"There must be traps like this all through this area." Tuck grimaced. "Or we've just gotten incredibly unlucky."

I clawed at the dirt wall of the pit in attempt to find out if it were scaleable, but only succeeded in dislodging more dirt. The pit was about three meters wide and circular. With the sun shining down through the open top I could see easily enough, but just the same I shuddered with a sudden fear of the unknown.

"I'm guessing there's no chance you think this hole could be natural?" I tried to stay calm.

Tuck shook his head exaggeratedly, slamming his fists backwards against the dirt. "Bryt, we're in trouble."

A wave of dread washed over me as I recognized the desperate note in his voice. I tired to deny it to myself, but I could read him as clearly as if the word were printed all over his face: fear. Fear of being captured again. Interrogated. One or both of us possibly killed. I'd never seen Tuck afraid before. There had been times when I was actually scared because he wasn't; he was a reckless idiot not to be. But this was not one of those times.

"Calm down," I muttered aloud, as much to myself as to him.

"What?" he said, too sharply. Great, I thought. I tried to will him to think clearly, but I couldn't influence someone else into calmness when I was struggling not to panic myself. A sort of self-telepathy, discipline, would be more useful than the empathy and telepathy we practiced, I mused. You have to control yourself before you can control your enemy. Or, as it applied to this situation, your teammate.

I tried to keep the atmosphere light. "Maybe Shay will finally be proven right this time," I said absently. "Maybe this is where I learn it's bad to rush into things."

I waited for Tuck to say something like, "Just because we get captured by Barons once doesn't mean it's bad to rush into things," but no such reassurance came. Mentally I groaned in frustration. Why did Tuck have to stop being reckless and crazy now?

"I think maybe it's worse to rush out of things," he said quietly, not looking at me. It was a very cryptic statement from my normally straightforward teammate.

I sighed. "As in rushing out of the War-Pac?" I asked knowingly. "Or as in rushing out of a Baron prison? Give yourself a break, man � it's been practically a year. We've got to think of a way to avoid being captured, not torture ourselves imagining what will happen if we are." I tried to speak sympathetically, but I could hear the urgency in my voice.

"If we'd taken more time to plan, instead of jumping at the first opportunity�" Tuck ignored me, his face strained.

"Tuck, stop!" I lost control for an instant, then took a deep breath and ran my hand over my eyes. "We've got to get out of here. Why did we think we could just leave? Stuck at the War-Pac is better than stuck in a pit. Even the Baron pac would be better than this!"

Tuck seemed to snap out of his trance and his eyes focused on me. "You'd probably like that, wouldn't you?" His voice took on the icy note I dreaded.

"What do you mean?" I didn't let my voice waver. "Would you rather be alone in a trap in a hole in the ground, or in an easily escapable trap with plenty of people around, even if only one really ever spoke to us?"

Tuck snorted cruelly. "A Baron and a pac member! Really, Bryt, how much worse could you do?"

I looked at him sternly. "Kestral is the most honorable man I've ever met," I boldly said. "He did his time, and now he's helping to lead a protest against the war. He wants it ended, just like we do!"

"Oh, please, Bryt, he tried to kill you!"

"He didn't know!" I shouted fervently.

"How do you know that?"

"I'm an empath! I know!"

"You are not an empath."

"I know enough to tell if someone's being honest or not. I could practically tell that before I started training," I defended myself, hurt.

"Oh, really? You did a great job with the Barons back there, by the way. I don't see why you felt you weren't good enough at Pathic Training."

"That's cruel, Tuck, and those Barons avoided us Cols like a plague. I practically didn't see any of the other pac members."

"I know. You were too busy with Kestral."

"He's a great person, Tuck! Besides being the only one I've ever known who can actually see past the barrier between Barons and Cols. And really his goal is the same as yours � he just goes about it differently."

"And so effectively, too. I can really see him making a difference in the war." My teammate's sarcasm was starting to annoy me thoroughly.

"As much as I can see you or me making one! Maybe in a hundred years no one'll remember his name, but what he's done has changed the lives of every member of that pac, now and ever!"

"That's really helping his cause."

