It was breakfast time at the tree house and the Rangers were in the kitchen, seated and waiting for Chip’s cooking. Yes, the chipmunk in the hat was taking over Monty’s role for the day, though at the moment he was wearing an apron. Pancakes made with acorn flour were on the menu. Monty was reading the newspaper for cheese ship arrivals, while Zipper was enveloped in the sports section. He quickly made his way out from under them and headed for the funny papers. This left Dale and Foxglove to make conversation.

Now that Foxglove was ‘out’ as an otaku, she no longer had problems with visiting the other Rangers. The pair had been up all night, watching a series of late, late Japanese monster movies on cable, and were probably going to turn in after breakfast. But for now, Dale were still hyper about it.

"That was a neat idea, Foxy! You were right about ‘Revenge of Mothra’, it was cool!"

Foxy snuggled against her chipmunk beau. "I’m just glad you stocked up on snacks beforehand Dale-cutie, it always makes me hungry."

Dale chuckled. "Well if a giant moth ever attacks the city, we can give you a shot of ol’ Nimnul’s Gigantico Ray and you can have him for lunch!"

Foxglove thought about this momentarily. "Wouldn’t work, I’d never find a big enough bottle of ketchup." They both chuckled, then yawned in unison. Another thing the Rangers had quickly found out about the bat lady was her fondness for tomato sauce. It apparently came from obtaining most of her meals from the leftovers of concession stands at movie theatres and the City University food court.

Chip called from where he was adding the final few to a huge stack of pancakes. "Okay guys, they’re ready!" He turned to bring them to the table, already laid with jugs of hot syrup and cold orange juice. There were also eyedropper-style bottles of cheese sauce and ketchup. "Say, where’s Gadget?"

"Dunno, Chip-lad." said the big Australian mouse. "Maybe the lass was on one of her inventing kicks last night. She could have overslept."

"Well she didn’t build anything, that’s for sure. Even if I hadn’t heard her working Foxy would’ve." Dale shrugged. Foxglove shook her head.

Monty folded the piece of newspaper. "Now I come to think of it, our Gadget did get a package from the evening mail bird. I reckoned it was just the latest copy of Scientific Rodentia, ‘cause she did seem a mite excited." "Zyeah!" Zipper added.

Just then the object of their discussion came in through the arch to the living quarters. "Good morning guys." It wasn’t delivered in her normal perky manner, but in a slightly nervous tone. She was carrying a sweetener wrapper, which acted as a mouse sized document wallet.

"G’day luv!" "Zhi!" Monty and Zipper called.

"Morning, Gadget." Dale and Foxy synchronised.

Chip put down the heaped plate of pancakes. "What’s up, Gadget? You look as if you have something on your mind."

"I usually have several things on my mind, but in this case it’s more of a thing to ask if you’d mind. You see I have to leave the Rescue Rangers, or maybe you don’t because I haven’t explained why I need to…" She trailed off into the shocked silence.

Chip gasped. "Leave the Rangers!" he exclaimed. "What happened?" It was just as well he’d already put down the plate of pancakes, otherwise he’d have dropped them on his foot.

Gadget looked puzzled. "No it hasn’t, not yet, but it will in a month’s time, and that’s why I’ve got to get working on an entry."

"Gadget luv, your motor’s revving but yer propellers ain’t movin’" said Monty. "What’s going on?"

"Monty, if you know about it, you should understand why it’s so important I enter. You were there 5 years ago when my father won."

Monty paused, then a light dawned. "Ohhh… I hadn’t realised it was that time again."

Chip was looking back and forth, and suddenly cried, "What’s going on here?" .

Gadget sighed. "It isn’t here, it’s in Japan this time."

Monty shook his head. "I don’t think that’s what he meant luv. I’ll explain.."

He got Chip to sit and said. "Y’know Geegaw Hackwrench wasn’t the only fella to fly his own plane. There’s quite a number o’ different groups and such who build ‘em, from human model kits or even from scratch. Of course there aren’t any local ones or I guess you’d know about it. Now they have air meets, get together to show their latest stuff and the biggest one is the World Animal Aviation Trials, WAAT, held every 5 years, each time in a different country. That’s where I first met Geegaw, at the one 10 years ago in me homeland. He was the one who taught me to fly. I was at the last one in Africa too, acting as co-pilot. Gadget was there too, already a little lady and a bonzer engineer. Why I remember…"

Gadget blushed and said, "Thanks Monterey.", unintentionally forestalling the tale. "You see the biggest event of WAAT is the unlimited air race. It runs over the last three days and any aircraft can enter. It tests speed, manoeuvrability, endurance and the pilot as much as the plane. The winner of the last two races was my father, in the Screaming Eagle." She pulled a pair of ribbons out of the document wallet, each with a gold medallion embossed with a pair of wings. She sniffed and gulped. "My father promised he’d come back to take the gold a third time, and since he can’t, I’ve got to go in his place."

"But why leave us?", asked Chip, looking downcast either at the thought of Gadget leaving, or at Gadget being unhappy, or both.

Gadget visibly pulled herself together and continued in a more normal tone. "Well gee, I won’t have time for Ranger work, and I haven’t got the facilities here to build what I want to. I need to return to my place at the airport, it has the space, heavy duty tools and access to all sorts of specialised dohickeys."

Dale was confused. "But… yawn… you built the Rangerwing right here."

Gadget nodded, "And I had to do most of the final assembly outside. I could almost certainly have done a better, faster job if I’d been at my old place. I want to build a new version of the Screaming Eagle, and I can’t do that here."

"We could all help!" Chip exclaimed, and the others chorused their agreement, each chipping in their ideas. "We can act as your ground crew…" "Moral support." "Commissary." "Night landing gear." Everyone looked at Foxglove. She shrugged her wings. "Well I could."

"But I couldn’t ask everyone to drop what they’re doing just to help me out, that would be selfish. What if the city needs the Rescue Rangers?"

Monty spoke first, "The city can look out for itself for a while. ‘Sides I still owe Geegaw for Zanzibar." "Zyeah!"

Chip looked around at the others and nodded, seeing their agreement. "We’ve taken extended trips before and it’s worked out. Consider the number of times one of your inventions has made the difference between success and failure. Even if we didn’t want to help you as your friends, the Rescue Rangers owe you, the whole city owes you more than we could ever repay."

Dale chirped up. "Yeah, besides Nimnul’s still in the nuthouse, Fat Cat has been sticking to running his casino and Rat Capone is probably still just running after the those cats chased him off. This thing sounds like fun!"

"Where my darling goes, I go. Besides I may not have been your friend for very long, but I want to show I am... if you see what I mean." Foxglove suddenly looked as if she remembered something. "Wait a moment, Dale told me about when they first met you. Didn’t you have some sort of powered armour?"

"You must mean my battle sphere. I originally built it as a construction unit to lift human sized power tools and large components, but by changing the arms on it I did use it to scare off salesmen." It was Gadget’s turn to look puzzled. "Why would that make a difference?"

Foxglove giggled. "You have a working mobile suit, a Labor, and you ask why an otaku would be interested? I have got to introduce you to the some mecha anime shows."

"If you go giving her ideas… yawn… she’ll probably build you one as a Christmas present." Dale quipped.

Gadget noted that as something to consider, after all she always had a tough time with finding Christmas presents. She looked around at the group, seeing nothing but support. "Golly, you all really want to help? It’s going to be long hours and hard work. I don’t know what to say."

Chip looked happy and relieved. "’Yes’ would be a good start, followed by ‘My those acorn pancakes look good.’"

&&&

The Rangerwing was soaring out over the suburbs, away from the city park. It had turned out to be one of those perfect autumn mornings, sunny with whipped cream clouds, and little wind, making the air crisp and pleasant. Gadget was in control, with Chip as co-pilot. Monty and Zipper were sharing the back seat. The inventor mouse had her goggles down, hiding her eyes, but Chip had been around her long enough to read from her posture that she was mulling something over, and not happy about it. That wouldn’t do. "Hey, Gadget, is there something wrong?"

Gadget hesitated a fraction too long before saying, "Golly Chip, what makes you think that?"

Chip put his hand out, to touch her shoulder, then pulled it back. "You just seem kinda distracted. It isn’t because we left Foxglove and Dale behind, is it? I was the one who insisted they catch up on their sleep."

Gadget shook her head. "Oh no, I could see they were both ready to drop at the breakfast table."

"We may just be going to clean up the place and get it ready, but I don’t want to take someone on any mission if they’re not alert. Not any more. Unlike Fat Cat or Nimnul I’m trying to learn from my mistakes."

"Oh I agree, we don’t want any accidents like the one that almost happened at the building site back when Fat Cat was stealing gold bars with the toy train. Of course there were more accidents than that the last time we took Dale on a mission when he was half asleep, like the business with the washing machine…" She paused, then went on slowly. "I guess… I’m just not sure how I’ll feel seeing the old place again. I had some of the best times of my life there… and some of the worst." She sniffled, either from the emotions her memories were bringing up, or the cold air.

Chip said nothing for a moment, then came out with, "I wish I could have met him."

"Huh? Oh, my father. You’d have liked him, and vice versa."

"I’d hope so." Chip replied.

