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Legal disclaimer: I do not own the Biker Mice From Mars or the Swatkats, they are the property of their respective owners, and I make no profit from this material. This was written solely for the enjoyment of other Biker Mice From Mars and Swatkats fans. Talon and Reno Astera, Tzuka Ryudo and Nick Gordon are my original creations and are my exclusive property. All rights are reserved.

***

For three days they sat vigil at Talon’s bedside, silently waiting to see if she would wake from her coma-like sleep. She would rouse readily enough when they woke her to feed her some more broth and milk, which she drank greedy quarts of, but she could barely stay awake five minutes before she would slip back into an exhausted sleep. Mom D. came every day and cleaned and checked her wounds, and reported a surprisingly quick rate of healing on her minor wounds, and even the vicious redness was beginning to fade from her lacerated back. Late on the third day, her eyes opened on their own for the first time, and Tally lifted her head and tried to focus eyes fogged with three days of healing sleep.

Her fingers twitched, and Throttle’s hand tightened around hers as the tiny movement woke him from a half-doze. He saw her stir a little and try to push herself up, and he was out of his chair and beside her in one move, his hands supporting her without brushing her wounds.

Talon looked over dizzily, but her eyes fixed on him and she smiled lightheadedly as she tried to sit up and fell back on her face.

"Hi, there, handsome." She said, her voice muffled by the pillows. "Wow, you’re such a babe… did you know that? I spent that last day in the dark trying to imagine what you looked like, but I never imagined anything this yummy. Please tell me you’re single… oops…" She tried to prop herself up on her elbows again and put a hand to her forehead, regarding the bandages on her wrists with bewilderment. "I’m not delirious, am I? Oopsie twice. Gonna owe you an apology in the morning at this rate…"

Throttle, rather startled and secretly captivated by her disconnected, rambling soliloquy, handed her a fresh quart carton of milk, which had proved to be the easiest thing for her to drink out of, and told her firmly, "Drink." She drank it all down thirstily, and when she was done she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and her eyes rose to meet his with weary but lucid awareness looking out of them.

"Hi. Thanks again for breaking me out of that pit." Talon twitched her shoulders a little. "How am I?"

"Recovering steadily, according to our local doc."

"Can I sit up?"

"Carefully." He wrapped the sheet around her gently and helped her sit up. She stretched her neck and arms gingerly, unkinking muscles stiff and sore, and hissing as the bandages on her back shifted and pulled.

"How come you haven’t healed yourself like you did me?"

Talon shook her head, placing her tiny hands at the small of her back and arching her spine gingerly, flinching as tendons popped. "Not enough energy. Being stuck in that wretched psionic suppressor bottled up all my meta-senses for nearly two weeks. I had to vent all that built-up energy before my brain fried itself from the overload pressure. But the problem with an uncontrolled psionic vent is that you lose all your stored energy. I barely have enough life-force to live, right at the moment. No donor, either, so I’ll have to get better the old-fashioned way, too. I miss Ship and his regen chamber. I miss you, bro." She blew a rueful kiss across the universes to her ship-brother.

Throttle neatly picked the important scrap of info out of that disconnected torrent, and asked, "Donor?"

Talon flicked her eyes at him, her expression telling him she knew exactly where he going with this. "Yes, Throttle, with a willing donor I can pull enough life energy to heal myself with it, without draining the donor any more than a good night’s sleep won’t fix. I don’t think you understand what you’re proposing, though."

"Can we do it?"

Talon looked away, then answered reluctantly, "Yes, but…"

"But nothing." Throttle turned her to face him, careful not to hurt her, but determined not to be dissuaded from his objective. "How do we do it?"

"Slow down a minute, speed racer, you need to understand a few things. I don’t quite remember how much I told you about me in that tank, but it’s a lot more complicated than you seem to think. It’s not like when I healed you; for starters, it’s gonna hurt like hell, and I’m going to have to go right into your mind to do this."

"So?"

"Throttle, Limburger put that psionic suppressor on me for a reason, have you really considered what having a telepath in your mind means?"

"Yes."

That flat answer disarmed Talon and she threw up her hands in exasperation, then went white with pain under her fur as she pulled her bandages. Throttle’s mouth firmed and he supported her gently until she recovered, then told her in a tone that would brook no argument, "Now."

"Throttle…"

He put a finger over her lip, the same way he had all those times in the dark, and she nipped at it playfully, and once again that same soul-bond sang between them.

Talon caved. "All right." She surveyed the bed, than started to stack the pillows at the head, and Throttle twitched them out of her hands, telling her, "Supervise. I’ll do the grunt work."

"Prop yourself up against the pillows. Remember how you held me?"

Throttle got his back up against the headboard and caught her hand again, pulling her into his arms, and told her with perfect truth, "I am never gonna forget that, babe."

Talon reddened under her cream-colored fur, and closed her eyes as she carefully curled up against his side, resting her head on his shoulder, his tan-furred arms holding her close. She stroked his forehead with her free hand, then pressed her fingers to his temple, and let her mind wrap lovingly around the curves of his, feeling a quiet, almost shy welcome as he drew her into his soul, letting her fill the empty places in his heart. Barely aware of the outside world, suspended in each other’s minds, the pain of Talon’s wounds was shared between them, but the strength of his emotions was shared as well. The pain faded away, but the warmth stayed, binding them closer as their soul-selves twined together in the recesses of his mind.

*You belong here…with me.*

*I know.*

*I love you.*

*I know.*

***

The next morning Mom D. came in to check on her patient and found them still curled up together, the bloody mass of bandages gone from Talon’s back, with only a webwork of white scars left behind, torn flesh mended and sealed, new soft fur already half-grown on top. Checking her leg, she found the same thing, the flesh healed and healthy. Picking her stitches out of skin that looked three weeks healed, instead of three days, and taking the bandages from Talon’s wrists and ankles, she shook her head in sheer amazement.

Modo came in and stared at the pair in blank surprise. "What the…?"

Mom D. shook her head in baffled ignorance and stood up. "I have no idea." Then she gave the duo a second look and rephrased her comment. "Correction. I have an idea. I just don’t believe it. Wake them up and see if they want breakfast." Shaking her head, she walked out, mumbling in a disgruntled tone, "Why didn’t things like this ever happen when I was young?"

Modo had just sat down on the edge of the bed when Vinnie came streaking into the room, Charley right behind him.

"Get them out of here!" Charley hissed, gathering up everything remotely medical looking and stuffing it under the bed. "The city tax assessor’s here to survey the property, and he can’t find you guys here! Mom’s stalling him. Hurry!" Throttle had snapped awake and was already wrapping Tally in a blanket off the bed, and Modo opened the bedroom window and squirmed through, landing silently, then motioned to Throttle to drop Tally down to him. Throttle forced himself to drop her gently, then was out the window after her so fast even Vinnie blinked, but Charley gave him no time to think about it and shoved him out after them.

"I’ll meet you at the scoreboard later," she whispered, then shut the window and yanked the curtain closed. Throttle took Talon back, and cradled her close as they waited for Mom D. to get the assessor out of the garage and into the apartment so they could get to the bikes. Her lined face serene, Charley’s mother let her eyes skip over them, hidden behind the corner of the building, as she turned the assessor toward the apartment. Vinnie and Modo leaped for their bikes as the door closed behind them, and Throttle followed, Talon clinging tightly to his neck. He settled her on the black motorcycle in front of him and cursed the fact he didn’t have a helmet for her to wear, but they couldn’t wait. Yanking his own on, he wrapped an arm around her in a death grip and took off, her unbound hair flowing over his shoulder. The trip to the scoreboard was endless, but Talon peeked up through the cloud of hair around her and winked at him, her pixie’s expression easing his mind over moving her so abruptly.

They stashed the bikes and holed up in the scoreboard, wary over being spotted, but luck seemed to have held with them that much. Baseball season was over this late in the fall, and the stadium was deserted. The bros dropped into their usual chairs around the table, and Talon, still cradled in Throttle’s lap, tried to untangle herself from her hair and his vest snaps.

