Chapter 1 – Rescue

A cool summer night breeze rolled over Jeremy Flame's better known as Droid face as he lay under the single big oak tree on a beautiful green field. He drew in a nice long snag from his wooden pipe, curving his lips into a tight circle and gently blowing. A perfect smoke ring came out. Droid admired his handy work and watched as the circle flew farther and farther up into the sky and just before he completely lost sight of it, an invisible hand slapped him non-to-gently across the face. Droid got quickly up to his feet and looked around wildly for his assailant but no matter how hard he looked he couldn't find anyone. "I must be hallucinating" he thought and just before he was about to resume his previous comfortable position under the big oak tree, he was slapped again, harder, but this time a voice that was vaguely familiar to Droid accompanied the slap. "Droid, Hey Droid!" the disembodied voice said.

Droid who was now infuriated having his pride stung after being slapped twice across the face, started shouting at the voice to leave him alone and let him get back to his comfortable position under the oak. But to no avail, in fact the voice seemed to be getting louder, "Droid! Come on we don't have time for this!" and a third time Droid was slapped. Droid started to swing his arms in windmills in a desperate attempt to protect his face and was rewarded with a satisfying crunch as his right arm connected with something sold. "Oi" the disembodied voice exclaimed. Before Droid could drink in his satisfaction of getting back at his attacker, he was promptly shocked. The field began to disappear. The big oak that used to tower over Droid started to shrink right before his eyes, slowly at first but started to pick up speed. "No!" Droid shouted, and franticly started to look around for his pipe, and saw it a few feet from where he stood. With a snarl Droid leaped for it and—a rough hand covered his mouth.

Droid opened his eyes; he was in a dark and very dreary looking cellar. A few dim rays of light shone in from under the crack of the steel door that barricaded his only escape that he could see for the moment. There was water dripping from the ceiling. "Blast it Droid!" whispered a female voice behind him, "Don't move". Droid attempted to at least turn his head and see his potential enemy but couldn't quite get his neck to turn all 180 degrees. A muffled ZINK echoed in the chamber as Droid felt the shackles that were bounding his legs, release their iron grip. The moment the last shackle was undone, Droid spun around kicked the feet from under his rescuer, pined them to the ground and covered his mouth. "Who are you?" Droid whispered in a hoarse tone. Droid moved his hand just enough so that his victim could reply. "It's Sparky." The voice responded with the utmost calm.

Droids golden eyes adjusted to the dark of the cellar at that very moment and Droid could tell that it was indeed Sparky. Sparky's real name was Jane Goodheart a woman in her mid-late 20's and was Droids right hand man (or woman as the case was) but more importantly, his most loyal and best friend. She had earned the nick name Sparky because of her fiery and often volatile behavior. A man attempted to flirt with her once, only once. Poor chap came on to strong and received a punch square in the nose for his trouble. That punch spread like wild fire through the camp and soon not a single man had enough guts to so much as breathe in the same direction as Sparky. But Sparky had a good heart and a quick brain at that, making her perfect at what she did, which was picking locks, spying and gathering information and now apparently busting Droids rugged butt out of prison, again. She also excelled at sniping, once entering a contest and hitting a moving target from more than 800 feet away which was no small feat when you're firing a BB gun. Apart from being all those things she was also beautiful. She had auburn hair that was worn a few inches longer then was usual (well actually she wore it down to a little past her shoulders; which were A LOT longer than normal considering normal was buzz cut, but being part of Droids elite squad had its perks). She had piercing green eyes a pointy nose, gorgeous lips and a slender frame. She wore the standard LUSH jumpsuit, a kind of mixture between dark blue and jet black, brandishing the LUSH insignia on the right shoulder. The insignia was a brain with wings protruding from each side and 5 stars below it.

