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 awoke with a tingling throughout my chest, a fading burning that more annoyed than ached. I squinted my eyes as I opened them against the light of room and the first thing I noticed was that I wasn’t in the medical dropship. No, this was definitely Third’s ship. I was naked on one of the beds in the sickbay and a sort of retractable canopy with built in devices that I couldn’t make heads or tails of was sliding out from its position above me and back into the bed. As I was still trying to get my bearings Krie came into my field of vision and covered me with a thermal blanket.

*Try not to move yet,* my sister’s voice cautioned me, *You would be dead if that beam had hit your heart or punctured both of your lungs instead of just the one. If it hadn’t been for your nanites keeping you alive and healing you, you would have died. Between that and Third showing me how to use the high-speed tissue regeneration on the med bed, you’re fully healed, but you should rest a while. I would suggest at least an hour of rest. When you’re ready to get up, your uniform is on the bed beside yours, your nightgown was a lost cause.*

*How long was I out? What’s our status? I need to know what is happening.* I sent back to her, though I didn’t move for the moment. I could sense Shui in the back of my mind, her infant mind reaching for mine now that I was awake and it felt like she was upset. Kit too had sensed that I was awake and I could feel the slip’s sudden burst of joy being send along the connection that we shared.

*You’ve been out for just over six hours Xia, you had us all worried,* Krie explained, concern emanating from her mind as she wrapped me up in a mental embrace. Her surface thoughts were filled with worries about my close call and the possibility of losing me like she had her other sister Jhirai.*Third and Karran have used the matter converter to construct a new EM shield emitter and generator and Karran is setting them up now. The EM shield is bigger and more powerful than what we were using before. The ship from Earth should reach the debris field within an hour, but they’re going to have to slow down considerably to navigate it safely, if a ship that large can manage it at all. Either that or they’ll have to go around and try to approach from the other side of the planet, but that would probably take even longer.*

*I feel fine sis, you did a great job and I know it probably wasn’t easy with it being me and using tech that we haven’t been trained on. I’ll have to thank Third for showing you how it worked. Did Eddie pull through?* I asked, remembering briefly seeing him on the ground near the EM shield emitter when I had arrived to stop Angela.

*Eddie and Jamir are both dead.* The sadness and anger in my sister’s mind at the loss of life was thick and almost smothering. *Jamir was attacked from behind, his throat was slit and he probably didn’t even know what hit him. His particle beam cylinder was missing so we’re assuming that they used it to kill Eddie and then took his as well so that Angela could destroy the shield emitter and have Jake waiting to kill anyone else who approached. Jake and Angela are both dead too by the way, and so are the other mutineers, except for Jared. Dennis and Luiza wanted to confine Tony and John in the medical dropship behind EM shields, but they… resisted.*

I knew that I had killed Jake, it was the last thing that I could recall before blacking out, and Angela’s death didn’t really surprise me either with the way that Tarek had sent her flying into the remains of the EM shield emitter. Six more lives lost, and from the looks of it they probably wouldn’t be the last. Four of them may have been traitors and spies, but Eddie and Jamir were good men and their loss would be felt by the whole colony. *What about Angela’s communication device?* I asked hoping that we could salvage at least some useful information from this mess.

*Dennis searched her body and found a knife and the communication device. It was damaged, but Xawin said that it is mostly superficial and he is working on restoring it so we can look it over.* That was when Shui’s screaming, both mental and physical hit me like a punch. I could feel both her and Tarek approaching and looked up to see my Tess’hir entering the medical bay with the Txela infant cradled in his upper arms. They weren’t alone either, as Matt, Amy and Jittu were only a few steps behind Tarek with my eldest adopted daughter tightly holding the hand of my Murqui spirit-child.

They all looked relieved to see me awake and alert. My baby was very hungry though, and really wanted her mommy, so I reached out to softly brush her mind with my own. The mental caress was gentle and loving as I told her. *I’m here Shui. Everything is going to be okay.* Then I looked up at the group and attempted a smile. “So, I get visitors now?”

