The ships, trailing smoke and embers, came smashing down in the forest in nearly-synchronized emergency landings, making noise that traveled for miles around. Crash landings? Not quite, but not too far from it, either; those Egg Gunners were still flying along behind, dousing both crafts with a constant smattering of gunfire. At least one engine was out on the Lagrange. It was hard to tell how the Nocturnus ship was doing, as dark and strangely-built as it was, but it couldn't have been good.

They were just east of the dark-colored Marble Mountains. Pine trees stood all around, as did some rather stately white-marble ruins, in stark contrast to the dark stone that comprised the ground, visible between patches of green grass. The nose of the Lagrange was sticking right into one of those pillared stone structures, and had very nearly knocked it right over. The glow of lava flows played orange light all along the scattered structures, and there were some exposed pools here and there, also. As much as there were plenty of places to hide around, one had to wonder just how good of an idea it was to stop there even while not under attack.

Nonetheless, they had a boiling swarm of robots swirling overhead, landing all around, forming a neat perimeter, and preparing for combat. The gunfire stopped for the moment, as if the robots were letting their guns cool for the coming fight. Things were probably not going to be pretty.

"EXIT YOUR VEHICLES WITH YOUR HANDS RAISED."

Well, at least they were being given one option that didn't involve being target practice for a bunch of robots.


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A strange, loud noise had caught the attention of a dark figure. Running as fast as he could toward the sound, the figure tripped on a tree root and stumbled into some bushes on the outskirts of the ruins. As he slowly got up, he noticed the downed ships and the flying bots circling the ships with their guns drawn. This dark figure was unsure what was going on, but did not like the look of it.

Slowly, the figure moved closer to the the clearing, reveling itself to be a male black lion with a red mane. He slowly moved around the clearing, trying to stay out of sight of the bots, but also trying to get a better view of what was going on. Biding his time, he sat and watched, hopping this wouldn't turn out to be as ugly an event as it looked.

Hearing the bots amplified voices demanding the people on board the ships to exit, he couldn't help but wonder who was on these ships, or why they where so important.

The yet-unseen second party crept forward beside the cat, on knees and hand (other hand clutching a bag of otherwise rattly supplies tightly against his side, for the sake of stealth).

He was a spindly and slim canine—a jackal. He would probably have been tall if he stood up, but he stayed low and carefully surveyed the scene. His dull yellow color and drab clothes didn't quite reflect the setting sun with the same sheen and shimmer as his brighter, clearly-much-younger associate's did.

Briefly, he hesitated to respond when he saw another individual standing not far from them—some guy in overalls. That fellow looked more confused than hostile, though, so the jackal proceeded and responded in kind, lowly, as he set his bag down and flipped it open.

"We got..." His brows lowered as he nudged the contents of the bag around, but ultimately came out with a couple of beer bottles. "... We got two cocktails," he sighed in an odd, clearly-enunciated, but clearly foreign accent, "a lighter, some rope, an' your spraypaints you got on you."

The Egg Gunners outside had apparently waited long enough, and, as such, began to open fire on the two ships. In the case of the Lagrange, because of the ship's shape, there was really only one large, obvious way in or out at ground level: the cargo bay. The Egg Gunners nearest the garage-like door began spraying with shots in unison, rapidly deteriorating the entryway under a hail of energized blasts.

They only had seconds before the robots would have an opening to begin storming through the ship's interior from the bottom up.

"FINAL WARNING: EXIT YOUR VEHICLES WITH YOUR HANDS RAISED."

Time was running out.

Coop let go of Ace with no fanfare.

He gave the serval a shove on the back to bring distance between the two and then stared bitterly out of the window, rubbing his ribs.

"Forget it," he said, "it doesn't matter."

He looked back, and after a momentary brood, explained, "I wanted to use you as a hostage to stop Eggman's army trying to down us. Figured you were still on their team — or at least, I figured they would still figure that if they saw you unconscious on a monitor. Doesn't matter now and to be honest I don't feel like hauling you around while you sleep it off."

He stared out the window.

He stared back around the room.

"Hm," he said.

OOC:: Collaboratory goodness with the Matman.

