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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.
"Machinato Vitae"
(A Biker Mice From Mars Short Story)
***
Part Two
***
Hannah and Modo headed out at first light again, with only a minor delay occasioned by a sleepy good-morning kiss taking a rather abrupt turn for the passionate. But in spite of the short delay, by mid-morning they were out of the foothills, roaring through the veldt north as fast as Lil’ Darlin’ could go, and on the flat of the plains, that was very fast indeed. Hannah, her arms clamped tight about Modo, was stunned at how quickly they were covering the territory. At the rate they were traveling, they’d reach the mine just after sun-height, and with some luck, might even be able to get moved out before sundown. Hannah was uneasily aware that Talon’s assessment of the reactor core’s decay was approximate at best, and the sooner they had that reactor capped and sealed, the better she would feel. With the wind always blowing from the sea to the mountains, Wassoon would be the first victim of the silent killers that same wind would carry if the reactor went. ‘Fallout’, Tally had called it, and the bleak, pained look in her eyes had made Hannah refrain from asking if she’d ever seen the results personally.
"Hannah-sweetheart," Modo said, turning and looking back at her.
The endearment making her smile, Hannah hugged him, the pleased look on her face making Modo’s heart skip a beat. "What is it?"
"How are we gonna get this ore back? There’s no way we can carry enough on the bike. How are we gonna transport all that ore back to Jake’s garage?"
Hannah’s eyes gleamed with a light that startled him. "Because we can get everything we need, a truck, supplies, the ore, a map, gas, everything, once we reach the mine."
"How?"
She grinned, a toothy grin that reminded him unnervingly of Hermes. "Because it’s my family’s mine. The Dundees are a mining clan, that’s why a Dundee was sent as one of the ambassadors to the City in the Sea. We mine a lot more than just silver out of the mountain." She sat up higher on the back of the bike and pointed to a large mountain standing somewhat apart from the rest of the range. "That’s Dundee Peak, and the mine is at the base. My family’s going to go crazy when they see me."
Modo rolled his eye and told her, "My gray-furred old mama told me never to bring a lady home to see her family unless I meant to marry her."
Hannah laughed and teased, "I think a deadly disaster that could destroy us all bends the rules about these things a little. I think I can convince them to leave you alone."
"On the other hand, what kind of privileges do I get if I announce myself as a suitor? Exclusive rights to sit next to you at dinner? Hand-holding privileges? How about it?" Modo leered at her comically, the unexpected humor making her laugh harder.
"More like the privilege to be charmed by my grandfather, interrogated by my father, fed until you burst by my mother, subtly threatened by my brothers, and swarmed by a horde of black-haired Dundee children." Her face took on a look of fond affection. "We run to very large families. I have thirteen nieces and nephews and I bet there’s been at least one or two more since I was home. We’re incorrigible." The sharp look of yearning that flashed over Modo’s face made Hannah wonder what he’d lost, that made the prospect of meeting her overwhelming mass of relatives such an attractive thought.
"But you’ll meet them all soon enough. We’re in Dundee territory now, one of the patrols should pick us up any minute." Even as she said it, the bike’s radar pinged a metallic object headed their way. A glance at the screen revealed two more blips behind it, headed straight for them at a respectable pace. A moment later Hannah spotted three dust trails headed towards them and cheered. Pulling off her helmet, she waved it at the approaching vehicles, which turned out to be a form of stripped-down dune buggy. An open steel frame with a pilot’s cage, an engine mounted behind it, and big, round tires let the light vehicles rip across the plains. The lead one shot by them, and Modo clearly saw the face of a young human male, bearing a striking resemblance to Hannah, open his mouth in a whoop of joy. He swung around behind the bike and pulled up beside them, waving and yelling a wild greeting picked up by the other two black-haired youths, one male and one female, in the other buggies racing alongside.
"Hannah, you’re home!" He held a clenched fist over his head and whooped again. "The folks are gonna freak! I’m dying to hug ya, but if I don’t get you home as fast as I can, Mom’ll have my hide! C’mon, Sis, follow me home!"
"About time you started learning some responsibility, Deke!" Hannah yelled back. "And I’m home on official business and it’s urgent, so radio ahead to get the family together. I’m calling a council meeting as soon as we get there." All the youths’ faces looked shocked, but the boy, Deke, picked up a radio unit and did as she asked. They raced over the prairie until they crossed a wide, well maintained trail that led up to the base of the mountain Hannah had called Dundee Peak. As they came closer, a range of vehicles all headed for the same place gradually fell in around them.
Three pickup trucks, two dirt bikes ridden by a pair of raven-haired twin beauties that would have had Vinnie howling at the moon, and a stripped-down Land-Rover fell in behind them, all the drivers waving and calling warm welcomes to Hannah. Modo noticed that all the pickups had weapons racks in the cabs, and the two young women on the matching bikes bore heavy double crossbows nearly identical to the one Hannah carried. The trio in the dune buggies and the driver of the Land Rover bore no visible weapons, but Modo wouldn’t have bet they were unarmed.
They reached the foot of the mountain, and began racing along a small lake set into its base. The lake cut a half-circle out of the mountain where part of the cliff had collapsed into the water, and Modo’s helmet sensors revealed observation towers cut high in the cliffside. He studied the lakeshore, wondering for a moment where the buildings were, when his gaze traveled higher. Modo’s mouth fell open as he realized with a shock the Dundee family had made their home in the mountain itself. The whole front of the cliff was honeycombed with windows and balconies and terraces of all sizes, cut from the living rock, with plants and flowers growing everywhere in the chinks and crannies of the cliffs. He counted at least six levels of windows cut into the half circle of cliffs, and the road led up to a gaping cavern entrance on the base of the cliff.
The vehicles didn’t go in, however, pulling into a wide, open clearing between the lakeshore and the cave entrance, obviously well-used, as the dirt was packed hard and no grass grew there. Hannah was off the back of the bike in an instant, and was swarmed by the drivers of the vehicles that had come in with them, in an riotous blend of hugs, kisses, incoherent greetings and inarticulate exchanges of affection. A crowd of men, women, and children of all ages came flying out of the cave, the children in the lead, every one of them with the raven’s-wing black hair Modo had realized was a family trait. They inundated Hannah, a tall man and a striking older woman being pushed through the crowd to her, and as Hannah cried out, "Mom, Dad!" and threw herself at them, Modo leaned back on the bike and grinned.
A pack of the children surrounded him, pulling him insistently off his bike and toward the crowd of people, shrill young voices chattering at him like magpies. Modo suffered himself to be led, particularly charmed by a small, black-haired beauty of about five, who stared at his bionic hand and waving tail in fascination and held out her little arms, silently begging to picked up and held. A complete pushover as far as children of any kind were concerned, Modo picked her up and set her on his shoulders, and she crowed happily and clung to his helmet. The others took that as a sign, and in short order he had two on his back and one each hanging from an arm, and had pretty much stopped making any progress toward Hannah.
She caught sight of him, half-buried in children, and had started toward them when a tall, dignified-looking older man, his shining silver hair making him stand out in the crowd, came out of the tunnel. The crowd of relatives parted to let him through, and Hannah cried "Grandfather!" and darted into his embrace. He clasped her tight and said roughly, "It’s good to have you home, Hannah."
Hannah clung to him tightly, but then pulled back in his embrace and said seriously, "I’m not here with good news, Grandfather."
The patriarch nodded. "So young Deacon gave us to understand. The family is gathering now. But we are being rude to your guest, granddaughter."
Hannah turned to him, and the children dropped off his arms, although not off his shoulders and back, and pulled him over. Modo doffed his helmet as he approached, and the little girl on his shoulders cooed in delight and grabbed his ears. The rest of the crowd went silent in surprise, although there was no fear in those smiling faces, merely startled curiosity.
Hannah took his arm, smiling up at the little girl, and said, "Modo, meet Marcus Dundee, my grandfather. Grandfather, I want you to meet my friend, Modo. He’s the starchild’s brother." The crowd went dead still with that comment, eyes wide with astonished respect, and the white-haired leader reached out a corded, still-powerful hand toward him.
"Good to meet you, son. Any brother of the starchild’s is welcome here."
Modo flushed but clasped his hand firmly. "It’s my good luck to be… Mina’s brother, but thank you, sir."
The dark, piercing eyes in that wise, lined face studied him closely, and evidently liked what they saw. "Come in, if whatever brought you here is as urgent as Hannah says, then we’ve no time to waste."
Modo’s face went grave. "I’m afraid it is, sir." The old patriarch nodded once and led them all into the cavern.
***
Marcus led Hannah and Modo, surrounded by Dundee clan members, into an immense cavern on the second level, and the room filled in minutes. A long table ran the length of the room, and Hannah strode confidently to the head of it, standing behind her grandfather as he took his place in the chair there. The rest of the seats filled with older folk, all but one with the same raven-black hair. The lone exception, a tall, rangy redhead, with a battered, friendly face, and the same scarred hands as Jack, took a seat next to Modo; who had been seated at the right of Hannah’s grandfather, the small girl riding on his shoulders pouncing immediately into his lap.
"Rand McLain-Dundee." The big redhead held out a friendly hand, and Modo clasped it firmly.
"Modo," he answered, and remembering the one time he’d heard Talon’s full clan-name, not her ILEA alias, finished, "Morgan-Gryphon Vorbarra. Good to meet you."
Rand glanced around the room, "We’re gonna get wrapped up in this in a second, but I gotta ask. How’d you meet the starchild?"
Modo grinned in remembrance. "We broke her and my bro out of a Plutarkian prison cell. They spent a week being tortured together and came out of it crazy in love." Modo shrugged in fond bewilderment. "I’m not sure which of them was more startled by it all. They’ve been inseparable ever since. This is actually the first time they’ve been apart since then."
A gorgeous woman, bearing so striking a resemblance to Hannah it was obvious they were sisters, came up behind the redhead and put her hands on his shoulders.
Hannah cried, "Miriam!" and the two exchanged a hard hug.
"Welcome home, little sister." Miriam shot a sly glance at Modo and said teasingly to Hannah, "You had to one-up me, didn’t you? You had to come home with a boyfriend even more different than mine."
Modo turned red under his gray fur and the little girl in his lap, whose name he still didn’t know, piped up, "Are you going to stay with us like Daddy Rand did, Unca Modo?"
His one eye softened as he looked down at the child cuddled happily in his lap, and told her gently, "Not this time, sweetheart, Hannah and I have a job to do to keep you all safe."
"Then you’ll stay when you come back next time?" Her sky-blue eyes, the same shade as Rand’s, stared up anxiously.
Hannah laughed a little sheepishly at her naive question, and assured her, with a wicked glance at Modo, "Mary, I will do my very best to see that he does." They had no further time for conversation, Marcus stood as the last chair filled and the remaining members lining the room’s walls quieted. Hannah turned to her now-assembled family and told them everything in a quick, thorough briefing that Carbine couldn’t have bettered for clarity and conciseness.
"So that’s the situation," Hannah finished. "Without silver for the new control rods, the reactor will explode with a week and spread poison all across the mountains and down into the plains." The assembled clan, who listened in absolute silence as she spoke, exchanged glances and waited for Marcus to speak.
The venerable patriarch leaned on the table and said decisively, "You all know Hannah and her mission to the City in the Sea. I see no alternative but to move on this matter immediately, but as the head of the family I call for a vote. All family members in favor of rendering immediate assistance to the City in the Sea and donating what silver they require, raise your hands." A veritable forest of hands, every one present, had raised, fists clenched.
The sight of it made Modo’s remaining eye smart. Once Mars had many such families, proud clans with a heritage generations-old, but no longer. Decimated by the Plutarkians and riven apart by war, no mouse on Mars could stand among their clan and kin as these proud humans did. He silently resolved again to drive the Plutarkians from his homeworld, no matter what it cost him, so the children of Mars could wear the same look of family pride and determination that the adorable child in his lap wore now.
"Very well, then." Marcus turned to Hannah and Modo. "How much silver do you need? We might have enough cast bars on hand to be able to send you with those, rather than the raw ore. It would get you back over the mountains faster."
Hannah looked nonplussed. "We don’t know, Mina was supposed to contact us tonight with an amount." She transferred her gaze to Modo. "Can you contact her from here?"
Modo shrugged, and said, "I can try." Closing his eye, he reached for the line in the back of head that was his link to his bro’s quixotic mate, and bracing himself, hauled on it with all his might.
*YE-OUCH! What’s the big idea, you overgrown furball?!?!?! That HURT!!!!* Talon’s angry mental yell reverberated through the minds of every person present, and a wave of suppressed laughter ran around the room. He still thought of his bro’s love as Talon, even though he knew it wasn’t her real name, Modo realized in amusement.
*Wind down, kitty-kin,* he sent to her alone, *you’re makin’ me look bad. We’ve made it to Dundee Peak and they’re ready and willing to help us. If you could have finished bars of silver, how much would you need for the control rods?*
*Finished bars? Instead of raw ore? I love you, bro, I found out how much silver we’re going to need for those damn things, and if we were talking raw ore, we’d need a bloody freight train to move it all and we’d never smelt it in time. I was just going over my calculations, and we’re going to need some fifty pounds of silver, and I’d rather fifty-five or sixty pounds to give me a margin for error. Those rods have to be exact, down to the millimeter, I’ve got Jack working on the exact dimensions now. But there has to be enough, we can’t be short or we’ll have wasted our time. What are the dimensions of their ingots?*
Modo opened his eye but both of them looked out, and he told Marcus, "Mina wants to know what the dimensions of your ingots are."
His lined, tanned face alive with curiosity, Marcus reached back and snapped his fingers, and a stocky man in pants singed with sparks and his hands still smudged with a bit of smoke and soot, handed him a square block of silver that had to be four inches on a side. It was stamped with a cone with a circular base, and after a minute Modo realized it represented the mountain with the lake at its foot. Talon’s mental whistle echoed so loudly in Modo’s head he inadvertently echoed her, a whistle coming out a bit strange through his differently arranged teeth.
*By the Matrix!* Her awed thought skimmed across his mind, *Look at the size of that thing… at that size we’ll need…*
A string of numbers ran across the surface of his mind next, and Modo finished, "60 blocks like that."
A select number of eyes widened this time, and Rand said slowly, "That’s over half our available stock of silver."
Modo’s heart sank, but Rand continued, "We only have so many trucks that can carry that much weight and still make it over the pass, and all of them are well known by the local marauders. A Dundee convoy is a rich prize no matter what it’s carrying. We can give you an escort as far as this side of the pass, but beyond that you’re gonna be at risk for raiders."
