Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.
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The Fire Triangle
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Part Two:
Oxidizer
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Chapter 7-The Cascade Effect
(Cont'd...Part 6)
"It's him...we GOT him."
The voice was elated, feral-and menacingly guttural.
It belonged to an otter.
...Not a teensy little otter of the Emmitt Otterton variety, but a giant otter, a species from South America whose size lived up to its name, growing to nearly the size of a tapir.
And that wasn't the only difference between these otters and their smaller cousins. They were every bit as aggressive as they were big; in their native habitat they were known to take on monster catfish, caiman alligators, even anacondas. Had Emmitt Otterton been a giant otter, he wouldn't have needed a shot of Nighthowler to send Renato Manchas scrambling into the night with a damaged eye.
Giant otters also tended to run in packs; on their home turf they were sometimes referred to as Lobos de Río. Mess with one and you were messing with all of them.
The animal framed in the doorway was no exception. There were at least five other members of his species packed into the waiting room behind him.
There was also no mistaking him for anything but what he was; Kevlar vest and jungle-camo shorts, a beat up bush hat in midnight green, and a machete tucked into his belt, along with other various types of weaponry. Every square inch of his clothing was decorated with piratical symbols, cannons, muskets, swords, and the inevitable skull and crossbones. One decoration in particular, however, stood out from the rest. It consisted of a bright red jaguar skull, superimposed on a cross of bones, not the diagonal cross of the Jolly Roger, but straight-up vertical and horizontal crossbones. On either side of the emblem was a chalk-white, six-pointed star, each one given a quarter-tilt.
That was when Conor knew who had come to call on him; he was in the presence of the Deguellos, one of the most feared privateer gangs in the Canal District.
All at once, the three in front began crowding into the examination room-or that is, they tried to, becoming momentarily stuck in the doorway as they all attempted to push through at once. In that instant, they transformed briefly from the Terrible Trio to the Three Stooges.
Conor Lewis wasn't laughing; he was moving and moving fast. Snatching a pair of pellets from his backpack, he tossed them hurriedly in Erin's direction.
"Hide these, quick!"
Instead, she tried to ditch them.
"Wha...? Those are...!"
"Don't argue, do it!" the young fox hissed out the side of his mouth, and then his voice rose into a fox-scream. "Billy, DON'T!"
The young thylacine had been about to take advantage of the Deguellos' momentary plight with a black-jack he'd had stashed in his flotation vest. Incredibly, he chose to heed the silver fox's warning and back off-and it was a good thing he did, because right then, the otters wedged in the doorway managed to break free.
As the three of them came barging into the exam room, it became quickly obvious that the one in the center was the leader. He wasn't any bigger than the others, or any more muscular, but he carried an unmistakable air of authority.
Stepping to the forefront, he folded his arms, giving everything a quick survey.
His eyes remained focused on Conor for less than a second before they moved on...to the pair of young deer and the black bear, huddling in the corner.
"You...OUT!" he snarled, pronouncing the first word as 'Ju' and cocking a thumb at the door.
The three young mammals jumped instantly to their feet and went scuttling for the exit. As they beat their hasty retreat, none of them so much as glanced at the silver fox laid out on the examination table.
He didn't hold it against them; what the heck could they have done anyway?
"Not ju, El Tigre Tasmania," the leader snarled, blocking Billy's path to the door with his machete. "Ju stay here!"
"Cor, I weren't goin' nowhere!" Billy tried to protest...but the big otter just ignored him, instead turning his attention to Erin.
"Ju too, coneja blanca! Ju stay, too!"
"All right, all right," The young doe-bunny raised her paws, backing nervously away from him.
Meanwhile two more members of his crew were coming through the door. The first one held little interest for Conor...outside of the fact that she was the only female in the group.
That second one though; he wasn't the biggest animal either-but he was definitely the hardest, and easily the most heavily armed. In addition to a machete, he was carrying a tomahawk, two flash-bang grenades, a canister of pepper mace, a taser-flashlight...and strapped to one thigh, the piece-de-resistance; a short-barrel shotgun.
But it was the sullen look on his face that drew the bulk of the young silver fox's attention...mostly because it was directed elsewhere rather than at him. He filed that away for future reference, at the same time sending up a silent plea.
"Danny...if you were ever right about any of those things you taught me, please be right about THIS."
The Deguello leader, meanwhile, had become as jolly as a Pirate of Penzance.
"Heh, heh...what'd I tell you, socios?" he said, stashing his machete and letting out a belch of laughter, "Easiest 50 thou ever! An' right in our own backyard, too." He turned a beaming smile on the heavily-armed otter. "Somebody down there mus' like us, huh, Verdugo?"
The enforcer only grunted and shrugged indifferently. The rest of his crew, however, was a different story.
"You said it, Caz," the otter on his left sniggered, clapping him on the shoulder.
But not all of them...
"Hey let's collect the dinero first, before we celebrate, huh?" The female otter was also not laughing...and it brought the others instantly back down to earth.
"Yeah, Hechi's right." the leader growled. "C'mon lil' zorro, you're coming with us." He began to move in Conor's direction.
The young fox frantically threw up his paws. "Wait, hold it; listen to me. That 'wanted' poster's bogus. There's no reward out for me; you're wasting your time over here."
