The Good, the Bad and the Rebels

by SpaceFlora

The whole planet's after The Freedom Fighters, they learn out that the war is still going on strong and that they have a lot of enemies who all want to wipe them out. They have to come up with a plan that will save them as well the whole planet. This is a SEQUEL to my story The New Dawn of the Red Planet. It picks right where the last story ended. Work in progress.

18. Chapter 18: Tic Toc

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Xmas! I was to upload a new chapter here for xmas but meh... My plan didn't quite work out...

So, here's a New Year's present instead!

Thanks to all of you who have read and reviewed this story! It means a lot! really, can't express my feelings of gratitude enough...

So, keeping this short, here's the next chapter.

Happy new year to all of you Biker Mice fans out there!

-SpaceFlora

The Good, The Bad and the Rebels

Chapter 18

Tic Toc

The clock was ticking on the wall. tic toc tic toc tic toc... Throttle's eyes were on the pointers that seemed to be moving painfully fast. He could swear the sound the clock was making was louder than usual. He could feel how time was flying, it was like sand running through his hands while he could have given anything to make the clock stop ticking since time was not on their side at the moment. The more time it took for them to get their act together and figure out how to fight back...and against who they were to fight back...the less chances they had to survive. And there weren't anyone who could've helped them. Until Lieutenant Radius would gather the Army troops that were still loyal to Carbine... they were alone in this.

There were hardly even twenty Fighters left and with the few rebel rats that had joined them in their fight their numbers didn't reach even thirty even when combined. They were so outnumbered that there ought to be a new word for it. Throttle knew the odds weren't exactly in their favor at the moment. Far from it. He knew that if they didn't come up a plan and fast... It wouldn't take too long before they would be found or they made one mistake and it would all be over. No more Freedom Fighters.

The war was still on but the trick was, no one except the Fighters knew that it was so. Everything was happening in the shadows and Throttle hated to be in the darkness. When the enemy was hiding it meant that they too had to fight in the dark. And that meant dubiety. And if there was something Throttle hated as a leader, it was uncertainty. As a leader one was responsible of the others and that fact alone made the role a bitch in many ways. But Throttle didn't mind, he liked the responsibilities, or maybe he just had been so used to the role of the responsible one from an early age, maybe he had just learned to like or tolerate the position... but even so, he didn't mind the responsibilities if he only had the feeling that he was somewhat in charge of things. Which he wasn't at the moment, at all. Nothing was certain right now. He wasn't even certain whether or not he had the permission to lead the Fighters right now. Sure Stoker had seemed a bit distracted back in Olympus Mons when they had found Modo and Simson in relatively bad shape... And yes, Stoker had asked him to take his place some time ago...But when would this transition take place Stoker hadn't said. But someone needed to take the lead and Throttle had felt everyone's eyes on him. Yes, it had been widely recognized that in some sense he had always been Stoker's right hand, so to say... but as the Freedom Fighters, they never had had any ranks, like the Military did. They only had Stoker as a Commander and their Mentor and then there was this miscellanious group of Fighters... No fighter was above the other...Even Stoker himself had emphasized that he too was just one of the Fighters, he didn't want the Fighters to put him on some pedestal.

So. Here Throttle was. He had escaped the others to the monitor room that happened to be empty at the moment. He needed to think. He needed to have a moment of peace where he could just focus all his attention on this mess and it wasn't possible with all the Fighters and rebel rats hovering around, the loud heavy metal blasting through the radios and some Fighters had also decided that the main hall was a perfect place to start a wrestling match, too, to ease up the tension that was palpable at the moment inside the HQ... Suddenly Throttle understood why Charley had sometimes kicked their butts out of the garage to get some work done. They really were a vocal and distractive force...

He leaned back on his chair and lifted his legs on top of the table, crossing his arms, still staring at the clock on the wall. tic toc tic toc tic toc tic toc tic toc.

He was sure that Mace had his dirty fingers in this all, but he was also sure that Mace was not really the one who pulled the strings. Someone was operating this whole thing, someone was watching this scene from above... But who?

Throttle moved a bit uneasy in his chair, trying to find a better position. Mace had his rat troops behind him but he needed the reinforcements also inside the Cave Mice Territory, otherwise someone would have noticed him lurking around, even if he would have used the tunnels that were apparently going around the desert and also under the Cave Mice Territory...Was the Army also in it? That would explain why somehow Mace's actions had not been detected, maybe he got free hands to do whatever he wanted...? But why would the Mice Army allow him to do that?

