Just a Shot Away

It's bright and early in the morning and we're in a large canteen area full to the brim of chatting conies. Looking around, each buck and each doe in the room wears a gold ring on one of their forepaws. Let's zoom into a table at the back where two young bucks are finishing their breakfast.

"Biggs," Says one of the rabbits holding his spoon of Karat-Flakes ('Full of Golden Goodness') half-way to his mouth.

"Wedge," Says the other, looking up as he tries to spoon the remnants of milk onto his spoon. Biggs motions his brother to continue.

"You know," the buck known as Wedge says with feeling, "being the lowly minion of an evil despot isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Biggs sighs and nods, ever so slightly then shakes his head. It's going to be one of those days.

"We've not got laid." Wedge eats his spoonful then, as he waves the spoon, "I'm not sure I've had a full night's sleep since we started this."

He puts the spoon down on the table and sits up straight. "And I still have to do my own washing."

Biggs smiles a smile that doesn't have a laugh behind it: "But we are just 'minions'. We're promised all that when we get to 'Trusted Lieutenant' status."

"And when's that going to happen? Eh?" Wedge says as he tries to get his last few flakes onto his spoon. "I mean, there's not many does among us 'minions' - I think the only single doe is really just Millie."

"Millie?" Biggs asks.

"Yeah, that one over there." Wedge gestures to a single doe, sitting on her own, dressed in dungarees(*), eating her own bowl of Karat-Flakes.

"Why don't you ask her out?" Biggs suggests, suppressing a snigger.

"I think I'll do that!" Wedge replies and immediately stands up. "Now?"

"As good a time as any." His brother says truthfully.

Wedge squares his shoulders and walks purposefully over to the doe, who, luckily has her back to him and so can't see the change in him the way we can. As he nears her he seems to develop a nervous twitch and his purposeful strides turn into little steps of trepidation.

Finally, he sidles up next to her, as she is finishing her bowl. He stands there whilst she drains the last dregs of her bowlful.

"Um." He manages to say. She looks up at his and cocks an eyebrow, "Yes?"

"I was, well," Wedge manages to say then looses his nerve and his mouth dries up.

"You were?"

"I was, well, like wondering," We all sit back amazed as he manages another two words in the sentence!

Millie winds her forepaw in the air, "wondering..."

"Wondering, well if, like, maybe," Wedge is on a roll here, "if, maybe, if you were, well, like, you know, bored or something,"

Millie can't bear to let him go on. She sighs and stands up, bowl in hand, then pats him on the shoulder.

"Wedge," she says gently, "is is Wedge isn't it?" He nods and so she continues, "I'm sorry; if I went for conies with balls, I'd go for a coney with balls."

She spins on her heel and strides out of the door.

Wedge returns to the table, his crest so fallen he's likely to step on it and get it dirty.

"She said no?" Biggs asks, rather cruelly. His brother nods, sadly, "She did touch me 'though." Wedge perks up, "Do you think that means she likes me really?"

"No." His brother says, then, as he leans in close, "We've lost another patrol." He checks around to see who is listening, "But, I hear the Third Man just got back and he's gone off for interrogation, sorry, debriefing, from Our Lord and Mentor."

"Well," Wedge says, "at least we're never sent far from the warren." His brother nods.

---*---

(*) Normally I can't abide stereotypes, and must admit, I've only ever met one lesbian wearing dungarees (and I think she was being ironic) but I have to let the audience know how badly it's going to go for the young buck before he knows...

---*---

Matt looked up at the bunny. "You can go in now."

"What sort of mood is he in?" The bunny asked, a little nervous.

"Black." Matt said, truthfully.

The bunny pushed the door of the Head Bucks office open and stepped into gloom. The room wasn't lit apart from a glow that emanated from the equipment running along the rear wall - a strange contraption of wires and well, things, broken Golden Carrots and all that stuff.

His glorious leader had his back to the door and was jerking his body about in the far corner.

We'll take the camera round to see that Gilchrist is in the corner with Lotte on her knees before him. We'll leave his actual actions to the foetid depths of your imagination. Suffice to say he's not acting like a gentleman.

He kept this up for a few minutes. He was fully aware of the bunny behind him, it was important for him to know how far he could trust his men. This was one of the tests. Not for Lotte. He knew what control he had over all the un-ringed. But he needed to know how far he could push his lieutenants.

He gave a final jerk, then slapped Lotte away from him with a hard swipe of his hand. She crumpled into the corner.

He turned round to the bunny, tidying himself, and locked to the eyes of the buck.

He saw disgust in the buck's eyes. The buck didn't want to watch such a sight, Gilchrist could see that by the way he tried not to look into the corner where the doe cowered; by the way his mouth twitched down.

Gilchrist smiled to himself. He knew where this coney stood. Some bucks managed to not move their eyes at all - these were the professional soldier type, it didn't matter to them what their superiors got up to, they knew it was none of their business. Some bucks stared and grinned, relishing the sight. Those bucks were useful, they would do anything for him because they truly wanted to be like him. They hung on his every word and would skin themselves alive if he said he wanted them too. It was useful to have one of those per patrol, he knew that they would report back correctly and truthfully, to as much a degree as anyone told the truth that is.

This buck hadn't got the balls nor the discipline for a long life as one of his lieutenants.

"Name?" Gilchrist barked.

"Private Robert, sir!" The buck replied.

"You're the only survivor of your patrol?"

"Sir, yes sir!" Robert replied nervously. This shouldn't have shown through - the purpose of 'sir-yes-sir' was that it was a rote reply that could be said without emotion or thought. Gilchrist was not happy.

"You're not the designated Third Man of your patrol, are you?" He said quietly.

