Chapter 17: Family Ties

The Hybrid Corsair flew impossibly fast through the Carrotan air, skimming the tops of trees, and narrowly missing the tops of buildings. The occupants had felt but a split-second of immense pressure on their bodies as the G-forces caused by the ship’s acceleration forced them backwards (or sideways, depending on where they sat) into their seats. Their inertia quickly caught up with them, and they pulled themselves upright again. As they sat up straight again, Acid gradually began to pull the ship into an upward curve, and the Corsair began to slowly, then rapidly, gain altitude, until they felt that indescribable transition from the gravitational forces of the planet below to the impression of zero gravity in the vacuum of space.
Most of the eight passengers had never felt the sensation of zero-G, and thought it quite entertaining. Headcheese and Spaz, for example, floated more than a foot out of their chairs, finding the apparent absence of gravity highly amusing. Acid quickly advised them to stay in their seats, as the artificial gravity was either going to hold them down into their seats again, or smash them into the ground. Deciding to abstain from an ungainly faceplant into the floor, the two hovering rabbits quickly grabbed their respective chairs, pulling themselves back down into them. They heard a beep from Acid’s direction, and then the gravity returned, settling them back into their seats.
Then, from behind the cockpit, there was a loud WHUMP, followed by an “Ow!” Acid looked to each of them, and they returned his glance, puzzledly. The pilot stood up slowly, and exited the cockpit. Not three seconds had passed before they heard an argument brewing in the corridor behind them.
“Elec…?! What in the name of all that’s holy are you doing here?”
“Well, you didn’t think you were just going to leave me behind, did you? Strand me on Carrotus while you go off on some adventure to save the world and whatnot?”
“Um, let me think about this. Yes?”
There was a loud ZAP, and then Acid seemed to have changed his mind. “Okay, okay, fine! You can stay!”
“I thought you’d see it my way. Oh, by the way, there’s someone here to see you.”
“HEWWO ASHID!”
“Dear God. Why is he here?”
“It’s not like I asked him to come. He followed me here. Believe me, I want him here as little as you do.”
“I’m going to take a wild guess, and say that Phish is here too.”
“He’s around, yeah.”
“Remind me to kill you for this someday.”
“‘Kay.”
Acid re-entered the cockpit, followed by a blue-furred rabbit with a headband, surrounded by small arcs of electricity swarming around his body. A few seconds later, a lanky, tan-furred rabbit wearing a lopsided helmet meandered in driftily. The other occupants immediately realized that there was definitely something strange about this tan rabbit, as he seemed to be wandering about aimlessly, entranced in his own little world. The Jackrabbits’ doubts about this rabbit’s intelligence – or rather, sanity – were immediately confirmed as he suddenly cried out in surprise at nothing in particular, backpedalled a few steps, stumbled, then fell sprawling over the table at which Lori sat.
Acid put his face into his hands, embarrassed at the lanky rabbit’s antics. The blue rabbit simply laughed, and as he did, a particularly large spark of electricity was emitted from his left ankle, spiraled around his body, and sent itself back into his opposite shoulder. He didn’t even flinch.
Firefox quietly tapped Acid on the shoulder, causing the latter to look up. “Do you... know these two?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Acid chuckled. “The blue one with the out-of-control static charge is my brother Electrik, and the idiot who just performed a backwards faceplant over the holo-table is my cousin, Foo.”
“Foo?”
“Yes. Foo.”
Upon hearing his name, Foo looked upwards from the floor at Firefox, with a mighty “HEWWO MISHTER GUY!” at the top of his lungs.
Firefox’s eyebrow seemed to climb up his forehead. “Now I understand.”
“Yes.”
Jack watched Electrik as another arc of electricity encircled the tips of his long ears. Without taking his eyes off of the supercharged rabbit, he asked Acid, “So who’s Phish?”
“Phish is my other cousin, and Foo’s brother. They share pretty well no similarities... well, excepting species and gender, of course. I’m willing to bet that Phish probably has what Foo lacks in brains.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t mind, though,” Electrik chuckled.
“Who? Phish or Foo?”
“Either of them,” the blue rabbit replied with a wide grin. Acid laughed a bit at this inside joke, but everyone else felt they had missed whatever it was that was funny.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Acid started. “I don’t think you’ve met Jack Flash or any of these other rabbits.”
“No, I don’t believe I have...” As Electrik’s eyes scanned the room, he saw no one he knew, other than his brother and cousin.
