"Skipper! Incoming!" Was all Rockgut had time to shout as the crate toppled down from the pile and to where Skipper stood. Immediately the young agent dived out of the way, leaving several of the Fossa he had previously been fighting to be crushed in his stead.
"You'll have to do better than that!" skipper laughed as he sprinted up the crates, kicking his attacker in the face, knocking the fossa off the ten foot stack of crates, to concrete floor below, "Where do they train these guys, Rockgut? Clown sch…"
Skipper was not given time to finish his sentence as he saw another hostile, not a Fossa sneak up behind Rockgut. In one flowing movement, he jumped from the stack of crates he stood on, to the next, setting up a perfect shot, only to realise his gun wasn't there. Thinking quickly, he caught the attacker's attention, a straw haired youth a few years older than himself in a white lab coat, buying him time to grab a knife from one of the unconscious Fossa. He quickly threw the knife, and dived to the floor of the crates, making sure his reckless action was not his last. The attacker attempted to duck under the knife, but was too slow, catching him across his right eye as he screamed in agony.
"Stick to the lab, kiddo," Skipper quipped as the youth had no choice but to run. The final threat neutralised, skipper hopped down to the floor next to Rockgut.
"Next time don't mess around so much," Rockgut grumbled, ignoring Skipper's offer of a hand up.
"Hey, I just saved your life grandpa. I think Nigel would call it 'good courtesy' to thank me."
"Yeah, well, I'm not Nigel," Rockgut countered gruffly, brushing himself off. Suddenly his eyes widened with fear, "Skipper look out!"
"What…?!"
Skipper trudged into the noisy recruits mess, carrying his tray.
"Well, well, well," an older recruit stood up from his table, "If it isn't the almighty Skipper."
"Not today, Johnson." Skipper responded wearily, taking a seat at a table by himself.
"Enjoy your vacation, precious?" Johnson continued to mock, "You know, we don't get vacations."
"I wasn't on vacation," Skipper snapped irritably without lifting his eyes from his food, "If you have to know, I was in hospital recovering from a bullet in my intestine."
"Hmph. More like you tripped over your own rifle in drill." Johnson continued. To this, he received no answer, "Hey, I'm talkin' to you, precious!" He still received no answer. Skipper would normally think of some witty comeback to put the persistent upstart in his place, but he really didn't feel like it today. He still had his doubts about whether he'd recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital, or if they were just running out of beds, "You think you're something special, don't you, hm?" Johnson taunted, swaggering up to Skipper, "Your special little internship with Buck Rockgut, your little 'top secret' 'my eyes only' missions. Heck, you've got your own little code name cause you're name's just too important for us lowly recruits to know. Why don't tell us your little name, skipps?"
"It's classified, Johnson." Skipper snapped.
"Well it's not gonna be for long," Johnson gloated raising his fist. Suddenly, though expectedly, he punched, but the fist never reached the intended target. Faster than a flash of lightning Skipper had blocked the punch and countered, sending the other recruit stumbling backwards, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, "That's it, Skipps. You've asked for it. Now Rico's gonna teach you a lesson."
"I pity the team leader you get assigned to." Skipper muttered.
"You're in the recruits mess, precious. No mommy Rockgut to save you here." Johnson announced, as a recruit from near the back of the mess marched forward, the others clearing a path. Rico was a good foot and a bit taller than him, not to mention much stronger. It was also rumoured that he was a master of smuggling weapons out of the training areas, so was possibly the most highly armed man on the base, apart from Rockgut. Rico smiled his crazed smile, the scar on the side of his mouth rippling. Skipper stood up from the bench. The two simply looked at each other. Skipper gave no sign of fear, neither was he exhibiting confidence. This unnerved Rico, which was entirely Skipper's intention. Suddenly Rico swung a punch. He was faster than Skipper expected, but…
"What are you doing in here?" the Squirrel demanded with more than a note of panic. The android turned around. He wasn't quite sure how to react in such a situation.
"Interesting reading," the android commented. He was caught with his hands in the cookie jar, why hide it? Anyway, this was a good opportunity to find out about the real Skipper from source other than files.
