"Yessir...yessir...yessir, I understand how important this aircraft is to you..." Chance pulled the phone away from his ear and stuck out his tongue in disgust. "Sir, Jake - Clawson 'n' me - we've only been here three days. We ain't even finished unpacking...no, sir, I'm not sayin' that's more important than your plane...it's just...sir, we don't know where everything is yet...yessir. As soon as felinely possible."

Chance hung up the phone and roared wordlessly at the ceiling. Jake entered from the kitchen.

"Soup's on. Was that Feral?"

"Yeah. He sends his love. Wants to know why his plane ain't fixed yet."

"Cause he blew it to bits when he messed up our shot."

"I know - you'd think he'd remember."

Jake smiled. "If we could fix a plane that fast, they couldn't pay us enough."

Chance rubbed his face. "You went over the figures. How long we gonna be stuck here in this dump?"

Jake's smile became crooked. "Um, a while." He started heading back to the kitchen. Chance followed.

"A little while or a long while?"

Jake stepped to the stove, lifting the lid on the soup pan. "Well, I wouldn't make any plans for the next...um...ever."

Jumping up on the counter, Chance growled, "Crud, Jake, is this legal?"

Jake stopped stirring the soup. "What?"

"This. Feral making us slaves."

Replacing the lid, Jake opened a drawer and pulled out two spoons. "You thought indentured servitude was a thing of the past?"

"If that's what I think it is, yeah, I did."

"Well, it would be, if you and me weren't Enforcers."

"We're not!"

Jake pointed a spoon at Chance. "Ah, but we were when this happened. So they can do pretty much as they see fit. Pretty much everything's legal in Enforcer-land."

Chance sighed. "Well, so much for our lives, then."

"Not so fast, buddy. There's still a way out for us. Bowls?"

Reaching behind him, Chance opened the cupboard and extracted two bowls. He handed them to Jake with a sidelong glance. "You ain't talkin' 'bout building our own plane again, are ya?"

"Sure. Why not? It'd be just like when we were kits."

Chance jumped off the counter. "Say what?"

Jake ladled out some soup for Chance. "You remember. When we built that scooter thing?"

"Oh, gimme a break."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah, 'til it hit that building."

Jake handed the bowl to Chance with a far-off look in his eye. "Oh, yeah. That's when I learned to let you do the steering."

"Besides, Jake, that was a scooter - this is a plane!"

"Difference of degree."

"Heckuva degree!"

Taking his bowl, Jake followed Chance to the small rickety table. Jake set his bowl down, then grabbed a pad of paper from the counter.

"OK, let's work this out. How long does it take to fix each major component of a fighter?"

"I dunno." Chance suddenly snorted. "But I bet I'm gonna find out real quick."

"Well, then, guess." Jake started ticking them off on his fingers. "Each engine, each wing, weapons..."

"Heck, Jake, I dunno - a week each?"

"Forty kat-hours? Let's say fifty - be on the safe side."

"Whatever." Chance turned his attention back to his soup.

"All right. Fifty hours per section times..." Jake counted silently, then wrote on his pad.

"Don't forget the hull."

"I didn't. That gives us about a thousand kat-hours. If we each put in forty hours a week on it, that's...twelve and a half weeks. Three months and we have a plane." Jake put the pen down and picked up his spoon.

"Y'think we can put forty hours each on this?"

Jake peered over his spoon. "How bad you want to pilot again?"

Chance growled, "Bad enough. But listen. Lessay we build the durn thing. Where th'heck we gonna keep it? It's not somethin' we can shove behind the couch when we got company."

Jake paused, then waved his spoon. "Details."

"Details!"

"I'm not saying it's not a problem. I'm saying it's something we can work around. Look." Jake put his spoon down, and pointed at Chance. "The reason things like this don't get done is because kats get scared. They see these obstacles and think they can't do it. They aren't willing to roll up their sleeves and get the job done. Now, as I see it, we've got two options. We can rot away fixing cars and planes, or we build us a plane and show the Enforcers how it's done. Which of those you feel like?"

Chance put his spoon down, crossed his arms, and stared at Jake for a minute. Slowly, a smile crept over his face.

"Ack!"

Jake peered over a pile of car doors. "Buddy, what is it?"

"Nothin'."

"Oh." Jake grinned. "Bugs, huh?"

"Yeah, so what if it was?"

"Nothing. I just won't ever get why you're so scared of 'em."

"They just...weird me out."

"They scare you."

"Whatever." Chance brushed his hands off. "These are all car parts."

"Yeah, I noticed. It looks like all the plane parts are on the south side of the lot. I guess there's a method to this madness."

Jake and Chance began ambling towards that end.

Chance tried to pick some dirt out of his claws. "What kinda hull you hopin' to use?"

"Hoping? Any! Beggars can't be choosers. But if I had my pick..." Jake got a faraway look in his eye, and grinned. "A VT-40."

Chance grinned back. "You always liked those."

"Yeah. I always wanted a chance to mess around with the weapons systems on those. I don't know who designed the weapons layout on 'em, but I hope he got fired."

"You always said they were kinda confusin'."

"Confusing, nothing - they were just plain wrong, Chance!" They turned the corner around a stack of car bodies, and came to a halt. "Holy..."

Chance smirked. "Y'can say that again!"

In front of them lay a wall of metal shelving, piled high with plane hulls. Many were extremely rusty, with gaping holes, but others looked almost new.

"Looks like we get our pick," said Chance. "Any VT-40's up there?"

"Um..." Jake, shielding his eyes from the sun, scanned the stack. "Doesn't look like it."

"Figures."

"Well, they didn't make that many of them - and I think most of them are still in service..."

