Blue flames shot over the little mound of dirt and the chief knew that the situation just turned from bad to worse. The usual lizards were rather manageable in a way, as long as they drew faster than the scale faces. But this flamethrower pinned them down alone for almost 20 minutes now.

If they did not get rid of the bastard soon, his reinforcements would eradicate the little bit that was left of the corps. He took a quick glance over the hill, short enough to not be hit by the blue fire but long enough to assess the state of things. The number of flamethrowers had risen, even though they still hesitated to approach.

"They are multiplying!" He called over and the four remaining members of the corps moaned.
"We couldn't handle one, Herbert how are we-" Another pillar of flames shooting over the mound silenced Peg and forced her to duck deeper into the dirt.

"I see just one way!" The flea yelled back and readied his gun. "There are three of them and four of us. If we shoot quick enough-"
"This is insane." Tobias, an elderly cat in the ragged rests of a once pompously looking police uniform, spewed his anger over the mere idea back on Herbert. "They will simply roast all of us."

"They will do that anyway when reinforcement arrives." Gina, an also elder bunny, grimly stated and reloaded. "Let's do this Herbert!"
"What do you say, Peg?" The chief turned to the small white dog who just raised her head from the dirt. "I am scared… but I don't want to die behind a pile of dirt. I'll help."

"For crying out loud." Tobias moaned and closed his eyes. "Just give the sign Dombrowski, god I hate democracy."
The chief peeked once more over the hill, the lizards seemed to be confused by something as one of them looked down at a small device as just two of the others stood guard. This was probably the best opportunity they would get and the chief did not hesitate to scream: "NOW!"

Like springs the elder squad members jumped onto the mound unleashing their weapons fury upon the lizards, who themselves did not hold back their literal fire.
Herbert just knew that he had hit one of the lizards, sweeping it off its feet and silencing its terror-spewing device. He had no idea who had killed the others but there was no more fire as he lowered his gun.

"Did we…" He panted and looked over to the others. Tobias was gone, just a pile of molten medals was left at the place where he stood. Gina still held her rifle trembling towards the lizards' position but seemed fine besides that.
"Where is Peg?" the flea panted and looked around seeing no sight of the short white dog with her oversized tacky glasses.

"Grandma!" a well-known voice made the chief twirl around finally giving him the whole picture. Nick, emerging from a hill on the south sprinted towards their position and quickly came to a halt at the foot of the mound. That's when Herbert finally saw her, she must have fallen after being grazed by a lance of fire.

Half of her body was burnt and at the worst part, the burnt fur unblocked the view of skin that had been burnt to charcoal. The chief stared at her, one second, two seconds before the gunshots fired by Gina made him turn around. One single lizard somehow survived their attack and had played dead long enough for them to be negligent.

He had grabbed the flame thrower and had fired one last salvo before Gina's shots hit him. But the wall of fire was already coming towards the chief. For a brief moment, the world lit up in blue before everything went dark for the last time.


Dudley sighed as he heard soft snoring coming from the seat next to him. A little bit of the tension that had taken hold of every fiber in his body has left. A feeling that was accompanied by each of these fibers reporting a burning pain back to his brain. It was odd that the roughly 30 minutes they had to relax his body preferred to use for damage reports.

In the end, he would not waste too much time thinking about what his body was up to, after all, it was questionable if he still had one in a few hours. Dudley looked through the windshield at the stretching desert that once was his home. The dry flats would be good enough for a grave if necessary.

For a whole bunch of lizards and maybe for him. The rest of the crew would be capable of taking care of Kitty, Nick, and probably also Rob even if he didn't love this particular detail. But he rather knew his family in good hands than in no hands at all. The longer he thought about it, the more he smirked. He had to correct himself there, it was Rob being taken good care of. Kitty and Nick would handle themselves no matter what.

He glanced over at her, she still slept, and he preferred it that way. Her head wound, there was something odd about it, it shouldn't bleed so much, and also this weird throbbing. He didn't tell her that before, after all, why make her even more nervous? But a small part of him worried that he couldn't wake her up when they wanted to leave the vehicle.

