45-7, mark 20.

It was a quiet morning at the Power Base. Scout was doing random scans of the comm channels. Pilot and Tank were performing routine maintenance on the Jumpship. Hawk was finishing up breakfast. Power had gone up on the roof, his favorite place for sitting and thinking.

After polishing off his mug of ersatz coffee, Hawk wandered into the control room.

"Anything interesting out there, Scout?"

"Nothing. Everybody in the Resistance must be enjoying a quiet day too. I haven’t picked up anything on our frequencies all morning. Wait a minute . . ." Scout squinted at his screen, suddenly finding something worth his attention.

"What is it?"

"Maybe nothing, but . . ." Scout made some adjustments. His eyes widened as a text message popped up on his screen. He gestured to Hawk. "You see this?"

"I’ll get the others. This could be really big."

Within thirty seconds, the rest of the team was huddled around the console.

"What’ve you got?" Power leaned over Scout’s shoulder.

"I was scanning the Resistance frequencies when I came across this distress signal. It was pretty faint, so I gave it a boost – that’s when I found this embedded within the SOS." Scout flipped a switch and pointed to the words on the screen.

"See . . . Rock . . .City . . ." Power read with amazement. He turned to Hawk. "It couldn’t be—"

"Tinker?" Hawk finished his thought. "I know, it’s impossible. But who else could it be?

"Tinker?" Pilot asked.

"Tom Rutledge. An old friend of ours with the Southern Resistance. ‘See Rock City’ was his idea of a joke. He used to stick it in all his comm messages. Back in the fall of 42, Dread found his team’s base at Sandhill and destroyed it. We had no reason to believe anyone could have survived the attack," Power told her.

"Until now," Tank spoke up.

"Scout, where’s that signal coming from?" Power asked.

"Not far from here. Looks like it’s right on the edge of White Rock. If this signal is from Tinker’s people, they’re a long way from home."

"Could be a trap. Maybe Dread got his hands on some of Tom’s old comm equipment," Hawk pointed out.

"We should check it out anyway. Pilot, Tank – you’re with me. Scout, Hawk – you stay here and scan for Dread activity. Let us know if you pick up anything in that sector. We’ll check in as soon as we find the source of the signal."

Thirty minutes later, they touched down outside the ruins of White Rock.

"Pilot, stay with the ship and keep an eye out for visitors. Yell if you see anything. Tank, let’s go see who’s out there."

"POWER ON!"

Their scanners showed the signal was coming from a nearby bombed-out building. As they entered, Power wondered what this structure had housed before the war. It looked like some sort of factory, but most of the inner workings had been twisted and blasted beyond all recognition. He and Tank picked their way through the rubble to a bare place in the center of the floor. A small transmitter was lying there. Tank picked it up. "Well, here’s the source of our signal, Captain." He turned it over in his hand a few times before shutting it off.

"Yeah, but who set it off?" Power looked around. There was no one in sight.

"Hey! Anybody here?"

Silence.

"This is Captain Power! I’m looking for Colonel Rutledge!" He paused. "Anyone here want to show me Rock City?"

His voice echoed in the cavernous shell. Another silence followed.

He raised his wristlink, "Pilot, we’ve got noth—"

He stopped short when he heard the thud. Then he heard it again. He and Tank turned to each other in astonishment. "What the—" Tank started as Pilot’s voice came in on the link.

"Captain, what’s going on?"

"Standby, Pilot," Power told her. As the thudding continued, he and Tank circled around, looking for its source. Then Power spotted it. A grille in the wall – probably covering a ventilation shaft – just a few yards from where they had been standing. With Tank covering him, Power reached out to pull off the grille. But the grille popped out before he even touched it. A small figure in a dark green cap and fatigues fell after it

Power and Tank both powered down. Power dropped to his knees and pulled the cap from the soldier’s head. A braid of dark brown hair fell across her shoulder. Power recognized her immediately. She was Tinker’s daughter.

"Lark?"

She didn’t respond. Power put his hand on her shoulder and gently shook her.

"Kiara?"

Slowly, she raised her head. Green eyes in an emaciated, sunburned face stared back at him. "Jon?" She turned her gaze to his right. "Tank? . . .Thank God." Her words came out in almost inhuman croaks.

"Yeah. I can’t believe it. You’re alive."

Lark opened her mouth to speak again, but no words came. Power realized her throat was too dry. He motioned to Tank, who quickly unscrewed his canteen and handed it over. Power held it to Lark’s cracked lips. She gulped several swallows gratefully – nearly draining the container. She nodded her thanks as Power raised the canteen.

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. I can’t believe you found me." Now her voice sounded like the one he remembered – musical, with just a trace of Southern accent.

"Where’s the rest of the team?"

She shook her head. Power understood – they must all be dead.

"I’ve got a message from Dad."

"It can wait. Right now, we’ve got to get you out of here. Can you walk?"

"I don’t think so. My leg . . . I fell yesterday . . . coming down the ridge. I’m sure it’s not broken . . . but I don’t think I can push on it any more."

Power spoke into his wristlink. "Pilot? I need you to get the medi-bunk ready. We’re bringing a passenger aboard and she’s not looking too good."

"Understood. Just one?"

"Yeah." Power turned his attention back to Lark. "Just hang on. We’ve got you now." He started to pick her up.

"I could carry her, Captain."

"That’s all right, Tank. I’ve got her."

"Wait . . . my gear . . ." Lark protested as Power lifted her up.

"I’ve got it, Lark." Tank pulled a backpack out of her hiding place.

"Let’s go."

Pilot began scanning her new patient as soon as Power put her down on the bunk. "The left ankle’s badly sprained. Besides that, she’s dehydrated, half-starved, and it looks like she hasn’t slept in at least two days."

"Three. And I’m still awake, so don’t talk about me like I’m not here."

Pilot flushed. "Sorry."

