Tracking

The number 53 arrived at Bayside Bus Station some 25 minutes later, thanks to some very aggressive driving through the usually packed streets. The trio disembarked, and headed through the terminal to its upper level, where services towards Ashland and Carcer City left from, Cody still clutching the staff Jake had given back to him when they had left Callie's house. They walked out into the boarding bay, and had to run to catch a bus bearing the legend "Carcer City via Megakat Bridge" in its windscreen before it left.
Slightly out of breath, they took seats halfway down the top deck (the front seats were already occupied) and felt glad to be getting a bit nearer home as their bus gathered speed along Yeovil Boulevard towards the bridge.
It wasn't long before the bus was approaching the junkyard, and the trio got up to disembark, but the bus hurtled straight past. Chance made to remonstrate with the driver for his failure to stop, but was stopped by Jake who pointed out to him that the bus stop opposite the yard was gone, so it was an easy mistake to have made. The driver reluctantly stopped further down the road to let them off, and made a point of driving through a puddle, splashing Chance with water, as he drove off.
"Who was the bloody muppet who took away the stop..." the dampened Chance muttered as he walked back. Jake almost told him who, but didn't think it would help; Chance's mood always went south when he was wet.
They were quickly back in the garage, which was still in a state of devastation from the attack earlier. Burke and Murray had compounded the problem by leaving another load of trash in front of it all while they had been gone. Picking their way carefully through the disaster zone, they headed down the access ladder to the hangar, which, mercifully, had not been breached.
Jake and Chance left Cody to admire the jet while they went to change into their flight suits, but before long they were back and ready to take off. T-Bone strapped Cody into a jump-seat fitted in the bomb bay, and activated the platform that would lift them down to the runway. As the light flicked from red to green, he slammed the jet to maximum thrust and it shot like a bullet from a gun out of the concealed entrance into the skies of Megakat City. T-Bone felt great to finally be back in the jet after all his recent escapades on buses.

