Sergeant Robert Tanner's Background
    by Xanadu
	Hello there!  I'm Bob Tanner, and I suppose that the questions
raised about my background in "He who looks Death in the Eye" should
be answered in full.  I was born a very long time ago it seems, but I
was "gifted" with long life early on.  Helps me deal with the fact
that Angel, sorry, I suppose y'all would call her AJ, will probably
outlive me by centuries.  
	At any rate, I was born back in the 50's, I'm not entirely sure
what year, thanks to the Organization.  They adopted me from an
orphanage that I've since discovered specialized in obtaining
"subjects" for their experiments when needed, and then destroyed all
my records.
	For the next several years, I was stuck in training as an
operative.  Agent R code-named me Poltergeist, in deference to my TK
abilities, granted to me by the helmet they made for me.  Years would
pass before anything big happened, as I looked at the people around
me, mainly a good friend of mine.  I started out as one of Ron
Kielmann's good friends, but saw his insanity creeping up like a
malignant disease.  And so, I made a deal with the Enforcers while I
was still let out of the facility.
	The Faroe Lake Incident is still remembered well by most citizens
of Megakat City, and all members of Faroe Lake.  Black Squad, my
group, was sent out to rob a bank.  I informed the Enforcers and
concentrated on dropping Dreadnought, Ronald/Jim Kielmann, as quickly
as possible.  Afterwards, I and the entire squad was charged with
multiple cases of murder.  All but Dreadnought were cleared, and he
was incarcerated in Ronald Kielmann's own mind.  Jim Kielmann was
actually Dreadnought, and Ron hated having anything to do with his
"brother".  Ron was put on Ephedril, a medication integral to keeping
people with DID (dissociative identity disorder) under wraps on our
world.  As Jimmy couldn't get out, he was effectively under a life
sentence.  I always thought that they should have given him some sort
of therapy to treat him for it, and destroy Jim Kielmann.  The judge
didn't see it my way.  After that, I tended to drift around (having
resigned from the Organization).  I'd turned in my helmet, and Phantom
Kat was a hero around Faroe Lake and Megakat City.  
	A few years later, I got sick of being vigilante.  I'd decided to
try the Megakat City Enforcers, where I knew that Commander Feral
could use some help.  I got up to the rank of Sergeant when I was
paired with Lieutenant-Commander Steele as a partner.  We were given
protection duty for a club with a somewhat, tarnished, reputation.
Steele decided that he liked the looks of one of the wasted girls I
was cuffing when the argument started.  He wanted to let her loose and
take her himself.  I wanted to arrest her and let him get his head
back on straight.  He pulled his nightstick, and landed it on the back
of my head.  I fell to the floor, out cold.  When I woke up, I was in
my own cuffs (which I quickly started to pick the locks on) in a
different part of the backstage area.  When I got loose, Steele was
busy putting a body (the woman didn't like his suggestion) out of the
way.  He had accidently shot her (or so he said, I still don't think
silencers were standard), and wasn't expecting the next lines to ever
happen.  I slugged him from behind and knocked him back, then did my
duty.
	"Lieutenant-Commander Steele, you are under arrest for violation
of part 3.74 of the Enforcer Code," (the part that states that
Enforcers must always uphold the law, not consider themselves above
it), "and the crime of murder."  
	He was not overly amused by this fact.  I was getting my other
cuffs out when he got up and shot me in the arm.  I retaliated in the
only way I had.  I picked up a chair and broke it over his head.  I
still don't know why he wasn't knocked out by that chair.  He shot me
a couple more times.  I fell.  I reached for a little gadget I'd never
gotten around to returning to the Organization, a hand-held stun
cannon.  I fired, he fried.  He fell to the ground, better knocked out
than anyone I'd ever seen.  I managed to cuff him and get out to the
stage so that someone would call the other Enforcers before I blacked
out.
	I woke up in the hospital.  My good friend, Commander Feral, was
waiting in the room with his niece, who'd recently come to live with
him after her parents suffered an unfortunate accident.  His niece
left the room when some Enforcers came in to read me my rights.  They
told me that Steele had concocted some BS story about me killing the
girl (I later found out that he'd been considerate enough to use his
silencer, and my gun.  And he wore gloves.)  He said that I'd then
attacked him when he came out to arrest me for it.  I'd managed to
blast him with some sort of gun, and knocked him out, but not before
I'd been shot by him (in self-defense, of course).  I told Feral my
side of the story.  Unfortunately, Alderman Steele put Feral's job on
the line.  Feral didn't have any choice (he wouldn't be able to get
any other job, and he had his niece to support).  If I hadn't retired,
Feral would have lost his job or have had to court-martial me.  I was
charged with murder, and with assaulting an officer.  I was cleared of
the murder charge.  I was sentenced to four years for what I did to
Steele, that son of a...
	At any rate, he was dishonorably discharged.  His father got him
made warden of the prison where I was.  Fun, fun.  I spent three years
in solitary, coming out every fourth day when Commander Feral came
through with his niece (now Lieutenant-Commander Felina Feral) to
visit.  I didn't tell them what happened though, Feral couldn't do
anything about it and I didn't want to make his ulcers any worse by
letting him know about Steele's treatment of me.  He told me about the
Swat Kats.  It seemed that he secretly admired them, despite how bad
they made the Enforcers look.  He told me about the Blade project, how
the Enforcers were making their own vig' to prove that they didn't
need the help of the countless vigilante's coming out of the woodwork.
Most of the vig's were killed by criminals early on, with few arrests
made due to lack of evidence.  But the Swat Kats and Blade managed to
survive through anything, the only team lasting nearly as long being
the Dangerous Duo (Ariel and AJ).  The original two grew to five, and
then more.  I got out of prison and met AJ.
	I suppose I fell in love with AJ at first sight.  It was a
whirl-wind romance, and we were married three months after I got out.
She knew why I'd been in prison, but I never told anyone about Black
Squad.  I told her about the years in solitary after I woke up one
night and yelled out my name and old designation number.  They were
Steele's favorite part of putting me through that, sticking me in
there and forcing me to jump up and yell out my name and designation
every hour.  He'd seen it on an old movie.  Then AJ met Commander
Feral.  She was PO'd that I'd never give her a chance to tell him what
she really thought of him.  She had a few choice words for what she
thought, ones I didn't even think she knew when I married her.
Suffice it to say, she wasn't as good a friend of the Ferals as I was.
After the incident in "War", I found out that she'd already explained
to him what she thought of what he'd done, and that I couldn't change
it.  Feral, by that time, knew who the two of us were.  He hadn't
known before then, but the doctors needed to take off my mask and
costume to treat me.  He saw me in civvies, and couldn't help but put
two and two together.  Things were relatively quiet for me until Jimmy
got out of Ron's mental prison.  And thereby hangs the tale in "He who
Looks Death in the Eye..."
??