This was intended to be the first chapter in a much larger story, but it's not likely that rest will be developed. However, this entry still serves as a nifty short story all on its own, so instead of sitting on it for eternity, I thought I'd share. :) Cover image is from Socks the Mutt.

Kit peered around the pilot's seat, looking over Hacksaw's shoulder. The dark valley before them was lit by a red, fiery exchange of bullets zipping to and fro, and cracking lighting in the sky. From view within the cockpit, it was mostly all a blur of flashing lights as heavy rained pounded the windshield.

The pirate plane, large with an empty cargo hold eagerly ready to get filled to the brim with loot from their catch, was trailing Don Karnage and his squadron of CT-37s. Ahead of them was their quarry: a coal-black, armored transport plane, conspicuous by its lack of any markings. It was only by chance that this plane and the pirates crossed paths, but that it was armed and armored gave Karnage the notion that whatever was inside was something he really, really wanted, even if he had no idea what it was. The sky pirates descended upon it in a savage array of gunfire from their attack planes. That initial attack seemed like an eternity ago.

Anglers in the tropics might tell tales of how they wrangled with a mammoth sailfish on their lines for hours, landing their catch at last only through their strength and perseverance. This was similar. This plane did NOT want to go down, after nearly an hour of the pirates chasing it. Its thick armor was handily deflecting bullet fire from the pirate planes, and it fired back at its pursuers from a machine gun turret on its top.

Don Karnage was barking orders and curses over the radio, demanding more and more from his lackeys who he was convinced were at fault for this blasted thing not being shot down already. "Shoot out the propellers, you cross-eyed canker sores!" shouted he. The pirates made yet another push, but were pushed back yet again by the fire of the machine gun turret. The Big Bad Wolf of fairytale lore had nothing on the way Karnage was huffing and puffing.

"You kiddin' me," sighed Ratchet, in the co-pilot's seat. "This don't end! Ya'd think that thing'd run outta bullets by now."

And speaking of running out of bullets, on miraculous cue, Karnage suddenly screamed bloody murder ― 'Aaaaaaauughhh noooooooo!' ― on the radio. His ammo chambers were empty. Ratchet groaned and hung his head. "It's gonna get away for sure, now."

Kit's heart began to race, his imagination set on a singular idea. Stepping closer to the windshield, through the sheets of rain, he squinted to make out the vague, barely visible shape of the transport plane, where a flash of lightning revealed it to be banking a turn around a mountain. He recognized that type of plane, one of not many that he had not hitchhiked or stowed away on before. Whenever he had chanced upon one of them at an airfield during his vagabond days, it was always closely guarded. He always imagined what kind of unimaginably valuable things they must carry. And to put up this kind of a fight against the pirates… something valuable, indeed. With Karnage at his wit's end, and hope ever fleeting of catching their prey, this was his chance to really show them what he was made of. Not the little weakling runt most of the crew brushed him off as, the ones who conveniently ignored all the daredevilish things he could do with his board that helped throw off pilots, not to mention all the times his sneaky, sly stature came in handy on the more delicate heists ― they only considered him the whelp who earned his keep by mopping floors ― but now he could be the capturer of the best loot they ever scored. No way he was gonna pass that up. The assured accolades from the captain were already running amuck in his mind. He felt the tingle of goosebumps, invigorating. A glance behind him, he checked out the rack of muskets and grappling hook guns on the cabin wall.

"I can get it," he said. He choked on his words a bit, realizing too well how ridiculous he must have sounded to these two. After their moment of instant shock from what they just heard, and from whom they had just heard it, they did not disappoint predictability with their guffaws. But though his face flushed warm, Kit stood his ground, stiffening his back in confident posture, and pointed out the windshield. "Aw, shut up. Look, that plane's a KT-30. Its gunner can't shoot all the way up. If we could just get high enough over it..."

"We could spit all over it," shrugged Ratchet, snorting at the idea.

