Sorry for the delay, my loyal readers. I had a show this weekend, and what...a...doozy. Somehow, we contended with sunburn and torrential rain at the same show, had a blowdown that resulted in the complete and utter mangled death of a tent, and suffered damage to a prize mummy. Not to mention that the show did very poorly, despite it being on the first weekend of the month, on Independence Day weekend. This venue has always had bad mojo associated with it though, and I should have known better. On the bright side, I had a little down-time to plan out the next story in my head a little, and to spend some quality time with my daughter (A stage magician), complaining about work together. Now that I'm finally back, I have brought you a new chapter, for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

They were still ten kilometers from reaching the Imperial base. To Drakken, it may as well have been ten light years. There were now six rebel speeders attacking the convoy, with two more flitting in and out of the forest. A small ship had swooped in and all but dismantled the trailing car of the last transport with laser fire. The vehicle was now towing a ball of flame at its rearmost section. With the lead transport beginning to smoke from its engine cowls, Drakken knew it was time to unveil Plan B.

"Delta-7." He stated into his helmet's microphone. "Attack."

"Hear that, little buddy…it's go time!" Ekks announced, rubbing his hand together diabolically. He fumbled around with the jumble of weapons in the cabin of the third transport, finally coming up with a modified DLT-19. Sergeant Daraay had built the weapon for the team, but it had sat mothballed until this moment. The heavy blaster rifle sported a shortened, carbine-length barrel, a vertical foregrip and a holographic, target-acquisition sight system. Best of all to the Corellian, the weapon was modified to fire in full auto only. Ekks loaded an oversized power cell into the weapon, and tossed two more of the ammunition boxes to Lago.

"You sure about this, Ekks?" The young stormtroopers asked. The pilot grinned inside his helmet.

"Me? Nahhhh. But the boss seems to have it all sorted out, so most of us'll probably live through this thing. Let's go." He started up the ladder to the hatch.

"Oh boy…" Lago groaned.

In the fifth car, Mets and Coleth grabbed each other by the pauldrons and slammed their helmets together ritually before hopping onto their speeder bikes. They fired up the vehicles and glanced at one another, revving their engines competitively. The side door of the cargo container fell open, and both of the scout troopers gunned their speeders and shot free of the transport. They banked left and pulled up in a steep climb, surprising the rebels. One of the enemy speeders broke formation and chased after the Imperials.

Daraay threw the pack for her MWC-35c onto her back and magnetically locked the blaster to the power core on her back before picking up the rocket launcher and loading another HEAP round into the tube. Gallen watched her prepping her massive arsenal, then the marksman threw on a bandolier of rounds for his cycler rifle and nodded to her.

"How do you carry around all that stuff, sergeant?" He sighed. Daraay paused, one hand on the ladder and her head turned towards him.

"Much easier than carrying around your ego, corporal." She remarked. Gallen stared at her a moment, then snorted in laughter. She climbed the ladder and threw open the hatch, rolling deftly onto the roof of the transport. A couple seconds later, Gallen stuck his head up out of the opening.

"You've been hanging around the Old Man too long." He grinned.

"I…am not going up top." Dall stated. "Commander Tharcourt gave me orders to stay in the cockpit, and that's where I intend to stay, Felian."

"You have the grenade launcher." The scout sergeant returned dryly. The medic reached the weapon out to him.

"Well take it then, dammit." He said. "If I'm not going up there, then I don't need it." Felian huffed.

"I already have a blaster. Dall, get your ass…up on top of this rolling death trap. I don't care what the commander told you, I have…a damn plan." Dall stared at him a moment, then let out a defeated sigh.

"Fine." He declared, standing. "Fine. But when you're exsanguinating from multiple holes in your torso, and I'm shot through, don't expect me to plug you up." Dall hefted up the grenade launcher. "So what's your plan?"

Back in the first transport, Tharcourt gave instructions to Varney to drive and ignore whatever might be happening on top of his vehicle. He and Freya squeezed through the seats and stood at the bottom of the exit ladder at the back of the cabin. Drakken put an arm around her and touched his forehead to hers. She smiled a little.

"Be careful." He said. She stole a quick kiss on the lips.

