Strife sent out the distress signal and watched as one of the ships seemed to spit out a small craft. She looked around for a moment then dropped on the floor and pretended to be unconscious. Two men walked in. They were dressed in funny outfits. Strife almost laughed, then she remembered she was supposed to be unconscious. The two men looked down at her. One of them checked her pulse.

"She's alive."

"I think we could have a lot of fun with her."

Strife almost gagged. No way buddy. She doesn't do that stuff. That type of fun doesn't thrill her at all. At least not with guys like them.

"We have a mission to think of."

"I know. But why not do her while we wait for the others to arrive?"

"I guess you're right. There would be no harm in it."

Strife laughed silently. How little they know. One of them slung her over his shoulder and she was carried onto a small 2 person craft and taken back to the ship. She was thrown in a room. The two men walked towards the door.

"We'll wait a little while until she's concious again. There's nothing more boring then fucking a dead fish."

They walked out and closed the door. She jumped up and made a face and a few gestures at the door.

"Dead fish. We'll see whose the dead fish when I get done here."

Strife headed straight for the ventilation shaft. She felt the need for haste. Who knows how close those other ass holes are. She was crawling along when she heard voices below her. She looked down a little to the left and saw a group of men sitting at a table. She kept going because she didn't want to get caught up in a fight right now. She needed to blow up those other ships before dealing with the guys on this one.

Strife got to the control room and looked down through the vent and around the room. There was no one in there. Excellent. She pulled the vent free and pushed it aside so she could jump down. She landed on her foot wrong and grabbed it.

"Oh shit."

She fell over and landed hard on her side. She giggled for a split second then remembered this was a time to be serious. She got up and went to the door. She locked it and turned to the control panel. She looked down at it for a few minutes staring at all the buttons. None of them were labled.

"Well that's inconveinient."

She tilted her head to one side and then the next. She suddenly smacked her forehead with her hand.

"It's color coded."

She heard a toilet flush and almost screamed. She leapt behind the chair and waited for the man to come out. He sat down in the chair and Strife put her blades to the man's neck.

"Ok, we're going to remain very calm about this, right?"

He nodded.

"I would suggest to stay quiet, I mean, you could scream all you like, but by the time any of your buddies got in here you'd be very dead and I'd be in a different part of the ship sneaking up on them from behind."

He nodded again. Strife smiled. She wouldn't actually sneak up on them, she would let them know she was there before she actually attacked them. But the way she said it made it sound scarier. At least she thought so.

"All right. Now I want you to turn to face the other two ships that are out there."

Strife watched the order in which he hit the buttons. The ship moved to face the other ships.

"And now I want you to show me the button that fires the cannon."

The man pointed to a small round black button.

"Right on. Now push it."

"What?"

"Push the fucking button."

He pushed the button and Strife heard something power up momentarily and felt the ship shudder as the beam was fired. It went straight through both the ships, ripping them in two. Strife smiled and patted the man on the head.

"Good boy."

"What do you want now?"

"I want you and all of your buddies dead."

The man's jaw dropped in shock, but before he could react Strife punched him in the temple. It would knock him out long enough for her to kill everyone else and get back to Drok'ti. She knew this guy would be killed in the explosion, so she really had no reason to kill him outright. He had listened to her and obeyed her very well so she could give him a few more minutes of his pathetic existence.

She opened the door and there was a man standing there. The element of surprise was favoring Strife just then. She reacted before he did and jammed her wrist blades into his chest. It was a pretty good shot. His body was convulsing as Strife ripped the blades free and let them retract into the gauntlet.

"I love this thing!"

Strife grabbed the man's gun before running down the corridor. She started firing shots at all the men she came across. She was running down a corridor when an arm came out and clothes-lined her. She looked up and there was a tall mean looking man standing there.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Um, that way."

He shook his head and kicked her in the face. Strife rolled into the wall. She scrambled to her feet and ducked as the man tried to punch her in the face. She dodged his foot next, then his fist again.

"I don't have time for this!"

The man's hand connected with her stomach and she dropped to her knees. She looked over at the gun that was out of her reach completely.

"My brother was on one of the other ships you just destroyed."

"Um, sorry."

"You will be."

Strife caught his hand and rammed the wrist blades into the man's side.

"You can join him now."

The man's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell on the ground. Blood was pouring out of his mouth. He was trying to say something, but he couldn't. Strife was trying to pull the blades out of the man's side, but they were stuck pretty good.

