"A hangover is the wrath of grapes,"-Anonymous
October 16th, Freeport Regional Airport, the morning after the Melee-
"Ehhhh," Baloo groaned in misery from both the blows he had taken in the fight and from his raging hangover, "I hurt."
"Please God make this hangover go away," moaned Louie who lay sprawled out on the floor of the Sea Duck's cargo bay, "I promise that I'll never drink again…for a week."
"Amen," replied Baloo.
"It sounds like you boys had more than you can handle," said Thom with a laugh.
"I can handle my alcohol," said Baloo.
"And it can handle you from the looks of it."
"You sure could handle yourself," Louie said to Thom, "You didn't take no lip off of nobody last night."
"You guys weren't so bad yourself."
"Are you feeling woozy?" asked Baloo.
"Not at all. I really didn't drink too much."
Baloo opened his eyes and sat up from the bunk that was in the cargo bay. He regretted it immediately as his head began to swim. He groaned and lay back down.
"Breakfast!" came the cheery voice of Professor O'Bowens who walked up the plane's lowered cargo ramp.
"Baloo and Louie's eyes popped open wide, "Did you say breakfast?" asked Baloo.
"Yes I did," laughed the professor, "I went and got us some doughnuts and coffee from the airport's lounge as well as a paper."
O'Bowens set the box of doughnuts and cups of coffee on a box of equipment and was soon joined by Thom and the hung-over pilots.
"You're a saint professor," said Louie, "I need some food in my stomach."
"Let's hope the alcohol hasn't ruined your appetite," said Thom.
"I'm starving," Baloo said as he reached for a glazed doughnut."
"Yup, nuthin ever ruins your appetite Baloo," said Louie.
"Haha," Baloo said sarcastically, "Doughnuts are a good cure for a hangover."
"But not the best," added Louie as his took a drink of coffee.
"Yes, I agree that coffee is a good cure," said O'Bowens who opened up the newspaper.
"Actually there's a better cure for a hangover than coffee," said Baloo.
"What would that be?"
"More alcohol."
The professor laughed, "In spite of the brawl, I had fun last night."
"What?" asked Thom with a raised eyebrow.
"It made me feel young again," said the professor, "Like I was back in college."
"I didn't picture you as being the party type professor."
"Trust me my dear, I wasn't always a boring professor," O'Bowens laughed, "By the way everyone, the fight made the front page of the paper."
The headline of the Freeport Press read as follows:
Brawl at popular hangout leaves several in hospital and dozens in jail.
The photo accompanying the article showed a crowd of brawlers fighting one another in the street in front of Stingray's. Among those in the photo was dazed looking wolf that was being held aloft by one of the Wolverton brothers who was apparently getting ready to throw him to the ground.
"Say isn't that," said Louie as he gazed at the photo.
"Oh my God," exclaimed Thom, "It's him!"
"It's Ace London!" said O'Bowens.
"You got that right," added Baloo with a chuckle. The other three looked at him with raised eyebrows after hearing him say the hotshot fighter pilot's catch phrase. Baloo smiled and said, "Sorry, had too."
Twenty minutes later the Conwing L-16 sped down the runway and ascended into the sky.
The Freeport Home for Children-
The soccer ball soared into the air after being kicked by the goalie. It came down in front of a rotund warthog who then kicked it over to a lion that took it down the field. He in turn kicked it over to a cheetah who took it forward and then stopped in front of a defender. The defender, a chimpanzee, attempted to kick it but he was too slow. The cheetah boy kicked the ball behind himself and it ended up in the possession of a small, cinnamon brown bear cub.
The cub ran as fast as he could toward the opposing team's goal but was forced to kick the ball back to the cheetah as a mean looking panther cub defender came at him. The bear cub then peeled off and went to the left of the goal and watched the cheetah work his way down toward him.
The bear cub had a good chance of scoring a goal seeing as the older defenders didn't think much of him. He was eight years old and small for his age, as such he wasn't viewed as a threat. His cheetah friend however, a superfast boy named Rhett Swift, was well-known as one of the best soccer players in at the orphanage. Rhett was eight also but he had established himself as being someone who you wanted to have on your team for any sport.
Rhett saw his friend standing unguarded to the left of the goal and sent the ball his way. It should have been an easy goal.
Unfortunately for Rhett and the rest of his team the little bear cub had diverted his attention to a plane that had just taken off from the nearby civilian airfield. The flight path of the airfield took out going aircraft directly over the orphanage's playing field. Because he had momentarily taken his eyes off of the ball he wasn't able to react.
The ball hit the boy in the chest and sent him on his back. This allowed the goalie to run out, snatch up the ball, and send it back the way it came.
As the cub lay on his back he looked up at the aircraft and said to himself, "Conwing L-16 with Superflight 100s.".
Rhett went to his friend, extended his hand, and lifted the bear cub to his feet, "You know you messed up don't you?"
"Yeah," the cub replied, "I just got distracted."
Rhett smiled at his friend. The bear cub was crazy about planes.
"You and your airplanes," the cheetah said, "You got planes on the brain flyboy."
That the bear cub did. He reckoned he thought about airplanes and flying at least every ten seconds.
