Codename: Spitfire Issue Guide #2

Issue 3:
Counter Attack

A few weeks after that mess up in New Hampshire, Jenny is flying back to Boston in the M.A.X. suit to visit Giotti in the Boston General Hospital when she narrowly avoids disaster. Unprepared for just how... crowded... the airspace over a busy metropolis can be, Jenny almost crashes headlong into a police helicopter. Luckily for her, its jaded pilot cares not for reporting 'flying robots' to his superiors.

After evading the police, Jenny landed on the roof of the hospital, and left the M.A.X. behind in order to not cause a panic. Entering Giotti's room, she saw the rest of the Troubleshooters were there as well, keeping the guy up to date on his engineering classes, as well as just keeping him company. The team's mirth is broken up by Detective Sloan and his partner, both of whom Jenny recognized.

They were the police duo that informed her of her father's recent demise. It appeared that Sloan was looking for Jenny, regarding a mysterious theft from Krotze Industries a few weeks back. Naturally, Krotze had directed the police to her, since Krotze knew she was behind the theft. This just caused Jenny to lose her temper (again), and she mentioned that Krotze killed her father to the cops... with no proof, of course.

As the police leave, Jenny and her students got to talking, and Jenny realized that Krotze had to be involved in more than one dirty operations - and if she couldn't prove he was behind her father's death, maybe Jenny could get him arrested for any number of other crimes he'd perpetrated. The trick would be to break into his facility (again) to look for evidence of such.

Meanwhile, at Krotze Industries, Fritz is in the process of being shaken down by one of his minions, Bronson, who was the M.A.X. pilot that actually killed Doctor Swensen. Not about to let his empire be brought down by a lone blackmailer, Fritz used his experimental, S.D.I. laser equipment on the man, slaying him almost instantly with a lance of laser light powerful enough to pierce metal in orbit.

Later, Jenny is preparing her assault on the Krotze Industries complex, when Tim shows off his new M.A.X. suit - the fast-back (originally fast-ball) partial exo-skeleton. Terry also gets in on the M.A.X. craze, introducing her think-tank neural interface / cyber deck helmet. They offer to help her in the field, but Jenny refuses, not wanting to put her students at any further risk - which Terry is happy about.

Blasting off in her M.A.X. suit, Jenny flies over to the Krotze Industries compound, jamming their security system thanks to a special program written by Terry. Landing outside their computer data center with no one the wiser, Jenny breaks in and quickly seizes several laser disks that were likely to hold information incriminating to Fritz, when her handiwork is spotted by one Major Benton.

This Army fellow was on the scene to question Krotze about the destruction of the Behemoth tank, and was tired of getting the runaround. So Fritz deflected him by revealing the existence of the M.A.X. suit, and proclaiming it was some sort of Soviet menace working against American interests. Benton was flummoxed by this (especially since Krotze had photographic proof) and was going to report it.

He saw the giant hole Jenny burned into Krotze's building and went to investigate, however. All this got him was, after spotting the M.A.X. suit, a laser beam through his shoulder when he spooked Jenny. Immediately set upon by Krotze Industries security, Jenny tried to escape, only to fall into a trap set by Krotze himself - a trap that would use his Strategic Defense Initiative laser to crisp her in her armor!

It would've worked too, if not for those meddling kids. Tim showed up at the last second to deflect the laser beam off of Jenny, who then destroyed the gear running it with one of her M.A.X. tools. With that, Jenny and Tim made their escapes, leaving Fritz Krotze to his own devices. The man dealt with this mess and went home to relax, only to find there was no peace waiting for him.

His butler gone, Fritz was greeted instead by a mysterious member of the Club...!

Issue 4:
Revelation

On the run for weeks, Richard Faylen has been hiding out wherever he could find shelter. Motels, hotels, abandoned car lots... you name it. The problem was that no matter where he would hide, his mysterious tormentor would find him. Exhausted and fleeing his latest hovel, Richard leaps into his car, only to realize too late he should've checked the ignition switch before starting it. The car then explodes most spectacularly.

Elsewhere, Jenny Swensen is flying over the skies of Washington D.C., on her way to serve as a surprise witness in the ongoing investigation of Krotze Industries. Landing in front of the U.S. Senate building amidst a flurry of reporters, Jenny is momentarily waylaid by several security operatives before being escorted inside by Senator Hurt, the man who convinced her to testify today.

Watching the events on television, the five Troubleshooters are curious what Jenny will tell of their role in recent events - though Terry is continuing her obsessive jealousy kick as usual. Nearby, Detective Sloan and watching as well, though Sloan himself is reading a report about the death of Richard Faylen, a man they'd been looking for since the disappearance of Fritz Krotze several weeks ago.

Upon being sworn in by the Senate, Jenny goes on to explain what went down ever since the death of her father, though she does indeed keep the actions of her students, the Troubleshooters, a secret. While revealing her tale, Jenny notes that Krotze was dealing with a mysterious group known as the Club, a group of terrorists that buys and sells advanced weaponry to whoever can meet their price.

With that, the Club decided it considered Krotze a liability. And, since he was already in the custody of one of their operatives, the Steel Hawk, they ordered him terminated. After hearing Jenny say she wanted to kill Krotze with her bare hands, Steel Hawk decided to take advantage of that, and then brutally beat Krotze to death in his basement with an aluminum baseball bat.