Matt gave me a smirk, but I could see in his one natural eye that he was worried about me as he spoke. “Well pretty much everyone in So-Phar is wanting to make sure you’re okay, but Dennis and Mandy have managed to convince everyone not to overwhelm you and keep it to just family for now.”

“I see,” I replied as Krie helped ease me into a sitting position and Tarek handed Shui over so that I could feed her. Once she was suckling contentedly at my breast and I could feel her mind nuzzling in the embrace of my own I looked at my gathered family. My sister, my Tess’hir, two adopted daughters, the adoring Murqui who had been so eager to have me as her Niadu, and then there was Matt. He had been slowly adjusting to the idea of Saer’khi marriages and I would happily take him as my second Tess’hir if it was something that he was interested in. My life certainly had changed since we landed on Unity.

Now that I was properly sitting I gave those gathered a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. It’ll take more than that to bring me down.” Amy and Jittu seemed to take that as their cue to practically jump onto my bed to hug me. It made feeding Shui a little awkward, but she was really too hungry to care and very involved in sating that hunger. Since it didn’t seem to be bothering her too much I wrapped my free arm around the other two girls and held them both close for a moment. “Its okay girls, Krie patched me right up. What kind of adoptive Mom, or Niadu, would I be if I let myself die from something like that?”

Jittu was saying something as I let the pair go, but she was blubbering, sniffling, and talking so fast that the translator was having a tough time picking up what she was saying. I softly stroked the young Murqui’s hair. “Shhh, calm down Jittu. You asked me to be your Niadu because you felt that I was the greatest warrior in the colony right?” I waited until she had nodded her brown-furred head and then cupped her chin so that she was looking right at me. “Even the best warriors can be surprised or make mistakes. The important thing is that we learn from those mistakes, that we see them, not as a weakness, but as an opportunity to become stronger. Jake was a coward who attacked from behind with a long range weapon while hidden because he was afraid of me. So why am I alive and he isn’t?”

The Murqui shook her head in confusion, still sniffling a bit. “I don’t know Niadu.”

Since becoming Jittu’s Niadu I had been trying to learn as much as I could about the Murqui’s warrior/hunter culture whenever I had a spare moment by talking to Jittu’s parents, Rinnik, and Lirra. My occasional sessions with Lirra since I had become Shui’s mother had been the most informative though, as my friend coached me in many Murqui legends and traditions whenever we had been working together on the Niadu dolls for our Txela children. It had not only given me an appreciation for Murqui culture, but it had also given me insight into why Jittu may have chosen me as her Niadu and what kinds of lessons that she may need from me as her role model.

I ruffled Jittu’s hair again as I told her honestly, “It is in part because of my nanites keeping me alive, so I was prepared as a good warrior should be, but it is also because I have Sihrval, the warriors heart. He fought for nothing but his own gain, but I had important things to fight and live for. It was that which gave me the strength to stay alive and defeat him when he thought that he had won, and not die on the battlefield. This colony is our clan, our triihal, and they wished to harm us all. No good warrior would allow harm to come to their triihal if they still had breath in their body and I have to keep on living to protect and provide for us all, be a good mother to my children, and train them and my niahisse to defend the triihal when I am old and grey.”

She was still a bit teary-eyed when she looked up at me, but she nodded and managed to say, “Yes Niadu.”

I kissed her softly on her furry forehead and gave her a serious look. “I am fine little one, I will be out and about in an hour or two. Now go niahisse, I believe it is your job to spread the word of my victory and carry my words to the rest of the triihal. Tell them that I will not allow myself to fall to such a cowardly attack and that I will address them all in two hours.”

The young Murqui nodded and quickly blurted out, “I will Niadu!” Then she was off.

“She was so worried about you, we all were,” Amy said as she sat on the side of the bed her eyes moist.

