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 18 Checking the Pulse By Amethyst

I woke up well before dawn the next morning, got dressed in my ships uniform, sent a mental message for Kit to follow me, gathered everything that I thought that I might need for the exploration and headed out to wake up the other members of my exploration team as quietly as possible so I wouldn’t wake Krie or Amy. Once we had each eaten a ration bar and some smoked suessfish, we packed some supplies just in case we had to stay searching for more than just the one day. Then Matt, Rinnik, and Pallu mounted three of the male unity-corns so we could be on our way.

Tanna had put all the data about the subspace pulse, as well as the map of the search area, on my datapad and I was hoping that if we pushed hard enough that we would be able to get there within two or three hours. So while Bixx ran alongside the ‘corns southward along the coastline and our slips gave chase, Tarek and I flew above, making sure to stay within sight. We weren’t flying at our top speed, or even very high, but it was nice to be able to let loose a bit and just enjoy flying until we reached the target area.

After an hour and a half I decided to take a brief break on the beach to rest the ‘corns and to allow Bixx, Tarek, and myself a short repose as well. We allowed the ‘corns a good drink and some grazing, while the slips kept them from wandering too far and the six of us spoke about out current mission. “So, what do you think is giving off that pulse Xia?” Rinnik asked as we all took a seat on a fallen tree overlooking the vast expanse of water.

“It could be anything,” I replied with a shrug and a small sigh. “It could be big or small, hidden just about anywhere, and fifty square kilometers is a fairly large area to be searching. Whatever it is though, since it’s giving off a subspace pulse that probably means a ship or some sort of device that’s currently active, and if it’s active that means that it’s using electricity and possibly giving off heat. I’m hoping that Pallu’s electroreception sense and the infrared setting on my goggles will help us to find it easier.”

“Do you think it could be someone following Eric’s tracker?” Matt asked, a concerned look on his face. “I mean, the signal did just appear yesterday.”

I shook my head after a moment of considering that. “I suppose that it is possible, I did say it could be anything, but I don’t think it’s that. It didn’t just appear yesterday, it was just so faint that we weren’t able to detect it before, so it’s probably short range or something is interfering with the signal. We were only able to detect it yesterday because we managed to increase the power and sensitivity of the medical ship’s subspace communications array. Who knows how long that it’s been transmitting though, whatever it is.”

“How long do you think it will be before we get there Xia? And what’s the search plan when we do?” Pallu inquired.

“I think we’re about halfway to the northern edge of the search area. If we keep pushing as hard as we were before, I would estimate we’ll get there in an hour, maybe an hour and a half. When we get there Tarek and I will do an aerial search along the coastline and you’ll search the water Pallu. The rest of you will start a search of the beach and treeline and look for anything out of place. We’ll continue south until we reach the southern edge of the search area or until we start losing daylight. If we don’t find it today we’ll start setting up camp at dusk to continue the search tomorrow and look further inland if we have to.”

I let the plan sink in for a moment, before standing up and stretching, my eyes drawn southward as I too wondered just what would await us there. Tarek’s mind voice interrupted those thoughts, as he wrapped my mind in the warm and loving thoughts of his own. *Tess’rha, you really need to stop worrying.*

*I can’t help it Tess’hir, I don’t like surprises and I have no idea what might be waiting for us. For all I know I could be horribly wrong and we could be walking into some kind of advance base camp of United States military, here to take this planet from us by force,* I thought back at him.

*If it is, then at least we’ll know about it and be able to send that information to the settlement,* he replied, standing up and taking my hand in his own. *No matter what it is, we’re not going to be any better prepared by brooding over it.*

*You’re right, I’ll try to relax a bit and just enjoy this until we’re sure whether this signal is going to be a problem or not.* With that settled I took a deep breath to calm myself and turned back to the others. “Okay team, break time is over, let’s get moving again.”

