So the squirrels were safe, for the moment. The bunnies were no longer
marked, but during Chit and Zander's ordeal Kara had taught the other
squirrels the basics of scouting, and a reasonably close watch was kept
on bunny patrols, none of which came anywhere near the warren, which had
been specifically located outside the bunnies' perimeter.There were several 
houses nearby with inadequately defended birdfeeders, ensuring a steady 
supply of food, a steam line running directly under the warren kept them
all toasty warm, and they'd managed to salvage the portable computers from
the old warren, along with a solar recharger, so they even had net access
via UCirc's sattelite. 

But they weren't content to sit. Aside from the fact that the non-portable
computers, which they'd used for the tactical and strategic training
simulations (XCom and Master of Magic), had been captured by the bunnies,
leaving them with nothing to do but frolic and play role-playing games, they
also remembered Marti and Colette. And the hundreds of squirrels slaughtered
by the bunnies before the UCirc team had arrived. And the squirrel
resistance, the last members of which ('hey you', 'no, you', and 'yeah, you')
had sadly passed away as their nanites went berzerk.

So they decided to get revenge. They powered up the lasers (both of them),
loaded the dart guns (both of them), and carved tiny javelins for everyone
else, dipping them in vanilla. Which they forgot to bless, but the bunnies,
being far, far behind the lines, had gotten careless and had fallen behind
on their immunizations, so they worked anyway.

Then, fully armed, they set out to ambush the bunny patrols, in preparation
for a full scale assault on the bunny warren once it was weakened enough
(although Chit and Kara worked the math and noticed that the warren was
large enough that the rate of bunny reproduction outpaced the rate at which
they could take out patrols, but it felt good to be striking back at last).

The first patrol they ambushed put up surprisingly little resistance, and
interrogation of the only survivor, a bunny kit whose mother had apparently
kept its shots up to date, revealed that it was, in actuality, a third-month
field trip. The second patrol, which the squirrels captured without firing
a shot, turned out to be a bunny couple on a romantic walk through the park.
When the third patrol turned out to be a search party looking for the field
trip, the squirrels discovered to their surprise that the bunnies hadn't
actually *had* patrols.

That changed quickly. A small force of bunnyarmored troops hopped into town
to defend the warren, proper patrols and perimeters were set up, and the
squirrel offensive came to an abrupt end.

TBC

==
Chit