"We can send a shuttle down to get you if you want but I'm not sure I can hold the vote off. It's supposed to go off tonight."

"Good idea, send a shuttle to get me, there's a clearing a few miles behind me, I'll meet them there."

Commander Pippleton closed the communicator and looked around. People were restless, he could sense it. Everyone was having the dreams now, everyone wanted to return home.

He spotted Fran talking to one of the council members. She was very animated, her hands moving back and forth, her body shifting from one leg to the next. The council man stood there and listened. He smiled when she was finished and placed his hand on her shoulder. As Pippleton approached he was only able to hear the last part of what he said, "You have my word."

"Word for what?" Pippleton asked.

His voice seemed to startle Fran. The Council man nodded and walked off leaving the two of them alone in the middle of the village. "Word for what?" Pippleton repeated the question.

"Nothing, just-"

"You must think I'm stupid. There can only be one thing you would get so excited about. Did you convince him to vote to leave the planet?"

"Yes," Fran replied. She couldn't look at him. "I have the majority now and I know the others will fall in line once they know they can go home."

Pippleton raised his shoulders in anger. His warrior heart beat faster and the rage that he had kept inside for so long simmered to the surface. "Are all humans this foolish? Can't you see this is some sort of Handler trick?"

"Commander-"

"Do not address me by my rank, you've lost that honor."

"Okay, Pippleton," she said nearly spitting his name out in disgust. "You have to see this is what the people want."

"No, this is what you want, this is what you've wanted since the start and now you have it. You have just doomed the Earth to destruction."

"We've seen no signs of us being watched. We have the Arwen scanning the system constantly looking for something and we haven't found any signs. We were not followed here, the Handlers have no idea where we are and we should go home and help Earth prepare for their inevitable arrival."

"Don't you think they can find ways of hiding themselves from our scanner? They can build massive structures around stars, they have discovered wormholes that we never even thought about and they have ways of getting into our dreams. Don't you think they could have found a way to do that here? To have people dream of home?"

"Now you just sounding paranoid. Yes, we know they could get into Captain Cook's mind but she was hooked up to several machines and they needed some pretty powerful hardware to do it. Do you see anyone hooked up here? Do you see any sign of the Handler's here? No, we don't and that's why we're going home."

"But you can't." Pippleton pleaded. "Let me contact the Captain, if she can't be here physically she can at least her be on the communicator."

She glanced behind her and nodded to some unseen person. She looked back at Pippleton. "I'm sorry I can't let you do that. I know the power the Captain has on her crew. She even convinced me for a little while that staying here was a good idea."

Commander Pippleton looked past Fran to see several men slowly walking up behind her. Each carried with them a blunt weapon. He looked around him and noticed the square was now empty except for him, Fran and the seven humans approaching. "Fran, you don't have to do this."

"Yes I do," Fran replied stepping away. He thought he heard some real remorse in her voice. "I know the Captain will be able to convince enough people to vote against this and we'll have to stay here another year. I don't want to stay here another year, I want to go home."

Five of the men broke off and surrounded the commander while two stood behind her. "Even if going home means destroying Earth?"

"That's not going to happen."

"What are you going to do to me?" He asked feeling the fighter inside of him start to rise up.

"We won't kill you if you give us the communicator," Fran said holding her hand out.

The Commander thought about it for a moment. The chambers were only about a mile away and he was fast in a sprint, but not in a long run. Humans have shown they can run further than the Ulliam but not as fast to start. Could he get a good enough lead to make it to the chambers? If he did would he find that the council had sided with Fran and had arranged this ambush?

As he weighed his options he spotted one of the men lunge forward with a pipe high in the air. He reacted by instinct. He grabbed the man's hand and twisted, his Ulliam strength easily snapped the man's arm and dislocated his shoulder.

The next attack came from behind. He spun around but not in time and metal pipe slammed him on the side of the head. He stumbled and felt his eyes watering. The same man tried again but this time the Commander was ready. He reached out and punched him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. With a warrior scream he lifted him into the air and threw him as far as he could. The man landed with a loud thud on the dirt. The others hesitated briefly before charging forward.

