Same old song and dance: I own some, I borrowed some, I'm broke either way, so don't bother suing me, 'cause you can't get blood from a parsnip (I borrowed that, too). Thanx so much to everyone who read & reviewed Part One. If you want to make me really happy, R&R this part, too!

Before anyone asks, the people who live in Canis are kats, too -- not some other species that looks like dogs.
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Maggie sat at the old, scarred wooden table in her Uncle Matthew's kitchen, staring listlessly into a cup of lukewarm instant coffee. The digital clock by the sink read 3:19 am in glaring red letters. She had been awake for almost an hour now.

At least Uncle Matt had -- miraculously -- not been awakened by her screaming. The kindly old kat would have no doubt struggled into his wheelchair and rushed to see what was wrong -- and company, right now, was the last thing Maggie wanted. The nightmare turned itself over and over again in her mind, every accusing detail gnawing at her heart.

*If only . . . .* Maggie shook the thought away, but it persisted. The list of "if only's" went on for miles. If only she had examined the weapons schematics more closely; if only the Enforcers had been in less of a hurry to get the new planes in the air; if only the defense contractor hadn't been so quick to comply, sacrificing safety for shoddy designs and engineering.

If only someone had known the truth about MegaKat Defense Systems. As soon as they had received payment for the planes, the company had quickly and silently disbanded. Even as Hurricane Squadron had been taking off for their fateful battle, the owners and CEOs of M.K.D.S. had been making tracks for any nation with no extradition treaty, leaving the Enforcers with their finest squadron dead -- and no one to blame.

As for Maggie . . .she shuddered. The battle had been over Canine-occupied territory, and she had ejected right into the enemy's hands. What had followed was seven weeks in the hands of the Canine Intelligence Agency, weeks when she had never been sure the next day wouldn't see her shot for espionage. Heaven only knew how many hours of CIA questioning it had taken before they decided she wasn't a spy.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, the war had been over. Fearing the greater numbers of the enemy, Canis had called a cease-fire and negotiated a truce. Maggie, no longer a prisoner- of-war, had returned home, relieved to be out of the frying pan.

She had, of course, jumped right into the fire.

The top brass at Enforcers HQ had made a grievous mistake by hiring M.K.D.S., and they had been left with no one to blame but themselves. Under intense scrutiny from the public and the media, they had cast about anxiously for someone -- anyone -- that they could use as a scapegoat.

*And I was who they found.* Maggie thought wryly, taking a drink of the now-cold coffee. She traced an aimless design on the tabletop with one claw. *At least my father wasn't there to see it.*

She looked up, regretfully, at the row of photographs on the kitchen counter. There was her father on his first day as an Enforcer, proudly saluting the camera, his face serious but his eyes laughing. Next to that was her mother and father together, leaning against the classic Katillac that had been Daddy's pride and joy. Her mother's paws rested protectively on an obviously-pregnant stomach; her father's paws rested protectively on her mother and the car. The third photograph was of her father and Uncle Matt, younger and not as gray, seated together at the same table where Maggie now sat. The fourth was of the three of them -- she, her father, and Uncle Matthew, taken on her fifth birthday. Maggie's own bright eyes stared back at her from the photo, eyes the same shade of green as the eyes of the mother she had never known.

The last photograph was Maggie on the day she had graduated from the Flight Academy - - seven long years ago. Her pose mimicked that of her father -- a smile in her eyes and a proud salute. The only difference was the insignia affixed to her collar. While her father had worked his way up from a recruit, earning the rank of Brigadier General after years of service, Maggie had gone through the Flight Academy, emerging as a fully-commissioned officer -- a Second Lieutenant. At nineteen, she had been one of the youngest she-kats ever to hold the rank.

"It wasn't surprising, was it, Daddy?" Maggie asked the photo of her father. "You raised me to love the sky." *And part of me,* she added silently, *Always will.*

Her intense love of the air and aircraft had been nurtured from an early age by her father, who was delighted that his daughter shared his passion. When she had decided to enter the Flight Academy at seventeen, a year earlier than was customary, he had supported her wholeheartedly. And no one had been prouder when she had finished the three-year program in two years -- amidst whispers that her father's ties to the top brass had earned her rapid promotions. Maggie had ignored them. There wasn't any truth in the rumors, anyway -- her father had not been that kind of kat.