"Ooh! Ooh!" grunted Hacksaw. "We could drop dynamite on it! Yeeeeaah."

"I can get on it," said Kit. "I've done it before, remember?" But of course Ratchet didn't, he thought.

Bewildered at the thought at first, Ratchet laughed. "In this weather? Oh, I'd love to see ya try, brat."

Kit stared at him all the while fishing his airfoil from his sweater. A flick of his wrist, and he fanned it in front of Ratchet's flinching face. "Good. Tell Karnage. Him and me, we'll take it from there." He stomped to the back of the cabin and snatched a grappling hook gun from the rack. He had gotten pretty good with these things, if he did say so himself ― and he did have to say so himself, because no one else ever did.

He could hear Ratchet up front, on the radio: "So Capt'n, the brat thinks he can use his toy to get on top'a the plane if ya fly over high 'nough. Wanna tell 'im what ya think of his bright ideas?" Off the air, he added, with a gleam of dastardly hope, "Or just show 'im, for once."

It gave Kit pause. No small part of him suddenly daydreamed about just clobbering Ratchet with the grappling hook. These guys ― some of them were just itching to finally see the captain lay into him. Their names for him were getting old and repetitive: the brat, the runt, the captain's pet, always venomous with their insinuation that he was somehow spoiled. They were just jealous, he thought, because their greedy little selves didn't have what he had with the captain: trust. A kind of trust, for instance, that compelled him now to want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. He pulled the plane's side door open without waiting for an answer on the radio from Karnage.

Roaring, icy wind and lashes of rain whipped into the cabin. Lightning crashed from above. He could see, following Ratchet's radio transmission, that the captain had pulled up beside the plane with his tri-wing, looked at him, and gave him a nod. That was all he needed to know. He aimed the grappling gun, pulled the trigger, and the hook caught onto the forward edge of one of Karnage's wings. He yelped as he was swept outside in an instant, getting dragged by the taut rope. Karnage wasted no time in towing him, ready or not, into a steep climb. Once he got his footing on his airfoil, it sliced through the wind with a hiss, gleaming mirror-like with the flashes of lightning from all over the horizon. He tugged away the scarf around his neck, already soaked, when it flapped against his mouth. The rain pelted against his face, hard as pebbles, and he couldn't see much of anything, even when shielding his eyes with one arm.

Then his foot slipped, the rain had made his board's surface too slick. This he did not account for, and with a loud gasp he fell to his knees, clutching the edge of the airfoil with one hand and holding onto for dear life the grappling gun with the other. He chirped some very pirate-like words, and we're not talking shiver me timbers. Worse, in the mist, rain, and darkness, he could not see the ground, and that was in itself way to gauge his altitude: As in, splat, if he fell off his board.

Bright red flares of bullet tracers began to spew from below; the gunner of the transport plane had spotted the tri-wing. Kit cried out and lost his balance, wobbling on his board. It was one thing to see this thing shoot at the other planes, another to see these red-hot bullets coming at him. And they looked like they would hurt. A lot. Rat - tat -tat - three bullets ricocheted from under his board in a flash of sparks, the impact stinging the pads of his feet. "Yee-owch! Yo! Stop flying where they're shooting, already!" he yelled at the captain. But as the gunner tried to lead his aim at the captain's plane, the shots began missing wide. Quite wide, and low. The tri-wing was too high overhead, and overtaking the speed of the larger plane.

Then the captain pointed out and down, giving him the signal. Kit took a big breath through clenched teeth, peering down at the plane and trying to figure out just how he was going to do this. It was too dark, too stormy. Then suddenly, before his eyes, it was too bright. A blinding white flash overwhelmed his vision.

It lasted only a second, if even, a bolt of lightning, right in front of them, struck a hillside not a quarter of a mile away. The most jarring aspect was not the immense boom of thunder, but the image it engraved in memory, for in that brief glimpse of light, within that brief glance of time, earth and stone shattered where the bolt had struck, and before all went dark again, it was the image of all sorts of flying debris suspended in mid-air that lingered.

