Chapter 29:
Hi All, another apology! So, 4 weeks after my grandad died, my work informed my entire office that they were closing said office and making us all redundant. As you can imagine this was not particularly well timed given the recent bereavement. As a result, I have been in a really bad place to the point where I have been self-harming again and having dark thoughts again. This is something I have struggled with on and off for some time and I have been to the doctors about it. I have had a medication change and have found a new job, which I start tomorrow, so I am hoping that this will improve my mood!
I have written several more chapters on top of this one. However, I am not entirely happy with where they have ended up, so I am going back through them and adjusting them a little. Particularly the pacing. I will get these up soon, but I do need to finish an assignment for my distant learning degree so that will take precedent.
Anywho, now you know my current life story! On with the story you actually came here to read! Thank you for sticking with me! 3
"You sure you remember everything?" Angel asked Mookie as she and Nosedive prepared to leave the ship.
"This doohicky steers the ship," Mookie smirked as she pointed to the controls, "This button starts it and those fire the weapons." She paused then said before Angel could reply, "And that raises the shields!" She gave her friend a wicked smirk.
"No need to be a smart ass." Angel rolled her eyes but smiled none the less.
"Relax Angel." Dive placed a hand on Mookie's shoulder, "Mookie's got it covered! Right Mookie?"
"Duh!" Mookie grinned wider, "I was born for this!" She added with a cheer.
"As soon as we leave…" Angel started pointedly.
"I raise the shields and open the comms to make sure you can get hold of me easily if you guys need a pick up to go!" Mookie saluted.
"You promise you're going to be okay?" Molly asked from the doorway to the cockpit. She was cuddling a stuffed mouse like toy Nosedive had bought her when they had visited a neutral space port a few weeks before. He had insisted on stopping to get her something as it had been her birthday and he was feeling guilty that he had yet to get her home to her mother to celebrate.
"We'll be fine squirt." Dive winked, although he wasn't all that convinced himself.
"You don't need to be here Molly." Angel told the young girl gently, "Why don't you go down to the lower decks and pick something to watch?"
"Can Moogie come with me?" Molly asked hopefully. Angel blinked at the child then looked at her pet. The cat mewled at her and hoped onto Molly's head, making Molly giggle.
"All right." Angel sighed, she had wanted Moogie with her, but her pet seemed to have other ideas. Angel had to admit that he always did like kids. "Moogie, you make sure she stays put." Angel spoke to her animal and it yowled back at her, seeming to understand every word before licking his paws.
"You ready?" Nosedive asked as he checked his blasters were ready to fire.
"Let's go play hero!" Angel winked with a devilish smile.
"Be careful guys!" Mookie said with a note of real worry in her tone.
"Relax girly girl!" Dive winked at his friend, "We'll kick butt and be back before you know it." With that the pair left the ship.
"You'd better." Mookie muttered as she watched Molly leave for the rec room with Moogie. With a sigh she activated the shields and the communications array and sat down to wait for their signal notifying her that she was needed, or for them to return with Tanya and Charlie.
"Get off me stink fish!" Charlie yelled as she was roughly pulled towards her cell. She knew what was coming and she was not about to let it happen to her, at least not without a fight. She was thrown to the ground. Charlie managed to roll then get her feet underneath her before leaping at the attacker. With one hard punch the guard was stumbling back as he held his nose, his gun clattering to the floor. Charlie took her chance to grab the gun and aimed it at the guard. "Your key card!" She demanded, "Now!" The guard scowled but threw his card in her direction. She crouched down, whilst trying to keep her eyes on him the whole time. Charlie only looked away for a split second as she went to pick up the card, and the guard was on her. She yelped in shock and tried to prevent the gun being wrestled away from her, to no avail. The guard managed to roughly pull the gun away and hit the butt of the gun across her forehead. She fell to the floor in a daze and felt the beginnings of blood trickle from the bump that she could already feel forming.
