More character check-up to remind readers of plot points from ages ago XD
Lifeforce Chapter 52
"The scariest thing about distance is that you don't know whether they'll miss you or forget you."
―Nicholas Sparks,The Notebook
Here There, Gone Were
Nevo awoke with a start. One side of his face felt numb, the other cold and twitchy. Lifting his not-so youthful head, he found he was still in he and Frumpus's lab; the lights where off but the monitors where still on, casting him in a soft blue glow. The window was open, and though the air was clear, it was biting with a chill. He stood and, still jittering from his nightmare, he moved to close it.
He'd had nightmares like this every since his liberation from the Loki's 'employment'. The most troublesome thing was that once he awoke from them he barely remembered what they were about. But he recalled what he'd felt in them – pain, fear, helplessness. All reliving emotions from that centaury under that foul things control...
He raised a hand to his forehead and rubbed, slowly. Upon the monitors around him where news reports. Reports from the front. He and Croid's attempts to keep up with what was going on in the galaxy. The Loki was involved; therefore they hoped to help.
They'd finally managed to track Ratchet, Clank and their comrades to IRIS, but lost their trial soon after. That was a while ago now, and all attempts to contact anyone who may be on their side had failed. The Defence Force of the galaxy was all but preoccupied.
And then that armoured lombax had crashed into their lab...
Nevo shook his head as he recalled his near-heart attack.
The body was completely encased in metal, and for a split second Nevo though he was looking at some kind of robot and his heart almost jumped into his throat. Dinkles was mewling quietly from his foot, eyeing it – or whoever it was – with suspicion. It was only when he dared go nearer that he noticed the long, triangular ears, also covered by metal...
"Frumpus – Frumpus, come quick –"
That, too, had been a while ago. Something soft hit against his leg and Nevo gave a start – only to look down and find Dinkles' aqua eyes peering up at him.
Ever since the cloning gun had cast Dinkles and the Loki apart, the cat-like creature's eyes had reverted from their venomous green to a purer blue. Nevo supposed that was a side-effect from the possession. How they hadn't noticed it...then again, they'd though the greening of Dinkles' eyes had just been part of his maturing. How could they suspect...
He petted the cat's head gently and sat down, looking back toward the screen. He checked their logs. He'd managed to hack into the drophid's lesser technology; they weren't under the Loki's jurisdiction so he wouldn't recognize his method. So far all they'd heard from the radios where muffled messaging of the resistance, nothing on Ratchet and Clank or the villains in charge.
"It almost feels futile..." He murmured. Dinkles hopped onto the counter beside his elbow, watching him reproachfully. Nevo placed his head in his palm.
"...H...Cont..."
His eyes snapped wider. He lifted his headphones and placed them on, grabbing the radio and tweaking the frequency meter. Dinkles jumped and ran off, to get Dr Croid.
"The Emperor...the...orange...armoured...lomba..."
Armoured...?
"Frumpus!"
Dr Croid came jogging in, his nightcap waving frantically with Dinkles perched on his head, "Nevo, did we get something-?"
"It's the armoured lombax from before – Tachyon's forces are alerting him about something he's doing!" He pulled out the headphones and transmitted the audio to speaker, quickly. Frumpus pushed his spectacles higher up his face, blinking.
"...Tell...Kortog...chasing... here, what is our move...?"
"Kortog?" Nevo muttered. Frumpus looked worrisome.
"Nevo – if Tachyon is as bad as they say, he'll probably go there himself to dispose of our new friend – we must warn him somehow!"
"We may not get there in time, Frumpus, Magnus is so far." Nevo said, standing none the less, "We'll try and contact him in some way, or disrupt the cragmite if we can."
"We're certainly no use here." Frumpus said, trotting towards the door, still clad in his nightgown, cap, and with Dinkles on his head, "I say, some adventure and travel away from this old rock will do us good..."
Nevo raised a hand, still feeling a bit jittery, "Frumpus..."
"Oh come now, surely a little space travel is less of an ordeal than servitude to a possessed cat – no offence to you, Dinkles my friend..."
Nevo sighed, "No, Frumpus, we cannot go just yet as you are still in your nightclothes." He said, feeling hapless.
Frumpus blinked and looked down at his feet; his eyes greeted by a pair of fuzzy orange slippers. "Ah...I see."
...
Whatever had broken through the wall had left a huge hole indeed. This, Ratchet mused, must have been what Zephyr heard earlier. Tachyon and the Loki must have sent something in after them – or perhaps it was Nefarious's entrance. Whatever it was, it was still inside, and they were standing at where it came in.
The hole in wall was still quite high up, but Ratchet had seen worse. "Cronk, Zeph, you don't have hoverboots on ya, do you?"