"Hooooly ― smoooookes!" cried Kit, in two big gasps. The captain was obviously affected by it, too, because he flinched so hard that he momentarily lost control of his plane, which veered to the side. This was immediately corrected, and next thing Kit knew, the captain was looking over his shoulder at him, with an infuriated glare, something that Kit translated into voice without a word spoken: WHY are you still hanging behind my back like the cowardly coattail! Go!

"Cripes," gulped Kit, and looked down at the black plane below. "Aw, the heck with it!" Quickly enough so not to even think about it, Kit let go of the grappling gun, tucked himself over his board with both hands, and, with one mighty push down on the edge, plummeted. Wind whistling in his ear was greater than the sound of thunder in the clouds. From his sight, the thousands of rain drops around him were falling in slow motion, just barely beating him in the race downward, and his stomach tickled with the sensation of acceleration. This he loved, and quite suddenly found himself in his element as he zeroed in on the transport plane. The ride was a quick one, and in the speed he had gained, he just managed to catch up with the plane's left wing as he leveled out, or in other words, a bullseye. In one deft move, he snatched his board from under his feet and threw himself over the leading edge of the wing. The wind and slippery rain fought him off at once, and by no small effort did he manage to sprawl well enough to stay attached. He looked up, blinked and yelped, for in the darkness he had not quite realized how close he had come to the big propeller only inches from his face. Carefully, one hand and foot at a time, he slid over to the cylindrical bump in the wing that was the engine housing; it was hot to the touch, an especially sharp contrast to the wet, frigid wind.

Time now for one of his best tricks; as much as he loved airplanes, it sometimes struck him amazing how easy they were to put down, big or small. He slid his fingertips in the latch of the top panel and pulled; the panel whisked wide open against the wind with minimal effort. From there, the fuel line was ripe for the picking. With one big pull, he yanked it loose, splattering gasoline all over his sweater, and the big propeller in front of him went dead and silent. "Ta-da!" he sang.

The heavy plane, made of thick iron skin, took not a liking to losing one of its engines. It immediately began to struggle, dipping low to the left side. Kit suddenly found himself on a wet slide, crying whooa as he slid off. He managed to get his airfoil under him and took to a hasty, barely controlled glide. Nearly blind in the darkness, he plummeted against a tree that he never saw coming. The stop was jarring, and the fall… slow and bumpy, with lots of branches in his way. When at last he splashed into mud, and realized his neck wasn't broken, he glowered up at the tree; he was pretty sure it grew all of its branches on just that one side, and he had hit every single one of them on the way down. Didn't help that his board, teetering from up high, fell a moment later and traitorously conked him on the head.

"Ow!" It was already leaving a knot. He indeed knew well that his favorite toy was also a handy-dandy cranium bruiser when thrown with good aim, but that was his first taste of it on the receiving end. Overhead, the fading buzzing of the transport plane's engines soared over and beyond the treetops. Kit clenched his board under an arm and legged it, sprinting in mud up to his ankles, following the sound of the plane. There was but in a beat a resounding crashing noise, the sound of the plane's bulky frame making an emergency landing onto a grassy field. Its undercarriage was sheared off in the process, and when Kit finally cleared the trees and laid eyes on it, it had carved itself a deep, muddy rut into the earth, hundreds of feet, from point of impact to where it lay now, under a heap of dripping mud it had kicked up upon itself.

Kit eyed the sight with no small amount of pride ― as far as catches went, this was a big one. He could only think of one question: what kind of treasure were they hiding on that plane? No, actually, two questions: how big was his cut gonna be? But then, three ― and his daydreaming grin melted from his face: what was going to happen to the people on board? Sometimes the captain could get… a little… carried away in his policy of never letting anyone go, especially when they put up a fight.

