Three days had passed since Ale’ir and her crew had attacked when Vareva finally found the ship about seven miles away from the base. It was already beginning to get covered with a layer of fresh fallen snow so far outside but the smooth outlines of the alien ship were still visible for her as she approached it. .
The female urley stopped a couple of feet in front of it and activated the ramp over Ale’ir’s control device which she had taken from her.
With a hissing noise lowered the metallic ramp at it backside and buried its front partly in the snow before her, before she entered it.
Once inside, overcame her a strange feeling as she found herself passing the first door which, was build for her size of course. It felt strange that everything was now set into normal proportions as she walked through it and found herself in the main area of the ship or as she remembered it calling, the lounge.
The lounge was build into a round form with a round table and seating accommodations build in the same form around it. Tables that reached her hip and chairs, all build for her size, were placed on the walls of the room with cupboards and shelves being here and there. She didn't bothered to look into them but she stopped when she passed the seats in the middle.
How often had she sat there after a mission…a hunt, with the others and had used captured humans as their personal entertainment.


“Come on tiny! Kill him, and you are free to go!”
She could hear her own voice saying to one of her prisoners as the two humans stood terrified on that table while she and the rest of her team sat around it, and placed their bets.

It made her sick inside. They had turned her into a monster. Had given her false memories of people she had never met before of a home on a far off world she had never seen and which probably didn't even existed. They had taken her from her real home so many years ago and had turned her into...this. And worst of all, they hadn't even bothered to erase those old memories...this old life this real life she had had before all that. All they had done, was to implant a barrier inside her brain and then left her to fight against her own race.

Until…

She smiled and closed her eyes banishing all the horrible scenes and replacing them with ones that had always given her hope.

It had been years ago. Back when she and Catherine had lived in Atlantis. Back when she was not the young warrior she was now, but just a child...innocent, but already scarred inside from the war.


“Mom! Mommy! Look!”

Vareva heard the little voice calling out to her as she held one of the reinforced steel beams in position for the human welder group to be fixed into its final position. Flying sparks of molten steel rained down on her hand but did little to nothing as they cooled down halfway. She waited until the team was done before she got her attention to the little voice which was still trying to get her’s.
“Mom look what I did for you.” She heard her saying in a highly excited tone holding up a little paper with something on it.
The tall urley offered her hand palm up, and waited patiently before her girl had climbed up and sat down in the middle before lifting her up and stopping with her, just about her face level.
She wasn’t angry with her. How could she be as she looked at the bright smiling face and her little, wide opened eyes. She held her picture up for Vareva to see and now, could she muster what she had drawn on it.
It was a large figure with yellow and black eyes and long grey hair and camouflaged skin just like she had. She held a smaller figure in her hand and both smiled with some trees around them whom reached up to her waist.

“You did that?” She mocked her with a grin pretending that she had had some help and immediately, got her reaction as Catherine began to frown and pout saying that she did it on her own. “Na ah I bet you got some help from Mrs. Carter.”
Cathy told her again that she had done with all the energy a kid of her young age could muster up as a few more urley gathered around them. Cathy was so proud and showed everyone what she had done and not once was her little girl cheered from the others and asked if she could make a drawing for them too.

“My child…” It seemed so long ago now as she looked at her hand and saw the image of her little daughter sitting in it and smiling up to her. That kid that she had saved so very many years ago from herself and the others of her team.

The memory began to fade but the feeling of that day and so many more like it, remained when Vareva opened her eyes again. Could the years she had spent to save the people give her the salvation for all the bad things she had done before?

Maybe yes, maybe no. Who knew.


The urley warrior moved on and entered the corridor with the crews quarters in it. On each side were four rooms. Single bed rooms with a slightly bigger one for the captain at its end. It had been her room and as she assumed, later, Ale’ir’s.
She wasted no time and walked up the stairs to the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's seat.
The controls began to lighten up and the system was beginning to wake up as a low hum indicated that the reactor was being warmed up.

“Not so fast.” She mumbled to herself and opened the subsystems and from there, went to the manual override codes. She found the lines she needed and wrote in the codes to overheat the reactor. As soon as she was done, left Vareva the cockpit and walked down the stairs when she felt a sudden urge to enter Ale’irs room. Why, she couldn't say as she pushed the button and the door slid open  with a hissing sound.
Ale’irs room, Vareva’s former room as the commanding officer on that ship, hadn’t any greater luxury in it then she could remember. She saw a sword hanging on the opposite wall which was a meant as a mere decoration then as a actually well working weapon. The table to the right, had several datapads on it and Vareva took them. Maybe she would find some useful information on them and especially, how they had managed it to find her.
Sure she knew her hideout would be found someday since she had killed quite a few urley scouts over the years as a mean to protect the city.
It was unavoidable that they would investigate this sector someday as she placed the pads in a pocket at her belt and went around to leave when she heard a faint sound somewhere behind her.

