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[Out of Milliways: "Madame, I'm afraid our guest requires your personal invitation to enter."]

Ellen ducks through the Milliways door as quickly as she can. "Oh, good, I was afraid it wouldn't work," she says to no one in particular. "Bar? Is T- is Moon Shadow around, by any chance? Could you let him know I need to talk to him?"

When the affirmative napkin appears, she adds, "And can I have something Bill Guarnere would approve of to eat, please? I completely forgot to ask Wadsworth for dinner tonight and I have to deploy in the morning..."

Once the steak and potatoes arrives (good Lord, you just don't see that much Brahmin on a plate back home), she heads over to a suitable table. She'll be eating, but she can be bothered. It'd make a nice change of pace.

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A SEAL in combat gear just back from his side of the door plops a bottle of A1 down on her table.

"You want to, you can try it with this," he says. "S'posed to make it taste better."

Ellen blinks at the bottle, then shrugs. "Sure," she says. Then, cautiously: "It's not peppery or anything, is it? I mean, it's just- you know, a little bit of extra flavor?... also, how have you been?"

Voodoo shakes his head. "Just a little bit of flavor. Always thought it tasted like soda, myself, but different strokes for different folks."

He takes a seat. "The usual. Some hunter-killer jobs. Just got back from a helicopter crash." He shakes his head. "Christ, that sucked."

"Well, it's worth a try either way," says Ellen, and reaches for the bottle. "Doesn't smell too strong, so that's a good sign..."

Then she winces. "Oh dear. I"m so sorry. Are you all right? You don't look injured, at least."

"'course I'm all right. Wasn't our helo that crashed. We were the reinforcements. The site was about to be overrun - long story. Well, long-ish."

"Oh. My mistake," says Ellen. "In that case, what happened? If I can ask, of course."

"We were on an op to kill this one CO of a local insurgent group. We get the shot lined up, and we're just about to pull the trigger when these two Chinooks - helicopters - wander into our AO and blow the op wide open. They get shot up and make a hard landing in a valley a couple clicks away.

"Now, when I get back to the airfield, I find out those things had 80-something Royal Marines in them. That's one hell of a propaganda mine for any asshole with an AK, so I come in here, and start planning. Korra - she's the one with the polar bear-dog, I told you about her the other day - volunteers, and so I take her and Preacher and we ride out to the crash site on these two Apaches.

"We make it there, and Korra starts treating the wounded while we start shooting because there's something like two companies of ACM all around us and we've only got like ten or so effectives. We hold out for around an hour of this shit, and then they start mortaring us, and we start running real low on ammo - I'm on my last belt, and a couple of guys are plain out. The QRF's nowhere near us still, so I tell her if she's got an ace up her sleeve now'd be the time."

He shakes his head.

"So you know what she does? She fuckin' runs up the valley, toward all the goddamn gizzies. She - well, once you see it in action, it'll make a lot more sense, but she fuckin' moves the ridgeline we're takin' fire from and lights anyone coming down the valley the fuck up. Literally. She just starts fuckin' shooting fire out her palms."

"So the ACM turn tail and run. Then we have to sit there for about six, seven hours, waiting for a ride out. That's the gist of it."

".....huh," Ellen finally says. "That's one heck of an ace. I'm... going to go out on a limb and guess she hasn't got a whole lot of experience with being on the wrong end of firearms?"

Voodoo shakes his head. "Uh-uh. Her world don't got any. Just bending. It's complicated, she'd explain it better."

Then:

"Ask her about the Marine who tried to get her number if you see her."

"All right," says Ellen, and then a bit later, "I'm supposed to know what that means, right?"

(Guess whose world hasn't had telephone service in two hundred years. Go on.)

"Telephone number," Voodoo says with a shrug. "I told her it meant he wanted to have sex with her."

Which, on some level, was true.

"Oh," says Ellen, and gets a little pink in the face. "Huh. Okay. I didn't... okay."

She'll get used to the fact that everyone in the world is more forthcoming about these things than her eventually.

"Does that... kind of thing happen often? When someone new shows up on the battlefield where you come from?"

"...not really?"

Beat.

"But when you put a physically fit seventeen-year old girl who can shoot fire out of her palms alongside a bunch of young guys who haven't seen a woman for months on end? Yeah, that happens."

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It'll be a bit before T- a certain armored and helmeted figure walks up out of the blue to Ellen's table, hopefully by then, she's finished her dinner.

"Sorry for the wait, Ellen, I was busy outside...what's up?"

She has; she's working on her Nuka-Cola now.

"Hi, Moon Shadow. Do you remember Joseph, from Little Lamplight?"

"Yes, a little.." The NAME sounds familiar, and he has to think a bit. "He was the history teacher for the entire group there..How I heard about the Vault Door."

"Right, that's him," Ellen says. "Apparently he turned sixteen recently. And apparently there's some kind of problem back in Lamplight." She makes a face. "I have to say apparently because I haven't seen him myself. He wound up in Arefu, and Arefu sent somebody to let me know that Joseph was asking for help... only I can't go to Arefu right now because the Brotherhood needs me to start work on another project first thing in the morning, and it's miles in the opposite direction. I wanted to ask if you would be able to help out, if I sent Fawkes and a friend of mine from here with you to go to Arefu and talk to him."

"Sure, who's the friend?" He doesn't much mind Fawkes, but he's not about to completely agree unless he knows who the other person is really.

"His name's Voodoo. He's a Navy SEAL from 2012," Ellen says. "He's fought in my world a few times, so he knows the place and he gets along well with Fawkes."

"I've met him, but not in armor, so this oughta be interesting."

If Voodoo can keep the names straight it might just work out.

Ellen nods. "He's pretty used to codenames in his daily work. Hopefully he'll be better about it than I was or Cross was."

"I'll go pack myself food of mealbars, if I remember, those'll go a long way towards winning over the kids in litte lamplight." And pack some of the meaner things too. Just in case.

"Something else you should know," Ellen says. "Joseph's in Arefu right now. Arefu has a couple of guards who're... well, basically vampires. Not with the powers from the old movies and things, but they have to drink blood. The vampires mostly just do guard duty at night, so you might not meet them at all, but if you do run into them you should know that most of them are a little more alert than the rest of town."

...

"Ellen, I've got a werewolf for a classmate, are these vampires aggressive to strangers in any way?"

"Not unless the strangers act like they're going to attack the town's Brahmin or something," Ellen says. "Vance, their leader, is pretty strict about that... oh, and if Mrs. Ewers tries to offer you one of her world famous chocolate chip cookies just smile and nod. She's not a vampire, she's just not right in the head. The last time I was in town she thought I was the mailman."