"As much as I would love to sit around and chat, I gotta go."

Strife put her foot on his side and wrenched the wrist blades out of his ribcage. They came loose and she stumbled backwards into the wall. After getting her bearings she shook her head and looked down the hallway.

"Ok, no more distractions."

Strife tasted blood in her mouth. She spit it out along with one of her molars.

"Oh well, didn't really need that, I guess. Hah hah."

She got to the docking bay where the small craft was kept and powered it up. She then took out Drok'ti's wrist computer and typed in the self destruct sequence. She didn't know how she knew it, but she needed to know it so she did. She flung it into the docking bay and got on the craft. She flew it out of there and headed back to the ship and back to her pal Drok'ti. She was very close to the ship when the blast from the bomb hit the craft she was in and sent it spinning. Once it stopped she shook the dizziness out of her head and piloted the craft to the docking bay of Drok'ti's ship. She got out and walked into the cabin where Drok'ti was sitting in the pilot chair.

"The ships went boom."

"I saw that."

Drok'ti held his arms out. Strife smiled and ran over and jumped onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him. She heard him purr.

"So you should probably tell your sire that it's all taken care of."

"Probably."

Strife laid on the cot and stared at the ceiling. Zaz jumped up and started nuzzling her chin.

"Hi kitty."

She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his stomach.

"I missed you kitty butt."

Strife looked over at Drok'ti. He was talking in his language to someone. She assumed it was his father, er. . .sire. Whatever. Strife started petting Zaz and trying to see if she could understand anything that Drok'ti was saying. She wasn't doing very well. The conversation ended and Drok'ti looked at her.

"What?"

"Nothing. I was just trying to listen to the conversation."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I have no idea what you said or what he said."

"I could teach you."

"Really? You'd do that?"

"Yes."

Strife jumped up and started prancing around. She liked learning new things. It was always really fun. She stopped prancing around and looked at Drok'ti.

"So what did you tell him?"

"I told him that you blew up the ships."

"Ok. And then he said?"

"He said it probably wouldn't be a bad thing if I took you back to Lau'thalus."

"Really? I can go to your planet?"

"But you just have to make sure to avoid most of the clan."

"Why?"

"They would probably try to kill you."

"I'm fine with that."

Strife smiled when Drok'ti snorted.

"Well I'm not."

"This is so cool. I'm going to see a new planet! Yay!"

Strife took out her notebook and started writing in it. She didn't have to worry about anyone reading it now. Drok'ti could only see heat and she doubted any humans would be onboard this ship anytime soon. Even if there were, she had her own codes for things that only she knew so most people would just see a bunch of scribbles and maybe a few Intelligible words, but the context of them wouldn't make any sense. Strife laughed.

"Those dumb-dumbs."

"What?"

Strife smiled and looked at Drok'ti.

"Oh nothing, just thinking aloud."

"Ok."

After writing for about an hour about all the adventures she had had over the last few weeks, she closed her notebook and yawned. She laid down on the cot and curled up into a ball singing the llama song in her head. She laughed to herself about that silly song. Finally Strife drifted off.

She woke up to Drok'ti rubbing her back and purring softly. She could tell he was partially asleep. She rolled over and buried her face in Drok'ti's massive chest. She laid there for a long time listening to Drok'ti's heart thumping in his chest. She finally fell back to sleep and had a strange dream about back home.

Strife jumped up and looked around in panic. Her heart was racing and she was covered in cold sweat.

"What the hell was that?"

She shook her head violently tryingt o get the images out of her head. Strife felt Drok'ti's hand on the top of her head. Her head was turned to the side. She looked at Drok'ti.

"Hi."

"What is wrong with you?"

"Just a bad dream, heh heh."

"Well do your bad dreams have to wake me up?"

"No. I didn't try to wake you up. You did that on your own."

Strife jumped up and walked over to the pilot chair. She sat down and started twirling around in the chair.

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm just going to sit here and spin for a while. I don't think I could go back to sleep if I tried."

"Well do it quietly."

Strife blew a raspberry at him and turned to face the stars. They looked so different when you were close to them. They weren't as mysterious and mystical. Strife put her chin on her hand and stared out at the stars pondering many strange things like velcro and zippers, and what it would be like to have one more arm and hand.

"Can't forget the fingers!"

Drok'ti growled and Strife sighed. She went over to her backpack and took out her electronic notepad. She started playing around with it quietly.