"Okay everyone take a seat, buckle up, and prepare for liftoff!" Natsuki exclaimed as she made her way into the cockpit of the ship.

Nao was already sitting in the co-pilot's seat, and was quickly tapping her fingers over the holographic navigational display. She may have been a world-class troublemaker when she was out of cadet uniform... and sometimes in uniform... but she was also one of the top navigators that Fuuka Space Academy had ever trained.

"Pre-flight checks are all complete, we're just waiting on your order for liftoff, Captain," Nao said with a slight smirk, as Natsuki came and sat in the pilot seat beside her.

Natsuki gave Nao a roguish grin as she sat down and strapped herself in. She then turned her head slightly and called over her shoulder towards Mai and Mikoto. "Oi, you two good back there?"

"Yes!" Mikoto exclaimed as she bounced lightly in her seat, tugging slightly against her restraints that Mai had made sure were securely fastened. The fiery-haired girl herself was sitting in the seat beside Mikoto, and she gave Natsuki a brief smile and nod that she was ready to go as well.

"All right then, let's get this bad girl fired up and go!" Nao exclaimed, as she clapped her hands together and rubbed them vigorously.

"Bad boy," Natsuki corrected, as her own fingers danced across the holographic display lit up before her.

"Boy?" Nao responded with a slightly-quirked eyebrow.

"Yup," Natsuki replied as the ship hummed to life with silent power.

"And what is his name, oh great Cap'n?" Nao asked with obvious amusement.

Natsuki was silent for a few seconds, before she quietly answered, "Duran-dal...The Second."

Nao closed her lips on whatever teasing joke she was going to make. She knew the significance of the name to her dark-haired best friend. So instead she just turned her head forward, and flashed her fingers across the display screen to begin the countdown for liftoff.

"Alright, ready to take this young pup up into space, Cap'n?" Nao asked as she gave Natsuki a grin.

Taking in and releasing a deep breath, Natsuki shook her body lightly to rid it of the slight melancholy that had begun to cling to her, and returned Nao's grin.

"Yeah, let's get this bad boy flying. Mikoto, Mai, you guys ready to go!" Natsuki called back to her two friends.

"Yes!" Mai and Mikoto exuberantly answered.

"Alright, then let's kick things into hyper-drive!" Natsuki cried out as the countdown reached 1, and the thrusters on the bottom of the ship began to lift the craft upwards.

Nao sent a command through the ship's terminal to the hanger's roof, which opened immediately to allow the ship to slip easily through.

Mikoto let out a loud whooping cry as the ship rose swiftly into the air, and then in the blink of an eye shot off into space.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Shizuru awoke with a start and looked blearily around her. Haruka was still pressed protectively against her front, her small arms wrapped tightly around her big sister as she twitched lightly in her sleep, no doubt having nightmares.

Shizuru winced lightly as she realized that both she and Haruka had fallen asleep under the bush, that they had taken refuge under during the worst of the raider attacks. It was now several hours later, and all seemed quiet in what was now the smoldering heap of their village. Nighttime on Prestalia lasted a full 24 hours so it was still very dark when Shizuru moved slightly, so that she could peer out from under the bush.

Haruka whimpered softly in her sleep, and Shizuru gently calmed her by lightly scratching her fingers behind her little sister's ears. Haruka hummed softly in her sleep and let out a light purr, as she settled back down into only slightly-agitated slumber. Shizuru smiled down softly at her sister, thinking with slight fondness to herself that Haruka had always enjoyed being scratched behind her ears, even from when she was just a small kit.

Shizuru's blood-red eyes then hardened with anger and hate, as she once again looked out into the dark night towards her former village. She didn't know how many of her people were still alive, and how many...were not. Raiders were not known for their mercy, and any survivors usually ended up wishing that they were dead, as raiders were known to sell their victims on the Intergalactic Black Market.

Shizuru had absolutely no intentions of either herself or Haruka ending up dead, or as some grubby disgusting buyer's 'pet'. She's heard horror stories even on their small, fairly isolated planet that other races had a kind of...'kitty fetish'...for her kind. It made Shizuru ill just thinking about it, and she lightly began shaking Haruka's shoulder to awaken her sister.

