NEMESIS - PART 2: NIGHTMARES

"To a successful partnership."

-- Turmoil in Cry Turmoil

"You will not apply my precept," he said, shaking his head. "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

-- Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four

THURSDAY, 6:28 A.M.

On its meeting with solid ground, the seat released the parachute, and it was dragged away by the winds like a leaf on a river. Razor stayed fastened in his seat, his gaze fixed on the blank sky in the opposite direction.

T-Bone still wasn't back.

Razor had no clue if he had died.  The TurboKat had been out of his range of vision shortly after he was ejected out of her. Moreover, Pumadyne lay on a lower level than the city limits. Therefore, the fields inclined slightly, enough to obstruct his view. He hadn't heard any explosion so far, but even the sounds of a detonation would diffuse to silence over the distance between him and his partner.

Nagging doubts stalked him like hyenas. There was always a Plan B if something went wrong, but this time, Plan A had been risky enough. He didn't want to see Plan B in action.

Another minute trickled by, Razor seated in his chair resembling more a stone statue that a living being.

He was angry, he grasped; infuriated that T-Bone had ejected him out of the jet. Razor hated losing control, especially in such a delicate situation. How *DARE* he eject him? He'd wanted to stay in the jet, to ensure everything turned out as it ought to, but NO, T-Bone had taken the decision from him.

Razor couldn't believe it hurt him so much, and yet, it did.

He closed his eyes tightly. Staring into the sky unblinking made black dots appear before them. The sudden darkness didn't absorb his anger. Razor felt like someone had fed him on hot coals. Disgusted, he opened his eyes again.

To his surprise, one dot hadn't vanished, but grown larger. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, but the dot stayed solid. Some seconds later, it took on a shape.

The shape of the TurboKat.

Where observers on the outside would've expected Razor to jump up in glee, he only clenched his jaws shut, adding fuel to the deep-rooted rage inside.

THURSDAY, 6:29 A.M.

T-Bone felt newborn. And, in a way, he was. He had finished with his life the moment he saw the missile leave his glovatrix in an adrenaline-retarded slow motion. Now, the gift of his unexpectedly prolonged existence was a drink he gulped down greedily.

His last computer restart had been effective. It had only taken some seconds longer than usual for the software to boot up. Then, the program routine did what it always did on activating the TurboKat, no matter whether the boot-up was initialized from inside or outside the craft.

It let the canopy slid back. As it happened in the SWAT Kats' hangar all the time.

With the forearm-wide gap, it opened fast enough for the explosive to miss the canopy by one or two inches. Whilst T-Bone steered the TurboKat away from its doomsday course, the missile performed a parabola and at last found its aim in a wheat field on the ground, wiping out a circle of more than 78 m² of harvest and some tons of earth and clay.

T-Bone flew back to meet with Razor and found him amidst green fields of grass, where he landed the jet. Razor's expression wore the word anger in stamped letters written on his forehead. The sweet taste in T-Bone's mouth got a bitter touch.

He had broken the second promise in two days, the more important one for the first time ever: Their silent agreement to fight evil as one. The SWAT Kats couldn't exist as a team if they disobeyed this agreement. Together against all kat scum, that was the motto, and he had stomped on it violently the moment he had robbed Razor of his own choice.

Razor put his seat back into the TurboKat without speaking a single word, not even asking for help in the difficult task of lifting the heavy seat onto the plane's wing first.

T-Bone couldn't blame him. He opened his mouth to apologize, and then shut it swiftly. Of course, he *wanted* to apologize, but what could he possibly say?

Sorry, Razor. It won't happen again!

Sure, the right words, but could he promise it *wouldn't* happen again?

The takeoff was a job he performed mechanically, the self-asked question waiting for an answer and not getting one a more eminent problem.

Jake was his best friend, his support when he needed it. Heck, he was the slap to the back of his head when he deserved it, and that made him even more precious.

In short, he was family. To lose Jake was to lose life. He'd sacrifice himself three times over before he'd let anything happen to Jake *or* Razor.

They were on the way to Pumadyne once more, to stop Turmoil's crew before the she-kats escaped, and they couldn't afford this split.

"Razor, I'm sorry!"

"Yeah, I betcha are!" Razor spat cynically.

"I am…!" His voice faded away. The look he received through his rear mirror was meant to cut diamonds.

"I just didn't want…," he started when he got no answer.

