Get a Lock

By Stephen Doyle

Authors Note:
The White Knights are characters I designed 
off of the top of my head. Almost everything about them 
is unique. If you want to know more about them, or want 
to use them in a fanfic of your own, mail me at:
Silverwind81@Hotmail.com.
Also, a note of clarity on a few points. VREx is the 
abbreviation for Variable Robotic Exoskeleton. I will also refer to the 
craft as 'mecha' which explains what they are quite well.

On with the show.


Chapter One:
'One sweet Knight'

	The city of St. Ark slept peacefully, unaware of the events that were 
unfolding on the outskirts of the great capital. From the distance 
between the city centre and the scene of the drama, all that could be 
seen were the glowing sparks of engine exhausts, easily mistaken for 
stars among the other glowing lights in the heavens.
But these were no stars.

	The irregular geometric shape of the air platform hung silently in the 
sky over the DefCom (DEFence COMmand)  weaponry establishment. Disguised 
as a car manufacturing plant, the building turned out enough high-end 
Caddy's  to support it's cover. But inside a deeper secret hid.
A dome on the bottom of the platform glowed brightly, and a luminous 
green beam pierced the darkness, and hit the roof of the plant. Spearing 
it, the beam glowed brighter, and the hum that accompanied changed 
pitch. The roof began to splinter and lift away. 
	At the controls, a voice that oozed class and dignity spoke in a steady 
and constant tone.
	"Excellent, soon I will have at my disposal the means to rid myself once 
and for all of the accursed city. And in its place shall rise the new 
dominion of my divinity, The age of DARKNESS!"
On the console in front of the speaker, a radar sweep picked up the 
ghost of an image. Programmed to alert to anything, the console erupted 
into sound.
	"Danger! Incoming enemy!"
	"What? The paltry military of the dimension challenges me? Then they 
shall know my displeasure. Launch all biocombat drones!"
	A panel of the platform opened up, flowing into a liquid state and 
retreating inside the craft. As it did so, two squads of seven ships 
emerged. Shrouded in a organic mottled pattern, their natural form 
granted them two plasma cannons on each wing tip.
	The group filled the air around the platform and plant, waiting for the 
intruders.
	And then it happened. A single cry cut across the radio on all waves, 
coming as a high yell, as a male and female voice mingled together:
"KNIGHT'S ROCK!!!"
	The air around the sky platform was instantly filled with the multiple 
bloom of mini-missile explosions. 
	Hot on the tail of the missiles, the sky was alive with the traces of 
autocannon ammunition, as the sky lit up.
	The White Knights were in the house, and kicking ass.

	Silverwind banked the White Blade into a turn, the vectored thrust 
cutting in enough power to out - turn the drone he had selected as his 
next victim. As the inside of his helmet display registered a lock-on, 
he used the VREx's dorsal missile launchers to vape the bogie.
Sending a command through the neural interface in the back of his neck, 
the ships computer informed him that his counterpart, T'lia in her Metal 
Storm VREx had also dispatched of three of the drones.
	The fighter swung into his field of vision, and as he watched, it 
forward flipped over the top of the drone it was chasing, metamorphosing 
In the way that only VREx's can.
	Wings swung behind it's back, as the nose swung down. The nose cannon 
moved to the top of the arm, and the transformation was complete.
All of this took under a second, and the drone was engulfed in a storm 
of plasma as the Metal Storm discharged its rifle, sending the craft 
spinning to the ground.
	The warrior mode mecha turned to his own ship, and made a peace sign 
with its right hand, and T'lia's face appeared on his screen.
	"Four to me, one to you. You're slipping Silverwind".
	The tigress was smiling as she teased him.
	Silverwind growled at the screen in mock anger.
	"I'll show you slipping dear".
	The wolf spun his mecha around, the vectored engines coming into play 
once more. Throwing the jet in a wide arc across the area of operation, 
he loosed a few shots at each drone, enough to get them chasing him. 
Pulling the jet into a power climb, with full afterburners, the jet 
exceeded mach 3, and the shockwave blasted down, tumbling the drones. As 
they regained balance, Silverwind hit full transformation, and used the 
ships foot thrusters to reverse brake behind the group. Using the last 
of the Sureshot missiles in the leg pods of the mecha, the remaining 
drones erupted into smoke and flame.
	Silverwind's warrior mode mecha came back to hover alongside T'lia's. 
Silverwind was just about to deliver a witty repast when the sky 
platform rumbled noisily and the cargo it had been seeking emerged 
through the roof of the auto factory.
	"Silverwind, look!"
	"I know T'lia, that things captured the Quantum warheads!"

