Quinlan woke up with a jerk. Then he opened his eyes and blinked vaguely in the direction of the ceiling as he tried to determine what – or rather, who – had woken him.

The ship was peaceful. Wrecker wasn't snoring. Tech wasn't muttering to himself or typing at inhuman speeds. Crosshair wasn't bickering with anyone, and the only sound, which was coming from the cargo hold, was very faint . . . nothing that would have woken him. After a few seconds, he recognized the soft hiss of metal against air as the sound of a knife being spun. It seemed that Hunter was being an idiot, again, and occupying himself by flipping his extremely deadly vibroblade around his fingers.

Oh well, that was his problem.

Quinlan looked at the blurry red numbers on the chronometer, which read way-too-early-oh-hundred. Actually, he had no idea what they read because he didn't try for more than a second and his eyes wouldn't focus, but it sure felt like the middle of third shift.

Yawning, Quinlan turned onto his side – and then, he sat up with a sudden realization. He'd woken up because he was hungry. No, not just hungry, he was really hungry.

Huh, weird. Yawning again, he half-fell out of the bunk and stumbled to the bunkroom doorway. Must've forgotten to eat dinner or something.

Keeping his eyes half-closed against the dimmed lights of the Marauder, he staggered into the galley and fumbled around the nearest shelf until his fingers bumped something that felt like a ration bar – at least, it was rectangular and had a crinkly wrapper.

After unwrapping it, he squinted at it to ensure that it was, in fact, a ration bar, then took a bite. As he had no desire to lose a tooth somewhere in the sticky, tough conglomeration that was the ration of the week, he chewed carefully. Yep. Just as tasty and nutritious as ever . . .

It was only a couple of minutes before his blood sugar had risen from its corpselike levels and was quickly approaching normalcy. As his memory returned, he realized that yes, he had kind of forgotten to eat dinner. And lunch. And breakfast. He and the Batch had been in the field by oh-five-hundred and then run nonstop until nineteen hundred, when they finally returned to the ship.

The Jedi was pretty sure he remembered staggering to the nearest bunk and falling face-first onto it without a word to anyone. He remembered Hunter waking him and saying something about eating. He definitely remembered shoving himself up onto his elbows and threatening to throw Hunter through the Marauder's hull if he didn't let him die in peace.

From the cargo hold, the sound of Hunter sheathing his knife with a click preceded the sound of approaching footsteps.

Quinlan slouched against the wall, finished the ration bar with his eyes shut, and refused to acknowledge the sergeant as he entered the room.

"Hungry?" Hunter said, sounding amused.

"Nope." Quinlan shook his head, tossed his wrapper in the general direction of the disposal unit, and dug through the pre-portioned snacks until he found a package of nerf jerky. "Just eating 'cause I'm bored. Here. You want a bland, tasteless serving of nutrition?"

Hunter snorted and accepted the small energy bar, leaning against the shelf unit as he ate. He didn't say 'I told you so', but he sent a supercilious look down his tattooed nose, accompanied by a smirk that spoke louder than words. As a matter of fact, Hunter managed to pull off the smug attitude better than Obi-Wan . . . and Force, was that saying something.

Quinlan ignored him with studied dignity. Then, after finishing off a bottle of water and a couple slices of nerf jerky, he opened a bag of dried fruit.

Hunter narrowed his eyes, swallowed, and said, "You're not getting that for Tech, are you?"

"No . . ." Quinlan looked down at the fruit slice he held, then took a bite. "At least, I think I'm not. Pretty sure I opened it so I could eat it."

Hunter still looked suspicious, but all he said by way of explanation was, "Tech's banned from the galley after hours, so –"

"You know," Quinlan interrupted, eyeing the last bit of food Hunter held. "Those things look and kind of taste like chalk, and I'm surprised – Wait. Why's Tech banned from the galley?"

"Because he loves sugar and caf," Hunter answered. "And worse, he uses them to stay awake. So, he's not allowed in the galley between the hours of nineteen hundred and oh-seven-hundred unless we're on a mission. The idea is, we're in here to watch him during normal hours."

Quinlan swallowed a piece of dried joba fruit and got more water. "Well, just because he likes sugar and caf doesn't mean you can pin that on me."

The look Hunter gave him stated that the sergeant felt he could pin Tech's caf-and-sugar addiction on him, which was totally unfair.