Caz only stopped and shrugged. "So...? Then it's two hours of our lives we don't get back, an' the ZPD owes us one. I can live with that okay."
He began to move forward again.
"No, please." Erin threw herself quickly between them. "Conor's sick...really sick; if he doesn't get to a doctor, he could die."
"Then we'll take him to a doctor." The big otter told her, once more in a jovial mood. Conor thought it was probably true; he wasn't any good to them dead.
But still the young doe-bunny refused to move...and so the big otter simply back-pawed her out of the way, sending her flying into sideways sprawl. At once, Billy came rushing forward, only to find his way blocked by a pair of crossed machetes.
Conor moved too, grabbing something from his backpack and popping it into his mouth. Too slow, and too obvious; Caz seized him by the throat, ramming his head deep into the pillow and snarling into his face.
"No, ju don't zorro golfillo; spit it out...now!"
The young fox responded with a choked snarl and an exposed fang..
And then he bit down hard and did as the otter told him...expelling a spray of dark-red liquid into the giant otter's eyes and mouth.
"Ai, you little...!"
Caz reeled back from the table, sputtering and wiping his face with his paws.
With hiss of fury he snatched the machete from his belt again.
That brought the female otter into it.
"No Jefe...they want him alive." She reached for his elbow but he batted her away with his other paw.
"You'd be surprised what ju can live through." he snarled, raising the blade high over his head.
But then it began to quiver...
...and then his paws began to quiver...
And then his machete went tumbling to the floor behind him, while he stared about the room with widening eyes.
"Wha....wha...what...?"
He was shaking all over now; his eyes were bulging and the whites were showing. His breath was coming in shallow gulps, and he was holding out his paws in front of him, as if pushing at an invisible wall. When he spoke again, the words came out as unintelligible gibberish.
"Ma...wha...mmmmm,mmm,mmmm...plea...hu...hu...huhhh...Ahh...I...Hmmm...wha...?"
He collapsed to his knees, trembling harder than ever.
Conor watched him for a moment with an indifferent expression...and then his eyes narrowed, and his lip curled upwards, exposing the other fang.
...and then he spat out just a single word.
"Boo!"
The effect was like throwing a firebrand into a powderkeg. Caz leaped to his feet with a terrified yelp, fell back down again, and ran screaming for the exit on all fours. He got as far as the door to the waiting room before two of his crew tackled him...and even then he continued to thrash and scream.
"¡Socorro! ¡Socorro! Help me! Let me go! ¡Déjame ir! ¡Socorro!"
"THAT'S for smacking Erin, stinkin' dirtbag." The smoldering young silver fox growled softly at the terrified Deguello leader, "And always remember...you asked for it."
That set off the female otter, Hechi. In the blink of an eye she had the young fox pinned to the table with a bolo knife at his throat.
"Little mocoso! Whad'ju do to him?"
She was furious...so furious that she didn't notice his paw was inside his backpack again.
"This," Conor croaked back coolly. And then, almost casually, pulled a dart rifle carbine from the pack and shot the heavily armed otter below the jawline.
Caught by surprise, he nearly pitched over backwards. When he came up again, he was rubbing at a deep-red smear on his neck and reaching for his shotgun. But before he could get a grip on it, he too began to shake uncontrollably and clutch at himself.
He wasn't the only one caught off guard. Startled by the silver fox's unexpected move, the female otter pulled the knife away for just a hint of a second. Before she could put it back again, the dart-gun was pointing right between her eyes.
"Drop it now or you're next; you know I'll do it."
Hechi didn't drop the knife but she didn't press it home either. Instead, she called out over her shoulder.
"Cobra, Tabú....get in here."
"I-I-I think they got problems of their own right now." the young fox told her, smirking. As if to emphasize the point, another scream came rolling in through the door.
"Aiiieeeee, SOCORRO!"
"And when that stuff hits your other buddy there, full force," Conor nodded at her shivering partner, "Trust me, you're not gonna be able to handle him on your own."
Still, she refused to back down.
"We got more socios outside." She hissed...and it was true, he could hear them crowding into the waiting room even now.
But HE wasn't about to fold either.
"And I got the only antidote to the stuff I gave your buds there," he snarled...in an unintentionally buzzy voice. Dangit, the medicines he'd been given were starting to wear off. He nodded over to where Billy was helping Erin to her feet-both of them were staring at him with shocked expressions. "You want it, you let us go...let us get to our boat and get outta here."
Her grip tightened around the knife handle. "Maybe we just take it off you!"
"And maybe your guys there will both be dead by the time you find it." The young fox sneered...the unfazed rejoinder of an animal with nothing to lose. Behind her, two more Deguellos were pushing into the room. "And no, I can't get all of you...but I can get you for sure and maybe one more."
It was the otter behind her that answered him.
"Okay...you give us the antidote, we let you go." He stepped out where the young fox could see him, lips pulling back revealing a long row of teeth filed into points and capped in gold, "but don't think we're gonna forget this, lil' zorro plata. You better believe we're gonna come looking for payback."
