Barak breathed a sigh of relief as his shuttle cleared Earth's atmosphere and entered the vacuum of space. And so it all truly begins, he thought while staring at the dashboard in front of him. He quickly plotted a course for Yolkus and then hovered out of his chair. As he approached the shuttle's main chamber and saw the nine humans staring anxiously at him, he struggled maintain his composure. I wish it may never end.

Barak hesitated for a second before quietly saying, "It seems prudent to give you a tour of this vessel." Barak hovered closer to the group of humans and pointed to the hatch they had used to enter the ship. "That is the ship's exit hatch, and across from it is…"

"Where do we enter the ship if there's only an exit hatch?" Carl nervously interrupted.

Sheen let out a loud sigh. "We already entered the ship," he explained in clear annoyance. "Once we did that the entrance hatch became an exit hatch." He couldn't help but roll his eyes at Carl's stupidity.

"So the hatch is an exit when we're inside, but turns into an entrance when we're outside?" Carl asked, feeling a little more confident about his knowledge of the ship.

Jimmy gave Carl a curious look. "That's not entirely accurate…" he began to explain, but Sheen quickly interrupted him.

"Jimmy's right," Sheen hurriedly said. Jimmy began to smile in agreement, but then Sheen added, "That's absolutely accurate."

Barak watched curiously as Carl furrowed his eyes in frustration. "But what if half of us were outside the ship and the other half needed to get out in a hurry. Since people are outside, it would be an entrance hatch, right?"

Sheen's eyes bugged a little at this flaw in the ship's design. "So we couldn't exit the ship until the people outside had entered."

Carl felt his hands begin to shake in fear. "And they couldn't enter because we're inside and that makes it an exit hatch!"

"It's a time travel paradox!" Sheen nervously screamed.

Libby stared at her boyfriend in more disbelief than usual. "How did you get time travel involved?"

Ignoring Libby's intrusion due to the intensity of their work, Carl clasped a hand to his mouth in fright. "And Jimmy said when there's a time travel paradox, the source of the paradox stops existing."

"Abandon ship!" Sheen immediately screamed while lunging towards the exit/entrance hatch. Only Libby's firm grasp kept him from falling over.

Miranda stared at Carl and Sheen in disgust as she silently pondered how they had been chosen ahead of her to save Earth.

"Humans!" Barak shouted, although his voice held no hint of anger. "I assure you all that one may enter and exit the shuttle via the hatch at any time. Now, there is much to show you. Please follow me."

"Come on," Libby impatiently said while Yanking Sheen's wrist and following Barak.

Ike lit up a cigarette and took a deep drag as Barak motioned to a large round table in the center of the main chamber. "This is a holographic knowledge interface. It's mainly a research tool, but I believe it shall come in handy when we prepare our plan to reach King Veras."

Jimmy wished to question exactly what their plan was, but Barak was already leading them farther into the ship. "The cockpit is obviously behind us and serves as the control center for the ship," Barak quickly explained while spinning around and motioning to the small room he had exited out of a moment before. There was no door separating the cockpit and main chamber, only a short, thin hallway.

The wide main chamber gradually narrowed to a bottleneck that turned into a hallway. The hallway led to the back of the ship and ended in a blank wall. Several yards ahead of the wall stood two sealed doors directly across from each other. Barak stood in the middle of both doors and turned to the one on his left. A small purple button lay a foot away from the center of the door on the hallway's wall. Barak pressed the button, and the door immediately shot open.

"This is the ship's lounge and supply chamber," Barak explained while leading the humans into the fair-sized room. The far left corner held a large steel table surrounded by three ornate chairs. A large video monitor was built into the wall above the table. In the other far corner stood two large storage cabinets resting against the wall. The rest of the room was completely empty.

"You guys have TV?" Sheen excitedly asked. "Do Yolkians watch Ultralord too?"

Barak shook his head and said, "The video monitor serves only as a source of emergency communication between this ship and Yolkus and to review observations made of your planet. It has no entertainment value."

Jimmy looked around the room and was shocked at how desolate it was. "It's very…empty," he summed up while looking at Barak.

Barak nodded slowly. "I tend to become engrossed in my research. I only enter this room when I need to fetch stored supplies or review my findings."

Jimmy nodded and slowly turned his hypercube around in his right hand. "Well, that's good for us. We can store everything we brought in here."

Nick cautiously broke away from his friends and approached the storage cabinets. Both were a made from a highly polished silver metal. Each had a large red button on the left-hand side. He turned around and faced Barak, who eyed him curiously. Nick glared at the alien for a moment before letting his curiosity overpower his distrust of the creature. "What's in these things?"

