Mission 5: Payback part 8

Continued from last week...

“Cathy!” Jordan called from his perch on top of the truck. Katie and Daniel had raced over to pick him up once he’d caught Pat. His startling news had sent them screaming back to Cathy in the truck. Jordan hopped off the truck before it had come to a complete stop when they got to where Cathy was.
Cathy stepped back, surprised. They were just hauling the fake Cathy off to jail. “We already got the imposter, Jordan,” she said. “It was one of the emperor’s spies, just like I figured.”
“We’ve got bigger problems, Cathy!” Jordan nearly shouted. “The emperor knows where we are!”
Cathy was taken aback yet again. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Pat spilled the whole thing when I took him down.”
“How do you know he’s not lying?”
“Why would he lie about a thing like that? We have to prepare anyways, what should we do?”
“We need everyone to build up defenses,” Cathy said, taking charge. “Where’s Kayla and Emmy, I could use their help organizing things. Christophear!” she shouted.
Chris suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Yes, ma’am,” he saluted.
“I need you to raise the alarm that the rebellion is under attack, spread the word to all the troops, but don’t cause any panic, that’s the last thing we need.”
“Right away,” Chris nodded and ran down the street.
“What about Cruise and the others?” Jordan asked. “We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”
Cathy sighed. “Yes, you should probably go pick them up.”
Suddenly, Sarah came running up to Cathy. “What can I do?” she asked.
Cathy let out a long breath of air. “Pray,” she whispered.

“Well, this is bad,” said Ryan as he watched the small army march towards them.
“Don’t worry,” Laz said, bravely. “We’ve been in worse scrapes before.”
“Name one,” Ryan challenged.
Laz paused and thought for a minute. “Um… well, nothing’s really coming to mind right now, but I’m sure I’ll think of one in a minute.”
“You do that,” Ryan patted him on the back and walked over towards Tim. “What now?”
“We could just jump over the bridge right now and end it,” Tim offered.
“No,” Ryan shook his head. “Its too far down, we’ll hit the water like its solid concrete.”
“That’s why I said ‘end it right now’.”
“Well, we at least have to put up some sort of a fight,” Ryan said.
“You’re right,” Tim drove his fist into his hand. “Take cover, and gather all your weapons, men!”
“Tim, there’s three of us,” Ryan raised his eyebrows, and gave him a look. “And there is no cover, and we have about three handguns between us.”
“And that spent rocket launcher,” Laz pointed out.
“I don’t even know where that came from,” Ryan threw up his hands. “Why was there a rocket launcher in the back seat of your sister’s car?”
Tim shrugged. “My sister can get pretty serious sometimes.”
Ryan looked surprised. He glanced at the rocket launcher and then back at Tim; then he gave his trademark grin that said he was about to say something he considered incredibly funny. “So when she burns guys, she does it literally, huh.”
“I hate to break it to you, Ryan,” Tim said. “But we’re still being approached by a private army of Imperial troops and we’re probably going to die in the next five minutes, so could you try and be a little more serious?”
“Me?” Ryan gave a mock look of shock and hurt. “Never.” Suddenly, Ryan’s eyes grew bright. “Laz,” he said. “Do you still have that equipment bag, with the C4?”
Laz looked around, and saw the bag lying on the ground next to the railing on the bridge. “Incredible,” Laz said. “Its still here.”
“Great,” Ryan grinned. “Let’s rig a little surprise for the emperor’s army.”
We can only make one bomb with this thing, Ryan,” Tim pointed out. “We’re gonna need more than this.”
“Don’t worry,” Ryan held up his hands. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Like what?” Tim asked.
Ryan grinned. “Do you have any gum, by any chance?”

One after another, in neat little rows of five, the imperial troops marched down the bridge. The soles of their feet all slapped the pavement at the same time, creating a smooth, rhythmic thundering sound every time their shoes met the ground. One of the soldiers, however, was thrown off rhythm when he stepped on a piece of gum on the bridge. He stopped to pick it off, creating a gap in the rhythm. An officer stopped and screamed, “Who’s messing up the order?” at the top of his lungs.
“Sorry sir,” the soldier replied. “But you see there’s a piece of gum stuck in my--” and then he blew up all over the place, quite literally, taking a couple other soldiers with him. All the soldiers who had felt a stick to their step frantically started pulling at their shoes. One by one, they neatly were blown away, at least all the ones that had stepped on the gum. Ryan and Tim had only had a 24-piece pack between them, so there were still plenty of soldiers left. Except for one officer, whose face had been neatly erased when a terrified soldier had accidentally flung his shoe at the officer.
With some difficulty, the remaining officers managed to restore some order, and continue the march, being careful to watch out for any gum on the road. None of them noticed the oversized backpack lying to the side of the road.

