CHAPTER ELEVEN

Having been escorted into the Sun-Sealer space ring's docking bay, the Turtles, April, and Ripper waited patiently inside the Rebus for signs of their captors. Foot Soldiers loomed menacingly around the ship.

"Worked out what this thing is yet Don?" asked Raphael, Donatello shook his head "Whatever it is, it's been built with the utmost precision, almost as if they had all the time in the world to defy the heat of the sun to construct it, I just wonder how they did it without burning to a crisp"

Finally, Shredder made his presence known. Having finally arrived at the space ring earlier, he was eager to get his project underway. Following him as he strolled down the docking bay were Krang, Rocksteady, Bebop, as well as the three captive Morse crewmembers Lester, Donner, and Harkens.

They approached the Rebus. Shredder knocked on the hull.

"We're here, you may disembark with the supplies".

"What do we do now?" Michelangelo asked Donatello, who got up and took one of the ration boxes.

"Supply and demand" he said, and approached the exit to the shuttle, opening the door.

He left the ship and stepped out into enemy territory. The other Turtles and Ripper also took supplies and followed him out. April prepared to join them but Michelangelo cautioned her to stay where she was.

"Best to wait until things get ugly beautiful" he said. April nodded, and the Turtle followed his brothers and Ripper out the door.

"Well, these look like a rather hefty package" Shredder said, "These could do one for a whole month, not my preferred time span, but it'll have to do until the next errand. Rocksteady Bebop, secure the supplies and load them onto my transport module"

"What? But those rations were intended for US" Donnner replied angrily. "This was never about you three" Shredder said, "Our refrigerator is broken and all our own food has gone to waste, so we have to settle for the hand-me-downs from Earth until it's repaired. This was as best an option I could afford, and it's a simple enough method that it can be repeated, we take you three hostage, we get supplies, and now we will take THIS crew hostage and request TWICE the rations, and they'll grant us that thinking they're now feeding two sets of hostages when in fact they're only feeding one overall party"

"So what are we doing here?" Donner said, "Why don't you just let us waste away in our cells?". Shredder laughed, "I wanted to see the look on your faces when I explained my strategy, villains tend to brag"

"Well I hope you know we appreciate you bringing the hostages to where we can easily find them Shredder" said Donatello, pulling off his fake beard, with the other two Turtles joining in, revealing themselves to their enemies.

"The Turtles" Shredder rasped, "Delivering food usually isn't your past time, usually you're always on the receiving end"

"Hey, not the first time we've fooled you with this trick" Raphael replied.

"No matter, you fools are far too late" Shredder said, and turned to Krang, "Krang, give the order, it's time to sail away with this searing star". Krang complied, his hand transformed into a radio, and he instructed Foot Soldiers working in another corner of the ring to commence with the project. Ripper couldn't help but be amazed at Krang's appearance, "Is he from Planet X ?" he asked Michelangelo, "Dimension X dude, big difference" the Turtle replied

"Sail away? This isn't a boat Shredder" Donatello responded. Shredder cackled, "Oh no?". The whole bay suddenly began to shake as everyone felt the full magnitude of what they were inhabiting move forward. Krang activated a nearby monitor, which linked him to a camera attached to one of the orbiting transport modules, which showed, to the Turtles' astonishment, the sun beginning to shift out of it's position.

"What have you done?" Donatello asked.

"The sun sealer project has been underway for months" Krang explained, "By making use of a solar inhibitor, we have been able to suppress the intense heat of the sun for a while, making it possible to construct this space station around it, special connectors are attached to the inhibitor, making it possible for the next phase of the operation, to move the sun behind the moon and condemn the entire planet to a permanent age of cold, darkness, and perpetual despair, and we will only move it back if we are granted immediate ownership of the planet"

"I know the phrase "I should have brought my sunscreen", but even this kind of sunscreen is a little extreme" Michelangelo remarked.

Donatello was incensed, "You're playing around with the laws of nature, we can't allow this"

"And how do you plan to prevent a grand scale move like this? Face it Turtles, we've stopped you cold this time" Shredder taunted. "On the contrary Shredder, thanks to Raph here, I think I'm warming to the means of stopping you" he replied.

