Nova looked at the fierri in disgust, realizing who they nearly allied themselves with. They had been so eager in their search for allies and technology, they didn't care where they got it from. But, they did now.

"Martin," she said. "Radio Chen and Osborn. We're out of here,"

Martin nodded in agreement as they all turned to leave.

"Wait!" Pavell suddenly called out, his cold monotone voice replaced with shock and panic. Hearing their leader yell out like that immediately set his guards on high alert, raising their weapons. Seeing a potential hostile raise their weapon like that always triggers a chain of reactions in a soldier. Martin and Nova didn't hesitate to raise theirs and take aim. Martin fell to one knee so that Nova, who stood behind him, could fire without worrying about hitting him. Corin yanked out his Beretta and took aim. Then…nothing. Neither side fired, both sides waited for the other to make their move.

"Please," Pavell pleaded. "Put your weapons down."

"Not a chance," Nova snapped back. She thought about how they encountered the fierri when they first arrived to the planet. They put their weapons down then but things had changed. Now they knew who they were dealing with.

"Soldiers, I am ordering you to put your weapons down!" Pavell shouted again. "DO IT!" Nova then realized that Pavell wasn't shouting at them but at the fierri guards. He was ordering his own people to put down their weapons. The guards exchanged uncertain looks but they slowly lowered their weapons. Nova and her team looked up in surprise but they didn't dare lower theirs.

"Minister," Crux protested, not lowering his gun.

"Do it, Crux,"Pavell ordered. Crux grumbled before finally lowering his gun. Nova and her team kept their weapons level, not daring to move. It looked like they were safe but they weren't going to take any chances. Pavell could still see their mistrust the three had, even with all the guns lowered.

"Leave us," the Prime Minister told his guards. The idea of leaving the leader of their people alone with armed aliens didn't seem like a good idea to the fierri guards, but they obeyed.

"Prime Minister," Crux said as the rest of the guards left the room. "I would like to stay. It's not safe."

"Very well," Pavell said as the doors to the room closed. The fierri stood up from the massive stone stand and made his way to the ground. Nova and Martin fixed their weapons on Pavell as he walked up in front of them, his hands in the air.

"Please," he said. "Before you do anything, hear our side of the story?"

"If you're going to try to justify what you did then save it," Nova spat. "We're not interested.

"I don't intend on justifying what our ancestors did," Pavell said.

"You massacred billions of people," Martin breathed. "And for what?! Because they were different?! What you're experiencing is just the aftermath of your war."

"We just spent the past few hours negotiating for a trade and alliance," Pavell pointed out. "If we really were the same as our forefathers, why did we not shoot you on sight? You are more different from us than the people of the other countries of this planet."

Nova paused when she heard this, quietly admitting that he had a point. She didn't know what a fierri in a foreign country looked like but she doubted they would look as different as a human.

"Put your weapons down," Nova said hesitantly, putting her gun down. Martin and Corin looked at her disapprovingly, not liking that idea.

"Put it down, guys," Nova repeated. Martin lowered his P90 while Corin holstered his Beretta, both of them reluctant to release their weapons even once they were away.

"Thank you," Pavell sighed, putting his hands down. He could still see the mistrust in the eyes of the aliens, even after all his reassurances.

"We'll listen to what you're selling," Nova said darkly, her hands still on her weapon. "But, it doesn't mean we're buying."

-.-

Chen wanted to dive into the fierri computer, split it open and take a look at the computer chips it used, crack open its files and see its programming. But, Doctor Osborn was using the computer to read past medical notes and he couldn't pry it open while she was using it.

He found himself utterly bored and was trying to amuse himself by spinning himself in a swivel chair. He picked up a newspaper laying at the side, hoping there was a good story to keep himself busy.

"THREE MORE MURDERS IN THE PAST TWO DAYS. BODY COUNT UP TO SIXTY FIVE," the headline read. Chen read about five lines into the article before he lost his patience and chucked it to the side.

"You know, you don't have to stick around to guard me," Kara said as she ran another simulation on her computer, noticing how bored Steven looked.

