Heyyyy...

So... I'm so sorry that it takes me this long nowadays to update... I'm just so busy and just can't seem to find the time to write, which is unfortunate. But it doesn't change the fact that I still very much love to write these stories! I'm just hoping you guys are still with me...

Thanks to you all dear readers out there for your kind words and your support!

Let's hope you'll like the new chapter. We'll finally have the waited alien encounter but more to come in the next chapter!

Stay safe!

-SpaceFlora

The Story of Rebellion and Hope

8.

Zack let out a satisfied sigh as he had managed to get a few moments of peace and was now making himself a fresh cup of coffee. Their time management on this red planet had been really efficient from the start, Noah had made them sweat from morning to evening, hauling more stuff from the space shuttle to their basecamp that still was this temporary tent structure and when they weren't outside moving these heavy crates around, they were inside unpacking the stuff, installing the computers and all these different machines and gadgets, installing software, doing test runs, loading the solar batteries, seeing that everything worked as it should. The tent already felt very crowded as the construction work of the more permanent basecamp hadn't still started but they still needed to store much of their equipment somewhere and that somewhere was their current temporary tent base which was only about a third of the size their more permanent solution would be. So, it was hard not to bump into the piles and stacks of crates and stuff and Zack already had his bruises to prove that.

Being the team's reliable and experienced pilot, Zack was to go back to the space shuttle today and do a round of tests to check that the shuttle indeed would be in condition to take them back to Earth when the time would come. He was to do calculations and check the engines, the fuel situation and finally send data back to Earth... He was to take his fellow engineer Charley with him but seeing that the auburn-haired woman was still running around the tent, gathering and searching for her tools to take with her, and while at it she had bumped into multiple crates as well and hit her foot to even more stuff and as her cursing had been echoing in the tent, it had struck Zack to not maybe try and hurry her even more even if they did have their tight schedules. Instead, he had found this rare but very welcomed opportunity to kick back a little while waiting for Charley to get herself ready. Anyway, he really wasn't in any hurry himself, his happy-go-lucky nature was more than eager to stop for a second and relax a little. The work wouldn't disappear, and they certainly weren't going anywhere... And as Noah had stepped outside for a minute just a little while ago, Zack had thought the time was perfect for a little break.

The only time their schedules allowed them to have free time anyway was when it was time to sleep or to eat, and even then they'd be eating their food ratios standing up, trying to juggle with their aluminum cans and single-serving condiment pouches as they were trying to work the same time and the tent floor worked as a proof on that since one could find small bits and pieces of food or spills of liquids everywhere already. So Noah as their Captain had already written a list of cleaning shifts, on top of everything else they needed to be doing inside and outside the base. If only they could all just stop and go outside and just sit down and marvel at the fact that they were here, Zack pondered while pouring steaming hot water on top of his instant coffee. They could've just taken the first week off in his humble opinion and sit there outside on one of the dunes and look at the sceneries, and maybe see a glimpse of Earth, that small dot floating in this vast and dark Universe. But unfortunately, they weren't on a holiday, they had a job to do. A job that had already cost too many millions for Zack to even wrap his head around with, and it'll cost even more every second and minute...

As Zack was holding the hot mug, his smile reaching from one ear to another, nearly chuckling to himself for this tiny opportunity to catch some "me-time", and just as he was to take the first sip, a sudden, a very high-pitched falsetto pierced the tent and every fiber of his body, making him drop his mug with a startle and while hitting the tent floor, the mug, which fortunately was made out of plastic, didn't break but the hot freshly made coffee splashed all over the little kitchen nook's floor. While watching this new addition of food mosaic now decorating the floor, Zack felt maybe even too big of a pinch inside him, considering it was only coffee that he had spilled, but quickly the sadness was replaced with annoyance and not the least for the fact that the clear falsetto was becoming even higher and louder and he swiftly turned around and shouted towards the computer nook on the other side of the tent.

"Damn it, Soph! Turn down the fog horn!"

