Captain William Collier liked to walk the bridge sometimes. He felt it let the crew know he was on the job. He was of course, but he could just as easily run the bridge from his bunk if he wanted. Enhancement had its privileges. The Captain could run the bridge twenty-four seven if he so desired. However, he only took the shift when his turn came around. His other commanders needed time in the chair if they were going to mature into capable bridge leaders.

It took some time for his crew to get used to the idea the Wanderer's captain had become an E-Human. Many of the personnel on his ship were wary of the machines. They knew they were necessary, but there had always been an undercurrent of distrust for their motives.

Today wasn't the day for those ruminations. The Atlantis and the Wanderer had just passed the orbit of Mars. It meant the starting line for the last sprint to Earth. Lightspeed communications were annoyingly long but not impractical at this distance. Atlantis had just sent a small armada of ships to head to the Moon and Earth to find and rescue survivors. They had picked up signals from three beacons. Two were coming from Earth and one on the Moon. The Wanderer and the armada were going ahead of the Atlantis to Earth. Atlantis still traveled sub-light to make it easier for them to thread their way through the debris which flew around. The sixty-five-mile long ship would get there in a couple of days and take up station in orbit around the Moon. The Wanderer will be in orbit around Earth to taxi survivors to Atlantis. Collier's crew roster had been light for the trip back to Earth so they could take the potential excess of survivors.

Right now, his ship had been loaded to the gills with a lot of medical personnel and supplies to treat the wounded. He suspected there would not be much need for their services. It had, after all, been eleven years since they had left. Any people left would not be wounded so much as needing rescuing.

The helmsman notified the captain over his shoulder. "Captain, approaching lunar orbit."

"Thank you, lieutenant Donaldson. Slow to one-tenth light speed and put us in a high orbit around Earth. I don't want to be pummeled by any busted-up satellite debris."

"Aye, Sir."

Fifteen minutes later Donaldson gave the captain an update. "Approaching Earth orbit,"

Communication specialist M'Butu nearly jumped out of her seat. "Sir, one of the Atlantis's search and rescue shuttles is in contact with four locations. One on the Moon, and three on Earth."

"Contact the Armada and have them choose one to be a runner to the Atlantis when we get more information on these contacts."

"Aye, Sir," as she turned back around to her console.

"Earth orbit established sir," Donaldson said.

"Display Earth on the screen."

"Aye, Sir."

Bill had some anxieties about seeing Earth. Could not wait to see home again, but at the same time, dreading what he might see. He slowly rose from his seat. "Oh my God!" He said out loud. For he was another witness to the beating Earth had taken. Had this been a lifeless planet, like Jupiter, he could be scientifically objective to the destruction. This world used to be teeming with life! Although he had been prepared for what he might see, it still made him weak in the knees. He sat down in his chair before he fell.

Earth had indeed taken a beating. There were so many craters! Just on this side of the planet, he counted twelve. No telling how many fell into the oceans. There were very little of anything along the coast anywhere on the planet. There must have been many tsunamis which wiped out and washed out to sea everything for hundreds of miles inland. Of the twenty-two city-sized domes which were built before departure, only two seemed intact. There were seven others domes with minor damage. It was undetermined if they may or may not have life in them.

There were two dozen active volcanoes just on this side, no doubt due to the many meteor strikes. The worst had been the Yellowstone supervolcano. The meteor impacts must have hastened its arrival. It wasn't due for another thirty thousand years or so. That harbinger of doom had probably laid waste much of North America and significantly altered the atmosphere. The sorties had reported the ash still persisted in the air globally. This deflected sunlight and had made the planet cooler. More ice had spread to the poles than when he left.

Captain Collier set his jaw and got to work. "Get me a full workup on the status of the planet, now! Home in on those four contacts mentioned earlier. We need at least to let them know we are here."

The communications officer interrupted. "Captain, they are aware we are here. The sorties two weeks ago notified anybody which responded, we had returned, and to sit tight until search and rescue arrives."

