Chapter one: Shot Down
(Phoenix)
Things were quiet on the Starship Phoenix. During the whole encounter with Dr. Nefarious, the ship was filled with noise, whether it be from Nefarious' troops attacking the ship or Captain Qwark boasting about his many adventures (most of which were probably greatly exaggerated) to the soldiers.
However, after the defeat of Dr. Nefarious, things slowed down to a halt. Qwark had even left the ship to continue his career as a hero (the rest of the crew threw a party after he left). However, the bulky superhero was the only one to leave. Big Al, Helga, Skidd and even Skrunch, Qwark's monkey, stayed on the ship to assist Ratchet, Clank, Sasha and the soldiers.
Ratchet sighed as he completed Helga's training course, beating his best time again. The Lombax looked at the overweight trainer. "Helga, I think you should make the training course a little more challenging." Ratchet told her.
"Vell, excuuuuuse me, but you are ze only one to actually BEAT ze course, lardball!" Helga retaliated. "No vone else can even make it half-vay!"
"Meh. I guess you're right." Ratchet shrugged. "See ya around, Helga."
Ratchet left the training room and walked down a hallway, into the entertainment room. Inside, he saw Al playing a vid-coming. Skrunch and Clank were sitting on the couch next to him, although the latter was reading a book.
"How's it going, guys?" Ratchet asked.
"Not bad considering nothing's happened these past few months." Clank replied, not looking up from his book.
"Yeah." Ratchet said, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm glad that we haven't run into any more trouble, but part of me wishes that something happens to bring us all out of this bored state." He then looked at Al. "How'd your reunion go, Al?"
The furry creature paused his game and looked at Ratchet. "It was real good. I haven't seen either my brother or my sister in years."
"Then I guess you're lucky that Clank and I ran into them both during the whole Drek fiasco." Ratchet chuckled.
Al nodded. "That's for sure. If you hadn't told me where they were, I wouldn't have been able to make contact with either of them." He turned to the robot sitting on the couch. "You know, Clank? Edwina misses you."
"I'm sure she does." Ratchet replied with a smirk, rolling his eyes at the same time.
"Well, the three of us are going to stay in touch now that we know where the others are." Al said as he returned to his game.
"That's good." Ratchet nodded. "In fact, I think that-"
"Attention!" Sasha's voice blared through the speakers on the wall. "Ratchet, we need you on the bridge!"
Another thing that happened since Ratchet and Clank defeated Dr. Nefarious was that Ratchet hooked up with Sasha, the Phoenix's captain. Luckily, Sasha's father approved after seeing that Ratchet had proven himself worthy.
Bidding farewell to the others, Ratchet jogged out of the entertainment room, down the main hallway and stepped on the platform to take him to the bridge. A few seconds later and the door on the other side of the platform tunnel opened, granting Ratchet access to the bridge. Stepping onto the bridge, he saw Sasha on the lower level with Skidd, whom was sitting at his usual seat.
"You called me, Sasha?" Ratchet asked.
Sasha turned to Ratchet and nodded. "Yes. Skidd just picked up an SOS signal." She sighed. "It's one of my father's cargo ships. It's transporting precious cargo and it's under attack."
"No problem." Ratchet said. "Where's this attack taking place and how many bogeys are we talking about, here?"
Skidd typed a few more things on his keyboard. "The cargo ship was passing over Grelbin in the Bogon Galaxy when it got ambushed, man. I'm not sure how many ships there are, but I think it's about thirty."
Ratchet stroked his chin. "Grelbin? Why does that name sound familiar?"
"My father can't afford to lose this cargo, Ratchet. Luckily, the heavy armour on the ship should hold up until you get there." Sasha explained. "I need you guys to go there and stop the attack."
"Sure thing, Sasha. I'll-" What Sasha just said suddenly sunk into the furry Lombax. "'Guys'? Someone's going with me?"
Sasha nodded. "Yes. Skidd volunteered to go with you."
Ratchet did a double take. "What! Skidd! But…He could get killed out there!" He stated, waving his arms in the air.
"Not so, Ratchet. Skidd's been improving his flying skills lately." Sasha explained. "He's almost as good a pilot as you are, now."
"Well…I just don't want to see any of my friends get killed." Ratchet said.
"Hey, man. You saved me from spending an eternity as a robot. This is the least I could do to repay you, dude." Skidd insisted with a nervous chuckle.
Ratchet sighed. "Well, okay. Let's go then, Skidd."
The Rilgarian nodded, stood up and started walking out of the bridge with Ratchet. They would have made it all the way out if Sasha hadn't stepped in.
"Ratchet, wait."
Ratchet turned around to look at his girlfriend. "Yeah, Sasha?"
