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I do not own the Biker mice, Carbine or Limburger; the other characters are just made up.
I Choke To See You Go
By Ceryst
An empty can flipped into the air, as gravity took hold the can slowly began to fall back down to the ground, but before smacking into the earth a hand grabbed it and sent it flipping back into the air. And the can continued its routine, flipping up, falling down, flipping up, falling down. Finally it was placed on a counter surface, yet its existence took a turn for the worse as a hand pressed down on it, crushing it to a mere plate.
‘We’ve decided how to get you home, instead of taking the ship you’ll go by transporter. You’ll get home faster and won’t have to worry about the actual travelling; another bonus is that you won’t be shot on site by Martian scouts thinking you’re a Plutarkian.’
‘Yeah, by transporter you only have to worry about having your molecules scattered through space when we press the wrong button.’
Choke looked at Vinnie despairingly; he had already been worried about using the transporter, now he was almost terrified.
‘Don’t listen to this old knucklehead Choke my boy, we would never press the wrong button. And besides, we’ve used it before to get to Mars and back.’ Modo smiled triumphantly at Vinnie, he had won a point. Sadly for Modo (and Choke) Vinnie was not quite ready to give up.
‘Your right, we have used it before. That was such an exciting time, I loved not knowing if the transporter would blow me up or not, it was such an adrenaline rush when the doors got jammed and the roof caved in.’
Now it was Vinnie’s turn to smile triumphantly. Just as Modo was about to try for a come back Throttle jumped in, he pinched his bro.’s mouths together to prevent them from continuing.
‘Relax Choke, the guys are only kidding. Nothing will go wrong when you use the transporter.’
Choke visibly relaxed and lent back into his seat. The sound of a key grating through the lock was heard and everyone turned when their human companion came pouncing into the room. Throttle let go of Vinnie’s and Modo’s mouths immediately as they reacted to the seemingly possessed Charley.
‘Whoa sweetheart, What’s digging in grove town?’
‘Limburger’s done it again, he’s transported another supervillain in. I heard from a friend who knows someone whos sister is connected with one of the employees in the Limburger Tower say that (before continuing she took a deep breath) when she was cleaning the room, a huge humanoid rat walked past. You are all going to have to watch your backs for a while.’
Charley walked across the room and flopped into one of the nearby chairs, she was hot and bothered. All the mice stared at her and ran what she had just told them through their heads. Modo eased some weight on to his left leg and lent in closer to Throttle. ‘She makes something so simple sound so complicated.’
Throttle merely nodded his head, ‘Yeah well, you know what women are like when they get their bit of gossip from the grape vine.’
For the time being the mice decided that it would be better for them to lie low and watch Limburger. Also, it would be much more helpful if they weren’t seen since there had been a feature in the weekly magazine titled: "We are not alone, the rats walk among us." They lounged around the Last Chance since their tails were getting really sore from being stuffed down their jeans when they did go out. Vinnie had even been unfortunate enough to rub raw patches all over his tail; needless to say everybody got an earful about it. Charley spent her time fussing over Vinnie’s tail while Modo spent his time waving his perfect tail infront of Vinnie.
So far they had not heard a peep out of Limburger, which was strange since he a supervillain with him. Normally something would be going on, but as it happened the mice were glad that all was quite at the front, they now had humans looking for them. Choke though was becoming more and more restless; he was aching to get home. Memories of trying to stay away from Throttle so that his father would not hurt him kept springing into his mind. For so long he had acted this way that it had become second nature to him. Vinnie was also feeling the effects of inaction.
‘Pleeeeeeeease, lets just bust into the Tower, trash it for a bit and then send Choke home. We’ll be killing two birds with one stone.’
Charley patted Vinnie on the head, ‘Haven’t you ever heard the saying patience is a virtue?’
‘Nope, and nor do I want to.’
‘Too late you already did.’
‘Smartarse.’
‘Why, thank you Vinnie, how nice of you to notice.’
Throttle stood and hesitantly made his way over to the bikes. Vinnie watched in breathless anticipation. ‘I think Vinnie’s right, sitting around here all day and night is not going to get us any answers…or get Choke home any sooner. We need to find out what blubber butt is up to.’
Vinnie was over to his bike before anyone else had the time to react, he jumped into the air and landed squarely on his seat, ‘Come on you slow coaches, get a move on, we have tails to whip.’
As they drove through the Tower lobby to gain access to the laboratory they all had the same thought on their minds, but instead of voicing it they simply stared at Modo and waited for the inevitable.
‘Man, it’s quiet in here, it’s actually deserted.’
As soon as Modo said this everyone readied for the attack…but nothing happened. It really was deserted.
‘This is too weird, where is everyone one?’
‘Keep your eyes peeled bros., anything can happen.’
As they crashed into the lab. they saw the transporter sitting right infront of them. Nothing was out of place except for the missing presence of the Doctor. Cautiously the mice made their way over to the transporter keeping their eyes open for any hidden dangers. Charley moved to the controls and started to press the buttons.