	The two of them watched as the stolen warheads lifted into the belly of 
the ship. At the controls, the pilot had observed the destruction of his 
combat forces. Stunned by the power of the two ships, he had decided to 
make swift retreat with his prize.

	"No way gee, you ain't getting away with those cookies"
	Silverwind got the sky platform fixed in the visor of his helmet. The 
targeting icon moved over the ship, and chimed.
	T'lia's visor showed her the same as her lovers. The platform was 
centred, and the icon was fixed. The peak of her helmet reflected a 
moonbeam, and she blinked briefly. Frowning, she a command through her 
neural jack, and the Deadbolt missiles on the metal storm's back were 
armed. Her thumb rubbed the joystick trigger as she judged the moment, 
and then her eyes opened wide in surprise.
	"Holy shit! Silverwind are you seeing this?"
	As the White Knights watched, the forward part of the platform began to 
glow with a blue light. A little to the bow of the enormous ship, there 
was some kind of distortion. As they watched, the sky began warp, and 
twist strangely. Then, with a sound like a thousand suns dying at once, 
a blacker fissure than the night sky appeared. The ship began to move 
into the tunnel, and T'lia looked over to Silverwind's ship, at the same 
time activating her comm. channel.
	"Now what?"
	Silverwind looked at her image on the screen, and then back up at the 
escaping ship. Worry was evident in T'lia's ice blue eyes. Setting his 
jaw, Silverwind switched the VREx back to fighter mode.
	"Now girl, we go after 'em. Whoever they are, I'm willin' to bet that 
they don't have access t' tactical warfare devices".
	The tigress's jaw set, and the screen went dark. Both pilots hit their 
afterburners, and the two fighters leapt forward, closing the gap 
between the sky platform, and the VREx's.

	Onboard the sky platform, the pilot gave a cruel smile.
	"Yes, that's right, follow me. Follow me, and come to your doom!"


Chapter two:
'YOU ARE HERE.
But where is here?'


	Jake groaned as the engine refused to budge for a third time. Giving up 
on lifting it, he resorted to insulting his partner Chance's heritage 
for going out to get pizza instead of helping him move the engine.
Looking at the thing with a look that seemed as though it should have 
just melted straight through it, he resolved to give it one more try.
As he was about to grab it, Chance showed up.
	"Hey buddy, you still haven't moved that engine?"
	Jake growled, resolving to leave a can of milk out in the sun for Chance 
later.
	"Yeah. It's a little to heavy for me to lift on my own. Think you can 
help?"
	Chance cracked his knuckles, and rolled up his sleeves.
	"Hey, no engine is gonna beat Chance Furlong!"
	Chance took one end of the engine, while Jake to the other. Moving 
together, they lifted it, and began to slowly walk forwards.
	The garage suddenly lit up with the blare and wail of the alarm, and 
Jake rushed over. Chance yelled as the engine was loosed at the front, 
and pitched down over it, landing in a heap on the floor, groaning 
quietly.
	Jake desperately tried to stop laughing as he picked up the handset, and 
switched off the siren.
	"Yes miss Briggs?"
	"Razor? You'd better get here right away! Some kind of....Vortex has 
opened up over MegaKat city. Some kind of huge ship has emerged, and the 
enforcers can't handle it!".
	Jake nodded. "We'll be there right away Miss Briggs".
Hanging up the handset, he turned back to Chance, who was now on his 
feet.
	"Come on, buddy it's time to show the bad guys who the boss is!"
	Together they ran to a ladder at the back of the garage. Climbing down, 
they entered a basement, and then a sub-basement where a group of 
lockers stood together. Opening them as one movement, both kat's pulled 
off their overalls, and put on blue flight-suits. Red webbing and 
harnessing went over the top of this, and black bandanna's with white 
eyepieces hid their identities. Last came the helmets, and they were no 
longer Jake and Chance. Now they were Razor and T-bone.
	The SWAT KATS!
	Running across the floor from the lockers, the pair jumped form the 
ground into the cockpit of the black jet which stood under the lights of 
the hanger. Gleaming coldly in the lights, it looked as mean and 
vengeful as they did in their get-up.
	T-bone flipped the switches, and the jet came to life. The three 
turbines began to spin, and the low keen whine of the turbines filled 
the small hanger. The canopy slid across their heads, and the jet rolled 
forward, entering a dark black tunnel.
	Nothing lit them for a few seconds, save for the passing of lights every 
three or so meters, and then the jet burst from underground, with a roar 
of turbines, the Turbokat was in the sky.

