"Yeah, I remember your briefing."

The trio made their way to the prepped fighters and within minutes were flying through s.p.a.ce and inside the Kraaqi kingdom.

The Mewiis ship turned and disappeared with a flash of streaking light as it leapt into hypers.p.a.ce. The three humans were now alone.

Several minutes went by in stark silence as their fighters flew toward a bluish point of light-the star that the Kraaqi planet called Dosk orbited. But as the minutes pa.s.sed, the silence seemed to press in upon them. Before long, it seemed they couldfeel the silence.

"I feel so strange," Kyle said at last, breaking the spell.

"Yeah. Me, too." Jaric agreed.

"I dunno. We've got a plan. We know exactly what to do. We've got this set for every contingency,"

Kyle continued.

"Even if the Kraaqi attack and refuse to listen." Jaric added.

"But remember Minstrel's words, 'First Contact is the most important contact.' We have to be extra careful." Becky said. The dark, foreboding silence returned. Outside their windows, the unfamiliar star patterns intensified the unnerving feeling each shared separately.

"Something's not right. I feel it." Kyle said.

Becky looked down at her console and quickly glanced at her sensors. All was normal, only their trio of ships showed up. Becky looked up at the stars all around her- and then it hit her. She sighed and wondered how all of them could have overlooked the obvious.

"This is the first time we've been away from Mother."

Kyle's eyebrows rose at Becky's words. Then his mind went into overdrive as memories flooded before him. Jaric's reaction was similar.

"You're right," they said simultaneously into their comms.

"I can't believe it," Kyle added. "But you're right. This is the first time we've ever left her."

"She's been our whole life." Becky smiled. "The only mother I can remember."

Kyle stared straight ahead into the star field, silent, biting his lip.

"I remember my real mother," Jaric began. "Just barely."

"Mother is our mother." Becky said defensively.

"We've always had Mother's guns to protect us." Kyle said, interrupting her. "Her engines ready to whisk us away from danger." Kyle ran his fingers through his hair. "But it's time we left her ap.r.o.n strings behind. Jaric, keep a sharp eye on your sensors. Becky, as soon as we're in range, begin a sweep of the planet. We're looking for a small, remote Kraaqi settlement. A nice, quiet corner to meet these beings."

"Gotcha'." Becky said.

"We'll make Mother proud," Kyle finished.

The journey continued with little conversation, each one deep in their own thoughts. Though their thoughts were going in different directions, they began at the same moment in time and with the same point of origin; what growing up and leaving Mother meant.

Becky glanced at her reflection in the port window. She saw a woman's face staring back at her. It caused an odd stirring in her heart- deep in the eyes she could still see the child she had once been. In the face, she could see the woman she had become. But the reflection was a shimmering, surreal image with the stars shining through her in a ghostly fashion as her small ship continued its journey. As she stared, it suddenly seemed that the person she was looking at wasn't herself- it was some other person- a fleeting stranger who seemed somewhat familiar, but....

The woman in the vision shivered and took a deep breath.

I see a woman.But sometimes I feel exactly the way I did when I was a child. Becky stared at the image of the ghostly woman with the stars twinkling through her. Am I a child in a woman's body? Do Kyle and Jaric feel the same way in their minds about themselves-deep inside they're still a child?Becky laughed to herself. Perhaps I'll feel like a child even when I'm an old woman-all gray and wrinkled but with a twinkle still in my eyes.

She sighed deeply, trying to a.n.a.lyze her feelings. She realized with a flash of insight that she was the same person as that little girl she used to be. She just had more memories now, more life experiences.

But in some ways, she hadn't changed.

Jaric and Kyle still act like boys even though they are older than I am. In many ways more so. She chuckled softly.Maybe boys never really grow up after all.

Becky felt something stir inside her soul as her thoughts traveled back in time. Back to her childhood long ago. Back to Mother and a feeling that seemed so familiar, so nice. Something she had not felt for many, many years. A sound. Suddenly she realized that she was humming as her thoughts were meandering down various mental paths.

