Chapter 4
Mian was walking through the streets of Redwall City, it was amazing that over 1000 years ago it had been a single abbey with a forest surrounding it. Now the city was nearly 50 miles across and was home to almost 3 million woodlanders. The next day Mian would leave the city again. Suddenly a bottle rolled across the alley that Mian was going down, he turned around to see 5 weasels behind him.
"Gimme your credit chit mousey" the leader yelled.
"Why do you want my credit chit pal, I need it" Mian answered calmly.
"That was not a request... it was an order pip-squeak." the leader yelled again
"I really don't think you want it." Mian told him.
The weasel approached Mian and started to raise a laserpistol towards him.
"Give it now pansy" The weasel ordered
"Oh.. you want to see it then... here it is" Mian said in an alluding way
Mian pulled out the sword of Martin... one of the most ancient relics of Redwall city. The weasels began to back away. Two of the weasels fled.
"Run!! That isn't any mousey... it's Mian." one of the others said.
"Ah... he don't scare me just because he has a sword. I think all the rumors aren't true." The leader chuckled.
Mian pressed a button on the handle and a chain started to rotate around the blade edge. The sword of Martin had been upgraded to an electrified chain-sword. The weasel dove for Mian and Mian smartly sliced him in half lengthwise.
"Run!" the other weasels all said at different times as they scurried off.
Mian shook his head as he turned off and re-sheathed his sword. "Weasels... will they ever learn."
Mian resided in a medium sized apartment in the city. He was always traveling, so he never actually got to make a good home for himself. Small spiders scurried away as Mian opened the door and walked in. A pot of tuna surprise was lying on the stove, burned to a blackened crisp and still hot. He had left the stove on when he was last called out for a mission. Mian sighed, amazed that his apartment had not burned to the ground, and went to work cleaning up the place. In about an hour it looked somewhat clean again. He looked at his message machine.
"157 messages... that's about right for two months." Mian chuckled.
He started up a projector and holographic images of the senders appeared. Mian skipped through most of them because they were from anonymous female mouses asking for dates, even a few female hares and hedgehogs were on the machine.
"Lets see what's on the news..." he said out loud.
The TV turned on in response to his voice and went to a news channel. A female anchormouse was reporting from the desk on the completion of the space station project.
"As usual, they give me no credit, but at least they paid me a lot for it." Mian chuckled as he looked at the anchormouse again. "Hah! She was on my message machine."
The rest of the news was uneventful as usual. There was so much that the government of Redwall City did not show the general public. For a highly technological world, there wasn't much communication beyond the narrow city-state borders of Redwallia. Soon it was late night and Mian went to sleep to rest up for his next mission.
Two days later, Mian was prepped for his long mission. He went out to the runway dressed in a new experimental device that was undetectable by enemy radar.
"All systems are a go for wingsuit one." Chesha said as Mian got into the new prototype flying suit.
The suit was a skin tight white suit which had very large draping wings attached to the back. Mian could take off and fly like a bird with this. Normally he would take a plane, but the new experimental piece was part of the mission. Mian was still uncertain about this whole thing, but he faced it with his regular overconfidence.
"C'ya later, darlin." Mian said as he ran down the runway at top speed.
Mian took off into the air and began to head northeast at high speed. He looked down upon the landscape below. People looked back up at the wingsuit in amazement, as they had never seen such a thing before. Mian was quickly over smaller towns and suburbs. Before three hours had passed he was beyond Redwallia's northern border which ended at the river south of Noonvale city. Mian decided to avoid Basin Lake as much as he could, so he flew out West over the open water until he was well out of range. With a flip and two spirals, he tested out the capabilities of the wingsuit and then flew on. Some time later, after putting the suit on autopilot and eating a sandwich in mid-flight, he flew down to the ground level as his wings curved to stop his speed.
"That was fast." he took his bearings.
Mian had traveled about 3000 miles in only 20 hours.