Quinlan said as much, in a mournful voice; but as usual, Hunter was completely unimpressed. "When Tech stays up long enough, he gets a little crazy," he said. "And now he's got a habit of sending one of the others to get sugar or caf for him. "Especially when he thinks the rest of us are asleep. Depending on who he's allied with at the moment. . . well, sometimes he succeeds."

"Sounds potentially gruesome," Quinlan admitted. "Does he usually ally with Cross? Or Wrecker?"

"Both of us." Crosshair sidled into the room, smirking darkly, and lowered his voice to what was probably supposed to be a sinister whisper. "But I never give him anything unless he pays me . . . in blood."

"Uh-huh." Quinlan downed another piece of fruit. "Sure you don't."

Crosshair blinked a couple of times, then frowned.

Hunter rolled his eyes. "Crosshair, it's not even your watch yet. What is it with you guys wandering around the ship at night instead of sleeping?"

Quinlan politely turned his snort of laughter at the sergeant's hypocrisy into a cough, but Hunter stepped on his foot anyway.

"Ow!"

"Oh, sorry about that," Hunter said, shifting hastily out of range. "Misjudged the distance."

Before Quinlan could even begin to reply to that particular untruth, Crosshair stole a slice of dried fruit from Quinlan's bag.

The Jedi turned to face him and pointed out, "That was mine."

"Was. Yeah." Crosshair swallowed, stole another, then flicked Quinlan's knuckles when he tried to stop the thievery.

"OW!"

After shaking the tingles out of his hand, Quinlan jabbed a pressure point on Crosshair's wrist to disarm him, then swiped the piece back. Crosshair slapped his hand away and turned, pinning it under his elbow, but Quinlan twisted free, closing his fist hard around the squashed piece of fruit.

Hunter spent a full half minute eyeing them in disbelief, but they were too busy bickering over a single piece of fruit to pay any attention. By the time Quinlan finally won, the prize was mangled beyond recognition, so he handed it to a surprised Hunter and went back to eating.

He and Crosshair were munching on the last few pieces when Wrecker came in on tiptoe. He grinned and waved to them, gestured for silence, headed for the small storage unit – and then saw Hunter and froze, wide-eyed with guilt. After hesitating too long, he tried to pretend he'd been heading for the cargo hold all along.

"Hold it right there, Wrecker," Hunter said sternly, getting up from the table. "Did Tech send you in here?"

"Uhhh . . ." Wrecker said. "Just – he said just a tiny bit, I thought it was fine."

"You know the rule," Hunter huffed.

"Yeah, but he only wanted a little." Wrecker pointed defensively to a container of emergency energy sticks. "I was just gonna give him one piece of a sweet stick."

"After this many times, you still have no sense of self-preservation?" Hunter sighed heavily. "How many times have we been over this?"

"Well . . . a lot." Wrecker thought about it. "But I dunno, sometimes when he looks like a sad tooka, I can't say no."

Quinlan grinned. "You've gotta be more hard-hearted," he said knowledgeably.

Hunter turned to face the cockpit and shouted, "TECH! Stop sending people in to get caf and sugar! It's been way too long since you slept as it is! You aren't having any in the middle of the night, do you understand me?"

"Understand you?" Tech scoffed. "Of course I understand you. In fact, I fully comprehend the meaning of your words."

"Good."

"However, I have deliberately decided to ignore them."

"Huh." Quinlan blinked. "That was . . . straightforward."

"Yeah. He gets like that." Hunter folded his arms and raised his voice. "The only problem is, Tech, you've run out of people to send."

"That is because they are traitors!"

"I know," Quinlan called back, trying to sound sympathetic. "You just can't trust anyone, can you? Depend on yourself and yourself alone, that's what I always say."

"You do not, actually."

The Jedi sniffed.

There were fifteen seconds of silence before Hunter said, "Tech, if you want caf or sugar, you'll just have to come get it yourself."

"No. If I do that, you will order the others to initiate Protocol Twelve, and I will be unable to stay awake."

In an attempt to be helpful, Quinlan said, "Y'know, Tech, that's kind of the point of Protocol Twelve."

"Yes, and I dislike it." Tech paused. "Fortunately, I have succeeded in completing my invention. I will no longer be forced to rely on either Crosshair or Wrecker."

Quinlan raised an eyebrow, and the sergeant frowned.

