DISCLAIMER: I don't own The Biker Mice From Mars, and I make NO money from this. This is just made by a fan, for other fans. In respect of the show. ... BUT, - I do own The Survivor's Log storyline, and it's characters! Please respect that!

NOTE; This story contains violence, and bad language, just a warning to sensitive readers. Hope you'll enjoy it anyway. (and as always, don't mind my bad spelling, please;) -- DG

Black walls, dusty grounds, and dirty and worn darkfaced Martian Mice. All carrying sacks or digging in piles of rubble and soil. STOLEN soil.

"Work!!, you hairy pests!!"

The small brown mouse falls limp to the floor by the Plutarkian guards whip.

"You who can't work to get the fires going, - will be fed to the fires!!!"

The young mouse tries his best to gain his feet, but his starved and exhausted body won't let him. Suddenly, a strong arm helps him up. The large grey mouse holds him gently by his waist, and looks with a single sorrow eye at him.

"Try to keep up sonny... you hafta...." He says lowly.

The young Martian just nods for thanks and walks on weak legs away to his work. The tall grey mouse looks after him, when a sudden pain flashes on his back.

"Being helpful again, are we??" The Plutarkian looks at him in disgust. "You better start caring more about yourself mouse, or you'll be catfood!!" The guard laughs at the dirty and tired Martian, as he starts his work of carrying soil, stolen from Mars, again.

The Martian male looks down at his right arm, or more like what's supposed to be his right arm. The rusty steel arm looks more like a skeleton, than the fearsome warrior-arm it once was. He groans, as it hurts him while walking.

He thinks about home, about family. - What has changed, -what has happened?

- Does the sun still rise over Mars lands?.. Are you still alive bros?.. Do YOU still breath, love? ... Amber, Ashes... do you two wonders still argue and smile?.. Have you forgotten me, loved ones?.. Will I ever see your faces again?..... ever again.............

A single tear rolls down his cheek.

"It's NOT FAIR!!!!"

"Amber, you know it is, in a way..." Ashes says calm, but sad.

"Grrrrrrrrr....."

Shelly watches the two siblings. She smiles at the fourteen year old girl, and the thirteen year old boy. Amber, - with her flaming personality and ember-red eyes, short clear orange hair and creamy-white fur, and Ashes with his calm pink eyes, grey fur, and wild hair in all colour shades from white to dark grey. His name really do mach. Ashes's so like his father, friendly and caring, at least if you trust mother. - I hope I'll meet Modo sometime...

"GGGGRRRRRR!!! I WANT to go with them!!! It's MY father!!!" Amber almost screams and kicks a nearby stool.

"Amber! Calm down!" A serious voice says.

Amber looks up at the woman approating them. She's Charley's height, normal built, dark-pink eyes, shoulder lenght or a little longer clear orange hair. She's wearing tan pants, brown bikerboots, and a green and lila army-shirt without arms. She has some small earrings, and a broad gold ring around her right upper arm.

The woman lays her hands on Amber's shoulders.

"Young lady, you can't come cause you are too young! How many times do I have to tell you?"

"No more mum." Amber answers and studies her own brown boots.

"Hello Mrs Sanri." Shelly says polite.

Sanri smiles.

"Just Sanri for you dear." She turns to her kids. " Now, you two behave, I'm going down to Harley, stay out of trouble... - BOTH of you!" She looks at Amber, who still studies her boots.

Sanri exits the small dining room. Amber kicks the stool again, right after she has gone.

"I STILL wanna come on the rescue trip!!!"

Ashes sighs, but lights up as Paul enters the room from the corridor.

"Has something new happened??" He asks curious.

"Nope, nothin. They STILL argues with those militaries... Man, Throttle is red-faced, Mac is on mood to strangle the general-guy, Stoke and Terrance are both irritated but seems to be able to control it better, and mum and Vinnie are as clueless about why everybody is arguing as we are......"

"Doesn't sounds TOO good...." Shelly says and sighs.

"Nope."

"ARE YOU INSANE??????"

"NO, YOU ARE!!! - TO THINK YOU CAN DO THIS ON YOUR OWN!!!!"

"WHAT WE NEED THE LEAST RIGHT NOW IS A FULL SCALE WAR!!!"

"WHAT WE NEED LEAST NOW IS A COUPLE OF INSANE FREEDOMFIGHTERS TO GO AND STUMBLE IN ON PLUTARK AND GET KILLED!!!!"

"CARBINE GET REAL!!! BETTER TEN OF US, THAN A HUNDRED!!!!!"

Charley watches with a worried face Throttle and Carbine argue. She feels sad, when she remembers how they were before this wicked war... Charley fixes her eyes at the silent male Martian just behind Carbine. He's dark creme-brown with short light-blond hair, - military style. The most marking about him is his metal antennas, a replacement for his lost ones.

She leans over to Stoker, who sits beside her in the large dining area.

"Who's the guy with Carbine?" She asks lowly.

"WAKE UP THROTTLE!! WE NEED TO TAKE THEM, AND NOW WE HAVE OUR CHANCE TO WOUND THEM BADLY!!!"

"THAT'S STRAIN'S WORDS! NOT YOURS! WHAT WE NEED IS NO RESCUE ALL CAPTURED MARTIANS, - BEFORE THEY ARE ALL LOST!!!"

"Hrm.." Stoker glares in the direction of the two fighters. " If you haven't figured it out yet.. that's General Strain... Carbine's right hand."

"Oh,... "

"One darn good strategist, but darn tricky too...."

"What do you mean?" Charley looks at Stoker who's folded his arms and glares at the topic of discussion.

"He knows how to get things HIS way.... And neither Carbine knows it, or not, he plays with her." Stoker shakes his head.

"Oh no, not ANOTHER Triuc McDann I sincerely hope!" Charley says in disgust.

Stoker continue to shake his head.

"No, - and thank the gods for it! Strain may be hard and cold as a rock on Plutark, but what he wants, what he ONLY wants in life, is the TOTAL destruction and defeat of the Plutarkians - No matter costs."

"God.."

"Yeah sweetheart... But I hafta say that I in A WAY can understand him... The fishes took all that he have, killed his parents, tortured them and him in front of his wives eyes, then killing her, and the child she was carrying... I do see his motives."

Charley just stays silent, It's to horrible to even think about. Then nods.

"But his anger is to great, he don't understand that he can't sacrifice lives like he would his own in this struggle, it's up to the individual.... Some has got more to lose than others, even in a war."

She nods again.

"And you mean that he's got Carbine in on his track?"

"In a matter of speaking, yup." Stoker sighs irritated as Throttle and Carbine argues.

"In a matter of speaking... it'd be wisest to STRAIN his neck!!! ...Grrrrrrr...."

Mac pops up an angry face between Charley and Stoke.

"Calm down Top Gun. No use." Stoker smirks at the other male.

"Grrrmblm....."

"Btw.. YOU are the leaders of the FF's, why is THROTTLE 'discussing' the matter with Carbine?"

"Official leaders and unofficial leader." Mac growls between his teeth without taking his eyes from Strain.

Charley looks at him not really understanding, then at Stoker looking for an explanation, but he just waves it away.

"Well.. okey. Do you mind telling me why there are FF's and Militaries in the first place? - I thought you joined forces in the fist war, why have you parted again?"

Mac growls and Stoker sighs.

"Long story sweety..."

"Tell me, I'm a Freedomfighter too now, you know. Plutarkians took my home, and you are as much my family and friends, as my family by blood." She too folds her arms.

Stoker smiles at her, she can't help but noticing how old he is. But never the less resourceful.

"As you want beautiful.... Yes, we were joined forces back then... But when the peace finally came, rebels were no longer needed, so the most of the Freedomfighters did their best to help with rebuilding society instead, which meant building homes, get a work and family. We ofcourse kept up the FF's, but not in the quite same way. More like a group of trainers and guards. What was left of us was just a group of called 'Peace Keepers'. We were pleased with it, though. You are a Freedomfighter at heart, not in muscle.

The military took care of state business, and became a sort of Military Police, working hand in had with the remaining active FF's. But... When the second war came, the military handled it at first. But ofcourse, we ended up in the same old way as before, militaries have one way to solve the problems, the FF's another... and there we go... The once FF's joined again, and the same with the MP's. Some tried to keep the two forces joined, Throttle for example, but they sooner or later fell back to their owns. As I said, a true Freedomfighter-rebel can never be anything else in heart. Not even our dear Throttle, but the Gods knows he tried, and tried good, for Carbines's sake."

"SUIT YOURSELVES THEN!!!! YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, BUT YOU DON'T GET RID OF US!! WE ARE COMING ALONG!!!"

"NO CARBINE!!! NO. WAY!!."

"THOSE SECURITY INFOS YOU GOT FROM THAT HUMAN BOY ARE OF MOST VALUE, AND HOW DO YOU THINK A COUPLE OF FF'S AND SOME STREET PESTS ARE GONNA MAKE IT??? DO YOU EVEN HAVE PLANS???!!! IT'S INSANE!!! YOU AIN'T THE UNSTOPABLE TRIO ANYMORE THROTTLE!!! I WAS EXPECTING SOME ADULT WISDOM FROM YOU!!!!"

Throttle inhales heavily and stares at the two Generals.

"FINE!!! You have it your way then!!!" He turns red-faced on his heel, and walks rapidly out of the room.

Carbine looks around, and does the same, with Strain following just behind. The two different doors closes with loud noises.

"My, my...." Terrance says and shakes his head.

"GRRRRAAARRGGHHHH!!!!" Mac roars, and strangles a chair.

Stoker rises.

"Calm down bros. This is NO time to let anger take control. We haven't been this close to be able to rescue the prisoners on Plutarks moon for ten years, let's not spoil this, shall we?" Stoker's voice is clear and firm.

They all nods, even Mac.

"Some day I'm not gonna be able to control myself, and I'll REALLY strangle him." He says, still growling.

"Why? What has he done?" Charley asks Mac. He just glares at her at first. But then he sighs.

"Well.. as you may know Beautiful, I became a freelancer after an accident... I knew Strain back then.. didn't like him then, don't do it now... Is just that way darling, no real reason..." He chuckles. "Some guys just can't take each other I guess.."

"Okey..." Charley smiles a little at the Martian male, and tugs his long ponytail playfully. He just chuckles louder and shakes his head for an answer.

"Of all the stupidest.... - RAAHH!!" Throttle kicks the wall in pure frustration.

"Are you okey..?"

Throttle turns towards the soft voice, and looks at Charley's worried face as she enters the small room. He sighs and runs his hand through his hair.

"It didn't came out so well, did it?" She smiles sadly. He sighs again.

"No." Throttle slowly takes off his dark leatherjacket, and sits down in one of the armchairs by one of the walls, and buries his face in his hands.

"Oh, God!"

She walks over to him, and leans herself on the back of the furniture.

"I don't make this Charleene......" Throttle's voice is weak.

Charley watches the back of his head in sorrow, then she grips his shoulders and lays him back on the armchair's back. He sighs again and looks up at her.

"I don't make this....."

She looks at him, then she reach out and takes off his shades, his eyes narrows in answer.

"Yes, .. you do." She whispers. " And you ARE." She lays her hands on his forehead and temples.

"Just relax, you'll see.. that brain of yours will find a way..." Throttle sighs.

"I'm not so sure..."

"Just don't get upset... Think of it, coldly and relaxed, you'll see the ways... I know it Throttle, you WILL."

"God damn it." The bitterness in his voice almost scares her.

"Why is it so... That whenever my life is starting to go well... something goes WRONG!!??? It seems like it always HAVE and always WILL!!!" He sighs again. "But this time... it was Modo who took the hit... He who had the most to loose..."

