"Elder Isis just contacted me. She and a child, Alyssa, are touching the bottom of the ship."

I freeze my position. I don't want to appear startled to the cameras. Looks like we were lucky. "Can Elder Isis get Heista to hack the ship? She can take control of the cameras and open the cage doors. Oh, and leave Alyssa here, we can probably use her to break the warding."

He relays the message. "Elder Isis has left for New Eden. She said we can evacuate everyone to corridor A in New Eden."

"I designed corridor A to be able to have a normal atmosphere. She will make sure it is ready for us to teleport there. Is Alyssa still here? Does she have anything with her that could break the warding?" I get up at a relaxed rate and start slowly pacing my cell—something I do with relative frequency. It won't appear odd to the cameras.

Puck responds after about five minutes. "She has C-4 and a sword."

"C-4 and a sword? What else?"

A moment of silence and then, "she has the bag of someone named 'Lou'?"

"Ah, that explains it. See if she has timers for the C-4. If so, have her assemble some small charges. Big enough to get through the warding, but small enough to not allert anyone outside of these corridors."

After some silence, "Done. Elder Isis said she would also contact a pheonix while in New Eden."

"That certainly makes it easier to place the charges. We should plan for whoever comes to help us evacuate people. Then, they can stay with me and Remus until we are able to evacuate."

"Why wouldn't you come with us?"

"Remus and I need to destroy all the physical and electronic data from their experiments. For our first contact plans, it needs to appear as if we were never here."

"I will relay the message to Remus."

"Good, then relay the message to everyone that the cage doors will all open soon, and the warding will be broken. Everyone needs to leave their cell as fast as possible. Make people accountable for those in the cells on either side of them, and have the freshest person in each hallway make sure everyone is out of their cells. As soon as they can, people with the ability to teleport should take as many as they can to the coordinates Elder Isis gave you. The whole evacuation process needs to happen in less than five minutes. I am also going to need Lou's bag when the pheonix is teleporting through. Then, take a rest. You will need your strenth."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Understood," Puck answers.

Now all we have to do is wait.

There are many kinds of waiting. Waiting for someone to grow and learn, waiting for a long awaited event or reunion, and then there is waiting in anticipation of battle. Waiting for battle is the worst kind of waiting. Muscles coil and uncoil, the mind obsesses over every minute detail that could, and probably will, go wrong. The anticipation is agony.

So the few hours between my last conversation with Puck and the doors to the cells opening stretched for years when they should have been a mere blink. Which is part of why it was so startleing when the cell doors all simultaneously unlatched and the electricity surronding them turned. off

I grabbed the strecher under my bed and surged across the cell, only for it to lock right as I reached the door. I shook the door, it didn't budge. I would like to say I'm smarter than this, that I realized what was happening immediatly. But I only stared dumbfoundly at the door until the camera mounted across from my cell started shaking as if it were a head saying no.

"Heista, darling," I say to the camera, "please let me out. I need to help the others. You can be as mad at me as you want when I return in a few moments, and I will grovel at your feet."

The door unlocked, I went through. But just as I was letting go of the door, the electricity came back on for just a second leaving a dime sized burn in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger.

She is furious with me. I will never live this down.

By the time I'm out of my cell, most of the others are as well. I hand off the stretcher to a Dijinn that seems fairly strong. We don't need to talk to know what it's for. They take it and use it to stabalize those too week to move. Meanwhile, I bite my hand and use my own blood to write out the runes that will function as a fairy circle for Puck. The runes have to be perfect, so I devote my full concentration to the task. I pay no mind to the alarm sounding, and then less than a minute later turning off.

Just as I finish the runes, a small explosion shakes the corridor. Puck activates the fairy circle and starts sending people through it. An injured pheonex takes another who is too injured to stand, and flames away. A bag and sword drop right next to me. Remus picks up the sword. All around us other pheonixes wisk prisoners away.

I go to Puck at the edge of the fairy circle, and help him stand. "Time for you to go through."

"Promise you will be right behind me."

"Of course!" I hand him off through the fairy circle, and erase the runes so no one can follow.

Soon, it is just me, Remus, and the pheonix Elder Belenus.

"Belenus, long time," Remus and he clasp forearms, "alright, let's skuttle this ship and be done with it."