Marcus nodded in agreement. "The trucks can only carry so much gas with them, that’s why getting the convoy that took Hannah across the range was such an effort. We had to set up supply depots at the pass, so we could refuel all the trucks and refill all the gas cans the trucks carried. Only by having topped off tanks, and every full gas can the trucks could carry, could we get a convoy across the range. It’s wild territory, and once you’re past the tar swamps, it’s completely uninhabited except for roving packs of raiders."
Modo relayed Talon’s message at that information. "My sis says she can teleport us in enough gas every night to keep us going, the way she has been so far, so we can move much faster than trucks loaded down with gas cans, but how much trouble can we expect for one truck and a bike, moving real fast?"
The various faces around the table looked thoughtful. A stunning young woman in brown leathers stepped forward, and Modo recognized her as one of the twin biker babes who had escorted them in.
"You might be able to make it through, if we cleared a path for you," she announced clearly.
Hannah turned her gaze toward her. "What do you mean, Evie?" The young woman; Modo got his first good look in her eyes and revised his estimation of her radically, the young warrior folded her arms and looked ruthless.
"We were planning a shipment towards the rim settlements anyway. We put together a fake convoy and send it out on our regular route this afternoon, but we stock the trucks with troops instead. When the raiders see the convoy, they’ll come after it, they always do. We’ll wait to send Modo and Hannah out until it’s dark and they can slip through the empty territory behind us. They’ll be past the swamps into the pass before the raiders realize they were ever there, and once we know they’ve gone by, we spring the trap ourselves." Her hand made a quick slicing motion. "And the raiders get their noses bloodied. They’ve been getting too daring lately anyway."
Everyone at the table considered her plan. Modo could find no flaws with it, and if they could slip past the raiders and be into the pass tonight, the faster they could be on their way tomorrow. He wasn’t crazy enough to try to go through the pass himself at night, but if Hannah knew the way they might be able to make it that far.
"I think I can add something to that." Modo commented meditatively, "I can link Hannah’s and my helmets into my bike’s night-vision sensors. As long as she stays right behind me, we can move across the prairie in complete darkness, no headlights or running lights at all. That should make us a lot harder to spot in the dark."
Rand nodded decisively. "With the combination of all three you could make it through." He stood up and leaned his knuckles on the table. "Are we agreed?"
A ragged chorus of agreement followed. Marcus stood up too and the rest of the family waited for his instructions.
"Hannah, you take Modo down to the kitchen cavern and get a fresh set of supplies and some food for you both. Rand, get the fastest truck we have, gas it up and load it with the silver. Make sure it’s secure. Evie, Miriam, you two pick your strike teams and get the trucks and weapons set up for the decoy convoy. You’ll move out as soon as you’re ready, and we’ll send Hannah and Modo out behind you as soon as it’s full dark." The clan split up, most moving out swiftly, voices already discussing the situation.
Marcus turned to Hannah. "Off you go, granddaughter, and try to get some rest if you can, you’ve got a good five or six hours before we can send you out." Hannah nodded, and Modo picked up Mary and set her on his shoulder as he stood. Marcus headed out the same archway Rand had disappeared through, and Hannah led him through a different one.
"Auntie Hannah?" Mary’s voice made both Hannah and Modo look up at her, and their somber faces lightened as they walked down the long stone hallway.
"Yes, honey?" Hannah reached up and tweaked a small bare foot gently.
"Will you show me your picture-book when we get to the kitchen?"
Hannah had to laugh at her anxious, serious expression, and assured her kindly, "Of course, honey, I’ll show you everything I’ve seen while I was gone."
Modo looked over at her. "Picture book?"
Hannah flushed a little. "It’s just my sketchbook. The kids like to see the sketches I do of the places I’ve been. It’s in that little bundle of my stuff in the supply pack."
They passed several more archways, and a staircase leading higher, before Hannah turned into an archway with a shallow flight of steps leading down. They emerged into a long, high-vaulted room, with rows of tables and benches along one wall, and a row of stoves and ovens on the other. The far end of the room was given over to shelves of dishes and cookware above a row of large sinks. Modo gave into his curiosity and asked, "Why are all the ceilings and doorways arched? There isn’t a right angle anywhere here."
"Hummn? Oh, we’re always short of support timbers for the mines, so when we build our living spaces, we vault the ceilings so we don’t have to use support beams. The arches and vaults support themselves."
Modo looked thoughtful and filed that fact away in the back of his mind. If it worked here, it ought to work on Mars, too… Hannah led him over to a huge iron stove set in a fireplace alcove that had to be cut into an exterior wall, as a large metal smokestack led from the back of it up and into the wall. The top of the stove was warm, and a large pot of something was sitting on the back. Hannah opened the oven door and took out one of several loaves of bread staying warm in it, and set it on the nearest table.
Several of the younger children came bouncing in, two of the larger ones carrying the pack from his bike. Hannah smiled at them all and gestured for Modo to seat himself at the nearest table. The children settled around him happily, leaving the pack on the tabletop, and as Hannah dished up two plates of the whatever-it-was, and added thick slices of the fresh-cut bread, two more black-haired children ran for glasses and a pitcher made of thick, bubbly glass, one of them disappearing down through yet another archway and returning with the pitcher full of something that looked and smelled identical to apple cider.
He took a drink of it curiously, and one of the pair that had brought it topped off his glass vigilantly.
"Do you like our cider, Unca Modo?" Mary asked curiously. "We can grow apples on our mountain," she added seriously.
Laughing at the weird, unlikely symmetry of the universes, Modo told her, "It’s the best cider I’ve ever had, darlin’." Hannah sat down beside them, placing a loaded plate on the table in front of him. Mary slid out of his lap to let him eat, but stationed herself between him and Hannah. The crowd of children regarded Hannah yearningly, and she reached over with a chuckle and pulled a leather-wrapped rectangle out of the bottom of the pack, handing it to the children. They pounced on it happily, but the largest child unwrapped it quite carefully, with all the others peering over his shoulder, not touching it.
Modo, despite devouring his helping hungrily, regarded the upside-down book curiously as they opened it, and his eye widened at the scenes drawn there. The first page was a perfect rendering of the City in the Sea from Jack’s garage, and the following pages revealed scenes of the garage itself, sketches of Jack, Kirgo, Mustafa and a wild shot of Hermes yawning, toothy maw agape, that had the children giggling immediately. Further pages revealed scenes of sambucks grazing, a magnificent scene of the triceratops bull with the broken horn, bellowing from a rocky crag, and so many sketches of Cadillacs and dinosaurs Modo chuckled himself.
One sketch caught his attention so strongly he nearly choked on a bite, and the boy turning the pages looked up at him.
"Could I see that one, partner?" Modo asked, and the lad turned the book right side up to him and slid it closer. It was a picture of Talon, in very nearly the same pose he had first seen the night they arrived here, sprawled on a couch with Hermes’ snoring head in her lap. Hannah had captured the expression of goofy, ridiculously contented slumber in his reptilian face perfectly, as well as the amused, doting look on Tally’s, and he wondered absently if Hannah would consider giving it to him when he left. Throttle, Vinnie and Charley would love it…
"Is that the starchild?" The boy asked gravely, his dark eyes curious.
"Yes, that’s my sister."
"Why is she your sister when you look so different?" The boy looked around at all his cousins, and continued, "We all look so alike, sometimes the adults can’t tell us apart."
"She’s my sister ‘cause she married my brother, Throttle."
The pert, inquisitive demeanor of all of them sharpened noticeably. "Is he here too?"
Modo shook his head as he finished the last of the bread. "No, he had to stay on Mars. He had an important job to do there."
"Oh." They digested that, then a dark-eyed girl, with long black braids that reminded him of Tally’s, asked timidly, "Do you think they’ll ever come here?"
Modo grinned at her as Mary reclaimed her spot in his lap, "I’ll make sure of it." All of them beamed like he’d just promised them the moon. They turned the book back around again and continued flipping through the pages slowly. As they approached the back of the book, an outburst of shrill laughter rang through the room.
"Unca Modo, it’s you!" Mary sang out in delight. Sure enough, the last picture in the book was of him! It had to have been done yesterday night, as it was of him standing bare-chested and barefoot, in front of Lil’ Darlin’, with a blanket wrapped around his waist, and water dripping off his ears and whiskers. Hannah had captured the bedraggled expression on his face beautifully, and she went red as a cherry but laughed right along with the rest of them.
"Gotcha," was all she said, but the faintly wicked gleam in her eye told him she’d make it up to him later.
***
Modo and Hannah had collapsed for three hours’ slumber, regrettably, in separate rooms, when the decoy convoy led by Evie and Miriam pulled out. Wishing she could have hugged her sister good-by, but knowing she needed rest far more, Miriam waved to Rand and Mary as she led the convoy out, three big trucks pulling out after her Jeep. Evie and her twin followed them, their dirt bikes ranging out on either side of the middle truck. Marcus came to stand beside Rand as the convoy moved out.
"Not worried, are you?" Marcus asked quietly.
Rand glanced over at his father-in-law and a wry grin twisted his mouth. "Nah, I feel sorry for the poachers. Evie couldn’t have wished for a better opportunity to prove her point about teaching the raiders a lesson. She won’t miss her chance now. A convoy with twice the usual number of transports and only half the usual number of guards? The raiders will jump at the chance, and Evie won’t leave enough of them to feed the scavengers."
Laughter bubbled up out of Marcus, and his lined face creased in a smile eerily reminiscent of Evie’s. "She always was my best student."
"And people wonder why Dundee Peak’s never been taken." Rand shook his head. "Not me. Dundee women are tough."
Mary explained gravely, "Our family is our strength, Da, as long as we stand together, nothing can stop us. Mama and Auntie Hannah always say that."
Both men gazed down at the small, serious child clinging to Rand’s hand. Rand picked up his little daughter, and hugged her tightly. "And we just keep breeding more."
"At least Hannah’s picked a husband different enough so we’ll able to tell hers apart from the rest."
Rand snickered at Marcus’ comment and regarded him speculatively. "You think Modo would consider staying with us?"
Marcus’ dark eyes were wise as he replied, "Modo has much yet to do in his life, but when his tasks are done, he’ll come back. I don’t need two eyes to see into a man’s heart. He’ll be back, and Hannah will be waiting." Rand snorted softly once in laughter, and he and Marcus turned back to the cave together.
***
As night was falling over the plains, Rand came to wake Modo, and shook the big mouse’s shoulder as he lay sprawled snoring. The volume of the snores made Rand smother a grin; and as Modo roused, his eye opening and the snores ceasing, Rand extended a hand to him.
"C’mon, big fella, time to go. It’s past sunset and it’ll be full dark soon. You and Hannah have to be on your way."
Modo ran his flesh hand over his face and flexed his steel arm. The repairs Jack had done weren’t pretty, but they had certainly worked. He’d be interested to see what Jack could do when he had time to do the job properly.
"Ask ya something?" Rand commented idly.
Modo looked up at him in surprise as he stood up. "Sure."
Rand nodded at his arm. "Where’d you get that?"
Modo flexed his arm again and as he did so, the sharp lash of shame failed to lacerate his soul the way it usually did when people asked about his arm.
"Same place I lost the eye," he responded, "in a stinking Plutarkian prison camp to a mad scientist who liked lab animals that could talk, or at least scream, back." He shrugged. "It used to bother me a lot more, but…" he smiled a little ironically, "I think I’m learning better than to judge myself by the outside. Too bad it took me so long to get it."
"You’d make a hell of an Old Blood." Rand thumped his metal shoulder firmly.
"You’re another one of them, aren’t you? An Old Blood Mechanic, like Jack Tenrec?" Modo followed Rand out of the room, ducking his head automatically as he passed through the doorway.
"Yeah, the McLains are as old a family as the Tenrecs. There aren’t many of us left now." Rand looked desolate in a way Modo recognized.
"You’re the last of your family, aren’t you?"
Rand nodded, "I was lucky to find Miriam. She made me realize while my old family was gone, there was no reason I couldn’t have a new one. Mary and our two other children will be Old Blood Mechanics, and they’ll have a horde of Dundee cousins to help them maintain the Machinato Vitae. The circle of life turns, and what was blighted by the past grows strong in the future. It’s the way of the machinery of life."
Modo just looked at him as they emerged from the cave and out into the clearing in front of the cliff. Hannah and Marcus were standing by Lil’ Darlin’, and parked by her was a large 4-wheel drive pickup, with a heavy crate lashed into the bed. Mary was sitting on the bike, and her little face was rapturous as Lil’ Darlin’ twinkled stars across the radar screen at her. Both men had to chuckle at the sight, and Hannah looked up with a welcoming smile.
"Time to go," was all she said.
Modo nodded assent and stretched out a hand to Marcus. "Thank you, sir, for everything you’ve done." Marcus clasped his hand with the same firm grip he had when they’d first met. Could it only be half a day ago? It felt like a lifetime since he’d come to this strange world.
The silver-haired patriarch made no mention of the circumstances that had brought him there, but said only, "We hope you’ll come back and see us again, Modo, Dundee Peak will always have a warm welcome waiting for you."
A slow smile stretched over Modo’s face. "I think I’ll take you up on that offer someday, sir."
An answering smile lit Marcus’ dark eyes. "Make it soon."
"Soon as my world’s free."
Rand simply held out a hand. "Remember the circle, Modo. It always brings things back around." Modo gripped his scarred hand, and the two men exchanged a look of profound respect.
Mary held up her arms to him, in the same silent entreaty to be held that had captivated Modo when he first saw her. He lifted her off the bike and hugged her with exquisite gentleness, holding her tightly for a minute before handing her to Rand.
"You take good care of your family, sweetheart." His metal hand caressed her black hair, and she grabbed at it, and he let her pull him close enough so she could kiss his furry cheek.
"Come back soon, Unca Modo," she uttered seriously. His heart melted at her sober mien, and a stray thought hit him that she would wrap his bros around those tiny fingers just as easily…
Hannah hugged her grandfather, then Rand, and her father, mother and brother Deke appeared out of the gathering darkness. They each embraced her tightly, and then Hannah took a deep breath and climbed into the truck cab, pulling on Tally’s helmet. Modo slung a leg over Lil’ Darlin’ and she responded with a roar of her engine as he tugged on his own helmet.
"You ready, Hannah?"
Her voice came back over the helmet radio calm and focused. "Ready when you are."
Modo flipped the switch that activated the bike’s night-sight scanners, and the visor of his helmet took on a greenish cast as the AI layered the sensor images over it. Everything around him sprang out into green-edged relief, and he heard Hannah’s gasp as the image relayed to the helmet she wore.
"Stay right behind me, babe." After a moment he added, "And don’t run over me."