But, Razor broke in.

"YOU! That's the point exactly. You. I had no say in that matter. BECAUSE OF YOU!"

"But…" I'm sorry!

"Why don't you start a solo career? Just SAY IT OPENLY, and don't play this SHIT on me!"

T-Bone died inside; he'd screwed everything. It was ALL HIS FAULT - there was no mistaking. Now, he could think only of one way that *might* untangle it; he was going to promise.

"Look Razor, … Jake." Another premiere he never would have believed - calling Razor by his real name. "I'm truly sorry. I shouldn't have decided for you. It will never happen again, I *swear*!"

"No, it won't *ever* happen again!"

The finality with which Razor spat his own words back at him made him cringe. He would keep his oath, and on fulfillment suffer on a scale that made a thousand painful deaths seem a roller coaster ride.

This promise I'll hold, but I'll swear this, too: If it's most likely that one of us dies while the other has a chance to escape, I'll beg on my knees your decision to be to save yourself.

T-Bone nodded with a heavy heart. From what tiny reflection he could see, Razor was a bit mollified. A little bit. At least, he talked to him again in a normal volume.

"Good, I'm glad we cleared this up once and for all. Now, let's kick Hard Drive and those crazy she-kats' tails."

"Rock 'n roll." His words more enthusiastic than his mood, T-Bone pushed the thrusters to max.

The leftovers from the destroyed cargo plane still polluted the air with biting clouds of smoke. T-Bone tagged on to them until they hovered over Pumadyne.

Enforcers surrounded the plaza, looking helpless despite their best efforts. T-Bone glanced down and saw Commander Feral look first to the wreckage of the cargo plane and then up to the TurboKat. He was boiling over the fact that the SWAT Kats had beaten him to the arrival once more. From the red spots on his cheeks, T-Bone wagered he wouldn't let so much as one good hair on the SWAT Kats in his interviews today.

T-Bone got heartburn, though not from Feral's drilling stare. It came from Turmoil's second airplane.

Too exhausted to either curse or sigh, T-Bone just closed his eyes.

"They're gone." Razor stated the obvious.

"I noticed."

"T-Bone, whatever they've stolen here at Pumadyne, I'd say it means trouble. We have to stop them before they can carry out their plan."

"How?"

"Considering the fact Turmoil managed to get two cargo ships, I'd bet she also has a second 'invincible aircraft'," Razor mimicked Turmoil's pronunciation; referring to her gigantic ship she had intimidated MegaKat City with.

"Most likely the things they've stolen are basic parts to build a new Vertigo Beam, or even something worse. If I'm correct, Turmoil is waiting with her aircraft somewhere for the cargo planes to come back loaded, but that'll take some time, they're cargo ships after all. Slow. While we have…"

"The TurboKat!"

"Fly a search pattern; begin with the coast. With a little luck, we'll find her aircraft before her own crew gets back."

THURSDAY, 7:07 A.M.

A needle in a haystack, T-Bone thought dryly. If only this time it wasn't *again* critical to find this needle.

Indeed, today time was a commodity T-Bone was constantly short of. If the SWAT Kats wanted to find Turmoil prior to their adversaries' backup, they better hope for a miracle.

Even with Turmoil's aircraft being a needle the size of a tower block, the skies around MegaKat City, the haystack, were infinite. The SWAT Kats had searched an area of some hundred miles over the sea in the last twenty minutes, the waters far off MegaKat International Airport's flying routes an ideal lair for Turmoil's large craft.

And, so would be the skies in the mountains to the north of MKC or the endless deserts that embraced the city to the southeast and east like a lover. Some hundred miles explored, the other thousands of miles were uncharted territories on their tracking map.

They were flying over a region of the ocean ship captains avoided for its nasty reefs and tricky tides, the coast a straight line not one mile away, when the miracle they asked for appeared in the form of a dot on their radar.

"I've got her!" Razor shouted. "At three hundred hours, about half a mile away, 10.000 feet high."

The TurboKat changed course and gained height, flying into a cloudbank that took away the view on all sides.

Finally, they broke through, and T-Bone could distinguish a gray form that stood out from the emerald sky around it. On coming closer, he saw it looked identical to Turmoil's aircraft he had bombed out of the skies last year, the one and only difference being its size. Built to a scale of 1:2 compared to the sister ship, it was its little twin, a prototype if T-Bone guessed correctly, designed to be manned by a small crew. T-Bone figured 19 kats would be sufficient to operate the monster and leave enough crewmembers at a loose end to sustain a fighter squadron.

