Xia Phar had a good life for a human on Saer’kah. She didn’t wear a restriction band and the Saer’khi family that had raised her since the Migration treated her like one of their own. Others humans on Saer’kah though had no reason to love the Saer’khi . At least Xia had some semblance of freedom. So when the humans decide to rebel against the Saer’khi and she discovers the real reason for the presence of humans and other aliens on Saer’kah Xia decides to take action. Enlisting the help of her family and her friend Tarek she forms a plan to get everyone out of the alien barracks without arousing suspicion and get them off Saer’kah on one of the newly built colony ships. Sounds pretty easy right? Now Tarek’s crush on her is the least of her problems and leaving Saer’kah is just the beginning.     Twice Removed Chapter 11 First Steps By Amethyst

Over the next few days the camp settled into a pattern as we made ourselves more at home on Unity. Amy and Kyle were progressing well in their first aid lessons and I felt that, by the end of the week, they would have the basics down enough to be sent out to treat minor injuries. Amy wouldn’t have much to do with the hummingbirds or chickens until they hatched and that likely wouldn’t be for two to three weeks, so until then she was checking up on them in the incubator while learning more about medicine from me and Krie. We had started cloning a pair of Durla, but even with growth acceleration it would be at least a month before we had them ready to be ‘born’.

Our engineers had been keeping themselves pretty busy too, between conversing with Mandy and Dr. Kwan and their other assigned tasks. Xawin had managed to convert the personnel ship’s nano-repair module to create pipes and basic construction items, all he needed was iron, copper and other metals to begin making the pipes and such we would need to reroute water to the settlement. Meanwhile, Karran had been going over the device I had found at the base of Eric’s skull. The kill switch had seemed to render the device useless, he couldn’t figure out any way for us to use it, but on the up side it was no longer transmitting either. He also had come up with the idea to tweak the subspace comm discs to resonate at a frequency that would allow the wearers to pass through the EM shield whenever it was on at night, allowing those issued one to leave camp if they needed to, but still prevent nocturnal predators from entering the camp.

Between the molerats and the fishing we were doing very well for food and we nearly had enough temporary shelters built so that everyone wouldn’t have to sleep in the personnel ship. The rotating of duties went over very well and people were a lot happier now that part of their day could be spent swimming and doing things other than construction, digging fields for planting, chopping wood, or prospecting and mining with Mandy. The last task in particular was not well liked among the colonists who had been unfortunate enough to have done it. Mining the mandium had proven difficult, it was hard and filthy work that after only two days nobody wanted in their work rotation.

It was the evening of our fifth full day on Unity when I approached Mandy at dinner. “You look tired, how is the mining going? I’m told it’s not the most pleasant job in the rotation.”

“You have a gift for understatement,” the geologist replied tiredly. “People hate it, hell I hate it, but I’m the only one with any kind of background for it. I don’t mind doing it myself, for the good of the colony, but I hate making others do it. The good news is, we’ve found a good vein of both iron and mandium and we have extracted almost enough mandium, copper, and silicate minerals to give you what you need for Amy’s bionics and enough iron to at least get a start on the plasteel pipes for the water line.”

“And the bad news?” I inquired.

She sighed heavily. “Word has spread about how horrible the mining work is and nobody wants to do it, and I don’t want to force anyone to do something I hate doing myself. Today was especially miserable work with that heavy rain we got. We’ve all been through enough. I can’t think of any of the colonists who deserve to be forced to do that, well I can think of four, but they’re locked up until we decide what to do with them.”

“Mandy, you are a genius!” I exclaimed as I beamed at her.

“Wait a minute, you’re not thinking that we should...” she began. I could see a thoughtful look passing over her face for a moment before she grinned back at me. “You know, I have no problems with forcing those four to do it.”

“Let’s suggest it then, if the other colonists go for the idea, they’re all yours.” I quickly stood up and called out, “Everyone! If I could please have your attention!” The ebb and flow of conversations around the fires came to a halt as the colonists all turned their attention our way. Once I was sure I had everyone’s attention I continued speaking. “Mandy here has been telling me that nobody wants to have mining in their work rotation, is that correct?”