"Pathetic human scum!" The guard bellowed and grabbed her by the collar. Charlie whimpered and tried to push the feeling of nausea from her mind as she was thrown around the room. A hard kick to the stomach had her wheezing and she barely registered the fact that the guard was tearing at her clothes shouting something about a lesson. Then it stopped. She blinked and squinted at the guard who had gone very stiff as he stood up. Charlie could see someone standing behind the Plutarkian. The figure had blonde hair and a creamy colour to their skin, although she wasn't sure it was skin, she was at the wrong angle to determine what his skin consisted of. At least not until the guard moved.
"Back away from the lady, creep!" A young sounding male voice demanded. The guard gulped and stood, before slowly backing to her right and standing towards the back of the room. She could see him now and Charlie blinked. She recognised him as one of the Mighty Ducks, one of Tanya's friends. "You okay?" He asked, moving between her and her attacker, keeping his blaster aimed at the Plutarkian the whole time. "Charlie, right?" She nodded, then became aware that her chest was exposed curtesy of the Plutarkian glaring at them. She went bright red and covered herself as best she could with one arm as she tried to recover what was left of her shirt. The blonde duck gave her a look of sympathy and turned his head out of respect before stalking over to her attacker. "Sweet dreams creep." He scowled before punching the Plutarkian hard. Once the duck was sure the guard was out cold, he put his gun away and reached into a pack on his back, pulling out a small blanket. "I'm Nosedive. Vinnie wanted to come too, but they needed him to help with rescuing your friend Throttle." He passed Charlie the blanket, which she took gingerly, he turned away again to allow her to sort herself out.
"Thanks." She said quietly once she had wrapped the blanket around her and tied two corners at her left shoulder and the other two at her waist on the right. "I'm decent." She said when she realised the youngest of the mighty ducks must have been waiting for her to cover herself up. He turned with a relieved smile and walked over to her, he frowned when he took in the wound on her forehead.
"Here," He pulled a smaller pack off his belt, "Let me patch that up. At least till we get back to the ship." Charlie stood still as he pulled out a few things. The blonde duck gently cleaned the wound with some wipes, then sprayed it before placing a dressing on it. "That should hold. But…" An explosion rocked the building, "Crap!" Nosedive scowled and looked at his gauntlet before pressing a button, "Little early don't ya think girly-girl?"
"All the best plans are made to be tweaked." Angel told him over the comm link, not sounding amused.
"I haven't even set all the slaves loose yet!" Dive rolled his eyes.
"They've already figured out that someone has infiltrated the facility, genius." Angel informed him, "So I figured I'd distract them a little to give you more time. Keep them off your tail feathers till you can lead the prisoners to the transport room we chose."
"Okay then. I'll give you a shout as soon as we're there and I've got that thing up and running." Dive said pulling his blaster out once more. He turned to Charlie, "I don't suppose you know where Tanya is do you?" Charlie smiled at him.
Tanya had been in her cell and had heard the ruckus in the cell next door. As she heard her friend being attacked, she had curled up in the farthest corner and began rocking back and forth, trying desperately to control her breathing. She kept telling herself that there was nothing she could do to help. At the same time her mind betrayed her by telling her that; at least it wasn't her. It made her hate herself even more than usual and she was struggling to deal with the tide of emotions rushing through her, currently fragile mind. Then she had heard something that had made her breath catch in her throat for several moments. If only to try and hear the sound again, she had got to her feet and headed towards the sound of the familiar voice talking to Charlie. Part of her didn't dare believe what she was hearing, but she had spent the better part of 5 years living with the younger Flashblade and the rest of her team. They were family now and there was no mistaking the voice she heard. And still she doubted herself. She leant against the cold metallic door and listened, terrified that it had just been her imagination playing tricks on her. She barely registered when the door started opening and she fell into a warm body. Looking up she saw the worried blue eyes of Nosedive and took a step back in surprise. There was a pregnant moment of silence as she stared at him in shock, Charlie just behind him to his right, before her face crumpled and she flung her arms around the younger's shoulders and sobbed into his neck.
