Chapter 2 (Revised Version)

The Commander stood under the nose of her small scout ship, reaching up to push the module she'd just fixed back into its slot, and then scanned the system. She nodded as the power output finally reached over ninety percent. That was probably as good as it was going to get, so she moved on to the next item on her repair/upgrade list, which she'd been steadily working through for the past thirteen days. Everyone else was busy with their own repair jobs, so she'd been doing the work by herself. There were only a few items left, but it was the last and largest one that had her worried and which had required so many other upgrades in order to prep for it.

She sensed someone pause at her ship's berth, but when they didn't announce themselves, she ignored them and continued on with her work. Though the senior aides and officers recognized her on sight, to everyone else she appeared in her dirty coveralls to be just another pilot maintaining her ship. Most of the flight crew assigned to the hangar were also aware of who she was, but they always left her alone. Whether it was out of respect for her privacy or fear of her position, she'd never asked.

She listened as whoever it was began to mutter to himself.

"Is this some kind of practical joke? Who in their right mind would attempt a stealth mission in this piece of crap?"

The Commander felt her ears burn and immediately stepped out from behind the landing gear that had partially obscured her presence.

"May I help you with something?" she asked, though her tone was barely civil.

The young man looked up in surprise and then frowned.

"Nah. Someone probably thinks they're being funny by sending the new guy on a phony assignment. I just came onboard a few weeks ago from Himora. Junior-grade ship's tech, third class, at your service," he said as he offered a slight bow at the waist.

The Commander looked him over, her indignation forgotten as her curiosity got the better of her at the mention of her birth planet.

Judging by the tech's informality, he'd probably been born and raised on Himora, which was one of their oldest hidden colonies. His skin was tanned and his hair was long, though it was pulled back into a knot at the base of his neck, presumably to keep it out of the way.

She unconsciously reached up and cupped the back of her own head, a faint memory of long hair flowing across her shoulders as she ran through sun-warmed grass forcing its way up from the back of her mind. Then the sharp buzz of clippers and wisps of hair falling in front of her face and her life as she knew it was gone. What would it have been like to grow up free from oppression? Free to walk around a countryside untouched by their masters, who seemed to be obsessed with developing nearly every inch of every planet they conquered.

Her sense of longing returned, but she shoved it down, even as she acknowledged it was getting harder to do every time.

"What was your assignment?"

"Oh, I was supposed to install a cloak on the ship berthed here for some special mission, a total rush job they said, but they had to be lying. This thing's so old, there's no way—"

"Who placed the requisition for the cloak?"

The tech picked up the digital readout from the front of the hover pallet carrying the cloaking module to show her.

"It says the Fleet High Commander, but—"

She walked forward and placed her palm on the bottom half of the screen and then used the stylus to add her signature. The tech looked down as the screen turned blue to indicate the Commander's authorization had been accepted.

"Crap. I'm about to become junior-grade, one-hundredth class, aren't I?"

"Not if you can get that cloaking module installed in this ship in the next few hours. I asked for the best tech for the job. Did they send the right one?"

He stood a little straighter.

"My rank is just because I'm new. I've been studying ship schematics, both our designs and alien ones, since I could crawl. I'm the best ship's tech you've got."

The Commander smiled.

"Then why don't we get to work?"

Getting the cloaking module installed proved to be more difficult and time-consuming than either of them had imagined, even with all the careful planning the Commander had already put into it. After several hours of cramped, meticulous work, the tech finally requested a break, unable to match the Commander's stamina. As the Commander continued to work on patching the module's newer components into her ship's older systems, she hardly wasted a moment to wave him away.

"Go ahead. I can handle the rest of it."

The tech scowled.

"You need a break, too. Melora knows how long you were working before I showed up and you haven't even paused for a breath since we started this." He slid out of the tight compartment and dusted himself off. "Come on. We can stretch our legs, get something to eat, and then come back refreshed and ready to beat this thing into submission, yeah?"

She considered brushing him off. She didn't really need a break. She'd been forced to work for entire days before without rest or sustenance. She could easily continue for twice as long as she'd already gone so far without food or respite.

Then she heard her mother's voice, as if the woman was whispering in her ear.

If you treat yourself as poorly as the masters treat you, what is the point of being free?

The Commander sighed and stopped what she was doing. She understood what her mother had been trying to tell her, but she didn't really agree with the sentiment. She wouldn't win this war by being nice to herself.