Four powerful M-24 megathrusters at the rear end of the ship produced the power needed to keep it flying. That alone was a revolution of engineering, but the megathrusters were also capable of lifting the aircraft to heights that surpassed Enforcer flying routes. Watching all other aircraft from above, Turmoil had managed to creep into MegaKat City's skies the previous year, and, although even the engines could move such a mass only bit by bit, this disadvantage hadn't hindered her plans.

A snake doesn't seem to move at all, too; you first notice it has sneaked up on you when it is too late to escape its fangs, T-Bone contemplated.

The ship vaguely resembled a naval aircraft carrier in shape, with a long runway that made out five eighths of her upper side and lead into a gargantuan hangar. Every moment, T-Bone expected the hangar to spill out Turmoil's squadron like angry wasps. But, by the time the aircraft filled his screen completely and still hadn't offered resistance, it was clear the nest was empty.

They had managed the impossible. They had outpaced Turmoil's crew.

"We did it!" Even shouted, T-Bone's voice couldn't hide his surprise. "Now, let's give them a bath before Turmoil can take a step against us and before her reinforcements arrive."

"No problem!" Razor was already punching buttons wildly. "Crud!"

Uh, oh!

A dot identifying a missile had appeared on the jet's radar. Only it came from the outer dot on the monitor and was closing in. Razor's missile would've appeared in the center, shooting outwards.

Although he knew the answer, T-Bone couldn't help asking, "WHAT?"

"Did I say no problem? It's more like: not probable. My weapons are still down. Whatever influenced them is hanging on tight."

"Hanging on tight is a good idea!" T-Bone shouted, performing a roll to the left that took them out of the missile's path.

 Fortunately, the missile from Turmoil's craft seemed to be no heat-seeker and continued its straight course with a computer routine's stubbornness. In the end, it missed the TurboKat by 100 meters.

T-Bone steered the jet into a horizontal again. On his radar two more dots had materialized, and he could make out the two missile's engine exhausts with the naked eye.

Their moment of surprise was gone; Turmoil's aim was improving fast. They had to do something, and they had to do it fast.

"Two more bogies coming in hot! We need our weapons, bud!"

Razor was already punching buttons like a professional typist. "It's no use! I can't get them back online!"

If Razor added something more, it was swallowed by T-Bone's maneuver as he pulled the joystick hard to his body, pushing the jet into a steep climb.

One missile was far off course, and missed the jet by two lengths, but the other was closer and would have taken an Enforcer pilot out of the sky. Only T-Bone's quick reflexes saved them.

I really hate this day. What else could go wrong?

"I'd rather not run away with my tail between my legs, but we're sitting ducks. Any alternatives to running?" T-Bone could think of none.

Razor was silent for some seconds too. Still, he came up with a suggestion.

"Only one. We surprise them! Land the jet in the hangar and we sabotage the ship from the inside with our explosives."

"NO WAY!" I'm not going on that ship again. No chance.

Another missile was launched from the other ship, as T-Bone's radar announced by beeping.

"Then, we either retreat or we wait here, dodging missiles until the cargo ship approaches, hoping the crew doesn't mind us annihilating its double...  and, furthermore, we could beg them to reactivate my missiles too."

"That's not funny! Not funny at all.

Can't we inform Feral about Turmoil's ship?"

Razor's answer was matter-of-fact. "Feral would either simply not believe us, or he'd never be here in time to intercept her cargo ship before landing!"

A fleeting moment of silence followed as T-Bone digested the vinegary truth of his partner's words.

"No other option?" his question came close to a plea.

Razor just shook his head.

T-Bone's nightmare surfaced fleetingly in his thoughts, but he pushed it away. He imagined that a swim in a piranha-infested swamp held more interest than a second meeting with the she-kat.

Anyway, they might never again get such a fine opportunity to stop her, and it would be crazy to let it pass.

"Oh, why, damn, *WHY*?"

Reluctantly, he vectored the jet for a landing on the runway and raised the speed.

Their new set course was a collision course with the rocket. But, the distance to the missile was now dwindling rapidly, and it had to adjust its course. T-Bone used this flaw, flying a zigzag pattern to keep its lock unsteady. At the last moment, he dived the jet down and turned the joystick to the right, so the jet was flying vertically.