"Terra told me to keep an eye on you," Chen grumbled, spinning around in a swivel chair. He slung his head back and watched the ceiling tiles spin. Like a lot of earth buildings, the ceiling was made of tiles with all sorts of stuff inside. He didn't know what the tiles here were made of but they looked like copper or something along those lines.

"You're gonna be watching me for a while 'cause this is going to take that long," Kara said as she walked away from her rack of petri dishes and samples.

"These guys are at least a hundred years ahead of us in tech," Chen pointed out as he used his foot to continue to spin the chair. "They couldn't figure it out. Why do you think we can?"

"We do have the medical database of Atlantis and the Millennium," Kara said as she went over the test results while Chen continued spinning. "I mean, like, granted, we probably can't figure this out by ourselves but the Alliance's medical database might help us find a solution."

Chen narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He could have sworn he just saw one of the tiles bounce. He would've brushed it off as nothing, but then the tile beside it bounced, then the one beside that did the same. It was as if there was something in the ceiling moving around.

"Something wrong?" she asked when she saw Chen rise from his chair, staring at the ceiling. His eyes were locked on the tiles, afraid that he was going to miss something if he looked away or blinked

"I need a stick," he said as he stared at the ceiling tile that just bounced in place. "Get me a stick."

"Pull the stick out your ass and use that," Kara said as she took out a scalpel.

"Oh, you're funny," Chen grumbled sarcastically. He looked around the room, trying to find some sort of pole or long rod. There wasn't anything in sight that he could use. He had to do it the old fashioned way. Chen slid the chair he was sitting on under the tiles he just saw move, his MP5 in hand.

"That doesn't look safe," Kara said worriedly, realizing what Steven was about to do. She slipped off her mask and glove, quickly washed her hands, and walked over to hold the chair still. Standing on a chair with wheels did not seem like a good idea.

"Something's not right," he mumbled as he stood up on the chair, barely putting the ceiling in reach of his gun. He would admit that he was glad Kara was holding the chair still for him; he could feel the wheels gently rolling side to side. If he shifted his weight too fast, the chair will fly out from under him and send him crashing to the ground.

Chen slowly raised his weapon to the ceiling, pressing the end of the barrel against the tile. He couldn't think of a reason why someone would hide up in the ceiling but it seemed like someone was hiding up there. He then pushed against his gun, lifting the ceiling tile just a crack. Sand, dust, and silt trickled from the crack and rained to the ground in a fine shower. Fine strings of insulation gently floated out of the ceiling and toward the ground. Chen cringed and looked away, the tiny particles agitating his eyes.

"Watch it," Kara called out from below as the cloud of dust rained on her. She shielded her face with her arm so it wouldn't get into her eyes but she could already foresee at least an hour in the shower trying to get it out of her hair.

-.-

Terra Nova maintained her suspicious glare as Prime Minister Pavell took a seat in one of the chairs.

"We don't know much about the other cultures that used to reside on this planet," Pavell said with a guilty sigh. "Everything about them, as far as we know, has been destroyed."

"Yeah, we got that bit," Martin said in disgust.

"But, we have the texts written by our people at the time," Pavell continued. "Our people, especially those in power, believed that the other races of this planet were different because they were…impure. So, they began the New Genesis War."

"Named because it was supposed to mark the dawn of a new age," Corin said, remembering what he found in the texts. "The age where your race was the only race on the planet." Pavell simply nodded, not denying anything.

Martin thought about earlier, how he had pleaded General Mercer to help the fierri. Now, he was ashamed that he had even considered doing such a thing. He was always like this, impulsively rushing head-first to do something merely to regret it later.

Nova did not form an opinion, not yet. She wanted to hear everything that Pavell had to say first. But, she could not help but wonder if he was simply pretending to be guilty.

"It was my grandfather's time," Pavell said. "I wasn't even born yet…neither was my father. But, records show that it was a dark…dark time. When they first went to war, they were determined to 'cleanse' the planet. But, the horror was too much for many. Our country was soon divided between the people who wanted to continue 'purging' our planet and the people who had enough. Over the course of the last ten years of the war and the few years after it, people's opinion of what happened changed. They were horrified by what had happened."