Lark squinted back at her. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

Power cut in. "That’s right, you’ve never met. She just joined us last year. Kiara – this is Corporal Jennifer Chase – code-name ‘Pilot.’ Jennifer, meet Corporal Kiara Rutledge – code-name ‘Lark.’"

"Sergeant Rutledge . . ." Lark murmured as she closed her eyes.

It was Power’s turn to feel awkward. "I stand corrected."

His comlink bleeped. "Come in, Captain."

"What is it, Scout?"

"I’ve just picked up two Phantom Strikers heading for the sector you’re in."

"ETA?"

"Thirty minutes. You’d better get out of there now."

"Thanks, Scout. We’re on our way."

"She’s stable, Captain – they can finish patching her up at the Passages," Pilot volunteered. Realizing what she had done, she braced herself for another rebuke from Lark. But the young sergeant lay still and said nothing. "It’s okay, Captain," Pilot added hastily, looking at the scanner readings on the bunk. "She’s just fallen asleep, and I’m sure that’s the best thing for her right now."

"All right, Pilot. We’ll take care of her ourselves. Set a course for home."

"Captain—"

"The Base is closer, and I gave you an order," he answered in a harsh whisper. She nodded and headed to her seat. Power turned to his lieutenant. "Tank, keep an eye on her. Better go ahead and blindfold her now to be on the safe side. If she wakes up, tell her where we’re heading and explain our precautions to her. She’ll understand. And make sure there aren’t any surprises."

Tank took his meaning. Neither of them wanted to believe the situation was any different from its surface appearance, but Dread had set up traps even more elaborate than this.

Distasteful as it was, they had to check their passenger and her pack for bugs.

Ten minutes later . . .

"Pilot, any sign of those Strikers picking up our trail?"

"Negative, Captain. They’re still at the other end of the sector. Looks like they’re just doing a regular sweep of the area. I don’t think they even know we’re here."

"Let’s hope it stays that way. Tank, how’s Lark doing?"

"Sleeping like a log," Tank stepped up to the command chair. "No bugs on her clothing or her gear, and no implants either," he added in a lower voice "but I found this in her boot." He held out a mini-disc.

Power took it and turned it over in his hands. "That must be Tinker’s message. I’ll play it back when we get back to Base."

Luckily, the rest of the trip passed quietly. Pilot parked the Jumpship in the hangar twenty minutes later. This time, Power let Tank carry Lark as they disembarked. Hawk and Scout were waiting for them.

"Did you find—" Hawk stopped short. "Good God, that can’t be—"

"It’s Lark," Power confirmed.

"What about Tinker – and the others?"

Power shook his head and turned to Tank. "Take her to sickbay. Pilot, go with them. I want you to look after her. After you’re through working her up, we’ll take turns watching her. I don’t want her to be alone when she wakes up."

As Tank and Pilot headed for sickbay, Power pulled the mini-disc out of his breast pocket. "This is from Tinker. Let’s go see what he had to say."

An hour later, Power checked in at sickbay to find Pilot bent over Lark. Pilot had cleaned up her patient and swapped her filthy fatigues for a clean blue T-shirt and khaki pants. She had even been thoughtful enough to take Lark’s hair out of its braid and comb it thoroughly with dry shampoo. But she hadn’t neglected the essentials. Lark’s leg was in a brace and she had an IV in her arm.

"How is she?"

Pilot straightened up. "Not too bad. She should only need the IV for a few more hours."

"And the leg?"

"That’s the worst. With all the ligament and tendon damage, she’ll be on crutches for at least two weeks – maybe more."

Power took a seat next to the bed. Pilot sat down beside him.

"So, she’s Tinker’s daughter?"

"Yeah. He had a son too. Mike. He was a lieutenant in the Resistance. They called him Falcon."

"You knew them well?"

"As well as you can know anyone when you live on opposite sides of the country. Mike and I were about the same age. He and Mitch and I used to play ball whenever our families got together. Kiara was five years younger than we were – we didn’t have as much in common."

"How did you know them so well if you lived so far apart?"

"Tinker and Hawk used to serve together. They were very close friends. All of us became like one big extended family. We all used to get together at least once a year."

He looked down at Lark. "It’s strange to see her so still. She was always such a live wire. Whether we were playing ball or being drilled by Hawk and Tinker, she always tagged along. She wanted to prove she could do anything the big boys could. I never understood why. She had impressive talents enough of her own."

"Like what?"

"She was a good athlete in her own right – a gymnast and a swimmer. She had a great ear for languages, and for music. She played over a dozen different musical instruments – I don’t think she ever found one she couldn’t learn. But her greatest talent has always been her voice."

"She was a singer?"

"Oh, yes. Beautiful. But I didn’t just mean singing. She’s also a great teller."

"A teller?" Pilot had never heard the term before.

"A storyteller. You’ll find out for yourself when she wakes up." Power looked back at Lark wistfully. "We all had some good times together – until the last year before the war broke out."

"What happened?"

"Tinker and Dad had a falling out – over a lot of things – but mostly it was about Taggert. Tinker never trusted him. He told Dad if he kept working with Taggert he’d come to regret it. He was good enough never to say ‘I told you so’ to any of us. It was really hard – losing all of them. Not just for us but for the whole Southern Resistance. When Dread destroyed Sandhill, it meant the loss of their second-largest division."

Power paused for a moment.

"If only one of them could make it, I’m glad it’s Lark. She’s got a phenomenal memory. Near-perfect recall. She’s the best one to fill us in on those missing three years."

"So that’s why you wanted to bring her straight here."

Power nodded. "I wanted us to have plenty of time to debrief her ourselves. Trying to get her whole story at The Passages wouldn’t have been practical."

Pilot could read between the lines.

"But that’s not the only reason you brought her here."

"No."

Just then, Hawk stuck his head into the room. "I’ll take my turn with her now, if you want."

"Thanks, Hawk. I need to show Tinker’s message to Pilot."