"Then that's what's gonna happen," Conor answered him, unruffled. "In the meantime make some room and make it now...or else both your buds are gonna die crying their eyes out." His right eyebrow arched upwards, forming an almost perfect crescent. "And I don't think that's how a privateer would want to go," he added softly.
The otter glared at him for a second and then stepped back, making parting motions with his paws, "All right everyone, move back an' let them pass."
His crew complied only grudgingly, but still they complied...all except for the female otter, who continued to stand her ground.
"You too, Hechi," the new otter in charge told her, pointing with two fingers for emphasis. "There'll be another time."
She moved, but not without a parting shot at Conor.
"If you double-cross us, lil' jerk..." She snarled, and drew a thumb across her throat.
"I won't," he answered flatly, "Erin...Billy, can you gimme a paw down from here? Billy, I'm gonna need you to carry my pack."
Outside the office, the sun had long since dipped below the horizon. All along the wharf, LED lamps were bathing everything in a stark, purplish light.
A few yards further on they found four more giant otters, standing watch over a quintet of souped-up speed-boats tied to the dock. All were either decorated with the logo of the Deguellos or flying their flag.
Two of them were RIBs...Zodyak style inflatables wrapped around a rigid hull. Another was what was known as a cigarette boat, a modified, stiletto-hulled offshore racer. The fourth vessel looked like nothing more than an oversized skiff...until you saw that it was fitted with six high powered outboards; a panga boat, the vessel of choice for contraband smugglers.
But the real eye-catcher was...good God, where the heck had they ever gotten THAT thing? She was a fully-restored Zhuk-class Sovikot gunboat, complete with a shielded gun mount up front. No actual weapons were showing, but there was no doubt in Conor's mind that she had plenty of firepower stashed below deck-and plenty of horse-power in the engine room.
Sandwiched in the midst of these monsters, Billy's boat looked like nothing so much as a toy dinghy. None of the otters were sneering though; they knew, better than most, the capabilities of a Super V-8 race-boat.
Erin insisted at first on riding up front, but Billy was having none of that-and neither was Conor.
"I need you in the back to cover our tail," he said, handing her the dart gun...which she promptly almost dropped, shaking her head violently
"No...no way."
"I reloaded it with tranq-darts, don't worry," the silver fox assured her under his breath, pressing the weapon back into her paw-and glancing tentatively at the faces all around them. Her hesitancy would not be lost on these otters.
She immediately tried to return it. "I-I don't know the first thing about how to shoot, Conor!"
Oh, great...the Deguellos wouldn't miss that either. He accepted the weapon back from her-but only for a moment.
"No worries, it's got a laser sight. Just touch the trigger like this." By way of demonstration, he aimed it at the nearest otter...who yelped and ducked quickly away when the pencil thin beam fell on his shoulder. "And then shoot when it paints your target," he said, passing the weapon back to her. Her paws remained closed and he lowered his voice. "You can do this bunny-girl. You took down Craig Guilford, you can do this too...I know you got it in you."
She almost snatched the dart-gun out of his hands, looking for a second as if she wanted to plant it in his skull.
"All right!" she snapped and then turned to Billy, "But how do I keep from falling out the back when you..."
"The stern," he corrected, tossing her a safety harness, "Clip that onto the engine mount, you'll be okay."
While the young doe bunny got herself secured, Billy helped his other passenger do the same. He then slipped on a full-face racing helmet, a long-snouted affair that gave him the appearance of a cyberpunk plague-doctor.
He had just finished buckling himself in when the substitute leader of the otters appeared.
"Hokay. we let you get to your boat. Now give us the stinkin' antidote!"
Conor cocked a finger and glared, "After we cast off...but first you and your guys lose your weapons-into the water, and right now!"
"Do it," the lead otter commanded...and a chorus of splashes followed.
"That won't hold 'em for long, mate." Billy muttered under his breath, as the engine rumbled to life. "They'll 'ave plenty more where that lot came from, stashed in their boats."
"I know." The young fox nodded grimly, "But it'll give us a second or two, anyway. Okay, cast off."
He was speaking to one of the otters, a scar-faced brute with only one ear who, instead of untying the mooring line, cut it with a swipe of his machete. Before putting the blade away, he drew it across his throat in an unmistakable gesture. Conor responded to this with a gesture of his own; throwing up his paws as if to say 'whatever.'
Then he turned and spoke to the bunny in the rear of the boat,
"Erin...tell 'em where you hid those pellets I gave you-but not the exact location."
She nodded and called out shakily through a pair of cupped paws.
"They're in one of the drawers in the exam room. They look like blueberries."
"Have your guys swallow 'em," Conor added, in a voice that was rapidly getting hoarse, "and don't get any of the juice on you. If that happens, it's your problem." And then his voice rose into a ragged fox-scream. "PUNCH it, Billy!"
The thylacine didn't need to hear it twice, not just putting the hammer down, but slamming it down.
With a deafening roar, the Superboat shot out across the water like a runaway missile, pressing Conor and Billy deep into their seats and making Erin supremely glad for her safety harness. From the dock behind them, puffs of CO2 smoke erupted, while lines of wet splatters went stitching across water all around them.
The otters hadn't thrown away ALL their ordnance.
