[SFG]

Chapter Four

[SFG]

Logging Site, Planet Eudora

Taking their leave of Kerwan, the Aphelion shortly brought Ratchet, Clank, and Talwyn to the heavily forested world of Eudora, where they landed at the primary logging site of Drek Industries on the planet. From what the starfighter's scanners could detect, the primary fleet of the newly retitled Executive Chairman Drek was nowhere near Eudora, yet the robotic lumberjacks continued to deforest the planet out of what appeared to be spite, which angered the team of four and motivated them to stamp out the Blarg presence for good.

Exiting out of the cockpit first, Ratchet turned to the Aphelion while Clank and Talwyn came out as well, and said, "Okay, old girl, in case Drek's Lieutenant comes out of where he's hiding, and we're all not back yet, you're going to have to block his escape, so be ready."

"Understood, Ratchet," the Aphelion replied with a dutiful tone in her electronic voice.

Brandishing her own Blaster, Talwyn then inputted, "I'll take out the surrounding riffraff and see what kind of weapon there is at the local mills. It could be useful." Activating her jetpack, she then called out to Ratchet and Clank as she flew away, "Play nice, boys!"

"And you and I shall find our way to the Lieutenant ourselves, Ratchet," Clank said to the Lombax before getting on the latter's back.

Using the Trespasser they got on Aridia, the Swingshot they received from Helga, and the Heli-Pack upgrade from Al, Ratchet and Clank were able to make their way through a locked structure and over a canyon until they arrived at the building the Lieutenant was in which had to be unlocked via the Trespasser as well.

As Ratchet was making progress in unlocking the entrance, Clank decided to make conversation, but tried to be considerate in his tone as he said, "I am sorry if this is a personal question, Ratchet, but back when you were arguing with Talwyn, she mentioned that your family was missing. Might it be too much for me to know what exactly happened?"

Taking a pause in his work, Ratchet exhaled wearily at Clank's curiosity before replying, "I don't know what exactly happened to my people, Clank, I just know that when an evil tyrant rose to power in Polaris, one of his first decrees was for any and every Lombax to be killed on sight for the crimes of our ancestors against his."

"But not all Lombaxes were killed by this Tachyon fellow," Clank asked for clarification.

"No, but if there are any other Lombaxes aside from me, I have no idea where they could've gone," Ratchet answered with another sigh before redirecting the conversation on a different topic, saying, "Maybe we can talk about this later, pal? We're about to get in a fight soon, after all."

"As you wish, Ratchet," Clank agreed sympathetically before adding, "And for what it is worth, I hope you do find your family someday."

Turning to Clank just as he wrapped up the Trespasser's use, Ratchet said with appreciation, "Thanks."

Proceeding inside, the Lieutenant, a large, red-eyed robot, painted in green and gold with a protruding jaw, immediately fled through the exit at the sight of Ratchet and Clank, but his escape was blocked when several projectiles were fired down his way, pushing him straight to the ground. Looking up at where the shots were fired from, Ratchet and Clank saw Talwyn flying down their way with a new weapon in her arms.

"Let's just say that the local sawbots had a "sucky" time," Talwyn quipped with emphasis that incurred laughter in Clank and confusion in Ratchet.

"The new weapon is a Suck Cannon," Clank quickly whispered to Ratchet, so that he could understand the joke.

Shrugging, Ratchet turned to Talwyn, saying, "Not a bad dramatic entrance, Tal," and turning to the scared Lieutenant, added, "and to top it off, Drek's flunky isn't going anywhere any time soon."

Disengaging from Ratchet's back, Clank faced the cowering yet taller robot to say, "No more games, sir. Tell us where Drek and Qwark are?"

"Captain Qwark," the Lieutenant asked back confused before adding, "Last I checked, he comes and goes, so I don't think the Supreme Executive Chairman's done anything to him yet."

Recognizing from the Lieutenant's words that he did not know Qwark's probable involvement, Clank looked away embarrassed while Ratchet pointed his OmniWrench at the enemy robot asking sharply, "And Drek?"

While the Lieutenant was stammering a response, Talwyn looked back at the building he came out of to see an infobot floating their way, provoking the Markazian to smirk as she suggested, "Maybe that little guy can give us a better clue than he could."

Seeing the infobot themselves, Ratchet and Clank nodded in agreement, which led to the former knocking the Robot Lieutenant offline with an OmniWrench to the head, and upon noticing the latter's disapproving look, he said, "What? Following orders, or not, he had it coming for what he did."

[SFG]

Blarg Tactical Research Station, Nebula G34

Acquiring new coordinates from the infobot on Eudora, Ratchet, Clank, and Talwyn flew on the Aphelion to the Blarg Tactical Research Station, where many of Drek's employees, Blarg and non-Blarg alike, were experimenting with new gadgets and mutant animals to further the newly retitled Supreme Executive Chairman's cause. Even if it was a long shot at finding Drek's location, Ratchet figured that whatever equipment that the space station's scientists were working on could be useful to them as well, which Talwyn agreed since her home carried enough legal documents to establish a foothold for Apogee Industries in the Solana Galaxy.

Upon landing inside B.T.S., the Aphelion piped up to inform the exiting trio, "I'm receiving a transmission from the Apogee Space Station."

"Must be Cronk and Zephyr wanting in on the action," Ratchet commented while rolling his eyes.

"They'd fall asleep, if they were bored, after all," Talwyn could not help but joke before answering the ship's HD-800 screen to reveal the two warbots looking eager to help.