Barak slowly hovered over and came to a stop beside Nick. The Yolkian pressed the red button on the first container, and instantly the door slid upwards and disappeared. Inside the container were three retracted spears, each resting horizontally on two golden hooks. Beneath the last hooks rested a single plasma pistol on a shelf

Nick looked at Barak questioningly, and the alien gave a slight nod. "This is only a research vessel, so minimal armaments are stored onboard. I have never found cause for using them. You may take them if you wish."

Nick heard footsteps and saw everyone crowding around behind him. He grabbed the center spear and stared at it intensely. It weighed about five pounds and was about half a foot long. In the center of the rod were three colored buttons. The right end of the rod had a small golden picture on it. Nick examined it closely and realized it was a bolt of lightning.

"It's a spear," Nick said. He examined the buttons closely and turned to Barak. "How do I work it?"

Barak stared at Nick sadly before saying, "It is a terrible crime to reveal the secrets of our race's technology." There was a slight pause, and then Barak's mouth curled upwards into a tiny smile. "A crime I am happy to commit. The buttons must be pressed in the proper order, or the device shall explode."

Cindy stared curiously at Barak. "That seems risky. One wrong move and the soldier carrying it dies? What if they make a mistake?"

Barak stared at Cindy sadly. "Our soldiers make no mistakes with their weapons."

A sense of dread filled the room until Nick held his thumb over the three buttons. "What's the order?"

"Red, green, blue, red," Sheen quietly uttered in a voice a hair above a whisper. He stared at the spear more intensely than he had ever stared at anything as a brief memory shot through his mind: him pressing the buttons in that order, a Yolkian's terrified expression, and then the spear jutting into its body. Sheen shuddered at the thought and looked at Nick. "Hold the last one down and point the end with the picture away from everyone."

Everyone froze at Sheen's cold tone. Barak tilted his shell at a slight angle and stared at the human curiously. He then turned back to Nick and gave a slight nod. "He speaks the truth."

Nick pointed the spear towards the ceiling and pressed the buttons. The rod immediately extended to just under three feet long. The tip of the spear crackled quietly as small bolts of lightning seemed to dance around the razor sharp edge. Nick stared at the weapon for several seconds before asking, "How do I put it away?"

"The red button," Sheen and Barak said at the same time.

Nick pressed the red button, and the spear immediately retracted back into a useless metal rod. Nick stared at the weapon for a few seconds before passing it to Cindy. Cindy nodded and slipped it into her pocket. Nick grabbed the second spear from the storage unit and looked at Miranda Her pale grey eyes bore into him until Nick handed the weapon to her. Unlike Cindy, she showed no gratitude. She merely snatched the weapon and gripped it tightly in her right hand.

Nick then grabbed the plasma pistol off of the shelf. It looked vaguely similar to a human pistol. The biggest differences were the fact that it was completely purple and the space where the magazine shaft would be was replaced by a translucent core. Inside this core was a reservoir of light blue gas. He examined it carefully. "I saw a couple of these on Goobot's ship." He looked at Barak once more, a little less harshly this time. "It shoots plasma, right?"

Barak gave a slow nod. "Superheated ionized gas to be precise, but yes. I am afraid I am no expert on weaponry, but I know you must avoid the plasma bolts at all costs." Barak stared at the humans with a dire expression. "Our shells offer protection. Your clothes shall not. A single hit could melt your skin and vaporize bone."

Nick turned the weapon over in his hands before looking across the crowd at Sheen. Sheen met his gaze, and Nick gently tossed the gun over. "Ultralord ever use one of these?"

Sheen smiled a little at the question as he caught the pistol. His voice still held an unusual note of seriousness, however, as he answered, "Close. He used a particle rifle sometimes." Sheen examined the weapon carefully before gently sliding it down his back and tucking it inside his waistband.

Cindy stared at the spear in her hands and then looked at Barak. "Barak, if you Yolkians have such powerful guns, why do your soldiers almost always use these spears?"

Barak let out a sad smile. "That question is yet another reason why my race despises yours. We value honor on the battlefield as much as we pride ourselves in our technology. To attack one's foe from a distance is considered cowardly. We prefer to fight face to face."

Cindy nodded. "I can understand that," she said while thinking of how much more rewarding she found t'ai chi compared to firing a gun.

Ike pulled his sunglasses slightly down his nose and stared at Barak. "This should be easy then, shouldn't it? We've got guns and the Yolkians will be fighting with spears."