A small redhead, nearing her forties, looked behind boxes and crates from the said computer nook.

"What?!" She yelled back, having trouble to hear behind the wall of opera diva's impressive voice.

"Turn that down!" Zack repeated and covered his ears to emphasize the meaning behind his request.

"Right..." The redhead retorted and turned around and soon the shrilling voice disappeared as the music was turned down to a much more tolerable level, which was almost mute.

"Just forgot that not everyone appreciates the high culture here..." Sophia, one of their three physicists commented under her breath, behind the crates but since the music was turned low Zack caught that anyway.

"That's not culture, that's an assault to the ears in the first degree!" Zack commented back and he heard a snort coming behind the crates, from the right side of this computer nook where the redheaded woman was unpacking her computer equipment, placing everything neatly on the shelf units and on her table. Zack gave the coffee stain on the floor a rather tired look and with a sigh took a rag nearby and bent down to clean off the mess.

"Should've thrown those damn opera cd's into space while we still had the change..." Zack muttered while wiping the floor.

The redheaded woman rolled her brown eyes, her red hair tied to a bun, and the bun had a few odd-looking things sticking out there like the bun was some sort of an item holder for small things that still didn't have a space to call their own.

"Well, we all have our turn to be the DJ for a day... I guess you just have to wait for your own turn so you can blast that degenerated filth you call music, Zack..."

"Now, what's wrong with heavy metal, Sophia?" Zack let out a burst of laughter, stopping his task for a moment and giving his crew member a whimsical look, knowing already the woman's thought on the matter.

"I guess nothing if you're a teenage boy with an uneducated and dirty mind..." Sophia muttered back.

"C'mon...! What's not to love about it?! Larger than life riffs, big hair, girls wearing leather..."

"Sexist lyrics and lame macho attitude..." Sophia added with a meaningful look.

"It's the music of the gods!" Zack provoked.

"... Noone in this Galaxy in their rightful mind would listen to that noise..." Sophia retorted.

"So...You think that if there was intelligent life out there somewhere it would automatically listen to that...sound of cats being slaughtered?" Zack raised his eyebrow and nodded towards the cd player's direction that still let out the high vibratos and arias.

"If there's intelligent life out there, I can assure you, it won't be listening to heavy metal..." Sophia shook her head, clearly amused even to think that would be the case. Zack turned his eyes on the left side of the computer nook where two men were unpacking their stuff also and installing software to the computers, the physicist/mathematicians Isaac and Dylan, who could've easily been mistaken for twins as they both were tall and slightly wirier built than the other human males in the group and they both had long hair that touched their shoulder blades and they were wearing band T-shirt and jeans, even if they weren't on Earth anymore but on the fourth planet from the Sun. It also didn't help to distinguish one from another as they were so close they would sometimes even end one another's sentences. But there was one way to tell them apart, whereas Isaac had blonde wavy hair, Dylan had straight hair, and the others only hoped that they would never cut their hair short and that way make it impossible for the others to tell them apart.

Whereas their physicist-colleague Sophia kept her corner neat and tidy the other side of this computer-filled nerd corner was messy and it resembled a jungle of extension cords and even with this small amount of time they've all spent inside the base, the two male physicists sharing the nook had managed to occupy every available empty space and surface with half-drunk coffee cups and empty food tins and pouches. They were now installing software to their computers, drinking soda while having headphones on but if listening closely one could hear metal music through the headphones as both men were silently banging their heads along the riffs as they let their fingers run fast on the keyboards of their computers.

"I'd say metal 3, fog horn 1..." Zack smiled at Sophia who in her turn gave the two blonde males a little sour look under her brows.

"Yeah, unfortunately not everyone got the memo that this is the first human mission to Mars, not Wayne's World..." Sophia mumbled and earned a guffaw from Zack.

"Nice!" He nodded his head, clearly appreciating this sarcastic comment.

Sophia only made a smug smirk back but from the corner of her eye noticed someone putting down a cup of coffee on her table.

