Sheriff Owen Blackwood looked somberly at the large delegation gathered on the other side of his desk. He had been working late, by habit, especially since he had taken on the sheriff's post, with all of its paperwork requirements. "Well. This is... certainly unusual."
There was an uncomfortable silence surrounding all present as Owen rose awkwardly to his feet, made his way over to the window, and looked out into the Roswellian night.
"I certainly never expected to be asked about rescinding your death certificate, young Master Whitman. However, I happen to be reasonably versed on the procedures involved. The crux of the matter is that you'll be required to go before Judge Lewis, prepared to provide incontrovertible proof of your identity and that you are, without question, alive in the practical and medical senses of the term."
"You seem to have already assembled an ample sufficiency of witnesses, each of whom knew Alex Whitman well and each of whom are seperately convinced that you are he... you are each willing to go on record with that opinion I presume? Being of sound and considered judgement, affirming that you are not relying unduly of the judgement of another of this company in the matter at hand?" His dark eyes seemed to blaze out at the crowd, and after a second Gloria Whitman raised her hand above her head. Mister Whitman and Amy DeLuce followed her lead, then Liz and Maria. Finally, Nancy Parker also raised her hand a little tentatively, and Jeff shrugged a little awkwardly.
"Not quite sure I'm comfortable swearing to that, sheriff," he said, his voice one notch above a mumble. (A stage mumble?) "But I think he'll still have more than enough even without me."
"Fair enough," Blackwood agreed. "Jim?"
"Umm, I've hardly had a chance to speak with him," Deputy James Valenti disclaimed. He had met up with Amy and the others outside the sheriff's station, but he knew more about the circumstances of Alex's return than he was saying. Max and Kyle had made sure to fill him in as soon as they'd met Alex.
"Very well. I believe there is a formal requirement for examination by doctor... to make certain that you are, in fact, alive, beyond all possible doubt." Blackwood chuckled to himself. "Come to think of it, a quick visit to your family dentist might help, since he can check the match against existing dental records and independently confirm the testimony of your witnesses. Having a lawyer to keep track of all this would probably be a good idea... I'm not trying to overrwhelm you with all these legal details, just making sure you understand the realities of the situation."
"Investigating HOW you survived is a seperate issue, and you should not have to wait for that inquiry to be completed before your status is formally corrected. In the interests of ascertaining the truth on that score, though, I would like the permission of the entire Whitman family to investigate and examine the burial site, casket, and anything else we might find in Alex's assigned space in the cemetary."
"Umm... of course, at least I think so," John Whitman said, looking at his wife and son for confirmation. "I can't imagine that any of us would..."
"There are a few personal effects that I understand were put into the casket," Alex blurted out. "If you find them, I'd actually kind of like them back."
"Umm, of course," Blackwood replied after a moment. "You can leave a list with me."
"How soon will you be... um, digging for the coffin?" Mrs Whitman asked.
Blackwood smiled at her as reassuringly as he could. "Probably tomorrow morning. unless some serious crime manifests between now and then."
Maria shot Liz a quick look, which the other girl refused to even acknowledge under the circumstances. They could discuss *that* particular detail once well and truly alone, not surrounded by a number of people who could never know the true story about their little conspiracy.
"Umm, do you wish me to see if I can reach Doctor Harriman?" Sheriff Blackwood continued. "I know that he'd be interested in having a quick look at you, Alex."
"Ummm..." Alex allowed a little nervousness to cross his face. "Is that necessary? I mean... um, well--"
"No, I suppose not. However, it would have the benefit of settling things more quickly, perhaps. I can't imagine that your family doctor would be as pleased about being called out in the middle of the night. Well, the start of the night I suppose."
Alex looked at his parents and took a deep breath. "Yeah, sure, make the call. If you can't reach him, we'll go with Doc Wilson in the morning, how 'bout that??"
Blackwood nodded. "Umm, maybe all of you would be more comfortable waiting outside." It wasn't a question or a suggestion, somehow.
Two young men stood up in the station's waiting room as Amy and Jim led the way out. "So you ARE here," Max said. "We, umm, we got your message Mister Valenti, and something about... Alex!!"
