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.

I looked around the room at my friends and advisors. At the moment they were the only people I could really trust, we had all been here in this room together when that transmission had been sent. I supposed that if the device were small enough it could have been hidden on one of them, relaying our talk and all of our defense plans to Earth. I didn’t want to distrust any of them though, they had all become good friends and were instrumental in helping the colony run smoothly. Still, except for Lirra and the other Saer’khi in the room they were all human and most of them were from the United States.

“No,” I told myself firmly, “It’s not any of them. I need to trust some people and these are my friends and family. None of them would do that.” Then I sighed and spoke aloud, explaining exactly what we had discovered from the communications signal that Tanna had recorded. Then I looked around the room once more and said, “We need to find this spy quickly and find out exactly who they’re reporting to, what they’ve reported, and any other useful Intel. Any ideas on how we can do that?”

Karran was the first to speak, his voice box buzzing slightly as he considered the problem and then turning to Third he asked, “Could you change the frequency of your subspace laser communications signal to match the one that Tanna recorded? Maybe use that to expose, or at the very least locate whoever is doing the spying?”

“It is probable that I can utilize my subspace laser communications system to locate and identify the culprit,” the android agreed.

“That’s a good idea,” Dennis quickly agreed, “but if you can do that quietly and without them knowing that we’re on to them, all the better.”

“That is possible,” Third quickly agreed, “I could utilize my systems to identify them while my cloaking field generator is engaged.”

“What do you have in mind Dennis?” I asked with an arched eyebrow. I really wanted to find them and get all the answers that we wanted as soon as possible so that we would know what we were up against, but Dennis was the military officer. He knew tactics better than I did and it sounded like he had a plan.

“I think that we need to start using this spy to our advantage,” he offered with a grin. “I think that it’s a good guess that they’ve been reporting about our progress here, Third and the ship, and any public knowledge we’ve made available to the colonists that would interest Earth. I don’t know if this device the person is using can send photos, but I would imagine that they’re building up sizable dossiers on everyone in this room as well. So at this point we have to assume that Earth has all of the information that any of our colonists do.”

I nodded reluctantly, “I would like to know specifics, but you’re right, they probably know everything except what’s in the ship, what it and Third are capable of, and the defense plans we’ve been coming up with this evening. What do we do then?”

“We let them keep thinking that we have no idea that there’s still a mole. We feed them selective information and manipulate their work rotations so that they aren’t seeing anything important. Their reports to Earth continue as scheduled until whatever ship they’re sending arrives,” Dennis suggested.

“It’s going to be pretty hard to hide that we’re training people on the Hornets and Crawlers,” Mandy pointed out.

Captain White gave a curt nod of agreement. “We have four pilots for the Hornets, so let’s choose four we can trust for the Crawlers as well and we’ll do the training well away from So-Phar. Sarah, you told me that the grain you found was ready to harvest? Where is it exactly?”

Sarah looked thoughtful for a moment before replying. “Its south of us, and it takes a good hour at least to get there from here. That would take them out of So-Phar and keep them far enough away to not notice anything out of the ordinary. It’s going to take at least a week for a small group to harvest all of that grain, and it makes sense to make it a priority anyway, given how short our diet has been on grains and how much I could do with some to improve our menu.”

“We’ll need somewhere to hide the Crawlers and Hornets too, preferably as far from that grain as possible. If we move them to and from the ship everyday there’s too much chance of someone noticing and letting it slip to the wrong person. I’ll need somewhere suitable to train the Murqui, Haran, and Yazuik in guerilla tactics too,” Luiza pointed out.

“There’s a small cave system in the cliffs to the northeast,” Mandy suggested. “I discovered it when I was first scouting for good mining sites for iron and mandium. There weren’t any sizable deposits of metals we needed, so I decided on the site we’re mining now near the coast. Those caves could hold the vehicles, and it might make good training on the Crawlers to do some excavating to expand them a bit.”

“I want you leading the Crawler unit Dennis. So, once we find out who the spy is, I want you to find three more people we can trust to pilot the others,” I told the Captain.