"Okay...!" Charley interrupted them with a wide smile on her face.

"...Maybe we could establish a rule that it's forbidden to talk about music? Clearly, it's a highly volatile subject..."

But the female engineer knew that Sophia and Zack were only messing with each other, things rarely escalated too bad even if at times things could get a little heated since it could get boring and irritating to have the same eight people with you on this long even if an extraordinary trip, one learned pretty quickly everyone's personalities, faults, and manners... And everyone had already heard every story million times during the long nine months they'd spent in the space shuttle and during even the longer training period back at the Space Institute... But they've been trained to do this job, they were trained to tolerate things and above all to tolerate each other. The Space Insitute wanted to be sure that they would not end up having extraterrestrial murders at their hands. But even if at times they got on each other's nerves a little, they still were a very close-knit family and there was no doubt that they wouldn't risk their own lives to save one another.

"Fine by me... But it's my day to pick the music, so... you all can just bug off and stop complaining and wait for your own turn to let us all get exposed to that garbage you wanna play..." Sophia muttered while giving a glance back to Zack, but with a small hint of smirk twitching the side of her mouth, and the man only answered by smiling innocently back before turning around to get a new cup of coffee. Sophia turned her attention back to Charley and then lifted the engineer's coffee cup Charley had placed on her pristine white table and wiped the coffee stain away underneath the cup as Charley folded a chair open with a little more ruffer manner than maybe intended or even needed and sat on it, giving Zack a quick glance.

"Zack! We'll leave in ten, okay?"

"No rush..." Zack hummed back while blowing to his new fresh cup of Joe. Sophia sat down by her table and tapped her hands against her thighs, turning her full attention on their youngest member of their little space family.

"So... What brings you here into this part of the tent, Charley?" Sophia asked and while not intended, her voice sounded almost maternal.

"Yes, well, like I didn't have enough to do already I started to write this report to send back to Command Centre, the full report on our landing they requested... I already asked Jeremiah the medical report and he talked fifteen minutes straight some medical gibberish, so I think I'll just write down "we're doing okay"... You know, I'm an engineer, I'm basically just a bike jockey with a million-dollar budget... If it doesn't include an engine or coolers, I really don't have a clue...So, anyway... Now all I'm needing is some stats from the landing that you might have in that computer of yours...?" Charley rambled on pointing at one of the computer screens Sophia had in front of her while lifting her cup and taking a gulp from the coffee.

Sophia nodded and turned to open the computer.

"I'll search for the stats and print them to you..." She wrote a password which seemed to be an endless code of numbers and letters before she gave Charley a look.

"Weren't Noah supposed to do that report?"

"Hm, yeah..." Charley nodded after another gulp of coffee, her other leg already starting to stomp the ground as the caffeine entered her body.

"But he went outside and I just thought I would start writing things down, you know, while running around the base, searching for my tools... I'm a woman, I can multitask..." Charley made a small smirk before continuing.

"And I thought of helping a little..." She ended her statement, deciding to stop talking as the older woman gave her a few studying looks.

"Well, we all have enough tasks without taking other people's jobs as well..." Sophia thought out loud while searching the requested stats from the computer, the screen reflecting back from her round glasses.

"Yeah, well... I wanted to help..." Charley shrugged her shoulders while biting her lower lip, observing the woman next to her. Sophia was older than her but so was everyone else in this team and maybe it was Charley's young age or maybe it was her still a bit shaky self-esteem, but when talking about the close-knit family, she had always felt a little left out. She knew she must be maybe imagining it all and even if she tried to tell herself that she had enough merits to be here, on this mission, on Mars, she still from time to time got this nagging feeling deep inside her, that it wasn't because of her merits or her know-how and quickly earned diplomas, her top of the class certificates... And it certainly didn't help that she knew that everyone knew she and Noah had had a fling back in the training days when she had fallen for this older man who also happened to be one of their trainers in the Space Institute, and who also as the already announced Captain for the future Mars team had had his sayings about who should possibly have the chance to work in this mission. Noone of the crew members had actually said anything along with those words or even hinted that she shouldn't be here, but she just couldn't really get rid of this thought that she actually hadn't earned her place here, not like all the rest of the team who already had way more work experience than her. So, her coping mechanism against all this doubt she had in her... was to maybe try too hard.

