Wow, a two-chappie day! Guess it's time for a little action - and not necessarily the kind I've been talking about so far. Well, Mostly

The Trinity Sitch - Book 3: Blade of the Fury

Attack of the Black Bat

Kim could not believe the change that had come over Ron after witnessing the state his arch-enemy was in. She was deeply shaken as well, considering how Amy was taking it.

The Blue Fox was once again streaking across the northern Atlantic, taking them home once more. With the exception of a few necessary words as they climbed about the tiny craft, Ron hadn't said anything. He just kept to himself, looking out the far side of the canopy. She had an inkling of what he might be thinking and feeling. Monkey Fist was an enemy and in their time they had seen him defeated and humbled. That was one thing. Seeing him reduced to this, that was just too much. That's not what they wanted for him. He belonged in prison, not slowly dying because his vitality had been stolen away.

What had begun as a fact-finding mission instead turned into one of mercy. Amy had done all she could to help him but there were limits to what she could do. She was a skilled bio-geneticist by she was not a medical doctor. It took them most of the rest of the night to convince her to get him into the hands of those who could better help him. In the end she agreed, but only after Kim had gone to bat, convincing the British authorities that he didn't pose any danger to them at the moment. It helped that none of the outstanding warrants against him were active in England.

She looked over at him, his face barely visible in the dim light of the control console. Every so often he would sniff, ever so slightly, as if he didn't want to be heard. Some how she wanted, no, needed to get his mind away from the image of a dying Lord Monkey Fist.

"Ron, what did my father say to you before we left?" She knew that wasn't the best tack, but it was all she could think of and she really did have a burning curiosity to know.

"I don't think now's the time Kim." He said, still not looking at her.

"Ron, look…"

"No, Kim. Listen, I've got to think this through. Can I just have a little bit of peace to myself to do that?" he snapped at her, a little more vehemently than he wanted to."

As if that were a challenge to her, she shot back, "You just can't keep it all inside, Ron. We need to talk about these things."

He looked back at her with something she was unaccustomed to seeing in his eyes; anger. "Look, I'll talk about it, but not right now. I…I just need to think, that's all." With that he turned away from her again and stared out into the pre-dawn darkness.

She left him like that for a while but eventually she couldn't leave it alone. "Ron, I just can't sit here and do nothing. Say something to me, anything. Hold my hand, kiss me, cry with me, something, anything."

"Not right now." He said with a harsh whisper.

"What?"

"I said not right now." He turned to face her. "This isn't about you, it's about me and what I'm trying to sort out right now. I know it's the way you are, but this is something I have to deal with myself first." His voice trailed off to just a breath. "We've never had to face people around us dying like this."

That stopped her cold. Sure, people had died around them before. In the weeks following the caper with the rogue FBI unit she had spent a great deal of time talking about what had happened then. That, though, had been a sacrifice, a life given so that millions wouldn't share the same fate. This, on the other hand, was plain and simple torture. It was a malicious and slow death, much more than a punishment for Fist's failure to acquire the real idol.

"Ron, if it makes you feel any better, we're the ones who're going to be helping this time."

Not meaning to, he chuckled, though just slightly. "You know, it just struck me, this is twice we've tried to help the Monkey." Somehow the thought broke him our of his funk, though just partly.

"Kim, you know your father loves you like all the world, don't you?"

"Uh, sure, but that doesn't give him the right to keep threatening you about us…"

"Kim, no, that's not it."

"What, did he not understand what we were talking about? That doesn't seem very likely, you saw how he reacted when I mentioned the hot tub."

"Yeah, how about a little warning before you do something like that in the future. There's a history of heart trouble in my family, you know." He wiped his face, once again thinking about something that made his heart happy. "He didn't threaten me because of our little slip-up. He said he respected us, respected our privacy and that he was proud of us. He also told me that he considered me a son."

Kim couldn't help but stare at him. "He…he's okay with…us…"

Ron actually laughed, "I don't think so, but he respects us enough to know it's time to back off and let us make our own decisions."

She sat there in her acceleration lounge for a moment, speechless. She was going to have to give her father the most ferocious hug when they got back home. Making a decision of her own, she unsnapped her harness and half climbed, half rolled over to Ron's side, unsnapping his belt as well. Taking his cheeks in her hands, she kissed him as passionately as she could. Finally she broke away, her face only an inch from his.

"Do you want to go back to our old promise?" she asked him.

"I…don't think we should make a promise we can't or shouldn't make any more." He said. "I want to be with you so bad it hurts sometimes and I'm now realizing you might feel the same way."

"Ron, I don't want this to be about you giving something up because of what I want."

"Why not? It's not like it's something we both don't want. I want you, you want me. Maybe it's just that simple. If its hurting both of us, is it fair any more just because of a little romantic fantasy I have?"