"Ah, we'll just use good old fashioned rope!" Zephyr said, tugging some out from his back and tipping it off the side. Ratchet wasn't too sure about it, but he didn't feel they had the time to argue.
He watched Cronk and Zephyr tie the rope to a door handle nearby and begin sliding down towards the ground. He heard loud crash as Zephyr landed clean on top of Cronk. He cringed and leaped after them, Clank activating his helicopter mechanism and breaking his fall.
"Do you think it's worth the risk trying to get back to our own ship?" He mused, landing quietly on the soil outside. It was pitch black now; the moonlight had been blocked out by what where clearly rainclouds. He could smell dampness in the jungle air already – it would rain soon. Trisby stirred a little on his back,
"Taking a minion ship would be like stamping 'come get us' on our foreheads. It's not that far..." Her voice sounded strained. Ratchet felt a raindrop land on his nose.
Great. Already.
"Okay...we'd better hurry." No minions where hovering around this side of the building, oddly. Ratchet couldn't help but notice that was weird. He began leading the way back around the curved walls, holding his wrench tight, Cronk and Zephyr tip-toeing behind him.
The empty village was deserted. The beaten boss minion lay where it was, broken and still. The cameras, however, still hovered about the place.
"Just go past them. They already know we're here." Trisby murmured. Ratchet shrugged and sprinted down the pathway through the vacant houses, ignoring the surveillance bots as they turned his way. Cronk and Zephyr made very immature hand gestures and faces towards them. Ratchet made it to the foliage on the outskirts of the village, and spotted the ship.
"Finally." He hopped over and opened the hatch. Cronk and Zephyr came in next as Ratchet placed Trisby down on one of the seats. She sat quietly, turning her head away. Ratchet sat at the pilot seat and without delay began starting the ship up.
The vassal rose slowly upward. Ratchet pulled on the hyperspace booster to charge it up, and began looking for Kraig's co-ordinates on the control panel.
As he did, something began beeping. Ratchet's heart sank and he looked at the radar. A little red light. Then more. Then hundreds, dotting all over the place-
"Ratchet..." Clank said worriedly.
The lombax lifted his head. As soon as they'd raised into the sky, hundreds of minion ships had appeared all around them. Ratchet's heart leaped and he slammed on the boosters, speeding into the sky as the ships open fired. "Oh cr-"
"They musta been waitin' for us!" Cronk yelped, smacking against the ceiling. Ratchet grabbed the controls and rolled to the left to avoid a canon shot. He flipped the shield switch and dodged another shot as they rose higher. He knew that escape was too easy –
The blasts began raining like hail against the ship's frail shield. Trisby opened her eyes slowly. "...Ratchet...I've just had an idea..."
"Well if it could wait – " Ratchet jerked along with the ship as it was hit by a particularly large blast. Trisby scowled at him and stood, making her way over to the control panel. She pried off the metal plate covering the wires, ignoring Ratchet's gawking face.
"Trisby –"
"I'm reversing the shields. They'll toss whatever they're giving us back at them." She muttered. Ratchet banked the ship to avoid as much shots as possible.
"We don't have enough power for that!"
"The shield will give in. May as well try..." Clank hopped down to help her with the wires, seeing no other option. Ratchet racked his brains, watching the control panel – the shields where overheating, they wouldn't withstand that much damage. They wouldn't be able to survive the hailstorm of canon shots the fleet was giving them, not long enough to escape.
But they had no extra power to make the shield reflective. Ratchet ran his hand over his forehead, wiping away the sweat.
Then something struck him. He looked down at the shoulder-belt he was wearing. The pale blue disc, and suddenly his mind went clear. He dived down to his knees, snatching the wires out of Trisby and Clank's little hands and leaned into the undercarriage of the panel, fiddling with various plugs. He pulled the shoulder belt off his body and began linking up the wires to it, crudely, but he did his best – and then he leaped up and slammed his hand on the command button.
The shield flashed, going from failing gold to pale blue – and the hundreds of blasts hitting against it bounced off it like balls from a bouncy castle. The ships nearby where struck by their own blasts tenfold, and many of the nearby ones plummeted.
Clank's jaw fell open just a little. Ratchet laughed, his hands on his head. "H-huh...didn't think that would work! There's..."
"There is Lifeforce, right in the disc..." Clank said, smiling in wonder. "Ickabar and his colleagues must have put a little inside it."
"If that's what a little could do..." Ratchet said thoughtfully, watching as the fallen ships crashed into the ground. "Just think..."
"Quick thinking, Dolly Daydream." Trisby said, sitting back down nearby. Ratchet looked over at her. She was smiling. Tiredly, but genuinely. "...You have quite the brain for improvising."
