Well, I certainly hope someone actually gets around to reading this chapter. Unlike the warm acceptance Chapter 13 found amongst you. *glares*

Anyway. For those of you who still care, enjoy.

Chapter 14: Contact

When Ducky, Indigo, Splitter, and the Jackrabbits had finally quit ARMOR’s airboard room without being injured further, Ducky inquired, “So where are you all flying off to next, anyway?”
“We have to go re-rescue a friend of ours, who is currently stranded on a giant flying fortress,” Jazz replied.
“Re-rescue?”
“Well, the reason he’s stranded on a giant flying fortress is because someone–” here Jazz shot a biting glance at Spaz, who grinned meekly “–used his airboard to exit said giant flying fortress after being imprisoned there for a relatively short period of time.”
“Ah.” Ducky thought for a few moments, then added, “Can I come? The tedium of ARMOR’s everyday schedule is just that, tedious. It would be a nice change for me to bust some machine.”
“Yeah please can she come please please can she please?” Splitter was babbling so fast his words were almost indistinguishable from one another. Indigo rolled his eyes, then swatted Splitter across the back of his head. Not hard enough to cause much pain, but enough to shut him up.
The Lieutenant hesitated in giving a straight answer. “I don’t know... it’s just a quick S&R, anyway...”
“PLEEEEEEEEZ?” Splitter begged. This time it was Ducky who swatted Splitter across the head, with a terse “Enough!”
The gray rabbit looked back up to the others. “If I’m not coming, at least let me help you find this flying fortress. Being a floating city, Aevias keeps a watch over airspace for this side of the planet. I’m sure I can find something as obtuse as a fortress in the air.”
As the posse headed for one of ARMOR’s numerous radar satellite console stations, Ducky asked, “Is there anything you can tell me, measurement-wise, about what I’m looking for?”
“Does ‘really flippin’ huge’ help at all?” Indigo replied.
“Actually, yes, it does. Now I can disregard any medium-sized craft in the search. I assume that by ‘really flippin’ huge’ you mean something that is about the size of an airborne aircraft carrier, right?”
“About that size, yes. Perhaps a bit smaller, but definitely not classifiable as a medium-sized craft,” Lori said. “After all, it is a fortress. Kind of.”
“’Kind of’?” Ducky narrowed her eyes at Lori. “What do you mean, ‘kind of’?”
“Well, it’s more of a gunship – well, not even that, probably a flying battleship.” Lori narrowed her eyes back at Ducky, with a smile on her face, denoting that she meant nothing of it. “Why do you ask?”
Ducky un-narrowed her eyes, and answered, “I was just checking that you weren’t looking for something that resembles, say, a smaller version of Aevias with more weapon on it, which would most likely be one of Aevias’ or Velo City’s airborne battle stations.”
“Well, it definitely did not look like that.”
“Okay then.”
They entered a room, with a sign above blaring “Radar Console Area 7-3” in bright red letters. The room itself was not very large, but it contained at least a dozen, maybe two, control stations. As soon as they walked in the door, Ducky went for the console third from the door. Which itself was somewhat strange; as there was no one else in the room, she could have gone to the one nearest the door, but apparently chose not to.
“Can you tell me approximately where this battleship of yours is?”
“A while north – maybe ten or twelve klicks,” Indigo said, indicating with a pointed finger the direction.
Ducky looked at Indigo’s hand. “That’s west, Lieutenant.”
“No it’s not. It’s north.”
“It’s west.”
Indigo dropped his hand, and looked upwards; he wasn’t quite rolling his eyes, but he appeared to be thinking in depth. He pointed west again, then pointed in a direction perpendicular to west. He seemed to be mouthing something, but no sound came from his mouth. After a few seconds of Indigo’s pointing in random directions and talking silently to himself in his mind, he turned back to Ducky, stating simply, “You’re right. That is west.”
“I know. That’s what I said.”
Indigo pointed west again. “Well, the gunship was in that direction then. Whatever direction that is now.”
“That’s west.”
“Okay then.”
“Alright, so it’s west… how far away did you say it was?”
“Maybe 10 kilometers.”
“Okie-dokie then.” With that, she began tapping away madly at the keyboard connected to the computer in front of which she sat. Screens flashed by, numbers quickly and rapidly appeared and disappeared, and small message boxes only showed themselves for less than a split second as Ducky entered every bit of information she had so fast her hands were a blur. The rabbits behind her struggled to focus on even one thing, failing miserably as words blipped on and off of the screen faster than their eyes could follow them.
