Megakat Super:

Kuriosity Killed the Kat!

The sun beamed bright over a clear day above the Megakat Aeronautics and Space Agency's launch pad, and the crawler-transport that slowly approached with a shining chrome rocket cradled on its back. Inside the mission control center, engineers and scientists mulled over monitors displaying systems checks and communications channels. An optimistic vibe filled the air, but everyone was under strict orders to maintain a professional demeanor for the news crew that was setting up in the corner, particularly when the flood lights turned on and the camera began rolling.

"This is Ann Gora, Kats Eye News," Ann Gora of Kats Eye News began, "I'm here today with SpaceKats C.E.O. and Chief Design Director, Lion Musk, at the John F. Katnedy Space Center where, in just a few minutes, one of their famously reusable Sabre 9 rockets is set to launch and dock with the Kuriosity Space Station."

"Mr. Musk," she continued, "this is not the first time a Sabre 9 has launched, or even docked with Kuriosity, so what sets this mission apart from the ones that came before?"

"Thank you for asking, and thank you for being here today, Ann," Lion cooed, "this launch is special because it will be the first ever joint mission between MASA and the Ural Rex Union's Space Program."

"In the past, these missions were crewed exclusively by MASA pilots and scientists, but, today, Kuriosity is proud to welcome its first ever visitor from the Ural Rex Union, the world renowned software engineer, Professor Ciniy."

"Tensions between Megakat City and the Ural Rex Union have been flaring lately over stalled negotiations regarding limitations on low-orbit weapons installations, and there are some who say that this joint mission represents a potential threat to cybersecurity and military intelligence," explained Ann, "what is your response to this?"

"Heh, I understand their concerns," Lion tried not to scoff. "I've met with Professor Ciniy on numerous occasions, though, and we both agreed that diplomatic trust and technological cooperation are the only way to ensure a constructive future for both Megakat City and the Ural Rex Union. We've been trying to put a mission like this together for a long time in hopes of promoting those very ideas, and we look forward to working with Professor Ciniy as a part of our goal to bring high speed, wireless telecommunications to the whole world."

"You won't hear any complaints from me," said Ann with a smile and a wink, "It looks like the crawler has just made it to the launch pad, so let's switch over to the live feed now that the final countdown to liftoff has begun."

"Man, what I wouldn't give to pilot one of those beasts," Chance thought out loud from in front of the TV screen before lying down on his back and propping his feet on the couch to simulate a vertical seating position.

"Seven-and-a-half million pound-feet of pure thrust taking you up to a maximum speed of twenty-four-thousand milers per hour, the fastest any kat has ever travelled in history!" he beamed, making believe that the can of milk in his hand was a joystick and frollicking in the imagination right up to the moment he spilt near all of it on himself. Having crashed back to reality, he could only wonder how that happened while Jake rolled his eyes.

"Get your boots off the couch," Jake reprimanded him, sympathetic as he was to the feeling.

"I'm jealous of those scientists," he went on to say. "That station makes even the Turbokat look like a stone wheel. I can't imagine how much training you have to go through to qualify for the job, let alone make the cut."

"You'd make the cut, no problem," Chance asserted as he stood himself back up.

"You think so?" asked Jake with a curious raise of his eyebrow.

"Hundred percent! How many of those nerds can say they built a fighter jet from scratch with nothing but salvage?" Chance shored up his claim. "You're the smartest kat in the whole city, anyone with a brain could see that!"

"Thanks, Chance," Jake replied, "I bet you'd blow those MASA pilots out of the water, too."

"Damn right I would!" said Chance before shaking his fur dry, sending droplets of milk every which way, including at Jake who had to hold his hand up to keep his own hide dry.

"Maybe more like into the milk," Jake scowled at him.

"Heh, sorry," Chance apologized before pivoting back to the TV. "Oh, this is it! They're about to launch!"

"We are t-minus ten seconds from liftoff here at John F. Katnedy Space Center," Ann Gora's voice said over live footage of the Sabre 9's thrusters being lit, filling the screen with bright orange hues of liquid hydrogen set aflame. "Join us now as we send the crew off with our best wishes on their journey to space."

"Five!" Chance started, gripped with excitement.

"Four!" Jake joined him.

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

"Go with throttle," the flight director announced as the rocket leapt from the launch pad above a bouquet of smoke and fire. "We have liftoff of the Sabre 9 rocket - tower is clear, all systems reading normal." Cheers and applause erupted from the control room, as well as the crowd gathered outside, as the rocket faded from view. A machine that rivaled skyscrapers in titanic size now appeared as little more than a pinprick of light against the blue backdrop of the wide open sky to those who remained on the surface. So much bright-eyed enthusiasm, and no reason to suspect the impending mayhem.

"Sabre 9, this is Kuriosity," the station's resident commander spoke over comms, "We have made visual contact and are beginning preparations to the airlock for docking. Over."

"We read you loud and clear, Kuriosity; we should be within docking range in about five minutes. Over." the pilot confirmed as the station neared and the flight computer began calculating approach angle and vector.

"Hey, isn't that the Spektr station over there?" the co-pilot asked, pointing out the side viewport to spec of bright white just close enough to give the silhouette of a smaller, but nonetheless intimidating sister craft that bore the red flag of the Ural Rex Union.

"Yeah," the pilot confirmed with his own glance, "they've been moving it closer and closer to our station for months."

"I don't like it," the co-pilot came back. "They're running the risk of collision at that distance, and for what? It's only a research station, same as ours."

"You believe that?" the pilot smirked.

"I'm starting to have my doubts."

"Will you two be quiet? The professor can hear you, you know?" the third and final domestic crewman, an electrical engineer, interjected with teeth tightly grit. "This is supposed to be a diplomatic mission."

The two skeptics looked first to each other, and then back to their respective monitors. Content with keeping the peace for now, they said nothing else of the sort, but not before the pilot sneered under his breath, "Yeah." Professor Ciniy, too, spoke nothing in response or defense of himself, ensuring that the tension remained as the gap between them and the Kuriosity's docking bay narrowed.

Finally, after a slow and gentle approach, the Sabre 9 made contact. Two metallic clicks, one for the clamps and one for the locking mechanism, and a visual confirmation from the station's control room marked the half-way point of the mission over and done with. Slowing heartbeats and muffled exhales rolled off of each crew member as they undid their safety harnesses, only for uncertainty to strike them again when the electricity of both the rocket and the station flickered, plunging the whole ensemble into a moment of darkness before everything jumped back to life.

"Kuriosity, what just happened?" the pilot implored, his voice obscured somewhat by the blare of the ship's computers restarting in safe mode.

"Not sure," the station's engineer replied, "looks like some kind of power surge tripped the circuit breaker when we connected the power transfer system. You guys alright over there?"

"We're fine; just taken a bit by surprise is all," said the pilot after the rest of the crew had been accounted for, however shaken by the disturbance. "How are things on your end? Anything wrong with the dock coupling?"

"Locks are engaged, no variation in air pressure, looks clean to me."

"Roger that, we'll head on over then; see you in a bit," the pilot came back. He'd have been lying if he went on to deny opening the hatch a bit more slowly than previous missions, but all seemed par for the course as they filed out of the rocket and into the station where the commander came out to greet them along with an additional specialist.

"Welcome aboard, gentlemen," the commander began as his visitors took off their helmets and the six of them took turns shaking each others' hands. "Sorry about that little hiccup there,"

"We're alive and well, that's all that matters," the pilot assured them. "Has diagnostics revealed any clue as to what caused the surge?"

"Nothing yet, but we're performing a complete troubleshoot of the whole station, so it shouldn't be long before it brings something back," the commander explained.

"We'd better file a report with Mission Control before we get started on our actual objective here," the co-pilot suggested.

"Way ahead of you on that," the station specialist quipped as he floated past the lot of them with a full maintenance kit in tow.

"Give me a hand here, will you?" he beckoned the electrical engineer before rounding the corner back into the rocket. "I wanna take a look at your power transfer panel."

"Be right there," the engineer followed, much to the chagrin of the commander who'd just pulled out a digital camera.

"Hey, slow down guys!" he tried to wrestle them back. "I want to get the press picture over with before we get to work."

"We got plenty of time for that," the pilot brushed him off. "Since you've got it with you, though, can you get one of just myself? I want something to send home to the wife and kittens."

"How can I refuse a proposition like that?" the commander grinned as he brought the camera up to his face and turned to focus on the pilot who'd propped himself against the hull.

"Show me those pearly whites," he said before hitting the shutter, after which a beep and a click washed the hallway in a brief flash of light. "Beautiful."

"How 'bout you, Professor?" he turned back to address Ciniy, who'd stuck to his policy of avoiding as much unwarranted attention as possible. "Something for the folks back in the motherland, huh?"

"Sure, why not?" Ciniy replied with a gentle smile even as all eyes fell on him, some more enthusiastic than others. Subtle as ever in his demeanor, he merely kept up his candid expression as the commander hit the shutter again. Again, a bright flash hit his eyes, but with it this time followed total darkness when the whole station was robbed once more of electricity and, this time, it didn't come back. Rather, the soft white of the station's halogen bulbs was replaced by the blood red glow of the emergency lights on auxiliary power. They all clutched at their ears when a spike in air pressure caused them to pop, and the pain of this was exacerbated when all around them could be heard the the clamping shut of every hatch and sliding door in the station, which made for a deafening volley of slams and thuds.

"What in the hell?" the commander growled.

"Hey! Hey! Help!" the muffled voice of the specialist carried from behind the closed hatch of the rocket module.