Monty stirred himself in back. "I reckon so too. Old Geegaw was an adventurous type like me, but he was a bit like you, into deductive type planning. Still, we made a good team, him supplyin’ the ideas, me supplyin’ the muscle."

Gadget giggled. "I remember some of his stories," and then she sobered up. "And I remember how lonely it was after he wasn’t there to tell them anymore. That’s why I didn’t come back before, even when I could have used the equipment..."

"It’ll be alright." Chip said, then continued. "I know that you had some bad times there, but that’s behind you. We’re going back there to make you some new memories, happy ones. You’ll be building your greatest creation, and we’ll all be there to help you. If you ever need a shoulder to cry on, well, my jacket is fairly waterproof."

That last piece of silliness seemed to perk the mouse up. He was trying to find a way to say more, when they came out over the last of the housing developments and reached the edges of the airport where her old home was. It had originally been a military airfield during the Second World War, a training base for heavy aircraft. It had almost by accident become a dumping ground for mothballed kit.

In later years the training functions had moved to newer, better situated bases, and it had been converted to a civilian airport for freight and a few internal airlines. The history of the place showed mainly in the junk yard that occupied a good section of the old marshalling area, and the fact that away from the runways and terminal buildings the original country-side was still there, lacking the manicured look of purpose built airports.

A wrecked B-25 training bomber lay to one side of the junk yard zone. It had clearly been dragged to it’s present location when taken out of service and left to rot. The landing gear under the two engines had splayed out, dropping the fuselage to the ground and the port wingtip splayed up at a crazy angle, probably from whatever landing had ruined the plane. However the main hull, and more remarkably the glass of the gunnery and piloting compartments was intact.

Suddenly there were a pair of brief flashes from the top of the raised up wing.

"Uh oh! Break left!" Gadget cried out and rolled the Rangerwing off to one side, going into a series of dives and fishtails. The fly by wire system meant Chip’s added muscle wouldn’t help, so he just let his stick follow Gadget’s. A number of slender shapes shot past, trailing smoke. Gadget dived away on the opposite side of the plane from the upraised wing. She headed towards the centre of junkyard and came in low, dodging into a canyon between the stacked junk. Even as she did so, a second group of missiles whooshed past, one lodging in the pintle mount of the rear facing plunger harpoon, another scoring the underside of a wing.

Gadget was still calling out the shots. "Bank right and roll!" Chip slammed his dual controls over to the right as Gadget did the same. The Rangerwing heeled over, one wingtip practically touching the ground, and slipped into a narrow crack in the side of the wall of junk. It came out into a clear area, rolling completely over to fly upright. Smoke was trailing from near one engine. "Keep it steady, full throttle!" Gadget told Chip. It was now skimming the ground, with wall of junk at the far end approaching at an approximate speed of ‘too fast’.

Even as Gadget spoke she reached under the dashboard and pulled out a wire, then flipped the mode change toggle on the control panel. Normally the fly-by-wire system would handle the simultaneous rotation of the props to vertical position while reversing the direction of thrust. Now it slammed the powerful pusher motors into reverse, without rotating them to the vertical, stopping the aircraft dead in seconds and pancaking it onto the ground six inches short of the far wall.

"What just happened?" gasped Chip. Monty had already unlatched his seatbelt and jumped out, Zipper following.

Gadget shook her head. "It was my Homeguard system! But I deactivated it when we left, even stored the missiles …"

Monty came back, holding the projectile that had lodged in the pintle. It was the bottom half of a sharpened pencil with a scorched aluminum foil cylinder extending from the blunt end. "This is the bloomin’ thing that hit us. Did we annoy any teachers lately?"

Chip has jumped out to examine the device, now he looked to Gadget for an explanation. She quickly obliged.

"You remember my salesman traps? This was the same idea. I had this idea that if they couldn’t get in through on the ground, they might try landing on the roof. I had a sonar scanner set up on the wing tip and automatically tracking catapults rigged to throw a bunch of pencils at an attacker.

"At first that was all, but it didn’t have the accuracy or speed I wanted. So I soaked the bottom half of the pencils in a peroxide mix, added a fulminating agent to the eraser tip, and wrapped the bottom half in aluminium foil. It turned them into short range solid fuel rockets. The concussion of the catapult launch ignited the eraser, and the peroxide impregnated wood acted as the fuel after the eraser burnt up. The aluminium foil chamber and the graphite core formed a self stabilising aero-spike."

Monty shook his head. "That’s roight ingenious luv, but it doesn’t tell us who started it up again."

"Well golly, I don’t know either. No-one else from around here would have trespassed. I even left up signs asking people not to."

Then Chip noticed movement, behind one of the piles of smaller junk, off to one side. He pointed to Zipper and then to the movement, while saying, "Maybe we can find someone to explain."

Zipper charged off and rounded the pile from the other side. There was a muffled exclamation and a figure stumbled backwards out into clear sight. Chip was already moving to intercept, closely followed by Monty. It turned out to be a matronly vole, wearing a headscarf and cloak, who yelped and cowered.

"Please don't hurt me… I didn't see anything…" Then she looked more closely at the pair. "But… you … you’re not them!" The last was said in a tone of some relief.

Chip had immediately changed to a more diplomatic posture. "We're the Rescue Rangers, and you don't have anything to fear from us. Maybe you could tell us who ‘they’ are, and why they have you so scared."

The lady vole looked relieved. "The Rescue Rangers, oh thank the heavens! You got our message. Is little Gadget with you?" She came out into the open.

Gadget stood up in her seat and called out. "Mrs Martlby?"

"Yes Gadget dear. Oh, I'm so glad to see you and your Ranger friends. Maybe you can do something about those Ratz." She harshened the final s into a z.

"Ratz?", Chip asked. "We didn't get any message, so maybe you'd better start at the beginning."

"Oh dear, yes, maybe I should. Over a month ago, a gang moved in on the our airport. They call themselves the Ratz, and they are mostly, though there are a some large mice, a couple of squirrels and at least one raccoon. The leader is a huge rat who calls himself Spike, maybe because he wears a wicked looking metal spike on the tip of his tail. They claim that the whole place is theirs, and take whatever they want. They brought in some sort of human-built sound system and play it at all hours, especially at night.

"Some of us tried to fight, but it was as individuals, and we got swamped, some of us badly injured. They have clubs, scalpel blade knives, chains, all sorts of stuff." She rubbed her side unconsciously. "Now people are afraid to try, especially since they have taken over the Hackwrench place as their base and fortified it. There's all sorts of booby traps."

Gadget was listening sympathetically, until this last bit. "They’re using my place to lurk and terrorise innocent creatures? Ooooohhh, those unprincipled, low down, rotten rejects. I'll dump them all on the waste ejection catapult and send them to the airport canteen bins with all the other rubbish!"

Gadget rarely got angry, but when she did it was generally a very bad thing for the target, as 'Baby' Thaddeus and Bubbles had found to their cost. Chip spoke up before Gadget said or did anything precipitous. "Don't worry Gadget, you have the Rescue Rangers to help with the spring cleaning. Mrs Martlby, if we can drive them out and disarm them, can the folk around here see them off?"

The vole lady adjusted her headscarf. "Hmmmm… Maybe, but people are very nervous about them. You really can help? There are at least thirty of them and only the four of you."

"No worries, luv," said Monty, "Those wowsers will be out of there quicker than a kangaroo at a dingo convention."

Chip was already thinking. "We'll need to get the Rangerwing back in the air first… Ohmigosh, Dale and Foxglove, we have to get back before they set off or they'll fly straight into the trap. Gadget?" But the mouse inventor was already under the wing checking the damage from the landing.

"I'll have this fixed in a jiffy," she called, "I just have to patch the wing and reconnect a few control cables. No problem."

"Mrs Martlby, anything else you can tell us about their equipment or numbers could be useful…"

There was a whining sound from the canyon they'd come in by. The vole looked scared. "Oh no… they're here, we have to hide…" She took off on four paw drive, quickly disappearing into one of the crevices in the walls of junk.

"Zipper, go high, Gadget, ready the harpoon, Monty, with me." Chip walked out to stand behind the tail of the Rangerwing, Monty beside him, facing the canyon they'd come in by. Out of the foot wide gap between the two walls of scrap came a contraption. It had four mini-caterpillar tracks, each on an independently sprung lever arm, attached to a body of half a dozen corned beef cans bolted together.

It had originally been utilitarian, with a single seat, penlight torch headlamps along each side, and the rear section a flat low slung load bed, but now sported pieces of card and plastic, spray painted with multi-coloured graffiti, and duct taped on roll-bars as well as extra lights.

"Golly and a half, my old parts transporter, what have they done to it!" No prizes for guessing who _that_ came from.

Riding it were street rats, mostly, all punked up or punked down. Brightly coloured fur jobs, leather, studs, piercings, they gave the impression of not being the sort to stop for tea and ask after the health of elderly relatives. Of course, considering how Iron Goose acted off stage that was not necessarily true, but the cheers and nasty laughter when they sighted the plane were corroborating evidence.

