Finally, finally, finally! And it only took me THREE MONTHS (A pox on Chemistry homework! A pox on English!)
Y'all know the drill: I don't own 'em, I'm not making money, please read & review.
Special thanxes go out to Rayene Entei and Jane Silver (your reviews got me off my tail and writing again!)
********************************************************************************
"I am I, Don Quixote, the looord of LaManxa . . . ." Jake's voice echoed from the kitchen downstairs. "My des-ti-ny calls and I gooo . . ."
Maggie rolled her eyes and finished running a brush through her thick dark hair. "When I took this job," She muttered, "Nobody told me one of my housemates had a thing for musicals."
The bright sunlight of an August morning shone through the window, illuminating the patchwork quilt and other homey touched Maggie had added in her two months of residence. It had been an interesting two months, to say the least.
True to her prediction, Maggie really liked working at the garage. It had been too long since she'd let herself be friends with anyone. Jake and Chance were the best friends she had made since leaving the Enforcers nearly four years earlier.
Of course, adjusting to her new surroundings hadn't all been sweetness and light. For one thing, Maggie had been living on her own for so long, she'd forgotten what it was like to have another kat around. Things like Chance's Scaredy-Kat addiction, Jake's fondness for musicals, and the habit they both had of leaving socks and empty milk cans on the floor, had taken a lot of getting used to. Not to mention the way they had of sometimes disappearing without a trace, only to reappear hours later, exhausted and grinning like they'd just won the Indykat-500. Or the glances that sometimes passed between the two of them, followed by an abrupt change in conversation. Or Jake's habit of bumping his feet in the middle of the night and making enough noise to raise the dead. Or . . . .
Well, the list went on.
Among the things that had puzzled Maggie at first was "the noise". The first time she had heard it, she'd been in the shower. Maggie had assumed that the dull, screaming roar she'd heard had something to do with the hot water pipes — plumbing wasn't her strong point — until she had heard it again, two weeks later. She'd been in the study that time, and had glanced out the window just in time to spot what looked like a Wraith-class jet fighter soar between her and the morning sun. That had prompted her to ask Jake later that afternoon.
"Oh, that." He had explained, sticking his head out from under a Katillac. "The, uh, Enforcers run a lot of test flights out in the Megakat desert. That's probably what you heard. It happens a lot."
After a while "the noise" had joined Scaredy-Kat and "The Kat of LaManxa" as one of those things she just accepted about life at the scrapyard.
Th Swat Kats had made a few appearances since her arrival — breaking up a catnip ring, taking out a big-league mobster, and knocking out a pair of crooks called the Metallikats — who, Maggie learned from a visit to the library, were experimental robots containing the personalities of Max and Molly Mange.
That was one of Maggie's small hobbies — visiting the library to piece together information about the vigilantes. Since, as her uncle had told her sagely, "Everyone in MKC has a theory about who they are," Maggie couldn't see any reason that she shouldn't form a theory of her own.
Before she could begin to think about that, though, Jake thumped a few times on the kitchen ceiling — Maggie's floor — with the handle of a broom (his own patented method of getting her attention).
"Hey, Maggie!" He shouted through the floor. "If you want any breakfast, you'd better get down here — you know how Chance is about omelettes!" That said, he launched into a chorus from "South Pacific."
"There ain't nothing like a dame . . . ."
Maggie grinned in surrender as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail. "Some days, I'd really like to get my hands on Rodgers and Hammerkat."
******************
"So," Maggie asked as she finished washing the last of an omelette off of her plate, "What's on the agenda for today?"
"Well," Chance said, leaning back, "I've gotta go scouting for a part for that old Katswagen — the only place in town that sells 'em charges an arm and a tail. You wanna lend a paw?"
"Sure." Maggie agreed, drying her paws on a dishtowel. "Let's go scrap hunting."
Maggie straightened up, brushing rust and dirt off of her paws. "Nothing over here."
"Or here." Chance answered, emerging from behind a pile of rotting parts. "Guess we'll keep looking."
