"Spyrro, do not make me drag you!"

Isaac rolled his eyes skyward as his small sister planted herself firmly in the pilot's seat. "No, Isaac. I am not going to sleep until Mei'Savir and Mei'varsi come back to us."

"But that could take all night!"

"No!" Spyrro set her jaws stubbornly "You do not command me!"

Isaac growled "Dammit Spyrro! Mom and S'Kia told you to go to bed!"

"Why can I not go into the forest with them?"

"Sister, they told us to wait here," Said Selim, the voice of reason, "Think of what happened when you ran off, last time?"

Spyrro glared at him, arms folded.

"What are they doing out there?" She muttered, "Mei'Varsi has only just returned and now they are gone again… "

As she grumbled to herself, Isaac pulled Selim aside and spoke quietly in his ear "She has a point you know Selim," He said, "They've been gone nearly an hour, what do you think they're doing?"

"How should I know?" His twin shrugged.

"You know what they're like when they get started! I don't want to leave Mom alone with him!"

"Well, Mei'Varsi did look very angry…"

"So, aren't you worried?" Isaac spread his talons, "They could be murdering each other out there – we should at least check on them."

Selim frowned "I do not think that would be wise, they told us to stay here."

"We don't have to go outside," Isaac gestured to the control desk. "S'Kia might have locked us out of comms, but we can probably override that. I've managed it before."

"You mean… spy on them?" His twin looked intensely uncomfortable, "Isaac, whatever they are discussing, it is not for us to hear!"

"So you don't want to know what's going on?"

"I do not like Mei'Savir and Mei'Varsi fighting," Spyrro announced from the pilot's seat, "We have to make them stop!"

"Spyrro, we cannot interfere!" Selim said, but Isaac could hear an edge of uncertainty in his voice.

"C'mon Selim," He said "What if they're fighting – I mean, like, really fighting? Not just with words!"

His twin bit his lip, in an agony of indecision "Alright," Selim sighed finally, "Alright Ize, you win. Just to reassure Spyrro and check everything is alright."

"Of course!"

It took them another ten minutes to unlock the console. Isaac pressed the button to bring up the shuttle's visual display. On the screen, the two technicolour figures that were recognisable as their parents and, ranged around them, a collection of large and threatening shapes.

"What the hell are those?" Isaac breathed.

"Yautja." Spyrro leaned forward from the pilot seat, her black eyes huge, "Strange yautja, many of them! Just like I saw on the big ship!"

Scar stood back-to-back with Lex, snarling as enemies materialised out of the steaming jungle, a circle of shadows surrounding them. He cursed himself for not sensing an attack, "I was so absorbed in my dispute with her, I became deaf and blind to everything else! But, if they think they will take us easily, I will teach them otherwise!"

With a speed born of desperation, he launched himself at the nearest enemy. The warrior was obviously not expecting him to attack but he raised his dah'kte in answer, allowing him to shear his arms off at the wrist, leaving the other male bellowing in rage and torment as Scar swung towards his next victim.

A blast from the plasma cannon lit up the clearing around them as Lex opened fire and struck something on his right – a fine spray of gory vapour engulfing him as he lunged towards the next warrior, dodging the spear it thrust towards him and knocking its head from its shoulders.

Another reared up on his left and he pivoted, whirling the sword in a wild upswing to spill his enemy's guts in a hot torrent of green anguish. The next, he sliced across the throat as it looked up at him, seeing it collapse clutching its ruined oesophagus and he turned back and drove the sword into its unprotected stomach.

All at once, he felt a stinging sensation in his chest and looked down to see two metal spines jutting out of his flesh.

He raised a hand to rip them out, when a huge jolt of electricity slammed into him. His whole body convulsed and he fell to his knees, limbs useless as the current caused him to spasm and jerk, fists clenched so hard his talons pierced his skin.

He tried to push himself upwards, but then the current surged through him a second time, making him convulse again, gasping and retching, unable to rise.