“I’m not checking out anytime soon Amy. Like I told Jittu, I have too much to live for and too much to do. Besides, didn’t I promise to take care of you and teach you? I don’t plan on breaking that promise. I know that if I did die that you’d still have Krie, Tarek, and Matt, but you’re just starting to get over losing your real mom and I remember what that pain was like, so I’m not going to let you lose me too. Not when I have a say in the matter.” I wrapped her up in my free arm and held her close for several minutes before finally letting her go.

Krie and Amy returned to the medical dropship then so that Amy could check on the chicks and so that the pair could begin setting up for a possible triage situation in case of combat in or near So-Phar. If it came to that we were probably going to be best served by using the medical devices and techniques that we were already familiar with until Third could teach us how everything in the sickbay of his ship worked. Krie had also made no attempt to hide the fact that she thought that Matt, Tarek, and I should have a bit of time alone.

As soon as the pair had left the room Matt glared down at me and took my hand that wasn’t currently cradling Shui in a grip that I thought might crush it if he wasn’t careful. “Don’t you ever scare us like that again, I thought that we were going to lose you. Our nanites don’t make us indestructible you know.” As he gripped my hand I could sense the emotions running through him; fear, love, and concern mostly, though they were all a bit hard to read at first from the signals that his brain was sending being ‘translated’ for his bionic limbs.

“Angela was trying to destroy our EM shield and we needed it for our defense with Earthers on the doorstep and I was the first person there,” I replied, trying not to snap at him because I knew that he was just worried and upset. I had a brief flash of memory, of my first and only aborted attempt to live in the barracks on Saer’kah before moving in with my family. What those men had tried to do to me before I escaped, what they had done to my wings, and how long that it had taken for my nanites to heal me and grow my wings back after. I shuddered at the memory and gave Matt a long hard look. “If anyone knows the capabilities and limitations of our nanites it’s me.”

Tarek of course sensed my unease and wrapped me up in a mental embrace, though he wasn’t going to go easy on me either. “The EM shield emitter and generator can be and are being replaced, you can not be Tess’rha. I was so scared that I was going to lose you when I got there and saw you laying on the ground. I could barely sense your thoughts.”

“I know!” I felt bad about snapping, neither of them really deserved it after all, they were just showing how much they cared about me. “I should have been more careful! I was half asleep and there was an immediate threat to the colony and a man who I might have saved if I had gotten there quick enough, I am not going to apologize for trying to do something about it. I admit that I should have gone in there with a better plan and I’m sorry for worrying you. Sure, I was wounded, but I managed to pull through because I had my nanites. Eddie and Jamir are both dead though because I didn’t lock that bitch Angela up when I first found out about her. Tell me, what’s the real tragedy here?”

Matt looked like I had slapped him and took a step back while Tarek’s thoughts were filled with guilt and worry. “Tess’rha, you can’t blame yourself for…”

I cut Tarek off. I knew what he was going to say and I didn’t want to hear it just then. “I can blame myself. Six more lives lost, two of them good men, because I decided to go along with this misinformation plan. Well I damn well hope it worked, because the cost was high enough.”

“Xia, we all agreed to the plan, this isn’t just on your head. She seemed to be just observing and sending messages to Earth, we had no reason to believe that she would pull something like this,” Matt said shaking his head sadly as he tried to calm me down.

“We all agreed, but I’m the ‘Commander’, I could have vetoed the whole thing and locked her up tight,” I quickly countered before my anger got the best of me. “No reason?! Does anybody remember Eric Townsend?! Angela was a fucking Earth spy, she was lying to us all from day one, and she was keeping at least one device hidden from us! We had every reason to think that she would pull something like this eventually!”

