“Where are they?” Dusty fretted. “They should have been here almost two hours ago.”
	It was unusually cold as the group waited in the dead of night, all eyes straining in the darkness at the main road into Propwash Junction. They were all part of a rescue mission that they had never imagined they would be assisting in. None knew what to expect when Ned and Zed had shown up on their tarmac. They were hysterical. From what they had gathered, the twins had been ambushed by a large group of humans in uniform. Dusty and Clarice had no doubt from their descriptions that they were attacked by the Cutters, trying to capture at least one of them and do whatever it was that they did to any poor machine that was brought into their clutches. It was a mystery. They would just up and disappear almost without a trace and would never be heard from again. 
	With ropes tied around every extremity, Ned was being dragged screaming and struggling toward the harness when Ripslinger suddenly suddenly came barreling in in a rare display of valor, startling most of the group that was currently trying to manhandle Zed off of him and cutting through Ned’s ropes. Of course this didn’t put the Cutter’s off for long as a good scare turned into rejoicing in their good luck that they had the opportunity to pull in a fine racing P-51, even though they weren’t prepared to capture a plane of his size. Normally they would use a large swath of netting pulled behind trucks to bring those in. Still, it wasn’t long before Ripslinger had started to become overwhelmed as every available man had started throwing ropes over him. He went for the group in front of him that already had his wings bound, but then all the others behind him had lassoed his tail and pulled him up when he was just inches away from mowing them all down. Ripslinger’s engine roared through his scream of frustration and rage as they started pulling with all their might from both ends to temporarily immobilize him. Ned and Zed moved to try and help, but Ripslinger only screamed at them to get lost. 
	“Fly away! Ugh!” he twisted in his bindings, managing to throw a few cutters for the effort. “Get away!” 
	Reluctantly, they did fly away, but only just out of sight until they could follow them back to wherever they were taking their leader. That was a few days ago. They loitered around a cliff on the outskirts of the compound that they had been led to, having no idea how they should break in until Zed remembered that Dusty had that girl with him. The girl was human, and their boss had been captured by humans. It was all the connection they needed to know what they had to do next. After learning of the circumstance of Ripslinger’s capture, Dusty all of a sudden didn’t need any more convincing. Clarice was a bit more hesitant. 
	“Oh, come on, please! I know we tried to kill you and all, but you gotta help us!” 
	Clarice’s front had already been crumbling just as Dusty’s had after they told their story, but with two little planes practically on their bellies at her feet she finally let up. She had the feeling after this latest interaction with them that their behavior was largely influenced by Ripslinger’s, and still, he couldn’t be all bad if he’d risked himself so that they could escape. The little bastards were kind of cute anyway. 
	So here they all were, anxiety mounting at every second that Clarice and Hugh, her partner in crime on these rescue missions they’d carry out here and there whenever the leads were good, had failed to arrive. Suddenly Skipper spoke up, startling everyone. 
	“There’s lights comin’ up the road.” 
	Indeed there were. Everybody stood stock still as the two beams of light traveled ever closer through the darkness. It had to be them. What was confusing, though, was that nobody could hear the sound of an airplane at all. As the lights came closer, it was apparent that it was indeed Hugh’s old Chevrolet pick-up, and they could all just make out the faint outline of a motionless, thirty-odd foot plane being towed behind it on a trailer. Ned and Zed were becoming more and more agitated the closer the truck came as Ned started crying out in devastation. 
	“Oh my god! OH MY GOD!” he wailed as Zed turned and buried his nose in his side. 
	Dusty turned to Skipper,“Try to keep them from rushing the truck if you can. Come on, Dottie.” 
	The Chevy stopped as they approached and Clarice jumped out of the bed of the truck to meet them. 
	“Clarice, what happened?” Dusty asked. “Is he -” 
	“No, he’s still with us. I don’t know what’s wrong with him though; he was like this when we found him.” 
	Dottie rolled over to the trailer that Ripslinger was currently tied down to. Up close she could see that he was actually moving, although if just for the twitching and trembling of his flaps and ailerons. 
	“Well that explains why you guys were so late getting back.” Dusty remarked as Clarice gave him a few pats on the side of the nose, “You had us worried there for a minute.” 
	“What do you think, Dottie?” asked Clarice. 
	“I don’t know, lets get him to the garage under some good light.” 
	Once the trailer had been backed into the garage, Hugh jumped out to stretch his legs as Chug came over for a closer look at the robin’s-egg blue classic. 
	“What in Chrysler’s name is in that thing?” he asked, still a little taken off guard at the sight of it pulling something Ripslinger’s size. 
	“That’s between me and the Old Lady.” Hugh mumbled, shuffling a bit. 
	This was Clarice’s thing; Hugh still found it awkward speaking to any vehicles. Meanwhile, Dottie was still in the middle of her assessment of Ripslinger’s condition. 
	“There’s no evidence that he’s been opened up or tampered with recently, and from the fuel samples I’ve taken the only thing in his system is Thortrazepam.” 
	“What’s that?” Clarice asked. 
	“It’s a major sedative in our world, I don’t even want to think about how the Cutters were able to get a hold of any. Still, that doesn’t explain the twitching, which has been getting worse and worse as the drugs are wearing off now.”
	“I wonder if that isn’t why they had him sedated.” Dusty ventured. 
	“Maybe. I have no idea what they did, and he sure isn’t talking.” 
	“So we just wait now, I guess.” Clarice concluded. 
	“Yep. And now we wait. Who want’s to take the first shift?” 
	“I vote Dusty,” Clarice piped up, jumping and raising a hand up high. “since it was his idea.” 
	“Hey, it wasn’t my idea, Ned and Zed showed up here asking for help. You’re the one who agreed to break into the place and get him out.” 
	“So? That doesn’t mean I want to be stuck alone with tall, dark and psycho here; I don’t care how debilitated he is.” 
	“Whatever,” Dusty’s engine gave a harsh flutter, “My hangar isn’t big enough for the both of us. We could use that old hangar across the runway. It’s quiet and out of the way enough, but we’ll have to get it fit to live in again. It’ll do for tonight, I guess.”