He didn't know how much time had passed when, in the distance, thin pillars of smoke extended into the cloudy sky. Each of them atlas, burdened to hold what was above. Though not recognizable from the distance, the damage Earth's last forces have wrecked upon the lizards' airfield was surmisable. He pressed the pedal to the metal and hoped it wasn't too late.

Kitty woke up the moment she heard Dudley's voice from the driver's seat saying something along the lines of "We are the vehicle coming towards you, don't shoot us!"
Her eyes were still closed, the stinging pain from her head demanded to keep them like that for a few more moments from her.

But as Dudley's hands grabbed her firmly and pulled her onto her feet unceremoniously, she could not evade the inevitable. With fresh visual input and stimulated pain receptors, her mind was still grasping the situation as he dragged her out of the vehicle into something that could just be called a vivid battlefield.

The airfield, once belonging to the Petropolis International Airport, looked more like the face of a moon that loved attracting asteroids. The buildings, which were repurposed by the lizards after the invasion, partially stood although most of them looked like the rebar in them was giving its everything to keep the scattered parts holding together.

The ground carried a rhythm of constant vibration as purple plasma charges hit the ground with the only thing in their way being dispersed shields that protected the ground forces from the terror from above. Kitty tried to make out someone she knew amongst the squads that had taken cover behind everything that was still standing.

"Great Scott! You made it!" Isaac's voice sounded like an anodyne between the ear-piercing fire sounds.
"Of course, we did!" Kitty moaned holding her head.
"Yeah, was there any doubt?" Dudley asked in an oddly casual way for the circumstances, Kitty wasn't sure but it seemed like he enjoyed the turmoil around him.
"As much as I love conversations that lead nowhere, we got no time," Isaac said and pointed into the sky. The massive sphere that floated above them now caught their attention. "This thing is between us and starting."

"What about the rest forces?" Dudley quickly asked before Kitty could even avert her eyes from the enemy vessel.
"Ground forces are pushed back they will regroup with reinforcements, at least that was one of Powers' last messages."
"Other air support?"

"They are probably still fighting the holo projections we put up," Isaac explained and waved at them to follow him. "But who knows for how long we can fool them? It is a battle-grade AI but they must realize after a while that they playing an elaborate game."
"Any news from our air support?"
"Nothing… let us hope the plan worked."
"We are dead if not," Dudley stated and the sobriety of his words sent chills down her spine.

"Then back to the matters at hand." Kitty quickly interrupted them as they jumped underneath a shield projector seconds before purple plasma started raining down. "How do we get this out of the sky?"

"I have something prepared for that, but I need the two of you for that." Isaac pointed at a point further down the airfield where, in front of the rest of the airport's old tower, the freight ship stood. It looked damaged, it was not one of the lizards' top ships, Kitty could see that without needing a background in aerospace engineering.

But the flying heap of scraps was a much more preferable destiny than the certain death against the lizards approaching reinforcements.
"I lost radio contact with the freighter, I need someone who goes there and tells Powers to get the people to board the ship."

"Going there? Through this hellfire?!" Another plasma volley emphasized Kitty's words better than her tone of voice ever could.
"I did not say that this will be easy did I?!" Isaac snapped and ran his dirty hand anxiously through his hair.

"Isaac, focus." Dudley said and the scientist nodded and cleared his throat.
"Yes… yes. The other one will come with me and help me give that thing up there a little heart attack."

"Can you be more precise?"
"If we survive I will be happy to elaborate," Isaac stated and pointed towards the freighter. "One of you has to go, now!"
Dudley and Kitty exchanged looks, silently discussing the options before nodding at each other.
"See you two on board of that floating coffin." Dudley grinned and sprinted towards the ship passing from cover to remnants of cover to debris on his way.

"Good luck…" Kitty whispered as she watched him evade fire from above.
"Don't worry about him! He will be fine," Isaac said while he furiously crammed things that looked like crystals into a small metal crate. "You should worry about us instead."
Kitty watched him but did not bother to ask what he was doing there exactly.

He would either explain it in a manner she couldn't understand or simply say that they don't have the time right now. She instead focused on the more important question. "What are we going to do about the vessel?"
"I am on it." Isaac's voice exuded stress as he used his body weight to press the lid of the container shut. "Be useful and see if you can find something like… uhm… a slingshot."