Surrounding it, the captain's tri-wing and the CT-37s were already skidding on their pontoons onto the grass. Mad Dog, Dumptruck and Gibber sprang from their respective planes with their muskets ready to blow some holes into anything and anyone that got in their way, and Karange had his cutlass in hand. This was really nothing new, but for this aggravating chase the captain was about as angry as Kit had ever known him to be, and that did not bode well for anyone inside that plane. He better hurry and get there, he thought.

So far a year into these sky pirate escapades, if he were to go back a year and remember all of the things he thought he'd be doing by now, sprinting soaking wet in a thunderstorm, with every inch below his elbows covered in mud, to keep the captain from losing his head wasn't one of them. By the time he got there, the pirate cargo plane had just landed, its big undercarriage wheels plowing muddy ruts of their own in the field, and blasts of musket fire richotted off the transport's armored fuselage. Karnage and company were furiously trying to open the downed plane, but the doors were bolted like a bank vault.

Kit skidded to a halt behind him and yanked on his coat. He had to shout, for all of the noise of the rain, wind, and thunder. "Whoa! What's goin' on?"

"Ya know they're just holdin' out for reinforcements!" Ratchet called out toward Karange. "Who knows what kind of muscle they got on the way!"

With a snap of his finger and a point, the captain directed Hacksaw to the plane. "You! Find out how many smithereens that door becomes when it gets blown up!"

"Oooh!" gasped Hacksaw giddily, immediately gathering all of the dynamite sticks he had on his armbands, all the while quietly musing to himself, "Gee, I've never seen a real smithereen before… they make good pets, I bet." He skipped toward the plane, planting the sticks below the cabin door, then stepped back, wringing his hands together with delight, admiring the scene as if he just planted a beautiful garden.

"Uh, Captain," Kit began to say, "that's an awful lot of dyna―"

"I am not counting any smithereens yet!" roared the captain.

"Oh, right," muttered Hacksaw. He plunged his shaky hand deep inside his waistband ― and this was the part everyone else groaned and averted their eyes ― and came back up with a lighter. He got down on all fours, his nose just inches from the nearest fuse string, and with all possible diligence of a grandmaster craftsman held the lighter under the fuse, shielded the lighter with his free hand, and struck it.

No light. The same when he struck it a second time, then a third. Hacksaw snorted, sat up, and suddenly cradled the lighter in his arm, looking down at it quite sadly. "Oh… Percy! You're sick!" he squeaked.

Kit looked up at the captain, at his utterly confounded expression, how a stream of rain dripped from his curled lip. Then with a cry, Karange lunged at Mad Dog, swiped the musket from his hands, aimed and fired. Hacksaw screamed and jumped away as the gun fired, and the dynamite exploded. The blast was bright enough to momentarily light up the night, and powerful enough to knock the pirates on their tails. Globs of mud rained everywhere, but when the smoke had cleared, the only thing different about the transport plane was that it was sliding sideways into a newly made crater.

Karange tossed the gun aside and ran at the plane, banging his fists on the door. "Oh, so you think you can hide like the sardines in a can! You have the big can, but I have the bigger can opener!"

The captain turned around and stomped toward his tri-wing. "Get back, boy," he told Kit. He snatched the radio mic from his cockpit and ordered, "Bring down the big guns!"

"The big guns…?" wondered Kit aloud. More CT-37s swarmed the sky above them, their pilots firing off flare guns that lit the field in a ruddy glow. Then, he understood. The Iron Vulture descended from the stormy clouds, telescopic cannon barrels extending from both sides of its prow. "Uh-oh." Backing away behind the tri-wing, he already had his airfoil raised like a shield, in just the thought of what kind of blast was about to come bearing down.

"Wait," Kit said. "You'll blow everyone up in there."

The look Don Karnage glowered down at him with then, the rain pouring through his sweater could not have given him more of a chill. "So?"