“Hello?” She listened but the noise had stopped. Vareva waited a few seconds before she looked on her watch and set the countdown on the display on standby.
If there was someone on that ship would she get them out of here and bring them back.
“Please, I can help you. Don’t be afraid.” She checked the table and nearby locker for any sings and listened patiently for any sound aside from the humming of the machine as she knelt before the bed and finally, heard it again.

“Please come out I won’t hurt you.”

Vareva waited. Her hands in front of her as she knelt before the bed of her former enemy and looked from side to side in case a little human head would pop up somewhere. She was worried that the little...that the human would be too scared to show up and so she put her combat gear next to her all the while listening and looking for any signs.  
Nothing happened aside from slight rustle now and then. A silent wince here and there.
Whoever it was was scared and she couldn't blame the person for that.

“I promise...I swear, you have nothing to fear from me. Ale’ir, the commander of this ship and her crew, is dead. They won’t come back, but you have to show yourself because the ship will blow up soon and I would really like to leave before that happens.”
But again, happened nothing as she waited and waited...until.

“W-will you not...hurt me?”

Vareva looked under the bed and finally could she see the source as the small huddled frame of a human appeared before her his arms...or what was left of them, hugging his front as he slowly made his way towards her with only a makeshift crotch as support.

Vareva’s first instinct was to grab him and get him out but as she took a second look at him, could she see why he had made such a slow approach on her.
His left leg was gone as well as a part of his left arm. He only wore a simple piece of cloth as a pair of trousers which was already stitched up here and there. He had no hair on his head but instead just a few scars which ran over his head and whom seemed to be made by acid-burns or burns in general. His only foot had a larger bandage starting from his foot and going up to his knee which appeared to have been broken a few times since his leg had healed in a few wrong ways.
His chest revealed multiple scars running over it and also seemed to have burns on it as he came closer to her. His entire form was beaten and he also looked as if he hadn’t gotten anything to eat for weeks as his haggard face looked up at her with his only good eye.

“Oh...by the gods.” Murmured Vareva as she gave him a bit more room. She tried to get lower and appear to him as friendly as possible as he began to get out from under the bed.
“What did she do to you.”

The man...said no word but only looked at her before he lost his strength and began to fall.
Vareva was faster and before he made any contact with the hard floor, was her palm already there and cushioned his landing.

“Easy there.”

“Are...are they really gone?” His voice was weak as he laid in her palm and looked up at her with his only eye left.

“Yeah.” it was all that she could say as he held this little life closer and sat down on her former opponents bed. Now that she could see him better, was she able to see even more scars on his body as she whisked a bit of dirt and dried blood from him.
She did so gently on his face as his right hand touched her finger and stopped her.

“Then...please. Let me go too.”

“But I can get you out of here. I can help you.” But the human only shook his head as she slowly took her finger away and placed her hand gently on his body.

The human felt the warmth of her skin on his. It was something he had thought that he would never feel again in his life as years of his tormentum at the hands of Ale’ir and the others repeated themselves inside his head.
How many people he had seen come and vanish. Most were killed by his tormentors art of fun. Others, just caught to be used as food or...other things. But he, he had been spared all the time only to watch.

“Please…” begged he nearly as he touched her fingers again and gently almost without any strength of his won pulled her index finger and thumb up until his head rested between them.
“...let me go.” The little soul whispered as a large teardrop fell on her hand and ran down her skin.
Was that what she was, again to do the dirty work of others, as her thumb and index finger touched the side of his head and rested there for a few more seconds.
He saw her crying and rubbed his only good hand against the skin of her thumb as she and him looked at each other and she, saw his smile and a nod before he closed his eyes.

“Thank you…”




She looked back as the back door ramp of the ship closed just as her display gave her a warning sign that the last seconds were about to count down and gave the ship a last look before its hull began to moan and began to get sucked it as if an invisible force seemed to push it inwards.
The entire process took only moments as the reactor created a miniature black hole inside its chamber and sucked everything into in its reach.
It was only moments later when the last pieces of his old life were sucked through a microscopic abyss and she turned away when it was gone and only she, and the cold icy desert remained without any trace left that an Urley transporter had stood here.