The melody was an old but lovingly familiar one, unheard for many years now.

Becky smiled, and hummed the gentle, flowing tune a little louder. It was perhaps the most special music she had ever known. She thumbed the comm b.u.t.ton, and the melody went out to the other two ships.

In each ship, Jaric and Kyle looked down at their speaker in unison. They both laughed softly.

"That's the song Mother used to play to put us to sleep," Jaric said as he, too, remembered.

"Back in the old days," Kyle said. But even Kyle's heart warmed with the soft humming that continued from Becky.

"I've got two targets," Jaric said, breaking in.

"I have them, too," Kyle said as his eyes dropped to his sensor screen.

Becky had only just begun her sensor sweep of the planet that filled half of their vision now with its close proximity. But she had already noticed that any kind of cities must be few and far between. In fact, she had yet to detect the first settlement at all.

"There's a lot of empty s.p.a.ce down there. Should we make a break, or try a little ship-to-ship diplomacy up here?" Becky asked.

"There're coming in pretty hot now." Jaric said.

The twin targets on their sensors had suddenly veered directly for their own formation. As they drew closer, their slim, gray profiles took shape. The Kraaqi fighters were long and dangerous looking, the bulbous rear obviously housing the engines while from their spear-like prows there extended several ominous shapes.

"Okay, watch'em close. I'll give it a try." Kyle adjusted his comm to broadcast on all frequencies.

Taking a deep breath, he began. "This is Kyle Brandon, we are on a diplomatic mission. We are humans, on a peaceful mis..."

The laser bolts leapt from both Kraaqi fighters and pa.s.sed directly in front of Kyle's fighter. "Move!" Kyle shouted.

The three arrowhead-shaped human fighters dove apart in the same number of directions with a practiced precision.

"Should we shoot back?" Jaric shouted as he punched his engines wide open.

"No!" Kyle shouted back.

"Then what?" Becky yelled.

"At least they're lousy shots," Jaric said.

"No they're not, those are warning shots. Let me think a second." Kyle said as he jerked his fighter over and barely avoided a deadly bolt.

Jaric was twisting his ship out of a hard maneuver when his hand hit the comm b.u.t.ton. "Kraaqi ships, we come in peace. We come in peace. Hold your fire..." With a lightning motion, he was turning hard to avoid the bolts now heading straight for his ship.

The twin Kraaqi fighters turned again.

Becky's ship shuddered under a direct hit. Glancing at her console, she saw her shields drop thirty percent.

"Well, I'm tired of thinking," Becky grumbled. Kicking her foot controls hard, Becky turned on the pursuer over her right shoulder. Her finger pressed the firing contact. "Think on this," she laughed. Her bolts shot true, and the Kraaqi ship veered away, minus some of its shields.

"Becky. I ordered you to hold..." Kyle began.

"Whoa. I've got something big on my scope now, Big K." Jaric shouted through the comm.

Four frigate-cla.s.s warships suddenly appeared from hypers.p.a.ce. They were shaped in similar long profiles as the smaller fighters, but the forward sections seemed oversized. All along the length of the hulls their main guns extended in two deadly rows. The four warships turned as one toward the diminutive human fighters.

"I suggest you start thinking a bit faster." Becky said with rising concern.

Kyle growled over his comm. He nodded decisively. "Okay, let's make a run down to the planet.

Maybe if we can meet them face to face..."

"... they can probably kill us faster." Jaric finished for him.

"Enough. We can't battle those frigates. It's our only choice." Becky turned her ship for the orangish planet. "Unless we turn and run, and we can't do that." She said as her ship leapt forward.

"Let's go." Kyle's ship surged after her.

"I knew I should have packed my running shoes," Jaric shouted. The edge of the planet grew on their viewscreens as their ships raced for its atmosphere. Behind them, more Kraaqi fighters spewed from the frigates. As the human ships neared the atmosphere and dove toward the orange surface, only the Kraaqi fighters continued after them. Above them, the four frigates began to orbit the planet at strategic positions, cutting off any hope of retreat.