Then a boat pulled away from the dockside behind them, one of the RIBs. And then the cigarette boat pulled out...and then every one of the Deguello boats was charging after them in hot pursuit.
Conor growled and slapped the side of his head.
"Aggggh, grrr...they must have found those Nighthowler pellets already."
"Either that," Billy answered tersely, "Or now they know where they are, they figure..." His eyes went wide and he turned to stare slack-jawed at the fox. "Waitaminnit, Night'owlers! Oi, y' gone barmy or somethi...?"
"Screeeow! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!"
Billy turned just time to see the weir pilings coming straight at them, and put the wheel over hard...a little too hard. As the racer banked hard to the right, it tipped upwards into a nearly vertical position. For three heart-stopping seconds, it seemed certain that the superboat would go flying into a barrel-roll...before it fell back against the water with a wet, slapping noise.
Conor shook himself and snarled.
"Smooth move there, Striper! Why don't we just give ourselves up right NOW?"
"Oi!" The Tasmanian Tiger snarled right back, letting his jaw drop open beneath the helmet, "Maybe yer'd like to trade places, then?"
"Maybe YOU'D like to get caught by those otter-jerks?"
"Cor, aren't you the ungrateful, little...?"
"Just shut up and drive the...!"
"Oh guys...guyyyyyyys."
It was Erin...and she was pointing at the channel behind them.
"Say hello to our little friends."
There were now a total of seven other boats chasing them.
And they were a lot closer than they should have been.
Billy came instantly back down to earth, all business.
"'Ang on mates, here they come!"
He kicked the throttle up another notch.
The boat didn't jump or even lurch forward; in fact there seemed to be no further acceleration at all.
But then Erin called out, "They're falling back."
Conor turned to look-just in time to see that the doe-bunny had spoken too soon. At that instant, two of the Deguello vessels broke free from the pack, closing on them at a slow but steady pace; the six-engine panga-boat and the cigarette racer.
The temptation to yell 'Can't you go any faster?' was practically overwhelming-except he knew that Billy was already running flat out.
So instead, he extracted the quad-barreled URSA pistol from his backpack, exchanging the loads for something more suitable to the situation. Even paired with Erin's tranq-dart carbine, it felt pitiful compared to the firepower the Deguellos were packing.
As if to illustrate this point, something flashed on the prow of the Panga boat and a tall, thin fountain of water burst upwards about six feet behind them.
"Holy foxtrot, they've got a grenade launcher." Conor barely kept it to himself. Okay, they wouldn't use explosive loads; they wanted him alive. So that round had been either a flash-bang, or a...
Another burst of light and another waterspout...much closer, only three feet away. The otters were getting the range; their next shot would be a direct hit.
Billy saw it too, and began weaving from side-to-side in a serpentine pattern.
Another flash bloomed and Conor fox-screamed, "Incominnnng!"
He and Erin threw their arms around their heads. A split second, the channel beside them exploded, showering them with murky water and leaving behind a stinging, acrid odor.
Gas-they were using tear gas grenades...wait, what?
It was barely audible over the sound of the engine, but...where was that chuffing noise coming from? Wait-the rear of the boat...
He turned...just in time to see Erin pull the trigger again. Well, at least she hadn't frozen up, but still... He raised his voice and fox-screamed. This time, it seemed to set the inside of his throat on fire.
"Not yet, they're still out of range. Wait till I..." he stopped, coughing hard, and saw her ears shoot up like antennae.
"Conor! Conor, are you...?"
"I'm okay," he croaked, too low for her to hear. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Wait 'til I give the word before..."
Before he could finish, the cigarette boat jumped suddenly forward, swerving around the panga and coming on fast.
"Okay, now's good!" Erin didn't seem to understand...until she looked over her shoulder and saw. She wheeled about fast and began firing. Annie Oxley she wasn't; even with a laser sight, her first few shots were all over the place. Nonetheless, they were having the desired effect. Their pursuers began dodging from side to side, attempting to avoid the incoming fire. Conor was unsurprised by this; her weapon was loaded with tranq-darts-but the Deguellos didn't know that. As far as they were aware, even a glancing hit from one of those pellets would set off an unstoppable panic-attack.
But the gap between them and the cigarette boat was still closing.
"Blimey...they must be running nitrous or summat." Billy observed, glancing quickly over his shoulder. He sounded remarkably collected, all things considered.
That told Conor he had a plan up his sleeve.
He'd better...two of the otters, big ones, were stalking towards the front of the cig boat. Swinging from the paws of one of them was a mean-looking grapnel-hook attached to a stout rope.
"Uhhh, Billy..."
Now, as he watched in horrified fascination the other otter leaned out over the bow tying the end of the rope to the Cig-boat's anchor chain.
"Billy-y-y."
And then he stood up again, readying something that looked like a big, mean, two-foot party-popper.
Conor groaned inwardly.
"Oh nuts; a Powler-Fouler!" A compressed-air weapon that fired a lead-filled bean-bag; much favored by bounty hunters. With a high-powered charge, it could...
"BILLY!"
"'Ang on, mate...should be on it any second."
Behind them, the otter with the grapnel was whirling it over his head.
"There!" Billy pointed and swerved left at a shallow angle, taking them up a long, narrow channel.