"Sorry for messing up," he said apologetically.
"Don't worry about it Kit."
The boys then went back to the game and a few minutes later the bear cub made up for his mistake by tying up the score 1 to 1.
Tima, the Republic of Feru-
"Anything on the detector?" Verrat asked the weasel with the tracking device receiver.
"Nothing," said the weasel, "I don't understand it. This thing has a tracking radius of five miles and we're at the airport. We should be getting something."
The team had arrived the night before and had proceeded to a hangar that belonged to the corporation that was sponsoring their expedition. Presently Verrat was with half of the team, including the three pilots, while the other half was in the city gathering up anything extra that the expedition needed.
"Maybe they're not here," said another member of the team, a lynx who was busy checking the rest of the equipment that had been brought along.
Verrat frowned and then asked a question whose answer he suspected he knew, "You did check with the airport to see if O'Bowens arrived didn't you?"
The weasel answered quietly, "I thought Beauchamp did."
Beauchamp the lynx looked at the weasel and said, "I thought you did."
Immediately Verrat reached out and grabbed the weasel by the throat, "Dammit Belette! I give you one small task and you mess it up!"
"I'm sorry," pleaded Belette.
Verrat looked to Beauchamp and said, "Both of you fools are lucky that Chacal isn't here."
Both men began to get agitated at the mention of Chacal. The leader of the mercenaries was not someone who tolerated failure. The fact that the two errant mercenaries were new to the team would not gain them any sympathy from Chacal.
Even Verrat was wary of the mercenary leader. He had served with him long enough to know that he could be an utterly ruthless bastard if the situation called for it.
The silence that had set in upon the mention of Chacal's name was abruptly ended when one of the pilots poked his head out of his plane.
"I just heard on the radio that there's two planes coming into land," said the fox named Redding.
"Did they say where they're coming in from Red?" asked Verrat.
"No, but the tower is making it sound like there isn't supposed to be much traffic coming in today so this might be our guys."
Verrat turned from the fox and asked Belette, "Is that thing picking up anything?"
The weasel looked at the device and said, "No."
"It may not be in range yet," added Beauchamp.
As if by magic the device began to beep.
"That's them!" exclaimed Belette.
"Good," said Verrat, "Once both planes land you two need to find out which one is the right one."
Both mercenaries nodded in understanding.
Verrat picked up a walkie-talkie, one of the prototype items that had been provided from the expedition's backer, and contacted the expedition leader.
"Raider 1 this is Raider 2 over," said Verrat.
A few seconds later a voice came in over the air waves.
"Raider 1 over," came Chacal's voice.
"They've landed, over."
"Bon," said Chacal, "I will inform the professor and we will back shortly, out."
Earlier that day-
Hours before the Sea Duck had landed the corporate sponsored expedition had been gathering additional items and actively seeking out the monastery that was reputed to have the missing half of the map to the Temple of the Emerald King hidden within it.
However at 8:45 a.m. sharp a phone call was made by the expedition leader to Mr. Perry.
The expedition leader reached the executive's secretary who then transferred him to her boss.
"This is Perry," said the executive.
"Bonjour Monsieur Perry."
"Boujour Professeur Le'Opard, how are things coming along down there? Fine I presume."
"For the most part," said the leopard professor in his cultured accent, "There is one, how you say, snag? That has come up."
"A snag? What kind of snag?"
"Our competitors have yet to arrive; they may have had mechanical trouble or just decided to stop somewhere so we are unable to follow them."
"That sets us back."
"Hopefully not for long. Besides this gives my men more time to find the other half of the map."
Perry was aware that the other half of the map, which was the first half, had been in a cathedral in Hispania where it was then lent to Professor Linus O'Bowens as part of 'research.' This had happened less than two weeks before both expeditions had set out.
This had prompted Le'Opard and his men to plan to use the prototype tracking device to follow O'Bowens as far as the first half of the map would take them. From that point, it would be up to Le'Opard and his men to discover the second half of the map and use it to find and claim the temple. If, for some reason O'Bowens found the second half first, then Le'Opard would continue to use the tracking device to follow all the way.
"Once you find the other half of the map," Perry said and then smiled coldly, "Do whatever you need to do to make sure that O'Bowens is stopped."
"Of course."
"There's no telling what that idiot would do with it…probably turn the site and the mine over to the natives."
As soon as he had heard O'Bowens being referred to as an idiot, the professor's voice went hard.
"Professor Linus O'Bowens is one of the best men that I have ever had the privilege of knowing and working with. He is one of the top archaeologists in the world. He is no idiot Monsieur Perry. Far from it, he is of as high a quality as moi. He is a great scholar both in the classroom and in the field. He may be blinded by academic idealism and unconcerned to political and economic realities but make no mistake, he is a formidable adversary and one who should never be counted out."
After a long pause Perry replied, "It's a good thing you have your mercenaries then seeing as O'Bowens is such a huge threat."
Professeur Le'Opard bristled at Perry's sarcasm but he kept himself calm. The young executive was someone whom he had a good rapport with but he was aware of the sly cheetah's arrogance.
"It's not O'Bowens that the mercenaries will have to deal with. It is whoever O'Bowens can get on his side that will need to be addressed."