Part 4: Hope

Chapter 29

Fry's little ship was fast. Stars shot by the view screen at a fearsome rate. The delivery boy watched them morosely from the tiny window above his bunk. Stars had an almost hypnotic affect when they moved across the sky, much the same way a campfire does. The little points of light would pop into view as a glaring blue. As they moved astern, they would gradually change color until they faded into infrared and Fry's eyes could no longer see them. It was relaxing really, getting caught up in the endless pattern. Flash, violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, white, orange, red, gone. Over and over again… Fry sat up with a start, banging his head into the ceiling for his trouble. The delivery boy cursed whoever had designed this spacecraft, which Fry had nicknamed the Minnow, for the 17th time that day. A miserable little bunk, along with a toilet and a shower that seemed no larger than a standard kitchen sink, was crammed into a crevasse at the rear of the ship's cockpit as if in an afterthought.

The delivery boy squirmed his way back into the pilot's seat. It was time to make sure he was on course again. A few pokes and twists of various knobs and dials brought up the now familiar charged particle detection screen. Fry had spent the last 24 hours doing little more than stare blankly at this screen. It had been easy to find the beginning of the trail that Ivan's ship had left behind, since Farnsworth had shown him where to look. The hard part had proven to stay on the trail once he had found it. Ivan had flown a very complicated path, ostensibly to shake off pursuit, and Fry had to check the detector every few minutes to keep from wandering off the trail completely.

Currently, the screen showed that the ship had moved to the edge of the particle trail. Fry pushed the stick downward and to the left. The stars twirled slightly overhead, and the ship settled into its new course. The redhead watched the screen for a few moments to make sure he hadn't over-corrected. Satisfied, he leaned back in his chair and tried to stretch. There wasn't nearly enough room to do so adequately

Fry had experienced a maelstrom of different emotions since leaving Talora. At first he had simply been angry. Well, actually that would be incorrect. First he was terrified, and then he was angry. The delivery boy had flown spaceships before, but nothing like the high-powered, weapon encrusted, and incredibly agile Minnow. It was a long, nerve wracking time before Fry was confident he could fly the ship without accidentally killing himself.

When the terror finally did wear off, it was quickly replaced with anger; anger at himself, Leela, Ivan, Zoidberg, and basically the entire universe in general. When that emotion had boiled away it had been replaced with fear. "What if I find her, and its already too late?" he thought to himself over and over again. Fry felt so helpless. Even though he was racing to Leela's rescue, he had no way of helping her right at that moment, and the knowledge ate away at him with a thousand tiny teeth. That train of thought led straight into a well of depression, and he wallowed there until thoughts of his beloved cyclops helped him climb back out again. Fry smiled when he realized that Leela, albeit without her knowledge or actually having physically done anything, was once again helping him overcome an obstacle that threatened to overwhelm him. The delivery boy silently resolved that he was going to save his captain, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

"But how?" he wondered aloud. That was the best thing about being so utterly alone, he realized, no one could give you strange looks for having a conversation with yourself.

Not for the first time, Fry found himself envying the intelligence and wit of his cyclops captain. "Leela would know what to do. Leela always knows what to do." Suddenly enraged, the delivery boy slammed his fist into a bulkhead. "This isn't fair! I should be the one that Ivan captured, not her! How am I supposed to rescue Leela when I can't even think? All I'm good at is being a hostage."

It wasn't true of course. Although Fry was indeed very good at being a hostage, or anything else that required nothing more than taking up space, there was also one other thing in which he excelled: being there when his friends needed him most. Leela very rarely needed help of any kind, but Fry could always be counted on to come to the rescue at just the right moment. The delivery boy had saved Leela from a deadly space bee at one point. He had jumped in front of his captain at the last second and taken the stinger for her. The monstrous needle went right through him and unloaded its poison into Leela anyway. The cyclops spent 14 days in a coma, but ultimately survived because her body did not have to deal with a horrendous physical wound in addition to the poison. Fry never left her side for a moment, even though the doctors said that Leela would never wake up.