"Sir, no sir!" Robert replied even more nervously. Gilchrist turned his back to the coney and was silent. He liked seeing what someone said during his silences. It would unnerve anyone if he said nothing. Surely enough the bunny continued. "Sir, Sidney was, sir."

Gilchrist kept his back to the buck, "So why isn't it Sidney here giving me a report?" He heard the coney take a deep breath.

"Sir, we thought it wasn't fair, sir."

"Not fair?" He spoke this so softly that Robert had trouble hearing the words.

"Sir, no sir. Not fair that one of us would be safe whilst the other two went into enemy territory ahead of him."

"Is that it?"

"Sir?"

"It isn't that you were scared that you would die and that it was unfair that the designated Third Man would come home whilst you and William were killed?"

There was a gulp behind him. Gilchrist smiled to himself. He'd need to make an example of this buck, poor, stupid fool that he was.

"The three men of a patrol are picked by their commanders and given their roles by their superiors, buck. Are you trying to tell me that you don't trust our wisdom?"

"No, sir." The voice was quavering with fear. That made Gilchrist smile a little. "We just thought it would be fairer to rotate."

Gilchrist picked up a baton from the desk and patted his thigh with it. The warning, the promise of pain, was clear to Robert.

"Explain to me," Gilchrist patted his left palm with the baton, "what happened on your patrol."

---*---

We were two days out past the Monastery when we spied a pair of conies travelling together. It was late at night and we saw the light of their campfire first. Sidney told me to stay just in hearing range, in case he said anything funny I was to remember it and tell it when we returned. Sid and Will went out in front, to the edge of the woods and I trailed behind.

One of the bucks matched the description of the message buck Phump, who is on your 'detain' list, but the other wasn't on any of your lists. We all watched as they did some exercises, waving sticks about for twenty minutes or so before they laid down to sleep.

Sid motioned for me to follow on, and he and Will left the woods to sneak up on the two conies. Phump looked by far the heavier of the two and Sid said that they would try to subdue him first, because the white rabbit was all scrawny and would be pushover.

---*---

"White rabbit?" Gilchrist said, with venom, then, "Continue."

---*---

So. Sid and Will jumped onto Phump, Sid on his chest, hands around his throat, Will on his legs.

I was just in hearing range so I could hear Sid as he told the buck not to struggle.

Then the white rabbit stood up and brought out a large sword on one smooth motion. One moment he was lying on the ground, supposedly asleep, the next moment he was up and the point of a large and dangerous-looking sword was pressed against Sid's neck. I could hear as he spoke.

"Let him go."

Sid must have thought that he was in a position of power because he replied without fear. "Or else what?"

The white buck then seemed to twist and the point of his sword appeared from the other side of Sid's neck. He'd kebabed Sid without seeming to move. I heard his reply.

"I didn't give you an option."

It seemed to take an age for him to raise his paw and slide Sid's body off the blade. Sid was twitching, but anyone could see that he was as good as dead. Will took a second to take this in, then stood up, pressing all his weight on Phump's legs. Will looked confused.

"I said let him go." The white coney said. I could hear squeals of pain from Phump and I assume that Will had hurt his leg.

Will broke, just turned tail and started to rush towards the woods, towards me. I saw the white rabbit take two steps towards Will and then flung his sword at him. I saw it flash through the air and it went straight through him to the hilt. Will managed half a step more then fell over. He was close enough to me for me to see the blood. I hunkered down and preyed to Bugs that they wouldn't see me. They didn't. I waited for as long as I dared, then snuck off back this way.

That was five days ago.

---*---

Gilchrist was still and silent, not even his baton was moving. He seemed lost in thought. Rob waited patiently, little drops of fear-sweat dripped from his nose.

Then the black bunny spun round. "Go." He said, "You've got the rest of the week off. Report for duty next Saturday." He slapped the baton down onto his paw, "On your way out send Matt in." Then, quietly, to himself, "We could have trouble here."

---*---

Madison returned to Phump after cleaning buck-blood from his sword. The young buck rolled on the floor in agony, his left rear paw dangled uselessly. "Broken." Madison said to himself - Phump wasn't in the listening mood. "I think there was a third one in the woods. But I'm not sure." Madison rummaged through his pack. "You were making too much noise." He pulled out a small zip-lock bag and nodded to himself. He'd have nodded to Phump too, but Phump wasn't making sense.

Madison grabbed some more things and then sat down next to the injured coney, who was trying not to roll in agony as it hurt even more. Madison sat on his legs, facing his paws, and proceeded to splint up the foot. Once the paw was held straight between two twigs he opened the zip-lock bag and emptied the contents over the foot. A grey goo slipped from the bag onto the fur of Phump's paw and seemed to smother itself over the damaged appendage.

Phump chocked a few more squeals of pain out then he changed to just breathing heavily, tears streaming from his eyes.

"Try not to move too much tonight." Madison said as he stood up.

"What,", pant, "have," pant, "you," pant, "done?" Phump managed.

"I've splinted the paw and applied a medical nano package." He looked at the confused bunny. "I only brought a couple from the ship so I hope you realise what I've done for you here."

Phump didn't. He just knew that his foot was agony before and was now numb. In fact he couldn't feel his leg either.

Madison poked the dying camp fire. "I'll make up something to help you sleep."

"Thanks." Phump choked, then turned his head to see the body of a dead buck beside him. A cough came from Phump's throat.

"I'll clear that out of the way once I've done this drink for you." Madison said without more than a glance behind him. "Hmm." The white buck said, almost to himself, "If there was a third one then he'll soon know that I'm here." He poked around in his bag again, "Can't be helped. Had to happen eventually."