"So, you're basically saying, you're people have changed since the war and regret everything that happened," Nova said, putting the pieces together. She looked into Pavell's eyes, trying to figure out if he was telling the truth.

"Not buying it," she finally said. "You buying it Martin?"

"No."

"Didn't think so. Corin, you?"

"Nope."

"You must believe me," Pavell pleaded, standing back up. "Our people today are not like our forefathers; we are not the civilization we used to be."

"You're telling me that your entire nation had a complete turnaround in its beliefs in eighty years," Corin scoffed, having a hard time that the ideologies of an entire country could change so quickly. An entire country's ideology would change over time but Corin wondered if eighty years was enough time to remove a country-wide hatred for all things foreign.

"We don't deny what our forefathers did was horrible," Pavell said. "But, we are not the same."

Nova looked at Martin and Corin, trying to figure out what they thought. She needed help deciding. If they were the same people that massacred everyone on their planet then she wanted nothing to do with them. But, if they really had changed, then, she felt that they deserved a chance to make up for whatever happened in their past. Her mind went back and forth between these two thoughts. They needed a power source for the Millennium, but she wasn't going to negotiate with them if they killed those who weren't 'pure'.

"I'll need to discuss this with my team," Nova said darkly. "In private."

-.-

Chen stepped down from the chair, confused by what he just saw.

"I thought there was someone up there," he said, still looking at the ceiling. Kara was looking at him as if he had gone insane from the boredom.

"Why?" she asked. Her question was promptly answered. There was a loud crash as the ceiling tiles behind her gave way. A figure dropped from the ceiling, hitting the ground behind the table with at least four ceiling tiles and a cloud of dust and insulation.

Chen raised his weapon at the sight of the figure, which was still hidden behind the table. Chen couldn't tell if whoever was in the ceiling was dangerous or not but he will keep his weapon raised until he was assured that he and Kara were safe.

"Take it easy," Kara snapped at Chen, not understanding why he was so on edge. She looked over the table and into the cloud, watching as a figure slowly stood up, groaning in pain from the fall.

"He could be dangerous," Steven warned, not liking how relaxed Kara was.

"He could be hurt," she snapped back, turning to glare at him. She turned back just as the cloud of dust and lint from the ceiling began to clear, revealing the fierri who had fallen from the ceiling.

Chen could not help but notice that this one was different. Instead of the brown skin the other fierri had, this one was a shade of tan instead; the other fierri had skin that was the color of potato skin while this one seemed to have the color of the inside of a potato instead. And, his eyes were a lot rounder in comparison to the eyes of the other fierri. But, it wasn't the fierri's unusual appearance that caught Chen's attention but the weapon that the fierri aimed at them.

Realizing what was happening seemed to make everything freeze. Chen would swear that, at that moment, time seemed to stop so he could grasp what was happening. But, he knew it was the adrenaline in his body kicking in as he got ready for a fight.

He wasn't focused on fighting though. Kara stood frozen in front of the figure, shocked by what she saw, her muscles freezing her to the spot. Neither she nor Chen were military but he has been in a lot more fights than she ever had and his reflexes were a thousand times faster.

Chen rushed forwards, leaping off the ground and tackling Kara with his body. He couldn't see what was happening as her brown hair flew up into his face. She gasped in surprise as the floor seemed to vanish beneath her feet. The impact on the cold hard floor rocked her body as her head landed in Chen's hands, which had cupped behind her head to cushion her fall.

It was just in time. At that moment, Chen heard the figure open fire where they had been just a few moments earlier. The alien gun…it definitely a projectile weapon, shooting bullets and not lasers, but it wasn't like any he had seen before. Chen's seen and fired quite a few projectile weapons, both human and alien, from the human MP5 to the Lucian Alliance assault rifle. In every instance, he could hear the weapon firing, hear the individual 'bangs' as each bullet left the barrel. No matter how fast the gun fired, he was able to hear each individual shot. But, this one was different. It fired bullets and not lasers, no doubt about it, but it didn't have the continuous chain of ear-splitting bangs that he was used to hearing. Instead, the gun fired so fast that all the noise seemed to mix together into one long ear-splitting scream that seemed to cut the air like a buzz saw.

