A/N: The Magog 'Sleath' class fighter was designed by one of the coolest guys ever (and one of my good friends), Nick Morrison. Please say something nice in your reviews!

Iara: glad you love Terla and Veghn! thanx for all the luck!

prin69: yay! glad you love Terla! thanx for the luck, i needed it!

Vee017: i'm not sure where the passage is from, it's one of those that just bounces around inside my head. :) no, not the whole Maj-91, just part of it.

Jamieson Z: wel, you're not supposed to be able to tell how it's gonna end up! i CAN guarentee that you'll be shocked by the ending! thans for the e-mail!

Angelli: really, you like the idea? i've never played D & D, but i read the Drizzt Do'Urden series by R.A. Salvatore, so that's my excuse! i so TOTALLY love Drizzt, who is like the coolest ever! i think Wulfgar should die, though that's just me and my friend.

Chapter 4

-xXx-

Even though I know

that everything might go

go downhill from here

I'm not afraid

-'Way Away', Yellowcard

The slipfighters had no chance. There were hundreds of swarmships, twice as many smaller fighters Nemay had dubbed 'Sleathes'. They were roughly the size of a slipfighter, with a wide, opened maw like the maw of an animal. Their missiles were decimating the force of slipfighters. It only took one...

Achilles was the first down. Five Sleathes cornered him as he was stalking a swarmship.

"Juke port, juke port!" Nuria screamed.

"I can't!" Achilles yelled. "I'm boxed in!"

"Achilles!" Nuria screamed.

Static. His slipfighter exploded in a fiery burst of light and shards of metal.

Death followed the Sleathes. Every other missile fired resulted in the explosion of another slipfighter.

"Is it just me, or are the Sleathes only focusing on the slipfighters?" Nemay asked as he reduced on to flaming bits.

Jade looked quickly down at her readout to see that the Sleathes were completely ignoring the larger ships, the Shadowdancer and the Andromeda. "You're right," she agreed.

Nemay activated the ship-to-ship comm. "Slipfighters, this is the Shadow. You can't fight the Sleathes: land on Andromeda and do whatever you can to hold off the Magog on that end."

"Echo squadron, you heard Flachar," Winter said. She had assumed command after the Castallian leader had fallen. Nuria was supposedly the second to take command, but the Inari had judged her 'unfit for command' after Achilles's death and taken command herself. "Set a course for the Andromeda."

Only too happy to comply, the rest of the squadron peeled off for the larger ship.

"What about you?" Winter asked.

"We're not their target," Jade replied. "Go, now!"

"The last slipfighter is onboard," Nemay announced.

The Shadow was the only fighter still in space, and out there, as Magog ships roared by on all sides, Nemay had never felt so alone.

A/N: I've decided that to make all y'all's life easier, I've split up the chapters into different categories: 'Jade/Nemay', 'Xena/Boa', 'Beka/Telemachus', 'Terla', 'Gaheris/Harper', Veghn, Winter/Nuria/slipfighters, and Dylan/Trance/Rommie/Andromeda. It should make it a little easier to understand.

Preview of Chap5: (Gaheris/Harper) As Magog storm past the Machine shop, Harper must find a way to save Andromeda and everyone on board.