A couple of years before that, Fry had saved Leela from an unhappy marriage to the shape-shifting conman Alkazar. The alien had preyed upon Leela's one weakness, a burning desire to discover her origins. He concocted an elaborate ruse to convince Leela that he and the PE captain were the last surviving members of a grand alien race. She had agreed to marry him in order to keep this fictional species going. If Fry had not risked his neck to uncover the truth, Leela would have been destined for an eternity of unhappiness.

Memories of these two events flitted through the delivery boy's mind. On both occasions he had done exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. He had not needed to think things through, and there had been no time even if he had had the desire to. "Come to think of it," realized the red head, "if I had stopped to think about what I was doing, I might not have done it. If I had taken a moment to plan what I was going to do, Leela would have been stung before I could get in front of her, and she'd be dead. If I had stopped to wonder if it was right to spy on Alcazar, I might have decided it wasn't any of my business, and Leela would be married to that jerk."

"That's it!" The realization came like a smack in the face. "The only time I ever do anything right is when my heart tells me what to do, not my head."

"So then the only chance I'm going to have of saving Leela is by following what my heart tells me."

Fry cleared his mind and tried to ask himself what his heart was telling him to do. Two answers popped into his consciousness. Step one: get to his captain's side at all costs. Step two: Rescue Leela, and god help Ivan if he had dared to hurt her.

Chapter 30

Leela awoke with a start from a horrible nightmare. The cyclops half dragged herself into a sitting position and opened her eye. Everything was black. Leela put a hand up to her face and touched her eye to confirm that yes, it was open. Wherever she was, the lights were out. Leela forced the inherent phobia of the person with one eye out of her head. She was not going to consider the other option, the one where she was blind.

The PE captain reached for her wristband with her left hand. It was gone. "Well, I'm not getting any light that way," she muttered. Now wide awake, Leela slowly climbed to her feet. Her head didn't hit a ceiling. Extending her hands out in front of her, the cyclops began walking. She came across a wall in a half dozen steps. What followed was a bump-and-go exploration of what turned out to be a small square room. Leela realized how ridiculous she must look with her arms out, walking around pseudo-randomly like some sort of confused zombie. Good thing Fry wasn't around to see.

It didn't take long to explore every square inch of the compartment. Confident that she had made a thorough search of the area, worked her way over to a corner and sat down. The little room was empty save for a low bench and what felt like a toilet. A couple of creases in the wall might have been the outline of a door. The PE captain was in a prison cell of some kind, probably in the brig of one of Ivan's ships..

The last thing Leela remembered was running by the hanger back on Talora. She had heard a crackling noise and a thud, and had turned around just in time to see three things. One: Bender facedown in the dirt, immobile or dead. Two: Fry facedown in the dirt, struggling to get his legs out from under the heavy robot. Three: A scarred figure smiling wickedly as it aimed a punch in her direction. She had not had enough time to react.

Leela sat in the corner staring into space for a long time while she mulled over the events of the past week in her head. So many screw-ups.. "If only I'd listened to Fry from the very beginning, this would have never happened. Now I'll probably never see him or anyone else I care about ever again." The cyclops remembered the argument in the desert she had had with the delivery boy. She wanted to apologize to him for being such a jerk, but now she wasn't going to get that chance. "He must hate me now" a cold jolt of electricity shot up her spine as she completed the thought: "if he's still alive."

A cool wetness on her cheeks alerted the woman to the fact that she was crying. She sat there for a moment, quietly sobbing to herself. At last, gaining partial control over her emotions again, she looked up and wiped away a tear. She began to speak aloud, as if someone was there to hear her. "I'm so sorry Fry.", she said. "I should have done so many things differently. You've always been there for me, and I just took you for granted. I never even got to tell you how much I care about you, and now I might never get the chance." Leela had never felt so helpless. She had always been the one with the means and ability to save the day, but now she was in desperate need of someone to save her. It seemed certain that her two best friends were either dead or captured, and no one was likely to find her even if they came looking. "At least Amy made it out ok," muttered Leela. "I guess I didn't manage to get all of my friends killed." Somehow the familiar feel of sarcasm made life a little more bearable.