The missile passed where the TurboKat's left wing had been moments before.

He altered the jet's course again. Not much later, the TurboKat touched the steely runway and braked to a halt in the midst of the hangar.

Well, we made it here beyond hope. Surprising. So, what if it's a trap? shot through T-Bone's brain.

***

He wanted to ask Razor the same question, then realized the circumstances were far to complex for Turmoil to set up a trap. There was no possible way she could be certain the SWAT Kats would find her aircraft so fast. And, even *if* she had placed it for them to *deliberately* find it, she couldn't ensure their weapons were malfunctioning, and neither could she foresee their crazy idea to land the jet on her ship nevertheless.

Too many unpredictable factors; that was no plan for Turmoil. For Viper maybe, but not for Turmoil.

No, not even for the mad green lizard, thought T-Bone.

"How many she-kats are on the cargo ship?" he asked. If he had only counted them at Pumadyne, but his attention had been focused on piloting.

Luckily, Razor had counted. "Seven for each ship. Plus Hard Drive."

Fourteen she-kats, that left five prisoners unaccounted for, Turmoil and four members of her crew. Doubtlessly, they were maneuvering this ship, but five was a small number.

For once, the odds seemed to be on the SWAT Kats' side. They only had to see it stayed like this.

"We have to strike before Turmoil's backup returns."

"I thought about that," Razor had given this point consideration already. "Maybe my weapons are down, but not all my gadgets!"

He pushed a button on his console and a grenade-sized sphere was revealed under a panel that slid back right next to the button.

Razor opened the canopy, stood up and hurled the metallic sphere down the runway with more strength than one would expect for his stature.

The explanation came whilst it bounced away on the metal grids, the sound of metal striking on metal near enough to the sound of his boots in his nightmare to raise the hairs on T-Bone's neck.

"That's a portable radar antenna. The TurboKat can't receive a radar signal in the hangar, but this baby – out there – can."

The sphere came to a halt some good fifty meters from the mouth of the hangar's alcove.

Three props extracted from the lower side, so the thing looked like a tripod footstool. Secured against rolling away, an antenna was slowly extended half a meter at the topmost point of the sphere, not unlike a car's radio antenna. Next, the sphere parted in two: an upper and a lower hemisphere, connected in a yoyo fashion, and the upper one with the antenna started to turn faster and faster, until the blurring speed made it seem unmoving again.

"If any ship comes close, the antenna will receive its reflection and transmit it to our glovatrixes."

He showed T-Bone the beeping radar monitor on his glovatrix's display.

"That should give us enough forewarning to get away on time."

It sounded too good, and T-Bone had to turn away from Razor to hide his skepticism. It was not the portable antenna that made him worry. The gadget would work as well as all Razor's other gadgets did.

It was the idea of a trap that wouldn't leave him. Something about the raid at Pumadyne made his head ache, an important detail, he was positive, but what…?

He couldn't get a grip on it and doubted a surgeon could.

On the other hand, we didn't seen much of Turmoil's crew back there. Most likely, my imagination got the better of me. He chose imagination over nightmare on purpose.

"…fficient if we set up the detonators all around the hangar," Razor's words pulled him back to reality, and he followed his partner into standing up.

"If we don't miss any exit, the explosions will make the thing inaccessible. The job is done in less than ten minutes and Turmoil could as well command a flying brick afterwards. Even the Enforcers can force them to land, then."

"Maybe you should stay here and reactivate the weapons. I'll place the detonators…"

T-Bone mentally kicked himself, and the silence behind him told him a kick from Razor wasn't too farfetched, either.

"Only if you want to," he added feebly on turning around.

"We will make this together," Razor hissed. "A swift assault and retreat. Together!"

His friend had all reason to be angry, T-Bone admitted. He had a knack for selfishness today – his nightmare had him on the edge.

"OK, buddy. But please put your backpack on," he said, fetching his from behind his seat. "I don't want to take chances."

I don't want my nightmare to turn out true, he added wordlessly.

T-Bone jumped out of the jet with his backpack.

Behind and above him, Razor muttered, "As if I had a choice," but did as he was told to nonetheless.

He landed beside his partner, and both reached for the detonators in their thigh pockets.

