Chapter 8
[Tamaran Space – Blackfire's room]

Blackfire was, well, pissed. Her rear end was still quite sore from that lightning attack and her hand had little dragon teeth marks on it.

She summoned the ship's captain and when he arrived, she grabbed him and snarled, "Are the shields up?"

"They are, Milady, I ordered them put up soon as we dropped back into normal space," he said.

She showed him the fading teeth marks and said, "That Barnes was just here! That clorbag bit me! And attacked me from behind as well. I want them destroyed. I want them gone or so help me…I will feed you to the wild beasts of Tamaran."

"Milady," he gasped, "Our fighters are waiting for the order to attack."

She released him and snarled, "The order is GIVEN!"

He coughed and headed out to relay the order.

The fighters were one man vessels, designed for close quarters combat and capable of packing a punch.

They were given a general hail: "Attack and destroy the enemy craft."

[T-Ship]

"Here they come," Cyborg said, "Looks like we have our answer. Lock and load, Titans!"

Edward said, "Computer, target all incoming targets of opportunity. Prepare to fire."

"Ready to fire," the AI said. Edward knew that the others were issuing the same command to their pod's AI.

Edward hit a button on his console and localized deflectors came on. But, what the enemy didn't know is that Edward had the T-Ship coated with an invisible armor from his friends at Knight Industries. He didn't need to know what it was comprised of, just that it needed to withstand possible heavy firefights and other abuse.

"I hope this Molecular Bonded Shell you installed works," Cyborg said.

"It will," Edward said, "I've seen it in action. It's pretty tough stuff and they did put a double layer on."

"Evasive pattern Cyborg One," Cyborg said as the particle weapons from the other fighters started to lance out. A moment later the T-ship implemented the order and the initial volley barely missed.

"Fire at will!" Edward said. The Titans opened fire and their weapons found one fighter, sending that guy spinning out of control.

The AI was tracking multiple inbound fighters and was firing at several targets. Several more spiraled away, spitting parts of their ships. Several exploded.

The problem was that the T-ship as a single unit, could not fire to the rear, and as soon as the enemy fighters realized that, they made an effort to keep a fighter on the T-Ship's "six". That was a fact that Cyborg figured out right away.

After several long minutes he said, "Titans, separate!" Everyone hit the command on their console and the T-Ship split into five single person fighters.

"Computer," Edward said, "Initiate encrypted link to Terra's pod. Keep her pod under control and active battle assistance mode."

They knew that Terra would be the least experienced in these situations and would need help.

"Initiating link…Link initialized," the AI said.

Edward's heads up display showed an enemy fighter heading for Raven's ship, and headed toward it.

[Incoming!] Edward warned.

Raven responded quickly as Edward drew a lock and opened fire on the enemy spacecraft. It took a direct hit and exploded.

Edward looked around and saw a fighter coming towards him, only to be blasted by Starfire.

Cyborg was rocked hard by enemy fire, though, before Beast Boy distracted the enemy pilot by blowing a hole through the guy's hull.

Terra was being chased by several fighters, though. The AI was hard pressed to keep her out of trouble.

[Terra's in trouble,] Raven said.

[On it,] Edward replied and spun his craft into a hard 100 degree turn. His HUD lit up with one blue symbol and 5 red ones.

"Lock weapons on enemy craft," Edward ordered, "Multiple fire mode. Automatic fire."

"Warning: Excessive firing may result in overheating of primary weapons," the AI said.

"Override authorization Barnes Alpha 1," Edward said.

"Overriden," the AI said.

Edward pushed his throttle to the max and as he got closer, the primary weapons started to hum.

"Optimal range in 5 seconds," the AI said as the enemy craft started firing on Terra's craft. Her craft shuddered under the weapons fire, but, her shields were holding.

"Terra's shields down to 75%," the AI relayed, "Firing!"

A rapid barrage of weapons fire erupted from Edward's pod, but, as the AI was forced to fire on multiple targets, the effect was lessened.

"Titans," Edward said, "Converge on Terra's position!"

