Bryan watched with sad eyes as Justin's Y-Wing made the jump to hyperspace. His heart went out to his friend. He didn't deserve to lose his wife; not like that. Goddam the Empire. His eyes shifted to the Defiance's debris, floating away from the center where the Cruiser had once stood. Instantly, an image of the bridge exploding around Sam shoved itself into his mind, and his felt his heart sicken, so he immediately tried to get rid of the image. What a way to die though...Bryan swallowed and turned his ship away from the debris. She's dead. Deal with it, Rawling. He put the debris to the right of him and turned his attention to the other Cruisers, who were still fighting to get to the exit corridor. The Returion was moving past him now, slowly towards the debris. Meanwhile, the second task force of Cruisers was moving into position to hold off the Imperials at "center stage," so to speak. Glancing around, Bryan soon spotted the Liberty towards the middle of the line, taking fire from at least five different Star Destroyers, but so far standing its ground with the help of five other Cruisers and two dozen smaller support craft, not to mention a hive of Rebel starfighters.

A small alarm suddenly rang on the controls, and Bryan found himself being chased again. Sighing in frustration, he cut back the throttle and veered side-to-side as the TIE fired relentlessly at him. However, it underestimated his rate of de-acceleration, and forced to break off its pursuit to avoid a collision.

Idiot, Bryan thought and rolled to starboard, now on the TIE's tail. The Imperial fighter turned down towards the back end of the Returion, not skillfully at all. Bryan matched it and fired one quad burst, which incinerated the TIE. With a tired huff of air, he turned his X-Wing back on course towards the Liberty, side-glancing at the other side of the battlefield at the Cruiser's fighting there. They, too, were running away towards their escape, being chased by the immense Super Star Destroyer Titan. Two of them, identified as the Debari and the Zexxon, had their thrustors completely demolished and were now at the mercy of the Titan. Bryan acknowledged them with sad eyes and focused on the Liberty. And for once, he saw a promising sight. A Star Destroyer was finally being brought down viciously by the Alliance vessels. It's surface rippled with tiny explosions, and absolutely no guns were firing. Even better, all the shots and torpedoes that seemed to hit the Liberty and her sister ships were sucked up by the shields, which remained in place.

His attention shifting from the HUD to the battle, Bryan scanned for possible targets, and found a TIE in a flight of four only two klicks away, and they were heading for the Liberty. Bryan dropped in behind them, and fried one a second later. He then quickly strafed another one, and send it limping away. The third and fourth broke apart, Bryan giving chase to the left one. Some time later, it became space dust, and Bryan moved on to another target; the area definitely had its many choices.

Three minutes later, as he watched the Transport Kawaka explode, he fired and managed to destroy the Assault Gunboat he was chasing before the brightness overpowered his eyes. When it cleared, Bryan had to make sure to dodge all the debris flying at him while dodging TIE shots at the time. Snap-rolling to starboard, he caught a glimpse of the Cruiser Defaera jumping into hyperspace, along with five other smaller ships that were running like cowards away from the battle field. It slightly sickened Bryan, but he couldn't blame them. Small ships made easy targets for Star Destroyer's, and the will to survive was stronger than any other instinct Bryan knew. Still, it was pitiful to some extent.

The TIE chasing him accidently ran into a hunk of debris and was blown apart. Now clear of any enemies on his back, he swerved back around; his heart beating for a bigger target than a bunch of TIEs. And he found it: a small strike cruiser moving parallel to the Frigate Haffit. It was trading pot shots with the Liberty, being protected by one of the many Star Destroyers around it. Bryan banked towards it, hiding behind the bulk of the Haffit, then finally sneaking under the neck and bolting towards the strike cruiser—which was identified as the Splinter. He roasted one Interceptor on the trip over, and prepared to dumb-fire a torpedo at the cruiser's weakened left shield. Finally spotting his X-Wing, the Splinter opened up its guns on the tiny starfighter, hitting him in the front shield with the first shot. But Bryan didn't go into evasive maneuvers, he simply moved the ship a quick touch to port, then another quick touch in the same direction, causing two more shots to miss him. He then swerved back to port, dodging more shots. Now at three klicks, he pulled the trigger and sent a lone torpedo heading at the cruiser. It was then that Bryan broke off, the cruiser's shots bending off behind his back shield. The torpedo sailed on peacefully, then created utter chaos as it pulverized the left shield and left that side of the hull vulnerable to laser fire. Bryan wasted no time, snap-rolling and charging back at the cruiser. He came it at a sharp angle, thrustors wining and shots missing. When he was in range, he glued his finger to the trigger and started raining down lasers. Itty-bitty pieces of the hull fractured and blew off with each hit, and a long black scar cascaded along Bryan's flight path.