"Did I miss something somewhere? Where are we?" she asked, peering out from under a knot of hair, and swearing to herself as she tried to untangle her feet from the sheet and blanket, then squeaked as the blanket tried to slide right off her and Throttle had to catch her before she fell out of his lap. Giving up in disgust, she spat something foul in thoroughgoing annoyance, closed her eyes and concentrated. Skimming her thoughts through the building, she quickly located a locker room with both hot water and clean towels.

*I have got to have a shower, darlings. Be back when I’m clean. I don’t suppose you could find me something to wear other than a sheet set while I’m gone?* And with that she teleported out, the sheet and blanket falling into a heap at his feet.

A sheepish thought reached back timidly a moment later. *Oops… Did I remember to tell you I could teleport?*

"Actually," Throttle replied, conspicuously calmly, "no, you didn’t."

*Sorry about that.*

"Skip it. We know now. We’ll see what we can do about clothes." He felt the touch in his mind fade away, and he turned to Vinnie and Modo, both staring at him, eyes wide at hearing her voice in their minds. "Let’s find a phone and call Charley."

***

An hour later, all three mice jostled their way back into the scoreboard and stopped dead in their tracks. Tally was sitting curled on Modo’s Lil’ Darlin’, singing in a dreamy undertone to the bike’s radio as she combed out her hair. The shower had done wonders for her. Her clean fur shone creamy-white, and her white-gold hair, unknotted from its snarled tangles, was damp and shining, and so long half of it was draped over Throttle’s bike seat to keep it from dragging on the floor as she combed. She was half-turned away from them, clad only in a towel wrapped tightly around her. The slope of her lovely back and shoulder made Throttle’s fingers twitch as he remembered the silky feel of her coat, the white scars barely visible in her creamy fur.

Vinnie’s wolf-whistle rang sharp and shrill over the quiet music, and Tally jumped a little as she turned toward them. The trio of mice were freshly shocked when they got their first good, clear look at her face. A delicate, elfin face, dominated by enormous deep green eyes, high, sharp cheekbones and a small, sensual mouth. The graceful curves of her pointed ears quirked forward slightly as she smiled at them, and even Modo felt his heart skip a beat at that sweet smile.

Talon slid down her from her perch on Modo’s bike, gathering up the long coils of her hair over her arm as she walked toward them. "Please tell me you found me something other than a towel to wear."

Modo, typically, was the first to snap out of his stunned trance, and he elbowed his bros fiercely in the ribs as they gaped at her. "Here," he offered her a pile of neatly folded clothes. "Charley thought these should fit."

Tally smiled sunnily up at him. "Thanks, Modo. Excuse me a minute, guys." She accepted the pile of clothes and went back into the bathroom, three sets of eyes hypnotically following her gracefully waving tail and slender legs as she walked away. She reemerged a few minutes later, clad in jeans, tanktop, and an embroidered denim vest, her hair flowing free down her back and barely missing dragging on the floor behind her.

"How did Charley have anything that fit me? I’m a lot shorter than she is."

Vinnie, ogling her willowy curves as she strolled over, bragged gleefully, "Charley said they were hers when she was a teenager."

Talon hopped back onto her perch on Modo’s bike, after cocking an inquisitive eye at him for permission, and the engine rumbled a little as she did. Throttle’s bike started up and eased forward a few inches to let her drape her long hair back over the seat again. She patted both bikes fondly. "Thanks for the assist, babies. I usually don’t have to do this alone."

Vinnie’s red racer rumbled too, and Tally laughed a trifle guiltily, glancing over at the trio. "I wouldn’t say that, exactly…" The engine rumbled louder this time, and Talon choked on a second laugh and blushed fiercely. "Hush, you scarlet minx. I won’t tell your secrets if you don’t tell mine, deal?" All three bikes revved loudly. "Deal, then," Tally laughed, picking the mice’s one and only comb back up.

Throttle, Modo and Vinnie exchanged looks of disbelief. "You can understand them?" Vinnie blurted out. "We can’t do that!"

Talon looked startled in turn. "You can’t speak machine language? Really?" Her hands paused in parting her long hair and she turned back to the trio of bikes in disbelief of her own. "And you put up with this?" Lil’ Darlin’s radio started up and a fragment of the tune, "What’s love got to do with it?" played over it.

Tally sniffed scornfully, flicking a mock-disdainful glance over at the pole-axed mice. "Well, if you ever get tired of that, I know a trio of bo-hunk kats who’d actually bother to talk to you once in a while instead of just jumping on you and demanding you perform…"

All three mice blushed beet-red, and Charley, leaning on the doorway, having caught the entire exchange, broke into unrestrained laughter at their expressions.

"This would’ve been worth the price of admission. Better be careful, guys, or she’ll sweet-talk those bikes right out from underneath you."

All three mice looked hurt and then faintly worried.

Tally parted her long tresses and began braiding the right-hand side, swearing under her breath as she struggled with the heavy locks. Modo shot a warning look at his bros and stood up, throwing a leg over his bike behind Tally and taking the comb out of her fingers. "Sit still," he grumbled gruffly. He picked the half-finished braid out and recombed her hair smooth, then divided it into four sections, and braided the whole mass into one long braid down her back. Tally leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, eyes closed and her face dreamy.

"That’s nice," she half-purred, "who taught you to do that?"

"My gray-furred old mama. She had hair a lot like yours. Just not so long." Finally reaching the end of the braid, he looked at the end of it for a moment, stymied, and Charley walked the rest of the way into the room, tossing him a small box of hair ties.

"Here." She swapped a feminine grin with Talon. "I figured you’d need it."

"Thanks, Charley." Her green eyes twinkled with mischief. "And thanks for the clothes, too."

"Any time. We outnumbered females have to stick together."

"Five to three? I think numbers are on our side, no?"

Charley looked puzzled. "Five to three? How do you get that?"

"Three Martian mice for the males, and three cyber-bikes, one human, and one kat, add up to five females to me. I’d think you’d have to take advantage of numerical superiority to keep this bunch in line."

Charley’s eyes glowed with unholy glee. "You know, I never thought of it that way."

"You should. They’re very fond of you, you know. You actually talk to them while you’re fixing them, as opposed to talking at them, like some folk we could mention. I can’t believe that… talk about taken for granted…" she finished in an undertone, shaking her head slightly. Modo tugged gently on the braid he was tying off and Talon stilled obediently.

"How come you’re calling them girls? They’re… well, bikes!" Vinnie looked particularly flummoxed by the conversation, and Charley dropped down on the couch by him and jabbed an elbow in his side to get him to shove over. He made room for her automatically, and his tail wrapped around her waist as if in need of comforting.

Talon stifled another laugh at that, and teased, "Vinnie, are you telling me you call your bike anything but ‘she’, and ‘baby’, and ‘darlin’ and ‘sweetheart’?"

"No, but…"

"But nothing. They’re female because you encouraged them to develop that way. They could have developed male-oriented personalities just as easily, but I don’t think you guys lean that way." The mice looked confused, but Charley caught the subtext and snickered openly.

"Not even close, Tally. You could drown in the testosterone around here at times. Trust me."

"I can imagine. Fate’s apparently decreed there’s going to be an excess of garages, motorcycles and testosterone in my life. Regardless of which planet I happen to be on at any given time."

"I know the feeling." Charley rolled her eyes in despair and both burst out laughing.

"I’ll bet you do. What happened with the tax-dude?"

"He’s going to make one more inspection, in two weeks, before he fixes the new tax assessment on the garage. Imagine my delight."

"Yuck. How’s your Mom?" Talon gave her head a shake, testing the weight of the heavy braid, before smiling a thank-you at Modo and wandering over to sit on the arm of the couch by Charley.

Charley leaned back on the couch and announced with a chuckle, "I’m to tell you, and I quote, ‘all of you are coming to dinner on Sunday and you are going to tell me just what the heck is going on around here!’ I’d keep your Sunday free if I were you, it’s not smart to cross my mom."

"Fine with me. She did a heck of a patch-up job on me." Talon held out her hands and inspected her slender wrists, the creamy fur as soft and smooth as if had never been torn and bloody.

"How the heck did you do that? You were cut up like a piece of meat yesterday, and there’s barely a mark on you today. What happened?" Charley’s voice vibrated with curiosity, and Vinnie and Modo looked at her inquisitively, both plainly wanting to hear her reply.