Barak shook his head and stared at Ike. "Make no ill-fated assumptions of the battle that lies before you. The first soldiers we face will fight in the most honorable way possible. But once they realize our intentions of killing King Veras, they shall take no chances. Our ranged weaponry is used when a melee combat is impossible or a battle cannot afford to be lost. Veras' soldiers will stop at nothing to protect their king."

A silence enveloped the group once again. Nick pressed the button on the supply chamber, and the door immediately slid downwards. He turned to the unit on his right. "And this one?" he asked Barak.

Barak quickly pressed the button himself. The door slid open to reveal five shelves, each holding five clear glass bottles. Inside each bottle was a clear, lumpy liquid. "These are merely nutrient pastes," Barak casually explained. "They hold no use to you."

Everyone watched as Sheen slowly stepped towards the front of the crowd. "They did for me," Sheen quietly told Barak. He grabbed one of the bottles and stared at the disgusting beverage inside.

Sheen had told Jimmy every detail about his battle on the Yolkian's mining vessel. Jimmy knew all about the effects of dehydration and had confirmed to Sheen that he had been within hours of dying when he hijacked the ship. Sheen looked at the bottle wearily and turned to Barak. "Can I keep one?"

Barak's mouth registered confusion for just a second before a neutral expression took over. "If you wish, human."

"Thank you," Sheen quietly said while returning to his spot beside Libby. Libby immediately grasped Sheen's hand and intertwined their fingers. Sheen smiled a little at that and tucked the bottle inside his backpack.

"The resting chamber is in the other room," Barak finally said while leading everyone back out into the hallway. He pressed the button besides the other door to reveal a room even barer than the lounge. Only a row of five devices across from the entrance lay inside. Each device was shaped like a claw with the pincers held horizontally. They jutted two feet away from the wall and rested three feet above the floor.

"Those are recharging stations for our shells," Barak explained while motioning across the room. "Obviously, they are unfit for your resting needs."

"We brought sleeping bags," Jimmy quickly replied. "This room will be enough for all of us to sleep in."

Barak faced the nine humans and gave a small smile. "I am afraid there is little else to show you. Flanking either side of the entrance to the cockpit are two small storage closets. Other than that, you have seen the entirety of the vessel."

Jimmy nodded and faced his friends. "Alright. We've got three days to prepare for this battle. Right now, it's…" Jimmy took a quick look at his watch and gave a tiny sigh. "Just past two thirty. I know we all got at least some sleep before leaving, but we shouldn't mess up our sleep cycles more than we have to. Let's organize our supplies as quickly as we can and then get to bed."

"Can't we just leave them in the hypercube?" Sheen whined. Libby smiled as the sad tone he had used in the storage room was completely absent.

Jimmy shook his head. "Everything's a jumbled mess in there. If we all work together, it won't take long. Let's do it quickly and then we can sleep."

As most of Jimmy's friends expected, he had fudged the truth slightly. The pile of supplies in the hypercube was nearly enough to fill the entire main chamber of the ship. Even with ten people working at once, it took more than two hours to get everything organized. By the time Jimmy's watch read 5:00 a.m., everyone was barely able to keep on their feet. Like Jimmy had said, most had been able to gather at least a few hours of sleep before meeting in front of his lab, but this barely made a dent in their fatigue. Only Barak seemed wide awake as everyone stood in the middle of the main chamber.

"We're done," Ike slurred while grabbing his pack of cigarettes with a trembling hand. He tried to use his left hand to open the package and pull out a cigarette, but his vision was blurry and he could barely stand. "Screw it, I quit," he muttered. "For the night," he quickly added.

"We did good," Jimmy struggled to say. Not only was he sleepy, but every muscle in his body ached from dragging their supplies around the ship. He forced his eyes open as wide as they could in an attempt to maintain consciousness for a few more minutes. He looked around the nearly empty main chamber in pride.

The only supplies left in the largest room on the ship were a stove, several canisters of propane, cooking utensils and dishes, and a small cache of food. Everything also was organized in the storage chamber. The only exception was the portable toilet that he and Libby had grabbed from the camping store, which rested in one of the two maintenance closets along with a case of water, a few towels, and several rolls of toilet paper.

Cindy barely managed to nod in agreement as everyone slowly made their way to the barracks. She briefly wondered if she was more tired than that first night after their parents' abductions a month and a half ago. She remembered how she and Jimmy had fallen asleep in the hover car and ended up in each other's arms. The memory brought a small smile to her face and caused her hand to involuntarily grab Jimmy's.