At once the superboat was plunged into darkness; there was no such thing as a street light in here.
It took only a few seconds for that situation to be rectified-but not in a good way. From behind, a blinding light stabbed out of the darkness, wrapping Billy's boat in a ghostly white sheet.
It was the cigarette boat, and it was hard on their heels.
Billy flipped on his own lights, illuminating nothing but a long dark corridor ahead of them. Behind the engine, Erin continued to shoot, firing blindly. And then she screamed as something bounced off the back of the superboat. The grapnel hook; they wouldn't miss a second time.
"C'mon, c'mon, where are yer, then?" Billy was muttering under his breath. Conor wondered what the heck he was talking about-and then he didn't want to know. Fifty yards ahead, barely visible in the running lights, a wall of solid concrete loomed.
Idiot Tasmanian tiger; he was taking them straight into a dead end...!
"No, he isn't, have some faith in your friend, dumb fox!"
But the wall was getting closer...closer...30 yards, 20 yards, 10... No, wait...there it was; a sharp left turn, right where the channel supposedly ended.
Billy chopped the throttle and spun a hard left, slewing the boat into a waterborne speedway turn. Ten feet above him a window opened, and an angry beaver leaned out.
"Hey, knock off that noise down the...oh, snap!"
He slammed the shutters closed just as Billy hit the gas again.
But he'd had to slow to make the turn and now the cig boat was right on top of them. Any second now, they'd....
Conor's thoughts were cut off by a noise like the breaking of a ginormous matchstick, followed by a sound that might have passed for the world's largest blender.
Even before he looked he knew. Much too long to make such a tight turn, the cigarette boat was hopelessly wedged in the canal-bend.
Billy was laughing his tail off. "Cor! I didn't think they'd try t' make it through that curve! Stupid bunch o' wan..."
"Conor! Billy!"
It was Erin and she was pointing upwards.
Conor looked and saw the grappling hook was skewered through the roll-bar, with the line peeling off at an alarming rate. The Deguellos had managed to get off a Hail-Mary throw before they crashed. He had to think...no, he had to move. It was too far up to reach and he was too far gone to climb. And when that line pulled tight...wait, NYLON rope; one chance!
Grabbing for the URSA pistol, he switched over to the third barrel and fired.
A splatter of black burst at the spot where the rope joined the grapnel; he had hit it, dead-on with an etching-fluid round...but would it work? That stuff would dissolve glass but what about Nylon?
He found out as the line pulled taut; the superboat snapped around sideways like a hooked fish heeling halfway over in the water. But then the rope parted, spinning the little speedster in a 360 degree pinwheel before she came to rest and went racing on smoothly across the channel.
"Cor, what was that?" Billy was casting his eyes about in jumbled confusion. Conor tried to point upwards, but then the question answered itself when they skimmed over a drifting log. There was no damage, but the superboat went airborne for a second, hitting the water in a belly-flop-and dislodging the grapnel from the roll-bar.
It fell straight down at Billy Mackenna. Conor saw him stiffen, heard him growl.
"Billy!"
"I'm okay; just speared me shorts is all."
His tone was not especially reassuring, but when the young fox looked...yep, one of the hooks had just caught him through a pocket. There was no blood, none that he could see any...hold it! What about...?
"Erin! Erin, are you all right?"
He got no answer...and when he looked, the white-furred young bunny wasn't there.
"ERIN!"
Her head popped up into view.
"I'm all right...but I lost the dart- gun under the engine."
Conor waved and gave her a thumbs-up; his voice was too spent for anything else.
The Tasmanian tiger next to him was another story.
"No worries, Sheila-bunny, we beat those blokes, didn't we? Next stop, Outback Isla..."
"LOOK OUT!"
They came roaring out of a side channel like a swarm of murder hornets, the rest of the Deguello armada. Conor realized at once what had happened; instead of following the cigarette boat into the trap, they had backtracked and pulled an end-run around their quarry.
And now they had it surrounded.
Instantly Billy found himself caught in a squeeze-play between a pair of RIB boats...pressing inward and trapping the smaller vessel like a cockroach in a padded vise.
Now the otter riding shotgun in the boat on the right side boat was leveling a Prowler-Fouler at Billy's head. Even with a helmet on...at that range, it would...
"Shut it down Tigre...now!"
Before the thylacine had time to react, they hit another piece of debris, not enough to send them flying, but enough to jostle the Degeullo's aim upward. In that instant, Billy snatched the grapnel free of his shorts and swung it in an overhead arc, burying the hooks in the RIB boat's port-side air cell and popping it like a beach-ball.
At once the RIB began to jink wildly, hitting against the Superboat before bouncing off and flying away to land belly-up on the water.
...But not before dumping the otter with the Prowler Fouler practically on top of on Billy. He lost the weapon as he fell, sending it skidding across the superboat's floor, but he had caught the Tasmanian tiger completely by surprise. Wrapping himself around the thylacine's head and neck he began to squeeze like a boa constrictor.
Billy tried to fight him off, but he could only use one paw, having to keep the other one planted on the wheel.
Then, all of sudden the Deguello went limp, sliding off the Tasmanian tiger and into the water with a ragged splash.