Tim glanced at Ryan, “should I do it now?” he asked. He was holding a remote with a switch on it and eagerly waiting for Ryan’s signal before he flipped the switch.
“Not yet,” Ryan held up his hand. “Wait until about half way.” He peered through his binoculars and waited. “Okay, now,” he ordered.
There was a large eruption from the backpack and about half of the small imperial army was instantly blown from the bridge. Pieces of pavement and railing went flying everywhere, sometimes landing on unaware soldiers.
“Phew,” Ryan breathed. “That should keep them away.” To his amazement, however, the soldiers kept on coming. After a few minutes, the officers had gathered together their forces and renewed their march towards the unfortunate agents on the opposite side of the bridge.
“What now?” Laz yelled.
“Well, I guess we’re screwed,” Ryan shrugged.

Chuck led his troops to within ten feet of the agents. “You three have caused me a lot of trouble,” he growled.
Ryan grinned. “Happy to be of service,” he said giving a slight bow.
“Very funny, Cruise,” Chuck snarled, not looking very amused. “But you won’t think its so funny when you’re dead.”
“Cheery fellow, isn’t he?” Ryan remarked.
Tim nodded. “He’s probably just upset by the fact that we blew up half his force without even firing a shot.”
Ryan laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“You’re outnumbered, Cruise,” Chuck declared, ignoring their comments. “There’s only three of you, and there’s over c hundred of us.”
“Aw, I’ve had worse,” Ryan waved him off.
“There’s actually about one hundred and fifty of them,” Laz reported. “No wait, I think I counted one of them twice… nope, there’s one hundred and fifty.”
“Still seen worse.”
“Well,” Chuck said. “Surrender, beg for mercy, fall on your knees, you know the drill.”
“No,” Tim shook his head. “Actually, we don’t.”
“Well then, its to the death?” Chuck looked very pleased by this. “You know I could kill you all right now, just by looking at you.”
“Then do it,” Ryan challenged.
Chuck looked thrown off by the challenge. “I, uh, I don’t want to,” he stammered.
“Why not?”
“Cause I don’t want to.”
“Its probably because you made that up,” Ryan taunted.
“That is not true!”
Just then, Ryan heard a slight humming, coming from across the horizon. From where he stood it sounded sort of similar to a humming bird, but there were no flowers here. He knew who it had to be, and he grinned from ear to ear, if that’s possible.
“All right, all right,” Ryan threw up his hands, motioning for Tim and Laz to do the same. They simply looked at him like he was crazy. “You got us, Chuck,” Ryan admitted. “Just do me one favor, can I have one last word before we go?”
Chuck rolled his eyes and sighed. “What?”
Ryan twitched his arm ever so slightly and grabbed at his sleeve. “Catch.” He flung his arm towards Chuck and a wadded up piece of gum flew towards him.
As the stunned soldiers watched the deadly piece of gum fly towards their commander, they lost concentration and paid no attention to the fugitives.
Ryan sprang towards the edge of the bridge and jumped on top of the railing, with Tim and Laz close behind.
“Are you nuts?” Tim yelled. They could hear the gum exploding and a loud scream in the background.
“Yes, I thought we’d already established that!” Ryan cried in return.
“Are we gonna do what I think we’re gonna do?” Laz screamed.
“Depends on what you’re thinking,” Ryan yelled back.
“I’m thinking we’re gonna die!”
“You’re pretty close!” Then Ryan jumped off the railing and out towards the water. His arms flailed in the air, and his ears were filled with the sound of screaming coming from him, Tim, and Laz. Below him, he saw a welcome sight, a friendly, black helicopter, with a familiar face in the cockpit. Ryan grabbed onto the side of the helicopter as he fell and hung there for a minute. Then he pulled himself into the helicopter, followed quickly by Tim and Laz.
Jordan, who was the pilot of course, turned around and faced them. He was wearing some really cool aviator sunglasses and a big smile. “Nice of you three to drop by.”
“No problem,” Tim gasped, still unsure of exactly how they had survived. “Just as long as you’re here to catch us.”

To be continued...