"Yeah . . ." Maggie's voice trailed off as something caught her eye. "Hey, look at this!" She pounced on a square silver part about the size of a grapefruit and held it up, grinning.
"What is it?" Chance asked, taking it from her to examine it.
"It's an Engine Management Processor from a Talon-class jet fighter. Takes all the commands that the pilot feeds the propulsion systems, organizes them according to priority, and sends them to the engines. It also monitors engine status and divides the workload according to how much each engine can take."
"Whoa." Chance said, handing the part back to her. "You sure?"
"I should be," Maggie replied. "I designed the thing." She held it up again. "This is probably worth a lot of money . . . hey!" She bent to retrieve another part. "This is part of the ejection system from a Talon. And that over there looks like a part of the weapons board!" She held up the two parts. "This is high-level classified stuff, Chance — or it was, four years ago."
"Well, this *is* a military scrapyard." Chance noted. "You should see some of the weird stuff Jake and I have found."
"I'll bet." Maggie turned in a slow circle, looking around. "There's a lot of parts from Talon-class fighters lying around here. They must have dumped the prototypes here after the first squadron went down." Her eyes lit up. "I'll bet you we could build an entire plane out of this stuff!"
Chance laughed. "Are you kidding? Build a jet fighter out of spare parts?"
Maggie grinned. "I guess you're right. It is kind of farfetched." She dropped the parts. "Come on, let's find that part for the Katswagen."
But an idea had started forming in her mind . . . .
******************
Maggie sat at the drafting desk in the study, staring absently at the sheets of blueprint paper spread out before her. It had been a long time since she'd thought about *the planes* as anything more than the event that ruined her career, but still . . . .
Grabbing a pencil, she began to tentatively trace the outline of a Talon-class fighter. Her photographic memory slowly began to kick in, revealing the schematics for a missile here, an exhaust outtake there . . . and the more she drew the more she remembered. On to the engine, now . . . . As she drew, Maggie began to remember, not just the schematics, but the days after the Desert War had ended.
****
"Major Margaret Blackclaw?" The Enforcer MP was tall, black, and surly, towering over Maggie's desk. She looked up at him.
"Yes?"
"You are under arrest by order of the Enforcers General Court."
Maggie, astonished, glanced from the MP to the Sergeant she had been talking to, and back to the MP again. "On what charge?"
"The charges are Espionage, Sabotage, and Criminal Negligence. And I'd suggest," He growled, "That you come along peacefully."
****
"Order!" The presiding officer brought his gavel down with a crack. "This Court Martial is now in session. Margaret Blackclaw, you are charged with Espionage, Sabotage, Incorrect Design Procedure, and Criminal Negligence resulting in the untimely deaths of five Enforcers. How do you plead?"
"Innocent, sir."
The courtroom erupted into murmurs. A reporter's flashbulb went off, and the presiding officer brought the gavel down again. "Order! Get that camera out of here!"
Maggie closed her eyes. It was going to be a long month.
****
Actually, it had been the longest month of her life. The Enforcers had finally found a way to pass the blame for Hurricane Squadron's destruction — by charging that it was the engines, not the weapons, that had failed in the critical moment. Most of their "evidence" for those claims was pure malarkey, but they were determined to make it stick. And the arrogant, self- righteous attitude of the prosecutor — A Colonel Feral — hadn't made the ordeal any easier.
"Margaret Blackclaw, step forward please." The presiding officer stood. "Major Blackclaw, after secret and unanimous ballot, this panel finds you . . . ." He held up a sheet of paper.
"Of the charge of Espionage: not guilty.
"Of the charge of Sabotage: not guilty.
"Of the charge of Incorrect Design Procedure: not guilty.
"And, Major Blackclaw, for not insisting that all elements of the Talon-class fighters be thoroughly tested before allowing your squadron to fly them in battle — of the charge of Criminal Negligence, this General Court Martial finds the accused, Margaret Blackclaw:
"Guilty, on all counts."
The courtroom once again exploded, and yet another flashbulb went off.