"So? C'mon, can't we take a crack at it another way?"

Karnage snarled at him and shoved him away. "Not this, not now, boy."

"But Captain...!"

"Tear it to pieces!" cried Don Karnage, fists shaking in the air.

The pang Kit felt in his gut nearly made him double over. He suddenly wasn't so proud of having brought that plane down. A part of him, panicking, wanted to run to the plane, and beg those inside to surrender for their lives, but he'd have to trust that Karnage would stay the airship's firepower or he'd get caught in the blast himself. At that notion, he began to dart out to the plane ― the captain would give him hell for it, probably make him scrub latrines until he was old enough to collect pension ― but that he could deal with. But about halfway out there, he came to a halt, looking up, as the Vulture continued its way down. It descended with the sound of its own resounding thunder, louder than the storm. And when he looked back at the captain, Karnage was licking the tips of his wolvish teeth, fixated solely upon his great iron monster and how it was poised for destruction. There was no saving this plane, or himself if he ran out there. Kit cried out and scrambled back to the captain, taking cover behind the tri-wing, eyes shut tight and hands covering his ears. He couldn't stand to look…

… but a moment past, there was no big kaboom from the airship's cannons. He dared to peek, seeing that someone on the inside had finally opened the plane's door. They had surrendered. Karnage was stomping their way, while the others approached around the opened door with their muskets and pistols raised.

"Oh, jeez," exhaled Kit. His heart was thrumming. That was not a stroke of luck he'd care to have to repeat ever again. Hurriedly, he caught up behind Karnage, peering forward at the plane, wondering what in the world was it could be hauling ― to be revealed in just a few seconds ― but his path was suddenly blocked by pointy steel, the blade of the captain's cutlass pointed against his chest. He yelped gah! and followed the length of the blade with his eyes, up Karnage's sleeve, and finally to the fiercely dark scowl the captain was giving him. "Never get between a pirate and his prize," Karnage warned.

Kit understood very well what he meant; that was the captain's way of mentioning that his little attempted stunt to protect the plane didn't go unnoticed. "I w-wasn't," he stammered. But what lie was he going to concoct on the spot? "I just…! I mean, I didn't wanna…! Hey, wait up!"

Karnage snorted at him, and, to Kit's perspective, the quickening of the captain's steps seemed to be just as much effort to get some distance away from this disappointment of a protege as much to hurry up to see what loot awaited within the plane. "You're too soft, boy."

Kit came to a stomping halt, made a face and monkeyed Karnage's words behind his back. Funny how just a few minutes ago he had a grand picture in his head about how he was going to save the piratical day. He certainly had the bumps and bruises to count toward it. Now it all meant squat. He angrily kicked up a swath of mud on Karanage backside, but they had all been bombarded by so much rain and mud that the captain never noticed.

Don Karnage was the first inside the plane, with his crew's every eyeball on him through the doorway, waiting for his reaction to what wondrous, valuable, astonishing...

(but their captain wasn't so marveled or pleasantly surprised)

… curious…? Neat…? Remotely interesting, even...?

(okay, he was sneering, actually)

Kit squeezed through the door with the rest of the pirates, as they piled inside behind Karange, keeping their guns drawn on the plane's crew, to which there was just three of them, and not exactly the menacing bastards they were expecting after such a long fight. There was a pilot and a gunner, both black panthers in olive and gold military-like uniforms, and a leopard with big spectacles wearing a black tie suit. There was nothing else inside the plane except the usual seats and spare parachutes, but the leopard did have a metal briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.

Don Karnage tapped on the briefcase with his sword. "Better be better than good," he warned the carrier. "Open it!"

"I c-can't," the leopard gulped. The briefcase rattled as his knees trembled against it.

Karnage clicked his tongue at him. "I would start thinking more positividily if I were you. Now, repeat after me: 'I think I can, I think I can, I think I can before I make a very angry pirate turn me and my shabby suit into bad-tasting shishkabob!'"