	In the centre of MegaKat city, civilians ran in terror, as unfamiliar 
shapes filled the sky.
	The giant triangular shape of the sky platform filled the sky, and its 
low hum filled the air. The portal crackled behind it, as it moved 
forward, just clearing the edge.
	On the ground, the local authority was getting to grips with the 
situation.
	"This is Feral to all enforcer units. Move in immediately"
As commander Ulysses Feral bawled these words into a pocket radio, the 
tank he was mounted in move across the asphalt of the streets. Another 
ten the same followed, and in the air helicopters moved towards the 
intruder.
	His niece, Felina Feral, was commanding one of them.
	"You heard the commander! Move in! All units open fire!"
As she spoke, the whirly birds let a volley of laser fire off at the 
platform. The golden beams of energy impacted time after time, but 
bounced off of the thickly armoured hull.
	On the ground, Feral's tankers fired as well, the rear mounted missile 
batteries of their tanks firing up at the intruder. The explosions of 
the missiles wracked at the hull, and did no more then chip the paint. 
Feral cursed. "Damn! That thing must be armour plated all over. It's a 
wonder it can fly with that much weight!"
	Feral stopped as a port on the bottom of the craft glowed, and a 
flashing beam hit the street, and cut along it towards the group of 
tanks. As it hit a parked car, the vehicle collapsed in on itself, fore 
gushing as the fuel was crushed and lit.
	"Enforcers, retreat!"
	The enforcers needed no further prompt. Beginning to drive, but finding 
the tanks too slow, they took to their heels instead, and ran from the 
scene.
	Felina's chopper turned away from the hull of the ship, and she saw into 
the vortex. As she looked ahead, she saw a bright bead of white growing 
larger. As she watched, it resolved into the shape of a streamlined jet, 
a lot like the one the Swat Kats used, then that jet was joined by a 
second, this one was purple and black, and looked more like, well, it 
didn't look like any jet she'd seen.
	It had an angular shape, but was still streamlined. Twin fins projected 
at an angle away from the body, and the wings were like cut triangles 
that had been cut off at the top.

	"Uh-oh, I'm getting aircraft ahead, it looks like a bunch of helo's".
	T'lia's radar confirmed Silverwind's reading. "I rog. Are they friend or 
foe?"
	Silverwind shook his head on her screen. "I dunno gee. Th' IFF 
(Identification: Friend or Foe) can't read their squawk.

	Felina's uncle had also caught sight of the two jets as well. Seeing 
what were undoubtedly weapons pods on the two craft, he took the normal 
course of action as he saw it.
	"All units, two UFO's approaching. Open fire!"
	Felina's voice crackled over his handset.
	"But uncle, what if they aren't in league with the other target?"
"Don't be ridiculous! They came from the same place! How could they not 
be allies! Just shoot them down!"
	Unwilling to disobey a superior officer, and family member, Felina put 
her visor down, and locked the choppers missile system onto the white 
jet.