Ratchet rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah well – it was nothing, it was your idea to reflect the shields –"
"Just take the compliment, Ratchet." Trisby said, though she was grinning. She turned on her side and closed her eyes. "They won't always be plentiful from me..."
Clank shrugged at Ratchet, giving a short chortle. Ratchet didn't know why he was grinning, but decided not to question it. He sat back in the pilot seat and readied the hyper drive boosters.
...
Stratus City, on Kortog, was once the Educational District of Polaris before Tachyon invaded. Even years after his fall, remains of his influence still hovered around the place. Orange stood atop one of its high sky scrapers, the height jarring to anyone who lived as a ground-dweller. He hummed to himself merrily, feeling almost too giddy to stand still. Almost.
Now the city was swamped by Tachyon's forces again. But with his...distracted mood as of late, he hadn't noticed that a bright orange lombax was standing in plain sight. But it wasn't Tachyon's attention he sought to gather. He had a plan.
He waited. Then, he heard the smallest tap of metal against metal; something softly sliding across the ground – and a grin split on his face. Orange spun around and leaped back, hands in his pockets, as the armoured lombax brought down his wrench upon the spot he'd been in seconds later. The wrench hit the ground and dented it deep. Orange swooped to the left as the other lombax came at him again, swinging his weapon with all his might.
The orange furball gave a short burst of laughter before leaping into the air, his hoverboots activating and carrying him over to the next building. The other lombax leaped, but instead of hoverboots, he appeared to be using some kind of gravity boots that allowed him to kick off the ground with a greater force – quicker than hoverboots. Orange smirked none the less and began firing his blaster back at the metal-covered lombax, heading to the next building as he gave chase behind him.
"You're losing your touch!" He called back, "I thought I'd have more fun than this!" He leaped down to a lower building, making sure to kick over one of Tachyon's announcement screens in the process. The armoured lombax paid it no head, jumping down after him, landing on top of it and shattering the glass. He sprinted after him again, now chasing him along the road.
Orange giggled madly to himself, tossing back all kinds of shots and gadgets, none really hitting his foe. He re-activated his boots and sped past two drophids, who gaped in horror as he almost sent them flying, too. They gurgled stupidly as the armoured lombax ran by next, his fists clenched in frustrated fury.
The drophids blinked at one another, and one of them grabbed his communicator and hastily began dialling.
"Alert the Emperor that two of the lombax rebels are on Kortog!"
...
"Hmm." The Loki didn't know what to expect with this. Watching the screens transmitting the footage from Kortog, he'd gathered easily that the lombaxes didn't get along well (if that hadn't already been apparent.) But chasing each other through a drophid-occupied planet? Unwise.
He waved a hand at a nearby minion. "Go and fetch the cragmite whether he likes it or not and inform him that-"
"I have already been informed." Snapped a voice from behind him. Quirking a brow, the Loki pivoted his throne around to see Tachyon stomping in on his spider-like mech, looking in a foul temper, but otherwise the same. The Loki chortled mirthlessly,
"Returning to the land of the functional?" Tachyon didn't respond, moving to the left of the Loki and eyeing the screen with disdained interest.
"Those two." He said flatly, as the two lombaxes ran across the high-up roads and building tops, like a pair of grasshoppers chasing each other. "These vermin are growing too cocky for their own good." And, for the first time in a while, Tachyon smirked. The Loki watched him quietly.
He was not worried or concerned. The cragmite did not scare him, yet his instincts told him to be wary. "They are the lesser problem. We should concentrate on this...'Keeper's' son as you call him." Whatever the 'Keeper' was, it was beyond him. Tachyon glared at him sharply,
"That one hiding himself behind his armour has caused more trouble than you care to remember. If not for him, the Keeper's brat would have been dead by now and we would have what we desired."
"The lombax and his backpack haven't left Cobalia. If we concentrate on them we may be able to intercept them before they go into hyper-drive." The Loki said, trying to emphasize that. Tachyon rolled his eyes, looking back at the screen.
"They will sneak by as they always do. That I've learned...but I have another idea." He smirked again, glancing sideways at the Loki, who in turn retorted with a frown, "By now their spirits must have dwindled – a little display of loss should slow them down."
"...I see..." The Loki said, glancing once at the other two lombaxes. "I hope your plan doesn't just slow us down, Cragmite." He turned away on his throne, "Do as you see fit."
He was sick of making all of the decisions while Tachyon brooded, anyway. Perhaps he could focus on...other things while Tachyon played his little game.
"Oh, I will." Tachyon drawled slowly from behind. It wasn't a pleasant tone.
...
"So you haven't heard from them since then?"