"Go make sure they're alright, I'm going to the control room!" the commander ordered as he thrusted himself down the hallway, leaving Ciniy and the two pilots to rush over to the module hatch where they found their peers pounding on the viewport.

"It won't open! Get us out of here!" the specialist fretted, both he and the engineer painted from ear to claw in absolute terror. The pilot and co-pilot pulled at the manual release lever with all the strength they could muster, but the hatch would not budge.

"Guys, we've got a problem!" the commander shouted from the other end of the station, seeming to look straight past Ciniy and the others when they peered around the corner and braced for what else could possibly have gone wrong.

"I can't get into the control room," he droned.

"What'd'ya mean you can't get in!?" the pilot raged, as if he couldn't deduce that whatever was keeping them out of the module must have also been obstructing the commander.

"I don't know how, but all the pressure has been sucked out of the control room," he answered while trying to keep not just himself calm, but them as well. "As far as we're concerned, that door is sealed shut." Silence fell over the whole station, interrupted only by the ominous wail of the emergency alarm as the reality that they were stranded set deep inside their minds.

"What do we do now?" the co-pilot asked. "Without access to the control room, we can't get the power back on, and without power we don't have any way of reaching Mission Control."

"We wait until they realize we're dead in the water," the commander gave it to them straight. "There's nothing else we can do."

However dissatisfied with the passive approach they'd been forced to take, the lot of them came to terms with that reality. Thanks to a regular schedule of check-ins, after all, it wouldn't be at all long before Mission Control noticed their absence. They even managed to breathe sighs of decompression in preparation for the wait, only for the tension to accelerate once again as the station began to rumble and whine.

"What now?"the commander bellowed before swinging himself over to the nearest viewport with the others in tow. None of them could be sure what it was they were looking for out there but, once they were all there, they were met with the sight of the antenna and dish truss unfolding to reveal a multitude of cannon-like appendages aimed straight for the center of Megakat City.

"Kuriosity, this is Mission Control, are you reading me? Over." one of the flight supervisors repeated, but no response came back.

"Still nothing?" Lion asked in a hushed murmur from a few feet away, and without looking at, or directly addressing anyone sat at the comms desk.

"Not since that report came through a few minutes ago, sir," the flight supervisor replied as the two of them shared a glance back at the camera crew who, much to their relief, hadn't noticed the problem yet.

"Divert power from non-essential systems to amplifying the signal, and cycle through all available emergency back-up channels," said Lion, still refusing to look at anything in that direction.

"I tried that, sir," the flight supervisor shook his head.

"Well keep trying," Lion growled under his breath. "Our audience is more than just my investors this time - the whole world is watching us." Just the sound of anxious typing followed his ultimatum, bringing Lion to finally turn and lean in just so to get a closer look. The view, however, was grim: every bit of information they could otherwise have received from the station was now out of reach, as if it were no longer there.

"Is it radioactive interference?" he asked.

"I don't think so," answered the flight supervisor. "I've confirmed that interference from solar winds and the Van Alleykat Radiation Belt are within acceptable levels. This is something localized to the station itself."

"How do we just lose an entire space station?" Lion seethed, and then, all at once, every monitor in the control center gave way to blank static, sending his heart straight up into his throat. Within seconds, Ann Gora and her camera crew leapt from their corner to mob him with light and focus, practically salivating at the malfunction and so eager to begin questioning him. Ann hadn't even spoken a word to her stun-faced subject, however, before her producer intervened to say:

"Not yet, Ann, something's not right here."

"I know," she snapped at him, "that's why we need to start rolling!"

"No, I mean the broadcast has been cut off; we aren't live anymore," her producer clarified. Ann went to ask how that could be, but she was stopped when the static that surrounded them morphed to take the shape of a menacing grin with piercing yellow eyes on each screen.

"Sorry to interrupt your stories," the disembodied voice spoke from behind the screens. "Believe me when I say that I very much understand your attachment to them."

"However," it went on, "in exchange, I promise to deliver more real-life exhilaration than any mere program."

"First off, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Mr. Musk and the entire SpaceKats team - the launch was as smooth as creme de la creme, and your impressive technology has provided me a supremely comfortable trip to your even more impressive station."

"Now that I'm here, though, it's time I actually made something more of this journey than an upscale vacation, and I can't think of anywhere better to start than the succulent mysteries I've uncovered since boarding the otherwise innocent-looking Kuriosity."

"I doubt those of you watching who don't possess top level security clearance will know what I'm talking about, but I don't want to spoil the ending of this riveting drama, so I'll leave it to the men and women who, I'm certain, are feeling very nervous right now to decide whether or not all of your questions are answered."

"All I will say for now is that I have taken complete control of all systems aboard the Kuriosity - and I mean all of them. So, you will either deliver one-hundred-million dollars in unmarked bills to me, and a guarantee of immunity until I reach an island far beyond the reach of your authority, or I will see to it that this TV special becomes a series finale for all of Megakat City!"

"You have twenty-four hours to give me your response; until then, no matter who you are, my advice is to enjoy the show," the voice concluded, after which the monitors returned to their previously neutral static. Every soul in that room stood motionless and with their mouths agate until their attention was again enraptured when, out the window, where sat a gorgeous view of the downtown skyline, the perfect blue sky was scythed in two by a ray of holy yellow and white light. As if a product of the true heavens, not just the mere boundaries of space-faring capability, its intensity forced them all to shield their eyes, and the shockwave that followed was enough to throw off balance everyone that wasn't already sitting down. Once they were finally able to look again, awes and gasps of horror rang out at the sight of a pillar of smoke and ash that shot upwards from what was once a towering office complex.

"We saw it, Miss Briggs," T-Bone spoke with determination into the direct line between the scrapyard and the deputy mayor. "Are you alright?"

"I'd be more worried about the people in that tower if I were you - not to mention everyone else in the city if this guy is able to make good on his threat," Callie replied, noticeably thankful to be able to say as much as she thrashed her coupe through the panicked streets of downtown.

"You don't have to tell us twice," T-Bone replied. From the moment they saw the flash of the beam, he and his partner had donned their full regalia and readied the Turbokat for sortie. All they needed to know now was what they were up against. "What are we up against?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Callie as she cut the wheel to narrowly avoid crashing into an oncoming caravan of firetrucks and ambulances. "All we know right now is that MASA lost contact with Kuriosity about ten minutes ago, and the beam came from a similar position in orbit."

"I'm following Feral and the mayor to Katnedy Space Center right now, so I'll keep you posted," she finished.

"Roger that, we'll let you know if we find anything out ourselves," T-Bone confirmed before turning to Razor who, now that he knew Callie was safe, but not for how long, was more anxious than ever to get into the air.

"Come on," shouted Razor as he dashed for the hangar, "we don't have a second to lose!" Not to be outran, T-Bone gave chase and, once there, the two of them leapt into their respective seats and hooked up their oxygen supply masks as the launch platform descended to the runway level.

"Razor," T-Bone began as they lined up with the exit tunnel and the thrush of the starting engines filled the cockpit, "are the Speed of Heat thrusters ready to go?"

"All day, every day," Razor grinned. "I'm offended you even asked!"

"Then let's kick some tail!" T-Bone came back in pompous fashion. With a flex of his arm, he jammed the throttle to full power, sending both of them flat against their backs as the afterburners screeched and the Turbokat shot into the sky.

Within minutes, they'd reached cruising altitude, and the true scale of the attack became clear. Where once stood an office tower some sixty stories high was now a mound twisted and charred metal. Even from way up there, they could clearly make out not just the lingering flames, but also the numerous overlapping flashes of emergency vehicle lights that surrounded the blast zone. T-Bone remained stalwart in his silence, instead focusing on tilting the Turbokat upwards to begin their ascent towards the station, but Razor was not so quick to dismiss the tragedy. As their angle neared perpendicularity relative to the surface, he tilted his head back to get one more look at the scene in spite of the uncomfortable mix of sorrow and anger and fear it stirred up inside him.

"What's wrong, Razor?" asked T-Bone after catching a sample of Razor's grumblings in his headset.

"I just can't stop thinking about those people in that building," Razor answered with a shake of his head. "I hope at least one of them survived."

"It is what it is," said T-Bone flatly, though not for a lack of caring - quite the opposite, in fact, as he would go on to express. "What's important now is making sure it doesn't happen to anyone else."

"Yeah, you're right," Razor conceded, "I gotta say, though, I'd feel a lot more confident if we just knew what caused it."

"Whatever it is, the SWAT Kats can handle it," T-Bone declared, but Razor gave no affirmation in reply.

"Hey," he followed up with a look over his shoulder, "we got this, now are you with me on this?"

Razor paused, but ultimately nodded, "Yeah, let's get it done!"

"That's what I like to hear!" said T-Bone. "You know what to do, buddy!"

"Roger," Razor confirmed as he put his hands to the control panel, "Speed of Heat thrusters, deploy!" A brief metallic buzz followed the aft section of the Turbokat opening up, from which emerged four additional ramjets, as did a booming click that locked them in place.

"Ignition!" he continued before the roar of the main engines was drowned out by the whir of the ramjets spinning up to operational revs.

"Go to Speed of He-" he tried to say. T-Bone's thumbs, too, rested against the discharge button just waiting for the cue, only for both of them to be enraptured by a blinding light that cascaded down from on high directly in their path.