They went to the control room and Power popped the disc into the console. Pilot watched as the image of a haggard, silver-haired man appeared.

"Hello, Jon. I’m sure you’re surprised to get this message from beyond the grave. I’ll leave it to Kiara to tell you how that came to pass. I hope you’ll forgive me a lie. There is no vital information on this disc. I just told that to the kids to get them to leave. Everything’s gone to hell here. There’s almost nothing left of our little band. Best I can tell, there’s not much left of the Southern Resistance either. I know it won’t be much longer until Dread finds our hiding place. I’m not about to let my kids die like rats in a cage. That’s why I sent them to find you. You and Matt were always the best hope we had, Jon. If anyone can get through this war, you can."

Tinker paused to cough.

"If they make it through to you, I want Michael and Kiara under your command, Jon. There’s no one else I would trust more with their lives. I know you can use them. You won’t find a better shot than Mike, you know that. He’ll never let you down. As for Kiara—"

He was interrupted by another coughing fit.

" As Shakespeare said, ‘When she is angry, she is keen and shrewd . . . And though she be but little, she is fierce,’ " Tinker smiled. "I’ve never known a soldier with more heart. She’ll do just about anything you ask of her. I know it’s a hell of a favor to ask, Jon. I know you only take the best for your team. Well, I want the best for my kids. I trust you to do right by them – and by me.

"Tell the kids I love them. See Rock City. Good luck, and good-bye."

The message cut out. Power turned to Pilot.

"I’ll tell you what I told the others. Don’t say anything to Lark about this. I’ll share it with her when the time’s right."

At 6 AM the next day, Lark woke up. She turned her head to see Pilot sitting beside her bed, smiling at her.

"Good morning."

"Morning." Lark sat up, stretched, and shook her head, as if trying to clear it. "How long was I out?"

"About eighteen hours. You must feel a lot better since you got some rest and we got you re-hydrated."

Lark nodded as she touched her hair. She was surprised to find it clean and hanging loose around her face. Then she noticed her clean clothes. "You did all this?"

"Yes. Jon – the Captain asked me to look after you."

"Thank you." Lark turned her attention to her leg. "I guess you’ll also be fitting me with a pair of crutches. I know I won’t be walking on this for at least a couple of weeks, given the degree of ligament damage. The Achilles is in bad shape too. I bet it’s within a hairsbreadth of rupturing."

"You’re right, but how did you know? You didn’t have a medscanner on you when we found you."

Lark shrugged. "I’ve learned to diagnose a lot more than that without a scanner. I played medic a lot over the years – under some really primitive conditions too."

"With a name like Lark, I thought you were a pilot."

"Oh, but I was. I’ve also been a comm tech, mechanic, scrounger, springer, tunnel rat. You name it, I’ve probably tried my hand at it. I did my best to fill in wherever there was a need."

Before Pilot could say anything to this, Hawk stuck his head into sickbay.

"I thought I heard voices. Kiara, you little Sandlapper, how are you?"

"Hawk. It’s so good to see you." Lark broke into a smile as he hugged her.

"I’ll get the others," Pilot told them, edging out the door. She found them all in the control room. "Your friend’s awake," she told them – not prepared for just how quickly they would rush to sickbay.

"Lark! Welcome back to the world of the living!"

"Thank you, Scout," Lark grinned as she hugged him back. Then her eyes widened as Tank grabbed her in a big bear hug. She looked over his shoulder at Power. "Hey, Jon," she said softly. "Did you play Dad’s message?"

"Yeah, I did."

Hawk spoke up quickly to distract her. "You must be starved. How about some breakfast?"

"I could eat."

"Good. Pilot, you’ll get her crutches?" Pilot nodded. "The rest of us will go put the menu together."

"I’ll take anything, but if we’re having powdered eggs, make sure Scout doesn’t burn them." Lark said with a grin.

"And when have I ever done that?" Scout asked with mock indignation.

"Your last visit to our base. 42-8, mark 2. I remember Sonny said he was never letting you anywhere near our stove again."

Scout rolled his eyes. "We would have to get the one with the photographic memory."

Lark smiled after him as he left with the others. "Man, have I ever missed those guys."

She turned back to face Pilot. "Yes, I really do have a photographic memory. Let me tell you, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. You have no idea how much I’d love to forget." Lark’s smile faded.

Pilot decided to change the subject. "I’ll get those crutches for you."

She rummaged about in a closet, hoping she would find a pair short enough. Even in her Dread Unit, Pilot had always been one of the smallest – but this new arrival was even shorter than she was. She couldn’t be more than five feet tall – if that. How had such a fragile looking girl survived for so long out there?

"These are the smallest we have."

"They should be fine." Lark hopped off her bed to try them out. She took several swings around the room and nodded with satisfaction. "Yup, they’ll do." She leaned back against the bed and looked at her ankle with a critical eye. "You did a really good job with this. Were you a medic once yourself?"

"Yes. I was at a MedLab before I came here."

"Really? Where were you stationed?

Pilot hesitated, as she always did when talking about her past. People usually froze her out after they found out what she had been. Still, Jon had told her that it was best to simply tell the truth.

"Actually, it was with the Dread Youth." She steeled herself for the inevitable reaction of shock and horror. To her surprise, Lark merely raised her eyebrows.

"I defected – a little over a year ago. The UTO trained me to be a pilot – it was always my dream to be a flier – and then – Jon – the Captain – had me join the team. I guess because he and the others were the ones who found me in the first place." Pilot was surprised at how the words spilled out of her. Those three sentences were the most she’d volunteered of her past to anyone outside the team.

Lark stared back at her with an inscrutable expression. "Great day," she finally said in a hushed voice.

"I can imagine what you must think of me now."

"I think you must be someone really special for Jon to ask you to be part of his team. He and Hawk have always been great judges of character – with one notable exception that proves the rule. If you’re here, you must be all right." Lark broke into a grin and stuck out her hand. Smiling back, Pilot accepted the handshake.

