"You wouldn't happen to have any medical skills, would you?" Captain Quent asked me as he pressed two fingers against Tuck's limp wrist.

"No," I shook my head quickly. "Nothing beyond the basics."

"Then we'll just let him sleep," the Captain decided. "Probably the best thing for him, anyway."

I leaned back against the wall and, in my mind, skimmed over everything that had just happened. I wondered for the hundredth time that day what in the world I was doing there.

My Captain sat down next to me, his back also to the wall. "I don't think I ever got your name," he said kindly. "Or I don't remember, what with everything, if I did."

"It's Brytani Sarliss," I told him. "But everyone just calls me 'Bryt'."

"And I'm Captain Shahan Quent," he said with a smile. "But you can call me 'Shay'. Do you carry a knife with you, Bryt?"

I was startled by the question, but I nodded. "What for?" I asked as I reached into my sheath. "It's still a little dirty from the battle." I pointed out the obvious.

"Easily solved," he said, getting up and passing the knife through the crackling fire a few times. Then he sat back down and raised the knife to his head. I jerked up, alarmed. Then I saw a thick clump of sandy-colored hair fall to the floor. I breathed a sigh or relief, then had to fight to restrain myself from laughing. It had been quite a day.

The Captain used my knife to cut his hair very short, trimming off all the excess that had grown during his months in prison. My changing expression must have been amusing, because he laughed when he looked at me. "Is this your first mission, Bryt?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "Yes."

Shay smiled as he ran my knife through the fire again and handed it back to me. I put it away. His hair was now uneven and looked terrible, but was short enough not to bother him.

"Enjoying the adventure so far?" he asked me.

I hesitated. There were parts I was enjoying: flying, meeting old Harley, leading our army of puffans to the prison. I was enjoying the fact that I'd helped to pull off a jailbreak. I hadn't enjoyed the fighting, though � that chaotic battle. I hadn't enjoyed stabbing at Barons or being stabbed at. Like Mina, I thought. But I would keep fighting, even when I didn't like it. I was sure I would.

"I don't know," I finally answered. "Is it always this...exciting? I mean, is this normal?"

Shay's blue eyes looked amused and sad at once. "I'm sure whatever action you've seen is normal. Be prepared for more of that. But some of this is abnormal. The scene you just saw here in this cave? That's unusual."

"How long were you married for?" It was as stupid curiosity question, but I'd asked it before I could stop myself. I really did have to learn to think before I spoke!

Captain Shay wasn't offended, though. "About four years," he answered me. "We were teammates long before, though. I got married and promoted at the same time. It was a dream come true. I guess the dream's over now." He smiled sadly, but sincerely. I felt my face form a small smile, too. Captain Shay was very easy to talk to, I realized, without any of Tuck's sourness or cynicism.

"I think I married Mina hoping to change her," Shay continued, musing. "I hoped I could put a little more fight into her. She just has a naturally nonviolent nature. I can hardly criticize her for that." He glanced down sharply at Tuck. "And she tried. She tried to follow the way of this planet and become a missioneer. She knew she'd never help anything by simply joining a pac." The Captain grinned ruefully. "I guess I wish she were a worse person. She doesn't hate the Barons. She honestly just sees them as other people. I wish she'd have come back with us and been a medic on our side at least, but she'll be helping enough Cols this way. And at least she'll be making a difference."

"You know what's weird?" I ventured. "That's the same thing Tuck said: that he wants to make a difference."

Shay laughed. "Yeah, he thinks he's going to end the way all by himself."

"Just him and Spike?" I grinned.

"Yeah. By the way...your attack on the prison wouldn't happen to have been the notorious 'flaming puffan' attack, would it?"

"Well, yeah, sort of..."

"He suggested that idea to me once and I told him it was the looniest plan anyone could ever concoct. He just said that was its beauty � they'd never expect it. Needless to say, we found a different way into that building. And now it's actually worked. I wonder what odds you two were lucky enough to beat."

It wasn't a reprimand, just a light warning, like old Harley's. Besides, my amendments had significantly improved our chances, I thought.

"Actually," I said carefully, "we modified the plan a little from its original version."

"'Modified'?" he questioned.

"We used all the puffans we could find instead of just Spike. It was the only way I'd go along with the idea."

"Wait. You modified the plan from flaming one puffan to flaming a forest full of them?"

"Only two were actually flaming," I meekly responded.

Shay threw his hands into the air. "Great," he said. "Another Tuck-in-the-making. Why do I get all the crazy ones?"

"Mina was careful," I quickly pointed out, not quite defending myself. "And...was Seile? I'm sorry to ask; I'm just curious about what Seile was like. Tuck never talks about her." I was amazed that I felt so at ease with Shay that I could ask this question.

"It's okay to ask," Shay assured me. "Though it was probably a good idea not to ask Tuck. What was Seile like? Well, she was sort of small and thin. She had this long, long hair that was so blond it was almost white. She usually wore it in a braid down her back, or wrapped around her head. She only let it out to wash it. Her eyes were gray, and you'd think they were always serious or sad, until you got to know her. She was pretty serious, but that was okay � she balanced out Tuck. He never takes anything seriously. Never used, to anyway. He lightened her up; she brought him back to the ground. She had a fiery streak in her, though, as strong as...well, as strong as the one Tuck has in him. That's probably why they've been such great friends their whole lives."

"Their whole lives?" I broke in.