Kyles father, Woody Harris, nodded. He was a big strong blond man who had been one of the first six to help Mandy. “I usually don’t mind a bit of hard work Commander, but that was amongst the hardest, dirtiest and most unpleasant work I’ve ever had the misfortune to do. Nobody would want to do that if they had a choice in the matter.”

“And what if they didn’t have a choice?” I asked. “We still have four mutineers that we need to decide what to do with. I know a lot of you wanted them killed for what they caused, but on Earth hard labour was a very good punishment for criminals. I personally would much prefer that to handing out a death sentence when we’ve seen so much death already. A lot of you want to see them suffer and believe me, if they are on mining detail every day for the foreseeable future then they will suffer. They would also be contributing a valuable resource to the colony.”

I could see varied expressions as people mulled it over in their minds. The discussion that followed lasted for nearly an hour before all the details were agreed upon. Once the decision was made, Mandy and I left for the medical ship to inform our inmates of their new status. We approached the quarantined room the four shared and I pressed the touchpad that would release the EM shield that kept them inside. “Congratulations gentlemen, we just saved your lives.”

“They’re not going to kill us?” Jake asked cautiously.

“You all probably deserve it, but no,” I responded coldly. “Mandy and I have convinced the other colonists to spare your lives. Instead of killing you the colony has decided to give you two choices. The first option is that I personally fly you out into the centre of this planet’s largest desert with nothing but the clothes on your back and the eternal animosity of the entire colony.”

None of them looked like they savoured that choice very much as Jared asked solemnly, “And the second option?”

I looked him straight in the eyes as I replied, “That you make reparations for what you have done to these people. Until further notice, during daylight hours you will work with Mandy here mining the metals we’ll need to make life here more bearable. During the evenings you will be able to come and go around the colony as you please, with the exception of the drop ships, and you can build yourselves shelters, just don’t expect the other colonists to be friendly toward you. If you try to run, believe me the Murqui can and will track you down anywhere on this planet and when they bring you back you will be offered this choice again with the third option of death. Those are your options, so I suggest you think very carefully about them.”

Jake was frowning. “But we were trying to help our fellow humans, we didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?” I interrupted him acidly. “Didn’t think about your actions? Didn’t assist Eric Townsend in a mutiny that not only destroyed the Bounty, but stranded us here and resulted in the deaths of seven hundred and sixty four people? We all know that you did, you were there guarding the door to the bridge for him. Did you know that six hundred and thirty seven of those deaths were humans? One hundred and fifty four of those humans were children. Maybe I should show you all the list of names and ages just so you can get a better idea of how much you ‘helped’ your fellow humans. Or maybe I should have Amy come in here and let you know just how much it ‘helped’ her to lose her mother and her legs.”

I was clenching my fists tightly now and had to make an effort to control myself. “You have one minute to make your choice.” In the end Mandy had four new permanent workers, though I was pretty sure that Jake might be a problem. Sometimes I really hate being right.

I was just preparing for bed when I got the call from Lirra over the subspace comm. “Commander, one of the mutineers stole Rebecca’s comm disc and is making a run for it. He thinks he’s being stealthy, but a still-blind kitten could follow him.”

“Jake,” I grumbled. “Which way is he heading?”

“South, toward the river,” she answered.

I groaned as I put my goggles back on and grabbed my particle beam cylinder. “Of course he is. Follow him, but be careful and let Captain White know what’s going on. I’m on my way by air.” I dashed out of the medical ship, and took to the air grumbling, “I should just let the idiot get eaten and have the problem solve itself.”

As I flew toward the river I scanned the ground below me with the infrared setting of my goggles. Soon I picked up two large heat signatures. Lirra was moving through the woods swiftly and silently in pursuit and when I got close enough I could hear Jake crashing through the woods and cursing even over the buzzing of my wings. He was close to the river’s edge now, too close for my liking with that large heat signature, just a slightly different temperature than the water, moving slowly toward shore. I landed in a tree and focussed all the mental strength I could muster through my amplifier to pull him away from the water.