She laughed, and Lil’ Darlin pulled out and headed back up the lakeside road, the pickup following close behind. They both looked back and waved, and the standing figures waved back. Knowing how she must feel, Modo ventured gently, "You’ll come back, you know."
"I know," she answered quietly. And they drove on into the night.
***
Many miles away, the convoy was moving slowly across the plains, skirting the opposite edge of the tar swamps from Hannah and Modo, the headlights of the trucks making the convoy visible for miles. The swamps ran along the edge of the mountain range here, and the thick stench of the bubbling tar was enough to deaden a person’s sense of smell for hours.
Evie pulled her bike up next to Miriam’s jeep.
"Modo and Hannah should be on their way by now," she shouted to Miriam, "How much time do you think we have?"
Miriam yelled back, "Not much, as soon as we get out of sight of the mountain’s lookouts they’ll hit us. Have you spotted them yet?"
Evie’s grin would have made a velociraptor turn around and look for easier prey. "Three separate scout patrols. This is gonna be fun!"
Miriam laughed back, and the two women bared their teeth at each other. The convoy had continued less than a mile when the first pack of raiders attacked, half a dozen four-wheelers screaming out from behind an outcrop of rock, hurling crudely made gas bombs at them.
Even as they did, a second group of poachers, infuriated at the thought of losing such a rich prize, attacked simultaneously. This group was mounted in small light trucks, four of them, and they were armed with flame-tipped arrows. One of the shots got lucky and lodged in the canvas top of one the trucks, and Evie and Miriam exchanged a look, bike and jeep racing side by side. Miriam shook her head, and held her arm up over her head. The convoy picked up speed, as if to outrun the raiders, and with that tactic the third group of poachers attacked, these in two big Land Rovers.
That was all the two were waiting for, but as Miriam picked up a flare gun and prepared to spring the trap, a fourth group of raiders entered the fight, these five latecomers mounted on motorcycles. Evie’s eyes blazed black fire at the sight of these, and she screamed a battle cry of raw rage and spun her bike around, headed straight for the leader.
Miriam shook her head at the impatience of youth and fired a flare into the sky, driving with one capable hand. The flare burst with a spray of white sparks, bathing the whole scene in harsh white light. It illuminated the entire area, and with that signal the tarps covering the back of the trucks were pulled away, quickly smothering the small fire on the one truck that had been hit, and a roar of multiple engines split the night. The three trucks split from single file, and as they did, three of the light dune buggies jumped from the back of the largest truck, an old army transport. Seven more motorcycles jumped from the back of the truck behind it, and the last truck, a large pickup with an open bed, had the tarp covering the lumpy items in the back pulled away to reveal an enormous crossbow bolted to the bed. A silent ripple of dismay ran through the raiders, and as they tried futilely to fall back, a hail of firepower cut them down.
The first shot from the massive crossbow, tipped with dynamite ignited just before firing, hit the lead truck of the second group of raiders, and it detonated with a massive explosion that sent a fireball of flame into the sky. The truck was flung into the air like a toy, and as it flipped end-over-end, flames outlining it, it struck another pickup from the same gang. The driver of this truck leaped from the cab as it rolled, and the second truck’s gas tank blew with another shattering explosion. Two of the light dune buggies had bracketed the biggest Land Rover, and the drivers hurled glass bottles filled with sticky tar at the windshield. The bottles broke with a flood of black goo, and the driver, blinded, tried to stop and succeeded only in rolling the Rover.
Evie had cocked her double crossbow and sent the first shot through the front tire of the leader of the motorcycle raiders, and as the front wheel locked and the bike tumbled, spilling its rider, her victory scream could be heard clearly over the noise of the battle. She didn’t waste a second whipping her bike around, and her second shot shattered the back windscreen of the one of the second group of raider’s trucks, and as the driver fought to see, a much better-constructed gas bomb from another Dundee biker was hurled at the front tire, the resulting explosion blowing the truck onto its side.
A second shot from the gigantic crossbow took out the second Land-Rover, the raiders too startled and disorganized to counterattack, and the raid was rapidly becoming a rout as the coordinated attacks of Miriam and Evie’s strike teams cut the raiders to pieces and destroyed them wholesale. One whole group of raiders taken out in the first three minutes of battle rattled the remaining raiders mightily, and the rest broke and ran.
By now the convoy had separated slightly, and Miriam picked up her flare pistol again. She pulled the wheel hard over, and the bikers and dune buggies not already engaged formed up in a flying wedge on her Jeep. She headed after the first group of poachers, the ones mounted on four-wheelers, who had taken one look at the firepower mounted against them and bugged out. Miriam aimed for the center of the group and fired. The flare shot out ahead of the retreating raiders and burst just in front of them. The group split in all directions, one four-wheeler tumbling as the rider panicked and jumped for it.
Miriam swerved to miss him and the trio of dirt bikes ridden by black-haired Dundee youths pulled out in front of her, leather bolos with heavy iron weights swinging above their heads. They flanked another four-wheeler and the trio let fly all at once, the driver managing to dodge one of the bolos, but the other two tangled his arms and he fell sideways off the machine from the impact of one of the heavy iron weights directly on his throat. Miriam dropped her flare gun and picking up her crossbow, rested it on the front of the Jeep and took careful aim at one of the remaining raiders. Her shot scored on the back tire and it rolled too, the rider tumbling through the tall grass.
Deciding that the two remaining raiders of this group could be taken down easily enough by her bikers; Miriam radioed the dune buggies to head back to the main battle. It would be all over soon enough… why didn’t they ever learn?
***
Modo jerked his head around as the sky to the west exploded. Fireballs lit the night and flares burst over the plains in white blossoms of phosphorus.
"What the hell?" He yelled, about to swing back and take on whatever the hell it was single-handed, when Hannah’s clarion laughter stopped him cold.
"That’s our side, love, I know Miriam’s signal when I see it."
Modo pulled to a stop and flicked the long-range sensors on his helmet to their fullest. He was just in time to see Evie’s first shot take out the leader of the biker gang, and Hannah’s cheer rang in his ears. Realizing her helmet was still hooked into his, Modo and Hannah watched the progress of the battle, Modo with sheer amazement and Hannah with smug satisfaction. It was barely twenty minutes before the battle was over, and Modo fancied he could almost hear the cheer go up from the Dundee vehicles as they regrouped and turned for home, leaving the flaming wrecks behind them.
He turned to Hannah. "Remind me never to piss off your family."
She flipped up the visor of Tally’s helmet and gave him an arch look. "You should worry about me, handsome, I was sent as an ambassador ‘cause I was the toughest of us."
Modo gave her a faintly wild-eyed look, but "Right," was all he said.
"C’mon," she said, "we can still make it to the entrance of the pass tonight."
"Yes, ma’am." He said, and automatically saluted to Hannah’s delighted laughter.
***
Later that night, Modo and Hannah camped just inside the entrance to the pass across the mountains. He and Hannah hadn’t bothered with a fire or a meal, since they’d eaten earlier, but found a sheltered spot and parked the truck. With Lil’ Darlin’ keeping a vigilant electronic eye on their surroundings, they were as safe as could reasonably be expected.
Talon had contacted them at moonrise and ‘ported in a hefty supply of gas, and Modo let her scan the memories of his meeting with the Dundee clan and the subsequent pitched battle that had taken place in the plains below them.
Tally’s delighted mental laughter had echoed through his mind, and she told him wickedly, *You better make sure your intentions toward the lady are honorable, bro.*
Modo’s deep chuckle rumbled through their link, and he responded, *First time I’d be more afraid of a lady’s sisters coming after me than her brothers.*
*From the looks of it, you should be. What a family!* Talon’s thought softened and she blew him a fond mental kiss. *This trip is doing you a lot of good, bro. I can feel the difference in your mind.*
*I think the Machinato Vitae is teaching me a few things.* He paused, unsure how to voice his feelings, then realized he didn’t have too, and simply sent across the link the whole tangled bundle of emotions and personal revelations that had swept over him since they arrived. Tally took a moment to experience his sending fully, and a kind, affectionate thought wrapped around his mind.
*Ah, bro, we never loved you any the less because of what Karbunkle did to you, you know that, don’t you? Do you think I love Throttle any the less when he looks at me through those bionic eyes?*
Modo sighed deeply, and Hannah, fast asleep with her head pillowed in his lap, shifted slightly and he stroked her soft hair gently until she quieted.
*I know, and I would have decked anyone who even implied he or Vinnie were less than whole because of what had been done to them. But when I looked at myself I saw…*
Tally answered softly, *… a hideous bastard blend of metal and flesh, that made you feel so dirty and unclean…so much less than human… or Martian, in your case.*
Memories much older than any involving him and his bros flowed across the back of her mind, and Modo caught a glimpse of a rugged human face, and heard a snick of metal echo from her memory.
*You’ve helped heal someone else from this, haven’t you?* Modo mused silently that as well as he knew the twists and turns of Throttle’s beloved’s mind, he still knew next to nothing about her family or her past. For all she mentioned her beloved clan so often, Tally had never told the mice or Charley anything about them, and he didn’t even know how many new relatives he had acquired when Throttle had proposed so unexpectedly to her.
*My clan-brother… he had almost the same thing happen to him as happened to you. He was used as an unwilling guinea pig in a series of medical experiments. He had most of his memories ripped from his head and a series of false ones implanted. To this day he still doesn’t really know what happened to him, or who he really is, but it doesn’t bother him any more either. It’s the past, and he is himself, and we all love him with all our hearts and sparks and souls…*
*What’s his name?* Modo ‘pathed, wanting a name to attach to that grim, tough face, with a soul of unbelievable kindness and fierce, devoted loyalty behind it.
*Logan…*
*Remind me to say hi when we finally get to meet your clan… why haven’t you ever told us anything about them?* A thread of amusement laced through his thoughts. *Ashamed of us?*
*Hardly. Of them, maybe?* Her joke was laced with weary amusement too, *but no, it’s just meeting my highly unusual inter-dimensional clan will force a lot of tough choices and personal issues on Throttle, and he’s got enough to cope with now. Heck, the word ‘clan’ isn’t even strictly accurate, but it’s the closest word in the English language to what we are. My family all know what’s happened, and are very happy for us both, but we all agree it’s best to let things settle down in your world before we dump another dozen universes’ worth of trouble in our laps. They’ll wait, we have all the time in the omniverse…*
*Tell me one thing?* Modo sent absently, fatigue beginning to overwhelm him.
*Sure…*
*How many are there in your family?* His curiosity washed over Tally, and she chuckled.
*Counting me, there are ten in our clan. I have nine… clan-brothers, I’m the only girl…*
*So that’s why you’re such a cuddlekitty, you’ve had nine older brothers to spoil you?*
Talon’s laugh echoed through his mind again. *Not quite, Lucas is younger than me…he’s only seventeen, but he spent ten years in relativity stasis, so he’s really twenty-seven chronologically. But he spoils me just as badly as the rest.*
Modo laughed back, *Nothing with you is ever uncomplicated… and who’s the oldest?*
*That’s Optimus, he’s around seven million or so in Earth years…we sorta lost track…*
Modo’s jaw dropped. *Seven million?* A positive tsunami of amazement crashed over Talon.
*He’s at least that old, like I said, we sorta lost track…ya know, that’s a really good question, bro. I think I’ll ask Alpha Trion the next time I hit Cybertron.*
*Lemme know when ya do…* Another gaping yawn caught him unawares, and Talon sent a peaceful *Night, bro,* as she let the link between them fade so he could sleep. Modo lifted Hannah’s head from his lap and gathered her into his arms as he stretched out beside her.
"And I thought your family was overwhelming," he murmured, "wait’ll you meet mine… heck, wait’ll I meet mine…" and sleep claimed him.
***
Talon smiled to herself as she felt Modo sink into sleep. She was sitting on a cracked, heaved slab of concrete a short distance from the reactor buildings, just far enough away so the ambient noises of the jungle overwhelmed the persistent low babble of human conversation. A small rustle of foliage alerted her to Hermes’ return, and the big lizard pushed through the thick undergrowth and paced into the clearing. His red-tinged muzzle told Tally he’d managed to secure himself some supper, and she idly rezzed up a damp cloth and clucked for Hermes to come over to her. He collapsed beside her with his usual dust-raising whump, and angled his head into her lap. Tally smiled briefly and began cleaning the blood from his muzzle with the cloth.
"Let’s not scare everyone else in the party, huh, boy?" she said softly, and began crooning a little tune under her breath to him as she washed his face. The dinosaur rumbled contentedly and closed his eyes in bliss. Tally wished Throttle and Chance could be here to share it all with her…
***
Jack sat back on his stool and gazed with pride upon his work. The carefully arranged pieces didn’t look like anything now, maybe, but all he needed now was a day or two to rebuild the frame of Modo’s arm and he could completely upgrade the whole arm with the modifications he’d constructed. Increased strength, (not much, but why not), a much gentler touch and much finer grasp in the fingers, (the finally-located negative feedback circuitry had been essential there), and a vastly improved targeting system for the arm cannon lying on the workbench. Modo had to leave without it, as it was one of the most badly damaged pieces, Jack hoped he’d gotten by with the heavy blaster in his belt. With a bit of help from Hannah’s artist’s hands, to help him wrap the silvery coils of circuitry around the redesigned frame in the same patterns as the muscles and tendons on his other arm, and except for the silvery metal composition, the new cybernetic arm would be nearly identical in outline and shape to Modo’s flesh arm. Except for a small surprise he had planned…
"Better than that clumsy rectangular design, whoever designed that thing had a screw loose anyway…" Jack grumbled, spreading a dustsheet over the whole mess and stretching shoulders cramped from hours of sitting hunched over the workbench. He ambled out of the repair bay, palming the switch by the door as he left.
***
Back in the City in the Sea, Governor Scharnhorst was pacing irritably around her office. The large room, with one whole stone wall open to a marble balcony overlooking the city, was hung with maps and diagrams, the furniture was beautifully carved woods of different types, and a hand-woven carpet bearing the City in the Sea’s sea-serpent logo covered the floor in front of her desk. A functional tickertape telegraph occupied a place of honor on a separate table, and the message that had just come through, independently confirming the radio report from the reactor ruins, infuriated her.
The radio report received from Toulouse a few minutes ago had clearly stated a raider’s attack on the silver transport had been foiled, but she had no idea if it had been Hammer and his gang, or just some random pack of thieves. Her plans had been a failure again, and there was no doubt that the other Governors were beginning to look at her with speculative eyes. She’d seen that same look when she railroaded her predecessor out of office. And her spies had reported that Toulouse and the other Governor, the serenely beautiful Dahlgren, were discussing appointing Hannah Dundee to the Governor’s Board in an official capacity, and that meant she was on the way out.