Sparky, who at first struggled underneath Droids weight and finally concluding that it was a futile task, said "if you would be so kind as to get off of me we could leave." Droid got off, and Sparky sat up groaning and rubbing her head vigorously. "dammit Droid even while your asleep you can still manage to hurt people." Droid grinned, "Sorry maybe next time you should use more conventional ways of waking me up instead of resorting to hitting me and then shooting me." "I've tried everything else! " Sparky replied with an exasperated tone. "I nudged you, elbowed you, and yelled at you, but still nothing not even a groan for a response, you can sleep when you're dead and you aren't yet." They both chuckled. It was an old joke they both shared. "Oh I nearly forgot." Sparky passed a bag over to Droid. "It's some light armor and a standard BB gun with a 12 inch knife. Sorry that I couldn't bring Zavager but I was afraid it would attract too much attention." Zavager was the name of Droids God-Sword that possessed great mystical power. It was his weapon of choice along as being his favorite. Droid would trade his own grandmother for that sword if he had to, if off course she was still alive. "Did you bring anything to eat?" Droid asked looking around and sniffing with his powerful enhanced nose. "Yes, yes just stop doing that, you know it freaks me out when you do that." Ha! You and I have served for 12 years together and of all things that you could be annoyed by, it has to be my loud nose."That's not the only thing that annoys me she thought but instead said, "And you haven't changed one bit sense the day I met you." Sparky replied with a sneer taking out some bread and water.

"You know it. I may have been around a little longer than normal but I still have my devilishly good looks and charm" Droid replied taking a big bite out of his sandwich." Sparky snorted "you call living for 77 years a little longer than normal? " But I still have the body of a 27 year old" Droid exclaimed defensively, taking note that Sparky did not object about his devilishly good looks and charm. "So what's your brilliant plan on getting us out of here? I don't see any points of exit." Droid asked leaning back against the stone wall with a satisfied look on his face. Without pausing in her chewing Sparky pointed up. Droid followed the finger and noticed a small circular hole in the ceiling some 20 feet from where he lay. "And how, might you be so kind, as to tell me how we're going to get up there? Droid asked with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. Finishing up her sandwich Sparky put on her pack and without another word ran straight at the wall opposite of where Droid was lying. After about 6 steps Sparky pushed hard off the wall, did a back flip at 45 degrees, flew across the gap between the 2 walls and as soon as her feet hit the other wall jumped straight up into the hole in the ceiling, a few seconds later the face of a very content Sparky was visible in that hole.

Droid scowled and was about to do the same thing when there was a hard knock on the door and a few seconds later the door swung open. Those few seconds were all that Droid and Sparky needed to prime their BB guns and take aim. Three soft "Pews" were heard followed by 3 muffled THUDS as the bodies of 3 Chaotic Grunts dropped flat on their backs more lifeless then the stonewalls that had imprisoned Droid for so long. Well actually they were only unconscious and wouldn't be for much longer. Sparky dropped down and examined the bodies. "Ugh I still hate looking at these…abominations. Droid agreed, they had disgusting, scarred faces, missing fingers, and ton's of other deformities, but perhaps the worst of it all was that they had a particularly pungent smell about them, which smelled something along the lines of moldy chicken nuggets that you find in the dumpster 2 maybe 3 months after they were deposited there. It was especially hard for people like Droid who had genetically enhanced noses. "Well this complicates things." muttered Droid taking the collar part of his uniform and putting his nose under it, "the Kraotic Council will be expecting them to return with me in a matter of minutes. And when they don't show up at all they will get suspicious and send a scouting party." "We need to get out of here, and fast, it would be pointless to go back the way I came it took me hours to crawl through those vents and find your cell and that's even with the tracking system that I have in my suit." Sparky said rubbing her still aching head. ""Alright then, we put on their armor and cloak our faces as long as we don't get to close to the guards we should be able to sneak by them and get to the exit and we better do it before they gesturing at the bodies, wake up. If things get hairy we split up and meet up back at base" Sparky nodded and without another word they both don on their guises and slipped out of the room without a backwards glance.