This chapter came to a bit quicker than anticipated, but I don't mind that at all. But that's ok, because then the story gets finished quicker. Woot.

Thanks to Oberoniss and NightLight for their reviews. Your words mean a lot to me, both personally and professionally (as professional as Fan Fiction can get :P).

On a separate note, I want to make a mention to CuriousFan for her review of the prequel, 'Feral Rage.' Many thanks for that, and Spectre is slowly but surely revealing a bit about himself every time. He gets a bit weird with new people, you see :P

Anyways, enjoy people :)

Chapter 4: The Suicide Mission.

Near Crateric, Planet Mars.

A colossal cloud of dust shot up into the sky and rushed out from the epicenter of the impact like an avalanche. It was so thick that the sunlight couldn't penetrate it. Nothing could have survived the fifty tonne landslide into the mouth of the canyon.

As the dust cloud began to slow, a purple motorbike burst into the light and skidded to a stop. A racing style bike that had just escaped being squashed flatter than a pancake. Well, not quite escaped. The tail section had been clipped by the boulder as it tore underneath, making a few unsightly scratches in the paintwork.

Spectre kept his helmet on and absent-mindedly brushed the dirt off his clothes while looking at the collapsed section of the canyon that was slowly coming into view. He wasn't too worried about the Sand-Raiders – he was pretty certain they wouldn't be raiding anything ever again. It was just a shame he had to total the entry to the gully to stop them.

Bloody Sand-Raiders.

He sighed, and then remembered the people back in the village of Crateric. He put Oblivion into gear and rode back where he came from, making a small detour into the canyon to pick up the camping equipment he cut loose earlier..

About ten minutes later, he arrived back into town and his face fell. The town was in shambles – the majority of the paddocks had been trampled with the crops ruined, most houses had more than a few holes blasted through them, debris was strewn about everywhere. The people stopped cleaning up the devastation and just stared at him, their faces blank. Spectre didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. They weren't pissed off, but they didn't seem pleased about what happened either.

He navigated his way through the potholes and came back to the house where Val and her grandfather lived. As he killed the engine, he could hear the old man wailing and groaning in pain, with Val talking in a soft tone, trying to calm him. There was a third voice, another male, who was saying things like "Hold it steady," and "Keep the pressure on."

Spectre stuck his head inside and saw Val's grandfather lying on what looked like the dining table, and Val holding both his arms and shoulders down so the third figure – presumably a doctor – could remove a large fragment of metal from his lower leg. Blood had dripped and formed a pool underneath the table, and rags of every size lay strewn on the floor, also covered with the stuff.

"Keep him still!" the doctor said.

"I'm frigging trying!" Val replied angrily.

The doctor was about to try and find a strap or something to stop the leg from moving all over the place when a third pair of hands came into view, one of them carrying a Freedom Fighters field kit. He looked up to see a young mouse with orange eyes get a green cylinder out of it and stick one end into the old man's mouth.

"Suck on that, it will help with the pain," said Spectre. His helmet was still on.

"You!" Val yelled.

"You know each other?" said the doctor.

"He brought the Sand-Raiders here!"

"Unintentionally."

"How do we know you're not with them?"

"Because I just buried them under fifty tonnes of rock!" Spectre snapped.

"You...what?" Val's voiced changed from angry to incredulous.

"They're dead."

"Dead?"

"Dead."

"Wha...How?"

"Plenty of time to talk about that after we help your grandpa," Spectre motioned to the elderly man who had stopped moaning and now looked rather dazed with his eyes glazed over.

"What did you give him?" Val asked, frowning.

"Halothane...What? I don't know how it works, I just know it's good for pain," Spectre said when Val gave him a rather questioning look.

A tourniquet had already been placed just below the knee, so with Val keeping an eye of her grandfather, the doctor and Spectre set about trying to remove the piece of shrapnel. They had to be quick – the halothane lasted less than ten minutes in humans, and it would undoubtedly be even shorter in Martian Mice.

Spectre held the wound as open as he could, and the doctor tried to wiggle the metal free. It was shaped like a 'V' with one of the higher points embedded in the bone and the other penetrating the nearby muscle.

The doctor grabbed a bigger set of forceps that looked like they would be more at home at the Last Chance Garage, told Spectre to brace either side of the wound, grasped the piece of metal and pulled hard. He grunted with exertion, and on the third pull, it came free. Blood issued from the muscular wound, which was quickly stopped up with another rag by Spectre.

The doctor placed the offending metallic object into a dish and took over from the rag. He peeled it back to see a trickle of blood continually running from where it punctured the muscle. He really hoped that was all it had done.

"Release the tourniquet."

Within a couple of seconds, the trickle turned into a waterfall, and the doctor put pressure back on with a sigh. His tibial artery had been clipped. Val saw his dejection in his face and went white under her fur.

"I'm sorry Val."

"No! NO!" she screamed. "We have to do something!"

"His artery has been cut. I can't fix it here, and..." he stopped as Val buried her face in his chest. "And we can't get him somewhere who can fix it in time."

Spectre took over holding the rag as the doctor consoled the white mouse. The halothane was wearing off, and the old man was breathing heavily and groaning again.

"Val," he croaked.

The girl turned to the voice, and rushed back to her grandfathers side. "I'm here, Grandpa."

"I'm...I'm dying, Val."

"No...no, you're fine, Grandpa," she managed to smile through her tears.

As they spoke, Spectre saw the doctor cock his head to the door, silently saying "Let's leave them to it." He moved the tourniquet over the top of the cloth he was holding over the wound and slowly tightened it until the old man winced. The two male mice then left the young woman to spend her grandfather's last few minutes together.

