A/N – Okay, one last time, my little plot twist is upcoming. You'll know it when you read it – if it's not this chapter, it will be in one of the next two. I'm trying to decide the best place to insert it. Again, when you read it, please try to contain yourselves and stick with me. Thanks again for all the support you've shown, and enjoy the next chapter!

Chapter 19

Rachel

"This is boring," I complained for the millionth time since we left Xylen. We were at full burn, but we'd been gone for five days and still had about five more to go. "Why couldn't we just take the Messenger and use Z-space?"

"Because Ax's home is a lot farther, plus we're going to need to defend ourselves when we get where we're going. Ax won't," Marco explained patiently to me for the millionth time. I knew this already, I was just dead set on making Marco as aggrivated as he'd always made me. It was working, I could tell.

"Ax had better have a battle fleet hanging out in orbit when we get back," I grumbled. "He'd better have something to show for the fact I had to sit still in this damn chair for ten days."

"Yeah, you're right," Marco agreed. "At least we don't have to use those tube-and-bladder rigs Amni'bel gave us," he pointed out. He was definitely right about that. They were used for Taruff pilots on extended campaigns when they couldn't leave the cockpit. I had been apalled and almost told everybody to forget the mission, but Ax had a solution. He'd synthesized up some 'homeostatics,' which apparently kept all the body's systems in perfect harmony. We wouldn't have to eat, or more importantly, use the bathroom for almost two weeks with each pill. A steady diet of them would ruin one's health in short order, but Ax had assured us we'd be okay just taking them for this mission.

"Want to play Battleship again?" I asked. Toby, who apparently was a decent computer programmer, had provided us a Battleship-like game in short order after Marco had described it to her. I got the feeling she was just as sick of the complaining as anyone else and did it to shut us up.

"Eh…no," Marco said. "After losing forty games and winning about that many, I think it's clear that we're not going to get a grand champion."

I keyed my communicator to pick up the frequency that Lok and Toby were using, but quickly shut it off. Rough barks of the Taruffs' native speech and the snake-like hisses of the Hork-bajir were flying back and forth like so many insults. I guessed they were teaching each other their respective languages to pass the time. I leaned back and settled in for a nap, although I was to the point where I was getting too much sleep as it was. You know, when you have nothing to do but sleep, and it makes you feel sick? But what else was I supposed to do? I was bored out of my mind.

My communicator popped. "Contact!" Toby said harshly.

Marco came across instantly, all business. "On my mark, ease down to zero thrust and shut down all systems except life support and passive sensors. Mark." We all slowed to a stop and everybody's ship started going dark. "That includes your running lights, Rachel. Snap it up," Marco said quickly. I realized I hadn't turned off the red lights at my wingtips and quickly did so. No one spoke for a long few moments.

We hadn't practiced this drill, but Marco had gone over the theory behind it. We figured we still had some time before the Trunsk came to Xylen, but it was always good to be prepared. Toby, more observant than anyone else as usual, had picked up a sensor reading that could possibly be a ship. If the Trunsk were on their way to Xylen in force already, there wasn't much we'd be able to do to stop them. We might hurt them in an ambush – they certainly wouldn't be expecting to be attacked on the way there – but there probably wasn't any way we could get out of it alive. I powered down the communicator to minimum and aimed it in a tight-beam transmission to Marco's ship. "What are we going to do if it's their fleet?" I whispered unnecessarily, as if my voice would carry through space all the way to the enemy.

"Probably run," Marco said grimly. "I suppose we could run into their cruisers like bugs hitting a windshield. That might make them mad enough to turn around."

"Be serious, Marco!" I hissed. "Are we really going to run away?"

"I don't know. If there's even the slightest chance that we can take them out, I guess we're going to have to take it and hope for the best."

I was nervous, but there was nothing to do but wait and see if the anomalous signal Toby'd picked up was enemy ships or just a mistake of the newly programmed Taruff computer. I knew that more than likely there'd be fighting involved when I agreed to this mission, but I hadn't stopped to think about it. One on one, on the ground where I could morph, I'd take anybody. But I'd only been flying a starfighter for a week. I could do it, but that didn't mean I was good at it. I wasn't Marco, some video game junkie who's skills actually translated into something useful in the real world. I liked to shop, I liked to kick ass, and I liked Tobias. It occurred to me how badly I didn't want to be here, hanging in zero-gravity in a fragile conglomoration of metal, electronics, and compartmentalized power.

Toby spoke again. "Tune your sensors to 576.11. No, wait. They probably won't pick up one tight-beam sensor bounce, but they might notice four. I'll send the data to you secondhand." A moment later, my worst fears were confirmed.

Fourteen ships. Four were cruisers with hundreds of gun turrets, easily a half of a mile long each. The other eight were smaller, but any one of them was more than a match for the four starfighters we commanded. I thought about Marco's bug-on-the-windshield joke and grimaced. Even if we did run all of our fighters into one of the ships, they probably wouldn't even notice.

Marco's voice was grim. "Don't worry, guys. I know when to keep my head down. Toby, can you send Jake a message without it being intercepted?"

"No. It would definitely be intercepted, and I don't think the Trunsk would be kind enough to re-transmit it for me," she said humorlessly.

"Fine," he said. "You should be able to easily outrun them. You'll take the message to Jake personally. The Trunsk will probably just assume you were a scout that retreated before their all-powerful star fleet."

"What about us?" I asked.

