Taz sat at the table, eating her dinner. She was at the Academy, teaching a combat class. At eighteen, she was the youngest teacher ever at the school. She had also kept her Lieutenant ranking, knowing that she wouldn't be with Up all the time once he started missions again if she too became a Commander.

A guy came up to her. "Hey, Taz!"

"What do jou want, Krayonder?" she sighed.

He kept that goofy grin on his face. "Spaceclaw wants you in the main office right now." Taz sighed and dropped her pizza. She stood up and began walking.

"Why are jou following me?" she asked.

"He wants me too." Great. Krayonder hadn't been promoted from Private status in the three years Taz had known him. Probably because he was lazy, snarky, crazy, annoying, and incompetent. Not to mention obnoxious.

Taz and Krayonder arrived in the main offices to see Spaceclaw on the screen. About a year previously he had been in an accident, and so he wore a full body uniform to cover up his scars. This was the Darth Vader Taz had been looking for the first time she met him. "Lieutenant Taz. Private Krayonder. Good," he said. He had become much more no nonsense since his accident as well. The easy-going man Taz had met was gone.

"What is it, sir?" she asked.

"You two are going to be part of a scouting on an uncharted planet. It is mostly just to see if the planet is habitable, but we don't know what might be there, so it is necessary for us to send some good Rangers there too."

And Krayonder, Taz thought, but kept the comment to herself, trying to be serious.

"You leave tomorrow morning. Go to your rooms and prepare."

"Distress signal! Distress signal! Starship Rangers assemble!" Taz looked up at the flashing red light. She smiled. Yes! She had been selected for a rescue mission. She grabbed the data pad from beside her bed and read through the mission.

She rolled her eyes. Why in the world would those idiotas send an idiota like February down there? And of course she'd be the one to call a distress signal. She probably just forgot how to tie her boots and decided it was an emergency.

Taz smiled, then sobered up. February wasn't that stupid. She knew when to call a distress signal. This had to be taken seriously.

Taz tied back her hair and walked out the door before realizing; she was called into this mission as a Lieutenant. She was Up's Lieutenant. She'd be working with Up!

She had known he was on the ship but hadn't had a chance to talk to him, as this was only their second day out. She walked out to the platform where they'd be meeting and shouted to the group that she knew could hear her. "Alright people! Jou heard it! This is a rescue mission. Get jour zappers, set them to pew!" To enunciate her point she shot a few holes in the wall.

"Whoa! Taz, you know you're pretty tough for a chick!" Great. Krayonder.

"I was just going to say the same thing about jou."

He smiled, unfazed. "Whoa!"

"Specs!" she called, as she had noticed her dorky friends name when she'd skimmed the data pad.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"Scan the surface of this planet. I want to know what's going on down there."

Specs pulled out a device. "I'll try, Lieutenant, but gamma storms are interfering with my equipment. My spectrometer readings are off the wazoo!"

Taz headed down the hallway to the Exit Platform when she heard a loud call from behind her.

"Hey! Excuse me, little girl, I'm new and I was just wonderin', what's this?" a guy said. He was pointing to his zapper.

"That's jour zapper."

"What's that?"

He was really trying her patience. "It's a gun, stupid! Jou shoot stuff with it!"

"Oh," he said. "That's not what I was usin' it for, sorry. You see, where I come from, Farm Planet, we don't have no much of nothin'. That's why I joined the Starship Rangers. You see, today alone I found out this was a gun! In I saw empirical proof that science killed God. It's comforting to know that he was once alive though. I like to think that when he died he went to Heaven!"

Taz had had enough. "Hey! Jou better get out of my face, esay. I'm prepping for a rescue mission."

"Oh, no, I know! I'm assigned to the rescue mission too! Hey, my name is Tootsie Noodles!" he said, still too cheerful for his own good. He grabbed her arm and spun her around, but she was too bewildered to shake his hand, not that she would either way.

"What the hell kind of name is that?"