Talon smiled and pointed at Throttle. "It was all his doing. He insisted."

All three stared at Throttle like they’d never seen him before.

"What?" The inadvertent chorus made Talon grin, and Throttle looked a bit discomfited at being put on the spot.

"Talon healed me in Limburger’s cell that first night. Knitted my ribs together and fixed my concussion. I made her pull enough…" He looked over at Talon for the word and she supplied,

"… pull enough life-energy from me to heal herself. That’s all. She did it all, really."

"Hardly. I couldn’t have done anything without you. I was barely alive, in case you hadn’t noticed."

"Can we call it a team effort and drop it?"

Throttle’s plaintive question made all of them laugh, and Modo asked interestedly, "What were you doing in there, anyway?"

Talon wrinkled up her nose. "Limburger ambushed me, the slimy scuz. Very neatly, too. He’s gotten access to a cross-dimensional teleporter and used it to steal a high-tech jet from a parallel universe. I came after it, and he used the teleporter to trap me coming out of inter-dimensional null-space. And got that collar around my neck." Talon’s eyes shut for a second, her face sick. "Which had to be one of the nastier things that has ever happened to me. Half your senses, just suddenly gone… to be mind-blind…" She shuddered. "Thank you again for getting me out of there."

"I don’t get it. If he’s got the jet, what did Limburger want with you? That was a maximum-security wing they had you in." Modo leaned forward, his fists flexing as he remembered the look of pitiful relief on Talon’s face when he’d pulled the collar off her.

"Stealing the jet was bait to lure me here. Limburger has a professional interest in me. He wants to use me as leverage." Talon’s eyes literally burned blue fire, startling the mice and Charley. "He’s going to find out just how poorly ILEA takes its agents being interfered with, and I’m going to cut that lesson out of his greasy hide personally. Not to mention I have to get that dimensional teleporter out of his hands, or destroy it."

Charley looked confused, but the mice looked like they’d swallowed their teeth.

"You’re an…" Vinnie trailed off, his eyes like saucers as he stared at Talon.

She sighed, then met his gaze squarely. "Let me introduce myself formally. Commander Talon Astera, Inter-dimensional Law Enforcement Arm. Full-independent field agent."

Charley, deciding it would be a while before the mice pulled out of their white-out overload coma, gave them up as a bad job and turned back to Talon.

"I guess I’m out of the loop. What is a… whatever you said?"

"Inter-dimensional Law Enforcement Arm or full-independent field agent? Never mind. Briefly, my brother agents and I patrol the boundaries of the known and mapped inter-dimensional nexuses and stomp the crap out of anyone developing and/or misusing inter-dimensional or time-travel technology, in an effort to keep the entire space-time continuum and the individual parallel dimensions in balance. In our spare time, we fight evil and injustice as the whim moves us."

"So you’re an inter-dimensional cop? Why didn’t you just say so?" Charley said nonchalantly.

"You took that well." Talon quirked an eyebrow at her. "Do I take it you’ve heard of us before?"

Charley smirked. "I’ve cruised through Karbunkle’s classified computer files a few times. I’m not totally ignorant of life outside my solar system."

Talon seemed to find that hugely funny, and applauded her. "Good for you. The pursuit of knowledge is a noble thing."

"Spoken like a true hacker."

"Hack and sack, techrat."

The pair looked over at the mice, still sitting in a shell-shocked row on the couch.

"What do we do with them?" Talon asked, nudging Modo’s shoulder with a gentle toe-claw.

Charley waved a hand in front of Vinnie’s face, and got no response. "I think it might be a while before they come out of it. You hungry?"

Talon was suddenly all eyes. "Starving!"

"I rode my bike over, so we can leave the guys here. Let’s go. We can actually have something other than root beer and hot dogs, since it’s just us."

"Is there something I should know about root beer and hot dogs?" Talon hopped off the arm of the couch and followed Charley toward the door.

Charley snickered. "If you’re gonna hang out here, you’ll learn it the hard way."

"Ugh, this isn’t one of those food fetish things, is it? I know a group like that fixated on the weirdest pizza combinations you ever heard of. In a weak moment, I once ate cheeseburger and French fry pizza with pickles." Relenting a little, she admitted, "Good kids, though, all four of ‘em. Urban ninjas."

Charley gagged slightly. "How about Mexican?"

"Ole, girlfriend. And could we find me some shoes while we’re out? And there’s supposed to be an emergency supply drop waiting for me here somewhere on this planet, if I can hack into your local communications system."

"I think I know a friend who can swing that. We’ll go see."

***

The next morning, Charley and Talon were drinking coffee in the kitchen at the Last Chance and trying to figure out a way to discover where Limburger was hiding the Turbokat, when a rumble of motorcycles alerted them to the arrival of the recovered trio. Both girls looked at each other and laughed hysterically before hastily composing their expressions as a key clicked in the lock. Vinnie walked in, Throttle and Modo right behind him.

"Did we miss breakfast?" Vinnie asked plaintively.

Charley pointed to a rather large bakery box and he brightened immediately. "Thanks, sweetheart. I should’ve known you couldn’t forget about me."

"I wish," Charley muttered, pouring another cup of coffee and returning to the original topic as the kitchen was suddenly full of hulking shoulders and waving tails. "You don’t have any way to track the jet?"

"Not without the tracking unit Razor built into my locator-locket." Talon looked sad as well as frustrated. "I don’t know how I’m going to tell T-Bone and Razor I lost it, much less track down the Turbokat without it. It was the first thing they gave me when I set foot on their planet. Not to mention everybody’s going to FREAK when they hear about the whole spent-a-week-being-tortured thing. Aaauughh. Maybe I’ll just skip over that part when I get back." Talon bonked her head on the table in front of her.

Throttle looked startled. "Locket?" He dug into a vest pocket. "You don’t mean this, do you?" He held out a knot of silver chain, with a small pendant attached. "It was tangled in with my earrings. I grabbed it off Karbunkle’s workbench, after Modo broke me out of my cell."

Talon’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears. "My locket…" She took it from his hand, inserted a claw into the catch, and popped the cover. A tiny screen had been inserted into the cover, and as Talon pressed an even smaller silver button embedded in coils of circuitry, a pinpoint of light flared to life on the screen and began pulsing steadily. "Jackpot," Talon breathed, and she smiled dazzlingly at Throttle. "That makes two I owe you. I have to get the Turbokat back. The hell I’d have to go through if I didn’t bring T-Bone and Razor’s baby home beggars description."

Charley looked interested, nibbling on a jelly donut. "Who are they, part of your… team? Family?"

Talon nodded, holding up a paw. "The six of us are like you guys, not a family by blood, but a family anyway. Except for Reno and me, we really are clan-brother and sister. Take a look." A sphere of blue mist about a foot across formed above her palm, and six figures coalesced inside.

Talon was standing between a lean, rangy brown kat and a husky yellow and black striped tabby. Very husky, glancing over at Tally for size comparison, Modo realized the burly tabby would stand eye to eye with Throttle and probably came close to Modo himself in weight. He liked the look of the tall brunette in uniform, but the blond in the severe pink suit was very hip, too.

"The pretty brunette is Lieutenant Felina Feral, the blond is Deputy-Mayor Calico Briggs, better known as Callie, the tall one’s my brother Reno, and…"

Charley pointed to one of the remaining kats, a cinnamon-furred tom a little shorter than Vinnie. "That’s Razor, isn’t it? And the striped one would be T-Bone?"

Talon smiled, pleased. "That’s him. How’d you know?"

"A mechanic always knows one of her own kind."

"Yeah, you two would get along famously. The rest of us would get about one word in six. Still, you’d really appreciate the Cyclotron. With all the work you’ve done the boys’ babies you could probably show him a trick or two. Razor loves new gadgets."

"What’s the SK for?" Modo asked, peering over her shoulder while devouring a chocolate cruller.

"SwatKats; Razor, T-Bone, and the Turbokat. I’ve got it back to them when all this is over. They are to Megakat City what you are to Chicago." Untangling the chain carefully, she fastened it around her neck. "But first I have to take care of Limburger and that trans-dimensional teleporter."

"How far away is it?" Charley yawned and twitched the last glazed donut out of Vinnie’s fingers, ignoring his protests.

