A/N: oh, no! I don't have anything to put in this!

Vampiregirl081: thanks

Jamieson Z: I'll try to work on it, ok!

Iara: I continued AND e-mailed you! Yay!

Prin69: glad you liked it! I don't know where we'll put it yet but I'll let you know when we find out!

Vee017: I don't know yet! I'll let you know.

Eris: here's your next update!

L.C. Brotherton: glad you liked it!

Mo Cat: love him!

Sorry for the short replies, but I'm talking on the phone at the same time, and I can't multi-task!

Chapter 29

"We have a problem," Nuria announced as the squadron was eating dinner.

"What's that, Nuria?" Winter asked.

"Who's gonna be the leader of our squad?"

"Me," both Corrin and Jade said at the same time.

"Ah-ha," Xena said sarcastically. "That'll work just fine."

Corrin made a face at Xena. "All right," he said. "Let's have a vote."

"The quaint old custom of democracy?" Nuria said. "Rather outdated, isn't it?"

"Well, it works for the Commonweal..." Cynthia trailed off. If the reports were true, the Commonwealth was under the control of Pish Tryan, and the Triumvirates were only figureheads. The room was awkwardly silent.

"Well, it seems simple to me," Giani said, setting down his napkin. "Who is the better pilot?"

"Let's find out," Corrin said, standing up. "Right now."

"Sit down, human," Jade said, looking calmly up at him. "Finish eating. Then I'll beat your ass in a slipfighter."

Corrin sat down, rather embarrassedly. "Don't feel bad," Winter told him. "No matter what you did, Jade would find a way so you couldn't fight her until she was done eating."

---------------

Half an hour later, all nine pilots were assembled in an empty area of space not far from Kadon Base. Their slipfighters were now fully repaired, courtesy of Jade, Winter, and Giani.

"All right, Oenone, Prophet, Smarty, Ace, Storm, Callisto, Tuna: stay out of combat radius," Jade ordered. "Me and Hotshot only."

"Eh, Jade, please use proper grammar," Giani's voice said over the comm. "It should be 'Hotshot and I'."

Jade grinned. "I'm a Nietzschean, Smarty. I always come first."

"We'll see about that," Corrin's voice said over the comm. "You ready to roll, Jade?"

"All systems check," Jade replied, pulling down a lever in her cockpit. "Here I come, flyboy." She shoved the lever forward, and the slipfighter jumped forward in response. Jade grinned in triumph; after her repairs, her slipfighter's handling had improved by ten percent.

Jade flew her fighter in a slow, easy grid pattern, searching for Corrin's fighter. The human was using the tactic his squad had used in their first training exercise (A/N: chap12); hide with all systems powered down and let the target come to you. Unluckily for him, Jade had already pinpointed his location as he had been talking. Gotcha, she thought as she neared his position. She powered up active sensors, showing Corrin's slipfighter exactly where she thought it would be.

"Oh, very good, Jade," Corrin's voice said as the sensors showed his fighter powering up.

Jade cursed as he dodged her first, second, and third missile locks.

"You gotta do better than that," Corrin laughed, soaring past.

The corners of Jade's lips perked upward. "Dodge this," she challenged. She pulled a hard 180 to line her up directly with Corrin's fighter and shoved the joystick as far forward as it would go. She zoomed toward him, too fast for a missile lock, until she would have been too close for a lock anyway. If it had been an actual battle with live fire, if Corrin had attempted to use missiles, it would have blown up both him and the opposing fighter. That's why slipfighters are equipped with a safety mechanism to protect against that. It automatically will switch firing control over to lasers.

Jade fired her lasers at point-blank range, then yawed right hard, spinning uncontrollably for a moment before she regained control.

Corrin's computer interpreted the data embedded in the lasers. If they had been real, they would have breached through to the Slipstream drive, causing the fighter to explode. "You are dead," Corrin's computer informed him pleasantly. "You are dead, please reset. You are..."

"Yeah, I get the picture," Corrin said irritably, whacking the side of the cockpit. "Damn!"

"You lose," Jade said calmly, banking her fighter to return to base.

-------------

"Okay, Jade, okay, your new call sign is going to be 'Leader', okay?" Giani announced as the pilots gathered in the Obs Room.

"Okay, okay," Jade held up her hands, laughing. "I can deal with that!"

Suddenly, the entire asteroid was rocked by a huge explosion, knocking most of the pilots to the floor.

"What was that?" Cynthia cried, getting up just as the asteroid was hit again.

"Someone's firing on us!" Achilles announced tersely, helping Xena to her feet.

Xena immediately pulled out two loaded Gauss pistols and pointed them at Achilles and Jade. "No body moves, no body gets hurt!" she snapped.

"Xena, what-" Winter started.

"No talk." Xena moved her left pistol off Jade and over to Winter to shut her up. "This has been coming since you left the Commonwealth and announced your name over the radio, Jade Rhade."

"Traitor," Jade hissed as Xena moved the pistol back over to her.

Xena's mouth twitched unhappily as if she were going to say something, but thought better of it.

The door to the Obs Room hissed open, revealing a Nietzschean woman flanked by ten Commonwealth men.

"Shauna!" Cynthia screamed. "You're-"

"Dead?" Shauna Du'lakar, out of Liona by Ulassim, smirked at the human woman. "I am just an echo from the past that will not die." The Commonwealth men disarmed the eight pilots and led them away.

"You're gonna pay for this!!" Nuria yelled over her shoulder. "You hear? I'm going to kill you traitorous bitches!"

------------------

Report filed by Xena Teraskasi, on board Drago-Katsov warship Warrior's Fury

The deed is done. I handed over the Rhade and the others to the Dragans. I wish I had another choice, but I don't. Perhaps now the Drago-Katsov will remove their fleet from orbit around Beros Prime. I can only hope. My only allegiance is to the Ursa; if this will not free my planet, I don't know what will.

--Xena Teraskasi, out of Karina by Hector, of Ursa Pride.

A/N: and we find out that Xena is not as much of a bitch as we formerly assumed!

Preview of Chap30: Part one of Trance's Trial begins.