"He means he really can't," groaned the pilot, who along with his gunner counterpart had his hands up in the air. "No one here has the key."

"And where, do tell my attention-tuning ears, is the estupid key?" spat Karnage.

"Cape Suzette."

"Ca ― Ca―" Karnage was coughing the words up, incredulously, "Cape Suzette?! What's inside?"

"We don't know," said the pilot.

"We're not allowed to know, sir," piped up the leopard, his voice quivering. "We j-just make sure it gets there."

"Ha! Boss, I bet there's a million bucks in there!" said Mad Dog.

"Or diamonds?" wondered Dumptruck.

Karnage turned back to the leopard and his briefcase; flop sweat dripped from the latter's head. "Well. I am supposing there is only one way to find out. Open it."

"It's impossible!" pleaded the leopard. "Please, you have to believe us! I can't take it off my wrist!"

Kit watched a sinister grin slither up Karnage's face; a frazzled face, one that looked about ready to snap at any second. It made him shudder to think where this was headed. Karnage had the blade of his cutlass held right before the leopard's face, making sure he took into great detail how sharp it was. "If you can-not," said he, "I can." The carrier fell back in his seat, on the verge of fainting.

Jeez, here we go again, thought Kit. He pushed himself between Karnage and the carrier.

"Re-lax," he told the captain. "I got it." He tucked his airfoil in his sweater, and fished out a hairpin that he kept handy for just such a lockpicking occasion. Karnage snorted at him, but stepped back all the same. Kit needed no tick-tocking sound of a clock to remind him that everyone was impatiently watching and waiting on him; the captain's tapping foot was handling that part, anyway. Kit had his ear to the hairpin inside the keyhole, gave Karnage sidelong, annoyed glance: tryin' to listen, here.

Karnage huffed a sigh and stopped with the toe-tapping.

Gingerly, Kit tilted and rotated the hairpin, listening and feeling for that sweet, little tick ― and voila, the cuffs slid open from the briefcase's latch; the case swung open, spilling its contents on the floor. The pirates moved to ogle at what was revealed ― even the plane's crew couldn't resist leaning in for an ogle of their own ― finding, at last, that it was….

…. paper.

Yes, sheets of paper. And words. Lots of typed words. But yes… paper. Some sort of lengthy report, now strewn all over the floor and getting soiled in the tracked-in mud. The sudden still silence that became over the cabin, beside only the noise of relentless pounding rain and occasional thunder, gave a clear indication of how stunned and disappointed this revelation proved to be. Then came the collective moaning and groaning.

"What is this, a book report?" sneered Ratchet.

"Yeah, like you'd know," muttered Kit. At a cursory glance, the pages were full of big block paragraphs, long, boring, technical words, and he felt as let down as anybody, to the point where, on his knees, he was sifting through and flipping the pages over as if somehow hoping to find some little gem hidden away. "This stinks," he sighed.

Right over his head, he could practically feel the furnace heating up that was Karnage's temper. The captain, still left speechless at what might as well have been manure as far as he was concerned, glared intensely at the leopard, while pointing at, one after the other, all the pages on the floor, and finally, like steam from a kettle coming to boil, the seething, excruciating question erupted: "Wwwwwwhy?!"

But the leopard could only blink at him. "I don't know. Honest!"

"Hey, just a second, here," said Ratchet. He picked up a particular page, for some of the words thereon had caught his attention. He began reading it over with rapt fascination that made his brows furrow.

"WHAT am I supposed to do with this?" demanded Karnage, stomping.

Hacksaw had a suggestion, one that had him hopping up and down: "Boss! Boss! Just think of all the paper airplanes we could make!" For that, Karnage threw him outside, face first in the mud.

