The mice were still in the process of patching up their various injuries and attempting a recovery when a blast rocked Alternate Post Fourteen. Stoker steadied himself momentarily, looking toward the entrance and cursing under his breath. "What now?"
Carbine ducked in from outside, snagging her gun from where she had left it by the mouth of the cave where she had stood to watch Vinnie. "We're under attack. Plutarkians."
"Can't we ever catch a break?" muttered Stoker, grabbing his own weapon as the Freedom Fighters rose, ready to fight. Several of them whistled for their bikes, further back in the cave.
"Harley, stay back and keep an eye on the kids," ordered Stoker. Rimfire, Primer and Chopper immediately began to protest the decision, only for Stoker to ignore them and ride his own bike out of the cave, joining the rest of the Freedom Fighters at the mouth of the cave and looking out over the horizon. Sure enough, a convoy of Plutarkian all-terrain vehicles were heading toward them at high speed, followed by Sand Raiders as backup. And leading the charge...
"Mace." Stoker narrowed his eyes in anger. He had suspected that the traitor would make some move against them - but what else was he supposed to do? The only way to stop him would have been to shoot him down; it wasn't as if they had been in the position to take him prisoner. Instead, he had shown Mace some mercy and now they were paying for it.
Mace pulled up his motorbike and swung something toward them. Stoker realised it was a missile gun a moment too late to shout a warning; the missile hit the cave above the Freedom Fighters, showering rocks down on them. Immediately, the mice rode in their separate directions, ready to fight. Carbine, Throttle and Vinnie rode directly at a group of Plutarkians, opening fire. The Plutarkians were forced to bail out as the blasts hit their vehicles, blowing them into pieces. As soon as they were dispatched the three peeled off in different directions, planning to get behind the invaders.
Vinnie rode over a rock, jumping it in order to get further ahead - and as he landed, a laser blast hit the back of his bike, knocking him over the handlebars. Turning, he noticed a Sand Raider taking aim at him once more and pulled out his own gun, dodging a blast of fire and shooting, hitting the missile launcher and causing it to blow up in the Sand Raiders face. "What, little old showstopper me?" he said with a grin, twirling his gun around his finger, taking a brief moment to show off before he got back into the fray... and then a tail lashed against his wrist, sending the arm numb up to the elbow and knocking the gun from his grip.
Turning hurriedly, his heart sank as he realised who he was about to go up against. "Modo?"
"Nice performance, little bro," growled Modo, raising both arms and taking aim at Vinnie. Vinnie leapt backward, twisting easily out of the way of the lasers and rushing forward to punch Modo in the chin. Modo barely flinched and Vinnie dived sideways out of reach of those metal arms, trying to shake some feeling back into his hand.
"Come on Modo," said Vinnie urgently. "You can fight this - you don't want to be some Plutarkian lapdog for the rest of your life!"
In response, Modo raised his arms and fired with both barrels, Vinnie diving out of the way as the lasers cut easily through the rock...
And since when was Modo this bad a shot?
Another laser came perilously close, singeing his tail and Vinnie yelped, grabbing his injured appendage and wishing that Modo really was a bad shot. Looking around as he ducked another barrage of fire, he saw that Throttle and Carbine were busy with the Plutarkians, the other Freedom Fighters all in the midst of battle He was on his own.
Within Alternate Post Fourteen, Harley was trying to persuade Rimfire, Primer and Chopper to remain within. It wasn't an easy task. The three teenagers were desperate to be a part of the action.
"Remind me never to have kids," she said out of the corner of her mouth to Afterburn, who had also been left behind thanks to his shattered ankle. Afterburn smothered a laugh and let Harley turn back to the kids. "Look, you'll get your licks in soon enough. But leave this to the pros, alright?"
"Yeah. Good suggestion."
Harley turned quickly as Mace stepped out of the shadows. She had forgotten about the other entrance, forgotten that Mace would know where it was. Afterburn raised his weapon and Mace whipped his tail out, wrapping it around Primer and pinning her hands to her sides, pulling her in front of him as a living shield.
"Drop it," snapped Mace, putting his own gun beneath Primer's chin. Reluctantly, Afterburn threw his weapon aside and Rimfire and Chopper glared impotently as Harley stepped in front of them in a vain attempt to protect them.
"Thanks." Mace smirked, then without warning took his gun from Primer's chin and shot Afterburn in the chest. The mouse was thrown backwards, blood spurting from the wound in his chest and a choking, rattling sound emerging from his mouth as he struggled to breath through the gore rising in his throat.