Throttle breaths out tired. Charley watches his every move. She tangles his fingers in his hair, and gently holds his temples. She feels how he finally seems to relax a little. After awhile she stands up, and looks at him, he looks silent and calm. Silently she walks out of the small 'livingroom' and gently closes the door behind her.

"Does this mean we HAVE to cooperate with STRAIN???" Vinnie says and scratches his head. "MAN! I've been away for ten years, and what happens? - EVERYTHING changes!! Gee, I STILL feels like I was back then!" He blinks, and then grins wide. "I knew it, I AM timeless!"

Mac just shakes his head when Vinnie makes a pose.

"To have a group of Militaries along to argue with can complicate things..." Terrance says grave. Stoker nods.

"We GOTTA solve this, before tomorrow night, if we plan to follow the plans..." He taps his chin. Everybody agrees.

Suddenly Charley reenters the room.

"How is he?" Stoker asks.

"I think he'll be okey.." She answers. "And I also thinks we should start the preparations without Throttle, better now, than too late..."

They all nods, and scatters off to different duties.

"I never said that I want to be IN THE MIDDLE of the fight..... Just be THERE..." Amber says in a try to convince her brother of the good idea. Ashes just gives her a look and sighs for every new version of her tries to make him willing.

Shelly smiles.

"Amber stop it, he won't give in anyway."

Amber pouts her mouth and folds her arms, then she grabs her brothers ear and pulls playfully.

"Aouch! Amber, lay off!"

"If ya weren't such a mummy's boy, we would be going with them! Man Ashes! You are the onlyone that can persuade mum! Com'on!!"

Ashes rubs his ear.

"NO! Mum trusts me!"

Amber sighs and glares at him.

"Bore!!!"

"Whatever."

Amber sticks her tongue out at him.

Just then one of the doors opens and a young sandy-orange Martian steps inside. Rex walks slowly into the well light-up room, reading a paper.

Paul and Shelly raises a brow, and Amber and Ashes looks curious at the at the FF's base, new mouse.

"Well.. lookie... the streetkid can read..." Paul says mockingly.

Rex looks up at the little group.

"Shut it monkey." He says calmly and walks over to a table, sits down, and continues to read.

Paul snorts.

"Hello." Ashes says friendly. Rex raises his head and looks at him.

"Hi." He blinks, and lays down the paper. "Hey, aren't you two the kids of that third Biker Mice, that we're gonna find on the mission?" Rex looks at the Martian siblings.

Ashes nods, and opens his mouth to answer when his sister cuts him off.

"Yeah! And we can't come along!!! NO FAIR!! It's OUR daddy! And YOU are coming with them, - you're seventeen!!!" Amber says frustrated. Rex just smiles, and chuckles.

"Gal, I come along cause they can be needing my skills... and in your case.. you can't cause your mum loves you to much..." Rex looks grave at her. "You should be happy over that."

Amber watches the young leader strangely, then sighs frustrated again, and sits down on a table.

"I guess.... But STILL..... I'd do almost ANYTHING to just be THERE! Not fight, just be there, in case..... you know."

Rex nods. Then he turns to Shelly smiling.

"And you babe? You wanna go to the stinking planet called Plutark?"

Shelly watches him.

"Maybe."

Rex laughs for himself.

"Well... I'm SURE that you can KICK down some fishes... Oooh, yes..." Rex looks sly at her. Shelly glares back.

"Mr King shouldn't think he's SO cool. - cause he's NOT!" Paul says to Rex.

"Diddo kiddo." Rex grins when Paul almost turns read by anger.

Just then one of the doors opens and Throttle steps inside. His face is a grave mask.

"Rex."

The young mouse looks at Throttle.

"I need you to do something...." Throttle stops by the group of young people.

".... I need you to gather everyone in the lower red hall.... "

"Why so of a sudden?" Rex asks lowly.

"... I've changed the plans... Not tomorrow night... It's tonight we're off." Throttle's voice is just a whisper.

"And .... DON't let the army see you.... roger that?"

Rex nods.

"Come up with needed diversions yourself, but get them there in ten minutes..."

Rex watches his back as Throttle exits through the same door he entered.

"Cool." Paul comments.

The sandy-orange leader scratches his chin.

"A diversion.....Hmmm..."

"I know! Why don't ya ask Shelly if she could dance top-less on a table? - THAT's a diversion!!" Paul starts to giggle.

Shelly turns her head slowly to face her brother.

"Ha. Ha. HA!."

"Why not?" Rex says trying to not laugh. "But ya know punk, the diversion is for distracting eventual army-guys.... not ME!"

Everybody in the small room except Shelly bursts out in laughter. Then Rex takes Paul by the arm and drags him towards the door.

"Com'on kiddo, YOU could be enough for a diversion...." He swallows the laughter, pushes a giggling Paul out the door, and turns to Shelly.

"We save that dance til' later, shall we?" Rex winks and grins.

Shelly watches him close the door.

" Hrmpf! Hormones...." She mumbles.

Amber laughs even higher.

The large dining-hall is full of people, both FF's and Militaries. The two bases connects well underground, and shares regular food supply, and dining halls if nessesary. In a corner sits a still little irritated Mac, Stoker and Pike. All three looks up surprised when the nagging sound of the Earth song "Barbie Girl" erupts from the other end of the rectangle room. Stoker chuckles low when they spots Paul carrying his portable stereo, walking up to the counter and asks for something to drink.

A sudden tap on his shoulder makes him turn around, and face a darkfaced Rex.

"Everybody down in lower red hall, ten minutes. Hurry." Rex looks over at Paul, and at all confused Martians who's staring at him, - including every Military in the room.

"Now."

Mac, Pike and Stoker looks confused at each other, but hurries to exit the room. Rex turns in the door, and gives the human boy a thumb up.

Black and green lights flickers. Numbers running over large computers cast sharp shadows in the faces of their watchers. Silent mice stands in a half circle looking at the screens. The silent is tense. The dark red room lays in shadows, only a long table and the large screens prevents it from being sterile.

"This is it." The low voice of Ludwig says. A dim light flickers on.

Stoker, Mac, Harley, Charley, Vinnie, Pike, Bordeaux, Rex, Jack, Sliver , Sanri and Throttle stands still in silence. Then Stoker turns to Throttle.

"You wanted us bro....?"

Throttle walks up to Ludwig, sitting by the side of the computer, and looks at Terrance who's standing beside. Then he turns to the group of assembled mice.

"Yes.." His voice is low. "Cirtant ..events.. has made me change our plans. Thanx to this young fellow, and Terrance, this operation is at all able to bee fulfilled..." Throttle walks over to the largest computerscreen, it's almost his height. Ludwig taps some command on his computer, and a black and green glowing map appears on the large screen in front of the unofficial leader of the FreedomFighters. Green lines runs like spiderwebs over the screen, connecting together into a labyrinth of not known pats.

"We will leave in ten hours. Clear. We will follow the ways we set up before... just some minor changes... " He turns to the glowing screen. The faces in the room is watching him intense. The green light plays with the darkness, and locks their faces in grave masks.

"This is it."

"This is it."

Four set of eyes watches the group of people loading the great spaceship, standing in it's hidden hangar underground.

"Harley, will we be needing this?" Charley points at a box of grenades. Harley looks at it a minute, then shakes her head.

"Better take that first aid kit instead. We're hoping not to have to use grenades... If we come to that point of having that.. our hiding surely is blown..."

Charley nods.

The human female grabs the other box, and carries it over to a couple of mice standing by the black and red ship. She puts it down in the pile of other boxes.

"She's sure is a beauty." Charley says, and looks up at the ship, which is in the size of a two-store house. Throttle nods.

"She's old, but still going strong. We'll be able to rescue up to 400 Martians in her."

"Wouldn't it be easier to use a transporter?"

"Indeed, but we can't count on finding a Plutarkian one, Martian ones isn't powerful enough for that. But she's special in one other way... she can 'jump'."

Charley looks questioning at him.

"It's kind of a transport Charley girl, - the ship and it's content is transported to one place in space to another. An old Martian tequnique, but not used so much, takes to much power. The ship can only jump TWO times without runnin' out of power, so we have to be careful."

Charley nods.

"It feels so unreal, this whole thing." She looks down at the concrete floor, and sighs. "I'm scared. For me, for my kids, and not least for my friends..."

Throttle lays an arm around her shoulders.

"I know Charley baby. All to well. All to well."

"There MUST be a way...."

"Ssshhhh!!" Shelly hushes to Amber.

"Don't blow the cower gal!" She whispers.

The four kids sits as still as they can, behind a stack of big boxes containing scrapmetal. The gaze out over the large underground hangar, at all the FF's moving around, checking weapons and equipment.

"HOW the heck are we supposed to get on that overgrown bird to ship, did ya think???" Paul eyes Amber doubtfully.

"I..I dunno.." The Martian girl watches her mother and Harley helping each other by a computer. She sighs.

" I...I'd do ANYTHING to be with them! ANYTHING!" She shivers. "Just..just because I'm only fourteen, - I can't be there! I can understand why I can't be in the fight, - I wouldn't be able to do much, I can't throw a fat Plutarkian over my shoulder... But WHY does they have to take my right to fight for my planet, life and FATHER away???!!" Shelly can almost detect sobbings between the young females breath.

She leans over to comfort her, when a low voice interrupts her.

" Well well... I think I've detected a couple of spies...."

The four of them looks up to the top of the stack of boxes they're hiding behind, only to see Rex laying there looking over the edge.

"I think he's started a habit of interrupting us...." Paul says sarcastically.

"May I ask what you are doing?.." Rex eyes the group.

"No."

"Paul, shut it!"

"Grmbl..."

"We are trying to figure out how to sneak on to the ship."

"ASHES!!! He'll tell Throttle!! And..."

Shelly gives the boys a glare which shuts them up.

Rex leans his head in his hand.

"Well blondie, seems like you've gotten a new job... as baby-sitter..."

Paul gives the older male a glare of death.

"I DO hope you don't tell them." Shelly says low, and looks at him. Rex smiles lazy.

"What to gain from that, except your anger?"

"Does that mean you won't tell, or what?" Paul still glares at him.

Rex doesn't answer.

"But..." Ashes looks like he just thought about something. "Couldn't YOU help us aboard?"

Everyone looks at Ashes, and then at Rex. The young leader blows a stripe of hair out of his face and folds his arms.

"Nope." Then he chuckles. "Not if ya don't come up with some REAL good bribe, ofcourse..."

"Why you....grrrr.... street punk!"

Rex just looks at Paul.

"We don't have anything!" Shelly says in a hushed voice.

"Too bad then."

Amber scratches her chin, suddenly her deep red eyes flashes. She grins and gives Shelly a punch with her elbow.

"Aoch... What?" The human girl looks at the Martian one.

"I know WHO can bribe him..." Amber grins wide.

"What do y.... Why are you looking at me like that?" Shelly eyes her suspicially. "OOoooOooh no. No way. NO way you make me! NO WAY!.. No..W......"

The night falls silent over the Martian planes. The red sand and soil turns slowly to darker shades, and the stars spreads their cold but respectful light over the land.

Several feet below the sands, are still awake men and women in the final of their preparations.

"Is that all? All stuff checked, all comps rechecked, all weapons double checked?" Stokers voice is low, but high enough to be heard by the listeners. Pike and Bordeaux nods gravely.

"Good. Let's get our own things, and gather up. Now."

Paul tugs the fabric of the dark green jacket he's been given from the FF's storage, Shelly got one too. The two of them sits on a bench in a small room, not many steps away from the hangar. Charleene's just left to join the mission, and the siblings sits silent, caught up in the serious matter of the situation.

They almost jumps when the door slides up, and Amber and Ashes comes in, both dressed in black jackets, and both ready.

"I can't believe that we're actually about to do this." Ashes says in a low and grave voice.