Kit tuned out all of the captain's ranting and raving, for he had spied a very peculiar page of this report. He picked it up by the corners, to not to muddy it up with his dirty hands. It was a diagram, a fancy one, inked in color, which in of itself was a rare sight to see, but what was really an eye-candy treat was what was drawn: it looked like a ruby, cut with many facets, like two narrow diamond shapes fused together on the long end, and the color of which is was drawn distinctively made it look like it was radiantly glowing. The margins of the page were full of mathematical equations and the like, a completely foreign language to his eyes, but the jewel, that was a language he understood; to translate, it was spelled out in all dollar signs and was pronounced cha-ching!

"Oh, wow ― hey!" In a blink, Don Karnage had swiped it out of his hands.

"Well, looksee what I see," said Karnage, "what a pretty little pebble we have here, no?" Then he began to wave the page angrily at all three of the plane's crew. "I knew it! Where are you hiding it?"

"Boss," began Ratchet, who by now had a small stack of papers in his hand that he was quickly sifting through. Kit had always regarded Ratchet as someone who didn't become a pirate because he was too stupid to do anything else, but because the guy was just a natural crook and the job suited him fine. Looking up at Ratchet now, there was some very intense concentration in the way he excitedly eyeballed what he was reading. "I needa word…"

"... don't you be standing there slacking your jaws at me," Karnage was warning the plane's crew, "I want to know where this ― hey!" He had the diagram swiped from his hands by Ratchet, who was so preoccupied that he had all but been oblivious to the audaciousness of such an act.

"You know what this is?" said Ratchet, who was now practically salivating. "It's a…! A…" He glanced around the room, at all the questioning faces, and cleared his throat. "It's a heck of a jewel, but it's not on this plane. Boss, listen." Shielding his mouth and the captain's ear with the pages in hand, Ratchet began to hastily whisper a load of information. Curious, Kit tried to lean in, but was swatted away; he did watch Karnage's eyes dart around, and read his lips when he mumbled a name: Shere Khan

After that brief, secretive exchange, Ratchet swooped down and began to scoop up any and all pages he could. "C'mon, ya mugs, watch yer feet and gimme a hand."

"Get them all!" added Karnage, who didn't care to stoop down himself, but was perfectly happy to just supervise the work.

"Aw, what for?" Kit wanted to know. Did it get any worse than going from an awesome aerial takedown to cleaning litter on the floor of someone else's plane?

"Yeah, what for?" griped Mad Dog.

"To make paper airplanes!" snapped Karnage.

"Yaaay!" Hacksaw was heard cheering from outside.

"And you shut up out there!"

Kit did as told, but not without sharing with the others in all the grumbling about it. All of the pages he picked up seemed practically hieroglyphic as far as what he could make out of them, and boring to death. He daydreamed, though, of finding that red jewel somewhere stowed away on the plane, and what it would be like to have gobs of wealth in the palm of his hand. Wow! To imagine the look on all the other pirates' faces as they got to pout and writhe with jealousy, or how the captain would be so happy with him, or…

… or…

… what about if he kept it for himself?

His mind just populated with images of mansions, cash piles, and planes. Especially the planes. If even just one, one all his own. He could already see it! The yoke in his hands, his gaze out the windshield, the clouds whisking by… His fur tingled down his back...

… and he flinched at the sound of the captain's sword swishing in the air, startled as if it was coming for him for even thinking such a mutinous thought. But the blade had landed under the leopard's chin again, stopping close enough for a shave.

"By the way, Mister-I-have-the-manners-of-a-public-nose-picker," said Karnage, "Don't forget to thank the boy."

"Oh, yes," the leopard breathed. "Th-thank you! Oh, thank you thank you thank you!"

Huh. Well, that was kind of thoughtful. Now Kit just felt guilty. He'd never betray Don Karnage. So, he stuck out his chest, tough guy like, at the leopard. "Yeah! Better get a new gig, pal, 'cause if we ever see you in the sky again, next time we won't be so nice, got it?" To drive the point home, he poked him in his chest, right on the black tie.