‘There’s no power, we need something to jump start it.’
Everyone searched around the room for a power cable except Vinnie who was sulking because he was still bored. His lazy glances finally came to rest on a huge power cable above his head; ‘here we go bros., straight up.’
Every head looked up to see what Vinnie was pointing at.
‘That will do great, we just need to get it down.’
‘Leave that to me sweetheart.’ Vinnie pointed his bike at the stretched cable and jetted up to it, when he past it he flipped off his bike, reached out his hand and grabbed the cable. Now he was hanging from the cable his tail only a couple of inches off the floor.
‘Vincent.’ Said Throttle quietly, ‘I think you should pick your tail up a bit.’
Everyone looked down at Vinnie’s tail and noticed the small electric sparks emitting off the tip. Charley screeched out, the whole cable was live, there was no insulation cover.
‘Pick your tail up Vincent, then let go of the cable. Make sure that you land on the soles of your shoes, the rubber will stop you becoming the earth point for the electricity in your body.’
Throttled sighed when Vinnie safely landed on the ground, he never thought that his bro. was in any real danger – but accidents can happen.
Suddenly the cable snapped, and with ends bursting and crackling with electricity it started its fall to the ground.
‘Everyone on your bikes, don’t touch the floor!’ With only seconds to spare all the mice (and human) managed to scramble onto their bikes. The floor sparked into life when the broken cable hit it, causing everything metal that it touched to radiate blue sparks.
‘Modo, shoot the cables from that connection point.’
When Modo successfully severed the cables the loose piece fell to the floor leaving the live ends still spluttering above them.
‘Well, this has been a LIVE party, I’m feeling quite electric.’ Vinnie brushed his hands down his fur to straighten out the hair that stood on end due to the static.
‘What did I tell you my lactated Limburger, pathetic attempts like that never work. You need to think of more direct schemes.’
Everyone turned to the new voice; hidden in the shadows some 10 metres away were two forms. One was obviously Limburger because of the global shape; the other could have past as a mouse. All weapons were raised at the ‘uninvited guests to the party’, Throttle then stepped forward. ‘Who are you?’
‘It’s just how I remember it, the authoritarian of the group. Some things never change, this can sometimes be good, but like now change would have been better – no more protecting. But this can be exploited.’
Throttle turned his head slightly to take a look at the group behind him, when he looked frontward again the mysteries were revealed. As expected Limburger stepped out grinning like a great evil Cheshire cat, but it was the second figure that caught everyone’s breath. He was a tall and tan Martian mouse; his long coil of hair was swept back between his ears and held in place by a length of string. His eyes burnt with mischief and cruel intentions, his posture was of ease and masculine grace.
Throttle jumped backwards ‘OH SHI…SH...SH…su…sugar.’ (close call)
Choke meanwhile tripped over Charley’s boot.
This Martian mouse was on the Plutarkian side, and bared a great resemblance to Throttle and Choke. Charley gasped, now she remembered where she had seen that mouse before.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Demanded Throttle.
‘Is that any way to talk to your own father, do I not have the right to come and visit my own sons?’
His answer was replied by an icy stare.
‘Whoa, even with no eyes AND glasses you still have the ability to freeze things with your cold stare. But I’m not here for small chitchat; I have a debt to pay off and that is one of my two sons. Also when I heard that my good friend Limburger was being got by my son I had to come down, oh and by the way, Mace is really pissed at you for blowing his disguise.’
Choke suddenly burst forward, Throttle had to grab him before he got too close, ‘You stay away from us or I’ll…’
‘You’ll do what my little man? Yell mean things at me? We all know that you do not have the backbone to go against me.’
Choke lowered his head and slunk backward towards the main bulk of the group, but instead of joining them he waited on the outskirts – this was to be his downfall.
‘Well I think that goes to show that I will have to take Throttle to pay off my debt, and at least I’ll be solving Limburger’s and Mace’s problem.’
‘You’ll have to catch me first you traitor.’ Throttle started to move back, he needed to be closer to his bros. Suddenly Choke cried out, a large arm clasped around his waist and hauled him off the ground. He was pulled backwards and shoved towards his father, Vinnie tried to intervene but got kicked in the head. He stumbled backwards and cracked his head on the wall, as he fell unconscious Charley ran up to him. Meanwhile the old mouse had stepped forward and grabbed Choke forcing a gun into his ear. All Throttle could do was watch everything fall apart.
Infront of him stood Choke, behind him stood Modo, and behind Modo lay Charley with Vinnie, this escape was going to be testing. Modo walked forward and came to a stop besides his bro., at least someone was still standing.
A door was flung open causing the remaining mice to crouch down and ready themselves, but only a beautiful female mouse stepped out. Her body was covered in a soft light grey, so light that at times it seemed almost silver. Her long flaxen hair fell to her knees in freedom since a tie did not trap it.