What he had been was a loving, proud, and devoted father, one whose death had come as a shock to everyone who knew him -- one who Maggie still missed terribly. *But at least,* she thought sadly, *At least he never saw how badly I disgraced his name.* Maggie stood up, trying to avoid the knowing gleam in the eyes of her father. *I'm sorry, Dad.* She thought. *Maybe I just wasn't cut out to be an Enforcer, after all.*

She dumped her ice-cold coffee in the sink and went to try and go back to sleep.




TWO DAYS LATER

"This is going to work for sure." Jake tightened yet another bolt in the Dodge's engine, then stepped back. "Okay, try it now."

Chance nodded and turned the key in the ignition. The engine coughed, turned over, spluttered to life -- and then promptly died.

"Crud!" Jake thumped the hood angrily.

"Take it easy, buddy." Chance said calmly. "Let's try one more thing."

"I've been trying 'one more thing' for two hours." Jake grumbled. " What the heck is wrong with this hunk of junk ? It was purring like a kitten last night."

"Bad starter?" Chance suggested.

"Tried it." Jake said. Then he yawned.

"Fuel injector?"

"Checked it."

"Spark plugs?"

"Brand new." He rubbed the back of his neck in puzzlement. "What the heck is wrong?" He repeated.

Chance looked down at the car's dash, frowned, and tapped an indicator light with one claw. "Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you check the battery?"

Jake's eyes widened and he slapped his forehead. "Aw, crud! I must have left the lights on when I quit working on it last night!"

Chance rolled his eyes. "That'd do it, all right." He shot a concerned look at his partner as he stepped out of the car. "Jake, how late were you up last night?"

"We - ell . . ." Jake broke the word into two hesitant syllables, then murmured something incoherent.

"What was that?" Chance crossed his arms and glared at Jake, who looked sheepish.

"I said," Jake admitted, "Until three-thirty."

"What!?" Chance scowled. "You were up at six-thirty this morning!"

"Yeah, tell me about it." Jake said, staring at the car. "I could have sworn I turned the lights off."

"Well, three hours shouldn't have been enough to kill the battery." Chance glared. "And three hours of sleep isn't enough for you to be running on."

"Well, I actually only worked on this until about ten o'clock --then I went down to work on the Turbokat. I remember I replaced that smashed headlight before I headed for the hangar . . .I must have left the lights on after I checked it." Jake forced a smile. "I got the Turbokat working again, though."

Chance ignored the change of subject. "So tell me something, hotshot," Chance said, leaning back against the car, "What if Viper shows up today?"

"Huh?" Jake looked puzzled.

"Viper. You know, *Doctor* Viper? Short green kat with fangs and a tail? Or how about the Metallikats? What if they decide to drop in?"

Jake frowned. "I told you, I got the Turbokat working again. We can handle it if anything comes up."

"Can we?" Chance's tail twitched in exasperation. "What if you're so tired you can't see the weapons display?"

"C'mon, Chance, it was only last night." Jake said. "Don't worry about it."

"I *am* gonna worry about it." Chance said, "And do you know why?"

Jake sighed. "I don't know, Chance. Why?"

"Because with you it's never 'only last night' or 'just this once'. Whenever you've got work to do you obsess over it until it gets done."

Jake crossed his arms. "I do *not* obsess."

Chance stared at him without saying anything.

"Okay, maybe I obsess a little." Another glare. "Or a lot."

"That's better." Chance sighed. "Okay, the truth. How many nights have you been staying up late?"

"Um . . . ." Jake stared at his feet. "Three?"

Chance threw up his paws. "I give up. I live with a workaholic, and that's just the way it is."

"Aw, Chance, cut it out." Jake would have said more, but the sentence was cut off by an enormous yawn.

"Okay, that's it." Chance left the garage and headed for the kitchen.

"That's what?" Jake followed him into the smaller room, where he found his friend rooting through the drawers. "What are you looking for?"

"Phone book."