It was a little over an hour later that we arrived at northern edge of the search area, though I wasn’t quite sure that we were at the right place until I saw the five large red-gold colored stone spires offshore, like some giant hand emerging from the water and reaching for the sky. It was the exact landmark I was looking for so I immediately set everyone to their assigned tasks and uninstructed them to check in regularly via sub space comms. Tarek, Pallu and I set our slips to herding the ‘corns and making certain that they wouldn’t stray from Matt and the others while they were searching the beach and treeline.

Near midday, I called a break so we could start preparing something for lunch. None of us had seen a whiff of anything that could be causing that signal and, in addition to being hungry and tired, we were all starting to get a bit frustrated from our search. So while the others gathered wood for a fire and Pallu did some fishing for our meal Tarek and I searched by air for some wingnut trees or lemonberry bushes so we could eat more than just fish.

Tarek was the first to find something, a small grove of wingnut trees and I just kept searching while my Tess’hir gathered enough nuts for a meal. I was about to give up when something caught my eye, a group of trees with large bright aquamarine leaves. Except for the wingnut trees, all the other trees that we had discovered so far on Unity were conifers. Curious, I landed and went in for a closer look.

The aquamarine leaves were nearly a foot in length, half a foot wide, and roughly pear-shaped with a texture resembling palm leaves. The trees themselves were roughly thirty feet tall, bore rust colored bark, and hanging from the thick branches were round, purple, coconut-sized fruit of some sort. I quickly removed my scanner from my medicine bag and ran it over one of the purple orbs. The scan determined that it wasn’t poisonous and seemed to contain large amounts of vitamin C, as well as trace amounts of potassium, vitamin A, and vitamin D.

Pleased with my find, I gathered six of the large fruit and once I had them awkwardly stacked in my arms I flew back to the beach to join the others. Matt was just starting a fire and Tarek and Pallu had yet to return from their respective quests for food, though Tarek arrived a few minutes after me with his small pack filled with wingnuts. While we waited for Pallu to return, and the other’s examined the fruit that I had found with deep interest, I looked over the map on my datapad and brooded about just how long that it might take us to actually find what we were looking for.

We were looking for a needle in a very large haystack, and we all knew it. I needed to find a way to narrow down our search or we could be looking for a long while. So far, those of us on foot hadn’t covered more than three kilometers in the hours that we had been searching and had yet to find anything of interest. Tarek and I may have covered a lot more ground, but we hadn’t found anything of interest either except for those fruit; and while those would be useful and possibly give more variety in our diet, they were not what we were looking for. Even with my goggles set on infrared I had yet to see any major sources of heat, or even minor ones that weren’t attributable to slips, treemice or molehogs.

I was still lost in those thoughts, and absently stroking Kit’s luxuriant fur, when Pallu returned with her waterproof satchel filled with suessfish and featherfish. “Xia!” She called out, quickly handing her satchel over to the others and motioning for me to join them

“Not much luck fishing?” I asked as I placed Kit back on the ground and walked over to join them, forcing myself to smile. “You were gone a while, I was able to find some interesting fruit though, maybe we can take some back for planting an orchard near the settlement.”

“I’m sorry for being gone so long Xia, but I think I may have found something. I went to the deeper waters hoping to catch a sunfish to last us a few meals when I sensed something big. This wasn’t a living creature, bioelectric fields generated by living creatures fluctuate and have a certain ebb and flow to them, but this didn’t. It was way too constant and steady to be the bioelectric field of a living thing, it has to be artificial.”

“You found it?! Where is it?!” I pressed, nearly squealing in delight as I hugged the soaked Yazuik.

“It’s out toward the deeper waters southwest of us, it’s pretty deep though. I could probably handle the depth, but I’m not sure if even I can hold my breath long enough to thoroughly explore the area by myself,” she replied with a dejected look once I had released her.

