Chapter 13: Planning and Preparations. The mission is laid out.

"I didn't know you were so scared of snakes, Jake," Mike said cheerfully.

Jake muttered something probably obscene with regards to Death Dancers and nibbled on his space ration. "I want to get off this stupid planet as soon as possible."

"What, without us?"

"I hate you."

Kalli leaned against her ship, munching on her own ration. "It seems a nice place to me."

"They need some sort of base," Jake said. "Some space station, underground complex, hangar, something to stay out of this stupid jungle. How do they manage around here?"

"You said the same thing last time we were here," Mike pointed out.

Ron turned up again. "Hey, Mike," he said. "There's some lady in orbit asking for you."

Mike raised an eyebrow. "She say what her name was?"

Ron nods. "Yeah. Says her name is Talia Richards. You know her?"

"Talia!" Mike almost fell off the nose of his ship where he was seated. "Yes, get her down here ASAP!"

"Righto," Ron said, pulling out his comm and sending off a signal.

Shortly thereafter, a light Raven-class fighter set down on the other side of the clearing, and a slightly haggard-looking woman climbed out. "Thank goodness I found you guys," she said, coming over toward them.

"How'd you know to find us here?" Jake asked. "And where by the Father's balls did you run off to, anyway?"

"Just a hunch," Talia said. "And it was closer and considerably safer to get to than Lorres, what with the Military after me now."

"They're after you too?" Mike asked. "What did you do?"

"I don't honestly know. Somehow they must have caught wind of... damn," Talia sighed. "This is important. We need to talk. Inside." She headed over to Jake's freighter. Mike shrugged and went over to join her, gesturing Kalli to join them. Jake entered last and closed the door behind them. They took seats around the table. Talia raised an eyebrow at Kalli. "Who is this, anyway?"

"Right, you haven't been properly introduced," Jake said. "Talia, this is Kalli May. The escort I had to pick up after you left me stranded on Secundus. Kalli, Talia Richards."

"Sorry about that," Talia said. "I received an urgent message that led me to a meeting on Toronto." She looked uneasily at Kalli again.

"Don't worry. You can trust her," Jake said. "I think."

Kalli smirked. "Not my fault you're afraid of snakes."

"Very well," Talia said, going on. "The agent I met with on Toronto informed me that someone was going to try to steal a shipment of luminite bound from the Rath system. Something about having found a way to use luminite as a new power source."

"A power source?" Mike said. "Now that's interesting."

Talia nodded. "He said that I was to make this shipment 'disappear' so to speak, and keep it out of the hands of both this new group and the Empire. However, before I could get to my ship, the Military tried to arrest me. I barely made it out of the system alive."

Mike pressed a few buttons, bringing up a diagram on the screen of the ship Kalli had scanned on Darwin. "Kalli got a scan of this ship on Darwin," Mike said. "It puzzled me, because it didn't seem like it could fly. Not without a much greater power source than we have available."

"The luminite?" Talia asked. "You don't suppose it's a prototype for some new class of luminite-powered ships, do you?"

"I don't see what else it could be, given this new information."

"We'll have to steal the prototype, too," Kalli murmured pensively.

Talia glanced at her, and couldn't find any argument, so she just nodded. "You think you can handle that, Kalli?"

"I'll do it," she said without hesitation.

"Alright," Talia said. She turned to the screen and brought up a map. "The rest of us will need to capture the transport before it reaches Darwin, then. I doubt hiding it in the Cryces would be a good idea, something that size could never navigate the asteroid field. So we'll have to take it somewhere else."

Jake said, "Transylvania, perhaps. They'd never find it in the Dracula Cloud."

"Now we just have to get back over to that part of space, eh?" said Mike.

"Yeah, great," Jake commented. "The sooner I get off this snake nest, the better. But now how are we going to get there without getting stopped by the military?"

"Haul a cargo load of sex toys from Gaytopia," Talia suggested wryly. "They'll never stop to ask."

Jake opened his mouth as if to debunk that plan, then ended up laughing. "You know, that just might work."

"You know," Mike said. "Why, precisely, do we not just make our own super luminite-powered ships? If we can get a good look at that prototype, we should be able to duplicate it, after all."

"I don't really know why he wanted me to dispose of the luminite instead of use it," Talia said. "But it really seems more logical to me. He just wanted me to keep it out of the hands of the Empire and the ones trying to steal it, not care what I did with it..." She sighed softly. "I just hope he's alright," she murmured.

"Alright," Mike said. "We have a mission. It's dangerous and we may well all be killed horribly. When do we leave?"

"I think a good night's sleep will be in order first," Talia said, stifling a yawn. "It's a long flight from Manitoba."

"First thing in the morning, then," Jake said. "Alright, head out, I wanna get some sleep here, myself. And keep your bloody snakes out of here. Crazy Death Dancers."

Chuckling, Mike left the freighter, followed shortly by the others. Talia grimly went over to her fighter to sleep. Watching her, Mike commented to Kalli, "I wonder what's bothering her. I've never seen her this sullen and determined before. All business. It's not like her."

"I wouldn't really know," Kalli said. "Suppose I'd best get some sleep myself if I'm going to expect to hijack a highly advanced prototype fighter ship from a top secret high security compound."

"Heh. You really think you can handle that?"

"I know very well I could fail. But I'm willing to do it anyway."

Mike gave a small smile and hugged her. "Good. Sleep well."

"You too."