When Conor looked, he saw a breathless Erin with the tranq-dart pistol in her paws. Say what you want about this bunny-girl, she was not one to lose it in a pinch.
But now, he saw that he had problems of his own. On the superboat's right, the gunner in the second RIB boat had seen what happened and was grabbing a taser. Unfortunately, he had the driver between him and his target.
Bad luck for him, but not for Conor; leveling the URSA pistol, he switched to the second barrel and fired-sending a point-blank burst of hard rubber marbles into the pilot's head and neck.
The otter yelped and his paws flew off the wheel...and then the second RIB was flying across the water in a flat spin, crashing stern first into a piling and ripping one of the engines clean off its mount.
"Billy go!" the young fox cried-as if that was even necessary. The Tasmanian tiger had hit the throttle even before he started speaking.
Okay, they had dodged out of that one-but now the Degeuellos were really mad. He heard Erin scream again, and when he looked, he saw something happening on the bow of the gunboat and-holy foxtrot!
"Billy look out, they've got a harpoon-gun!"
The thylacine took his word for it, "Blimey O'Riley; 'ow'd they ever get hold of one o' those things?"
Conor didn't know; there was a lot he didn't know. How accurate was a harpoon-gun; what kind of range did it have? He'd heard something once, about...exploding harpoons? Was that what they were loading? One thing, at least, was for certain; explosive charge or none, if that thing hit them, it would snap their boat in two like a fortune-cookie.
Billy stopped his weaving and began to run straight. From the back he heard Erin's shrill voice, "What are you DOING?"
The Tasmanian tiger ignored her, speaking to to the fox beside him instead, "Gimme the word when they're 'bout to let loose!"
Conor understood, grabbing for his back-pack and pulling out his mini-binoculars. When he raised them to his eyes, he saw only a giant blur-and no amount of rolling the focus knob seemed to help.
"Mate!"
"Hang on, I'm trying!" His words came out like a mouthful of rough gravel. And now he could feel his chest getting tighter and tighter.
He took a breath, screwed his eyes shut and tried again.
There, yes, now he could see them...no he couldn't, his vision had gone fuzzy again. A loud bang sounded in his ears. They had fired; no they hadn't. His vision cleared again and he saw a big mean otter, pointing a finger and drawing a thumb across his throat. And then he turned and shouted something to the gun-crew...just as Conor's vision blurred again.
Dangit, no choice... "Billy, NOW!"
The Superboat jinked to the right just as the harpoon blasted from the cannon making a sound like a rupturing steam-pipe. Now Conor could see, and...Oh no, they had swerved too soon; the otters had been able to adjust their aim.
As he stared, mesmerized, the harpoon seemed to be coming straight at them-straight at HIM, right between the eyes. He threw his arms around his head; heard Erin screaming just as the projectile came crashing down on them.
It nicked the side of the superboat as it passed, burying itself in the water below, heaving them upwards like a giant paw when the warhead exploded, six feet beneath the surface, and dropping them down again.
Conor snatched up his binocs and looked ahead. The channel was rapidly getting broader, allowing the Deguellos' boat to spread out into a phalanx.
When he focused on the gunboat, his vision fuzzed over once again-but not before he saw the otters reeling in the harpoon line, at the same time loading another one. He turned to inform Billy...and saw a bend in the waterway up ahead, not as sharp of a turn as that last one-but it would require him to chop the throttle if he didn't want them to flip over.
Billy slowed into the turn; Conor gritted his teeth, waiting for the report of the harpoon cannon.
It never came, but as they rounded the bend they found themselves face to face with another privateer task force-and it was coming straight at them.
Billy groaned, Conor whimpered, and Erin began to sob. Where the heck had the Deguellos managed to get all that mammalpower?
Ahhh, who cared anyway? They were finished; there was no way out of...
That was when the fugitive young silver fox saw it; the oncoming boats were painted in a uniform mint-lime green. And flying from the masthead of the lead vessel was a banner emblazoned with that looked like a green bow-tie.
He leaned over, rapping Billy on the shoulder.
"Those aren't Deguellos; they're Chaungs!"
Conor felt as if he had practically no voice left. There was no way to know if the thylacine had heard him.
But then the Tasmanian tiger swerved and punched the throttle, heading straight for the onrushing flotilla at full tilt. In the back, Erin shrieked, "Wha...? What, are you crazy?"
She liked what he did next even less. As the superboat went streaking into the heart of the convoy, Billy backed off on the engine slightly, while Conor struggled shakily to his feet.
Compared to the Deguellos, the Chaungs were a motley band; he counted seven different species before he found himself swallowed up in the brilliance of not one, but two big spotlights.
The effect was all he could have hoped for. At once the animals on the green-painted boats began pointing and talking rapidly amongst themselves.
...And that was Billy's cue to hit the gas again.
As the superboat went powering through the rear of the Chaung task force, several of their boats attempted to wheel about in pursuit...just as the Deguello flotilla came flying around the canal-bend-with no time to stop before they hit.
What followed next was a maelstrom; perhaps a third of the Chaung boats were turned broadside when the otter fleet plowed into them. Metal shrieked, wood and fiberglass splintered, air-cells popped like paper bags. The worst of the damage was done by the Deguellos' gunboat. After capsizing a Chaung trimaran, it cut one of their panga-boats clean in half, "just like with scissors," as one of the crew later put it.