The others immediately headed to give their team mate a hand as well.

"You OK, Terra?" Cyborg asked.

"Shaken and stirred," she replied, "Now I know how LA feels."

Edward chuckled as his AI took out one of the fighters chasing Terra.

Just then, his craft rocked hard as it was slammed by an enemy ship. Alarms blared for a moment as well.

"Shields down to 30%," the AI said as Edward fought for control.

"Initiating counterthrust move," the AI said a moment later and his ship was starting to recover.

The others had converged on Terra's position and blasted them, forcing the survivors to break away. Some ended up covered in Raven's powers and slammed headlong into others.

But, while the Titans were slowly whittling down the numbers, it was beginning to look like the numbers were against them regardless.

"Warning!" Edward's AI said, "Weapon power at 25%. Recharge required soon."

Edward muttered a few choice words before opening a channel, "Guys, my AI is saying critical power levels. Anyone else having this problem?"

As soon as he asked, it, he regretted it as everyone said "WHAT DO YOU THINK?!"

"Titans, Regroup!" Cyborg said.

A few moments later, they had returned to the one ship configuration and the AI reported that the weapons were at a more acceptable level.

"Cyborg," Edward said, "Is there a way for the T-Ship to absorb lightning?"

"You mean, you'd recharge the batteries?" he asked.

"No, I'd have Terra do it!" Edward retorted as he blasted another enemy craft, "Sorry, Cy. Yeah, use my lightning to recharge the weapons."

He heard Terra chuckling over the intercom, however.

"It's all good, Edward," Cyborg said, then, blasted at another ship.

They had one more trick up their sleeve, but, it was untested. Cyborg had developed a prototype cloaking system. The problem was that it could feasibly drain the T-Ship's power reserves and one couldn't fire weapons or use the deflectors at the same time.

"Computer," Cyborg said, "If we used the cloaking system, how long would we have before we had to become visible again?"

"At the current power levels, Cyborg," it said, "The cloak would only last at most three minutes."

"It's not much, sadly," Cyborg said.

The T-ship was hit by a barrage of incoming fire and that was it for the deflectors. With a final burst of blue, they failed.

"Pattern Cyborg Omega!" Cyborg shouted. The AI went into a new evasive pattern and incoming shots missed.

The AI locked on to other enemy craft as the team kept firing. More fighters joined the fray as well. It didn't take them long to realize the T-Ship was without shields and they were trying to follow the flight pattern of the evading AI.

But, it was a matter of time before they were tagged and that time finally arrived. Several enemy fighters scored direct hits on the T-Ship and they were surprised to see the T-Ship not being blown up. The new MBS was holding against the weapons fire.

As they continued to evade, Edward said, "Computer, is it possible for you to absorb lightning?"

"Give me a few moments, please," the AI said.

As they continued to defend themselves, the fight was moving closer to Tamaran, a fact noticed by Starfire.

"Friends," she said, "We are getting closer to my planet!"

"How close, Star?" Cyborg asked.

"It's about 1 million Earth miles away," she said.

"Can we hyper jump there?" Edward asked.

"We cannot," she said.

"How about teleportation?" Edward asked.

"Friend Raven's teleport or yours?" Star asked

"Mine," Edward said.

"No, friend Edward!" Star protested, "You need the oxygen!"

"Starfire's right, Edward," Raven said, "This is beyond your limits and we're still in a hard vacuum. You could seriously hurt yourself. And, you're never been to Tamaran so you can't teleport anyway."

"You have been, though, dear," Edward said, "If you send me a mental picture, I might be able to."

"Not a chance," she said, "And, don't try to take one from my mind. I'm putting up mental shields to block that. I'm really sorry, love."

"Don't be, Rae," Edward said, "I understand.

"Suggestion, though: Cloak, then, do a speed burst towards Tamaran at sublight speed and after a 30 second burn we coast the rest of the way, turning off all non-essential systems. Beast Boy and I form something smaller, like a bird and divert our pods life support into main power, leaving those on bare minimum settings. Well, for mine, turn it off completely, I'll teleport over to Raven's pod as a small bird."

