"So, Leo." John said as they tramped across the baking brown ground, further and further away from civilization. "Have you developed any legacies yet?"

"Yes, actually!" Leo beamed. "I can teleport!"

"Teleport?" Ella chimed in, quickening her pace to reach them. "You can teleport?"

"Yes." Leo replied happily. "Right now, I can also teleport one other person too, if we're not going too far away."

"Did you teleport here?" She asked. "When you and Netoya were checking up on us, earlier?"

"Yes." Leo relied again, turning a little red. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, no, no." Ella waved him away, a smile growing on her own face. "So, you teleported you both to where we were, watched us for a few minutes, then teleported away?" Leo nodded. Ella grinned even wider. "That's great!"

John just stared, wondering if he'd ever understand Ella.

"Daniel," She called him over. He abidingly approached with a questioning expression. She gestured to Leo. "He can teleport."

Leo's head bobbed. "I can."

A grin suddenly overtook Daniel's face as well. "That's what was happening?" Ella nodded eagerly. "I told you."

"Never doubted you." She said happily, lifting her chin.

"I also have intangibility." He offered. "But . . . I'm still figuring that one out. It just happened.

"Back to the teleportation thing." John said, his mind wheeling. "Why are we walking again, if you can teleport? You wouldn't have to do it all at once – you could take us like, one at a time."

"I can't teleport there unless I know exactly where I'm going." Leo said apologetically. "It's too dangerous right now, I can't control it well enough yet."

Of course. There was always a catch. Well, the kid was still young anyway, maybe his legacies would develop more.

"Remains of a spaceship in the middle of the desert not specific enough for you?" He joked.

Leo grinned, laughing happily. "It sounds like something out of a science fiction book."

"Dude, welcome to my life." Sam said, joining in the conversation.

"All things considered, that's pretty good." Leo pointed out.

"Yeah," Sam groaned. "Except, of course, we don't get any of the cool technology. All the possibilities in the world, spaceships, motor scooters, hover crafts, honestly, I'd even settle for a plain old souped up bicycle right now – but no, of course, we're stuck riding shank's ponies."

John reflexively barked out a laugh. Sam turned to him quizzically. "Shank's ponies?" John asked.

Sam turned slightly red. "Yeah – shank's ponies!" He said defensively. "Walking!"

"That's some weird ass slang Sam." John said, fighting to keep his grin under control.

"Yeah, well, what do you know about slang – alien freak." Sam muttered.

Sam, Leo, and John were all already laughing together, as if they hadn't a care in the world. Well, at least someone was happy, Six thought with a stormy face as she strode up to Netoya.

"Anything else you'd like to share?" She demanded coldly.

Netoya matched her glare. "I've finished the deception, Six." She retorted. "I have nothing left to hide."

"Good." Six stated. "Because, if you're on this team now, then you need to start acting like it. And when you're part of a team, you don't keep secrets."

Her icy delivery didn't have the impact she'd expected. "Don't keep secrets?" Netoya repeated, with something which, on another face, may have been a smile. "Really Six? You aren't even honest with yourself, yet you expect all of us to be honest with everyone all the time?"

The edge of Six's mouth curled. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know more than you'd care to admit." Netoya countered.

"I lived on Lorien, for years. I grew up around Garde children, worked with them, ones just like you. You aren't unique, not special. You're just the only one still alive."

"Last I checked," Six sniped. "That alone makes me pretty unique."

"You don't have to like me. But if you acknowledge that I might know something more about the world than you, you just might learn something."

"And you don't have to like me." Six countered. "But you do have to trust me – trust all of us. Cause if you don't, we're never going to be able to work as a team, and then the Mogs will destroy us. John will die. The rest of us will probably follow. It would all put your precious Nine in danger – and that's the only thing you care about, right?"

"You do the math Six." Netoya said stiffly. "For him to ever be in real danger, you'd have to be dead. So believe it or not, I'm out to protect you too."

"I don't need protecting. For now – we concentrate on John."

"That's all a cepan ever does."

"Good. Then we're on the same page."

Six pushed her sunglasses further up her face and sped away from Netoya.

"I know it's not true, obviously." Tyler said, kicking a pebble along the dirt in front of him. "But I don't know – we all believed it. Do you think it's possible?"

"Well, why not?" Teresa asked. "That's what I spent my whole life believing, up until a few weeks ago. I knew I was different, but I didn't think I was impervious to cancer."

"But, think about it." Tyler persisted. "Do you ever remember being really sick?"

"Yes." Teresa answered promptly. "Every time I got a scar I threw up. And when I was first using my powers – sorry, legacies – a lot, like every day, all day, I used the feel queasy and get headaches."

"Right." Tyler said. "But that all relates to the Lorein stuff. What about, just randomly getting a cold? I mean, I know I never went to the doctor or the dentist or anything like that – did you?"

"No." Teresa said, cocking her head to the side. "I guess I never felt like I needed to. I certainly never had the health insurance."

"Maybe it's true then. Maybe we can't get human diseases."