However, she'd been going almost non-stop since the Elder's son, now an officially recognized Elder himself, had informed her of the critical information his father had been protecting all these years. She imagined the tech would be shocked to know she hadn't had much more than a handful of naps and even fewer ration bars over the past couple weeks in her efforts to prepare for her covert mission to an uncharted planet.

Though the Commander secretly took great pride in such self-sacrifice, she wasn't so deluded as to believe she could continue like that forever. Even she had her limits.

The Commander maneuvered herself out of the confined space and came to stand next to the tech.

"After you," she said and gestured for him to precede her.

She followed him to the lift, which carried them to the deck where the galley was located. After waiting in line for a short time, the Commander's turn finally came and she placed her palm on the scanner. The screen listed her available rations and she decided to go ahead and accept all of them before the computer flagged her for possible hoarding or suicide by starvation, a precaution she'd instituted herself after several fatal incidents. Four large packets of water and eight small squares wrapped in crinkly silver paper fell into a bin from a slot in the wall. She quickly scooped them up and shoved them into the pockets on her coveralls before anyone could see how much she had.

She hadn't received any more rations than anyone else was entitled to. It was just that she hadn't claimed her previous day's rations. Or that morning's either.

She waited for the tech to get his single water packet and two ration bars, and then they found a small table in a corner of the large mess hall to sit and eat.

It still felt odd to her to do that. Normally, she would have received her food and immediately headed back to work, eating on the way, but now she sat down to eat like a decadent master.

The thought made her uneasy and she quickly tore off and ate the edible wrapping that had been specially designed to eliminate the need for trash disposal. The crusty brown bars themselves, universally dubbed 'slave rations,' had also been designed with economy in mind. They required no heating or utensils and were complete with all the macro- and micro-nutrients her species needed.

Unfortunately, they tasted as bad as they looked. The Commander forced herself to nibble a corner of the bar, then took a huge gulp of stale water to try to wash the awful taste away. She knew she was only prolonging her torture, but she just couldn't quite muster the courage to shove the whole thing in her mouth and get it over with. The last time she'd tried that, it hadn't stayed down very long.

Finally, about three-quarters of the way through, and having just finished off the last of her water packets, she'd had all she could take, so she set it down on the table and stood up. The tech had long since finished his rations and was ready to leave as well. The Commander glanced back, not surprised when someone at a nearby table snatched up the remnants of the abandoned bar and immediately shared it with her comrades.

She pulled the other seven bars from her pockets and quietly dropped them on several different tables she passed by on her way to toss her empty water packets into the recycling chute. She paused as the tech discarded his own drained water packet and then they headed out of the mess hall.

As they waited for the lift, the Commander sensed the tech watching her.

"Either speak or don't."

The tech cleared his throat as they entered the lift. They were alone.

"Do you always starve yourself so others may eat?"

The question was more direct than she'd been prepared for.

"I guess I don't normally think about it like that. I've just never tolerated the food very well and if I can't eat it, someone else who can should have it."

"What about the masters' food? There must have been stores on board when—"

"There were. They didn't last a week. And I knew I wouldn't be able to continue to have such delicacies, so I decided not to tempt myself."

"And it left more for others. I'm sensing a pattern here."

The tech smiled and the Commander realized he was gently teasing her. No one had done that with her in years. Not even her mother. Especially not recently.

"Is that why you're taking that antique on this mission? So you won't deprive the fleet of a valuable ship?"

The Commander grimaced. That had been one of her reasons, but not the main one.

"That 'antique' saved my life and my mother's."

The lift doors opened and they headed down the corridor to the hangar bay.

"So where did you find it? They stopped building those over a hundred years ago."

"My mother's master won it in some high-priced auction, but that was only so he could enter it in a demolition contest and watch it get pummeled."

On the free market, the scout ship was considered a collector's item, which was why her mother's master had wanted it so badly. To be able to show such disregard for something so precious conferred prestige in certain circles of their society.

"After the contest was over, my mother requested to salvage it. Since she'd served his household well over the years, her master let her keep it, though technically it was never hers and we feared he would take it back at any moment."

They entered the hangar bay and headed for the ship.

"My mother and I spent all our spare time getting it space worthy again, though we made sure to leave the outside looking beat up, so he never knew how close we were to finishing the repairs."

They came to a stop in front of the small scout ship. The Commander lifted her arm and fondly ran the tips of her fingers along the hull.