The biggest thug, a leather jacketed raccoon with a paper megaphone and a wicked looking scalpel blade knife, yelled. "You're trespassin' on Ratz turf. Now you gotta pay. That funny lookin' flying thing and the babe'll do nicely. Pay the fine and you'll be fine." There were a number of chuckles at the leaders wit. The Ratz jumped off the sides of the transporter, pulling out various implements of melee combat and advancing on the Rangerwing, and the two Rangers between it and them.

<Station break time - You knew it was coming…>

Chip stood there, afraid but not showing it. Instead he held his arms, apparently folded, but in reality ready to pull any one of a number of devices from inside his jacket. He affected a yawn. "You must have spent _days_ thinking up that one. Counter proposal, the original owner of the place you’re staying has come back, and she has the Rescue Rangers with her. So go back to the plane and tell your pals to pack up and get out, or we’ll have to make you."

As soon as he mentioned the words ‘Rescue Rangers’, some of the goons started looking worried, and stopped advancing. Their nervousness was transmitted to the rest of the group. The raccoon in charge growled. "What’s wrong? Get ‘em!"

One of the rats spoke up. "But Bandit, I heard about them back down in the sewers. These guys are tough! They take on the likes of Rat Capone and Fat Cat."

The comments started coming from various points along the line. "Fat Cat nothing, I heard they go after _human_ crooks." "Ain’t they supposed to be able ta wrestle snakes and octopussies?" "I heard just one of them took on an army of ninjas and won…"

At this Gadget striving for accuracy as always, called out, "Gosh, I wouldn’t call them an _army_ exactly. There weren’t more than twenty of them, thirty at the most. But then I’m not normally a front line fighter."

These perfectly true statements did nothing to help the situation for the bad guys. For one moment it looked like the goons were going to turn tail and run. Then Bandit cuffed the nearest one who showed signs of cowardice, knocking him to the floor. "We’re the Ratz and we’re tougher than any ‘Refuse Rangers’. You three, get lard-butt. You three sort out that piece of tail and the plane. You two, with me. That snotty nut-muncher is ours!"

Chip had already glanced around the area and selected his counter strategy. He started sidling off to one side. "Well come on then, lets see what you got." He pulled out his safety pin grapnel and flicked it open, then started swinging the thing like a chain weapon.

The goons slunk after him, led by the racoon, who sneered. "Ya think that thing scares us?" He held the head of a scalpel with a sawn off hilt, and moved like a professional knife fighter. On one side was a rat with a Death head t-shirt and a pair of fork heads, ground down and sharpened up into Sai daggers. The other goon was a squirrel with a dyed Mohecan cut that went all the way down to then root of his tail. He made do with a sawn off metal control rod, with sharpened ends, making a nasty looking quarterstaff/spear.

Chip was thinking, ‘Just a bit further…’ He’d made it over beside the towering stack of junk that Mrs Martleby was hiding behind earlier. "Nope. But only because you aren’t bright enough to see a threat right in front of you." He flicked the grapnel out with the speed of a striking snake, making all three flinch involuntarily before they realised that the thing had gone way over their heads.

"Ya missed!" roared the racoon, starting to charge forward.

"Did I?" Chip called out and hauled on the line. The old fire bucket he’d hooked, dropped upside down on the trio, followed by a goodly amount of miscellaneous garbage. Several years of quality time with Gadget, helping her scavenge for parts, had given him an appreciation of the way junk heaps accreted. This one had come apart exactly as he’d planned, trapping the three goons.

"Don’t kick the bucket while I’m gone." he quipped, then shook his head. "I’m getting as bad as Dale!’ Then he raced back to where the others were fighting.

Meanwhile, the three on Monty were spreading out and drawing their weapons. Two rats and a big mouse with a torn ear and a flat biker cap. Of course, Monty was more interested in the weapons they were carrying, a hardwood shaft studded with panel pins, a small switchblade used as a short sword, and a length of twine threaded with free sliding hex nuts, which could be swung like a chain, or a solid metal club just by pushing the nuts together at one end. "Hur, hur, hur… Y’r gonna get the cheese knocked outta you!", called out the mouse as they moved in.

Monty thought about his emergency, emergency reserve supply of cheese, a sealed wedge of Brie 86 in one pocket against cheese attacks. "You’ll nevah get between me and my cheese, you blooomin’ drongos!" Monty reckoned he could take them bare handed, but those weapons gave them a nasty advantage. While not a tactical planner like Chip, he was however an old hand at improvising. A screwdriver hilt sticking proud of a low pile of rubbish was his means. He stomped on it and the other end flipped up like a seesaw into his hand. He swung it through the air as a continuation of the same movement, and knocked their weapons out of their hands with it.

They obviously expected him to attack with it, and stepped back, so they were completely unprepared when with a yell he flung it to one side and dove into the middle of them. The fight dissolved into a cloud of dust, evaporating at first to show Monty held down by the two rats, while the mouse raised his reclaimed ‘nutchucks’ high to strike. Of course he counted without Zipper, who had been holding himself in reserve. The heroic fly dive bombed in, feet first and planted them in the mouse’s face, one in each eye.

The irritation caused the mouse to bring his hands down to try and catch the insect. Instead he managed only to almost knock himself out with the string of hex nuts he was holding. Monty, of course, had not been idle during this, hauling his pinned arms in as the rats were distracted, and bashing them together. The scene turned into a dust cloud again, clearing to show Monty belabouring the two rats with another improvised weapon, the mouse. The three were soon unconscious. "Now that was a roight jolly punch-up!" Monty hollered.

Meanwhile Gadget was handling things her own way. The three rats clearly though they’d gotten the easy job, their weapons held low. Far from bounding out and giving them a ninja tail kicking, the cute blonde mouse in the jumpsuit was staying behind a plunger crossbow mounted on the rear of the plane.

"Give it up, mousie. That thing can’t hurt us." yelled out one.

Despite the situation, Gadget couldn’t help but reply. "I never designed it to _hurt_ anyone. However, with the application of some basic laws of mechanics, it will _stop_ you." She sighted carefully and fired, off to one side and behind the group. Before they could laugh it had bounced off a jutting piece of debris and rebounded across and behind them.

Since it was trailing a cable this was dragged across and caught one of the group. The plunger was pulled up short and started spinning round the trio like a swing-ball caught on a pole. Before they could blink the three were neatly trussed up. Attempts to cut the cable proved futile, since Gadget had the forethought to make it out of high tensile steel wire.

The rat who’d remained behind in the transporter was to surprised to act, but only for a second, having watched his buddies get demolished. Then he started it up and charged it forward to try and run down the big mouse, then ram and tip the plane, hopefully spilling the mouse inside. He had counted without Zipper though.

Having returned to his station above the fight after helping out his friend, the fly quickly saw the danger, and once again flew in to assist. He easily got into the open cabin of the crawler, and buzzed around the drivers head. This unworthy quickly lost all control of his vehicle, and with some assistance barely avoided running over his unconscious comrades before running into a junk wall. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t wearing his seat belt.

So it was that by the time Chip had returned, it was all over bar the shouting, which Monty was taking care of. The vole reappeared slowly, looking a bit stunned.

"Goodness! You really are as great as all the stories say!"

Chip ducked his head slightly, blushing. "As Gadget says, we give it our best effort. I hope you believe that we can run them out of the airport now."

"You know, I think you can at that. Don’t worry, I can let people know.", the lady vole looked happier than she had before.

Chip paused in thought. "You could also get everyone to lie low if possible. We don’t want any innocent bystanders involved. You could also tell me what else you know about them…"

&&&

The Rangerwing, completely restored, dropped down towards the front door landing deck of the Treehouse a couple of hours later. As the four intrepid adventurers came into the main room, they were greeted by a rather more perky, but still yawning Dale coming from the interior, munching on a piece of chocolate, and accompanied by Foxglove.

"Hiya, Chip! Back so soon? Did you get the place cleaned up already?"

The fedora clad chipmunk grinned. "You wish!"

"Uh huh, if I was wishing, it'd be for a big bag of chocolate coated peanuts." Dale licked his lips.

"You just had breakfast a couple a’ hours ago! Besides you've been asleep."

"Well I gotta keep my strength up. After all I'm a very heavy sleeper, I burn lotsa calories."

"Huh? How d'you work that out?"

"S'easy. You lift a heavy weight, you use more energy. Same thing with sleeping."

Chip chuckled. "You goofball! Well, if snoozing and snacking builds up strength, you should be stronger than Monty."

"Hey! I resemble that remark!"

"As I said before, you wish! Besides what would you reassemble it as?"

The pair speeded up into chipmunk chatter, Chip's remarks pointed and polished, Dale's outrageous and overdone. Foxglove padded over to where Gadget, Zipper and Monty were watching. "I still can't get over it when they do this." she said with a worried expression, despite the fact that the chipmunks were clearly enjoying themselves.

"Don't fret Foxy-lass, it's just their way of showing they're friends."

"Golly, yes, at least they only spar verbally now." Gadget added.

As Dale came back with a rejoinder, "Chipper, your hat's on too tight!" Chip put his paws together in a T signal.

"Okay, okay... You win this one. Turns out we've got a bigger job of cleaning to do than we expected. It turns out a gang has taken over Gadget’s old home, and are using some of her stuff to harm the locals. So we’re going to have to clean them out."