Scharnhorst threw herself into her chair and slammed her fists down on her broad, elegantly carved desk. Looking around at the plush surroundings of her office, there was no way she was going to give this up without a fight, the power more than anything.
"Captain Nock!" she bellowed irritably.
The thin, bald man, in a meticulously tailored brown uniform, that answered her shout closed the door carefully behind him as he entered. He knew well when Governor Scharnhorst bellowed like that, it was best not to let anyone overhear what she said next.
"Yes, Governor?"
Scharnhorst glowered over the desk at him, and the Captain felt a cold stab of fear. He’d never seen a look like that on Scharnhorst’s face before, and he did not like it at all.
"As soon as it’s light, send an extra detachment of troops to the entrance of this side of the pass to escort the silver transport to the reactor. We don’t want any more chances of raiders getting to the silver."
"Yes, Governor." Captain Nock didn’t wait for her to change her mind, but got out while he still could stomach his orders.
Scharnhorst leaned back in her chair and schemed. If Hammer thought he was going to take that silver and run, he’d get a rude surprise if he wasn’t fast enough to elude the troopers, whose presence should convince him it would be a bad idea to double-cross her. If the troopers did get the silver, she might still arrange to have it fall into her hands. That much silver could buy her a lot of influence in any changes to the Governor’s Board. And if, say, one of the other Governors should meet with an unfortunate accident, the two remaining Governors would have to choose a third, and if something unfortunate happened to the Dundee woman too, then she was practically guaranteed to get someone appointed to the Governor’s Board who would be firmly under her control. Either way, she won, and kept her position.
And if the death of their ambassador convinced the people of Wassoon that cooperation between the cities was a bad idea, it would be a little unexpected bonus…
***
The next morning dawned gray and overcast, with low scudding dark clouds whipping in a brisk wind that still carried a faint salt tinge of the sea. Hannah cast an appraising eye at the sky overhead and did not like what she saw. For the wind so far inland to smell of the sea, the wind had to be moving hard and fast and high… It was late in the year, and the pounding rains of winter were too near to be safely traveling in the pass. Mudslides and rockfalls were common as the ground shifted under the torrential rains, and Jack had mentioned several times in the past month that the Machinato Vitae was showing all the signs of an early and hard advent to the seasonal rains.
"Modo," she warned, walking over to where he was filling Lil’ Darlin’s gas tank, "be careful of the trail today, the sky could dump on us any time, and the pass isn’t safe this late in the year."
Modo finished pouring the rest of the gas into the bike’s tank, and asked, "Can we make it through the pass today, darlin’?"
Hannah held up her hand and seesawed it cautiously. "Maybe, if the trail is clear, and we don’t have to dig out any landslides blocking the trail. If we do have to stop, even once, we’ll have to camp in the pass for another night, and I don’t like that idea one little bit. Not this close to the rains."
He tossed the gas can into the back of her truck and put his arms around her. "We’ll make it, darlin’, just you wait and see." Hannah had to grin at his unshakeable optimism. She twined her fingers into the soft fur at the nape of his neck and collected a lingering kiss before they started out. Modo handed her into the truck and checked her helmet over before she pulled it on. If the pass was this dangerous, then staying in constant communication could be vital; and if they got to talk as they drove along, it was just sensible to be sure the radios were still working, wasn’t it?
***
Back at Jack’s garage, he was high in the observatory tower above the rest of the buildings, moodily staring out over the plains towards the pass, when he nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a footstep behind him. The observation room wasn’t much more than a roof set on four heavy stone pillars, with a waist-high stone balustrade for safety reasons, and a stairway leading back down through the floor into the inner recesses of the garage. A rebuilt telescope was swivel-mounted to the paved stone floor, allowing 360-degree observation of the surrounding area with it.
"Jack?" Talon’s light voice drifted up, and the breeze caught her flowing white-gold braids and floated them out behind her like a banner as she emerged from the stairwell.
"How did you get here?" Jack asked, amazed.
"I teleported," she answered, as if puzzled by the question.
"I thought you hadn’t been strong enough to do that for a while." He examined her narrowly, but had to admit, at least to himself, she was looking much improved from the pale white wraith that had appeared in answer to his desperate call for help. When Jack had gotten his first good look at Talon, the night she’d arrived, he’d been all but horrified by her appearance, but her razor-sharp glance had told him she would not welcome any comments on the matter in front of her new brother. But the dark shadows under her green eyes had faded, the shining luster had returned to her velvety fur and long hair, and the lithe agility was back in her movements. For the few days she’d been here, her recovery had been almost startling.
"What really happened to you?" he asked abruptly, deciding as long as he had some privacy, he was going to get the whole story of her recent misadventure. Modo had told him everything he knew, Jack was sure, but Jack was also sure there was something Talon hadn’t told anyone. He knew that, and as long as he had the time to get to the bottom of the matter, he meant to get the whole account, whether Talon wanted to tell him or not.
Talon looked over at him, reading the stubborn lines around his mouth and eyes, and immediately realizing she was going to lose this fight, gave in.
Knowing she really ought to tell someone, she admitted softly, "I don’t know, Jack." Of all the responses Jack had been prepared to deal with, that wasn’t one of them.
"What do you mean, you don’t know?" Jack sat down on the wide, waist-high ledge around the edge of the tower, bracing his back against one of the stone pillars supporting the roof, and held out a hand. Talon wrinkled her nose at him, but came over and sat down in front of him, tucking herself into the curve of his arms, and leaned back against his chest.
Jack wrapped his arms around her waist for reassurance, knowing her dislike of heights, and prompted, "Well?"
"I don’t remember, Jack." Talon’s sharp worry about her lack of memory came across clearly in the wire-tight tension in her body. "For the life of me, I can’t remember anything past the first few hours Throttle and I were in that sensory deprivation tank. Neither can he, for what it’s worth. Whenever I try to access the memories, I run up against a mental block like a wall. I can’t get past it, no matter how I try. One of my clan is going to have to go in and literally break down that barrier to get to whatever memory I’m suppressing. I can’t do it myself."
She slumped dispiritedly and continued, "Reno can’t do it, the neuro-trauma to his telepathic abilities hasn’t healed enough to do this kind of forced deep-scan. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to go and see Morgan, who I know can break down the block, but there hasn’t been two minutes for me to even think about taking off, and none of the rest of our clan has the kind of specialized mental skills to do this. Even though we’re all telepathically linked, Morgan and I are the only Mind-Healers in the bunch, and it’s painfully apparent I can’t do this myself." Talon paused, then forced herself to say, "For my subconscious to put up so strong a block, something must have happened in there that I’m not prepared to deal with." She looked over her shoulder at Jack and her eyes were haunted. "I can’t imagine what it was, and it scares me to death…"
"And that fear reinforces the block," Jack deduced.
"I’m ’fraid so." A convulsive shiver made Jack tighten his grip on her, a fiercely protective look on his face Modo would have recognized.
"Kwahoon… if we can’t do anything about it, then we can’t do anything about it, but if you need me for anything…" Jack trailed off. Talon smiled up at him.
"I’ll ask." She gazed out over the pristinely beautiful landscape spread out beneath her. "But you’re doing enough now. I haven’t felt this good since all of it happened." A reflective, contemplative expression settled over her features. "I started to get better while we were on Earth, but once I was on Mars, something just drained me constantly. It was like the planet itself was…" She went so rigid Jack peered down at her worriedly, the fur on her arms was standing straight up.
"What?" he asked, concerned.
"Shining Nova that spawned us all from the Void of Darkness! That’s it," Talon breathed, her fur prickling and her tail spiked, "that’s why I couldn’t get better on Mars. The planet is draining me."
"What?" The big mechanic stared down at her in complete bafflement as she shivered once. "Why?"
"I’m a healer, Jack. Above and beyond all my other responsibilities as an ILEA operative, that’s why I was chosen to be one. We’re a lot less common in the omniverse than you might think. And if there was ever a planet that needed help, it’s Mars. It’s draining the healing energy out of me nonstop as long as I’m there; that’s why I got better so fast when I arrived here. Not only did the drain stop, but there’s such an abundance of life-energy here I just soaked it up like a sponge, I was so depleted." Talon’s green eyes were so wide they all but eclipsed the rest of her face, and her sleekly pointed ears were pressed flat against her skull. "Mars… the damn planet itself wants me to heal it."
Jack gaped down at her in open-mouthed amazement. "Is that possible? Can you heal a whole world?"
Tally shrugged with a nonchalant carelessness that didn’t come off terribly convincingly.
"I don’t know. I’ve never tried." Her brows puckered as she tried to imagine what would be required to restore a planet as badly stripped as barren Mars. "I guess, if I assembled the whole clan, and with all of us working together," her eyebrows rose, "maybe… we could. At least a start…" This time Jack shivered.
"This is heavy-duty, kitty-kin," he turned her around and stared her straight in the eyes, "I won’t ask you not to try, but promise me you’ll be careful?"
"I promise, Jack." His use of Modo’s favorite endearment for her amused Talon mightily, and her fur settled down as she relaxed.
"On the Machinato Vitae?"
Her rueful expression reassured him. "On the Machinato Vitae."
"Good enough." Having thrashed that out, Jack asked absently, "So what were you doing here anyway?"
"I want to go meet Modo and Hannah at the entrance to the pass. I can’t shake the feeling something bad’s going to happen there." Her face lost its preoccupied expression, and she turned towards the ridge of the mountains. "I know the garage well enough to teleport here, and I fixed a return set of coordinates in my memory when I jumped here, so I could ‘port back to the reactor if I needed to, but I’ve never been to the pass, so if we want to meet them there..."
"…we’d have to drive." Jack finished, knowing Talon couldn’t teleport to a place she’d never been to.
"You got it." Her speculative look teased him. "Feel like getting out of here for a while?"
Jack laughed and set Tally back on her feet, standing up behind her. "Since I finished the work on the parts for Modo’s arm, Mustafa’s been digging up things for me to do to keep out of his hair. I think I ought to get out of here before he loses his patience, and parts my skull with a hammer."
"Let’s go." And the pair trotted down the stairs, their laughter lingering in the air behind them. A fragment of conversation drifted back up the stairwell.
"Oh, and Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"We’re not going to tell anyone about this little revelation, are we?"
"Not if you don’t want me to."
"Thanks."
***
High above the pass, Mikla, Hammer’s steadiest and brightest gang member, was perched on a stone outcrop with the gang’s one and only pair of binoculars in her hands, patiently watching a stone pass miles away. There was one small section of the trail that was visible from her post, but their quarry would only be in sight for a few minutes, so if she missed them, the whole ambush could be thrown off. That was why she, the most reliable one, was perched on this wind-scoured peak freezing her ears off and reflecting there were disadvantages to being competent in a group of nitwits. What Hammer would do if she missed them didn’t bear thinking about, either.
But fate was apparently going to smile on her today, for the wind was picking up a dust trail and leaving a long gray smear above the twisting kinks of the valley where the road ran. It wasn’t much of a dust cloud, not more than one or two vehicles. She kept her eyes trained on the road, hardly daring to blink. After what seemed like an agonizingly long time, a sleek blue bike of a type she’d never seen, but coveted on sight, was leading a nondescript truck with… Mikla focused the ancient lenses impatiently, a driver in an unfamiliar helmet, but a very familiar red shirt! Mikla hissed in triumph, but kept studying the truck and bike as long as they were in sight.
The blue motorcycle had a big rider, Milka was prepared to bet the helmeted rider in the gray shirt was a good head taller than Hammer. But that bike! Milka feasted her eyes on it for those few minutes it was in sight. She’d never seen anything to match it, speed combined with power and a veritable arsenal, yet classically streamlined and in top condition. That prize was going to be hers! She studied the truck for the last few seconds, and as they disappeared from sight behind the hills between them, she turned and began skidding down the slope to where the rest of the gang waited, in the high, narrow gorge a mile before the pass opened out onto the gentle slopes of the plains. If this raid worked out well, Hammer would be feeling generous. A cleverly placed suggestion and the bike would be hers, and more important, Hammer would squelch any attempts of ganging up on her to get it.
A conveniently placed rockslide in front of them would leave both truck and bike trapped in the gorge, pinned up against a wall of rock with no way to cross that wall to get to the plains. The silver could be moved by hand, and the truck probably just torched. Pity about that, every vehicle was useful, even if Hammer didn’t always see it that way. She would have to find a way to get that bike out, though. Maybe if the charges went off a little late, and the rockslide pinned them on the wrong side? No, it would trap them on the wrong side of the wall, then. Hammer would go insane. Still turning over possibilities in her mind, Milka climbed aboard her four-wheeler and left in a cloud of dust of her own.
***
But the impartial breeze that carried the dust trail that had betrayed Hannah and Modo carried the dust of Milka’s trail high into the air too, and Hannah’s constantly searching eyes had spotted the flash of light on glass from the binoculars.
"We’re gonna have company, handsome." The helmet radio carried Hannah’s voice clearly to Modo, and he glanced in his rear-view mirror at her for the millionth time that day. "Hammer and his gang, Scharnhorst’s favorite pack of scavenging poachers."
"I saw the scout watching us. How do you know who it is?"
Hannah snorted mirthlessly, "The only people who knew we were moving the silver through the pass were Talon, Jack, Mustafa, Kirgo, and Toulouse. But Governor Toulouse would have conscientiously reported everything to the other two Governors, Dahlgren and Scharnhorst. Guess who in that list of names I don’t trust?"
"Great. Whadda we do now, darlin’?"
Hannah considered the terrain between them and the narrow gorge in the mountains where the pass opened out into the plains, and knew precisely where they were going to strike. In the gorge itself, where they would be cut off from the plains, and have no way to climb the vertical walls of the gorge to escape. Pinned down to be destroyed at leisure. Hannah thought of Hammer and his gang, crouched in the rocks waiting for them to come walking right into a trap… An unholy light bloomed in Hannah’s eyes.
"Modo, darling, can you contact Talon from here?" The honey-sweetness of her voice alerted Modo, who recognized it as a distant cousin to the velvet-over-steel tone Charley’s voice had when she was plotting something truly twisted.
"I’d have to pull over and stop, but this close, sure. Why?"
Hannah’s raptor’s grin grew toothier. "Modo, sweetheart, I have an idea."
***
Talon and Jack were speeding over the plains toward Verizano’s Point and the pass when Tally felt a familiar tug at the back of her mind. She straightened up and closed her eyes, the better to concentrate, and reached out along the link.