"Kats alive!" T-Bone cried out over the blaring of the master warning alarm that signalled every component in the Turbokat reaching critical levels of overheating. "Hang on!" He threw the joystick off to the side, subjecting them to visceral gravitational force as he banked clear of the light just in time to dodge the smaller, but nonetheless lethal beam trying to prey on them. They were allowed not even a moment to breathe sighs of relief for the narrow brush with death before yet another beam descended on them, forcing T-Bone to whip the Turbokat around once more in order to avoid it.

"Razor, what's our status?" asked T-Bone in between swinging his head back and forth on the lookout for further attacks.

"We're holding up, but just barely!" Razor answered as his eyes darted from one gauge to the next. "All systems are pushing maximum safe temperature boundaries, we're burning up! We need to fall back and let the Turbokat cool down!"

"No way!" T-Bone refused. "You saw what happened to that tower; there's too much at stake! Whatever's doing this, we need to take it down ASAP! I'm going to Speed of Heat!"

"You're gonna blow the thrusters!" Razor tried to stop him, but his words fell on deaf ears. T-Bone hit the buttons anyways, and this coincided with multiple beams appearing around them all at once and dancing in every direction like a living cage.

"Come on, girl; don't fail me now," T-Bone growled to himself. Still, though, he was undeterred as he pulled back the joystick to regain their initial angle of ascent. The fact that their trajectory was due to place them several klicks from the target's approximate location upon deceleration, too, came as no concern to him, or at least it wouldn't have, had Razor's warning not come to fruition. It was only one of the four ramjets that ended up failing, but the explosion was sufficient to throw off their stability and send them straight into the path of one of the beams. It all happened so fast that the both of them could only watch as the right wing evaporated into burnt shards of metal and wire and they began to fall out of the sky in a spiraling divebomb.

No sooner than arriving at the Katnedy Space Center did the Enforcers effectively turn the building into a fortress, forming a perimeter around the entire complex with squad cars and battle tanks on the ground supported by gunships hovering overhead. At the epicenter, Commander Feral walked in through the front door as if it were that of his own home, with Mayor Manx and Callie in tow, overtaken by a furious will to take control of the situation after having witnessed the levelling of nearly an entire city block. Ofcourse, this was mostly thanks to a chaperone of heavily armed military police officers who imposed that will under threat of arrest and repercussion. One by one, they flooded the various rooms that made up the complex, placing each one, and everyone inside them, under the direct oversight of one of Feral's subordinates, until he reached Mission Control where Lion Musk and an admiral of the Megakat State Space Command were waiting.

"Mr. Musk, Admiral Dewey," Feral greeted them, shooting a subtle glare to the latter of the pair, "I wish we could be meeting under better circumstances."

"Likewise, Commander," Dewey replied with his own understated demeanor of superior authority.

"Bring me up to speed, gentlemen," Feral began again as he walked past them to glance at the now functioning monitors, as well as the audience of engineers listening in on their conversation. "We have a lot of scared people out there right now who are looking to the Enforcers for peace of mind."

"Yeah, and I'm one of them!" Mayor Manx's quivering jaw blurted out. "How am I ever going to get reelected if I have to raise taxes again to pay for all the damage to my beautiful city!? My voters are starting to get really tired of those!"

"You've no doubt seen the ransom message," said Musk.

"I have," Feral seethed, "it was broadcasted on every channel."

"We managed to get most of our diagnostic and surveillance systems back online, but we still aren't able to contact anyone aboard the Kuriosity," Musk explained. "It's possible that the station was hacked remotely, but we have reason to believe that it was hijacked in person."

"And what about the beam attack?" asked Feral.

"Radar isn't showing any other spacecraft in the vicinity, other than the Spektr, but the angle of the beam was too sharp to have come from Spektr's position," Musk answered. "Whoever sent the message also implied that they had access to some kind of classified technology installed in the Kuriosity, so the station itself must have been the origin of the attack."

"So, you've been using that station for more than just telecomms research, aye?" Feral got in Dewey's face.

"Don't act so surprised, Feral," Dewey stood firm, cocky even, "you yourself have approved funds for experimental weapons, don't you remember?"

"True, but at least I had the decency to do it up front, out in the open - not behind closed doors," Feral challenged him. "Space Command's secrecy, under your direction, may very well have cost this city hundreds of lives!"

"Now is not the time to be casting blame for what happened," Musk cut in on them.

"You see that?" he pivoted, pointing to a ticking timer at the head of the control room. "That's how long we have before the real problem here has a frightening probability of getting even worse."

"Can we please focus on that, first and foremost?" he appealed to them. "There will be plenty of time for you too to bicker and arbitrate once the city is safe."

"I agree," Dewey cast his support as he turned up his chin and crossed his arms.

"Fine," Feral backed down, however begrudgingly, "but you're going to give me every detail about whatever other weapons systems this hijacker might have at his disposal."

"That information is on a strictly need-to-know basis," Dewey stonewalled him.

"I need to know," Feral snarled. "That creep said he had access to more than one of the station's systems, and threatened to destroy the entire city. I need to know whether or not to evacuate!"

"Megakat City is under threat of destruction every single day, Commander, that is precisely the reason we keep secrets from our enemies," Dewey stared him down. "Besides, Space Command is already working on it's own solution to the problem."

"Oh, really?" Feral raised an eyebrow, "and what is this solution of yours?"

"One that is going to neutralize that criminal before he can do anymore damage, and you can be sure of that without any further explanation," Dewey stonewalled him again, this time with an ominous grin. "Stop thinking you can push the boundaries of your authority just because you're not living up to your own power fantasies."

"Aren't both of you forgetting about the SWAT Kats?" Callie cut herself into the spat. "I saw their fighter jet in the air on the way over here. With their help, we might be getting all worked up over nothing."

"I'm sorry, Miss Briggs," Musk tried to let her down easy, "we'd been tracking them on radar, but their signal disappeared after the latest barrage. We can only assume they've been shot down."

"Good!" Feral spoke, even as Callie recoiled in horror, "Those two vigilantes would have only gotten in the way! The Enforcers will handle this, you'll see!" His teeth and claws borne, and practically foaming at the mouth with rage, some force of honor and etiquette was all that was holding him back from slamming Dewey against the nearest wall. Still, he struggled just as much with the thought as he did trying to grapple control over the situation, so he stormed off to regain his composure and think of something.

"Uncle Feral, are you reading me?" his niece, Lieutenant Felina, suddenly hailed him from his two-way radio once he was alone.

"Loud and clear, Felina, what is it?" Feral answered her.

"I've got a visual on a convoy of unidentified vehicles closing in on the city limits - looks like some pretty heavy machinery," Felina spoke from behind the controls of an Enforcer gunship. "You know anything about that?"

"No, I don't," said Feral before squinting over his shoulder at Dewey, "but I've got an idea. Pick me up on the roof, I want to see this for myself."

The image of the convoy became clearer and clearer through the lenses of Feral's binoculars and, with it, Feral's suspicions grew as he and Felina brought the gunship closer. A purely infantry based deployment would have been fine, welcome even for quelling potential lawlessness in the face of such a crisis, but the convoy appeared to display anything but. Rather, it appeared to be made up mostly of tracked, mobile missile platforms and covered supply trucks with a security detail of troop transports both in front and behind them. All the tell-tale signs of an offensive formation, not a defensive one.

"I don't like this; I don't like it one bit," Feral thought out loud. "That Dewey is definitely up to something shady, and I'm gonna find out what."

"Aircraft SK9395, identify yourself immediately," a voice, no doubt belonging to a member of the convoy, suddenly spoke over the radio in reference to their gunship's side markings

"This is Commander Ulysses Feral of the Megakat City Enforcers," Feral answered. "I order you to state the intentions of your advance into the city!"

"Negative, SK9395," the voice denied him. "Turn your craft around and maintain a minimum two-mile clearance, or we will be forced to open fire on you."

"They think they can bluff me, huh?" said Feral after disconnecting his headset. "They don't know who they're dealing with! Keep going, Felina!"

"I wasn't planning on turning around anyways! I don't take 'no' for an answer!" Felina charged ahead. Ahead of them, they could see the convoy come to a halt, and no more than a minute passed after they stopped before a high pitched wail from one of the warning alarms pierced their ears.

"What the-?" she uttered after reading the warning code. "They've got anti-aircraft missiles locked-on to us!"

"Don't stop!" Feral insisted. "I'm going to find out what Dewey is planning, whether he likes it or not!" At his core, Feral never truly imagined a friendly force would attack one of their own. Thus, he found himself caught off guard, wide-eyed, and white-knuckled when a bright flash and a trail of smoke sparked from one of the tanks, propelling a glimmering cylinder towards them that switched the alarm from that of a lock-on to an incoming projectile.

"Take evasive action!" Feral cried out.

"Don't tell me what to do!" followed Felina, having already pulled the gunship hard to one side, but it was too late. She'd managed to avoid a direct hit, but the missile followed them close enough to clip the tail rotor, sending them toward the ground in a violent tailspin.

Feral's eyes creaked open to the waning afternoon sun beating down on him, only to find himself unable to move, his hands and feet having been bound, and unable to then curse the Space Command soldiers standing around him, having been gagged. Perhaps, he thought, Felina was able to dodge being captured, but a turn of his head revealed her in the same predicament as he was just a few feet off to his side.

"Welcome back, Commander," the most senior rank among them crouched down next to him. "You're both very lucky to have survived that crash but, then again, I did try to warn you."

"Don't worry, we're not gonna hurt you. We're all on the same team here," he said in response to Feral's clear, if mute objections. "We are, however, going to have to take you to a field hospital to get those injuries of yours taken care of - or, at least that's what we're gonna tell everyone we did."