Talwyn tried not to raise her hand to her forehead as she repeated her last sentence, "Yes. Last time I heard from Ratchet, he said he was fine and they had a good lead." She placed her hand on her hip. Standing before her – or rather the hologram standing before her – was Captain Sasha Phyronix, with her brow hard and her face in a professional frown. Talwyn didn't know why, but this woman kept rubbing her the wrong way.
The transmission came all the way from Solana, where Nefarious's forces had just been fought off at last. For some reason they'd lost their incentive to fight and had been far easier to take down. The reason for which was unclear for now.
"Now that Nefarious's forces have been defeated, perhaps you can send that aid now." Talwyn ventured. Sasha nodded a bit, though her frown became more concerned.
"We will – but Apogee, it'll be a while before they can all get here – you can't rely on us to be there that quickly. You need to keep Tachyon's fleets back long enough for us to get there."
"We're trying!" Talwyn said, her voice rising a little in frustration. She turned away, a hand to her chin, pacing a bit. "But he's already taken back so many planets and we're running out of supplies. It's happening all over again..."
"Talwyn – maybe you can stall him somehow." Sasha said quickly, leaving over to see her better. Tawlyn looked back at her, with a quizzical look. Sasha grinned, slightly,
"Villains like him are arrogant – he'll play with his food, maybe, before ending this whole thing. He won't rush his revenge."
"If I try any form of negotiation he'll laugh in our faces and make impossible demands." Talwyn said, folding her arms. Sasha's grin widened,
"Exactly. Just get him talking, pretend you're on the verge of surrender. He'll slow down a bit if he's as egotistical as they say – anything to buy us time."
Talwyn found herself trying not to grin back. It sounded...almost crazy enough to work. The urge to smile left her, at her next though. "It won't be that much time we'll have bought if this works, Sasha. Make it count."
"We'll be there as fast as possible." Sasha said, giving a nod before the transmission ended. The markazian sat down on a nearby chair.
She was currently holed up in a makeshift base in an old space station, somewhere in the Praxis sector. They'd managed to keep Igliak from falling back under Tachyon's control, but his forces where still swarming the sector. It didn't help that he had the gel plants back under his influence – she hadn't been kidding when she said their supplies where running low.
She ran a hand down her face, "Why doesn't anyone keep me up to date a little more around here?" She asked out loud. She glared at the transmitter devices nearby, as if somehow that would make Ratchet, Cronk and Zephyr call-
"Incoming Transmission from: unknown."
Talwyn scowled and stood up. "...Accept call." She commanded, stepping forward. Before her appeared the hologram of –
"Qwark?!"
Qwark looked bad; he was sitting in a pilot chair, his suit singed and his face mashed like dropped apples; his little head antenna bent pathetically to the left. "H-hi there, Miss Apogee, all's well on the front?" He chirped, though his grin barely hid that he looked ready to begin screaming.
Talwyn shook her head, incredulously, "Uh...yes, Qwark, but where have you been? Where are the others?"
"Oh off finding ghost magic while I led away the – terrifying forces." Qwark waved a pudgy hand, failing to hide his shakiness, "Just doin' my job."
"Where are you?" Talwyn couldn't have him hovering around where enemies could pick him us as easily as a penny off the ground. Qwark rubbed the back of his neck,
"Weell I'm not exactly sure...hey wait...what's that ominous glowing light...?" He was looking at something off screen – Talwyn felt her stomach twist in alarm.
"Qwark, whatever it is, get away from it – We need you to send us your co-ordinates –"
There was a flash of white light. Talwyn's arm flew up on reflex to shield her eyes – and the moment she managed to peek through the light had gone. And so had Qwark. She was staring at the hologram of an empty seat.
"...Perfect." She muttered.
...
Qwark landed face-down on a floor that was smooth, cool and...lemony fresh? He drew a long breath in through his nostrils. Yes indeed, lemony. With a hint of bleached lime...
He raised his smallish head and peered around, angling his sore jaw in the process. A very sleek, tidy ship with curving walls – it was like being inside a deodorant can. Dark, navy metal and pale yellow controls screens. He looked to the left.
There, at the end of the cylinder-ship, was a pilot seat; the cockpit was a curved dome-like end made of glass. Upon it where holographic displays of date rather than computers – it was very advanced. It almost made him feel dizzy.
The green man's breath caught in his throat when he saw the back of the pilot's head – hooded, and still. Rather small. He cleared his throat and slowly got to his feet, stumbling and almost knocking into the wall.
"...Hello...? Friend or Foe?" He called, moving his slightly trembling hands to place on his hips. "I was just in the middle of an important phone call, ya know!"
He was hit by something bright, white...and very...
Qwark slammed face down on the floor and let out a loud snore.
