Shake Your Body

The Colony Arrives

I'll keep holding on

I'll keep holding on

I'll keep holding on

I'll keep holding on

So tight

– Simply Red (Holding Back the Years)

=/\=

Mouths agape, they all just stared. Rick finally spoke. "Boris, what happened?"

His question was ignored.

"I said ..." Rick began again.

That got some attention. "We are not that one."

"We?" Carmen asked, "Are you Varg-i-yeh?"

"No. They are the enemy. They have tried."

"Tried what?" Kevin asked.

"Genocide. They had tried it. It was first in a remote bunch of stars."

"How many stars were in this bunch?" Deirdre asked.

A pause, perhaps to count. "Billions, about forty billion or so."

"So it was a galaxy?" HD asked.

"Out there." A finger was pointed.

The Conference room was on the far side of the USS Adrenaline, facing away from the Milky Way galactic barrier. There were two bright smudges in the distance – the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies.

Crystal dried her eyes. "Which one?"

"On the right."

"That's Triangulum," Sheilagh said.

"It's rather unnerving to see you possessing Yarin's body like that," Carmen said.

"It is not possession. It is a shape. Here is another." The shape changed from Yarin to an exact copy of Otra, down to every last detail of her chavecoi.

"That's even stranger," Otra said, "do you have a name?" There was a puzzled look, so she tried another tack, "Is there a designation?"

"We are not ... designated."

"Just how many of you are there, and where are they?" Kevin asked.

"All are here."

"It's just you? You're the only one?" Tom asked.

"We are many." There was a splitting, and the facsimile of Otra separated out and became smaller, and a piece became a replica of one of the Conference room's chairs.

"A shape shifter?" Dan asked.

"Many pieces. All can go as they desire. But usually we go together."

Carmen sighed. "Listen," she said, "this is fascinating. And I don't deny that there are perhaps a million separate protocols for First Contacts. And this isn't one of them. But there's naught we can do. We are ... under the gun. Do you understand what that means?"

"Busy."

"Right," she said, "we have numerous changes and we have to understand what they are, and deal with them. We have lost two colleagues, just now, and rather violently. I don't pretend that any of us are in terrific psychological shape as of right now. And we are going to have to be working on getting rid of the Varg-i-yeh as well. You mentioned that they are an enemy. They are, we believe, going to be enemies of ours as well. I would love to pick your brain about them, but first I've got to have my people handle the current changes. I'm sorry, but I'll have to put you off for the moment."