Raphael pointed to himself, "Me?" he said, then he remembered what he had said to Donatello earlier about riding the modules through the structure.

"Well we'll just have to try and switch that light bulb at the top of your head off" Krang replied, "Attack Foot Soldiers"

As the Foot Soldiers closed in, the three Turtles stood their ground, "What's the plan now Don?" Raphael said, "Secure the hostages, bring them on board one of the modules, I'll take another" Donatello said.

Raphael felt uneasy, Donatello really WAS taking what he said to literal task, and it frightened him as much as the scale of Shredder's ambitious plan.

It was a task much easier laid out than executed in practise. Without Leonardo, the Turtles faced a more difficult challenge as they united against the merciless machine squadron.

Donatello used his bo staff to decapitate three in a row, Raphael plunged his sais into the chest compartments of one, picked it up with the sais still embedded in it, and swung it around, knocking it into other Foot Soldiers surrounding him, he then took the sais out and dug them deep into another, and another.

Michelangelo thought about repeating the tactic he had used at the beach when protecting Lotus, but upon seeing what Raphael was doing, felt it would be too similar, he fired his grappling hook at the roof of the bay, snagging it on some piping above, and swung his body frame hard into an advancing posse of troops, he took his nun-chucks out of the back of his shell and wrapped them tightly around a soldiers neck, snapping it off. He threw the head to one of the other soldiers, who caught it.

Such a distraction enabled Michelangelo to take a running tackle and take it to the floor, where he levelled punch after punch down on it. One solider attempted to seize him from behind, but were taken out by Ripper with a well-timed blow to the back of the head with a supply case.

With four united, three Turtles and one human, the tide of battle was soon turned to the side of the heroes.

Watching all this unfold was April, who was filming the fight. She opted to help in some way herself and yelled over to Rocksteady. "Yoo hoo honeybunch" she said, waving, "I seemed to have dropped my compact, could you pick it up for me?"

"Sure, anything for an ex" Rocksteady said, in reference to the time a love potion had made him fall in love with the channel six reporter. He bent down to look for it, urging Bebop to help him, April silently signalled the captive astronauts to take action.

"Hey, I can't find it anywhere" Rocksteady said, Lester understood April's message.

"Here, maybe you should take a closer look" he said, and kicked Rocksteady in the rear, sending him crashing to the floor.

Bebop turned around, only to be taken out by a swift kick to the head by Raphael. "I know you're trying to move the sun, but next time you might want to settle for Uranus" he remarked.

Donatello fought his way over to one of the parked transport modules and opened the hatch, "Hurry everyone, get in" he said. The Turtles, April, Ripper, Donner, Lester, and Harkens all scrambled to the module, with Donatello choosing to take the one parked just in front.

"Cover me when we leave the spacering, we'll be in for a dog fight out there" Donatello said as he passed by Raphael. Raphael understood and entered his module, Donatello took a moment to collect his thoughts, and then climbed aboard his own.

The modules flared into life and as they approached the bolted down exit doors, Donatello activated the weapon systems on the craft, the laser guns took the doors out with a single shot, causing the unforgiving vacuum of space to begin sucking out anything that wasn't locked down.

Shredder, Krang, Rocksteady and Bebop, just prior to this, had scrambled to a module of their own and had swiftly took off in pursuit of the Turtles. They followed them out of what remained of the doors, and flew out into space.

Shredder contacted the remaining modules outside and instructed them to do their best to take out the crafts the Turtles were in.

What followed was a spectacular interstellar dogfight, the modules twisting and turning through the array of stars exchanging laser fire left and right, from above and beneath the ring, the battle was evenly matched.

Shredder's own module joined in, trying its hardest not to shake Donatello's craft as it was the one doing the most damage to the space ring. Donatello eventually pinpointed the main engine of the Sun-Sealer and took it out with a well-timed blast, halting the advancements it was making with the sun in tow.