The barracks were just large enough for everyone to have their own space. Eight sleeping bags lay in two rows of four, meticulously spaced by Jimmy and Cindy. In between the two rows of sleeping bags lay two everyone's backpacks in two rows. Jimmy was vaguely amused as he realized it truly looked like a military base's barracks.

Everyone had packed pajamas, but no one had the energy left to change into them. Everyone climbed into their sleeping bags except for Libby and Sheen, who crawled into a large bag together. Libby rested her head on Sheen's shoulder, and Sheen fell asleep sniffing the rose still tucked in her hair.

Barak watched as his compatriots got comfortable. He stood in the entrance to the barracks and let a sad smile come over his face. "Rest well, humans. I shall see you when you rise." With that he pressed a button on the wall beside him, and the low purple lights in the room immediately shut off. Barak hovered into the hallway, closed the door, and made his way to the cockpit to pass the time until his allies awakened.

"Jimmy," an uncharacteristically calm voice whispered.

"School's not for an hour, mom," Jimmy mumbled while wrapping himself tighter in his sleeping bag.

Sheen paused for several seconds as he pondered the best way to wake his friend. Deciding that subtlety had no place on this adventure, he grabbed Jimmy's shoulders and shook him as hard as he could. "Wake up!" he shrieked.

Jimmy's eyes snapped open as his arms flailed wildly from Sheen's shaking. He saw his friend's face was a mere two inches from his own. Jimmy's eyes widened in shock as he stared into Sheen's crazed and dilated eyes. "Sheen?"

"You're missing everything!" Sheen shouted while rearing his right hand back. Jimmy immediately ducked and narrowly avoided Sheen's slap.

"Stop slapping people!" Jimmy shouted while wrestling out of Sheen's grasp. "What are you doing?"

Sheen jumped to his feet and calmly dusted himself off. "I'm inviting you to breakfast, James."

Jimmy looked around the barracks and saw that it was empty save for him and Sheen. He looked down at his watch and felt his eyes widen in shock as he saw the time. "It's noon already?"

Sheen smiled. "Cindy told us to let you sleep in. She said you deserved it."

Jimmy let a small smile pass over her lips. "Oh. That was nice of her."

Sheen smiled wider as he said, "We also only grabbed one box of donuts, and she said she wanted to make sure you didn't take the chocolate ones."

Jimmy's smile faded into a frown. "That's less nice."

"Anyway, here's a menu," Sheen happily said while pulling a thick, highly decorated piece of paper from behind his back.

Jimmy slowly accepted the menu from Sheen and gave a quick shake of his head. "I'm not even going to ask how you got this laminated."

"That's probably for the best," Sheen monotonously replied.

Jimmy raised an eyebrow in disgust. "Sheen, what the heck is this? Two pancakes costs three kisses? Five minutes of holding hands for an egg?"

"Let me see that," Sheen said while snatching the menu from Jimmy. He took out his rarely utilized reading glasses and perched them delicately on his nose. "Ah," he muttered in understanding while closely examining the menu, "this is Libby's menu. My bad," he said while pulling another menu out from behind his back.

Jimmy impatiently snatched it and gave it a quick look over. "One egg for me doing one of your book reports." Jimmy sighed and glanced up at Sheen. "That sounds slightly more normal."

"Come on, everyone's almost done already," Sheen said while extending his hand down to Jimmy. Jimmy stared at it for a few seconds before smiling and clasping his friend's hand.

Sheen led Jimmy to the main chamber. Jimmy was pleased, but not surprised, at what he saw. Nick was stirring a pot of what appeared to be oatmeal on the camping stove, and Carl was flipping flapjacks on the grill. A small table was set up near them and held a small variety of breakfast foods, utensils, and dishes. Jimmy saw Cindy, Libby, and Ike sitting on the floor in the corner opposite Nick and Carl. He stared into the cockpit and saw Betty sitting in the copilot's chair beside Barak and eating a plate of eggs.

"Miranda?" Jimmy asked Sheen.

Sheen pointed to the door beside them. "She said she had some stuff to do in the supply room." Sheen stared walking towards Carl and Nick and said, "Come on, let's get some food."

"Hey chief," Nick happily uttered with a small smile. See anything you like?" he asked while glancing at the menu in Jimmy's hands.

Jimmy smiled back and decided to see if he could find something to his liking. "Um, I guess I'll have two over easy eggs and some toast." He hesitated for a second and then asked, "Carl, did you get any orange juice?"

