To avoid revealing their true nature even to military personnel, the cano-sapiens departed in one of Exile's 'aesthetically' modified vehicles. Actually the machine was draped in a tarp – because, so the husky said, all artists did that until their work was ready to unveil – but since it was the only machine they had which was suitable for arctic tundra and forest, Shepherd convinced him to cut a hole in the tarp where the windshield was. He then asked Iris to remind him to look into prices on more used vehicles.

Inside the transport, the Rovers soon discovered that apart from some seating along the sides the interior had been completely refitted. Instead of regular seats, they had…

"Jet skis?" asked Hunter, puzzled.

"Snowmobiles," Exile explained. "We had enough I did not think Master would mind."

"Okay, why?" asked Blitz.

"Why not?" Exile reasoned. "Snowmobiles are fun-ski." Actually he had never ridden a snowmobile in his life, but he'd spent hours on a simulated one besides riding jet skis on the underground lake like the others.

Colleen folded her arms. "Just tell us you didn't give it a snowmobile's motah too," she uttered dismally.

Hunter shrugged and climbed onto one of the seats, gripping the handlebars for the heck of it. "Well, I trust Exile when it comes to machines."

"Yah, but who trusts your opinion, huh?" asked Blitz sourly.

Colleen raised her hand, though whether she did so out of any particular regard for Hunter was up for debate. Shag readily raised his paw as well, and although Exile felt it rather self-serving under the circumstances he backed Hunter's decision to back him as well.

"Okay, dat doesn't count," Blitz objected as he pointed at the husky, though he said nothing more now that he'd been outvoted either way.

Blitz sort of won the dispute too, though, since it wasn't long before everyone had moved to one of the more conventional seats either by a control or monitor panel or simply built into the walls of the transport itself. Narrow seats and leaning forward are comfortable enough when you're skimming along over snow or water or even riding a bicycle, but riding in a transport where you're just sitting there for a long while isn't at all the same. Hunter was nice about it, though, and suggested that maybe the screens on the seats' handlebars could be set up to play movies.

They drove out through an underground tunnel – one of quite a few spreading out from the base in different directions and to different distances – to a rendezvous point with the Apache. To Hunter's disappointment this turned out not to be an Indian, but a large vehicle combining traits of a helicopter and a plane. After giving a pre-arranged clearance code to the pilot and some mumbo-jumbo about top-secret cargo, they drove right in the back and got out to settle down for their flight.

"So how do you know about the places the prof's sending us, Exile?" asked Hunter quizzically. He had meant to ask this earlier, but until then the eccentric design of their new vehicle had driven it from his mind.

"In geography books," answered the husky, his grin audible despite the face-concealing headgear. "Professor wanted us to know geography, so I started with places nearest homeland. Didn't you?"

The others all demurred on this one way or another. Shag had mostly been reading up on which places had the best forests or food. Hunter had been trying to learn the states, and although he could name all of them and their capitols thanks to a song he found online he still couldn't peg half of them on a map. Colleen hadn't really taken to geography at all, and Blitz had mostly focused on the Bahamas, Hawaii, Florida, and other locales which all, by some coincidence, were noted for beautiful women.

It was Hunter who changed the subject first. "I still think we should have a name or something," he reasoned.

"Does it really mattah?" asked Colleen.

"Well, sure. What happens if people find out about us and ask who we are? We've gotta tell them something, right?"

Exile nodded. "Is making sense to me."

"That makes one of us," Colleen replied.

"Two, but who's counting?" asked Hunter. "Let's put it to a vote. All those in favor of giving our team a name, say aye."

"Aye," Exile chimed cheerfully. Professor Shepherd had explained about votes, and though it sounded like fun they'd had little occasion to vote on much of anything up to that point.

"Aye," Hunter affirmed, stating the obvious.

"Rye," Shag rumbled, despite not really being sure what they were talking about.

Colleen shrugged. "Alright. Aye."

"I don't care," Blitz said, folding his arms.

"Okay, four yeses and one, uh… non-vote," Hunter tallied, trying unsuccessfully to think of the word 'abstention.' "So, any ideas what we should call ourselves?"

Silence reigned all around.

"We should call ourselves da Blitzkreigs," Blitz said flatly.

Nobody seemed to like that idea much. "You nevah give up, do you guvnuh?" asked Colleen. "If we're going to choose anyone's name it would be Huntuh's. He's running the show, right?"

Hunter brightened at that. "I don't remember agreeing to that, but cool. What about Hunter's Heroes?"

Colleen regarded him through half-lowered lids. "I didn't say it was a good idea," she pointed out.

"We could be calling ourselves the Power Pack-ski," Exile suggested.

Everyone seemed to like that, but Hunter pointed out that it was already taken.

"If you guys are Black Ops you probably shouldn't really have a name," pointed out a voice, making them all jump. What made it more surprising was that the voice seemed to be coming from Shag. The Sheepdog promptly stared down at himself as though someone might be hiding in his suit or the fur underneath.

"Oh, and if you want your talks to be private, you might try not leaning on the intercom button."

Shag promptly moved away from the little all-mounted box, and the whole crew grew silent after that, thanking their lucky dog stars that no one had said anything too canine.