"Now for the solar inhibitor" Donatello said, and checked the module for any live camera feeds, since one was present on a module outside. Luck was on his side, as he was able to find one, revealing it as being in the very centre of the sun.

With Shredder's module still in pursuit, Donatello had to make the one shot count. Other modules swarmed to his location, but the distraction proved costly for them as the module carrying everyone else was able to pick them off with their backs turned.

Donatello took the fateful shot, the laser guns fired, and in a span of seconds, the inhibitor was destroyed.

"There, now hopefully that means we've scooped back our heat" Donatello said, congratulating himself. Suddenly, he noticed that Shredder's module had stopped tailing him, and, instead, had begun to quickly speed away.

Donatello pondered what was making them turn tail and leave so quickly, then as he looked at the giant fireball emerging from the core of the sun, he got his answer.

"Oh dear" he said, and frantically began working at the controls of his craft, turning it around and activating the thrusters, he contacted the others on his Turtle-Com, "Guys, head as far away from the area as possible, with the inhibitor destroyed all the suppressed heat is pouring out, at an escalated rate" he cried.

The other Turtles complied and both modules raced back to Earth as the sun grew more and more intense, inevitably engulfing the Sun-Sealer space ring and tearing it apart.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Back at Sinai hospital, Ted's expectant wife Heather, had, with the aid of Derik's capable skills, successfully given birth to a bouncing baby boy. Leonardo and Lotus beamed with delight as the baby attempted to reach out towards them with its precious little fingers. "He's a real treasure" Leonardo said, and looked up to Derik, "Thank you". " Derik shrugged, "Don't mention it, and to make your day a little better, there's no charge for any of the place we've been to. I think moments like this are all the reward we need"

"I just heard on the radio the Sinai staff that went missing were stuck in circumstances similar to our traffic jam earlier, those monks must have been everywhere tonight" Leonardo explained, "They're said to be on the way here now, so we'd better make ourselves scarce soon"

Lotus looked at the clock on the wall, they were in the dying seconds of 12:15 AM, the time of arrival for the baby. She looked at the solar disc and approached the mother, "Please" she said, "If you don't mind, I would like to..." she began, then cut herself off, "...Nevermind, it's silly" she said. Leonardo looked at her.

"Still having trouble believing in fairy tales?" Leonardo said. Lotus was uncertain, "Logic, fate, it's all so random, one cannot be too certain of a guaranteed outcome" she said.

Leonardo placed his hand on hers, "For someone just born, there's a guaranteed future staring it in the face. That child, this moment, needs all the pleasantries it can afford, even if you don't quite think fairy tales can come true, let this child's memory be one that can, let the story of a kindly band of strangers who came to deliver this baby from hostile intent and the challenges of nature be one that inspires it in all its formative, innocent years. Let him remember the Lotus, if not the sun"

Lotus, moved by Leonardo's words, asked Heather again if she could place something on the child. Heather looked at Reaves and Ted, who nodded in approval, she gave Lotus permission to proceed. Lotus went up to the baby, and gently, placed the solar disc on it's chest.

As she did so, there was a bright flash that illuminated the night sky, everyone stared out of the window as a powerful bright light engulfing the area. Leonardo opened the window of the clinic to take in the breeze of the night air and to experience the warm glow first hand, he felt an amazing surge of heat, he basked in it, and held out Lotus' hand so she could feel the radiance in her palm.

"The sun, oh Leo, it dances on my fingertips" Lotus said with glee, "The monks were right, the book was right, the promise of endless summer...it could yet come true"

Eventually, the surge of light dissipated, but it lingered long enough to leave everyone with a lifelong memory of this late hour. After the intensity of the lifelong memory subsided, Leonardo's exhaustion crept in and he yawned from all of the exhausting tasks of the day had finally, it seemed, been put to rest, and now his mind was contemplating the same notion.

"We'd better head back to the lair" he said, and, as he and Lotus prepared to leave and say their goodbyes to Derik, he took one last look outside, revelling in the fresh warmth of the night, and began to sing "The sun will come out tomorrow"