Path Into The Darkness

Grune and Kalin spent their last day in Serilune (and a good portion of the evening as well) in a deep sleep. The physically taxing nights of the Hunt had taken a toll on their bodies, one that was repaid by a day of rest before their return to the capitol. They checked out of the inn and left later that evening. Grune wasn't thrilled about going back into "civilization" after his intense experience in Serilune, but he didn't complain. He now felt more invincible than ever, which meant that he wouldn't have to worry about taking too much crap from Kalin's associates.

They arrived at the club sometime in the late evening, about five hours after sunset. The place was crowded, as usual, and there was a rowdy crew of Lunatacs in the back chugging down vile, strong liquor at an alarming rate. When he walked in with Kalin, he got a few surprised looks, but most of the regulars had gotten used to seeing Grune. Many didn't particularly care for him, but they were used to him. Besides, if Luna was okay with him being around, most of them were too. Despite her tiny size, most were intimidated enough by Luna's reputation (and Amok) to stay off her bad side.

Grune and Kalin made their way toward the bar, where RedEye and Torlei were having some sort of discussion. Their conversation halted as soon as the sabertooth and the huntress neared. "Well, well, look who's back," Torlei said, her expression calm, yet unreadable.

"Yes, now you can start the party," Kalin replied with a sly grin. "I take it nothing fell apart in my absence?"

RedEye stretched and threw his feet up on an empty bar stool next to him. "Nope. Seems you're not as indispensable as you think," he remarked. He looked to Grune. "I see you survived hanging out with the hunters."

Kalin noticed a dark look passed across Torlei's features for a brief moment, as Grune addressed RedEye's comment. "Nothing I couldn't handle. In fact, they're quite a fascinating group."

"That's one way to put it," Torlei mumbled.

She was unable to say anything else before a shrill voice from behind interrupted their conversation. "So, Kalin, Grune, you're back," Luna greeted them, sitting atop her tank of a bodyguard as always.

"Good news travels fast," Kalin answered with a cordial smile. "We just barely got in."

"Good, then you haven't had time to get involved in anything. I need to talk to you, and you too Grune. You two might as well join us as well," Luna said to RedEye and Torlei. "You may want to find TugMug, Alluro, Stelthor, and Chilla too. This is going to be a big operation, and I want all my most skilled people in on it."

"Stelthor's out," RedEye told her. "He's been pretty scarce lately, I thought you might have had him up to something. Chilla was around about fifteen minutes ago though, and I think TugMug and Alluro are in one of the back rooms taking care of that task you told them to earlier."

Luna tapped her toe impatiently against one of Amok's massive horns. "I didn't send Stelthor to do anything. And Alluro and TugMug should be finished by now, so go find them and Chilla and meet in my back office within 20 minutes. This matter will have to be kept private, and it's important, so don’t hold me up." She then prodded Amok to take her out of the room, leaving the group of them there at the bar.

"I guess we have our orders," RedEye said with a less-than-impressed shrug.

"We still have to put our things upstairs, so you two can find the others," Kalin said. "See you in Luna's office."

Torlei nodded. "I'll go track down my brother and TugMug. RedEye can find Chilla. We might as well get in there and find out what all this fuss is about."

"Later," Grune told them, and picked up his bag. He grabbed Kalin's too, while she led the way back to her quarters. On the way he wondered what Luna wanted, and how it involved him. She had looked at him as though it were something he would play a key role in. That intrigued him-- though he didn't like the idea of working for her on a general basis. Personally he found her voice to be amongst the most grating he'd ever heard, and thought she was little more than a middle-aged spoiled brat who used her goon and influence to get everyone to follow her orders. He did not intend on being a flunky of hers for very long. He was destined for greater things, his own conquests, as was Kalin. He wondered why she didn't seek out more for herself. Perhaps awakening that desire in her, as she had opened his eyes, would be his gift to her in return.

They dropped off the bags and stretched for a few minutes. Kalin changed her shirt and glanced at the time. "Hmm, wonder what Luna wants," she said. "I guess we better head down there before she comes looking for us." She rolled her eyes slightly. She was used to Luna "summoning" her by now, and found it somewhat amusing. When her tantrums weren't focused on her, Kalin got quite a laugh out of most of her employer's quirks.

Grune nodded and headed for the door, with Kalin behind him. She locked up her (or now, their, as they had been sharing it since Grune had come back to the Third Moon of Plundarr) room and the two of them headed into Luna's office. Luna and Amok were in the center of the room, in front of Luna's desk, while Chilla and RedEye were sitting in chairs watching the door impatiently. Grune and Kalin waited by the door, and a minute or so later Torlei came in, followed by Alluro and TugMug.

Luna indicated for TugMug to lock the door, which he did. She prodded Amok to step forward and addressed them. "Now, I'm sure you're all wondering why I called you all in here."

"Yes," Chilla spoke up. "What's going on?"

"I called the six of you in here--" she looked over the faces of her fellow Lunatacs "--and Grune, because you are my most skilled operatives. I have something very big planned for all of us, one that will give us unthinkable wealth and a great deal of power."

"Another raid?" TugMug asked with interest. He liked raids. Raids meant riches, valuables, and all sorts of goodies, sometimes even slaves.

Luna smiled evilly. "Not just any raid… I'm talking a strategic strike that will not only give us a large material payoff, but will establish a base of operations in a place that is ripe for the taking, one that until now was defended too well to be worth our efforts. We're going to stage an assault on a Thunderian province and take it over."