‘At last, where have you been Chromium?’
She ignored the older mouse and moved towards Throttle oblivious of Modo. She grabbed his chin and dug her nails into his face drawing blood; she slowly lent forward and brushed her lips against his. Throttle stood rock still, hardly even breathing; his fingers still clenched around his gun. Then she removed her clawed hands from Throttle’s face, cast a glance at him and Modo and moved on. Throttle rubbed the blood spots on his face and sighed, ‘Why is it when everything is going wrong something even worse turns up?
Modo moved closer, ‘Who was THAT?’
‘THAT was my stepmother.’
Chromium slowly proceeded towards Choke, she raised her hands and cupped his whole face, she pulled him forward and raised herself onto her tiptoes placing a kiss on his forehead before letting him go. With that done she turned to the father to answer his previous question.
‘My dear Yoke, you wouldn’t want me looking like a mess would you?’
She stood by his side and continued to watch Throttle like a hungry animal.
‘Well Throttle, here’s what will happen. You come back with me to Mars, and Choke and the rest of your friends will go free, if you disagree he will go in your place and I will kill the rest of you.’
‘Why Mars?’ Voiced Modo, he was not too comfortable with the situation.
‘Have you heard of the battle at Hellas in the south-east quadrant of Mars?’
This was one of the bloodiest battles that Mars had ever seen, the heavily crated land made movement difficult, and every now and then an electrical field would hit the area causing everything to stop working.
‘Well that battle is still raging, but the mice are slowly losing. I met up with an old captain from there and promised to send him another soldier.’
Throttle now had to think fast, he had to get everyone out; the corner of his eye caught sight of his stepmother still staring at him. Now if there was one thing Throttle knew about his father, was that he could get insanely jealous. He lent into Modo and whispered into his ear, Modo nodded in agreement. Slowly Throttle stepped towards the group infront of him, but he mainly made his way towards his stepmother. When a metre away he stopped and smiled at her, she smiled in return and started to run a finger up and down her waist while twisting her hips. Throttle walked up besides her and started whispering sweet nothings into her ear; she started giggling like a schoolgirl.
Yoke meanwhile did not like what he saw; he grabbed Chromium by the arm. ‘What do you think that you are doing?’
Chromium wiggled free and jumped behind Throttle holding onto his waist. ‘He is my stepson, I have the right to say goodbye to him’
Throttle drew in a deep breath and pulled her infront of him and ran his hands up her back, she tilted her head back and gasped, he gently kissed her throat. Cautiously Throttle drew her further from the group; he only stopped when his back hit a wall. He wrapped his tail around her ankle and continued to warm her skin with tender touches. When Chromium cried out and pushed herself further into Throttle Yoke snapped, he threw Choke to the floor and charged. Modo quickly shot forward and grabbed Choke; he pulled him towards the bikes at the back of the room while also pulling Vinnie off the ground who was just coming round.
Meanwhile Throttle saw his father coming none to happy; he quickly pulled back on his tail and sent his stepmother wheeling into Yoke. He then sprinted over to his bike and leapt on, with a quick glance around to check that everyone was present he kicked his bike into life and stormed out of the building – spitting all the way.
‘Well, that peabrained scheme was less than successful, all of those repugnant rodents escaped.’
Limburger stomped out of the lab cursing all the way.
‘I’m so sorry Yoke, I don’t know what can over me, I ruined everything.’ Chromium dropped her face into her hands and wept. Yoke put a hand around her shoulders; he had not stopped smiling yet.
‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head. Now I know what I’m up against, they all work well together. But every well-oiled machine breaks down when dominant screws are removed.’
‘How’s the head Vinnie, you took quite a knocking?’
‘Fine now. How’s the face, you took quite a clawing?’ Throttle absent-mindedly rubbed his cuts while Vinnie rubbed his head. ‘Fine.’
Choke came slinking into the room with Modo behind. Sighing in unison they both sat down, Modo stuck close besides Choke; he was not going to let him out of his sight. If he got caught again Throttle would be in the war at Hellas sooner than he thought. Modo was not going to see his bros. split apart because of one angry traitor. He stared at Throttle, was his father the reason that he took his ‘line of work’ so seriously? Modo was confused over what had happened since Choke’s arrival, he had found out things about Throttle’s past that he had never known. Throttle had kept them at a distance, Modo was sure that it was not from distrust but from not wanting pity or dumping his problems on someone else. What else was closed up? Yet Throttle seemed unfazed by what had just happened, Choke on the other hand looked like he was going to be sick.
Limburger slapped Yoke heartily on the back before sliding over to his window and staring out over the city.
‘What a great idea, if we hand the mice over to the humans and portray them as dangerous beings then…’
‘Then they will rat on you and the humans will find out that Plutarkians are taking over. No we must be delicate about this, if we can get Throttle to surrender because he thinks that we will tell then I can take him back to Mars.’