Cyborg thought about it and said, "That would buy us another 30 seconds or so of power to the cloak. It should get us closer to Tamaran, if not into the atmosphere. The problem is it may not give us much control over how we land."

"Don't worry about that," Edward said, "Once we are in the atmosphere, I can withstand the pressure long enough to get us safely down by gliding or teleport."

The T-ship rocked hard to port as the MBS deflected another hit. Raven responded with her abilities and tossed the approaching craft into another one.

"Once we can get to ground, the odds will chance to our favor," Edward said, "I know that Terra would love the chance to really let loose with her powers."

"Let's do this!" Cyborg yelled.

"Computer, shut down my pod and divert all its power into the cloaking system in 30 seconds," Edward ordered.

"Edward," the AI replied, "I cannot do that as it would put your life in danger."

"If I were here, that would be the case," Edward said, "I will be in Raven's pod via a teleport by then. Please comply."

"Beginning 30 second countdown," the AI said, "until pod shutdown."

The T-ship rocked again just then as another enemy craft saw it's weapon fire deflected away.

Edward morphed to mini-dragon form and teleported to Raven's pod.

[Hi, sweetie,] she said. Edward nudged her in reply.

"OK," Cyborg said, "Edward's pod is shut down. It's now or never!"

"Computer, initiate cloaking device, set course for Tamaran and 60 second maximum thrust, then, coast mode. Divert all non-essential power to the cloaking device."

"Working," the AI said, "Done. At the rate of power consumption, though, the cloak will drop prior to entering Tamaran's atmosphere. Aircraft control not assured."

"Engage!" Cyborg said. A moment later, the T-Ship started to turn and before the eyes of Blackfire's forces, it disappeared from view and sensors at the same time.

The T-ships engines went to maximum power and that forced the Titans into the backs of their seats…or grabbing Raven's cloak in Edward's case.

Tamaran was getting closer by the second as the engines pushed the craft closer and closer.

At the 60 second point, the engines suddenly sighed and died. The power levels in the T-Ship started flickering, but, held after a second at very low levels.

"Cloak's holding, y'all," Cyborg said, "But, it's going to fail in a moment. We have minimal thrusters and we're about 200,000 miles out. Luckily, they aren't chasing us, yet."

[Five minutes ago – Blackfire's ship]

"What are they doing?" Blackfire asked, "They've taken out half the fighters and barely have a scratch on them. Their shields collapsed a while ago and still aren't damaged."

"No idea, Milady," the commander said, hitting a few buttons on his console, telling another squadron to try to take down the T-Ship. Blackfire was still cursing Edward's brazen invasion of her ship, and she wasn't going to admit it, but, her hand was still throbbing from her misguided attempt to grab him. Her rear was still sore as well.

She saw the dwindling defense of the T-Ship and while she was impressed with the way they fought, she saw what she thought was more desperation on their parts. They were running low on power and it was a matter of time before they…

Blackfire saw one of the pods go dark and wondered what was happening.

That was apparent a minute later as the T-ship shrugged off another attack and turned. But, as it turned, it shimmered out of sight!

"What the…" Blackfire snarled, "FIND THEM!"

"We're trying, Milady!" the commander said frantically, "They're gone!"

"What do you mean, gone?" she said, "Ships cannot just disappear like that."

"Begging your pardon, Milady," he said, "This one just did."

"Any idea where they might be?" Blackfire asked, "Is there any way to even track them?"

"With all the ion trails and residue, it will be difficult at best," the tactical officer said, "They could have headed anywhere."

"They would want to protect dear little sister's home," Blackfire thought aloud, "But, they could also be trying to retreat. If their shields were down and they were running out of power, would they set down on Tamaran?"

"If they did, Milady," the commander said, "Our ground forces are already making some headway towards the palace. They would be able to dispatch the Titans."

A beep from the tactical station got their attention.

"Scanners just detected something about 175,000 earth miles from Tamaran," the guy said, "But, I'm not reading any power from it."