In perfect unison, Harley, Primer and Chopper screamed. Harley went to rush to Afterburn's side in the hope that there was something she could do, but Mace returned the gun to its previous place under Primer's chin.
"Stay put."
Anguished, Harley hesitated. But intellectually, she knew there was nothing more she could do for Afterburn and that Primer's life was at stake. She stayed where she was.
Outside the cave, Vinnie continued to use his natural agility to his advantage, dodging Modo's blasts, which were coming too fast for him to launch an effective counter attack. All he could do was to keep moving and hope for the best.
Throttle dispatched a Sand Raider vehicle and glanced over to where Vinnie was attempting to make an escape. With no immediate threat, it looked as though he could zoom over and lend a hand to subdue the giant grey mouse...
And then the sound of screams filled the air. Across the battlefield, Stoker's head shot up as he was distracted, a nearby Plutarkian taking advantage long enough to knock him from his bike. But Throttle was less concerned by the sound of Harley's shriek than by the more easily recognisable one that joined it.
"Chopper!"
He revved his engine and took off for the cave. The screams caused both Vinnie and Modo to look toward the mouth of the cave, Vinnie recovering first and diving for his gun, back to his feet in an instant and leaping backward onto a rock. But a second later, Modo blasted it from beneath him and Vinnie was thrown to the floor, breath knocked out of him, trying to get his bearings back and preparing for Modo to hit him with a shot - but it didn't happen.
As Vinnie craned his neck to see what was going on, he realised that Modo was gone.
Mace backed out of the cave, Primer still in his grip, Harley, Rimfire and Chopper following cautiously and looking for a chance to grab Primer away. Mace shoved the gun further into the young mouse's chin. "Back up."
"You're not taking my sister anywhere," growled Rimfire.
"Yeah," added Chopper. "You mess with one of us; you mess with all of us!"
"Fine." Mace swung the gun out rapidly, before any of them realised what he was doing, and blasted at the rock at Chopper's feet. She was standing dangerously close to the edge and the rock crumbled beneath her, sending her plummeting down. Before she had fallen, Mace had the gun pointing at Primer's temple, chuckling to himself.
Rimfire threw himself forward, grabbing Chopper by the sleeve, his grip all too tenuous. "Quick, take my other hand!"
Chopper tried to swing her hand up to meet Rimfire's, but the sudden movement caused her sleeve to tear. Her fingers brushed Rimfire's and then with a shriek of alarm, she was falling.
Noticing that Mace was distracted, Primer chose that moment to sink her teeth into his forearm. Mace yelped, his arm jerking involuntarily, his finger squeezing the trigger. A laser shot by Primer's face, close enough so that she could feel the heat of it. Snarling, Mace shoved her aside, unwinding his tail from her and giving her sideways movement greater momentum. Primer was flung from the rock face, at the opposite side to where Chopper fell.
Looking for something that would save her from becoming pavement pizza, Chopper saw Throttle arrive at the foot of the cave and head straight up, coming for her. Lashing her tail out, she caught onto his tail as he sped past, letting him flip her expertly onto the back of his bike.
"Did you see the way I flipped onto the bike doing a sheer vertical?" she asked excitedly.
Throttle sighed. "Remind me to never have kids."
Primer flew straight out, headfirst, swan-diving toward the ground - and no one there to catch her. She was falling too far from the rock to grab purchase with her tail and there was no time to come up with a plan...
Someone caught her a second before she hit the floor.
The breath was knocked out of her, pain blooming where she hit the arms of her rescuer, arms that were much too solid to be flesh and blood. Still, she thought slightly dizzily, she'd rather be bruised than dead. And then she looked up and realised that her catcher was her Uncle Modo. His glowing red eyes seemed to bore right into her and she caught her breath, wondering if she had been freed from one captor only to be taken hostage again.
Without a word, Modo set her to her feet and strode away.
As he reached the mouth of the cave Throttle didn't pause. Instead, he leapt the bike so that it passed directly over Mace's head, knocking the traitor down. The gun skittered from his hands and across the rocks, where Rimfire made a grab for it.
A further explosion rocked the area and Mace used the distraction to head off, back into the cave. Harley made as if to follow him, but Throttle hit the brakes right in front of where she would have to pass, stopping her. "Let someone else handle it," he said. "You don't even have a decent weapon."
"He's getting away - he killed Afterburn!"
"Afterburn's dead?" Throttle set his mouth in a grim line. "Chopper, get off the bike. I've got me a traitor to catch."