I could see the smile on his face in my mind's eye. "We're going to get ourselves killed. That's more than likely all the Trunsk have to throw at us right now – their home planet is going to be defenseless. We're going to go in and assassinate their leader, ending this damn thing once and for all. You guys don't have a problem with that, do you?" he asked with an edge in his voice.

"Where you go, I will follow," Lok said forcefully.

I had my doubts, but kept them to myself. "Gotta do what we gotta do," I said, forcing a cheer into my voice that I definitely didn't feel.

"All right, then," Marco said. "Toby, power down your sensors – slowly, now – and I'll turn up the gain on mine. Smooth transition so they don't pick up the difference. All right, I've got it. You're clear to head back. Don't dawdle, Toby…I'm pretty sure you're faster than they are, but we don't want to take any chances." I suppressed an urge to compliment Marco. To me, he'd always been the most reluctant one to fight, the one least suited to commanding a mission like this. He was proving me wrong. He was competant and plenty smart about his decisions.

Toby ran her ship slowly away for a few moments, not turning on any of her lights or powering up any systems that weren't absolutely necessary. I guess she was trying to get as far away from us as possible before being detected. I watched her until she was out of the sight my naked eye was capable of.

"How long do we wait?" I asked Marco, and he shushed me. I wanted to respond indignantly, but I let it go. He had more important things to concentrate on than squabbling with me.

"They see her," he commented. "They're deploying fighters, but once they realize that she's too far away and she's not attacking, they'll bring 'em back in." He lit up the engines of his own fighter once he was confident we were out of sensor range and asked Lok and I to do the same. Soon after, there was never any sign we'd been anywhere near another ship…or any sign that Toby'd ever been with us.

A thought occurred to me. "Hey, Marco? What if the Trunsk do have more ships? What if they have some anti-starfighter artillery?"

"Well, I don't know. I guess we're in for a fight," he said slowly. I don't know what I was expecting him to say – he didn't know any more than I did. I wanted to be reassured, and he had no reassurances to give.

"Do you even know who their leader is? Or where he is?" I asked, hoping for him to say he knew something. That he knew anything.

"Nope. We'll figure it out probably by where we draw the most fire from as we approach the planet," he said.

"Quit joking!" I snapped, feeling tense, anxious…and once again, hating the damn fighter I was strapped into. This was crazy. I wasn't some star pilot. Jake pointed to where he needed me to kick ass, and I went and did it. Simple as that.

"I'm not joking," he replied grimly. "Once we get into the atmosphere, we'll probably be fine. Even if we have to eject, we'll be able to morph to birds. Once we get on planet, we'll have a good advantage with our morphs."

"What about Lok?" I asked, instantly regretting the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. He'd been so quiet, I'd forgot he was listening.

"I will do what is required of me," Lok said, and I caught a glimpse of movement from inside his cockpit. I guessed he was probably doing his King Kong chest-pound or something. "I do not fear death."

"You should," I said bluntly. I knew it was stupid of me, but he was probably over there sitting in his cockpit thinking about what a wuss I was for being scared. And it pissed me off. "You think I don't know what it's like to stare death in the face? I've been there, buddy, and you should fear death. It isn't fun."

"I do not fear death, but neither do I wish for it," he replied. "I, too, have been faced with no more life. I made peace a long time ago, young one. I do not wish to leave my sister alone. I will still do what is required of me. For honor," he finished, and I shook my head. It wasn't like me to get mad at someone for being exactly how I used to be. Hell, that was the reason I liked Lok so much – he reminded me of myself.

"I'm sorry, Lok. I'm just ready to get this overwith," I apologized.

"No need for sorry, my little sun-hair," he said affectionately. Sun-hair was his name for me, because I was blond, I guess. Normally, I wasn't the kind of girl to go for pet names. I happened to think it was pretty sweet that this humongous alien liked me enough to give me one, so I just took it in stride. "I know you are brave. I know of your feats. I know of your return from beyond. I wish you to know that I will be just as brave as you are."

"I know you will," I reassured him. "Hey, Marco?" I received no answer and swore. It would be in the nature of this sideways mission for the leader to not be able to communicate with the rest of us. "Marco!"

"Huh? What?" he grumbled. "I'm sleeping! You should try it sometime!"

"I can't," I said simply. We had nothing to do for days. If I wasn't going to be able to sleep, neither was Marco. I don't know why I wanted to be so difficult for him – like I said, I guess I just wanted to pay him back for all those years he annoyed me, in case I never got another chance to do it. After all, our mission was pretty much suicidal.

He sighed. "Wanna know a secret? Pop open the left arm of your chair," he instructed. I did, and saw a few tube-like things. "One of those bottles has sleeping pills. Take a couple, but make sure Lok is watching his sensor board first. And only use them when you need 'em – I don't want you becoming a junkie."

I found the ones he was talking about, and after ascertaining that Lok was, in fact, alert at the sensors, took two of them. "What are the other ones?" I asked about the other assorted tubes.

"Nutrient pills, artificial adrenaline – which we both know you'll never need , and more of those homeostatics."

"Oh," I said, feeling an immediate wash of chemical sleepiness invade my brain. "How long will this last?" I asked, suddenly worried about running into some more Trunsk warships and not being able to wake up.

"A few minutes," Marco reassured me. "Just long enough for it to put you to sleep. It won't keep you there – you have to do that on your own."

"That won't be a problem," I said, shutting my eyes and sighing as an even more intense wave of relaxation swept over me. "G'night."