Isaac and Selim had been scanning for more fighters from the Rough Skull ship, whilst the Chameleon's autopilot steered but they could see no sign of any further pursuit. They heard their sisters' footsteps running before they saw her and each of them leapt up from their seats as Spyrro burst into the cockpit, in a whirlwind of excitement as both boys all but tackled her to the ground.

"We thought you were dead, Ro!" Isaac flung his arms around his small sister, hoisting her up.

"Ro!" Selim snatched her out of his twin's clutches and spun her round, "I thought we had lost you forever!"

Spyrro laughed and shrieked with joy as her brothers fought to swing her off her feet. She did not seem to be at all distressed by her misadventure: on the contrary she was delighted to be the centre of so much attention.

"Sel! Ize!" She grinned at them both, "I was not worried, not even for a moment! I knew Father would save me!"

They were all so absorbed in the elation of seeing each other, they didn't notice Scar come in noiselessly behind her, his void helmet under one arm. He stood at the doorway to the cockpit, watching their reunion without comment.

He was so quiet and still that Isaac turned and actually started to see him there.

"Oh!" He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a little foolish for jumping, "I'm... er … glad you both got out alright, S'Kia." He said, awkwardly.

"Partly thanks to you," His Father looked down at him, "You are a skilled pilot, Mei'Sika."

Isaac blinked, "Uh, thanks..."

"You need not... thank me. It is the truth."

Isaac was self-conscious, unsure how to react to his Father's approval, "Well, um… you should be happy with Selim too. He's a good shot." He said, turning to where his twin was still talking enthusiastically to their sister, grinning more broadly than he had done in months.

"Selim," Scar said, "I am pleased with you also."

His elder son turned, "Did we do well, Father?"

"As your brother says, you are a good shot. You destroyed our pursuers without mercy."

Selim's grin got so wide, it looked as if it might take over his whole face. Isaac, meanwhile, watched Scar warily. Despite the unexpected praise, he had come to know their Father's moods. They had just pulled off a difficult rescue in the face of huge and terrible odds, and yet Scar seemed ominously subdued. Isaac had a feeling there was some sort of storm on the horizon.

Spyrro, meanwhile, was oblivious to any kind of atmosphere. She was full of chatter and exuberance, "You should have seen Mei'Savir fight those other yautja!" She said enthusiastically, mimicking swinging a set of dah'kte, "He beat the female who took me prisoner easily - "

Selim looked at Scar in surprise "There were females on that ship? But I thought the yautja on your ships were all male?"

"It is a female ship," Scar said, "Females of our clan have warships too, separate from the males." As he spoke, his eyes did not leave his daughter, who was still fizzing with high spirits, a slight frown drawing his spiny brows together.

"She was the one who captured me," Spyrro was saying, "I managed to claw her in the face, but she threw me in prison. Then, Mei'Savir came to get me out, and he really showed her not to mess with me. That is a lesson she will not forget – "

"Isaac, Selim," Scar cut her off and she looked at him in surprise, "Both of you have impressed me, your skills have saved our lives this day. Now, I want you to go and get some rest."

"Rest?" Burst out Selim, "But Spyrro just got back!"

Isaac watched his Father with his hands clenched, "I don't want to go to sleep." He said in a low voice.

"Leave us." Scar said tersely, and then turned back towards Spyrro, "I must speak with your sister. Alone."

Ostrowski sat in his commandeered office at what was now the manhunt base of operations. He had just got off the phone with his superiors and the experience had left him feeling decidedly unhappy.

"I don't have limitless resources at my disposal, Major." The voice on the other end of the line had informed him calmly. It was a voice that was fully under its owner's control; modulated, unflappable and self-assured.

"But Ma'am, you told me Woods was high priority. If you want to be certain of getting her, then I need – "

"We have already suffered a loss of personnel and equipment on this operation, I'm not sure it would be expedient for me to risk more."

"Ma'am?"

"Not everyone shares our view about the importance of this operation, Major. I'm sorry to tell you that it's getting more difficult to access resources. Our new boss is one of those inclined to think it's just paranoid nonsense - "

"With respect Ma'am, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Nobody who has ever faced one of those things – or this woman – would think it's anything less than serious."

"Oh, I agree, but it's hard to convince a politician to invest public funds in something that won't win any votes because it has to stay secret."