Chen wanted to stand up and shoot back but, with a gun firing that fast, whoever was shooting at them was less likely to miss, especially at that close of a range. He felt Kara tighten her hold on him as glass, shards of metal, and sparks rained on his back. Then, as quickly as it had started, it stopped. The fierri had stopped shooting and took off down the hall, his footsteps echoing back into the room.

Chen peeked over the table to make sure the alien was gone.

The alien couldn't have been firing for more than three seconds, but the table looked like it had been on the receiving end of a firing line of miniguns for at least a minute. The whole surface was shredded, the metal twisted and mangled until even the bullet holes were unrecognizable. Kara's bags of medical equipment were completely ripped apart, only held together by a few strands of fiber. Her laptop was just as mangled, the screen shattered and the frame twisted like a pretzel. A cloud of smoke hovered above the table, the friction from the bullets heating the whole area up.

"You ok?" he asked Kara as she opened her hazel eyes.

"Think so," she groaned, her body aching from the fall, still shocked by what just happened. If Chen had reacted one second later, she'd be dead. Her chest heaved up and down uncontrollably, and the fact that Chen was on her made it hard to breath.

"You know, I hate to say 'I told you so', but-" Chen began to grumble in annoyance, remembering their disagreement over how dangerous the mystery man was.

"Then don't," Kara quickly interrupted. "You can get off me now, by the way."

Chen rolled off, his MP5 still in hand, and peeked around the table. Satisfied that they were safe, Chen stood up. His ears were still ringing from the noise and he couldn't help but feel that the gunfire had partially deafened him.

"Chen, we heard screaming," Nova's voice suddenly crackled through the radio as Chen helped Kara to her feet. "What's happening over there?"

"Wasn't screaming," Chen growled back angrily. "It was gunfire, some weird looking fierri."

"Weird looking," Nova repeated. "What's that supposed to mean."

"I mean, like, weird looking," Chen scoffed, not knowing how to put it better. "Like, less baked potato and more sweet potato."

Nova exchanged glances with Martin and Corin when she heard this.

"Chen we need to talk," Nova said.

-.-

Martin stood on a chair and stared at the hole in the ceiling, trying to piece together everything that's happened. He would've stood on the table but the whole table top was shredded by the bullets and Martin was keen on getting metal spikes through his foot.

He liked hunting when he was on Earth and was an expert tracker. While, right now he was not hunting and what he was tracking was not an animal, he was the only chance they had in finding the fierri that fell from the ceiling.

The weapons fire had caused quite a stir. The fact a fierri just tried to shoot two of the humans wasn't helping the talks over whether or not the society had changed. Pavell had the whole lab surrounded and had sent in a dozen men to catch the shooter. The team decided to relocate to the lab and discuss their next move. Even Crux was sent to tag along with Nova and her team.

Corin and Nova were in the corner of the lab telling Chen what they found out about the fierri. Nova and Chen haven't worked together for very long but her prediction of his reaction was spot on.

"Why are we still here?" Chen hissed.

"They say that their society has changed since then," Corin said.

"And you believe this?" Chen had to keep himself from shouting. "If someone discovers that you once did something terrible in your past, that's exactly what you tell them, that 'I've changed' and 'things are different'. Tell me you don't actually believe that crap they've been feeding you."

"Not completely," Nova immediately replied. "If their civilization is the same as it was during the war, I am ordering you to destroy whatever research that Doctor Osborn has on a cure; leave no trace for the fierri."

"Got beaten to the punch on that one," Chen muttered.

"But, if they really have changed," Corin added. "They deserve a chance to prove it." Chen felt his jaw drop in disbelief. He shouldn't be surprised that Corin was willing trust others, but he was. They were talking about a group of people that massacred everyone else on their planet, nearly nine billion people.

"Is mental illness contagious?" Chen coughed.

"Chen," Nova said firmly. "Earth's changed a lot in eighty years. A lot have countries have changed; World War II was about, what, seventy years ago. A lot of the countries from then have changed."

