“Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit.” Noodle started frantically packing her bag with whatever keepsakes she deemed important. She grabbed her pictures and some canned food she had lying around the messy apartment. I could tell this was her first-time basking in the radiance of the Gellical Collective. She was young and on her own for a while, with the Corpos taking her parents. I felt bad for her, but this was no time to panic; panicking would get your ass atomized.

  “Language, dear.” Mama put her hands on her hips. Usual Mama, even in times of crisis she has morals to uphold.

  “Hey, calm down, okay? We’re here, and this isn’t our first time dealing with the Gellys.” I reached out and grabbed Noodle by the shoulders. I was surprised at how boney she was. She looked skinny on the outside, but touching her filled me with even more sadness for her situation. “You need to take us to Captain Yeti. We can hook up with our crew there and figure this whole thing out.” I kept staring into her rge, cat eyes, awaiting a response.

  Finally, she swallowed the lump in her throat and spoke, “Alright… yeah, that’s the best thing to do right now.” She blinked a few times before starting off towards the door.

  I turned to Mama, “Make sure your canon is ready to go. We don’t want to get caught with our pants down and asses in the air out there.”

  “Already ahead of you, deary. I’m not the First Mate for nothing, you know?” Her gun-pack started to hum with power. I’ve seen her use it before. It was an awesome sight to behold, a massive Grizzly mowing down some goons, but something I hoped we wouldn’t have to do anytime soon. Every time we get into action is a time one of us could lose our lives. I didn’t like to think of the crew being a few members short.

  I put my own hand down on my weapon, making sure it was powered and ready to kill if it came to that. You never really knew with the Gellys. It was safer to shoot first and assume the worst. That kept you alive longer, especially out in space.

  We made our way down to the street. This time I was walking by myself. I felt a helluva lot better after whatever Noodle gave me was coursing through my veins. You start giving your soldiers some of that stuff, they could conquer the gaxy, easy. No wonder the Corpos came swooping in for Noodles parents. A drug like that would sell for billions.

  We had to wait for Mama to catch up, after getting stuck in the door again, but this gave us time to scope out the street. It was mostly empty, save for a few souls rushing to get off the streets and home to their families just long enough to pray the Gellys leave them alone.

  “The hideout is on the south side of the city. Not too far from here. We can hoof it, but we’ll probably get caught out in the streets.” Noodle’s voice was cracking as she was trying to organize her thoughts under distress. Something I’ve seen a million times and only got over myself after being thrust into these situations all too often. Running with pirates can do that to you.

  My eyes drifted to a delivery pulse-truck that was abandoned across the street. The back doors were swinging open and a pile of bread was spilling out into the road. Someone took the initiative to at least get a belly full of food before being a victim of genocide.

  “What if we grabbed a ride?” I pointed to the pulse-truck. Mama was at our backsides now, panting a little.

  “Oh, that’d be sweet of you, Mama’s had enough walking for today.” She smiled and pat my back. I jerked forward under the weight of her paw.

  We crossed the street and Mama began dumping the cargo in the road, making room for her huge body. The doors were locked, but I had a contingency for this. I spped my power gauntlets together and they hummed to life. With a quick jerk forward, I smmed my gauntlet into the Truck door and grabbed a chunk of it, ripping it back and tugging it off the hinges. I tossed the useless hunk of metal aside and dusted off my hands.

  Noodle was looking at me wide eyed. I just shrugged and examined the truck. Whoever left had the indecency to take their keys with them. Which means even more work for me. Luckily this wasn’t my first time stealing a car. More of that bad past stuff.

  Something I was trying to forget, since I was a new person now. I was who I wanted to be and with whom I wanted to be. Life was good, but under the current circumstances, I’d rather be backed up with my crew and ship if push came to shove with the Gellys.

  I spped the bottom panel next to the steering wheel, a mostly antique, aesthetic relic in pulse-vehicles. The auto-pilot function would have just driven the delivery man around to all his destinations, but as a safety feature the wheel was left on in case the need for manual driving came up, and in this case, it was needed.

  “There we go!” The truck buzzed to life as the pulsers lifted the truck off the ground and it hovered in pce. “We won’t be able to use auto-pilot, but it’ll drive.” Noodle jumped in the passenger seat, sliding her backpack to her feet. Mama stepped up into the truck and the whole thing teetered backwards, lifting the front end. I chuckled to myself as I gnced back through the door. The pulsers gave extra power to the rear end and the truck leveled out.

  “Just drive.” Mama muttered out as she nestled down against the wall of the truck. She had her slug-rifle pced across her p, ready to use it if shit hit the fan.

  “I’ll bring up the building.” Noodle typed away on the navigation dispy. The route zagged through the city and ended up on the south side. Just a short drive was all. Right past any Gelly ship in the area. Piece of cake.

  I hit the power peddle down and zoomed off down the street, following the blue line on the nav dispy. My eyes kept scanning the sky, waiting for the inevitable Gelly Striker to swoop down and atomize us all.

  What I didn’t expect was the local police to be doing their job.

  “Roadblock ahead,” Noodle spoke without emotion, but I could hear the quiver in her voice. “To the stars.” She whispered, repeating the hand gesture.