"Pardon?"
"Look, we need this thing here to collide with the ship, so get me a way to get it up there."
Kitty looked around, there was not a lot to work with, especially not something even resembling a twig and a rubber band. Just lots and lots of craters. Craters and holes.
"I might have…" Kitty slowly said and looked over to Isaac. "An odd idea."

"Odd sounds like the small sister of stupid." The scientist mumbled as he opened the crate again changing some of the wiring. "Just go along with it, we are in a desperate spot. Literally and figuratively."

"Fine," Kitty said and grabbed into a pile of debris close to them. The iron slab she was able to salvage was promptly carried over to one of the smaller craters. The metal covered the hole completely and Kitty called over to Isaac who had finished his tinkering on the crate. "Do we have some explosives lying around?"

"For what purpose?" Isaac stomped over to her holding the heavy crate as close to him as he could. His eyes fell onto the covered hole, and then a short, surprised laugh escaped his mouth. "I see, let me crunch some numbers." He put down the crate and searched his pockets finding a tennis-ball-sized sphere which he handed to Kitty. "Push onto the top three times, that should give us 30 seconds to take cover."

Kitty got to work. She lifted the slab, activated the device, and threw it underneath it before letting the slab go and running away. Isaac seemed startled by Kitty's quick decisiveness, and it took him more than twice the time Kitty needed to take cover behind the same pile of debris she did.

Despite the upheaval around it, the crate stood tranquilly upon its new iron floor shadowed by the large ship above it.
"Uhm… I'm just thinking." Kitty said keeping her eyes glued to the box. "Will the shield above us be of any problem?"
"It usually recognizes things going from the inside to the outside and lets them pass."
"Hold on…" Kitty turned with widened eyes toward the scientist. "What do you mean with usu-"

The explosion in front of them was small compared with the ones the lizards' bomber let down but it was nonetheless loud enough to stamp a dent into Kitty's eardrums and to kick the crate on the metal slab high up into the air. Isaac had been anything but generous with his calculation of the explosive as the box hit the ship's hull with the last bit of upward momentum it could muster.

"There is always a chance." Isaac looked complacently at the device he created that stuck firmly on the vessel's hull. "Scientifically speaking. It is low but there. I wanted to be honest."
"I would appreciate it if you could be… less honest in that regard," Kitty said and followed his gaze. The box was in its place but one question was left. "What now?"
"We gather the last troops in close vicinity and then run after activating. I got to discuss that with Powers, hopefully Dudley did his job," Isaac said and opened a communication channel via a push on his uniform.

Earlier, on the other side of the battlefield, Dudley put the last bit of stamina he had into a long jump underneath the saving shield that protected the area around the freighter against enemy fire. He landed on the scorching hot asphalt face first and had never been so happy to have parts of the road in his nose.

The joy didn't last long as hands grabbed him and helped him onto his feet. Snaptrap, himself looking like had just rolled in the dust, quickly eyed his body. Dudley knew that he had no idea about military medicine, but for a moment the rat looked proficient.

"Good you seem ok-"
"I know, Snaptrap, give me the gist."
"Very well, your guys are almost done." The rat lisped and pointed at the freighter. "This engineer woman said something about finishing touches. Powers is in the cockpit ready to fly."

"We need to tell that to the others!" Dudley yelled as a barrage of plasma fire hit the shield above them. "The comms are malfunctioning!"
"Of course, they do!" Snaptrap huffed like he had expected nothing else. "You wait here, I tell the engineer lady."

"Fine, hurry!" Dudley shouted as Snaptrap had already made half the way to the ship. As the rat disappeared in the vessel's insides Dudley tried to breathe. Everything around the shield either burnt or was reduced to rubble. Just the fragment of the airport's tower still resisted destruction, it looked like a finger raised into the air right at the enemy's face.

Separately people entered the shield-saving outer radius and turned their sprints into slower strides, schlepping themselves towards the shuttle as a deceptive feeling of security crept into their bones. Two of the figures seemed familiar to him. A relatively tall but gaunt one dragging a much smaller one slowly to the ship. Dudley focused his view and in the moment his brain completed the recognition he started running.