"Ruka, we have to go. We have to find a way to get off the planet. We can't stay here anymore. We'll be caught for sure eventually if we wait around too much longer," Shizuru said softly as Haruka woke up, lightly rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

"But where will we go, Sis? And how will we get there?" Haruka asked, as her amethyst-coloured eyes shone brightly in the darkness surrounding them.

"We'll take one of the raider's ships. They usually attack in large groups I've heard, and they usually don't leave a planet as small as ours until they have hit every village or settlement on the surface. That's going to take several hours for them to do here, so that means that their ships should still be around here somewhere. I told the village Elders that we needed to upgrade our defenses. Trying to maintain our old ways and customs is good, but we still should have had better weapons for defense than bows, arrows, and staves. These primitive weapons never would stand a chance against the highly-advanced weaponry that races of other planets employ," Shizuru muttered angrily to herself as her eyes made one more quick sweep of their surroundings, before she began crawling out from under the bush. Once she was fully out, she reached her hand back under and gently helped Haruka crawl out as well.

"Shizuru, can we go look for Yukino, please?" Haruka asked softly as she looked down hard at the ground, her little hands clenched tightly into fists. "I was supposed to be watching over her. I'm supposed to protect her...she's my best friend...and I let those raiders separate us," Haruka continued as tears of anger at herself and this whole horrible situation pricked at her lavender-shaded eyes.

Shizuru knelt down before her sister, and gently took one of Haruka's shaking hands into her own. She then placed her finger under Haruka's chin to gently bring the girl's gaze up to meet her own.

"Okay, Haruka. Let's go find Yukino and we'll also look for any other survivors, and see if we can all get to safety. I believe our best chance is to get into space and try to reach one of our neighboring planets for help. Remember how Mother and Father used to show me how to pilot a space ship, in case the knowledge was ever needed...before...they passed away. Even though I've never flown an actual spacecraft before, because our parents were visionaries in our tribe I have the basic knowledge of how to do so. They always wanted to know and learn about everything, and every other race and being in the Universe. Remember how they would collect maps, charts, spacecraft flying instructions, and tons of other things the village Elders deemed 'useless'. Well now all that useless knowledge will help us escape from here. So you ready to go, Ruka?" Shizuru asked as she gently stroked her hand down Haruka's blond locks.

Haruka nodded with determination, clasped her sister's hand tightly in hers and the two began moving forward together, using the darkness of night to cover their passage.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~

"Okay, we're in space. Now what do we do?" Nao asked as she leaned back in her co-pilot's seat, and looked over at Natsuki who's eyes were rapidly scanning all the navigational holo-displays before her.

Mikoto was unstrapped from her seat and was looking excitedly out a port-side window at all the stars flashing passed them. Mai was standing right behind the slightly-shorter girl, her arms wrapped lightly around her shoulders, while a soft smile played across her lips. She always enjoyed seeing Mikoto animated and full of energy and excitement. They both may have been the same age, but Mikoto would always be an eternal kid at heart to Mai, and that was one of the many things the apricot-coloured haired girl loved about her.

"Okay, I've decided," Natsuki finally said with a definitive nod of her head. She pointed to a star point on the display before her, and above all their heads a much larger holographic display appeared, and a small orange-hued planet was shown.

"The planet Prestalia will be our destination. It's a small enough planet that we can easily explore it using the ship if we wanted, and it's far enough away off the main Spaceway's beaten track that no one would really think to look for us there," Natsuki explained as she began inputting coordinates into the ship's main computer.

"For once you've had a stellar idea...well apart from this whole trip to begin with. I've heard that the 'cat-girls' on that planet are pretty hot," Nao said with a smirk, as she lightly wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Natsuki let out a light snort, and completely ignored Nao and her remarks, as the red-haired girl had a propensity to always think with her libido first. For Natsuki this trip was about freedom and getting a chance to get away from the stifling expectations that followed her around daily. Not to get laid.

