Chapter 5
"Can I help you," Mrs. Riesstiu's mother asked, standing near her opened front door.
"Detective Richard Tracy, Cooksdale Police," he said, flashing his badge, "I have a warrant for the arrest of Jake Riesstiu on the charges of Arson. Where is he?"
Mrs. Riesstiu put her hand over her heart, and was confused.
"The Police are after him?" she said, "but he's such a good boy! He went to that party with his friends." She knew she would have to talk for some time. "Please, Detective, come in," she said, gesturing in the house, and opening the door wider. The Detective walked in, and took off his fedora and trench coat.
"Do you know who he went to the party with?" The detective asked.
"Well," Mrs. Riesstiu began, thinking deeply, "I knew that he went with his girlfriend, Jessica Flirtly."
The detective recorded the name of Jake's Girlfriend.
"Do you know where he is right now?" He asked.
"Well he's probably in the back seat of the car with Jessica having hot, lusty se… sorry, I didn't mean to go off like that," she apologetically said, blushing.
"No, no," the detective said, in deep interest "continue. I want all the details"
Meanwhile Dan, driving along a long stretch of road on the outskirts of town, began to sing "Tonight" a song from West Side Story. For out of no-where, there was instrumental accompaniment along with his singing.
"Tonight, tonight,
Won't be just any night.
Tonight there will be no morning stars!
Tonight, tonight,
I'll see my love tonight.
And all stars will stop where they are!"
Derek punched Dan in the arm at the end of the verse, and the musical accompaniment stopped as Dan received the hit.
"Shut the hell up," Derek said, killing the entire atmosphere "I'm trying to play Homeworld."
"Hey," Dan said, looking over at Derek, who was playing Homeworld on his laptop, "It would do good for my morale."
"Yeah," Derek said, "and distract you from the road. So before you crash, quit singing while you're ahead."
Dan drove for a few minute and than said, "If quitters never win, and winners never quit, who made up the phrase 'Quit while you're ahead'?"
Derek paused, than said, "In my opinion, whoever the guy was who made up that phrase knew his stuff."
Dan responded with, "In my opinion, your opinion's wrong."
"Hey," Derek snapped in a calm tone, "if there's no such thing as a wrong opinion, than does that make either of our opinions wrong, or does that mean that there is such a thing as a wrong opinion?"
"Well," Dan replied in a rational tone, "Opinions cannot be wrong, since they are the view of a person, and what a person sees is not wrong to them."
"Ah," Derek said, "but what one person sees is right, the other may see it as wrong."
"How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" Edward said enthusiastically, trying to get involved in the philosophical debate.
"Edward," both Derek and Dan said in unison, "shut the hell up."
Edward's smile dropped as soon as he realised he failed miserably in getting involved, and also realised he just killed the conversation
Derek focused his attention back to his laptop, and commanding his resource operation...
Two Kushan Resource Collectors advanced through space, followed by a Resource Controller. The Controller was guarded by a globe of Interceptors, and had a wall of Heavy Corvettes beside it.
A Sensors Officer in the Controller began to pick up faint energy signatures that grew and began to move to their approximate position.
The Sensors Officer opened communications to the Commanding Officer via the ship's internal communications network.
"Bridge, this is SensO station 14 reporting signals approaching our vector. They're … they're Taiidani."
The Commanding officer was shocked as he heard the transmission.
He opened up the emergency channel with the Mother ship.
"Attention Fleet Command," the Commanding Officer said over the channel, "We've got incoming hostiles on attack vectors with weapons charging! We need support now!"
Karan processed this through her augmented mind at amazing speed, than opened communications with the entire fleet.
"Fleet command to all ships," Karan said, "We have hostiles on incoming vectors. Intercept and neutralize."
Dan looked at the road ahead, and saw a few parked cars.
"Shit," Dan said, "either those are cops, or the football team."
Dan pulled over to the side of the road, in response to the sight ahead of the road. Sean pulled over behind Dan's car.
All of the guys got out of their car, and gathered in a little group.
"Alright," Dan said, "I'm going up there to figure out who those guys are. Stay here, and be prepared to kick some ass if things heat up."
Dan than went off heroically, while the guys took weapons out of their stockpiles. He than saw the football players were around the civilian roadblock.
They were still dressed in a dress shirt, tie and team jackets.
"Well, well, well," one of the football players said, "If it isn't Dan, the ladies' man. Jessica sure is hot, isn't she?"