"Well, you see, where I come from, Farm Planet, your first name is whatcha do, and your second name is whatcha like. So I'm called Tootsie, on account of my occasional toot, and Noodles, 'cause I like 'em. You see, where I come from-"

She cut him off again. "Cállate! What am I supposed to do with jou? Jou know nothing!"

Taz began walking again, but Tootsie just followed her. "I'm willing to learn, sir! I should warn you though, I'm a slow learner!" She then heard him ask Krayonder, "Hey, what's this?" and saw him point yet again to his zapper.

"So," she began, "this is the rescue squad, eh? Ay, look at jou! None of jou have what it takes to serve under Commander Up!"

She smiled to herself as their faces morphed to shock and wonder.

"The Commander Up?" Tootsie said.

Specs, who hadn't really known him at the Academy as Taz had, spoke up. "The war hero! Nigh, legend!"

Taz continued to listen happily to their compliments about Up until Krayonder decided to open his big fat mouth.

"Yeah, well I heard he went soft." She froze. "Yeah, he used to be all that and a bag of Flav-o-Fives but now he's like a total wimp. Like the other day, he was in the cafeteria just crying in front of everybody!"

"Hey!" Taz shouted. "Jou got something to say about the Commander?"

Krayonder looked scared out of his mind, which gave her some satisfaction. "Um, no, no, um- Oh! I forgot! You guys fought in the robot wars together!"

Duh. "Yeah, Krayonder! Where he saved my life a hundred times!" This wasn't even an exaggeration. He had saved her life countless times.

"Well, yeah!" Krayonder said, clearly trying to get back on what passed for her good side. "He was like a-a super soldier!"

Taz hit her fist in her hand repeatedly. "What do jou mean was?"

"Uh, nothing, man, I just heard about his injury!" There was a collective gasp around the room from him and his two companions, Taz just glared at him. "I mean, his famous injury, that everyone knows about. You know the one the robots gave to him?" Of course she knew, she had been there. "Oh man, those robots must have really messed him up, because, I just like, heard this rumor going around that he might have maybe gone a little bit soft." He faltered on the last word, seeing her expression.

How much Taz wanted to kill him right now. Oh, how she wanted it. But she had a better idea.

"Put jour hand on that wall," she said.

Krayonder glanced at the wall then back at her. "What, why?"

"Put jour hand ON THAT WALL!" she snapped. He did as she said and she pulled out her knife with a satisfying shink! She took her aim.

Krayonder finally realized what she was doing. "Wait, please don't throw a knife at my hand! Oh, quit messing around, man, that's not funny!"

Didn't he know she wasn't messing around? And it was plenty funny to her. "Oh, don't throw a knife?" she asked.

"Yeah, don't!" he cried.

Taz shrugged. "OK."

Krayonder let out a sigh of relief and stepped away from the wall, but she stepped towards him and plunged her knife in his back with a loud yell. Had he really thought it would be that easy to get her to let him go?

He let out a cry of pain, but she talked over it. "Jou listen to me now you little fart!" she yelled, unable to think of a better insult at the moment. "Up is the toughest son of a bitch I ever met in my life!"

"You stabbed me!"

"He eats- he eats eagles for breakfast. He sleep on a bed of fire! And when Up cuts an onion, the ONION is the one who cry!"

"I'm dying!" Krayonder moaned, but she ignored him.

"So jou better un-fudge jourself, or Up will unscrew jour head, and drop the wishing pennies down jour throat. Now take a walk off my knife!" He stepped off with a sickening squelch, groaning. "Aw," she said, feigning sympathy. "Aw, does that hurt jou? Aw, WALK IT OFF!" She then proceeded to repeatedly stab herself in the stomach. She felt nothing but the slightest prick where the blade sliced her skin. It was a wonder that once upon a time she was nearly unable to complete a mission due to a twisted ankle.

"Commander on deck!" said the voice over the intercom.

"Yeah, now file in," Taz ordered. "Jou better hope Up likes jour stupid faces, or he might just rip them off!"

The doors opened and Taz watched as the man she admired walked in.