The others just agrees in silence.

"And I can't believe I agreed to do one stupid thing just to get to go on ANOTHER stupid thing!" Shelly says and sighs.

"Do you think he'll come?" Ashes says, almost worried.

"How could he resist? "Amber winks at Shelly.

"Ha.Ha.Ha." Shelly rolls her eyes.

Several minutes passes in silence. And all four teens sits lost in their own thoughts.

"Will he come? Will I get there, and see my father again? Are he still alive? Mum will be furious on me, as always... I'm scared...NO! I can't show it!..Must be brave.. like father..."

"Are daddy alive? ..Or..or... Mum will hate me for doing this, surely... And grandmother won't be glad... But.. It FEELs right... Sys is right... we SHOULD be with them... ..But..."

"Will he come?...O God! I CAN'T believe I did that!!.. Stupid! ... But.. Oh.. Pleeease, don't let mum die too... PLEASE!... I know I'm stupid and all, but you got to be that sometimes too, right?... Yeah, right... Oh..geeez.. If I - Against ALL ODDS DO survive this.. I'll be GLAD to go to date with HIM!... aaah mother.....Why is life so hard?..so..so... Ungh!...."

"Man am I up to my neck in it now, or what?!.... mum.. I wish we were just home... I'd rather EAT fish for a hole MONTH that do this!.. What if.. if... someone gets hurt...?... I.... "

The door slides open once again, only to reveal a sandy-orange young male. Rex wears his usual worn black pants and black and white striped T-shirt without arms. But now he also wears a black leather waistjacket, pretty much like the one Throttle used to wear in younger days. Shelly swallows. And Paul shivers by the sight of the extra two knifes, fasten on the chest of the jacket.

"Ready?" Rex asks in a low and serious voice.

They nods. And The older Martian motions to them to move out the door.

"Don't even open your mouth." Shelly says as Rex begins to grin, when she walks pass him out the door.

Rex just smiles, shakes his head and closes the door.

Silence. The cold space glimmer with stars, high above the Martian desert. Suddenly, the ground moves. An earthquake? No. The ground opens with minimal noise. And out of the hole rises a large black shape. It hovers over ground for a moment. Then take off out into space.

"Carbine, wake up."

An irritating shake of her shoulder, makes Carbine opens her eyes most unwillingly. She glares up at the male standing by her bed. His short hair is uncombed, and his red shirt is not even closed, just like he jumped out of bed in a hurry.

"Strain... WHAT are you doing in my bedroom? I can't remember I invited you." Carbine says in a sarcastic and still not awake voice.

"Get up."

"SHUT up. I need some sleep before the mission."

"There's not going to be one."

"..Hmmm?" She hardly hear him.

"The Freedomfighters took off twenty minutes ago."

"Well.. fine.. just let me slee..... - WHAT???!!!" Carbine jerks up, and jumps out of bed. She grabs Strains unbuttoned shirt and looks him in the eyes.

"What did you just say?"

Strain looks back at her, surprisingly calm.

"They've left, without us."

"DAMN!!DARN!!DAMN!!!!!" Carbine grabs the first loose item she finds, and hurls it into the nearest wall.

"Throttle, you, YOU!!!"

"Nothing we can do I am afraid. They should be doing the 'jump' about now."

Carbine's eyes almost glows. She looks the male general right in the eyes.

"I suggest we should be ready, when they get back." Strain says in a low and emotionless voice.

"Do so" Carbine growls back under her breath.

Strain makes a fast salute, and turns to the door, but stops and raises a brow.

"New underwear?"

Carbine looks at him as he walks out, and closes the door. Then she looks down on herself. In the surprise and anger she'd totally forgot herself, and the fact she isn't wearing anything else but her black panties. Slowly she folds her arms, and starts to curse everything from men, to war.

Cold space. Seemingly endlessness. Shelly hugs her knees. She felt uneasy when she first experienced space travel, when they left Earth and moved to Mars, and she isn't feeling much better now. But at least she isn't afraid now. Not of flying in space anyway, there's more frightening things to come than that.

"System check." Mac's voice is low, as he looks over the control board of the ship.

The ship is dark inside, just the control board, and the computerscreen is making any light. Twelve persons sits silent in the dark, and four more hidden. The tense is high, as it should be before a mission, as the calmness before a storm. A real thunderstorm.

"Computer set." Terrance's voice almost whispers.

A bright light enters through the windows, and swallows them up.

"Initiating jump-sequence."

The bright light fades away and disappears, as does the ship.

"..ArgH!..ASSCHHH!! CAUGH!!...."

The little brown mouse holds his throat with his skinny hands, in desperate tries to make the dryness and coughing pain stop.

"How is it?" The tall grey mouse asks him gently.

The brown boy shakes his head.

" Not... good...."

"Hang in there."

The smaller mouse sighs and shrugs.

"What's the point? We will die sooner or later...." His voice is fragile and dry. He coughs again.

The tall older mouse sits down on the bench in the cell. The steady steelbars, controlled by computers, and electrified, cuts him off from freedom successfully. He leans his head against the wall, and sighs too. Maybe he's right? What's the point?

"Miss them?" The other male's dry and sick voice asks low, between coughs.

He nods.

"Yeah. I wonder..... How big the kids are now?" His only eye glitter by a tear.

"IF they are alive." The darkness and the lack of hope drips in the others voice.

"They are. Somewhere."

You too bro's. I can feel it. Somehow.

"Aii.. MBLM!!!" Shelly screams out instinctively when the strange transporter-light enters her body, the second after, she finds herself sitting with Amber's hand over her mouth.

"ShhhH!" The red eyed girl hushes at her. "they'll know we're here if you scream."

Shelly shakes her body.

"Wheew! THAT was scary!" She exclaims in a low voice.

"Not in compare to this....." Paul's voice is low and full of fear mixed amazement.

The three other teens looks out the small window in the storeroom they are hiding in.

The all gasps as the huge planet of Plutark shows itself.

"It doesn't even LOOK nice..."Ashes comments, in a voice similar to Paul's.

"THERE, is where we are headed..." Amber points.

The smaller, but still large, grey sphere in an orbit around the large planet hangs dark and pain promising in the cold space. Plutarks's largest moon..... And also largest chain of prison camps, and soil storage.......

"This job stinks!" The fat Plutarkian guard says to his companion, and places his feet at the fhilty table. The room is as any other room in this part of the building. Shaded in green, rosty brown, and dark grey. A verity of pipes and balks holds the high ceiling up, and connects the different corridors. The whole look of it, is like an old factory.

The other Plutarkian yawns.

"Right. Who, in THIS place would wan to get pass us? There can't be ANYBODY that's stupid enough to think they can steal anything from here, so what's the point to guard this little access to the tunnels?"

Both of them chuckles, and starts to discuss the matter, without really knowing WHAT they are saying. Suddenly...

"Good morning."

The two guards jerks up, and glares dumbfounded at the young, sandy-orange MARTIAN male, standing in front of them.

"..He..HEY! Where did YOU come from???!"

"The same as.... THEY did..." Rex grins sly, and points upwards.

The two guards looks up, only to see two other Martians sitting on the large pipes running along the walls. In an instant the two males jumps down, and cold steel gleams in the light of Plutarks sun.

"All clear." Rex says lowly to Throttle, who sneaks up behind.

"What did you do to..... Never mind, I don't wanna know." Throttle mumbles.

The unofficial leader of the FF's motions for the other to gather. They all stands around him, and looks at a small computer, that Terrance is holding. It's showing a map.

"This is the two cellblocks.. "Throttle starts. "These two corridors leads to them, one down below, and one along surface. This means we must split. One gang goes down, that area ain't so big, but more guarded for some reason, and the other goes to the bigger cellblock, here."

Throttle points toward the entrance of the huge building, and the two different corridors leading off after it.

"The ship can stay here unguarded, this is a loading space for soil transports, and next won't come until next week. Ludwig will stay in the ship, and keep contact to us via Charley and Terrance, who each goes with one group." Throttle informs them again, firmly, in a steady low voice.

"We only have FOUR hours people.." Stoker continous. "FOUR, before the fishes'll detect us, because that's how long the ship's transmitunit can send a disturbing wave, so the literally won't see us." Stoker falls silent and watches the group.

Silent and grave faces looks at him, all ready for all and nothing. He inhales and continues;

"All set your watches at 04.00, and start the countdown."

"At one hour left, sharp, we must have gotten the prisoners ready for escaping, cause then, is when we must start running...."

Everybody looks at each other. Tense looks, and hard breathing. But all stands fast with their task. They nods.

" Terrance, Arrence, Bordeaux, Vinnie and Sanri.. You go with me to the surface cellblock." Stoker says. The named ones gather up behind him. Stoker furrs his brow.

"I'll need a scout too, except Pike." He says thoughtful, and slow. He eyes Rex, who nods.

The young leader lays a hand on Sliver's shoulder.

"You go with them bro, you know your job." Sliver smiles a dark smile. Then Rex turns to the old male.

"He'll suit perfect. But remember Stoker, he does what you SAY, nothing more, nothing less. And exactly that. So be careful with chose of words, if you don't want unnecessary blood shed..." Rex says low. Sliver's eyes shines.

Stoker nods thoughtfully.

"The rest,.. Mac, Charley Rex and Jack.. You'll come with me." Throttle says. "Down."

Charley and Terrance checks their small computers and their toolbelts. Ludwig Shaddack's image flickers on the two small screens. He signs them ready.

"Well then.." Mac says with a whisper. "Let's split."

The group of eleven Martians, and one Human, throtts inside the huge metal building and splits in two, inside the high walls. The race has started.

"HARLEY!!!!!!!"

Carbine slams the big garagedoors open, and bursts inside. The blue-eyed Martian female looks up from a commputer. She grins a little, and turns back to the screen nonchalantly.

"WHY THE HECK DID YOU PEOPLE SNEAK AWAY LIKE THAT???!!!!!"

"What do you mean?" Harley answers calm.

"Don't you give me that innocent smile hun! SHOW ME THE PLANS!!!!"

"What plans, dear Carbine?"

"I want to know WHAT THE HELL THEY ARE DOING!!!!"

"I have nooooooo idea what you mean with 'plans'...." Harley says and smiles calmly.

"RRRMGHL!" Carbine growls, and exits the garage under loud noices.

Harley smiles, and looks at her computer screen... showing a map over a very special prison camp...

Charley can feel the cold shivers, running down her spine. The cold, misty and dirty tunnels runs seemingly endless under the surface of Plutark's biggest moon, - Talak.

The little group of five persons, makes their way downwards, and towards the lower cellblock.

"I wonder... "Charley mumbles to herself, as they stops, and lets Rex and Jack go ahead to 'take care of some guards'.

"What?" Throttle leans over to her, holding his lazer in a fast and steady grip.

The human woman points to a couple of larger squares on the glowing map on her small computerscreen.

"I wonder what they may hold?" She thinks out loud. "Ludwig said that that was the one thing he never got access to... Those large ounderground hangar-like halls..."

Throttle eyes her for a moment, then turns back to the dark hallway, from where Rex and Jack now comes back.

"If we get time sweety.... well see what those rotten fishes are hiding... if we get time."

They throtts down the hallway, and swallows up by the almost liquid darkness...

Tunnel after tunnel. Corridor after corridor. Cell after cell.

The grey light spreads a metal coldness around the group of seven martians, moving along one of the corridors. They stop, only to feel the pain and anger caused by the sight of barely alive and inprisoned kins.

"It's... it's..."

"...horrible....." Stoker ends the sentance Sanri started.

They watches horrifyed, how Martian Mice are held in small cells with electric bars. Sitting like shadows of the once proud men and women that they were, the silence is almost complete over the cell-block. Only the distant sound of a machine, a generator of some kind, beats along the walls, almost like heartbeats. The Heartbeats of hell.