XXxx

	Ripslinger slowly came out of a feverish sleep. A bad ache had settled in throughout his whole body like some conquering enemy. He tried to move, but the place he was in and it’s sparse furnishings were reeling like he’d been thrown into a tailspin. He could not make anything stay solid or still. Not inside nor out.
	Alternating waves of hot and cold kept washing over him as he tried to force himself up, but his landing gear wouldn’t hold. Shaking violently now, Ripslinger tried once gain to stand. This time his landing gear stayed under him, but his equilibrium was completely shot. He felt as though some central ball-bearing somewhere inside him that made balance possible had been knocked loose. The ache had turned into an intense, throbbing pain so that he no longer even saw shapes, only patches of gray and black. He felt as if he were being turned inside out, as if he were being scoured. 
XXxx

	Dusty sat in front of an old television set with the volume on mute, the glow from the screen washing over him in the darkness. He peered into it blearily; who knew late night television could be so entertaining? It was almost putting him to sleep faster that simply having his eyes glued to the prostrate plane on the other side of the hangar. 
	But then the continuous rattling coming from the corner grew into a shuffling and banging. Dusty looked over to see Ripslinger actually attempting to get to his landing gear. Trying to shake himself to alertness, Dusty went over to him. 
	“Rip?”
	He didn’t respond. It was almost like he had no perception that Dusty was with him. Then the tremors oscillating through his body intensified and he collapsed jarringly back down into a quivering, shuddering mess. Dusty immediately radioed for Dottie, too afraid to go anywhere near or to touch him for fear of exacerbating his condition. She sleepily rolled in, took stock of the new activity, and then injected something through Ripslinger’s fuel lines. 
	“You know I think you were right, Dusty.” said Dottie as they both sat back and waited for the drugs to take effect. “Whatever they did to him caused some major damage.”
	Dusty watched Ripslinger as he lay miserably on the floor, trembling. He was already starting to feel it. He closed his eyes tight, opening his mouth to draw a tired breath. He made a weak, short noise, as if attempting to speak, but he only shuddered, his landing gear scrabbling at the floor feebly as his eyes opened part way. Dusty let out a soft sigh, trying to keep his expression level.
	“Never thought I’d ever feel sorry for him...”
	“Yeah…” Dottie whispered. “Anyway, he’ll have to be kept sedated until this blows over; if it blows over.”
	Dusty said nothing, just quietly watched as Ripslinger finally closed his eyes and went still again. 
	“His flaps are still twitching. Shouldn’t you give him a little bit more of a dose?”
	“I can’t give him more, it’ll put him into a coma. This is the best we can get it.”
	“Alright. I think we’re good here for now then. Goodnight, Dottie.”
	“'Night, Dusty. Radio me if anything else happens.”