"Thank you, Lieutenant, but it is not necessary to remind me. I have already cross-referenced the contacts made previously in the first sorties and have found one of these is a new contact."

"My apologies, sir." She felt embarrassed to have forgotten she had been talking to an E-Human.

"I think we can let it go this time," he said with a smile which meant don't worry about it. Lieutenant Donaldson was suddenly distracted by something on his board. "What is it, Donaldson?"

"Sir, a ship is approaching, and it is not ours." Donaldson was confused and worried at the same time. "It is approaching from the Moon."

"Contact that ship and put it through here," he barked to Lieutenant M'Butu.

"Aye, Sir. Putting you through now."

"This is Captain Collier of the Wanderer. Who am I speaking with?"

"This is Major Rand, second in command of the Tyco mining colony."

Bill searched the records of the mining colony the ships A.I., Moses, had procured for him. "Major, where is Colonel Beals?"

"Captain, Colonel Beals had been killed in a quake about six years ago. The other four mining facilities on the dark side of the Moon were destroyed by meteors three years after you left when the neutron star wandered into town. Our facility was near the terminus and somehow spared from outright destruction. But quakes and more impacts made life a little risky out here. I gathered the personnel we had left out of over three thousand and boarded this ship when we detected your arrival. With your permission, we would like to come aboard."

"Certainly Major. How many do you have aboard?"

"Fifty-six. Including myself. We couldn't stay in that death trap one minute longer. I apologize for not waiting."

"Don't be ridiculous Major Rand. This is why we're here. We came back as soon as we could. Forty-two light years is a good stretch, even at ten times the speed of light. Slow to five kilometers per second and our A.I. Moses will guide you in."

"Copy that, Captain," the Major acknowledged.

Bill was aware of a knock on his virtual apartment. "Who is it?" Bill inquired.

"Easy peasy, nice and easy," Moses said on the other side. It had been their personal password for each other.

"Come in Moses," he opened the door and gestured him in. "What can I do ya for?"

Moses, an older looking man with a beard and wearing a robe, stepped in and sat down on the couch. "I don't know if you have realized it yet, but he may not want to be rescued."

"Nonsense. You heard Rand. He has fifty-six people aboard. They have been stranded for eleven years!"

"Yes, but he is lying." Moses played the conversation and highlighted the suspicious parts of the audio. "I have just finished scanning the ship. There is human DNA aboard, but only one of them has a beating heart. There is also a large container which has traces of radioactive signatures and is not fuel related in his cargo hold."

"Holy crap Moses! We will talk about the whys later. We need to get that nut away from us now!"

"I am taking full control of the Major's ship now. Hmm. He has installed some protective software. Presumably related to the bomb. Defeating the security now. Stopping the ship at five thousand kilometers. He now has realized the jig is up."

While still talking to Moses, he called out to his communication officer. "Lieutenant, hail the Major please."

"Aye, Sir. The channel is open."

"Thank you. Major, what can we really do for you?"

"Freakin' A.I.! It was a risk either way. If I declined the A.I. offer to guide me in, it would have been suspicious. If I allowed it, this could happen. What can you do?"

"Why soldier!"

"Because you left us, you asshole! Left us here to die. We were like something you wiped your ass with and flushed it down the toilet! Wasn't it like that, Captain?"

To Moses, he thought, "What are we going to do? He is still a little too close to us if he somehow lights that firecracker."

"Keep him busy for just a couple more seconds. I have a plan."

To Rand, he said, "Ok if you like speaking in metaphors, the suitcase we had could only carry just so much gear. Just so many clothes. Just so many socks."

Suddenly, one of the panels on the Major's navigation boards sparked and smoked. At the same time, the Wanderer jumped to light speed for two seconds.

"Shit! What are you trying to do? You are not getting away that easy." The Major reached for the manual switch he rigged a battery to as a fail-safe manual detonation. "Goodbye Captain asshole!"

