Chapter 2

The large terrorist warship orbited the planet scanning the area for cloaked ships.

“Captain, I’m picking up strange readings over the northern polar region of the planet. The readings are erratic but I am picking up strange energy readings” the tactical officer said.

“A ship?” the captain asked.

“Possibly” the officer responded.

“Lay in a course, hail the leader, inform him that we may have found our mystery ship,” the captain said.

“Aye sir” the officer responded.

***

David and Mike walked through the streets toward the center of the city.

“These devices we lifted off of those men should mask our life signs from their scanners and I think I’ve found a way to get past them.” David said.

“Good.” Mike said.

“We’ve only been a few blocks and already we’ve seen dozens of animals, presumably colonists. Who knows how many there must be out there in hiding” David said. Mike’s tricorder beeped loudly.

“Wait a minute, I’m picking up 12 humanoid life forms heading this way, and fast!” he said.

“Colonists or terrorists?” David asked as he drew his rifle.

“Picking up 3 terrorists pursuing 9 colonists. I’m picking up weapons fire!” Mike said.

“Common! We have to help them!” David said. They ran as fast as they could towards the life signs and saw the 6 colonists running towards them a lion, gerbil, cat, horse, cow and skunk. Behind the group they saw 3 colonists on the ground, a elephant, sea lion and deer. 3 terrorists were closing in quickly on them.

“Get down!” David said.

“Wide beam setting!” Mike said. Mike altered his particle rifle. The 6 colonists got down on the ground and Mike fired his rifle just before the 3 pursing terrorists were able to react, knocking them all out. Mike walked over to the 3 unconscious colonists as the other 5 approached David.

“Who are you?” the cat asked.

“Were here to help.” David responded. David walked over to Mike who was scanning the 3 colonists. He scanned the elephant first.

“Particle burns to the chest leg and back.” Then scanned the deer

“Burns to the neck, face and chest” and the sea lion

“she has a severe burn on her chest. They all need medical treatment,” he said. David looked up at the colonists.

“Contact the ship” David said. Mike pulled out his communicator and issued the commands to open a secure channel so neither them nor their starship would be detected.

“Come in Fantaila, we have wounded” he said.

A large explosion rocked the bridge of the Fantaila.

“Damage report!” the captain yelled.

“Hull breech on decks 2, 3, 4 and 6. Starboard nacelle has sustain heavy damage and is venting plasma!” the tactical officer reported.

“Decloak and return fire!” the captain said. The ship decloaked and came about, firing its phase cannons at the terrorist ship.

“Captain! We have an incoming communication from the surface! It’s our team!” the operations officer said as the ship was heavily rocked.

“Mr. Thomas, put them though! Mr Peterson fire at will!” the captain ordered.

“Mike to Fantaila, we have wounded civilians down here, the require immediate medical treatment.” Mike said.

“I’m glad to hear your voice, we saw your ship get destroyed. We feared the worst,” the captain said.

“We beamed out just in time” Mike said.

“What is your status?” the captain asked just as the ship rocked heavily.

“We have located several civilians. From what they’ve told us, approximately 90% of the population has been completely transformed into animals; the remaining 10% have become humanoid animals. The terrorists appearing to be detaining the humanoid ones” Mike said.

“Very well. Standby, we currently have a situation here.” The captain said and turned towards Mr. Peterson.

“Shields down to 27%, we will be unable to use the transporter while the shields are up.” Mr. Peterson said.

“What is the status of the Terrorist ship?” The Captain asked.

“There in bad shape, their hull plating is failing and their weapons are losing power.” Peterson said.

“Hail them!” the captain ordered. Several seconds passed before Mr. Thomas reported that they were not responding. The ship rocked again and sparks flew from the ceiling and a small fire ignited near the back of the bridge.

“Shields buckling!” Peterson reported.

“They’ve given us no choice, target their warp core and fire everything we still have at them!” The captain ordered.

“Yes sir!” Peterson said. The Fantaila fire it’s phase cannons and torpedoes at the Terrorist ship, striking it multiple times. The Terrorist ship began to spin out of control, before exploding in a massive fireball.

“Mr. Peterson prepare to lower shields so we can get those civilians medical treatment.” The captain ordered.

“Mike, they know were here, we’ve manage to destroy their ship, but their troops are no doubt going to be on alert, resume your mission. Use of deadly force is authorized” the captain said.

On the surface, Mike acknowledged the Captain orders, as the 3 wounded colonists were beamed to the ship. He walked over to David.

“They knew were here, our time is limited.” Mike said. David handed 3 of the colonists a weapon from the unconscious terrorists.