"A good way. On the bikes, three, four hours, maybe. Got a map?"

Charley went out into the garage and came back with half a dozen.

Spreading out a state map out, Talon stared at the locket screen, letting her fingers walk over the map towards the east, her finger stopping on the tip of Lake Erie.

"Here." Talon looked down at the map and read the name under her claw. "Detroit."

Charley and the mice exchanged resigned looks. "Napoleon Brie." Talon’s mouth twitched at the four-part harmony of disgust.

Charley bonked her head on the table this time. "Not another road trip. No more singing…"

Vinnie whooped and jumped up, cramming the last of his donut into his mouth. "Road trip! All right!"

Talon, plainly wondering what she was in for, was distracted by the buzz of the doorbell. Charley got up and answered it, and the murmur of conversation between her and the delivery person made the mice quiet. She came back in with a large manila envelope, plastered with Express Overnight stickers, and a bemused expression. She handed it to Talon, saying, "I guess I lose our bet. That’s damn impressive. You’ve really got connections, don’t you?"

"Dear hostess, I’m a professional. I have a reputation to uphold." Smirking, Talon ripped open the envelope and dumped a pile of paperwork out onto the table, flipping through it. "Not bad for an emergency drop. Driver’s license, social security card, three credit cards, what’s a triple A card?, and a Neiman Marcus?, and a Videodrome? Ha! Local currency! That’s what I wanted." Talon riffled through a stack of cash three quarters of inch thick, none of the bills smaller than a fifty.

Charley whistled in genuine astonishment at the wad of cash, and picked up a small package encased in bubble-wrap from the pile of assorted items and peeled the wrapping from it, opening it curiously.

"You got a Videodrome card? Sweetheart, can I use it?" Vinnie had snatched up one of the cards and was turning it over in his hands. "They have all those old movies with the giant monsters in them. No monster movies on Mars, Tally-kat. Can I, please?" Doing his best to look beseeching, Vinnie clamped his fingers around the card, and somehow, at this hour of the morning, Talon didn’t feel like wrestling him for it.

"Why don’t you keep it for me, Vinnie? You can go ahead and use it if you’d like. I don’t even know where the place is. Or for that matter, what it is."

Vinnie, crestfallen, as if he’d been looking forward to a tussle, nevertheless tucked the card away carefully in his bandoleer.

"Talon, what are these things?" Charley had a handful of silver bands in her palm and was examining them curiously. Tally looked up and an expression of surprise and delight came over her.

"I don’t believe it. I am going to kiss someone insensible when I get home! Morph-generators!" She laughed incredulously. "Six, even. Way to go somebody!" She looked up at the puzzled mice as she took the straps of metal from Charley. "They’re portable, rechargeable illusion generators." She turned them over in her hand and smiled briefly, picking out one chased with a rearing white gryphon among the swirls of circuitry. "Labeled, even." She tapped the insignia with a claw. "This is my personal clan-sigil. Cute, Ship-bro."

She reached the band over her head and held the ends in front of her face. They flowed together like water and the white gryphon slid along the surface to center itself under her chin. She looked up at them and her expression turned wicked as she pulled her braid free.

"Now watch this." She touched the symbol, and blue scan lines sprang out from the necklace and covered every inch of her in a tiny grid, then the lines flared and when the glow died away, a human was sitting on the chair where Talon had been. Every jaw in the room dropped, and Tally laughed, her same laugh coming from a beautiful but strangely half-familiar countenance. She touched the symbol again and the scan lines flared blue and faded away, leaving Talon’s feline face behind.

Talon separated out two stacks of bills from the wad, and four more morph generators, and stuffed the rest of the cash and ID back into the envelope with the remaining morph generator, handing the envelope and one of the stacks to Charley. "Stash that envelope someplace safe for me, would you, Charley? And take that, just in case?"

"I’ll put it in the safe." Charley accepted the envelope dubiously, but disappeared into her small office without further comment, stuffing the cash into her belt pouch.

Tally shoved the remaining morph-generators and money into her vest pockets, and turned to the mice. "Road trip’s on me today, boys. Shall we go?"

"Hold on a minute." Charley’s voice drifted out from the bedroom. She came out a minute later with a heavy brown leather jacket on, and handed Talon something wrapped in blue tissue paper. "It’s October in Chicago, Talon. If you’re not gonna freeze to death by the time we’re halfway to Detroit, you’ll need something warmer to wear. That should fit. My Mom dropped it off yesterday. It was mine when I was in high school."

Talon unwrapped it curiously. The package proved to contain a second leather jacket in a deep shade of forest green, ornamented with heavy leather fringe. Talon shrugged it on, and sure enough, it fitted her neatly.

"It’s beautiful, Charley. Thank you for loaning it to me."

"Go ahead and keep it. Like I said, it doesn’t fit me anymore. Mom just had it put away ‘cause she knew I’d freak if she got rid of it."

Talon quirked a brow at her, and Charley smirked back one of those feminine-compatriot grins that made the mice wonder what the hell they’d missed again.

"So is there something I should know about road trips?"

Charley just shook her head as she held the door to the garage open. "And deprive you of the joy of discovering it for yourself? Perish the thought."

"You know we can up the stakes on that bet, Charley-girl… if you’re feeling brave. Like maybe double or nothing?" Talon followed her out into the garage, the mice behind her, swapping ‘where did we get lost in this conversation?’ looks.

Charley, rummaging through a lower cupboard out in the garage for a second helmet, tossed a black one at her. "Try that on for size. What did you have in mind?"

"Exactly what I said. Double or nothing." She caught the helmet handily and tried it on, then nodded to Charley.

Charley sat back on her heels and bit her lip, her eyes dancing with suppressed merriment. "I don’t see how I can lose here, Tally. Where’s the catch?"

"If you can’t spot it I’m certainly not telling you." Talon’s eyes twinkled back. "C’mon, girlfriend. Where’s your sense of adventure? Surely you’re not afraid?"

That appeared to strike a spark, and Charley pulled herself to her feet and held out a hand, an I’m-already-regretting-this look on her face. "Double or nothing, it is." She threw a look at the totally-lost mice, closed her eyes and shook her head. "I must be crazy."

"It’s contagious." Talon bit her own lip to control her amusement, clasping Charley’s outstretched fingers.

The pair looked over at the mice, already astride their bikes, waiting rather impatiently, and Throttle held out a gloved hand to Talon. "Whenever you’re ready, babe…"

Walking over, Talon smiled as Throttle’s tail coiled around her waist and lifted her lightly onto the back of his black motorcycle, as Vinnie did the same for Charley.

"Sorry, guys. Girl talk. You know how it is."

Throttle shook his head as the bikes roared and they pulled out of the garage, and Charley reached into her jacket and pointed a small remote back at the overhead door as they left.

"Nope," he said, "and I’m glad. Time to rock…"

"…and RIDE!" Vinnie and Modo yelled, and the trio took off, the garage door closing and locking behind them.

Throttle looked back at Talon, who was shaking slightly on the back of the bike, her sleek ears pressed flat against her skull. She had one arm wrapped tightly around her, still holding her helmet, and the other hand clamped over her mouth.

"What?" he asked, for her ears only.

"Of course, you have a rallying cry. What was I thinking? It wouldn’t be right if you didn’t. I love this universe already. You three are positively unreal." Pulling on her helmet, she leaned forward and hugged Throttle quickly.

"What’s that for?"

"Just being yourselves."

"Guess I’ll be getting a lot of those in the future. We’re us a lot."

"I’m sorry, does it bother you?" Talon, her expression uncertain, leaned back a little on the bike and Throttle growled a low protest. His tail looped around her waist and snuggled her up against him again.

"It’ll only bother me if you stop," he said shortly. "Stay close to me and you’ll be warmer, babe."

"There’s an understatement," she said under her breath, but Throttle’s keen Martian hearing caught the words and he smiled to himself as she nestled herself as close to him as she could, her hands sliding under his vest to half-bury themselves in his thick belly fur. Squashing a stray thought that they’d feel much nicer a little lower down, he gunned his bike, deliberately cutting in front of Vinnie, who yelled in protest and shot after him, Modo laughing as he turned up his radio a little louder and followed.