He did not, however, get the kind of squirming reaction he was hoping for; instead the leopard has become transfixed on him, mouth gaping as he actually realized for the first time, "My gosh. You're just a kid."

Hard to look tough when your comrades behind you were snickering. Kit's face flushed hot, and his hands rolled into fists. He sneered at the leopard, leaning in, "Lucky for you, I don't hit guys with glasses, or I'd pop ya one. Pow!"

At that, with a flick of his wrist, the captain's cutlass had whisked the spectacles away. This surprised Kit enough that he took an involuntary step back, backing into Karnage. He looked up at the captain, whose malicious grin gave him clear, unspoken directive. A little shove from the hip reinforced as much.

Of all the things he was loathsome to do, but he had opened his mouth already, and everyone was watching. He didn't even debate it inwardly, he couldn't. He just sucked in a lung capacity's worth of air, wound back with his right hand, and swung a right hook into the guy's nose. He didn't see it hit, he clenched his eyes shut on impact, but he felt it, squishy and crunchy. The leopard yelped sharply, palms over his face. In a beat, blood was dripping from between his fingers, onto his black tie.

Karnage cackled heartily, doubling over Kit's shoulder. "Did you see the look on his face?" He said, pointing at the carrier. He could hardly talk, he was laughing so hard; the other pirates chimed in on the merriment with their own guffaws: Ha! What a weenie! Got beat up by a kid!

And yes, Kit did see, quite clearly, the look in the carrier's face. It was pain and hurt. Sometimes a little blood was part of the job. Sometimes it was yours. Sometimes someone else's. But he had never felt that ease the other pirates did, when he was the cause of it himself.

You're too soft, boy. The captain's words were taunting him in his own head.

"And now, my three pillagees," said Don Karnage, "you get to see a magic trick." The pirates him oooh'd in suspense. Kit acted his way through that one, for his thoughts were on how his right knuckles smarted, and the whimpering of the guy holding a bloody nose. Hardly the first time he slugged someone, but then, they usually deserved it.

Again: You're too soft, boy. It didn't escape him that maybe he oughta just make some show of kicking this poor sap in the knee, then the captain would see who's too soft. He couldn't bring himself to do it.

"First, I make this disappear from your very eyes," continued Karnage, tapping on the briefcase in Ratchet's hand. No one moved to object. Then, with a flick of his brow, the captain looked and guestured up at the ceiling, from where the thunderous noise of the Iron Vulture loomed overhead. The pilot and gunner looked up likewise, apprehensively. "Then, I make your plane disappear. With a great, big poof!" He smiled wickley. "Or, a great, big boom."

The pilot pleaded, "We're a thousand miles from anywhere! It's storming outside! You can't just — can't…" His words came to a stammering halt at the way Don Karnage cocked his ear at him.

"He wants you to go 'head and tell'm more about what he can't do," so Kit translated. The pilot pursed his lips tight shut.

Cackling, the pirates scurried out to their own planes. Kit returned to the cargo mover with Hacksaw and Ratchet, and the briefcase. Theirs was the last to take to the stormy sky, following Karnage and the CT-37s; it lifted its landing gear from the muddy grass just as the plundered plane's crew ran for their lives across the field… just as the Iron Vulture shelled the black transport plane to oblivion. Kit watched it happen through the pane of a dirty cabin window. He tried to at least look to a silver lining in having their cargo plane so empty of plunder: and least there was nothing heavy to move. He still didn't get what was so interesting about all those pieces of paper. All that writing couldn't been about that jewel, after all, and that illustration was the only eye-catching part. He thought about that jewel on the way back to the Iron Vulture, wondering if it was actually smuggled away on that now-destroyed plane somewhere, imagining what it would have been like to find it, to hold it...

… to hide it… to keep it…

What he never saw was what Ratchet was reading. This particular jewel had a name:

Sub-Electron Amplifier