When he had gotten back to Mars with his bros Stoker had told them that the Mice Government wanted to get rid of the Fighters. Was the Cave Mice Government with Mace? If so, the Army was also in it. That's why they would have wanted to get rid of Carbine, put her in cell and persecute her of treason, to get her out of the way... Throttle could understand how her persistance and go-get-'em-nature would be a red clothe for these guys...

What about Major Rig and The Secret Army Division? Carbine had found photos of the Fighters from the Army archives but the tracks lead to this secret division and Major Rig. Maybe the Army and the Secret Division were more connected then it first seemed... maybe there were even more high-ranking officers in the Army that knew what was actually going on and they were part of this mess.

But did Mace also link to Major Rig and the Secret Army Division? If so, Mace could be the link between every entity that wanted to get rid of the Freedom Fighters. Throttle had to admit that it felt quite flattering to find out how many there were out there to hate the Fighters' guts... Man, they sure had pissed someone off... But one question still remained... Who was there to pull all the strings? He was sure it couldn't be Mace, even if he would be the link to every enemy force there was... Mace might be a sneaky bastard but he wasn't that smart to have masterminded this whole thing and even if he had... he lacked the money to which Throttle was sure this all came down to. Money. That devilish product that seemed to turn normal people into monsters and alleys to enemies...

What he had missed? What was the trick here?

Throttle rocked in his chair a while, still looking at the clock's pointers, thinking hard. He felt like almost nothing had changed since the days of war. And Stoker himself had said that the war was far from being over.

tic toc tic toc tic toc tic toc tic toc

Maybe nothing has changed.

tic toc tic toc tic toc tic toc tic TOC

Throttle stopped the rocking and placed his feet on the floor.

The Plutarkians.

x

x

"Ugh! This is boring, man!" Vinnie grunted annoyed as he was walking next to Stoker but just an inch behind him still as they were both walking the hospital corridors.

"I thought that you were hungry for some action...If not, you're free to go wait back outside..." Stoker mumbled back, feeling every patients' eyes on them. They hardly blended in with their combat attire and ragged looks that told about countless fights to everyone who could spot their bruises and cuts on their faces, necks and arms. Stoker only wished that they didn't recognize them as Freedom Fighters, for once he cursed that his mug was a familiar to nearly every citizen and he tried to keep his look casted on the floor, not showing his face too much as they were walking fast the long hallways with Vinnie.

"Yeah, action! And walking does not count as action in my books! We're heroes, we should not need to walk." Vinnie snorted back, feeling the people's eyes on him and his mask. He started to feel uncomfortable with the burning looks he got and he was not used to that. He was used to love the attention he usually got but now he only felt anxious about it for some reason he did not care to explore further.

"Well, we have no choice... We have to find our two comrades before the Army does..."

"Well, can't we try and find them with a bit more oopmh?!"

"No. We're not adding any more oomph. If possible, we need to reduce the oomph to minimum... I'm sure someone will call the guards on us anytime now..."

"Whatever, you've gone a lot less-exciting in your older days, grandpa..." Vinnie muttered but then as they still contoninued walking he heaved a bord sigh.

"This is soooo boring... Who invented walking, anyway? We should've grabbed our bikes and dashed through these stupid hallways! Now that would have been a biker mice style to crash this joint!"

"We're not, and I can't stress this enough, crashing up a hospital, Vincent."

"I know, I know! I didn't mean people dying and all that, just...trying to make this more interesting, 's all!"

"Well, don't."

"Hey, why did we leave Rimfire and Seven to wait outside?"

"I thought you'd be happy that a fewer people shared your spotlight..."

"I don't mind sharing the spotlight! I'm a generous mouse, a giver by nature!"

"Yes, you keep giving me headaches that's for sure...Well, Rimfire has done enough damage as it comes, he can sit this one. We try to locate his sister too, so he would've had his emotions in the way to disturb him to be cautious...And well, Seven is a rat, no way hiding that tail and that would've caused more attention than our handsome looks..."

"Yeah, people just can't get enough of my dashingly charming features, that's for sure!" Vinnie nearly forced himself to add as he still felt uncomfortable with all the looks but he tried to press the feeling down. He was the baddest mammajammer in this side of the asteroid belt after all, the coolest kid in town, anxieties were for losers. He cleared his throat.