*Hey, bro. What’s up?*
A wave of gentle affection washed over her, flavored with amusement and laced with a bone-deep weariness from so many days in nearly-continuous travel over rough terrain, and Tally instinctively sent a revitalizing surge of energy through the link to Modo.
The weariness retreated a more bearable level, and Modo ‘pathed gratefully, *Thanks, sis. Hannah says we’ve got trouble. She spotted a lookout and thinks a raider named Hammer has laid an ambush for us, in the gorge just before the entrance to the pass.*
*I knew I was sensing something…hold on a minute, let me try something, bro.*
Tally turned to Jack, who was regarding her calmly as he drove, knowing her well enough to tell when she was in telepathic rapport.
"Stop for a second, will you please, Jack?"
Jack slowed the red Cadillac and stopped obligingly, and Tally held out a hand.
"Link with me a minute, I need you to see for me."
Jack, who had apparently decided to be startled by nothing else today if it killed him, grasped her extended hand firmly and let his mind go quiet. Tally wrapped her mind around his, merging with him, then boosted the signal strength on her link with Modo so heavily that Jack felt a dizzying rush of power as her mind reached out over the plains to the barren trail where Modo and Hannah had pulled off the stony path to contact them.
*Still there, bro?*
*Right here.*
*I’ve got Jack in the link with us, open your eye and show us where you are.*
Modo lifted his head and gazed out over the stony terrain, and for the first time in his life, Jack Tenrec looked out of another person’s eyes.
*Or at least eye,* Modo sent humorously, his flagging energies revitalized by the contact, and Tally’s mental giggle bounced through both their minds.
*Stick to business,* Jack sent severely, but the effect was somewhat spoiled by the heavy undertone of fond amusement that came with it.
*It’s no use, bro,* Modo ‘pathed back, *you can’t begin to scold her when you’re in her mind; believe me, I’ve tried. You can’t reprimand someone properly when they’re pelting you with how much they love you while you’re yelling.*
A smug, *It works, though, doesn’t it? Can’t lie in a mind-meld…* scampered through the back of their minds like a small critter scampering for its burrow, and the absurd image made Jack and Modo laugh this time. A quick thought flashed between them, and both squelched Tally in a mental ‘hug’ together.
*Kitty-sandwich,* they teased in tandem, and the three of them broke up.
*All right, now that we’ve had the comic relief for the day, what shall we do about our little problem?* Jack sent wryly.
*Hannah’s got a plan,* Modo couldn’t suppress his snicker. *And it’s a laugh and a half, too.*
Two minds waited to hear what rude joke Hannah had dreamed up to torment the poachers’ gang with.
*Hannah thinks they’ve set up to ambush us in the gorge just before the pass leads down to the plains. Now that they’ve seen us, there’s only one other stretch of the trail where they can spot us, and it’s just under a mile from where they’ll spring the trap.*
A wave of agreement came from Jack, and an image of a twisting shale gorge wavered and firmed in their mutual mind’s eye as Jack wrestled a moment with the unfamiliar aspects of telepathy. Modo and Talon, scanning the image in Jack’s memory, agreed immediately with Hannah’s assessment. The narrowest place through the gorge had a stone promontory overhanging it, and a charge placed there would drop tons of loose rubble, blocking the trail completely.
*Here’s Hannah’s plan,* Modo sent, hilarity flavoring his thought, *They’ll be expecting us in a couple of hours, no more, so we let them wait, and wait, and wait some more, freezing their tails off and bored stiff. Then we proceed until just before the turn in the trail where they’ll see us, stop, and run a chain from Lil’ Darlin’ to Hannah’s truck, like I was towing it. Then we creep past the spot where they can see us, truck broken down and making no time at all; so they won’t expect us at the ambush site for another half-hour. That’s your and Jack’s cue, you hit the raiders from the other side and get their attention, so they don’t hear us coming. Once we’re out of sight again, we unhook the chain and gun it. We’ll be past the ambush site before they know what happened, and if they do set off the charge, all they’ll do will be trap themselves.*
Pride in his lover’s cleverness saturated Modo’s thought. *You’ll have to be careful not to hit us, though, we’ll be punching right through the free-fire zone, and Hannah’s truck doesn’t have armor.*
*Pride in your what?* The twin exclamation crashed down around Modo and the trio broke up again as Modo, a gentleman to the last, valiantly tried to smother such an intensely personal emotion and couldn’t even come close.
*We won’t tell, bro, your secret’s safe with us.* Talon and Jack’s mingled sending was warmly affectionate and laced with pure delight.
*My gray-furred old mama always told me a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,* he grumbled mentally.
*Your gray-furred old mama didn’t spend half her life living in other people’s minds. The rules of privacy are a little different for telepaths.* Talon really was trying to smother her giggles, and a mental hiccup accompanied her quip.
*Now’s a fine time to tell me,* Modo growled in mock-annoyance.
Talon’s body, back in the red Cadillac, was so convulsed with laughter her sending wavered, and Jack and Modo instinctively supported her, marveling that they knew how.
*See why telepathy isn’t always the best way to communicate? You can get awfully distracted in somebody else’s head.* Her thought firmed and the link steadied. *Go ahead with Hannah’s plan, bro. Wait three hours and then get into position, and by the time you’re ready to run for it, we should be at the entrance to the pass and we’ll contact you when we’re ready to hit them. Once you’re through, we’ll all head back to the garage together. No raiders are suicidal enough to take on all of us.*
A three-part harmony of agreement echoed through the link, and Talon blew Modo a kiss and let the link fade.
***
Hannah, who had been watching the expressions chase themselves over Modo’s face as the conversation progressed, saw the odd, other awareness fade out of his eye.
"Well?" she asked, interested.
"It’s a go with your plan." Modo blushed a little under his fur. "And, uh, well…"
"You accidentally told them about us?" Hannah leaned back against the truck and her eyes danced.
"How’d you know?" he asked, astonished at her sagacity, and relieved she wasn’t angry.
"You have a very easy face to read, beloved, your thoughts come through just like print." She sauntered over to him, and leaned against his chest. "Don’t worry about it, Jack’s a good friend, although he’d sooner die than admit it. And I think you trust Talon." Her hands slid around his neck, but her dark eyes softened tenderly as she whispered, "And since we have a reputation to live up to now, and a couple hours to kill, I have a charming idea how to pass the time."
Modo stared down at her in delighted, slightly off-kilter amazement at being called ‘beloved’, then gathered her up in his arms with exquisite care.
"Anything you say, Hannah-sweetheart."
"Much better."
***
Thanks to the sloppy job Hammer’s sentries were doing, Jack and Talon managed to get quite close to the ambush site from the plains’ side, parking the Cadillac in a gully that dead-ended off the main trail, then sneaking quietly up a rocky outcrop behind the poachers’ concealed position. Only two men were stationed at the mouth of the pass, both annoyed at having to miss the real action, and most of the good chances for looting, so they were sitting sprawled lazily on the rocks.
"These guys are idiots, do they call this sentry-duty?" Talon whispered incredulously. Jack shrugged his heavy-bore tranquilizer rifle off his shoulder and sighted in on the first of the two sentries, who sat leaning back against a rock while staring moodily out over the pass. The dart hit him in the neck and he slumped a little further, then went still.
"One down," Jack said under his breath as he sighted in on the second sentry, "one to go." This sentry was leaning back against his four-wheeler, and when Jack’s dart hit him in the thigh, he had barely time to look down and see it before he passed out. Talon and Jack turned and skidded quickly down the stony slope to the Cadillac.
As they leaped in, Jack snapping the safety on the rifle and tossing it to Talon, he told her with a vicious grin as he backed the Caddy around, "Time to go, kitty-kin. Warn Modo and Hannah to start their approach."
Talon grinned and reached for Modo’s familiar presence, so close now!
*Ready, bro?*
*I was born ready, kitty-kin.* And the brassy male tone of his voice made Tally laugh.
*Feed ‘em the bait.*
***
Modo, already astride Lil’ Darlin, had secured the chain from the power-winch on the front of the truck firmly to the bike’s frame, flinching as he nicked her already sadly-chipped paint job from all the heavy mountain climbing.
"I’m sorry, darlin’," he’d said quietly, "but I’m sure Jack’ll gimme a hand gettin’ you back in shape as soon as all this is over."
Lil’ Darlin’ revved her engine, eager for action, and somehow managed to give the impression the nicks were the merest of nothings as Talon’s laughing signal echoed in his head.
"All right, sweetheart, that’s our cue." Darlin’ revved, and even with Modo’s weight to keep let her tires biting into the dry, rocky soil, it took a massive effort to get the heavy truck moving. But once the truck was bumping along, she managed to keep it going at a steady 15 or so miles an hour over the stony, uneven ground. They passed through the gap in the ridge where Modo’s casual glance over at the notch in the hills allowed his helmet to detect, scan, and precisely locate the lookout posted to keep watch for them.
They trundled right along the stretch of road, and as they passed out of sight again Modo yelled, *Now, Tally!* at the top of his mind. He slammed the brakes on, jerking the bike to a stop and Hannah jammed on the truck’s brakes behind him. He pulled the chain loose impatiently from the frame, and Hannah set the winch spinning rapidly to wind up the chain. Modo had it secured in minutes, and he leaped for his bike.
"Let’s rock and ride!" he bellowed, and with Hannah’s wild whoop ringing in his ears, bike and truck tore up the stony trail as fast as the spinning, squealing tires could carry them.
Back at the entrance to the pass, the red Caddy leaped forward as Talon, spoiling for action, yelled, "Now!" even as Modo did. Jack snarled, floored the accelerator and as they came racing up the road into the mouth of the pass, Talon sat up on the back of the seat, her long braids whipping wildly in the wind. She raised her hands above her head and they flared incandescent.
"All right, Vegeta," she whispered, "let’s see how well I learned your trick." One after another she hurled fist-sized spheres of blue fire at the poachers’ positions, the spheres rocketing like slung shot directly at them, detonating with shattering explosions as they hit. Hammer spun around from his position in a cliff corner sheltered from the wind and got to stare right down an incoming fireball. He roared angrily but leapt for the shelter of the rocks below and his prized four-wheeler erupted in flames as the fireball struck it instead.
Milka wailed in agony, "Boss, the convoy!" and pointed as she crouched behind a boulder and tried to return fire. Hammer wrenched his gaze around and cursed at the top of his lungs as he spotted the blue bike come screaming down the pass, the truck right behind it. He threw himself toward where the detonator lay at the end of the long lengths of wire, and twisted the small hand detonator savagely. As the charge blew, the blast ate half the side of the cliff out, and the heavy overhang of stone overhead started to crumble. Jack spun the Caddy around, an impressive trick in the narrow confines of the gorge, and raced for the plains and safety.
The whole ridge shivered with the detonation, and below on the gorge floor, Modo looked up to see not just the stony outcrop the poachers had mined, but the entire side of the gorge start to give way in one massive slide.
Hannah screamed, "Hit it!" and he heard the truck’s engine behind him leap forward so suddenly, Modo’s hand maxed out the throttle even as his conscious mind screamed they were both driving into certain death. The whole ridge shivered again, and continuous, rifle-like sharp cracks heralded the shale ridge splitting along the gorge’s entire length. The poachers unlucky enough to be stationed on that side of the gorge were scrambling back from the edge, abandoning their vehicles and running in a desperate race to get off the section of ridge that was giving way. Modo kept his eye glued to the sharp turns of the gorge and kept dodging the first few boulders and pebbles beginning to rain down.
They reached the halfway mark and Modo risked a lightening-fast look up and instantly wished he hadn’t. There was no sky visible above their heads; the whole massive sheet of stone was about to crash into the other side of the gorge above them! What had happened to the poachers he couldn’t see, and nothing could be heard above the phenomenal sounds of tons of shattering rock and crashing boulders. One gigantic boulder was headed right for them, and Modo drew his blaster and blew it to pieces, the fragments pelting them stingingly as they shot through the cloud of debris left behind. But the mouth of the gorge, and safety, was just ahead…
Modo shot out of the ravine and snapped off a shot from his blaster into the open air above him as he howled in triumph. As the trail widened out and began to slope down towards the plains, he spotted the red Cadillac, pulled just off the trail ahead and waiting for them. Jack and Talon were yelling and cheering themselves hoarse as Hannah shot out of the canyon right behind him, a huge cloud of dust, small pebbles and gravel billowing out of the ravine behind the truck. That was followed by a truly impressive crashing as the entire rock face fractured, settled and crumbled under its own weight as the massive rockslide completely choked the narrow gorge, rocks and boulders mixed with dirt spilling out of the gap and a choking cloud of dust obscuring everything.
Modo pulled the bike up by the Caddy and Hannah spun the truck out a few yards away. He was off the bike and opening the door of the truck before Hannah could pull her helmet off, and Jack and Talon stopped cheering and started whistling ribaldly.
Ignoring them good-naturedly, he lifted Hannah from the truck with gentle hands and asked her a trifle anxiously, "You all right, babe?"
Hannah’s dark eyes were glowing, her cheeks were red, and she looked so adrenalin-revved Modo was reminded crashingly of Vinnie.
As if in eerie echo, Hannah cried happily as she hugged him, "Can we do it again!?!"
***
When they reached the garage a few hours later, having had to dodge a detachment of Scharnhorst’s troops headed at top speed for the pass, Talon led Modo and Hannah to one of the spare rooms in the garage and told them firmly, "We’ll wake you when the new control rods are ready. Get some rest."
Neither argued. Utterly exhausted by their endless travels; they swapped a weary look, dropped their gunbelts on the floor, kicked off their boots and collapsed into the wide bed together. Both were asleep practically before they were horizontal.
***
When Captain Nock reached the pass, he found a dust-covered Hammer and his gang dragging themselves down the slope, all of their vehicles missing and several of the gang sporting contusions and wounds from their unexpected encounter with geology gone wild.
Hammer himself was cradling an obviously-broken arm, and his face was disfigured by a black eye and a split lip, running blood down his chin.
He snarled hatefully at the Captain, "Tell Scharnhorst her plan worked about as well as they usually do. If she wants her silver, she can dig for it." He jerked a thumb back at the rockslide. "Have fun getting that cleared." He pointed to the larger of the trucks Nock’s troops had arrived in. "We’ll be takin’ that truck, or I tell the other Governors about Scharnhorst’s little tricks," he spat.
Captain Nock stared eye-to-eye with him for a long minute, then gestured sharply for his troops to pile out of the truck. They did so, and Hammer climbed into the passenger side without further comment. Milka, the only gang member mostly unhurt, pulled herself into the driver’s seat, and the rest of the gang limped over and dragged themselves into the back of the truck. The truck pulled out, headed back for their camp in the foothills, and Captain Nock turned and regarded the rubble-choked gorge.
