XI: Drain

Gravity seems to work better when you're tired.

Rimfire observed that fact as he barely became aware of one of his legs giving out. He was sure hitting the ground should have hurt a lot more than it did as he listened to the resounding thud echoing through his body, losing a bit of breath as Quartz landed half on top of him.

In absolutely no time flat Benihana was hovering over both of them.

"Shit you all right?" she asked softly, glancing back the way they had come as if worried the Plutarkians or the Stalkers - or maybe both - were still chasing them. Rimfire tried to draw breath, impeded by Quartz's weight. He felt Benihana come closer, felt Quartz rolling off him. "Rimfire!" He made eye contact with her and somewhere found the strength to nod.

Benihana sighed with relief. "Can you get up?" she asked. Rimfire didn't respond. He took a deep breath, then pushed himself into a sitting position. Benihana turned to Quartz, who hadn't moved from where she'd rolled him. She moved over to him and rested a hand on his head. "He's burnin' up," she said to Rimfire. "We gotta get outta here."

Rimfire nodded in agreement, deliberately taking long, slow deep breaths. Benihana glanced at him, then tried to move Quartz. He was about as heavy as his well-muscled bulk suggested he was. Benihana briefly wondered how Rimfire had managed to carry him all that way.

She started as electricity crackled between her fur and the velvety sheen of the cat as it slunk past. "Nuuu," the cat stated, glancing up at her and flicking an ear. The cat nudged Quartz. The red-furred mouse groaned softly, but other than that didn't move aside from the movement generated by the cat nudging him. The cat nudged harder. Quartz rolled slightly further onto his side. The cat glanced lazily back the way they had come, her ears flicking. The light flashed off one of her eyes. She turned back to Quartz, nudged his uppermost arm. Deftly, she dropped her head and flicked his arm over her shoulder. Using her arm closest to him, she levered him off the ground, flicking him onto her back. Her leg muscles tensed as she sank a little under his weight. Benihana got the distinct impression of a frown before the cat straightened, balancing Quartz carefully on her back.

The cat looked up at Benihana and emitted a series of not-unpleasant hissing noises, punctuated occasionally by clicking sounds. Benihana looked over at Rimfire, still sitting on the ground. "C'mon Rimi. We're movin' again." He nodded, and staggered painfully to his feet. Benihana grabbed his arm, steadying him and then slinging his arm over her shoulders, grabbing hold of his utility belt on his far hip. "I gotcha."

"You trust the cat?" he whispered with a bemused smirk.

"Got no choice do I," she grumbled back, throwing him a half smile.

-= o =-

"Got another vis..." Scabbard paused when he saw Stoker's drawn blaster, then looked up in confusion at the leader of the Freedom Fighters.

"Thank you Seargent," the tall blonde mouse with him purred, resting a hand on Scabbard's shoulder. Scabbard inhaled sharply, arching slightly backwards before dropping lifelessly to the ground.

"Scabbard!" Carbine started out of the bed, wincing as searing pain shot through her body. She fumbled for the drop in her arm, ripping it out backwards and clamping down on the spurt of blood that shot from the resulting hole.

"Come to finish the job?" Stoker snarled, training his blaster at the blonde mouse's head. The mouse smiled. His arms seemed to liquify and melt, going rubbery and flicking out rapidly towards Stoker's torso.

The dark brown mouse gasped and reflexively stepped back, his aim wavering only slightly. Intense, white hot agony seared one thigh as one of the tentacles slammed past it, the other not far behind.

Behind him, Windsong snarled much in the manner of a terrified kitten and lunged out in front of him, slapping at the other tentacle. The tentacle recoiled, accompanied by a hiss of pain from the blonde mouse. The tentacle whipped around Windsong's neck, ripping her into the air, face to face with the blonde mouse.

Stoker looked up from where he'd dropped on one knee. Windsong had frozen up, and the blonde mouse was snarling at her. Not just snarling, but sounding like he was actually speaking to her. Stoker scrabbled for his gun. Right now wass the time for face-offs, time that he demand that the stranger release the child. He got his hands on the gun, pointed it at the larger mouse and fired.

The blonde mouse pulled aside, the laser from the blaster slicing through the skin and flesh of his shoulder. He roared with pain, dropping the child to nurse the injury. Windsong fled from him, racing to Stoker's side. Stoker, his hands shaking, took aim as best he could and fired off again.

The blonde mouse didn't so much move this time as melt his body out of the way. He turned suddenly as the shouting and rapidly approaching footsteps came to the attention of all of them. Stoker took that opportunity to grab Carbine around the waist, Windsong by the scruff of her shirt and sprint from the cubicle.