***

Hours later, they pulled up on the outskirts of Detroit, and from her perch on Throttle’s bike, Talon took out her locket and held it in front of her, studying the screen intently.

"Four miles. Straight south."

The mice and Charley exchanged speculative looks.

"Brie’s home turf." Charley said pensively. "I wonder what that means?"

"Maybe we can just slip in and snag the jet nice and quiet like?" Talon looked hopeful. "I’d like as few people to see the Turbokat as possible."

"With this crew?" Charley didn’t look too confident. "We can try, I guess. Hear that, guys, quiet? As in NOT noisy?"

"Whatsa matter, Charley? Don’t you trust us?" Vinnie grinned cockily over his shoulder at her.

"I know you," she replied pragmatically. "How close a fix can you give us, Tally?"

"Get me within another two miles and I can give you a visual fix of the structure the Turbokat’s in off the top of one of these buildings." Talon gestured at the factory stacks belching black oily smoke and the cluster of dingy, industrial high-rises and massive warehouses defacing the area in front of them. She wrinkled up her nose as she did so and deliberately tried not to breathe too deep. "Even the air here tastes burnt. What is this place, Charley? The ground itself is poisoned here."

"Detroit." The tone of her voice made it clear the word was an explanation in itself, and Talon didn’t ask further.

"Ok, boys. Two miles closer, roof of a high building with nobody seeing us, and no explosions." Vinnie pouted, but the trio pulled out quietly enough for both Charley and Talon.

Some surreptitious sneaking down oily, narrow alleyways found them behind a massive squat block of a warehouse, and to Talon’s horror, the mice simply revved their bikes to a screaming pitch and headed straight up the side of the warehouse, Talon’s arms clamping around Throttle’s waist like grim death. Other than one sharply indrawn breath as they headed up the wall, she made no other protest until they landed all three bikes on the roof; where she relaxed her grip in his waist, (much to Throttle’s secret relief, Tally was stronger than her slight exterior appeared) and observed in the tone of one hanging onto their temper with slipping fingernails, "That’s your idea of inconspicuous?"

Vinnie looked blank. "What? Nobody saw us."

Talon visibly flinched, but stifled any remaining comments and tugged her locket out, muttering something in a feline tongue that seemed to comprise a lot of disgusted hissing under her breath. Charley bit back a laugh but grinned irrepressibly until Vinnie shot her a betrayed look. Tally slid off the back of Throttle’s bike and walked to the edge of the warehouse with her locket held out in front of her, letting the tracking signal blip steadily. As it settled down, Talon fixed her gaze on one particular building, a squat block of a warehouse very similar to the one they were on top of.

"That one. With all the weird vehicles parked outside." She pointed, and the mice, who had all stiffened at her mention of ‘weird vehicles’, turned the long-range tracking on their helmets in the direction she indicated. Their gazes fixed a little stonily as all three recognized the modified four-wheelers of Brie’s Dune Rangers.

"Brie’s rangers." Modo spat.

"Brie?" Talon’s gaze had sharpened at the second mention of a name unknown to her, and she tapped Throttle’s furry shoulder inquisitively as she walked back over to his bike. "Who is this Brie person?"

"Another lousy Plutarkian stinkfish." Modo answered, disgust plain in his tone. "He operates out of Detroit the way Limburger does out of Chicago. He and Limburger hate each other even more than Plutarkians normally do, and nobody’s figured out how the whole stinking race doesn’t die out from lack of…" he choked off the rest of his comment and glanced at Charley and Talon uncomfortably. "They got some serious hate between ‘em."

Talon looked preoccupied as she snapped her locket shut. "Like maybe Limburger hates Brie enough to sell him a piece of hot high-tech weaponry, knowing that a bunch of pissed-off feline vigilantes with real itchy trigger fingers are going to be on its trail?"

Four sets of eyes riveted on Tally as she said this aloud, piecing her way through the chain of events that had led to the Turbokat being here and probing for flaws in the Plutarkians’ usual double-dealings. "So Brie got a sweet piece of mech from an enemy, and if I know Razor, the Turbokat’s systems fighting them every inch of the way… there has to a be a way to use that… you can always use an enemy’s paranoia against him..."

Throttle watched Tally in fascination as her downcast green eyes mirrored swiftly analytical thinking as theories were formulated, tested, modified and a sudden gleam in her eye told him she’d found the chink in Brie’s armor. He shook his head in admiration at her quick mind and waited to see what she’d come up with.

"A straight in-and-out would work best… Throttle, can you get me up to the back of that building unnoticed," she mused, "and then get yourself out the same way?"

He took a second look at the layout of guards through his helmet’s display and nodded after a moment’s consideration. "Yeah, I can get you that close. Inside might be a problem, though."

"That’ll do fine. All we need now is a distraction." Talon and Throttle’s gazes met, conferred silently, then turned unerringly toward Vinnie, staring toward the Rangers with a discontented expression. Modo and Charley, who had both been following the conversation Vinnie was ignoring, bit off twin snickers and smirked.

"Vinnie, dear, I have a favor to ask you…" Talon purred.

***

Half an hour later, as Napoleon Brie tried once more to get his latest armaments purchase under control, he cursed the impulse that had let him pick up this wretched piece of weaponry, even at the suspiciously reasonable price Limburger had let him have it for. The bloody thing’s on-board computer was practically an AI in its complexity, and there was no doubt its sophisticated security systems were fighting him tooth and nail, but even so it was only a matter of time before they broke through its security shields and virus firewalls. His new chief scientist, Dr. Dissona Harpy, was alternately reviling the jet’s engineers and singing paeans of praise at their cleverness as she struggled with the myriad traps and blind alleys of the jet’s systems.

But even with all this trouble, and they’d had one near-fatality already, a tech shocked senseless by what they later determined was a high-voltage missile (one million volts, no less!) designed to short out an enemy’s electrical and weapons systems; it still wasn’t enough of a problem to merit the reasonable price. Brie worried the problem over in his paranoid Plutarkian brain, and a corner of it reflected sourly Limburger was easily capable of having contrived the entire incident just to prey on his mind and distract him from his real plan.

Brie dismissed it from his thoughts with an effort and mulled over how to get the jet to Mars as soon as he had it under control. He wasn’t doing well on his Mars-side operations, and this prize should give him a sharp advantage over the Resistance. Designed for hit and run strikes and with sophisticated tracking and radar-cloaking systems, it could run those damn Martian mice down in their secret bases under the shifting desert sands, and with the last of their underground cave-bases destroyed, the wretched planet could finally be stripped of the remaining deep-strata minerals and ores. In the process, Mars would fracture and become a hurtling cloud of barren asteroids in a new asteroid belt, but that was the price of progress. Serve the wretched rodents right, it would.

Dr. Dissona shrieked in pain as the jet’s virus firewalls shorted out the computer hookup and the laptop computer she was using exploded in a spray of sparks as it fried itself.

"Cursed thing!" she snapped, knocking the laptop away and slapping out the sparks singeing holes in her ugly jumpsuit, her angular lanky figure making her look like a vulture as she hopped about.

"How much longer?" Brie barked irritably.

"At least another day. It’ll take ‘til tomorrow morning to get another code-cracker computer from Plutark, and nothing on this backward world has the power to break through this wretched thing’s security systems." Her hawklike face had a look of grudging respect on it. "If we had computer and security protections this good we would have had this planet and Mars in chunks on Plutark right now."

Brie’s sour expression didn’t improve, but he reflected grumpily at least once he had eradicated the Martian mice, he could reverse-strip the damn thing and get some useful, and possibly very lucrative, technology from it. His greedy ruminations were interrupted by a series of explosions that shook the building. Yelling came from the front of the cavernous building, and both Brie and Dr. Dissona stared at each other, alarmed; and ran, or in Brie’s case, waddled, toward the noise hastily.

Back behind the warehouse, Throttle watched in satisfaction as the guards on the back bolted towards the commotion Vinnie and Modo were raising, and as another set of explosions rocked the building, he eased his bike up to the back wall and turned to Tally.

"Are you sure you can get in and out ok?" His handsome face was worried, but Talon was pleased to note he made no effort to try and dissuade her from her purpose.