"That generator..." Stoker wispers."That is what we must do... If we stop the big one.. the macines for the factorys will stop... a chaos will errupt, and the fishes will be too busy trying to get the machinery under control, that they hopefully won't notice us..til later... When so is done... we must get all bars open... and RUN."

"It sounds simple enough." Vinnie comments with a grin.

"Yeah, if simple means.... about threehoundred guards... several security to get pass... and to be able to run like the wind... - with a couple of houndred Mice hangin' with ya.... Is that what you call easy, punk?"

"..Eeeh..he........"

"Ludwig will guide us through security... but we MUST get that generator out, BEFORE 01.00! Or Throttle and the others won't have a chance to get either themselves, or any other Martian outta there." Terrance comments factly. "They can't do nothing 'til we've done... They won't even reach the cells.. the whole area is locked, and linked with that generator... they'll get as far as the glass-steel factory, but not further..."

"I wonder..down there...why so much guard at a so small block? .... There must be HIGH security prisoners down there!" The deep-red female says.

"Or something dangerous.. to them...." Stoker ads and furrs his brow. "Let's go."

The small group shatters down different corridors, to prepare for the largest break-out.. in Plutarkian and Martian history.

Whispers. Exciting whispers, echoing from cell to cell. Freedom. Freedom is close... be ready to run.... for freedom....

"Ready sir!" Stoker turns to see a phanting Bordeaux coming to a halt behind him. "All prisoners knows of the plan... Now we've GOT to get that generator..." She says, and changes her hold of her rifle. Stoker nods.

"Com'on bros." Stoker starts down another hall, with Bordeaux, Vinnie, Terrance, Pike, Sanri and Sliver in hot persuit. Suddenly...

"Guards! Hide!" All mice jumps for cover in a small dead-ended sideway. The size of it, and the noumber of them, makes it rather uncomfortable.

The light of a lamp moves slowly towarns them, and passes with the Plutarkian holding it, and the tvele other guars that follows him. Their footsteps jumps off and around the walls. All mice sits still, making sure they has passed, if they were to be discovered now, the whole plan would be spoiled. Silence falls.

"... Hrm... " Bordeaux's irretated voice sounds from the darkness in the narrow sideway. " I know.. it IS lack of room here.. and we HAD to hide... But... WHOEVER IT IS WHO HAS HIS HAND ON MY CHEST BETTER REMOVE IT!!!!!!!!"

All mice jumps out of the sideway.

"Wow pretty close call, they almost spotted us!" Vinnie says and laughs, a little nervously as Bordeaux gives him the glare of death.

"WHO!!!!" All males jumps back by tyhe red females furious look, exept Sliver who just glares back.

"Hey.. why would we?" Vincent smiles innocently, Stoker grins but tries not to, Terrance looks irritated.

Bordeaux puts her hands on her hips, and growls. All present males gulps, and jumps backwards.

"... Uuuh.. maby it was... Uh, Sanri?"

"Ofcourse it was." Sanri says coldly, and gives Vinnie a look like he's just been a naughty little boy. The readfurred female flods her arms and gives them a final glare, but then just laughs and starts walking down the corridor again.

Stoker shrugs his shoulders, and they follows.

"Hey, where did she go?" Vinnie says and gazes down the empty corridor ahead. Noone answers, since they don't know either.

Suddenly, Vincient feels a hand on his butt, and jumps. Stoker manages to get his hand over his mouth in time to stop Vinnie's cry of surprise.

"Aiii....mmmfbblm....!!!!"

Just then, Bordeaux popps her red head out of another sidewalk, similar to the one they hid in before.

" That's even, hunk! Ha!"

Vinnie blushes.

A sleeping guard, an eating one, other's playing card. Above them, from high ceeling to the floor, the grey and rusty prison generator stands, humming it's own tune. The huge round room rises like a skyscrape, through all levels in the building, making it the center. The heart. But the heart is going to change rhytm, soon. Very soon.

High up, on a large pieline, connecting the wall with the generator, two figures moves silently.

"Oh gods... why am I here anyway..?" Terrance shudders as he looks down at the floor, way down. "Don't you dare loose you foot Mr." The scientist says to the streetmouse, climbing easily above him.

Sliver looks down at the almost black mouse, and grins. Terrance gasp as a brick-red tail wirls itself around his waist.

"We wouldn't want you to fall... would we?" Sliver grins sly, and Terrance mumbles some curses to himself.

After some more minutes, they reach the generator. Terrance sighs relived, and kneels down to do his work. After connecting his laptop to the machine, he taps some fast commands, and waits. He nods. In an instant, Sliver jumps down with the grace of a cat, down towards the ground, he lands in the middle of a poker game. The Plutarkians stares surprised at him, a second later, their eyes stares unseeing. The darkfaced, always grinning, Sky-Walker

runs over to a large vent, and turns it.

In an instant, the whole groundfloor is filled with white steam.

"NOW!!" Stoker screams, and the other five freedomfigthers rush into the fog, making confused Plutarkians to fall like apples in the Fall.

Undergorund, just like old and abandoned underground railway tunnels, the corridors in the lower planes of the camp runs. And ends. Ends abruptly, all at once, in a square hall filled with all kinds of machines. All made to tke care and make the most out of the stolen soil and minerals, a glass-steel factory to be exact.

Lines of mice carries the minerals to and from different sorting machines. Dirty and worn. Without hope, but still breathing. Others carries coal, and other thinghs that will keep the lage generator at work. This is the roots of the large one, stretching up above the surface, and through all floors of the camp, the one Terrance just infiltred.

Charleene winches as she notices a pile of bones laying beside the open owen. The flames has coloured all things nearby black of soot, but she can still recognize a Martian's skull. She closes her eyes, and tries not to think of what the Plutarkians does to slaves that can't work anymore.

"Com'on Stoke..." Throttle wispers under his breath.

All five FF's stands with their back against the dirty wall, inside one of the tunnels used for transporting the cars loaded with minerals. They stand silent, waiting, for their que.

"When the generator goes, Charley and Mac will get as fast as possible to the doors to the cellblock, Jack and Rex will keep the Plutarkians busy, and I'll be inbetween, clear?"

"All the way kiddo." Mac says to Throttle, and smiles a little.

Throttle sighs and shakes his head, smiling ironicly.

A heart breaking sound sounds out over the factory, and the tunnels, the lights turn red and flashes in warning. Charley gasps, and preys that her heart won't jump out of her chest.

"This is it comrades!" Throttle says, and tense muscles are let lose. They enter the chaos stricken area.

Screams, mice running for hide, Plutarkians running without knowing what to do. The huge machinery groans and sreams. The generator fumes, and locks. As if that wasn't enough, lazers and steel joins in, steeling the breath from the creatures in charge.

Charley pants, her legs drums aginst the stone floor as she jerks to a stop infront of a pair of huge steel doors, in the further end of the factory. With fumbling hands she takes out her laptop, and taps in a few codes. The black screen fills with numbers and lines, with some fast moves, Charley plugs in a wire from her computer into the controlpanel to the doors. She inhales.

"Here's the codes, and the commands" Ludwig Shaddack's voice says gravely with the metallic clang from the laptop's speaker.

Charley pants nervously, and starts typing. She gasps.

"N..no..No. It can't be..."

Mac gives her a starange look over his shoulder, but returns his eyes to the fight again.

"Hurry!" He shouts. "The gaurds are flooding in!!!"

She pulls her hair out of her face, the sweat is puring down her forehead, she types frenaticly.

"AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!"

The Plutarkian gurgles and falls to the ground.

"Sliver don't know what fun he's missing." Jack says coldly, holding his bowie knife in a fast grip.

Throttle can feel the ache beginning to pain in his muscles. Allready? And we aren't halfway yet. ... The smoke fills his nose and lungs. Several slaves fights with them, several has fallen, but the Plutarkians keep coming. Damn.

"Throttle!!" Throttle turns by Mac's voice, and hurries over to him and Charley.

"What? What's wrong???" Throttle looks at the devestated woman. Chaley turns desperatly to him.

"It doesn't work!! It doesn't work!"

A coldness rises inside Throttle, and he looks down at her.

"I... I can't get through... It doesn't fit! They've changed it!! We're stuck!!"

Throttle bends down in frustration.

"Ludwig!! Why don't the doors open!!?? If we don't get through soon, we're on the list for oneway tickets to hell!!"

"They've changed the code, and several system ports! I can't do a thing!!" The frustration in the young boy's voice is all to clear.

"HELL!!!" Throttle shouts, and turns and fires his lazer at some closing guards.

"What shall we do?? We'll DIE!" Charley feel the panic rise, and her eyes water.

Throttle can almost feel how his head's temprature is rising due to overloading, but they've GOT to find a way, it HAS to be one!!

"Rex, look out!!! .... AaaAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

"JAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!"

Throttle turns to see Jack fall with a bloody shoulder and chest to the ground, and Rex charging over to him, and the Plutarkian responsible.

Panthing hard, and eyes glowing Rex finds a screwdriver lying by some boxes. He picks it up, and throws it with scaringly skills. The tool changes into a weapon in a matter of seconds as it sinks deep into the forehead of the Plutarkian guard.

"Jack!!" Rex falls down to his knees by his brother in all but blood. "Don't you DARE die!!"

A smile curves in the corner of Jack's mouth, as Rex pulls him up to sitting position.

"Not yet, don't worry little bro...."

Rex swallows, and looks up at Throttle, standing away by Charley and Mac, shooting wildly to keep the guards away.

Mac curses.

"What to do now, Jack's wounded!?"

He looks down at Charley's map, and her derperate tries to get inside the doors. Without any luck. He furrs his brow, and gasps infront of a possible solution, and preys it's not an imagination made by his tired senses.

"What's that...?" Mac wispers and points at a small black line on Charley's map. She looks down.

"I.. I don't kno... I gotta do this!.. Gotta open..."

"Charley!" Mac grabs her shoulders. "What is it??"

She tries to gather up, and looks again at the computerscreen.

"It.. it looks like a small passage between the large corridor leading to the cells, and those strange hangars... But what.. " Suddenly she freezes, and looks at Mac, and down at the panel again. Her voice is almost fragile as she talks.

"Ludwig... what will it take to get through.. door number..Q336..?" Silence follows.

They can hear a gasp from the radio, and then a wisper.

"Only an easy reprogramming... one minute..."

Charley inhales, and almost laughs in newfound hope.

"Go beautiful." Mac says, and Charley flies to her feet and runs away along the wall.

"Throttle!" The older male lays a hand on the his shoulder. "We've found another possibly way in.. Charley and Ludwing is working on it, we've got to run, now!"

Throttle pants, and nods to where Mac points.

Rex holds jack in a fast grip as they huddles behind a car full of coal. With a stolen lazer, the young leader tries his best to hold the enemy back.

"Rex! We've trying another passage now!!"

The sandy-orange young male looks up at Throttle who jumps down beside them.

"How is it?" He asks sweat puring down his temples, and looks over at Jack.

"I'm not going anywhwre without him." Rex says cold and stern, as any true leader twice his age. Jack just sits eyes closed.

"I understand." Throttle nods. "I know brotherlove all to well..." He rises up, and shoots off some machines, and the explosions clears the nearby area of guards.

"You get back to the ship, you'll be of better use there."

Rex nods and Throttle leaps up, and towards the new way out.

"Good luck... may the anger of the merdered's souls be on your side, bro." Rex says low, eyes glimmering in the light of burning flames.

They rise and heads back the same way the came.

The thick metal door slids back into closed position with a hiss. The three person inside the about 6 feet wide passage breaths out reliaved. Explotions and screams echoes from the other side of the door, they lisstens.