"Wowie zowie! That’s grreat!", Dale said, then noticed Gadget’s unhappy expression. "Us having a real case I mean, not that they took over your home, gosh, that part’s terrible…"

The girl mouse shook her head. "It’s alright Dale… It’s my fault for not taking better precautions."

Chip was at her side immediately. "You couldn’t have foreseen this. You disabled the interior defences so no one would get hurt accidentally, and that should have been enough. Besides, all the really important stuff, like your construction robot, is sealed away, isn’t it? We’ll get it all back, and teach them not to mess with the Rescue Rangers."

A council of war was called around the front room table. Chip presided and explained, with colour commentary from Monty, what had happened. He finished off with,

"We packed those goons in a parcel, and dumped them in the cargo hold of a flight going to San Francisco. Even if they can catch a flight back straight away, we have a 12 hour breathing space. The locals are all away from their usual places and we policed the entire area, and left nothing but the transporter, and that Gadget fixed so it won’t work, and they won’t even be able to figure out what’s wrong. Isn’t that right Gadget?"

The mouse nodded. "I modified the intercoupling reflexer with a piece of wire so that it reciprocates rather than interlocking. It looks like it should work fine, but it won’t. I also brought the parts I replaced with me and they’re _not_ going to find replacements. But Chip, I still don’t understand why all these preparations."

Chip strode to the edge of the table. "We need to finish this fast, and they do outnumber us. We need every advantage we can get, and the way we’ve done things gives us one. They sent out 10 goons on an easy job and _nothing_ came back. Finding the Transporter apparently intact but not working will just add to their confusion, if they even send out a follow up party.

"With the ten we disposed of, they have around 20 effectives, and I guarantee they’ll be less effective with some unknown force that flies aeroplanes and makes entire goon squads disappear stalking the airfield. That’s why we have to strike tonight, and cause as much additional confusion and fear as possible when we do. Hopefully their reaction to what we’ve done so far will be to fort up in the plane, making sure that they don’t involve innocents. Plus it will give us the advantage of a well known battlefield. After all they’ve only been there a month, and Gadget practically built the place. Um… Gadget, would you show us where things are, so we can work out a plan of attack."

Gadget unrolled a blueprint of the plane on the table.

"This B25 was converted to a trainer, so the top, tail and waist turrets were sealed. My living quarters and work area were in the nose section, spread around the launching ramp for the old Screaming Eagle. According to Mrs Martlby they’ve made that section their place, with a throne made out of left over parts at the base of the ramp. from the sound of it, they don’t realise they built that throne right on the waste ejection system. It used the ramp to fling anything I put on it to the airport waste dump.

"They’ve found the vehicle exit and used the local control panel to open it…" She pointed out the personnel hatch in the floor just forward of the wings and the booby trapped area, "…but not the exit door for the Screaming Eagle. I don’t think they know about the fact that they can be triggered remotely. And unless one of them can build a 128 bit orthogonally sequenced radio modulator…" she placed a mouse sized radio controller with several buttons on onto the table, "…they’re not opening it _that_ way."

"My construction sphere and most of the heavy equipment are on the raised platform on the starboard side, which is reached by a lift. Once again they don’t seem to have explored it much, and even if they had, it would have done them no good. The microwave that houses my construction sphere is locked tight, and so are the equipment bays and auxiliary power compartment. However they’ve certainly got into the storage area to port, and the inventing supplies on the ground. My parts transporter was down there because I’d left it on recharge.

"They’ve restored the booby trap section and force innocents to run through it for amusement." She looked genuinely annoyed, but got herself under control. "Anyway, back of that is the wing entrance route, the one you guys used. It’s also where the power supply is. As well as a concealed line coming from the airport lighting circuit, I reworked the port motor to act as a wind turbine, charging batteries in the back of the nacelle. It operates when the prevailing wind is in the correct alignment, using a reciprocating…" She noticed the rest of the Rangers eyes glazing over, and stopped..

"On the raised wing tip there are the sensors and launchers of the Homeguard unit. It was the highest place on the craft. The fuselage section back of the wings was mainly used as a runway for the Screaming Eagle when it came back in through the top hatch. There’s a human sized door back there, another late addition, and I used it to bring in large parts. It can be opened remotely too."

Chip nodded sagely. "Hmm… Is there a place where you can control the power from? The wind turbine maybe?"

"Sorry Chip, the main distribution frame is in the auxiliary power room, up front. But from there you can control almost anything."

"So getting control of it is vital… and without alerting anyone."

Dale looked confused. "You’re thinking of trying to get through the traps, at night, with out alerting those bozos? Chip, you’re cuh-razy!"

"That’s my line, and I wasn’t thinking of going _through_…"

&&&

It was party night in the new crib of the gang that called themselves the Ratz. Of course every night was party night, and the place looked it. A month’s occupation by a bunch of sewer dwellers with unclean habits and zero housekeeping skill had turned most of the floor into a rubbish tip. In various places around the edge the trash heaped higher, usually where someone had made a bed. The only areas reasonably clean were a dance floor/ audience chamber in front of the throne, and the panel that swung down to open the floor hatch. Gadget had once dug out the paved surface underneath, creating a tunnel for vehicles that could be completely sealed off.

Two days before they’d made a raid into the civil airport terminal and managed to steal away with a most of the contents of a loaded service trolley. As a result, mixed in with the other trash were dozens of the miniature airline bottles of spirits and a number of airline dinner trays, picked clean. Some had even been converted, with the help of serviettes, into more comfortable beds.

But tonight the air of gaiety was forced, mostly because there were quite a few less creatures than normal involved. So while some of the males (and females) danced to some pounding tunes, courtesy of a pair of stereo speakers and a turntable on the port side of the dance floor. This was presided over by a rabbit with shades and a vest scribbled with ‘Call me Mr Flopsy and die!’. Others just lazed and stuffed themselves, there were those who talked with heads close, or turned frequent glances to the closed hatch in the floor or glazed frames in the cockpit window.

One pair, a rat with a nasty scar on one cheek, and a beefy female mouse in a leather halter top and shorts had the misfortune, or lack of wits, to still be talking as they passed near to the big rat who sat on the throne. This worthy was as big as a cat, and muscled up so as to make Arnold Mousenegger look like a two ounce weakling.

He was being served with food and drink by a young female field mouse and a small female rat, both in rags, who were chained to the throne by metal cable ties and bath plug chain. The two gang members were interrupted as a tail with a metal spike slammed through the jar lid platter the rat was carrying, puncturing it.

"You two, stop jabbering and get over here!" Spike yelled. "And you…", he waved off handedly at the rat slave, "…get me some more eats! The good stuff!"

As the girl rat scampered off, or at least did the best she could with the chain dragging, the mouse hurried to pour out the drink into a gold coloured plastic goblet, the rat held out, a toy from the airport concession machines.

The art was the first to speak, in an apologetic tone. "Sorry boss! But…"

"But what, Scar?", the gang leader said menacingly.

"Well… it’s just that Bandit and the others… well they still haven’t come back. And there weren’t no sign of what happened neither."

The bigger rat towered over the lesser one. "And you’re all scared that the boogie mouse will come and get you too, izzat it?" The other rat cowered. "Uh… no boss…"

The leader’s focus changed. He waved to the shades wearing rabbit who was controlling the turntable and the room fell silent.

"Now listen up, all a’ ya. I been hearing a lotta freaked out jabberin’ about Bandit and his lot not comin’ back. I’ll tell ya why. He managed to wreck the rig, and let that plane, or whatever, get away. He knows that when he does get back, me an him are gonna have a little talk."

A number of the gang, toughs though they were, cringed at that. When Spike ‘talked’, he tended to use his muscles and tail as punctuation. You were in for broken bones at least.

"Look around ya. I led ya all outta the sewer, and found us a better crib than any of ya ever had. Electric, food n’ drink for the talking, and nobody to give us an argument but a buncha scared treehuggers n’ seedmunchers. But even if’s someone does want ta throw down, we got guards out. We’re the Ratz and we run this place, and ain’t nobody who can mess with us! Who are we?"

"The Ratz!" came back a chorus, but it wasn’t loud enough to suit him.

"I don’t hear ya! WHO ARE WE"

"THE RATZ!"

"WHO MESSES WITH US?"

"NOBODY!"

He sat back down, looking more satisfied. "And don’t ya forget it! C’mon Hiphop, make with the tunes!"

The rabbit started up the turntable again.

&&&

Meanwhile, outside, the cool, crisp day had turned into a cold, soggy night, courtesy of a late afternoon cloudburst. It was cold and moonless, and the lights of the city and the airport proper were blocked by the retaining wall of the old yard, so only the stars shone down, making the shadows darker. The lights in the cockpit of the aircraft, and the glimmer of fires on the port engine cowling and wingtip were the only visible sources of light. The faint sound of the music from inside was audible even over here.

This made the red LED lantern an invisible source, at least invisible if you were outside the carefully shielded area it illuminated. The Rangers, under the cover of darkness, had managed to approach to the limit of the Home guard system’s sonar, and had set up camp in the lee of an even more wrecked plane, about 30 metres to the port of their target.. Foxglove’s hearing and Zipper’s careful scouting had made sure that as yet they had been unobserved. Now a pair of Gadget’s best binoculars peered in the direction of the occupied plane.