"Sorry it took me so long Tauny." Nosedive whispered as he rubbed her back soothingly. "But I'm here now and I'm gonna get you out of here and all of us home." Tanya looked up with confusion clearly shown on her features, "It's a long story Tanya, and I don't really have time to talk about it right now. We gotta get you and the other prisoners out of here before the guards come looking." Tanya simply nodded. Dive gave her a worried look, not missing the fact that Tanya had yet to utter a word to him, but he would worry about that when she and Charlie were safe on Angel's ship. He turned to Charlie, "Do you know if this is the only cell block?"
"Pretty much." Charlie replied receiving a nod in response.
"Okay," Dive took Tanya's hand in his free hand, "Keep close to me ladies." He led them to the farthest end of the block where there was a control panel. Angel had described these panels to him in great detail and had also shown him what to do with them. He pushed the women with him back for a moment as some guards rushed past the other side of the door by the panel, then he pulled a wire from his left gauntlet. Attaching it to the panel, he typed in a few commands before the cell doors behind them could all be heard unlocking. The first few prisoners walked out of said cells gingerly and looked at the trio by the doors with uncertainty all over their faces. "You need to pass this back, if anyone can understand me and know that some might not then, try to help them understand." He waited till the prisoners fell silent, "I'm here to get you out of here. You need to follow me, and I am going to lead you to a transport module where I'm going to send you all to a galactic alliance space port. From there, you're going to be taken care of by the GA and, if it's safe for you to go home, they'll help you get home too." He counted maybe thirty or forty prisoners and was glad it was a relatively small group. The numbers in the slave camps on Puckworld were huge in most cases and it would have made things difficult. "Try to stick close and keep an eye out for the guards." There was a murmur from the small crowd, but they appeared to both understand and seemed on board with him helping them. Nosedive noticed that Charlie was looking after Tanya for him and was grateful for it.
Nosedive nodded and turned back to the console. With a few more commands, the main door was sliding open and the group was led down to the left, away from where the guards had been heading. Nosedive kept glancing at his wrist every now and again and Charlie's curiosity got the better of her.
"What is that thing? Some sort of utility gauntlet, like Batman or something?" She placed a hand on his shoulder to get a better look.
"Something like that." He shrugged, "They're concussion gauntlets, so they pack a wallop when I activate and hit anything with them. But there's also a small computer and comm unit built in. Right now, I got it programmed to show me where all the guards are. That's the green dots." He held up the gauntlet and sure enough there were several green dots showing towards the east of the building's diagram. Another explosion was heard and the people behind him murmured in worry. He glanced back at them in concern, but they didn't seem about to do anything stupid, so he didn't address them, "My friend Angel is keeping them busy, but as soon as we've got to the transporter, I'm gonna give her a signal. She's going to make her way over and put a virus in their systems to make sure they can't follow anyone, or even know where they're going."
"The space pirate Angel?" One of the prisoners asked behind him with a hopeful tone. Dive turned and saw it was a younger cat like creature. She had a mottled colouring to her tawny coat and a nasty scar over her face that looked to have been created by claws.
"That's her!" He winked to the cat with a smile.
"Then we're saved!" She squealed. "She's a hero!" She turned to her fellow prisoner beside her, "The stink fish are terrified of her! I just know she'll make sure we're safe!" Nosedive smiled at her. He was glad that just knowing Angel was here, was helping this girl cope with what was happening.
"Here we are!" Nosedive declared as her reached the room they needed. They entered the relatively small room and he went to try and activate the module.
"I can work these things." Charlie told him with a smile. He stood to one side and allowed her to get it up and running, only assisting to enter the coordinates from his wrist pad. Once the first 10 had been successfully transported away to safety he activated his communicator.
"Angel, we're good to go, where are you?" He waited for a few moments for her to reply and frowned, "Angel?"
"On my way!" Angel called over the comm. "Just be ready for a fight. There's more Plutarkians here than I anticipated and we may need to rethink our escape plans!" Dive's frown deepened but didn't say anything, well aware that he could panic the now freed prisoners into doing something stupid like running from the transport room. Instead he walked over to Tanya. "You okay?" She looked up at him and shook her head before looking away. "You haven't said a word since I found you." He paused to see if she would say anything. "You're worrying me Tauny." She looked up at him again and he tried not to frown at her as she began to tear up again.