It took T-Bone all his strength not to sigh, relieved. He didn't know what he would have done if Razor had refused to put his backpack on. With the three times he had already argued against – or even taken over – Razor's decisions today, another argument would've led to tragedy. But, if there was one thing T-Bone wanted Razor to have, it was the backpack. As foolish as it sounded, if his dream was more than just a dream, a prophecy of some sort…

The thought was disturbing, and it took him more overcoming to go on than it had taken him to fight the ci-kat-as.

A door – or rather, a sluice to leave the hangar loomed up before them. Razor pushed a button next to it, and it slid open with a muted hiss. They stepped through, the door closing behind them, and placed a detonator on each side of the wall.

Their sabotage had begun.

"I don't know if two explosions here will be sufficient," Razor admitted his plan had a flaw. "The corridors are cross-linked.  If one of the sluices is still accessible, the whole plan is ruined."

"Then, let's mine the crossings too. There are more than enough detonators in our pockets. We use the corridors to get from sluice to sluice, mine them, and move on. We'll hear it if Turmoil shows up."

Razor smiled. "Lead the way."

***

Tiptoeing in the direction of the heart of Turmoil's ship was a silent business. No shouted command, no alarm bell told them that countermeasures against their invasion had been initialized. If not for the powerful engines beneath them, their faint vibrations perceptible through the ship's structure as its own, metallic pulse, T-Bone could have sworn the Pastmaster had frozen time.

Emptied, the corridors appeared more alien then ever. Ghostly. Like in his dreams.

The SWAT Kats placed their bombs at strategic positions. The doors to the hangar always got a bomb from both SWAT Kats. Down the corridors, Razor or T-Bone would suddenly stop, having retraced one of the immeasurable numbers of pipes and cables and found it vital. Those got another explosive from their pockets. Where one corridor met another in a T or an X, they left three or four bombs behind as well, one for each direction.

On every one of this crossings, T-Bone couldn't believe that no resistance waited in a dark corner, the tiny voice in his head screaming, Trap! Trap, louder and louder. But, the ten minutes almost gone by, even his advisor quieted into peace. There were only four more doors to mine, the explosions they could trigger already big enough to promise weeks of repairs for Turmoil. Right now, the remaining doors to the hangar were the eye of a needle to access the hangar, and, if they could fill this eye up too, Razor's association with a brick would be most fitting.

Make that one door.  T-Bone realized they had made good progress while he was thinking. He put yet another detonator on a pipe in the crossing they had reached, one of the remaining five in his pocket.

Holy Kats, this place is wired to blow.

The SWAT Kats walked down the dark corridor toward the last not-mined hangar door. Two seconds and an equal number of detonators later, the job was done.

T-Bone fumbled his detonation remote out of his thigh-pocket. He moved it into his left hand, feeling safe for the first time in two days, and pushed the door before him open with his other fist. They stepped through, and the sluice sealed up behind them.

Trap! Trap! Trap, suddenly echoed through T-Bone's skull, his senses warning him beforehand. His blood turned cold. Framed by the TurboKat's silhouette in the background, her figure was no more than a shadow, but there was no mistaking the accent.

"You've made a big mistake coming here, T-Bone!" Turmoil's voice could be ice when she wanted it to.

THURSDAY, 7:21 A.M.

The SWAT Kats suddenly found themselves surrounded by Turmoil's crew. And, where reason was needed, terror won out. T-Bone let go of his remote, which fell to the floor with an ear-shocking clang in the sudden silence, and lifted his glovatrix.

"We're not going down without a fight!"

Razor snatched his partner's arm and pulled it down before a shoot-out could erupt.

His initial shock wore off, and T-Bone relaxed in Razor's restraining grip. "You've made a big mistake coming here," that phrase kept repeating in his nightmares like a core string. To find himself in that situation again, in real life, had been just as bad as his dreams.

But here, to panic meant to get them killed, and that was that. No awakening! Nothing could help them to get out of this situation once they were dead.

"Still quite a nasty temperament you've got there, T-Bone," Turmoil said distastefully. "Too bad you lack the brain to realize it. Take your partner as an example for reason.

*Both: hands up*!"

Razor shot one final warning look at T-Bone and removed his arms, raising them above his head.

T-Bone cursed himself silently as he slowly started to repeat his friend's gesture. His terror had cost him the only life insurance they had. Turmoil would never fail to recognize the priceless object lying directly in front of them.