A rather large nuclear ball of energy erupted where the Major's ship used to be. Moses had put extra power to the deflectors before they came to a stop two seconds later. They were safe. High-energy particles hit the electromagnetic shield protecting the ship, making a pretty aurora around the ship.

"Good work, Moses," Bill started to breathe again. "That was the most ungrateful thing I ever saw! Will ever see I'm sure."

"You assumed he would be grateful to be rescued. There were many other scenarios you overlooked."

"Well, that won't happen again." Bill felt something change in him he did not like. Bill always thought there had been a way to give someone the benefit of the doubt and protect himself at the same time. It was a skill he was good at. It had been clear today there may be other reasons the animal does not return for its limb after chewing it off to escape the hunter's trap.

"Lieutenant M'Butu."

"Yes, Captain."

"Gather data from the Armada and our data of this most recent event. Transmit it to our courier ship and send it to the Atlantis with all haste."

"Aye, Captain. I'm on it."

Bill knew Captain Metcalfe has got to be going nuts right now.

Captain Metcalfe had just finished his orange juice on the bridge. He had just started his shift fifteen minutes ago. Both Sonny and Levi had been monitoring the Wanderer and Armada since they left. Because they were increasing the distance at faster than light speeds, the Wanderer became fuzzy until they slowed down to sub-light speeds. Atlantis knew their trajectory going in, so they did not lose them blinking from one place to another.

Sonny announced, "Ship going sub-light three thousand kilometers, port side."

"I see it, Sonny," the helm officer caught it a second later.

Navigation added, "It is one of ours, sir."

"They're hailing us, Captain," communications chimed in.

With Levi's enhanced brain, he could take all this quick information from his bridge crew and reply instantaneously through their boards. Each station blinked twice to alert the occupant an order from the captain needed to be executed. Each person notified the captain as if he had said it verbally.

"Aye sir," helm responded, "slowing, but continuing on the original course.".

Communication officer Zale reported, "Lieutenant Miller, on screen, sir."

"Thank you," Levi said out loud. He received quick status updates from the departments while he was waiting for responses. Miller's troubled face appeared. Levi was confused, and at the same time, a tingling on the back of his neck tried to tell his brain something.

Levi could measure the stress in the lieutenant's voice. "Captain Metcalfe, I have brought important information and a warning to the Atlantis."

"Transmit your information while you talk if time is of the essence." In situations like these, time really could be interminable.

"Certainly, sir," he replied. Just then, Atlantis's sensors, Sonny and Levi all jumped at once.

"Sonny, play that back and magnify!" Sonny's analysis of the high energy sensor blip in the neighborhood of Earth had been processed and played back on the screen. It showed a small ship near the Wanderer. Then, in an instant, the Wanderer blinked out and an immense explosion occurred where the small ship had been. The Wanderer had reappeared about two light seconds, a little distance past lunar orbit. "What the hell!"

"Captain! Captain!" Miller tried to plow through the reaction of the bridge crew. "This is why I am here! I left moments after the incident, so I could let you know the Wanderer is alright. Some nut-job tried to get close enough to the Wanderer to blow her up, but Moses and Captain Collier discovered the ruse in time to escape."

"Why would they do that? We are here to rescue them!"

The lieutenant became calm and professional now. "I do not have the intel to answer that question, sir."

Sonny entered the discussion, "humans often overlook scenarios which do not fit a mindset."

The machine had Levi's attention. "Meaning?"

"Meaning there are many factors for this to have ended in this result. However, the most likely reason is animosity amongst the survivors at having been left behind."

Lieutenant Miller was incredulous. "You mean they're pissed we did not take them with us?"

"It is another way to say it," Sonny replied flatly.

"Well," Levi pondered, "they have had over ten years to simmer on that sour fact. Anyone still alive would have had to bite and scratch every day for the last ten plus years just to survive. It is natural now that Sonny mentions it, at least some of them would carry that hate until we came back. Probably hoping we would come back so they could exact some revenge."