He screamed in surprise as I yanked him backwards, but I couldn’t be sure if that was due to the pulling itself or the monstrous head which had erupted from the water and narrowly missed snatching him up in its powerful jaws. He sat there frozen as the crocosaur emerged from the water. “Move, you idiot!” I shouted as I dropped to the ground and telekinetically hurled a rock at the crocosaur’s head. “Run! I need a clear shot! The scaled behemoth’s head turned toward me and it roared. “That’s right, you remember me, I look pretty tasty huh.” I latched onto two more rocks with my mind and launched them at the creature and it lumbered toward me. I took to the air again as quickly as my wings would let me and the crocosaur was so focussed on me that it failed to notice Lirra emerging from the trees.

The Murqui leaped onto crocosaur’s back, using its large spines to gain purchase as she moved toward its head. It began to buck and shake from side to side in an attempt to dislodge her, but using the superior strength and balance of her kind she managed to hold on and get into position to rake her claws across it’s right eye. The beast roared in pain and fury and rolled in another attempt to dislodge her. She barely leaped aside in time to avoid being crushed beneath it as Jake took off back into the woods. I didn’t have time to worry about him at the moment though, as the crocosaur was back on its feet and had lashed out at Lirra with its tail, grazing her and knocking her back. I aimed carefully with my particle beam cylinder and prayed that I would hit it as I fired.

It did hit, puncturing the creature’s skull and causing it to spasm and twitch for a long moment before it was finally still. Once I was certain that it was safe I rushed to Lirra’s side and turned on the light amplification on my goggles to examine her midsection where she had been struck. She had a couple good gashes from the spikes intersecting the large circular scar she had from the Saer bee, and a quick switch to x-ray mode showed three cracked ribs. I winced in sympathy as I looked for the wound sealant in my medical kit. “Those ribs must hurt like hell,” I told her as I applied the sealant, “do you want me to get some people out here with a stretcher? I can give you something for the pain, and I’ll give you some bone repair nanites as soon as we get back to camp.”

“I will be fine until we find the boy and return him to camp,” she said grimly as I finished applying the sealant and anti-infection solution.

“You sure you’re up to going with me?” I asked as I prepared an injection that would dull the pain she was likely feeling.

She laughed, which only caused her to hiss in pain. “I have been through worse Commander,” she reminded me, placing her hand on the edge of that circular scar. I nodded, quickly injected the painkiller, and took out some bandages in case the wound decided to re-open while we she was walking. By the time I had finished bandaging the area the pained look on her face had lessened.

It didn’t take us long to find Jake, Lirra had no problem following the trail he had left behind and he hadn’t gotten very far before he got his foot stuck in what appeared to be a slip burrow. He was trying to pull his foot free and it looked like he might have sprained something from the grimace of pain on his face. He managed to work his foot free and as soon as he noticed us approaching through the trees he attempted to hobble away as fast as he could.

I had had enough of this. This little fool had not only stolen from someone, but he had endangered himself, me and Lirra with his stupidity. I quickly caught up with him, turned him around and grabbed the front of his shirt. Then, I slammed his back against the nearest tree. Being half Saer’khi I’m a little stronger than normal humans and I can use telekinesis to make it look like I’m even stronger by using it to bear part of the weight I’m lifting. I did that then as I lifted him a foot off the ground and held him in place. “Why the hell do I keep saving your fucking life!? Listen up you piece of shit, you now have three choices and if you choose the same one again you had better damn well tow the line or when I find you next time I will kill you myself. Do I make myself clear?!”

He nodded quickly as he stared at me in terror. He didn’t seem too intent on speaking though so I slammed him against the tree again. “Well, what’s it going to be?”

“I’ll work!” he quickly sputtered.

