Ok, it's sunday! ...whoops, it's still saturday, but well, here's the next chapter! Enjoy laughing

Chapter 3: Getting warmed up

During its development, the C.O.R.E also established a port for spacecrafts and aircrafts to enter and leave the headquarters. However since C.O.R.E mainly carried out cases on Carrotus, the majority of the port were aircrafts. Only a few spaceships were stored in the garage, the high-speed type used in emergencies. Thus only authorized personnels could be granted control of one, and in special occasions (I repeat, only AUTHORIZED personnels). Also to avoid faking conditions to get authorization, a handprint of those of captain-rank and above was required to open the launch gates, so that they could make sure of the real situation.
The time was 9.35 AM, around the busiest time of the day at the Airport. Planes, jets, even skyboards going in and out flocked the whole place. Some crafts had to queue for the landing strip, while skyboards seemed more convenient since they don’t require strips to land. Anyways, that’s the Airport area with a direct contrast next to it, the Spaceport. Although the lights were on just like everywhere in the building, the place was covered with a silent and eerie atmosphere, unlike its noisy and bustling neighbour. The entrance was blocked by two gates made of a special alloy, capable of withstanding a C4 blast, and two rabbit agents were standing at each side of it. Obviously it isn’t going to be the way in for our heroes, so let’s forget all those fortifications and check out the ventilation system. The cover of a hatch in the spaceport area was suddenly blasted open. From the hole came out Jazz, Lori (being pushed out by Spaz) and Spaz. They landed quietly on the ground and started dusting themselves off.
“Why am I dragged into this?” Lori asked unpleasantly.
“Cause I need your handprint.” Jazz replied. “Besides, I can’t let you walk around telling everyone what I’m up to.”
“I don’t have to.” Lori folded her arms. “They’ll know sooner or later.”
“Well, sooner or later you’re going to receive the same punishment as us” Jazz opened an electric box on the wall and ripped off a few wires to disable the cameras. “So quit your whining and give me a hand, will ya?”
“Do I deserve this, God?” Lori looked up and murmured while walking to the launch gate console, “And are you there already?”

Jazz and Spaz had already strapped themselves onto the seats of a spaceship, and they’re directing it to the launchgate. At the same time Lori took off her glove and pressed her right hand against the handprint reader on the wall. The console then replied: “Handprint approved. Opening launch gate...”
The authorities should be alerted of our presence here by now. Jazz thought as he slowly pulled the control stick. The spaceship started to accelerate toward the opened gate. Just then the spaceport entrance gate sunk to the ground, and the two rabbits who were standing guard outside entered with a few other rabbits along. Almost immediately they noticed the spaceship in motion headed to the launch gate.
“STOP!!!” One of the rabbits shouted.
Jazz stopped, but only when he reached his sister who was standing at the console next to the gate. “Get on.” He waved his hand up. Lori, having no choice left, climbed up the ship and tightened her seat belt, while Jazz closed the canopy and shouted excitedly: “Now, let’s SPEED!!!”
And with that, he forcibly pulled the control stick to its maximum inclined state. The ship shook as four rocket engines started pouring out gigantic blue flames, then launched itself up the long sloping tunnel, lighting up each speed-checker arch it passed as the speed meter in the cockpit kept going up at an astonishing rate. The bright sky appeared outside the tunnel exit, and it didn’t take more than 1 second for the ship to reach it. Jazz kept his two hands positioned when the spaceship penetrated through the clouds. Its speed was going up steadily, but so was the shakiness. Just a little bit more! Jazz clenched. The spaceship went on for about 5 more seconds, and then the seismism started decreasing. From their back seats, Spaz and Lori could feel themselves escaping the G-force, and they could also see the sky darkened. The spaceship had just left the Carrotus atmosphere and entered the vast vacuum of space. Far away to the left was the sun radiating her light and heat onto the planet, while sparkling stars occupied the rest of the vision.
“And now we’re out in space. Yahoo!” Jazz exclaimed with his hands up.
“I have to admit, this is pretty cool.” Lori followed.
“Now to set the coordinates and go to that FCT satellite” Jazz opened the advertisement, “Honestly I didn’t think that breaking out of the space port was so easy.”
“Better not, brother” Spaz suddenly grabbed Jazz’s shoulder, “They coming.”

Jazz turned to his brother’s warning. There, a few miles behind them, was two spaceships of the same model as the one Jazz’s piloting (they only have that model stored in the port, but it’s for multipurpose usage, and it’s pretty reliable too). From the speaker on the control board, a voice came out:
“To whoever on the Raven-III: You are currently acting out of authorization. Please stop and return to the base immediately for report. If you don’t comply, then we’ll have no choice but to open fire.”
“These guys never give it a break.” Jazz smacked his toungue as he turned on the voice reply and said, “Please, can’t you just let it go once? I’m only borrowing this for a while.”
“That voice... You’re Jazz Jackrabbit, aren’t you?” The rabbit on the other side seemed to recognize Jazz. “Please turn back at once, for your own sake.” The next thing he saw from his cockpit was Jazz’s spaceship, the Raven-III began to slow down. He thought Jazz listened to him so he slowed down as well, just enough to catch up with Jazz. But, when he was saying “Very good. Now let us go back and...” he totally didn’t expect the engines in front of him to suddenly burst out flames and the ship quickly dashed ahead, leaving a trail of smoke behind.
“Sorry, no can do.” Jazz spoke. “I’ve got an appointment which I can’t allow myself to miss.”
“So be it.”

In the radar screen, Jazz could see two dots began to move after his dot at the center. One of them suddenly flashed red, followed by the warning siren. Jazz quickly barrel-rolled the ship to the right, just in time to dodge a white ray which came from behind.
“Wow, they really did it.” He said while rolled the ship left to avoid yet another shot.
“We have to outrun them!” Lori shouted.
“Hm, you’re helping me?” Jazz grinned.
“Then how about ‘We have to turn back and turn ourselves in before we’re toast?’ ” Lori replied, sarcastically.
Jazz tilted the spaceship to the right to avoid two simultaneous shot aimed for the wings.
“Ring!” Spaz exclaimed out of the blue.
“Not the right time to imitate sounds, Spaz.” Jazz turned his eyes to his brother.
“No. Ring!”

Lori and Jazz looked to the front and immediately realized what Spaz meant. Ahead of the spaceship was a colossal planet with a ring surrounding it, and they’re heading directly into that ring. There’s only a few dozens of miles left, yet the white shots from the pursuing spaceships made it rather difficult to maneuver.
“Change the direction, Jazz! We have to avoid it!” Lori said.
“You don’t have to tell me!” Jazz answered, but then an idea came through his mind, “...because I’m not going to avoid it.”