The Star Aces: Chapter 2

    The Prelude MK2, which housed Tanax, Heppo, Eaglewing, Tamara, and a few rescued individuals from Trusca, was on its was to another planet that General Marshall briefed them about. In general, what he told them was that Mechanix was finally sighted at a lone space station. As it was not too far from Trusca, Tanax agreed to look into it. However, Marcon--one of those rescued from Trusca, knew better.

    "Don't just blindly look at it," he warned the young fox, "It can be a trap, you know."

    "How much do you know about Mechanix anyway? All I know is that he took my father. No more; no less."

    "Yes, but, I doubt someone would want to make themselves known."

    Eaglewing nodded, sensing a possible topic. "I agree with him. We can't just be ready to trust him yet. If Mechanix is in a station near us, we would have known about it already."

    Tamara overheard what was going on, but paid no mind to it. Instead, she simply headed over to Heppo's computer and saw that there were several blips on a screen. She walked back and saw that they were all headed to the Prelude MK2.

    "Guys! I think we may have been walking blindly!"

    Tanax's eyes lit once he saw an explosion. The left side of the Prelude was hit hard, along with the right. Both sides of the ship took a massive eating and almost exactly at the same time.

    "No!"

    A message quickly showed up on screen, showing a pink fox with illustrious gold hair. Next to her was a reptile who put his gun next to her face. 

    "Hi, guys!" He said, "Little Miss Pretty has something to say to you all!"

    Trembling and quivering, the hostage quickly said, "I-I'm to tell you that you have to follow them somewhere."

    Just as she said this, cables were hooked to the sides of the Prelude and Eaglewing somehow lost steering controls.

    "No! Not now!" The eagle said, "Blasted fiends!"

    The lizard laughed. "See?! You got that part down. Now, here's the next part--we're going to go the space station, where we will do business!"

    Tanax said nothing to them, but stared at them. Marcon looked over and growled. Once the screen faded, he looked back at Tanax. "Do you exactly recall General Marshall telling you who this information came from?"

    "About Mechanix being in a space station? He said it was a distress call."

    "Y-you seriously can't be running to every single distress call you hear! That's how we got into that mess on Trsuca a long time ago!"

    "Well, it's out of our hands now. We can't control the ship, so we're just going to have to see where we're going."
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    A very organized space station came into view in only about five minutes. Once Prelude MK2 was set down, a number of the lizard like men banged the door and drew their guns on Tanax and his crew.

    "Quick! Go with us!"

    Tanax growled, but complied. The rest of the team followed as well. Tamara looked at each of them closely, while the squad members were escorted out. Once they were sure no one else was there, they closed the ship's door down. 

    Mere minutes later, they were sent into a room. One of the men quickly walked to the exit and went to push a sealing button. 

    "Wait," Tamara said, drawing her gun.

    The lizard who was attempting to seal them in screamed. No one had even thought of trying to disarm their prisoners. Tamara shot him down, and when his allies came to help, she shot them down as well. The rest of the members rose up and then proceeded to march out. Marcon spotted one of their weapons--a curved dagger. He smiled and picked it up.

    
    Other enemies were stationed in places they were to be expected. However, One of them felt something warm behind him. In an instant, he fell with a dagger pulled out of his back. Marcon smirked and repeated this with the second one he saw. 

    "Excellent," he remarked. Heppo walked up to his location and hacked into a security panel next to a room the fallen had once guarded. The room revealed even more weapons, but also different individuals in grey uniforms. They were bound and gagged as prisoners. 

    "I see what Tamara was talking about. These guys are totally helpless against their captors like this...but they didn't even try to tie us up? What's the deal?"

    "I agree," he replied to the hippo, "Something doesn't fit."
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    In another area, Eaglewing slowly marched up to a wall. He peeked over and then detected a legion of lizard men guarding a double door. He scowled as he didn't have any explosives in this situation. But, by then, he deduced a clever way to win. He looked over again and carefully used his vision to detect a number of turrets and enemies who had grenades on them.

    He pulled out a gun and then fired without so much as a peek. 

    Eaglewing withdrew and stepped many paces back. The hallway, which he fired into, exploded with a huge sure of fire. It was overlapped by the countless screams of the reptilian enemies. Once the dust settled, he looked back and saw that there was nothing left to speak of. In fact, the door had been blasted open, revealing fallen enemies.

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    The idea of splitting up was not Tamara's idea, but so far, she got to be close to Tanax this time. 

    "Everyone," the leader said, into a communication device, "We have no enemy detection our way. I think we're at a dead end."

    "Is that so?" Eaglewing's voice said back. "Maybe, they're cloaking."

    Tanax huffed. "I suppose that's ONE possibility."

