UP NOW!" Tiffany scrambled to get back into position again. The movement reawakened her limbs, but now everything was hurting more fiercely than just five seconds ago, and she again felt the urge to tell them what they were telling her to admit: That she and her companions were a team sent in to destroy an arms shipment, that the US had unofficially sanctioned this. "YOU WILL STAY RIGHT THERE UNTILL I TELL YOU TO MOVE!"

Tiffany didn't respond to this.

How much longer was this going to continue for?

There was a way for her to avoid the other stuff too.

Tell them what she was doing sneaking around within ten klicks of that explosion that happened.

This boat load of shoulder SAMs and RPG 7s had been blown up along with the truck of mines, more RPG 7s, 7.62mm rounds, and the enemy fuel dump. They had to do this by manually placing charges.

Boat was easy, just swim under it and stick the charge to it. This was a number of sheets of explosives, adhesive backed with an adhesive that would function while wet, The person setting these charges had then uncoiled the det-chord they were using to fuse the charges and tied that together with wire ties to a detonator which had been rigged to a delay element, bit more C-4 around that part to ensure the chord would properly initiate, the delay element had a pin-pull ignitor which a team mate of hers then pulled before he swam away.

The truck and the fuel dump were on land and where being guarded by twelve X-rays.

They had anticipated the possibility that they couldn't get right up under the truck and fuel dump and had rigged charges that could be effective from a distance. If they could get the charge under the vehicle, super-duper-excellent, but if they couldn't, then they had to be able to position it at a distance and point it at the target and it would have to be effective against the target.

They had considered having Tiffany simply phase through the soil, but the truck's underside was too high off the ground for the charge to go unnoticed, and merging explosives with soil would have had unknown effects on the explosives and the copper plate, they wanted to detonate the munitions on the truck so that they absolutely could not be used.

They amended it so that Tiffany would do all the land charges, she would leave the charges on the surface and dig out soil for any devices that needed to be in the ground, but Tiffany could simply float through the ground with just enough of her head for her to see where she was going protruding, she then places the charges on the surface, and moves back, uncoiling the det-chord as she moved back.

This was achieved with an 8mm copper plate backed with cast H6 and a hole drilled through both the plate and the charge, that served as a sight to help aim the charge and it received the detonator.

You get as close as possible, position the charge, using the local top soil to support one side, then you insert the detonator and move back, uncoiling det-chord as you go. In this case the delay element and detonator has been pre-assembled, it was long enough to reach the river, pull the ignitor at the appropriate time, and get out of there.

The plate would form an appropriately sized and speedy projectile that would detonate any explosive material in it's path, so all they had to do was aim roughly at the centre of the truck's cargo space. The fuel dump might be gasoline, diesel, jet-A, so they couldn't guarantee ignition if they didn't accompany the projectiles with an ignition source.

Five claymore mines, off the shelf, rigged together along with the ignitor system, claymores turn the fuel containers into colanders, ignitor was a Pringles tube full of thermite with a lump of C4 at the bottom with a detonator, but det-chord would destroy the thermite ignitor, so they instead rigged a small shaped charge and simply used the copper jet to ignite the thermite by means of friction. Thermite took up most of the tube, C4 took up the last 15mm, thing was buried in the ground so it would keep it's shape as the thermite burned, detonator initiates the C4 and throws the molten iron over the fuel puddle.

They aimed to get the charges to initiate within five seconds of each other. That simply meant having someone next to the boat waiting to pull the pin on that charge. If Tiffany had been compromised, the other two operatives across the river would provide covering fire as the other two ignited the delay elements on the charges they had planted and left. Bit of luck, they could hold the enemy's attention long enough for the delay elements to burn up.

They then all ignited the delay elements and left.

Exfil had been going all right, they found a vehicle, hotwired it, and were well on their way out, until all these enemy soldiers popped up out of nowhere.

One fired a flash-bang into the car from a grenade launcher attachment on their assault rifle, and the rest moved in while they were blind and deaf, and then the last thing Tiffany remembered was this powerful white hot pain in her neck.

When she awoke, she was face down in the back of a truck, hands and feet tied, bag over her head, headphones piping white noise at ear piercing volume, and this Mk. 40 compliance band on her wrist.

All this information told her that their worst case scenario had occurred.

Once the truck had arrived at ... wherever ... They had been pulled to their feet by the bag over their head being used as a choke ligature and pulled off the back of the truck, they were barely standing as their feet were still tied.

Well.

She assumed they were all going through this.

They had been captured ... ...

It had been ... ...

How long had it been?

Tiffany needed to get some sleep.

"EXTENDED PUSH UP!"

'Damn it!' Tiffany lowered her hands and extended her feet straight back, her arms slightly bent.

They usually kicked her in the crotch and her sides when she was in this position.

Sometimes they removed her hood and placed a plate of ravioli with a couple of slices of garlic bread and an ice cold glass of ultra-cola about a foot ahead of her. The food varied, but it was usually something delicious with a refreshing, thirst quenching drink, and she could have it if she just admitted what they were doing.

Other times they molested her, telling her that as long as they kept their secrets, they would not be considered prisoners of war, this would not be considered a war crime, they would simply be considered criminals with no right to any more protection than a citizen of the country they had invaded. That was obviously bullshit, they were just as bad on POWs as they were on their own citizens.