“Maybe, that is only what I am good for after all.” Whispered the warrior as she looked at her hand and tried to whisk away the sound that the neck of the tiny guys neck had made when she had fulfilled his wish.
But to be honest, she knew that that, among many other sounds and pictures she had had about her old and new life, wouldn't vanish until her time would come too...
All she was hoping for,was that when it would be her, that she had someone gentle with her too when her time would come.




_ _ _ _ _ _


"Thanks" said Catherine as Sam gave her another spoon with a hot soup that had the strange taste of chicken despite him saying that it would be beef or at least beef flavor with meat like pieces as Sam watched out not to spill any of the contents on the spoon
She laid in one of the transportable beds from the base with two covers over her to keep her warm.
The room they were in, belonged to an older office building since the devas had literally destroyed the hangar they had lived in, before on their search to find another entrance.
It wasn't much but for the moment, it was better than nothing.

“You know I can eat by myself, right?” Catherine obliged and opened her mouth to accept the hot soup as Sam looked at her from his seat.

“And you know you aren't in the position to argue at least not now.” Replied Sam in a stern and slightly annoyed tone as he waited for another round of arguments coming from her.
“Your body needs rest at least for the next few days, until those nano-thingys could do their work on you. And now eat up. You need it.”


Catherine eyed the room from her point and saw some of the boxes and crates laying near a wall next to a small generator. It was just then that she noticed some improvised lamps here and there who illuminated the room next to the two barrels which had a warm fire in them.

“Did you do that?”

“Who else should have?” Came Sam’s answer as he held her another spoon to take. “Your ‘mom’ helped with the moving but aside of that, is it all human hand made.”

“But, how? I mean you were…” But Sam cut her off before she could end her sentence.

“The suit injected me with so many painkiller dosages, that I was numb for an entire day. Believe me, my body hurts like hell right now but I can move and that's the important part. Besides,” He said and for the first time since she had opened her eyes, could she see a small smirk on his lips which vanished as soon as it appeared. “Who else could take care of you in here.”

Catherine said no word as she turned her head to the side and glanced without any mean at the wall.

“Hey. What's wrong, you’ve got to eat.”

“She could.” Came her reply but she still didnt looked at him. “She could. Even now.”

Sam took the spoon away and waited not sure what to say as her head turned again and her eyes, suddenly filled with a fire met his.
“She did it as long as I can remember. She was always there for me, Sam.”

“I don’t get it Cathy!” He said and placed the dish on a nearby cargo box before he stood up and walked over to one of the fireplaces.
“I get it that you two have lived together for some time and that you see more in her then me or anyone else would but don’t you think that this ‘mom’ thing gets a bit too far now?”

“You wouldn’t understand Sam. None of you can. She saved me from a group of urley when I was a kid and...and...”

"And what! She is an alien! She and all the others like her, butchered billions of people. Our world was green once Catherine. Warm once....filled with life and sounds and now, look what they did to it." He said and had all hands full to suppress his own memories of those who had been taken away from him. " She will never be more for me then a possible threat."

Sam finished his little speech  in a low whispering tone as he looked at his hands whom he held near the fire feeling the warmth upon his skin.

None of them said a word after and for some time was the only sound the howling of the wind outside and the slight cracking of the fire inside the bowl.

"Once were back at Cedia, you can try and convince Butch about it. He might even listen to what you say and will decide how we continue."
He added and went back to her bed holding the dish of soup again in his hand.

"And if he trusts me, and agrees upon my decision to bring you all to Atlantis?" She said facing him now with a slight angry glare in her facial expression.

"Then I will trust upon his decision...if I like it or not." He replied and held her another spoon of the soup which, after a moment of silence between them, she finally ate.


_ _ _ _ _ _ _

Vareva leaned against a nearby building and waited for Sam to appear. She wanted to talk with him about what she had found and about the next steps in person and not over the com. She felt that it would be better that way and also wanted to know him a bit more aside from the few times they had to talk with each other when he had prepared the second floor as his, and Cathy’s new home. She knew that he was far from being fond of her but he had to step over his shadow sooner or later...and especially when they would leave with the others to Atlantis.

She checked the logs from Ale’ir’s ship and scrolled through her personal log when a small figure appeared on the roof a few floors above her.