"It's nothing personal. We'll let you two go after a day or two, once our mission is complete," he finished his summary before standing himself back up. He went to order his squadmates to load both of them into a nearby truck, but he stuttered when, looking over at where he expected to find them, they had vanished. Confusion and rage flowed over him, but it turned to just confusion when, out of nowhere, he was suddenly grappled from behind, thrown up and over his attacker, and slammed onto his back. Knocked out cold, even while some instinctive survival reaction managed to wriggle his arms and legs around some. Feral, meanwhile, felt almost the slightest bit relieved when he recognized T-Bone as he recovered from the successful takedown, while Razor had already freed Felina of her bonds behind him.

"SWAT Kats!" Felina rejoiced as she sprung from the ground. "Good timing, you two; a minute later and we would have needed our pictures on the back of a milk carton."

"Don't you think that was a bit excessive?" Feral countered her once he too had been untied.

"He's just knocked out, he'll be fine," T-Bone brushed him off. "You're welcome, by the way."

"What are you two doing way out here?" asked Razor.

"We we're investigating a convoy headed towards the city, but they shot us down before we could get a close enough look," Felina explained. "I take it from your being on foot that you crash landed nearby? We heard you guys had disappeared from radar before we left MASA."

"Yeah, about a mile west of here," Razor came back. "We came across that same convoy while trying to find a way to get the Turbokat somewhere safe for repairs. That was when we saw your chopper go down."

"You could have been killed in that crash!" T-Bone suddenly piped up. "You should have backed off when you had the chance!"

"Hey!" Felina sniped back at him, "who'd'you think you're talking to, flyboy?"

"Go easy on him, Felina," Razor mumbled in her ear while holding her back. "He's in a bit of a funk right now." She wasn't happy about it, but she could sympathize, so, with a sigh, she gave Razor a nod and let it go.

"We're you able to get close enough to make out what kind of equipment that convoy was travelling with?" Feral stepped forward to ask.

"We did," answered Razor, "actually, I'm curious if MASA ever found out where that heat ray came from. It must be a serious threat if Space Command thinks it requires high-altitude, nuclear-capable ballistic missiles." Upon hearing that, Feral and Felina looked at each other with equally grim expressions.

"The beam came from the Kuriosity," Feral looked back at Razor.

"What!?" T-Bone and Razor both gasped before Razor continued on: "I thought that station was only for telecomms research!"

"That's what I thought too," said Feral, "it made perfect sense - use the Kuriosity to disrupt our communications while the real threat hides in the dark."

"In reality," he went on, "it turns out Space Command was using the station for secret weapons development on top of its intended purpose, and I don't think the heat ray is the worst it's capable of."

"Hold on," Razor began to speculate, "if the Kuriosity is the real threat here, then that must mean the missles…"

"It figures no good was to be expected of Dewey's secrecy," spoke Feral with an equally renewed concern and enthusiasm to do something about it. "We need to get back to Katnedy Space Center, pronto!"

"Good idea," Razor followed as he and T-Bone began backing off, "You handle Dewey - T-Bone and I gotta get the Turbokat back in the air before the deadline comes up."

"Hold it, you two!" Feral stopped them. "You're coming with me."

"Why would we ever do that?" T-Bone scowled at him.

"Yeah, Feral, I get the whole rivalry thing we've got going on, but I'm not planning on sitting this one out in a jail cell," Razor agreed as the two of them picked up their pace.

"Wait!" Feral stopped them again, this time with a clear hint of begrudging altruism before he let out a deep sigh. "I...I need your help." T-Bone and Razor looked first at each other to confirm reception of the gesture, and then back at him.

"We're listening," said T-Bone.

"Dewey's been hiding everything he can from my knowledge since this first started, and I see no reason why he'd stop now, especially since I'm liable to being an accessory to assaulting his men," Feral explained. "If I'm going to get him to admit what he's been planning, let alone convince him to work with me on an alternative, I'm going to need everyone who can corroborate my story present as possible."

"Do that for me," he proposed, "and I'll see to it that not only are you given every resource you need to repair your jet, but that you are pardoned for whatever damage I'm certain you're going to cause, as well."

Back at Mission Control, morale had taken a serious turn for the dower and defeated. Unable to do anything besides watch the timer march on towards who knows what, but nothing at all beneficial for any of them, Musk and the engineers of MASA sat either slumped in their chairs or hunched over in despair. Admiral Dewey seemed the only one around with any positivity in the way he carried himself, confident that he would emerge victorious at day's end. Meanwhile, out in the front lobby, Callie paced back and forth with one hand clasped over her mouth while the other hung down by her side holding the SWAT Kats' communicator. She'd lost track of how many times she'd tried to contact them, and struggled not to fall into the same stupor as everyone else.

"Where are you guys?" she lamented, compelled against her better judgement to glance at the timer through the control room door sidelite. "We need you more than ever."

"Sounds like we're just in time, then," Razor announced from behind her.

"SWAT Kats! Thank goodness you're both okay!" Callie rejoiced as she swung around and leapt to embrace them both. Neither of them were given sufficient time to fully appreciate the moment, though, before she stepped to one side and watched Feral and Felina stomp through the front entrance, leaving behind a Space Command with the Turbokat hitched behind it on the street out front. Felina spared the lot of them a copescetic nod, but Feral was clearly consumed by the altercation he was about to initiate.

"What happened out there?" she wondered.

"Let's just say Feral and the SWAT Kats saw eye to eye today," Razor winked at her before he and T-Bone went to follow them. "Come on, you're not gonna want to miss this." Pushing through the doors into Mission Control, T-Bone, Razor, and Callie arrived just in time for a front row view of Feral hurling Dewey around to face him and grabbing a firm hold of his collar.

"Hey, what the hell-?" Dewey began to object.

"Shut your mouth, you bastard!" Feral shut him down, nearly lifting the man off his feet. "I knew you were trying to cover something up, and I was right! Time to come clean!"

"Somebody get this loser off of me!" sneered Dewey, and his call was almost answered by a crowd who'd seen enough drama as it were, until Feral justified himself with a good reason.

"Why are you bringing long-range missiles into my city!? Why did your men shoot down my chopper!?" Feral interrogated, sending a shockwave of tensile curiosity through the room.

"You are way out of line, Feral," Dewey droned in reply, even as all eyes fell on him. "I don't have to tell you anything."

"Like hell you don't!" Feral roared. "Both my niece and I nearly died today because of you! I'm owed an explanation!"

"Admiral…" Mayor Manx stepped forward, "is what they're saying true?"

"Affirmative, mayor," said Razor, "T-Bone and I saw the whole thing." Dewey looked away.

"I wasn't briefed on this!" Manx began to panic.

"Neither was I," Callie leered and crossed her arms.

"You're bringing military-grade weaponry into my good city, and you didn't tell me!?" Manx shrieked, his panic having careened into full blown hysteria. "The citizens are terrified enough as it is! Are you trying to whip them into a frenzy!?"

"You're secret's out, Dewey - start talking," Feral demanded.

"Do I even need to?" replied Dewey. "I think it's pretty obvious at this point, unless you really are as stupid as you look."

"I want to hear you say it, loud enough for everyone to hear," said Feral. "The choice is yours, Dewey. You can either tell us now, or you can tell the judge when I charge you and your men with conspiracy to commit first degree murder against Megakat citizens and a foreign national. Either way, I win."

"You want to hear it from me?" Dewey looked him straight in the eyes. "Fine: I ordered Space Command to destroy the Kuriosity station!" No gasps or awes came from anyone - they'd put the pieces together already, just as Dewey had hypothesized - but the disapproving silence proved louder than any vocal shock.

"You disappoint me, and your title, Admiral," Feral shoved him off.

"You think I wanted to make this decision? You think I wanted to be responsible for the deaths of six innocent men?" Dewey defended himself. "Look around, Feral, we aren't holding any cards here! Our enemy's got them all! Need I remind you that the entire city is at stake here, not to mention our most closely kept defense technology secrets?"

"Damn your secrets! They've caused enough trouble!" Feral countered him. "Besides, the whole world knows about them now!"

"I'm not talking about the photon cannon," said Dewey, grave implications in his speech. "When that timer hits zero, the real secret will make that cannon look like a child's magnifying glass."

"Why? What is it?" Feral leaned into his momentum.

"I can't tell you," Dewey denied him once more, though this time somewhat begrudgingly.

"Do you really want to go down this road again?" asked Feral.

"I don't, but I'm under strict orders from the President himself to maintain total secrecy," Dewey explained. "All I can say is that whoever is controlling that station is more than capable of turning all of Megakat City into smouldering ash, and that whatever you plan to do with me for holding out is preferable to what I've been assured will happen to me, and my family, should I reveal the slightest detail."

"Look, Feral," he began again, "I don't expect you to forgive me - frankly, your forgiveness is the least of my concerns - but I do expect you to understand that I'm trying to choose the lesser of two evils here."

"When I took the position of Admiral, I swore an oath to defend Megakat State and all it's lands, by any means necessary, but I refuse to sully that honor by negotiating with terrorists," he continued. "If that means that I have to take the lives of a select few so that millions of others don't have to suffer the same fate while I stand idly by, then that is a weight I'm willing to bare, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

Feral crossed his arms and lowered his head as he processed everything. His brow twitched, and he grumbled a disaffected grumble through it all, but, eventually, he said, "I understand why you did what you did, but you're right, it's something I must hold against you by principle."