Under the circumstances, Max played up the shock and surprise that he was imitating quite well. He rushed up to the young man and then stopped, as if not quite daring to touch him yet. "You're... but -- but how?"
"The question of the hour," Jeff Parker remarked dryly. "The whole week, perhaps."
"There's a lot to tell, and a lot that still isn't clear," Amy Deluca told him. "Why don't we see if there's enough chairs for all of us?"
----------
"I know, it's a little hard to follow these computerized displays," Lawnii, Gird's daughter, whispered to Michael and Isabel. "The dark green marker is the patrol ship, in orbit relatively high above us, just out of the atmosphere. We don't need to worry about that one, so much. The yellowish one is the first transport shuttle that they've sent down. It's about [three miles] high at the moment, coming at us from the north and east, and the big question is exactly how far away from the settlement it's going to land."
There was a moment of silence as the two of them absorbed that. "Thanks," Isabel murmured back. Several key figures had gathered in the colony's small orbital control station, (located in an underground bunker, which would seem slightly paradoxical except for the fact that it was also a logical command chamber in case of attack.) The men and women of the colony were outside and manning the fortifications - ready to repulse this invasion.
Gird had invited Michael and Isabel to come down here, to be ready in case there was some decision that he needed their advice on, though to Michael this seemed unlikely. More sensible was the possibility that he was keeping them somewhere safe, away from the fighting, where they could see what was going on and would be unlikely to get restless. The patrol captain had made a predictable request, that Gird hand over the ship that had landed two days ago, along with all who had been aboard her, to be delivered to his Royal Majesty, King Kivar of Antar. (He had not specifically called the ship the Granilith or referred to the Royal Four... which would have been added provocation to the colony leader.) Gird had, in his turn, brusquely refused.
"It's slowing down," somebody said, and Michael could easily see that whoever it was was right - there were little graphs showing velocity and elevation over time at the edges of the map, keyed to the transport shuttle. Both graphs had just taken a substantial drop... it must be looking for a good place to land... and the vessel was still well over five miles away from the settlement, too far to be directly attacked by the colonists' defences. The enemy must be planning to use the landed shuttle as a secure base camp... which had been a significant possibility from the start. For better or worse, that decision seemed likely to drag the hostilities out for longer.
Michael watched, feeling like he was standing on pins and needles, as the shuttle finally came to a halt, and for a little while there was no more activity that showed up on the control room sensors, which were not really meant for ground observation. He and Isabel had spent all of the previous day helping out with preparations for the battle, and Michael knew he hadn't been able to sleep much that night in his hammock. Visions of the building being torn apart, of himself and Isabel dragged screaming into a hostile spaceship, kept playing out before his eyes.
Today he'd finally given up on his earth clothes and dressed in Antarian clothes, sticking with fashions that didn't seem too entirely strange... rich fabrics, slightly baggy pants, and a white shirt... more like a wife-beater than anything else Michael was familiar with, but the overall effect didn't look bad in a mirror. Not that the mirrors here were like mirrors on earth... some walls had highly polished and reflective surfaces, but the actual dressing mirrors were made of nothing more than polarized force fields created in the air that would pefectly bounce back all light that hit them. Michael found the effect more than a little spooky... images in metallic mirrors were always a little dimmer and fuzzier than the real thing, but he'd never quite appreciated that fact until he'd seen these mirror fields, which had no loss of light whatsoe---
"We've got action!" Gird called out. Sure enough, while Michael had been distracted, something new had happened on the map... a dark brown blip had developed and was now jetting from the shuttle's landing site towards the colony proper. It had to be moving much more quickly than the ground van that they'd followed here from the edge of the swamp. Was it something that rolled on the ground, or hovered above it, or flew of its own power through the air?? Michael wasn't sure whether he should ask anyone.
Over the long minutes things started to take shape. That first craft was picked up on colony monitoring cameras after getting a few miles closer toward them... yes, it seemed to be some sort of hoverboat, floating several feet above the rough earth without any need for something to hold in an air cushion. Presumably it was supported by forces not yet fully understood by any earth scientists. Several seated gunners and standing riflemen around the edge of the deck, and the pilot was presumably the one near the center, better defended.