“You wanted to see me?!” Sam’s voice was far from sounding happy to be here as she looked up and noticed that he was rubbing his hands together.

“I thought you wanted to wear one of those thermal suits.”

“I do. But I can't work with the gloves on. So what is it.”

“I found Ale’irs ship and destroyed it.”

“Any survivors?” Asked Sam and blew some warm air into his cupped hands before he rubbed them again.

“N-no...no survivors. But I found some files.” She showed him one of the pads but Sam only gave it a short look as he saw the runes in which the urley wrote. He had seen them before on some of their armor or on some of the devas but he had never understood it.
“It's about some logs and patrols in a few sectors. Some of it is pretty up to date and could help us.” Said Vareva and saw the look of disinterest in his face. “But don’t worry there aren't any nearby.”

“That's what we have you for. If any of your friends show up, must you deal with them. I simply don’t have the firepower since the suit got destroyed.”

“Don't you worry your pretty little head Sam.” Vareva grinned and looked up at him but saw no sign that her little joke got to him.
“You...still don't like me hm?”

“Is there any reason why I should?

“Well, I saved your life a few times now so, I thought that you maybe would be a bit more open now.”

“Okay let me get a few things clear now. You and me, we will never ‘open up’ on each other nor will I ever do with anyone else of your kind. Right now, you are nothing more than a tool for me. I will need you as a shield and a sword on our way back and as a carrier for the rations that you have stored here and once we are back in Cedia, can Butch decide what to do with you.” His glare would have burned its way through her flesh, skull and brain if he had had the power to do it or poisoned with his words as he stood upon the roof and looked at Vareva who was a bit shocked to hear him but also not really surprised.
He had been like that the entire time over the last days and she wasn't going to blame him. After all, wouldn't he be here if they had not landed….but, neither would she be here if they hadn't taken her.

Both stood at their spots and looked at each other for a few brief moments as the cold weather tore on Sam’s clothes before he adjusted his scarf around his neck a bit and then turned to move back inside.
“Get ready...we move tomorrow morning.” Came his last sentence before he closed the door to the staircases and left Vareva behind in the cold.
She waited for a few brief moments and sighted shaking her head slightly as she hoped that Butch would be a bit easier to talk to.
Well, from what, what Cathy had told her over the years, seemed he to be a more reasonable person and he surely would understand and see that she wouldn't have any bad intentions in mind and that Atlantis would only be a logical choice...well their only choice if what she knew from Cathy, was right.



“Are you sure that you can do this?”

“I practised with it her.” Replied Sam calmly and closed the backdoor to the truck before he looked back towards the giant who was getting her gear ready herself along with a makeshift over sized poncho.

“Don’t worry sweety, he barely hit any other cars in his practise or killed the engine off...well, just a couple of times...oh and the lamp he ran over was also totally unexpected.”

“Hey! I’m sorry that I don’t have that much of practise when it comes to driving a car or truck or other stuff. It's not that I was growing up in a damn vault,” He said as he opened the door and waited before he looked back towards Vareva and then inside the truck. “oh wait, I was.”

“Well, the streets should be cleared of any obstacles.” Came Vareva’s answer as she now talked with them over her com and prepared her backpack and checked her gear for a last time.
She had to admit that as much as she looked forward to make a first real contact herself with the survivors of the vault, was she also a bit nervous about how she should approach them. Sure she had some experience in that field since she had to interact with different humans back in atlantis for nearly two decades and she was certain that she would act responsible and most of all, careful with them would it work out somehow. But the people in atlantis, they were used to her and the others...but them, they only knew her kind as monsters. Well, she would do what she had came for and bring them all back to atlantis and finally end this mission. And she was sure that she would make a good impression on them. After all, they had had some gifts in form of fresh apples, and other very rare foods to share and the best way to make friends, was to fill their bellies.

“Just like you did back then with those that you found and caught right?!”

“What?” Vareva looked back towards the truck before her and then quickly around leaving her right hand close to the pistol as her adrenaline pushed her body onward and left her in a kind of nervous state. Who had said that?

“I asked you if we can go now.”

Vareva shook her head and grabbed a bag from the ground with some of her personal belongings and a few of her own rations and other stuff she would probably need as she looked back down and nodded on what Sam slowly speed up and followed the snowed street towards the gate of the base.

Cedia and its people were in for quite a surprise. Thought Sam as he drove through one of the last gates and went towards the street to his hometown.