An entire planet. That was a huge payoff. Which of course meant they never intended to pay it off. Jerrold Matthews had no doubt of that. They needed humans to help them. And would be disposed of immediately after. That is what he would do, so no doubt they would do the same. So one had to prepare. The problem was of course that they had the whip hand in that they had the ship that would be needed to get there. Or so they thought. Jerrold had no doubt he could outmaneuver them; he just had to be careful.

A ship or a planet; Jerrold had let them think he wanted a planet of his own. Actually, he was not certain yet which way to go. There were factors for both.

A ship was freedom; but you also had to maintain in and that would require those that could. Jerrold knew that keeping immortality secret was vital; if it ever got out they would all end up as lab rats being vivisected. The greatest goal humanity had was immortality; so no one could be trusted with their secret. Yet the ship would allow them to go where they wished when they wished.

Another argument against the ship was the small number of earth like planets; the Antarians had been looking for years and these were the first truly viable ones. But then again immortality was time; they could spend decades if necessary looking. But did they want to? The ship seemed very small; cooped up in a small ship for years would not be good.

He had been very careful to recruit followers and not leaders; to make sure none of them would ever think of challenging him. And after hundreds of years that had held. But years in a small ship looking at nothing; Jerrold knew that confinement was an entirely different way of living; it could breed many things not good.

Now a planet. Free to do as you want not worrying about a government or someone coming after you. In many ways that would be a truer freedom than a ship. But mankind would come sooner or later; that was a fact. Even if the ships the Antarians had were destroyed, mankind knew it could be done and how. It would be just a matter of time. But if mankind was prevented from coming for several hundred years, then things changed. One could build to the point that visitors could be run off. But that would take constant work over a century or more to build the infrastructure.

But what if you had both; a ship and a planet. Stay on the planet while the ship is searching for new homes; then leave if one has to. That in many ways was the Immortal story; stay until you have to leave then find a new place. Only in this case that meant a new planet. That was it. He would have both. Which meant taking the ship away from the aliens and at the same time making sure humanity could not follow for a long time.

The Aliens were the enemies of the Antarians for changing their planets way of life. Jerrold could understand that; and it would enable them to work together long enough for him to get what he needed from them. Then they would be removed from the equation.

Urter contemplated what they had learned about these humans. Clearly intelligent and ruthless; but of course no match for him and his liege. They were humans.

Promise them what they want and then after they had done what was needed they would be disposed of. His Liege would have a new world to build an empire the way he wanted, not what the mass of low class peasants wanted. That would not be allowed to happen on the new world.

But first the Anatarians needed to be dealt with. And primitive as it was, this world did have what they needed for that to be done. It had to be carefully planned; the rogue humans would get the blame for what happpned.

The arrangements for the second great migration were starting to fall into place; having done it once made it easier to do it again. And this time there was no deadline. The ships were still there to do it with; and everything else was at hand. This would be a much shorter trip; only a little more than a month one way. There were some that contemplated not podding the people; but the time and effort and resources that would be needed to go that route was prohibitive. The ships would all have to be modified and there would need to be three times as many trips. And other resources would be needed. No, they would pod this time as well.

Max held the first meeting since the announcement 2 months later. This was with the senior administrators of all the settlements. Since each one was allowed to bring an assistant, which meant over 800 people. It was held in the convention center in Roswell. They had not designed any facility that big for the palace; which made sense since it was not needed.

Max walked into the main hall and all the people involved Stood up as was custom; Larek and his aides were with him.

"Please, everyone, take your seats. This is going to take a while and lets be as informal as possible. Now the first item on the agenda, and as we all know the most contentious, will be who stays and who goes. I have made it clear, and all the earth governments involved have agreed, that anyone that does not want to go can stay. BUT it means that those that stay will have to that countries citizens and swear an overriding oath to that country. So make sure everyone knows that."

So that got things going; but it was not as tough as he had thought it might be. Having lived on earth for years, many of those that wanted to stay had no illusions about things here. He made it clear that once they took the oath, he no longer led them or had any real responsibility for them. And if they changed their minds getting to the new planet would be up to them. New Antar, as the world would be called, would not foot the bill.