The X-Wing shook as it was hit hard by a close range shot, and the shields dropped from forty-three percent to ten. Bryan jerked the stick from side-to-side; one more shot and he was sure to be in some trouble. He tipped his wings as he moved to port then back to starboard, and missed gunshots flew by on both sides. But he kept his finger on the trigger and his X-Wing on a relatively straight fly path until he finally veered off just before hitting the rear shield. He then banked a sharp left, closing his eyes and holding his breath as the angry cruiser spat fire at him. Eventually, the fire was far enough to dodge effectively, and his shields were slowly recharging again. Breathing easier, he circled around the Haffit's neck and came back on another pass as two proton torpedoes hit the damaged left hull, blowing craters into the scarred surface. Bryan sailed along the Haffit's lasers' path and fired another one of his torpedoes, his second-to-last one. The torpedo dug a deeper hole into one of the craters, and caused an even bigger explosion that broke the ship into two halves.

"Nice job everyone," Bryan said, grinning to himself. "Nice shots."

"Copy lead."

"Copy–"

"–y, you too–"

"–ce run sir."

Bryan switched channels to talk to the Liberty. "Liberty, this is Commander Rawling. What's the ATA—our ETA on the rest of the fleet?"

His question went unanswered, as static created by dozens of overlapping questions invaded the comlink's communications channel. A feeling of guilt at such an irrelevant question suddenly invaded his heart. You idiot, why'd you ask that? Stupid question to ask at a time like this.

Bryan roasted an unsuspecting TIE Bomber, then banked to port, joining a flight of Alliance fighters forming a defense screen around the Liberty and its sister Cruisers.

FIGHTER ON OUR SIX, Puck reported.

Bryan immediately veered to starboard. The Fighter didn't fire. Instead, it followed him, closing slightly. The X-Wing pulled up, then dipped at a forty-five degree angle back downward-port, rolling the whole way. The Fighter nearly missed the maneuver, but managed to recover quickly and remained on Bryan's tail. But it had fallen behind a little, leaving Bryan at an advantage. He directed his fighter at a close dogfight, and prepared to ask for some help. But then a string of green lasers from his chaser flew overhead, and if Bryan didn't veer, he would have been caught up in a storm of green. He dipped his fighter off to port, which he then figured was a stupid thing to do, considering that that put the Fighter closer to him. It fired another round at him, but the shots were eaten up by the shields. Huffing, Bryan decided to try banking the X-Wing at the TIE, hoping it wouldn't get behind him before he was finished. Much to his misfortune, that didn't happen. The Fighter got behind him and snapped off a few more pestering shots that ate up a chunk of his rear shield. Irritably looking back at his pursuer, he muttered, "This guy's gettin' annoying."

Puck let out a long squeal. FOR A REASON! INTERCEPTORS COMING IN AT M 544!

"Huh?" Bryan looked up out the left side, and saw a trio of TIE Interceptors closing in on him from above. He'd been tricked. "Oh, that bastard!" He exclaimed as he jammed the stick down. "He tricked us!" He swerved to barely miss a collision with an A-Wing. All the TIEs chasing him now opened fire, their fourteen guns all wanting a piece of his rear shield. But the maneuver he'd executed made them all miss the first time. They still gave chase though, all four in one clustered formation. Not wasting any time, Bryan pulled up and off to starboard, then veered left towards the Cruiser Vealsca, the outer most Cruiser that surrounded the Liberty. "I got four on me hot," he said urgently into the general com channel. "Neeeeeed some help here people." Again, the TIEs fired, and Bryan broke to port slightly, then back to starboard. At that point, he gave up basic evasive maneuvers and started moving the stick all around its holster. His ship moved in every direction, jolting and pitching in response. But the TIEs were relentless; though they were missing ninety-nine percent of their shots, they never stopped firing, and after a while, Bryan's hand was getting sore from jerking the damn joystick. He finally gave up and put his ship in a dive towards the Liberty's surface. He glanced at his HUD after pulling out of it, hoping to see one of the TIEs explode on the shields. But none did. He raced past the Liberty's bridge pod, momentarily spotting the crew at their posts, with Emilie's small silhouette sitting in the middle chair. Bryan found he had a sudden yearning to be in his room on the Faith, realizing a second later that the Faith was now gone, and soon enough he was forcing the images of the dead out of his mind again. Not now.