"Hello, Miss Talwyn," Zephyr greeted and then said, "I trust the rookies have been catching up to you?"

"Pretty much," Talwyn replied with a giggle before asking, "What's up with you and Cronk?"

Cronk answered in a soldierly fashion, "Now that Zephyr and I have successfully hidden the Apogee Space Station, we were wondering if we could meet up with the four of you, so that we can all fight the Blarg as one."

"You mean our usual spaceship is fixed now," Talwyn asked, considering that it had gotten damaged in a previous skirmish with Space Pirates before Ratchet came along.

Scratching the back of his head awkwardly, Zephyr replied, "Actually, we were thinking of hiring the services of a Supernova Taxi driver that would take us to wherever you're going next."

"Sounds fair enough, I guess," Ratchet said while showing the palms of his gloved hands.

"If the pattern follows, we should get an idea of where to go next after this place," Clank reasoned.

"And I can realistically hold those two in the back," the Aphelion opinioned.

Turning to the screen, Talwyn said, "Okay, guys, we'll let you know where we're going soon, so be ready."

"Thank you, Miss Talwyn," Cronk said earnestly.

"We won't let you down," Zephyr then added just before the connection was then cut off.

Finally exiting the starfighter, Talwyn and her two friends then proceeded to split up on a separate route each. Ratchet took a shuttle on autopilot to the nearby decommissioned Blarg warship to see what it had, Clank explored outside the airlock since he did not need to breathe in space, and Talwyn, upon seeing the grind rail opposite the airlock, used her jetpack to fly straight along it until reaching the end where a metal hatch blocked her way.

"Probably should've gone the other way," Talwyn commented half in annoyance and half in merriment. Not wishing to be held back, though, she slammed her fist on the hatch while yelling, "Hey, I've got an important message from Supreme Executive Chairman Drek! Open up already!"

Hearing what sounded like a startled crash on the other side, Talwyn smirked eagerly to herself before the hatch finally opened up to reveal a short felinoid with yellow skin and brown hair that also wore glasses and a lab coat looking concerned and even more so when she noticed Talwyn pointing her Blaster straight at him.

"I take it you were lying about the message part, huh," the small scientist said as Talwyn flew into the room he was in and then powered her jetpack off.

Talwyn could not help but reply smugly, "Well, it got you to let me in, right," then more seriously, she asked, "Speaking of Drek, where is he?"

Holding his arms up worriedly, the scientist replied in a panic, "His fleet comes and goes! If not at the Blarg home planet, it could be at Quartu, Gaspar, Hoven, or that new space station in the works orbiting Oltanis, but I don't have coordinates for any of those! That's all I know, really!"

Figuring that the scientist knew less about Captain Qwark's involvement with the Blarg than the Lieutenant from Eudora did, Talwyn decided to take him at his word and asked, "What's your name?"

Not expecting such a question, the scientist nonetheless, replied, "Uh, Fred?"

"You invented anything useful, Fred?"

Brightening up considerably, Fred answered, "Sure did," and then revealed a pair of special boots as he announced, "My soon to be patented Grind Boots allow the wearer to grind on anything grindable!"

Showing a more sincere smile, Talwyn then holstered her Blaster and made Fred an offer, "How about this then? You let a friend of mine test out the Grind Boots, and in exchange, I'll give you a new job once the Solana branch of Apogee Industries is in business."

"Apogee Industries," Fred said out the name before looking at Talwyn mistrustingly. "Never heard of you."

"I'm from the Polaris Galaxy," Talwyn could not help but reply just as flatly, but seeing Fred still look uncertain, she bent her knees to his level and added, "I don't blame you for the disbelief, Fred, but I promise you, it's perfectly legit, you will be rewarded, and you'll probably like it better than working here with all the mutant animals."

Sighing, Fred replied, "Well, you're not wrong there. The Snappers and Swarmers scare me out of my own mind at times. So what do we do first to seal the deal?"

"First thing's first, we should get to the landing bay, and find out where's a good place for my people to bring some paperwork for you," Talwyn then took Fred in her arms and with her jetpack, flew down the grind rail and back to the landing bay where Ratchet and Clank were already waiting alongside an infobot.

"Any word on Drek," Clank asked Talwyn with a strange gadget in his arms.

Talwyn shook her head negative as she laid Fred down on the floor, saying, "No, but I do know the names of some places of importance to him," then with a nod towards Fred, who held out the Grind Boots for Ratchet to take, Talwyn added, "and I found a good new employee with a gadget I think Ratchet will love."

"Thanks to the both of you then," Ratchet said as he observed the Grind Boots in his hands, and then turned to Clank and his gadget, saying, "Clank found a Hydrodisplacer which could probably be used at some point along the way," he then turned to the infobot on his right as he said, "and I found an infobot."

Upon seeing the infobot's transmission, Talwyn was quick to ask Aphelion to send a message to Cronk and Zephyr about meeting them on Planet Rilgar, where they could have Fred sign up as an employee of Apogee Industries, put Skidd's gift to Ratchet on Aridia to good use in the Blackwater City Hoverboard Race, and finally confront Captain Qwark before he got away again.

[SFG]

Took some time to write this down, but I finally updated Sargasso From the Get-Go as I said I would. I cannot say I know how to establish a thriving corporate branch in another galaxy, but having Talwyn hire Fred for her father's company that appeared in All 4 One felt like a good idea to me.

Expect the move to Rilgar later on, all right? I have other things to watch, read, and write about, after all.