"Crud, Jake, look!" Chance pointed towards the top left side of the stack. "Ain't that a Looper?"

Jake scrutinized the hull. "Yep, sure is."

"That'd be perfect for us!"

"Aw, Chance, that's not a fighter plane. Besides, you know how the wiring on Loopers gets..."

Chance put his paw on his friend's shoulder. "That don't matter! We're gonna be wirin' it ourselves, remember?" Jake thought for a second, then gave a sideways shake of his head. Chance added, "B'sides, I'm gonna be the one who'll be flyin' 'er."

"All right - deal. Let's get the forklift."

Chance's war whoop was partially drowned out by the sound of a low-pitched horn. Jake and Chance glanced at each other, then collectively rolled their eyes. Resignedly, they headed back to the shop.

"Well, if it isn't Jerk and Fat Chance!" snickered Murray from his truck.

"Makin' fun of our names," Jake growled. "Haven't heard anyone do that since third grade. You got a delivery?"

"Nah, hotshots, I just stopped by to see yer pretty mugs. 'Course I got a delivery. Big one today. Should keep you hotshots grounded for a while." Jake snatched the clipboard from Murray's hands and scanned the list. "Looks like they dismantled some 4x4's at HQ - must have put 'em through the grinder. Someone messed up big time on maneuvers, and his VT-40 got pummeled. Heain't gonna be an Enforcer much longer, that's for sure..."

Jake shot a glance at Chance, then quickly looked away. Keeping his voice low, he muttered, "VT-40, huh?"

"Yep - not much left of it. Part it out."

"I haven't seen any VT-40 parts around. We probably could use 'em."

"Huh. If they're smart, they won't send no real planes around for you to do no work on."

"Just dump the stuff, nimrod, and save the big jokes for your girlfriend." Jake signed the paperwork, took his copy, and threw the clipboard back at Murray. They watched impatiently but silently as he unhitched the load.

"See ya, suckers!" Murray yelled, peeling out of the parking lot. Jake and Chance watched him leave, then slowly turned towards each other. They both were trying hard not to laugh.

"Yeah!" yelled Jake. He high-fived Chance, then pointed up at the sky and clicked his tongue. "Owe ya one."

The sun had already gone down when Chance arrived back from the emergency tow. He was mildly surprised to hear loud music playing in the garage. Walking in, he saw Jake, feet propped on the table, tapping on a legal pad in time to the song.

"Rock on!" roared Chance.

Jake almost dropped his pen in surprise. He turned around, smiled sheepishly at Chance, and pumped his hand in the air a few times.

"Whatcha up to?" asked Chance, as Jake turned the music down.

"Planning." Jake put his feet back on the floor. "I'm trying to figure out how to go about building this plane."

"I thought you said it was no problem."

"I didn't say it was no problem," countered Jake. "I just said we could overcome any problems that came up."

Chance sat down across from Jake. "So whatcha got so far?"

Jake held up the pad for Chance to see. "Big fat zero. This is tougher than I thought. I've never designed a plane before."

"Sure y'have."

"What? When?"

"In school. In your math notebook."

Jake looked confused, then embarrassed. "Aw, Chance, we were just kits back then. I was just...doodling."

"Yeah, so? It was pretty cool."

"Yeah, I guess it was. But that was...y'know..."

"Dreamin'?"

"Yeah, exactly."

Chance grinned. "Don't you want a chance to make your dream come true?"

Jake thought. "Yeah, I guess." He grinned back. "Well, I don't think I have that notebook anymore, so I'll have to go off memory. And there's probably things I would need to change anyway." Jake sat up straighter. "OK, so let's go over a list of must-haves here. The three things we need most in a fighter are speed, maneuverability and firepower. Right?"

"Sounds right to me."

"All right. The basic VT-40 was pretty quick and agile on its own."

"Could you kick it up some?"

Jake shrugged. "Well, yeah, I guess, but it's not like cranking a knob. There's a lot of work involved."

"Well, duh." Chance started bobbing his head in time to the song.

"How much firepower are we going to need?"

"Th'more th'better."

"Sure, all things being equal. But the more guns 'n' missiles we put on that thing, the heavier it'll get, and the slower it'll go."

Chance shrugged. "Compensate. More power in the engines."

Jake rolled his eyes. "I forgot. You flunked physics." He put the pad down. "Look, Chance, the heavier a plane is, the slower it's gonna move around. No matter how big an engine you put in there, you can't fight inertia. Now I don't want to go out there and try to show up the Enforcers in an old jalopy of a plane. We got the two best damn pilots in MegaKat City, and we're gonna have a plane to match."

Chance held up his paws. "Yes, sir!"

"All right, then. We get the best engines we can find out there that can be repaired, do what we can to 'em, and throw them on. After that, we toss on the best weapons we think we'll need. That'll keep us light enough to zip around."

"Hm." Chance thought for a second. "Couldn't you...snap the weapons in?"

"Snap the weapons in...what do you mean?"

"Oh, you know. Like...like those Robo-Klaws we had back when we were kits. Remember? You could take their arms out and put in guns 'n' stuff..."

"Yeah?"

"So couldn't you do that with the weapons? You know, snap out a machine gun, put in a flamethrower..."

"Chance, this isn't a toy."

"Sez you," retorted Chance, grinning.

Jake looked at him for a second, then smiled back. "You know, you're right."

"'f course."

"And you know, that's a great idea - making some weapons modular. Even if you didn't know what it was called."

"You're the smart one."

"Well, yeah, compared to you." Jake avoided the fist that Chance swung at him. "All right, then. First thing in the morning - we go look at engines."