"Nae. You be careful." She countered. "Yer the one always gets hurt, love." Drakken squeezed her shoulder, then made his way up the ladder onto the top of the vehicle. As he exited, he could see the rest of the team emerging from their own vehicles. They stood little chance of beating the rebels fighting them from the transports, and he knew it. The only way they could win this was by hoping the rebels would try to fight them in the open. And that mean them standing in the open…

"Now!" He yelled into his mic before drawing both of his blasters and dumping a barrage of red bolts at the speeder nearest his vehicle.

Daraay saw another speeder streaking down towards her transport, and quickly swung around with the rocket launcher. In an instant, the weapon beeped, signaling a lock onto the fast-moving craft. She fired, and the speeder bike juked left and went into a climb, dodging the projectile. The rocket curved in an arc, streaking down toward the speeder bike. The rider turned right and twisted in a three-sixty spin, the rocket exploding on the ground. Daraay huffed.

"Too slow!" Mets called, dodging the rebel speeder as it flew past. He jammed his bars forward and rotated the right pedal downward, sending his bike into a steep dive. The rebel rider executed a break-neck turn and dove after him, but Mets simply throttled back and angled his bike upwards, causing the rebel to dive too far below him. "Oooo hahaha!" He laughed. "You gotta be quicker than that!" He revved his engine and dumped the throttle as the rebel shot back up to engage him, firing their speeder's small, dual blaster cannons.

Mets leaned his speeder into a tight left turn and sped down again, into the trees. The rebel followed. The experienced scout trooper dodged the trees like he was casually riding around an obstacle course in academy. He laughed again. The rebel rider behind him was probably so pissed that he couldn't think straight. Mets was counting on that. The reb had after all obviously forgotten that he had started out chasing two scout troopers. Mets saw a flash of white up ahead and gripped the right bar of his speeder even tighter. Coleth came streaking toward him like a guided missile, and Mets waited till the last possible second before pulling right. The rebel got a one-second look at the oncoming scout trooper before Coleth's laser cannon blew the front off the rebel's speeder, launching him into the trunk of a large tree. The two scout troopers pulled alongside one another.

"Man, you're losing your touch." Coleth laughed. "You almost hit me."

"What?!" Mets returned. "That was an A-Number-One maneuver." He made a circle with his left thumb and index finger. "Mondo-pefecto."

"Yeah. Right." Coleth teased. "Wanna do it again?" Mets held out a fist, which Coleth punched with his own.

"Oh yeah!"

As Daraay reloaded her rocket launcher, Gallen took careful aim at a speeder flying toward them. The rebel rider fired his laser cannon, the powerful bolt missing Gallen by inches, but the marksman had blanked out everything around him and hardly noticed as he placed his reticle on the bottom of the speeder. He squeezed the trigger and his slugthrower barked, sending a bullet into the small craft. The speeder jerked quickly to the right, the rider feeling the impact and swerving to avoid another. Daraay took aim on the bike, but the rider noticed her and barrel-rolled, keeping the launcher from locking on.

"Gallen. I need a lock." She called. The sniper had just slammed another round into the breach of his rifle, and now he threw it to his shoulder and fired a quick shot. His well-aimed round tore into the vertical stabilizer of the speeder, and the rebel rider wrestled with the handlebars, trying desperately to make his vehicle do anything but travel forward in a straight line.

"Hit it!" Gallen yelled. Daraay locked the red dot of her launcher's scope onto the speeder.

"Dodge this." She growled, and fired. The missile impacted the speeder just below the seat, and the rider was ejected twenty feet into the air by the explosion. They both snapped their heads to the end of the car as two rebels hopped off of a pair of speeder bikes onto the transport. Both wasted no time in closing with the two Imperials, the first swinging a bladed blaster rifle at Daraay, who parried it with the rocket launcher. While they were locked in combat, the other lunged at Gallen with a vibroblade. He narrowly dodged it and swung his cycle rifle like a club. The rebel blocked it with his armored forearm and slashed at Gallen, scratching his chestplate and cutting a gash in his cape.

"Gah, dank farric!" The sniper exclaimed, hopping back to get away from his opponent. "Whoa! Cool it with the cutlery, man!"