"On Thundera?" Grune said, somewhat surprised. Both Lunatacs and Plundarrian Mutants had tried such attacks in the past, but the Thundercats always defeated them before they got too far.

"Yes," Luna continued. "You, Grune, will be our key to success in this operation. You were once a Thundercat, so you know their secrets and their strategies. You know the weaknesses of such legendary pains in the ass as Jaga, Claudus, Firestripe, Tessana, and the newer ones, and can show us how we can use those weaknesses against them. With your inside knowledge combined with our power, there is no way that they will be able to stop us, especially if we get in there and take it over fast enough."

Grune frowned slightly and thought about her suggestion. "And what would be in it for me if I did? Leaving the Thundercats to come here is one thing… but doing something that would betray citizens I once called my countrymen is another. I'm afraid you'll have to give me some incentive to help you, other than the privilege of doing you a favor," he said, with rising sarcasm on the last phrase.

"I didn't expect you to help me for nothing, Grune. Unlike the do-gooders of Thundera, here on the Moons of Plundarr it is expected and understood that we not simply ‘do favors’, at least not without expecting something in return. I was prepared to make you an offer, Grune, and it will be a tempting one indeed. Once the target area—the southern mountainous province of Thundera known as Gatoria—is successfully conquered, control of that base of operations will revert to you and Kalin."

"What?" Torlei hissed, shooting Luna, as well as Kalin and Grune, an angry glare. "Luna, I've worked for you longer than both Kalin and the sabertooth put together. I deserve that position of power!"

"Yes, why them? Why not one of us?" Alluro asked, giving Luna the same look of displeasure his sister wore.

"Yeah," echoed TugMug, raising his gravity carbine in Luna's direction. "You're putting a cat before one of us? What gives?!"

"Maybe because she knows we won't screw it up, unlike you," Kalin remarked.

"Calm down," Luna snapped. "First of all, I do not need to explain my decisions to any of you. You work for me."

"Lunatacs are free agents!" growled RedEye.

Chilla stood up and stepped toward Luna. "He's right," she continued in a challenging tone. "We might work for you, but we're paid mercenaries, not slaves. And if we don't like how you're treating—"

Amok swung a fist in Chilla's direction, assuming her advancement toward Luna was a threat. The icy Lunatac jumped back, knowing that any fight with Amok, whether she could freeze him before he beat her senseless or not, was not a good idea. "SILENCE!" hollered Luna. "If you don't like how I treat you, you're more than welcome to walk out that door and find someone else willing to hire you for your, shall we say, unique services, for the amount I pay you. But you won't… because you know better. So I suggest you all just shut up and listen, instead of squabbling like a bunch of two year-olds over who gets the last cookie in the jar, and let me finish outlining my plan."

The group fell silent and turned their attention to Luna once more. "Now, as I was saying, once we've secured Gatoria, Grune and Kalin will oversee and defend our position there. As I said before, Grune, that is what your reward will be for giving us the information we need on the Thundercats and helping in this mission. Once the rest of us have taken all we want from Gatoria and its people, you and Kalin—since as a cat I can't trust you completely once back in your own territory, you realize—will supervise it. Not only will you get the reward of being an undisputed ruler of your own province and possibly more, you will be able to get even with the Thundercats who so coldly turned on you in a moment of doubt. Think about how wonderful it will feel to get even with them for their betrayal, and to finally take that which you so richly deserve."

A smile spread slowly across Grune's face. "To think of the looks on Claudus and Jaga's faces…"

"And how you will prove to them how foolish they were to try and hold you back, and how you will show them just how much better than them you really are," Kalin said softly, sliding her fingers along his furred, muscular arm suggestively.

At that thought, Grune broke into a wide grin, one that made his saber-teeth gleam ominously in the harsh, fluorescent light of the office interior. "All right Luna, you've got yourself a deal. So where do we start?"

"We leave for Gatoria in two weeks," Luna replied with a satisfied smile. She then proceeded to fill her now quite interested group in on the particulars. The more she told them, the more they liked it. Soon the earlier disagreement was forgotten entirely, and the nine of them were engaged in making detailed plans for the operation.

But as it turned out, Luna’s plan of taking over Gatoria would never come to pass.

Ten nights later, the usual crew, along with the regulars who frequented Luna’s club (it did have some of the best domestic and imported spirits in the entire city, after all) was assembled in the bar room. The nine of them sat at a table in the back, discussing some of the more technical aspects of the upcoming mission. Among these topics were what grade of Thundrainium to purchase for their weapons, how to obtain an antidote which would make Grune temporarily immune to its effects, and which features they would install on their new warship. The craft was something Luna was quite proud of. It was a sleek army-grade combat vessel that she'd obtained through "alternate channels" (as she liked to call it when she had her people confiscate something that they had no right to) and had appointed RedEye and Alluro to equip it with the best weapons systems possible. She kept it stashed in a secret landing bay under the complex her club was built on (avoided those pesky taxes and inquiries if the government didn’t know about it) so that only she and those who were in on the Gatoria mission could get to it.

Since they were into the finalization of the plans and weren't discussing anything too confidential, Luna had suggested that they discuss it in the club itself, wanting to spend some time out of her office and among the crowd. She was leading their conference, naturally. Torlei was busy jotting down some sketches and notes of worthy points, while Chilla leaned back and sipped at a Frosted Mutant (one of the bartender’s specialties, and one of Chilla’s favorites) as she listened. Across the table, Alluro was counting some cash he’d helped himself to from his girlfriend’s bank account, while TugMug was shining up the metal on his gravity carbine, thinking about how much fun it would be to blast at hundreds of moving feline targets. Kalin, Grune, and RedEye were also at the table, adding their two cents into the discussion, trying to settle out the last minute details for the mission.