"Mom! Nick!" he yelled and both of them looked up surprised seeing him approach. The dog gritted his teeth seeing his mother, her left side full of third and fourth-degree burns, being dragged by Nick who looked like he was hanging by a thread strength-wise.

"Oh… sweetie…" Peg coughed in a fruitless attempt to mask her pain. "I am… don't worry…"
Dudley neither had the time nor was in the mood to argue with her. Swiftly he took Nick's place and helped her walk to the ship.
"We get you help mom." He whispered reassuringly before saying to Nick. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"No dad, just some minor things." The boy panted and Dudley saw that these minor things would have been major in less monstrous circumstances.
"Ryan will take a look at both of you, no discussion." The dog ordered sternly.
"Just let me rest a little.. It's going to be okay…" Peg mumbled weakly.
"Grandma, stay awake." Nick said to her gently and she replied with a weak smile.

"Don't worry sweety."
"Never in the entire history of this phrase did it make me worry less," Dudley said as he met Ryan at a ramp of the freighter's cargo bay. The physician was loading boxes into the ship and was about to grab another crate as Dudley handed his mother over to him.

"You have two new patients." He meant with a voice that demanded to be obeyed.
"Could you all for once not try to die out there," Ryan grumbled but carried Peg into the ship.
"I'll come and see you later mom," Dudley called after her and sighed hoping that this wasn't a lie.
"Don't worry Dad." Nick gently laid his hand on his shoulder. "Grandma is tough."

"I know I know… I just haven't imagined this for her retirement." He sighed and turned to Nick. "But you probably also imagined the rest of your childhood different than that."
"I had no expectations." Nick shrugged grimacing a little. "The only thing I worried about back then was how I could get money for new games for my console."

It wasn't the place nor the time for any questions about the past, Dudley knew, but curiosity got the hold of him. "Was money ever tight back then?"
"Fortunately, no… I mean we were never rich, and mom worked like all the time, but I never feared for my next meal. Or my life."
"Yeah, your mom is good with these things… the world lost a great accountant the day she decided to become a T.U.F.F. agent." Dudley smiled and looked over to Nick. "I still have so many questions…"

"We will have time when we get aboard your ship, don't we?" The boy asked with a frown that wished to be talked aside.
"Sure, sure." Dudley nodded softly as Snaptrap returned to him holding an iron rod in the size of his shin.

He handed the rod to Dudley saying "From the engineer lady."
Dudley looked at the rod and spun it in his hand. "An antenna, does she have a spot, or do I…"
Snaptrap cut him short by pointing at the rest of the broken tower. "She said up there and she said hurry, the shield generators are running critically low."

"On it." Dudley's last interaction with the rat was patting him on the shoulder before sprinting towards the tower. As he came to a stop in front of the building his dust cloud caught up with him and shrouded the entrance to the dilapidated building in brown mist. The tower was just outside the shield, so the dog waited underneath the forcefield if the enemy ship had aimed at him.

However, as the dust settled, Dudley could see how the enemy vessel had concentrated fire at several other more important targets allowing him to climb the ruin without fearing imminent death. Scaling the building was, compared to the citadel, a piece of cake, even if his muscles angrily complained about needing a rest.

The tower might have been about 100 meters high once but with just the lower observation deck somewhat intact left it had lost its once impressive height.
As he entered a platform of ruined glass and ruble Dudley was quite surprised to see a known face there, or rather back. He was lying on his belly hugging a white rifle which design looked like one of the other human rifles but was about twice the size.

"I never expected that you had experience with light artillery," Dudley said sardonically grinning which made the wolf on the ground twitch and turn around startled.
"Geeze, where were you coming from?!" Rob gave Dudley a quick surprised gaze before he concentrated on aiming his gun again. "Did no one ever tell you not to scare the guy with the big gun?"

"Depends. The guy with the big gun is slow and close to me. I wouldn't scare the guy with knife right now." The dog said and put down the antenna. There was a single button on it and Dudley understood it as an invitation to push it right away. "There, that should do the trick."

"You survived… Is it odd to say that this gives me hope?"
"In a sense, yes. But I think I understand what you mean." Dudley smirked and looked at the wolf while he did what he had done for about half an hour now, aiming at the irritating vessel.
"So, did everything work out?" Rob asked after the two of them kept silently looking at the ship for a few moments.