"Look at it!", Chip said quietly, "Open fires at the guard posts, giving away their positions and wrecking their night vision… unless they have concealed observers as well… Foxglove?"

"I can’t hear any. There are two guys by the fire on top of the engine, playing dice. The one on the left is losing heavily. They’re cold, tired and bored. There are people up on top of the wing tip, but I can’t tell anything more because Gadget’s sonar is making too much noise from the same place. If anyone else is outside, they’re silent as well as freezing. Oh, and the guy in charge just made a speech about how tough they were. Sounds like there’s rumbling in the ranks."

"Noice work, Foxy-lass." Said Monty. "Sounds like you could tell everything but what colour their fur is."

The bat-girl blushed. "Well I wouldn’t go quite that far…" She paused. "Wait a second, the sonar’s stopped… There are two guys there, talking about some female, they don’t seem to have noticed the change."

Gadget spoke up. "If Zipper has shorted out the junction box at the amplification modulator, there’s no reason they should. The telltale will still show an active circuit, because there is. It’s just not going through the transmitter array. The only way they could tell is if there was a big object in view and there was no response on the mapometric plotter."

Foxglove spoke up. "Speaking of Zipper, he’s on his way back." Seconds later, the fly zoomed in low, hugging the ground all the way and landed on the rim of metal that shielded them from the plane. "Zall clear!"

Chip nodded. "Then we’re good to go! Did you see anyone down by the vehicle entrance when you circled the place?"

"Zuhuh." Zipper was fairly emphatic.

Dale, ever ready with a quip, chirped in. "Heh, Chipper, you usually havta have a plan. Now you’re acting on the fly."

A massed groan ensued, except for Chip who retorted. "Not that I don’t trust Foxglove’s hearing, but confirmation is always good. I know you’d have gone on Foxy’s say so alone, but then, you tend to do things off your own bat."

More groans. Monty summed up. "If you lads are finished with the comedy, we got a poundin’ to hand out."

"You’re right. Rescue Rangers away!" The pair scampered off towards the port wing of the plane. Chip was in his regular flight jacket and fedora, but wore a dark vest underneath and a scarf mask to cover his patches of lighter fur. Gadget was in her coveralls, but wore a matching golfball helmet that covered her shining blonde hair, and her goggles were down. Both wore rucksacks, and Gadget had a modifier plunger crossbow strapped to hers. Against the starlit grey tarmac they were as good as invisible.

"See you soon Monty! C’mon Foxy…" Dale looked around for his bat girlfriend, but she’d already disappeared. He clambered up the side of the wreck to the top surface, where his black, bat winged glider was set up and anchored on a catapult. It carried saddlebags and a strapped on small (25 gram) CO2 canister of the sort used in soda stream machines and tire inflators. Dale enjoyed dressing up, and tonight was no exception. He had swapped his ubiquitous Hawaiian shirt for black shirt, trousers and a matching bandanna and face mask. His darning needle rapier was strapped across his back where it wouldn’t swing or catch.

The red light had left his night vision unaffected, so he could see, vaguely, that Foxglove was already there. She was unencumbered but had donned ninja style gear that matched her fur colour, and had large gussets in the top half for her wings. She gave a twirl. "Do you like it cutie?"

"Gosh, Foxy… that’s a really neat outfit!"

That brought a happy giggle. "I’m glad you think so. I always wanted to cosplay a kunoichi, (Dale heard the term as female ninja) and then you inspired me with your tales, so I had this costume made. This is the first time I’ve gotten to use it. And are you my perfect Dread Pirate Williams?"

"Yeah… I mean ‘As you wish… my dearest Foxglove.’" Dale did a courtly bow, just as if he were in the Bride Princess. This got him a kiss and a hug when he came back up. But one thing puzzled him. "But why did you race off before me?"

"Silly darling, I didn’t want you to see me while I was getting changed, of course!"

"Uh… but you were already…" Dale was about to say something, but being Dale, he just shrugged and got ready. After moving the catapult to face the wind, Dale strapped in and hit the release with his foot. With a soft thump, his glider soared into the sky, Foxglove flying up to meet him. They flew into the wind, gaining height from the extra lift. Dale’s glider was slow to rise with the additional supplies on it, until he triggered the CO2 canister which acted like a booster jet. As they rose, they drifted so they would be directly upwind of the plane’s raised wingtip.

&&&

Meanwhile, down below, Chip and Gadget had reached their first target. As they’d gotten closer, they’d been able to see the pair outlined by the fire, built up in a half soup can with holes punctured in it. They were exactly where they would be expected, camped in the open section of the cowling that exposed the cylinder heads that served as an access route up from the landing leg. Anyone foolish enough to go up[ that way would expose themselves to a quick rap on the head as they emerged.

They now stood under the rear part of the port engine, shielded from observation (such as it was) from the guards on top. Gadget unlimbered her plunger crossbow and switched on the under-slung, key-fob size laser pointer. A bright but tightly focussed point of light roamed across the underside of the engine casing as she searched for something. Suddenly the finger of light found what it was looking for. "there!" she whispered. Shifting the aim of the crossbow slightly to one side, she fried and a plunger carried a cable up to stick on the cowling.

Chip was up it, almost before the plunger had stopped quivering. Hanging just below the metal, he reached out and pulled carefully on an almost invisible handle, now the target of the laser pointer’s illumination. A hatch started to swing down, squeaking slightly, but a guiding paw slowed it’s opening into silence. Chip pulled himself up and inside, then deliberately hung out as Gadget inched her way up the line after him. She had donned her plunger cup boots, and when she reached the top, spider-walked to the hatch, where she was helped in by Chip.

Around them stood the lead acid batteries and electronics of the main power supply room. At the front end, and up a set of ramps was a window sized hatch, just large enough for someone to scramble through, and dimly illuminated by the light from the laser pointer. As Gadget removed her plunger cups, Chip pointed towards it and Gadget nodded. They snuck up to the door, and Gadget reloaded, hefted her crossbow and sighted on it, turning her laser off. Chip had oiled the hinges with an eyedropper oilcan, and then pulled a sphere from inside his backpack. The orb fitted like a bowling ball in his paw. His other hand had found the hatch handle.

Although there was no crack to let in light, there was the murmur of voices from beyond it. Without the light, Chip waited until he felt the tip of Gadget’s tail touch his forearm with a deliberate tap. Once, twice, three times, and on the third time he pulled the door open. There was a tableau, the two rats sitting round the tin can fire, one almost facing them, the other with his back to them. The facing one didn’t seem to notice the sudden deepening of a rectangle of blackness behind his friend, but he did notice the incoming plunger, because it smacked him right in the kisser.

As his friend suddenly rose, and tried manfully…ratfully to pull the plunger from his face, the other guard jumped up and spun round. He got a faceful of ball, which shattered to coat his face with tacky, amorphous goo. Originally a gumball, it had been injected with a Gadget developed catalyst that weakened the shell and altered the viscosity of the chickle inside. The result was massively sticky and harder to remove than superglue. Blinded and half suffocated by their respective projectiles, they were easily subdued.

Meanwhile, Dale and Foxy hovered in the night sky, above and beyond the raised wingtip, observing the pair of goons who were supposed to be watching the sonar station. The flying Rangers could also see the other pair of guards, and were ready to swoop instantly, if it looked like their pair had noticed anything when Chip and Gadget attacked. Fortunately the two goons were to busy talking to each other, actually arguing was closer to the mark.

As the others went in, Dale waved a hand, trusting to Foxy’s sonar to detect it and wheeled into the wind, diving on the raised wingtip. He drew up his legs as he got closer and pulled a variation on a trick he did with Chip one time. He dropped onto the shoulders of one of the two and wrapped his legs around the guy’s neck, tilting the pitch of the glider frame upwards as he did so. The wind caught it and dragged the pair of them backwards and up, hauling the bad guy up onto his feet, and half throttling him. The guy scrabbled at first at the legs wrapping his neck, but to no avail. Then he dropped one hand to his waist and drew a bobby pin, ground down into a nasty little poinard.

Dale was ready for him though. As soon as he was in place, one hand dropped from the control bar of the glider to draw his rapier. The rapier intercepted the goon’s hand as it flashed up, smacking his wrist and causing the poinard to drop from his numbed fingers. As a follow up, Dale gave a sharp rap to the guy’s temple, just below one ear and he slumped down. Dale unlocked his legs and let the wind lift him up and away before he dived in to land properly.

Foxglove had taken a rather simpler route. When a sonar guided projectile massing one third someone’s body weight drops on their head from a considerable height, they usually proceed to examine the inside of their eyelids for a while. And so it was. Foxglove had a chance to look around as Dale made his landing pass. The actual tip of the wing was missing and a floor had been placed across the first internal brace, making a platform about 2 feet across and 8 inches wide. At each end were the Homeguard launchers, mounted on rotating turrets and near one was a map and plotting device, similar to the one Gadget had built for her weather detector. A hatch lead down inside the wing. The goons had added nothing but a tin can fire and a number of leftovers.

Dale had landed and was now leaning over the goon he’d dispatched, listening to his chest. He looked up to see Foxglove observing. "Another bad guy brought low by my rapier wit." This brought a chuckle from Foxglove. Then he changed his speech pattern to emulate a different tone. "’I do not envy you the headache you will have when you awake. But for now, sleep, and dream of lady rats.’" he misquoted.