	"Danger, enemy missile locked on target, Danger enemy missile locked on 
target"
	Silverwind's computer kept this up, and he hit full throttle on the 
White Blade. The VREx accelerated, along with it's counter, the Metal 
Storm. The two fighters cleared the edge of the void, and the rip 
closed.
	Seeing the situation the same way any combat pilot does, in tactical 
terms Silverwind took stock in it immediately. Different dimension or 
not, that person had still taken three Quantum warheads that didn't 
belong to them.
	The mission still needed completing.
	"T'lia, the platform's still ahead! Take it down!"
	The two jets banked up and away, breaking formation. As they did so, 
another party entered the arena. Coming in low over the rooftops, the 
Turbokat entered the scene.
	"Crud T-bone, look at the size of that thing!"
	"Yeah, I'm surprised it can even fly!"
	"That's one thing that I'm not too sure about. As far as I can tell, it 
doesn't have any engines. I'm not picking up any thermal image for jet 
engines, or even props of any kind."
	"Well, just blast it, and let's sort out the wreckage afterward!"

	The air buzzed heavily with the swarm of enforcer helicopters 
surrounding the slowly moving air platform. In the midst of it, the 
quick and darting forms of the White Blade and Metal Storm out flew all 
of the helicopters, looping and diving. As the enforcers squabbled among 
each other as to who was at fault when they missed, the figure in 
control of the sky platform let his presence be felt. Two ports in 
either side of the crafts immense back glowed, and a wave of energy hit 
the helicopter formations. Like the ground forces below, the choppers 
imploded, crushing into balls of solid metal. A few lucky individuals 
got clear, parachuting or banking their machines away.
	Felina's helicopter pulled back as the wave swept the air in front of 
her chopper clear, except for the rapidly descending heaps of scrap that 
had once been proud machines and their pilots.
	"This is lieutenant Feral to HQ. I'm ordering an all out air strike on 
this target!"
	Just as the message got through, the wave swept towards her helicopter. 
Frozen into her seat by the terror of the approaching beam, she couldn't 
move. Squeezing her eyes tight shut, she felt a lurch, and waited for 
the inevitable as the helicopter would close in on her. She wondered if 
she would turn inside out, or if she would just condense into a heap of 
flesh and fur.
	When she realised that she had time to work out the answer to that 
question, she opened her eyes.
	The helicopter had stopped moving forwards, and there were six giant 
metal fingertips stabbed through into the cabin.
Felina looked up out of the cabin window, and saw the form of a massive 
metal figure above. As she looked she realised it was a lot like the jet 
she had seen earlier. Some how, it had changed shape, and was now bodily 
lifting the helicopter away.
	The radio crackled, an a voice sounded over, unfamiliar to her.
	"Knight one to Enforcer helicopter, are you okay?"
	Felina toggled the return switch. "Yeah, thanks for the save Knight one. 
Who are you?"
	As the mecha set the helicopter down on a nearby roof, the other warrior 
mode mecha floated down alongside.
	"We're the White Knights". Said a woman's voice over the radio. "And we 
are ready to kick it!"
	This said, the two machines turned in mid-air, and surged back toward 
the sky platform, which was now gaining speed.
But from the view of someone who hadn't seen the previous event, as 
Silverwind had saved Felina, it could look like the culprit of the 
destruction of the enforcers was heading back to their mothership.
And to Razor, it did.
	"Buzz-saw missiles locked, loaded and away!"
	The missiles with their grinning shark mouths streaked towards the two 
felinoid (well, with no humans, it wouldn't be humanoid, would it?) 
machines. The two nose sections split apart, and a whining buzz-saw 