"More or less… we have to believe it did." Dudley sighed, he diverged from the antenna and knelt down next to Rob aiding him in targeting the one thing between them and freedom.
"Hey, the odds were never in our favor so… I won't hate you if you fucked up."

Dudley looked over to the wolf in surprise. "You are astonishingly nonchalant about our doom."
Rob didn't even lift his head to answer him. "A lot of us think that this is it, but desperation is an effective driving force."

"An enemy who does not need hope…"
"Is a dangerous one," Rob concluded Dudley's thought and growled. "This damn ship is too well-armored to shoot it."
"Wait until it exposes a weak spot."

"It barely moves when would it…" In the moment Rob looked over to Dudley to complain more vehemently about the situation, an explosion glued both of their eyes back to the ship. Something must have exploded there after all the two purple glowing circular exhausts on the sphere had started spewing fire.

"There! It moved! Shoot!" Dudley ordered and even if he wouldn't in other circumstances, Rob obeyed. The ray of white light was a force of destruction the damaged ship wasn't able to withstand even with all its armor. Rob hit one of the exhausts sending the beam's energy into the very core of the vessel.

The ship floated in mid-air, stunned for a moment before slowly but steadily moving upwards into the clouds.
"Not bad, not bad at all." Dudley whistled and there went so far as to applaud a little.
"Thanks but…" Rob grinned and looked after the disappearing ship. "Where is it going?"

"Trying to get out of our reach and then withdraw. I reckon the damages are more than severe." Dudley also treated himself to a few seconds of enjoyment of a fleeing enemy. It was one of these little moments. As he felt the ship was far enough away, he activated his communicator and said. "Sly the sky won't get any clearer."

"We are waiting for a few more people. Starting in 3 minutes." Sly's answer was quick and sounded less like the confidence he was used from the captain.
"We never make it back to the ship in three minutes," Rob interjected, and Dudley gave him a nod. He would, but Rob did not have the equipment to just jump down from the tower and walk it off.
"Sly," the dog said once more. "Leave a hatch open for us and try to start close to the control tower. You don't want to wait for us, do you."

"Affirmative." Powers replied and closed the channel once more.
"There you go." Dudley grinned and helped Rob to his feet. "We get aboard without a big hassle."
"Jumping into it?" Rob picked up the gun from the ground and handed it to Dudley. "I was never good at jumping."

"It's just a small gap." He said mounting the enormous weapon on his back. "Don't overthink it… you sound like Kitty sometimes, you know that?"
"That's why she likes me so much." The wolf grinned and Dudley started nodding with an expression that looked like he had just received a slap.
"I ran straight into that one."

"Indeed." Rob smiled once more and even managed to laugh. "Chill down mate, happens to the best."
"Too kind." Dudley sighed and stretched. "Hey about the beer, if we really make it, I don't know how much free time I will have so-"
"Are you trying to weasel yourself out of that?" The wolf stretched himself now seeming even taller.
"No, just saying that we might have to reschedule."

"Fine." Rob nodded and sternly glared down at Dudley. "But when we do it, we swap the beer with Tequila, deal?"
"Deal." The dog chuckled and for a moment the two both grinned at each other high over the battlefield.

"Dudley, call it a weird feeling but, I think this will work out somehow." Rob laughed and offered him his hand.
"You know what? I think so too," and as they were about to shake hands Dudley received the quickly spoken words "Boarding completed!"

Dudley and Rob both turned to the latch. "You might want to warm up a little," Dudley mumbled taking a step back from the abyss.
"I hate this." Rob's words were drowned by the deafening sound of engines igniting underneath them.

The sound of old angry beasts forcefully awoken from their slumber, cursing the ones who dared to do so with fire, reverberated through the tower forcing itself into their bones. The minutes the engines idled let their anger just grow and in the second Powers' waiting period was over they unleashed all of their fury.

The ground started quaking and the metal hull ached in pain as it was dragged upward by those bellowing dragons to once more defy gravity. The vessel raised up, starward.
Rob and Dudley stood at the edge of the platform and tried not to fall to their demise as the ship gradually approached.

