HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
Chapter 16: Reclaiming a World
Tanara sent runners out. One would go to their stronghold and inform the survivors that they had found help. The others went to find any fighter groups still around.
The only problem now was time. It would take precious time to find the other fighter groups, time for them to reach this remote location and time to train and arm them. They had to hope what they were planning would remain undetected by their enemy since there was nothing they could do to speed things up.
"Wish we could have brought the Turbokat.......would have been faster." T-Bone muttered.
"And it would have been an easy target as well." Razor snorted. T-Bone just growled irritably in response.
Aurora patted him on the shoulder in commiseration. She too hated waiting and wished more than once for her own jet or tank.
Despite her fears, Tanara was forced to give up her plans to take out the outpost that threatened her sect. It would warn the Red Force Leader that something was up. He was already alert to trouble brewing due to the closure of his portal. An attack on one of his outposts would allow him to pinpoint their location.
Knowing this didn't make it any easier for Tanara and Stran to wait and watch, they'd been doing too much of that over the years.
To keep her and the few people she had left with her occupied, Aurora asked them more about what had been going on during the years of her absence and Tanara did the same with her.
"My, those are pretty strange sounding creatures." Tanara said, shaking her head as she tried to picture things like mummies, plantimals, a mutant Kat; let alone the technology Aurora lived with daily. "I can't believe you lived without magic either."
"Yeah, that is really hard to believe for me also," Stran said, a skeptical note in his voice.
"Can't exactly ignore these robots or our weapons." T-Bone said sarcastically.
"That's certainly true." Stran conceded reluctantly. "But really, how could you live without magic?" He asked her with a frown.
"I didn't! I just didn't use it openly except for changing my sex when I worked among Katkind, protecting the secrets I kept in my home with wards, and the occasional use, in secret, in defense of my new home." Aurora said with a shrug.
"Your sex? What do you mean by that?" Tanara asked, confused.
"Well the military forces still harbored some prejudices about females being fighters so to prevent being rejected, I used a touch glamour to hide my sex and appear male." She explained.
"Show me!" Tanara demanded. She'd heard of this talent but no one had felt the need or desire to hide what they were so it had become a lost art, no longer used by anyone she was aware of until now.
Aurora shrugged and did so. Tanara and Stran as well as the other two members of her sect still with them, gasped in amazement at the powerful looking male sitting before them. Tanara and Stran reached out to touch the image and were further amazed. Aurora dispelled the glamour moments later.
"Amazing. You did that with consummate skill and ease. The image looked and felt so real too." Stran said in awe.
"I agree! I've never seen anyone capable of doing that so easily and to hold it for hours on end..... incredible!" Tanara nodded.
Aurora blushed with pride. She hadn't realized this was a unique talent. It was simply a way to hide who she was all these years. It was a nice little boost to her ego and felt good.
"What an amazing place this Megakat City must be." Tanara said thoughtfully. "Tell me, Aurora. If we win this war, will you return home?" She asked seriously.
Aurora went still. They'd been so busy over the past month that she hadn't taken the time to think of the future. "I......I really don't know."
"Understandable. I wouldn't want to be separated from my mate either." Tanara commented, nodding at T-Bone. "That would make such a decision a difficult one."
T-Bone gaped at her then turned to Aurora but met with an equally stunned look.
"Uh.....I'm not sure were mates, exactly." Aurora stuttered.
Tanara snorted and gave them a knowing smile. "We can clearly see the aura of a mated pair."
Aurora blushed and T-Bone had difficulty swallowing. Razor just stared at them both in shock.
Clearing his throat, T-Bone said, "Uh....well....we'll talk about this a bit later when everyone is free and safe."
"Yeah.....later." Aurora muttered uneasily.
"Sure, whatever you say." Tanara said easily, hiding her smirk.
It took over four days before small groups from each of the remaining sects arrived under the cover of dark.
Tanara and Stran made sure they were the ones to greet each group before introducing them to their apparent saviors.
When no more showed up after a day of waiting, the plan to take back their world went into action. Over the next couple of days, Aurora and the SWAT Kats trained the fighters on how to use the negators, taught them strategies that would enable them to use their weapon in the most effective way, and gave each group a robot.
From the intel brought to them by each group, they selected sites to attack that would cause the maximum amount of damage to the Red Force Leader's hold on the planet. Thus prepared, the groups quickly departed once more.
The wait was a bit longer this time as they had to wait until each group quickly trained their people on what to do and then got into position. It was a tense time. While they waited, Aurora T-Bone and Razor taught the yellow sect members with them on self-defense fighting. There wasn't time to make them proficient but they at least had some basics by the time they began to receive via the robots communicators each sect's readiness to begin the attack.
Tanara lead her group with her newest additions to the outpost they had been prepared to attack earlier. Silently, they slipped up to the outpost sitting on a small hill surrounded by the forest. They had climbed a small mountain that butted against one side of the outpost and were within a stone's throw from its walls but out of sight. Now they set in motion the plan to get the defenders attention.
Razor and T-Bone had split from the group and taken up a position that let them see the gate. Using their glovatrix, they fired grappling lines to take them up into a huge tree. Hiding behind the foliage, Razor waited for the signal from Aurora. T-Bone notified her they were in position.