Leela harbored no delusions. The Planet Express crew's first priority would be the doomsday devices; the professor would insist on it. Even if someone did come looking for her, it would be after Ivan had hidden her away somewhere out of reach. "I might as well accept that Ivan won. But why did he kidnap me? What could he possibly want?"

Chapter 31

Eight thousand one hundred ninety two bottles of Slurm on the wall, Eight thousand one hundred ninety two bottles of Slurm! Take one down, pass it around, Eight thousand one hundred ninety one bottles of Slurm on the wall!" Fry sang to himself to pass the time. A young main sequence star accompanied by a light sprinkling of planets, floated into the delivery boy's field of view, and a light blinked on the console ahead of him. The ship's computer informed Fry that the particle trail he had been following intersected the planet.. The red head had found his destination.

Fry pushed the throttle forward as far as it would go. A tiny green dot in the ship's path blossomed until a bright disk filled the viewscreen. Fry put his ship into orbit and checked the particle detector. The trail ended in low orbit. "Well that doesn't make sense," thought the redhead. "How could the trail just stop like that?" As if on cue, the answer appeared from beyond the planet's limb.

Ivan stood on the bridge of his flagship, the Drakos, and admired the view of the planet below. He had always particularly liked this world, Gillegyn 5, for reasons he didn't quite understand. As often happened, the scarred man's reverie was interrupted as soon as it began. One of the bridge officers scurried over to his side, urgency plastered all over her face.

"Sir?", asked the woman nervously.

Ivan gave her an irritated look. He had been thinking deeply and was not in the mood for interruptions. Not that he ever really was of course. "This woman had better have a good reason for bothering me, for her sake", he thought to himself.

"What is it Lieutenant Carter?"

"Sir, we've detected a ship orbiting the planet with us. The identification signal lists it as one of ours."

"Alright, thank you lieutenant." Ivan dismissed her with a half-hearted salute.

"Yes sir, but sir, something doesn't seem right, if you don't mind my saying so. We weren't expecting any ships to meet us here, and according to the identification signal… Well sir, the incoming ship's has been identified as your personal space fighter."

That got Ivan's attention. He whirled to face the officer on watch. "Lieutenant Commander Michaels, scan the incoming ship for weapons charge please."

"Yes sir." Michaels pressed some buttons on his console. His eyes grew wide. "Captain! I'm detecting multiple weapons active on that ship! My guess is whoever's flying that thing will be in range in 30 seconds!"

"Understood. Lieutenant Carter, sound battle stations! Raise shields and charge weapons. Prepare to engage. Fire all batteries on my command!" The lieutenant hurried away to carry out her orders. Red lights and sirens came alive throughout the Drakos.

"My fighter can only hold one person, so whoever this is, he or she is alone. Its probably that idiot redhead," thought Ivan. "He seems just the type to come galloping to the rescue by himself. It's a pity he didn't bring all of his friends with him to be exterminated at once, but no matter. The others will come when this cretin doesn't report back to them. Still, I was hoping for more time to perfect my plan. Vaporizing my enemies in space is most un-gratifying. On the other hand, being rid of him will be quite a relief. I only wish that he could live long enough to see me torture his beloved captain to death"

"Sir, who are you talking to?" An ensign stood a few feet away, eyeing his captain quizzically.

"Shut up and fire!" , roared Ivan.

Chapter 32

Fry could clearly see his adversary now. Its engines were just now finishing their power-up. The reason the particle trail had ended a few hundred miles from the planet surface was quite simple. The ship producing the particles had shut off its engines so that it could enter a stable orbit. Now the engines were being powered up again, probably for an attack run.

It was not the same ship that the delivery boy had seen Ivan escape Talora in. The scarred fugitive had merely used his little shuttle to escape to a nearby star system. Once there, he had docked with his flagship, The Drakos, which had then led Fry on a cat and mouse chase across the galaxy. The Drakos was bigger than anything Fry had yet seen in Ivan's arsenal. Much bigger. It still had the standard stingray design, but on a scale that dwarfed Ivan's other ships. It measured over a quarter mile in length, and had a wingspan of over half that long. There were at least a dozen decks. Even more impressive was the armament. Fifteen laser canon opened fire on the Minnow simultaneously. Six were mounted on turrets on each wing, three above and three below, and the other three were positioned under the bridge. Fry almost shouted "cool!" at the sight of all those guns, until he remembered how very, very bad they were for his health.