"It's why I am here," Miller repeated. "To warn you of the now obvious danger and to watch your back as you slide into home. I have also brought preliminary information gathered by the Armada about possible survivor sites. We are awaiting your instructions on how to proceed, Captain."

"Standby," Levi acknowledged.

Levi had put the ship on yellow alert the moment he became aware of the Wanderer's incident. This also meant the other half of his bridge commanders were probably startled out of their beds. He took advantage of this human tendency and called a meeting of all his commanders and department heads in the briefing room. It only took twelve minutes for all to assemble in the moderately large briefing area. They made good time even though the ship is over sixty-five miles long!

"Thank you for assembling so quickly. Normally I would just communicate with you individually through my connection with the ship. However, we have a little time, and I wanted you all to share with each other as well as myself, your opinions on how to accomplish what we came here to do, given the present circumstances. While you were assembling, I conferred with Sonny and have his recommendations."

Director Lim from medical and life sciences asked, "What is Sonny's recommendations, Captain?"

"If you don't mind Captain," Sonny said, "I can fill everyone in on our discussion."

"Certainly, Sonny. Proceed."

"Given the current circumstances, we cannot assume grateful and willing human survivors are what we are going to find down there. It is possible this one event was just an unstable person making his statement known, or this could be a general feeling of the surviving populace. It would be prudent to take a firm but fair approach when dealing with any survivors. This is what had been done when we left Earth. We had to destroy one ship but accepted many others seeking asylum. We should rescue only those which want to be rescued."

"I don't think we are looking for recruits," Commander Dubois spoke up. "We can't make allegiance a requisite for rescue. I thought we were an apolitical and diverse ship. Couldn't we just process them, give them a stern warning about making trouble, and take as many as we can?"

Levi was sympathetic. "Yes actually, we can, Commander. However, it must be understood we are first and foremost responsible for getting the species to another planet which can be successfully colonized, and humans transplanted there. We must remember we are the flagship and cannot afford to get ourselves blown up or hopelessly disabled. Too many people depend on us. I think the best answer is to take these cases individually and do the best we can for everyone. We will need a processing center set up and more holding cells built to take in the large influxes of people. Medical people will need to be ready for anything infectious we may encounter. Cargo and personnel carriers are to be escorted by armed ships. The ground crew will be suited up for protection and lightly armed."

There were nods of assent as he looked around. At the same time, he went over the transmission data Lieutenant Miller brought with a fine-tooth comb. He also received messages directly from the Wanderer with more information. "Did I miss anything?" No one spoke up. "We all need to keep in mind we are dealing with people, who for the most part, had aligned with the Project. About a quarter of them were not. About half of those people were actively trying to sabotage the Project. They are as crafty and devious as a human can be. Their attitude towards Atlantis will not have changed. Let us be careful but compassionate, and I think we will send the right message. If there are no more questions..."

"Captain." It was Commander Lockwood. "Do you think we have enough space for all the survivors?"

"It will depend on what we find. Between the Atlantis and the Wanderer, we can accommodate around one million comfortably and one and a half million uncomfortably. Let us hope that will be enough."

"Sir, what will happen if the Te'Hat wishes us to leave their world? What will we do with all the excess passengers?"

"That, Commander Lockwood, is a very good question. There are very limited options at that point. The only clear thing is to produce as many sleepers as needed and, with the Te'Hat's permission, leave them there on Searth. At some time in the future, we may be able to come back for them. If they are in the sleepers, they cannot be a real burden to the Te'Hat. I am sure they would agree to that. It will be better than leaving them on our pummeled home world where life is tenuous at best. I have sent instructions to Sonny to oversee the sleeper manufacturing. In the meantime, let us go see what there is to see, shall we?"

"Aye, Sir," the unison response boomed as the officers followed the captain in standing.

After the meeting broke up, and Levi was taking his place in the command chair again, he spoke privately to Sonny. "How is it the two of us representing the smartest in the land and the commander asks a question we had not?"

"Infinite diversity in infinite combinations."

"That smells like a lot of crap. Are you saying it was just one of those things?"