What’s Up, Doc?
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
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Title: What’s Up Doc?
Author: ulyferal
Rating: K+
Warnings: Brief profanity.
Disclaimer: “SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron,” its characters and concepts are copyright to Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc and are used without permission.
WHAT’S UP DOC?
Chapter 9: A Nasty Surprise from Dark Kat
Landing their Zoomatrix in a field nearby with the Turbokat putting down to one side of them, the odd collection of heroes moved to the rocket in question.
They reached it just ahead of Feral.
“Hey guys, perhaps you should let us take a look at that before you go messing around anymore. Dark Kat is a mad genius, and his stuff has a habit of blowing up in your face,” Razor warned the technicians.
The head technician grimaced and signaled his crew to pull back. “Actually, SWAT Kat, I was just figuring that out. I have no clue what that is, and I don’t like the fact that whatever that creep has done is something we are all going to regret real soon,” he said grimly.
Frowning at that statement, Tech came closer and looked inside the instrument panel.
“Oooh, this does not look good!” he said, carefully poking around.
Razor looked over his shoulder and whistled. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked worriedly.
“Well, it looks like a nuclear isotope to me, and it’s wired into something I can’t make sense of. Your description of a mad man is accurate in this case,” Tech said grimly.
Feral had come up to them, about to tell them to get out but halted when he heard Tech and Razor voice concern over what they were seeing. He turned to the tech who had backed away and was watching the pair of genius’.
“What’s going on? Why are you allowing these people to mess with your rocket?” he demanded.
“Because, Commander, I have no clue what Dark Kat has done but what I am able to determine is it’s something really bad and I haven’t the expertise to dismantle or undo it… do you?” the tech asked sarcastically.
Feral grunted in annoyance and left the tech to move closer to what was going on.
“What do you two intend to do about this danger to the city?” he asked flatly from behind them.
Neither Tech nor Razor jumped at the sound of his voice suddenly barking at them. “We don’t know yet, leave us alone to try and figure this out!” Razor simply snapped out without turning around.
“Well, you heard them! Let’s give them some room,” Ace said firmly, turning around and moving off some little ways.
Still unhappy but not knowing what else to do, Feral wisely chose to obey the rabbit. T-Bone and the rest of the Loonatics moved back and stood tensely waiting.
It took the pair some twenty minutes of poking and discussing before they finally closed the instrument panel carefully and walked back to the ones waiting. The tension rose in the watchers as they saw the grim faces headed for them.
“I don’t think the news is good,” Ace said heavily.
“Oh, you think?” Duck drawled tightly.
“It’s not good! We couldn’t disarm what is essentially an atomic bomb. We did manage to stop the timer, but we still have to dispose of this thing before something can accidentally set it off,” Razor reported.
“Kat’s Alive!” Feral gaped in horror.
“Crud!” T-Bone echoed him.
“So, what can be done?” Feral demanded after everyone got over their shock.
“Well, it has to be gotten out of here!” Tech said.
“No shit, sherlock! But, how and where do we take it?” T-Bone said flatly.
“That’s what I’d like to know!” Feral said tightly.
“Wait, wait… let me think here a minute!” Ace said, trying to come up with something. “Okay, I got it. I take it that this can’t be jiggled too much but could handle being lifted?” he asked.
“Uh… well, yeah, but how is that going…” Tech started to say before Ace cut him off.
“That’s all I needed to know. Now listen carefully. Slam is going to lift and hurl this thing as far up as he can into the air. Rev, go get our ship and bring it here… now!” Ace said.
Rev nodded and vanished in a second.
“Okay. As soon as Slam hurls this rocket up, Tech here is going to use his magnetic powers to keep it moving up into space. We’ll follow it until we get it past the pull of gravity for your planet. Once it’s far enough, Slam can grab it again and hurl it further out until we can blow it up safely. Will this work? Can you both do this?” Ace asked of his team mates.
“Bdldsidfheaehring! Yes. Just tell me when!” Slam said firmly.
“If we’re careful not to jostle it, that is the perfect solution, Ace,” Tech agreed. “And, yes, I can do my part easily enough.”
At that moment, the Loonatics ship arrived. Rev landed it nearby.
“Wait! I’m going with you!” Feral said. “I need to witness its destruction for my report.” He thought they were nuts, but he didn’t have any other way to get rid of this dangerous problem but he was determined to see that it was destroyed.
“We’ll follow you in case there’s any problems,” T-Bone added.
“Okay, suit yourselves,” Ace said with a shrug.