"Just out of curiousity... What happens if we do find Big Fella and we have to tell him that we couldn't find his bike? I mean Lil' Hoss is still missing..."

"Well... We're not telling him that, not yet..."

"Ooh, you mean lying?"

"No, not lying, just not telling the whole truth..."

"Hm, that sounds to me a lot like lying..."

"It's not lying..."

"Okay, Pinocchio..."

Stoker sighed irritably but asked anyway.

"What's a Pinocchio?"

"Just some tale on Earth about a boy who's nose got long after he lied..."

"Why?"

"I don't know, perhaps he had a condition..."

"Anyway, we're not gonna tell Modo that we couldn't find Lil' Hoss, not yet... He'd just wanna go back to Olympus Mons to search the bike...And gods know if that's what he wants to do we won't be able to stop that train..."

"I don't feel good about lying to my bro, though..."

"It's not lying...! Okay, look, if he asks, you just hold your tongue, got that? I'll handle it...The last thing we need is for Modo to try and rush back out there... We really should all just get back to the Headquarters, as fast as possible and think about our next move...And pray it won't be our last..." Stoker muttered.

"I hope the next move will have a lot less walking involved...We have been doing this mindless exercise forever now and we haven't spotted even one grey hair of the Big Guy... What are we looking for here exactly?" Vinnie sighed, looking around.

"Rimfire told us that Primer wanted the access to the basement... We're looking for the door that could take us there, the staircases to the basement or something..."

"Maybe there's no door..."

"Pft! Ofcourse there's a door...! There's always a d..."

"What?"

"Vinnie! You're a genius!"

"Hey, I'm more than just the great looks, sweetheart...!"

"We should check the elevators..."

"Why...?"

"Just come along..."

"Ugh! Yes, let's walk some more, why don't we..."

They had to search some time before Stoker spotted the elevator and they rushed to it and then pressed the button to open the doors and once they opened he stepped inside and then pointed the buttons on the shiny wall.

"See?"

"...uh, yeah?"

"One can access the basement with the elevator..."

"How exciting..."

Stoker pressed the button but there became only a message on the little screen, "access only with the authorized ID card."

"Oh, heck... It says we'll need a..." Stoker started but took a startled step back as Vinnie grabbed his hand gun quicker than it would have taken Stoker to tackle him.

"Got the access right here, baby!"

"Vinnie, no!"

The laser gun was fired and the fire hit the buttons and blasted a hole in the wall. Stoker hit Vinnie on the back of his head.

"Did your mother dropped ya on your head while ya were little?!" But he hastily peaked on the hallway between the two open elevator doors. For some reason no one had heard a thing, it was already too noisy inside the busy hallways of the hospital. Stoker sighed and shook his head, giving Vinnie a stern look.

"What?" The white furred male only asked innocently but then pointed the hole in the wall where colourful chords were now peaking out.

"Look! We can just switch the right chords and the lift will take us to the basement! Easy!"

"Oh, I didn't know you knew anything about electrical engineering..." Stoker's voice was full of surpressed anger.

"I...Well...No?" Vinnie grinned back, looking sheepish.

"So how were you exactly planning on selecting which chords to switch then?" Stoker crossed his arms.

"Eenie meenie miney moe?" Vinnie tried and Stoker only rolled his eyes and then got his radio.

"Rimfire?"

"Stoker? You found them yet?"

"Nope... But our trigger-happy friend here managed to destroy the elevator... We need some guidance...So walk us through how to proceed from here..."

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"What...Where...am I...?" Simson suddenly tried to open his eyes but the light in the room hit him and he pressed them back close again.

"Man...too bright...When did the Sun move this close to Mars...?"

"Hey...Look who finally decided to wake up...!" Simson heard a low rumble near him and was first a bit surprised and maybe scared of this voice that didn't first ring any bells and he still tried to adjust to the light in the room before his eyes finally focused on this big grey furred mouse sitting beside his bed. He was wearing a dark vest and red camos and he looked like he had just woken up under a massive pile of rubble and ran through the barbwire so, in other words, the giant looked like he had had some better days. Despite how he looked though, he had a wide smile on his face. Then it all came to him again.

"Oh...It's you..." Simson muttered but managed to bring a small chuckle.

"Do Ah hear a hint of disappointment...?" Modo chuckled back.