There was a snarl of fury, and Stoker didn't have to look behind him to know that the blonde mouse...or whatever he was...was hot on their tails. Carbine removed the blaster from his hand and aimed over his shoulder. Stoker flattened his ears against his head as the blaster went off not far behind it. Carbine fired off a few more shots and then refocused on trying to help herself run.

Behind them the voices intensified into shouts of fear, anger, surprise. The sounds of pursuits receded as the three of them rounded the corner. Stoker paused to open the door to the outside and shortness of breath caught up with him. Not letting that stop him, he ushered Carbine and Windsong out ahead of him, then glanced over his shoulder. No sign of the blonde mouse.

He wondered if this is how characters in horror movies felt, never knowing where the supernatural spoooks were going to turn up next. He turned back, half expecting to see the blonde mouse in front him. Nothing.

His bike was exactly where he'd left it. He helped Carbine on first, then picked up Windsong, jumped on in front of Carbine and settled Windsong in front of him. "Hang on," he said, dropping the spare helmet on Carbine's head while pulling his own on, then gunning the engine hard. "Sorry girl," he whispered to the bike, patting its tank absently before letting it hoon out onto the street.

-= o =-

Vinnie straightened, the piece of scrap metal dangling limply from his hands. Uneasily he glanced across at Modo. The large grey mouse was digging like a fiend through the rubble, pieces that could well be half cars flying in all directions around him. It was just as well there was no one else around or someone could get seriously hurt.

"Uh...bro..." Vinnie tried. They hadn't been able to fix the ship for ages. Not initially, not with Charley's help, and with their fight against Plutark here on Earth, they hadn't had much in the way of spare time that wasn't spent chilling out.

"What?" Modo responded gruffly.

Vinnie wondered at the wisdom of continuing. It was one thing to hold hope, another to be delusional. "If the army couldn't find Rimfire, how are we..."

"The army couldn't find its ass with two hands." The force of his voice could have easily knocked the wind out of Vinnie. The albino hefted the scrap he was holding into the ever-increasing 'useless' pile.

"I'm jus' sayin'. If they can't find him with all the shit they know..."

Modo turned up to look at him from where he was on the scrap heap, his single eye blazing, a blood red aura covering half his head. His voice by contrast was surprisingly, almost scarily, calm. "Ah don' have a whole lotta family left." The fire in his eye died, and he turned back to the salvage operation.

Vinnie glanced at Throttle, silently toiling in the near-distance. He hadn't said a word throughout the entire exchange, not even to comfort Modo. Throttle quiet, Modo near breaking point. It was strange, surreal. Completely fucked up. Vinnie turned his back on both of them, refusing to acknowledge that vaguely familiar feeling of his lungs tightening, refusing to acknowledge that there was absolutely nothing he could do, not wanting to feel helpless.

Big boys don't cry. His father's voice had been gentle enough, but the disappointment in it was enough to leave its mark. He had been 15 when his mother died. After that he'd never cried again. Blinking angrily, Vinnie heaved another twisted, unrecognisable piece of metal out of the way.

The other guys had every reason to go back. Throttle wanted to straighten things out with Carbine. If there was anything left to straighten out. He wondered about those two sometimes. They'd been together for so long and come close to breaking up so many times, they had broken up a few times only to go running back to each other, perhaps this had been inevitable. And Modo, whose birth family had once been quite large, now only consisted of his tough-as-old-boots mother, and the twins Primer, student doctor and dedicated aid worker, and Rimfire, hotshot SAS not-quite-commando type, missing in action, possibly quite dead.

Aside from the Freedom Fighters, Vinnie didn't really have much to go back to. Mars was home. Or was Earth home? He'd been here for so long, him and the guys. Sometimes he missed Mars, but that was because he'd grown up there. And when one thought about it, there wasn't much left of Mars to go back to. Somewhere in the depths of his consciousness, like everyone else, he clung to the distant hope that the Plutarkians would finally be driven back, that Mars could be reclaimed, that the planet could slowly recover and become what it once was. Sometimes, at the back of his mind, he hoped to beat the shit out of Mace for the pain and suffering the traitorous bastard had caused. Somewhere deep inside, he carefully nurtured the well hidden hope that somehow, somewhere, Harley was still alive, still waiting.

And here on Earth there was still clean water, the air was still easy to breathe, the temperatures tolerable. And there was Charley-girl. He held up a piece of scrap metal, eyeing it critically. It looked like it would make a semi-decent patch, it was thick enough. Who knew what it had come off. He caught a reflection of himself in the tarnished metal. Four whole days of not trashing Limburger's goons or Limburger's tower and he looked positively homeless. Frowning in disgust, he tossed the metal over his shoulder into the 'useful' pile which had not very much else in it.

He absolutely hated not knowing where he stood with the universe. It's a long way down when you're falling from the top.