“Take shelter somewhere” he said. The colonists nodded their heads and Mike and David resumed walking towards the center of the city.

***

In the makeshift holding cell, the group waited anxiously as 2 men who were heavily armed walked into the room.

“Who are you? Why have you don’t this to us?” Tony demanded. The men ignored him and immediately walked towards the kangaroo saying,

“Come with us”. Angered, Tony ran over to them and grabbed one of them.

“I said, who are you?” he yelled. The guard threw him off of him, and hit him in the head with the end of his rifle, sending Tony falling back. They grabbed the kangaroo, she tried to fight them, but they stunned her with a prod. Dana rushed the first guard, the second tried to react but Tony jumped up off the ground and rushed him, kicking him in the head, and grabbing his rifle as they guy fell to the ground. When he tried to get up, Tony shot him at point blank range. The other guard was distracted and turned around, and Dana kicked his legs sending him falling to his back, she then jumped on him and pounded him several times until he passed out.

“I’d say this counts as a prison break,” Dana said.

“I’ll carry her, common lets get out of here” Tony said, referring to the kangaroo. Dana nodded her head and picked up the second guards rifle, readying it. With a look of anger on her face, she spat on the unconscious guard.

“Time to teach these bastards a lesson” she said. With Dana in the lead and Peter in the rear with the weapons, they group began their escape.

***

Mike and David were pinned down. They had taken shelter behind a landing vehicle. 10 soldiers were shooting at them and they had no apparent route of escape.

“Any suggestions?” Mike asked,

“Maybe we could contact the ship? Maybe they can help us?” David said as a shot hit the vehicle.

“If we can get inside this landing ship maybe we can use it’s weapons or even take it to the center of town.” Mike said. David turned around to look at the positions of the soldiers, and a weapon shot just barely missed him.

“I’m not sure that options open.” He said.

“We have to do something and fast” Mike said. The shots suddenly stopped.

“We have you surrounded, there is no route of escape. Surrender now or die” a voice said. David held the communicator in his hands.

“We are pinned down, need a distraction,” he said.

“Roger, we’ll see what we can do” a voice responded.

“We aren’t going to wait for long! Surrender now or die!” the voice from behind them said. David stood up, his weapon ready.

“We choose neither!” he yelled.

“Very well” the voice said. All the soldiers readied their weapons just as an odd noise from the sky filled the area. A large bright light streamed towards the ground and struck an area behind them, causing a small explosion. They all looked around trying to figure out what had happened.

“Now!” David said. Mike jumped up and they both fired their rifles, striking several of the soldiers, causing enough of a distraction to get inside the landing vehicle and access it’s weapons. The remaining soldiers jumped for cover and began to fire on the vehicle. Each shot could he heard hitting it.

“How much of that can the hull of this thing take?" ”David asked.

“It’s holding for now, but we should get out of here” Mike said.

“Sensors have located what appears to be their makeshift command center in a building right at the center of the city, several surrounding buildings have prisoners in them. The primary building seems to have prisoners as well.” David said.

“Then we have to go for their leader, to put a stop to this” Mike said.

“Agreed, taking us there, we’ll land right beside the building” David said. The small ship took off even as the soldiers relentlessly fired on it. As it went out of range the leader soldier swore and grabbed a communicator informing the base that the two were heading their way.

***

Two guards stood at the entrance to a room with 3 chambers in it. 2 other guards walked into the room with a young female otter. In one of the other chambers was a lemur and in the other was a beaver.

“Put her in chamber 3.” One of the guards said.

“These things really work?” another asked.

“What do they do?” a third asked.

“They do indeed work, they will complete the transformation in the individuals who became humanoid,” another guard said. The young otter tried to plead with them.

“Please mister, I’m not threat to you. Please let me go!” she said.

“Sorry, but orders and orders!” the first guard said as he pushed her towards the chamber, eventually forcing her into it and closing it. He then walked over to the control panel for it.

“This is the fun part, watch and enjoy” he said.

David and Mike ran into the building. Mike held out his tricorder while David stunned two guards.

“I’m picking up odd readings in a room close to here. There are 4 guards, and 3 humanoid animals, a lemur, beaver and an otter. They’ve been put in chambers of some sort. My god, the readings!” Mike said.

“What is it?” David urgently asked.

“Their going to finish the process, turn them into ‘normal’ animals!” Mike said.

“And those bastards are going to hurt a child, an otter of all things? We have to get there now!” David said. Mike nodded his head.

The guard punched in the command sequence to start up the chamber.

“They will take about 30 seconds to power up” he said.