"Now, what do you say we head for the kitchen and make sure the men leave some food for us?"

At breakfast, Lark spent almost as much time talking as she did eating – laughing over old jokes and memories with the rest of the team. She was careful not to exclude Pilot – deliberately drawing her into the conversation as much as possible. Power smiled to see how well the girls were hitting it off. Pilot was fascinated by the new arrival and was asking her a lot of questions.

"How did you come up with your code-names? They’re so unusual."

Lark chuckled. "Well, we’ve always been unusual people."

"Tell her the story about your dad’s name, Kiara."

"Oh, no, you tell it, Hawk. After all, you were there."

"Yes, but you’re the teller," Hawk insisted.

"Oh, all right. It was back when he and Hawk first met in the service. They were on leave together – and they were at the lake with the rest of their squad, water-skiing. Anyway, Dad and Hawk were trying to teach this private – Buddy Meares – how to barefoot. Meares was trying and trying and just not getting it – and finally Dad told him, ‘Buddy, you can do it, all you have to do is believe!’ Well, Sergeant Carson just stood up in the back of the boat and yelled, ‘Hot damn! Tinkerbell lives!’"

The men all laughed at the old story. Pilot took a moment to get the Peter Pan reference. "So-"

"So, the entire squad started calling Dad ‘Tinkerbell.’ Then it spread to the whole base."

"We mercifully shortened it to ‘Tinker’ after a while," Hawk said, still chuckling.

"And you?" Pilot asked.

"I like flying and singing, and I’m usually an early riser. Hence, ‘Lark’."

Lark pushed back her plate. "Enough. You want to know what happened out there."

Her abrupt change in tone shocked them all into silence. Power broke it.

"You’ve been through a lot. If you’re not ready—"

"I want to get this over with."

Power nodded. "All right." He looked up at the rest of the team. "I want to have Mentor record all this." All of them nodded agreement.

Lark was puzzled. "Mentor?"

Power patted her on the shoulder. "You’ll see."

They led Lark down the hall to the control room.

Lark stared at the incredible mass of technology. "Great day in the morning! No wonder y’all keep this place top secret!"

"You ain’t seen nothing yet," Scout grinned.

Power turned to the center console. "Mentor?"

Lark gasped as the hologram of Stuart Power appeared. "Doctor Power?"

"No. Mentor is a holographic computer program created around Stuart’s image. It was his way of making sure he would always be with us," Hawk told her.

"I’ll be dogged." Lark hobbled forward, leaned against the console, and put her hand up against the tube, staring at Mentor in wide-eyed wonder.

"Go ahead. Say something to him," Power told her.

Lark laughed nervously. "Hello, Mentor. This is Lark."

"Voice-print and retinal scan confirmed. Kiara Rutledge, code-name ‘Lark’, late of the Southern Resistance."

Lark shook her head in amazement. "This is incredible."

Power stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder. "Ready whenever you are."

She nodded and took a seat.

"I guess I should begin at the beginning – the day they destroyed Sandhill." She took a deep breath and launched into her story.

"They must have jammed our security systems. We had no warning. One second, I was sitting at my station – and Buck was telling me a joke. The next, I was on the floor across the room. There was smoke everywhere and I couldn’t hear anything for the ringing in my ears. I looked up and I saw Buck – maybe a yard away. He was already dead – he’d broken his neck."

She went on to describe a scene of total chaos. Standard evacuation plans were tossed out the window. All the soldiers just grabbed whatever they could and ran – while laser blasts rained down and walls fell all around them.

"How did you get out?" Scout interrupted. "When we got there, we saw that all the escape tunnels had collapsed."

Lark explained. Several of them had reached one tunnel before it failed. The entrance had caved in behind them – burying two men. Miraculously, the rest found their way out before the entire tunnel crumbled. Out of forty-three people, ten got out alive.

"Then we realized we were in serious trouble. All our transports were either blown up or buried. Our radioman was one of the two lost in the tunnel. All we had were our short-range comlinks – we couldn’t get through to you or the Resistance. And neither of our two evac plans was viable. We’d always planned to either head up to the mountains or down to the Sea Islands. We found out pretty quickly that Dread had us cut off both ways. There was only one place Dread wouldn’t look for us because we’d be crazy to go there – the swamp. We figured, ‘good enough for our ancestors in the Revolution, good enough for us.’ "

But life in the swamp had proven hard – even for trained survival experts. They had started with grand plans. They would pull off a few commando raids on supply depots – get weapons, ammo, and one or two usable vehicles – then they would punch through Dread’s forces and make their way to the nearest Resistance base. But though a couple of their raids had been moderately successful, most were abject failures. Besides, the swamp presented its own hazards. Life there would have been dangerous enough had the area still been a healthy swamp, but now the place was more cesspool than marshland. Pools of toxic chemicals joined poisonous snakes and diseases like malaria as hazards of daily life. Their raids began to focus more on food and medicine than on vehicles and weapons. Soon, the team was far from its idea of joining back up with the nearest Resistance cell. They were just hanging on by their fingernails, struggling to survive.

"We lost Fireball and Rabbit the first year," Lark told them. "And by this time last year, we were down to five. We thought we were going to get through the winter okay, then Sonny and Tripp both relapsed. Malaria. They’d both had it in the summer. We didn’t have any quinine. We didn’t have anything. Dad sat down with me and Mike – told us he figured Sonny and Tripp weren’t going to make it, and we were all going to die if we stayed in the swamp. He said he had a disc of notes he’d made over the years. We needed to get it to you. He knew we’d never find your base on our own, but he thought we could find someone in the Resistance who could put us in touch with you. He said our best bet was to head west – all the way to Angel City if we could – and find Cypher. If anyone could get ahold of you, he knew Cypher could.