Drakken fired at the two speeders alongside the leading transport, only to have them dodge and weave, avoiding his bolts. Two rebels leapt aboard. He shot one in the chest, but the tall being's armor absorbed most of the blast. He turned to face the other, and felt something impact his right blaster. The weapon fell from his hand and clattered to the roof of the vehicle. The second marauder flicked open a riot-control baton and spun it like a professional. Drakken turned and got punched by the first rebel, shook it off, grabbed his opponent by the shoulders and rammed his knee into their gut.

"Freya!" He called. His foe elbowed him in the helmet and flipped him onto his back. "Uhf…stick fight!"

Thorne sprang from the hatch like shot from a cannon. She landed on one knee and flicked her staff open. The rebel wielding the baton immediately ran toward her. Thorne parried his weapon with her staff, and delivered a blow to his helmet. He rammed his shoulder into her, nearly knocking her over. Freya snarled and shoved her staff out with both hands, the center of her weapon impacting the man's throat. She spun the staff and caught him behind his ankles and dropped him to the roof of the transport.

Drakken was on his feet again, and trying to get a shot off at his opponent, who kept brushing his blaster aside and trying to slash at him with a vibroknife. Tharcourt finally waited until the rebel cut air, then caught his arm and brought the handle of his SE-14r into his opponent's wrist. The vibroknife fell to the ground. The rebel caught Drakken just below his chestplate with an uppercut, winding him for a moment, and tried to reach for his blade. Tharcourt kicked it over the edge of the roof, and got a kick to the chest for his troubles.

"What do we do?" Lago asked, looking about at the melee. "What's the plan, Ekks?" The Corellian, standing on the port-side of the transport, held his modified DLT-19 at high ready.

"See that speeder bike…riiiight over there?" The Corellian motioned to one of the rebel speeders.

"Yeah?"

"Shoot at it." He grinned. Lago narrowed his eyes at the remark, then turned his E-11 carbine on the speeder. The rebels on the bike seemed to dodge every round he threw at them. "Shoot faster." Ekks goaded. Lago now just pointed the muzzle of his weapon at the enemy speeder and jerked the trigger as fast as he could. Ekks gripped his blaster tightly, and made a few false starts toward that side of the car. "Almost…" He muttered, watching the rebel slide the speeder left and right, avoiding the bolts as they tried to shoot at Lago.

All of a sudden, Ekks leapt toward the starboard side. He dove into a foot-first slide, and stopped himself right at the edge of the roof, popping up into a kneeling position and pouring an inescapable barrage of red energy bolts onto the rebel speeder. The rider was demolished on his seat, and the speeder became a cloud of black smoke, burst into flame and dove into the ground. Ekks stood and backed up to Lago. He slapped the younger man on the shoulder.

"Nice, little buddy." He laughed. "Thanks for drawing their fire." Lago lowered his blaster.

"You know…if I thought I could, I would break your nose." He stated. Ekks laughed harder.

"Hell yeah. I'm teaching you something after all!"

"Damn it…" Felian growled, firing at one of the pursuing speeders, then another. "I can't hit them…jumping around like womprats…"

"Yeah…too bad they won't just sit there and let you blast them." Dall commented dryly. He fired at the ground in front of a speeder bike coming up beside the transport, sending up a plume of dirt and fire, and making the rebels dodge the explosion by flying into the forest. He pumped the action of the weapon. "By the way, was this your plan?"

"Does it look like it was my plan?" Felian returned. "You ever hunt Braeger Beasts, doc?"

"Do I look like I ever hunted Braeger Beasts?"

"No." Felian replied, and fired at one of the speeders. "I want you to shoot one of those bastards with that thing when I tell you."

"How do you…" Dall trailed off as Felian moved to the back of the third cargo car and fired down on the Juggernaut's electromagnetic hitch. The device coupling the cars began to glow red, then white, then finally snapped, and the last two cars, one filled with rhydonium and the flaming last container, detached and began to slow. Two of the speeders immediately stopped and circled back to the abandoned car. Dall took aim with the grenade launcher, elevated the muzzle for the growing range, and fired. One of the speeders exploded on top of the container. The concussion further destabilized the unmanned container, and it pitched to the left, rolling over. A split second later, Felian and Dall dove to the roof of their vehicle as a shockwave from the ensuing explosion washed over them.

"So…what did that have to do with hunting again?" Dall asked.

"The only way to shoot a Brager Beast is to lure it with food." The scout sergeant said. He nodded to the medic. "You can go hunting with me anytime, doc.