"It's not just a little fantasy, Ron. It's beautiful, it's what both of us have been raise to believe in." A horrible thought struck her and she twisted around. Thankfully, the communication console was still off. Their flight plan was keeping them well away from any commercial or military traffic, so all they had to do was sit back and let the computer fly them home. Nobody was overhearing them this time.

"Kim, to be perfectly honest, I don't want to wait any more. I almost wish we had taken Sherry's advice and gotten married before we started college. I feel like we're everything a married couple is supposed to be right now, all that's left is a signature on a piece of paper. Marriage is supposed to be about love, not a ceremony…"

She unsnapped his helmet band and slipped it off his head before shrugging out of hers, letting her auburn red hair spill out. "I don't want to wait any more, either." She said, kissing him again. She pressed her body against his, wrapping her hands around his waist.

"Uh, Kim?" he gulped as she started nibbling his ear.

"Um hmmm."

"Uh, much as I don't want to wait any more, uh, I didn't quite imagine our first time would be joining the Mile High Club as well."

She giggled, followed by an honest laugh. In moments both of them were laughing their heads off, so much so that she had to climb back into her seat to catch her breath.

"Ron, you are a bad, bad boy sometimes." She finally said, breathlessly. He leaned over, putting a hand on her leg. She wrapped both arms around his and put her head on his shoulder. "No, I don't think that's in the cards tonight. Imagine if Wade beeped in right in the middle of that?" She looked up and kissed him gently. "Besides, you're going to have to wait a few days anyway, ready or not."

"Aw, man! Then why get me so worked up about it?"

"Oh, I like you all worked up but, uh, let's just say this isn't a good time for me?"

He looked at her, confused. "You're ready, but not right now? I don't get it."

"Let's just say I have to stop by the pharmacy Friday."

"Huh? I thought you had your meds and all. We don't need anything else."

"Ron, think about it. It's the meds I have to pick up a fresh pack of. You mean you haven't noticed me PMSing all week?"

"PMSing? What is…oooooooh." He suddenly looked sheepish again. The whole subject was, for Ron, pure TMI territory.

"Hey, loverboy, kissing is still allowed." She whispered in his ears before going back to nibbling on his lobes.

"Oh, this is pure torture." He moaned.

"I'm bad that way." She said, working her way down his neck.

BEEP-BEEP-DE-BEEP.

Not looking up, she touched the receive button on her bracelet.

"Kim, will the two of you stop that long enough to turn your communications console back on?" Wade almost shouted.

Embarrassed, she slipped fully back into her seat and pulled the helmet on as Ron reactivated the main monitor.

"Kim, I'm getting something coming in fast on an intercept course." The younger man said as his image appeared on the screen.

"What, is the military homing in on us or something?"

"Nothing I've ever seen before. If it weren't for the tracking systems I have here on the Trinity, I'd never have picked it up. Whatever's closing on you is invisible to conventional radar!"

That got both their attention. They snapped their harnesses back on, scanning the night sky for the approaching aircraft. "Wade, I don't see anything…"

She was cut off when a blast of red light passed right over them.

"Wade?...WADE!" She shouted, but the screen had gone dead.

Something small and fast passed over them, white fire streaming from its tail. It was larger than their craft, with wings that looked like the outstretched wings of a bat. Almost in a panic, Kim grabbed the controls. Without any contact with Wade, they were on their own.

"I think it's being jammed!" Ron screamed.

"Yah think so?" She banked the Blue Fox hard. The attacking plane was now only a plume of glowing gasses in the night sky. Whatever it was, it was painted black or some dark color and it was hard to see, even though the sun was starting to peek over the horizon.

Used to his humans and their 'together time,' Rufus had been sleeping behind their seats in a rolled up bundle of fabric. The sudden lurching of the tiny craft brought him instantly awake. He scurried up between them and dove into Ron's unsnapped cargo pocket, chittering in fear.

The white flame disappeared, meaning to Kim that the fighter was turning, preparing to make another run on them. She pushed the craft into a dive just as another blast shot by them. This time the attacking craft passed off to their port side, turning to match their descent. She leveled off just above the water. A broad white line dominated the horizon, coming at them at twice the speed of sound. They were so close to the water the magnetic shielding was throwing up a giant rooster tail of water.

"Kim, he's right on our tail!" Ron shouted, twisting in his seat, trying to keep track of the dark plane.

"Hang on!" she pulled back on the controls, sending them straight up and over as the faster plane passed beneath them. The Fox pulled a complete loop, falling in behind the receding shape of the attack ship.

"It's not showing up on radar!" Ron pointed to the main screen.

"Whatever it is using to jam our communications is also jamming our tracking systems. It's line of sight only." She pulled up slightly as the water beneath them suddenly turned to solid ground, They were flying over the coast of Greenland.

The white was a mammoth glacier!

Pulling up once more, they rocketed over the vast whiteness. The black bat was behind them again.

"Incoming, eleven o'clock" Ron shouted, substituting his eyes for the radar as best he could.

