The reporter and cameraman pursued him as he tried to walk. "Just a few questions, Private Connolly. Did you take part in freeing her? Did the kidnappers put up a fight?"

"Her kidnapper is dead. It was that thing she called her tutor. You could say it put up a fight. It tried to kill her. That's where I got this hole in my shoulder."

"Did you capture the kidnapper?"

"I told you. It got killed."

"And Ms. Shaw, during this ordeal, how did she take it? Was she terribly traumatized?"

Images of Ginny filled his mind: clinging to him after she'd killed her first Maggot; after Behan's death; hanging on to the back of the tractor as it plunged through the Magh'-filled corridors. He turned on the heel-yapping media jackal: "She wasn't 'traumatized' and she fought beside us. She fought," he said slowly, "like a lioness. And now, leave me alone or I will kill you."

By the way they backed off, they obviously believed him… even though Chip didn't really want them to.

"Ahem." Bronstein cleared her throat. "What are you going to do now, Connolly?"

"Go back to my unit as quickly as possible like a good little soldier," said Chip, savagely. "Didn't you hear that nice Shareholder officer? You scruffy military animals had better do the same."

He walked off, blindly.

They followed.

Fluttering along behind Connolly, Michaela Bronstein tried to formulate strategy. Revolution! Throwing off the cruel yoke of human oppression! Liberty, equality and belfry! These were the dreams and ideals that Michaela Bronstein had always lived by, ideals that had governed her, and indeed, all batdom.

Of course, bats, by their very nature, had always chittered and argued about how liberation should be achieved. Eamon Dzhugashvilli was one of the notorious Bat Bund who had advocated straight and bloody murder, blowing every non-bat to kingdom come with as much high explosive as they could lay their claws on, and allying batdom with humankind's foes.