“How long will it take to finish their changes?” another asked.

“Not long, only a couple of minutes” the first guard answered. The young otter pounded on the door of the chamber she was in.

“Please don’t! I don’t want to be animal!” she pleased.

“You really don’t have much of a choice my dear” a guard said. Suddenly they heard footsteps behind them running towards the room. It was David and Mike, running towards the group.

“Let them go!” Mike said.

“Or what? You kill us? Go right ahead!” the first guard said.

“Be careful what you wish for!” Mike said as he drew his weapon and tried to fire it, but nothing happened.

“These chambers emit a field that dampens our weapons, I’m afraid your rifles are of no use here. Get them!” the s the first guard said. The 3rd and 4th guard lunched at Mike, who responded by kicking the 3rd one in the head and doing a back flip over him to get behind the 4th one, whom he used a neck pinch to knock out.

“Damn it! Do I have to do everything my self!” the first guard said as he motioned for the second one to join him in going after David. The guard Mike had kicked jumped up off the ground all again lunged at him, punching him in the face several time. Mike stepped back several paces while David struggled with the first two guards. The guard that was attacking Mike mocked him.

“I draw first blood!” he said as he saw blood trickling down from Mike’s nose and again punched him, this time in the chest. Mike responded by kicking the guard in the chest and giving him a nasty uppercut followed by a roundhouse kick, which sent the guard flying back into the wall, knocking him out. David had managed to get one of the guards off of him and had gotten into a punching match with the other. David has a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. The other guard jumped off the group and just as he was about to Jump at David, Mike grabbed him saying

“not on my watch” before punching him a half dozen times in the head, finishing with an uppercut which knocked him out. The other guard had managed to knock David down and was about to jump on him when David hit his legs, knocking him down. Mike took the opportunity to knock the guard out.

“Nice moves” David said.

“Thanks” Mike responded. David turned towards the chambers, looking at the young otter.

“Don’t worry, were getting you out of there” he said. Mike walked over to the control panel and managed to deactivate the chambers before opening them. The young otter immediately ran up to David, wanting him to pick her up. David did so, and he held her to comfort her. Mike walked over to the lemur and Beaver.

“You guys okay?” he asked.

“I think so, but who are you guys?” the lemur asked.

“Were here to help, more help is on the way” Mike responded.

“Your bleeding!” the beaver said. Mike wiped the blood off as best as he could.

“Don’t worry about it.” He responded.

“They have more of us in this building and around here, hundreds, perhaps even thousands.” The beaver said.

“Where?” Mike asked.

“In this building in the 20th-25th floors” the beaver responded.

“David?” Mike asked. David was too busy comforting the young otter, who couldn’t have been more then 6 years old.

“Hun?” he said.

“There’s prisoners in this building, we have to help them” Mike said.

“We can’t just leave her here” David said. The fact that she was the same species as them, gave both of them a feeling of Loyalty to her.

“I want to come with you guys” she said. David put her down and petted her head.

“it’s too dangerous, honey, you could get hurt or worse” David said.

“Please don’t leave us here alone. My name is Samantha, they took my parents up there too, they said they were ‘next’” Samantha said.

“Where are they?” David asked.

“On the 23rd floor, my dad got turned into a skunk and my mom a gopher.” Samantha said.

“We’ll do everything we can to find them.” David said.

“But if you come with us, you might be hurt.” Mike said.

“Don’t worry Sam, we’ll protect you” the lemur said.

“We’ll be back, don’t worry” David said.

“Okay” Samantha said. Mike and David picked up their weapons and walked out of the room.

***

Tony, Dana and the rest of them had been walking through the floor for what felt like an hour. At every corner they encountered they had found guards and were vastly outnumbered. They had managed to elude capture but they could hear guards closing in and appeared to be pinned down. Tony clutched the rifle he had been holding.

“Maybe if I surrender to them they’ll let you guys go. Or maybe I can keep them distracted long enough for you guys to get away.” Tony said.

“That’s crazy! We can’t just leave you here!” Dana said.

“She’s right, were in this together. We’ve seen several other holding areas; maybe we can release more prisoners. There’s power in numbers.” Peter said.

“Okay, we saw another set of makeshift cells down that hall, they were guarded by 2 guards. We should be able to get by them.” Tony said.

“I have another idea” the kangaroo, (who had since regain consciousness) said.

“What is it?” Tony asked.

“I think I know where they were taking me. We can take those two guards we knocked out, and stun 2 more and release another group of prisoners and take them to where they were going to take me.” The kangaroo said. They group began to walk to nearest prisoner area and she continued.