Days later, Jenny is attending a party alongside her colleagues at M.I.T., one hosted by Chairman Dibble himself. There with Senator Hurt, Jenny is about to demonstrate the M.A.X. suit's capabilities to the party-goers, unaware that the Steel Hawk has already been on the premises. During her 'dog and pony show', Eric Chin trips over something that turns out to be a bomb, and Jenny swings into action immediately!

Grabbing the explosive, she rockets into the air as fast as she can, and tears it apart before its operator can detonate it from afar. While his bomb failed to kill the Senator (as a distraction more than anything else), the Steel Hawk preened that his scheme at least flushed Jenny out, at which point he opened up with a no less than a rocket launcher, knocking her and her M.A.X. suit out of the sky!

Before Jenny could recover from her fall, she was pelted by a burst of automatic gunfire by Steel Hawk, who then took the time to soften her up even more with a grenade. With her suit in tatters, Jenny had no choice but to stand by while Steel Hawk gloated, spouted off about his ridiculous politics, and made more than one sexist comment. But, though he thought he was victorious, Jenny got the last laugh on the man.

Using every last bit of juice the M.A.X. suit had left in it, Jenny reached out and grabbed the Steel Hawk's ankle, crushing it like so many grapes. In a rage, he tried to destroy her head with more automatic gunfire, but had uselessly expended his ammunition into the air while she gripped his leg. Having nothing else for it, he decided to blow her to bits with another grenade, but by this time help had arrived.

Chucking his explosive at Detective Sloan to cover his escape, the Steel Hawk limped to the safety of his jeep and drove off. The cops weren't there to compliment Jenny on saving Senator Hurt's life, however - no, they were there to arrest Jenny. This because the police had finally found Fritz Krotze's dead body, and it looked like someone had punched him to death with a giant steel hand...

Issue 5:
Destruction

While Jenny Swensen languishes in jail thanks to the frame job Steel Hawk pulled on her (despite all common sense forensic evidence disproving her involvement), three of the Troubleshooters are checking out the police lockup holding the wrecked up Spitfire armor. Throwing common sense out the window, Eric Chin cuts his way through the glass of a convenient window and slips inside!

Followed by Eduardo Giotti and Tim Ferris, Eric hops into the battle damaged M.A.X. suit to check out the damage, recounting his criminal past all the while. Seeing that the suit is salvageable, the trio decide to start working on the thing to get it back in working order, but they have to stagger their work over the next week or so, as the police might notice them in their evidence room during the day...

Four days later, we catch up with Jenny herself, who is talking to her lawyer and friend, Bernie Straczynski. Busy moping over her situation, Jennifer descends into a morbid depression about her fate, believing that everyone thinks her guilty - even Bernie. Later, in her cell, Jenny continues to weep about her imminent future, fearing that she's about to spend a life in jail - a distinct possibility, it seems.

Meanwhile, in Pittsburgh, we find one Ken Connell picking up a newspaper at a local convenience store. Walking out as he sees several goons harassing the shop keeper, Ken quickly realizes they decided to leave their current target alone... to rob him! Interrupted while reading about Jenny's plight, Ken easily wards off the goons pestering him, and decides to go have a talk with Ms. Swensen soon.

Several days later, the policemen who arrested Jenny are interrogating Terry about Jenny and the Troubleshooters, as they think something doesn't add up about the case against her. Interrupted by Giotti (who almost spilled the beans about his own illegal actions before seeing the cops there), she tries to put the moves on him but he passes out, having worked on the M.A.X. suit all night.

A few hours later, a representative of the Club drives out to the Steel Hawk's headquarters, to find that despite his broken leg, the man is working hard to keep his body in tip top shape, lifting random objects around the lot despite his pain. He talks about a new job he has for the Steel Hawk, despite the terrorist freak blustering at him and disrespecting both him and the Club in general.

The next morning, Jenny has her pre-trial hearing, and winds up having to fire her friend and attorney, Bernie, when he jumbles up the law (being a civil attorney, and not a criminal one). As she's being driven back to jail, a man walks by and drops her a note in her completely wound down window. Eating it before her guard can see it, Jenny sees that someone (though she didn't know who) wanted to meet her tonight.

Worried at first that this might be another attack, Jen is relieved to find that it is Ken Connell, who she met back in New Hampshire (even if he didn't know who she was at the time). Talking about her situation some, Ken promises to meet her later at her cell window, despite it being three stories up. As Ken prepared to do just that, Jenny's students had finally got the M.A.X. suit operational again.

Somehow knowing about this, Jenny implored Ken to stop the Troubleshooters - she knew things about its disrepair that they were unaware of, such as its unstable power pack. While tromping through the city in Spitfire, Giotti is cornered by the police, and unable to think his way through the problem due to the overheating power supply on his back; the intense warmth was making him sluggish and dizzy.

This is why, when Ken swooped down out of the air and grabbed him, Giotti attacked! He didn't realize what was going on until it was too late, and required a save by Ken when he almost doomed himself to a terminal fall. Flattening its operator, Ken then pulled the power source off the M.A.X. and flung it into the air, mere seconds before it could explode most spectacularly!

After lecturing the Troubleshooters for almost destroying Boston, Ken then flew off, updating Jenny about the fate of her students... and her Spitfire armor. Though she had misgivings about the suit's demise, Jenny was happy that the kids were okay, and finally felt at ease over the whole situation she was in. In fact, she managed to get her first good night's sleep in months soon afterwards.

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