"When the time finally came, this old ship flew perfectly, helping us escape to Rastis and our hidden camp there before we could be arrested for treason."

More recently during their last stop at Himora, her mother had decided to stay behind with the other Elders and had gifted the ship to her before leaving. It was the first and only piece of property the Commander had ever owned.

"I know this ship inside and out. If the worst should happen, this is the only ship I have full confidence I could repair if necessary."

"What if you took along someone like me? I can fix any ship in the fleet, so you could choose whichever one was the best for the mission and—"

"I already have. This ship is small, maintains a low energy profile, and with the cloak will be invisible to most scans. There's no better ship in the fleet for this mission."

The tech opened his mouth to continue his argument, but the Commander held up a hand.

"Let's get back to work, shall we? I have a schedule to keep."

Many hours later and long after the tech had left to get some sleep, the Commander completed the last of the repairs. Just as she was about to move on to the next item on her to-do list, she heard the timid voice of one of her senior aides speak up behind her.

"Honored Elder? May I please have a moment of your time?"

She cringed, not only at the title, which she didn't deserve, but at the tone of veneration as well. She was hardly older than the aide himself, but ever since the rescue mission when she'd announced that she spoke for the Elders, word had spread and now everyone was trying to accord her the same respect as a member of the Council.

She sighed as she carefully set her tools back on the cart and wiped her dirty hands on a rag, using the time it took to calm her frustration. Lashing out at the aide would only confuse him and would serve no purpose other than to release her anger on a defenseless target. That would make her no better than one of their masters. Luckily for the Commander, courtesy was ingrained in her people as a matter of survival, so it wasn't that difficult for her to plaster on her own best slave face before she finally turned around.

"How may I be of assistance?"

The aide seemed to relax and handed over a display with his report. She'd been expecting it, since she'd requested to see an inventory of their dwindling resources before she left.

Even though they'd recently resupplied, they were still dangerously low on food, and their air, water, fuel, and other supplies weren't much better. They had enough food for a month, two if they started minimal rationing now, maybe as much as three to four if they instituted extreme measures. Either way, in uncharted space, that didn't allow for a large margin of error. Their fleet's cargo bays could have held enough for several years, but they hadn't been full when they'd stolen the ships in the first place, so now they were stuck with what they could scrounge up.

She entered her signature of receipt and then added her orders. Extreme rationing now could mean the difference between life and death. Her people were used to deprivation. They'd handle it, though she knew some of them were regretting leaving the safety of their masters' employ. For herself, she didn't think she'd have any trouble with the rationing.

She added her official title and signature to confirm the orders and then handed back the display. The aide bowed and hurried off.

The Commander went back to preparing the scout ship for her departure. Some changes of clothes, survival and utility gear, a week's water and ration bars according to the orders she'd just issued, and a few other odds and ends went into the storage compartment behind the co-pilot's seat.

She performed the external pre-flight check, confirming all her recent repairs had returned the battered ship to more or less working order, and then contacted Command and Control to let them know she was ahead of schedule and almost ready to leave. She remained in the busy hangar to change out of her tattered clothing and into a fresh flight suit, and then started up the side of the ship, moving from one handhold to the next towards the open cockpit.

»Please wait!«

The sudden intrusion into her mind startled her, and she nearly missed the next handhold. The words alone would have been acceptable, but experiencing the unedited emotions attached to the telepathic communication caught her off guard. Of the few people she'd shared emotions with in her life, only her mother was still alive, and even she hadn't dared to touch the Commander's mind in years.

The Commander looked down just as her second-in-command came jogging into the hangar bay. She struggled to keep her expression blank as she waited for the older woman to catch her breath so she could explain herself. When her lieutenant remained silent, she spoke, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice.

"What's your problem, Lieutenant?"

The lieutenant frowned.

"Forgive me, Commander. I wanted to make sure I caught you before you left."

"Fine. What do you need?"

"With respect, I was hoping I might still have a chance to change your mind."

The Commander barely refrained from rolling her eyes. She shook her head as she went back to climbing into the cockpit.

"I really don't have time—"

"Then make time."

The straightforward demand was surprising to both of them, but after a moment, the Commander turned her face away to hide her smirk as she briefly wondered if she was starting to rub off on the older woman. She climbed down and stood to face her lieutenant, intentionally softening her voice as she tried to be soothing.