"I'm willing to set that aside for now, though, and I'll concede that yours is one solution to this problem, because I'm not going to make the same mistake you did and forget that we're all fighting for the same thing," he went on. "You, however, need to give me a chance to come up with a plan that doesn't require extreme consequences that we may still be able to avoid. If you can do that, then, should worst come to worst, I will accept your solution."

"Aye, I can do that," Dewey agreed, and extended his hand for Feral to shake, "thank you, Commander." Without a moment's hesitation, Feral took Dewey's hand, and, finally, the two of them gave each other a heartfelt smile.

"That's adorable," T-Bone goaded them, taking advantage of the long overdue release of pressure in the atmosphere. Both Feral and Dewey, though, took it in stride.

"So what happens now?" Razor followed.

"First things first; you two are going to get the Turbokat back to proper working order," Feral squared away. "A promise is a promise, after all, and I have a feeling your jet will be invaluable to achieving an ideal outcome - if you can keep your destructive tendencies in check, that is."

"Mr. Musk," he turned to face Lion, "I assume your assembly facility is more than capable of helping them out?"

"You're kidding me, right?" Lion met him with a thrilled smirk.

"I appreciate that, Feral, but we already tried getting to the Kuriosity by ourselves, and you saw how that turned out," Razor noted.

"I'm aware," Feral acknowledged. "Getting to the Kuriosity, and doing so before its captor can jump the gun back on us will no doubt be the trickiest part of this whole operation." He paced about, mulling over some option that would satisfy their delicate requirements, but he was visibly stumped.

"Hey, Lion," Callie spoke up with ears and tail perked. "When is the Sabre 9's booster due to land?"

"It should be reaching the barge within the next fifteen minutes, why?" answered Musk.

"Feral, Dewey," Callie turned back around, "I have an idea, though you might not like the sound of it."

Back aboard the Kuriosity, the station specialist clawed away at the command module's main computer terminal while the electrical engineer cycled through various patterns of circuit routing on a switchboard dedicated to communicating with the station while docked. Both of them, and the crewman on the other side of the still barricaded dock hatch, too, had witnessed the cannon emerge from the comms array and rain fire down on Megakat City some time ago. From that moment on, it had become clear that their predicament was not the result of a station-wide malfunction, as they had initially assumed. None of them knew yet what exactly was happening - they were still unable to make contact with Mission Control - but all agreed on a suspicion that outside actors were in play. Before they could do anything about it, though, they needed to first confirm that the station's cybersecurity measures had been compromised and, if they had been, to what extent. Anxious to make progress on that front, the specialist's leg bounced up and down as copied and pasted the systems log check into the computer's command prompt over and over again with each new route configuration until, finally, he breathed in deep and clapped his hands together at the beautiful sight of a complete analysis of all station components running down the screen.

"We're in!" he spoke into a headset they'd managed to hook up to a local emergency back-up channel.

"Perfect!" the commander asked from the other end, noticeably gracious for the slightest bit of information. "What'd'ya see?"

"You want the good news first, or the bad news?" the specialist replied.

"Worst is first," the commander ordered.

"The bad news is that our suspicions were correct, the station's definitely been infiltrated by someone," the specialist explained. "Station analysis is showing all security measures have been compromised with the exception of one, but it looks like whoever's doing the hacking is in the process of trying to spoof an encryption key to get in."

"Where's the good news in that?" asked the commander.

"Well," the specialist figured, "that can only mean that we didn't do anything wrong. Take that for what you will."

The commander may as well have not even heard the good news, and the two pilots, meanwhile, took both halves as further confirmation of their existing reservations with Professor Ciniy, whom they both watched from a safe distance while he remained silent and uninteractive. His consistently antisocial behavior from the moment they'd set off, though, had finally gotten on the last of their nerves. They could no longer remain idle in their distrust, feeling as though hoping for the better would somehow turn the situation around. The pilot nudged his partner, and when he was met with a nod they closed in.

"Professor Ciniy," said the pilot as he and the co-pilot flanked their suspect. "I think it's time we had a little chat."

"W-what's it about?" Ciniy stuttered, his eyes shifting nervously between the two of them.

"I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when you first showed up but, now that it's become apparent that everything happening today is no accident, that means someone aboard this station isn't quite who they say they are," the pilot laid out.

"Stop it, you two," the commander interjected as he went to break them up, only for the co-pilot to obstruct him.

"Don't cover for him!" the pilot threw it in his face. "We've ran this same mission dozens of times without any problems, and the first time an outsider is in the mix, suddenly everything goes wrong."

"I know you're scared - I am too - but letting uncertainty turn us into savages inside katkind's crowning technological achievement is a disgrace to you and everyone else who looks to us as a beacon of civilization," the commander tried to appeal.

"To hell with civility!" the pilot growled. "All you're noble ideals about right and wrong went out with the lights, and that cannon. I've got a family waiting for me back home, and this slithering weasel isn't going to keep me from getting back to them!"

"You got a family, Ciniy?" he leaned in to say with a macabre murmur and a menacing glare. "You want to go back to them as a bloody mess? Do you even bleed?"

"Please, don't hurt me," Ciniy pleaded, "I don't know anything, I swear!"

"Wrong answer," the pilot warned him, and he shoved him against the wall with one hand and wound up the other for a crushing blow.

"No! Wait!" Ciniy cried out, to which the pilot paused just before throwing the punch. "I don't know who's behind this, but I think I know what they're after!"

"There's a step in the right direction," said the pilot, his fist still hanging next to his head, "go on, then."

"You now know that Kuriosity is more than just a telecommunications satellite from that cannon, I'm sure, but you've yet to see the true extent of it's destructive capability," Ciniy began. "Your engineer said that the hacker has infiltrated all but one of the station's systems; well, I think that last system grants control over a kinetic bombardment apparatus."

"Hey, I know what that is," the co-pilot turned around, "the air force uses them as bunker-busters - they're like giant bullets, right?"

"Yes," Ciniy nodded, "but you probably used bomb-sized projectiles made from steel, or concrete. An installation like this couldn't use that, because they'd burn up in the atmosphere. The Kuriosity probably uses rods of pure tungsten. Just one rod, propelled to twenty-four times the speed of sound, could annihilate a three square-mile area."

"Good to know," the pilot said half seriously, "but that information doesn't exactly get us out of this jam, and how do we know you're even telling the truth?"

"I have no reason to lie," Ciniy declared, his voice having turned grim. "If the culprit manages to break into that last system, and attempts to fire one of the rods, all of us will be killed - that includes me."

"What are you talking about?" the pilot asked as he released his fist and brought that hand to grab Ciniy's shoulder.

"Megakat State thinks they've been able to keep the whole thing a secret, but my country has known about it for years," Ciniy recalled. "About two years ago, I was drafted into a program tasked with developing a countermeasure for preventing Kuriosity from being able to use the apparatus."

"That's why the Spektr was launched into orbit. It, too, carries out research missions, but, just like Kuriosity, it was more of a cover-up," he explained. "Right now, that very countermeasure I helped develop is sitting aboard the Spektr, waiting for Kuriosity to try and use one of those rods. The moment it detects a launch sequence, it is programmed to destroy Kuriosity and anyone on board."

Like the flip of a switch, the pilot and co-pilot both suddenly wished they hadn't confronted Ciniy. It dawned on them in that moment that not only had they been wrong about him, to an extent, at least, but they're situation was even more complicated and dire than they knew. The pilot released his grip, but otherwise went limp, causing him to slowly float away while his head grew downcast and his eyes glazed over.

"I'm sorry, everyone," Ciniy mumbled. "I didn't want to build weapons, but life in my country is not so simple as in the west. Nobody dares defy the will of the state."

"I really did come here to help you, honestly, but I guess all I ended up doing was indirectly getting us all killed," he said on the verge of tears.

"I'm sorry, too, Professor Ciniy," the pilot met him halfway. "I was wrong about you, and it caused me to say and do things that I would never normally say in the heat of the moment. I'm ashamed to know that I may very well leave this life having sunk that low right at the very end."

"Nobody is at fault here, for anything; we're all on the receiving end of this thing together, " the commander consoled them. "Don't any of you give up on me, because this isn't over yet. We're all still alive, and that means we all still have a chance." The rally appeared to have struck a chord with all of them, sending the mood in the air into a miraculous turn for the better, until a panicked shuffling noise reverberated through the hull.

"What was that?" the commander looked all around, "you all heard that too, right?"

"Yeah," said the co-pilot, "my headset picked it up too."

Headset, the commander thought, and he tensed up before saying, "The module - they heard everything." He and the pilot rushed back to the dock hatch, and when they got there they found the airlock had been sealed on the other side, and the engineer and specialist standing over the main control panel. Neither the commander, nor the pilot had to even look at where the engineer's hands were placed, they knew all too well it was resting on the switch that would detach them from the station. The engineer's shoulders bounced up and down with his heavy breathing, and the specialist merely looked away in horror until the commander banged on the hatch window.

"Stop! Don't do it!" the commander begged.

"I'm...sorry," the engineer wept as he gripped the switch. "I'm so sorry."

"Guys, listen to me!" the pilot followed, pressing himself against the window. "Think about what you're doing, think about the people you're leaving behind. You don't want to do this!"

"Remember what the commander said," he continued, "we aren't done for just yet, there's still a chance for all of us to get out of here. Please, just give us some time!" A morbid silence hung between them but, eventually, the engineer gave a deep exhale and released the switch. He said nothing afterwards, instead hunching over and burying his head in his arms, but nothing more needed saying anyways.

"Hey, get over here, you two!" the co-pilot shouted from down the hall.

"What is it?" asked the commander, barely keeping up with the constant and overwhelming developments.