"You shouldn't have looked at those." The Squirrel stated. There was something about his tone the android could only conclude did not bode well for him. It was then that he noticed the reflection in lense of the security camera above: the Squirrel was holding some kind of detonator like button behind his back, "Now, we may have gotten off on the wrong foot," the Squirrel crooned, "Why don't we resume our meeting elsewhere?" The Squirrel still had his finger on that button. It was then the android detected a slight hum coming from the floor.
Suddenly the android realised what the Squirrel was trying to do. He moved as if he was going to step on the electrified area of floor, but instead made a dive for one of the nearby windows, smashing though, and landing on the ground only a few feet below. Immediately he took off running across the wet pavement, towards the garage. He might have the head start, but where could he hide? He was outnumbered. It was then he realised there was only one place he could hide.
"Underlings! Capture him!" the squirrel ordered, though he knew this probably wouldn't happen. He might be a poor imitation of the real Skipper, but he knew every tactic and escape Skipper had ever used.
"Sir, Julian King's close to locating the penguins." An underling poked his head through the door.
"Indeed. Where are they?"
"On their way to the airport the penguins arrived back from Spain at."
"Bribe someone to send them on a wild goose chase."
Julian King, his adviser Maurice and MORT marched through the airport.
"Excuse me, people, comin' through," Maurice announced, forcing his way through the crowd for his employer.
"I am not getting dis!" Julian King complained, "All de clues point to de penguins being at dis airport?"
"Well, your majesty," Maurice replied, "I spoke to the people at the desk, and they said that just a few hours ago…"
"I think magical fairies took dem to de lunicorn land." MORT interrupted.
"Hm, you know Mort," Julian puzzled, "I am thinking you might be having a point."
"Your majesty," Maurice sighed, "what happened was…"
"I know what happened!" Julian exclaimed, striking so dramatic and comical a pose that several heads turned, "De penguins have angered de Sky Spirits, and de Sky Spirits have taken dem away to de worst place…"
"De bossy penguin said he would claw his own eyes out before he would be going to Hoboken." MORT offered.
"MORT, you are de genius!" Julian exclaimed, "dey have been magically transported to Hoboken!"
Maurice all but rolled his eyes, "Or they could have taken that plane to Grrfrrjicklestan like the desk said."
"No, dat is so improbable," Julian waved the suggestion away, "Now, To De Hoboken!"
"Are we there yet?" Marlene asked irritably.
"Does this look like Hoboken to you?" Kowalski snapped, his eyes glued to the map as they had been for the last hour. Marlene still wasn't sure she felt safe with Rico driving the small cart, but the thing had a max speed of twenty mph, what damage could be done? Of course, on the other hand, it didn't get them there very fast, and there was always a chance that that Alice they stole the zoo cart from would catch up to them.
"No, it looks like the sewers."
"Well, did you want to just drive up to, I don't know how many people we're up against: Blowhole, Barry, and the Blue Hen are or have been involved, then they have advanced technology like the android, I do have to admit it's programming…"
"Hoover dam! When will you stop calling me 'it'?" the android snapped from the back of the zoo cart.
"Say one more thing and I swear I will deactivate you now no matter what the Blue Hen says." Kowalski growled. He'd been listening to the android's complaints about his installing a failsafe switch to automatically shut him down, "Back to what I was saying, if you just want to…"
"K'walski," Private began to object, "You really shouldn't shout at Marlene like that…"
"Oh not you too now, Private!" Kowalski snapped, "How did Skipper deal with all this?!"
Meanwhile, the android was paying little to no attention to the shouting match, doing his best to block it out. He'd actually resorted to trying to count the number of pipes he passed, since there was no internet connection down in the sewers. He was doing precisely that, in fact, when he when he noticed a dark shadow, barely there for more than a second, as they rounded a corner. Blowhole!
"Well, I think it's too easy, the Blue Hen making that deal. There's other stuff going on." Marlene objected.
"The android practically admitted that the Blue Hen wanted to make sure certain damaging pieces of information didn't make it back to her mysterious new boss," Kowalski answered, "It's perfectly logical."
"I keep telling, you it's the Red Squirrel." The android sighed, trying to take his mind off his impending doom.
"Yeah right," Kowalski answered, "the Red Squirrel's a myth."