The cries from the men were drowned out by Pippelton's primal scream. He lost all connection with his rational mind and let his fighting instincts take over. He ran toward the charging men taking them by surprise. The attacker he reached he barreled into with his head down. The man fell to the side in an attempt to avoid the collision and the Commander clipped his side. Even a glancing blow broke several ribs.

Someone tried to tackle the Commander but once again the human was too slow and the Ulliam was too quick. He jumped over the attempted tackle and turned to face the man when and lead pipe slammed into the back of Pippleton's head. He staggered, the blow disorienting him. Before he could recover another object, he thought it was might have been a hammer of some sort, from a different direction broke his left shoulder leaving his arm limp and useless. He fell and the remaining men jumped on him, punching, kicking and bludgeoning him with all their might.

"Enough!" Fran yelled. She pointed to one of the men, "Get a medic here now. You," she pointed to someone else, "Take the Commander's body to his hunt, close and lock the door."

Pippleton rolled on the ground trying to fight back as the men picked him up. Bloody and beaten he looked at Fran. She watched as they carried him away. Her face stone still, her body stiff. He saw her pick up the communicator he had dropped. She looked at it before placing it back onto the ground. She stepped on it hard scattering the communicator.

Marjorie waited for several hours in the middle of the clearing. Something was wrong, very wrong. She tried to contact Pippleton but didn't get a response. The sun had set a few hours earlier and the stars dominated the night sky.

Marjorie saw a tiny point of light suddenly appear. Slowly it grew brighter until it was about the size and brightness of Venus. She knew what it was. Panic gripped her heart as she pulled out the communicator. "Arwen, this is Captain Cook, please respond. Arwen, this is Captain Cook, come in." She got back static.

She reached into her back pack and pulled out a pair of binoculars. She looked through them and scanned the sky. A display on the binoculars directed her to where the Arwen was in orbit. When she looked at the location she saw empty space. She moved the binoculars to the bright light and watched as a small dart shaped mirror plunged into the wormhole.

"Damn it!" She yelled.

She was about ready to press her nanobots into their limit. She would need to run fast and over a long distance but she did not plan on stopping or even slowing down. It was going to be a fast sprint back to the base following the beacon trial she's been leaving for herself.

She ran all through the night and into the next day. The machines inside her body fed her muscles nutrients and removed the waste overexerting the muscles produced. They rebuild torn muscle fiber, healed any scratches and cuts. Marjorie fell into a trance like state, seeing the trees as they went by, finding the path to the next beacon almost on instinct. She felt great through most of the run and did not want to stop of anything.

She felt the first real pain happen in the middle of the second night. It was a cut in her left leg and it forced her to stop. She looked at it and grimaced. It was a deep wound but she's had deeper and the nanobots dealt with it. She quickly got into the back pack and pulled out a medical kit. Within a few minutes she had the gash sterilized and wrapped; it was time to get moving again.

The sun had been up a few hours when she felt the second odd thing from her run. A bead a sweat fell down her forehead and got into her eye. It was the first time she had sweated in a long time. She assumed the nanobots dealt with that by cooling her body from the inside. She stopped again to wipe the sweat from her forehead. It felt oddly gritty. She looked at the back of her hand and saw tiny white specks. She looked closer at them. Barely visible mechanical legs twitched. Was she sweating the nanobots out of her body?

She pulled the bandage off the wound and looked at it. It was healing but not as fast as normal. She then looked at the bandage itself. Inside the blood soaked fibers she saw more white specks. More nanobots leaving her body.

How far was she from the colony? She looked at her map and realized she still had at least another day of running but if the nanobots were failing it would take her a lot longer. She needed to rest, she needed to let the nanobots recover and build, if that's what they did. Having no knowledge of how these things worked frustrated her to no end.

She sat down and grabbed a leaf next to her and ate it. As she chewed she noticed her pinky on her left hand had started to twitch involuntarily. This can't be starting again, she thought, not now, not here. She stood. Her rest was over and she started running again.

She was out of breath after only a few miles. She had to stop, a wet cough left her body. When she looked at her hand she wasn't surprised to see hundreds of tiny white specks. She brushed them off and ran again.