"Maybe you can ask if he wants to repeat the cover-up job we had after that high-profile incident in San Francisco?" He snapped "Or would he prefer to publicly explain the body-count next time Woods and her hostile ally decide to materialise and massacre a bunch of people somewhere else?"

There was silence on the line. Then the voice said in weary tones, "Very well Major, I will twist some arms…"

After Selim and Isaac had reluctantly departed, the latter casting dark glances over his shoulder, Scar stood looking down at his only daughter.

"What is it, Mei'Savir?" Spyrro said in a puzzled voice, "Why did you send Isaac and Selim away? Are you angry with them?"

"No, this is not about them," He stared at the viewscreen for a moment, then turned back towards her, his expression serious, "It is your actions we must discuss, Spyrro."

"My actions?" Her small face creased into a frown.

"Yes, my daughter. Much as it pains me to say it, I am most displeased with you."

"I do not understand, Father. What have I done?"

"Spyrro, do not feign ignorance with me." He said, still looking very grim, "You stole your Mother's ship. You ran away. You must be aware that this behaviour is totally unacceptable."

"I was trying to get to you, Father," She said plaintively "And find my brothers - "

"Spyrro, you put all our lives in mortal danger."

"I did not intend to."

"That is irrelevant!" He snapped back at her.

Spyrro looked at the ground, a scowl spreading across her face.

"We have lost the Dragonfly," Her Father continued, "And you have stranded your Mother on the human planet. Do you not realise you must also have caused her considerable anxiety by disappearing, as you have done?"

Spyrro's scowl intensified. She could not remember Mei'Savir ever really scolding her like this before and she didn't like it at all. She also felt that he was being very unfair somehow, she just could not work out exactly how.

"I did not want to be on that planet, with that Ah-liss Hobbes, hanging around, watching me!" She grumbled, "Why did Mei'Varsi take me there? If she had not – "

"Spyrro, you were very lucky your Mother was able to send a distress signal to alert me and that I was able to come and find you. Otherwise, you would have been lost to us and stranded on that Rough Skull ship!"

The girl's jaws spread defiantly, "Well, maybe I would rather be with my own kind! It is better than being stranded amongst a lot of soft meat, just because Mei'Varsi is one of them – "

"Do not call your Mother by those words!" Her Father turned on her, his own jaws and talons spreading now as his temper rose,

"Why not?" Spyrro said hotly, "I have heard you say it – "

Scar's voice dropped to a growl, "Your Mother deserves your respect, Spyrro. You forget that you are half human also."

"I do not have soft meat blood and I do not need Mei'Varsi looking after me!" She shrilled back at him, "I am yautja, like you, and I should be treated as one!"

"Is that what you think?" Now Scar was getting really angry, his eyes glowing, but he managed to keep his voice level, not wanting to lose his temper with his youngest child, "You should be eternally grateful, Spyrro, to have a mother who treats you as gently and as compassionately as yours does. You had a taste of the treatment yautja commonly dole out to their offspring on the Vortex and I noticed you did not seem keen to stay and experience more!"

She glared up at him in stubborn defiance.

"I am taking you back to your Mother and I do not want to hear any more argument." He went on, "And I do not wish to ever hear you use those words to describe her again in my hearing! Your Mother does not deserve your contempt! She has always been devoted to you - to all her children!"

"And so?" She yelled, her own temper flaring, "Why should I care? Yautja are warriors, not … not child rearers!"

"Your Mother is Sain'Ja: she is blooded, just as I am." He roared at her, his eyes spitting yellow flames, "She has courage, just as I do - perhaps more! The fact that she shows you affection does not make her weak! Do you think I would have chosen her to be the mother of my children if she were not the most courageous person I have ever known?"

"Well if you 'love' her so much," She screamed in fury, hurling the human word at him like a knife, "Then why did you leave us!?"

Her outburst brought Scar up sharply and he stared at her, momentarily speechless.

Spyrro glared back at him for a moment, black eyes blazing. Then she turned and bolted from the cockpit in a blind rage, into the sleeping chamber that had been her room.

Scar heard the door close and the lock activate. He stood there for a moment, jaws and talons working as he tried to master himself. The thought flashed briefly through his mind to go after her, hammer on the door and demand that she come out immediately and answer for her insolence. Perhaps, years ago, he would have done so. Now, Spyrro had the advantage of him, because the last thing she had said he couldn't think of an answer for. Why had he left them? There had been reasons of course, but against the righteous anger of his small daughter, they suddenly didn't seem all that convincing.