And there was no way to sleep when in any of the positions they had made her stand in.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? WE KNOW YOU ATTACKED OUR SUPPLY POINT!"

"No, I was not involved in th-"

He kicked her in the stomach, causing her to bend a little.

"DO NOT GIVE ME ANY MORE OF YOUR LIES! IF YOU'RE NOT A SOLDIER, YOU'RE ATERRORIST!"

"I was not involve-"

He kicked her in one of her breasts, it felt like the gland had been split against her ribs.

"LET'S START AGAIN! WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY COUNTRY?"

"I'm just here to see the sights, I have no hostile intent."

"BULLSHIT! I KNOW FULL WELL WHAT YOU WERE DOING, AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO GET AWAY WITH IT! AND YOU KNOW YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH IT! AND STILL YOU REFUSE TO TELL US WHAT YOU WERE REALLY UP TO? ON YOUR FEET! STAR POSITION!"

She scrambled to the previous position, stood up, arms outstretched, feet apart, legs slightly bent. She almost fell over as she stood up, her head felt cold as her cardiovascular system was a bit slow in keeping up with her new position.

'How much longer could this possibly continue?'

About ... ... several seconds after she had stood up, the hood came off, and Master Chief Keller stood before her, the guy who was probably interrogating her stood off to the side. Tiffany was unsure if the exercise was really over so she maintained her position.

He held up a flat plastic snap closed box and said "congratulations."

Tiffany stood at attention. The master chief handed her the box and said "You passed, well done." Tiffany accepted the box and inspected it's contents. The trident-anchor-pistol-eagle badge glittered in the dim light.

"Thank you master chief," said Tiffany.

"Now get yourself cleaned up and dressed, you look and smell terrible."

"Aye aye master chief," said Tiffany as she stood to attention again, closing the box, and she followed the interrogator, a third class petty officer, out. The ambient light almost blinded her, and she was not familiar with this location, but she was eventually led to a dormitory with a communal shower in the back. The rest of her team were already in there getting cleaned up.

They cheered her as she entered and she smiled back as she took a showerhead and started taking soap from the accompanying dispenser.

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg[/img]

As Tiffany lay up on her bed, her badge in it's open case resting on her abdomen, she reflected on how she had ended up here.

USAES had been exciting and had really helped her. The Legion had also been good, and she was still a Legionnaire, but she also felt that a military career would give her a sense of routine. But she started to tire of routine, and decided she wanted to try something a bit less routine. In fact, she wanted something that more closely resembled superhero work, she had superpowers for Christ sake, and she was sweeping decks and collecting spent brass from the chaingun stations and firing range. She wanted something that would test her. It still wasn't public knowledge that the US Navy allowed women to apply to become SEALs, and that was because they wanted to be able to disguise their teams as ordinary civilians. They wanted to be unexpected. There had been a number of decades where they weren't, but eventually someone used to the idea of women being equally capable as men got in a position to change that and the change was made.

She recalled her half decade long path from being a USAES cadet to her new posting in the SEALs.

She had taken interest in explosives after she had made contact with Quinn while on leave from USAES. Quinn had taken this explosives course that this retired(?) SBS operative was running back at Legion Tower.

A man named 'Betty'. SBS, Special Boat Service, were basically Navy SEALS, only British. Special warfare usually consisted of sneaking around behind enemy lines, killing, capturing or rescuing people as ordered or blowing things up as ordered, so this guy would really know his explosives.

The course had been comprehensive. Within six months of her enlistment, Tiffany took a Navy demolitions course and had found it equally fascinating. She had to take it twice, along with the extended firearms courses, but eventually she felt ready to go for the SEAL course.

She opened the other box in her possession. The one containing her Legion badge.

Her commanders had always expressed concern over her dual loyalty, she was loyal to both the Legion and the United States of America DOD.

She had always maintained that the Legion was good for humanity and that included the United States, there was no split.

The USAES and the Legion were in close co-operation anyway, and had remained so all this time. Tiffany had another reason for joining the Navy: She felt it would improve relations between USAES and the Legion, closer co-operation improved Legion procedures, tactics, and procurement strategy. Besides, USAES had helped her so much, it seemed only fair. Both Daria and Armalin had warned her against doing this out of gratitude, although for different reasons: Armalin, being a Marine, valued absolute loyalty: If you're not 200% committed to serving your country, don't pledge to that effect. Semper Fidelis. And Daria was concerned Tiffany could find herself being ordered to do something wrong and Tiffany would have to do it and get jailed for war crimes or not do it and get jailed for disobedience.

Then the two of them promptly got into an argument about the integrity of military courts and the JAG corps.

She couldn't wear the Legion badge on her uniform, but she was damn proud she now had the right to wear the SEAL badge.

She also remembered her conversations with Daria.

Daria did not trust the US DOD. Tiffany had felt a bit apprehensive as a result of this. That encounter with General Bakerson hadn't have helped. It certainly didn't impress Tiffany. But her time at USAES told her idiots such as Bakerson didn't take up the entire military. Aside from that, she was going to encounter people who didn't like her or thought she was stupid everywhere she went.

She was building a substantial amount of evidence that she was not as stupid as she sounded.

Daria had acknowledged she wasn't as stupid as she sounded just before she first left for the USAES. Pity Daria didn't need to know she was a SEAL.

She closed both boxes and placed them with the rest of her kit and went to sleep.

[img]http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg[/img]

[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]

End.