The nanobots were leaving her body through her sweat, her blood and her breath. She stopped to go to the bathroom and didn't looked back knowing they were leaving that way as well. She felt the weakness creep back into her body. She felt the Fullerton's return with every muscle cramp. She pushed her body and the alien technology to its upper limit and now both were exhausted.

She reached the outer edge of the village and stopped to throw up. The white liquid that exited her mouth and splashed on the ground were the last of the nanobots. She could no longer feel their influence on her body. A part of her was relived; the idea of living for 300 years scared her.

"Hello?" She yelled, her voice harsh.

The village was quiet. She walked around knocking on every closed door. When she didn't get an answer she opened them and found most of them empty. The people left in a hurry as many rooms still had personal belongs inside them.

She was surprised when she got to a locked door. She pulled and knocked several times and was about ready to give up on it when she heard the moan. It was low and deep and sounded like someone trying to talk. She pulled at the door harder but it didn't budge. From her back she pulled out her gun. She only used it to help her start fires on wet nights. She set it for torch and quickly sliced through the metal as if it were paper. She the door fell she ran in.

Pippleton lay on the floor. His normally gray skin had turned powdery white. He reached up with his hand. Marjorie ran over and grabbed it. She then noticed he was laying in a puddle of sticky red blood. The side of his head had an open wound and it wasn't hard to see it was infected. She quickly reached into her bag and pulled out the medical supplies.

He grabbed her hand as she tried to apply the antibiotic to his wound. "I'm sorry, Captain." He whispered.

"Shut up," she replied sharply. "We don't have time to hear about that."

He nodded and let her placed the medicine on his wound. She worked on it for a few minutes before bandaging it up. "Can you stand?"

"No," he replied and pointed to his legs. Her stomach flipped and she felt she was going to vomit again when she saw how badly both his legs were broken. "They did that a few minutes after placing me here. Guess they didn't want me to follow."

"Commander, I don't know how to fix that."

"It's okay." He replied. "I knew I was going to die. I wanted to live long enough to see you come back so I could to tell you what happened."

"I know what happened." She replied. "They left for Earth."

"Fran lead them," said weakly. "Don't trust her. She did this to me. She led the charge to get back to Earth. She's responsible for anything that will happen next."

"What will happen next?" Marjorie asked, more to herself than to Pippleton. "They'll come for us I'm sure. How much longer do you think you can hold out?"

Pippleton didn't answer; his eyes were staring into oblivion. Marjorie reached over and closed them. She cradled his head in her lap and sobbed with grief.

Chapter twenty-eight.

Professor Ricter walked into the Ulliam market place with Juliet and frowned. It was crowded beyond anything he was comfortable with. He knew it would be and told this to Juliet many times before leaving that morning but she had insisted they go. Something about spending too much time in the labs, talking to the world leaders, being the envoy to the alien cabal, basically trying to save the corps from destruction. She thought he needed to take a break and this would be the best place to go.

He was annoyed at her, mostly because she was correct. He did need a break. He needed to spend more time with Juliet. So, arm in arm, they walked into the Ulliam market.

The Professor ignored all the touristy gift and focused on the crowd itself, studying it. It fascinated him to see so many aliens mingling in the open. Alien races that were enemies a few short years ago were now friends, or at least working together to stop a common enemy. Ulliam, Earthlings, Regals, Hellimites, Echolites, and Gyssyc shopped and ate. He even spotted a few of the Cabal, a group of Killois, their long necks and flat head made them stand out even in a crowd of aliens. One of them spotted him and he felt the tingling of a communication request in his head. He thought, "Not now, I'm taking a day off."

"What was that?" Juliet asked not looking up from the trinket she was holding.

"One of the Killois wanted to have a telepath conversation."

"I hope you said no."

"Of course, I don't want to talk to them when I'm trying to relax. They're all about giving up and running."

"That seems to be the case with most of them," Juliet replied placing the small object back onto a shelf. "Come on, I want to try some Regal food, been in the mood for it since this morning." She grabbed Professor Ricter by his arm and dragged him across the market.