Chopper jumped off the bike just as Stoker's voice came through over the helmet radios. "Freedom Fighters - they're trying to take us out while we're weak, distract us. That means that the Tug Transformer is being set up now. Take out these guys and get to Stilton's Castle, pronto. We're gonna stop his plans."
Throttle spoke into his own radio. "But Stoke, Mace is getting away..."
"Mace isn't the priority, Mars is."
Sighing, Throttle leapt his bike off the cave and rejoined the fight. Mace would just have to wait - and there wasn't too much more trouble the mouse could cause if he was running from the scene.
"Harley," continued Stoker through the radio. "Take the kids and get the hell away from here."
"But Jumo's still in the cave," she reminded him.
"And under heavy anaesthetic, the fight hasn't even woken him," Stoker added. "He'll be fine and you can't carry him along with you."
Harley thought for a moment, realising that Stoker was right about Jumo being well hidden and unlikely to be discovered. And then she recalled something else that was hidden in Alternate Post Fourteen. "I'll have the kids out of here right away," she replied, shutting off the radio and listening to Rimfire and Chopper protest, Primer joining them a moment later after having to climb back up the rock to the mouth of the cave. "Hush," she said, a sly smile on her lips. "Do you want to help me stop this Tug Transformer or not?"
The teenagers exchanged high fives. "Oh yeah!" announced Chopper happily.
The four of them watched as the Freedom Fighters dispatched the last of the Plutarkian forces and without a pause, rode hell for leather into the distance, going towards Stilton's Castle in an attempt to stop the Tug Transformer. "Rimfire," said Primer in a quiet voice that was a million miles away from her usual confident tones. "Did you see how I landed?"
"Well, no," admitted Rimfire. "By the time I got over there, you were already just standing on the ground. Did one of the Freedom Fighters grab you?"
"It was Uncle Modo," replied Primer. "He caught me before I could hit the ground. He saved my life and then he just – left."
"And that means that there's still something left of Uncle Modo," said Rimfire determinedly. "We have to do what we can to get that chip out of him."
"Easier said than done," said Chopper.
"We'll find a way," said Primer, clenching her fists. "My Uncle Modo's being held a prisoner in his own head – but he's fighting it! That means there must be something we can do!"
Rimfire looked around at the sprawled, groaning Plutarkian forces. "Hey, where is Uncle Modo anyway?"
The four of them did a scan of the area, but the giant grey mouse was nowhere to be seen. "Come on," said Harley eventually. "We'd better get moving. There's nothing more we can do here. And we have other priorities right now." Rimfire and Primer nodded, not happy but willing to accept this. There was nothing they could actually do for Modo until they found him.
&&&&&&&&
Stilton was shocked to find his castle under attack. His plan had been to wipe the Freedom Fighters from the face of Mars with a sneak attack when they were at their most vulnerable physically and somewhere they thought the Plutarkians couldn't know about, hence the ambush on Alternate Post Fourteen. He hadn't envisioned that the Mice might actually win the fight, or that they would return to the castle so shortly after being freed from it. Yet there they were, blasting at the minimal security that remained to protect their base of operations, whooping and cheering like they expected to succeed.
And yet – they still might. Stilton had strategically arranged for the attack using some of their best fighters and most of the remainder of his army was guarding the Tug Transformer at Tharsis Rise. That left the castle under defended – he hadn't expected the return of the Freedom Fighters even if they were able to survive the sneak attack.
Watching the monitors, he felt panic rising up within him as the vehicles the Plutarkians drove were decimated, the troops forced to run and hide, the mice firing lasers around until the whole area looked like a big light show. Their army was woefully outclassed – by a bunch of injured mice? And there were injuries; he could see bandages and bruises on all the mice. So how were they mounting this attack?
The first mouse shot his way through the doors, followed by others. On the screen, Stilton heard the crash, echoed by the same noise a fraction of a second later from within the castle itself. The mice were in. Abandoning the vid-screens, Stilton fled in the direction of the lab and the Tug Transformer controls. There was still something he could salvage from this, he told himself urgently. But he had to start the Tug Transformer. The mice could chase their own tails trying to stop it, but there was no way that it could be stopped. And once in orbit around Plutark, there would be all the backup he needed to take care of the filthy ferrets.
He ran to the lab, aware of the sounds of engines and shouts filling the castle. There were some soldiers within the castle walls, but again not enough, mostly Sand Raiders and easily dispatched. Stilton knew that if he missed this chance, it was all over. He would be taken into Martian custody and tried as a war criminal, his dreams of being the conqueror of the planet Mars turned to dust. If he screwed up, this would be the end.