And then the screaming started; screams of anger rather than anguish-so loud that Conor could hear it over the engine, even at a distance.
...and then the shooting started. That, he couldn't hear-but he could see the muzzle flashes.
Erin was able to both see and hear. "Why are they...?"
"Don't LIKE each other, Sheila-bunny," Billy answered from the driver's seat, "Never 'ave."
"To put it mildly," Conor thought, but didn't say. Truth be told, the Chaungs and Deguellos hated each other's guts.
But then he spotted something and began waving frantically for the bunny to turn around.
When she did, she almost screamed. Not all of the privateer boats were engaged in trying to blow each other to bits. At least eight of them had broken free of the melee, and were coming after them-including the gun boat, and...
Ohhhh foxtrot; now theirs wasn't the ONLY V8 superboat in the chase. The Chaungs had one...no, make that two of them in pursuit.
And both of them were faster than Billy's boat.
Something buried itself in one of the fins, a short, ugly arrow-a crossbow bolt.
Yeah, that figured; this particular privateer gang was noted for preferring traditional weapons over the more modern stuff.
They were also renowned for their exceptional skill with those weapons. A long minute later, a second bolt went whizzing past Billy's head, so close, the feathers brushed against the side of his helmet.
It wasn't a miss, but a warning-shot...and the Chaungs were still gaining.
For a long, tense moment they held their fire. "What the heck are they waiting for?" Conor wondered with amazement? He found out when the first superboat pulled up alongside them.
"You have GOT to be kidding me!"
"All...right..." the sloth with the crossbow droned, leveling the weapon at Billy's head, "kill....your engine..."
Hmmmm, so THAT was why he hadn't fired a third shot.
"...right...now...before...I..."
That was as far as he got before a green splotch bloomed on his neck and his eyes rolled upwards into his head. He wasn't the only one who'd been taking his time. The difference was that Erin had been biding hers; keeping out of sight and waiting until she could get off a clean one.
As the first sloth began to fall backwards in slow-mo, the one in the cockpit hit the afterburners, attempting to get in front of Billy and cut him off. Erin tagged him on the back of his arm, and at first the tranq dart seemed to be having no effect; the Chaung boat just continued to pull ahead of them.
Until, all at once, the engine cut out, and it fell quickly back behind them. The pilot had managed to kill the throttle before the tranquilizer overtook him.
Dang....for someone who'd never fired a weapon before today...Erin was one seriously fast learner. Of course, she'd been shooting at nearly point-blank range, and with a laser-sight to assist her but still...
Now the other Chaung superboat was coming up next to them-and this one wasn't crewed by sloths. It had a fishing cat for a pilot-and a Sumatran tiger in the gunner's seat.
And he was toting a nasty-looking weapon, a blackpowder gun with a barrel as thick as a drain-pipe and a muzzle shaped like a dragon's head. Oh foxtrot, a blunderbuss! He wouldn't even need to aim that thing to cause serious damage, just point it in their general direction and pull the trigger.
But first, he'd need to get close enough...and with an antique weapon like that he'd only have one shot.
Conor checked the URSA's magazine. WHAAAA...? He should have had two rounds left, not just one-and that one shot was only a flash-bang. Aggghhh, grrrr.. it would have to do. He cocked the weapon and held it out of sight, waiting. He'd have a two-second window at best.
Closer...closer...c'mon, get in raaaange....hit him!
He raised the URSA and fired...but as he did, his paw began to shake and his vision blurred. He didn't see the discharge, only heard it. The shot went clean over the top of the Chaung boat, and hit the water on the other side. The tiger saw it and began waving to his pilot-get in closer and get in NOW!
But then Erin popped up and fired the tranq gun-again, at a range where she couldn't miss. But she did anyway because nothing came out of the barrel, except a jet of CO2; her magazine was empty.
And now the tiger was in range. Conor could only watch helplessly as he raised the blunderbuss and homed in on Billy, his finger tightening inexorably on the trigger.
Something smashed into the Chaung boat's engine from above, drilling it clean through the floor and exploding underneath a second later, tearing the hull to shreds like a kid with a Christmas package.
A harpoon! The Deguellos were still in the game. Had they mistaken the Chaung boat for theirs, or had it been deliber...?
"Never mind, they're reloading!"
Yes they were, but before they could finish, the Chaungs unleashed a hail of slings and arrows on the otters; payback for their destroyed superboat. As Conor and Erin watched in panicky amazement a free-for-all erupted in their wake; Chaungs and Deguellos trying to blow each other out of water...all the while still in pursuit of their quarry.
All around Billy's boat shots were stitching the water. Something flew over their head, hitting the channel two meters ahead of them; a bolt the size of a tent-pole.
None of the three runaways said anything but all of them knew. One good hit on the engine and they were toast.
Conor was the first to come out of it. Snapping open the URSA, he reloaded with trembling paws, taking twice as long as he should have, and then motioning for Erin to toss him the tranq gun so he could replenish her ammo supply as well. She did, but when he caught the weapon, it stung his paws like an angry nun's ruler.