"Dad said we’d have to go without him – he couldn’t leave Sonny and Tripp to die alone. He gave me the disc and the transmitter. He said only use the transmitter as a last resort, because Dread might answer it before any of our friends could. He said the odds were we wouldn’t even last a day out in the open, but it was better to go with slim chances of two making it than with all of us having no chance. He said we had no time to lose – Mike and I had to leave right away. So we grabbed our gear and we hugged him good-bye. We made good time at first. We got out of the swamp and put almost twenty klicks behind us before we made camp. "

Lark paused to dab away a few tears.

"The next morning, when we got up, at first we thought we were just looking at the strangest sunrise we had ever seen. Then we realized it was too early for sunrise."

"Plasma storm," Power said.

She nodded. "From the size of it, the entire swamp must have gone up."

She didn’t have to state the obvious. Nobody could possibly have survived that.

She went on to describe the rest of their six-month journey – hiking through the Tennessee hills, making a perilous crossing of the Mississippi River on a rickety ferryboat, then miles of walking through the dusty Midwest wastelands. Outside the ruins of Wichita, they had met up with a friendly Trader. In exchange for shelter, Lark and Falcon had helped the man rebuild a couple of groundhoppers. Lark had also treated the Trader to her stories and songs. When they finally parted ways, the Trader had given them one of the hoppers and a full tank of fuel, saying they’d paid him with their work and their company.

"We were flying high after that. With the hopper we were covering ground ten times as fast as on foot. We thought – one more week – two at the outside – and we’d be home free in Angel City." Lark paused again and Power realized she’d come to the most difficult part of her story.

"What happened to Mike?" he asked gently.

She bit her lip. "We were out of food, low on fuel, and the hopper broke down on us three times. We saw we weren’t too far from a little town called Sunny Ridge, and we couldn’t help thinking – all we need is a little food and water, some fuel, and a place to rest for a couple days so we can fix the hopper up right. But I also had a bad feeling about the place that I couldn’t explain. Mike told me I was just being paranoid and anyway, there weren’t any other options on the horizon."

She hesitated for a moment, then plunged ahead. "We pulled onto the main drag. There were some men standing around – five of them. They looked ordinary enough – if a little rough around the edges. Mike got off the hopper and asked one of the men if they could spare any food. The man just looked at the hopper and said it looked really beat up. Mike said, ‘We were hoping we could stay here for a couple days while we fix it.’ Then one of the other men said, ‘Maybe we can fix it for you,’ and he pulled out a blaster and shot Mike in the head. Just like that. Cold."

She shuddered. "I grabbed the controls and gunned it. I guess none of them expected that, because nobody got off another shot. I even ran right over one of the bastards – not that I’m sorry. And I just took off."

For the first time, Lark broke down.

"Oh, God! I just left Mike there! I left him! I know . . . I know he was dead before he hit the ground. I still shouldn’t have left him!"

Hawk was sitting closest to her, so he was the one who took her into his arms. He held her and let her cry while the rest of the team watched silently. He waited until her sobs died out before he spoke.

"Kiara, there was nothing you could have done. Mike would have wanted you to save yourself."

She shook her head. "I should have listened to my gut. I should have done a better job of scouting out the town first. I should have known those men were Marauders."

"Mike made the call. What happened was as much his responsibility as yours, if not more. Besides, hindsight is always 20/20," Hawk told her.

"What happened next?" Pilot asked.

Lark sat back, wiping her eyes. "I’m really not sure. It all happened so fast. I know two of them had hoppers of their own – they started chasing me but I had a pretty good jump on them. Then I looked back and they weren’t there any more. I must have lost them, somehow. I kept going until the hopper broke for good the next day. It was just as well. I was running on fumes by then anyway. I left it in a ditch and I set out on foot."

She’d been out there alone like that for a week. Fortunately, Mike had left his canteen on the hopper, so she’d had extra water. She ate whatever she could find, insects mostly. She slept fitfully. On the fourth day, she had awoken to see a Dread convoy crossing the wastelands less than a hundred yards away. Luckily, they hadn’t seen her. She couldn’t sleep at all after that. The day before they had found her, she had used up the last of her water. Out of food, out of water, and out of options, she knew she’d have to send out her SOS. Then she had come to the top of the ridge and seen the ruins of White Rock underneath. At least she would have good cover when she set off her signal.

She wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion or excitement that caused her to miss her footing. The next thing she knew, she was at the bottom of the slope with a badly injured ankle.

"I thought it was all over. I sat there maybe a minute. Then it just hit me. I’m not going to die like this. I picked myself up and I made myself walk to the nearest building."

At this point, Lark stopped and leaned back in her chair, clearly drained.

"I left the transmitter on the floor, found the vent shaft, and crawled up in it so I wouldn’t be a sitting duck if Dreadheads were the first to get to me. You know the rest."

"Thank you, Kiara. I think you’d better get some more rest," Power told her.

"I’ll take you back to sickbay," Tank volunteered.

As he escorted her out, Pilot turned to Power. "Quite a story."

"Yeah."

"Jon, if Lark has a photographic memory, why have Mentor record all that?"

"Because I don’t think she should ever have to tell it again."

That night, Lark asked Power if she could leave sickbay. "I’m not sick, and I’m not a critical case. I’m just sore all over." Power agreed to her request, and so Lark moved into the empty room next to Pilot’s.

Pilot decided to check on Lark before she went to bed. As she raised her hand to knock on the door, she heard a voice inside the room.

"One day, old Buzzard was sitting on a fencepost."

It was Lark, but who was she talking to?

Puzzled, Pilot knocked. The voice continued.

"When his old friend Chickenhawk came flapping up—"

Pilot opened the door. Lark was sitting on the bed, alone. She looked up, startled. Both girls spoke at the same time.

"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you—"

"I’m sorry, I must not have heard you knock."

Pilot looked around, but saw no one else anywhere in the room. "Who were you talking to?"