“You had better,” I warned him. “Oh, and if you ever steal anything from anyone in this colony again, and I will know, then you will wish the crocosaur had caught you instead of me.” I said the last calmly, but my eyes were locked right on his and I made sure he knew from the look I gave him, that I meant business. “Now sit your ass down so I can look at your foot!” I snapped as I let him go.

He didn’t need to sit since he fell on his ass. It turned out he had only twisted the ankle, it wasn’t even worth wasting medical supplies on so I just wrapped it up firmly. There was no swelling and it probably wouldn’t even bother him for more than an hour or two. He could hobble home and maybe this little bit of pain would teach him to think before doing stupid things. I doubted it, but there was always hope. Once I was done checking his ankle I knelt down to inspect the burrow he had stepped in.

I frowned and cursed softly at what I saw. Jake hadn’t stepped in the entrance to the burrow like I had hoped, but rather right through the ceiling which had been softened by the heavy rain earlier in the day. His foot coming through, or possibly his struggles to get it out, had killed the two adult slips inside. It looked like the poor things didn’t have a chance as they were wrapped around one another in a protective circle. They were probably sleeping at the time. It was a sad sight and for some reason it made me confused and a bit scared as well. Wait, those feelings weren’t mine, and was that a muffled mewling sound that I was hearing?

I carefully moved the one of the dead slips aside to reveal three smaller ones, possibly ten inches from nose to tail tip, beneath it. A quick examination showed that only two of the three were alive, one male and one female. From the small size I would guess they were only a month or two old, and the fact that their canines were only just beginning to emerge seemed to support that. I picked the two kits up and sighed as I turned back to Jake and Lirra. “Let’s get back to camp, I think Jake’s caused enough death tonight.”

Jake was quiet as we made our way back to camp. I wasn’t certain if it was because he was thinking about his actions, his ankle was hurting, or because he was too scared to cross me right now, but I didn’t particularly care. When we arrived back at camp, Captain White was waiting for us. “I see you caught him.”

I nodded tiredly. “The fool nearly got eaten by a crocosaur, Lirra got injured while we were saving him so I’m taking her for treatment. If you would please return Rebecca’s comm disc to her and make sure Jake goes to his assigned sleeping spot so he can be well rested for work tomorrow I would appreciate it Captain.”

“He’s blown one second chance, and it hasn’t even been a day yet, is it wise to give him another Commander?” the large man cautioned.

“Don’t worry, Jake is going to work very hard from now on,” I assured him as I gave Jake a meaningful look. “He knows what will happen if he steps out of line again.”

Jake quickly looked away and allowed Dennis to lead him off while I took Lirra and the two kits I was holding to the medical ship. *Krie, are you still awake?*

*Yes Xia, you had me worried when you took off like that, and the noise Kit was making not long after that would have made sleeping difficult anyway,* she quickly replied. *What happened?*

*Jake happened,* I complained before quickly giving her the details on what had occurred. *I’m bringing Lirra in for bone mending, Her three lower ribs on the left side are cracked, could you prepare the bone repair nanites for me?*

I could feel her mind changing gears as she started the task. *Alright Xia, I’m preparing them now.*

*Thanks sis, we’ll be there in a moment, we’re just entering the ship now.* We made our way to the treatment area where Krie was just finishing preparing the injection gun. I placed the two kits on the examining table and my sister’s thoughts were tinged with curiosity and interest. I explained about the kits as I injected Lirra and escorted her to one of the patients’ rooms. “You should be good as new by morning Lirra, get some rest and press the touchpad if you need anything or feel any discomfort or pain.”

The Murqui woman nodded. “Thank you Xia, I will.” She paused a moment before adding, “You did well out there, with the beast and the boy. With both you did what needed to be done.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, I had lost my cool with Jake, but I didn’t want him endangering anyone else and there didn’t seem to be any other way to get that message across to him. “Thanks Lirra, sleep well.”