"Nah...Guess this just means that I ain't dead, right...?" Simson half-jokingly asked while trying to lift himself to a sitting position, half-jokingly in a sense that his head was still blurry and he didn't really know where he was and how he had ended up here.

Modo gave a small but deep laughter.

"Well, if this is the after-life we've been screwed..."

Simson huffed back.

"Yeah, well...Don't you mice believe that you'll evaporate into some small particles or some shit...?"

"Something like that..." Modo muttered humoured.

"Hm, well count me out of that nonsense... When I die, I wanna go back to haunt people..."

Simson got himself to sit upright but then made a cry of pain and he had to turn himself to lie on his side.

"Man, did someone just bite my ass...? Gods, it hurts..."

"Yeah, about that..." Modo cleared his throat, praying that Simson would remember himself that he had lost his tail and he didn't need to bring him up to speed on that matter...

Simson moved his hand to his backside and after feeling it sometime he let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes.

"Oh yeah..."

"Yeah..."

"I shot my own tail off, didn't I?"

"If it's any help, that was a bad-ass move..."

"Thanks." Simson muttered but let out a sad sigh and dropped his head on the pillow.

"For Deimos' sake..."

"Yup..." Modo nodded and a small silence fell into the room. There wasn't really anything Modo could say or do at this point to make the rat feel better. He had been there himself, he had lost his limb and he knew that it would take much time for the man to get used to it. Or even get in terms with it. It had taken him a lot of time and he knew he wasn't fully in terms with it himself either. To be used to something was different than accepting it. And the fact that his right arm had been replaced with the bionic arm made by the derranged Doctor Karbunkle did not really help.

Simson turned his head while still lying down on his side and looked around him carefully, the silence only growing. Modo didn't know how long they had been just hanging there in total silence, only listening the lights lightly flickering in the room before Simson finally, after swallowing, asked him a question.

"So, what is this place? A closet?"

"Close, Doctor Shelly said that we're in the storage room, in the basement of the Brimstone Hospital... Guess this is the V.I.P. Suite even if it's missin' the minibar and the yacuzzi..." Modo tried to lift the mood while letting his eye wander in the place too.

Simson gave him a look.

"Shelly?" He raised an eyebrow.

"The doctor that patched us up..."

"So, it's a she, hu..?"

"Yeah..."

"Was she a good-looking?" Simson asked with a grin, clearly glad that he found something else to focus on than his lost limb, and Modo only scratched the back of his head, looking a bit awkward.

"Ah don't know...Ah guess?"

"Ya guess? Why, you kept your eyes closed?" Simson snorted and Modo turned his look on him.

"No, but Ah ain't walkin' around assessin' females either..."

Simson only raised his brows while giving the room another glance.

"Looking ain't hurtin' noone..."

"Well, Ah've promised to keep my eyes not wanderin'..."

"It's easier for you, you only have got one eye..." Simson gave a light chuckle and despite Modo been happy to see his pal's mood had turned slightly to better, he still couldn't let it be.

"Yeah, well that's one more than you've got tails at the moment..." He rumbled back.

"Autsch, too soon, man..." Simson muttered, on the verge of being actually hurt even if he tried not to show it. Modo observed him and then sighed.

"...Sorry..."

Another silence. Simson then changed his position a bit and gave the grey male sitting beside him a look again.

"So, you and that lil' blonde back at the HQ then...You're serious about her?"

Modo raised his look to meet his, looking a bit surprised and Simson gave a chuckle.

"Hey, I've got eyes, okay! Either you're together or then the doctor is giving you a way more attention than she should and I'm not entirely sure her actions follow the doctor's ethics..."

"Right..." Modo chuckled back. He was quiet for some time but then sighed, scratching his brow.

"Ah asked her to marry me."

"Hey, congrats, man! That is pretty serious then! Wait, she said yes, right?"

"Yeah..." A slight smile appeared on Modo's lips but it disappeared as soon as it had appeared.

"Well, ain't we happy about it..?" Simson tried to keep the conversation alive.

"Sure, Ah mean yeah, she's the woman of my life, Ah want to marry her but..." Modo stopped as he felt suddenly awkward for speaking his mouth like this to a rat he had known only about a week. Simson huffed with a smile.

"Hey, time's precious... You've only have so much time together. Take it from someone who lost his love, his family..." Simson's voice fell to a whisper and Modo turned his look back on the rat who suddenly looked sad and lost. Modo was to say something to confront him but he then remembered something and reached out to the pocket of his vest.