"So what do you know about this place we're going to?" asked Hunter in a whisper.

"Ah, is beautiful country," Exile answered, leaning back in a relaxed pose and then quickly making sure there wasn't a button behind him too. "Snow nine months of the year, and hail the other three. Lots of rocks and thick shrubs."

Colleen folded her arms. "Oh, yeah, real five-star resort there, guv."

"What about the fighting?" asked Blitz, leaning forward.

"Oh, the people are always grumping about this, that, the other thingie," Exile explained. "We never really paid attention, as long as they left us wol-"

Hunter loudly cleared his throat, pointing with one hand to the speaker where Shag had been sitting while, with the other, he meaningfully covered the mouth region of his face plate.

"Oh, dah. I forgot-ski."

Apparently the pilot had grown weary of the silence. "Hey, uh, I know this is unprofessional, but I just hope you guys have done this before, because this is my first time flying 'cargo' sight unseen. Gotta tell ya, it's making me kinda nervous."

The cano-sapiens all looked at one another, and Colleen motioned for Shag to push the button. Reluctantly, Shag did.

"Ain't much bettah back here, guvnuh," she told the pilot.

"Yeah, I'm guessing you guys aren't headed for a hotel resort. But for what it's worth it's nice to know you all are human. I was kind of expecting my first Black Ops transport to be a bomb or, I dunno, some kind of biological experiment."

Hunter had to resist the urge to impersonate Robert Downey, Jr. saying 'Well, you're not wrong.' He tried to think of some way to get the line of conversation off of them.

"Well, I guess if we can't tell you about us, maybe you should talk about you? You know; help the time pass."


Some hours later the team had to climb back into the truck in which they had entered the aircraft, as news came that it was about time to land at the American base set on Katzenstokian soil – or snow, as the case might be. One or two of them were reluctant to break off talking with the pilot, as it was their first real dialogue with any human besides the professor. Hunter had done most of the talking, but with one exception they had all taken an interest as he told them about his family back home in the suburbs of Albuquerque. By the sound of it this soldier – Ryan Murray, as they had learned – had a pretty nice setup back in the states; four daughters and a baby on the way of as-yet unknown sex, a decent back yard, and to the team's considerable appreciation a German Shepherd who had worked with his wife before she retired from police work to take a consulting job so she could be more available for their children.

Blitz, contrasted to the others, was only too glad to have it over with. "Dat was de most boring conversation I've evuh heard," he complained as Hunter took the front seat while he and the others took the back. They had been instructed to show as little of themselves as possible, and when it came to who would drive Hunter argued that he had the best track record in the driving simulator.

"You are just grump-ski because pilot thought you ask weird questions about his dog," Exile responded. To be specific, Blitz had taken a notable interest when it came up that the pilot's dog was female. Granted, Blitz's questions hadn't been that strange, albeit they were on the creepy side, if you knew he was a dog. Considering the pilot didn't know that little detail, however, it made perfect sense that he had asked point-blank 'what in the Sam Hill' was wrong with Blitz.

"Well did you have to say de list was too long for de flight?" demanded Blitz.

"Is truth advertising-ski," Exile defended.

Colleen glanced at Hunter, then stepped in and pushed the arguing duo apart. "Alright, you lot, that's enough," she said firmly. Turning to Blitz and prodding a finger against his chest, she added, "Besides, what would you have spent the whole trip talking about anyway?"

Blitz bristled at the rebuke, but the sight of Colleen in her winter gear (which was rather fetching) and actually speaking to him softened his demeanor.

"Well, maybe we could talk about you and me…" he offered in what he thought was a charming tone of voice.

"And no and way," she answered, rolling her eyes and wondering if he would ever give up. She was starting to hope they would at some point be operating openly, if only because there wasn't much point in rolling her eyes at Blitz with a helmet on – and she rolled her eyes at him a lot.

They felt a slight jolt as the aircraft set down, and a voice over the intercom told them the doors were about to open. A moment later they did as promised, and Hunter drove out onto a crude but serviceable tarmac while the others pulled open Velcro-fastened slits to look out. All around they saw an array of vehicles that looked like trucks but had treads instead of tires, small and fairly light-looking tanks, and sleek vehicles which out of the team only Exile recognized as snowmobiles. Most of the others mainly noted the soldiers milling about; at least three dozen in number, all bundled up and heavily armed, and watching the truck attentively. They'd been informed that some special forces were inbound, and though effoorts had been made to keep them from seeing too much they were all quite naturally curious.

One of the men, identified by the stripes on his jacket as a commander, walked up to the side of the truck and gave the code phrase. "I have fish in my pockets," he announced.

"Oh, good," said Hunter, shaking his hand. "I'm hungry enough to eat anything."

The commander frowned in confusion. The handshake had been an arranged signal for the sign and counter-sign. Hunter's remark, not so much.