---

The Enforcer troopers had seconded one of the choppers used in the initial raid on Callie's house, and were now tracing the route of the 53 towards the Bayside Bus Station.
"How're you doing" the leader asked his comrade, who was leaning out of the chopper with their Geiger Counter.
"I'm picking up a faint trail, but it's not very strong. We need to get a lock soon or we'll lose them" he shouted back over the noise of the rotors.
"We're closing on the bus station" the pilot told them, and sure enough, the concrete sprawl of the Bayside Terminal was stretching out before them, red buses scurrying like ants in and out of their concrete home.
"Signal's getting stronger!" the trooper said, leaning out further to take a better reading.
"Right, put us down in that park and call for backup. I'm taking no chances, we'll isolate them in the building and go in with everything we have" the leader shouted into his headset.
"But sir, what if they've already got another bus out? It is an interchange terminal, after all" the pilot said, voicing a concern that the lead trooper had not conceived of.
"Shit" was the rather unenigmatic reply from the lead trooper, as the pilot put the chopper down in a park adjacent to the terminal. Thinking on his feet, the leader led his subordinates across the park and headed into the bus station's security control centre.
"You can't come in here!" the security controller shouted from behind a bank of monitors as the three entered.
"We are Enforcers! We can go where we wish!" the lead trooper barked at the kat, who decided arguing was decidedly risky. "Three suspects entered here on a number 53 from Megakat Courtlands, I need to know where they went" the lead trooper shouted into the ear of the controller. "NOW!" he added, somewhat unnecessarily as the controller was already pulling up the CCTV footage from the unloading bays. As he wound the tapes back, kats surreally walked backwards onto buses at high speed before the vehicles reversed out of the entrance.
"Stop! That's them!" one of the troopers shouted as two kats walking with a smaller one between them appeared on the screen. The controller freeze-framed the camera, and, sure enough, there were Chance and Jake escorting Cody off the bus.
"Tell me where they went, now! What bus did they get?" the leader said, jumping down the throat of the poor security kat.
"That's a lot of buses sir" the controller said "There's urban services to all points of the compass, the road back to the depot for buses out of service and there are a load of long-distance services across the Megakat Bridge to Carcer City, Ashland, and a bunch of other places, and they all go from different parts of the site. You'll need to be more specific."
"Sir" one of the troopers said to his leader "we picked up those mechanics out at the junkyard. Only the coaches go that way, when they're doing that stop-off at the golf course" the leader looked askance at his comrade, having never thought before he was a golfer. "I had to visit my mother in Ashland. I took the bus" the trooper said to his leader quickly, picking up on the look.
Turning his attention from his comrade's leisure activities, the leader told the controller to pull up the footage from the coach and long-distance service bay. The bank of monitors before them switched over to the current time shots of upper bus bay.
"Oh, this will take forever, we'll never find them!" the leading trooper said to no-one in particular.
"Well, I could use the camera tracking system" the controller suggested, bracing himself for a barrage of abuse from the troopers.
"Why didn't you bloody say that then, set to it!" the trooper yelled, proving the controller's defensive action necessary.
The controller manipulated the keyboard in front of him, and very quickly the computer had locked onto the image of the three kats leaving the number 53 and was following the progress they had made through the terminal. The trooper's leader was quietly grateful that United Busways had possessed the foresight to install such a state-of-the-art CCTV system into its terminal, and began to feel slightly guilty for having abused the controller.
"There, that's them!" he shouted, pointing at one of the upper monitors as the CCTV tracked them into the coach bay. Frozen on the screen were Jake, Chance and Cody running for the bus.
"That's the service to Carcer City, departed about half an hour ago" the controller said to his audience. "Do you want me to try and raise the bus they're on?"
"Yes" the lead trooper said, rather more meekly than he had been speaking previously.
"Charlie Sierra One Four Zero Five, do you copy over?" the controller said into his radio. There was nothing but static for a moment until the driver of the bus replied.
"Receiving you CentreComm, what is it?" the bus driver asked irritably.
"Do you have three kats, one large tabby a kitten and..." the controller didn't have a chance to finish his sentence, as the driver interrupted him.
"Yeah, that little shit! He started having a go at me for missing a stop that wasn't there! Can you believe it? I tell you, I get nowt but abuse in this job!"
"Yeah, where did you let them off?" the controller asked, cutting short the driver's tirade.
"By that old slag heap near the golf course" the driver said. The troopers looked at each other as he said this, and marched out of the room with their leader, leaving the controller to deal with the irate bus driver.
"I should have known they'd be going back to that junkyard of theirs, send the chopper squadron out there and stop that bus!" the leader shouted at his subordinates, before they left the control room for their waiting chopper outside.

---

It wasn't long before the chopper was airborne and had joined the attack squadron heading for the junkyard.
"It's a good thing we found the bus they used, this Geiger counter is going berserk" the trooper operating it said "its showing that they're actually moving towards us, which is a bit strange..." he was interrupted by Steele, who had joined them at the Bus Station.
"Stop pissing about with that thing, we don't need it any more" Steele barked, ever his irascible self. But the lead trooper took more of an interest.
"What exactly is it showing?" he asked.
"Well, if this is accurate, they're travelling pretty quickly towards us from the direction of that junkyard" the counter's operator replied before he was cut off by the pilot.
"Sir, I'm reading the Swat Kats closing on us, what should we do?" the pilot asked Steele.
Steele looked at the lead trooper, and their exchanged glance confirmed they were both thinking along the same lines. The counter was reading an inbound signal; the Swat Kats were inbound to their location.
"Sir?" the pilot asked again.
"Tell all choppers; stop the Swat Kats at any cost" Steele told him. The pilot stared at him for a moment, not sure if the order was for real.
"The Swat Kats are assisting the suspects, and probably have the kid on board! Stop them, now!" Steele yelled back.
Reluctantly, the pilot passed on the order to the rest if the squadron.