In his blurring vision, he could see feet approaching. Someone was standing above him.

Then the electricity jolted through him again, harder this time. He must have lost consciousness but then he awoke almost the next instant. Now, he could feel something pinning his arms behind his back.

Still on his knees, he raised his head and glared venomously up at the short, wiry figure that stood above him. It still wore a mask and held the shocker switch in one hand.

"Do not move, S'Kia," Said the voice of Nar'Jat, "Or I shall use the shocker on the ooman witch as well as you and this time, I will raise it to full power."

Scar glanced to one side and saw Lex, kneeling to the left of him, her arms secured behind her back just like his own, flanked by a Rough Skull on either side. He also noticed another set of glinting, metal electrodes puncturing her skin, each surrounded by a bloom of crimson.

As their eyes met, he saw the full horror of the situation in her face, "Our children are just a short distance away, onboard the Chameleon. O, Nameless Goddess, let them stay hidden!"

"Did we interrupt a quarrel… or something more intimate?" The clan leader continued, a tremor of laughter entering his voice as he removed his mask.

"Let me up, Nar'Jat!" Scar snarled, looking around at the yautja surrounding them, "Or admit that you are a coward who dare not face me."

"Let you up?" The dark general sounded genuinely amused now "Oh no, S'Kia. I have gone to all this trouble to get you down where you are. Do not think I will let you rise up again so easily."

"That is no surprise," Scar let one mandible curl up, "As this is the only way you will ever stand higher than me, you devious, two-faced, little runt!"

Nar'Jat operated the shocker switch and Scar doubled up helplessly as the current brought him to his knees once more. "In an odd way I have missed you, S'Kia," The clan leader smiled grimly, "You are one of the few who is reckless enough to speak his mind to me on occasion. It is… entertaining."

"Is that why you are here?" Scar panted, jaws still twitching, "You find me entertaining? I am surprised you bothered with all this, then! It has been many solar cycles since we left the Rough Skulls – "

"Since you deserted your clan, you mean?"

Scar gave him a crooked sneer "I seem to recall many times when Lex and I have held your life in our hands. You have a short memory – "

"I remember that you both betrayed the clan, S'Kia!" Snapped Nar'Jat, interrupting him.

"And I remember finding you floating half-dead on the Penumbra, not to mention the small matter of destroying the Bad Bloods on Hirai," Scar went on slowly, "And there was also the battle on board the Void Cutter." He looked around at the assembled Rough Skulls, several of whom could not meet his eye, until his attention finally fell on the young blood who stood nearest him. At the same moment, Lex raised her head and fixed her dark gaze on the same male.

"I remember you," She said, "You were the child, the boy on the Cutter."

Scar was one step ahead of her, "Varrik" He purred, "I know you."

"Yes S'Kia, I remember you." The younger male acknowledged him, then glanced over at Lex, clearly disconcerted. "But I… was a juvenile, then."

Scar grinned at him.

"How fortunate that you were allowed to survive into adulthood."

"Varrik," Nar'Jat snapped "You have your orders. Go and do your duty. I know you, at least, know what that means."

Scar watched the young blood, as he slipped into the darkness with two other Rough Skulls at his heels.

"Ah yessss, the Void Cutter," Nar'Jat continued smoothly, when Varrik had gone, "Where you took it upon yourself to interrogate and execute a prisoner, instead of handing him over to me. And you dispatched Khurshad, my second in command on Hirai, did you not?"

Scar shrugged "He got in our way."

"You have always been insubordinate, S'Kia, and yet…" Mused the clan leader,

"And yet, I find myself disposed to overlook your trespasses in light of recent events. Even now it is not too late for you to return."

"He surely cannot be offering me a pardon, this is a trick..." Scar's brow creased.

"You mean return… to the clan?" He said, aloud.

"It is in my gift, if I choose it." Nar'Jat nodded.

"But… why?"