I practically dove into my medical bag, quickly producing one of the black masks that covered the mouth and nose and converted carbon dioxide into breathable air. “You can wear this Pallu, and you won’t be going alone. My uniform is still fully functional, and the environmental suit mode can be adapted for exploring space, toxic atmospheres, or under water.”

Pallu seemed to consider the idea for a moment before nodding eagerly, “That could work, we’ll have to communicate by hand signals though.”

“I think we can manage,” I responded with a nod of agreement. “We’ll have lunch and then wait an hour before going. I’m going to call Krie and let her know our progress before we eat.”

I got comfortable on the sand as I tapped the subspace comm to Krie’s frequency. “Hi sis, how are things going at home?”

“It’s good to hear from you Xia, I was starting to get worried. Things are progressing as well as can be expected here, but there’s been no response to our subspace message yet, are you having any luck there?”

“We’re taking a break for lunch now,” I replied. “I found some sort of fruit that I think will be a good source of vitamins and Pallu was out gathering fish when she sensed something deep under water, it could be what’s producing our subspace signal.”

“That could explain why the subspace signal of that pulse is so weak, if it’s having to push through that much water,” my sister said pensively. “Oh and fruit of any kind would really help our dietary needs here, especially us Saer’khi and the Nezans. That’s a great find, make sure to bring some back with you if you can.”

“I’ll tell Tarek where I found the trees and he and the others can gather some while Pallu and I go investigate her find later this afternoon. I’ll report in again later with whatever we’ve found.”

“Okay have fun, and please be careful,” my sister’s electronic voice replied.

“We will,” I assured her before disconnecting from the channel.

The others had already begun cooking the suessfish, shaving the tendrils off the featherfish, and shelling wingnuts for lunch by the time I was finished talking with my sister and it wasn’t long before lunch was ready. The fruit I had discovered, which we had decided to call applums for now, had a thin skin, much like an apple, peach, or plum, and a large seed at the center. It was juicy and deliciously sweet, with just a touch of tartness, and we all enjoyed the rare treat immensely. Rinnik didn’t have much since the Murqui are mostly carnivorous, but she seemed to find the taste as pleasing as I did. As we ate we discussed the plan for the afternoon and I explained to Tarek and the others where I had found the trees and what to look for.

Just over an hour later, the others left in search of the applum trees while Pallu and I prepared to explore the watery depths. Once I was certain that her mask was securely in place and wouldn’t come loose accidentally I sent the thought to the nanites in my suit to switch to underwater exploration mode. Immediately the suit tightened around me and the helmet formed to create an airtight seal as the HUD came online and showed that the air circulation and filtration system and light amplification were now active. Once my boots had widened and lengthened to form large flippers and a sturdy opaque material formed between the fingers of my gloves to produce a webbing, the transformation was complete and I joined Pallu in the water.

We had been swimming for what seemed like a long while before Pallu stopped in front of me and gestured downward. I followed her down and we were almost at six hundred feet down when we saw something made of silvery metal on the ocean floor partially covered with silt. It was large, at least twice as large as the personnel drop ship, saucer shaped, and I couldn’t help but think of little grey aliens when I saw it. We quickly spread out to explore the surface of the craft and I tried to get a better view of the craft as a whole as well.

I was quickly forced to revise my first assessment as I looked it over more thoroughly. It was more of an egg shaped craft with two large semicircular wings or fins that met in the middle at the front and rear of the craft to give a disc-like appearance. There was maybe six inches of space separating those wings though and, while people probably wouldn’t notice that while it was in flight, it was quickly obvious to me as I looked it over. One of those wings had been badly damaged, a good three quarters of it torn right off, which I surmised was why it had crashed.

A tap on my shoulder brought me out of my assessment of the craft and I turned to see Pallu behind me, motioning for me to follow, so I gave her a thumbs up and let her lead the way to whatever it was she had found. When we arrived she pointed out what appeared to be some sort of large circular airlock and I began to search for a control panel of some kind. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for, though it didn’t seem to be operational. Below it though, was a small recess with a kind of lever hidden inside that I was hoping might be some kind of emergency release.