Yoke looked at Limburger and rolled his eyes at him ‘Why doesn’t he lose weight?’
‘That is not good enough, I want to be rid of the biker mice.’ Limburger stuck out his bottom lip impersonating a goldfish and folded his arms.
‘I want doesn’t get, if we get Throttle to Mars then the rest will either fall easily or go to Mars to get him. Either way you get rid of them all, and I pay off my debt.’
‘What do you think this is guys? It just came in the post.’ Charley walked over to the T.V to show the video.
‘Dunno, put it on and find out.’
Charley slid the video into the machine and squeezed in-between Modo and Vinnie on the couch, as the video started to play Choke and Throttle walked in.
"Today our esteemed Mr. Limburger met with the president to talk about the actuality of aliens walking among us. Since it was at his Tower that the first alien was discovered Limburger has taken it upon himself to build a large self-contained holding cell, the location of which must remain confidential. Here with us now is Limburger himself, tell us, do you really believe that aliens are on Earth?"
"I must admit that a few days ago I would have thought that it was a crazy notion, but recently my opinion on the matter has changed. I fully agree that we are not alone, I have been to the city major and received some small files on the sightings of these aliens. Mark my words though, when they are discovered the world will know and we will find out what they want."
The picture then changed to show Limburger, Yoke and Chromium sitting around a table. The view panned out to show more tables, each one laden with sharp metallic objects.
"This will be the future news, and this the future home if you do not come to me.’ Yoke stopped waving his arm at all of the knives and saws and let it drop to his side. ‘Do not keep me waiting."
With that the video finished and started to rewind itself. The high pitched whirling was the only sound in the room.
‘You can’t go!’
‘You know that I have to.’
‘No, you don’t have to go.’
‘What do you suppose that I do then? Whatever we do will be disastrous. If I don’t go we’ll be caught, even if I go back to Mars alone the cheese will still hit the fan.’
‘What if he’s bluffing?’
‘I’m sure that he is, but we can’t take the risk, humans aren’t quite ready to know about us yet.’
Throttle continued to stare at his friends, everyone was at a loss, they didn’t know what to do.
‘Why can’t you go back to Mars, fight for a while, fake your own death and we can pick you up?’ Everyone sat stunned, that might just work, Modo’s plan might just work.
‘If we choose a point to pick you up at we can beam in and out again straight away.’
‘Yeah, and I bet ol’ Stink Face will even step aside for us to use the transporter, he’ll think that he’s getting rid of us.’
‘Right then it’s sorted.’
Vinnie kicked Choke in the shin; ‘He told us that his momma didn’t raise no fools.’
*
‘PLATOON 45, ADVANCE!’
The small group of bikers skipped over the desert ridge, only two bikes remained behind.
‘Here we go again, I wish that he would say something different, something helpful.’ Throttle kicked Accelerator in the leg.
‘Stick with me, I’ll see if I can think up anything useful.’
‘You? You’re only a baby.’
‘I may be young but I know how to fight to win.’
Both bikers then soared after their disappearing platoon to join in the battle. Over a dune lay a large plain, which normally would have been deserted, but now it was crawling with life and death. A platoon that had ventured in earlier was being backed up a small sanddune in the centre of the plain causing them to become more and more vulnerable.
The captain of Platoon 45 came to a stop. ‘Why those dirty fighting fish.’
‘What do we do Captain?’ Came a voice from behind him.
‘We drive straight into them and surprise them. Ready lets…’
‘Well, I’m not doing that, I don’t want to die just yet. We need to surround the Fish, draw their fire from the other platoon so that from their vantagepoint they can wipe out the resistance.’
Throttle revved his engine and waited, ‘COME ON, if we surround them they will be in the same predicament as the other platoon, except they will be fired on from both sides.’ By now Throttle was almost yelling.
‘Lets do it.’ Screamed the Captain, and the rest of the mice whooped after him.
The Plutarkians were taken by surprise as another platoon of mice came screeching towards them, when they split up the Plutarkians could not keep track of both platoons. Soon they found themselves being fire on from the front and back. Out of desperation they fired at will, anything that moved was a target. Throttle could feel the laser beams flying past his body, the heat from them adding to the heat of fear. Suddenly a bike spun out of control and collided with Throttle, he threw his weight towards the other bike in an attempt to keep himself upright. He would have succeed had a stray laser not caught him on the shoulder, Throttle yelped and crashed into the ground. He tried to pick himself up but was pinned down by the weight of his bike the other bike and the biker.
‘Need a bit of help there buddy?’ Accelerator reached out a hand to Throttle and pulled him out.
‘Hey, I have everything in control.’ Accelerator laughed at Throttle and then picked up the unconsious biker and took off. Throttle righted his bike and secured the other one, then he too left the battle scene, there was nothing more to be done.