Feral followed the strangers with some reservations, but he had to go no matter how he felt. The Loonatics, except for Slam, quickly took their seats and Lexi politely pulled down a jump seat for Feral and helped him strap in. The SWAT Kats had launched and were waiting in the air above them.
Tech wasn’t in the control room but in the cargo area, getting a spacesuit on. He left the ship aboard his Zoomatrix and flew out to wait for Slam to send the rocket up. Moments later, Rev took the ship into the air and headed a distance up before halting.
Tech began moving up at a much slower rate, calculating in his head how far Slam would be able to throw the rocket and rising to that height.
Keeping in contact with both Slam and Rev, Tech waited until everyone was in place. Rev took the ship a short distance above Tech with the SWAT Kats shadowing them.
“Okay, Duck, get ready to retrieve Slam. You’ve got only seconds to get him and get back here before we take off. Got it?” Ace said to Duck.
“Ready and waiting. Just give the word!” Duck said, grinning, ready for action.
“We’re ready, Slam!” Ace gave the order.
“Bldkaisfdfjefla!… Here it comes!” Slam shouted as he carefully lifted the heavy rocket as if it were a toy and shoved it upward as hard as he could.
As the rocket headed for them, Duck vanished from his seat then seconds later returned with Slam in tow. Feral just gaped in shocked amazement as Duck took his seat and Slam went below to suit up for his second part of this plan.
Outside, Tech was ready as the rocket reached his position. Careful to keep his magnetic powers away from the bomb mechanism, he caught it and began to escort it further up into the atmosphere. His Zoomatrix was on autopilot heading for the coordinates he’d set for it.
It seemed to take a very long time, but some twenty minutes later, they broke through the atmosphere. T-Bone had engaged their speed of heat shield so was unable to visually see what was going on. Only their instruments told them the rocket was still on course for space.
Tech let go of the rocket once he was sure it was past the planet’s gravity well, some fifteen minutes later. He zoomed back into their ship and Slam departed. Taking his Zoomatrix to parallel the rocket, he stood up on it, grabbed the rocket again and without gravity to hold it back, hurled it a respectable distance further out in space.
He returned to the main ship and came up to the control area and strapped in. Tech had taken control of their ship and halted their forward motion. The SWAT Kats mimicked them, going to hover.
As the rocket got further and further away, Tech seemed to be watching a dial intently.
“What are we waiting for?” Feral finally asked.
“I want the rocket to be far enough away but not so far our weapons can’t detonate it, and that is coming up… right… now…” Tech said, suddenly stabbing a button on his control panel and a bright light stabbed out and struck the rocket.
A tremendously bright light lit the darkness of space for a few moments then winked out.
“There, problem solved,” Tech said, pleased with their success.
“Fantastic! Way to go team. So, let’s get back down and return our guest, shall we!” Ace said, thrilled that everything had come together so well.
“Far out! Great work, guys!” came the ecstatic shout from the SWAT Kats
“You’re welcome!” Ace said over his comm.
Elated, the two groups returned to the planet below. Tech landed their ship back at MASA where they let Feral off. He surprised them by thanking them then turned and left.
“Huh! Well, not such a bad guy after all!” Ace said.
The Loonatics went back to their desert hideout and landed. The SWAT Kats followed.
Meeting again in the Loonatics’ galley, they all celebrated over milk and pizza.
“Wow! You guys are really something,” T-Bone said in admiration. “Now all our heavy hitters are locked up.”
“All except one. You guys have forgotten that scaly green thing in our cargo hold!” Duck said with a grunt as he got up and left the room.
Razor and Tech slipped away while the others were talking, heading for Tech’s work area in the cargo hold to work on getting them home. The rest of the Loonatics wandered off to take care of other business, leaving Ace and T-Bone alone.
“Oh, yeah! Heh! We did. We’ll take him off your paws when we leave here. Too bad we can’t insure all of these creeps will stay in jail,” T-Bone said glumly.
“Actually, I think something Tech already invented to be a special security system might work for you. I’ll have to ask Tech first, but if it will do what I hope it will, you’ll never have to worry about those jokers escaping any time soon,” Ace assured the tabby.
“That would be awesome,” T-Bone said, hoping it would work.
“Hey, how about we play some of our video games while we wait for the genius’ to solve our problem?” Ace asked.
“Great, I’d love to see something new,” T-Bone said excitedly.
Smiling warmly, Ace took T-Bone to his room and clicked on his small game machine and showed the tabby how to play. For the next few hours, they happily tried to beat each other in an aerial dogfight game.
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