He heard the music well before seeing the aliens playing. It was a soothing kind of tune that brought a festive atmosphere to the location. Juliet heard it and walked over to the sounds with the Professor close behind her. She pushed her way through the crowd until she was standing directly in front of the band. It was an interesting mix of aliens, three Ulliam, two humans and a Regal, all played instruments from their home worlds. The only one Professor Ricter recognized was the guitar the human was playing. Even though he didn't recognize the others and they had a distinct sound he could probably guess what their Earth counterparts were. Two different kinds of drums, a piano and something that sounded almost like a xylophone.

Juliet stood there moving her head to the beat of the song. Her hair, which was longer than he'd ever seen, moved in time with the head. Professor Ricter had to smile and remarked to himself how full of life this woman was. She looked over and smiled back. He had gotten used to her hearing his involuntary thoughts. She leaned in and gave him a small peck on the lips. "Give these guys a tip, they're good."

He pulled some change from his pocket and placed it into a hat in front of the band. They thanked him and he moved on, following Juliet through the crowd again.

As they walked through the streets the Professor saw something and stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at the table he almost passed and stared at it. On it were several models of Corps battleships, each one marked with the names of the ships and their current captains. He scanned them carefully, looking purposefully for the Arwen. When he found it he picked it up and looked it over.

Juliet stood next to him now. She placed her hands on his shoulders giving him a small reassuring hug. "It still hurts," He said. "Knowing she'll never come back."

The Professor placed the model back on the table. He saw the restaurant simply called Regal cuisine. Professor Ricter missed clever restaurant names. Other alien races were still new in building markets for other cultures so it was simpler to give a restaurant an easy name that would not accidently insult another race in the translation.

They walked in and were seated right away. The smell wasn't unpleasant, it reminded the Professor of any Indian restaurant he had gone too while on Earth. The food looked different enough, most of it off color, most of it either blue or purple. The meat was from animals he's only seen pictures of and the drink from fruits he'd never tasted. "I think you should order for us," he told Juliet.

"As always." She replied with a wry smile.

"You're more comfortable with alien food than I am."

"I can't believe you can convince the Cabal to come and fight the Handlers but you can't order alien food Juliet said placing her menu down. "You're getting the Gall meat special. You'll like it, it resembles steak."

"Good, good." Professor Ricter replied. He thought about her statement. Before arriving home he extracted a few nanobots from his system and studied them. He couldn't figure out a way to reverse engineer them before the Cabal discovered what he was doing and forbid him from doing it. It was then he made the agreement with them that if they joined him in stopping the Handlers he wouldn't study their technology. It seems the thought of Earthlings have their technology without them around to moderate was worse than taking a stand against the Handlers.

"So, have you picked your best man yet?" Juliet asked snapping the Professor from his thoughts.

"Um, no, not yet."

"You better do it soon."

"Yes, yes, I know, wedding is within a year and such. We've talked about this before and I keep telling you I'll find a best man, I don't have that many friends and those I do wouldn't be comfortable being a best man."

"I don't want to pick one out for you." Juliet replied just as the waiter arrived. She gave the order then turned back to the Professor and continued talking. "You need to be more social."

"Yes, I know." He replied distantly. "I'll make an effort to find a best man the next time I'm in a group of peers."

She shook her head knowing the conversation about the wedding was now over. He felt bad for being so short with her but he wasn't in the best of moods to begin with and being reminded of his upcoming wedding always put him in a sourer mood. He often wondered why she was still marrying him. Maybe the nanobot connection was too strong for her to resist. He knew he loved her; he had before they were mentally connected. Or, at least he found her interesting and attractive before then but that grew into love as he got to know her better. She was someone he didn't feel embarrassed about being around and that was something he treasured more than anything else.

They sat in silence as the food arrived. She was angry at him for his snide remarks. It didn't take a nanobot mental connection for him to realize that. He would have to find a way to make it up to her, perhaps by paying for the meal or buying her something she would like.

"Or," she said, "you can find a way to make this a nice wedding."

He hated it when she read his mind. "I'm doing my best. I'm not the most popular man in the world and I find it hard to make friends."

"That's because you're too abrasive."

"I need to be," he said trying to keep his voice low. "I'm doing very important work and I can't be nice just for the sake of being nice. People need to earn my respect if they want to be my friend. The last person who I respected enough to call a friend was Einstein but he died a few years ago."

"I know, you liked him a lot."

"Except for his poor choice in picking a human name he was on par with me intellectually."