Back on Earth Charley and company were having problems keeping Limburger down. They had not let him succeed in a big scheme, but it was the smaller schemes that were causing all the damage. More and more houses were being pulled down from different sites all over town.
‘He’s really putting a hurting on the city this time.’
‘Yeah, it must be Throttle’s dad, he is one slippery customer.’
Vinnie and Modo went flashing down the street on their way to try and stop Limburger’s latest scheme.
‘We have to get back soon though, we have to go and pick up Throttle. Charley said that I should wait with her while you and Choke get him. I don’t see why I have to stay though, it’s almost as if she doesn’t believe that I will be a good boy.’
Modo sniggered to himself and slapped his hand down on the handlebars.
‘That is the understatement of the year, you are too full of hot air to be a good boy.’
Throttle looked at his watch, only 2 hours to go, hopefully the next battle wouldn’t be too far away from the rendezvous.
*
‘SSHHH, it’s like moving with a herd of elephants, at times I can’t believe that you are mice.’
‘Charley, this is manly noise. How can I be manly and quiet?’
*
That was lucky, the battle isn’t too far off. Throttle began to prepare his death.
*
‘Ok Charley-ma’am, get us back in 5 minutes.’ The lab. was black since the mice did not want to be noticed. Vinnie sat with a ball of cotton in his mouth, they had actually persuaded him to enter the building quietly.
*
A laser shot past Throttle’s head a bit too close for comfort, he looked at his watch again, ‘time to go.’
Suddenly the whole battle lost control, a high pitched squealing was heard and everything went dead. Throttle, along with everyone else was pitched off their bikes; the electrical field had come up.
‘No, no, NO’ Moaned Throttle, ‘how the hell am I to make it too the pick up point?’
Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his side, a Plutarkian had moved in while he was preoccupied and stabbed him with a small peeling knife. Throttle removed the knife and pulled out his own weapon, HIS dagger was 8 inches long with a serrated edge. The Plutarkian gulped and ran away. Throttle breathed a sigh of relief; he didn’t know too much about knives and was worried about using it. With a sudden sharp intake of breath the tan mouse pulled his wrist into his body, another Plutarkian had come along and smacked the knife out of his hand. Weaponless and hurting Throttle stared at his opponent and bid his time, he remembered an old trick that his father one-day had told him. The mouse shuddered at the thought of using his father’s trick; the Plutarkian took this as a shudder of fear and advanced. Those few steps that the Plutarkian took proved to be his last, a hand grasped his throat and pinched down on his windpipe. The grip tightened and the Fish felt his lungs begin to burn, in panic he swung out and tried to knock off his tormentor, but the vise like grip remained unmoved.
‘Let me go.’ The voice was high and taunt. ‘You will die anyway, I’ve seen many mice die to know that you won’t make it.’
Something inside Throttle snapped and he increased the pressure on the windpipe, he grabbed at the rings of cartilage and yanked his hand backwards. The Plutarkian’s eyes bulged as he witnessed his own windpipe being torn from his throat, then he crumpled to the floor. The tan mouse looked down at his hand and gagged at the sight, sitting innocently in his palm was a bloody tube. He threw the offensive thing away and stepped away from the body making sure not to look at the open throat. For a moment the mouse felt physically sick, he had brutally murdered, but when he focused back on the battle he shook the feeling away.
‘Those bastards deserve what they get.’
Now alone Throttle had time to take in the situation, all bikes, machinery and even guns lay scattered around, untouched where they lay fallen. A hail of arrows bathed the battlefield, the age of the battle slipped to the past. Throttle looked at his watch even though it too had stopped - 10 minutes to go - he looked over the battle - no, he couldn’t leave. He watched as fellow mice and enemies alike fell to the onslaught of the arrows. After the last shower of arrows Throttle ran into the battle. ‘Pull back, pull back! We are sitting ducks out here, we need to regroup.’
‘He’s not here! What are we going to do?’
Modo sat on his heels surveying the land, had he looked closer at a point in the distance he would have noticed small streaks across the sky; the arrows were still flying.
‘Well he can’t be fighting, we would have heard the guns. Maybe he got held up somewhere.’
Modo couldn’t bring himself to think that Throttle may not have been there because he was physically unable to. He stared at the hands moving around his watch face and wished that he could stop them, to give them more time.
‘We need more time!’
‘Well we don’t have it, by foot it will take the reinforcements at least 30 minutes to get here, we have to do something now.’
‘We’re not going to make it.’
‘Don’t talk like that, think about what we have that they don’t, we have…’
‘…Humility, nobility, and a sense of honour that is very rare indeed.’
‘Yes, thank you Throttle. Listen, we at least have head protection.’
Throttle sighed and walked away from the group, they were getting nowhere fast. The remaining mice had retreated behind a dune; many wanted to wait for the reinforcements who always came when the electricity field came down. Throttle crawled up to a brown mouse that was acting as a look out, he changed his position so that he mimicked the other mouse’s exact stance.
