Left Behind

A second episode, the theme music swells again and you're watching a pile of smoking rubble that used to be a fortified entrance to the East Pole police station on Suburbia.

Jolt was still looking at the skies as The Eye approached her. "Jolt? Are you all right?"

"What just happened?" Jolt turned to look at The Eye.

"It looks like M-Seven just launched their attack. We need to scramble!" The Eye was agitated.

"Where's Thresher?" Jolt turned back to the police station.

"I'm up here!" Thresher, lying on his chest, legless, peeked over the edge of the police station roof. "Don't worry about me, get after them!"

Jolt ran towards the smoking crater that used to be the entrance to the installation. "No way!"

She leaped into the air and flew up to Thresher's position. The cyborg had retracted his chainsaw; the bottom half of his body was missing. He pushed himself up and turned his head to look at Jolt, reaching for her with his right arm. She grabbed his extended hand and lifted it over her shoulder, supporting his torso with her other arm. "I'm not leaving a friend behind!"

They rejoined The Eye in the courtyard, and proceeded to the barracks. In a room adjacent to the lockers a scout suit waited in its creche. Jolt had the arm and shoulder assembly unmounted and the breastplate opened, then carefully manhandled Thresher into the apparatus. The breastplate resealed and the spinal sensor array that would normally sync up with neural impulses in the lower back bound to Thresher's control bus.

Thresher stepped out of the creche, and walked in a circle to test his improvised legs. "Thanks a bunch, boss! Now let's get a move on!"

They strode purposefully towards the dry-docks, entering the underground complex leading to the landing bays. Rejoined by the crew of the Nightstalker, the First Mate turned to Jolt. "They found Arsenal's body at one of the blast sites. It appears he's dead."

"I was afraid of that." Jolt doubled her pace. "He has a bad habit of walking into ambushes."

They took their positions on the bridge of the corvette, strapped themselves into their chairs, and prepared for take-off.

The spade-shaped starship started with a jerk, hovered in the air for a moment, and then shot straight up into the air, blade first, leaving the stricken police star-port behind. The horizon curved beneath the Nightstalker as the sky went black.

Once retrieved, Arsenal's hand-held computer had already sent its final message. Jolt reviewed the simulation of the fighter and forwarded it to The Eye, who was at the helm. "Anything on sensors? Have the fighters jumped already?"

The Nightstalker was joined by a half-dozen other corvettes that were sweeping the space around Suburbia Prime for traces of the swarm of one-man star-ships. "Not yet. We've got them!"

"Initiate pursuit -- we're going hunting!" Jolt's eyes narrowed as she braced for acceleration.