"Alright, I've set the coordinates into the ship, everyone grab a seat and prepare for warp-jump," Natsuki commanded , as she made sure that she herself was still securely fastened in. She had only ever made a warp-jump twice in her life, and both had been supervised. Her insides had felt like jelly afterward, and she wasn't all that confident how she would feel coming out of her third jump.

I just hope I don't hurl all over poor Duran-dal's controls, Natsuki thought nervously to herself.

The ship began its countdown to warp-jump, and Mai and Mikoto strapped themselves quickly back their seats. Then with a blindingly-bright flash and an almost electrifying fhoosh of energy the Duran-dal leapt forward through space, and zipped across the galaxy towards the coordinates plotted into its systems.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Natsuki opened her eyes which had involuntarily shut during the jump, and she looked around at the space outside the view-port window before her.

Planet Prestalia floated like a shining orange pearl on the lap of a dark space oyster, and Natsuki couldn't help a grin of pure excitement from lighting up her face. Natsuki quickly turned in her seat to ask her friends how they had all enjoyed the space-jump, when suddenly the Duran-dal rocked violently with a sudden explosive force, and a brightly-urgent flashing Red Alert began ringing throughout the ship.

"What the hell happened! Natsuki what did you do wrong now!" Nao cried out as she frantically began running her fingers over the computer display, trying to find out what had just happened.

"I didn't do anything!" Natsuki cried back, as she too began tapping away at the computer display in an effort to bring up what had caused the sudden Red Alert.

"Oh no..." Nao murmured in a low voice as she pulled up an image that was being fed from the outside of the ship. Natsuki, Mai, and Mikoto all looked up as Nao enlarged the image she was looking at.

"Space Raiders..." Mai whispered in a slightly-choked voice, as she reached out her hand and tightly clutched Mikoto's in her own.

"And they've got us surrounded. Shit!" Nao exclaimed as she slammed her fists down onto the hard, super-metal surface of the ship's dashboard.

"W-What are we going to do? We can't fight these guys. We have to get out of here and head back to Earth. Now," Mai whispered urgently.

Natsuki grimaced slightly before she spoke. "Unfortunately the Duran-dal can't make back-to-back warp-jumps like bigger ships can. It's going to need time to cool down before we can make another jump," Natsuki licked her now dry lips, as she looked out the view-port in front of her at the slowly circling group of raider ships. They reminded her of holo-vids of now-extinct Sharks her mother had shown her when she was a kid. They used to circle their prey like the raiders were doing now, before they closed in for the kill. While she could have watched them on the large holographic display that Mai and Mikoto were still anxiously watching, Natsuki found herself mesmerized by watching the real ships themselves in front of her through the view-port. She could only see two ships before her, while the display showed all six ships that currently cut off their means of escape.

"Dammit, Natsuki! Doesn't this bucket of bolts of yours have any weapons?" Nao asked with increasing worry in her voice.

"It does...but I haven't read up yet on how to operate them," Natsuki replied in a small voice as she looked back apologetically at her friends, heart-sick to have been the one to have gotten them all into this colossal mess.

Nao opened her mouth to tell Natsuki what an utter and complete idiot she was, when the ship was once again rocked by what they all realized now was laser fire.

The red alert flashing lights and blaring sound increased, and Natsuki cried out to her friends to hang on tight, as she was going to dive them towards the planet in an attempt to break free of the raider's attacks.

Mikoto cried out loudly and Mai clutched onto her love's hand tightly, terrified that it would be the last time they'd be able to hold onto each other. Nao continued shouting obscenities at Natsuki for her utter bone-headed stupidity, and Natsuki just ignored them all as she continued to plunge her ship towards the planet's rapidly approaching surface.

The afterburners kicked in and the inside of the ship began to rapidly heat up, as they broke through the planet's atmosphere and continued shooting down straight to the planet's surface at suicidal speeds.

The sounds of Nao, Mikoto, Mai, the red alert and the general noise of the ship bursting through the sound barrier, all combined into a final BANG of sound as the ship hit the planet's surface.

And then Natsuki heard and knew no more.


AN: Thanks so very much for all those who read my first chapter, and a special thanks for those who took the time to review. It's very much appreciated =D

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter~ Please let me know if you did =3