His Lieutenant came to stand next to him. "Do you really think the silver’s under there?"
The Captain was grimly silent before answering, "I hope not, or we’re all walking dead men." He stood quiet a little longer, contemplating more than the devastated scene in front of him, then turned away muttering, "If I live through this, I’m gettin’ a new boss…"
***
Down in the garage’s immense forge, Mustafa and Jack were working non-stop to melt down the ingots and cast the new control rods, and Talon was sitting on a workbench well out of the way, her telekinesis keeping the process moving at breakneck speed. The forge fires were being fed to an inferno’s temperature with a continuous stream of telekinetically forced air, while the huge crucible to melt the silver was sailing through the air to settle over the smelter without benefit of the enormous block and tackle usually used to move it. The silver ingots were floating across the huge room in an orderly line well above head-height, and stacking themselves neatly in the crucible according to the pattern Tally had picked out of Jack’s mind at his request.
Even the immense room was hotter than an oven from the incredible temperatures being used, and Mustafa wiped the sweat streaming from his face as he muscled the casting molds into place, and a quick telekinetic shove from Talon helped him push the last tall mold into place.
"How much longer until we can melt the silver, Jack?" he yelled over the noise.
Jack checked the forge’s heat on a huge temperature gauge, and hollered back, "Another hour or so, unless," he turned his gaze toward Talon, "can you jump-start heating the crucible?" Talon let the last ingot settle neatly into place and turned her attention to the crucible itself.
"Show me what the temperature needs to be," she shouted, and Jack pointed to a small green line on the gauge. Talon fixed her attention on the molecules composing the mass of the crucible and concentrated. The crucible began to heat rapidly, and Tally carefully monitored the expansion ratio of the gigantic ‘stewpot’, as Jack liked to refer to it, so it wouldn’t crack from the abnormally rapid temperature jump. But the stewpot, a piece of Old Blood technology two centuries old, was doing fine, and the silver ingots inside began to sag and lose their shape in the terrific heat. As the temperature peaked, Talon let it level off at precisely the temperature Jack had requested, and wiped the sweat streaming from her brow this time.
All three of them were stripped to the bare minimum in the heat, and Talon pitied Jack and Mustafa, who were wearing heavy, thick boots and tough, long aprons of dino-leather to work in the sparks and splattering molten metal of the forge. She was clad in a halter and shorts borrowed from Hannah, but her creamy fur was still slicked flat and soaked sodden from sweat. Tally closed her eyes and reached for the cold room down in the bowels of the garage, kept refrigerated with a scavenged and rebuilt freezer unit. She ‘ported up three bottles of the stock of ginger beer she and Hannah had brewed as an experiment on her last visit, and waved at Jack and Mustafa, holding up a bottle. Both nodded in gratitude and walked over to her perch, and she handed them each a cold bottle already beading with moisture in the fierce heat.
Jack drained a third of his in one long swallow, and sagged against the workbench Talon was sitting on.
"At this rate, we can pour the molds tonight. They should be cool by tomorrow, and we’ll crack the molds and get the rods out. Then we beat it for the reactor."
"How hard will it be to transport the rods?" Mustafa asked sensibly, pointing at the tall molds. "We can’t let them get bent or twisted out of true when we move them."
"I think you ought to let me teleport them down, and not take the chance of Scharnhorst making one last grab for the silver." Tally interjected impatiently.
"Are you sure you’re strong…" Jack started, but Talon cut him off mid-word.
"Jack Tenrec, if you ask me that one more time I will drop you in the ocean for Megaladon bait!" Talon glared at him, her fur bristling angrily. "I am fine, enough with the babying, and if it doesn’t stop, there’s gonna be blood in the scuppers!"
Mustafa grinned at him and Jack backpedaled, holding up his hands in surrender.
"Ok, ok, don’t get violent. As soon as they’re cool, you can ‘port them down to the reactor, and then ‘port yourself after. Who are you going to need at the reactor?"
Talon settled back down on the workbench, not without a last angry tail lash, but said calmly, "Everyone, if I was given the option. I’d rather have the extra hands and not need ‘em, then need ‘em…"
"…and not have ‘em." Jack and Mustafa finished.
"Yeah, we have that one in the Machinato Vitae too." Jack laughed. "So, Modo, Hannah, Mustafa, and me are here with you, and Kirgo and Toulouse are down at the reactor with Hermes. We’ll head out in two groups, I don’t want the silver to be anywhere without a guard."
"Yeah, we should have someone waiting at the reactor when the silver gets there, so who should we send in the first party?" Mustafa’s question made both Talon and Jake pause a moment.
"Mustafa and I," Jack suggested, "and when we get to the reactor, you can ‘port the silver down, and ‘port yourself after. Once you’ve gone, Hannah and Modo will head out after us. They’ll get there about six hours after you, if they really push it."
"How long will it take to set the new rods in place in the reactor?" Mustafa finished the last of his bottle and looked back at the red-hot fire beneath the crucible resignedly. "Time to stir the stew," he grumbled tiredly, then looked hopefully at Talon. "Unless?"
She shook her head in weary resignation herself. "Sorry, Mustafa, it’s gonna take most of what I’ve got left to keep the forced air going into the fires, and pour the molten metal. Even healthy this is a lot more sheer brute work than I’m used to doing telekinetically. How long to fix the reactor?" She shrugged in bewilderment. "Who knows?"
He grinned at her. "Ah, a man’d get fat and lazy with you around. C’mon, Mechanic, you’re supposed to be twice as tough as any normal man, how come you aren’t doing twice the work?"
Jack set his empty bottle down on the workbench and wisecracked, "Maybe ‘cause I can con muscle-bound pirates like you into helping me, Mustafa!"
Mustafa’s face twisted into a wry grin. "Somebody’s gotta be the brains of this outfit, ‘cause it sure ain’t you, Tenrec."
"Ya got that right. I’m the good-looking heroic one."
"Isn’t that the one that always gets a beautiful funeral?" Talon inquired innocently, a tiny demonic spark flaring.
Jack and Mustafa both gave her half-amused, half-unsettled look, and headed back to the crucible to stir the melting metal.
Talon grinned wickedly and fixed her attention back on the furnaces, keeping the tightly focused column of air moving into the fire. What people never appreciated about this trick was how heavy that much air was, and how much sheer effort it took to move it at all. Well, she’d wanted some good, solid exercise for her recovered meta-senses; can’t bitch when you get what you asked for, she mused.
***
The next morning, Talon leaned over their bed and shook Modo and Hannah awake, saying amusedly, "Come on, you two, up and at ‘em." Modo groaned, and rolling over, dragged a pillow firmly over his head.
Hannah smiled at Talon as she sat up in bed, brushing her black hair away from her face.
"The control rods are ready?" she grinned, "Jack and Mustafa must have been working overtime."
"You should have seen them," Talon giggled, "it was a scene out of Dante's Inferno crossed with Disney’s The Sword in the Stone. Bars of metal floating everywhere, fires roaring and sparks flying, and Jack and Mustafa bitching up a storm."
"I wish I could have seen it," Hannah chuckled. "It might be fun to see them do some actual work for a change."
Talon’s smirk quirked over her face. "I have to admit, I enjoyed watching them sweat. I could have lived without the smell though! Peeuww."
"I can imagine." Hannah leaned over Modo, crooning gently, "Come on, gorgeous, one more trip, and it's finally over."
Talon chuckled, and leaned over his other side, teasing him gently, "Come on, you big lug, we've got to get these control rods down to that reactor."
"And what’s in it for me," he grumbled, "do I even get a chance for a shower?"
"I won't need you for an hour, but I thought you'd like some time to wake up and get organized." Talon bounced off the bed and headed for the door with a grin. "What you choose to do with that hour is entirely up to you."
Hannah leaned back over the bed. "I can shower and be ready in half an hour, how about you?"
Modo slid his arms around her waist, and pulled her back down on the bed. "She can bloody well wait."
***
An hour and 20 minutes later, Hannah and Modo came wandering into the garage.
"So where is the forge?" Modo asked uncertainly, gazing around the big repair bay.
"It’s further down in the hill, so it can't accidentally set the garage on fire if something goes wrong in the forge." Hannan replied. She led Modo through a door he had not noticed before, back on the far end of the repair bay away from the main door. A set of stone stairs led down into a wide, arching stone tunnel. A faint warm breeze drifted up the stairwell, smelling of hot metal and ash. Hannah led him down the steps confidently, and the temperature climbed steadily as they made their way down.
As they made their way down the hallway, Modo began to hear a faint clinking noise, and as they reached the end of the tunnel, they came out into the immense arching cavern that housed the forge. Modo looked around in genuine amazement, marveling at the cut stone arches supporting the ceiling, the strange blend of the amazingly technological and the curiously primitive intriguing him tremendously.
"This place is incredible," he turned Hannah, "how long has his family been living in this garage?"
"Almost 300 years," and she waved to Talon across the room, "and each generation has improved and expanded the facilities. This garage could actually house 50 or 60 people easily, but only Jack, Mustafa and Hermes live here now. Although I stay sometimes, when Kirgo’s ferry isn't running to the City in the Sea."
Talon, who had been tapping on the long molds with a light hammer, apparently testing the cooling rate of the rods inside, set down the hammer and walked across the expanse of the forge floor towards them, her merry smile telling Modo and Hannah their tardiness had not gone unnoticed.
"Hey, you two, you’re late!"
"And what are you going to do about it?" Modo chuckled. "Try and move these monsters by yourself?" He reached out and gave Talon an enveloping hug. "I'd like to see you try!"
Talon hugged him back warmly, but asked with a wicked grin, "Would you care to place a small wager on that, brother dear?"
Modo shook his head, "No, thank you! You only bet when you know you're going to win, you little minx, so find yourself another sucker." Hannah and Talon swapped a glance, and wrinkled their noses.
"They're not so much fun when they figure out what's going on," Hannah complained.
"Yes, but what you do?" Talon shrugged elaborately, "Every so often you do run across a smart one."
"But what you do with one?" Hannah asked drolly, linking her arm in through Talon’s to stroll across the floor towards the control rod molds with her.
"Well, I don't know about you," Talon replied, "but the one I found asked me to marry him, and silly me, I said yes."
"I'll remember that," said Hannah thoughtfully. The two of them looked back innocently over their shoulders at Modo.
"Aren't you coming, sweetheart?" Hannah asked sweetly.
"No, that was earlier," Modo replied wryly, "don't you remember?" He sauntered casually over to the workbench and picked up the light hammer Talon had been testing the control rods with. Talon shrieked with laughter, and Hannah blushed bright red.
"I can't believe you said that!" Talon gasped, "I just can NOT believe you said that!" She gave up attempting to control herself, and plopped right down on the floor, practically hysterical with laughter. "No one will ever believe it!"
"Not that you'd ever tell anyone, now would you, sis?" Modo cocked the eyebrow over his remaining eye, a trick he’d been practicing of late in deliberate mimicry of her. Talon collapsed in a second gale of laughter, so helpless with laughter she couldn't even stand up.
"Bro, I have got to get you offworld more often!"
Hannah, who had been watching the two of them with an indulgent look, shook her head, reached over and pulled Talon to her feet.
"All right, you two, we have work to do, and that reactor isn't going to wait for us."
Talon sighed, "Can’t argue with you there, Hannah," and she ran an assessing eye over the molds. Closing her eyes, and reaching out with her mind, Talon ran thought-fingers along the inside of the molds, testing to see if the metal had set completely. The molten silver had hardened, and as far as her psionic senses that could tell, the rods were perfect. All that remained was to get them to the reactor safely, and install them. Nuclear disaster would be averted, and perhaps she and Modo could have some time to enjoy this world while Jack finished the repairs to Modo's arm.
"Ok, you two, I'm going to crack the molds." Talon gestured for Modo and Hannah to follow her behind a large, stone wall constructed as a blast shield. The three of them ducked behind the shield; Talon reached out with her mind, and with one short, sharp, telekinetic blow, shattered the heavy ceramic molds. As the molds cracked, she caught the gleaming silver rods, each one some seven feet long, with her mind and held them suspended in midair. A quick telekinetic sweep cleaned the last of the dust, and any remaining fractured pieces of the mold, from the surface of the rods, and as the dust settled, the three of them emerge from behind the blast shield to stare at the rods in satisfaction.
"Pretty nice, huh?" Hannah stared at the rods with pride, "Dundee Peak has the finest silver in all of Wassoon, and from what I've seen, the finest in the City in the Sea, too." She looked over it Talon, "Was there enough silver, so there was some left over?"
Talon nodded, and pointed toward the workbench, where a much smaller mold was sitting on a fireproof pad. "Yeah, there was almost in a pound left over when we were done, we poured it into an old jewelry mold that belonged to Jack's grandmother." She shrugged. "To tell the truth, we’re not exactly sure what the mold was for, I guess the old lady had her own methods of working the metal. Mustafa dug out of one of the storage rooms last night."
Hannah looked intrigued, and walked over and examined the small mold closely.
"Interesting, I've never seen a mold quite like this before, it looks like it was designed to make several pieces at once."
Talon carefully let the rods settle onto the long workbench that had been cleared especially for them, saying, "Ok, bro, I'm going to need your help for this part."
Modo, who had been studying the design of the forge as though he were making notes in his head, walked back over to her and Hannah.
"Whadda ya need, kitty-kin?"
Talon smiled up at him, and joked, "The same thing I always need you for, bro, to be my anchor in times of stress."
Modo cocked an eyebrow again, asking her, "Anchor you, you flighty little thing? I hope not, that’s Throttle’s job, and he's welcome to it. I couldn't begin to keep up with you, every five minutes you're running off to another universe to see some guy. I'm the old-fashioned type, I expect to do the chasing."
Talon stuck her tongue out at him, kidding, "If you can't keep up with me, how do you expect to keep up with Hannah? She's twice hard to pin down as me."
Modo smirked, "I didn't find her so, she seemed quite content where she was earlier." Talon tried to strangle her shriek of laughter, and couldn't begin to do so; Hannah, blushing cherry red and giggling helplessly, swatted him on the arm nearest her, fortunately, the flesh one.
"He's not normally like this?" Hannah asked, hiccupping as she tried to control herself.
"No, this is so out of character I can't believe it." She stared at Hannah in absolute disbelief. "What did you do to him? He's never like this, ever!"
Hannah’s eyes sparkled with mischief, indicating Modo was about to get upstaged.
"It’s amazing what a little early morning exercise will do for some men, and apparently some mice, too," she commented innocently.