But he made it to the lab undiscovered. Karbunkle was already there, quivering at the noises coming from the Freedom Fighters. "Ready the Tug Transformer!" yelled Stilton urgently. "Before they…"
There was a crash as the door was blasted open with a grenade. A moment later, the mice piled into the room, weapons at the ready, firing at the Sand Raiders that had raced to protect the lab. Most of the mice ducked behind the steel tables to which they had been strapped as prisoners of the Plutarkians.
Karbunkle attempted to scuttle away unnoticed, keeping low and moving fast to get out of the way of the laser blasts. Just as he thought he might get away with it, escaping through the elevator that would take him higher into the building and away from the fight, a hand grabbed the back of his lab coat and he was thrown face first into one of the steel walls, hard. Dazed, he used the wall for stability, turning to see who had manhandled him.
Manhandled was the wrong term. The grey female he'd briefly had in his grasp was behind him, a cold, hard look on her features. Before he could move, she snatched the front of his lab coat and slammed him into the wall again; making his teeth rattle, keeping her hands on the fabric and keeping him trapped. "You like brain surgery?" she asked and Karbunkle began to shake as she produced a gun from her jacket. It was the look in her eyes. There was no arguing with a look like that, no pleading and no mercy forthcoming.
"Tell you what, doc." She was almost spitting in fury, raising the gun to his right eye and holding it there. Karbunkle was suddenly convinced that the last thing he would ever see would be the darkness within that barrel and the hatred in the eyes of the mouse behind it. "This time, you can be on the receiving end."
For endless seconds, Karbunkle waited for the fatal shot – and then suddenly, the mouse had let him go and was blasting instead at Stilton, who had apparently caught her on her steel tail. Karbunkle took a moment to notice how well the device held up against the laser and then, recalling the old adage about those who run away living, fled for his life, riding the elevator out of the madness of the lab.
Up in Limburger's quarters, the Plutarkian was informing Lord Camembert via the Vid-screen that the Castle was under siege. Although he was unaware of what was happening elsewhere in the castle, he suspected that Camembert would panic, allowing Limburger a higher ranking to allow him to deal with it, then be unwilling to admit his mistake should he discover that the reports of the Martian attacks were a hoax.
"Regrettably so," he said insincerely to Camembert as the Grand High Poo-Bah bellowed. "And now it would seem that our esteemed Lord Stilton has mysteriously – albeit suspiciously – disappeared."
Camembert scowled. "Explain yourself Limburger."
"Simply that without proper leadership, I fear absolute anarchy is near at hand, unless – I am granted the official high ranking needed to strike back."
Rubbing his jowls, Camembert regarded Limburger through narrowed eyes. "Well…"
Karbunkle chose that moment to spring forth from the floor elevator, seeing Limburger and throwing himself on the fish's feet. "Help me! The mice are attacking!"
"Permission granted," said Camembert hurriedly. "Now DO something!"
"Commendable timing Doctor," said Limburger gleefully as the Vid-screen went to black.
"Well, perhaps," said Karbunkle. "But the mice really are attacking the castle!"
Limburger yelled in fright as a distant explosion shook the room. "Every medic, mutant and minnow for himself!"
The earth shaking blast had come from the lab, where the Freedom Fighters had dispatched the last of the Sand Raiders. Stoker glanced over to the Tug Transformer controls. He had been a scientist, before the onset of war. He thought it wouldn't be too hard to figure out how to permanently disengage the mechanism…
Until Stilton leapt up from the floor, diving over to the controls, handkerchief at the ready. He draped the material over the switch – and pulled. Immediately, the control panel lit up, an ominous bleeping emitting from it.
"Time to face your fate you foolhardy Freedom Fighters!" Stilton smirked as the device began to speak in an electronic voice.
"Tug Transformer lock on switch initiated. Planetary extraction in ten minutes."
"I am thrilled to announce the impending and now unavoidable birth of the newest Plutarkian moon," he gloated as the mice exchanged shocked looks. "A moon once known as the planet Mars!"
"Y'know, there's an Earth saying that I think might be appropriate right now," said Vinnie.
Carbine glanced at him. "What is it?"
"It's something along the lines of, 'oh shit'."
Stoker spun on his bike, heading for the wall of the castle. "Freedom Fighters – MOVE! We have to stop the Tug Transformer at all costs!"
The Freedom Fighters followed, blowing a hole in the side of the wall and leaping their bikes out, heading rapidly to Tharsis Rise volcano.
"Hey Stoker," said Carbine through her helmet radio. "Any ideas about how to stop it?"
"I'll think of that when we get there!"