Both men walked until they were standing next to Oblivion, who was parked about seven metres from the door. They said nothing for a few minutes, until the doctor spoke up.

"That was brave, what you did before."

"You guys looked like you needed some help there with him."

"I meant before that."

Spectre turned to face him.

"When you led them down there," said the doctor, jerking his chin at the entrance to the canyon.

"Well, they won't be bothering you anymore."

The doctor smiled sadly. "Doubt it." He saw Spectre's questioning look. "A whole lot of them have set up a base about thirty miles around the cliff," he said, pointing his finger the way that Spectre had first entered the village and hooking it to the left. "They will probably send another contingent around here by sundown, since their comrades haven't returned."

Spectre kicked the dirt in frustration. This was getting worse by the minute. First, he had brought a whole lot of Sand-Raiders here who had trashed the place. Then, he had blocked off one of the escape routes for the village. Now, Val's grandfather was on death's door and to top it all off, the Sand-Raiders were going to come back and literally remove Crateric from the sands of Mars. And it was all his fault.

Sighing, he took his helmet off and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Looks like you've been through a lot yourself," the doctor remarked, noticing Spectre's face for the first time. His scarred face, broken teeth and triangular-cut ears sent a shiver down his spine.

"Yeah, you could say that. I'm Spectre."

"Rev."

Spectre cast a glance at the newly-met mouse. He was roughly in his early thirties, with sandy blonde fur and a short mane. He stood about five foot eleven, and had a toned appearance, which his form fitting shirt and pants accentuated.

"You the doctor around here?" Spectre asked.

"Sort of. I was a medic in the army, and this town hasn't really got anyone else to care for them. So I quit the military and stayed here. These people need me more than the army."

Spectre nodded. "You from these parts?"

"Nah. Born and raised in Brimstone," replied Rev.

The brown furred mouse looked about himself, before looking at the ground. "I'm sorry that, you know... I've essentially doomed the village."

Rev put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't be. They always come back, and they always wrecked or stole everything. It wasn't going to be long before we would be forced to move anyway."

"But I led them here..."

Rev shrugged. "Perhaps, but they're the ones responsible for all this," he said, waving at the smoking buildings. "You don't need to take the blame for someone else's actions. Especially if that someone else is a stinking hyena."

Spectre snuffed a laugh, who felt a bit better in himself. "True that." A wail and loud sobbing coming from the hut caught his attention. He turned to Rev who grimaced and nodded somberly.

Val's grandfather had passed away.

"Damn," said Spectre.

Rev straightened himself up. "Guess I'd better start rounding everyone up. We need to get as far away from here as possible."

"How you getting out of here?"

"On foot."

"Are you nuts? They'll find you by nightfall, provided the desert doesn't kill you first."

"I'm open to suggestion," Rev held his palms open.

Spectre pursed his lips. He knew he couldn't get everyone out of here any more than Rev could. He needed help. And there was only one person he could think of who would at least try.

"Give me a few minutes, I'm gonna make a call."

Spectre mounted his bike and gunned it to the top edge of the valley that Crateric sat in. He opened his camping bag and pulled out a radio with a small satellite dish attached to it. He switched it on and spoke into the handset.

"Hey Stoker, this is Spectre. You copy?" He waited a few seconds, but got no reply. He was about to try again when he heard some shuffling on the other end and a gravelly, half-asleep voice on the other end.

"Who is this?"

"It's Spectre."

"What is it, kid? I've only just got to sleep."

"I made it to Crateric."

Stoker snorted. "You woke me up to tell me that?"

"I'm sorry Stoke," replied Spectre. "I got a bit of a problem here."

"Take a number, punk."

Stoker hadn't called him a 'punk' before. He knew he called the Biker Mice that all the time as a form of affection, but he couldn't tell if it was intended as such in his daze. Regardless, Spectre told him about how he had buried the Sand-Raiders and that more would be coming by nightfall.

"I need some help getting these people out of here," he finished.

"Kid, I know how much it hurts to leave people to die, but we won't be able to get there in time. We would get there at about midnight, your time. A couple of hours before at the absolute earliest. By then, they will most likely be dead and Crateric will be long gone."

"What if there were some other Freedom Fighters around and we held the Raiders off until you get here?"

"Again, by the time we get organised it will be too late. Besides, there's no Freedom Fighters in that area," Stoker said, who was still out of it.

Spectre paused for a moment, then raised the handset to his mouth and took a deep breath.

"You got one."

"What? ...No. No, absolutely not. Forget it, kid!"came the rough voice who suddenly became more awake. "You're good on a bike, but you can't take on this many bad guys and think you're gonna live through it!"

"Stoke, I can't leave these people here to die. There's children here," said the younger mouse, before adding, "Besides, when should be not beat the crap out of a bunch of Sand-Raiders?" Geez, he thought, I sound like Vinnie.

There was silence on the other end of the line before glorious words came over the airwaves. "Alright kid, you win. Getting too old for this..."

"What you say, Coach?" Spectre snickered.

"Nothin', punk," scoffed Stoker. "Do these people have any military hardware at all?"

"Nada."

"Not even infra-red strobes or flares?"

"Very seriously doubt it."

The mentor scratched his forehead, not liking this option. "Look, give your bike's homing beacon to the group, get them out of there and we'll find them. If the goddess is with you, I might see you there too."

"Sure. Hey... Thanks, Stoker."

"Don't thank me, it's what we do. Just be careful."

"Will do," said Spectre, and he clicked the radio off.

Hmm, where to go from here? Thanks for reading!