Colonists shot from out of the low, bushy trees, and two of the enemy rifle-ers fell, one off the edge of the hoverboat, one back inside it. The rest of them shot back, but it was unclear whether any of them had actually managed to find a loyal soldier or just fired vainly into the branches. One of the gunners swiveled, and his huge mounted cannon shot blue fire... which streaked into one of the trees and slowly became yellow, spreading to other trees whose branches were touching that one.
It carried on for a long time in much the same vein... so much struggle, unearthly weapons arrayed against each other, mental powers also coming into the fighting at slightly closer ranges. Michael found it hard to follow all of the details, but so far Gird's prediction seemed to be born out -- the colonists were holding back everything that the enemy could throw at them, but at a dear cost in the lives of their own people. They're fighting to the death because of us, Michael thought, a pained lump in his throat. Because they believe in what they think we stand for. How would they react if they knew how little we care about them and their power struggles, day to day?? All that Isabel and I really want is to go home, lock the Granilith back away and let the revolution take care of Tess and Max's baby... for the time being at least. We didn't ask to become mascots for their war.
But that, he realized with an ugly sense of pain, had been their destiny before they were born. Probably Rath and Zan and all the rest of them, living back on Antar before the crash, had had as little choice in getting into the power struggles. The vast and impersonal hand of history had chosen them.
Michael was lost in these thoughts, and realizing with a clammy feeling that the shuttle was unloading yet another terrible assault vehicle, when something else started happening on the big map, which suddenly blinked back from short-range view of the settlement and its surroundings to nearly planetary scale. Passing far overhead and not too far from them, the patrol ship had suddenly been joined by another shape, dark gray, long, thin, and mean looking.
"Where the hell did that come from?" Gird asked in a worried tone.
"We can't tell," one of the sensor technicians told him. "There was just a burst of sub-etheric rays and... and there it was."
"Cloaking device," Gird raged. He seemed to like the term by now, though having a chance to use it at this particular moment was giving him precious little joy under the circumstances. "Michael, Isabel..."
"What kind of ship is that?" Michael asked. "Is it Kivar's as well? Will they send down more landing parties, or..."
"There's no time for all of th.." Gird started, and then they all broke off as the new ship, approaching the area of the settlement, still high above, burped out a spark of violet fire which started to stream down through the atmosphere, right at them. "That's a light escort ship," the leader muttered, his eyes still fixed to the screen. "No troops, no landing craft, but it IS equipped for..." The purple spark reached the small white square of the settlement, and a huge explosion was heard somewhere nearby. "Orbital bombardment."
"Uhh, yeah," Michael muttered. That little spark must have been a missile or a plasma fireball or something. Where had it hit the settlement? Had they been able to evacuate anyone first?? Some people seemed to be rushing out, maybe to help with a rescue effort, but Gird had turned to stare at Michael, holding him on the spot.
"We have nothing that can fire back at that escort ship... nothing of our own, at least. If you and Isabel cannot manage to return fire on it, we may have to surrender to save anything."
"Us??" Michael nearly screamed. "Attack something up in orbit? What could we possibly do??"
----------
"Umm, yeah, I think it's up here a ways," Alex said. He, Liz, Alex's father, and deputy Thompson had been out in the woods for over an hour looking for Alex's camp... a camp that they had decided that they didn't need to build before sending Alex back to his parents. Apparently, the IKAA club had underestimated the curiosity of certain people with respect to his sudden reappearance.
Well, Alex was legally alive again, and that was a good thing. The Whitmans had gone to Philip Evans for his assistance with the legal issues, and even though it was outside of his usual specialties, Mister Evans had gotten some good advice from an acquaintance in another firm, and come before Judge Lewis with such a mountain of evidence that the jurist had been unable to find even a smidgeon of doubt. Between the dental analysis, medical checkup, a pile of affadavits and nearly half a dozen witnesses, it had been undeniable that Alex Charles Whitman was indeed alive and present in court, and the medical examiner had been forced to annul the death certificate. Maria almost cheered out loud before realizing that such a thing was kind of frowned upon in a court of law.