Dennis nodded his head, a pensive look on his face. “I have some people in mind, but we’ll need to see who our mole is before I make any final decisions.”

“Third, we need to know now any and all details that might be useful to us in defending ourselves and our colony from a possible attack. What capabilities your ship has and the one from Earth might have; scanners, travel speed, and useful technology that you might have up your sleeve. Don’t wait to be asked specifically about specific technologies. We need to know everything now.” I leaned back in my chair, watching the robot as Shui began to stir, her hunger penetrating my mind.

As I fed Shui we all listened as Third began to divulge specific technologies from its ship, though it also had the entire data archives of the Originators available should we have need of information or technology not included in the ship itself. If I hadn’t figured it out by the quality of the ship, the cloaking field generators, and the anti-gravity fields, I would have learned then that the Originators were a lot more advanced than we currently were. In some ways the Saer’khi had advanced beyond what they had explored, but their technological path was different enough that it would be like comparing apples and bananas.

For one thing, the Originators never used subspace to travel, it had been only theoretical to them and the research line had been abandoned when they had developed FTL drives. Yes, they had faster than light travel, so it was possible that Earth had a ship capable of it. The problem with that, according to Third, was that Earth would likely be inexperienced with that drive, if it had survived the crash at all, and with deep space navigation. Travelling through normal space at faster than light speeds required constant course corrections as well, to avoid things like stars, black holes, and asteroid belts. The Saer’khi, on the other hand would be travelling slower even with subspace being compressed, but they wouldn’t have to stop for anything or change course, merely follow the subspace anchors that we had dropped on our way to Unity. So it would be a race between Earth and Saer’kah to see which would get to Unity first.

The originators also hadn’t used nanites much since their early development. The Saer’khi nanites used what matter was already there to complete their work, repairing tissue or using the body’s own regenerative abilities for medical purposes. For construction they shift and reorganize pre-set matter into specific shapes, patterns, or complicated structures using stored blueprints. The nanites that Earth had been developing were more used as self replicating building blocks to create whatever was needed, but I couldn’t be sure of the state of that technology since had left Earth. What the Originators used was equally effective, but a lot faster than both, they used matter conversion.

There was a large matter converter on the ship, in one of those engineering rooms that I hadn’t dared turn anything on in, and it wasn’t just in the room, it was the room. There were also smaller versions of the same thing in each of the crew quarters. The things basically broke down matter to the subatomic level instantaneously and then rearranged electrons, protons and the like to reform those materials into the desired shape, material, or both according to whatever blueprints had been provided. The only limitation seemed to be that it couldn’t safely create living organic matter. Complex organisms were too… complex. With the matter generators, the proper blueprints, and enough raw materials to convert though, we could effectively arm all of the colonists with Saer’khi designed weapons, and construct the weapons for the Hornets, in hours instead of days.

The sensors in Third’s ship were also far more advanced than on even the medical dropship. It could detect individual life signs from orbit and distinguish between them and sense spatial anomalies or signals clear to the edges of the solar system. It could also connect to dozens of cloaked satellites in orbit to keep track of planetary life signs in real time. Most of those satellites were destroyed along with the planet’s third moon, but three had survived and were still functional. Third would be sending them an order to reposition their orbits for maximum coverage as soon as it returned to the ship.

It was of course their medical technology and sickbay that had captured Krie’s attention, as well as my own. Their genetic engineering and cloning abilities were light years ahead of our own and, while they may not have used nanites like we do, they did have a faster and more stable form of growth acceleration, high-speed tissue regeneration devices, gene re-sequencers, and various treatments for radiation exposure just to name the highlights. We couldn’t wait to learn how to use everything in that sickbay.