extended, and the missiles impacted into each of the VREx's, slicing a 
short way into the armour before exploding, and causing more damage.
	"Whoa, Silverwind, now who's firing at us!"
	The wolf triggered his all-aspect radar, and it showed the image of an 
approaching jet. The ID computer tried to match it, but it whined and 
bleeped irritably, trying to match it with a F-14, but complaining that 
it had too many engines, and no external weaponry hardpoints.
But it did have weapons, because two more missiles were heading towards 
the White Blade.
	"Holy crap! T'lia, discharge chaff, now!"
As he gave the command, it was also sent up his neural jack. The mecha's 
shoulder pods sent a flurry of silver metallic strips into the air, 
combined with a hail of phosphor flares, confusing the missiles.
Taking advantage of the momentary distraction as his enemies fought each 
other, the pilot of the platform launched his own missiles. Heading 
towards the brightly burning conventional engines of the Turbokat as 
opposed to the dim glow of the White Blade and Metal Storm's heat 
baffled engines, the missiles closed distance.
	"Razor! We got incoming!"
	"Then evade!"
	T-bone threw the 'kat through a series of high power turns, but to no 
avail. The missiles followed, and they were about to hit. The word 
'eject' formed on Razor's lips.....
	And then their vision was blocked by a flurry of massive metal limbs and 
glowing energy. The Metal Storm put it's shield in-between the missiles, 
itself, and the Turbokat. The missiles hit the shield, and blew, the 
energy of the explosion absorbed into the power field of the shield, and 
stored in the beam rifles capacitors.
	T-bone looked back over his shoulder at Razor, the Turbokat holding 
position in hover mode.
	"Still think they were running?"
	"So I might have been wrong...."
	Their banter was interrupted as the sky was split with a shriek, and the 
sky platform accelerated to the horizon, going from the slow crawl it 
had been at before, to a dot which also vanished, leaving the sky empty.
	"Wow". Was all that T-bone could say.
	The current enemy forgotten, the two mecha turned towards the hovering 
black swing-wing fighter.
	"Well? Came T'lia's voice over Silverwind's headset."
	Silverwind searched the channel with a neural command, and came up with 
the Swat Kat's frequency.
	"Uh, unidentified aircraft, are you friend or foe, over?"
	Razor's voice crackled back, in audio only as they didn't have any video 
transmission.
	"After that stunt? I can adopt you and call you my brother. Thanks for 
the save. Who are you anyway?"
	Silverwind smiled at Razor's comment. "The save was just part of the 
job, gee. Me and my friend are the White Knights. And you are?"
T-bone answered Silverwind's question. "Running out of fuel fast. A 
piece of that shrapnel must've gotten through. We are leaking fuel. Do 
you guys have anywhere to go?"
	T'lia answered. "Negative. In our dimension we have a base, but this is 
your world."
	Razor smiled. "Then follow us."
	The Turbokat banked on its left wing, and started off at a slow pace. 
The two warrior mode mecha kept up easily, and Silverwind accessed the 
channel again.
	"Jeez, surely your red-hot set o' wings can go faster n' that?"
	T-bone looked across at the mechas blast-shielded cockpit from the 
Turbokat. "I'm just going slowly so I don't leave your robo-dolt behind"
Silverwind laughed. "Is that all you're worried about gee? Then check 
this!"
	Razor and T-bones eyes went wide as dinner plates as the two mecha 
changed mode in synchronised precision, reconfiguring to jet mode as 
they watched.
	T-bone smile wolfishly. "Razor, now I know what you can get me for 
Christmas!"
	"In your dreams. Speed up so these good people and we can get home 
before we're ninety".
	T-bone hit the afterburners, and the three craft headed in on a course 
to the junk-yard.