"Order! Sentencing to commence as follows; that the accused be stripped of her rank and dishonorably discharged from the ranks of the Megakat Enforcers. Sentence to be carried out as soon as possible."
****
*And carried out it was,* Maggie thought, putting the finishing touches on the engine designs. *All for following my orders.* She turned to a new sheet of blueprint paper and started in on the cockpit.
Midnight saw Maggie putting the last few touches on the blueprints. Satisfied, she leaned back to regard what she had done.
"Well, what on earth am I ever going to do with this?" She rolled up the sheets of paper and fastened them with a rubber band. "Other than building a plane in my spare time? Doubt I'd have much use for it." She grinned. "Chalk it up to my overactive engineer's mind."
Glancing at the clock on the bookshelf, Maggie shook her head. "I'm never going to get to sleep when I'm this worked up." She stood, stretching. "Maybe some warm milk will help."
****
Maggie crept downstairs, carefully avoiding the groaning board in the second step. One foot on that would be more than enough to wake up Chance, who was a light sleeper.
She paused when she saw light streaming from the kitchen, then shook her head in gentle exasperation. "No wonder our electric bill is so high. This is what you get when you put two bachelor kats in the same house." However, as she drew closer, she could catch the sound of voices. Puzzled — what were Jake and Chance doing up this late? — she crept up next to the door and listened in.
"I'm telling you, Jake, Maggie's about *this* far from figuring it out."
"Aw, Chance. It's been two months. Why don't you relax?"
"You didn't hear her out there today. She wasn't just kidding about building a plane — she *meant* it, I could tell. And the way she knew what all those parts were for . . . ." The clock in the hall chimed 12:30, wiping out a fragment of the conversation.
" . . . Enforcer?" Jake sounded incredulous. "Chance, do you really believe that?"
"Well, how do we know she *isn't* working for Feral?" Chance's voice challenged. "You know what'll happen if he figures it out."
Maggie's eyebrows arched. Her? Working for *Feral*? About as likely as Manx growing a backbone.
She brushed her bangs out of her eyes and pushed the door open.
Jake and Chance stopped in mid-sentence, watching her uncertainly. Maggie grinned, trying to lighten the awkward moment. "You two look like the kittens who got caught with the canary."
Jake laughed. "Well, you *did* interrupt our top-secret plans for world domination."
"As long as it's nothing major." Maggie reached into the fridge and pulled out a can of milk. She could feel the glances passing between her roommates as she went through the motions of warming up the drink. Finally, she turned, a steaming mug in hand. "I have a confession to make." She took a seat at the kitchen table, opposite Chance and Jake. "I'm not just a mechanic."
"You're a secret agent." Jake quipped.
"Not quite." Maggie glanced between the two kats. "Do either of you remember when Hurricane squadron crashed, near the end of the Desert War?"
"Vaguely." Jake said, wrinkling his brow. "It's kind of blurry."
"I remember." Chance said. "Scott Lewis was a friend of my older brother."
"You remember later that year, in May? The trial?"
"Are you kidding?" Jake rolled his eyes. "I had finals to study for. I was in total media isolation."
"I wasn't." Chance said. "Feral and the General Court tried to pin the whole thing on the squadron leader . . ." Something seemed to click. "Wait a minute! That was you!"
"That was me." Maggie agreed, taking a drink of her milk.
"Whoa." Jake interrupted. "Can we back up?"
Maggie laughed softly, and then began to relate the events that had taken her from leading Hurricane Squadron to seeking work as a mechanic. The milk was cold by the time she'd finished.
"Guess we're not the only Enforcers to get a raw deal." Chance growled.
"No kidding. "Jake shot a significant look at Chance, who nodded and cleared his throat.
"Look, Maggie . . ." He began. "Jake and I have a confession to make, too."
Maggie leaned back in her chair and took a calm drink of milk.
"Does this have anything to do with you guys being the Swat Kats?"
Dunh-dunh- DAA (dramatic swell of music). Fade to black . . .
Voice-over:
Swat Kats is brought to you by . . .
Kat Mandu Iced Tea
When you need the refreshment of the Himalayas, reach for Kat Mandu!