"Ah almost forgot...Ah've got somethin' for you..."

He then took a photo out of the pocket and gave it a glance to make sure it was still in somewhat okay condition before handing it to Simson.

"Here."

Simson looked a bit clueless but took the photo and as soon as his eyes were set on it, he recognized the photo and he turned his baffled look back to Modo, his eyes full of amazement.

"This is the photo of my family...I had this on our base' fridge door..." Simson started, clearly not really comprehending how it was that Modo had that photo suddenly. The grey furred male only nodded back.

"Yeah, ya told me about your family back at your base and when they started to bomb us Ah just grabbed the photo...I didn't even really register what Ah did...Ah just thought that ya should have it... Ah had forgotten about it until now..."

Simson was studying the photo in his hands, feeling the paper, letting his eyes wander on the picture, on the female and two children captured inside of it. He had to swallow to keep his emotions checked.

"Thanks." He only said and bit his lower lip. He gave Modo a look and the big male seemed now a bit shy again but he gave a warm smile back before he turned his look away but his ears suddenly perked up and twitched violently as they both heard a clanging sound from behind the door, from the presumable hallway behind it.

x

x

"Lemme go! Youre hurtin' me!" Primer grunted as she was trying to free herself from one of the soldier's grip but it was in vain, the guy was double her size. She had managed to knock down a trolley though, as she had kick it accidentally while trying to get herself free from this unforgiven grip the other soldier had on her.

"Keep her quiet! If those two wounded rebels are here we need to have an element of surprise..." The other soldier barked at the other one.

"No! You're not gonna hurt my Uncmhmmmhm...!" Primer was silenced as the soldier placed his palm over her mouth and only gave the other Army trooper a look.

"Has Major Rig contacted?"

"No, noone has heard of him...Noone knows where he is..."

"What about Mace? Does he know we've got these two anarchists soon captured and locked up?"

"No... Last time we heard about him was when he left the Army Base... One of the rats gave us a call that these two rebels were possibly brought in here...Anyway, the reception down here in the basement is not that good, we can't contact him now..."

"We take these two to the Army base?"

"Well, we didn't get any confirmation from Mace but surely that's the plan... I don't think he wants them to run around free just when he is this close to exterminate all of the Fighters once and for all...And I heard the Desert Base is destroyed so these guys can't be brought there either..."

"Good thing you ran the background check of this Modo fellow, we got us a good bargain here if things get complicated..." The soldier who dragged Primer chuckled.

"Yeah, if they try anything we'll use her as a leverage...She'll make a pretty cute mouse shield too.."

x

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To say that Mace was furious would be an understatement. As he was driving the tunnels under the Martian deserts full-speed with his black bike he was grasping the handles so forcefully his knuckles had turned white.

The Plutarkians had given him a month to destroy the Freedom Fighters. A month! He was not stupid, he knew that would be a very difficult task to do in that time span. Mainly because the workforce he had been given and gotten was useless getting things done nowadays it seemed... Ever since those three airheads had comen back to Mars things had taken a turn to worse, and his victorious plan suddenly had deflated.

During the most recent years The Secret Army Division led by Major Rig had succeeded in capturing most of the Freedom Fighters and even making many of them to "disappear"... But now, what was left of the Fighters were freed and back in business again. And it seemed that while destroying the Secret Desert Base, the Fighters had kidnapped Major Rig, too. Those hypocrites. They were calling themselves as the Freedom Fighters, declaring that every man deserved to be free while same time taking a man's freedom...Well, it's nice to see how even the most dedicated men can fall...

Luckily the Secret Army Division got to lower their numbers, now there was only a handful of the Fighters left but Mace knew they weren't to be underestimated still. The Freedom Fighters had always been resilient ones, no matter what... It was like trying to kill cockroaches...

He knew it was time to amp up the plan, to fight with all he's got. He did got the numbers behind him, and so were the odds too. Luckily the Fighters had enemies and people that wanted to get rid of them, for example their own Mice Government were afraid of this anarchist group that could interfiere with their rule over the Mice Territories, so they had labelled this group of rebels as public enemies and it meant that if they ever showed their faces inside the Mice Territories the Army had the permission to try and capture them.