After returning to my room to check on Kit, who had apparently returned to sleep after scaring the hell out of Krie with her shrieking earlier during the crocosaur incident, I returned to the treatment area to see Krie holding one of the slips and seemingly giving it a stern scolding. The sight caused me to laugh, which was something I really needed just then. At the sound, Krie gave a laugh of her own, *This little boy decided to do some exploring and nearly fell off the examining table, the silly thing. His sister seems a bit more reserved.*

*Well, I’m sure he’ll benefit from your care,* I replied with a mental smile. At her brief flash of confusion I shrugged. *I’ve already got my hands full with Kit and In don’t think she’ll be willing to share me so I figured that you and Amy could take care of these two.*

Her response was a mental squee as she said, *I have the best little sister ever! Do you think we’ll be able to form a bond like you have with Kit?*

*I would imagine so, I’ll try to help you both with it, let’s take this little girl to meet Amy and we can discuss it.* I picked up the female and we made our way to Amy’s room. The motion sensor registered our approach and the door hissed open as we approached. I sat on the gel bed beside my ward and with my free hand shook her shoulder very gently. “Amy, wake up honey.”

After a moment she turned her head to blink at me sleepily. “Mmmm still tired Xia…. Five more minutes…”

“I’ll let you go back to sleep soon,” I promised her. “I just brought in some new patients and Krie is going to be caring for one, but I’ll need your help with the other one.”

Amy sat up and tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. “What happened?”

“Hold this for me and I’ll tell you all about it.” I placed the timid little slip in her lap and her eyes shot wide open. I’m not sure which of the two seemed more uncertain as the young girl and the slip stared at one another for a long moment. “This little girl and her brother just lost their home and parents and need to be cared for. Their teeth are coming in so I think they should be able to eat solid foods, but I think this one in particular is going to need a lot of love.”

Amy seemed to get over her nerves and reached out to gently pet the slip. I left Krie and Amy alone with their new pets as I went to fetch a ration bar and then I returned both were lovingly petting and cooing at the little critters. I broke the ration bar in half and gave them both a piece, telling them. “Try feeding them a little, keep petting them and showing them love, and try to think soothing thoughts at them. Kit seems to pick up on the strong emotions of even non-telepaths, so I think that anyone should be able to form a bond with a slip if they go about it right.”

Krie bonded with her little guy first, I think it may be easier for us because we’re projective psychics. Being Saer’khi though she had never had a pet before and had no clue what to name it. “How about Mischief?” I suggested after a while. “Didn’t you pick him up so he wouldn’t get into trouble while you were waiting for me?”

She nodded as she thought it over. “I guess that does make sense, Mischief it is.”

“Try and reinforce the name by telling him, both physically and mentally. I’m not sure how much good it will do, especially at that age but it seemed to work with Kit.” As she was doing that I turned to look at Amy, whose eyes had shot wide open once again. “What’s the matter Amy?”

“That felt really… weird,” she replied as she shook it off. “Kind of like I really wanted something, but it wasn’t me feeling it… I think.”

I had to laugh at that. “I think you’ve been claimed Amy. Welcome to the wonderful world of psychic pets. You should probably name her so you can both get some sleep tonight, you do have first aid lessons in the morning.”

“Okay girl, your name is Violet,” she stated as she got a look of intense concentration on her face. I managed not to laugh since I figured she was taking this very seriously and trying to mentally reinforce the name like I had had Krie do.

“Now, you and Violet need to get some sleep,” I told her as I reached over to ruffle her hair. Then I had her lay down so I could tuck her in and kissed her on the forehead. “Good night Amy, sleep well and try not to move too much during the night until you and Violet are used to her being in here with you.”

Krie and I left the room and headed to our own quarters to get some sleep. No sooner was I in bed, then Kit repositioned herself to curl up beside my head buzzing affectionately.

As exciting as getting a slip of her own was for Amy, she was even more excited two days later. That morning she and Kyle had shown that they had the basics of first aid down enough that Krie and I pronounced them ready to be official first aid attendants. We also had enough mandium and the other necessary materials to make her bionic legs. The outer surface and all weight bearing portions would be made of the new wonder element, while copper, iron, silicon, and a few other materials would be used for the nanites, micro-hydraulics and the other inner workings of her new legs.