"Yeah," Alex continued, turning slowly around to take in the view from every direction. "I know the way from here; I explored in this direction during the daytime on a few different occasions, before making my run for civilization. Ummm... that-a-way." Liz followed at the rear of the party, struck by the beauty of summer in the forest, even in the middle of the serious thing that was happening.
By the time she got there, the deputy and Mister Whitman were already starting to poke around the 'camp' that had been hastily set up not long ago and made to look, as much as possible, as if it had been abandoned days ago. "Don't touch anything," the deputy warned them all, as Alex's dad had been about to pick a makeshift spear, crudely fashioned from a rusty pocketknife blade, one mostly-straight sapling trunk, and some kind of leaves used to tie them together securely.
"Umm, why not?" Alex asked. "After the time I spent here, there wouldn't be any trace of whoever brought me out into the woods. This isn't even quite where I woke up, though I can show you that if you want." He put on a huffy tone. "The only reason to examine this camp is if you still don't believe what I've been telling you."
"Umm, well, Sheriff Blackwood told me to..."
"To help us find the camp," Liz finished. "That's what I heard him say... unless there were other instructions that he deliberately gave you away from Alex's family and friends."
"Yes," John Whitman agreed. "Now, of course, we'll co-operate in the investigation to what has happened to my son in any reasonable way, officer. But there's a fine line between investigation, and harassing a young man who has been through an INCREDIBLY traumatic ordeal." He turned to Alex. "Is there anything you want to take home from here?"
"Umm, no, not really," Alex mumbled. "Actually, I'm just feeling kind of tired and I'd like to go home, if that's okay."
"Certainly," Mister Whitman agreed, shooting a look at the deputy as if daring him to disagree. Shrugging, he led the way back down the path, and then stopped at the first fork in the way, a somewhat confused look on his face.
Alex winked at Liz just once as they walked back to where the deputy's van was parked... picking his moment when neither of the grown-ups could see.
----------
"You are the ones in charge of the Granilith, you have the key and you have some instructions for the use of it," Gird told Michael and Isabel, a tense but calming tone in his voice. "There are well documented instances of the artifact being used as a powerful ground-to-orbit laser. I understand that it might be difficult to master this function so quickly, but we have no other armament capable of taking care of the threat!"
Michael nodded slowly, his mind whirling. Granolith key... that was in the pockets of his new clothes, yes, but what about the instructions? He couldn't remember when he had last had them, and they had said nothing about shooting laser beams anyway... he would damn well have remembered THAT. "Where's the Granilith being kept??"
"It was put into a storage shed off of the rear courtyard," Isabel said softly. "Umm... I don't have any idea how to get there from here."
"Lawnii can take you. It will not be long before the warship is in orbit above us again, and this time I do not think it will settle for shooting only one photonic warehead. In the names of all the stars above, HURRY!!"
And so, with no more words said, they hurried. To Michael, the journey to that small courtyard was a nightmarish whirl of crowded corridors and near-collisions with busy aliens, all with important jobs of their own. Finally he realized that he was standing still, with Isabel beside him... waiting as Lawnii used her powers to activate a restricted energy pattern and unlock the shed door. The young alien girl pulled one door opened and then stayed there, well out of the way. Michael realized that it was his turn now... only the one with the key could get the Granilith to move under its own power. A quick glance at Isabel, but she was already rushing forward to get the other or the pair of doors, and Michael followed at a slightly different direction, bringing the key out of his pocket. He didn't even need to touch the cone before it lurched forward towards the open air, just think about it.
They arranged themselves quickly but silently, with Isabel placing one hand against the Granilith and the other on Michael's shoulder... she could support his connection to this strange artifact, but he would have to figure out what to best do with it. Umm...
Sensors, awareness of the area would be a good step. Michael realized now that spaceships and missiles could not be fought with unaided eyes... they could strike back using computer targetting while still too far away or too small to be seen. As it had before out at the edge of the swamp, the granilith expanded his awareness of the area, but only to a certain extent. It couldn't sense what was going on hundreds or a few thousand miles away like the equipment in the control room could. He tried to have it interface with the control room directly, but that also didn't seem to work for some reason.