"Thank goddess you saw this passage Mac." Charleene wipes a sting of hair out of her sweat drowned forehead. Mac just nods, trying to gain control over his breathing again.

Throttle stares dow the dark and narrow passage, as if he was hypnotized. Just some minutes of running.... a turn left... down... another turn.... There. His heartbeats hammers like thunder inside, but somehow it's not just his heartbeats... it's something more... something else... someone. ... Brother.... Only darkness and steelwalls is parting us now... I know. I feel. NOTHING is going to stop me now. Nothing. ...

"I think we should..." Charley starts, but are hurled to her feet by a strong arm. Throttle's arm.

"This way. Now!" He starts to thrott down the passage. Both Mac and Charley follows in silence.

"What's that smell..? It almost reminds me of...." Mac starts. He stops and sniffs the air, when a faint light sipping through a crack in the wall catches his attention He leans forward and peaks inside. The stern light irritates his eyes a little.. He gasps at the sight.

"It's impossible!!!.."

Charleene stops her jogging, and looks back at the older male. Mac stands and littarly stares in chock through the gap in the wall.

"What is it?" She hisses as she reilazes that on the other side of that wall is those strange hangars.. or whatever they may be. Charley begins to walk back to Mac, when Throttle comes up behind her.

"It..it's ... impossible! They're not supposed to exist anymore!! ... I KNEW I smelled fuel!" Mac exclaims, totally caught up in his discovery. Suddenly he finds himself beeing pulled away from the crack, and shoved violantly down the hall again by the arm.

"We have NO time to play mister! You can play detective and explore this place as much AS YOU WANT, but LATER!! WE HAVE A JOB TO DO, AND WE'RE GONNA DO IT - FULLY!!!!"

Mac stares into Throttle's glowing eyes. The younger male's voice is threathening and angry when he speaks.

"Move, NOW!!!"

Throttle starts to run down the narrow corridor, Charley and Mac follows the raged man under silence. Charley gives Mac a look, but he shakes his head.

No use to be angry in return. He understands. Understands well. They've come far, and are close now. The heart is calling... ...For the love of a brother... I understand you. All to well I'm afraid. ...

Mac runs steady as the last person in the small group, and makes a mental promise to himself.

.. I'm not leaving this stinkhole without that... Get the job done, but then.. I'm not leaving.. until I ´ve unfolded those wings......

A faint smile plays in the corner of the old Martian's mouth. With the swift feet of a much younger man, he runs to compleate his mission and duty. But not more. Not this time. Sometimes are old habits and lifestyles to hard to break off... Even if it means the risk of missing the only bus leaving this hell for a planet.

"Good. They're gathering up the prisoners." The young human boy, by the name of Ludwig Shaddack says to noone in particual.

The screens inside the control room of the spaceship shows Stoker, Terrance and the others, in full action to help as many as possible Martians to escape. The human boy watches them calmly. Seemingly calm anyway. He COULD talk to his company, if he wanted. But for now, he has to be concentrated.

Amber stares out the window of the ship. The surroundings makes her feel sorrow, and almost in lack of hope. So dark, so lifeless. A sudden movement in the hallway leading up to the big entence, makes her snap to attention. She narrows her eyes, and gasps.

"Hey! Look!! It's Rex!... And Jack!"

Shelly, Ashes and Paul jumps up and runs over to her. Even Ludwig turns on his head surprised.

"Oh no! Jack looks hurt!"

The teens watches how Jack walks siffly with almost all his weight on Rex, both struggleing to get over the open space in the loading area, and in under the ship.

Ludwig opens the lower door, grabs one of the small radios and puts it in his pocket, and then rushes outside with a first-aid kit. The others looks at each other, and decides not to reiveal themselves just yet.

Jack sinks to his knees beside the entrance to the ship, just when Ludwig appears in it. The large male groans clutching his shoulder. His dark blood har colored his normally grey-white T-shirt into the shades of a ruby. Rex looks up at the human boy in alarm.

"Ludwig!!!"

"I know Rex, I know." The boy falls down beside the grey mouse, and opens the kit. His face is pale by the events, and he shows signs of fatigue and fear. But in a situation like this, who wouldn't?

With skilled hands Ludwig Shaddack puts a preassure bandage over the wound to stop the bleeding, after having pulled it together as well as the situation allowes.

"Tha..that's it.. I think... " The boy's hands are painted by Martian blood, and he can't help but feeling dissy. Suddenly his face tuns even paler than his labcoat.

"Wha..?" Rex begins but are cut off by new voices.

"MICE!!! In the name of Plutark!!!"

The young leader swirls around only to be met by seven Plutarkian guards charging at him, all armed to their theets.

"DOWN!"

Ludwig grabs Jack's arm, by Rex's shout and he and the tall male stumbles in under the ship for cover. Jack falls to the gound phanting. He looks out towards the incoming enimies.

"Oh Goddess... Someone.. Help him..."

Ludwig watches his friend's fever drowned eyes, and then Rex. A knot forms hard in his stomach by the sight of the lonely gang leader, standing alone against seven Plutarkian guards. One knife, against lazers. Ludwig closes his eyes a second, and preys a prear in latin.

"Oh GOD!!" Shelly gasps.

"He's a sitting duck out there!" Paul shouts wideeyed.

"We GOT to do something!!" Shelly adds, just as panicly.

"Then lets!"

They turns to see Amber standing by the door.

"Rex got us here, don't ya think he should have something for it?!"

They nods.

"I really don't belive I'm doing this!" Shelly grumbles to herself, while trying to keep a galloping hart under control.

With a few back flips, the young leader gracely avoids a couple of lazers. Unfortunaly he has to continoue to duck, he can't do much more. A knife agains a lazer in a feild, is NOT an advantage. .. Damn.. I really should let Stoker teach me to handle a lazer better.... Rex growles to himself while ducking yet again. .. Or why not a bike too.. It couldn't harm atleast.. ... UUUnnGH!! ..

The ground pounches the air out of the young males lungs, when he hits it hard after totally lost control of a jump. Rex looks down at his tigh, the source of why he lost control of the jump. His leather pants are ripped up, and darkred blood pures down his leg. DAMN!

he grabs his knife, and stands up ignoring the pain.

"BWAHAHA!! Beg for mercy you rodent!!!" The nearest guard laughs evilly at him.

His laugh stops with a gurgeling sound when the narrow blade of a dagger enters his throat.

"Never laugh at the King of The Brier-Rose!" Rex growls low.

The Plutarkian falls heavy to the ground, so does Rex. His tigh collapses by the chock of the sudden fast movement that the blow required. Another guard sees his chance for a raise in salery.

Rex looks up just when the Plutarkian takes aim. Just then an orange, red and brown blur chrashes into the guard with a battle cry. Rex eyes widens as Amber and Paul attacks the large fish.

"Get up you grazy.. !!!!" The young Martian leader is beeing pulled to his feet by two pairs of arms.

Rex looks surprised from Ashes to Shelly.

"Lets get cover before the fishes hits those maniacs over there yellow and blue!!!" Shelly pants and nods toward Paul and Amber, who's with both arms feets and teeths are beating up the surprised guard.

"Look out! More is coming!!" Ludwig's voice sounds as the other five fishes charges.

A tall Plutarkian grabs Paul's jacket, and hurls him away. He hits the ground hard. Amber does her best by kicking him, but without too much effect.

With Rex up and fighting again, Shelly watches how her little brother lays right in the way of a guard's gun. Instinktivley she grabs the fallen guard's lazer, and fires. Paul's eyes widens when the huge fish falls to the ground. He sees a withe faced Shelly running over to him.

"Paul!" She hugs him.

"Wow sis! You can shoot!"

Shelly inhales shivering and can't help but wonder how he can be so cool, she's scared stiff!

Just then.

"Aaiiih!" Amber ducks a hit, but it touches her by her shoulder, and sends her flying.

"Amber!!!" Ashes eyes turns from two pink scared ones, to a pair red glowing.

The young boy rushes up to the two guards attacking his sister.

"Ashes no!!" Shelly shouts, and grips her lazer tight, unfortunaly Ashes are blocking her from shooting. She stands up to run over and help.

The in compare to Amber, the huge fish laughs at her. He highens his gun to fire when something grabs his arm.

"RRAAGGHH!!!!"

The fat fish suddenly finds himself flying, right into the nearest wall.

Both Amber, Shelly and Paul stares at Ashes in total chock. The always so nice and polite Ashes, throwing a four time bigger that himself, Plutarkian guard into a wall?! TAHT was a chock if something.

"Bro!" Amber hugs him.

Shelly smiles and breaths out, not noticing the figure coming up from behind.

With an arc movement of his hand, Rex slashes the chest of one of the last fishes open. He turns and barries the dagger in anothers stomach. His eyes sweeps the surrounding to see if that was all.

Rex smiles when he sees Amber and Ashes, but the smile fades when he reilases that they forgot one...

The greenfaced guard raises an iron pipe, just a few feet behind Shelly and the others.

The blond human girl suddenly smells something. She turns, and screams. Seconds turns to hours.

I'm too far away! Rex's brain screams what he already knows.

He looks at his blooded dagger. Several events flashes infront of his eyes, several unwritten rules... voices... He swallows. Don't think jerk, just do! He growls to himself, and raises his arm.

The large Plutarkian hurles himself at the chocked human girl. But he falls to the ground, just as the others. The teens stares at the slim dagger sitting deep barried in the forehead of the fish. Paul gulps, and does his best to prevent himself from throwing up.

Rex breaths out revialed, but freezes by the sound of low chuckling. He turns. Oh god. Is this never gonna end?..

The young male looks up at the Plutarkain he thaught he'd killed. The fish grabs his shoulders and tries to grab his throath. Rex's wounded leg collapses under the weight. Unarmed and wounded, Rex tries his best to fight. But the other's weight is to his advantage, he can't gain his feet again.

Rex, the leader of the Sky-Walkers, the uncrowned king of the Lady Brier-Rose, could swear he could feel the cold breath of death once again around his neck. But it wasn't his time, this time. The Plutarkian collapses over the surprised gang-leader. With his last strenght, Rex pulls himsef away from the body. Guess I DID kill him afer all...... ... Thank Goddess... He lays pahnting on the grond on his chest, and let his head fall down. ... Thank Goddess.....

Shelly slowly bends down and grabs the hilt of the dagger, and pulls it out. She feels sick by the sight of the bloody weapon, and her hands shivers.

"I wish mum was here." Ashes says low in a weak voice.

"YOU? You just hurled a HUGE fish twenty feet!!" Amber exclaims. "Maybe you're starting to show more signs of dad than just the fur color!"

Ashes smiles sheepish.

The teens looks up when Jack comes walking towards them, leaning on Ludwig Shaddack. He stops by Shelly and looks at the dagger she's holding. He shakes his head.

"That he never learns."

"Huh?" Paul looks at him questioning.

Jack just smiles tired.

Then Amber gasps by the sight of Rex. The young male's leg is all red, and he looks tired too.

"What do you mean he never learns?... " Shelly asks Jack lowly.

But Jack just shakes his head.

"May I suggest we go inside?!" The all looks at Ludwig.

They nods, and starts inside.

On the way to enter the ship, Jack gives Rex a look. In a way angry, but he smiles soft. The younger male just looks ahead. He can hear the voice of his brother in his head... just as if it was yesterday he had said it....

"Don't you EVER throw your knife!!! EVER!!! A warrior's first rule, - Your knife is your LIFE!!! If you lose it, you lose your safety line to life!!! Damn it Rex!! If I hadn't been fast enough.. He'd stabbed you!!! You'd be DEAD!!" [ ***NOTE; See "Warrior's First Rule" By DecemberGirl*** ]

He'd never done it since, until now.

"Darn!" Stoker looks with a alarmed face at his watch. "01.00!!"