She was so excited by the prospect of being able to walk again that I had to caution her that we couldn’t be sure how well the mandium would work and that these were experimental. After the final first aid lesson, Krie and I put her in the body mapper to calculate the proper proportions for each leg, designing them with as human an appearance as possible. Then we let her see the design and told her what her options were for design alterations and special features. She decided to keep them looking as human as possible and only asked for more powerful micro-hydraulics to make her legs stronger.

Before lunch, while her new legs were ‘baking’ we took her into one of the operating rooms and used a neuro-suppressor to render her unconscious. Surgically implanting the connection relays and nanite receptors that would translate the signals between her bionic legs and her nervous system took nearly two hours and we wouldn’t be waking her until almost dinner time, to ensure that the special healing nanites we applied to the area would have plenty of time to do their work. When the operation was over I had Krie go eat some lunch while I remained with Amy in the recovery room.

Not long after she had left a plate was placed in front of me as my mind was wrapped in a warm mental embrace. *Please eat something Tess’rha,* Tarek told me as his four arms wrapped me up in a physical embrace as well. *Amy will be fine, you and Krie are very good at what you do and you both care too much for her to let anything go wrong. You’ve taken every precaution and when she comes out to dinner tonight she’ll be walking.*

*What if this new element causes some sort of problems? What if there’s some other problem? Our medical facilities aren’t near as good as what she could be going to if we were on Saer’kah. What if I’m getting her hopes up for nothing?* I asked as I leaned back into his embrace.

*She knows that you’re doing everything you can for her and she knows that even if this set of legs doesn’t work out, you and Krie won’t stop until you make a pair that does. She adores you two and she’s a tough girl, no matter what happens she’ll be okay.* He said without a hint of doubt. *Please eat something and get some fresh air, I’ll watch her for a while.*

I gave in and ate the meal he had brought. I didn’t want to leave her though, and he didn’t want me brooding so I compromised and went to check on how the bionics were looking. The fabrication was nearly complete and they would be ready well before we were due to wake Amy. Kit stuck to my heels the whole time and soon Krie returned to join me carrying Mischief, probably to keep him out of trouble. The slip was seemingly curious about everything in the ship and my sister had to keep a close eye on him whenever he was allowed out of her quarters.

When the legs were complete Krie left briefly to set the little nuisance and Violet up with a meal on her bed so we could begin the stress and performance tests we needed to do. Everything seemed to be working properly, though we wouldn’t know for certain until the legs were connected. We called Mandy in to help us test the strength and durability, throwing every test she could think of at those metal legs, and she was like a kid in a candy store when they not only met, but exceeded all of our expectations. The stuff really was practically indestructible as far as we could tell. The only thing you could really do against the metal was reorganize its structure using nanites like we did to construct the legs. We figured that a sustained particle beam might do the trick if focussed for long enough but we weren’t willing to test that on Amy’s legs to find out.

Matt and Tarek had joined us to be there for moral support when Amy woke up as we attached the legs to the connectors and ran a full systems check before dinner, using both med scanners and simple reflex tests. When we were certain that they were working properly we removed the neuro-suppressor. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at us. “Is it done?”

I nodded as I smiled down at her and touched one of her knees. “Can you feel that Amy?”

Her eyes opened wide. “I can! I can feel you touching my knee!”

“Okay honey, we’re going to have you try a few things to make sure everything is working. Can you wiggle your toes for me?” I asked. The ten golden toes on her feet began to move accompanied by the very faint sound of the micro-hyrdraulics at work. “Okay now bend your right knee.” She again did as instructed and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Now this is the big one, Krie and I are going to move to the back of the room and I want you to sit up on the table and then walk to us.” My sister and I backed away from the table to wait anxiously for Amy to take her first steps.

She sat up, looked at the floor beneath her and gave us a determined look as she placed one foot and then the other on solid ground. She walked toward us slowly at first, gaining confidence with every step until she wrapped us both in a tight hug. By that time there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.