Dan's face was pulled at by his festering and burning rage and anger.
"Hey," Dan snapped, "burning the house was one thing, but kidnapping Jessica crossed the line! Now where is she?"
"Hey guys," the football player asking in a mocking tone, "where is Jessica?"
The group of six football players looked at each other, and mockingly asked for Jessica's location.
"Sorry, Dan," the football player said in a mocking tone, "looks like none of us know where she is."
"You bastards," Dan said, "I'll put my foot so far up your ass, that you'll choke on it."
The football players burst out laughing at Dan's threat.
"Yeah," the Football player said, chuckling, "you want to try it?"
"I bet I could," Dan said, "since you're probably looser than Goatse!"
The first football player's smile dropped, and turned into a cold hard look.
"You're going to get your ass kicked for using those words, 'cuz we don't appreciate that" the football said in an intimidating tone.
"Bring it on" Dan yelled.
The football player lumbered towards Dan in an intimidating manner.
"You're dead meat", one of the football players said.
Dan began to back away in fear, with a mortified look on his face.
"Why are you backing away, lover boy?" the first football player asked in a mocking tone.
Dan stopped, and than began to look genuinely confident.
One of the football players gave a chuckle, than asked why Dan looked so confident.
Dan said, "The reason lies behind you."
As the football players turned to look behind them, Dan's friends already began to attack the football players with their makeshift weaponry.
Dan grabbed a stunned football player by the back of his jacket, and threw him against the trunk of a local car.
Dan began to smash the football player's head against the trunk of the car repeatedly.
He stopped when the football player was bleeding.
"Where is she?!" Dan yelled in the pained and frightened face of the football player.
"WHERE IS SHE?!" Dan repeated, but louder.
Dan than received a punch in the face by another football player.
Dan, taken by surprise, strafed to his right by the force of the blow, and looked at the direction of where he received the punch. Standing there was the intimidating football player, smiling sadistically. Now, two of the aforementioned football players began to gang beat Dan.
A punch from the guy that Dan smashed against the trunk made Dan fall to the ground.
Dazed with hazy vision, Dan looked up, and saw the form of a football player.
Dan than received a kick in the stomach, forcing allot of air out of his lungs.
Dan received another hit in the stomach, making it tight, and burn with pain.
The beaten and weary Dan looked up to see the football player get smacked in the back of the head with a baseball bat.
The football player who was hit in the back of the head suddenly got a surprised/dopey look on his face.
"Knife goes in and guts come out," the football player said, as he fell to the ground.
Dan wasted no time as the football player was hit. He took the KO-ed body of the intimidating football player, and threw it on the guy that was smashed against the trunk.
The football player who was smashed by Dan received the hit from the KO-ed body, and got the wind knocked out of him. He than thought quickly, and stuffed the KO-ed football player in the back seat of one of the cars.
The battered football players scrambled to their cars, while receiving blows. They were frantic to get away, and got organs smashed in the process.
The football players than drove away, as Dan's posse dove out of the way of the cars.
Dan watched the red lights of the cars fade away, as the Cars screamed to the distance.
He caught something move out of the corner of his eye. He looked a bush on the side of the road. The bush was large enough to contain a man.
The bush shook as Derek climbed out of it.
"Excellent work, gentlemen," Derek said, right after he emerged from the Bush, brushing his hands against eachother.
"Derek, you wuss," David insulted.
"Hey," Derek snapped defensively, "The only reason I'm with you guys is because I hate Riesstiu. Do I look like the fighting type to you?"
"Derek," Edward said, "if you're with us, you're against them. You have to not chicken out, and fight them."
Derek sighed, than agreed.
"Hey guys," Sean announced, "look at what I looted from one of their cars."
Sean proudly held up a map.
"Dude," Dan said in a matter-of-fact tone, "I already have a map."
"Oh," Sean uttered as his enthusiasm was crushed, shot, and beaten with a loaf of French bread.
"Hey," Brandon said, "speaking of maps, how are we going to get to the football field without the cops finding us?"
Derek than said, "well, we should go through the Cliffside, than go through the Gardens, because no body goes through the Gardens. We'll sneak our way around the eastern residential district, than get to the school."
"Sounds like a plan," Brandon said.
The guys got into their respective cars, and drove off to the Cliffside, unbeknownst of its reason of why the police don't patrol it