The next item was where everyone would go. That was fairly easy as the Granularians already had their world so that would be up to Larek and his government on how to handle that.

Now for the Antarians, Max and Liz had already picked out where the capital would be; at the foot of the mountains near a large lake; a very beautiful area that was right in the middle of the biggest continent; in the middle of the temperate zone. It would be cooler and wetter than Roswell, more like Colorado.

Max then pretty much let it be known that where everyone wanted to go would be up to them. The main settlement areas would be where they would go first; then after that it was up to the individuals or groups or whatever. It was a pretty big planet with a lot of area for only 250 million, which was the current total of those that wanted to go. Some human mates would go with the Antarians, but Max made it clear it was only family that went; no one else from earth would go in the migration. After was another story.

The UN and the various Earth governments were talking about the other planet that was going to be Mankinds Second home. Needless to say the wrangling was already hot and heavy. Countries with huge populations like China and India wanted of course to have most of it to themselves on the grounds that they needed it. That was countered by other countries very small in size but heavily populated like Japan and Bangladesh. Or countries like Poland that had been fought over many times and wanted safe room and space. People like the Kurds and the Basque who wanted their own homelands.

Meanwhile Max had been able to convince the President to let the Antarians handle the threat as it was mostly alien; the small group of humans were very interesting to the NSA, and for that reason it was very important to take them out of the equation. Liz and the other immortals had no doubt that they knew who they were; and all the more reason to keep any earth agency out of it. Since they had identified who the Aliens were and where they came from, the motivation was clear: they wanted the new world so as to rebuild their dynasty. And to do that they had to prevent the Antarians from going there. How they would do this was the mystery. And it was what had Max and the others thinking hard.

Jerrold had decided that he needed to meet the leader of the aliens face to face in order to really come to an agreement. The fact that they were shapeshifters was interesting but not really that important.

Urter had no intention of the humans knowing or even getting close to his leader so he would make it appear that it was all up to him. His Liege had granted him this authority. He would not disappoint him.

Jerrold once again wanted a meeting far away from the major powers and the Antarian settlements; this time it was in the Sahara Desert, a great distance from any town or city. This would make it easy to ensure security.

Once again the Granolith gave the Antarians a huge advantage, by being able to teleport. Alex and his nerd herd had figured out how to block the sensors of the Alien ship; so they would be able to get quite close this time. The Antarians chosen had been carefully vetted; they needed cool and calm ones for this.

Jerrold looked at the shapeshifter; he had taken a form that fit in with this area; a Bedouin. They were in what looked like a typical Bedouin traveling group. Jerrold and his assistants had flown in on a relatively small plane. Then they had taken camels to the coordinates – that had taken a full day.

Urter looked at the human; there seemed to be nothing remarkable about him. But then they all were unremarkable anyway.

"I see no reason not to be straightforward. We wish to leave this planet and go to the stars; and one day find a home again. So we need a ship. You want to make sure the Antarians cannot interfere on your new world. Frankly it is in our best interests that earth is also prevented from doing the same. That means destroying the ships and ship building capability at the least. But in reality it means more for you, am I correct?"

Urter slowly nodded. So far so good.

"That is correct. If just the ships and shipyards are destroyed, in time they can build them again. Not enough time will go by. They must be weakened, both Antarians and Humans, to the point that hundreds of years will pass before they can reach the stars."

"I Am sorry sir; but the Shapeshifters have something that the granolith is reading that it has not seen before; they cannot be sure that the jamming device will work."

The senior Antarian agent cursed. They had been unable to get close enough for the devices they had to overhear the conversations of the Aliens and Humans. But his orders from His Majesty were clear; above all else they must not be detected.

"So it was a bust?"

Was Michaels statement when the lead antarian shamefacedly made his report. Max had told them that he had followed orders and the failure was not on him; but the Antarian clearly still felt that he had failed his king.