"She struggles to speak now." Charlie said quietly as she monitored the transport module. Nosedive looked from human to duck with a worried glance. "She's got progressively worse since I've met her."
"Awe Tauny." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. "You're safe now girl." He rubbed her arm then looked up at the sound of a body hitting the wall outside the room they were in. A moment later Angel rushed in and made sure the door was locked behind her.
"We almost there?" She asked sounding a little breathless for a change, "Because there are a lot of bad guys and as good as I am, I am still only one pirate!"
"Last batch about to be transported now." Charlie replied.
"Wait!" The cat girl from earlier cried. She ran over to Angel and hugged the purple haired girl, "Thank you!" She stood back a little, Angel stiffened in surprise, "Thank you for coming for us!" She nodded to Charlie and joined the rest of her fellow prisoners in the transport module. With a flash they were gone, and Dive looked to Angel.
"You get a lot of that?" He asked.
"Sometimes." She shrugged, "I suppose she might not be as grateful, if she knew I was only really here for these two." She nodded her head in the direction of the two remaining prisoners.
"Says the girl who argued with everybody to ensure that all the prisoners would be set free?" Dive pointed out with a twinkle in his eye that Tanya didn't miss.
"I'd be an ass if I didn't." She shrugged, but there was another slight flush to her cheeks, although she did wonder who had told him about that discussion on Mimosa's ship. A large bang from the door indicated that the Plutarkians were trying to break through. Angel turned to stare at the door for a few moments and narrowed her eyes. She brought her wrist pad up and typed in a few commands. "Shit." She walked over to the transport controls and began typing.
"What are you doing?" Charlie asked.
"We won't get out that way and anything strong enough to blast through those walls will blow us away as well. So, we're going to have to teleport out of the facility and rendezvous with the ship on the move." She turned to Nosedive. "I've already transmitted some coordinates to Mookie. Make sure she knows she's going to have to pick us up while in movement." Dive nodded and did what was asked. "You two had better take these." Angel handed the two rescued women some bracelets. "They're pretty old, but they still work and will allow you to survive the atmosphere out there."
"Thank you." Charlie nodded as she took hers and placed it on her right wrist. Tanya did the same and allowed Angel to activate the space shield. Charlie copied what Angel had done and her shield was up. Angel then activated her own shield just as Nosedive joined them, his shield up and running already.
"Get in." Angel ordered just as the door lurched on its hinges menacingly. Angel typed more into the console and things started to go haywire. She rushed into the module with her three companions and tossed a throwing blade at the console. Just as the doors were blown off their hinges the glass shield slammed down and there was a flash of light. One moment they were still in the facility and then they were outside. "Go, go, go!" Angel encouraged, pulling out her blades. Nosedive pulled the older women with him, one in each hand, as they rushed towards the coordinates that they were to meet with Mookie and the ship.
Tanya spotted the red ship ahead of them and the tech head in her wanted to stare in wonder, but then she heard the approaching forces behind them. A quick glance over her shoulder and she regretted looking instantly. Behind them were quickly approaching vehicles, from regular dune buggies to tanks and armoured robots. Now that she had looked, she couldn't take her eyes off them and she stumbled. Nosedive helped her up as she stared at the approaching force in terror. Then she spotted Angel staring at them too. The diminutive girl frowned before looking over her shoulder at her companions.
"Get them to the ship." Angel ordered. A split second later, she was rushing head long into the fray. Tanya's beak dropped as the diminutive girl who had been accompanying Nosedive suddenly charged the enemy like lightening and fearlessly attacked the large force, alone.
"Charlie," Nosedive steered Tanya into the red head's arms, "Take Tanya and get on that ship." He passed her one of his blasters. "This packs more of a punch that that thing." He pointed to the Plutarkian rifle still hanging over Charlie's shoulder by the strap, "Ditch the other and use this. Do not look back and don't worry about us."
"No..No…. Nose…" Tanya grabbed his arm looking at him terrified.
