“Wow, you picked that up fast! I can’t believe that you are talking about all of this so easily. Most of my kind struggle to find their abilities for years before they are fully able to use it.”


    Reappearing from thin air a few feet away from where she had assumed he had gone, Dridvick bowed slightly to her in a show of respect.


    “It is all due to my teacher. You have helped me to understand the gift that you have given to me. I promise to only use it to provide for my tribe and to protect those that I love. I won’t do anything to bring your ire.”


    It had taken several hours for Dridvick to show Egyn the caverns and to wait for the drones to map them. During that time they had talked about his tribe’s gods while carefully working to see if he could connect to the nanites and control them. It took just over two hours for him to be able to control his new abilities. He could disappear and reappear at will. At first it panicked him, but he quickly became excited about what he could do for his people with this new ability. When they had finished with the main cavern and he had shown her a few other entrances on their way back to the compound, she bid him farewell and moved through the meadow that led up to the false cliff.


    Stepping through the energy shield that looked like the side of the mountain to keep their base hidden, Egyn plugged in her equipment so that all of her data would upload to the servers before stepping into the main compound. Sending a meeting request to Nizagi, Kirtuna, Fesohr, and Thihana, she made her way towards the conference room but stopped by Nizagi’s office first. Sticking her head into the open doorway, she found him collecting his datapad and bag so that he could head to the meeting that she had called.


    “Sorry to interrupt boss, but we need to talk before the meeting. I screwed up big today based on our old policies, but it might actually be good news..”


    Seeing the confusion flash on his face, Egyn decided to continue with her explanation with a quick summary of what had happened. After telling her summary, she decided to jump to the real thing she wanted to talk about.


    “When I touched his skin, we both felt a small jolt and when I checked him with my health scanner I discovered that some of my nanites had jumped to him. They reacted quickly like they would with one of our own species that was missing their nanites and they gave him a stealth ability.”


    Slumping back into his chair, Nizagi stared at her as he tried to process what she had just told him. “So what does this mean for us Egyn? Why is this a good thing and why should I care enough to delay the meeting you called?”


    Taking a deep breath, Egyn sat down in the chair across from him and tried to calm her nerves before responding. “I know this isn’t something that you have wanted to fully address with us so far. But there aren’t any other Soul Spheres that we can recover to increase the number of children that we can have to preserve our race.  If the Echi are compatible and willing to supply us with their souls after death, we can…”


    Cutting Egyn off, Nizagi jumped to his feet, shocked at what he was hearing. “Stop right there. I’m glad that you expressed them to me before you said anything in the public meeting. Just yesterday, merging our genetics with an alien soul would have been tantamount to heresy under the last regime and you would have lost your career for even thinking about it, if not more.


    “Right now we need to focus on the immediate problems of housing, feeding, and treating the refugees that are on their way. Perhaps once we start planning for the future we will be able to discuss this with everyone and they might be open to it, but for now let''s only discuss this with Krituna so that she can confirm your findings in case it comes to that.” Not waiting for a response, Nizagi walked from the room.


    Sitting back in her chair, reeling from her superior''s hardline stance she tried to speak but was cut off when he strode from the room, ignoring her comments. Pushing herself to her feet, she rushed after him, moving quickly to the conference room where the rest of the team was waiting. Taking a seat next to Krituna, Egyn glanced around the room and confirmed that everyone was there before giving Nizagi a subtle nod that they were ready. Leaning on the table Nizagi glanced around the room and met the gaze of everyone one person at a time, confirming that they were paying attention.


    “We have some updates that we need to cover quickly so that we can continue preparations. First, we have received communications from six ships in the sector. Each is en route to our position. Two of those ships are rebels who refused orders.


    “The other four are civilian ships that are mostly limited in their supplies and capabilities. Two are cargo ships hauling supplies. Their crew may contain useful personnel, researchers in rotation between their posts and home planets. The other two are civilian transports with few supplies and hundreds of passengers. We have not received any contact from other ships or colonies at this point, but we hope to repair one of the incoming ships and outfit it as a rescue vessel.  My cousin has checked in though and is moving the remnants of his small frigate squadron into the system to protect us.”