"Yeah," Shay nodded. "They were raised in the same center, went to the same Training school, graduated three and four or five and six; something like that. Then they both got assigned to a mission team with Mina and me. Knowing the two of them I'm positive they found some way to manipulate the system. Then, maybe it was just seeing Mina and me together, but they decided they were in love. It happens at lot with mission teammates. Never married or engaged or anything, but I've sure had my hands full the past few years. I'll miss it, though." He chuckled. "We'd have the same scenario so man y times: Seile dreams up some ridiculous plan and Tuck decides it's perfect and insists on going for it. I think the 'flaming puffan' may have originally been her idea. Anyway, Mina refuses, Tuck says she's just scared, Mina calls him a reckless idiot, Seile tries unsuccessfully to keep the peace between them, and I just try to come up with an alternative plan to save myself from listening to them!"

"Tuck said you did a lot of damage, though," I told him.

"Yeah." Shay nodded with pretentious pride. "A lot of damage. We never actually accomplished our new mission � finding this mine � I'm sure you know about it � but we've sure caused a lot of trouble!"

"Are we going to have to go back to the main Col base now and get another missioneer assigned to our team?" I asked, fervently hoping the answer would be negative. Now that the action had started, I half-guiltily realized that I wanted to keep it going.

"Not right away," was Shay's response. "We'll probably go back to a certain pac for a day or two so I can get new weapons and a uniform that won't stand out like the sun. Then, if it's convenient, we'll go back, only because it's never good for a team to be without a medic. If not, though, there's no rule that a lost teammate has to be reported. Tuck wanted to make sure Seile was recorded as an honorable death, so he went back to a base and they assigned you to replace her. I'm surprised they let him collect you, actually, instead of assigning you both to a new Captain."

"He told them he was you," I explained. "He said he was Captain Quent."

For a second, Shay looked shocked.

"He didn't want the team to be split up." I didn't know why I was defending Tuck. Maybe because I knew his intentions has been good.

Shay shook his head. "So stubborn," he muttered. "I guess after he lost Seile he didn't want to lose anything else. But he shouldn't be interfering with the mission system." His voice became stern, though not cold, as he looked at me. "You two shouldn't have come back here on your own. You should have thought twice about this jailbreak; even 'modified', this plan was insane. A lot of Cols died today." I automatically looked down at the ground in shame, though my mind rebelliously thought they'd rather die for a chance at freedom than remain prisoners. Then Shay's voice became angry, though not at me. "He had no right to take matters into his own hands. Tuck can throw away his own life if he chooses, but he can't risk yours, nor the lives of all the Cols that were in this facility."

"But we did it!" was the only defense I could think of. "Look how good the result was."

"You were lucky. Very, incredibly lucky. Bryt, I know you're just starting out at this. I don't want you to end up like Tuck. I don't want you to end up like Mina, but I don't want you to become another Tuck just because he's the first one you've learned from. You've got to think about consequences before you act. Just this jailbreak � it will affect far more than the people directly involved. Will the Barons reinforce security around other prison complexes, now? Will they start posting guards in the forests near their buildings? Will they start training puffans to use against us? And all so one stubborn missioneer can rescue his Captain, or avenge a teammate's death?"

"Those weren't the reasons we did it," I said softly. "Not the only reasons, anyway."

"Then why did you do it?"

I almost shrugged. How had Tuck convinced me to go along with him, anyway? "Not for any selfish reason," I said. "Just to free a lot of Cols."

"Very noble." Shay's voice was disapproving. "Not very smart. Bryt, not even Captains make decisions of this caliber. The idea to raid this prison complex should have been suggested in a base, decided on in the main base, and assigned a mission team of its very own. When you just throw a plan together, you don't usually get lucky. The two of you had no right to make this decision on your own. It's amazing the result was this good; I hope we don't start seeing negative impacts."

I didn't say anything. Shay wasn't cold or cruel, but somehow his calm reprimanding had affected me as strongly as all Tuck's yelling and moralizing had. I didn't know why I'd followed Tuck the way I had. I knew that good intentions alone weren't grounds for a major strike. And I knew that this was a major strike.

"I'm sorry," was all I finally said. I'm not sure if I meant it, or if I was still too high from the thrills of the day to feel remorse.

"Well, I'm sorry, too," Shay said, and smiled at me, his friendly blue eyes sincere. "I'm mad at Tuck and I'm taking it out on you, when you really don't have the experience yet to judge for yourself what to do. But do you understand what I'm saying, how actions have repercussions that you don't see until far later?"

"Yes." I nodded. I did understand that.

"Good," he said. "Then what's done is done and worrying over it won't help anything. For the present, I'm glad to be free. And, so far, you can consider your first mission a success, even if you can never talk about it. Why don't you go to sleep now? We can take turns keeping watch through the rest of the night. Tomorrow we'll try to get out of here."

"All right." I nodded. I started to get up but the Captain moved first to give me room. He positioned himself to see through the narrow entrance, and I lay down and stared at the crackling fire until my eyes burned. Then I looked the other way and tried to go to sleep. I ignored the pain in my shoulder, as lying down had reopened my one battle wound.

I felt confused. Tuck had berated me for not wanting to carry out our plan. Captain Shay had criticized me when I did go ahead with it. But it wasn't so much the plan that Shay had been against, I reminded myself; it was the jailbreak itself. I wondered what Captain Gill would think of everything I'd done so far. Would he be proud of me for the feat I'd helped accomplish, or extremely disappointed that I'd helped deceive the program in my very first mission? Before I'd even left Mission Training, I grimly realized. I'd lived my whole mature life under Captain Gill's tutelage, his ideas, his guidance. Then Tuck's. Now Shay's. I was drifting off to sleep and my thoughts weren't making sense anymore. As I lost consciousness, I was asking myself: what did I think? What did Brytani think about everything that had happened? About everything that was going on?

I fell asleep.