And, she didn't. "Kick it over here, T-Bone," she said, pointing at the detonator control with her weapon. When T-Bone didn't promptly react, she commanded again, after firing a warning shot next to his left foot.

"You better kick it over here! *NOW*!"

He did so, unwillingly, adding some more words to his long list of curses.

"Attaboy!" Turmoil picked up the remote. She even dared a loss of eye contact, but then again, more than a dozen members of her crew surrounded them.

More than a dozen! For the first time, T-Bone realized Turmoil's complete crew was aboard. He looked sideward and there the cargo ship stood, halfway hidden behind the TurboKat's massive form. He turned his head again and peered past the jet, down the runway. The portable antenna was blown to bits, small metallic shrapnel strewn all over the landing strip.

A groan escaped his lips.

Turmoil didn't hear. She had concentrated on Razor. "I guess you have such a thing as well!" She waved with the remote. "Hand it over, and no tricks, or your partner won't ever see nightfall again."

Razor slowly reached for his pocket.

T-Bone watched with drawn breath. He hoped for Razor to trigger the detonators instead of fetching the remote. Sure, so near to the mines the explosion would kill them, but one didn't have to be a mind reader to realize what Turmoil had planned for them would end with the same result.

Razor's hand flashed back, and he threw the remote over to Turmoil and her gang.

T-Bone's hope faded away with the action.

Abruptly, he remembered the other detonator remote he'd retrieved from the Flight Commander uniform. He almost put his hands down to make sure it was in his breast pocket, but he managed to stop himself. He could feel it pressing against his chest fur.

The situation wasn't lost yet.

Deep in thought, he didn't hear Turmoil's command.

"Cuff them!"

Two kats stepped forward with handcuffs. Those weren't ordinary cuffs; they emitted an electric current that rendered their glovatrixes useless. If T-Bone hadn't freed Razor from his manacles last year, Razor could never have fired off his grappling hook. And, without the grappling hook…

Their arms were snatched down roughly, and T-Bone could see the cuffs clamp shut on his wrists, the glovatrix on his right arm instantly shutting down the display and the weapon functions.

Turmoil would make them walk the plank. T-Bone didn't have to guess, he simply *knew*. From what he had seen of her, she would bath in the satisfaction that he and his partner had died in an exact copy of how Razor should have died not quite a year ago.

The runway would be the first place for the she-kats to make them jump. It was no more than two hundred feet away from where they stood now; the explosions wouldn't harm them there.

If he had one moment to turn the back on their captors before they were thrown off the ship – and that was more than likely, since Turmoil would want them to see their fate before she'd push them over the edge – he could ignite the bombs, and he and Razor could try to reach the TurboKat in the following pandemonium.

Of course, the plan held more than one 'if', they always did. Yet, it was a plan. And, with a plan, there was hope. With hope, confidence.

T-Bone raised his head and looked Turmoil in the eye.  She had come near to take pleasure in her victory.

"You could at least have had your outfit changed, Turmoil. It already looked ludicrous the first time."

Turmoil's satisfied smile slipped for a moment, giving a hint at the contempt behind her mask. But, she caught herself fast enough.

"I'm glad the beam didn't kill you SWAT Kats at Pumadyne, T-Bone. I wouldn't have heard your death screams there. Now, I can enjoy them all the way down."

She gestured at a Lieutenant and both SWAT Kats were pushed in the back, forced into movement.

Pumadyne. That rang a bell again in T-Bone, the distinct feeling he had missed something significant.

They were escorted to the runway's side by a semicircle of she-kats, like a death row inmate on his last walk, the pace swift, the faces behind them stony, bare of any emotion. It was a fitting comparison, one that would have brought a grim expression on T-Bone's face if his mind hadn't been occupied with the Pumadyne question.

What was so special about the raid at Pumadyne? There was no difference between it and Zed's attack last year. Heck, it wasn't different from all the other break-ins we have encountered at MegaKat Biochemical Labs or anywhere else!

But, when there's nothing unusual about the raid, what *was* unusual? Pumadyne itself?

The piece he had missed came to him so unexpectedly he almost stumbled on his feet.