‘You had better get that looked at kid, you don’t want it getting infected.’
Throttle stole a glance at his wound, apart from the sand grains clinging to the drying blood it was relatively clean.
‘I remember once, when I was…OH MY GOD!’
The mouse suddenly slid down the sand dune towards the other mice, Throttle looked out. The Plutarkians were advancing in one huge group.
‘Typical, they have no idea. At least the tables came be turned now.’
Throttle slid down the sand dune and joined the rest, then he told everyone what they were going to do.
A bright light enveloped Modo and Choke, Modo slammed his fist down on the ground and growled as they vanished into thin air.
The Plutarkians came storming over the dune and into the bowl that held the mice – except the mice were not there.
‘It must be over the next dune.’
‘You would just love that to be true fish guts, but sadly for your case you are wrong.’
The plutarkians looked up at the lone mouse on the dune edge; but then again he was not so alone. All the other survivors appeared around the bowl edge, the plutarkians were trapped. With the mice’s elevated position they could contain the fish in their bowl for as long as they liked, even though the Plutarkians had more bows and arrows; they could not use them efficiently.
Suddenly the area was filled with a deep groaning; the electrical field was lifting. Everyone grabbed their guns and pointed them at their foes. Again the mice had a sense of worry, the fish were trapped but there was a whole lot more of them. The worry was short lived as the Plutarkians nearest to the dune edge ran up it firing, all hell broke loose as the mice fired down on the fish bowl, the desperate Plutarkians fired back.
‘Oh hell.’ Thought Throttle as a Plutarkian grabbed his foot and pulled him down. He quickly turned and tried to dig his toes and hands into the sand to prevent him slipping, but the weight of the fish was too much. Throttle gritted his teeth when he felt the lasers burning through the flesh of his knees, with a new lease of life and the desperation to survive he threw his weight forward and kicked out with his legs. Suddenly he felt a strong hand close around his collar and help him up, when a better grip could be found the hand and arm clasped around his shoulders pulling him up.
‘That was too close for comfort kid.’ Accelerator sat back in the sand and watched the reinforcements storm past to finish the job. ‘We had better get you home.’
Throttle looked at a point in the distance, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find my way back.’ He said bitterly to himself.
‘No kid, I’ll get your bike and take you back, you’ll be laid up for a while due to your knees.’
Accelerator stood up and walked off over the dune, while he was gone Throttle watched the rest of the mice clean up. None of the Plutarkians had made it out alive, for this he was not sorry, but they had taken down a lot of mice, for this he grieved. The nagging thoughts arose in his mind, how much did his own father have to do with the take over of Mars? How could he ever make up for his father’s mistake?
‘We’ll just have to go back, Throttle must have been in a meeting or something, no way he could have faked a death then.’
Vinnie paced up and down the lab. his arms folded behind his back. Charley scuttled after him trying to keep him quiet, she did not want to be caught now.
‘Yes, that’s the only explanation for it, he was in a meeting.’
‘Next time my young individual, I want you to keep your mouth shut!’
The major of the platoons smashed his fist down on the table causing the top items to momentarily become airborne, he glared at the tan mouse before him. ‘I do not want platoon captains coming home and telling me that you were telling them what to do. Not only will it get the minorities in the ranks talking but also make mice look bad. You have no authority to take command – especially when the captain is standing besides you.’
Throttle shifted uncomfortably where he stood; not because he was nervous, but because it was playing havoc on his knees. Infact he had no care about what he was being told, he did what was right to save people’s lives and was proud of it. He shuffled his feet about and gave them a great deal of attention.
‘Throttle are you listening to me? Or do you think I am a raving old man?’
‘Yes major (Oh the strain not too agree with the last part), I heard everything you said. Yet I will not back down on what I think is right, I did what I had to do since the captain did nothing.’
He watched the major turn quite a spectacular shade of crimson and clench his fist around a small paperweight on his desk. Instead though of hurling it at the young mouse the major sat down and smiled – one of content and satisfaction.
‘OK then, you can have your own platoon. Of course though you will have to be punished for insubordination, 10 lashes sounds all right doesn’t it? You can go now.’
‘We can transport back, send another time to his bike and whamo, we get him back on Earth. He won’t always be in meetings.’
‘…we hearby sentence you to 10 lashes for questioning the leadership of your platoon captain.’
Everyone in the camp watched the tan mouse have his wrists bound to a bar and his shirt and jacket removed.
The whip was whirled up high causing a whooshing noise before being positioned. Throttle bit down on the side of his inner cheek as the first whip cracked down on his back. The whip was retracted and the dreaded noise was waited for. As the second slash burnt across his lower back he drew blood from his cheek, the iron taste in his mouth gave him a disturbing feeling of comfort. Just as Accelerator had said by the fifth lash his back was almost numb, and the pain of each new wound less conspicuous.