Talon giggled again, "Somehow I don't think calisthenics at 6am are going to have the same effect once we get home, but I'm sure we could try."
At this point, Modo decided to quit while he was ahead, and put an arm a round each of their shoulders.
"Can we get down to business, or are we having too much fun picking on poor, unloved, abused me?" Both Hannah and Talon melted at that question, especially with the pathetic, sad puppy-dog eyes look that accompanied it. Both gave him a quick, adoring hug, and turned their attention to the silver piled on the workbench.
"Have Jack and Mustafa reached the reactor yet?" Hannah inquired.
Talon shook her head, "No, they're supposed to radio me as soon as they reach the buildings where Toulouse and Kirgo are camped out. I haven't heard anything yet, but even if they made really good time, they’d only be reaching the reactor site itself by now."
Modo nodded thoughtfully, "Yeah, I remember when we headed down, it was getting on toward sunset by the time we arrived." Talon bit her lip anxiously and her expression indicated she was less worried about the time, than the condition they arrived in.
"I just wish I knew they hadn't been attacked by another of Scharnhorst’s pack of poachers. I don't trust that woman not to try and steal the silver one last time, even though we've told her it would be the destruction of all of us."
Modo looked at her incredulously. "How stupid is this woman? Doesn't she know no one can escape radiation poisoning? Does she think she's immune?" He turned to Hannah in disbelief. "How did someone so stupid end up running an entire city? And if she is that stupid, how come she hasn't been replaced?"
Hannah shrugged, "I don't know, I only arrived in the City in the Sea a year ago, and a lot of their ways are still very strange to me. They just don't seem to make much sense, you know? Some of their techniques are far advanced from the ones we use in Wassoon, while some of their production methods could be improved by using the books in their own library, but they don't bother to look and see. One of the most important facets of restoring civilization will be the recovery of the ancient technology, and they have a priceless resource of knowledge they're ignoring. I just don't understand it, in Wassoon a resource like a public library would be a treasure carefully guarded and painstakingly researched, but they just ignore it."
Talon opened her mouth to answer, but the crackle of the radio static they had all been subconsciously listening for overrode her.
All three of them scrambled over to the workbench where the radio sat, and Hannah scooped up the handset and said, "Tenrec garage here, who's there?"
"And just who's call were you waiting for?" Jack’s sardonic voice asked. "You better not be having a party while I'm gone!"
"Well, it's not like we can have a party when you're here, you wet blanket! Maybe if you were little more fun, we wouldn't have to come up with these excuses to get you out of the house!"
A bellow of laughter, laced with static, came back through the radio at Hannah's flip response, and a voice they recognized as Mustafa's ribbed Jack mercilessly, "What have I been telling you all these years, you thick-headed Mechanic? This is why we never have any guests at that garage of yours!"
"Ok," Jack said dryly, "if everyone's finished picking on me, can we get down to business?"
***
45 minutes later, Tally and the silver were safe at the reactor, and Hannah and Modo were alone in the garage. Modo slung a leg over Lil’ Darlin’ and Hannah palmed the switch to open the main garage door and extend the drawbridge, then climbed on the bike behind him. Heading down the long dusty road to the plains, Modo asked Hannah, "Haven't we've been here before?" and two of them laughed.
***
Governor Scharnhorst paced the confines of her office angrily, furious beyond words at the failure of both Hammer and his gang and her own troops to secure the silver. Without that silver, she stood no chance of keeping her governor’s position after her failure with the reactor. Tenrec would get what he wanted all along, and Hannah Dundee would inherit her position.
No, it was unthinkable! Sharnhorst slammed her fist on her desk, swearing angrily "I won't let it happen! They won't take it all away from me!"
Digging into the bottom drawer of her desk, she removed a small lockbox. Pulling a key strung on her neck out from under her shirt, Scharnhorst fitted the key into the lock and turned it. From it, she took something no denizen of her world would have recognized, but Modo would have recognized all too quickly. Fitting the ancient bullets into the chambers of the old revolver, Scharnhorst muttered grimly, "I'll take care of them, I'll take care of them all." She snapped the fully loaded chamber of the gun closed, and strode from the office.
***
Back at the reactor, after Hermes had gleefully welcomed Talon back, and Jack had managed to get the big dinosaur to release her; the entire group had turned and headed for the reactor chamber itself. The silver rods were carefully carried by Jack, Mustafa and Kirgo themselves, none of them willing to trust any of Scharnhorst's troops. But they arrived at the reactor chamber without incident, and Talon breathed a sigh of relief to see that the repairs she had made were still functional. As Jack, Mustafa and Kirgo carefully lowered the rods to the floor, where cushions and heavy lead-lined blankets discovered in an old storage room had been laid to keep them from being scratched, Talon sat down at the old computer console again and began tapping away at the keyboard. This time, the self-diagnostic program presented her with a much bleaker picture. The core was overheating rapidly as the cooling system failed further, and the pile was approaching critical mass much faster than the original estimate the computer had given her.
Talon looked grim as she briefed the rest. "We don't have a lot of time left, guys, 20 hours maybe, no more."
Jack and Mustafa exchanged grim looks as well, and Toulouse looked, if possible, even more frightened than he had before.
"So what do we need to do?" Jack asked, planting his fists on the console in front of him. Talon studied the computer readout for a moment before answering.
"Okay, we need to get the control rods into position in the reactor core chamber; then we open the reactor itself and remove the old control rods one by one, as we remove each old rod replacing it with a new one. Then, we cap the reactor, insert the control rods all the way into the nuclear pile, and shut down the fission reaction completely. Then we seal this entire place up so it will never, ever be disturbed again." She glared at Toulouse. "I trust you agree with that decision, at least?"
"Yes, yes, of course," Toulouse stuttered. "And Governor Dahlgren and I have taken your advice regarding Governor Scharnhorst, I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear."
"Miracle of miracles, you're actually going to get rid of that blithering incompetent?" Talon rolled her eyes in amazement, and continued, "I begin to think you're less of a complete incompetent yourself, Toulouse, keep going like this and I might start thinking you deserve to be Governor someday."
Toulouse stopped looking frightened long enough to glare at her sourly. He said nothing further, so Talon dismissed the matter from her mind and turned her attention back to the control rods.
"Ok, Jack, we need to clear everyone out of the reactor chamber itself once the rods are in position on the lead padding ready there," and then she pointed towards the sealed observation chamber over the reactor core room itself.
"I'll be in the observation chamber, and I'll open the reactor cap telekinetically and start moving the contaminated rods out onto the padding one by one, each time inserting a new rod."
Jack looked worried by this, asking anxiously, "I know you don't want to hear this, Tally, but are you sure you’re strong enough?"
Talon shrugged as she continued to review the information the systems check had given her. "I'm going to have to be, Jack, because we don't have any radiation suits to allow us to move around the reactor core chamber with the cap cracked. Anyone in there would die of radiation poisoning within days from the ridiculous gamma radiation levels in that room." She glanced around the rest of them. "If anyone has a better idea, I'm all ears."
No one answered, and Jack grimaced but dropped the matter. They carefully carried the new silver rods into the reactor core room, and left them on the lead padding set out for them, well across the room from the padding set out to receive the contaminated control rods. Once the new rods were in place, Jack chased everyone not only out of the reactor core room, but back into the main control room itself. Talon alone remained behind in the observation bubble above the reactor core, and as she sat down in a chair with a clear view of the core below her, she sent out a small prayer to the omniverse at large that this would all work.
Concentrating carefully, she let her thought-fingers wedge themselves around the reactor cap and began working it loose. It gave more easily than she would have expected, and she breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn't have to try and rip it open with the sheer power of her mind. Talon felt the ambient radiation levels take a jump as she did so, and breathed a sigh of relief that Jack had insisted everyone else remained outside the observation chamber. While it wasn't common knowledge that her physical form was immune to radiation, the fact she was invulnerable certainly didn't apply to anyone but herself.
"Nova that spawned us all, save me from heroes," Talon grumbled as she began working the first control rod loose from its long resting place. "Like I need a bloody cheering section."
Back in the reactor control room, Jack and the others were anxiously monitoring the situation through the old video camera system, one camera of which still worked, but Talon seemed to have the transfer moving smoothly. One by one she replaced each control rod with a new one, setting the contaminated rod on the lead padding. Each minute seemed to crawl by with excruciating slowness, but eventually the cushion of lead padding that had held the new control rods was empty. Then, with one tremendous heave, she shoved the new control rods completely down into the nuclear pile. Back in the reactor control room, all the gauges wavered wildly and then the needles began dropping back down into the safe levels, and the observers cheered wildly.
Talon, white as a ghost under her fur, carefully reset the reactor cap, and sealed it down tightly. With one last exhausted telekinetic effort, she wrapped the contaminated rods in the lead-lined blankets, and lifted them into a heavy lead-lined box already prepared for them.
Talon stumbled out of the observation chamber, internally checking the radiation level of her body. It was higher than normal, true, but nothing she need worry about. Limp with relief, she peeled off her radiation-contaminated clothing, and staggered through the decontamination chamber Kirgo and Mustafa had rigged for her. On the other side, Jack was waiting with rough towels and a fresh set of clothes for her.
"You did it, sweetheart," Jack muttered fiercely, "You did it!" He hugged her close, and breathed, "Thank you, for all of us," into her pointed ear. Talon, still very pale and wan-looking with her wet hair streaming down her back, leaned against him as though she didn't have the strength to stand a moment longer. Jack gathered her up gently, and carried her out. Mustafa and Kirgo already had Toulouse's crew of men working to seal up the chamber, and as they began bricking the entrance closed, Jack set Talon down in front of the old computer console, and she tapped out the sequence for the self-diagnostic program one last time. Sure enough, it reported that the core temperature was dropping rapidly as the new control rods damped the reaction, and the danger of a meltdown was past. Breathing a sigh of relief, she shut the old equipment down for the last time.
"Okay, friends and neighbors, crisis averted." She cocked a sardonic eyebrow at Toulouse, who was hovering over her with an expression of glee on his features. "I trust this won't be required, ever again?"
Toulouse actually grinned back at her, saying, "I swore if I lived through this, I wouldn't ever do something so stupid again. Since by some miracle, I seem to have survived, it looks like I'll be obliged to keep my promise."
Talon, her head pounding and literally weak as a kitten from so much psionic exertion, nevertheless managed to chuckle, "Thank goodness for that."
The party exited the control room, and made their way back out to where the vehicles were parked. Behind them, the crew of men began bricking the control room door up.
As they reached Jack's red Cadillac, Jack set Talon gently in the front seat and climbed in beside her.
"This is your party from now on, Toulouse," Jack said with a rough laugh, "I'll be sending a bill to the council of Governors for this little stunt, and if I don't get paid in full, I'll send our rescuer after you herself."
Toulouse was so relieved to have disaster averted, he even managed to laugh at that comment.
"Take Talon back to the garage and let her rest of there," Mustafa told Jack with a grin, "and take that dinosaur of yours with you. Kirgo and I will finish up here and make sure everything gets sealed up properly. You'd better flag down Hannah and Modo on your way back, hope they aren't annoyed that they missed all the fun."
"This kind of fun, Modo can do without, and I don't imagine Hannah would find it all that amusing either." She shot Jack a mischievous look, saying pertly, "Now the fun we’re going to have with Modo's new arm, that will be something to see. Party at Jack's garage the day after tomorrow!"
Looking appalled at the prospect, Jack grumbled, "I knew there was a downside to saving the world somewhere."
"Yeah," Kirgo put in, "I can see why having a party would depress you, Old Blood. You were just born old and grumpy. Why, I bet you was like this even as a kid."
Jack gave them a dour look, and revved the Cadillac’s engine, spraying dust and gravel behind him as he whistled for Hermes. The big dinosaur came pacing around the corner of one of the buildings, and seeing Talon and Jack in the red Caddie, clacked in delight and fell in beside them as they pulled out, waving a good-by to Toulouse, Kirgo and Mustafa.
Flagging down Hannah and Modo barely two hours outside the reactor site, Jack told them the whole story while Talon smiled and scratched Hermes’ eyebrow ridges. As they headed back for the garage, Jack told Modo, "I have all the pieces ready for your arm, and we can start tomorrow morning with the upgrade if you like."
Modo glanced back at Hannah, clinging tightly to his waist, and told him, "Not too early, okay, Jack?" Then shooting a quick glance at Talon, he finished, "and don't feel obliged to hurry the process. Take all the time you need."
Reading Modo's meaning from his quick glance at Tally’s wan face, and adding it to the scrap of knowledge he possessed about how quickly Talon healed here in his strange world, Jack mentally resolved to stretch out the upgrade as long as possible...
***
That night, Governor Scharnhorst snuck through the sleeping camp and made her way to the reactor core room. The work crew had not finished bricking the door closed yet, and she managed to crawl over the half-built wall into the reactor core room. Making her way over to the lead lined crate holding the contaminated control rods, Scharnhorst flipped open the case cover and pulled back the lead blankets.
"They're all fools," she sneered derisively, "They were just going to leave this much silver here to rot. Fools!" Wrapping one big hand around the control rods, she hefted it out of the crate, and then grabbed a second. "I wish I could take you all with me," she whispered, "but at least I know where to find you when I need more." Carefully rewrapping the lead blankets around the remaining control rods, Scharnhorst closed the crate and made sure she had left behind no traces of her midnight theft.
Managing to manhandle the rods one at a time through the half bricked-up doorway, Scharnhorst crawled back over the half built wall and picking up one of the rods in each hand, the husky woman carried them down the hallway and out of the building.
"I'll show them, I'll show them all," she hissed triumphantly. "This much silver will make me rich enough to take back the City in the Sea by force if I have to. It will be my city again!"
***
"Are you sure this isn't going to hurt?" Modo asked skeptically, looking down at the bare frame of his cyborg arm. Jack had removed most of the exterior pieces of the arm, and the cutting torch in his hand was beginning to make Modo nervous.
"Would you please relax? I know what I'm doing." Jack assured him, pulling a set of welding goggles down over his eyes.
"It's Ok, sweetheart, really," Hannah said fondly, squeezing his other hand. She was sitting on the stool next to him watching, as her part in the rebuild was not come until later, when Jack had the frame of the arm finished.
Talon, sitting on the other side of the workbench, and watching the rebuild with keen interest, piped up, "Jack really does know what he's doing, Modo, it might not look like it, but he is exceptional at what he does. It's a good thing, because we all decided there's pretty much no hope for his personality."
Modo looked down at his arm as the cutting torch began slicing into the frame.
"As long as it works, I'll have no complaints. He can be as surly as he likes." Talon and Hannah smiled and continued to watch as Jack worked.