Pumadyne, of course! Pumadyne Research Facilities was located far away from downtown MegaKat City. The complex was founded outside city grounds; Zed had needed the quarter of an hour to get there from Dr. Greenbox's lab. The distance from inhabited areas was well chosen, it was a safety distance should a fatal disaster fall upon the labs, e.g. a virus breakout. The negative effect was: no one would see a raiding party out there; the spot was barren. Until someone at Pumadyne did call the Enforcers, they were on their own, not even joggers came out there to go for a run.

So… How did Callie know about the raid at Pumadyne?

Only when Razor stopped dead in his tracks beside him, the edge to their doom still a hundred feet away, did T-Bone realize that he had voiced the question aloud.

T-Bone halted too, ignoring the weapons pointed at him from behind. He turned to look at his partner, who averted his gaze, face downcast.

Turmoil, on the other hand, was all smiles as she moved next to him. Lethal smiles.

"I'm so sorry, T-Bone," she said with mock affection. "You have just blown up Plan B."

"What…?" For T-Bone, the world started spinning.

"Time for me to blow something up, too!" Turmoil extended the antenna from T-Bone's remote and pushed the red triangular button for him deliberately to see.

T-Bone's flinch was reflex, and it was the only reaction to the push. No explosion followed.

If possible, Turmoil's face beamed brighter than before. "Did you really think you could find my ship and sabotage it?"

Turmoil turned around and addressed her crew in a tone loud and sweet.

"Ladies and Gentlekats, the show is over!" She shot T-Bone the ghost of a grin and opened Razor's cuffs with a claw.

This time, T-Bone *did* stumble, his knees turned to jelly in a tick. Only his two warders' arms kept him upright.

"You've enjoyed our hospitality long enough, T-Bone." Turmoil came back and halted beside his holders. They forced T-Bone to a walk before he could recover from his shock.

The instant he did, his care wasn't for his own life.

"Razor!" He turned his head as far as he could within his bounded limits, looked at his partner's silhouette getting smaller and smaller. He still hadn't raised his head.

"RAZOR! What's going on?

RAZOR!!!

Turmoil can't be serious. Tell me it's not true… RAZOR! Talk to me, BUDDY!"

Razor's head snapped up with a start. Anger and shame had converted his face into an ugly mask full of agony. His words were spoken harsh, yet he had problems controlling his voice, and his eyes were bloodshot and moist.

"BUDDY? A buddy wouldn't have ejected me out of the TurboKat AGAINST MY WILL!

You should have died at Pumadyne, T-Bone. I deactivated your ejector seat, so you wouldn't have had time to leave the jet before a crash. You would have died believing you had saved many innocents. You would have died as a hero!

OH, BUT NOT *YOU*! You had to eject me, so I couldn't control the situation, and then you pulled that stupid plan out of thin air that worked despite all odds.

It's your fault you have to see this. Your fault…" His voice broke.

Razor only poorly won his fight not to sob. He continued with nothing more than a whisper, like death speaking, but his voice carried well enough for T-Bone to hear over the distance.

"It's over, T-Bone…. It's over, Chance."

Something inside T-Bone shattered, each splinter a bombshell. They ripped him apart as thoroughly as a real bomb. T-Bone. Chance. It didn't really matter any more. The central pillar he had founded his life on had just fallen in like a house of cards.

The she-kats had to drag him, but his limpness wasn't resistance. It was defeat.

"Does it hurt?" Turmoil's taunt brought up only a blank stare.

"I have to thank you, T-Bone. Jake has tried everything he could to insure you'd die with the thought of having saved the city. I would have preferred your death quick and fast, not this charade, but he wouldn't hear out my reason. I'm glad he didn't. Both ways, you would have been completely unaware of how painful treason can be. But, now you know: There's *nothing* that hurts more.

This is the vengeance I wanted."

"Why, Jake?" T-Bone's voice was raspy.

"Because he loves me!"

Another blow to his stomach.

"Are you toying with him, Turmoil?" His questions were a last link to sanity. T-Bone asked them mechanically.

"You mean, like you toyed with me? *NO*!" her voice was annoyance purified. "I love him sincerely. We live for each other. And, that rounds my revenge off. You will die because he chose me over you. Because you're not the center of everything. Only it's too late for you to realize now."

T-Bone let his head fall onto his chest. It weighed tons. Before him, the ground dropped away, and an ocean of white appeared. Thick cloudbanks seen from above.

They stopped.

"Does Hard Drive know about you and Jake?"