“Before they took me prisoner, I heard them saying they were turning the humanoid people into normal animals using some kind of chambers. I hear they have 3 on the ground floor and 6 a few floors up. Maybe we can use them to turn them into animals.” She said.

“That could work, but how will we get up there?” Tony asked.

“One step at a time” the kangaroo answered.

In another makeshift cell on the floor, there were 8 prisoners. An adult male hyena, a female child fox, an adult male mouse, an adult female rabbit, a teenaged male skunk, an adult female wolf, an child male tiger and an adult female horse. The fox walked up to the cell door.

“When are you going to let us go?” she asked. One of the guards laughed.

“Soon enough” he said. One of the guards heard a noise just outside the cell area.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” the other answered. Suddenly, Tony rolled on the ground and shot the first guards rifle out of his hand. The second guard was stunned by this, and by the time he had readied his weapon to fire, Tony was already on him. He first grabbed the rifle and threw it across the room. The other guard went for it, but the kangaroo hoped into the room and kicked him into the hall. With a grunt, he fell to the floor and passed out. The other guard wrestled with Tony, hitting him in the face several times, causing Tony to fall onto his back. The guard was about to jump on him when Dana jumped at him, slicing across his chest with her claws. The guard yelled in pain and Tony took the opportunity to jump out and knock him out. Tony opened the doors to the room to let the prisoners out.

“Who are you?” the fox girl asked.

“Friends. Common, we have a way out of here” Tony said.

“Get the guards. Lets get them to those chambers” the kangaroo said.

“Chambers?” the fox girl asked.

“We’ll tell you on the way” Tony said.

***

Mike and David stood in the elevator, making their way up to the 23rd floor.

“How are we going to handle all of those guards?” Mike asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe they’ve got more of those chambers, maybe we could capture their leader and demand they surrender or we’ll turn him into something?” David asked.

“How we gonna do that?” Mike asked as they arrived at their destination floor.

“I don’t know, but first we have to find Samantha’s parents” David said. When they walked onto the floor, they found it strangely empty. Mikes ears perked.

“Something wrong.” He said.

“I hear it too, I hear the guards all rushing over that direction because of a prison beak. Common, we have to help!” David said.

Tony and the group stood pinned down in a corner. At least 16 guards were standing with their weapons all pointed at the group.

“Surrender your hostages or we will kill you all!” one of the guards yelled. The kangaroo stood defiently.

“You have no right! You did this to our bodies! Now you expect us to just surrender to you, so you can turn us all the way and take over this planet?” she yelled.

“That’s exactly right!” the guard said.

David and Mike ran towards the location and saw all of the guards standing in a group, all with their backs to them.

“We have to do something and fast” David said. David and Mike snuck up behind the guards. When they were close enough, they opened fire, stunning several of them. The others took this distraction to assault them, and a large but brief melee ensued. By the end of it, all of the guards were unconscious and all the civilians were fine.

David and Mike took the time to introduce themselves.

“Were looking for 2 people we were told are on this floor, an adult male skunk and adult female gopher. Has anyone seen them?” David asked.

“I think their being detained over that way!” the young fox said.

“Mike, I want you to release them and take them back down to Samantha” David said.

“What about you?” Mike asked.

“I’m going to put and end to this.” David said.

“You’re going for the leader?” Tony asked.

“Wait, we have an idea, if we capture him, it might work even better” the kangaroo said.

“Mike, you and the others go downstairs after finding Samantha’s parents. Were going to put and end to this” David said.

“But I can’t leave you!” Mike said.

“She’s seems comfortable with us, if you bring her parents back to her, it will do a lot to clam her down” David said.

“Okay, good luck” Mike said. The group walked one way and with the Kangaroo and Tony beside him, David walked towards the lifts.

“My name is Tony” Tony said.

“And my name is Katherine” the kangaroo said.

“So what is your plan?” David asked.

***

Samantha could hear a large group of people coming towards her. The beaver and Lemur held their weapons tight.

“Take cover Sam, this could be trouble!” the beaver said. They were relieved when they saw 2 colonists walking towards them, a skunk and gopher.

“Samantha?” the skunk asked.

“Mom? Dad?” the young otter asked. When she saw them she immediately ran up to them.

“We were so worried about you!” the skunk said. Mike walked into the area from behind them.

“This man saved me!” Samantha. The gopher walked to Mike and hugged him.

“Thank you” she said.

“Just glad I could help.” Mike answered. Mike communicator went off and he picked it up and activated it.

“Mike here.” He said.

“This is the Fantaila we have good news” the voice said.