Why us?

"Waypoint reached."

"Still nothing out there." Complained Jake. He reached into an overhead compartment and pulled out an electronic clipboard. Reluctantly he pulled up the mission briefing to see exactly what their flight path was. Ice still hadn't told him how many waypoints there were, he said if it was important enough Jake could find out himself. So he did. "Wow, this is the most roundabout and erratic path they could have chosen. It's as if I made it myself!"

"So let me ask you, how do you remain unpredictable when your whole plan is to be unpredictable? Quite the paradox."

"You think too much. It's unnatural for a bear." Snapped Jake. Ice just laughed, which sounded alot more like a roar if you weren't used to it. In fact, just about every facet of Ice was intimidating at first impression. He was huge. Massive really. At least eight feet tall and well over 300LBS of pure muscle. And fur. In short, Ice was essentially a biped polar bear whose origins are not important for the moment. He was very much like any human save the excellent sense of smell and very poor vision. He wore a thin metallic visor across his eyes to help him see. "So, nowhere in this briefing is it explained why they're sending a combat oriented fighter to transport a civilian from Andross. It doesn't make any sense. We're not particularly fast or well armored. I mean, they don't call Valkyries suicide shuttles for nothing, right?"

"Well, what I've managed to piece together through eavesdropping, intuition, and a little common sense, is that the Molin will be thinking what you're thinking. We're just a single insignificant combat vessel, and may very likely be overlooked if spotted. Some other members of our squadron revealed to me that they would be escorting a full fledged civilian transport to Andross and back. I assume the main convoy is a decoy to allow us to remain undetected with the real cargo."

"Jesus, that's a bit excessive just to transport a civilian isn't it? You'd think we were escorting the High Chancellor himself!"

"No, not the High Chancellor. His mentor."

"What???" Jake was in complete disbelief. "This is getting more far fetched by the minute!" He looked down at the clipboard again to reread the briefing.

"The passenger's identity isn't in the briefing."

"You know what? You're a know it all. You know that?"

"A know it all would." Ice smirked.

"I hate you." Jake sulked. "So how do you know who we're picking up then? I didn't even know the High Chancellor had a mentor."

"Well... It's certainly not public knowledge. To be perfectly honest I'm just guessing. Here, take a look at my scrapbook." Ice sat up, punched a few buttons on the console and a slide show began on a nearby monitor. "Here's some photo's from the last three years worth of the Chancellor's press conferences." The photo's displayed for about 10 seconds each and would then switch. This lasted for about 2-3 minutes before Jake had enough.

"Ok, what the hell it's the High Chancellor, big whoop, what are we supposed to be looking at here?"

"Look closer." Ice paused the slide show on one image. "Notice anything unusual?"

Jake squinted his eyes trying to notice any detail. "Well it must be a damn hot day out cause that guy in the back is sweating buckets!" He laughed. Ice then went to the next slide. "Hey looks like another hot day, haha! Heatwave that year on Nebulous or what?"

"Only one of them is sweating."

Jake looked closer. Ice flipped the slide again. Once more, only one man in the back was sweating, everyone else looked completely normal. Ice flipped through slide after slide and the same pattern occurred. One man in the back sweating profusely. It was never the same man, but it was always just one. "So the Chancellor hires a new sweaty assistant every couple weeks, what does this have to do with the whole mentor theory?"

"Have you ever heard of shape-shifters?"