"Well," said the commander briskly, "I assume you're aware of the plan. We've managed to locate the encampment where the scepter is hidden, and we have surveillance monitoring them closely. We sent some drones with GPR over the area and as best they could tell before they were shot down there are no tunnels to or from the location. Once the vehicle your boss is supplying arrives, you and your, uh, special soldiers will head out with us to the location and sneak in as close as you safely can. Once we start the diversion, you find and grab the scepter and then high-tail it out of there to reconvene with us. With any luck the snowstorm coming in will cover up our tracks before they can trace us back here. Any questions?"

Hunter was about to ask what keeping their tails up had to do with getting back to the GIs. Then he remembered that the commander wasn't supposed to know they had tails and decided this must be what the professor called a 'figure of speech.' He'd have to ask about it when they got back. "Yeah. Do we know yet who the bad guys are?"

"No, and we're to avoid action against them either way," answered the commander. "The diplomats are anxious to ensure that hostilities are kept as contained as possible so they'll have less to sort out later. Our best-case scenario is that we can pin this on some kind of rogue faction and let the matter die there."

The whole business was pretty strange to Hunter, but he liked the idea of as few people getting hurt as possible. "Okay, and what was that about a vehicle from our mas- I mean, our boss?"

At this the commander scrunched his face. "You didn't know? Your boss sent in a vehicle from your… company fleet." By the look on his face, it seemed he had a dim view of involving private forces in military endeavors. "Malone says you'll do better in a vehicle you know, and that your technicians have this one heavily customized."

Hunter glanced at Exile, then shrugged. "Okay, how long will that be?"

"Inbound at about fifteen minutes."


During the delay, the cano-sapiens couldn't help noticing the gossip that drifted around them. Disciplined as these soldiers were, it was hard for them not to chatter a little when an "elite squad" showed up of whom they were supposed to see nothing but armor – not even so much as an eyeball – and with whom they were to talk only on a minimal basis. It wasn't easy with the helmets covering their ears, but as it turned out Hunter had been working on his lip reading because he saw it in a cartoon and thought it looked cool. Between that and Colleen's hearing (she had the sharpest ears of any of them), the two of them managed to piece together a fair amount of what the other soldiers had to say. Shag's build in particular caught attention, leading to one suggestion – Colleen thought it might be a joke – that the army was now inducting Sasquatch. Others suggested that the strangers among them were steroid cases, aliens, or genetic experiments.

"Well, I guess they're not totally wrong," Hunter observed at this. He remembered Shepherd saying their DNA was essentially still canine, but he wasn't sure what to call what had been done to them anyway.

The group grew a bit uneasy when someone brought up the case of humanoid dog monsters reported in Maine, but another soldier quickly argued that "everyone knew" that had been an internet hoax and the handful of photos and footage were already debunked.

"We should just take off our helmets and show dem," said Blitz. "Why should a face as perfect as mine stay hidden?"

"Because we don't want to cause chaos, that's why," answered Exile. "Especially with face like yours."

Hunter pushed them apart before Blitz could hit Exile. "We're not taking off the helmets," he said decisively. "I'm not too crazy about it either, but the mast- uh, professor said to keep things quiet for now. I trust him."

"And who says we trust you?" argued Blitz, raising the question.

"You are big one to talk trust-ski, considering last time we trusted you," Exile pointed out.

Before you could say 'bark,' Blitz was in Exile's face. "Care to say dat again, snowba-"

"Hey, knock it off," Hunter broke in, getting a little exasperated. They were supposed to fight whoever took the scepter, not each other. Besides, this was their first joint op with the US military. How would it look in the history books if they kept arguing like a bunch of strays?

Blitz clearly didn't share Hunter's concern for propriety. "Oh sure, take his side," he accused.

"I'm not taking anyone's side here," Hunter argued back. "We're here to do a job, and this is how the professor said to do it."

Seeing that Blitz was about to return to the argument about trusting Hunter or the professor, Colleen stepped up. "And just for the record," she put in, folding her arms in a no-nonsense stance, "I trust Huntuh, and I don't date anyone who doesn't."

Blitz abruptly shut up at that, folding his arms and looking away.

"Hey, that's nice. Thanks," Hunter said, holding out a hand to Colleen by way of appreciation.

She regarded the hand, then shook it in the most formal, frank way possible as she added, "I didn't say I was dating you eithah."

Hunter didn't know how to respond to that, but Blitz smirked behind his mask, content enough to be knocked down a peg if the retriever mix went too.

At about that time the commander barked out a call to attention.

"We have the go-ahead," he called to all and sundry. "All clear to move out in five, girl scouts! Let's arm up and mount up, chop-chop!"

The soldiers began to mill about, and the commander turned to the newcomers.

"Alright, you all get that vehicle of yours up and ready! Whoever's in charge, come with me and I'll explain the marching orders."

Thanks again for waiting, and at long last we have another chapter! Not much action, I know, but I wanted to give some attention to how first (or should I say furst?) impressions would go concerning the Rovers, their new gear, and some of their new allies.

Admittedly I'm having some uncertainty about the pacing of this story, and starting to see why the original episode skipped past the first part of this mission. Hopefully we can get to the action soon – if the team can stop arguing, that is.

As always, fave, follow, and review! Oh, and I'm looking for ideas on what the Rovers might suggest calling themselves before (spoiler) comes up with their final name. So by all means, message and post!