Suddenly there was a loud commotion in the front of the club when their doorman Ishar ran over to the bar and climbed up on it. His normally pale skin was a positively ashen color, and his eyes held a look of wild fear. "Listen up!" he shouted, getting the crowd's attention. "We’ve all gotta bail from here and now! The royals… oh dammit, I just heard on the radio that King Lunaro put out an official warrant for the arrest of Luna, and anyone found to be associating with her… on the charge of high treason. He's sent the entire Royal Guard here to apprehend her and her accomplices! They’re on their way here now!" he hollered in a panic. "Everyone’s gotta get the hell out!"

The place immediately went into an outraged uproar, especially those at Luna’s table. There had been bullshit raids by palace officials before, but nothing like what Ishar was talking about. Luna had just drew in breath enough to raise her voice and demand more information, but there was hardly any time for reaction before the sound of laser rifle fire filled the room, and the door itself was blown in. "Correction, street trash scum, the Royal Guard is here!" a gruff voice growled from the doorway.

"Oh, shit," muttered Luna. She had always known it was only a matter of time before Lunaro would try something serious against her, but never had she imagined that it would happen this soon. Weren't she and her people, the notoriously evil Lunatacs of Plundarr, among the most feared on all of Plundarr, it's moons, and even thought a force to be contended with all the way on Thundera? Then again, perhaps she had underestimated just how deeply her second cousin's contempt for her blatant disregard of the royal household's authority ran.

A burly Lunatac dressed in a uniform bearing the insignia of a high-ranking royal court officer stood in the doorway armed with a gun, while his troops poured in behind him in what looked like droves, effectively sealing off the exit. He drew in a deep breath and addressed the crowd. "Due to overwhelming evidence of illegal activities surrounding this establishment and those who run it, everyone in this room is under arrest, on the charge of high treason and conspiracy against the Royal House of the Kingdom of the Moons of Plundarr! Turn yourselves in peacefully, and we won’t open fire. If anyone tries to resist, we have orders to shoot to kill. Now, drop your weapons and get on the floor, all of you!"

"I’ll give you 'on the floor'!" hissed Chilla. Immediately the young ice Lunatac got to her feet and hissed frost, ready to fight.

"Damn right. If these guys want a fight, they’ve come to the right place!" Kalin growled.

Bracing herself on Amok’s horns for support, Luna got to her feet and shouted to the guard. "You’ll never take us alive! You can tell that to your cowardly dictator of a king! The mighty Luna bows to no one!"

RedEye charged up his sidewinder and fired at the leader of the troop. "Take that back to the palace," he laughed. The weapon flew through the air, but one of the palace militia shot it off course, while the leader ducked out of its way.

The angered soldier, once he saw that the sidewinder was clearly going to miss him, raised his own laser rifle. "All right, have it your way then. FIRE!" With that, every royal guardsman in the place opened fire on anything that wasn’t in uniform. Most of the troops were aiming at Luna and her group toward the back, but some fired on the general crowd as well. They were guilty by association anyway, in their eyes. Hordes of terrified patrons sprang from their seats and scrambled wildly, dodging fire and heading for windows and back exits in a vain hope of escape. Unfortunately for them, the place was surrounded on the outside by even more of the royal troops, and they would find themselves greeted by more armed guardsmen as soon as they got out.

Luna and her crew made a stand in the area that they'd been seated in, taking on anything that got close and ducking any shot that came near them. Slowly and carefully they made their way as a group toward the back hallway that led to the offices and sleeping quarters. Meanwhile, more and more guardsmen poured into the place, arresting everyone from minor thugs to casual bar drinkers. Ishar, now running across the top of the bar and trying to get to safety, was shot from behind and fell to the floor, dead on impact, when one of the royal force shot him in the head with a laser rifle. That was his punishment for daring to try and warn them.

The force captain scanned the room for his prize, Luna and her crew, listed on the warrant as being named TugMug, RedEye, Torlei, Alluro, Kalin, Chilla, and especially the sabertooth Thundercat Grune the Mighty. "Head for the back! That’s where they'd try and run for! They're going to try something and get away!" a familiar voice told the force captain. The captain and several of his men, along with the informant, charged through the crowd toward the back of the club.

Luna had heard the voice, and scowled when she discovered the identity of the informant—her once trusted associate and henchman, the scar-faced red-eyed Lunatac Stelthor. "You," she snarled in contempt, as Amok finished choking the last of the air out of an unfortunate royal guardsman.

"Sorry Luna, but you know how it is. Lunaro cleared my record and paid me a lot more than you ever did, just for a few key pieces of evidence and information on nailing you once and for all."

"You miserable piece of mutant shit," TugMug said hatefully. "You sold us out."

Kalin hissed in sheer hatred. "Well I hope all your money does you good in the afterlife, because that’s the punishment for betrayal around here." She bared her hunter-claws and fangs, and lunged at him with full intent to kill. A guard shot at her, but Kalin was too fast. She landed unharmed on top of Stelthor and viciously ripped his neck open with her claws, screeching in outraged fury. She had almost torn his head fully off of his body before his struggles ceased and he fell to the floor dead. Another two guards charged at Kalin as she was delivering Stelthor into the hands of death, but Grune stepped between them, his own mighty fists (as well as his favorite personal weapon, the mighty spiked club) flying in a wild rage.