Then, a faint clink of metal on metal came from the hallway, and Hunter shifted suspiciously, head cocked to one side.

A soft buzz and a click were followed by a thin little whirr, and then a tiny droid, only a few centimeters tall, wheeled into the room with both extendable arms outheld. It was balanced perfectly on a single wheel. A little red light glowed on its torso, and balanced on top of that was a spherical head, which had two circular lights for eyes and a slightly crooked smile drawn beneath them. Quinlan grinned as it spun twice in a dizzy circle. It was really kind of cute.

"Teeeech," Hunter said, looking concerned. "What is that?"

"It is my new assistant. I have decided to call it TIED, which stands for Tiny Infiltration and Extraction Droid."

"TIED, huh?" Quinlan leaned closer to observe it.

The little droid swerved back and forth, red light blinking momentarily, and then buzzed straight towards the shelf where Quinlan's secret stash of chocolate was held.

Okay, maybe it was actually his not-so-secret-stash of chocolate. Good to know.

One of the extendable metal arms reached for the chocolate, but Hunter was too fast. Stooping, he picked up the droid around the middle with one hand, held its miniscule snapping hands away from his fingers with the other, and looked around, searching for somewhere to put it.

Quinlan's gaze fell on the heating unit. He yanked it open, stood aside so Hunter could shove the droid inside, and slammed the door.

Everyone eyed the little invention warily, but the droid only bumped gently against the four walls of its tiny enclosure a few times before returning to the exact center, where it swayed peacefully back and forth on its single wheel.

"Aww, that thing's cute," Wrecker whispered, leaning forward to observe it through the glass.

"Oh dear. That is not good." Tech's voice floated absently into the galley. "I have lost contact with TIED."

He sounded as though he were reporting to himself. Crosshair rolled his eyes and reached for a toothpick.

"That's because TIED is trapped," Hunter declared.

"Ah. . . Trapped where?"

Crosshair smirked. "Hunter put your little toy in the nanowave. You won't be getting it now."

"Oh?" In a stellar display of muscular control, Tech leaned around the door and into the galley from the waist up, tilting so far forward that Quinlan was surprised when he didn't fall on his face.

Tech studied the heating unit for a long moment. Then one of his hands appeared around the doorway to adjust his goggles. "That is a setback," he announced, and vanished. "Perhaps I should order it to spontaneously combust."

Wrecker's eyes widened and he stepped back.

Quinlan thought about the implications of combustion inside a nanowave, then picked up his small tin of chocolate from its no-longer-secret hiding place and tried to think of where to keep it. Discretion was the better part of valor, and all that. . .

"You think he can make it explode?" Crosshair asked around his toothpick.

"I dunno," said Hunter. "But I'm not willing to find out. We'd better nab him."

"Or we could just turn on the heating unit and fry TIED," Crosshair added.

"No!" Wrecker put a hand protectively over the heating unit's glass front. "He's a cute little droid!"

"That Tech built," Crosshair said.

Wrecker frowned. "You can't cook TIED!"

"Watch me." The sniper threw his toothpick across the room.

Tech's voice came through the speaker system. "If you destroy TIED in the nanowave, I shall obtain every toothpick on this ship, space them, and fire on them."

"How?" Crosshair tilted his head thoughtfully. "Targets would be too small to obtain a lock with the cannons."

"Yes, well, be that as it may." Tech cleared his throat, then spoke in a casual monotone. "Situational report: TIED is being held hostage. Recovery of Tiny Infiltration and Extraction Droid necessary for completion of mission objectives. Commencing negotiations with enemy forces."

"Uh – what?" Quinlan glanced wide-eyed between Hunter, who had suddenly covered his ears, and Wrecker, who only hung his head and said, "Aw, great."

Loud, repetitive music blasted through the speaker system. A ten-second clip played and then repeated. Again. Again. Again.

"TURN THAT OFF!" roared Wrecker.

The music paused.

"Release TIED," Tech ordered, and started the music again.

Force, that's annoying! Grimacing, Quinlan edged over to Hunter and raised his voice. "Any chance we can override it?"

"No!" Hunter called back, still covering his ears. "He's done this before, and he always wins!"

"What if we capture him?"

"We've done that before, but it doesn't work – we always have to let him go again! Somehow he locks the sound loop, and none of us are good enough to get through his passcodes!"