"Because the clan needs every fighter it can get – why else? A great plague is sweeping through our population, decimating our numbers."

"Plague? What plague?"

"A contagion that leaves us choking on fragments of our lungs, suffocating on bloody foam, our limbs unable to obey us. Already it has killed more than half our number."

Scar stared at him, "More than half? That cannot be so…"

"Nevertheless."

"But… what can I do about that? I am no medic - no scientist!"

"Whilst we are weakened our enemies are plotting against us, as they always are. I have many uses for an enforcer and an effective killer in the current state of chaos. If you had returned to the Void Cutter after Hirai, as was your duty, I would have appointed you in Khurshad's place, as my lieutenant."

Scar snorted "I do not believe you – about that or about this plague. You simply want to avenge Khurshad."

"Why? He was becoming old and slow. It was natural that, one day, someone younger would replace him. As you killed him, you would have been the obvious choice – you still would be." Nar'Jat was watching him carefully, "Of courssse… you would have to surrender your brood of blasphemous half-breeds to us. Then the clan would decide their fate."

"Never!" Scar snarled at him, "Lay one finger on any of our offspring, and I will send you to soul eater! You shall see how she deals with those who do not honour a blood debt – "

"A futile threat, S'Kia, given your current position." Nar'Jat said, dismissively.

"Why are you playing games, Nar'Jat?" Lex spoke up beside him, and Scar felt something twist in his chest to see even now, even at their mercy, how she kept her composure. "Just tell us what you really want." She said.

The clan leader turned towards her, the amused look overspreading his features once more. "Always straight to the bones of the carcass, are you not, Lex?" He said, "I have long suspected you were the brains of the operation. Has it never occurred to you that you might choose better allies than this hot-head? You also could return to the clan, if I decided to favour you. Turn over your bastardized offspring to me and I am sure I could find a use for your… talents."

"You know I would never agree to such terms, Nar'Jat." She said, coldly. "I am surprised someone of your intelligence wasted his time coming here, if that is the best you can offer me. Besides…" She added, after a moment's thought, "Our… offspring are not here."

"A brave lie witch, but a pointless one. I know they must be nearby. We tracked your shuttle to this place."

"No, they are gone." She held his gaze, unflinching, "They stole the ship and ran away, did they not S'Kia?"

"She speaks the truth," Scar managed to keep a rein on his temper, though his eyes were full of murder as he glared at the clan leader, "They have defied us both."

"We have to do something!" Selim paced up and down the cockpit, eyes fixed on the screen.

"We just cannot let these monsters torture them like this, while we stand by and watch!"

"You hear what the one in charge is saying?" Isaac was staring at the screen, "They want to kill us, just like S'Kia told us they would. We should take off and get away from here!"

"And leave them as prisoners?"

"And escape with our lives."

Selim turned on him in disbelief, "You cannot mean it, brother?"

Isaac grabbed his twin's shoulders, "Selim, we can try and rescue them later - but only if we don't get caught now!"

"Yautja do not run, we fight!" Selim threw an arm in the direction of the screen, "Do you really think I will leave the ones I love to perish without even trying to help them?"

"Then we'll all die!" Isaac yelled back at him.

"For nothing! Do you really think we can rescue them right now?"

"We could try."

"You think that's what Mom wants?! Or S'Kia?! Why do you think they're lying about us running off? They're trying to keep us alive."

"And I want to keep them alive!"

"Sel, it's suicide," Isaac rolled his eyes, "He's crazy, isn't he Spyrro?"

Both brothers turned to look at the pilot's seat. It was empty.

Spyrro crept through the undergrowth as quietly as she could, the cold dread inside spurring her to move faster, "It is my fault Mei'Varsi and Mei'Savir were fighting! It is my fault they are in trouble! I must stop this!"