Unshaken by the brutal resistance, the royal guardsmen rushed in to fulfill their mission of apprehending this group, and went after them with no holds barred. TugMug, unimpressed at their stubborn persistence, fired at anything in a royal uniform (and even a few that weren’t) while RedEye’s sidewinder made short work of two guards that had charged him, fatally electrocuting them both on contact. Alluro, not much of a physical fighter, simply stood aside and used a wide-range hypnotic thought-wave to hold off the guardsmen. It served a double purpose—it kept himself from being attacked directly, and allowed either his sister to entrap them in a telekinetic field, or Amok to get his hands on the assailant, enabling Luna to help herself to his laser rifle. Before long, Alluro snagged a gun from a mesmerized guard for himself as well. Hypnosis was nice, but a laser blaster was much quicker and required less concentration, especially in the given circumstances.

Things were starting to look better, until a second wave of uniformed royal guards poured in. It was obvious that Lunaro had called in just about everyone at his disposal to take care of what he liked to call the "Cousin Luna Problem".

Chilla saw the newest troops charging in through the front doors. "Fuck," she muttered, almost out of breath from spitting ice. She had already frozen at least ten men solid, and had fried several more with her ice beams, but now her throat hurt, she was weak, and her hands were burning from the overuse of her energy. "I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t take on too many more," she growled in frustration.

"She’s right," TugMug agreed. "We can't defeat an entire battalion of them with just our hand weapons! We’ve gotta get the hell out of here!"

"The ship for the Gatoria mission," suggested Torlei. "It’s in the complex underneath. If we can just buy ourselves a few minutes to get down there and get the systems online, we can escape in that. I doubt Lunaro sent any of his deep-space capable ships for this."

Luna nodded worriedly. "Yes, let’s go!"

Nearby, Kalin climbed off her latest victim, who was little more than mincemeat at the moment, and stood calmly, facing the enemy. "I’ll buy us some time. Head for the ship, and I’ll be behind you." With that, she stretched out her arms and morphed, drawing on her innate shape-changing abilities. Grune was amazed, and watched breathlessly, as the others scrambled for the back exit. He had seen hunters change before, but never Kalin. Her limbs began to lengthen, while her back arched and twisted. Her clothing fell to the floor, useless in the strange new sexless shape, while what were once her arms sprouted large wings. In only a few moments the woman he called his lover was now some winged demon-looking creature, bearing a strong resemblance to what a resident of Third Earth might have called a gargoyle. Screeching in fury and flexing its claws hungrily, it dove at the offending royal officers who dared to attack them. Grune gripped his spiked mace tightly. Loyal to his lover even in this state and not willing to leave her to fend them off on her own, he charged at the guards as well, intending to make his last hits count before he and Kalin ran for it as well. Never once did he think that he might not make it to the ship that Luna and the others were running for at that very moment.

"Faster!" Luna hollered to her steed. "Hurry up, Amok!"

Torlei, Alluro, RedEye, TugMug, and Chilla were only a few steps behind. They had just made it through the door that led to the underground complex, a heavy metal door that was hidden in Luna’s office underneath some fake wood paneling. They ran in a panicked rush down the stairs, until they reached the ship, which was a small but powerful warship-class vessel, capable of deep space flight but equipped with some extra weapons that they had added themselves, as well as enough supplies to last a long interplanetary trip. They had figured that the Gatoria mission might be rough at first, and had stocked the ship accordingly. Now it seemed like those supplies might be needed for another reason. If Lunaro had declared them conspirators to the crown, then staying anywhere on the Moons of Plundarr meant certain death for any of them, if the number of guards shooting to kill was any indication. Once inside, TugMug and RedEye punched at the controls wildly, bringing the craft to life and impatiently waiting the few minutes that felt like an eternity as the ship’s engines came on line.

"They’re ready," RedEye said after a torturously long wait.

"Then why are we still on the landing pad?" demanded a furious, if not somewhat scared, Torlei. "Open the landing bay doors and get us out of here!"

Chilla glanced at the ship’s hatch, now shut and sealed, and glanced at the monitor. There was no sign of Kalin or Grune following them. "What about Kalin?" Chilla asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

Luna glanced at the monitor, still showing nothing in the immediate area. The computer's scanner readouts that indicated that there were now guards in her office, undoubtedly only moments away from finding the passage to their ship. "Kalin can take care of herself," she said in a voice devoid of emotion. "Start the ship, we can’t afford to wait a moment longer."

TugMug didn’t need to be told twice. Within seconds, the engines blazed to life and the ship ascended out of the complex and past the now open skylight doors (once concealed in the vacant lot behind the club), and they sped off into the air above. One or two non-space capable royal aircraft surrounding Luna’s building fired at them as they made their escape, but the shots bounced harmlessly off the sleek warship. Seconds later, the club, surrounding buildings, and then the entire city as a whole, appeared to the passengers as nothing more than a faraway vague landscape. The bright purple sky above them quickly gave way to a wide black blanket of stars, welcoming them into the safety and distance of space. It was not long before the entire Third Moon of Plundarr was little more than a distant orb in their rear view monitors.

Back in the club, Grune and Kalin were fighting the Royal Guard against impossible odds, but doing surprisingly well. They were by no means winning their fight, but still none of the guardsmen had gained ground, and that in and of itself spoke volumes of their fighting abilities. Still in her beastlike form, Kalin swooped out of the air and snatched two guardsmen in her talons. She wasted no time in crushing their necks and slicing them to ribbons, before she dropped their mutilated bodies on the ground and made a fast dive toward Grune. She started to shift back to her natural form while still in the air, maintaining her wings but allowing her head and face, as well as torso and legs, to re-emerge as she descended. "Now, Grune. Go!" she called to him, her voice somewhat distorted by her half-changed form. Giving her only a short nod of acknowledgement, Grune dropped the dead guardsman in his clutches and bolted for the back.

