Part Seven

Spike Spiegel, Fighter Pilot

Spike gave Electra directions to where the Bebop was docked. On the way, I absentmindedly checked my watch.

"Huh." I said. "Happy Halloween."

"Is it Halloween already?" Electra asked.

"Whatever Vincent's gonna do," Spike said, "I suspect he's going to do it today."

I nodded.

We drove in silence for most of the trip. There was a lot to think about.

We pulled up on the dock, right next to the Bebop. I grabbed the container from the trunk and brought it inside with Electra and Spike.

Inside, Jet was talking with Faye in the living room. I set the container down, and almost tackled Faye with a hug.

"I was so worried about you..." I said.

Faye laughed. I didn't realized that my head was practically buried in her chest, which was being barely hidden by her red scarf.

I quickly stood back up.

"What happened to your top?" I asked.

"That madman cut it open." Faye said. "I managed to stop him from doing anything, but it was a close call."

"Did you happen to ingest any of his blood?" I asked.

Faye looked a little bit puzzled. "Yeah, I'm vaccinated. He told me."

I turned around to see that Electra was watching Faye and I. Spike and Jet were unloading the vaccines while Spike explained what we knew.

Electra watched us with a knowing gaze. "So, this is..."

"Faye Valentine." I said. "Faye, this is Electra Ovirowa."

The women casually shook hands, and I explained to Faye what had happened to us. Faye told us how she had gone to capture the nerd, but he was in an area that had been hit with the virus. Faye got infected, too, and passed out. When she woke up, she had been captured by Vincent. Vincent had lectured her on his ways, and told her that she would be immune to the virus; now, Faye knew why.

Faye had been able to escape because Vincent left. Before leaving, he had told her to meet him at the "bridge between Heaven and Earth", because that's where the "party" would start.

"My God," Electra breathed.

"What?" Faye asked.

"He must have gotten ahold of the most advanced samples of the virus. Those samples spread from person to person at a very fast rate. The only thing faster is the vaccine, but it has to be applied immediately." Electra explained. "That's what he means by the 'start of the party'... the start of the infection's spread."

"Well, I have good news." I said.

Everyone looked at me, expectantly.

"I have an idea."

The plan was supposed to go as follows: Faye would break into the climate control center and make it rain. Electra and Jet would go to the airport and get as many planes as possible into the air with spray bottles filled with the vaccine. The pilots would simply fly over New York, spraying the vaccine. The clouds would absorb the liquid, and it would rain down upon the people of the city, stopping the virus immediately.

The trick to the whole plan was, the authorities wouldn't be very happy about it. So it was up to Spike and I to cause as much trouble as possible and distract them.

We all helped out with bottling the vaccine, and put them in the back of Electra's car. They took off at around five PM- later than I would've liked, but still not bad.

Faye took off in her ship for the climate control center- I didn't ask what her plan was to take over the place, but she did grab one of my MP5's on the way out- and Spike and I shoved out immediately after her.

"So, Spike, what's the plan?" I asked.

"We're going to fly right into their turrets." he replied.

"What!"

"Relax, it'll be fine." he said.

I hoped that my reflexes would be up to the task.

As we approached the turrets, Spike forwarded his sound system's music over to mine, so we'd both be listening to the same thing. He was playing a very up-tempo jazz piece.

"'Clutch'?" I asked.

I remembered the conversation we had had in the back of Jet's rented van that night. It felt like a lifetime ago.

"We're coming in." Spike said.

I heard the turrets come alive. They opened fire.

Spike dodged to the left, I dodged to the right. The turret didn't know which target to fire at, and chose neither.

A swarm of military ships started flying our way. We continued to barrel roll in opposite directions out of the way of turret fire, confusing any gun that shot at us.

The ships followed us out over the countryside.

"Alright, Spike, we've got 'em far enough away from the city." I said.

"There are still ships in the base." Spike said. "Let's make 'em send some reinforcements."

I saw Spike turn his ship's plasma cannon around and lock on to a ship behind him. He fired, blowing away the small ship.

A shrill beeping from my targeting computer told me that another ship had a lock on to me.

I flew over to a large metal wall serving as a shield for the city. The military ships fired, but the missiles were too loose and swerved into the wall, causing a huge explosion that the military ships got lost in. They crashed into the wall, as well.

"Nice one." Spike remarked.

"Good shooting." I replied.

Reinforcements arrived. Now, if any other ships decided to interfere with our friends, they would be too weak in number to pose a great threat.

"Okay, we've drawn out the reinforcements." I said. "Now what? Should we lose 'em?"

"Then our friends are still in danger." Spike said. "We're gonna have to blast 'em."

"All of them?"

"As many as we can."

"Man, I knew you were going to make me do this..."

I pulled up from the wall, doing a 180-degree turn to face the ships. Spike saw my maneuver; it was an old trick of ours. He turned around, as well.

We both started soaring towards the military ships. I locked onto the signatures of as many ships as I could, and Spike fired his plasma cannon into the center of the group.

They scattered, but that was fine; I then emptied my payload of missiles into all of the signatures I had locked onto. The pilots were caught by surprise by the second attack, and most of the ships exploded brilliantly.

Spike and I turned around and started heading back towards the city.

"You know, Jet's not gonna like that he has to buy more missiles." I said.

"Hey, we got the job done, didn't we?" Spike replied.

I laughed.

A/N:

I really like this chapter. The fan service moment was completely unnecessary, but I still wanted it in there. I didn't deal with Faye's nearly-topless escape from Vincent, so I figured this was just as good.

Also, up until this point, I worried that I was making Jack too cool; that Spike was really the second fiddle. But then again, Spike was out investigating and managed to find Rasheed; he still got the vase with the marble; and now, we see that he's a more courageous pilot than Jack. For those of you who are beginning to line up behind our hero, however, the next chapter lies before you.

By the way, the next chapter's the final one. Well, there's an epilogue that you can skip if you don't feel like seeing a slight dip into the very-near future, and another message from me, and you're probably tired of me by now. I've vowed not to put a note at the end of the final chapter; the moment's too solemn to let my ramblings interrupt your appreciation of it.

And I'm quite sorry about how long the update took me; my Internet's been down for a while, and I get really paranoid about grammatical errors in here. And there's that whole "life" thing I have to attend to now and then.

Have fun, everybody.