Teresa raised an eyebrow, her mouth quirking at the corner. "We can go crazy." She shook her head, assuming a more serious expression. "Didn't Patrick know?"

Tyler shrugged. "He's a warrior, not a scientist. At any rate, I don't think comparing the biological differences between Lorien and Humans was ever a top priority back on Lorien."

"What about the other way around?" Teresa asked suddenly. "I mean, clearly, Lorien can get sick."

"Yeah, I guess regular humans would probably be immune to diseases that would affect us then too."

"Or what if they're not." Teresa pointed out. "What if we brought, like, cancer or something here?"

"I think cancer existed long before we came here." Tyler pointed out.

"Us, maybe." Teresa countered. "But before any Lorien came here? Probably not. I don't know, but it's a possibility!"

"You worried?" Tyler joked. "Been spreading your Lorien diseases around?"

Teresa made a faced to hide her grin, and elbowed him. "Shut up!"

"Stop." Six's voice rang out clear through the crisp, rapidly cooling air. "This is it. We're here."

Thank goodness. It was starting to get dark, they'd almost wasted an entire nother day.

They slowly gathered, looking down to where the land dipped into a valley, entirely silent.

It was a spaceship, John supposed. He had no idea what an alien spaceship was supposed to look like. It was bigger than he'd expected, looking more like a mini building complex than something that could become airborn. The sprawling mass of cold, gray metal blended surprisingly well with the desert, particularly now that dusk was falling.

It looked like a complicated machine, but then again, John had no frame of reference. It could have been top of the line, or a broken down heap of junk for all he knew.

Either way though, he found it imposing. It didn't seem like the type of thing for amateurs to mess around with.

"This is it." Sam breathed next to him. "Isn't it?"

"Yes." Patrick said solemnly. "That's the ship we came to Earth in. It . . . seems . . . different, though."

"Well," Netoya said, staring at it emotionlessly. "It did suffer a crash landing to Earth, and has been abandoned for over a decade. But, you're right, it does seem as if something else is different about it. Almost as though there have been additions."

"There are Mogs." Ella said.

"I wouldn't be surprised." Patrick murmured.

"No," Ella said. "I mean, I know there are Mogs down there. I can feel them, I can see them. A lot, thirty or forty of them."

"This must be where they're basing their operations . . ." Six murmured. "Well, that makes it easier for us – saves us the step of tracking them down."

"But now we're minus the spaceship on our side, and whatever other stuff was on it." John said with a grim face.

"Yeah . . . how come you guys just abandoned the spaceship anyway?" Tyler asked. "Didn't you think it would be useful?"

"We were a bit more concerned with escaping the Mogadorians hot on our tail." Netoya pointed out, a bit scathingly. "It wasn't exactly stocked with supplies or technology, and we'd just crash landed – it would have been highly impractical to try and save it."

"Well at any rate, the Mogs seem to have it now." Teresa said. "So how do we get it back?"

"We'll need to plan an attack." Six stated. "Come on – let's set up camp. We've got work to do."

"I can't believe it." Sam said, helping Six to unfold the table Leo had popped back from who knew where – he hadn't elaborated, they hadn't asked.

"What?" Six asked, shoving her hair out of her eyes.

"My dad – I mean, I knew he was right, I always believed he was right, and when you guys showed up, well, that was proof."

"Yeah. Pretty remarkable, for a human." Six agreed.

Sam continued on, "But all this – this is what he came looking for. It's all here, just like he said it would. He didn't run off, he didn't fail. He probably actually found it – but the Mogs had found it too."

Six looked down, biting her lip. "I'm sorry Sam." She tentatively reached out a hand, gradually placing it on his shoulder.

Sam smiled at her. "It's okay." He assured her. "I already knew he was dead. I've known that for a long time. Now I just know how."

"I'm sorry." Six said again. "I'm sorry, because I know exactly what that's like, and because it's our fault, for bringing the Mogs here."

Sam shook his head. "Thanks, Six. But you know it's not your fault, you didn't bring the Mogs here."

"I didn't," Six clarified. "But the Lorien did. The Mogs destroyed the Lorien. We, as a people, my ancestors, ought to have been more careful to not spread that fate to other people."

Sam nodded solemnly. "I guess we're all fighting the Mogs for the same reason now."

Six mirrored the gesture. "It's not just our parents they took. It's the entire life we could have had. Who knows where we'd be if we'd still had our families."

"We wouldn't be here." Sam said. "We never would have met."

A smile graced Six's face. "See." She raised her eyebrows. "If we can bring good out of the Mogs, we can handle anything."

"That's good to know." Sam said seriously.

"Most of us have been training our whole lives for this." Six said softly, brushing a piece of her hair back. "You don't have to worry. We're going to win."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about that." Sam said, leaning against the table. "I was thinking about getting into college – I don't know how kindly they're going to look on me skipping half of high school to take a road trip with some aliens."

Six rolled her eyes. "Come on, freak, let's go set up some chairs."