Eight hours later, Shada woke up to the nav-computer pinging. It was telling her to drop the ship out of hyperspace. She pushed the lever up and the blue lines faded into stars this time. The world of Emberlene was in the viewport. It was mostly blue but there were tons of gray patches with green on them. Clouds floated above this and constantly moved around so if you were to sit in orbit an watch, you would never see the same area twice. When she had first been off planet, she had thought the place to be beautiful from space as supposed to being on ground all the time. When she had gotten home, she felt she'd rather look at it from orbit than live on it. But Emberlene was home. It always had been and it always would be and right now, there was a very pissed mother waiting for her. Shada could feel Kristi's anger even from orbit, which meant that there was a bit of fun to be had at home.

Shada brought the Sun Crusher into orbit then landed on the top of the highest mountain on the entire planet. It was where the shack was, only now it wasn't a shack. It could be called a mansion, but unfortunately not a palace. "Come on guys." Shada said to Crusher and Fang. Both followed her to the ramp. She lowered it and was greeted by an infuriated Kristi Drake D'ukal.

"Where in space have you been?" She demanded as soon as Shada reached the bottom of the ramp.

Instead of answering right away, Shada raised the ramp and locked the Sun Crusher up. "I got hung up. The senator didn't want to cooperate." She finally replied.

This comment seemed to make Kristi madder instead of calmer. Shada found it funny. "You were sent to cut him loose! He doesn't need to cooperate for that! Hell, you wouldn't cooperate if you were on the receiving end!"

"That wasn't exactly what I meant by he wouldn't cooperate." Shada told her. Her tone was calm and bored, which didn't ease Kristi's temper.

"Then what the hell did you mean?" Kristi demanded.

"Simply that he wouldn't stay put and decided to have me chase him from planet to planet." Shada answered, a cold smile on her face. "It was kind of fun though." How easy it is to lie to her when she can't read my thoughts. She thought.

Kristi took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She repeated this several times before continuing, which meant that she felt she'd get no where if she continued to yell at Shada. "Is there any reason you couldn't have said this first?" She finally asked.

Shada shrugged. "Honestly, I like it when you're pissed. You'd have smoke coming out of your ears if it were possible."

Kristi scowled at her. "Go eat." She said through clenched teeth.

Shada smirked at her and went inside. She was greeted by Xander as soon as she entered the hallway. "Kristi okay?" He asked, gazing past Shada's shoulder at her mother.

"A little pissed . . . no very pissed, but other than that she's perfe— mostly okay." Shada replied, snickering. "If you're asking about damage control, she's already been damaged beyond repair." She then stepped past Xander and went into the kitchen. The refrigerator was wide open and Shada just went over to it and grabbed a slice of Banja Cake. She then headed to her room, Crusher and Fang trailing behind her. The latter was still unnoticed by Kristi.

Shada walked up the stairs and all the way to the end of the hallway where her room was located. Compared to what this house had looked like before, it was now incredible what Shada had managed to do with it. Kristi had even let her do whatever she had wanted to do to it as well. Now the place was large enough to house maybe three families of four. Shada had added onto the apartment-sized shack, giving it two floors that extended out to the edge of the far side of the mountaintop. She had replaced the wooden walls with durasteel and the door that had been almost falling off, now slid in and out of the wall. The door also had a window at Kristi's eye level, which was the same height as Shada's was now, but had been just a little higher than hers two years ago.

The inside of the house was similar to the way things had been decorated at the Mistryl Palace Shada had burned down. The carpeting throughout the house was a scarlet red as were the curtains, the tablecloth, and towels. The walls were painted white throughout the house except in Shada's room. Kristi had refused to let Shada paint the walls any other color, but other than that had stayed out of the way. Shada's room was painted black and although Kristi had objected to this, Shada had ignored her and done it anyway. Shada had kept the rooms arranged the way they had been when she got there, but she had replaced or repaired all of the furniture and appliances. When Kristi had seen the amount of money Shada had had, and used to reconstruct the shack, she'd been surprised and that was putting it mildly. It had been more like astounded. Kristi hadn't asked where she'd gotten the money and if she had known that it had all came from the Mistryl Palace, she'd, more likely than not, go nuts.

As for Shada's room, she'd made sure that it was exactly like the one she had sacrificed at the Palace. Well, almost exactly. The only difference was that it was bigger and it got darker at night. Otherwise it was arranged and painted the same and the walls had all the same posters of the same people killing the same other people in the same place they'd been in her old room. Shada had also put all her things she'd taken from her room at the Palace and put it in her room here. This had restored all the space she'd had on the Sun Crusher before she'd blown the Palace.

Shada entered her room and Crusher immediately went to her closet. It was its own little room with her computer in it and clothes on the ends. It was sunken in more than an actual closet and the light switch was on the inside. Crusher pushed the chair out of his way and plugged into the computer, downloading everything he had downloaded about the Crusher. Shada sighed and walked over to the computer desk and put the chair she had left in his way back where it was supposed to go. She then put the stuff in her black backpack away.

Shada glanced at her chrono. It was six o'clock which meant that Kristi hadn't eaten yet. She headed for the door, Fang following her. "No, you stay here. I'll get you something to eat." The wolf retreated back to a corner in her closet.

Shada went downstairs and as she entered the kitchen Xander asked: "Want anything to eat?"

"Yeah, you guys eat yet?"

"No, I sensed your presence earlier and decided to wait until you got back." Kristi said from the doorway. She had clearly calmed down.

"How nice of you." Shada replied dryly.

"Before you start bickering again, dinner's ready." Xander intervened, putting two plates of steaming food on the table. He then pushed Kristi into a chair and turned to shove Shada into another one, but she had already sat down. He got a plate for himself and sat down next to Kristi. Shada rolled her eyes. She ate quickly and then went back to her room and crashed for the night, making sure the room was locked against Kristi should she get any murderous thoughts during the night.

A/N: Review!!!!