"Did Noah go out to help Lucas to get that seismic monitor to work...?" Sophia asked absent-mindedly and startling Charley out of her inner dialogue.

"...I guess, yeah... He didn't say..." Charley started but was interrupted as one of the screens that was connected via a wireless connection to their space suits' camera and radio system crackled on and everyone in the tent heard their Captain's voice while seeing this grainy image of Mars' surface at the same time, showing the view their Captain was looking at also.

"...This is Noah...Can you hear me...?"

All the seven of them inside the tent gathered around this screen and Sophia threw a pen towards the "twins" on the other side of this computer nook and the two blonde men also joined the others.

Charley pushed the button on the microphone, to able them to communicate with Noah.

"Basecamp here, we hear you loud and clear!" She chirped happily, tapping her fingers against the table, this was maybe to test the audio and the video of their spacesuits and see how good the reception was so they all just hanged around the screen, checking the live video footage from outside, this view Noah was facing at and it was just normal Martian scenery, nothing out of the ordinary, well it was extraordinary scenery all things considered as this was an alien planet but it didn't show anything abnormal. It was just dunes and sand..

The radio crackled a few times and they all heard Noah let out a deep sigh, but the line remained silent and Charley leaned forward a bit, closer to the microphone.

"Noah? We receive you, can you receive us?" Charley asked and Noah's voice echoed inside the tent again after a little static.

"I'm not sure...how to..." The voice on the other end started as everyone tried to prick their ears, to catch better what their Captain was saying but there was static and they all changed looks before they heard Noah's voice again and his voice was just a little off...It sounded weird.

"I mean, Jeremiah, you might need to do a full medical evaluation on me...See if I'm losing my mind here... "

Noah's voice echoed into the air again and as their Captain let out a small chuckle in the end, even if sounding nervous, every crew member briefly gave their doctor a look who was this mild-mannered bald man with wrestler's body and as he only shrugged his shoulders back looking as clueless as all the others everyone started to shoot each other puzzled glances.

"Did the Captain just chuckle?" Isaac asked scratching his neck, sounding incredibly doubtful as yes, it was a very rare thing to witness any kind of cheery emotions coming from Noah.

"Although...I can assure you guys...I've been pinching and hitting myself many times already..." Noah was babbling, and he never babbled.

Charley's heart had started to pound a little faster just like everyone else's she was sure of it, but she carefully leaned forward and to her surprise, her words were still sounding relatively calm even if her level of unease had started to increase a bit. Something was up. Something was wrong. Noah was the most collected person she had ever known, he didn't crack under any pressure, but now... He sounded just weird...But just as she was to ask more, Evelyn leaned over the microphone and her voice had more power and demand than Charley's.

"Noah? Are you okay? What's happened? Is Lucas there with you? Is he okay?!" But the only answer they got was silence and just as Evelyn was to open her mouth again they heard Noah's voice crackling through the static again.

"We're not alone."

That wasn't only a weird thing to say but it completely skipped all the questions and now everyone really started to shift nervously on their places before Zack finally leaned over the microphone.

"Captain, stay there. We're coming for help!"

Now there was a quick answer.

"No, you don't understand... We're not alone."

Zack grabbed the microphone and his voice was filled with determination.

"Captain! We're coming to get you right now! Help is on the way, just stay-"

But the pilots' words faded out as Noah was clearly turning around wherever he was standing at the moment and the crew's eyes were stuck to watch the live footage slowly shift as the space suit's camera was showing red Martian desert, fine sand, dunes...and then the panning stopped and so did briefly everyone's breathing and maybe even their heartbeat. It got quiet. It got very still. Even if the wind was howling outside still, it was quiet in their heads, all their senses stopped working for a brief moment. The only thing they felt was this weird shake in their bodies, in their every cell, in the very core of this complex that made them human. For what they saw on the screen somehow wiped the carpet under the feet of their entire existence.