Carl flipped the pancake resting on the grill before pointing beneath the table beside him. "The sun kiss is under the table." He then turned to Sheen and said, "Want to make the flop two and brown down?"

Sheen nodded in response. "Sure, go pop a squat. Where's the Mike and Ike?"

"I'm right here," Ike said in confusion while looking up from his bible at Sheen.

Carl sighed in frustration. "Not Ike, Ike. The Mike and Ike!"

Ike stared flabbergasted at Carl. "What?"

Now it was Sheen's turn to sigh. "The things we keep the sea dust and sneeze in!"

"Are you speaking English?" Ike worriedly asked.

Sheen and Carl exchanged a glance and gave a disappointed shake of their heads. "Go sit down, Jimmy. We'll give you your plate when it's ready. And take a life preserver while you wait," Sheen gently offered while handing Jimmy a donut.

"Um…thanks," Jimmy said while slowly accepting the donut and strolling over towards Cindy.

Cindy flashed a playful smile at Jimmy as he took a seat beside her. "Sleep well?"

Jimmy nodded and took a bite of his donut. "No ulterior motives behind letting me get my beauty sleep?"

Cindy smiled a little wider. "Just figured you earned the rest."

Jimmy rolled his eyes and leaned back against the wall behind him. "Libby, did you organize this again?"

Libby shook her head and smiled over Ike's shoulder at Sheen. "This one's all his."

Ike, Jimmy, Cindy, and Libby stopped talking as they heard the door to the supply room shoot open. Miranda stepped outside while twirling a large curved knife in her hand.

"Nice knife," Ike said as she strolled by the small group of children.

Miranda immediately froze in her tracks and gripped the hilt of the weapon tighter. "It's a kukri, not a knife," she angrily corrected while glaring at Ike's sunglasses. She then scowled and made her way to the cooking area. She sheathed her weapon before quickly tossing a donut and piece of toast onto a plate. She then silently poured herself a glass of water, grabbed her breakfast, and headed back to the supply room. She stopped before entering the hallway and spun back around to face Nick. "Get me when training starts." Once she had spoken she went inside the supply room.

The rest of breakfast passed by quickly. Once Jimmy finished his meal, Nick told everyone that he was going to get the main chamber set up for training. Carl, Sheen, Ike, and Libby helped move the cooking supplies and food into the supply room until training was complete. Miranda, Jimmy, Nick, and Cindy set up targets in the main chamber and brought a variety of weapons and ammunition out from the supply room. As she helped prepare the main chamber, Cindy couldn't keep her thoughts off of the girl sitting in the cockpit with Barak. After what seemed an eternity, she finally excused herself and went to speak with Betty.

"And this is the mechanism that reroutes energy to different subsystems of the shuttle," Barak explained to Betty while pointing at a small holographic display rising an inch off of the dashboard's surface.

Betty examined the hologram closely. "So if I needed to push the engines harder than normal, I could redirect power from…I don't know…the environmental control system?"

Barak nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. Any non-critical system can have power rerouted to a critical system in times of need."

Cindy nervously drummed fingers of her right hand against the nearby wall. She finally said, "Learning how to fly, Quinlan?"

Barak and Betty spun around and stared at Cindy. Before Betty could respond, Barak rose off of his seat. "I shall leave you humans to your discussion."

"You don't have to…" Betty began to say, but Barak interrupted while hovering towards Cindy.

"I require a rest phase anyway." He paused in front of Cindy, who was blocking the narrow hallway. "Excuse my passing," Barak gently said. Cindy stepped to the side and allowed Barak to hover by her.

Betty stared angrily at Cindy and asked, "What do you want, Vortex?"

Cindy slammed her eyes shut for a moment and forced herself to keep from scowling. "Can I sit?"

Betty sighed and turned back to the observation window in front of her. "If you need to."

Cindy took the seat next to Betty and stared silently out the viewport for a few seconds. Betty tapped several buttons on the dashboard and finally spoke. "I already know how to fly, Vortex. In case you forgot, that's one of the reasons I'm here."

Cindy couldn't her comment to herself. "Yeah, that's the reason you're here."

Betty immediately turned the autopilot back on and glared at Cindy. "I'm getting sick of this. I offered to leave you alone, but you can't even do that, can you? Do you just want to kick each other's asses already? Because that's a great idea, to get ourselves injured three days before we fight a battle that decides the fate of our planet."

Cindy glared at Betty until both turned back towards the viewport at the same time. "You know what I hate more than anything?" Betty asked after a moment.

