“My cowardly scientist, finally willing to show your face?”

“Call it off, Loch and I will consider just throwing you in the brig until we get off this rock.” Her voice is the kind of thing that can make the straightest girls have some thoughts. Don’t ask how I know. 

“And throw away my leverage, my dear–” she drop kicks him like a football across the sand.

He scrambles across the sand trying to get away, but she approaches him nonchalantly. I keep my bow trained on the slimy wretch. Even digging into the sand his smile hasn’t left his face. Is he just not capable of doing anything else? Is his face stuck like that? Or does he know something we don’t.

“Choose your next words carefully.”

“We can work together, once we are done you can be left in charge of this planet!” 

Fins doesn’t seem persuaded by his grovelling. It won’t be long until the ship is overhead and we’ve lost. I guess we are safe as long as he’s alive, maybe that’s what he’s smiling about.

“What’s going on down there?” Angie asks over the radio. “Who’s attacking him?”

“Am I hallucinating?” Summer puts her pistols away. “Do I have a fever?”

“Summer, stay strong,” Scott says. “A shark woman had Loch by the neck.”

“That’s Fins.” It is Fins right? It had to be. No one else knew about that conversation. “Seems to be infighting.” 

“I’m glad you recognise me, Pink. I wouldn’t be able to recognise me. I need you to lower your weapon,” she says.

“I don’t take orders from people who have held me captive!” I bark back.

She steps on Loch’s neck, pinning him to the ground. Summer gasps. The can and the labcoat now made a bit more sense. The betrayal doesn’t. How long does it go back? When did she start planning this? Why should I listen to someone who kidnapped me today?

“I’m not letting him go. His teleportation codes have all been disabled.” The weakened leader squirms under her foot. “We are on the same side.”

“Do what she says, Fi,” Scott puts a hand on my shoulder and I lower my bow. “For now she’s right.”

“Thank you, Red. This trap was as much for me as it was for you.”

“You didn’t exactly give me much time to make something better,” he hisses. She bends down to talk to him face to face, digging a claw into his cheek. “You can’t get rid of me.”

“Last chance, Loch. Call it off or I’ll leave you on this beach to be vaporised,” she growls, before looking back to us. “You kids get into your mechs in case I can’t get him to give up.”

“The beach will be fine as long as I’m alive.”

Fin’s eyes narrow. “What are you waiting for? Get going.” 

The ground rumbles as the others call their mechs. Loch squirms again trying to wriggle free. He knows he’s out matched, but there is something else in his words. A double meaning that I’m not getting. If he’s not actually going to blow up the city with him nearby, why shouldn’t we just let him leave? Why can’t he stop it if that’s the case? Why is it still flying in the first place? It’s too much effort for a suicidal threat.

“Galah! I need you!”

The pink crested mecha flew overhead shadowing us. Fins takes a knee next to Loch’s head and whispers something to him. It’s hard to hear over the mech, his response is similarly drowned out.

I leap into the robot, air rushes past my face, and the cockpits controls and lights beep at me. The radar shows how far away the ship is. We’ve still got time.

“Black, and Pink intercept the ship if you can.” Angie calls through the radio. 

“On it.” Summer’s magpie flies past me and I hit the throttle to catch up with her. I hear an explosion from below? Maybe a sonic boom. I check my camera’s and Fins and Loch seem to have left. 

“If you can’t, follow it and keep us updated. Red, Blue, Yellow, we’re going to form a defensive wall in the shallows.”

They follow her instructions, Angie stands in front, her mech transforms into something more humanoid, like a rock’em sock’em robot. The giant robots get smaller as Summer and I fly over the horizon towards the blip on the radar.

A blip that I think has started accelerating.

“Summer, it’s getting faster right?”

“Yeah. Astrus, do you know what kind of fuel we’re dealing with?”

The radio is silent for a minute, the blip gets closer and a massive ship crosses over the horizon. An array of thin skirt-like fins stabilise the pointed arrow shaped body. It shimmers, reflecting the sky above and the ocean below. We need to start turning to keep up.

“It is likely similar to a highly concentrated jet or rocket fuel.” Astrus says.

“Any idea how big the explosion would be if we can't stop it?” I ask. 

“Unfortunately I do not know how much fuel they have.” 

“So stop it from exploding so we don’t find out.” Summer has the same idea as me, we should let it catch up. The others are almost completely obscured by the horizon. We’ve flown almost twenty kilometers, we just need to slow it down.

“If the fuel has been drained to make the bomb, slowing it down may stop it from dropping the payload.” Kepler explains.

The ship is on track to go between us, our mechs have turned around, our boosters slow to keep us from rocketing back to shore, while remaining fast enough to catch the weird alien ship. It gets closer and the fins come into focus, giant turbines in them keep it flying. In the back sit giant long rocket engines, only two of the eight are firing.

“Remember your mechs will sink if they hit the water. Keep them dry.” Astrus says.

“You ready, Fi?” Summer asks, the ship is almost in grabbing range.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

The Galahs claws dig into the hull of the spacecraft, the metal screeches as our mechs tear trails through the ship, until eventually we are matching its speed. It unfortunately compensates by lighting up two more engines.

“Spread your wings,” Summer yells into the mic. 

“On it.” I tighten my grip, and bite into its main body before spreading my wings. The ship once again tries to compensate. There has to be a limit. “We aren’t slowing it enough!” 