"It's over on the counter -- by the phone."

Chance stopped rooting and looked up. "Oh." He crossed the room and grabbed the book. "Where's that notepad you were using on Saturday?"

"In the top drawer." Jake yawned again. "Would you please tell me what you're doing?"

Chance thumbed through the phone book. "I'm calling the Times."

"Um . . . mind if I ask why?"

"Because," Chance said, dialing, "We're going to place that want ad you wrote."



"It's not that I don't love this apartment, Uncle Matt." Maggie explained. The Megakat City Times littered the kitchen table between them. "But I can't live here."

"And why not?" He spread his paws. "You would not be imposing."

"Are you mad?" Mrs. Dayport, Matthew's next-door neighbor and part-time caregiver, spoke up. "Two Blackclaws in one house? You'd drive me straight to the bottle, that's for sure." The brisk, portly she-kat gave the dish she was holding an extra-vigorous scrub. "Besides, Matthew, she's no longer a kitten. Her own place and her own life is what she needs, not you always nagging her."

"Me?" Matthew looked shocked. "Me, nagging? Tell me this, Valerie -- which of us is always complaining when there's dirty socks on the living room floor?"

"And which of us," Valerie countered, "Is always the one throwing them there? If you didn't drive me to the bottle, no doubt you'd drive Maggie off the wall. Cleanliness may be next to Godliness, Matthew, but for you, it's next to impossible."

"All right, you two, all right." Maggie laughed. "Call a truce, please. I nearly flunked Negotiation Tactics, so I probably won't be able to talk you out of strangling each other."

Matthew laughed as well. "Whatever you say, ketsele. Come, then, and let us find you a job."

"What about this one?" Valerie asked, drying her paws on a dishrag as she moved to the table. She pointed. "There. I read it in my husband's copy of the paper this morning."

WANTED: ONE MECHANIC FOR IMMEDIATE EMPLOYMENT. PAYMENT NEGOTIABLE, APARTMENT AVAILABLE. MUST HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH ALL MAKES AND MODELS OF CAR AND BE WILLING TO WORK AT UNUSUAL HOURS. APPLY IN PERSON AT JAKE & CHANCE'S GARAGE.

"Looks promising to me." Matthew said, as he finished reading it. "We could kill two birds with one stone, as they say."

Maggie laughed. "A minute ago you couldn't bear to part with me. Now you can't wait for me to leave."

"Oh, you know what I meant, ketsele!" He said. He reached out and put his paw on Maggie's shoulder. "You will always be welcome in my home."

Maggie smiled thankfully. "I know." Then she looked back to the ad. "Well, this is as good a place to start as any. Where is this garage, anyway?"

"On the south side of town." Valerie said. "Out on the very edge of the city limits."

Maggie frowned. "The scrapyard? I thought Burke Lindsay and Murray O'Rourke ran that place for the Enforcers."

"I don't know about that," Valerie replied, drying off a casserole dish, "A couple of kats named Jake Clawson and Chance Furlong run it now. Nice boys." She smiled. "They fixed my Honda when it was making that awful chunking noise last year."

"Clawson and Furlong?" Maggie repeated. "Are you sure?"

"Do you know them?" Valerie asked.

"Not exactly." Maggie said, confused. "They were in the academy two years behind me. A real pair of hotshots, from what I remember. They would have graduated about a year before . . . well, before the Desert War. I would think they'd be pretty high in the ranks by now."

"Well, they're not." Valerie said. "They're mechanics, now days. I wonder what happened?"

Maggie shrugged and folded the paper. "I don't know. But it sounds to me like I'm not the only kat in town who's had a falling out with the Enforcers." She grinned. "I've got a feeling I'm going to like these kats."

"Are you going, then?" Matthew asked.

"Yep." Maggie gave him a quick hug and headed for the door. "I'll be back later."

Matthew smiled at Valerie as the door closed. "Ah, for the days when she was still a kitten on my lap."

Valerie sighed sentimentally. "Nothing lasts forever, Matthew."

"I know." He glanced for a moment at the photographs on the kitchen counter. "I had higher hopes for her that this -- looking for a job as an auto mechanic. I thought she would be making a difference . . . ."