"His cause is not the war effort! It's peace!"

"And he's really helping his cause. He's just running from the problem! And hiding!"

"Tuck, shut up. At least he's realistic. You know what you are? A dreamer. That's all � a foolish, romantic dreamer. You spend your life trying to actually end the war! Actually end it! You know what you're going to end up accomplishing? Nothing! You're nobody, Tuck! Just one pathetic solider with grossly ambitious dreams you know you can't make come true!"

"Nobody is anybody, Bryt," Tuck was strangely calm after digesting my verdict for a moment, "until they make a difference. You think planet Skye was supposed to end up this way? You think other planets are like this? I see the problem, and I've dedicated my life to solving it. Sorry if you don't find that honorable enough."

"I don't think you're dishonorable; I just think you're stupid," I said in disgust.

"Stupid for trying?" All at once, Tuck exploded. "Why don't you listen to me for a minute! You know what it means if something doesn't make any difference? It means it doesn't matter!"

"Tuck, what is it with this 'difference'? You're obsessed!" I yelled back.

"So if a person doesn't make a difference," he raged on as if I hadn't spoken, "then they don't matter! If you don't make a difference then you're nothing at all!"

"Well, what do you think we are, on a scale with the rest of the world?" I argued, surprised by my own pessimism. "We're missioneers. We're soldiers. There are thousands of us! We are to the world what�" I threw my arms in the air "�ants are to us. That's all we are, Tuck, and ants don't change the world."

"Then what's the point in living at all?"

"I'll bet you never questioned that while Seile was alive!" I was both startled and glad for my boldness.

"LEAVE SEILE OUT OF THIS!" Tuck roared so loudly that more dirt was shaken loose and rained down on us.

Silence.

I looked up at the walls, away from my teammate's burning cold glare. I was too scared and frustrated and confused even to find my voice. Not that I knew what I wanted to say. A hundred thoughts ran through my head at once, none the least of which was the fact that our situation was hopeless; we would both soon be Baron prisoners, and there was nothing we could do about it.

Suddenly Tuck crossed the pit and jammed his arms against the dirt on either side of my head, so that his face was centimeters from mine. He was so overloaded with anger, fear, and countless other emotions that he was shaking, though his voice was slow and steady.

"If there was ever, anyone," he began, bitterly punctuating each syllable, "who could have made a real difference for this planet, it was her. She wanted to end this war as badly as I do, or more. She believed it was possible! And if she doesn't get the chance to, that's all the more reason I will!"

For one brief, pure instant I tried to surrender myself to faith as my teammate had, longed to believe that life would balance out fairly in the end, dared for a second to hope that one determined missioneer really could make all the difference. Then I shook my head sadly. Much as I wanted it to be true, it wasn't. A good soldier doesn't overestimate or underestimate himself. Captain Gill's words exactly. One foolish ant of a missioneer did not have the power to end the war.

"You're a dreamer, Tuck," I repeated coldly. I could feel the barest tinge of regret in my voice, though.

Both our heads jerked upward at the sound of footsteps approaching. Our fight was momentarily forgotten. If they were Barons we were done for; Cols, we were saved. I held my breath and heard my heart pounding. The travelers reached the rim of the hole, and another shower of soil was kicked down on us. My heart sank as I got my answer.

"Well, look what I seem to have stumbled upon!" A cruelly cheerful voice shouted. "A couple of Pirates stuck in a hole. Shall we help them out?"

The Baron's face became visible against the blue afternoon sky, blocking out a portion of the light. He appeared to be a burly, tough man with a thick beard of black hair. Now another man, taller and thinner, looked down.

"Told you we'd get some eventually," the second man said humorlessly. "Told you there was a high density of soldiers in this area. Took longer than we thought, but I told you it would happen."

Suddenly both Barons backed away from the mouth of the hole. "Don't even think about it, Pirate!" The first one shouted. "You know you don't have the luck to kill us all from down there. While we could kill you easily. Put the weapon down, and then we'll talk like civilized people." He spoke with a condescending sneer.