	As Silverwind kept the White blade in raptor mode, a kind of half-way 
mode that looked like a bizarre cross between a jet and a robot, T-bone 
landed the Turbokat. Once the White Knights were sure they could do the 
same, the two jet form VREx's followed.
	Rolling into the hanger, the Turbokat parked slightly over to one side, 
to allow the two VREx's room to stop. The Metal Storm rolled in first, 
with the White Blade a little behind.
	T-bone whistled appreciatively, climbing from the ladder as the two 
craft powered down their engines with barely a whisper.
Standing next to the Turbokat, the Swat Kats watched as the Metal 
Storm's canopy lifted.
	Transfixed, the kats watched as the pilot stood. A helmeted head 
emerged, the features obscured by the visor, followed by a shapely 
bosom, and a narrow waist with flared hips. The woman turned to get out 
of her cockpit, and her back turned to face them, and both kats raised 
an eyebrow at the smoothly rounded behind that faced them. A twitching 
black and orange, white tipped tail hung in the air as the pilot climbed 
down the ladder. Turning to face the two Swat Kats, T'lia broke the 
seals on her helmet, and removed it, putting it in the crook of one arm.
	"Hi, I'm T'lia Tigra."
	The two Swat Kats tried to restrain their jaws from dropping. Neither 
had seen a tigress before, as all of the people in their dimension were 
plain kats. T'lia fixed them with her blue eyes, and then looked over to 
Silverwind's plane. The two SK's followed her eyes.
Silverwind was standing next to his plane, removing the armour from his 
flight-suit.
	This time, the kats jaws did drop.
	Silverwind was definitely nothing they had seen. Being a wolf, he was 
totally alien to them. As he worked the armour away, the pair of them 
took in the details about his figure.
	Free from a helmet, a thick fall of grey hair hung down his back, tied 
with a blue ribbon. As he stood to his full seven foot of height, 
superbly defined muscles rippled under the suit, and a short, tapered 
muzzle with black striped stretching the length either side, and 
covering the area around his brown eyes pointed in the direction of his 
attention, at the stubborn armour on his wrist. A little of his hair 
fell over the red headband tied across his brow, and his brushed it 
back, and then noticed the others observing him.
	"Oh. Hey there. I'm Silverwind Strike. Pleased t' meet ya gee. So what 
are you called?"
	"He's Razor" said T-bone, pointing to Razor.
	"He's T-bone" said Razor, pointing to T-bone. "Pleased to meet you."
	Silverwind walked over to them, and finished removing the armour panels 
from his suit.
	"So, where are we?"
	Razor and T-bone looked at each other, and walked towards the back of 
the hanger, beckoning the White Knights to follow them.
	"This is gonna take a while. You better sit down".

Chapter three:
'we ain't in Kansas anymore, gee'

	"And then you showed up. That's pretty much what we know." Razor stood 
up from the chair.
	"So, let me get this straight" said T'lia, sitting in the chair with her 
legs crossed one over the other. "We are now in a dimension populated 
almost solely with kats?"
	The two of them nodded.
	"And you two are vigilantes who ejected from the enforcers, who are like 
a kind of police and army in one, after an accidental destruction of the 
headquarters?"
	They nodded again.
	"And you work in a junk yard, where you built your super-jet out of 
scrap and junk, using only your own technical know - how, and 
equipment?"
	They nodded again.
	"Cool. You sound like our kinda guys"
	Razor began to pull his mask off as he turned to his locker, and T-bone 
put a hand on his arm.
	"Wait a minute buddy, are you sure we can trust 'em?"
	Razor looked at the two White Knights, who were looking right back at 
the Swat Kats.
	"They don't have anywhere else to go. They don't have anyone else to 
trust."
	T-bone looked at the two, now talking among themselves, and laughing 
quietly.
	"You're right. Why keep our secret from them?"
	The two of them pulled off their masks, and looked back at the White 
Knights.
	"Listen" began Jake, but T'lia cut him off.
	"Let me guess, you want us to keep your secret identities, and not to 
give them away to anyone, no matter what?"
	Dumbfounded, Jake nodded. Silverwind smiled at him.
	"No problem. Just make sure that if you ever step into my universe, you 
do the same for us gee".
	Chance nodded and smiled. "It's a deal" he grinned, "gee".