Terrance looks up from helping some prisoners out of their cells.

"Already??! .." He curses, and hurries on.

Storker turns to the line of Martian Mice, all walking tight, and led by Bordeaux and Vincent. ..Is it gonna end with we all get stuck here?.. God, that'd be ironic. Strain would surley laugh with sarcasm and anger then.... He waves to the others.

"Hurry! It's time to RUN!!!"

All of them looks at their watches, all of them turns grave.

Half starved to death prisoners throtts their best down the hallways, onward to the ship. The ticket to freedom.

Vincent van Wham sneaks around a corner, and out on the open loading-space. The large Martian Space craft greats him. He stops suspicious by the dead bodies of seven Plutarkian guards. .. Yuck!.. Don't tell me that that human punk did THIS?!... Vinnie sneaks up to the ship, incase some of the Plutarkians survived. He enters the ship.

"Huh?" Vincent stares at the little group inside. "What the heck are YOU doin here??!!"

"Uuuhm.. ehe..." Paul begins, but shuts up.

"We're helping Ludwig." Shelly says firmly, and grabs a cleaning towel and puts it down briskly on Rex's wounded tigh. The young male's eyes widens and he grimaces to pevent to scream out loud by the sudden pain.

"Oh." Vincent answers, and tries to figure the situation out.

Rex gives Shelly a death glare. She ignores it, and continues to clean his wound, either he likes it or not, wich he dosen't.

"What's wrong? You're late!" Ludwig says as he emerges from the shadowed control room of the craft.

Vinnie looks irritated at the boy for a second.

"The prisoners are on the way." He says grave, very unusual for him, but this is deadly serious, even Vinnie can edmit that.

They looks out the window. Several Martians are making their way towards them. Every one of them is a sore sight. Neither of them says anything. Ludwig goes down to help them in.

Silence. An almost absolute silence. Just the scraping sound of feets agains concrete can be heard between the cells. The little cellblock is holdingh it's breath. The about fourty high-secure prisoners sits still and lisstens. The guards does the same. Nervousity. Why has the heart stopped? Why isn't the generator humming steady anymore? Why don't the com's work anymore? What's the cause to all those explotions up there?

The tall grey male mouse sits against the wall, as usual. His little brown cell companion caughs just as before. But the tenseness in the air is thick.

Suddenly.

The guard comes pass his cell. Walking steady, glaring. He walks out of the grey male's sight.

A second later the guard comes swishing through the air, and crashing into the wall in the end of the cell hall.

Modo's only eye widens in surprise, together with all the other prisoners.

Loud noices of a fight. Yet another Plutarkian comes flying, and crashed down. Roars from fighters echoes over the cellblock, and hears of surprised and exited prisoners. Then a woman comes running pass his cell. She stops panthing by the door to the control room. With the help of a lazer she blasts it open, and enters.

By the Gods, it can't be. This time I'm hallucinating badly...

Wide and chocked eyes follows the brown haired HUMAN female, as she disappears into the room. A moment later, the bars of the cells sparkles blue with electricy, and then fades. The power has been swiched off. The exitement in the cells rises.

Charleene walks hasty out from the controlroom. She inhales and tries to keep her galloping heart under control. She takes out her laptop again, and taps in another string of codes. The cell doors snaps. Unlocked. The noise of fight is almost drowned in the cheers and shouts arrupting from the now freed slaves. Martians bursts through the cellbars, and attacks the gurads without even thinking about their own weakness.

"Cha...Charley........?"

Charley looks up from helping a fallen mouse to his legs again. She turns to face the stammering voice. The human woman gasps in chock and surprise by the sight of the tall greyfurred Martian male.

"MODO!!!"

She gently lets go of the other mouse, and lets him run along, then she tosses herself whith tears streaming down her cheeks around his chest.

"Modo! You're alive! .. Oh thank..!"

Charley cries both in wild happyness, and sorrow over the way his ribs shows hard over his before muscular chest. ..Alive.. but just a bare shadow of the steady worrior in the past... She shuts her eyes for a second with her head agains his chest, and sobs.

Modo looks down at her, his eyes are dark and shiny by tears. He smiles unsure.

"Charley.. Oh lord.. tell me you're not an illusion!" He hugs her.

"No." She smiles and wipes a tear away, but suddenly grows serious as a raged warcry rings over the alarm of fighting slaves and guards. Charley looks the grey mouse in his eyes.

"We haven't got much time friend! We must hurry!"

She grabs his arm and they make their way towards the way out, getting as many as possible of the prisoners with them.

Modo stops dead in his tracks by the sight of a fighting Martian. He's not one of the prisoners. He's got a gun and real cloaths. Against his will, Modo recognizes the raged worrior. With an easy and a angry face, the male kicks a guard in his chest, and coldly shoots another right in the forehead. .. Oh brother.. what has happened?...

"Throttle! All are free, we can't waith any longer or we'll be trapped!"

Throttle looks up at her. He freezes as he sees the male by her side.

"Oh... god...."

The two brothers just stands looking at each other. The rest of the world seems to fade a bit somehow. Then they falls into each others arms.

"..B..by all the gods.. of t..this comdamned universe....!"

Modo feels the shaking and silent sobs that rules his brother'r body. Is it joy, or pain?. Both.

Charley watches the reuninon with watery eyes, but then she remembers.

"Oh no! Now we've got to RUN!" She exclaims in almot chock.

Both Modo and Throttle looks at her. Throttle shakes his head to clear it and turns grave.

"Good. You run ahead, I'll cover our back. Now!"

Charley grabs Modo's arm, and they starts down the hallway, and following the stream of fleeing mice. Suddenly Charley rmembers yet another thing, and stops dead in her tracks.

"What??! Charley.." Throttle begins.

"Where's Mac??!" Charley looks at him questioning, and searches the block with her eyes.

Throttle blinks and looks around.

"I.. I dunno..."

"Mac? .. Was that the other man that acompaqnied you? Ididn't recognized him.." Modo mumbles.

"Mac? The guy in blue? He rana dat a way!" Charley looks the way the other mouse points.

"But that's.. back the way we came..??!"

Throttle curses, and then shoves Charley and Modo foreward.

"GO! We can't wait up and risk the lives of hundreds of Martians because of a reckless middleaged Martian and ex-pilot!"

They runs as fast as Modo can towards the ship.

...You surely know how to make a friend worry, Anakin 'Mac' MacCloud..! Grblmgrmm.... Throttle shakes his head and reloads his gun.

"Talk about arranged chaos!.. AaaooOOOOCH! ..Take it easy!!! Who teached ya to mend wounds ANYWAY???!!!!"

"Shut UP Mr Badboy-MOUSE!" Shelly gives Rex a cold stare. He folds his arms and curses.

The Martian ship is almost full by freed Martian Mice by now, and more is coming.

Sanri and Stoker stands just inside the entrence to the Plutarkian structure, and sees to that no guards gets as fas as the ship. Stoker lays a hand on the womans shoulder.

"They'll be here. Be sure." Sanri just nods.

"I wonder what Charley will say when she finds out her kids are here..."

Stoker chuckles a little, and sees Sanri's raged face when she discovered that HER kids were aboard the ship. .. Poor kids...Grounded for two months... He snickers softly, but goes grave again when the sound of more mice and more guards approaching.

Both male and female tenses as a group of mice comes running towards them, out from the lower cellblock.

"Gods.. they made it there...." Stoker whispers.

When Sanri sees her human friend among the group, she runs right into the inferno of mice, and blasters.

"Sanri!" Stoker tries to grab her, but fails big time. He grumbles and smiles, then he starts to try to get rid of the Plutarkian snipers, and more to the point, stop them from getting help..

With a pounding heart, the fire-haired female, runs towards something she feared she'd never see again. With blurred eyes, she does the same as Charley did some moments ago. Modo holds his wife as in a dream. And he's not entirely sure if it's a nightmare, or not. But the smell of the sobbing woman in his arms convinces him it's not.

"Ten minutes left...." Stoker whispers in fear. He looks up at the ship. It's ready, just waithing for the last of them.

"MODO!!! SANRI, CHARLEY.. ALL!!!! Come NOW!!!!!"

They looks up at the old fighter standing some steps away, they nods, and with the help of his wife, Modo runs towards freedom.

Charley grabs the arms of some other mice, and they runs after.

Throttle. A Martian man in his best age, as some would say. Loved by many, feared by some, respected by the most, and troubled as few.

... Life is... so,.. so.. wierd.....

Throttle stops to catch his breath. He looks back, only to hear more guards coming. He runs phanting through the now wide hall, leading out to the laoding place, where the ship stands ready to lift off. He runs over dead bodies and past burned machines and walls. A sudden thunder-like quake in the ground makes him stop and look around alarmed.

.. Shit! The whole `)(/&#¤"}\/-+$*/@$£[]* place is collapsing!!! ...

Throttle gasps as he watches how a huge crack forms in the floor infront of him, and more appears up the walls. One of the larges ones breaks up the hold of one of the huge pillars nearby the left wall, and it falls under loud noise. Throttle struggles to gain his feet again, after have fallen by the quake the falling pillar caused.

Charley tries to run even though the ground suddenly seems to have come to life. The exit is not far away now... soon there.... She sees how Modo and Sanri reaches the ship, and Stoker too.

The dark clad Martian male watches in horror as he reilases that the wall is going to fall soon too. ... And forever crush the life of the last fleeing Martians, and Charley.

Throttle can feel his stomach grow cold again, he turns by another alarm, only to see a plutoon of Plutarkian bursting out of onother tunnel, wildly shooting at the fleeing prisoners.

To be, or not to be... that's the question... Throttle bites his lip, and decides that the wall will hold for a minute more by itself. He leaps afer Charley and the others.

"Hurry up, HURRY UP!!!!"

Modo ignores Stoker, and just hugs his kids and his white furred bro. Ludwig Shaddack shows Stoker the controls and readings.

"DAMN! time's almost up! " Stoker tuns and looks nervously out the window. Charley and the last of them are almost out the doors now. But.. Where's Throttle? And where's Mac?

.. Damn.. Darn.. and HELL!!!...

Throttle watches the reinforcements of Plutarkians flooding in, and the only too clear signs of total collapse of the whole building. The reactor screams amok, and above that, Throttle could swear that he'd heared a rocket engine. But not their ship's.

.. Shit, shit, and double darn!...

Throttle continues to curse, as he reilases that the wall won't hold a second more.

.. Ah, whatta hell... I'm a Bike Mouse.. I'm known to take IMPOSSIBLE risks! ...

With a determined look, he tuns and runs back into the inferno.

.. All... I hafta... do.. is.. keep it up.. til Charley is out...I.. I can't let you die... I owe you too much.. and your kids... .. Oh, Grrrmblm.. Hurry Sweety!...

With all his migth, the unofficial leader of the FreedonFighters presses his back up against the wall. He can feel how the weight is increasing for every second.

.. It's days like this.. you wish your name was Hercules.....

Throttle laughs sarcasticly to himself, and tries to blast the Plutarkians, and keep them from following his kin.

With more than a little relief Charleene Davidson, once Charleene Berg, runs out of the collapsing building, and towards the ship's entrence, and her friends helping hands.

She grabs Pike's hand to get help inside, she pants happily that they'd made it. This far.

Stoker starts up the engines for real.

"Everybody inside??! We've got to get going!"

Charley looks at the gathered Martians inside the ship, they're all there, more or less wounded, eccept...

"Sweety!, Where's the bro?"

Charley looks up while trying to climb aboard at Vinnie, standing beside Modo. She blinks, and looks back at the crumbling building in horror.

"THROTTLE!!! Oh, no!"

"What?... hun?"