Sasha quickly gave her boyfriend a kiss. "Be careful out there, okay?"
"Hey, don't worry." Ratchet said with a smile. "Skidd and I will save your father's ship, taking down all of the baddies and be back here before you know it."
Sasha nodded and backed away. "Good luck, guys."
Ratchet and Skidd bid farewell and stepped onto the platform. In a flash, the two were zooming away from the bridge and flying down the tunnel towards the main area of the ship. During the trek to their ships, Ratchet looked up at his tall friend.
"Keep in mind that this isn't the simulator, Skidd." Ratchet reminded. "This is your first time on a real space mission and it's twice as hard as a ground mission. You up for it?"
Skidd gave a nervous smile. "Hey, man. I gotta start sometime. I figure it's probably good to start on a mission with one of the best."
Ratchet chuckled. "Just be careful, Skidd."
Soon, the pair had arrived in the docking bay, where they saw two identical jet fighters sitting side by side, ready for takeoff. The two friends each chose a ship and climbed into the cockpits of the two fighters.
Once sitting down, Ratchet pressed a few buttons on a panel, closing the hatch over his head. Looking to his left, he saw Skidd doing the same. The Rilgarian surfer flashed a smile and a thumb's up as the glass dome closed over him. Ratchet returned the gesture.
The engines of the two ships quickly started, lifting the two fighters off the ground. As a few nearby soldiers waved to them, Ratchet and Skidd took off, zooming into the void of space at top speed.
(Bogon Galaxy)
Ratchet jerked forward slightly as his ship came out of warp drive. Looking ahead, he saw that the coordinates led him right to the battlefield. A good ways ahead was a huge cargo ship, several fighters swarming around it.
Looking to his left again, Ratchet saw Skidd's ship coming out of warp drive, appearing right beside him.
"You ready Skidd? This is it." Ratchet said.
Skidd took a deep breath and gripped the controls of his fighter. "Bring 'em on, dude!"
"You read my mind, pal!" Ratchet looked ahead, narrowing his eyes. "Let 'em have it!"
After flying into the battlefield, the two friends started firing laser bolts at the swarm of enemy ships, hoping to take their attention off of the cargo ship.
When the enemy leader saw a barrage of laser suddenly destroy three of his ships, he turned and saw two ships coming in. "We've got company, boys! Let's get them!"
"Well, they know we're here, Skidd." Ratchet said. "There's no backing out now."
"I know, man. Let's do this!" Skdid pumped a fist into the air.
The two sides flew at each other. On one side, almost thirty fighters flew, each one firing laser shots. On the other side were Ratchet and Skidd, both of them firing shots of their own, while avoiding the fire from the other side at the same time.
By the time the two teams closed in, Ratchet and Skidd had already downed four more fighters. The two friends flew into the wave of fighters, rapidly firing shots as they avoided collision with other ships.
Skidd exited the pack of fighters and out into the open space again. A few enemies saw this and chased after him, starting to fire upon the Navalian's fighter. Skidd noticed this and quickly pulled off a loop, flying over the enemy ships. Once he leveled himself, Skid was now chasing the enemy ships, all three of which were downed quickly.
Ratchet saw Skidd's show and nodded, impressed. "Looks like Sasha wasn't joking when she said he was improving." He said to himself as he blasted another enemy to bits.
The Lombax suddenly noticed a larger enemy ship fly past him. Once it was in front, the enemy started bombarding Ratchet with laser. Ratchet rolled his ship to the side, making the larger ship destroy any enemy ship tailing Ratchet (which were three or four). The Lombax completed his roll and instantly started shooting at the enemy ship. It took a few more shots than usual, but Ratchet managed to down the ship as well.
Ratchet noticed that his shield had taken a bit of damage during that run. He realized that he'd have to be more careful.
Skidd had taken a bit more damage than Ratchet had, but was still managing to hold his ground. He had already managed to down nine fighters and was working on his tenth. The Rilgarian suddenly noticed some more enemies flying behind him, taking more bites out of his shield. Skidd quickly downed the fighter he was chasing and flew towards an asteroid, picking up speed rapidly. The enemy ships followed, also speeding up. Skidd waited until he was close enough to the asteroid, then pulled up, flying to safety. The enemy ships didn't have good enough reflexes and crashed into the asteroid.
The Rilgarian looked around and saw that, by now, most of the enemy fighters had been wiped out. He flew towards Ratchet as the Lombax was fighting the last three ships.
The three remaining ships decided to take on Ratchet from different sides. As one flew straight at Ratchet's ship, the other two flew in from either side. Strangely enough, Ratchet wasn't firing.