A laser suddenly collided with the Liberty's shields, causing a small explosion right in front of Bryan's X-Wing.

"Ah—sh—shit!" He instinctively shielded his eyes and flew straight through the explosion, which knocked all his shields down to forty-seven percent. As he cleared the explosion, an idea suddenly popped into his mind, and he started for the starboard side of the Cruiser. "Follow me boys." He hugged the shields all the way around the hull. Pushing the stick forward with all of his strength, he ducked his starfighter under the hull, hugging as much of the bottom hull as he could, upside down. Once he was out of sight, he quickly cut power to the throttle and pushed the repulsor lifts to maximum. Both ends of the fighter went in opposite directions, and the craft flipped right side up, facing the direction it had just come from. And Bryan fired several lasers. The TIEs came down early, but one Interceptor got hit by the lasers and broke apart. The other three didn't realize where Bryan was, and he fried another Interceptor as it was pulling up. The remaining two TIEs fired off pot shots before breaking into evasive maneuvers. Bryan, his heart beating with excitement, decided to chase his original follower. "Ha ha!" he laughed loudly. "You're not the only one who knows how to trick people, my friend. MMM!" he grunted as he spat lasers, which sheared the wings off of the Fighter and sent the ball cockpit corkscrewing wildly out of control. Tipping his wings, he doubled back in the direction of the final Interceptor, and found it coming at him head-on. It got four shots off before Bryan destroyed it. But those shots did damage. Shields were down to nine percent and there was a red light on the upper left stabilizer. Power cable was ruptured: the upper left laser cannon was offline. "Damn. Don't worry about that Puck. There's no way you'll be able to concentrate in this mess," Bryan commented, his eyes passively circling the battle. "I'm surprised I can even a little."

Now that he was free again, Bryan opened the com for any distress calls, quickly flashing a glance at the Punisher updates. Two more minutes...

"He's right on my tail!"

Bryan heard Kate's voice cut through the static. I owe her one anyway. "Puck, find Red Thirty-two, please." Puck began the search as Bryan targeted and blasted an Assault Gunboat. At last, the droid tweedled his response.

FOUND IT. M POINT-OH-SEVEN COMING IN BEHIND THE SAFARA.

"Good. Thanks Puck." He pushed the throttle to maximum.

WELCOME.

The hull of the Cruiser Falcon swooped above him. When it cleared, Kate's X-Wing appeared almost instantly in the vastness of open space. It was flying away from the Safara's right wing, an Interceptor tailing, two klicks away and closing fast.

Bryan's finger itched next to the trigger. "Keep flying in the same direction Kate. I got this bastard." Looking up, a TIE Fighter flew by above him, and Bryan altered his course to chase it so that Kate's Interceptor wouldn't notice him approaching. A few seconds later, Kate's X-Wing flew by his starboard side as he inched inward towards her flight path. Then, in one quick maneuver, he snapped in front of the Interceptor and blasted it into a million pieces, most of which crashed into his already weakened shields. They went from the recharged twenty-three percent to five percent, and another red light appeared on the upper left stabilizer. It was the same thing as before, only now the rupture was greater and the wing itself had become bent. Bryan grimaced. "Ouch," he said for his X-Wing.

"Thanks, Bryan."

"No problem, Katie."

Puck made all sorts of noises and mechanical tones, and Bryan knew he was about to get chided. STOP DOING THAT!

"Sorry. I keep thinking this is a game simulation like the ones—" His eyes widened and he pulled up as a damaged Y-Wing spun out-of-control under his belly. "—WE HAD ON THE COMPUTER!" He looked out the canopy and watched the Y-Wing explode. "Phew. Poor guy. I wish those Cruisers' could move faster." He looked sadly out at the Safara. "Suppose I should blame the Punisher though." Deciding to inspect the area around the Safara, Bryan glanced out the right side as he juiced the throttle back to full. He spotted an X-Wing running from a Fighter, and suddenly a feeling of recognition came over him. "Puck, is that Kate's fighter?" He glanced at the HUD and found Kate's fighter not behind him like it was a few seconds ago. "It is," he realized as Puck confirmed it.