Liz shrugged. "Not wholly. We got good pictures of the human and his assistants. And it seemed very likely he was their leader. We have been able to follow him all the way back to where they live at this time. The old watcher diaries only gave descriptions, they did not have cameras back then. But it does seem that Jerrold Mattews is who we thought he was; of course the only way to really confirm that is to have a Immortal get close to him; or find a way to get a sensor close to them. The Granolith and Alex are working on that now. It will not take time. But that is really besides the point; Immortal or not, it is clear he is up to no good and we have to stop both groups."

"We have an idea vaguely that they want to prevent the second migration, but the question is how." Said Max.

Michael snorted. "Well really we have not learned much more, have we? As far as I am concerned it was a bust."

Liz shook her head. "No, we learned about the Shapeshifters sensor; we did not know about it before. Now that we got some readings on it the Granolith is confident it can block it as well. That could very well be important down the road."

Jerrold Matthews had to hand it to the Aliens; they did think big. And it made a lot of sense. But it would take some work and preparation to accomplish it. But they had plenty of time; the Antarians would not be making their move for some time. Time they would not have.

They had gotten the loan of a satellite to keep an eye on the Immortals; so they had a good idea of where they went and what they did. Sophisticated surveillance allowed the gradual tracing of the network of mortals that the Immortals were using to get things done and get information. It was hoped that they would be able to piece things together in time to stop whatever they were planning.

Urter had been very forthright in what he wanted; humans and Antarians so badly damaged that it would be centuries before they could go anywhere again. He intended to destroy most of the ships in parking orbit around the moon, just in case. They would take a few just to have them. But causing that much damage on earth meant using earth weapons; and that meant Nuclear Missiles of the two main powers, Russia and the US. Now how to do this was what would take preparation and planning. They could just seize the ships with boarding parties and send most crashing to the moon; and the rest to ram and destroy the shipyards and asteroid mining facilities.

First they had to figure out which one to go after; Russian or US. That took observation and acquisition of information. Jerrold Matthews was intrigued by the premise; the fact that hundreds of millions would die mattered little to him. They were mortals and therefore expendable. He assigned the tasks of finding the needed information to his designated assistance for such matters, Alexander Worthing, one of the immortals that had been with him the longest. Alexander believed in the simple fact that virtually everyone can be bought; and if one cannot be there is always another that can be.

The US Missiles were controlled from Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Quite a bit of information was available publicly. The Russian system called Perimeter was also in a mountain in Russia. So Jerrold ordered Alexander to find out more.

The sophisticated surveillance allowed them to start to identify the mortal assistants and employees to the immortals, but it was a slow process.

Meanwhile they tried to figure out the ultimate goal and thus what tools they would use.

"OK. They want the planet we are looking at. To get it they have to stop us from going there. So that means destroying our ships." This from Michael.

"They would also have to destroy the space docks around Mars and the asteroid mining complexes that their materials come from. They have to destroy both the ships and the means to make more." This from Alex.

"So we have to protect both. What is the threat and what can we do to protect against it?" Max mused.

As the discussion turned to how to do that, Liz was thinking. From the briefing Larek had given them long ago, she remembered that there really were not any warships that anyone knew about. Interstellar ships were terribly expensive and tended to be small due to that. And have little if any armament.

"Max, I do not think that is the whole threat."

They all looked at her.

"To destroy the ships and complexes would require hundreds of nuclear weapons; they would have to make them. No ship known carries any kind of weapon that could seriously damage such large ships or complexes. I think it is more likely that they would find a way to order the ships to crash themselves on the moon; and commander some to send them crashing into the complexes and shipyards."

Alex slowly nodded. "That makes sense. It is not like those ships could not be boarded as they currently are. We can put a kind of locking mechanism on the hatches but then a shuttle crew could blow a hole in the side of the ship and gain entrance that way. So we need to completely disable the ships so they cannot be used in that way."

That was agreed upon and also Alex and his nerd herd would look into putting together some kind of missile defense system for the shipyards and mining complexes.

A few days later as the first information started to come in, Alexander updated his lord.

"We have been able to gather already a large amount of information about the American system and location. We are looking to get more specific information soon. The Russian system will take more time; but we are optimistic that some carefully handled bribes should take care of that situation."

Jerrold nodded and told him to get along with it. So far so good.