He remembered the projected orbital path of the escort ship as it had been displaying before they left the readouts, and didn't see any reason why it should change too much... the captain of the ship would know he had an ideal strafing course and not expect any kind of counterattack from the settlement. So... it would appear from the east south-east, flying past them incredibly quickly. Given the granilith's sensor range, he'd have a dozen seconds or a little more from when he could see it before it was overhead.
Also, it would probably loose its first missile before it was in range, as it had last time. Michael would have to shoot down that warhead first, which would be smaller and maneuvering through the atmosphere, and then blast the escort ship before it could fire again. Assuming he could fire at all.
Michael thought about loosing a test blast first... (or was that Isabel's thought, just maybe? He couldn't tell if he was overhearing her,) but decided against it. The advantage of surprise just might be all that they had, and it was worth more than being sure of the weapon beforehand. Michael waited, each second driving him crazy with impatience, and then, just as he was about to let down his guard, there was a disturbance in the sensor readings.
The warhead. Michael oriented, pointing the Granilith cone directly at the little black spark of death streaking towards them. Fire now? No, even though every second was precious, he had to make certain that this shot would count. The damn thing jerked off to one side, and Michael growled as he tried to get a firm lock that he could depend on. Then the escort ship appeared, and he knew this was as much time as he could spare. *fire it.*
A blast of blue lightning spat out of the cone's point, the backwash of it bathing Michael's head and shoulders in hot air. Ignoring the discomfort, he tried the same targeting lock on the escort ship, not knowing how long he'd have before it fired again, not sure even if the warhead had been hit. As he oriented, he realized that *something* had been hit, and a shock wave and cloud of fire were spreading through the sky, but refused to let that distract them. Orientation nearly complete, and some sort of tubular pipe was in operation on the escort ship, he somehow knew. *KILL IT NOW!*
Again, the blue blast sang out, and this time Michael kept his mental link to the granilith sensors trained on the escort ship... or what was left of it. Most weapons and fire control systems destroyed, targeting computer totalled, hull breached, engine damaged. Most of the crew would have a little time to try to get into escape pods in. "Well, good enough I guess."
Isabel let out a long breath and dropped out of both her link connections, stepping a few paces away from the Granilith cone and breathing heavily.
And she gasped as Michael suddenly swung the cone to a new orientation and started firing all by himself... over and over again!!
----------
Max poked his head into the back room of the crashdown, waved at Maria, and ducked back out into the parking lot. It took Maria a few minutes to make sure that their absence was covered, get Liz, and then both of them slipped outside for their 'break.' Alex and Kyle were waiting with Max, and the five friends quickly headed down an alleyway, trying not to look as if they were having a secret meeting.
"Things seem to be going okay on my end," Alex explained. "Sheriff Blackwood admitted to Dad that the invesigation into how I was dug back up and taken out into the woods has stalled because they don't really have any leads. Mom has talked dad out of taking me in for brain testing just yet, and there's apparently been no significant followup to that little news story on the AP about the boy who mysteriously came back to life."
"Alright," Max said, nodding. "Rath and Ava are still doing okay... I don't think anyone suspects that they're here or how they might be involved, which is exactly what we want. Rath also said that he has a lead on where to find Lonnie, if we're interested in talking to her... she left New York as well."
"Of course we go see the bitch," Maria muttered. "She's the only one we know who can get us in touch with Michael and Isabel... they have to know. And even if it weren't for the Alex thing... I'm getting nervous about what might be happening to them, wherever. They've been gone for a long time... I want to know what's happening."
"Okay," Max agreed. "Well, who goes? I think that if all five of us leave town at the same time, it'll just make people ask more questions, and we don't really need any more of that at the moment."
"Probably true," Alex admitted. "I know my parents don't exactly want to let me out of their sight any more than they can help. I'd love to hear news from Isabel, but I can wait and get it secondhand... if any of this works."
There was a pause. "Maybe I'd better stay too," Maria volunteered. "My mom hasn't been doing that well adjusting to the big news... it'd be a bad time to tell her I'm going on a road trip I think."
None of the rest of them said anything for a moment. "Well, this could work okay," Max volunteered. "The three of us, and Rath because he could be helpful persuading Lonnie. Will fit well in the J--." He frowned, remembering again that the Jeep was no longer an option. "Fit okay in pretty much any car we want to try. Maria, Alex, and Ava stay here."