How exactly she was going to stop anything she hadn't yet considered. She could not even imagine how she would diffuse her parents' gunpowder tempers, any more than she could imagine how she would defeat the yautja hordes on her own, but if there was one thing Spyrro had it was absolute, stubborn, reckless courage. She couldn't think about being afraid or being careful or anything like that right now: all she could think was that she was somehow responsible for all of this and therefore she had to fix things, "I have to do something to save them, like a warrior would do! I cannot leave them both to die!"

"Shit, where'd she go!?" Isaac looked round in panic.

"Why were you not watching her?"

"Why weren't you?"

"Spyrro!" Selim raced down towards the sleeping pods, shouting their sister's name as he ran. Even a cursory hunt of the bedroom showed no trace of her either in the bed or under it. In the corridor he tore aside the cover of the ventilation shaft and called for her, his voice echoing off the metal walls, the space obviously empty. He was about to scale down the ladder into the cargo hold - another of her favourite hiding places - when Isaac seized his arm.

"It's no good, Sel," He said "We already know where she's gone."

Both boys' heads turned, drawn as if by some terrible magnetism, to look at the door of the airlock. At that moment, to their utter horror and stupefaction, the outer hatch slid open. A hunter stood there, masked and armoured, with two more huge shapes looming up behind him, blocking off all hope of escape. In one clawed hand, he held Scar's wrist com.

"Surrender, spawn of the S'Kia and the witch." He snarled. "Your lives belong to the Rough Skulls, now."

Without waiting to hear any more Selim leapt forward and jabbed the button to close the inner hatch, sealing the doors in the Rough Skulls' faces. Grabbing Isaac by the arm, he hauled him back down the corridor and into the cockpit where he banged his fist on the control to seal the cockpit doors.

"Selim," Isaac put his hands over his mouth "They've got S'Kia's wrist control! It's only a matter of time before they get in here! Shit!"

"Isaac, control yourself." Selim grabbed his twin by the shoulders and shook him hard, making Isaac blink at him in surprise, "They may have Father's wrist com but as long as we have the cockpit, they cannot override our commands."

"You're right," Isaac leapt to the console, talons skittering across the controls "We need to take off – let's get far away from here."

"And leave Mei'Varsi and Mei'Savir and Spyrro?"

"Sel, we don't have a choice now!"

Selim frowned and pressed the control that allowed him to see what was going on in the corridor.

He could see the three males prowling towards the cockpit. The leader, the one who had Scar's wrist com, stood inside the inner hatch. He was consulting the gauntlet, evidently trying to find a control that would get the door open.

Selim's lips curled back, showing his sharp, white teeth, "Seal the airlock," He said "And start the engines."

Isaac grinned. The three yautja warriors inside the shuttle turned as the hatch slid shut behind them and turbines roared into life, getting louder as the power level rose.

After reactivating the Chameleon's cloaking device, the brothers strapped themselves in, watching the three Rough Skulls lurching to one side as ship blasted off. Isaac pushed the thrusters up to full power and their three unwilling passengers were flattened against the side of the corridor as the shuttle accelerated towards the stratosphere.

"I say we wait until we're a couple of clicks up and open the airlock," Isaac said nastily "It'll be a long way down."

Selim looked across at him, "Those creatures were torturing Mei'Varsi and Mei'Savir and they want to kill us." He growled "We should wait until we are outside the atmosphere and then open the airlock. Let us see how long Rough Skulls can survive in the vacuum of space!"

Happy Christmas, hope everyone is having a good festive season. I've been busy doing family stuff so this is a bit later than usual.

LovyDovy7: I find it hard to resist a cliff-hanger, and here's another one. They are both veeeerry stubborn, though I think Lex has good cause to be angry, though they often do not understand where the other is coming from.

Tenjp: Sorry, it wasn't a lonely scout but you knew it wouldn't be, right? (And yes, pride is a bitch).

Nubian Queen; Great to hear from you - so glad you're back! Also, thanks for the mental image of "a rabid fangurl jumping on a boyband member" which made me snort my coffee out of my nose this morning :)