Chapter One—Meet Daisy…

"Carter, I'm tellin' you, we've got several flyer's jackets down in the tunnel that'd fit you perfectly. I know one of 'em's almost brand new. That sergeant that came through just last month told me 'e'd bought it right before 'e got captured." Newkirk was getting frustrated with his friend's stubborn attachment to his "lucky" jacket. "Mate, that thing you're wearin's about to fall apart. You walk around in that, and nobody knows whether it's sunny or snowin' outside, the bloody thing's so scuffed up."

Sgt. Andrew Carter frowned. "Daisy's not that bad. She's nice and warm, and besides, she's comfortable. We've been through a lot together. I don't know why you care, anyway."

Newkirk, who had just dealt the cards for another endless round of gin, nearly dropped his cards as he burst out laughing. "Daisy? You named your jacket Daisy? Oi, ya really are crackers, mate!" The others around the table joined in the laughter, until Andrew threw his cards down and stood up. "Well, gee, I mean if a guy can't wear what he wants, what's that all about? Nobody picks on LeBeau for wearing the same old scarf and hat all the time, do they? So why pick on me about Daisy? I mean…BOY!" With that, Carter stormed away from his astonished friends and took himself down into the tunnel…most likely to sulk a bit before heading into his Tunnel Three lab.

Kinch and LeBeau stared at Newkirk in surprise for a moment. Newkirk himself was staring at the bunk leading to the tunnels. Before anyone had a chance to speak, Col. Hogan stepped out from his quarters. "What's with all the noise out here, fellas?"

Newkirk turned to Hogan. "Well, sir, I think I managed to 'urt me mate's feelin's."

Hogan, as was his custom, took a quick look around, assessed things and turned to Newkirk. "Since I need Carter to put all his concentration into getting those special explosives ready for the mission tomorrow night, I would suggest you go find him and straighten things out. The last thing we need is for him to get distracted and blow himself and the rest of us up." He smiled briefly to show he was only half-kidding and returned to the paperwork he had been trying to catch up on all evening.

"Blimey," Newkirk breathed, "I forgot about the bloody explosives!" He headed quickly for the tunnel entrance.

Newkirk found Carter in his lab. Newkirk watched from the entrance; fascinated, as Carter intently watched something bubbling in a couple of test tubes, while carefully considering the green contents of a third tube in his left hand. With his right, he picked up a small vial of some sort of crystals and added them slowly to the liquid in the tube in his other hand. Newkirk was intrigued by the soft sizzling sound the mixture made.

Without looking at him, Carter told him, "Don't come in here." His voice was completely neutral. There was no trace of anger or stress. This was Andrew Carter completely in his element. Newkirk marveled at the change that always came over Andrew whenever he stepped into his lab…this was the one place, other than when actually setting his explosives or pyrotechnics, where he truly seemed at home. A small voice in Newkirk's head sounded, Bit scary, that. True, there were times that things exploded in the lab when they shouldn't, but as Carter had explained it, that was just the way it went when he didn't have the proper equipment to get all the measurements exactly right. When Newkirk reminded him he had blown up half his high school, Carter had grinned and told him he was a) exaggerating and b) he'd sort of done it on purpose.

That was when Newkirk noticed something else…Carter was not wearing Daisy. He usually didn't wear his gloves, in the lab, so that was not unusual, but he almost always wore his jacket or his heavy coveralls. He was unusually dressed in just his lighter uniform. He noticed Daisy was carelessly tossed on the floor at Andrew's feet, something Andrew never did…almost as if he were ashamed of the jacket. The odd thing was, Andrew was suddenly sweating profusely. And that was Newkirk realized something was wrong. Andrew's voice broke into his thoughts just then.

"Peter. Go back to the barracks NOW."

"What's wrong, Andrew? Can I help?"

And then Andrew roared 'GO BACK! RUN, NEWKIRK—THAT'S AN ORDER!"

Startled, unthinkingly, Peter obeyed, running towards the barracks ladder. He expected one of Andrew's spectacular explosions, but one never came. What did come was a sort of loud popping sound and a very bright silvery-blue flash. And then Andrew screamed.

His heart pounding, Peter ran back to the lab, which was in shambles. He had eyes only for his friend as he heard footsteps pounding down the tunnel. Andrew was huddled on the floor. His jacket, hastily pulled over him as he went down, was a smoking ruin, full of melted glass and burning chemicals.

~TBC~