"Myself, actually." Lark gave a short laugh. "Oh, don’t worry. I haven’t lost my mind. It’s just my way of coping." She looked down at her leg and smiled uneasily. "There’s a theory that when you listen to stories or songs, you don’t feel pain as much."

"If your leg is bothering you, I could get you some painkillers."

Lark shook her head. "That’s okay. It’s not really about the pain, anyway."

She leaned back. "It‘s just a habit I got into. I always told stories, back at Sandhill. Then I told them to Mike, every night when we made camp. After I lost him, I kept on telling them to myself. It kept me going out there. Whenever I thought I couldn’t take another step, I just spun out a tale and followed it to the end. Then I’d come up with another one, and I just kept on like that. I know it must sound strange, but I think that’s what kept me alive. Of course, I did it all in my head, to save my throat. It’s good to find I still have a voice."

Pilot didn’t know what to say.

Lark cocked her head. "Hey, would you like to stay and listen to me for just a bit? I mean, it’s good to have a real live human being for an audience again."

"Okay." Pilot sat down.

"Just a bit" turned into over an hour of Lark weaving tale after tale for Pilot, who found each story more fascinating than the last. She had read all sorts of literary works stored in Mentor’s records – but nobody had ever told her stories like these. She would have loved to listen to even more, but Lark yawned right after finishing "Why The Sea Is Salt." It was only then that Pilot realized how late it was.

"I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kept you up so late. You need to sleep."

"So do you. It’s okay. It was good to tell again, for real. I’ll tell you more tomorrow night, if you want."

"Sure."

So the next evening, Pilot went back to see Lark.

"You want to hear more, huh?" Lark beamed. "I guess you never got any bedtime stories in the Dread Youth."

"No, that wasn’t part of our routine, " Pilot smiled wryly as she took her seat. She sobered quickly. "Stories were forbidden. Dread taught us that they were snares and delusions – lies that people made up to avoid facing reality. He said logic, mathematics, and science were all we needed to fulfill our complete potential."

"That doesn’t surprise me. It’s not just Dread who’s been spreading that whole ‘snare and delusion’ idea around. There have always been people who equate storytelling with lying. The same people who think ‘imagination’ is a dirty word. Actually, storytelling is all about truth. It’s not about avoiding reality. It’s about interpreting it – making sense out of our lives and our world. You understand what I’m saying?

"I think so."

Lark sat back, but instead of beginning a story, she said something that caught Pilot completely off guard.

"You know, I know everybody else’s story here. Jon and Hawk. Tank and Scout. Sometime I’d like to hear yours. I don’t just mean how you got here – I mean the whole thing."

Pilot was taken aback. "I didn’t really have much of a life before I came here. So I guess I don’t have much of a story either."

"Sure you do. Everybody has a story – at least one. Most people just don’t know how to tell it, or they think it’s not worth telling. But everyone has one. Anyway, to be a good teller, it pays to listen as much as you tell. Otherwise, you never learn any new stories."

"Is that how you got your stories? From listening to other people?"

"Most of them. Some of them – it’s like they just popped into my head one day. I have no idea where they come from. You know how people say ‘you just made that up’? I don’t ‘make up’ too many stories myself. It’s like . . . they just come to me." Lark got a faraway, wistful look on her face.

"Lark? Something wrong?"

"Sorry. I guess talking about telling put me in mind of my own story. I wish I could understand it."

"What do you mean?"

"Why I survived. Back in 32, my family cheats death because we’re away visiting friends when Dread launches his surprise attack on our home base. Then I make it out of Sandhill, and then the swamp. Then those Marauders shoot Mike – I get away. By all rights, I should have died about ten times over out there – but I’m still alive. I wish I knew how – or why."

Before Pilot could say anything, Lark shook her head. "Never mind. You came here for a story. I think I’ll tell you about the man who had no story."

"You said everyone had a story."

"This man didn’t. At least, not at first. Now, the tale goes like this . . ."

Every evening after that, Pilot would meet Lark for a round of telling. Lark seemed to have an endless supply of stories. The tales she told ranged from short comic anecdotes to epic tragedies, from ancient tales of faraway lands to stories from her beloved Southland. Some of the tales Pilot enjoyed most were about Lark’s own family. From her immediate family to ancestors from as long as four hundred years ago, her family tree was peopled with an incredible variety of intriguing characters – each with a unique story. Night after night, Pilot sat spellbound by tales of pirates and pilots, soldiers and sailors, moonshine runners and missionaries.

Soon, she wasn’t alone. The rest of the team, overhearing Lark’s telling, joined Pilot in the listening. They all enjoyed it as much as she did. As Lark grew stronger, she also began singing for them – but mostly, she stuck to telling.

A week went by. Power was surprised when one night, he walked into the control room to find Pilot sitting alone at the console. She looked frustrated.

"No. Mentor, that’s not it either."

"Closest match found to your specifications. I am unable to find an exact match for your query."

"Pilot? What are you doing?"

"I – uh – wanted to go over a story Lark told me."

"So why don’t you ask her?"

"She’s asleep. I didn’t want to wake her just for that. So I thought I’d look it up in Mentor’s records, but it’s not there."

"Okay. What was the story about?"

"The sparrow who didn’t want to fly south for the winter."

"Oh, I know that one. Kiara learned it from her grandfather."

"Then why doesn’t Mentor have it?"

"Because it was never written down. That’s just an old folktale that’s been passed along in her family for generations."

Power went on to explain to her that since ancient times, people in almost every culture had passed on stories by oral tradition. The tradition continued even after literacy became widespread. Even in the last few years before the Metal Wars, many stories were still passed on by tellers instead of writers.

"Most of these stories – we don’t know who first told them or where they come from. People just keep passing them on. And now, the tellers are more important than ever. Books, discs, microfilm – they’re all too easy for Dread to destroy. So people rely on tellers. Especially ones like Kiara. Thanks to that incredible memory of hers, Kiara’s got hundreds of them – maybe thousands – locked up in her mind. She may be the only one left who knows some of those stories. I hope you understand what that means, Jennifer. Someone once said the human race would die out if people lost their stories. So what Kiara’s got in her head – that’s a big part of what we’re fighting for."