"Man. These guys keep getting dumber and dumber." Ratchet chuckled. "Going down!"
With that, Ratchet veered down, out of harm's way, leaving all three ships to slam into each other, exploding on impact.
Once the three ships were destroyed, Ratchet looked around to see if there were any more left. After a few seconds, Ratchet was satisfied that there weren't any more.
"Hey, Ratchet! We did it!"
Ratchet smiled at the voice coming from the speakers. Skidd's ship flew into view.
"You were awesome, man!" Skidd said. "Great job!"
"You weren't too bad, yourself, Skidd." Ratchet said. "You're definitely improving."
"Thanks, man."
"Well, I'll just report back to Sasha and then we'll head back."
Suddenly, before either of the friends had time to react, three laser bolts shot from nowhere and slammed into the side of Skidd's ship, blowing off one of the wings.
Now, it was bad enough that this attack took both Ratchet and Skidd by surprise, but what was worse was now that his wing was gone, Skidd couldn't control his ship. The Rilgarian tried to regain control, but could do nothing as he spiraled down towards the cold planet below.
"SKIDD!" Ratchet screamed.
"Ratchet!" Skidd's frantic voice blared through Ratchet's speakers as his ship got smaller and smaller. "I can't keep control, man! I'm losing it! I'm going down! Ratchet, I'm-"
That was all Ratchet heard before Skidd's voice was cut off. The only thing Ratchet heard was static.
"Skidd!" Ratchet called. "Skidd, come in! Do you read me!"
Alas, the only thing Ratchet heard was static. Skidd wasn't responding, and that meant that his ship had crashed. And if it had crashed, then that meant one thing.
Skidd was dead.
Ratchet looked in the direction the lasers had come from and saw one enemy ship, the leader's, floating in space.
The leader chuckled. "Well, lookie what happened. I was aiming for you and that punk decided to fly in my line of sight when I fired."
A low growl escaped Ratchet's throat, his gaze piercing through the leader's ship with hatred. Without warning, Ratchet flew at the ship at top speed.
"I unfortunately am out of ammo, so I can't take you out just yet. Looks like I need to retreat for now." The leader said as he turned his ship around and flew off at warp speed, escaping Ratchet's wrath.
Ratchet slowed his ship to a halt and paused as everything that had just happened sunk in. Skidd had unknowingly saved Ratchet's life, and had paid for it with his own life. Ratchet fell back against his seat as tears started coming to his eyes. He would've sat there and cried the rest of the night if a message hadn't come through his speaker.
"Ratchet, this is Sasha!" The female voice said. "How's the mission going?"
Ratchet looked at the speaker and sighed. "Three things, Sasha." He said, his voice sounding like it was cracking. "Your father's cargo ship is safe, the leader of the attacking forces got away and…" Ratchet bit his lip in hesitation before finishing his sentence. "…We've got a man down."
"What? You mean that…Oh, no…" Sasha said as she realized what Ratchet meant. "W-What happened?"
"The leader was aiming for me, but Skidd unknowingly flew in the way. He lost a wing and tumbled down to the planet. His ship crashed." Ratchet explained, looking down.
For a few seconds, Ratchet couldn't hear anything. He guessed that Sasha was trying to regain her composure before continuing. "R-Ratchet, return to the Phoenix…" She said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Ratchet nodded. "Okay." He said simply before turning off the speaker and sending his ship into warp drive.
On his way back to the Phoenix, Ratchet set his plane to automatic pilot. After everything that just happened, Ratchet didn't have the desire to pilot anything.
(Grelbin)
On the cold surface of Grelbin, Skidd slowly started to regain his senses, but only barely. The last thing he remembered was opening the hatch before crashing. He would've guessed that when the ship crashed, the Rilgarian had been thrown clear of the wreckage.
Skid propped himself onto his elbows and dizzily looked around, his vision blurred. Although he couldn't see clearly, he saw that he was in some sort of barren snow valley. He suddenly felt a little weaker, as if his remaining strength was diminishing.
The Rilgarian looked up and saw a furry face staring down at him with concern. Skidd's vision was already blackening, but he could tell that this figure was a Lombax.
"…R-R-Ratchet?…" Was all Skidd could manage before collapsing onto his stomach, unconscious again.
The Lombax that stood over the fallen surfer wasn't Ratchet, though. In fact, the Lombax wasn't even a guy. The girl, whom was closer to Skidd's height than Ratchet's, quickly felt Skidd for a pulse.
"He's still alive." The girl sighed in relief when she found a pulse. "I need to get him some shelter."
The female Lombax picked up Skidd and draped an arm over her shoulder, helping him walk back to a small building at the edge of the snow field.