"And a lot of countries also stayed the same," Chen argued.

"STEVE," Corin groaned, beginning to get annoyed by Chen's stubbornness and paranoia. "That's what we're saying. We don't know if they've changed or not, but if they have, they deserve a chance, don't they."

Chen looked from Nova to Corin and back to Nova.

"Fine," he said. "But I'm not letting go of my gun." Chen turned around and walked off to see if he could salvage the now shredded computer.

Corin and Nova walked up under the hole in the ceiling.

"What do you think, Martin?" Nova asked as he examined the pile of dust and tiles.

"I think someone fell out of the ceiling," Martin said as he jumped off the chair.

"We got that bit, Sherlock," Chen grumbled.

"Don't you spit the dummy at me," Martin snapped back as Kara walked up, noticing the arguing. "I'm not exactly a detective."

"Can you at least figure out why he tried to kill Chen and Doctor Osborn," Nova said.

"I don't think he was," Kara said, stepping forwards and looking at the table. "Look at this; the table's about ten feet long."

"So?" Corin asked.

"So, why did he shoot up the whole table?" Kara asked. "Steven and me were right there," she added, gesturing toward a part of the ground. "Why didn't he only aim there? Why'd he take the time to shoot up the entire table?"

Nova and Martin exchanged glances, silently admitting that those were good questions.

"The research," Corin realized. "He destroying Doctor Osborn's research."

The room fell silent as a single possibility entered their heads. It seemed like the only explanation that made sense of everything. A fierri of a different color trying to stop them from finding a cure…

"Major Nova," Prime Minister Pavell called out as he waddled in with a small platoon of bodyguards. "Are your teammates unharmed?"

"We're fine," Nova said reassuringly. "Prime Minister…we may have found something…interesting." Nova hesitated to tell Pavell that the fierri that attacked them may be a survivor of the war. If their civilization had not changed they would be condemning the individual to death. She quietly weighed all the options and outcomes in her mind.

"The fierri who attacked us," she said, finally reaching a decision. "We think he may be a survivor of the war." Pavell froze when Nova said this, stunned by this revelation.

"Crux," Pavell beckoned. The captain of the guards stepped forwards. "We may have a survivor of the New Genesis War. Tell your men I want him alive. See if they can talk him down. Do not shoot unless necessary and if you have to shoot, don't kill." Crux just froze there, stunned by the mere mention of a survivor. So many surprises in one day: first aliens coming through the stargate, then the first females on the planet in over fifty years, now a survivor of the New Genesis War. Pavell didn't even know if he heard the rest of his commands.

"Crux!" Pavell barked, snapping the soldier into reality.

"Yessir," he said, bringing his communicator to his mouth. "This is Crux, all units rotate arms. Disarm shrieker rifles."

"Shrieker rifles," Chen repeated quietly, thinking about how fitting the name was. The gun fired so fast it sounded like a shriek.

"Deploy trazer SMG's," Crux ordered.

"Trazers?" Nova repeated, wanting to make sure they didn't intend to kill.

"Our sidearm," Crux explained, taking out what looked like a black brick from a pouch on his suit.

With a flick of his wrist, the bottom half of the 'brick' swung down, connected to the top half by a hinge, revealing a grip and barrel concealed within the top half of the brick. The bottom half clicked back, forming the stock and revealing the handle and trigger.

"It fires electrically charged fluid droplets which will discharge on impact," Crux explained.

"Electric discharge?" Kara repeated as if she was analyzing the weapon. "It causes neuromuscular incapacitation and sensory overload?" Crux stared at her in confusion.

"Sure," he said, not bothering to ask what she just said.

"We can help," Nova suddenly said.

"Major?" Martin asked, hesitant to help the fierri. He already made of the mistake of being overeager to help. He was not going to do it again.

"Call it a test," Nova whispered. "We can't keep questioning them. We need to reach a decision: do we trust them and try to form an alliance or do we leave right now?"

"Prime Minister?" Crux asked, hesitant to give out weapons to aliens.

"Do it," Pavell ordered. Crux nodded and handed out trazers to Nova and her team.

"Minister, I recommend you return to the capital building," Crux advised.