Kalin was already breaking into a run as she made contact with the floor, using the lift from her quickly shrinking wings to push both her and Grune into the hallway. "Luna's office," she panted, not breaking stride for a moment, while her body finished reverting to its normal state. Laser fire lit up the hallway all around them as they ran, and there were several guardsmen still hot on their trail. However bad things may have been when this fiasco started, they were now ten times worse. They were no longer just wanted criminals evading arrest, they now had the blood of many a member the royal force laying dead in the other room on their hands. Both Kalin and Grune knew that it was not going to end until they got on that ship and got away from this place—for good.

Luckily for them, they them were both faster than the guardsmen. The rigors of hunt had left them in exceptional condition, and that was a welcome advantage in this race where a few seconds would mean the difference between escape and certain death. Finally made it to the metal door in Luna's office. They saw that it had been left open, presumably for them to go through once they had finished making their parting shots at the royal forces. Grune gave a silent prayer of thanks when he saw the thickness of the security door. "It'll take a lot of laser fire to break this down," he told Kalin with some relief. "Once we're through, we'll seal it and meet them on the ship."

Both quickly ran through the door and into the hallway that led to the chambers beneath. Once safely behind it, they pushed the heavy metal door shut into a locked position and ran down the corridor that led to the Gatoria ship. They hadn't gotten five feet when they heard pounding and fire on the door they had just sealed. They knew it would hold for a short while, but it wouldn't hold long.

Grune and Kalin were a mere fifty paces from the door that led to the escape craft's landing bay when everything, including the loud sound of weapons discharging and the following crash of the door behind them giving way, was silenced by the deafening roar of the Gatoria ship's engines. The two of them exchanged panicked looks and finished their sprint to the door. As they ran into the landing bay, a blazing flash of light and heat knocked them both backwards. The deafening roar of the takeoff thrusters changed to a shrill speeding noise, then a sonic boom, as the craft quickly ascended from the underground landing bay into the light of the purple sky above.

"Those bastards!" Grune shouted. "They left without us! Gods damned backstabbing cowards!" He slammed his fist into the wall, leaving a sizable dent.

Though Kalin would have agreed with him, she had no time to react to the thought, or even the full realization that Luna and the others had fled and left them behind. That was because out of the corner of her eye, she had spotted some guardsmen running down the hall toward them, one with his laser rifle raised and aimed perfectly at Grune's pacing, furious form. Suddenly filled with fear for the man she had genuinely come to love, Kalin hardly had time to yell out Grune's name in warning.

"GRUNE!"

At the sound of her voice, Grune snapped out of his rage and whirled around, still clutching his spiked metal club. He saw the guardsman aiming at him… and then, in horrified slow motion, he watched as the uniformed man heard Kalin warning him. His reaction to the unexpected call was to suddenly turn his gun in her direction instead—and fire.

She never saw it coming. The huntress had barely made it two running paces before the laser blast struck her squarely in the back, dropping her instantly.

An incredible deluge of emotions washed over Grune in that instant—fury, fear, hatred, loss, and love—and it was more than he could control. Running on pure adrenaline, the sabertooth raced to Kalin's fallen form, dragged it through the doorway into the now vacant landing bay, and slammed his palm against the keypad that operated them, in the vain hope of buying some more time. The doors slid shut obediently, though his rough handling of the delicate instrumentation had damaged some of the wires in the keypad itself. This set of doors was far weaker than the one leading into the underground complex, however. It would hold out the small militia following them for even less time than the other one had, but at the moment, Grune didn't care. He knelt beside Kalin and pulled her head into his lap. Her body was now wracked with painful spasms and twitches, and she was gasping for breath. Her lungs were already filling with blood from the blast wound, which had not only singed part of her spinal cord, but had seared into several of her internal organs as well. Grune lifted her head gently so that it might help her breathe easier. "Hold still. I'll find us another way out," he assured her.

Kalin wheezed as she drew in another breath. "I'm already on my only way out, Grune. Leave. Save yourself."

"Don't say that. I'm not going to leave you behind to die like that miserable little bitch and her friends did to us."

"Wouldn't have expected them to do anything else…" Kalin murmured, her voice barely a whisper, closing her eyes for a moment. "Couldn't. Law of the Jungle you know. Everyone for himself." Her words grew slurred and she coughed again, this time drawing up blood.

Grune began to shake as the grim realization that she truly was going to die set in. "Just because it's the law doesn't make it right," he said quietly. "It was you that showed me that." He brushed the soft green hair above her forehead tenderly and tried to keep himself together. Too much, all of this, it was all too much… first Scarlette, then the Thundercats turning against him, and now Kalin…

"Go. I hear them. They'll be here… not much longer…"

He too was vaguely been aware of the firepower focused on the doors, and the pained sound of the metal weakening under the blasts. He chose to keep ignoring it. "Don't give up, please," he urged her in a soft, gentle tone. It was one that he hadn't used in gods know how long, certainly not since he'd come to this place. "Don't leave me. I need you. I love you."

