Well, it's been a while, and it looks like this thread hasn't been getting much attention, but the story's slowly been coming along, as always. Here ya go, Chapter 8...

Chapter 8: Changing Hands

The red beam had taken Spaz straight up into the airship. He had been on all fours on the soft Carrotan ground, looking to Jazz pleadingly, with the expression on his face screaming “Help me!” Then everything turned a bright, shimmering red.
The next thing he knew, he was on his knees, on a small raised platform in a dark, metallic-looking room. As he lifted his head, he saw, standing in front of him on the slightly lower floor, the demonic Buster Tank, flanked by a few tough-looking turtles. The large turtle had an evil grin hovering about his lips, and his eyes were as cold as chips of ice, despite the fact that they burned red with almost primeval hatred for the helpless being on the platform. Buster jumped easily onto the raised dais, and glared downwards at the small red rabbit.
“You’ll do, you scrawny specimen of rabbit,” Buster laughed. Spaz searched frantically for his blaster, but he couldn’t find it anywhere on him. He looked to the sinister-looking, heavily muscled turtles behind Buster, and saw one of them twirling his beloved green blaster around his finger. The turtle noticed Spaz staring desperately at the spinning blaster, dropped it from his finger into his palm, and crushed it with his hand. Spaz gasped miserably.
Buster had been watching this act approvingly, and laughed mockingly at Spaz. Then, he reached down and picked Spaz up cruelly by the neck. Spaz resisted valiantly, but he couldn’t break Buster’s grip on his neck. He stopped struggling, and Buster snickered again at the sight of Spaz, dangling helplessly at arm’s length, making small, pitiful choking sounds. As Spaz hung there, his vision was slowly fading. Everything had almost turned black when Buster dropped him back onto the floor, just as cruelly as he had picked him up. Spaz coughed a few times as Buster muttered to his cohorts, “Take him to a cell.”
One of the tough turtles replied dumbly, “Uh, which one, sir?”
“Any one! I don’t care!”
“H’okay.”
Spaz was still gulping down air thankfully as the guards hefted him bodily and carried him to his cell. They threw him inside maliciously, and slammed the barred door before he could stand again. Spaz rushed to the bars, and cried out, “Let me out! Let me go!”
Realizing that no help was forthcoming, he hung his head in despair, thinking, This is it, this is how I’m going to die…

But there was indeed help on the way. Jazz had just blown a hole into the side of the airship; conveniently, right into the ship’s armoury. For some strange reason, the breach alarm hadn’t gone off yet, and Jazz thanked his luck so far. He, along with his companions, flew silently into the armoury, and left their airboards lying on the floor. They loaded up quickly, filling their respective guns with every type of ammo in the room.
Nodding silently to Blaze, Jazz kicked the armoury door open. It must have been a stronger kick than expected, as the door was ripped right off its hinges and flew off down the hallway. One of Buster’s crew didn’t even have time to react as the door hurtled into him. And yet, the guards still didn’t have the sense to pull the alarm.
Jazz emerged from the armoury, fully loaded and confident. Lori, Splitter, Blaze, and Indigo followed him. A sign was posted a short distance ahead, with an arrow pointing right at the rabbits, indicating the location of the armoury. Two other arrows pointed left and right, indicating “Aerodynamics” and…
“Cells!” Jazz said. “Spaz must be in one of the cell blocks! That’s where any criminal mastermind would keep their prisoners!”
Indigo looked puzzled. “Eh?”
“Because they’ve got too much on their mind – what with world domination and/or destruction on their hands – to know any better than to hide them somewhere else.”
Lori was amazed. “Jazz, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that much logic in two sentences. I’m astonished.”
“Is that an insult or a compliment?”
“Never mind.”
They walked slowly down a few metres of corridor towards the sign, and, satisfied that they weren’t being watched, they then took off at a dead run towards the cell blocks in which Spaz was being held captive…

One of Buster’s minions, his brother Slicer, was observing them on a television screen. “Heh. They think they’re not being watched, do they? Well, I’ll show them who’s what now.”
He rubbed his hands together like a naughty little child. “And what of the little scrawny rabbit, eh? Well, they’ll soon see each other… but not as they had ultimately hoped. Ho yes, Jazz Jackrabbit, this will be your last fleet-footed day on Carrotus, I’ll see to that…”
He pressed a button, and the great Jazz Jackrabbit fell.