IT IS. AND HER SHIELDS ARE FAILING.

Bryan altered course. Already in trouble again. Then, suddenly, an alarm rang in the cockpit. Bryan recognized it immediately. Playing Star Wars games on his computer when he was a kid and eight years of flying an X-Wing had forced the sound into his memory. Instantly, he went into evasive maneuvers. "Shit, missile lock!" Hang on Kate. The movement caused the lock to break, but Bryan knew better than to believe that he was safe. A second later, the sound returned. Bryan pulled up, then left, but the sound remained, a single tone getting faster, faster than his heart was pounding. Suddenly, the sound became one long drone, and then an alert that sounded like the "red alert" alarms on Star Trek. "Oh God!" Bryan said in alert. If that missile hit, he was dead. No matter what. "Where's it coming from Puck?"

M POINT-OH-ELEVEN. CLOSING AT POINT-TWENTY KLICKS A SECOND.

That was in visual range for sure. Bryan look towards point-oh-eleven and saw the red silhouette of a concussion missile coming at him, closing fast, a TIE Bomber in the distance behind it. Slowly, the missile fell behind the faster X-Wing, still closing. When it was almost on top of the ship, Bryan dived as hard as he could, closed his eyes, and waited. When he opened them a moment later, the missile was falling ahead of him, having missed the X-Wing. Bryan pulled up and glued his finger to the trigger, trying hard to hit the warhead and detonate the missile. But he failed, and the missile flew under his visual range. Using his time wisely, Bryan accelerated as fast as he could towards the Safara. For a time, the missile warning alert cut off, but then resumed when the missile renewed its lock and gave chase.

ONE-AND-A-HALF KLICKS AND CLOSING, Puck reported.

Bryan glanced back behind him, seeing the red silhouette again.

Puck squealed again for the umpteenth time this battle. BRYAN!

Bryan turned around and saw he was about to crash into a damaged corvette. He quickly ducked under it, and gritted his teeth in guilt as the concussion missile slammed into the already marred Alliance corvette. "Sorry," he said quietly. Instantly, his mind went back to Kate. Where was she now? Was she all right? He searched space and found her ship running parallel to the Safara, the TIE still chasing her. Shields now charged to thirty percent, Bryan rocketed towards his friend, eyes locked like a crosshair on the TIE. "Hang on Kate, I'm comin' up behind him."

"Okay," came the nervous answer.

Bryan scanned her ship and found a lot of bad things. Her shield's were down to ten percent, and her sensors had been severely weakened. Not in good shape. What am I talkin' about though? I'm not doin' much better. He closed in slowly on the Fighter. It was shaking and swerving in response to Kate's own evasive patterns. So far, no extra hits had been scored on her. Bryan zeroed in, now one klick away. He snapped off some pot shots, but they all went wide of barely missed. The Fighter began its own minor evasive maneuvers, now aware that it had a chaser. But it still tailed Kate, hunting although it was being hunted.

It fired off another round, and this time it scored three hits as Kate accidently passed through the fire. Her X-Wing jolted once, sparks erupting on her upper right wing. The light was blinding for a split second.

Bryan shielded his eyes. "Ahh! No! Kate, it's Bryan, are you all right!" he cried out in desperation. Puck put her damage report on the HUD. Her fuel cell in the upper right wing had been torn open. Bryan's eyes widened in fear. "No! Kate move!" he shouted to her in the comlink. "Move now!" All he got was sparks through static.

However, the Fighter fired off two more shots before she could. One of them hit the fuel cell and ignited it. The right half of the X-Wing blew off fast. Bryan heard a grunt of pain from his old friend as her X-Wing created a fiery streak across space's cold domain. Scorching pieces of duranium melted off the main shell, and after only a few seconds, Kate's X-Wing had broken up into small chunks shooting like bullets in all directions.