"I will," Pavell said. As the leader of his people, it was too dangerous for him to stay there. "You stay with the Doctor Osborn. Protect the boy until this is over."

"Boy?" Kara repeated.

"Girl," Chen corrected. "It's a girl."

"Protect the girl until this is over," Pavell quickly said.

"Girl?" Kara repeated. At least they were able to recognize her as female now but the word 'girl' made it seem like she was a young child. "I wouldn't get on about age, Steven; you're a year younger than me."

Chen stiffened when he heard this as Martin held back a stifled laugh.

"Guess that explains why he doesn't talk about how old he is," Martin chuckled.

"Anyways," Nova said, breaking the awkward moment. "Corin, you stay here with Doctor Osborn."

"But, Terra-" Corin protested.

"Not this time, Corin," Nova insisted as the fierri troops in the room walked away to find the survivor. "Martin, Chen, roll out."

-.-

"If we ever make contact with Earth, we have to request some zats or something," Martin muttered as he made his way down the hall with Nova and Chen, weapons at the ready. "They never give any of the expeditions any alien tech. Atlantis, Destiny, now us, we all went in with nothing but the Earth stuff we already had. Give us some zats, a wraith stunner, something."

"Put that on your Christmas list, Martin," Nova said as she glanced at the ceiling, making sure no one was hiding up there again. "Stack up on the door."

The three of them pressed up against the wall as they neared a door on the left side of the hall. They weren't on edge or as cautious as they usually are when searching for someone but they were still going to be cautious when going through the door. Nova and Martin formed up on one side while Chen quickly moved to the other to check the door knob.

"Unlocked," Chen said after jiggling the knob. Martin gave a nod, indicating that he was ready, and Nova gave Martin a squeeze on his shoulder, indicating she was ready as well.

Chen hated clearing rooms. Biggest rule of clearing a room: stick to your role. Every person clears one part of the room and he has to stick to clearing that one spot. Even if there was a bad guy in another part of the room, he had to stick to clearing his spot and trust that his teammates can deal with the bad guy. Do your part and trust that your teammates can do theirs.

They Chen flipped the door open…revealing a janitorial closet. Chen looked up to see if any of the ceiling tiles were moving but everything was still.

"So much for that," Chen scoffed, slamming the door shut. "This whole thing is just a big long egg-hunt."

"Potato hunt," Martin said. "They're potatoes, not eggs."

"Whatever."

"You think he might be in the ceiling again?" Nova asked, eyeing the ceiling tiles.

"I don't even understand why he was in the ceiling to begin with," Chen said.

"To blow up Doctor Osborn's research," Martin said with a shrug.

"That's the bit I don't get. In order for him to know about the research in the first place, he has to be in the city and close to the warehouse that has the stargate. That's the only way he can hear about aliens coming to help them find a cure. Why is he here in the first place?"

"He could be the mass murderer everyone's talking about," Nova suggested. Martin and Chen looked at her in confusion; neither of them have heard anything about it. "I heard Crux talking about on the way up here. There's been a string of murders around here lately."

"I saw a paper on that," Chen said, remembering the newspaper he read earlier. "Sixty five murders in the past two months, same method every time: slit throat."

"You think they're the same bloke?" Martin asked, thinking it was a little farfetched that the same person they're chasing just to happened to be the mass murder the newspaper was talking about. "This guy used a gun. The murderer's been using a knife."

"Well, it's kinda hard to destroy medical research and equipment with a knife," Nova pointed out. "Some of his victims were city guards. He probably got his weapon from them and used it to destroy Osborn's research."

Chen paused as he began to piece everything together.

"That would make sense," he said to himself. "The survivors of the war passed the stories of the massacre to their children and grandchildren and one of them decides to come here to take his revenge by killing as many people as he could. He heard about the aliens who came through the stargate to help them find a cure and he had to see for himself. He fell out of the ceiling a little too early so he took the opportunity to destroy everything and ran."

"That's kinda pointless," Martin coughed. "These blokes didn't have anything to do with the war. They regret the war."