Foxglove pulled a red LED torch from one of the saddlebags on the tied down glider and pointed it over the edge, flashing it three times. In seconds a spot of laser light illuminated a point on the side of a Homeguard launcher, and flashed three times in return.

Down below, Gadget turned from signalling and strode over to Chip, who was patiently waiting by the flexible hose slide that led down into the main fuselage of the plane. "ready?", he whispered.

He held out his hands in an almost courtly gesture, and when she took them, lowered the mouse inventor down between the hoses. Her face took on a look of concentration as she reached out with her tail, feeling around for a distinctive shape. Suddenly her tail tip brushed over it, and with a little grunt she used the tip to pull on a concealed toggle switch that clicked.

"Okay Chip, you can pull me up…", she stated as Chip suited action to words. "… the motion detector on the tube is disconnected… well actually it’s shorted, since the circuit is broken when the tube moves down under the weight of something in the tube, and to cut the line or break the circuit in any way would trigger an alarm… Umm, maybe we’d better just go."

She jumped into the tube and Chip quickly followed her. They let out on a padded cushion inside the fuselage. In one direction, the vast dark space of the tail section spread, in the other, the lit up nose, and between them and it, the minefield of booby traps. If anything, these looked even more complex and lethal than when Chip had first negotiated them with Dale and Monty. In broad daylight finding a safe route would be tricky. It the half light that currently filtered from the front, it was nearly impossible. Of course it was equally unlikely that anyone in the nose could see them.

"Time to go up and over…" Chip said as he sat down and tied a pair of plunger cups to his feet and wrists. Gadget was doing the same. Chipmunks were excellent climbers, but even he didn’t want to risk free-climbing the inside of the metal hull, no matter how many fittings and paw-holds there were. After securing their packs and every other article against anything falling out while inverted, they slowly made their way up the inside of the hull, keeping behind an interior frame. Where it met the roof, they removed their hand suckers and moved round to stand inverted, as Gadget had earlier.

They made their way forward above the minefield of trap triggers, using the brackets and frames that held the traps to the roof as cover. Halfway across, Gadget stopped by a big horizontal cylinder, and spent a moment attaching several things to it with tape. Chip was her willing assistant, for everything used had to be held against falling and alerting the goons to their presence. They continued forward, moving between mountings and through frames until they reached the edge of the traps. Now all that remained was to make the relatively short move to the table, less than a foot away. Unfortunately, though once on the table they’d be screened from the floor, there was no cover in between.

They had a plan, but Chip had his binoculars out again, and quickly found a problem.

He whispered urgently. "gadget! look down at the guy on the throne! he has two girls with him, and if they’re part of the ratz, than i’m ditz."

Gadget took the binoculars and examined the scene. "Chains!" Chip put his paw near her lips to remind her to keep it down, though over the pounding music it probably wasn’t necessary. She proceeded to fume more quietly, remembering Rat Capone, and the sewer palace affair. "we have to free those poor creatures! ohhh, i’m going to personally give that piece of sewer trash a swift kick in the cockpit…."

"problem. they’re chained to the throne and need freeing before phase three. plus, dale and foxy might try, rather than sticking to the plan." Chip gritted his teeth. The metal hull would have made Gadget’s ‘Ramawamadingdong’ radio inoperative, even if they could find space for the big base station transceiver in their backpacks. He wished Zipper was here as a relay, but Monty needed him to help with the other elements of the scheme.

Gadget thought for a moment. "The chains should provide no problems. I’ve got a cigarette lighter blowtorch down there that will cut through them in a jiffy."

Chip grimaced. The words ‘should’ and ‘no problems’ were never good. "Plus I won’t be up there to put the power back on."

"I’ll build a timed switch to do it instead. You can use my spare harpoon to get down there." she said as she tied off the back end of the harpoon line she’d loaded into her crossbow, onto the bracing.

Chip sighed then nodded. "Well, it’s not like we have a choice, let’s go!"

Gadget pressed a button on her radio controller.

<Station break again… Isn’t that always the way?>

Up on the roof, Foxglove and Dale were waiting by the roof exit for the Screaming Eagle, bags beside them. Gliding across from the wingtip had been easy enough, and both were skilled enough to make a landing without any bumps or thumps that might attract attention from below. They were waiting to start the next part of the plan, and Dale was getting antsy.

"C’mon, c’mon, when are we going to start…" he exclaimed, gesticulating wildly as he paced back and forth.

"Don’t worry cutie, Chip did say it’d take them longer to get ready. They have to walk all the way."

Dale peered down through the glass at the throne below, where Spike sat in state. The slave girls were out of eyeshot. "Now _that’s_ what I call a Rodent of Unusual Size."

Suddenly, the hatch popped open.

"Yes!" Dale bounded gleefully to the entrance and pulled several balls out of it. Foxglove was already holding two. "Bombs away!"

The two of them started hurling the things which smashed into the metal floor below and exploded into clouds of stinking smoke. "Taste Stink n’ Smoke bombs, foul miscreants!" Dale hollered, capering along the edge as he threw more.

This display drew attention from every mammal not rolling around on the floor with their paws over their faces. The smelly smoke carpeted the ground, and in billows at least half a foot high. With everybody’s attention fixed on the hatch Gadget had the perfect distraction to shoot. The harpoon plutted into the wall of a piece of machinery on the bench, and stuck forming a zipline that Chip and Gadget lost no time in sliding down.

Gadget moved fast. Locked cabinets opened before her deft touch, and within ten’s of seconds an odd, but useable contraption had formed under her paw-tips. By this time Chip had reloaded her plunger crossbow with a harpoon plunger and gotten the blowtorch from the cabinet she’d unlocked. The bad guys were just starting to rally, and a few of the tougher ones had started clambering up the ramp towards Dale and Foxglove, clutching various unpleasant weapons. Then the lights went out.

Chip guided himself along the wall and the various boxes by touch and remembered sight. Down below there were screams and running as the last semblance of order fell apart. Rather than create a second zip-line, he used the plunger harpoon to set the cable into the ceiling, working mostly by intuition. He quickly slid down and edged around the edge of the nose cone, holding the collar of his flight jacket across his nose and mouth

Meanwhile, Spike, by dint of shouting louder than the rest, was restoring some kind of order. "Stop runnin’ around like a bunch a’ bugs and lets get those fools! And get some lights on…"

This was at least partially obeyed, but not by any of the remaining Ratz. A pair of orange beacons mounted low on the wall under the workbench started up and a siren started wailing. There was a whine as a big blocky shape slowly sunk from the table above on an extending support. It rotated to as well, allowing them to see a big glazed pane and a half shadowed bulbous shape behind it. When it reached the floor, it pinged, and the front opened.

Gadget’s Battle-sphere, back lit by the light of it’s garage microwave, walked forward. Gadget’s voice, amplified, sounded across the space. "If you like my inventions so much, you big goon, try this one on for size!"

"That’s tellin’ ‘em!" an Australian accented voice called out. A pair of big mag-lights flashed on from the direction of the vehicle entrance, which had mysteriously opened during the panic. The lights were mounted on the Gyrotank, with Monterey Jack and Zipper at the controls. As soon as the lights went off, he’d raced the wheeled tank from their hiding place towards the hostage aircraft. The personnel hatch, and the tunnel beneath it were open, and clear of guards. The quiet whine of the hairdryer that pushed the Gyrotank had been lost in the commotion.

Dale and Foxglove weren’t idle during the blackout. Foxglove’s sonar sense kept her aware of exactly what was happening down there, and allowed her to fling projectiles with great accuracy as Dale handed them to her. The few goons who had tried to reach them quickly retreated under the blistering bombardment. The throne was quickly coated in the same highly sticky goo that Chip had immobilised the guard with. Of course Foxglove could also sense the two vehicles, and locked on Gadget’s "A real mecha! Cool! [Sugoi]" she exclaimed. "I hope Gadget lets me have a go!"

The lights came back up, and the two armoured mice went to work. Gadget used the gripping arm of her mecha to pick up individual goons around the edges and fling them at the throne. Monty had a different method, driving the Gyromobile right into the middle of the largest group of about eight, who scrambled frantically to get out of the way.

"Roight pally, lets make a few all day suckers!" the big Aussie mouse grinned.

"Zaye aye!" Zipper was hovering over some newly added controls, and flipped a toggle switch as half as big as he was. The hairdryer rotated to point straight up, mating with a new gasket on the roof of the Gyrotank, and went into top speed, drawing air in through the ring of plungers, and turning them into a set of powerful vacuums. Their effect was quickly felt as one, then another goon was sucked up onto the wheel that ringed the main body of the Gyrotank.

Monty moved the Gyrotank around a bit to catch all of them, while Zipper started jazzing another control. The gyro-ring started spinning back and forth, carrying the hapless villains with it. A magno-ray generator popped up out over the ring and relieved them of any inconvenient pieces of sharp and pointy metal as they passed underneath.

Zipper was staring down into a original Star Trek style periscope as Monty made some final adjustments to the position of the tank. "Zin line!" he buzzed.