Bryan gaped at the site, not knowing how to feel or what to do. After eight years of watching friends and wing mates dying, his body had developed a certain reaction that repeated itself with every sudden death of innocent lives. His heart flooded with a lukewarm rage, and his blood became as fiery as magma. Arching his eyebrows low, his black pupils lit up with all the fury of every loss, and he prepared to bring a hammer down on Kate's killer. He followed the Fighter. "Time to die you son-of-a-bitch!" he shouted. Letting out a deranged war cry, he buried a dozen lasers and more into the tiny TIE, making sure that there was nothing left of it when he finished. He was breathing hard, but he couldn't help it. If he could have died right then, he would have. But I have a job to do. If I'm using that as an excuse, then so be it. Blinking back tears, he searched for more distress signals—more people he could save. Remembering the Punisher all of a sudden, he took a moment, still blinking back tears, to glance at the Punisher updates. And he looked just in time to see the readings spike and fall. His heart sank, having lost its fire, and his throat became dank and dry and his awaited the death toll again. Three beams came from the Punisher. One went behind Bryan's X-Wing, hitting the Cruiser Rewendant on the opposite end of the battle field. A second beam hit the Cruiser Vealsca, a third colliding with the Safara, which was close to Bryan. Both were a part of the Cruisers guarding the Liberty.

Something was wrong though. There should have been four beams, but there were only three.

The Cruisers already suffered their damaged and exploded while the battle continued around them.

The fourth beam finally came a second later, heading for the same area as the Safara had once been

Bryan instantly feared that it would hit the Liberty, and it was on that path. "No!" he whispered fiercely. The beam entered the gap where the Safara had been and Bryan knew the Liberty was going down. But then, the beam struck something else in front of the Liberty—a corvette–the same corvette that the missile chasing Bryan had hit. Again, the Commander grimaced. "Sorry about that boys and girls," he said. His look became sober. You'll be remembered I promise.

"We're almost there!" Maya Ranadon shouted across the damaged bridge from the navigation spot. "Two klicks away!"

"Oh thank God," Emilie said quietly. "ETA on the Punisher?"

"Two minutes, thirty seconds," Ilan replied.

Emile nervously licked her lips, and her foot began tapping the deck under her. She wanted to get out of here. "God, this is gonna be close. How many ships are still here?"

It seemed like forever before Ilan answered. "Nine Cruisers, three Frigates, and about two dozen smaller craft. You wanna know how many fighters are left?"

"How many?"

"Forty-two."

Emilie let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding in. "We can do this..." She took a moment to glance around the bridge. Since most of the Cruisers around the Liberty had been destroyed in the Punisher's last strike, the ship had taken several hard hits from Star Destroyers. Most of the systems were still functional though. One wouldn't know that though, considering all the damage that been done internally. From what she'd heard, the window in the Starlight Lounge had been blown out, the forward hangar bay was heavily damaged, and the bridge was falling apart. All around Emilie were fallen pieces of duranium from the walls and ceiling. Two or more unsealed pipes were leaking vincium energy into the air. The stuff wasn't toxic, but it smelled really bad. Emilie's head was starting to pound from sniffing the stuff up for the last two minutes.

Looking out the cracked window, Emilie spotted the Cruiser Dalaman escape into hyperspace, quickly followed by two transports, two corvettes, and a gunship. By now, Emilie's "shift" plan had been all but abandoned, with individual starships running as fast as they could for the hole before the Imperials filled it up again. And that worried Emilie as she saw thehuge Super Star Destroyer Titan nearing the exit vector. Biting her lip, she briefly focused on two Frigates that had been close behind the Dalaman as they made the jump out of the Deil Nine system. That made Emilie's spirits jump, but that lasted only for a second before she was reminded of much the Alliance had lost in this battle. And it was in the scars and craters that were blown into the left side of the Cruiser Skywalker. Several Star Destroyers and strike cruisers were attacking it at once, scoring hits easily on the large starship. The escape pods were already being launched. And as the Skywalker slowly started to fall behind, Emilie gave the order to pick up as many escape pods as the tractor beams could reel in.

Then suddenly, the Liberty shuddered violently. Emilie wanted to believe that another torpedo had hit her ship, but something in her mind told her she was wrong. "Another torpedo hit?"

"No ma'am," Ilan responded. "Eleven different tractor beams have locked onto us. We're slowing down!"

Emilie's eyes widened. "What? Can we—!"

"Other Cruisers reporting a lot of tractor beam locks on them too!" Tilleper interrupted. "Something tells us they don't want us to leave!"

Emilie's mind went into think-mode again. "All right. Maya, charge the engines to full but don't fire off the thrustors, we're going to make our run for the exit; Ilan, when I give the signal, rotate the shield harmonics as fast as you get them, don't tell the risks just do it! Tilleper, signal the other Cruisers to do the same! Hurry! ETA until Punisher!"

"One minute, thirty seconds!"