"Just jump when I do!" Dudley yelled into Rob's ear hoping he got the gist. Old, tested metal rose from below them and revealed the ship's stern. The loading hatch presented a look into the ship's bowels and with it, dozens of eyes stared back at them.

This was the moment. Dudley took a few steps back, sprinted towards the latch, and gaped the few meters with a jump that was more powerful than anticipated. Hands grabbed him and braked his fall before he would have collided with the interior wall. Without taking the time to thank them the dog looked behind him realizing that Rob wasn't on deck with him.

He ran back to the latch seeing the wolf just now running toward the latch to jump. The wolf tried with all his might to reach at least the edge of the loading latch, but the ship was already too high.
If Dudley hadn't grabbed his hand, Rob would have fallen down the control tower onto the dusty crater-ridden ground. "I hold on, I got you!"

"Oh please, for the love of god, don't let go!" Rob begged digging his claws into Dudley's flesh.
"I won't drink alone!" Dudley yelled and started pulling the heavy wolf towards him as a sound like nails on a chalkboard made the heads of both of them turn.

"Oh shi-" Dudley's yell was wiped away by a crackling noise and at the same moment bright light blinded him. Blinking perplexed he tried to regain his sight, a few seconds must have passed until he could see pictures again. He tried to see where Rob was but he was gone.

Gone, like most of his arm. It was ripped away like he was a toy figure who had just met an angry five-year-old. Blood oozed out of the stump with alarming pressure. Dudley knew what was going on, he had been there a few times. The clock was ticking.

Once more hands grabbed him and pulled him away from the latch. "Get inside." Someone yelled.
"Close the hatch, quick!" Another voice screamed.
"No… no!" Dudley said and broke loose from them spraying everyone close with precious red time.

"There is a fighter jet thing out there!" Dudley screamed at the surrounding survivors.
The ship trembled once more as the loud screeching sound reappeared. And not a moment after that Powers' voice boomed through the ship. "We are hit, hull integrity 40 percent!" The captain panted sounding more like he tried to keep himself together than the ship.

"Powers! Hatch to the attacker." Hollered Dudley to the ceiling and tried grabbing the gun from his back but doing that with just the memory of an arm was not possible. He stumbled but was once more caught.

"Dudley!" hearing Kitty's terrified voice was a balm for his soul. At least she was safe. But he could not rest on this little victory. His still functioning arm fumbled the gun from his back. His weak legs walked him to the hatch when his oxygen-deprived brain suddenly realizing he couldn't fire on his own.

He turned to Kitty and panted "Hel..p me.." while less and less blood flowed from his arm.
The pale cat stammered now getting a good look at his state. "We need to get medical-"
"Kneel down… arms up!" He wheezed and stumbled behind her.
"But-"

"No..t..time! D..o it." He stated realizing the first shadows creeping into his field of view.
Kitty nodded and did what he wanted. Dudley, using her like a tripod, placed the gun in her hands and started aiming out of the hatch. The time was running out. Dudley felt dizzy. He held the gun steady, aiming out of the opening as the attacker approached once more. A small ship. For Dudley's blurry eyes just a blurry triangle.

One last breath. The dog inhaled, put the gun on maximum power, and pulled the trigger. Bright angry energy drilled like an unforgiving force through the ship reducing it to flying shrapnel and fire. A fleeting moment of euphoria, shared with everyone watching, moved through his body and the shadows around him seemed to embrace him, just for a moment, until a last push of adrenalin showed him terror appearing on the horizon.

Behind the smoke of the fighter jet, a lizard mothership had silently sneaked itself onto the canvas of the sky. The menacing herald of extinction. That was it, their run. The sky's color slowly turned from blue to black as they pierced through the heavens and Dudley fell to his knees. They had almost made it.

His body gave in, there was too much blood lost to keep him conscious. He collapsed, just held by Kitty who was still awake to see the silver lining that cut the approaching ship into two parts which reunified in a tremendous explosion. Reinforcements had arrived.

-Author's note: After all this time the survivors made it and left their home. Let's see what they will find among the stars :D
Well, this also took me a while, hope you still had fun with it :) As always, tell me what you think in the comments and stay tuned-