(Ax, keep track of the time, okay?) Jake asked, once all of the others had confirmed their presence aboard the plane.

(Yes, Prince Jake,) the Andalite said; Shara smiled inwardly, predicting Jakes next words.

(You know I dont want you to call me "Prince Jake".) And there they were. (I am not a prince.)

(Yes, Prince Jake, I know.)

(Good, just as long as were clear on that.)

Shara couldnt help it; she laughed. It was good to have something to laugh about, especially considering the fact that she was hoping for a nice, boringly safe flight. Hoping that the bad feeling she had been having, was still having, if one wanted to be particular about it, was nothing more than nerves, Shara made a concerted effort to settle back down. She wouldnt do anyone any good jumping at shadows.

XXX

It was odd, the way that even after he had taken the precaution of monitoring his teknoplants far more closely than he suspected that any Warlord had done in the past things still seemed to be going wrong. His young warrior Javelin had been the first to come to him, but he had kept the boy in reserve, since his temperament was far from ideally suited to becoming a Guide.

The once-human who had been named Fritz Wallace had been a much better candidate; Jessy Summers had been attached to humanity as a whole, and for the most part in the abstract, yes and so might have been tempted to become a traitor. It happened at times; even such methods as the Radam possessed were not completely infallible. Such ones were dealt with as they should be, of course; Darkon could only try to mitigate the circumstances that might produce such people.

He was almost tempted to resort to his Othersense, but such visions as he was granted by that power were not entirely precise. They were, for the most part, dreamlike, disjointed, and heavily suffused with metaphor. He remembered that from his own experience; just before the Radam had come to Navris, he had had a vision of their invasion.

Along with the splitting, almost blinding pain in his temples, he had beheld shapes and colors; images that seemed to mean nothing, and figures that were only loosely identifiable as bipeds and quadrupeds. Once he had beheld the Radams Teknomen for the first time, he had realized that those had been the creatures in his vision and likewise with the Nikhau but such things were not particularly helpful. Hed no need for information that couldnt be used until just barely after the fact.

This was the conclusion that he had come to after reviewing the memories of his various visions over the time that he had used his Othersense.

XXX

The flight had been pretty boring, something Jake had to admit that he was extremely grateful for. The Animorphs had had more than enough excitement on their missions so far, and they were probably going to start having it again once they all got off this plane, so he for one was glad to just be bored on their way out to WAA headquarters.

When the thrumming of the engines began to grow increasingly higher in pitch, Jake knew that they were just about to take off. He also found out where hed managed to land: the vibrations from the flight attendants speech nearly blew him off the speaker hed been perched on. Zipping around aimlessly for a long few moments, Jake came to rest smoothly on the latch of one of the overhead storage bins.

(Hows everyone doing?) he asked, hoping that the others were all right.

(Twenty minutes have elapsed,) Ax said.

(How long is this flight again, Marco?) he asked, not entirely sure he remembered correctly, and not wanting to take those kinds of chances.

(An hour and thirty minutes,) Marco answered quickly. (That leaves us fifteen minutes to get off the plane at the other end and demorph.)

(Thats cutting it a bit close,) Rachel observed.

(Technically, wed have thirty minutes after the plane touches down,) Shara said, sounding thoughtful. (But thats still not much margin for error, and thats not even taking the landing process into account.)

(Yeah,) Jake said, twitching his antennae for lack of anything better to do.

There was really nothing for his fly brain to concentrate on; nothing to distract him from the sheer monotony of the flight. Nothing, that was, until the food was served; it was difficult in the extreme, to restrain the flys urge to land in one of the Salisbury steaks that had just been served and start merrily feasting.