We were all quiet for a long while after that as I tried to calm myself down. My flare of anger had frightened Shui and now I was trying to soothe her, and myself by mentally and physically snuggling her while focussing the deeper recesses of my mind on other things. As much as I blamed myself for my short-sightedness and the deaths of Eddie and Jamir I also knew that there wasn’t anything I could do about it now, so I needed to focus on things that I could do something about. It was a bit like triage for my thoughts, trying hard to tell myself that there was nothing I could do for patient one and that patients two onward would be dead too if I didn’t act quickly and decisively.

Once I was calm again, with my thoughts in order and a plan in place I took a deep breath before hesitantly speaking again. “Tarek, Matt… I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you, or even myself really, I’m angry about this situation. I’m angry that Earthers have to be so selfish and ruthless and that we’re suffering for it. We’ve lost so many lives already because of their greed and self-entitlement and I don’t want to lose any more, at least not on their terms.”

“I know Tess’rha,” Tarek said, sadness evident both on his face and in his mind. “I love you and you are not feeling this alone though. We are all angry, we all feel the losses of our fellow colonists, and we all…” He trailed off uncertainly.

“We all want to start kicking their asses for a change?” Matt suggested helpfully. ”Well, great timing for that with a whole ship of Earth’s military practically in orbit.”

As much as I was inclined to distrust ‘Earthers’, even I knew that they weren’t all responsible for our problems. Not all people on Earth were greedy, self-centered and willing to do anything to get what they wanted. Not even all nations were like that, but we couldn’t really afford to hope for the best while dealing with a planet where the bad seemed to far outnumber the good. That was why the Saer’khi had cut off diplomatic ties upon finding so many spies sent to Saer’kah for the colony project, and it was probably not done lightly since it had been the first time that it had ever been done with an allied planet. “They don’t really represent Earth as a whole, but they are the ones who have been the source of all our grief so a little payback would be nice,” I admitted. “They’re Americans, like we used to be, I just hope that the other former Americans among us can handle fighting them.”

Matt shook his head sadly. “We all stopped being Americans the moment that they shipped us off to another planet. We all have a new home now, a home we want to protect, and they’re our enemies. We all accepted that the moment that Eric’s actions stranded us here and you banded us together. You named this planet Unity and we are all together in this, no matter what happens.”

Shui had apparently eaten her fill and the snuggling along with the warm loving thoughts that I had been sending her since I had calmed myself down were conspiring to make her content enough to sleep. Tarek held out his arms and leaned over to softly kiss me before offering, “Let me take Shui back to your room on the medical ship for a nap Tess’rha. Matt mentioned wanting to talk with you privately for a bit before we came to visit and I can watch over Shui until you’re feeling strong enough to get up.”

“Thank you Tess’hir,” I replied, handing Shui over to him and kissing him back tenderly. Then I sent him mind to mind, *I’m sorry for worrying you so much Tarek. I love you and I’d never do anything to hurt you if I could help it. I should have been more careful, but if there was a chance that I could stop Angela or save Eddie’s life I had to take it.*

*I know,* he agreed, wrapping me up in the warmth of his mind as he took Shui from me, smiling down at her. *I love you too, and if you had not taken that chance you would not have been the Ji’turi that I love, so I understand why you did it. Just please be more careful in the future, I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.* Then he kissed me one more time and left me alone with Matt.

There was an awkward silence once Tarek had left the room, Matt and I both looking at one another, uncertain of what to say for several minutes. Finally it got to me and I pulled off the thermal blanket, swung my feet over the side of the med bed, and reached for my uniform sitting on the bed to the right of mine. I should have probably waited until I was alone, and I was a bit self conscious about being naked in front of Matt, but I couldn’t just sit there in bed while Matt figured out whatever it was he wanted to say. He and Tarek had both already chewed me out for being reckless, so that couldn’t have been what was on his mind.

Matt had turned away to give me some semblance of privacy to dress and it wasn’t until I was completely dressed that he managed to say, “Xia… for a while there I thought that we were going to lose you, we all did. I know that we’ve only known each other since that first day on the Bounty, but I’ve never met anyone like you and I don’t think that I could handle losing you now that I’ve gotten to know you.”