The music boomed on. Really, Quinlan wasn't sure it could be classified as music. It was more like a series of timed explosions, with a bit of a chord progression and some heavy clanging thrown in for variety.

Hunter groaned and put his forehead against the wall while Wrecker walked around the galley with a pillow over his head. Crosshair, who was sitting motionless on the table, had his helmet on and was holding a pillow over his head.

Then the noise stopped again. "Release TIED, give him the chocolate, and set him down in the hallway," Tech demanded calmly.

"Wow," Quinlan said, ears ringing in the relative silence. "You must really want that chocolate. . ."

"I do." Tech's voice cracked into a higher pitch, and he cleared his throat in embarrassment. "I am exhausted, and need extra sugar or caffeine to even begin to function. At this point, I have been up for thirty-nine hours, twelve minutes, and seven seconds and I believe I am losing my sense of reality."

"Uh, yeah . . ." Quinlan tried to carry on negotiations. "Look, you'd feel a lot better if you just got some sleep and then –"

Tech interrupted. "You have been given your orders. See that they are carried out. I will not stop the music again until you fulfill my request. May the Force be with you."

The noise crashed back into existence, and Quinlan knew they had reached the point of no return. It was do or die, and he actually wanted to go to sleep, not die.

Wrecker took off his helmet and inserted a pair of earplugs before putting it back on. Hunter and Crosshair looked at each other, silently questioning whether they just wanted to give in. With a long sigh, Quinlan calmed his mind and reached into the Force. Could Tech eating sugar really be worse than the chaos that was happening right now?

The Force rang with a resounding and unmistakable yes. That left only one option, but no one was taking it.

Quinlan grabbed Hunter's arm to get his attention and yelped, "Are you guys commandos or aren't you? Disconnect the kriffing speakers!"

"He always has backups," Wrecker hollered.

"Yeah, but we can find 'em fast enough once they turn on! Who cares if we have to reinstall them tomorrow?"

"Good point!" Hunter answered. "Crosshair, you get the ones in the bunkroom!"

"On it!" Crosshair turned to holler after them. "He keeps batteries in them too, so you'll have to remove those!"

The next three minutes were spent in recklessly dismantling each and every speaker in the entire Marauder, with the exception of those in the cockpit. The noise slowly faded with each dead speaker, until only three were left.

"Okay," Hunter said, as they gathered outside the cockpit doorway. "Each of us has to take a speaker out, and fast. He'll try to defend them. Quinlan, you subdue Tech."

"Why do I have to?" grumbled Quinlan.

"Because the newest team member gets the hardest job," Crosshair said with a smirk. "But he fights unpredictably. Watch it, or you'll get an elbow to the teeth."

"Thanks for the warning."

With that, they rushed in, the three commandos splitting off to grab for the vibrating speakers. Quinlan grabbed Tech by the shoulders, yanked him out of the pilot's seat, and clasped both arms around him, pinning his elbows to his side.

Tech was like a deadweight, hanging against Quinlan's arms until it was all he could do to keep him upright.

"You've lost, Tech, just give up already," Quinlan said, struggling to keep his grip.

The last crashing reverberation of music died at last.

Hunter spun around, but the triumphant expression on his face faded abruptly into confusion. "Is he. . . asleep?" he asked.

Tech snored faintly in response, and Crosshair took a hesitant step forward, then poked him in the ribs. There was no response.

"Yep," Crosshair said. "He's asleep."

Hunter exchanged a surprised look with Quinlan, and Wrecker scratched his head. "Wait. Did the noise put him to sleep, or what?"

"Who knows." Hunter rubbed at his ears. "Quick, before he wakes up, get him to bed. Protocol Twelve is still in effect."

Quinlan and Crosshair wrangled Tech into the barracks, dumped him in a bunk, and threw a heavy blanket over him. Tech snored once, murmured, "the trajectory would be hard to calculate", and fell silent.

"Okay," Hunter whispered from the doorway. "Good job. I've turned off TIED, so we're secure on all fronts. We've got an estimated twelve hours of safety, now."

"Good, because I'm going back to bed." Quinlan yawned. "Look – I have to ask, why don't you guys initiate Protocol Twelve a lot sooner, say, if Tech's been up for twenty hours, instead of waiting until thirty-nine?"

Wrecker sighed. "Because until he gets really insane, there's no catching him. He just runs away and hides in the ventilation shafts."