Swat Kats will return after these messages.
Y'all know the drill: I don't own 'em, I'm not making money, please read & review.
Special thanxes go out to Rayene Entei and Jane Silver (your reviews got me off my tail and writing again!)
********************************************************************************
"I am I, Don Quixote, the looord of LaManxa . . . ." Jake's voice echoed from the kitchen downstairs. "My des-ti-ny calls and I gooo . . ."
Maggie rolled her eyes and finished running a brush through her thick dark hair. "When I took this job," She muttered, "Nobody told me one of my housemates had a thing for musicals."
The bright sunlight of an August morning shone through the window, illuminating the patchwork quilt and other homey touched Maggie had added in her two months of residence. It had been an interesting two months, to say the least.
True to her prediction, Maggie really liked working at the garage. It had been too long since she'd let herself be friends with anyone. Jake and Chance were the best friends she had made since leaving the Enforcers nearly four years earlier.
Of course, adjusting to her new surroundings hadn't all been sweetness and light. For one thing, Maggie had been living on her own for so long, she'd forgotten what it was like to have another kat around. Things like Chance's Scaredy-Kat addiction, Jake's fondness for musicals, and the habit they both had of leaving socks and empty milk cans on the floor, had taken a lot of getting used to. Not to mention the way they had of sometimes disappearing without a trace, only to reappear hours later, exhausted and grinning like they'd just won the Indykat-500. Or the glances that sometimes passed between the two of them, followed by an abrupt change in conversation. Or Jake's habit of bumping his feet in the middle of the night and making enough noise to raise the dead. Or . . . .
Well, the list went on.
Among the things that had puzzled Maggie at first was "the noise". The first time she had heard it, she'd been in the shower. Maggie had assumed that the dull, screaming roar she'd heard had something to do with the hot water pipes — plumbing wasn't her strong point — until she had heard it again, two weeks later. She'd been in the study that time, and had glanced out the window just in time to spot what looked like a Wraith-class jet fighter soar between her and the morning sun. That had prompted her to ask Jake later that afternoon.
"Oh, that." He had explained, sticking his head out from under a Katillac. "The, uh, Enforcers run a lot of test flights out in the Megakat desert. That's probably what you heard. It happens a lot."
After a while "the noise" had joined Scaredy-Kat and "The Kat of LaManxa" as one of those things she just accepted about life at the scrapyard.
Th Swat Kats had made a few appearances since her arrival — breaking up a catnip ring, taking out a big-league mobster, and knocking out a pair of crooks called the Metallikats — who, Maggie learned from a visit to the library, were experimental robots containing the personalities of Max and Molly Mange.
That was one of Maggie's small hobbies — visiting the library to piece together information about the vigilantes. Since, as her uncle had told her sagely, "Everyone in MKC has a theory about who they are," Maggie couldn't see any reason that she shouldn't form a theory of her own.
Before she could begin to think about that, though, Jake thumped a few times on the kitchen ceiling — Maggie's floor — with the handle of a broom (his own patented method of getting her attention).
"Hey, Maggie!" He shouted through the floor. "If you want any breakfast, you'd better get down here — you know how Chance is about omelettes!" That said, he launched into a chorus from "South Pacific."
"There ain't nothing like a dame . . . ."
Maggie grinned in surrender as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail. "Some days, I'd really like to get my hands on Rodgers and Hammerkat."
******************
"So," Maggie asked as she finished washing the last of an omelette off of her plate, "What's on the agenda for today?"
"Well," Chance said, leaning back, "I've gotta go scouting for a part for that old Katswagen — the only place in town that sells 'em charges an arm and a tail. You wanna lend a paw?"
"Sure." Maggie agreed, drying her paws on a dishtowel. "Let's go scrap hunting."
Maggie straightened up, brushing rust and dirt off of her paws. "Nothing over here."
"Or here." Chance answered, emerging from behind a pile of rotting parts. "Guess we'll keep looking."
"Yeah . . ." Maggie's voice trailed off as something caught her eye. "Hey, look at this!" She pounced on a square silver part about the size of a grapefruit and held it up, grinning.