“Well I am the only Human-Saer’khi hybrid, at least that I know of,” I offered.

“Come on Xia! I’m trying to have a moment with you here!” he sputtered as he instinctively turned around. He looked like he was ready to turn away again, but when his eyes roamed over me and discovered I was wearing my uniform he managed to stop himself. Instead he looked down at his feet as a blush painted his cheeks.

“I think you’re better at that when there’s a script involved, oh great and mighty movie star,” I teased. Hey, he constantly teases and flusters me, so a little payback is just fair play. The look of frustration and uncertainty on his face though made me decide not to push it any further. Whatever he wanted to say, he was having trouble with it and I’d never known Matt to lack confidence about anything before. So I sat back down on the med bed and sighed. “I’m sorry, please continue.”

Matt took a deep breath and nodded slowly, though it was a moment before he managed to tentatively speak again. “Like I said, I’ve never met a girl like you before, and it’s not because you’re half Saer’khi. You’re smart, funny, brave, and beautiful and sometimes you just frustrate me beyond belief. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and when we almost lost you I realized just how much I would be missing without you. Now if this were a movie, I’d be kissing you, telling you that I love you and asking you to marry me, but our lives aren’t that simple are they?”

“I don’t think my life was ever that simple, yours probably wasn’t either,” I pointed out, though I smiled to encourage him to keep talking.

“Well here’s the thing. Those people on Earth can have their simple lives if they want them, but here we don’t have to limit ourselves to fit in. We live in a supportive colony made up of so many different cultures, people who accept one another without judgement, and I guess it’s taken me a while to get used to that. I don’t want to take you away from Tarek, he’s one of my best friends, but maybe that will just make it easier for us all if I join him instead.” Matt had been fidgeting nervously as he spoke, but now he took a deep breath as he knelt down before me and then he looked up into my eyes. “Xia… my mind is your mind.”

I stared at him for a long moment my eyes wide and it felt like my heart was about to explode out of my chest, and given that I had had a particle beam blow through my chest not that long ago, I had a pretty good basis for comparison. Once I finally caught my breath and my pulse had slowed I noticed that he hadn’t moved, he was still there, waiting. So I did the only thing that made sense, I cupped his face in my hands, and reached out for his mind.

It was a bit strange with the static produced by the signals sent along his nervous system but his mind was there and open to me. Even though his emotions were all over the place the only negative ones seemed to be fear and uncertainty and I attempted to allay those as I explored his mind carefully, my mental probe like a lovers caress, loving and soothing. He held back nothing, his emotions, doubts, fears, and memories all there for me to see. I took my time exploring, getting to know him as only he knew himself and each new discovery just made me feel that much more connected, that much more in love with him.

It was nearly an hour later that I retreated from his mind, soothing his fears and wrapping him up in my loving embrace as I fell to the floor and kissed him. My mind and body were both electrified, every nerve ending and firing neuron in a state of bliss and wonder that I had only felt once before, and I knew that he felt exactly the same. We were connected now and for a while we just knelt there in one another’s arms enjoying the moment. And when we finally pulled away and stood up I could still feel his mind, not as strong as Tarek’s but definitely there, even though we were no longer touching. I had to wipe joyful tears from my eyes as I leaned forward, kissed him once again and said, “Thank you Tess’hir.”

“Anything for you Xia,” he replied, flashing that movie star smile. Then tentatively, he asked, “So what do we do now.”

I thought about if for a moment. “Well long term, we start planning the marriage ceremony since I think I have the only two Tess’hir that I’ll ever want. But, short term we have other things to worry about. The enemy is at our door and we need to kick them to the curb. Once I get some status updates from Tanna and Third I’ll need to address the colony as a whole so we can plan our final strategy. Let’s get going Tess’hir, they may have claimed first blood in this war, but we’re going to end it.”