"I’ll be fine, really." Giving in to impulse as she pulled off her helmet and dismounted, she tapped the switch on his helmet that deactivated the blast shield, and kissed him quickly on the nose before tapping the switch again.

"For luck." A shy grin twinkling in her eyes, she gestured for him to give her a leg up, and he linked his fingers together and heaved as she put a small foot in his hands. His toss landed her on the windowsill of the second-story window, and she popped the window latch with a claw-tip. Talon disappeared inside as he pulled away, and he crushed a curl of fear in his heart for her. She was more than capable of taking care of herself.

Swinging around a neighboring building, he re-emerged in front of the warehouse, careful to stay out of the line of sight of anyone inside, and watched in amusement as the two strange figures strafed the vehicles of the Dune Rangers again. Talon had warned Vinnie and Modo the charge on the morph generators she’d given them were good for no more than half an hour under combat conditions, but if she could reach the jet, it would be more than time enough. As another four-wheeler erupted in flames as the gas tank blew from one of Vinnie’s shots, he studied the strange kat faces his two brothers were currently wearing. He could tell there was something about her family Tally wasn’t telling them, but he wasn’t going to pry. She would tell him in her own time, not that it was any of his business, anyway.

Inside the building, the object of his musings was sneaking quietly along the interior wall, and the blip of the tracking unit told her she was practically within arm’s reach of the Turbokat. She eased around a corner and her heart leapt as she spotted the Turbokat, surrounded by partially defunct computer equipment and the marks of several small explosions scarring the floor around it. Snickering under her breath, she dashed across the bare space, and as she reached the jet, she kicked the chocks out from under the wheels and vaulted into the pilot’s seat. Ripping away the snarl of computer cables feeding into the cockpit, she took a very deep breath and hit the switch that would close the cockpit canopy.

She’d never tried anything quite like this before, and despite her assurances to T-Bone and Razor, she wasn’t at all sure it would work. She laid her palm flat against the jet’s console and nudged her meager machine-empathy skills awake. It had recognized her once before, down in the underground hanger, she could only hope the Turbokat remembered her now. She sent a pulse of her personal psi-energy into the computer’s memory and crossed her fingers surreptitiously. A few seconds took an eternity to pass, but then the jet’s computer console activated and the heads-up display came alive. She stifled a cry of triumph and reached down into her mind for a set of memories not her own… As she laid her hands on the controls, a rush of familiarity came over her and her hands moved with sudden and sure skill; the engines fired, the weapons and tracking systems came on-line, and as she dug the pilot’s helmet Razor had painstakingly crafted for her all those weeks ago from it’s compartment, she blew a kiss to her beloved brother across the universes.

T-Bone’s sensory-memories flooding her mind, the stick in her hands felt as familiar and comfortable as her own Ship-brother’s controls, and she activated the VTOL engines and let the jet rise up off the floor a few feet, grinning like a fiend in delight. Back at the front of the building, where the battle was still raging, the roar of the Turbokat’s engines was clearly audible, and Brie and Dr. Dissona exchanged horrified glances as they realized they’d been tricked.

"Damn Limburger, that’s why the price was right, the cursed thing’s stolen!" Brie had immediately recognized the symbols on the red and blue uniforms of the two strangers attacking them, they matched the insignia on his new purchase exactly. Scuttling back to where they’d left the jet, unguarded!, he gaped at the sight of it hovering several feet above the floor, with a strange kat-pilot at the controls. Resolving to exact an appropriate revenge from the bloated Limburger as soon as possible, Brie stared in horror as the jet’s missile racks deployed and two missiles swished toward the enormous sliding doors in the front of the building. He dove for the floor and was barely in time to miss being pelted with debris as the doors blew out, and the afterburners roared as the jet shot through the aperture and screamed for the open sky.

Modo and Vinnie skidded to a halt on their bikes as the front doors to the building blew out from the inside, and as a sleek red, blue and black fighter jet streaked through the smoke and immediately snapped into a power-climb, they hi-fived each other and took off for where Charley and Throttle were waiting.

Talon, marveling at the breathtaking range of piloting skills T-Bone had selflessly insisted she download-copy from his mind, realized as much as she had respected his flying skills, she really had had no idea of what he could do with the Turbokat. She could make the darn thing dance on its tail if she wanted! Swinging the jet around, she switched the weapons system controls to the pilot’s station and waited as the tracking computer fixed on the building below her, still smoking from the guys’ attacks and her own escape. The HUD gave her back the shrill whine of a targeting lock, and as Razor’s sensory-memories came alive in her mind too, her finger pulled the trigger with the sure and certain skill of someone who has done it a thousand times before.

The building below her exploded in a massive detonation, and Tally cheered in jubilation as the jet’s computer system twinkled the display lights at her. Making a delighted mental note to tell T-Bone and Razor their jet had taken the last step to self-awareness, she patted the newly awakened AI with a hand and studied the tracking displays. Three blips, heading west, with power sources alien to all the ones around them… there they were! As Talon picked them up visually, the bikes streaking back along the highway towards Chicago, she banked the jet easily and cut the afterburners. Slowing the Turbokat to just above stalling speed, she matched the bikes’ speed for a second and as she paced them, streaking along a bare three meters above the ground, they waved in victory and she gave them a gleeful thumbs-up back.

Deciding to give them a show for their troubles of her behalf, she slammed the jet’s throttle hard over and as the afterburners roared white-hot thunder, she snapped the Turbokat into a barrel roll as she gained altitude, and then pulled a loop-the-loop above them. All four of them cheered, and she swung the jet into place above them, flipping on the radar-cloak before she woke any of the locals’ defense systems herself. "We can’t go home quite yet, love," she said quietly, patting the control panel, "but as soon as Reno comes for us, I’ll get you back to your partners." The control displays twinkled again, and content, both kat and jet settled in for the flight home.

***

Talon set the Turbokat gently down in the bare expanse of center field as the sun was setting, and Quigley Field probably hadn’t seen anything so odd since the mice’s arrival three years ago. She let the jet’s engines die, and popped the canopy. The higher-pitched roar of cyberbike engines heralded the arrival of Throttle, Modo, Vinnie and Charley; and as the bikes pulled up beside the jet, Talon sent a last psi-pulse of info into the Turbokat’s memory, telling it there were three other Artificial Intelligences around to talk to if it got lonely or felt like conversation with other experienced combat AI’s. Talon put her helmet neatly away in its compartment, and as she pulled herself up on the edge of the cockpit, Throttle dismounted from his bike and caught her gently as she slid down the fuselage. Secretly delighted at the feel of him holding her, a very faint blush stained her cheeks, and Throttle made no move to remove his arm from around her as Vinnie and the others ogled the jet curiously.

"I can see why you came after it." Charley said in awe, trailing a hand along the hull. "This is one incredible piece of engineering." She ducked under the wing and inspected the flaps and landing gear with an analytical gaze. "You’re right, ya know, that brother of yours and I would have a lot to talk about."

"You’re one heck of a pilot, Tally-kat," Vinnie commented, and Talon shot him a surprised look at the genuine respect in his voice.

"Thanks for the compliment, but it’s not my flying or my marksmanship, so I really don’t deserve it. I’ll pass it along to T-Bone and Razor, though."

Everyone stared at her in confusion.

"What do you mean it’s not your flying? We just saw you fly it." Modo’s question mirrored the inquiry on the others’ faces, and from the protective circle of Throttle’s arm, Tally smiled, a look of love and affection on her face that made Throttle absently wish it was directed at him.

"Yes, but they aren’t my skills originally. When the Turbokat was first stolen and I had to come after it, I didn’t have the slightest idea how to fly the jet. T-Bone and Razor insisted I download their flying skills from their memories so I could get the jet home once I found it. It was terribly hard on them, I imagine they’re still having splitting headaches from my having to go so deep into their minds. It took them days to recover from a deep-scan like that."

"Humph." Modo said nothing further, but the respect on his face spoke volumes for bros who would endure that to help their beloved sister. Then again, how many got to have a sister like Tally? Even as he thought it, Modo snorted at himself as he realized he was that lucky, and he grinned fondly at Charley, who had climbed up on the wing and was inspecting the cockpit, oblivious to the rest of them.

"Anybody hungry?" he asked, and Vinnie whooped and bounced off his bike.