Fry had started to charge his weapons as a precaution the moment the Drakos came into view. He would only learn much later that the technology existed to detect weapons preparing to fire, and that this had been how he had announced his hostility to his unsuspecting foe.

The delivery boy was now faced with two choices. He could stay and fight, or run away with the proverbial tail between his legs. The first option would almost certainly end in either The Minnow or The Drakos exploding in a ball of nuclear fusion, killing either himself, or Leela if she was being held prisoner onboard the other ship. There was no way in hell that Fry was going to choose that option. The Minnow screeched into a U-turn and kicked into high boost. Fry gritted his teeth as the high gees pressed him hard against the seat.

Glancing hits scattered off of the aft shield. The rear facing radar showed Ivan steadily gaining on the Minnow. Whatever fantastic engine propelled the Minnow through space, there was an even better one on the Drakos. Running would be impossible.

In what the red head hoped was a daring and unexpected maneuver, Fry jammed the stick upward and to port. The sky tilted overhead at an impossible rate, and the surprised redhead was shoved deep into the side of his seat. By the time Fry's mind had registered just how agile his spacecraft was, the Drakos was already in the field of view. This time the sight of fifteen separate laser cannon firing in his direction terrified the poor delivery boy, until he remembered his mission. Somewhere on that ship was the woman he loved, and no amount of firepower was going to deter him. That said, Fry reminded himself that destroying the Drakos was not an option. He would have to figure out to disable it… somehow.

A tone signaled that the Minnow had attained weapons lock. Fry pressed the triggers on his joystick. The result was fearsome.

A veritable wave of death and destruction arced away from The Minnow. Railguns clattered, lasers pulsed, and microwave emitters sent cracks and pops reverberating through the hull. Although remarkably fast when flying a straight course, Ivan's ship could not alter its trajectory very well once it got moving. The Drakos was meant for escaping from the authorities, not for dogfights with nimble fighter craft. The full force of Fry's barrage struck the Drakos' shields before it could even start its turn. The enormous stingray was momentarily hidden by an orange glow as the shields absorbed millions of terajoules of energy. A moment later the Drakos came back into view. It was entirely unscathed.

The Drakos' laser batteries returned fire. Fry pitched and rolled in an effort to throw off his adversaries' aim, all the while trying to set up for another good shot. He didn't have the chance. The two ships closed at a breakneck pace. The Minnow hurtled under the left wing of The Drakos, with only a hundred meters to spare.

Once again the Minnow executed a 180 degree turn. Now Fry was in a position to fire upon the Drakos' engines, and possibly disable the vessel without destroying it.

The Drakos' wing mounted laser turrets swiveled in place. They had been placed above and below the wing so that they could face astern and address the aft blind-spot problem that plagued the smaller stingray ships.

Fry took advantage of the few seconds that he had been given while the enemy ship's weapons tried to reacquire their lock on him. He opened up with everything the Minnow had, but still it made no difference. The shields kept absorbing everything that he dished out.

In a matter of moments The Minnow was back in the sights of the Drakos' gunners. Fry had to break off his attack and dodge. A few lucky shots scored direct hits on the Minnow's shields. A flashing message on the ship's HUD informed the redhead that his shields had been cut to 73. Fry gulped. "Those lasers pack a punch!"

The incoming fire was becoming too accurate. Fry had to throw off the gunners' aim again somehow. A little light bulb clicked on in the delivery boy's normally slow brain. He pressed the throttle forward and shot past his quarry in a matter of moments. He then waited a moment and threw his ship into another turn, firing at his target as soon as his weapons came to bear. Fry was no longer worried about destroying the Drakos. The stingray's shields were too damn strong to fail all at once. The Minnow would have to pound the shields with everything she had until they showed some sign of weakening.

With the throttle at maximum, Fry was now able to fly around his quarry faster than its defenses could track him. Shot after shot impacted the enemy's shields. There was still no visible effect, but the redhead knew that there was a limit to the amount of energy that any shield could absorb. That shield would fail, even if it took all day.