“And we’ve got another problem,” Scott’s voice crackles on the radio.

“You have got to be kidding me!” I yell back.

“I sure chose a perfect day to come out of retirement,” Angie laughs. How she manages to remain calm eludes me.

Looking back at the beach, sure enough, Loch’s serpentine visage has been blown up to the size of a skyscraper, Leo and Ziggy block the way to the city while Scott and Angie have transformed their mechs into more humanoid forms, one to either side of him.

“He was not making this many snake puns when he was smaller right?” Ziggy sounds annoyed.

“Is snake even fish?” Leo asks. 

“An eel perhaps?” Scott adds. 

“Boys, and Ziggy. Stop taunting the monster. He’s getting grumpy.” From what I can gather Angie punches the monster in the stomach. We are still hurtling towards the beach, we’ve barely even slowed it down. “And besides. They are aliens. They just resemble fish.”

“Fish aren’t even a real thing. Just a vague group of–” Ziggy starts. My wings crack, the massive hinges snapping backwards like an umbrella caught in strong winds. The Magpie doesn’t seem to be faring much better.

“Bigger problems, Ziggy!” I start tearing at the fins with my beak, if I can get closer to a turbine or rip out the right wires maybe it would stop and we could relax. 

“What happened back there?” Summer pokes holes in the hull with her beak. At least we were on the same page. I’m starting to understand everyone being pissed about ruining today on my behalf. Hurtling through the air on a spaceship carrying a bomb headed towards a giant snake thing is officially scarier than coming out. 

“I think Fins blew up Loch, he’s been cackling about this going according to plan.” Scott explains. 

“Scott?” Every new twist, every new part of this plot just makes me even more sure. A date is not enough incentive? Is that even the right word. I already want to fight, reward. Reward? Comforting? I’m scared. When I’m scared he’s who I want beside me. 

“Yes, Fi?”

“After this is dealt with I think I am going to need a hug. Maybe even a kiss. Is that okay?”

“Of course, princess.”

My beak tears a massive hole in the fins and I throw it to the side. The talons grind along the side of the hull but still don’t slow it and all of this does nothing to stop my face from becoming the colour of Scott’s uniform.

“Ugh,” everyone groaned. 

“Screw all of you. Including you Scott, we are in–”

“Sorry darling, I am busy skewering the bad guy.” We never said pet names were okay! It might not matter now. Or it shouldnt, but it does. 

“I’m going to get y–”

“Filia, the ship is still flying,” Summer helpfully reminds me. She’s right, the signal connecting us all was clearer, and the stupid snake man is starting to take up more of my screen. “I don’t know if we can stop it.”

“Do you think you two can change its trajectory?” The gold ranger asks.

“We can certainly try.”

“Good kids. Scott help me hold this bastard down.”

“What are you doing?” The monster's raspy voice comes through Angie’s mic. She punches him in the gut and clunkily hops behind him. “No! You can’t be ssserious…” 

“Oh shut up.” 

Loch tries to break free, and Scott lands another blow against his long face, shifting his focus.

“Ziggy, Leo this is going to send a lot of shrapnel your way. The wombat and echidna should be able to take it. Protect the town.”

“Okay Loch is right you can’t be serious.” Summer yells.

“Don’t worry, I’ll probably be fine. You two focus on directing the ship into him.”

“You’ve done this before, right, or something like it?” I ask. I vaguely remember seeing the Roo get skewered, but it missed the cockpit; this seems more dangerous.

“Not since I was a boy.”

Loch’s eyes desperately look for a way out. The Kangaroo holds onto him tightly, the Thorny Devil pins down his legs. We wouldn’t need much to meet our mark, the engines of both the Magpie and the Galah whir to life, Summer on the left wing pulls the ship up, correcting our course and aiming the ship at the monsters torso, while I am conservative on the throttle to keep the Galah’s weight on the right wing. A kilometer. Then five hundred meters. We bail. One hundred meters and the ship is on course, our departure lets it speed it up. Impact. Our mechs fly over the town as the explosion roars behind us. 

Flying away from a fireball is an amazing way to boost your confidence. Looking down and behind, coming out is a lot less scary. I’d survived that. And being held hostage, and breaking out, and killed a glorified lobster trap. I’m basically invincible. The city looks so small from up here. What is there to be scared of anymore?

We even kept collateral to a minimum! A few city blocks could have gone up in flames, but Leo and Ziggy even managed to keep the beach's guard tower safe! We’d won! Something, for the first time since I’d become a ranger has gone right!

Summer and I circle back to the beach. The back of the gold Kangaroo glistens in the midday sun. Loch is gone. 

“Angelica?” Scott asks. The Thorny Devil lays in the sand looking up at where Loch once stood. The front of the Kangaroo is gone. A massive metal arm drops from the half melted chest onto the sand. 

My heart drops. Scott walks out of his mecha, shaken but okay. It leaves him, heading back towards the base. His walk turns into a run to get to the Roo. The giant metal body creaks. Not good. The Galah drops me to the sand. He’s not thinking right. He’s worried. When he’s worried he gets stupid. And it’s my job to…

“Scott stop!” I shout. He ignores and runs past me. The other arm could fall, the entire thing could fall. I sprint after him. The Roo sways. The cockpit is exposed but seemingly empty, no sign of Angelica meaning she’s probably fine and he’s too rattled to notice.

I tackle my Scott, and hit the recall button before we can be crushed by a giant metal boxing glove.