"Probably a rock," Blackfire said.

What she didn't know is that the T-Ship was on bare minimum life support and drifting towards the planet. Cyborg was using the thrusters only as necessary to keep the T-Ship heading towards Tamaran. They were already in the outer fringes of the planet's gravity anyway, as indicated by their orbital speed slowly increasing.

[T-ship]

Both Edward and Beast Boy were using smaller life forms to reduce their oxygen requirements and Edward had switched to straight telepathy to communicate to Raven, who was relaying stuff to the rest of the Titans. That certainly helped in the long run.

"Get ready y'all," Cyborg said, "It's going to be a bumpy ride down. We barely have power to maneuver as it is and until the air's thick enough for Edward's wings to work, it's going to be difficult, at best."

[How do the scanners look?] Edward asked.

Raven relayed the request and Cyborg said, "We're running on passive scans only. That reduces the resolution a lot. They are showing a group of ships above Tamaran, but, with some luck, they might pass on the other side and we can drop down under their scanners."

[Good. Using Tamaran itself as a sensor block. It'll go both ways, but, it's acceptable. We don't have enough power, though to ensure that,] he said.

[Where did you learn so much?] Raven asked.

[A lot of this stuff is sort of common sense, dear,] he explained, [Planets are a natural barrier to line of sight items and sensors are pretty much line of sight. We'd have to worry about the fleet behind us, though. Blackie's going to be royally angry if she discovers we slipped by her.]

[And she wasn't when you bit her?] she asked sarcastically.

[You got me there,] Edward admitted, [If she's even like Star, you and I, the blazing eyes were a giveaway.]

[You've only seen Star ticked like once or twice, hon,] Raven said, [When she's on a tear, she can machine gun her starbolts. So can Blackfire.]

By then, they were watching as cyborg tried to level their descent a bit.

"Easy," he said over the intercom, "If I don't get this done just right, we'll explode or skim right off the atmosphere. I don't dare use the AI as we're so low on juice."

Cyborg had put the AI into a sleep mode to reduce power as well, but, it was looking like it might not be enough.

[I'll be right back,] Edward said, [Going to teleport to BB and move him to Terra's pod.]

[OK,] Raven said and let Cyborg know what was happening.

Edward popped over to Beast Boy's pod and whispered, "Need to get you over to your girlfriend's pod, Gar."

Beast Boy nodded in his sparrow form.

He jumped onto Edward's back and a second later, was in Terra's pod.

"What's shaking?" she asked.

"Gar needs to stay here," Edward whispered, "We need the energy from his pod. Catch ya later." He nuzzled Terra's cheek, getting a giggle out of her.

He headed back to Raven's pod.

[That's done,] he said with a sigh.

Cyborg killed Beast Boy's power and that gave the T-ship a small boost.

He also knew Starfire could tolerate her pod being turned off and after asking her, he turned hers off as well. That gave the T-ship about 10% remaining power. Just enough that with careful budgeting, they'd make it into the atmosphere. The MBS was rated to 2500 degrees, so that wasn't a huge problem. But, the landing would be tricky. Edward did not have the required piece of information to teleport to the surface as yet.

Then again, once they were low enough, Edward could grab hold of the T-Ship in his talons and glide to the surface anyway.

Before they knew it, though, they were finally in the upper fringes of the atmosphere. The very faint sound of the wind was heard and Cyborg said, "Y'all best hang on, we're fully involved now and the power is at 2%."

[How many miles before I could try to glide us down?] Edward asked.

Raven relayed the question and their HUDs changed to atmospheric flight mode. It showed in miles that they were still about 90 miles above ground, traveling at a nerve racking 8,529 MPH and starting to slow.

As they plunged into the Tamaranian skies, the outer MBS layer started to heat up and within minutes, it was a nice rosy glow. Cyborg made a few minute adjustments to the T-Ship's attitude.