The whip leather was so thin that the wounds bled little, but he could still feel small drops running through his fur. As the major yelled out ‘ten’ Throttle was so numbed by the biting pain that he was only semi-aware that his sentence had been paid. As the ropes binding his wrists to the bar were cut away he fell, but he did not hit the ground. Accelerator caught him and half carried half dragged him to the medical centre.
Throttle hissed through gritted teeth when the alcohol soaked towel came in contact with his cuts.
‘I’ve got some bad news I’m afraid. These cuts may be quite shallow, but the fur will not grow again. These will scar for life.’
‘Is there nothing that I can do?’
Accelerator stood up and removed his shirt; he turned around so that his back could be viewed. Criss-crossing his whole back were numerous scars, all no thicker than half a centimetre, Throttle’s question had been answered.
‘Why do they do it? Don’t they realise that we are fighting on the same side?’
‘Out here I’ve seen the best of men fall out of place. This is a necessity to keep everyone in line – without killing them or severely handicapping them.’
‘What if he can’t get to the site because he’s in a medical centre?’
Everyone looked glum; they weren’t sure what to do. They had already tried Stoker, but the battle was nothing to do with him and he had his hands full anyway keeping his side alive. The mice agreed that no more mice than necessary should be involved; the battleground was dangerous.
‘What if…’ Started Choke.
‘ You forget about it and leave the premises before I call security and have you evicted.’
Everyone whipped round to see Yoke standing by the door, his arm around Chromium.
‘Try and make us give up you failing father figure.’
‘I may not know how to make you give up completely, but I do know how to make it extremely difficult for you to continue.’
He pulled out a small black box from his pocket a pressed an equally small button. The transporter started to glow a vivid red; the heat was unbearable causing the mice and Charley to back away. It was lucky that they did, for at that moment the transporter cracked in half sending pieces of metal flying everywhere. When the heat and light died down the transporter was nothing but waste, it was useless.
Yoke turned around to leave the room, but before he did he said,
‘Kindly close the door on your way out.’
*
‘That mouse has too many bolts unscrewed in his head. I can’t believe that he just blew the transporter up like that.’
Vinnie let his head fall down on the table infront of him, when it made contact he pulled it back up quickly.
‘Ow, that hurt.’ At seeing everyone starring at him he added, ‘Felt good though.’
For the next while the inhabitants of the Last Change garage sat and pondered about how they were going to get to Mars. Modo started to drum his metal fingers on the body of the newly painted spaceship. The steady rhythm was slowly beginning to drive the rest mad, Vinnie snapped first and leapt at Modo bringing him down flat on the floor.
‘Will you quit doing that, we are trying to think of a way to get to Mars.’
With that they both picked themselves up and lent on the ship. Simultaneously every head turned to look at the ship, a look of realisation swept over every feature.
‘So we sweep in, land, find Throttle, kidnap him, get back in the ship, take off, and fly back to Earth.’
‘Sounds like a plan to me.’
A small group of mice scrambled up the sand on their stomachs, when there they twisted so they could sneer at the tan mouse. Platoon 13 now had a new commander and they were not too estatic about it.
‘Alright young man, what do we do now?’
‘Firstly my name is Throttle, and secondly, I already told you what was happening.’
The large black mouse slid over to the now looking slim built mouse. When close enough he slammed the tan mouse’s head down in the sand causing him to splutter on the sand.
‘You see, I don’t like taking orders from a juvenile. None of the others do either.’
Throttle spat out the remaining sand and stared at the black mouse, he wished he had listened to Accelerator more when he told him that he was in for a battle.
‘Personally I don’t care what you think, all I know is that I have a longer history of command than you do. That means in this respect you are the juvenile and I am not.’
The group surrounding Throttle backed off a bit, this was not what they had expected, their previous commanders simply gurgled and run off crying. Only the black mouse remained unmoved. He would have seemed invisible had it not been for the silver tags on his jacket, the black of his coat melted in with the background. Even his eyes were lost form view giving him an appearance of death.
‘If you want experience, then I’ll give you hands on experience.’
With this he threw his head back and whooped out, the rest of the group followed suit. He then launched himself forward and charged at the Plutarkian camp below, all the while calling for his bike.
‘What are you doing!’ Screamed Throttle ‘That is a weapons camp.’
He shot after them on foot screaming blue murder. When he cleared the ridge of the dune he saw his Platoon streaming towards the first bunker. Shots rang out.
‘Not the explosives.’
Throttle started forward again when the bunker started throwing a firework display, rockets flew up in the air and exploded in reds and greens. The mice that had been close to the bunker were blown backwards; bits of them flew left while the majority of them flew right. By now Throttle was nearing the bottom of the dune, suddenly a hand grabbed the back of his jacket and started heaving him back up the slope. Throttle tried desperately to shake off the mystery hand and return to the fight, he ignored the fact that he was actually having problems breathing because of his shirt collar digging into his throat. When over the dune ridge the grip was lessened, Throttle whipped round to see Accelerator staring at him.
