Hello, there! This right here is my very first Storm Hawks fanfic, and my first ever fanfic in a long time, so critiques are much appreciated.

Thanks goes out to Missdedodakes and my Mom for beta reading.

Here's chapter one, I hope you enjoy!

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BEEEP. BEEEP.

As the Condor's wake-up alarm blared, I sleepily rolled over and stretched, groaning a little. Yesterday's combat flight training had been a bit rough. Forcing myself to wake up, I threw off my covers and stood up. After a quick change from pajamas to my usual uniform, I headed for the bathroom, hoping to get there before the boys. No one likes to wait for the bathroom early in the morning, and if it came to a race, it was every Storm Hawk for themselves.

Luckily, I found it unoccupied. I usually did if I got up when the alarm went off, since Finn and Junko take so long to get out of bed. Aerrow, however, was another story. I don't know how he can get dressed and ready so quickly, and how he can be so bright and awake that early. If I ever skip getting dressed before leaving my room, there's always a race between the two of us. I even managed to win, once, but only because someone had left a wrench in the hallway that missed Aerrow's attention. It wasn't often that he tripped up, so I almost stopped... almost. That bathroom was MINE.

Today, I could see that Aerrow had already been here. He always leaves his toothbrush on the sink. Every morning, I put it away.

It really used to bother me how much I've always had to clean up after the guys(excluding Stork, he seems to clean up after himself pretty well), and I had let them know. Loudly. Finn had protested, saying that if I didn't like it, then I should just leave things the way they were. After all, we all had to get things back out anyway. Junko and Aerrow had apologized, and finally convinced Finn to take up some of the tidying up too. But, once there was nothing left for me to do, I actually ended up missing it. Yeah, I had to put up with Finn's gloating for a while, and I had to go back to doing most of the chores, but it was worth it. Besides, now I'm the Choresmistress, and I get to bestow the honor of mopping up the hangar or scrubbing the toilet to whomever I deem worthy, namely Finn. It feels good to have that kind of power.

I washed up, checking my face for any blemishes. I'd never hear the end of it if I walked around with a pimple on my face all day. Finn would point and laugh or make jokes about it, and Stork would probably say I had some sort of deadly, contagious illness and should be checked for it. I'd rather go without that kind of humiliation, thank you.

Sometimes it's hard being the only girl on a ship full of boys, but I'd much rather hang with them than a bunch of girls. Yeah, it's nice to have some girl friends, and have some girl time, but I don't think I could stand putting up with girly girls all the time. Make-up, fussing over hair, talking about guys... I live with a bunch of guys, I just don't see what the big deal is talking about them. And the emotional stuff... going through that myself is enough, I don't need to experience that from anyone else.

Hearing a knock on the door, I finished up and opened the door. Yep, Junko. If it had been blondie, I would've heard a lot more whining.

"All yours, Junko." I said, exiting the bathroom.

"Yeah, thanks," the wallop replied hurriedly, wasting no time in taking it for himself. He had probably been waiting outside for a while. Junko doesn't usually knock, or rush anyone out, unless he really has to go. He's such a big sweetie.

Smiling, I walked into the main room. Stork was there, a wall panel on the floor, messing with some pipes and wiring. I didn't ask, since he was probably just fixing something or looking for parasitic fireworm stowaways or whatever. If it ended up being important, he would tell us.

"'Morning, Stork," I greeted as I walked past.

The merb mumbled something to himself before waving to me distractedly, not looking up. "Good morning, Piper," he said, in his usual 'hurried and worried' tone.

Stork is always up who knows how long before the alarm sounds off, and always the last one to sleep at night. I'm not an expert on merbs, so I don't know if they don't require as much sleep, but I can't help but wonder if maybe extra sleep would do him some good. It could be one of the reasons Stork is so weird sometimes.

I entered the kitchen and found Aerrow, already making himself some breakfast.

"Hey Piper," he said cheerfully. "Sleep well last night?"

"After yesterday? Of course!" I smiled, reminding him about the vigorous training he had put us through all day.

"Still giving me a hard time about it, huh?"

"Just preparing you. Finn will be up soon."

"Ah, he'll be fine,"

I sliced up some bread and popped it into the toaster. "Just like you said he'd be fine helping Stork repair his skimmer for the hundredth time? We all know how that ended."

"That was different," Aerrow argued.

I giggled. Stork gets annoyed when Finn wrecks his skimmer, which happens often, but having Finn as his sidekick grease-monkey had not gone well.

I thought about the plan for the day. We had needed somewhere to land the Condor for the night, and I had found a relatively uncharted Terra, one that was on the map, but little was known about it. So, I figured we could do a little exploring and look for some supplies before taking off again. When you're the tactical expert of a skyknight squadron, you learn quickly that when you have an opportunity to restock on anything, you take it, because you never know when you'll be stranded somewhere, wishing that you had more food, water, crystals, or air fresheners.

"I'm so hungry I could eat an entire skyshark!" Junko walked into the kitchen happily. "Well, that is, if I weren't allergic to them,"

"Hey, Junko," Aerrow grinned. "how're ya feeling?"

"Kinda sore," the wallop replied, shrugging. "but I'm okay." Junko opened the refrigerator, looking through its contents.

My toast was done now, so I grabbed the two slices and buttered them. Munching down my breakfast, I watched with interest as Junko prepared his. The big guy had pulled some really odd-looking things out of the 'fridge, and was now stuffing them into the blender. One of the great things about Junko is that he'll eat just about anything. Prickly sea plums? Doesn't bother him. Leftovers from a week ago? Bring 'um on! Saves me from having to clean out the 'fridge every couple months.