Jazz’s mind had gone into hyperdrive, with a million thoughts flying through his head. He had been running a few steps in front of Lori, who was a few steps in front of Blaze. Then, abruptly, the floor disappeared from underneath his feet. He was falling, sliding through a narrow shaft, only a few inches wider than he was. He could hear Lori falling behind him, by the sound of her occasional “Oof!” as she bumped along the tunnel walls.
Then, just as abruptly as he began to fall, he hit the floor with a loud whump. He rubbed his sore rear as Lori fell out of the tube on top of him. Pinned to the ground by his own sister, and not even on purpose. This time, anyway.
“Lori, would you mind getting off of my head?”
“I’m not on your head.”
“Well, get off me anyway.”
“Yeah, fine.”
As Jazz got up and dusted himself off, he took stock of where they were. A room with iron walls and bars along one side, where they could see out, but not escape.
A jail cell.
As soon as those words passed through his mind, he jumped up, an excited smile on his face. “The cells! And we’re actually in one! How convenient of them!”
A voice crackled through on a speaker near their cell. It was Buster Tank. “Hahahahahaha! I finally have you exac—”
Lori cut the transmission off with a simple “Shut up.” and a shot from her blaster. Jazz was still smiling excitedly as the pieces of the destroyed speaker fell to the ground.
“And the idiots never thought to disarm us before putting us in a cell. Oh well, all the better for us!” He pointed his blaster towards the barred door, and blew the lock off of it. The door swung open with a slight creaking noise, as if it hadn’t been oiled too well.
Just as the door opened, Blaze, Indigo, and Splitter fell out of the pipe above them. Once again, Jazz was at the bottom of the pile of rabbits. He sighed in exasperation.
“OK, the weight of one rabbit is enough…” He glared at Lori, who simply shrugged. “Now would you four get off me?!”
They quickly hopped off, and Jazz stood up and dusted himself off again. Blaze was about to say something, when they heard an overly familiar voice.
“Jazz? Is that you?”
“Spaz?” Jazz was incredulous. Not only had Tank put them in the jail cells, right where they wanted to be… he had also placed them right next to who they wanted to find! Jazz slipped out from the open cell door, turned around – and there was Spaz, sitting alone in the cell next to the one he had just came out of. Spaz’s eyes brightened, and he rushed to the bars.
“Jazz! I knew you’d come find me!”
“What, you thought I’d leave you up here alone? Is that my style?”
“Well, no, but I was beginning to…”
Jazz cut him off. “…wonder what was taking me so long? We kinda had a bit of turbulence on the way up.”
Spaz raised an eyebrow. Then he understood what Jazz was getting across. “Ah. Where’s Lori?”
“Right here, bro!” By now, the others had left the cell that they had fallen into, and Lori was smiling as she presented herself.
Blaze went to work at the lock that held Spaz’s cell door closed. He had his ear up to the lock, listening for minute ticks as the tumblers in the lock moved about. Then Jazz pushed him away.
“There’s a far easier way to do that, Blaze,” he said, pointing his blaster at the lock. With one pull of the trigger, the lock was blown open, and the cell door swung away from the rest of the bars. Spaz rushed out, and, per usual, skidded and smacked headfirst into the opposite wall.
“Even in the face of evil, he still manages to run into things,” Indigo said, apparently amused by Spaz’s complete oblivion to what was happening around him as, yet again, he toppled over. He only lay flat for a second, however, as Jazz said, “Lie there like that, Spaz, and we’ll leave you here.”
The small red rabbit was up and off like a bullet. Lori glanced at Jazz. “You didn’t mean that, right?”
“What… that has to be… I can’t… no!” Jazz stammered. Lori rolled her eyes.
That was when the crew decided to pull the alarm. A loud, whining siren cut through the insides of the ship. Indigo was already ready to go.
“C’mon, before we’re found here! Let’s get moving already!”
They took off, bowling over several guards on their way to where they just were. They had to run as fast as possible to avoid being targets for more than a tenth of a second. With all the rush, it wasn’t a surprise that no one had noticed that Blaze wasn’t with them…

More suspense. I love suspense. Anyway. The next chapter is going back to checking on Jack Flash and the others, and how they're coping with, and fighting back against, Buster Tank's reign of terror...