Chapter One

Jake finished tightening the last strap on his knee brace then reached for his crutch. "Right. Just a few more weeks and then this thing is going to get recycled into a missile with Venom's name written all over it."

'Just a few more weeks' had become his daily mantra. It was his first thought each morning as he sat up on the roll-away cot that was temporarily replacing his way more comfortable hammock. He repeated the phrase throughout the day each time he had to stop and think about where he was going to sit and how he was going to stand back up; which jobs he could and couldn't do, and especially, whenever his partner took off on a solo mission.

Turning his body slightly the side, Jake pushed up from the cot with his left hand, keeping all of his weight on his good leg. Standing up right, he held tightly to his crutch and centered his balance before giving his back a good, long stretch. Rolling his shoulders and rocking his head side-to-side to get the last of the kinks out, Jake drew in a deep breath and mentally steeled himself for another day of small but none the less annoying obstacles. Letting his gaze wonder around the room, his attention was caught by the poster-sized calendar hanging near the door. Circled in bright, red marker was the last government holiday. Jake snorted in disgust. Yeah, that was a day he wasn't going to soon forget. Callie's panicked call from the Megakat City harbor had signaled the end to what had started out as a nice Meowerial day. The weather had been perfect for relaxing outside while grilling fish, so he and Chance had decided to treat themselves to a real holiday, something they didn't often get.

They should have known better.

Apparently the weather had not only been perfect for sailing and cooking out, it had also been perfect for growing a enormous, aquatic squidvine. Somehow, Dr. Venom had managed to combine a giant, deep-sea squid with one of his fast growing, super-vines. The result had been a tentacled, semi-intelligent monster big enough to fill up the entire harbor! Yeah, a lot of kats were going to remember that holiday for a long time to come.

Growling softly to himself, Jake grabbed his red ball cap from the top of his dresser and headed for the kitchen. As he made his way slowly down the narrow hall, he couldn't help replaying the battle again in his mind, focusing once more on the mistakes that were made and what could have been done differently. What he personally could have done that might have prevented him from winding up with a right knee so messed up it had required surgery and weeks of rehab.

Really, it all came down to them being unprepared to face a monster that could dive to the bottom of the ocean and still reach hundreds of yards into the city. As the SwatKats, defenders of Megakat City, most of their missiles and other weapons were all designed for air and land attacks, not water. Even their radar had been practically useless for spotting the body of the enormous creature. And they had quickly figured out that it was the body itself had to be destroyed because the monster could regrow its tentacles as fast as they could cut or burn them off. They had even tried freezing the tentacles but the fiendish Dr. Viper had apparently thought of that. He had given his newest creation a thick, rubber like bark that acted as an insulation against the cold.

Forced to land and reconsider their options, he and his partner Chance, in their Razor and T-Bone personas, had met up with Callie and Dr. Hackle to try and figure out a way to attack the squidvine monster directly. It was actually Callie that came up with the idea of freezing the tentacles from the inside, rather than the outside. Perhaps if they could completely immobilize enough of them, the squid might come to the surface. It was worth a shot. Literally. Razor had put his brilliantly creative mind to work on a way to deliver the freezing agent below the bark while Callie and Dr. Hackle mixed a large batch of the freezing chemical. Meanwhile, T-Bone bought them some time by doing his best to keep the tentacles from destroying too much of the city or pulling innocent kats into the harbor.

In the end, the solution had been less than ideal. The chemical would be carried by the TurboKat in a large tank and would be injected into the tentacles using a harpoon-like needle attached to a hose. There were several issues with the plan, the biggest one being that a tank large enough to carry the amount of chemical needed was going to make the TurboKat fly like a pregnant pterodactyl. Then there was the whole issue of getting close enough to aim the harpoon, releasing just enough of the chemical so they didn't run out, then retracting the harpoon and reloading it while moving to the next tentacle without getting taken out by the remaining unfrozen tentacles. Piece of tuna cake. In the end, despite T-Bone's concerns and Callie's objections, it was Razor who rode outside the TurboKat on the hastily wielded tank platform with the harpoon gun mounted just in front.

"Morning buddy! Sleep well?"

Jake blinked in confusion a moment as his attention was suddenly pulled from the past to the present. While lost in thought, he had reached the small, galley style kitchen of their home/junkyard/SwatKat headquarters. Standing at the counter, drinking his morning coffee was his partner Chance, dressed in a matching blue coverall and ball cap. But whereas Jake's coveralls hung loosely on his small, lean frame; the seams were stretched tight over his partner's well muscled, tiger striped figure.

Chance was in his usual jovial mood, grinning as he held out a second cup of steaming, hot coffee. "Here, looks like you could use this to finish waking up."

"Thanks buddy. I was just thinking about the fight with the giant squidvine."