"Matthew!" Valerie chided. "Don't you ever think that way about Maggie! That she's happy is all that matters. She doesn't have to be an Enforcer to make a difference."

Matthew nodded and smiled. "You're right, of course. Where would I be without you to keep me on track, Valerie?"

She smiled at her old friend. "Neck-deep in trouble, no doubt. Come on, help me finish these dishes."


Chance wiped his forehead on the back of his arm and stepped back. "Well, one more down." He remarked.

"Yeah, and only three more to go." Jake commented from under the hood of a Buick.

"We're doing better than we were a week ago." Chance said. "Even with the two Enforcer cars we had to work on yesterday."

"The ones that absolutely, positively, had to be done overnight." Jake added. "Let's hope that doesn't happen again anytime soon." The phone broke in on the conversation, and he groaned. "Please tell me that isn't going to be Feral."


"This isn't going to be Feral." Chance said, striding towards the phone. He picked up. "Jake and Chance's garage."

He listened intently for a while, then sighed. "Okay, bring them out." Hanging up the phone, he returned to the side of the Buick. "Good news."

Jake sighed and kept his head under the hood. "Please tell me that wasn't Feral."

"That wasn't Feral." Chance said, leaning against the car. "That was Rob O'Malley."

"Oh." Jake looked up. O'Malley was in charge of the Enforcers Street Division, the branch of Enforcers who served as traffic officers and beat cops. "Do I want to know?"

"Not really, but I'm going to tell you anyway."

"Gee, thanks." Jake said sarcastically.

"Three squad cars got involved in a traffic pileup on the expressway this morning. Two of 'em just need some body work, but the third one . . . ."

"Let me guess." Jake said. "They're gonna send us the pieces in a dump truck and let us worry about figuring out what goes where."

"Bingo." Chance groaned. "Back to square one."

Jake straightened up and closed the hood. "Remind me why we took this job?"

"Because we crashed a top-of-the-line aircraft and owe the government more money than either one of us has ever even seen ." Chance said.

"Oh, yeah. Right."

From outside came the sound of a well-tuned engine as something approached the scrapyard. Chance and Jake exchanged puzzled looks as they watched a black-and-silver road cycle with a single rider pull up.

"You expecting company?"

"No," Jake shook his head. "Are you?"

"Nope." Chance headed for the open garage doors. "Guess we'd better see what's up."

The bike's rider dismounted and pulled her helmet off as Jake followed Chance into the front yard.


A pretty, slender she-kat with sand-colored fur stood by the bike, long black hair tousled from the helmet. Dark, penetrating green eyes examined the scrapyard, the battered garage, and the two kats before her. She twitched her tail and grinned tentatively.

"Hi." Maggie said. "Are you Jake and Chance?"

"Yeah." Chance said. "I'm Chance and this," he jerked his thumb at his partner, "Is Jake."

"Hi." Jake grinned, stepping forward. "Nice bike. You need some work done on it?"

Maggie recognized the lurking look of an inventor anxious to examine a new machine. "No, thanks. Any work on this baby is done by yours truly alone."

"Oh." Jake said. He looked the bike over. "Is it custom?"

"You bet." Maggie beamed. "Put her together myself."

Jake bent down to look at the exposed parts of the bike's engine. "What kind of horsepower . . . ."

"Sorry to interrupt," Chance cut him off before he became too involved in a discussion about engines. "But why are you here?"

"Oh." Maggie set her helmet down on the seat and pulled a scrap of newspaper out of her pocket. "You guys still looking for a mechanic?"

Chance exchanged a glance with Jake. "Are you looking for a job?"

Maggie grinned and extended a paw to Chance, who shook it. "Maggie Blackclaw at your service. If katkind built it, I can fix it, and I'll work anywhere at any time for anyone."

Before either of them could reply, two badly dented squad cars rolled up, followed -- as Jake had predicted -- by a dump truck full of parts.

Chance and Jake glanced at the truck, then at Maggie, then at each other.

"When can you start?"


TBC


Okay, there you go! R&R, please, and I'll have part three up soon! -- Skybright