Scared voices hears through the ship, Stoker's impatience is on top, the seconds is ticking. Faster, and faster. Arrence Pike widens his eyes, and the human woman lets go of his fist, and jumps down again.

"SWEEETY!!!! Are you NUTS!!!!????"

"MUUUUM!!!!!"

They all stares in chock how Charleene leaps back. Towards the gates of hell.

Vincent makes an attempt to jump afer, but Terrance knocks him out with the handle of his lazer.

"Oh no you don't! We came here to SAVE, not let several of us commit suicide!"

"Is she crazy!!!?`We can't wait!!! Or we ALL GONNA GET TRAPPED!!!"

All of the mice looks with racing hearts at the woman, and how she dissapears into the burning and shaked building again.

"Damn that RAT! Will someone get him down!!!!"

The Plutarkian squad leader growls at his men.

"He he... Nooo problemo cheif..." A sniper says, and points a little clumsy his rifle at the Martian mouse by at opposite wall. And fires.

The fishes laughs a gurgling laugh as the light orangebrown male falls to the floor.

The squad leader chokes on his laughter as the wall behind the shot mouse croumbles, and a huge crack forms from the other side of the ceeling, over to their side.

"Uh-oh.... " he says, just before a large peice of the ceeling breaks loose, and falls down on their heads.

Charley screams as the wall crumbles down infront of her. She tumbles to the ground, unknowing of the scared pairs of eyes watching her from the ship. With her breath still in her throath, she runs inside.

The distruction is almost complete. The flames stands high around crashed veicles and machines. Dead bodies is spread out over the floor of the grat hall. It's silent. Like the silence before a storm. The scars in the ceeling tells only too well about the coming catasthrope.

"THROTTLE!!!" Charley seeks with her eyes frenaticly around the large peices of the fallen wall, and the destroyed soil-tanks.

"THROTTLE!!!" She can feel the tears in her throath now. Burning.

... Oh god... no... Not you.. You wanted The Biker Mice back together... You found Vinnie.. then Modo.. But without you.. there won't be ... Charley sobs a breath, but then spots a orange-brown tail behind a fallen peice of the roof. She gasps.

Charley jumps over a boulder, and lands beside the Martian male.

She smiles, he didn't got crushed under the wall! She notices the steel dumpster, that must have protected him from the falling concrete blocks. Charley bends down, and takes his shoulder, where he lies on his chest on the ground.

"THROTTLE!! Oh, praise the lands! You're ... alive...?" The human woman grows cold as she feels how heavy his shoulder is, and how complete his silence is.

Stoker looks with cold horror at the time, and at the open and emty door.

"We'll ALL DIE!!!!"

"ALL GONNA BE TRAPPED!!!!"

"WE HAVE TO FLEE!!!!"

The panic in the screams inside the ship is clear as spring water.. but...

"Nooo!!!!! You can't leave mum!!!!!!"

"NOOOOOOO!!!!"

".. Oh.. brother...."

Slowly, ever so slowly, she turns him over, to his back. His glasses has fallen off, his cloaths are torn. Charley starts to shake by the sight of the scarlet color his blood had painted his stomach and chest.

"..N..no..."

The ground groans and moves. She grabs his collar desperatly.

"NO!!! YOU BASTARD!!! DON'T YOU DARE TO DIE NOW!!!!" She shakes him voilently, as to wake him up. No result.

She stops, and lets him fall back half into her lap. She sobs lamely.

"MUUUUUUM!!!!"

Terrance lays a hand on Stoker's shoulder.

"We can't wait any longer.. only seconds left.. we..we've got to reilase... "

Stoker slams his fist down on the controlpanet.

".. This is one of those times you just HATE to be a leader..." He mumbles and growls as he closes his eyes. He presses some buttons.

Shelly screams as the door slams shut. Paul just grows silent in chock.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN' T LEAVE HER!!!!!! MOOOTHER!!!!!"

"Get down! Or you'll hurt yourselves in the takeoff!!!" Sanri pleades to the human childs. She tries not to break down for the feeling to too scream out.

"NNNOOOOOOH!!!!!!! AAAAIIIHHH!!!!! MOOOOOOTHER!!!!!!!"

Rex grabs Shelly from behindand forces her down on the floor. She struggles crying and screaming against him, but he ignores it. She stops and just cries uncontrollable instead. He hugs her tight, and whispers.

".. There's no pain... no pain... like that pain... I know.. I know... But life is still present.. don't let it flee you, too..."

Shelly sobs and grabs paul, and the three of them lays on the floor as the ship accelerates out into space.

The grey and dark building shakes from the heart of it's structure. The concrete walls, and iron pipes turns in agony over the coming distruction. Living creatures tries desperately to flee. Martians, Plutarkians, all trying to avoid the final end.

Charley lays her arm behind Throttle's neck, and her hand over the open wound in his upper stomach, as in a desperate try to stop the bloodflow. She feels so helpless when the scarlet fluid poures through her fingers in pace with the life of her ever so dear friend.

... o..oh god......

Charley lets her head down into his hair. She sobs again.

.... Life ..is ... so unfair. ...

She looks up. Her eyes is watery and hopeless. But she could swear that she'd heard something similar to a spaceship's engine. No, it must have been imagination.

A loud crack makes Charley jump. She looks up towards the roof. Large, threathening cracks leaps from one side to another. Another pillar meets its end with a loud noise.

With shaking hands, the human woman carasses her wounded friends head. Sobbing. The structure seems to scream in a last breath. Charley holds Throttle to her chest. The roof collapses. Large peices of concrete falls like meteores down to the ground, smashing the lives and items in the hall to rubble. Charley holds her breath. Her heartbeats threathens to burst her chest.

As out of nowhere, a low glow of an transparant blue suddenly swallows them up. A black and deep blue form crashes through the roof just as the last of it collapses together with the rest of the building. The shape disappears as it blends into the darkness of space, when the explosion of the buildings and structures colors the dead moon's surface in sunset colors.

"By HeeEEEeell!!!!"

"AAAaaaiiiihh!!!"

"Hold on!!!"

Stoker grabs the controllboard franatically to not fall to the floor as the ship makes a sudden turn. Ludwig Shaddack looks pale as a sheet from his seat on Stoker's left.

"They're here...!!!"

"Huh?"

The persons in the searing room look up at the screen above the window. It shows the space behind them, and a legion of Plutarkian ships.

"How the h..!!!!???" Vincent looks at the screen in anger and surprise.

Stoker turns to Terrance.

"The've must have followed us in the jump! Don't ask me HOW!!" The scientist looks wideeyed at his commander. Stoker curses.

"And this ain't even a battleship..." He mumbles.

"VINCENT, PIKE! To battlestations!!" The two males runs to the weapon controls. "EVERYBODY! Be ready to fight for life!" Stoker manuevers the ship away from the incoming lazers skillfully, but the Plutarkians are too many to flee from.

"¤#%##/¤//&&)??(&%£@]}!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The passengers of the ship huddles tight together. Mother and child. Child and friends. Brothers and recently met. All frightened in the same way, all having hearts that race every time an enemy lazer hits the metal shell of their momemtary home. All knowing they don't stand a chance.

"A Missile locked on!!!!" Ludwig almost screams as a button starts blinking red.

"DAMN!" Stoker sees the incoming Plutarkian battleship. Sweat poures down his temples.

Just as the enemy ship is supposed to fire it's deadly package, it blows up in an unexpected explosion.

"What the...?"

They stares chocked at the small Martian ship as it shoots by them. First just one. Then another. And another. Stoker jumps by the furious voice crackling over his com.

"You.. CRAZY WILDHEADS TO REBELS!!!! ARE YOU TRYING TO COMMIT SUICIDE!!!????!!!"

Stoker looks at the radio for a second, then bursts out in laughter and slams the COM on.

"BWAHAHA!! My GOD! I NEVER ever thought I'd be SO GLAD to hear your voice STRAIN!!!!!"

"Shut. Up."

Wild shouts errupts from the members of the escaping ship by the sight of the remaining group, of the once so great, space division of the Martian Army.

In the cover of their kin, Stoker and the other's stears towards Mars, and hopefully safety.

"Sir, they're counterattacking!"

Strain turns to the screen beside him, and the face of one of his squad leaders.

"So?" The male general says low and threatening. The screen shows how the Martian swallows under his dark helmet.

"Wha.. What shall we do?"

Strain looks at the male.

"Well, answer it OFCOURSE!!!!" He says between his teeth.

"Bu.. but SIR!!! They're outnumbering us seven to one!!!"

The squadleader looks how his commander's eyes almost turns red.

"Why you....."Strain growls. He slams his fist on the controls, making the screen divide up into small squares with each fighter in the group in one.

"Now you listen up men!"

Carbine watches the brown Martian General from her place behind him in the ship.

" YOU GET OUT THERE AND SHOOT THEIR TAILS BACK TO PLUTARK.. or,... or.... - I'LL SPANK YOU PERSONALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Raaagh!!!!"

~ Silence ~

"SIR! Yes, SIR!!!!!!!!"

Carbine smiles to herself as the squadrons moves out with fast and determined moves.

"I couldn't have said it better myself..." Carbine says low and smiles at the hyperventilating male infront of her.

"Grblm.ggrralm....."

She smiles ironically.

The two generals looks how their enemies seems to gaining on them.

"We've got to see to that ship get's to Mars safe." Carbine marks, Strain sighs.

"And as always..." Strain look at their fighters are unsuccessful in driving the Plutarkians back. ".. if you want something done right.. you better do it YOURSELF." He growls under his breath as he puts on his helmet. Carbine snickers.

"So right. So right." She follows his example and puts on her own battle helmet.

"Shall we?"

"On the lady's mark."

"Then let's kick Plutarkian butt!!!"

Carbine gives him a thumb up. The dark red ship accelerates towards the center of the battle as Mars red siluette grows nearer.

The planet of Mars hangs peaceful in the blackness of space. From a distance as this, the great sphere shows no sign of the scars of war and suffering her surface has been carved with. She welcomes her fleeing childrens home.

Modo looks at the siluette of his home through the window. He can feel his wife's warm body against his back, and his children hugging his chest tight. He feels strangely calm, like he knows they will make it. Or maybe the sight of home and so missed touch of family is enough to make death seem agreeable. No. The family is one member short. ... Brother. Did you have to sacrifice your life to save me? .... And Charley.. Modo watches his birth planet grow bigger as they close in even more. The world seems unreal somehow. Something's missing. Someone.

The ship shakes voilently as it enters Mars athmosphere too fast, and almost sighs in relief when they are out of it. Mars surface spans itself in it's red hues under them, as the ship searches for the best way to safety. To home.

"YEEEEHAAA!!!! We drove 'em off!!!! Who's THE best!?? Who's THE BEST!!!??"

Vincent throws a fist backwards at the Plutarkians. Then he grows grave.

"That was for Throttle." He grumbles to himself, and settles down beside Modo and family.

Stoker and Terrance sits by the controls and stares at the surface and the signs and numbers flickering on the screens. With a fast move, Stoker wipes the sweat from his forehead and grasps for breath.

"..I'm WAY too old for this..." Stoker holds his hands stiffly on the stearing controls.

Terrance just breaths for an answer.

"We've got to land SOON. She's damaged..." The dark mouse says low, knowing his friend will hear. Stoker nods.

"We've come this far, no need to gettin killed in a crash now." He almost laughs at the irony.

The dark ship lands ungraceful in the red landskape. The door opens, and a handful of Martians stumbles out as several other smaller battleships lands around it. Military ones.

Stoker breaths the wind heavily. They're not long from base now, they could transport the ship without too much trouble back with their friends from home. Just a radio transmit away.

The old Freedomfighter Commander watches his friends and brothers walk stiffly out the ship, and their rescued kin looking out from windows and the open door. Safety is near, but not quite here. Carbine walks up to him.