"Me?" Cindy offered.

Betty turned to face Cindy and saw a curious look on her face. Cindy eyes were narrowed in a typical display of anger, but her mouth held no expression, as though the question were completely serious. Betty turned back to the observation window and loosened her grip on the steering controls slightly. "The fact that everyone thinks all I can do is look pretty. Incase you forgot, I piloted us from Minerva to Goobot's ship. I fought the Yolkians onboard. I proved myself." She hesitated, realizing that she hadn't intended to say that last sentence out loud.

Cindy stared out into space in silence for several seconds before speaking. "I guess you did."

Five minutes passed in complete silence. Betty resumed piloting the ship along the course Barak had charted. Cindy stared straight ahead, moving only her eyes from side to side at whatever interesting celestial body was visible in the distance. Eventually, she decided to just say what she had come to say. "I'm sorry."

The words were just as hard to say to Betty as to Jimmy. Cindy saw Betty's grip on the steering controls loosen further, but she didn't speak for a full minute. Finally, she said, "Me too." A few seconds passed and then she added, "For swearing at you yesterday."

Both girls kept their eyes straight ahead. "He does love you," Betty stiffly said after a few more minutes had passed.

"I know," Cindy said.

Cindy could hear Jimmy and Nick discussing the best possible way to arrange the main chamber far behind her, but she kept her eyes glued to the viewport ahead of her. She eventually shifted her eyes to the right and saw how easily Betty was managing the controls. "You spent all morning with Barak," Cindy flatly stated.

"Very observant," Betty offered back with only a hint of sarcasm. "He was helping me learn more about flying."

"Do you like it?" Cindy asked while struggling to keep from gritting her teeth.

Betty kept her head straight ahead but turned her eyes towards Cindy. "Yeah."

Two more minutes passed. "Do you know what I hate more than anything?" Cindy finally asked.

"Me?" Betty offered.

Betty saw Cindy gave her head a miniscule shake out of the corner of her eye. Betty waited for Cindy to answer her own question, but instead she said, "I had a dream last night."

A snarky remark raced through Betty's mind, but she decided to shelve it for the moment. "Yeah?"

Cindy closed her eyes for several seconds and felt her stomach quiver at the memory. "You were in it. We were on Jimmy's lawn. It was after we argued. I walked up to Miranda, and she held out the knife she used against Jimmy. I took it, grabbed your hair, and held it to your throat."

Cindy looked to her right and saw Betty staring at her with a combination of disgust and fear. "I didn't kill you," Cindy quickly added. She had no intention of scaring Betty off before she could finish her story. I need to do this so we can work together to save Earth, if nothing else. "You asked me, `Why do you want to kill me?`"

Betty turned the autopilot back on, but resumed staring out at the emptiness of space in front of her. "Must have been a long list," she flatly said.

Cindy clenched her hands into fists and felt them tremble. "I couldn't think of a reason."

Betty's eyes darted back to Cindy of their own accord. "I find that hard to believe."

"I woke up after that," Cindy explained. She turned to face Betty and said, "Jimmy heard me moving around and asked what was wrong. I told him I'd just had a bad dream." Cindy couldn't keep a small smile from spreading over her lips. "It was hard to see with just the small lantern on, but I could tell his mind was racing. Then he asked if I wanted to lie next to him."

Cindy turned back to the viewport. "So I did." She closed her eyes and thought of how they had spent the rest of the night. She wrapped in his thin arms, his head resting gently on top of her hair. As she thought back to the night before, she could feel flickers of electricity dancing across her arms where their skin had connected.

"I thought of the dream," Cindy went on. "Tried to make a list of why I hated you. Reasons you deserved it. The only real reason I could think of was how you tried to take Jimmy away." Cindy paused and sighed. "And then I admitted you didn't even do that. That I pushed him to you."

Cindy turned to face Betty, and Betty saw in Cindy's eyes what she had only seen once, the night before. Sadness. "That's what I hate most. That I have no reason to hate you."

Cindy stared straight ahead once more. She took a deep breath and finally added, "So I'm sorry."

Betty took a few minutes to think about Cindy's words, about how genuine they seemed. And so she finally added, "Apology accepted."

Cindy nodded and got out of her seat. "I'll see you at training."

Betty hesitated and slowly said, "Yeah. Guess you will."

Betty kept her eyes straight ahead as she heard Cindy walk out of the cockpit. She listened to the faint sounds of her friends arranging weapons and supplies behind her. Sighing, she turned off the autopilot and resumed silently steering the ship.