"But don't you think getting that information was too easy?" Marlene asked sceptically, returning to the original conversation.
"Really Marlene, you're starting to sound like…" Kowalski didn't finish the sentence.
"What? Skipper?" Marlene questioned, "Skipper was right some times."
The android saw the shadow again. It had to be Blowhole. Marlene had let him go, right?
"How fast are we going, Rico?" the android asked, barely masking the fear in his voice, "I think we should speed up a little."
"But by speeding up," Private began to question, "wouldn't you just be, y'know…"
"Rico, I authorize you to increase to maximum speed." The android interrupted before Private could announce the predominant flaw in his argument.
"Ah right." Rico replied, increasing the speed. He was so used to obeying commands issued by Skipper's voice that this was done almost automatically.
The cart sped up as Rico swerved from side to side on the narrow catwalk. Suddenly it seemed to lose control crashing into the wall, though gladly not in the central canal filled with stuff even Kowalski wouldn't want to analyse.
"Very clever, android." Kowalski snapped, surveying the damage. Ironically, the android was in fact, not happy with the result, and was far more focused on calculating the time it would take Blowhole to catch up with them. However, when Kowalski examined the wheels, he noticed their crash was no accident. Entangled around the wheels were barbed chains.
"That doesn't look good."
10 minutes later
"That doesn't look good," Marlene mocked, "understatement of the century."
"My choice of words, unlike yours, did not have the benefit of hindsight," Kowalski snapped in reply.
"Alright, ladies," the gigantic form of the Rat King approached the cages in which the team were restrained, "how'd you get him out? ' Cause nobody gets past us."
"Get who out?" Kowalski queried. He hadn't seen the Rat King in over a year, and had been under the impression the criminal was safely locked away in Hoboken.
"Very funny. Come on, how'd you get past my boys?"
"Ah so we must be close to where they're…"
"If you report to your boss," the android interrupted, "you'll find out that 50 of your 'boys' surrounding my cell are now lying unconscious, or screaming their heads off in pain." The android could see the Rat consider this for a few seconds, to the point of seeming slightly shocked.
"Well, it looks like it's time for that rematch, then." The Rat announced smugly, regaining his composure.
"On three, we rush him when he opens the door…" Skipper began to whisper.
"So, where are they holding Skipper?" Kowalski queried. If the android couldn't be deactivated with the push of a button, he would have slapped Kowalski right then and there.
"Wait a minute," the Rat King suddenly reached through the bars of the cage, grabbing the android's arm at the same time as pulling a knife from his pocket. He promptly sliced the synthetic skin, his suspicions confirmed by the metal beneath, "You're that android! Well, no need to keep you guys around anymore."
"Congratulations Kowalski, you've officially gotten us all killed." The android commented sarcastically.
"Boss? We've found someone else in the tunnel," one of the Rats shouted, drawing the attention away from the team, "We think they were following them or something." Suddenly, the android was actually worried.
"Blowhole." He whispered. His optical sensors searched the room for any possible way out.
"Be taking your disgustingy sewery hands off me!" a voice exclaimed. Immediately, the android relaxed. As annoying as his files told him the lemurs were, they were not Blowhole.
"I wonder how much we can get from this guy," a Rat laughed.
"You kiddin' me, this is Julian King!" a second concurred.
"Say, wouldn't the Blue Hen pay a decent price for the penguins?" the first added.
"Hm…" the Rat King thought, releasing his grip on the android's arm. Kowalski was almost sure, before the android pulled his jacket back over it, the Rat King had left a hand shaped dent, "you got a point there…" the Rat King then left the room, apparently to find a telephone.
"Right." Kowalski stated, looking about the cell.
"Solid iron, covered in rust proof paint. All joins secure." The android reported.
"I knew that! Anyway, um, Rico, do you have a lock pick?" Rico then made a gesture to the effect that, they had taken his backpack.
"Here." Marlene handed the man a hairpin, with which he proceeded to pick the lock.
Now stood outside the cage, and having released Julian and companions, Kowalski once again surveyed the area.
"The door's obviously locked… Air vents!" Kowalski rushed towards the aforesaid area, "Noise echoing through vent is too distorted to distinguish source of sound… probability of sound being traffic, 8.312x10(23.2256-(5+77.23456))÷4432≤637.22x(237.8907+8.789)… Yes, we should go that way."