"I know you mean well, but... You know how important this is to me. The other scouting missions were routine. This one... I have to attend to this one personally. You must realize that, don't you?"

"But you could at least take a tactical squad with you for protection. I can have a heavy fighter with a four-unit team ready to escort you in less than an hour."

The Commander shook her head.

"No, we've been over this. The probe showed the planet's inhabitants have increased their technology level compared to our older intel, but a single ship should still be able to land without setting off any alarms. More than that and we could put the whole planet on alert. We're already fighting one war. We don't need to start another."

"But you shouldn't be the one doing this. You're too important to—"

"Your objection has been noted, Lieutenant."

"But Commander, I strongly—"

"I said no, Lieutenant."

The Commander held her face impassive as the other woman snapped her jaw shut and suddenly squared her shoulders. The lieutenant nodded once, formally, and finally replied.

"Understood, Honored Elder. I'll be awaiting your safe return."

Then she turned on her heel and left.

The Commander shook her head. She said that just to get under my skin.

Part of her was hurt by the dig, but another part of her couldn't help being proud of how her lieutenant had refused to be dissuaded. Her people needed to learn how to be aggressive, to fight for what they wanted and believed in. Such a trivial matter, yet it gave her hope that they could make that leap from obedient servants to free and independent thinking individuals. They would need to learn balance, since both attitudes had their pros and cons, but that would come in time with patience and practice.

The Commander made her way back up to the cockpit and sealed the hatch. She finished her pre-flight check and received clearance for takeoff.

As she weaved her vessel between the ships of her fleet, she wondered, not for the first time, if they truly stood a fighting chance or if she was leading her people to their deaths. She supposed in some respects it didn't matter. Either way, they couldn't live as slaves any longer. It wasn't really living and most of them had decided death was preferable. At the very least, maybe they would give some of the other slave races a fighting chance to start their own uprisings.

It all hinged on what she found during this mission and whether the lost outpost she was going off to scout held everything she hoped it would. With the other hidden colonies they'd contacted, she'd had a pretty good idea going in what they had to offer and it wasn't much. It was this one, the unknown, that could turn the tide and finally give them the numbers they needed to bring the fight to their masters. If she could complete the personal mission her mother had requested of her when they'd first learned of the missing outpost, all the better.

She just needed to hurry. According to their latest intel, their masters weren't sitting idly by waiting for their wayward slaves to return with an armada. They'd begun systematically seeking out every possible hiding place in an attempt to find and destroy them, which meant she had to get to their people first and time was running out.

As she moved away from the fleet, she refocused on the scout ship's navigation panels, which were flickering between safe and caution, something she was quite used to given the age of the ship. She made a few corrections to the plotted course and set the autonav to begin the sequence that would take her ship outside normal space-time, so she could bypass the light-year of distance between her fleet's current position and her intended destination. She held her breath, knowing this would be the worst possible moment for the ship to decide to malfunction, but the transition went smoothly, so she relaxed. Now, she just had a few hours to kill.

She reached for the info pad she'd stashed in the co-pilot's seat and turned it on. Their probes had picked up thousands of signals coming from the planet and some of her people's most gifted linguists had managed to identify about a dozen of the most common languages. As part of their reconnaissance for her upcoming mission, the specialists had not only learned each language themselves in less than a day, but had also put together a series of lessons for her to work through.

Like all her people, she had a knack for languages, but she wasn't nearly that fast. Unfortunately, she didn't have the week of dedicated study it usually took her to absorb a new language and that was only when she was around people who spoke it natively. So while waiting for different parts to come in over the past couple days, instead of sleeping, she'd spent every spare second learning how to mimic the distinct pronunciations to reduce any possible accent that might make her stand out. She'd also gone over the visual symbols that represented those sounds in the hopes that it would allow her to find her way around more easily.

She suppressed a yawn as she picked up where she'd left off and diligently practiced the different phrases in each of the languages. Some of the words were difficult to wrap her tongue around. Others made her laugh as the foreign sounds came together to form curse words or nonsensical phrases in some of the languages she already knew from working with so many diverse species. She was just about to progress to her third set of lessons when the ship announced it was time to reenter normal space.

The transition went perfectly and she immediately brought up the ship's new cloaking system. It would keep her from being detected by the natives' technology, including visible and infrared light, along with sonar, magnetic, and microwave sensors. It also covered several other means of detection used by her people, just in case the natives were further along than they appeared.