The next morning at breakfast Third tracked down our mole. Angela Conner was a quiet woman who did her work, didn’t complain, and seemed shy, but was usually friendly whenever someone did speak with her. She was the type that got lost easily in the crowd, and now I had to wonder if that was by design. She hadn’t really spoken with me or any of my inner circle directly since we landed and she was one of the few colonists other than the mutineers who hadn’t been claimed by a slip yet. Was that because she had purposely held back when that swarm of slips had followed Krie and her team home on that day of the storm, or simply because the slips were good judges of character?

Xawin had assured me that between having Bixx to work with him and having Third show him how to use the matter converter that they would be able to have the Hornets ready for the next day, even if it took them all day and into the night. With that in mind, at lunch I announced that the lavender grain Sarah had discovered was ready to be harvested and that the work crew for that would be decided that night and that Dennis would be informing those pulling harvest duty in the morning while issuing other daily rotation assignments. The plan was to rotate Angela between the harvesting and fishing crews where she would be well away from where we were working on training and drills with the Crawlers and Hornets. I had decided to put Woody in charge of the harvesting operation and I figured that I could trust both him and Seddar to keep a watchful but not obvious eye on her when they were let in on the plan.

Pallu would be doing her fishing in the mornings, but in the afternoons she would be the sole Yazuik training in guerilla warfare with Lirra, Matt, Luiza and a good portion of our Murqui and Haran populations under the guise of hunting. During those afternoons, Dot, Tarek, Tanna and I would be training on the Hornets and Dennis and his crew of Yvette Thorston, Ken Davies, and Kasumi Fujikawa would be training on the Crawlers. I approved of Dennis’ selections.

Yvette was a tall, blue-eyed and raven-haired, Nordic beauty from Iceland with a cybernetic left hand and a no-nonsense attitude that had earned her a lot of respect among the other colonists. She never complained or tried to shirk her jobs and she was always willing to help others with theirs as well. She was a little unapproachable to most people at first because she expected everyone to work hard for the sake of the colony and she didn’t approve of goofing off while there was work to be done. If she was on the job she was all business. Once she was relaxing though she was like a whole different person; friendly, supportive and always quick with a friendly slap on the back or a crude joke. I had liked her from the moment I had first talked to her on landing day.

Ken was a grizzled Bering War veteran. He had never seen active duty but rather had been a mechanic in the motor pool. His right leg was cybernetic up to mid thigh from when a bomb hit a little too close to the motor pool on the base he was stationed at in Alaska. He had been working on a vehicle at the time and when the bomb had shaken the building and caused the vehicle to fall on his leg, crushing it. He shared Yvette’s general attitude about work and the pair could often be seen relaxing together in their down time.

Then there was Kasumi. She was a one of the sweetest and most caring people in the colony, always willing to give a hand, one of the first to try to get to know the people of other species in our new home, and apparently one of my strongest supporters since we landed on Unity. When others had still been unsure about my leadership, my age, or the fact that I was a hybrid, she had made no qualms about the fact that she thought that I was the right woman for the job. She was a tiny young Japanese woman who had been sent to Saer’kah in the first Migration ships when she was fourteen, due to the fact that she was born blind and suffered from severe epileptic seizures that caused her to remain hospitalized for nearly a year before the Saer’khi found her. We had a lot in common actually with being Asian, hospitalized for much of our youths, and having our bodies fighting against us until the Saer’khi came to save us.

I had discovered while getting to know her a bit that Mom had actually been the one to see to her treatment and recuperation while I was still in my stasis tube. She had managed to remove the brain tumor that was causing the seizures and had given Kasumi a set of bionic eyes that not only let her see normally, but included the same alternate vision modes that my goggles gifted me with. Now that she had been given her sight and a new lease on life Kasumi was like a cheerful little whirlwind, smiling and laughing everywhere she went despite our grim situation at first. That cheerfulness had proved infectious as our situation began to steadily improve and now you would be hard pressed to find people in the colony that didn’t consider Kasumi a friend to some degree. She would have made a great candidate to become a mother for one of the Txela if it wasn’t for the fact that she was already three months pregnant.