And they didn't even know what it was they saw. They didn't know what they were looking at. But what they did know was that whatever it was they were looking at, it changed everything. It had already changed everything.

Since right from this moment they needed to find new words, they needed to find new meaning behind life as they knew it, and they needed to find a new way to think and to look at things. They needed to find a new way to define even themselves. It had all been wrong. They had all been wrong. Even their wildest dreams or weirdest stories of their imagination wouldn't have prepared them for what they now saw on the screen.

For what there was lying on the sand, only a few meters away from Noah, was two figures, one slightly taller than the other one, both having two arms, two legs...and what seemed to be a long tail snaking on their side on the sand. These two creatures were clad from head to toes in red camouflage, for some unexplainable reason, not that they could explain anything else that they were currently seeing. Only the arms of these creatures were bare and the astronauts could spot fur, white, and something shifting to ginger...And both of these creatures had a helmet-looking thing on their heads so the humans couldn't see their heads or faces... They had fingers, five of them in both hands, and they wore boots...

They looked surprisingly human. From this angle and via the screen anyway.

Holy shit.

There was life on Mars.

And it wasn't little green men. These seemed more like some sort of big furry mammals...?

Everyone had stayed silent, their eyes glued to the screen, their brains still trying to come back to life, trying to function...As it turned out, one is never really ready to find out there's life outside their own existence.

The radio crackled back to life and it startled everyone in the basecamp as they heard Noah talk to them again.

"Team, I suggest you get your asses here and witness how the world as we know it ceased to exist."

And after a little silence and even if their brains remained hazy and it felt like moving inside a cloud, they headed towards their spacesuit racks, bumping into each other, not really sure anymore was left right or right left. And everyone stayed silent. Joy, awe, anxiety, panic, honor...and utter fear. All these emotions and more were now bundled into one fragile human being now walking on this red planet that had remained a mystery and a dream for centuries for mankind. Were they actually ready for this? Charley raised her eyes to watch the others, all silently putting on their personal spacesuits. Was this actually happening? She could feel her breathing being very shallow, her heart pounding fast, her throat and mouth were dry...

The radio crackled once more, making everyone halt.

"And bring the gun."

Nothing made sense anymore.

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The storm and the blowing sand were bad enough of an obstacle for the soldiers to actually see anything but the smoke from the grenades and guns as well as the fumes from the vehicles made it even worse. Only the lasers and explosions flashed inside this vast thick cloud, making it flicker with different shades of light as it had completely devoured the battle that was at the moment happening out on the plains. The battle between the Freedom Fighters and the Plutarkians with their Sand Raider sidekicks.

Nature was making loud enough wailings but so did the weapons, the explosions, the roaring motorcycles, and creaking and thundering war machines the Plutarkians were using, those vehicles which moved with two long legs, stretching high above the soldiers who were fighting on the ground but luckily the Fighters did have a solution to this height-problem and that was their fire jets that let their bikes jump high up and fly or more likely to have a graceful long rise and fall and from time to time one of the bikes did fire its' jets and soon it was riding the harsh wind and the Fighter either threw a grenade into the cabin of the war machine or jumped there himself into the little cabin, and with sheer force and bare arms knocked the fish face soldier out or threw him over the side to face what was coming to him underneath there, death presumably. But above all the rackett, even if it seemed impossible, rose the ear-deafening sounds of heavy metal the Fighters blasted through their bike's radios. And due to the cheers and the victory cries, it seemed like a chaotic party, a chaotic and senseless party. But as chaotic as it may have seemed from the Fighters' side... every tactic and maneuver was meticulously planned out and executed. The Fighters had been divided into many groups and although Stoker occasionally called out orders and even if they'd gone through the rough idea of a plan days ahead...most of the stuff was improvised or already so planted to the Fighter's brain that he worked like a machine. One learned to think fast or to just simply act fast out on the battlefields.