The Commander pinged the nearest relay satellite for an update. Half a dozen of the fist-sized black spheres circled the planet and had been doing so for the past three days, gathering intelligence on the unsuspecting inhabitants and relaying the information back to the fleet. Besides allowing her people to compile language data, the probes had also been passively searching for specific signals that might mean someone was trying to contact them.

The latest results scrolled across her screen and she sighed. There was only the jumbled mess of unshielded planetary communications. Most of the signals appeared to be encrypted, but nothing that indicated they were meant for her people. She gave up on an easy solution and headed in for a standard orbit.

She came closer to the planet from sun side, knowing doing so would make it even more difficult for the natives to detect her against the power of their own star's brightness.

Her breath caught as the day side of the planet filled her view.

She'd seen images of her people's many worlds from before their enslavement. Nearly all of them had looked like this one, with gorgeous blue oceans and vibrant green landmasses occasionally dotted with white wisps of clean water vapor. Now their worlds were overrun with cities, and millions of air and water scrubbers ran night and day to negate the effects of pollution and overpopulation. The only sources of plants and animals were a few wildlife preserves set aside for luxury entertainment and those that were maintained on vast automated farms kept solely to feed their pampered masters and which were guarded more vigorously than even their prisons.

It looks just like Himora, her mind easily supplied and she blinked hard at the thought as a sense of yearning swept through her.

She forced herself to look away, refusing to dwell on the loss she felt at having been denied that life. She had no right to feel sorry for herself. She had a duty to her people and her sacrifice had been no greater than anyone else's.

Besides, they'd only found Himora a couple hundred years ago and it was likely the masters would discover it in less than another hundred as part of their systematic search for livable systems, maybe sooner with the masters' current push to find their hidden bases. Then it would share the same fate as the others as it was conquered and colonized, and her people would have to find another habitable location for their renegade government.

Unless she could succeed in her current mission. Then maybe...

She shook her head. She didn't have time for fantasies of a life that would likely never come to pass. First things first. She just needed to focus on the task at hand and get the job done.

As she guided her ship around to the planet's night side, she kept an eye on her trajectory. Images from the probes had shown where the greatest concentrations of population were located and she'd chosen one of the densest in hopes of having a better chance of blending in. She glanced up from the readouts and was once again mesmerized by what she saw. A cloudless night gave her a clear view of bright orange-yellow lights spread in starburst patterns across the landmass below and a sudden longing welled up inside her chest.

The Commander tried to stop the thoughts even as she had them. I wish I didn't have to go back. I don't want to fight a war. If only I could just stay here.

She shook her head at her continued weakness. Her people needed her. Abandoning them wasn't an option. They'd be appalled to know she'd even contemplated such a thing.

She resolutely put the thoughts out of her mind and brought her attention back to the mission. She checked her seat straps one last time to prepare for atmospheric entry. She continued to watch the panels, making adjustments where needed, and then the ship suddenly jerked, throwing her hard against her seat restraints, and all the alarms seemed to go off at once.

The Commander quickly read over the error messages scrolling up the panels. According to the computer, the cloaking system had suffered some kind of catastrophic failure and burned out the surrounding components, which included propulsion, inertia stabilizers, and the heat shield.

If she was lucky enough not to burn up on entry, she was either going to be battered to a gushy mess inside the cockpit or leave a pretty crater on the ground when she slammed into it at terminal velocity. She was also probably a blazing bright dot on the natives' scopes now.

She tuned out the blaring sirens, not even sparing a moment to turn them off as she double-checked her flight suit to make sure all the edges were sealed with her boots and gloves, and then pulled on the self-sealing helmet. The pressure veins in the suit would keep her from decompressing in space, while the specially formulated material would protect her far better than the now defunct heat shield, which was allowing the interior of the cockpit to heat up at an alarming rate.

She hit the eject button.

Nothing happened.

She slammed her palm down onto the button again and again, but the clamps refused to release either her seat or the domed canopy.

She panicked. She pushed at the canopy, praying for it to let go as the heat in the cockpit began to melt the console, causing smoke to fill the cabin. Her flight suit was doing its job of providing heat dispersion, but she knew it was only rated to do that for a few minutes at best. A surge of adrenaline helped her redouble her efforts and she pressed against the canopy with all her might as she willed the thing to simply move.

