Skippy unlocked the doors to the temporary cells where Adams, Desai and Chang were imprisoned as I ran into the building, shouting for them to move. The alarm was out across the base anyway, two hamster soldiers I'd stunned had been able to squeak something out loud before they went down. Desai was out of her cell, trying to decide which way to run, when she saw me and I tossed a rifle to her. She caught it and ran after me, where we found Adams and Chang wrestling on the floor with a hamster soldier who was wearing body armor and trying to keep the two humans from taking its rifle. I put my rifle against it unarmored neck and pulled the trigger.

"Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit! Oh, fuck, that hurts!" Adams had caught part of the stun charge by hanging onto the hamster. She rose unsteadily to her knees, then her feet, hanging onto the wall.

"It'll wear off. You all right?" I asked.

"Squared away, sir." She gasped.

"Don't use that," I told Chang, who had picked up the hamster's rifle, "it doesn't work. Use this one," I pulled a rifle from my pack. "Safety switch here, and this one controls stun and particle beam, leave it on stun."

"Got it. What's next?" Chang practiced using the Ruhar rifle's selector switches.

"We jack a Dodo and dust off." I explained hurriedly while binding the hamster's arms and feet. "Stun any hamster you see along the way. If we have time, tie them up with this cord, the stun effect only lasts a couple minutes."

Adams explained to our two companions who spoke excellent English, but may not be current on US military slang. "We're going to steal a Ruhar dropship ship and fly away."

"How do we do that?" Chang asked as we ran out the door, right into a pair of hamster soldiers. They went down with massed stun fire, not before clearly trying to shoot at us. "Their rifles don't work." Chang observed suspiciously. "What is going on, Bishop?" I noticed he didn't use my rank. You'd think getting sprung from prison twice would leave a guy a little grateful.

"How did you get out, sir?" Adams asked. I couldn't use the excuse of the Ruhar nuking the base this time.

"Dodo first, talk later." The Dodo was on a landing pad, with one guard outside and one on the cargo ramp. The hamster on the ramp had its gun cradled in its arms and was punching a button to close the ramp, which wasn't moving. We took them both out, I ordered not to bother tying them up. As we charged up the ramp, we could hear the engines whining up. I wanted to ask Skippy if he was doing that. If not, the whole plan was fucked. This Dodo was configured for cargo, the center was clear, seats were folded into the walls on both sides.