Chapter 5
Mian approached Nightwake, a mountain fortress surrounded by a river. The weather was barren and cold. No one seemed to live on the surface. He crossed the long bridge to get to the entrance and knocked on the gate.
A female voice answered, "Friend or foe? We don't take kindly to the ruffians around here, buddy."
He answered, "My name is..."
The gate opened and a friendly looking face appeared. It was that of a beautiful young marlfox, her left arm and leg replaced with cybernetic limbs.
"Oh it's you Mian, we've been expecting you. Let's go find Darkstripe, he shouldn't be far off." She led him down the hall and continued, "Oh, and by the way, m'name's Bunny." She laughed once at the strange look she received and said, "My real name's Bonita, but it just seems easier to call me Bunny. It's a family thing." She smiled sweetly and led him to a large door, one that would fit the both of them in very easily.
She gave Mian and mechanical thumbs up and said, "Good luck, and be sure you don't get caught." She winked comically and a quick flame spurted up out of her cybernetic thumb, then vanished like in a magic trick.
Darkstripe was sitting at a computer terminal. He wore a blue jumpsuit and goggles rested above his eyes. "I hear that Chesha is trying to stop Gorath... that's pretty steep." he said as he continued working on a device that was so cold it steamed at room temperature.
"That's what I said, Basin Lake ain't a place to play with. I mean, I can become invisible at will ever since those scientists played with me, but who knows what the people there coulda cooked up." Mian replied. The wings on his flight suit had folded up and were resting like a small backpack on his back.
Darkstripe got up and went to a large light board that had the words "BASIN PROJECT" above it. Mian followed wondering at all of the strange things he saw in the lab.
"We captured a rogue who left Basin Lake nearly 2 years ago. I was reluctant to tell anyone what we found out about him. He died after we investigated. " Darkstripe shook his head as he turned the power on. X-rays of the rogue's body revealed that the it was mostly cybernetic. It even had a special skin and hair made from polymer strands.
"Well these 'cyborgs' can't be tougher than my sword, can they?" Mian asked
"Of course not... but cybernetics are not something you need to deal with, the nano-probes inside of a cyborg can regenerate faster than you can cut." Darkstripe replied as he turned off the board and went over to the device he had been working on.
"Even you will have difficulty killing any of them. I'd even go as far as guessing that some of them are completely cybernetic now. You must take this device with you..." Darkstripe handed him a fake ice core. It wasn't cold to the touch, but it still steamed as if it were. "... and exchange it with one of the cores in their power plant. The basin is powered by a reverse geo-thermal reaction. As soon as you exchange the core, the power in at least an eighth of the basin will be lost. This will definitely alert the warriors who guard the basin of your presence. Once you are done, bring the core back to me and I will have my people get you something safe to carry it in for your trip to Gorath."
Mian took the fake core, thanked Darkstripe, and was about to walk out when he was stopped.
"Wait, he'll never make it in there by air. They will see him no matter if he is wearing a wingsuit." Bunny said as she walked in. She had been listening from outside the room.
"Well when did you get in here?" Darkstripe asked. "We'll have to take him by the old road." he walked over to a wall in his lab and picked up three large laser rifles.
"You are serious?" Bunny questioned.
"Dead Serious." Darkstripe said as he put the rifles in the chargers. "We leave tomorrow morning."
In the downtime before the morning, Mian sat in one of the private dining halls with Bunny and ate dinner. They both had baked catfish with salad and garlic toast. Bunny had only water to drink while Mian was busy taking down malt beer by the can. One advantage of being a mouse was a high resistance to damage from the consumption of large amounts of alcohol.
"So why did Redwallia send you? What is so special about you?" Bunny asked.
Mian shrugged, chugged the rest of his can, and then asked calmly, "What's your international security clearance?"
Bunny giggled and took out a card. "General Bonita thank you very much, top secret or better."