But the Fighters had not located their Headquarters inside the Mice Territories at the moment and they didn't really shop at the local farmer's markets either... That's why Mace needed Major Rig's Secret Army Division that were like hired guns that obeyed only the money and luckily the Plutarkians did got plenty of that.

Mace gave a sigh. After this all was over... He would get to enjoy his life in some faraway planet... He wanted to get as far as possible from anything that resembled red sand.

Everything had gone down the drain as the Plutarkians had started to strip-mine Mars over ten years ago. He couldn't even remember how the planet had looked like before the war, before the invasion... Mars had been destroyed, utterly. There wasn't anything left anymore. He couldn't have known or perdicted that it would come to this far, not in a million years... He had only thought about earning a little money, he didn't think that it would end up like this... Him being a damn puppet to these fishfaces. And an outcast to his own people, the rats. Sure he had his own small group of rat troopers that were still loyal to him... But he knew that the rat population didn't think too highly of him and they were infact afraid of him. Who could blame them? He had made some mistakes, mistakes that had caused his people's trust.

To infiltrate into the Freedom Fighters as a spy for the fishfaces had sounded like a fun play... He hadn't really liked that bunch of biker soldiers, he couldn't really point his finger to tell why was that... There had been something obnoxious about them and their carefree attitudes, like the war was just a big party to crash. And he had been fairly young back then, he hadn't thought much about it. It had sounded like an easy job and easy money.

Then Mina had comen into the picture...

Mace was dragged from his memories as someone tried to contact him. He pressed the button on the side of his helmet and answered.

"Yeah?"

"My two best soldiers are at the moment picking up the two wounded ones from the hospital. Just informing you, sir."

"Sorry?"

"Just informing you that..."

"You imbeciles!"

"Sir?"

"The Army is always making things worse! I don't want to catch them!"

"But..."

"Call them back! Abort the mission...!"

"But..."

"Abort the mission!"

Mace shouted and ended the call, giving an annoyed sigh and a grunt. Those damn enthusiastic Army troopers... He's got a solid plan to capture the Fighters but in order his plan to work he needs the two wounded ones taken back to their Headquarters since the other one has got a microchip planted on him. The Fighters would lead him straight to their hiding hole themselves...

x

x

"Hi there..."

Aprilia startled a bit but raised her look from the metallic tray full of medical equipment that she was at the moment cleaning and saw the auburn haired mechanic standing quite close to her.

"Well, hello..." Aprilia gave a warm smile back and then as she observed this alien creature infront of her she then stopped what she was doing and gestured Charley to take a seat on the near-by hospital bed. As Charley looked a bit cautiously at the offered seating option Aprilia gave a giggle.

"Don't worry, noone has died on it... And we do pride ourselves for keeping things clean and sterile in here..."

"Right..." Charley blurted now looking a bit ashamed but sat down on the bed, looking around.

"So...How are you holding up?" Apilia then asked. Charley scratched her neck and shugged her shoulders.

"Well, I tried to flee from here... So I guess that's not a good sign..." She sighed, although remembering that she would've liked that to remain as a secret that only now Harley knew of, there was something about the short curvy doctor that told her that her secret will be safe with her and that she would not judge.

Aprilia nodded, a knowing look on her face before she took a seat next to her but not too close.

"I'm sorry..."

"Why? You haven't done anything to cause … whatever mess is inside of me..." Charley blurted but Aprilia only shook her head.

"No, I mean... I'm sorry that you have to witness and experience this mess right here, on our planet... Mars really is not the most ideal place to live or be right now."

Charley gave her a look and only nodded back. Aprilia gave a sigh and took her hand to hers.

"But...If this all ends, when this all ends and our planet will get a chance of peace again... I'd love for you to see the planet when this all is over... It'll be different."

"What do you think happens to the guys, to all these Fighters once the war is over?" Charley carefully asked.

"Nearly half of our population is serving the planet as soldiers...Mars is the planet of warriors. It has always been like that. What happens after the war is anyone's guess... It comes down to our Government and how it sees the role of the Fighters..."

"You think they could be facing charges?"

"I don't know." Aprilia answered, looking away.

"But...Do you think they'll be okay? After this all ends? Okay like...mentally?" Charley gave her a careful glance.

Aprilia looked her deep into her eyes and Charley could detect some sadness in them before the light brown furred doctor turned her look to Charley's hand she was still holding. She gently squeezed her hand before letting it go and placed her both hands on her lap, looking at them.

"I don't know." Aprilia only answered back.

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