Suddenly, the canopy ripped away, taking the smoke with it, and she saw the outlines of trees that reminded her of Himora and those last few precious hours she'd spent with her mother. It had been so peaceful there.

She tried the eject button again, hoping against all odds that it would work now that the canopy was gone, but the seat remained locked in place. She fumbled with the seat restraints, but they wouldn't budge and she realized the intense heat had probably fused the internal mechanisms.

Tears streamed down her face as she finally accepted there was nothing she could do. The scout ship was crumbling around her. What hadn't torn off seemed to be on fire as she hurtled towards the ground. She looked up to see stars in the night sky and tried to hold on to the memories of the peaceful little village her mother had settled into. Then the flames engulfed her vision and she screamed.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"Where'd the ship land?"

"It descended fast, Sir. Crashed right into the Adirondacks."

"How close to population?"

"Based on its trajectory, it should've landed several miles from any populated areas."

"Roads?"

"No, Sir, just a few hiking trails. We have some maps from the Forest Service, but a lot of the trails up there are unmarked. I was thinking we could requisition a helo from the base and—"

The Director snorted.

"You call that keeping a low profile?" He shook his head in disapproval, receiving an appropriately chastised look, then went back to perusing the report in front of him. "Besides, by the time one of the higher-ups over there decided the weather was good enough to authorize the release of one of their fifty million dollar toys, you might as well've driven there." He flipped a page of the report. "It says right here there's a weather advisory for a possible blizzard anyway."

"I checked on that and I was told it's likely to blow over."

"That's North Country we're talking about, Agent Cross. The weather up there is unpredictable at best. No, you'd be better off catching a flight to the base and getting a couple cars from there."

"Yes, Sir."

The Director took a few more minutes to skim the rest of the pages and finally looked up.

"All right. Get your team over there, but be quiet about it. And put someone on the newswires. At the first mention of a meteor or a UFO, I want a press release issued stating that one of our planes crashed and the pilot is being rescued."

"Yes, Sir. What about the locals?"

"Just tell them the plane is experimental and the project is classified. We'll be getting our man out ourselves, so we won't need their help, just their cooperation."

"Understood."

Agent Cross left to put his new orders into effect.

The Director remained seated at his large wooden desk and glanced over the report once again.

A craft approximately twenty meters long had entered the atmosphere at 1907 and begun a nose-dive for New York. It wasn't one of NASA's and it didn't match the profile of any ships from any other countries, so it had been classified as unidentifiable. That designation had kicked the matter all the way up the ladder until it had finally landed on his desk.

The Director set the report back down and checked his watch. It was 1932. Due to the remote location, it would take his people at least eight hours to arrive at the nearest town. Then it was anybody's guess as to how long it would take them to find the crash site. If they were lucky, they might be able to use snowmobiles, but it was just as likely they'd be forced to walk in or ski. He sat back in his leather chair and sighed.

"Finally. After all this time. I've been waiting for you."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

She staggered around in a circle, half hunched over and holding her pounding head. Her hair was gone, but the detail hardly registered as flashes of light feeling more like concussion grenades exploded behind her tightly shut eyelids. Over the ringing in her ears, she could faintly hear her own screams and forced herself to stop making the tortured sounds.

She pried her eyes open and went completely still at what she saw. In every direction, strange dark trees, several of which were on fire, rose up into the night sky, which held an unfamiliar nearly full moon close to zenith. Behind her, the snow-covered ground had a huge black gouge cut out of it. Chunks of burning debris littered the immediate area and she couldn't help wondering what had caused such devastation.

In answer, her mind bombarded her with a flurry of images and sensations. She screamed in agony as a wave of remembered pain flooded her body and sent her to her knees. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes to try to blot out the terror-filled visions, but it didn't stop the excruciating pain wracking her body. She felt as if she was being burned alive, even as she lay curled up in the snow.

With every fiber of her being, she willed the unbearable memories as far back into her mind as she could push them, not caring that she was pushing the rest of her memories away as well, as long as the pain went with them. Eventually, the pain receded to a more tolerable level and she was able to open her eyes once more.

The sound of groaning metal came from overhead and she looked up just in time to see a burning mass of twisted debris breaking free from the rest of the wreckage directly above her. She scrambled out of the way, but the impact of the heavy slab sent exploding bits in every direction and some of it connected with the back half of her body. Welts rose instantly everywhere the scorching fragments touched her and pieces of shrapnel embedded themselves in her muscles, including a large shard that pierced her back and protruded out of the front of her shoulder. Pain flared sharp and bright, overriding her senses, and only one thought remained.