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Giving the team enough time to get out their nervous chatter, he glanced around the room again and confirmed that everyone was ready to focus. “All that said, we have a few problems of our own. This facility isn’t capable of handling refugees in this quantity for more than a few days. We need to begin planning for a massive expansion of the compound. Egyn has been working on this by finding a few potential locations. We will need living space and assets to survive.”


    He turned to look at Egyn, giving her permission to present the scan information that she had taken. His serious look told her not to mention the contact with the Echi at this point. Standing as she activated the holo-projector to show the large valley they lived in, projected in the air above the table.


    “Today I was able to get out and explore several cave systems in the area. During my search I discovered something that may actually be better than we had planned for.”


    Using the console controls, Egyn zoomed the image into the center of the valley where she had found the cenote and the other water-filled caverns. Pressing another button, the chemical and geological reports appeared on the touch screen panels in front of every person.


    “After scouting the caverns we initially suspected would best serve us, I discovered that the center of the valley has a very high water-table filling most of these limestone caverns with water. This would keep us from using them for habitation, but the underground river does an amazing job of filtration. The water there is already almost as clean as our filtration systems can get it. Because of this I recommend that we run a pump line to this southern cenote for water collection and a line to the northern lower caves where we can let nature do our filtration for us. Obviously, that will be a call for Thihana and Fesohr, but the possibilities are at least something we can work with even if we decide to add additional filtration to this system.”


    Pressing another button on the console, the image shifted to show the caverns along the western side of the valley that sat up in the foothills of their large forest valley. Activating the subsurface scan results, Egyn showed them the fifty large granite caverns that she had managed to scan that had proven to be quite dry for a cave. She also added the report from the surface scans that she had taken on her way back to the compound giving an estimated view of the three hundred meters from the outer edge of the compound to the nearest cavern that the drones had found.


    “So the good news is that I did find a large cavern system along the western slopes of the valley. It should provide us with a much better option than the valley floor. The only real issue with these caverns is one of distance from our present operations. Thihana will be required to move much earth, but it may provide us with necessary minerals – the area contains high-quality veins of quartz and granite.”


    Thihana sat forward, now clearly intrigued by the thinly veiled challenge. Moving her fingers over the screens, the geologist searched through the reports and highlighted certain sections for later.  Giving her a moment to study the result, Egyn tried to fight down her pleasure at seeing her college excited by what she had found.


    “Egyn is right about these upper caverns being the best option. It looks like there are veins of limestone and shale in-between layers of granite. That would explain why the caverns are so stable. It likely won’t take a lot to reinforce the caves or make them comfortable for habitation. I can start now but I’ll need help to move the debris as I clear it out of the tunnel. I can have us connected to the closest cavern by the end of the day tomorrow.


    “After we get a secure access tunnel in place we should look into building aqueducts. My recommendation would be a spray liner in this cavern” she highlighted a low-lying portion of the caves “so that we can use it as a cistern. There is another cavern here that would make a good filtration plant because it can be easily sealed with an airlock to keep the smells of the treatment plant out of the rest of the cavern system.”


    Clearly pleased that his team had jumped on board with this plan so quickly, Nizagi stood and pressed a button to show what had already been suggested. “It sounds like we have a good plan for a way to expand our compound to take in the new people that are still on their way. Thihana and Fesohr, you are dismissed to begin work. The rest of us will rotate through helping you Thi, and that will give us a chance to make sure that everything gets completed in time.”


    Taking a seat for a moment to let the two team members leave the room, leaving the three of us to discuss the other things that needed to be gone over. When the door swished closed Nizagi leaned forward and rested his pale blue hands on the table, seeming to brace for what he was about to say.


    “Now that the important business is over, Egyn has made a discovery that I will want you to look into Doctor. I’ll let her explain what happened so that we cover all of the details.”


    Pressing a few buttons, the screen shifted to show the scans that Egyn had made of Dridvick before and after their contact. Before she could jump into the explanation of what had happened, the communications officer Oziuq of House Memory burst into the room, breathing hard from having run across their small compound from his control center.


    “Sir, I’m sorry for interrupting, but we have a problem. Three more ships have responded to our hails, but they’re loyalists. They are threatening to fire on us if we take in refugees. They’re asking us to ensure that no rebels are aboard any of the ships.”