"I must admit. I didn't think you would make it." She smirks. "So I guess I have to admit myself being wrong then. But not in the point of you being crazy however."

Stoker just nodded as Strain joined them under silence.

The midday sun casts sharp shadows in the faces of the passengers of the ship, and the crew.

Modo stands with support of his wife and kids in the door of the ship, Shelly and Paul sits silently on the ramp down to the ground, with Rex, Jack and Sliver standing just as quiet behind, together with Ludwig Shaddack. Vincent van Wham and Bordeaux Crimson stands holding their rifles and waiting out the next moves, both trapped in the deep silence and sea of emotions suddenly let free to reflect upon. The others in the group seems just as caught up in the matter. Suddenly Ashes looks to the sky, and says thoughtful. Almost as he didn't belive it himself.

"Look. A falling star."

The rest of them turns the way he looks. A white rim in the sky catch their attention for a second, before it disappears and blends into the sunlight.

"I wish mum made it." Paul says to his hands. Shelly hugs him tighter.

"A shooting star... Or a ship entering the atmosphere..." Terrance says thoughtful. Stoker suddenly gets a cold feeling running along his back.

" The Plu...."

The sudden roar of nearing spacecrafts interrupts him. The falling star was no Plutarkian. But that sound surely was.

"My GOD!! THE'VE FOLLOWED US!!!!!"

Several screams hears as two of the Martian battleships are blown to a million pieces.

"HOLY MOTHER OF MERCY!!! Get cover!!!"

"Won't we EVER get rid of them!!!!???!!!"

"We can't get NEAR our ships!!!" Carbine cries out over the alarm.

Strain grabs her and throws himself and her behind some rocks for cover.

The FF's and Militaries does their best to answer the attack with everything from lazers and grenades, to the cargo-ship's canons.

"We're sitting ducks out here!!!!" Rex yells to noone in partickular quite frustrated. "I miss The Lady!"

"Shut UP and DO something!!! - Knife brain!"

Rex shoots the human girl a look and thanks the gods that she's too angry to cry.

A plutarkian fightercraft meets its end in a bright and sudden explosion.

"Okey, who's the OTHER uninvited guest?" Vinnie says sarcastic from under the ramp to their ship.

The scream of metal wings ripping through air echoes in their ears as a slim black and blue shape shoots through the air, crowded by Plutarkian vessels.

"Holy MOTHER! What was THAT???!!!" Bordeaux and Vinnie stares wideeyes after the strange ship as it turns and makes another income towards the Plutarkians.

"Oh mama... "

"Aih!"

"And I said that fighting back and forth with Storm was onehandy. Really, this is gettin a liiiittle too much of surprises in one day here."

"I can't believe.. it's...!!!"

"What IS that thing!!!??? A stalker ship???!!"

"No, looks more like... I dunno."

"I DON'T believe this!"

"Look out!!!!"

The little group ducks when a Plutarkian met it's doom right above them.

"That pilot knows his stuff!!!"

"No kidding. I'm glad he's on our side!"

"How do you know!???.... AahH! Get down, COVER!!!!"

Carbine eyes the strange ship while checking over her gun.

"That is SOME craft."

"A TITAN2000."

"WHAT???!!!"

Stoker turns wildly towards Strain. He looks at the General with doubt and almost anger.

"That's NOT possible!!! They were destroyed in the Genza-mining, TWENTY years ago!!!"

"Huh? What?!" Both Vinnie, Pike and the rest of the little group snappes on to the conversation.

"Destroyed because those pesky Plutarkians 'unfortunally' made a mistake and blew up their 'legally' mine at Genza, blowing the whole air and space base on Ares-1 with it!! And with that base, - the three, and ONLY existing, TITAN2000 ships!!!!!!"

Stoker glared at the male general and breathed heavily from speaking so quickly.

"A TITAN2000... I never thought I'd see one..." Terrance looked up at the fighting inferno above them, almost in amazement.

"What's so SPECIAL with it ANYWAY???!!! Except from the fact that it's saving our tails...." Vinnie commented.

Carbine look demanding at Strain. He narrowed his eyes and fixed his eyes on the ship.

"Ares-1. The most secret and wellsecured of our bases then.They were built two generations ago. In a misty coalition of Mars, and the inhabitants of the United Islands of Titan." Strains words fades as he stops.

"WHAT??!!!" Now everybody except Rex, Jack, Sliver and Shelly and Paul looks at the the General as if he was crazy.

"The so called 'Titans' disappeared from this galaxy a hundred years ago!!!" Bordeaux shouts while throwing lazer shots at the enemy. "Even I know that!!!"

Strain just shakes his head.

"Prove it."

"Huh?"

"I think he's right" Terrance says low, hiding behind Stoker."We don't know anything of it, and besides, what would we know if our high Militares or governement had an encounter with them? And who knows if the Plutarkians KNEW they were blowing up the base holding them, and made it on purpose...?"

The silence falls over the little crowd huddling for their lives.

"So that's what they had in those strange hangar-like storage rooms on the lower level...." Ludwig Shaddack mumbles beside Terrance. The dark-furred Martian scientist lays an arm over the human child to protect him from the explosions, of yet another Plutarkian ship that meets it's end without mercy from the black bird in the sky.

The air suddenly grows silent. Only the sound of fleeing Plutarkian vessels in the distand can be heard. The Martians stays down for another minute, huddling desperatly behind rocks and injured ships.

"Well... not MY idea of a romantic meeting.. But hey.. in this times you can't be too fancy....."

"You know,... you're REALLY asking for it."

Vincent grinns wide at Bordeaux's face as she rolls her eyes.

"Remember me to think twice before I jump for shelter behind the same rock as YOU." Bordeaux chuckles to herself. Vinnie answers her with a grin saying, 'Ya choosed the right stone this time babe!'.

Bordeaux smiles sly and consider doing something unexpected, but decides not to. Not NOW anyway.

"I bet Cutie-butt would've growled at us by now... If he was here..." She adds suddenly grave. "DARN him! Going off and die like that!!...damn..." The red-furred female leans her head agains her rifle. Her hair falls foreward, covering her whole face. She sighs sadly.

Vinnie watches her back. He can't help but wonder how his bro has lived and worked side by side with this beauty, and can resist her? He turns to the sky. He feels strange. Why doesn't he feel sadness? Frustration? Loss? His brother has been ripped away, for Mars's sake!! Vincent hugs his own rifle, almost ashamed. You should miss you near and dear when they pass away. ... Then why ain't I feeling any....?

Half lost in thaughts, he watches the tip of Bordeaux's tail move back and forth as on a cat.

... It doesn't FEEL like he's really gone... Not really..... not yet.... Strange... .........

Suddenly the both of them reilases the fact that the air is free from fighting planes and explosions. The looks up. A distand humming hears in the distant. Vinnie narrows his eyes. A sand cloud is building up, and approating.

"Thank Goddess!!!!! The radio transmit went through!!!!!!!!" Stoker jumps widely up from hiding, ignoring his paining knee.

"Harley, I'm gonna kiss you for hearing that signal when ya get here!!" Stoker laughs tiredly.

The group almost dares to sighs out in relief. Strain stands all, not letting his eyes off the sky. Carbine stands by his side, just as quiet.

"Holy Mother!!"

Terrance and some of the other's turns questioning at the young leaders statement. Rex stands with his weight on his healty leg, looking towards the east. They follows his gaze, and almost freezes in chock.

Slives blinks and grumbles.

"I'm gettin tired of all this surprises.... Grblm... " The male brick-colored mouse eyes the slender and large ship hovering totally silent just some twenty yeards away or so. It touches ground.

The mysterious craft purrs, almost like a cat after streching out after a nap. The FF's and the MP's watches the black form not knowing if they should be scared, or not. The ship seems to be carved out of one peice of metal, that has come alive. A door slowly opens just below and a bit infront of one of the bird-like wings.

Stoker hardly turns to greet Harley, as she, and a crew of medicals screech to a halt by the group of assembled Martians. The creme-sandy female pulls off her helmet, and looks around wondering. She sees wounded, some with scars, other with more serious injures. She notice the large cargo ship, and the freed Martians it holds still, and...

Harley's eyes widens by the sight of the unknown black and blue marked ship. Her eyes widens even more as she recognize the two figures stepping out of the opening in it.

Many eyes watches the shapes emerging from the , in a way, alien ship. The figures are worn and walks stumbling, holding a third shape in their arms. The wing cast a shadow over them, making it hard for the watchers to read their outlooks. Shelly stops to breath as the sun throws it's unmercyful rays over the mystery figures, unfolding their blooded cloaths and tired faces.

"Anyone got a first-aid kit?"

The dry voice of Anakin 'Mac' MacCloud asks. In his arms lays the limp body of the lost brother, his fur almost outmatching Bordeaux's in depth of red. Charley stands by Mac's side, holding Throttle's head up. Tears has carved her face, dirt makes her look old, and the crimson blood of a friend has re-colored her cloaths.

"I've got." Harley answers and holds the kit up infront of her.

Seconds later, a controlled chaos errupts. Medicals seeking to give wounded aid until they get saftely back home to base, others getting the ship and all freed prisoners home, collecting up all forces and starting back towards the base. Familys reunite. Tears sheds from the joy of homecoming.

The sun sinks towards the horizon. Dusk falls. Under silence the desert greets the night, almost sighing in releif over that the days alarm of war and hurting has stopped. The Martian desert lays peaceful as the stars lit up. Again.

The winds that blows over Mars's surface cares less about the fate of the dwellerers of the planet. With gentle breezes and hard storms, it brushes out all tracks of events the inhabitants has left. Sooner, or later.

Neither would it care if the mice would cease to exist. Maybe would it olny be glad that they in that case, stopped to mark the dunes it has carved until perfection, with their footprints and tire tracks. The future will surely bring times like those, sometime. But not just yet. ....

The three bikes purrs under the weight of their riders. the chrome glitter well-polished in the late evening sun. The male riders sits silent, leening on the handlebars, overlooking the planes. Neither of them feel the urge to speak. The presence of the others is enough.

As the sun sets, one of them stretches.

"I never thaught I'd be so glad to see... sand."

The other two chuckles.

"She's half dead on the surface. But as Rex would say.. She's mother."

The tall rider that first spoke nods smiling.

The other male lays still over his handlebars, looking sleepy. He snaps to attention by the sight of movement in the alley below them.

"Hey, look bros! Some Sand Raiders, with fish company! ..."

The other two follows his eyes. They grins.

"Do you mean we should DO something bro?" The dark clad male sitting in the middle, asks his bro with a grin.

"Weeeeell....."

"How about giving them a proper Martian greeting?" The tall rider suggests with a smile.

"How about giving them a proper BIKER MICE greeting?" The other answers with a sly grin.

Silence falls again as they watch the small caravan of Sand Raiders and Plutarkians make their way through the Martian desert-like landskape.

The three riders smiles and eyes each other.

"About ten years... That's how long I've waited to say this..." The dark-clad rider lowers his head and sighs, then rises it again. He grins wide.

"Shall we? ..."

The other two grins wide for an answer. The bike roars inpatient.

"Then.. Lets' ROCK!......"

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Finaly! The triology has found it's end! - Like it? Hate it? - Tell me!

But don't worry, (or maybe you should;).. The Survivor's Log stories won't end here... ooooh no. Gosh, couldn't leave all those loose threads I've left hanging in this story, hang there unanswered, could I? - Noooooooo.... So just you wait.... The patient will get the answers, - the inpatient too of course.. but he/she'll not get some frustratded attack before that........ ;) ~ DG

~The song text is (free mixed by me, and) taken from thee song "Harley's and Indians/Riders in the Sky", by Roxette, and the album"Crash!Boom!Bang!"~

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