	A little later, Chance had gone out with T'lia to get a little more 
information on the city, leaving Jake and Silverwind in the hanger. 
	T'lia had gone instead of Silverwind, because she looked the same as any 
of the other kats, if just a little taller.
	Silverwind took a can from the fridge in the basement, opened it, and 
then grimaced as he swallowed.
	"ugh! What is this puke?"
	Jake swallowed, and laughed. "It's milk dunderhead! We kats love it!"
	Silverwind stuck out his tongue. "Bleck, no thanks gee. Got any beer?"
	Jake frowned, and then jerked a thumb at the two VREx's
	"Tell me about your craft, I mean, how can they do all that neat stuff?"
	Silverwind smiled. "Oh yeah, the hottest sets a' wings this side o' St. 
York. We are talking some severe power. Fully vectored engines, self 
healing electronics, full endo - exo atmospheric capabilities, NBC 
(Nuclear, biological, chemical) sealed, and" Silverwind pushed a panel 
on the lower nose of the VREx. It popped out, revealing a small rack 
	with two beer bottles in it. "A beer fridge"
	Jake raised an eyebrow, and caught the bottle Silverwind threw to him. 
Popping the cap, he tasted the liquid, and found it much to his liking. 
Wanting to hear more, he pressed Silverwind for details.
	"So what about attack and defence?"
	"my favourite part. She has got full active radar jammer capabilities, 
so we can bend those radar waves so it don't even look like I'm here, 
ECM, ECCM, chaff flares, and all-aspect radar round out my defences. An 
as for attack? Twin clip-fed 30mm six-barrel rotary gunpods capable of 
firing 6000 rounds a minute on full automatic with three reloads for 
each rifle, they become the rifles in warrior mode. Twin blaser  
(Brilliant Light Amplified through Stimulated Emission of Radiation, 
they use only white light for a beam, and as a result are more powerful 
than lasers) cannons on th' nose, and a quad of them mounted in a 
ventral turret that becomes the head in warrior mode. And as for 
missiles? Each leg mounted pack holds ten Deadbolt all purpose missiles, 
and the two back pods each hold eight Sureshot missiles that then 
subdivide into eight mini-missiles once they're on target." Silverwind 
grinned. "And in addition to that, if you get close enough, you beat the 
crap out of them with ya fists and feet".
	Jake whistled and gulped some more beer.
	"What about the other one?"
	"The metal Storm? She's almost the same. 'Cept that she's stealth shaped 
anyway, so she don't need a jammer, and that she has a shield and that 
damn big arm mounted rifle instead of two gatlings like mine. Instead 
she's got that shield. Somethin' hits, you just absorb the energy of it, 
providing it has some, and then convert it back to a discharge from the 
rifle."
	Jake pointed to the smallish silver boxes on top of the fuselage of each 
plane.
	"So what are they?"
	Silverwind looked at Jake.
	"That's a secret gee, I'll tell ya another time".
	Just as Jake was about to demand Silverwind tell him, Chance and T'lia 
came in.
	"Hey there, what's going on buddy?" Chance waved to Jake who waved back.
	"Chance, Silverwind was just telling me about their - what was it he 
called 'em? Oh yeah - 'mecha' They're incredible!"
	"Really? Well tell me later. Right now, we got a problem we need to work 
on. T'lia told me what was up." Chance turned to T'lia. "Tell him what 
you told me."
	T'lia sat in one of the chairs back to front, with her arms leaning on 
the top of the back of the chair. The light cast shadows down on her 
face, making her expression of seriousness look all the more sincere.
	"Jake, we have a very dire problem. Some one, or some thing, has stolen 
Quantum warheads from our dimension, with the express purpose of using 
them to hostile intent on your city, and in fact, your planet. As we 
know it, there is nothing you can do to stop them".
	Jake looked sceptical. "How bad can these 'Quantum warheads' be?"
	Silverwind looked down and then back up to Jake.
	"You have thermonuclear weapons, right?"
	"Yeah, they're the most destructive weapons we know of."
	"Times the explosion by a factor of one thousand percent."
	Jake pictured the devastation in his head, and the room went silent for 
a good five minutes as the implications sunk in.
	"B-but, how do you know this?"
	Chance switched on the TV set, and Jake choked on the beer.
The news was on, and Anne Gora was reporting on something that made his 
blood curdle.
	"This is the message delivered today, as the aftermath of the air battle 
of the city had be

To Be Continued....