While this was going on, the debate in the UN was also going on about who was to have sovereignty of the new planet that would become mankind's first colony. As was to be expected, the debate was long and rancorous. The poor countries wanted to have it; the rich countries pointed out that the poor countries could not even organize what they had let alone a colony. The poor of course maintained that they were being held down by the rich ones. It would not end soon.

The preparations for leaving earth were somewhat leisurely compared to the first time getting there; and this time there was no pressure.

It had only taken one week for one of Alexander's operatives to come across a former officer who had worked at Perimeter and bribe him enough to get most of what they needed. He was not part of the security system, though, so they needed one of them. He had a convenient car accident days later.

Interestingly enough, it was proving much harder to find a senior enough officer who had worked at Cheyenne Mountain recently enough and could be bought. So Alexander was looking into the possibility of kidnapping one and using torture to find out what they needed. He ordered a group to start looking at the possibility while pushing the other ones to find a buyable officer.

Jerrold looked at the briefing on the Perimeter system. In some ways it looked harder to get into then what the Cheyenne system did; after all they had tourists going into NORAD on a daily basis while Perimeter was a closed area. But it was beginning to look like the so called closed area might be easier to break into.

What was more interesting was the Dead Hand; the doomsday system that the Russians had put together in the 1980's and had never deactivated. It was a system of sensors that would tell Perimeter that nuclear weapons had detonated on Russian soil; and that would trigger immediate missile launches. This had potential.

Alexander sighed and put down the report of the latest efforts to get intel on Cheyenne Mountain. They had found a lowly security specialist in deep debt due to gambling and had been able to buy him. But what they had found out was disappointing. But really came as no surprise to Alexander once he had learned the basics of the American System. To retarget the missiles to strike American soil would be difficult and more than likely ensure no launch was done at all. The security features at the mountain would make it difficult for even shapeshifters in the form of senior government officials or generals to gain admittance. They would have to be able to fool people while talking to them; which was unlikely.

A few days later he was much more cheerful as he read the report of a midlevel security officer that had been bought off as regards Perimeter. It was beginning to look like this was the way to go. Unquestioned obedience had been drilled into the security officers; so someone that looked like a senior general and his aides would be able to get into the control system. There the Dead Hand features could come into play; it brought down the launching of the rockets to one man; and that position was accessible once you reached the core of the control area. Better yet the information had been verified that all of the Antarian and Granularian settlements were already targets. Even the ones on Russian soil. A triumph of paranoia, certainly.

Jerrold listened to Alexander and thought for a while.

"I agree. Well done, Alexander. We will go after the Russians. We need to verify all this from additional sources as you have recommended. Commence immediately."

Joe Dawson and Methos had decided to bring in the council on the idea of hidden Immortals; and they had jumped on it right away. The Council had built up a lot of contacts over the years in many nations; and most of those were with the military or security forces. And the intelligence services. Those contacts were being milked and were starting to produce dividends.

"It looks like they are definitely trying something in Russia. Just what is still unknown. But they are putting resources into digging into the Russian military and intelligence services."

Max, Liz, Michael, Alex and the Antarian security service reps were listening to the report that Methos had put together.

Liz pondered all of this.

"We know they want to destroy or capture the ships; destroy the mining complexes and shipyards. So why are they looking at putting such time and resources into finding more about Russia?"

Micheal shrugged. "That is what we have to find out. Obviously it is part of their plans somehow."

One more meeting was arranged; this time the Granolith was sure they could get close enough to hear details.

"My lord wishes to inform you that they have the necessary information to commence the planning."

"My Liege will be pleased. We will notify you of the next meeting; it will be soon."

"That was all?" came from a frustrated Michael.

"That was all that was said. But we now know we can get close enough to overhear without being caught. So the next meeting should furnish more than enough information for us to begin to respond to the threat."

Max and the others looked at each other as the intelligence personnel left the meeting.

"Michael, we have to be patient."

"I think we are just sitting back and waiting and that is not the way to go. We need to go right at them and take them out; the Aliens and the Immortals. Wipe them clean. THAT will end it all."

Liz looked around and saw that most of those in the room agreed. And frankly so did she. But Max wanted to wait, and she had to respect that decision.