Kim pulled up into the air once more, dodging another blast from the fighter's laser cannons. "I don't know how long I can keep this up. He's most likely a professional pilot, if the computer wasn't compensating for my mistakes we would have been splattered all over the ice by now."

"KP, a little less on the splatter talk, a little more on the flying please. I can't see him!"

"You think against all this ice a black plane would show up better!" she growled.

Ron was frantically trying to think of all the dog fight movies he had ever seen. Inspiration came to him in the form of the rising sun. "Kim, out of the sun, two o'clock!"

She dove just in time. Twin red blasts passed so close Ron was momentarily blinded by their brightness. They were closely followed by the black shape of the fighter, this time so close they clipped its 'jet wash.'

The Blue Fox veered wildly as the controls momentarily went dead. Whatever fuel the enemy plane burned, it did a number on their electronic systems. Built in EMP dampers were the only thing that saved them.

Not able to pull up in time, Kim banked into a narrow ravine. Pulling up at it's end, they shot out as if they had been fired from a cannon. The fighter, anticipating the moved, dropped right behind them, firing another volley at them, sending up great sprays of splintered ice as the blasts impacted the glacier.

"Ron, try the computer, see if it can do anything to break through the jamming…just don't touch any of the flight controls, please!"

He frantically started pressing the icons on the touch screen. "How about countermeasures!"

"Can't hurt! Hit it!"

Small ports on the side of the cabin and the engines suddenly let forth a massive burst of light, spraying chaff and other materials designed to interfere with the enemy's tracking abilities. Unfortunately, it had the side effect of blinding both Kim and him for a moment.

As his eyes cleared, he started punching the screen again. "Come on, where are the weapons!"

"Ron, this thing isn't armed. It's a transport, not a fighter jet! Wade never intended to take this thing into a fight!" She looked down at the radar display, noticing for the first time the fighter was momentarily visible every second sweep.

Another selection popped up on the screen. "KP, what's multi-mode tracking?"

"I don't know, just try it!"

The radar screen suddenly disappeared. For a moment Kim panicked, again having only visual reckoning to tell where the ship was, as well as no longer having a clear view of the rushing white topography. She was about to bite Ron's head off when the display was replaced by another.

"BOOYAH! Wade ROCKS!" Ron screamed.

A holographic display, clearly showing the fighter in the form of a wedge shaped icon jumped to life. Finally with a good idea where he was coming from, Kim was free to act. In a move that would have been impossible in a normal aircraft (and without the computer aided assistance!) she spun the Fox on its axis and pushed the throttle fully forward…

…sending them rocketing straight for the attacking fighter!

Ron screamed and buried his head in his arms. Kim gritted her teeth as laser blasts passed all around them. It only took half a second at trans-sonic speeds but the game of chicken came to its obvious conclusion.

The enemy pilot turned to avoid her, never realizing how close he was to the ground. The bat wing struck an outcropping of ice. At it's speed, it had enough momentum to sheer the ice right off, but that was enough to send the craft careening out of control. With no other choice, the pilot sent his craft screaming into the sky, wobbling on its course. By the time he regained control, his prey was nowhere to be seen.

No matter, that's why his craft was equipped with scanners that would not be fooled as a human eye could be.

Kim knew her second dive into a crevasse would only buy them a few seconds. This time when she shot out of the far end, he was not yet ready for another strafing run on them. That didn't mean she wasn't ready to make one on him.

"Ron, queue up the countermeasures again and stand by!"

"Ready!"

The Bat Plane didn't even try swerving away from her intercept course. It had most likely scanned their craft and knew they weren't armed.

Not armed with lethal force!

They shot by it as it accelerated once more.

"NOW!"

The flares and chaff burst from their launchers once more, showering the fighter in their glare. Kim spun around the enemy craft, hoping to catch it in their own jet wash.

Ron saw the laser cannons fire as they shot past. The Fox spun, the whole world rolling around them. The holographic tactical disappeared, as well as most of the other electronic instruments on their panel. A shower of sparks announced the death throes of their internal systems.

"RON! PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE STILL WEARING YOUR JET PACK?"

"GO TIME, KIM! GO!" The canopy was already blasting away as they sprang away from the ruined transport. They free fell for only a moment as they ascertained which way was up before firing the engines, mainly to slow them down before they could smash into the glacier floor or a towering pressure ridge. As they slowed they could see the Fox spiraling away from them, trailing smoke and sparks as the ruined port engine spewed excited ion energy into the atmosphere.

They had to shield their eyes as it collided with a black shape above them. Both the fox and the enemy plane exploded into a ball of flame and enraged particles, forcing them to shield their faces as tiny bits shot past them, pelting the Kevlar/pentronium weave of their super-suits.

"BOOYAH! TAKE THAT, BAT PLANE!" Ron screamed, executing his victory dance as best he could in the air.

Kim only watched the slowly dissipating cloud with her mouth half open, what she had just done starting to sink in.

Nobody could have survived that crash!

She had killed the enemy pilot!