"You may fire when you are ready, Mr Zipper!", Monty yelled.

The gyro-ring started to spin up to full speed. As each of the gangers came into a tangent line with the throne, Zipper released the pressure on their suction cup. One by one the goons were dropped onto the throne, and quickly glued to it by Foxglove’s precision gumballs.

Meanwhile Chip had sneaked up through the gantry behind the throne. The two serving girls had huddled up there where a couple of pitiful little piles of cloth scraps and paper made a resting place. There were also some trays now empty of food and half empty bottles. They were holding onto each other, the mouse was crying and the rat comforting her, and didn’t notice at first the chipmunk coming up behind them.

When the mouse did notice she gave out a startled squeak. Chip immediately put his paw to his mouth and drew down his mask. "Shhh! I’m here to rescue you. My friends are distracting them."

He quickly hung a loop of chain from the near the mouse’s manacle onto the gantry and fired up the cigarette lighter blowtorch. In seconds the chain parted. He started to do the same to the rat’s chain, but as he did, she yelped, "Look out!", and pointed behind him.

He spun and saw a female squirrel in an Iron Goose print t-shirt and slit skirt bearing down on him with a wicked looking carving knife turned scimitar. This dame had originally decided discretion to be the better part of valour, and running away to be the better part of discretion, but felt quite up to tackling a single chipmunk, even if he had a lit cigarette lighter. Chip back pedalled, thinking furiously. The lighter was useless as a weapon against her. Oh, if it even brushed her fur, or that long bushy tail it would scorch, but in the meantime she’d be making chipmunk fillets with her longer reach.

Seeing one of the discards of the party, he suddenly had a plan. He scooped up a bottle and took a big swig, then stood his ground. Sensing victory, the squirrel raced forward with a battle-cry, just as he sprayed out the mouthful of spirits right into the flame of the lighter, and side-stepped. The squirrel was engulfed in a fire, and stumbled out the other side with blackened fur and a lit tail tip, white eyes blinking comically.

The squirrel was down, but not out. She wheeled and swung at the chipmunk, but her aim was no longer so good, and Chip easily ducked underneath it, carrying the end of a cut chain. He looped it around legs and pulled, binding the legs together. She immediately did an impromptu impression of a tree in a logging area. Still having more toughness than sense, she tried to get up, only to receive a bonk on the noggin courtesy of a stick held by the rat.

Chip was surprised, but pleased. "Thanks. You’re handy with that Miss…"

The girl rat grinned. "Rebecca Hawthorne. Glad to help. I’m the pinch hitter on the neighbourhood little league team. I’ll take care of my chain, you go and help your friends."

Meanwhile, the battle wasn’t going all the Ranger’s way. The rabbit, Hip Hop had ducked behind a speaker stack when the imbroglio started. There he pulled out a nasty looking pellet gun, converted from a child’s potato gun, and hulking as large as a heavy rifle in his paws. He aimed up at the roof hatch to try and get one of the un-armoured targets.

The pellet was aimed at the loud one in black (Dale), but Foxglove’s sonar detected it incoming. She body checked him to one side, even as she called, "Dale! Look…" The pellet grazed her temple, just beside one of her great delicate ears, and she toppled and fell from the edge of the hatch. Dale reached for her and almost fell after her. "Foxy! Nooo!"

While dazed, she wasn’t completely out of it, and as she fell, she threw open her wings and controlled it, landing heavily upon one of the speaker stacks. The player had gotten switched off during the blackout and the speakers were quiet. Dale had grabbed his glider, knocking down one of the bags of ammo to hang on the peak of the ramp in his eagerness. He jumped off without strapping in and glided down just hanging on by his paws. He dropped down beside her, letting the glider drift on where it would.

He dropped down beside her and was shocked to see a pool of red forming underneath her. "Foxy-mitten, are you okay?"

The newest Ranger put one wingtip to her head. "Uhhh… yes, I think so, but I have a bit of a headache." She looked down. "Oh no!" Dale looked worried until she continued. "I landed right on my emergency sachet of ketchup."

Seeing that she wasn’t seriously hurt allowed Dale to regain some of his composure, but he was still mad at the bunny for beating on his bat belle and decided to give him a bashing. The rabbit was trying to reload his weapon as Dale appeared at the edge of the speaker, silhouetted by the lights above. The rabbit tried to shoot him, but this time Dale was ready and dropped as soon as he saw the gun raised. The shot thudded overhead

He reappeared. Foxglove was sitting up, silently cheering him on, so there was really only one thing he could say (in a Spanish accent of course). "Hallo! My name is Dale Oakmont. You hurt my girlfriend. Prepare to be seasoned!"

"Bring it, shortie!" the lapine layabout leered. He pulled out a trident, made from a flattened and sharpened fork. But Dale had already jumped, angling to land on the counterweight of the needle arm. He landed and the other end flipped up, catching the rabbit a daisy one under the jaw. This was followed up by simultaneously jumping and letting the counterweight come up as the rabbit lunged forward with his trident, dropping the arm on his head and poking him in the ear with the needle.

Dale landed on the rabbits head, squirted the remains of Foxglove’s packet in his eyes and scampering down his back to position his rapier right over the cotton ball tail. He poked down and jumped up at the same time, and with a yahoooie! the rabbit went ballistic, literally, arcing over the battlefield and ending up smacking head first into the Gyrotank. Dale of course had landed facing the other way, towards the wall, so Foxglove’s warning, "Cutie! Behind you!" was his first apprehension that things weren’t over.

Three goons had somehow escaped the main brouhaha, and were clambering up onto the turntable, all holding nasty, pointy painful weapons. "Awww! Three against one, that’s not fair!" Dale complained.

"We don’t do fair!" the mouse in the lead sneered.

"Uh uh, I mean, maybe I should do you all left handed, otherwise it’ll be too easy!" He took a stance right over the spindle.

Foxglove watched from above, worried. Despite his bravado, Dale could probably get seriously hurt if he took on three bigger opponents. Then she saw an opportunity. She dropped from the speaker stack like an avenging angel, if angels had leathery wings and clawed feet. She landed on the turntable controls, slammed the speed up to 78 and switched it on in a single movement.

Dale, in the centre and braced, was almost unaffected. The three goons however, were on the edge, and the sudden jerk put them off balance and flailing wildly. Before they could set themselves, they’d been spun round half a circle to where Foxglove hovered. she proceeded to show them some fancy footwork. Bap! Wham! Kapowie! Three strikes later there were three groaning, semi-conscious figures piled up behind the turntable. She switched it off and dropped down on the centre to hug Dale.

"Aww! Foxy, I coulda handled ‘em…" Dale said, but when she started to look crestfallen, he added. "…Probably, but I’m glad I didn’t have to. That was some quick thinkin’." He decided to lighten the mood with a quip. "I don’t know why they said they didn’t do fair. They made great carousel horses." This was accompanied by his most cheesy grin, which made her giggle.

Gadget had also run into some tough resistance, to whit Spike. He had ducked away, only to come out from one side with a chunk of metal the size of his head that he lobbed like a shot put thrower at her mecha. She parried with the spatula arm, but the paddle bent alarmingly before it sprung back into shape. He yelled and charged in, and Gadget quickly found herself fighting for her life.

His fists held off her manipulators, and dented the metal. But his steel shod tail did the real damage, striking like a snake at joints, feeling out weak spots. Two wheeled legs were quickly disabled, followed by her gripping arm. Then his tail drew back and slammed into the small direct vision porthole in the front of the sphere. The glass starred, and it was clear that a couple more hits would hole through allowing him to wreak havoc on the piloting compartment and it’s occupant.

It was at this point Chip intervened. He’d seen the last part of the duel and immediately picked up a rod of metal. He quickly discarded it as from the thickness of his skull and bulging columnar neck, this guy would probably shrug off any swipe he could inflict. Monty couldn’t ram because the gang leader was too close to Gadget’s Battlesphere. But he had to do something. Then he had an idea. It was risky, off the wall and had several other things in it’s favour.

As the tail whipped back for another strike, Chip dashed from cover and headed right for the back of Spike. The rat ignored his progress, clearly thinking that one unarmed chipmunk couldn’t be a threat. Chip jumped and landed just short of the rat’s huge backside, then bent and grabbed the root end of Spike’s tail, holding onto a section between two paws. Then he bent forward and bit with all his jaw power.

The rat immediately forgot all about the Battlesphere, jumping up and whipping around with Chip waving like a flag. The rat hauled him off and threw him away like a baseball. Chip was flung to the front of the plane, and skidded just short of the glass. He hurt, but he was glad. Not only had he diverted the bozos attention, but he had landed in a good place. He had needed to get to the gantry, but right around the base at the far end a sort of mini-dump had accreted from lose debris that had failed to be ejected by the launcher system. Landing in that would not have been fun.

"Rrrraaaggggh! I’LL ROAST YOU! I’LL TEAR YOUR TAIL OFF AND FEED IT TO YOU!" Spike had totally lost it, and was racing towards him like the wrath of a particularly unpleasant god. Chip sprung to his feet, ignoring the pain signals from various parts of his body as they disagreed with the move. He scrambled up the side of the gantry, finally getting over and onto the track-way.