"Jon . . . is Kiara going to stay with us?"

"For now. At least until her leg heals."

"And after that?"

Power sighed. "I don’t know."

"Well, while she’s here, maybe we should have Mentor record some of her stories."

"That’s a great idea. Let’s talk to her about it in the morning"

Lark jumped at Pilot’s suggestion. Every day, after doing therapeutic exercises for her leg, she would sit at the console and reel off a round of stories. Soon, Mentor wasn’t her only audience. Whenever they weren’t occupied by critical tasks, the members of Power’s team would drift into the control room to listen to her. But the recording took up only a fraction of Lark’s daily routine. Hawk and the others had found all sorts of scut work she could do around the base, and that made her feel useful.

Two months passed. Lark put on all the weight she had lost in the wilderness. She discarded the brace and crutches and walked without even a trace of a limp. Actually, she ran about the base more than she walked – once again the "live wire" Power remembered from the old days. No longer hampered by her injury, she was more of a help to the team than ever. But she wasn’t fully part of the team. She wasn’t allowed outside the Base, even for a breath of fresh air. She had no access to the vehicles, unless she was assisting one of the others in maintenance. The comm equipment and Mentor’s top secret files were also off limits, as were the PowerSuits and their secrets.

Lark never complained about her situation. She seemed content to go about her assigned tasks quietly, and she never pried into anything. But everyone in the Base was thinking the same thing. Lark couldn’t stay in limbo like this for much longer. It wasn’t fair to her or the team.

Power was thinking about this when he walked into the control room to find Lark and Pilot sitting there. They had broken out the deck of cards and were playing Battle. Power smiled to see how they were throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the simple children’s game.

Hawk walked in behind Power and shook his head.

"Shouldn’t you two be doing maintenance on the Jumpship?"

"We finished that over an hour ago," Pilot told him.

"Well, maybe you should go back and do some more."

"I can take a hint." Lark swept up all the cards in two quick motions. "We were just about to start a different game anyway."

"We were?"

"Sure. Tag, you’re It!" Lark tapped Pilot on the shoulder with the deck of cards and ran off, with Pilot hot on her heels.

Both men smiled after them as their laughter echoed down the corridor.

"Those two have really bonded," Hawk commented as he slid into the chair Pilot had left.

"Like sisters." Power smiled as he took the seat opposite.

It was true. Lark had become the older sister Pilot had never had. With her stories and songs and games, she’d given Pilot a lot of the childhood she’d missed in the Dread Youth. In turn, Pilot had given Lark what she needed most – a listening ear – someone to teach.

Hawk broke into Power’s thoughts.

"Jon, you need to make a decision about Lark."

"I know," Power snapped.

"Then why have you put it off so long? It didn’t take this long to plan Pilot’s future. I’ll bet you haven’t even shown her Tinker’s message."

"No, I haven’t."

"Why not? She deserves to know the truth. And whether he should have or not, Tinker put her fate in your hands. You owe it to her not to leave her hanging."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"This wouldn’t have anything to do with what happened at Sandhill, would it?"

"No."

Hawk knew he was lying.

"Jon, I’ll say again what I said three years ago. We were on a mission. Even with the gates, we can’t be everywhere at once. There was nothing we could have done. I don’t think Lark or Tinker or any of the rest ever blamed us for what happened. You can’t let undeserved guilt affect this decision. Now, we have two choices. Either we let Lark in on everything here, give her a suit, and make her part of this team, or we take her to the Passages. It’s one or the other."

"I honestly don’t know which is right, Matt. I know she’s a good soldier. She’s so good for Pilot – for this whole team, but—"

Hawk nodded. "I know. You don’t want her risking her life out there again. Hell, Jon, I love her like she was my own daughter. I don’t want to think about losing her twice either. None of us do."

"It’s not just that – and it’s not just about Sandhill either."

"I know that too." There was a long silence between them. "Jon, Tom trusted you to make the right call. All the rest of us trust you to make it too. You just need to do it."

Power nodded. "All right, but I want to talk to the whole team first. I think they all should be in on this."

The next night, Lark had just finished recording an old English folktale called "The Edge of the World" when Power spoke up.

"Had enough for one night?"

"I guess so. Why?"

"There’s something you need to see."

He popped in the disc and played Tinker’s message in its entirety.

Lark watched in stunned silence, until the very end.

"Oh, Daddy . . ." she whispered.

Then she quickly wiped a tear from her eye and turned to face Power.

"Why are you showing me this now?"

"Kiara, your father left you under my command. And as your commanding officer," Power took a deep breath. "I’m giving you the order to pack your things. Tomorrow you’re going to The Passages."

"I don’t understand."

"We’ve talked it over. We all agree with Jon – it’s the best place for you," Hawk told her.

"No. My place is here. If Dad had wanted me sent to The Passages, he would have told you to take me there." Lark’s face was turning red.

"Kiara, please understand, this was a hard decision–"

"Bushwah! This is because you don’t think I’m good enough for your team! Just like when I was seventeen and both you and Mike were against my joining the Resistance. Neither of you thought I could cut it."

"That is not the reason we—"

"But I hung in with the best of them for almost eight years and I’ve still got plenty of fight left in me! I’ve been a damn good soldier all these years! When there were still meds to be had, I got them when no one else could. I squeezed into sewer pipes and airshafts and all sorts of places where nobody else could go. That’s why Dad sent me out here – because he thought I could to be useful to you. He didn’t send me here for you to patronize me and send me off to safety!"