"He doesn't care," Chen explained. "One thing about a man who seeks short term revenge is that he only does what feels just; it doesn't matter if he doesn't achieve anything, as long as he thinks it's just."

"Wait a minute," Nova said as something crossed her mind. "You go somewhere to complete a mission but things don't go as plan; you get caught or-"

"Fall out of the ceiling," Chen added in.

"What would you do?"

Chen raised an eyebrow, not sure how to answer that.

"You go back and make sure you got it done," Martin answered, understanding what Nova was getting at. "You forced to do a rush job so you go back and make sure you got the job done right."

"Corin and Kara," Chen breathed. The two of them were still in the lab. If the fugitive they were looking for was going to come back to finish the job, he would go back to the lab.

"Things just got a lot more interesting," Martin said as he peeked around the corner. At the end of the hall around the corner, three bodies were heaped on the ground in a small pool of blood.

"Whoever this guy is, he's good," Chen said as they rushed up to the three bodies, cautiously scanning the halls.

"Martin, what do you think?" Nova asked as Martin walked around the scene, stepping back and putting his hands in the air and in front of him as if he was reenacting what happened.

"Two of them had their throats slit," Martin said as he analyzed the bodies. "The killer snuck up behind them and slit their throats. The cut looks deep; probably severed the wind pipe, which means no noise." Martin walked up to the third body. "Third guy turned around, maybe he heard something, maybe he just looked behind him. Either way, the killer realized he got caught and just thrust his knife into his throat. Didn't even get a chance to fire a shot. Three soldiers dispatched in three seconds."

"Looks like the stakes just got higher," Chen said grimly. There was no doubt about it now; the man they were after was the murderer they were talking about.

"Lieutenant Martin, Doctor Chen," Nova said. "We're heading back to the lab."

-.-

"You brought a book," Kara commented when she saw Corin, leaning back against a stack of crates, reading a small booklet that was the size of a cell phone.

"Just some studying," Corin said. He had begun to get bored his little book was his only source of entertainment. Crux was patrolling around the room to keep himself busy and Osborn had nothing to do at all.

"Gotta learn five languages if I want to keep up with all the texts on the Millennium," Corin explained as he flipped the page.

"Five?" she asked, sitting on a crate across from him. "Four races, four languages. Where's number five coming from?"

"It's the universal language. Before the races knew the others' languages they used a universal language using atoms as letters and numbers. They took a universal constant and made a language out of it; cool, huh?" He looked over but found that Kara was only staring at him with a confused look.

"Sorry; doctor, not linguist," she said. "Aren't you the alien? Corin Nevec?"

"Yeah, just call me Corin."

"Kara, Kara Osborn. Civilian. Used to work at Edwards Air Force."

"Just a teacher," Corin said.

"Teacher working on a military team," Kara pointed out.

"Yeah, I'm mostly for meeting the alien races and negotiations," he said, closing his book and putting it in a pouch in his vest. "Talking about negotiations." Corin stood up and looked at Crux. "Hey Crux, once this is over, maybe we can get back to negotiating for that power source."

Crux stopped marching to think about what Corin said.

"It is not my decision," he said. "But, perhaps, Prime Minister Pavell will be convinced now."

"What type of power source are we talking about?" Corin asked curiously. He probably wasn't going to understand but he might as well try to get some idea.

"We might be able to provide you with a quariam generator," Crux said, walking up to Kara and Corin. Kara looked at Corin in confusion.

"Excuse me…but…what's quariam?" she asked.

"It's an element native to this galaxy," Corin explained. "A lot of stuff is built with it; it's a really powerful energy source."

"We don't have any on this planet," Crux added. "However, before we shut down our stargate program, we were able to procure a fair amount to make power sources with; we even have one under our city, powering it. Does this mean you trust us now?"

Corin froze at this question and thought about the answer.

"Not completely," he said. "But, if you are different than your ancestors…you deserve a chance." Crux smiled at this answer.

"Good," he said. Crux turned around to go back to his marching and froze in his tracks. He stared for a moment, stunned that he didn't hear or notice anything. It was the fierri they had been looking for; he had managed to sneak behind Crux, knife ready in his right hand.