Mian slapped himself on the forehead and then laughed about the situation himself. "A general?? I guess we find out new things a lot. Well... " Mian looked around the room habitually for cameras or listening bots and then continued. "I am the abbey champion of Redwall, strongest warrior in their guard and also head of the secret service."
Mian suddenly disappeared right in front of Bunny's eyes as his speech trailed off.
"Umm... Mian? Where did you go?" Bunny asked as she suddenly felt her ears being tweaked. "Hey! Don't do that!"
Mian re-appeared in his seat laughing like there was no tomorrow. "Oh I love doin' that to guys with top secret clearance. Anyway, I should tell ya. I can go invisible when I want because of some implants that the science department of the service gave me. This power has gotten me out of a lot of tight spots, and gotten me into worse ones sometimes."
"Oh.. well that's much more exciting than my life. I got up to this rank very, very quickly because of my role in several small engagements and because of my friendship with Darkstripe. It may not seem fair achieving a rank that way, but I have proven I can do the work of a general at a young age." Bonita giggled that she was letting so much information go to almost a complete stranger.
"How old are you anyway?" Mian asked.
"Ummh... about... 28."
"Wow!" Mian exclaimed as he fell back in his chair again, thankful that the wall stopped him from falling back too far this time. "Well I'm only 32, so I guess it's possible."
They both pushed their plates aside, got up, and walked to the door. Bonita opened the door for Mian and then spoke to him. A lady opening a door for a man was something quite uncustomary in Redwallian society. "You'll need sleep for tomorrow, go to the bunk that Darkstripe assigned you."
"Is that an order General Bonita?" Mian asked playfully.
"Oh come on, my name is Bunny! BUNNY!" she said back in faked rage.
"OK, General Bunny." Mian played back.
"What the... oh go on." Bunny pushed Mian out of the door and then closed it "Oh he is so irresistible." she giggled to herself.
Mian's voice came from the other side of the door. "Oh I know I am! Ha ha!"
Mian walked off down the hallway laughing to himself over his good evening.
He posted up for the night with some magazines and beer in the officer's room that Darkstripe had assigned to him.
Mian was walking through the streets of Redwall City, it was amazing that over 1000 years ago it had been a single abbey with a forest surrounding it. Now the city was nearly 50 miles across and was home to almost 3 million woodlanders. The next day Mian would leave the city again. Suddenly a bottle rolled across the alley that Mian was going down, he turned around to see 5 weasels behind him.
"Gimme your credit chit mousey" the leader yelled.
"Why do you want my credit chit pal, I need it" Mian answered calmly.
"That was not a request... it was an order pip-squeak." the leader yelled again
"I really don't think you want it." Mian told him.
The weasel approached Mian and started to raise a laserpistol towards him.
"Give it now pansy" The weasel ordered
"Oh.. you want to see it then... here it is" Mian said in an alluding way
Mian pulled out the sword of Martin... one of the most ancient relics of Redwall city. The weasels began to back away. Two of the weasels fled.
"Run!! That isn't any mousey... it's Mian." one of the others said.
"Ah... he don't scare me just because he has a sword. I think all the rumors aren't true." The leader chuckled.
Mian pressed a button on the handle and a chain started to rotate around the blade edge. The sword of Martin had been upgraded to an electrified chain-sword. The weasel dove for Mian and Mian smartly sliced him in half lengthwise.
"Run!" the other weasels all said at different times as they scurried off.
Mian shook his head as he turned off and re-sheathed his sword. "Weasels... will they ever learn."
Mian resided in a medium sized apartment in the city. He was always traveling, so he never actually got to make a good home for himself. Small spiders scurried away as Mian opened the door and walked in. A pot of tuna surprise was lying on the stove, burned to a blackened crisp and still hot. He had left the stove on when he was last called out for a mission. Mian sighed, amazed that his apartment had not burned to the ground, and went to work cleaning up the place. In about an hour it looked somewhat clean again. He looked at his message machine.
"157 messages... that's about right for two months." Mian chuckled.