The battle had gone long enough even if no one could tell just how long... but it seemed that the Fighters had gotten the upper hand in this battle, the sandstorm did help also, it made their attacks that much harder to tell and predict, the Plutarkians or the Sand Raiders didn't know what was coming at them before the grenade already exploded before them or they felt the shot or the plain fist in their eye socket. The enemy used a radar just like the Fighters, but even the radars couldn't really place these rebels on their fast bikes who just seemed to appear from the smoke and dust, from nowhere. That had been Stoker's idea to get the motorcycles in the first place, these powerful, weaponry-heavy machines were fast and agile, and were a definite advantage. And Stoker was puzzled how the Army didn't invest in bikes or hadn't done so after witnessing many times just how much superior it was out there in the desert and combats. But, he didn't really trouble his brain too much with those thoughts, if the Army wanted to walk and move with big trucks then, by all means, it was only their planet they were to save here... Just another reason why he had left the Army, they were too rigid of an establishment to see into the future and change with it, or even better: to actually change the future which right now didn't seem too rosy for the Martians. Too bad the Fighters kinda needed the Army still, to be able to even consider winning this war...Yes, they were having the upper hand now but there just wasn't enough Fighters to fight for the invader race which had brought thousands and thousands of ugly-looking scale faces to this planet...And the Fighters were good, amazing even, some might even say legends, but even they knew they couldn't win this all by themselves. They could always win a battle, heck they've done so numerous times, but they could never win the war, not just by themselves. They could only buy time, and even that wasn't in their favor as the invaders were slowly getting their fins onto bigger and bigger portions of the lands. Time would run out at some point.

As Stoker now fired into this thick smoke where the radar showed there would be a row of Sand Raiders' sand buggies and soon enough there were explosions as his shots hadn't missed the targets... As they rarely did. He wasn't a legend for no reason. He was the best. But as a pleased murmur escaped his mouth after another excellent shot and one enemy soldier was out of the game, a sudden thought came to his mind that without all this smoke, Harley could witness just how great he actually was... and there it was, the thought that now hit him like a hammer. Harley was still missing. He swallowed, feeling the uneasiness spreading now all over his body. They had been fighting already for how long now and he had completely lost the track of time, war did that to even the best of 'em... If Harley really needed the help, she would have been waiting too long already... Stoker pressed a few buttons on his bike's dashboard as he swayed and dodged a big war machine that was ready to stomp him into death, that just appeared from the thick clouds, from nowhere, as Stoker had been too busy with his thoughts to really pay attention to the radar and see what was going on around him. A big mistake during the war.

"Shit...!" He cursed as the bike swayed and it took all his strength to keep it still up and dashing through the smoke, through the battlefield, hearing his comrades cheering, hearing the loud heavy metal and the firing, the explosions, the ground shaking underneath his bike, the desert trying to swallow him up with every turn... It was dangerous to let his thoughts fly around during a battle but he couldn't help it now that Harley had entered his mind. If something happened to her...

But he was the Commander, he couldn't really leave the scene and go after their mechanic/medic...Even if the battle started to slow down just a bit... Many of the Sand Raiders had already turned and ran away with their buggies it seemed... A wise move. Luckily they'd encountered a smaller battalion of Plutarkians, they could actually win this battle...Stoker's lips curled slightly but he turned gloomy again. It would take maybe hours still before this battle was wrapped and who knows, the battle could have a turn to the worse... One never knew about the war, nothing was certain, a blink of an eye and all could be lost, a blink of an eye and one could end up dead. So, the last thing he needed right now was a wondering mind, he was responsible for each of his men, gods forbid... But he wanted to know Harley was okay as well, he wanted Harley back safe, someone had to go and get her and check why she didn't answer the calls. Someone he trusted as he couldn't be the one to the rescue himself.

"Throttle!"

"Hey, boss-man, what's up?" Throttle's raw and husky voice cracked through the radio.