The blender was mixing the not-quite-so-appetizing items into a green, blue, and yellow sludge when we heard a sudden bang, then felt a power surge rock the Condor. Junko's eyes widened just before the blender exploded and the colorful goop plastered his face. The lights glowed brighter for a few seconds, then all the power went out, and the tremors ceased.

"What was that?" I gasped.

"I...don't know," Aerrow looked at me and shook his head, shrugging.

"Did I NOT just tell you not to touch it?" We heard Stork's voice growl in the main room. Aerrow and I shared a look before exiting the kitchen. Yep, we had a pretty good idea of what had happened. All the same, we went to check it out, for either damage control or to see if we could help with anything.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know what you meant!"

In the main room we found Stork hovering over a cowering Finn like a dark cloud of doom, exercising his trademark eye twitch. Finn lay on the ground, his face, shoulders, and chest looking charred, hair blown back. The place in the wall where Stork had been working earlier was charred black as well, smoke rising from it.

"You know full well what I meant!" Stork hissed. "Now we're stuck here with no power, the Condor needs repairing, and who knows what kind of horrors we might encounter on this Terra! We don't know who, or what," he shuddered, "lives here. Without power, there's no way to defend ourselves from any number of horrible fates. For all we know, you've just doomed us all!"

As much as I wanted to believe that Stork was just being overdramatic again, he did have a point. This was not a good place for the ship's defense systems to be down.

"Calm down, Stork," Aerrow jumped in to Finn's defense, helping the blonde teen up. "Whatever just happened, do you think you can fix it?"

The merb returned to his workplace, waving the smoke away, inspecting the damage. "That seems to be our only hope right now, doesn't it?" he muttered darkly.

Junko joined us, licking his fingers, traces of his breakfast still lingering on his face. "What's goin' on, guys?"

"Impending doom is what's 'going on'," Stork answered, picking up a wrench from the floor. "I was just putting the finishing touches on an upgrade for the Condor's security system, something I've been working on all night, when Finn" he said with emphasis, glaring pointedly, "decided he would rather put us all in danger than to listen to me when I told him not to mess with anything!"

"Oh," Junko blinked, looking somewhat confused. "But, why would you do that, Finn?"

"I didn't know what it would do!" Finn whined. "Stork should've told me!"

Rolling his eyes, Stork ignored him. A few moments later, he spoke up again. "Now, this might work, and we'll have power again, but if it doesn't...well, just be ready for anything."

We nodded, taking a few steps back.

There was a deep whirring noise throughout the ship, followed by clicking, lights flickering on and off...then everything was back to normal.

"Yeah!" "Whoo-hoo!" "Go Stork!" we all cheered, and the merb relaxed a little. Our happiness was short-lived, however, because we were cut off by a warning alarm, flashing red lights, and the sounds of metal slamming on metal. Jumping, we looked for the cause, and soon found out. All the doors and windows were being closed off by thick, sliding slabs of metal.

I looked over at a panicked Stork, who was back at the wall, hurriedly working at something. Just before the big front window was halfway closed off, everything stopped.

"Everyone okay?" Aerrow asked, and everyone gave a wary thumbs-up.

By the restricted light coming from the window, I saw the unsure faces of my teammates. "...Stork?" I inquired, my voice squeaking a little.

"I was afraid of that," Stork said, leaning against the wall. "My new security features kicked in. But, since everything was fried from before, when I tried to turn it off, it shorted out and drained us of all power."

"So, what now?" asked Junko. "Do you need me to break those walls down?"

"No need, I hope," Stork answered. "if everything works like I programmed it to, we just have to wait until the engine crystals fully recharge, then the system will reset itself."

Okay, no big deal, right? "How long will that take?" I asked.

"Anywhere between 10 to 30 hours," Stork predicted, cringing.

"Aww, man!" Finn groaned. "And the kitchen's closed off now! I didn't even get to have any breakfast!"

"If you had just gone to eat breakfast instead of bothering me in the first place, none of this would've happened," Stork retorted.

Never being one to like watching friends argue, Junko jumped into the conversation. "Hey, at least the bathroom wasn't closed off," he pointed out optimistically, gesturing towards the open bathroom door.

We all nodded in agreement. That was definitely a good thing.

Then we heard scratching from the other side of the closed off hallway, followed by screeching.

"Radarr!" Aerrow hurried to where he heard his copilot. "Radarr, you okay, buddy?"

The scratching stopped, and we heard the little guy let out a short, affirmative squawk. Poor thing...he usually lays around in bed for a while before getting up, unless something big is going down. As jumpy as he is, Radarr probably freaked out the moment before.

"Junko," Aerrow called. "Y'think you could bust this open for me?"

"Sure," the wallop replied easily, punching on his knucklebusters. But, before he could move toward the metal wall, Stork stepped in front of him.

"You...might not want to do that," he cautioned. "the way I set this up, any excessive force applied to those walls will send a shock to the attacker. There may not be any power for anything else, but trying to break it down could trigger what little the engine crystals have recharged already...and that, plus the energy from the crystals in your knucklebusters, could prove painful, if not deadly..."

Ignoring Stork's forboding tone, Aerrow turned to me. "You wouldn't happen to have any blocking crystals on you, would you?"

"No such luck," I answered. "The few I made after they exploded last time are in my room, and I didn't think I'd have to grab anything this morning."

The redhead sighed, then spoke through the wall to Radarr again. "Will you be alright by yourself in there?"

There was a small, pitiful whine, then silence.

"Look, guys, it's not that bad," Finn piped up. "All we have to do is wait it out, right? We've been through worse. It can't be that tough putting up with each other for hours without distraction...after all, I can be pretty entertaining."

"We're doomed." Stork croaked pessimistically.

So, we were trapped in the Condor on a potentially dangerous Terra with no power...It sounded bleak, but Finn had to be right. It couldn't be that bad...could it?