They hit 70 miles up and that gave enough bite to allow Cyborg to start an aerobrake move to hopefully slow the T-ship down a bit. They were past the point of sneaking to Tamaran, anyway. The heat of re-entry was already visible on the ground and also from Blackfire's ship.

The airspeed indicator still wasn't working but, the spaceflight speed indicator was showing that they dropped to 7,000 MPH and that was slow enough to ensure that they would not skip off the Tamaran atmosphere.

At 50 miles above ground, the stresses were quite high as Cyborg leveled out the T-Ship.

"C'mon, baby!" he said, "We're almost there. One more aerobrake!"

The underside of the T-Ship was almost white hot and that meant that unless the temperature dropped soon, the MBS might shatter.

Cyborg waited until they were a mere 20 miles above the surface to do another aerobrake move. By then, their speed had dropped to a more comfortable 3,000 MPH. The craft swerved to the right, taking a bigger bite out of the thickening air and slowing more. Edward dug his talons into Raven's harness, knowing that her cloak would probably tear.

Beast Boy was doing the same in his bird form with Terra's harness.

Cyborg threw the T-Ship into a gradual left bank as they crossed the 50,000 foot line. It was borderline what Edward could safely handle in altitude, but, the T-Ship was still too hot for him to handle safely.

Another right turn at 40,000 feet lowered their speed to just above Mach 1, and the coldness from that altitude cooled the skin of the T-Ship to under 400. A few more moments and it would be cooled off to where Edward could grab onto it.

Cyborg lowered an emergency mini-propeller. This device, the same as what airlines used, would start spinning and generate power for the T-Ship to use in the final descent.

"Oh no!" Starfire said sadly, "Tamaran is invaded!" Edward thought that Star might be in denial and her words breaking that denial broke his heart.

[Tell her that this will not stand,] Edward said to Raven.

She relayed the message.

"Friend Edward," Starfire said, "How are we going to fight off this invasion?"

"We'll kick their butts, that how! Koriand'r, these are your people and still your home world. For as many times as you've helped Earthlings, it's time that your new family returns the favor. Have you seen me at my full size? Rae and Arella have."

"He's bigger than Malchior, Star," Raven confirmed, "Much bigger."

Terra giggled, "Raven, don't give me any mental pictures."

Raven groaned and said, "Keep it to yourself, Markov, or you might have to dig yourself out."

"Just saying, Raven," Terra said and let it drop.

"Teenagers," Raven grumbled.

"You're still one yourself, Rae," Edward said, earning a thump for his trouble. Raven was the only one allowed to do that. Anyone else would be on the wrong end of his temper.

The altimeter was reading 20,000 feet by then and the AI had been woke up as well with the higher power levels.

"50 miles from target, Cyborg," it said, "At current rate of descent, we will be forced to land a good 10 miles short. There isn't enough power to get us into a higher altitude."

"What's the temperature of the outer skin?" Cyborg asked.

"Outer skin is at 15C," the AI reported.

"That's well within my tolerances, folks," Edward said, "And just in time! Look!"

The invading ground forces were waiting for a chance to attack the descending craft and they finally had it. Weapons fire was again assailing the T-Ship!

"Hang on, everyone!" Edward said. He teleported out and took his first breath of Tamaranian air.

He enlarged to be able to grab onto the T-Ship and as he did, Raven finally fed him the mental image he needed of the castle.

He teleported for the first time in his immense life to a target on an alien world!

Hi, Everyone!

Another minor cliffhanger and there's still one more major fight left between the team and the invasion force. Then, possibly a one on one fight between wither Galfore and Blackfire or Starfire V Blackfire round 3. I'm going to see how the Muse wants to play it.

I will have to give readers a head's up, though. While Chapter 9 should be within a week, my nephew is coming home on leave soon before shipping out to Sicily and since we will be having to share the basement, it will possibly cut into my writing time. Chapter 10 might be delayed as a result. Oh well!

You've noticed I've added in another TV series homage: The T-Ship's new MBS is lifted from the original Knight Rider series. The AI is also partially Knight Rider based in both the Tower and the T-Ship.

TTFN...Please leave reviews ;)