"Look, we know you’ve been through a lot—"

"What would you know about what I’ve been through, Jon? You don’t know the half of it! You’ve been spending the war in the greatest technological paradise outside of Eden II. What do you know about starvation? What do you know about holding dying soldiers in your arms – and all you can give them is a story or a song because you don’t have any drugs to cut the pain? What do you know about going to sleep each night praying you’ll stay alive just one more day? What would you know about that?"

The team sat silent.

"And I know this – if Mike had made it, you sure as hell wouldn’t have packed him off to The Passages."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Power finally broke it. "Kiara, I don’t know what I would have done with Mike, because he didn’t make it. I do know that you made it for a reason. And you should stop thinking about your wounded pride and start thinking about why I made this decision. I assure you, it has nothing to do with what I think of your abilities as a soldier."

"You need every good soldier you can get out there. If you send me to The Passages, everybody will think I’m either incompetent, or a coward. Well, I’m neither. And now that I’ve got two good legs again, I’m ready to dish out some payback to all those bastards who killed my family – the Dreadheads, the Marauders – all of them! I’ve just been waiting for you to give me the chance!"

"You should think about living for your family instead of dying – or killing – for them," Power told her.

Lark turned her back on him and stalked out of the room. Pilot moved to follow, but Power stopped her.

"Let her go. She just needs to cool off."

Twenty minutes later, Lark quietly walked back into the control room.

"All right, I’ll do it."

She lifted a finger. "I’ll go there just to look around. Then we’ll talk. If I don’t come around to your point of view, you agree to take another look at mine."

"All right," Power told her.

"All right," Lark repeated, and walked back out.

Pilot raised her eyebrows.

"She’s proud and stubborn – like the rest of her family. This way, she can save face if she stays there," Power told her.

"And if she doesn’t ‘come around’?" Pilot asked.

"Let’s jump off that bridge when we come to it."

The next day, Lark reported to the Jumpship, her backpack over her shoulders, "just in case." She meekly let Power blindfold her, and kept silent during the entire trip to the Passages.

While the rest of the team unloaded supplies for the Passages, Power gave Lark the grand tour. He showed her the hangars, the medbays, and the comm stations. He introduced her to various refugees who lived within the Passages – as well as the medics, the technicians, and other workers who kept the place humming. Lark was friendly to everyone she met – and showed interest in learning about all these people and their work. Still, Power wondered what was going on beneath the surface. What was Lark really thinking?

Finally, they made their way back to the hangar. Power was surprised to see a large group of ragtag children sitting on some crates by the Jumpship.

"What’s going on?" Power asked.

"While we were on our way here, a squadron of Phantom Strikers hit a little town called Two Notch. These are the survivors. Jay just brought them in," Pilot informed him.

Power winced. "We should have been there."

"Nobody saw this coming. We wouldn’t have made it in time to help. The whole thing was over in ten minutes." Hawk told him.

"Just children? None of their parents made it?"

"Some. All the adults are with Cynthia. She’s trying to figure out where they’re going to put everybody. Told the kids to just sit tight in the meantime," Scout said.

Lark had moved away from Power and taken a seat next to a little girl on one of the crates.

"Hey. They call me Lark. What’s your name?"

"Grace."

"That’s a pretty name," Lark looked out at the other kids. "Y’all been sitting here long?"

None of them spoke. A few children nodded.

"Well, it could be a lot longer. Maybe we could do something to pass the time." She leaned forward. "Would any of you like to hear a story?"

Silence, and again a few nods.

"Okay. This is a very old story – hundreds of years old. It comes from a place called Thailand. Any of you ever hear of that?"

Head shakes.

"Well, it’s in the Far East, way across the ocean. Anyway, in this far away land, there once was a hunter. And the hunter was walking through the woods one day . . ."

Power smiled, for he recognized the story she was telling. It was the story of the Freedom Bird. He and the rest of the team listened along with the children as she told of how the hunter found a beautiful golden bird that sang an ugly song he couldn’t stand to hear. The hunter shot the bird, took it home, and cut it up into a hundred pieces – but the bird’s song kept echoing in his ears. He knew no peace until he took those hundred pieces, put them in a box, tied a rock to the box and threw it in the river. Then, he heard the song no more – until he went back into the forest a year later, and found a hundred golden birds singing that ugly song – and realized that he had come across the Freedom Bird.

"For the bird is like freedom, it cannot be killed. Neither can the song of freedom be silenced forever."

Her audience responded to the tale with delight, and Lark went on telling stories to the children for half an hour – until Cynthia came back with the news that living quarters had been found for everyone.

Lark waved good-bye to the children as they left, then slung her backpack over her shoulder.

"Well, I reckon I’d better go find whoever’s in charge and tell them to find room for one more."

"So, you’ve decided to stay?" Power asked.

She nodded. "They can use my help in so many places here. Terra told me they’re always shorthanded in the medbays, the comm stations need help, they need teachers for the children and—"

"You could always tell stories," Power volunteered.

Lark grinned. "Yeah, I could."

"I hope now you understand. It was never about doubting your abilities. It was about where you could do the most good."

Lark nodded. "But if you ever do need me—"

"We’ll know where to find you."

"And you know I’ll always be ready to join the fight again. Any time, any place."

"I know. But as long as you’re here, there’s something else we’d like you to do." Power handed her a small recorder.

"We’d like for you to keep up the work you were doing with Mentor. Use this to record your stories. Each time we come here, we’ll pick up the disc from you and enter it into Mentor’s data banks. It’ll be like having a part of you with us."

"Thank you."

"Thank Pilot. It was her idea."

"I should have known." Lark turned to Pilot and gave her a grateful hug. "Hey, remember, I still want to hear your story sometime."

"You got it." Pilot smiled.

Lark hugged all the other team members in turn.

"Y’all don’t know how much I’m gonna miss you."

"Probably as much as we’re going to miss you," Hawk told her.

"We’ll come see you every chance we get," Pilot promised.

"You’d better," Lark looked back up at them all. She was still smiling, but tears also glimmered in her eyes.

"I still have so many stories you haven’t heard."