Then his eyes landed on Jazz. His eyebrows raised themselves for a split second; then, with one more look around the room, he noticed Lori, and finally Spaz. He finished his earlier sentence.
“...except, of course, the Jackrabbits. I mean, what good inhabitant of Carrotus with half a brain wouldn’t be able to recognize the Jackrabbit family?”
Jazz was about to say something witty, but stopped himself. That’s weird, he thought to himself. That’s the exact same thing that Ducky said, back at Aevias. Could they be connected somehow? Jazz scratched his head, then banished the thought from his mind for the moment.
At that moment, an orange-furred rabbit stuck his head in the door. Nodding to Electrik, he declared, “Fixed it.”
Electrik returned the nod. “Good job.”
Acid turned around to look at the two. “Wait, wait, wait. What’s fixed? What did you ‘fix’ this time, Phish?!”
“Oh. Your Maxim-Circe burst laser. Wires got pulled, and the sentinel wasn’t working properly, or at least not nearly as fast as it should have been. In any case, I repaired it; now you shouldn’t have any problems with protecting the rear.”
Phish looked around the room, with a puzzled expression on his face. “I thought this ship was a destroyer, not a passenger transport. Would someone mind telling me who we’re hosting here?”
“I was about to, when you dropped in,” Acid replied. “As you’ve probably noticed, the Jackrabbits decided to come with; these others that you probably wouldn’t recognize are known as R.O.A.R.’s Elite Task Force.”
He slowly began to turn in his chair, indicating the five rabbits in question. “The young one, next to Spaz, is Headcheese; that black one behind you is Blaze Blackrabbit; Big Red here, next to me, calls himself Capt. Firefox; the bespectacled one on the other side of the room is Wizard of Odds; and the white one with the artillery is Jack Flash. Everyone else, this is Phish.”
“Hi.”
There was a short silence as Phish found a chair next to Wizard, and then Blaze spoke up. “I meant to ask you something earlier, Acid...”
“Yes?” Acid turned around, wearing an amusingly unassuming expression on his face.
“Would there be any possibility that we could get the details on the ‘bots in the hangar before we delve too far into this mission?”
“Absolutely,” Acid replied. “Electrik, would you mind taking the controls?”
Electrik exchanged places with Acid, and the latter moved to the holo-table, sitting opposite Lori. He entered a few commands, and the table hummed to life, sending a bright green, semi-transparent image into the air.
The image was that of a large robot. The ‘bot itself looked fearsome enough in and of itself, but there was nothing particularly striking about its appearance, excepting what appeared to be a line of blade-like projections running down its back.
“This is the first ‘bot I built for the Corsair, called the Razorback. It’s probably the most heavily armoured of the three, but it comes at a cost of speed and maneuverability. Nevertheless, it’s a good thing to have around if you’re about to fly into a warzone.”
The image began to shift, move, and mutate for a few seconds after Acid had finished his description. When it had completed its shapeshifting, a new robot stood in the place of the Razorback. This one was slightly smaller than the first, but it appeared to have more power behind it. Four vent-looking rockets extended like small wings from its shoulders and ankles, and two tubes, similar to the ones adorning the sides of the Corsair, ran from the ‘bot’s shoulders up to the back of its head.
“The Pegasus is like the exact opposite of the Razorback, being lightly armoured but very fast and agile. It can only carry light weapons, but it can deal death just as quickly and efficiently as any other ‘bot you’ll ever find. An experienced Pegasus pilot would literally be able to fly circles around an enemy.”
The image began to metamorphose again, and in the place of the Pegasus there appeared the third robot. It had almost the same proportions of any Carrotan inhabitant, but instead of long rabbit ears there was what appeared to be a spoiler atop its head, and its extremities were widened by metal armour.
“The Nightmare, in my opinion, is the perfect intermediation between speed and strength. It’s fast enough to get into a battlefield, and has enough armour on it to keep it from being blown away while it’s delivering the punch. This ‘bot is a worthy adversary and a worthwhile ally.”
Almost immediately after Acid had finished, a loud beep sounded from Electrik’s direction, and his voice wasn’t far behind it. “Uh, Acid...?”
“Yeh?”
“Could you come here for a sec?”
Acid turned around, deactivating the holo-table in a smooth movement, and strode over to where Electrik sat. “What is it?”
“What’s this green dot on the screen for?”
There was an awkward silence, and then Acid spoke again. “Well, that’s not good.”
“What’s not good?” Jack asked from the back of the room.
“Someone’s following us.”