"Hit it." Kyle shouted as the Kraaqi fighters drew too near. Laser bolts leapt all around his ship as he nosed down toward the surface.

It was only as the three human ships pierced and roared through the planet's atmosphere that the first Kraaqi words were uttered to them.

"Stop. You are desecrating. Stop."

"What does that mean?" Becky shouted into her comm.

"Look, they're slowing down." Jaric said.

"They're still following us. Let's get down... hey, what's going on?" Kyle said.

"Their engine signatures have changed." Becky began punching her console, trying to get a better reading on the new Kraaqi engine signature on her sensor. Her face grew more puzzled by the second.

"I've never seen anything like that before."

"Sort of like... waves of energy?" Jaric cast a quick glance at his ship's sensors. "Their engines seem to be reacting to the planet's gravity."

"Record it for later a.n.a.lysis. Let's find a place to land," Kyle ordered.

"One that has a hidey-hole, I hope." Jaric smiled.

Becky found the spot just inland on the eastern coast of the lone continent that girdled the entire planet.

It was in a narrow valley, one not easily attacked from the air, protected by huge overhanging cliffs on three sides. The three ships landed just short of a nearby forest and with some quick maneuvering, they parked their ships under the protective limbs at the forest's edge.

Walking out into the meadow before them, they watched in silence as twelve Kraaqi fighters landed with an eerie silence at the far end about two hundred yards away.

"I've never heard engines so quiet before. What can they be?" Jaric commented.

"It's almost like they just floated down, under no power," Becky added.

Kyle looked up from his hand-held sensor. "No, they're under power. But like nothing I've ever registered before. It seems to be some kind of gravitational power source. Maybe..."

"Here they are," Becky interrupted.

The Kraaqi warriors strode forward, heads held high with obvious confidence. Most were dark skinned, though the last two had skin of a much lighter complexion. All carried short-barreled blasters in their hands pointed in the direction of the waiting trio. But there were other weapons still holstered orsheathed on the wide leather belts wrapped around each of their waists. Their muscular torsos were covered with a type of leather-tanned animal skins which added to the ferocious image of a warrior-hunter.

Becky's eyes widened as they drew near.

The Kraaqi didn't have hair, not like humans anyway. Their faces were human-like: two eyes, a nose and a mouth. But there the resemblance ended. On each side of their heads, just above their web-like ears, a large and dangerous looking horn curved outwards. The rest of their heads were hairless except for a single strip of jet-black hair which began from the middle of their foreheads and extended straight over the top of their heads and then hung down freely across their backs.

But it wasn't hair. The trio strained to make it out more clearly.

Feather-hair. Large, flowing feather-hair locks that hung down between their broad, muscular shoulders like some kind of weird, Mohawk haircut.

Jaric turned to Kyle and whispered.

"The proverbialbad-hair aliens, eh?" He chuckled.

Kyle eyed him sternly.

"Shut up," Becky said, nervousness edged in her voice.

Kyle stared straight ahead at the approaching warriors. "Leave your weapons in their holsters. They've already noticed that we don't have ours out."

"Or they would have started shooting by now," Jaric added.

The Kraaqi formed a semi-circle around the three humans. Dark eyes looked the trio up and down with keen interest. The apparent leader moved closer to Jaric.

Jaric's eyes widened, and he almost stepped backwards.

"He's taken you as the leader," Kyle whispered quickly. "Stay put."

Jaric swallowed as he watched the horned warrior stop right in front of him.

"We have come..." Jaric began.

"Silence!" The huge warrior shouted. He looked at Kyle with blatant distaste, but then his eyes moved with a piercing, questioning glance to Becky. A second warrior stepped beside him and whispered hurriedly under his left horn. The Kraaqi leader nodded, and he looked at all three of the humans with sudden intensity. He spoke quickly, and to the point.