"Meet me on the hill, A-19. Take the Big Guy with you."

"Copy that, chief."

Stoker revved his bike and turned quickly around and then gassed off away from the scene of destruction and up the hill, a place where he could gather his thoughts briefly and send a couple of his men to a new assignment.

As he stopped his bike on the hill, Throttle drove up there soon after him and hit the breaks to park his motorcycle next to Stoker.

"A new battle plan, Commander?" Throttle asked as soon as he opened up his visor as did Stoker and they both drew their bandanas to cover their snouts from the whirling sands.

"Yes, for you and Big Fella'..." Stoker started but turned his attention on the big grey male who just now drove to them and the first thing he did was that he opened his purple visor and started to spit blood on the sand.

"Those bloody two-faced Sand Raiders..." His low voice had an ominous low growl as he wiped his mouth but after glancing at his purple biker glove which had turned to red, he gently and carefully touched his chipped front incisor, realizing just now there was a piece missing and his face became grim. His eyes narrowed as he gritted his teeth.

"...just wait 'til Ah get my hands on you, you mangy prairie dogs...! Let's see how well you'll be eating without any of ya teeth!" He raised his voice, shouting towards the scene of the battle.

Stoker huffed.

"Easy there big guy...Let's face it, you weren't a Prince Charming anyway." Stoker chuckled still and Modo stopped touching his chipped tooth and gave the Commander a bored look back and Throttle thought to step between there.

"So, what's the new plan, chief?"

"The new plan is that you and Modo go get Harley...and the kid." Stoker stated while his eyes moved back to the battle, his two brown eyes were moving and clearly keeping track of how the Fighters were doing, even if it was hard to tell because it was hard to see through the smoke and dust.

"Wait, you want us to leave you guys to fight without us?!" Modo blurted out as he couldn't believe what he was hearing, the chipped front tooth was already forgotten. There was a battle going on. And Fighters always fought alongside their brothers, one for all and all for one, right?

"Well, I don't really want but that's what needs to happen here, rookies."

"No offense, coach, but we're outnumbered here... You really think it's a wise move to send us away now?" Thorttle asked, leaning against the handlebars.

"I reckon this battle will be over in no time... But that's exactly what Harley might not have, time. So, you'll go and check that everything's okay... That they're safe and when you find her and Vinnie, you go back to the Headquarters." Stoker talked without looking at the two of his Fighters who were sharing confused looks.

"C'mon, Stoker..." Throttle sighed but Stoker already closed his visor again.

"That was an order."

Throttle let out another sigh and gave Modo a glance who returned the doubtful look back but the grey giant then spitted blood once more on the desert sand and closed his helmet's visor again. He gladly let Throttle and Stoker discuss the details.

Throttle was to make another comment before Stoker would just ride off but they all three noticed something in the corner of their eyes and as they all turned their heads away from the battle, they saw what appeared to be dozens of truck driving towards the battlefield.

"Oh, good. It's the government's golden boys that decided to dust their uniforms and join in on the battle at last..." Stoker muttered.

"Well, if we would just send the Army the coordinates of where the party is..." Throttle mumbled, knowing that his reply was a cheeky one.

"The Army wouldn't find the enemy fast enough even if we drew a treasure map for them..." Stoker muttered but then revved his bike.

"Anyway, I'm gonna go and pay a little visit to my ol' friend Sergeant Scabbard... Tell him a few facts straight along with putting him up to date here... You two..." Stoker pointed at the two Fighters.

"...go get Harley and bring her back safely. No necessary risks, no stupid stunts. We'll deal with the Earthlings later..."

And Stoker hit the pedal and soon the bike was already far away, driving towards the Army battalion.

Throttle shook his head but revved his bike.

"C'mon, bro... Let's go get the damsel in distress."

"Yeah and Harley, too..." Modo chuckled not willing to pass this joke, and Throttle let out small laughter, shaking his head while they gassed off to the other direction, away from the battle.

"Real bad..."

"Ya laughed."

"Out of pity."

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