Run! Get away!

She took off, heading down since it was easier than up. Every step brought fresh pain, but it only spurred her to keep moving. The orange glow from the trail of burning wreckage grew fainter as she continued staggering down the slope and was replaced by the bluish tinge of moonlight.

The forest was quiet, except for the sound of her bare feet crunching through the snow and the occasional resettling of a tree branch heavy with ice. She kept moving, bracing her weight on nearby trees to keep from falling as she passed by.

She felt something brush her hand and saw the remnants of a sleeve cuff dangling from her wrist. She stopped as she tried to understand its significance. For a moment, she remembered it was part of her flight suit and suddenly realized she was naked and very cold. She started to hug her arms around herself as she shivered, then cried out with the pain of moving her arm.

She looked down to see a jagged piece of metal sticking out of her shoulder joint surrounded by trails of dried blood covering her arm and chest, and nearly passed out at the sight. She leaned against a nearby tree and panted as she focused all her mental energy on pushing the foreign object from her body. She simultaneously healed the wound as the shard slowly worked its way out of her back until it fell to the ground with a soft crunch.

New warmth dripped down her back as blood pooled in what was left of the open wound and she fought to stop the flow in order to retain as much of her body's precious cells as possible to help with the healing. The conscious act caused her mind to automatically send warm healing pulses throughout the rest of her body, which pushed the other pieces of shrapnel out as well and repaired her damaged skin and torn muscles. She hardly noticed when the extended healing session also caused her hair to grow out until it brushed past her shoulders, though she appreciated the little extra warmth. She felt the last of her cells knitting themselves together and sagged in exhaustion against the tree.

Her head was pounding and a wave of dizziness nearly sent her to the ground. She reached out to steady herself against a tree trunk and noticed a piece of cloth loosely wrapped around her wrist. It meant nothing to her and she absently pulled it off before continuing on her way.

Clouds moved in, darkening the bright moonlit sky to a dim gray and it began to snow. Large flakes fell in clumps, landing on her shoulders and catching in her hair. As they melted from the touch of her heated skin, they released tiny rivulets of water that worked to wash away the dried blood. She hugged herself against the biting cold, unconsciously sending random healing pulses to try to keep herself warm.

As the wind picked up, the flakes lost their fluffiness, becoming smaller and colder. The hard needlelike pellets stung her cheeks and arms. She tried to hold her hands up in front of her face to block the driving snow, but that left her torso exposed, so she went back to hugging herself.

As the storm raged on, what little moisture remained on her skin froze, coating her in a layer of ice. More ice crystals formed on her eyelashes until she could only squint against the harsh wind. The last vestiges of the most recent healing pulse faded and she began to shiver uncontrollably.

Time ceased to have any meaning. She felt as though she had always been walking like this. There was no past or future, only now. She kept putting one foot in front of the other, even as the snow became deeper and deeper. After some time, it reached up past her knees, making every step that much more difficult, until it became nearly impossible for her to move. Eventually, she stopped shivering, her whole body having gone numb to the cold.

She leaned against a tree to rest and closed her eyes against the biting snow. Consciousness started to leave her and she slid down the tree, the rough bark digging into her lower back, though she could hardly feel it through her frozen skin. In a last-ditch effort to save herself, her mind gathered what was left of her reserves and sent a final healing pulse through her tortured body, but it only raised her temperature by a few degrees and did nothing to heal the scratches she'd gained from the shrubs she'd passed through on her way down the mountain.

The sudden snapping of a tree branch heavy with accumulated snow and ice made her panic and she took off again, stumbling headlong through the trees.

Suddenly, there were no more trees and the ground was flat. She barely had time to catch herself as her legs hit some kind of obstruction and she started to topple forward into the blackness beyond a steep drop-off. She scrabbled for any kind of handhold and quickly pulled herself back over the barrier and away from the edge of the cliff, not stopping until she was once again near the relative safety of the tree line.

As she climbed unsteadily to her feet, she heard a faint rumbling sound that grew louder with each passing moment. She turned to hide among the trees, but the sudden motion caused a new wave of dizziness that sent the world spinning, and she dropped where she was. She opened her eyes one last time to see two bright lights side by side through the falling snow. Then she passed out.