    "Just be careful."

    Tamara smiled and gently urged Tanax to press on. The two did, and easily found a number of dead reptilian soldiers. The rest of the room was in completely awful shape. But out of all the wreckage, Tamara managed to sniff out a recent gunfight. Leading Tanax over the debris, they headed to one of the bays in the station, where a pink fox was waiting.

    "Wait! Where's the rush!" Tanax calmly asked her.

    In the fox's hands, she had a lizard man, gagging for air. Her expression turned into that of a smirk.

    "Very well," she conceded, "I suppose I really was NOT the hostage. But, I don't think I can let you leave alive."

    Tanax quickly activated his transmission device, but it seemed to only have static. "Rats! I can't power it on! Someone's jamming the device!"

    "That's right! Now we will get to a more personal subject."

    A huge push sent Tanax right in front of the "hostage." Tamara saw that a large female wolf stood over them. Out of the shadows, a ferret arrived, with a two-handed gun in hand. Then, there was also a cheetah.

    "Guess what?" Tamara said, "I called it."

    Tanax groaned.
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    Marcon, Eaglewing, and Heppo overheard explosives and heavy gunfire from the main room, and managed to get the freed attendants of the station to the area Tanax just went through. In mere moments, Eaglewing ran into a sealed off door. Marcon sighed and set his dagger aside.

    "No good, old chap. We're stuck here until a certain program is eradicated."

    "Did you say...program?" A voice said.

    Marcon seemed confused as to who was saying this, as did the others, but a lizard wearing a red uniform arrived. He had a few bandages on, but he was one of the survivors.

    "Petro?!"

    The lizard nodded. "Fear not--Geoff is safe. That hostage your leader was chasing after--she's the one who left us for dead on Trusca!"

    Marcon nodded. "All rings true, I'm afraid. I knew that she was a heinous creature--but I didn't imagine she would try to feign a hostage situation."

    Eaglewing beat his fist together. "Then, what about the program?"

    Petro nodded again. "I'll get to work. Please, just wait a moment." He approached a keyboard and then began to work on a hack upon the station's system.
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    The giant wolf tried her best to scratch Tanax, but he seemed to dance around all of her attacks. As for the cheetah, who relied on a gun, this presented an only possible obstacle. Thankfully, Tamara was there to keep fire off of him. Instead, she returned with fire of her own. As for the ferret, the last of the three rogues, he was the receiver of a violent knee smash. Tanax somehow managed to find a way to strike, while he was clouded by an offense of enormous proprtions. The pink fox chuckled and simply announced her getaway.

    "Hey! Come back!" The young fox ordered, just before being electrocuted. The wolf had attacked him with her own fangs, but they emitted electric energy. She stepped back and then pounced onto his back.

    "You left yourself open, guy." She said to him.

    Tamara kicked her off with a rising kick, easily cleaving a portion of the wolf's face while scarring her at the same time. The other two minions who were with her readied their weapons and had them at full charge. But then, to their dismay, Eaglewing charged out of nowhere and brought their heads together.

    The wolf rose up to her feet, but got shot down by Tanax at the last second.

    "How'd you get here?" The fox asked, clearly exhausted.

    "Petro took care of that program." He replied. "How about our little liar of a hostage?"

    "Unfortunately, she got away."

    "We won't be seeing the last of her. But I hope you'll learn not to just randomly answer distress calls just for the sake of helping someone."

    A large noise suddenly got the attention of the group and they headed out of the station to investigate.
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    To their horror, the Prelude's door was left open and a pink ship flew far away. Speeding into it, they quickly checked for any possible intruders, but then Petro alerted everyone that Geoff was missing. 

    Everyone stood around seemingly confused as he was also one of the survivors, as well as one of the people in the ship. If that was the case, it was odd how he was not taken hostage along with the others. Tanax groaned, almost as if he swallowed something harmful. Tamara quickly went next to him.

    "It's not your fault. You're a good boy for helping anyway."

    "Er, did you not hear what I told Tanax in that hall? I made it clear that he needed to be more cautions when it came to distress calls! Surely you can comprehend that!"

    Tamara stared at Eaglewing. "So? What are we supposed to do? Leave people in danger because we think they might be a thief?"

    The veteran bird huffed, but then backed away. "I can't talk to you about this. After all, this is something veterans of the Centrain fleet should be discussing."

    "Ooh! You--!"

    Tanax quickly stared both of them down and they were hastily silenced.

    "Let's move on. We're supposed to be tracking down Mechanix--not concerning ourselves with...this. Besides, someone who messed with us is sure to meet us again."

    With that, Squad 1 and the remaining survivors set off for the next juncture in their mission.