"Alright, enough is enough," said a disgruntled cyclops, as the room reeled around her.. Leela had stoically accepted being locked up in a little room for hours on end, but this new business was just too much. Until recently, her captivity had been relatively quiet. The lights had gone on a few hours after Leela had first discovered that she had been captured. They alternated off and on at regular intervals to allow for some sleep time. Food appeared from a slot in the wall every few hours. All in all she was being treated fairly well.

Then all of the sudden a siren had gone off. The overhead light turned from yellow-white to blood red. Leela could just barely make out voices yelling on the other side of the cell wall. A few moments later these sounds were accompanied by a dull roar and muffled thumps. Every once in awhile the room would shudder violently, throwing Leela off balance. It was pretty obvious that there was a battle of some kind going on. "I wonder who Ivan is trying to kill this time?"

A hundred feet away on the Drakos' bridge, Ivan was also becoming very annoyed.

"You idiots!", he shouted at his gunners over the intercom, "Shoot him down or I'll throw each and every one of you out the airlock, and replace you with someone competent!"

The disgruntled arms dealer paced his bridge. What he had once dismissed as a harmless insect had turned out to have quite a stinger. The Drakos' shields were at 82 and falling at a slow, but steady pace. If his ship were to loose its shields, Ivan had no doubt that his private fighter, in the hands of the infuriating redhead, would be able to convert the Drakos quite effectively into its component atoms.

It had been quite a surprise for Ivan to see the little needle ship turn to face him. "I never thought for a moment that that kid would have the guts to fight me without his captain around. What does he expect to accomplish anyway? If he brings my shields down and destroys my ship, he also kills Leela. If he somehow disables and disarms me, how does he expect to rescue his captain? He wont make it very far if he tries to board my ship by himself." The scarred man toyed with the idea of letting his own shields down just so he could have the satisfaction of shooting Fry in the face as he came bounding out of the airlock. "No, I cant risk it. Better to kill him now than take the chance of faking shield collapse, only to end up blown to bits when that fool gets trigger-happy and does something stupid."

"Sir, are you talking to me?" The same ensign from earlier was once again standing a few feet away with that quizzical look.

"No dammit! Now get back to your station!"

Ivan turned to lieutenant Carter, who was busy rerouting power from non-critical systems to the shields. A wise move. Almost any problem on a spaceship could easily be remedied by rerouting power.

"Lieutenant?"

"Sir?"

"Prepare to fire missile tubes one through six on my mark."

"Yes sir!" Carter gave a crisp salute and began fiercely pressing buttons at her console. Ivan watched her work. "She is a fine officer," thought Ivan. "When this is over I will have to remember to give her a promotion."

A few moments passed. Lieutenant Carter finished her frantic button pushing and raised her eyes to look at her captain. Ivan gestured her to wait. Fry's ship buzzed about like some giant nuclear powered gnat. "That's it my spiky-haired chum," muttered the scarred man, "just a little farther to starboard and…"

Ivan brought his fist down on the arm of his captain's chair. "Mark!", he roared.

Chapter 33

Six missiles carrying kryptonium warheads shot out of the Drakos' missile tubes. The timing had been excellent. One moment Fry had been flying about practically unchallenged, and then the next half a dozen blips had appeared on radar, closing rapidly from the stern. Instinct took over before the delivery boy could process this new information. He dodged and weaved for a good five seconds before the nature of these new objects occurred to him.

A new wave of adrenaline coursed through the delivery boy's veins. He tried every flying technique that Leela had taught him in an effort to get away from the incoming warheads, but the missiles matched him maneuver for maneuver. The strain on the Minnow's hull sent creaks and groans coursing through the little ship as it was pushed to its limits. Fry prayed desperately to whatever god would listen that his ship wouldn't fly apart before he could rescue his captain.

Instead of a divine miracle, Fry found himself facing another problem. His erratic evasive maneuvers had carried him away from the Drakos for long enough that the laser turrets had locked on to him again. Now he had to worry about the Minnow and the missiles being hit. If one of those things was detonated by a stray shot it would be almost as bad as being hit directly.