"Go Ilan! Maya!"

With that, the Liberty kicked into action. The weak shields rotated fast, knocking off all eleven tractor beams one at a time. At the same time, the thrustors ignited and propelled the Liberty faster and faster with every second. Below it, the Cruiser Harvester followed suite, clearing its own tractor beams and rocketing for the exit. Judging by the distance between the ships, the Harvester was going to make it before the Liberty.

Which was fine with Emilie.

All around her, other Cruisers did the same, all losing every one of their tractor beam locks. Up ahead, the first Cruiser to make it to the exit, the Heeden, disappeared into hyperspace along with two more corvettes.

Ilan laughed. "I think we took the Imperials by surprise. They're RACIN' to catch up to us."

Emilie afforded herself a small smile.

The last Frigate, Redemption, lurched into hyperspace.

"Punisher?"

"Fifty-nine seconds."

"We gonna make it Maya?" Emilie asked anxiously.

"I don't know. I'm going as fast as I can."

"It's all right. Do the best you can."

The Cruiser Bentize jumped out next, followed by at least nine smaller ships.

Suddenly, a huge explosion shook the Liberty, stronger than a tractor beam lock but weaker than a torpedo. Emilie bit her lower lip. "Ilan, what was that?"

"Starfighter crash," came the answer after a moment.

The last of the smaller starships went into hyperspace.

Followed by the Cruiser Zalkatan.

"Oh," Emilie said. "Was it one of ours?"

Ilan nodded slowly at his panel, then up at Emilie. "I think it was Commander Kano ma'am." His eyes reflected the sadness that started to grip Emilie's heart. Commander Brix Kano was the Liberty's Commander. "Judging by the message...his fighter was damaged and he was trying to fly in and...he missed."

Emilie looked away from him and nodded in understanding. I'm sorry Brix. Rest in peace. Blinking back her tears and swallowing her sobs, Emilie glanced up out the bridge window; just in time to see the Cruiser Binger make the jump. "Punisher?"

"Thirty-seven seconds."

Cruiser Falcon disappeared.

Emilie started counting down.

Thirty-four...thirty-three...thirty-two...

Tapping her feet impatiently on the deck, the Liberty shuddered again. Now that was a torpedo.

"Shields down to twenty-seven percent."

"Almost there!" Maya exclaimed.

Twenty-five...twenty-four...twenty-three...twenty-two...

"Tell the fighters to get out of here," Emilie ordered.

"Aye, ma'am."

Nineteen...eighteen...

Cruiser Harvester's thrusters lit up and jumped.

Only the Liberty left now.

Sixteen...fifteen...fourteen...

Tiny lights streaked across space as several fighters make the jump to lightspeed ahead of the massive Cruiser.

Twelve...elev—

"We've got a problem!" Ilan shouted. "Titan's almost about to block our escape!"

Emilie's heart sank. Not now...eight...

"Hang on!" Maya shouted and she executed a command.

The Liberty's starboard side suddenly dipped low, tilting the entire Cruiser onto a northwest-southeast axis.

Emilie grabbed her armrests and hung on. "Maya!"

The Admiral didn't know it, but if Maya hadn't executed that maneuver, the Liberty's right and left sides would have collided with the bows of the Titan and another Star Destroyer. Instead, the tilted ship passed within meters of the bows and plowed straight through the space in between the wedge-shaped points. When the Cruiser cleared the gap—

Two!...one!...

—Maya flattened it out again and tapped in a two button command. She then looked up in anticipation.

"Punisher firing!"

Outside the window, the white stars stretched like rubber bands and the Liberty shot into hyperspace.

The bridge erupted into celebration as the Liberty had finally escaped, alive and still in one piece.

Emilie laid her tired head back against the headrest and closed her eyes as the shouts continued all around her. Finally, when it all calmed down, she heard Maya ask:

"Yes Emilie?"

The Admiral opened her eyes and look across at her friend, who was smiling playfully in both her eyes and lips. Emilie grinned back. "Good flying Maya. That was...unbelievable."

"She ain't kiddin'—"

"Yeah—"

"Yeah, Maya!"

As the crew congratulated the Liberty's pilot on a job well done, Emilie set her head back again and tried to rest. But she found that she couldn't. It's over...it's over, she kept repeating. But somewhere in the back of her mind, shoved off in a corner, was a sinking feeling...

...a feeling that told her that her troubles were just beginning.