"Excellent!" Tabitha beamed as quietly as she could. And for what it was worth, she really meant it. Her mouth stretched into a spunky grin of determination, and her eyes burned with an almost naive intensity, but gradually faded as her stare roved back and forth, scrutinizing the discrepancies between the jackal's supplies and their opposition. One could literally see her mentally counting.

"Right. Okay... So."

She frowned sheepishly at her associate.

"Af...ter we burn two of them, we'll-- as for the rest of them, we'll... get... shot at."

With an apologetic wince, the feline girl visibly deflated, adding, "Is now a good time to confess that I'm not like a hugely great strategist, or anything vaguely resembling one?"

The jackal shook his head, silently pulled both bottles from the bag, and sat them on the ground. They had rags sticking out, but the caps were on them, pinching them down tightly enough to not leak. He then stuck the lighter in her hand.

"More'd'an two will burn," he assured her, and stood, coil of cord in hand. "T'row them—ah... twenty seconds. Then you run this way." He pointed off toward where the trees got thick. "Make sure they're chasing you. Okay?"

The cat blinked as though not understanding, but followed the canine's gestures with her eyes, concern marring her usually chipper countenance. She looked unassuaged, but smiled and nodded anyway, clutching the lighter with a purposeful puffery.

"Okay. I can do that," she affirmed, peering gingerly back at the escalating tension below. Picking up both bottles, she nested one in the crook of her arm against her side, and held the other in her left hand; the right tested the lighter.

"Twenty seconds. Be careful."

He was already gone.

For a moment, the sand cat looked mildly startled, but this was evidently a commonplace occurrence, and she quickly and physically shook it off with a brief swing of her head, edging over the crest of the hill, while muttering to herself.

"...four one thousand, five one thousand, six one thousand, seven one thousand..."

She stealthily descended into the clearing, skulking around for the clearest, most conspicuous shot, plotting her path back to her canine compatriot as she went. ("...nineteen one thousand,") With a soft flick of her lighter, the first rag went up in flames.

"Twenty one thousand!

HEY!"

A ball of fire literally exploded smack dab in the middle of the throng of robots currently turning the ship's cargo bay doors into swiss cheese. With a blurringly fast fling of her arm, the second followed the first, this time breaking on a not too distant Egg Gunner and his posse.

Willing to bet much that her warm greeting wouldn't go unnoticed, Tabby fired off like a shot, hurtling toward the thicket.

When the glass bottles broke, their contents splashed all over. It was some kind of sticky, flammable mixture that seemed to cling to and burn on whatever it touched (even non-flammable things), and while it wasn't going to be melting armored robots anytime soon, it was making a mess and doing its own unique damage. Those directly around the splash zones were pretty much covered from head to toe flames, staggering, smoking, sparking, and ceasing to function correctly as the mixture got down in their various crevices, joints, and louvered intakes. Some others had their optics melted, and were thus blinded. Meanwhile, the rest...

Well, the rest were just ticked off.

There was a brief moment where they stood there and didn't react, as if sorting out and broadcasting some sort of unified plan of action. Then, without further ado, half of the remaining group turned around, ignited their thrusters, and split off, racing away in hot pursuit of the cat.

The attack may have only destroyed several machines, but it did stop the assault momentarily, start a couple nice, big fires (out of which there were still robots lurching and staggering), and pull away the attention of a big chunk of the group.

Coop straightened up. He stared out the window instensely.

"Hm," he said, "wait a..."

He stood up and strode back and forth in agitation. He rubbed the back of his neck. He looked in the direction of the smaller airlock that had hosted the debut of his assault on Ace and moved back to it. He peered out of the window, attempting to see his physical relationship with the fire, and then made his way out of the airlock again. He began to ransack the embark supplies, rummaging up three canisters of oxygen that had not been used or refilled since their last use. He hefted one of them.

He opened the airlock, and tossed the oxygen canister out in an arc towards the mess of burning napalmy gunge below, while doing his best to avoid exposing his massive torso outside of the protective confines of the airlock.

After a few seconds, he tossed another out.

He retreated back into the depths of the ship, lugging the remaining canister.