Wha'? What's the matter, Kaz?



Err. I have lots more to post. . .



"Sir, we are in orbit around the planet of Firen." Kroys gave his Commander a look made of pure evil.

"Very good, Commander. Prepare your troops and ready the attack on the rebels." The Fleet Commander bowed and left. Just as quickly he returned.

"M-milord, the scanners have picked up two alien ships on the planet's surface! One is a modified Darkspray fighter, and the other has been indentified as Commander Flairang's Jendara 245, sir!" Kroys hissed in frustration.

"What is the modified Darkspray's com number, Commander?" The Commander bowed again.

"I shall ask, milord." He left briefly and then returned.

"216, milord." Kroys paced, furious.

"The name?"

"Eh. . .the Assassin, milord."

"Assassin. . . there's only one ship in the galaxy with that name. Coppertop's." The Commander bowed for a third time.

"That is the pilot, milord." Kroys turned on him.

"Why didn't you tell me, you stupid oaf? Coppertop's the one who launched the original attack on me and destroyed the Deep Spacer in the process!"

"Uh. . . yes, milord." Kroys snarled an oath to himself that made the Commander blanch and pale.

"Dismissed, Commander."

"Uh. . . yes, mil-" he beat a hasty retreat upon seeing Kroys' look. Fuming to himself, Kroys glared down at Firen. The beautiful sphere's only city sprawled below, and with a flick of his hand Kroys could blast it out of existance, and half of the planet in the process. The thought made him smile in satisfaction.

Then he turned his focus in again, and began searching for that scrap of Beliane. . .



"Eh. . . Copper?" The grey rabbit turned her green eyes to KRSplat.

"Yeah?"

"How're we gonna kick shell if we don't know where these turtles are?" Copper grinned, and her eyes lit up with the prospect of, as KRSplat had put it, kicking shell.

"Leave that to Angel and Shinyso, my friend. I'm not a telepath."

With that subtle announcement that she now counted her comrades among her few friends, she had also announced her loyalty. . .



There! A shred of alien personality. . . He laughed mentally, mockingly. The piece of Belaine attempted to vanish, but he hooked it with a tendril of power and then enveloped it with blood-magic, drawing the power and life from it, laughing. . .



"Give no mercy."



Phoebe was not so sure about just diving into the battle, but at least she had her crossbow again. . . and her glasses! She stared up at the huge Star Destroyer, noting distractedly that she could see no end to it. The tip was just above her, and the rest of it stretched on and on and on in an ever-growing triangle. . .

"Hey, Phoebe! Wake up!" She blinked and refocused on the scene ahead. Slaves attacked the startled guards with anything they could lay their hands on, including each other. Copper drew her blaster with blurring speed, and glanced over at the others who quickly followed suit. Kaz pulled his out and took to the air, and Claw with a wicked grin began testing the aim on a hapless guard nearby.

"You guys, fire at will," Copper said cheerily, and the chaos that followed decimated the guards. Lasers whined overhead, and the startled slaves paused in their fighting to stare at the newcomers. Phoebe suddenly collapsed, and heard a laser zip past her ear. When she looked back, a tall, youngish-looking blue rabbit was inspecting his arm and muttering about bad aim.

She rolled to her feet and loosed a blue-feathered quarrel, and listened with satisfaction to the outraged yell that followed. Zanzibar had somehow managed to lose his blaster, and was now wrestling with a cursing guard who didn't seem to want to be killed. Finally Zanzibar got a grip, and she heard bones snapping as the guard's arm broke like a dry twig. She shot without aiming, and the yelping guard abruptly shut up as he looked increduously down at the crossbow quarrel that was now sprouting from his midriff. Zanzibar promptly grabbed the blaster and turned, snapping off a shot that whizzed past her ear. A cry of "ouch!" proved he had scored yet another hit.

A flash of silver caught her attention, and she saw Copper wielding her blade expertly. Kovu was using his own golden sword like a scythe, cutting low at the outraged guards' legs, swaying aside and then sweeping upwards abruptly to their suddenly unprotected chests. She couldn't see Claw, but the cries of pain and fury that came from behind her wasn't all from Kaz and Zanzibar.

Grath yelled up at Kaz, who had narrowly missed him when shooting down an advancing guard, and barely missed being kicked by Shinyso, who was using his own special moves. He ducked and shot a guard in the process, although he had a rather surprised look on his face when he realized what he had done. Ducky was dodging blasts of purple Jello, and Blacksheep was laughing hysterically as she shot her Jello~Ray gun without looking first. Alpha looked grim as she fought like a whirlwind, but more than once she had to be "rescued" by her brother, who expertly stayed on the sidelines until someone got in too deep of trouble.

The fighting seemed to take eternity, but once it was over she remembered very little of it. Claw was trying not to wince as Copper pried half a crow-bar out of his shoulder, and he gasped as she gave a very undignified yank. Finally she pulled it out, and gave him a speculative look.

"How'd that happen?" Claw grimaced and rubbed his other shoulder.

"Some idiot slave took me for a guard, I guess. Though how that happened I haven't a clue." Alpha nodded sympathetically, and then yelped as Omega prized a blue-fletched arrow from her leg. Phoebe tried to become invisible.

Kovu and Copper seemed to be totally uninjured, once it was discerned that the blood on them was their enemies and not their own, although Copper was limping slightly and Kovu could barely turn his head without wincing. When asked how that had happened, he muttered something about schwartzenguards and uppercuts.

"Well, guys, it looks like we won," Copper said finally. It seemed unreal to Phoebe, and it was only when she was back in the Assassin that both reality and her pain hit home. A searing pain ran up her leg, and when she looked down scarlet stained her light blue fur. The bullet blast that the slave had saved her from had not entirely missed; her ear was singed and throbbing. Another gash on her arm bled continuously, and when she touched her cheek her hand came away with blood on it.

"Actually, you didn't come out too bad," Emerald Dragon commented as she fixed up her arm. "Better than Zanzibar, it seems." Later, when she asked, she was told that Zanzibar had taken several hits in his side -the curse of being taller than your opponent, he said- and his shoulder had been laid open by a furious guard who had managed to find a blade.

"He'll survive," was the reassuring finish, and somehow Phoebe was greatly cheered by it.



Seeing as his troops planetside had totally been devastated, Kroys paced and planned with a vengeance. The Fleet Commander had returned with news that joining the slaves had been "several" assorted creatures.

"Leading them, milord, was a tall grey female rabbit with dark hair and a sword," he reported, and Kroys hissed in fury.

"Coppertop. . ."

"Of course, she wasn't the only one wreaking havoc with our troops, milord," the Commander continued, oblivious to Kroys' fury. "All of her comrades were like whirlwinds of devastation."

"Very poetic, Commander. But I want Copper!" Kroys ground out, and the Commander gulped.

"Yes, milord."

"And Commander?" Kroys said as the turtle turned to leave,

"I want her yesterday."