The driver of the unguarded transport had had enough. Deciding to push their transport ahead and hopefully get clear of the fierce battle the convoy was embroiled in, she throttled up and steered onto the shoulder of the road. She passed the next transport in line, Ekks giving her a bewildered gesture as she rocketed past. The transport drew alongside Daraay's vehicle, and the Death Trooper motioned for the driver to fall back as she fired her massive blaster cannon at a speeder bike. The driver nodded to the negative and kept speeding up.

"Damn idiot!" Varney called out, seeing the other transport closing in beside him. He activated his comms array. "Hessia! Hessia, what are you doing?!"

"Getting the Hell outta here, Kresavarnian!" The young woman driving the juggernaut shouted back over the radio. "I'm done! I'm not suicide-jockeying on this dirtball one day longer!"

"Slow down, you're gonna pop the cargo!"

"Get out of my way, Kress!" She yelled back. "I'm throttle-up and balls-out!" The transport began to pass Varney, and he moved as far to the right as he could to give the fleeing driver room. Hessia's juggernaut continued to speed up.

"You're gonna blow the trans-axle, Hesssia!" He pleaded. There was no answer. Varney looked up at the ceiling as he heard thuds and blaster fire from the roof of the cockpit. He pulled his own small blaster pistol and sat it on the console within easy reach. When he looked back forward, Hessia's transport was fifty meters ahead and opening. He saw two speeder bikes accelerating toward the vehicle as white smoke began to pour from the wheel wells. He hit his comms switch again. "Shut it down! Damn it, throttle that rig back!"

A few laser bolts from the enemy speeders into the overheated hubs of Hessia's transport, and the white smoke turned into a shower of sparks. She lost control of the massive rig, and the vehicle careened off of the road into a grassy clearing. By the time Varney passed the disabled transport, the rebels were already on top of the cabin with their weapons in hand. A third speeder bike broke away from the convoy and pulled alongside the juggernaut. He growled in anger and kept driving as he had been ordered.

Freya flipped up onto her feet from the roof of the transport where her opponent had thrown her. She had to admit, this guy was pretty good with a stick. She gave him a respectful smirk and a nod, then went on the offensive. He tried to parry her attacks, but she found an opening and his baton went flying off the edge of the transport. Instead of retreating, he dove onto her, sending both to the roof. She rolled, getting atop him, and he punched her in the jaw. Freya fell to the side. She got to her feet in time to hear a click. Turning, she saw another riot baton in the man's hand.

"Mate…where'as ye keepin' that?"

Drakken found himself playing a childish but deadly game with his own opponent. Both now had blaster pistols in hand, and both were grappling with one another, trying to be the first to score a shot on the other. Tharcourt brought his muzzle in-line with the man's gut, only to have it knocked aside just as he fired, and found himself staring down the black hole of his enemy's blaster. He pivoted to the side, the bolt missing his ear by millimeters, and punched the man in the side. He felt a blow to his helmet, and shoved his muzzle against the rebels' forehead. A forearm knocked it away, and Drakken barely pushed the rebel's blaster away with a butterfly sweep of his free arm just as it fired.

The rebel was good, he had to acknowledge. Almost too good. The man was definitely going off of pure experience instead of training, and Drakken had to wonder how long this guy had been fighting the Empire. A morbid thought entered his mind: How many Imperial soldiers had this man killed? Tharcourt was not about to let himself be another notch on this rebel's blaster. The tall warrior pointed his blaster again. This time, Drakken shoved his elbow into the crook of the man's arm, forcing his weapon down, and the blaster went off, the bolt nicking Drakken's left thigh. Drakken grabbed the rebel around the neck and swung himself around behind the man. With all the strength he could muster, Tharcourt grabbed the rebel's helmet in both hands, turned it to the left, and when the rebel was putting all of his energy into fighting against the movement, Drakken twisted the man's head to the right with an angry yell. He felt the crack, and let the rebel fall to the roof of the transport.

Varney saw the small rebel freighter fly ahead of the convoy. To his horror, the ship turned about and pointed its bow at his transport, the pilot somehow managing to fly backwards to avoid collision. Varney grabbed his small blaster pistol from atop the console and fired at the rebel vessel, the underpowered bolts arcing off of the freighter's hull. The combat driver knew exactly what was about to happen. He turned back to the open cockpit hatch.