He looked down. Spike was following. Time to increase the boiling point. "At least my tail will probably taste better, you lame excuse for a bandit!" Chip made a spitting sound, and moved something from his jacket to behind his back. "I’m gonna need an entire bottle of mouthwash after this is over…whoa!" He jumped back as Spike hauled himself over the edge of the ramp, turned and ran up towards the peak.

Gadget had activated the door release on her servo-armour and scrambled down even as it still unscrewed. It was safe enough, since the rest of their opponents were either stuck to the throne, or hors d' combat in other ways.

She watched with growing worry as the big rat chased Chip up the ramp. Her mind had automatically calculated factors of muscle mass and leverage and the result matched with the resistance he'd put up to the Battlesphere. If Spike got his hands on Chip, he could _really_ rip him in two. The leader of the Rangers did know a bit about in-fighting, and had spent some painful hours getting Monty to teach him more, but against this behemoth, his training would be as much use as a three way riffle-sprocket in a polarising flange assembly. And Chip was even taunting the giant...

She suddenly realised what he must be trying to do. She pressed a button on her remote. The section of flooring that held the throne dropped into a recess that had once held the guts of controls for the bomber, and now held the trash compactor. There were some mechanical whirrs and clunks and after a few seconds the floor popped back up with the whole group of goons squosed up in a big ball. Due to hyper-elastic deformation, none of them were hurt, but they'd have some serious aches and pains when they got untangled.

Up above, Chip had reached the very top of the ramp, and was looking around, even as Spike stormed up the runway behind him. Then the whole peak disappeared in a cloud of stinking smoke. She bounded forward, just as an object fell out of the cloud and smacked into the ground below the peak. The smoke cleared to show Spike standing at the very peak of the ramp, roaring victoriously.

"An' I'll lay all your little friends out beside ya!"

Gadget's heart skipped. But that meant... She punched a button on the control with a grim expression. "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, YOU... YOU!"

From the heights of the roof a pool cue swung down, held level by a pair of parallel struts. About halfway down the firecracker rockets she'd attached ignited, giving a JATO assist to gravity. The point slammed into the struggling ball just as the firecrackers banged, giving their last joule of energy to its strike.

The ball shot up the ramp as if jet propelled, carrying the big rat off the end of the ramp and out through the Screaming Eagle's launching hatch. Gadget ignored this, racing towards the flooring below. Once again her calculations suggested something she didn't want to accept. Chip was... hurt, (she wouldn't use the more appropriate word), and that hurt inside her as deeply as when her father...

Her mind thought it's way through the pattern of logical inferences, and since it was an exceptional mind it could do a lot of thinking in a very short time. When she first joined up with the two chipmunks she'd been somewhat clueless but not completely oblivious about what was happening. She'd recognised that they were both flirting with her to some extent, but accepted it since similar things had been happening ever since she'd started blossoming out. Actually it was kind of sweet. At least neither of them had been obnoxious about it, unlike some of the visitors after her fathers death.

She hadn't taken it seriously, since Dale flirted with almost any female, and Chip seemed as dedicated to his crimefighting as she was to engineering. That was why she had been so devastated when she'd thought she could no longer contribute during the Cola Cult business. She had so few real friends that thinking she'd lost her only reason for being with them had hurt terribly. Though Chip had tried to stop her, come to think of it, but then had to stay and help with Myron. She should have stayed too, and listened.

Soon after Dale met up with Foxglove, and his flirting diminished. Chip's obvious approaches had too. Indeed, his whole manner seemed to change after the Giant Pearl incident and the tap dancing penguins. He’d started visiting the library and then getting less bossy, and more considerate. For her, he was simply there when she needed someone to talk to, or search through junk piles with. For someone with such a limited technical education, his questions had been surprisingly intelligent and some of his ideas for applying her devices ingenious.

She suddenly realised how much she'd grown to rely on this calmer, more thoughtful Chip. He couldn't leave her now... She scampered forward on four paw drive, absently noticing that others were coming up behind her. This area, below the gantry, was dimly lit, because of it's shadow, and it took a few seconds to interpret the scene before her, both because of the dimness and the sudden watering of her eyes.

Whatever had fallen had smashed straight into the junk, splintering glass and wood. A fedora had floated down after it and hung up on a shard. Gadget immediately grabbed it and held onto it for dear life. The shards had had ripped and splashed the contents of the object, leaving visible splashes of thick carmine, vermillion and veridian and a fruity scent...

This was flagged up to Gadget's mind as something inconsistent and she took a second look. She realised with massive relief that it had to have been one of Dale's saddlebags, open and still half full of reworked gumballs which had splattered like paint balls on impact. Then something brushed her face, and she looked up.

Chip, minus fedora but still plus everything else was sliding down his homemade grapnel line, the end of which was right by her. He dropped lightly to the ground beside her. "That was perfect Gadget! You caught him at exactly the right..."

He was hit with a projectile mouse who then proceeded to emulate one of Foxglove's best hugs, sobbing onto his shoulder. His paws went around her back, carefully, as if holding the most fragile thing in the world. "Hey, it's okay. I know that goober did a lot of damage, but we'll have this place fixed up in no time, you'll see."

This made her look up in surprise. "You... dummy! That wasn't what I was crying about. I thought..."

Chip noticed her holding his fedora with the grip of death, and the mess. "Oh... you mean... Well it _was_ an accident. I dropped that stink n' smoke bomb to give myself cover while I hooked the grapnel to the frame below the ramp. As I jumped, holding the rope, I must have knocked that saddlebag off the projection it was on. The idea was to make him think he’d finished me, and put him in position for you. If anything the bag helped, but I never though anyone else would be watching. I’m sorry I caused you to worry."

"Golly…" she gulped, "I guess I overreacted. I’m sorry I cried all over your jacket." She sniffled.

Chip smiled gently. "I said it was waterproof, and there for crying on if you needed it."

That started her giggling, even as he offered her a handkerchief for the tears.

The rat Rebecca was watching, as were most of the other Rangers. "Darn! Why are all the good ones taken…" she muttered to the newly freed girl mouse beside her.

&&&

It was a few days later. Gadget looked out over her newly cleaned and refurbished home. The winter sunlight was shining in brightly no sign of the Ratz presence remained. They had been collected from the rubbish dump and a combined force of the locals and the Rangers had shown the disarmed, demoralised and defeated group the boundaries, and told them to get across it. Gadget had even made a trolley out of an abandoned skateboard so they could take their junk, including turntable and speakers with them. Spike had blustered and raged, but even he couldn’t have prevailed against the combined force.

Rebecca and Marie had been captured just the day before, while out scavenging for food. They hadn’t suffered any serious injuries, and quickly recovered. The neighbours had pitched in helping with the clean up too, including one girl rat who seemed to be hanging around Chip, much like Tammy, but not being as obvious about it. This gave Gadget odd feelings as if someone was using one of her designs without permission. Chip was however showing no signs of reacting to the kids blandishments, which was pleasing. Gadget had come up to the workshop ledge to go over her final engine designs and contemplate these odd new feelings.

She’d never considered herself a part of the lists of love (she wasn’t exactly sure what sort of list this was, or where it was written but suspected she wasn’t even a footnote). When she was younger, such romantic novels as were reprinted or published by small animal publishers just weren’t as interesting as Scientific Rodentia or Mouse Mechanics Monthly. The idea that she might be attached strongly to one person scared her, after how she felt on the loss of her father.

However, in response to her surprising reactions a few nights ago, she’d decided to treat it like a scientific phenomenon to investigate, something she did understand. One of her researches was into the phenomenology and apparent symptomology of romantic attraction. The nearest source had turned out to be Foxglove’s small collection of human girl’s comics from Japan [or shojo dojinshi as she pronounced it.]

It certainly seemed to be a lot of trouble, involving accidentally bumping into people on the street, and walking in on one another in the bathroom, and endless misunderstandings due to insufficient redundancy in communication channels, but well worth it if a successful application was achieved. She apparently had some of the symptoms, but was having great trouble reducing the problem into nice solvable equations as there were far too many unknowns.

Of course she also had Foxglove’s example. Her trial solution seemed to be effective, but she wasn’t sure the same methodology would work between her and Chip. There were repeated injunctions about acting within her nature, and that wasn’t hers, or Chip’s. Plus she’d probably melt into a little pool of embarrassment at acting like that. The generalised problem appeared harder than a tenth order integral in six dimensions, but even more interesting than Fermat’s theorem (for which she’d found a general proof before her teens). Even her specific case might take a lifetime to investigate.

"Well hopefully I’ll have an experienced investigator with me to help me investigate it." she said out loud.

"What’s that Gadget?" Chip’s voice called out from behind her. He was carrying a tray with toothpaste cap mugs and a her thimble thermos full of what had to be cold apple juice.

She blushed. "Oh … nothing. I was just double checking my engine designs. This is my masterpiece and I’m making sure that there are no ‘shoulds’ about it." Maybe this was the time to start her investigation of this new problem. "Would you like to help me? You have an eye for details, and organising things."

Chip’s happy expression in response gave her a warm little feeling inside. "Right now, I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing." he replied. The two of them sat in the sun, drinking apple juice and planning for tomorrow, when the real work would begin.

Onto Part Two

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