Kalin managed to form a faint smile despite her rapidly decreasing strength and ever increasing pain. She started to speak, but fell into another coughing spasm. When it ended, she squeezed his hand affectionately with what strength she could muster and met his gaze for the last time. "You—" she coughed heavily again—"you too." She tried to move toward him, but that took the last of her energy. She fell back, limp, against his legs. Her eyes closed for the last time, and she lay there still and silent, her head still cradled in his hands.

The weakened door that had been holding the royal guardsmen out finally gave way to their fire, and crashed to the floor in a loud clatter. Laying Kalin's head down on the floor reluctantly, the sabertooth got to his feet and turned, fixing his gaze upon the bastards that had taken away the last thing he cared about. The flood of emotions that he had been holding back for the sake of his now dead lover suddenly washed over him in full fury. He let out a feral roar and leapt into the air, claws bared on one hand and a tight fist around the handle of his spiked mace with the other. He tackled the first of the troopers to come through the door, who he now recognized as being the same one who had delivered Kalin her fatal blow. The enraged sabertooth pinned him to the ground beneath him, and with all his might, slammed his spiked mace into his face again and again and again.

A sick feeling of pleasure came over him at seeing the Lunatac's dark blood spurt from the wounds, and hearing his screams of pain give way to the sound of his skull shattering. In a way, it reminded him of his very first kill, only this time it felt much more intense. This time it wasn't just him taking out some lowlife who'd crossed him in his newer line of work, nor was it simply him offing a thug who had mistakenly thought he could get the better of him. It wasn't even the thrill of the chase and kill that he'd experienced at his victory in the hunt. No, this was entirely different. This was pure, unadulterated vengeance, and it felt great. And with each blow, it felt better.

Grune could feel more of the guardsmen grabbing at him, trying to pull him off the body, and a strange detached part of him wondered why they weren't shooting at him. Maybe they preferred physical combat, or maybe they had a notion of saving the man who's brains he'd just mashed into oblivion, and hadn't wanted to risk hurting him with a bad shot. It didn't really matter, anyway—it just gave him the chance to take them too. As soon as Kalin's killer was clearly dead, Grune grabbed and swung at the ones gathered around and taking hold of him, trying to break free of their grasp and breaking several of their bones in his adrenaline rage. It was almost pathetic in a way, he thought, it was no wonder had been anointed a Thundercat. Here there were at least six men trying to take him—just one Thundercat (or ex-Thundercat as the case may be)—down, and they were having a hell of a lot of trouble doing so. He supposed wasn't called "Grune the Mighty" for no reason.

Two powerful shots from above changed that in a flash. Bluish beams of some sort, seemingly from the sky, struck him on the head and weakened him instantly. He didn't bleed where he was hit, and his skin wasn't even broken, but all of a sudden he was so fatigued that he could barely move. He looked up and saw some sharpshooters around the rim of the open skylight, through which Luna and the others had escaped only minutes ago. The guardsmen stationed outside had wasted no time in taking advantage of that, now that they had a clear aim at the wanted sabertooth below.

"Not so tough when you're pumped full of Thundrainium, eh kitty cat?" sneered the force captain, whose nose he had just broken about thirty seconds before.

Thundrainium… that explained his sudden weakness. He supposed that if they knew he was there and intended to capture him along with the others, it made sense that some of the guardsmen would be armed with Thundrainium. They had been planning to use the same sorts of weapons for the Gatoria mission, he remembered in grim retrospect.

Grune could barely resist as the guardsmen bound him in heavy chains carried in by a backup force that had just arrived. They weakened him further, and he knew that they were made of Thundrainium too.

The force captain, rubbing his now very tender nose, glared at his prisoner. "One out of nine of the most wanted isn't a great capture ratio, but I'm sure his highness is going to be pleased to see that you're the one we brought in, if we couldn't get Luna herself, ex-Ambassador," he taunted. "By the time we're finished with your sentencing, you're going to wish you died simply by being shot while evading arrest like that hunter bitch girlfriend of yours. I can guarantee you, the torture for a Thundercat spy conspiring against the government of the Moons of Plundarr is going to be a very slow, painful, way to go."

Grune growled hatefully, but didn't dignify him with a verbal response. He was too enraged to put together a coherent sentence anyway. All he could think about was how much he'd like to rip out that force captain's internal organs and force-feed them to him.

The guardsmen that captured Grune then dragged him to his feet. They pushed him roughly out of the now-destroyed and vacant club, past the sea of dead bodies and others in the process of being arrested, and into the streets. A large crowd of onlookers was now gathered, a bloodthirsty and cruel one that delighted in shouting taunts and jeers as the guardsmen hauled him past. He paid them little attention. His awareness was focused on two things—not succumbing to the debilitating effects of the Thundrainium, and the one thought that kept him going: Revenge. One day, he'd get his revenge on all of these people, he vowed.

After a walk that felt like miles to his exhausted body, Grune's captors shoved him roughly into the back of an armored vehicle. It was one of several they had brought to the scene in the hopes that they would be apprehending all of the ones they'd come to get. The inside was pitch black, with no windows or lighting, and from what he could feel as he stumbled around in the darkness, there wasn't even a seat. He was too weak from the Thundrainium to do much else at this point, so Grune lay back on the cold metal floor and conserved his energy. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

After what felt like a very long ride, the doors of the vehicle swung open and three armed guardsmen pulled him out. One calmly held up a hand pistol and shot him squarely in the gut, but it was only another blast of Thundrainium. It did little more than bruise him on impact, but it went right through his system, wiping out any of the strength he'd built back up. "That should take care of him," the man said. "You can take off the heavy shackles, but leave the collar and handcuffs on him. The Thundrainium weakens him, but this is Grune the Mighty, so we don't want to take any chances."