"Commander!" He screamed. "Take cover!"

Drakken heard the driver yell out to him and looked up as the rebel ship fired a single energy round into the cabin of the juggernaut. He shoved his blaster into its holster and dove for Freya, and tackled her to the roof as the vehicle shuddered from the blast and the automatic brakes of the transport locked up, sending the transport skidding off the side of the road. The rebel Freya had been fighting with was launched off of the roof and grabbed hold of the lip of the destroyed cockpit window, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the wheels of the juggernaut. Drakken's first thought was that the entire vehicle was about to blow, and when the transport came to a stop in one piece, he rolled to his back and pivoted his mic over his mouth.

"Go! Go! Go!" He called out. "Get to the compound!"

"Sir, I can…" Daraay responded as her vehicle shot by.

"Sergeant, get the convoy to the base, I can handle this!" Tharcourt interjected. "Everyone, regroup at the base! Mets, Coleth, you two alive? You read?"

"We copy, L-C, sir. Coleth answered. "We're two-and-oh and RTB." Drakken watched the rest of his team pass by, each one of the troopers staring solemnly at their commanders laying atop the ruined transport.

"I expect to see you back at base, Boss." Ekks' voice came over the net.

"You and the LT don't do anything stupid, sir." Gallen added.

"I'll send a unit back after you when we get back, commander." Felian stated as the last transport rolled past. "Hold out till then." There was a short silence. "I know you can hold till then, sir."

"Daraay, take them back." Drakken said. He stood and pulled off his helmet. Freya got to her feet beside him as a rebel speeder stopped and hovered next to the juggernaut, its blaster cannons pointed at them.

"You two!" The rider bellowed. "You're bantha fodder!" Drakken took Freya's hand in his, and they stared at the rebel as he prepared to fire. Suddenly, the speeder was hit by a barrage of green bolts and burst into flame, spilling its two occupants to the ground and falling in a heap beside them. Mets and Coleth sped past, Mets giving his two officers a raised fist.

"You're all clear sir!" Freya heard Coleth chime in over her helmet's earpiece. "You two give them Hell! We'll see you back in the wire!" With that, the two scouts disappeared around a bend in the road. Drakken and Freya turned to see three more speeder bikes approaching. Drakken took Freya by the arms and dropped her off the side of the transport. He clamored down after her and drew his blaster. The speeders and the ship were now upon the juggernaut, and as the first sped up, Freya leapt out with her staff and sent both of the rebels atop the craft to the ground. Drakken fired at the next, rolling out of the way as the speeder fired at him.

"Enough of this!" A powerful voice commanded. Drakken looked back to see a figure in a great, horned helmet leap nimbly from a speeder bike and land on the transport. With another pounce, the armored rebel dropped from the huge vehicle, a long staff appearing in their hands. The weapon connected with Freya's staff as the newcomer touched ground, and Thorne was sent sprawling on her back. "Kill him!" The leader of the rebel band commanded. It twirled its staff, and the bulbous ends of the weapon crackled to life with blue energy as the being looked at Freya. "This one is mine."

Drakken looked around him as eight rebels closed in, their blasters and bladed weapons held menacingly toward him. All of them wore masks and helmets of various designs, along with furs, necklaces of teeth of some carnivorous beast, and all were wearing some degree of armor. He backed up slowly, sizing each opponent up, looking for an opening or a weakness. A rebel lunged at him with a vibrolance, and Drakken dodged the blade, grabbing the weapon by the shaft. He kicked the rebel in the knee and spun him in front of himself as another fired. Using the spear-wielding foe as a human shield to absorb the fire, Tharcourt drew his blaster and shot the gunman six times in the chest in rapid succession.

Freya, still on the ground, rolled aside as the electroripper staff impacted the ground where her chest had been a second before. The rebel leader twirled the weapon about their head and brought it down again, and Thorne swung her own staff, knocking the powerful melee weapon aside. She flipped to her feet and swung upwards at the rebel's head, only to have her own staff parried, and she ducked a swing at her head. She countered with a blow to the rebel's helmet, but was knocked back by a strike from the center of the pole.