  There were three anti-riot vehicles parked across the road mounted with machine guns on the top, the same that blew away the Huff-psycho Lion earlier today, and all three were aimed our way. Several cops outfitted with military gear stood about the roadblock, training their weapons on us as well. One stepped forward with his hand out to stop us.

  Great, first the Gellys, now some Corpo police. What next? Mutants bursting from the sewers shouting for revolution. Give me a break.

  “Halt your vehicle and ready for inspection!” The Cops were shouting over the loud speaker. I slowed the truck, gncing back to Mama for direction.

  The big bear just shook her head, “Do as they say. There’s no need for us to have more holes than a honeycomb bsted through us.” Her gun-pack let out a high-pitched whine as it powered down and transformed into a backpack.

  “Ugh,” I couldn’t believe that the police were going to do us in after all this. Damn this pnet, damn the Gellys, and damn the police.

  The hairs on the back of my neck began to stand on end. Something wasn’t right. We were slowly coasting towards the police when they trained their guns to the sky. “Gelly ship! Fire, fire!” The gunners didn’t need the loudspeaker to tell them what to do. They let loose a hail of bullets into the sky as the soaring sound of jets bsted through the streets, cutting into our ears.

  The pulse truck shook violently as a Gelly ser bsted into the road next to us, rolling a fme and rubble across the side of our truck. Noodle covered her face just in time for the window to shatter inwards and cascade her with gss.

  The ser fire pattered the road all the way to the middle riot truck. The police’s gunfire wasn’t enough to save them. The middle truck erupted into an inferno as the screams of the cops inside were short lived. The cops began to fire on the incoming Striker as the fiery wreckage tumbled about behind them.

  That was my opening. I wasn’t sticking around to see if the cops could take out the Gelly aircraft. They can fight their own battles. I gunned the pulse truck forward, straight through the fiery road.

  Some of the ground police fire their small arms at us. Bullets ripped through the trucks thin metal exterior as we raced away, still following the blue line on the dispy. We turned the corner and the police disappeared from our sight. We could still hear the gun fire and more explosions as the two factions battled it out in the streets.

  “I think we lost them.” I gnced around the sky. I couldn’t see any more strikers about. I looked over to Noodle. Her head was tucked down between her knees and she was gasping and sobbing in fright, broken gss y all around her. I didn’t see any blood and I sighed with relief.

  “You good, Mama?” I gnced back through the small doorway into the cargo area.

  Mama was loading up her slug-rifle again, this time she was adding rge cylindrical explosive rounds. “I took a bullet to the thigh, but nothing I haven’t dealt with before.” She bent down and pulled a knife from her boot. She slipped it into her thigh and plucked out a small metal fragment. “Doing just peachy.” She stepped up to the back doors and kicked them open. One cwed hand gripped the side of the truck for stability, while the other aimed her gun out the opening.

  “How we looking back there?” I focused back on the road, following the blue line even further. We were almost there now. Soon, we would find out if Noodle was telling the truth or not.

  “Not good.” Mama slumped down and held her slug-rifle with both hands, “Gelly Striker on our asses, I mean, butts. Look what you made me do.”

  The soaring sound came rushing by again. The bastards were going after anyone in the streets now. Laser pummeled the streets around us, kicking up rock across the road, bsting into parked cars, blowing them into fireballs of scrap metal.

  I swerved out the way, “Hang on!” I smmed into a parked truck as Striker fire pattered where we just were. We all jerked about from the crash, but I kept my foot on the peddle. We scrapped the side of the tuck as we raced back down the street.

  “Keep her steady, Vixie!” Mama shouted from the back, “I got this racist fucker.”

  I could barely hear her curse, but it was there. My eyebrows shot up. This was about to get crazy if Mama was cursing.

  “Not on my boy’s birthday!” Mama shouted as she began to fire her explosive rounds into the sky. The exploded into clouds of fire and shrapnel just shy of the Gelly ship. It swayed back and forth to dodge Mama’s return fire. The engines roared even higher as it closed in on us.

  The Striker was coming in for a close run to finish us off. This was it. Either us or the Gellical Striker.

  “Get their ass, Mama.” I whispered under my breath as I heard her fire all her rounds in rapid fire.

  Boom, boom, boom, boom. With each bst, my heart leapt with joy and hope that at least one bullet would hit home. I gnced over in the side mirror, watching the explosions light up the sky. The Gellical weaved left and right, until an explosion nded right under his wing.

  The Striker began to wobble uncontrolbly. The pilot couldn’t keep the ship steady.

  “Good bye.” Mama shot one st round into the sky. The shot couldn’t have been truer. It nded home right in the cockpit and erupted in fmes. The ship started to barrel roll and veer off into the city before crashing into several buildings. Clouds of debris and dirt rolled up into the sky, followed by an explosion.

  “Oh my, hopefully no one was hurt.” Mama gasped out.

  I finally followed the blue line to the end of the road. There was a run-down warehouse with several cars parked about. The road was a dead end with a rge pile of trash and dumpsters finishing the path.

  “We’re here.” I shut off the truck and Noodle bobbed her head up.

  She started to pat herself down and chuckled nervously, “I’m fine.” She looked over to me, “We’re fine, haha!” She shouted with joy and began kicking her feet about frantically. “Woo!”

  I smiled at her. Everything was good. Or so I thought.

  “Put them up!” A gun was thrust in my face from the driver side door. We escaped one fire only to jump into another.

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