‘What are you doing? My men are down there blowing themselves up.’
Once more he started over the ridge. An arm circled around his thinning waist and he was pulled into Accelerator’s chest. He was spun around so that he was facing Accelerator.
‘Let me go! I’ve got to help them.’
He struggled against his captor but only succeeded in being pulled in further. Accelerator had one arm wrapped around his back and the other forcing his head down.
‘Relax kid, if you go in there now you will be killed…and they are not worth it. If people don’t listen to good advice and orders given to them they deserve to die, don’t you go and do the same.’
Throttle’s struggles weakened even though his breathing remained erratic and laboured. All he could now was listen to the cries from over the dune; his Platoon had put up a brave fight but were no match against the immense number of weapons. He squeezed his eyes shut and for once wished that they could cry.
‘We have to go kid, every Plutarkian and his dog will be here soon.’
As they stood up they heard a soft whistling, both looked around them to try and place the sound. The land infront of them crumbled as the stray rocket hit; the force of the impact threw the two mice backwards sending them tumbling down the dune.
‘Oh hell, why does this always have to happen to me?’
As Throttle opened his eyes he could feel them stinging as blood flowed into them, he slowly removed his glasses from his face and flinched when he noted the broken glass on the right side. He ran his fingers over his eyes and drew them back suddenly when they were slit by a piece of glass. Large pieces of his glasses had embedded themselves in the flesh surrounding his right eye. A hand clasped his chin.
‘That is quite a nasty scratch. Lets get back to the bikes, I have some tweezers and alcohol.’
Accelerator slowly stood up; his leg cut from parts of the exploding rocket.
‘Looks like the doctor needs some help himself.’
Throttle chuckled as Accelerator stuck his tongue out at him.
‘You have to keep still.’
‘Then you have to be gentle.’
‘Stop being such a wimp, you’re a big boy now.’
Throttle was lying on his back with his eyes screwed shut; Accelerator had a pair of tweezers in his hand and was pulling out the glass in Throttle’s face using the bike headlights to see. The sound of whistling was heard which caught the mice’s attention immediately.
‘Another rocket?’
‘I don’t know, it sounds too loud.’
The area around them burst into light as a large ship cruised over the lip of a dune, and then they were bathed in a soft green light and disappeared from the surface of the planet.
‘And here you are!’
Vinnie came pouncing down the ship corridor and crashed into Throttle, Modo, Choke and Charley were close behind. Modo grabbed Throttle in one hand and Vinnie in the other, with little effort he pulled them off the ground.
‘Thought you had gotten away from us didn’t you bro. Well here’s a news flash, your stuck with us.’
Then everyone noticed his injuries, and the stranger standing behind him. Charley ran forward and hustled them both off to the medical bay. Now was another moment for her to demonstrate her medical skills.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to come?’
‘No, I’ll be fine, and anyway someone has to say that the whole of Platoon 13 was wiped out. Take care of yourselves.’
Accelerator returned to the surface of the planet and without a second glance headed back to headquarters.
*
‘Honey, we’re home.’
The three biker mice crashed into Limburger Tower and slammed into the unexpecting residents. All they could do was gulp and gurgle at the mice before them.
‘What are YOU doing here?’ Stammered Yoke, ‘You were killed at Hellas.’
‘Yeah well, I have a knack for coming back from the dead. And you can forget about trying something like that again, I’m now ready for you.’
With that they all turned and jetted out of the window to the streets below leaving skid marks along the road.
Vinnie turned to look at his tan friend and noted his thinning waist and slight muscle wasting.
‘You have lost so much weight that it just means that we are going to have to eat continuously.’
‘Yeah, we couldn’t let you eat alone and feel like a porker.’
Throttle laughed in his throat ‘You know bros., it’s great to be back.’
As they drove towards the Last Chance Vinnie played the whole episode in his mind, it had been a trying time, but they were back together again. He swore to himself that he would never let the three of them be broken apart again in the future.
Choke stared out of the window and watched the red sands whip about in the wind, he was glad to be back on Mars. He looked down at a picture in his hands; he was sitting next to Throttle and his mother.
‘Forgive me, but I have to do this.’
Choke dropped the picture a lifted a small razor, he pushed the blade against his wrist and slashed deep into his vein. Pain racked through his body and he dropped the razor. He grabbed his wrist and cried out, no, he didn’t want to die yet. He fell to his knees and screamed out for help – but he was alone, now he had no one to help him. As his blood splattered onto the floor he felt his vision blur, everything around him unfocused and he fell forward. The blood puddle grew and lifted stands of hair causing them to gently sway.
‘I’m a fool, father is right, I am weak.’
The last thing Choke remembered before blacking out was the sound of the heavy iron door sliding open, followed by hasty footsteps.
Carbine knelt down besides the prone figure and slipped two fingers under his chin to try and find a pulse.
‘Yes, I’m not too late.’
ceryst