It seemed to take forever to pull the magazine and even longer to jack in a fresh one. When he tried to toss it back to the doe-bunny, it landed right on top of the engine. Without thinking, she jumped to grab it and screamed as her arm was burned.
"Oh God, sorry!" Conor called as she fell back again. But when she got up, the look on her face wasn't angry-it was worried.
Rounding another bend they saw a wide lagoon spreading out in front of them. Was that good or bad-and where were they, anyway? Conor's mind refused to answer; he could only hope they were going the right way. On the far left he thought he could see the towering steeples of dockside cranes, swaddled in pale blue light.
The next thing he saw was another fleet of boats, coming in from that direction. What...? Oh no, not MORE bounty hunters! And who the heck were these guys? Conor raised the binoculars, expecting to see nothing but gray fuzz. He didn't, but he didn't get an answer, either. What, now? Whoever these animals were, they weren't privateers. None of their boats were sporting the tell-tale paint-jobs or flying the appropriate banners.
That was all he saw before his vision went fuzzy again...but not so much that couldn't see ANYTHING...what the heck, the newcomers' boats appeared to be...shedding?
It was Erin who clarified it for him...and for once, her words carried above the noise of the engine. "Billy, look out, they're launching drones!"
She was answered by an exasperated growl. "Crikey, bloomin' aircraft carriers! What's next; submarines?"
Conor was tempted to remind the young Tasmanian tiger to be careful what he wished for... and he might have, except the first wave of drones was already swarming in on them.
But then they just held their distance, keeping pace with the superboat, and waiting for...for what?
A short moment later, one of them zoomed in closer. Conor couldn't see it, but he knew it was there...and he also thought he knew why. He immediately turned away and ducked, throwing his arms around his head to hide his appearance.
Erin saw it...and if the silver fox up front had been able to hear her he'd have caught her muttering. "Wha...seriously? That thing's a piece of junk!"
But then the drone pulled back and dove hard at the superboat.
Now Conor could see, and now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows.
"Oh, puh-LEEZE! What the heck do you think THAT little thing's gonna...?"
He got his answer when the drone hit the roll-bar, bouncing off-and then exploding.
"Ohhhh, foxtrot!"
Another one came buzzing down on them. It struck dead center in the superboat's hood, exploding on impact as it hit. Luckily, it carried a much smaller charge than its predecessor. There was no hole; only a dent and a scorch mark.
Yay, them....but if that thing had hit the engine-and look out, here comes another one!
As if it had heard the silver fox's thoughts, the third drone was zeroing in on the engine compartment. But this time he was ready, leveling the URSA pistol, he fired a scattershot load at the oncoming miniature aircraft. He saw it only as a fuzzy outline, and managed only a glancing blow, but that was enough. The drone went into an instant spin, impacting a good ten feet in their wake.
The next one tried a different approach...coming in low over the water like a cruise-missile.
It might have worked...except Billy saw it coming and swung the superboat in a hard S-curve...triggering a wave that swamped the drone and sent it to sleep with the fishes.
"Ha, gotchyer!" The Tasmanian tiger raised a triumphant fist-but when he glanced over at Conor, he saw the silver fox with his face buried in his backpack.
"Oi! Whad'yer DOIN' there?"
Conor pretended not to hear him; actually, he didn't need to pretend.
"Dangit, where IS that thing? I KNOW I have another one; I have at least three more at home, so.... So, where the fox are you? Wait...I brought THAT with me? Wow, can I ever use...later, later! Ohhh, don't tell me I don't HAVE it...Aggggh, grrrr, if I could only stinkin' SEE! Wait, there...got it!"
He yanked the device from his pack just in time to see another drone come hurtling down on the engine...too close, too late to do anything.
"Ohhhh, why didn't I...?"
But then the drone jinked suddenly sideways and went cartwheeling into the water.
And then there was Erin with the dart-gun again.
"Whoa, is the same bunny-girl who didn't even want to touch that thing when I...? SHUT UP AND GET TO WORK."
Conor seized the gadget he'd taken from his backpack, working it with his thumbs. He couldn't see the switches and buttons but he remembered...and it was a simple device to operate. Okay, power on, bandwidth detector on...
"Oi, 'Ere comes another one!"
...frequency locked annnnd...HIT IT!
The wave of noise from the GPS Jammer hit the cloud of drones like an invisible Tsunami. Without the aid of a satellite signal, it was impossible for the operators to control more than one of them at a time. Two of the miniature aircraft collided, three more dropped like flies, and the rest began to swarm around aimlessly, as if they'd suddenly contracted dementia.
All, that is, but one...a big, black, eight-rotor drone that could have passed for a king-size, flying tarantula. And now it came screaming down on the superboat in an almost vertical dive.
And there was no way to stop it, not this time; he couldn't, and neither could Erin. It was going to hit the engine.
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Well, it looks as if Conor and his friends have bitten off a lot more than they can chew. Will they still somehow manage to get away...or will they be captured and turned over to the ZPD? Will they even survive to be caught? And what about that guy over there, ranting "not ANOTHER cliffhanger?" Lastly, did I remember to put my cell-phone on the charger? The answers lie ahead in our next exciting episode:
Our Flag Means Depth
Or
Who Let The Docks Out?