"Oh yes, gods forbid you try take me on in a fair fight," Grune muttered as one of the guards unlocked and removed the heavier excess Thundrainium chains.

"Shut up cat, you weren't given permission to speak," said the guardsman in charge. "You are our prisoner, and as such, you have no rights. Got that? Any further resistance and you'll get even worse. Now move along. King Lunaro would like to sentence you personally."

"What, no trial?" Grune said in a mocking tone.

The guardsman shot him with another blast of Thundrainium, this time knocking the wind out of him and almost dropping him to his knees. "There's plenty more where that came from, feline. Handy weakness you Thunderians have, that Thundrainium. Very easy to exploit when given the chance." He shoved him roughly. "Now I said move it!" They started walking again, with one of the guardsmen giving the weakened Grune an extra shove each time he stumbled or slowed down. "As for the trial, you are not a citizen of the Moons of Plundarr. You're a war criminal. As such, you forego your right to a trial under our laws."

Grune let out a short, bitter laugh. "I know all about your laws. Remember? I spent the last several months breaking them."

"Oh, I'll take that as a full confession, then. Makes sentencing that much easier, with us three witnesses to give that little account to Lunaro if he asks. Not that I think he'll care. He's wanted you out of the picture since day one, 'Ambassador' Grune."

Finally they arrived at the throne room, where Lunaro was seated at the top, grinning like the proverbial cat that had eaten the canary. His wife, Queen Sileira, was beside him, but she was silent and expressionless, her eyes seemingly focused on something other than Grune altogether. Several other Lunatacs he remembered meeting what now felt like ages ago were also assembled, various high-ranking political officials whose names he had already forgotten. He didn't care. He knew even when he was here on that joke of a peace mission, that they hadn't liked him. The feeling had been mutual. In fact, Sileira had been the only one he could stand, but he wasn't counting on much, if any, support from her. She had too much to lose if she did.

Lunaro flexed his fingers and stood, smoothing an unruly strand of his thick purple and white hair before he took a few steps toward the sabertooth. "Ah, how the 'mighty' have fallen, eh Grune?" he began, his voice dripping with arrogance and condescension. He laughed for a moment, then stopped himself. "Oh, I'm sorry. That was a cheap shot, wasn't it? As a King, such things should be beneath me."

"There's not much that's beneath you or your kind, Lunaro," muttered Grune.

The Lunatac ruler scowled. "Well now, that's a rather racist remark, don't you think, feline? And stupid, too, considering I'm the one who's about to sentence you for your rather long list of crimes."

"You think it's long now? Let me out of these chains, and I'll add assassination of this kingdom's primary ruler to it."

"In your dreams, sabertooth," retorted Lunaro. "No, with your list of crimes… consorting with dear Cousin Luna, who has evaded capture thanks to you—which I believe qualifies as an additional aiding and abetting charge—not to mention at least fifteen counts of murder just with the members of my royal forces that you killed while evading arrest… added to the highest charge of conspiracy and espionage… No, Grune, I'd say that it's you who's about to meet his end. And with your list of crimes, it will be a very unpleasant one."

Grune growled at Lunaro again. "I’m not afraid of you."

"Perhaps not, but what about death? Does that frighten you? Hmm… I wonder what you would find the most unpleasant. Would it be starvation? Being buried alive? Or a more violent end… like being fed to a pack of half starved Mokrikett beasts from the Dark Moon of Plundarr?" The Lunatac king watched Grune's face for any change in expression that would belie a hint of fear beneath his angry, defiant exterior. Not yet seeing the sort of reaction he was looking for, he pressed further, taking full enjoyment of his opportunity to taunt the ex-Thundercat. "No? How about something a bit less tangible, but no less painful? Like being forced to watch someone you love be killed right in front of your eyes? … Oh, wait a minute," he said sarcastically, "we already put you through that one when my lieutenant shot that hunter slut you shacked up with, didn't we?"

The last statement got an infuriated roar out of Grune. "I'll rip you apart for even mentioning her, you cowardly bastard!" He thrashed in his chains in anger, hoping in vain that he might be able to have the strength to break them and give the smug troll of a ruler what was coming to him. A fresh shot of Thundrainium right into his back, courtesy of one of the armed escorts, stopped that in a hurry. Grune growled and doubled over, trying to maintain enough strength to stand on his own.

Lunaro strode right up in front of the restrained sabertooth and faced him down as best he could at his short stature. Like all Lunar-race Lunatacs, Lunaro was not tall in the least at his height of 4'2", though he was on the tall side for his kind. If Grune had ever lived to meet him to make the connection, he would have then noticed the striking similarity in appearance and expression between Lunaro and his yet to be born son, Prince Silvian. "Your idle threats mean nothing to me, Grune. After all, I'm not the one who's about to be sentenced to death. Speaking of which, I've had enough of this trivial chatter. Besides, I just thought of the perfect sentence for someone like you, Grune."

Grune found enough strength to raise his head and glare back at him, but said nothing. He just wanted to hear what the Lunatac king would pronounce his sentence to be, and be done with it. If he had the energy to say it, he would have told Lunaro that he was already suffering the worse torture possible—having to listen to him drone on and on.

Lunaro strode back to his throne and sat back down. "Grune the Mighty, Thundercat—excuse me, ex-Thundercat—" he corrected himself, "and enemy Thunderian guilty of all the aforementioned charges, I sentence you to death as punishment for your crimes."