"Yeah, for Lonnie to know that Ava's with us would probably do more harm than good," Maria agreed softly.
"I'm pretty sure my parents won't object too loudly to me taking a trip... as long as I promise them I'll be back," Max said with a short laugh. "I could even tell them that I'll be trying to find Isabel, get in touch with her and find out when she'll be coming home, which is all true enough. How about you, Liz??"
"I'm... I'm actually not sure," Liz said after a moment. "But I'd like to try to get permission from them and see what happens. I really would rather be spending the time with you than, well, than the alternative."
"How sweet," Kyle put in. "Don't think my dad will be a problem if I explain a bit about the situation to him, and promise him we'll be careful. I know he's been worried about Michael and Isabel too."
"Alright," Max said. "Any idea when we can leave?"
"Probably tomorrow or the day after," Kyle put in.
Liz shrugged. "Not sure what my parents will say, but I doubt that they'll have a good reason that I have to stick around longer than that."
"Alright, call it an early morning start in a day and a half," Max decided. "That'll give us some time to pack, and Rath time to finish what he can do from here."
Liz nodded, and made a circling gesture in the air with her hand. "Maria and I had probably better be getting back."
They each turned around seperately in the alley and headed back the way they had come, in the same formation turned 'upside down.'
-----------
"Oh, stars in the distance!!" Gird exclaimed as Isabel, Lawnii, and a young Antarian man who Lawnii had recognized carried Michael's unconscious body back into the orbital control room. "What... what happened to him?"
Lawnii waved her hands a little bit in some odd alien gesture and looked to Isabel as if expecting her to answer the question. "Umm... I'm not quite sure -- I didn't see what Michael could see from the Granilith, I was just helping him link into the thing. He oriented, waited a while, and fired twice, and I kind of got the impression that the job was done, so I dropped out of the link. Before I realized what had happened, Michael had changed his firing angle and shot, at least three or four times. By the time we could get to him, he was like this, out cold. I had nearly to pry the key out of his fingers to get the big G back into the shed.
"Hehhm," Gird said, his eyes serious as he examined Michael. "I think he has overreached himself, working with the Granilith... but what you have told me explains a lot. Our sensors here detected that the patrol ship, too, had been destroyed, but not by what agency. I hope Michael has not paid too grievous a price in ridding us of it."
"The... the first ship," Isabel sorted out. "The one that we knew was coming, as opposed to the ship he was SUPPOSED to attack, that came by surprise."
"He attacked both of them," Gird agreed softly.
"So... so is the attack over?" Lawnii interjected.
"Not entirely. Two landing parties are still here on surface, close to the settlement, and we are still in danger from them. However, we need no longer fear bombardment from above, or reinforcements. That's good news at least." He sighed. "Isabel, h-- can you tell how your own powers are balancing?? I would not ask you to risk the same outcome as Michael, but the perimeter guard is down by several people from a fragment of the missile that hit us. You'll be able to assist them, I think."
Everything seemed to be going too quickly for Iz. "Umm... what about Michael? Is he going to be okay??"
"I think so," he assured her. "He will not fare the worse for resting this hour or next. If we need to use a power ritual to help him, we can... but in the middle of this action is not the time. Do not worry, though -- he will recover."
Isabel smiled a little. "Thanks. Okay, next... for this guard duty -- I'm sorry, but what would it involve? Holding a gun and... and shooting at any of the other guys who come too close?"
"No, you would not be using a physical weapon, but joining your mental powers into a group of four and allowing one of the other defenders, more experienced, to use your energy for attack -- or defense."
Isabel paused in thought... group of four?? Well, there was no time to think about it right now. "Just tell me where to go."
----------
By the time the perimiter guardspeople got an order to stand down and Isabel had found her way back into the underlevels of the settlement, Michael had been moved, and it seemed to take her forever to find him, in a small dining room or something that had been converted into a battle infirmary. Just at the same time as she found Michael, lying there with a number of Antarians loosely gathered around his still unconscious body, Iz also caught sight of another face she recognized, Tess, sitting two tables away, cleaning and bandaging the wounds of a tall, muscular blue-skinned alien man.