Chance's smile slipped a little and his ears twitched back, then forward again. "Not a great way to start the day. Would be better thinking about that landing gear overhaul the TurboKat needs."

"Yeah, well you're going to wind up doing most of the actual work on that thanks to Viper's squidvine, so… yeah…"

Chance frowned a little as he watched Jake sip his coffee while leaning more of his weight onto his crutch. As much as he didn't want to, he also found himself replaying that awful moment again in his mind. While he had been relatively safe in the cockpit of the TurboKat, his partner had been standing on a hastily rigged platform beneath the belly of the jet, shooting a harpoon of all things into the vine tentacles.

At first, the plan had worked without a hitch. Four giant tentacle-popsicles down and only four more to go. But on the fifth tentacle the harpoon had suddenly become stuck and wouldn't retract even with Razor pulling on the line. Not having any other option, Jake had slid down the cable to try and dislodge the metal tip by hand.

"Chance? Hey, Chance! Looks like you're the one that needs more caffeine. Sure you're awake enough to work on the TurboKat? I'd hate to have go back and fix something you messed up."

"Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen." Chance forced a grin back on his face and took a big gulp of his rapidly cooling coffee. "You're the one with two left paws."

"Hey, just remember who's the brains of this operation and who's the brawn."

"Yeah, well, could probably have used more of both when we were dealing with… uh… never mind."

Turing to the sink, Chance quickly drained his cup and rinsed it out before hurrying from the kitchen, leaving his partner standing alone and confused in the middle of the room.

"Huh. I wonder what that was all about?" Jake finished off his own coffee and then refilled his cup with water so that he could take his first round of medication for the day. "Just a few more weeks…"

Grabbing the last of the tools needed to start the dismantling process on the landing gear hydraulics, Chance growled softly at himself for his earlier slip of the tongue. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. It wasn't his fault anymore than it was mine. If anyone gets the blame it's that psycho Dr. Venom. If I ever get my paws on his scrawny, green neck I swear..."

"You know Chance, talking to yourself is considered the first sign of going crazy."

"Well, with you for a partner, who could blame me? Have you seen the, ah, here it is."

Chance straightened up from digging through the bottom drawer of the tool chest to find said partner standing right next to him with an understanding look on his face.

"You know, you saved my life that day."

Caught off guard by the sudden honesty and the obvious gratitude in Jake's eyes, Chance at first tried to downplay the incident. "Yeah, well, would have been too much work to train a new co-pilot." But as he spoke, his eyes came to rest on the thick, black knee brace strapped to his partner's leg and the memory of that dreadful moment came crashing back. "Jake…when you… and I couldn't..."

Holding up a paw and giving his best friend a sad, knowing smile, Jake motioned with his head toward the hanger exit. "C'mon, I think we both need to talk this through and get it out of our systems. I mean, we've been dancing around it so long, our shoes are starting to wear out."

Chance snorted more in relief than amusement but nodded his head. "Yeah, I reckon I could do with another cup of coffee too."

Back in the kitchen, Jake allowed Chance to fuss over him a bit, arranging a chair for his leg to rest on before fetching him another cup of coffee. Once they were both settled at the table, they sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments, each one trying to figure out how to start.

"Chance, I didn't mean…."

"You shouldn't have…"

Both Kats stopped talking and stared at each other, then broke out laughing. And kept on laughing. Neither one knew exactly why they were laughing so much, but it felt good and each time they started to wind down, they would make eye contact and it would start up again. Eventually, they were able to settle back in their chairs with a relaxed feeling that had been missing for many weeks. Ever since that battle with Viper's aquatic monster.

"The freeze harpoon worked. The chemical had to be delivered beneath the bark without severing the tentacle, so an injection was the only way." Jake stared into his cup of cooled coffee as he spoke. "There wasn't time to calculate the amount of chemical needed and build enough individual missiles to do that."

Chance nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, your right. The harpoon was the only solution, but maybe it should have been me standing on the deck."

"Seriously? You think I could have flown the TurboKat as well as you with that huge tank rig hanging beneath it? You're dreaming buddy."

Chance sighed but didn't argue.

"No, we were in the right positions. But neither one of us stopped to consider the possibility of the harpoon getting stuck so we didn't have a plan for when it actually happened."

"Should have had a backup harpoon."

Jake nodded. "Or used a thicker cable for the retraction. But we were short on time and material to work with. It was a good plan. It was working. It did work."

"Yeah. Mostly." Chance paused and drew a deep breath. "So... tell me what happened. After the harpoon got stuck."

Jake hunched forward in his chair and took a moment to organize his thoughts. Chance waited patiently, almost dreading what he was going to hear next.