Thinking about the three of them, I had decided that they and anyone else with cybernetic body parts would need some routine maintenance, so I decided to get to it before we started getting too busy with defense preparations and the like. I had examined Matt’s and Dennis’ recently, so I let them go about their afternoon work as usual while one by one I called in Amy, Dot, Yvette, Ken, Kasumi and a half dozen other colonists with replacement limbs. Amy’s limbs seemed in good shape, but I had made those myself, and not long ago at that, but all of the others needed some small tweaks or repairs and I was glad that I had thought to look them over.

Kasumi was my last patient and in her usual chipper mood. Dennis had already explained to her, Yvette and Ken what was going on and what they had been volunteered for and Kasumi seemed particularly excited to be trying to learn to pilot the Crawlers. I was hoping that she might have known more about Angela than I did, what with her being so friendly with everyone, but apparently the woman didn’t even let her get all that close. With talk of more serious matters over I had her test the adjustments that I had just made to her eyes. “Is everything clear now?” I asked as she blinked several times.

“Oh that’s much better,” she said with a grin. “I didn’t realize just how grainy my vision was getting.”

“You should have come to see me about it sooner,” I said shaking my head.

“You’ve been busy Xia, especially since you became a mom. How is Shui doing anyway?” She leaned over to smile at the infant currently sleeping in her sling. “She is such a cutie. I would have adopted one myself but you know…” she trailed off, giving her belly a gentle pat. She wasn’t obviously showing yet, but there was a slight roundness starting to make itself known.

“You still should have come to see me,” I insisted, but with a smile. One couldn’t not smile while talking with Kasumi it seemed. “Shui is doing well thanks, she’s still mostly just sleeping, eating, and dirtying nappies, and she’s not quite wanting to be away from me yet, but she’s healthy and seemingly happy. Seriously though, I’m your doctor, your friend, and the only one qualified to work on your eyes, so you should have seen me as soon as you noticed problems. Besides, we don’t get to talk much and I should be giving you a prenatal exam as well. Would you like to get that over with now too?”

“Sure! We might as well since I’m already here,” she agreed.

I began with her vitals, asking as I checked her pulse, “Any complaints that I should know about? Discomfort? Our diet hasn’t really been the best since coming here, so I’m a bit worried about your health and the baby’s.”

“I have no complaints really, other than the odd bout of morning sickness,” she replied with a shrug. “I guess I’ve been a little tired too.”

I finished checking her vitals and used my goggles to run a few quick scans. “Well everything looks good Kasumi, but I’m going to give you some calcium and vitamin supplements just to be on the safe side. I can’t really tell the baby’s gender yet from these scans, it seems to want to keep it a surprise for now what with its current position.”

“You’re the doc, Doc,” she said with a grin.

I tried my best not to laugh as I searched for the prenatal multivitamins that Ji’Turi used. We had a decent supply of them and they would provide all the vitamins and the extra calcium that I wanted Kasumi to have. Finding a bottle I handed it to the tiny woman and instructed her, “Take one with every meal.”

She took the bottle, giggled, and gave a crisp salute. “Yes Commander! One with each meal. Oh and when Shui is ready for some time away from you let me know, I should probably start getting some practice in if I’m going to be a supermom like you.”

“You’ll have to get in line behind Amy and my sister,” I retorted. “I’ll keep you in mind though. I wouldn’t worry about it too much though Kasumi, you’re going to be a great mother. Now get out of here and get back to work.” I playfully shooed her from the room and she gave me another sassy little salute before turning around and heading back to her assigned work for the afternoon.

For the next week the entire settlement seemed to be on edge, waiting to see who would arrive first, the Saer’khi or forces from Earth. We all tried to keep as busy as possible, especially those of us training to fight, if it came to that. We managed to keep Angela where she couldn’t see anything important and kept our progress reports on the ship and other matters during evening meals boring and only partially accurate. The Hornets were easy to fly, compared to the Saer’khi drop ships, and we were getting used to them quickly, and having fun doing so. Dennis’ team seemed to be doing equally well with the Crawlers.