Taking a deep breath and preparing herself, Aurora looked to Tanara and receiving a nod that they were ready, barked the order to attack.
Immediately, Razor fired an explosive round at the gate, shattering it with a loud noise. Shocked, the defenders reacted like ants disturbed by a stick. At first there was no reaction as the commander of the outpost tried to figure out what had destroyed the gate. Then minutes later, they heard someone shouting orders and a large group of soldiers poured through the gate to search for the attackers.
This was the moment Aurora was waiting for. Tanara's group immediately fired their silent weapons on the troops, spraying a wide pattern to insure they got everyone while others of her group fired at the ramparts where other soldiers were manning the walls looking for them.
The robots had been kept in hiding at the base of the tree where the SWAT Kats were and when the attack was called, T-Bone ordered them to fire at the same time.
The robots were their secret weapons. Equipped with sensors that detected magic, it was the robots that would insure no enemy was left with magic to attack them. This was the one thing they told the other groups was how they would be sure all attacks would be successful.
The robots were also the ones that would tell them when it was safe to attack physically. It didn't take long and soon there were roars from many throats as the yellow sect attacked.
Razor and T-Bone fired their weapons and took out large groups of soldiers with weapons red force was totally unused to. Being hit with a tarry substance, huge nets, bolos, and octopus missiles that took out their more brawny members, demoralized the troops and brought a swift end to the conflict.
The prisoners were gathered quickly and marched to a large room within the outpost, most likely a meeting hall and a group of three yellow sect members were left to guard them. They took up a position in a balcony area where they couldn't be taken out and used their magic to keep the prisoners under control as well as judicious use of the negators. A robot was left as well to detect when the negator's effects wore off.
There were cheers and smiles on the faces of the yellow sect members. They had won a fight at last and it felt good.
Out near the gates, Aurora with Tanara listened to the reports coming in telling of the many successes. At the other sites, there had been casualties because they didn't have the advantage of the SWAT Kats weapons, but the robots had made up for some of it. Elated, they called a retreat back the Green Way Sect's old site.
Some twelve hours later, everyone that could come, met the core group for the final assault on the Red Force's fortress.
"This will be the most difficult part of defeating Derek the Strong." Tanara said grimly, giving the name of the Red Force Leader's to T-Bone and Razor for the first time.
"Derek the Strong? What kind of name is that." T-Bone muttered to Razor. His partner just shrugged and made a sign for his friend to hush.
"Derek has his stronghold on Iron Ridge Mountains. It's only accessible by a narrow path up the south side. His troops will see us very easily since there is no cover. Do you have any ideas on how we are going to get to him?" She asked the three.
"The only way I can think of is the Turbokat." T-Bone said bluntly.
"Yeah, except it's not here." Aurora said in annoyance.
"Then we should get it!" Razor said seriously. "T-Bone's right! The Turbokat can fly in silent mode and won't be seen or heard if we come in by night. I know its asking a lot, Feral, but that is the only way we're going to take the fortress."
"The second Derek spots the Turbokat, it's history as well as all of us aboard it." Aurora said angrily.
"Not if I equip it with a negator big enough to spray the area." Razor said firmly.
Aurora gaped at him. Tanara stared at him angrily. "If it was possible for you to have done that we wouldn't have had to take the outposts the way we did!"
"No, we couldn't bring the jet until we knew the situation and time was against us. We needed to act fast but now we're in the home stretch and we have the advantage still. Only now would the jet be the best offense for this final strike." Razor explained.
"Kat's Alive! You're right!" Aurora sighed, shaking her head. Sometimes she forgot just how smart this Kat was until he said or did things like this. "Okay, let's do this." She said as she made for the spot where she had first opened the portal.
She laid out her tools and quickly set up her altar. "You two go through and get your jet. I'll close this door and give you......thirty minutes?" She asked as she quickly got herself ready.
"No, better make it two hours before you open again. I have to get a negator installed with Hackle's help and load more weapons aboard. We'll hurry but I'll need every one of those two hours." Razor said, wincing at Aurora's put upon expression but not backing down.
Sighing in resignation, Aurora prepared to open the portal. "Alright, two hours it is. Get ready to leap." She warned them.
Razor and T-Bone stood to one side of her and waited tensely. Moments later the portal to their world opened showing them Professor Hackle's laboratory and an anxious old Kat standing nearby.
They leaped and the portal snapped close behind them.
"Goodness. Where's Commander Feral?" Hackle asked in concern.
"She's waiting for us on the other side. We've managed to take out more than half the Red Forces soldiers but the fortress where their leader is holed up is too well guarded and remote for an assault by ground forces. We've come back for the Turbokat." T-Bone said quickly.
"Professor, we need to fix up a mega-sized negator beam for the jet and fast. Also more robots if you can build them quickly. T-Bone used the Professor's old truck and load up weapons for both the jet and our glovatrix's while we work on the jet." Razor said quickly.
"Roger, buddy. Keys Professor?" T-Bone asked holding out his palm.
Hackle was a bit bewildered by the fast-moving events but he reached into his pocket and handed T-Bone his truck keys.
"Back as fast as I can." The tabby said over his shoulder as he raced away.
"Okay, Professor, let's you and I get busy." Razor said urgently as he headed for the Professor's lab.
Shaking his head, Hackle hobbled quickly after the smaller of the SWAT Kats.