"The point of the harpoon sank in deeper on the last tentacle. I don't know why, maybe we were just a little bit closer when I took the shot; , maybe that tentacle had been damaged earlier. But I triggered the chemical flow anyway and when I saw frost starting to form, I turned it off, then turned on the winch to retract the harpoon. But it didn't budge."

"I suggested using the Kat to pull the harpoon free..."

"But I was afraid we would break the point off the harpoon or snap the cable."

Chance slammed his empty cup down on the table. "And that's when you came up with 'brilliant' idea of loosening it by hand!"

Jake flinched a little but smiled ruefully. "Yeah, maybe not one of my better ideas. I wasn't worried about falling because I was wearing the harness and cabled to the platform. I just slid down the line to the harpoon and landed next to it on the frozen tentacle. I swear, I could feel the cold through the bottom of my feet. Anyway, I grabbed the harpoon and began shoving it from side to side to break it free of the bark. I was so focused on it... I never even saw the other tentacle."

Leaning his head back on his shoulders, Chance closed his eyes and let the scene play itself out in his mind. "I was focused on watching the harbor, thinking that monster would have to come to the surface soon to see what was going on. And sure enough, I spotted its giant, red eye at the same time I heard you scream."

"I didn't scream."

"Scream, yell, yodel, whatever you want to call it, I'll never forget it. Made my blood run as cold as those frozen tentacles. And god help me, I stayed focused on that red eye and fired off the two acid missiles before I checked on you." Chance opened his eyes and stared sorrowfully at his best friend. "I'm sorry."

Jake shook his head. "No way, Chance! You've got nothing to be sorry about. We had a mission and you were the only kat in a position to stop that thing. Besides, it was probably you firing the missiles that saved my life."

"And almost got your leg ripped off!" Chance felt his ears go flat against his skull and drew in a deep breath to calm his nerves. "What… tell me what happened exactly… when you…"

Staring down at his leg with the metal brace, Jake absently rubbed his paw across his thigh as he described the attack to his partner. "Just as I felt the harpoon come loose, another tentacle whipped up and wrapped around my leg just below my knee. I had the harness on and was cabled to the tank platform, so my first thought was that I was going to be ripped in half. I think that was the moment when I actually… called out."

Chance snorted but didn't contradict his friend.

"I knew the glovatrix would be useless, so I stabbed it with the point of the harpoon. I think your missiles must have hit the squid's eye at the same time. Next thing I know, the tentacle is whipping back into the air... and my leg is bent in a direction it was never meant to go."

"That's not when you… yelled?"

Jake slowly shook his head. "I didn't have the breath to yell. I've never felt that much pain. I don't think having my leg ripped off completely could have hurt any worse. I think I went into shock pretty quickly. I had just enough sense left to pull the oxygen mask off before I started throwing up. Everything after that is kind of dark."

"As soon as I saw that the missiles had hit their target, I started trying to raise you on the com. I could hear you tossing your cookies, so I at least knew you were still alive. But I couldn't see you. And you weren't talking to me. And then it got quiet. I thought… I thought I had lost you." Chase paused and roughly cleared his throat before continuing. "I knew you had to be hanging by that harness, so I winched it up a bit and then made my way as slowly as I could back to Hackles' lab. I had to get Callie on her communicator to help me lower you to the ground. When she started bawling…. Well, luckily Dr. Hackles was there and had the sense to tell me you were still alive. Covered in puke, but still alive."

"Ewww, thanks for that added detail I did not need to know." Jake tossed a wadded up napkin at his partner who simply batted it aside.

"Hey, all I can say is that if Callie is still hooked on you after seeing that, it must be true love."

Jake felt a warm shiver run up his spine at that happy thought and sighed in contentment. Chance laughed and shook his head.

"Yeah, so, I don't know about you, but I've had enough of wandering down memory lane for today. The important thing is that we stopped Dr. Venom's squidvine and you'll be back in action in just a.."

"Few more weeks." Jake finished the sentence with his partner and they both shared another laugh.

"And hey, some good did come out of the whole thing." Chance stood and began helping Jake move his injured leg to the floor. "We now have that nifty satellite, hologram, remote targeting, co-pilot thingy that you invented. Should have thought of that years ago. What did you wind up naming it?"

"I'm going to call it the 'nifty satellite hologram remote targeting co-pilot thingy'."

"Hmmm, too short. Need to add a few more adjectives."

"Yeah, maybe once I get all the bugs worked out I'll come up with a good name. I've still got the issue with the slight delay in the tracking and if we have a bad satellite connection, it throws the whole thing off." Jake allowed Chance to help him to his feet and then steady him as he positioned his crutch. "But I feel better knowing you aren't flying missions totally solo while I recover."

Chance's familiar grin was once more in place as he gave his best friend a pat on the shoulder. "You and me both buddy, you and me both."