"I am not gonna let her go into fights like this alone anymore Tauny." He said quietly, "She's been training me. So, I'll be fine. Trust me." She nodded but it was clear she still wasn't sure. Nosedive slammed his fists together and his gauntlets came to life with power. He rushed in the same direction as Angel and followed her into battle. He almost scared himself with his fighting. Before his training with Angel he would rely on his weapons, agility and speed more than his fighting ability. Now the only weapons he used were his gauntlets, at least in this fight. He was fast before, but the new skills Angel had taught him not only made him faster, it made him almost deadly. He knew it would be years before he would ever be at Angel's level, if he ever made it to that level at all. But he was liking the way this new ability made him feel. He no longer felt like the little brother that needed to be protected and watched out for. He could take care of himself now. If his brother needed it, he could even protect Wildwing.
"Watch your back blondie!" Angel yelled as she spun in the air and slashed a robot in two before landing behind him. Nosedive nodded to her. They fought side by side, taking down enemy after enemy before Angel yelled again, "They're safe in the ship. We stay any longer we risk being overwhelmed." Dive nodded in response. The pair dashed away from the fray and towards the ship. As they did so, Angel pulled out a grenade and tossed it behind her to keep a robot at bay that got too close. It did the trick and acted as a barricade to several of the others. "Mookie, EMP blast! Now!" Angel yelled into her wrist com. Several moments later, the there was an odd sound from the direction of the ship and all of the Plutarkian tech behind them immediately stopped working. Angel and Nosedive grinned at each other as they jumped onto the ramp of the ship and rushed inside.
"Let's get you guys to the med bay." Nosedive panted a little as he deactivated his gauntlets.
"I'll go take over from Mookie and get us out of here." Angel declared, "You need me to send her down to help?"
"Nah, I can handle it." Dive smiled, and they parted ways.
"Nosedive!" Molly squealed as she peeked out of one of the rooms. She ran over to Nosedive and the blonde duck picked her up and cuddled her.
"Hey squirt!" He smiled.
"Molly?" Charlie asked in disbelief. The red head stepped forward as the girl looked up at the woman.
"Auntie Charlie?" Molly cocked her head. "What are you doing here?"
"You two know each other?" Nosedive placed molly back down and watched her run to the human woman.
"I should probably introduce myself properly," Charlie smiled at him, "I'm Charlene Davidson. I'm from Chicago and went to school with a woman known as Jessica Fury, I think you might know her." Charlie grinned, "I believe she's is dating your brother. Last I checked." She smirked at the blonde's surprised look. She looked down at Molly when her pants leg was tugged.
"Can we all go home now?" Molly asked. Charlie and the other adults smiled at her.
"Soon Squirt." Nosedive assured her. "We'll get everyone home soon." He looked up to the two rescued women, "Lets get you two cleaned up first." Nosedive led them down the hall to the med bay and asked them to sit down on the two beds in the room. He activated the medical equipment and left it to work on scanning them as he went to find the pair a set of clean clothes that would fit them until they could stop somewhere to purchase them something.
"Come on Molly." He heard Mookie from the hallway, "It's pretty late and you look shattered. Why don't we leave them to rest and we can come see them again in the morning?"
"Okay." Molly replied as Nosedive rounded the corner and walked into the room. "Mookie says I should go to bed." She pouted when she saw him.
"Well it is late, and you know you get grumpy when you're tired." He replied with a smirk, which only grew at her huff of annoyance.
"Come on you!" Mookie chuckled and held out her hand. Molly stared at the hand as if offended and walked past them towards her room. Mookie and Nosedive shook their heads in amusement.
"Night." Molly said as she left.
"Night sweetie." Charlie called. Nosedive passed the fresh set of clothes to both women and set to work cleaning some of the wounds that needed attending to. A quick check of the computer and he typed in the commands to fill a couple of medicine guns with something for the infections the computer had picked up. He administered the medicine and sat in the chair by the doorway to keep an eye on the women, but mostly Tanya. Not long after the women fell asleep, Nosedive drifted off in the same chair.
I hope this tides you guys over till I'm happy with the next few chapters! Hopefully this year will be a bit less stressful! Happy new year! 3