"Och…yer pretty good, lad." Freya commented, and spit out a little blood. "Lemme gie ye a lesson." She lunged at the rebel, feigned a swing at their head, then turned it into a graceful spin as the Beoh'an twirled to the ground, and kicked out with her right leg, attempting to sweep the rebel to the ground. Her opponent leapt into the air, and there was a short thrum as their repulsor boots added to the leap, sending the enemy chieftain ten feet into the air. They came dropping down toward Freya, staff swinging downwards, and Thorne rolled out of the way, spun to her feet and swung out, locking polearms with her foe as they landed. For a moment, both stared at each other, their staffs pressed together. Then they both pushed away, jumping back a couple of feet, only to assume combat stances. Thorne nodded.

"I like yer style." She commented. The rebel nodded gently.

"And I admit that I like yours, Lieutenant." The rebel's voice came through a synthesizer. "You're a good fighter. But you're still going to die here on this field." Freya spun her staff about her body expertly, then held up her left hand, arm extended.

"Ye best be ready t' be disappointed ye rebel scoom."

Drakken felt the blow of a long-handled mace as it impacted the back plate of his cuirass, and a jolt of pain shot through him. He dropped to the ground and swept the rebel's legs from under him. A green bolt hit the ground next to him, and Drakken rolled under the juggernaut, emerging on the other side of the vehicle. He grabbed one of the wheel lugs and clamored up on top of the massive tire. A rebel rolled from under the vehicle with a blaster pistol in hand, and Tharcourt jumped down onto his back as he tried to stand, knocking the rebel to the ground before pressing the muzzle of his blaster underneath the lip of the man's helmet and firing once. He grabbed the dead man's blaster; an A-180, and tried to catch his breath before the next round.

"Too old for this…" He panted. "Holy farkle…too old for this." A rebel with a blaster rifle came out around the back of the juggernaut, and Drakken launched himself to the side, getting off the line, and fired both of his blaster pistols, downing his opponent with four rounds to the chest, one to the leg and one to the neck. He felt a sharp, burning pain in the back of his shoulder, just below where he'd been shot on his mission with Veruna, and his vision dimmed for a split second. Tharcourt let himself fall to the ground as a distraction, then rolled onto his back and dumped sixteen rounds at the rebel who had emerged from the front of the transport. Several of his bolts struck the armored reb, who went down to a knee, and Drakken shakily got to his feet and backed toward the rear of the vehicle, firing a few more rounds into the injured enemy.

Freya and her opponent were engaged in a furious and lightning-quick battle; parrying, swinging, thrusting, ducking and blocking as they spun, leapt and pivoted about the deadly ground they dueled upon. The rebel's elctroripper buzzed about Thorne's head several times, and her staff came dangerously close to the rebel's throat. A speeder bike halted nearby, the two riders watching the impressive display of staff fighting between their leader and the imperial officer for a moment before running off to find the other enemy officer. Freya saw a flash of blue, and yelped as the rebel's weapon caught her helmet, barely missing her forehead. The helmet was knocked from her head and clattered to the ground. Thorne jumped back a meter.

"Feckin' 'ell…" She panted. She watched the rebel for a moment. Whoever this was, they were the best staff fighter Freya had ever met. She wondered though what school of combat they fought from. She cast a momentary glance down at her helmet on the ground, smoke sizzling from the spot that could've been her face. Staff fighting was all about creating an opening in your enemy's defense, then exploiting it. The rebel had created a massive weakness in Freya by removing her protective headgear. It was likely they would try to exploit that soft target to end the fight quickly. Thorne gripped her staff. The only question was; Will he attack from the side or from the top? She took a deep breath and exhaled.

The rebel attacked first, opening with a swing toward Freya's side, which she easily blocked. Her opponent then did just what she thought they would. The electroripper's left side began to streak toward Freya's head, and Thorne shoved her staff out, blocking the deadly arcing tip against her staff, between her hands. Then with a spin, she rotated the staff upwards, catching the rebel's helmet at the bottom edge with a powerful strike.

The horned helmet was thrown from the enemy leader's head, and Freya jumped back, ready to block. She froze and stared at her opponent. The rebel she had been locked in combat with was a red-haired woman of about thirty, her face covered in a galaxy of freckles. The rebel's brown eyes showed shock and anger at having been unmasked by her enemy, but Thorne couldn't help but comment.

"By th' stars…" She muttered, wondering if this rebel could be some relation, or at least a neighbor from the old world. "Yer…yer not from Breoh'lar, are ye?"