He started up a projector and holographic images of the senders appeared. Mian skipped through most of them because they were from anonymous female mouses asking for dates, even a few female hares and hedgehogs were on the machine.
"Lets see what's on the news..." he said out loud.
The TV turned on in response to his voice and went to a news channel. A female anchormouse was reporting from the desk on the completion of the space station project.
"As usual, they give me no credit, but at least they paid me a lot for it." Mian chuckled as he looked at the anchormouse again. "Hah! She was on my message machine."
The rest of the news was uneventful as usual. There was so much that the government of Redwall City did not show the general public. For a highly technological world, there wasn't much communication beyond the narrow city-state borders of Redwallia. Soon it was late night and Mian went to sleep to rest up for his next mission.
Two days later, Mian was prepped for his long mission. He went out to the runway dressed in a new experimental device that was undetectable by enemy radar.
"All systems are a go for wingsuit one." Chesha said as Mian got into the new prototype flying suit.
The suit was a skin tight white suit which had very large draping wings attached to the back. Mian could take off and fly like a bird with this. Normally he would take a plane, but the new experimental piece was part of the mission. Mian was still uncertain about this whole thing, but he faced it with his regular overconfidence.
"C'ya later, darlin." Mian said as he ran down the runway at top speed.
Mian took off into the air and began to head northeast at high speed. He looked down upon the landscape below. People looked back up at the wingsuit in amazement, as they had never seen such a thing before. Mian was quickly over smaller towns and suburbs. Before three hours had passed he was beyond Redwallia's northern border which ended at the river south of Noonvale city. Mian decided to avoid Basin Lake as much as he could, so he flew out West over the open water until he was well out of range. With a flip and two spirals, he tested out the capabilities of the wingsuit and then flew on. Some time later, after putting the suit on autopilot and eating a sandwich in mid-flight, he flew down to the ground level as his wings curved to stop his speed.
"That was fast." he took his bearings.
Mian had traveled about 3000 miles in only 20 hours.
Chapter 5
Mian approached Nightwake, a mountain fortress surrounded by a river. The weather was barren and cold. No one seemed to live on the surface. He crossed the long bridge to get to the entrance and knocked on the gate.
A female voice answered, "Friend or foe? We don't take kindly to the ruffians around here, buddy."
He answered, "My name is..."
The gate opened and a friendly looking face appeared. It was that of a beautiful young marlfox, her left arm and leg replaced with cybernetic limbs.
"Oh it's you Mian, we've been expecting you. Let's go find Darkstripe, he shouldn't be far off." She led him down the hall and continued, "Oh, and by the way, m'name's Bunny." She laughed once at the strange look she received and said, "My real name's Bonita, but it just seems easier to call me Bunny. It's a family thing." She smiled sweetly and led him to a large door, one that would fit the both of them in very easily.
She gave Mian and mechanical thumbs up and said, "Good luck, and be sure you don't get caught." She winked comically and a quick flame spurted up out of her cybernetic thumb, then vanished like in a magic trick.
Darkstripe was sitting at a computer terminal. He wore a blue jumpsuit and goggles rested above his eyes. "I hear that Chesha is trying to stop Gorath... that's pretty steep." he said as he continued working on a device that was so cold it steamed at room temperature.
"That's what I said, Basin Lake ain't a place to play with. I mean, I can become invisible at will ever since those scientists played with me, but who knows what the people there coulda cooked up." Mian replied. The wings on his flight suit had folded up and were resting like a small backpack on his back.
Darkstripe got up and went to a large light board that had the words "BASIN PROJECT" above it. Mian followed wondering at all of the strange things he saw in the lab.
"We captured a rogue who left Basin Lake nearly 2 years ago. I was reluctant to tell anyone what we found out about him. He died after we investigated. " Darkstripe shook his head as he turned the power on. X-rays of the rogue's body revealed that the it was mostly cybernetic. It even had a special skin and hair made from polymer strands.