There was only one thing left to do, a little trick that Leela had shown him during a run in with the Tyranids of The Hive Planet. It was just a matter of time before the missiles caught up to him. Fry sent his ship into one last body-wrenching turn and pointed the Minnow's bow straight at the Drakos' stern. He pressed down on the triggers and sent one last, continuous wave of firepower crashing against the Drakos' shields. The delivery boy did not even attempt to dodge the incoming fire. Fry needed every iota of engine power to propel him forward. If a few shots splashed against his shields before he reached the Drakos, well it wasn't important. Fry doubted it would much matter how strong his shields were when those warheads went off.

It didn't take long for Ivan to figure out what Fry had planned. The gunners were ordered to divert their fire from the incoming ship to the missiles that followed behind. All twelve wing-lasers sent volley after volley at the missiles that had just recently been an assurance of victory, but it was pointless. The warheads were too small and fast to hit save by sheer luck.

Fry's every muscle tensed. His entire body was drenched in sweat. The Drakos was getting steadily closer. The missiles narrowed in from behind. Lasers flashed by in all directions. Time slowed to a veritable standstill. The missiles drew to within a kilometer. A klaxon blared its warning of imminent collision. The Drakos' hull came closer, closer. "Now!", shouted every fiber of Fry's being. The delivery boy threw the engine into full reverse and pulled up on the stick so hard that it felt like it would snap. The Minnow turned slowly, so slowly. Six warheads vectored in for the kill. Overhead, the Drakos' hull closed to within 40 meters. 30. 25. Impact!. Everything disappeared in an orange glare. The Minnow skipped off of the Drakos' shields like a stone on the surface of a pond. Six kryptonium warheads collided with the shield half a moment later.

Fry's body was pushed into his seat by a force the likes of which the delivery boy had not imagined possible. Ivan's shields absorbed most of the energy from the explosion, but buckled before the warheads' effects could be completely nullified. A much diminished, but still dangerous, shockwave tore into the Drakos and the Minnow. The entire tail section of the stingray, including the engines, split off from the main body and spun away crazily.

Chapter 34

Up became left. Leela momentarily found herself airborne, until a nearby wall had a chance to remind her that her species couldn't fly. A new vibration started to coarse through the deck, one much larger than could be explained by the throb of any engine. It became impossible for the cyclops to stand. Leela allowed herself to fall to the ground. She curled into a ball with her head between her knees and her hands on the back of her neck. If Ivan's ship was doing what she thought it was doing, it would be a good idea to be in the most protective posture possible. The PE captain reminded herself that it wasn't an uncontrolled re-entry that would kill you, it was the sudden stop at the end.

The delivery boy fought to control his mortally injured craft, but there was no response. The almost-forgotten planet loomed larger and larger. Soon Fry could hear the whoosh of air as the Minnow entered the atmosphere for one final flight. A red glow appeared around the falling ship, soon building to a white-hot inferno. The ground was closing in. The ship was still unresponsive. A calm, computerized voice began to speak over the ship's comm. "This is Mike, your personal bail-out assistant. If you would like to eject, please pull the handle located under the front of your seat. Thank you." A small red handle popped out from the deck. Fry lunged at it.

A loud 'whoomp' filled the cockpit as dozens of small explosive bolts went off simultaneously throughout the Minnow. An airtight bulkhead slammed shut just inches behind the pilot's seat. Somewhere under Fry's feet a rocket fired, propelling the cockpit away from the doomed Minnow. Drag fins deployed to slow the careening escape pod. Sensors waited for the flames of re-entry to die down, and finally signaled for the release of the parachute. There was a terrific jolt, and Fry breathed a sigh of relief to see the ground approaching at a much more reasonable rate. In the distance the delivery boy could see a small explosion as his faithful Minnow found its final resting place. Overhead and to the rear, an angry plume of smoke marked the re-entry of a much larger vessel. Ivan's ship had also succumbed to the seductive pull of gravity.

The infuriatingly calm synthesized voice of Mike began speaking again, "In case of a water landing, your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device. Please keep your seatbelt fastened and your tray table in the upright position until the vehicle comes to a complete stop..."