"Considering the fact we're in an 'evil lair', isn't it more likely to be I don't know, a large group of people we really don't want to run into?" The android countered sarcastically.
"Even considering that, it is by far the lower probability. We are going this way." Julian looked from one person to the other, MORT finally asking the question that was going through all their minds: "Why is de bossy penguin not doing de bossing?"
"Well, um…" Kowalski began to stutter.
"It's a training exercise," the android stated, "I've given Kowalski control of the unit for today, to allow him to learn by experience, he's better off following me."
"Now wait a…"
"Let's Get going before they come back. Rico, you take point. Civilians after that," interrupted, before continuing in a quieter tone, "no need to let the fact Skipper's been captured end up on Julian's blog."
10 minutes after that
"Kowalski, four words: I. Told. You. So." The android shouted over the battle cries and gunfire, "your way dropped us smack bang in the middle of a room full of highly armed Rats." The team were crouched behind various crates, using up precious little ammunition found on their side of the room only just keeping the advancing Rats at bay.
"Well I nearly got Skipper's location," Kowalski protested.
"You really thought he would tell you? If you hadn't interrupted, I would have convinced him A) not to call in reinforcements from Blue to save his own reputation, because he'd have to report his supposed casualties, B) and bought you some time while he prepared for his mano y mano against me…"
"Alright, so now I'll get us out of here," Kowalski paused, making mental calculations, "Ok, I can rewire the door in the corner while someone else covers," Kowalski shouted out to the team, "or we can try and get back up through the vent, or we can…"
"They're getting, closer K'walski, what do we do?!" Private panicked.
"I don't know, they all have about the same probability of success… Oh, Newton what am I supposed to do? Skipper normally decides which option… Ow!" the android had slapped the scientist across the face, stunning him.
"Eeny meeny miny, mo," the android snapped, "I don't really care."
"Alright, I'll reprogram the door," Kowalski chose, "Private, I want you to cover me from an approximately 40 degree angle, Marlene covering his blind spots. Rico, set up a distraction by rewiring that EMP pulse generator to explode, with a radius of at least three meters, no more than 3.782. Understand?"
"Wha?"
"Good. You do that by splicing the green and blue wires together, and cutting the sixteen safety overload fuses and wires, now go! Android, set up the catapult to fire simultaneously by removing the safety chip, looping the control wires, and locking the battery power supply."
"I don't speak nerd lingo, and I've got no internet connection!" the android shouted back.
"Good, plan executes… now!"
5 minutes later
"Looks like we got you cornered," the Rat King smirked, taking his time as he eyed the eight unarmed opponents, who'd not only completely blown the electric door, locking it permanently, but backed themselves into a corner, across the room from all other opportunities of escape.
"Good Mendeleev and the alternate versions of the periodic table, what do I do!"
At this, the android knew what he had to do. Sure, he was risking being deactivated, but a small chance of survival was better than none at all.
Kowalski, however, seemed to have chosen that moment to give it another attempt, "Right, Rico, try to reinstate power to the door by…"
"Private, give me your bag of marbles!" the android shouted, before turning to the Rat King: "Hey! Yes, you, you poor excuse for a rodent!"
"Why, you little…" the Rat growled, "Smash them into pulp!" immediately the Rats charged forward, just as Skipper tipped the bag of marbles onto the floor, sending the front line tumbling into those before them in a domino like effect.
"Rico, Private! Maneuverer 80 Zulu!" the android commanded.
"Wait, Rico…!" Kowalski began to object, but was ignored as Rico lifted the boy up to ceiling height allowing him to grab the lose pipes, swinging from one to the next.
"My, my, don't you all look silly!" Private shouted, gaining the Rats' attention, all of which proceeded to try to fight their way towards the boy, like iron filings to a magnet.
"Go, go, go!" Skipper commanded, leading the way, though not much stealth was required, around the preoccupied Rats and towards the unguarded air vent, which they proceeded to climb into, "All clear Private!" was the signal for the boy to clamber towards the ceiling vent, and follow the rest of the team, "Well done boys, mission accomplished."