First, the framework of the new arm took shape under the torch, then Jack carefully began fitting Modo's arm cannon into the new framework and demonstrating the new ejection system. Next, the metallic bone-like structure of the servo-mechanisms that would power the movement of the wrist and fingers of his new hand was installed, and Jack made Modo practice by picking up gradually smaller and more delicate items as he carefully calibrated the servos. By the time Jack was finished, Modo could pick up an empty eggshell without cracking it, and crush an ingot of Jack's best steel as if it were that same eggshell.
The new targeting system came next, and Modo chuckled in sheer delight at the accuracy, making Jack yelp, "Not in the garage, you idiot!" when he impulsively tested it out.
Hannah joined in at that point, and all the silvery coils of negative-feedback circuitry for all the new systems began to take shape on the frame under her hands. It was a long process, but she made no attempt to rush it, and on two occasions shook her head and partially rewound her work before continuing on a different pattern. But when she was done, Modo stared down at his arm in absolute amazement, and could barely believe his eye. The silvery coils mimicked the twist and flex of his muscles perfectly, and somehow Hannah had made the circuitry patterns beautifully symmetrical as well.
Jack jumped back in when she finished, with an odd little tool that resembled a bastard cross between an artist’s pencil and a laser scalpel more than anything else. He began working on the shoulder of the new arm, and where he drew the tool across the silver circuitry it turned a strange shade of wet black that shimmered all the colors of the rainbow, with every movement Modo made.
Talon caught on immediately, and agreed delightedly, "Oh, good idea, Jack! That's just perfect!"
Hannah caught on a second later, and had to agree, "An artist should sign his work, I really have to agree with Jack."
Talon let her eyes go wide, "Modo, you’ve done the impossible! You got Hannah and Jack to agree on something… it might be the end of the world, and we just saved it! Don't you dare make us go through that again…"
Jack laughed, but continued his work, and when he was done, the leaf-in-a-tire symbol of an Old Blood Mechanic ornamented the shoulder of Modo’s cybernetic arm. As he lay the strange tool down, Jack thumped Modo on his flesh shoulder and told him, "Ok, partner, you’re done. What say we take a ride out on the plains and give it a test run?"
Modo agreed enthusiastically, and the four of them headed for the main garage bay. When they reached it, Modo looked at Lil’ Darlin’, parked next to the row of Jack's gleaming Cadillacs, and had to flinch at the comparison.
Remembering his comment on the pass to his beloved bike, Modo turned to Jack and asked, "Now the you're done with me, can you help out Lil’ Darlin’? She sure could use some attention from a mechanic like you."
"No problem, big guy," and Jack ran a hand over the bike’s control panel gently. "Don't you worry, sweetheart," he said soothingly, "we know we couldn't have pulled this all off without you, and Old Blood Mechanics stick by their friends, especially their machine ones." And Darlin’ revved her engine in response.
***
While the repairs to Modo's arm had only taken Jack a day, the work on Darlin’ occupied the better part of a week, due to a somewhat lengthy interruption occasioned by the spontaneous party decreed by Talon to celebrate their success. Modo and Hannah spent nearly every waking moment together during that week, and all of their sleeping moments too. The only exception was a somewhat surprising private meeting with Governors Toulouse and Dahlgren; that Hannah emerged from with a startled expression and a Governor's position of her own, as Scharnhorst had vanished from the city before she could be informed of her dismissal from the board and Hannah’s appointment.
The double excuse for the celebration seemed to make Talon even more determined to throw a party to remember for the next century, and it took the weary partiers as the better part of the next day to repair the damage to both themselves and the garage. Surprisingly, conspicuously absent were complaints from Jack, despite the fact he had been cornered by Governor Dahlgren at the beginning of the party and she had seldom left his side the entire night. He shot several desperate looks for help and assistance at Talon, Modo, Hannah, Mustafa and Kirgo; and they all smiled sweetly as they abandoned him to her tender mercies.
But when the repairs to Lil' Darlin’ were complete, Talon and Modo reluctantly got ready to bid their friends farewell. The night before they were going to leave, to Modo’s surprise, Hannah dragged him up to the observation tower in the garage under the two moons and presented him with her sketchbook, insisting he take it with him as a gift to remember her by.
"I don't need this to remember you, Hannah," he said, stroking her face with his new cybernetic hand, as they sat together watching the moonlight shimmer on the ocean.
"I know," she told him, "but I want you have it anyway. Think of all the fun you have explaining it to your family…" Hannah laid her head on his shoulder, and tried to fix in her memory everything about that one wonderful moment, to hold in her heart once he was gone. Modo put his finger under her chin, and gently lifted her face to his.
"Sweetheart, I…"
Hannah pressed her fingers over his lips and shushed him. "You'll come back to me as soon as you can, I know."
"Hannah…"
"I have another present for you, too. A memento of your visit to Dundee’s Peak." And she had taken from her pocket one of the silver pieces they found when they cracked open the small jewelry mold belonging to Jack's grandmother.
They had removed from the carefully fitted pieces of the mold some four bracelets in lovely wave-shapes, half a dozen different pairs of earrings and a full dozen rings, several pieces for a linked belt, and oddest of all, a set of tiny silver bells.
Hannah had asked Jack to string the silver bells on the linked belt and immediately presented it to Talon, telling her, "Here's a little something for you to wear when you sky-dance, kitty-kin." Talon had accepted the gift with tears in her eyes, and in her heart secretly been grateful Modo had not been within earshot to catch that comment.
The piece in Hannah’s hand now was a silver earring, in the shape of a ring with a delicate silver vine wrapped around it. The detailing of the leaves and vine were so fresh and vibrant the vine really did look alive and growing. He took it from her hand, and pulled one of the gold rings from his own ear, replacing it with the silver one.
The gold one he gave to Hannah, telling her jokingly, "You’d best get Talon to put that in for you, even with my new arm, I don’t think I’d be much good at piercing ears." The attempted humor didn’t fool Hannah, but she said nothing further, only pulling his head back down to hers, the silver vine in his ear shining palely in the moonlight.
***
The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, Modo, Jack, Talon, Hannah, Mustafa and Hermes adjourned to the main garage bay. Modo took a moment to thank Jack again for the work he’d done on Lil’ Darlin’, who was waiting for him and Talon with her chrome shining and her new paint job gleaming with the same rainbowy-wet finish as his new tattoo, her engine purring in anticipation. Jack had brought along a second notebook of diagrams and schematics for the new parts on Modo’s arm and Darlin’s engine, for Charley to use when she needed to work on them, and Modo tucked it carefully in his bike’s storage compartment with Hannah’s sketchbook.
Hermes chittered sadly, somehow realizing his adored friend was leaving, and nuzzled Talon protestingly as Jack and Mustafa hugged her good-by. Tally scratched the big dino’s eye ridges one last time and cuddled his head against her face.
"You take care of Jack and Hannah and Mustafa, ok, boy?" she whispered, hugging his toothy muzzle tightly.
Hannah and Modo were locked in a farewell kiss that made Jack, Mustafa and Talon swap a glance and contemplate the garage wall politely until they were finished.
Hannah and Talon exchanged a warm hug when they were through, and Hannah teased, "Be sure to bring me back the same alien when you visit next time."
"I promise," Talon answered, laughing, and pulled on her helmet and vaulted on the bike behind Modo. Stretching out her mind effortlessly, Talon gloried in her finally returned strength and suddenly wondered what Throttle would think when he saw her. Jack palmed the wall-switch that opened the overhead doors and extended the drawbridge, and Modo let Darlin’ slowly cruise across it, stopping on the dusty ground on other side so Talon and her clan could transport them home.
Grounding herself back in the clan-bonding within her, Talon sent out a pulse of thought through the soul-links in the back of her head, and nine tendrils of thought from nine different universes reached back and caressed her mind lovingly, locking into a supporting pattern around her. Talon cleared her thoughts, fixing her concentration firmly on the sight, sound, smell, taste and feel of Mars. She and Modo waved one last time, and the three standing in the garage’s doorway waved back.
*Trans-dimensional jump access activated, destination: Dimensional Code-Key ‘Biker Mice from Mars’,* and Talon’s thought rang joyously as she merged with the waiting power of the mass-mind, her longing to return to Throttle making the rest of the mass-mind chuckle in loving indulgence. The same bubble of blue fire coalesced around Modo’s bike, encasing them again; and Modo, more accustomed to the sensation, could feel the separate personalities powering the trans-dimensional link this time. The linked mind pulled the bubble loose from the fabric of Jack and Hannah’s universe and shifted it away, aiming for Modo’s far-off home. The air around the sphere twisted and warped, and the bubble flared incandescently bright, turned in on itself, and was gone.
Hermes whined unhappily, and Hannah patted him forlornly, the sadness at their parting that she had staunchly refused to show in front of Modo overwhelming her now.
"You said it, boy," she mumbled, and Jack put an arm around her shoulder comfortingly as they all walked back into the garage, the door closing and the drawbridge retracting behind them.
***
Back on Mars, in the huge underground cavern the FF used for a garage for their vehicles, Vinnie was grumbling a low-voiced complaint to Rimfire as Charley carefully recalibrated his bike’s rocket-thrusters; with Throttle and Stoker watching them absent-mindedly as Charley worked, both clearly thinking of other things. Stoker was musing with satisfaction on the success of their latest raid against the Plutarkians, and Throttle was missing his beloved new mate with a stone-faced stoicism that was beginning to make the others nervous. Modo and Talon had been gone for six days now, and the strain of no news was beginning to tell on Throttle. As Charley set down her wrench and pushed her hair back out of her face, she started to tell Vinnie to give the thrusters a try when Throttle went so rigid, everyone else in the cave stiffened in worried response.
But an expression like the sun breaking through clouds came over his face, and as Throttle bellowed, "Tally!" and bolted for the tunnel that led to the cave entrance, Stoker, Rimfire, Charley and Vinnie exchanged a look of secret relief and tore after him, Vinnie whooping in glee.
They all reached the stretch of bare, dry ground where Modo and Talon had vanished from their world just in time to see the fabric of reality itself shiver and ripple as a blue spark flared and grew into a familiar bubble of azure fire. The sphere incandesced nova-bright before the glow faded away to reveal the familiar shape of Modo’s bike, with their gray-furred bro astride and Talon perched behind him. Throttle could not restrain a low moan as he hurtled across the ground and snatched Talon off the back of the bike, crushing her in his arms in rapturous joy at their safe return. Talon had tears sparkling in her eyes, and she locked her arms around his neck and pressed a kiss against his tan-furred cheek.
"Hi," she said meekly, her voice muffled against his neck, "did you miss me?"
Throttle had to smile as he recalled the last time she’d said that to him, when they had been reunited after Tally and the Turbokat’s unexpected detour to Mars, courtesy of Napoleon Brie.
"Yes, I missed you!" Throttle told her laughingly, picking Talon up and spinning her around in the air, drinking in the sight of his love, so beautiful and vibrantly alive compared to the pale, wan-faced wraith that had departed six days ago. The belt of silver bells she wore chimed music as he did, and he absently wondered where she had gotten such a pretty ornament, although to him, it paled beside her enchanting emerald eyes, alight with shared happiness at their reunion. As much as he had missed Tally, he knew it wasn’t only the joy of their reunion that made her look so radiantly lovely.
Setting her down again with a wholehearted kiss, Throttle turned to Modo, who was being hugged and welcomed by others, and pulled his bro into a rough embrace. He noted the amazing new arm Modo wore with a wave of relief; and picking up on the new serenity in Modo’s face and demeanor, resolved to find out more about that later, when he had a chance to talk to his bro alone.
"Looks like you did a pretty good job taking care of my girl, bro," Throttle joked as he let go, "she looks better than she did when she left!"
Modo thumped him on the back and told him, "I can’t take credit for that, bro, you’d best thank Hermes and the Machinato Vitae for her recovery."
Throttle punched him lightly in the ribs, and twined the fingers of his other hand tightly through Talon’s. "Well then, since none of us have any idea who or what Hermes or the Machinato Vitae are, why don’t you two tell us all about it, big guy?"
"You got it," Modo replied feelingly, "and, man oh man, do we have some crazy stories to tell you guys!"
"And while you’re at it," Charley interjected, her face alive with curiosity as she gazed at Modo’s new silvery arm, "you can tell us all about that!" and she pointed to the Old Blood symbol Jack had placed there.
"And that," Vinnie added, staring with great interest at the shining silver ring hanging from his ear.
"We brought back a gift for you, too, Charley-girl," and Modo reached into the storage compartment of his bike, removed the notebook Jack had given him and handed it to Charley.
"From one mechanic to another, Jack said to tell you."
Charley took the book from him and her mouth made an ‘o’ as she stared in fascination at the exacting diagrams Jack’s scarred hands had drawn for her.
"What’s this?" Vinnie asked curiously, lifting Hannah’s sketchbook from the storage compartment and opening it. His mouth fell open as he stared at the sketches.
"A gift from a new friend." Modo replied a trifle evasively, and reached for the book, but Vinnie took a step back out of his reach and continued flipping through the pages.
He reached the back and blew out a shrill wolf-whistle, "Whooo! Modo! Bro! What have you been doing while you were gone???"
Modo lunged for him, and the speed of his new arm had the book out of Vinnie’s hands before the younger mouse had time to react. He flipped through to the back of the book and found nearly two dozen more pictures than had been there the last time he’d seen it, all done by a hand other than Hannah’s. All the strange sketches were scenes of him and Hannah together; riding his bike, cruising in Jack’s Cadillac, sitting in the observation tower with the moons and stars painstakingly rendered behind them, laughing in the salt spray of Kirgo’s ferryboat in the crossing over to the City in the Sea, and a hugely funny one of Hermes’ toothy maw tugging on Modo’s tail so the mouse would play with the big dinosaur, and Hannah, Jack and Mustafa in the background laughing their heads off.
Modo looked over at Tally, standing in the circle of Throttle’s arms, and she shrugged lightly.
"I thought you might like them," was all she said.
"I guess maybe I should tell you about Hannah first," Modo admitted. Every jaw, with the notable exception of Talon’s, sagged as Charley, Throttle, Vinnie, Rimfire and Stoker gawked at him in open-mouthed astonishment.
"Who is Hannah?" Rimfire stuttered out with difficulty. Modo grinned, a wide, proud smirk that made everyone goggle at him even harder.
"Hannah Dundee, Ambassador of Wassoon, Governor of the City in the Sea." Modo glanced down at a sketch of Hannah’s laughing eyes and black hair and finished proudly, "My girl."
***
THE END
***