"Something's coming through one of the monitors in the control room!" the co-pilot answered. Finally, perhaps some information from the outside, both the commander and pilot thought to themselves as they looked at each other.

"Keep an eye on them for me, will ya?" the commander murmured, motioning to the module with his eyes and heading back to the control room hatch after the pilot gave him a nod of compliance.

"Kuriosity, this is Commander Feral of the Megakat City Enforcers," Feral spoke from in front of the Kats Eye News camera crew. "We have decided to accept the terms of your ransom."

"Right now, we are assembling the money you asked for, and will be delivering it to you aboard another Sabre 9 rocket within the hour," he detailed. "Along with the money are the coordinates to a deserted island not claimed by any nation, and well within international water boundaries."

"We believe this to be in complete adherence to your demands, and thus we expect you to hold up your end of the bargain. If we do not receive confirmation of your vacancy from the station within one hour of the money reaching you, we will be forced to use high-altitude anti-satellite missiles to destroy you and the station."

"The message is on it's way, that's it," said Lion after the camera stopped rolling.

"I hope I never have to say those words again, lie or otherwise," Feral grumbled before turning to Callie. "How is progress on the evacuation, Miss Briggs?"

"Slow, but steady," Callie answered with as much confidence as she could muster, "the interstates are jammed up, just like we predicted, so we're rerouting people as best we can. I estimate we'll be able to get half of all citizens beyond the city limits within mission time."

"Then the lives of the other half rest on the shoulders of the SWAT Kats alone," said Feral, visibly mortified. "They have my pity."

While all of MASA scrambled to prepare for another launch, an impromptu launch, Razor scoured the labyrinth of the space center's rooms and halls. His fur was soiled by soot and grease and sweat from working non-stop to fix the Turbokat, but cleanliness was the last of his concerns. T-Bone had been there when he and Musk's technicians first started putting the Turbokat back together and assembling a second Sabre 9 with the recovered booster, but he'd gone off somewhere without telling anyone, and never came back. The fast pace of Razor's walk brought a heavy breath out of him, and the stress of wondering where his friend could have gone to, and why, only exacerbated his exhaustion. Finally, though, in a far corner of the complex, he found T-Bone sitting quiet, still, and all by his lonesome among the rows of stadium-like seats that made up an observation room.

"There you are!" Razor called out to him before approaching, even though T-Bone seemed not to have heard him. "What are you doing here? The Turbokat is loaded up and everything; we gotta go, or we're gonna be late!"

"I know, I saw," T-Bone muttered. Outside the huge window in front of him, he had a full view of the assembly building, and the crawlerway leading to the launch platform. Even now, his eyes were fixed on the bright white fumes that came off the Sabre 9's fuselage as it sat being filled to the brim with liquid oxygen fuel. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hold things up."

"What's wrong with you, man? Are you still upset about what happened this morning?" Razor knelt down beside him. "We've been shot down before, you gotta let that go."

"It's not just that," T-Bone cringed. "You tried to stop me, but I wouldn't listen. I talked such a big game, and it nearly got us killed right at the critical moment."

"It's funny," he said, looking again to the launch pad, "that mistake may be the only reason why I'm getting to live out one of my actual childhood dreams, but, now that I'm here… I just don't know anymore."

"Chance, look at me," Razor spoke, and when his friend turned towards him he said, "Remember this morning, when I was afraid of what we were going up against?" T-Bone nodded.

"Back then, you said to me, 'It is what it is, what's important now is making sure it doesn't happen to anyone else,'" he recollected. "You made a mistake. It happens. You're still a kat underneath that jumpsuit. The question now is, what are you gonna do about it?" T-Bone twitched, and then turned to look at his partner.

"Are you just gonna sit this thing out, or are you gonna get back on the horse and show everyone what you're really made of? 'Cuz I really need a pilot right now - so does Megakat City - and you're the best pilot it has to offer." he concluded.

"Do you trust me?" T-Bone asked, grizzly in his determination, but only if he could be sure the feeling went both ways.

"With my life, buddy," Razor smile and offered his hand, "and I always got your back, no matter what."

With that, T-Bone slammed his hand into Razor's and gripped them together as he, too, put on an almost menacing grin and said, "Then what are we waiting for?"

By the time the two of them had gotten suited up and clambered into the vertical seats of the command module, the dark of night had just begun to take hold of Megakat City with the decline of the daytime sun. A perimeter of spotlights turned the Sabre 9's pure white body into a beacon of hope against the backdrop of the dim, emptying cityscape across Megakat Bay. Derelicts who'd chosen to stay behind in defiance of the evacuation order, passengers aboard ferries and cruise liners fleeing the coast, and even the drivers of cars and semis still stranded on the nearby highway all ventured out to behold the spectacle and send their best regards. Neither T-Bone, nor Razor spoke a word to each other as they checked and rechecked the myriad of gauges and monitors in front of them. A nervousness crept up from underneath both of their skins as the time to liftoff neared, but it was soothed, if only for a moment, when Callie suddenly appeared in the hatch frame beside them.

"Callie? What are you doing here?" asked Razor, his focus entirely pulled from the instrument panel.

"I wanted to wish you both good luck," Callie soothed before leaning in to press her lips against Razor's cheek.

"Oh - uh, good - I mean, thanks!" Razor blushed, unable to stop himself from nervously rubbing the back of his head, which Callie found as amusing as it was endearing.

"Hey, there's two of us, ya know?" T-Bone smirked.

"I didn't forget," Callie smiled, and arched over Razor to plant one on him as well. "You two be careful up there."

"We will, Miss Briggs," T-Bone assured her, "keep out of danger yourself, and we'll see you when we get back."

With one last wave goodbye, Callie retreated back behind the hatch frame and pulled it shut. Moments later, the locking bolts clicked into place, and once they'd secured their EVA helmets the cabin hissed with the influx of artificial air pressure, and a voice came over their headsets to say, "Awaiting final confirmation of systems check."

"Panel's green, Control, top to bottom," T-Bone came back, "let's fire this baby up already!"

"Roger that," the voice from Control acknowledged, "beginning countdown to launch." The whole body of the ship began to vibrate as its boosters spun to life, drowning out the voice treading backwards from fifteen along with the pounding of their hearts. From behind the inescapable question of whether or not their plan would work long enough for them to get to the Kuriosity, too, stretched out each second. When t-minus zero arrived, both T-Bone and Razor clenched up and held their breaths to brace for the smack of gravity that followed ignition and acceleration. Back on the ground, Callie and the others couldn't help but marvel at the sight, even while all of them had seen it many times before, when thunderous applause and roaring cheers echoed from all directions as the Sabre 9 slung into the pink and purple sky.

"Tower is clear," said Control, "throttle up to max Q."

"Let's go!" T-Bone roared before grabbing ahold of the throttle and pounding it as far forward as it would go. So far so good; they'd made it well past the point the Turbokat had been shot down not even twelve hours prior, but there was still a long way to go. Several minutes of silence, apart from the detachment of the first stage and the ignition of the second stage engines, at least, compounded their nervous anticipation. Even the sight of the wondrous horizon laid out beyond the module viewport brought them no great comfort, and nor did the eventual emergence of the Kuriosity from the pitch black void. That, to them, meant nothing more than the end of the easy part.

"There it is," said Razor as he undid his safety harness. "We'd better get ready."

"That creep is gonna be all over us the second we break out, and I doubt he'll waste any time attacking the city once he realizes the deal's a fake, so we need to be fast," said T-Bone as he and Razor climbed into the Turbokat. "You got everything you need back there?"

"Sure do," Razor answered, "I had Lion fit my seat with spacewalk jets and a robotic arm with cutting tools. Just get me close enough to eject and I'll try to regain control of the station while you go after the weapons systems."

"Roger that," T-Bone followed while eyeing the heads-up display that showed their distance from the station, "just gotta get a little bit closer."

"I'm ready whenever you are," Razor backed him up, his hand resting on the detonator to the cargo-hold's explosive bolts.

"Not yet," T-Bone murmured, instead using the time to warm up the Turbokat's own engines in preparation for the fight.

"Not yet," he held on, fighting back the trembling in his hands until the station was only a few hundred yards out in front of them.

"Now!" he popped up, and directed the jet's thrusters down and away from the rocket in perfect coordination with the cargo bay doors blowing away. Within seconds, they were showered by a barrage of the very same beams that had stopped them that morning. This time, however, their close proximity meant that the cannons, while nonetheless a threat, couldn't turn fast enough to close in on them before their target had shot past to the safe haven on the station's opposite flank.

"Bingo!" Razor celebrated, but T-Bone didn't join him.

"Not so fast, buddy," T-Bone reeled him in as their radar lit up, "we've got roadies on our tail." Throwing his head back, Razor caught sight of a swarm of basketball sized objects emerging from the same area as the beam cannons, glinting in the light of the sun, and banking in their direction.

"Where did they come from?" he lamented as the cockpit flashed and rattled to the impacts of multiple hostile laser attacks.

"Forget about that, I need some firepower here!" yelled T-Bone as he cut the engines and threw the Turbokat into a cobra maneuver. Once he'd rolled all the way back to stare the horde of drones down head-on, he reignited them to charge straight into them.

"Gotcha!" Razor complied before flicking his hand onto the weapons panel. "Let's see how they like a flechette missile!" In one lightning fast motion, he set loose two of the projectiles that, upon reaching a calculated distance from the targets, separated into a mosaic of razor sharp fragments that cut through a sizable, though altogether minority amount of the drones.