"Spyrro is just a child," He told himself, "She does not understand, I had to do this – for my sons…" But he knew that he had no explanation that would satisfy her, nothing that would withstand her piercing, black gaze.

The girl's use of that pejorative piece of yautja slang to describe her Mother had also deeply disturbed him, "Have I ever used that term about her in Spyrro's hearing?" He thought, searching his memory, "She must have learned those words from me. But when I say it, I do not mean it!"

He sat down heavily in the pilot seat. It had been many years since his drunken rampage on board the Void Cutter, the first and only time he had ever gotten voluntarily intoxicated. Now, for the first time since, he found himself craving again that total oblivion. Troubling thoughts, long avoided, were stirring in the depths.

"All three of my offspring are in open rebellion against me. Maybe, if I had not left, they would not be so. Perhaps Spyrro would not have done what she did and perhaps she would not have developed this… antipathy towards Lex."

Lex.

He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. That was it then, after all these months, he had finally allowed himself to say her name. Only silently, inside the confines of his head, but it made no difference. All this time they had been apart, he had not allowed himself to say it or think it. He had shut those thoughts off, blocked them out, as he had been trained to do. Hearing her voice today had been like flipping a switch. Now that he was alone, he could not stop himself from thinking about her any longer.

The moment on the Vortex when the female had been pressing herself against him – an invitation any normal male would surely welcome – yet he had not been able to think of anything except those demonic, dark eyes and the pain had hit him. Not physical pain – that he could handle – but the pain of her absence, still just as raw, even now.

Not only that, but he was uncomfortably aware that the words he had directed against Spyrro could equally be levelled at himself. He knew he had caused her suffering.

"I did what I had to do, to protect my sons." He told himself "But she will not see it that way, her hatred will be implacable. Nevertheless, as a female child, Spyrro is hers. Lex has a right to her before I do. She will be tortured with anxiety… I must find her and… return Spyrro to her…"

His frown deepened as an even worse thought struck him, "Spyrro took the Dragonfly and Lex said in her message that she did not have another way to go after her. That means she cannot leave the human planet."

The shock of realisation made his flesh prickle with horror, "But she is a fugitive on her own world! She has just as many enemies amongst her species as I have amongst mine!"

He grimaced. As so often happened, when he was trying to think clearly, it was the voice of R'Zuul that echoed through his brain instead, "Why are you still worrying about the soft meat bitch, S'Kia? Your attachment to her is an infection. It is just as Khurshad said: you are a slave to her, or worse: a pet! You have cut yourself off from her, but see how easily one pull on your leash brings you to heel!"

"But she is stranded through my actions," He argued back, "Because of me, she is trapped with those who would wish to capture her or even … kill her. I cannot abandon her to such a fate!"

"Why lie to yourself, S'Kia?" Sneered the voice in his head "Just admit that you are unable to resist running back to the arms of the ooman witch. If you cannot control your impulses, at least face them!"

In his head he could see his former Captain's yellow eyes and hear his mocking laughter. He imagined wrapping his fingers around the squad leader's throat and squeezing, blocking his airways, crushing them until all breath was extinct and speech was impossible whilst, in reality, he gripped the armrests of the pilot seat hard enough to leave ragged claw marks, "How could you know what she is to me, R'Zuul? You do not understand what it is between she and I: you never did!"

Abruptly, the laughter and the scornful words died away and all was still again.

After a moment, Scar leaned forward and touched a control, waking up the navicom. With talons made clumsy by exhaustion, he slowly programmed in a set of coordinates. A glowing schematic sprang up before his eyes: the blue orb of the human planet.

"The place where the contagion entered my system." He thought, "I went there hunting for the Kainde Amedhe, but it turns out they are not the deadliest species after all. At least… not for me."

He pressed the control to initiate the autopilot and then sat, watching the image of the Earth spin gently in front of him.

Happy Saturday everyone, this week has been a marathon.

lexia the beautiful wolf: You guessed right!

LovyDovy7: Isaac and Selim are more than capable of a firefight, considering they spend all their time learning to fight and kill things (whether they like it, or not) they should be!