Gee, now there's a big fucking shock, Grune thought, shaking his head in disgust.

"As for how the sentence shall be fittingly carried out, I have decided that you are so vile a creature, that I don't want even your physical remains tainting the soil or any of the other elements of any of my moons. Now, given that you left your home planet of Thundera, and certainly are not welcome among the mutants of Plundarr, the only fair sentence I can give you is to be jettisoned into deep space, as we do with all our toxic garbage. In exactly thirty-four hours, the equivalent of two Lunar-Plundarrian standard days, you will be placed in a pressurized space pod and launched into space, well past the orbit of any of our moons. Then, by remote control and at a time that we will determine after launch, so you don't know when it's coming—could be hours, could be days, depending on my whim—the capsule will be opened and you will be ejected into the vacuum of deep space. That will neatly take care of the both the task of ending your worthless life, and keeping the mess of your bloody corpse from tainting any of the planets or moons in this system… since I imagine the rulers of Thundera and Plundarr want just as little to do with you as we do here. I wonder which will kill you first, Grune… asphyxiation or the pressure of your body blowing apart into thousands of tiny pieces. Either way, I'm sure it will be quite unpleasant."

Next to her husband, Queen Sileira swallowed back a feeling of disgust, and focused on the ornate moldings that decorated a pillar by the entrance. It was easier than looking at the condemned soul at the foot of the throne. There had been many times in her life when she was sickened (though she never would have stated such) by the way her husband seemed to take such delight in inflicting pain, be it mental or physical, just for the sake of doing so. This was one of those times. She had no particular love for Thunderians or Thundercats, but she didn't like the idea of Grune's life ending in such a way. Especially since she had found him to be rather likeable in her experiences with him. Why did you have to get involved with them and let it come to this, Grune? Why?

Lunaro allowed Grune to dwell on the words for a few moments before he decided he'd had enough, and dismissed his guardsmen. "Take him away to one of our Thundrainium cells for holding. I want this cat out of my sight until the time for his execution."

"Yes, your highness," echoed the three officers. The two subordinates took hold of Grune's arms while the leader led them out of the throne room.

Grune only turned his head once, long enough to give Lunaro a disgusted, challenging stare that silently warned him "Someday, you'll get yours." He never noticed the genuinely sorry look that decorated Sileira's features, one that if he had looked at closely enough, he would have seen held a glint of tears and a solemn regret.

Hundreds of thousands of miles away in the depths of space, a silence had settled over the seven Lunatacs assembled in the bridge of their ship. Now that the hurried tension of their escape had worn off, they found themselves idle, with plenty of time to mull over all that had happened. Only TugMug, who had busied himself with the task of primary piloting for the time being, remained too busy to think about it. The others found themselves lost in thought, staring blankly at the view screens and monitor readouts.

Chilla was still seated in the same place she had been since they left, an odd look on her face as she glanced at the sealed hatch. Alluro noticed her expression, which hadn’t really changed since she’d asked the question which, when answered by Luna, had been what brought the somber mood to the room. He watched her long enough for her to feel his eyes on her and turn around to face him. "They were probably dead already," he said as he met her eyes. "If they wanted to leave with us, they should have come with us when we left."

Luna heard his statement, the first outwardly spoken about it since they had left, her own gaze still locked on one of the rear-view monitors. The Third Moon of Plundarr was of course long out of visual range by now, but she felt a strange compulsion to look anyway. "We couldn’t very well sit around and let ourselves all get captured, now could we?" she asked, looking over each of them. No one voiced an argument to that. They couldn't. There wasn't a single one of them that wouldn't have made the same choice, had they been in Luna's position. "Now," she started, bringing a much welcome change of subject, "let’s see to the more relevant matters at hand… like where we should go, now that it’s not safe for us on any of the Moons of Plundarr."

"I’m not going to Plundarr itself," RedEye said with distaste. "I'd rather be arrested than live with those primitive mutants."

"And Thundera’s obviously out," Chilla added.

"Surely there must be another planet around, one we could lie low on for a time without incident," Torlei suggested.

Alluro checked through the ship’s computers until he found something with potential. "How about this one? It’s listed as having a breathable atmosphere, temperate climate, and even a region known as a ‘Dark Side’ that has properties startlingly similar to some of our native climates. The planet itself has no advanced civilization, at least none like ours. It would be easy pickings for us, so to speak, until we could return to the Moons of Plundarr and re-establish ourselves."

"Where is it?" inquired TugMug.

"It’s far," RedEye said, examining the information Alluro had brought up on the screen, "but it’s not so far that we can’t make it. It’s in a galaxy in Sector 7."

Luna’s eyes widened. "My grandmother once told me about such a planet in Sector 7, that she had spent time on before being forcibly removed by a mage called Mumm-Rana. It was called Third Earth."

Now it was Alluro’s turn to be surprised. "That’s the name of this planet."

"What do you say then, everyone? Shall we make our temporary relocation to this Third Earth?" Luna asked. The others responded with nods of approval, and TugMug set course for the small planet.

As the ship accelerated to appropriate speed, Luna found herself looking at the rear-view monitor once again. An unpleasant and decidedly unusual feeling of guilt nagged at her. You could have waited a little longer, it told her. You didn't have to leave her behind. You could have waited.

"No," Luna muttered to herself aloud in argument, shaking her head in denial and garnering strange looks from a couple of her fellow Lunatacs. "No." Not paying attention to any of the others, she prodded Amok and had him take her to one of the sleeping quarters in the back of the ship, so she could clear her head and rest. She was in no mood for anything else.