"No." The other woman returned. Thorne spun her staff.

"Good. Wouldnae want t' do t' cousin or kin wot I'm about tae do t' you." She growled, then dove back into the fight.

Drakken rounded the back of the juggernaut and spun around the rear of the vehicle, right blaster aimed, left at high ready. He was struck in the center of his chestplate by the heavy mace and stumbled back. His attacker swung at his head, and Drakken dodged and stepped in between the rebel and the tip of his polearm. He brough the butts of both blasters down into the rebel's collar bones, then pulled the man's upper body downward, planting a knee in his gut. Dazing his opponent, Drakken stuck the A-180 pistol against a gap in the rebel's chest armor and fired twice. With what little life he had left, the rebel rammed his helmet into Tharcourt's forehead and threw him off with the handle of his large club. Drakken landed on his back, but fired up into the man from the ground, getting two more rounds up into his helmet.

Tharcourt got to his feet, and stumbled, almost falling again. A rebel rider managed to catch him trying to regain his bearings, and placed a low-powered bolt from a hideout blaster into his chestplate. Drakken threw both of his blasters up and blazed away, another round missing him narrowly before the rebel fell wounded to the ground. He limped across the road, firing at six more rebels before rolling into a shallow ditch on the far side of the path. As he struggled to reload his SE-14r, a rebel dove atop him with a knife and blaster. Drakken wrestled with his opponent, trying to keep both of the man's weapons from their work. He twisted the blaster free from the rebel's grasp, but his attacker sliced his left arm with the knife. Drakken now grabbed the rebel's wrist, and brought his right knee up into the man's groin. With a small window of opportunity, Drakken brought up a blaster and shot the rebel in the neck thrice. He rolled to his stomach and looked out of the ditch, where he froze.

The rebel woman had finally found a chink in Freya's defense, and sent her onto her back with a sweep of her own weapon. She brought the electroripper down, and Thorne blocked it. The rebel chieftain had expected just this, and countered with a swing from the other side of her staff, and sent Freya's flying out of her grasp. Worn down, bloody and disarmed, Freya crawled backwards as her enemy advanced on her with the tip of the ripper pointed at her head like a spear.

"I'll nae surrender…" Thorne panted. "I willnae give ye that…"

"I'm not here to accept surrender from Imperial tyrants." The woman replied. "Now you'll pay the price for your evils." She prepared to lunge at Freya's throat with the ripper, but stopped when she heard something she had never experienced from an Imperial in twenty years of fighting.

"No, stop!" Drakken cried out. "Please!" The rebel leader looked at the Imperial commander as he dragged himself, beaten and wounded, out of the ditch and forced himself to stand. He threw down his blasters. "Don't kill her…please…" Her head cocked to the side and she narrowed her eyes.

"And why not?" She asked.

"Just…" Drakken began, and fell to his knees. The seven remaining riders stared to fire, but their leader raised a hand, and they lowered their blasters. "Let her go…kill me if you gotta, but don't hurt Freya…please." Thorne stared at him with tears in her eyes, and the rebel leader saw their expressions as they looked at one another. She deactivated her electroripper and sat the tip on the ground. Drakken hobbled over and fell beside Thorne. He wrapped his arms around her, almost as if in a bid to shield her from the rebels.

"Nae Drakken…" Thorne whispered, holding onto the injured man. "Ye shut it, melove. They wanna do you, they gotta get me too." They met eyes, and Freya leaned in a gave him a soft kiss on the lips. She looked up at the fierce woman standing over her. "Give us that at least, ye gobshite." The rebel looked to her soldiers.

"Secure the rhydonium." She ordered. "Get it back to camp. We'll pull out tonight under cover of darkness."

"What about those two?" One of the men asked, taking off his helmet to reveal a human male of about fifty. The leader looked back down to them and smiled a little.

"Don't worry." She returned. "We're going to have a little talk."

Okay, you probably know by now who the leader of the rebel band is. And it looks like she wants to discuss a few things with Drakken and Freya. What do you think they're going to talk about? Probably not the best toppings for a pizza, or the best way to get wrinkles out of the laundry. And what will happen to our favorite anti-heroes now? I will return in the next day or so with a new chapter, so until then, keep those dials locked in right here. Until then, Cheerio!