"Well these 'cyborgs' can't be tougher than my sword, can they?" Mian asked
"Of course not... but cybernetics are not something you need to deal with, the nano-probes inside of a cyborg can regenerate faster than you can cut." Darkstripe replied as he turned off the board and went over to the device he had been working on.
"Even you will have difficulty killing any of them. I'd even go as far as guessing that some of them are completely cybernetic now. You must take this device with you..." Darkstripe handed him a fake ice core. It wasn't cold to the touch, but it still steamed as if it were. "... and exchange it with one of the cores in their power plant. The basin is powered by a reverse geo-thermal reaction. As soon as you exchange the core, the power in at least an eighth of the basin will be lost. This will definitely alert the warriors who guard the basin of your presence. Once you are done, bring the core back to me and I will have my people get you something safe to carry it in for your trip to Gorath."
Mian took the fake core, thanked Darkstripe, and was about to walk out when he was stopped.
"Wait, he'll never make it in there by air. They will see him no matter if he is wearing a wingsuit." Bunny said as she walked in. She had been listening from outside the room.
"Well when did you get in here?" Darkstripe asked. "We'll have to take him by the old road." he walked over to a wall in his lab and picked up three large laser rifles.
"You are serious?" Bunny questioned.
"Dead Serious." Darkstripe said as he put the rifles in the chargers. "We leave tomorrow morning."
In the downtime before the morning, Mian sat in one of the private dining halls with Bunny and ate dinner. They both had baked catfish with salad and garlic toast. Bunny had only water to drink while Mian was busy taking down malt beer by the can. One advantage of being a mouse was a high resistance to damage from the consumption of large amounts of alcohol.
"So why did Redwallia send you? What is so special about you?" Bunny asked.
Mian shrugged, chugged the rest of his can, and then asked calmly, "What's your international security clearance?"
Bunny giggled and took out a card. "General Bonita thank you very much, top secret or better."
Mian slapped himself on the forehead and then laughed about the situation himself. "A general?? I guess we find out new things a lot. Well... " Mian looked around the room habitually for cameras or listening bots and then continued. "I am the abbey champion of Redwall, strongest warrior in their guard and also head of the secret service."
Mian suddenly disappeared right in front of Bunny's eyes as his speech trailed off.
"Umm... Mian? Where did you go?" Bunny asked as she suddenly felt her ears being tweaked. "Hey! Don't do that!"
Mian re-appeared in his seat laughing like there was no tomorrow. "Oh I love doin' that to guys with top secret clearance. Anyway, I should tell ya. I can go invisible when I want because of some implants that the science department of the service gave me. This power has gotten me out of a lot of tight spots, and gotten me into worse ones sometimes."
"Oh.. well that's much more exciting than my life. I got up to this rank very, very quickly because of my role in several small engagements and because of my friendship with Darkstripe. It may not seem fair achieving a rank that way, but I have proven I can do the work of a general at a young age." Bonita giggled that she was letting so much information go to almost a complete stranger.
"How old are you anyway?" Mian asked.
"Ummh... about... 28."
"Wow!" Mian exclaimed as he fell back in his chair again, thankful that the wall stopped him from falling back too far this time. "Well I'm only 32, so I guess it's possible."
They both pushed their plates aside, got up, and walked to the door. Bonita opened the door for Mian and then spoke to him. A lady opening a door for a man was something quite uncustomary in Redwallian society. "You'll need sleep for tomorrow, go to the bunk that Darkstripe assigned you."
"Is that an order General Bonita?" Mian asked playfully.
"Oh come on, my name is Bunny! BUNNY!" she said back in faked rage.
"OK, General Bunny." Mian played back.
"What the... oh go on." Bunny pushed Mian out of the door and then closed it "Oh he is so irresistible." she giggled to herself.
Mian's voice came from the other side of the door. "Oh I know I am! Ha ha!"
Mian walked off down the hallway laughing to himself over his good evening.
He posted up for the night with some magazines and beer in the officer's room that Darkstripe had assigned to him.