Tuck didn't look at me, but very slowly resheathed the knife he'd silently drawn. "Why don't you just kill us?" he tried to shout back, pretty lamely.

"If you'd like," the thin man's voice spoke quietly. "We've got a rope up here, which you may or may not choose to accept. If you take it, you will become our prisoners. If you refuse, we'll simply kill you now." He sounded almost bored. A rope flopped down and landed on us. I looked expectantly at Tuck, waiting for him to play Captain and decide our fate.

Tuck stared defiantly up at the Barons. "Kill us," he said. Neither his voice nor his gaze wavered, but I could tell he was less than certain about his decision.

"All right," the tall, thin Baron agreed readily.

"No!" I shouted up to them automatically. Then my panic turned to exasperation. "Don't kill us. Wait a minute. Please," I added respectfully, though my eyes rolled forward at showing politeness toward a gang of Barons aiming to capture us. I turned back to Tuck. "What's wrong with you?" I asked, spreading my arms. "Since we fell down here you've been yelling at me about changing the world and ending the war, and now you decide you'd rather let yourself die�in a hole! While you're holding the very object of your mission! That makes a lot of sense, Tuck, it really does."

My teammate just stood sulkily, his fists and jaw clenched. I noticed that more members of the group of Barons had gathered around the rim of the trap and were staring down at us, amused.

"Tuck, the brave thing to do here is to surrender. It's the only way out of this. You owe it to your cause." I couldn't stop myself from adding in a mutter under my breath, "Idiot."

Tuck looked at me, a mistake on his part because it made it that much easier for me to see through his guarded expression to his true thoughts. He knew I was right. It didn't take influence for him to see that. But he still stubbornly refused to admit defeat and take the rope.

He didn't, however, resist as I took his hands and wrapped them around it. I placed mine under his, and held on firmly. "Okay?" I asked him, my voice low but forceful, and packed with all the influence I could summon. I wished I'd learned telepathy now more than ever.

It was enough. "Okay," Tuck reluctantly agreed, his dark, stony eyes tuned away from mine, his tone so dull I actually felt pity for him.

"Okay?" the question was laughed cruelly by the black-haired Baron. I felt both ashamed and indignant that they could hear our conversation.

I nodded, biting my lip and trying to keep my face stoically defiant. I was vaguely aware of my teammate doing the same thing. He released the rope with one arm and wrapped it around my back, and the rope went taut, and I felt my feet lift off the ground. I tried to push with the bottoms of my boots against the pit wall to ease our ascent, but only ended up kicking dirt down. It didn't matter, for the black-haired man was incredibly strong, and when we got to the top I saw that the other two Barons holding the rope were barely pulling at all. I'm sure this was done purposely to make us fully aware of the power that just that one solider had. Even if we were now in the custody of our mortal enemies, it was good to feel and hear the atmosphere, and see leaves and green grass, and the sunlight again. It was now evening, and the sun was setting.

Before either of us even had our feet planted solidly on the ground, Tuck's knife was drawn and he predictably charged at the nearest Baron. He was pinned to the ground with his arms flat at his sides and a heavy Baron solider on top of him within seconds. I sighed and halfheartedly hoped they wouldn't kill him.

Another soldier roughly grabbed my arm while the fifth, the only woman in the group, tied my hands with some scraps of dirty rags. Old as it looked, the material was tight and strong. I felt my stomach drop abruptly, and suddenly I understood why Tuck had questioned whether to die or surrender, and why he was still struggling in a Baron's grasp, pointless as it was. I finally realized what it meant to be a helpless, powerless prisoner, at the mercy of these five disgusting Barons. My heart sank. I only had my hands tied. I wasn't even in prison yet.

The black-haired, large-toothed Baron, who seemed to be the leader of the team, laughed again in that unsettling manner he had. Tuck had finally stopped struggling and given in to defeat. Two Barons held us, and the other three were ranged in a semicircle between them, the leader in the center.

"I know Pirates have never been known for their intelligence," he chuckled nastily, "But these have to be the two stupidest Pirates on the face of the planet!" He laughed cruelly again.

The other Barons dutifully smiled, and, following their leader, savagely pushed us along on their way.