I turned the lever and in a burst of bubbles from displaced air the airlock door opened. “Good,” I thought to myself, “it looks like it hasn’t taken on water, maybe it’s just that wing that was damaged.” I motioned for Pallu to follow me inside the airlock and led the way. Once we were both inside the small compartment, I looked for the panel on the inside and found it to be a pair of touchpads that unlike the outside panel seemed to still be in working order. There didn’t seem to be any writing, color or anything else to indicate which did what so I pressed the one to my right, hoping that the one closer to the outside was meant to depressurize the compartment and open the outer door and that the one I was pressing would allow us access to the inner ship.

It seemed that I had guessed correctly, since the outer door sealed and water was flushed from chamber. Soon the water was completely flushed, and just as my suit began to detect, much to my surprise, the presence of breathable air in the chamber the inner door hissed open. “There must be some sort of sensors that detected the presence of water and flushed it,” I commented thoughtfully as I checked one more time to make sure the air was breathable before sending my suit the mental signal to change it back to its regular uniform mode.

“That went a lot easier than I thought it would,” Pallu agreed cheerfully after taking off her mask and shaking out her fur a bit.

“Which means, given our luck so far, that it’s about time for something to go horribly, horribly wrong,” I retorted wryly.

“Come on Xia, we’re deep under water in an alien spacecraft, this is so exciting. We’re going to have so much fun exploring.”

I had to admit that it was pretty exciting, my pulse was racing as I wondered what we were going to encounter next. “You’re right it is exciting,” I conceded with a grin. I still felt it appropriate to make sure that we were careful though, so I warned her, “Just keep on your toes, and keep an eye out for any internal ship defense systems.”

As we walked around those rounded hallways we explored what rooms we found to discover that, aside from the damage to the wing, the ship seemed to still be in good working order. Lights were coming on as we walked around and doors opened as we approached them, making me believe that they were set on some kind of heat or motion sensor. I figured that whoever built this ship, they built it to last and the only reason that the outer airlock control panel hadn’t worked was due to a prolonged period of exposure to water. The rooms we explored all seemed to be mostly empty though, so I figured that they must have been meant for crew quarters or something. Eventually we found a vertical tube with pulsing lights and metal rungs heading both up and down. “This must lead to the other decks,” Pallu offered. “Shall we go up or down?”

“Let’s try up first,” I suggested. The tube was roughly four feet wide and the moment I stepped inside onto the slight platform to reach for one of the rungs I felt myself become weightless. “Whoa, there’s some sort of anti-gravity field in here. Who the hell built this ship? It’s still in excellent condition despite who knows how long under water, the air is still clean, it still has power, it’s responding to our presence, and now antigravity? This is waaay beyond what any of our peoples are capable of.”

Pallu followed me into the tube and giggled as she began to rise off the platform, “Wow, is this what flying feels like?”

I turned to give her a wicked grin. “No, this is what flying feels like.” Then I used my telekinesis to send us both shooting upward briefly until we reached the next deck, which I assumed was also the top deck, given that that is where the tube ended.

“I can’t wait to do that again,” the Yazuik said, still giggling as we exited the tube.

The room we had entered was dominated by several large view screens and there was a large assortment of various smaller terminals, some of which looked to be displaying sensor readings, though most of them weren’t active at the moment. “What do you think? Some sort of command deck?” I inquired of my aquatic companion.

“That would be my guess, though you’d know better than me Commander Phar,” she poked playfully.

I just stuck out my tongue at her, causing her to giggle again as we took a better look around. Sadly there were just a few more empty rooms off the main one, one that looked like it might have been the captain’s quarters, and another with a few terminals inside that could have been an office or a situation room, but it was hard to tell without any furnishings. “This is really starting to unnerve me,” I muttered as we reached the anti-gravity tube again.