"What is it?" Chance asked, taking it from her to examine it.
"It's an Engine Management Processor from a Talon-class jet fighter. Takes all the commands that the pilot feeds the propulsion systems, organizes them according to priority, and sends them to the engines. It also monitors engine status and divides the workload according to how much each engine can take."
"Whoa." Chance said, handing the part back to her. "You sure?"
"I should be," Maggie replied. "I designed the thing." She held it up again. "This is probably worth a lot of money . . . hey!" She bent to retrieve another part. "This is part of the ejection system from a Talon. And that over there looks like a part of the weapons board!" She held up the two parts. "This is high-level classified stuff, Chance — or it was, four years ago."
"Well, this *is* a military scrapyard." Chance noted. "You should see some of the weird stuff Jake and I have found."
"I'll bet." Maggie turned in a slow circle, looking around. "There's a lot of parts from Talon-class fighters lying around here. They must have dumped the prototypes here after the first squadron went down." Her eyes lit up. "I'll bet you we could build an entire plane out of this stuff!"
Chance laughed. "Are you kidding? Build a jet fighter out of spare parts?"
Maggie grinned. "I guess you're right. It is kind of farfetched." She dropped the parts. "Come on, let's find that part for the Katswagen."
But an idea had started forming in her mind . . . .
******************
Maggie sat at the drafting desk in the study, staring absently at the sheets of blueprint paper spread out before her. It had been a long time since she'd thought about *the planes* as anything more than the event that ruined her career, but still . . . .
Grabbing a pencil, she began to tentatively trace the outline of a Talon-class fighter. Her photographic memory slowly began to kick in, revealing the schematics for a missile here, an exhaust outtake there . . . and the more she drew the more she remembered. On to the engine, now . . . . As she drew, Maggie began to remember, not just the schematics, but the days after the Desert War had ended.
****
"Major Margaret Blackclaw?" The Enforcer MP was tall, black, and surly, towering over Maggie's desk. She looked up at him.
"Yes?"
"You are under arrest by order of the Enforcers General Court."
Maggie, astonished, glanced from the MP to the Sergeant she had been talking to, and back to the MP again. "On what charge?"
"The charges are Espionage, Sabotage, and Criminal Negligence. And I'd suggest," He growled, "That you come along peacefully."
****
"Order!" The presiding officer brought his gavel down with a crack. "This Court Martial is now in session. Margaret Blackclaw, you are charged with Espionage, Sabotage, Incorrect Design Procedure, and Criminal Negligence resulting in the untimely deaths of five Enforcers. How do you plead?"
"Innocent, sir."
The courtroom erupted into murmurs. A reporter's flashbulb went off, and the presiding officer brought the gavel down again. "Order! Get that camera out of here!"
Maggie closed her eyes. It was going to be a long month.
****
Actually, it had been the longest month of her life. The Enforcers had finally found a way to pass the blame for Hurricane Squadron's destruction — by charging that it was the engines, not the weapons, that had failed in the critical moment. Most of their "evidence" for those claims was pure malarkey, but they were determined to make it stick. And the arrogant, self- righteous attitude of the prosecutor — A Colonel Feral — hadn't made the ordeal any easier.
"Margaret Blackclaw, step forward please." The presiding officer stood. "Major Blackclaw, after secret and unanimous ballot, this panel finds you . . . ." He held up a sheet of paper.
"Of the charge of Espionage: not guilty.
"Of the charge of Sabotage: not guilty.
"Of the charge of Incorrect Design Procedure: not guilty.
"And, Major Blackclaw, for not insisting that all elements of the Talon-class fighters be thoroughly tested before allowing your squadron to fly them in battle — of the charge of Criminal Negligence, this General Court Martial finds the accused, Margaret Blackclaw:
"Guilty, on all counts."
The courtroom once again exploded, and yet another flashbulb went off.
"Order! Sentencing to commence as follows; that the accused be stripped of her rank and dishonorably discharged from the ranks of the Megakat Enforcers. Sentence to be carried out as soon as possible."