We had also used the matter converters that we now controlled to create a supply of particle beam cylinders, in case it came down to fighting invaders instead of waiting them out in the EM shield like we planned to do. The idea was to wait for Saer’khi backup, and to use our other military strategies only as a last resort. A lot of that though depended on how large the ship was and what Intel on it we could get from the long range scanners on Third’s ship.

Shui wasn’t sleeping as much and didn’t seem to need to eat quite as often, though she continued to have quite the appetite when she did. Our bond had slowly settled into a strong mental connection that seemed just as deep as the one I shared with Tarek. It was strange, now that she was starting to get more comfortable being without me I found that I didn’t really want to be apart from her, if I could help it. Her presence in my mind was strong, unless I purposely blocked her out to give myself some privacy, and she was capable of projecting her infant thoughts and emotions to the other Saer’khi now, and even non Saer’khi, if they happened to be holding her at the time. She also seemed to pick up on their projected emotions.

It was late on the eighth night after we had discovered the presence of our spy that I was awakened by Kit shrieking, which of course woke Shui and got her shrieking. I tried to calm my baby girl when Tanna pinged me. *Xia are you awake?*

*Of course I am, who could sleep with all this racket?* I responded, my head pounding and my eyes twitching from the noise as I cradled Shui in my arms and tried to calm her.

*I’m in Third’s ship, we just picked up something big on the edge of the solar system. At its current speed it should reach the outer edge of the debris field in seven and a half hours.* There was a pause for a brief moment before she continued. *Third says that it’s likely that it is the ship from Earth.*

*Shit! I guess Earth got here first. The slips can’t have detected that though, so what in the hell are they going on about.* That was when a vision flashed into my mind of someone laying still on the ground by the EM shield generator and Angela standing above them with a particle beam cylinder in her hand.

I didn’t waste any time changing out of my nightgown, I just snatched up my own particle beam cylinder, placed Shui gently back on the bed and ran for all I was worth. *Angela is trying to take out the EM shield,* I sent to the other Saer’khi, not even bothering with a ping first.

I was the first to get there. Angela was rapid firing the cylinder at the shield emitter with Eddie Cruz, one of those who had volunteered for night watch, laying dead at her feet. I fired at her, but I was running so I only managed to wing her on the shoulder as the emitter sparked and smoked and the shield fell.

“Drop it Angela!” I called out, but that was when I felt something hit me from behind and a particle beam blew through my chest. I fell to the ground, my chest on fire and coughing up blood. I knew right away that this wasn’t good. The beam had probably cauterized the wound and missed my heart, but it had possibly punctured my right lung and there was severe trauma. I lifted my head to see where the shot had come from and there, standing behind me, was Jake with a particle beam cylinder his hand.

My vision was starting to get blurry and I gritted my teeth as Angela and Jake stood above me. “I hope you left that kid where I can find it Commander,” Angela said with a sneer. “My bosses may want to do an alien autopsy or two and I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I wish I could get a sample of those nanites of yours too, people would pay good money for those, but then we’ll have the ability to make more once we get control of the ships.”

A lavender blur attached itself to Angela then as a shrieking Kit bit and clawed at her. She tired to shake the slip loose, but Kit was having none of that. It was then that I felt Tarek coming closer and when Angela did finally manage to shake Kit loose she was sent flying into the remains of the EM shield emitter with a crash and a sickening crunching sound. Jake was looking around frantically as Tarek appeared, his dark blue skin blending into the night sky. He tried firing at him, but Tarek was keeping to the air, dodging the frantic shooting and moving to quick for Jake to get a clear sense of just what, or who, he was facing. “Who’s out there?!”

“Heh,” I laughed, coughing up more blood as I did. “That would be my… husband, and is he ever *cough* pissed. Oh and… Jake. Remember that *cough* promise I made you?” His eyes widened as I reached out with every ounce of concentration I had left to take his neck in a tight telekinetic hold, and then I snapped it like a twig. I was vaguely aware then of shouts and people approaching, but that’s about when everything went black.