"Celebration time! And I skipped lunch, too. I’m a growing boy."

"Growing egos don’t count, Vinnie." Charley told him, running a hand over the two names blazoned on the side of the jet.

Talon flipped a quick, surreptitious glance at Charley. "It’s been a long day, what say we just order take-out and be lazy? On me, to say thanks for getting the Turbokat back? I’m a complete loss in the kitchen, my Ship-brother does all the cooking."

Throttle smiled idly down at her, his amused expression telling her he’d seen right through her offer. Tally leaned into his shoulder and put an arm around his waist, despite a small nagging voice telling her she was getting much too attached to him, much too fast.

"Cool," Vinnie crowed, "pizza or Chinese?"

Charley walked over to the edge of the wing, and as she started to jump down, Vinnie reached up and caught her, lowering her gently to the ground. He released her immediately, but Charley gave him a speculative glance as she strolled over to Tally and Throttle.

"I can live without having to wash dishes, and I vote for Chinese." As they climbed back on the bikes, Charley eyed the jet sitting quietly on the grass. "What are we going to do with that? We really shouldn’t just leave it here where anyone can see it."

Talon pulled herself reluctantly from Throttle’s loose embrace and walked toward the jet. "Good point." She laid her hands flat against the fuselage, and concentrated. A dome of blue mist formed over the jet, and as the mice and Charley watched in fascination, the dome fuzzed, and then faded out, leaving only the green grass behind. Stunned, Charley stared down at the ground and saw the divots where the weight of the jet had dug dents into the grass, but of the jet itself there was no sign. Charley gaped in admiration.

Throttle took an alarmed step forward, but even as he did, Tally reappeared as she walked through where the dome had been, and the edge of it crackled with static as she passed through. She was very pale under her creamy fur, and she wobbled a little unsteadily as she walked.

"Guess I’m not quite back up to normal yet. That took a bit out of me."

Throttle frowned deeply and strode determinedly toward her, sweeping her up in his arms with an assertiveness that made all three of the others stare at him in surprise. "C’mon, let’s get back to the garage and let you rest."

Talon looked startled but made no objection, and Charley and Modo swapped an amused, speculative glance as Throttle set Tally down on his bike and climbed on behind her, wrapping an arm as well as his tail around her waist. She was easily small enough to fit in front of him, but by now even Vinnie had noticed his bro’s fiercely protective attitude toward their new friend. Talon leaned back against his broad chest with a tired sigh and closed her eyes wearily. Throttle had to wake her when they got back to the garage, and she looked as if she would have much preferred to stay curled up sleeping on him.

Not nearly as much as he would have liked her to, Throttle thought wryly. Peculiar for someone as reserved as he was, but ever since he met her, all his instincts had firmly fixed on watching over Tally, and he was damned if he’d let her push herself too hard. She started to climb off the bike, but he tightened his arm around her waist, and as she looked up at him in surprise, they froze for another endless second at the identical looks of wistful longing in each other’s eyes. Both blushed deeply and Throttle gathered her up with tender care, realizing without surprise somewhere along the line he’d fallen hard for his alien cellmate. When he didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care, either.

Who would have thought he’d have Limburger to thank for introducing him to the girl he’d just realized he loved? It was a weird world… his thoughts turned to Carbine, and still marveling over how strongly he felt about Talon already, Throttle wondered how he could have ever mistaken their companionable respect and affection for love. Maybe they never really had, even after all these years, neither of them had felt comfortable making a commitment to each other. But now, all he could think of was how much he wanted Talon to stay with him. How he was going to swing that, he had no clue, but he was going to give it one hell of a Martian try…

Carrying her into the garage and up into Charley’s living room, he dropped down on the couch with her; and Talon sighed again, laid her head on his shoulder, and was asleep before he had a chance to ask her how she felt. Charley walked back in with the menus and phone book, and gave the pair of them a highly amused glance.

"Just let her sleep," she said with a grin, "it’ll be a while before the food gets here."

Throttle looked down at the slumbering kat and smiled back, his usual serious expression replaced by a rueful grin. "Like I have a choice?"

Charley gave him such a direct stare as she answered, "Not with that look on your face," that he had to laugh as he realized she knew precisely what he was thinking and feeling. Giving in to impulse himself, he caught Charley’s hand as she passed and pressed a kiss on the back of it.

"Thanks, Charley-girl."

Charley, looking if anything more pleased with him, ruffled his hair fondly and said quietly, "It’s nice to see you smile, Throttle."

He gazed down at Tally and the grin he wore softened into a look of such devotion Charley felt a pang in her heart at seeing him so happy.

"It’s nice to have something to smile about," he told her, and lifted the arm Tally wasn’t sleeping on and brushed a long, white-gold lock of hair away from her face, the softness of the fur under it making him want to cuddle her against him and never, ever, let go.

Modo and Vinnie came clumping up the steps from putting the bikes to bed and Charley waved an impatient hand for them to be quiet. Vinnie tiptoed in with exaggerated care, and actually managed to sit down on the couch like a normal person. Charley considered fainting as she handed Modo the menu. Wonders would never cease today! Throttle in love? Vinnie behaving? What next?

***

An hour later, the doorbell rang and Tally woke with a start.

"Feel better?" Throttle asked, setting her down on the couch beside him. She nodded, pushing stray wisps of hair away from her face. Charley headed for the front door and Modo came in from the kitchen with a handful of plates and bottles of root beer. Considerately offering Talon the first, she sniffed curiously at the open bottle Modo handed her.

"Haven’t you ever tried root beer before? Aw, sweetheart, you haven’t lived!" Vinnie rolled his eyes and narrowly missed taking out a lamp as he held his glass high. "To root beer! Earth’s greatest creation!"

Talon grinned as she took a swig, "No, Vinnie, we have root beer on my planet. I just haven’t tried this world’s version yet. Sometimes these things can surprise you." She laughed and raised her glass. "Occasionally they can do more than that."

"So what are you going to do now that you have your jet back?" Vinnie asked her as they clinked bottles in a toast.

Throttle went very still, but Charley walked into the room laden with bags and both Modo and Vinnie jumped up to help her. Handing out bags, Charley sat down beside Tally and Vinnie plopped on the floor by her feet, helping her unpack the contents on the coffee table. Talon leaned forward and joined in the unpacking.

"Besides than getting that trans-dimensional teleporter out of Limburger’s greasy fins? Other than that, I wait, Vinnie." She turned to Charley and grinned a little sheepishly. "Think you can tolerate a houseguest a little longer?"

"Sure," Charley replied, "what do you have to wait for?" She finished opening the last of the containers and the mice dived for the food, and after glancing guiltily at Charley, slowed down to normal speed.

Talon picked up an egg roll and sighed. "My ride, specifically my brother Reno." She bit into it, and chewed for a minute before swallowing and continuing. "I’d never been in this dimension before, and there are a few peculiarities about dimension-jumping into a strange universe. The time flows are never quite the same in any universe, they all flow at slightly different speeds. You have to account for those changes when you shift from universe to universe, or you risk getting lost in null-space, the void between the parallel dimensions that keeps them all separate. So when you jump into a strange universe, it’s not dangerous to jump in, because you land in the time stream, but jumping out, without knowing how fast the time stream is moving in relation to the rest of the dimensions, is dangerous. It’s like trying to jump from a moving car and land on your feet without knowing how fast the car is going. Depending on how you re-entered null-space you could end up lost anywhere in space and time. Very bad."

Charley looked fascinated. "So how do you get out?" She finished off her helping of orange chicken and gestured for Vinnie to hand her the shrimp chow mein.

Tally tried the sesame beef and sighed in delight. "You work in teams. You send one person into the new universe, then the person left behind waits a set period of time and then jumps in after. Using the differences in the time-lag, you can figure out how fast the time stream is moving, and bang, you’re all set. So I get to wait for four weeks to pass in that dimension, and then Reno will jump after me, and appear here."

"Couldn’t you just use the dimensional teleporter to jump home?" Vinnie asked curiously, helping himself to the rest of the chow mein.

Talon shrugged as she chewed. "Probably, provided someone kept the coordinates in the teleporter’s memory, but… I’ve pretty much decided to just destroy it. Technology like that is wickedly dangerous, and it won’t be any great loss to the corps."