“What is?” Pallu asked, cocking her head in interest.

“These empty rooms,” I explained. “It looks like this ship was meant to have a crew, but we’ve seen no furnishings, no mementos or personal trinkets, nothing that would indicate that a crew lived on this ship when it crashed. Granted, it could all be hiding in secret compartments waiting to emerge when needed, given this level of technology, but we haven’t seen a single body or any kind of remains either.”

“You’re right, it seems awfully sterile for such a large ship,” the Yazuik admitted with a frown. “There had to have been a crew, so where are they?”

“Let’s go on to the lower levels and maybe we’ll find out,” I replied, stepping back into the anti-gravity tube. “We’ll start from the bottom and work our way back up to the deck where we entered from. First though, I’m going to contact Tarek.”

I reached out with my mental amplifier and latched onto Tarek’s mind to send a ping. After a brief pause I sent, *Tess’hir. We found the source of the subspace pulse. It’s a ship unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and under a good six hundred feet of water. There’s clean air and we’re exploring it now.*

*A ship Tess’rha? Do you think anything on it could be useful?* his mind verily buzzed with interest and excitement.

*Probably,* I agreed, *whoever built this was pretty advanced, I’m just not sure how we would retrieve it this deep in the water. It’s twice as big as the personnel drop ship. Please update the others and report in to Krie, maybe have Karran and Xawin discuss retrieval options.*

*I’ll do it immediately Tess’rha, have fun exploring, but please be careful,* he sent back, still excited, but tinged with a bit of concern.

*We will and I’ll try to report in when we’re ready to call it quits.* I let the connection fade and turned back to Pallu with a smile, “Tarek will update the others and report in to Krie, so let’s finish looking around.”

There were five more decks below the one we had entered on and as we explored I became more and more concerned. The entire ship seemed to be in excellent condition and there was no sign of any bodies or personal effects. There were four other airlocks that we found as we made our way through the ship and the bottom deck had what looked like a large bay door in the floor that could have been used as an exit/entrance or for loading and offloading cargo.

Other than those doors, the bottom deck resembled a garage of sorts, complete with what appeared to be a dozen various vehicles of some sort that had been knocked to the forward area of the ship in the crash. They even looked like they might be repairable if any of our people could figure out the specifics of what they were and how they worked. It was nice to dream for a brief moment about what the ship and what was on it could mean to our colony if we could actually get it to the surface somehow.

That dream didn’t seem likely though as we made our way through the next three decks all of which I had to assume were the engineering section. The decks were all filled to the brim with machines and terminals with readouts that I had no way of understanding. We had been exploring the ship for several hours by the time we got to the last deck below the one we had entered from. The third deck opened onto a large and brightly lit open area that could have been a hydroponics garden if it wasn’t so empty. Doors from that area led to what seemed like more crew quarters in the forward area and in the aft to a large area that I was pretty sure was some kind of sickbay with all the beds and various instruments that accompanied them.

I felt a little more secure in an area that was somewhat close to my own turf, so I looked keenly at all of the instruments, trying to figure out what they might be used for. It was as I was doing that that I heard Pallu call out, “There’s another room back here.”

I halted my investigation for the moment and followed the sound of her voice toward the door she had found. I was expecting another empty storage room, since we had already found one near the sickbay’s entrance, but nothing could have prepared me for what we found when that door hissed open. It was a small room, approximately ten by twenty feet, with ten large chambers lining the walls, five on each side of the room, each large enough to fit a person inside. The door to one of the chambers was open, but all of the others were closed, with the small glass windows frosted over and various indicator lights flashing a slow and steady green. The most shocking thing though was the little grey alien sitting in the center of the room.