Turmoil's chuckle was chilling for someone not as mentally anaesthetized as T-Bone.

"Hard Drive? I'm afraid Hard Drive has expired his usefulness.

And, so have you."

It was a feathery touch, but no more was needed.

T-Bone fell from the ship.

"No!" The shout was Razor's, not T-Bone's, and he came running just in time to see him vanish in the cloudbank.

Turmoil's sighed. "He didn't even scream. What a pity!"

She spun on her heels and left. After some steps, she stopped to watch Razor's thunderstruck form.

"He's been my partner for years. He was my friend."

Turmoil returned and raised his chin with a finger. "And, now you have a new partner. A new friend."

She lowered her head. "More than a friend." She gently placed a kiss on his mouth.

Razor stood like a marionette, leading strings cut off. But, after some moments, he returned the kiss, timidly at first, then with growing affection as he shook off his inner turmoil.

The scene lasted for a minute, but it could have been infinite.

At last, Turmoil straightened and turned. She raised her voice for her crew to hear.

"It's done. Prepare everything for our enterprise.

Soon. Soon we'll get our revenge on MegaKat City as well."

THURSDAY, 7:25 A.M.

He was diving into the first clouds, but even though the ground was still more than 7.000 feet away, T-Bone had given in to his fate.

His thinking was fogged by a pain with no equal, and though a meeting with the ocean's surface would reduce him to toothpicks, the throbbing pain would leave him as well.

Memories stirred; Jake's last accusation, Turmoil's comments, on top of incoherent thoughts from his SWAT Kats days, from the Enforcers, from his childhood. His brain was overloaded with hurtful information, a flipped part of him laughing maniacally that he'd wake up on impact anyway.

On the brink of death and madness, T-Bone couldn't afterwards remember how he saved himself. But, he did. His survival instincts kicked in.

As the last embers of the old Chance that had fled into some back corner of his mind fought off the freezing effects of his mental assassination and broke through, his actions were performed in a trance, yet they were calm and precise.

He brought his cuffed hands to his breast pocket and fingered for the picklock carefully. When he got it, he inserted it in the manacle's lock and worked the instrument, evaluating his progress with glazy eyes.

The cuffs sprang open, and he used his now free hands to activate his jet boosters. Two control handles extended from the backpack. T-Bone gripped them unaware, letting the tiny warrior inside him win over his fight for life.

The boosters began to glow red and ignited, not a minute too late.

He steered toward the coast against the moderate winds that would have lugged him onto the far sea to drown if he had deployed his parachute instead.

In his anguish, he didn't realize how *very* low he was on fuel when he landed on the shore five minutes later. He fell onto the sand, his hands and knees burying deeply into the wet mud.

He cowered unmoving, the last quarter of the hour still blocking his thoughts. He hadn't fully assimilated Razor's deeds up until now.

And, with the first pieces slipping past the block, he wished he hadn't. Assimilation brought up an agony that made the pain of before seem like an ant compared to a mountain.

"No…!"

He had followed Razor blindly onto Turmoil's ship. He had trusted him - trusted Jake - entirely, more even than himself.

How could he have been so blind? How could he not have seen that Jake's actions had hinted to this betrayal from the very beginning?

That Razor had changed his aim onto the second cargo ship at Pumadyne, although a shooter takes the first target out before switching.

That his second target had been a dummy, and that he had known this, blowing it to bits on purpose.

That Turmoil's conventional missiles were never meant to hit the TurboKat.

That the portable antenna hadn't worked because it shouldn't.

That every single deed from the search for Turmoil's ship to their mining strategy had been Jake's plan.

"Noooooooooooooooo…"

Slumped on the shore in a small bundle no one would ever have taken for a SWAT Kat, T-Bone looked like a rock. Just another rock among a hundred others, if not for its blue color.

If not for the one tear that suddenly moistened the sand.

That Jake would have had to plan all this.

That he must've visited Turmoil in jail whenever he'd come back from the salvage yard with nothing more than empty hands and some empty words as an excuse.

He lifted his head, his whole body shaking. Tears were falling down from his face in heavy streams, drenching his uniform and the sand around him. He opened his mouth for an unearthly scream that went to the bone, the insight on the greatest shock of all put up into it.

That the last year of Chance's life had been just one

*BIG*,

*UGLY*

*LIE*!

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…"

***To be continued – in "Heroes spent"***