Uly stirred in his med tent cot weakly. ::Who?:: he mind spoke to the presence he could feel. He knew the touch was Terrian and it was like water to the dying desert of his soul.

##Dirt Runner.## the Balancer dream closer at him.

::What's wrong with me?:: the curly haired boy wept into their growing bond.

##The Mother cries. When She does, the clans lose voice and breath. You are clan.##

Uly coughed, fighting the oxygen feed hissing in his nose. He pulled it away from his face and ignored the alarm which began to sound the change in his vital signs.

::She mourns the small life?:: Adair asked the Balancer.

##Yes.##

::What can I do for Her?:: Uly quailed, lost in the very roots of terror.

##Don't end.##

Julia Heller screamed like a banshee as she and Bess Martin hurled the last worm bullets over the cliff and into the acid lake below. They both flung themselves onto their stomachs and hastily covered their heads with their arms and hands as the incendiary exploded under its caustic surface. Both yelped as a few drops of liquid rained from the resulting mushroom plume fell down and burned them with tiny needles of chemical fire.

"Okay! Okay! It's over.." Martin gasped.

Julia staggered to her feet. "Let's get back to True and the others."

They fled on rubber legs towards the direction of camp.

"Where do we hide?!" Morgan Martin panicked from his spot underneath the camp picnic table.

John Danzinger kicked open the door to the Transrover with his unconscious daughter propped up against his shoulder on top of an arm. "For you? In here!" as he leaped out the vehicle's control cab. "Me? I'm taking True to the med tent where all the gear is!"

"But!"

"Shut up and move or I'll lock you out of it and hide my comm code key!"

Morgan whimpered and leaped past the burly blond haired mechanic gratefully.

On his way past, Danziger snatched Martin's Magpro from the brown ponytailed executive's grip. "Mine! There's no need for shooting yours off in a bullet proof vehicle cab." he said, heartsick with barely controlled worry for True.

"How's she doing?" said Yale, slamming the rover's door on Morgan's heels as soon as the cowardly man was inside and safe.

"Breathing! Work on her hemorrhaging on the move!" John shouted. "It's not penetrated any deeper than skin."

The cyborg tutor grabbed her legs to help carry the wounded girl a little faster out of the open space in the middle of camp. His robotic hand magnetically sealed over the ragged holes on the side of True's chest with a telegraphed thought. "Got it!"

"Oh my God! They're targetting children!" hissed Bess. "Why?!" as she wormed her way through dead brambles and thorn hedges for cover.

Julia was hurrying, just as panicked as Martin. "What I want to know more than that is... Is it over? ZEDs are psychopathic, but they're rigidly logical. They seem to be limited to the parameters of their programming without deviating." she panted, pushing herself to her feet to dash in a crouch through an open clearing.

"Who the h*ll rewrote their software, then?" Bess snarled.

Heller wasn't out of breath from sprinting in the slightest, but she was at a complete loss for words as a reply to that scary thought.

They were all in an unknown cave when night fell. They had a double thickness ring of vehicles crowded around the entrance to prevent pot shots from any ZED snipers.

"How is she?" Danziger demanded the second he saw Julia enter the circle of green firelight.

"She's sleeping." Heller replied reluctantly.

John was relentless at the chink showing up in her evasiveness.

"Did my girl need surgery? Be straight with me, Heller." the burly man barked.

"No, of course not. You saw what she had, John. I only had to put in a few sti-" Julia broke off, biting her lip at her admission.

Danziger fumed. "Did you just say stitches?!"

The conversation around the fire paused at his outburst.

"My baby's been sewn up with dead animal intestines?" he asked again.

Julia square off at all of the stares their supposedly private consultation was garnering. "Well, er... Yes." Julia met his eyes finally, without flinching. "It saved power on the mediglove's cauterizer since the sun's already gone down. Who knows who else might get themselves shot tonight before dawn."

John blinked. Twice. Then his mouth finally opened up. "She's going to think they're totally awesome when she wakes up!" He grabbed Julia's face in his huge hands and kissed her on top of her head loudly. "Thanks." he grinned. "Those are far better than the tattoo I won't let her have." He left the doctor for True's cot nestled at the back of the cave in the darkness.

Heller got up to pour herself some more eyestalk tea and was surprised at how shaky her legs were reacting in relief.

Cameron, Yale, Devon, Alonzo and Magus were at it big over the food tarp. Disagreement on what they should do about the encroaching ZED band, raged.

"We're not safe here!" Morgan simpered.

"We're not safe anywhere!" Devon countered.

"We haven't been safe since we landed." said Magus, her mop of sandy hair sending out curls of dust as she snapped her head in anger.

Alonzo escalated the point. "We've always been surrounded by aliens, Grendlers, Terrians, kobas.."

"Not any more..." came a quiet, cold fact from Yale.

The raw truth of their current circumstances shamed the others into silence. Even though the pandemic spread of the Phage wasn't any of Eden Project II's fault, association guilt was biting deep in most of the crash landers.

All except one. "That onus belongs entirely to E.P. I's dead crew." Morgan Martin said vehemently.

"Does it?" Yale challenged. "Remember, we as humans are the invaders here."

Devon hung her head, accepting the lesson being taught. "We are a virus species that unleashed a bacterium, however indirectly into the ecology..."

"..and soul..." rumbled Yale. "They are connected."

Adair swallowed drily. She had never counted on a Gaia theory that included a planetary intelligence that was self aware through its bipeds. "...of G889. If we're not careful and undo what they did, we'll be killed ourselves for losing what little native resources we have."

Alonzo threw up his hands. "So what are we supposed to do?" he asked sarcastically.

Devon met his eyes with a steely gaze. "If John were here with us and not in med vigil over True, I know he's say, 'We find an alternative that works like we always do.' "