"Agh, there's too many of 'em!" T-Bone groaned even as he himself unleashed the Turbokat's gatling gun to sithe through another portion of the enemy craft. "We don't have time for this!"

"T-Bone, I got an idea," followed Razor. "Angle the canopy just below the station and fly by it - if I time it just right, I can eject and land directly on it."

"You're crazy, if you miss you're gonna get blown out into space!" T-Bone protested all the while managing his attention between the proposition and the continuing onslaught from the drones.

"Well, then you'll be there to get me back, right?" Razor argued. T-Bone looked back at him, if only to be sure he was entirely serious, before bringing the Turbokat back around and lining it up with Kuriosity as he'd been instructed.

"This is reckless even for us," said T-Bone as their distance to the station narrowed fast.

"You know, I think I liked you more when you were overly confident," Razor jabbed right as they were about to brush past the station. "Here I go!" The canopy above Razor flung open as he pulled the ejection lever, sending him careening out into the empty vacuum. The moment he was clear, T-Bone shut it tight again and looked back to see if Razor had made it. He hadn't.

"No! Razor!" he bellowed, watching in horror as his friend's body tumbled off into the darkness. He dumped the Turbokat into another cobra maneuver despite increasing damage from the drones still tailing him, but stopped short of hitting the thrusters to give chase when a voice came over the radio.

"I got it, I got it!" Razor called out, and brought his Glovatrix up to fire a grappling hook at just the right time to snag a hold of a safety bar on the station's exterior and bring himself to a floating halt. T-Bone, meanwhile, let out a deep sigh before conceding:

"You're right, Razor, I prefer being the kat of action between the two of us."

"Then quit worrying about me and take care of those weapons systems!" said Razor as he began to reel himself toward the station, and that was all T-Bone needed to hear before he set off to re-engage the drones hounding him.

Once he'd secured himself to Kuriosity's hull, Razor caught sight of the four crewmen stranded inside the main body through one of the observation portals. They'd all gathered around it to try and figure out what was happening and, after recognizing his face, their expressions made a noticeable turn for the awestruck and grateful. While the two pilots paid their respects with a wave, the commander wasted no time producing a pad of paper and scribbling something on it before pressing it up against the glass to pass the frequency of their headset's emergency backup channel onto him.

"Are you reading me?" asked Razor once he'd set his own headset to their channel.

"Loud and clear SWAT Kats, boy are we glad to see you guys!" the pilot rejoiced as a beaming smile came over him.

"That was one hell of a bait and switch with the surrender video," the commander complimented, "poor bastard never saw it coming; you even had us going there for a while!"

"Actually, you can thank the deputy mayor for that idea," Razor refused that particular segment of their praise. "We'd be more than happy to take your applause once we take this station back, though."

"Wait!" the co-pilot suddenly shouted. "Behind you!" Razor looked over his shoulder to find one of the attack drones had split off from the swarm and was headed straight for him. It fired a volley of laser blasts that he was only just able to avoid before he pulled a sidearm from his spacesuit and returned fire. He managed to score a direct hit just as the drone was about to crash into him, turning it into a red and yellow bloom of fire and preventing himself from being knocked back into space again. The resulting debris pelted his body and visor, but he hung on.

"Nice catch," Razor thanked the co-pilot, "now let's get me in there with you before another one of those things comes around."

"Well that's the thing," the commander began to explain, "all the airlocks are sealed shut because of the pressure difference, and we can't get into the control room to equalize it."

"You don't suppose our hacker would mind if I cut my way into the control room from the outside, then, do ya?" Razor proposed.

"Be our guest," the commander agreed, "that module's been depressurized, so you should be able to get right in without any trouble." With that, Razor began crawling his way along the perimeter of the fuselage towards the control room. His trek went by mostly uninterrupted, save for T-Bone bringing the Turbokat around a couple of times and hitting the comms truss with a burst of gunfire before peeling off to take care of what few drones remained active. After a quick scan around him to make sure no stragglers were going to surprise him again, Razor hit the jets on his seat, suspending him above the control room and began cutting into the hull. He'd very nearly finished opening a gap wide enough for him to fit through when the whole station suddenly lurched away from him and wriggled about, coinciding with a bright flash behind him that preceded the Turbokat whipping past him overhead.

"T-Bone, what the heck was that?" asked Razor while he reoriented himself with the station.

"Sorry, but I think the truss is covered in armor plating," T-Bone explained himself. "The gatling gun wasn't getting me anywhere, so I tried hitting it with a match-head missile."

"Did it work?" replied Razor.

"Not for more than maybe a scuff," T-Bone answered. "I might be able to take it out if I used more missiles, but I'd be risking destroying the whole station along with it."

"Hang back for now, I'm almost inside," said Razor, and after T-Bone agreed he finished his cuts and pulled away at the hull until the opening was large enough for him. Ditching the seat, he slipped through to the inside where an ominous calm among the otherwise normal looking array of monitors and controls greeted him.

"Alright, I'm inside the control room now," Razor announced to the crewmen watching him closely from the other side of the connecting hatch as he approached the main computer terminal. "What's our next step here?"

"Use the command console on the main terminal to put the station in safe mode, it'll cause a reset of the whole system and buy us some time at the very least," the commander guided him even while his speech became more and more hurried.

"Safe mode, got it," Razor understood. He put his hands to the keys and began inputting the necessary commands but, before he could finish, every last one of the screens turned a blood red and flashed the 'ACCESS DENIED' warning message.

"Ah ah ah, you didn't say the magic word, SWAT Kat," a horrid voice cackled from beyond the red fog before the main terminal screen gave way to static, and its face materialized to Razor and the stunned crewmen.

"Hard Drive!" Razor recognized him.

"Nice to see you again, Razor," Hard Drive, or rather his rendered image smirked, "you're just as much of an arrogant pest as the last time we met."

"I don't know how you escaped from prison, but you're gonna wish you'd stayed there when I'm through with you!" Razor bore his teeth in reply.

"You know, I actually missed that banter from you clowns," Hard Drive poked back at him. "It's almost sad knowing I won't be hearing it much after today, because I'm afraid you're the one who's about to wish he'd stayed where he was."

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Razor challenged him.

"Just what your specialist is about to tell you," said Hard Drive, puzzling the lot of them for the split second before their headsets cracked with the voice of the very kat just mentioned.

"Commander, the last security layer's been breached!" the specialist suddenly cut in from the Sabre 9's command module. "The kinetic bombardment safeguard is compromised!"

"Kinetic bombardment?" Razor wondered out loud, "is that what Dewey was being so secretive about?"

"You maniac!" Professor Ciniy shrieked, having slammed both his fists against the hatch window. "You don't realize what you're doing! The second you try to fire one of those tungsten rods, the Spektr is going to destroy this station, and all of us with it!"

"What!?" Razor's eyes shot open.

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time," Hard Drive dismissed them, leaving them puzzled until he continued:

"What, did you think just because I was in here and you were out there that you had total privacy? Truth is, this all kinda works for me."

"See, I knew when I started this that one of two things was going to happen: either Megakat City would fork over the ransom, or, more probably, the SWAT Kats would get involved, so when I heard that the Spektr had this place zeroed in, I took it as a nice little contingency plan."

"Sure, I won't be getting my money," he surmised, "but with half the SWAT Kats cremated, no one will be able to stop me in the future!"

"Aren't you about to go down with this thing, too?" asked Razor.

"I'd be more worried about myself if I were you, SWAT Kat, because you're not going to be around long enough to find out!" Hard Drive warned before topping off his words with a devilish bout of laughter, and once he finished his likeness faded from the screen while the control room went dark. The whole station began to rumble and whine as the armor plating around the comms truss rolled over and gave way to a bird cage-like structure that housed twenty-four shining metal rods, each one twenty feet long and sharpened to a lance head point at their striking end.

"Spektr is starting to turn, it's locking on to our position!" the specialist dreaded before his screaming voice turned to a sullen murmur.

"I'm sorry, everyone," he began again, "we didn't want it to come to this, but we can't wait any longer. Please forgive us." No one needed to be told what that meant, nor did they need to look to see what was about to happen. A sliding click echoed through the hallway, followed by a muffled thrush of pressurized gas. The Sabre 9's command module had separated from the Kuriosity and fled to a safe distance, taking with it any of the other crewman's hopes for escape.

"This is bad," Razor trembled as he searched for some way to reverse their course, but he was overwhelmed by the sight of the pilots hunched over and praying for mercy and the question of whether or not he, too, should save himself.

"Mister Razor!" Ciniy called out to him. "How fast could you cut the control room module away from the station?"

"I don't know, what difference would it make?" Razor shouted back as his composure began to falter.

"Spektr is programmed to target the origin of the launch signal, that's the main terminal!" Ciniy rushed to explain. "If you can separate it from us, we might have a chance!" Immediately, Razor regretted wasting those precious seconds arguing with the professor, and thus spared no time rushing back to the opening he'd cut and climbing out. He strapped himself into his seat and jetted over to the airlock section between the two hatches where he rammed the robotic arm's plasma cutter into the hull, working it around the perimeter as fast as he could.

"Razor, I can see the weapon's array through the armor plating now," T-Bone came in over his headset, "I should be able to take it offline now!"

"Good, be quick about it!" replied Razor. "Those are tungsten rods, and they're set to launch any second now! If we don't stop them, we can kiss Megakat City goodbye!"

"Wait a second," T-Bone came back as he brought the Turbokat around for a strafing run, "what are you doing out there, Razor?"