****
*And carried out it was,* Maggie thought, putting the finishing touches on the engine designs. *All for following my orders.* She turned to a new sheet of blueprint paper and started in on the cockpit.
Midnight saw Maggie putting the last few touches on the blueprints. Satisfied, she leaned back to regard what she had done.
"Well, what on earth am I ever going to do with this?" She rolled up the sheets of paper and fastened them with a rubber band. "Other than building a plane in my spare time? Doubt I'd have much use for it." She grinned. "Chalk it up to my overactive engineer's mind."
Glancing at the clock on the bookshelf, Maggie shook her head. "I'm never going to get to sleep when I'm this worked up." She stood, stretching. "Maybe some warm milk will help."
****
Maggie crept downstairs, carefully avoiding the groaning board in the second step. One foot on that would be more than enough to wake up Chance, who was a light sleeper.
She paused when she saw light streaming from the kitchen, then shook her head in gentle exasperation. "No wonder our electric bill is so high. This is what you get when you put two bachelor kats in the same house." However, as she drew closer, she could catch the sound of voices. Puzzled — what were Jake and Chance doing up this late? — she crept up next to the door and listened in.
"I'm telling you, Jake, Maggie's about *this* far from figuring it out."
"Aw, Chance. It's been two months. Why don't you relax?"
"You didn't hear her out there today. She wasn't just kidding about building a plane — she *meant* it, I could tell. And the way she knew what all those parts were for . . . ." The clock in the hall chimed 12:30, wiping out a fragment of the conversation.
" . . . Enforcer?" Jake sounded incredulous. "Chance, do you really believe that?"
"Well, how do we know she *isn't* working for Feral?" Chance's voice challenged. "You know what'll happen if he figures it out."
Maggie's eyebrows arched. Her? Working for *Feral*? About as likely as Manx growing a backbone.
She brushed her bangs out of her eyes and pushed the door open.
Jake and Chance stopped in mid-sentence, watching her uncertainly. Maggie grinned, trying to lighten the awkward moment. "You two look like the kittens who got caught with the canary."
Jake laughed. "Well, you *did* interrupt our top-secret plans for world domination."
"As long as it's nothing major." Maggie reached into the fridge and pulled out a can of milk. She could feel the glances passing between her roommates as she went through the motions of warming up the drink. Finally, she turned, a steaming mug in hand. "I have a confession to make." She took a seat at the kitchen table, opposite Chance and Jake. "I'm not just a mechanic."
"You're a secret agent." Jake quipped.
"Not quite." Maggie glanced between the two kats. "Do either of you remember when Hurricane squadron crashed, near the end of the Desert War?"
"Vaguely." Jake said, wrinkling his brow. "It's kind of blurry."
"I remember." Chance said. "Scott Lewis was a friend of my older brother."
"You remember later that year, in May? The trial?"
"Are you kidding?" Jake rolled his eyes. "I had finals to study for. I was in total media isolation."
"I wasn't." Chance said. "Feral and the General Court tried to pin the whole thing on the squadron leader . . ." Something seemed to click. "Wait a minute! That was you!"
"That was me." Maggie agreed, taking a drink of her milk.
"Whoa." Jake interrupted. "Can we back up?"
Maggie laughed softly, and then began to relate the events that had taken her from leading Hurricane Squadron to seeking work as a mechanic. The milk was cold by the time she'd finished.
"Guess we're not the only Enforcers to get a raw deal." Chance growled.
"No kidding. "Jake shot a significant look at Chance, who nodded and cleared his throat.
"Look, Maggie . . ." He began. "Jake and I have a confession to make, too."
Maggie leaned back in her chair and took a calm drink of milk.
"Does this have anything to do with you guys being the Swat Kats?"
Dunh-dunh- DAA (dramatic swell of music). Fade to black . . .
Voice-over:
Swat Kats is brought to you by . . .
Kat Mandu Iced Tea
When you need the refreshment of the Himalayas, reach for Kat Mandu!
Swat Kats will return after these messages.