"Oh, hi Isabel," Lawnii said, startling the hybrid girl as she came up from behind. "Did you hear that we had the all clear??"
"Umm, yes." The remaining Kivarian troops, knowing that they no longer had a home base to retreat to, and not eager to take their chances escaping into the wilderness of this mostly untamed colony world, had surrendered and been taken as captives for the time being. "Umm... not to sound too stupid, but what is *she* doing here??"
"Ummm... well, we needed every pair of hands we could get for triage, and she volunteered to help. I've been helping to keep an eye on Tess, actually. That chain thing on her neck is preventing her from using her powers to attack anyone, or escape, even if she got in into her head to try."
"Um," Isabel muttered, not seeming satisfied by that. However, just at that moment, Isabel was waved over by someone she vaguely remembered, Karteech, the chief medical officer of the settlement. As she stepped closer to Michael, she stiffened in utter horror and shock... his body was covered with an all too familiar pattern of webbing. "He... we have to..."
"We're preparing to use 'Kolcharrin' to initiate an energy transfer," Karteech told her gently. "I realize it looks bad, but this is, I think, a relatively minor syndrome for our people, and Michael should be able to weather in nearly as well. Would have been better if we'd been able to attend to him earlier, I admit, but..."
"This... this has happened to him before," she blurted out. "A year and a half ago. Not from over-using his powers -- but he was exposed to extremely high heat and humidity, for..."
"Oh!" The alien doctor considered. "Yes, that would have the same effect, wouldn't it?"
Isabel nodded. "I... I can take one of the healing stones and help with the transfer," she continued. "If... if I'm not too, too scared or something."
For a second, Karteech seemed like he was about to ask how she knew so much about this process, but evidently thought better of it. Then he looked patiently at her for a long moment. "Perhaps it is better not. The chances of an adverse reaction are probably not that high, but we have plenty of other volunteers to whom Michael is not so dear. Better that way."
"I'll help, if you let me," another voice spoke up. Isabel looked over and glared at Tess. "Seriously... I, I want to help," the young pregnant girl continued. "Not just saying it to get this damn shackle off my neck, because... well, to be honest, what the hell could I do anyway, surrounded by all of you in here? I... I'd just like to be able to give something back as a way of saying sorry for all the crap I've put you and Michael, and Max and the others, through. Honest."
"Remorse comes easy to the girl who's been caught," Isabel muttered.
"Yeah," Tess agreed flatly. "But it doesn't hurt you any for me to ease my conscience a little either, now does it? You still don't owe me anything."
Isabel turned away from Tess... and saw that Karteech was looking at her. "For this, the power of the young new life growing inside her would be a significant asset," he muttered. "It is your choice, I think, but this might increase Michael's chances of reviving without a complication."
She paused a moment, lost in indecision. "Fine, if we can get enough people to stand watch and make sure she doesn't try anything funny." Isabel turned angrily to Tess. "You realize that if you do this, and gods forbid something happens to Michael... the rebels are going to crucify you as soon as the baby is born, right??"
"Yeah, probably, especially if you ask them to," Tess agreed. "But nothing's going to happen. I promise you."
Other participants were quickly rounded up, and watchers, and Isabel spent the entire time glaring at Tess' face, watching for something indicating that she was about to run away, or hurt Michael, or do anything wrong. She didn't notice what was happening to Michael, or even see a single one of the yellow healing stones light up with their own light.
"Isabel? Izzy??" Only after many long seconds did it penetrate that Michael was calling for her. "What... what happened? I feel like crap."
She rushed forward and hugged him through the dust of the disintegrated webbing. "You're a foolish moron, Michael Guerin, but I love you anyway. Don't ever scare me like that again."
It took a little while to explain to Michael what had happened, and what he had done, (he didn't seem to remember anything after zapping the first ship,) and Tess put her chain back on, had it inspected, and went off to help with others who were still recovering from the fighting. Michael's grin when Lawnii told him that the attack had been successfully fought off was a joy to behold.
"Then it's all over?"
"Until the rebels and the next fleet of Kivar's show up, around this time tomorrow," Isabel told him soberly. "And we see if somebody starts shooting."
TO BE CONTINUED...