Suddenly, Ducky stopped typing. She turned around, so she was facing the others. She had a worried look upon her face.
“You said you have a comrade still in the airship, right?”
“Yes, one Blaze Blackrabbit still upstairs in the airship,” Lori answered, now getting anxious herself when she saw Ducky’s expression. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Ducky blinked once. “Well, I didn’t find a gigantic airship, but I did find lots of… much smaller airships… in generally the same area…”
“What?” Jazz said. “Where did all of those smaller ships come… from…” His eyes widened as he realized what had actually happened. “Oh no…”
“And Blaze?” Splitter asked tentatively.
“No sign of him, I’m afraid. He may have taken a turn for the worse,” Ducky said, with an uneasy tone in her voice. “We may have lost him.”
Jazz seemed to deflate slightly at this statement, then he brightened up again as he remembered something. Hastily taking off his backpack, he drove his hand inside, mumbling to himself slightly. He appeared to have much more inside his backpack than it looked able to carry.
Suddenly, he found what he was looking for. He pulled it out of the pack, with a grandiose “Aha!”
In his hand, he held the small headset Wizard had given him, as he did with all of the others, before they had left the R.O.A.R. Outpost. He flipped it onto his head, pressing the power button on the left earphone as he did so, and adjusted it so it rested snugly atop his furry head. Lowering the mic so it was next to his mouth, Jazz spoke into the headset. “Jack? Firefox? Can anyone hear me?”
Wizard’s voice came back, clear as a bell. “We hear you, Jazz. What’s up?”
“We’re worried about Blaze. We left him up in the Shellnaught when we made our hasty escape, and now the airship has gone and blown up. With Blaze inside it. There’s no sign of anything where the ship used to be, and that includes any lagomorphic entities.”
There was a short pause on the other end, then Wizard’s voice returned. “What are you talking about? Did you just realize that the Shellnaught’s been destroyed just now?”
“Well, yeah… so? Blaze could have been taken out of existence along with the Shellnaught. I don’t understand how you can be so positive about this! A Task Force member’s life is in danger! He could be dead already!”
“Jazz. Calm down.”
“How can I–”
“Blaze is sitting right next to me.”
“…buh?”
“Jack caught Blaze and another rabbit, goes by the name of Acid, in free-fall before the Shellnaught even went down. They had apparently blown themselves out of the ship with a mini-nuke. Jack, Firefox, Blaze, Headcheese, Acid, and myself are still together and in one piece.”
“Well, that’s good to hear. As long as he’s still alive. How are the rest of you doing?”
“Well, Jack’s got a bruise on his waist from Headcheese plowing into him, and Blaze and Acid are a bit burnt from the nuke blast, but overall we’re fine. You?”
“Not too bad. Indigo and Splitter are still with us, as is Spaz. We’ve met one of Splitter’s friends, a female rabbit by the name of Ducky, during our stay at Aevias. God, I almost sound like a travel agent. Anyway, we came here to refuel our airboards, and ended up getting new ones.”
“Sounds like you’ve been keeping yourselves busy.”
“We have.”
“Alright then, we’ll rendezvous with you at Aevias in twenty.”
“Sounds good. We’ll be ready.”
“Righty. Wizard of Odds out.”
Jazz took off the headset, and was immediately greeted with the inquisitive stares of his siblings, the Lieutenant and his partner, and Ducky, who was still sitting at the radar terminal. They were all expectant of an answer, which Jazz provided.
“Blaze is fine; apparently, he and another rabbit, Acid, blew up the airship with a small nuke. Jack found them in free-fall, and they’re all back at ground level, safe and sound. They’ll be here to pick us up in twenty minutes.”
Ducky rested her chin in her hand, smiling slightly. “Well, I’m glad I could be of service.”
“Yes, thank you, Ducky, for your assistance in finding the Shellnaught, or lack thereof. In the meantime, we must be going if we’re going to meet up with the others,” Lori answered.
“Alright then, I’ll see you all later. If you need anything, I’ll be here, just drop by.”
“Will do, Ducky, will do,” Jazz acknowledged, with a nod of approval.
As they were leaving, Ducky couldn’t help but chuckle at Splitter’s several attempts to get the others to allow her to come. “So can she come? Can she? Please please please pleeeeeeease?”
Indigo’s voice always seemed to follow Splitter’s. “No! For the hundred and sixth time, stop asking!”
“Yeah, but can she come?”
“Argh!”

I suppose I should start working on SoT again... it appears to have slipped off of the 30-day page... ah well, I have a general idea for what I'm doing in Chapter 5, so this shouldn't be too difficult.

I'm going to sleep now. G'night all.

~_~ .zzZ