It looked like a Roswell alien with its large head and tiny little body and limbs, but I was pretty sure that it wasn’t an alien. The Saer’khi had given an almost identical description of the Silent One, and that had turned out to be some kind of robot, and although it wasn’t breathing or moving there were no signs of decomposition once I had gotten close enough for a cursory examination. A closer look with my scanner showed that I was right, it was made of metal and though it was remarkably preserved, it seemed to be turned off, or out of power, since I couldn’t see any physical damage to account for its inactivity.

The chambers looked to be for cryogenic stasis, but a look in the windows didn’t show anything inside. Still there had to be something inside, or else why would the devices be on? I was still trying to make sense of the chambers when Pallu asked, “So what do you think all of this is?”

“Well that,” I answered, turning around to gesture to the grey, “is a robot of some sort. A machine made to look like a living being. I don’t think it’s damaged so it probably shut itself down or it’s out of power.” Then I turned back to the chambers with a frown as I tried to figure out what was wrong with this picture. “These seem to be cryogenic stasis chambers. The theory is that you freeze the person and suspend their life functions for a long journey or if they’re ill you freeze them until they can be cured. I thought that maybe the crew placed themselves in stasis for a trip or maybe even when they crashed so they could wait for rescue, but that doesn’t make much sense.”

“Why not? These ones seem to be on, why have them on at all if they’re not being used? These things are using an awful lot of electricity for something that is doing nothing,” she argued.

I sighed and thought the problem out a moment before trying to explain my point. “Well if there is anything in those things I can’t see whatever it is through the window. That means that they are either empty or whoever is in there is too small to be seen. If it were the crew that wouldn’t be the case, because why build the cryo chambers so big if their species is so small? You’d build them to fit a person comfortably but take up as little space as possible. The size of the beds in sickbay, some of the other instruments aboard, and even the dimensions of the ship corridors also support that the people who built this ship are comparable in size to us.”

“If it is that small it can’t be too dangerous, so why not just open one up and have a look? If it looks dangerous we’ll just close it back up again. Come on Xia, where’s your sense of adventure? Aren’t you curious?”

“Okay, okay I’m curious,” I admitted, “but we’ve also been gone a while, and the others may be starting to worry.” I tried switching my goggles to x-ray mode to get a peek at whatever was inside, but whatever alloy the chambers were made of prevented me from seeing past the outer shell. I groaned, the curiosity eating away at me, and came to a decision as I stared at the chamber. “Well I can’t see inside with my goggles, so let me see if I can figure these things out. Their technology seems to be fairly intuitive, so it shouldn’t be too complex…”

After a few minutes I thought that I might have it figured out. I took a deep breath and pointed to the control panel on one of the chambers. “I believe that this pale blue area starts the freezing process, while the yellow area starts the defrost sequence, and this red one must be the door release. That means these symbols down here are probably numbers to set a timer, but since none of those symbols show on either of the readouts I see, I’m going to guess that there’s no timer active at the moment. They were probably waiting for someone to rescue them so why set a timer?”

I tentatively reached out and pressed the yellow area of the touchpad and immediately heard a slight bubbling noise from inside the chamber as the frost on the window began to melt. It was a good five minutes before the defrost sequence finished and a blinking light came on beside the red area I thought might be the door release. That was when I heard the muffled screaming. I swiftly hit the red area and the door released and opened with a hiss.

Inside was a small green humanoid with little tufts of pale green hair on its head who was screaming loud enough to wake the dead. It was a baby. I was so shocked that I immediately picked it up and began to rock it my arms, cooing softly at it. Once she had settled down a bit I tried to get a better look at her. She was definitely a girl with two arms and two legs that weren’t any different than those of a human baby. She probably could have been a human baby if not for the six stubby little barbed tentacles emerging from her back and her coloring. Her eyes were a deep brown and her skin was almost all a dark hunter green, though she had a spattering of freckles all over her body and the inner part of her tentacles that were both a yellowish green that seemed to glow with a light all their own.

When I could finally take my eyes off the baby I turned to Pallu with a massive grin. “Krie is going to be so pissed that we found this first.”