"No time to explain, just focus on the rods!" Razor directed him. The command module began to sway from the rest of the Kuriosity as his incision neared the other end of the airlock's circumference, and he could feel his confidence making a minute resurgence when he looked up to see T-Bone closing in on the comms truss and laying into it with a prolonged burst of gunfire. The rod launcher rippled and lit up with a cascade of sparks from the onslaught of bullets, and most of it had been reduced to mere fragments by the time the Turbokat shot past. An urge to celebrate crept up on Razor, but he caught himself before it could slow him down. Over on the horizon, Spektr had completed its homing roll, and it's electromagnetic railgun was now on full display, pointed square in their direction. There was no telling how much time they had left before it made fools out of all of them, and they were so close to making it out unscathed. Then, mere inches from completing the separation, the cutting tool overheated and gave out.

His blood now boiling, Razor had to summon all of his willpower not to lose hope in that critical moment. Having come this far, he was determined to see this through to the end, so he squeezed himself into the open airlock and, propping himself against the Kuriosity's hull, threw all the strength he could muster into one kick that, mercifully, broke the last bit of fuselage holding it to the station. The command module was now floating free, but it was still much too close not to pose a threat, so Razor flipped himself over and, with the help of the jets, pushed it away as fast as he could. It didn't take long for him to reach a comfortable distance from Kuriosity, but now he had a new problem - he himself was still in the firing line, and that became no more apparent then when he dared look in Spektr's direction. Arcs of white and blue electricity bloomed from the coils of its railgun and, as quick as they came, they vanished when a slug round almost bigger than him hurtled from the barrel and straight towards him. Raw instinct took over, and while it compelled him to shut his eyes and hope for the best, it also coiled him into a ball, allowing him to kick off of the control module right as the slug struck it. Neither life, nor death were certain to Razor, that honor belonged solely to the punch of force that followed the impact and subsequent explosion.

He couldn't tell how long his eyes had been shut, and his hearing was only just beginning to return from a high pitched ringing, but when Razor finally did open his eyes again it seemed he was still alive and even unharmed. Once again, he was barreling through the empty void, but, in spite of this, he found the nerve to breathe out and relax himself, and a chuckle escaped him in turn. T-Bone was calling out his name over the radio through the gradual return of his hearing, clearly distressed, but he was so burned out from the stress that he couldn't help but take it in comical stride, at least until T-Bone cried out: "Razor, are you okay!?"

"I'm alright," Razor answered him once his laughing fit passed, "we did it! Woo-hoo!"

"Hell yeah we did!" T-Bone celebrated right along with him. "Hang on, I'll come get you."

"Thanks," Razor thanked him, "I don't know about you, but I could really go for some gravity right now."

"Roger that, buddy," T-Bone followed. In a nice change of pace, he lowered the Turbokat's speed to a gentle cruise to slowly close in on Razor's location. He went to release a tow cable for Razor to grab onto, but he stopped just shy of throwing the switch when Razor's voice came over the radio again.

"Wait, T-Bone!" he yelled out, pointing back towards the Kuriosity. "The rod launcher, look!" T-Bone threw his head back just in time to catch a glimpse of the weapons truss jolting and, despite clear mechanical issue, firing two tungsten rods down towards Megakat City.

"Ah, crud!" T-Bone growled as he swung the Turbokat back around.

"Don't worry about me, stop those rods!" Razor told him, and with a quick nod of confirmation T-Bone slung the Turbokat back to full thrust and gave chase. Reactivating his seat jets, Razor brought himself to a halt and turned to trace his partner, but the Turbokat had already disappeared into the black backdrop of the planet's surface.

"T-Bone, how's it going?" he asked while fighting off yet another wave of anxious jitters.

"I can't keep up with them!" replied T-Bone. "I'm gonna have to go to Speed of Heat!"

"Be careful, T-Bone," said Razor, painfully aware of the effects of reentry into the atmosphere.

"Heh," T-Bone scoffed before deploying the Speed of Heat ramjets, "ain't no such thing today, Razor."

Without any further hesitation, T-Bone extended the canopy blast shields and ignited the ramjets. A puff of white vapor and a crackling boom followed his soaring past mach 1 as he began to pierce the upper layers of the atmosphere and, though it was slow to start, his targeting computer confirmed that he was now closing in on the first of the tungsten rods. As the g-forces on his body climbed, it took every ounce of his strength to keep himself conscious, let alone to keep focused for the precise moment he'd been within range to fire on the target. Megakat City was now clearly in sight, growing larger every moment he dove further towards it, and while the fear that he wouldn't be able to bank out of the drop without shattering the Turbokat reared itself inside his head, he pressed on. Every warning message the jet had to give flooded the heads-up display, along with their blaring beeps and sirens, but, along with them finally came the one he was waiting for, shoved off into the corner: 'TARGET LOCKED ON.'

"Let's see how you like an Octopus Missile!" he bellowed, and nearly crushed the fire button under his claw as he let it fly. The smoke from the missile clouded his vision as it shot out ahead of him but, through the haze, he managed to just barely make out the sight of its tentacle arms fray out and catch the rod. Just as intended, the octopus missile's grip threw the rod off course and into a violent tumble that slowed it to the point of sending it hurling up and past the Turbokat that, itself, was nearly hit.

"Woah!" T-Bone reacted to the narrow miss, just as frightful as he was exhilarated. "That's one down!"

"Keep going, T-Bone, you can do it!" Razor supported him. Unfortunately, his voice was drowned out by the master warning alarm signaling critical temperature levels in the ramjets, and this was compounded by the increasingly severe rattling and shaking of the Turbokat's frame as it began to buckle from the friction. The second, and final rod was almost in reach - the targeting computer needed only a few hundred feet more to lock on - but the strain of the dive was proving too much with each passing second.

"I-'s no go- I'm bre-" T-Bone tried to say, but his signal cut out before he could finish, swallowed along with any sign of the Turbokat by the dark of night cast over Megakat City, and never came back.

The morning sun broke over the calm waters of Megakat Bay, though Razor and the Kuriosity's crew couldn't enjoy too much of it from inside the Sabre 9's command module as it rested just above the water's surface. Ultimately, though, all of them were gracious just to be alive and under the weight of gravity once again - all except for Razor, who sat hunched over and twitching as he waited for their extraction. It took hours for them to splash down, and he'd spent every moment worrying, wondering to what extent Megakat City had been damaged from the remaining tungsten rod, mulling over every detail of T-Bone's disappearance looking for some way he could have made it through, and asking him himself what more he could have done, but being unable to know anything for certain. His were the only ears that didn't perk up when the sound of helicopter blades crept into earshot, not because he wasn't thrilled to be rid of that cramped pod, but because he was too busy bracing himself for what awful news may very well have been in store for him. He had to squint when the commander opened the hatch door and the glaring daylight hit his dark adjusted eyes, and he had to keep this up the entire time he climbed the rope ladder up into the Enforcer gunship sent to retrieve them, right up to the moment that a hand reached out to pull him inside. Grabbing ahold of it, he inhaled, and waited for Dewey or Feral to greet him with a stern face and a lecture about all the damage that had been caused but, instead, he was met with the snarky, half-guilty grin of an old friend.

"Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long," said T-Bone, trying not to laugh at Razor's awestruck reaction.

"T-Bone!" Razor rushed in to hug him, "I thought you were dead!"

"Eh, I've had worse crashes," T-Bone brushed off the exaggeration, sympathetic to it as he was. "The Turbokat ain't look too good, though; sorry about that."

"Forget the Turbokat, where did the other rod land? How bad is the damage?" asked Razor.

"Never made it to the ground, bless my campaign and beautiful city!" Mayor Manx threw his arms up in praise from behind T-Bone.

"Huh?" wondered Razor before looking back to T-Bone, "but…"

"Don't look at me," T-Bone shook his head, denying any credit.

"You can thank Admiral Dewey for that," Callie stepped in to elucidate. "His missile platforms were able to stop the last rod just before it landed."

"No kidding?" Razor replied, "Guess his decision to bring those in ended up being a win-win after all."

"Yeah, and he's not the least bit proud of it, I promise," Callie jabbed with a gentle roll of her eyes.

"I'd say he's earned that much, just as long as he doesn't forget who did most of the heavy lifting," said Razor. "Where is he, by the way, and Feral, for that matter? I'd think he'd want to be first in line to ring our necks for the damage we caused."

"Their travelling to the Ural Rex Union with the President as we speak to help co-author an orbital weapons treaty," Callie explained.

"I would have preferred it not to have taken a catastrophe for that to happen, but I welcome the progress being made," Ciniy mused after he'd climbed aboard as well. "Thank you, SWAT Kats; I owe you two my life."

"Don't mention it," replied Razor, "I just wish we could have stopped Hard Drive from getting away."

"Hard Drive?" Callie, Manx, and T-Bone all said in unison.

"Yeah, somebody broke him out of prison - hooked him up with a new surge coat, too," Razor recalled from their encounter. "No doubt that's how he was able to take over the Kuriosity without anyone noticing."

"He was inside the control room module with me right before Spektr destroyed it, but he didn't seem very worried about it," he continued. "I doubt he'd just let himself get killed like that, but I don't know for sure."

"He'll be back," said T-Bone bluntly and realistically, "they always come back, eventually, but we'll be there to stop him, right?"

"Right!" Razor came back and, as the gunship broke over the solid ground of the city below, they revelled together the distant throngs of returning citizens overjoyed to see their conquering heroes return safely and victoriously once again.

Thank you for reading.

If you enjoyed this adventure, please consider buying my novel Silkworm, available right now for 99 cents on Amazon Kindle.