"How will your brother find you?" Modo asked, biting off a chunk of teriyaki beef, "Your locket?"

"He doesn’t need one, although I’m sure Razor will send him through with a tracking unit and distress beacon like mine. Reno’s a telepath, too, and we aren’t just mind-linked, I’m permanently soul-bonded to all of my brother-agents. Once his feet hit this planet he can just follow our mental bond like a homing pigeon." Talon picked up a strip of teriyaki herself and nibbled on it. "I just don’t know how long it’ll take for him to appear here. Like I said, this dimension and its time-streams are strange to me."

"So we just wait for him to show up on the doorstep?" Charley grinned as she snitched the last two crab rangoons from under Vinnie’s reaching fingers and gave one to Tally. "That’ll give answering the door a new thrill."

"Yup, that’s the only safe way to do it. There are a few stable inter-dimensional nexuses in your universe, but none in this solar system, so I had to jump blindly following the Turbokat. In several hundred millennia no one’s ever figured out a better way to dimension-jump blind. You just have to have two people to make it work." Tally smiled around at them all. "Think you can stand to have me around a little longer? And maybe give me a hand sticking it to that fat stinkfish Limburger like we did to Brie?"

"We’ll manage somehow," Throttle said dryly, and the others laughed as Tally copied Charley’s trick and snatched the last dumpling out of his fingers and ate it herself, licking her fingers at him.

"Hey!" He tickled her and she squalled in protest, falling back against Charley, who set down her plate and swapping a mischievous glance with Tally, they attacked Throttle from both sides, each grabbing one of his hands and tickling him with their free hand. He squirmed mightily and caught Charley around the waist and tickled her unmercifully, but Tally eeled around and got him under the ribs. His tail lashed out and caught one wrist, but the end of her flowing tail bopped him in the face.

It was enough of a distraction for Charley to squirm loose, and she sat firmly on Throttle’s chest; but as she started to tickle him again Vinnie joined in, dropping on the couch and catching Charley’s bare foot as she struggled to hold Throttle down.

Charley shrieked and threw herself at him, yelling, "I know your spot, you furry disaster area!" She grabbed his tail and tickled the end. Vinnie howled and thrashed around to grab her, but Talon was trying to dodge Throttle and landed in his lap. Deciding any female would do in the age-old war of the sexes, Vinnie tickled her and Tally swatted him with a sofa pillow.

Modo shook his head, carefully gathered up the empty containers and the plates and carried them out to the kitchen. Returning, he picked up the coffee table and set it against the wall, then turned to the still-tussling pile of mice, human and kat, and said warningly, "Here I come." He jumped for the pile, but four heads lifted and they attacked him simultaneously, pinning him on the floor with Throttle and Vinnie holding his legs down and Charley and Talon each trying to sit on an arm and still tickle his ears while giggling hysterically.

Twenty minutes later, Modo was sitting firmly in the middle of the floor on top of Throttle’s back, who was squashing Vinnie underneath him, with Charley pinned under his flesh arm and Talon tucked under his metal one.

"Now, who is the winner in this battle?" Modo prompted.

"You are," they chorused, or at least tried to, as Tally was giggling too hard to be coherent, Charley had a case of the hiccups that was only making her laugh more, and Throttle and Vinnie were a bit short of breath on the bottom of the pile.

"That’s better." Modo slid off Throttle and the tan-furred mouse sat up with a wheeze. Modo sat down on the floor with his back against the couch and lowered Charley and Tally to the floor on either side of him. Vinnie lay sprawled where he lay, sucking in air with great gasps.

"I’m a mouse-pancake! I’m too cute to be squashed! My curves are the best part of me!" Vinnie’s wails made the rest of them pick up the nearest soft object and hurl it at him, and two sofa pillows, a throw blanket and one of Charley’s sweatshirts hit him from all sides. Modo chuckled as Vinnie sat up with the sweatshirt dangling from an antenna, and Throttle claimed the spot against the couch on Tally’s other side.

"That was fun." Tally said as her giggles subsided enough to let her speak again. "So what do we do now?"

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Vinnie grinned and jumped up, and Charley stared suspiciously at him. "Vincent, what did you do?"

"Me, nothing." Vinnie’s ludicrously innocent expression made Charley grin in spite of herself as she went to answer the door. Charley returned loaded with two bags labeled ‘Videodrome delivers!’, and trying not to start hiccupping again, she said incredulously, "The complete run of ‘Godzilla’ movies? On Tally’s card? Vinnie!"

Vinnie stretched out full-length on the couch and protested, "Tally said I could keep it for her!"

"So I did," Talon interceded, "and I for one like Godzilla." She looked hopefully at Charley as she set the bags down by the TV. "Popcorn with the movies?"

Charley, poking through the bags, laughed suddenly as she pulled out a box of microwave popcorn. "Ok, ego-boy, you’re reprieved."

Tally got up and took the box of popcorn from her hand and wandered into the kitchen to pop it. Throttle and Modo looked at each other and evicted Vinnie from the couch, claiming the two ends and leaving room for Charley and Talon in the middle. Vinnie grumbled but snagged the two sofa pillows and settled himself against the couch on the floor where he could snuggle between Tally and Charley. Charley finished feeding the tape into the VCR and plopped down next to Modo, considerately leaving the spot beside Throttle for Tally.

A faint staccato of popping corn kernels heralded Tally’s reappearance with a bag of hot popcorn in each hand and a trail of root beer bottles floating in the air behind her. She gave one bag to Charley and let Vinnie snatch a handful from the other as she sat down, and the bottles landed themselves on the coffee table, returned by Vinnie to its usual spot. Modo reached over and flicked off the lights, and they all settled in as giant monsters roared on the TV screen.

"Hey, Tally-kat." Vinnie cocked his head back and looked at her as she sat down behind him, mimicking Charley’s example by tucking her bare feet against his warm, white-furred back. Throttle reached out and pulled Talon purposefully into his lap, settling her head on his shoulder and clasping his arms around her waist, barely resisting the urge to nuzzle her fondly and claim a kiss in the process. Vinnie immediately nipped into the vacant spot next to Charley, and all five of them settled in under Charley’s throw blanket.

"Yes, Vinnie?"

"Why did you want us to wear those morph-generators when we were attacking Brie’s men, while you were getting the Turbokat out?"

Tally speared a bit of popcorn on a claw-tip and grinned at him as she munched. "I just like plans that are neat and tidy and have no loose ends. As far as Brie knows, the Turbokat was recovered by the people Limburger originally stole it from, and Brie now hates Limburger even more than before, plus blames him for selling him stolen property and setting him up for taking the fall for the theft."

She speared another kernel and continued, "As far as Limburger knows, the jet was recovered by its owners; who have no idea he was involved at all, and therefore he’s safe from retribution from those same owners, while having stuck it to Brie big time in the process. Absolutely no one has any idea or proof we were there when the Turbokat was recovered, and Limburger has every reason to think I’m dead after that explosion. No one knows we’ve got the Turbokat and nobody’s on our tails… any more so than usual, anyway. Like I said, neat and tidy."

"Oh…" Vinnie considered that for a moment. "Tally?"

"Yes, Vinnie?"

"Good plan."

"Thank you, Vinnie. I thought so myself. More popcorn?"

***

Much later, Charley got up to switch the tape and as she sat back down on the couch between Vinnie and Modo, she had to smile at the expression of absolute contentment on Throttle’s face as he dozed. Tally hadn’t lasted the length of the first movie, she was fast asleep in Throttle’s lap, her sleeping form cuddled so possessively in his embrace Charley was hard put not to laugh out loud. She burrowed back down into the couch, and Modo, half-asleep himself, leaned back and closed his eyes drowsily.

Vinnie, the only other one wide-awake, yawned elaborately and laid his arm along the back of the couch behind her. Charley wasn’t fooled for a second, but everyone else was asleep… she curled up with her head on Vinnie’s shoulder as she pulled the blanket back over them all, and Vinnie’s arm settled around her with agonizing slowness as he gradually inched closer to her. When he was close enough, Charley closed her eyes, letting herself drift off to sleep. Throttle was absolutely right, this had sleeping alone beat all hollow…

***